by Aaron Cohen
From Charlie’s Notebook
On War
Nothing sweeter than having a hated enemy. Gets you out of bed in the morning. Puts a spring in your step. So nice to have someone you can legally shoot. Drop your bombs on the bad guys. They have it coming. You are righteous in your killing. Boom! Boom! Boom!
Remember the first night of the Iraq War, when we launched our Shock and Awe campaign? Who didn’t watch and get a thrill? The bad guys blew up. They were awed and shocked. Better than a movie! We were going to win. To win!
What? People were trying to live underneath our bombs? That was dumb of them.
You can’t have victory without war. You can’t know the pleasure of seeing your enemy surrender, to hear him admit defeat, without putting on a uniform and taking up arms.
The sight is satisfying, the bodies of the fallen on the ground. They were going to kill you, but you killed them, so you are the winner.
My friend Hank hates war. Yet he loves it. In his weakest moments, he tells me how much he misses it.
He’s broken, he says. War broke him. He has nightmares every night. If he isn’t working, gambling or stoned, he thinks, and that’s bad. All he can think about is war, the faces of the dead, the screams of the living, the heat, the pain. Yet he would go back. He admits this to me. He would gladly go back to his hell. He is pretty stoned when he says that though.
He misses the discipline. The rules focused him, he says, made him feel whole. What to wear, what to say, where to eat, where to sleep. All that restriction made his few moments of freedom full of happiness.
He misses his old buddies, men he would kill for, men he would die for. All for one in The Sandbox together. Nothing feels like that, the bonds you forge in battle. You might divorce your wife, but a war buddy, that guy you would walk over hot coals for decades later. You might even hate the guy, but you owe him, because you know he’d do the same for you.
Hank doesn’t talk about war when he’s sober. He holds back the stories, the horrors, the hilarities. Oh, he does have funny stories. They make me roar with laughter. Drunk Army grunts do funny things. The laughs are always followed by Hank’s tears. Too many of his friends are dead or hopping around on spring-loaded fake legs.
Hank thinks there will never be peace, doesn’t think we are made for it. He thinks it’s a good idea to have a well-organized war every decade or so. Without war, without the enemy always looming, ready to invade and take what is yours, what is the point in life?
Life is struggle. Joy is in the struggle, he says as he drifts off to sleep full of Bourbon and pot.
He might speak the truth. I don’t know.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Exa is in the elevator, heading down, heading to one more long meeting where she will listen to the citizens of Clark County piss and moan and whine and cry about all manner of silly, silly issues.
That’s what it’s like to be a commissioner, an elected politician, a public servant, emphasis on servant. People will bitch to you about anything and expect you not only to care but to do something about it. There are too many barking dogs in the neighborhood. Pass a law! There aren’t enough dog friendly parks. Pass a law! The streets are too narrow. Pass a law! There should be bike lanes. Pass a law! It’s too damn hot outside. Pass a law!
She is sick of it all. It’s fun to be wined and dined by gentlemen interested in currying your favor. It’s lovely to give speeches to your supporters, the darlings who work so hard to get you elected. And it’s wonderful to be more successful than both of your ex-husbands, both of whom developed incredible shrinking penises every time she showed the slightest bit of ambition.
A man who cares about making money does not like it when you make more than him. He might say he doesn’t care, but once your paycheck eclipses your husband’s, he will get his fee-fees hurt and find some little trollop to fuck.
Men. Bastards. Stupid rotten bastards.
Why did God give them that wonderful tool, the only thing that truly satisfied her needs, and then attach it to beings that are so stupid, selfish, vain and lazy?
The pretty boy upstairs in her office, Luke she thinks his name is, he looks like a boy who knows his way around a bedroom. He also wants something, something he is ready to bargain for. Would a trade really be so bad?
