by Sadie Rabbit
“You’d never have to live paycheck-to-paycheck,” Charlotte had told her last night. “You’d qualify for alimony. Even if you took a sliver of Mike’s cash, it’d be more than enough to buy a small house and get you back on your feet.”
Money can’t buy happiness, but it does make life easier. Olivia couldn’t count the number of times her mother had told her that. She’d said it so often, Olivia took it as an inalienable truth. Money does make life easier. Is that what she wanted, though? An easy, loveless life?
She shook her head, determined to stop thinking about it. She was exiting the city now on the Likelike Highway. Vegetation threatened to swallow whole chunks of the narrow road. Plants clung to everything: power lines, mailboxes, even gutters. It was as if Hawaii were a mixing bowl that had been overfilled with the ingredients for life.
“Your destination is on the left,” the GPS said.
Olivia couldn’t get over how simple Kani’s house was. It was literally a square box with a carport bolted onto the side. A beat-up station wagon sat in the shade. Palm trees, pine trees and fat-leaved bushes had overtaken the lawn, and the boards on the porch were dangerously warped. A lizard watched her from the railing as she approached.
There was no doorbell, so Olivia rapped on the glass beside the front door. She nearly jumped off the porch when a squat, Hawaiian woman poked her head out from behind the curtains.
The woman looked at her sharply, her eyes narrowed into little slits. After a moment, her face softened and she held a finger over her mouth signaling Olivia to stay quiet. The woman disappeared for a moment, and then the door creaked open slowly. Kani wordlessly pushed a package into Olivia’s hands, motioned for her to leave and shut the door.
Olivia stood there bewildered, looking down at the package. It was the size and shape of an over-sized book, but it weighed far more. Ten pounds, maybe. It was wrapped in a brown paper bag that had been covered with way too much duct tape. The whole package looked and felt positively ancient, and it smelled so musty Olivia wondered if the contents were intact.
God, I hope there aren’t any drugs inside, she thought as she walked back to the car. That’s exactly what I need: getting busted trying to smuggle drugs into Ohio. Thomas wouldn’t put her in danger, though. She knew that. Didn’t she?
Before she drove off, she took a last look at Kani’s house. She saw the old woman’s face in the window briefly before the curtain snapped back into place.
What a kook!
∞
Day Four.
Olivia tried to call Mike again. She got his voicemail again. And she dutifully left him a message again, just as she had each of the three previous days.
“Hey Mike,” she said, “I hope everything’s okay. I’m a little worried about you. Give me a call, okay? We’re having a really good time out here. I wish you could be here.”
She hung up and walked back in the cabana. Her small room was dominated by her bed. The linens were fresh and her laptop was waiting. She logged into Hotmail and was surprised — disappointed, really — to find that Thomas hadn’t written. She opened his last message and re-read it:
“This package is pretty special to me, though, and I’m not sure I want to trust it to the U.S. Postal Service,” Thomas had written.
Olivia picked up the duct-taped mass in her left hand and tried to imagine what was inside. Old photographs? A manuscript? Gold? It could be anything really. She had to ask.
Dear Thomas,
I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is I stopped by Kani’s and picked up your package. It was … a strange, experience. That woman isn’t one for talking, is she? The bad news is I’m positively dying to know what’s inside this thing, and it’s eating away at my mortal coils, whatever those are. Would you like to fill a girl in?
xoxo,
Hawaii Girl
∞
Dear Hawaii Girl,
It brightened my day to find a message from you in my inbox. Thank you so much for picking up the package. It means more than I can tell you in words.
Alas, I have to apologize for being so secretive about the whole thing. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you what’s inside, but I actually can’t tell you the whole story at this point. Suffice it to say that I will eventually. I just ask that you let me do that on my own time. Would that be okay?
As a token of my sincere regret, please accept a brand new sex whisper that I’ve written just for you!
Your faithful servant,
Thomas
P.S. I hope Kani didn’t frighten you much. She is an odd bird.
