by Kat T. Masen
“Oh, dang,” I answered sarcastically. I pulled the blanket over my head, smiling as I fell back asleep.
Chapter 4
Lex
April 2005
I opened up my textbook in an attempt to drown out her incessant nagging. This is what it had been like lately, always wanting more. She had changed, no longer the carefree college girl I fell in love with. Samantha Benson was the girl on campus every guy wanted, and she chose me. She was hot, knew how to give extremely good head and was studying art. She wasn’t my usual type but she was no airhead. My family loved her, her family loved me and so it made sense, put a ring on that finger and one less worry in life.
I wasn’t into the whole wedding shit so I let all the women plan it. It was a nice day as far as weddings go but here we were six months later and the cracks were starting to show. It wasn’t enough that she wanted a fancy house and car, now she was nagging me to start a family? I wasn’t ready for this shit. I was fucking twenty-three. I still had friends who woke up naked next to strange chicks and kegs every night. I told her I would think about it if we moved back to Carmel. I missed my family and I hoped they would convince her we were too young to have kids, especially Dad. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps and there was no way I could do that with a baby around.
“Alex, are you listening to me?” she said, irritation evident in her voice.
“Sammy, what do you want me to say? We just moved here. The house still has dust on it, our furniture hasn’t arrived and I technically don’t have a paying job yet. Please explain how a baby would fit into this? We can barely support ourselves.”
I was fucking annoyed. Yeah, babies were cute and stuff but there was still so much more I wanted to do in life. Start my internship, travel to Europe, the list went on and on. This all started when her sister had a baby and now that’s all she talked about.
“You said when we move to Carmel we could—”
I cut her off. In typical Sam fashion she’d twisted my words. “I never said when we moved to Carmel we could start trying. What I said, in case you ever want to listen to me properly, was let’s settle back in Carmel and talk about this once we have found a house and have proper paying jobs.”
“Well, Alex, we found a house and I have a proper paying job. You on the other hand seem to be undecided on your career. It doesn’t help that you are supposed to be the breadwinner, not me,” she shot back.
“Fuck you for bringing this shit up again! You are so happy to tell everyone your husband is studying to become a doctor yet behind closed doors it’s not good enough because I’m not paying for your expensive lifestyle!”
I closed my textbook and grabbed my cell and keys off the kitchen bench. I needed to cool down. I was so tired of the constant bickering, the way she made me feel uncertain about decisions I made. I needed to relax and stop focusing on this negativity. This was why I wanted to move back to Carmel.
“I’m going to my parents’ house,” I said.
I shut the door and walked to the car. She quickly opened the door, her face angry that I was leaving mid-conversation.
“We’ll discuss this again when you decide where your home is, Alex.” Then she slammed the door behind me.
…
“Adriana!” I yelled, my voice echoing through the empty rooms.
“In here!” she yelled back as I was already standing in the doorway.
I didn’t expect to see her again—Charlotte that is. She was lying on the sofa on her back wearing a black tank top, jeans and converse. I could see her hair was loose again as it fell down the side of the sofa. She looked beautiful, I couldn’t help but notice. I mean, come on, I was only human and 23! The most bizarre thing was that she was surrounded by M&Ms. Hmmm, one to store for the bank…
“Oh, hi Alex! Come hang out with us. We were just playing who could catch the most M&Ms not using our hands.” Adriana giggled, continuing with her game. She threw them into Charlotte’s mouth and surprisingly she missed.
My eyes met with Charlotte’s. I don’t know what it was. Something felt different about her. She wasn’t like any other girl I’d met and definitely nothing like my sister. Thinking back to the other night when I ran into her in the kitchen, there was this feeling I wasn’t accustomed to, a lot like a jolt of electricity as I accidently touched her. I mean, fuck, I was a guy so accidently grazing her tits had me pitching my tent, but I had to remember I was married.
