by JR King
“Oh, I know!” She clapped her hands. “Could we go play poker? Like in the James Bond movie?”
I swung my head left and right. “That depends on your behavior.”
She sucked in her breath. “Mood-killer.”
I owned a lot of debt-free trophy real estate in Monaco. My SBM shares—Monaco’s famed Société des Bains de Mer et du Cércle des Étrangers—were quite lucrative. James Bond had an undisguised license to kill; this company had a license to print money. If you think customers win big in casinos, think again. It’s the casino that always wins. Making money in Monaco is one thing, but romancing a girl is an entirely different line of work. I wondered if I was going to win big in Monaco.
Alexander Turner
The DNA Glitch
As I was trying to write a twisty ending to my Man On A Train story, I looked into O. Henry. Feeling inept and lazy, I spent the afternoon ignoring general advice about sun exposure. I was lying on the floor near the railing, my feet and calves dangling over the edge of the capacious deck. A towel was the only thing keeping my back from cooking on the sun-heated slate. My chest was hot, my skin a shade darker already. Around sunset, I moved up until I rested back on my elbows and watched the ocean. A cool breeze feathered across my skin, tickling me. The water looked placid, reflecting the orange hue smeared across the horizon. My head turned a little to follow the streak of light splitting the cerulean surface all the way to the glowing semi-circle shrouded by clouds. Little by little, sundown bluffed into red ocher. Elena sat beside me, looking like she was in deep contemplation, her forlorn gaze riveted on the blue expanse below her.
“Why is it named after me?” came a soft question.
“Curious, aren’t we? Why does it matter?” I stated in a casual voice, hoping it sounded like it was unimportant.
She looked straight at the horizon now. The sun had dropped below it, leaving a red afterglow in the sky. “The tick-rockery of suspense is killing me, Alex.”
“Because you brought light to my life when there was a dearth of it.”
“Me? You stood out between the venal politicians and freakishly self-centered businessmen at the Masquerade Ball.” Her voice was all breathy and fast, her gaze keen in the half-darkness, glistening with a hundred emotions. “You changed your cologne.”
“I didn’t change it, I just wore Tony’s cologne that time. I’d flown back in a rush from Tokyo and went straight to the event, using one of his tuxedos and so on.” I stopped, suddenly aware of how much I was baring my past. “You know, the sight of you in that white dress was far more potent than any aphrodisiac I’ve ever tasted. Fuck, you were so, so bad, flirting and defying me.”
“Young girls sow wild oats.” She unleashed a soft, sultry laugh, like my reaction reminded her of what she’d done. “If I remember correctly, you were hard.”
“You defied me, Elena. Women don’t do that, they obey me.”
“And that gave you a hard-on? I wasn’t putting out, I was sixteen years old.”
“Sweet sixteen!” My face cracked into a broad grimace. “Aw, c’mon, you made me chase you. A chase, Elena! Grown men get hard-ons when they chase a tease of a young girl. And you were hardly wet behind the ears. You bet you my ass was itching to fuck you, but I had no intention of taking it further than that dance.”
“Dirty old man.”
“Dirty old bastard. Have you ever met an experienced man who doesn’t like flirting?” She shook her head. “I rest my case.” She edged closer, our eyes so close I saw my reflection in her irises. Our lips met and waltzed, like old lovers who’d found each other again. When she ended the kiss and attempted to get up, all I could think of was that this was the perfect moment to insert a laugh track; her actions were funny.
“Stay, my pet,” she giggled.
For the life of me, I couldn’t do anything else but smile.
I looked up. Near dusk it looked like the light had been turned down on a dimmer switch, letting a black canopy embedded with a myriad of twinkling stars unfurl.
Footfalls approached in slow, cautious trots. Elena was back, wearing only the skimpiest bikini bottom I’ve ever seen, carrying a bottle of champagne and two flutes. “Look what I’ve found.”
“That is…wrong on so many levels. Have you forgotten the rules?”
I wasn’t surprised when she grinned. “Come now, don’t be such a prude, Mr. Turner. When in France, I say fuck the rules.” Kneeling down, she whispered something into my ear. It took me sometime to process what she’d just said.
