by Amy Faye
What he didn't respect was his wife's ability to rob him of anything he wanted at any time, just by snapping her fingers, and if there was a way that Paul could avoid that then he was going to do his damnedest to make sure that he didn't let her get her way. If Lara left then his wife was just going to win, and if he told Lara then she'd leave.
"Thanks," he said softly. Lara took the seat opposite him; it was a surprise, because as far as he could tell she'd been avoiding him all morning.
"You want to tell me what has you so sour now?"
"No," he repeated. "Trust me, it's nothing you should be worried about."
He could see that she was worried about it, though, right or wrong. How long was he going to keep her in the dark? It wasn't fair to her, he knew. But he wasn't in a position to change it, either. So he would let her worry even if it wasn't fair.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," he said. He took a drink and let out a breath. "It's just, uh… 'marital strife.'"
He swallowed another mouthful. He wasn't taking the time to savor the drink, but his mood wasn't the one that he should have been drinking in anyways. Drinking for the taste of it was one thing. Drinking to try to drown out his anger was something else entirely, and he was supposed to know better.
Lara's expression shifted, and Paul immediately knew the reason. She'd had her fair share of run-ins with Helen, he knew. If he could have avoided it then he would have done it ten years ago.
Keep his work life and his private life separate. Plus, then, when he decided to walk away from it all, and Lara walked away from him first, Helen wouldn't be able to have that smug fucking expression the whole time.
"Helen being her usual self again?"
"More or less," he said. He drank again and tried to push his anger out with his next breath out, but it didn't work. Just spread the heat through his nose and his face and his chest. "Is she some kind of fucking lizard person? Are the tinfoil hat people right about that?"
He snorted at his own joke and pushed his head down deeper into his hands. How could he possibly have fucked up this bad?
"I don't know what I'm going to do, Lara. I don't fucking know what I'm going to do."
"You're smart, you'll figure it out."
"Yeah, I'm sure I will. But the fact is… I don't know."
She looked at him hard. Something in her expression was changing, and he wasn't sure whether he was too drunk or too unsympathetic to know what it was but he didn't recognize what had enjoined it. Could it have been worry? What did she have to worry about?
"You've got it," she repeated. "If you want to talk about it, then I'll be right over here."
"I'm going to check on Tim, if that's alright."
Tim was something very different. The only thing on this God forsaken plane that he could honestly think of as mostly innocent. He was supposed to be in the back going over his lessons. What were kids learning these days, anyways?
Paul stood up and made his way toward the back. Cheryl-or-something stood off to the side, watching him go by with an expression of something like interest that he tried to ignore. He made a mental note to drop her at the next stop, because she was starting to get a little attached and that was the one thing that he couldn't stomach with her.
She'd never meant anything, and he'd never pretended. Something hard-wired into her had apparently interpreted that absolute lack of interest as a signal to pursue harder, and he apparently hadn't been disinterested enough to prove that notion wrong yet. If she hadn't gotten the message already then she wasn't going to figure it out all of a sudden. She was just going to stay this way and he didn't want anything to do with it any more.
The journalists were on their phones, doing who knows what. Texting whoever they texted, or writing articles, or something. They didn't talk much among themselves, as far as he knew.
They certainly didn't talk amongst themselves when he was around, and whatever they talked about, he didn't think it was particularly worth keeping tabs on it to the point that he'd have someone else report back on their activities. If they had a story to discuss with each other then he wasn't going to get in the way of it.
He pushed back a little further. There was another private cabin at the back, and he could hear Tim's voice before he pushed the curtain aside.
"Nine?"
"That's right. Now… hmm…" The tutor's voice was light and playful. He had a certain way with kids, it seemed. It was almost a charming quality. "What about four times five?"
There was a long pause. Long enough for Paul to step through and into the room. Helen sat in one corner, watching the boy silently. His stomach did a flip and it was a serious force of effort not to say something to her. Instead he leaned back against the wall and watched.
"Twenty," Tim said. He wasn't asking, but he didn't sound remotely certain, either.
"Twenty? Final answer?"
Tim's eyes scanned the ceiling as if the answers were written up there. "Um… Yeah. Twenty."
The tutor gave one loud clap and stood up. "That's right!"
Tim's face split into a smile and a breath of relief. Paul stepped up.
"Working hard?"
"Senator," the tutor said, looking at him over the frame of his glasses. "We were just–"
Tim cut in, seemingly oblivious. "I'm learning times tables!"
"Yeah."
"They still do that?"
The tutor shrugged. "Some don't, but then again, some people are saying you don't need to learn to hand-write, either, so…"
Paul was surprised, took another appraising look at the young man. He was young, too. Very young, perhaps twenty. But he'd come highly recommended, and Paul was beginning to suspect why. He was old-school, in ways that most people his age couldn't be expected to be, and that was an endearing quality for someone his age.
"You're the expert," Paul said, trying to make his expression pleased. With Helen around, though, it was harder, like trying to figure out which direction was north by a compass when he was in the middle of a magnetic field.
