Flash Drive

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  “So we forgot it. Our wedding night . . . we simply erased it from our memories, pretended it never happened. But it had. And the fear of those desires still peeps through from time to time, scaring me with its intensity. Making me wonder what the hell is wrong with me. What could possibly have possessed me to do that—to have actually begged Clint to share me like that?

  “The only solace was that it had been far from home, in front of men—hell they were only boys really—who I’d never see again. I’d never have to confront them in the grocery store or be served by them at the corner diner.

  “We left Nassau early the next morning so I wouldn’t have to face anyone, and spent the rest of our time away in the Cayman Islands. I never knew what had come over me that night, but every once in a while I still have to stifle the urge to do something outlandishly vulgar—enticed by some kind of intoxicating sense of shame that washes over me and beckons. It’s scary. And it’s the only thing that keeps me from being truly happy—the only thing I’m afraid will rise up and take control of my sensibilities—override the protective boundaries I’ve learned to trust and swamp me with that horrible need to be shamed, to be humiliated, to be degraded by leering, dreamy-eyed men.”

  After a moment of silence, Rand said, “Hmmm. So here you are, drinking on the beach again. Am I going to have a problem with you tonight?” He gave her a rakish smile. “I should warn you, I’m not fond of sharing.”

  She leaned over and kissed his chin. “Don’t look now, but you are sharing. I am another man’s wife, remember?”

  A serious look came over his features as he toyed idly with a lock of her hair. “Not just any man’s. My best friend’s.”

  He pulled her to him and tucked her face into his neck. “How am I ever going to give you up?”

  They sat in silence, holding onto each other for many minutes. Then Rand said, “C’mon, let’s go get showered. I’m going to take you out to dinner, we’re going to find the biggest steak in the county.”

  He helped her gather their things and they walked arm-in-arm through the sand to the access leading to the back of the hotel. Walking across the dunes Rand asked her a question that had been on his mind all afternoon. “Callie, have you ever had anal intercourse?”

  She looked up at him and shook her head. But there was a spark of interest in her eyes.

  “Would you like to?”

  Her eyes met his and they held—each feeling out the other by the glints growing in their irises and the desire darkening their pupils.

  “I think with the right man, I might like to try it.”

  “Am I the right man?”

  “Why don’t we see?”

  His groin hardened, heat cruised through him and he felt his penis begin to swell. “How do you think Clint will react to me taking your cherry there? I assume he was going to get to it eventually. Any idea why he hasn’t?”

  “I was afraid. He’s so big. And we hadn’t known each other all that long.”

  “So you’re no longer afraid? Is it because I’m smaller?”

  “No, actually you’re a bit larger.”

  He couldn’t help but puff with pride. As with all best friends, especially in wartime, he’d seen Clint’s penis many times, but never engorged and ready for sex play, only when peeing or being washed. He remembered it as pretty impressive in its normal state. “So why the change of heart?”

  “Curiosity. And such a deep fondness for you that I want to please you—in all the ways there are. For some strange reason, I don’t want you to find me lacking.”

  He stopped on the wooden access and pulled her to him. Sighing heavily he breathed into her neck, “I could so easily love you.”

  To himself, he admitted that he already did.

  Chapter X

  Dinner at TBonz was more a love fest for food than anything else. While Callie sipped a raspberry-scented merlot, picked at her baked potato and nibbled on her rib eye, Rand downed a slice of prime rib that would have done Henry the VIII proud. His baked potato was loaded; his salad plate piled high, and he seemed to have a particular fondness for the Texas-styled toast.

  They ate in relative quiet even though it was a noisy place filled with happy and robust vacationers.

  When he looked over at Callie and saw her idly turning her wine glass in a circle on the table, staring into the burgundy liquid, he had the odd feeling that she was someplace else. Still, he tried to make the best of it.

  “Uh oh, I may have fed you too much, you look like you’re not far from being out for the count.”

  “A day in the sun does that sometimes. Of course, the wine isn’t helping. But I don’t want to spoil our plans for later.”

  “You couldn’t possibly spoil any of my plans, unless you’ve decided not to come back to the room with me.”

  “I was so hoping we could . . . well, you know . . .”

  “There’s always tomorrow and the day after that. We don’t have a time schedule you know.”

  “But we don’t have all the time in the world either.”

  There it was—out in the open, dumped on the table, so to speak—their time was limited. Clint would be coming back; and he would have to report back to duty soon. This idyllic time together was a one-time event, never to be repeated, never to be even mentioned, and they both knew it. It was a sobering thought, but it affected them both in the opposite manner. She reached for her wine glass. He reached for his tumbler of whiskey. Neither said anything as they sipped and looked over the rims at each other.

  “I want you now more than I ever did before, but it’s a raw need and I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” he said as his bright eyes met hers. He conveyed the depths of his desire solely with those fathomless eyes.

  “You’re only going to hurt me when you go away.” The look on her beautiful face was one of timeless sadness. She could have been a Victorian lady sitting by her window and watching her husband leave for war, instead of a modern day woman staring at the soldier sent to occupy her husband’s place in her bed.

