Beautiful Monster: a standalone age-gap romance

by Sara Cate

  Once the kitchen is cleaned and wiped down, I stomp out to the pool house, ignoring him sitting in his chair by the water. Sure, my parents aren’t the most attentive, but at least they never make me feel like a spoiled brat like he does.

  For a moment, I actually consider going home. I could pack my things up and show him that I don’t care that much about him or what he thinks I need, but the thought of crawling back into my mother’s house is a nonstarter.

  Climbing up on the scaffolding, I’m kneeling on the second rung, packing up my unused shades of blue when I feel something cool and wet along the back of my leg. Letting out a gasp, I turn to see Alexander standing behind me with an ashy shade of turquoise smeared across his finger.

  Without another word, he picks up a dollop of the seafoam green with the same finger and spreads it across my arm.

  “Alex!” I shriek, pushing him away.

  “Stop being so angry at me,” he whines.

  “Well, stop treating me like a kid.”

  “Stop acting like one.” This time, he plucks a blue finger on my forehead.

  “You’re one to talk. This stuff is toxic, Alex.”

  “No, it’s not,” he laughs.

  When he reaches for another glob of paint, I swat his hand away, sending the tray flying, splattering blue paint all over his tile floor. Before he reacts, I slather my hand with sky blue and spread it across his chest, all over his shirt, mixing it with the strands of chest hair peeking out of his collar. He grabs my wrists tightly in his hands, stopping me. We’re not playing anymore, but we’re not quite fighting either. It’s charged, and my heart is thudding harder than ever as rage boils up from my gut. I feel like a kid who can’t have what she wants, bursting with emotion and desperate to let it out.

  I let out a scream, yelling it in his face. Suddenly, his paint-covered hand is around my waist as he hoists me off the scaffolding. I let out a desperate shriek as he carries me out to the pool, hanging under his arm like a bag of flour.

  “Put me down,” I scream. But it barely gets out of my mouth before he’s tossing me in the water, jumping in after me. The summer has recently faded into a warm autumn, leaving the evenings cooler, and the frigid water in the pool sends waves of electricity through my body.

  When I pop up for air, I give him a snarl. I want to hit him, more than ever. “You’re an idiot for what this will do to your pool water.” The usually crystal-clear water is starting to look murky already from the paint all over his hands and my waist.

  “Chill the fuck out, Sunny,” he says, pulling me closer by the waist.

  “No. you want to act like I’m not responsible, but you’re the one who acts like an impulsive teenager.” When my body slams up against his, his arms tight around my waist, I shut up.

  Without a word, he brushes my wet hair out of my face. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to not act like an impulsive teenager around you?”

  My breath slows, staring at his face and the soft wrinkles around his eyes. “Oh yeah?” Suddenly, I know exactly how I want to use this pent-up aggression. I want to push him, test his strength of his convictions.

  The pool wall is against my back and he frames me in with his hands on the ledge on either side of me. I watch the movement of his chest as he breathes. The water clings to his wet T-shirt flattened against the cords of muscles that run down his arms. My fingers move to touch them.

  “How would you act then, Alexander? If you were an impulsive teenager?” I clench my thighs together, feeling the arousal warming my center.

  I expect him to swim away, stop himself from saying anything that he would deem as too risky like he normally does. Instead, he leans in, as if speaking directly into my throat. My heart stops when I feel his cool breath against my wet skin.

  “I would have fucked you in this pool at least a dozen times by now, Sunny.”

  His lips don’t touch my skin, but he blows softly, sending goosebumps along every inch of my body.

  It becomes harder to swallow when his fingers slide down the length of my shoulder, starting from my earlobe and traveling down to my elbow. My arms close around his neck as he presses me against the wall, grinding his erection into my lower belly.

  “What else?” I breathe.

  With his breath against my cheek this time, he continues. “I would have filled every single one of these precious holes, Sunny. I would own them all.”

