ROMANCE: Mr. Mystery: (New Adult Bad Boy Romance) (Contemporary Mystery Short Stories)

by Viva Fox

  It didn't take long at all before the two of us had downed our first glass of red wine, and already we were giggling like wild and cracking jokes fairly regularly about what morons everyone had been during high school.

  “Oh God, look at our hair in this one... What the hell was I thinking? I mean, come on, pink highlights? I look like a clown or something...”

  “Oh come on,” I said, “you looked cute in that... It wasn't like were walking around with eighties hairstyles or anything... Not like, oh, what was her name... God, that girl from that really conservative family who always wore her hair in a perm... Damn it, what was her name?”

  “Polly?”

  “Yeah, Polly- no, wait... No, not Polly... Pauline that was it. Pauline Goodman.”

  “Oh yeah, that was it. I wonder what ever happened to her?”

  “I'm not really sure... I think I heard she either became a lawyer or a nun...”

  “Probably a nun...”

  “Or a nun lawyer, possibly.”

  “Do nuns need lawyers?”

  “No, I mean a lawyer who is also a nun, not a lawyer who represents nuns.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, probably. Oh God, do you remember Ricky Simmons?” Clarissa just about spit her drink out coming across Ricky's picture in the yearbook, and she promptly pushed it into my lap so that I could look at it, even though I knew perfectly well just who Ricky was- a thin, hyper serious guy who had always walked around the school dead-eyed and like he didn't give a damn about anything.

  “Yeah, I remember him... He always gave me the creeps.”

  “I heard he went to jail, like, just a few months ago...”

  “Really? I would say I'm surprised, but that really doesn't seem that odd somehow. What did he do?”

  “I heard he robbed a gas station at gunpoint... And then he killed a guy by accident with his car trying to escape. God, how awful... People are just... Ugh...”

  “Yeah... But hey, I came over here to drink my troubles away, not get hung up on the tragedy of the human condition. Keep filling me with happy thoughts, not this tragedy B.S.”

  “Sorry,” Clarissa laughed, downing the rest of her drink. “Refill?”

  “Hellz to the yes,” I replied, and had my glass promptly filled back up to the brim.

  “Easy there, killer! I want to at least be able to drive home, you know...”

  “Maybe I'm trying to seduce you,” said Clarissa, giving me joking bedroom eyes and peering over the rim of her refilled glass as she sipped it. But then I started laughing, and she cracked up in return, ending up spitting out the wine back into the glass and having to wipe her lips off with her arm.

  We turned back to the book, then, in silence for a moment, looking for our next victim/source of comedy.

  “Oh hey,” she said suddenly, lighting up like a lightbulb, and clearly excited about something or other. “There's Danny Evans... You remember him, don't you? You two went to senior prom together, and then started dating for a while... Whatever happened between you two?”

  “Oh yeah, Danny... Well, nothing really happened I guess. He was a nice guy. Fun to be around and everything. Just, I don't know, college and everything came around and we ended up parting ways. No real story behind it or anything. Things just fizzled out.”

  “Ah, okay. I was just being nosy.”

  “Yeah you're good at that,” I said, grinning. “It's ancient history, though. Nothing to really be nosy about. Water under the bridge and all that jazz. I wonder what ever did become of him though? I know he moved, like, across the country or something didn't he? I can't remember what he said he was majoring in, but the last time I heard from him he'd changed what he was studying in college...”

  “Oh, no- well, I mean, yes, he did move, but he's back in the area now I think. I heard he just moved back into town and is starting up a business or something. I can't really remember what kind, but I've heard he's pretty doing well for himself... And of course, he's just as damn fine as he ever was...”

  “Ohhhh, Lordy Lord... he was pretty damn sexy, wasn't he?”

  “Yes, ma'am, he certainly was... M'm... Did you ever get any of that action while the two of you were-”

  “Hey now... A good girl doesn't kiss and tell,” I said, but blushing all the while, so that I'm certain it gave me away quite shamelessly in spite of my denial. And at any rate, the thoughts of Danny were now lodged in my brain, and I seemed incapable of dislodging him from his place in there. What the hell was it about him that suddenly had me so captivated?

  Maybe it was how young we both were back then, I thought, as I gazed long and hard at the photograph of the two of us dancing under the prom section. That was, more than likely, exactly what it was I was missing, my youth, even though I still wasn't really all that over the hill or anything.

  God, the two of us looked so young, though... Both eighteen at the time, and then the reality of the fact that that had been almost ten years ago by now, an entire damn decade, seemed almost too awful to fathom. Ten years... Ten years... It sure hadn't seemed like that long at all, not by any means.

  Suddenly, Clarissa spoke up again, tearing me from my thoughts of lust and longing.

  “Hey, how's Mark doing?”

