The Quest of Perkins Vale

by L. B. Dunbar

  “I’m not trying to upset you,” she sighed. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to take care of me.”

  “I…I don’t feel I have to…I just…” I let my voice drift off and I looked away from her. I couldn’t tell her all that I felt. I wasn’t even sure what I felt anymore. My fantasy of her conflicted so much with the reality of her, but I found myself still desiring Hollister in whatever form she came. At this moment, she seemed to want to hurt me, and I couldn’t understand why. I was only trying to protect her.

  She surprised me by stepping forward and resting her forehead on my chest. It was the first time she came to me physically, willingly. I hesitated a moment in shock before my arms loosened and my large hands slid around her back, drawing her closer to me. She relaxed into me and I held her as we stood in the dingy darkened doorway.

  “I don’t want to fight,” she mumbled into my jacket and for a minute, I thought she smelled me. She inhaled deeply against my closed coat.

  “I don’t either,” I said softly.

  One night…

  [Hollister]

  He was surrounding me, steadying me, and I needed it. Despite our banter, my body was shaking uncontrollably over the voice from the dark. It just couldn’t be whom I thought. I didn’t want it to be whom I thought. So I let Perk hold me tight. I breathed deep his scent, allowing myself a few moments to be enveloped into safety. I couldn’t tell him my fear. I couldn’t tell him about the text. I couldn’t tell him about the voice. I only wanted to relish in a minute of peace before the nightmare came alive.

  Perk walked with me as I delivered the remaining twenty bagged dinners along the streets near the woman’s shelter, and then escorted me back to the home. I introduced him to Marie, who called me Blanche fleur like the homeless man had. Perk questioned me about the nickname, but I blew him off, before he asked me if I would come to his home again. I didn’t want to bring all my mental baggage with me, but Marie insisted I take the night off and pushed me, literally, toward the door.

  We rode in silence to his warehouse, and while it should have been awkward it wasn’t. It was peaceful again. I tried to be sly as I glanced at his profile. He was a striking specimen, all solid abs and chest with broad shoulders and thicker arms. His head nearly shaved, and his face covered in hair, he could have been menacing but he wasn’t. There was a sweetness to him, an innocence, that I couldn’t quite figure out. Maybe it was because no man had been good to me before, and that’s what Perkins Vale was. He was just a good man at heart.

  We entered his place, and he immediately dropped down onto his oversized couch, leaning his head back and stretching his legs forward. He still looked tired and I felt guilty for being there, preventing him from sleep. However, I sensed I wouldn’t have slept a wink at the shelter with the haunting voice from the man on the street in my head. I continued to stand after I draped my jacket over the back of the high stool and watched as Perk scrubbed two hands down his face before leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He seemed at war with himself, and I approached him slowly. I stopped before him, but he was still looking down at his large palms.

  “We need to talk, Hollister. I have so many questions to ask you, and I don’t even know where to start.” He sighed deeply and looked up at me with the most innocent of chocolate brown eyes. He truly looked confused. It reminded me of the first night I had stayed here. I stepped closer to him, forcing him to spread his knees to allow me to stand before him. His hands came out to clasp the back of my knees and he tugged gently. I held my ground.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” he breathed deeply.

  “Just ask me.”

  “Let’s start with tonight. Why would you let me believe you were…that you worked…that you…” He stumbled for the words, but I knew what he wanted to ask.

  “It was easier to pretend I was a prostitute if that’s what you thought. I figured you would lose interest in me, or in continuing to see me, if you thought that about me.” It was a lie.

  “Is that what you want? You want me to stay away from you.” He let his hands slip from the back of my knees to rest on his own. He gripped them tightly like he had the night he watched me touch myself. Did I want him to stay away? No, actually I didn’t. I wanted so much more from him. Yet, he seemed rather hesitant to take it and that was the only way I knew intimacy. I needed to be taken, but I couldn’t describe what I wanted.