  I can’t help it, but a soft moan escapes my lips at his words. In response, his hands lift my legs until they’re wrapped around his waist. My brain is lost in the sensation, but there’s an acceptance there that he will never do these things he talks about. The things he wants to...we both want him to. This is what he needs to feel better about himself, to deny himself these indulgences until he knows he can trust himself to be a better person for me. I can accept that now.

  But still, I want his lips on my mouth so bad, it hurts.

  I don’t beg. It wouldn’t be fair.

  But there are no rules against my lips on him.

  Tilting my hips, I grind myself against his stiffness and let my lips absorb the moisture from his neck. Tiny droplets of saltwater on my tongue, I feel his pulse in my mouth.

  “What else?” I want this game to last forever.

  He grinds me roughly against the side of the pool. “I’d have you on your knees for me, Sunny. Hungry for my cock, every fucking day.”

  “Yeah,” I moan into his ear.

  “Jesus Christ,” he groans, grinding into me again.

  “What else?”

  “Tell me not to touch you, Sunny.” His hands are on my sides, digging his fingers into the flesh around my ribcage, and I understand what he’s asking me to do. He’s asking me to define the rules of this game. We can imagine it. We can pretend it could happen, but it can’t actually happen. For his sake, this is what Alex needs. To know he showed restraint, that he is not the guy who takes without repent, that walks away from the version of himself he can stand.

  His fingers are creeping toward my breasts, and for a moment I consider that my tits don't count. This doesn’t cross the line. His hands fondling my nipples would be fucking heaven and if it’s the only thing I can get, I’ll take it. But I don’t. Because it is crossing the line, and these are the boundaries he needs.

  “Don’t touch me, Alexander.” It comes out in a croak, and his hips drive harder against me as I say it.

  “Good girl.”

  “Tell me not to kiss you.” He’s holding my face in his hands now, staring into my eyes, and my gaze falls on his lips. How beautiful I already know they feel against mine.

  “Don’t fucking kiss me.”

  “I want to,” he groans against my cheek.

  I want him to, as well. So bad I’m about to throw all the stupid rules out the window. I could let Alexander have his way with me right now, and none of it would matter. I could nurse him back to understanding that he’s not all bad. That what I see isn’t what he sees. That he’s not to blame for this. That he’s not the monster he sees when he looks in the mirror.

  This time when he grinds against me again, he grabs my hips in his hands, and it’s too rough, but it doesn’t hurt as much as his words. “Tell me not to make you come.”

  My chest deflates, and I want to ignore him. I know that if I don't say anything, he would grind his dick against me until I throbbed with pleasure. I can almost taste the orgasm.

  “You can’t make me come, Alex,” I whisper, feeling defeated, hanging on his shoulders, wishing I could take it all back.

  His movement stops. Our breathing slows. Hanging onto his shoulders, he lets go of my body. “Good girl, rain cloud.” My eyes squeeze shut at his words.

  I hate that the idea of being with me makes Alex feel like a monster. I wish that there wasn’t twenty years between us and that giving him every single part of me didn’t warp his self-image, but it does. And it always will.

  He pulls away, leaving my cold body in the pool as he
walks toward the stairs.

  When he reaches a hand down to help me out, he gives me one of his signature winks like nothing happened between us. “First rule of being a responsible adult, we don’t always get what we want.”

  Sunny

  My phone buzzes behind my head, and I reach back and silence it without looking at the name on the screen. Alexander and I were up until almost two a.m. binge-watching something on Netflix, and I know it’s probably at least eleven in the morning already. I smell the coffee from the kitchen.

  He didn’t touch me again after the encounter in the pool, which I had to admit grated my nerves. I wanted to keep playing that little resistance match, but that was the difference between us. For me, it was a game. For him, it was his life.

  I don't know if Alex will ever get over our age difference and be ready to let me in. Somewhere in his head, he thinks he belongs with someone else, someone his age, better suited to his lifestyle instead of a teenager he won't even introduce to his friends. I have to live with the fact that if he did give in to what I tempted him with last night, it would just be sex. And that’s it. And that would kill me.