No, no, no, she can’t think like that. She doesn’t take bribes, at least nothing above the price of a decent dinner. She doesn’t break the law and is careful about it for good reason. There are three former commissioners in jail, serving 30 months apiece for being stupid enough to take bags of cash, not to mention free lap dances, from the sleaze kings of the strip club business.
On the other hand, that young man upstairs, the way he looked at her. Wow. She felt that look deep inside her.
When was the last time she had a good orgasm, one that didn’t involve a vibrator and a Grey’s Anatomy DVD?
The elevator doors open. She stands still, looking out into the hall. She can see the door that leads into the hearing room, a room full of disagreeable, annoying people.
She hits the 5 button, the button for her floor. The doors close.
***
David puts his foot on the gas pedal of his big, black SUV. The evidence against him and Empire Resorts is in his pocket. The vote is going to happen in 10 minutes. He has won. All is right in the world.
He is almost ready to speed dial his favorite (and well-bribed) DA, who will give the order that sends SWAT teams storming into the strip clubs, closing them down, removing all their records, putting them under investigation for an assortment of felonies.
When it’s all over, a few months from now, David will be hiring new employees for his resort, and by “hiring,” he means enslaving them. They would not be allowed to leave the premises for six months at a time, in order to keep them clean, for the good of his customers. He will test them for drugs and diseases whenever he wishes. He will tell them what to wear, what to eat, how to dress, how to walk, how to talk. He will train them, own them. God, it will be a beautiful setup.
In Washington, the girls came and went as they pleased, were disobedient, disrespectful, and never gave him so much as a hand job for free. Now, with the new law he himself wrote, he will be in control of them. And he will do it all with a seal of government approval.
Yes, they will complain. They will call it slavery, break his rules, test his patience. Bitches are like that. However, the lure of easy money will be too great. David will take 60 percent of whatever they make, of course, but when you write the rules, you get to take the biggest piece of pie. Besides, their 40 percent cut will go a long way. The girls now working in strip clubs, at least the better-looking ones, will do well once they become legal pros at The Dark Star.
David thinks this is a fair deal. For giving up a few personal freedoms (well, all personal freedoms, for a time), and for giving him the majority of what they earned, they will be allowed to make as much money as they like, much more than an average girl would make, an average girl from a broken home, full of daddy issues, with no high school diploma and no skills to do anything other than wait tables or clean hotel rooms or fuck.
David is smiling when he turns onto the frontage road that leads to the highway. He is picturing himself sitting on a throne, three naked women worshipping his cock, a healthy, strong, erect rod, not the damaged noodle that nests above the single testicle he left the hospital with. A blonde, brunette and redhead take turns worshipping him with their mouths. They all wear black high heels and nothing else. Their tongues…
SMASH!
His SUV abruptly goes sideways to the right. Glass smashes. Metal screams. David jerks violently into the driver’s side window. He feels the hot sting one gets when his scalp is broken and blood is about to come gushing through. He’s taken enough blows to the head in his life from various hard objects (a crowbar, a brick, a horseshoe), to know. He sees stars.
He tries to focus his vision through the ruined window to his left. Through the c
racked safety glass, he sees a giant, rusty, piece-of-shit Winnebago ramming its nose into the side of his SUV. He has been T-boned by a vehicle that looks worth less than the custom-made Italian shoes he’s wearing. It looks familiar. Could it be? No. Could it?
He is about to be pushed down into a drainage ditch to his right, a long cement incline that ends onto a cement plain. There isn’t shit he can do about it. He holds onto the steering wheel. He goes over the side.
The world spins. The SUV is out of control. Up and down, round and round, up and down. Metal groans. Each time he is right side up, he is glad and offers a little prayer of thanks that the spinning has stopped. Every time he is upside down, hanging against his seatbelt, he curses God and all his creations.
His head hurts. His ears ring.
Outside the front windshield, the world goes from right side up to upside down, over and over. He rolls, rolls, rolls.
