by Lola Swain
“What about Nellie?”
“Don’t worry about Nellie,” Brandt said and stepped away from the cab, “I’ll take care of her.”
“I wish it were not a sin to have liked it so.”
Veronica Franco
The day after the movie theater fiasco, I was walking to the limo waiting outside my building to take me to a photo shoot and Nellie popped out from behind a potted plant.
“Are you alone?” She said.
Her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed and she seemed very angry.
“What do you mean?” I said and gestured for the driver to wait for a moment.
“Well, I half-expected Brandt to saunter out of your lobby with you. You know, the morning after the night before.”
“Nellie, he waited for a cab with me. I had to get out of that horrendous place,” I said. “Although, it’s nice to know he didn’t go back inside.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Nellie said.
“Oh? What would you say?” I said.
“Nothing. I can’t wait until he and I go out again.”
“Again? I’m surprised you’re still interested in Brandt given how familiar you were with Conrad.”
Nellie wrung her hands and I noticed that they were red and peeling as if they were soaked in a tub of scalding water and then air-dried in a freezing wind.
“Oh, listen to the queen of everything. Just who do you think you are, Sophia? I should be mad at you. I’m sorry I didn’t know what a fucking prude you are.”
“Nellie, I have to go. This is the car that’s picking me up for my shoot this morning,” I said and backed toward the passenger door of the car.
“Wait!” Nellie said and stretched her arms toward me. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not like you and it’s going to be super hard to get Brandt to see me as anything other than a friend, but I do think I have a shot.”
Nellie looked pitiful and sad and pathetic.
“I understand,” I said. “I really do have to go.”
“You’re my best friend right?” Nellie said. “Please say you are.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Um, how do you know where I live?”
“Oh, because of this,” Nellie said and fished a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of her jeans.
Nellie handed me the paper and I opened it. It contained my itinerary for the Gloucester swimsuit photo shoot.
“Where did you get this?”
“You dropped it the day we met. I picked it up and saw your address.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me yesterday?”
“I dunno,” she said and looked around the street. “Well, I gotta go. I just wanted to see how you were.”
“I’ll call you later,” I said.
“You will?” Nellie said as she swung around to face me.
“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,” I said as I got into the limo.
I kept my dinner date with Brandt that evening and after that, Brandt and I snuck around Boston like two adulterers for five amazing weeks. I avoided almost the whole of Newbury Street for fear of running into Nellie and couldn’t face her to tell her the truth.
When Katt came home from Europe, I introduced her to Brandt. She found him dreamy but, as she said, schemey. She said there was something about him that got under her skin, but I brushed her aside and declared her cynical. She tried to curb her criticisms, but there were still some sticking points she could not help but comment on.
Brandt was always a perfect gentleman with me and our dates never ended with anything more than a kiss on the cheek or peck on the lips. Something the hedonistic Katt found very disturbing.
“I’m just saying,” Katt said to me while we shared lunch in the park one afternoon, “I find it odd that the two of you had your first encounter in a smut theater and he got his cock out and ever since then…nothing.”
“I told you, our first meeting was an unusual circumstance. He got carried away at the theater because of the surroundings. Ever since, he’s been nothing but a gentleman. I’m not going to lie, I am very tempted to go all the way with him.”
“All the way? You haven’t even gone a stone’s throw of the way with him. I find it strange that you go from him urging you to grab his cock in public to not even feeling you up.”
“He’s traditional,” I said.
“Yeah, some traditionalist,” Katt said and sighed. “Look, I think the whole virgin thing is cute as a button, Soph, but he’s a man.”
“And you’re just cynical, Katt. Brandt loves me, he just happens to have self-control and respect. He knows I want to wait until we get married.”
“Sophia, you do not have to marry a man to have sex with him. We are in the swinging 60’s in case you haven’t noticed. Please, just ask yourself if the reason you want to marry Brandt is because you want to fuck him or if you want to marry him because you really want to be Mrs. Brandt Therrault.”
“I want to marry him because I really want to be Mrs. Brandt Therrault. Come on Katt, please be happy for me,” I said and gave her arm a squeeze.
“Fine, but only for you,” Katt said. “And yes, maybe I am cynical and maybe I don’t like the fact that you’re going to end your career, which is taking off, by the way.”
“It’s something that I agreed to. Besides, when Brandt takes a job in one of the Manhattan firms he interviews with, I will have a baby right away. That’s something that both of us want. I can’t model if I’m pregnant.”
“Gads! A baby? You’re so young.”
But I didn’t care.
I wanted to marry Brandt, I wanted to make love to Brandt and I wanted to have babies with Brandt. By now, I gave up both my books and my fashion magazines and only read housekeeping, bride and parental-type publications. I would be a perfect bride, a perfect wife and a perfect mother. And within all this giddiness, there was still the problem of Nellie that needed to be addressed.
Nellie called my apartment several times a day. Poor Katt usually took the brunt of it and I asked my agent to look into changing my telephone number. I caught Nellie several times hanging around outside my apartment. I got into the habit of looking down the street before I turned a corner or having my driver drive past my apartment to make sure she wasn’t there before he dropped me off. A few times the limo blew past Nellie waiting outside for me while I hid on the floorboard of the car.
