by Kimball Lee
“You’re Tanya’s sister?” Allie asked and she could feel Abigail’s startling blue eyes sizing her up. It was easy to see that Tanya and Abigail were sisters but Abigail, the younger of the two, was exceptional to look at. Her skin had the sheen of a cup of pale white-chocolate mocha and her hair hung nearly to her waist in soft caramel waves. She was small like her father, probably only five feet one or five-two. Her body was curvaceous in the stop-the-clock sexy way of movie stars from the nineteen forties, she was blatantly beautiful like an exotic Marilyn Monroe.
“Yes, I’m Tanya’s sister, Abigail Baptiste,” she said and her breathy whisper once again conjured the image of Marilyn Monroe in Allie’s mind. “I work for Walden Warfield, I handle his… business for him.”
“Oh, and you can cut a rug, is that like something to do with house decorating?” Allie asked and Abigail along with her father and William had to laugh.
“Soc au lait!” Alphonse fairly shouted as he laughed hard clutching his little round pot-belly. “You are one pretty girl who don’t know much about our way of life ‘round da Big Easy. You gonna let William teach you a thing or two? He’s da man who can do it and that’s for sure. When da sun goes down and da fiddler strikes up da music, William here he can teach you to cut a rug. That’s right chere, he’ll take you in his arms and dance with you like you never been danced with before!”
“Cut a rug, chere, where you been all your life?” Alphonse draped a skinny arm around Allie’s shoulders and led her down a rock-strewn path to a log cabin on the banks of the bayou. “Oh dats right, you from the fancy state of California. Well, chere, dat means to dance. The kinfolks get together and pass a good time and when da sun goes to bed and so do the kids then that’s when the band strikes up and we have the fais do-do. Dats big fun, you gonna see tonight, ain’t dat right, William?”
Allie could barely understand a word that Alphonse said but she could have listened to him talk all day long. His voice had an enchanting musical quality with the way he wove together English, French and bayou Cajun slang. The words rolled easily off his tongue and were as beautiful and filled with mystery as the flamboyant landscape he was so naturally a part of.
William quietly asked Abigail if Walden had come with her to the bayou and when she sadly shook her head he collected the bags from the car and followed Alaina and Alphonse to the cabin. No, of course not, Walden wanted nothing to do with any bayou other than the Bayou Teche that ran through their father’s property. Too many bad memories of his time spent tied to a cot, hurt and hungry, bleeding and screaming with the smell of rotting crawfish and muddy water tainting his young mind. All the while his mother and her boyfriend laughed and fucked and snorted cocaine and shot heroine and God knows what else without giving a thought to anything other than the ransom money that would buy their ticket to happiness.
“You know he doesn’t come out here to the bayou,” Abigail said. “He changed the door locks at The Cathedral just this morning and told me to stay away. He thinks he’s in love with your girl, you know. I let him break my heart over and over and I always forgive him for the wrong he does, but this time is different. He’s different, William, he surely believes his heart is bound to that girl from California. I wonder what it is about her and what it was about her mother to make the Warfield men love them so. I wish I had just a handful of that magic for myself. I’m staying out here with my daddy for a day or two and then I’ll go back to town and see if he’s changed his mind. Tanya says she can use a hand at your office, so I guess I’ll work there if Walden really doesn’t want me anymore. I’d better get over to the café, Daddy’s got a new cook making the gumbo and there’ll be hell to pay if she gets heavy-handed with the sassafras file’,” Abigail said and she left him at the steps to the cabin and wandered off toward the café and dance hall.
*
Allie had never had occasion to go out dancing before. She and her mother had danced around their tiny living room to songs from Disney musicals when she was growing up, but that was the extent of her experience. Cajun dancing was something else entirely and with William’s strong, sure arms to guide her, Allie fell in love.
That night William and Allie lay entwined in a bed crafted by Alphonse from weathered cypress wood and piled high with the softest of linens that smelled of sunshine and rainwater. The windows were flung open to the screened porch and the swamp lands teaming with life just beyond, and the ceaseless melody of the bayou crept in like a lullaby and mixed with the sounds of their lovemaking. As they lay together, sweat soaked and satisfied, Allie finally broached the subject they had both avoided since the day William found her with Walden.
