by Avery Aster
Blake’s eyes go wide. “Guuurl, I can’t believe they’re going to have you out in the fields, picking up vegetables.”
“Tomatoes are fruit,” Lex corrects him.
“What. The farmer and dell. Ever,” Blake sasses back.
An hour goes by, and just as I’m about to doze off with Hedda asleep on my lap, Taddy shouts, “We’re here!”
“This place is gorgeous.” Lex puts down her window, breathing in the country air.
“It sure is something special, all right,” Blake adds.
I thought I’d be nervous, but I’m not. If anything, a sense of peace washes over me as my feet hit the gravel in the driveway.
That is until I see a black stretch limo pull up behind us and a man—tall, dark, and hot as all motherfucking hell—gets out with a stern look on his handsome face.
“Who the fuck is that piece of man candy fabulousness?” Taddy asks.
“Wowza!” Blake’s head bobs, checking this man up and down.
The dude’s wearing a T-shirt, one of those flimsy cotton ones that are white and yet slightly see-through, enough that you can clearly see the outline of his rock-hard pecs and taut nipples through the fabric. For a split second, I imagine my lips wrapped around them as he thrusts his cock deep inside me.
I know. I’m hornier than a French prostitute in a bathhouse needing to pay rent.
I haven’t had sex in over a year. Sue me.
“Good Lord. Is it like a hundred degrees out there today or what?” I hold onto the door of Taddy’s SUV.
“Seems like it just went up a few degrees in the last hour,” the stranger says in my direction. I guess he overhead me.
“I’m Viveca Farnworth.” I stick out my hand to shake his. “Friends call me Vive. They use to call me Party Girl Vive, but I guess that won’t apply here.”
Jaw set, he grins at me as if he’s forcing a smile. Or trying to keep his composure.
“And who might you be?”
“I’m your new roommate,” he says, throwing a duffel bag over his shoulder. Without giving me any more thought, or even his name, he struts his tall thick legs, which are decorated by the juiciest bubble butt I’ve ever seen on a man, into the main office.
“Someone’s getting fucked tonight,” Blake declares in a low voice.
Lex laughs so hard she snorts.
“It’s been so long, I don’t think I’d even know what to do if we got in bed together,” I confess.
“Easy. You lie on your back, hold onto your breasts to prevent them from falling east and west, put your legs up in the air, and pray, ‘Thank you, Jesus, for bringing me this tall sexy man.’ Then you take a pounding like a good girl,” Taddy replies.
“Doesn’t he look familiar? I swear I know him from somewhere,” I ask, scanning their faces for some type of confirmation. That’s the shitty thing about my years of drinking; most of my life has been one big blur.
“Oh he’s famous all right. I can’t put my finger on it, but I know we know him.”
“From Brill, Inc.’s parties?” I ask.
“No. That’s not it,” Taddy replies.
“Give me a day or two. It’ll come to me. Something tells me he knows Poppy White,” Lex states.
Hearing her name causes my eyes to involuntarily roll.
“Don’t be like that,” Lex scolds. “Poppy’s been very good to you. To all of us, really.”
“I saw that TV interview she did on you and Massimo. It came out very nice,” I compliment. Prince Massimo Tittoni is Lex’s husband. And he’s Italian royalty. “You know Poppy is trying to buy my magazine, don’t you?”
They all nod.
Over the years, talk show host Poppy White has been many things to me: a frenemy, a media competitor, a boyfriend snatcher, a social climber, and yes, dare I say it, a true friend at times. I keep her close only because she scares me and I have to keep my eyes on her. She’s quick. Ruthless. And will surely throw my ass under the bus to get ahead in Manhattan.
“Well hurry up and tell me how we know this fella. You know my memory is one gin martini blur after another. I’m surprised I can even remember my name half the time.”
“Trust me. I’ll get the dirt on him. Just give me some time,” Taddy declares.
Make Her Squirt, Then Eat It Again
Rod
God, I hate her.
