The Club

by Lauren Rowe

  “Baby,” he grunts in my ear, and my body twitches violently, as surely as if he’s just said “open sesame” and opened a darkened chamber at the farthest reaches of me. There’s a moment of weightlessness, disorientation, like an ocean receding sharply just before a tsunami, and then, finally, finally, a warm wave of intense pleasure slams me from the inside out, seizing every muscle in my body and sending my heart racing.

  The first wave is followed immediately by another and another and another and another and another and another, until my entire body is constricting and contracting violently. I begin to say “Jonas” but the only thing that escapes my lips is an animalistic shriek. My entire body tightens and tenses all at once with one final, epic seizure, then releases rhythmically into pulses of pleasure radiating throughout my core.

  Jonas cries out savagely as he rams me, his hardness slicing into me one final, merciless time. “Sarah,” he cries. “Oh God, Sarah.”

  He collapses onto my back and sighs, his sweat mingling with mine.

  I turn around to look at him, and I’m instantly greeted with his voracious lips.

  After a moment, he pulls away from me and laughs. “Wow.”

  But I can’t laugh. I can’t speak. My heart hasn’t slowed to a normal rate yet. I’m light-headed. Disoriented. My knees are rubbery.

  I wobble over to a deck chair and take a seat.

  He sits across from me, sweat glistening on his brow.

  “Wooh!” he says. “Epic.” He’s giddy.

  I nod. I can’t speak. Oh my God.

  Several minutes pass as we catch our mutual breath.

  “Twice in one night, baby,” he finally says, smiling. “Mount Everest has officially been conquered.”

  Boom. Just like that, I’ve got a horrible pit in my stomach. I didn’t allow myself to think about it, but now I can’t help myself. I’m Mount Everest. I said so myself. And Jonas is a climber. So now what? Does he want to move on to a new challenge—Kilimanjaro or The Matterhorn, maybe? This is a man who wants to get women off more than anything else. No, he needs to get women off. I’ve known that from the start. And he just accomplished what he set out to do with me, and then some. What’s left to keep him interested now?

  He’s still grinning, oblivious to the thoughts racing around inside my head.

  “So admit it—you like chocolate a helluva lot better than green beans, don’t you?”

  I’m too tense to say anything.

  “You still wanna lecture me about how sex for a woman is about so much more than coming, blah, blah, blah emotion, blah, blah, blah? Please, enlighten me.”

  I know he’s teasing me, trying to be playful, but I can’t deny the anxiety that just crashed down on me like a ton of bricks. He promised not to come ‘til I did. And he’s delivered on his end of the bargain. So is my climax the end of the road for us? Will he check the box marked “Big O” next to “Sarah Cruz” and move on? Does he even want to continue with the rest of my month-long membership? I look down at the bracelet on my wrist. I feel like crying. I don’t want my time with Jonas to end. Ever.

  “Well?” Jonas asks, smiling broadly, clearly oblivious to the panic threatening to overtake me.

  I clear my throat. “Just because you love making women come more than anything, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing.” I jut my chin at him. “Not for me, anyway.”

  His smile vanishes. In fact, his face flashes anger.

  “Jesus,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Here we go again. Un-fucking-believable.”

  Wow, he’s pissed. I don’t understand the sudden rage contorting his features. I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

  He leaps out of his chair and glowers at me. “I love ‘making women come more than anything’? Fuck! I’ve had it with your daddy issues, Sarah—your fear of abandonment. I’m not gonna keep paying the emotional debts of your asswipe of a father.”

  I’m flabbergasted.

  He leans down to me, placing his hands on the arms of my deck chair, making me shrink back. “I might be a cocky-son-of-a bitch-asshole, but I’m not a total and complete dick, okay? When are you finally going to trust me? Are you even capable of trust? If not, just tell me now, once and for all, so I don’t keep banging my head against a fucking wall trying to make you see the upside to me.”

  My eyes are wide. What is happening? He’s enraged. What did I say?

