by J. D. Mason
“How?”
Russ swallowed, and shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea,” he said dismally. “I didn’t think much of it. Just thought he was being paranoid.” He looked over at Jordan again. “Or feeling guilty. But when I saw her the other day,” he explained nervously, “there was something about her being there, almost as if she was there to make sure he wasn’t getting up.”
Silence loomed between them for several minutes before Jordan finally spoke. “Why’d you call me, Fleming?”
Russ raked his hand across his graying hair. “I’ve gotten some things sent to me,” he admitted reluctantly.
“What things?”
Russ waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not important.”
“It must be important, Judge,” Jordan interjected. “Whatever it was that Billings received was important enough for the man to put a bullet in his head. Billings believed Desi Green had dug deep enough to find his dirtiest laundry. You believe she’s done the same thing to you?”
Russ blinked anxiously. “I don’t know! I don’t know, but her showing up there like that after the conversation I had with that man the night he shot himself can’t be a coincidence! I don’t believe in coincidences! Not like that!”
“Why the hell did you call me?” Jordan asked, threateningly. “What do you think I’m supposed to do about any of this?”
“Have you gotten anything? Anything at all, something strange or something related to the trial, maybe?” Russ asked, pleading for answers from Jordan. “Or am I just a crazy, paranoid old man like Tom was? If he was right…” His voice cracked. “If I’m right, then—she needs to be stopped, Jordan.”
“You’ve wasted my afternoon.” Jordan sighed.
“Is she making us pay for what we did, Jordan?” He reached across the table and desperately grabbed hold of Jordan’s arm. “She’s got the money! Tom believed she was behind this!”
Jordan jerked his arm away and gritted his teeth. “Whatever you and Billings have done, Judge, that’s for you to make peace with.”
“You paid us!”
Jordan glared at him. “I’ve never given you a dime!”
“But your attorneys did!”
Jordan reached across the table and grabbed the older man by the throat. “I’m not my attorneys. Whatever you and Billings did twenty-five years ago had nothing to do with me. If you think I’m wrong, then prove it. You call me when you do.”
Russ turned a violent shade of red, and gasped for air, until Jordan let go, stood up, and marched out of the place.
Mr. Backlash
“What are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?”
It was after ten at night, and Solomon had shown up at her door uninvited.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Then call me, first.”
Solomon stepped inside, again, without waiting for an invitation.
“What’s your problem, Solomon?”
“Tom Billings,” was all he said.
Desi threw her arms up in frustration. “Oh, what? You think I killed him too? What about JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr.? Maybe I knocked both of them off during recess.”
“He was the cop who arrested you.”
She folded her arms defensively, and stared angrily at him.
“Now he’s dead? First Mary, and now Tom?”
“I’m getting tired of this.”
“I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.”
“It? What—it? The bottom of what?”
“Of what happened to you!”
His outburst caught her off guard. “You know what happened to me,” she said calmly.
“I have my suspicions,” he responded. “And if I’m right…”
“If you’re right … what?”
“I’m an officer of the court, Desi.” He sounded almost as if he resented that fact. “And I’m obligated to report this so that an investigation can begin.”
“What kind of investigation?”
“An investigation into your arrest, your trial. If any procedures weren’t probably adhered to, then…”
“Then I get my twenty-five years back? I get my mother back, my youth? Can I go to the prom now, Solomon? Can I fall in love, get married, and have babies?”
Solomon looked helpless, as helpless as she’d always felt.
“No. I guess not.” She answered those questions for him.
“You’d get a chance to clear your name, Desi.”
Desi laughed. “Well, I guess that’s something.”
“Or would you just rather see everybody dead?”
“I didn’t do anything to those people,” she repeated wearily.
“Well, how can you explain what’s happened?”
“Maybe it’s God,” she said flippantly. “Maybe God really don’t like ugly, and he’s decided to finally do something about it. Maybe it’s just—a coincidence. And maybe it was just Aunt Mary’s and Uncle Tom’s time to go,” she snapped.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But yeah. I kind of do, because you’re so concerned about those two people biting the dust, Solomon. She took bribes for her guilty vote, and he bought and sold people like cattle, and you’re standing here in my living room all broken up about them. I think that’s hilarious.”
“And what if I told you that you were wrong,” he said, coolly. “What if I told you that it’s you I’m all broken up over? Would that still be funny?”
Desi wiped the smile off of her face. “Comical.”
“Why?” he asked, taking a cautious step toward her.
Desi stepped back. “Because I wouldn’t believe you.”
He stepped closer again. “Why not?”
This time, she stood her ground.
He took another step. He’d tried not to think about her, but lately, thinking about her was all he could do. Desi the murderer. Desi the liar. Desi the victim. Desi’s perfume, her lips, her hair.
“You can’t just come here and think that we’re going to…”
“We should.”
I don’t know you,” she protested, weakly.
“You can.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” she murmured.
“I think you’re wrong. I think I do.”
“You should be afraid.”
