Daring Play (Dangerous Book 3)

by Romi Hart

  It was an awkward talk. I had just won her over, she had just surrendered, and we were both confused about what to say next. What did this mean? Who knows! What did the future hold? Who knows. Was it stupid to fuck a beautiful woman without a condom? Yeah, definitely. But we both wanted it and now we had the glow of sex, that sleazy smile that tells the whole story.

  “I’m not done with you,” I said, still feeling the confidence sweating out of my body. “I want you again. And again.”

  She stared at me, slowly regaining her composure as she smiled. A little bit of a smirk.

  “This never happened. This was a…crazy dream. Got it, oh kind gentleman?”

  “Yeah…” I said as we both started to regard ourselves and pull up clothing.

  Except er…

  “Sorry about your dress.”

  “You owe me three hundred dollars.”

  “Wow, that dress? Really?”

  “Really, hotshot. Don’t you know rule number one, hands off the merchandise?”

  “I don’t know the meaning of the word RULE,” I said, grabbing her and kissing her with fire, taking her head with my hands, and gripping her for a competitive, all-consuming kiss. “When it comes to my want for you…I want it all. And I don’t know where to stop.”

  “Obviously,” she said, before giving me a flirty smile. I’ll send you the bill.”

  “Please do. I can afford it.”

  “Maybe…but you can’t afford me.”

  “I thought I just did?”

  “NO, sir,” she said with a grin. “That never happened.”

  I smiled back. Oh, it happened. It was the best sex of my life!

  * * *

  Even though we had a great first encounter, the intimacy between us was still lacking. She made it clear she was not a friend with benefits type of girl. And she made it clear nothing like that would happen again. I was left confused and struggling to understand my own feelings.

  I felt sad, depressed…even longing. But that didn’t seem like the real me. I started to wonder what was coming over me. Was this a side effect of sex? Or was love really something terrible that was out to get me…like that old song says?

  I kept going to the club to see her. Watch her. Thinking about our fling that never happened and wondering what more she could possibly want from me. I looked like a fool, just sitting there in that place…drinking, dreaming and trying to figure out the riddle of Diana. What a pathetic sight I must have been to onlookers.

  Oddly enough, it was Angelique who decided to help this pathetic fool. Of all people, right? He noticed that I kept coming back around to see Diana…but that I never actually seemed to “get the girl” or progress to the next stage of a real relationship. Not even fuck buddies! I suppose my failure was that obvious.

  Angelique joined me at the end of the show one night, shoving a free drink under my hand.

  “You’ve got it bad for her, don’t you?” he said sympathetically.

  “Oh, it’s you…” I said shyly.

  “Yeah. Fancy a rematch?” he said, fake-punching me and holding a boxer’s pose.

  “Yeah look, I’m sorry about that whole thing. I never meant for Nate to hit you. He’s a hothead, I should have warned you about him.”

  “Water under the bridge, my friend. Although you should tell Nate now he owes me another set of front row tickets. No box seating this time!”

  I chuckled. “Will do. Thanks for being cool about it.”

  “Look man. I know you’re sweet on Diana.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Nothing…but I know. I know. I’m not stupid. I know what happened. At least once,” He smiled. “So why don’t you just make a move? For real?”

  I made a face with a downward turn of my mouth. “It’s not that. I don’t lose any sleep over her or anything like that. I just want her to respect me.”

  Angelique gave me a look of surprise. “That sounds pretty weird coming from a guy. It’s usually the girl who wants respect, isn’t it?”

  “You know what I mean,” I replied. “Underneath all that makeup you wear, you’re still a man, right? Diana said you had a girlfriend. So you know what I’m saying.”

  “What are you feeling right now?”

  “She’s a snob. She thinks I’m uneducated. She likes making me look like a fool.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Angelique said. “Diana has a lot of friends and not all of them are intellectuals. In fact, some of them are bimbos. Some of them are queer. Some of them are just funny and weird on purpose. Maybe you’re not letting her see all there is to YOU. She’s not really a sports fan, you know. What else do you do?”

  “Baseball is all that I am.”

  “That’s not what she told me. She said you took up agricultural studies.”

  “I’m sure she had a big laugh over that one, too,” I said. “I studied to be a farmer.”

  “I don’t recall that she laughed about it at all. The difference between you and her is that she’s urban and you’re a country boy. Have you ever considered she might find THAT interesting?”

  “Oh sure. Cowboy hats and mechanical bulls. Country music and hard cider. Let’s not forget sixteen-wheelers. Great material for your skits, right?”

  “Do you know what really attracts you to this place, Cody?” he said with a grin.

  “The girls,” I grinned back, looking around at the slick college crowd and huddled groups of socialites.

  “Nooo way. You can get girls anywhere,” Angelique told me. “You can find singers just as talented as Diana, with a lot more willingness to do things your way. You can lose yourself in them. Or, you can rise to the challenge of someone just as elusive as Diana. It doesn’t have to be her. It doesn’t have to be any of the girls who are here. It’s the atmosphere, Cody. That’s what brings you in. It’s a taste for something foreign, something different.”

