by J. M. Hall
“Don’t stop,” I whispered. “I need you.”
He broke away from my throat long to say: “I’ve missed you, Jesse.”
I didn’t respond with words. I’d taken his right hand and pressed it to the front of my pants. I bucked my erection into his palm, showing him that I was hard and ready. He’d smiled, then unbuttoned my shirt and let it fall to the ground. We fell into bed, and Bobby took off my jeans but kept my underwear on. He’d licked my erection through the soft cotton of my boxers, teasing me with his tongue, knowing damn well I wanted him to take me into his mouth.
“Just do it!” I’d hissed.
“Not until you ask you nicely.”
I slid my underwear off myself. “Happy now? Did all the hard work for you.”
He chuckled, then gave me a few quick strokes with his hand. He’d straddled me in bed, his blue eyes like two flames that were burning into me. I could see him gazing at my body, securitizing every inch.
“Like you what you see?”
“Your body is still changing,” he’d said, then ran a hand over the dusting of hair on my chest. “I like it.”
I blushed, averted his gaze. Bobby leaned down, pressed a kiss to my forehead before nuzzling my chest. He’d circled his tongue around my nipple before grazing it with his teeth.
“Ouch!”
“That’s what you get for being fresh,” he’d teased. “Now, onto other things…” He kissed down my stomach and took my cock into his hand. A few strokes, a few squeezes, and then he took the tip into his mouth and sucked. Inch by inch he’d taken me into his mouth, until he’d all but swallowed me whole.
I’d lasted five minutes tops before I came in his mouth.
He swallowed, brushed one last dab of semen from the corner of his mouth. Mischief glinted in his eyes, and it was at that moment I knew he had something devious in mind. He slid out of bed, stripped naked. But instead of rolling me over onto my stomach, he’d reached into the drawer and took out a ribbon of black silk.
“I need to keep you still,” he’d said. “Give me your wrists.”
I did as he asked. He tied my wrists to the headboard, all but rendering me defenseless. Then, he crawled back into bed, and began to stroke his cock at a quickly accelerating pace.
“Close your eyes,” he’d said. “This won’t take long.”
I may have been young, but I knew what he had planned. I shut my eyes, let a few moments pass -- and then it happened. I felt the hot bursts of semen hit my face, the smell filling my nostrils as the thick rivers ran down my face and dripped over my mouth. I opened my mouth, ran my tongue over my lips for a quick taste. Salty and bitter, just like I’d read online.
“Hold on.” More fumbling in a drawer, then the soft dab of cotton across my eyes. “All right, you’re good.”
I opened my eyes, saw Bobby straddled atop of me: his face flush, sweat beading down his brow, his still-erect cock resting atop my chest. He’d gazed at my face as if it were a work of art, something he’d created himself. I wanted to reach out, let him hold and kiss me, but my wrists were still tied to the headboard.
“Untie me,” I said. “I don’t like this.”
Bobby tore the silk off my wrists, alarmed that he’d crossed a boundary and was in danger of losing me again. I got out of bed, walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I stared at my reflection in the mirror -- the semen still wet and shiny across my cheeks -- and felt like Jenna Jameson after a long day’s work. I filled the sink with water, splashed my face clean. Bobby knocked at the door, asking if I was all right.
“I’m fine,” I’d lied. “Just a sec…”
A few more splashes of water across my face, and I’d finally washed him off of me. Yet at no point did I tell him I wanted to leave. Instead, I’d opened the bathroom door and told him I just wanted to go to sleep. He took me into bed, pulling me close against his body. No matter what he did, no matter how many boundaries he’d crossed, I couldn’t leave.
Even when he’d treated me like a sex object -- even when he’d crossed boundaries that no adult should ever cross -- Bobby had done something no one had done before. He’d made me feel wanted. Needed.
Loved.
Chapter 9
I’d never been more grateful to go to work.
When Monday morning rolled around, I was no different than anyone else in New York City. We crowded into subway cars, stood inches (if not centimeters) apart, keen on avoiding eye contact at all costs en route to our destination. Whether it was an iPhone, a Kindle, or even an old-fashioned newspaper, mankind had no shortage of ways to avoid actually speaking with one another.
Escorting paid well, though it wasn’t lucrative enough to be a full-time job. To supplement my income, I was a freelance investigator for Victory & Associates, one of Manhattan’s most prominent public relations firms. I liked the work, if for no other reason than it paid well and that being an independent contractor afforded me the kind of freedom a nine-to-five gig could not.
I walked along Park Avenue South, a Peppermint Mocha in hand, sunglasses on my face, and Michael Bublé’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” filling my ears. Who knows what awaited me when I walked through the door? My duties were varied, including everything from interviewing persons of interest; drafting statement for the press; as well as in-depth research on clients, competitors, and anyone else of importance.
I greeted out doorman with a smile, then rode the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. It was just after nine o’clock, which meant our Monday staff meeting was about to begin. Technically, as an independent contractor, I wasn’t required to attend meetings -- but Kurt Victory, founder and principal of the firm, liked when I did so.
Funny that in a room full of seasoned PR professionals, I was the one Kurt often turned to for advice.
