MARK: I’m free now.
I try to think of what to say without being rude.
SOPHIA: I’m sort of in the middle of something. Can it wait a bit?
MARK: If you don’t come soon I’ll probably fall asleep. It’s up to you.
SOPHIA: I’ll come now.
I wrote this last without even thinking about it. I felt immediately sorry I did so, looking at Anna slunk back, looking at me.
“It’s okay if you have to go.”
I didn’t speak at first, trying to find the words in the haze and clouds that filled my mind.
“It’s okay,” she repeated.
“It’s about work—I think.”
“Some kind of work,” she said smiling. “I saw the expression on your face change when you saw who it was from. I won’t say anything.”
“Thank you.”
This response came automatically. I didn’t even process what she said any more than to know it was a declaration of protection. Did I trust Anna? I wanted to, but really I didn’t. I didn’t trust anyone. But I hadn’t revealed anything that made me terribly vulnerable. Moreover, I didn’t care. I was going for broke. If I got fired I wouldn’t care. I was living life all the way up and that’s all that mattered. Or at least I thought so, in that foggy brain of mine.
“We can pick up another time. Or not. As you like it.”
“Definitely.”
“Don’t get carried away in the whirlwind. He doesn’t love anyone. Not even himself. Not all the way. Only a little and only sometimes.”
I leaned in for a goodbye kiss and buried my tongue in her mouth. She pulled my head in toward her with both arms. It was hard to pull myself away.
Closing the door, I looked back to see Anna in her bed, smiling at me seductively. She was my lover on the side, and I was his lover on the side—the man with whom, increasingly, the sun rose and set. I began to muse on what sort of a man I was actually dealing with. First off, he was beguilingly charming. Initially I thought he was this and nothing else. But I eventually began to realize his shallowness was merely a pretense.
I crept down a vast corridor. Thunder rumbled and I saw a white flash out of a window at the end of the hall. I reached the last door on the right, on the seventh floor, and knocked softly as he had instructed. There was no response. I decided to see if it was open.
It was unlocked. I peeked in. My gaze fell on a large, loft-like room. All the lights were out and the room was lit by skylights and bay windows. The rain collided with the windows, completely obscuring the view.
“Mark,” I called out, my voice echoing in the distance. There were large boxes of flora and fauna extending across the room, marble pillars, and various fountains and waterfalls. Still, the room had an unkempt feel to it. It was obviously not lived in, seldom used, and not very well taken care of. I called out to Stafford again, to no avail.
The room extended off to the right, away from the sea, around a corner I couldn’t see past. I walked toward the corner. Scenery aglow in silver light, I felt my heart pounding. Around the corner I saw the end of the room in that direction. This was the biggest room in the house I had been in. In the middle of the far wall was a corridor with light coming from the other end. I walked to the point where I could see the end of the corridor and stopped. There was what appeared to be a hooded black cloak standing facing me. I could see no face inside the hood and the cloak extended down to the floor. I was horror-struck. Normally I am not afraid of anything, but in my intoxicated state I had become very impressionable and easily scared. I stared at the faceless black inside the hood.
Laughter creeps in behind me. I turn. Stafford is standing out on the veranda watching me. He holds a small glass.
I smirk, unamused.
Stafford sets his glass down on the edge of a the veranda and enters the room. In the distance small fingers of lightning extend silently down over the sea, like a scene from a horror film. The grinning Dr. Jekyll returns to his wife one last time before his ghastly transformation.
“What did you think of the cloak?” he asks with the smile of Hyde.
“Hideous. Reminds me of the film Eyes Wide Shut—seen it?”
“Naturally. Where’s the cult?” he shrugs confidently. He begins to walk around me, like a shark encircling its prey. His polo blends with the shadows while his slacks are a blur in the darkness.
“Probably waiting in the next room…waiting for you to present your newest sacrifice on the Altar of the Illuminati.”
“You’ve got a vivid imagination, Sophia.”
“You’re not part of a cult?”
“Not in the least. What cult would take me?”
