“You won’t need to whisper a thing, Mrs Tanner.” The water goes up to his mouth, deep glugs being pulled into his throat. I watch it move, fascinated for some reason. Or maybe it’s just him. My real. My normality for now. “Were you really sucking men off in high school?” he asks, putting the bottle down.
“Yes. Three. My dead husband wasn’t one of them.”
“Obscene. Behind the cafeteria?”
“No. In the sports locker changing rooms. There was a corner. It was dark and shadowed. I’ve never been a lights on type of woman.”
“Shame.” He sits and looks at me again, getting himself comfortable. “Tell me about them. Describe it.”
For the first time I notice a change in his features other than the laughter when drunk or the scowls when agitated. I asses the change, looking into eyes that seem to be sparking to life. Sex. He’s aroused, and yet won’t move forward with me.
I chuckle and take a deep breath, dismissing thoughts of why. I don’t care really. I’m just existing now. Evolving maybe. Finding a new path. As he said, he’s just a distraction. A change of direction. Maybe friends is all we should be. I’ll find new people to fuck, helping myself get rid of Rick in the process.
“You want all the details?” I ask, looking out the window. Stars pass by, nothing but black sky behind them. Black. Maybe that’s what I am now, too. Dark and dirty, just like Deborah Collier.
“Yes. All the details. Explicitly. Veins, ridges. The way your tongue moved on them.”
My own thighs squeeze together at his words, an ache forming there that isn’t expected. I smile, amused with myself. We’re both aroused. My fingers tap on the glass. Tap tap. Tap, tap, tap. It makes me think of last night, of the wine I’ve smeared all over the floor and the slashed up curtains decorating the window at the apartment.
“And feel free to touch yourself, Mrs Tanner.”
My gaze slinks back to him, intrigued at the handsome features that are on show now he’s stimulated about something. He’s flirting, openly, even though he just pushed me out of his lap. I graze his features, watching the harsh lines become sharper and more focused on me. I don’t even know what colour his eyes are. They’re chestnut maybe. Almost orange in this low cabin light.
“Make it real for me,” he says, lowly.
“I can’t do that, Gray. You won’t let me.”
“Talk, Mrs Tanner.”
And so I do, not caring for the slutty overtures the memories might rekindle, as I stare out the window. I start describing the first guy I dated. Hanley Bentham. He was broad. Built like a quarterback. All the girls wanted him. I was a shy then. Quiet. Unwilling even. He kissed me slowly at first, teased me into it, and then put my hand in his pants and on his cock. It was the first one I’d felt in my grip. Long. Thick. Soft yet hard. I’d gasped like the fourteen year old schoolgirl I was, and then whimpered stupidly as he shoved my grasp up and down on him.
It was rough. I remember that. I remember thinking I was gripping too hard, but he made me do it by tightening his hand around mine. Fast and hard. It grew in my fingers. Got stiffer and thicker, until he was groaning into my mouth, whispering for me to get on my knees. I trembled as he pushed me down there, part unwillingly. I shivered and brushed my lips across the zipper on his pants, and then shook as he guided his cock to my mouth. It felt big as it pushed in, so thick. Musky, heady. I remember feeling the wetness slide out of my shorts, a tingling sensation burning in me, as he shoved it in and out, out and in.
Quicker.
Faster
Deeper.
I rubbed my own pussy at the same time, my fingers desperate to bring me off, as it carried on. The seam of the jean shorts, together with my fingers, and I was a ticking time bomb around his cock. And then he came, his hand holding my mouth close to him so it shot down my throat as he groaned and bucked. Gagging. I remember that, too. It hurt. I felt trapped and held fast, gripped. I swallowed, though. I swallowed deep, the muscles in my throat grating on him to pull him deeper. And I was crying. Real tears. They were tears I thought would never end. They did eventually, and the next day I did it again, and again, and again.