  “I…I don’t want you to stay away,” I said softly. His hands returned to the back of my thighs and he squeezed gently. I sensed he wanted to ask me more, but he didn’t. My hand reached out to rub over his short hair. He instantly closed his eyes and leaned his forehead into my stomach. He might have actually purred.

  “You like that, don’t you?” I questioned quietly. His only response was to nod.

  “What else do you like, Perkins?” I inquired. I suddenly felt the need to be closer to him, to please him. Maybe it would bring my absolution. Maybe it would free me of my frightening dreams.

  He looked up at me before he leaned back, taking me with him as his hands slid up to my hips. I straddled his wide legs and balanced on the tops of his thighs, resting my hands on his shoulders to hold me upright.

  “You seemed scared tonight. If you are frightened, why do you do what you do?” He changed the subject.

  I sighed deeply. I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want him to feel he had to protect me, and he had this strange notion he should. He had this guilt he’d placed on himself, which I didn’t think he deserved. But most of all, I didn’t think I could share with him another tale of my woe. I couldn’t tell him I recognized the voice in the dark.

  A memory returned…

  [Hollister]

  I’d been returned to my uncle’s for one summer before I was stolen away again. This time it was my cousin, Elliott, who took me to join him at his private school in the city. The boarding school trained me academically, but my previous experience living in the woods had trained me logically for survival in a city of thieves, murders, and rapists; or moreover, a school of rich, conniving, spoiled children. In a city haunted with evils, I wasn’t as concerned for those who caused the greatest of sins. I was concerned for the victims, and I spent my free time volunteering to do more than the requisite service my private school required. I fed the homeless one night, worked soup kitchens another. I tutored children after school, while their mothers worked night shifts, and I taught immigrants to read at night school. I was overwhelmed at the devastation and the hope of people in general.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was taken again. This time it wasn’t as much against my will as the first time, but it was every bit as confining. My relationship was with a man whom I thought was meant to do justice for the world, but he didn’t. He was a priest. Young, attractive, and new to the priesthood, I fell for his kind words of absolution. My body was already used, but his touch would be my forgiveness for sins I hadn’t known I committed. I allowed him to explore my figure, numb to the idea of seeking pleasure. I was sixteen, by then. He was twenty-two; closer in age this time, but no less inappropriate. I realized I was a lost soul, a sheep to this shepherd, and he used me in his means to find a greater purpose.

  He called me the Chosen One, another nickname of false hope. He said I was special.

  He claimed his touch would heal me of my previous relations. I was forgiven as it was taken from me. At the time, I needed to understand that I had a higher purpose and that included pleasing him. If I brought him pleasure, if I made him happy, I would be wiped clean of all that had happened to me. I was sixteen when I gave myself to him. It was a secret relationship: between us and a higher power, and I believed in him. I believed that his touch would cure me. When I returned to my Uncle Roy’s after my first year away again, Elaine discovered my secret. She reinforced how wrong it was to the point that Roy sent me away. I finished school in an all girls’ school in the Midwest and continued onto college at a
local women’s university. When I graduated, I could no longer rely on Roy’s hospitality, and I moved into the city. I felt safe hidden among the less fortunate. I needed to find a way on my own.

  I didn’t know how to put all that into words for Perk. I didn’t know how to explain that I sought the physical to take away the abusive impressions on my body. I gave into to Fr. Mike because I believed his touch could cover Jordan’s, just like I wanted Perk’s touch to dilute them both. But there was something more than that I wanted with Perkins. Something I couldn’t quite understand. He wasn’t groping for me like those other two had. He was hesitant and patient, and at times I didn’t know how he had so much control.

  As I straddled him, his hands rubbed soothingly up and down my sides. He had access to me with my arms outstretched to his shoulders. I closed my eyes when his hands teased at the side of my breasts. I pressed forward in an attempt to suggest he could touch me, and that’s when it hit me. He hadn’t touched me. He hadn’t made a move to touch me anywhere except to kiss me. His kiss alone could melt my clothing and strip me bare, but I had the need for it to be real.

