by Cecilia Tan
“Yes, James.” I held my breath for a second, thinking he was going to plunge in. But no, he teased me with the tip, pushing in an inch or two and pulling out, again and again. “Oh fuck!”
“Mmm. Most sensitive part of my cock and the most sensitive part of your opening. What’s not to like?”
I groaned. The shallow penetration felt so good I was melting, but at the same time I wanted more. So much more. “You’re fucking me the way you give information, a little bit at a time!”
He laughed then and drove deep, exhaling and closing his eyes as he did. “You don’t know how hard it was waiting to do this.”
“I think I have some idea!”
“From the very first time we met, I mean.” He fucked me slowly now, savoring every inch as much as he savored being back in control. “That very first night. Ten years earlier, I would have had you six ways before we got to your apartment, and then I never would have seen you again.”
“Then I’m glad it’s now.”
“Me, too.” He tucked his hands under my butt and levered me up to meet each slow thrust.
“So what would the six ways have been?”
“It’s just an expression.”
“Nothing is just an expression with you, James.”
He chuckled. “Very well. Let’s see. Six ways. Well, your mouth, your pussy, your ass, with both my fingers and my cock, that would count as six. But let’s not count my fingers. Let’s count my cock alone. I could have also fucked you between your breasts, against your tailbone, and between your legs but not inside you. That would be six, too.”
A year ago I wouldn’t have counted being fucked between the legs as “sex,” but after what I’d been through in London, I definitely counted it now.
“Oh, and, Karina, in case I wasn’t clear, one of the reasons I want to leave the music industry is that I take my promises seriously.”
“I know you do.” I reared up enough to kiss him.
“And one of the things that I love most about you is that you do, too.” He moved his hands now to press my palms flat against the pillow on either side of my head, his hips speeding up as I wrapped my legs around him at last. “We worked long and hard to reach this point, to be able to join like this.” He punctuated his point with a sharp thrust. “To deserve each other like this.”
I nodded, feeling like liquid pleasure was pouring out of his body into mine.
“So here’s the promise I want to ask for, and that I want to give. Explicitly.” He paused, though, as the sensations washed over him, too, making him shudder.
“Is that why they call it explicit sex?” I asked.
He half laughed, half growled and kissed me to shut me up. When he raised his head he went on. “This is for us alone. My cock, your pussy, exclusively.”
“Meaning you won’t fuck Ferrara even though she owns you?”
“Yes!” He raised himself up a little. “And you won’t let anything enter you but this. Well, and other things that I put there.”
“I promise,” I breathed.
“I promise,” he answered, solemnly, and then began fucking me so hard the bed shook against the wall.
This time after we were done we took a quick shower and he told me more about Ferrara’s efforts to micro-manage the Bride of the Blue production the last time they were in Las Vegas. James’s sense of outrage thrummed through the small room.
“Seriously, who does she think she is? I’m the artist. It’s my vision. What does she know?” He toweled his hair dry and then shook his head, leaving short black spikes going every which way.
“Well,” I said, merely to play devil’s advocate. “What does she know? I thought she was a talent scout?”
“I suppose.” He calmed down slightly. “She used to dance and do some choreography before she married Huntington, so she thinks she knows that side of it. But her knowledge only gives her license to meddle.”
“Does she sing?” I wrapped a towel around myself.
“Thank goodness, no. But honestly. I got quite tired of her trying to tell the dancers or my choreographer what to do, and they eventually learned to do what she said while she was watching and then go back to doing it my way the second she was gone. No company needs that kind of stress.” He pulled on a bathrobe. “For the farewell tour, thankfully, she stayed put, and I have a much better relationship with the dancers than she does. And the band? They won’t even speak to her unless they’re forced to.” The smile on his face as he thought about his bandmates was relaxed and genial.
Then he sobered as he watched me getting dressed.
“Karina,” he said in a soft voice. “Are you satisfied? I mean, information-wise.”
“For now,” I said, squeezing his shoulder as I pulled on my sandals. “I should get back.”
“Stefan will follow you and check out the neighborhood.” He pushed a button on his phone, and I realized he must’ve had Stefan on some kind of speed-dial. Speed text? “With any luck, your mother’s con man will have moved on to another target, but better to be safe.”
“All right.” I wished Stefan could drive me so we could continue to catch up, but I had a car of my own to drive. We could talk on the phone, but it was nicer to sit in the front seat with him. “My sister’s leaving tomorrow.”
“To go back to the restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“They must really be missing her there,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Something about the way he said it caught my attention. “That’s right,” I said with a frown. “Do you know why?” I didn’t remember telling him this.
“Yes. They’re launching the new menu on Thursday,” he said, looking at me quizzically, then with alarm as my frown turned to an angry glare. “Karina, what’s wrong?”
“How did you know about the restaurant changing?”
“Shouldn’t I know about it?”
I yanked the phone out of my purse and shook it at him. “Do you have some kind of tap on my phone? Some other kind of spy crap? Didn’t you just get through saying you should have trusted me? What the hell, James!”