My head turns back to look at Gray, my own insides filled with memories about how the time felt for me. Dirty. Youth gone mad for a while. I enjoyed the dark corners then, and the way my hair was pulled, the grip bruising and brutal. But then Rick came along. Sweet Rick. Rick with his kind hands and his nice words.
Peas in pod.
Fuck that.
Gray’s eyes are hooded, as he stares at me. More so than they normally are. Dark. Almost cruel again now. They’re like they were the night of the opera, intense and threatening. I glance at his hands, and his crotch, wondering how brutal both areas would be if they’d engage, and carry on talking about high school fumbles. They don’t engage, though. Haven’t done since we met and even now, as I give him the tales he wants, he still doesn’t even move. Hmm. Dirty corners. Filthy mouth. I wonder where Hanley is now. Maybe I could find him, finish what we started.
“Fourteen, Gray. I did it several times more with him. He never fucked me, though.”
“No?”
“No.” My gaze lowers to his crotch again, tongue licking over my lips in thought as I keep remembering the way Hanley felt in my trembling fingers, in my mouth. “How’s your cock?”
“Enthused.”
“You like listening and watching?”
He nods.
“Not doing, though?”
He stands and smiles. It’s a low, animalistic smile that isn’t meant for anything but fucking or fighting. New eyes dance in the light, as they look me over slowly. They’re ones filled with mirth or hatred. I’m not sure which, but a small amount of conceit seems to separate him from the rest of us mere mortals, as if he dismisses such irrelevancies as unimportant and trivial.
“Ask the crew for food or drink if you want anything,” he says, turning from me.
No more words than that. And then he’s walking off to the back of the plane and through a door away from me. That’s it, it seems. Tale over for him.
But nothing about my tale was trivial for me.
It was a beginning.
A remembrance of someone I was before Rick.
Chapter 14
Gray
T he alarm bleeps steadily in front of me. I gaze at the phone absentmindedly, thinking of anything but it. We’re nearly there. Five hours in a confined space with a woman is a stretch beyond rational for me. One was enough. I left her out there, locked this door and made sure she heard it click. We’ve been separate ever since. It’s been more necessary than she could imagine because my temptation has never been pressed further than it was listening to her.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling, taking in the bland, cream interior and the occasional line of brown running through the cabin. She was a good story teller. Imaginative. Naïve at first, but the longer she kept talking, kept immersing herself in the memories, the more wound up I became. It fell from her mouth with a sense of contempt beguiling each word, as if she needed the dirt she was remembering again.
I chuckle and swing my gaze to the door, intrigued at the thought of her, her voice, and the visuals I’m already considering. I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t even be here with her, certainly not going to the place we’re going to, but here I am doing something dishonest.
My hand leaves its position on my rigid dick, and I straighten my clothes. Suit, as always to enter this place. I reach for the small wardrobe, pulling the door open, and lift out the dress and heels I had delivered before we arrived. Black. Always black. The long fur coat gets pulled out as well, the texture slipping through my grip. I’m not interested in them unless they’re in black. I don’t know why. All the girls, all the different times I’ve been here, and I always watch the ones in black. Maybe it’s the morose sense of disenchantment that comes with the thought of the colour, no matter how good they look in it. It’s the colour of death, of grief, or ago
ny even.
She’s sitting in the same chair when I walk into the cabin, her stare glued at the outside regardless of the night around us and her finger tapping the window. I watch again. I watch like I always watch. Dark features on her light skin. Shadows under her eyes, hollowed cheekbones. Still, there’s an elegance about her. A sense of deportment that other women seem unable to produce. It was there at the opera, regardless of her tears, and is now even more embedded into her being because of her misery.
“You need to change into these,” I announce, walking closer. “You can use the back cabin. There’s a shower if you’d like one and your case is in there.” Her gaze doesn’t move from the window, nor does she seem to acknowledge me. “Mrs Tanner?” Nothing but some more tapping and a quietly still body. “Hannah?” Her lips quirk, finger stopping her tapping.
