Samantha turned on the end table lamp. “Baby, there’s close to a grand in the bag, you lucky bastard!” she exclaimed, tossing a wad of cash at him.
“Huh?” Dez jolted wide-awake, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“I don’t know how you did it, my man,” said Charlie, sitting in a chair nearby. “I don’t know how you guessed it, but you’re one lucky son of a bitch sometimes, you know that? I don’t know what sort of business that gas station was pulling in, but you really did hit the honey pot, my man.”
“We added it,” exclaimed Samantha. “Checked it three times over. Baby, there’s $972 in this bag!” She tossed it up into the air, giggling as the bills scattered like confetti all over the motel room.
“How the hell?” Dez wondered aloud.
“I don’t know how the hell you did it either, but you sure did it, brother. Let’s celebrate. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving. I’m in the mood for one of those 36-ounce rib-eyes.”
“I want champagne!” piped in Samantha, collecting the bills from the floor. “And lobster! You know, I’ve never tried lobster.”
“Now just wait a minute,” said Dez. “Before we go pretending like we’re Rockefellers, remember a grand isn’t all that much. We still need to get to Vegas. And even once we’re there, we don’t know what the hell we’re going to find there. Hell, I might find myself washing dishes again. Or we could find ourselves homeless. I’ll try to get a hold of Hutchinson, Charlie. See if he has any leads. I booked us this room for the next four nights. What we got to think of doing now is to conserve. Budget. No fancy dinners, no splurges, and no unnecessary bullshit. Not until I hear from Hutchinson what the scene’s like out there.”
“But Dez,” pleaded Samantha. “What’s the point of having all this money if we can’t spend a little? We earned it, after all.”
“I’m serious about this. We got to think of gas, we got to think of food, and we got to think of lodging… Everything’s indefinite.”
“Samantha’s right, man. No matter how it ended, we have the cash now. Let’s live it up a little. Plenty to tide us over ‘til Vegas. Shit, I still have $30 in my wallet I had completely forgot about. Might seem like chump change, but I can add it to the kitty.”
“No go, Charlie. Don’t want to seem like Scrooge, but there’ll be plenty of time to celebrate once we’re in Vegas. We figure out where we’re going, then we can talk of celebrating.”
“Come on, man—”
“I’m serious. You want to celebrate, you can take your cut and go home. No hard feelings. But if you’re going to be hitting the road with us, then we all need to learn how to budget. I have too much invested in the past—especially the past few weeks—that I’ve already lost. And I don’t mean money. I can’t turn back now. You two might, but there’s no way in hell I can. So, it’s like this. I’m giving the both of you a choice. We can split this money up three ways and you can go about your merry business. Go home and start all over. Hell, I’ll even pay for your bus fares just to show there’s no hard feelings. But me, I’ve got to move ahead… and unfortunately, that means money. So the other choice is to move on forward, whether that means Vegas, California… Hell, even Canada. We’ll know our destination once we get there. Hate to put a damper on your party plans, but nothing’s goddamned certain in this world. Charlie… Samantha…. There’s the door. What’s it going to be?”
*****
The three of them found themselves underneath the vast mahogany arches of Marseilles Steak House an hour later, waiting for their orders of filet mignon and finishing up their second bottle of vintage Bordeaux. The looks from the other patrons—all who shared a median age of 62, bedecked in three piece suits and cocktail dresses—were enough to slice through the scruffily attired trio. In fact, they had almost been denied entry; until twenty dollars in the palm of the maitre’d and Dez’s assurance they were members of a touring band put any wariness to rest.
“So Charlie,” he said. “Something I’ve been curious about since I got out here. Long as I known you, you seemed deep down at heart kind of a homebody. How come when you moved to St. Louis, you didn’t settle down with a woman?”
“Truth be told,” he replied, finishing up the last of his wine. “Truth be told, I did. ‘Bout two years ago. Beautiful woman, man. Smart. Talented, too. She was a singer for this local jazz combo, and during the day? She was a teacher, believe it or not. Hit it off beautifully. Don’t know why. Don’t know how, but we did.”
“What happened?”