He had his hands up as if I were shaking a gun at him, not a smartphone, and tried to defend himself verbally. “No! Nothing like that! Karina, don’t jump to hasty conclusions!”
“What the hell kind of conclusion am I supposed to make, then? How do you know about the restaurant?”
“I’m Xavier’s angel investor,” he said.
“How the fuck do you know Xavier!” I shouted.
The alarm on his face only grew. “Karina, it’s not what it looks like…”
“A patent attempt to own all the people around me so you control everything?” I spat.
A soft knock came at the door. Stefan, most likely.
“No, Karina. It’s nothing like that.”
“The hell it’s not,” I said, and yanked open the door. Stefan was standing there looking sheepish. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I marched into the hallway as Stefan looked back and forth between us before hurrying after me, catching up after a few steps.
“Everything all right?” he asked hesitantly.
“Argh! Your boss is the freakiest control freak who ever lived!” I said, jabbing the elevator button.
We stepped in. After the door closed, Stefan said, “I cannot dispute that, though I have very few points of comparison.” He looked quite distressed.
“Don’t give me that look.”
“I’m upset that you’re upset. That’s all, Karina.”
“I thought it was going to work. I thought we could get past the bullshit. But now I’m not so sure.”
“Give him a chance, Karina, please.”
“Why? Why should I give him a chance?”
The elevator doors opened, but Stefan stood blocking them, his hands pressed together like he was praying. “Because he loves you so very very much. And I have never seen him in this much pain.”
“Not even with Lucinda?”
“Not even close. Karina, please. Because I care about him and you as well—”
I pushed past him into the lobby and headed for my car. For a moment, though, I couldn’t remember which one it was, and he caught up while I was staring at three or four rentals that were all almost the same.
“I’ll give him one more chance tomorrow,” I said. “One more.” I pushed the key fob and one of the cars in front of me flashed its lights. “Do you know my address?”
“I do,” Stefan admitted. “It wasn’t hard to find.”
“Fine.” If I had been smart, I would have told him the make and model of Phil’s car. But I couldn’t remember. I’d only gotten a glimpse of the car and had been too focused on Phil himself, and getting rid of him, to think about it. “Let’s go.”
I fumed the whole way home. Stefan followed at a discreet distance, as if giving me space to vent.
When I got home, I saw the limo circle the block at least once, and then I stopped paying attention. I sat down with Jill to watch the late news.
She took one look at me, though, and said, “You don’t look so happy.”
I shook my head. “One step forward, two steps back,” I said. I really didn’t want to say anything about the restaurant, though. The last thing I wanted to do was throw a monkey wrench into Jill’s dreams.
“What happened?”
“Oh, we talked a lot. He answered all my questions. I really thought everything was going great. But then… right at the end he let something slip that made me stop trusting him all over again.”
“That sucks,” Jill said.
And then a third voice I didn’t expect, added, “Trust is hard.”
I looked to see my mother standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh, Mom, did we wake you?”
She shook her head and came to sit on the couch next to me. She took the remote off the coffee table and turned down the volume partway. “The medicine wore off is all,” she said with a shrug. “I think I’m going to try to switch to ibuprofen.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“There’s no pill for a broken heart, though, dear.” She patted me on the knee. “All we can give you is sympathy.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, and ice cream,” Jill said. “Who wants some?”
I raised my hand weakly and my mother nodded her agreement.
“I’ll go dish it. I’ll heat up hot fudge, too.” Jill hurried into the kitchen.
“Mom,” I said, putting my hand over hers. “You were saying something about trust.”
“It’s difficult, I know, because you can’t read people’s minds. Men, you think you can tell what they’re thinking, but if they are really in it for something else? What can you do?”
“Are all relationships doomed to fail?”
“No, dear, but it takes either a lot of love or a lot of compromise. And sometimes, when you have a man who dotes on you, who provides, for some people, that’s enough.”
“But if I don’t trust him, it doesn’t matter how much he loves me or how much money he has,” I said.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” She blinked at me and then turned the TV down even lower, though not off. “Well, perhaps I didn’t quite finish my thought. As you get older your priorities might change. But since you can never be sure, since trust always has an element of faith to it since you can’t read their minds, then love is the only worthwhile reason to put yourself in someone’s hands.”
She had never talked to me like this before. Her previous relationship advice had always been about how to be attractive to a man, or how to keep his interest.
“His love or mine?” I asked, feeling bewildered.
“Both, dear, both. He loves you, you love him… If you’re sure about that, then you have to figure the rest out somehow. If it turns out you really can’t trust him, then maybe he doesn’t love you after all. Or he doesn’t love you enough to change.”
Did you think you could change Phil? I wondered. Or did you settle for a guy you didn’t trust because he gave you attention and you needed that more than actual love?
“I’ve made some terrible choices in men, Karina,” my mother finally said. “I don’t want to see you repeat the same mistakes. Don’t settle for the ‘safe’ choice over love. It’s not worth it. Especially when they’re not as safe as you think.”
