by Lucas, Helen
But it’s not the worse thing in the world if I end up adding some extracurriculars to my school work, right?
No. No. No.
I had to focus, had to do work. I couldn’t get involved with Kyle. That was that. There was nothing else to it—it would cause a scandal and the department didn’t need another one. Besides, the damage it would do to my career… It could cause irreparable damage. I’d never recover.
I’d… I’d have to go to law school. My mother would be so happy.
A stately older woman met me on the steps of the Tulane library. Amidst all the slouchy, lazy looking college students in sweatshirts and jeans, she stood out: she clearly had dressed up for this occasion. She wore a gorgeous purple gown with a long matching beaded necklace and a light lavender sunhat that gave her the appearance of possessing a huge, beautiful halo.
“Jemma? Jemma Wilson?” I asked, approaching her and extending my hand.
Jemma’s wrinkled face broke into a smile as she took my hand.
“Karen! Oh, hun, it’s so good to meet you in person and put a face to the name. Now, let me get a look at you…”
She drew me close, her old eyes squinting into my face through her thick glasses.
“Oh, and such a pretty girl! Here, I thought you were going to be some old fuddy-duddy professor…”
“I only completed my doctorate last year,” I explained. “So I’m still fairly young. Especially for academia.”
“Lovely, lovely,” Jemma murmured, taking my hand. Before I knew it, we were striding arm-in-arm into the archives. The security guard clearly knew Jemma and tipped his hat to her, buzzing us in without another word.
“I’ve been coming here every week or so for the past twenty years to work on Maribeth’s papers… You know, preserving, editing, copying, digitizing them. We’re hoping to put out a complete volume in the next few years,” she explained. I realized that she must have destroyed her sight pouring over the manuscripts—this woman, a former schoolteacher who, in her retirement, had become enraptured with her ancestor’s writings and began to catalog them.
“That’s fantastic. You’re doing such great work. I’m sure Maribeth is proud of you.”
We chatted some more, and then, Jemma left me alone with the manuscripts. Most were in the form of diaries: old bound books that Maribeth had kept for years and years, writing every single day and sometimes more than once in a day, detailing her thoughts, scribbling out poems, or sketches of clients who frequented her brothel.
I began to page through them. I had no idea what I was looking for, exactly. I knew I wanted to write about the difficulty Maribeth must have faced as a woman trying to write in the South so shortly after the Civil War, how this would have forced her to make diaries her primary medium: writing only for herself, an audience of one. I wondered if maybe that was the only kind of audience available to a woman in the South back then.
The hours ticked by that afternoon as I immersed myself in Maribeth’s lurid descriptions of New Orleans’s exotic underworld: of the returning Confederate soldiers eager to spend whatever money they had left on evenings of pleasure with colored hookers, of the flowing cocktails at her endless parties, of the many lovers she took personally.
Amazingly, so much of her diary was taken up with talk of business: how to expand, how to advertise, how to eliminate her competitors. I wondered if Kyle would find it interesting. Maribeth had been, by all accounts, an extremely accomplished businesswoman in a difficult business and had faced, of course, no small number of obstacles owing to her race and gender. And yet, in spite of all of it, she had succeeded—she had made a fortune over the course of her life and died rich, an almost respectable member of New Orleans society, kept out of the best homes and parties only on account of her race—not even on account of her profession.
Then I came across an entry that gave me pause:
“August 24th 1871—
I saw Thomas O’Grady off today. He is bound for Chile where he believes he will find work. He is not a literate man and has always refused my offers to teach him letters and figures. He is Irish and the Gaelic race, as I understand them, prefer to work by the sweat of their brow than by the wit of their brains. It hurts me to think this is what the old masters would have said of the Negro race.
I will miss his handsome strong ruddy face and the way he held me late at night. I will miss the way he sweated and the way he sighed in my own embrace, constitutionally unused to the heat of our Southern clime. I fear that Chile will be no relief to him and though I explained this to him, he is adamant.
He offered me to come with him. With my learning and wits, he said, I might learn the Spanish tongue quickly (easy, he thinks, for I already speak French like a Parisian) and I might set up business down there where I understand that Negroes are not so hated as here. We might be married and though business will not be so healthy as it is here, Thomas believes we might have a life together.
I confess this offer gave me many sleepless nights. I have struggled with my feelings over it. Every fiber of my heart demands that I accompany him, that I cast my fate in with this man I love, but every cell of my brain, so accustomed to calculating costs and salaries and percentages and equities, sees only ruin and my brain, I am afear’d, has won over my heart.
There was no shortage of tears on my part and Thomas’s, and some harsh words, though we kissed those away. Thomas sang me a song of his village in Ireland, a Gaelic tune whose words I could not understand, and he played the fiddle too. He fiddles beautifully and I shall miss the way he fiddles on the terrace while I draw us a bath in the morning, the smoke of his pipe clouding around his head in our thick humid air.