"Is there anything else, sir?"
"No, I'll leave the two of you to it."
He stepped back and walked back out of the room. Back past the witch in the corner, who looked up at him with one cocked eyebrow but said nothing.
What was she doing back there? Why the sudden interest in Lara's son? Paul let out a breath. If he could do the math, then she could do the math, and she wasn't as likely as he was to take Lara at her word about the timeline.
Which meant that if she was waiting there, it was because she thought she could get something out of the boy. His stomach twisted up in anger and frustration and he made his way to the front of the plane.
They'd be landing in a little bit, and he needed to make sure that he had his temper back under control by the time that they landed. Otherwise he wasn't sure what the hell he was going to do.
18
Lara's lips bruised when they collided with Paul's. What she was thinking, she didn't know. If she was going to be smart, if she was going to be anywhere near the game that Helen had played her entire life, if she was going to be able to really claim Paul as hers in any way then she needed to stake that claim before they went back to the 'negotiating table.' Nobody ever made a profit by giving everything away for free.
She was past that, though, and the worst part was that she hadn't even been talked into it. She was the one doing the talking, now, and she wanted what she wanted whether it was smart or not.
"You fucking asshole," she breathed in his ear, moving herself up to straddle him. The seats were big enough to accommodate both of them. "I can't fucking stand you."
The words came out of her mouth and she wanted to believe them. But they lacked any punch. They lacked truth, and she knew it as well as he did.
"I know," he said. His hand cupped her ass and she hovered over him, her weight pressing him to the chair.
"Then fuck me," she growled, and dipped her head to nip at his neck.
She was the one in control now, she told herself. She was the one in charge and she was the one setting the pace. But if he pushed back, she knew that it wouldn't be long before she was the one who was eating out of the palm of his hand, no matter what Lara tried to tell herself.
He pulled her shirt off and threw it aside. She worked the clasp on her bra easily and as soon as it had slipped from her shoulders he claimed one nipple in between his lips. Her hips ground down into him, feeling his cock stiffening against her.
That was what she wanted. That was what she needed, even after all this time. He held her roughly, forcing her hips down harder. Her skirt had already ridden up around her hips, her stockings and his pants the only things separating them. He moved a hand between them, exploring the outside of her lips with his hand.
"You've been looking forward to this," he accused, and she ground herself against his fingers in answer.
She slipped off his lap and between his knees. She had no trouble with his belt. Ten years hadn't dulled her memories of taking off a belt very much like this, from trousers very much like these. Hadn't dulled the memory of freeing his cock from his trousers.
The smell of sex was heady and immediate and she couldn't help herself from wanting a little bit more. She took him into her mouth without hesitating and moved quickly. There was something inside her that needed it, needed him, and she hated it but she couldn't deny it either. That was her reality now, whether she liked it or not, and she was going to have to accept it.
His fingers dug into her hair taking a fistful and using it to force her head where he wanted it. Lara couldn't help letting her voice out a little bit as he fucked her face, claiming her as his. Some part of her kept repeating in her mind that she should have known better. That she wasn't going to be taken in like she was before. But she was going to be, she knew. That was the reality.
His cock moved into her mouth, entering her throat. She was practically choking on it and she didn't think she could have made him stop if she wanted to. She didn't think that she could have stopped herself if he was trying to stop her, either.
She slurped as he pulled back and then he entered her mouth again. Taking her. If she wasn't going to be his, and he wasn't going to be hers, then she could at least outdo that stupid bitch of a stewardess.
Tears started to run down her cheeks, purely from the sensations shooting through her. She pulled herself away, climbed up and rubbed herself against his hard cock, slick with her saliva and pressing against her through the sheer fabric of her hose she enjoyed the feeling of him against her.
Paul didn't wait, apparently didn't have any interest in teasing. He grabbed her hose and ripped. He seemed to be experienced with it. She rubbed back again and the feeling of his skin directly on hers, even before he entered her, was electric.
He lowered his hips as she pulled forward, and when she pushed back again he entered her easily, between her own arousal and the wetness of his cock. She rocked back and forth, her weight pressing constantly to get his cock to hit her right where she wanted it, to take the pleasure as much as she could. His lips found her nipples and bit down.
Lara bit down on her finger again. She had never been quiet during lovemaking, but then she'd never been surrounded by so many people, so many of them who must have been wondering whether or not she was fucking him.
Well, they would have their answer as soon as they came into the front cabin, she supposed. Was that a problem? She didn't know. It could cause trouble for Paul if it got out, but so could any of the other affairs that she knew he was having. There must have been plenty. But here she was, no doubt almost twice their age, and she was the one that had him this time.
There was a sort of feral victory in that. She moved harder, faster. His mouth unlatched from her breast and his head pressed back into the chair as she moved. His breath came in hard rasps and his hips moved to meet hers with every thrust, anticipating her coming back by a second as the orgasm that was building inside him threatened to overtake him.
