by JR King
“Why are you doing this?” Her lips—colored fuck-me red—shivered, and I heard her breath catch in her throat.
I ripped my gaze away from the curve of her mouth, bent forward, and simply said in her ear, “Because this is what I want. Would you like to find out what happens if you choose to disobey me?”
“I want sartorial leeway,” she declared, her teeth worrying her lip back and forth.
I willed myself to bite back a curse. “Did I ask you what you want?” My right hand applied pressure in the hollows of her cheeks. I forced my fingers between her lips, mangling her mouth, wrenching her head backward as I messed with her lipstick. “Do. As. I. Say. I’ll drill it into you.”
Her hand delved beneath her dress faster than an arrow reaching its target. She slipped her panties down to her ankles, wresting them off her sandaled-feet. I knew that the willful streak of the rebel in her was tempted to defy me further. Tempted to throw away her underwear just to vex me and earn my displeasure. Earn a rebuke. Except, I could also see the excitement in her face. I knew that some of her exhilaration was due to the yin and yang conflict going on inside her, boundless charm of the smooth sin. The gist of it was her desire to surrender control, to be relieved of any responsibility for her pleasure. So in the end, she simply held out her hand at me. A Brazilian brief by La Perla, with macramé detailing embroidered on stretch tulle.
I pocketed my trophy with appreciative, growly cheer. “Very nice.”
“You’re evil, omnipotent evil,” she snorted, bobbing her head. “Evil that’s wrapped efficiently in beautiful packaging.”
I readjusted my jacket and kept my hands in pockets. “Smile when you say that, babe. There’s no evil, good converts.”
Why I was so happy?
Katherine was visiting.
It was high time to flip things around. Get her back, echoed on repeat on my mind.
Most churches were nothing but elegant social beasts of networking. Despite my questionably sporadic attendance, whenever I went to one I was always welcomed warmly. I think clerics wanted to draw in the blasphemer rather than shun him. Also, the weight my family name carried wasn’t dismissible. I enjoyed the silence when the priest preached. I was tacit as attendees repeated words in unison. Elena too, which was another thing I loved about her. I was proud of her, seated beside me while wearing an egg vibe. She’d joined the Blasphemers Club. I had to marry her, there’s no other way. You, rascal one, are undoubtedly waiting for me to use the remote control on Elena in the middle of a church ceremony.
Another time. The fact that she’d obeyed me was a small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind type of deal.
A wrought iron archway covered with honeysuckle braced the path of broken granite that led us to the pergola. Neatly arranged potted plants on either side had stone plinths. For Sunday Brunch, the dining plateau—shadowed by osier willow trees—was a childfree zone. Like a parterre garden, paths of clipped, regimented box hedges flanked the glassed-in structure. The simple layout of the table was inviting; white roses and neutral silk linens contrasted against silver chairs. The glassware and silverware gleamed so bright that they reflected the greenery. Grandpa came up to us with an iconic Armand de Brignac magnum bottle and ably uncorked and served the bubbly liquid, smiling all the way at Elena. She was focused on the sight of the liquid pouring into the frosted flutes rather than him.
Removing my jacket, I attended to her deep frown. “Does it jar a memory?”
“It does,” she whispered timidly.
As they walked in, Sophia looked askance at Christopher. “You spoil her.”
“Katherine is jet-lagged,” he announced. “Let’s eat.” He gazed ravenously at the starters. An unctuous cauliflower soup topped with seaweed crisps and chilled wild Alaska salmon, a vegetable broth with butter-soused spiny lobster, and freshly sliced tuna with pickled cucumber. “Appetite comes with eating, and I’m very hungry today. Bon appétit.”
Elena ate with gusto, me a little less. I was appreciative of her intellect, and secretly proud of her ability to make small talk while eating crustaceans.
Before the dessert was served, she whispered, “Alex?” I lifted my gaze to hers once more. She was watching me in silence with a pensive expression on her face. “Do you mind if I take a walk alone?”
