by Skye Warren
After, she looks up at me dazed.
“Get up,” I say, standing over her, because I’m not used to this. The women I fuck are always scrabbling for crumbs like me. Never like this one, laying open. “Clean yourself. We should go back down there.”
“Can’t you…”
“What?”
She opens her arms. She wants me to lay with her? “Please?”
I go onto the bed and lay there and she holds me. Is this what normal people do?
“That was amazing, but you shouldn’t have bugged my computer. Tell me you know that.”
“I’m not like the men down there.”
“But you know you shouldn’t have, right?”
I look into her gray eyes. “Yes.” It’s a lie. I don’t know how to act like normal people. “You should go down,” I say. “You want to be with your family on Christmas Eve.”
“Is your family back in Russia?”
“I don’t have a family. Not a real one.” I try not to sound jealous. I’m thinking of the Dragushas. Their beautiful family.
She props her head on her hand. “A real family like mine? You think that’s something amazing? You do realize that I had to hire a bodyguard to protect me inside my real family.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“No, seriously, my real family, those people down then, ran a betting pool on how far Bennett would sink instead of thinking about how dangerous he would become to me.”
I hadn’t really thought it through. She hired a bodyguard. For inside her own family. Nobody bothering to see the threat. “They should have your back.”
“You had my back, Yuri.”
I push my finger onto her lower lip, dragging it sideways, enjoying every part of her.
She closes her lips around my finger. Sucks.
“He won’t hurt you now,” I say.
She lets my finger go. “You’re the best bodyguard ever.”
A clock chimes.
“Uh oh,” she says.
“What?”
“Gift time.” She touches my chest. “I love that you tossed that stupid present. You knew it wasn’t real.” She frowns. “I don’t want to go down. They don’t have my back. You were the only one. This whole time. I can’t even with them.”
My heart pounds. “You really don’t want to go back down?”
“No.”
“You like vodka?”
Bianca
Yuri takes me to an older home near a north side park. Even from the outside it sparkles with warmth, all Christmas lights and fire glow. He kisses me at the front door, pulling me to him, mouth open, demanding, licking the roof of my mouth, which feels wild and hot and tickly.
“Geez,” I breathe, pressing my pelvis to him. “You sure we shouldn’t go somewhere more private?”
He pulls away. “We do this first, and after I fuck you so hard, your pussy will be filled with stars. Like your eyes.”
I have no answer to that, but luckily, a chorus of dogs has started up barking. The door flies open, and there stands a dark-haired man in a suit like Yuri’s. Or maybe it’s his aura of danger and power that’s like Yuri’s.
“Aleksio,” Yuri says.
Aleksio’s dark eyes sparkle with amusement as he takes my hand. “Yuri. You brought a date.”
Yuri fumbles to say something—probably that I’m not a date, exactly.
“That’s right. Yuri rescued me from my sad family Christmas. I’m Bianca,” I say, though I get the feeling this guy knows who I am.
Yuri pulls me in. Dogs jump and lick.
If the Moreland family Christmas Eve was posh and cool, this one is sparkly and warm, with everyone crowded around the fire, limbs over couch arms and heads on each other’s shoulders.
A beautiful, scruffy giant of young man comes and pulls the dogs off. “Sorry, we just got them. They said they weren’t adoptable.”
Yuri introduces him as Kiro.
I ruffle the mangy fur of one of dogs. “They’re all adoptable.”
Kiro claps me on the back. “I love this one already, Yuri.” Kiro introduces me to a woman named Ann, and our hostess, Mira.
Mira takes my coat. “We didn’t expect Yuri back and certainly not with a guest.”
The way she says it, I get the feeling this is a rare thing for Yuri.
“Is it okay?” I ask. “Are you sure you have enough and all that?”
“Oh, please,” Mira pulls me to the center of the small group. “This couldn’t be more awesome. You guys! It’s Bianca Moreland.”
A woman with bright blonde ponytails lies on the floor with her feet in front of the fire. Tanechka, a Russian. “You are beautiful,” Tanechka says. Then, “Viktor! Come quick.”
Viktor comes out. His scowling face turns stunned when he sees me, and then he bursts out laughing.
I don’t know what’s so funny. He comes and takes my hand, introduces himself warmly.
Yuri slings an arm around him. “We are like brothers, Viktor and me.”
“Yuri saved my life many times,” Viktor says. “Sit.” He moves something from the couch. Yuri grabs me and pulls me down next to him. Ann squeezes in between us and Kiro.
Ann hands me a bottle. “Drink up, Bianca. You need to catch up to us.”
Yuri grabs Ann’s hand. A diamond engagement ring catches the firelight. “What is this? What did I miss?”
Ann grins. “A gift from Kiro.”
Mira finds out I'm a veterinarian and starts telling me about Kiro being raised by wolves, which sounds like a joke but turns out to be true. A bruiser-ish kid named Tito tosses knives at a carving on the wall. Tanechka is arguing with Aleksio. It’s chaos, and I love it.
Yuri pulls me close, nestling me into his lap. His mask is half out of his suit jacket pocket. I stuff it back in. “Don’t lose this.”
“You want me in that mask again?”
