by Gwen Allen
"I've never done this before so I can't make any promises about my performance," I warn him.
"Yeah right," he says dismissively, but I can tell he believes me.
I'm so nervous. The way I'm staring at it, it's obvious I'm getting my first close up view of a real live cock. Though I'm frightened, I want to touch it, lick it, feel it, do everything to it.
For a little while, he lets me do it my way. I know to cup his balls. They feel heavy and hot in my hand. I swirl the head with my tongue, lick every inch, caress his balls while keeping my hand busy over the length of his shaft. But then Vince wants more. He stops me.
"Open your mouth," he says.
He commands and I obey. With my chin in Vince's hand, my face burns hot with shame, but my mouth opens. He grins at the sight of me offering him my mouth to use. Bastard. Why do I want to please him so badly?
There have to be other ways to keep him under control, but I don't even want to think of anything. All I want is to use my body to soothe his anger. I want to be good at this. I want to make him feel satisfied.
While I stare into his hooded eyes, he slides his cock between my parted lips. It's overwhelming. It's too much. My eyes fall closed. I can't breathe, but I wrap my lips around it and slide my tongue over it. It feels so good and I moan.
What the hell is this feeling? For a moment his fingers caress my face then he's reaching for the back of my head and grabbing onto my hair. Sometimes he pumps his cock into my mouth. Sometimes he works my head over his cock with that tight grip on my hair.
It's hard to keep up with him. It's hard to breathe, but I'm so wet and throbbing from what he's doing. I feel like I might come. I'm like some sort of hungry animal starving for his cock as he feeds it to me over and over again.
He needs me and I'm taking care of him. It feels good, nothing like I expected. Opening my eyes, I look up at him like I adore him, like I live to make him come. And when he does, I barely manage to swallow, letting most of it drip down my chin and over my chest as Vince grunts, calls my name and curses.
Vince is breathing hard while I kneel at his feet, still in shock, and unbelievably turned on. Wiping the back of my hand across my chin, I stare up at him still. Suddenly Vince gets on one knee as he flips me on my back and lifts my legs up. He slips his fingers inside me. I know he must feel how incredibly wet I am as he plunges his fingers inside me cruelly.
Look what you've done, he says as he rubs his hand between my legs. I moan and moan. Then I feel something new. His head is between my thighs and he's licking me there.
At the first teasing touch of his tongue, I whimper and shiver so violently that he stops to laugh at me. "You aren't a virgin any more so don't act like one."
"Fuck you," I say through gritted teeth, but I'm squirming for more.
As he lowers his head between my legs again, I try to bite back the next embarrassing whimper but it only comes out as a moan. Flicking his tongue over my most sensitive spot while stroking my thighs with his strong hands, Vince is driving me wild.
His tongue sends shivery jolts of pleasure inside me, as I whimper pitifully and shudder. Oh, God I've never felt anything so good. I feel like I might scream. I can't take it. An orgasm bursts through me then another.
I mindlessly say Vince's name over and over again. As the earthquakes inside me subside, I see Vince rise up between my legs. Through half-closed eyes, I watch him and moan weakly.
"Oh, Vince," I whisper. What am I trying to say? I don't even know. He just makes me feel so incredible.
He leans down and kisses me. Our tastes mingle as he thrusts his tongue in my mouth. I moan and kiss him back with all the desire he brought out in me. I want that kiss to show him my gratitude. I want him to know how good he makes me feel.
But then he pulls away and looks down at me with cold eyes and I start to come back to myself. I remember who he is and how he feels about me. We aren't lovers. He's just using me. I sit up with a groan, a complete mess.
Vince is up on his feet, getting back into his clothes then he disappears into the bathroom. I need to get in there to clean up, but then Vince is back with a wet towel. Before I know it, he's wiping me down as I sit on the floor.
"Thanks," I mumble though I'm blushing.
