SEAL’d Lips

A Secret Baby Romance

Roxeanne Rolling

Contents

Note from Roxeanne

1. Noah

2. Hana

3. Noah

4. Hana

5. Noah

6. Hana

7. Noah

8. Hana

9. Noah

10. Hana

11. Noah

12. Hana

13. Noah

14. Hana

15. Noah

16. Hana

17. Noah

18. Hana

19. Noah

20. Hana

21. Noah

22. Hana

Epilogue

Billionaire Boss’s Baby

1. John

2. Sarah

3. John

4. Sarah

5. John

6. Sarah

7. John

8. Sarah

9. John

10. Sarah

11. John

12. Sarah

13. John

14. Sarah

15. John

16. Sarah

17. John

18. Sarah

19. John

20. Sarah

21. John

22. Sarah

Her Boss

1. Lily

2. Ryan

3. Lily

4. Ryan

5. Lily

6. Ryan

7. Lily

8. Ryan

9. Lily

10. Ryan

11. Lily

12. Ryan

13. Lily

14. Ryan

15. Lily

16. Ryan

17. Lily

18. Ryan

19. Lily

20. Ryan

21. Lily

22. Ryan

23. Lily

24. Ryan

25. Lily

26. Ryan

27. Lily

28. Ryan

29. Lily

Daddy’s Virgin Bride

1. Olivia

2. David

3. Olivia

4. David

5. Olivia

6. David

7. Olivia

8. David

9. Olivia

10. David

11. Olivia

12. David

13. Olivia

14. David

15. Olivia

16. David

17. Olivia

18. David

19. Olivia

20. Olivia

21. David

22. Olivia

23. David

24. Olivia

25. David

26. Olivia

27. Olivia

Doctor’s Virgin

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Also by Roxeanne Rolling

Copyright © 2017 by Roxeanne Rolling

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Any resemblance to real persons, places or things is purely coincidental. All sexual acts described n this book take place between characters over the age of 18. This book is intended for adult reads age 18+.

Note from Roxeanne

I’ve included bonus content for your reading pleasure, so SEAL’d Lips ends at around 20%.

Hope you enjoy!

xoxo Roxeanne

Noah

I was the king of the football field. I was the king of the entire school. When I walked through the halls, everyone’s eyes were on me. The girls whispered about me and giggled as I walked past. Sometimes their eyes dared to meet mine. Often, they were too intimated.

But I had my pick. All I had to do was walk up to one of them. All I had to do was choose.

Now school’s over, the summer rolling into Pennsylvania with a heat wave.

The only respite from the heat is the summer nights, driving around old neighborhoods under the full moon.

“You going to get me my medicine?” shouts my dad from downstairs. He sits there all day in front of the TV, watching old war movies. He’s been disabled ever since his time in the service.

“Did you fucking hear me or what?” he shouts again, much louder this time.

“Be right there,” I shout back.

I hate communicating between floors like this. But that’s how my dad is. He’s military born and raised. The military was his whole career, his whole life. He lost it all when he got injured. And he never talked about what happened. Not to me, not to anyone.

He can walk, but just barely. He’s in constant pain.

My dad says he owes everything he has to the military. I never know whether he’s talking about his injury or what…

“Where the fuck were you?” grumbles my dad. He still speaks like he’s in the military, swearing up and down like a sailor all day long, to whoever will listen.

“Working out,” I say.

“You don’t know shit about working out,” grumbles my dad. “Don’t waste your time with that shit until you figure out what the hell you’re going to be doing with your life.”

“I just graduated,” I say. “Can’t I have some time to figure it out?”

“You had four years to figure it out. Why didn’t you just take that football scholarship?”

I shrug. “I don’t want to play football.”

I turned down a big football scholarship to a big state university, and no one can understand why. Hell, I don’t even know why I did it. All I know is that I don’t want to just play football. I don’t want to just stay on one path. I want to do something with my life. Something different.

I want to make a difference.

“Go get me my fucking medicine,” grumbles my dad. “Get out of my sight.”

I nod and leave the room, grabbing my keys.

I head out to my old Mustang from the 1980s. It may look pretty now, but when I bought it, it was just an old rusty heap. I did all the work myself right here in the driveway, under the car in my white t-shirt. I replaced the transmission, even the engine. Everything I worked for myself. I didn’t have anyone giving me handouts, like everyone else in my class.

While I was king of the school, undoubtedly, I’m nothing at home. My dad treats me like a cadet or something, like I’m the lowest of the low. He just sends me around doing errands, and yells at me that I’m not tough enough.

Fuck that.

The truth of that matter is that I can knock out any guy at school. I’ve fought with most of the football team. Not because I wanted to, but sooner or later, someone always gets jealous that I’ve “stolen their girl.” They come at me, wanting a fight, and leave me no choice but to knock them cold on their ass.

Getting into my Mustang, I crank the engine. This is one of the little pleasures in life, listening to that massive engine roar to life.

My foot on the clutch, my hand on the shifter, I back out of the driveway. Soon, I’m roaring down the dark road.

The freedom of the road.

Even if I’m just off to the pharmacy for my dad, there’s still freedom and peace to be found here.

In this moment of time, I can pretend I’m still a high school kid, star of the football field…

The truth is that everyone else in my class is going off to college. And I’m going to be here, in town.

I have no clue what I’m going to do.

But whatever it is, I know it’s going to be big. It’s going to be huge.

I’m not afraid of taking the path less traveled. I’m not afraid to make my own decisions to accomplish something bigger, something more important.

The pharmacy is only about ten minutes away. The roads are dark and the air is still hot, but it’s cooled down significantly. The summer heat wave has already rolled in, keeping almost everyone else indoors in their comfortable air conditioning.

Me, I’d rather be out here. I’d rather be out under trees and under the moon.

I could go to college if I wanted to. I could be just like everyone else. I could play football, and possibly even go pro, if I worked my ass off. And I always work my ass off. It’s in my DNA or something. It’s not even like I have a choice—I work hard, that’s just what I do.

The pharmacy parking lot is almost empty. Just a couple of station wagons and minivans here and there. Walking through the aisles, past the makeup and shampoos, I can feel female eyes on me. They’re checking me out. I’m used to that, though. Even the soccer moms check me out. Actually, it’s more like: the soccer moms always check me out.

I don’t have a problem with that. They like what they see.

There’s no one at the pharmacy counter. I ring a little bell, holding my dad’s paper script in my hand.

A head pokes out from around a corner in the back. My first impression is: holy shit.

Who is this goddess?

Her whole body comes into view.

She’s got sweeping curves. Her body is like one big curve.

Her breasts are pert and fucking perfect, her bra sitting just right, cupping them from below.

There’s something about the way that she moves that just… My cock starts to swell in my jeans. I wonder briefly if it’s going to be noticeable. Then I realize I just don’t care. I’ve never cared about things like that.

My cock continues to grow as she approaches.

She has her hair pulled back in a pony tail. The side of her looks incredible, perfect angles. Everything about is kind and sweet, not to mention super fucking sexy.

“Can I help you?” she says.

At first, I think she’s shy.

Incredibly shy.

That’s my first impression of her. Of course, first impressions aren’t often right.

She barely looks at me. She doesn’t meet my eyes.

But I get lost in her eyes, deep swirling pools of perfection.

“Do I know you?” I say.

“No.”

“You look familiar. Where did you go to school?”

“Ranger,” she says.

“Me too.” I grin at her. “How come I never saw you around?”

She shrugs.

“What can I help you with,” she says, using a professional tone of voice.

Her face belies her demeanor. I can tell she’s hiding something. I have a good read on people.

But what’s she hiding?

Hana

Of course I recognize him.

He’s Noah Strong, the king of my high school. All the girls were always talking about him.

Not that he ever paid any attention to me.

Not that I ever spoke to him even once.

And why should he have? I was just the shy girl, the quiet girl, the invisible girl. I hid in the back of classes, barely talking to anyone. Except for my best friend, of course.

I was rail thin all through high school. It wasn’t until literally after graduation that my body started to change. I grew curves where I’d never had them before. I had to buy all new clothes. Guys started looking at me.

I turned 18 a year ago. I’m almost 19, right on the cusp of my birthday. Doesn’t this kind of development normally start earlier? I’m a late bloomer, I guess.

A hell of a lot of good it did me, though. High school is already over. Over for good. All the guys I was interested in are getting ready to leave for college.

Leah, my best friend, tells me I’ll get plenty of guys in college. I don’t know, though. I feel like my social skills have never properly developed. I don’t even know how to flirt with a guy.

He scares me. He makes me feel nervous. I have no choice but to continue acting like any other normal, professionally mannered pharmacist’s assistant.

I take the script from him without saying anything, head into the back, and start counting the pills.

Between the shelves where the drawers of pills are, my heart’s thumping like crazy. Even I can tell that he was looking at me in that way. He was looking at my body. I can’t deny that.

I’m almost paralyzed from fear. I literally have to force myself to take the bottle of pain pills and walk back to the counter.

Noah waits for me there. He’s got his hands on the counter. His whole body is athletic and relaxed. He stands just like those jocks do. It’s a practiced stance or something.

He looks impossibly hot.

I’d kill to spend some time with him.

If I could just get over myself, over my anxiety, over my inner frustrations and self-doubt.

“Here you go,” I say. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Noah just stands there, staring at me. A grin forms on his face.

“I just don’t get it,” he says. “I thought I knew every chick at school. Where have you been hiding all these years?”

I shrug. “I didn’t go to the football games, if that’s what you were doing.”

Noah doesn’t say anything. The smile won’t leave his face.

“So you’re working here for the summer or what? You going off to college or something?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m going to Penn this fall.”

“Penn, wow. You’re a brainiac or something, huh? You were probably studying all through school.”

I find myself blushing for some reason.

“I guess,” I say. “I’m just a huge nerd, really.”

“It looks like you’re a lot more than that,” says Noah. His gaze travels down my body and the grin doesn’t leave his face.

“So,” says Noah. “You should come out with me tomorrow night. I’m heading to a party.”

A party? Partying with the football team? That scares me more than doing something completely insane, like bungee jumping. Honestly, I’d rather jump out of an airplane with a parachute than go to a football team party.

I’m just not that type of person. I don’t have anything to say to people like that. I’d be too nervous. I’d be a complete wreck.

“Come on,” says Noah.

“Uh,” I say. “I have to work tomorrow. Thanks, though.”

“Come on,” says Noah. “I bet you can get the night off. This is just a summer gig for you, after all.”

My supervisor, Tom, comes walking towards us, through the aisles. He stops to examine some condoms, since he’s a weirdo and is fascinated for some reason with condoms.

Thank God he’s coming over. Maybe he’ll provide a distraction and I can somehow get out of going to this party.

But do I really want to avoid going?

After all, there’s another feeling here that’s not just nerves… It’s something like butterflies in my stomach… something like a warm feeling all over.

Just looking at Noah and his tightly muscled, huge body makes me almost shiver in delight. I know what I’m going to be thinking about tonight as I fall asleep. I know who I’m going to be thinking about.

But that’s just my problem. I’m always fantasizing, never acting.

“I’ve got to work,” I say, repeating myself, unsure of why I’m doing this.

“Come on,” says Noah.

Noah notices Tom approaching. It’s hard to miss Tom. He’s massively tall and impossibly thin. He’s got a weird way of walking. You can’t not notice him.

“Is that your boss or something?” says Noah.

I nod my head.

“Hey,” says Noah, turning around to address Tom. “What about letting your cute little employee here have tomorrow night off?”

I try to catch Tom’s eye, to tell him that I’m making an excuse.

Obviously, I don’t actually have to work tomorrow.

But Tom’s not exactly socially aware. Even less than I am.

“But you’re not working tomorrow, Hana.”

I groan inwardly.

“Looks like you’re free then,” says Noah.

I don’t say anything.

“I’ll pick you up at 9,” he says. He pauses. “Unless you have another excuse you want to give me.”

I freeze. I have no idea what to say. I’m caught between being excited and insanely nervous.

Going to a party shouldn’t be this big of a deal.

But I’m not just going to a party. I’m going to a party with Noah Strong, the captain of the football team, the guy every girl at school dreamt about.

He doesn’t just go on dates. He gets laid.

And I’m a virgin.

Noah

“Here, Dad,” I say, handing my dad the bag of pain meds.

He grunts as his way of saying thank you.

The TV is blaring the sounds of guns and cannons blasting. All sorts of weapons making a shit load of noise.

“Sit down, son,” grunts my dad.

This is rare. He usually doesn’t like to talk. It’s rare that he asks me to sit down with him. I can’t remember the last time he did this.

I sit down on the couch. He doesn’t turn off the TV, but he turns down the volume a little.

With a lot of effort, he turns in his chair to look at me.

He glares at me, squinting, his thick eyebrows coming together. He used to be a handsome guy, big and strong, back in his military days. That was before his accident, before his life turned to shit, as he says.

“What the hell are you going to do?” he says. He doesn’t just say it, though. He barks it at me.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been 18 for a year now. You’ve been a man for a year now. What the hell are you playing at?”

“I don’t want to go to college,” I say. “I want to do my own thing. I want to make a difference. If I’m going to college, then it’s going to be on my own terms. No one’s going to be telling me what to do all the time… That’s just not my style, a coach barking commands at me all season… all school year.”

I get enough of that at home, I think to myself.

“I’m not talking about fucking college,” spits out my dad.

He looks even meaner than usual. Maybe he doesn’t like the movie, or maybe the pain’s really getting to him tonight. It’s hard to tell.

“Why don’t you take one of those pills, Dad,” I say, suggesting it in the gentlest way possible.

He grunts, and ignores me.

“You don’t need to go to college to do something with your life. But you’re smart. I’ve seen your test scores. You’re no normal meat head football player.”

I sigh. I’ve heard it all before. Yeah, I get OK grades, but I’m not exactly living up to my academic potential. That was according to my counselors, at least.

“Look, son,” says my dad. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I don’t give a shit, really, what it is. But if you say you want to make something with your life, just go fucking do it. Don’t wait around.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, a little sarcastically. “Is that all?”

He doesn’t look at me. His attention is turned back to the TV movie. The military guys in the movie are rushing a beach, firing their guns as they run. One of them gets hit and goes down.

I walk slowly up to my room.

How can people tell me I’m not living up to my potential when I was the king of the school, captain of the football team? I even took college courses in my last year of school. That was partially what convinced me I didn’t want to have anything to do with college. Everything was so abstract, and not related to the real world at all. I mean, I did fine, acing all my courses.

Honestly, I only took the courses to meet college chicks. Laid a few of them, too. At 18, I was the same age as a lot of them. And I look a lot older than I am, with a beard that grows in thick and coarse if I don’t shave every day.

Lying on my bed, my thoughts turn to that gorgeous curvy chick from the pharmacy.

I’ll fuck her tomorrow, there’s no doubt in my mind. It’s just a matter of where I decide to do it.

My cock starts growing, just thinking about her. I’ve got a high sex drive. Very high.

I sigh, knowing I can’t ignore this erection. It’s the slow burning intense kind that pushes uncomfortably against my jeans.

I look over to the door, making sure it’s closed all the way.

Unzipping my pants, I pull the flaps of denim aside, letting my cock free.

My breathing is going a little ragged.

I close my eyes and picture the girl from the pharmacy counter. Her tits were so perfect.

My hand grips my hard cock, forming a fist around it. I move my hand up and down slowly at first.

But as I picture her, imagining that she’s here on the bed with me, pulling off her shirt, my fist begins to speed up substantially.

She’s climbing on top of me, her shirt off, her pants on the floor. She’s wearing a bra that’s slightly too small for her. Her tits are practically spilling out of them. She whispers something to me, telling me that she wants me, that she wants my cock. She unhooks her bra, moving her hands behind her back to do so.

Moving her arms like that cause her breasts to squish together a little. Now the bra comes off, and those beautiful, huge globes spill out.

She leans down and I take one of her nipples in my mouth.

She’s closer to my cock, closer than ever.

Her pussy is wet. She slides it down onto my thick cock. The feeling is incredible, almost unimaginable.

My hand is moving faster and faster.

In my fantasy, she begins to ride me, hard and fast. Her tits are swaying in my face and her hips are thrusting wildly, quickly, sexily.

She starts to come, screaming about my cock. The look on her face is priceless.

Suddenly, my cock erupts. My warm come shoots out, blasting all over my chest.

I’m back in reality. The fantasy fades away.

A real shame. Because she looked incredible.

But I know she’s going to look even better in person. All I have to do is wait until tomorrow. That’s going to be hard, though.

But at least I know that I’m going to have her. She won’t say no to me. I saw right through that little shy girl façade. She craves cock like everyone else. Deep down, she wants me, and she’ll admit it to me in some private discussion while we stare at the stars together.

Grabbing a tissue from my bedside table, I clean myself up.

I’m halfway through pulling my pants back up when there’s a knock on the door.

“Just a minute,” I call out.

“I need to talk,” says my dad, speaking more softly than usual.

“I’m a little busy in here,” I say.

My dad’s a guy, and he usually respects my privacy. He knows how things are.

“I need to talk,” says my dad. “I don’t care what you’re doing. Just come to the door.”

Grumbling to myself, I zip up my pants and find the difficult button of the jeans and get that done. Normally, I’d enjoy lounging around a little after a session. Talking to my dad immediately after that release is about the last thing I want to do be doing.

Sighing, I open the door.

My dad’s face surprises me.

His normally grim expression is gone. Instead, it’s replaced by a look of extreme sadness.

“What happened?” I say.

“It’s your cousin.”

“My cousin?”

“Chris…”

I don’t say anything for a moment.

I know by the tone of my dad’s voice that something awful has happened.

Chris and I were best friends growing up. We did everything together. Of course, he was a few years older than me, so by the time high school came along, we didn’t spend quite as much time together. He had his own older friends.

But despite being older, Chris still would let me hang out with him and his friends from time to time. He was really cool about it. He never made me feel like I was the younger kid, just tagging along. He always included me.

I looked up to him like no one else.

Chris joined the military right after high school. I haven’t heard from him much, unless you count the occasional brief emails he’d send me, telling me that things were pretty tough over there.

“What happened?” I say, looking my dad right in the eyes. “Is he dead?”

My dad shakes his head.

“He stepped on a land mine,” he says. He pauses, a long pause. “He lost his legs…”

I’m speechless. Chris without his legs? Before me, he was the star quarterback all through school. He didn’t get a college scholarship, like the one I turned down, but he was good. He was an athlete, tall and muscular, and surprisingly nimble.

Picturing Chris without his legs is like… picturing a cheetah that can’t run. Chris was his body.

“He’s coming home on Thursday,” says my dad.

“Thursday,” I repeat vaguely. “So this happened… when?”

“He’s coming home,” says my dad. “That’s what’s important.”

I nod.

“He wants to see you.”

Facing Chris without legs? He’ll be lying in bed, unable to even walk…

I shudder at the thought.

How can I bare to face my hero, down and out, mutilated and bedbound?

Hana

“Any plans this week?” says my mom at the breakfast table.

We’re eating quinoa and boiled kale for breakfast. Not your usual breakfast food, but my parents aren’t exactly normal parents.

They’re hippies. Big time hippies.

I shrug my shoulders, not meeting my mom’s gaze. “I might be going to a party tonight.”

Normal parents would be worried if their daughter were to say she’s going to some wild party with a football star.

But my parents? They’ve been wanting me to go to parties for as long as I can remember. They’ve encouraged me to socialize, and not to spend so much time studying. “You can’t learn everything you need in those school books,” was my dad’s constant refrain.

“Oh, honey,” says my mom, cooing. “That’s wonderful! Are you going with anyone? A boy, maybe?”

I shrug. “Yeah,” I say. “Someone asked me out at the pharmacy.”

“Harold! Did you hear that? Hana’s going to a party with a boy.” My mom shouts this to my dad, who’s in the study by the kitchen, working on one of his neverending art projects.

“That’s great,” calls out my dad.

“So who’s the lucky guy?” says my mom, leaning down and peering at me, her hands cupped under her chin.

“Just some guy I met,” I say.

“Do you think you’ll get lucky?”

“Mom!” I say, exasperated. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I don’t see why not,” says my mom. “Back in my day, love was free, and we talked about it fine. Your generation has so many hang-ups.”

“It’s not my generation,” I say. “It’s just that I’m normal. And you’re not talking about your whole generation… other parents aren’t like you guys…”

“We’re just a little more… liberated,” says my mom.

I grunt vaguely.

“You’re an adult, Hana,” says my mom. “It’s only healthy that you’d be sexually active.”

I almost spit out my quinoa and kale.

“Mom!” I say again.

“Oh come on, dear,” says my mom. “It’d do you some good to get laid.”

“Come on!” I say. “Why can’t you just be like other moms?”

My mom laughs.

We’ve had this conversation countless times before, about why she can’t be like other moms.

“I’m going up to my room,” I say, leaving my bowl of quinoa on the table.

I walk up the stairs and slam the door behind me.

Flopping on my bed, I look at the ceiling. I can’t wait to get out of here and get to college. I’ll be living in a dorm, living my own life, the way I want to live it.

It’s not that my parents are that weird. They’re not crazy or anything. They’re just a little different.

My dad’s an artist, and he sells some sculptures here and there. But my mom makes the majority of the money. She’s actually a professor of sociology at a local two-year college. She knows her stuff, too. She’s written books. Most of them are about the hippie culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s, especially compared to youth culture today.

Like I said, she knows her stuff. But that’s why I don’t understand why she’ll occasionally bring up stuff that I clearly don’t want to talk about.

My parents are more open than other parents, and I think that in a way I’ve reacted against them. I’ve become more closed off because of them. It’s sort of like typical teenage rebellion, but in reverse.

My mom, as a sociology professor, says it’s completely normal.

About what we were talking about… Hell, I’m actually dying to lose my virginity. It’s just that only recently have any guys even looked at me admiringly, let alone asked me out, and I’m still getting used to that.

It’s not that I don’t want to have sex. It’s just that I don’t want to talk about it with my mom. That’s pretty normal, right?

I mean, I know it’s not like she wants to hear the details or anything. Nothing weird like that.

My parents have a bit of a reputation around town. I mean, how can they not? My dad drives an old VW camper van that he fixed up himself in the driveway. He uses it to cart around pieces for his sculptures. The van is painted just like all those vans in the ‘70s, with a huge peace sign on it.

I always hated being dropped off at school in that thing. I always cringed.

If I’d known or talked to more people at school, I’m sure I would have gotten a lot of questions about them. But since the only person I talked to much was Leah, she’s the only one who really asked me about them.

“So do they like smoke pot all the time and stuff?” she’d say.

“No!” I’d say. “They’ve never done anything like that in front of me. I mean, they’ve told me they used drugs as kids. They were pretty open about it, and told me if I wanted to experiment, that it was up to me. They said they never want to tell me what to do.”

There’s a knock at my door.

“Honey?” says my mom, opening the door a crack.

“Come in,” I say.

My mom enters. Her hair, a big mess of blonde dreadlocks, enters first.

“Honey,” she says, sitting down on the edge of my bed. “That last thing I wanted to do was make you feel uncomfortable. You know that, right?”

I nod.

“When you decide to… you know… that’s up to you. If you don’t want to talk about guys with me, that’s fine.”

“OK,” I say.

There’s a pause.

I start to feel guilty about making her possibly feel bad.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say.

“Sure. Oh, one more thing. There’s a… delivery for you.”

“A delivery?”

“Hang on, let me get it. It just came.”

My mom leaves the room. She comes back holding a rose with a fancy looking envelope.

“I won’t ask,” says my mom, putting the rose and the envelope on my bed. She gives me a wink and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

A rose? I’ve never gotten a rose before in my life. Or any flowers, for that matter.

I didn’t go to prom, or any of the school dances.

I sit up in bed and grab the rose. I hold it to my nose, inhaling deeply, savoring the scent. It’s been a long time since I’ve smelled a rose, and it’s amazing how incredible the scent is.

I open the card quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

I have a hunch who it’s from… Noah.

But could it really be? The guy that I secretly drooled over this last year? The guy that I might have… possibly fantasized about. The guy who never looked my way, not once.

He’s really writing me a card, accompanied by a rose?

“Looking forward to tonight,” reads the card.

Noah signed his name.

That’s it, that’s all the card says, but it sends a warm feeling rushing through my body.

I have to tell someone about this. I can’t believe Noah is sending me cards like this. It’s crazy, right? I mean, we just met, and we talked for, what, five minutes? Maybe even less.

Maybe he sees something special in me. Maybe he can see past this shy exterior. Maybe he sees that we’d be good together.

My mind suddenly fills with images of the two of us doing all sorts of things together—going to the movies, enjoying a romantic beach getaway vacation. Even getting married.

Now that’s taking it too far. Even I realize that. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

I mean, it’s not like I really want to marry him, but…

I have to tell someone. I grab my phone and send a text to Leah.

“You’ll never guess what just happened,” I say, tapping away at the screen, which has a big crack running through the middle of it. I tell her all about the card and the rose.

To my surprise, my phone rings.

Normally, Leah just writes me back. She usually prefers texting to speaking on the phone. Some kind of anxiety thing—I’m not sure what it is.

“What’s up?” I say. “Did you get my message?” It’s hard to contain the joy in my voice. But I never have news about guys to share with Leah, and I’m excited to do so.

“Hey,” says Leah. “Yeah, I got it…”

“What’s up?” I say, noticing the way her voice sounds. She sounds serious, rather than happy for me.

But she’s not the type to be jealous. She’s had a bunch of boyfriends over the years. And guys are always hitting on her and asking her out at the mall, at the movie theater, at all sorts of places. She’s just got one of those bodies, I suppose. And a way of looking at guys that makes them approach her.