His head hits the top of the door, over and over again, a stab of pain with each blow, with each flip. He tries to protect his head with his left arm, but the spinning is too fast, making it impossible to control the flailing of his arms.
Pow, pow, pow, like someone hitting him, someone with a strong right hook, nailing him right in the temple.
The world stops spinning. All is still but the sound of creaks. He is at the bottom of the drainage ditch. Angled cement walls are on both sides of him.
His head is bleeding, gushing. He touches the wound, sees rich wet blood on his hand. He is dizzy.
It is peaceful for a moment. Silent. He’d like a nap.
His door wrenches open with a sickening sound. Thank god. Someone is helping him.
The doorway is filled with a giant, hairy man, an angry man, carrying a baseball bat. David can’t think as to why, but the man looks angry. The man is shouting, but nothing he says makes sense. It sounds like words, but not words he can recognize.
The man grabs David by his jacket and pulls him out of the SUV, dropping him on the concrete.
David wants to go to sleep now. Sleep would be nice.
“Where is the thumb drive, douche bag?” a voice asks.
The thumb drive, his wonderful thumb drive, that’s what they want. He is happy to be passing out. He can’t tell them if he is unconscious.
Just before David drops off to sleep, he feels a hand slip into the breast pocket of his jacket. The hand removes the data stick.
Goddamn it, David thinks. How many people do I need to kill before I get what I want?
He nods off. He dreams of pretty girls kicking him in the ribs with big ugly black boots.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Luke is always horny, his thoughts never far from sex. He can grow a hard-on almost at will. He has never been stricken with doubt when it comes to his cock. It has been a source of pride and strength.
What he is doing now, this feels different. He doesn’t like it. He worries that his cock won’t work, that because he is going fuck for something other than the pleasure of fucking, it will stay soft out of protest. The thought chills him, which makes his cock less hard than it should be.
His tongue is in Exa’s mouth, tasting her lipstick. He smells her perfume, something spicy with a bit of musk and flowers. He can also taste something else pleasant, an alcohol, Irish cream maybe? It makes him think of ice cream, sweet and sticky.
Focus on that, focus on the taste of her, the smell of her, not your semi-hard cock or how embarrassing it will be if you try to fuck her with a wet rope instead of a stone pole. I said stop thinking about it! Goddamn it!
He slides his hands down the small of her back, enjoying the touch of her satin blouse. His hands reach her generous ass and take in each cheek, handling them, letting her know she is being groped and he is enjoying it. Women love that, a man’s hands roaming, giving into the lust, submitting, enjoying the temptation their flesh offered. Women want to be desired, this Luke knows, and he is happy to oblige.
She breathes lightly, quickly. She sucks on his tongue, drawing it deep into her mouth. She is almost ready.
His right hand lifts up her skirt while his left hand slides up the front, finding satin panties that he knows are expensive. He can tell from the thickness of the material and the slippery smoothness, the way his finger can run up and down her crack like it’s oiled.
Still, his cock is only semi-hard. Not ready to come out yet. This has never happened before. What if she gets insulted? What if she kicks him out? He has got to get hard, and right now.
Think about her ass, fun to touch. Her taste, so feminine and sweet. Her high-heeled shoes, the sign of a woman who likes to fuck and look good doing it. She is mature, sure, and plumper in spots than most of the girls I’ve fucked, true, but still, goddamn, she is hot. She wants it, needs it. Her panties are soaked. You have to give it to her. You have to. Have. To.
His cock gets softer. He is losing it. He needs to do something, before she grabs his package and realizes that he is as limp as an overcooked noodle. His normal playbook needs to be tossed. Time for an audible. He needs a new plan, and fast.
Delay a little. Delay. Give yourself time to think.
He breaks the kiss, takes her hand, and pulls her to the couch.
“Take off your panties,” he says in a tough guy voice, quiet, gruff, like Clint Eastwood whispering.
His phone vibrates in his back pocket. He’s got to look at it. It might be news.