"This embarrasses you?" he says, giving me a disbelieving look as he stands up again. His jacket is on over his shirt, but his shirt is unbuttoned. He looks too sexy and I have to look away.
Standing up too, I see in a mirror that my hair is all crazy. Even as I pull my underwear and my dress on, there isn't much improvement. My hair is a mess from Vince pulling on it. I can't go up to my room like this. What if someone sees me?
I smooth down my hair and try to comb it with my fingers as Vince goes into the guest bathroom again. He comes back with a comb this time, and I just stare. He makes me sit down on the bed and then combs my hair.
"Don't ever cut your hair," he tells me.
I look at him over my shoulder. Who the hell does he think he is? "Why? Because you like pulling on it when I suck your dick?" I ask him.
"No. Because I said so," he tells me sternly.
I don't say anything. How am I supposed to argue with crazy talk like that?
Chapter 12
~
Vince
I arrived early at the house to spend a busy morning in my dad's office. With Dad still recovering, I don't trust him not to overwork himself, so I'm pitching in more than usual. I have my head buried in some printouts while Dad is on the phone getting a few details straightened out with one of the managers at our Westgate Plaza properties.
Dad and I worked through lunch, but as soon as he hangs up, he rushes off to have a late lunch with Maryanne. He's taking her out to Burch Grove so they can have a romantic stroll afterward through the shopping district. Before he leaves, I see him turn off the ringer on his phone so he won't be interrupted. He does it for Maryanne's sake, and it sickens me how he dotes on her.
I still have some small hope in the back of my head that my dad will come to his senses about Maryanne, maybe even find a way to annul the marriage. It's funny how that thought gives me a slight pang, a twinge of pain in my chest when I think that Julie would be gone too. Sure, she would be out there somewhere, but I would have no reason to seek her out. She would be nothing to me.
That twinge shouldn't be there, or at least it should come from some place lower. That's the only place where Julie ever made any difference in my life. She's cute, conveniently located, and oh so willing. Reminded of her useful qualities, I linger downstairs instead of going to lunch. I heard from one of the maids that Julie was upstairs, back from the café and on her way somewhere.
I'm not waiting for her. I'm just allowing for the possibility that I might run into her and make some use of her unwelcome presence.
While I hang out, I'm going over texts and emails on my phone, declining a few invitations so I can bug Julie if she ever comes down. Before I see her, I hear her shoes on the marble staircase.
I watch her as she comes down the stairs. She's holding a stack of books against her chest. Busy checking through the books, she doesn't see me. In the middle of the staircase, she stops and turns around to go back up.
I'm annoyed that she's disappearing on me again, but I grin at the opportunity she just gave me to watch her ass. Now I can't resist and I follow her up. At the top of the stairs, she turns left, away from her bedroom. She goes into a small sitting room that doubles as a library. It was my mom's reading room.
I don't usually go in there. I haven't gone into that room much since my mother died. When I was a kid and I got too noisy when my mom was reading, she would say, "In here, it's always quiet time."
I remember her with a book in her lap, staring off into space until I disturbed her. Sometimes she read to me, but I wasn't a patient kid. Most of the time, I played on the floor by her feet and tried not to make noise.
Seeing that Julie had gone in there, I hesitate. I'm not sure I want to
follow her any more, but then I decide to hell with it. Julie was on her way somewhere, so it's now or never.
I have an itch to get rid of, and she's right there like she's waiting for me. And she's a sure thing. It's like I already have her under me before I've even touched her.
I go in and see her bent over a small writing desk in there. From all the stuff on the desk, I can tell she has been using this room to study. She's shifting papers to look under them then starts looking through a book bag that sitting on a chair. Looking happy, she pulls out a book and holds it high in triumph.
"I guess we both found what we were looking for," I say and watch her jump. I like startling her. She looks so mad when I do it. Her eyes get big, her lips part and her chest rises as she breathes hard.
"You scared me," she complains.
