by O. L. Casper
When I come to, we are both spent, lying with our legs folded together, our smooth wet Venusian hills touching and she’s still unconscious. For the first time since the beginning of our encounter I think of Stafford and feel the pangs of a divided heart.
Sophia Durant’s Diary
September 21, St. Augustine, Florida
I feel bad for not keeping up in my diary lately as much as perhaps I should have. The feeling stopping me is that with so little conflict and such easy going there is nothing substantial to report in the last weeks since leaving Julie’s house. To sum up events: Stafford and I have met almost nightly in exquisite unknown rooms in greatest secrecy for continued consummation. Sometimes I have worn the camisk, sometimes not. Sometimes there was roleplay, sometimes not. We haven’t really had any intimate conversations of any great feeling since that day in his office, and I haven’t been back to the office. I don’t know if this is because he doesn’t really want me to be assessed or have training, or if he just hasn’t found the time. One way or another it doesn’t really matter. I’ve spent most days attending to Savannah and a bit of time trying to hire another two part-time nannies to replace two that recently left. My only object of late was to find out what Stafford’s intentions were for our future, but even this I gave up on account of just letting go and letting things fall into place. I know our relationship deepens as our intimacy increases, but of course there are always those moments of doubt that affect us all. Stafford has not told me he loves me but he doesn’t need to; I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. There is not more tenderness in all the world than in those peaceful eyes when he looks at me.
Later— the last rays of dusk fill my room as I write this. I have just been to the door to find him standing there, smiling that unrelenting smile, come to explain something. It looks like we’re going to the Bahamas tomorrow for another one of his mysterious meetings. Adventure, here I come.
Chapter 10
Mark Stafford’s Notes
September 22
I haven’t entered any notes for some time. I can’t remember when the last time was. I feel I’m getting pretty caught up with her. During the day I’m consumed by business affairs and my head is on straight, but in the evenings I become someone else. I’m weak and I don’t know what to do. I despair without the company of a woman. I miss Isabella terribly, more than I ever could have thought, but I feel I’m actively filling the void with her. And she is even more satisfying. It’s as though Isabella is with me in spirit. As though she’s saying, “Be with her. It’s okay. That’s why she’s there. That’s the whole reason she came into your life.” I’m getting carried away. But on some levels my grief has been transmuted into joy by the beautiful Sophia.
I am as muddled and unclear in my feelings as ever. With thoughts of ending this entry, inevitably I begin to think of her. What will cure me of this? Or do I have no other choice than to submit to my feelings and be with her? What do I like about her most? That I feel, in her, I have found my equal. Perhaps in some months’ time, provided things continue to go well, we can be together in the more formal sense of the words.
Sophia Durant’s Diary
September 22, Eleuthera Island, Bahamas
It was the most charming entry of Stafford’s I’d read thus far. I read it almost immediately after he entered it, Minerva having snatched it for me on the flight down.
This time, watching the archipelago of islands glide into view, emerging from the vanishing point like a mirage floating in mist at magic hour, I felt an even greater sense of wonder and impending adventure than I did on first seeing them several weeks before. Looking about the cabin of the Lockheed jet, I got a tremendous sense of the power of the life I was now living. Stafford glanced at me with subtle adoration before looking back at the chess game he played on his phone, a moment which capped the heightened sense of life I now felt. I mused on the fact that I was living in a vastly different world from the one I occupied at the time of the last flight down. And it all depended on a single relationship. Emotionally, I didn’t require a more formal sense of being together, as he put it. But it completed my plan and so I most definitely would accept it, when and if it happened.
I looked at Savannah asleep in a car seat next to me, a picture of peace. On a level that didn’t occupy much of my immediate consciousness, but was more at the back of my mind, I thought about the current agenda: to further my aims with Stafford by allowing our relationship to widen and deepen in a natural progression, to continue loving and caring for Savannah, to keep all that a secret—oh, and, once and for all, to figure out just what the damn thing is he does to make money. Stafford glanced at me and winked as if he had read my mind. I smiled at the thought.
It was near dark as we disembarked the aircraft and entered the Mercedes Benzes. As soon as I got to my room in the villa, before I had even opened the door, my phone buzzed with a text message.
MARK: Can you meet me at the barn in 20 mins?
I parked before the barn, cutting the lights. Stafford motioned for me to come in. There I found a brand new white Porsche Cayenne.
“Here’re the keys,” he said, casually handing them to me.
“What do you…mean?”
“It’s yours…to keep. My first gift to you.”
“It’s pretty amazing. I don’t know what to say really.”
“Then don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Say anything.”
I walked around the SUV in astonishment. There were lights on in the barn and I could see it well.
