The woman in front of me was being fucked to within an inch of her life. Her entire face was flushed red, the color extending far down onto her chest and to her two swollen nipples. She was writhing like something possessed, as though she was about to combust into flames at any second.

“She won’t come until I tell her she can,” said her tormentor to me. He flicked a sweat-damp fringe from his face and pummeled into her with more urgency.

“What do you think – should we let her come?” he said through strained breath, flashing deep, laughing brown eyes in my direction.

My mind raced.

A year ago, I had only seen this man in pixelated images. He had been nothing more than ink on a newspaper for me, and now… now he was sweaty and deep in a yelping woman who seemed to be melting before our very eyes.

Maybe I should back up a little. Everything happened so fast that it seemed like one day my life consisted of nothing but the endless cycle of work, sleep, eat …and then he appeared, like a dark hurricane, and turned everything on its head.

It started like this: I had gone into work early that Tuesday to beat back my growing inbox and try to get a head start on the madness that the rest of the week would surely entail. I was in that sweet spot where I had successfully started at Cache magazine on the right foot, but after six months there, I didn’t need to be so ‘”yes ma’am, no ma’am” as I had been in the first few weeks. I was beginning to relax into my new role a little.

I was young, sure, but sometimes having a lot to prove and nothing to lose is exactly the state of mind you need to write well.

“Katie, come in here a sec, would you?”

It was my boss Penelope Welsh, a severe pedant of a woman and dying supernova in the publishing world. She had used that notorious icy voice that could either mean I was about to be praised to heaven or threatened with my life. For Penelope, life was a dreadful bore, and she lived only for those moments of either sublime journalistic joy that made life worth living …or else eviscerating the newbie guts of baby writers like myself.

It being only Tuesday, I hoped it was the former.

“Your Tom Hood piece …walk me through this. What where you doing here exactly?”

Her artsy metal earrings swung on either side of her head. She gestured to her computer screen like an unknown bug had landed there. This looked bad. As far as I could tell, Penelope asked people to “walk her through” things only so she could eviscerate them all the better. Shit.

“Uh, yes, Tom Hood. I wanted to suggest that those nude photo leaks are kind of a new avenue for self promotion for him, that celebrities are looking for ways to manage their image by curating this completely fake online presence, except tha--”

She raised a single bony finger to shut me up.

“He didn’t like it,” she said, revealing a new cryptic streak that was unfamiliar to me.

“Who didn’t?”

“Tom Hood didn’t,” she said, relishing how ridiculous this clearly sounded to me. Her earrings had stopped swinging. I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised the bony finger higher.

“He called me, you know. For some stupid reason. He says you’ve been unflattering and he wants an apology.” She turned her face back to the screen with a quizzical look. “As far as I’m concerned you did the asshole a favor with this piece, but what do I know? He doesn’t seem like he wants to cause any trouble. So, will you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Oh, right. Will you meet with him? He wants an apology. And he says he wants to do a more formal interview and a larger piece on this nude photo scandal crap. I’m going to have to bump Mira’s piece this month and that’s going to burn her ass, but he wanted you specifically, and I’m not going to turn that down, so I said you would. You OK with that? We kind of need it this quarter.”

It was barely 5 minutes past 7 and I had already been assigned the biggest story of my short and desperate career. It was a lot to take in.

All at once, Tom Hood was real.

I had written a mere line or two of snark about him and now he had appeared right in the middle of my boring Tuesday morning, like a demon summoned with some kind of spell.

I was thrilled. I played it cool.

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound casual about it.

“Good. Just see what he wants. I don’t mind where you want to take it, honestly, but just keep Eddy in the loop, too, you’ll need some photos.”

She handed me a Post-It note with a time and place scratched on it in tight, impatient handwriting.

“Tomorrow?!” I said, horrified.

“Yeah? You can’t do it? I can get Mira to try -”

“No, I’ll do it,” I blurted.

I turned quickly to leave her office before anything else happened, but as I was about to close the door she quipped, “Well, have you seen them?”

“What?”

“The nudes.”

Ah, the nudes. Tom Hood had had his phone “hacked” and all his precious dick pics were now “leaked” all over the world, and it was shocking, simply shocking to him. Not only did this idiot have the gall to try this stunt, he actually believed people would fall for it. The photos were pure trash of course – grainy candid shots of him in various stages of undress, one with him completely naked, a pair of bikini-clad models in the background, him laughing with an obscenely large dick just hanging there…

“No, of course I haven’t seen them, ew,” I said, crinkling my face up.

“You should. Guy’s hung,” she replied and returned to her work, smirking.

Okay then.

I went to my desk, the emails I was dead set on just a second ago suddenly seeming utterly unimportant now. The butterflies in my stomach had not abated. I chewed nervously on the end of a long-suffering pencil and typed into Google, “Tom Hood nude pictures”, looking once over my shoulder.

Chapter Two

By the time I got home that evening, it was already somehow eight o’clock and was drizzling slightly. I was bone-tired, a little scratchy, and in no mood to deal with what I found there.

“Tigger’s got his diarrhea again!” he said, the very first second I walked in the door.

My head throbbed.

Tigger was nowhere to be found, but the vague odor of cat shit lingering in the air let me know immediately what had happened. My boyfriend stood lamely in front of me.

“Jeremy! Really? I told you not to feed him scraps from the kitchen, it messes him up,” I said, flinging my bag into the corner. My eyes caught the sight of a sickly brown puddle peeking out from behind the kitchen corner.

I wanted to cry.

“What! You haven’t even cleaned it up yet!” I rushed over and found a guilty-looking Tigger nervously cowering beside the fridge.

“Yeah, he only did it just a moment ago,” Jeremy said.

“Well, when?”

“Uh… I don’t know? I was in a game, babe, so I didn’t actually see him do it, you know?”

I glanced my eyes over to his Xbox, a half open bag of Dorito’s spilling onto the floor. I glared at him, fuming.

This was my boyfriend, the kind of man who would play Call of Duty for five hours straight, spew Doritos all over the floor and then when feeble old Tigger ate them, would literally watch him shit himself and think, well, Katie will just clean it up. When she gets home. From her job.

Anger shot through me. I was too tired to deal with this.

“How long have you been home, anyway?” I asked, slowly and not without a bit of poison in my voice.

He looked away.

“Oh come on, not this shit again, Katie. I didn’t realize I had to check in and out of my own house everyday.”

Something in me snapped. His house? I’d had enough. I kicked the fridge with all the energy I could muster, sending poor Tigger scampering away.

“I want you to leave!”

He started to protest, but one angry look from me shut him right up. He stormed out, banging the door behind him.

I stood there and waited for the throb in my big toe to subside, and felt my eyes filling with furious tears. Tigger poked his head round the corner to see if it was safe to come out again. I had had a long, stressful day and this is what I came home to? I crumpled down into a heap on the kitchen floor, defeated, and instantly felt my phone bleep.

It was from him.

“Don’t bother apologizing, I’m not coming back,” his message read. I nearly laughed out loud. Apologize? My first thought was to hurl the phone against the cupboard, but somehow I found myself doing something else. I rubbed the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand. With a few easy swipes of my fingers, I was staring at my phone, at him again. Why had I saved these pictures? That’s easy: research. He’s a public persona, and one who probably loved the attention anyway, so there was nothing unethical about me having these images. And looking at them. Right?

I stared for a long time at the last picture in the series, the one that had appeared just a few weeks ago across the pages of every junk tabloid in the country, the one that had brandished (large!) black censor bars all over the only parts that people had wanted to see anyway. I stared at his face. At his body. At his face again.

Three lean supermodel types were in the background, frolicking, mid-giggle and each probably no older than twenty. With bleary eyes I focused on a woman in the center back – she was all catwalk model limbs and jet-black hair extensions, some kind of music video whore, probably. But at least she’s not wasting her evening cleaning up cat shit, now is she?

I sighed.

I allowed my eyes to fall on his body again. Surely people didn’t really look like that. Not really. I stared for a long time at the almost comically large cock hanging loosely between the two toned, tanned thighs. Was it photoshopped? It was the look of a Spartan still pumped up from battle, but the face was all wrong somehow and didn’t match: it was an easy, mocking face, too comfortable, arrogant even. Familiar somehow. It was the face of someone who’s never struggled, never had to fight for a thing in their lives.

My hand found its way into my pants. Fuck that stupid idiot for taking advantage of me. I wanted all his dumb gaming equipment out, and I never wanted to see him again. I slipped a noncommittal hand into my underwear, still looking at the picture. What was her life like? Did she have to put up with a man-child for a boyfriend? Or was it champagne and Gucci, all day, everyday?

I closed my eyes and felt ugly threads of tension slowly leaving my body. The kitchen floor was cold and hard, but I deflated with a huge sigh and try to calm down. It would be OK. I would be OK. It was hard now, but I was working for something. I had a purpose. Men could wait.

My fingers found the old familiar sensations as I began to stroke my clit, still staring at the same picture I must have looked at a million times already today. I imagined something easy, soothing, something outrageously hot. Why couldn’t I be the sexy girl on the yacht with the celebrity? Who would stop me now if I imagined myself laid down on a bed of money, lavished with attention by some airheaded stud with a big cock? Why not?

I moved my fingers more quickly.

My boyfriends had always been kind of weedy, nerdy types. And I liked it that way. Men with big dicks usually are big dicks, right?

A soft wet bead of moisture grew at my fingertips as images flitted through my mind. I bet he had so much sex he was bored of it already. I bet a big idiot like him could fuck for hours, like a machine.

Hovering over the edge of a warm, friendly orgasm, I held myself suspended there for a moment, still staring hard at the picture. Each pixelated fold and vein. The small pleat between his hard thighs and the flat of his stomach. What if it was me, perched there on his lap, with every last inch of that cock buried inside me? Curling my spine, I squeezed my eyes shut, shuddered smoothly and came, with long, easy twitches.

Damn. Ok. I stood up, flustered. Buttoned my jeans up again and looked with fresh disgust at the picture. I swiped the screen with slick fingers.

“Are you sure you want to delete Image 05?”

Yes!

Delete it all.

I was done with this shit.

I was finally getting recognized at work, finally making strides in a career that took many people decades to get off the ground. I wasn’t going to let some rich jock take up any more space in my mind than he strictly needed to.

