The Kingmaker

by Ryan, Kennedy

  “What’s that ‘ahhhh’ for?”

  “I pegged you for ambitious at first.”

  “You were right. Ambitious would be an understatement. Are you one of those people who thinks ambition’s a bad thing?”

  “No, not necessarily. I’m ambitious, too. My ambition is to serve and help, but I take it very seriously. I want to be the best I can possibly be at it.”

  “You said at first you pegged me as ambitious. What was your second impression?”

  “Crusader, I guess. Zealot.”

  My laughter hides in the chatter of other conversations taking place around us on the small boat. “Like a planet crusader or something?”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  “That’s fair. Everything I told you about wanting to know how we can reverse the damage we’ve already done and figure out how to do less? It’s all true, but I don’t think I’m pure enough in my intentions to be a true crusader.”

  “What are you then?”

  “A capitalist,” I reply, looking her directly in the eye. “Please don’t mistake me for someone who doesn’t care about making money. Who just wants what’s best for the planet. I do want that. I’m dedicating part of my life to it.”

  “But the other part?”

  “Oh, the other part is for me. Once we finally convince our government that fossil fuels aren’t sustainable, I’ll be right there with wind-, solar-, and water-power solutions. I’ll do as much good as I can, but I’ll also monetize it however possible.” I don’t add that it’s in my blood, but I know that to be true. Blood will tell.

  You won’t last a year without the Cade name.

  We’ll see about that. I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to the world. But something to prove to my father? That’s another story.

  “A capitalist crusader?” She chuckles and casts a wry look my way. “So you want to save the world and make lots of money.”

  I can’t tell if she approves or disapproves, but that doesn’t change my answer. “Absolutely. Someone has to write big checks to all your causes.”

  Her long, thick lashes shield her thoughts, but she doesn’t hide the smile teasing her lips. “I haven’t thought much about money, I guess. I mean, as part of my future and what I’ll do with my life. That must seem ridiculous to you, huh?”

  The boat kisses the shore, and the fifty or so guests get off and start for the beacon of light marking where we’ll eat.

  “Not really,” I answer, taking her hand when we reach some uneven terrain, and conveniently forgetting to let go. “I’m not surprised.”

  “No?”

  “Think about how we first met, Nix. How many seventeen-year-olds do you know organizing water runs, getting arrested for protesting, and giving speeches that make people want to do whatever you ask of them?”

  “A few actually,” she says with a small laugh constructed from scraps of modesty and pride.

  “When you told me last night about the opportunities you have, the one you seemed the least enthusiastic about was the one with the most potential to make money.”

  “The lobbying firm.”

  “Right. Your priorities, your values have been clear to me in every interaction we’ve ever had.”

  We pause to be shown into the belly of the restaurant, the bunker downstairs where winter meals take place. The server takes our drinks order, and we’re left to pick up the threads of our conversation.

  “So you think you’ve peeped my values, do you?” she asks, some mischief in her eyes.

  “You’re not hard to read.”

  “We’ll see. I may have a surprise up my sleeve yet.”

  With that bit of cryptic information, our evening takes a turn that blessedly involves lots of food in the form of a four-course meal.

  “Wow,” she says over the homemade flaky brown bread. “Everything is so delicious. You’re spoiling me. If this is the first date, what’s your follow-up?”

  I sip the excellent Bordeaux that accompanies the meal. “Well, I’ve pulled out all the stops so I can secure a second date.”

  “Trying to get lucky, huh?” she asks, bold humor darkening her nimbus gray eyes.

  “Uh, not sure what that means exactly.” Lies.

  I know exactly what that means. And, yes, I’m trying to impress her. And yes, I hope I get to do all the things I fantasized about. She’s no longer off-limits.

  “Hmmm. You were seventeen four years ago. So now that makes you . . .” I pretend to calculate in the air. “Carry the one—”

  “Old enough.”

  “Old enough for what exactly?”

  “For whatever you’re thinking when you look at me like that.”

  The sexual tension between us is as sharp and bright as crystals, suspended, reflecting her desire for me and mine to her. I’m mesmerized by the color and the light of it. It burns bright. It burns.

  “When I look at you like what?”

  “I think you know, but don’t worry,” she whispers, leaning forward. “I want it, too. I’m a girl who knows what she wants.”

  “I thought you were the girl who chases stars.”

  “What do you think I’m doing right now?”

  She wants me, too. I knew that, but to hear her boldly assert it? To not beat around it, no games or pretense, it feels good. It actually feels special, which is dangerous because I’m not sure I can afford special. For the last four years, I’ve been what my father said I could not be—ruthless. I haven’t been ruthless in my treatment of people, or the way my father is in business. I’ve been, and will continue to be, ruthless with myself. The things I want to accomplish are bigger than I am. Bigger than I can even wrap my imagination around. The truths I want to uncover are buried in faraway places. The things I want to sell, some of them don’t even exist yet. The world I want to create for myself, the life I want requires me to be an explorer, philanthropist, inventor, businessman, every man and any man. I’m doing what four generations of Cades did, but on my own. Making something out of thin air. I know I’m capable of it, but it requires everything. I can’t afford distractions or attachments. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do . . . special.

