Chapter Two: Kevin
“Get your ass down here, Kevin!”
“Think that chick’s still up there with him?” Spencer asked.
“Oh, oh! The one with the purple mask? I saw him draggin’ her into his room last night. The tits on that woman…”
“Jesus, Brittany,” Spencer snickered.
“What!? Just ‘cause I like the dick don’t mean I can’t admire the female form!” Brittany exclaimed.
“Brittany talking about tits again?”
“Kevin!” Brady yelled. “It’s about damn time. Got some pancakes, fruit, and sausage cooked up. Tina up yet?”
“Not to my knowledge,” I yawned.
“Anyone gonna share why we’re having breakfast at noon?”
“Tina!” Brittany shrieked. “Mornin’, doll!”
“Jesus, Brittany. Shut up.”
“She needs some coffee,” I croaked.
“You need coffee,” Brady smirked.
“We all need coffee,” Spencer chuckled.
“Who wants pancakes!?” Brady called out.
“Got any syrup?” Spencer yelled out.
“In the fridge, I think, yeah,” Brittany said.
“Could you be brilliant and get it for me?”
“Suck a cock, Spencer.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he winked. Spencer was openly bisexual, and everyone around him knew it. His specialty was threesomes with unsuspecting people, but when he was home running his publishing houses, he was an absolute recluse. Tall, lanky, mussed brown hair that constantly hung in his eyes, and the man devoured books like Brittany devoured those cigarettes she claimed she didn’t smoke. He was a speed reader and could regurgitate just about anything he read, and if he actually put that to good use he could probably-- I don’t know-- cure cancer or something. The point is, his speed reading lends itself to his editing skills and his ability to retain information lended itself to instant fact-checking, and that’s how he can run the publishing houses he does with the ease he has.
“Saw that woman you took upstairs with you,” Brady smirked. Everything was set on the table and we were all dousing our sausage and pancakes in syrup while avoiding, at all costs, the massive bowl of fruit on the table.
“We should soak that,” Tina said.
“You would wanna soak breakfast fruit in vodka,” Brittany giggled.
“It would go great with the wine for dinner tonight!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, Brady, I took a woman upstairs with me last night. And she was perfect,” I smiled.
“Yeah! Purple mask, long dark hair, tits up to her chin…”
“Lord, Brittany,” Tina groaned.
“Sounds like a hell of a looker,” Spencer smiled.
“Did ya get it right?” Brady said with a mouthful of pancakes.
“Right, left, up, and down,” I boasted.
“‘Atta, boy! Up top.”
I high-fived Spencer while the women of the table rolled their eyes, and then everyone proceeded to talk about their ventures during the party. Brittany and Tina chattered on about their outfits and complained about how their supposed lack of underwear created sweatier nether regions than they would’ve liked, and Spencer cracked some sort of wise joke about licking them clean before they picked up some blueberries and chucked them at his face. Brady was prodding me for details about the pussy I nailed last night, but I’d never really been a kiss-and-tell kind of guy.
Well, that’s a massive lie, but for some reason I didn’t feel the want or need to talk about this encounter. I felt selfish about it, like it was only meant for me, so I just kept shrugging Brady off and telling him I was a little too drunk to remember much of it.
“Sounds like all my romps with you in college, Brady,” Brittany quipped.
“You did date a wine lover,” he smiled.
Brady and Brittany were refreshing to be around. It was nice to be around two people who dated for the time they did in college and still watch them be kosher. They smiled, they talked, they joked, and the two of them were each other’s biggest supporters in their careers. If they weren’t both workaholics, I’d tell them to try it again now that they weren’t teenagers and half-drunk all the time in their beginning business college courses.
“There’s a party Thursday night, right?” Tina asked.
“Yeah, just a regular one,” Spencer weighed in. “I think we decided to do a massive bonfire, spit-cook a pig filled with spices and citrus fruits, and let everyone sort of hang out on the beach under the stars.”
“So, no sex?” Brady asked.
“The hell kinda rule is that? Of course sex,” Spencer laughed, “just not a party geared and tailored towards the idea of debauchery. Just… there if you want it.”
“So… sensible debauchery,” I quipped.
“Exactly!”
“So, Tina, get lucky last night?” I heard Brittany ask. Tina was always squeamish when it came to talking about her encounters, so I knew if she told Brittany anything it wouldn’t be around the guys. She’s always been a sexual prude, even when I dated her in college, and that was part of the reason I was so drawn to her. She had priorities and morals, in and out of the bedroom, but as I peeled back all her layers she revealed interests and kinks I could’ve only dreamed in my wildest imagination. She was the epitome of innocent with a fiery side, and that’s one of the many reasons why I fell in love with her.
But, one day she just broke up with me. Out of the blue. No rhyme, no reason, and no explanation. I asked her from time to time what had happened, but she never did open up to me about it. We’d stayed friends and were kosher around each other, but I never really talked to her except on these vacations.