He stood close to her now. Too close. Solomon loomed over her, pressed his nose into her hair, and inhaled.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting to know you,” he whispered, closing his eyes and inhaling her hair again.
Desi shuddered unexpectedly. “I’m not in the mood for this, Solomon,” she forced herself to say. “I swear I’m not.” Desi raised her hands to his chest and leaned into him.
He raised one hand to her waist, until his palm rested on her spine, and pulled her close. Desi tried to pull away, she wanted to resist, but—. Solomon wrapped both arms around her, and pulled her to him, held her, until she melted against him.
He hated what he believed to be true. He hated knowing that the legal system had been manipulated at the expense of a teenage girl, and that greed had taken over, and that those same people who were supposed to take care of her had all betrayed her. Mary Travis and Tom Billings had finally paid a hefty price for their transgressions. But there were others he suspected had been bought off too: Robert Chen, another juror, who disappeared six months after Desi was sentenced and Barbara Ciades, who died of a heart attack ten years ago, behind the wheel of her 1987 Mercedes. She’d been a waitress at a local diner who didn’t even make minimum wage. Phillip Atkins, the defense attorney, had moved out of the country a month after Desi’s conviction.
The Gatewoods had bought and paid for a guilty verdict, and they’d gotten their money’s worth. Maybe they’d hoped she’d die in prison, but Desi surprised them, and not only did she survive, she came out a very rich and beautiful woman. The irony was a mother fucker.
* * *
That soun
d of a beating heart was the most soothing sound in the world, and his was strong, steady, and deep. Desi closed her eyes and kept her ear pressed to it. The two of them stood there, rocking slowly back and forth.
“You finally have furniture.”
Dammit! Why’d he have to talk?
“Finally.”
“Where’s the bed?”
His question wasn’t lost in translation. She reluctantly pulled her ear from his chest and looked up at him.
Solomon shrugged. “Or I could just stand here all night and hold you.”
* * *
“Foreplay with you is pure brain stimulation, Desi. Makes me rock hard.”
She laughed. “You’re kind of scary.”
He shook his head. “Between the two of us, you’re scarier than me.”
But Desi was nervous. Her first love had been a prison guard named Jorge Vega, who claimed to love her, until she found him loving a few other inmates too, and that had been years ago.
He started backing her up toward the staircase.
“It’s been awhile for me,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s been awhile.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How long’s awhile?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she quickly shot back. “You married?”
“Divorced.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No. Not—no.” Solomon leaned down and picked her up. “Where’s that bed?”
* * *
Her breasts were beautiful. Her ass was beautiful. Her back, stomach, legs—forty-four years and every inch of it was perfect. He kissed the soles of her feet, only to discover that she was ticklish. He kissed the center of her pussy, and discovered that she was eager. Solomon licked the tips of her nipples and found her responsive, and when he put his tongue in her mouth, he discovered that she was delicious.
He sat on the side of the bed with her perched on his lap, easing slowly in and out of her, holding her by the waist as she leaned back and rolled her hips in small circles, their gazes locked onto each other. He pulled her in closer. Desi wrapped both arms around his neck, and held on as he slowly raised and lowered her down onto his shaft.
“I like that,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t stop.”
He liked it too. Hell, he loved it.
She let go of him and pressed soft lips against his. Desi eased her tongue into his mouth to the rhythm of their lovemaking. She let her eyes close, let her head fall back, and arched her back. Ripe, dark nipples jutted up at him, and Solomon pulled her close again, took hold of her breast, and pulled it into his mouth.
Desi moaned, rolled wider circles in his lap, and began to buck wildly.
He didn’t know if she was cumming or just enjoying the moment, but he smiled.
“One Enemy Is Too Much”
—George Herbert
Jordan had always enjoyed the hunt so much more than capturing his prize. He’d courted Claire until she had no choice but to fall in love with him, but he’d never loved her. Lonnie was not Claire.
She stood on the outside patio of his St. Regis penthouse, overlooking the city. The two of them had taken his private jet here for dinner, with plans to fly back in the morning. Jordan studied her from behind, knowing full well that she was much more impressed by the views than she ever was with him.
“I can feel those eyes of yours burning a hole my back,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s rude to stare, Gatewood.”
“I could give a damn about being rude.”
She was his match, so much more than Claire ever could be. Lonnie was not swayed by money or luxuries. She had her own. She had a career that she was proud of, independence that she clung to fiercely, and she didn’t need him.
Lonnie turned around and walk over to him, took his martini from his hand, finished it, and then handed him back the empty glass. “Wow,” she said, licking her lips. “That was good. Can you make me another one of those?”
He bowed slightly. “It would be my pleasure.”
Jordan went back over to the bar.
“This place is swanky, Jordan. I dig it.”
She kicked off her pumps and stretched out on the sofa. “You come here often?”
“Not often enough. Maybe,” he said, looking at her, “that’ll change.”
Lonnie suddenly laughed. “Oh, I see how it is. You want to hide me out up here in the tower like Rapunzel?”
