by Vivien Vale
I grin. “I’m very happy to hear that.”
“So am I, Kevin. We were nervous to invest in you at first, what with the allegations and the sex tape and all that. It was a good choice for us to stay on with you and you’ve proven the last few months that they were nothing more than rumors.”
I nod. Carly, Scott and I will always laugh about the close call, about how everyone assumed that the rumors were false after Emma’s phone call when, in fact, they were more than true.
That is our little secret, though, and it will stay that way.
“I just wanted to fill you in on that,” Hull says. “Well done.”
“Thanks Franklin,” I say. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“One more thing, though…”
“Yeah?”
“I know this might not be the best time, but I know you’ve been wanting to spend more time with the editorial process…”
That’s not exactly true – I just want to spend more time at home with Scott and Carly. But whatever.
“Yes, and?”
“How do you feel about spending more time with the writers, and stepping down from your role as CEO?” He says, and then I just hold my breath as I think of what he’s saying. He wants me to step down from CEO? What the --?
“That sounds…interesting. But who’d take over the CEO role?”
“Carly,” he tells me matter-of-factly, and I don’t even know how to respond.
“That’s…a great idea,” I reply, the words leaving my mouth before I can filter them. Carly as CEO? That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. She’s competent, able, and she knows the publishing business like no one else. That’s why we wanted her to make her VP.
We bet on that.
And now she’s about to become the fucking CEO.
“That’s settled then. We’ll discuss it in the next board meeting.”
We end the conversation and I’m buzzing with pride. We made it. Somehow, we got through the worst and everything is going well. Maybe I should feel bad because I’ve been demoted from CEO…but who the hell cares? Carly’s CEO, and I couldn’t think of anyone better for that role.
Now she’ll be the one fucking her employees. Huh.
Carly comes to my office half an hour later.
“We’re going out tonight,” I say. “To celebrate.”
I explain to her what Hull said.
“I don’t…I don’t know what to say,” she says and kisses me – a chaste kiss, nothing too drawn out with the door and windows open. “Are you sure? I mean…”
I nod.
“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
“What are you two talking about?” Scott says, stepping inside the office and shutting the door behind him.
“Carly’s made CEO,” I tell him, and then it just happens – we start laughing at the same time. I grab my wallet, slip him a dollar, and he does the same.
“I guess that’s a draw,” he says, and then we just laugh as Carly looks at us with a confused expression.
“Well, I guess I’ll make the reservations. My last task on the to-do list before I’m in charge of all of you,” she tells us with a smirk.
We go to Café and Bar Lurcat. It’s a middle-class kind of place but I like the vibe and it is something different than what we usually do.
The restaurant has a checkered floor and white chairs and table cloths so that it all looks stylishly homey. It’s full when we arrive and the atmosphere is bright and cheerful.
“This is great, princess,” I say to Carly who chose the place.
“Yeah, I like it,” Scott says.
We order champagne to celebrate. We have good food and good wine for the rest of the night. The alcohol makes me feel good – light and airy, and horny. I want Carly.
I put my hand on her leg under the table. She glances at me. She’s been drinking, too, and I know she feels the same. When I look at Scott he has the same idea I have. His hand is on her other leg.
“Wasn’t there a coat checker when we arrived?” Scott asks.
I nod. “There was…”
“Shouldn’t we take this home?” Carly asks. “We did talk about public places.”
“It is dangerous,” I admit.
“But it’s a walk on the wild side,” Scott chimes in. “You have to admit that playing dangerously sometimes is so much hotter. Or did you forget about the club?”
Carly blushes, which tells me that she hasn’t forgotten at all. It’s one of those things that keep coming up. It doesn’t bother me that it’s their inside joke. I have those too, with Carly, and we have so many memories of the three of us together, it doesn’t matter. We are a fully-fledged trio, now. We date and we are all equal.
“Let’s go,” Carly says.
I grin at Scott who waves at our waiter. We split the check three ways – it’s one of the things we figured out down the line – and stand up. Scott leads the way to the checking clerk, who’s young and engrossed in a book. Carly and I hang back while Scott approaches her. He flirts shamelessly with her.
We wait, watching him slip her some money and when he turns to us and nods, the girl is blushing. I feel sorry for her – she will never be able to stand up against Scott and his charms.
Scott slips into the closet, first. Carly follows and I bring up the rear, winking at the coat checker. She pales a little, realizing what she just agreed to cover up. We won’t make it hard for her. We will be in and out.
I laugh inwardly at my little joke.
Scott’s already kissing Carly, tugging up her blouse. I come up behind her and run my hands up her thighs. She shivers, her skin Goosebumps under my fingertips.
She’s wearing a skirt and it isn’t hard to reach Carly’s pussy. She widens her stance and I pull her panties aside, sliding my fingers into her slit from behind. She gasps as Scott kisses her, his hand on a breast that he pulled out of her bra. When I push my fingers into her, she moans softly and Scott takes her nipple between his teeth. She’s at our mercy and she must stay quiet, something she isn’t very good at.
