CHAPTER TWO
“MISS BARCEL, MY name is Marty. I’m the manager of Nanique Couture. I have a delivery for you, and I want to know if you’ll be available to sign for it.”
The pounding in my head made it hard to comprehend the words of the man on the other end of the line. Stuck in bed in the middle of the afternoon, I felt like death warmed over. Blinking a few times, I tried to focus the scene surrounding me. I lost at least a day. The dim, energy-saving lights from the lamps outside poured into my bedroom. “Yes.”
“Excellent. Someone will be there in fifteen minutes.”
I knew it was a weekday, but I’d forgotten the exact day of the week. Emile and I always had a date on Tuesday nights.
I met Emile on a rare night when I did something other than work and attended a bachelor party for an employee, held at a club for the stuck-up and insipid.
My not-so-brilliant employees and coworkers had labels for men they deemed were beautiful. They were gay, assholes, gigolos, or a combination. Every person in our party put money toward a category or two. I took part only because I wanted a good excuse to speak with Emile.
Turned out Emile was a gigolo, and I lost a hundred bucks that night. I took him home, and once we got to my place, we continued to talk for hours, into the morning.
While he said it was rare his clients wanted sex, there were enough that did. He tried to explain something I couldn’t wrap my mind around. I couldn’t understand why women paid for it when you could go to any random bar and get a guy to sleep with you. Men were easy. Tell them what you wanted and how you wanted it. If he couldn’t follow your directions, he didn’t want to please you, and he didn’t deserve to share your bed.
Emile argued that not every woman could be so vocal, and not every woman knew how to get herself off. He was once with a sixty-year-old woman who experienced her first orgasm with him.
I thought it was a shame.
He claimed he was that good.
I called his bluff and ate my words at the end. He impressed the hell out of me and erased my expectations for a gigolo and the demeanor they had. Emile was unlike what I’d assumed and more than expected. Sex with him was phenomenal. He had to be amazing to have been around me for so long. I had a tendency to get bored with my designated dick dealers pretty fast. Three years of having sex with the same person was a lifetime.
The first night we slept together, I paid him. He never took the money. I liked to pretend I was a client to maintain clear lines. It kept up an emotional wall between him and me.
THE MESSENGER WAS punctual, arriving as I stepped out of the shower. Wrapping my black robe around my body, I answered the door for the delivery.
A casually dressed, middle-aged man handed me a large silver gift box with a smile.
After signing for it, I took the box inside my house.
In my bedroom, I put the silver box with its black bow on my bed before I opened it.
Placed on top of the folded silver tissue paper was a handwritten note with a time, location—an opera house—and simple directions: Don’t wear panties.
I sat on the edge of my bed, clutching the note to my chest. Silky material slipped out of the box. The strapless, black, empire-waist dress with a knee-length, high-low hem and a cascading ruffle skirt adorned with silver beading screamed Regan.
I had to give Emile credit. Every time I verged on thinking we should end things for reasons I couldn’t figure out, he surprised me.
With a wide grin, I sat in front of my vanity table and put the final touches on my makeup and hair.
My makeup was neutral, using bronze and gold hues to compliment my rich dark skin and chocolate brown eyes. My hair was free with my tight coils defined and fluffed. A middle part allowed my hair to frame my face.
Twenty minutes to the hour given on the handwritten note, my driver arrived.
EMILE WAS HARD to miss among the crowd piling into the grand opera hall.
With deep roots in French Creole ancestry, Emile looked different. His light copper skin glinted with specks of gold undertones against wavy, brassy dark brown hair he kept in a low taper. His eyes were almond-shaped and dark green in hue, and his lips were pouty and formed the shape of the letter “W.” His tall frame was on the more defined side of a swimmer’s figure. He dressed to impress in a crisp tailored shirt and silk blend slacks.
Emile lifted a thick yet neatly groomed, straight brow as he regarded me. “You’re late.”
“Forgot what day it was.” I offered a nonchalant excuse. “I was all set to watch Netflix and chill alone.”
“You forgot?” he asked, daring me to admit I couldn’t forget him.
As he stood off to the side, smoking a cigarette in his black-on-black tuxedo, I couldn’t help but smile. I’d missed his face. “Can we do this again? We’re supposed to be playing sexy stranger.” I twirled to gain my composure and put on my best act to pretend I didn’t know him. “Are you alone tonight?”