“You’re valuable, Jesse,” he’d said. “Precisely because you aren’t really one of us. We can’t pay for that kind of original thinking.”
But pay he did -- so well that even if I didn’t have sex with a single client of my own for a month or two, I’d still be able to cover my rent. Sometimes I’d consider Kurt’s offer to join the firm on a permanent basis, to become “one of the team” and give up the freedom I had in exchange for health care coverage, three weeks paid vacation and a 401(k) plan with a matching contribution to boot.
I hadn’t taken him up on his offer yet, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t do so in the future.
The elevator doors opened into the modern lobby, complete with frosted glass walls, recessed lighting and a red womb chair where guests could read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on any of our complimentary iPads. Not seeing anyone inside their offices, I assumed everyone had gathered in the conference room for the weekly meeting -- but I was wrong.
“Jesse!”
Kurt appeared in a flash, all but running towards me. I’d never seen him so alarmed, which was either very good or very bad. Everyone was in the conference room, yes. The weekly meeting had gone on as planned, without him. He had more pressing matters to attend to this morning.
“Sorry I couldn’t reach out to you sooner,” he said, ushering me into his office. “We got the call yesterday afternoon. Did you check your email? Not that you had to, but…”
“Kurt, slow down. Just tell me what you need and I can get started this afternoon.”
Kurt opened the door to his office and told me to step inside. I did as he asked, and that was when I saw him. A bit older, yes. His face didn’t quite have the youthful glow it once did, but the last ten years had only made him more handsome.
Same wavy blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, the stubble that marked his cheeks and chin and the warm, dazzling smile that’d seduced me all those years ago.
“Jesse, meet our latest client: Robert Allen, principal of New Hope Academy.”
* * *
Fuck my life.
Bobby was in the midst of giving us his sob story about how this “scandal” could giv
e New Hope Academy a reputational black eye from which it might not recover. Simone, the teacher accused of sleeping with a student, was nothing more than a narcissistic bitch that got off on the idea of having a teenage boy utterly infatuated with her.
“I didn’t hire her, for the record,” Bobby added. “True, I was an assistant vice principal by the time she arrived, but I did not hire her myself.”
“Then who did?” I asked innocently. “Just so we have all the facts.”
Kurt shot me a quick glance, perhaps having picked up on the cadence of my voice. Still, I didn’t back down. After all, he was under the impression that Bobby and I knew one another.
“Principal White did,” Bobby replied. “Prior to his official retirement.”
“Yes, of course.”
Kurt didn’t know what to make of the little exchanged, nor did he seem all that concerned. He took notes on his Macbook Pro, peppering the conversation with the occasional question before his fingers flew across the keyboard once more. I’d seen him work plenty of times before, and it never ceased to pique my interest.
Here he was, one of Manhattan’s most successful crisis communications professionals, with his own namesake agency that was enjoying double-digit growth each quarter. There certainly hadn’t been any shortage of crises in recent years, either. CEOs caught banging their secretaries? Check. A high-powered surgeon found to have been under the influence while operating? Check.
Hell, we even helped a doctor hold onto his lucrative media empire after he wa caught snorting cocaine on a boat in St. Tropez.
Victory & Associates specialized in crises, but that didn’t mean I wanted to have my past invade my present, either.
“Mr. Allen,” Kurt began, “I won’t lie to you. Any alleged sexual activity between an adult and a minor will lead to a lot of unflattering media coverage. And, I’m sorry to say, I don’t believe you’ve handled the situation as well as you could have at this point.”
Bobby looked surprised, though not completely offended. He nodded, invited Kurt to continue. Kurt opened his mouth to speak, but then turned to me. I could take it from here, he said. After all, crisis communications was a specialty of mine.
“Is it?” Bobby asked.
I ignored his question and went right into the details. “Your first mistake was failing to notify your internal stakeholders -- students, faculty, parents -- about the allegations. By failing to do, you let gossip permeate the campus. That creates feelings of mistrust, even resentment. You are the leader of New Hope Academy. The news should have come from you.”
“I understand that,” Bobby said, “but my hands were tied. At that point, all of this was rumors and gossip. We couldn’t risk firing Simone without due process, because if it turned out the rumors were false…”
“Simone could have sued you for wrongful termination,” I said, completing his thought. “Still, you could have said something. You could have left it that she was placed on administrative leave after allegations of misconduct were brought to your attention. That is what happened, correct?”
“Yes, after we felt we had sufficient evidence, she was placed on administrative leave to enable us to conduct an internal investigation into the matter.”
“Do you know for sure what happened between Simone and the student in question?”
“Not yet,” Bobby said, his tone dripping with defeat. “However, the media is treating these rumors as truth.”
What happened next took me by surprise. As the so-called scandal unfolded, Bobby had been contacted by several crisis communications firms in Philadelphia, all of whom were ready and eager to take his case. New Hope Academy had an eight-figure endowment, which certainly led these firms to believe they would have plenty of money to afford a crisis retainer for three to six months, if need be. Instead, he’d gone through the alumni records and saw that in the years following my graduating NYU, I’d carved out a career for myself in ad agencies and public relations firms.
