The House that Jack Built

by Malcolm James

But a desire to learn isn’t enough. You also have to have a good teacher. Jack was my teacher, but he didn’t teach – he instructed. And he manipulated. For him, our night in Manhattan was just business as usual. But for me, it was a lesson that I should have learned twelve years before. And no-one likes repeating a course.

  After we left Novita we went to SoHo Kitchen. Rife with beautiful people and really good wine. We reveled in the menagerie of people, when two stunningly-gorgeous women approached and asked if they could sit down. Jack smiled and looked at me when they asked the question. As if the choice was mine.

  Silently, I thanked him for the show of respect. If I had been looking to pick up, it would have helped me with the two gorgeous women who wanted to sit with us. But I wasn’t looking to pick up. I had Elizabeth and nothing was going to mess with that. Not even Jack.

  However, I was resolute in my fidelity. And my stupidity. So I nodded and gestured for them to join us. Why not? It’d be fun to watch Jack set-up a threesome for himself.

  He ordered a ridiculously-expensive bottle of Pinot Grigio. Always good at showing off. Most days, I found his display of wealth to be offensive and enviable, but it was a good bottle of wine and they were beautiful. I have to be honest. Just sitting with them pumped-up my ego like the Good Year blimp.

  The girls lapped-up his display along with the wine, and before too long, one bottle turned into many. I had been stoked for a week about seeing Elizabeth, so it wasn’t a big surprise that when I arrived in New York, I was horny as Hell. And the Pinot wasn’t helping my judgment. We all laughed and drank, and I eyed the two of them through fog.

  At one point, they went to the bathroom and Jack asked me what my preference was.

  “So, which one do you want? You can have both of them, you know.”

  I chortled and sipped wine. “Yeah, whatever. Which one do you want?” He sat back in his chair and smiled idly. I peered at him through my wine-induced haze and raised my eyebrows at him.

  “You’re kidding, right?” He grinned and shook his head. Leaning forward, he slapped his hand on the table.

  “Mal, when have you known me to kid?” He was serious. I thought about the two beauties in the bathroom. And my beauty in Detroit.

  “You’re serious. You’re really serious.” I peered at him through querying eyes, waiting for him to laugh and make his ‘just kidding’ gesture. But he continued to smile as he stared me down. He was laughing at me. I hated that.

  “Mal, I told you before. You need to get your rocks off in a way you’ve never gotten them off before. And I’m just the man to help you do that. Believe me, if you want them, they’re yours. I can make it happen.” He snapped his fingers at me and sat back in his chair.

  I contemplated what he said. Even in my drunken haze, years of being stomped-on assaulted me like the Army of the Damned. I thought about all the times when I had an opportunity. An opportunity to do something – really do something. I let those opportunities pass me by because I was caught up in Elizabeth. Or some other ridiculous quest.

  The split-seconds add up, you know.

  As I pondered this I looked at Jack, who stared back with sardonic eyes that dissected me. As if they said, ‘I know you want it.’ At the same time, they challenged me. ‘You don’t have the balls.’

  People like me are actually ignoring those split-seconds and doing something about it.

  That’s when, in judgment clouded with Pinot Grigio, I knew it. If you don’t count what transpired between me, Elizabeth and Jack, I’d never had a threesome, but I’d always dreamed about it. I was ready. I was more than ready. I had waited for this my entire life.

  “Okay,” I was cavalier. “If you can make it happen, then I’m in.”

  He took a sip of his wine with a mouth that was wryly cocked to one side. Satisfaction shone from his eyes. I couldn’t quite understand why my sexual gratification was so important to him, but at that point I couldn’t have cared less. Guilt was already avoiding the rush and setting in.

  “Consider it done. I’ll make it happen. Where are you staying?”

  “The Gramercy Park.” He sighed, shook his head from side-to-side and reached into his pocket.

  “No, no, no. That won’t do. Jesus. Same ol’ Malcolm. Always trying to save a buck wherever you can. Give me your key. C’mon, hand it over. Jesus! Hand it over!” He judged me by my choice in hotels and while it irritated me, he was right. The Gramercy Park Hotel was an old building with its own character. But the rooms were small and the hotel, which was built in the late 1800’s, showed its age.

