“The pulse that flashed through his whole body when their eyes met still reverberates. He craved her deeply then, and now he craves her still.
“Unable to think about anything but the princess and her jewel, he decides he must go back the next night, and repeat every part of the journey exactly as he did the night before. Stealthily he scales the tower, enters through the exact same window. There in the flickering candle light as he approaches is the exquisite view of her bath.
“But, to his shock and surprise, there’s nobody there. No guards, no princess.” I pause enough to check in with Alexa, making sure she’s still here.
“And?” Alexa asks.
“He’s confused, and he’s quite disappointed. But then he decides that this is for the best, for now he can go and sneak into her room and do what he came for first. He can search out the jewel he’s dreamt of for all of this time and he can take it. And that’s exactly what he does, he creeps into the princess’ chambers, and finds the jewel arranged amid an elaborate display on a dark wood desk against a wall.”
“Is there anyone there?”
“Shhhh! There’s nobody there, and he’s not sure why that is. He takes his time approaching the jewel, but when he stands in front of it, he hears a click, and all too late he realizes that he’s been snared into a trap.
“The thief is hoisted upwards. A trap from the ceiling, boosted by the elaborate magic that keeps the princess in the tower, lifts the thief and ensnares him with ropes.”
I clear my throat before continuing. “Fearing the worst, the thief begins to free himself with a knife that he takes with him. No, he’s not a violent sort of guy. We’re not thinking some sort of a combat knife. It’s more like a letter opener, really. He’s filing away at the ropes forming the snare he’s stuck in, only to find the princess was in the room the whole time, sitting at the edge of her own bed, hidden from his sight by a gauze. And by magic.
“She tells him that she was the one who laid the trap for him, and now he’s her prisoner. The thief begins to apologize, pleading for mercy, saying he didn’t mean to steal the jewel, he only came to see it. He’s dreamed about it for so long. That sort of thing.
“The princess is surprisingly merciful. She’s willing to free him, but she has one condition.”
“Oh, what is it?” Alexa interrupts. I make her wait.
“The princess tells the thief that the one condition is that he has to make love to her. She reveals to him that she’s a virgin, who’s never left her tower, and craves the prospect of one day being touched by a man.”
“I should have seen this coming,” Alexa says. Thankfully, I don’t hear her groan aloud. That would have really fucked with my storytelling flow. I give her a little sample of the captain’s voice. The storm-at-fifty-thousand-feet, rocky turbulence Everything’s fine, you’re in my hands. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
“He’s not one to reject a perfectly good deal, so he agrees and she magically frees him. He goes to her sumptuous bed, and she opens up for him like a flower. It’s a tender, sweet experience, because he knows it’s her first time and he doesn’t mean to hurt her. The satin sheets they roll on are lightly perfumed, and strewn with flower petals. Everything about the moment is, quite simply, magical.”
I listen to her breathing. I hope she’s as turned on as I am at this point. I am positively aching with the throb.
“The thief is good with his tongue, so and a considerate lover, so it’s only a matter of time that he gets her cumming hard for him.”
“Jagger!”
“Shh, I’m telling you a story. They end up in bed all night, passionately clinging and rolling with each other. Touching and tasting and savoring every delicious moment as they entwine and combine. And with daybreak looming, and the princess laying contentedly in bed, the thief tells her he has to go. The sun’s about to rise, and that’s not good for thieves, who are happiest in shadow and darkness.
“The princess says she will allow him to leave, but it’s something that’s bound by another condition. He must return again the following night.
“The thief sees no reason not to do it, and so he agrees, but he looks into the glow of her upturned face to warn her that he will keep his promise, but in part because he has yet to get that thing that his heart desires the most.
“And with a final, parting glance to the jewel, lit and lovely in its case, the thief slips down the tower, just before the sun rises.”
“Mmm,” Alexa immediately says. “Okay, I’m liking how this is going. Are you tired, though? Do you want to take a break right now? Have some rest?”
I’m surprised by her sudden interest in my energy levels. “Do I seem tired to you?”
“Well, you’ve flown a long way, and you’re telling me you’re in a small shared bedroom for pilots. It might just be that you’re better off feeling like you’re able to rest and recover,” Alexa suggests.
“So you don’t want to hear the rest of the story?”
She giggles. “I really do want to hear the rest of the story, so this is me selfishly wanting you to be at your storytelling best for me.”