It had been five years since I last saw her and boy had she changed. She was beautiful, and I mean stunningly beautiful. It didn’t help that she wasn’t wearing a bra that night either. What made it even worse was that she caught me staring at her. We laughed and joked about Adriana, something that felt comfortable and oddly familiar. When she said goodnight and congratulated me on my wedding, it reminded me again of the boundary that lay between us. It didn’t mean I couldn’t help her out, hence why I took Adriana’s car.
“Hi, Alex.” Charlotte giggled as she got whacked in the eye with an M&M.
“Please don’t let my sister assault you with the M&Ms. Geez Adriana, you throw like a girl,” I scolded.
“I am a girl, duh.”
She threw another one at Charlotte, this time landing right in her cleavage. I couldn’t help but look; it sat there in the middle of her perfectly shaped tits…lucky M&M. The M&M jiggled as she struggled to control her laughter.
“Seriously Adriana, are you looking to switch teams now? That’s the third time you’ve gotten it in there!” Charlotte laughed. My sister was on the ground rolling around, her body shaking with laughter, screaming she needed to pee.
“Okay girls, let me show you how it’s done.”
I grabbed the packet off my sister. “Charlotte, please stop laughing and just open your mouth.”
I waited for her as she attempted to keep a straight face, something I was struggling to do as well. I focused on her mouth, her perfectly pink lips wide open. My mind wandered elsewhere… No, Edwards, focus—as my coach would say. I threw the M&M, landing it in her mouth. I laughed as it went in, Adriana pouting as usual. She was so fucking competitive.
“No fair, Alex! You throw like a boy!” Adriana whined.
“Thanks Alex! It’s about time I get to eat one of them,” Charlotte cheered and high-fived me.
“Next time come to me if you actually want to eat them since clearly Adriana here has no aim. I think she secretly just wanted to find them later when you were gone,” I joked. I was enjoying the company and finally managed to put the earlier argument and Sam’s bullshit behind me. It’s strange that it took my sister and her best friend’s juvenile game for me to relax and have fun.
The house phone started ringing. Adriana jumped up like her life depended on it or more like the opening of Macys’ doors on Black Friday. I wasn’t surprised when she announced who it was. “Oh, it’s Elijah! Back soon.” She ran out, taking the cordless phone up to her room.
“When she says soon, I can pretty much watch Titanic from start to finish and she still would not be done.” Charlotte chuckled, picking up the remote to surf through the channels.
“The joys of having a boyfriend I s’pose. So do you um, have one?”
“Me? Please, have you seen the guys at our school? Apparently wearing baggy pants and flashing your no-name underwear passes for style these days. Besides, I’m saving myself for Justin Timberlake.”
“I think Britney thought the same thing and look where that got her,” I pointed out.
“Think can she catch M&Ms in her mouth like I can?”
“Hey, it has everything to do with the pitcher not the catcher.” I laughed, defending my perfect throw.
“I don’t think you realize how difficult it is to have your mouth perfectly positioned and open for that long.”
As soon as she said it I laughed, her face blushing slightly. God she was so fucking beautiful.
“Oh man, that didn’t come out right.”
She joined me as I laughed, sti
ll flicking through the channels. I watched as she went past the hockey.
“Hey, go back to the hockey!”
“Errr no thanks, Alex. Yes, here it is.” She stopped on Animal Planet. Seriously, we are going to watch a documentary on Bonobo monkeys? I had to admit it was better than watching the fashion police and well, I was watching the emperor penguins last night. It was mating season on Animal Planet but I really wanted to see the hockey scores.
Did you know the Bonobo monkey uses sex as a greeting, a method of conflict resolution and to celebrate when food has been found?
Her eyes fixated on the screen, fascinated with the narrator’s over-the-top narration of the monkeys.
“Wow, imagine if we did that, no one would be able to get anything done,” I joked.
Shit, I hadn’t meant it to come out like that, but damn, imagine if it were true that we were fucking all the time? That thought alone made me hard…really hard. I needed to get these thoughts out of my head. Stupid mating monkeys.
