Shades Of Obsession

by JR King

  He took my elbow and moved me along. I shook hands with the managing director of his consulting firm as if we were the oldest of friends. The couple was downright comical. If he weren’t a feeble, liver-spotted old man, I might have judged the trophy wife—instead it was understandable. I was unruffled, utterly unintimidated, the fruit of years of private education and the knowledge of my own place in the world kicking in. I wished I had the ability to act similarly with Alexander.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw that none other than Miranda Jenkins was cozying up to him, the daughter of a shitfaced politician. What a playboy, a liar, a waste of space! Need I go on?

  Happy to finally head homeward, I made a thinnish attempt to placate Mitchell. “Shall we bury the hatchet to…iron out the misunderstanding?” I slurred with the sweetest, kiss-ass voice.

  His gaze darted over my face, seeking. “No more dinners with Alexander. Got it, Elena?”

  “Got it, Mitchell.”

  He stared at me before finding something outside on the street that was more interesting. Despite agreeing with him, as we headed down Boylston Street, I found myself dwelling on what I’d left behind in that ballroom. Everything about Alexander Turner was compelling. Maybe it was his confidence, his ostentatious wealth, his ease with himself, or maybe it was just his good looks. I wasn’t the kind of girl who got attracted to powerful men, but there’s no denying that I did find Alexander yummy, even with his arrogance, rudeness, smugness, and disregard for personal space. Maybe even because all of these things. Part of me wanted to hold onto this evening, the final separation, the unprecedented goodbye, the new beginning, and at the same time I wanted nothing more than for him to find me and have his way with me. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I realized he’d end up breaking my heart. Mitchell was a safe, smart bet.

  “In another lifetime…Alexander,” I murmured to myself.

  Alexander Turner

  The Copley Square and BPL

  Have you ever splurged on fruits and vegetables? I firmly believed fresh produce that hadn’t traveled hundreds of miles did taste better. From March throughout November, New England farmers sold fresh goods at Copley Square. Based on seasonality, locally grown fruits and vegetables and free-range meat boasted fair prices, and the practice offered customers a chance to rub shoulders with the folks who grew and primed their products. It was a fun place to browse during lunch breaks, three-minute walk from my office, jostling crowds accommodating anonymity. So whenever I could get out and smell the fresh air on Tuesday or Friday, I paid the farmers’ market a visit.

  A ritual I seldom realized, but still. Apart from a stately tower and the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, other buildings nearby—the Old South Church, the Boston Public Library, the Trinity Church—provided a lovely backdrop for the white pagoda tents. To sniff pungent fragrances, I usually lingered around the Herb Lyceum. Further down, I admired the region’s freshest Swiss chard, succulent heirloom tomatoes, leafy ears of corn, bundles of asparagus, and occasionally I sampled a mouthwatering plum or crisp Granny Smith apple. Forget Certified Organic or Integrated Pest Management labels, I just picked up what spoke to my eyes. Breadsong Bakery was my favorite lunch stand, and nearly always I had to queue.

  It was November, cold but lovely, and with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, ideal weather for tasting pickled goods, honeys, marmalades, and confitures. A few of the white canvas tents were trimmed with red bunting. Tasting tables were piled high with jars of brightly colored homemade chutneys, pestos, and tomato-based sauces. Everyone moved slowly and smiled easily, everything about the routine reminding me why I loved this city.

  You already know why I was lurking about, don’t you?

  I was having a monumentally shitty week at work, until an opportunity presented itself. Meredith’s smart logistics-and-agenda planning resulted in me having an hour to myself. Free from care afforded by the prospect of a lazy weekend ahead, I walked the walk. On this particular Friday the wind took on the mournful sound of a woman wailing the moment I saw her. In knee-high boots and knit-sleeved Helmut Lang felt coat, Elena tagged along unrushed behind her grandmother. Way to be a creeper, Alexander, I can hear you say. Lord help me, I say.

  Poised a few meters behind her, unnoticed and anonymous, I liked watching the way she accompanied Julie, the way she moved, perpetually adjusting her position in relation to the other. I liked seeing her amusement when Julie got excited about particularly rare quinces and persimmons. After buying chestnuts and two jars of apricot marmalade, Julie paused to inspect lovely celery roots piled in crates on the ground.

