Beautiful Monster: a standalone age-gap romance

by Sara Cate

  “She’s precious, Alexander. Keeping you in line, I hope.”

  With a small laugh, I nod. “She is.”

  Just then, a roar of laughter breaks out on the other side of the room, and we both glance in that direction to see the crowd around Sunny howling, her included, and I can’t help but admire how she glows in this moment. She’s in her element, far more than I’ve seen her in either my backyard or her mother’s.

  “Wanna grab a smoke?” Diana asks, pulling a pack out of her small purse.

  I don’t smoke anymore, but the idea of stepping outside to escape the bright lights and noise sounds good. “What the hell,” I answer with a smile. We head for the back of the gallery, and I’m about to stop and tell Sunny where I’m going, but she seems to be having such a good time, I don’t want to bother her. So, I slip outside with Diana instead.

  When she hands me a cigarette and a light, I inhale, savoring how much it burns. It’s been years since I last lit up, except for the occasional light up when I’m so drunk, I can’t even feel what it’s doing to my throat. It burns, and I resist the urge to cough as it assaults my lungs.

  Sunny will probably hate the way these make me smell.

  “You look good,” Diana says with a soft smile. “Better than the last time I saw you.”

  “Thanks,” I reply through a puff of smoke. “You do too.”

  “Your new girl reminds me of that model you dated a couple years back. The one we went to the movie premier with.”

  It takes me a moment to remember the face, but I know the girl’s name was Esther.

  “She was young, too,” she teases me.

  “No, she wasn’t,” I laugh. “She was at least twenty...something.”

  A sweet cackle escapes Diana’s lips as he pulls another drag from her cigarette. “How old are you now?”

  “Fuck you,” I snap back as she giggles.

  Diana stares at me for a few long moments with a hooded expression in her eyes.

  “How long will this one last?” she asks with a gravelly texture in her voice.

  I don’t answer. It’s like I’m suddenly seeing my own behavior from outside my body. Why am I standing out here with someone I very recently fucked when I should be inside proving to the woman I love, that I can be a loyal boyfriend?

  I don’t want to fuck Diana. The old me would have, but how long after Sunny leaves will I return to the old me? What if I come out during those six months and run into another beautiful old hookup?

  “I should go,” I say, ignoring her question.

  “Alexander, I’m sorry,” she mutters, but I walk inside anyway.

  As we make our way back into the gallery, I feel Sunny’s eyes on me. She looks concerned, biting her lip, and I hate myself for it. My stomach sours.

  Leaving Diana, I walk straight over to Sunny.

  “We just stepped out for a smoke,” I say, taking her hand before she can ask.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” she scowls, smelling my fingers as she pulls them to her nose.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “I’ll wash it off as soon as we get home.”

  Home. I want to take her home. Our home. Right now.

  “They want to see the mural,” she says, holding my hand and looking up at me hesitantly, and her words hit me like a punch. It’s like she read my mind.

  Honestly, I don’t want the party at my house. The house is my sacred space, our space. It’s where I leave all of this stuff behind.

  “What do you think?” she says carefully. Her eyes have hope in them, and I know she wants to take pride in her work at this moment, and I’m only sorry she has to ask me first.

  “I wouldn’t deprive anyone of seeing it.” I lean in and kiss her again. She links her hands around my neck and deepens the kiss.

  “You will be rewarded,” she hisses against my mouth. “But you really have to shower. You stink.”

  There are more people at the house than I expected. Sunny is in the pool with a few of the girls, including Valerie, who are all so liberated they think it’s acceptable to swim in my suburban pool at eleven at night in nothing but their panties.

  Thankfully, Sunny has plenty of swim suits here and is keeping herself covered. I can hardly look at the water with the four pairs of bare tits splashing around in there. Most of the guys are sitting around the patio, but a few of them are watching the girls in the pool because it doesn’t matter how much you appreciate art, tits are tits and guys are guys.