"I wanted your full attention," I tell her and get close, penning her in between the desk and the chair.
Then I notice the paperweight on the desk. It's a glass dome with a real butterfly and some dried flowers inside it. The butterfly's wings are blue but faded.
"Where did you get this?" I ask. My playful mood is gone, and my brow furrows.
"It was just sitting there. I don't know where it came from. It's pretty," she says, looking from the paperweight to me with an unspoken question in her eyes.
"It was my mother's. I liked to play with it when I was little. She was afraid I'd break it, so she put it away. I haven't seen it in a while." I remember pushing it over the floor like it was a car while making engine noises. Then my mom's slender fingers wrapped around it, and it disappeared. Until just now, I never thought of it even once.
"We can put it up on the shelf so nothing happens to it," Julie suggests.
"It doesn't matter," I tell her and start to turn away.
"It does matter. This is a memory. You should keep it safe," she tells me earnestly.
I stop but stay turned away from her. "It is a memory. My mother used to say, 'That's me. I'm trapped like that butterfly. I'm dead but I don't know it, and I can never escape.'"
"She said this to you? How old were you?" Julie asks worriedly.
"Four or five."
Julie doesn't say anything, but when I turn around she looks stricken.
"I would tell her you're not dead and start to cry. She would console me. Tell me she didn't mean it. But she did. Did you know that my mother killed herself?"
Julie nods. "How old were you when she died?" she asks me.
"Five, or as I used to say almost six. Always in a rush. I think the last words my mom heard me say were, 'Hurry up, Mommy.' She was taking too long to get ready. We were going to dinner and then out for ice cream. It was supposed to be the three of us, but Dad already cancelled. I kept waiting and waiting for Mom to get ready. Finally I went into her bedroom. The bathroom door was standing open and I could see her in there, in the big tub. I thought she fell asleep in the bath, but she didn't look right. Maybe she was sick. When I got closer, I saw that the water was red. I tried to wake her. I screamed for her louder and louder until the maid came and took me away."
I'm saying all this while staring at the butterfly paperweight. Julie is just an indistinct form in the background, but then I notice that she has gone very still. When I look up, I see that Julie is crying but she has covered her mouth so no sound comes out.
I grab her by the shoulders and shake her once, not hard, just to snap her out of it. She lets out a single sob then throws her arms around me. As I hold her, she's crying quietly with her face buried in my chest. She feels so small and she's shaking, but right now her grip on me is so strong.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she says and wipes at her eyes, pulling away from me.
"It was a long time ago," I tell her but she shakes her head as if she knows that for me, it just happened. "For days I kept wandering the house, refusing to believe that she was gone. I was convinced that she just needed to wake up. Then one of my mother's friends came to the house. She was furious with Dad, yelling at him that it was his fault. That he had driven Mom to it with his countless infidelities. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't understand a lot of what she said. But then she said that Dad was now free to marry his mistress. That's when Dad saw me standing there, crying, and I made him promise not to marry anyone else, not ever. And he promised me he wouldn't. He said, 'I swear it on my life.'"
"Your dad promised not to marry ever again? Vince, are you still holding him to that promise?" Julie asks as she gives me a questioning frown.
"And why not?" I glare at her. "Or are you saying promises to traumatized children don't mean anything? He cheated on my mother until he broke her heart and her spirit."
"But after all this time..."
"Time can't erase seeing your mother dead by her own hand!" I snap. "My mom sank into a terrible depression every time she heard about yet another mistress. I was so worried about her, but I was just a kid. I didn't know what to do. I just stayed close to her and watched her suffer. I remember her anxious face as Dad didn't come home, her phone calls going unanswered. She wouldn't eat or sleep. She would just pace the house. Her fragile state of mind would get worse the longer my father was gone." I stop as I feel anger welling up inside me and I stare hard at Julie's compassionate but uncomprehending face. "Did your father cheat on your mother?"