  “Mark?” I asked, a bit dumbfounded at first, and then repeated the word, as though his name belonged to some complete stranger, and as though I'd never before heard that single syllable in my life. “Mark...” I then stared for a moment at my wine glass, noticing suddenly that I'd emptied the damn thing again, without even really realizing I'd done so.

  “Oh, uh, Mark's good,” I said, snapping myself out of it to at least a moderate degree, and trying to get my brain back in gear. “I uh... Well, he works a lot, I guess. He keeps busy... Bringing home the bacon and everything you know...”

  “Oh, yeah, Steve's the same way... I've been thinking about getting a job of my own, you know, just to keep myself from going completely crazy throughout the day. But, I mean, we don't really need the extra money or anything, either, so I don't know... I really shouldn't be complaining about having all this free time, but it really gets a bit tedious day in and day out... I need some excitement now and then, you know?”

  “Yeah, really,” I said, smiling and pretending like I thought this was funny somehow, but at this point my mind was in another realm entirely from that which I had intended it to be in upon my trip to come and visit Clarissa to begin with.

  I was, in spite of myself, traveling down a mental road that I didn't genuinely care to explore, one that would only make things more difficult for me in my already boggled state of mind, that would challenge my own happiness with my day-to-day existence and force me to ask questions that were far beyond anything I was comfortable in exploring.

  As much as I tried to resist it, I thought about Mark.

  Him, and myself, all those years ago, two fresh-faced and hormone crazed eighteen year olds sowing their wild oats like there was absolutely no tomorrow.

  I remembered the back seat of his car, our lips locking and sliding against one another. Our tongues pushing into one another's mouths, our techniques slightly clumsy in our young adult years, but more adept, I thought, even then, than any of the other partners I'd had. I wondered, in the ensuing years, just how much more talented he'd become in the bedroom?

  It was none of my damn business, now, of course, but I couldn't deny how deeply the thought titillated me as it passed through my mind...

  And then, oh God, the two of us were undressing, he was peeling me out of my varsity jacket, yanking me out of my blouse and my jeans, getting me down to my bra and panties, now... He struggled with the clasp of my bra just a bit, and I undid it for him just to keep things moving along, and I savored the feeling of him hardening up against me as my breasts were unveiled to him.

  And then, Christ almighty...

  The two of us, naked in the back seat, swapping spit and making out like mad and spit flowing like wild between our mouths. His body was muscular and t
hrobbing and his masculinity was tremendous, making me cringe with desire for him as its heat blazed up against my naked flesh.

  And then he mounted me, pushing his body onto mine, and sliding himself inside. I remember whimpering, moaning with pleasure as he penetrated me to my deepest fathoms, making my head spin and my spine arch, sweat rolling down along my skin, and every nerve on fire as he at last touched down inside my deepest, tightest depths.

  And finally, worst and most wonderful of all, him, beginning to thrust, to push, to pump his pelvis back and forth, back and forth, back and forth inside me, the sensation of him grinding through me immaculate, and my head spinning in the dark as he absolutely plowed me to climax...

  And suddenly, back in the real world of the present, I gasped, startling Clarissa, who'd been entranced by the yearbook, and had ended up spilling her wine on the carpet in shock.

  “Oh! Oh, God, Clarissa, I'm so sorry...”

  “Oh, it's no big deal... I spill wine on this thing all the time... Honestly, I think I'm going to have to start going to AA meetings or something. Don't worry about it!”

  “Well, still... Let me at least help you clean it up or something...”

  “Nahhh, it's seriously nothing. I'll get it after you leave. It'll be fine.”

  “I... Well, alright... I am going to have to get going before too much longer, though... This wine is really starting to go to my head, I think...”

  2

  “Oh, God, you look amazing! It's so good to see you, it's been such a long time!”

  “It's great to see you too!” I responded happily, bringing myself into Justin's strong arms and trying my damnedest to seem neutral about the fact, even if, in reality, I was as on edge in his presence as I thought it might be possible for a girl to be.

  Our hug lasted a few seconds longer than I might have anticipated, and I felt simultaneously crushed somewhat in his grip, yet like dissolving in his arms all the same. Finally, though, it had come to a conclusion, and the two of us split apart, staring into one another's eyes in a fashion that was awkward to say the least.

  Yes, ladies and gentlemen... I had given into temptation...

  Or, well, I at least tried not to think of what I was doing on just those terms, actually. For the sake of being able to go through with it at all, I had tried to convince myself that this was nothing more than just a friendly meeting- two people who had briefly been together during high school, meeting up again just to reminisce about old times and catch up.

  And I mean, yeah, I was seeing someone now, but that didn't mean I should completely discount the fact that this era of my life had ever occurred, now did it? It deserved as much recognition as anything that had happened for me over the years, and there was nothing at all wrong with me wanting to see Mark again to talk about it, now was there?

