Paradise (The Erotic Adventures of Sophia Durant)

by O. L. Casper

  “Haven’t had a problem with it before. I’m just worried…because, well…you’ve experienced a lot nicer I’m sure. You probably own a yacht or a fleet of yachts.”

  “I have a few toys like that, yes. But I’m from a humble background. I’m a nobody from nowhere whom everybody thought had no chance in life.”

  “How do you think you ended up doing so well? I mean you must know—what I mean is…”

  He cut her off, “—I’m sure it has a lot to do with luck. I was in the right place at the right time. I wished for success as a small child. Not this kind of wealth, but something…you know. Then things just fell into place at an early age.”

  “Didn’t you have like…a hundred million in your late twenties?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  I marveled at the fact that she sounded like a scared little girl. I felt sorry for her and even was starting to like her. I felt even worse because it seemed Stafford was getting impatient with her and liking her even less for her obvious insecurity. The engine started and completely drowned out the conversation. She untied the boat from the dock and the couple headed rapidly out to sea. In a few minutes they were out far enough that I could no longer detect their facial expressions. I saw them in a wide shot that encompassed the whole of the boat and the sea around it. My spying was pretty much fucked. I set the mic app to record the sound in hopes that I could perhaps clean it up enough later to get their conversation. Though it would probably prove futile.

  After about fifteen minutes of watching them I began to feel I was wasting my time. I wasn’t sure what I could possibly learn from this episode and was about to pack up and go home when something happened on the boat. Emma removed her bikini top and flung it into the back of the boat. Her arms moved down toward her feet and I saw the other part of her two-piece get flung to the back too. Stafford had her lean forward, her hands on the bow, her ass toward him, as he slipped his pants down and slipped his cock in. I felt sick at first, like I would throw up, and then my heart began pounding. I wanted to stop watching, but I couldn’t pull myself away from it. I watched enthusiastically as he fucked her doggy style on the bow.

  After a good five or ten minutes of this she turned over and lied on her back, spreading her legs for him. He squeezed his dick in and pumped her with it. Fill ’er up, man. I imagined I could hear her moaning, but in reality I heard nothing other than the sound of the wind coming up on the beach. I scanned the horizon for other boats, there was a cruise ship probably over a mile away near the horizon, but nothing nearby. Forgive me if my description of these scenes is brief; I find it painful to write them in places, but I feel they’re essential threads in the narrative sense, so I will labor on. But in this scene there isn’t much to describe visually other than their basic postures, for the fact that they were so far away I could barely make them out.

  On the drive back to the villa, I received a text from Julie.

  JULIE: Let me know when you can talk.

  I called her from my room.

  “Julie, Sophia. What’s going on?”

  “I just want to discuss with you when I can come down. I have a week off now, a kind of fall break, and I wanted to see if I might get a plane down to visit.”

  “Of course. I’ve just gotten back to my room after a bit of a harrowing…adventure. Let me get settled and I’ll call you in a bit.”

  “I’ve got to go to work soon, but you can email me if you want.”

  Email, Sophia Durant to Julie Cameron

  October 4

  Dearest Julie,

  I look forward to your arrival with the utmost pleasure and expectation. Things have been crazy here lately and I’m sorry I couldn’t get in touch sooner. I miss you. All has been too unusual and complicated to explain in a brief email, but I’m sure we’ll catch up when you come down. I’m anxiously awaiting the visit. I have so much to show and tell. I suppose the best thing to do will be to catch up by reading the diary. I haven’t kept up in it as well as I would like, so much has been going on. You are the best friend a girl could ever have. Keep up the warm correspondence and give expression to what thoughts you may wish to, no matter how strange or unusual you may find them to write. That’s what friends are for; to express our inmost loves, fears, dreams, desires, discomforts, and all else with. I’m overjoyed each time I receive something new from you whether it be a call, an email, a text, or what have you. You—my closest, most intime ami et paramour. I love you and jump for joy in my heart every day for you being a part of my life. No other passion comes near you, except perhaps realizing this vision I’m working to unfold in my new life. At the risk of sounding New Age: I love the life transcendent, and I transcend most of all with you.

