by Gabi Moore
The thought made me shudder.
I quickly tapped out an email and sent the second article to Penelope.
Fuck him.
Chapter Ten
“I forgive you. Don’t worry about it. I understand why you did it,” he said.
I sat opposite him, prickling. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, true. By now, the article had been printed and was being read by thousands all over the country.
It wasn’t good.
But if I was being honest, I had in the back of my mind that I had hoped he would summon me again. Be angry, even. I wanted to look him in the face, with my clothes on, and tell him that no matter how rich he was, or how powerful, there were just some things in life he couldn’t have.
I had blustered into his house, again, this time shaking with my newfound arrogance and the conviction that I was right. Not just right, but that I had seen through a very transparent bit of manipulation on his part, and now I would have my chance to gloat a little. I felt bad. Sure. I wasn’t a monster. There was something so sweet and open in his face the last time we had met, something so touching and trusting in his plea for people to be open with each other …too bad it was complete bullshit. He didn’t have to know that I was still crushing on him, still a little bewitched by that moment by the fire.
“I did it because it’s the truth. I never agreed to write a promotional piece,” I said.
We were in yet another room of the grand house, an airy terrace room filled with palms and what I guess rich people think counts as low-key. I had always known that I would find my way from rags to riches one day …just, not like this.
“Do you really believe that? Do you really believe everything you wrote about me?”
I was totally taken aback by how unguarded he seemed. I had expected him to be vengeful, and to scoff at me or even threaten me with legal action …anything but this, really. Instead, he looked hurt, his broad frame crumpling a little in the wicker chair. I looked out the window, saying nothing.
“I guess I misunderstood you. I’ve been going on and on about how you should trust me but honestly, maybe I shouldn’t have.”
It had never occurred to me that he was struggling to trust me. That he had any vulnerabilities at all, actually. Some of my indignation was beginning to feel a bit much.
He looked out the window, too, face contorting a little.
“I’ve been reading your pieces for a long time. Before you wrote for that stupid rag, too. That piece about Syria you wrote last year? I loved that.”
How did he get a hold of that?
“I thought that you were …that you would understand, that you would write something that… I don’t know. I’m not good with words. But you are. You know what it’s like to come from nothing.”
Here he looked at me again, imploringly. What on earth could he know about me?
There was a long silence.
“Do you remember that convenience store on the corner of Charles and 28th? That one that had that weird cigarette lighter on a string on the outside?” he blurted all at once.
“What?”
“I think it was Patak’s or Patel’s or something. You must have gone there loads,” he continued.
It was Patak’s Supermarket. I remembered it well. It was a permanent landmark of my long-forgotten childhood, from a time in my life that I had gleefully forgotten, pretending it didn’t exist.
“How do you know about that?” I said quietly. “Oh my God, have you been snooping on me or…?”
My head was spinning. Things were taking a decidedly unexpected turn.
“What? No way. I mean, I could if I wanted to. But no,” he said, returning his gaze to the window, an unreadable expression on his face.
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. I felt like shit. Why had I published that trash about him? What had he done, really, to deserve it? Was I so broken? So badly mistrustful? What was wrong with me anyway?
“I grew up in the same town as you,” he said eventually.
“What? In Little Falls? No way.” This was bizarre.
“Yeah. We went to the same school actually.”
“That’s …not possible. That was a tiny school, there was no Tom Hood there…”
“Yeah there wasn’t, I changed my name when I was 18.”
My mind raced, trying to put everything together.
“Phillip Hellman. You probably won’t remember me. But I remember you.”
“But …but your father? You inherited all that money--”
He sat up and began speaking clearly, like he was reciting lines, or giving a statement at a police station.