  “Oh no, you’re not catching me up in that weird theater thing again. No more of talking in circles. Just come straight out with what you’re saying.”

  “What I am saying, Cody is it’s the experience of something different that brings you here, and for Diana, you are also something different. Something new to be experienced, but you hide away all your best parts. Let her see who you are, not just the macho man. As long as you never let her past the ballplayer, you’ll never see past the singer.”

  I took the advice home and slept on it. The next day, I made a call to my father.

  5

  Diana

  I had been sleeping somewhat restlessly for several weeks! I had always been a light sleeper, dozing and rising in fits, but the frequency with which the other house members saw me in the early hours of the morning sitting at the table drinking coffee, or standing outside to watch the sun come up was increasing steadily.

  I could never state exactly what was keeping me up. Sometimes it was the intense hours of practice before a performance, seeping into my dreams. Sometimes it was a touch of homesickness for my family on the other side of the bay; not for the sounds of their voices or the need for a visit; but nostalgia for the life within the walls of the home I had grown up in. A time period when I had been sheltered, protected from the gangs that roamed the streets, from seedy little men lurking in corners, hoping to steal the innocence of young girls. I longed, at times, to regain that sense of invulnerability.

  Sometimes it just was a build-up of raucous in my head that never broke into articulate speech. It annoyed me because I believed in a good, healthy, eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

  Everyone was full of suggestions, from valerian root to outdoor exercise. I dabbled with all of them with various degrees of success but could not fully shake my insomnia. It was perhaps for this reason that Angelique finally intervened.

  Or maybe, he just liked playing cupid.

  Whatever his motivation, one morning as I stood out on the porch puzzling over my sleepless night, I saw an eighteen-wheeler pull alongside the curb to my drivewa
y!

  Unsure whether to go back inside or discover why a semi-truck was in front of my house, I watched as the driver’s door opened and Cody’s head popped out.

  “Howdy partner,” he said jovially. “Would you like to go for a spin?”

  I walked toward the truck as hesitantly as I would approach a man who carried a gun. “It’s big,” I said, tilting my head to look inside.

  The interior was padded with dark red leather quilting and trimmed with glistening black, painted steel. Velvet curtains matching the color of the upholstery drew tightly together behind the seats.

  “It’s a Peterbilt,” he explained happily. “Don’t worry. It won’t bite.” He climbed down to reassure me.

  I walked all the way around it. I didn’t know any more about vehicles than I did about baseball, but I knew how to appreciate beauty. This was a monster of both beauty and strength. A flame pattern decorated the outside of the cab and continued down the box trailer. Even idling, the truck rumbled with a deep, almost furious, voice.

  “It does seem animalistic, doesn’t it?” I said, reaching out to touch it.

  “It’s my dad’s. I bought it for him when I hit the big-time. He doesn’t really haul that much freight anymore. The knees give out on you after a while, but truck driving is in his blood. He can’t stop, so he just privately contracts.”

  “Do you have a license to drive that thing?”

  He chuckled as he opened the passenger door. “I first learned to drive a big rig when I was fourteen. My dad would kick my ass if I didn’t have a commercial driver’s license.”

  I glanced back toward the house. Angelique, Larson, and Alice were clustered closely together on the porch, their eyes wide, the mouths drawn into large O’s.

  “Can they go for a ride?” I asked sheepishly. “Oh, I guess there’s not room for all of them.”

  “Sure, there’s room. Three can sit in front, two in the back of the cab. There’s a bed back there. They’ll be more comfortable than the riders in front. They just won’t get as good a view.”

  I beckoned toward my companions. They pushed and shoved each other to be the first one to see the inside of the truck.

  “Where should we go?” I asked. “It must be a nightmare to drive in the city.”

  “Not that much. Nobody argues with a big rig. Gearing down for the stop lights is the worst part of it, so I was thinking we should take the quickest route toward an open highway.”

  We were clamoring in, without any regard as to where we were going. Larson’s head appeared from the curtained top.

  “What are you waiting for, Diana? Let’s get this party on the road.”

  I shrugged and took the middle between Cody and Angelique. Angelique immediately struck the pose of someone who had spent years riding shotgun in a semi-truck. He stretched out his legs on the liberal floor mat. He rolled down the window and propped his elbow on the sill. He put on his sunglasses and gazed at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

  I felt a little jealous of his place by the door, as he looked very charismatic and free-wheeling. However, so did Cody. As the one in the middle, I decided I could be as high-spirited as they were.

  “Are we going across the Oakland Bridge?” Asked Alice, poking her head out so she could see straight ahead. “I’ve always imagined looking down on all the traffic.”

  “I thought we’d cross the Golden Gate,” said Cody. “Marin County is all open country. Lots of good sight-seeing. We could even have a picnic.”

  Alice and Larson whispered to each other then whispered to me. “Muir Beach,” Alice suggested. “Larson says we should go to Muir Beach.”

  “What does Muir Beach have beside ocean and sand?” Cody asked cheerfully. We were already breaking free of the congested area, with the bridge shining just ahead.

