by Alexis Angel
My mind completely fucking blanks as to what to say.
To be fair, when Joyce set me up with this speaking engagement, she gave me a list of things to say. I even have them here in my jacket pocket. I just have to get them out and read them.
But somehow, after seeing Penny, it doesn't seem like it's doing enough justice.
I know. I sound like an absolute fucking idiot. It doesn't matter what I say, as long as I say it and get the photo op, right?
That's what Joyce would say.
And normally, even for something like that I'd fucking begrudge her. But not today.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I say into the microphone. "Most of you won't know this, but I'm really wealthy."
There's a smattering of laughter from around the crowd. Actually a fair bit of laughter.
It's not that everyone around me at this dinner today is super fucking wealthy. Some people don't even have a net worth past 1,000,000 dollars.
But that's not what I meant before you start to roll your eyes.
"I'm not talking about money," I say to clarify. That's right. I'm clarifying for everyone. "I'm talking about opportunity."
Now there's silence. Could it be that people loved my hook?
"I was born in New York City," I state. "Actually in this hospital itself. Then I lived with my parents on the Upper East Side. My parents aren't around now, but it's not hard to imagine my father and mother coming through the doors to this great hospital to schedule my birth. Hospital stays were expensive back then, and my parent's were modest. They didn't have much money. But my father was friends with the doctors. My mother went shopping with the secretary pool. So when they came into this hospital, they were treated like royalty."
People are quiet. They're listening to me speak. They must think I have something prepared for them to hear.
But the truth of the matter is that my brain is too jumbled now to recite or remember any of the talking points that I had. I'm just speaking from the heart now.
"Treating people like royalty is something that at Davion Development, we strive to do day in and day out," I say to them. I notice a few raised eyebrows.
What? You don't believe me?
"We make sure that any new construction for condominiums or residential towers includes at least 20% of the units allocated for low-income subsidized housing. Then we offer this housing to the people we're displacing," I say. Silence.
They're listening.
"Do you realize how incredibly destructive a development corporation like mine is to the social fabric of a neighborhood?" I ask into the audience. Silence.
"Does anyone realize what happens when the corner butcher, or baker, or liquor store can't pay their rent when it comes time to renew?" I ask again. And again silence. "When they have to make a choice between paying rent and paying their workers?
People are listening to my words with a sense of interest now.
"New York City isn't just about the big buildings that reach toward the heavens," I say quietly. Flatly. "It's about the people. The people in the neighborhoods who make up the foundation for those buildings."
People are now nodding.
"Did you know that if the first floor tenants aren't good tenants and decide to vacate their spaces, then the maintenance fund of a skyscraper drops dramatically?" I ask. Bet you didn't know that either. "That's because anchor tenants are nice, but the people who are on the ground floor are the ones holding up the building."
I see people start to smile and nod. They can tell where I'm going with this.
"It's those people who form the community," I say. "It's those people who've seen you since you were born. Who know that you want the newspaper from the bottom and not the top when you're buying it for your old man. Who know when your parents have passed away. Who ask you if you've been holding up okay."
I'm thinking back to my neighborhood. Sure, the Upper East Side may not seem like a neighborhood to grow up in if you want the classic New York thing with games of stickball and fire hydrants.
"People who know you. People who care about you. It's all thanks to the neighborhoods in this city. Without neighbors, and without neighborhoods, we're just a collection of tall buildings on an island. Tall buildings that would go empty as people move out," I say feeling myself get to some sort of point. "That's why Davion Development is committed to building a larger, stronger, more active NYU. Because we realize that so many neighborhoods rely on this hospital to stay strong. And without this institution that we're here for tonight—without NYU—too many of our neighborhoods would stop thriving. And start dying."
"And so, we will never stop in our quest to make New York great. We will donate $1 million this year. We will donate $1 million next year. Until we turn our neighborhoods around. We will never give up.“ I say and get ready to finish. "And I hope, ladies and gentlemen, neither will you. Thank you."
I stop and get off the stage.
I swear for a moment I didn't hear anything.
But then the crescendo of applause as people stand up to give me a rousing ovation hits me.
I'm a bit taken aback.
Between walking back to where I know Penny is standing and people applauding me for something good like giving a speech, I'm a bit out of my fucking element.
All I care about in this moment though, is the woman who's looking at me, her mouth open as I approach her.
"You didn't swear once," she says to me, her eyes travelling the length of my body. "Did you mean everything you said up there?"
I cock my head. Is she interested now?
"Why?" I ask.
Simple. Straight to the point.
She shrugs. Her cheeks turn red. It's fucking cute.
Careful. She's you’re stepdaughter. Don't forget that.
"It just seemed so...real," she says to me and I look into her eyes. "So genuine. You really felt what you said."
Those eyes are telling me she's feeling like fucking me.
I've seen it before in countless women.
I know that look.
"Have dinner with me," I tell her. She starts visibly.
"Father to daughter," I say, giving her a smile. "So we can catch up. Nothing more."
Does she want more?
I don't know. But she smiles. And nods her head.
"I'd like that," she says, taking a napkin from the bar and writing her number on it.