“There’s something you should know,” says Leah.

“What?” I say. “Please don’t tell me he’s sent this same note to like a dozen other girls… Because I’m so excited right now I feel like my…”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you,” says Leah. “But, yeah… He’s well known for sending that exact same note, that exact same rose. Of course, he always gets his way. He always gets in their pants. Recently, he’s been going after college girls exclusively. Sorry to be the one to tell you.”

My heart sinks down to my knees.

“No,” I say. “Thanks for telling me.” But my voice sounds hollow and strange.

I find one guy who seems to like me, and it turns out he’s already intending to just use me? Already he’s treating me just like all the others.

Noah

There’s a lot on my mind right now.

The party’s tonight. I’m getting laid tonight. Chris is coming home tomorrow, with his legs blown off. And I’m supposed to go visit him.

When I was buying the rose, talking to the florist, I had a brief doubt in my mind—maybe today’s not the day to be trying to get laid. Maybe today’s not the day to buy the rose I always send out to make sure I seal the deal. After all, Chris lost his legs.

But what would Chris do, if he were in my situation? He’d go out and party. He’d go out and get laid. He’d be out living life, that’s what he’d be doing.

Chris would want me to do this. He’d want me to continue doing what it is I’m doing. He’d want me to be out in the thick of it, away from the bullshit, doing what matters.

So in a way, I do it for Chris. That sounds weird, maybe, but you know what I mean. I’ve got to keep the memory of him being a complete badass alive and well. If I have to up my game and up my intensity, then that’s what I’ll do.

I don’t want to visit Chris in the hospital. It’s not just seeing my hero fallen and injured. It’s going to be more intense than that. Chris wasn’t just my role model. I don’t know how to describe it. He was my inspiration. He was proof that you didn’t have to do what everyone else did. He was proof you could get away from all the shit they throw at you at school and just do your thing, just have a good time and live life.

“Same trick again?” said the florist to me.

I just nodded my head.

He knows me and knows what I’m up to. But he doesn’t care. He’s a guy in his fifties, married now, with two kids. But he strikes me as the type of guy who was a serious lady’s man back in his day. Plus, he’s getting my business, so what does he care?

I couldn’t stay at home today. I couldn’t be around my dad’s sorrowful faraway look, as he remembers Chris and his own fallen comrades from his days in the military. I’m much more comfortable when he’s just grumpy and yelling at me. I can’t take it when he just sits there and looks sad.

So I’m just cruising around town slowly in my Mustang. I’ve already dropped off the card and the flower. It’s going to work. I know it’s going to.

My cock swells in my pants as I think about what’s it’s going to be like tonight with her. She’s got that perfect look. Perfect tits, a perfect ass. Perfect everything.

The day is getting hot, but I’ve never been into air conditioning. I’ve got the windows down, enjoying the feeling of the heat washing over me.

Everyone complains about the heat. But my attitude is: so what? Just deal with it. There’s worse stuff in life than living through a bit of hot weather.

I get to thinking about where I’m headed in life, what I’m going to do.

I keep talking about wanting to really strike out and make a difference. Maybe my dad’s right, though. I haven’t even made any decisions. I haven’t actually done anything.

The only thing I’ve done is reject. I’ve rejected the scholarship, college, various jobs, and various lifestyles.

It’s about time I just fucking do something.

Almost without realizing what I’m doing, I find myself driving to a local mall where I know there’s a Navy recruitment center.

Parking the Mustang, I kill the ignition, and sit in the car for about thirty seconds, just staring at the building in front of me. The building doesn’t look like much. It could be just another small store in this strip mall.

The words Marine Corp & Navy Career Centers are bolded, red. They look careful, methodical, but intense.

Those words seem to represent something to me. I’m not sure what.

This small, unassuming building, to me, means: action, adventure, purpose.

That’s what I’m lacking: a purpose. A purpose is what I’ve wanted all along. It’s what I’ve been craving, what I’ve been living without for too long.

What will they say at school, if the famous Noah Strong joins the military? They’ll say he’s a fucking hero, that’s what they’ll say. They’ll say he rejected everything, a life of comfort, fame, and fortune. And for what? For a life of uncertainty, of danger, of responsibility.

This is the shift I need.

But I’m not just going to be any old deckhand on a big boat.

No, I’m going to do something more.

Maybe it sounds cliché. But I’m not afraid to be a cliché.

Getting out of the car and walking towards the squat, plain building, I have a weird sensation. As if I know my life’s about to seriously change, but I don’t know how. It’s going to change in unimaginable ways. I’m going to become someone else.

But that’s what I want. I want a change. I need a change.

The inside of the building is simple. There’s a desk with a man with short hair behind it. He sits up straight. He’s surrounded by pamphlets.

He gestures for me to have a seat.

“What can I do for you today?”

“I want to become a Navy Seal,” I say.

I hadn’t thought of these words before coming in. They just tumble out of my mouth automatically. But the minute I say them, I know they’re true.

“I want to be the best of the best,” I say. “I want to do something different.”

The man breaks his serious expression and grins at me.

“We have a lot of young men coming in here every day,” he says. “And you know what they all have in common?”

I shake my head.

“They all want to be Navy Seals,” he says. “But do you know what the statistics are?”

“The statistics?”

“More than 90% of recruits drop out of training within the first week. This isn’t something you just decide to do on a whim. This is a life changing decision, and very few can hack it. Very few have what it takes to put up with what will be thrown at them in mere training. And out in the heat of things, out in the action? That’s where courage and character really shine through. That’s when you know if you have what it takes.”

“I’m ready for it,” I say simply.

I could tell him of the trials I’ve been through with football, of the injuries I’ve overcome. I could tell how I’d work out at 3 in the morning five days a week. I could tell him how I’d run 10 miles a day, just to be the best of the best.

But I’m not that kind of person. I prefer to show rather than tell. I’ll let my actions speak for me.

“Very well,” says the man. “Just so you know, there’s going to be a lot of testing. First come the paper tests. You know, intelligence, that sort of thing. Psychological tests. Criminal history… all sorts of evaluations. You can’t just be a strong idiot and be a Seal. You’ve got to have brains too.”

The afternoon passes quickly. Most of the day I spend here in the Navy office, just filling out routine paperwork. I give them permission to check all my history.

I leave with an armful of paperwork that I need to fill out.

It’s not until I’m back in my Mustang, cranking the engine, that I realize what I’ve just done. I’ve just changed my life forever, and I have enough wherewithal to realize that.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be shipping off to training in a month.

One more month, that’s all I have.

Everyone will be getting ready to leave for college. And I’ll be getting ready to leave for what’s sure to be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. I won’t have the comfort of dorm rooms. Instead of the mild discomfort of exams and term papers, I’ll be risking my life. I’ll be pushing my body and my mind to the absolute limit.

In the meantime, I’m not going to stop enjoying what I can still enjoy.

And that means the chick from the pharmacy, Hana.

I’m going to enjoy her tonight, and I already know she’s going to enjoy every minute of it as much as I will.

She’s texted me her address, but I’ve still got an hour to kill.

Sighing, I realize I need to go home to change for tonight. That means facing my dad and his sad face. That means possibly talking about Chris and his missing legs.

“Where have you been?” grunts my dad when I walk through the door.

For once in my life, the TV is off. The room is eerily silent. No war movie is blasting from the speakers. It’s a strange sensation, seeing him sitting there in silence.

His face is unreadable.

“Out,” I shrug.

“You going to visit Chris tomorrow?”

“Of course,” I say.

“I wouldn’t want to think you’re the type of man who avoids his responsibilities.”

“Why would you think that?”

“That’s what you’ve always been doing. This whole not going to college thing… You’re just scared you wouldn’t make it. You’re just scared you wouldn’t make the pros.”

I was expecting my dad’s mood to have changed, given the news about Chris. But I thought he’d just be sitting around in his own sadness. I didn’t expect him to become more aggressive in his attacks on me.

“I joined the Navy,” I say, suddenly deciding to tell him of my decision. “I’m going to be a Navy Seal.”

“You?” spits my dad. “A Navy Seal? You won’t last a day.”

“Are you kidding? I have what it takes.”

“You won’t know what it takes until it’s too late. You think you’re better than me? Look what happened to me. You think you’re better than Chris?”

I simply walk away.

I don’t need to take his bullshit.

Why has he never been on my side? He’s always against me, always trying to put me down. He never went to a single one of my football games. Not that I give a shit, but he also never said a single good thing about it all. He just gave me shit all my life. Maybe because he felt bad about not doing shit with his life.

Who knows.

At least I have tonight to look forward to. At least I’ll be caressing Hana’s sweet curves later tonight…

I head up to my room and throw on a new shirt for tonight. Looking at myself in the mirror, I realize I look fine. She already wants me. I don’t have to do anything fancy. The rose should have done the trick. It always does. Not that I need that trick, but it helps to seal the deal.

My phone buzzes in my pocket as I’m heading out the door. I don’t bother saying bye to my dad. Or tell him where I’m going.

It’s a text from Hana.

“So I heard you send the same rose to every girl,” reads the text. “With the exact same note.”

Damnit.

She’s pissed. I can tell even from the text.

But I’m not going to give up so easily. It’s not like me to give up without a fight. I hop into the Mustang and start driving over to her place anyway.

Hana

“I thought you were going out tonight,” says my mom.

I shrug. “Nope,” I say. “Change of plans.”

“That’s too bad,” says my mom.

I’m sitting in the den watching something mindless on TV. Honestly, I’m not even paying attention to what it is.

“You want to talk about it?”

I shake my head.

Twenty minutes go by and I sink into my own thoughts. By the looks of it, I’m never going to have sex. I’m going to go off to college without ever having had a boyfriend, without ever having had sex. I’m going to be out of place there. Everyone else will be far more experienced than me. I won’t have anything to talk about…

I should have known Noah Strong was only interested in one thing… I mean, in a way, I did. And I was OK with that. It’s not like I was really expecting a solid relationship to come out of going to a party with him. I mean, maybe in my fantasies.

But in reality? No, I know better, despite how inexperienced I am. But I should have known that he’d pull the same tricks on me as with the other girls. Somehow, reusing the flower and note trick seems so… cheap.

Am I overreacting? I don’t think so.

The perfect person to ask would be my mom. She understands people. She’s knows all about the ins and outs of dating. But I’ve never talked to her about this kind of stuff. And it would seem too strange to talk to her about it now.

The doorbell rings.

I don’t pay any attention to it.

But I can hear my mom’s voice at the door, talking to someone who sounds like Noah.

What? My heart starts beating rapidly in my chest.

He’s here? Why would he come here? After what I told him? He’s going to try to sleep with me anyway? He doesn’t care that I know about the note? Or is it not a big deal to him?

“Honey,” says my mom, coming into the room. She speaks to me delicately, as if she’s worried she might upset me. “There’s a nice looking guy here to see you.”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” I say.

“He came all the way over here. Why don’t you just go to the door and say hello.”

Damnit. I know it would be unreasonable not to at least go to the door to talk to him.

This is why I’m over living with my parents. I can’t wait to be on my own, in my dorm at college, able to do what I please.

“Fine,” I say.

Instantly, I feel bad about speaking curtly to my mom. She just wants to help, after all.

I’m just wearing my around-the-house clothes, tight cut off jean shorts and a t-shirt. I didn’t bother getting ready. I didn’t bother putting on the outfit that I’d picked out for tonight, a cute summer dress that shows off my new cleavage. It’s one of the few outfits I actually have that I bought for my new body, for all these curves I’ve only recently developed.

The truth is, the t-shirt and jean shorts I’m wearing now barely fit me at all. I feel uncomfortable in them, like my body’s about to burst through them, tearing them to shreds, leaving me naked.

But there’s no time to change. Anyway, the way the house is constructed, I’d have to walk past the front door to head up the stairs. Noah would see me anyway.

My mom retreats to one of the back rooms, probably to visit my dad. He, of course, is still working on one of his art projects. I can’t keep track of them anymore at this point. They’re too numerous to count, and too long lasting. He hasn’t finished one in at least a year, so far as I can remember.

I walk to the front door with my heart pounding in my chest.

The reason I’m so nervous? I’m both pissed and… intrigued. I want him, and I know it. My body knows it.

“Hi,” I say, stepping outside, opening and closing the storm door quietly.

“Hey,” says Noah.

His eyes don’t leave my body. He gazes at every inch of me, looking me up and down. I suddenly feel both self-conscious, and, at the same time, sexy. After all, I can see it in his eyes—he wants me.

“Sorry about the rose thing,” says Noah. “I just, I don’t know. I got in the habit of doing it. I thought it was something nice, and I didn’t mean anything by… you know, sending you the same note.”

I nod my head slowly.

“It’s no secret I’ve been with a lot of women,” says Noah. “But I thought there was something between us, something a little different.”

“We just talked for a couple minutes,” I say. “I barely know you, and you don’t know me at all.”

“Even so,” says Noah. “I have a feeling…”

“You probably say that to all the girls,” I say.

Noah laughs. “You may be right,” he says. “But this time I really mean it.”

I let out a little derisive laugh.

“Come on,” says Noah. “Let’s go enjoy the party. No expectations or anything. Let’s just have a good time. When’s the last time you did anything fun?”

Honestly, I have no idea. Leah and I went to a movie a couple weeks ago, but it wasn’t that good. It was one of those action movies, and I found myself completely lost by the end of it.

“Come on,” says Noah, turning the tone of his voice in that way guys can do that’s incredibly sexy.

I should go, shouldn’t I? I mean, even if the only reason Noah is bringing me is that he thinks he’ll get laid, is that really so bad?

Maybe all I want to do is get laid too? That’s OK, right? My mom’s always talking about how unfair the expectations about men and women’s sexuality are. Women have sex drives too, but we’re just not allowed to talk about it as much as men are.

“OK,” I say, suddenly deciding to go.

Noah grins at me.

“I just have to get changed,” I say.

“You look great,” says Noah.

“These clothes barely fit me.”

“Even better,” says Noah, winking at me.

I laugh, a little uncomfortably. But, honestly, I’m just flattered.

I go inside to grab my keys and phone out of my purse. I don’t bring it, since I don’t want to worry about losing it at the party. I call out to my mom that I’m heading out, but I leave before she can even respond. I’m basically already out the door before she even gets a chance. That’ll probably make her happy, though—I’m acting more like a young woman heading out to a party than I ever have before in my life.

Noah opens the door for me on his Mustang. I’ve seen this car around school and around town for so long it’s almost surreal to be stepping into it. All the girls’ heads would turn when Noah’s Mustang would drive by, making a hell of a racket with its modified engine and its strange exhaust pipe.

Noah gets in and starts the car. I suddenly realize I’m alone in the car with Noah Strong, the football god. And I feel incredibly nervous. I’ve never even been on a date like this… and now I’m with the guy that everyone dreams about.

“So,” I say. “What’d you get up to today?”

Sometimes I do this. When I’m nervous, I try to make conversation, even if it doesn’t make sense for the situation.

“Oh,” says Noah, sounding weirdly vague. “I joined the military.”

“What?”

He said it so casually that I wonder if it’s a joke.

“Are you serious?” I add.

“Yup,” says Noah.

We’re driving down the tree lined streets, with the windows down. The air feels good on my skin. It’s one of those beautiful, perfect summer nights.

“You joined the military?” I say.

I already know the news, that Noah didn’t take the football scholarship he got. So there’s no point in asking him about that.

But I do anyway. “I thought you were going to play football.”

Noah shrugs. “I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing,” he says. “I wanted to do something different.

“Were you planning this?” I say.

Noah isn’t joking around now that we’re talking about something serious like this. But for me, it calms my nerves and helps my anxiety, to talk about something concrete like this. I’m good at school, and I’m good at logical discussions. I may not be great at “socializing,” or chatting about nothing. But I can analyze any topic or theme to death. That’s probably why I did so good at school.

“No,” says Noah. “I decided it today.”

“What? Are you crazy? It took me months to decide what college to go to. And you just suddenly made this huge, life changing decision?”

“That’s the way I like to do it,” says Noah. “And something happened…”

“What happened?”

It suddenly hits me again that I’m actually having a real, meaningful conversation with Noah Strong. This is crazy! But I think I’m doing pretty good. It’s not exactly a flirty conversation, but at least it’s a conversation.

“My cousin, Chris. He was in the military. He was…”

“Chris Jenkins? The one who played football?”

“Yeah, he was really popular. You knew him?”

“I knew of him. I mean, everybody did. Everyone looked up to him.”

“Yeah, and he… Well, I just heard that he lost his legs to a land mine.”

“Oh my God!” I say. “That’s terrible. Is he OK?”

I suddenly realize that’s a stupid question to ask. Obviously, he’s not OK if he just lost his legs.

“I guess he’s OK,” says Noah sadly. “I mean, he doesn’t have his legs, but he’s alive. I haven’t seen him yet. I’m supposed to go tomorrow, but…”

I don’t feel like I know Noah well enough to ask him to finish his sentence. It feels like what he’s about to say is something highly personal. No wonder he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t really know me either.

We fall silent as Noah continues to drive. He shifts gears, and I find myself staring out the window. Wow, so Noah’s going into the Navy. That means I could easily never see him again.

“You know,” says Noah. “I didn’t want tonight to be a downer. I shouldn’t have brought up that stuff about my cousin.”

“No, it’s OK,” I say. “I’m glad you told me.”

“Let’s just try to have fun tonight, OK?” says Noah.

“Sure.”

That makes me think about the party, and thinking about the party makes me feel anxious.

“Looks like everyone’s already here,” says Noah, slowing the car down.

We drive slowly by what seems like a hundred cars parked along the side of the road. In reality, there are probably only a few dozen. But it seems like hundreds.

Noah parks the car and gets out.

For a moment, I just sit in the car, lost in my own anxiety.

“You coming?” calls Noah.

It’s just a party, I tell myself. It’s just a party.

“Whose house is this anyway?” I say, walking quickly to catch up to Noah.

Noah shrugs. “I forget. Whoever it is, their parents are supposedly in the Bahamas or something. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”

This is one of those McMansion houses, a sprawling building that looks impossibly new. The yard is massive, and professionally manicured and planted. It’s a beautiful yard, with all sorts of dark spots in the shadows, beneath the summer trees and the summer moon.

Intensely loud music is coming from the house. I can hear it even with the front door closed.

Noah doesn’t even knock. He just opens the door like it’s his own house.

I follow him through the door.

What I see completely shocks me.

The house is packed with people. Some of them are faces I instantly recognize from back at school. Others I don’t recognize at all. Some of them seem much older than us. Maybe they’re college students, or maybe they’re even older than that.

There are many more people than cars. I suddenly realize what I should have known before—that they all had rides and came in groups. That’s what people my age do. They all hang out with their friends and go to parties together.

I briefly wonder what Leah’s doing tonight. Usually, if she’s not hanging out with me, she’s off on another date with some guy. She’s not exactly the party type of girl. She’s more like me, except that she’s always going out with guys.

The living room is visible from the doorway where I stand.

There’s a keg there, with a huge amount of people crowded around it.

As soon as Noah walks through the threshold of the house, all the eyes everywhere move towards him.

And now I feel the eyes moving to me.

Noah takes my hand.

I suddenly notice that all the guys are looking at me with hungry eyes. What a strange sensation.

And all the female eyes are glaring at me. To them, I’m the one that Noah Strong has chosen. That makes me their mortal and sworn enemy.

Shit, my anxiety’s coming on strong now. I can feel my heart really thumping away.

Noah tries to gently pull me into the party, but I remain frozen.

They’re all drinking. I’ve never had a drink in my life. I’m not even 21. And I’ve just never really liked hanging around drunk people. They get all crazy and weird. At least for right now, it’s not for me. I could see myself enjoying a couple glasses of wine in a few years, getting a little buzz… But this whole atmosphere, it’s just about getting black out drunk and doing something stupid.

“What’s wrong?” says Noah, turning to me.

Everyone’s eyes have gone back to their red plastic cups or to the keg, or the game of beer pong that’s being played in the hallway.

The house already looks trashed, with family photos lying on the ground, the glass smashed. There’s beer spilled all over, and the whole place reeks. Whose ever house this is, their parents are going to be pissed when they get back.

“I… I don’t know,” I say.

I pull my hand away from his, and turn around and rush back outside again. I continue walking, not caring which direction I’m walking in. The grass feels good and soft beneath my feet. I feel calm again out here in the huge yard.

“Hey!” says Noah, calling out after me. “Where are you going?”

I don’t turn around and I don’t answer him. I just can’t enter a party like that.

I can hear Noah’s footsteps as he runs up to me from behind.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s going on? Are you OK?”

“I just can’t go in there,” I say.

“Why not? Come on, you’ll have a good time.”

“It’s just not my scene,” I say. “Sorry.”

Noah doesn’t say anything for a moment. He smiles at me.

“That’s OK,” he says. “Let’s take a walk instead.”

I nod.

Noah takes my hand in his and we start walking around the perimeter of the yard. Noah’s hand feels huge compared to mine. It’s strong and manly. I can see why he’d be good at football, with hands like these. Not that I know anything about football. Except maybe they’d be good for holding a ball or something, or whatever it is he does in the game.

“So,” says Noah. “You’re not big into parties?”

I shake my head. “I don’t feel comfortable in there.”

Noah stops, his hand still in mine. His face is gorgeous in the moonlight. “I’d rather spend time with you anyway.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to be living it up, partying before you ship out to the Navy? You barely even know me. What makes me so interesting to you?”

“You’re just incredibly beautiful,” says Noah. His eyes gleam as he says it. It feels like he’s looking right into me.

“Come on,” I say. “I know you say that to everyone.”

Noah laughs. “I may have said a version of that once or twice,” he says. “But this time I really mean it. And I mean really.”

I can feel myself blushing. Hopefully he can’t see my face clearly with only the moonlight to illuminate it.

Suddenly, I notice that Noah’s face is moving towards me.

I feel his hot breath on me, near me. He has a delicious smell to him, an intense manly scent.

I’m suddenly very aware of his body. It’s as if time freezes as his lips approach mine.

They touch mine. For a moment, I pause, frozen. I meet his kiss, my lips pushing against his.

The sensation is incredible. It’s as if bubbles of rainbow joy are rushing up through my sternum, around my solar plexus.

Noah continues kissing me. Our mouths open and his tongue meets mine, swirling intensely.

His hands are on me, gripping my sides gently but firmly. There’s so much grace to his body. But also so much intensity. I’ve never felt like this before.

My body responds. I suddenly want him like I’ve never wanted anything before. He awakens something in me, an intense desire that I was hiding even from myself.

My nipples are hard and I’m excited. My body is all tingly. My panties are soaked, hot and wet.

“But he’s leaving soon,” says a little voice in my head. “And you’re going off to college. This isn’t going to lead anywhere.”

But that’s the goody-two-shoes voice that I’ve been listening to all my life. I never thought I’d be that girl. The girl who’s merely kissed intensely by the football star and wants to drop her panties for him and let his cock plunge into her. But I’ve been the good girl all my life.

It’s time I listen to my body. It’s time I get what I want.

And right now, Noah Strong is what I want.

Can’t I have some fun once in a while?

After all, I’m craving him like nothing I’ve ever craved before in my life.

Noah’s hand moves to my breast, cupping it and massaging it over my t-shirt. It feels perfect. I’ve never been touched like this before.

His head moves down to my neck and he kisses me there. I let out a soft sigh, almost a moan, as my head tilts back. My eyes close. I open them for a moment, and all I see is the huge moon hanging in the summer sky.

“I want you,” growls Noah, barely above a whisper, right into my ear. “I want you so bad, Hana.”

“I want you too, Noah.” I breathe out the words like I’m reciting something secret, about to perform some secret ritual. “I want all of you, Noah.”

“Let’s see if there’s a room upstairs,” growls Noah. “Unless you want to go back to your house.”

My house? There’s no way I could go back to my house and have sex knowing that my parents are close by, separated only by a few walls.

But going inside to this trashed house? No, that’s not where I want to lose my virginity. That’s not where I want to have Noah enter me.

The weird thing about all this? I’d almost forgotten that I was a virgin. It just wasn’t on my mind the way that it always seems to be all the time. Instead, my brain was overwhelmed with how sexy Noah is, how hot he makes me, how his body drives me crazy.

But I should tell him, shouldn’t I?

“I want you to take me out here,” I say, instead of telling him. “I want to lie on the grass.”

“You’re crazy,” growls Noah. “And I like it.”

We’re mostly out of view from everyone, but we break apart, and Noah leads me to a more secluded area.

We have to push through some tall hedges to get to a small clearing. Noah holds the branches back for me.

No one can see us here. It’s completely private.

The moon shines down partially on this little clearing. Part of the light is blocked by the tall hedges. It’s just bright enough to see what’s going on, and for the moonlight to give everything a magical glow.

“This is where it’s going to happen,” says a little voice inside me. The voice isn’t critical anymore. It’s almost congratulatory, as if I’ve finally convinced myself it’s OK to go ahead with this. It’s OK to drop the good girl act for a second and get what I want, what I need.

Noah embraces me, kissing me, his mouth smashing down onto mine.

We tumble onto the grass together, falling softly.

He’s on top of me and over me. His mouth is against mine, and against my neck.

It feels incredible to have his weight on top of me. His hands are under my shirt, massaging my breasts perfectly.

I break away from his kiss for a moment.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say. My voice is barely above a whisper, soft and throaty, full of lust.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” growls Noah.

“You do?”

“You’re a virgin,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle with you. You’ll love it. Don’t worry.”

