by Jamie Knight
My balls are heavy already, and so I nudge her. One or three more rounds should do the trick. I nudge. She does not budge.
Then I will watch over her. It’s the least I could do after such a night.
‘Morning,’ she finally croaks. The lemon tea should help with that.
‘Good morning, Miss Cast.’ She brushes her tussled hair aside and blinks. ‘You didn’t.’
I actually did.
‘Breakfast in bed!’
‘You deserve some.’
She cracks a boiled egg, peels it off, splices it down the middle, adds some chili into it and dunks the bottom chunky part into the lemon tea. I watch her slurp then bite the edge off.
‘What?’ she asks.
‘You look great. You feel great. But what the heck is this supposed to accomplish?’
Stunned: ‘You mean the egg? What? Everyone does it like this.’
‘Everyone? Who’s everyone?’
‘I can be,’ she says smugly. ‘Anyway, aren’t you going to eat too?’
‘Not after seeing that.’
She chortles and pushes the tray into my knees. I take the cue and butter my toast.
‘How long do you think this is going to last?’ She asks after sipping her tea. I am no ready to have this conversation. ‘The pandemic, I meant.’
There. Did she see it, my hesitation? Her eyes suggest otherwise, focused on her tea and scratching her left arm.
‘Another twelve months, at least.’
Exasperated: ‘Another? I really miss the office.’
‘Me too. There are ropes and pleasure rooms and vibrators behind the stairwell on the eighteenth floor where I do this sort of thing.’
‘You do?’ Deflated.
‘No! Come on. I was joking. Why would I have those things in the office? I hate mixing pleasure with business.’
‘Then I guess I’m pretty special.’ Her face lights up. I think she’s blushing. I should tell her. Right now.
I hate how much I’m falling for her. I don’t ever do relationships, or commitment. But it’s all I’m thinking about, when it comes to her.
My ass vibrates. I pause and check it. It’s an email. Unknown sender.
‘Hmm.’
‘What?’
‘This is interesting.’
‘Do I want to know?’ she asks.
I slide the phone from my palm and into her lap. Her eyes widen. Terror. It has many names. Now I know it was not paranoia. She was hacked. Her privacy was defiled. So was mine. What Julia is watching, with tears in her eyes, is the two of us last night tearing it up.
I take the device from her and read the text that follows. Of course it wants money. Bitcoin, they say. Thirteen hours, I see.
‘What do we do?’ she whispers.
I take her hand and warm it with mine.
‘I’ve got this handled. Don’t worry. Finish your breakfast.’
The floor feels funny after not being in contact with it for a few minutes after seeing such a vile abuse of power. They could have done anything else but come between a hunt I’ve been planning and working on for years. Those fucks have no idea what’s coming to them.
‘Bo.’
‘Henry.’
‘I’ve sent you an anon email. Work on the IP and get me a location soon as you can.’
‘The project...’
‘I’ll double your fee. Whatever you’re working on can wait. If you can do it by the end of the day, I will gift you with that Utility contract as a bonus.’
‘Twenty four hours is all I need.’
‘Good.’
‘Who was that?’ she asks.
‘Professionals. Today we will need to stay off the digital grid as much as we can, just so that we can let them work and not get targeted anymore.’
She wipes her mouth and pads her right eye.
‘So what do we do all day?’
She is sore and I am chaffing. No way I’m having any more sex with her in this condition. Maybe…
‘I want to know more about you than what you shared with the company on your resume.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Whoever hacked you knows you personally. I want to have that same privilege.’ And also see if it is someone she overlooked from her past.
Julia grins and smacks her thighs off.
‘Okay. Let me shower first, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Alone, Henry. I need to understand what you did to me last night.’
Dangerous territory. I hide my satisfied smirk.
‘I’ll be in the third bedroom from this one, on the right,’ I tell her.
Tray in my hands, I move from the bed and plod towards the door. I hear the taps drain their frothy water into the tub. I catch a passing glance of her breast, her eye, her playful smile, her head shaking side to side, and the door closing behind her.
When she gets out, she tells me about everything. Her father. Her mother. Charlie. The fun nights they had together. How she feels about her best friend moving away, and how it hurt not to attend the wedding.
She talks to me about her feelings growing up, feelings toward an unloving mother and an absent father. She tells me she knows how normal it is in America to have that. I tell her it’s true, how normal it is, and that everyone who experiences it has a unique way of coping.
That makes it special, I say. So, I ask her how she coped. Clamming up, she says. She never showed her heart to anyone. She would kiss boys and lead them on, but that was as far as it went. They always hated her for it, leaving them horny and unattended to behind the locker rooms.
She told me it was the same in college. Classes turned into study sessions, and that was when she first learned to masturbate. She was alone at the time, or so she thought. Her crazy religious fanatic of a roommate, who had strict rules against boys and girls and the sins of the flesh, walked in on her climaxing for the first time.
‘It was the best high, knowing I was caught but still wanted to go on.’
She was kicked out, of course. For indecent exposure. This was where Charlie came in.