  I chose it for the convenient location, reasonable rates, and its proximity to Novita. But Jack wasn’t impressed. As I handed him my brass key, I felt like a kid being admonished for getting a speeding ticket. I knew he wasn’t going to use it. He just wanted to make a point when he grabbed it distastefully and gave me a key card.

  “If I can’t find a better place to land, I guess I can slum it for one night.” He smiled, put the key in his pocket and winked at me. He gestured toward the card.

  “Four Seasons, Suite 5100. It’s the Presidential Suite. You’ll like it. I always stay there. Phenomenal view, and it’s a private floor. The card works for the private elevator and the room. If you’re going to do this, you do it by my rules and you do it right.” I nodded sullenly and put the key card in my pocket as the girls returned and sat down.

  They were both stunning. Neither was older than twenty-two or twenty-three. One was blonde, the other brunette. I had my eye on the brunette all night because I happen to have a thing for brunettes. Like Elizabeth.

  She wore a black t-shirt that revealed a flat belly and snugly-fitting jeans that clung tightly to slender hips. I watched her and imagined what it would be like to run my tongue down and up the insides of her thighs.

  The blonde, on the other hand, was voluptuous. She wore a tight-fitting white silk blouse that accentuated massive breasts and a short black skirt that traced her well-rounded hips. Her streaked curly blonde hair flowed to the middle of her back.

  As I flirted with them, my mind raced. I considered, even hoped, that Jack was just messing with me. Maybe this was just a cruel joke. When I least expected it, he’d take off with them – the same way he left with the two girls he beat so many years before.

  That would have been my first choice.

  Don’t do this again. You made a mistake once and paid for it. Dearly. And you hurt the one person in this world who truly loves you. Don’t do it again.

  When the brunette looked at me with a playful gleam in her eyes, I realized that I’d been staring off into nowhere. She smiled and took the cherry from her Manhattan, placing it between full, red lips. They pursed and puckered around the circumference, threatening to make it disappear completely. Never losing eye contact with me, she gently tugged at the stem as it popped off and the cherry disappeared into her mouth. Briefly, I wanted to be that cherry.

  Ohmigod. I have to get out of here.

  “So…” Not knowing what to do at this point – Jack was deep in conversation with the blonde – I started to speak. But I wondered what the Hell I was going to say. She had just put the stem in her mouth and was rolling it around her tongue while she pursed her lips. It was as if her tongue, which tied the cherry stem in a knot, was tying mine at the same time.

  I considered getting up and leaving. But Jack noticed my floundering and misinterpreted it as his cue to ‘make it happen.’ He’d been up close and personal with the blonde. While I tried to converse with the brunette, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she sidled up to him and peered at him in unmasked desire. One elbow on the table and her chin resting in the palm of her hand. But he stood up, hands planted in his pockets and smiling down at the three of us.

  “Listen, I have to go for awhile. I have some important business that can’t wait. Mal, I was just telling Heidi here about your Suite at the Four Seasons. She suggested that the three of you head over there for a drink. I’ll meet up with you
guys later.”

  I looked at him with a stunned face, like he had just pantsed me. This was the moment of truth. Mine and theirs.

  It was their chance to say ‘not a chance’ and piss off. After all, they were friends and it was no longer a party of four. Besides, Jack was the obvious draw here. I was just along for the potential ride.

  But it was also my chance to leave with him and never look back. I’d feel guilty for thinking about having a threesome. But I would have escaped with my honor intact. And fully faithful to Elizabeth.

  My brain sweated as I looked at him. I didn’t even want to look at the girls for fear that they would see manifest terror in my face and recognize me for the fraud that I was.

  While my mind raced, Jack shook his head and rolled his eyes toward the heavens, as if asking himself, ‘what am I going to do with this guy?’ He gestured at me by cocking his head. Look at the girls, you dummy. I turned my head. Their arms were around each other and smiles painted their faces.

  “Sounds great!” said Helen (the brunette) and she looked seductively at me. Heidi just nodded.