I finger fuck her a bit while Scott works over her one breast and then the other.
I’m rock hard in my pants, aching for her. I pull out my dick and push her forward a little so she bends over. I hike up the skirt and her ass is beautiful and round, her thong a thin black like into her ass crack.
Without pause, I push my cock into her. She gasps and Scott takes advantage of her open mouth, pushing his dick in between her lips. Her moans are muffled. It’s one way to keep her quiet.
We fuck her, Scott pumping in and out of her mouth and me thrusting into her pussy.
Before long, Scott pulls out and I do, too. We spin her around, giving the other a chance to fuck the hole we had. Carly braces herself on my hips with her hands and takes me into her mouth. Her body rocks back and forth as Scott fucks her, creating the motion with which she sucks me off.
Scott reaches around and finds her clit. He does what he does best – pushes her closer and closer to the edge. I grab her tits where they’re half hanging out of the blouse and squeeze them, tugging at her nipples. It doesn’t take long before she comes. Her body shudders, her breath forcing out around my cock as she comes.
I want to come, too.
Scott pulls out of her and she straightens up. Her cheeks are flushed. I pull her closer to me and she presses her body against mine. I kiss her. I can taste traces of our sex in our mouth but she mostly tastes like wine and lust. I push my tongue deep into her mouth, exploring her. With my fingers, I find her pussy and she shivered when I touch her clit, now sensitive. I hike up one leg and hold her up, pushing my cock into her pussy. She gasps when I do.
Scott is right behind her, pushing up against her and I know what he’s going to do. We pulled it off standing once before. We don’t have many options, now. Or lube, but he will make it work.
I feel his fingers at the base of my cock as he finds some of her wetness and spreads it to her ass. I
feel it as he pushes in, her ass resisting at first. She cries out, his dick sliding into her ass against mine.
We fill her up and she breathes hard. We don’t give her much more than a moment before we started moving, fucking her, moving against each other. Her face is buried in my shoulder, her moans muffled. We are surrounded by coats, the smell of our cologne, her perfume and our sex mingling in with the coats that hang around us. Hopefully it won’t linger.
Carly is the first to orgasm again. She shudders, her body spasming, clamping down on mine as she cries out into my shoulder. She grabs my arm and her nails dig into my skin through the shirt.
It makes me lose it. I come inside of her, pumping and squirting my load inside of her, claiming her.
I feel it when Scott comes. He pumps, too, and we fill her up together. I’m pretty sure her orgasm lasts all the way through ours. Only when we are done does she stop shuddering.
Scott pulls out and I follow suit. We tuck our dicks back into our pants, satisfied for the moment. Carly looks down.
“I’m a mess,” she says. She’s wet all over her ass, her pussy and her thighs. She fishes for a tissue in her bag and wipes up what she can.
“Don’t clean that too much,” I say. “We’re not done with you, yet. We just have to get home.”
Scott looks at me with naughty expression. We watch Carly as she fixes her clothes, tucking her breasts back into her top and fixing her skirt.
When we leave the coat check, Scott slips the girl another bill. She deserves it after what we did in there. We leave the place, headed for home where Scott and I are going to make Carly ours all over again.
Whatever we are doing, it’s working. We will still run into stumbling blocks every day – we often do – but with the three of us we can figure it out. We have so far. Right now, though, I have sex on my mind, and nothing else.
I want to fuck Carly again, good and hard, before curling up in bed with her, her body tight against mine and Scott on the other side.
This is how it should be.
Taste
By Natalie Knight
Copyright 2017 by Crimson Vixens
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work is intended for adults only.
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Palmer
I finger the steak, tracing the marbled flecks of fat.
I observe it with steady concentration and follow each streak as if it were a roadmap, pointing me home.
A well-marbled steak is a beautiful thing.
It's perfection.
It's redemption.
Is it also salvation?
My mouth moistens as I think about the silky texture of melted fat.
The depth of flavor. The tenderness. The way it transcends a moment in time.
I grind salt and pepper over one side of the steak, and then flip it over to season the other side. Then I heat a cast iron skillet, and when it's at the desired temperature, I drop a pad of butter into its center. I watch as the butter circles, spins, and sizzles around the pan until it's a melted puddle.
Then I place the steak on top, listening to the hot skillet kiss the raw slab of red meat, slowly caramelizing it.
I've made my fortune in the restaurant business.
Flipping food. Perfecting my craft.
Making a name for myself.
But I want more.
I want to elevate the culinary landscape of New York City…and the clock's ticking faster than Julia Childs chopping an onion.
This restaurant here—The Pearl on Park—is a longtime dream come true. I've made my fortune through high-end cuisine—you know, the kind of food that requires three spoons and three forks just to eat? The kind of food accompanied by waiters in suits and white linens. I've become one of the most famous chefs in the world, running a chain of high-quality, extremely fancy restaurants.