  Which is a problem, since I suspect Lennix is the kind of woman I’d want all those things with one day, but right now can’t allow myself to have.

  We’re on the boat headed back to the city, and it’s the same as last night. We touch and stare until it feels like I’m coming out of my skin. I want her in ways I’ve never wanted anyone else. Not just under me or on top riding me or in front of me when I pound into her from behind, but with her hair splayed on my pillow. Talking. Laughing. I want to see her in morning-after sunlight. How does she take her coffee? How does she likes her eggs? Does she floss at night?

  Really, Cade? Floss?

  When we exit the boat and reach the street, I keep her hand and turn her so we face each other.

  “I’m fully prepared to take you back to the hostel, but I’d rather take you home. Well, to the place I’m renting because—”

  “Yes.” Her assent, though softly spoken, is sure. Not colored by even a shade of doubt.

  “Okay.” I stroke her palm. “Then I guess we can—”

  “But first I need to tell you something.” She looks away and then back, defiance and uncertainty mingling in her eyes. “I hope it won’t change your mind, but some guys are weird about this kind of thing.”

  “I’m not some guys, and I can’t imagine there’s anything you could say that will change my mind about spending tonight with you.”

  We share a moment, a look before she drops her eyes again.

  “It’s cold out here,” I tell her. “Should we go back to my place and discuss this there? I’m not saying this to get you in bed faster. It’s just cold.”

  “For the record, I don’t have a problem with getting to your bed faster.”

  There’s no stopping the grin that spreads over my face.

  “But,” she interjects with one of my least
favorite words, “I want you to know something before I come with you.”

  She looks up through a tangled web of long lashes, and it’s a stomach punch, how beautiful this girl is. It makes me really glad she’s not seventeen anymore.

  “I’ve never done this before.”

  What’s she saying? Never slept with someone after a day? On the first date? Will this be her first time four years after a protest?

  “Done what, Nix?” I cup one side of her face. “I know it’s fast, but I don’t think of this as some one-night stand. I want . . .” I press my forehead to hers and sift my fingers into her hair. God, I’m going to sound like some besotted beggar, but I don’t give a fuck. “I want as much time as I can have with you. As long as we’re here. Until I leave for Antarctica or you go home. I just—”

  “No, you don’t under . . .” She stops and smiles, and it’s a little self-conscious. “You said at dinner that you could clearly see my values, but I think you overlooked one.”

  “Okay. Help me out here. What am I missing?”

  “I’m a virgin, Doc.”

  14

  Lennix

  The pin-drop silence following my words stretches so long I start fidgeting. Maxim just stares at me, mouth slightly open.

  “I said virgin, not alien.” I run a hand through my hair. “If that’s a problem—”

  “It’s not.”

  When he takes my wrist between his strong fingers, it feels frail and small. Or maybe that’s how I feel, sharing something so personal and . . . mine with him. It reminds me how very little we know about each other.

  “My favorite color is blue–green,” I blurt. “Not one or the other, because they’re just better blended together.”

  He blinks a few times, frowns, then chuckles, a low, sensual sound that goes straight for my panties. If we actually make it to his place tonight, he’ll have the horniest virgin ever on his hands.

  “Okaaaay. I’ll remember that the next time I’m, oh, I don’t know, buying you a pair of shoes, but tonight I feel like maybe there are other things we should discuss.” He starts walking, semi-dragging me along. “Let’s walk and talk.”

  It’s not that late, and the streets still brim with conversations and laughter and people. Amsterdam is distinct and charming and wild and beguiling. It’s this amalgamation of medieval and modern that feels distinctly European to my American eyes.

  “We’re going to your place?” I ask after a few moments of walking in silence.

  “Yeah, unless you want your first time to be in a hostel with your two roommates listening and watching? I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing, I’m down. I just assumed you’d want some privacy.”

  “Privacy would be better probably, yeah. Do you, um, want to know why I’m still a virgin?”

  “If you want to tell me. It’s not like a disease or a contagious condition or something you have to confess to a partner for their personal health or safety. ‘Beware of virgin.’”

  “Well a lot of people seem to treat it that way. I mean, guys do sometimes get weird about the whole deflowering thing.”

  “You know, I actually have had quite a bit of sex, occasionally with virgins, and I’ve never found a flower down there.”

  I punch his arm lightly and he laughs, draws me into his side, into the warmth of his body, and kisses the top of my head.

  “Also, I’m hurt,” he says. “Here I was thinking I’m the first guy you’ve offered your virginity to only to find out you’ve been trying to get rid of it forever and all these idiots have been so freaked out by an imaginary flower between your legs that they wouldn’t take it. Now I just feel like sloppy seconds.”

  I laugh-growl and turn my head to playfully bite the inside of his arm. Even through his sweater, the muscle is dense and unyielding.

  “I haven’t, you know,” I tell him. “Haven’t offered it . . . myself to anyone else, I mean.”

  I sneak a sideways glance at him only to find him assessing me from the side, too. He still doesn’t voice the question, but I want him to know.