Chapter XII: Whisper 5: Sex on the Beach
I can’t think of anything but you, Thomas says as the recording begins. In my mind, I see you over and over again, kissing, sucking and stroking me. I hear your voice whispering naughty things in my ear.
The thoughts are so overpowering that I must follow you. I know I shouldn’t, but I’m not thinking clearly. My mind, my heart, my body, it all exists for one reason: being in your presence, kissing you, tearing off your clothes and joining my body to yours.
I arrive in Hawaii five days after you. I get a rental car and start my search. It isn’t as hard as you’d think. You post your location regularly on Facebook, and it’s just two days before I manage to track you down at a fancy sushi restaurant north of Diamond Head. I watch you from a distance. I feel like a stalker, like someone dirty, but I can’t pull my eyes off of you. Your legs, your eyes, your generous breasts, which you show off in a halter top. I imagine pulling your top down over your breasts and kissing you there. My cock stirs in my pants.
I want to approach you, but you’re with your friends. Instead, I wait and follow all of you back to your rental home. I park a half-mile away and walk up the beach toward your cabana. I try to imagine what I’ll say if I see you alone outside. There aren’t many words that come to mind. Just emotions. I want to hold you in my arms, lay you down on the sand and enter you every time you ask me to.
The lights are on in the rental house, but no one’s outside. I’m nearly alone on the beach, so I sit down, facing the ocean to wait. In my mind, I picture you fumbling with my belt buckle and zipper behind the trailers. I see you draw my cock from my boxers and slip it in your mouth. I imagine your hand cupping my balls. Even sitting there on the beach, I’m getting hard in my swimming trunks.
A few moments later, the patio door slides open behind me. I hear it from 50 feet away. My breath catches in my throat. I wait several moments to turn and look. When I do, I see you, alone, mug of tea in hand.
You don’t notice me on the beach in the fading light. You take a seat on a bench facing the ocean. Even from this distance, I’m left breathless by your beauty. This is crazy, I think. Literally, I could be arrested as a stalker.
But there is no reason, no rhyme when it comes to attraction. I walk toward you slowly. I’m close enough now to see that your eyes are closed, and I realize I’m going to scare you without giving you some warning.
I call out your name — softly at first. You do not stir. I move closer and call it out again. This time, I can see you lift your head from the chair. You look at me and seem startled.
“Oh my God,” you say. “You’re kidding me. You followed me here? Are you insane?”
You’re whispering, but the whispers are loud and angry.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I refused to go another minute without seeing you, so I bought a plane ticket and flew out here. ... I know, it’s crazy.”
“How did you find me?”
“Your Facebook page,” I say. “You should change your privacy settings.”
You scowl. “You really shouldn’t be here.”
“And you really shouldn’t be about to sneak off with me,” I say.
You hide a smile, and I hold out my hand to you.
“I don’t know if I should go with you or call the police,” you say. “You’re not mentally unstable are you?”
“That’s a matter of opin
ion.”
You look back at the house, see that it’s quiet, and you let me take your hand. I lead you toward the water.
“It’s really creepy that you followed me here,” you say.
“I was hoping you’d find it romantic,” I say. “Let’s not talk, though. Let’s just enjoy each other. Let’s imagine that we’re the only two people on the face of the earth.”
I hear you sigh. We’re out of the view of the house now. We stop walking, and I wrap my hands around you. You’re facing the ocean with your back to me. I squeeze you tight. Your warmth and the feel of your skin against mine already has me growing hard.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you say. “You shouldn’t be here.”
I know that you can feel my cock hardening through the backside of your bathing suit. You press your body harder into mine, and my cock twitches between my legs. I reach down into my trunks and reposition myself so that my shaft is pointing upward. Then, I move my hands back onto your body and pull you close to me. My cock stands straight up, hard like a rod between your ass cheeks.
