by JR King
I liked Tony and Aidan and it seemed like Alexander appreciated William and Pablo and Sara as much. Throughout the rest of the evening, I remained curious to see if he’d get bored with any tablemates, as he was apt to most of the time. Every time I looked at his lips or saw his fingers rub over the curve of his jaw, the muscles south of my lower body achingly clenched. I listened to the tone of his voice, his lush accent, accompanied by a smile that illuminated his dark and dangerous features. From across the candlelit dinner table, I tried to catch his eye, but he spared me no glance.
Taking a swig of water, Sara asked, “I’m serious, guys. What makes you tick when you want a girl?”
Pausing, Tony set down his fork. “Easy.” He opened his napkin to blot the caked moisture of gravy from the corner of his mouth.
“Spill the beans.” Sara was practically sprawled across the table, chest hunkered down over her plate, elbows so far out they invaded my personal space.
“She must be a slutty chef in the kitchen, a French maid in the study, and a submissive whore in the bedroom.”
“Agreed,” Michael voiced a dread-laced response.
Alexander said, “Tony, my man,” then they high-fived. The grin with the crooked corner warmed the cockles of my heart. And that’s when I realized, staring at him in wonderment, that I was falling in love.
When Sara started chattering irrelevantly about our past, I stopped chewing and hurried to swallow the bite. I saw the muscle at the hinge of Alexander’s jaw twitch. The subtle sign betrayed his murderous thoughts while she continued blathering with unforgivable ignorance. With full contempt, I glared at Sara to see if she’d stop casually stirring my past and retrieve her fork, but she acted as if she didn’t see me. I shifted uncomfortably and looked over at Michael, hoping he’d come up with some embarrassing fact about Sara. That was stupid hope, for he was known to never interrupt her.
“In High School, El was shyer than shy, nonstop blushing and biting her lip in the quarterback’s presence.”
Under the table, I pulled my legs up and crossed them, sighing. I was still shy and spoke only when spoken to. My dress, already tight after so much food, constricted my chest further. “All grown up now,” I interjected, laughing at Sara as though I was humoring a slow child.
“You had to, after the freak show of Peter’s disappearance, and suicide.” Her smile suggested I should thank my lucky stars, being grateful that she did me a solid by making Alexander jealous. I, on my terms, wanted to pick up her plate and shove the remaining bits of polenta all over her face.
“Enough, Sara!” Michael snapped, finally.
Yet, the fingers around the stem of Alexander’s wine glass moved misleadingly slow. His expression placid, he lounged casually on the Chiavari chair. As uniformed staff cleared the plates, all I could think was that I would soon get acquainted with sodomy. Throughout the raspberry profiteroles with Bourbon vanilla bean custard and salted caramel dessert course, I stared at him as he chewed and swallowed. His gaze touched everyone but Sara.
We all had smokes and digestifs: brandy and menthols for the girls, whiskey and cigars for the guys. Sobering up with a train of espressos, and mini coffee éclairs and cream puffs, Sara and I retreated in a den. She apologized to me. I saw sadness in her eyes and noted the measured way she spoke about moving out of this house. My thoughts were split between the life before Alexander and imagining one without him.
Before leaving, Michael and I hugged for a long time.
He said, “Are you okay? Is he hard on you? Palm-twitchingly unbearable?”
“I’m fine. Just scared he’ll leave me if intercourse isn’t up to snuff.”
“He’ll never do that. Take my word for it.”
I swallowed then nodded once, slowly yet decisively.
Alexander held my hand, assisting me into the car, making sure my coat wouldn’t get caught. He pushed the door firmly closed, and walked to the front of the car where Tony was patting the hood. They man-hugged each other, which was kind of sweet. I waved at Tony as Alexander hopped in, plunging us into darkness when he shut his door. I held my breath until he fired up the engine and turned on the headlights. The dashboard glowed and he looked across at me. I felt my pulse jump.
“Don’t be mad at Sara.”
Without saying a word, he put the car into gear. Tires crunched on loose gravel.