"Text me with details," she says. And with that, saying nothing else, she turns away.
I watch that beautiful curvy ass sway as she walks away. I know she knows I'm fucking staring.
What neither of us knows is what's going to happen next.
Because if she keeps flaunting a body like that in front of me ... I dunno.
I might as well give up, because I'm so completely fucked.
7
Penny
“How’s the investigation coming along?” my mother asks me, but my reply comes in the form of a groan. Balancing my body on one foot, my cellphone pinned between my shoulder and my ear, I somehow manage to get the other high heel on my foot.
“It’s coming. These things take time, mom,” I tell her as I look at myself in the mirror. I smack my lips together, satisfied with their crimson color, and then grab my cellphone with one hand and pat the front of my dress with the other.
“Got anything from the gala?” she asks me, and I wait for a very long second as I look for a suitable answer. Yeah, in case you’re wondering, I still haven’t told her that I’m about to have dinner with my stepfather. And I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tell her—at least for now. I already know everything she’d say if I told her I’d be having dinner with him, so I figured I could skip that step.
“Well, you know,” I start, grabbing my purse and heading out the door, making sure it’s locked behind me. “He made his speech, and everyone ate it up. The usual. I can’t say I expected to find any dirt at a gala for the NYU’s children wing, you know?”
I look
at myself in the mirror as I enter the elevator, once more examining my lips. God, why am I so nervous? It’s just a stupid dinner with a man I hate. A man who’s my stepfather.
“Figured so,” she sighs, and I can almost picture her in her living room, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “But we’ll get him. You can do it, can’t you, Penny?”
“Of course I can do it!” I reply in a heartbeat, trying to pretend that I’m slightly offended. I’m not—and that’s because I’m not so sure anymore if I can (or want) to pull this off.
I hail a taxi and get inside, throwing my purse into the backseat as I prepare to hear my mother the whole ride to Agave’s, the restaurant where I’m supposed to meet Magnus.
“I sure hope so, Penny … a man like him should pay for what he’s done. And you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, mom… he cheated on you,” I sigh, already getting slightly tired from that story. It seems that ever since we decided to go after Magnus that she takes every opportunity to go on a tirade about how Magnus ruined her for love. Yeah, mom, I get it, he’s the Devil.
“He didn’t just cheat on me, Penny! He made me look like a fool… He can’t keep it in his pants, you know? He’d stick it in everything that moved, and while telling me he was busy with work. You don’t do that to a woman—marry her so that you can break her heart and, just few a months later, dump her.”
“I know, he --”
“How many women have suffered at his hands? I don’t even want to think about it. He treats us like cattle. As if we’re a thing!”
I start drifting off after a few minutes, my mind fleeing back to the gala. He sure looked like the kind of man who loves to play the rogue, but as weird as this may sound, he didn’t seem like someone as evil as my mother paints him. I might be wrong, though; there’s probably a road somewhere paved with the broken hearts of the women who believed in the kindness of Magnus’ heart.
But it’s not like that matters to me anyway. Not today. I’m meeting him as his stepdaughter, and he’s meeting me as my stepfather. Before I move in for the kill, I want to find out for myself what kind of man Magnus Davion really is.
Guilty until proven innocent; if it’s good enough for the courts of public opinion, it’s good enough for me.
Has something like this ever happened to you? The whole world tells you that someone is X and Y, and then you meet him and you start having doubts about what’s real and what’s not? Maybe it’s a feminine thing. We never trust others to appraise the character of men for us. It’s simply a job we can’t delegate.
Ever since my mother’s marriage with Magnus fell apart, I’ve heard countless horror stories about him. How he’s a self-centered asshole who only cares for himself, how he ruins the women who fall for his sweet talk, and yet… Would a man like the one I just described donate a cool $1 million for charity, just like Magnus did at the gala? I know he probably sleeps in a bed made of cash, but still!
Maybe he just does it to save his ass. That makes sense too, doesn’t it? He knows that with his crazy antics it’s just a matter of time until the city turns against him, and perhaps he’s trying to put on a show for all of us. The charm he uses on women, maybe he decided to use it on a whole city this time.
Either way, I made up my mind. I’ll find out the truth about my stepfather on my own, without any foreign voices to cloud my judgment. That’s what a good reporter does; she digs for the truth, and she wants it raw.
“... Shameful, really,” my mother continues to drone on, almost as if she’s trying to teach my subconscious mind to hate Magnus. “And that’s why we need to bring him down. If there’s anyone who deserves it, it’s Magnus.”
“Yeah, mom,” I say just to appease her, nodding even though she can’t see me. And that’s when the taxi suddenly stops; I look out the window and realize that I’m already outside Agave, the discreet entrance to my right. I pay the taxi driver and, still listening to my mom, step out of the car.
And that’s when I see him.
Tailored suit, shoes as dark as the night.
“Mom, gotta run,” I whisper into the phone, my heart suddenly drumming fast, and end the call without waiting for her reply.
Memories of being in my room when I was 18, by myself, come back.
Having orgasms.
