by Marian Tee
Nathan slowly shook his head. “It would be better if I don’t.” Although he barely knew Alyx, he only had to be in her company for a few minutes to know that she was the type to abhor wearing her heart on her sleeve, much less appreciate strangers becoming aware of her heartbreak.
“Did you ever find out why she stood you up?” Jason asked curiously.
“I never cared to ask,” he answered honestly. He had his suspicions, of course, but at that time it had been too much of a hassle to bother asking.
Derek studied Nathan’s face with interest. “And yet you look like you care now.”
“Perhaps.” But this wasn’t exactly the truth because Derek wasn’t exactly wrong.
The first time he and Alyx met, Nathan found her gorgeous and sexy, but that had been it. She wasn’t the first to turn him on at first sight, and she was unlikely to be the last. When she had made her disinterest in him obvious, he had been more amused than annoyed, but he hadn’t even considered pursuing her.
As far as Nathan was concerned, she was just another pretty face, made just a little bit more interesting because she had been the type whose feistiness had been often misread as bitchiness.
But tonight changed things, Nathan thought. Alyx Marshall, you’ll be mine after all.
Alyx
The man on the screen began to advance, and the woman began to back away simultaneously, a terrified look on her face. “No…please…” But oh, behind the fear was the unmistakable quiver of desire, and they both knew it. She was the typical housewife: loving but unappreciated, her needs left unanswered by her selfish, workaholic husband.
As for the intruder - he was everything her husband wasn’t: tall and strapping, with a look of menacing hunger in his dark eyes. He wanted to fuck her, the way her husband no longer cared to do so.
When he lunged for her suddenly, she screamed, but her scream was like the sound of liberation. He tore her clothes from her body, and she screamed again, but the sound was even more erotic than the previous one, and it was too much…for me.
My fingers drifted down my body, one hand cupping my breast while my other hand began to stroke my wet and throbbing pussy over my panties.
Dirty.
So damn dirty.
The words echoed in my mind, but I didn’t care.
This was all I had, all I could do.
As the Japanese AV actress playing the housewife started to pant, I panted with her.
When the intruder pushed the housewife on the floor, I could imagine myself losing control as she did, and oh, the feeling of surrender was unimaginably exquisite.
My entire life, I had always, always been in control. How glorious it would be if I could have someone to lose control with – someone I could trust to fuck me hard without breaking me?
Moans poured out of my laptop’s speakers, and my gaze drifted back to the screen. The intruder had his pants down to his knees, and he was now fucking the housewife from behind.
Hard.
So damn hard he had her gasping, her huge breasts swaying with every thrust---
Oh God.
My fingers started moving faster.
The sound of the intruder’s balls slapping against the housewife’s naked body – the sound of his thick cock sliding in and out of her pussy – filled the room, mingling with the sounds of my own movements. Squishing sounds that should have sounded gross but oh God, they just made my insides clench even more.
Almost…almost…almost…there…
The intruder’s fingers dug into the housewife’s ass, and he stiffened for a moment before coming inside her with a harsh groan.
His body began to jerk and twitch as he came, but all the while he kept ramming into her, and the housewife moaned, her legs tightening around his waist. When she reached her climax, I was right behind her, my own lips parting to let out a whimper as my own pussy shook at the strength of my orgasm.
Sooooo…gooood…
My body arched under my still furiously moving fingers, and my eyes squeezed shut as tortuously sweet pleasure washed over me.
I kept moving my fingers, trying to extend the pleasure for as long as I could.
If only it could last forever.
If only my life could be this one long moment of bliss, this one moment where I could forget what I was in reality---
Dirty. Discarded. Disgraced.
But it never did.
“Where are you?” Jane, the owner of the newly opened La Maison de Petit Gateau, demanded the moment I answered her call. “What’s taking you so long?”
Masturbating, I thought right away. But of course I couldn’t say that to a client, or anyone for that matter. I was a wild girl in most people’s eyes, which was fine with me, but I wasn’t that wild.
“I’m coming.” I paused right after, trying not to laugh at my unintentional joke. Ah God, did I really just say that? And was I actually finding it funny?
“Are you sure?”
“Yup.” Because I already did, and it had lasted for a good two minutes, too.
“You better write me a two-page post after this,” Jane muttered. “I can’t believe you’re so late. You’ve changed so much ever since you left your old job.”
Ha. I stared at my phone as the call ended, and only after Jane had somehow manipulated me into saying yes to the two-page post. Everyone thought leaving my job had changed me, which I supposed was a blessing in disguise.
It was so much better than everyone knowing I had changed because I had fallen for him.
When I finally made it to Jane’s cupcake café, it was a few minutes past one. I was two hours late, but still well within the fashionably late realm, since the soft launch was slated to last until four.
Ignoring the daggers Jane was throwing at me from one corner – quite an accomplishment, really, considering she was also fielding questions from a couple of YouTubers – I went to work immediately, scribbling notes on my pad so I wouldn’t forget my first impressions.
