Alexander

 

 

 

She brought painwherever she went. My mother. Her words, her actions, only rotted away lives that were happy before she entered them.

I used to feel bad for my mother. I used to think she was the victim in this world. But youth had a habit of making any parent seem perfect.

I watched Aria sleep after her confession. Lying next to her as thoughts about my life, my mother, and this stunning artist swirled in my head. My heart ached knowing my mother tried to twist Aria’s life into one of the pieces on her board game. It was coming together. All of it.

Of course, my mother knew of Aria. She probably planted her to begin with. Maybe even three years ago when I first saw her in that gallery.

What I feared was that she might have known Aria far longer than three years.

Nothing was an accident with Emma Hawthorne, despite what she may say. The only thing that I haven’t been able to figure out was why?

Why use so many people? Why control your son’s life to the point that he won’t go outside in the daytime? My mother may be evil but she wasn’t crazy.

“What time is it?” Aria’s head lifted from the pillow, her hair stuck to her cheek. My chest rolled with an intense twinge. I wanted to see that silly, sexy, sweet look every day.

“It’s about six in the evening. I’m getting hungry. Do you want to get something to eat?” I asked as I turned to my side to face her in bed.

I wanted to kiss her. Pull her close to me, but I knew now wasn’t the time. She needed to relax after opening up.

“Yes. That’s sounds great. What’s good to eat around here?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. Why don’t we take a walk and find out?”

She smiled and when her hand lifted to my cheek, I felt my heart stumble. Now I really wanted to touch her and never leave this bed.

But we did leave and after a few minutes, we were walking down the street. I had been to this place many times but never came out for a walk. Mainly strip malls and gas stations.

“Not very scenic,” Aria said.

“I don’t know about that. I like it here. Everything is what it is. It doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. Like over there,” I pointed to a sign at a strip mall, “it just says laundromat. Nothing fancy. If you need to do laundry, you know exactly where to go.”

Aria laughed and slipped her fingers into mine sending prickles up my arm. “You’re right. I never thought of it that way. How about that place? Sausage, Chicken, & Fries. I have a pretty good idea what I’m going to get in there.”

“I think we found where to get food, and we didn’t even need the Internet,” I said.

We walked over and ordered our food. There wasn’t any place to sit and eat so we took it back to the motel.

I ordered most of their menu and realized, after we ate half of it, not to order food when I was ravenously hungry.

I leaned back in the small chair in our room. “I think my stomach might explode.”

“But what about dessert? We haven’t even gotten to that yet. You’re a lightweight,” Aria said before taking another bite of her fried chicken breast.

“My God, woman, how can you eat so much? You’re so tiny.”

“Pacing. Any true food connoisseur knows to spread out the meal. Take lots of small bites and never fill up on water. Water is for losers.”

I threw my head back and laughed. I don’t know when I had enjoyed myself that much. It was nice talking about nothing with someone and knowing they weren’t going to run off and tell my mother everything I said.

“You can have the dessert. I’m going to lie down on the bed and let that food work its way through me.”

“Unbutton your jeans,” Aria said after she wiped a napkin across her mouth.

“What?”

“I do that all the time when I stuff myself with food. It helps. And since you are a newbie at gorging, I thought it might help,” she said pointing to my zipper.

“Oh, uh, okay.”

I unsnapped the top button of my jeans and she was right.

“This is what it must feel like to take off a girdle,” I said and then burped, which felt incredible.

“Now you’re getting it. Let everything go. But if you have to fart, please release that in the bathroom. No need to call in a hazmat team to air out the place.” She laughed as she stood and walked over to the bed.

“What about your farts, Aria? Maybe you’re the one who wants to kill me. Death by suffocation due to too many farts.” I fell back on the bed kicking up my legs.

Her eyes widened. “You have no idea what my farts smell like. My ass burps could smell like honeysuckles and baby powder.”

I lifted my shirt and rubbed my belly hoping that would help.

“You know what would really help with that? Sex,” she said standing over me next to the bed with a straight face.

“Does that ever work? With guys. Just saying it like that?” I tried to sit up but I farted.

Aria covered her nose with her hand. “Eww. Oh no. Now I have to call the fumigators.”

Her shoulders shook. That was it. It was time to teach this woman a lesson.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto the bed. Her giggles grew louder, deeper as she fell.

“No! Someone help me. He’s trying to murder me with his gas. Fartocation!” she said in between fits of laughter.

I climbed on top of Aria and pulled her arms away, pinning her down.

“Looks like you’re trapped. This was my plan all along, Aria. To get you in this small room so I could fart you to death,” I said.

That’s when I realized how close her lips were to my cock. It grew warm and hardened at the thought. My laughter slowly died as did hers. She must have been thinking the same thing as her eyes drifted to the jean-clad bulge growing on top of her chest.

“Do you not want me, Alex? Is that it?” Aria’s eyes lifted to mine. There was something different in the way she looked at me. A sadness or vulnerability that I hadn’t seen before.

“Of course, I want you, Aria,” I said as I climbed off her and lay on my side next to her. Folding my arm, I propped up my head with my hand. “I keep waiting for this to feel right or natural. And every time I want to kiss you or pull you close something in my head stops me. I talk myself out of it because I’m afraid you won’t like what you find in me.”

She smiled and with her hand, she pushed me so my back was flush against the mattress.

“We are going to play a little game, Alex. It’s called, what do you really want.”

“All right.” Willing to say yes to anything she said.

My brain began to feed me doubts so I shook my head, trying to stop them. Aria was here with me in a motel room. Nothing about the night screamed lavish. All the times I told myself women only cared about my bank account, I couldn’t say that here.

This place was shoddy. Our dinner was cheap. Aria wasn’t getting turned on because expensive things surrounded her, she was getting turned on because I was with her.

And that thought made me hard.

“What do you really want, right now, Alex?” She tucked her legs under her, hovering over me.

Her body. I wanted to see her body.

“For you to take off your top.”

Her lips curved into a sexy smile and she reached up, unbuttoning the three buttons at the top of her black- and white-striped blouse. Her creamy skin stretched as she pulled the top from her skin, throwing it onto the floor.

What was left was a smooth stomach, petite but perky breasts hidden under violet lace, and long, lean arms. Those were the facts, but what did I care of facts at that moment.

I loved color and texture. Tone and movement. My eye was attracted to line and contrast. I looked for that in every painting and I couldn’t help but notice it on Aria.

But she was no painting. She wasn’t even a masterpiece. Aria was real and something no painter, no matter how talented, could ever capture the extent of her beauty.

“You are more beautiful than air.”

“Air? You can’t see air, Alex.” Aria laughed but there was hesitation behind her eyes.

Her arm lifted to cover herself and without thought, I stopped her. “No, but I can feel it. It feeds me. Without it I couldn’t live.”

“Oh, well, when you put it that way. It’s not bad.” She lifted her hand, drifting her fingers across my arm. “Now it’s my turn,” Aria said as she lifted her deep brown eyes to mine.

My heart picked up in my chest and I wondered if she could hear it. I both feared and desired what she wanted. For three years, I imagined her telling me how she wanted me to fuck her. And then I would imagine doing it.

But now that the time had come for her to answer that question, I was afraid of what the answer might be.

“Aria, what do you want?”