Irresistible

by Andrew J. Peters

Cal could not fathom how the condom and the bow tie had gotten into the room. It had to have been the most bizarre of mix-ups. A maid came by while he was in the shower, and she unearthed those items, left by the room’s past occupants, and went absentmindedly on her way? But Brendan hadn’t considered any other explanation than Cal having suddenly, blatantly lured some guy into their room at the first opportunity to fuck around behind his back. He’d made Cal feel like a depraved sex addict.

  He thought he’d known Brendan so well, and still a part of him didn’t want to believe his fiancé would hatefully accuse him, even rough handle him. When would everything fade away and come back into focus, revealing it had been a dream, or a comet throwing off the world’s orbit, warping space and time and briefly making possible the unimaginable?

  Cal sat down on the pebbled beach and buried his face in his hands. It was supposed to be their wedding day. Everything had been so perfect. Some cruel god was laughing in the heavens, having blessed Cal with his perfect soul mate only to wrench that fantasy out of his hands and leave him a wretch. And now he had to come up with something to say to his parents, his grandparents, and all of his relatives. His relationship with Brendan was just another disaster like every other attempt he’d made to find someone to love him.

  He stood and retook his route down the beach, drawing breaths, trying to refind his composure. Maybe this was fixable. It was a misunderstanding. Were they really going to throw away everything they had together? Cal needed to talk to Brendan. Brendan had a history—that Brazilian model who’d cheated on him—and the situation must have triggered that betrayal, Brendan’s insecurity. Cal would give him time to cool down, give himself time to cool down, and then he’d go back to the hotel, and they’d have a rational conversation about what had happened. Brendan would realize he’d gotten worked up over nothing. Cal had been rash, too, bolting out of their room, not giving Brendan a chance to talk things out. They’d both been on short fuses because of the pressure of the wedding. A snort rushed out of Cal’s nose. He could picture the two of them talking over each other to apologize, and after a while, they’d laugh about it. Cal’s heart warmed, imagining Brendan embracing him and telling him he’d been a fool, that what they had was real and much too strong to fall apart because of a stupid fight over nothing.

  God, Cal needed that to happen. He walked on, feeling steadier and reawakened to his sun-flooded seaside surroundings. He was surprised by how far he’d traveled from the hotel. The bend back to the resort was four, maybe five football fields away. Here, the waves frothed up tall and forceful, untempered by the hotel’s protective cove. Up ahead, he noticed two men alighting onto the beach from a dinghy with an outboard motor. Strange—they didn’t look like fishermen or locals for that matter. They were outfitted in shirts and slacks and had thrown off their suit jackets to accomplish their sloppy landing. Far offshore, a tugboat wallowed on the horizon, perhaps the larger vessel from which the men had launched.

  Cal strode up the beach toward the men. Maybe they were lost, looking for the main harbor, or had encountered some problem with their boat. As he got nearer, he noticed they were both big guys, like bodyguards or chauffeurs, with rounded faces and builds, maybe Eastern European. They didn’t look like any of the hotel guests or staff Cal had met, but an odd thought occurred to him. Had Brendan sent these guys to look for him already? Only steps away from where they stood with their beached dinghy, he hiked up a grin and waved his hand.

  “Hi.”

  The big guys exchanged a glance. Neither one cracked a smile, and the way they were looking at Cal reminded him of schoolyard bullies sizing up smaller prey. One of the guys stepped toward him and spoke in what Cal recognized as a Romanian accent, “Mr. Thackeray-Prentiss?”

  Cal halted. A premonition of danger flashed before him like a neon sign.

  “We have business with you,” the man told him.

  His companion fidgeted with something in his pants pocket. This could be nothing good. One of the guys staggered toward him. Cal turned and ran for his life. He imagined gunshots in his back. The nearest safety was the hotel. Cal stumbled in that direction, not helped by the flip-flops he’d set out in, fighting for traction on sand and pebbles.

  One of his flip-flops sprang loose, and he stepped down on hard stones with a yelp. A sharp edge had punctured his skin. That threw off his pace, and he heard the toughs scrambling behind him. Cal limped forward, and one of the guys grabbed him hard by the shoulder, jerking him around and grappling to try to cuff Cal’s wrist in his big hand.