Thinking of Magnus.
“You look beautiful,” Magnus tells me, and I just stare at him without knowing what to say. There’s a kind smile on his lips, and he seems to have turned down his animal intensity for the night. Or, at least, it looks like it.
“Shall we?” he asks me, filling in my silence, and offers me his arm. I walk inside the restaurant with a smile on my face; arm-in-arm with the man I’m supposed to destroy.
8
Magnus
Penny Wright, my stepdaughter, has grown into a beautiful woman.
Which, in a way, is a fucking shame.
If she were any other woman, I’d just turn my charm on and let the chips fall where they may. I mean, just look at her… Her lips were made for kissing, and her body must've been sculpted by the Devil himself, each and every one of her curves like sin turned into flesh.
When she got out of the taxi, just one look at her and my cock was twitching inside my pants, my eyes roaming over her tight-fitting dress. It took a lot of willpower to stop that train of thought—that's for fucking sure.
I was a bit surprised I didn’t recognize her at the gala; I rarely forget a face and, fuck, it’s my stepdaughter we’re talking about, but in a way, that was bound to happen. At eighteen she was just a bony teenager, a rough draft of the woman she had yet to become. She was already a young beautiful woman, sure, but that beauty has now blossomed into something more.
Something intoxicating and dangerous.
“So, journalism, right?” I ask her, our conversation still stiff and rough around the edges. “You were at Yale back then, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, graduated just a few months ago,” she replies as I pour some wine in both our glasses. “And you? Still a rich bastard, right?”
“Still a rich bastard, yeah,” I smile, the sound of her voice making me more lightheaded than the fucking wine itself. We keep on talking about nothing and everything, two strangers bridging the divide between them. It’s a struggle to keep the inner beast inside of me in chains, but I somehow manage to do it.
“This feels right, doesn’t it?” I find myself saying, not even knowing why the fuck I’m saying it.
“What feels right?”
“Being here. Being a rich bastard gets lonely, you know? And you’re family.” She laughs at that, her clear voice feeling like a thorn in my heart.
“Lonely? You seem anything but lonely, Magnus.” She twirls the wine inside her glass, her eyes locked on mine, and I have to wait a few heartbeats before my brain starts to decode her words. “In fact, have you ever been alone? There’s always a woman hanging on your arm. Hell, more than one, sometimes.”
“What can I say?” I shrug, and then finish my wine. “Women are like a good wine. You can never have enough.”
“Maybe that’s because you’ve never come across a real woman.”
“Tell me where I can find one and I’ll gladly let you know how that goes,” I smile, leaning forward slightly, the scent of her perfume climbing up to my brain and making it boil.
She leans forward as well, and I can’t help but let my eyes fall from her full lips to her cleavage, the round swell of her breasts calling to me like a fucking drug.
“Maybe that real woman is off limits,” she says, lowering her voice, and I find my mouth going dry.
“And maybe I don’t have any limits,” I reply, even though I know I’m walking on the edge of a razor. Whatever I say, though, there are a few lines I won’t cross, and fucking my own stepdaughter is one of these lines. As long as this is just harmless fun, I’m happy to play along, but don’t think I’ll pull the fucking trigger.
“So I’ve he
ard. You really live life on your terms, don’t you? It must be nice,” she continues, but this time I notice a judgmental tone in her words.
“I live life on my terms, yeah. I don’t hide and run from who I am or what I want. That doesn’t mean I’m the monster some people think I am.”
“Then who are you, Magnus Davion?” she asks me, and the reply shapes itself up in my mouth before I can think of it.
“That’s for you to find out, isn’t it?” I say, and this time there’s no snappy comeback from her. She just gazes at me, a contemplative expression on her face, and then she bursts into a laugh.
“We’ll see about that,” she chuckles, biting down on her lower lip as a grin takes over her mouth. I look back at her, my heart giving up and picking up the pace. Warm blood rushes through my veins, and I feel my cock hardening under my boxer briefs.
Two words to the manager. That’s all it would take for me to empty the whole restaurant and have the room to myself. Two words to the manager and I could be alone with Penny in here. I can already imagine the straps of her dress falling down her shoulders as I kiss her neck from behind, my crotch pressed against her ass… Forget all about money and world peace; right now, the thing I want most in the world is to bend her over this table and have my way with her.
Here’s one thing you should know about me, though: I’m a man of my fucking word, and I promised myself this would be a family reunion, not a fucking date. And so I just laugh with her and finish my fucking dinner and wine.
All while trying to forget the raging hard-on inside of my pants.
Fuck, you know what? The moment I’m out of this place, I’m going to call those strippers from the other night, and ask them if they have any friends. Because, as it is, I doubt three strippers will be enough to sate my hunger. Maybe Penny’s right—maybe I’ve never come across a real woman.
After we finish dinner, I pick up the tab (despite Penny’s insistence we split it up), leave a large tip, and then we both leave.
“This was nice,” she smiles, taking her cellphone out of her purse. “We should do this again.” I see an Uber icon popping up on her cellphone screen and I reach for her phone, taking it out of her hands and close the app.