  Love of loves,

  S

  Email, Julie Cameron to Sophia Durant

  October 5

  My love~

  I booked a ticket for the 16, returning the 22. It’s so soon, but it feels so far. I’ll keep this short & sweet. I love you and I’ll miss you every minute till I’m with you, and then every minute I’m without you after that. I guess this is one of those lifelong affairs of the heart. I’d be lying if I said it never hurt, but what doesn’t that’s really worthwhile in life? Nothing I know.

  ~YOUR ONE TRUE LOVE

  Sophia Durant’s Diary

  October 7, Eleuthera, Bahamas

  I need to clear the sentiment from my head, the emotion—the anger and pain—and become objective. I’ve realized and admitted to myself I’m very far gone with Mark Stafford. It’s not the money or the charm, but rather the strangeness of the man and the intelligence. It’s the mind-blowing chemistry on every level. But I don’t need to justify this to myself.

  Every time I think of him images come to mind of what he did with Emma Green on the Chris-Craft or in the Edwardian mansion. I’ve seen him seldom of late, mostly I think because of the excessive demands of business. And the more I think about it, the less the fucking of Emma Green bothers me. The actual physical act, that is. There is something that bothers me about it that I can’t quite place. It’s probably something to do with the fact that on some level I see her as a threat. If I’ve learned anything in life, it is to expect the unexpected. Disraeli, that great god of English prose and politics, said that. All things considered, I don’t think Stafford is attracted to Emma Green enough for her to replace me in his life. But affairs of the heart, especially with men—and powerful men at that—are tenuous at best. And with little standing between me and all I wish for—namely Emma Green—I don’t intend to make the slightest mistake, or let the slightest binding thread go unsown. Emma Green will have to be dealt with objectively. She’ll have to be extricated from the situation; removed, discontinued, extradited in an expedited manner. I came to the terrible conclusion last night on falling asleep, and the conclusion remained till morning and then I was sure. Though I was wavering on the method, the decision was made.

  Rereading what I’ve written here, I feel the words somehow ring hollow and don’t convey the seriousness of my thoughts and intentions. Rather they make it seem some sick mockery of a cruel admission. But how should any of it seem in the eyes of the one who wrote it? I write now as a confessional, and the following entries will no doubt grow much darker. What was once a list of pleasurable and exotic experiences now becomes an extensive indictment against me and all the people who inhabit this mordant orb I live on; it’s an indictment against my generation and the generation to come; an indictment of the age. We move from the light into the darkness. (Is that how we feel on our initial descent into this world?) Perhaps I’m dramatizing a bit, but I believe one has to in order to get all these feelings down. I know it seems odd writing all this down and keeping such a criminal account, but I’m confident in my encryption abilities. No one will ever read this unless I want them to.

  As I said to you already, I didn’t yet know the method I would use or how the opportunity would present itself. I only knew that it would. When one desires some
thing intensely with all the burning passion of their heart and soul and they see it in the mind, they more often than not attract the circumstances into their sphere of existence where they can at least act upon the fantasy with the chance of fulfilling it. This is my experience anyway. I don’t know how it works, only that it does. Looking back, I’d noticed my mind first slipping when I stepped into this rarefied world, the world of trips to the Bahamas, Porsches, and private jets. I’m not a materialist, I never was. There was nothing in owning anything for me, large or small. Possessions meant nothing. Action is everything. I’m addicted to action, always have been. And in this stagnant economy, this so-called Great Recession that is really something of a Depression, there is not much action without money.

