Paradise (The Erotic Adventures of Sophia Durant)

by O. L. Casper

  “It is.”

  “No, no—don’t say that. It’s sick.”

  “Answer one question. Answer it truly now. Do I have your word?”

  “What’s the question?”

  “How did you feel when you found out? When you found out she’d gone down at sea, buried in some watery grave?”

  I didn’t like where the conversation was going. She was acting in an absurd way, probably motivated by jealousy. I was becoming uncomfortable.

  “I felt all kinds of emotions, all sorts of ways I can’t explain.”

  “You were sad and sickened and felt for little Savannah, but you also felt relieved.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I raised my voice. “You don’t know what you’re saying. These are real people we’re talking about here. Not characters in some silly soap opera you’ve dreamed up.”

  “Forgive me, Sophia. I got carried away. You’re right. I don’t actually know any of the people involved so they’ve just become characters in a play in my mind. I’m sorry.”

  I’m glad she withdrew her assertions because I was ready to yell in public. Something I’ve never done. Still, unable to contain my fierce passion, I stood up. I didn’t know where these feelings came from, and, observing my actions, I really felt silly. Nonetheless, I hovered at the table and told her I had to go.

  She stood up and embraced me, whispering in my ear, “I’m sorry. Let there be only peace between us. I can be a bit forward in my way of speaking sometimes and I truly didn’t want it to come to this. Till next time.”

  She kissed my cheek. She turned to go and turned back again halfway down the block.

  “Call me. Come this weekend if you can.”

  “I will,” I called after her.

  She turned once more and I watched her image fade into the brilliant sunlight before disappearing around a corner at the end of the block. My heart filled with joy at meeting her. She was an incomparable friend. Overwhelmed with joy I strolled wistfully back to the SLK. Hopping in as I’d started doing, I turned the key and wended my way through the evening traffic of historic St. Augustine, en route to 26 Cinnamon Beach Road.

  Sophia Durant’s Diary

  August 30, Gainesville, Florida

  A week after the funeral Stafford called to ask if I would bring Savannah by his office in Jacksonville. I didn’t even know he had an office in Jacksonville. Needless to say I was curious to see it. I packed little Savannah into a Mazda CX-5 in the driveway of the dacha and headed north. The office was on the thirty-third floor of a highrise by St. John’s River on King’s Avenue. Standing at the entrance and looking up, the tower seemed never ending as the two edges converged into a vanish point that seemed to reach as far as the eye could see. I had to look away before I was overcome with vertigo. Savannah was in a good mood and smiled at everyone as we entered. I found an open elevator waiting. I pressed the button for the thirty-third floor and the doors closed. The elevator was unlike any other I’d seen with blue lights and marble that covered the floor and extended halfway up the walls. On the thirty-third floor I saw a large sign that read Stafford Capital Group with a solitary receptionist sitting at a desk beneath it. A beautiful blonde, no more than twenty-one, she smiled and pointed to a door marked “Headquarters,” and told me to enter.

  The place was vast and open. There was nothing in the empty space of the room, but a few desks along the edges. The windows were floor to ceiling and wrapped all the way around the perimeter. Stafford sat in a chair by the window, next to a large mahogany desk with a solitary notebook computer on it. The hallway leading to “Headquarters,” the receptionist and the Stafford company signs were convincing, but this great expanse of empty office space further confirmed my conviction that the Stafford Capital Group was nothing but a front company.

  He called out from across the room in a boisterous voice, “Hey.”

  I brought the baby over and he took her out of the stroller and embraced her. I watched father and daughter smile together and enjoy one another’s embrace. I basked in the glow emanating from them. The three of us together was a picture of perfection. If the goal of forming a familial bond between the three of us had already occurred to me, that was the moment it crystallized and turned into an overwhelming desire.

  “What do you think of my baby girl, Sophia?”

  “She’s amazing.”