“I got you the same thing in black back on the mainland. I had the ignitions matched so they both use the same key.”
“I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“I can do anything—materially speaking, of course.”
“Of course.”
Not much came to mind to say. I was truly astonished.
“Would you like to take me for a drive?” he asked.
A minute later we were headed east on Queen’s Highway. The SLK, and the 911 Turbo even, were nothing compared to this. The drive was smooth. The display across the dash, futuristic. The car was more sophisticated than the Batmobile, it could do anything.
“Where are the wings and machineguns?” I said, marveling out the layout.
“It doesn’t have any now, but if you want I can arrange it.”
“Maybe someday.” I smiled at the thought.
When we had started our night cruise a screen arose out of a panel in the middle of the dash. It displayed a green night vision view of what was in front of us. I noticed, to either side of us, lightning striking over the sea in the distance.
“Nice night,” he said.
“Beautiful.”
Upon reaching Governor’s Harbour we turned around and headed back.
“Should I keep it at the barn…?”
“Park it at the villa.”
“What would you like me to tell the others?”
“Nothing. Or if you have to, tell them it was a gift for all the hard work you’ve done since you got here. Tell them you’re borrowing it. I don’t care what you tell them. Just let me know whatever you do tell them so I can concur.”
“Have you ever got any of the others such extravagant gifts?”
“None that are still with us. I got Anna a diamond pendant a couple years back. That’s about it.”
I knew he fucked her.
In the morning I discovered I’d received some mail at the villa while back on the mainland. One was the tiny microphones, another was the iPad I’d ordered, and last was the small Olympus recording device. Back in my room, on an encrypted internet connection, I ordered Leica binoculars like the ones I had used in previous spying. I briefly considered buying a quality D-SLR with high def video and a long telephoto lens, in order to record what I saw. But I decided that would be extravagant and held off.
Feeling less on edge, I decided to see if Anna wanted to go smoke on a beach. S
ince Anse Lazio was crowded with some of the other staff, we went to one of the nameless beaches with pink sand facing the small strip of an island called Dunmore Town. Sitting on a small dune with some grass on it, Anna took some pre-rolled grass from her handbag. With a tiny Zippo I hadn’t seen before, she blazed the joint and passed it to me. I took a long toke, held it deep inside my lungs for several seconds, nearly losing muscle control, and, overcome by a coughing fit, handed it back.
“How are you enjoying the job?”
My vision blurred slightly as I looked to the distance, contemplating the question. Admittedly it wasn’t a difficult one, but I wondered if it contained a veiled reference to my almost nightly meetings with Stafford, which no doubt she knew something of. For a moment I decided to test her on this, then I thought better of it.
“Very much.”
“You put much thought into your reply.”
“Yes…I must be stoned.”
I tried to brush it off.
“So soon?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“A lot on my mind also. It’s true.”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
She smiled.
“Not really. Just mundane, stupid things. Schedules, correspondence, and so forth.”
“I see.”
There was a long silence in our conversation. The wind came up over the dunes and blew the grass into the form of pretty waves. It also tickled the top of the sea causing small flecks of light to glint off it, reflecting the high afternoon sun. There were storm clouds far off, hugging the horizon in the north and the east. They were so far I thought they would pass us by. The storm didn’t hit for several hours.
“You are a lucky lady,” she said at last.
“How?”
“You are clearly so favored by Mr. Stafford.”
“Were you favored by him once, in the same way?”
“Only very briefly. He called it an indiscretion. That is how I learnt the meaning of word.”
“Was it hard? Getting past it?”
“No. I never expected it to happen. It came as a surprise. Then it disappeared just as quickly. Happened in one of the closets in the castle in Scotland. It was a wonderful few minutes though.”
She smiled.
“There’s a castle in Scotland?”
“Yes. Very beautiful. Soon we will all go.”
“I didn’t even know.”
“There is much you don’t know.”
Room—I received a text while reclining on my bed daydreaming.
MARK: Meet me downstairs in five minutes if you’d like to accompany me to check out a property on the south end of the island I’m considering acquiring.
I sat in the back of one of Stafford’s Escalades with him as we were chauffeured south on Queen’s Highway. We rode in silence for fifteen or twenty minutes holding hands till his phone buzzed.
“Mark…Hi Emma, how are you?...Yes, we’re on our way…About twenty, twenty-five more minutes…” he trailed off and the call dropped. “Beautiful—fucking reception on this island.” He looked at me. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry.”
