Decadence

by Monique Miller

  It felt unfair. I felt as if my own heart had somehow betrayed me.

  He was doing all he was to try and strong arm me into coming back to him. He’d tried bribes at first, promises, you name it and it came out of his mouth or in emails, or in letters sent by snail mail. He wanted me back, he wanted me to change my mind, but that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to be with him again knowing what I knew now. I couldn’t fuck him, sex him, make love to him ever again. Not in this lifetime or any other. What we had was over, and it was time to bury it the way his family had buried his misdeeds.

  Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I had the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, Scott had a point. Not that he truly knew that he did.

  Ever since he’d thrown out those fraud allegations against me I’d begun to think about all the things I’d been indulging in now, some of the secrets I’d kept from him all along, of my desires, of a part of myself that had laid dormant for years because it was safer to keep it that way. My secrets wouldn’t send me to prison, but there other ways of punishing people on earth--and if you believed in it, after leaving the earth as well--for some of the things I was partaking in. There was the possibility that if he knew who I really was, what I really did during my free time post relationship with him, maybe he wouldn’t like me so much either.

  “Leila, we don’t have to go back in there and do this,” Chris’s tone was reasonable and reassuring. “We can just go back to my place and talk--”

  I waved my hand, indicating that he may as well not even suggest it. Not rudely, just enough to let him know that I wanted to stay right where we were, that I had every intention of going through with what we’d started earlier--on the prowl, the hunt, seeking prey. We may as well have been in the jungle, a king and queen, a lion with his lioness.

  “Does it sound like I want to wallow in what I’m going through with Scott?”

  “Is it healthy to pretend it isn’t happening?”

  “I’m not pretending, I just want…relief,” I said to him.

  He nodded, leaning his head back against the cool concrete of the parking garage wall.

  I was being selfish. He had his crap to deal with as well. I knew that better than anybody.

  I moved closer to him, put my hand against his neck, stroked it, leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. Leaned back far enough to look into his eyes again while I cupped his face.

  “How was your week, baby?” I asked him softly.

  “Valerie.”

  One word, one name, one person in each of our lives dangling nooses around our necks aching for us to take that one step forward so we could hang ourselves. There were two people in each of our lives eager to suck the life out of us.

  “What’s the Wicked Bitch doing now?” I asked him, venom in my voice towards Valerie. She was always doing something; she never stopped, never slowed down, the consummate drama queen who was psycho to boot.

  I wouldn’t have ever thought half the things Valerie had done over the years were real if I hadn’t seen most of it with my own two eyes or heard it with my own ears. I would probably find a few of her antics comical if she weren’t causing someone I loved so much pain.

  “She wants to move to Chicago of all places.” Chris said as his voice seemed heavier, older somehow in just a few seconds of saying those nine little words.

  “What? Why?”

  “Her father lives there.”

  “Oh.”

  “Valerie’s father, Rick, who she claims is ill,” Chris explained. “Rick is also the father she’s always told me she hated, and who she told me she’d never visit dead or alive. Now she’s saying he’s ill and she’s getting sentimental enough to want to go back and make amends. She thinks that she should be the one to go back to Chicago and take care of him. And,” his tone sounded weighted down, his eyes were sad in the dim lighting, he held onto me tighter than he’d been holding on before. “She thinks Chimene should know her grandfather.”

  From another person those words would be heart wrenching, tear inducing. Understandable and commendable. But those words had come from Valerie, a master manipulator. Something else was up.

  “What’s the underlying message behind that?” I asked.

  He gave way to a sad smile. A weary smile. A smile that said he felt as if the world were on his shoulders.

  “She wants a new house,” he said. “We got into an argument over it about two months ago. After she laid out her sob story for me I checked the market listings and it’s still up for sale.”

  I could tell by the look on his face that he’d been backed into a corner. He didn’t have to tell me he was going to give in and buy it.

  I asked the only question worth asking at the moment. “How much is it?”

  He sucked in a deep breath, shut his eyes, practically exhaled the number, “Four hundred.”

  My mouth hung open and I couldn’t close it.

  “Is she joking?” I asked, unable to say anything else at the moment.

  “I don’t know anybody who jokes about four hundred grand, buying a house, or taking away somebody’s kid.”

  “She’s using Chimene as a bargaining chip again.”

  “She’s always used our daughter to get what she wanted out of me since we broke up.”

  Chris was bringing home a decent annual income and he was a good man that wanted to take care of his daughter and the mother of his child, but his hard work and good intentions seemed to be working against him. He lived in a nice modest house in a part of our city between the urban streets where we both grew up and the land of suburbia where most people strived to live once they started families and wanted stability and good education for their offspring. Valerie and Chimene lived in an upscale townhouse downtown that transcended either neighborhood and put them in a class of their own. It was the townhouse that Chris and Valerie had lived in for nearly four years before their breakup, and only a year after Chimene was born, and he had given it to Valerie, waved the white flag of defeat and surrendered the place he’d bought with his hard earned cash to the women in his life. Moved out. Moved away, but hadn’t moved too far. Only went back to see his child.