“Any of them. They thrive on rich members.”
“Rich members…rich members,” he rolls it around on his tongue, as though he’s giving it serious thought.
“No, they wouldn’t have me. Or I wouldn’t have them.”
“—That’s more likely.”
“They’re bloodsuckers. All of them. That’s the only reason they have any kind of members at all, rich or poor. You can get rich sucking the blood of a few wealthy individuals, but you can get far richer sucking the blood of the poor masses.”
“I think you’ve hit on something.” I raise my eyebrows in sarcasm.
“What exactly?”
He says this as he passes in front of the cloak and stops.
“Cults are after control.”
“And money is a means to that control.”
“Is it a means to yours?”
“Of course. A silly question. Or are you implying something more?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“I am interested in control. Obviously. But only as much as it can bring me a measure of independence. That’s what wealth does. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“But then it becomes sort of an addiction. Once one already has far more than one could ever need but goes on collecting—amassing.”
“You don’t hold back, Sophia.”
I’m getting annoyed by the frequent mentioning of my name. It annoys me in general if people say my name in a conversation when we’re the only two people in the room.
“Perhaps that’s part of what I find so appealing. You say exactly what’s on your mind.”
“I hold back.”
“Yeah?”
“Tremendously. Nine tenths of what I think, at least.”
“To have the key to that mind…” he grumbles aloud, in a way I imagine a much older man would.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
I wink and smile. I think of how absurd my reactions are—our whole conversation’s stupid at this point, I suppose we’re both tired—but I’m playing a part. The part of Hyde’s lover.
“You know what the most attractive thing about a woman is, Sophia?”
“I know who you’re talking to, you don’t have to say my name.”
“I’m reminding you who you are.”
“I know who I am.”
“Perhaps then, I’m reminding me of who you are.”
“Do you forget?”
“How could I? Regarding what I know of you, that is. I know the way this body looks. Though sometimes, when I picture it when you’re not here, I can’t quite remember all the details. Specific contours, certain lines. It blurs. And then I want to see you.”
“Am I only a body…in your eyes?”
“As I was about to say before you interrupted me: the most attractive thing about a woman is her mind. It’s the brain that’s beautiful. It’s what makes a woman a woman and nothing else. It’s the level we all connect on, though so many seem to forget…” He trails off.
To say I feel building tension in the course of our conversation would be gross understatement. But I don’t show it. I’m as cool as an Eskimo.
He continues, “That’s why I enjoy these conversations more than anything—well almost anything. Sex is in the mind mostly.”
“You’re more out
spoken about the way you think of sex than any man I’ve ever met.”
“I’m open about most things.”
“Are you?”
He tilts his head.
“Who did you have a meeting with before I came up here?”
I lift my chin ever so slightly.
Hyde goes white. He quickly masks his anger with a smile. I have visions of being found dead on the anse. The dried blood mingles with the sand. Rigor mortis has settled into my gaunt corpse. Anna has seen it all and Stafford has been arrested and is imprisoned on Nassau. I spiral deeper into an abyss of senseless fear.
“A business associate.”
“And…”
“Why do you want more information? It would turn an interesting conversation into a dull one fast.”
I don’t say anything. Just look at him penetratingly.
“Is it because you’re interested in business? How silly of me; of course it is.”
Of course it isn’t.
“I’ll advise you on some stocks. Maybe even do you a favor in business. Front you something to get started. Is that what you want?”
“I wouldn’t turn it down. But it’s not exactly what we’re talking about here, is it?”
I can see the wheels turning. He’s going to kill me. He suspects me of something already. Maybe he thinks I’m a secret agent from the IRS, or a special agent of the FBI. He’s got a maddening look in his eyes. A look that makes the eyes of the ancestors in the House of Usher look like those of the seven dwarves.