Chapter Three

Looking back, I’m pretty sure my body knew what was up long before I did. Had I been paying attention, I would have noticed that I took just a little longer getting dressed the next morning, and picked an outfit that admittedly, I wouldn’t have worn otherwise.

I pretended this was all necessary, all part of this game I was playing wherein I was a professional, and people took me seriously. I would have to meet him at an expensive, up-market hipster hole where I would be forced to put fussy drinks and snacks on Penelope’s credit card and act like I did this all the time.

And he was late.

It was 11:00 am on the nose that I began to sweat in my low cut silk blouse and skirt that was just a few threads long enough for plausible deniability. My feet were killing me in my heels. Ten minutes disappeared and then another ten. I began to get annoyed. Possibly by the realization that even I, professional cynic and hard ass, was a little buzzed to be meeting the Tom Hood.

What an asshole.

Just as I had mentally condemned him forever, and resigned myself to trying to look busy and not stood up, a hidden number flashed across my phone screen with a buzz.

I froze and then snatched at it, nearly knocking over a glass of water on the table.

“Hello?”

“Is this Katie Mack?”

For a while, I actually didn’t know the answer. It was a deep, familiar accent, but instantly new somehow. It was him.

He repeated the question, this time with an extra lilt; it was a strange voice, rough and silky at the same time, like old velvet.

“Yes, this is she,” I said and instantly felt like a dumbass. “This is she”? Nobody but my grandmother spoke like that, what on earth was I thinking.

“Oh, hi. It’s Tom. We were supposed to have a meeting today, right?”

Without thinking, the full-blown image of his thick, unapologetic cock sprung into my head. I violently shook it out of my head.

“Oh, yeah, no. Um – of course, yes! You were supposed to meet me at 11, I think.”

I think? Why the fuck was I apologizing?

“I am so sorry,” cooed the velvet voice from inside the phone. “I’m just, uh, I’m tied up with something right now, you know?” This last part came out strange somehow, and the voice warped a little at the end and trailed off.

“Oh? Umm… no problem, do you want to reschedule then?”

The line was silent while I waited for an answer, and all of a sudden, a nervous burst of laughter. Then, a woman’s voice, a panicked giggling followed by a loud “shhhhh!”

My face dropped.

“Is this a bad time? I’ll get the secretary to reschedule with you if -”

“No, don’t!” he said, a little too loudly.

I could still faintly hear the giggling in the background. Was this guy for real? Did he just have a bevy of sluts following him around 24/7?

“I mean, I’m sorry, yes, let’s reschedule. My apologies.”

What happened next was, in hindsight, probably the turning point, the big crazy hinge around which everything turned. It was almost imperceptible. I almost didn’t notice it. But I heard it – a quiet, quick growl under the breath, followed by a single, desperate gasp as a counterweight. It was the softest, tiniest sound imaginable …but there was no mistaking it. I knew that sound anywhere. It was the sound of a man coming.

I dropped the phone on the table like it had suddenly sprouted spikes. I ended the call, dazed.

I had seemingly forgotten to breathe during the entire exchange and did it all at once the second the screen went dark. I was sitting there like a complete idiot, done up with three different kinds of foundation on my face and shoes that should have been banned for human’s rights violations… and I had been stood up by a jerk, an asshole who had the cheek to haul me all this way to give him an apology and then …and then …was he playing a game with me? I sat stewing for a few moments more.

The other, weirder thought came bubbling up in my mind. He was definitely having sex. Right now. I was busy being mad as hell for being messed around and he was…

I looked down at my phone again, ears burning. It was too outrageous to be true and yet it was: I had just had my first celebrity interview, and it was with Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, and he was on the phone, breathing heavy, dick in some giggling girl most likely.

‘Tied up’ indeed.

“Ew,” I said under my breath and immediately wondered whom I thought I was trying to convince. I got up to leave.

It wasn’t ew. In fact, it was all I thought about for the rest of the day.

Chapter Four

“Oh my God, Katie, there you are! Get in here and open this stupid letter, I’m dying to see what it says and they won’t let me open it!”

Clara, the new intern, was hovering excitedly over my desk, eyeballing a giant basket of blood red flowers with a small white card skewered on a plastic fork in the center.

When did my life become a sappy rom com?

“Didn’t you break up with what’s-his-name? Is it from him? What a douche,” she said, bouncing from foot to foot like a kid at Christmas.

The arrangement was overwhelming the entire surface of my small desk; the whole thing was unreal, the giant roses and lilies completely out of place in our minimalist chrome office. I felt worryingly conspicuous. I opened the card, gingerly; not quite believing this was really for me.

Miss Mack,

Please forgive my disgusting phone manners

67 Baltic Terrace, 9:00pm

You’ll have my full attention, promise

T

My eyes whipped over the lines again and again, trying to make sense of the letters.

It was an actual house address. An invitation. At night.

Clara looked at me with big eyes. “Oh God, it IS from what’s-his-name, isn’t it?”

I stuffed the card back in the envelope and buried it into the mound of stems.

“Uh, yeah, it’s from my ex. What a douche.”

I looked at my watch – it had just gone 3pm. Thinking twice, I grabbed the card again and slid it into my pocket.

“Hey, Clara, could you just let Penelope know I went out for a sec?”

“Sure. But she’s at the other office for a few days anyway. She’s been asking about your interview with what’s-his-name though – how’d that go?”

“Uh, yeah, the interview …if you see her just let her know I’ll have it ready for Friday, OK?”

I dashed out, not giving Clara the chance to pry any further. I only had a few hours. I would need time to think.

And I would definitely need a sexier dress. And shoes. Maybe.

Chapter Five

If you had asked 5-year-old me to imagine what the home of one of the country’s wealthiest personalities looked like – she would have accurately described 67 Baltic Terrace.

It looked like it was the scene of a movie. Flush with vaulted marble ceilings, dense green lawns folding into infinity pools, and a swooping grand staircase at the main entrance.

Tom Hood had made his fortune speculating on hot tech start ups, “angel” funding those two bit operations that turned into outrageous money-machines in a span of just a few years. He had a knack for spotting business diamonds so rough that it was almost as if his investment in them alone was the very thing to transform them, to make emperors out of the long sighted nerds in garages, and empires out of their impossible dreams. Tom Hood had made many people’s dreams come true, and he was living his own, clearly.

Coming down the staircase was a lithe, black haired girl in some kind of luxurious-looking kimono. A week ago, I would have laughed if someone had told me that this is what my dream magazine job would be paying me to do on a Wednesday evening, but by this point, I was getting used to the feeling that everything associated with Tom Hood had a sheen of unreality to it, a strange glint of power that he seemed to wear so well.

He was still a dick, though, obviously.

The black haired girl smiled broadly at me, slinking down the last few of the steps and gliding over to me as though she had been expecting me all her life. This, I thought, was some weird Stepford Wife nonsense right here. I made a mental note to take in every detail about her, knowing I’d find a place for her in my article, whatever it turned out to be.

“Are you Miss Katie Mack? Oh, welcome! It’s very nice to meet you,” she said with just a distant waft of an exotic accent, and then extended her slender hand.

I followed her all the way back up the staircase, eerie music seeming to come and go in pockets of air as we passed by rooms and corridors, finally reaching a wide conservatory style room at the end, and the source of the music.

The jaded part of me saw only the ill-gotten gains in the glittery tiles and disgusting privilege dripping in every giant mirror and painting we passed …but another, smaller part of me was quietly amazed.

Tom Hood was barely 30 years old. This was success, and there was no denying it. I was so used to seeing him surrounded by shocking red and yellow tabloid headlines that this neutral, expensive taste unfolding all around me was quite striking. He really was very wealthy.

By the time my black haired escort flung open the conservatory doors, I hadn’t yet decided if I was brimming with judgment or with secret admiration for all this opulence.

The black haired girl kept her kimono-ed arms spread open and floated over on her tiptoes to join Tom, who was seated on a cushion like a Buddha, bent over a carved chess board.

It occurred to me all at once that I should have prepared far more thoroughly for this interview than I had. I had spent too much time on my outfit, too little time on …well, I wasn’t sure yet. But I felt unprepared, already off-kilter.

A pair of small muscles was working in his bare, upper arms as he moved the pieces round before looking up and smiling cordially at me.

Great. He had decided not to wear a shirt.

The black haired girl had turned the music down and was flitting about with something in the periphery of my vision.

“Miss Mack! Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, and the girl giggled in appreciation.

She was busy fixing me a drink. Not Kool-Aid, I thought, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the story took that turn.

Again, there was something startling in how different he seemed in real life. How three-dimensional. He had that kind of vestigial dusty blonde-brown hair that some men seem to carry over from childhood, even though every other part of them had grown and matured. I guess I had always just written off male bodies of this exact kind: the predictable Calvin Klein physique in expensive lounge wear, the kind of deliberate all-American healthy tan, the boringly tight abs.

I had always shirked away from this kind of thing the same way I did from infomercials and ads – and for the same reason, too. I had had my beginnings in the advertising industry, and in my current job, I stared all day at men just like this. I was numb to this kind of beauty. I was just being pandered to, right? Just being sold something. Nothing sexy about it. Rampant objectification may work on men, sure, but I liked to think I personally was made of stronger stuff.

And yet… here was this body, this real-life flesh, and there was something immediately and obviously different in it. This body wasn’t an image, it wasn’t fake and forced and cheesy. The ease with which he held himself, his upright posture, the bridled strength that seemed to pulse in even his smallest movements …here was a man who was utterly and completely in control of his physical form.

And what a physical form it was.

He was more Robinson Crusoe than hedge fund kid. Not a Calvin Klein model but the inspiration for one.

This was very unexpected. I all at once felt small and became aware of myself slouching, of how cheap my haircut must have looked to him.

“Drink?” said the girl, and snapped me out of my daydreaming.

I thanked her, took the glass she was offering me and had a sip, noting how beautifully comfortable she looked, and feeling the lack of my own comfort even more strongly.

“It’s a pity we missed each other yesterday, I do apologize,” he continued, crinkling the corners of his eyes into a warm smile.

I cleared my throat.

“Well, it’s me that should apologize – I was made aware that you weren’t happy with my piece. I do apologize. Cache magazine is primarily committed to content that is fair, so we’re absolutely more than happy to issue another article with a more balancing perspective, and you’ll have the chance to weigh in throughout, and we’ll run each quote by you befo--“

“Woah woah woah,” he said, raising two broad hands and shaking his head.

