Shadows of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 2)

by Arianne Richmonde

  “Phoenix? Who is she?” I ask taking in a deep breath.

  “Another married woman.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Which makes it worse. The pair of them are as bad as each other. She has two kids. She has a husband who’s just as much in shock as I am.”

  “You’ve spoken to the husband?”

  “It was him that called me. He was the one who discovered what they were up to.”

  “How did they meet? What’s her name, how old is she? Why is she doing this?” I shout out all in one breath.

  “The worst? She’s not even pretty. I don’t understand, Pearl. She’s plain, homey-looking, the type that might bake bread. Not that bread bakers can’t be attractive but you know—”

  “What’s Johnny playing at?” I screech with disbelief.

  “You ask me. This has been going on for six months. She’s a secretary - oh sorry, not meant to use that word these days…she’s a personal assistant to one of the guys in Johnny’s company. She must give really good blow jobs, or something, because I don’t get what he sees in her!”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “Her husband made friends with me on Facebook so I could check out their family photos. Two kids - not to mention Amy. All these little hearts being broken. Can you believe it? The husband is devastated, of course.”

  “Does Amy know?”

  “No, of course not, but even at five years old she’s guessed something’s up. Mummy can’t stop crying, Mummy has got red, swollen eyes so she knows Mummy is in a terrible way.”

  “Oh, Daisy, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “What excuse has Johnny given? I mean, is he in love with this woman?”

  “He says he needs time.”

  “So typical - as if you’re just meant to sit about twiddling your thumbs while he works out his inner man-whore.”

  Daisy laughs faintly. “He’s still at the apartment. Can’t make up his mind what he wants to do.”

  The wanting the cake and eating it, too, syndrome. Sounds familiar. An idea suddenly occurs to me and I say, “Daisy, why don’t you and Amy come out here for a break? Get away. The airports are all open again, aren’t they?”

  “I can’t, Daisy’s in school and stuff.”

  “She’s only five - it’s not the end of the world. What she misses in school she’ll make up for by seeing Hawaii. What could be a better education than that? Seeing the Fiftieth State?”

  “Tempting, Pearl, but I really can’t afford it right now. If I’d known this was coming I’d have saved some fuck-you money.”

  “It’ll be my treat. I’ll get your tickets and once you’re here it’s cheap. We’ll eat in – there’s not a lot to spend your money on, the surf and sun are free – life’s simple here.”

  “I don’t know, I really—”

  “Come on,” I cajole. “You need a change of scenery. Get away from Johnny. He needs time? You need a vacation!”

  “Good point.”

  “I’m going online as we speak and getting you two tickets.”

  “Pearl—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer. Then maybe Johnny will realize what he’s missing not having you both at home. It’ll give him the kick up the butt he deserves.”

  “You don’t want to listen to me miserably droning on about my problems.”

  “Oh, please, Daisy, like it isn’t always the other way round. As if you haven’t had years of me sharing some drama or other of mine while you’ve sat there patiently giving me wise advice. It’s time I did something for you in return.”

  ***

  Finally, after hours of lying awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering how I could have done things differently with Alexandre, I fall asleep. I dream about white surf and ‘killer’ waves. I’m riding fast on the surfboard moving my body in balance with the swell and Alexandre is watching me from the beach, a proud grin on his handsome face.

  So I’m irritated as hell when my happy dream is woken by a noise. Is it one of those feral pigs? Sometimes they come snuffling and grunting about my father’s garden. The legend goes that Captain Cook introduced them to the islands; a source of nourishment for shipwrecked crews. Now they are proving to be a nuisance. The hogs (in their ongoing quest to find something to eat) dig and rootle about in the undergrowth trying to find worms and roots. Whole chunks of land and mountain slopes are being stripped of native vegetation making it easier for invasive weeds like ginger to get established, and the puddles in the mud wallows they create breed mosquitoes with avian malaria that kills the native birds. Hence, their appearance on local restaurant menus.