  “I’m sure Clint wasn’t counting on me developing these feelings,” she said as she finished her wine and placed the empty glass back on the table.

  He had just finished signing the check and tucking his charge card back into his wallet. But he hadn’t missed the look of acceptance that crossed her face. Yes she was wistful, so was he. But she belonged to Clint and they both knew it.

  Tonight was not the night to experiment, to try rough things, to be demanding, possessive, or animalistic, even though his body was now roaring with the desire to take her in the basest of ways. He stood and gently lifted her to her feet, then tucked her under his arm and held her close as he walked her out to their car. Tonight was meant for gentleness, soft caresses, caring and tentative touches, and snuggling up close—a night to slowly slip inside her and feel her come apart in his arms. It was a night to make love while avoiding any issuance of the word from their lips. He loved her, but he couldn’t keep her, and he had known this going in.

  Chapter Eleven

  Laurel met her friends, Vivienne, Tessa, and Catalina at the Silver Coast Winery. It was the best place to meet for a quiet afternoon of wine, chitchat and gift shopping. They were sitting at an outside table listening to birds chirping and following the erratic flight plan of hundreds of butterflies glinting in the late afternoon sunshine, and sipping white wine from “the blue bottle.”

  Life didn’t get any better than this—unless you had a randy lover waiting for you at home. Which they all

  did . . . all except for Laurel. Friends of her mother’s, these three women had been her support group through the worst days of her life. Now, despite being almost two generations older, they were her best friends. And over the last two years she had seen each one fall in love and remarry—to men who
absolutely adored them.

  “Well it’s not like I really wanted to publish them. But that’s not the point. I’m not as worried about someone stealing them and publishing them as their own as I am my name being attached to the stories. I think one day I might attempt to publish, but I don’t think I’ll want to use my real name.”

  “Is your real name on anything on that flash drive?” Tessa asked.

  That one simple question floored her. She sat back on her chair and blinked. Her mind flitted back, rummaging through all the files and what might be on them. “I’m not sure.”

  After a few more moments of mentally ticking things off on her fingers, she turned to look at Tessa. God she was so lovely, quite a few years older than herself, as they all were, she positively shone. Marriage to Roman had made her a new woman, confident and sassy.

  “You know I don’t think there is anything with my name on it. My email files aren’t on that particular stick. It’s mostly my stories, some plot ideas, and my Quicken file.

  “Quicken, you still using that old ’98 software?” Cat asked.

  “Sure, why not? Anything more complicated than my checking account and my debit card goes to the accountant. I don’t need anything more up-to-date and I sure don’t want to have to learn new software if I don’t have to. I just barely got Word figured out. I don’t like having to relearn things I already know, especially on the computer. And besides, I’d never be able to merge the files. You’re talking about an awful lot of work just to be able to do pretty much the same thing I’m already doing now.” Laurel sipped her glass of Seyval Blanc, commonly called The Blue Bottle by locals. It was crisp and fruity. She nodded her approval to Al, the wine steward, as he walked by.

  “So if your name’s not on anything, how is whoever found it supposed to return it?” Viv asked.

  “Good question.” Laurel sat silently sipping. “I guess they can’t, can they?”

  “Not unless you advertise, offer a reward or something.” This from Cat who was flipping back and forth, looking at the wine selections. She never left the winery without a case of something to replenish her wine cooler.

  “Has anybody ever read your writing?” asked Viv.

  “Not since high school, and believe me I wasn’t writing like this back then.”

  “When are you going to let us read some of it?” Cat asked.

  “You three are the last ones who need to read the smut I write! Good God, let’s see a show of hands. Raise your hand if you haven’t had sex today,” Laurel said, then jokingly raised hers. She was surprised when Cat raised hers, too.

  With a sheepish expression Cat said, “What can I say, Matt’s out of town.”

  “Yeah, well . . . I still say you are the last ones who need more stimulation in that department.”

  “So the answer’s no?” Viv prodded.

  “No one reads my stuff, I’m not ready yet. Might never be.”

  “Well, you’d better make yourself ready, because someone’s probably reading it right this very minute wondering where the hot chick is who writes such wonderful porn,” Cat said.

  “That sounds like an oxymoron, is there such a thing as wonderful porn?” asked Laurel.

  “Hell yeah, Roman reads it to me all the time,” Tessa said.

  “Well then, let’s lift our glasses to Laurel getting her good porn back,” Cat said.

  Everyone seconded it with a “Hear! Hear!”

  “Laurel’s porn, please come home!” was added emphatically by Viv.

  Al walked by and they all heard him mutter, “That wins the award for the strangest toast I’ve ever heard.” And they all laughed.

  Back at home Laurel marveled at the support she got from her friends. They had come running as soon as she had called, listened to her woes, and managed to minimize them in her mind. And they were right, in the whole scheme of things, how much did this really matter? Except that it still kind of did. But not in the gut churning, itchy hives, need to hide under the covers way that it had.