  “Naturalism,” answered Larson, his head so far forward he was breathing on Cody’s neck.

  Marin County wasn’t the sort of place for people who relied on public transportation or taxi service to visit very often, at least not the side of it we were visiting. It was all national park, with craggy hills falling into the ocean and storm-dwarfed trees. It looked wild and uninhibited. Just a few miles down the rolling highway, we were all singing “Yellow Submarine” and waving at the sparse traffic.

  When we reached the Muir Beach turn-off, we found a parking spot for the truck that was well to the side of the main clearing, which was a rather polite thing to do as not only did it make the vehicle less conspicuous but made it easier for others to find a parking place.

  Larson and Alice were apparently completely within their element. While the others were still stretching and looking around, they skipped hand in hand down the well-marked path.

  “How now, my love,” rolled Larson deeply in his carrying baritone. “Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?”

  Alice answered gravely, her spare hand touching her throat. “Be like for want of rain, which I could well be teem them from the tempest of my eyes.”

  Cody was becoming immune to the strange conversations of the two actors but still appeared a little puzzled. “I don’t think I understand what they said.”

  I put a hand on Cody’s arm as though to reassure him. “Don’t worry about it. They’re reciting Shakespeare. Nobody understands Shakespeare anymore.”

  “Huh. It’s not such a bad thing, I guess, to be an entertainer.”

  He found an agreeably long stick for stabbing at the ground in front of them as they walked.

  “It’s like looking through a cracked mirror,” he said. “You see so many different reflections. I think I like seeing things through your eyes.”

  “You haven’t met my gangsta brothers yet.”

  Perhaps influenced by the couple in front of them, he took my hand and began swinging it. “I don’t believe your parents raised gangsters. They’re teachers, right?”

  I smiled up at him, on the verge of saying something uncommonly tender for someone who painstakingly spent large periods of time learning to be aloof…

  When Angelique suddenly shouted and sped past us, tearing off his clothes. “I’m home! Oh, baby, baby, baby, I’m home!” He cried out happily.

  “Ignore him, too,” I advised Cody. “He’s a nudist.”

  “Oh…interesting.”

  * * *

  That day, Cody received a lesson on the differences between those who stripped their clothes because they enjoyed nature pouring down on their skin unencumbered and those whose motivations were sexual or exhibitionist. The beach was littered with people in every stage of undress who related to each other as nonchalantly as those who were completely clothed.

  He wasn’t totally at ease with the casually nude environment. He unbuttoned his shirt and removed his jeans but left on his boxer shorts. I stripped down to the same stage of undress just to make him feel more comfortable.

  Angelique had no interest intact. He ran down to the beach completely undressed, dashed into the waves, and darted out again, jumping and shouting and running circles around a group of beach-poking pedestrians.

  Alice and Larson had removed their clothes, but then put them on again, rearranging the way they wore them. They were still bound in their romp through A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. Alice’s voice wafted up from the murmuring surf. “O then, what graces in my love do dwell, that he hath turned a heaven into a hell.”

  A loud crash of an especially strong wave, then Larson’s voice trailed, “A time that lovers flight doth still conceal, through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.”

  “We should have packed a picnic lunch,” Cody said. “I didn’t even know this place was here.”

  “I didn’t either,” I admitted. “But Larson and Alice are San Francisco locals. They know about these things.”

  I played with a pile of sand, scooping it into a funnel. “I thought the north coast was full of nude beaches.”

  “It is, but it never did feel right. Some nudists are
old geezers with flapping skins. Some are fat women or men with beer bellies. Sure, there are hot babes, but when they’re all mixed together, walking around like they were fully clothed, it does something to you. A lot of nude people of all ages jumbled together on a beach isn’t really that sexy, you know.”

  “It’s not supposed to be. All that posing is for exhibitionists. You’ve never stretched out naked in the sun just because it felt good?”

  “Not in public. No. I’m a country boy, Diana. Mendocino does these things. It has a lot of tree huggers. But when you’re born and raised on cornbread and country music, no. You don’t do these things.”

  He watched the scene around him, gradually relaxing. “You could get used to this as a normal thing. I wanted to ask you, Diana, would you like to take a trip up north with me? I don’t have to take the truck back for another week. If you have a few days to spare between your work schedule…”

  “I can take off two days; Tuesday and Wednesday. Would that be a problem?”

  He stammered. “No. That would be fine. You mean, you’ll go? Just you and me, not the whole gang?”

  I looked at him with amusement. There was something about him that was exactly like a young boy demanding a promise from Santa Claus.

  “Hmmm, okay. As long as you don’t try to kidnap me.”

  “No. I’ll behave. You’ll see!”

  Alice and Larson gravely walked up and down the beach, reciting Shakespeare, while Angelique flitted from group to group like a naked social butterfly. Cody and I sat with our feet buried in the sand, soaking up the sunlight.

  “If Angelique has a girlfriend, why haven’t I ever seen her?” Cody asked.

  “She’s an international lawyer. She represents Americans who get in trouble in foreign countries. She spends a lot of time in Central America.”

  “They’ll kill her out there!”