I smiled, excited at what was in store for me. “Pour me a glass, pet. Be right back.” I got up to let myself in.
The great lengths men go through for anal sex. I gouged out an ashtray from the lazarette in the passageway that led to the upper deck. On my way to fetch something to snack on, I made sure the crewmembers were in their quarters. Ray and Hamilton had the evening off—I’d exhorted them to take the speedboat to land and go out on the town. Paparazzi and interlopers weren’t a concern: the security cameras triggered an alarm so the captain could shake them off.
A mere two minutes later, privacy-reassured, I went back. Dawn had released its hold and dusk was settling in. I took a moment to reflect on the starry night ahead, studying the inexplicable star prisms in the sky and the stillness of the sea.
“You’re in a quiet mood.” Elena was watching me from a bench.
I was that sixteen-year-old nerd who couldn’t look away from tits. It was driving me nuts. “I like the topless look. Don’t get used to it, though.”
She didn’t answer, but she did take another sip of champagne and chomped on a seeded grissini breadstick. My eyes traced her magnificent features, caressing her from a distance as her head was slightly thrown back. Her golden skin was tinted a shade darker, almost like lacquered veneer. Smilingly, she took small, slow sips, licking her lips.
“Top me off, you cock-tease.” I held up my glass.
She refilled my glass and sat down next to me, running her fingers over my arm. “You’re not mad, are you?”
“I’m good.”
She held her glass over my lap and tipped it forward until the liquid reached the edge, not spilling it. “Because if you are…,”
“Threatening to wet me?”
“Yeppers.” She gave me a whatcha gonna do? shrug.
Running the tips of my fingers over her collarbone, I leaned in and touched my lips to hers. We set our glasses aside and lost ourselves in the kiss. Too much of a cliché perhaps, the kiss was reward and damnation at once. I lost my senses in the taste of her lips, the smell of her hair, the warmth of her skin. Unwilling to be constrained by a sober mind, my cock unfurled and pressed eagerly against the inside of my pants. Her jaw was set too tense, so I lifted my hand to stroke the smooth line of her cheekbones and the sweeping curve of her jaw. My tongue undulated around hers, feeding my hunger, sucking her hard until she moaned low in her throat. To vocally tease her, I tore a grunt from my throat as I released her.
Having passed an unsteady hand across my brow, as I looked at it, my palm gleamed. I took a quick glance in the vicinity of my groin. The outline of my cock was clear, and at the tip, I could see where pre-come had soaked through my Armani boxer shorts and into my Hugo Boss chinos.
“You wet yourself.” Elena flinched away from me as if I had cooties.
Cursing in so many peppery words at myself, I rubbed the stain with my thumb until the shine dissipated.
The coldness of the deck clung to my elbow while my fingertips trailed up and down Elena’s thighs, tracing lazy shapes. She lay flat on her back. I drew a distorted ellipse all the way to her navel and back up to her heart, walking my forefinger over her pulsing torso. “You look great.” She raised her head to watch my fingers continue their cyclic wandering over the smooth, flat plane of her belly. “Why’d you start using a vomit-inducing syrup?” I looked at her dispassionately, my emotions frozen.
“I don’t like being fat.”
�
�No one does. No one wants to look like an egg on stilts. But there’s a clear difference between weedy and thin, Elena. At a young age, my father taught me to workout and watch what I eat. You can see that your healthy diet and weekly gym regimen lead to a predominantly slender and toned body. Why take the road less traveled? Why mutilate your self-esteem?”
She sat up and looked at the calm sea. “Using an emetic was an easy way out. How to explain…it’s incomprehensible, a bit like…I love you, but, because inexplicably I love in you something—,”
“…I love in you something more than you, I mutilate you. Lacan said that.”
“We all harm ourselves. A few people learn to do it cleverly, but most people do it in all sorts of stupid ways. Repressed depression.”