She’d graciously attended yet another family gathering, never complaining. “Go ahead.” I kissed her knuckles and watched her step outside. I did my best not to follow her with my eyes, but being in love with her like I was, I couldn’t resist. My heart definitely missed a beat or two when I saw what she did. Dusting her skirt, she looked up at the sky and said something. I felt for her. Imagining her as a little girl, forced to watch her mother get strangled, anger began welling inside me.
I took a deep breath, reaching for my glass of water.
Frank caught on to my noirish distress and cleared his throat. “Wonders never cease.” He ran a finger around the rim of his wine glass, his eyes reflecting golden-hued cobalt from the candle on the table. “You’re a good man, Alexander. So why is it that my little girl is the first one you brought home?”
“Others weren’t good enough,” I answered dryly.
I helped plating the dessert, and grandpa served digestifs, choosing French cognac for Elena. When I saw her walk back toward the steps of the pergola, I waved with cigars at her. She waved back and pointed a finger at the reflecting pond she was about to visit. A pulley system permitted the glass panels of the structure to open outward. I unlocked the panel that had a view of the pond, a ghost of a smile playing over my lips when I spied Elena. I’m so lucky. The air was almost brackish, and someplace around the pond a frog belched amicably.
“Come here, sport,” grandpa called me, “you deserve this one.” He was facing the part that overlooked the west corner of the estate. We stood in silence, no use for words right now, just waiting. With two quick chops, he sliced off the heads of the corona Cubans. I knew the moment was to be special whenever he called me sport.
“Allow me, sir,” I offered. I found lighting a cigar a delicate, enjoyable task. It beheld the promise of something good to come, a bit similar to foreplay. To warm the tobacco in the foot of the cigar, I held the flame below it without touching it, rotating the cigar a few times until it was consistently warmed. To light it, I held the flame in front of the cigar, again, without touching it, inhaling just enough so that it was lit orange.
I gave him the lit cigar and began working on mine. He gently blew on its foot, to make sure it was fully lit. “This is the life.”
I nodded.
“Katherine needs you. She’s scared and embarrassed. Don’t be like Conrad.”
I paused for a moment, gathering my thoughts before answering. Since adulthood, there’d been much heated debate within me as to whom my father really was. He was strict and unnecessarily overprotective, but there was always something warm and deeply human about each of the conversations and embraces we’d shared. He was a brutal sort of contrast; he had infinite time and effortless patience for clever people, and others he gave two seconds at most. Not only had I inherited his bone structure, but also the same set of rules carved in it.
“I’ll stand by her,” I replied.
In a little while, Elena was among us again. “I met a seagull!” At hearing yet another peal of her puckish giggle, I smiled.
“They wander off the pier sometimes, darling,” Philippe smiled too at her. We whiled away the afternoon discussing the absence of the black sheep of the family. Katherine was hiding in her room. Every so often, Elena’s hand brushed up along my thigh. Though I’d whispered my permission, the tips of her fingers lightly tapped up and down, demurely refusing to touch me fully. Still, I enjoyed the tormenting rhythm of her scurrying fingertips.
“Time flies by in your presence, Elena.” Grandpa looked somber and distrait, and finished with one of his long-suffering looks. “I see it now. What my boy saw in her.”
“Sees in her,”
I corrected him.
As I headed back toward the house, Elena came up to my side and threw her arms around me, burying her face in my neck. I could feel happiness visiting on her. Feel her smile on my skin. “Who works on Easter?”
I tucked away my iPhone with a sheepish grin. “Occupational hazard. Meredith is doing most of my bidding.” I leaned her back, held her shoulders, and looked into her eyes. “Go back to the table. I must go see Katherine.” She took too long to answer, which prompted me to add, “She’s a good kid, Elena.”
Her eyes lit, a radish red flush painting her cheeks. “It’s not that. I need,” she spoke to me as if pleading an orison to the God of give-me-back-my-panties, “it back.”
“Why? Are you wet?” A spike of heat shot up my spine at the thought. “I haven’t done anything to compromise you, have I?”
She jutted her lower lip out in a curl-pout. “Go. Away.”
I forwent knocking on Katherine’s bedroom door before opening it. “Enough, Kate.”