  He pushes off from my chair in a huff and paces around the deck, his taut muscles tensing like a cat on the prowl. “What more can I do to prove myself to you?” He motions in frustration to the suite, to the jungle—to the entire expanse of Belize. “I’m running out of ideas, Sarah.” He looks up to the sky, trying to contain his anguish. “You’re so scared of being abandoned—you’re turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.” He grunts.

  I shake my head. How did I screw this up so badly, and so suddenly? What did I say that set him off? “No,” I begin.

  But I can’t find the words. Because he’s right. He’s absolutely right. I’ve been gripped with fear from day one with him. I’ve been convinced he was going to own my heart and then shatter it into a million tiny pieces. Yes, I’ve been waiting for him to do it. And I still am.

  He leaps back over to me and cups my face in his hands. He leans his face right into mine. “There’s no more ‘making women come’ for me. Haven’t I made that clear to you a thousand different ways?” He exhales in extreme exasperation. “There’s only making you come. There’s only getting you off. There’s only you, My Magnificent Sarah. You’re the one I want. You’re the one I need. You fucking own me—you and your bossy bullshit and olive skin and gravelly voice and big ol’ brain and delectable ass and adorable smile. You, you, you.” He brusquely grabs my arm like I’m a rag doll and yanks it up. He points to the bracelet around my wrist. “You.” He shows me his matching bracelet. “And me.” He grunts loudly, like a gorilla. “For a smart girl, you can be such a dumbshit sometimes, I swear to God.”

  My mouth is hanging open.

  He’s pacing again. “Didn’t you understand the Muse song? Madness?”

  I shake my head. I guess not. I thought I’d understood it, but I must have missed something. I thought the song meant he planned to lick me into a frenzied state of madness, a temporary state of delirium—mind detached from body. What else could it have meant?

  “Madness, Sarah. Madness.” He stares at me as if he’s just made everything crystal clear.

  I shake my head dumbly. Okay, madness.

  His eyes are suddenly moist. “I lost my mind a long time ago, Sarah. Like, literally, lost it. And it was so painful.” He chokes up. “I swore to myself, never again—no matter what.”

  He comes back over to me and grabs my shoulders roughly. I recoil instinctively.

  His eyes flash and he releases me. “I thought Plato was scoffing at madness, telling me to avoid it at all costs. But I had it all wrong.”

  I shake my head. I don’t understand.

  “And then I met you, and I wanted to have a serious mental disease. I wanted to go mad.” He shakes his head, brimming with emotion. “Plato wasn’t telling me to avoid it. He was telling me to embrace it.”

  My eyes are wide. My heart is racing. Is he losing his mind, like, for real? “I don’t understand.”

  He grits his teeth. “‘Love is a serious mental disease,’” he says, making air quotes and drawing out the words. “That’s what Plato said. Love is a fucking serious mental disease.” He’s shouting. I can’t tell if he’s angry or frustrated or passionate or all of the above. He glares at me, his hands gripping the arms of my chair again. “Why would anyone want a serious mental disease? It hurts. It’s torture. It’s painful.” He grunts again. “He said love is madness, Sarah. And I thought that meant I needed to avoid it—because I’ve been avoiding it my whole life.” He’s losing the battle with his emotions.

  I’m speechless.

  “But you drive me crazy.” His voice is cracking. “And I want y
ou to.”

  I close my eyes, trying to keep my tears at bay. My heart is bursting.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” he whispers.

  I nod. I understand completely.

  He leans his forehead onto mine. “There’s no women to get off anymore, you big dummy. There’s only you.”

  I blink and the tears that were pooling in my eyes streak down my cheeks. I nod profusely. I understand.

  He clenches his jaw and lurches away from me. He’s suddenly angry again. “But if you don’t want me, if you don’t feel the same way, just tell me now. Rip off the fucking Band-Aid. I can’t take it anymore.”

  Is it even remotely possible he’s not one hundred percent certain about my feelings?