The media kit Jane emailed a week ago had already given me an idea of how beautiful the place was, but even so I found myself pleasantly stunned.
The pictures don’t do it justice. My pen flew over the pad, my fingers doing its best to catch up with my thoughts. It’s charmingly gorgeous, a tiny rustic haven hidden in the heart of the city.
I flipped to the next page.
Everything about it is just cozy and cute, from its fabric lamps and teacup chandeliers to the hand-painted quotes on palette frames hanging on the multi-patterned walls. Adding a playful tone to the atmosphere is its mismatched chairs, ranging from pastel velvet couches to reupholstered armchairs boasting of whimsical designs that seemed to have been taken straight out of Wonderland.
I should find it absurdly cheesy really, but because of the way the place so happily embraced its fanciful theme, I just found myself reaching for my inner child and going with the flow.
Turning my Leica camera on, which I had strapped around my neck for easy access, I started taking photos.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
The sound reverberated throughout the place since most people were doing the same. It seemed like everyone invited to the soft opening had come, and the place was so crowded I had to resort to soft-focus shots most of the time. Thankfully, every little detail of Jane’s place was well thought out. Every item making up the eclectic assortment of table centerpieces had a story to tell: the DIY miniature birdhouse which Jane’s parents had built, the mason jars of crayon bits Jane had ordered from a favorite local charity, and then there were those vases of lovely paper flowers, which were surplus favors from a friend’s wedding.
Bending down, I tried to take a close-up shot of the birdhouse but suddenly, I just couldn’t.
Oh no, not again.
But it was already happening.
I looked at the birdhouse again, and it was no longer just a birdhouse. It had turned into something more, a place that could be a cage or a home.
Because that’s ho
But if it wasn’t love for both of them, then how beautiful a place was wouldn’t matter. It would always, always be a cage---
OH MY GOD, HAD I JUST LEGIT THOUGHT THAT?
I spun away, the sight of the birdcage now making me want to gag. That was the thing about being secretly – and immorally – heartbroken. It could drive you crazy when you had no one to talk to…like now.
Hurrying towards the patisserie display, I tried looking for something else to focus on and take photos of. The first tier of cupcakes offered the usual classics: French vanilla, carrot and cream cheese, red velvet, and lemon raspberry. But what set them apart were their adorable edible cupcake toppers, all of them supposedly containing a magical spell.
Pink unicorns to grant sweet dreams, lavender clouds to whisk away your sadness, and black-and-white hearts to ensure you looked good on your next date.
Great marketing strategy, I thought. Strategy was everything, really, and I could easily foresee the cupcake café’s success as long as it didn’t stop with the innovations. Bending down, I started taking photos of each cupcake.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
I zoomed in on the pink unicorn.
Snap.
A creature our minds knew was mythical but our hearts secretly insisted was real---
Just like when you love someone who already loved someone else.
Your mind would tell you it wasn’t possible. A person in love with someone else would stay in love with someone else. But the heart was a different matter. It would insist on the impossible. It would insist on dreaming when---
OH MY GOD, I’M AT IT AGAIN.
I was aghast and halfway to being hysterical. When the fuck would this end? When? Knowing that there was just no point taking more pictures when my stupid and immoral heartbreak had already ruined the sight of cupcakes for me, I straightened up and as I turned away---
“Aaah!”
Shit. Because I had been so distracted, I hadn’t seen the woman behind me and the next thing I knew, I had caused her to spill bubble-gum soda on her dress.
“I’m so sorry,” I immediately apologized.
The other woman looked up, and I recognized her right away. Shit. It was none other than Willa Ingress, a Snapchat user in her early twenties. She wasn’t beautiful in any sense of the word, but she did have the sexiest figure, and the younger woman hadn’t hesitated to use it to her advantage.
Her meteoric rise to popularity was rooted in two things: her penchant for wearing lingerie tops and a unique rating system for the places and products she was asked to review. A pout for the mediocre stuff, a wink for the stuff that she approved, an eye-roll for those that she hated, and a happy wiggle of her huge breasts for all the things that she absolutely loved.
Word on the street was that those breast jigs weren’t quite authentic, and Willa would be more than happy to shake them for the right price. It was grossly unethical, but since I had always been the live-and-let-live type, how she worked wasn’t my business. And it still wasn’t, even though by the way she was glaring at me, I could tell it wasn’t the same for her.
Shit, I thought again. Her last client, a popular sports footwear brand, had recently purchased a couple of sponsored posts on my site, and I had a feeling Willa saw it as a declaration of war – from me.
“You’re such a bitch.”
And the gauntlet has been thrown, I thought. Clearing my throat, I did my best to sound conciliatory, saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean---”
I couldn’t say anything else.
Willa had just thrown herself at me, trying to tear my hair out as we fell to the floor.
What the fuck?
But then she started trying to claw my eyes out, and all thoughts of pacifying her were forgotten. “Get off me!” A hard shove managed to get her off, but just as I tried getting up, she pulled me right back, and I heard my blouse tearing from the back.