I was quite stoned at this point. The movement out the window seemed stilted as though it had a strobe light on it. The driver seemed to move in slow motion and everything that was said seemed slower. I had to really think about what was said to make sense of it. That was if I could remember it, even just a few seconds after it was said. I wasn’t really worried about much. I didn’t even know what I was saying “Don’t worry” to because I could only remember sorry and not what came before it. On recounting it, I am able to remember most of what was said—at least I think so—though sometimes it takes considerable effort to recall.
On arrival the level of the high receded and I was able to concentrate more on my surroundings and comprehend them—as strange as that sounds. The first thing of note, other than the beautiful jungle we saw on entering the property, was the peculiar and seductive woman we met at the house. The house itself was an Edwardian mansion of what seemed to me at the time to be astounding design. A thing out of Alice and Wonderland with odd and, at times, nonsensical layout of rooms, the strange placement of fireplaces and hallways, et cetera.
The woman was Emma Green, a gorgeous blonde of twenty-eight with powerful sexual magnetism and abundant intelligence. She met us in front of the house, and, after a round of cordial introductions, ushered us inside. I noticed the way Stafford took special interest in all she said. I couldn’t decide whether this was common courtesy or something more. I found I couldn’t look at Ms. Green for much longer than a split second as I didn’t want to let her in on the fact that I knew how pretty she was. During our introduction outside she had in fact commented on my looks, but it was only a very brief remark and she didn’t look at me much after that.
Let me digress on the subject of Green’s looks. She has a voluptuous body, not even slightly overweight, the body of a classic Italian movie star. She has a friendly and welcoming way that isn’t at all false, but makes her seem pure and good. She dressed conservatively with somewhat of a low-cut shirt underneath.
“You said it was close to two hundred acres?”
“One eighty to be more precise.”
We stood in the kitchen overlooking some dunes and the sea.
“Not bad.”
“It’s hard to come by so many on an island such as Eleuthera, but you probably already know that…”
“I didn’t do the transaction myself.”
“Indeed. I’m surprised to be dealing with you personally.”
“You know who I am?”
“It’s a small island. When you bought the Baron’s property word travelled fast.”
“Of course.”
“So…you’ll need time to think on it…”
She adjusted her glasses.
“Yes. Now that I’ve seen it I probably won’t come back myself.”
“I see.”
She looked disheartened.
“Don’t think you haven’t made the sale because you have.”
“It’s not like you need to talk to your banker or anything.”
“I am my banker.”
He smiled mischievously.
“Of course.”
“But I do have people handle my finances. In smaller matters. From time to time.”
“I realize now is probably not a good time, but…”
Leaning on a counter, he leaned in toward her.
“…Will you have time to look over the property in the future with a representative of mine. I just want a report from one of my people on all the acres I’m acquiring with the house.”
I found this something of an unusual request, but then I’d never been house-hunting with the super rich.
Apparently she found it unusual too, for she hesitated. I didn’t know whether her pauses, hesitations, and other deliberations in the conversation were studied or if they were genuine. At times they felt overdone. But I was stoned so maybe it was me.
“Of course,” she said at last. “I had something else on my mind. I’m sorry.”
“Do tell.”
“Oh, Mr. Stafford—”
“Mark.” He cut her off.
“—Mark, I…I was wondering if this was in fact the right property for you or if you wanted to see some of the others I have available on the Eleuthera market.”
“I don’t want to see any others. What makes you doubt this one’s for me?”
“I don’t doubt it is. Some of the things you’ve said prior and this last about inspecting the property make me think you might find something lacking in the prospect of acquiring it.”
“Not at all. Perhaps you might think me of a peculiar mind. People do. Right, Sophia?”
“Naturally,” I said unenthusiastically.
“Naturally,” he repeated.
“Not at all.”
“I don’t often explain my actions to others. I don’t often find the need to. Jowett said,
‘Explain nothing.’ And it’s pretty much a philosophy I’ve adhered to for the better part of my life.”
While impressed that he knew who the philosopher Jowett was I didn’t see the point in what he was saying more than to impress her. He was rambling, which was unusual for him. One thing that was reassuring to me was the fact that he didn’t often smile at her. He smiled once on arrival, and perhaps only once or twice more. I wasn’t used to this colder side of his personality. It was a side of him I imagined to be only partially real as I had only seen it magnified in binoculars or in his notes to self.
“I haven’t read much philosophy, but I’ll have to look him up.” She smiled. “Though really you don’t even have to explain the fact that you don’t explain things. I’ll do your bidding and not look too deeply into it.”
The emphasis on too was superficially suggestive of mischief and probably nothing more, but I could see by the resultant cool expressed on his face that he didn’t much take to it.
The storm hit outside and pounded the dunes with large drops like .50 cal rounds. Thunder cracked and the white light of an electrical storm bounced through the house in rapid flashes.
Sophia Durant’s Diary