  That I love the thrill of risk taking goes without saying, but what I was about to do was unlike anything I had done before. For some reason, unlike with everything else in my past, I did not try to justify it to myself. Was it because there was no justification, or, the more likely answer, because I had become so egotistical that I believed myself above the fray? Did I feel myself to be semi-divine and invulnerable? I began to think of Sophia Durant from some kind of odd, third-person vantage point. When I liked something I would think, She likes that. Or, if I was disgusted, I would think not how disgusting, but, She’s disgusted by that. For this way of thinking, I have no accountability. (As I write this I feel I am not writing it, but someone else is. Je est un autre. The I is another.) Whether or not I am dealing with spirit possession or some form of insanity, I know not; but you get the idea.

  But I digress. I observed a strand of text messaging between Stafford and Emma from the night after the Chris-Craft rendezvous. I excerpt from somewhere in the midst of it:

  EMMA: Enjoy my company yesterday?

  MARK: It depends. What part?

  EMMA: You playing hard to get?

  MARK: Only if you think so.

  EMMA: Let me get my head around that.

  MARK: Which one?

  EMMA: WHICH ONE?? I’m not a man…

  MARK: Indeed, but you’re aggressive nonetheless.

  EMMA: Do I need to take it down a notch? Step off, as they say…

  MARK: Not at all. I like those that come on strong. Reminds me of myself.

  EMMA: I’m sure it does. You certainly came on strong on the boat.

  MARK: Came in strong too. Or did I come on top of…?

  EMMA: Lol. You’re funny. I like a sense of humor in a rich man.

  MARK: Anyone who’s done that by himself has to have a sense of humor.

  EMMA: Maybe you can teach me investment with a sense of humor.

  MARK: Maybe.

  EMMA: When do we meet again?

  MARK: I’ve got several meetings throughout the coming days. I do want to get a second opinion on the property though.

  EMMA: Oh? I think it’s a good deal. The house is nothing special but the land is extraordinary. A rare find.

  MARK: I respect your opinion, but…

  EMMA: Who else did you have in mind?

  MARK: I was going to send Sophia. If she wants to go.

  EMMA: I’ll be jealous.

  MARK: YOU…jealous? Why?

  EMMA: She’s so incredibly gorgeous. I’d find it hard to believe if you said you hadn’t…

  MARK: Hadn’t what?

  EMMA: You know.

  MARK: I don’t discuss things like that.

  EMMA: I’m sorry.

  MARK: Don’t be.

  EMMA: I’ll leave it at that and wait till I hear from you.

  MARK: I’ll see if I can get Sophia out there in a few days.

  EMMA: I look forward to it.

  MARK: Great! Don’t get too jealous.

  EMMA: Try not to.

  Three days later I found myself driving my Cayenne down Queen’s Highway to the southern part of Eleuthera. The weather was warm, humid, and mostly sunny. There were dark clouds on the horizon that threatened to trounce the island. I longed for a torrential downpour. We hadn’t had one in about a week. In my recent humor I preferred everything discordant in nature, as in life.

  I arrived at the gate and punched in the code. It didn’t work. I called Ms. Green’s mobile. It went straight to voicemail. After wondering what to do for a few minutes, I saw Emma approach the gate from the other side on foot. She approached with a smile and an apologetic look.

  “I’m so sorry. Stafford gave you the code, right? I had to change it recently because there was evidence of someone trespassing on the property when I wasn’t here.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Was anything stolen?”

  “No, I just found fresh tire marks where no one had driven that I was aware of. I went to check the times the gate code had been entered and it happened at odd times when I know I wasn’t here and no prospective clients were here either.”

  “You have others looking at the place besides Mr. Stafford?” It felt odd calling him that.

  She blushed.

  “Well, yes. Just a couple. But if he wants it, he’ll get it for sure.”

  She opened the gate manually and I motioned for her to get in the passenger seat. I drove her to the old house in what I still considered Stafford’s car.