  I lie in bed, stock-still, my ears pricked up like a dog. Scary thoughts of wild, long tusked, razor-backed, boars pillaging my father’s garden, breaking and entering the house and attacking me, fill my racing imagination. I decide I should do something and scare them away. I get up and move over to the window and look out. The sky is dark as black ink. I listen. No hog-like sounds at all. No grunting, just a gentle rustling in the bushes.

  I nearly have a heart attack when I hear a man’s low voice.

  It is Alexandre.

  “Hi, chérie,” he says casually as if no time has passed, as if I had never escaped from the airport ladies’ room window.

  I lean out of the window into the shadows and catch a glimpse of his face lit up by a waxing moon. My heart is racing so intensely I think my knees are going to give way beneath me.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask amazed. “How did you find this place in the dark?”

  “I have my ways; modern technology offers all sorts of solutions these days.”

  “You came,” I say simply. “You’re not still furious with me then?”

  He bends forward into the open window. His breath is on me, I can taste the smell of him; his Alexandre elixir. “I thought I’d never see you again,” I murmur into his face

  “As if,” he breathes into my hair. “I could never abandon you, Pearl.” His soft mouth presses on mine and he begins to lick along my lips, parting them. But then his gentleness turns like a cat who suddenly becomes over-excited, and he nips my lower lip. I can feel the salty taste of blood.

  “I need you, Pearl. I have to make love to you. Don’t you know that? I can’t live my life without you, without being inside you, without—” he doesn’t finish his sentence but continues with his rough kiss, playful and needy all at once. He rams his tongue deep inside my mouth and I groan. I can taste the blood, the sweet saliva of his minty apple breath and I return the kiss with passionate fervor.

  “Alexandre,” I moan.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “Of course. My father’s sleeping so don’t make a noise.”

  “Are you ashamed? Worried he’ll disapprove of me?”

  “He’s not so keen on you right now,” I say with a sly grin. “He wants to hook me up with one of the surfers. He doesn’t think you deserve me.”

  “That’s why I’m here, baby. I got thinking about what you might do here in Kauai. You think I want my future wife fucking some sexy surfer?”

  Tears fill my eyes. Future wife? So he has forgiven me! I rush to the front door and open it quietly. He’s standing there, legs astride and I fall into his arms. “Alexandre, I’ve been so miserable without you.” And I think, even if I die from Sophie’s hand, I’d rather die than be without him.

  He scoops me in his arms like a baby and carries me inside the house. “Nice place, he whispers approvingly. “I love the huge open-plan space. Great taste your father has.”

  “He built this house with his own bare hands,” I reply proudly. “My room is just around the corner here on the ground floor. Actually, I’ve just remembered, my dad is out for the night seeing a friend.”

  “A fuck-buddy type friend? I thought he was dating Natalie.”

  “She’s not interested. Won’t return his calls. He’s an attractive man, my dad, he can’t be expected to live a
monk’s life.”

  “No, of course not.”

  We go into my room and Alexandre lays me gently on the bed, all the while kissing me ravenously. By the time he slips his fingers inside me I am a pool of liquid jelly.

  “Always so ready to be fucked by me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I whimper. “I need you even more than you need me.”

  “The only problem is, Pearl, you’ve been a really naughty girl.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to have to punish you.”

  More feather beating, I think. I know there’s no Nutella in the house so…

  “This time I mean business, though.”

  “What kind of business?” I breathe into his hot mouth.

  He says seriously, “Look, you know about my fucked-up past. You know how I feel about men hitting women after what that fucker did to my mother and sister—”

  “I know, Alexandre, I’m not asking you to—”

  “Let me finish,” he interrupts. “Secretly I want to raise my hand to you and give you a good hiding.” He pauses and then adds, “Let’s put it this way, I’m a clandestine Dom, but you must have guessed that about me already with your female intuition.”

  “I had my suspicions,” I admit.

  “I want to beat you and then fuck you. Fuck you really hard. I need to punish you for hurting me, Pearl, for humiliating me so badly.”

  “Why have you kept this Dom side of yourself so secret?” I ask. “It’s not as if it’s illegal, lots of people—”

  “Because I felt ashamed. Ashamed inside. I felt as if I would be betraying my mother in some way, betraying Sophie, too - as if I was psychologically sick ever wanting to hurt a woman in any way.”