I felt a prowly, insidious burn as unpleasant memories reared up inside me. Worse still, I’d sworn to never let myself be vulnerable around a woman, but this resolution seemed worthless in Elena’s presence. “I told you about my junkie days. Stress and pent-up grief led to coke. What I haven’t told you is that at some point in my life I wanted to end myself. Depression is no less important than a cancerous disease; it establishes a delusional logic within the human mind. Family and friends helped me crawl out of the mental gutter. Not having to sit through holistic therapy seems tidy, I suppose, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Alex.” A solitary tear had formed at the corner of her eye. “I’m glad you’re here today. And with me.” The tear dropped, leaving a wet line down her cheek. My eyes traced its progress all the way to her chin. It paused momentarily before falling down. “We can be so stupid.” She leaned on my shoulder, tucked her head and curled up against me like a lynx. A few other teardrops wet my forearm. I let my hand caress her hair, and attempted to run my fingers through the dense raven tresses entangled near my chin. “I promised you, now you promise me.” She raised her face and looked at me imploringly.
“I’m not suicidal anymore. Wouldn’t be able to blow my brains out. I understand my responsibilities. As for drugs,” I averted my gaze, searching for the right words, “I do—,”
Perfect timing, I thought, when she interrupted me: “Recreational use is fine, I’m cool with that.” I felt her palm on my chin, urging me to look back at her. “I love you.”
The way she uttered the words got me every time, like getting punched in the stomach after chain-drinking shots of mescal. “Love you too, baby girl.”
We didn’t speak after that, just listened to the waves rumbling in the distance, the sound of lapping water adding to the moment. There was no moonlight tonight, just the lights of the yacht and their reflection on the water.
A while later, Elena asked, “Have you ever made love on this deck?”
“God, no. This yacht is a sanctuary. Got delivered two years ago.”
“I’ve heard that yachts should always be christened?” The laugh that followed was evil; it reminded me of Cruella de Vil.
I scissored my fingers and gripped one of her nipples between my knuckles. “Fuck yeah.”
The champagne had compromised her natural reflexes, but it’d only sharpened mine. Effortlessly, I overpowered her body. Nothing else mattered. We were animals gripping and pawing and pulling. I was on top of her, my arms spread on either side of her, palms flat on the deck. I didn’t need to prepare her. I slid inside her easily and she called out my name. Grabbing the backs of her thighs, I lifted them and plunged deeper into her, much harder than before. We quickly found a rhythm, writhing and moaning and the heels of her feet dug into my back. When she sobbed out her orgasm, my back arched and I thrust one last time, flooding her. She let out a long wail, her eyes shut, her body shuddering beneath me.
We were motionless, panting uncontrollably for quite a long time. Sweat from my forehead dripped onto Elena’s neck. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and cheeks.
“Why won’t you marry me?” Thunder crackled faintly in the distance the moment I posed the question.
She stalled before answering. More thunder echoed around us and, spectral, ghostly flashes of light brightened the sky. “It’s too fast.” She kept her eyes trained on the violent sky.
“My feelings for you won’t change.”
“You say that now. Wait a few months.”
My feelings toward her were the same since thirteen fucking years, and yet I couldn’t say it out loud to her face. “You shouldn’t doubt me, Elena.”
“It’s not just that.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s,” a harsh sob rose in her throat, “it’s my parents.”
That did my head in. “I would never try to…kill you.” Boy, ain’t this the weirdest statement when you’re discussing marriage, I thought.
“Not that. Getting married scares me. I don’t want the passion to die.”
“Why would that happen?”
“No one knows this…only my grandparents. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Whom would I tell?” I tried to scowl at her. I failed. “Our intimate talks stay between us, pet.”
“I still love my father, but saying it out loud makes me feel like a traitor. Alex, he really loved my mother. She was having an affair. If you ask me, daddy should have killed the bastard she was having the affair with.” She looked malevolent, like a big black cloud, spelling trouble. I sensed her hatred, burrowing its way into my chest. “I have some handkerchiefs, and you know, there’s DNA on them. Grandpa plays golf with the police commissioner—no match with police records were found.”