  “Perkins, why haven’t you touched me?” I whispered in his darkened living room.

  His eyes followed the motion of his hands as they stroked upward and down. He brushed lightly at my side breast, and I sucked in a breath. His gaze immediately jumped to mine. He seemed to be questioning me. Not in that deep way that asked who was I, but more in an innocent, uncertain way, as if he was asking permission. Instead of taking like the others had, he was asking.

  “Do you want to touch me, Perkins?” My voice was a sultry sound I didn’t know I possessed. I had slid forward on his lap, and I held between my legs the weight of him. We weren’t pressing purposefully into each other, but a hair’s breathe of movement in any direction and we would be.

  He didn’t respond and so I prompted him further, massaging his massive shoulders.

  “You can touch me, if you’d like, Perkins.” Again with a voice that was deep and seductive I encouraged him and he slipped his hands hesitantly over each breast. His palms were large, and when he squeezed me I squeaked. His eyes looked up at me, again questioning and he froze.

  “That feels good,” I said softly and he continued. He stroked and tugged, and eventually pinched, which forced my nipples to stand erect and rub inside my bra, in a painful need for release. He let one hand travel to the hem of my t-shirt before the other hand joined, and he gently lifted the cotton, laying his palms flat on my stomach. He dragged them upward, forcing the shirt to rise. He stared at where his hands covered me. I began to slowly grind over him and he moaned, slowly closing his eyes in a drugged haze. I did it again and his hands took the risk to cover me inside my shirt.

  I released my hold on him and removed my own top. He froze again. He’d already seen me trussed up as he’d had me do weeks ago, but tonight, this seemed different. It was like he was seeing me for the first time. Seeing breasts for the first time and his hands continued to roam. He tugged the silky material of my bra forward and wrapped it around my laden globes to stand upward at attention. I should have been embarrassed by his stare, but he looked at me with such passion and curiosity. I let him play as his warm hands covered my sensitive skin and instantly twisted the pinky flesh on the tip of me. I let out a heavy sigh, pressed forward on his length, and felt the warmth of his mouth cover one breast immediately.

  He was still hesitant, sticking his tongue out slowly as if lapping at me delicately before deciding I was his new favorite treat. Then he covered me with his large mouth. He sucked me hard and I began to whimper with the ache between my legs as he laved at my breast, suckling away. My hips lost control as I frantically rubbed against him. I needed the friction. I needed the relief.

  He slid his tongue to my other breast, navigating a hot trail between them before performing in the same manner on my other side. My fingertips gripped his shoulders as I rocked back and forth over his hard length. I wanted to be closer to him, and yet I was afraid to break the connection we had at the moment. It couldn’t have felt more perfect as he continued to give to me, knowing I was responding to him.

  “Perkins,” I groaned, as his mouth continued to work me. He moaned against my moist skin. One hand had slipped down to my hips, encouraging me to move over him.

  “Perkins,” I squeaked, as his other hand returned to pinch the hard tips of my nipples while his tongue still wiggled and swirled on my sensitive areole. It was sensory overload with me being touched in all the prime places.

  He pulled back and the sound of suction released me.

  “Take it, Hollister. I want to feel it happen.” His gravelly tone was all it took.

  My nails dug into his skin as I leaned my forehead to his and opened wide as if to scream. I didn’t allow sound to come out of me, but I felt relief everywhere. His fingers clung to my hips, and I knew by the way he pressed against me; he had matched me in my need. As if the orgasm wasn’t enough, his hands reached for my face and he kissed me like his life depended on it. He drank me in and quenched his thirst with my mouth before slowing to gently pecks.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  I looked at him in question, but he only shook his head to signal he wouldn’t answer.