“William are you and Walden speaking to each other? How are things between you two? You hit your brother, you made him bleed and I’d be willing to bet that you broke his heart worse than you broke his nose,” Allie said and she felt his body go rigid and pull away from her in the dark.
William sat on the edge of the bed and turned on a lamp, piercing the heavy blanket of air in the cabin. A fan whirred overhead and since there was no air-conditioning, the song of the swamp cicadas was nearly deafening.
“Yeah, my brother. What can I say to you about my brother? That he was born unlucky and because of a particularly horrible event he’s spent most of his life making things worse for himself? Are you aware that he’s decided you’re meant for him, Allie? Fuck, the worst part is I can see how you might get caught up in the idea that you could save him or even fall in love with him. But you’re mine and I’m not saying that to deny him, you know it too, don’t you, that you and I belong together? Believe me, Walden can have any woman he wants. There’s something about him, he’s always had it. Maybe it’s that ‘little boy lost’ quality, but women can’t wait to fuck him. He lost his virginity years before I lost mine and I’m the older brother. I don’t want to lose you to him or to any man, Alaina. I brought you out here to Alphonse’s place because it’s real and it’s romantic. It’s far removed from money and power and the way most people see me. So I really meant to say this tomorrow in the light of day sitting under a perfect oak tree like we did when I first knew the true reason I was alive. That reason is so that I can love you. I do, I’m in love with you Allie Darling. I’m sure of it and it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me and I pray to God that you’ll come to love me and I just hope it doesn’t tear me and my brother apart forever.” William said, the words tumbling out in a rush of truth and also of fear. He had found the girl he’d never dared to hope for and now that she was here and she was real, she might not love him back, especially when she learned of the idiocy of his father’s will.
“What Walden thinks or wants won’t change anything, William, it can’t. I love you too, I’ve known it since probably the first moment I saw you standing there in the rain. I love you, all of you, every single thing about you, and with my whole heart,” she said, and she reached for him across the sheltering softness of the bed and he let himself be drawn down to her warm waiting body.
“Alright darling girl, alright, I believe you,” he said as he kissed her sweet lips and lay back on the feather bed lifting her body on top of his. Her face was like a miracle in the soft lamplight and his fingers traced the smooth high ridge of her cheek as his lips claimed hers again in an ever deeper and more sensual kiss. She was his and what they felt, what they knew in the deepest depths of their hearts and their souls couldn’t be ruined by Walden or his father or anything as trivial as mere words.
“I’ll show you that I’m in love with you tonight, Alaina. And then I’ll tell you again tomorrow under the oak trees and again when we lie together in the hammock and every day for the rest of our lives,” he whispered as her hands slid over the tautly ridged muscles of his stomach to grasp his erection. “For now you tell me what you want Allie. Tell me what you need, I want you to ask for it.”
“I want you and only you, William. I need you inside me… now,” she pleaded, and her voice was raspy and raw with l
ust as the wide head of his cock nudged into her pussy.
His hands caressed her back, tangling for a moment in her hair before they circled her small waist. He held her still and thrust into her suddenly, deep and hard, pulling her firmly onto his cock. His long fingers digging into her soft, willing flesh as he lifted and then lowered her body over and over in a merciless rhythm. She gasped at the hot shock of invasion and relentless motion as he drove farther into her sex hitting the sweet spot deep, deep inside that only he had reached. He tangled a hand in her pale tosseled hair and held her still as his mouth covered hers in a kiss that was relentlessly demanding and raw and fiery hot.
Her sex gripped him, tight and slick as a violent orgasm rocked her over the edge and she drenched his cock and shouted his name, grinding her hips as her nails bit into his shoulders, “William, don’t stop, love me, always love me, pleeeezzz.”
