by Avery Aster
Leon shouted behind me to wait. I couldn’t but eventually he got the larger dolphin to take him.
Unsure of how far we’d gone, I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. Something told me to hold on. Hope? Must be. My spirit felt filled with hope. My heart told me my friends were okay. I’d see them again. I pictured their happy faces, and I focused on getting to Eden.
The dolphins swam as a pair, side by side.
With the moonlight casting a haunting light around us, Leon appeared magically perfect to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
When my feet scraped the sand, I let go of the dolphin and stood.
“Do you believe in miracles?” Leon asked, coming up behind me.
“No…can’t say I did.”
He held me close. We watched the dolphins turn back out to sea.
“And now?”
I nodded, buried my face in his chest, and wrapped my arms, as best as I could, around his broad back.
Together, we waded our way to the shore and collapsed under what appeared in the dark to be a palm tree.
“This can’t be Eden,” I said in disbelief. “Where is everyone?”
From what I could make out in the moonlight, this place wasn’t inhabited. There were no lights, no noises, only us and paradise.
“Close your eyes, Mademoiselle. We will find them at sunrise.”
“What if we’re the only…survivors?”
“Do you remember what we talked about?”
“Sorry.” Naked, I curled up against him. His magnificent chest rose-up high as he inhaled. I kissed his flesh. First his chest, then I found my way up to his face. We locked lips. He turned my body around and spooned me protectively into a tight hold. On land and in his arms, Leon felt different than in the water. Leon seemed confident of his abilities yet still I got a sense of apprehension from him.
Moments past, and I thought he’d fallen asleep. I lifted one of his heavy arms. I never slept locked body-to-body before. Foreign to me, I could get used to it.
He cupped my breasts, pulled me close, and spoke more lyrical French words in my ear. Leon comforted me. We made love in the dark. Unlike before, he came when I did, filling me with him.
* * *
“Will you hide this for me?” My BFF asked, handing me a large bag of candy. It made a noise like loose change in a pocket.
Dreaming, I had to be; we were in my childhood bedroom.
“Sure, Lex.” I said, sliding the jellybeans, licorice, and Lord only knows what else, under my bed. We must’ve been around ten because I was wearing a training bra. I hated the way it felt, like a Band-Aid.
Lex had started to fill out that year, not just in her chest but also on her hips and thighs.
Birdie hated that. She’d taken desperate measures such as locking the refrigerator.
“Why don’t you just stop eating sweets?” I asked in my-ten-year old voice, not knowing any better.
“Dunno. I can’t seem to stop myself.” The hurt became evident in Lex’s watery eyes.
Not seeing it till now, Lex filled herself with sugar in place of the love she so desperately wanted from her parents, mostly her father. He hadn’t been home much in recent years. His success as a rocker was global.
“Whatcha doin?” Lex asked as I returned to putting the Candy Land board game in the trash.
“Mom told me to get rid of everything in my room that’s for kids. She wants this place to look like the daughter of a countess and not a toy store.”
“Why?” From her front pocket, Lex withdrew a small box of gummy bears, her secret stash. She chomped with a smile.
“We’re having a party this weekend. Mom’ll give one of her usual tours of the place. It’s like a museum around here.”
“Your parent’s parties are weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Both of our Moms get trashed and act silly.”
“My dad says that’s what ladies do.”
“Well, you can count me out. I’m not coming.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing…”
“Liar!”
“I don’t wanna be around your parents when they have their parties.” Lex turned her back to me and faced the window. A view of Central Park West stared back at us.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” She wiped her eyes.
“Okay then.” This meant tough love time. “You’re not getting your candy back.”
“That’s not fair.” Whipping around, her face revealed that she was more upset than I realized.
“We don’t keep secrets from one another.”
Balling her hands into fists, Lex pouted.