I shrug. “Only if it’s you in there. You can be my Christmas present I unwrap.”
He twirls an end of my hair, eyes shining.
THE END
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Part XIX
Gifted for Christmas by Melinda Minx
Doro
I’m standing in the cold on the corner outside my building. Christmas is in the air, and it’s making me shiver even though I’m all bundled up. I’m not exactly feeling the Christmas spirit; I can’t get off work long enough to go visit my parents, and I’ve been single for way too long.
Another lonely Christmas.
“Dammit, Lacey, where are you?” I whisper into the frigid air, the words form vapor clouds as I speak--the heat visibly leaking out of me.
I look at my phone. She’s ten minutes late. We both work in the same building, but her boss isn’t a huge asshole about being late. Mine is.
Lacey’s not usually late though, and I can’t get mad at her for giving me a ride. If I wanted to make sure I was on time I could take the train, but that would mean waking up almost an hour earlier.
Finally I see her car pull up, and I wave at her.
She stops next to me, I pop open the door, and jump into the blessedly warm heat.
“Sorry, Doro!” Lacey says.
“It’s cool.” I buckle myself in, and Lacey starts to drive.
“It’s cold,” she says, grinning.
“Ha, very funny.”
“I’ll speed so you’re not late,” Lacey says. “You won’t believe why I was late though.”
Lacey hits the gas, and three seconds later the car in front of us stops. Bumper-to-bumper New York City traffic. There’s no speeding through this.
“We’ve got time,” I say, “Tell me what happened.”
“I was on the way to pick you up, and I thought I saw you like three blocks away. I was sure it was you, so I looped around to get you. I thought maybe we miscommunicated and you were taking the train or something.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding, “I believe it. You saw
Doro 2.0.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what I call her,” I say. “She lives in my building, and from a distance she looks like me. If you get closer though, you notice that she’s just a more attractive version of me. Nicer skin, higher cheekbones, fuller lips...it bums me out when I run into her.”
“She was wearing the same damn coat as you,” Lacey says, “What a bitch.”
I laugh. “I swear I had this coat first, I feel almost like she got the same coat to spite me. I’m not going to back down and get another one. That must be what she wants. She thinks because she’s prettier than me that I’ll back down and stop wearing the coat.”
“You guys had the same hair too--”
“I’m not changing my hairstyle for her!”
Lacey smiles at me, but doesn’t say anything. Doro 2.0 is a sensitive subject for me. It’s happened a few times while I’m waiting for the elevator in my building: I hear a man from behind say something like, “Nice to see you again,” or “Well, look who it is…” I turn around and see some gorgeous guy who is way out of my league, and the moment he seems my face, his smile turns into shocked disappointment. He’ll excuse himself by saying, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
Someone else. Someone prettier. Someone a guy like that would want to be with.
“Yeah,” I say, “She’s a bitch.”
Lacey laughs.
I get to work about fifteen minutes late. My boss, Kate, doesn’t say anything; she just looks at me--glares at me--for way too long. Her eyes linger on me until I sit down, and then slowly she looks away and sits back down. I realize this is worse than her actually saying something to me. Instead, she’s made note of me being late, and she might wait until the next time I’m late to bring up a “pattern of tardiness.”
I clench my teeth to suppress the anger. Kate usually leaves the office around 2:00, four or five hours earlier than me. What is fifteen minutes compared to that? I guess that’s what it means to be the boss, setting double standards and being self-righteous about them.
I scramble to check emails before our meeting. We’re doing pitches for a makeup ad.
I run into the meeting a minute early, and Kate is already inside. Her arms are crossed and she gives me a disapproving look. Then she looks down at my shoes, which are nowhere near as nice as hers--I earn at least ten times less than her--and her eyes scan up my body, scrutinizing each element of my outfit. By the time she reaches my necklace, her disapproval is off the charts.
She looks down at her watch. “You’re a minute late.”
I look up at the clock on the wall, but Kate cuts in and says, “I set my watch early, that way it’s harder to be late. Maybe you can try.”
I bite my lip and nod. I can tell this is going to be a really shitty day.
Everyone else shuffles in later than me, but Kate doesn’t say a thing to them.
We all throw our pitches into the ring. It’s a makeup ad that will start running just after Christmas and keep running until a few weeks after New Year’s. Kate wants it to be a New Year’s theme. Our Christmas campaign for this line of makeup has been locked down and running all month. We want to hit the New Year’s Resolution crowd.
All of my pitches fall flat, as do most of the others.
Finally the new guy, Bennet, throws in his idea. “It’s you, but better.” He gives a dramatic pause. “That’s the tagline, then we have a side-by-side. On the left is the before, the 2016 version, then on the right is 2017. Same model...just better looking. We can Photoshop her a bit--”
“Light Photoshop,” Kate cuts in, “But yes, I like where this is going. I had this idea of ‘you 2.0’ but I like this a lot better. Great work, Bennet.”
If I weren’t so bitter about it, I could suggest grabbing Doro 2.0 and me for the shoot, then we wouldn’t even need Photoshop. I hold my tongue though, there’s no reason to dig myself into a deeper hole today. The last thing I want is for Kate to get pissed off at me and make me work on the Monday after Christmas--the only day we get off. We normally get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, but since they both are on a weekend this year, Kate decided to “be nice” and give us that Monday off to make up for it.