There shall be others I know but none like Thomas perhaps. Oh, have I made a mistake? My heart might rend itself in two now. Already he is out to sea.
All ready he is gone.”
This entry, like all the others in Maribeth’s papers, was signed, simply, “MW.” There were a few dark spots next to the signature and I wondered if, perhaps, those were… Could they be… Tears? Tear stains?
Here was a woman who had built success, built a future, a life for herself in a hostile world—but at what cost?
At the cost of love. At the cost of her heart.
I felt tears welling in my eyes. I felt so close to Maribeth now. I ached for her. Ached for the choices she had had to make so many years ago, in the city where I now communed with her works.
I could have sworn that I felt her drawing me close, drawing close to me over the ages. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. A text message.
It was Kyle. I knew it without even looking.
“Maribeth…” I whispered. “What should I do?”
KYLE
Not that I had anyone to tell about it, but I had just made four-hundred and twenty six million dollars.
“Thanks, Nicholas,” I said, lounging on the terrace surrounding the hotel suite on two sides, looking out over the French Quarter. “We can announce the sale on Monday. Right at the start of trading. Give everyone an exciting week.”
“This is chump change for you at this point, isn’t it?” Nicholas laughed. We had finally sold a Russian oil firm I had bought three years ago. It had been my baby, carefully repairing all the nasty decisions of twenty years of post-Cold War hangover.
“It sure as hell doesn’t hurt, I’ll tell you that,” I said coolly, sipping my scotch.
“How’s the vacation?”
“Well, I’m having a lovely time,” I said with a shrug. “Great view of the city. Had a great plate of crawfish. Great workout: beat my deadlift personal best. And…”
“And Karen?”
“Disappeared right away into the archives,” I said with a sigh.
“That’s what you wanted.”
“Is it?”
“It is. She’s doing what she wants. Let her. She’s an intelligent woman. You’ve done all you have to. She’ll come to you if she wants you now.”
“But…”
“But nothing.”
I scowled. It would be so much easier if Karen were like other girls, if I could wave a few hundreds in front of her face—if the scent of money got her wet like any other girl in any Manhattan night club on any night of the week.
But no. The only paper that excited her had to be buried in an archive in the middle of a dusty, boring old library.
Still, it was better than heroin. That was my last wife’s mistake.
Wife. Karen would make a good wife. Just on a practical level, of course. Doesn’t drink too much. No drugs. Good, respectable job. Keeps herself busy. Beautiful—knows how to wear a dress, or rock a pair of jeans, and anything in between.
God. Slow down, cowboy. There’s nothing still. Nothing at all. It hasn’t gone anywhere yet.
Besides… Marriage didn’t seem like something I could do again. Liana had cut me deep. I hated that and I wished I could hate her, but she was too broken to hate. So, instead, I hated myself for going along with it, for being a stupid young kid who was just excited to have a pretty girl paying attention to me, even if it was only because I gave her money and didn’t ask what it was for.
But… Karen would never do that.
No, she’d never do that because we would never be anything. This was a fine adventure, but I should probably let it die: we’d go out to dinner tonight, enjoy some fine Cajun food, have a few laughs. I’d ask how her mother was doing, pretend to listen to her stories about whatever it was she was researching, and so on and so forth.
Then, we’re return to the hotel. She’d give me a chaste kiss on the cheek and then we’d both drift off to our respective rooms for dinner. I’d stay up and work and look at new cars to buy if I really got bored. I’ve had my eye on a vintage Benz for the last few years… And, of course, I can easily afford it, but if you go around buying everything you want, you’ll bankrupt yourself right away. No, I had been waiting for a special occasion to treat myself and this sale, this business with the Russian oil firm—this seemed like the perfect occasion. A perfect time to take a step back and enjoy the nice things I could buy myself.
After all, that was all I really had, wasn’t it?
Myself.
Kyle. Kyle and no one else.
I had really ought to get used to being alone. Things would be so much better if I were fine with it, if I were fine with just sipping my scotch alone on the balcony, looking out over the French Quarter.
I heard the door to the suite click open. I expected it would be the hotel staff, offering turn down service.
I staggered heavily to my feet, the scotch weighing on my brain as I reached for my wallet, getting a tip ready. But in the entry way to the suite, I didn’t find a maid.
I found Karen.
“Oh. Back all ready,” I murmured, meeting her eyes. She opened her mouth and closed it, saying nothing.
“How was the library?”
“Shut up,” she whispered finally and put a hand on either of my cheeks, pulling me into a kiss.
KAREN
“Shut up,” I whispered finally. I put my hands on his cheeks and pulled him into a kiss.
A real kiss.
Not a kiss between brother and sister, but a real kiss, a lover’s kiss. A kiss between a man and woman who were about to do much more than kiss.
