Chapter Seven - Smith
Her house is huge. I’m surprised she needs so much space. It’s got five bedrooms, plus an office and what might be a library. That room is lined with custom shelves, but no books. In fact, there’s almost nothing personal about this place at all. It looks… staged.
Is she selling it? Does this furniture belong to someone else?
I do a quick search of her address on a real estate site, but no. Not listed for sale.
“Huh,” I say out loud as I take a seat in a low chair placed in front of the window that faces the brick-walled courtyard in the back.
I don’t know what to make of Marcella Walcott. Why did she agree to whatever plan Rochelle had? Why did she let Quin fuck her? Why did she come to dinner tonight if she was just going to walk out?
It doesn’t add up. If she wants to be Rochelle’s replacement—if, in fact, that was what Rochelle’s plan was—then why walk out on Matisse?
I could think of a lot of worse-looking men than Matisse. I think he’s good-looking. If I was into men that way, I’d fuck him. And he’s a goddamned celebrity in her world. She was gushing all over his work today. The smile on her face…
I sigh as the garage door rumbles open in another part of the house.
I could just ask her.
But not tonight.
I smile and get up out of the chair just as she comes bursting through a door in some other room. A few seconds later she runs past me, taking the stairs two at a time. Footsteps over my head as she goes into one of the guest bedrooms. One that faces the alley. A few seconds later she crosses the hallway—I can see her through a cable railing above—and goes into another guest room.
What the fuck is she doing?
I wait, listening. She’s breathing heavy when she comes out of that room and jogs up the stairs to the top floor where her bedroom is.
And that bedroom, wow. Talk about boring.
There’s a series of beeps as she arms the house alarm.
I smile again.
Because she just locked me in here with her.
I sit back down in my chair and wait her out, staring at an ugly-as-fuck orange accent wall that needs to find its way back to the Seventies where it came from. I wait and see if she comes downstairs to get something to eat. But she doesn’t. She gets in the shower. It’s a long one. So long I get bored and go upstairs to watch her through the clear glass. She’s got her eyes closed as the water flows down her face, her breasts, her legs.
If she opened them right now, she’d see me. But she doesn’t. Just stays like that, like she’s washing something away.
I shrug and step back into the bedroom, casually looking through her drawers. When she turns the water off, I take a pair of panties out of her underwear drawer and push it closed. They are black lace. Boy shorts, I think they call them. The ones that ride up the ass cheeks. I like those, so I put them in my suit pocket.
I step out of her room just as she steps out of the bathroom. She misses seeing me by seconds. And then I go downstairs to wait. I sit in my chair and watch for her shadow on the stairs.
But the dim light filtering through from the third floor clicks out a few minutes later.
She went to bed.
I ponder this for a few minutes. Wonder if I should wake her. Let her know I’m here.
But what would be the fun in that?
I watch the clock for thirty minutes and when I’m sure she’s asleep, I go back upstairs and into her bedroom. I take a seat in another chair with my back to the window.
And I watch her. She has curtains on the window. But they are sheer, and white, and not closed. So there’s a little bit of light coming in from the moon, or some streetlamp. It’s enough to get a good look at her face.
She’s pretty. I noted it last night but watching her at work let me see her. She likes her job, she likes her co-workers, and she appears to be happy.
So why was she going along with Rochelle’s plan? Because I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Rochelle did have a plan. What it was, what it’s about… I have no idea.
I slip my coat jacket off and drape it over the back of the chair I’m sitting in. Then my tie. And once that’s situated neatly on top of the jacket, I start unbuttoning my shirt. It’s cold out tonight, and even though the heat is on in the house, it’s set low. So I leave it on, just open it up to expose my chest.
I unbuckle my belt next. It jingles a little and I watch her face closely to see if she’s a light sleeper. No, I decide, once I’m unzipping my pants. She’s not. My cock is hard when I grip it. And when I close my eyes and let my imagination take over, it grows even harder.
Rochelle, I hear myself saying in my head. Just the way Quin described it to me earlier today. I needed a good visual so I hunted him down at work after lunch and got the whole story. Did you miss me? Because I missed you. We need to renegotiate. Two weeks is too long.
What would I have done if it was my night instead of Quin’s?
I don’t think I would’ve mistaken her for Rochelle, that’s for sure. Marcella’s breasts are bigger, for one. And Quin said he grabbed them. He said he was kinda rough. For him, anyway. He pulled her hair.
God, I wish I had seen it. I wish I was there.
I open my eyes, my hand still pumping my cock as I play that scene over and over in my head. Trying to make it perfect. And when it is, I come on my stomach in the still silence.
I let myself breathe hard for several minutes, hoping she wakes up so she can see me here. Understand what I did. What I want from her.
But she is dead to the world.
I want to touch her very badly.
But instead I get up from the chair and walk out, silently descending the stars until I get to the bottom floor. I go into the bathroom and clean the come off my stomach and stare at my face in the mirror.
I look tired. I need sleep and a shave. But neither of those things are mine tonight, because I’m stuck here in her house. I’m not going to wake her up. And miss her reaction when she realizes I just spent the night in her house and she didn’t know it? I laugh. Out loud. Fuck that.
Marcella agreed to Rochelle’s plan for one reason and one reason only.
She’s a dirty slut. She wants to be with us. She wants what Rochelle left behind.
And the longer I think about it, the more I think about it.
When I’m walking back to my chair I note the thermostat. I kick the heat up a little higher so I don’t get cold, and go back to my chair in front of the family room window and consider calling Bric so we can discuss. But then I look at my watch and realize it’s nearly three in the morning. He’ll be up in a few hours.