The rest of the day drags on. I start working on mockups for the ad, including doing the light Photoshopping Kate asked for. I may have been useless for the pitch, but if I can deliver some decent mockups, I might end today without leaving a bad taste in Kate’s mouth.
I look down at the clock and see that it’s already 1:00 p.m., so I start rushing. I want to get these mockups to Kate before she leaves for the day. Fifteen minutes later, I see Kate with her purse and coat, and she walks out of the office.
Leaving at 1:00 p.m., four hours early--technically--but since most people work past 6:00 p.m., it’s closer to five hours early.
I end up working until 6:15. I finish several versions of the mockup, which I admit must look pretty awesome. I’ll make sure I get to work on time tomorrow, then I’ll show Kate the mockups. That should get me off of her shitlist for a while at least.
The next morning, I wake up extra early to take the train. It’s not that I’m mad at Lacey, but I don’t want to risk anything. I’ll probably arrive at the office a good 30 minutes early, but it will be worth the time wasted to show Kate I’m not late all the time.
I get outside and start walking toward the train stop. It’s about three blocks away. As I’m walking, I notice a black SUV out of the corner of my eye. It was parked across from my building, and it starts moving as I reach the sidewalk.
I figure it for a coincidence and forget about it, but after two blocks I see the SUV is moving slowly down the road, keeping pace with me.
I reach the intersection just across from the stairs to the train, and I see the SUV turn on its blinker. It speeds up and cuts me off right as I begin crossing the street. I have a walk signal, so what the hell?
I throw out my arms, annoyed that I’m going to have another shit day, and the door in front of me flies open.
A balding man in a suit and sunglasses seems to look at me--I can’t see his eyes through the dark glasses--but I know he’s looking right at me.
“It’s her,” a muffled voice says from the front.
I tilt my head, and then the balding man grabs me by the wrist. Before I can even think to resist, he tugs me and pulls me into the SUV. I start to fight back, but I feel a sting in my arm. I elbow the bastard, and I feel my elbow hit hard muscle, but then an intense drowsiness overtakes me. I fight it, but black is swallowing my vision from the outside.
“We got her,” a voice says. “Delivering the gift tonight.”
Kieran
I hang up the phone. The deal is closed. That’s another $200 million over the next three years. A decade ago that would have been unfathomable amounts of money to me, but now it’s a drop in the sea.
The more money you have, the easier it is to make more. It also means that I have to make way more to feel any real satisfaction.
And as my wealth grows, so does the ease of every other aspect of my life. Women throw themselves at me. I could have any woman I wanted, and that makes me want no one.
I look outside the window, across the Manhattan skyline and Central Park. The park is enclosed--trapped--by all those buildings. Even from 100 stories up, it feels claustrophobic. I grew up in a small town on the coast of Maine, and I made my own fortune starting as a crab fisher, then as owner of a boat, then a fleet of boats...and now I own one of the largest shipping companies in the world.
I want to smell the sea. I need to get out of the city.
I call the yacht. “Be ready to go in an hour.”
Considering my budget, the yacht is actually modest. It’s smaller than many, but elegant. I custom designed it to let me get away from the city, so I didn’t want my escape to feel like a small skyscraper at sea.
There’s a fairly spacious living area with leather couches and wood flooring. My reading room has a big bro
wn chair and all of my books. Outside is a fireplace and observation deck. There are three bedrooms, all spacious and luxurious, and a pool on the top deck. There’s no helicopter pad or other obscene extravagances that most of my friends have.
When I get to the yacht, I see Markus looking around nervously. He’s scratching his head, just on the border of his balding hairline.
“Everything okay?” I ask him.
“Yeah,” he nods. “All good.”
Despite his reassurance, he looks shaken.
I think of Markus as my fixer. I pay him an excessive salary to keep me on my toes. I have him throw curveballs at me--some good, some bad. Last month he had me drugged and tossed out of a plane just as I woke up. I was given a parachute, of course, but remembering how to operate it as I woke up from a drug-induced slumber gave me an adrenaline surge that lasted for weeks.
Knowing that he can hit me with something like that at any moment keeps me awake and alive through the thick insulation of my fortune.
I’m annoyed that he looked uneasy, as his expression more or less revealed to me that he has something planned--or had something planned--which I likely ruined by going out on the yacht on short notice. I pay him enough that he should keep a straight face. I also pay him enough that he should be able to adapt to any situation I throw at him. I’ll have to talk to him about that, to remind him what I pay him for.
I sit out on the observation deck and watch the skyline shrink as we move further and further away. The smell of the sea hits my nose and brings me back to simpler days. Once the city is out of view, and I’m surrounded by nothing but the sea, I go into the reading room to grab a book. I’ll start the fire and read outside. Once the sun sets, the fire won’t be enough to keep warm in late December, but the chill on my skin is what I need. It’s never good to be too comfortable.
Markus catches me as I step into the living room. “Sir, I have something for you. A Christmas gift.”