  “This is the first time it’s been just the three of us.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Let me show you around the office. No one’s here right now as it’s a Saturday, but this office normally is filled with only about five or six people. They bring their laptops, plug them into the various LCD flat screens around the room and practice the tedious process of stock analysis five days a week. They answer only to themselves most of the time. They answer to me only if there is a problem or if they are losing money, which is mostly their only problem. Early on in my career, after I had made a small fortune, I went around the various big investment firms in New York and hand selected the finest in the business. I poached them all and brought them here. Now they enjoy a much better climate, access to less snobby, more attractive women, and generally a better life.”

  “Are they all bachelors?”

  “Mostly. If they’re not, they act like they are.”

  “I see, and would you set me up with one of them?” I smiled.

  “Romantically or as a job?”

  “Either/or.”

  He laughed.

  “Sometimes I can’t tell if your serious or not.”

  “I have that same problem.”

  He laughed again, bouncing Savannah on his knee.

  He looked as though he was about to speak, but then he stopped suddenly.

  “Go on, say it.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “Nothing about a job here.”

  “I need you as my daughter’s nanny. Besides, that puts you closer to me and ensures easier access.”

  I smiled.

  “I could do both.”

  “I’m sure you could. First I would have to assess your level of knowledge, followed by some training in the company.”

  “I can do that. What do you need to know?”

  “You would have to speak with one of my guys. Unfortunately I’ve grown a bit out of touch—I suppose that’s how to put it.”

  “I understand. You’ve been very successful in the past; you delegate now.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And to be honest with you, I’ve outgrown it. This stuff bores me.”

  You never knew anything about it.

  “I’m very interested. But I’ll give you some space. You can decide when you want to begin your assessment and my training.”

  “Why thank you, Sophia.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “With all that’s happened…it’s just,” I struggled to find words, “…you must be feeling very tired. It’s a lot to process, I’m sure. I can’t imagine, but…you know what I’m getting at.”

  “I do. Look, Sophia.”

  He looked down and rubbed his eyes before continuing. He had the appearance of someone very tired indeed.

  “You’ve been so supportive. And I’m very grateful. You’ve come to mean something to me. I’m speaking of my inner life. Not many people reach that level of understanding with me. Granted it’s happened in a short time with us and I want to take a step back, give it some time, and see where it takes us. To be completely honest—and I may as well be, considering you seem to be something of a mind reader—I’m pretty blown away by you. I won’t make any hackneyed attempt at trying to describe how I see you or how you make me feel, but having your acquaintance feels like something of a rare gift. I don’t know if I speak for myself alone, but—”

  I cut him off, “—You don’t.”

  He smiled.

  “A connection like this is a very rare thing. It doesn’t crop up that often, and when
it does…” he trailed off.

  He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes shut and he fell asleep. Savannah patted him with an open palm on the cheek a few times before I took her and held her in my arms. I was a little surprised, but I knew the man didn’t sleep often, was frequently tired—this was understandable. Still, I wished he had finished the sentence. I sat down on the floor, set Savannah next to me and we played together, making faces and touching hands. I felt a wave of Serotonin release in my brain. I swam in the feeling of having reached a long sought after plateau in life. For so many years it felt I had struggled and barely survived, and now the trend was changing. The heights were within reach at long last. Or so I thought.

  The North Florida countryside passed in a chaotic blur as I took the SLK over a hundred on FL-20 headed west. The sky was clear, turning a deep maroon as the sun touched the tips of the trees. There was the sensation of being drawn toward the sun as though, upon reaching it, I would learn some lost, magical secret about the keys to achieving everything I ever wanted in life; right now that was making a stable family life with Stafford and Savannah. So near to that, looking toward the sun, I received the strange sensation that the sun shone for me and me alone. The sound of my mother’s voice once saying, “Don’t count your chickens,” came to mind. This thought was my first intimation that there could still be a long, arduous struggle between where I was and where I wanted to be, and with this my spirits sank a little. This was probably for the best considering I had been on cloud nine all week, and especially since the conversation with Stafford in his office.