“Not so hard, is it?” she says. “I told you, I don’t much like that name anymore.” Her body moves slowly, slinking out of the seat as she looks at the garments I’m holding. “Beautiful,” she mutters, taking the dress from me. “And probably unnecessary.”
“Extremely necessary. You won’t get in the front door without them on.”
“Even with you and all your money?”
“Malachi is a stickler for dress code for a first time.”
She nods and walks off, less than enthused with that response, and eventually goes into my cabin without a look back. Interesting that she isn’t concerned with who Malachi is, or even where she’s going with me. No real probes or pushes for answers. She just seems to be idling in the moment, perhaps trying to formulate her own mind in the fuck up that has become her life. I know the feeling well. This place we’re heading for helps. It gives merit to some stability, no matter how untrue or false it might be from life outside of it.
I drop the coat onto the bar and pick out my phone to send the text, letting him know we’ll be there soon. That’s all he needs from me. No secret handshakes or membership cards. No one even knows the place exists but the few he lets into the fold. That few is now running in the late hundreds, but they’re hundreds of people like me. The wealthiest of the wealthy. The ones who simply don’t care how much it costs to get the obsidian outlook you’re there for.
There isn’t a responding text. Nothing to confirm if he’s there or not. He will be, though. As will she. They always are. I close my eyes and imagine them chuckling together. They’ll have laughed at the thought of me coming back by now. Sent each other insidious little texts to amuse themselves with the thought of me and whether they can get me to fuck this time. They can’t. Nothing will. They keep trying, though. As if it’s a game for them. I suppose it is. No one else sits on the side-lines and watches without joining in. No one else has the will power to avoid their bedlam.
Only me.
“You’ll have to button me up,” she suddenly says.
I open my eyes and find her exposed back to me, her feet slipping into the shoes I’ve left on the floor for her. The sight makes me scan her body, taking in each trim line that glides beneath the long satin gown. Her hair’s up in some artful knot, the side profile of her face showing new makeup has been applied. Deep red lips smile, as she stands in the heels and rolls her neck, a small giggle coming from them for some reason.
“You look extravagant,” I whisper, walking over to her.
She twists her neck to look at me, the smile carrying on as I work the satin buttons at her lower spine. “You look dreary in comparison.” Both my brows shoot up at the retort.
“Dreary?”
“Yes. A dress like this deserves a tuxedo to escort it.”
It could be a fair point she makes.
I finish the buttons, taking care to keep my fingers away from her skin, and then let one drag the small indent of her collar bone rashly. She shivers and swings her gaze to me sharply, as if that one touch caused enough reaction to make my venue of choice irrelevant. She’s right. We could stay here and fuck instead. It would be easy. Passionate, no doubt. Sensual. Perhaps even hedonistic in its own right when we take the pills. But that’s not going to happen.
“I’ll change when I get there. Sit down. We’re about to land.”
She does, but with a brow arched in question. “Where are the crew? They haven’t told us to sit. And while I’m thinking about it, isn’t the pilot supposed to talk on a jet? They haven’t even been in here while you were back there.”
“The two crew are doing their jobs, which is to stay quiet unless they’re asked for. And the pilot is doing the same. Didn’t you eat or drink?”
“No. I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“You.”
I chuckle and lean my head back on the seat, closing my eyes for landing. “Try not to, Mrs Tanner. I’m not relevant other than bringing you here. I’m simply offering you some time out to re-evaluate your life.”
“Re-evaluate?”
“Hmm. Distraction can be therapeutic.”
Nothing else comes out of her after that. The plane simply lands in its own time, wheels touching down seamlessly, as she stares out of the window again. Flat features. The smile gone. It’s been replaced by the ceaseless gaze that seems to epitomise thought and consideration. I can’t even say she looks sad or despondent, more stoic. Apathetic. It’s a shame, the smile she wore minutes ago was charming, arousing.
“Sir?” one of the crew says. I keep staring at Hannah, fascinated by her indifference to the world around her or what’s happening in it while her life bounds in unknown directions. “Will you be here for one night only, or should we check into the accommodation?”