There was only a hum of the car engine as I fidgeted against the leather upholstery. The French sportscar had that otherworldly balance of brutal speed and unparalleled refinement, its design so fine that I couldn’t feel any vibrating around me. In the dark interior, Alexander didn’t acknowledge me. He didn’t speak. I glanced discreetly at him, the cinderish glow of the dashboard outlining his face. The tick on his jaw was gone but his expression hadn’t changed. To the rest of the world, at first glance, his calm immobility would signal nothing but the demeanor of a gentle, calm man.
As we rounded the corner into our street, I slid my hand over to his on the gearshift. It was my usual attempt to ask forgiveness, a gesture born of the habit of following his rules. “I’ll do it, Alex,” I whispered.
Having used the remote control and activated the left hand indicator, he slowed down to pull into the garage.
Say something, dammit!
I waited for him to open my door.
He did. I stepped out.
He shut it and asked, “Are you ready to do exactly as I say?”
I was acutely aware of the pain that awaited me, weakness perceptible in my voice. “I am, Alex.”
He took my hand and began caressing it, playing with it as though deep in thought. Cocking his head, he stared down at our entwined hands, and when his gaze found mine again, I felt like I was drowning in the grayness of his eyes. “What I want is you in my life, Elena.” His voice dropped to a rough murmur. “I’ll tell you what I dream of. I dream of you bound to me, day and night. I dream of you wide open for me, just for me, all of your body, your soul, your mind, and your beauty.” With the tiniest of headshakes, he shook himself out his strange reverie and caressed my lips with his thumb while I stared at his mouth, not fully understanding the words that’d come out of it. “I want all of you, sweetheart. Your anger, your fear, your shame, your pride, your breaths, they all belong to me.”
I pulled my face away from his fingers. He was talking in riddles, and even if I didn’t fully understand what he expected from me, I trusted him. “I might not be worth all this trouble.”
At that, he looked amused, and chuckled. “Assuredly, Elena, you’re worth all the trouble in the world.” His eyes were dancing with mischief. “It’s in your blood.”
I stared at him, mute, as much confused by his words as by the shifts of my mood. Why wasn’t I putting up more resistance? Why was I swooning over anal sex? I put it all down to exhaustion and alcohol, the combination making me dizzy. How bad could it be?
“You okay, pet? You are, aren’t you?”
With great effort, “I am,” I purred with my chin raised and my voice less quarrelsome. I leaned heavily on him as he led me to the bedroom.
In the dressing room, he proceeded to unbuckle the patent leather straps of my shoes, and slipped them off. With a gentle and deft touch, he began easing the tension in my feet. “You realize you can stop me, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you don’t want to, do you?” His arms went around my shoulders and he smoothed my hair, smiling a smug, panty-combusting smile. So damn cocky yet so damn gorgeous that it controlled me. Made my reluctance dissolve like sugar.
“No, Alex.” There was a slight tremor in my voice. Hopefully he wouldn’t read it as fear, though, but as anticipation.
Alexander Turner
The Great Meal
A good meal doesn’t need to be fancy, it could be ham and purslane on rye. Comfort food comes in all shapes and sizes. I remember one such meal when my mother and I were in Japan. It was summer, hot and humid and busy. My father, Conrad, was in Tokyo fo
r a series of business meetings. I remember the international meal as if it’d happened only yesterday. My mother—Simone—and I had been out in the heat most of the day, visiting shrines and temples, playing tourist. We had a driver at hand, and a security detail. I was thirteen years old, realizing more and more that I lived a different life compared to most people. I was in that angry stage. That helpless stage where you don’t know how to control your anger, or how to make it fade and melt away like ice. I felt like punching holes into walls twenty-four-seven.
Kyoto’s Gion district was famous for its geishas. Buildings were developed cheek by jowl, it was full of theaters and teahouses, and it also offered some of Kyoto’s best dining. Despite the hoards of tourists, my mother wanted to see historical sights. By the middle of the afternoon, I was parched and positively wilted, in dire need of a cold beer. Yes, I was thirteen, fully indoctrinated into a masculine hegemony, and quite familiar with alcohol. Rather, my father didn’t want me to experiment outside the house with bad company. I did it in a controlled environment ipso facto.
