Arousal

by Simone Sowood

  The woman wrapped the small perfume bottle for me and I tucked it in my inside suit jacket pocket and got out of there.

  I slumped into the back of the car and had the driver take me to the club. Someone would be there to let me in. Or I’d break the fucking door down. I had to get out of this car. I had to get out of that apartment with Jenny’s family. Most of all, I had to get out of my fucked up life.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. Raylene. The last bitch on earth I needed to think about right now. I hit end and fucked around on my phone until her number was blocked for good. I instantly felt lighter. If only it were that easy to get rid of her.

  A few minutes later my phone buzzed again, a text from Daniel.

  It’s all kicking off here, Blake’s flipping out.

  I didn’t know what was going on with Blake lately, the smallest thing set him off.

  What’s going on? Can you calm him down?

  Don’t know, everything was calm then a few minutes ago he went nuts and punched through a wall, we’ve stuck a glass of scotch in his hand, five fingers.

  I don’t even know if five fingers would have any effect on him, that’s probably the body mass equivalent of me dipping my tongue in a glass.

  Give him more, keep pouring and try to get an answer out of him.

  This was one more problem I didn’t need.

  Jenny

  My parents and I sat and chatted away the afternoon. The nurse was amazing, bringing us drinks and a healthy carrot cake. She made sure my mother took her medicine on time and generally looked after all of us.

  It was exactly the relaxing day I needed after the night before. There still had been no word from Jay about how Abbie was doing, but I trusted he was doing the best for her. I had to. There was nothing at all I could do about it from Texas and, as much as it wrenched my insides, I had to trust Jay.

  By dinner, there hadn’t been any word from Collin either, and I assumed he would be busy at his club.

  The nurse made dinner for the three of us, and my father insisted upon her joining us to eat. It was a little strange, having another person pottering around the apartment, seeing to our every need. But sitting with the nurse, Colleen, was fantastic. It broke the attention away from my settling down and getting married to more trivial matters.

  Mom was still exhausted, from her treatment in addition to everything else. Her health, the travel, being out of her own home. Dad and her went to bed around eight thirty, and Colleen and I sat around watching mindless television.

  I was glad she didn’t feel the need to force conversation with me. My mind was too wrapped up in everything and I didn’t want to seem rude. At least I felt a little easier about my mom, now that I knew the care she was getting.

  Abbie was an unknown, and it frustrated the hell out of me. I hated feeling so powerless to help her. But I didn’t have much choice in the matter. All I could do was wait for news from Jay. I don't know why he was at the club, but good thing he was there to save her from the blond man who'd drugged her.

  Collin. I hadn’t heard from him in hours. Was he even coming back here tonight? He’d left his overnight bag here. But the abrupt way he’d rushed out made me wonder.

  Or perhaps he was working, and working in a nightclub meant finishing at some ungodly hour of the morning.

  “I’m going to turn in, Jenny, have a good night.”

  “Good night Colleen, once again, thank you so much for taking such amazing care of my mom.”

  Colleen rested her hand on my shoulder and gave it a little squeeze as she walked away. It was difficult to tell if she was trying to reassure me or prepare me for the worst.

  By eleven, I was still up, watching reruns of sitcoms I never liked in the first place. My eyelids, already tired from no sleep the night before, the early plane ride, the day with my parents, felt like they were made of lead.

  But I didn’t know what to do. Where was Collin? Why hadn’t I even heard from him? A simple text? Anything? I gave in.

  Are you coming back here to sleep tonight?

  It took a few tries to phrase it right. I didn’t want to sound desperate, but neither did I want to sound annoyed. At first I’d added with me in your arms, but deleted it. It seemed too desperate, too forward. It had too much implication that I understood what was going on between us.

  I held my phone to my face, tapping the edge to my teeth as I waited for his response. Still waiting, I tapped my teeth against it some more.

  My phone beeped, yanking me out of my trance.

  Be there in fifteen.

  My heart pounded in my throat. Had he been waiting for a signal from me all night?

  I rushed around, brushing my teeth and washing my face. Whoever Collin had sent to my apartment that morning even packed me my moisturizer, which was nice. In a creepy way.

  After removing my jeans, I worried I was being too forward, but there was a light tap at the door, and I couldn’t do anything about it, incase he woke the others up.

  I rushed to open it. Collin stood there, his one hand on the door frame, his other holding his suit jacket over his shoulder. My insides flipped over at the sight of him.

  It was as if I were seeing him for the first time in seven years, not a few hours. Like I got that drunken, blurry moment back in full technicolor glory. Half his mouth smiled at me, and it took all my willpower not to tackle him and rip the rest of his clothes off right there in the hallway.

  “I wasn’t sure if you were coming back or not.”

  He kissed my cheek, and I heard him inhale the scent of my hair. I turned my head to him and our lips met, tentative at first before becoming full of need. The icy blast of peppermint on his tongue sucked the breath out of me and my knees weakened.

  Collin bundled me into the apartment and I had to lead him to where our bedroom was. At the far end from my parents and the nurse.