“Allie, Allie, darling girl, I love you so much,” He whispered, as his hands moved down to grip her slim hips, holding her steady, forcing her to take every inch of his cock as he jolted violently, pouring into her, emptying himself as he followed her over the edge of ecstasy.
Chapter Six
Walden drove toward the bayou with the wind whipping all the bad and uncertain thoughts from his mind. He wondered how he had lived without a car for so long and he felt bad that he hadn’t sincerely thanked William for the use of the Maserati. He’d always been partial to Ferraris in the past but he had to hand it to his brother, he damn well knew how to pick a fine automobile. He also had to give William credit for his taste in women, although the fact that they were both in love with Alaina Darling was certain to become a tragedy for one of them. Walden couldn’t remember ever having had an unkind thought about his brother and he didn’t wish him any ill-will now, but he did intend to go to whatever lengths were necessary to have Alaina choose him over William. He had worked it out in his head over the last couple of days and there were instants of time when he thought about leaving well enough alone, of letting things go on as they were and not rocking the boat of William and Alaina’s affair.
That was Dr. Eleanor Selig’s suggestion and after he had mulled it over for an hour he discarded it and told the good doctor to mind her own fucking business since she damn well sucked as a psychiatrist. Honestly he’d been surprised at her tenacity in following him back to New Orleans and she’d proved herself audacious as well by proposing that he become her lover rather than her patient.
“Walden,” she’s said as she wandered through The Cathedral eventually insinuating herself into the private sanctuary of his bedroom. “I’ve compromised my professional ethics by breaching the sanctity of the doctor/patient relationship, therefore I’m taking a break from my life’s work to give myself space to collect my thoughts. I must admit my lapse in judgment has had a surprisingly beneficial effect in your case and it’s blatantly obvious that the state of your neurosis is much improved. So, I’ve taken a leave of absence from the clinic in Lausanne and I plan to further your treatment informally. Secure my hands now, and let’s get down to business… oh, and Walden you may call me Eleanor if you like,” she said, and Walden smiled in spite of himself at the transformation of her formerly icy demeanor.
He’d done as she asked and secured her wrists to the silk rope that hung from his bedroom ceiling but he refrained from touching her alluringly naked body. She had undressed in a leisurely fashion, peeling off her expensive bra and panties as she spoke to him in her haughty intellectual tone of voice. Her use of the English language was heavily accented by her native French and Walden assured her that he knew a few choice French words too. Most of them he’d picked up in the seedier establishments of New Orleans and all of them were unconscionably filthy. He whispered them to Eleanor as he did her bidding even after she’d stopped speaking and simply luxuriated in the painful pleasure he administered to her.
She loved the thin canes he teased and stroked over her small high breasts and quickly stiffening nipples as her back arched and her body twisted. She gasped and begged for his cock when he suggested that she spread her legs so the supple leather of the quirt could reach her trembling bare pussy. He’d brought her to orgasm a half dozen times before he carried her, limp and whimpering to his iron bed.
“Spank me,” she’d whispered before he could tuck the duvet around her and he’d sighed and bent her over his lap as he sat on the edge of the bed. He cuffed her hands behind her back with nylon zip-ties and warned her not to struggle or her wrists would bleed. “Ahhhh, yesssss,” she moaned and her small tight ass rose toward the smooth leather paddle each and every time he brought it down hard against her creamy skin. “Enough, enough, enough! Fuck me Walden, do it now. Let me have your cock, anywhere darling, please, please. Anywhere you want, just let me feel you inside me.” She begged again and again finally grinding her pussy into his thighs, the rough denim of his jeans stingy her tender skin as she exploded in a final ferocious orgasm. “You bastard, you crazy cold hearted bastard!” She screamed as he cut the cuffs with a single smooth stroke of his razor.
“You’re welcome to shower or climb in my bed and sleep as long as you want, Eleanor. I’m sorry I fucked you before, although it was really great and don’t misunderstand my meaning, you are truly exquisite. But the thing is, I’m not interested in anyone except Alaina, do you understand? It’s nothing personal, I’m just not going to put my cock in anyone other than the woman I love and that’s that,” Walden said and then he ducked out the bedroom door just as Dr. Selig sent his favorite bedside lamp sailing through the air in his direction while she screamed all the dirty French words he was so familiar with.