"I doubt it," she says. "They worked together all day and came home together. Sometimes they got home tense and they argued. Other times they were tired but happy." She smiles sadly at the memory. "So many times I heard my mom and dad coming through the front door, already in the middle of a conversation that might have been going on all day. They spent so much time together. Dad would ask Mom, 'Aren't you sick of me yet?' 'Never,' Mom said." Julie smiles to herself as she talks about her parents then she sees my scowl and she sobers up.
I don't know if her parents could have been as happy as she claims they were. I guess it's possible, but that isn't something I've ever seen. "Sounds nice," I tell her coldly. All I can see is my mom's anxious face, hearing her ask the maids, "Isn't he back yet?" Maybe if she had been able to keep an eye on Dad twentyfour/seven things might have been different.
Julie is biting her lower lip and I can tell she's afraid of saying the wrong thing. Finally she speaks up. "You know if you let your dad be happy, you might be happier too," Julie says tentatively.
I don't hold back when I tell her what I think of her advice. "Give them my blessing and we can all be one happy, blended family? Their so called marriage sickens me. It makes a joke of my parents' marriage. My mother's life."
"No. It doesn't," Julie says, her eyes turning fierce.
"What the hell do you know about it?"
"So you see this marriage as a betrayal. But you're not mad at your father. You're only mad at my mom," she says like my attitude doesn't make sense.
"She tricked him into it when he was weak from his heart attack," I tell her, my voice rising with every word.
"Or maybe he really wanted to marry her," Julie insists, her pretty eyes imploring me to understand. She doesn't know that she's asking for the impossible. Finally she asks, "If you loved someone, wouldn't you want to marry them even if it was the last thing you did?"
I don't answer. Instead I turned the question around on her. "Would you?"
"Yes. Of course I would. If I loved someone, I would do anything to be with them," she answers in a whisper, like it's a secret she's telling me.
I don't even know why I asked her that. "Aren't you late for something?" I say to her to bring this torturous conversation to an end.
"I was just going to the library. But I guess I better get going," she says and looks around her in confusion, like she forgot why she came here in the first place. Seeing the book she came here to find sitting on the desk, I pick it up and hand it to her.
She looks at me for a long moment then she nods. As she leaves, I realize that I forgot why I came here too. It wasn't to dredge up the past. It was for a quick bit of action, but
I got sidetracked. Even now when my eyes fall on that butterfly paperweight, I have trouble not thinking of my mom's expressionless eyes and I want to throw the damned paperweight across the room.
~
Julie
I rush away from the house with echoes of my conversation with Vince still on my mind—what he told me about his mother, but also what I said to him toward the end about marrying someone I loved no matter what.
I get in the car, buckle up and turn the ignition. Hearing the comforting, familiar rumble of the old Jeep, I smile wanly. I'm relieved every time my old buddy starts up.
As I pull out of the long driveway and through the wrought iron gate, I think how weird it felt to talk to Vince about love when we are so far from it. I guess one day I'll be with someone who I love and who loves me. But when I'm with Vince, I can't see beyond the man standing right there in front of me, staring at me so intently.
And what I see under all that forceful intensity breaks my heart. His pain is right under the crude, arrogant surface, and it hurts me to see how he tries to bury it under hate and scorn. But he has to be in so much pain after what he saw at such a young age. I can't imagine a more gut-wrenching sight than what he witnessed, and he was just a little boy.
At least now I understand why his father's marriage is so much harder on Vince than it is on me, though my dad's death was more recent than his mom's. It's because I know without a doubt that my mom and dad loved each other and Vince doesn't.
His dad made his mom suffer and Vince blames him for her death. The problem is he loves his dad too. That makes it hard to hate him. But it's easy for him to hate my mom. In his eyes, she's just a stranger, an intruder, and so am I.
As I drive to the library, I think back to the way Vince looked when he saw that butterfly paperweight and the memories came flooding back. At the mere sight of it, it was like a wound had reopened inside him.