  But that was never enough, not for Valerie. Not for what she considered to be her family; and whether Chris liked it or not, when he’d laid down with Valerie and had Chimene with her he’d made them a family. They’d helped create a life and brought a child into the world and they would forever be linked by her. Valerie wanted Chris, but she was determined that if she couldn’t have him nobody else was going to get him. No other woman was going to call Chris her man if she couldn’t.

  Valerie had covered the clichéd maneuvers in making her ex’s life a living hell: Bricks through windows, slashed tires, public screaming matches that only accomplished to humiliate the parties involved. Then she pumped up the volume. Broke into his old apartment in the nice building he’d been living in at the time, trashed it and left him a note. Not too long after that she’d claimed Chimene was missing just to get Chris to come over. She’d kept driving him to court for more child support; she put Chimene in the most expensive daycare she could find and then the most expensive private preschool. Then came the even more expensive private schools the older she got along with the private tutoring. And she made Chris pay for it all in addition to the sky high child support he was already dishing out. Any girlfriend, or potential girlfriend, that came into Chris’s life Valerie threatened them to the point where their sanity and well being wasn’t worth losing over a close association with a guy they hardly knew no matter how sexy or smart or kind he was. And he is all of those things. Sure, he has his flaws, but he’s a good man who had a baby with the wrong woman. Or, in this case, the wrong crazy bitch.

  Having Valerie in his life had scared him so bad he’d had a vasectomy. No more kids. He had enough drama in his life. Chimene, his little lady, was all he wanted and needed.

  “What can I do?” I asked him, leaning in close as I felt his hands in m
y hair, then easing down my back and resting on my butt, cupping my cheeks.

  “You can kiss me.” His voice had changed. It was different and I knew what hearing that difference meant, but before I put my lips against his I asked what I felt was necessary.

  “You sure you’re up for this tonight? You’re the star of this show, remember?”

  “Kiss me and see if I’m up for it,” I kissed him, pushing him further against the wall; tongue fucked him as he tongue fucked me right back.

  In one swift movement he turned me around and had me pinned, my back up against the wall, stealing my every breath, letting me a taste a flavor that was familiar to me.

  When he moved away from me ever so slightly, our lips still touching in a teasing way, he said, just above a whisper, “I’m not the star. We’re co-stars. Don’t forget that.”

  “Are we gonna do this?” I couldn’t help being worried about him now.

  “I just needed this quality time with you, I think,” he said to me, looking into my eyes, running his fingers through my hair. “It helped me put things in perspective.”

  “What’s your perspective now?”

  “On loving you from head to toe, from your knees to your clit, to your tits to your lips. I want to make you cum so many times you forget the last few days you had. I want to go to sleep kissing you. I want to wake up kissing you.”

  He kissed me again. Kissed me so good I got wet, or at least wetter than I already was.

  He eased his tongue out of my mouth, licked tentatively over my lips, tasted what was left of my Pina Colada flavored lip gloss along with the drink he’d bought me inside the club. His kisses went lower. He eased down the top of my tube dress and exposed my already hard nipples. We might’ve been in a private garage, but anybody could still walk in, walk by. Anybody could see me. See us. See him licking and sucking my nipples as if they were really mocha flavored, as if I tasted the way I looked. Sweet like coffee filled with sugar and just the right amount of cream so your java was still strong and potent. I threw my head back, arched my back as I angled towards him and moaned as he worked his mouth over my 34Bs, as if he’d been waiting to do it all week since the last time we’d made love. Made love. Fucked. Sexed one another till we couldn’t move. It was rare when you found someone you could have all three of those things with; rarer still when you get all of that in one night.

  The last time we’d been together was seven days ago and it had been one-on-one time. He’d run the tub for me at his place, got the water nice and steamy, gave me a hot oil massage in the tub as I soaked. After the massage he’d washed me, soaped me down with a towel and then wiped it all away, drained the tub, then climbed into the shower with me, held my hips as my palms were splayed against the tiles of the shower, as he eased inside of me and out of me too many times to count, made me scream and cum as hot water rained down on us and the steam in the bathroom became as thick as a heavy fog. I hadn’t felt that good in a long while.

  Then Scott had had to come along with his bullshit and mess it all up, taking away any and all of those residual good feelings I’d had.

  But now Chris was trying to do me a solid, trying to erase what couldn’t be erased, but he was going to put forth his best effort, that much I could tell. He was already making it up to me in ways I could definitely repay him. Ways that I was looking forward to repaying.

  He put one of his hands between my thighs, and then I felt two of his fingers as they slid over my slit, played with me, teased me before he eased them inside me as he started finger fucking me. Sucking my nipples, back and forth between the left and right one so neither got jealous, as he slammed his fingers inside my sweet spot, the most sacred area of my body, the one that gave pleasure and pain, sometimes both at the same time, over and over again. He curved his fingers, found what he was looking for and started to rub that dime-sized circle on the inside of me that amplified the pleasure I felt times infinity as I grabbed onto him, as I felt my eyes roll to the back of my head, as I let myself go and let him take me nirvana in that carnal way, on that journey the mortal body was so fond on taking, experiencing, reveling in, enjoying…getting lost in.