  “I’m excited to have you,” she said. It seemed sincere. There was something very genuine about her. I felt all the worse for what I was about to do. Then I thought about Stafford fucking her on the boat and their texting, and I didn’t care. She’s above the fray, I kept thinking to myself, about myself. I was about to find out.

  “I’m excited to be here.” Truly I was. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “I have something special in mind for us today, if you’re interested.”

  “What’s that?”

  “After a tour of the house and drive around the property I want to take you on a boat and have a look at all the property from the sea. We can even swim if you want.”

  “That would be awesome.” I never spoke like this.

  “I’m glad you like the idea. It’s a beautiful old sailboat, a Chris-Craft.”

  “Cool, I’ve never been on one of those, but it sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “It is. The sea is so beautiful here. The most beautiful I’ve seen in the world and I’ve traveled quite a bit.”

  She seemed smug and it annoyed me. I don’t know if under different conditions I’d be annoyed by this or if I was looking for things to be annoyed about, but those remarks and the way she said them really got under my skin. I fantasized about how I would do it on the boat. I felt all the pride and exaltation of the cold-blooded criminal about to embark upon one of the most sensational criminal endeavors of the twenty-first century. Admittedly my thinking was wildly overblown to say the least, but I instinctively felt that once the beast was unleashed—once I let the demon out of the bag—the hunger would be unquenchable and wouldn’t stop there.

  The tour of the house was monotonous and vile. It was a repeat of Stafford’s tour without the sex. She pointed out the bay windows and emphasized the potential of the place. Clearly that was all it had as it was rotten to its core. A dilapidated house that showed no evidence of any kind of care in the last hundred years. At one point she paused midsentence and looked at the couch, no doubt recalling the memory of passing out fucking on it. It was contemptible. So much so, I broke into her monologue.

  “Did you see something? Couch make you think of something?”

  “What...? Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. I just had a thought. I remembered when I first showed this couch—” she corrected herself, “—house…and how I moved the furniture around since then.”

  She turned white, looking as embarrassed as if she somehow believed I knew what had happened on the couch. It was strange seeing the piece of furniture up close again after seeing it magnified from a distance outside. It was surreal.

  I half wanted to kiss her and undress her on the spot, but I resisted the urge. Even if she did turn out to like it there was always the risk it might soften me to
the point that I would delay what I had intended. The physical attraction was so strong I had to avoid eye contact and even looking at her at all as much as possible.

  Cut to the drive in her Benz traversing those roads of sand. It was on this ride, cutting through the jungle, that I forgave Stafford for all that had happened with her. With the dreamlike state these entrancing vistas put me in combined with her intoxicating appeal, it took all my strength and then some not to touch her. On occasion I caught the swirls of that golden plume of hair twisting in the air of the A/C fan in my gaze, or her tawny, pure skin. The hypnotic, piercing eyes I must have only looked at three or four times in the whole hour we spent on the property before the boat ride.

  Out on the dock we could see that it was coming down a few miles in the distance and the storm was coming hard in our direction.

  Emma asked, “Would you like to go on the boat and chance the weather, or do you want to wait till another time when conditions are more favorable?”

  Conditions can’t be more favorable, I thought.

  I said, “Oh, let’s go now. I can’t wait to see it all.”

  She took my hand and guided me down into the Chris-Craft. I took note of what she wore as I followed her down: a knitted sweater that clung tight to her form and faded jeans, also tight, down to heels with straps. It was simple and elegant. Then I noticed for the first time a wedding band on her hand.

  “You’re married?” I asked with genuine surprise.

  She started the engine.

  “Widowed. But I still wear the ring sometimes. I don’t know why.”

  There was a plus; she already knew someone in the afterlife.

  I sat in a seat facing her and away from the direction in which we were travelling.

  “Come sit next to me,” she said, patting the seat next to her while steering the boat.

  I sat next to her without looking at her. I turned my head to take in the view of the open sea.

  “Are you scared of me? I won’t bite,” she shouted over the engine, “unless you want me to.”