I look to the left and right. There are just two people out, an elderly couple, and they’re walking away from us hand-in-hand. I slide my fingertips across your inner thighs, starting low and working my way higher. Then, I spread my hand out and gently palm your sex through your bathing suit. It’s soft and warm. The feel of it makes my hard-on throb inside my suit.
You move your hips up and down so that my cock slides between your ass cheeks. I let out a soft moan, pushing my hips forward gently and pulling your body more tightly to mine. Your neck smells like salt from the ocean breeze. I take my left hand and slide it under your bikini top so I can massage your left breast. It’s soft and supple. I squeeze it, working my fingertips toward your pink nipples so I can pinch them softly.
I want to do so much with you.
I want to put your nipples in my mouth and suck them. I want to turn you around, set you on the sand, slip your bathing suit aside and kiss your damp sex. I want to put my tongue inside you. I want you to kiss my cock and cup my balls in your hand.
All of these thoughts run through my mind as I slide my hand into your bathing suit and begin to rub. The hair around your sex is moist. Your breathing speeds up, and you turn your head to kiss me over your shoulder.
I keep my fingertips moving on your sex. I run them in a small circular pattern. I do it first above your sex, then below. Finally, I slide my fingers on top of your small bulge, your clitoris, and rub it soft as a whisper. Your legs shudder almost imperceptibly.
You’re such a tease, you whisper.
Still, rubbing your sex with my right hand, I take my left hand off your breast and slide it into your bikini bottom, too. I’m reaching around you, your back still pressed against my chest. I slip one finger from my left hand inside you and speed up the rubbing with my right hand. As I do, you bend your knees and push your ass even harder against me.
My cock is thick and fully grown inside my bathing suit. Now, I press two fingers inside you, and you start to moan. I look down and see that you’re standing, rising up on the balls of your feet.
You reach down to my left hand and push against my fingers, thrusting them deeper inside you. Then you grab me by the hair and pull my face close to yours. We kiss passionately. Everything fades, the houses, the beach, my past, and all I can think about is the passion I feel for you.
I sit down roughly and pull you on top of me. Your back is still to me, so that passersby just see a man with his girlfriend sitting in his lap. Hopefully, they won’t think anything of it.
I slide my hand down the leg of my bathing suit and pull out my cock. I am so worked up that fluid has leaked out. It glistens on the head of my cock. I take another hand and slide your bathing suit to the side so that your sex is exposed to the air. Very gently, I rub the moist head of my cock against the outside of your sex. I do it just as I did with my fingers, first rubbing you in a circular pattern below your sex, then above. Finally, I find your clit with the head of my cock, and I rub you there slowly, deliberately, in a clockwise motion.
I can’t take it long. I slide my cock lower, find your opening and guide myself inside. I hear you stifle a moan. It takes both of us shifting slightly for me to enter you, and when I do, I’m overwhelmed with pleasure. We are kissing again, hard and passionately as you gently roll back and forth on top of my cock.
You reach a hand down and squeeze my scrotum. Then, you bounce harder on top of me. I look to the left and right, see no one and I fully give myself to the pleasure. I start moaning. I can’t help it. I thrust my hips upward to go even deeper inside you.
“Oh, Jesus,” I hear you say quietly. “Oh, God.”
“Come on my cock,” I whisper into your ear. “Please come on my cock.”
You moan and bounce even harder. I reach down to the base of my cock and squeeze it hard. I can feel blood rush into my head, and I wonder how big I am inside of you. I feel like I’m filling you up, as if my body has fully entered yours and we’ve become two parts of the same whole. Warmth runs up and down my thighs. I want to come inside of you.
I can tell you’re about to finish, too. You take in a sharp breath, stop breathing, and then crane your head back onto my shoulder. At exactly that moment, I reach down with two fingers and slide them inside of your sex so that they’re in there with my cock. It’s enough to send you over the top.