I stopped.

The black haired girl looked adoringly at him, as though everything that fell from his lips was gospel from God himself.

Was she his girlfriend? Some random groupie? I would have to explore that angle for sure.

“I don’t care about any of that,” he said. “Cache magazine is, if you’ll excuse me, a piece of shit. They’ve written about me before, and they’ve been wrong before. But you …you were right.”

“What?” I stammered.

He had shifted his weight in the heavily upholstered chair and the black haired girl now perched herself prettily on one of his thighs, snaking a bare brown arm over his shoulders.

I was right? Then why had he called me all the out here to apologize? Why had I bought this ridiculous faux-reporter-please-take-me-seriously color-blocked monstrosity of a dress?

“I was told you were unhappy with my reference to you and your recent …data security issues, and so I…”

He interrupted me immediately.

“Oh my God, you are way too highly strung,” he said.

I tried to respond but he cut me short again, pinning me with his gaze.

“I just said that to get you here, obviously. But you’re actually onto something. I absolutely did leak those pictures on purpose.”

I felt like I was rapidly drifting out of my depth. I hadn’t prepared for any of this. And I was developing a complete and decided hate for my new dress.

I felt stupid.

I realized with fresh petulance that what I really wanted was exotic, flowing robes like this dark haired girl draped over him, and golden dangly bracelets, and I wanted to be loose and easy, and have long Pantene hair and easy confidence.

“Ok, well, sure, there’s not a journalist in this country that believes you were actually hacked, right?” I said, in a tone that instantly seemed too hard and snarky, even to me.

He looked hurt.

“Man, that was mean,” he said and turned to the girl. “Kai, I think it’s your fault for not making that drink strong enough, honestly. Miss Mack seems pretty stressed out.”

He turned back to me.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He was the rich, asshole one-percenter, and I was the honest, truth-loving journalist who was going to expose him to the world. It was like he didn’t even know how this story was supposed to go.

He was looking down at the chessboard.

You wouldn’t think someone with such triumphantly toned pec muscles could look disappointed, but he did. And I felt bad.

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I know what the press makes me out to be, obviously. But the way you wrote about me was …different. You get it. What did she say…?” he looked over to Kai, who immediately parroted off a line from my article.

“She said, ‘Hood is not the first to troll the media with fake ‘leaks’, but why should he stop there? When you’re as wealthy as he is, you can afford an extra identity or two.’”

He chuckled.

“Man, I love that line,” he said, clapping his hands together. He stared meditatively at the chessboard again, Kai looking pleased at having performed well.

Was it some weird sort of S&M thing? Was there a dungeon somewhere in this stupidly huge house? That would make for a good story.

“I love it because it’s so true. I want you to write more like that. You’re good at creating characters, so make another one for me. I don’t like the image they have of me right now”

“The image?” I asked, thinking that he must be deluded if he thought the media had got him all wrong and that the model sipping champagne in his lap right now was somehow not what it looked like.

“Yeah. The image. Go on – what do think of me? Tell me. Three words.”

“Three words? What do you--”

“Yeah, quickly. Tom Hood. First three words that pop into your head. Go.”

“Ok bu--”

“No, just do it.”

I squirmed in my chair. I was mesmerized by how tight and vibrant his skin seemed. Warrior-like, I thought, making a note to say so in my revised piece. But I was also aware of another image trying to push into my mind. My gaze fell on the toned V shape disappearing into his pants, and I thought with horror about how well I knew how that shape continued down over the rest of him.

“Ok. Stupid,” I said. This seemed to upset Kai more than it did him.

“And …privileged,” I said after a pause. “Or maybe, entitled.” This elicited a tiny twitch around his mouth but he only sat silently, waiting for the third word.

My eyes flicked over his bare stomach again.

“And. Well. Sexy.” I said this like it had been tortured out of me.

When I looked up I fell immediately into the beam of his gaze again.

“But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Can we just start with the interview?” I said, a little embarrassed.

What had made him make that sound on the phone yesterday? What made this man happy? What did he do, secretly, for pleasure? What did he do with this beautiful woman in all these rooms? What special words and gestures and actions would get him to make that sound again?

“Start? We started ten minutes ago. This is the interview. You’re going to write a story, a different story, and you’re going to make sure I don’t seem stupid or entitled or privileged. You’re going to--”

“Mr. Hood,” I snapped, “I’m not your hired PR person. You don’t get to tell me what to write,” I said, lashing out at even the slightest suggestion that I would slot into his vast harem somehow.

A slow, strange smile spread over his lips.

Reading some invisible change in the tides, Kai jumped up, stood behind him and began to gracefully massage his shoulders with long, womanly fingers. He spoke again, this time the velvety quality giving way to something rougher and more abrasive.

“Penelope Welsh has a net worth of around $1.2 million. I could buy your magazine before breakfast tomorrow and easily tell you what to do.”

He was stroking the curved neck of the wooden Queen piece, turning her over again and again in his fingers.

“But I won’t, because I have better things to do with my time, and besides, you want to write what I tell you. That’s why you’re here.”

I nearly laughed out loud. I didn’t know what surprised me more, his audacity, or the fact that I had trouble summoning up a rebuttal to it.

“Go on, leave if you’re not interested,” he said, gesturing to the door, while I fumbled for a response.

I was shocked at the sudden nasty turn things seemed to have taken. I began to wonder if I had been too rude, and played out a future where Penelope would tear me a new one for not only failing to apologize, but losing what could be a very lucrative story for Cache.

“I’m …I’m sorry. That was rude of me,” I said simply. Kai’s eyes met mine for a brief moment, over the strong curve of his shoulder. For a moment, there was nothing in the room but her nimble fingers working on the tanned tendons around his neck.

He looked at me pointedly.

“Why are you limiting yourself with that job, anyway? Writing trash for Penelope Welsh, for peanuts? You’re too good to be that kind of journalist, you know. You’re an artist. Like me,” he said, and this time I did laugh out loud.

An artist? This guy had a massive chip on his shoulder.

This time, the twitch on the corner of his mouth was more pronounced. Kai stopped massaging him and looked a little alarmed.

Shit. I had gone too far again.

He placed a hand on hers and spoke again.

“I’m going to ignore your insult. You know, I’ve read every piece of yours. You’re talented. You’ve worked hard to get were you are. I admire that. But your voice is wasted where you are now, and you know that, so I won’t tell you again. You think I’m an idiot and you don’t even bother hiding your contempt for me. But I complimented you and you responded with venom. I suppose you’re getting the proper journalistic training there after all.”

This little speech was delivered so eloquently, so quickly and with such precision that I felt cut. The beginnings of tears were stinging my eyes. It was true. I had made a career of my shitty attitude, calling it “insightful comment” and “wit”, but he was right. I wanted more than anything to be taken seriously, as an artist, and this bonehead had figured me out in ten minutes. My face prickled but my ego stung more.

‘I’m …I’m sorry you feel that way, Cache magazine is--” I started but he interrupted me again.

“Yeah, don’t bother. You know what keeps rags like Cache afloat? Stories about people like me. That’s it. That’s all. You have the nerve to look down on me and yet every time I do something, you reporters swoop in like vultures, ready to make money off it. ‘Fair’? If you say so. Judge my life all you want, but it pays your salary.”

I didn’t know what to do with myself. All the pieces the magazine had done on him over the years where crowding my mind, and I desperately searched for something to argue back with.

He had inherited a huge chunk of money from his father, had invested it in dodgy fracking technology in Canada, had called the president a “tit” to his face. For god’s sake, this was the man who had just last month been in the papers for hosting pirate themed yacht orgies in the Mediterranean – and he was lecturing me about my integrity? It was too much.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I was floundering.

“Hey, shh, don’t worry about it, I’m not angry. But you know what I’ve noticed about journalists?” His voice was calmer now, and Kai began stroking his shoulders again.

“They’re cowardly. They don’t do much of anything themselves, they just sit on the sidelines, watching everyone else. Now that I think of it, it’s all pretty voyeuristic.”

His hand had reached up to Kai’s again and was absentmindedly stroking hers in return.

“I’ll write your story. I didn’t mean to offend you. I want to show the public who you really are.”

He didn’t seem all that interested in my new confession, although I had startled myself with how easily I had given it. He was staring vacantly at a spot in front of him, thinking. Kai began to trace her hand down the front of his chest and he accepted it, not breaking his gaze or train of thought. She leant forward, letting the full lusciousness of her breasts and hair fall over him. She nuzzled herself into his neck and he gripped her forearms, trapping her there. He snapped his eyes up and straight to meet mine again, catching me staring. The effect was electrifying.

“Do you? Do you really want to show them …or do you just want to watch?”

He began to gently kiss the length of Kai’s thin arms, his eyes never breaking their gaze with mine.

My entire body flushed with the intensity of the moment.

“You’re curious about me, aren’t you? I think you’re like everyone else, you have a morbid fascination with me …you wish you could …wish you had the guts to do what I do...” he mumbled this in between kisses he was planting on her soft, white skin.

He had a way of saying things that you simply couldn’t argue with. He was an arrogant asshole. But he was also right. I didn’t dwell on whether I was enjoying this new flagrant display, or whether he was spot on and that I did want to see him kiss this beautiful woman’s arms, and maybe even do other things to her, and know exactly what he did on the phone yesterday, and what turned him on, and what he really thought of me, and what his life was really like, every bizarre, sordid, sexy inch of it…

But I didn’t focus on that. I thought, instead, about how he must be a sex-crazed exhibitionist, him and this woman both, and that they were both playing with me, and that I would write an awfully clever piece later on about these eccentricities …but was he right about the magazine? Where we all just feeding off him?

I said nothing. I couldn’t. Keeping my breathing steady was apparently taking every last drop of effort I had.

“What do you think, Kai, do you think she’ll get rid of that ugly blue dress and come play with us?”

My heart beat furiously in my ears. Kai gave me a long, slow look, dripping with more sexiness than you’d think possible for anything other than a black panther.

“I think she wants to keep her ugly dress on,” Kai said, “But later, when she goes home tonight, she’ll wish she had taken it off.”

Who the hell was this woman anyway?