  My phone starts buzzing again. My dad’s picture pops up on the screen. Sitting up in a rush, I click the green button and hold it up to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Where the hell are you?” he bites across the phone line without a greeting.

  “What?” I stutter.

  “Your mother said you’re sleeping over at the neighbor’s house.”

  The blood drains from my face. In a rush, I jump out of bed and run to the kitchen. Alexander is sitting on his laptop with a coffee cup in his hands. I take a mental picture of how hot he looks in the early morning light.

  “Well, did mom tell you why?” I respond.

  Alex tilts his head in question at my conversation. I just shake my head at him.

  “I’m staying in his guest bedroom because I can’t stand to be in that house anymore, Dad. I can’t be around her anymore.”

  “What the fuck did she do?” my dad asks, sounding exasperated. I’m still waking up, but now I can make out the sound of his car in the background and realize that he’s on the road somewhere. Whatever effort he put into calling me was just enough to put in a call on his way somewhere.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I mumble. I’m not protecting my mom. I just don’t need the added anxiety. If I tell him what she did, then he’ll get involved. And it’s prolonging something that I just want buried in my past.

  “So, what? You’re sleeping with Alexander Caldwell now?”

  I flinch at the accusation in my dad’s tone.

  “We’re just friends, Dad.”

  Alexander’s eyes are on me, and I avoid his gaze as I defend our relationship—our strange, undefinable relationship.

  “Well, I don’t know how I feel about you sleeping in a strange man’s house. I know Caldwell, Sunny. He’s not the kind of guy you leave your nineteen-year-old daughter with.”

  “I’m twenty, Dad.” Staring out at the pool, I feel Alex’s presence behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  “Well, whatever, Sunny. Same thing. I think you should go makeup with your mom. Whatever she did, I’m sure you had a part in it, and you two need to figure it out.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alexander mutters from behind me, hearing my dad’s voice blaring across the line. Before I know it, the phone is out of my hand.

  “Listen here, asshole. Your daughter showed up in my house at midnight with a shiner on the side of her face that she got from her mother.”

  “Alex!” I shriek, trying to take my phone back. I hear my dad raging on the other line.

  “Be a fucking man and take care of your family, you piece of shit.” In a huff, he tosses my phone into the grass and stomps off, seething with anger. The tin sound of my dad’s voice blaring from the phone calls for me, and I turn toward him to pick it up, but something stops me. I should stop chasing his love. I should walk inside with Alex and stick up for myself, but I’m frozen in place.

  I hate that I pick the phone up, but I do.

  “Dad, I’m sorry.”

  “Who does that fucking asshole think he is?” he barks at me, making my throat sting with oncoming tears. “He has no right talking to me like that. Sunny, you get your ass out of that house do you hear me? Go home and stay the fuck away from Alexander Caldwell. Has he tried anything with you yet? I swear if I find out he touched my little girl, I’ll kill him.”

  “Dad, I’m just working for him. Painting a mural in his pool house. He hasn’t tried anything. He’s just helping me.”

  ‘You’re what? Painting his pool house? What kind of idiot can’t paint—”

  “Dad, he hired me to paint one of my paintings on his wall. It’s...nevermind,” I stammer. Trying to explain my art to my dad feels about as good as peeling my own skin off.

  “Just go home, Sunny.” I can hear the anger in his voice, but it doesn’t penetrate anymore.

  “Okay, Dad,” I lie.

  “I have a meeting, Sunny. I hate having to deal with this shit while I’m trying to work. Just keep your shit together, okay? And for fuck’s sake, go home.”

  Before I can say goodbye, the line goes dead.

  When I walk into the house, Alex has his running clothes on. A pair of shorts without a shirt, looking good enough to eat. The seasoned flecks of gray in his growing beard have my mind almost completely forgetting about the fight with my dad.

  “Your dad really is an asshole,” he mumbles as he grabs his earbuds off the entryway table.