What the---
Nathan
An unidentified number flashed silently on Nathan Callis’ screen in the middle of his date, and he frowned. He was extremely meticulous when it came to sharing his private number. He tried to think of any person he had given his number to but whose contact information wasn’t registered in his contact list---
No name came to mind, and a rare sense of curiosity took a hold of him. Glancing at the exotic-looking brunette seated across him, he murmured with a properly regretful smile, “Could you excuse me for a moment? I have a rather urgent call to take.”
Aurora pouted. “Only if you promise it will only be for a moment.” She licked her lips as she spoke. The suggestive gesture had never failed to slay all the men she dated in the past, but to her chagrin, it seemed to do nothing at all for the Greek billionaire.
Merde, Aurora thought irritably even as she couldn’t help watching the billionaire walk away from her. She and Nathan had been seeing each other for a few weeks now, and she had truly thought he would be an easy conquest. After all, he had been described as the nicest of the BBFs, a gentleman through and through.
And they were right, Aurora acknowledged, but to a certain extent. Nathan was the nicest man she had dated. He never made her wait, insisted on picking her up every time they went out, and oh, he was such a beast in bed.
But he was also so frustratingly hard to read.
One moment, she would think she had him eating out of the palm of her hand. The next moment, she would feel like he was silently playing with her like a cat did with a mouse, patiently and cunningly biding his time before he killed her or left her for good.
Across the restaurant, she saw the Greek billionaire stop by the edge of the bar as he answered his call. The look on his face changed as he listened to the person at the other end of the line.
Well, well, well.
In that one rare instance, Nathan Callis had become rather transparent---
And whomever it was he was talking to---
That woman mattered to him.
Aurora’s fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass.
Not a chance, bitch.
31-year-old Sergeant Ray Morris nervously waited by the station’s entrance, with the chief of police’s warning words still ringing in his ears. Nathan Callis, along with the other members that made up the BBFs, was a long-standing benefactor of the force, and the chief was determined to keep it that way.
Whatever the guy wants, you give him, you got that?
At exactly eight-fifteen in the evening, a limousine drove up, and the sergeant hurried forward to open the door himself.
Nathan Callis stepped out, and Ray struggled to keep his composure. He had seen numerous photos of the Greek scion on the Internet, but it was his first time to meet the younger man in person. He had thought that Callis would appear more…ordinary, but in this he was mistaken.
Now, Ray understood why this man was paid millions of dollars just to have his face show up on an ad or walk several feet down the catwalk. If God had ever created a perfect face – hell, a perfect man even – then Nathan Callis would be it. The man was astoundingly handsome, and even the word ‘pretty’ could have applied if not for the hard angles of Callis’ face and the obvious strength in the billionaire’s tall and powerful build. Ray might be the one who had graduated from the police academy, but even so he couldn’t help feeling scrawny and daunted standing face to face with the younger man.
Ray had to clear his throat several times before he could make himself speak coherently. “Good evening, Mr. Callis.”
“Nathan will do, Sgt. Morris.”
The tabloids actually got that part right, Ray realized, his nervousness increasing. It was said that Nathan Callis didn’t like to smile, which he had thought was an exaggeration – until now.
“I presume Ms. Marshall is still inside?” The tone was ever so polite, but Ray didn’t fail to notice the thread of steel underlining it, and the sergeant gulped. He recognized a threat when he heard one, knew that Nathan Callis intended to have everyone’s heads on a platter if the lady in question was harmed in any way.
“Safe and sound,” he rushed to assure the billionaire. “And we have her in solitary confinement, just as you requested.”
Alyx And Nathan
Either it was really a slow night at the police station, or there was something about their case that had all the officers coming to a standstill the moment they were pulled inside. Willa was still screeching, of course. A 911 call had sent the authorities to La Maison de Petit Gateau, and before Alyx could understand what was happening, she was already being cuffed and escorted to the back of the police car.
How had her life come to this?
The question had pounded her mind the entire ride, and in the end she had come to a single important conclusion. She was being punished for choosing to masturbate over showing up on time at work.
I will never masturbate in the daytime again, Alyx vowed to herself while placing her thumb marks on the documents forwarded to her by the officer.
“Sign here, please.”
After skimming the document, she affixed her signature on several pages, all the while feeling herself shrink.
How had her life come to this?
Kidding aside, Alyx knew it had nothing to do with the fact that she knew what to do with her fingers when she was feeling lonely. No, the real reason behind the current state of her life was---
“Alright, Ms. Marshall. Come with me now.” The police officer led her away from where Willa was being taken.
“Are you keeping us apart because she’s likely to kill me if we’re in one cell?” Alyx couldn’t help asking.
“Something like that.”
Oh. Okay. Alyx did her best to remain calm as she followed the officer, but when she realized where the other woman was taking her, Alyx’s anxiety levels shot up, and she gasped, “Are you putting me in solitary confinement?”
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