by Hazel Parker
“Let’s do it.”
I pushed against his chest, rolled to the side, and slid my jeans off. I spread my legs under the half-moon, feeling the cool ocean air brush against my wet pussy. Fitz slowly got up from the ground and crawled over to me.
“Faster now,” I said. “I won’t be this way all night.”
“OK, OK,” he said, still smiling from the blowjob that I had just given him.
He pressed himself between my legs, moved his lips to my pussy, and gave a nice kiss.
“Oh, fuck, that’s the right stuff,” I said.
Fitz’s tongue came out next. It went up and down on my clit before making a side-swiping motion. My hands grabbed fistfuls of sand while my legs wrapped around his body, squeezing to the level of the pleasure that he gave me—and he was giving me plenty of fucking pleasure.
My hips arched into his face as I tried to get him to put more and more pressure on. I wasn’t going to last long this round, given how long it had been since I’d even masturbated, let alone had sex, but I was not going to let the journey go by without maximum pleasure. I grabbed his hair and ran my fingers through, digging my nails into him. Fitz sounded like he was having a little trouble breathing, but that didn’t stop me. He was going to make me come on my terms.
“So fucking good, Fitz; so fucking good.”
I closed my eyes as the tension started to reach the point where an orgasm seemed probable. Fitz either noticed or his efforts increased in a coincidental timing, accelerating the process of orgasm. I briefly closed my eyes, looking up at the half-moon. It was so beautiful, and yet I couldn’t make out anything but the generic shape. I stared down at Fitz, who looked back at me with gleeful eyes. I tipped my head back as the orgasm began to approach.
“Oh, shit, yes, right there, right there,” I said. “Uh, uhh, uhh….”
It washed over me in an instant. I shoved my hips forward into Fitz’s face, bit my lip to avoid screaming too loudly, and practically dug my nails all the way into his skull. I had all but forgotten the intensity with which I orgasmed, and it hit me like a head-on collision on the highway.
I had to shove Fitz away at one point because the pleasure was so overwhelming. I took several seconds to gather myself, catching my breath and closing my eyes. I rolled over lazily to the sky, the moon reflecting off of my naked body.
“Well,” Fitz said with a short chuckle. “I had no idea that that would go like that. That was fucking incredible. I hope you feel a little more relaxed.”
“Holy shit, yes,” I said.
I did. I felt at peace. I felt like I had never worked a day in my life at Rothenberg Banking.
But then I realized what I had done.
I had slept with a co-worker. I had fucked him on a public beach in Long Island. I had committed two atrocious sins for the sake of my sanity as a future public leader at Rothenberg Banking. If anyone ever found out or discovered what I had done…
“Man, talk about an adventure,” Fitz said with a laugh, oblivious to my changing emotional state. “If you ever want to do this again—”
“Take me home, Fitz,” I said.
“What?”
“I said, take me home!” I shouted. “Do you realize what I just did? Do you realize the jeopardy my career would be in if anyone found out what I just did? Do you know how much I may have just screwed myself over?”
“OK, let’s slow down,” Fitz said. “Look. There’s no one else here. Trust me, I kept looking to see if anyone was coming. And if someone were, I would have stopped. But no one is here.”
“OK, fine, that you saw, but...you’re a coworker, Fitz. That kind of thing ruins workplace happiness. We might be good now, but if we ever get in a fight, then it’s going to be awful and ugly, and, and—”
I cut myself off when Fitz kept smiling. It was pissing me off, and I didn’t want to ruin what had been a surprisingly thrilling night with a snide comment.
“Fitz,” I said, breathing slowly to calm myself. “How can you be so calm right now? Did you hear what I just said?”
“I did. But I’m not worried about it.”
“Not worried about it?” I said, going right back to my lost temper. “How the hell can you not be worried about it? I know we’re in different departments, but Jesus, if Ben or Gerald finds out, if anyone finds out, we’ll be the gossip of Rothenberg Banking. We probably already are from how much we hang out in the cafeteria! Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Amelia!”
Fitz’s raised voice got my attention. But if he wanted to keep it, he needed to say something really fucking reassuring, because right now, I was not having it.
“I can’t speak to if anyone will ever find out, but I’m going to do something that will go a long way to ensuring that no one ever finds out—and even if they do, that it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Really?” I said, laughing to myself. “And what the hell is that going to be?”
I’ll give him this. He shocked the hell out of me with what he said. I certainly would never have guessed it.
“I’m quitting.”
Chapter 11: Fitz
“You’re fucking quitting?”
I laughed. What else was I supposed to do? How else should I have reacted to the fact that I was defying Uncle’s advice, the rational advice in my head, millions of dollars in future earnings, and the golden blanket that Rothenberg Banking provided in favor of a career on a motorcycle?
“I’m sorry, is this a joke?” Amelia said. “You cannot be serious, Fitz. This isn’t the time to make jokes. You know my head isn’t in the right place. You know—”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Which is why I needed to make sure of it before I said it. Yes, I’m serious. I am one hundred percent quitting.”