You squeeze your legs together hard and fast so that your knees are touching. My fingers are forced out as your tighten your sex, but my cock is still there, gliding in and out, in and out. You let out such a loud cry, that I reach up with my free hand to stifle your scream. My fingers smell of your sex. I can feel a deep shudder start in your legs and travel all the way up your spine. It’s so powerful I can even feel your ass shaking against my thighs. I thrust into you faster now.
I don’t care if anyone’s on the beach. I lie on my back and push in and out of you so fast my thighs make a slapping sound against your ass. The sand is chaffing my legs and cock, but I don’t care. I arch my hips up into the air, and when I come, it’s as if everything that’s inside of me, every cell, has broken free. My cock pulses in your sex. The throbbing travels down my thighs and into my feet. I let out a cry that’s even louder than yours, and it’s as if all time has stopped. I’m still there, thrust inside of you. I feel moisture on my thighs, my balls, my ass. I don’t care. Even then, I’m ready to keep going, to have sex with you again.
“Oh, no,” I hear you say, and I look in the direction of your gaze.
The elderly couple apparently turned around and they’re walking toward us now. They’re just 100 feet away. We both jump up. You adjust your bikini bottom, and I slip my cock back into my trunks. Then, we grab hands and start running. We run away from the couple, away from your rental house, away from everything. Both of us are out of breath, too tired to even be running, but we find the strength, and through it all we’re laughing, filled with joy.
Chapter XIII: The Loneliest Woman in the World
The Hawaii days blended into a deliciously sun-drenched, free-for-all filled with fried Ahi tuna, loco moco and mixed drinks in coconut shells.
On Day 7, they went on an eight-hour Lost tour where they saw the Others’ barracks, Mr. Echo’s Nigerian village and the wooden tower where Daniel dismantled a nuclear bomb. Day 8, they chartered a sailboat. Day 9, they drove to the top of Kilauea.
By Day 10, Olivia was ready for a day without plans. She slept in and awoke to the sound of gulls over the water. Her body was drained, but her mind felt pure. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t talked to her husband in nearly two weeks. It didn’t matter that she’d masturbated to another man saying dirty things in a recording. It didn’t matter that she only had two days of vacation left.
She felt whole again, as if life was something that was continually getting better. It was in this frame of mind that she sat down to write her proposal for Olivia.
The museum director
wanted something grandiose, and Olivia would give it to her. From the small porch in front of her cabana, she stared out at the ocean and thought about deception. At its root, deception is a personal thing.
Our emotions and our bodies know the truth before we let our rational minds accept it. It’s really ourselves we deceive.
With that in mind, Olivia focused on creating an exhibit that made people confront her photographs alone, not surrounded by their friends or family. She wanted everyone to experience her work on their own level, in silence. This is what she wrote on the sheet of paper in her lap:
“The entrance will be a small room with eight doors, and each door will be labeled with a ‘deception.’ Beside the deception will be a lever. The guest should pull the lever beside the ‘deception’ they most often engage in. There will be eight options:
1: Acting confident when I’m not
2: Pretending like I love my significant other
3: Acting like I’ve never masturbated or looked at pornography
4: Pretending to believe in God
5: Pretending to like a ‘friend’ I can’t stand
6: Pretending to like my job
7: Pretending I’m not afraid of death
8: Acting like I don’t care about my appearance
“Pulling a lever will open a door. When the guest goes through the door, they’ll be alone in a dim hallway. The door will close behind them. The only illumination will come from beams of light shooting through holes in the walls. When the visitors peer through the holes, they’ll see a room on the other side of the wall that’s filled with my photographs. Each of the photographs will show different forms of deception.
“At the end of the corridor, they’ll enter one more room dominated by an old TV. The TV will show a recording of them pulling the lever they picked a few minutes earlier. A rotary phone will ring on the table beside the TV. When the visitor lifts the handset, they’ll hear someone say, ‘Please push the red button to delete the video footage. Press the green button if you’d prefer to donate the footage to the artist for use in future projects.’