His voice is soothing and comforting.

But how did he know?

“You already knew?”

“Of course,” growls Noah. “I can read you. Don’t worry.”

I nod my head at him. He helps me take off my clothes, pulling my tight t-shirt over my head and off.

A second later, his hand is behind my back, unhooking my bra expertly. He does it even faster than I can myself.

His kisses my breasts, holding them, sucking on my hard and pointed nipples. I breathe in sharply.

There’s no one around. Everyone else is inside at the party. But I’m self-conscious and don’t want to be making noises for some reason. But I suddenly realize that it’s just a self-consciousness thing. Why shouldn’t he know that I’m enjoying myself?

One of his hands slides under the elastic band of my panties. There’s not much space underneath my tight shorts, but he works his hand down and down, right between my thighs.

His touches me and I forget all about not making noises. I let out a soft little moan as his finger starts to play with me, slowly and gently at first.

He finds my clit quickly, and he works at my little nub of pleasure until I feel it all over my body. It feels incredible, completely different from the times that I do this to myself. Not only does he seem to know more about what he’s doing than I do (I supposed I should really work on that, right?), but it’s incredible to have someone else doing this to me.

And it’s not just anyone. It’s Noah Strong.

That knowledge, that name running through my head, sends shivers all over my body, through my spine down to my heels.

My whole body feels tingly with the growing pleasure.

“I want you,” growls Noah in my ear, his voice soft and gentle but strong and forceful. He kisses my neck again and my whole body shivers. I feel it from my head down to my toes.

“Don’t you want me to…?” I say, unable to pronounce exactly what it is I want to do. But I can feel his hard cock pushed up against my leg and I want to hold it. I want to hold it and bring it towards my mouth and suck on it. I want to feel the girth and length in my mouth. And I want to taste the musky manliness and smell his scent close to me.

“I thought you’d never ask,” growls Noah.

He gets onto his knees and stands up. I watch as he pulls his shirt over his head. His torso is incredible. He’s well muscled and there’s clear definition between each muscle. His chest is strong and powerful. His arms are huge.

He’s not just well muscled, but he’s well proportioned. His upper body tapers down at his waist to a perfect V shape.

I get onto my knees. I’m suddenly conscious of my own nakedness. My jean shorts are still on.

But I feel sexy wearing just shorts and no top. And Noah gazes at my breasts, perky and taut with my erect nipples.

I slither on my knees towards him. My hands tremble as I reach for his belt, which I undo, fumbling. It falls aside with a clank, the metal buckle knocking lightly against something.

Noah has to help me with the button, which I can’t quite get.

But I do fine with the zipper, although it seems to take forever.

Finally, the pants fall from his hips. They hang at his knees.

His cock is huge. I can see the outline of it clearly as it creates a massive tent in his thin boxers. There’s just this thin veil of material separating me from it.

I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life. My mouth feels like it’s salivating. I’m wetter than I’ve ever been, my panties completely soaked. I feel them against me.

Gingerly, I reach for the waistband of his boxers and pull them down.

His cock is before me, in all its naked glory. It’s massive. I didn’t even know they could be this big. It’s not just impressively long. It has girth. It’s thick all around. And the head is even bigger, completely swollen to an impossible size.

“You like it, don’t you?” growls Noah, chuckling a little to himself, probably because I’m gazing at his cock in complete awe.

Slowly, I grip his cock with my hand, wrapping my fingers around it. Doing so feels perfect. It feels right.

His cock is warm, almost hot to the touch. And it’s hard. That’s what I wasn’t expecting, that it would be so damn hard.

“That feels good,” growls Noah, as I tighten my grip and begin moving my hand back and forth. I move it from the base of his cock up, letting my fist completely engulf his cock’s huge head.

Now it’s time. I can’t wait any longer. I need to taste his cock.

I dip my head down and open wide. His cock enters my mouth and I love it instantly. The taste is almost as I imagined it, but even more intense. I smell his manliness, and it’s so close to me.

“Perfect,” growls Noah.

Instinctively, I tighten my lips, pursing them around his cock, creating a sweet channel for his cock to slide in and out of.

It takes me some work, but I manage to push my tongue against the base of his cock. I bob my head up and down, letting my hair fall all around his cock.

Noah’s strong hands reach for my head, gripping each side of it. It feels good. It feels secure and safe, to have his hands there.

He guides my head up and down along his shaft. His cock is so long that I can keep the base of it in my fist, moving it aside only briefly to let more of it into my mouth.

Noah’s breathing is going ragged and more intense.

He starts bucking his hips slowly, thrusting his cock in and out of my mouth. I cease moving my head and let him have his way with my mouth.

I love having him in control. He seems to love it too, judging by the groans he’s letting out, low and sexy, powerful and masculine.

He continues to thrust his hips, faster now.

“Shit,” he growls. “That feels so fucking good.”

He suddenly pulls his cock out of my mouth. I see it glistening with my saliva, naked in the moonlight. I’m kneeling before him like his servant. I’ve always imagined myself a feminist and everything, but there’s something sexy about kneeling before him, about having him towering over me. He could thrust his cock back into my mouth in a single moment, using me for his pleasure. These thoughts make me feel guilty for a moment.

But I soon forget them, as we’re falling to the grass again together, tumbling around. His hands are all over me, and I can’t keep mine off his body.

He kicks his pants off, and he’s buck naked. His youthful, muscular body is against mine.

He’s pulling my shorts off, having to make an effort because they’re so tight and they cling to my thighs.

“Fuck me,” I say, my breathing ragged and intense.

“Not just yet,” growls Noah.

He moves down, pushing his head between my thighs. His strong hands grab my legs and pull them apart, opening up a space for his head.

His rough and gentle tongue touches my thighs, right by my pussy. He’s inching his way closer and closer, and I shiver with excitement.

His tongue reaches me, a broad stroke coming across me. It sends delight coursing through me.

I feel his fingers pushing aside the hood of my clit, which is impossibly swollen, probably red like a cherry. He hits it delicately with his tongue.

He gradually increases the speed of his tongue. He pauses and sucks.

I cry out in delight when he starts going at it intensely.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before, not in all my life.

I’m crying out. My body is shaking.

I can somehow feel from his body the delight he feels in giving me pleasure, in causing this reaction in me.

The orgasm starts almost suddenly. It’s been slowly building up. But my awareness of it comes on all of a sudden.

It feels like my body’s vibrating with the pleasure. I cry out and Noah doubles his efforts and his intensity.

My body feels light. My eyes are closed but I open them to see the moon, to look down at Noah’s beautiful head and his shaggy hair tousled perfectly, buried between my legs.

I take his head in my hands. His hair is surprisingly soft but I grab him forcefully and pull him in towards me. I love this motion. There’s something so hot about the idea of him servicing me, of him giving me this pleasure, this gift.

My vision starts to go blurry around the edges.

I hit the peak. It crashes through me like a tidal wave.

I cry out, moaning intensely, not caring if anyone can hear me. Not that there’s anyone around, anyway.

“I’m not done with you yet,” growls Noah.

He’s on top of me again. I can feel his cock between my legs. I can feel its head pressing against my pussy ever so gently.

Noah kisses me.

“Fuck me,” I say, dying for his cock. I’ve never wanted something so much in my life.

He pushes his cock slowly inside me.

It hurts.

But the pain gives way to an even greater feeling, an intense pleasure, even greater than when he was going down on me.

Noah’s moving his massive cock in and out of me slowly. His body is against mine. His skin feels good against me, smooth and perfect. It seems like I feel each of his muscles.

He pushes himself up and pulls himself back, so that he’s on his knees and holding my legs, one with each hand.

His cock plunges into me deeper this way, and he’s soon increasing his speed, thrusting into me with force.

“I love feeling your pussy,” he growls.

Suddenly, a thought hits me: something that’s been drilled into my head forever. What about the condom? I’m not on the pill. And Noah’s not wearing a condom. At least not that I noticed.

We got so caught up in the moment I guess we forget. At least I did.

“You have a condom?” I manage to say, between the thrusts of pleasure, between the moans.

“Aren’t you on the pill?” says Noah, a look of worry momentarily overtaking his face.

I know he’s going to stop if I say I’m not on it. I know he’s going to stop and pull out of me and this may never happen again.

But it’s like I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment. I can’t waste it. I can’t just throw it away because of some silly little piece of plastic.

After all, it’s pretty hard to get pregnant, right? You have to have sex at exactly the right time of the month and all that. Couples can try forever to get pregnant, and sometimes it never happens.

What are the chances that the first time I ever have sex, I get pregnant?

I nod my head.

“Yeah,” I say.

Noah just grins at me.

“Good,” he growls.

“I love the way your cock feels,” I say.

Noah’s face is pure concentration as he pounds into me.

One thing I wasn’t prepared for: how intimate this feels. It’s not just like he’s using me or my pussy to please himself. I can see it in him, and I can feel it—this is an experience between the both of us. His naked cock is inside of me. I’ve never had a connection like this with anyone.

I’ve never had anyone inside of me, and I’m not going to stop.

After all, he’ll probably pull out, right?

“Fuck,” grunts Noah. “You’re so fucking tight.”

He stops for a moment, and I wonder what’s happening.

But he gets off me and guides me with his hands, showing me how to turn over. As soon as I understand what he wants, I flip over eagerly.

He enters me from behind, his cock filling my pussy completely.

The grass feels good on my body, cool and softer than any mattress. My breasts are buried in it and I bury my face in it too, closing my eyes and savoring the sensations of Noah’s cock pounding into me.

He has such power in his movements to be able to thrust like that.

The final orgasm hits me like a ton of bricks. It’s much more powerful than the last, almost overwhelming.

I cry out, moaning intensely.

I feel Noah’s cock twitching inside me, throbbing powerfully.

It’s all over before I know it. We’re lying together in the grass, my head in the crook of his arm.

The pleasure still washes over me like a warming breeze.

We don’t speak for a long time. I just enjoy the presence of his body and the afterglow of the orgasms.

“That was incredible,” says Noah finally. “You were incredible. It felt so good coming inside you.”

“Wait?” I say, suddenly growing frantic. I sit up on my elbow and look down at him. “You came inside me?”

“Yeah? You didn’t notice?”

“Why would you do that?” I say. “I thought you’d pull out.”

I may be a little confused when it comes to sexual things, given my lack of experience, but I have watched porn and been to health class. In those porn videos, the guys are always pulling out. I thought that’s just what everyone did.

“I thought you were on the pill.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. Suddenly, I have the idea that telling him I was on the pill, in the heat of the moment, was a really bad idea. But it was the heat of the moment, quite literally. I didn’t want it to stop.

“You are on the pill, aren’t you?”

I don’t say anything.

“Aren’t you?” he says. He sounds angry.

“No,” I finally say.

“What? Are you crazy? Why did you say you were?”

“I didn’t want you to stop,” I say quietly.

“What? I had a condom with me. I could have put it on… I just forget at first…”

Now I feel like a complete idiot. But how was I to know he carries around condoms? It’s not like I’ve done this before.

“Look,” I say, speaking calmly and softly, even though I’m nervous. I don’t want him to be angry with me. I just want everything to be OK again. “It’s probably fine. I doubt I’ll get pregnant.”

“That was really dumb,” says Noah. He sounds even angrier. “I can’t go around having kids. I’ve got things to do, places to go.”

“It’s not like I want to have a kid either,” I say.

Noah just shakes his head at me.

He’s suddenly up in a flash, grabbing his clothes and putting them on hastily.

“You’re unbelievable,” he says, shaking his head at me. “I thought there was something between us.”

Before I can say anything, he’s already walking off. The last thing I see of him is that he’s pushing his way through the branches of the hedges. Then he’s gone from view.

I’m here in the clearing, completely naked and alone.

Noah

Five Years Later

I wake up in the middle of the night.

Loud noises. Everything is disjointed.

I’m disoriented. Confused.

Gunshots echo around me.

My heart is thumping as if I’ve just run a marathon.

Shouts come through the dark. People cry out in pain.

An explosion from somewhere.

Rockets roar in the night sky, a horrible whooshing sound as they slice through the air.

I’ve got to do something. People are down. People are hurt. My comrades need me. There must have been some kind of attack.

But I can’t remember where I am. I can’t remember what I’m doing here.

I jump up out of bed. My hands grope around me frantically for my weapon. For my flashlight. For my knife. For something.

But nothing’s there.

That’s the worst feeling in the world. There’s nothing I can do to help. I’m unarmed.

Fuck it.

I’ll take them with my bare hands if I have to. I’ll strangle every last one of them. I’ll fight until I’m so riddled with bullet holes I can’t even stand up.

I rush forward, but something stops me. It’s like an invisible barrier between me and the action. I push and push, ramming the invisible barrier with my head.

But it just bends and gives to me. It’s like a huge, invisible rubber band.

Something flashes towards me. It’s a huge missile, the kind that they fire from jet fighters.

And it’s aimed straight at me. I can see it clearly, as if it’s moving in slow motion. But it’s roaring at me faster than the speed of sound.

Fuck it. I’ll take it on myself. It doesn’t scare me.

I brace myself, ready for the missile’s impact.

Something seems strange about this… a single rational thought floating through my head.

How can I see a missile approaching me?

This is when I wake up.

I’m in bed, covered in sweat.

Fuck, not again.

I close my eyes and open them again, just to double check whether this is really reality.

I look around.

There’s no battlefield.

There are no gunshots.

There are no missiles, no fallen comrades.

I’m alone in bed in my hotel room. I must have fallen asleep with the lights on again. I even left the TV on, turned to some boring news channel. The light from the TV is eerie and strange looking.

I grab the remote control and press the power button and the faces of the newscasters flicker for a moment before they fade away forever.

Looking at the nightstand clock, the time reads 4:00 AM.

Fuck. There’s no chance of me getting back to sleep tonight. Once I have one of these intense nightmares, it’s impossible for me to fall asleep again. Trust me, I’ve tried, and I just lie in bed wide awake.

It’s been six months since I completed my tour. I received an honorable discharge. I received more medals than I can count, for bravery on the battlefield, for courage under fire, for all sorts of things.

None of that means anything to me right now. It didn’t mean much to me at the time, either.

I thought it would. When I was in training to become a Navy Seal, I dreamed every night of showing everyone what I was capable of. I dreamed of doing something I could be proud of, of really making a difference.

When the time came, on various secret missions, I did what I had to do. And more than that.

I found that doing it was the reward in and of itself.

I saved the life of a comrade.

Or two.

I made mistakes, too.

People died. And it wasn’t my fault. But I still blamed myself.

By the time the medals came, I no longer cared about the medals themselves at all.

I tossed them in the trash the first chance I got.

Soldiers won’t admit this often in public, but it’s a common feeling. You think all those medals they give out end up proudly displayed on the mantle?

No, most of them end up in the gutter or the trash.

People who have been through war aren’t the same as people who haven’t.

It changes you, in some dark way. It makes you stronger, too, but not in the ways you thought it would.

After what I went through, you don’t feel like you can take on the world singlehandedly.

I can only do that in my dreams. But I don’t have dreams anymore. Just nightmares. The most terrible nightmares you could ever imagine.

The one I had tonight was a light one.

Last week, I had one where I was in the middle of a village and there were all these kids lying there with their heads completely severed from their bodies, mutilated beyond recognition. Blood was all over the place, so thick that it formed puddles on the dusty ground, forming little streams of thick, deep red blood.

I’m pacing the hotel room, back and forth across the carpet.

There’s no point in wasting time.

I get dressed.

Instinctively, I reach for my gun. The gun that I carried with me at all times. Sure, we used a variety of weapons. But I always had my 9mm pistol with me. It went with me everywhere.

But it’s not there.

I’m a civilian now. I turned the gun in when I left. I had the option to keep it. And a lot of guys go out and buy their own guns and get permits for concealed carry. That’s the only way they can feel safe in a civilian environment, in any environment.

But I don’t want to touch a gun again. Not after what I went through. Not after what I had to do.

That doesn’t mean I feel safe without a gun. I know that physically I can take on any enemy that comes at me. But the civilian world is so different from being in the Seals.

In the Seals, everything was defined. We ate at a certain time. We had missions. We had orders. We knew what we had to do. Sure, things got hairy. The shit would hit the fan and all hell would break loose. But there was still always a plan, and a backup plan. I had to think on my feet, but at least there was always the idea of a known enemy.

There’s no known enemy back here in the States. Everything is different. Civilians are different. It’s like being on another planet, one that I left a long time ago.

Leaving the hotel room, I walk down the deserted hallway. I take the silent elevator to the gym.

Working out is what keeps me under control.

A lot of guys see a therapist to talk about their issues from war. But they had it worse than me. They’ve got PTSD.

What I have is just a normal reaction to what I went through. I can manage it myself. I’ve managed everything myself.

I don’t have PTSD. I don’t need a therapist. I can keep everything under control, especially if I get enough hard exercise.

Hopping onto the treadmill, I start my warm up.

But it’s not a civilian warm up. It’s more intense than the football practices I used to do in high school.

I keep hitting the button until the treadmill is at its top speed. I’m almost at an all out sprint.

After twenty minutes of running intensely, I hop off. Time for the weights.

I move through the weights rapidly, not giving myself any time to rest. I wish there were free weights here.

Where I was stationed, there were always free weights. Often they were rusty, but they were well used. I love the feel of the cold steel against my hands.

But the machines do fine. I just max them out on the weight and jam my hands against them. I need to get the anger and frustration out somewhere. That’s what the weights are for.

An hour slips by and I hardly notice it.

Another hour goes by, and I’m done. I’m covered in sweat. I pull off my t-shirt and wipe my face with a towel left here by the staff for hotel guests. I doubt these hotels typically see this much sweat.

There’s a mirror on the wall opposite me, and I find myself staring into it.

I look so different than I did just a few years ago. For some strange reason, I can still picture myself clearly in my yearbook photograph. I looked innocent and impossibly young. But at the time, I thought I was a complete adult. I thought I was ready for anything.

In a way, I was right. I learned in the Seals I could handle whatever was thrown at me.

But I didn’t realize how intense it would be.

In the Seals, I was stronger than everyone. Faster than everyone. A better shot than everyone.

More importantly, I was smarter than everyone.

Playing football in high school, I never even got a whiff of my true potential. In the Seals, I grew beyond anything I could have imagined. I accomplished things I would have never thought possible. Dangerous missions with seemingly impossible objectives. I did what no one else could do.

My face now in the mirror, staring back at me, is older, tougher. My hair is short, compared to my long hair in high school, so common with the football players.

There’s something else there, something in my eyes, something that I don’t dare to examine too closely.

I head back up to my room. The hotel is still silent. No one else is up yet. Probably there’s just the nightshift person at the front desk, in case anyone comes in late.

Stripping down, I get into the shower. I don’t bother even turning the hot water tap. Something I got used to in the Seals, a habit that’s served me well. It wakes me up and washes away all the bullshit that accumulates in my brain.

I may be having nightmares. I may not be in the military.

But professionally, my life has never looked better.

I wrote a book about my time in the Seals, about overcoming obstacles. And it’s sold incredibly well. I’m raking in the cash.

And I’m just starting my book tour. My publisher has me traveling around the country, staying in hotels, giving talks and doing book signings.

The point of my book is that everyone has a secret unlocked potential. And they’re hardly ever aware of it. The Seals taught me to find that potential within myself and to push myself as hard as I possibly could.

My goal is to get people to change their thinking. My goal is to get them to wake up and start doing something with their lives. If everyone in the country started just approaching their potential, everything could change.

Too bad I can’t change my nightmares. They’ve been with me since I got out of the Seals, since I got my honorable discharge. They started that very night, and I haven’t gone more than a few days without them in the last six months.

But I can deal with them. They’re not a big deal. They mean I get a little less sleep than I otherwise would, but what’s a couple hours of lost sleep?

My first, and most recent, book signing was at a bookstore in New York City. I’d never been to New York before, and at first the hustle and bustle of everything was overwhelming. But I can deal with change and I can adapt.

My agent and I were shocked at the number of people who came to get an autograph. So many of them told me how much the book had meant to them, how it had changed their life for the better already. I shook their hands and I signed their books. And the talk probably got me thousands more sales, filling my bank accounts even more.

But I didn’t connect with anyone.

There’s no one who can understand me. It feels like there isn’t a single individual who can really get me, who I can explain things to, someone who’ll actually see what it is I’m saying.

Today, I’m back in my home town. My agent thought it would be great publicity to set up a talk back home. People could be proud that their town has a hero and all of that.

Me? I was resistant to the idea.

My dad died when I was in the Seals. I couldn’t go to the funeral. I was abroad. His body just couldn’t take the years of the pain meds that he needed to take. And to think of all the pain he dealt with all those years, the pain that no pills could mask…

My cousin Chris is dead too. He took his own life a year ago. Despite putting on a smiling face for everyone, despite cracking jokes all the time, he was miserable on the inside. The loss of his legs was too much for him, apparently. But I know he must have been dealing with other demons, demons deep inside him that wouldn’t leave him even for a moment. He got lost in the darkness and he couldn’t escape.

I remember the last time I saw him. It was before I enlisted. I visited him in the hospital, a day after… that party.

He was sitting there in his hospital bed, and he made a joke about his legs. I didn’t laugh, and he told me to just relax, that everything was fine.

He cracked jokes the whole time I was there, but as I was leaving, I saw the smile slip away briefly from his face and I caught a glimpse of what was underneath. Something horrible had happened to him when he was enlisted, and it wasn’t the loss of his legs. He saw something that he couldn’t shake, something that he couldn’t un-see.

I get dressed and gather my papers and books together. I don’t really need notes for the talk. I’ve got the whole thing memorized.

I got in late last night, so this is the first time I’ll be back in town since leaving. I’m not exactly looking forward to it. Too many memories.

But the sun is starting to rise in the sky by the time I get into my rental car.

The air is warm. The summer seems to be a hot one, just like the summer before I left.

For a moment, an image of her flashes across my mind. I’ve tried not thinking about her. I’ve tried over and over again. But in all the time abroad, in all my time in the Seals, I couldn’t shake her from my head.

I don’t know why she seems to have this power over me. It’s a power that stretches across time, across distance. She’s got a hold of me in the strangest way.

We haven’t talked since that one night outside in the grass.

I shouldn’t have walked off like that. But I was immature. There was so much that I didn’t understand.

There’s a small greasy spoon diner named Joe M.’s that I stop in for breakfast. I used to come here with my football buddies back in the day, often before practice. It’s a little building with nothing else around it. The parking lot is always cramped, and the place always smells like bacon.

I’m half hoping no one will recognize me, and half hoping someone will.

But all the faces are different. I used to know everyone who worked here. Of course, a lot of them were in high school at the time. By now, they’ve probably moved on. They probably have families and completely different jobs. They probably work in offices as financial advisors or something. Who knows?

I finish my meal, drain the last of my lukewarm coffee, leave my tip on the table, and head back out.

I’ve got two talks scheduled today. The first one is in half an hour at a local bookstore.

It’s one of the few bookstores that didn’t collapse during the time when all the other bookstores were closing.

Of course, I was gone during all that time. I didn’t hear about what had happened to the industry as a whole until I got back and got interested in writing a book.

Entering the bookstore, it’s clear to me that while the bookstore, called Frank’s, is still technically running, it’s suffered hard times. It didn’t collapse, but it did buckle.

There seems to be a thick layer of dust over everything.

Many of the books are old and used. I don’t see many new ones.

But there’s mine: A Seal’s Journey [check to make sure not copyrighted or previously published] by Noah Strong.

It’s the only new book here.

At least it’s prominently displayed.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone here just yet. I look around, but I don’t see any employees or the owners. I’m sure they’ll turn up soon, though.

For some reason, my hand goes to my hip, where I used to keep my gun. But it’s not there.

I have to remind myself: no one’s going to shoot you here. You’re safe here. You’re a civilian now.

This must happen to me at least five times a day. I’m constantly reaching for a gun that’s not there.

It’s like there’s an invisible enemy that’s pursuing me. But that invisible enemy is deep inside myself, in some dark place.

The door opens, creaking on its hinges.

I turn to look.

I can’t believe my eyes.

It’s her.

It’s Hana.

She looks at me. I haven’t seen her in years.

She’s even more beautiful than I remember her being.

Hana

I was expecting to see him. I was hoping to see him. But I thought I’d be at the back of the crowd and I’d just watch from there. I thought I’d get a chance to hear him speak, but from a distance.

Maybe I got the time wrong. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here.

He stares at me. His expression is unreadable.

But I can tell he recognizes me.

We don’t say anything for a moment. It’s as if we’re both frozen.

It’s still Noah Strong. That’s for sure. He’s instantly recognizable. But he’s different, very different.

His face has matured. The lines of his chin are stronger. He looks incredibly strong, his muscles even larger and denser than before. He looks powerful and intense. Almost frightening.

His head is almost shaved, in military style.

He’s clean shaven. He always used to have a bit of stubble. But the clean shaven look just accentuates the masculine lines of his face… that jaw.

He stands tall and stares at me.

“Hi,” I say, my voice sounding timid and strange, as if it’s coming from some faraway place.

I’ve matured a lot in the years since I last saw Noah. I’m no longer the shy virgin I once was. That’s what it’s so strange to find myself feeling this way again. It’s strange to be speaking timidly and softly, as if I’m unsure of myself.

“Hi,” says Noah. His voice is deeper than I remember. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah… I saw your name in some advertisement and I thought I’d come. You know, support the new book and everything. I must have gotten the time wrong. I thought it started at nine.”

“Nine thirty,” says Noah.

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say.

I could ask some dumb question, like: so what was being a Navy Seal like? Or: what have you been up to all these years?