With a deep breath that seemed to expand his already broad chest, he twisted his head to the side and received a deep, wet kiss from Kai, slipping his hand through her hair and pulling her down further into him. With a strange little thrill, I noticed that his nipples were hardening under her girlish hands.

She drifted away and he returned his gaze to mine, something warmed and loose in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Go ahead then, prove to me you’re not like every other coward journalist and do something instead of just writing about it.” He turned his torso again, giving me a full view of his crotch and angling Kai so that she came round to the front of him and seated herself on the floor at his feet.

“You’re very angry, Miss Mack. Just look at Kai …isn’t she so beautiful? She’s not afraid to be vulnerable. She’s very submissive you know. Not my thing, personally, but look how happy it makes her,” he said teasingly to the top of her head; she replied by giggling and playfully slapping the top of his thigh.

“Is it true, the rumor about those tar sands in Canada?” I asked, afraid of where this was going.

“Not even remotely,” he said, fixing his gaze on Kai, who was nestling her face into his crotch.

“Did you really inherit everything from your father?”

“I never inherited a single cent from anyone.”

“Is it true that you called the president a tit?”

“Nope. I called him an asshole,” he replied, watching closely as she began to gingerly trace the outline of his cock through his pants.

“Is it really even you in those pictures?”

He looked at me and grinned.

“Of course.”

I felt a dull ache growing between my thighs. I really did want to get out of this dress. I really was too angry. And I really did want to know about him, everything about him…

My head was spinning.

He reached down and tenderly tucked Kai’s hair behind her ears, revealing that she was staring at him hungrily. With swift fingers, she began to pull down the zip, and he smiled peacefully down at her.

“I have to go,” I said abruptly, jumping up from my seat. They both turned confused faces to me.

“Don’t go,” he said to me with the same tenderness.

I wanted to stay. I wanted Kai to unzip him and put all of him in her mouth, and I wanted to watch her coax that manly, delicious sound from him again. I wanted to see his arrogance shudder a little, and slip off. I wondered how he was when he came; whether he would lose control and grunt and clench his teeth, or whether he went soft and only whimpered, throwing back his head and giving in to pleasure. I wanted to catalogue everything this strong, healthy man’s body did, and I wanted to document its every twitch and sigh, everything that gave it pleasure.

But another, stronger force compelled me to stand up awkwardly and before I knew it, I was racing down the same glittery halls I had walked only a few moments earlier. I tore down the swooping staircase and out of the house, heart pounding, completely disbelieving of the things I had seen in there. My head was spinning with the improbability of this whole thing, and with some amusement, I realized I was soaking wet.

Kai was wrong about me.

I didn’t regret not taking my dress off when they had asked me. I regretted it that very instant, when I turned back and took one last glimpse of the house, with a growing, desperate pang that I hadn’t had the guts to be in there right at that moment.

Chapter Six

Let me tell you, nothing in this world seems so boring after such an encounter than a full 8-hour day of sitting in front of a laptop.

Had my job always been this lackluster? I had something of a stimulus hangover form the night before. It was all too much. The champagne, Kai, the never-ending acres of manicured gardens I had to run through to leave… I have left plenty of heated moments in my life, let me tell you, but something about having to make your way through twelve rooms, a billiard area and a giant reception hall before you can slam the door behind you can make any girl disoriented.

It was all well and good for filthy-rich people like Kai and Tom to lounge around and be degenerates all day. But some of us had to make a living. A real living. I’m sure I could be an eccentric sexual connoisseur too if I didn’t have to get up early in the morning and remember to give my cat his medicine every day.

I was irritated, but some of what Tom had said had taken root in my mind and was growing there, quietly.

The way he put it, it did seem like the media had swarmed around his larger-than-life life, themselves creating this overblown image and then feeding off of it in turn. But surely Tom was no innocent party – in fact, he seemed to love the attention. Thrive on it. He had specifically requested me, some unknown junior writer at a shitty magazine (it had only taken me the morning to decide that he was right about this) to craft an even more enthralling tale for the plebian masses.

It was awesome. And I was right at the center of it, tasked with putting just the right words to bring out how truly epic the whole arrangement was, how we were all complicit in this modern day myth making, with Tom and his mammoth manhood standing at the epicenter of it all. It would be a brilliant article, my best work.

The trouble was, I couldn’t write. I sat for twenty minutes staring at an empty Word document. Everything that left my fingers felt phony. I backspaced it all, irritated. I wanted him to read it. To approve. He had lavished such soft, liquid gentleness all over Kai as she worked her fingers over his zip. And I wanted that for myself, I thought, not without a little embarrassment.

The tone of the piece was coming out all wrong. No sooner had I started to write, did I realize I hadn’t captured the real strangeness of this man’s presence, of how his well-spokenness wasn’t at odds with his underwear model body, but somehow a natural part of it. He was a complete man whore, true, but there was something else about him, something noble and admirable, something that I wasn’t managing to capture. Each paragraph just looked like something cheap and nasty from one of our rival magazines.

I backspaced everything and started again.

I had to show the reader how dazzling it had felt to be there with him, with the gravity of his presence seeming to warp and dominate everything around it.

I wanted to write about Kai, too, and about how completely she seemed to have surrendered to this invisible force. I didn’t write how jealous it had all made me, and how badly I had felt the pull to let myself slip away with the current of his charisma.

“Tom Hood nude pictures,” I asked Google for the bajillionth time that week.

Who was I kidding? It wasn’t even remotely “research” anymore.

I scrolled through and landed on the picture I had first obsessed over on my cold kitchen floor a lifetime ago. It was the same grainy candid celeb shot it always was, but this time it looked different to me.

This time, the expressions on the girls’ faces seemed so much more …joyful. Tom’s grim seemed broader, more wholesome, and the surface of each of his limbs seemed less flat, imbued with new depths somehow. People were wrong about him. He wasn’t a vapid playboy. He was an Adonis, and these women were not groupies, they were devotees, sexual pilgrims, and the only difference between them and me was that they had given way to his…

I threw my phone into my bag and stared at the blank page again. I was a professional. What I thought about him didn’t matter. Just write, dammit.

Chapter Seven

I turned the package over in my hands again and again. It was almost a perfect cube, tastefully wrapped and giving no clues at all about what could be inside.

“Oh my god, is what’s-his-name still sending you shit again?” said Clara.

I’m pretty sure I’ve had hours-long conversations with Clara only to discover at the end of it that we both had been talking about completely different what’s-his-names. Present circumstances meant I was relieved from having to lie to her, which was convenient, so I managed to be less curt with her than I usually am.

“Yup, from what’s-his-name. Idiot.”

“Open it.”

“Nah, later.”

“How did the meeting with what’s-his-name go?”

“Fucking hell, Clara, which what’s-his-name? I can’t believe anyone ever lets you near a keyboard.”

“You know, buddy, what’s-his-name …Tom Hood. Your interview with him.”

“Yeah it was OK. He’s a bit of an asshole, no surprise there.”

“Oh,” she said, taking her turn to look over the box.

“Complete ego maniac. Wants me to write a big piece singing his praises.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Are you going to?”

“Nah. What kind of asshole does that? I’m just going to write it like I see it,” I said, putting on a phony accent and shrugging. Why was I saying this? Why couldn’t I tell Clara what I really felt?

Her face went serious.

“It’s such a big story, though. And it is kind of weird. No offense, but …well, why not get Penelope to write it? Why did he ask you? No offense.”

I took the package from her hands.

“None taken. He just saw that I had mentioned him in another piece and he thought I owed him an apology.”

“That’s it? So, Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, wants you to do a feature piece on him, just like that?”

I shot her a sour look and she balked immediately, sensing she had overstepped.

“Whatever, celebrities, I don’t understand them,” she said breezily.

“He’s not just a celebrity you know, he is an actual entrepreneur … and a lot of what we’ve written about him is actually kind of shitty and--” I stopped. Clara was staring at the package with renewed interest.

“Oh my god. That’s from what’s-his-name isn’t it?” she said slowly, eyes widening.

I spun around and went to shove the package in my desk drawer.

“Yes, it’s from what’s-his-name, so what?”

She backed away with a sheesh and left, leaving me to think about what had just happened. Was she jealous of me? It hadn’t occurred to me, but many women would have killed for the chance I had. More seriously, my mind wandered again to a darker thought: why had I thrown him under the bus like that? What counted as staying true to my story angle and what counted as a stupid crush on a hot celebrity?

Look, I’m a decent writer. But Tom Hood’s life seemed harder and harder to explain. I was getting drawn in, when all I wanted was to occupy that calm, neutral territory of a true pro, be objective, show people that I didn’t care how glitzy and glossy a thing was, my job was to get to the bottom of things …and I intended to do that job well.

I opened the drawer again and tore off the wrapping. Inside was a padded jewelry box, with a delicate gold bangle nestled inside. Along the bangle’s edge was a beautiful etched eye motif, like something you’d find marked on the entrance of an undiscovered Egyptian temple. It was so exactly my style that I held it in my hands for a moment, taken aback by its weight and cool surface, how pretty it was.

A tiny note inside was scribbled with a time and a date, as before. It was from him. I was being summoned, again. I snapped the box closed and flung it aside. Here I was trying to brainstorm a flattering and subtle profile for this man, and he was just a garden-variety player after all. Trying to buy me with stupid trinkets… One hot tear was growing on my lower lashes.

I had never both badly wanted and not wanted a thing at the same time before.

Chapter Eight

I returned to 67 Baltic Terrace the next day with quite a bit more apprehension than the first time, which is saying something.

Oppressed on all sides by sparkling fountains and trimmed topiaries, I felt more keenly than ever how much I didn’t belong here. Not only was this attention from Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, entirely unexpected, I felt compromised by it instantly.

Was he making fun of me?

I was nothing like Kai, nothing like the leggy goddesses that seemed to follow him everywhere. I was dumpier by miles. Completely lacking in glamor. Matte, even. So, what was the game, then? I couldn’t decide if I felt more humiliated that he had given a gift at all, to me, or that I was completely, utterly, one hundred percent wooed by it. Not only did this playboy jock have the audacity to mistake me for one of his floozies, but astonishingly, he seemed to be doing a good job of it. And here I was, dressed up, again, excited nearly half to death to see him once more.

What an idiot, I thought, as I found myself again in that cool marble entrance hall, except I wasn’t quite sure if I meant him or me.

