What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG)

by CJ Roberts

  “Pearl, I don’t want to judge people, least of all my sister. What she did was just her way of trying to make ends meet. It was hard for her at age seventeen when she had to support me. She had to endure stuff she wasn’t happy about. And years later she fell back on a profession that she knew could make money fast.”

  “She worked as a prostitute?” I guess, looking him in the eye.

  He’s tapping his fingers together in agitation. “I don’t like that term. I prefer ‘sex worker.’ It’s still work, whatever anyone says. And it’s not the sex workers who are at fault but their bloody customers. All the perverts of this world who take advantage of someone in a weak, vulnerable position.”

  “I see.”

  “That sounds judgmental, Pearl.”

  “What? I haven’t said anything! All I said was, ‘I see.’ ”

  “Just your tone of voice. Have you any idea how tough it was for Sophie?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I say carefully. “I can try to imagine but I cannot put myself in her shoes.” I nearly say, I have never fallen so low, but instead come up with, “Life has never gotten that bad for me.”

  “Money is important to Sophie. She’s terrified of losing everything we’ve built up. Scared shitless of going back to being poor, or in a compromised situation.”

  “Look, I don’t know much about your finances, Alexandre, but it seems to me that you could both sell up and never work a day again for the rest of your lives – if you ever chose to.”

  “Tell me about it. Not a day goes by when I haven’t considered doing that.”

  “Well, why don’t you?”

  “I can’t just abandon her – we’re business partners.”

  “You’d hardly be feeding her to the lions, Alexandre. She’d be set for life. You both would. You said yourself, it’s all about deals now, and the creative process is over. You could start another company; create something new if you wanted. I mean, if you’re not happy−”

  “I am happy. Please, let’s drop this, Pearl. Let’s go swimming.”

  The water is heaven and it washes away that unpleasant conversation. The sea is smooth and refreshing but not cold. Rocks glimmer beneath us and we dip and dive about each other like children. Alexandre is a strong swimmer – thank God. I’m glad I’m not disappointed in that department. Snotty, I know, to care about something like swimming, but I do. A bad swimmer could be a deal breaker. How ridiculous is that?

  Afterwards, we sun ourselves on the rocks like salamanders. He has a dark tan and doesn’t seem to need sun-cream at all.

  “How come you already had swim trunks with you?” I ask.

  “I always keep an emergency overnight bag in my car. Dumb, really. It started in LA having to be ready in case of a fast getaway after an earthquake. I got caught out once and it shook me. Call me a geek, but I like to be prepared. Next time, I’ll pack for you, too.”

  I smile. ‘Next time’ – I like that. “So what else have you got in your bag of tricks?”

  “A shirt, shorts, jeans, cash and so on.”

  A man prepared for anything. I have a feeling this has less to do with any earthquake than a little boy of seven having to leave home at a moment’s notice, never to return.

  “We can have dinner here later, if you like,” he suggests. “Watch the sunset.”

  “I’d love that.” I start to giggle.

  “What?”

  “Already thinking about dinner, Monsieur Frenchie, and we haven’t even had lunch yet.”

  “Just to prove I’m really French, I carry a corkscrew in my car, too.”

  We are back in our luxurious suite drinking chilled champagne (my no-drinking resolve didn’t last a second) – I’m lying naked on the bed, admiring my tan.

  “You can always tell an American girl,” he observes, “by her tan mark.”

  I look up at him.

  “Tits like vanilla,” he explains.

  “You think I should have taken off my top, don’t you? Like the European women.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he says, running his eyes along my body and biting his lower lip. “It’s sexy. Provocative. Those arrogant little breasts are asking to be sucked and played with, just asking for it.”

  I take a cube of ice from the ice-bucket and circle it around my nipples until they go hard. “Like this?” I tease. The melting water is trickling down my breasts and onto my stomach. “And what about my pale-skinned bottom and−”

  “You’re little, cream-colored pussy,” he interrupts, coming over to the bed. But he doesn’t touch me, just continues to drink in the view of my sun-kissed body. “All of it is asking for it,” he notes, narrowing his eyes. “Asking to get fucked.”