That panicky feeling is bubbling up inside me.

And it’s not because I’m a shy virgin, like I once was.

No, it’s because Noah is James’s father.

And he has no idea.

Noah doesn’t say anything for a moment. He looks me up and down.

“You look great,” he says.

Is that a smile creeping onto his face? Or am I just imagining it? Is it just wishful thinking on my part?

I just nod vaguely. I know I’m acting weird but I can’t help it. There’s too much on my mind.

After all, I’ve not only never told Noah that he has a son, I’ve never told James anything about his father.

What kind of a person am I? A horrible person, I guess. For so many years, I’ve managed to push it all to the back of my mind. I’ve told myself that I’ll do it at some point, that today’s not the day. But the day never came. And how could it, when Noah was away on secret missions all the time? I didn’t know where he was, and I never heard from him. When he walked out on me that night of the party, it was like he was walking out of my life for good.

“So you saw my book in the paper?” says Noah.

“Yeah,” I say.

In truth, I saw him on TV, in an interview. Leah called me and told me that it was on and I rushed to the nearest TV and frantically tried to find the channel. I missed the first minute of the interview, so I searched for it online later that night. I must have watched it three times.

I saw then how much he had changed, how he matured, his body as well as his mind. But of course, it’s different seeing him in person.

And I didn’t just watch that one interview. I searched all over the internet and found him in radio interviews and I listened to all of those. I found a print interview he did when his book first came out and I must have read that a hundred times.

Of course, I can’t tell him any of that.

The conversation is quickly becoming stranger and more awkward. I have no idea what to say, but there’s so much I need to tell him. I just don’t know how.

A very tall, thin man rapidly approaches us, coming up behind Noah.

Noah seems to sense him. Maybe it’s his military training. Noah turns to greet the man.

“The famous Noah Strong, may I welcome you to our humble store.” The man speaks in a weird highfalutin’ way. “I imagine it must be grand to be back in your home town. We’re more than excited to have you here with us, you should know. A writer from our home town! And a war hero!” I’m not sure, but I think I see Noah cringe subtly when the phrase “war hero” comes up. “Now, if you’d just follow me, please, we have some things we need to arrange before people arrive for the talk.”

The shop owner completely ignores me for some reason. He stares at Noah like he’s in complete awe of him.

But that’s just the kind of effect Noah Strong has on people. I saw it in the interview he gave. Noah just has that kind of presence.

“I’ll catch up to you later,” says Noah, turning back to me. “I’d like to talk to you. Could you wait for me after the talk and the signing?”

“Uh, sure,” I say.

Damnit. Now I’ve got to tell him about James. I won’t have any more excuses left.

I watch as the store owner leads Noah away.

I spend the next fifteen minutes trying not to appear conspicuous. I pretend to hunt through the books on the shelves, but the reality is that many of them are old and stained. And most of them aren’t books I have much interest in reading. These days, with James and my job, I tend to go for something that I can understand immediately. I tend to go for books that pull me out of my own overworked little reality and take me somewhere else. I’ve become a huge fan of romance books, but not the types you can get in stores like this one, where they’re all old fashioned and a few decades old.

Thankfully, other people start to arrive. There’s a small area where rows of folding chairs have been set up. People start to mill around, and some sit down.

I try to act like I’m not staring at Noah as I sit down. I try to act like I’m not following his every move.

But he just moves so sexily. I remembered that he had this effect on me before. But I thought I’d be over it by now. Instead, his body, his every movement, draw my eyes like a magnet. He’s only gotten sexier over the years.

The store owner approaches the microphone. “Is this thing working?” he says, tapping it.

This sends a horrible screeching noise through the amplifiers.

Everyone covers their ears, including me.

“Sorry about that, folks,” says the owner, chuckling to himself. “I suppose I’m just a little nervous, having such a celebrity here… So may I present to you, without any more formal ado, the great Noah Strong…”

But he doesn’t stop there. Instead, he drones on and on, talking in circles. It feels like he’s repeating the same thing over and over again, ad nauseum.

While he talks, I steal glances at Noah, who sits stoically and seems to be listening intently. I’d love to know what’s really going on in his head.

I pull my phone out of my purse and check it. Nothing. But that’s what I end up doing all the time.

James is staying with my parents today, while I ostensibly have to go to the doctor. I couldn’t very well tell them that I was going to see James’s father.

My parents are aging, and for them it would be impossible to mellow with age. They were already pretty mellow to begin with. They’ve continued being the same hippies as always. My dad keeps working on his art projects, never seeming to complete them. And my mom still gives lectures at the college, but she’s moved to just giving a class here and there. She’s no longer a full time lecturer. The only real difference, now that they’re older, and I’m older, is that they’re even more open with me than before. The biggest revelation is that they finally told me they smoke pot. “But only occasionally,” said my dad. “And never when you were around.”

I just shrugged. The news wasn’t that much of a surprise to me, honestly. I just asked them not to smoke around James, since they end up taking care of him a lot. Of course, they’re far too responsible to do anything like that.

I’m always checking my phone, but not because I’m worried about my parents’ ability to take care of James. They’re almost too responsible in a lot of ways. But I guess it’s just the motherly instincts kicking in or something.

While I’ve conquered anxiety in most aspects of my life, I do worry about James and his safety. Probably too much. After all, he’s four years old, and I feel like he could accidentally swallow something or eat something he shouldn’t. But I know that’s just my worrying.

My parents were a huge help. I couldn’t have gotten through college without them. I had James in my first year of college, right towards the end of the school year.

I managed to do what many consider the impossible, which is not drop out of school and not even take a semester off. I got a medical leave of absence during my final exams, and then had to go back and retake them in the summer.

The professors all thought I was some kind of bimbo or something. They thought I’d gotten knocked up in the first week of school, the first week away from home. I just kept my head held high and didn’t pay them or their attitudes any attention. I didn’t care what the other students said about me.

I stayed strong. I knew that I had to, for James.

James is my mother’s father’s name. I have fond memories of him. He would sit out on the porch smoking his pipe all day long, and I can still remember the smell of it.

“And now, the man you’ve all been waiting for.” The bookstore owner has been droning on for so long that I’ve gotten completely lost in my own thoughts.

But he steps aside, and Noah comes up to the microphone. He looks calm, cool, and collected.

All eyes are on him. He has not only an impressive physique, but an impressive, understated authority. He could command us all to do something, and we would do it. I would, at least. I’d do anything he told me to do. Even though he walked away from me that night.

“Today I want to talk about an important theme. It’s something that affects all of us, whether we’re aware of it or not.” Noah’s voice is rich and deep.

My phone rings.

Shit.

Everyone’s eyes turn to me. Heads spin, and chair legs scrape on the linoleum floor as people turn. They want to see who the idiot is who didn’t turn off her phone.

I see Noah staring straight at me. He’s paused in the middle of his sentence, waiting for me to do something about my phone.

I turn red in the face.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

So much for conquering my anxiety. So much for not caring what people think about me. I feel the intense embarrassment running through me.

I grab my purse and get out of my chair. Somehow, I manage to topple it over in my hurry. It falls to the floor in a crash.

I rush out of the bookstore with my phone still ringing.

I hear some laughter behind me. So much for making a good first impression with Noah.

“Hello?” I say, frantically answering my phone.

I notice I’m standing right in front of the bookstore window, and everyone’s eyes are still on me, including Noah’s.

Pretending I don’t notice them, I continue to walk down the road, away from them.

“Hana! You picked up. I thought you’d never pick up.”

“Hi, Leah,” I say. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” says Leah. “Did you go to that book signing with Noah?”

“Yeah,” I say. “And I forgot to turn off my phone and I had to leave. Everyone was staring at me. It was awful.”

“You should always turn off your phone,” scolds Leah.

“But then you wouldn’t have been able to reach me, and you’d ream me out about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Am I really that bad?”

“Sometimes,” I mutter.

“Anyway, I’m glad I got you on the phone. I have something really important to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know if I should even tell you…”

“Come on, Leah. You can’t do that to me. You just can’t.”

“OK, fine. I need to tell you anyway.”

“OK, what is it?”

“Well, you remember Tammy?”

“Tammy Smith? From high school?”

“Yeah, the same one. You know her?”

“I mean, I know who she is. She was supposedly the most popular girl in school, especially in the last year. I think everyone knew who she was.”

“Well, remember how she used to date Noah.”

“Yeah, I guess so. He never mentioned her. I think he dated her right before I… hooked up with him.”

“Yeah, and she never really got over it. She was always pissed. He never talked to her again. And apparently she’s just been pining away for him all these years.”

“OK,” I say. “I don’t mean this to sound the way it’s going to sound. But what’s this got to do with me?”

Leah’s the only one who knows that Noah is the father of James. That makes me worried. Not because I think she might talk and tell someone. She’s reliable, and my best friend, after all. But because every time she tells me some weird piece of gossip, I’m always wondering if it means she’s found out that someone else knows.

And I have a feeling my fears are about to come true. It’s a gut feeling.

But I never could have predicted the way it’s going to happen.

“So I ran into her at the pharmacy. Apparently she’s a nurse at the hospital.”

“She’s a nurse? I can’t imagine her helping anyone.”

“I know. It’s weird. But that’s what happens at our age. People you remember from high school start filling real jobs. Really makes you wonder how competent everyone around you is.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. Inside, I’m just hoping she’ll get it over with and tell me the news quickly. I can’t take the suspense. But I know there’s something bad coming.

“So she… she let it drop that she knows James is Noah’s son.”

“What?” I say.

My worst fears have come true.

I mean, it’s not that I don’t want Noah to ever know. I know that I need to tell him. But I need to be the one to tell him. It can’t be someone else, and it especially can’t be Tammy the cheerleader turned nurse from high school.

“It sounds like she really blames you for taking Noah away from her.”

“That’s crazy,” I say. “Noah was with everyone in those days… And he asked me out.”

“I know, I know.”

“But wait,” I say. “How the hell does she know about it?”

“I guess she went digging through the hospital records or something. I don’t know. She was pretty vague about it.”

“The hospital records? I don’t get it.”

“She said Noah’s name was on James’s birth certificate.”

I groan.

I can’t believe I did that. But what was I supposed to do? They asked me for the father’s name, so I told them. I never would have thought anyone would see the birth certificate. I mean, I knew that someday it would come up. James would have to see it at some point when he’s older. But I figured that by that time, many years from now, I would have figured this whole mess out.

“She said she’s going to tell Noah,” says Leah.

I groan again.

This is the last thing I need.

“So she holds a grudge against me?”

“It sure sounds like it. I knew I needed to tell you, Hana. I’m really sorry. If there’s anything I can do to help…”

“Do you have her phone number?” I say.

“Yeah, I thought you might want it. Hang on a second, it’s in my phone.”

There’s scratching on the other end of the line as she fiddles with her phone. Finally, she reads me the phone number. I pull out a notepad form my purse and scribble it down.

“You think I’m screwed?” I say. “You think she’s going to tell Noah?”

“Honestly, yeah…”

“Wow, thanks,” I say.

“Sorry,” says Leah. “But I think the best thing you can do is tell him first.”

I say goodbye to her and we hang up. I’m pissed, anxious, and upset. But not at Leah. She’s only trying to help.

I can’t believe that fucking Tammy, going snooping around through my son’s records. She must have suspected something, but I have no idea how. How would she even come up with the idea that James was possibly Noah’s son?

I’m only a block away from the bookstore, and I can still see the people seated inside, listening to Noah talk. I need to tell him, and I need to do it before Tammy gets to him first. I take a deep gulp, and start walking towards the bookstore.

Noah

I keep expecting her to show up.

I’m seated in a folding chair, behind a long folding table, signing copies of my book for people.

The talk went well, I think, but sometimes I feel like people are just responding to my supposed “celebrity,” and not what I’m actually saying. I’m not sure if they’re listening to what I’m saying, if they’re absorbing the message.

The line in front of me keeps dwindling with each book I sign.

I look up expectantly at each new person, expecting it to be Hana. But she’s not there.

Finally, the line is gone. The last person has left. And she’s still not here. No sign of her.

I excuse myself from a rather one-sided conversation with the store owner and step outside, looking up and down the street. She’s nowhere to be seen.

What made her leave? I thought she wanted to talk. I saw something in her eyes, some interest.

She was even more beautiful than I remembered. She still looks absolutely incredible. Her body’s matured in only the best possible way.

I can still remember that night. I shouldn’t have walked off like that. I replay it over and over in my mind. I have for years.

The memory of entering her sweet pussy, of coming inside her—it was my fantasy jacking material for all my years in the Seals. When I had some private time, that is, which wasn’t very often.

It gets me hard just thinking about her, my cock starting to swell.

I don’t have her phone number. I don’t have a way to contact her. I don’t know what she does for work, or where she works. I don’t even know where she lives.

She’s become a ghost again in my life. I saw her for just a moment. It was just a glimpse.

Feelings of lost time come sparking up through me, and I can’t control them. The feeling of remorse comes at me hard, hitting me like a ton of bricks.

Suddenly, I realize that I really need to see her again. I need to talk to her. This little glimpse of her today awakened something inside of me that was lying almost dormant, but not quite.

Clouds seem to pass momentarily over the sun, darkening the street where I stand.

I don’t feel like heading back into the bookstore. There’s a whole afternoon to kill before my next talk and signing.

She’s somewhere out there.

But maybe she’s married. Maybe she’s got a long term boyfriend.

And who am I? I’m here for a day, an old flame. Or, more accurately, an old one night stand from years ago.

But I know there’s something there, and it’s not just on my end. I saw the hungry look in her eyes. She needs something. And she needs it from me.

In the rental car, I find myself driving by my dad’s old house. So many memories there—and so many of them are of him sitting there in front of the TV, or of him yelling things at me.

I pull up to where our old mailbox is and gaze at the house. My dad never fixed it up. The paint was always peeling off and the windows didn’t have shutters. It used to have a barren look to it. The only interesting thing about it was my old Mustang that sat in the driveway, gleaming, perfectly waxed and perfectly maintained.

I loved that old car. I sold it the day I joined the Navy. There wasn’t any turning back for me and I knew it. Most guys kept their cars at their parents’ houses or put them in storage. But those were the guys who couldn’t hack it in training. Me? I knew I was going to be a Seal from the moment I decided on it. There weren’t any other choices in my mind—at least not the way I was thinking about things at the time.

Whoever the new owners are, they’ve fixed the house up. It’s got completely new siding and a new roof by the looks of it. It’s the perfect picturesque suburban house. A happily full family probably lives here.

That’s not the way things were for me. Sure, I had a great time in high school, but I avoided being at home when I could.

I avoid thinking about my dad and his death. There’s no point wasting tears on him. He lived the way he wanted to, or the way he knew how.

There’s a pain there, though, deep inside me. I’ll have to deal with it at some point. It’ll come boiling up somehow, somewhere. But for now I push it aside.

“Noah!” calls out someone. It’s a familiar voice.

I turn to look, and there’s a car parked on the other side of the road.

A guy’s getting out of it. Blonde hair, button down blue shirt, starched khaki pants, shining shoes.

He looks like a typical suburban dad. Who would I know who looks like that?

He’s too young to be an old neighbor from back in the day, at least not one I could remember.

But he seems to know me. He’s calling my name.

“Noah!” he says, waving at me.

I stare blankly at him.

He looks both ways before crossing the street, even though there are no cars approaching.

“Noah! It’s me, Pat! Pat Blakely! I knew it was you even from across the street, even with that crazy haircut. What’s up, buddy?”

“Holy shit,” I say, reaching out to shake his hand.

Pat and I played football together. He was my wide receiver, and we partied together plenty of times.

Stepping out of the car, he sizes me up. We couldn’t look more different right now. We’ve clearly chosen different paths in life.

While he looks straight laced and perhaps a little geeky in his khakis, I’m wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt. My arms are covered in tattoos now. My hair is short. My whole look is hardcore.

Pat has perfectly combed hair, in complete contrast to the huge mane he used to rock, down to almost his shoulders.

“Damn, man,” I say. “It’s been forever. What the hell happened to you, man? The last time I saw you, you were breaking the record for world’s most insane keg stand.”

Pat chuckles. “I settled down, I guess. Got a job at a bank, you know how it goes.”

I nod my head knowingly, but in reality I don’t know how it goes. I’ve been away for so long that I feel like a stranger in my own town. I haven’t even been in the country for the better part of the last four years.

“What are you doing around here?”

“I live here. Christy and I bought a house here… She’s pregnant.”

He beams as he tells me the news, as if it’s the best thing that could ever happen in the world. But I distinctly remember him drunkenly telling me how he’d never settle down, how he’d never have kids or get married.

“Nice,” I say, feigning a smile. “Congratulations, man.”

“Thanks,” says Pat, still beaming. “I’d love for you to meet her. Why don’t you come to dinner tonight? She’s making a great vegan meal, one of her specialties.”

“I don’t know, man,” I say. “I don’t think that’s really my scene.”

Pat looks a little hurt, but he nods.

This is not the Pat I know.

“Anyway,” I add. “I can’t. I’m giving a talk at the bookstore. But hey, why don’t we head down to Buckeye’s and have a beer or two?”

Buckeye’s was the place we always used to sneak into. Or we’d loiter outside and try to get drunks to buy us alcohol for our parties.

“I don’t know,” says Pat, looking down at his wristwatch with a leather band. “Christy’s getting home soon, and I was supposed to mow the lawn.”

“Screw the lawn,” I say. “Come have a beer with your old buddy.”

“I don’t know. Christy really wanted that lawn mowed. She’s been on my back about it all week.”

“Come on, man,” I say. “Where’s the Pat that I know?”

I can see something changing in his expression, in his face.

He looks so much like Jimmy Stewart right now that I almost expect him to say, “Aw, shucks,” when he finally caves in.

But instead he just says, “OK, let’s go.”

“Hop in,” I say.

He gets in the passenger seat, and I start driving before he’s got his seatbelt on.

“You still got that Mustang?” says Pat.

He seems a little nervous, and he’s apparently trying to do what so many nervous people do when there’s the potential for silence—and that is making small talk. I figure I probably intimidate him a little. There’s something about being in the military that does that to people. And there’s definitely something about being a Seal that intimidates people.

“Nope,” I say. “Sold it when I joined up.”

“You’ve been away for a while, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “A while. It’s been a while. Everything’s different.”

“I saw you on TV talking about your book,” says Pat.

I nod my head.

Things aren’t clear in my head for me right now. I’ve got her on my mind and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to rid myself of her presence there. I don’t understand how she has this power over me. I fucked her once. That was it. I’ve done that to plenty of women. But none of them have caught my thoughts up like this. None of them brought my thoughts to them again and again.

“You ever see Hana around?” I say.

“Hana from high school?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, I see her. She’s a graphic designer now. She comes into the bank to deposit her checks.”

“You work as a teller or something? You’re cashing Hana’s checks for her?” What’s become of the world, is what I want to scream. Everything has changed since I’ve been gone. Everyone I used to know has taken the roles that they swore they’d never take. At least that’s the case if I can judge by Pat alone. But I have a feeling that I can.

“Yup,” says Pat happily. “And I’m on track to getting benefits and everything. I’m going to work my way up.”

I nod my head. Honestly, this doesn’t interest me in the slightest. It interests me about as much as going over to Pat’s house for dinner with him and his wife.

“So you see her a lot, then?” I say.

Pat’s starting to relax a little, and he laughs. “You got a thing for her or something? She’s single, if you’re looking.”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “We sort of… dated or something right before I left for the Seals. I was just wondering what happened to her. And I ran into her today, and she said she’d stay to talk. But when I was done with my talk, she was long gone.”

“Probably her kid,” says Pat.

“What?”

“Probably her kid, you know. She probably had to go pick her kid up from daycare or something. She’s got a four year old. He’s really cute. He’s always coming into the bank with her.”

“Hang on,” I say. “She’s got a kid?”

“Yeah.”

“But she’s single?”

“Yeah. No ring, no nothing.”

I sigh.

I can’t believe she has a kid.

This changes everything.

Hana

I finish my design work early today. It’s nothing more than making silly advertisements for online blogs and things like that. It’s not what I want to do be doing forever, but hey, it’s a job, right?

I’ve got to not only feed myself, but James too.

James is everything to me, and I’d do whatever I had to do to protect him, to feed him, to clothe him.

And right now, the best way I can do that involves working as a graphic designer.

It may be boring, but in truth, I’m lucky to have the job.

Sunny, the boss, comes prowling around the cubicles around 4pm every day, ostensibly to ask us how we’re all doing. But we all really know that he’s just putting check marks next to his productivity sheets. He’s got tasks laid out for himself every day. He learned this all at some productivity conference that he apparently paid ten thousand dollars for. The only thing it’s done is make him more annoying.

“How’s it going, Hana Bo Bana?”

“That’s not my name, Sunny,” I say. “How would you like it if I called you Sunny Go Runny?”

There’s a snicker from one of my co-workers in the nearby cubicle.

Sunny turns red in the face, but he ignores it.

He puts on his serious boss man face.

“All right,” he says. “Joking’s over. Let’s get down to work. You look like you’re slacking off, Hana. I look at your computer and all I see is your personal email account. Where are the advertisements that you were supposed to do today?”

“First of all,” I say. “You’re the one who started this ‘joking,’ not me. And second of all, I finished the advertisements an hour ago. But you won’t let me leave even though I’ve finished my work. That doesn’t seem very efficient, does it?”

There’s the sound of a mild one-two clap from somewhere nearby. But it dies out as quickly as it starts.

Sunny goes red in the face again. He doesn’t like being talked back to. But I’m a good graphic designer, and I don’t take being disrespected. I’m going to stick up for myself, and I’m not afraid of losing my job like everyone else here. As far as I’m concerned, they’re a bunch of sycophants and scaredy cats.

I can tell everyone nearby is listening, but their heads are hidden by the cubicle dividers.

“You should have asked for more work,” says Sunny. “You should have come to me and told me you’d finished your work.”

“You told me never to disturb you,” I say. “You even have a huge sign in front of your office that says not to disturb you unless it’s a natural disaster.”

“Well,” sputters Sunny.

But he doesn’t have anything to say.

“I’m going to be taking the rest of the day off,” I say. “Because I finished my work and I did a great job on it.”

Sunny doesn’t say anything.

“OK, Sunny? Is that OK with you?” I speak to him in a condescending way, as if he’s a child.

Sunny nods and his face is red with anger.

I turn off my computer, grab my purse, and walk past Sunny towards the elevator.

“You go girl!” shouts someone from one of the cubicles. It’s probably Sandra, who seems to look up to me even though she’s older than I am.

Sunny doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing he can say.

My plan for the afternoon was to go pick up James from daycare and head straight home to cook him dinner. But now I have an extra hour to kill.

Someone almost runs into me as I walk out the door.

“Excuse me,” I say.

I look up, and suddenly see that it’s not just anyone. It’s Noah.

“Noah!” I say, shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” says Noah, without a trace of embarrassment on his face.

I laugh. “Nice,” I say. “I’m glad you didn’t invent some excuse, like you were just in the neighborhood or something.”

“Does this happen to you often?”

I shake my head.

In truth, I haven’t been with a guy since Noah. I know, I know, that’s pathetic, right?

But what was I supposed to do?

I had to finish college. I had to get a job and support James.

My parents are wonderful, but I wasn’t going to let them raise him. I’m his mother, after all. I had more priorities than just going out and getting laid.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?” says Noah.

I look at my watch. I do have an extra hour before I can pick James up from nursery school.

“Sure,” I say. “Any ideas? There’s a coffee shop right down the corner.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” says Noah. “It’s more private.”

“Sure,” I say. “There’s a park up in that direction.”

“I know,” says Noah. “I’m from here, remember?”

I laugh. “Of course.”

For some reason, today I feel at ease around him. I don’t feel anxious like I did the other day. Maybe it’s because I’m coming off a bit of a high from telling off Sunny like that and putting him in his place.

Noah doesn’t seem nervous. I don’t think he gets nervous, after all. But he does seem preoccupied with something.

“What’s on your mind?” I say. “You seem… I don’t know. Something.”

“Something?”

“You seem different.”

“Well,” says Noah. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, you know. I’ve been away for a long time, and I know I’ve changed. Some people say they feel the same after going through an extreme experience. I don’t, though. I know I’ve changed. But everyone else seems different too.”

“Sounds deep,” I say.

To my surprise, Noah laughs. “I guess I take myself too seriously sometimes,” he says.

“You are different than I remember you,” I say. “But you’re the same too. I can still see it in you. You’re the same person. You may have had different experiences than you had before, but you’re the same Noah Strong in many ways.”

“Pretty deep conversation for seeing each other again after so many years, right?” says Noah.

“I guess so,” I say.

We walk in silence for a couple minutes, each of us apparently lost deep in our thoughts.

The sun is shining in the sky and the trees look beautiful. I remember the summer when I slept with Noah, the summer in which James was conceived. It was a hot summer, with the heat rolling in from somewhere all the time. It really felt like that, as if the heat didn’t originate here, but somewhere else, far away. It felt as if the heat had traveled miles to get here, the way Noah has traveled miles to get here today.

This summer has the same feeling as that other summer years ago. Not all summers are the same. People think it’s just hot weather, more sun, more beach days. But each new season brings a new feeling of its own. And there’s some connection between not just the heat, but something deeper, something more ethereal… I’m losing myself, getting lost in my own spiraling thoughts.

“The trees are pretty,” I say, breaking my own swirling thoughts that seem to go nowhere.

“Yeah,” says Noah. “I went a long time without seeing trees like these. I missed them all the time.”