  Chestnut and celeriac mash, you think?

  Licking marmalade off Elena, methinks.

  My steps quickly overtook hers as she strode down a predominantly narrow passage, the fluid roll of her hips drawing my eye. Like a gift and a curse at once, the cool breeze was fitting. As I leaned down to get a whiff of her scent, her windblown hair swept across my face.

  “Sorry…sir…you,” she looked frazzled, “what are you doing here?”

  “If it isn’t the lovely Ms. Anderson,” I purred. Under the curious watch of a dusty old curmudgeon—the type who could fly off on a broomstick—hawking a conical pile of melons, I kissed Elena’s cheek. “Break from work.”

  My quick reaction blotted out her surprised, tentative smile. She gathered her hair and wound it into a messy twist. Because she had no hair tie to secure her long locks, I held the twist back and out of her face.

  Another cultivator with a slim, wrinkly face and bird’s nest hair looked at us, amused. “That’s a good man you have there.”

  Classic guy charm: a headshake and a smile. “Ma’am, she disagrees.”

  She wagged a spindly set of ostentatiously ringed and perfectly manicured fingers at us. “You’d better put a ring on it, son. Pretty soon, it’s that time of the year. Santa is a wish-granter.”

  “Good thing Santa doesn’t exist.” Elena was the one who responded. If you didn’t believe she was made for me before, now you do.

  I mock gasped, watched Julie as she decided on a celery root. She paid the farmer and resumed examining vegetables.

  Releasing her hair, I took Elena’s hand in mine and walked us to the next stand, piled high with bright orange pumpkins. “Spend the holidays with me.”

  “Spending it with my family, Mr. Turner.”

  “I need you, little one. Get rid of Mitchell already.” There was no chance of connection or conversation over the cacophony of haggling customers. “Coffee?”

  “She’s looking for me.” Her hair flapped in the wind like a hurricane blowing through gauzy curtains.

  “I’ll wait. Tell her she doesn’t need to drive you back. You’re having lunch with a…colleague.”

  “Don’t meddle, she’s nosy. Will you do that if I agree?”

  “Absolutely, love.”

  “Stay back.” I saw a hint of a smile tinted with agonized longing playing at the corners of her mouth. “I won’t be long.”

  I did as I was told, went about the business of staying put while she went about the business of helping Julie. I was so good, if only Santa existed.

  As a rainy day haunt, Birch Bar at the Westin was perfect. Other nearby cafés had nothing to look at but ugly art and odd servers. On non-rainy days, I’d recommend the open-air courtyard at the center of the Boston Public Library—one of my favorite places in the city. Exegetical inscriptions, murals, and the catena of arcaded windows gave it sufficient secular appeal, yet the Roman basilica reading room had a monastic vibe to it and the inner patio a mausoleum-like quality. Despite the toasted coffee beans and baked bread smell, which was perfectly confined to the lower part, it was a great venue and in line with a quiet meet. Traditional restaurant café with gourmet-class pastries, white linen tablecloths, and good coffee.

  In the McKim building we went, and I asked, “Would you like a sandwich or something else?”

  “Something hot,” she answered, “and somethin
g sweet, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  I smiled. “No trouble at all. Do you crave any food in particular?”

  “I defer to you.”

  A blonde waitress came up to me and, the seductive gleam in her kohl-smudged eyes reaffirmed my immediate dislike of her. “What can I get you, sir?” she husked. I was sure she, and the surrounding men, thought she looked sexually appealing. To me she looked like trailer trash. The girl who’d gotten pregnant at sixteen after a drunken fondle in the back of a pickup truck, and now her parents were supporting the child as she was trying to fuck her way through college. Wait, I meant failure, not college. Don’t try and kid yourself it’s any different than what I’m saying.

