It was about us.
It was about regaining the feeling of that night, when it was just the two of us speeding down a dark highway, scurrying out of banks with bags of money in the middle of the night, fucking like wild animals in a deserted parking lot. How do we ever disentangle what we feel for each other from the heightened emotions of that night? What if we can’t? What if we’re always comparing our time together with the danger and excitement of that first night?
“I need some air,” I mutter, pulling away from her and heading for the door. “You all right? You need anything?”
Janelle shakes her head, and I bite my lip and sigh. A few minutes later I’m up on deck, watching the American coastline recede to the horizon as we head into the fog of the future.
“Give us one more night like that,” I whisper to no one in particular. “One more night of danger and excitement, just enough to put us in that mood again, to give us a taste for the adventure we both crave. I swear I’ll seal the deal. I’ll commit. Just give us another chance. Come on, fate. Come on, destiny. Come on, Mother. Come on, Father.”
I consider pulling out my phone and yelling into it, but then a tiny whisper of a thought makes it way to my consciousness. I rub my jaw as I let the thought expand, and slowly it fills my heart with warmth.
“Maybe these two weeks are the real test,” I mutter. “Maybe being locked up in a tiny room with nowhere to go and nothing but endless ocean all around us is exactly what we need for a second date. After all, this is our greatest fear about marriage, isn’t it? That no matter how fresh and exciting it feels at the start, it’s going to end up stale and mundane.”
I ponder the thought as I head back to Janelle. I make up my mind to try and look forward to the uneventful journey, nothing but calm ocean sounds and the calls of gulls in the distance. I rehearse how we’ll fall into a routine, wake up with the sun, head down for breakfast, then stroll on the sundeck until it’s time for lunch. Then do the same till dinner. Watch the sun set, retire to our quarters. Then gently make love missionary-style and watch infomercials on TV. Wow. Sounds like death. Three days of that and we’ll both jump overboard and take our chances with the fucking sharks.
Or maybe not, I think as I stop outside the cabin door and glance over at the open ocean. Maybe in three days we’ll realize that we don’t need something outside us to make us happy, to keep things exciting, to keep the flame burning forever. Maybe what’s so scary about this whole thing isn’t that it’s predicable but instead that it’s unpredictable. I can’t control it like I could control my companies, my employees, my cold hard cash.
“Nope,” I mutter. “You can’t control a relationship with another person. You sure as hell can’t control a marriage. You have to surrender to it. Surrender to the other person. Surrender to whatever comes on your path to forever—whether it’s calm seas or stormy skies, tranquility or thunder, bloodthirsty sharks or giggling dolphins.”
And now my heart overflows with a sudden burst of meaning, like I suddenly realize that our journey is the adventure, that all I need is Janelle—now and forever.
“Sharks or dolphins, it doesn’t matter!” I shout, bursting through the door, my face flush, my eyes wide.
Janelle whips around from where she’s standing at a porthole. “Um . . . what?”
I shake my head to clear it, but it’s no use. I see it all so fucking clearly, but I’m too worked up to settle down and explain.
“We have to stop looking out there for meaning and happiness,” I finally manage to say, racing over to her and pulling her into me. “We spent our lives thinking money gave us meaning and happiness, and we finally freed ourselves of that, thanks to Mother and Father. But that wasn’t enough, Janelle. It wasn’t just the money itself—it was also the excitement of chasing money, the euphoria of winning the corporate game and running up the score, the thrill of the . . . the game. We got so addicted to the rush of playing the game, that we’re too fucking scared to face the truth: That we’re at the end of the game. That we can win it once and for all, always and forever. It’s scary as hell, and that’s why we need to do it, babe! We need to step into a future that’s always scared us because it seemed out of our control, a one-way ticket to the normal and mundane. We need to take the chance that even the mundane moments will be magical. Maybe the mundane moments will be the most magical.”
Janelle’s looking at me like I’m crazy, but soon a glimmer of understanding flashes in her eyes. “You’re crazy,” she whispers, shaking her head as I turn her to face me. “Um, what are you doing?”