“I bet,” I say. “So I should admit something, Noah. I’ve been watching you on TV. I went to the bookstore because I knew you’d be there.”

Noah chuckles.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“I’ve thought about you a lot,” he says. “I’ve thought about you constantly, actually. I don’t know why. Well, that’s not true. There’s just something about you… I know what it is, but I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You’re saying you were thinking about me when you were over there, when you were abroad?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought I was just another… you know, lay, for you. You were pretty popular with the ladies, to put it lightly.”

Noah grimaces.

“I’m not proud of that,” he says. “But it is what it is. But no, you were different. You always were. From the moment I saw you.”

This is getting pretty intense, pretty fast. I didn’t expect a simple walk to turn out like this.

Honestly, I was thinking that I was just crazy for thinking he’d even really remember me at all. Or think anything of me.

But now he’s here, confessing his feelings for me, telling me that I’m special, that he was thinking about me over the last few years.

It’s too good to be true, right?

He’s James’s father. The thought hits me like a slap in the face. Not only that, but I’ve never told him.

What am I doing? I should tell him right now. I need to tell him. It’s just not fair, to anyone, to keep this kind of thing from him.

I can justify my decision however I want to myself. But the fact is that I know what I’m doing quite clearly. Noah’s suddenly expressed what sounds like a serious interest in me, and I don’t want to ruin my chances with him by telling him this huge news that I’ve been hiding from him for so long.

But I’ve got to tell him. I’ve got to tell him. And not just because it’s the right thing to do. If Tammy tells him first as some kind of retribution, or an attempt to get him back, there go my chances with him.

Noah

The conversation got pretty intense pretty fast.

Soon, we were confessing our feelings for each other.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s a little strange… We never spent much time together.”

“But we’ve both been thinking about each other all these years,” she says, finishing my thought for me.

I stop walking, and she stops too.

Her body is close to me. I can feel her presence hear me. I can hear her breathing. Her chest is rising and falling.

There’s a hint of expectation in the air. There’s something magnetic pulling us together. I feel the need to have her again, to possess her, to connect our bodies physically. This emotional link between us is about to boil over. And the physical act is the only thing that will satisfy the urge, the craving.

She’s like a drug to me. I need her and I need more of her.

“This is crazy, right?” she says, as she looks up at me with her eyes wide and innocent looking.

She’s changed so much, but she’s still the same woman I made love to that summer night in the yard.

I pull her against me, my hands on her hips gripping her tightly. I smash my mouth against hers and feel her wet warmth against my lips. She kisses me back and our tongues swirl like a whirlwind.

I don’t care who sees us or where we are. But no one’s around. Just the trees and the sun and the grass.

“Yeah,” I growl at her, when the embrace ends, fading away. “This is crazy. But come back to my hotel with me. I need you like I’ve never needed you before.”

She looks at me. She’s considering it all, and in a more mature way than before. She’s an adult now, with real responsibilities. Sleeping with a man now has more potential repercussions than in her younger years.

“There’s something you should know,” she says.

“I already know,” I say.

There’s a look of complete surprise on her face. “You do?” She sounds scared, terrified even. “You talked to…?”

“Pat, yeah,” I say. “I didn’t know you knew him? He told me you had a kid now, a son, right?”

“Oh,” she says, giving me a strange look that I can’t quite decipher. “Yeah, I have a son, James… That’s what I was going to say. I’m supposed to pick him up at daycare.”

I nod my head in understanding. “Being a single mother must be tough.”

“Pat told you that too?”

“Yeah,” I say, not wanting to ask why the dad’s no longer in the picture.

But what kind of a man abandons a woman, any woman, much less this gorgeous creature in front of me? If I met him, I’d let my fists do the talking for me.

I want to kiss her again. I want to devour her with my mouth. I want to kiss her whole body and I want to touch again her cloistered dark space between her legs. I want my cock to nestle up against it, pressing ever so slightly as she squeezes her legs closed around me until she finally lets me into her sweet tightness. I want her so much, but I need to wait. I have to wait, and it’s killing me.

“Hey,” I say. “You’ve got to go pick him up, that’s fine. Let’s get together tonight, though? Come by my hotel at 11pm?”

“There’s no way to misinterpret that message,” says Hana, laughing.

“Oh,” I say, making a joke out of it. “Sorry, I just meant you could come by at 11pm to get your book signed. That is what you’re after, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” says Hana, flashing me a smile.

There’s a pause.

She has to leave, but neither of us want to part. We’ve reconnected after so many years and we’ve discussed a fraction of our feelings for each other. But the rest goes unspoken. It’s something that doesn’t even need to be said. That’s how powerful it is.

“Hey,” I say. “Why don’t I come with you to pick him up? We can hang out or something. I don’t have anything else going on… I’ll take you two out for pizza or whatever he likes.”

She doesn’t say anything. It looks like she’s about to say something but stops herself.

“You sure?” she says. “You don’t have to. I know not every guy wants to hang around with little kids.”

“No, no,” I say. “I’d love to. I love kids.”

The truth is that while I do enjoy the company of children, especially the silly things they say, I’ve never felt really at ease with them in the same way I feel with adults. They seem to be working on a whole different level, which makes sense, since they’re kids.

“Oh,” she says, beaming at me. “That’s great. Sure, I know James would love to meet you.”

“Why’s that?”

“He loves military stuff and heroes and all that. He’ll just love you. Plus he loves pizza.”

“Perfect,” I say.

“I’ll drive,” she says. “And then maybe afterwards, I can drop James off at my parents’ house for the night or something.”

I follow Hana back to her car, a beat up old Camry, and we start driving to James’s nursery school, which is at the end of a huge tree lined road at the top of a hill.

“Nice place,” I say.

There’s the sound of kids shouting out in the playground, laughing and playing. Their voices are nothing but pure joy.

But I hear something else in it. The shouts bring flashbacks from war, from the missions. My head is suddenly filled with cries of pain, echoes of screams from years ago… comrades fallen on missions, their legs blown completely off from land mines…

“Are you OK?” says Hana, looking at me with a worried expression.

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, sorry… I was just thinking about something else.”

“You had one of those faraway looks on your face.”

“It’s nothing,” I say.

I wait outside while Hana heads inside to pick up James. For some reason that I can’t put together, I feel nervous about meeting him.

After all, they always say that kids can be perceptive, extremely perceptive. Maybe he’ll know something that I’ve been successful at hiding to everyone else. All the adults see me as the returned warrior hero. They don’t know about my nightmares, my fears, my memories. Can kids see right through that?

Doubtful, I remind myself. It’s doubtful anyone would realize anything like that. Kids are easy, I remind myself. They’re fun and full of life. It’s ridiculous to be scared of one, or to be nervous about meeting them.

I’ve been through wars, stared death in the face, and I’m scared of a little kid?

I take a deep breath. This is more than ridiculous.

Hana comes back holding a four year old boy by the hand.

My first thought is that this is one cool kid. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something familiar in his face, in his stance, in the way he walks. I guess it’s just that he reminds me a little of Hana.

“Hey there, James,” I say, holding out my hand for him to shake.

I tower over him, but he doesn’t look frightened. He looks at me with a sense of curiosity.

“You’re my mom’s friend?” he says.

He shakes my hand. His hand is tiny in mine.

“Yup,” I say. “Old friends from high school.”

“Noah offered to take us out to pizza,” says Hana. “Doesn’t that sound fun, James?”

“Pizza? Yeah. Can we go to Dean’s?”

“Dean’s pizza?” I say. “Is that still open?”

Hana nods. “It’s James’s favorite place.”

“Great,” I say. “Let’s see what old Dean is up to. I haven’t been there in years, but we used to go there all the time after football practice.”

Dean is a notoriously grumpy man who moves around like he’s shouldering hundreds of pounds of weight. He was constantly complaining about his feet and back, even though he wasn’t that old.

Hana drives us over there, and James ends up talking a lot about the toys he was playing with at daycare, and some of his friends.

“Did you have any more problems with Tommy?” says Hana.

“Tommy?” I say. “What’s going on with Tommy, James?”

James doesn’t say anything.

“Tommy’s been giving James a hard time,” says Hana. “He runs his truck over him a lot.”

I nod my head understandingly. “You know, James,” I say. “Something like that used to happen to me when I was a kid.”

“Really?” says James, wide eyed. And I know why he’s surprised. To him, I’m this towering, muscular adult man, a warrior, and I don’t look like I’ve ever had anyone bully me. But that’s not true.

“Yeah,” I say. “When I was a kid, there was this kid at school… I forget his name now. Maybe it was Bob, but I can’t remember now. It was so long ago. But he used to come up to me and take my apple every day at school. This was in kindergarten. Finally, I’d had enough, and I told him that the next time he took my apple from me, I’d punch him in the stomach.”

“Really?” says James, going wide eyed.

“Now,” says Hana. “We don’t want to encourage violence, right, Noah?”

“Of course not,” I say. “I’m not suggesting you punch him, James. But what I’m saying is that sometimes bullies just need to see that you’re going to stick up for yourself. In my case, telling him off was all it took.”

James doesn’t say anything, but I can see that he’s thinking it over.

This is why it’s a shame he doesn’t have a father figure. Moms tend to push non-violence and everything like that, which is great. But kids, especially boys, need some balance between the male and female energies of their parents. They need to know that there’s a time and a place to stand your ground, to stick up for yourself. They also need to not be violent dickheads and go around punching everyone they can.

“I think you’re right in a way,” says Hana. “I’ve had similar things happens to me at work.”

“We’re here!” says James from the backseat.

Hana pulls into the parking lot and we all get out of the car.

Opposite Dean’s pizza place, which is a run down little building, there’s a park with a long sloping hill.

“I used to go sledding there as a kid,” I say, pointing out the spot to James.

He’s fascinated by the idea of me doing things as a kid, apparently, and he can’t get enough of it.

He’s asking me a ton of questions as we enter the building.

“Did you know my mom since you were a kid?” he says.

“Nope,” I say. “I met her after high school, actually. I think I was already 19 or just about to turn 19, I can’t quite remember.”

“You don’t know when your own birthday is?” comes a booming voice from behind the pizza counter.

The place looks exactly as I remember it, full of dirt and grime and all. The place may not be pretty to look at, but it has the best pizza, and the kitchen’s always clean even though you might not suspect it from looking at the rest of the place.

“Dean!” I say, moving towards him to give him a handshake.

He looks older, years older actually. It’s only been a few years. But he looks like he’s aged at least a decade. His hair has gone completely white and he’s starting to lose it in the front. But Dean still has the same under-the-squat rack stance that he always had. And he moves and stands like his feet and back are still killing him.

“Noah Strong,” he booms. “I haven’t seen you in ages. I heard you’re a big shot media guy now.”

I shrug. “Just trying to make a living,” I say.

“Looks like you’re doing pretty well. And who’s this pretty lady, and this buckaroo here? Your wife and son?”

I laugh.

“Just a friend from school,” I say. “We met up again at one of my signings. This is her son, James. James, I’m sure you’ve seen Dean before, but I doubt you met him personally.”

“How you doing, little fellow?” says Dean, shaking James’s hand over the counter, bending down and over, even though I can see that it kills his back to do so.

“Hi,” says James.

“James loves your pizza,” says Hana. “He’s always begging to come here.”

Dean chuckles. “Everyone loves this pizza,” he says. “That’s the only reason I’m still open, even though it’s killing my damn back. Excuse me, my darn back.”

Dean gives us a huge pepperoni pizza for free. He completely refused payment, and Hana seems to be impressed that I have such a strong reputation here.

She shouldn’t be surprised, though. She knows that back then I was the king of the school and king of the town.

But maybe I want her to be my queen.

James ends up being a real hoot. It turns out it’s easier to talk to him than I thought it would be. We talk about what sports he wants to play, and of course we talk about toys and video games that he likes.

“I bet your mom doesn’t let you play video games very much, does she?” I say.

“Not enough,” says James.

I laugh.

“You’ve got to work on that, Hana,” I say.

She just smiles at me and looks me in the eyes, her eyes bright with something, some emotion I can’t quite capture. It gives me a warm feeling in my heart though, something that I know will last a long time.

“What do you say if you have a sleepover at your grandparents’ house tonight, James?” says Hana.

“Yeah!” says James. “Is Grandma going to make brownies again?”

“As long as they’re normal brownies,” says Hana.

I laugh, catching her double meaning.

I get up to use the bathroom, and after I come out, Hana meets me in the hallway. We’re well away from the table where James is playing with his last slice of pizza. She moves her body close to mine. “I have to take him to my parents’ house, but I’ll meet you tonight at 11pm, like we said. I can’t wait.”

The way she whispers this sends shivers of expectation up my spine. It makes my cock start to swell and I have to take a moment to think about baseball for it to calm down before moving away from the bathroom alcove area.

Hana

“It’s been a long time since you came over for a sleepover,” says my mom to James, beaming at him.

She and my dad love James, and James loves them. I’ve rarely heard of grandparents having a better relationship with their grandkids than this one. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and I love that James gets so excited about staying there.

He likes to help his grandmother make brownies. And my dad sometimes brings James into his studio so that James can “help” him with his art projects. Usually James ends up making some small project himself, some sculpture that he brings home to show me.

“Why don’t you go see what your grandfather’s up to, James,” says my mom. “Come here, he’s right over in his study.”

She leads him away, but not before I give him a hug.

“Everything he might need is in this bag, like always,” I say to my mom when she returns without James.

“It’s been a long time since James has had a sleepover with us,” says my mom.

“I know,” I say. “You already said that.”

“But that was when James was here. I didn’t want him to have to cover his ears. So who’s the lucky guy?”

“I… You know those other times I was just studying or traveling for work.” It’s the truth. I haven’t been with anyone since Noah.

My mom gives me a wink, though. She doesn’t quite believe me. Whatever, she can think what she wants.

“I’m going on a date with Noah Strong,” I say.

“Noah Strong? The Noah Strong? He’s on television now all the time.”

“Not all the time,” I say.

My mom just gives me a knowing smile.

“It’s not like that, Mom,” I say, lying. “We’re just going to go out to dinner.”

“James said you already had dinner.”

“I’ve got to get going,” I say.

“Have fun,” calls my mom after me.

This is the first time I’ve left James at my parents in a while, and I find myself feeling a little guilty.

But just because I’m his mother doesn’t mean I need to be with him all the time, right?

Plus, there’s more to this than just me going out and having a good time.

I need to put an end to this whole secret thing… Noah is James’s father, pure and simple. And it’s not right that I’ve kept it a secret.

OK, I tell myself. Tonight I’m going to tell him. Tonight I have to tell him. I’ll do it first thing when I get there.

I’ll just sit him down and explain the whole thing to him. He’s a reasonable, level headed guy. He’ll understand. He won’t be mad…

I park my car and try to walk past the front desk person without being noticed. It’s not like I want to be known for sneaking into hotel rooms in the night.

“Can I help you?” says a very thin older man with a bowling ball bald head.

“Oh,” I say, stopping.

Damnit, I almost made it past the desk without him noticing. I’m all the way towards the end of it. So close, but no cigar.

“Are you checking in?”

I just have a large purse with me with some overnight things, like a toothbrush and some makeup.

“I’m going to meet a friend,” I say.

He looks at me severely. His face is unmistakably judgmental. There’s no other way to interpret his facial expression.

For a moment, I wonder if I’ve traveled back in time or something. Do I really need to be interrogated and judged because I’m meeting a guy in a hotel room? What year is this?

“Is that so?” he says. “And who, may I ask, are you going to see?”

“Listen,” I say, finally deciding to put my foot down. “This is 2017, and I’m a grown woman. I’m going to see a friend who’s staying here, and I don’t need to be judged for it. You can think what you want, but it doesn’t concern me. If you have some official policy against visitors, then please let me know. If not, I’ll be on my way.”

The man just glowers at me. He doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing for him to say. He knows I’m right, but that only makes him more furious.

I simply walk away, saying “I thought so,” as I leave.

I walk down the silent hallway. The carpet is thick, since it’s a very nice hotel. My feet don’t even make a sound on the carpet. I can hear my own breathing.

“I’ve got to tell him,” I say to myself, muttering under my breath. Even my mutters, my whispers sound loud in the silence of the hallway.

I’m completely convinced that I’m going to tell him… until I knock on the door and he opens it.

He’s shirtless, his muscles rippling on his torso. His chest is powerful and dense.

There’s a tattoo running down his right arm that must be new, or at least recent. A huge anchor with complex designs running around it—all swirls and black. I can’t take my eyes off it.

The sight of him takes my mind completely off telling him. The only thing I want to do is thrust my body against his and kiss him passionately.

And that’s exactly what I do.

His body is hot and solid against mine. His hands wrap around me, his arms encircling me… I feel secure and safe for the first time in so long. His breath is sweet against me. His mouth presses against mine. It envelopes me and for this moment we’re connected again, our mouths the openings that allow our feelings to travel… they allow our bodies to connect in a way that words simply don’t allow us.

Noah pushes the door closed behind us and we walk backwards, kissing passionately, towards the bed.

He’s got his jeans on, no shoes.

He falls backwards onto the plush bed, pulling me with him.

My body is flat against his, pushing down onto him. My breasts are pushed against his chest and his hands are on me, powerful and strong, comforting.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” I say, my breathing rapid and intense.

“So have I,” growls Noah.

His strong hands pull me closer to him.

There’s something here, something incredibly powerful, something between us that the years haven’t been able to destroy or damage.

In the back of my mind, there’s the thought of the truth… the result of that one night of passion.

But I can’t bring it up now. It would ruin this.

Maybe it’s better to start things up again with Noah, and then tell him the truth. It seems like things are progressing so much differently than they were before… We’re both so much more mature now than before. We’re ready, I think, for something longer lasting, for something real, something strong that we can forge together between us.

Not that we’ve talked about any of this.

I know Noah’s going to be traveling again for his book tour, but…

This moment right now feels like an eternity. It really does.

Noah’s mouth against mine and his hands on my breast bring my mind back to the present moment. There’s no denying the present, not with Noah against me, not with hands cupping my breasts.

“I need you,” growls Noah.

He kisses my neck, his hands caressing me.

A second later, I’m pushing myself up so that I can pull my shirt off. My breasts in my bra pop out. I had the foresight to change into the sexiest bra I have.

I see Noah admiring it for a moment, but his desire is too much for him.

His hands reach behind my back and he unhooks it. The bra falls away from my breasts.

Noah’s hands reach to them, and I feel the rough skin of his hands against them. He’s gentle, and careful, but full of unbridled desire at the same time.

His head leans up to me, his mouth taking my breast, sucking on it. I lean my head back and close my eyes, enjoying the sensation. He sucks on my nipples, each in turn.

His hands follow the contours of my body, exploring every inch of my naked torso.

His cock is raging hard in his pants, a solid, throbbing mass that I feel against me, hot and warm.

We roll together on the bed, as he pulls me along with him as he moves. He’s on top of me now. He’s unbuttoning my jeans, exposing my panties. He does so delicately and rapidly at the same time. He gives me the feeling that he needs to see me completely naked. It’s something like an absolute need, and it makes me feel warm and even more turned on to be so desired, to be so wanted.

My jeans are hanging undone, my panties partially exposed. He slips a warm hand down under the elastic band as I’ve done so many times before myself. I feel his fingers exploring me and I shudder with delight as one of the fingers rubs me in a circular motion, exploratory and pleasurable.

My breathing gets heavier as he continues to circle with his finger.

His finger begins to enter me, coming in slowly, entering my wetness.

I squirm in delight as Noah kisses me gently on my neck. His head and mouth move all over my body, following the path of his hands that trace me. He moves from my neck to my breasts to my stomach down to the space between my legs. My pants are off—one powerful tug and they’re down around my knees. I help him, kicking my legs until my jeans are on the floor or who knows where. Noah tosses them casually aside once they’re in his hands.

When his mouth reaches right above my pussy, where my hair is trimmed and manicured and slight, he pauses. He moves. He’s on his knees in front of me, appearing massive, his naked torso seeming to gleam and shine with strength.

He ducks his head back down and pushes it between my legs. He’s on his stomach, face down on the mattress, his cock pushing into the bed. His strong hands grab my thighs and pull them apart. Not that I need the encouragement.

I can’t help it. I seize his head and pull him farther against me, increasing the pressure of his tongue against me. First, he uses exploratory motions. He’s being gentle, but I pull him harder against me. I need it hard, and I need it fast.

He gets the hint and a second later he’s pushing his tongue against me intensely. His fingers push my clitoral hood back, exposing my burning hot bud of pleasure, and his tongue hits my clit. It sends a shock wave of pleasure through me.

Sparks seem to be flying in my body. I close my eyes and let myself relax. My hands drop away from Noah’s head as he pushes at me with his tongue, flicking and sucking.

His fingers are inside of me, two of them, as he does this, moving in and out rhythmically and quickly.

The orgasm starts to build up and I involuntarily tense my body, as if I’m waiting for the pleasure to smash into me.

I cry out as the peak reaches me. It’s like riding a wave, but this is a tidal wave that smashes all over me. Noah doesn’t let up one bit. He pushes the wave forward until it completely overwhelms me. I cry out.

I flop back, exhausted, and Noah gets up.

He starts unbuttoning his jeans.

I see the hard bulge and it excites me, just the sight of it, the thought of it entering me.

Something happens in my body—an overwhelming desire for his hard cock. I need to feel its girth in my hand, taste it in my mouth.

I’m up in a flash, on my knees. Noah’s standing on the floor. I push his hands aside with my own, almost frantically trying to grab at his cock.

I get the jeans mostly off, and Noah kicks them down to the floor. They’re off now, and he’s before me in all his naked glory.

His cock is long and hard, pointed up at me at an impressive angle. I hadn’t forgotten how big it is, massive and thick, but seeing it again in person is truly… spectacular.

My hands seize his cock greedily and I hear him breathing out in relief.

My two hands form fists around his cock and I stroke back and forth, pulling towards myself.

I lower my head and let my lips touch the head of his cock. Noah lets out a groan of pleasure as my lips open and I let the head of his cock into my mouth. I press my lips forcefully onto his shaft, and let my hands fall away as his cock enters my mouth.

Bobbing my head, I manage to turn my eyes up and look at him. He’s staring down at me with nothing but desire and lust… and maybe something more.

Having his thick cock in my mouth makes me feel connected to him in a way that mere talking can’t accomplish. There’s something so intimate about this. It isn’t just another blow job. It’s a “prayer” to the potential for something… for a relationship that could grow out of this.

Noah starts thrusting his hips, pushing his cock into my mouth and pulling it back out again.

Soon he’s thrusting vigorously into my mouth, fucking my plump lips that I hold tight around his girthy shaft.

His hands grip the sides of my head, pushing into my hair, his fingers entwined with the strands.

I gaze up at him, marveling at his strength and intensity.

“That’s enough,” he growls. “I need your pussy.”

That’s all I need to hear. I throw myself eagerly on my back.

Noah is on the bed, approaching me. Slowly, he lowers himself down towards me. My knees are bent as I let my legs fall open, letting his body fall between them. His cock is against my wetness, resting. I can feel the desire in his body, the potential resting in this brief moment in time, a static moment right before he enters me. Time seems to stand still and I feel the connection thick between us, as if it’s a visceral thing.

The thrust of his cock entering me brings the pleasure coursing back through me, intense and magical.

Noah doesn’t stop looking into my eyes as he moves his cock in and out, slowly and intently.

He grunts, beginning to move his cock faster. I let my hips rock with his rhythm as he enters me over and over again.

We change positions. I get on my knees and Noah gets behind me, his cock entering me quickly.

He pounds me from behind. I feel his cock filling me up and I feel connected to him the same way I did that night many years ago. His body is inside me, but it’s not just his body.

There’s something more, something intense, something like a thread connecting us. We’re bound by the flesh now, the intense pleasure holding us physically together.

I can’t get enough of it. I’m crying out. Noah’s grunting as he slams into me. His body smashes into me. He holds my sides tightly, pulling me against his cock, entering me deeper and deeper.

Finally, I come. The orgasm rolls over me.

I cry out, moaning.

“That’s right, baby,” growls Noah. He goes crazy with his cock, picking up the speed, stabbing me with his thickness over and over as I come.

His cock is throbbing and I feel it about to explode inside me. He pulls it out, his strong hand seizing it. I fall onto the bed, collapsing on my stomach. My head is turned to watch him as he pumps his cock briefly before it explodes, his come shooting out in thick streams onto my leg.

He falls down beside me on the bed, and I nuzzle my head towards him. His muscles are thick with sweat. His naked body is magnificent to behold.

I find myself drifting off to sleep, with Noah’s arm thrown around me, holding me close to him.

A phone rings. I move sleepily to grab mine, hoping that James is all right and that nothing’s happened.

But it’s not my phone.

It’s Noah’s.

“Hello?” he says, his voice sleepy as well.

He looks at me and shrugs, indicating he doesn’t know who it is.

“Tammy?” he says. “Tammy Smith? From high school?”

My heart leaps with anxiety in my chest.

Noah’s listening intently to what Tammy’s saying.

Is she calling to tell him that James is Noah’s son?

Noah

The next morning, Hana has to leave early to pick up James from her parents’ house, then drop him off at nursery school, and then get to work. We agree to meet up later that night again, but we don’t make specific plans, since her first priority is obviously James.

I’m still in bed when she leaves, and she kisses me sleepily before leaving. I watch her walking out the hotel room door, and a sense of sadness fills me.

Why couldn’t I have always had her in my life? Why did I have to spend so many years alone, fighting, away in foreign lands, trying to do the impossible?