  Gino sits back and laughs with a thick joint between his fingers. I have a gnawing feeling in my gut and I just wish these people would leave. I’ve never felt more like a grumpy old man than I do right now. I walk to the bar to get another drink, hoping the bourbon will calm my nerves. I offer one to my tablemates, but they all brought their own beers in a small cooler.

  “I love your girlfriend, Alexander. She’s so adorable!” As I glance down in the pool, Valerie has her arms wrapped tight around Sunny, her small tits pressed up against my girlfriend, and the lazy smile on Sunny’s face tells me she’s either been drinking or taking hits off Gino’s blunt.

  I laugh at them and shoot Sunny a harsh glare that makes her giggle. She’s going to be paying for this later.

  As I mix my drink at the bar, I catch a glimpse of the painting. I see Sunny there. The girl doesn’t look like her, but I see her in every stroke. Each day spent painting that wall and how my feelings for her progressed with each brush stroke.

  Hearing the party behind me, I see Sunny and Valerie wrestling in the pool. This is how it’s going to be for her at that program. Everyone will want her. Men, women. They will try to suck the youth and life right out of her. And in some sense, no matter if we try to stay together or not, she will stop being mine to some degree.

  As I turn around, I nearly drop my crystal tumbler on the pool deck. Sunny’s wet bikini top is sitting on the ground by my feet. My eyes travel over to where Valerie has her perched on her shoulders, playing chicken with another pair of girls. Every guy around the pool is cheering them on and practically drooling at the tit display.

  As Sunny and Valerie spin toward me, I see her bare chest, those pink perky nipples for everyone to see, and something in me snaps.

  “Sunny!” I bellow, picking up her top and throwing it at her.

  She yelps as it lands on her shoulder with a thwack.

  “Put it on,” I grit through my clenched jaw. The party goes silent, and Sunny climbs down from Valerie’s shoulders.

  I see the stubbornness in her eyes. She wants to fight me, and refuses to put it on. She just loves to push me.

  “It’s getting late,” Gino says behind me as he motions for Valerie to come with him. The party quickly moves to leave, but Sunny doesn’t back down.

  “I was having fun,” she mutters.

  I walk away from her and try to be a hospitable host, seeing everyone out and thanking them for coming.

  When I finally walk out to the empty patio, Sunny is stomping around, putting away the trash and cleaning up the towels from the pool.

  I’m still red hot, picturing her in that pool, knowing that if I hadn't stopped it, the party would have escalated. And I know exactly how it would have ended. Someone would start getting handsy, maybe one of the girls. It would turn into kissing. The guys would join. The party would move inside. No one would stop it before it turned into an all-out orgy on the living room floor, and she would wake up the next day not entirely sure who she slept with, how many people she let fuck her, or if what they did even really counted as fucking.

  And it would go on for years. Again and again.

  “I know you were just having fun, but as long as you’re my girlfriend, you keep those tits covered unless I’m the one seeing them.”

  She doesn’t answer, just keeps stomping around.

  “I'm trying to keep you from making the same mistakes I did.”

  Spinning on her heels, she points a finger up at me. “Oh, li
ke disappearing with your ex out the back to have a smoke? Did you seriously think that’s okay?” she screams at me. “They told me she was your best friend’s wife, and you fucked her last year and broke them up. I could see the look in their eyes when you left. They pitied me!”

  Shame floods my senses as she yells.

  “You’re going to get a lot of looks like that, Sunny! You know what you’re signing up for with me. I didn’t do shit with Diana, and you fucking know it.”

  “Well, you know how I felt when I saw you walk in together. But you won’t even let me have a little fun? You think everyone is fucked up like you!”

  “Do you understand that I’m just trying to protect you?”

  “No, you’re not. Right now, you’re acting like my dad, abandoning me one moment, controlling me the next.”

  As she walks away, I snatch her up by the elbow and pull her against me. “I am not your dad, Sunny. Don’t project your daddy issues on me, little girl.”