Charlie rolled up his sleeve and made a stabbing motion into the vein of his arm, slapping the skin for emphasis. “Happened so quick. We were together almost a year, man. Then I found out. Cost her her job. Couldn’t support the both of us… Not on my pay. Told her that I couldn’t stand by and watch her kill herself. Couldn’t deal with the temptation, neither. Gave her the choice - me or the dope. She made her choice plain and clear.”
“Seen her since?”
“Yeah. Few months after, I heard she was dating her dealer. Real scumbag… Used to turn women on and turn ‘em out, know what I mean? Nothing I could do. Tried to play it cool but you know how it is. Anyways, one night, I was at this bar when she came walking in, strung out as anything. She was a wreck. Her teeth was all ruined, and she was stumbling all over the place, trying to get every dude in the place to buy her a drink. Had to turn away, so she wouldn’t recognize me. But she did. Kept offering me a taste, if I’d be willing to pay up front. Says she wanted to remember the old days with me. Had to push her hands off me. It got ugly. She slapped me a few times, screaming this shit about how I was no better than her and all this crap. Bartender had to literally drag her out kicking and screaming. Fucked me up, man.”
“What about now?” Samantha asked. “Do you still miss her?”
Charlie lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “Yeah. Not what she’s become but what I know she is deep down under all the mess she made. Ripped me off for damn near $300 before I kicked her out. Not that I hold that against her... Lord knows I been there. Probably would’ve done the same. Sometimes, I think about what could’ve been. Gets me down, man. Know you’re not supposed to live in the past, but…” His voice trailed off, faint and crackly. He held up the bottle of wine. “What say we have another?”
“Sure thing,” replied Dez. “Just as soon as the waiter gets here. “Y’know, the Greeks had an argument about time. That it doesn’t exist outside of what occurs during it. That it relied on those events. Wasn’t independent of them.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Samantha.
“Well, we’re all shaped in one way or another by the past, right? For better or for worse… Garcon! Another bottle, s’il vous plait.” He scratched his chin and gazed at Samantha with a strange half-smile. “Our identity, our perspective, our experience of the world around us… Everything’s shaped by time. Memory. But what if time was one big perpetual intersection? Where the present and the past collide? What if all our current experiences were just memories, memories we can’t really know because we’ve got one foot behind us in the past, and one foot on the ground of the present? We don’t really know the future because all that we experience right now are just memories waiting to occur. We never think about tragedy or loss or joy until after the fact. And we’re so fucking numb by this obsession with the past that we’re blinded by the present. The present is just a memory. But the past goes on to influence both the present and the future. Can’t help but live in the past. Can’t help but to move your foot forward into the future, neither, until you choose to. Then you realize it’s all the same fucking body of water anyways.”
The waiter arrived with the bottle of wine, and poured it into their glasses with a sour look on his face. Dez simply blew him a mocking kiss, which only served to send him scowling even further and set the entire table into barely restrained chuckles. “Ah, to hell with it. I’m sick of letting my past dictate my life anyways. So you never wound up with anothe
r after she left?”
“Nope. Maybe better off that way. I don’t know.”
“Another what?” interrupted Samantha. “Another girl? As if we’re all just one in a line of possessions, is that it?”
“No, babe. What I meant—”
“Was that Charlie here can just grab another fish in the sea, right? Plenty more where she came from. No regards to whether or not this was the love of his life. No regards to what she might have meant to him - just another girl. Another rest stop he’s just passing through.”
“I think Charlie can speak for himself quite well.”
“No, no,” replied Charlie. “Let the little lady speak. Go on.”
“You were just talking about how you can’t help but live in the past. What if something you see in the present is so sacred, so unique, that you can’t bear to part with it? Even if you know you have to? Because you know it’s going to be nothing more than a memory anyways, and you know you’re going to be left wondering what could’ve been? Does that make that something any less unique or cherished? Or should you just toss it aside ‘cause you know you’re going to lose it anyways?”
“I think… you got to see each occurrence like a math equation. That the end equation is only as strong as the numbers that came up before it.”
“You avoided the question entirely. And you managed to equate experience and love with a fucking number. Way to go, Dez. Bravo for you.”
“Holding on is misery.”