  Cal cried out for help. His life depended on it. Would his voice carry to the hotel? He wrenched his arm away from his attacker, shearing off one of his bracelets that had gotten hooked in the bastard’s fingers. The other guy caught Cal from the side in an iron grip. Both men were built like linebackers, strong enough to rip him apart. Cal struggled to break free, and then a wadded cloth smothered his mouth and nose and scored his sinuses with medicinal vapors. His lungs clenched for air, and the strength drained from his body. He plunged into a dark void.

  Chapter Eleven

  TOWARD EVENING, BRENDAN was balled up on his couch in a hotel bathrobe with a menagerie of people installed in his suite.

  Louis had brought over a bottle of scotch, which he kept trying to get Brendan interested in while he’d emptied the bottle to the halfway mark over the course of the afternoon. Daryl and Riley had somehow decided the suite was a fitting place for them to spend the day, flipping through European TV shows on the big-screen television and squealing to one another in foreign accents. Betsy Schoonover and Cal’s sister Genie had found their way up to the room, both dressed uselessly in formal gowns. They were taking account of Brendan at intervals like nurses on suicide watch. Brendan’s father paced the room in his “My gay son is getting married” T-shirt, laughing strangely and telling everyone that everything was going to turn out fine. More realistically, Brendan’s grandfather and grandmother had appropriated the glass dinette table and were playing two-handed bridge while drinking gin and tonics. From the courtyard below, a gathering of Cal’s Greek relatives was starting to sound like a mob stumping for blood.

  Brendan prayed for aliens to abduct him into outer space with a tractor beam.

  Grandmum discovered the room-service menu, and called out to her grandson, “Let’s order up some eggplant dip, Brendy. It’s always been your favorite.”

  Grandad threw down his cards. “We’ve got a five-course meal waiting for us in the dining hall. Already paid for.”

  Brendan shrank further into himself. He was an abysmal human being. Dragging everyone to Hydra just so they could witness his coup de grace to botching up his life.

  His father came over and placed a hand on Brendan’s shoulder and said to Grandad, “No need to rush things, is there Harry?” He then gave Brendan a loosely tethered manic grin. “Cal will be back any moment, and the two guys will set things right.”

  “Oh, let’s be practical, Donovan,” Grandad grumbled. “The boy’s been gone for seven hours. He’s flown the coop.” He turned to Brendan. “There’s a time to cut your losses, Brendy. Handle this like a man. Go down there and give his family your regrets. Then we can all have our lamb chops and octopus carpaccio and call it an evening.”

  Donovan whinnied out a laugh and then drifted away to the bedroom. A dull thudding of skull against compressed earthen wall carried from the room shortly thereafter.

  “Maybe Brendan wants his privacy,” Riley piped up. “Did anyone bother to think of that?” She was, as usual, completely unaware of the irony of her statement, camped beside her brother on the couch in sweatpants and a micro T-shirt, while her teacup terrier, Piper, gnawed on the terry cloth belt to Brendan’s robe.

  Louis crouched in front of Brendan, trying to nudge out eye contact, and he lay his hand on Brendan’s knee. His boozy voice, “Whatever you want us to do, Champ. We can go. We can stay. We can hunt down Cal and bring you back his private parts as a trophy. You just tell u
s what you need.”

  “Jesus, Louis,” Betsy Schoonover protested. She shooed him away to take over. “We love you, darling. And we support you, no matter what.” She shot a look at Louis. “That’s what I think Louis was trying to say.”

  Brendan looked up at her blearily. “I destroyed everything.”

  Betsy took his cold hand and warmed it with hers. “No you didn’t, darling. It’s just wedding nerves. It happens all the time.”

  Brendan winced. If his body had any tears left, he’d have started crying again. Instead, a sort of hiccupping croak came out. He wanted Cal back. He hated himself for laying his hands on Cal. What the hell had been wrong with him? Brendan abhorred violence, and to think he could have hurt his fiancé— He was a monster. Brendan still wasn’t sure what to make of the condom and the bow tie, but he’d come to realize he’d grabbed blindly for the very worst conclusion. Even cynical Louis, who knew the full story, had suggested Brendan had been rash. He‘d driven away the man he loved. Cal would probably never speak to him again.