For the late lunch, we stopped in at a small local shop that specialized in bento boxes. Apparently, the wide selection of dishes represented regional cuisines of many Japanese prefectures. Quietly impressed that I was actually in Japan, seeing things I’d read about in articles, I looked around. There were easily over a hundred different type of boxes, the design and packaging varied in size and shape, each one ergonomically tailored to its selective contents. The variety of ingredients was equally impressive: all types of meat, fish, starches and vegetables. Even things I had never seen or heard of. I chose a Shōkadō bentō from Kyoto, which was a traditional black lacquered box with an even number of compartments. Inside it were sticky rice, rock shrimp tempura under a canopy of green leaves, salmon sashimi, beef teriyaki, and neat little cups of soy, wasabi, and ginger.
It was an absolute pleasure to watch my mother choosing the same thing. Some woman led us to a table; her physical details escape me at this stage. The shop was cool and quiet after all the noisy heat of animated streets, its curtains drawn, giving it that intimate aspect. Tables were low, requiring us to kneel or sit cross-legged on the tatami matting. A complementary bowl of Nukazuke was placed between us. The salmon and the beef, the latter had been lightly marinated, were fresh as hell, the tempura batter was light and super-crunchy, and the rice was perfectly seasoned and cooked. Both mother and I marveled that we could eat so simply and yet so well, washing it all down with some chilled Kirin lager beer. We capped the meal with dorayaki, a type of Japanese confection. Think a red bean pancake, which consists of two silver dollar pancakes made of castella, filled with red bean paste.
Even at that young age, I’d had a lot of great meals in a lot of great restaurants situated in the most amazing places, but I’d never had one better than this one. Twenty-one years later, the simple meal still shined in my memory.
What I’m trying to tell you is that Michael’s dinner party wasn’t nearly as good, I suspect because the fierce company of my mother was absent, but, it was right up there with the best meals in my life.
After the surprisingly tasty blood sausage starter, we had a roasted red curry pumpkin soup, which was glazed with honey and flecked with chili peppercorns, the whole presented tableside as it was spooned out of the still steaming skin by the serving staff. Aside from the steak, side dishes ranged from sautéed girolles to roasted potatoes à la grecque to creamy polenta to grits and rainbow chard.
Fucking irony hit me up afterward. This one might as well be called how a sadist tries not to hurt his girlfriend. I think, as a man, I was improving, but you tell me.
“Sit down,” I told Elena.
She did as I asked, perching herself on the edge of the bed. The rise and fall of her chest accelerated significantly as she looked up at me, her eyes concurrently questioning and bewitching me.
“Does the idea excite you?”
“Tiny bit.” Yet a strong blush crawled over her cheeks.
“It excites me a lot, pet. Ranks high on my list of kinks.”
Across her face, lust blended with fear.
“Will you fight me?”
She countered with a telltale shaking of the head.
“Allow me to teach you to enjoy it.” I stepped forward, took her by the shoulders and roughly pulled her upright. I kissed her on the mouth, our tongues engaging greedily, passionately. Beautiful and bereft, that’s how she looked when I tore my mouth away from hers. “Trust me.”
I lowered my head and she welcomed yet another—slow, wet, drawn out—kiss. Gingerly I pulled the platinum hairpins out, and after a few seconds the twist released and her hair spilled over her back. I took her mouth urgently, my lips pressing hard, my tongue coming out to swirl against hers. This is how I continued to plunder her mouth while my hand slipped into her hair to cradle the back of her head. Holding her in place, I moved my other hand to undo the buttons of her dress. Remember my online shopping habits? I’d personally selected this button-up Carolina Herrera dress. Great for winter: round neckline, three-quarter sleeves, buttoned front, shiny skinny belt, full fluted A-line skirt with pockets.
I unfastened a few buttons until the front gaped open, and then my hand slipped inside to grasp her left breast. Elena started tapping on my bicep. My mouth broke away from hers, my breath outright ragged as I looked down at her. “What is it?”
“It’s just,” she began with a considerable tremble, “Alex, could you just be more gentle? I’m a little…sore.”
“I’ll try, baby,” I conceded. “Are you bleeding?” I rubbed at her upper arm, right where the birth control implant was inserted.