  I take another cube and slip it in between my legs, up inside myself. I gasp at the chill but then it feels welcoming. I trace my finger up along my wet slit and watch his expression. He can’t keep his eyes off me. I run my tongue around my lips, staring at him as I do so. He takes off his swim shorts and I watch his huge phallus spring free. It, too, is paler than the rest of him. Also, asking for it. Begging to be ridden. To get sucked. I want to get on top of it, feel it deep inside me. I want it to make me come again.

  He takes a gulp of champagne, holds it in his mouth, and straddles me so his hard penis is resting in between my breasts. I am pinned to the bed. He leans forward, pressing his thumb on my lower lip, opening my mouth and then kisses it, letting the champagne run down past my tongue. He slowly licks my mouth.

  “It’s so good to see you naked in the full light, Pearl. A few freckles have come up on your face, you look beautiful.”

  I look into his green eyes flecked with gold highlights, rimmed with black lashes. “You…you look like….sex,” I whisper in his ear, the words falling out incomprehensively, and then I nibble his lobe which tastes of salt. I breathe in the smell of Mediterranean sun-on-skin mixed with Alexandre; a perfume designed just for me. I claw my hands about his butt and draw him higher, closer, and take his smooth erection in my mouth. It, too, tastes of the Mediterranean. I close my eyes and suck on it. It smells of sun and sea. I let my tongue flicker, rim and slap its round tip, sucking off the pre-come, tasting the love I have for this man, the surge of sexual desire and the hunger I feel, like an ache, to have all of him inside me, his soul, his body – all of him.

  “Kiss me again,” I demand. He pulls his hips back and grazes his lips along my throat, then lifts my wrists in the air and licks me under the arms. The sensation is so erotic and I sense my clitoris swell with excitement. I expect him to go to my breasts next, but he doesn’t. His tongue journeys south all the way down, stopping to lick my thighs yet avoiding my Venus. Oh, no, not that again…the slow, tantalizing torture. It’s throbbing now, my hips flexing and bending, wanting attention in that core centre, but he leaves it be. Instead, he lifts my legs high, one at a time, and licks me behind each knee. He carries on down my legs and takes my salty toes in his mouth, sucking each one, slowly. I am so relaxed, floppy as a soft doll.

  I pop my finger inside myself and feel the heat, slick with desire. I tell him about last night’s dream with the black horse.

  “You want to ride me again, baby, is that what you want,” he says, his face between my thighs. He is kneeling on the floor now, staring up at me from between my legs. His tongue flicks just once on my clit but not again. Teasing me. I can feel its pulse.

  “Please fuck me,” I beg. “I need it deep inside.” I’m wriggling on the mattress.

  He gets back on the bed and slips underneath me, lifting me up with his muscular arms, placing his head in between my feet, and he hauls me close to him so my legs are either side of his torso. He pulls my back up so I am sitting on top of him.

  “Swivel round,” he instructs, and he maneuvers me so I am straddling him, my knees either side of his hips. I’m sitting on his crotch but facing away from him. His view is my ass and I am looking at his feet.

  “Now ease yourself on top of my cock.”

&nbs
p; I kneel up to position myself and take his erection in both hands. I aim it inside me, rimming it about me first. This feels great.

  “Won’t this hurt you, being at an angle?” I ask, slapping his hard rock against my clit and rimming it up and down and around the lips of my opening.

  “No, this feels….delicious,” he murmurs with a groan, pushing his hips forward so he is closer and slipping all the way inside me. “They call it the Reversed Cowgirl. You’re in control, Pearl. You call the shots… with your pistol…with your pussy pistol.”

  I smile. I start riding him slowly, easing myself up and down. This is novel; I have never tried this before. His hands are on my waist, guiding me. I am looking at his strong calf muscles, his elegant feet. He has a bird’s eye view of my curvy buttocks.

  “Your ass is out of this world, oh yeah, keep that rhythm, this feels great, chérie. Love that peaches and cream ass, love that tight, wet pearlette moving so sweetly.”

  I lean forward now and slip my hand under his balls. I can hear his breath in gasps. I keep riding. Up and down. Up and down. Then I lift myself off his cock completely and squeeze his erection in a tight grip. “I need to get smacked about,” I say, and I begin to slap his cock against my clit again, guiding it around my hot entrance and back on my clit. Oh yeah…this feels amazing. I observe my nipples darkening like crimson rosebuds. Then I ease myself on top of him again and press down so his erection slides deep, deep, deep inside.