I’m heavy with sleep but I force myself up. In truth, this is the latest I’ve slept in years. There weren’t any nightmares last night. Could Hana have driven them from me?

The hotel room coffee maker is just about adequate for my needs. I drink a cup, then head to the hotel gym.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about my book, something that hasn’t really occupied my mind for some time.

I’m supposed to have another book signing in a nearby town two days from now. I figure that it makes the most sense to just stay in this hotel, since I’ve already got it booked. But the real reason, of course, is Hana.

Last night was incredible. It wasn’t just the sex, it was… something else. There’s a real connection between us. At least I feel one. That’s the thing about these things—you’re always wondering if the other person feels the same way as you. But I think she does. I’ve got a certain sense for these things, and I’m confident, but I’m still only human.

A well-built blonde won’t stop checking me out in the hotel gym, but I don’t pay any attention to her.

I’m in the middle of doing a series of pushups on one of the mats when she walks over to me. She stands there, crossing her arms under breasts, apparently in an attempt to make them look bigger, to make them stick up and out more. Any other time, I’d eagerly take her to my bed and show her what I’m capable of. But Hana fills my mind, and the thought of being with someone else is just… somehow disgusting. I’m just not interested at all.

She sticks her ass out conspicuously and checks herself out in the mirror one final time before speaking to me, trying to break the ice.

“Didn’t I see you on TV?” she says.

I just keep doing my pushups, finishing my set before sitting down on the floor and responding.

“Maybe,” I say. “I have a book out.”

“Oh that’s right!” she says, as if it’s the most exciting thing in the world. She’s obviously over acting, and her fakeness bothers me.

I don’t say anything for a minute. I’m not exactly experienced in letting women down like this.

“Look,” I say. “You seem like an interesting person, but I just started seeing someone.”

“I…! I…” She huffs and puffs, growing red in the face from embarrassment. “I was just making small talk.”

I nod my head, and go back to doing pushups.

When I’ve done the set, she’s gone.

Back in my hotel room, there’s a missed call from my agent. No message.

“What’s up, Dan?” I say, calling him back. He picks up on the first ring.

I’m covered in sweat from working out, so I manage to take off my shirt while on the phone. It’s quite an acrobatic feat.

Next, I drop my workout shorts and underwear, letting them fall to the floor after I kick off my shoes. I’m buck naked, pacing my hotel room.

“Bad news, Noah,” says Dan. He’s never one to mince words. He tells it like it is most of the time, which is why I like him as an agent. He’s worked with other military guys, and he tends to know our style. He knows not to spew too much bullshit in our direction. We can always sense bullshit from a mile away.

It’s something that the military teaches you, I guess. After all, you’ve got to put up with plenty of bullshit in the military, whatever branch you’re in—people on power trips, all sorts of shit.

“What’s up?” I say.

“The signing at Bobton’s Books is canceled.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, that’s OK, I guess. What happened? I hope nothing’s wrong with the book.”

“No, nothing like that. Sales are up after your appearance in New York.”

“So what happened?”

“The bookstore closed.”

“Oh,” I say. “Well, that’ll give me some more time around here actually. Connect with old friends.”

Meanwhile, of course, I’m just thinking of spending more time with Hana.

“Well, I booked you another gig.”

“Yeah? Something else out west?”

“Yup, but this is a big one. Are you ready for the news?”

“What?”

“It’s big news. I don’t want you to faint or anything.”

I laugh. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I can take a bit of a surprise. What’s the news? You’re killing me with this agent-suspense thing. Is this how all agents are?”

“We try to break good news in the biggest way possible.”

“Just tell me what it is.”

“All right. I got you an appearance on the Bob Show.”

I’m not surprised at all. In fact, I have no idea what the Bob Show is.

“The Bob Show? What the hell is that?”

It’s Dan’s turn to laugh.

“Damn, you really were away for a long time. It’s only the third biggest late night show that there is.”

“Sounds like a real hoot,” I say, not excited in the least.

“It doesn’t sound like you’re getting what I’m saying,” says Dan, almost sounding a little annoyed. “This is a huge opportunity. It’s incredibly hard to get a booking. But they’re interested in your story and they think their viewership would be too. There’s tons of money in this if you go on.”

“I don’t know,” I say, thinking of Hana. “I’ve got some stuff to do here. I’m not sure I’m ready to take off to LA or wherever it is.”

“If you don’t do this,” says Dan, “there’s no point in me being your agent. You know how much people fight for spots on this? Do you have any idea how many people watch this show? You have to do this if you want to keep being a writer.”

He’s got a point. I mean, the sales are good, but they’re not good enough to retire or anything like that. They’re not even necessarily good enough that I can take the next year off to write my next book. It took me my whole four years in the Seals in order to write my first book, painstakingly working on it in whatever spare time I had, which wasn’t much.

But when I write, I rewrite and then rewrite again. I’m obsessed with getting the words exactly how I want them. I don’t leave a single sentence uncounted when I’m editing.

I know I’m not going back into the military. I could. They want me back, but it’s not for me. The nightmares I have already are enough for a lifetime. And I don’t know what the hell else I would do. Being a Seal teaches you certain things, but the skills aren’t directly transferable to office jobs or the normal civilian workforce. There isn’t much of a need for fighting or bomb disarmament in the office.

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it. When did you say it was?”

“I’ll send you the details. You’ll fly out early next week…”

Next week. That gives me a few more days with Hana.

But I can come back. Maybe this is good. I can do the show, increase book sales, and then return here to spend more time with Hana.

“OK,” I say. “Talk to you later.”

Dan says goodbye hastily. I can tell he’s a little annoyed that I almost didn’t agree to doing the show.

Whatever, he can be as annoyed as he wants to be. After all, he works for me. It’s not the other way around. I wouldn’t stand for that. I’m the one who calls the shots. But he makes a good point about doing the show.

I’m still buck naked, walking up and down my hotel room.

My cock starts to swell as I think about last night with Hana. She was absolutely incredible. I can picture her body clearly in my mind’s eye.

My cock is raging hard now.

I let my hand run across it gently, pretending that it’s Hana’s delicate hand instead of my rough one.

I’m hungry, with my stomach grumbling for food after my workout. But my cock is a more pressing matter. I’ve always had a high sex drive, and with images of Hana on my mind, there’s no denying my cock what it wants and what it needs, which is release.

It’s too bad she’s not here. It’s too bad she couldn’t have stayed. I would have gladly given her an even more intense round two.

There’s some lotion on one of the hotel tables, one of those little sample bottles that hotels like to leave lying around.

I take some of it and squirt it on my hand and put my hand back on my cock. The action is slippery now. The lotion eases the roughness of my battle-hardened hand. My fist glides across my cock from the thick base to the head, as I stand facing the wall.

I tense my legs and close my eyes, picturing Hana’s perfect tits and her taut nipples.

I imagine that she’s kneeling in front of me, her mouth inches away from my cock, her breath hot on it. It’s her hand instead of mine that’s running up and down my cock. She took the liberty of using the lotion, not me.

Jerking off isn’t nearly half as good as fucking Hana. But at least I can think about her.

In my imagination, she stands up and embraces me. She wraps her legs around me, bringing her pussy towards my cock. I slide into her with ease, her tight pussy greeting me with hot wetness, a tunnel of pleasure. Her breasts push against my chest, and I hold her against me as I fuck her. Her back is against the wall, but I can hold her up fine myself, and I ram it into her.

My fist is a blur across my cock. My muscles tighten as my cock twitches and then explodes, shooting thick ropes of my come towards the wall.

Shit, I’ve got to clean that up.

I grab some tissues and wipe off the spot on the wall.

My mind turns to Hana and telling her about leaving. I mean, she knows I’m here on a book tour, so I figure she knows that I’ll be leaving soon. But we never spoke about it, or about our future… Maybe I’m jumping the gun a little, already planning ahead. But there’s something real between us.

But that doesn’t mean I should give up my career.

I can’t do that, not for anyone.

Hopefully, it’s a choice I won’t have to make.

My phone beeps at me, revealing I’ve got a text message.

I expect it to be Hana, but it’s Tammy, an old girlfriend from high school that I talked to last night briefly on the phone.

“We still on for this afternoon?” reads the text message.

“Yeah,” I say. “But I can’t spend too long. I’ve got to meet someone…”

I don’t have any intention of spending much time with Tammy. I’m not interested in her at all. I just want to meet her out of politeness, and in the interest of keeping up with old friends.

“Good,” she writes. “I’ve got some big news for you. Something really important.”

Something really important? What the hell could that be?

Hana

Most of the work day goes by without a hitch. The boss doesn’t bother me at all today. I guess I really put him in his place yesterday, and now he’s probably scared to say anything to me. That’s fine. I do good work, and I know it. And I’m not going to have this job forever. I’m going to move on to bigger and better things. What I’d really like to do is open up my own company.

My thoughts keep drifting back to last night. It was completely incredible.

And it wasn’t just the sex.

And that’s really saying something, because the sex was insanely great.

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I had sex last. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. A woman shouldn’t have to go through that.

Have sex one time, get pregnant, and then go years without it. That’s insane, right?

But I wouldn’t give up James for anything. I’m glad it happened this way.

Maybe it was all sort of meant to be, in a way. Maybe I’m meant to reconnect with Noah now that we’re both older. Maybe there’s really something between us that could develop and turn into something great.

The only roadblock I can see right now is that I still haven’t told him about James.

Well, that, and the fact that Noah isn’t here permanently. I need to talk to him about that as soon as possible, and figure out what his long term plans are. As far as I understand, he doesn’t even have an apartment. He had something temporary before getting on this book tour. He’s headed out west after this, but he has at least a week or two here, as far as I know. It’s not totally clear. We haven’t talked about it much.

Maybe tonight’s the night to tell him about James, and to make more plans.

I’m a person who does better when things are concrete, already laid out.

My phone rings.

“Hey, Leah,” I say. “I’m at work now so I can’t talk that long.”

“Listen,” says Leah, in a hushed voice, sounding frantic. “Remember what I told you about Tammy?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, I just saw her at the Onion…”

“The Onion? The coffee shop by the train station?”

“Yeah,” she says. “She didn’t see me… But I heard her telling the girl behind the counter who works there… the barista or whatever she’s called… that she was meeting Noah Strong. She was bragging, and saying that she was going to get him back, after all these years, because she was going to tell him some really big news.”

My heart leaps in my chest. I gulp. Suddenly, I feel sick.

I’ve somehow managed to push the worry about Tammy from my mind, even though she called Noah last night and it sounded like they were going to meet up. Noah didn’t sound enthusiastic about the meeting, and told me he probably wouldn’t meet her. I figured Tammy was just making empty threats, or that Noah wouldn’t bother to see her again.

But now, it’s time to meet my worst fears. Tammy’s going to tell him, and it’s going to be terrible. I simply can’t let Tammy tell him about James. I just can’t.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, and the horrible sick feeling all over my body, there’s something strange about what Leah’s telling me.

“Wait, Leah,” I say. “What were you doing at the Onion? I thought you swore never to go back to that place, after they charged you $8 for a coffee or something…”

I have a strong feeling there’s a good story behind this. I shouldn’t be wasting time asking about it. But apparently I’ll do anything to mentally avoid actually confronting what I need to do, which is rush to Noah and meet him before he can meet Tammy and learn the truth.

“I was… OK, I was hooking up with someone in the bathroom… The wall is thin and I could hear everything.”

I laugh.

“I know you like to distract yourself from big problems sometimes,” says Leah frantically. “But you need to go now. Right now. To the Onion. Leave work.”

“You’re right,” I say, suddenly hanging up the phone.

I grab my purse without switching off my computer.

Without saying a word to anyone, I rush out of the building. I get in my car, start the engine, and start speeding towards the Onion.

It’s not far away, but it’s a good ten minute drive through town to where the train station is.

I haven’t been to the Onion in years. It’s been there since I was a kid, but it’s changed names in as many years as it’s been in existence.

I try to work out what I’m going to say to Noah. How am I going to tell him? What kind of excuse am I going to give?

The truth is, I have absolutely no idea.

My mind just draws a complete blank.

OK, I’ll just have to figure that out once I get there.

But what if he’s already talking to Tammy? I’m sure it’s going to take her a little while to get to the point. After all, if I remember her well, she’s a huge chatterbox, never shutting up. She’s a huge gossip and loves to talk about herself as well.

How am I going to interrupt them and get Noah out of there and away from her?

I’m so anxious about this whole thing that my mind simply draws another blank.

Well, I’ll just have to figure that out once I’m there.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, I pull up in the parking lot.

To my horror, I recognize Noah’s rental car there, a big black SUV.

I look through the window, and he’s sitting with Tammy. Tammy looks a lot older, but still fit. She still has that classic cheerleader look she had in high school, with dyed blonde hair and a lot of makeup. She’s wearing a low cut blouse that exposes quite a bit of her large breasts.

She doesn’t see me. She’s too absorbed in staring at Noah.

Noah’s back is to me.

OK, I’ve got to at least try.

If I go in, and she’s already told Noah, I’m sure to know about it based on his expression.

Without a single plan in my head, I open the door and walk in.

“Oh, Noah!” I say, pretending as best as I can to be surprised.

Tammy gives me a nasty look, but I ignore her.

Noah smiles at me suggestively.

“Hi,” he says.

OK, she definitely hasn’t told him yet.

“I was just about to tell Noah something about you,” says Tammy.

“Oh!” I say, overenthusiastically. “Hi Tammy! How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in ages. Look, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Noah, I really need to speak to you outside about something.”

“We’re kind of busy here,” says Tammy, annoyed. “You’re really just kind of barging in here.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” I say, tugging on Noah’s arm to get him out of his seat.

“You’re being really rude!” says Tammy to me. “Noah, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Come on, Noah,” I say, not letting go of his arm.

Tammy gives me a look that could kill. “I was just about to tell Noah something very important.”

She’s about to say that Noah’s the father of my son!

I’ve got to think on my feet.

I do the unthinkable. As spuriously as I can in a public coffee shop, I slide my hand right down the front of Noah’s pants.

My hand is inside his underwear, and it’s not hard to find his cock. It starts growing immediately and in an instant, it’s massive and swollen in my hand. I squeeze hard.

Noah gives me a look of surprise and pleasure.

“You’re a wild woman,” he says, his voice getting low.

“Come on, Noah,” I say. “I have to tell you something.”

I’ve got Noah coming with me. His hand slips down to my ass and he grips me hard.

We’re halfway out the door when Tammy desperately calls out, “Noah, I was going to tell you that you’re…”

The obvious end of the sentence is “James’s father.”

But we’re out the door before she can say it. I shove the door closed behind us, and her words fall flat.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

It’s Noah’s turn to get naughty. He slips a hand down, under the elastic waistband of my panties, and I shudder with delight as his hand touches me. I’m already wet from feeling his cock in my hand.

We rush away from the coffee shop.

For a moment, I’m lost in the sexual delight of the whole experience… it’s all mixed with the suspense, the nervousness I felt over the situation…

But I do know I’ve got to get Noah away from Tammy. I’ve got to get us to a place she can’t find us. The way she is, she’s bound to rush out of the coffee shop and just shout the news at Noah. She’s that desperate to have him back.

I could see the hate for me clearly in her eyes. She thinks I’m stealing Noah from her.

Good thing Noah only has eyes for me.

We rush through the train station, through a tunnel that leads to the other side of the tracks. The tunnel is full of graffiti that’s been here since the 1970s. It gradually gets painted over by other graffiti.

Noah leads me by the hand through the tunnel and out to the other side of the tracks, away from the coffee shop.

“In here,” says Noah.

He leads me through some bushes, and I have a flashback to that night of the party all those years ago when Noah led me through the bushes.

There’s a little space, a little clearing, much like the last one.

“You know all the secret places around town, don’t you,” I say, giggling.

“I’m just happy I can finally put this one to good use,” says Noah.

We’re standing facing each other. He holds each of my hands in his. We’re close, but not completely touching. Except for his cock. The very end of his hard cock touches me through his pants.

“So what did you want to tell me?” says Noah.

Noah

I can tell she wants to tell me something big. I can tell that it wasn’t just some trick to get me alone. I mean, I know I’m hot and desirable and she can’t wait to fuck me again. But there was something in her eyes. I can read her. She wanted to tell me something important. Either that, or she didn’t want Tammy to tell me something.

Tammy was acting weird as hell, but I thought that was just how she was. I remember her being kind of ditzy and annoying from high school, always going on and on gossiping with people.

“Oh,” says Hana. “I just couldn’t wait to see you again…”

I have a feeling that it’s not the complete truth, but when she sticks her hand down my pants again and wraps her fingers around my rock hard cock, I can’t protest. I don’t have any option but to just go with it.

Plus, I know it’s not just a distraction. I know she really wants me, just like I want her right now.

“We always seem to do this outside,” I say.

“It’s exciting,” says Hana, with a twinkle in her eyes.

I nod.

I kiss her, smashing my mouth against her. I can’t resist her for a single second more.

“Last night was incredible,” she says, as I move my head down and kiss her ear, and her neck.

“It was,” I say. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

“I bet you even jerked off to me,” says Hana, her voice breathless with desire.

I chuckle.

“I did,” I growl. “I imagined you were fucking me again.”

This seems to excite her even further.

Her hand grips my cock tighter.

“I need to taste it,” she whispers throatily.

I glance around. No one can see us here.

“This is crazy,” she says. “Doing this out in public.”

“No one can see us,” I growl. “It’s fine.”

“I don’t know… I’m supposed to be a responsible adult now.”

“So am I,” I say. “That’s what makes it so dirty.”

She’s on her knees, and my pants are undone, hanging to the sides along with my belt buckle.

Her mouth touches the head of my cock and she pauses for a moment, looking up at me with those impossibly sexy innocent eyes.

She takes it in her mouth and I groan with pleasure.

You’d think she was the blow job master or something. The way she moves her mouth, her lips, her tongue, it’s just fucking incredible.

The pleasure rises through my body from my cock through my chest.

She’s bobbing her head and it looks so sexy. Her hair is hanging all around and I push my fingers through them and hold her head gently, moving my hands in time with her head.

The intensity of the pleasure overtakes me for a moment and I lean my head back and close my eyes, enjoying the sensations.

“I can’t take another minute of this,” I finally growl. “Or I’m going to come in that sweet mouth of yours.”

“Good,” she says, removing her mouth from my cock for a moment.

She keeps going, more intently now. One of her delicate hands grips the base of my cock tightly. She moves her fist back and forth, still using her mouth.

I gaze down at her and the image of her burns into my mind. It’s too much for me. She’s too sexy.

“I want to make you come,” she says, removing her mouth again. Although she keeps going with her hand, letting it move along the entire length of my cock. It hits the spot underneath, towards the head, the one her lips normally grasp. “And then I want you to fuck me. But I’m not lying down. These clothes are too expensive.”

I chuckle deeply. Ah, the responsibilities of adulthood. Now we have to think about our clothes. Or at least she does. If mine get dirty, whatever.

…But her knees are already dirty…

Sometimes weird thoughts come into a guy’s head during sex.

Maybe she doesn’t want to get her back dirty… Maybe the jacket is expensive. Who knows.

She puts her mouth back on my cock.

I’m close to the edge.

Very close.

There’s something so beautiful about watching her perfect face taking my cock… Something so dirty that it just makes my cock start to throb intensely.

A moment later, I come, letting loose right into her mouth.

She takes it greedily, squeezing even harder with her hand.

“Wow,” I growl.

My cock is still massively hard.

I seize her and pull her up towards me so she’s standing again.

She’s wearing a knee length professional style skirt. But it’s tight around her ass and her thighs, showing off her beautiful figure.

I hitch it up farther along her legs and push my hand between her legs, all the way to her panties, which are soaked and hot.

“Oh Noah,” she moans, as I start to massage her through her panties.

I push them aside, and touch her bare naked hot skin, using my hand in circular motions to pleasure her.

Meanwhile, I hold her tight against me, enjoying the feeling of her breasts against me.

I can’t take it anymore and I remove my hand and pull her close, her skirt hitched all the way up around her thighs, exposing her underwear that’s pushed aside for me.

She wraps her legs around me and I hold her tight, my hands gripping her sides.

My cock enters her smoothly, plunging deep inside her. She lets out a moan.

The pleasure is intense, a hot feeling on my cock that doesn’t abate. I plunge it into her again, and she rocks and rides me, gyrating her body against mine. I thrust my hips forcefully into her.

She cries out, the orgasm overtaking her.

“Fuck!” she cries out as it hits her. Her whole body is shivering, and I feel it on my cock, which explodes inside her.

I continue to hold her against me for a minute, before she gets down and straightens her skirt as best she can, running her hands along it down her gorgeous legs.

“Wow,” I say.

“Wow is right,” she says, giggling.

“You’re on birth control, right?” I say. I assume she is. She’s an adult woman, after all.

“Yup,” she says. “This time I…”

Huh?

“This time?” I say. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” she says, with the air of someone who’s hiding something. A strange look comes over her face.

Is she hiding something from me?

Does she mean that the last time we had sex she wasn’t on birth control? Or does she mean that she used birth control with me, but not with someone else who came before me? Maybe she’s referring to the father of James. I don’t know.

But I have a feeling that it’s something she wants to keep to herself for now. And I respect her wishes, so I don’t probe the subject.

“The last time I didn’t come inside you,” is all I say.

She doesn’t say anything, just smiles at me, a warm smile that fills my heart.

I want to tell her so many things right now. I want to tell her that I don’t want to leave. But it seems too soon.

I don’t know. It’s hard for me to commit. It’s hard for me to express my feelings.

That’s something that being a Seal did not help me with, not one bit. There are things you learn there, but they’re practical things, skills. It’s not like they want the Seals all opening up about their feelings during or after battle. That wouldn’t help any of them one bit. The Seals is about objectives: do this, don’t do that. Or: kill the other guy. Kill ‘em good, and don’t talk about it afterwards.

I know I should tell her now that I’m going to be leaving soon to head out to LA.

But I don’t have it in me.

Everything is going so well that I don’t want to ruin it.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight?” says Hana. “I’m sure James would love to see you again. He can’t stop talking about you.”

I nod. “That’s be great,” I say.

We kiss in the parking lot. I just so happened to park right next to her.

In the driver’s seat, I watch as she backs out carefully. Of course I let her back out first.

I’m going to meet her at her house after she picks up James from school.

I head back to the hotel to grab a couple things, since I have the feeling that I’m going to be spending the night at her house. And I don’t want to seem like too much of a slob on my first night over at her place.

I slide my keycard in the door and the mechanism makes a clicking sound.

But something is different…

They always trained me to notice when things are different, when things aren’t quite as they should be.

My hand on the door handle, I pause for a moment, listening and waiting.

Is someone in my room?

I put my hand to my hip, reaching for the gun that was always there with me in situations like this.

But it’s not there. I’m a civilian now and I don’t carry a gun anymore.

Whatever. I can deal with a problem without a gun.

I push the handle down and bash the door open with my shoulder, rushing into the room. Better to confront a problem head on than just wait around for it.

My heart is racing in my chest. My whole body is on edge. I’m in battle mode.

Whatever’s in this room, I’m going to confront it and defeat it.

I scan the room, my head turning rapidly.

There’s no one here. The lights are off.

But the bathroom door is closed. The lights are on, showing underneath and above the door.

“Who’s in there?” I call out.

My hand again moves instinctively towards my hip.

Nothing there.

Damnit.

There’s no answer.

My hand reaches for the bathroom door doorknob…

Hana

“How was school today, James?” I say, helping James into the car.

“Good,” he says. “I did what Noah said.”

“What’s that?” I say.

“I stood up for myself,” says James.

“Good,” I say. “Very good. And I didn’t even get a call about it. I was worried you were going to punch someone. I don’t want you fighting. You remember that, right?”

James nods.

“I think Noah’s going to come over for dinner tonight,” I say. “Would you like that?”

“Yeah!” says James enthusiastically.

“Great,” I say. “I’ve already got some pork chops in the fridge defrosted. Does that sound good to you?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s what James always tends to say when he doesn’t want to say ‘no.’ I don’t know where he picked up the habit.

“You want some macaroni and cheese instead?” I say.

I usually don’t let James chose his own food, but I want everything to go well tonight with Noah over.

“Yeah!” says James enthusiastically.

“Great,” I say. “I have some for you in the freezer. I’ll heat it up for you and Noah and I will have the pork chops.”

My mind wanders on the drive home. I start thinking about that close call with Tammy in the coffee shop. I can’t believe I managed to get Noah away from her in time.

I know that I’m not going to be so lucky a second time. Especially if Tammy is really determined to tell him the news.

I have to tell him. I really need to tell him as soon as possible. But when will that be?

Things are going so well. I don’t need to create a huge divide between us, not right now.

I’ve already done something horribly wrong by never telling him. It’s something I’m deeply ashamed of, and I’ve lived with the guilt of this for many years now. I don’t need to be further punished for my actions, not when I finally have Noah back in my life.

Noah’s car isn’t there when I pull up.

But he said he was going back to the hotel to grab some different clothes, and then he’d head over.

I get James out of the car and bring him into the living room, where he has a little area with some of his favorite toy trucks.

“Is Noah coming over soon?” he says.

“Yup,” I say. “I’m just going to call him to see when he’ll be over. You just play for a little while, OK?”

James nods his head.

Sometimes, I can’t get over how much he looks like Noah. I’m honestly surprised that Noah hasn’t said anything about it. But then again, sometimes guys aren’t so good at knowing exactly what they look like. There’re not like us women, who tend to overanalyze every aspect of our appearances. That’s what the media and the magazines train us to do, I suppose.

I pull my cell phone out from my purse and give Noah a call.