“My father died when I was a baby. I created all the other stories. On purpose. It was deliberate. But none of it’s true. I never inherited a cent, not from anyone. I killed a man, when I was 16, and went into juvenile detention for a year and a half. I ran over him with my car by accident, they wanted to try me as an adult but they didn’t, thank god. It was the most awful time in my life. I ran away, I reinvented myself. I made a lot of mistakes. Turns out, I’m good at making money, too…”
He looked at me with a question in his eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He went on.
“And so I did that. I forgot about my past, and I did well for myself. Really well. The rest you already know, I guess.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
“Who else knows about this?” I asked eventually.
“Nobody. My mother knew, but she passed a few years ago. Nobody else knows. Well, you do, now. I’m tired, to be honest. I actually found you by accident – long story – but I remembered you from school. You were a few years below me. It seemed like an amazing coincidence, that you had moved here, too. That you wrote about me. It was like …like …”
“Like a one in a billion chance,” I said.
“Yup,” he breathed.
We both took the next few minutes to blush and smile at each other like idiots. Everything was different. I didn’t know what next to say.
“Do you remember that awful piece of shit sports shed next to Mrs. Campbell’s class? The one everyone used to smoke in?”
“Yes!” he laughed, and clapped his hands together, “Oh my god yes! It was full of cockroaches, I remember. Did you have Mrs. Campbell? I heard she married a Puerto Rican guy eventually.”
“Yes, I heard about that too! So weird.”
His face had softened. Tom Hood had vanished. Now, there was someone else in front of me entirely. The effect was thrilling.
We spent the next hour – or was it many hours? – reminiscing about that shitty old school, and the people from Little Falls, and all the little snips of gossip we could both remember. I had only a dim memory of him – he had been a quiet, unassuming boy with mousy hair and good grades, but he had slipped under my radar for the most part.
“Like you were any better!” he laughed, “You were quite the dork, I remember it clearly,” he said and we both giggled.
Silence.
“Tom …Tom, I’m so sorry.”
He reached over and grabbed my hand in response, saying nothing. I felt in this gesture his complete and easy forgiveness, but I was still wracked with guilt at the horrible things I had said about him.
“No, really, I was just … I was afraid. I was scared you were just using me.”
“I know,” he said. We both looked at my hand in his.
All at once, I thought about his naked body again. This time, I felt like I could see right through, to the very bottom of the pictures I had seen, of the entire illusion he had crafted. I saw someone like myself, someone who had desperately erected a façade all around them.
I stared back into his eyes and found, at last, what I had been looking for during the last few days. It was there all at once, the same simple openness, only this time I felt nothing to prevent me from slipping and surrendering into it completely. I looked at him, with a gaze filled with yearning and vulnerability. We both knew, at
that moment, that there was nothing to hold us back anymore. My entire body pulsed with the thought.
“Don’t leave,” he said, “We have all day.”
It was true.
The whole weekend spanned in front of us, like a red carpet, and it was nothing but me and this man, and his beautiful body. I was nervous, but this time my nerves seemed only to make things more delicious.
He leaned in, and kissed me. Slowly, meltingly. I had learned so much about him, it seemed, and now it was only natural that I explored him physically, too. My body ached with wanting to share myself. I kissed back, my tongue seeking him out, this strange man, this strong man.
I threw my head back, and he continued his kiss down onto my jaw, and then down onto my exposed neck, planting a hot string of soft kisses all the way down, then kissing the top of my breasts. I was breathing more heavily, my lungs hungrily taking in deep breaths to steady my growing sense of intoxication. He was now pressing the full weight of his body against mine, and the urgent insistence of his muscles made me limp and yielding, wanting nothing but to melt in his arms.
Seeming to sense this, he circled his big arms round me and held me tightly, breathing and kissing every piece of my exposed skin. I was in a blissful reverie, completely lost in the flow of kisses and breath, when he pressed hard against my hips, the obvious length of his cock suggesting more. I moaned, thrilled at what was happening to me, that soon there would be nothing between out bodies, keeping us apart. I felt drunk.
