The Client

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "One-hundred! Oh my God. They have snakes that can eat crocodiles. Look at this kangaroo. He looks like he is 'roided up and ready to fight," she told me, turning her phone.

  I'd brought hundreds of people to thousands of places in my life. Not one, not a single one, was half as excited about things as Wasp was.

  She'd cooed over monkeys. She'd stopped at every single stand at the market, admiring goods. She'd stood for every photo op, claiming she needed the memories for when she got old and boring.

  As if a woman who would jump naked down a waterfall after having sex in a cave could ever be considered boring.

  "Not likely, darling, they are more likely to be seen in the Cook Islands. We can head there next," I offered, not nearly done with her yet.

  In fact, there was this niggling little voice in the back of my mind that got louder in quiet moments before bed, like after Wasp had passed out like a starfish only to curl up on my chest, saying crazy things.

  Like maybe I would never be done with her.

  That I wanted her to stay.

  "We aren't going anywhere," she told me, rolling her eyes. "You promised we could find a Megabat. I need to get a picture of one to terrify my nephew with."

  "What a sweet aunt you are," I declared, dropping an arm across her shoulders.

  "It is the job of the cool aunt to mess with the littles. And also to buy them wildly inappropriate gifts that will drive their parents crazy."

  "If you ever need pointers on ridiculous gifts, I am the man to consult with."

  "What is the craziest thing you've given someone?"

  "I accidentally gave a friend a barnyard pig instead of the mini pig she had wanted for years."

  "That's a pretty big oops."

  "She still adores it. I am on swine-sitting duty for life should she ever want to go on vacation."

  "Sounds reasonable," she told me, pulling me down onto the beach behind the resort we were staying in. "These are absurd," she declared as we came up to one of the many round beds with a shade top. "And absolutely amazing," she added, climbing up onto it, giving me a great view of her nearly-bare ass as she did so. I needed to get a picture of it, I decided, reaching for my phone before it was too late.

  "Seriously?" she asked, dropping down after she heard the shutter, rolling her eyes at me. "What could you possibly need a picture of my ass for?"

  "I am going to have it printed on a pillow and sleep on it at night," I declared, only half joking as I moved to lay down beside her.

  "Okay, Fenway Arlington," she said, voice serious. "Tell me something serious," she demanded.

  It was her new favorite game, wanting a peek below the curtain. It was my own fault. I'd let her see other parts of myself on more than one occasion.

  Somehow, though, I didn't mind her having access to something only two or three other people in my life ever had. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't want to find out.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Tell me about your childhood," she decided, having already asked me about random things. Losing my virginity, political opinions, my personal feelings on climate change given my 'blatant disregard for carbon emissions while traveling.' It was only a matter of time before she got to the dirty stuff. The stuff I didn't talk about to anyone, save for that one time when I was assed-out drunk, and made some choice comments to Alvy about it after having gotten a phone call from back home.

  "It wasn't happy," I told her, being honest, not entirely sure why I didn't brush her off, why I didn't make light of it like I usually would, quip about how my silver spoon was thrown away and replaced after every meal, and move on with the conversation.

  "Why not?"

  "I came from three generations of men who took themselves, their lives, their wives, and their children very seriously."

  "There is nothing serious about a child."

  "Therein lies a lot of the unhappiness. Children in my circle, they aren't told to go out and play in the backyard while the grown-ups talked. We were expected to be at every dinner party, every charity function, every tennis match and golf course and hunt. We had to dress and act the part, be adults without any of the maturity or self-control that comes with age."

  "That sounds very un-fun," Wasp decided, giving my thigh a pat.

  "It wasn't just me in that. It was all of us. So there was some comfort in that. But my father's expectations were harsher. He was Type A and anal about every small detail of his life. My clothes had to be arranged a certain way, my bed made with military corners, my floors swept, my surfaces dusted. And the servants were forbidden to help. They were an earned privilege. The older I got, the more I chafed at the restraints."

  "What did he do?"

  "Tried to beat it out of me at first," I admitted. "Do you have any idea how humiliating it is at fourteen-years-old to be beaten so badly that you piss yourself?" I asked, looking over at her, seeing the pain slice across her bright eyes.

  "No, I don't," she told me, leaning her head on my shoulder. "I'm sorry he was such a dickwipe."

  He was that.

  "When the beatings no longer satisfied him, he shipped me off to Avon Mills."

  "I'm almost afraid to ask what Avon Mills is."

  "A school for 'troubled' kids from a certain tax bracket. A sort of hyper-militant survivalist institution where they strip everything you have away from you, strip you yourself down to the rafters. We were denied every sort of pleasure. No TV. No music. Only unseasoned food. We were forced to do military-style workouts for eight, ten hours a day. In the sweltering heat. In the snow. You cried, you puked, it didn't matter, you had to keep going. You slept on the floor or outside when they thought you misbehaved. They couldn't actually beat us, but they did everything in their power to make us suffer."

  "How the hell did they get away with that?"

  "Well, firstly, it wasn't in the US. Secondly, you'd be surprised how many places just like that actually do exist in the states."

  "How long were you there?"

  "Five years."