  Shoving away from me, she turns and slaps me across the face. In a swift movement, I grab her wrist, but I’m too hot, too wired that I don’t know what I want to do next. The blood raging through my body for her drives me to wrap my arms around her and crush her mouth with mine. She fights me, twisting away until she’s hanging in my arms, her back to my chest.

  “You’re too good for me, Sunny. Don’t you see how fucked up I am?”

  Her chest cracks in a sob. “I’m fucked up too, Alex.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re young, and you have your whole life ahead of you.”

  When she finally settles her weight and presses her back against me, I feel her fingers wind with mine. “What happens when we’re at parties alone?”

  I don’t answer because I can’t think of things like that.

  “What happens when you get bored here, and your friends invite you out?” she whispers.

  Pulling her face back toward me, I find her lips with mine, and I kiss her until she stops talking. These are questions that we can’t answer because they will inevitably lead to one of two possibilities.

  One: we lie and make promises we can’t keep. I promise I won’t get bored. She promises she won’t let things get out of hand.

  Or two: we see things for what they are. This thing between us is temporary. Too fragile to withstand the pressure.

  So, I don't let her talk, and she doesn’t fight me. When I lift her bikini top, exposing her tits, I palm the right one, squeezing it hard and thinking about the way the other men stared at her. She whimpers as I pinch the pink bud at the end.

  “Do you care about me, Alex?” she breathes as my hands skate down to her thighs.

  “You’re all I fucking care about, rain cloud.”

  “Show me.” With her head hanging back, her long braid almost touching her ass, my mind registers what she’s asking me. Just to be sure I’m understanding her correctly, I grab the long braid and give it a forceful tug, making her cry out and arch her back even more, driving her ass into my hardening cock.

  She wants me to be rough. It’s not that I want to hurt her, but I want her to feel how intensely she makes me feel. How my blood boils for her. How the force of my thrusts matches the way she makes me feel every fucking day.

  Looking down at her bikini bottoms, her round, supple ass in my hands, I pull the fabric up, revealing one bare cheek. With her braid still twisted around my hand, I rear back and land my palm hard against her ass. She gasps, and tears spring to my eyes.

  I feel it. The pain, the excitement, the lust. I feel it all like her skin is mine.

  Wrapping my fingers around her throat without squeezing, I pull her back so I can kiss her again.

  “Tell me you’re going,” I say with my teeth next to her ear.

  She moans in response, and I rear my hand back, landing another sharp sting against her ass.

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m going,” she cries.

  “That’s my girl.” My hands run the length of her body, trying to memorize every inch. “I love you so much it hurts, Sunny.”

  “Show me,” she gasps, and I feel her tears run over my fingers as they graze her lips.

  Emotion pours out of every pore in my body as I yank down her bikini bottoms. It only takes one swipe of my zipper before my cock springs free from my pants, and I pull her back, gripping her hip bones and shoving myself inside in one rough thrust.

  “Yes!” she cries out, and I wrap her up in my hands again, squeezing my fingers around her throat. Slamming into her again and again, I try to pour every ounce of my love for her into every slam of my cock in her tight little cunt.

  “Harder,” she moans, and I nearly break.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper against her shoulder, taking a bite of her precious flesh as I pick up my speed.

  “I want you to.” Her voice is strained, and I know it means she’s close. Rearing my hand back again, I land an even harder smack against her ass, rubbing the sensitive skin after I do and driving in even rougher.

  She collapses against the back of the couch, and I continue slamming myself home. Just before I feel her pussy muscles clench around me, knowing she’s riding this wave of pleasure, I collapse my body on top of hers, inhaling the scent of her skin, knowing deep down that this is the last time I’ll have her here like this.

  The things we’ve admitted, the fears, the doubts, the new knowledge that even our love cannot withstand the pressure we will put it through, will break us. Whether I want to admit it or not, this thing between us is over, and there's nothing I can do to save it.