“Ooh,” I tell her. “That’s very convincing.”
“You’re not the only one who can be persuasive, Captain,” she says, letting me think she knows how a sizzle of arousal instantly threatens to take me over at once.
“You know, after this early morning flight, my next stop is back home for a day. You should be careful with teasing me like that. You could be getting a spanking sooner than you’d think,” I inform her.
Alexa’s giggles continue, like delightful staccato peals. Her laughter kindles me all the more. Almost hiccup-like. “I don’t mind that at all.”
The flirtatious tone in her voice quickly gives way to something else, something more serious. “Hey, can I ask you a question, Jagger?”
“I may have an answer, sure,” I reply.
“Are you bored of this?”
Naturally, I frown at the implications of her question. “Of this? Of what we have here? What’s there to be bored of? I’m just a guy telling a hot girl a good story.”
“I know that,” Alexa says, sounding almost sheepish — but there’s definitely a note of nervousness in there too. “It’s just… I don’t know. I guess it’s me wondering why you aren’t, you know, doing more exciting things than telling me a story.”
“You mean something like fucking other women?” I ask, pointedly.
She’s hesitating on the other line. “Yes, but that’s not quite it. I’m sorry, it’s just more than I can explain at this time. It’s probably not what you want to hear right now.”
“Alexa, your voice’s everything I want to hear right now, as a matter of fact,” I explain to her. I’m a more than a little surprised to hear myself say it. But I know that it’s true.
“Okay. Well, why don’t you get some rest, like I said? You can tell me your story after you get some sleep. I might be asleep then, though. You could tell me the rest of it after you land, maybe?”
There’s a small pause before I speak. “I could tell you the rest in person, when I’m back,” I suggest.
“Your stories are just so great when they’re on the phone. When you’re right here, in my ear,” Alexa quickly says. And it’s good and it’s lovely to hear, but I sense there’s something else. Something that sounds like she’s backing off in a panic. What goes on with this girl?
“Okay.” She says, “Goodnight, Jagger. Get some rest, I know you need it.” And there’s a sad tenderness as her voice cuts off.
I have to look at my phone screen to check that the call actually did end. Did I just hallucinate all that? It seems as if she abruptly decided she didn’t want to talk anymore. This isn’t our first call together. We’ve stayed on the line for hours, before. In comparison, this feels weirdly short.
Sitting up again, I begin to undress. There’s a hanger for my uniform with a hook just over the bed, so I place my clothes there, and then slip under the
sheets. The tentpole of my cock, still hard from hearing Alexa’s voice, requires my active concentration before it softens.
“Maybe she’s the one getting bored,” I wonder aloud.
It’s not something worth thinking about. If that’s what she’s doing, and if she’s trying to play this off by making it seem that I’m the one who’s less interested, that would be a major loss for her.
“Maybe,” I murmur. I close my eyes and lean back, letting my thoughts relax and fade away.
Just one flickering thing stays alight in my mind. One little flutter that won’t shut down.
How the fuck am I going to land that story?
FIFTEEN
HE TAXI FINALLY rolls up to the entrance of the building, and as I sigh, I watch Helen and Ben exit the car. “Alexa!” she greets me excitedly as Ben and the driver get all the luggage out for her. “It’s so good to see you.”
I give her my best cheery smile. “Aw, Helen, welcome home!”
“Yes, home.” She sighs. “That’s what this is. Thanks for looking after the place, Alexa. Very sweet, very responsible of you. You never know just how much you appreciate another person’s help until you’re off enjoying a couple of months in Thailand.”
Helen steps to the side to allow Ben to lug their bags into the building. “Hey, Alexa,” Ben says, in his usual soft-spoken voice. He looks incredibly tired.
Meanwhile, Helen is the image of perfect rest. “Come in, come in! You don’t need an invitation. After all, it must have been nice to live my life for a little while, right?”
“Uh, sure,” I smile at my stepsister.
“Maybe it’ll give you something to aspire to? Goals?” she says, grinning with every comment at the edge of meanness. “Start at the bottom, see you at the top some day?”
I follow her into the apartment, where she immediately begins wandering around, telling me she’s reacquainting herself with the place, when in reality I know she’s making a quick check to make sure I haven’t destroyed anything.
Or, knowing how suspicious Helen is, maybe she’s looking to see if I’ve stolen anything.
I roll my eyes, careful to be sure I stand behind her, as she paces back and forth and tells me about her suite in the downtown Bangkok seven-star hotel.