  I got off FL-20 and moved through the forests and fields on the outskirts of Gainesville, following a route I knew well to 117 Evergreen Drive. I pulled up to the country home with the sort of floating feeling one gets on finally returning home after a long and perilous voyage into far off unknown lands. Julie’s car was parked in the driveway and I could see her in one of the upstairs windows of her room. As soon as I got inside, I hurried up the stairs to her room.

  The last light of the setting sun illuminated her room in a glow that reminded me of the soft lighting used in a Playboy shoot. To enter the room with Julie was to enter a safe haven of perfect peace. She was the only constant in my life, the only safe repository of emotion. Julie was putting some books back on the shelf in the fading dusk light. She wore glasses I rarely saw her wear and a silk nighty.

  “You’re looking studious this evening.”

  She turned and shrieked with delight. Running up to me she hugged me with a leap and cry of joy.

  “I’m so glad to see you. You didn’t even call. I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “I wanted to surprise you for once.”

  “What a pleasant surprise it is.”

  “And how nice it is for me to be with you and you alone. It’s been so long since we’ve met in private and in this bedroom.”

  “It has—definitely.”

  She looked down, feigning a demure expression. I smiled.

  “Oh Julie, how I’ve missed you.”

  “And I’ve missed you,” she purred.

  Fireworks exploded in my head and heart. I took her hands in mine and felt an electric shock pass through them.

  “Let me change into my nighty and we’ll lie down and discuss all.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  I went into the adjoining bathroom with the backpack I was carrying and changed into a see-through negligee. I pulled it tight, observing it in the mirror, and checked my makeup. Everything in order, I went back out.

  Julie gasped when she saw me. She dropped the book she was holding to the floor in what I thought an overly dramatic gesture. I walked to her.

  I embrace her, my arms round her lower back, and we kiss. Her lips are soft and moist, pressed against mine, I see her eyes close and close mine. Fondling her soft breasts, I feel her hand searching between my thighs. She reaches up under my negligee and, ever so gently, touches my labia, running her fingers round the edges in slow circles. I gasp. She inserts a finger between the lips and moves it up and down, spreading the juice to my aroused clitoris. I concentrate on both the sensation emanating from between my legs and that of the tip of my tongue lightly touching the tip of hers. Overwhelmed with pleasure, I swoon and we settle on her bed. Feeling the cold in the room, I notice my nipples are hard as rocks and my skin is breaking out in goosebumps. She wraps a cover around us and we lean back against the pillows just looking at one another.

  “You’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve seen,” she says with authority.

  “Stop with the legerdemain.”

  “Legerdemain—who says that anymore?”

  “Oh no—I’m turning into her.”

  “Who?”

  “Isabella Gardner. She talked silly. Now I know why.”

  “Why?”

  She shook her head as though I was insane.

  “It’s being with him. Who could possibly hold that down?”

  “You better start getting your head around it if you want to be with him.”

  “Will I become some batty old crone like Isabella was?”

  I feel at once dismayed at having said it.

  “You’re not her. You never were her. You never will be her.”

  “You’re right. It’s just…I’m scared.”

  I must have a pitiful look on my face, for she hugs me and rubs my shoulder.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so lost. In way over my head. You were right.”

  I repeat the last sentence once more and begin to sob on her shoulder. I can’t explain the strangeness of my behavior except to say I’m having some sort of breakdown. All the pent up feelings are coming out now.

  “This fear and worry is natural. Just don’t get too caught up in it.”

  She kisses me as a comfort but it turns into something else. Our moist lips lock in passionate embrace, our tongues intertwine in pure expression of feeling. I’ve never kissed like this before. The feeling is as ecstatic as it is liberating.

  She breaks away, wiping her lips on her wrist.

  “I have to get this out before we get too heated. Guess who I saw today.”

  “Who?”

  “Robert George.”

  “No.”

  “He came over.”

  “And…did he propose?”

  “Not exactly. But we did discuss it.”

  “And you said…?”

  “I totally blew him off. It was the most embarrassing afternoon of my life. That’s why I had on the glasses. I was dressing as down and unsexy as I possibly could.”

  “It’s impossible for you not to be sexy; I wish I could have seen it.”