  “Jonas,” I say, my emotions threatening to overwhelm me. “Jonas, look at me. Look at me. Yes, I want you. Of course, I want you. You drive me totally, completely, irreversibly crazy.”

  His chest is heaving.

  “Insane in the membrane,” I say softly.

  He exhales sharply.

  “Psychotic. Deranged. Out of my mind.”

  He twists his mouth.

  “Sick in the head. Demented. Loca.”

  He grins.

  “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”

  He laughs, despite himself.

  I stand and wrap my arms around his neck. “I’ve got a serious mental disease. It’s madness.”

  He kisses me deeply.

  “You big dummy,” I whisper.

  He beams at me. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”

  I laugh.

  “So this is settled, then?”

  I nod.

  “No more crazy-ass trust issues?”

  “No more.”

  “No more one step forward, two steps back?”

  “Full steam ahead.” I pause. “As long as you promise to let me talk about my beloved Maltese Kiki all day, every day.”

  He bursts out laughing. “Deal.”

  “But don’t worry,” I say, my lips hovering an inch from his. “I promise, absolutely no weekend trips to IKEA.” I nuzzle my nose against his.

  He cocks his head to the side and pulls back. “Well, hang on a second. Let’s not be hasty.”

  I arch my eyebrows in surprise.

  “I’m just saying, I mean, it might be tolerable, occasionally, to go to IKEA if we were to get some of those meatballs while we’re there. Have you ever had IKEA meatballs? They’re pretty good.”

  I beam at him. “Yeah, I like those meatballs.”

  He nods decisively. “Okay, so it’s settled. We won’t foreclose the possibility of going to IKEA, as long there are Swedish meatballs involved.” He suddenly grabs my ass with gusto. “Or, maybe we’ll just stay home and I’ll nibble your albóndigas, instead.” He laughs. “God, I love this ass.”

  Wait, how does he know the Spanish word for meatballs? I pull back from him, an epiphany hitting me like a thunderbolt. “You speak Spanish?”

  “Yeah. Not fluently, but pretty well.”

  My heart lurches with my sudden, glorious, heart-melting epiphany.

  “What?” He raises his eyebrows, not understanding the sudden flush to my cheeks. “It comes in handy when I travel. What?”

  “Oh, Jonas.” I kiss him.

  Who would have thought the man who’s allegedly allergic to “Valentine’s Day bullshit” would turn out to be a diehard romantic, through and through? The woman in the souvenir shop asked him in Spanish, “Are you on your honeymoon?” and my metaphor-loving man replied that, yes, we were—while purchasing a flowing, white dress for his “bride” and matching bracelets for our wrists. Oh jeez. How could I have assumed he’d misunderstood her?

  “Estamos de luna de miel,” I say, kissing him. We’re on our honeymoon.

  He grins from ear to ear under my kiss. “Claro que sí.” Of course, we are.

  Madness.

  “You’re a poet,” I murmur into his lips.

  “Nah,” he says. “Only with you.”

  I sigh. “Jonas.”

  “What?

  “You’re a cocky-asshole-motherfucker, you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re also the man of my dreams.”

  Epilogue

  Jonas

  After a long travel day, we’re finally back in Seattle and trudging up to her apartment door. I’m trailing behind her, holding her suitcase, admiring her backside as we walk.

  What a trip.

  What a woman.

  What a life.

  I’d planned so much for our second full day in Belize yesterday—rappelling down a three-hundred-foot sinkhole in the jungle, a late afternoon helicopter ride, swimming in Belize’s famed Blue Hole. But that’s how you make God laugh—you make plans. As it turned out, we didn’t leave our tree house once yesterday, not even to eat. And it was the best day of my life. Well, the second best day.

  From the minute we woke up this morning to when the limo pulled up to her apartment building thirty seconds ago, we’ve been like giddy kids. At breakfast this morning on the deck, when I looked across the table at her, the jungle alive all around us, I felt a kind of happiness surge up inside me that almost took my breath away.

  “You’re the divine original form of woman,” I told her. “You’re woman-ness in the ideal realm.”

