Chapter 17 – Mariah
By the time I meet up with Jane near the lodge, I don’t need to tell her where Paul and I were or what we were doing. There’s no need. She can see and smell it on me. I can tell by the knowing look she gives me as I glide up to her, and mentioned that Paul was eager to see me at the hot tub.
Jane says she’d be down for a soak. She also says I look as cold as she feels, and that we should go warm up anyway.
I don’t feel cold. My body is still warm and squishy from having sex like an animal in the forest, but I go with it anyway.
Even if Paul and I don’t do any more fooling around in the hot tub, it’ll be nice to hang out with him. Chat some more. Maybe even make some plans for my final night at the resort before I head home.
And act like the sweet, untainted darling daughter my Mom thinks me to be. I think this as I throw on a two-piece bikini. A frilly number. One Jane lets me borrow. As I dress in it, my eyes catch a bit of the lingerie she bought me. But until then, I’m going to be wild. Crazy. I’m going to find a use for that nightgown!
I giggle, feeling my womb tingle. Just the thought of dressing like that for Paul — that’s enough to have my pussy sucking on the inside of my bikini bottoms. Drooling on them.
“Ready, Freddy?” That’s Jane, and she’s in an even more revealing number. A black bikini. One designed to show off every curve. Every fold. Also, to give her mega-plump breasts some Grand Canyon level cleavage.
I nod, and we head out the door. But not before grabbing our towels and a pair of flip-flops provided by the lodge for use in their recreational swimming and spa area.
It’s showtime, I think, as I eagerly await getting to see Paul again.
***
Whatever my hopes are for the hot tub (Paul running over to hug me when he sees me come in, or his eyes traveling my body in my super sexy, borrowed bikini), I don’t get that.
The moment I set foot in the swimming area where the hot tub is located, my eyes are met with the sight of Paul and another woman in the hot tub. They are cuddled up together. The blonde skinny woman is practically sitting in his lap. Riding his junk with the way she is seated on him, her arms looped around him.
Worst of all though, is the way Paul looks. Maybe it’s just my surprise, my shock at him being so close with another woman, but he looks comfortable. Right as rain with this anorexic model of a girlfriend hanging all over him.
Like I’m nothing. Like the sex we just had in the woods, the sex we had last night that took my virginity, means absolutely nothing.
I stop short, feeling like I’m suffocating. I don’t want to look at them together, but I can’t pull my gaze away. They just keep soaking in the image of Paul and the blonde woman together the same way other people soak in the details of a fatal accident.
In my strangled throat, sobs threaten. In my staring eyes, I feel the burn of tears starting. Stop it, Mariah, I scold myself, trying to prevent breaking down in front of the new bitch. Just because he had sex with you doesn’t mean you own him. Doesn’t mean you and he are committed. He paid a million dollars for you, so let’s face it— against all my control, a sob escapes — he is free to do whatever, with whoever he wants.
Another sob. This one louder and more pathetic. But… It hurts!
Paul’s look of horror registers with me, as he finally notices that I’m there. That I’ve seen him with another woman.
“Mariah,” he cries, leaping out of the tub. He doesn’t seem to care that he has just ejected the real-life Barbie doll directly into the water from his lap. “Wait! It isn’t what it looks like!”
But I’m gone. I’m done. Whatever I thought our relationship was, it’s not exclusive, that’s for sure. Even after being his prize. Even after giving him my virginity a second time in the forest, in front of potential witnesses.
I grab Jane’s hand, and pull her back the way we came. “Come on! I’m done!” The next thing I know, I’m crying and running with my friend in tow. “I want to go,” I say, even as I hear Paul continuing to run after me. Calling out after me, telling me to wait and to just listen to him.
“I want to go home!” I scream, more at him then at my friend. “I’m done with all of this.”
These words aren’t as loud as my last, but they still leave me feeling like a burned-out husk of myself. The warm glow I felt from the sex turns on me, becoming a solid mass of slime in my gut.
I walk faster, feeling my legs beginning to falter. It won’t be long before they fail me completely.