  “It was bad. I was a nervous wreck. I just wanted him out of my house. After he showed up, I couldn’t believe I’d invited him over in the first place. It should have been at a coffee shop or even a bar, but not here. I wished you were here as soon as he got here.”

  “You should have had someone. It could have been dangerous.”

  “I know. But really—he’s not that bad of a guy. I just…there’s no chemistry. None. And, on top of that, he’s a complete imbecile.”

  “He has money, right? An inheritance.”

  “Yeah, obviously it’s been a stifling factor in his life.”

  “Really?”

  She fell into silence. I promptly changed the subject.

  “Did you read my diary?”

  “I did.”

  She looks apprehensive, like she doesn’t know what to say.

  “You’re a lot stronger person than I ever would have thought,” she says. “It was incredible, a bit revealing at times, but that’s who you are, expressive in writing. I really got into all the feelings and it was all very visual so I didn’t have trouble imagining any of it. Makes me really want to see the villa on—Eleuthera, is it?”

  “Eleuthera, yeah?”

  “If I was you I’d be too scared, I’d walk away. The money is attractive, but no one needs that much. I
would find someone less rich, and a little more transparent.”

  “I know you think it’s about the money. That’s understandable. But as much as it may seem that way, really it’s not.”

  “Then I wish you luck, soul sister.”

  “Thanks, soul mate.”

  We don’t talk about it anymore, or anything else for that matter. We kiss and become very aroused, but I’m just so tired, sleep deprived, and emotionally exhausted that I collapse into her arms in a deep sleep. I dream of myself floating above her, watching my body rest in her arms before the dream fades to nothingness.

  Morning—the first rays of dawn illuminate the room. My first sensation on waking is that of our bodies entwined. My bent knee between her legs. Her warm thigh folded over my hip. I open my eyes to see her returning my gaze. She smiles.

  “Morning, Gorgeous,” she says and blinks.

  We kiss briefly, pause, and kiss some more. Tongues merrymaking, I touch her breasts, cupping the tips together in one hand. They overflow, much too large for the grasp of a single open palm. I love the feel of real breasts. Nature makes them better than man ever could. I kiss along her long neck, down her chest, along the edge of one of her breasts, making my way to the nipple. The breast is all broke out in tiny goosebumps that feel divine on my tongue. I tap my tongue in a circle on the skin around the nipple. Finally I put the nipple in my mouth and suck on it. Hard and soft at the same time, I thoroughly enjoy the feeling of power as I suck. Doing so, I run my arm along her side to her thigh, and, fingertips traversing the front, I find the smooth, wet lips between her legs. Her labia are large and so is her clit, which I find with gleeful fingertips and stroke. It’s difficult to trap it with the ends of my fingers as it slides around in all her lovely fluid. I feel her other thigh, and notice the wet running down to the bed.

  Gently she takes control: she presses my shoulder back down on the bed, easing me onto my back. She runs her forefingers down my neck, plays with my breasts, cupping their sides, causing them to press together in the middle, giving me massive cleavage. She lets them go and continues down with her forefingers, past the stomach to the soft lips below. I spread my legs and she puts her mouth on me. She tongues my labia, the outsides first followed by the insides, like a pro. Then she turns to my pink pearl. It’s fully erect and she plays with it gently, sucking it into her mouth and tapping it with her tongue. Waves of erotic pleasure rise in my body from the point of the clitoris on up through my chest and head. She sits up and teases me, running her hands along my legs, up my thighs, and finally to that special place—Venus Hügel, as the Germans call it, or Venus Hill. One of my favorite names. She reaches over the edge of the bed and comes back up with a two-headed pink vibrator, each end about six inches long. She turns it on and rubs one of the tips across my lips before inserting the head gently through my slit. Sliding it back and forth she gradually pushes it deeper and deeper, till it’s all the way in. The pleasure is unbelievable. She sticks the other end in her slit and, each of us gripping the center, we fuck. Moments later, at the height of ecstasy, I struggle to hold onto my senses and lose consciousness.