“I always knew you’d make something out of yourself,” he said. “Ever since you walked in to my sophomore English class, I knew you were destined for great things.”
“Wait a minute,” Kurt said, eyes peeled off his computer screen. “You taught Jesse in high school?”
“I’m a graduate of New Hope Academy,” I said. “Didn’t Bobby tell you?”
“No, he didn’t,” Kurt said, turning to Bobby. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“I wasn’t sure he’d remember me,” Bobby said. “It’s been ten years, after all. And from what I’d heard back home, he left Philadelphia at eighteen and never looked back.”
“It was time to move on,” I said coldly. “All good things have to come to an end.”
At that moment, Kurt knew something was wrong. Perhaps it was my body language, or the way every word was spoken with an acidic tongue. I needed to get out of the office -- but I couldn’t risk leaving Bobby alone with Kurt, either. I took a breath, then stood up in front of the both of them.
“Bobby, why don’t you and I go uptown? I know a place where we can grab lunch and talk about the case in further detail.”
“Jesse,” Kurt said. “Are you sure that’s…?”
“You have the business,” Bobby said, all but cutting Kurt off. “I’ll have the Board of Directors begin the paperwork and we can begin the monthly retainer soon.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Kurt, I’m going to take Bobby uptown, probably Central Park West. We’ll have some coffee, maybe grab a bite to eat at an Italian bistro I know on Seventy-Ninth and Amsterdam. I’ll be reachable on my mobile if you need me?”
Kurt hesitated, but ultimately agreed. “We’ll catch up later this afternoon.”
“Thanks, boss.” I turned to Bobby, cocked my head towards the door. “You ready to go? We have a lot to catch up on. And if there’s anyone who knows the kind of things that happen at New Hope Academy, it’s definitely me.”
Chapter 10
“Bobby, have you completely lost your mind?”
We sat on a bench facing the lake in Central Park. Sunlight rippled off the surface of the water while the skyscrapers of Manhattan loomed in the distance.
Bobby stared at the water, completely silent.
“I asked you a question,” I snapped. “What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said. “In my first few years as principal of New Hope Academy, I’ve completely fucked up.”
“I’m not inclined to argue. But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why the fuck did you track me down and come all the way to New York City when there are plenty of firms in Philadelphia that can help you through this?”
“I wanted the best, Jesse. From what I understand, you’re one of the most successful graduates New Hope Academy has ever seen.”
“Is that why they call every year asking for money?” I paused, put on my sunglasses. “Are you sorry for what you did? For what we did all those years ago?”
Bobby hung his head in shame. I assumed the irony wasn’t lost on him. It took a special kind of man to come to a PR firm seeking crisis counsel for a teacher having sex with a student -- when he’d done the same exact thing a decade before. What was he more embarrassed about? His failure as a principal or the idea that someone was having sex with a student right under his nose?
“Did you have any idea this was going on?” I asked him. “Or did you find out when everyone else did?”
“There was chatter for a few weeks, but I didn’t take it seriously. Simone had impeccable references, no criminal record. I never saw something like this happening.”
“Don’t you think you should have been a bit more skeptical? Seeing what happened between the two of us?”
“And what did happen between the two of us, Jesse?”
My stomach clenched inside my belly. I didn’t know whether Bobby meant to be cruel or if he just wanted my honest appraisal of things. How many times had I thought of this moment in the past ten years? The day when we would fin
ally come face-to-face, and I would be able to voice every unspoken thought that’d lingered within?
“Jesse?”
“You shouldn’t have done what you did,” I said. “No ifs, ands or buts. You crossed a boundary that no teacher -- no adult -- should have. I don’t care what was going on through your mind. Having those kinds of impulses is one thing, but acting on them is completely out of line.”
“You didn’t resist,” he said. “At no point do I ever remember hearing you say the word ‘no.’ So tell me: What were we? Fuck buddies? Lovers?”
“The fact that you would use the word ‘lover’ to describe a sixteen-year-old is amazing.”
“I meant every word I said,” Bobby said, defending himself. “Don’t think for one minute that I didn’t. I always…”
“Don’t say it.”
He grabbed my bicep and squeezed. “All those nights we spent together? Every minute we lay in bed together -- the weekend at the shore? You think I would have done that if I wasn’t in love with you?”
“I’m not having this conversation.”
I got up from the bench and walked over to the bridge, not even bothering to look over my shoulder. Bobby was following me, yes. I leaned over the bridge, forearms pressed against the cold wood. The lake was beautiful -- perhaps one of the most beautiful pieces of nature in all of Manhattan.
Unintentional side effect: It brought back memories Bobby and I had shared together as well.
He moved up beside me, reached an arm around my shoulders. I didn’t resist -- not just yet. If I could fool Bobby into thinking he actually had a chance of getting me back into bed, I might be able to gain valuable information about what really happened at New Hope Academy. Like it or not, I had a job to do. Minimizing any reputational damage to the Academy and ensuring that a framework to prevent any future teacher-student sex scandals from happening in the future was crucial.