‘You should have met her. She was a divine friend.’
She caught her too, masturbating to the licks of a thick wand. But there was no anger or disgust. That act made them closer. Sisters. Charlie did the same thing—with no shame at all, even when she should have some basic modesty.
She tells me of the day she had to move out. The day Charlie got engaged. The day the constant calls stopped coming in.
‘She’s alright. I check up on her once a while online.’
Julia pauses to breathe and rub lotion on her ankles. The robe suits her well.
‘How about you?’ she asks. ‘What hidden secrets does Henry Palmer hide behind his cold hard soul?’
‘Cold?’ I ask, visibly yet playfully hurt. ‘I am never cold.’
‘Yes. You. Are. Remember who catalogs all your calls and emails and meetings?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘That’s right.’
She’s won.
Propping myself up with my elbows, I say, ‘I think we need snacks. Popcorn?’
‘Salted butter, right?’
‘Um, just the normal kind.’
She scoffs and then goes to get some.
‘This is the best goddamn popcorn I have ever had in my life.’ It really is. Better than that rough movie theater sawdust I was so used to.
‘Butter makes the world go round,’ she says, with a quick and powerfully sedating smile.
I have to agree. This is a better bribe than a kiss.
And so I tell her.
The moment I get to the part about my abusive father, her arms lingers strongly on mine.
She empathizes.
She understands.
She sees.
I see too.
I see Julia Cast, as secretary and aide, no more.
I see Julia Cast, l
istener and lover.
I see her carefully undressing now.
‘Come here,’ she whispers, lowering her head and opening her lips to my groin. ‘Let me own you the same way that you own me. Now we know each other’s secrets, each other’s pasts, everything about each other.’
She’s right.
I never give my heart to anyone, but I just gave it to her.
She owns me as completely as I own her.
Chapter Nine – Julia
His cock gets bigger on my mouth, and I slurp it all the way down. My tongue slithers and grabs along the edge of his helmet, the throbbing pulse enough to make a man, a god like he, grab my head and shove me down deeper until I kiss his engorged balls.
I choke on him and fight back the tears. The inner lining of my mouth grows wetter, slicker and hotter. Friction.
He calls out my name. I answer with a tightening of cheeks and sucking out every bit of Henry that his balls can offer. I taste the jut’s salty stickiness and let it coat the roof of my throat. It oozes down my throat, and I slurp him out.
His body is shaking as he thrusts me onto the bed and applies his cock where necessary. In my cunt first. Deep and wet he slaps his firm thighs into my ass and pushes my head into the pillows.
Hot air and silk are in my mouth. His strength and weight plunder. My core lets go and the rush spasms from my clit, my womb, my tits, to my brain and back, zigzagging and crisscrossing my nerves like thin confused wire.
I hang limp in his arms and he kisses me. I taste cold thirst in his throat. He carries me elsewhere. Kitchen, I think. Door frame. My leg on his shoulder. He penetrates me. I gasp. His hands squeeze my breasts. He massages my shoulders, my scalp, as his lips hold mine and play.
Watery justification expels out of my cunt and on his V-line. He stops and cums, hard, inside me. Carries me again. Kissing me all the way. I feel fire.
Flame.
On my skin. Close. A fireplace.
Soft bedding on my back. Legs spread wide open. Hands cupping my ass.
He spits.
‘Henry,’ I gasp as it glides and forces my asshole open.
‘I got you, Julia. Trust me.’
‘I trust you.’
Hands cloistered together, he pushes it deeper. I bite my tongue. He nods. He pulls out. He thrusts again. I groan. He pushes it out. Again. In. Oh God, yes… in… pleasure… fuck… yes… I drool.
He thrusts and holds, his body close to ricocheting off the floor, off my sweaty used body. Hot cum shoots out of his cock, landing inside of my tight asshole. I tighten the muscle, then loosen it. He is done. I know he is.
We slump together and kiss before the fire. He does not stop kissing me. I do not stop saying those words in my head. This is just the sex talking. This is just the sex talking. I love Henry. This is just the sex talking...
It is night and we are both on the playroom floor, drained and sweating. He kisses my cheek and I bury my face in his chest. His phone buzzes.
‘Bo,’ he answers, over speaker phone.
‘We got him. Stuart Collins is his name. Seems he’s been doing this for months.’
‘Good. The police...’
‘Have been anonymously notified and the threads leading up to your employee are severed. Stuart is going to go away for a very long time.’
‘Consider that bonus doubled too.’
‘I was expecting nothing less.’
The line goes dead.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks after I go silent for close to a minute. ‘They found him. They are about to catch him. How are you not happy?’
‘Collins… he was...’ his warm arm finds my own.
He knows.
‘He was my ex. I turned him down when he showed me his true intentions.’
Henry nods.
‘He was obsessed with me.’ I pause, thinking of that day. Lecturer class, boring. Books. I was exhausted from that day’s session. He happened. The boy with the wild fifteen-year-old haircut.