  By the time we reached our bedroom, he’d lifted me clear off the ground. I wrapped my legs around him and it was impossible not to notice the huge erection digging into me, making me drip with want.

  I loved how he could lift my little frame and wrap it around him however he wanted. He always had. Except now I felt even more secure in his arms. Collin’s strength had only increased over the years, along with my desire for him.

  As we tumbled into our room, we were doing our best to strip the clothing off each other. He’d dropped his suit jacket somewhere near the door, and I pulled apart the buttons of his crisp, black shirt, exposing his Celtic knot tattoo in the process.

  I still wanted to hear the story behind it, but for the moment I focused on licking around its maze, sucking and tugging his taut skin into my mouth.

  He pushed my body against the wall and pinned me to it as he undid his suit pants while my tongue continued to explore his muscles.

  Collin pulled my panties aside and drove himself into me. My back against the wall caused the furniture to shudder. Gravity pulled me down, his cock filling me as he pushed up into my slick walls.

  “I’ve always wanted you,” he said, his voice a low baritone.

  I moaned at the words as they set me on fire. His cock swelled and surged harder as he continued to pound me against the wall.

  Our mouths locked and our tongues twirled. Every inch of my skin, against his, against his clothes, against the wall, electrified with excitement.

  Collin grunted, the guttural noise pushing and crashing my body into spasm against him. I gasped for air but was unable to fill my lungs as chaos rocketed through my body.

  I had no choice but to heap against him as he continued to drive into me. My spasming walls gripped his shaft and he came in me.

  Without moving me, his muscled arms held me in place and swiveled us around to lay me on the bed.

  “I’m glad you came back,” I said through my heaving chest. Collin shed the remainder of his clothing and got into bed alongside me, holding me tight against his body.

  “I had some work, a new prospect in Cancun had
come up.” The words punched me in the stomach and I hollowed out my back to take the pain.

  “Cancun?” I knew his stay in Chicago would be short before he moved onto his next city, but this seemed way too short. But it always was going to be the case. Collin had spent the past seven years living in some crazy number of different cities, why would that pattern change now?

  “Bye,” I said leaning into the car. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up?” It had been a busy couple of days, and the flight back to Chicago seemed to go on forever. Both of us were wiped out, and fatigue left us barely speaking in the car from the airport.

  “Sorry babe, not tonight,” Collin said touching my cheek.

  I pursed my lips and stood up straight, giving the car room to drive away. The tail lights pulled away, and I watched them until they mingled with the rest of the cars on the road.

  There was a heavy weight in my stomach as I turned the key in the lock and went inside my apartment. Somehow it seemed even emptier than it had when I left it.

  I wish I could contact Abbie, somehow, anyhow. She would tell me to follow my heart and forget about anything else.

  Camomile tea in hand, I flopped onto my couch and flicked on the television. After listening to some men shout, some different men shout and a low budget local ad for mattresses, I flicked the television off again.

  Abandoning my tea, I stumbled to my bedroom and collapsed on the bed. As much as I wanted to be asleep, I could not stop the chatter in my mind. Abbie. Mom. Abbie. Mom. Collin. The last time I glanced at my clock, it was after three and I had work in the morning.

  I waved at Sam as she entered the bar. Our Friday night drinks were not the same without Abbie. Nothing was the same without Abbie. But I’d told myself over and over all week, that I could not worry about her so much. It was killing me. I couldn’t do any more than I’d already done for her.

  Of course she was my best friend, and I would always be there for her in a heartbeat. As far as I knew she was off on some last minute trip to Europe with Jay, and I still didn’t know where I stood with Collin.

  “Here, get this down your throat.” Sam stuck a glass of white wine on the table in front of me, next to the glass of red wine that I’d half drunk while waiting for her to arrive.

  “I can’t get over Abbie,” I said.

  “I told you she was in deep with him, I saw them together the day of the email.”

  “Yeah, and now she’s in France with him, living out some dream.”

  “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, you’ve got your own man. Unlike some people sitting at this table.” Sam gestured around the four seater table, pointing at the two empty chairs and herself.

  “Do I? I haven’t heard from him in a week. He’s gone silent on me.” My voice wavered as I’d said it. For all I knew, he’d up and moved to Cancun.

  “Of course you do, don’t be silly.”

  I chucked the last of the red wine down my throat and started to sip the white, then remembered too much alcohol was how I got in this mess in the first place. I set the glass of white back down.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very Friday night tonight, I want to go home to bed.”

  “Alone, or with someone?”

  I creased my brow at her and was about to open my mouth to answer when I realized I had no answer.

  “Good night, party pooper,” Sam said as we left the bar.

  On my way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Collin. Which made me angry at myself, because I should’ve been thinking of my mother, not my trivial boyfriend troubles. Or non-boyfriend troubles, whichever category Collin fit in.

  Rationally, I know thirty isn’t old these days. I know there’s still time to find someone and settle down and get my Golden Retriever puppy. But my mother’s words echoed through my head. You realize it’s time to settle down. Repeat.