Lara was close, too, she knew. There was one thing that would do it. One thing that had always done it. It had gotten her into trouble once, and if she had kept track properly, today was the furthest thing from a safe day.
The very idea made her shudder, sent her spiraling closer and closer to the edge of the orgasm that had been building up in her the entire time.
"Lara," he breathed. "You should-"
She moved harder, rougher, taking him in deeper and deeper until she wasn't sure that there was any deeper to go. Her head leaned down by his ear and she whispered into it.
"Cum in me, Paul. Knock me up. I know you want to."
He grabbed her hips hard and suddenly she realized that she hadn't known what rough was. She'd forgotten, but Paul was happy to remind her. Lara let out a yelp in spite of herself and her eyes rolled in her head, seemingly unaware of any effort she had to try to focus them.
"Fuck," he growled. She could feel him spurting inside her, spraying his seed up and into her womb. She loved that feeling. She could feel herself clamping down on him, pumping out the last little bit of whatever he had left. Her body went limp and she tried to take an unsteady breath but her body was tired. Too tired for words, at this point.
"God, that was…"
She realized that she didn't have words for it. The captain came over the loudspeaker. "We'll be making our descent in just a few minutes, will everyone please return to their seats and fasten up?"
That was her cue to move very quickly, Lara realized. Her legs were wobbly as she got up and reached for her bra and shirt.
She had to dress quickly, but God… all she wanted to do now was enjoy the afterglow.
Paul watched her as she buckled into her usual seat. His expression wasn't angry any more. That, at least, was some kind of progress. Lara hoped so, at least.
19
Paul's stomach did a flip when he came out of the shower and saw her sitting in his room. His wife didn't have a key. He made sure that she never did, and yet there she was as clear as day. There was no other way to interpret it, really. She was in his room, which meant she had a key.
"How can I help you?"
If he let her know that he was worried about how she got in, then she'd never let him live it down. It would always be a victory that she could hold over his head, and even if she didn't say the words to him he knew that she was going to be savoring it, and she'd make sure that he always remembered it.
That wasn't acceptable, no matter what happened.
"I was just thinking that we could have that talk."
"I don't know what there is to talk about," Paul said. He pulled on his shirt and started buttoning. He didn't have quite the body he'd had in college. Politics had gotten in the way of his gym routine somewhere along the way.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, he made a note to get back into it. Maybe shed those last few stubborn pounds and really start looking like he was as ready for swimsuit season as a man his age could be.
"Don't tell me you've already forgotten. One little fuck and suddenly you're all forgetful? Don't tell me you're going to way of Reagan on me. I would love to have the Presidency in my hands, but being Nancy Reagan was never what I envisioned."
He let out a long, low breath. Anger was unbecoming but he couldn't deny that he felt it, either.
"I don't want to talk to you about him. Leave your claws out of him, and I'll leave you be."
"Oh, the wolf bears his fangs after all! How quaint. Paul, if you thought you could threaten me, you should have learned better a long, long time ago."
He finished buttoning his shirt and pulled his jacket on. "I'm not threatening you, Helen. You're right. I do know better. If I want to hurt you, then the knife needs to come unseen. But I'm telling you, if you don't leave that boy be, then you'd better start worrying about where it is that you're not looking."
She smiled. Knowing that she was getting under his skin was a price that he would pay gladly if it
meant that Tim was off the table. Paul worried, though, that it meant nothing of the sort. She wasn't the sort who walked away. Not even when she should have known better.
"You like him don't you? Is it because you think he's your son?"
"No," he told her. It was the truth, though the thought had crossed his mind. "But I do like him. He's a good boy."
"Smart, too. Smart as a whip. Why, at that age, I bet you were still pulling girls' ponytails."
"At that age I knew better than to get myself involved with people like you. Somewhere along the way I lost my senses."
"I suppose you did. We all lose our senses a little, sometimes, don't take it too badly."
"Don't worry," Paul growled. "I won't."
What was she here for? Why had she come in? Was she planning something? Was there something in the room that she was looking for? Or was she just hoping to gloat?
"I was thinking, you know."
"Tell me."
"The boy doesn't look very much like you at all, really. And you know, the timelines do add up, but…"
"But what? I'm getting tired of this. I need to get ready for the dinner tonight, and I can't do that with you here."
"You want me to call in your little fuck-toy? We can talk while you keep yourself busy."
He could feel the twinge in his arm of wanting to slap her. But he held himself back. He'd gotten a lot of practice at that, all these years. Now he could almost do it without thinking.
"Just tell me what you want and get out, Helen."
"I was just on the phone with Stan," she said. As if it were an afterthought.
"What about him? Did he offer to help you shed your skin for the season or something? But you needed someone else to lend a hand?"
"Cute," she said, with an expression that said that she thought it was anything but. "No, I was talking to him, seeing if he knew anyone who might have any information on your girl. I thought it might be useful to know whatever we could dig up on her."