As it turned out she stayed on at The Cathedral and took over its operation since Walden had asked Abigail to leave. Walden loved Abigail in his own way but he wasn’t in love with her and he could no longer stand to watch her mope around like a jilted lover. Sex was sex, pleasure pure and simple, why was that so fucking hard to comprehend, he wondered. It was the reason The Cathedral existed in the privileged world of upper-crust New Orleans society. It was all about fucking and coming and often-times pushing the edge of the envelope, but it was never about love and no one made any pretense that it was.
So Walden put Eleanor in charge and she had very efficiently called the locksmith while he explained to Abigail as tenderly as possible about his life’s mission to win Alaina’s heart. Abigail was Southern to her very core and she had stoically and quietly left the premises since the mere thought of making a scene for Eleanor or anyone else to see, (never air your dirty laundry in public, her mother had wisely preached) was entirely unthinkable.
Now Walden rode along with the wind in his hair, it was Saturday and he was simply biding his time for the next twenty-four hours until he would meet William and Alaina in the bar at the corner of Bienville and Bourbon. A quick trip out of the city on a gloriously hot summer afternoon and a chance to escape the drama of The Cathedral. That’s what he needed and so he was headed to the Bayou Teche to let his father know he’d fallen quite madly in love with Alaina Darling. William the third could erase that worry from his list and he could rest easy as far Liza’s daughter was concerned.
Chapter Seven
“Well, look who the cat dragged in, not that I’m the least bit unhappy that you’re here Walden,” Hannah said as she ran her hands over his broad chest and immediately began to unbutton his shirt. “God, you are as irresistible as catnip, that’s for sure and I do so need someone my own age to ‘play’ with. Come on in and tell me what’s going on in the city, I swear I’m practically a prisoner out here in the wilds these days. All my mother and your father talk about is “the wedding this and the wedding that” ugh, I’m bored out of my mind,” Hannah said. Walden removed her fingers from the buttons on his shirt and she rolled her eyes and looped her arm through his as she urged him up the stairs. “Let’s go upstairs, you’ve just got to see your daddy’s remodeling project. Can you believe he’s redoing the master bedroom to look like
some sort of gothic bordello? It’s creepy is what it is, but maybe you and I should try out the new bed or one of the interesting looking tables to make sure they’re sturdy,” she said sliding her hand along the distinct bulge in the front of his jeans.
“It always shocks me Walden that your cock is so fucking big even when you don’t have a hard-on. And why the fuck isn’t it hard right now, baby? You used to love to fuck me anytime, anywhere. How could you forget all the nasty things I let you do to me when we were teenagers, and really it feels like we haven’t been together in forever, don’t you think? I loved the way you climbed up the rose trellis to my bedroom window when we were way too young to be doing such things. After that first time you just walked straight in the front door and up the stairs and you weren’t even concerned that my parents might wake up and catch us. That always gave me an instant thrill Walden, that and the wild glint in your eyes and the outline of your hard cock showing through your jeans when you climbed into my bed and turned me every way but loose,” Hannah said and her face was flushed as she stopped at the top of the stairs and lifted her lips to his. “Please, baby, come on, you don’t know how much I need your hands on me.”
“Stop it, Hannah, you need to set your sights on William if you’re so fucking needy. If I recall you used to shout his name at that strategic moment with my cock buried inside you, not that it mattered to me,” he said stepping back with a look of disgust that didn’t faze Hannah in the least. “I’m here to see my father and talk with him about some family business and you and I sort of wore out our welcome with one another years ago. I seem to remember your father threatening me with a loaded shotgun on more than one occasion back in the day. I’m sorry about your dad passing away, Hannah, but I guess your mother’s past her period of mourning now that she’s got my old man to keep her company. And I’m not going to fuck you so get your hand off my fucking cock and where the hell is everyone anyway?”