  “Rodeo me, baby. That’s right, you Wild West American Cowgirl.”

  I want to laugh, but the sensation feels so intense, all I can do is concentrate. I’m pulling almost all the way out now, teasing my entrance and then making circular movements with my hips.

  “You lak this?” I say in a faux Texan accent. I graze my thumbs across my nipples and they harden like bullets. I cannot see him but I can hear his murmurs. Oh yes, he does like this. Then I rest my hands back on his legs, impale myself upon him so he is deep inside me again, and I start to rock back and forth. He’s stroking my butt cheeks with his hands, and just knowing how turned on he’s getting, is making me hotter. I can feel that G-spot getting rubbed…oh yeah, this is nice. I arch my back. Alexandre lifts his hips a touch and….ah, he’s hit that spot. I rock forward once more and start…

  “I’m coming, Alexandre. You’re making me come.” I clench my muscles tighter and feel another wave roll over me. He’s pumping now, his hips rising from beneath in hard thrusts.

  “Me too, I’m coming.”

  Feeling him thicken inside me brings on another surge of pleasure and I slam down on him. As I do so I press my clit with my middle finger and feel an intense roll of orgasm rush again to the surface. “It’s happening again,” I scream out, hardly believing this is real. Ripples and spasms rush through my body like patterns.

  “I think I’ve accomplished my mission,” he says in a low voice.

  A wave of panic engulfs me. Does that mean it’s over? He’s made me come with penetrative sex again, so that’s it? But I don’t say a word. The aftershocks are making my body tremble. I’m like putty.

  Alexandre is in my bloodstream like a drug.

  While my nerves are still tingling, he pushes me off him so I’m kneeling on all fours. He grabs my hips from behind and shoves his huge erection into me from the back. I gasp. More? I hold onto the bead-stead as he fucks me so hard my head bumps up against the padded part. He’s literally growling like an animal, ramming me from behind, punctuating his words with thrusts.

  “Love. Fucking. You. All I can do is…. fuck you, Pearl. All I can think… about is… making you….come.”

  Then he pulls out slowly and starts sucking me so gently, so softly, his tongue darting between my thighs in tiny, almost imperceptible sweeps. The rough and now the smooth, the combination and surprise of it has me on the edge again. I find myself willing him silently to fuck me hard once more. And he does.

  “This ass is….driving me…. crazy. This round, silky-smooth ass is….” he doesn’t finish his sentence, just rams himself into me and starts pumping hard again. I feel another wave building up. He cries out in French and then more words that I don’t understand. His hands are cupping my butt tightly, claiming it. Possessing it. “This ass belongs to me,” he roars. He’s thick and rock hard inside me. And then… he stills. Stationary. All I can feel is his throbbing, the rush of his release. It’s filling me up. He’s still, motionless, and the sweet soreness I feel inside me and the big pulse of his cock has me about to come. I can feel it. My head is down on the bed, my butt high in the air, his still erection pounding like a slow drum beat inside me. I touch my clitoris softly with my fingers, and feel the double-hot sensation build up, and I climax once more.

  I’m quivering all over. “Oh, Alexandre,” I whimper. “What are you doing to me?” I’m moaning and he starts moving gently back and forth again.

  “I’m coming again, baby,” he whispers, and I can feel a new surge of his release pulse through me. “Je t’aime.”

  He just said he loves me! But I don’t reply. It’s the moment of passion, I know – I can’t be really sure if it’s me he loves, or my body parts. Either way, my psyche is jumping up and down for joy. I remain still, lapping up my post-orgasm spasms.

  Cool, calm and collected.

  That’s me.

  16

  We are having lunch overlooking the sea, and I am quietly meditating on what just happened. If I had read about my experience in a woman’s magazine, I would have thought it was an invented fantasy to sell more copies, but it happened – it really did – multiple orgasms have rocked my world.

  I, Pearl Robinson, had multiple orgasms. The notion seems extraordinary. Surreal. As if the new Pearl has been prized from her oyster shell and re-packaged as a shimmering piece of priceless jewelry. Pearl – the exquisite. Pearl – the treasure. That is how I now feel.

  I think of all the wasted years in my thirties. My sexuality stagnant – sitting on a shelf like an unread classic book. Something of quality but ignored, or worse, in the hands of somebody who did not know how to read, or at least, did not know how to read me. My ex-husband – oblivious to the wealth inside my body.

