by S A Gardner
He half rose beneath me as I descended on him, engulfing him within my heat. I lost all sense of self watching the explicitness of his response, feeling him expanding me, inhabiting me. I didn’t know how my made-for-many-stages-of-unwrapping get-up was halfway off me, spilling my breasts in his palms and lips.
Need keened for more of him and I fed it him, over and over, flesh in flesh. Pleasure scorched me. Each plunge layered sensation until I was buried, finished, witnessing his equal devastation.
Calista, the human being and doctor, lived for so many things, so many people and goals. Calista, the woman, lived for this. For him. For us.
We spiraled down, fused, sated.
I lay on top of him, feeling like I had the whole world in my possession. Then a deep confession reverberated beneath my cheek.
“Mi vida, every time with you is—everything. The exhilaration and frantic greed of a first time and the sureness, the knowing just-how of an enduring relationship.”
What I’d thought before, just put way better.
But—enduring? Could we ever have anything with that label? When each of us invited death about every day for breakfast?
We were inviting it for a gala dinner tomorrow night.
“Get off me.”
My head snapped up at his rumble. Getting back at me? His smile said he was. But he was spilling me off him, getting up.
So he wasn’t?
Even forces of nature need to use the bathroom, stupid.
But he didn’t go to the bathroom. He instead went to the console by the closed door, got a huge, square box in exquisite lavender and pistachio green with Divina splashed in creative font over it. He brought it back to the bed.
“For you, mi amor.”
No way. It couldn’t be what I thought. He couldn’t have. He just couldn’t!
So he got me a present. That he bought it in a shop that had the same name as that one in Bogotá had to be a coincidence.
My fingers were useless. He took them away from their futile box-opening efforts, kissed each one and opened it for me. And I moaned.
It was what I thought.
The chameleon-colored, indecipherable-materials evening gown I’d gaped at as we’d sat trapped in traffic for over an hour on our way to the tugurios shantytown outside Bogotá. And it was all hand-embroidered. What there was of it.
God! He had seen what had filled my eyes as I’d looked at it in that window shop. The longing, on so many levels, to experience, if only once, something so luxuriant and artistic and frivolous. Something so indulgently feminine.
That he’d understood, that he’d remembered, that he’d gone to the no doubt considerable trouble to fulfill my longing!
I threw myself at him. He blinked in surprise, received my agitated gratitude in a restraining embrace. “I’m all for near-death experiences, amor, but I draw the line at enucleation.”
I looked up in confusion—and realized his meaning.
He looked like one of those odd-eyed cats. I’d poked out one of his contacts in my enthusiasm!
“Oops.” And I burst out laughing
Still spluttering, I went down on my knees searching for the missing contact. He was behind me at once, holding my hips, thrusting against me. “Don’t mind it. I still have my black contacts. I can always pull a Marilyn Manson. We have another problem on our hands here. We’re both still nowhere near dead with satiation.”
I twisted around, charged him, had him sprawled beneath me on the Oriental carpet-covered hardwood floor.
What was that adage? Live each moment as if it was your last?
Sounded like a plan. One I should follow for as long as we both shall live. And the time to start as I meant to go on was now.
Sometime, much later, I was lying curled on my side with him wrapped around me. I thought we were on the bathroom floor. I thought this had to be death. This cessation. This completion.
I thought I heard myself whispering, “I think we overdid it. I think we’re really dead this time.”
His whisper floated down my face, as spent, as sated. “At least now you can’t say my promises stink.”
Twenty-Nine
“So this is what’s called stinking rich, huh?”
My gaze moved to our surroundings at Suz’s comment. An accurate one it was, too.
We were walking into Desideria’s mansion and the affluence I’d experienced in the light of day had turned into a thousand-and-one-night atmosphere with all the extravagant trappings of festivities in the descending night.
We were being preceded and followed by some of the world’s most corrupt elite.