I told Brandt that I could not go on avoiding her for much longer and that there was no reason we should hide our relationship. Brandt promised he would tell her, but every time I asked, he put me off.
“I’ll take care of it, baby, I promise,” Brandt said one day as he walked me to my apartment.
He looked up to the top floor of my building with an odd smile on his face. He was transfixed as he looked at one of the windows in my penthouse.
“What?” I said.
“I can’t believe that’s yours. I mean, it must be worth a fortune. Do you really own the whole thing?”
Brandt never discussed money or what I had versus what he did or did not. I understood he came from a middle-class family of professionals who lived in Providence. They didn’t have as much money as my family, but that was a non-issue. As Brandt said, he was going to be a famous lawyer and would soon be making his own sizeable income.
“Yes,” I said. “I own the whole thing. It was transferred to me when I turned eighteen. Why?”
“I dunno, just seems excessive,” he said.
“Well, I wanted a nice place to live and my parents have the funds. If they didn’t, I would have been just as happy with a walk-up apartment. And think of it this way, when we’re married, it’ll be a nice investment or provide a nice down payment for a place in Manhattan.”
Brandt looked at me and his eyes narrowed.
“I am the provider,” he said. “You are the homemaker. I provide the down payment.”
That day a shift began in the relationship. Nearly unnoticeable, it’s as if the ground seemed to lowe
r bit by bit and my identity, such that it was not, was reliant on Brandt to keep it from falling into the abyss.
I chastised myself for obviously making Brandt upset and made a promise that from that day forward, I would concentrate on making sure that Brandt was nothing but satisfied with me. If he did not approve of me, he certainly would not marry me. And if he did not marry me, he would leave me and bestow his gifts on another female. Brandt had integrity made of steel, I believed. He would not allow anyone to chink his armor. I became obsessed with not doing anything to Brandt that would give him even a surface scratch’s displeasure.
I decided to broach the subject of our marriage plans to Brandt one evening as we sat in his car in the parking lot of Revere Beach looking out at the sunset.
“So,” I said and slid over toward Brandt in the front seat of his car, “when will you make an honest woman out of me?”
Brandt threw his arm around me and smiled and I placed my hand on top of his muscular thigh.
“Aren’t you honest?” He said and put his hand under my chin and tilted my head up until we stared into each other’s eyes.
“It’s an expression,” I said and kissed him on the cheek. “I just want to be with you. You know, in that way.”
“Oh, in that way,” he said and laughed.
I blushed and looked down in my lap.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t pushing you,” I said.
Brandt dug his fingertips into my shoulders and twisted me toward him. He ran his hand slowly up my back, under my hair and gripped the back of my neck.
“Is Sophia having a hard time with our relationship?” Brandt said as he looked into my eyes. “Does she want more of me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Which? You’re having a hard time or you want more of me?” Brandt said and slid the front seat back away from the steering wheel in his Vauxhall Victor.
“I want more of you,” I said.
Brandt spread his legs wide and stroked the inside of his thighs and smiled at me. He placed his hands on top of his lap and pressed down on the considerable bulge in his jeans.
“Do you want this?” Brandt said as he grabbed my hand. “Feel it and tell me if it wants you.”
Brandt put my hand in his lap and pressed down. I gripped the bulge and then traced around the outline of his penis with my fingers. Brandt shuddered as I rubbed across every vein and ridge. The control I had was immense and I felt it to my knees. I gripped the rigid, thick package in my hand and looked into his eyes. His lids were heavy and his eyes rolled back as he closed them.
“I do want this,” I said as I softly kneaded his penis over his pants. “And I can tell that it wants me too.”
Brandt opened his eyes and looked at me. He smiled and bit his bottom lip as I moved my hand up and down.
“Does Sophia want to be a whore?” Brandt said and moaned.
“I want to be your whore,” I said and brushed my lips against the side of his neck.
Suddenly, Brandt grabbed my wrists tightly and shoved me across the seat. I went flying across the slippery leather and hit the back of my head against the passenger window. Before I had a chance to say a word, Brandt gripped my ankles and yanked me toward him so I was flat on my back. He scrambled on top of me and he pinned his body to mine.
“Brandt, I—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Brandt said. “You want to be a whore, you will be a whore!”
I was excited by his sudden force and my body went limp as Brandt planted one of his knees between my legs and shoved it to the side as far as it would go. He clawed at my dress and pushed it up over my waist as he fumbled with the belt of his jeans. Brandt pulled my panties down and his fingers went to work, probing the wet skin and pressing in.
He brought his fingers, damp from their exploration, up to his lips and put them in his mouth. He sucked on his fingers while he shoved his pants down to the middle of his hips and stroked his penis. In was the most amazing sight I ever saw and I was wild with desire for this beautiful boy.
“I want you to make me yours,” I said as my whole body throbbed. “I want to be your whore.”
