Shades Of Obsession

by JR King

  At seeing both Tony and Jerry’s expression, I stopped unpacking the whiskey bottle and laughed blithely.

  Jerry, however, didn’t see the humor. He gave us a cruel reptilian smile, baring his upper teeth menacingly. “What is it with people today? Least I was married once! Got nine lives? Because I don’t see either one of you getting married, you pussies.”

  “Pussy?” One perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched, Tony patted his crotch, as if checking for balls. “Impossible with these.”

  Jerry sighed, a hint of sadness in his face. “Fuck marriage. Fuck the institution.” In model urbanity, he threw back his head and opened up the baroque Montecristo cigar collectible he was carrying. Delicious and tightly rolled tobacco leaves lay on cedar, yelping softly to be beheaded by the Louis Vuitton cigar cutter. “You can’t always get what you want.”

  Jerry quoting Mick Jagger brought about me fine-tuning the music. The Rolling Stones, obviously. Listening to the sound of passing traffic, I carried on, opening up a bottle of Yamazaki 50yo, a Japanese Single Malt from Suntory.

  “Just my luck. I deserve only the best,” Jerry’s egotistical croon hit me.

  I flashed an arrogant grin. “Did you think we’d be teetotalling?”

  “With the bootlegging business you’ve got going on in the basement? Not really. Costs an arm and a leg, this one. Straight gift from the family?”

  “Hey, you do catch on quickly.”

  Tony bumped my shoulder. “That dratted thing keeps buzzing, Alex.”

  With calmness and swift determination, I glanced at Robert’s email—an update on Elena and Mitchell’s whereabouts—and a low hiss wrenched itself out from between my clenched teeth. “Pussy.” For dinner at—shit—Menton, Elena wore a silky magenta cocktail dress that clung to her curves like a second skin. Mitchell couldn’t hide the wicked desire in his eyes, staring at her as though he wanted to drag her away from the deluxe restaurant by planting his teeth in her neck.

  “How’s she developing?” I heard Tony asking.

  “She isn’t an organic compound in a Petri dish.”

  “Incidentally, her feet aren’t planted firmly on the ground,” he observed. “Read between the lines. She is developing.”

  Allowing my frustration to roam free, I opened up and blabbed about Mitchell Christiansen. They howled and cursed in support. Then I poured us a jigger of whiskey apiece while Tony cut the cigars. I helped him lighten them up, keeping my fingertip close to the lighter flame. Just to feel the wince that came about as fire tongued my fingertip.

  We all sat down in barrel shaped leather club chairs. I drew in the rich smoke, holding it for seconds in the mouth to taste the deliciousness of a Cuban before letting it go.

  Toasts were less bawdy. “Work sucks. Life’s unfair. Cheers to the women with no underwear,” I started.

  Jerry, “Friends may come and friends may go. Liquor comes to soothe the blow.”

  Tony, “Here’s to those who wish us well, and those that don’t can go to hell.”

  Jerry rested his head on the back of his chair and looked at me. “Elena is exploring herself, chasing unfettered balloons. It will cause high commotion if you wreck a couple, Alex,” he droned out.

  I could feel my teeth start to grind together and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose. I simply drank, taking a moment to savor the rare malt before swallowing it.

  Obligingly, “He won’t,” Tony meddled, his mouth quirking into a smile. “She’ll leave Mitchell for this guy, that’s the expedient thing to do.”

  I nodded as I touched my glass to his. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, my friend, I appreciate it. And Jerry, excellent cigars, they’re worth a queen’s ransom.”

  Through the dappled moonlight blending with the gray shades, I noticed Jerry’s eyes becoming misty. Instinctively, I put my cigar down as I watched him surpass the emotional torpor.

  Tony twirled his glass around and said, “Desolate is a rare sight for you, Jerry. Why so down in the dumps?”

  “Coming full circle, starting from scratch, it’s hard.” His smile was slow and sad.

  We blew smoke rings across the deck and agreed we all had feet of clay.

  Halfway through his cigar, Jerry shifted in his seat and rummaged in his pant pocket to muscle out what Tony and I were waiting for. “Got my hands on these Rubenesque ladies. Wanna get baked?” He held up two spliffs rolled impeccably in the prettiest virgin-white.