  I decided on high-protein carbs instead of refined ones: uniced hazelnut oatmeal slices, and natural diuretics full of vitamin C: servings of honeydew melon and cantaloupe. Elena and I sat across from each other and ate silently. It wasn’t about rigorous locale praxis, Elena had no penchant for pseudo-intellectual flimflam, and I had no patience for it. She curled on the side with a cappuccino and scrutinized visitors, her observations punctuated by soft sighs. I sipped my hot espresso, persistently staring at her. I was thinking about fucking her pushed up against a shelved wall in the Bates Hall, wondering whether she was thinking the same thing. Her continuous scrutiny suggested she wasn’t. While we’d agreed to just have coffee when Julie left, it was easier said than done. I was annoyed with her for being distracted, and for not ditching Mitchell. Most likely she was ignoring her reality, and for me, being actively ignored was maddening.

  In two minds whether or not to pressure her, perhaps, I concluded, a little bit of contact—to reinforce our physical attraction—might fix things. I’m a guy, that’s the way we function.

  “Elena.” I bridged the gap between our hands, caressed hers. “I’ve wanted to do this all week. Even dreamed about it. I can’t fucking focus on work. All I can think about is being with you. Kissing you everywhere, searingly, every inch of you, every part my lips can reach. Just kissing, no sex. I’ll go as slow as you want things to be between us.”

  “Is that so? Kissing me, and abstention is all you can think about?” I smiled at knowing sex was on her mind as well. “That,” she shifted herself to face me, then returned her attention to the postmodernist surroundings, “won’t work. I’m not interested in male friendship. I have Michael.”

  “Fucking you is all I can think about. In this library.” It wasn’t a proposal, but I stroked her hand and waited for a response anyway.

  “Is that what this act is all about?”

  “This here is about dating.” I caught her wrist. “Let me show you my world. Let me take you out and whisper sweet endearments and filthy temptations. Let me take you to ridiculously expensive resorts and restaurants and symphonies. Walking down the beach, kissing in the rain, dancing barefoot, we’ll do it all. I want to hear you laugh and see you smile and admire you as you twirl.”

  She flipped back in her chair, and after some time passed, she started speaking—softly, though. “You’re a Turner.” Her face contorted with barely contained disgust.

  Cosmically bitch-slapped, I calculated the exact significance of her words. “Huh?” I blurted.

  “I know how men like you operate.” My quizzical look caused her to add, “Okay. Okay. Let’s fuck here someplace and get it over with. Get it out of your system and we never meet again.”

  Would you turn down a BPL assignation? Look, as an undergraduate, I researched at the Harvard Library out of convenience, not just because I wanted to read some obscure paper written by Heidegger in German. Why guys like me loved visiting the reading room here? To marvel at the semi-circular apses and the sculptural canopy of the coffered barrel vault ceiling, hoping a bespectacled redhead would spontaneously start sucking your dick and you’d get to shoot come all over her horn-rimmed glasses. To picture smashing the green lampshades like Hulk as you positioned a hot blonde and buried your head in her hairless snatch. As for the throaty-voiced brunette? I’ll keep that one to myself.

  Done pretending, I went the opposite route. “What makes you think I can’t do relationships?” I was an archetypal skirt chaser, and though I understood that true love tested your boundaries and made you yearn to be better and fight for what’s rightfully yours—fight for the ground you stand on, I was too prideful to say so outright. “I’m losing my goddamn patience.” Reaching for my wallet, I tossed a few bills on the table. “I ain’t looking for a sidepiece or a trophy girlfriend, babe. I need you in my life. End of discussion.” I figured she might be thinking up some important announcement, so I waited. I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but it felt like ages.

  Followed a dead question sounding as tenacious as a divorce lawyer, and equally unpleasant: “For how long?”

  “You’re not listening to me. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough—,”

  “You’ve never dated someone longer than six months.”

  My exes were my dirty little secrets. “So?”

  She closed here eyes, dropped her head, and spoke without looking at me. “I have.” Her eyelids fluttered as she got to her feet awkwardly. I waited to see if she’d look up, but she didn’t. “I’d like to do it again, with the right person.”

  The odd connotation to her words was enough to flip the switch in my brain. Jax. That dissolved my civility and shifted my mood from playful to ruthless. “Shut the hell up. Don’t do this.”