  I can feel a gush of new wetness gather hot and horny between my legs. I want him to do it. I want him to dominate me, to punish me. I want to be all his even if it means getting hurt.

  “When you disobey me Pearl, it makes me angry. But it also excites me, gets me hard and makes me want to sort you out, fuck you, punish you and fuck you again.” He trails his hand along the nape of my neck and a delicious, shimmering shiver courses along my spine. “Do you understand why I want to punish you?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “You’re a spoiled Star-Spangled brat. Independent, testy and always doing what you think best. Not your fault, of course, you American women are born that way. It’s in your pioneer blood. But it makes me want to fuck it out of you. Beat that disobedience out of your peachy ass, fuck it out of your tight little pearlette. And I don’t want anyone else coming near you,” he says with a threatening gaze, eyeing up my Baywatch swimsuit which is slung over a chair. “You’ve been prancing about in that?”

  “Yes. All the guys on the beach have been staring at me; it makes my tits look great, you can see my nipples really clearly,” I tease knowing that I’m riling his jealous side.

  He laughs. “An insecure man would get flustered by that remark but me? I know it’s me you want. All those men can stare at you all they want but it’s me you want to fuck. But just to be clear, Pearl. You’re mine.” He strokes the inside of my thigh with his long fingertips and slips one inside my wet hole. “Do. You. Understand.”

  He’s hovering over me. My high bed is on the same level as his crotch. I take his fly and open it letting his erection spring free and pull his jeans down. No underwear. “Yes, I understand, Alexandre.”

  “Good girl. Now be an obedient fiancée and suck my cock. Are you over that penis phobia, baby? Do you think you can suck me so I come hot and heavy in your pretty mouth?”

  “Oh yes,” I murmur. “Oh yes,” and I take his erection in my hands and then run my lips over his soft warm crown. My tongue flickers on his one eyed-jack and I lick off the pre-cum and taste his welcome salty-sweetness. I take his cock and tease my nipples with the top of it and then pop it back into my mouth. My groin is on fire and even more so when he groans and thrusts his hips forward into my face so it goes deeper. “That’s right, baby, keep sucking, oh yeah, oh yeah, just like that. I’m going to really fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before. That little lesbian fiasco? I knew it wouldn’t last because you crave cock at the end of the day, don’t you, Pearl? You like a huge hard cock inside you, fucking your hot tight pearlette, isn’t that what you want?”

  “Yes, I want ‘ock,” I say, gagged by his massive size, hardly able to get out the words coherently.

  “Whose cock, baby? Whose cock inhabits your brain every waking hour and in every wet dream?” he says rocking his hips forward.

  “Yours, Alexandre. Only yours,” and I wrap my lips tightly about his huge penis sucking as tight as I can as I claw onto his firm butt with my hands drawing him as close as possible to me.

  “Good girl,” he groans and I feel him expand inside my mouth. A rush of cum shoots at the back of my throat. He continues to moan and gently thrusts back and forth, fucking my mouth very leisurely as his orgasm slowly fades. I swallow desperately, lapping up every drop, savoring his taste.

  “This is just the beginning,” he warns. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”

  He pulls out from my mouth and he’s still erect. Round two ‘coming’ up. I run my eyes along his rock-hard abs, that sexy fine line of hair from his belly button seeping into his crotch does things to my brain. He still has a faint tan left over from the summer, his golden skin soft and smooth. I stroke my hands around his ass, his thighs – feel the strength of him, his powerful body, his flexing muscles. I practically come myself just drinking him in (ha, ha, yes I giggle to myself at my pun). Alexandre is Beauty incarnate. I have genuinely never seen a man as handsome as he is. No male model or movie star can compete. He is incredible in every way. It’s true; all those pumped-up surfers can stare all they want at me but it’s Alexandre I desire.

  And only Alexandre.