Standing on the second floor of the farmhouse, I snap the camera on my phone, taking a few pictures of Vive as she hugs her friends good-bye. She’s a lot curvier than I imagined. In her photos and TV interviews from years past she always looked gaunt, somewhat sick. Now her skin’s glowing, her body’s banging, and those breasts… fuck, I want to bury my face between them.
My cell phone chimes and the screen lights up: Ash Balmain.
“Hey,” I greet him, putting the phone to my ear. “Good timing. I just got here.”
“Any dirt on Vive?” he asks, then laughs. Ash owns LUX TV network. Think Bravo meets CNN, only bigger. They produce the Poppy White show as well as manage HerSay magazine.
“She’s gorgeous, Ash.”
“Don’t talk like that. You hate despise, remember? You’re there to take her down. Destroy her brand. Force her to sell me her magazine. Nothing more.”
I think back to Vive’s handshake. She looked at me as if she had no clue in the world who I was. How could she honestly not remember? She ruined my life.
“Right. I know,” I sigh, leaning against the window, watching Vive with her dog. Sitting on her suitcase in the grass, her eyes are closed, her head tilted up toward the sun. Her full lips stretch wide into an inviting smile as she holds her dog close.
“Listen, Rod. You need to send me pictures of her every day. You’ll start group therapy, where she’ll share her problems with everyone. I need the scoop. Find out why she was in detox. What was her vice,” he states in a curt tone.
“Don’t worry. I got this.” I say my good-byes, text him the pictures that I did take of Vive, and make my way to my room, which is in a smaller guesthouse on the other side of the barn.
After I put my clothes away, turn down my bed, and change into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, I start to smell it.
Gross.
With one hard yank, I pull open my bedroom door to see who could possibly be smoking a cigarette in the living room that separates my bedroom from the other on the first floor.
There on the sofa, legs crossed while flipping the TV channels frantically and exhaling a puff of smoke, sits Vive.
“Isn’t this house nonsmoking?”
She laughs.
“No?”
“According to the house rules sheet that was in my welcome packet, we aren’t allowed to drink, do drugs, or have sex.” Her eyes, blue and sparkling, gaze down toward my crotch, almost as if assessing me from head to toe. “But they didn’t say squat about smoking. Want one?” She nods to the pack on the table, next to her dog.
“No. Thanks.” I step closer and give the dog a pat on the head. “What’s its name?”
“It?”
“Her. Him.”
“Her name is Hedda.”
“I didn’t know you could bring pets either.”
She exhales a puff of smoke though her mouth, almost sexually. Watching the cloud rise, not making eye contact with me, she mutters a yes. “You can smoke here. You can have pets. It’s a frickin’ farm, remember? Not the Waldorf Astoria.”
I nod and then force a smile. There’s something unnerving about this woman. Like she could give a fuck what anything in the world thinks about her. I find it somewhat refreshing.
“You gonna ever tell me your name?” she asks.
“Rod.”
“Like hot rod?”
I laugh.
“Roddie. I like it.”
“Thanks.” Taking a seat next to her on the sofa, I reach across and take the cigarette from her hand, putting it out in the ashtray on the table.
“Excuse me, Rodney. What the hell do you think y
ou’re doing? I was smoking that.”
“It’s Roddick. Not Rodney. You shouldn’t smoke. It’ll kill you. Plus the smell of it makes me sick. You wouldn’t want me to puke all over that pretty blouse, now would you.” For the first time, I take the liberty of staring at her breasts. Vive’s wearing a gold sleeveless button-down shirt that is feminine and pretty. It brings out the blonde in her hair. I love blondes, especially ones with blue eyes, like hers.
“Roddick, huh?” Her head falls back against the cushions. “I’ve been here for all of five minutes and you’re already telling me what to do. You always this bossy?”
“Afraid so.” I spread my legs wide and lace my fingers behind my head.
“Well, Roddie, I don’t take orders. Nor do I care if you don’t like the smell of cigarette smoke. For Christ’s sake, it’s not like I’m puffing on heroine or meth.”