Amelia looked like she didn’t want to believe me. The expression on her face was one of shock that refused to believe it was true. I just held fast to the expression I usually wore—stoic, neutral, and self-assured.
“Jesus Christ,” Amelia said. “Where are you going? Did you get a job in San Francisco or something?”
“Nope,” I said. “Actually, I’m not even going to stay in finance. I’m not going to stay in any white-collar industry.”
“The hell?” she said. “You swear this isn’t a joke? You swear that you’re being one hundred percent serious about all of this?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll admit that at the start of the day, I wasn’t sure that it was what I was going to do, but it was something that I was certainly leaning toward. But seeing everything that you’ve gone through and what we’ve experienced tonight made me realize that this isn’t a career worth slaving away for. Especially when I have other interests.”
“So...you’re retiring? You were able to save that quickly?”
I laughed.
“If only. No, I do have some good money saved, but it’s not enough to never work again. No. I’m going to something a little more...a little less prestigious, something a little simpler, but also something a heck of a lot less stressful.”
“The hell? Fitz, did you get knocked in the head?”
I laughed again. To anyone that wasn’t in my shoes, it seemed fucking crazy. Actually, I was in my shoes, and I knew that it was somewhat fucking crazy.
But I had become certain of it on the ride with Amelia. The feeling of being free not just for myself but for others, to give them a taste of the life that I could live...that was something inescapable. I would never have that kind of life if I continued to work in finance. And while I could have had a facsimile of it, it would never be the same.
I wasn’t going to pretend that I was thinking of my mortality when it happened. But I knew that life was short. I knew in my research that motorcyclists died at a more frequent rate than regular car drivers, and that rate had to be even higher for members of MCs. If I only had a few more years left on this rock, I figured it made sense to spend them doing what I loved as much as possible.
“Not at all,” I said.
“I’ve thought about this for quite some time. Years, for sure. Obviously not forever, but it’s not a rash decision by any means.”
“OK,” Amelia said, putting her clothes back on as if raising her defenses against what she probably perceived as one of the most ridiculous and unbelievable stories that she was hearing. “So then...if you’re quitting and you’re not retiring and you’re not transferring jobs, then you’re going into a new industry. What is it? Can you tell me?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
I had no idea how Amelia would take it. Probably not well. But if she wasn’t going to take it well, then all this would be was a hot weekday fling that wouldn’t turn into anything more.
And if she did? Well, suddenly, what we had could have had a lot more potential.
“I’m going to become a car mechanic and work full time in the Savage Saints motorcycle club in Brooklyn.”
Amelia stared at me for a few seconds, her jaw slack. I waited for her to say something, anything. I wanted to know her reaction before I said another word.
Well, I got it. But it wasn’t really what I had hoped for, seeing as how she just proceeded to burst out laughing at me.
“You cannot be serious!” she said. “You make so much money, and you’re going to walk away from that to be a car mechanic? I mean, OK, if you were to be an author or a musician, sure, that’s creative, but a car mechanic?”
“It’s less that and more just being part of an MC,” I said. “The car mechanic is just so I have a source of income and can be near my brothers in the MC.”
“This can’t be real. I have to be dreaming,” Amelia said, starting to slap herself. “No, seriously, all of this—this night, this bike ride, this news from you—it has to be fake. This is part of my nervous breakdown, right? This is the part where I wake up, and I’m back in my apartment, or maybe I’ve just taken a nap at work and had a really surreal dream. I’ve wanted to fuck you for some time, Fitz, but this must be a sign that it’s fake. Right? Right?”
Jesus, I didn’t think it would go over that poorly.
“I swear to you it’s real.”
Amelia reached over, grabbed my hands, and squeezed them.
“OK,” she said. “OK. For the sake of...I don’t know what, but just for morbid curiosity, let’s go along with this. Not like things can get any weirder for me. Let’s say that you’re serious. You really are quitting being an investment banker to become...a motorcycle club member?”
“To join the Savage Saints and to work as a car mechanic, where most everyone else works.”
“OK,” she said, looking like I had just tried to explain rocket science to her. “OK, so, let’s say this is real. What in the world does the club offer? Why couldn’t you just, say, join a Meetup.com group or something like that? Why not just spend the weekend riding a motorcycle to Boston and back or something? Why not do anything that doesn’t entail you sacrificing your financial stability for the sake of a ride?”
She laughed again.
“I swear, Fitz, you’re the only person I know that left banking to spend time around their favorite vehicle. Most of those assholes stay in banking so they can pay for a luxury vehicle they only drive on so-called vacations.”
“I know it’s weird,” I said, only now just realizing that I was still naked and needed to put my clothes on. “But while it’s true I don’t have my financial situation secure forever, I still have it safe for quite some time. I can take several years of not making any money before I have to start panicking. You know? And life’s not getting any shorter. We’re still stuck with the same length of time. At most, maybe I’ll live a year or two longer by being able to afford better healthcare, but not like it’ll make a huge difference.