  With that sobering realization, I come hard inside her.

  Her body is lying limply over the couch. My poor, beautiful, broken Sunny. Before she can move away or start another fight, I scoop her up gently and carry her to our bed. Her face is streaked with tears, and I don’t bother to clean anything as I crawl in next to her.

  Neither of us says anything as she cries, and I hold her, stroking her back.

  I want to tell her how much I love her or that we can make it work, but I know it’s futile. Empty promises and false hope.

  Sunny

  I sleep in Alexander’s bed for the last time. I knew things were over before we went to the party, before he walked out with his ex, before we fought. The idea of staying, prolonging the pain of knowing what was coming felt only slightly worse than walking away from him.

  Once I had to face the truth—that I wanted that internship more than I wanted anything before, I knew I had to accept losing him.

  While he’s out for his jog, I text Valerie, and she agrees to let me stay with her. I can’t go back to the guest room or to my mom’s. I can’t be that close to him, and I didn’t want my mom and my sister in my business.

  Part of me stayed. A piece of my heart was infused in those paints that covered his wall, and as I took one last look at the mural on my way out, I saw my own transformation there. From the bright rays of the sun that shone down on that girl, I saw the way I’d changed this summer. Opening up to someone for the first time. No longer hiding behind this rain cloud. Giving my heart away and knowing that it was loved in return.

  Alexander and I knew it was a risk to jump into this. The higher you jump the harder you fall, and I took this risk. As I laid in bed that night, I considered staying. I told myself we could try this. I could go to the internship for six months, a long-distance relationship, and we could come out of it stronger, but I knew the paranoia and the guilt would ruin us. It would hurt so much more than this. And by the way he reacted at the party, seeing me be the young, happy girl he wanted me to be...but doing it without him...it broke something in him, and I can’t hold that on my shoulders.

  As he walks in from his jog, he doesn’t look at me. He just sees the bags by the door. I expect him to fight, and I keep waiting for him to try and stop me, but he doesn’t.

  “Where are you going to stay?” he asks.

  “Valerie’s,” I whisper, staring at the floor
.

  “You know you can stay here,” he mumbles, his back leaning against the wall opposite me.

  “The internship starts in a couple weeks. I’ll be fine.”

  As he stares at me, I tell myself that he has grown sick of me. He did this with all of the girls and it’s just who Alexander is. Knowing that I was just like the rest of the girls actually made me feel better. It reminded me that I wasn’t walking away from anything special. Just a sexy fling with the hottest bachelor in Pineridge. Any girl should be so lucky.

  There is no real breakup conversation, but it was never a real relationship to begin with, was it? We were a summer fling, a phase and moment in time. I was Alexander’s road to recovery and he was the support I needed to get out of my head. When I couldn’t convince myself that I was worth it, Alex reminded me I was.

  As my phone chimes with a text from Valerie that she’s at the house to pick me up, I finally raise my eyes to reach his for the first time. He doesn’t say anything, just crosses the space and pulls me into his arms.

  “Leave this all behind, Sunny. Do you understand? Leave me, your mom, everything. Just go and don’t look back.” His words crack open something in my chest, and it feels as if I never truly stop bleeding out.

  It takes me days to get out of bed. Valerie is an amazing host, offering me space and companionship when I need it. She makes me binge watch trashy reality shows with her, and she stays up with me all night, making me paint when all I want to do is cry.

  I only check his social media a few times, and I don’t know if I’m terrified to see him miserable or happy. There’s nothing on any of his accounts, but on the third day, he posts a picture from the day at the cherry blossom festival. Neither of us are in the picture, and it’s just a photo of a blossom. The caption reads Blossom. Just that. I don’t know if he’s just pointing out what is in the picture, or if it’s a message to me. Is he telling me to move on and grow?

  Either way, I look at the picture about a hundred times a day, touching the picture, like he can actually feel it.