She gasped loudly. Her jaw was trembling. I don’t think she realized she was gaping at me like a stunned doe caught in headlights. Her color was unnaturally pale, almost like honeydew melon.
I pushed back from the doorsill and walked over to her, sitting her down on the bed. “Fancy a drink?” It was a rhetorical question. I was already filling a glass with a shot. She was still lost in her world when I walked back to her. I took her jaw and felt the lowest resistance before she let me feed her the drink. “Do you miss me?”
Her squint was that of someone who weighed up the underpinning of the question and then answers it to the asker’s satisfaction. “Very much, Alex.” The corners of her mouth sagged into a downturned expression. “I admit that my efforts to seduce you were in poor taste.”
“Such a radical improvement in the current state of affairs.”
“I was lonely. Fact and fantasy swam in a whirl around me. I got so used to being around Tony, Aidan, and you…I got messed up,” she said, her lips worrying. Her eyes held mine in an impish grasp. “I’m learning to deal with my life. Boundaries. Learning there’s a difference between imagination and real life. You mean the world to me…and what I did…what I did was so low—,”
“Shut up, Kate,” I interrupted her apology. “I want you back in Boston. I miss you. The guys miss you. And I want you to be friends with Elena.”
“You didn’t tell them what I did, did you?” she squealed her suppliant, a tinge of fear evident in her voice.
“Regrets are pointless. Water under the bridge.” I sat at the end of the bed and gave her room to sit straight and still have some breathing room, even though I wanted to hug her. With porcelain-like skin, full lips, and blue eyes framed by long eyelashes, Katherine lit up a room like New Year’s Eve fireworks in a dark sky. The flaw that made her beautiful was her nose. Its petite bridge was slightly crooked, the kind of flaw that made her beauty real and drew you in, telling you she was only human, making you want to love her. “That day was,” I sighed, “not handled well by either of us.”
A smile, however slow, appeared around her lips. “I feel like I should say something profound.”
“Letting go is the hardest part. It’s not a light switch, it’s a healing process, and it starts here, with us both. I should have instilled loving but increasingly firm boundaries.”
“Will things be weird between us? Like…can we still hug?” Her eyes screwed up in effort.
I hugged her, and that was that.
Alexander Turner
The Bad News
They say karma is a bitch. Let me tell you, that bitch is frigging beautiful and sly.
Back at the table, I felt like a fat kid in a chocolate shop. The sizzling coulant au chocolat seasoned with sea salt caramel had an extremely runny center, and the blackcurrant coulis on the side kicked it up another level.
Finishing it, suddenly I felt Elena’s hand on my crotch. Grabbing my penis, she squeezed so hard it almost caused me to choke on the sweet wine I was sipping.
As the guests of honor, we were positioned smack dab in the middle of the table. In feigned concern, and for all to see, sweetly she asked, “Are you all right, Alex?”
I nodded with no little venomous contempt in my gaze.
“Hopefully you’re not developing an allergy to chocolate.” The mirth in her voice reached her eyes, and she swung her gaze back to Christopher. “You were saying you spend your time between Chicago and Boston?”
The ball of her thumb continued to rub my glans, gently though. God…the heat of her hand, the urge to thrust was clawing. I tried hard to ignore how good the stimulus felt. No girl had ever dared pulling this shit on me, not even Claudia during family dinners. Staring stonily at my uncle, I fought the urge to close my eyes and throw my head back.
I tried to neutralize my hastened breathing.
Elena’s grip tightened, but shockingly it wasn’t painful. Christopher began telling her about his private equity firm, mentioning how successful and high-up the Forbes and Fortune listing it was. Meanwhile, the muscles in my upper leg rippled. It was exciting, but I couldn’t believe Elena was holding my cock right in the middle of a family gathering. My hand trembled as I reached for my water glass.