“It’s also happiness.”
“Maybe there’s no real difference between the two.”
“That’s bullshit. You can honestly tell me that with a straight face?”
“Think of human suffering; long-term pain - terminal cancer, for example. Now, the cancer patient’s family isn’t necessarily happy at watching him suffer. Given a choice, nine times out of ten, they’ll just pull the plug. And nine times out of ten, all you’ll hear from them is ‘He’s in a better place now. He’s not in so much pain.’ They’re happy he’s dead. But they’re still going to be holding on to the memories of him up in that hospital bed, with tubes sticking out of his nostrils just as much as they are when he was happy and healthy. They’re never touching the real. Never seeing him in the flesh be it hooked up to a machine or sailing on a yacht. All they have is memories.”
“So, you’re saying that something can simultaneously be its exact opposite?”
“Don’t know about simultaneously. Don’t know about exact, either. But yeah, that’s the gist of it. Even though it flies in the face of most Western views of philosophy.”
“But you’re still avoiding my question.”
“Refresh my memory, babe.”
“Is there a point in throwing something away you cherish so much because you know it’s going to die anyways? Or is the point not cherishing anything at all?”
“Sometimes… Sometimes there is no point whatsoever - just a random series of accidents and meaningless occurrences. Maybe the point is that it’s up to us to find meaning in them for ourselves.”
The food arrived and the three of them sat around the table in silence, oblivious to the murmurs and hissing of the patrons and servers surrounding them.
*****
It may have been the fourth bottle of wine they ordered. Or the nightcaps of cognac they had at the restaurant. Or the four rounds of drinks they had on the way home. Or the miniature bottles of whiskey they found in the hotel mini-fridge. But by the time 1 a.m. rolled around, Dez, Samantha and Charlie were extremely drunk. Lucid. But drunk.
They were lying on their respective beds. Dez looked up at the shadow cast by the desk lamp on the ceiling. Periodically, Samantha would make shadow puppets with her fingers in the light, causing Dez to chuckle. Charlie sat on his back on his bed, looking straight ahead. Dez’s whole rap during dinner—about time, about experience, about memory—seemed so startling to him for some reason. Even though he had heard it before from Dez’s mouth several times over the years, he felt it was the first time he comprehended it intuitively. He was still the same Dez, with his crazy talk and his dreams and his plans that never seemed to have an end goal in sight. But he could sense something changing in him. Something impalpable, that seemed to permeate every one of his words and gestures. He tried to shut his eyes, oblivious to the horseplay of Samantha and Dez on the bed adjacent. Each time he tried to drift off to sleep, their sporadic fits of giggling would ring in his ears.
Dez had taken his shirt off with the most innocent of intentions - simply getting comfortable enough to go to bed. But Samantha had other ideas in mind. She snuggled her head in the crook of Dez’s shoulders and traced her lips across his smooth chest, her tongue leaving soft trails along the narrow archways. She raised her head up slightly and let the ends of her long auburn hair whip gently across his chest, tickling him, listening to the moans of appreciation coming from his throat. She placed her mouth against it and nibbled at the taut skin, hearing him growl lowly as he traced his fingers up and down the arch between her lower back and the crack of her ass. She raised her arms up as he removed her shirt, making certain their eyes were firmly locked on one another, even in the dim glow of the hotel room. She didn’t know how long she had left with Dez, but she knew that ever since they fucked that morning in the sleazy motel in Vinita, her life had been imbued with a substance and meaning that seemed to transform her. He seemed to pull something out of her, a shamelessness and buoyancy that exuded from her without effort; a second layer of sweat, subtle yet mesmerizing. She felt it alive on her skin, secret and fertile with the essence of who and what she was. Her innermost self now brought to the forefront, in drips and in droves, but always undetectable.
Dez tickled her ribcage and she giggled loudly. It was one of her most sensitive areas, and Dez knew it. She began bursting into hysteric fits.
“Ssssshhhh,” he said. “Keep cool. You’ll wake up Charlie.”
“I’m already awake,” Charlie groaned from his bed.