“I was waiting for this gorgeous girl to start an overdone cliché, but she didn’t show up.”
I hit him on the shoulder, making him laugh at my sad attempt to hurt him.
He bowed and kissed the back of my hand. “Beautiful, milady.”
“You never stop with the surprises.” I gestured over my dress.
“Have to keep them coming to keep you interested.” He took one step forward. Warm and hot, his lips chased at mine, teasing me with some tongue action.
“Wow. If that’s a prelude to the night, I’m in trouble.”
His expression relaxed into an up to no good smile. “You were in trouble the moment you walked up to me in a bar three years ago and asked me if I was an asshole or gay.” He offered me his arm, and I slipped mine into his, allowing him to lead me inside the venue.
Our seats were in the first row of the balcony and positioned over the orchestra section. The columns were narrow, seating two for ten rows before extending into a full balcony.
The first act of La Fille du Régiment began. It was the first playbook I became enamored with—something left over from one of my father’s many business trips. He forced me to travel with him when I was young and had a private tutor. During his trips, I was confined to hotels. The playbook was a reminder of the prisoner I had become and would never be again.
I stared at the playbook night and day, begging my father to come with me once. He always promised and never delivered. He never broke his habit of promising a daddy-daughter date, only to stand me up every single time. Tonight was the first time I’d ever been to the opera, and I hoped it wouldn’t be my last.
As the contralto’s voice shook me, I remembered it would be my last.
Emile reached for my hand and squeezed it to get my attention. I remembered where I was, sat back, and buried the sadness where it belonged.
Emile brought my fingers to his mouth, brushing them against the softness of his lips, and kissed my knuckles. His other hand crept underneath my dress, sliding up the inside of my thighs, and separated my legs.
His fingers slid around my plump pussy lips, massaging the waxed, smooth skin. Pressing two fingers on either side of my slit, he opened me. I gasped, spreading my legs farther apart, daring him to tease the wet creases of my pussy.
He took his time, teasing me. My sex tingled and sent an irritating fire up my spine. He tapped one finger between the lips, moving up my slick slit. I bucked my hips to encourage him to slide his fingers inside me.
A finger dipped into my wet heat. I contracted my walls, surrounding his finger. He rocked at a slow pace and arched his finger upward. Pressure at an elusive spot inside me made my eyes water. His free fingers of the same hand performed a scissoring action around my clit, swelling and hardening under his touch.
I pressed my lips together, bracing myself as he moved his fingers inside me. I was so drenched, the wetness seeped into the crack of my ass. My calm composure broke when he thrust his fingers into my pussy hard and fast. The wet sloshing sounds emanating from my sex were loud enough to make me think someone heard us. A quick perusal showed that no one had noticed.
Emile leaned towards me, his shoulders meeting mine.
I was on the verge when the tenor hit the high C. Emile pressed his lips to mine and quieted my pending moans. My legs shuddered around his hand and trapped his fist between my thighs to stop his movement.
I withdrew his hand and shook my head, separating only from his lips. I brought his fingers up to my lips and sucked them clean.
Forgetting where we were, he grabbed me by the back of the head and claimed my lips with his mouth.
The people behind us cleared their throat in disgust. He gave me a self-satisfied smile and turned back to the stage. Running his fingers over his lips, he sucked them dry.
I leaned in to his neck, biting his earlobe. “We don’t need to stay for the second act, do we?” My hands grazed the growing bulge in his slacks.
He bit his bottom lip, taming his grin, and took my hand to leave.
In the lobby, I tugged him toward the nearest bathroom I could find. Emile played coy and cast a skeptical look to the attendant in the bathroom.
“Fuck him.” I shrugged off the idea of us getting in trouble and pulled him into a bathroom stall.
He locked the door behind our entry. Standing against the door, I raised the split in my dress to expose what his teasing did. With my chin resting on my chest and my unoccupied hand in the air, I gestured for him to come closer.
He worked fast, unzipping his pants and pulling out his cock. Grabbing my thighs, he hoisted me up against the door. Entangling my legs around him, I anchored my body in position.