“What I should have done before the sun rose that day,” I whisper. “Made you mine forever.”
I go down on one knee and ask the question, and before she answers I pull her down and kiss her hard on the lips. Outside the ocean waves are calm, the salty air is still, the dolphins are silent, and the sharks are nowhere to be found.
And you know what?
It’s perfect.
Just fucking perfect.
6
JANELLE
The proposal was perfect, and the moment is magical. Ten minutes ago I was staring out the porthole at the gray ocean and cloudless sky like it was one of those lame hotel-room paintings. It was almost like the scene was a reflection of my own mindset, my own attitude, my own fear that marriage was something I couldn’t control, something that was destined to lose its magic no matter what I did.
But now I understand that maybe that’s the adventure, that’s the danger, that’s the hunger of the hunt. It’s easy to find the magic when it’s fresh and new. But can you find the magic again and again, bring out the best in the other person no matter how you feel? Can you do it week and week, year after year, decade after decade?
After all, that’s what forever means, right?
“Yes,” I whisper as James pulls me down to the floor and kisses me again. “I’ll marry you, James. And no matter what’s happening in the world around us, it’ll always feel exciting like that first night. Every day with you will be an adventure, even if nothing happens. I’ll love you forever, James. Even when you get old and wrinkly. Oh wait, you’re already old and wrinkly.”
James growls against my neck and pinches my ass hard enough to make me yelp. “You were doing so well with that little acceptance speech. Then you went off script, and now there will be consequences.”
I laugh as James palms my ass and pops me onto his lap. Then I gasp when I feel the hardness beneath his peaked trousers, and I realize that the excitement and adventure most certainly comes from inside us and not out there.
“Let’s get you out of these clothes,” James mutters as he pulls my top off and massages my breasts so hard I moan. “There we go. Fuck, what the hell was I thinking! Those boobs are never gonna lose their magic. C’mere.”
He rips my bra off and devours my nipples, his strong hands pulling my cute cargo pants apart at the seams. “Um, you can’t go tearing all my clothes every time we make love, James,” I say as he gets those hands down the front of my pants and claws a big hole in my satin panties so he can get to my pussy. Which he does, by the way.
“We’re aren’t gonna make sweet, gentle love, wifey,” he whispers as he licks my face and fingers me with what feels like all his damned fingers and maybe even a thumb or two. “We’re gonna fuck like dolphins being chased by sharks.”
I giggle and then bite my lip as James thumbs my clit until I’m so wet my panties are like soaked strands of satin, and when my husband rolls me off him and strips me bare to my bottom on the cool floor, I spread my legs and arch my neck back.
“What’s with the dolphins and sharks thing?” I mutter as James gets to his knees and pulls his shirt off over his head, unbuckling and unzipping, sliding down his pants and underwear until his monstrous cock springs out like a killer whale exploding out of the ocean to pounce on an unsuspecting seal.
“I’ll show you,” James growls, straddling my chest and sliding his cock between my boobs until it’s
up near my lips. I stare up at his long, lean naked body. His chest is like two slabs of stone, and his flat stomach is ribbed so perfectly I can count the muscles. As for that cock . . . yeah, this marriage ain’t getting mundane anytime soon.
James fists his cock and teases my lips open, and when I take him in both of us are lost in ecstasy. He groans and pants, moving up over my boobs and then leaning forward until his balls hang down against my chin. He slides all the way down my throat, and I stare up into his eyes as I suck him deep and hard, like a good, normal, buttoned-down wife.
James moves back and forth as I stroke his shaft and massage his balls, and I’m so wet from the sensation of being filled down my throat, I’m clenching my pussy as I yearn to be taken. At the same time I want to feel James come in my mouth, and so I jerk him back and forth as he starts to shout in pleasure.
A moment later James explodes in my mouth, pouring his semen down my throat with a roar. He pumps twice and then pulls out, spurting his seed all over my bare breasts as he frantically parts my legs and pushes into my cunt.