  Tony wore a lopsided grin. “They’re fatter each time.”

  “Many were called, but these two were chosen.” Jerry lit one and took a small, shallow toke, then pulled on it again for a good hit before handing it over and writing a text. Drunk texting his ex-wife?

  Tony broke into a phlegmy cackle, muttering, “This shit’s the real deal.”

  I took a deep sip of the joint, blowing out a long, dense stream of smoke. After a few seconds I drew on it again, longer this time, exhaling deeply as to not deposit tar in my lungs. Holding the smoke was useless—the THC content in cannabis is strictly absorbed in the first seconds.

  Moments passed by as we sat in grieving silence, drinking and passing the joint back and forth. The whiskey had all the essential constituents to make it memorable; a matured, reddish color, an earthy smell, a delicious bite that spanked the tongue. Considering its age, we downed it faster than was strictly proper.

  A breeze lifted ashes up from the Équinoxe ashtray, scattering them like dirty snow on the surface of the wooden table. I crossed my leg over a knee. The bolster of the chair provided a brilliant toehold for my foot, the spliff making me giggle like a lovey-dovey schoolgirl. “Is it me, or does an aged striploin and the like seem like a good idea?”

  Tony followed my footsteps in both resting his ankle on the opposing knee and giggling to no end. “Au contraire, I was thinking the same. This stuff has unquestionable potency.”

  One joint didn’t cut the mustard, Tony and I were hardly half in the bag. He sloshed more whiskey into our glasses and I lit the second joint. A short while later, high as kites, we were in stitches, but Jerry remained relaxed. He looked alive enough or else we would have checked for a pulse.

  The rhythmic surges of Beacon Hill’s traffic and the mixture of dope and alcohol put the thick layers of my brain on a tour de force. Zany images flooded my mind as I drifted through a maze of evocations with eyes wide open. It was real, because ghosts of these impacts lingered on my tongue, danced around on it. The rainmaking dance ritual bore fruit and soon trees sprouted on my tongue. The infinity of rain caused an earth-shaking roar and swallowed me into a silver-colored tsunami. Then I was foiled, I was a Pterosaur, breaking out of an eggshell, spreading my wings to fly for the first time. It was a disaster; imagine a newborn cub bleating in the grasp of a hurricane. Then I was a young man, drinking sorrowful tears as I held my mother’s hand and tried to wake her from a drug-induced slumber. Worn down by the vicissitudes of life, I waited for the grim reaper. An angel winged down at the crossroad I was at and reached out to caress my face. Raven-haired and blue-eyed…

  “Alexxx,” a sharp hiss of breath hailed down on me.

  “Yes, Jerry.” A grin tickled my lips. I wasn’t sure, could have been something else.

  Momentarily at a loss for erudition, he mouthed texted back at me.

  “Who texted back what, Jerry?”

  His grin was pure wickedness. “Conrad and I are trusting you with Elena from hereon. Get rid of Mitchell. Nothing under the table, keep it in the public eye.”

  I did an honest-to-God spit-take. Cool whiskey sprayed over the polished surface of the table, and I choked loudly, doubling over as the little devil sitting on my shoulder nearly split his gut. Luckily, Tony was there to stroke my shoulders and help me drink some water, and after a moment, I caught my breath. “Carte blanche?”

  “Oui oui oui,” Jerry chanted.

  “Over here, losers,” Tony yelled, which was a blessing considering my mouth had become dry. I looked over at him; h
e was lining up shot glasses on the bar in the living room.

  Just what the doctor ordered.

  Alexander Turner

  The Menton Variable

  As a guy, it’s important your girlfriend brags about you with that get a load of what prince charming did for me staccato. If she doesn’t, she isn’t into you. Don’t even bother being miffed, time for that dump. Diane bragged about me, and not for the tremendous screaming orgasms I brought her, but for the thoughtful gestures Meredith reminded me to carry out, and the sweet segments she arranged. So whenever Diane was bragging about me to her friends, in girl code she was praising the size of my dick. Diane thought a sizable dick was a trophy, a medal of honor, even. That’s how she compared SOs. That size didn’t matter is about as true as the Stargate, she’d gushed one day.