Stafford smiles again and steps back, looking to the floor. He’s trying to play humble, disarming, shy even. Why the act? He’s a wolf playing a sheep. I don’t buy it. Not for a second. This pimp of stolen goods. Drug trafficker. Whatever sort of criminal he is—I detest him for it with every fiber of my being. And yet at the same time, for all this mépris, I feel an incredible animal attraction. Why am I drawn with more intensity than I have ever known to someone I find almost unbearable at the same time? Why do two people fall in love who, at the same time, can’t live with each other? This defines exactly how I feel about him. He is a contemptible monster, a beast. But I find with him, an incomparable lightness of being.
“With time, you will come to know more about my affairs. Perhaps all about them. But for now you’ll have to be content with seeing bits and pieces, wondering and fitting them together. That’s all I can offer you in that arena right now. Accept?”
“Accepted.”
“Glad that’s sorted.”
At this he starts to circle again. I feel an almost irrepressible urge to rip his clothes off, to tear them asunder, and push him to the floor. Once more, I marvel at the violent, sexual feelings I’m having. This isn’t me. I’m becoming someone else, I tell myself. And it’s partly true. The only part that’s not true is the part that allows me to be aware of the two selves, one emerging from the other like a cicada shedding her exoskeleton and leaving it on a tree branch. Something for the other animals to wonder at.
“Would you like a drink?” he asks as he wanders off to a bar near a waterfall and pool.
“What do you have?”
“Scotch, brandy, wine…you name it, I’ve probably got it.”
“I’ll take some red wine. Whatever you’ve got.”
“I don’t have any wine glasses up here. Do you care?”
“Never use ’em.”
“Good, me neither.”
I take a seat on a ledge along one of the pools.
He walks over with the drinks, sits next to me and sets mine down between us. I look at him, picking mine up.
“Beaujolais nouveau. Imported from Toulouse.” His French accent is quite good.
“I love this wine. One of my favorites.”
“I love it too. One of the few wines I really like. The only one that actually tastes like strawberries and doesn’t just say it on the bottle.”
“I once drank one that said on the bottle it tasted like bacon with a hint of burnt tire.”
Stafford lets out a deep, bellowing laughter.
“Who writes that shit?” he asked, curling forward with laughter.
“What are you having?”
“Brandy to follow up the vodka I had before.”
“You need to get proper smashed before hooking up with me, huh?”
“Naturally—” then, “Of course not.”
He displays that false modesty, the almost childlike humility that I find so disarming in him.
I lean in for the kiss. Fireworks explode across our lips, lightning passes in our heads. I’m so high now, I feel dizzyingly sick. An overload of feelings. I take off his polo. Then I help him take off my shirt. I run my hands up his torso, feeling his muscles that glisten even in the near dark of the room. He lifts my long skirt, rolling it up. I pour the last of the wine down the hatch before I help him get the skirt up. He reaches up my inner thighs, sending pleasure rippling up through the core of my being. I’m not wearing underwear. He fingers my front-bottom, tickling the five o’clock shadow I did not find time to trim earlier. My bottom grass. With two fingers he spreads the lips, all the while looking on me with a holy reverence.
Stafford touches the beady tip of the erect clitoris and flicks it once, then massages it between his inner forefinger and thumb. The pleasure is coming in waves now. My once tense stomach muscles seem to have vanished in a liquid pool on the marble floor. Instinctively, I tense and loosen the muscles throughout the lower region. Kegel exercise, I think it’s called. I breathe heavily, moan, then sigh. As I sigh, he kisses me as he plays with me down below. Touching gently along the edges of my down under, Stafford kisses down my long neck, along the inner collar bone, to the supersternal notch.
Taking a break, he removes his pants, underwear and all. Like lightning, I grab his saluting penis. It’s a brusque cock, a penis with attitude. Ever so gently, I run my fingers from the base to the tip and it throbs at my touch. Nice work, lieutenant, I think as I go for the base again. I feel Stafford’s hand on my wrist, moving it away from the lieutenant, as he eases me down onto my back with the other. The ledge I lie on is cool and hard and smooth. I spread my legs for him, welcoming him. I’m looking at the ceiling now—not even at the ceiling really, but into space—as he rubs the large throbbing head around the vaginal arena, brushing my labia and erect clitoris into the octaves of euphoria. Then comes that sublime moment: he slides the tip of the head into my wet slit. He rolls it around the entrance, as though testing the playing field. Then he slips it in. I gasp. He lumbers forth. Sliding it way past the entrance and all the way home. I seem to feel his penis pressing my insides up. Could this really be happening? Is it that huge? I sigh as this happens, then contort my face. He backs up. Then thrusts again. I glance at him.