“Spill it…”
“Fine.” Lex’s porcelain face flushed. “Last month, when your parents had that dinner for the people from Washington, DC, I drank too much soda and had to pee. All the bathrooms were full. People were shoving stuff up their nose.”
“So, Eddie does drugs.” Her father was a major coke-head. We’d figured that out last year.
She pulled her hair up into a ponytail, tying it with a band she had around her wrist. Whatever she was going to say made her uncomfortable. The redness on Lex’s pretty face traveled down her neck showing large blotches.
“I went to your parent’s bedroom to use their bathroom. I walked in and Countess Irma was naked with my mother.”
Fast, hard, I slapped Lex across the cheek. “Don’t say that.”
Stunned, Lex held her face. “I knew you’d be mad. That’s why I told you not to make me tell.”
We stood in silence for a minute and collected ourselves. Lex dried her face on my pillow. I didn’t cry.
“I’m sorry I smacked you.”
“I’m sorry I saw them.” Her face became serious. “You believe me don’t you?”
“Maybe,” I said, knowing Lex could be dramatic but she’d never lie about this. Usually Lex didn’t admit her parent’s shenanigans. “What exactly did you see?”
“My mother and yours in bed together, with your father somewhere underneath them.”
“Where was Eddie?”
“On a chair in the corner of the room…watching.”
“Gross!” We both made sick faces at each other and sat on the edge of my bed. I had a pink canopy back then.
“Do you think we’ll grow up to be like them?” Lex asked.
“You mean naked and in bed together?”
Lex dipped her chin into a nod.
“Never! Why can’t our parents just be normal like everyone else?”
“I don’t think they know how.” She reached into the box for another gummy.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I said, looking up at Mom entering my room.
The smell of gin came with her. Ugh. Hating that smell, I’d forgotten how bad it was. After lunch is when it seeped out of her pores.
“Tabitha Adelaide, our jeweler Harry is downstairs. He’s brought some wonderful sparkly baubles that I want you to look at.”
“Why?” Since when did I sparkle?
Irma bounced her hand on her hip surveying the room. “For the party, this weekend.”
“Baubles?” I asked.
“Earrings and a necklace. Something small and dainty.”
Glaring at me, Lex wasn’t having it. “Countess Irma, why are you making Tabitha toss her Candy Land game?”
Mom stepped closer into the bedroom. In a swift motion, she extended her hand, open palmed. “For the same reason Birdie doesn’t want you eating that anymore, Alexandra. You’ll get fat and dumb.”
“No.” Lex tried to hold onto the box but Mom was too fast.
“If Tabitha Adelaide continues to play silly board games, she’ll become stupid.”
“Mom!” My jaw hung open in shock. Hearing her words, I realized this was the gin talking.
“I will not have a dumb child for a daughter.” Irma marched over to the
trash bag, and threw Lex’s candy inside. The sound of the sugar pellets smacked the Candy Land box. “Now come downstairs and pick out your jewelry, Tabitha Adelaide.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Alexandra, your mom is coming this weekend too. She says your father will be home from his tour. Let’s surprise them and get you a bracelet.” Without waiting for a reply, Mom strutted out into the hall.
Lex and I stood in the doorway watching her march down the spiral stairs to the main floor. Her black, wavy hair bounced. So did her breasts.
“How is your mother’s jewelry any different than my candy or your board game?” Lex asked. “Countess Irma is a nut.”
“So is Birdie,” I snapped back.
“Irma is insane, like mental institution mad.”
“Leon!” A voice from another room, another place, shouted.
Not wanting this conversation to end, I asked, “What do you mean mental institution?”
Our childhood talk was over. I heard voices calling me again…
In the sand, I sat up, feeling the warm cushiness of a cotton beach towel beneath me.
Leon grabbed the one thrown at him.
“Taddy. Leon. We’ve been looking everywhere,” Vive cried out. She was in her bathing suit.
Fabian stood next to her for only a second then tackled Leon in a hug. They wrestled on the sand like two boys.