Brandt took his fingers out of his mouth and continued to stroke his hard penis. I reached out toward it, like I did the night at the movie theater, but this time he slapped my hand away.
He ripped my panties down and stared at my vagina, almost clinically, as if he had never seen such a thing. I held my breath, knowing his approval of me meant everything and let it out slowly when I saw the smile creep across his face.
“Do you want me to shove my big cock into that tight pussy?” Brandt asked while he stroked himself rapidly.
I arched my back toward him and nodded.
“Say the words then,” he said. “Tell me that you want me to shove my big cock into your tight pussy!”
“I want you—”
Brandt leaned over my body and placed his hands around my throat. My mind raced as he tightened his grip and I felt a flash of shame as I pictured my parents being called to the Revere Beach parking lot to identify my half naked body. “Fucking say it!” Brandt said into my ear as he tightened his hold around my neck. “Say the words, you fucking whore!”
It was silly really because he had such a tight grip around my neck, I was hard pressed to utter a sound. I panicked and clawed at his hands as I attempted to grunt out what he wanted to hear.
And then, as fast as he clamped down around my neck, he let go. I choked and writhed around on the front seat. When I looked at Brandt through my tear-filled eyes, he smiled and pulled his underwear up. He grabbed my panties from around my ankles and slid them up my body.
And do you want to know what I thought at that very moment?
Well, it had nothing to do with fleeing from the car and from his life. Obviously. No, my first thought was: why did he stop? And as if reading my mind, Brandt picked up one of my legs and rested it on top of the back of the front seat and pushed my other leg off the seat until I was spread as wide as I could go.
He got in between my body and planted his bulge on top of my pussy and thrust his hips back and forth as he ran his tongue up my neck. He nibbled on my earlobe and breathed heavily into my ear. Grinding against me with amazing force, I felt nothing but intense desire and wetness between my legs.
I clawed at his back and met each thrust of Brandt’s as my body seemed to lose all control. I felt as if I was both floating to the sky and plunging to the ground.
“I am going to fuck that virgin pussy until you can’t walk,” Brandt said. “I can’t wait to shove my cock into your tight pussy. Tell me that you can’t wait. Tell Daddy that you can’t fucking wait.”
“I can’t fucking wait,” I said not caring who caught us as long as he didn’t stop whatever he was doing.
I think back to that sensation, that incredible feeling, as I neared my experience toward my first orgasm and I still wish it never ended. I felt I was falling and I had no control over how fast I fell or how hard I would land once I reached the bottom.
“I have to stop,” Brandt said.
“What? Why?” I said and held him down on top of me.
Brandt wrestled out from under my grip and moved away from me. He slid behind the steering wheel and leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. I stared at him from where I lay, a limp, wet, throbbing, painful heap.
“Brandt,” I said as I lifted my hips and brought my dress back down, “did I do something wrong?”
He turned his head and looked at me as if my very question grated on his last nerve.
“Why do you think you did something wrong?”
“Well, because you ended it so suddenly,” I said and sat up.
“Ended what?” he said.
“What we were doing. I thought you enjoyed that. I enjoyed that.”
“Because you are a whore?” Brandt said and frowned at me.
“What? No, because I love you, Brandt. Because I want to be with you. Because I want to be your wife.”
<
br /> “Sophia,” Brandt said as he ran his fingers through his hair, “you will be my wife and you will be with me. We will marry next week at the City Hall. Are you free?”
I stared at Brandt, shook my head and blinked rapidly. My mother did it on the rare occasion one of her hired hands refused to do her bidding.
“Am I free? What kind of a question is that? And the City Hall?”
“It’s the kind of question one asks the person one wants to marry. Come on Sophia, if you weren’t free next week, it would do no good for us to marry.”
I focused on the thing in that sentence that made me dizzy and nauseous more than anything else that happened that night: there was no then. It was either next week or nothing.
“Yes, of course I’m free,” I said.
“Good, so Thursday? I figure we can go to the Battleroy Hotel for our honeymoon. Have you been?”
“Uh, no,” I said and did my mother’s blink/head shake.
“Perfect!” Brandt said and zipped up his jeans. “Next Thursday at the City Hall we will be married.”
“But why City Hall? Why not a church wedding? My parents are not going to be agreeable to this.”
“We can hardly plan a big wedding when we are getting married in ten days. Come on, think about it,” Brandt said and opened his door and got out of the car.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom,” Brandt said and winked at me. “Oh and Sophia, make sure that you shave your pussy before our wedding night. I want you bald. Like a child.”
“What?” I said as he slammed the car door.
But I stuffed it down, pushed it away. Brandt had a quirky sense of humor and his intelligence absolutely put him on a higher plane than me. I just didn’t get it. Yes, that was it, I didn’t get it.
So I sat there and waited for him to return. Dutiful, honoring, obedient. I was to be married to this most strange man in ten days. I was confused but I refused to let the strangeness of the encounter rain on my parade. I was soon to be a bride and would be taken care of and protected for the rest of my life.
Katt, of course, did not share my joy.