She broke her gaze from the TV and turned to look at me while laughing.
“Keep dreaming, Edwards.”
“So now that you have informed me of the intricate sex life of the Bonobos, can I please watch the hockey?”
She held the remote in the air, pushing my chest away as I made a feeble attempt to grab it from her.
“Alex, this is the last episode of the mating series,” she complained while trying to hold the remote away from me.
I couldn’t help but watch her. A part of me liked teasing her as I attempted to reach over for the remote. She swung it low, a move I anticipated. She held onto it as I fell on top of her. I tickled her ribs, and her laughter was like music to my ears.
“Alex…please stop.” Her voice was shaking as she laughed, squirming her body underneath me.
“Mmm I’ll stop, if you hand me the remote.”
“No way. I was here first. Sorry Alex, you snooze you lose.”
She tried to tickle me back; her touch felt like electric currents attached to a million needles running through my body and I so desperately wanted her to move her hands onto my chest. I felt like a horny teenager again.
I slowed down, watching her deep chocolate-brown eyes taking me in, her chest was rising up and down. I was inches away from her face, I could almost taste her. Oh shit, what was I thinking? No sooner had the thought entered my mind and my cock started twitching. She had to have felt it, I was fucking huge. Suddenly her eyes changed. Was that lust I could see?
I heard my sister’s voice and I quickly pulled myself away from her, Charlotte adjusting her tank top as she sat up. Her cheeks were flushed and all I wanted to do was lean in and caress her face, satisfy the curiosity and need I was feeling.
“Okay, everything is set for next Saturday!” Adriana was excitedly chatting away as she entered the room.
“Next Saturday?” I asked, my mind still foggy with what just happened.
“My eighteenth birthday, silly. It starts at seven and Sammy promised you guys would chaperone so Mom and Dad didn’t have to be here.”
Now I remembered what I had been roped into, but for some reason I didn’t mind going if it meant I got to see Charlotte again. Fuck, what the hell was I thinking? Okay, no, it’ll be fine—Sammy will be there. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was time for me to leave despite wanting to stay longer.
“I better head off. See you tomorrow at lunch, sis. Bye Charlotte.” I looked over, her eyes locked on mine. It felt like something passed between us, but what? What was it? The shiny band on my left hand suddenly felt like a lead weight
“Just call me Charlie. Everybody else does.” She smiled.
I turned to face her one last time and I stared at the two pools of chocolate brown eyes. “Charlotte, I’m not everybody else.”
Her expression was calm as she spoke. “No you’re not, Alex. You certainly are not.”
…
That night I climbed into bed and Samantha wrapped her arms around me. The smell of her skin no longer aroused me, my body suddenly rejecting everything that was familiar.
“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to say those things.”
Her hand slid down my abdomen and into my boxers. I wasn’t hard and she had tried to make me, stroking it, doing that thing she always does, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
“I’m tired, Sammy. Not tonight.”
I heard her moan in frustration, rolling onto her side. She fell asleep within minutes while I laid there on my back staring at the ceiling. What the hell was this? Why was I thinking about Charlotte? She was funny and smart. She made me laugh, but for fuck’s sake, the ink was barely dry on my marriage certificate.
It was her eyes. There was something about them that just drew me in and her mouth, oh God that mouth, those perfect pink lips, imagining them wide open as she had them tonight. I felt myself harden. Fuck, this was not good. I turned over to look at my wife, trying to remind myself why I fell in love with her. I had to stop thinking about this for my own sanity.
Next Saturday I would see her again. It’ll be fine, I told myself. It’s just a weird feeling that will wash away in a week. Won’t it?
I woke up in a bewildered state, unable to comprehend the dream or the reality. I took in my surroundings, not quite sure if I was on my head or my ass, in London or in New York, in my bed or some random bar bunny’s. I buried my head into my pillow, trying to erase the memory that tormented me in my sleep.