If trees could feel being felled, I felt like one. I could hear my pulse drumming into my ears. My chest felt tight and my throat quivered with fear. Lightning flashed, illuminating the sky with a smack of brilliant white light. Another streak followed, then another one, and steadily the storm grew closer.
“Grab, Forrest. Grab,” Elena laughed.
She took our clothes, and I took the glasses and the bottle. Butt-naked, we ran back inside, laughing like teenagers. I felt like dancing or crying, I’m not sure which, I’d never had such an experience. Elena had my father’s DNA…harbored a grudge against him. To quickstep my way past the discomfort, I kept grinning like a jackass.
Hearing footsteps approach, “Wear what you have and hide in the corner,” I told Elena.
I nodded at the security guards, and as they made themselves scarce the sky lit up like fireflies. Thunder reverberated across the living room, rain beating against the hull in a mad chorus as the angry heavenly snarl battered the harbor with startling intensity.
With a twinkle in her eyes, Elena asked, “Do you mind making us fancy martinis while I go about some girly business, sir?”
Ah, the famous Alexander Turner panacea. “Go, pet.”
A successful search for a candlelighter in a sideboard allowed me to light beeswax candles. I put on some upbeat music—Simon & Garfunkel—and made martinis strong enough to give us the delirium tremens within two servings.
I was watching celestial pyrotechnics illuminate the hulls of small yachts secured to the concrete piers that lined the waterfront when Elena returned. She, ever topless, retreated to one end of the sofa, her back against the arm, her legs stretched out full length. Her face was flushed and her pert breasts gleamed in the low lighting. I rounded the coffee table and handed her a glass, making sure my fingers teasingly touched hers.
She pressed herself back into the upholstery, the crystal clinking softly in her grasp since she wore the cocktail ring I’d given her. “Thank you.” Her eyes flashed briefly at me across the rim of the glass, then settled back on the thin curl of lemon rind that was attached to an olive. “You’re so good at this.”
“But not good enough to be your husband.”
I watched the liquid slosh within the confines of the glass as her hands trembled. “You get where I’m coming from.”
“I do, I’m just messing with you. Whatever happened to your parents, it’s understandable. You’ve been shouldering all of this for too long, pretendin
g to be brave and whole.
Sex is important in a couple, without it it’s just two friends living together tirelessly. I’ve no tolerance for wasting time, mine or someone else’s. I’d rather tell you what I desire, show you and confront you than cheat on you. I want an heir, Elena, and I want you to give me the child. Do you understand this?”
Her eyes flickered over and held mine captive. “I feel rushed off my feet.”
“I’m giving you the facts. This is what I need.”
“And if I can’t deliver?”
Jolts of light illuminated the atramentous sky, the harbor dark with pinpricks of light and silvery water. The best laid plans of mice and men often do go astray, don’t they?
“Whatever happens, I’ll deal with damage control on my own time,” I told her decorously, tucking the tips of my fingers between my crisscrossed legs.
Cradling my glass, I watched the lambent blue-orange flames of the candles phase out, wondering where it all went wrong. And why. Contemplating the drawback, it dawned upon me that Elena was mine. I entwined my fingers in her long, silky locks, and that’s how I dragged her to the bedroom. The same fingers slicked themselves in the sopping mess between her legs before easing into her ass. Oh God, Alex. Oh God. I wasn’t sure whether she was agreeing with me or was whining about my penetration of her tighter hole, invoking the aid of some deity. And I didn’t care.
Elena Anderson
The Stranger You Love
Don’t you wish we had a Vulcan mind-melt? Before falling in love, the creepy ventriloquist voice nagging, repeating frivolous things in my head might have swayed me to say yes.
Now…not so much.
This myth that boy and girl meet, feel an attraction, fall in love, fight off exes and evil, then happily live ever after while seeing each other for exactly who they are is one of the silliest modern-day myths. From Disney movies to insipid romance novels to crappy rom-coms, this myth has been done to death so thoroughly that we have been trained to imagine there’s a soul mate roaming the earth, vagabonding in search of, well, you! Non-believers are labeled cynical and contemptuous. And that’s fine, because I used to be one. Turned out well for me, didn’t it?