Half expecting Kai to glide down the staircase and collect me again, I was surprised instead to see him, standing at the top of the staircase, looking down at me. This time, there was no broad, easy grin. Just his face. He was covered up this time, too, and the contrast to before seemed more intimate somehow.

“Hello,” I said, my voice echoing slightly against the walls.

He simply stared at me a little longer, then gestured for me to come up with a small, noncommittal lift of his chin. I obeyed. It must have taken me roughly 40 years to ascend that staircase, or perhaps it only felt like it with his eyes following my every step. But I reached the top landing and looked him square in the eye – or as square as I could given he was more than a foot taller than I was.

His gaze moved down the length of my body but stopped, and he frowned and suddenly looked crestfallen.

“You didn’t wear the bracelet,” he said, already seeming to accept the unhappy fact.

I had come here full of indignation for him but with these simple words his disappointment crushed me and I realized that I had offended him, again, and that it was the last thing I had wanted to do. Why hadn’t I worn it? I had no clue.

“I’m …I’m sorry but I …” I could do nothing but trail off as I stared at his eyes again, and what I found there stunned me a little, so that even I, Katie Mack, who always has something to say, was speechless. It was a naked gaze, a look so full and open that I blushed instantly and started stammering again, desperately trying to normalize the situation.

“I can’t accept gifts you know, especially as favors, it’s just completely unprofessional…”

The disappointment on his face remained. I had blown it. But blown what exactly? I didn’t know. I had gone through my entire life level headed and sober and somehow this, this man with just a few words could send my whole head into a fluster and have me bumbling like an idiot.

He looked down again at my bare wrist, reached out to softly take my hand and then led me along the corridor, to a different part of the house from before. My heart was beating violently inside me, his touch, though casual, seeming to send a wave of invisible goose bumps all up my arm.

We reached a dark, small room with a modest wood fire burning at the far corner. This room had a different character to the rest of the house. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a few details here and there: an expensive speckled hide on the floor, two Bohemian looking red brocade chairs, arranged as though they were having a light conversation in the corner, an empty Chinese vase laced with red and gold filigree. I thought of poor Tigger alone at home, in my pitiful flat with its peeling wallpaper and budget shower fittings.

He sat down in one of the chairs and I followed and seated myself in the other. I would submit my article to Penelope tomorrow, and then …I didn’t know what would happen then. I couldn’t think of anything beyond this warm, strange moment, and this curious face in front of mine, so strange and yet so familiar all at once, lit gently with the light from the flickering fire.

I reached into my bag and pulled out three printed pages, then handed them over to him. My article. He took them, looked at me, then lowered his eyes. Dozens of editors had ripped into my work, people had criticized things I’d written nearly half to death, all my life, and like a good little journalist, I had taken it all with a thick skin, swallowing my hurt ego and committing to learning more. But this felt different. Very different. I sat in painful anticipation, studying his face to find any hint of what he thought of the piece, inwardly desperate for any flicker of approval, any sign that I had pleased him, at least in some small way.

His almond brown eyes flicked through the lines rhythmically, and he read quickly and quietly, not betraying his thoughts about it at all until he nodded once and raised his head again to speak.

“It’s … very good,” he said simply.

I felt warm and happy and confused and filled with a strange growing hunger that had no direction, no focal point except to do whatever he would find pleasing. It was a silly, girly state of mind, but as his praise hung there between us, I didn’t care, and I relaxed a little in the thought that I had written something good. For him.

“Thank you,” I said, consciously trying to reign myself in.

He let the pages drop to the floor and looked at me again, cocking his head to one side.

“I’m sorry about what I said the other day, about you being a cowardly journalist,” he said. The warmth and darkness of the room seemed to be closing in all around me. “I just don’t like to see people being …well, you have a talent, and you censor it. Why?”

My face flushed with this new, gentle turn his attitude to me had taken. I tried to think of some witty comeback, something to quip in response. I tore my eyes away from his and tried to think.

“What are you afraid of, really? Why do you hold back all the time?” he said, and I was again thrown off by the casual intimacy of the question.

“Hold back? I never hold back,” I snorted. I told it like it is. That was my whole job, right?

“Yeah you do,” was his immediate response. “You go up really close to something you want, then you back away. Like you’re scared.” He shifted his weight in the chair and let his eyes wander shamelessly all over my body. “I meet a lot of women. A lot of women. Some are more closed up than others, and that’s fine by me. Take a woman like Kai. Now she’s not afraid of a damn thing. Her heart’s completely open.”

The mention of her name felt like finding a bitter seed in what till now had been a sweet fruit. I hated hearing him talk about her.

“Yeah, I’m sure being a gold digger like her takes a lot of guts” I said.

He laughed.

“See? See how closed you are?”

“But come on Tom, Kai? Of course her ‘heart is open’, I mean she’s stupidly beautiful and she probably has had men paying her way all her life.”

He raised his eyebrows at this little outburst.

“Where is she anyway?” I asked.

“She’s in Brazil right now. I only see her a couple of times a year.”

“In Brazil? Attending a sugar daddy conference is she? Getting some more plastic surgery?” I felt growing anger that we were talking about her at all, that she was in the way, even when she wasn’t here at all.

“No, not at all. Kai owns a coffee plantation in Minas Gerais and she’s in some serious talks with the unions there about implementing more environmentally friendly farming techniques.”

It felt like Kai had appeared before me and slapped me hard across the face.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK, you’re jealous of her,” he said simply. He smiled at the frown this brought to my face. “You know, if you just opened up a little, you’d probably discover lots of other feelings, too.” His eyes were moving over me again.

“Ok, fine, I am jealous of her,” I said. I did feel relieved to say it out loud like that.

“See, was that so hard?” he smiled. “To be honest, I’m a little jealous of her,” he said, laughing.

I laughed too.

“You’re also very attracted to me,” he said suddenly, and I stopped laughing.

“What?”

“Yeah. You keep coming here, getting really close …and then running away again. You’re attracted to me.”

“I…” I stammered, but realized I was only going to say something stupid, to lash out again at him. It seemed that every wall of resistance I put up, every jab and barb, was melted by him. It really was an uncanny ability of his. Disarming.

“Hey, it’s OK, though. I know that you are, and you don’t have to pretend you aren’t.”

I said nothing.

He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling.

“Why do people walk around this earth so tightly wound up? Why does everyone censor themselves and pretend not to want what they really want? There’s something I admire about people who can surrender. Who have the guts to be themselves. People who can look at something bigger than them and just let go, just release into it, you know?”

I did know. It was something, in fact, that I admired in him. Suddenly, all the tales of his exploits and orgies in the media were falling into place. Maybe Kai wasn’t so bad.

“Maybe it’s just my ego, but I’m convinced I could get you to open up, too. To me,” he said, completely unguarded.

He extended one bare foot in my direction, and we both watched as he gently let his toes graze the edge of my ankle and then rest on the floor again, right in the empty space between my feet.

“Let’s try an experiment, ok? I’m going to compliment you and try to make you feel good, and you’re going to not be a big ol’ bitch about it.”

We both laughed.

“No seriously. No arguing back. No smart-ass comments. You just sit there, and enjoy it, ok?”

“Ok,” I said, already way, way out of my comfort zone.

“Ok.”

The fire crackled quietly.

“You have very, very pretty hands, and your hair is really sexy,” he said.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or squirm and hide under the seat. He was right; I was completely incapable of receiving any sort of compliment.

“I like how little your body is. You have such dainty wrists and arms, they’re really pretty…”

I opened my mouth to speak but he jumped in.

“Uh uh uh! Don’t argue! Just enjoy it. Doesn’t it feel good, to be told that you’re pretty?’

I felt like I had turned the most obvious shade of school girl pink and would die of embarrassment any second now.

He leaned back in his chair again, looking off towards the fire. “I think this world would be a very different place if people weren’t so afraid of pleasure. Of pushing themselves to see what they’re really capable of.”

“Ha!” I interjected, “Tom Hood, the philosopher, fancy.”

He shot me a cold look.

“So what if I am? Is that bad? Maybe it seems cheesy to you, but I don’t want to hide behind make-believe barriers, too afraid to feel anything.”

It occurred to me that he was probably slightly drunk. It also occurred to me that I didn’t care. At all. I wanted to be persuaded by this strange argument. I wanted to go along with it. I had this vague notion that if I just blurted out how meeting him here, like this, was the single most thrilling moment of my life, that he would judge me, that my excitement would seem unsophisticated, that we would withdraw everything and I would be humiliated.

“I’m attracted to you,” I said and braced myself. He looked at me with a bright face.

“I’m attracted to you too” he replied, quickly.

The fire crackled on, oblivious to this new change in dynamic. I hadn’t had a single sip to drink but felt myself intoxicated nonetheless. By him. By the thrilling thought of myself and what I was capable of right now, in this moment. Surely life doesn’t really work this way? Surely people can’t go around blindly declaring one another hot and boning in the streets? If it was such a good idea to be this “open” why didn’t everybody do it?

“I’m wondering if you’re going to kiss me,” I said at last, feeling somehow that narrating my own thoughts felt less intimidating than baldly saying what I wanted, outright.

He smiled.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

What?

“Trust me,” he said to my shocked expression.

“But I…”

“No! Just stop thinking for a moment. No excuses. Just listen to me. Do you trust me? Or are you going to turn around and run away from me again?”

“Yes bu--”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I breathed quietly, sealing my fate.

“Good. Then take off your clothes.”

I already felt half way naked as it was. I stood up gingerly, hands shaking.

“It’s just that I’ve neve--”

“Did I tell you that you could speak?” he said, throwing a playful look at me.

I smiled.

With fingers that felt like they didn’t even belong to me, I awkwardly peeled off my blouse, raising it over my head, feeling that the brief moment my face was hooded by the fabric was insanely dangerous, exposing me completely to him. I never wore a bra; my two breasts stared back at him like two sleepy creatures who had been pulled from their bed. He said nothing, only drank up the sight of me with a very serious look on his face. His gaze urged me on. I unbuttoned the top of my skirt and felt the scratchy fabric drop to the floor. This, along with the shoes I had kicked off, was tossed aside and left me with only my panties, which I wriggled off all at once, almost relieved to be fully naked now, entirely nude in front of him.