“What I’m most interested in, then, is maximizing my time doing what I enjoy. I have always felt drawn to the MC lifestyle. There’s just something so...traditional about it, and I’m not sure that’s the best word in today’s culture, but it feels like a brotherhood that society likes to condemn without realizing the benefits of it. Brotherhood isn’t something stupid where we talk about chasing pussy and drinking shitty beer. It’s about helping each other out in times of need, doing the job no matter what it takes, and not worrying about what the man might say.
“I know that you hearing this, you might think I’ve lost my mind. But I promise you that I have spent longer than you could ever realize thinking about this, and it isn’t a decision that I’ve made without serious thought. Whatever you think of it, that part is up to you. But I can assure you that I’ll be gone within a couple of months, so you won’t have to worry about me affecting the quality of your workday. You’ll have to find someone new to steal the Wall Street Journal from in the morning, but I think that’s a trade you’ll make.”
For the first time since I’d told her that I was quitting Rothenberg, Amelia gave a genuine reaction free of doubt. It may have been a simple joke, but it was one that probably told her I was serious more than anything else I had said.
“I think you’re crazy, and I’m jealous as hell at the same time,” she said, staring at the sand. “I wish I could have the freedom just to move on and feel comfortable in my skin doing something else. But I don’t know what it would be.”
“I mean, I am a few years older than you, so I’ve had a little more time to think about it.”
But I knew Amelia was just saying that to be polite. She may not have berated me like I knew Uncle would, but I knew she didn’t understand me. And that was OK. I didn’t need her to understand me. If anything, she probably had reason to thank me after this.
“What a crazy day, huh?” she said, laughing. “You know, it’s my first time having sex in years?”
“You?” I said in shock. “You must have men knocking on your door every minute!”
“That’s the problem: the more options you have, the more hopeless you feel!” she said.
We soon fell into a silly discussion about dating in New York City and how it was both strangely one of the best places and yet one of the hardest places to date. It became readily apparent that while I had an easy time as a man, for Amelia, there was either the rich and arrogant or the sensible yet poor. That was obviously an overly simplified dynamic, but people didn’t really do nuance in describing prior dates.
The most important part of the discussion, though, wasn’t the content, but the time. I didn’t even bother to keep track of the time, and I didn’t care. I was going to tell Gerald in the morning of my intention to quit, and the instant that happened, the work would steadily decrease. No one was going to give someone leaving more work.
But the fact that even Amelia didn’t seem to mind the long time that we stayed there…
Well, maybe I had misread her. Maybe she was considering a new career elsewhere.
Or maybe I was just hoping to have some company on what was bound to be an oddly lonely journey. The club would likely enjoy my commitment to it, but that didn’t mean that they were going to take me in with open arms. It would take more than leaving a well-paying job for them to consider me a “true” member of the club.
Finally, sometime after midnight, Amelia rose and offered me her hand.
“You’ve been sitting in a puddle of sex for the last few hours,” she said. “Might be time to get up and head on home.”
I took her hand, stood up, and pulled her in for an embrace.
“And you’ve had to deal with a pile of shit for the last few days,” I said. “Might be time to get some sleep to recover, huh?”
She giggled and pulled back. We briefly paused before we shared a gentle kiss.
I don’t know why, but that kiss did much more to assuage my concerns than just about anything else. It was one thing to get caught in the throes of erotic release; it was another to display tender compassionate moments after an argument that would have tossed someone’s idea of the world on their head. Amelia had probably known of people who had quit the industry for whatever passion project they had,
but to become a mechanic?
Even I had to admit that the idea seemed just a tad bit crazy.
* * *
I awoke the next morning in my apartment on just a few hours of sleep, having dropped Amelia off at one and my bike at the shop thereafter. And yet, despite not even reaching four hours of sleep, I still felt as refreshed and invigorated as I had in years.
I had finally found my answer. And I was going to tell Gerald today.
No matter how little sleep I had gotten, the knowledge that the truth would finally come out was a jolt to the arm. I even walked into the Rothenberg building with a pep in my step and a tune on my lips. I smiled and acknowledged harried coworkers. I stopped on the way up into the cafe and saw Amelia smiling—smiling!—at her spot. I saddled up next to her.
“Mind if I’m the one to steal the Wall Street Journal today?”
“Not at all,” she said, slightly amused.
She didn’t say anything else to me—probably because she wanted to be cautious about saying anything—but when I left, I threw a wink her way. She just exhaled with a guilty grin, taking care to hold the paper up to her face. I rode the elevator up to my floor, stepped out, and put my suitcase in my office.
And then it hit me just what the fuck I was about to do.
I was about to tell my boss, a man who knew only delivery for food, numbers for work, and God knows what for entertainment, that I was quitting my job. I strongly suspected that he would think that what I was doing was akin to suicide or something. After all, it’s not like Gerald had any interests outside of work.
Not my problem.
I went up to his office door, knocked, and entered when he waved me in.
“Do you have a question about the IPO?” he said lazily, not even looking up from his computer.
I had to admit, seeing him like so and knowing what I was about to do, I almost felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine being so sucked into work as to have no other alternative. At least Amelia had her mind, her fitness, and some level of charm to her. Gerald had...a history with the company, and that was about it. He was a man in for a rude awakening when retirement came, one way or another.