The kitchen staff came out to clear away the dishes. A blonde fussed and smiled at me, picking up a huge platter. To seem unaffected by my girlfriend’s hand on my cock, I smiled a boyish, starved-orphan smile at her, “You guys are lifesavers.” She blushed, enforcing the static tension of crackling sparks around us. Before she made herself scarce, she gave me a little smile. Men like flirting with the pretty blonde waitress, get over it. Just like women fake orgasms, men fake disinterest in waitresses. After all, openly speaking, you and I fake all sorts of things. We fake interest in vacation photos of friends and family. We feign cute little noises when looking at pictures of newborn babies. We vehemently agree that spanking is a barbaric practice and should be dispensed with even if we enjoy it. We like splashing in massive puddles while driving, obviously more when there are pedestrians on the pavement so the plumes of foaming water have purpose.
I watched Elena’s face radiate veneration toward Christopher as I maneuvered my hand under the tablecloth. Let’s take a moment here and thank sweet Baby Jesus for short dresses.
Moment’s over.
Good things first, my right hand grabbed hers, pressing it firmly against my cock. Then it clawed at the skin of her thighs, and I watched her jump up at the contact. My fingertips traced circles around her kneecap, making her shift in her seat. I wedged my hand between her knees, but her legs were clenched together with such ferocity it would take—visible—effort to reach her sex. To make her edge her knees apart, I caught a soft piece of her inner thigh between my thumb and forefinger, pinching her hard enough to elicit a shout. She was unmoved, and so was I, even as her hand curled harshly around my hard cock. My thighs ached with the strain, my muscles tensing by the force it took to keep me from moving in my chair.
“You in, Alex?” Christopher was asking me something with a cheerful expression, his arm draped over the back of Sophia’s chair.
I pinched Elena again, in exactly the same spot. Then I brought out my adopted-orphan smile. “Sure, I’m in.” Due to Elena’s wickedly agile appendage, my tone was gruffer than I’d intended.
“Speaking of dinners,” Sophia threw in, tapping his arm, “the newish Met Back Bay is hip, I hear. Kathy Sidell’s place. Want to join our weekly luncheon next week, darling?”
I felt the tendons in Elena’s thighs tighten. Caught in the crossfire, I said nothing. I had to bite back my scream as I felt her knuckles shove against my balls. I let go, and she pulled away from my hold.
“Oh, you have to taste the flatbread there. Absolutely to die for, Chris.” Lifting the napkin in her lap, her gaze met mine, her jaw clenched. “Excuse me, I need to return some videotapes,” she exclaimed, tossing down her napkin a little too roughly.
“Sophia,” I heard Christopher’s s
tern voice. I switched from glumly watching Elena flit away to watching him. “Why are you so damn snippy around her? Enough with the intransigent attitude.”
“Careful,” I hissed. I grabbed my wine goblet and brought it to my lips. “Frank and Julie are sitting at the end,” I reminded them, trying to keep my voice calm before tossing back the rest of my Chablis. The tightly wound Grand Cru from Domaine Jean Paul & Benoît Droin caused warmth to grow in my belly, loosening the knot that’d formed there.
“Just like that, they’re family?” Sophia added softly, the severe look showing in her eyes the same she used to give me as a child.
“Yes,” I answered sharply, leaving no room for argument as I pushed back my chair and skedaddled. I hotfooted it after Elena, found her walking down the walkway that bisected the garden.
I grabbed her by the waist. “Where do you think you’re going?” Took me seconds to shove her into one of the secret garden alcoves. “Are you done playing grab-ass under the table?”
“Does she have to be such a bitch? A hook-nosed crone, that’s what she is!”
“Baby, it’s just a tradition—,”
“I get that. If she invites her husband, then why aren’t I invited? Why didn’t you say something? Why, Alex?”
“I had the impression you didn’t like her.”
“I don’t.”
“But…so,” I scratched my chin, “you still want me to…why? It’s not a contest, is it?”
“It’s a contest, it’s always a contest. She’s marking her territory. Fostering doubt so we,” she paused, squinting, “oh well. I should prolly pull a Leeroy Jenkins.”
“Classic English, please?”
“Charge unprepared. Wipe.” My turn to squint as she spoke. “It’s a battle technique. If JR’s the tank, the group doesn’t wipe as long as I go boomkin to fortify his healing priest. Read up on it if you find the time, old man. It ain’t my fault if you spent your time drinking tea at The French Room with your ailing, elderly aunt.”
“Meaning you might show up—,”