You've probably seen me profiled in publications like Bon Appetite, Saveur, Food and Wine, Cooks Illustrated, and The Art of Eating.
I've made food that'll give you an orgasm as soon as it hits your tongue: beautifully crusted baguettes, fresh meat that'll make you moan, and warm cakes gooier than a woman begging for more.
But this restaurant is different.
I'm still creating dishes that are good, orgasmic good, but now I'm pushing boundaries. Salty, fatty, sweet—the kind of food that makes you want to sink your face in and say Fuck it, I'm eating this.
Maybe I'm stubborn, or stupid, or both, but truth is, you have to be all of those things and more to make it in the restaurant business.
You see all of these tools in this kitchen—the vacuum machines, the pH meters, the liquid nitrogen? I'm debunking cooking myths. I don't care what any other chef in this city is doing. If it's working for me, just get out of my way.
Watch me run my restaurant the way I want to run them.
I have no interest in what the chef is doing next door, or across the street, or even across the fucking globe. Why? Because the only thing that matters is my kitchen.
And this place here—these stainless steel appliances, the swanky Park Ave vibe, the top of the line table linens and décor—it's a longtime dream come true.
I look down at the steak, and spoon brown butter over it, basting it. It's now crusted and cooked to perfection, and I remove it from the skillet. The steak is caramelized around the edges with a beautiful brown crunch that I can't wait to place between my teeth.
If you visit The Pearl on Park, this'll be one of the best steaks you've ever had, I promise. It's one of the new dishes that I’m going to present.
I plate the steak and carefully slice a chunk of meat off with a serrated knife. There's a crisp char on the outside and rareness in the middle that feels like butter on my tongue.
"Fuck, that's good!" I can't help but yell out and slam my fist down on the countertop.
"You made me jump!" I look over to see my sous chef, Brit, walk into the kitchen. She's working overtime with me to get a few dishes perfected before our soft opening.
Any other day, and this late at night, it wouldn’t be Brit here with me. Maybe some actress with one of those fake smiles, too eager to have a taste of the Chef—but not today.
I can’t waste my time. Not now.
"Taste this!" I say, looking at Brit over my shoulder.
She walks over, and leans against the counter. I place a forkful of steak into her mouth. I watch as she chews slowly, and then closes her eyes, throwing her head back.
"My God," she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "You weren't joking. This is the best steak I've ever eaten."
I'm glad she agrees, but I can't help but want to make sure.
"Don't pull my leg—tell me the truth," I say.
"I'm serious! It's that good," she says. "This'll put The Pearl on Park on the map."
The way she drags her hand over her throat tells me that she means it.
But suddenly, I can no longer think about that perfectly caramelized steak.
Instead, I close my eyes and remember the doctor’s appointment I had last week. The one where my dreams of cooking the best food in New York were born.
It's an appointment that haunts me and drives me in equal measures.
The sanitized talk. The fluorescent lights. The sterile smell of it all.
Something showed up on the MRI, the doctor said, as I sat back in the hard plastic chair. He pointed to a white, walnut-shaped mass, and the rest of the appointment was a blur. I left, vaguely agreeing to a follow-up appointment, and ultimately making myself a promise to cook the best fucking food New York City's ever tasted.
"This is the best steak the Big Apple's got," Brit says, bringing me back to what�
�s in front of me.
That's exactly what I want to hear.
It's true; I'm a multi-tasker. I can juggle a dozen restaurants, and even more women, and still find time to scuba dive my way through St. Thomas.
It's what I do. And I'm good at it.
I'm not interested in half-assing my way through life.
I'm living large, and I know it. But I'm just getting started.
If you can handle the heat, go ahead…turn the page, and jump into the fire.
My name is Chef Palmer, and I'm going to give the world something they'll never forget.
Nicole
"Where are the vegetables?"
WHACK! THWAP!
Two line cooks look up at me. One shouts back, "We can't hear you, what?"
"I said, where are the—" but my voice is again cut off by the overhead noise.
WHACK!
WHACK!
THWAP!
The noise of construction workers a floor above us has put me on edge.
I can't think. I can't cook. I can't sear a piece of chicken without hearing what sounds like a dozen drag cars moving full throttle above my head.
The line cooks shrug their shoulders.
"THE PRODUCE—WHERE IS IT?" I say, struggling over the noise.
Danny, one of the two, finally understands what I'm asking. "Oh that. The driver mumbled something about a missed payment and took off."
I look around the kitchen and see that he's right. We haven't received our fresh produce this morning. Beyond a few stray onions, we have nothing.
How am I supposed to cook today?
I take a deep breath and run my fingers through my hair.
Stay calm, I repeat to myself.
"Okay, thanks. I'll give him a call."
"Sorry, I figured you knew."
"It's fine," I say, even though it doesn't feel fine at all. In fact, it's taking everything in me to not lose it today, but I have to keep my cool. "I'll get it sorted."
I walk out of the kitchen and into the main dining room. I look around at the tables, at the blue gingham table linens, at everything I've worked so hard to build.