The suddenness of being entered below while still reeling from being fucked in the mouth like that makes me scream, and I come all over his cock and balls as James rams into me again and again, howling as he finishes deep in my vagina, flooding me until I’m overflowing onto the floor.
I’m covered in James’s semen like this is a 1970s porn flick, and when my eyelids flutter open, I can’t help but laugh when I see he’s got those hideous glasses on again.
“Gotta make sure I have tunnel vision for the next adventure,” he whispers as he pulls out of me and fists his dripping shaft. I’m surprised he’s still so damned hard, and I’m about to touch his cock and jerk him off some more when he shakes his head and grabs my wrist.
He turns me over onto my belly, and I comply since I’m distracted by the tremors of my climax. Soon I feel him kissing my buttcheeks, and when he spreads my crack and starts to lick me with long, powerful strokes of his tongue, my eyes go wide as tentacles of dark ecstasy grip me tight.
“Oh, fuck, James,” I groan as he parts my cheeks and licks my hole in the most filthy, unmarried way.
“Call me Dear Husband,” James whispers. “And beg me to fuck you in the ass.”
“You’re sick,” I murmur, clawing at the smooth floor like a creature of the night. “I’m not doing that. And neither are you. James? James? James!”
7
JAMES
James. James. James!
She calls my name, but all I hear is Dear Husband as I finger her asshole with long, careful strokes that feel as filthy as the thought of fucking my wife in the ass. I massage her rump with my other hand, and then gently smack her bottom as I keep two fingers inside her rim.
“Say it,” I whisper, my oozing cock hardening to full mast again as I see her beautiful rear pucker open up for me. The thought that we’re husband and wife about to do something so filthy is a thrill unlike anything I’ve felt. “But say it quietly, all right, Dear Wife? We don’t wanna wake the kids in the next room. So beg me quietly, and don’t scream when you come.”
Janelle almost chokes as I smack her ass again and then line my cockhead against her shining hole. I wet her rim with my pre-cum and semen, circling her dark moon with my cockhead until her pussy’s dripping down her thighs. I’m about to ask her again to say the filthy words I want to hear, but then she rises up to her knees, hunches forward, and reaches between her legs and cups my balls in her warm palm.
I groan in pleasure as she massages me, and when she pulls me close, turns her head to the side, and calls me Dear Husband like it’s the dirtiest thing in the world, I barely ram into her before coming like a racehorse, my cock exploding in her asshole just as my hips slam into her rear cushion.
She gurgles and gasps as I pump into her and then rub her roughly from below until she comes all over my hand. I keep my cock inside her until she finishes, and then finally I collapse on top of her, panting like a dog, cackling like a dolphin, satisfied like a shark.
We lie together as the ship rocks and rolls through the ocean swell, and then finally Janelle turns her head and raises an eyebrow. “You never explained that shark and dolphin thing,” she says.
I grunt and smile. “Doesn’t matter. This marriage is gonna be all shark, no dolphin.”
“Um, that doesn’t explain a thing other than the fact that you’re a weirdo with serial-killer glasses,” she mumbles as I lean in and slobber her with wet kisses.
We laugh together, rolling around on the floor like puppies at play. I’m so fucking happy I could die, and the thought of the “normal” adventures to come are so exciting I almost choke up.
“Can you imagine how wild it’ll be when we have kids?” I whisper like we’re talking about robbing a casino.
“Ohmygod, yeah! It’ll be such a rush!” Janelle says like we’re talking about hijacking a mafia-king’s yacht.
We laugh again at the weird thrill we’re getting from the prospect of a life that once scared us silly but is now getting us giddy. I rub Janelle’s belly and then kiss it as I imagine calling myself Father, Janelle standing beside me as Mother.
“How would we raise our kids, Janelle?” I say through my wistful smile. “What values do we want to pass on to them?”