With his erection in my hand, I slipped a condom from his fingers and sheathed it before guiding it inside of me.
I locked my hands behind his head and rocked my hips in winding circles, making him throw his head back and clutch my body tighter. Pressing forward, I sucked the ball in his throat, flavored in his aftershave, ending with a pinching bite.
He met my thrusts, slamming my back against the wall of the bathroom and his balls against my ass. His groin mashed into the lips of my pussy with violence.
He called my name, asking for an exchange of eye contact he didn’t receive. I jammed my eyes closed and held him so tightly my nails dug into the material of his collared shirt. The rush reverberated through my spine. I called out his name and cursed it.
My body pulsed, pleasured by the friction. Our breaths played against each other, echoing inside the sterilized space.
My eyes remained shut, and I felt everything I suppressed. I closed myself off and tried to push him away.
“Hey,” he called sweetly.
“I’m fine,” I blurted out, shoving him away as I untangled my legs from around him. The sensation of cum dripping from my sex made me investigate myself.
“Fuck,” he hissed, looking at his throbbing, semi-hard cock, now condom-less and soaking wet from his cum and mine.
“Don’t worry about it.” Uneasy, I grabbed a handful of toilet paper and wiped the white cream from my thighs and crotch. “I’ll take the morning after pill, and it’ll be fine.”
“That’s all you’re worried about?” His brows curved, creasing his forehead.
“I know you’re careful.” Truth was, it didn’t matter if Emile was someone other than who I knew him to be. Not anymore.
“No. Something’s not right with you.” He grabbed my waist, pinning me. “Look at me, Regan. Talk to me.”
“Fuck the whole condom breaking thing. Don’t let it kill the mood.” A smile I intended as seductive contorted my thick lips. “We have a third act to complete someplace where I can scream my head off, or maybe make you growl for more. We don’t have time to talk.” I linked my hand in his. “Take me home.”
ACT THREE WAS quick and rushed. We removed only what we needed to before we fucked.
His sweat-soaked shirt clung to every muscle in his chest and torso. Perspiration spiked his hair, making it cling to his scalp.
I bit my lip while smirking. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Too many clients today? You know you have to reserve your energy for me. I should kick your ass for that.” I brushed my hands through his hair and tugged at the crown.
“Your stamina is inhuman tonight,” he said through heavy panting. “You must’ve really missed me.”
I frowned and shook my head at the instances of the words “missed” and “really”.
My second wind waned. Usually, I could barely get through round one without curling up and falling asleep. Emile was good—the best I’d ever had. In the beginning, I could keep up with a few rounds. That was the whole point of going to the doctor. To find out what the hell was wrong with me and discover the reason I couldn’t enjoy wearing Emile out as we fucked in every room of my five-bedroom house.
“Hey,” he whispered, moving my chin to face him, “where did you go again?”
I gave him a wide smile to hide what I was thinking. “Your stamina used to be inhuman. You almost didn’t get me off a second time before you came.” I narrowed my big, round, dark-brown eyes, glaring into Emile’s electric greens.
“I did, though. Why are you picking on me? Getting tired of me?”
“If you weren’t so gorgeous, I’d fire you. Are you too tired for another round?”
“Give me a second here.” He put up his palm while he attempted to catch his breath. “You can’t fire me when you never hired me. Not to mention, you’re as hooked on me as I am on you.”
I rolled my eyes at the ceiling and yawned. Patience wasn’t my strong point. Emile was my living, breathing eye candy. I wasn’t happy unless he was naked for ninety-nine percent of the time he spent with me.
“You’re too much.” He stood, taking off everything but his clingy boxer-briefs. He picked me up, and I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. Grabbing my thighs, he slid me downward until my legs cradled his lower half.
I tightened my thighs around his waist and writhed my pussy against his growing erection while he walked to the bedroom. He tumbled back on the bed, leaving me on top.
I ogled his body, taking in the view. I eyed the purplish bruise on his ribcage and pressed my hand on it. “Did I do this at the opera? I didn’t think I was that rough on you.”
He winced and shook his head. “Occupational hazard.” He was keeping things within our rules by not discussing the details of his other clients.
“Would you let me buy your time outright?” I pushed my hand on his bruise. “You and me for a few months. No other clients.”