  “I think I need a strong drink. A cocktail.” She smiled impishly.

  Political correctness was spotty at best, she had to know she was handing me the dirty joke on a silver platter. “What’s your cocktail of choice?”

  “I try to avoid drinking any. Cocktails suck massively. They’re much too calorific.”

  My dick was instantly alert. “I know lots of pleasurable ways to work those calories off you.”

  She cocked her head a little to one side and her smile broadened. “Don’t try seducing me. I’m rather partial to Sazeracs.”

  “Bourbon? You know, discrete amounts of whiskey, Irish cream, raspberry liquor, and regular cream can turn into a nice Wet Pussy.”

  She laughed at that. Then I gave her a laugh that nearly matched her own. “Sounds delicious.” She set her elbows on the edge of the table and tapped her fingertips together. “Enlighten me, how do you make the virgin version, then?”

  My mouth quirked. “A Virgin Wet Pussy is all but tasty.”

  She sat up straight with effortless grace. “Thanks for distracting me. Busy time of the year. I must go back to work.” For a moment, I thought about keeping her with me against her will for the rest of the day. That seemed like integral fun, and it was fair. After all, I had been sitting here worshipping her while she selfishly judged me. It seemed fair to purposefully do something drastic subsequent to wanting to please her, until she said, “I’ll think about what you said.”

  Ergo, Mitchell was history. There it was, the light at the end of the tunnel. I cocked a half-smile, murmuring, “I’ll drive you back to work, sweetheart.” Considering the thoughts beforehand, my offhand tone was ludicrous. I drained my cup, crumpled my napkin and threw it on the table, then shoved back my chair. “Shall we be off then?”

  “Okay,” came a mousy reply.

  I picked up her trench coat and swaddled her with it.

  I was so happy I let a female driver out of an unprioritized road and she raised a hand in order to thank me. Primarily, Boston was famous for its vehicular aggression. I used to be that guy who didn’t handle nefarious overtaking well. Whenever I stuck out my middle finger at drivers with kids in their cars, I didn’t bother adjusting it into a Vulcan greeting. But more so, if you created unnecessary danger and thereby put the lives of others at risk, I was that guy who wanted to smash your skull into the hood of your Toyota. A perennial part of life in the big city, Xanax tidied it all up. I now was a calm gentleman, the kind who watched girls named Elena snuggle into the leather cocoon of a Gallardo’s passenger
seat, enjoying the view of high-heeled boots, satin stockings, and a short skirt. Traffic noises grew faint, as if I were sinking under water, the world fading out of reach.

  From the other side of the car came a snort, “World-class ride but useless in the city.”

  “Is that so?” She smiled the same wanton smile she’d used on me in the Ebersol suite. My cock lurched for the umpteenth time, well on its way to full erection now. I slowed, braked the car that’d set my weekly spending back a good six figures. “I disagree.” I reached out to run my hand over her stockinged thigh. Discovered she wasn’t wearing a garter belt. Beyond lace silicone strips, the warmth of her sex called out to me. I was perilously close to finger banging her, just so I could watch her fight the maddening urge to squirm in the seat.

  She brushed away my hand in time. “Saved by the green light.”

  Before she exited the car, I leaned over and kissed her cheek, moving the kiss as I traveled my lips toward her neck.

  “Tickles.” With a squeal she pulled back, buttoned her coat. “Thank you for the coffee.”

  “I want to feel your mouth on my skin. I want you to touch me. Do whatever you feel like.” I traced the slope of her neck, waiting.

  Her lips caressed my throat, shyly rubbing against it, her tongue making trails over my skin.

  “Elena, my singledom might be questionable, but not my intentions. I’m not looking for a side-fuck.” I lowered my voice. “When will I see you again?”

  She gave me an exasperated sigh, as if ready for my bullshit to be over.

  I leaned in to steal another kiss. Grabbed the back of her neck, pulled her mouth harder to mine, asserting my masculinity with rough, sure moves. Her lips were soft and pliant and parted eagerly, and I could smell and taste the peppermint that’d just dissolved on her tongue. Letting go, I tugged her hand to my lips. “When will you get rid of Mitchell, my pet?”