She flicked her long locks away from the arm I was rubbing. “Not at all. I just feel a little different.”
Leaning in again, my mouth slid against hers leisurely. Her lips parted, and my tongue darted out to stroke against hers. This time when my hand slipped inside her dress I didn’t clutch her flesh, rather I teased her nipples with gentle caresses. I scraped my teeth along the rim of her ear, rasping my tongue across her flesh.
Then I circled my hand around her throat and squeezed. “Did Jax take it this far?” I nipped her ear.
She tugged against me, clawing at my shirt. “No. Never, Alex. No one.”
I blew gently on her ear, the warm tip of my tongue sweeping over the skin I’d bruised. “That’s my girl.” I slackened my hold and flicked the earlobe.
“Don’t hurt me.”
“I’ll damn well do what pleases me,” I snorted, still licking the swollen, pale amaranth flesh of her earlobe. The diamond stud in her ear glistened brighter with my saliva.
“I’ll safeword,” she giggled.
I mashed her lips between mine and dug my tongue deeper to suffocate her emboldened spirit. When I released her I told her to undress.
So the task was clear: not letting the lady safefuckingword.
Minutes later, I was as naked as her, oiling my erect cock with long, fluid strokes until it was gleaming—no, that’s not a strong enough word—until it was dripping. Elena watched me, nervously waiting on the bed instead of expectantly.
“My sexy little fuckpet is a virgin,” I murmured, and watched a rosy blush spread over her features. “I’ll show you how good it can be. Turn around.” I grabbed the bottle of oil from the nightstand and poured it over her back. It was a Shunga Aphrodisiac Oil, its heat effect could be activated by blowing on it. My cock played in the smooth liquid for a moment before I leaned in and teasingly rubbed it against her slit.
“Smells…nice,” Elena panted. Her accelerated breathing was an aphrodisiac in itself.
“Organic Green Tea. Edible, too.”
I worked her behind for a while, and she let me. I couldn’t say how long I spent running my tongue over her clit, all the while lubricated fingers stretched the puckered opening. The complaining began when I pushed a cold, hard plug between her butt cheeks to prepare her for the next part.
“You can’t,�
� she sobbed. “Please don’t. No!”
The no spurred me on. Why reluctance aroused me? Why, indeed, would reluctance arouse a man like me, a man who could have any girl he so desired. It was the hesitation before surrendering to the blackest of desires, the denial, the snuggly refusal. I enjoyed to conquer, enjoyed hearing the ungently no and watch the girl struggle, the outright rejection of whatever it was I wanted, only to find out that, in her own way, she was getting herself off on me. You see, her mind was trying to talk her way out of out the sensations I was forcing on her, but it had no effect at all on her body. Everyone is entitled to having flaws; don’t forget that I had a strong penchant for mind games.
I didn’t respond to Elena with hateful words. “Hush, kitten. I’ll teach you to enjoy this.” Presently, my lips continued pressing insistently against the nape of her neck, the stubble on my face gently scratching her as I nuzzled the softness beneath her ear. She was afire, I felt it. I tasted the crackling of electricity at every kiss I planted, at every whisper of my warm breath—redolent with the sinful tang of Achával-Ferrer wine—on her skin. He legs shook as I eased the toy inside her, but the steady teasing of her clit coaxed her into it. “Good, there we go. Good girl.”
“Alex. No.”
“Yes,” I growled against her ear. The sound of my voice was manipulatively calculated: low, sweet, demanding, and vaguely menacing in its masculinity. I knew that this type of bedroom voice usually worked. “I want it. So do you, just say it.”
“No,” she groaned. “No, please remove it.”
“Relax, kitten. It’ll be much easier if you relax.”
“Take it out,” she begged in between sobs. “Just take it out.”
I pushed the sweat-damp fringe of her raven hair aside. She wasn’t serious. I knew there was a part of her that was lying to me. A large part, the one that felt ashamed she liked this. “There’s no shame to be had, it’s nothing but a small toy. You are free. You don’t have to think, all you have to do is listen and move as I say. I told you to relax. It won’t hurt if you listen to me,” I cajoled her.