  As I’m gazing at him he suddenly spins me around so I am in a letter L on the bed, my torso spread out flat and my butt on the edge of the mattress, my feet almost touching the floor. He’s standing over me, lording it over my wetness, my trepidation, my excitement. He starts circling my ass softly with his palm and trailing his index finger over my opening, at one point dipping it inside as if it were nectar. I can feel myself clench. Oh wow, I’m so ready for this, whatever ‘this’ may be. Then he ties my hands together with a silk scarf he seems to have in his jeans’ pocket and puts my wrists above my head. Did he plan this? He seems so prepared. He takes my hair and gathers it in his hands, tugging at me so I can’t move.

  He starts a rhythm, chanting a tune that I learned as a child, a song from the American War of Independence. How does he know this song?

  Left, right, left, right left

  I left my wife with forty-eight kids

  On the verge of starvation without any Johnny cakes

  Oops, by golly, by left

  Right, left right left….

  At the ‘left’ he smacks me on my left butt cheek and then on my right… wallop! Both with his right hand. His left hand is still fisted in my hair making sure I don’t escape. And then, on the last ‘left’ of the song he crams his erection into me hard and then withdraws immediately. Each time the smarting spanks are a warm-up to what I’m craving more than anything – the hard thrust into my opening on the last ‘left’. The pain is bearable…in fact…delectable and I await each plunge.

  I’m groaning. Waiting with baited breath, screaming Alexandre’s name. On the next thrust I know I’m going to climax. This is so sensual so…erotic despite the hard stinging slaps. And then it comes, that last hard shove inside me and it tips me into an ecstatic roll of emotional, orgasmic fervor, my brain and Venus ringing and trembling from deep within. This time he doesn’t pull out but lets himself rest within me as I spasm around him, my muscles clenching onto his length like a limpet clinging to a rock. He comes too, his enormousness filling my walls, pulsating inside me with his groaning climax as he empties himself with a cry.

 
“Pearl—”

  I hear bells sounding in my ears - no not bells, music so sweet. I blink my eyes. What’s the music? It’s coming from above. It’s She’s a Rainbow by the Rolling Stones…’she comes in colors everywhere’….

  Yes, I think, I come in colors. I see flashes of red and gold - the orgasm is still sparkling within my body lighting me up like a firework display.

  I lie there panting and open my eyes from my sexual stupor. It’s no longer dark outside but dawn is creeping slowly through the bedroom window. I move my wrists…but wait…why aren’t they tied? My eyes fly open and I feel my hands, not above my head but between my hot, wet thighs, my post-orgasm still tingling through my core. My wrists are free. I am not splayed across the bed - no, I am tucked up under the sheets. I turn over to feel for Alexandre. The song is louder now. It’s my father’s ‘alarm’ – he likes to wake to music instead of a clock.

  I sit up with a jerk. Alexandre is nowhere to be seen.

  Of all the nightmares I have had, this is the worst of all.

  Because this was nothing but a dream.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Daisy and Amy have been here for two days. She is like the sister I never had and I’m so grateful to have her in my life. Coming here was just what the doctor ordered. She needed to get away and gain a little perspective. Being under the same roof as Johnny, while he procrastinated about what he wanted or didn’t want was not doing her any favors.

  Johnny. Johnny Cakes. Funny how dreams mix up everyday occurrences and names and places with fantasies. There I was the other night dreaming about bondage accompanied by an American Civil War marching song about Johnny Cakes (sung by a Frenchman, no less). Needless to say, I haven’t shared that with Daisy – a little too bizarre, especially as Johnny played a symbolic role – ‘without any Johnny Cakes.’

  When we walked into my father’s house, after I had collected Daisy and Amy from the airport, I noticed something I hadn’t anticipated:

  My father’s expression the moment he set eyes on my friend. He has known Daisy for years but hadn’t seen her for ages. He wasn’t expecting a new, slim version of her. He still had the Annie girl in his mind, the chubby-cheeked redhead. At least, that is what I deduced judging by the way his jaw dropped when she walked through the front door. All he said was, ‘My, how fabulous you and Amy both look.’ But I could see a sparkle in his eyes. I am not sure how I feel about my friends and co-workers (Daisy and Natalie) being offered up as love fodder for my father. Luckily, Daisy hasn’t noticed and I have kept silent. The last thing she needs right now is more complications, but still, nice to have someone be so attentive even if he is twenty years older than she is.