“She had hair, but that’s not a bad idea.”
“As nice as this place is, you know I’m not the type to be kept.”
Jordan came over and handed her a freshly made martini.
Lonnie smiled. “Oooh! Nice and dirty. Just the way I like it.”
Jordan came around, raised her legs up off the sofa, and then laid them across his lap again when he sat down.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, abruptly.
Lonnie grimaced. “Don’t start Jordan,” she complained.
He laughed. “I told you. I never say anything I don’t mean.”
“Look, I’m trying to be nice to you.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Trying to be nice to me?”
“Jordan, I’m not the marrying kind. And plus, you’re already married.”
“So, then what’s the problem? I’m not expecting us to change anything. I’m married and I’ve been seeing you on the side.”
“The side is good. But it gets all messed up when you toss around words like ‘love’ and phrases like ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ We don’t need to complicate things.”
“But I do love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“How could you possibly love me when you have no idea who I am?”
“I know what I need to know.”
“You know what I let you know.”
Jordan grinned. “Is that a challenge?”
“No, man!” Lonnie sat down her drink, crawled across the sofa and straddled his lap. She cradled his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. “Don’t mess up a good thing, Jordan. Don’t love me. Don’t try to own me. And don’t ever try to boss me.”
“You like it I when take control.”
“No I don’t.”
“You came like a freaking maniac the last time I did.”
“I faked it.”
“You nearly fainted.”
“I couldn’t breathe. You were killing me.”
“Your words, ‘I loved it.’”
“And I lied.”
Jordan held on tight to her and stood up. Lonnie clamped her legs around his waist.
“Oh, so now you’re going to toss me over the ledge?”
“Nah,” he said, kissing her lips. “We’re going swimming.”
“Don’t you want to take your clothes off first?”
Jordan stepped down into the pool, shoes and all. “Too late.”
“This dress is expensive.”
“I’ll buy you another one.”
“You ain’t buying me shit. I buy my own clothes.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.”
* * *
Lonnie watched him sleep. The bastard had gone and changed the rules on her and she had no idea how he’d done it. Love wasn’t something that she’d avoided. It just never fit anywhere in her life. Lonnie never had the time for it, or the patience. Not that she loved Jordan, but he was making a big push to change her mind. She liked him, though. That much she could admit. Lately, he’d seemed to leave his asshole tendencies at the door. Lonnie almost felt guilty about following through with her plans. Almost, but not quite. She’d made a promise to herself on Desi’s behalf. These people, these Gatewoods, had turned that woman’s life upside down. That’s the part she had to hold on to. Jordan could be a monster, a bully when he chose to be. That fact hadn’t changed no matter how sweet he was to her now.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, groggily, turning over on his side, and draping his arm over her. Jordan kissed her sweetly o
n her head. “Can’t sleep?”
“No.”
She didn’t even know if he’d heard her, before he drifted off again. Lonnie nuzzled closer to him, pressing her head against his chest, she inhaled deeply, and savored his scent. He smelled good. But didn’t he always?
The Night I Fell in Love
Russ wasn’t a fag. This boy, and other boys like him that he’d been with were fags. They knew it, and they were proud and easy with what they were, strutting around the club, switching like girls, chattering like them, and batting their eyelashes like them. He liked what they did to him, and how they did it, with no rules or reservations. They did things his wife wouldn’t dare do to him. Things she’d slap him across the face for if he’d even hinted that he wanted her to try.
He wasn’t a pervert, either. None of his boys was ever much younger than eighteen. They were grown men, young, but grown, and consenting. He never forced himself on any of them.
Toby was one of his favorites. A petite boy with a long torso, short, shaggy hair, and full, soft lips, Toby lived to please. He loved sex, and he loved to talk. Some of the others were mechanical, just following along, doing whatever you told them to do. Toby didn’t resent spending time with Russ, and he always seemed genuinely happy to see him, whether Russ was there for him or someone else. Toby always greeted him with a hug and a kiss.
“I’m getting old,” he pouted, patting Russ’s lapels. “You haven’t asked for me in months, so it must mean I’m getting too old.”
Russ chuckled, and patted Toby’s behind. “You’re being silly. You know you’re my favorite.”
Toby raised a shy gaze to meet his. “Then how come you haven’t asked for me?”
“Ah, sweetheart.” He sighed. “There’re a lot of new faces here. I’m just sampling.”
“The young ones are taking all the attention.”
“Now, you know I don’t spend time with anyone too young,” Russ reminded him. “I’m just—experimenting. It’s my way of making sure I don’t get too serious over anybody.”
Toby blushed. “By anybody, do you mean—me?”
Toby was too pretty to be a man. And he played this role better than any woman Russ had ever met. He’d had affairs with women before. The magic came and went too quickly. The fantasy faded almost as quickly as it started. With Toby and the others, the fantasy was all that mattered, and they took it and ran with it. That’s what kept Russ coming back time and time again. It never got old, or predictable. It was as if everyone who walked through those doors understood that reality had to be checked with their hats and coats.