  Daryl climbed behind Brendan on the couch, leaning against her brother’s back. “Betsy’s right. Marina stood up Chad at the altar, and he never saw it coming. But Marina picked him for a date at the Second Chances resort in Jamaica, and six weeks later, they got married for real.”

  Grandmum: “I don’t think I know Marina and Chad. Who are they, dear?”

  Daryl rolled her eyes. “Season eleven of The Bachelor. The destination-date episode was filmed right next door to the house in St. Kitts.”

  Genie ventured into the Thackeray jabber. “This isn’t like Cal. He would have come to talk to me if he was upset. He’d have come to talk to someone.” She joined the crowded perimeter around Brendan. “He adored you,” she told him. “Try to remember again. Did he say anything about where he was going?”

  Brendan shook his head.

  Grandad pushed up from his seat and looked to the balcony. “Someone needs to go down and talk to the natives before they decide to send in a Trojan horse and drag our dead bodies out to the beach on chariots.” He grimaced. “As usual, it will be me standing in for Brendan at the office.”

  “Have some compassion for your grandson, Harry,” Grandmum told him.

  Grandad stood tall and unchastened. “Compassion is exactly what got him into this mess. Cal is clearly a man of no honor.”

  Brendan unraveled from his fetal position. “It was my fault, not his.”

  Riley broke out in a shrieking, hand-waving flourish from behind her cell phone screen. “Oh. My. God. My photo with Cal got over two million likes on Instagram. That makes us more famous than the Kardashians.”

  Grandmum propped her reading glasses on her genteel nose and discreetly gestured for her granddaughter to bring the phone over for a gander.

  Genie put her hands on her hips and gave Grandad a murderous look. “Cal is a man of honor. He’s the sweetest, most honest guy in the world.”

  “See what you did now, Grandad?” Daryl said. “You upset the in-laws.”

  Grandad shrugged and made a moue. “Young lady, your use of the word ‘in-laws’ is highly questionable under the circumstances.”

  Louis swayed over to the patriarch. “Mr. Thackeray, if I might suggest, you’re not helping this situation right now.”

  Grandad took account of the room’s miserable inhabitants. “Right-o. Not my area of expertise.” He smoothed out his tie and herringbone sport coat. “I’ll be off then to negotiate with the Panagopoulos strategoi.” He wavered a moment. “Brendy— Any pharmaceuticals you’d like from your mother’s top-shelf stash while I’m down there?”

  “I’ve got Lexapro, if you want one,” Daryl told her brother.

  “Adderall?” Riley offered.

  “No, sweeties,” Betsy Schoonover told them. “This is a vodka and Darvocet situation.” She patted Brendan’s back. “What do you say? I’ve got them in my purse downstairs. I’ll mix you up a nice sweet-dreams cocktail. Be down and back in a jiff.”

  Brendan nodded vaguely.

  Louis swerved over to Betsy, attempting guile. “Spare one for an old friend?”

  Betsy crossed her arms and looked him over. “I would, but I heard the emergency room closes at seven o’clock around here. Though I could ask around for a rusty hand pump later to clear your stomach if you’d like.”

  “Pretty please?” Louis tried.

  Grandad offered his arm, and he and Betsy walked out of the suite together. Just as they left, Derek appeared at the door.

  The young man’s face was as white as a sheet. Brendan fixed in on him hopefully. Had he heard from Cal?

  Their eyes locked. Derek shook his head and looked away just as an official from the hotel came walking in behind him carrying a transparent plastic bag.

  Derek explained, “They sent one of the groundskeepers to look for Cal down on the beach.” His face shrank up, and he moaned. “He found these by the edge of the water.”

  Brendan shot straight up from the couch. The uniformed hotel manager plodded over and handed him the bag.

  Cal’s flip-flop. Cal’s woven bracelet. Retrieved from the edge of the sea.

  Brendan stared at the bag with the terrifying sensation he was holding his fiancé‘s last remains. Had he pushed Cal into going off to do something desperate?