  But see, ending it with a bragger always turns into a mess. In retrospect, Diane should have seen it coming. She should have known that a man with a gestalt like mine wasn’t playing for keeps. She and I barely got to know each other throughout fall, and when we got closer to winter, she wanted more. I told her I wasn’t interested in a long-term attachment, and she still stayed. By then she looked like a starving beggar, lingering around, waiting for scraps of love.

  Because she was filming a movie about the Battle Of The Alamo on location, she flew back from the Lone Star every other weekend. During a 7 PM Saturday night dinner at Menton, Diane had no way of knowing what was wrong with me—what I needed.

  Classic kill-me-now sort of date: gourmet food, Parker-rated wine, and me listening to whatever boring shit was going on in the woman’s me-me-me life. In spite of the heaviness of the conversation, I felt drowsy, but I kept nodding and smiling charmingly. There’s a chance that even you might have fallen for my glossy exterior.

  Sitting in a black wooden chair at a window side two-top in the corner, I mused how sadism is multifaceted, and for a second I wished Diane had studied its nuances and its many layers. Big surprise, I wasn’t a phone person; since the niceties from two weeks before, she and I hadn’t spoken. Good thing the tables at Menton were spaced far apart, as it should be for a restaurant of this price range. I faked catching up steadily, appreciating the proper distance and our waiter’s discretion.

  I could tell you that I was looking outside, contemplating the up-and-coming neighborhood, the environs lacking the stuffy factor, the flavorsome food, but what good would that do me. To tell you the truth, I was contemplating how to break up with Diane and tell her to forget me.

  Come on, don’t be like that.

  I was frigging tired of riding this coaster. Like all the others before her, Diane had overstayed her welcome with one too many sycophantic smiles, braided her limbs around me like drowsy octopi too many times. Now our relationship had reached the point of being unsustainable, monotony monopolized it, and the restraints I’d placed on myself for her sake were festering. And let’s not forget the scattershot triad of vanity. She liked the appealing me, the image in which she wanted to have her own place. As I’d mentioned in the beginning, this image was nothing but a collection of careful grooming and genes and money. In all honesty, if only she’d bothered once to ask me what I needed, and not tell me what she wanted, I would have considered her passably intelligent.

  I couldn’t sing like a rockstar, or else I could have masculinely Taylor Swifted Diane by writing an anthemic love song. In its place, I gathered the words to put the pedal to the metal, all of them neatly perched on the tip of my tongue the entire time we moved back and forth through the dessert course. And then I thought; would I want a girl to break up with me in a restaurant? Menton, more specifically?

  NO.

  “Alex? Are you listening to this?” I’d wandered off too far, Diane was eyeing me warily.

  The muscle in my jaw tensed momentarily before I answered her in a low-chuckle, hoping the corniness of my line would dissuade her. “The chocolate ganache, chérie. Was thinking of licking it off your tits.”

  She blushed, her lips parting as her breath quickened. Good save, I complimented myself. You’ve noticed that I liked endearments, right? I was neither a dumbass nor a short-term-memory holder, I just considered women delicate creatures that should be showered with lovely endearments and dirty fucking.

  “Kevin is loaning his latest collection to the Marriott. We must stop by to check out the paintings tonight.”

  I murmured, “Sure, babe,” and slid my gaze over to the captain of the evening, tilting my chin upward. He hurried over with the check and I slipped my Black Card in without looking at the total.

  “You haven’t checked for errors, Alex.” My blood ran cold. Beauty is only skin deep, but ugliness is to the bone. Tightfisted as only the rich could be, she flicked her wrist at the captain’s back, making her Cartier bracelets jingle together. “He might be scamming us.” Not the most nouveau, yet she was the richest of the nouveau riche. Then again, loaded people can be very stingy, and I, now, was disgusted with myself for dating Diane.

  “Ms. Knight.” I smiled the first genuine smile since we sat at the table. “I think Turner Holdings will be fine if I’m charged for three tasting menus instead of two.”

  Excellent service à la russe tonight. I wrote a generous total at the bottom of the slip when the waiter returned, scrawled my signature, and stood up without asking Diane is she were ready as I handed it back to him. I shoved my wallet back into my pocket and shrugged into my jacket before gesturing flamboyantly toward the exit. After you, Madame Cheapskate. Diane blushed again, stood shakily for a second, then walked past patrons with her chin in the air, the perfect embodiment of an Oscar-winning actress.