Stafford’s sitting with his hands on the place where my thighs meet my hips. Pulling himself forward. Helping himself to his newfound obsession. All the while he’s looking down at the insertion point. I can feel myself gushing all over him. It must be like a waterfall down there. He’s drowning in it. But his water viper likes to go for a swim. And he studies it and studies it. The endless fascination. What is it about a penis entering a vagina? I feel the pleasure rolling in, in waves—the beginning of a crescendo that will take hours to peak, if given the proper attention. I don’t wonder what the draw is for me. But what about for a man? How does it feel to them? This one’s quite talkative, I reason, so maybe I’ll find out. The pleasure comes in tall waves now, I’m floating, and I stop thinking of anything but that.
After an indeterminate amount of time Stafford withdraws and strokes his long shaft. As with the experience at the waterfalls, I feel nearly out-of-body as he straddles his shaft in the air above me. Suddenly I am pelted with hot splashes of silvery fluid. It covers me from my vagina, all across my stomach, to my breasts. Conscious thought resumes, I see Stafford standing, looming over me, with an inquisitive look on his face. I extend one hand, which he takes and pulls me up with. I assemble my clothes as
he puts his on. Out the window I see the first sign of encroaching dawn, a violet glow rising up over the horizon. Several hours have passed during our session, though it seems like minutes. I marvel at the thought of fucking for over four hours straight, which is what has to have happened, however unbelievable it seems to me now.
Dressed, I instinctively head for the door, feeling his burning eyes on me as I leave. I look back once at the door as I am about to exit. He does not smile or look stern. A calm, even expression graces his features as he watches me go. Out of the room with the dawn light pouring in behind me, I wonder how he could have held it in that long.
Chapter 6
Sophia Durant’s Diary (continued)
August 1, Eleuthera Island, Bahamas
I didn’t get around to looking at all the collected data till about a week after the upstairs meeting with Stafford. I hadn’t seen him, and, though I tried hard to put him out of my mind—at least during work—my mind kept coming back to the curiosity about his secretive business affairs. Via the spyware I had put on Stafford’s phone, as soon as he linked his phone to his computer, I was able to have a look at all the contents therein. Every keystroke he entered, every website he trolled, every email he sent, and everything else he did online or on his hard disk was copied to my MacBook via the Minerva program. It was untraceable because the route it took was disguising itself as part of the Norton Anti-virus software and, as it “updated” itself when he shut down, it secretly transmitted all the desired information to Minerva. The wonders of modern technology.
Returning to my room after a long day tending to an unquiet baby, I put in my earbuds, sat against the headboard of my bed and booted up the MacBook Pro. While I anxiously awaited digging into my lover/employer’s files, I turned on the TV and found something to watch in the film library. As I found myself in somewhat of an insular mood and it was raining quite heavily outside, I put on The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart. Watching the images of the streets of Los Angeles pretending to be the streets San Francisco, I felt a sense of the isolation of being on such a desolate island. The feeling had always been there on the periphery, but I had not really given it much thought till now. I loved the way Humphrey Bogart had all the smart answers on rapid-fire. Sam Spade’s adventurous search for the missing Maltese bird and the shadow of his dead partner made me wonder if there wasn’t a parallel to my life on the island, without Julie and searching for an almost mystical, idealized form of life that couldn’t possibly exist. The idea was romantic and depressing at the same time and I tried to shake it. The closer I got to Stafford, the more possibilities I saw for what could happen between us. But I couldn’t really get a good read on him. I didn’t know how he felt.
Paradise - Part Two (The Erotic Adventures of Sophia Durant) Page 2