  But of course, that was all just me justifying it to myself...

  The reality of it was, I had been unable to stop thinking about that man since that day over at Clarissa's place, thoughts of him spinning around in my head almost constantly, and never giving me a moment's piece.

  I still can't say, exactly what it was about him... It's really quite possible that it was, like I suggested it might be earlier, nothing more than just nostalgia, than wanting to believe that something I had once had could be restored to me again if I allowed it.

  And it's true that, at least on the surface, I had no real plan for this to be anything more than just an innocent rendezvous, nothing seedy or any sort of seduction concealed under my cap to be brought to fruition. Just a meeting for coffee between two grown, mature adults, without all of the raging hormones that might have flung us together into one another's arms back when we were two dumb eighteen year olds...

  But, I can't deny it, I think something in me wanted to believe the notion that, somehow, Mark could go about restoring some portion of whatever the hell it was I felt was missing inside me. That he could bring me back around from this pressing feeling that something was wrong with my life, and that he could provide me with the answer.

  Of course, all that week, Mark didn't help me all that much either in the matter...

  Like, alright, I knew, at least on the surface that he loved me, as well as that, for me to be testing that love in the manner that I was, was rather a dick move on my part, if you'll excuse me saying so. I knew that he spent his days providing for us so that we could have a decent life together, and that reasonably I didn't have any true cause for complaining about his absence all the time.

  But, I don't know... It just felt like he was getting more and more distant from me as I buried himself deeper in routine, leaving me all day with these feelings of want for something, only to have him come home and be completely emotionally unavailable for me.

  Like, okay, to give you some idea, during that week any time I would be feeling a bit frisky and want to get intimate with him, I would begin to kiss him and to touch him. And he would just sort of sit there for a bit, letting me get on with it without any sort of objection, until at last turning to me, and saying something along the lines of, “Not tonight.. I'm too tired...”

  And excuse me, please, if I think it's a sign that a relationship is on unstable footing when a twenty-something couple like us isn't even having sex anymore.

  It could have just been a slump on his part, sure- I knew there were certainly nights when I didn't feel like having sex, either, but that didn't stop whatever this was happening to the two of us from being hurtful.

  I was craving some sort of touch, some sort of physical spark with another human being that would get me feeling like I needed to be again. Something that would pull me back around after feeling so far down deep in the lurch...

  And again, I had no real reason to suspect, nor did I let myself think, that that would be the sort of direction things would be taking with Mark. But, as wrong as I knew it was, I'm fairly certain that in the back of my mind, I imagined things with my old high school flame escalating throughout the course of our meeting, and that was a hope far too sweet for me to really let go of...

  “So,” I said nervously in the present, “how are things going for you? Everything going well since college?”

  “Yeah, yeah, great really... I'm really excited about this new business I'm starting. I've had a lot of success with some things like it in the past, and I'm investing some of the capital I've earned from former endeavors to try and see if I can make it on my own two feet. It's looking very promising, so far, in fact...”

  “Oh, I see. And it's, um... Something with computers, right?”

  “Well, sort of, yes and no. Not specifically with computers, but there is a lot of technology involved in it... And, well, I mean, it's pretty complicated to explain in twenty words or less, actually. I could give you the complete run-down if you're really that interested, but I wouldn't want to bore you to tears with it...”

  “Oh, no, that's really alright. Are you, um, settling in okay again and everything?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah that's all been great... Yeah, I was living in the city for the longest time, and I mean, it was great with having things to go do and see, but, I don't know. It was all just a bit too much for me day in and day out. I kind of missed a simpler way of living, I guess, and I'd kind of forgotten how much I loved this old town.”

  “It is a pretty beautiful place,” I said, smiling just a bit too much, I could tell, but doing little to stop myself.

  “You can sure say that again... I found myself with the opportunity to go just about anywhere with this new business, without any sort of limitations, and I thought, why the hell not? I know people here, and it's a great place to get started with things...”

  I didn't say anything to this, but just smiled again, and then said, “Oh, thank you,” as the waitress had just arrived with our food.

  “So,” he continued, taking a drink of his soda, “Enough about me. How are things with you? Things all going alright? Seeing anyone special or anything, working?”

>   “Oh, no, no I'm not seeing anyone, really,” I lied through my teeth, not knowing what the hell was wrong with me even as the words passed from my lips. “I'm, uh... You know, things are fine, really... Things don't really change all that much around here, I guess, so uh... Yeah, things are good...”

  He smiled at this, and the two of us proceeded to eat our meals, this one exchange setting up a strange, dense atmosphere over the entire course of the lunch.

  Things had only proceeded to get chummier as the minutes ticked on, and by the time we were finished we were both stumbling down the street, laughing out loud as though we were both drunk off of our asses, despite neither of us having consumed a single drop of alcohol.