“You’re beautiful,” he said and the utterance felt like it nearly made me come right there and then. He smiled at the effect this had on me, pulling back a moment to take in my raptured expression.
“You are beautiful. You deserve pleasure. I want to give it to you. I’m so glad you stayed…”
This last part of his sentence disappeared as I kissed him hungrily, ready to assent to everything.
In an instant, he was tearing away at my shirt and yanking off my jeans, and I complied, wriggling out of them as fast as I could, then turning to him to remove every last shred of clothing from his tight, masculine body.
We surveyed one another, happy for more and more, relishing that there were still so many more layers to peel away, to explore. I pressed the full length of my body against his, surprised at how hot and responsive his skin was. I got it, just then. He was right. Why were people so afraid of what they wanted? Of being vulnerable? What was so threatening about this man’s glorious body against mine, breathing and alive and hot with all kinds of unspoken appetites and desires? I wanted to know all of them. I wanted to satisfy all of them.
His cock was fully hard, and it easily slipped in the little hollow between my legs. I held it there with my thighs, knowing that he could he feel how aroused I was becoming, how I was literally melting on him. We kissed each other hungrily, pawing and grabbing at each other’s flesh with playful, easy urgency. We had both collapsed to the floor, conscious of nothing but one another, and the thrill of what our bodies could do to one another.
I glanced down at his cock, his soft mouth kissing me all over my neck and shoulders as I did so. I had never been with anyone with anything remotely as big as that before (who was I kidding, I hadn’t been with many people, period) and I was spellbound, reaching out for it almost instinctively. He pulled back and looked down at me cradling it in my hands, smiling.
“You like that?” he asked, and in response I shifted my weight down, deciding that what I wanted was to have it in my mouth.
He grinned and threw his head back, the veins in his taut belly pulsing a little as I went to suck him.
The taste was warm, and salty. His skin was surprisingly thin and soft, and I delicately placed my hands on either side of his thick shaft, admiring how utterly hot he looked. He was like a god, and I wanted to make an offering to him, right here, with my mouth. I traced the tip of my tongue up the length and twirled it teasingly over the tip, thrilled to discover a small, salty bead of moisture there, which I happily gobbled up. I kissed the head lovingly, planting two tender lips on him, then gradually opening and letting him move into my mouth, one delicious inch at a time. I pulled back again, leaving a wet trail, hearing him groan in appreciation. He placed one cautious, shaking hand on my head, and with an almost imperceptible tug pulled me down again. I loved that he loved it. I obliged and took him in again, this time to the edge of what I could physically manage. I held him there, throbbing inside my mouth, his strong frame reduced to shudders as he clutched at fistfuls of my hair.
Holding him inside, I circled and flicked my tongue over every part of him, enjoying how he responded by growing harder, so I could almost feel the blood throbbing through him. I found a slow rhythm and began to suck him, up and down, loving the scent of him, feeling the muscles in his thighs and back twitching in response to the movements of my tongue. He was in as far as he could go, and I wanted more still. He placed both his hands on my head and, with more aggression, began to pump my head onto him, occasionally letting out gruff whimpers to the top of my head.
I pulled away and stared hard into his eyes, feeling a simple joy at how wonderful it was to please him, to turn him on, to suck his fat dick until he moaned and rolled his head back in ecstasy. I kissed him again, deeply and passionately, and with my hand I guided his beautiful cock into me, not wanting to waste another second. My entire body was almost delirious with wanting him, and when the moment came he sunk the full length of it into me, taking away my breath completely.
“Oh my god,” I muttered to the warm crook of his neck. “Oh my god…” and there really was nothing else to say. I felt almost numb with pleasure, overwhelmed by the heft of this amazing piece of his anatomy somehow deep, deep within me, bringing our bodies even closer than I thought they could be. He held me, still, for a long moment; nothing moved except for my aching pussy tightening and releasing around him, my body happily surprised at these new dimensions; I smiled, pleased that I could accommodate this part of him, that he was so close to me now.