  It took a twenty-five year-old Frenchman to unleash my riches.

  Now I feel cocooned in love. I sit here inhaling the salty sea breeze and watch a couple on their honeymoon swimming and splashing below us, next to the rocks. Once, that would have filled me with benign envy.

  Not now.

  Alexandre’s lip is curved into a quiet, satisfied smile. Mind-blowing sex followed by grilled wild sea bass for lunch. At least, I think that’s what he’s pleased about, although it could be because he has arranged to pick up Rex from Paris on our way back to New York. He has, indeed, organized a private jet – Rex will be travelling in style. We’re leaving tomorrow morning for Paris by helicopter, apparently. So much for Alexandre’s ‘ecological’ carbon footprint – I have a feeling he gads about the globe this way a lot. Why did he make out he was so politically correct, never using private transport? What else isn’t he telling me?

  Alexandre is talking on his cell. I love listening to him chat away in French.

  He slaps his phone on the table and says, “Today everything has come together,” and we laugh at his double-entendre. Come together. So true.

  “What else are you feeling cocky about?” I ask, smiling.

  “A deal.”

  “I thought you were tired of making deals, that that side of things didn’t thrill you anymore.”

  He laughs. He has a mocking look in his eye which disarms me, and I discern a slight sneer on his face. “Are you kidding? I’m making silly money. That turns me on, Pearl, as much as what happened today between you and me. A challenge complete.”

  My stomach drops like lead – a thousand stabs pierce my gut. Is this the same human being I thought I knew? The man with the black Labrador? The man who would have stuck by a crippled woman for love?

  I feel like a gutt
ed fish. Empty. Dead. But he’s smiling away, unaware of the turmoil inside me. I am no more important than a money deal. A challenge.

  “I’ve had too much sun for one day,” I manage to say before my voice cracks. “I’m going back to the room.”

  “Okay, just got to make another call or two. I’ll join you in a bit.”

  When I get back to our suite, I turn on my iPhone which has been re-charging. Five messages. The latest, from Anthony, who received my ‘Madonna is here’ message – although I can’t be sure – still haven’t seen her with my own eyes. I called him this morning, S.O.S as a joke. He’s hysterical, wanting to know if I’ve done what he asked, namely, to chat her up and become her New Best Friend. Another two messages from him. Next, Natalie asking me to bring her a towel from the hotel, ‘So chic,’ she raves. ‘So iconic. Must have.’ My dad has also left a message, harping on about Natalie, wondering what happened. Men are so clueless. I really don’t want to play piggy in the middle to their drama. Then, a voice I don’t recognize, at first. Then it dawns on me who it is. The dagger voice – Sophie. She and her brother have something in common. They can slice your heart open with just one word.

  “Pee-earl,” she begins. “I don’t know what the fuck you sink you are doing wiz my leetle brozzer almost twice is age, old enough to be is muzzer – but I sink I should warn you, you are barking up ze wrong tree. Ee does not give a fuck about you, you know? Eet woz a bet we made in ze coffee shop. Ee said zat he bet he could make you crazey about im, fuck you on zee first date. Zen ee told me ee ad a challenge wiz you. I know all about your sexual problems, Peearl. Your frigidity. Eet woz a game ee play wiz you. Game is over, stalker woman.” There is a crackling on the line and then the Simon and Garfunkel song, Mrs. Robinson begins playing in the background.

  Wow, what a bitch.

  I stare blankly at the wall of this zillion star hotel. Dazed, out of focus. Alexandre has discussed my private secrets with his sister. It makes me feel nauseous. As if there has been some incestuous tryst between them. How dare she know about my sexuality? How dare he tell her? A bubbling heat is consuming me, too furious, now, for tears. I rummage about the room and find what I am looking for: my bag with passport and the clothes wrapped inside a plastic bag. The suitcase would have been too big to bring by bike courier. Never mind, they brought all the essentials. I grab it all, put on the same 1950’s dress I arrived in, and some flip-flops. I run out of the room. I dare not even ask for a taxi at the front desk. They could alert Alexandre. I race from the grounds, leaving the scent of pines, the chirping crickets and the Mediterranean paradise, behind me.