He asked me to tutor him, said Camus was not making sense. I was naive. He knew. I went to his dorm room. We were alone. He tried, despite me saying no, that I wasn’t ready. My foot met his balls. I ran. I reported him. He became a ghost.
‘I’m here.’ Henry holds me close and pecks my cheek. ‘I’m here now.’
‘Thank you, Red.’
He chuckles and pinches my sore nipple.
‘Time to sleep, Miss Cast.’
I watch as he drifts off first.
I never want to let him out of my sight now, or vice versa.
Chapter Ten - Julia
Today has been a good day. An exceptional day, I would say.
We woke up next to a fireplace that was ashes and embers, naked, and under the curious, direct and startled gazes of two older women. Henry rushed to cover my boobs. I rushed to cover my face, for obvious reasons.
He told me they were his only helpers around the mansion, that they saw him grow up and worked with his father. I tried introducing myself. They just laughed and shook their heads, tutting and sighing. I know they missed the young days, fucking and sleeping naked on a mat beside the fire all night long.
Dressed up and well fed after breakfast, Henry asked me if I would like to go with him to his favorite ice cream parlor, with our masks on, of course. He felt we needed an excursion. I wasn’t sure they would be open, but they were. They really were. I checked it online. But I had no clothes.
He told me it was not a problem, and tasked the whole morning with us looking things up online and buying them according to my sizes. He has an eye for that kind of thing.
He also asked the ladies, Sarah and Marcy, to find something to do in the house other than gossip when we went out. I asked him what I would go out in. He said jokingly that he did not mind me being naked in his car.
Oh yeah, we fucked in the garage before setting out.
We shopped. Gosh, we shopped. I felt like it was a day in the gym with all the heavy bags he was slugging.
I got a really cute red dress that I wore all day while he took me to late lunch and ice cream. Having the masks on was a bonus. No one knew who we were other than the parlor owner.
I felt like the luckiest girl in the world when he held my waist and took my hand in his, and we walked from aisle to aisle shopping in the few stalls that were open. We came back home and had to go through the booth. He told me the house was empty, that it usually was.
So I took my red dress off while in the booth and dared to have a Nicholas Sparks moment, and let the ethanol hit me up. He took his clothes off too. Slippery, wet and definitely clean, we ran up the stairs into one of the rooms. Naked.
I was running naked in Henry Palmer’s house. And I found a guest room that was virtually untouched. The bathroom was as large as my apartment. I set the hot water and he joined me.
Now, as he snores lightly to my side, tired and balls emptied, I, sore, deeply satisfied and hoping for a 4 AM quickie, listen to his heartbeat and watch him, sleepily. I love him, this man. And it is not just the sex.
Okay, the sex contributes. But he is showing me the other side of him that he never let anyone else in on. And for this I want to know more about him, always – I want us to live together forever.
He makes me content. He fills me up, literally, and more.
Epilogue
Henry
One Year Later
She gasps for air while on the table. I feel her spine clench and her body follow. It drips. Liquid to solid. Red. She nods.
I let it drip some more. The wax smolders before solidifying on her back. Her sweat makes it more fun to watch. I squeeze the button in my fingers again. Her thighs vibrate. Her legs throw out. I stop. I let it drip.
‘I love you, Julia.’
She moans in response. I let it drip once more. I squeeze the button.
Wax. Orgasms. A kiss when I want it.
She is mine. I will do with her as I p
lease.
Julia
One Month Later
‘Hey you.’
‘Julia?’
‘Yeah… hey...’
‘Julia! Is it really you?’
‘It really is.’
‘Gosh, it feels so good to hear your voice.’
‘It’s nice to hear from you too Charlie. I… I want to apologize for... for not checking up on you since you left…’
‘There is nothing to forgive, baby panda. It’s all good. I get it.’
‘You do?’
‘You know how much I hate slandering and letting my tongue loose when it comes to what I mean. I get it, okay? No hard feelings.’
‘I miss you.’
‘I miss you too. My husbands tell me that everything in the US is quite fucked. I hope that’s not the case for you.’
‘It’s not. I actually have some news.’
‘You do? Tell me!’
‘Remember my boss?’
‘Palmer, the one you had a crush on?’
‘Well… he’s not just a crush anymore. He’s kinda my baby daddy.’
‘WHAT?’
‘Uh huh. You heard that right. I fucked the 15th richest person this side of the continent and am having his baby, baby! Don’t choke on your tea, bestie.’
‘You- you- what?’
‘I will explain it a little later, okay? Just… keep this line secure and try your best not to burst until I get back.’
‘Wait, where are you going?’
‘I’m at his old family lake house. We came here after we got some of those vaccine trials going around.’
‘But aren’t those weeks away from being approved?’
‘He knows people. I asked him to get some to you too. He said it’s in the works, and that I can jet to you when it is ready.’
‘Really!’
‘Yes, now calm down. I see him coming in from fishing. He looks like he wants to talk to me… yeah. He’s beckoning. Charlie, I love you, okay? I promise to talk with you later on to let you in on everything, okay?’