“I thought stars only went up to five,” I point out.
“No, darling, they go up to seven these days. But, funny, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a six star hotel.”
Helen leads everyone — Ben included, who having taken the luggage, returns to his fiancée’s orbit — to the kitchen. “Oh dear. The espresso’s out.”
I don’t say anything.
“I guess it’s too much to have expected you to be able to afford to replace it,” Helen says, dismayed.
Ben quickly adds, “I’ll go out and buy some. It’s really just a small thing, Helen.”
“Well, it’s the small things that count,” Helen observes, doing her best to keep her tone from sounding like an overt attack on me.
I start to turn to the exit. “Guess you’re going to want your private time now. Uh, great seeing you, Helen. Enjoy your evening, and thanks for everything. You too, Ben.”
“See ya, Alexa,” Ben nods. Helen, however, is already preoccupied with checking the kitchen cabinets, murmuring words like, “Oh! We still have full stores of that nice Algerian cumin.”
I exit her place, their place as it certainly is now, dejected. Realization lands on me that at this moment, I have just formally become homeless.
My stuff is already at Sonya’s place, but we haven’t actually had that discussion yet about me staying with her. I’ve been putting it off, not wanting to depress myself further.
Either way, time’s up. I’ve got to face it now. I pull my phone out and dial Sonya’s number.
“Hey,” I say glumly to my best friend, who picks up immediately.
The optimism in her voice is a lighthouse to me right now. “Couch’s all done up. Don’t you worry, babe. You can stay as long as you need.”
Reclining in the three-seater couch that takes up most of the room in Sonya’s tiny living room, I grip a sheet of paper tight, trying to will all my determination that’s left into it.
My resume.
Sonya pops her head in from her bedroom door. “If you need anything, just holler, okay? Otherwise I’m going to bed. I’m on an early shift at the paper tomorrow.”
“You’re the best, Sonya. Plus, it’s not like I haven’t been here a million times before. I’ll try to keep everything quiet,” I say, smiling at her.
My best friend returns to her bedroom and I have to return to my resume.
There isn’t much I can embellish or glamorize here. The reality is that I don’t have a lot of work experience, much of it the result of my controlling ex.
He was the one who never wanted me to work, telling me he was more than happy to pay for everything. “I want to spoil you,” Stefan used to say, but in reality, this all turned out to be a part of his elaborate manipulation.
Making me dependent on him for money was a way of controlling me.
Sigh. I should have seen through it, but I was young and dumb, and he was just so forceful. If I had seen the red flags sooner, I’d have, I don’t know. Maybe I’d have been able to get out of the relationship and make more of a life for myself?
Oh well, the past is past.
My phone rings loudly and I immediately go to silence it. The screen tells me it’s Jagger calling, and my mood is so low that I find myself hesitating to pick up. I really don’t want Jagger having to deal with me this way.
In the end though, just his name on the phone is enough that I’m unable to resist him — especially when I’m banking all my hopes that a short conversation with him will help me feel even the slightest bit better.
“Hey, Jagger,” I say, trying to keep an even keel with my voice, but anyone who’s even slightly observant would be able to detect that something’s wrong.
“Are you okay?” he asks, sensing it immediately.
“Just fine, just a lot on my mind. Nothing major, though,” I deflect. “How are you? Did you just land?”
“Sort of, yeah,” Jagger says. “I thought I’d call you. Nothing like hearing your voice to give me energy.”
Nothing like his voice to pick me up. I sneak out of the couch and head to the balcony, pulling the sliding door shut behind me. Don’t want to disturb Sonya, especially with the walls so thin here.
Her building is pretty high up, and her apartment rises about a dozen floors up, giving me a good vantage point of the city’s other tall office buildings and apartments. I lean on the railing and sigh, forgetting for a moment that Jagger’s on the line.
“Oh, okay, I can talk now,” I say. I look straight down from the balcony, and take a nervous step back. Whoa! That’s too high.
“I’ve got the rest of the story, custom-written for one goddamn sexy Alexa,” Jagger says. “It’s yours when you want it.”
“Mmm,” I murmur, enjoying the attention from Jagger. “You know just how to treat a girl right. Yeah, tell me the story — in a minute. Let’s just talk in between first, okay? It’s nice to just talk.”
Captain Charming (Tales of 1001 Flights) Page 12