There’s no answer.

Hmm, that’s weird.

My heart starts beating fast. Could Tammy somehow have already told him the news? She has his phone number, after all. And while she wanted to tell him in person, maybe she got frustrated and decided to call and tell him the news over the phone.

Maybe he’s so mad at me right now that he’s not even going to pick up the phone for me. Maybe he’s completely disgusted with me and won’t ever talk to me again. Maybe he’s going to leave town and never speak to either James or me again.

But I can’t let that happen. James needs a father. And I need Noah. I need him bad, more than I ever realized before.

I call again.

This time, he picks up.

“You still coming over?” I say, holding my breath as I wait for the reply.

This is the moment of truth, when I’ll learn whether or not he knows the news before I have a chance to tell him.

I swear to myself silently right here and now that if he doesn’t yet know, I’m really, really going to tell him tonight, no matter what, no matter how awful it is to do so.

Noah doesn’t answer. I can hear his breathing on the other end of the line, though. It’s rapid and heavy, as if he’s been working out.

Is he full of rage over what Tammy could have told him? To the point that he can’t even speak? Is he just boiling over with rage towards me right now?

“Noah?” I say. “Are you there? Are you OK, Noah?”

“I’m here,” he says. His voice sounds far off and strange and distant.

“Are you all right?” I say. “You sound weird.”

“I’m fine,” says Noah. “I just…”

“What happened?” I say. Meanwhile I’m just wondering if he already knows.

“I just… I went through a lot in the military, you know? A lot of difficult situations. Sometimes I get… I don’t know how to explain it. I get freaked out by little stuff.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

This sure doesn’t sound like he knows about James yet, and I let out a sigh of relief.

“There was a cleaner from the hotel in my bathroom. I didn’t know why there was someone in there. I almost kicked the door down. I just relied on my military training, you know… It was lucky I realized who it was before I knocked the guy out.”

“Are you OK?” I say. “That’s awful, they shouldn’t sneak into your room like that.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” says Noah. “The door just accidentally closed behind him. He was pretty scared, but I didn’t do anything to him. Just startled him.”

“You sound a little startled yourself,” I say.

“I’m fine,” says Noah. “We still on for dinner?”

“I’m about to start the pork chops,” I say.

“That sounds delicious,” says Noah. “I’ll be over in a couple minutes.”

“James is really looking forward to seeing you.”

“He’s a great kid,” says Noah.

We say goodbye and I hang up.

I breathe out a real sigh of relief this time, realizing that I’ve been practically holding my breath in between speaking for the entire conversation.

I poke my head into the living room to check on James, who’s absorbed with his toy trucks.

That’s the thing about being an adult compared to being a kid—things like toy trucks no longer can absorb all your attention. I feel a little bit of jealousy for those times. I remember when I was a little kid and I would spend all afternoon playing with my dolls. I’d put on their dresses and do their hair up just the right way.

Somehow, dolls just don’t hold the same appeal as they once did.

I wonder why that is.

I take the pork chops out of the fridge and get the pan going with butter on the stove. I wait until the pan is good and hot before throwing the pork chops on it.

They’re a little tricky to cook, but over the last year or so I’ve gotten to be a much better cook. I used to be so bad that I’d burn everything.

The first time I tried to fry pork chops, they came out completely dry. But that was the first time I didn’t burn something.

My mom’s been over every week or so to help me with the cooking, and little by little I’ve learned from her. I’ve also spent some time at work looking up recipes and reading how-to guides on cooking for beginners.

Having James when I was in college didn’t give me a lot of free time to learn a lot of these things, like cooking. It seems like everyone else I know with kids has years of practice with household things before having kids. Me, though, I had to hit the ground running.

“Is the macaroni and cheese ready, yet, Mom?” says James, coming into the kitchen, holding onto his prize toy truck. It’s a red one, with a siren on top. It used to be a sort of ambulance, but James has really put it through its paces. He’s taken it outside in all sorts of weather, and it’s barely recognizable as an ambulance now.

“Not yet,” I say. “I’m still working on it. Anyway, you need to wait until Noah gets here. We’re all going to eat together.”

“But I’m hungry now.”

“It won’t be much longer,” I say.

The doorbell rings.

“That’s him now. Come with me and we’ll say hi to him.”

James follows me to the door.

Noah’s waiting there, smiling at us.

“I thought I should ring, rather than just come in,” he says, smirking at me. I’m sure he’s thinking about what we got up to earlier, and so am I.

“Come on in,” I say. “You don’t have to knock next time.”

Noah kisses me on the cheek.

“Gross,” says James, and Noah and I laugh.

“Oh, the pork chops!” I say, rushing back into the kitchen.

“How are you doing, James?” I hear Noah saying.

I flip the pork chops over, and the next thing I know Noah is behind me, right in the kitchen.

“I don’t want you to be worried about me,” says Noah.

“I was a little worried at first,” I say. “When you didn’t say anything when I called.”

Noah laughs a little.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s not a big deal. But it happens to me once in a while. It’s something… a lot of guys go through when they’ve been in the military, when they’ve been in tough situations.”

“What’s it like?” says James, coming into the kitchen.

“It’s… interesting,” says Noah.

“We can talk about that later, James,” I say. “Why don’t you help Noah set the table.”

James groans a little.

“Come on, James,” says Noah. “It’s not that bad. I’ll help you.”

I watch as the two of them set out the plates, the glasses, and the flatware.

They’re cute working together, and for a moment I feel a pang of regret. This could have been our family life all along, if things had gone differently.

It still could become our life. There’s still that possibility. All I have to do is tell Noah. I just have to get over my nerves and tell him.

But I fear it. Deep down, I know that he won’t accept my decision. He’ll be furious. I mean, after all, it’s a horrible thing I’ve done.

What kind of person does this to her own family? What kind of woman am I? What kind of mother am I, and what kind of wife would I make, if I keep secrets like this?

The regret I feel is physically painful. I feel it in my stomach and in my heart. It’s a yearning.

“Dinner’s ready,” I say, snapping myself out of my regretful thought spiral. I bring the frying pan over to the dinner table and serve the pork chops.

James’s macaroni and cheese is in the microwave, which beeps at me.

Green beans are still steaming on the stove, and I take them off hastily.

“I feel like I’m doing ten things at once,” I say, a little preoccupied and getting stressed. It’s not normal that we have guests over for dinner. Usually I’m just making dinner for James and myself. And occasionally my parents, but my mom always helps with that.

“Let me help with that,” says Noah.

He gets James’s macaroni and cheese out of the microwave and serves it into a bowl for him. Next, he pours him a tall glass of milk.

“This’ll make you big and strong,” says Noah, handing it to James. James looks at the milk with a new sense of excitement. I can see it in his eyes. Noah gives me a wink and I smile.

It would be nice to have Noah around… forever. He’d be able to help James with all sorts of things.

…And I could certainly use him around.

But it’s not just his potential utility that I’m interested in. There are deep feelings that are developing for him… I can feel them in my body, growing and growing like a budding tree that was planted long ago.

The dinner goes great.

Noah tells me how delicious the pork chops are, and he eats three helpings of green beans.

James follows his example and stuffs himself with green beans. Apparently he wants to grow big and strong like Noah, because he also asks for glass after glass of milk.

“You normally don’t like milk, James,” I say. “I’m glad to see you enjoying it more.”

Time seems to fly by.

We’re all joking and laughing.

After dinner, the three of us play a board game that I gave James for his birthday.

James ends up winning, mostly because Noah and I go easy on him. It’s something of a strategy game, and I didn’t realize when I bought it, but James is a little too young to fully understand exactly what he’s supposed to be doing on the board.

“Well, James,” I say, glancing at the clock. “I think it’s your bed time.”

“I don’t want to go to bed,” says James, protesting.

“I don’t know,” says Noah, casually. “You know, James, when I was in the military, we always went to bed early. That way we could get up early and be ready for the next day.”

“You hear that, James?”

James already looks up to Noah, and he agrees with much less reluctance than usual to get to bed.

“I’ll be back down soon,” I say to James, as I walk James to his room.

He has a room downstairs on the other side of the house from the kitchen.

I tuck him into bed, and kiss him goodnight on the forehead.

“Mom,” says James. “Is Noah going to move in?”

I laugh.

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re just friends,” I say. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But… maybe.”

I probably shouldn’t tell him that.

“I’d like that,” says James.

“I think I would, too, James.”

I want to tell James right here and now that James is his father. But I need to tell Noah first. That’s the proper way to do it, right?

I walk out of James’s room.

I take a deep breath before walking into the kitchen.

I’m going to tell him.

Right now.

Noah

Hana comes walking into the kitchen.

She looks more beautiful than ever. I don’t know why. It’s something about this family atmosphere. It makes me feel at home.

After years away, abroad, fighting for my life, this is quite the change of pace. It’s different from being in the hotel room by myself.

I could get used to this. I could get used to having somewhere to come home to, a family… It’s too bad things didn’t turn out differently. Hana and I could have had a family together.

But maybe we still can.

“Before you say anything,” I say, pulling Hana towards me. “I just want you to know this…”

I pause.

“What?”

I kiss her on the mouth.

I don’t know how to express everything that I’m feeling in words. The only way I can express it is by kissing her.

My cock goes rigid instantly in my pants and I pull her tighter against me. I feel her breasts on my chest. I feel my cock against her.

“Noah,” she whispers, breaking away from my kiss. “There’s something I need to tell you… Something important… Can we sit down?”

“That can wait,” I growl at her.

I’m too turned on for talking now.

And I know she is too.

I put a hand against her breast and I feel her erect nipple.

“Noah,” she says. “I really need to tell you…”

“Can’t it wait?” I say.

I look her in her eyes, and I’m certain that mine shine with desire for her.

“OK,” she says, smiling at me. “Let’s go up to my bedroom.”

She leads me by the hand up the stairs. I spend the whole time staring at her ass, drinking it in, its juicy, muscular curves. A woman like Hana is a work of art. A statue of her should be up in all museums.

But then again, I want to enjoy her beauty alone. It’s a selfish desire, but isn’t love somewhat selfish?

Do l love her…?

“No sound goes downstairs,” she whispers to me.

“Good,” I growl at her. “Because I’m going to make you scream.”

“I want your cock so bad,” she says, as I put a hand down her pants, under the elastic band of her underwear. I feel her warm wetness against my hand.

“I thought you had something you wanted to tell me,” I say, teasing her.

“It can wait,” she says, her breathing hot and heavy.

“Come here,” I say, falling back onto her bed. The sheets are pink and ladylike and the comforter is thick, resting at the foot of the bed, neatly folded up.

I haven’t seen her room before. It’s neat and tidy. There are pictures of her family and a couple reproductions of impressionist art pieces on the wall.

“I didn’t know you liked art,” I say.

“Is that all you can think about now?”

“Of course not,” I say.

I pull her onto the bed with me. She giggles as she tumbles on top of me.

She’s already working at the button of my jeans, and she unzips the fly, fishing for my cock.

Next thing I know, she’s pulling off her shirt as quickly as she can. I grab her bra and undo it rapidly.

We’re both undressing as quickly as we can, lying next to each other on the bed. She’s rolled off for a moment, to get everything off.

The clothes go flying across the room. We don’t care where they land. We just want each other, and our naked bodies to mingle together, to connect.

I feel a desire to get deep inside her pussy as fast as I possibly can. I don’t want her mouth on my cock now. I just need to be inside her.

Apparently, she feels the same way.

“I need you inside me,” she says, frantic with desire. “Quick. I need it. Now!”

She flips around so she’s on her back, and I get on top of her and between her legs, my cock piercing her wet pussy easily.

I start thrusting, deeply and rhythmically, steadily.

“Oh yes!” she cries out, already feeling the pleasure.

I kiss her neck as I fuck her, thrusting in and out, harder and harder, faster and faster, until the tempo has increased to a breakneck pace.

Her breasts are jiggling, turning me on. She gyrates her hips in time with my thrusts to accept me. We’ve become a machine, two people working in complete and perfect tandem. A pleasure machine. A fucking machine.

Right now, there’s no need for other positions. There’s no need for anything else.

It’s just us, fucking like crazy.

She comes quickly, moaning as she orgasms.

Hearing those sounds come out of her is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. I start coming a moment later, my cock throbbing intensely, shooting my huge load deep inside her.

She falls back, exhausted, panting. My cock is still deep inside her, frozen, and still rock hard.

“What did you want to…” I start saying. I’m going to ask her what she wanted to tell me, but the next thing I know I’m dreaming.

The dream comes on strong as I fall into a slumber like I’ve never had in a long time. It’s restful sleep and restful dreaming…

The dream starts off nice. I’m walking in a meadow. There are horses running around, wild and free.

Hana’s there beside me and we hold hands. She looks at me and smiles and I smile back at her. There are no words in this dream.

The sun is shining, and the grass is an intense green, brighter than in real life.

Up ahead, there’s a windmill moving lazily.

A stream gurgles by us, but the sound from it is muted.

Fish jump and swim through the stream. They look like trout. I suddenly remember it’s been a long time since I’ve gone fishing. I used to a long time ago, with my grandfather.

I turn to Hana to communicate this with her, but I can’t speak.

My heart starts beating quickly.

There’s a flash in the sky. Lightning pierces the peaceful day.

Suddenly, the clouds are thick and grey, so grey that they’re almost black.

I turn to look back at Hana. She must be scared, I think to myself.

But she’s not there. I look down at my hand, and there’s nothing holding it.

Frantically, I look around. She’s gone. I can’t find her.

Next thing I see, she’s in the creek. But the creek has swollen to a river that rushes dangerously fast.

Rain is falling heavily.

Finally, I hear her voice, cutting across the lightning and the rain.

The storm is picking up.

“Noah!” she cries out. “Help me!”

Her voice pierces my eardrums and my heart.

But before I can get to her, she’s gone, pulled down by the rushing river. Her head bobs in the water. It looks horrific. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.

But I need her.

I’m about to dash off after her, but there’s a huge crashing sound from somewhere behind me.

The roar of engines cuts through the storm’s noise.

I recognize that sound. Bombers. Coming in low.

The bombs begin to fall, exploding all around me.

Troops are rushing in from somewhere.

I reach for my gun, but it’s gone.

I’ve got a holster on my side, but it’s empty.

My hand feels horribly empty.

And I need to get to her.

But the troops are rushing at me from the direction that she disappeared to.

They point their guns at me, ready to fire.

I’m in their cross hairs, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Hana

“Noah!” I say. “Noah! Wake up! It’s just a dream.”

Noah is thrashing in his sleep violently.

He’s moving so quickly that I get out of bed, in case one of his limbs accidentally comes into contact with me.

“Noah!” I say.

Noah suddenly wakes up. But he doesn’t look fully awake.

His eyes are partially glazed over.

He reaches for something at his side, but there’s nothing there.

“Where is it?” he says. His voice is strange, as if he’s still asleep.

He must be sleep walking or something.

But it seems like he’s in the middle of a nightmare.

“Where is it!” he says again, almost shouting. His voice is full of panic and worry.

“Noah!” I shout, as he gets out of bed quickly.

I don’t know what to do. I rush over and I hug him as tightly as I can.

Suddenly, he seems to wake up.

His eyes are fully awake now.

But he still looks terrified.

“Hana!” he says, looking at me, his eyes filling with joy and light. “I thought I’d lost you. They were all around me… You were… I couldn’t get to you.”

“It was just a dream,” I say in a soothing voice. “It’s OK. It was just a dream.”

Noah sits down on the edge of the bed and I sit next to him.

We don’t say anything for a moment, but he seems to have calmed down a little.

“Sorry,” he says. “I… should have told you. I get nightmares… They’re… pretty intense… I always wake up reaching for my gun, thinking they’re out there, trying to get me… that everyone I know and love is gone… dead… taken from me…”

“Did that happen to you when you were in the Seals?” I say.

It’s the first time I’ve ever really asked him anything about his time in the Seals.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. His voice sounds distant. It seems like it’s bringing back painful memories. “Some of the things I had to do… Some of the things we went through… They were horrible. Terrible.”

I don’t know what to say.

“Have you been to talk to anyone about these nightmares?” I say.

He shakes his head. “That’s not… I don’t do that,” he says.

“You know,” I say. “A lot of people coming back have PTSD. It’s normal. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”

“I’m not ashamed of it,” says Noah. “Because there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t have PTSD. That’s for people who had it much worse than me. That’s when things really get bad. No, I don’t have that.”

He’s shaking his head vigorously.

“But how often do you wake up reaching for your gun?” I say.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “A couple times a week,” he says. “If it’s a good week. If not, more.”

“I’m no expert,” I say. “But that sounds like PTSD in some way.”

He shakes his head. “Nope,” he says. He sounds a little angry.

“Noah,” I say. “I didn’t mean anything by it…It’s just that… I’m really starting to care about you, and I don’t want you to have to go through this all alone.”

“I’ve got to go,” says Noah suddenly.

He gets up and starts getting dressed.

“Noah,” I say. “Come on, stay. We can talk about this.”

“I don’t have anything I need to talk about,” says Noah.

Before I realize what’s actually happening, since my head is still heavy with sleep, Noah’s out the bedroom door and walking downstairs.

I follow him after throwing on a bathrobe over my naked body, but he’s already got the front door open. The last thing I want to do is cause a scene and follow him half naked out into the front yard, where someone might see me if they’re up and awake. After all, the newspaper guys tend to come out for deliveries around this time of night.

I watch his back as he walks away. He turns once to look at me. There’s a strange expression on his face, one of pain and something else… is it longing, regret, or something else altogether?

I head back inside with a heavy heart. I can actually feel the pain there, where there was nothing but joy only a few hours earlier.

So does Noah have PTSD, or something else? I’m not sure. Like I said, I’m certainly no expert, and I’m not going to try to diagnose him on the fly, without even the remotest hint of credentials.

But what I do know is that he definitely has a problem… whatever it is. And he’s apparently not willing to deal with it.

Isn’t it a little strange or perhaps hypocritical that he’s promoting this book about his experiences, trying to promote a positive message, yet he’s having these flashbacks so many nights of the week?

I can understand it… After all, how can I say that he’s hypocritical when I don’t tell him that he’s James’s father?

The moment never came tonight… I was so close to telling him… But things got in the way. Passion overcame me and I couldn’t get the words out. Temptation is always so close at hand. I don’t know how to get over that.

I should rush after him now, and tell him. But I can’t leave James here alone.

I should call him, but this isn’t the type of thing you tell someone over the phone.

Plus, am I really sure that I want to tell him?

If I tell him, he’s going to be involved in James’s life, not to mention mine. But I was envisioning this fairy tale version of things, where Noah and I would raise James together as a couple, whatever that means…

But is Noah ready to be a father? He is ready to raise James, or to be involved in a relationship with me?

I imagine the nightmares and the flashbacks are just the tip of the iceberg with this. Who knows, maybe he has unexplored anger issues. Maybe he’s simply not capable of being in a relationship.

What I know right now is that unless he gets this PTSD thing sorted out, I can’t count on him to be the stable man that I need in my life. I mean, it’s not the nightmares that are the main problem. If he’s not even willing to admit that he has an issue here and take charge and be a man and get it worked out by going to a therapist, for a start… then how do I know that he’s going to be able to work on other issues in his life?

If he won’t confront his issues, then how can I count on him?

I spend the rest of the night drinking instant coffee and staring off into space, deep in thought about my future. About my family’s future. And right now, my family is me and James.

And my mom and dad, but they’re not close…

It’s me and James, and it has been for a long time.

We’re fine, just the two of us.

Before I bring a man into the family, I need to know for sure that he can handle it, that he’s not going to let us down.

James and I have gotten along fine together so far. I’m a good mother. I don’t need someone with all sorts of issues coming in and screwing everything up.

I’m surprised by the turn of my own thoughts, but something about seeing Noah in that state after the nightmare was like a wakeup call to me. I realize now that we’ve been in the honeymoon phase of getting to know each other.

That means that we only see the good things in each other… so far we’ve spent most of the time together having incredibly hot, passionate sex. There hasn’t been much time for the issues to crop up. But the issues always do.

Maybe I’ve been naïve about this whole thing. I’ve been convincing myself that I do need to tell Noah.

The sink in the kitchen is still full of dishes from the wonderful dinner that the three of us shared.

No one thought to clean them up, me included.

But Noah didn’t even offer. Should he have done that as a guest?

I know it seems like a small thing. After all, no one’s required to wash dishes at my house. But if he doesn’t offer to do things like that, what would it be like if I were actually living with him, and in a relationship with him?

I’m getting away ahead of myself. It’s my old anxiety creeping back up, imagining all these future possibilities. Worrying about things that haven’t even happened.

But maybe it’s good that I haven’t told him yet.

In the dark silence of the house, I hear my phone ringing in my purse.

I rush over to it so that it doesn’t wake up James.

After all, James is my priority.

Normally, I always turn off my phone before going to bed. But I guess Noah and I got carried away and I didn’t do the things I normally do.

Noah’s name appears on the caller ID.

Should I pick it up?

Noah

She doesn’t answer the phone. But she sends it to voicemail after the first ring, so I know she saw me calling.

I sigh and put the phone down in the center console of my rental car.

I fucked up. Hard. And I know it.

I should have told her about my issues with sleeping.

After all, that was the first night I spent there, and I should have mentioned at least something. Like: “Oh, yeah, by the way, I might wake up in the middle of the night reaching for my gun, thinking people are trying to kill me.”

The dream that I had tonight is still fresh in my mind. I won’t be getting any sleep tonight. It was different from all the other dreams, and the difference was that it was Hana I was trying to protect. Normally, I’m trying to protect myself in those dreams. Or I’m trying to protect others.

I don’t try to put much stock in those dreams. After all, they’re just my mind working out kinks from my past. It’s the brain rewriting itself through stories. The mind spins narratives, in attempts to make sense of things that can’t be made sense of.

I guess that now that I’ve been seeing Hana again, I feel like I need to protect her.

But maybe the only way I can protect her is to stay away from her. Far away from her.

Maybe she’s right… I need to confront this issue.

It’s not just the nightmares. It’s not just the dreams.

I don’t even know how to explain it to myself. But it’s like I lost a part of myself out there… on the missions.

Part of me never returned. Or it did return… I don’t know. Maybe I brought something back with me that I wasn’t expecting. I did go through a lot of shit. A lot of shit that most people never see in their lifetimes.

My mind turns back to Chris for a moment. That day in the hospital when I visited him… His legs were gone…

It still haunts me.

God knows why that motivated me to sign up myself.

And I watched my dad waste his life away with those pain pills. Looking back on it now, I don’t really know how much physical pain he was in. How much of it was mental? How much did he go through when he was in the service, mentally and emotionally?

I’ll never really know. He never talked about it. But it must have been a lot.

At the end, from what I can tell, judging by his sporadic letters to me, he had completely given up the will to live. As far as he was concerned, his role in raising me was done. I became an adult in his eyes the minute I was done with high school. That was it for him. He had his money coming in every month. He didn’t need to work. He didn’t have anything to do. Just watch TV. That’s no way to live, and he knew it.

It’s not like he did it himself, really. He just gradually lost that drive, that will… and he’d just sit in front of the TV.

Seeing Chris and my Dad, knowing how the wars had affected them—why did I want to join up myself? Was it the only thing I knew to do?

I don’t regret it for a minute. Not even a single second.

I did what I had to do.

But there was a price to pay.

And I can’t let Hana pay that price with me.

I’d been thinking I could settle down with her. I could help her raise James, who seems like a great kid.

But maybe I can’t. Maybe it would be a disaster.

Like I said, it’s not just the nightmares. Maybe it’s that I’m just not cut out for civilian life. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I’m parked on the side of the dark road. The moon is shining down, but somehow the street seems incredibly dark.

I’ve got the windows down and I can feel the air. It’s hot but it’s not the same lovely type of heat I’ve been feeling so far here. This is a thick, stale heat that seems to creep into my bones. It’s the heat of inertia, of nothingness.

I pick up my phone again and run my hands over the plastic. I flip the phone over in my hands, playing with it. But I don’t call her.

It’s too late, I tell myself.

She’s probably gone back to bed. I don’t want to wake her up.

But just as I’m thinking this, I get a call from her.

“Hello?” I say.

“Hi,” she says. Her voice is tired and… different.

“I’m sorry about that,” I say. “I should have told you about those… problems I’ve been having with sleeping. It probably scared you to wake up to that.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“It’s not that,” she says.

What does she mean by that?

“It wasn’t that bad,” she says. “But… I think maybe there are some things you need to address…”

“I’m fine,” I say, repeating the line that I’ve told myself a thousand times.

“Maybe,” she says. “I’m not trying to judge you… But maybe it would be a good idea if we took a little time… you know… a little break. Things have been moving so fast… And I’ve got James to think about, you know? And I know you’re going to be leaving soon…”

I don’t say anything for a moment.

I stare out the window of the car and feel like my world’s falling apart.

But I don’t say that.

Instead I say, “Yeah. Maybe that’s a good idea. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait,” she says. “It doesn’t…”

But I don’t wait for what she has to say.

I hang up the phone.

I instantly regret it. But it’s too late to call her back. It’s all too late.

I feel a sense of dread washing over me.

I shouldn’t have done that. I’m just being a dick for some reason.

Fuck it. It’s not too late to call her back. That’s just that idiotic voice inside of myself. What am I thinking?

I hit the button to call her back. But it goes to voicemail after one ring.

I try again, but the same thing happens.

Fine, I think to myself.

“Listen,” I say, speaking to the voicemail. “I shouldn’t have hung up on you like that… Maybe things are moving a little fast. But I feel things for you that… I haven’t felt for anyone else… I don’t want to lose that and I don’t want to lose you. Give me a call when you’re… you know, ready to talk about it all.”