Samantha rolled out of the covers and knelt down by the side of his bed, clad only in a bra and panties. “Hey there, stranger,” she beamed broadly at him, holding her head up with her hands. “You know, you’re pretty cute when you’re sleepy.”
“You mean I’m cute when you’re drunk.”
“Could be. ‘Cept when you’re drunk, you’re pretty handsome. Sober, you’re downright sexy.”
Dez chuckled, even as she leapt into his bed. “Hope you don’t mind,” she slurred as Charlie laughed, rolling over to make room for her. “Come on over to this side, the water’s great!” she beckoned to Dez. He walked over, slowly, methodically, taking in the sight. Their bodies against one another seemed playful, like two feisty kittens wrestling with each other. But underneath, he could tell that their hearts yearned for one another, yearned for this strange nativity between this, this sacrament to be known only in secret—and only by all three. He jumped into the bed eagerly, hungrily as Samantha nuzzled her cheek against his chest.
“Mmmmm… the two most beautiful men in the world, laying right next to me.” She turned her head and kissed Charlie between his shoulder blades, rubbing and kneading his tired flesh. “You know what would be the perfect ending to our little celebration now, don’t you?”
Charlie turned around and placed his mouth against hers. Even drunk, it tasted of youth and brazenness alive with a fire he hadn’t known for quite some time. His tongue explored her mouth greedily, as Dez’s fingers trailed along the elastic of her panties, letting it snap back ever so lightly. His hand slid across the crack of her ass as Charlie unfastened her bra, never once taking his eyes off hers. Dez wrestled her panties off, her muscular thighs helping the cheap black cotton slip down. He pressed himself against her, brushing her hair back gently until he could wrap it around his fist. As he did so he tugged gently, causing her to gasp as he held her back against him, nibbling on her shoulder blades as her palms caressed Charlie’s broad, unyielding chest. She felt Dez’s palm smack against her the
side of her ass cheeks, causing her face to blush as the sound rippled throughout the room. She knew what she had to do.
Dez forced her down, her head now directly against Charlie’s chest as he knelt behind her. She felt him entering her swiftly from behind, parting her with such savage grace that she felt she could cry out at any minute. Her hands gripped her hips firmly as he thrust in and out of her, her head nodding back and forth as Charlie watched, entranced by her jade green eyes. The lids fluttered in perfect time to the rhythms of Dez’s movements, her eyes signaling a wanton frenzy, a secret flame within her that seared her entire body. It was a fire that was magnetic and Charlie knelt down to study the outline of her face. The finely carved cheekbones seemed to expand, swelling with each of Dez’s gyrations inside he. He traced the side of her face softly, a sad look in his eyes betraying his bond with the two lovers. Even as that bond seemed to grow closer, he seemed to grow more distant plagued by ghosts he was incapable of containing. He felt himself dissolve as he looked in her face, wanting to cling to its beauty like a rudder. A rudder anchored in the tempest of his heart.
Samantha took Charlie in her mouth. She had always loathed giving head, mainly because all of her partners had insisted on using her mouth as a substitute. But Charlie was gentle. He brushed her hair back and looked down at her appreciatively, letting himself savor the sensation of Samantha’s tongue exploring him. He groaned as she applied the smallest bit of pressure to him, and even she was surprised by his sensitivity. She could feel the ridges of Dez’s hips hitting hers, and she had difficulty keeping concentration. Samantha stopped and took him in her cupped hands. She stroked them up and down the shaft of Charlie’s cock ritually, as if she was summoning some ancient fate, some ancient omen that would possess all three of them and consecrate them anew, absolving them of all weaknesses, of all their myriad flaws and imperfections so they could merge together in one new skin, as pure and free of blame as time itself. Samantha began to spasm as Dez’s thrusts continued their dizzying crescendo, galloping in leaps and bounds, pulling her apart until she felt like a wad of chewing gum stretched too thin. She felt herself convulsing and writhing, the sweat dripping from between her legs, baptizing all three of them. They never even heard themselves cry out together. All they could hear was a soft low hum that seemed to emerge from a point that began and ended somewhere inside themselves.
ROMANCE: THREESOME : Billionaire Brothers' Party (MFM Menage Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Threesome Short Stories) Page 106