I had been in New York a week and already I was getting bored. As usual I spent most of my time in meeting lockdown, sometimes not even leaving a boardroom till dark. The office was coming along nicely, however I was unsure of how much time I would be spending here. There was nothing for me here, apart from my sister but even with her I was on thin ice after our lunch at the restaurant.
As I lay in the hotel bed the night before, I tried to remember the last time I did something I enjoyed. I lived and breathed hockey throughout high school and college but couldn’t for the life of me remember when I played last. I never vacationed yet I flew all over the world on business conferences. Even just having a pint or two with friends, that was as rare as rocking horse shit and only then it was when a couple of guys I’d met in London were in the same place at the same time. My family was constantly begging me to come home, spend some time with them, but there was only so much nagging I could take. Lex, when are you going to find someone and settle down? I laughed at the question. As if that would ever happen, plus I didn’t want all that love bullshit. It only ended one way: someone being screwed over and hearts broken, then years spent trying to recover. Who needed that when that time spent could be used on playing the stock market and adding another mil to the company’s portfolio? Yes, admittedly that couldn’t keep you warm at night, but it sure softened the blow.
Occasionally though, I would lie in bed wide awake at night and my mind would wander. What it would be like to have someone lie beside me every night, that body curled up beside mine, the long hair tangled over her body…shutting my eyes, I had forced the image away. Sleep was something I struggled with. I had turned on the lamp and found my sleeping pills, then I drifted off to sleep.
…
“Mr. Edwards.”
The whole table rose and extended their hands. Shaking each one of them in turn, I took a seat at the table and motioned for the waiter to come over. This was one of my final meetings before I finally flew out on Monday morning.
“Can I have a short black, please?”
The waiter scurried away and I turned to face Mr. Klein and the rest of his associates who were waiting to discuss my club, After Dark. This was my second club to open up. By day it was a restaurant named La Cusina but later it transformed into After Dark. Mr. Klein produced our latest figures and we spoke about our budget. The club was bringing in the bacon, so to speak. We were at full capacity every Friday and Saturday night. The paparazzi would swarm the outside as celebrities had made it their new favorite spot. Over
all, I was content with the business venture and knew that it was in the right hands.
As I looked over the budget I was distracted by someone laughing at another table. The laugh sounded almost angelic if not a little familiar. I tried to ignore it as Mr. Klein started speaking about potential improvements to the club which could increase our profit margin, but then I heard it again. I turned my head to the left to see where it was coming from. A girl sat with a guy at a table a few feet away. He must have been telling her a funny story because her head and her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably as she laughed. Geez, this fucker was surely going to get laid tonight. She was sitting with her legs crossed to the side. I eyed her long, lean, tanned legs right down to her shoes. Oh fuck me, Louboutins. If there was one thing I had a fetish over, it was Louboutin pumps. Anytime I saw a chick wearing them I just wanted to bend their pretty little arse over and fuck their brains out. I adjusted my pants slightly under the table knowing all too well meetings and hard-ons do not go hand-in-hand, excuse the pun.
It was almost impossible not to check out the rest of her. She wore a high-wasted grey pencil skirt and white silk blouse that was buttoned down low enough that I could see the curves of her breasts. Her tits looked fabulous, nice and full. What a lucky bastard. Her hair was pinned up and yes of course it was brunette, chocolate brown. Fuck me dead.
“Mr. Edwards?”
Mr. Klein broke me from my daze by producing spreadsheets and placing them before me.
“Sorry, Mr. Klein, you were talking about profit margins?”
She laughed again. I turned to look at the same time she lifted her head. She wore black rimmed glasses, very librarian. Don’t go there again, Edwards. I let out a small breath with the sudden realization at how unprofessional this was of me. Focus. But something pulled me towards her and quickly I allowed myself one last glance. She turned to look my way and our eyes locked. The most beautiful deep chocolate brown eyes met with mine.