  “Perfect! I’ll catch you guys later!” Jack left before I had a chance to say anything, and suddenly I was alone with the four of them.

  “So,” this time I actually had something to say, “you want another drink?”

  Helen looked at me and winked.

  “No. We want to go to the Four Seasons.”

  Chapter 45

  We arrived at the Four Seasons a half hour later. I used the key card in the elevator as Jack had instructed. They laughed and giggled while we rode to the 51st floor. After we exited the elevator, I briefly fumbled with the key to room 5100 before the door sprung open.

  It was like seeing Versailles for the first time. It was incredible. An expansive living room with floor-to-ceiling bay windows, a plasma TV, a marble fireplace and a balcony overlooking Manhattan. There was chilled Champagne and a fully-stocked bar. I closed the door behind us and wished that I would find myself on the other side. In the lobby.

  As they sat down, I tried to look cool. They were ogling the view, and while they wasted no time getting comfortable, I was freaking out. How do I get out of this?

  Casually, I walked to the bar and offered them a drink. While I poured, I drank from the Manhattan skyline. A beautiful sight at any time of day, but at night…I closed my eyes and prayed that when I opened them, Elizabeth would be sitting there.

  She wasn’t, so I returned to the leather sectional with drinks. They tried to convince me to sit between them, but I sat on the section adjoining theirs.

  They weren’t put out by this. Heidi (the blonde) opened her purse and pulled out what appeared to be a wallet. She placed it on the table and unzipped it, producing a small mirror and thin glass tube. I watched with curiosity as she opened a small bag of white powder and carefully poured it on the mirror. While I’d never been close to it, I knew what Cocaine looked like.

  “Do you do coke, Malcolm?” Helen whispered sensually, putting luscious emphasis on my name. I shuddered and nodded dumbly.

  “Sure.” Idiot! I never even smoked a joint.

  Helen got up and sat down next to me. Sidling up and nuzzling her beautiful face into my horny neck. Her hand stroked my knee with delicate slender fingers and I trembled involuntarily.

  Threesomes. Dammit, there’s a first time for everything. Heidi finished separating the lines with a razor blade, and she sat herself down on the other side of me. She offered me the mirror, but I smiled and shook my head.

  “You first,” I spoke suavely and the sound of my words gave me pause. If I’d been able to get out of my body and watch myself, I’d have sworn that I looked at Jack.

  I watched while she placed the tube in her nose and the other end to the glass. She snorted the line quickly and with a loud sucking noise. I don’t know how that makes you feel, but it seemed unladylike to me. She winked and handed me the mirror. But I smiled weakly and passed it to Helen, who totally lost her innocent little-girl-look as she sucked narcotics into her nostril.

  After she finished, Helen daubed specks of the white powder off her nostril and stuck her finger in her mouth, sucking it like she pretended it was my cock. She smiled as she sucked, and pushed the mirror toward me. Staring at me with glassy eyes.

  I eyed the mirror suspiciously. There were two remaining lines. She rubbed my shoulder and chest. Heidi was on the other side of me digging her sharp fingernails across my thigh. Peer pressure. I hate that.

  Picking up the mirror and tube, I looked at the two remaining lines of fine white powder. Fine white powder. That’s all it is, I thought. Distilled from a lousy flower. Around for centuries, used by all the well-to-do, the nobility, the poets and the painters. Illegal, yes. But immoral? Why should this bother me? I can do it once and not have it become a ritual, right? I’ve been told it makes you feel amazing, larger than life, incredibly confident. Incredibly addictive.

  That’s exactly what I don’t need right now.

  Shaking my head like I was trying to shake it off its mooring, I passed the mirror and tube back to Helen.

  “I’m fine. I’ve had too much.” My words were beginning to slur, but even in an alcoholic daze, I knew that I shouldn’t have been there with them. This is wrong.

  “Suit yourself.” Helen shrugged and completed one of the lines. The other she gave to Heidi, whose hand was now predatorily close to my groin. I started to get up.