  They had called every week after her parents had passed, which was impressive, as they had each recently dealt with their own heartbreak after losing their husbands. Then, after moving in, they had insisted she go with the trio while volunteering with the local oyster recycling program. They hit it off right away despite her being so much younger. They all liked to drink wine, talk about men and sex, and experiment with food. She’d learned a lot about Asian food from Tessa, and had even been coaxed into trying octopus by Roman.

  God, Roman . . . if only God had made a man like that for every woman. Of course Philip was nothing to sneeze at, and Matt, the way his eyes lingered with blatant hunger . . . and his warm and ready smile that made you feel as if you were the only one in the room, wasn’t hateful either. Her friends had been very lucky, finding new mates and new lives at a time when most people were content to plop their butts in a rocking chair and knit their way to heaven.

  Laurel went out to the garage to get her gardening tools. Nothing calmed her like pulling weeds. With any luck she’d be able to get in front of the computer this evening and “get back on the horse.” It would be nice to settle back into writing again. Losing that flash drive had distracted her and kept her from her stories. She could only hope it hadn’t staunched her muse.

  Chapter Twelve

  All told, he had spoken to sixteen local writers; no one had a clue who he was describing. A few spoke of romance writers living locally and he called each one only to be told they hadn’t lost their flash drive, and that no, no one else writing erotic romance came to mind. The library in Shallotte and the library in Calabash added to the list of names he could try, but he struck out with all of them.

  He was beginning to wonder if he should expand his search—maybe she wasn’t all that local—when he remembered the buying habits he’d gleaned from her Quicken file. She bought groceries at Food Lion, Lowe’s, Bi-Lo, Wal-Mart, and occasionally Kroger. That smacked of southern, so did the gas stations that were noted. The amounts were small chunks, bi-weekly, at places like Market Express, Citgo, Kangaroo, and Quick Mart, so there was no long distance driving, but that didn’t preclude flying—except that there were no entries for airlines or travel services. Of course she could be using a separate card for those. He certainly did—it paid to rack up those frequent flier points on certain cards. But the Quicken file didn’t show any other accounts. Of course, that didn’t mean she didn’t have them. Maybe she only tracked this one debit card and checking account.

  But he didn’t see any evidence of travel, no big ticket gas entries, no restaurant or bar bills from anyplace outside a hundred-mile perimeter. From Wilmington to Murrell’s Inlet she seemed to have no partiality, her tastes were eclectic. And no stomping ground frequented enough or visited on a regular basis for him to bother staking out. Plus, a listing of her utility bills indicated consistent use. Adjusting for the seasonal fluctuations, he compared them to his and it didn’t look as if she went anywhere or was gone for long—if she was out of town at all. The clincher was the newspaper subscription entry, $201.16 for a year of The Wilmington Star News. He’d gone online to check it out. The amount listed was a year’s subscription, weekdays and Sundays. If you didn’t live here, you wouldn’t get the daily paper delivered, he reasoned. She also received The Brunswick Beacon, paying $30 a year for the local paper that was mailed out every Wednesday.

  Scrolling through the previous year’s entries, he felt it in his gut that she was a local woman, at least now—probably not all along. Likely she was a newcomer of sorts, much as he was. Her style of writing, her phrasing didn’t have that “southern bent”—sassy, witty, and either degrading or syrupy sweet.

  In fact, he’d have bet money she was from the northeast, and as his portfolio attested, he didn’t usually bet on something he wasn’t fairly certain a
bout. But, God, he wasn’t certain about anything with this woman, except that she was sexier than all get out, and that if she’d patterned herself after Callie in any way, he had to meet her . . . seduce her . . . pleasure her. She was just asking for it with these kinds of stories, wasn’t she?

  What kind of woman wrote like this if she didn’t want to live like this? Or had lived like this? Hell, could this be a memoir? Was he chomping at the bit for a woman in her dotage reliving her past?

  He didn’t think so. Too many things spoke of her youth. And that war, it was still ongoing. Rand, Clint, and Callie were all contemporary characters, living modern hi-tech lives. They emailed for God’s sake. No she wasn’t some old biddie. In his mind she was young and vibrant and had a mouth that enticed, kissable and hungry. . . ready to wrap around his—

  The phone rang and pulled him out of his reverie. The Caller I.D. was one of the numbers he had dialed and left a message for. Another dead end. It was a repeat of a call he’d had earlier. He was told there was a Joey Hill who wrote erotic romance and had once lived around the Southport area. He’d already checked that out. Joey Hill was not the owner of the flash drive he’d found.

  He’d already spent a few hours Googling random phrases from the files and hadn’t had a hit, so he was fairly certain “his writer” wasn’t published. Either that or she was very obscure and not on any Internet media.

  He washed four Ibuprofen pills down with a swig of Guinness and walked out onto his deck to look at the ocean. Slumping in the wooden Adirondack chair, he stared out at the sea and got lost in his thoughts. She had to be somewhere. And he had no doubt that he’d find her.