Part of me missed her. Her and her laugh. Her and her smile. Her and her witty banter and bone-dry humor. But, part of me knew that she was just Tina-- closed off, emotionally unavailable, and logically-based in any decision she ever made. She never did anything without a lengthy explanation at the ready, and if you ever tried to get her to do something “just because,” she would still mentally reason it to herself before she agreed to do it. Brittany and Spencer ragged on her relentlessly for it, but if they understood her family, then they’d understand why she was like that.
Tina grew up in a firestorm family. What I mean by that is, she grew up in a family that sheltered her quite a bit. Until she got to college she had still been a virgin, had never seen a cork pulled from a bottle of wine, and hadn’t ever stayed out past nine. She wore clothes that covered her from head to toe, and she was never allowed to go do anything with friends unless it served a purpose. If she wanted to see a movie, the movie had to have a takeaway lesson. If she wanted to go to a study group at the coffee shop, she had to explain why the coffee shop was better than their home. If she wanted to go sleep over at a friend’s, then she had to have an explanation as to why the sleepover was better that Friday night than that Saturday night.
She grew up in a family of logistics, she was raised to fight with facts and premises, so she blossomed into a woman who was capable of stuffing her emotions down and turning towards reason and logic-- the crux of the philosophy of her raising.
But every once in awhile, if she had a few drinks or was able to relax enough on the couch in our vacation home, I saw that side of her peek out. That side I got to see sometimes while we romped around in bed. I got a glimpse of the fire that brimmed behind her eyes the moment I’d sink my cock in the depths of her tight pussy when we dated.
When we lived.
When we loved.
“So! What’s everyone doing today?” Spencer exclaimed before he clapped his hands.
“Sleep,” Tina groaned.
“I’m gonna hang down at the beach, I think. Get some sun before the party in a couple days,” Brittany mused.
“I’m binge-watching a bit of Doctor Who today,” Brady proclaimed.
“Kevin?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to me and I wasn’t sure how to answer. My mind had been so preoccupied with the softness of the woman I took last night in my bed that I hadn’t really given any thought to the rest of the day. At best, if I was going to ever see her again, I still had two days before I got the chance to scan the crowd and find her.
“Brought some books with me. Figured I get to reading them,” I shrugged.
“Why don’t you come read on the beach with me!?” Brittany exclaimed.
“That doesn’t actually sound too bad.”
We cleared the table so Brady to go on and watch his television marathon and when the dishes were put away I trudged back up the stairs. Tina was in the room across the hall from me upstairs, and I saw her slinking into the room before she slowly shut the door behind her. She looked like hell, but even in her hungover state she was still a vision: jet black hair down to her shoulders and steely gray eyes that stayed unwavering in their gaze. High cheekbones that were wrapped in sun-tanned skin and curves that would make any man bite his fist and swallow his groan.
She was beautiful in college, but age looked better on her every time I saw her.
I got out of my pajamas and pulled on some shorts and a shirt, then I grabbed the first book I’d try to read and made my way out to Brittany. My work as well as Brittany’s intertwined quite a bit. For one, I managed her web design as well as the security that came with it, but I was also helping her get a personal project off the ground. She wanted to create a free-to-use network for licensed real estate agents to connect around the world so they could share information, trade secrets, refer people to other’s services, and keep track of their properties all in one place.
I thought it was a genius idea, so I took on her project for free as a massive tax write-off. Call it a ‘personal project.’
“Kevin!”
Brittany was waving at me from the beach underneath a massive umbrella, and I stumbled my way down there and plopped down into a chair she’d set up for me.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“So… I have a confession to make, and I’m not sure if you’re gonna like it.”
“Jesus, Brit-... we all know you smoke. Who the fuck cares?” I said.
“Wait. What!? I don’t smoke, you dick. Listen, the woman you were with last night-”
“I don’t kiss and tell, Brit,” I bit.
“No no no no, you don’t understand. The girl, she-”
“Brit, I really don’t wanna talk about it,” I sighed.
“It was Tina!”
I felt my jaw clench and I swallowed hard. The knot in my throat closed off my voice, and all I could do was slowly pan my gaze toward her.
“What?” I choked out.
“I’m like, 95% sure it was Tina,” she sighed.
“Uh huh. And… why would you think this?”
“Because I fucking helped her get ready for the party! I know what she was dressed in!”
“The woman I was with had long brown hair down to the mid of her back, Brit.”
“And I helped Tina put that wig on last night. Dark mahogany number 5526, to be exact.”
I craned my neck back to the house and saw Tina staring out at us. I felt a shiver crawl up my spine before she disappeared from the window, and I watched the curtain flutter back into place before I slowly panned my head back out into the ocean.
The insatiable woman I couldn’t get out of my head was Tina.
The woman I had fallen in love with in college.