Janelle sighs as she raises her head and looks at me. “Wow. That should be an easy question—one that a week ago I’d have answered with cold precision. But now I don’t know, James. I feel like a different person now. A better person. More whole. More complete. More capable of being a mother.”
I nod, pulling her into me and cradling her against my body. "I wonder if that’s why Mother and Father did this. Maybe it wasn’t just a matchmaking game but a way to give us an experience that forces us to question our own values, forces us to be prepared to raise children who will give to the world instead of taking from it.”
“Spoken like a good Father,” whispers Janelle.
“Thank you, Mother,” I whisper back.
And an eerie silence falls over us at the way we called each other Mother and Father.
Almost like there’s a deeper game going on.
A game that might take more than a lifetime to play out.
A game that might take forever to play out.
8
THREE WEEKS LATER
FOOTHILLS OF THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS
JANELLE
“It’s gonna take forever to get up there,” I say, squinting through my snow-visor as our guide points up at a peak that might as well be Mount Everest, given my climbing ability. “Are we sure these are the coordinates Mother and Father gave us?”
James nods, holding up a mini-telescope to his eyes. He scans the mountain top, and then his body stiffens. “Look,” he says, handing me the scope.
I look up at where he means, and then I stiffen too. “Looks like the wreckage of a small plane,” I say as a chill rolls through me—and not from the cold.
Now I find the energy to climb, and within the hour we’re standing near the wreckage. I don’t know what we’ll find in there, but clearly Mother and Father want us to find it.
“Wait here,” James orders, and I gladly obey. I have no desire to see a bunch of frozen bodies. “Nobody here,” he calls after a moment, and I exhale and step into the torn hull of the downed plane.
James is dusting snow off a leather bag, and I crouch beside him when he reaches inside and pulls out a stack of passports. He counts them and frowns.
“Twelve,” he says. “Twelve passports. A few different countries. Seems totally random.”
We flip through the passports, and I get a weird sense of familiarity from some of the faces. I frown and try to ignore the feeling, but it keeps nagging me until I look at the photographs again.
“Um, James?” I whisper when I stare at a photograph of a pretty woman with dark hair and brown eyes, a face round and rosy. Kinda like . . . mine.
James doesn’t answer, and when I glance at him I see
he’s transfixed by one of the other passport pics. When he looks at me I see the shock of recognition all over his face.
“Janelle, I think these are . . . I mean, I think these people are . . . were . . .” he starts to say, and I nod as I go through the other photos until I’m sure.
“I think so too, James,” I whisper, nodding again when I get to a dark-skinned woman who has India’s eyes. “That’s gotta be India’s mother. And this . . . this is my mom. I know it, James. I feel it. Ohmygod, these are our parents! Mine, yours, India’s, Ingram’s, Hannah’s, and Hayes’s! This is fucked up! What does it mean? If the plane crashed, where are their bodies?!”
James just shakes his head and rubs his temples. Then he looks and me and shakes his head again. We’re both speechless, unsure how to feel, what to think, what to fucking do!
“There’s something else in here,” James says, digging into that stiff leather bag and pulling out a wooden box that’s about the size of a sandwich. He shakes it and widens his eyes when it rattles.
Then he opens it, and we both stare at the contents.
“Twelve rings,” I whisper. “Society rings. What. The. Fuck.”
“So all our parents were in the Society,” James says, picking up a ring and then tossing it back into the box.
“Maybe they even created the Society,” I say. “Ohmygod, maybe our parents are Mother and Father!” A ray of hope flashes inside me, but I sigh and shake my head. “No, that can’t be. It wouldn’t make any sense. Our parents wouldn’t hide themselves from us for our entire lives.”
James hands me the box and searches the rest of the plane for any other clues. But there’s nothing in any of the overheads that are still intact. We glance into the cockpit, but it’s pretty mangled. Still no bodies, though. It’s almost like the scene was cleaned up and then staged with the passports and the rings. What the hell? Is this a new game? The same game? Is it a game at all?
Billionaire's Curvy Contract Page 4