“Was that your vice? Is that why you’re here?”
“Do I look like a meth head?” Her face reddens with anger.
“No. You look beautiful, as if you don’t have any problems or addictions.”
“Really?” She leans in to me, her closeness causes my cock to go hard. I adjust myself. She notices. I can’t hide it.
“Do I turn you on?” She leans even closer, puts her left hand up to her pretty face, and smirks.
“Very much so.” Feeling a little dizzy, I sit up and clear my throat.
“Do you know what I hate about this detox thing the most?”
“No clue.”
“Not having sex. I miss it. Don’t you?”
I nod. “I’ll admit it’s been a while for me too.”
She reaches forward, then gently grazes her long nails over my forearm, causing every hair on my body to stand upright. I shift my legs, trying to get comfortable.
“I can see that.” She lines her mouth up with mine.
“Are you going to kiss me?” I ask, somewhat in shock.
Licking her full lips, she glares at me as if waiting for me to make the first move.
After a few tense moments of silence, she blurts out, “Do you masturbate?”
“Not usually.” Over the years, my coaches and managers didn’t like it when their players would jerk off before a match. They said it would kill our stamina and drive to win. Over time you just get used to not getting yourself off, saving it for when you’re with someone special and having sex in person. “What about you?”
“All the time,” she confesses breathlessly.
Unable to hold back any longer, I cup her cheek, press my lips against hers, and shove my tongue down her throat.
Her nipples tighten as I pinch them through the blouse. Our tongues dance together, first with shallow breaths and then deep ones.
She spreads her legs for me, guiding my hand between her legs.
“You want me to….”
“Get me off… please…,” she begs.
“We can’t have sex. Those are the house rules.”
“Fingering me isn’t sex.” She pushes my hand in the direction of her zipper.
“That’s the funny thing about fingering.” I unzip her pants, shimmy her shorts down to her knees, and admire her panties. Thin nude fabric with a shimmer sparkle over her privates. “It won’t stop with just my fingers.” I slide my right hand between her thighs, feeling her warmness, and sudden wetness.
“Yes, right there.”
With my middle and ring finger deep inside the well of her cunt, I pant in her ear, “My tongue is getting jealous. I have to taste you.”
Her eyes widen as she lies back on the sofa. Hedda, her dog, hops off the coffee table and takes a place on the kitchen floor to nap.
I slide off the sofa onto my knees and bury my face between her legs.
Her pink flesh stares back at me. I lick once. She shudders. Lick twice. She moans.
“Tongue-fuck me,” she bosses.
“We’re not allowed to fuck. Can I eat you out without you coming?”
She laughs. “No.”
“Let’s see.” I kiss the flesh of her inner thigh. “So soft.”
“Keep going.” She glares down at me. “Yesss.”
Licking my lips, I trace my tongue around her clit, edging her to come.
“Fuck. Yes. Rod.” She fists my hairline as her thumbs press against my forehead.
I slide two fingers back and forth, in and out, while my tongue laps up her wetness.
“Yesss. Roddie. Like that. Fuck. Don’t stop. Keep going.” Her legs tighten around the back of my head as I fully submerse myself in her.
Tongue licking.
Fingers fucking.
“Come for me.”
“Now?”
“Dammit, woman. Right now.”
I curl my left index finger inside her while rubbing two fingers against her clit with my right. She cries out and squirts a steady stream up at my face.
Like a cat in heat, Vive’s moans turn me on to the point where I want to give my tongue a break and fuck her with my cock. But it’s too soon for that. I know it is. This woman hasn’t been touched in so long. I can see that now.
As she comes I frantically lick and lick. I fucking love the way she tastes.
Just as she finishes and pulls her shorts up, there’s a knock on the door.
A young, tall woman with curly brown hair and bright green eyes enters. Looking like she came from the city, she’s wearing a business suit and heels.