“And here I thought you’d died.” Vive knelt beside me.
“We think alike.” I hugged her, tight. She smelled of soap. I wanted to smell like soap. We cried for a while. I told her about the hunk of metal, the swim, the dolphins, pretty much everything except but the sex. That could wait till later.
“Our flight landed not too far from here, on water. Everyone is safe and sound.”
“How’s Blake?”
“His hair is burned on one side. He’ll probably have a scar, but he’ll live.” Vive dried her eyes and said, “Lex is, of course, beside herself with worry.”
Cinching the towel around me, I got to my feet. Then I saw them, kissing.
Leon and Fabian.
WTF.
“Huh…” Confusion overcame me. I stared at Leon.
Tongues touching, his hands massaged Fabian’s ass.
I’m not talking about the French way men kiss one another on each cheek. Nope. They were Frenching. Like almost face-fucking one another.
“Knock it off you two!” Vive eyed them. “It’s bad enough there’s a hot man shortage in this world, I don’t need you two rubbing my face in it.”
“Eh? When? What? How did I not know?” My voice rose in surprise.
“Fabian told us last night. We all had a little coming-to-Jesus moment when we got to our rooms. Naturally that was after the Eden police came and we filled out reports. The airline officials soon followed—”
“What did Fabian tell you?” I didn’t want the details of their check-in. Vive would be telling this airplane crash story for many years to come. I needed to know more about Fabian. “What’s his relationship to Leon?”
“That their lovers, of course.”
Shock flying through me, I screamed. “No!” I couldn’t help it.
“Why are you getting upset?” Vive asked, as Leon came over.
“Taddy, we need to talk. I—”
“Ha! I have nothing to say to you, Leon Lartique.” I poked my finger at his broad chest, the one I had licked earlier. “Thank you for the last twenty-four hours. I can handle it from here.” I turned so fast I thought I’d trip.
“What the fug is up with you, girlie?” Vive stood between us, ruining my opportunity for a dramatic exit.
“I need a shower. Can you please take me to your room?”
Vive nodded and said in their direction, “Leon, I’ll catch you sexy boys, later. Oh and thank you for bringing Taddy back alive and in one piece.”
Concern creased Leon’s forehead. I could care less how he felt. Regret soured in my empty stomach. Never mind that I’d given up my Lady V. I had unprotected sex in the Atlantic Ocean and under a tree with a dude who had a boyfriend.
I wasn’t just fucked, I was screwed.
Part Three
So Screwed!
“Whether you’re lusting or in love, crave boys or girls, desire monogamy or openness, sex for the first time can be a beautiful, scary, and an unforgettable experience. Why? Because it only happens once! For my VBF her Atlantic Ocean sexscape wasn’t the beginning to an end. No, boo. Leon Lartigue had opened Taddy’s mind with fresh thoughts and desires. And if you know anything about Taddy, she’s a diva in the making!” — Blake Morgan III, husband hunter, future father, and undecided college major.
Chapter Six
T.M.I. Moments
Eden Island
Unfrickin’ believable!
Giving the boys my best catwalk possible, I strutted my twice-fucked, unfed, sunburned bum toward the resort.
Too much for me to handle, I pressed my palm against my forehead.
Nope. My head hadn’t exploded. Not yet. One might say in my eighteen years I’d seen and experienced too flippin’ much. Well duh!
I recapped the TMI moments of my life. In chronological order they are…
#1. Living on the Upper West Side in an apartment building where everyone knew my name, and who my parents had swung with. Looking back on it now, the Brillford’s must’ve been the laughingstock of the entire block. No wonder I was sent away.
#2. Having a mother that reeked booze, and I mean twenty-four-seven. At Avon Porter kids would come back from the holidays with a bottle of their mother’s perfume. They told me, smelling the fragrance in their room, especially on their pillows, helped them to not get homesick. I sure as fudge wasn’t going to sniff a flask of bourbon. Yuk.