“Oh, Mom.” I wondered if I was any better at picking men than she was. Then again, safe wasn’t exactly a word I’d use for James. “We’ve all made bad choices. Well, except Jill.”
I could hear my sister getting the bowls out of the cabinet, and the microwave humming as she heated up the fudge sauce. I got a sudden idea.
“You know, Mom, she and Pauline have been going steady for almost three years.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, as if to make it clear she hadn’t lost her memory of that.
I leaned close. “They’re thinking about making it… permanent.”
I didn’t use the word “marriage” on purpose. With my mother, I figured, if she wanted to pretend the possibility of gay marriage didn’t exist, she’d play dumb, but if she was open to the idea…
I nearly panicked as I saw her eyes well with tears and she sucked a breath in through her nose to steel herself. But then she said, “Oh, if only I still had my engagement ring. I always…” She paused to compose herself again. “I always wanted one of you girls to have it.”
I took her hand. “Maybe it’ll turn up.”
She shook her head. “I think you’re right. I think that creep made off with it. Phil. Fool, more like.”
I squeezed her hand. “Your blessing would mean a lot more to Jill than the ring would.” I could see Jill emerging from the kitchen with the bowls in her hands. “She wasn’t sure you’d be… okay with the whole concept.”
“Karina. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if someone finds the right person, they should hang on with all they’ve got. And everyone deserves someone right for them.”
When she said that, I got a little misty-eyed.
Jill raised an eyebrow as she took her seat again, setting the bowls onto the coffee table. Each one had a spoon tucked under the scoop of ice cream. “You gals okay out here?”
“Have you set a date yet?” Mom asked. “For you and Pauline?”
“Oh! Jeez, not yet. Haven’t even popped the question, Mom!” Jill eyed me with a surprised look. I grinned. “Um, horse and carriage. Central Park.” Apparently my mother’s sudden, enthusiastic embrace of her plans knocked loose Jill’s ability to form full sentences.
“Sounds lovely! That is really the right way to do it.” She picked up her ice cream and toasted Jill with her spoon. “I knew I raised you right.”
I took up my own bowl and ate quietly, happy for Jill, and happy that our mother approved of her choice. Would she be as enthusiastic about mine? Or as supportive if I decided to break it off with him?
I didn’t want to think about James even if only for a little while. Instead I distracted Jill into discussing what she and Pauline were going to do if they bought their condo, and talked a little about what I had done to help Paulina and Michel renovate the ArtiWorks in London. We had a laugh about the similarity between Paulina and Pauline and how I might end up doing demolition for both.
Taking a wrecking ball to something right then would have felt really good.
Six
Like Blackened Sunshine
The next morning, before I awoke, Jill had called to cheek on mom’s car at the shop and then she took Mom to get her hair done. While I was eating breakfast the shop called back to say the car needed new spark plugs. When I asked for more details, they explained the thing that was wrong with the old plugs was that they were… missing. Jill had told them about the cut battery cable she had found so they were on the lookout for anything more. Thankfully it looked like nothing major beyond that. The mechanic assured me they would check everything and test-drive it, too.
Hey, I wanted to
say. Great. What can you do for a sabotaged relationship? I hadn’t called James yet. I wasn’t ready to. Sitting here in the kitchen where I’d grown up, his dom aura seemed very far away. What kind of a controlling bastard was he, really?
Jill brought Mom back shortly after, then started packing her bag to try to get on that afternoon flight.
“Oh, Jill, honey, I have some clothes you might want,” my mother said. “Karina, come help me dig in the closet. With this wrist it’s tricky.”
“Okay.” We went up to Mom’s bedroom, and the next thing I knew, I was pulling nearly everything out of a whole section of the closet and spreading it out on the bed.
“Here’s a skirt that would be great for you, Karina. I bought it on sale and I don’t think I’ve ever worn it.” She handed me a sort of Gypsy-dancer skirt, long, loose, and colorful. To humor her I put it on and was surprised it fit. “Jill, come look. There must be something for you, too.”
Jill shook her head. “We’re really not built the same, Mom. I’m much bigger than you are.”
“Oh, but I have these sweaters that are too big for me. And these necklaces. If you’re going to be playing hostess in a white-tablecloth restaurant now, you’ll need some classy looks.”
“I…” Jill started, then shared a look with me as she decided not to argue.
Mom pulled open the same jewelry box they had been looking through yesterday when they had been arguing. “Here. What about these?”
“The one with the shell, that one I like,” Jill said, and took it from her. “It’ll make people think of seafood.”
“Is there a lot of seafood on the new menu?” I asked.
“I’ll see when I get there. Chef made a lot of decisions while I was gone.”
“Well, he had to if the new menu goes live in two days,” I said, as I pulled another armload of clothes from the closet.
“Two days? Who said two days?” She looked at me in puzzlement.
Dammit. James was the one who had said they were going to launch on Thursday. I didn’t want to get into telling them why I was angry at him right now, so I changed the subject. “Hey, you said Xavier got an angel investor to put up his half, right?”