  "Five years?" Wasp shrieked, pulling away, looking down at me, her brows pinched. "Nonstop? Like that was home?"

  "That was home," I agreed, nodding. "I didn't leave for summers or for holidays like many of the others. Which always made it worse on me. A lot more one-on-one attention."

  "So you, what? You aged out?"

  "Just shy of my eighteenth birthday, my grandfather died, giving my grandmother control of most of the family assets. She gave my father an ultimatum. Get me out, or be written out of the will."

  "Thank God for your grandma," Wasp grumbled, sadness gone, replaced with rage.

  I jumped back and forth between those two emotions as well when I thought back on all those long, cold, lonely, years without a single amusement, without anything fun or light, without a break from the never-ending work, the back-breaking torture.

  "Yeah," I agreed, nodding. "She is what you might think of when you think of a matriarch of an old money family. Strong, stern, often disapproving, but with a soft spot for her loved ones, even if her way of showing it at times is not affectionate.

  "What happened after you got out?"

  "I went to stay with my grandmother for a few months, trying to adjust to a life outside of that world that had been all I'd known for so long. And then she released my trust to me on my eighteenth birthday. It was supposed to be on my twenty-first, but she had it changed. Out of guilt, I would imagine, for not having found a way to step in sooner. But in many ways, she was as helpless as I was much of the time, stuck under my grandfather's thumb for her whole adult life."

  "And when you got all that money..." Wasp started, lips curving up, knowing where this was going.

  "I sought every form of entertainment I could find. I made a life out of fun and light and easy, all the things I had never known for myself. Sprinkle in a strong desire to find any way I could to embarrass my father, and you have an idea of the life I have lived since getting free of that to
xic life."

  "Is your father still alive?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Good. I know, that's cruel, but good. The bastard."

  He was a bastard.

  I had swallowed my pride to go to him on his deathbed, to try to make some sort of amends, get closure, whatever the hell it was that the shrinks told me was important.

  He spent an hour telling me all the ways I had been a bitter disappointment to him, how I was an embarrassment to the family, that my ancestors were rolling around in their graves knowing that I would carry on the family legacy, that he wished he'd never even had a son.

  I walked out, learning later he died an ugly death, gasping for air, unable to catch his breath until he eventually died after sixteen torturous hours.

  I was going to hell for thinking it, but all I could think when I'd heard the news was: Good. Good. That was the end he deserved.

  Then I went right back to my old ways.

  "So that is why you have this light outer persona but that darker part that shows its face every now and again," Wasp mused. "For the record, the dark part is kinda sexy," she told me, eyes going molten.

  "Yeah?" I asked, lunging forward to grab her at the hips, dragging her up on my lap, smiling at the squeal she let out, then the shuddering breath when she felt my cock press against her eager pussy. "What about the light side?" I asked, reaching up to trace the line of her bathing suit between her breasts.

  "The light side is lots of fun. It's the best of both worlds," she declared, happy open.

  But then something crossed her face, something that made her brows draw together, that made her eyes go guarded.

  "What's wrong? Wait," I said, trying to grab her as she climbed off of me. But she dodged away, rushed off before I could stop her.

  She'd had more than a handful of moments just like that one since the cave.

  There seemed to be a cycle with her. She gave and gave and gave, and just when you got used to it, she ripped it away, leaving you wondering what the fuck you did wrong, what you said to piss her off.

  It didn't escape me, either, that while she badgered me for intimate details about my life, she hardly ever gave me any of hers. I knew she had grown up with both parents. But they were dead. I knew she had siblings, but not their names, not their locations. I knew she had a best friend who was wealthy and had kids. I didn't know what kind of childhood she'd had, what she did for a living. If she did something for a living. If she did, why was she able to leave it behind to traipse around the world with me?

  And what kind of job could she do from a converted school bus home?

  Burning questions, all, but she'd proven stealthy at changing the subject when I tried to press a topic.

  She often used her body to do this.

  And being a man who very much appreciated every curve of that body, I wasn't exactly mad about her dirty fighting methods.

  "You're not going after her?" Alvy asked, dropping down at the foot of the bed, handing me a drink.

  "She's only going to distract me from finding out what is wrong by using my body."

  "Oh, you poor thing, you," Alvy quipped, laughing.

  "I know, right? How dare she. I am more than my penis," I shot back, taking a drink. "I can't figure her out."

  "That's the appeal, though, isn't it?" Alvy asked, watching me. "That's why you're not bored of her yet."

  "I'm not bored of her yet because she is interesting even without all the details."

  "Maybe she's not giving you the details because she thinks the mystery is the only reason you are interested in her, "Alvy suggested.

  "Alvy, you might be a genius," I declared, but then thought better of it. "You know what, no. I don't think so. She's too much of her own woman to give a fuck if I am interested."

  "Possibly."

  "You sound suspicious of her."

  "I wasn't at first," Alvy said, draining the rest of their drink. "But the longer this goes on, the less sure I am about her."

  "What do you think, that she's after me for my money?" I asked. "Even if she were, which I don't think she is, how does that make her any different from every other woman in every other corner of the world who I've shared some time with?"