He gave me a taunting half-smile. “For you, my time isn’t for sale.”
“Only parts of you are available for sale? If other women can buy you for the weekend, why can’t I buy you for whenever and however long I want you?” Leaning forward, I clenched his ample bottom lip between my teeth. “We have fun, don’t we? Let me pay for more of your time.”
Grabbing either side of my head, he pushed me a safe distance from him. He squinted at me, his smile fading. “Why are we talking about money here? You don’t pay at all.”
“A few months, Emile. We could do it. What would it take? A million? Ten? You know I’m good for it.”
“I think I would drive you crazy,” he remarked with a laugh, mocking and irritating me. “How long are we talking? You say a few months, but I have a feeling you mean longer than that.”
“Fine. More than a few. You see no one else but me unless I give you permission.”
“Sounds like a relationship, Regan.” His frown couldn’t have been any deeper. “I don’t do those. Neither do you.”
My eyes drifted to the lowest part of his body, shielding him from seeing what his rejection did to me. It hurt like a sonofabitch. Either I wasn’t enough for him, or he lacked enough feelings for me to be with me exclusively and temporarily.
“It would keep you from being fired.” My last ditch words no longer held conviction or confidence.
He sat up, raking his lips against the top of my breasts. “You never hired me,” he grumbled into my chest. “Don’t I make you happy when I’m here?”
“Our time shouldn’t be affected by the clients you see before you come.”
“Nothing I do before you or after you affects time with you. In fact, I screw up everything else for you. Isn’t it enough?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re so fucking demanding.”
“Demanding?” I raised my brows. “I’m territorial, not demanding.”
Wrapping his arms around my waist, he pulled me into him until my breasts pressed against his chest. “You should never feel like I have anyone or anything else on my mind other than you when I’m here because I don’t,” he rasped, pulling my dress until he exposed my breasts and grazed his lips against my nipples. My hard nubs disappeared into his mouth.
I rocked my hips against him and released a soft groan. “Liar.” I squeezed my legs around him tighter, making him wince.
“I think you broke my cracked rib.”
“Pussy.” I increased the pressure.
He tossed me around, adjusting until I was underneath him and pulled my arms up to rest on my head. Grabbing my breast, he sucked my nipple as his fingers crept underneath my dress. He spread my pussy and dipped his fingers inside me, eliciting a pleasured moan. He moved his fingers in a smooth rhythm while his thumb circled my clit, making it harden and throb. As he continued to work pure magic with his fingers, his eyes met mine.
“Fuck yes,” I whimpered. “Don’t stop. You’re gonna make me fucking come.”
He thrashed his fingers inside me harder. “Then, stop talking about it and fucking come on my fingers.” His lids lowered as his eyes bore into me. I felt the internal rush flood my body. My climax swept me so hard, I almost jackknifed off the bed.
He reached for a condom.
I stopped his hand.
He gave me a look that said: “Are you serious?”
“I’m taking the morning after pill in the morning. What does it matter now?”
“What happened at the opera house was an accident,” he balked.
“I trust you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.” He studied me with an unbreakable focus. “I’m trying to do what you said, but I can’t ignore this anymore. What’s up with you, Regan?”
“No. No. No. You’re ruining the mood. My pussy is drying up as we speak.”
“Move your hand so I can put on the condom, then I’ll get you wet again.”
When his hips jerked forward, impaling and filling me with his condom-wrapped cock, his hand wrapped itself around my hair, preparing me for a bumpy ride, and I forgot our tiff.
The sun and the onset of a migraine shocked me out of my sleep. The mere act of opening my eyes to the light sent an aching throb across my forehead. Everything had a Gaussian effect with unsteady white and black splotches decorating the surrounding scene.
I pushed my forearms against my aching head and stifled a groan. I moved my head to rest the opposite cheek against the pillow. While blurry, the sight wasn’t something I’d normally see. Emile was sleeping on the pillow next to me in my bed.
I brushed my hand across the stubble on his jawline. “What’s this?” I asked, hoping I hid how much pain I was in, even though I couldn’t stop squinting and wincing. A steel pendulum was knocking between my eyes and up my forehead. “Sleeping? You never stay over like this.”
He found my lips and gave me a tender kiss. If it wasn’t for my migraine and exhaustion, I would’ve mounted him, riding him like he was a bull at a rodeo.