Thankfully, I reach our room and tug Jane inside it before I collapse in sorrow. In tears. “I can’t believe he would do that,” I wail. “I can’t believe that liar and fraud would invite me to the hot tub, over, and over again, only to have another bitch in there with him!” I struggle to get up on my feet, to change out of the bikini and into normal clothes. “I thought he had more respect for me than that. But I guess a million dollars is cheap to him!”
From over my shout, I hear a knock on my door. I know it’s Paul, and I don’t care to talk to him. I try to keep Jane from going to talk to him too, but she won’t have it. She opens the door and slips out into the hall.
I hear them murmuring. Exchanging short sentences with each other, but it doesn’t matter what they’re saying anymore. I turn my back, and focus on packing.
“I’m going home,” I tell myself, wiping at my dripping eyes and nose. “I’m forgetting about all of this! I’m forgetting any of this ever happened.” I sniffle, feeling suddenly furious at myself. “I’m so fucking stupid!” I throw my lingerie into a small overnight bag I packed, telling myself not to burn it or rip it to shreds.
It can wait until I get home. Dad has a wood chipper he’ll be more than happy to let me use.
“We’re leaving. Now,” I say, when Jane comes back into the room. “I’m not hanging around here another minute.” I swallow thickly. “I’m not letting my heart get fucked with anymore.”
“Honey,” Jane begins, “Don’t you think you should give him a chance to explain?” She tries to grab onto my hand. The one still clutching a bit of the nightgown. “It might not be what it looks like, you know.”
“Mariah, please!” That’s Paul. “If you just let me explain about her—”
“There is nothing to explain,” I seethe, pausing over each word. I storm away, throwing on my clothes. “It’s clear what I’m worth to you, Paul.”
I don’t hear anything from him after that. Which is fine by me. It’s almost dark, and I want to get home before he seduces me into having sex with him again.
Jane and I pack in silence, though I can see she wants to convince me to stay. To listen to whatever reasoning Paul came up with, but I’m not having it. I begin to realize she probably also wanted to stay for Alex’s sake— the two of them have looked quite happy together during this trip, and Alex was next to Paul in the hot tub and had undoubtedly invited Jane as well. I realize I’m being selfish. But I’m sick of caring about everyone other than myself. I just need to take care of myself now.
I’m exhausted. I’m tired of being toyed with. I just want to go back to my college life and to my books and papers. At least they don’t lie to me.
After our bags are packed, it’s a quick and painless checkout process. That’s the only good thing, seeing as my heart feels like it’s being eaten by my rib cage.
I bet there won’t be anything left of it by the time I get home. Just little bits and pieces saying, “Hi, I’m Mariah. I use to have a heart once. And then I went skiing one Christmas instead of being the good little girl. I sold my body for a million dollars, but my heart was stolen in the process. I should have listened to my mom, and stayed with her for Christmas.”
Chapter 18 – Paul
For the first few minutes in the company of my brother, Jordan, and my disgustingly-skinny ex, all I can do is growl. Scream. Threaten to tear my hair out.
“Okay, Paul,” says Alex, “Calm the fuck down. Tell me again: what happened? Why are you like this?”
I whirl on him. “Mariah’s pissed. She fucking hates me, Alex!” I jab an angry, murderous finger at Darla, who has the nerve to be here right now. “And all because this bitch decided to blindside and then corner me in the hot tub!”
Darla clicks her tongue irritably. “Excuse me! I wasn’t the one running away from a simple conversation, Paul!”
“Shut. Up.” I say this through a clenched jaw at her, hoping she won’t encourage me to throw her out of this room — or worse — out the window.
“Mariah saw Darla hanging on me and got the wrong idea,” I continue, bringing my eyes back to Alex. “And, rather than let me explain that I want nothing to do with her any longer and that I didn’t invite her into the hot tub, and instead she just jumped in and sat on me. As I was telling her to get off me, Mariah walked in and saw us, and then hightailed it out of here.”
I drop my head down, feeling the urge to run out of here and track her down. Climb on top of her car, block the windshield and force her to listen to me. To reason.
“As far as I know, she’s on her way home,” I complain.