  "Because this one is getting under your skin," Alvy said. "You might not want to admit it. Hell, you might not even realize it yet. But she's in there. And that makes her a threat that all the other gold diggers weren't."

  "I may be a great many foolish things, Alvy, but I think we can both agree that I have done well enough with the family money."

  There was no argument to that. I spent money like water. But I made it just as easily. It may have even been a final 'fuck you' to my father, increasing the family fortune more in a decade than he did his entire life.

  "I wouldn't worry so much if I knew you knew more about her."

  "You're not wrong," I agreed. "I will figure more out. Especially if she sticks around for a while."

  "I just think it is in your best interest," Alvy said, shrugging. "I know it's not my place. I just wanted to make sure you were thinking with your big head," they said, giving me a smirk as they walked off down the beach.

  I will admit, I had been enjoying our little adventures enough not to let myself sweat the details. In fact, I was simply not someone who sweated details in general. But Alvy was right. If she was going to be more lasting than others in the past, I needed to know who I was getting into bed with.

  Now if only she would stop being so damn good in bed, I might actually get somewhere.

  I drained my drink, heading back to the hotel, ready to coerce some answers out of Wasp by any means necessary.

  Even if that meant withholding orgasms until she gave me some small detail about her life.

  In fact, I really liked that idea.

  And she got so desperate for release that she would probably give me what I was after too.

  If nothing else, I would enjoy the hell out of it.

  "Oh, darling!" I called, opening the door to our suite, finding her lounging on the couch, still wearing her bathing suit, legs draped over the arm, one hand up, twirling her hair like I found she did when she was thinking about something.

  "I want to be alone."

  "I have a game I want to play."

  "I don't like games."

  "Says the queen of them," I shot back, watching as she turned her head on the cushion to glare at me. "Are you going to try to deny it?" I asked, stalking closer to her, dropping down on the ottoman at her side. All I got to that was another glare. "You only like the games you can win."

  "Sweetheart," she said, slowly unfolding, a cat ready to strike. "When are you going to learn?" she went on, moving to straddle me, running a finger down my jaw. "I always win. In fact," she said, wiggling around on my lap, feeling my cock already pressing against her, "I believe I already have." With that, she hopped over, turning, attempting to walk away.

  My hand shot out as I got to my feet, grabbing her wrist, jerking her around, slamming her back against the floor-to-ceiling windows at our side.

  "Want to bet, darling?" I asked, yanking her suit down, sealing my lips over her nipple, feeling the tremble course through her body.

  For a woman who loved to be in control of situations, she melted into a puddle of need when you took charge in bed.

  I was going to win this.

  And, sure, she was going to be a sore loser afterward.

  But that was a problem for later.

  The only problem now was figuring out which way I was going to torture answers out of her. My fingers. My tongue. My cock. She was a sucker for all of the above.

  I guess we could employ all the weapons in this battle.

  My fingers slid her suit aside, thumb moving up to stroke her clit, two fingers thrusting inside her, working her exactly how she liked it until I felt her walls start to tighten around me, threatening oblivion.

  "Fenway, please," she cried, fingers digging into the flesh of my neck.


  "You can come," I assured her, doing one careful tap to her clit. "Once you tell me when you lost your virginity and to who."

  "What? Why are you—oh," she whimpered as my finger did another tap. "I was fifteen," she told me.

  "Was he your first love?" I asked, doing a swipe.

  "No. I don't do love. He was my next-door-neighbor. He was thirty," she admitted. "You promised," she reminded me, hips squirming when I paused, surprised by her admission, at the laissez-faire way she described what most states would consider statutory rape.

  "I did. I promised," I agreed, working her clit, sending her crashing through an orgasm.

  She barely managed to catch her breath before I was moving down to my knees, running my tongue up her.

  Thankfully for me and this plan of mine, Wasp was multi-orgasmic, something I was using to my advantage, driving her up once again. "What do you do for a living?"

  "Fenway, this is-oh. Fuck," she hissed, her hand slapping down on the top of my head when I sucked hard on her clit. "Fuck, please..."

  "Just tell me your job title, and you can come."

  "I'm... I'm a... fuck. I'm a... dog trainer," she declared, sucking in a deep breath as my lips sucked again, sending another orgasm coursing through her body.

  "A dog trainer," I repeated as she came back to her senses, breathless, flushed.

  "Yes. I train dogs. Really badly behaved dogs." There was something in her voice, a tone, an insinuation I didn't understand, an inside joke I wasn't privy to, perhaps? I didn't know. I wasn't going to press. I was happy to get an answer at all from her. Taking a deep breath, she reached up to run a hand through her hair, making it settle more to one side as she looked down at me, eyes small, smile wicked. "I didn't think you could play that dirty."

  "Oh, darling, I am full of surprises," I told her, shooting upward, shoulder going to her center, tossing her over my shoulder, her ass high in the air, just begging to be slapped.

  "Ow!" she hissed, body jolting when my hand landed there with a satisfying smack.

  I carried her through the suite, tossing her onto the bed, watching as she bounced, standing there at the foot of the bed, stripping out of my clothes, watching as she tried to keep unaffected eye contact, then failed, hungry eyes trailing.