  ***

  Back in the club I felt different than I had when we’d first arrived. I felt better. Infinity times ten fold kind of better, but I knew that feeling could improve with time. Chris looked more relaxed as well even though he hadn’t gotten the brand of stress relief I’d received.

  We didn’t say much to one another, but every once in a while he’d lean over and kiss me on the lips, on the cheeks, or on the neck, and then give me that look that almost made me want to tell him to lets skip out on the earlier plans and go back to one of our places, get into one of our own beds, just be with one another.

  I looked around the bodies all huddled together, gyrating together, laughing, drinking, talking, thinking about what they were going to do later on. Oasis was definitely a change of pace for us. Our usual spot was Mirage, a strip joint not far from Oasis that featured some of the most beautiful girls, professional girls that knew how to make fantasies a reality. If the price was right. And neither Chris nor I scorned the thought of paying for such real life fantasies. The girls at Mirage that we chose to bring back to the condo with us were all “tens”, and we may have paid them for that one time, but if we ever hooked up with them again it was at their own discretion, no charge, and we were all able to let our minds run as wild as we wanted, wherever our desires led us. Though we rarely made one single girl a repetitive escapade. Chris and I understood one another; we knew where we stood emotionally. Adding a third person to the mix complicated things; a third person could end up getting more feelings involved or more of an attachment to one or both of us that we hadn’t bargained for. Therefore, Chris and I played it safe when inviting another person into our bed. We had our own set of rules that we played by to ensure a minimal amount of drama. The last thing either of us needed was more drama. We had enough for three lifetimes.

  Chris and I were two people who were both explicitly available in every way to one another and yet we didn’t belong to one another, didn’t have those titles given to people that solidified us as a couple in a committed relationship. What we had was modern, ours was the evolution of relationships that didn’t need to be defined or labeled. We were the future. Unbridled. Unburdened when it came to one another. We represented escape, fun and comfort, no more, no less, and yet it was more than enough.

  He was being attentive toward me, but he was back in the game. I could tell. His gaze was a lot more focused than it had been before.

  “You see the girl with the pink hair?” he nodded toward a big breasted dynamo with a lusciously curvy figure, a beautiful face done up beautifully with flawlessly applied makeup, a nice body hugging mini dress, six inch heels, and…pink hair. The style was nice, but…

  “I think I’ll pass on that,” I said gently. “I don’t want to think about cotton candy or clowns while I’m trying to climb to the top of the mountain.”

  “Alright, alright,” he gave way to an easy laugh, patted my knee and leaned in to give me a kiss. He was playing along but he was stressed, I could both see it and hear it; he was a neon sign of anxiety. But I could tell that he was making an effort as he went back to scanning our prospects.

  The club is packed, but I think we spotted her at the same time, or maybe Chris saw her a few seconds before I did because I could swear that his body tensed and he paused, his eyes fixed on that corner of the room same as mine.

  She was beautiful, in the shadows, alone. A wallflower in the midst of a gang of raging willows.

  “You see her, don’t you?” Chris asked me, his voice sounding as if he’d stepped into a dream world. I felt like I was in one.

  “Yeah, I see her.”

  She was one of those girls that were perfectly imperfect. A little on the short side, about five feet one by my guesstimate, and I didn’t usually go for short, and neither did Chris, but I couldn’t help but take her in
. Long dark honey colored hair that dipped below the middle of her back and had been slightly curled. The color wasn’t natural, but it suited her caramel complexion, and it looked as if it were all, or at least mostly, her own homegrown locks. She had a baby face that made her look shy and naughty all at once. Dichotomy. Erotic. Sexy. She was just asking to get drilled and licked, sucked and fucked, initiated into our world of hedonism. Her makeup wasn’t perfect, not like the girl’s with the pink hair, but it was nice, natural and complementary. Pink lipstick or gloss, I couldn’t quite tell from the distance where we were, a little bit of blush, eyeliner, mascara, her eyebrows were not over or under done, belly button ring that wasn’t a stud, but a sparkly chandelier type piece that shone every time the light hit it, calling attention to her. Nowhere near fat, but she wasn’t skinny either. From where we were spying her she looked as if she had a nice little figure, but I’d been fooled before.

  “Are you approaching her, or should I?” Chris asked me, still distracted by what I was already thinking of as our little nymphet, our cute little plaything, our gorgeous girl toy.

  “You,” I said without hesitation. “I’m not getting a read on her. She’s not checking out girls or guys, just standing there looking cute as hell.”

  “You mean sexy as fuck,” Chris corrected me without looking at me. He was sprung. That hadn’t happened in a long while, and it so rarely happened immediately the way I was watching it all unfold.

  “She’s got an armband on,” I pointed out. She could drink. She was twenty-one, despite the fact that she looked about eighteen at the most. “Check the nails; get a good look at all twenty of them if she’s wearing open toe shoes. The last girl we took back with us she had jacked up feet. Everything else was right, but her damn feet, Chris…”

  “I hear you baby,” he told me, his eyes still fixed to that corner as he started to get up from his seat.

  I watched him walk away from me. I watched him move through the crowd, making his way to the beauty with the innocently wicked face that had captured Chris’s attention almost instantly.