“You must be the two newbies, Viveca and Roddick,” she greets us. “Welcome to Shull Farm. I’m Piper Adler, your group therapist for today. We’ll be meeting in the main house in a few minutes. Join us.”
“Therapy?” I say begrudgingly.
“Yes, every week.”
“We’ll be up in a few minutes,” Vive chimes in. Sensing my hesitation, she shows Piper out and then turns to me. “Where did you do detox?”
“Honors Center in New Jersey.”
“Hmm. Never heard of it, and I’ve heard of them all.”
“This isn’t your first time?”
She laughs. “No, I’ve been in and out of rehab since I was a teenager. However, this is my first time at a halfway house. And my first time being sober this long.”
“Sober from what?”
“Booze. Pills.” She reaches for her purse and starts to apply her lipstick. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. What are you in here for?”
“Steroids.”
“Interesting….”
“Not really. I’m a professional athlete. Correction, I was.” My spirits sink once I say that. The high I was riding—otherwise known as having my face between Vive’s legs—was over. The reality that I was an defamed and unemployed athletic star sinks back into my conscious.
“Football?” she asks, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Tennis.” I search her pretty face for any acknowledgement, as if she could possibly recall the story she’d written on me a few months ago, the one that had shattered my life.
Vive didn’t seem to have a clue in the world as to who I was, the story she blew the lid off of, the lives she ruined.
How could that be?
Group Therapy From Hell
Vive
“My name is Piper Adler. I’m a licensed clinical social worker, a psychotherapist, and life coach. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not here to prescribe medication like an MD or analyze your childhood like a PhD would in my field.”
“Then what’s the point of this?” grumbles a young woman who’d introduced herself as Juno Borgata to us earlier. Her bedroom is next to mine. She’s a mafia princess, plain and simple. I know this because back in college, we went to school with her younger brother, Vinny. The Borgatas were a well-known crime family on the East Coast. Any ninny who’d lived in Manhattan long enough could tell you that much.
“Over the next few weeks, I’ll be helping you build new tools to go back into society while sober. Sound good?”
�
��Not really,” Juno huffs as Rod chuckles from the other side of the room. The five of us sit in a semicircle around Piper: me, Rod, Juno, a professional surfer from Santa Monica named Laird who seemed to know Rod, and a sci-fi movie actress named Suzanne who claims she lives in Beverly Hills.
I nod, smiling at Piper. She reminds me a little bit of Taddy, except Taddy’s aware of her own beauty. Piper, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care much about appearances.
“Vive, would you like to start?”
“Sure.” I take a deep breath and give everyone a quick stare. “My name is Viveca. I’m an alcoholic and oxycodone addict. Although I started treatment about a year ago, I’ve been truly sober for about a hundred and eighty days. I had a few lapses. I own a magazine in the city called Debauchery. I’m single. Never been married. No children. Well, I had one child when I was very young that I gave up for adoption. That’s one of the reasons why I drank so much. You know, to numb that pain….”
“Would like to elaborate on that, Vive?” Piper asks.
“Hmmm… I’m not going to assume this group’s reasons for substance abuse. I can only tell you what I know from others that I’ve met over the years who are addicted, and myself too, that we start using to either numb something bad that we’re feeling, or to make ourselves feel better when we’re at our worst. For me, drinking started long before I gave my baby up for adoption. My first recollection of drinking was when I was in kindergarten.”
“Jesus,” Suzanne mutters.
“My parents own a liquor company. They had a dinner party and thought it would be cute to put a little bit of booze in my cup to watch me giggle in front of their friends.”
“I see, Vive. That must’ve sent a mixed message for you as a child,” Piper says.
“It did. It sorta mapped out my future, in a way. To be cute, to get attention, I had to drink. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”
I look around the room at them. Everyone here has a story to share. They’ve all heard it before. I’m going to be as honest with this group as I possibly can. “I don’t miss the alcohol as much as I do the pills. I loved getting high. Feeling tingly all over, like I was flying. There’s nothing like that in the world.”