  Some nights…

  [Perkins]

  I didn’t feel right leaving her some nights. The man who followed us was clearly after Hollister. Even though we hadn’t talked about it yet, it was another of a million questions I needed answered by her. We spent a few weeks in a steady routine of me picking her up after her shifts and her spending the nights that she could with me. I didn’t increase my exploration of her. I was content to continue to learn her mouth, her breasts and every sigh and moan in between.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want more. I did. But I didn’t want to take it. I sensed that Hollister had been taken too often before. I wanted her to willingly give herself to me. I would follow her clues to the treasure I desired, but I had no hint that she wanted to take things further, regardless of the nights she was breathless from my kisses and screamed in her release. She was silent at first, but she was slowly releasing her inner being, and the volume of her pleasure increased as the weeks past.

  It was almost Halloween and this involved a trip to upstate New York. Lake Avalon was the area where I was raised. I had mixed emotions about returning, but Elaine Corbin was hosting her annual masquerade ball. Kaye Sirs thought it best we attend. It wasn’t that he wanted us to appear as if everything was normal. We were anything but normal, without our fearless leader, Arturo, but Kaye thought it would be good for the band’s image if we attended. He claimed it would show we were still united and supportive of one another. I wasn’t sure I felt we weren’t being supportive of each other in our own way, but Kaye wanted the public image. He was a man that was always about appearances.

  I couldn’t attend and leave Hollister in the city. I had this foreboding feeling that something would happen to Hollister if I left her behind. I was afraid that I would lose her again. Or worse, that she would be taken away from me. We hadn’t mentioned the night on the streets. When I knew she was scheduled to deliver the brown bag dinners, I insisted on escorting her like a security detail. She laughed me off at first, until I showed up one night, dressed for the weather and downplaying my wealth with a ragged old jacket and ripped jeans. She eyed me as I stared her down in the kitchen of the shelter and Marie laughed.

  “You might have found your match in him, Blanche fleur,” she said in a heavily accented tone.

  I had to smile. I wanted to be the match to Hollister.

  That night she explained to me as we walked that Blanche fleur meant ‘white flower.’ It stood for purity and goodness. Her voice was bitter as she explained.

  “I fail to see the connection,” she murmured.

  “Why would you say that?” I asked, stopping her on the dark street.

  “I’m not pure. And I’m not innocent. I’ve done things I’m no
t proud of and I’ve had things done to me I’m even less of proud of.”

  “Hollister,” I breathed, as I stepped into her space and cupped her cold cheeks. Gray eyes were steeled against me and I leaned closer to her.

  “You are a beautiful woman, who’s had a rough life; it doesn’t make you not pure. And it certainly makes you innocent. It wasn’t your fault.”

  She tried to pull away from me, but I held her face firm.

  “Hollister,” I whispered softly. “It wasn’t your fault. I think you’re an incredible woman. You do good deeds for those in need and ask for nothing. That makes you…extraordinary, my White Flower.”

  I didn’t use the word ‘special.’ I knew that word held a negative connotation for her. She was extraordinary in my opinion. I don’t know how she endured what Jordan had done to her and still thought good of the world. She still tried to do good in the world.

  I kissed her briefly because I had to connect with her, and she eventually relaxed against me.

  “Let’s get these delivered and go home,” I said softly. I called my home hers more often, and she didn’t correct me. I wanted her with me.

  “Will you come home…my mother’s home…with me this weekend? It’s Halloween and I have a party to attend. Kaye is making us go.” I hesitated as I took her hand, and we continued to walk the dark deserted street. I wasn’t one for public displays, and the party would be one of those situations that made me slightly uncomfortable. I didn’t drink much. I couldn’t make small talk. And I wasn’t interested in other girls. While I had drank and left with a woman or two, we wouldn’t get far before I knew I was in a situation I didn’t plan to follow through on. That’s when I began to give to women what they wanted, and not what I intended to take. It might have explained my reputation, which wasn’t well deserved. It had happened so rarely.