“How much distraction would you like, Mrs Tanner?” I ask.
She runs a finger along the window, chasing a small rivulet of water. “Endless,” she mumbles. “Limitless.”
I stand and button my jacket, watching as my pilot comes into the cabin, and pick up the fur coat. “You can all check in. I’ll call you when we want to leave.” I turn back to Hannah, holding my hand out for her “Are you ready?”
No answer, but she gets up and looks at my outstretched hand, head tilted at it. “Is this a date?”
“No.”
The word out of my mouth makes her walk listlessly passed me towards the cabin door, no interest in my hand or me. One of the crew starts opening it, smiling at Hannah as she picks up the side of her dress to keep the satin from the floor. I follow and slip the coat onto her shoulders, getting her ready for the frigid blast of air that’s coming. She looks at me, the same stoic gaze taking me in, as I smooth the coat into place.
“Thank you,” she says, quietly.
“For what?”
“For being real, Gray.”
I’m anything but real, nor is the place we’re going.
A car idles at the bottom of the steps, the wheels drenched with snow. I didn’t order it, Malachi did. That’s how it works here. We walk down to it, icy air cutting through my suit as we descend. It’s been some time since I’ve been here. I pull in some of the damp night air, remembering the sensations that come with this place. Lust. Longing. Hunger. Envy. They’re feelings I know well, feelings I perversely enjoy. This time I sense some element of insatiable desire, though. As if arriving with someone makes the task harder to tolerate. It’s an irrational thought. Probably just a reflex reaction to offering her protection while we’re here.
“Monsieur Rothburg,” the driver says, in his heavy French accent, as he opens a door for Hannah. She slides in, her body disappearing into the dark interior. “Malachi asked me to give you this.”
I nod and take the small package from him, opening the top, and then chuckle as I follow Hannah inside the car. Within a minute the trunk slams down on our luggage and we start moving, swiftly cutting through the roads despite the heavy snow surrounding us.
I glance over at her after a while and wonder, a small smile still playing around my lips. I don’t know how Malachi knew I was bringing someone, but it seems he does. Not surprising. Malachi Jon
es knows everything, about everyone.
“Do you really want my protection for the time we’re here?”
“I’m not sure what I need protection from yet.”
I sigh, not sure how I explain what here is. Here is wickedness and pain, tolerance and acceptance, fantasy and fiction. It is desire and need, pleas and offerings of everything and anything. It’s a dream, a reality away from the ordinary. An imaginary world, make believe.
“You might not need protecting at all, but you will need time to assimilate.” I pull out the metre long, thin, gold chain and hold it in my hand, letting her look at it. “This will keep you attached to me while you take that time.”
“Why would I want to be attached to you?”
“It will help you comply.”
“We’ve already discussed comply. It means I do something willingly. A chain around me would show something other than willing.”
“A chain linked to me means you’re safe from anyone else, Mrs Tanner. That is all it suggests. You are free to go in without it, or my protection, if you choose.”
She takes it from me and plays with it in her hands, twirling the length around her fingers and creating loops with it. I watch, interested in her reaction to it, as well as my own. The thought amused me at first, made me laugh at the absurdity, but now, as we get closer, the covetous nature of my wayward thoughts keeps engraining further.
My gaze lifts to her face again, somehow mesmerised by those flat, red lips and hollowed cheekbones. She seems almost gaunt, as if haunted by thoughts and undercurrents of anguish. It’s provocative in its own right, reminding me of my own agenda and memories. Perhaps we’re the same, her and I. Misplaced in a turmoil not of our own making.
“How does it attach you to me?” she asks, passing it back to me.
I loop it loosely around her wrist, sliding the chain through the small ringlet on the end, and then do the same to my own wrist to join us. “See? Nothing more than that.” I slide my own end off and pass it back to her. “As and when you need me, put it on me again.”
A Distraction of Lies Page 9