  “Uh, uh, uh, sailor boy,” Heidi said in a girlish voice. With the first two “uh’s” she lightly stabbed her fingernail into my thigh. It didn’t hurt, but it felt very, very bad. On the third “uh” she tapped her long, red-painted fingernail squarely on the tip of my dick.

  She giggled, briefly brushed her fingertips over my raging erection and then squeezed my balls for good measure. I guess I wasn’t looking when Helen managed to undo a few buttons on my shirt. She ran her fingers across my skin while she played with my chest hair. Her tongue darted in and around my left earlobe while I let the alcohol do what it did best. I let it lie to me.

  This is one night. A special occasion. Elizabeth will never know.

  Heidi took my fingers and inserted them into her mouth. She methodically rolled her tongue around each digit. I watched and felt as she sucked on my fingers. God, she was amazing. I felt like I was inside her mouth, watching her warm moist tongue suck my flesh like a dog licks its master. Only in slow motion.

  Helen, who had been nibbling my ear and tugging at my chest hair, put a hand on my cheek and pulled my head to face hers. She lifted up her shirt to reveal a flat belly, and traced tiny circles around a pierced bellybutton. I felt so large.

  “Hey, lover,” Helen said to me in a sultry voice. She looked at me like I was the schoolmaster and she the naughty student, “you ever fucked two women before?”

  “At the same time?” My question was genuine, if not stupid. They both laughed. I could’ve come up with something better. But at that point, I doubt it would have mattered. Heidi placed her face an inch away from mine and stroked my leg.

  “You know what I like better than the taste of a girl?” I shivered in absolute ecstasy and shook my head in short, quick bursts. No. But I can’t wait for you to tell me.

  “Not much, but I bet you have some of it down here.” Emphasizing the word here, she squeezed my member again. I turned to look at Helen.

  “Then I’m glad you came.”

  “Not yet, but you can change that.” Helen laughed softly and began to unbutton her jeans. Heidi finished with my fingers and embarked on her second course. She traced her tongue along the right side of my neck and down to my chest. Her hand unfastened my belt and she began to undo my pants.

  Helen peeled off her jeans and I peered at her beautifully-trimmed pussy. She wasn’t wearing underwear. Fancy that. I stroked the small angular patch of dark pubic hair with my fingertips. She moaned slightly and spread her legs as wide as they would go. As my fingers slipped between her hot, wet l
ips, I imagined that they were Elizabeth’s…

  Suddenly and without any prior warning – even to myself – I pushed them both away and jumped off the couch.

  They gawked at me with astonishment. I just hovered there. What the alcohol stole from my legs was worsened by my raging libido. I panted and stumbled over to the other section of the sofa. After I plopped on the couch, I lowered my head and cupped my face with unsteady hands that smelled like Helen.

  They were silent for several moments while I sobbed into my hands. And while I couldn’t see it, Helen pulled her pants back on and the two of them stood over me with concerned looks.

  “Is everything alright?” It sounded like Helen, but how the fuck should I know? I’d only known her for a couple of hours. Not long enough to have her voice imprinted on my brain. Not like Elizabeth’s.

  Unable to provide a verbal response through my sobs, I shook my head without looking at them. Finally, after a minute or so, I regained some composure. I looked up at them with a tear-stained face.

  “Please, leave.” Even through red, drunken eyes they were beautiful. Even with the look of concern that painted their stoned faces.

  “Are you sure?” I nodded and gestured toward the door.

  “Okay. Well…I hope you’re feeling better.” I nodded and scoffed as they left. Feel better. I couldn’t imagine it. I never felt worse.

  I put my face back in my hands and sobbed. Even then, I could smell her scent, and I breathed deeply. It was painful penance for my stupidity.

  Chapter 46

  I was peering at the Manhattan skyline by day when Jack called. It was about 11:30 AM and he wanted to make sure the coast was clear before he came over. I told him that the girls were gone and he showed up at my door two minutes later. He’d taken another suite at the hotel.

  “Well, well, well.” he smiled at me when I opened the door. “Look at you…all fresh and relaxed.” Christ. Was the guy even looking at me?

  He walked into the room and strolled to the bar. Pouring a drink, he strutted over to the sectional and sat. He stared at me for a moment and softly whistled.