  She gave me that look—the look I’d move mountains to see—the look that makes me want to be a better man.

  “You’re man-ness,” she replied matter-of-factly. “My manly man-ness-y manly man.”

  I laughed.

  And our giddiness didn’t end after breakfast.

  Through the van ride to the airport and hours of waiting around and two flights, we haven’t stopped laughing and sighing and gazing at each other and cooing sweet nothings into each other’s ears and stroking each other’s skin and laying soft kisses on each other’s lips and cheeks—all the while marveling that this is our life. We’re on top of the world together—on top of an ideal world inhabited by just the two of us.

  We arrive at the front door to her apartment.

  The door is slightly ajar.

  “What the . . .?” she mutters as she pushes the door wide open. “Oh my God,” she gasps.

  The place is wrecked—top to bottom, absolutely trashed.

  I put my arm in front of her to keep her from venturing inside.

  “Stay here,” I say, stepping forward.

  I can’t believe my eyes. When I came to pick her up for the airport four days ago, this place was as neat as a pin. And now it’s in shambles. Whatever used to be on the walls and on her shelves and in her drawers now litters the floor. Holy shit, the place is a total disaster area. What the hell is this? Some kind of hate crime?

  I feel her body heat right behind me. I reach back and pull her into me. She’s shaking.

  “Oh no,” she gasps.

  I whip my head to look at her.

  She’s pale as a ghost. “My laptop,” she says, grimacing. Tears are pricking her eyes. “It’s gone.”

  Oh, Jesus. I suddenly know exactly what this is all about. Damn, how did I not understand instantly?

  I grab her suitcase in one hand and her arm in the other and pull her out the door, back to the limo.

  “Come on,” I command. “You’re coming home with me.”

  She doesn’t put up a fight.

  She’s shaking like a leaf as I guide her into the backseat of the limo. My heart is racing like a bullet train.

  I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if she’d been home when they came. They couldn’t possibly have known she’d be away, could they? Were they planning on her being home when they showed up, or did they come in her absence on purpose, intending to give her a spine-chilling warning?

  I should have known when she told me about her encounter with Stacy that she was in danger. Clearly, we’re dealing with a sophisticated, global operation with a lot of money at stake. They’re
not going to let some law student in Seattle put their entire organization at risk. I’d bet there are some seriously bad motherfuckers running this whole operation—motherfuckers who’d do just about anything to protect their cash cow.

  I put my arms around her in the backseat. “I’ve got you.”

  She nods.

  They’ve got her computer. They’ve got all our communications. All her personal information.

  Kat.

  “Call Kat,” I say, louder than I’d intended. “Make sure she’s okay.”

  She looks at me, confounded.

  “Stacy obviously went on a rant to whomever she reports to about some brunette and blonde horning in on her territory, right?”

  Her eyes are wide.

  “How many other intake agents are there in Seattle?”

  “I’m it, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Okay, then they know the brunette is you; and now that they’ve got your computer, they know who the blonde is, too.”

  She looks like she’s having trouble processing what I’m telling her.

  “There are pictures of you and Kat on your computer?”

  She nods. “Tons.”

  “Emails with her?”

  She nods again.

  “And she’s in your contacts, right?”

  Her face bursts into utter panic.

  “Call her right now. Tell her we’re coming to get her. She’s gonna stay with us at my house ‘til we get this worked out.”

  She pulls her phone out with a shaking hand.

  “Have any of your emails with Kat ever mentioned The Club?”

  She thinks for a minute. She shakes her head. “Never.”

  “Okay, that’s good. But Kat was with you at both bars, so they must figure you told her everything.”

  “Oh my God.”

  I take her hand in mine. “I’m not gonna let them hurt you.” I squeeze her hand. “This shit stops right here, with me.”

  Sarah nods at me, but her attention is immediately drawn to her phone. Kat has picked up.

  “Kat,” Sarah breathes into her phone, relieved to hear Kat’s voice. “Are you okay?”