  Was Collin even the person I would want to settle down with? One word smacked me in the forehead: Partier. What kind of a father would a “professional partier” make? Even if he was rich. Especially if he was living in Cancun. Or anywhere I wasn’t.

  Who was I kidding? There was just no way an actual relationship with Collin could ever work. This was a bit of fun with an ex, nothing more.

  He was going to move on to Cancun, and that would be the end of that. I had to stop pretending it might ever be anything more. It had taken me long enough to get over him the first time, I didn’t need to set myself up for that pain again.

  The big question now was how I was going to achieve the goal I’d assigned myself on my birthday of finding a husband. Especially when I couldn’t stop thinking about Collin.

  The whole idea of finding a husband who wasn’t Collin wrenched my heart, no matter how many times I told myself the logic behind it.

  I pushed the elevator button, once, twice. Ten times. More. Why couldn’t life just be simple?

  Collin

  My phone beeped with an email notification. My brow creased. Strange. It was from Raylene. She never emails.

  Hey baby it was a big mistake blocking me from your phone. You better not be fucking me over, I will bring you down and make sure you never see Harlan again. Pay me lots of money now and this will all go away. Does Jenny know about me? Because I can tell her for you, if you want.

  My heart pumped in fury. Paying her fifty million dollars was ridiculous. She must know that. I offered her five, and she said no. Greedy bitch. One year of a sham marriage and a child she doesn’t want custody of anyway and she thinks she deserves one of the highest divorce settlements in history.

  But the last line of her email worried me. Who told her about Jenny? How could I make sure Raylene didn’t go to her? This was a whole new problem.

  “Daniel,” I said into my phone.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just got an email from Raylene, now she’s threatening to go to Jenny if I don’t pay up.”

  “Fuck, that’s a whole new problem.” I rolled my eyes.

  “No shit. Make this go away.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Make this settlement your top priority. Finalize the damn thing, I’m tired of waiting.”

  “It has been my fucking priority, it’s you not wanting to pay her what she’s asking.”

  “As if I’m going to pay her that much money. Find a solution.” My heart rate sped as I punched the end call button.

  I sat forward on the sofa, my elbows resting on my thighs as I flicked through photos of Harlan on my phone, to calm myself. Him sitting on the beach in front of the house playing with the sand. In the nanny’s arms as she pointed at a bird. On a swing at the playground.

  My finger swiped the screen and I recoiled at the image: Harlan in Raylene’s arms. How did that get in my phone? At first I put my finger on Raylene’s face to blot her out of the image but took it away to examine her.

  Petite, brunette, amber eyes. But nowhere near as beautiful as Jenny. Especially since she always had the glassy drunk look in her eyes.

  How did I ever end up married to her? Unfortunately, most of my life between Paris and Honolulu was a blur. I could remember bits and pieces. Particularly good nights or big purchases. Bits here and there. But not a lot else.

  I remember Daniel taking me aside in Honolulu and telling me one of my employees had filled her phone with compromising photos and that she wanted money for her silence.

  And I remember Daniel and Blake pouncing on me in my Honolulu office and telling me I’d knocked up the same little brunette bartender with the photos.

  Daniel told me to marry her, because I was stupid enough to fuck that same employee and get her pregnant. He said I deserved my fate, that I’d brought it all on myself. So I married her to keep her under control, even though I’d never had a sober conversation with her in my life.

  When I stopped drinking and actually talked to her, I realized how much I hated her. She was a nasty, nasty person who only cared about herself.

 
; I still went ahead and married her, to buy her silence but also because she was pregnant with my baby and for some stupid reason I thought that’s what an honorable father did. But one day living with her and I’ve been trying to reach a divorce settlement ever since.

  Becoming a father changed something in me. The partying lost its appeal overnight. Instead, all I wanted to do was give the kid a chance in life. And any chance meant getting him away from his mother Raylene, who had somehow managed to increase her partying after his birth. If you can call her a mother. I don’t. No real mother would use their baby as something to sell to get rich.

  Instead I mentally superimposed Jenny’s face on hers, and pretended that she was the real mother of my child. If only. Too bad life hadn’t worked out the way it was supposed to. When I got on that plane to London, I never thought for one second I was leaving Jenny forever.

  The noise of the key in the lock pulled me from my thoughts.

  “Fuck! You scared me,” Jenny shouted.

  “Sorry babe, I didn’t mean to. I was just waiting for you to come home.”

  Her eyes widened, but she wasn’t angry. I could tell. Or, if she was angry it was from ignoring her all week, not from being here now.

  I stood and pulled her into an embrace and she melted against my body.

  “How long have you been here for?”

  “Not long. An hour.”

  “An hour? You know they do have these things called cell phones now, you could’ve called and I would’ve come home.”

  “I didn’t want to interfere with your plans.” She looked up and me, half her mouth scrunched up.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Want to order a pizza?”

  I shrugged. “We can go out someplace nice if you want.”

  “Not really. I’m tired, that’s why I came home.”

  “Okay, pizza it is.”

  “Where have you been all week?” She broke away from me to meet my gaze.

  “Cancun.” I wondered if I’d imagined her recoil as I said the word.