  Despite my resolutions, presently, I was accompanying Diane to the art event. With the standstill traffic, the limo moved in jerky bursts, another reason why I disliked Kendall Square. Diane told me she wanted to take something. She fished around in her purse for a container, and popped a pill into her mouth. Too late, she swallowed it before I could berate her.

  The sidewalk was roped off and cluttered with reporters. Trying to paper over the cracks and prevent a scandal, I kept my arms around her as we proceeded. Diane’s slothfulness was distracting and made her look out of place within the surroundings. I was spitting mad. Soft lights and sensual art, and my date stood nearly motionless, her eyes looking dead, her lips slightly parted. From time to time, thick laughter emerged from her throat, tinged blackly by the lifelessness in her eyes. Whenever she fell to me or leaned in toward me, I had to tighten my hold on her back and straighten her body as to focus her attention back to the room. When she eventually started focusing on her own, I’d taken my decision. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with contentious issues or brash behavior, so I went for a different tactic: a hotel breakup.

  In her suite, Diane paced with both hands in her hair, fists opening and closing. “They told me this would happen!”

  A lazy growl, soft yet feral rose up my throat. “They?”

  She glared me so fiercely I was amazed I didn’t spontaneously combust. “Friends! Family! Coworkers!” By fencing my thoughts, I copped my bout of temper, and watched the hothead act like an ignoble child. “Everyone warned me!” From pillows to vases to lamps, I dodged every object she amateurishly pitched at me. “Man on the sixtieth floor! More like sixty floors of heartless!” she continued her assault, her presence ever slithering and suffocating my soul.

  Ray called hotel security, and her publicist. Scandal prevention done and dusted, I called it quits for good.

  I started to slow down my world. Jerry counseled and I listened, preparing step by step for a change. Appearances mattered. I couldn’t break up with Diane and start dating another woman just yet. Living in the public’s eye meant going through all sorts of bullshit to nurse a good reputation.

  Autumn was turning into winter. While assisting Jillian—my housekeeper—to put up gauzy black Halloween bunting, I realized it was my last Halloween as a bachelor. I called my interior designer to remodel and redecorate my
playroom. Red, the color of blood, is the most interesting color to correlate with passion, Raúl advised me. For an obsessive man like me, it indeed served the spectrum of my dominant mind well. Red meant falling in love and expressing your emotions. Red also meant that an infatuation with someone could effortlessly turn into obsession and failure. Jealousy and frustration, fear and anger, all these went well with red, but that’s not why I gave him the green light. Raúl had me at the word blood.

  On a freezing night when Elena and Mitchell went to a preeminent Art & Charity event, their date night fizzled into a laborious plan to initiate.

  Walking toward Elena, I managed to maintain a calm posture despite my rapidly beating heart. On the one hand, I felt awesome, but on the other hand, I was very uncomfortable. My cock always had manners and rested quietly down the left leg of my pants. At the sight of pretty girl, it began resting thickly instead of quietly.

  I paused and looked round, took a deep breath.

  Emcee-directed charity events, conceptualism art, 10k-a-plate dinners, what can I say, we all know what they are. Brilliant, ridiculously expensive celebrations where the haves get to deal with the have-nots, but since you don’t have to look at them and are surrounded by peers, it feels just like another day at the yacht club or spa. Don’t shoot the messenger. Might sound offensive, but that’s how the eidos of the haves works, there’s no need to pretend otherwise.

  While I was waiting for Mitchell to receive a prearranged client call, I listened to—who else?—Greg Jenkins again. “Positivity is also highly dependent on culture and the type of fundraiser associated to it. In all my life, I haven’t met one person who willingly wanted to raise funds for the obese, lazy, and stupid. Don’t you hate that the jobless have sickened our race with unsolicited obesity, inbred laziness, and vapid mentalities? It isn’t part of the design nor will I accept it. There is that slight chance that on the long run Darwinism might weed these problems out. Vapid mentalities are reality TV obsessed, their laziness leads to obesity, and ultimately sicknesses and massive heart attacks will hold sway and neuter overcrowding in the process.”