I sit there in my chair, listening for her sounds. Snoring, or sighing. Or… shit, I hope for a little moaning. What if she plays with herself as she sleeps?
That thought is enough to get my ass back upstairs.
She’s kicked the covers off. In fact, it almost looks like she was thrashing around from a bad dream. Her fair legs are long. One is hiked over a pillow, which she hugs to her chest. I get my phone out and open the night vision app. Take some pictures. I never have a shutter sound on my camera, so all this is done in silence.
I have a lot of questions for Marcella Walcott, starting with her father, a US senator for thirty years. In fact, it turns out baby Marcella was born the first year he was elected. She spent her entire childhood being the daughter of Senator Walcott.
I found internet pictures of her up until age ten and then… she disappeared. I can only assume it was boarding school. But ten. Jesus. That’s young, isn’t it? There are no more pictures of her until she’s well into her twenties. Maybe just a few years ago, now that I think about it. She’s thirty. Her birthday is in February, so almost thirty-one. Those pictures online are all of her at the Charles Benton Gallery.
There are none with her father.
It strikes me as weird. Why no pictures of him with his daughter?
Maybe they just like privacy? Maybe her mother insisted on it. She died three years ago. The same year Marcella started her job at the gallery.
There’s a lot of gaps. Where did she go to school? She has a short biography on the gallery website. It says, Marcella Walcott is the daughter of US Senator Henry Walcott. She studied art history and curation and graduated with a PhD.
Usually after a biography rattles off credentials, they list a university. From Harvard. Or Princeton. Or wherever she was.
But not this biography.
“You have secrets, Marcella.” I say it out loud but she never even stirs. “And I’m gonna figure them out.”
I unzip my pants again, ready for another round as I stare at her half-naked body, so helpless and sweet, lying there in bed.
I imagine Bric this time. How he might fuck her. I’d pay money to see that. Watch him with his toys. His whips, his gags, how he can turn an ass cheek bright red with one, hard smack.
“Fuck,” I whisper, my hand sliding up and down my cock in long, slow strokes.
He got rough last night when we went downstairs. Not with Lucinda, she was busy and she’s not even close to his type. Some other wife or some other club member. They wear masks and no one talks about who they are. All I care about is the pussy. And the cocks. And the sweat. The slick sweat covering their bodies, dripping off their faces, red with exertion and lust. I like the way Bric grunts when he’s turned on. I like the way his huge cock fills them up and makes then cry out. I like the way he whips them until they have welts on their backs.
He’s sick.
But so am I. So is Quin. And so was Rochelle.
I’m betting Marcella Walcott is just as sick as us. I’m betting she walked out on Matisse this evening because she can’t admit it.
She likes the dark, I decide, coming on my stomach for a second time.
She likes the forbidden world we live in. And she wants to be a part of it, whether she realizes it or not.
I don’t bother going back downstairs to clean up when I’m done. Too fucking wiped out.
I just leave my eyes closed and drift off.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
I open my eyes—or try to. The sunlight is bright today. The storm must be over.
“I said—”
“I heard you,” I grumble, sitting up a little straighter. My neck is sore as fuck from sleeping in this chair.
“Then answer me. I called the cops. They’re on their way!”
When I finally get my eyes to open and can properly see her, she’s holding a gun on me.
I laugh.
“What’s so funny? You’re a fucking pervert. And you’re gonna get slapped with a sex offender charge for this. Do you have any idea who my father is?”
I laugh again.
“Stop it!” She yells it. Loud. “And get out of my fucking house. Right now!”
“I can’t,” I say, looking down at the dried-up mess on my bare stomach. “You locked me in last night.”
“Locked you—” She stops to laugh. But it’s one of those how-dare-you laughs. Incredulous.
My dick is hard from morning wood and she does not miss this once I start playing with it.
“You’re sick,” she says, backing away. The gun is still generally pointing at me, but only half-heartedly.
“I have a question for you, Marcella.” I look her in the eyes as I say this, but my hands are busy tucking my still-erect cock back into my pants.
“Get out!”
“I will, just calm down. But I can’t get out until I’m put back together. And you need to let me out. I don’t know your alarm code. I didn’t expect you to arm it when you got home.”
“Oh, my God. You were waiting in here for me. That’s why you put me in that car alone, wasn’t it?”
I think about this for a second. “Did you want me to get in the car with you?” I laugh again. Jesus Christ.
“I’m calling the police if you’re not out of my house in thirty seconds. I’ll let you out from the bedroom control panel, just get up and get the fuck out of my house.”
“You said you already called them. Let me give you some pointers about lying, Marcella—”
“Get. The fuck! Out!”
“My question is,” I say, ignoring her theatrics. I stand up so I can tuck in my shirt and put on my tie. “Why did you refuse Matisse?”
“What?” She blinks a few times, like I’m an idiot and she can’t believe I even know how to dress myself. “He’s my fucking client, Smith. Why the hell did you assume I’d be up for something like that?”
“You let Quin fuck you. Why wouldn’t I assume you’re a whore?”
She slaps me. I don’t even know how she got that close, that fast. But my left cheek is stinging like fuck. I touch it with the palm of my hand and smile. “Bric is gonna really dig you, honey. I can’t wait.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I grab my suit coat and walk towards her. She backs away, holding the gun up. It presses into my chest as I grab her arm. Her face is one of total shock. Her mouth is open, eyes wide, face flushed red.
I lean into her neck and whisper in her ear. “It was just a test, sweetheart. Congratulations, you passed.”
And then I skip down the stairs, two at a time, as I adjust my collar and my suit coat. By the time I get to the front door, the alarm has been turned off.
So I just unlock it and leave.