“Do you mind if those are closed?” I asked, referring to the windows, pouring an aching light into my room.
He nodded—I thought—and rolled off me. The second I stumbled blindly out of bed, he grasped my waist and forced me flat on my back.
“I’ll get that. Stay.” After he crawled over my body, his stark naked form was only a mass of blurry tan figures and movements as he waved his hand over the sensor to retract the blinds. The blackout Grecian blinds covered the large windows, snuffing the violent light from the room.
I hid my face in my pillows, frustrated the darkness didn’t ease the ghost in my brain, pounding his lead-weighted drumsticks inside my head. I felt the chill, forcing me to pull a chenille throw over my naked body. “I need a cigarette.”
Emile’s movements were a blur as he retrieved two skinnier blurs from a big white blur on my end table. The spark of amber lit the room for a moment. A small paper butt stroked my lips.
I rolled to my back with my arm over my eyes and manipulated the cigarette with my unoccupied hand. “Aren’t you going to say anything about my smoking?”
“I know it’s a vice to cover a bigger issue.” His noisy and exhaustive breath resounded in my bedroom. “You’re starting to worry me. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m going to have to…” I tried to remove my arm and open my eyes, but the mere act of moving even my eyelids made my pain worse. “Back away from this for a while.”
“Oh?” His tone made me wish I could see beyond the blurry screen to register his expression. “I thought we enjoyed each other, Regan.”
“We do,” I said, “but we’ve talked about this.”
“We have?”
“Remember? We both agreed this was temporary. And you told me I would never be a long-term fuck buddy.”
“Funny. I don’t remember the conversation.” Emile settled into bed, resting partially on top of me with his chin settled between my breasts.
“You should go,” I stated, unable to hide my melancholy.
“I can tell you don’t feel good. I’ve felt it for a while now. You can tell me anything. You know that. The doctor’s appointment you don’t want to talk about? Can you talk about it now?”
“That would make us something we’re not.”
“In my mind, we’re friends.”
I gave him a phony smile. “I’m going to have to cancel all future dates for now. If I need you, I’ll call you. Honest.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said with a shrug.
“You don’t have to be so agreeable and level-headed all the time.” I couldn’t say the obvious. Pride, or maybe fear, stuffed the words into a place too far to reach. I wanted to tell him what was wrong and hope it was enough to make him stay. I knew it probably wouldn’t be enough, and then I’d lose my only semblance of a friend.
“I agree because I know better than to argue with you. It’s great you think I’m level-headed. Guess my careful words make it seem that way.” He paused, almost as if he was taking his time to search for what I couldn’t say. “I hope you change your mind about spending time with me.”
“Why? Will you miss me?”
“Regan,” he started, “I have a reason for being this way with you.”
“You don’t have to explain it.” I dismissed him with lazy movements. “We’re good.”
He slid from me and dressed in silence.
When I heard the front door latch, I wobbled into the bathroom and raided the medicine cabinet. I couldn’t read any of the labels of my prescription bottles and hoped I took a double dose of pain meds instead of anti-nausea medicine and collapsed back on my bed.
An unsteady light danced across my closed eyelids and coerced them open. I reached out, clutching the digital card I didn’t remember placing on my nightstand. The phone number changed from the last time I looked at it. I had better place the call before the card self-destructed.
“Executive Suites,” a cheerful guy on the other end answered. “How may I direct your call?”
“I don’t know.” My uneasiness cut into my words. “One of your employees gave me her card. I think her name is Michelle.”
“One moment please.”
He put me on hold with the clearest quality classical music I’d ever heard through a landline.
I regretted calling. It was a silly idea, anyway. What was I doing? What if it was a pseudo-religious sex cult, or a pyramid scam?
“Michelle Mastin.”
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t speak.
“Would you like to make an appointment, Regan? I can squeeze you in for today.”
Her knowing my name didn’t put me off as it once had. My lifelong diet of careful planning, decision making, and responsibility had starved me to death. It was time to be gluttonous.
She claimed the company could fulfill my bucket list. Dying alone after becoming a member of the Bitter Bitches Club didn’t sound appealing. I took a chance and made arrangements to meet with Michelle.