His lips tasted hot and heavy and smoky, traces of the scotch still on his lips as our tongues dueled. I nibbled at his lower lip as we broke apart, his eyes scorching mine as we gazed into each other, through each other, at the people we had been, and at the people we were now, and at the people we might become—what we might become, together…
“Do you want this?” he asked, his voice heavy and husky.
“God, yes,” I whispered back, taking his lips in mine. They were surprisingly soft for such a manly man. I wondered if he moisturized.
His hands molded into my body perfectly and I felt myself melt deliciously against him, whimpering as I pressed my curves into the musculature of his body. I felt warm all over, what old ladies used to call hot and bothered. A shiver of delight shot up my body as I wrapped my hands around his shoulders, feeling their broad power beneath my flesh, barely contained in his suit. He felt hot underneath my hands, and I’m sure I must have felt hot to him as he ran his hands down my back, feeling my body, as his hands reached my bottom, cupping my ass.
I yelped into the kiss, a smile curling over my face as I pressed myself harder and harder into him, feeling the bulge growing in his pants.
“Fuck me, I want you,” he hissed. “I wanted you when we were kids and I want you now.”
“Then,” I said teasingly, pulling away from him and grabbing him by the tie, leading him to the bed. “You can have me.”
“Oh, yes, I can…” he growled and I gasped as he scooped me up, scooped me up in his arms, and all but hurled me onto the bed. I yelped as he landed on top of him, whimpering as his lips descended on mine again.
I writhed beneath him, working my hands under his collar and tearing off his tie. I might have ripped it and it might have been a three-hundred dollar tie but I didn’t care right then and there. He had money. Buy a new goddamned tie.
I worked my hands under his jacked and forced it off, tossing it across the room as his lips worked their way down my neck, down my collar bone. I gasped, whimpering and pressing my chest towards him, as his lips danced down, leaving hot, burning hot traces of passion over my warm flesh.
He suckled gently at the region of my breasts exposed already by my flirt dress, enough to make me whimper, to tease me with a premonition of what was to come, but not so much to leave a mark. I was too old for hickeys and so was he. Well, maybe he wasn’t but I sure felt too old. If only we had done this when we were kids…
“Kyle… Kyle…” I gasped as he slid my dress down, revealing more and more of my voluptuous, needy flesh.
“I’ve played this out so many times in my head, in so many different ways…” he growled. I was undoing his shirt as fast as I could, working the buttons like a madwoman, trying to get at what I knew lay waiting for me underneath.
“Like how?” I asked, curious, but not curious enough to stop taking off his shirt.
“Bending you over my desk. Bending you over your desk. Bending you over the hood of my car.”
“Any scenarios where I’m not bent over?” I asked, grinning as he sloughed off his shirt.
“You, riding me in my office, overlooking the city…” he growled, reaching down to force his hands up under my dress. I gasped, feeling his powerful hands on my bare thighs. I was glad I had decided to wear some sexy underwear—a green, slip of a little thong that had been riding up my ass all day. But it was sure as hell worth it for the reaction that spread over his face when his hands grabbed my ass, gripping my bare cheeks and driving my hips into his as he grinded the bulge in his pants against my barely clad crotch.
“We’ll have to act that one out,” I whispered back, arching my back and pressing myself into him. I thrust my chest forward, aching to be naked, aching to feel him inside of me, aching to feel him on top of me, beneath me, all around me…
“In a helicopter, over the city…” he growled in my ear, biting my earlobe. I whimpered, pressing myself harder and harder into his needy body.
“Oh, god, is that safe?” I whispered as he slid my thong down. I watched it descend my long, well-muscled legs and then disappear into the depths of what was probably the fanciest hotel room in all of New Orleans.
“No,” he said with a grin.
“Good.”
I felt his hands slide over my legs, gripping my skin hard. I whimpered, shuddering in delight as his hands traced the descent of my thong, down my muscles, down to the sensitive flesh behind my knees and down to my calves. The feeling of his hands on my skin was an aphrodisiac, a hard drug to resist.
I tore off his undershirt and I set about devouring his chest, my brother’s chest, as he kissed my neck. I dragged my lips, dragged my tongue over his broad
ness, over his powerful flesh. I groaned and pressed my hot center towards him, wrapping my legs around him involuntarily, hungering for more… I needed it, wanted it. Wanted him.
Wanted my brother, my ex-brother, my step-brother billionaire asshole.
I loved the taste of his flesh under my lips, loved the way his smooth, strong skin allowed my lips to glide over him, loved the way he smelled and loved the slickness of his hot skin, especially after I had already kissed him. I wasn’t careful with my kisses, leaving hard, bruising marks on his body, marking Kyle as mine.
“Ahh… Gentle…” he gasped as he slid his fingers along the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs.
“You be gentle,” I gasped in reply as I felt his fingers touch my hot core. It didn’t hurt—rather, it was sudden, the sudden gratification of a desire I had been anticipating—anticipating for longer than I had realized…