I went back to contemplating Matt’s and Suz’s linked hands, clung to Damian’s and smiled. This sure looked way more than playing their parts for tonight.
My smile widened as I heard the sheer indulgence in Matt’s deep voice as he answered her. “Yeah. The mingling scents of power and decadence are stinking all the way to high heaven. Or in our present conditions, high hell. It’s about time we took care of some serious deodorizing.”
She giggled her appreciation of his wit. He pressed her closer as he bent to make a comment for her ears only and she burst out laughing and plastered herself to his side.
There was no doubt the woman would appreciate anything from Matt’s lips, vocal or any other nature. And he was appreciating right back. Seemed she didn’t need my advice after all. Phew. Their show seemed to be well on the road.
Now, for it to get anywhere, all we needed to do was survive the night.
Matt, Suz, Damian and me had been added to the list of those who’d be fortunate enough to be in the presence of Desideria’s guests. We were here to stud the international assembly of power brokers with pretty faces and perfect bodies to look at, and to pick from if they were so inclined.
The rest of our teams were coming through far stealthier methods, closing in on the estate from all sides, with the vineyards for cover. We’d work the inside while they cleaned up the outside, until our tactics converged for the showdown.
To get to this point, we’d had our manufactured identities checked by every attending bigshot’s intelligence machine. We’d passed their microscopic scrutiny, thanks to a combination of Sir Ashton’s and Desideria’s influence and Damian’s and Rafael’s forgeries. Every evidence to our characters’ existence was documented by everything from government issued IDs and documents, witness reports to amazingly doctored videos of those characters’ notorious exploits in the world of so-called classy pornography.
To everyone’s definite knowledge, Damian and Matt, now Jerard and Steve, were two of Desideria’s boy toys. She called them her “nephews”, with Damian known to be her favorite. Suz and I were the prerequisite female decoys, to appease public considerations, and Desideria’s husband’s dignity.
Not that the guy cared for real what his wife did when he wasn’t around.
She’d insisted that they kept their residences separate, to keep domestic shadows away from their passionate relations. With him totally under her spell and knowing that she was no gold digger with a wealth rivaling his own, he’d been far more than satisfied with the arrangement.
That people whispered to him she was keeping a menagerie of young lovers didn’t seem to worry or faze him. As long as she remained in his life, as long as he was a recipient of all that sexual expertise those young studs kept honed, he was content.
Now we’d just passed every security check. Not that anyone could have found my hidden weapons. To do that they would have had to strip me down beyond my platform sandals, huge jewelry and mid-back-length platinum blonde wig—then take those apart. I was half-naked already in the dress Damian had bought for me.
It was reminiscent of a belly dancing costume, with a bra fully embroidered with multi-colored silk-thread patterns, sequins and pearls that cupped my breasts into an ample cleavage with nothing to connect it to a very low-fitting echoing hip wrap but sheer and similarly embellished skin-tone elastic chiffon before fl
owing into a multi-layered skirt slit from all sides so that my thighs showed all the way up to my G-string with every step. The security people didn’t see where I could be hiding anything.
Not that they’d let me pass without a very thorough frisking. I’d had to endure a few hard-ons pressed to various parts of my anatomy in their pursuit of thoroughness.
Damian had sauntered after me, overpowering in a tuxedo and truly unrecognizable now with the addition of a different nose and front teeth, a what-me-worry expression all over his face and body language. Yeah, right. I had a feeling those men who’d manhandled me would be singled out for a very specific kind of male punishment later on.
Just as we passed the huge double doors into the mansion, we saw Desideria hurrying towards us from the ballroom’s door, where she’d been receiving her guests. She passed by us, magical in a classical turquoise satin ballroom dress with fitted bodice and a flaring skirt, wafting an illusive scent I was sure contained an aphrodisiac. She made a point of caressing Damian’s cheek on her out.