“There. Now you’re at your most powerful,” he said.

I was nearly overwhelmed with my own nakedness, and the shock of feeling the plain air rushing over every part of me, unprotected.

“Sit down,” he said.

I sat down.

“Spread your legs for me.”

I paused, then slowly lifted one and then the other leg, placing each on the arm rest of the chair, relishing the delicious agony of having the most intimate part of my body exposed to him in this way.

“Good,” he said, and moved forward off of his own chair, dropping to his knees just a few feet from me.

“Wider,” he continued, and I felt an instant twinge between my legs. I obeyed, stretching my legs further out, pushing my crotch even closer to his now-lowered head.

He placed one broad hand on my inner thigh, and with the other, he hovered unsure fingertips over the skin there, the delicate touches sending hard shivers all up my spine. He traced a gentle line upwards and to my bellybutton, something so soft, so fleeting and tender, I couldn’t help but hold my breath.

His face was a blend of awe and utter concentration, as though something of unimaginable value had been placed before him, but only for a moment, and if he should make even a single wrong move it would flutter off instantly. A slight smile was at the corner of his mouth, waiting there, and I found my hands rising of their own accord and finding their own way to the top of his head. His hair was so silky.

I had never had a man look at me like this.

Ever.

Shifting closer to me, he lifted his glance to me, releasing that little quivering corner of his mouth into a full, warm smile. I blushed and smiled back. He was intoxicating. I had yearned for that look the moment I saw him lavishing it on Kai. Fuck. Kai. How many other women were there anyway? My body grew a little colder. And how many had been lured here this same way?

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I blurted, instantly breaking the spell and making the smile fall completely off his face.

He frowned and leaned back, then looked away, as though thinking.

I suddenly felt stupid. Exposed. I hated this. So, he wasn’t denying it, then? Why was he irritated – that I was on to him?

The warm intoxicated feeling was rapidly floating away; I snapped my legs shut and sat up, a little dazed.

“It’s late. We should probably get some sleep,” he said and swiftly rose to his feet.

“Yeah, I should get going.”

He shot another hard look at me.

“You want to go? Just stay here.”

My face burned. As always, I was the idiot. Something clicked in me and I saw only an insult hanging in the air, the suggestion that he thought I was “easy”, that I was just another stupid slut he could conquer. Did he think I was buying any of this? That he wasn’t using the same tired tricks on me he had used on every able-bodied woman this side of the Atlantic? I should have seen it earlier. Nothing had changed, I guess. I was still my desperate 16-year-old self who turned to stupid-jelly at the merest whiff of attention from a man, and now here I was, compromised beyond belief and—

“You’re really petrified of sex, aren’t you?” he said, his demeanor seeming to harden with each passing moment.

“Petrified? Nope. But I know when I’m being strung along. I’m not one of your little groupies, sorry,” I spat.

“No, you’re really not,” he said, a little sadly.

I searched his face, desperate to find something there. Would he rush in and try to placate me? Tell me I was wrong and that he wanted nothing more than for me to trust him? What kind of a relationship could two people like us have, anyway? It would be a one in a billion chance, an airheaded Cinderella story. Unbelievable. Did I really expect that he would date me, an awkward idiot earning 25k a year? My shoes were scuffed second hand heels I had snatched from Goodwill, a $10 throwaway of some rich girl’s who had the life I really wanted. I was a hack. I had nothing but an old laptop that needed updates and a kitchen drawer filled with mismatched spoons and a sick cat and—

“It was my fault. I don’t know why I pushed you. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”

My head hurt. I felt wounded, exhausted.

Without feeling myself doing it, I found my body leaving the room, and before I knew it I was outside in the chill, unwelcoming air. What was I expecting, anyway? Had I just blown it? But what would someone like Tom Hood, the Tom Hood, want from me? I came to this town to start a new life, one where I was in control, where I was worth something. I stood up a little taller. No, it was all too predictable. I wasn’t going to be sweet-talked by a billionaire with an 8-inch cock and the smile of a salesman.

I was better than that.

And I wanted him to think I was better than that, too.

Chapter Nine

The next day, I was in a dark mood. Money and power did weird things to people. And now, it was doing weird things to me.

On one side of the argument was my old friend Cassie, telling me matter-of-factly over cappuccinos that in this town, there was no getting around it, you simply had to sleep with a few important people here and there if you cared about your career. Men are just dogs, especially the rich ones, you see.

And what about the tar sands? What about all the nasty rumors? How could I trust someone who was so used to getting his way all the time, so used to simply buying whatever he wanted? What could I ever be to such a person but an object, something to collect and put in the cabinet along with all the other naïve girls?

But on the other hand…

I sat at my desk, sulky and miserable, dwelling on that tender look on his face as he stared up at me. At that moment, he seemed like nothing else in this world but a warm, loving, happy being who was devoted to nothing but my pleasure. And I believed him. Ah fuck. It wasn’t that his promises didn’t appeal, that I didn’t completely buy into this just let go and trust me spiel. I did. I really did. I just hated that I did. And I hated that now, on this dull Friday morning, I was on my own again, ego bruised somehow, wishing heartily that I wasn’t an idiot and had had the guts to just…

Penelope would want my final draft soon for the Saturday edition. I stared for a long while at two separate documents in front of me. One: a subtle, half-praising, generous account of the hidden Tom Hood, the man that nobody knew about, the complex mind behind the fame… the other: a damning snark piece, delivering blow after blow of cutting criticism, snippy one liners, all dripping with the implication that not only was Tom Hood as bad as he was portrayed in the media, he was even worse.

So, which was he?

And how could I, a 23-year-old junior writer, be the one to decide? He had sniped the weakest link in our company on purpose, had tried to sleep with her and bullshit his way to a flattering piece …for what? Ego? For fun?

The thought made me shudder.

I quickly tapped out an email and sent the second article to Penelope.

Fuck him.

Chapter Ten

“I forgive you. Don’t worry about it. I understand why you did it,” he said.

I sat opposite him, prickling. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, true. By now, the article had been printed and was being read by thousands all over the country.

It wasn’t good.

But if I was being honest, I had in the back of my mind that I had hoped he would summon me again. Be angry, even. I wanted to look him in the face, with my clothes on, and tell him that no matter how rich he was, or how powerful, there were just some things in life he couldn’t have.

I had blustered into his house, again, this time shaking with my newfound arrogance and the conviction that I was right. Not just right, but that I had seen through a very transparent bit of manipulation on his part, and now I would have my chance to gloat a little. I felt bad. Sure. I wasn’t a monster. There was something so sweet and open in his face the last time we had met, something so touching and trusting in his plea for people to be open with each other …too bad it was complete bullshit. He didn’t have to know that I was still crushing on him, still a little bewitched by that moment by the fire.

“I did it because it’s the truth. I never agreed to write a promotional piece,” I said.

We were in yet another room of the grand house, an airy terrace room filled with palms and what I guess rich people think counts as low-key. I had always known that I would find my way from rags to riches one day …just, not like this.

“Do you really believe that? Do you really believe everything you wrote about me?”

I was totally taken aback by how unguarded he seemed. I had expected him to be vengeful, and to scoff at me or even threaten me with legal action …anything but this, really. Instead, he looked hurt, his broad frame crumpling a little in the wicker chair. I looked out the window, saying nothing.

“I guess I misunderstood you. I’ve been going on and on about how you should trust me but honestly, maybe I shouldn’t have.”

It had never occurred to me that he was struggling to trust me. That he had any vulnerabilities at all, actually. Some of my indignation was beginning to feel a bit much.

He looked out the window, too, face contorting a little.

“I’ve been reading your pieces for a long time. Before you wrote for that stupid rag, too. That piece about Syria you wrote last year? I loved that.”

How did he get a hold of that?

“I thought that you were …that you would understand, that you would write something that… I don’t know. I’m not good with words. But you are. You know what it’s like to come from nothing.”

Here he looked at me again, imploringly. What on earth could he know about me?

There was a long silence.

“Do you remember that convenience store on the corner of Charles and 28^th? That one that had that weird cigarette lighter on a string on the outside?” he blurted all at once.

“What?”

“I think it was Patak’s or Patel’s or something. You must have gone there loads,” he continued.

It was Patak’s Supermarket. I remembered it well. It was a permanent landmark of my long-forgotten childhood, from a time in my life that I had gleefully forgotten, pretending it didn’t exist.

“How do you know about that?” I said quietly. “Oh my God, have you been snooping on me or…?”

My head was spinning. Things were taking a decidedly unexpected turn.

“What? No way. I mean, I could if I wanted to. But no,” he said, returning his gaze to the window, an unreadable expression on his face.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. I felt like shit. Why had I published that trash about him? What had he done, really, to deserve it? Was I so broken? So badly mistrustful? What was wrong with me anyway?

“I grew up in the same town as you,” he said eventually.

“What? In Little Falls? No way.” This was bizarre.

“Yeah. We went to the same school actually.”

“That’s …not possible. That was a tiny school, there was no Tom Hood there…”

“Yeah there wasn’t, I changed my name when I was 18.”

My mind raced, trying to put everything together.

“Phillip Hellman. You probably won’t remember me. But I remember you.”

“But …but your father? You inherited all that money--”

He sat up and began speaking clearly, like he was reciting lines, or giving a statement at a police station.

“My father died when I was a baby. I created all the other stories. On purpose. It was deliberate. But none of it’s true. I never inherited a cent, not from anyone. I killed a man, when I was 16, and went into juvenile detention for a year and a half. I ran over him with my car by accident, they wanted to try me as an adult but they didn’t, thank god. It was the most awful time in my life. I ran away, I reinvented myself. I made a lot of mistakes. Turns out, I’m good at making money, too…”

He looked at me with a question in his eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He went on.

“And so I did that. I forgot about my past, and I did well for myself. Really well. The rest you already know, I guess.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Who else knows about this?” I asked eventually.

“Nobody. My mother knew, but she passed a few years ago. Nobody else knows. Well, you do, now. I’m tired, to be honest. I actually found you by accident – long story – but I remembered you from school. You were a few years below me. It seemed like an amazing coincidence, that you had moved here, too. That you wrote about me. It was like …like …”

“Like a one in a billion chance,” I said.

“Yup,” he breathed.

We both took the next few minutes to blush and smile at each other like idiots. Everything was different. I didn’t know what next to say.