“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Paul,” says Darla, pulling her robe around her more. “You don’t need to worry about her. You don’t even need to contemplate being with that fat cow anymore, because I’ve decided I want you back. I want us to be together again.” Her brave mask crumbles, and I actually see tears in her eyes. Actual tears! And when I thought she was nothing more than a robot dressed up in a nice pair of tits. “I want you back, baby,” she whimpers. “We were good together. So good together!” She sobs her fake sobs, sucks up her fake snot. “I see that now.”
She comes close to me, looking to grab all of me. I don’t let her, and this only makes her act out more. Cry and fall over, as if I’m the big brute intent on harming her. “I’m so glad I got into that hot tub and sat on your lap. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to you telling me, to get off you. Because otherwise that bitch would have come between us, and we can’t have that. I need you, baby! No one is as good as you.”
I glower down at her the way I would a bug. But even that is too good for her. “You had your chance. You fucked it up, Darla. Just like you fucked up my chance to see Mariah again tonight.”
Darla gives me a smug, gloating look, and I know it doesn’t matter what I say. She intentionally tried to screw up my life and now she’s glad her plan worked. When she sat on my lap, she started telling me about her dad, who had been battling cancer, and how he was sick again. So obvious it felt like the wrong time to tell her to get off my lap, but I still fucking did. I told her I care about her father and would like to go visit him, but that she and I are over for good and she needed to get off my lap and quit hanging on me. She hadn’t, of course, and just then is when Mariah walked in, and got the completely wrong idea.
“Or,” adds Jordan, as if the whole rest of the conversation didn’t happen, and he’s stuck back at the very beginning, “Don’t let one bad thing ruin the rest of a good night.” He stuffs a handful of obnoxiously-strong taco-flavored chips in his mouth. “Mariah was just for a bit of fun, yo. The idea was not to get serious about her.”
“Unless he already has,” murmurs Alex. A pause, then the sound of him holding Darla up on to her feet and showing her the door. It seems my brother actually gets it. Maybe he really is into Mariah’s friend Jane, for real. “It’s time for you to go, Darla. Go be with your boyfriend, or whatever he is.”
I hear him open the door to our suite and shove her out, despite her protests in the form of an overly dramatic wail.
“Oh, Darla,” Alex sighs. “I never did like you. And you might still be able to pull off the helpless kitten in the tree act with Paul, because he once loved you. But he doesn’t any more, and I never did. So, I’m making sure you stay out of both of ours lives from now on. As I said, go be with your boyfriend.”
“He’s just a tourist,” Darla screams, as Alex begins closing the door on her. “We’re not really going out. I just got with him to make you jealous!”
The door slams shut on her a moment later.
The scenario would have made me laugh, had my head not been swirling with fucking regret. I stalk away from all of them, agonized by visions of Mariah. The feel of her soft and supple skin. The unique kiss her pussy gave me, and the way she totally and completely submitted to me. The way she enjoyed being challenged and dominated by me.
Mariah’s the only one for me now. I see that now. I wander to the window, hoping no one hears what I can feel in my voice, or what’s building in my throat. Tears that I’m not supposed to have.
“Hey.” My brother puts a tender hand on my shoulder.
I cough. Suck in some snot and phlegm, pretending I’m coming down with a cold, not a heart or feelings. “What?”
“She’s the one, isn’t she?” he asks.
I don’t answer him immediately. For the first few seconds, I think about pretending differently. Acting as if Mariah doesn’t mean that much to me. That I really don’t care that much about her. That I would be a total idiot to fall for a girl I fucking bought at an auction. But, as I lose myself in my memories of her, I can’t do that beautiful spirit such an injustice.
Besides, it’s not about not committing anymore.
I just want to get out of here. Get Mariah back in my arms and my bed as soon as humanly possible.
“Yeah,” I say, turning to him. My traitorous lips tremble some. Jordan gets up slowly from his perch on the edge of the couch, looking like Jesus has descended.
“Holy shit, yo,” he says. “You’re really fucking serious.”
“Yep. She’s the one.” I grab my clothes and start stuffing them into plastic bags. “And I’m going to get her back, Alex.”
My brother nods, as if he thinks this is a good idea. Even Jordan nods.
I grab up my plastic bags and head for the door. “I’m getting her back if it’s the last thing I do.”