She hurried towards a stocky man whom I recognized as her husband, Josiah Henderson
So—arriving even later than most of the guests, huh? He really didn’t have any special status around Desideria’s place. She hadn’t asked him to be around with her as she received her guests. This was her ball and he was just another hard-hitting tycoon on her list. And the financier/actuator of so many favors his lady’s guests coveted.
In seconds, she was escorting him inside, her arm in his, her lips to his ear. I could see her hypnosis working as they neared us. By the time he was two feet away, his dark, vicious eyes were glazing over and his full, purple lips sagging into a foolish grin. From his weakness for Desideria you wouldn’t guess he destroyed people on auto, and relished it. Up close I saw what his photos hadn’t transmitted, the constitution of a bull and the temperament of a rabid dog. I now did believe Desideria was entrapping men like him for Damian to destroy. She gave him a sensuous push towards us.
“Querido, I want you to meet, Jerard, my nephew, and Serena, my niece.”
Henderson blinked up at Damian then down at me. I met his eyes two inches below my boosted to five-foot ten height, flashed him a coy smile. But it was Damian’s reaction that should have been caught on video to be analyzed and taught to undercover agents of all times.
Damian tucked his hair behind one ear, caught his lower lip between his teeth, leaned down and shook Henderson’s hand, his eyes heavy with sexual intimidation.
God, these two were playing the guy! The invitation to a threesome, or even foursome if you considered my presence, was loud and clear. And boy, was Henderson interested. And not a little shaken. He might pay for his kink all the time, but he dripped sexual insecurity by the gallon. It was also clear it was the first time he’d questioned his sexual orientation. There was no doubt in his mind which role he’d play with Damian in the equation, and how far he’d go in it, and his excitement about it shook him.
It was fun watching him coming to grips with another level of depravity between mother and son’s overpowering sexuality.
Desideria decided his exposure had reached the correct dose and took him away from us. He kept turning around to snatch defiling looks at me and greedy, disturbed looks at Damian.
With our roles further cemented, we sauntered behind them into a ballroom out of Hollywood’s golden-era movies.
The tide of affluence and luxury rose to an all time high as we passed between throngs of chatting world shapers. They were relaxed in the milieu where they negotiated mutually beneficial manipulation and destruction with allies and adversaries over circulating champagne and canapés. Their paid escorts were hanging on their arms and onto their every whim.
Desideria had really gathered a stunning array of those.
They were a problem. But they weren’t only needed, they were expected. And then we’d already decided how to remove them to safety before we started our incursion.
I leaned into Damian, giving every onlooker a better cleavage view. “You know you’re so good it’s scary?”
He looked around, his game face in place, emanating open-to-the-highest-bidder sensuality. “You’re not bad yourself. How about we earn our keep? Give the good ol’ evil folks here a preview?”
I misunderstood him on purpose. “I don’t have lines with you, but an audience? Now if Desideria gives us this ballroom later, I have many uses for everything here. These floors, this piano, this chandelier…”
“The chandelier, eh? I’m holding you to this. But it will have to be another chandelier in another place.” Yeah. It would have to be. If our plan worked. He quirked one tawny eyebrow at me. “As for now, how about a dance?”
I focused on the music flowing from the twenty-four-piece orchestra, wrinkled my nose. “I wouldn’t know how to samba to save my life, darling.”
“That’s rumba, mi amor. You hear the suggestive tune and languid rhythm? Very different from a flirty, bouncy samba.”
“Sorry, tone deaf here. Latin music sounds the same to me.”
“I knew I’d missed something in your training. Your next intensive course will be the appreciation of all things Latin. For now all you have to do is give me slow, provocative hip motion. Think along the lines of what you did to me last night.”
Memories lurched inside me. “Oh, that I can do.”
My blood rushed to meet his hands as he swept me into the opening steps of a dance that made dirty dancing look prissy.
For the next ten minutes we put on a performance for the increasingly appreciative crowd, spreading come-hithers as we took stock of our targets’ positions. The bastards were behaving as if they’d never been in each other’s presence before.