  “He’s just...under a lot of stress,” I lie. My dad is under the same amount of stress that he’s always been under. This is his base standard of behavior, and I realize that I've been making these excuses for him my entire life. Alex catches my bullshit right away with a cocked brow.

  “Can I come with you?” I blurt out, suddenly feeling motivated to be outside, with Alexander, working up a sweat in a way that doesn’t have to end in a cold shower and frantic touching myself to relieve some of the pressure.

  “You want to go for a run?” he asks, looking a little excited about it.

  “Yeah, if that’s okay?” We don't have to look like a couple while we’re jogging next to each other. We can still look like friends.

  “Of course. Suit up, rain cloud,” he says with a smile, and I run back to my room to grab my shorts and sports bra. When I walk out, he immediately shuts down my outfit. “Nope!” he yells and points at the bedroom.

  “You’re not wearing a shirt!” I shout from the bedroom as I dig a tank top out of my bag that is now strewn all over the floor.

  When I stomp past him, mumbling, “Happy now?” he answers with a quick swat on my butt that makes me laugh while sending a surge of excitement through my body.

  We start off with a brisk walk until we get to the top of the hill where the neighborhood starts to level out.

  “Why do you make excuses for him?” Alex asks as he starts to jog.

  “I’m not. He’s just…he’s never been a great dad, but I still love him.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s okay to let him talk to you like that, Sunny. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean they have a free pass to treat you like shit.”

  “I don’t know,” I mumble.

  I can tell Alexander is keeping his pace slower for me. I haven't jogged in almost a year, but I could remember loving long jogs in high school. I didn’t play sports, but these runs around the neighborhood were one of the only ways I could escape my parents fighting.

  “Keep up, rain cloud,” he calls as he starts pulling ahead. It only makes me push harder, working to jog beside him.

  “What about you?” I ask, losing the ability to speak and breathe at the same time.

  “What about me?” he asks. The jerk doesn’t sound winded at all.

  “Why haven’t you had kids? Gotten married?” My voice comes out in huffs.

  �
��Never wanted to.”

  He answers like it’s just that simple. He didn’t want to get married, so he didn’t. I realize that it must be nice to not be under so much pressure to find the right person, get married, push out a ton of babies.

  “Ha,” I answer because it’s about all my lungs can handle.

  He laughs at me, that deep timber chuckle as he stops and lets me catch up. “Breathe, Sunny.” His arm lands around my shoulder, and I lean into his body, wanting the contact but also the support. I guess I’m in worse shape than I expected.

  “Are you laughing at me, rain cloud?”

  “I just think it’s funny that you can just live your whole life without any pressure.”

  “So, you think I don’t get pressured. Please. My sister has been breathing down my neck to get married since I was twenty. It’s probably why I haven’t.”

  “Why does she pressure you so much?” I ask, finally regaining the ability to breathe and speak at the same time.

  “My parents died when we were young. Left us with money and not much else. I had the whole world and zero responsibility. All I had to do was keep up the investments, stay in touch with the business managers, and spend more money than I could make a dent in in one lifetime. To my sister, I was throwing my life away. She thought that if I didn’t settle down, find a wife, build a family that it would all be for nothing.”

  “And has it? Been all for nothing?” I ask, peeking up at him through the bright sun. There’s a sheen of sweat along his forehead, but he’s barely out of breath.

  He smiles down at me, sending my stomach into a twirl. “How could I complain?”

  I know he’s making light of a lifetime of behavior that has sent him spiraling and left him unfulfilled, but I see that somewhere in the levity is a hint of truth.

  When we come to the top of the next hill, we decide to take off in a jog again. This time, he keeps up a slow pace to stay next to me. I notice movement across the street, a flash of light, but I don’t think anything of it. I just smile at him and jab him in the ribs like he always does to me.

  As we get back to the house, I follow Alexander to the pool. He smiles at me as he tosses back a bottle of water. Then without another word, he peels off his jogging shorts and dives into the water. I barely get a look at his pale, bare backside before he’s in the pool. Water spits out either side of my mouth as I hold my water bottle to my lips.