“Do you remember that awful piece of shit sports shed next to Mrs. Campbell’s class? The one everyone used to smoke in?”

“Yes!” he laughed, and clapped his hands together, “Oh my god yes! It was full of cockroaches, I remember. Did you have Mrs. Campbell? I heard she married a Puerto Rican guy eventually.”

“Yes, I heard about that too! So weird.”

His face had softened. Tom Hood had vanished. Now, there was someone else in front of me entirely. The effect was thrilling.

We spent the next hour – or was it many hours? – reminiscing about that shitty old school, and the people from Little Falls, and all the little snips of gossip we could both remember. I had only a dim memory of him – he had been a quiet, unassuming boy with mousy hair and good grades, but he had slipped under my radar for the most part.

“Like you were any better!” he laughed, “You were quite the dork, I remember it clearly,” he said and we both giggled.

Silence.

“Tom …Tom, I’m so sorry.”

He reached over and grabbed my hand in response, saying nothing. I felt in this gesture his complete and easy forgiveness, but I was still wracked with guilt at the horrible things I had said about him.

“No, really, I was just … I was afraid. I was scared you were just using me.”

“I know,” he said. We both looked at my hand in his.

All at once, I thought about his naked body again. This time, I felt like I could see right through, to the very bottom of the pictures I had seen, of the entire illusion he had crafted. I saw someone like myself, someone who had desperately erected a façade all around them.

I stared back into his eyes and found, at last, what I had been looking for during the last few days. It was there all at once, the same simple openness, only this time I felt nothing to prevent me from slipping and surrendering into it completely. I looked at him, with a gaze filled with yearning and vulnerability. We both knew, at that moment, that there was nothing to hold us back anymore. My entire body pulsed with the thought.

“Don’t leave,” he said, “We have all day.”

It was true.

The whole weekend spanned in front of us, like a red carpet, and it was nothing but me and this man, and his beautiful body. I was nervous, but this time my nerves seemed only to make things more delicious.

He leaned in, and kissed me. Slowly, meltingly. I had learned so much about him, it seemed, and now it was only natural that I explored him physically, too. My body ached with wanting to share myself. I kissed back, my tongue seeking him out, this strange man, this strong man.

I threw my head back, and he continued his kiss down onto my jaw, and then down onto my exposed neck, planting a hot string of soft kisses all the way down, then kissing the top of my breasts. I was breathing more heavily, my lungs hungrily taking in deep breaths to steady my growing sense of intoxication. He was now pressing the full weight of his body against mine, and the urgent insistence of his muscles made me limp and yielding, wanting nothing but to melt in his arms.

Seeming to sense this, he circled his big arms round me and held me tightly, breathing and kissing every piece of my exposed skin. I was in a blissful reverie, completely lost in the flow of kisses and breath, when he pressed hard against my hips, the obvious length of his cock suggesting more. I moaned, thrilled at what was happening to me, that soon there would be nothing between out bodies, keeping us apart. I felt drunk.

“You’re beautiful,” he said and the utterance felt like it nearly made me come right there and then. He smiled at the effect this had on me, pulling back a moment to take in my raptured expression.

“You are beautiful. You deserve pleasure. I want to give it to you. I’m so glad you stayed…”

This last part of his sentence disappeared as I kissed him hungrily, ready to assent to everything.

In an instant, he was tearing away at my shirt and yanking off my jeans, and I complied, wriggling out of them as fast as I could, then turning to him to remove every last shred of clothing from his tight, masculine body.

We surveyed one another, happy for more and more, relishing that there were still so many more layers to peel away, to explore. I pressed the full length of my body against his, surprised at how hot and responsive his skin was. I got it, just then. He was right. Why were people so afraid of what they wanted? Of being vulnerable? What was so threatening about this man’s glorious body against mine, breathing and alive and hot with all kinds of unspoken appetites and desires? I wanted to know all of them. I wanted to satisfy all of them.

His cock was fully hard, and it easily slipped in the little hollow between my legs. I held it there with my thighs, knowing that he could he feel how aroused I was becoming, how I was literally melting on him. We kissed each other hungrily, pawing and grabbing at each other’s flesh with playful, easy urgency. We had both collapsed to the floor, conscious of nothing but one another, and the thrill of what our bodies could do to one another.

I glanced down at his cock, his soft mouth kissing me all over my neck and shoulders as I did so. I had never been with anyone with anything remotely as big as that before (who was I kidding, I hadn’t been with many people, period) and I was spellbound, reaching out for it almost instinctively. He pulled back and looked down at me cradling it in my hands, smiling.

“You like that?” he asked, and in response I shifted my weight down, deciding that what I wanted was to have it in my mouth.

He grinned and threw his head back, the veins in his taut belly pulsing a little as I went to suck him.

The taste was warm, and salty. His skin was surprisingly thin and soft, and I delicately placed my hands on either side of his thick shaft, admiring how utterly hot he looked. He was like a god, and I wanted to make an offering to him, right here, with my mouth. I traced the tip of my tongue up the length and twirled it teasingly over the tip, thrilled to discover a small, salty bead of moisture there, which I happily gobbled up. I kissed the head lovingly, planting two tender lips on him, then gradually opening and letting him move into my mouth, one delicious inch at a time. I pulled back again, leaving a wet trail, hearing him groan in appreciation. He placed one cautious, shaking hand on my head, and with an almost imperceptible tug pulled me down again. I loved that he loved it. I obliged and took him in again, this time to the edge of what I could physically manage. I held him there, throbbing inside my mouth, his strong frame reduced to shudders as he clutched at fistfuls of my hair.

Holding him inside, I circled and flicked my tongue over every part of him, enjoying how he responded by growing harder, so I could almost feel the blood throbbing through him. I found a slow rhythm and began to suck him, up and down, loving the scent of him, feeling the muscles in his thighs and back twitching in response to the movements of my tongue. He was in as far as he could go, and I wanted more still. He placed both his hands on my head and, with more aggression, began to pump my head onto him, occasionally letting out gruff whimpers to the top of my head.

I pulled away and stared hard into his eyes, feeling a simple joy at how wonderful it was to please him, to turn him on, to suck his fat dick until he moaned and rolled his head back in ecstasy. I kissed him again, deeply and passionately, and with my hand I guided his beautiful cock into me, not wanting to waste another second. My entire body was almost delirious with wanting him, and when the moment came he sunk the full length of it into me, taking away my breath completely.

“Oh my god,” I muttered to the warm crook of his neck. “Oh my god…” and there really was nothing else to say. I felt almost numb with pleasure, overwhelmed by the heft of this amazing piece of his anatomy somehow deep, deep within me, bringing our bodies even closer than I thought they could be. He held me, still, for a long moment; nothing moved except for my aching pussy tightening and releasing around him, my body happily surprised at these new dimensions; I smiled, pleased that I could accommodate this part of him, that he was so close to me now.

We fucked. Slowly. Easily.

He curled his muscular back to bring the full length of his cock into my body, then curled away again, and with each thrust I arched to meet him again. He ran his big, smooth hands up and down my back, his lips and tongue delivering hurried affection all over my shoulders, my breasts, my neck. I looked down to see our two soft bellies bumping against each other, his wide dick linking them both, pulling me back again and again along its slick, glistening length. It was so fucking hot I nearly screamed.

Tearing his lips away from my skin, he followed my gaze and looked down as well, then stroked his fingers over my lower belly, planting the pad of his thumb against my clit and stroking me. These twin sensations were glorious: the heavy, almost painful heft of his cock fucking me down below, and the gentle, delicate strokes of his careful fingers caressing me up above. I felt him pushing me closer and closer to the slippery edge of a full orgasm, but one I wasn’t ready for yet – I wanted to stay here forever, hovering on this delicious apex with him.

“I want to make you come,” he whispered into my ear, and before I could respond he had jumped up and grabbed me hard around the waist, spinning me around so that I faced away from him, my two plump ass cheeks squashing against his midriff.

“I don’t want to hold back with you anymore,” he said to my sweat coated back and neck.

“Then don’t…” I said, anchoring myself against the cushions on the seat I had sat on only a few hours ago, my anger and resistance seemingly a universe away now. Who knew that his body could be such a source of pleasure? That mine knew how to open so easily to his, almost as if by instinct?

I leant back and threw my ass into the air, arching so that my pussy was open, raw and utterly at his mercy.

“Don’t hold back…” I said again as I felt his gleeful hands squeezing my butt cheeks.

With one single, almost frictionless slide into me, he pinned his large body against mine, holding my hips firmly to him. He drew back and plunged into me, the full length of his cock hitting even deeper, the new angle opening up new places in my body, new places that I wanted him to fuck just as mercilessly.

I cried out, my entire body wracked with waves of pleasure and pain. I leant back further into him, wanting more, and he responded with another savage thrust, banging his hips into mine, every atom of my pussy seeming to sing. Deep in me, he seemed to find that old thread of pleasure again, and before I knew it he had eased me closer to my orgasm again. He was fucking me harder now, pounding into me relentlessly, our bodies slapping hard together, my poor wet body quivering and pliant beneath his.

“Spread your legs wider,” he said. I obeyed, and he ploughed even deeper into me still, causing me to buck and cry out. With each angry thrust, he tore deeper into me, and I could do nothing but lean further into, offering up my body to him.

“More. Show me your ass,” he said and I reached back, pulling my butt cheeks apart, relishing how utterly filthy this felt.

“Oh fuck…” he mumbled, and I felt him pause as he shuddered a little, gathering himself. I giggled and wiggled against him, trying to push him over the edge. He growled and gripped my hips hard to stop me. His breath was so hard and ragged his entire chest was rising and falling, only one or two little shivers betraying how close he was to coming.

He pulled out of me, the head of his wet cock bobbing and slapping against my exhausted thighs. I spun around under him and gazed up at his face; he stood there for a moment, eyes half closed, his full, hard body heaving and beaded with sweat, his dick towering over me. My entire body was flushed with happiness.

“You turn me on so much,” I said, writhing underneath him, wanting it back in me again.

He opened his eyes and smiled down at me.

“Oh yeah? I want you to play with yourself.”