Good.
As the music changed to a smoochy waltz, and yeah, I knew what this one was, I saw Sir Ashton strolling towards us with all the dignified grace of his title. He patted Damian on the shoulder. Damian turned to him with another suggestive glance and bow, and handed me over to him.
“Quite the show, my dear.” He smiled at me as we fell into the one-two-three rhythm. “You have captured many an eye.”
“Really?” I pretended to sway into him, offering what I’d been promising any serious bidder during my dance with Damian. “Care to introduce me to the most interested parties?”
“With pleasure.” He went on dancing until the end of the current dance, then led me from the dance floor towards a circle of men with one of our targets in the middle. Mukasa Mutima, a former Ugandan despot and a current weapons’ trafficker and the engineer of most African genocides in the past twenty years.
“Gentlemen, let me introduce my delightful dancing partner and as she tells me, our hostess’s niece, Serena Chadwick. She let me know she’d be delighted to meet you.”
After he named each of the men, I fluttered my false lashes at them all. “Sir Ashton is too kind to introduce me to you. My aunt sure knows how to gather la crème de la crème in her balls, and I’m so excited that she let me attend.” I swayed a bit to the picking up rhythm of slow rock number. “Isn’t the music divine?”
“It ain’t the music thass divine, Miz Chadwick.” That was the Texan, Dewar Hopkins, illegal immigrant importer and enslaver extraordinaire.
“That’s just too gallant of you, sir.” I turned to the leering Ugandan hulk. “Isn’t he just?”
“Name your price, woman.”
His gruff proposition surprised even me. Didn’t believe in wasting time, huh? I guessed not. He snapped his servants’ necks for being minutes late with his food.
I let out a tinkling laugh. “Why, sir, that just has to be the most flattering offer I ever had. How about we go over to the dance floor and discuss it further?”
The other men’s expressions ranged from amused to resigned to chagrined that the one who’d cut to the most offensive offer got the prize. The colossus let me tow him behind me, his simian, baseball mitts-sized hands already feeling up the merchandise.
I
met Damian’s eyes across the room. He was being almost as mauled by one of the few female guests present. Our gazes meshed on the anticipation of what would befall my molester.
I dragged the brute’s hands off my buttocks and around my waist, forced him by my determined undulations to shuffle around the floor with me.
He cut to the chase again. “I want to acquire you for my harem. Are you a real blonde?”
“And what if I’m not?”
“The price I’m willing to pay goes down.”
My smile was so bright he blinked. “I got good news and bad news. The good news is I’m as real a blonde as they get. The bad news is, I don’t take money. I deal only in assets. The other piece of bad news is, I don’t do harems. I’m independent, and time-dependent. We draw up a finite contract and we conduct our business on neutral grounds.”
Rage expanded his frame even more. “Insolent whore. I can have you killed for that much alone.”
“Oh, you won’t. I’m worth every discomfort you’ll endure to assure my services and welfare, Mr. Mutima. Every. Last. One.”
Something horrific rattled in his yellowed, soulless eyes. He was already planning how to use, abuse then snuff me. But for now, he was interested enough to play along.
I wasn’t sure that I could much longer. I wanted to snuff him, right now. It would be such an unfitting punishment for all the atrocities he’d relished committing in the course of his unnatural life.
As if in answer to my seething, the sign came.
The wireless transceiver glued to my mastoid bone behind my ear buzzed its message. The others had dealt with all security personnel outside the ballroom. All who remained were inside it. There were thirty-nine armed men interspersed all around.
I gave Desideria our prearranged signal and she walked up to the orchestra. Immediately, an arpeggio heralded the transition from the mellow waltz to a pulsing beat number and the many escorts provided for the single, or at least present alone men, jumped into uninhibited dancing. Whooping in simulated glee, I did, too. Still intrigued and needing to close our deal, my dancing partner tried to keep up with me.