#3. Not knowing the identity of my birth-father isn’t that big of deal. But having a man who I loved correction—still love as a father—that wants nothing to do with me, is a living nightmare. I’ve called, written letters, and tried to visit. I’m always sent away. Blood relations and matching DNA shouldn’t define who one’s father is or is not, right? Joseph Graf Brillford will always be a dad to me.
#4. Dropped off at thirteen for boarding school and never picked back up. It’s criminal. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder how my parents can sleep at night, throwing me away as if I were a dog. Hell, people in Manhattan treat their pets better.
#5. Sick with mono, those two months were worse than the plane crash. The abdominal pain was torture. All I ever wanted was to have my mom put a cold compress on my back, and sit with me, even if only for an hour.
#6. Juvi! Yup, six months wearing an orange jumper in a room with Lex and Vive would make anyone go cray-cray. (They’d kept Blake in another building.) I don’t regret standing up for Vive, I’d do again. The night her boyfriend, Sanderloo, started gay bashing Blake, and she hit him with a shovel to try and get him to stop, was the worst night of our lives. He’d died right there.
My regret was burying him. We didn’t call the police.
I should have never of told my besties to act as though nothing had happened. I’m the one who suggested we all go on with our studies the next day. Utter selfishness got the worst of me. How? The courts would never approve of my separation hearing from my parents, if they knew I was being tried for murder. Vive’s parents would’ve made her have an abortion when they found out she was pregnant. Blake would’ve been sent to the military academy down the street and tortured some more. Lex’s mother would’ve simply beat the crap outta her.
#7. Alone on my graduation with no one but my friends, and their families, to acknowledge my good grades was beyond craperific. Right? In my cap and gown, there I was the class valedictorian who’d emancipated from my folks the year before. Would I be spending the rest of my adult life with no family to call my own?
#8. Learning that the college fund I’d received as a settlement in my emancipation and lawsuit against my parents, that I’d banked on t
o set up my life as an adult was empty. Zilch! Not a penny to my name. Sweet Offshore bank accounts Jesus!
The judge had awarded me two million dollars in damages caused by my folks trying to cover up the DNA test, leaving me at Avon Porter, and so on. Image-wise my parents had wanted us to look like a happy family. But who knew they’d take the trust given to me and transfer those funds into some bank account overseas.
#9. Thinking my besties had died. My flight to hell and the plane crash that followed weren’t as bad as allowing myself to believe that my friends were gone. Heck, I thought about them non-stop, except for maybe those seven minutes that I was with Leon, which leads me on to my finale of number ten.
#10. Giving in to temptation and having sex with a beautiful man. A man, I’d wanted since the first day I met him. A man, who might’ve only fucked me because he probably thought we’d die out there. I know I did. A man, that loves other men! None of this is bad, not really. In all fairness to Leon, I enjoyed every minute I was in his arms. More power to him if he’s queer. Seriously.
The worst part about watching him kiss Fabian wasn’t that it made me jealous. It didn’t. Or sick. I wasn’t. Oh no. They turned me the freak on. More than I imagined watching two men would. That shook me to a core I hadn’t thought about since I’d learned my parents were swingers. No thank you!
“Are you cold?” Vive asked.
“No.” I folded my arms over my breasts. The towel kept me warm.
“You’re shaking.” She hugged me close. “Maybe you got Diphtheria from being in the water for so long.”
She always made me laugh. I chuckled. I didn’t want to but I did. “No. My nerves are shot. I’m hungry too.”
Squeezing Vive’s hand, I didn’t want to let her go. Her skin felt dry compared to mine.
We walked from the beach toward the stone castle ahead. Gaelic and feudal in structure the resort was about half a mile from the beach. Stiff and sore from the kicking in the water, I wondered if my legs could manage even another step. “What is this place?”
“Magical paradise,” Vive replied all giddy and pointing to a bronze sign.