We fucked. Slowly. Easily.
He curled his muscular back to bring the full length of his cock into my body, then curled away again, and with each thrust I arched to meet him again. He ran his big, smooth hands up and down my back, his lips and tongue delivering hurried affection all over my shoulders, my breasts, my neck. I looked down to see our two soft bellies bumping against each other, his wide dick linking them both, pulling me back again and again along its slick, glistening length. It was so fucking hot I nearly screamed.
Tearing his lips away from my skin, he followed my gaze and looked down as well, then stroked his fingers over my lower belly, planting the pad of his thumb against my clit and stroking me. These twin sensations were glorious: the heavy, almost painful heft of his cock fucking me down below, and the gentle, delicate strokes of his careful fingers caressing me up above. I felt him pushing me closer and closer to the slippery edge of a full orgasm, but one I wasn’t ready for yet – I wanted to stay here forever, hovering on this delicious apex with him.
“I want to make you come,” he whispered into my ear, and before I could respond he had jumped up and grabbed me hard around the waist, spinning me around so that I faced away from him, my two plump ass cheeks squashing against his midriff.
“I don’t want to hold back with you anymore,” he said to my sweat coated back and neck.
“Then don’t…” I said, anchoring myself against the cushions on the seat I had sat on only a few hours ago, my anger and resistance seemingly a universe away now. Who knew that his body could be such a source of pleasure? That mine knew how to open so easily to his, almost as if by instinct?
I leant back and threw my ass into the air, arching so that my pussy was open, raw and utterly at his mercy.
“Don’t hold back…” I said again as I felt his gleeful hands squeezing my butt cheeks.
With one single, almost frictionless slide into me, he pinned his large body against mine, holding my hips firmly to him. He
drew back and plunged into me, the full length of his cock hitting even deeper, the new angle opening up new places in my body, new places that I wanted him to fuck just as mercilessly.
I cried out, my entire body wracked with waves of pleasure and pain. I leant back further into him, wanting more, and he responded with another savage thrust, banging his hips into mine, every atom of my pussy seeming to sing. Deep in me, he seemed to find that old thread of pleasure again, and before I knew it he had eased me closer to my orgasm again. He was fucking me harder now, pounding into me relentlessly, our bodies slapping hard together, my poor wet body quivering and pliant beneath his.
“Spread your legs wider,” he said. I obeyed, and he ploughed even deeper into me still, causing me to buck and cry out. With each angry thrust, he tore deeper into me, and I could do nothing but lean further into, offering up my body to him.
“More. Show me your ass,” he said and I reached back, pulling my butt cheeks apart, relishing how utterly filthy this felt.
“Oh fuck…” he mumbled, and I felt him pause as he shuddered a little, gathering himself. I giggled and wiggled against him, trying to push him over the edge. He growled and gripped my hips hard to stop me. His breath was so hard and ragged his entire chest was rising and falling, only one or two little shivers betraying how close he was to coming.
He pulled out of me, the head of his wet cock bobbing and slapping against my exhausted thighs. I spun around under him and gazed up at his face; he stood there for a moment, eyes half closed, his full, hard body heaving and beaded with sweat, his dick towering over me. My entire body was flushed with happiness.
“You turn me on so much,” I said, writhing underneath him, wanting it back in me again.
He opened his eyes and smiled down at me.
“Oh yeah? I want you to play with yourself.”
I cocked my head to the side and flashed a flirty smile at him. I glided both hands down over my breasts, over my hips and back in over my stomach, then traced one curious hand down to my wide open slit, sending one finger inside. As I arched back, I saw the smile on his face drift softly off as a new, more intense expression come over his features; it was that same, hyper-focused look he had given me that first night. Nothing existed for him at that moment except the tiniest movements of my fingers, and for me, seeing myself reflected in his hungry gaze, wanting to turn him on as much as he was turning me on.