Fuck it. Focus. Get this done.
He drops to his knees, kneels between her legs. He pulls her toward him so her pussy is open for him and at the perfect angle for his mouth and tongue. She is waxed, sporting a neat triangle pointing to her slit. Her pussy lips are pink and tan folds of soft, satiny skin crowned by an erect clit, bright red and wet.
This is not his first rodeo. He knows not to go straight for the mushroom-shaped nerve bundle that seems to be screaming for attention. How many women have told him this? It doesn’t work like a cock. You can’t just shake it a few times and expect a good result. You’ve got to warm it up, tease it, almost trick it into cumming.
He worked the sides of her pussy with his tongue, coming close but never touching the clit, driving her crazy. She is delicious, tasting of salt, musk, and life. Some women have sour pussies, some bitter, but hers, hers is sweet.
“Oh god,” she says. “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”
Up and down, light licks moving into heavier ones. She is bucking, practically trying to fuck his face.
The first time his tongue takes a light swish across her love button, a direct strike on the thousand nerves just underneath its head, she yelps, “oooooo shhhhhh pleeeease!”
He almost laughs but doesn’t dare.
This is almost too easy. She is going to go over the cliff any second now.
“Fuck me,” she whispers between pants. “Please fuck me.”
Shit. What am I going to do now?
His cock is still only semi-hard, not ready for fucking. He has got to fix that somehow.
His phone buzzes again. Shit. Alright already!
He slips it carefully out of his back pocket, and she doesn’t even notice.
He looks down between her legs (which are still in stockings with lace tops, something he likes very much), and reads the message from Ben:
“The Code, Luke. Trust yourself. Do whatever must be done.”
This freaking guy is full of vague and cryptic advice. What I must do is fuck this wonderful woman with a cock not ready for fucking. It’s not her fault. She is hot as shit. I want to fuck her, I do, I just…
An image of Leanne comes into his head. Her running in those heels and that tight skirt. Her in his arms, her body hard and hot.
Leanne…
His cock becomes as hard as advanced calculus.
He renews his tongue lashing, up and down, around the sides, teasing the little red man in the row boat, then darting away. He doesn’t want her to cum yet. She wants to be fucked, well, she is going to get fucked.
He un
buttons his jeans and lowers his zipper, slowly, making the sound that is made right before fucking commences. Zzzzzzzzp! He pulls his cock out over his underwear. It springs forth, heavy with blood and lust.
His body knows what to do now. He is no longer thinking. He has a single mission and nothing else exists.
He rises, aligns his cock so it falls neatly between the folds of her pussy, then lowers onto her, the head pressing just inside her lips. Her legs wrap around him.
“Yeesssssss,” she says.
His cock slides in fast. She is slick and tight around him. He slowly drives deep into her. He slides out and back in, and in, and in. She wraps her arms around the back of his head. He kisses her hard, sliding his tongue into her sweet mouth, filling her with the full length of his cock again and again.
She is ready. He thrusts up and grinds, a special move he invented. Well, thinks he invented, though he’s sure someone else has done it. He’s heard from dozens of women that they’ve never felt anything like it.
She breathes heavier, but doesn’t cum. He grinds faster, putting more emphasis on the upper thrust. He doesn’t do all those sit-ups for nothing.
She’s close, but still not cumming. He can keep up this speed for only so long. He is already panting, sweat dripping from his face.
She grabs him by the hair on the back of his head and pulls his ear to her lips.
“If you want me to cum,” she says. “You need to cum with me.”
She kisses his ear and then lightly bites the lobe.
Okay then. Let’s do this.
This is the paradox of sex. How much are you doing for the other person and how much are you doing for yourself? If you are a good lover, and Luke is nothing if not that, you get off on your partner getting off. And probably, your partner is turned on by you getting off. So to get her off, you need to get off, so she can get off, but she can’t get off, unless you are getting off, but if you get off too soon, she might not get off…and on and on.