I cocked my head to the side and flashed a flirty smile at him. I glided both hands down over my breasts, over my hips and back in over my stomach, then traced one curious hand down to my wide open slit, sending one finger inside. As I arched back, I saw the smile on his face drift softly off as a new, more intense expression come over his features; it was that same, hyper-focused look he had given me that first night. Nothing existed for him at that moment except the tiniest movements of my fingers, and for me, seeing myself reflected in his hungry gaze, wanting to turn him on as much as he was turning me on.

I rocked my hips rhythmically against my fingers, having no trouble bringing my already swollen clit to a state of frenzy again. I was so unbelievably tense with pleasure that my entire pussy was spread wide and open, but I brought my knees even closer to my torso to open up even further – I didn’t want him to miss a single thing. I continued circling my clit as much as I could manage, breathing jagged and shuddering with the effort of avoiding coming.

“Are you ready to come?” he asked. His cock was in his hand, and he was stroking it slowly, pointedly.

I nodded.

“I want to feel you come,” he said.

He released his hand and introduced the head of his cock to me again, and even though he had fucked me senseless only a moment ago, the sensation was enough to send my whole body into fresh spasms of pleasure again. I was dangerously close to coming. I reached my hands out and put them against his stomach, stopping him from going any further.

“Woah! Careful! I’m really… close,” I said, gasping.

The room spun around me. I felt that a single tiny movement from him would send me hurtling over the edge.

He waited, tip inside me, and breathed heavily while I tried to compose myself again, then slowly removed my hands, ready for more. Locking his eyes with mine, he slowly, slowly pressed another inch of his beautiful cock into my poor, ravaged body. I rushed right up to the precipice again, shivering violently to hold my body back from a luscious orgasm. No. I wanted to have all of him in me, as deep as he would go, before I would allow myself to come…

“More?” he asked, and I nodded.

I was given another inch, and with a violent twitch I yanked myself back from the edge again, laughing at how insanely sensitive I had become to him, to his hard body nudging me closer and closer and closer.

“Oh fuck, I can’t take it …please …”

He smiled, relishing what a quivering mess I had become, knowing how he could collapse this entire moment with just a single hard stroke.

“You want it…?”

“Fuck yes!” I screamed, clutching at the carpet in fists.

In one smooth, confident thrust, he drove the rest of his cock into me, slamming the line of soft brown hairs on his stomach right up against my body. I cried out and threw my head back, letting the peak of a massive wave crush over my body, radiating out from the hot center in my core where he was, driving me into hot, wet spasms that my aching pussy lavished over him. He remained hard inside me, motionless, and when I had fallen into the deep, delicious pool of my first orgasm, I felt him stirring me up again, pulling another one out of me. I couldn’t believe it. I barely noticed that he had both of his fists clenched tightly around my wrists, and was pinning me firmly to the floor, his entire weight over my bucking, twitching body.

“Tom …oh god,” I began and then the second orgasm hit me, this time broader, looser than the first. I couldn’t help but to break out into giggles. I looked up to see a bright expression of pure joy on his face, his eyes seeming to want to penetrate mine just as deeply as his body was. He smiled, and with a thrill, I felt my body collect and swell again for yet another, bone-shattering orgasm.

My body felt so on fire by this point, so loose and free, so utterly his, that this third wave found absolutely no resistance. This time, I could scarcely make a peep as I slammed my eyes shut and let the sensations run through me, yet again. My body had become a vortex of wet, swirling pleasure, and at the center was Tom, beautiful Tom, tender-eyed, hard-bodied Tom, hung like a fucking donkey.

My body still twitching and writhing, I reached out towards him and took him in my mouth again. His dick was soaked from fucking me, but I quickly lapped this off, taking him in as deep as he would go, thrilled at the thought of having him enter me everywhere.

“Your turn,” I said to his crotch, and stroked it playfully against my cheeks.

“Remember, don’t hold back…” I added, planting both of my hands on his butt.

I heard a quiet murmur of assent; he gripped my head and began almost immediately fucking my mouth, savagely, driving himself right to the end of my throat. It easily reached to the back of my mouth and beyond, and I gagged, choking, my lips shaking around the fat base of it.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said again, and this time, it was almost a plea; I could hear in his voice how close he was. I pulled him further into my hot throat, wanting all of him, as far as he would go, loving how good it felt to be filled and violated in this way.

I gagged once more, long strings of dribble forming on my lower lip, and one hot tear growing on my lower lashes. I wanted to do this with him always. I squeezed his ass in my hands, urging him to release and shoot his cum into me. The hands pulled hard on bunches of my hair; he thrust once, twice into my mouth and then he burst into spurt after spurt of hot sticky liquid.

I held him in my mouth, wanting to catch every last drop, proud at having eked out so much pleasure from this man, this man who had always seemed so strange to me, yet so familiar. He growled and I felt his entire body shuddering as he emptied himself completely onto my tongue; after a moment his spent cock slid out, bouncing against his hips.

His gripping hands had turned into gentle, searching caresses; as he hugged my head close I showered his softening cock with kisses, nestling him back to his senses. He groaned loudly and flung himself back onto the floor, pulling me down with him. I landed on his chest and clung there, heart still beating in my ears and the echoes of my trio of orgasms still fresh in my mind, and in my body.

I had never been so thoroughly fucked in all my life. I felt like the happiest girl in the world.

As I traced a shaking finger over his chest, I realized that I could never tire of him, of his body, of this. I wanted him to do that to me again and again and again…

Chapter Eleven

And he did.

It was a one in a billion chance that this, any of this would have happened, and to someone like me no doubt …but it did happen.

And once I had gotten my mind around the fact, once I had relaxed into the idea, I was no longer surprised any more, by anything that we did together. I guess even the improbable happens once in a while, right?

Tom spent the most of the next year trying to convince me that I wasn’t in some fantastical dream, and this was my life now, and his, and that it was OK to let go, to be happy.

And I resisted it at first. And we’d argue it out, and we’d fuck, long, passionate evenings in that same fireplace-ed room, hashing out our disagreements. He was one moment the cocky celebrity alpha male I had written about all those months ago, the next moment a playful, sweet boy from my hometown, one who knew every little alleyway of my past, every untouched spot on my body.

He was gentle with me, and I him, and we were unthinkably rough with one another, both desperate to see how close we could get, how many layers we could peel off, what was really underneath all that flesh we pawed at so hungrily. And we went even deeper still.

There was money, of course, loads of it. Life became easy in ways that made me nervous, suspicious even. But there was nothing Tom’s firm gaze, firmer voice and unbelievably hard cock couldn’t convince me of. I let go …and I kept letting go. I let my mind soften with him, and my body yielded, first a little bit, and then more and more, until easing into the warmth of his big body felt like the easiest thing in the world.

“Haha! Look at this one. Oh, you’ll love this,” he said.

He had a new issue of Cache spread out on his lap, and we were both in its pages, highly pixelated and walking quickly out of a restaurant with the headline PREGNANT stamped on my head. He held up the pages to me and I laughed, nearly spilling my drink. It was almost a year since I left Cache, since Penelope had left, and Clara had taken over. Like I said, even the unimaginable can happen sometimes.

“Should I call them up and tell them you’d just eaten an extra large burrito that day? That’ll break their hearts I’m sure,” he said, returning his gaze to the page. I playfully threw a sock at him.

“Shut up. I’m simply devastated, don’t you know. There are rumors your eye is straying, of course. Ah, my poor playboy husband, what is he good for?” I said, pretending to swoon.

“Good for? I buy you burritos, don’t I?” he laughed.

“Can’t argue with you there.”

He put the magazine down.

“I want you again,” he said.

I looked at him. He had that same look on his face, the one I was becoming very familiar with. He was like an adorable golden retriever puppy, only with a six-pack and a dirty mind.

“Again?” I laughed. It would be the third time this morning.

He sauntered over, cradling my head in his hands and kissing me softly.

“Unless you’re feeling too sore…”

I kissed him back, hard, and pulled him closer to me. I guided his hands over my body, letting his fingers rest on the spot where only a few hours ago he had pounded me relentlessly.

One look from me told him what he wanted to know, and he pulled off my shirt, kissing each of my breasts, saying “I love you” as though he only wanted them to hear and not me.

“I love you, too,” I responded and slipped my fingers through his hair.

People really do go around this world closed off from each other, I thought. He was my one in a billion, but I was convinced now that with an open heart, anything was possible.

Anything at all.

Chapter Twelve

I’m standing calmly, and I take a slow, disinterested sip of champagne. My hair is longer now, and has grown down to my lower back, where it grazes the top of my black suspenders. I’m wearing my favorite leather thigh highs, the ones with spike heels and tiny red chains around the ankle, plus a long, long string of real pearls that falls down between my bare breasts and to my belly button.

I’m tipsy, but not overly so.

For a moment, I have stepped back from the fray, standing apart from the mass of bodies in front of me, some dancing, some breaking off into slower moving groups of two or three, some already heavily twisted into each other… patches of light catch on their naked bodies.

He is at the center, and as he makes eye contact with me, a deep, knowing glance erupts on his face. He smiles a small, private smile. I return one of my own. The music is good tonight, very good, and I let my head fall back a little as I enjoy it, enjoying also the summer air on my half-naked body, and the cold, wet crystal glass against my fingertips, of the near-bursting perfection of this moment, seemingly held in suspension all around me. The yacht is far from the shore now, floating in inky blackness, only the lapping of water reminding us that we’re still technically on planet earth. A familiar cry breaks me out of my daydreaming.

The woman in front of me is being fucked to within an inch of her life.

Her entire face is flushed red, the color extending far down onto her chest and to her two swollen nipples. She’s writhing like something possessed, as though she’s about to combust into flames at any second.

“She won’t come until I tell her she can,” says her tormentor to me. He flicks a sweat-damp fringe from his face and pummels into her with more urgency.

“What do you think – should we let her come?” he says through strained breath, flashing deep, laughing brown eyes in my direction.

I smile.

A year ago, I had only seen this man in pixelated images. He had been nothing more than ink on a newspaper for me and now …now he was sweaty and deep in a yelping woman who seemed to be melting before our very eyes.

“Well…?” he asks again.

Kai looks beseechingly into my eyes, her hair damp and disheveled and her lovely face contorting with pleasure.

“No, fuck her a little more” I say, and smile.

I lock my eyes with hers, savoring that sweet moment, and blow her a little kiss. It’s a bit mean, sure, but I’ll make it up to her later.