  “When I was thirteen years old, I became a woman. I know it sounds early, but we have a tradition, a rite of passage for young girls, called the Sunrise Dance. It’s extremely important. For years, the government actually outlawed it, and we had to perform it in secret.”

  “Damn colonizers,” he mutters.

  “Um, your ancestors were probably some of those damn colonizers,” I say, but give him the slightest smile to remove some sting from the truth.

  “My ancestors were Welshmen who didn’t come over until the late 1800s.”

  “And what did they do when they came over?” Before he can answer, I answer for him. “Settled. And I bet they settled on land that was stolen from Natives. And they instantly assumed their position higher on the American totem pole because believe me, we’re always at the bottom.”

  “Touché. I’m sorry. Am I being terribly white and ignorant?”

  “No, it’s not that. And as much as I typically enjoy a good lecture on colonialism and its disastrous effects on . . . well, everything, not tonight.”

  I take a deep breath and gather my thoughts and spill them into the quiet and the time we have left before reaching his place.

  “The Sunrise Dance is four grueling days of stages that are part of the journey from being a girl to being a woman. It’s complicated and maybe one day I’ll tell you everything if you want to know—”

  “I’d love to know.”

  I pause, glance up at him and smile. “Another time then, yeah. I’ll tell you everything, but tonight I’ll just say that near the end, we believe something remarkable, maybe even miraculous occurs. Everybody has some way of explaining how things happen to make the world make sense. Adam and Eve. Roman gods. Greek mythology. Whatever. Well, for us we have origin stories, and a pivotal figure is the first woman, the Changing Woman. Near the end of the Sunrise Dance, we believe her spirit inhabits the girl. Like is inside of her for just a little sacred while. And when that’s happening, the girl becoming a woman is a blessing.”

  “How is she a blessing?”

  “She’s empowered. Sick people come to be touched by her. Parents ask her to bless their babies. The whole community is part of the preparation for the ceremony and all it entails, and then the whole community is also blessed.”

  “Did you feel any of this during your ceremony?”

  I love that he isn’t looking at me like I’m crazy or disparaging it as some weird tradition, but taking it seriously. Like he’ll believe whatever I tell him.

  “I did,” I answer, trusting him with the truth. “I felt like I could do anything, and I decided I didn’t ever want to take anything, anyone inside my body that made me feel less than that. I wouldn’t waste it. And I don’t have any prudish expectations I impose on anyone. It’s not like that at all.”

  “I get that.”

  “Do you?” I stop, turning to face him in the middle of the cobbled street, searching the stark planes of his face in the lamplight. “I don’t think I’m some goddess who no man has been worthy of. I don’t think my vagina is a holy prize. I just . . . felt something in those moments, felt like my body was part of something great. All my friends talked about losing their virginity. The word ‘lose’ felt careless to me. And I think that was what I felt that day. Not just about sex, but about everything. I felt intentional. Like every second, every decision, every person I share myself with—counts. And to be honest, I just haven’t met anyone I trusted with that.”

  “Wow.” A white puff of breath swells in the chilly night air when he chuckles. “That should probably feel like a lot to live up to. Like a lot of pressure.”

  “Does it?”

  His brows bend, like he’s concentrating, checking. “It doesn’t. I’ve been drawn to you since I first I saw you on that hill with stars and stripes on your face. You cried, and there was such conviction in every word you spoke. I didn’t know you were seventeen, but I knew you wer
e young. And I wondered, what made her this way? What shaped her into this remarkable person already? Now I know. That girl, the girl who drew me in that day, I would never expect things to be simple or typical with her.”

  For a moment, I’m stunned by his vision of me—of how he saw me so clearly. There are few things more affirming than someone seeing you exactly as you aspire to be—for them to say I see that in you.

  “I thought you were so hot.” I laugh and shake my head. “In the midst of tear gas and Dobermans, I was like, oh my gosh, he’s really cute. So I think there was more of the typical teenager in me than you might have guessed.”

  “Well, I wasn’t a teenager. I was in graduate school. When I found out you were only seventeen, I felt like a lecher.”

  “I could tell. And Mr. Paul made sure you knew. He was my elementary school teacher, by the way, and I’m pretty sure he mentioned my daddy on purpose.”

  “And my balls shriveled in statutory terror.” We both laugh and start walking again.

  “I can’t believe we found each other again like this after four years,” I say.

  “I knew as soon as I saw you in that brown bar last night that I wanted us to end up right here.” He stops in front of one of the narrow canal houses along the Amstel. It’s red, tall, imposing, and even to my untrained eye, not cheap.

  “Um, you live here?”

  “Yeah, this one’s mine.” He bounds up the short flight of stairs and turns to find me still at the bottom, staring at the row of canal houses his is neatly tucked into. “You coming?”

  “Sure.”

  I take the steps more slowly. I really don’t know very much about the man I’m about to share my body with. We step inside a spacious foyer, flanked by a beautifully decorated dining room and an equally gorgeous sitting room. He watches me taking all this luxury in, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants, which I now notice are very well-tailored. His shoes look . . . expensive. He looks expensive. How did I miss that he looks not only devastatingly handsome, but expensive? In that way that is so subtle and unattainable you can’t quite pinpoint how you know the clothes on his back could pay your rent for a month.