  Chapter Twelve

  CAL AWOKE FEELING as though he had been shot in the head. His vision was delicate and blurry, and besides his throbbing head, he was dehydrated, and his entire body was enervated as if he’d woken up with the worst hangover of his life. He gradually ascertained he was in a room faintly lit by a porthole that kept rolling up and down as though it were on the other end of a seesaw.

  Actually, the entire world was seesawing. And Cal’s memory was frighteningly blank. Had he been drugged? He could barely move, and he felt like some enormous terrestrial force was rocking him up and down. How had he arrived in the strange room?

  He realized his hands were cuffed and bound to a metal beam. His ankles had been tied together with vinyl cord as well. Cal’s strength and clarity returned in a panic, though he couldn’t find any method to break his bonds or wrench his hands or his feet out of them. The two big lugheads dressed in suits had snuffed him out and kidnapped him. What did they want? To use him for some sick perversion? To sell him into white slavery?

  Cal cried out for help and beat his feet against the floor. The rocking motion was now familiar to him. They’d taken him in their dinghy and stowed him on a larger boat, and then motored out to sea—who knew how far, and to who knew where. He could have been blacked out for hours.

  The porthole revealed a mere dot of a fading sky. Stacked wooden crates lined the bulwarks of his prison. He was in the hull of some kind of freight craft. Cal had no idea if there was anyone aboard who would help him, but he put all the capacity of his vocal cords and movable parts into rousing a clamor to be heard throughout the entire steel-walled ship.

  A watertight hatch door across from him clanged from a wheel turning and bolts sliding free. Cal’s breath caught in his throat. The door swung open, and tragically, one of the thugs from the beach stepped through, and then the other followed. They stood like mobster bookends, staring at him impassively.

  Cal was not much of a fighter, but he didn’t appreciate being roughhoused and tied up when he’d done nothing wrong. If they had come to strangle him for trying to call for help, they’d get a piece of his mind first.

  “You think you can get away with this? Two hundred of my relatives are waiting for me back in Hydra. They’re Greek and highly experienced in vendettas.”

  His captors didn’t budge an inch, or a moustache. Cal remembered the one guy’s accent, and it occurred to him they might not speak English very well.

  Another figure ducked through the door. That hiked up the temperature. Cal was tied up to a beam with three criminally inclined men taking account of him. The last guy was tall and brawny like his cohorts, but he wore a sharper pinstriped suit with
a red handkerchief in the lapel pocket, and he was even rounder with a great globe of a belly preceding him. His face was almost entirely obscured by a thick brown moustache and beard. An unlit cigar sprouted from his lips like some weird appendage of his tough-guy anatomy. Cal also glimpsed a holster beneath the flap of his suit jacket, as a man might wear a handgun.

  This was undoubtedly “the boss.” A Romanian gangster, Cal surmised, based on the accent of his henchman. The guy’s eyes brightened in cruel amusement at what seemed to be his first look at the bounty his thugs had brought him. As the light had faded even more in the room, he pulled a chain to switch on the overhead light bulb. He stepped closer.

  Despite his earlier convictions, Cal slid back against the beam to make himself smaller. He kept his eyes trained on the guy. Oddly, the boss didn’t look like he’d come in to deliver a pistol whip or a kick to the ribs to shut Cal up. He stopped short of arm’s length away, popped his cigar out of his mouth, and scrutinized Cal. His eyes widened and narrowed in apprehension.

  Words in Romanian coursed out of his mouth. He strode back to his henchmen and gave them each a smarting clip on the ear. Cal watched as he pulled a document out of his pants pocket, unfolded it, and waved it in the faces of the two men, barking all the while in his native language. Cal caught a glimpse of the paper. It looked like a black-and-white photograph.

  The sense of calamity was unmistakable. The thugs gestured back and forth from Cal to the photograph and then to each other in an increasingly desperate conversation. The boss ended it with a jab of his pudgy finger into each of their necks. He shoved the photograph back in his pants pocket and pushed his two lackeys out of the cargo hold.

  Alone, he wiped perspiration from his fat brow with his handkerchief, seeming to collect himself for a moment. The cigar went back in his mouth, and then it came out. He replaced it and took it out a final time, shaking his head and grimacing.

  Pulling at his moustache, the boss leaned closer to Cal and spoke in slow and articulated English. “You are not Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss.”