I head back to my hotel room, driving down the hot, dark streets. The headlights illuminate the road in front of me with that eerie artificial glow.

There’s an older man working behind the desk at the hotel.

He nods at me as I walk in.

For some reason, I can tell that he was in the military at some point. Obviously he’s not wearing his uniform or any medals or anything, so I don’t know what branch of the armed forces he was in.

But there’s a certain way former military guys tend to walk and stand. Even the expression on their face is recognizable.

“Navy?” I say.

He shakes his head. “Marines.”

I nod. “You guys are tough as nails.”

“Navy Seals?” he says.

Maybe he’s seen my picture somewhere, or an advertisement for my book. Or maybe he’s seen me on TV. Maybe he can just tell by the way that I walk.

“Yeah,” I say. “Although I’m starting to wonder why I did it. It’s just causing me problems…”

“You know why you did it,” he says. He speaks slowly, his voice cracking a little as he speaks.

“I guess I do,” I say. “And I don’t regret a minute of it. I was trying to, you know, accomplish something. And that’s what I did. But…”

“You having trouble sleeping?” he says, giving me a piercing look.

“How did you know?”

“That’s what happened to me,” he says. “I saw things… you know how it is. You probably went through something similar. Although everyone’s experiences are similar. I wasn’t sleeping at all. It started affecting my life. I had a good job at a bank when I came back. I lost it, though, and now I’m working here.”

“Nothing wrong with a job at a hotel,” I say. “Good, honest, hard work.”

He chuckles. “No,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with it. But I lost my chance at a good pension. And I lost my family.”

“What happened?”

“I was stressed. But I didn’t realize it. I was yelling at my wife. I was hopping off to the bars.”

I nod. Meanwhile, I’m thinking that if I was with Hana, I wouldn’t ever do that. It’s not like I’m going to blow up at her over nothing like this guy. I’ve got better control of my anger.

“I never expected it to happen to me,” he says. “But it did.”

“So now you work here,” I say. I can’t think of anything else to say.

“Yup. And I started going to a group of vets. You know, most of the time we just shoot the shit and whatever. But it helped me… get more stable, you know?”

“Sounds like it worked for you,” I say.

“Maybe you should give it a try.”

“Thanks,” I say. “But I’m not that bad off. That’s for people like you who really went through some shit. What I saw wasn’t that bad.”

Images flash through my mind of one of my buddies getting shot in his shoulder.

I shake the image off.

It’s not that bad.

The old vet gives me a piercing look and shrugs.

“Well,” he says. “Then you’re one of the lucky ones, I guess.”

I nod and head up to my room.

I lie down in bed. After all, I’ve barely slept tonight.

I don’t bother stripping down. I just lie in bed in my clothes. My mind’s racing. I can’t stop thinking about Hana.

My phone rings.

Shit, I bet it’s her.

I reach for it on the bed side table.

“Hana?” I say, not bothering to look to see who’s calling.

“Hana? Is that your new nickname for me? Or are you already having luck with the ladies.”

It’s Dan’s voice. What is my agent doing calling me so early in the morning?

“Hi Dan,” I say.

“Sorry to call you so late, or so early, however you want to put it. I figured you might be up already doing exercise or something.”

I grunt an acknowledgment.

“Listen,” he says. “There’s been a change of plans. Remember the Bob Show?”

“Of course,” I say. “Next week, right? I’ve got it on the calendar on my phone.”

“Well there’s been a scheduling change. Basically, I need you on a plane to LA today.”

“Today? What happened to next week?”

“They told me they had a cancelation. You know how those shows are. I needed to change it.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell them I couldn’t do it?”

“That’d mean that you’d never get on the show. This is a huge show. I know you’re apparently not a TV guy, which is weird, by the way, since you’re getting into the media business…”

“I’m a writer,” I say. “What would I watch TV for?”

“Doesn’t matter right now. The plane leaves in two hours, and I need you on it.”

I sigh and don’t say anything for a minute.

“Look,” says Dan. “You’re not doing anything this week. If you go on this show, you’ll have enough money to work on your next book for a year. If you don’t, I can’t guarantee you’ll have enough money to work on your next book for a month.”

“I thought sales were good?”

“You know it’s an agent’s job to only tell you good news?”

I sigh.

“So they’re not that good?”

“Basically, yeah. But an appearance on the Bob Show will change all that.”

“All right,” I say. “I’m getting off the phone now.”

“Are you going?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Send me the details.”

“Already sent. Check your email. Ticket’s there and everything.”

I hang up without saying anything.

Shit.

I don’t want to leave now. I need to see Hana before I leave, at the very least. I need to settle things down. I need to make things right.

I’m exhausted, but I’m good at dealing with no sleep situations. Anyway, I got a couple hours. That’s not too bad. I did a lot worse sometimes on missions, going for days without any sleep, not to mention no food or water.

I pack up my stuff quickly and head out of the hotel, leaving the key card on the front desk.

I just nod at the guy working the desk, but don’t speak to him. I don’t need to hear what he has to say, and I don’t have anything to say to him.

“Good luck,” he calls out after me.

I ignore him, hit the car, and drive over to Hana’s house.

The clock in the car reads 6:00 AM. She should still be home.

I call her on my phone, but there’s still no answer.

Shit.

But getting out of the car and walking towards her house, I see that the light is on in her room.

I don’t want to ring the doorbell or knock, since I know it would probably wake up James.

I scoop a pebble off the ground and toss it lightly at her window. It’s not hard enough to do any actual damage to the glass.

No response.

I toss another pebble at her window.

This time, I see the curtains being pulled back.

Her beautiful face is in the window.

But there’s nothing but anger in it. Anger and frustration.

Where’s that coming from?

What did I do? I woke up from a bad dream reaching for my gun. That’s not the end of the world, right?

I expect her to open the window to say something to me. Or for her to come downstairs, now that she knows I’m here.

But she doesn’t come. She pushes the curtains back and disappears from view. And she doesn’t appear downstairs at the door.

“I’m leaving for LA in an hour,” I write into my phone and send the text message.

Shit.

No response.

Shit.

I know things can work out between us. But she just need to open up and let me have a chance…

Is she this closed off because she’s a single mom, trying to protect her son? Or is she just scared of what could happen, scared of the relationship that could develop between us?

Sighing, I get back in the rental car and start driving to the airport. I’ll drop the rental car off at the office at the airport, board the plane, and be on my way to LA. After that, I have other stops on my book tour. It might be a while before I’m back here again.

Hana

The days pass by, and there’s no word from Noah. I don’t contact him either. It’s better that we take a break.

If I tell him the big secret that I’ve been hiding for so long, that feels like a commitment to me… and I’m not ready for that.

It’s more like I don’t think Noah is ready. I don’t think he’s ready to take on the responsibilities of being a father.

I know he was on the Bob Show, but I didn’t watch it. I dropped James off at one of his summer camps that started this week and then I went to work. It was just like any other day. A couple people mentioned having seen Noah on TV, but I didn’t join in the conversation. No one at work knew that we’d been ‘seeing’ each other, or whatever you want to call it.

“So how was camp today?” I ask James, at dinner.

I’ve cooked us some spaghetti. It’s a simple recipe. Just store bought noodles, red sauce, and hamburger meat that I baked in the oven.

“OK,” says James, looking down into his food without touching it.

He’s going to a nature camp, one that he was really excited about.

“You don’t like it?” I say. “Remember how excited you were about going to it?”

“I don’t know,” says James. “It was OK. We made drawings.”

“Sounds interesting,” I say, twirling my spaghetti on my fork.

“Where’s Noah?” says James.

“Noah?” I say. “Why?”

“He was nice,” says James. “I liked him. Where is he?”

“He’s… he had to travel for business,” I say.

“He’s not going to come back and have dinner?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so, James. I’m sorry.”

He looks sad all through dinner, so to cheer up him I suggest we watch one of his favorite movies. Normally I don’t like him watching a ton of TV. That way it’s a little treat once in a while. The movie cheers him up a little.

Honestly, I had no idea he’d feel this attached to Noah. It’s a little strange. But maybe there’s some kind of father-son connection going on that I’m not aware of, one that they’re not even aware of.

The days turn into a week, and Noah calls once, but I don’t pick up. I don’t listen to the voicemail.

I don’t know why exactly I’m doing this. I have the insight to realize that it’s not just because of his potential PTSD problem. I mean, I know he has issues with it and needs help. He does have to admit that.

But…

Maybe the bigger problem is that I just can’t face what it is I’ve done, this secret I’ve kept for so long.

To confront that would be the biggest challenge of my life.

I put James to bed. He doesn’t ask about Noah again. But he does seem down.

I climb the stairs to the second floor where my bedroom is slowly. All the while I’m thinking about Noah.

I can’t get him out of my head.

But I know things would not work out between us. They just can’t. I don’t see how it would work. I’ve got this secret, and he’s got his issues…

But despite all these supposedly rational reasons I give myself, why I should just forget him—he stays in my head. I find myself crawling into bed with my laptop.

I open it up and pull up YouTube, where the latest Bob Show episodes are always available. They must have some kind of partnership now.

There he is in the thumbnail, looking handsome and muscular. The stylists haven’t been able to do much with his short hair apparently, because he looks exactly the same.

I’m impressed that he hasn’t changed his clothes much. He’s not even wearing a blazer. I haven’t seen a ton of the Bob Show, since I don’t have a lot of time to watch TV, but I have the impression that most guests dress up quite a bit for it.

Bob, the host, has always been known for his somewhat aloof and eccentric appearance and mannerisms. He tends to stare at guests, and sometimes it seems like he’s not listening. And then he’ll come in with a snappy question just in time.

Bob introduces Noah, explaining that he was a Navy Seal, and that he’s got this great new book out.

“So,” says Bob. “What’s the one thing you’ve learned in the military that you wouldn’t have learned in the Navy Seals?”

Bob now proceeds to stare somewhat blankly at the wall for a couple seconds, before forcing his attention back onto Noah.

“Well,” says Noah. “It’s a tough question to answer. But I think what I learned is… a sort of mental toughness. And that’s something the military can certainly help you with. But really what the military does is help you learn this kind of attitude yourself.”

“And so you want people to be able to apply this to their ordinary civilian lives?”

“Yeah,” says Dan. “That’s exactly right, Bob. I think the same principles can be applied… Everyone can benefit. And in my book I detail exactly how. We’re all living subpar existences.”

“Now what do you mean by that?” says Bob.

“We’re not living up to our potential,” says Noah. “No matter how successful you are, no matter how rich, there’s always an aspect of your life that you’re neglecting. It’s different for each person. And I can’t tell you what that is. But what I can do, in my book, is teach you how to analyze yourself and find that weakness.”

Bob says nothing for a moment. A vapid expression appears on his face.

After a lengthy twenty seconds, he seems to snap out of it.

It’s almost a wonder that this Bob ever got his own TV show. But at this point, his eccentricities are what make him who he is. They give him his own personal style. And sometimes people tune in just to see if he’ll do something odd, or better yet, say something odd.

“A lot of people now are coming back from the military,” says Bob. “And they’re having problems with flashbacks… painful memories. PTSD, people call it. Have you ever experienced anything like that?”

I watch with bated breath, waiting to see if Noah is going to admit that he does.

But of course he doesn’t.

“No,” says Noah, speaking with certainty. “I’ve never had it that bad. I mean, sure there are some tough times here and there. But I know guys who’ve had it really bad. No, I haven’t been through anything you could call PTSD.”

“Quite lucky,” says Bob.

Now I’m not completely sure that Noah has PTSD. Maybe he doesn’t. I don’t really know. But I know he’s got something going on. His time in the military affected him in some way that he’s not being about honest now. I can even see it in his expression on TV. I can see it in his stance. There’s a faraway look in his eyes, as he remembers something horrible, something that scared him in a way that he isn’t able to admit.

Disgusted, I close my laptop, putting it to sleep and shutting the video off.

I flop down on the bed, putting the laptop on the bed side table.

I don’t know what to think about Noah.

Am I making too much of a big deal about his problems? After all, says a little voice in my head, they were just some nightmares. I’m sure he thinks I’m making too big of a deal about it.

But he doesn’t know that everything’s riding on this. He doesn’t have any idea what’s at stake.

My phone rings.

That’s weird. It’s pretty late at night for someone to be calling.

It’s an unknown number.

Could it be Noah?

For a second, I’m almost excited to talk to him. Maybe he’s calling to discuss things. I’ll pick up this time, we’ll hash things out, and everything will be OK.

But it’s a fleeting thought.

It’ll never be all right.

I don’t know how it ever could.

But I’m going to answer anyway.

“Hello?” I say, picking up the phone.

“Is this Hana?”

It’s a female voice. Definitely not Noah’s.

“This is she,” I say. “May I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Tammy.” The second I hear her name, I recognize her voice. It’s a little shrill, and kind of whiny. Definitely unpleasant overall.

Noah

The Bob Show went about as well as my agent could have hoped. People are much more interested in the book now than before. They’re buying up the copies like hot cakes, and my agent said he got word that the publishing house is expecting to put out another print run. And this time they’re going to print even more books than they did for the first run.

“That’s incredible news,” he says to me, on the phone today. “But you didn’t seem excited about it when I first told you, and you don’t seem excited about it today either.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, it’s great.”

“Then what’s going on with you?” says Dan.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Ah,” says Dan. “Say no more. I know what’s up. Women problems, eh?”

The way he says it bothers me. That kind of phrasing has always bothered me, as if men simply have issues with all women. Even worse, it makes it sound as if all women are interchangeable. But I know that there’s no one in the world who can replace Hana.

No one.

“I’m going to hang up now,” I say.

“Don’t be like that,” says Dan. “Come, I’ve got you another gig.”

“Another talk show?” I say, completely unenthused.

Dan laughs. “Hold your horses. That’s coming. Don’t worry. I’ve got my eye on a couple. You did really well on the Bob Show. Ratings were way up. But that was lucky. Normally it takes time to arrange these things. Don’t worry.”

“So what is it?” I say.

“Another book signing, and a talk.”

“Where?”

“Right there in LA.”

I groan.

It’s not that I don’t like LA. It’s an interesting city. But I’ve already been here too long in my book. I don’t feel comfortable here. Everything is too fancy. Too nice. Everything is… strange. I don’t know quite how to describe it.

It’s as if everyone here is kind of fake in some way. Maybe that’s because so many of them are in show business.

I met Bob after the show, and he was a completely different guy. He wasn’t anything like he was on the show. He didn’t stare off into space and ask off beat questions, the way he does on the show. That’s all just an act. But it’s not as if he was being real, in the back after the show. On the contrary, it was just another face that he put on, just another personality that he wore for a brief period, the one he uses to chat with other people in the biz after the show.

“You don’t like LA?”

“It’s fine,” I say, not wanting to get into a whole conversation with Dan about it. He’s based in New York but he apparently loves LA. Sometimes during our conversations he just won’t shut up about it.

“Well, I rearranged your schedule. After LA, you’re hitting San Francisco and Oregon. There’s going to eat this up in Oregon. Trust me. And then on to Washington.”

“Great,” I say.

I’m finally able to say goodbye and hang up the phone.

I’m alone in yet another hotel room.

I’ve already been to the gym. I don’t feel like watching TV. Maybe it was because my dad was always watching TV, but I really don’t feel like wasting my time with it. But I feel like I’m wasting my time without Hana.

I haven’t heard from her.

I drop to the floor and do a set of 50 pushups. I sit up, breathing hard, resting only for a few seconds, before dropping down again and doing another 50. But I don’t stop there. I push myself, banging out another 30 without a break.

I get up and sit down on the edge of the bed. I’m breathing hard. Pushups can be as tough of an exercise as you want to make them. And I was going hard, doing them as fast as I possibly could. I’m exhausted and my muscles are screaming out. But I need a distraction from thinking about Hana, so I drop to the floor and do another 50.

Now I’m sweating and my muscles are burning. But it feels good. Muscles don’t lie. You can either do the pushup or you can’t. There’s nothing in between. There’s no middle ground. And I like that, because it feels as if my life has gotten strange. Everything seems to be somewhere in the middle.

I don’t know where I stand with Hana.

Well, I can hypothesize. She thinks I’m completely fucked up or something. She thinks I’ve got PTSD and wouldn’t be fit to be a dad.

But that makes me a little angry. I mean, I just had one bad dream.

I know I’ve thought about this before. My thoughts keep going around in circles.

I’ve been up since 4 in the morning, when I woke up covered in sweat again, reaching for the gun that’s never there.

In my dream, I watched Hana being carried away by a horde of dangerous looking masked men. There was nothing I could do to stop them. I ran after them, but they laughed in my face. In real life, in the military, it was never like that. But there were times when I felt powerless. When comrades and friends got injuries that would impact them for the rest of their lives, I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t undo what had happened. The best I could do was call for medical attention, apply a tourniquet, and shoot them up with pain killers.

I don’t like the idea of hanging around the hotel room all day. It’s still early in the afternoon, so I take a shower, get into some clean clothes, and head out.

My hotel is one of the tall buildings downtown. I find myself just wandering around, looking at the people here. There are some attractive women in LA, but I don’t even give them a second glance. They’re not Hana. They’re nothing like her. There’s just something different about Hana. And she’s real. The women here are all walking around like they think they’re movie stars or something, as if they’re hoping the paparazzi will pop out from around the next corner and make them famous by putting their picture in the magazines.

I wander around all day under the hot sun and the palm trees. LA isn’t for me. That’s what I realize.

I’m not sure this whole show business thing is for me, actually. Everything here is about appearances and how to get what you want out of life. It’s all about self-promotion. It’s all about making a quick buck and then selling out.

That’s not what I got into the book writing business for. I wasn’t expecting some mega blockbuster book. No, I was expecting a couple thousand readers who would slowly buy the book throughout the years. I wasn’t sure it would be enough to live on.

But when has that ever been a problem before? It’s not like I had much money in the military.

Sure, the royalty checks coming into my bank account are nice.

But what good are they if I don’t have her? If I don’t have Hana?

No good at all. That’s what they’ll do for me.

And I’m tired of hotels. I’m tired of not knowing where I am when I wake up. I’m tired of waking up in a new city all the time. I’m tired of this lifestyle. I haven’t had a home since I left my hometown and joined the Seals. They were always shipping us all over the world. I was in Afghanistan. Kuwait. Iraq. But there wasn’t ever a permanent base that I was stationed at. I mean, sure, maybe for a few weeks…

The old man’s words from the hotel flash through my mind. I was telling him that I definitely don’t have PTSD.

But…

I mean, Hana’s not an unreasonable person. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She really knows what she’s doing with things. And she seems to think I have some sort of problem.

So who am I to say that I don’t? After all, I am always waking up reaching for my gun. The gun that’s not there. I say it all the time to myself. This phrase works its way through my head like some refrain to a horrible song.

But maybe it doesn’t need to be that way.

I pull out my phone and check out VA centers in the nearby area.

It’s a sort of snap decision that I don’t even think about as I do it. My fingers move automatically on the phone.

I’ve always shied away from support groups. Stuff like that wasn’t encouraged in my house, to say the least. But honestly, looking back on it all, my dad probably could have benefited from something like that. If he had someone to go talk to, maybe he wouldn’t have sat in front of the television his entire life. Maybe he could have gotten out and actually done something. Instead, he let everything slip by… his whole life.

I don’t want to be like him.

There happens to be some kind of talk therapy group just around the block. It’s not exactly an official VA center. I’m not sure what it is. But maybe it would help.

Who would have thought that LA would have a ton of veterans.

My feet seem to move automatically.

Before I know it, I’m standing outside the building.

It’s a plain, squat building that looks out of place among the huge buildings around here.

There’s just a little sign on the front that says “Veterans,” which is vague.

What the hell.

Am I scared of a little talking?

That doesn’t sound like me. That doesn’t sound like the Seal who was awarded over and over again for exemplary bravery on the battlefield.

I push open the door.

I have the feeling that my world is about to change.

For the better?

Hana

I’m on my lunch break at work. James is at his nature camp. Hopefully he’s having a great time. He was pretty excited about getting to learn how to do all sorts of things outdoors. I think he really wants to learn to build fires and to whittle, but he’s too young for that. Maybe next year he can join the Cub Scouts and get a start on some of that stuff. But for now, he’ll be learning to identify wild animals. He’ll be learning about the footprints that the animals leave behind. I read the brochure and it looks great.

I look out the window and see Tammy getting out of her car, carrying some folders in her arms. She looks put together, but also a little disheveled, as if she just got off her shift at the hospital or something.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop. It’s same one that I interrupted Tammy and Noah in. It was her idea to meet up here. She said she needed to talk to me in person.

I don’t know what to think of all this. Is she going to tell me that she’s going to tell Noah unless I give her money? Is she going to try to hold this information for ransom or something?

After all, apparently she wants Noah, and she wants him bad. I’m worried that she’ll do whatever it takes to get him back, even if it means destroying me in the process.

But then again, I don’t want Noah, do I? I have no idea at this point. Everything seems pointless, now that he’s gone. I mean, James is everything to me. And I’ll do whatever I need to do to protect him and give him a good life. But the rest of my life has been feeling hollow since Noah left.

He’s out in LA, apparently. Or who knows where. I’ve watched his appearance on the Bob Show at least five more times since I watched it that first time. I don’t know what I’m looking for in it… some sign that he wants to get better, some sign that he wants to start a life with me and James.

But maybe that’s too much to ask. Maybe I’m reading into this all sorts of things that aren’t that.

I want Noah, badly, but he’s not in a position to start a family right now. Not with everything that he’s been through. He needs to at least take some steps to show that he’s headed in the right direction. Otherwise, I know I’ll never be able to count on him when I need him most.

Tammy enters the coffee shop and her head spins around until she sees me. She smiles when she sees me.

It’s a nice smile, actually.

Up until now, I’ve considered her something of a villain, a devil woman intent on breaking apart everything good that was going for me.

But now I don’t have Noah anyway. And it’s not her fault.

“Nice to see you, Hana,” says Tammy, giving me a half hug as I get up from the table.

“You too,” I say.

She’s all smiles, radiating a kind of warmth. Meanwhile, I feel down in the dumps, to say the least.

“Thanks for meeting me,” she says.

“Sure,” I say. “What is it that you wanted to tell me about?”

I figure she’s going to tell me that she knows I was trying to prevent Noah from finding out, and that she’s found a way to tell him anyway, merely securing his distance from me. Once he hears the news, he’ll be too far gone to salvage anything.

But do I even want to?

Maybe it’s good that he knows. Maybe Tammy did me a favor.

“So I haven’t told him,” says Tammy.

“What?” I say, my mouth falling open in surprise.

Tammy smiles and shakes her head. “I was doing a lot of thinking,” she says. “And I realized that Noah’s simply not into me at all. I could tell when we were in the coffee shop… I realized I was just hanging onto some little crush I had back in high school. I mean, I never really felt much of a connection with Noah anyway…”

“You know, I didn’t really go out with him in high school,” I say. “We just hooked up one night.”

“Yeah,” says Tammy. “But there was something there… Something real. All he could do when we met was talk about you.”

“Really?” I say, blushing a little. I guess I do feel something for Noah, after all. Just hearing that he was talking about me still makes me blush.

“I was so intent on telling him all about your son, but he just kept talking about you. I could barely get a word in.”

“So you don’t want to tell him now?”

Tammy shakes her head. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, like I said,” she says. “And I don’t want to be the villain. I want to help you, though, Hana.”

“Help me?”

“I want to see you and Noah together.”

“Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” says Tammy. “It would just be so cute for the three of you to be reunited… I never pictured myself as some kind of evil stepmother anyway…”

I laugh. “You wouldn’t be an evil stepmother.”

“Either way,” says Tammy. “There’s really no chance of that happening. Like I said, I’m not the competition. Noah simply isn’t interested in me in the least bit. And I have the feeling he’s not interested in anyone but you.”

There’s a silence for a moment.

“Do you want something to drink?” I say. I don’t know why I say it. I guess I can’t think of anything else to say.

Tammy shakes her head. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m fine. But I know you and Noah were seeing each other again, now that he’s back.”

“That’s not happening,” I say.

“Oh,” says Tammy, looking concerned.

I guess she really does care. How weird that the people you sometimes think are your worst enemies actually do care about you. Sometimes they don’t even realize it themselves.

“I just couldn’t deal with… Well, he’s got some issues.”

“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” says Tammy. “After all, you have a son together. And I think you have him for a reason…”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been getting more… spiritual recently,” says Tammy. “And I think that things happen for a reason.”

“I think it happened because I said I was on birth control and I wasn’t,” I say. “But I wouldn’t give up my son for anything. It was a mistake, but a good one. One that’s changed my life for the better.”

Tammy smiles at me. “We all think about things differently,” she says. “What I know is that you have a son together and there’s some strong connection between you. I have a feeling that you’ll end up together. But you need to tell him.”

“Every time I start,” I say, “things seem to be going so well that I don’t want to ruin it. I know he’s going to be furious with me when he finds out that I’ve been lying to him for so long, that I never told him…”

“How do you know he’s going to be upset? Maybe he’ll be happy that he has a son.”

“I’m sure he will,” I say. “But… then he’ll start thinking and realize that I’ve been hiding it from him for so long…”

“You say that when things are going well, you don’t want to tell him. Maybe this is the perfect time, when things are going badly.”

I don’t say anything. Actually, she has a point.

We chat for another half hour, about all sorts of things. It’s funny that we weren’t friends in high school, because she’s actually a nice person and the two of us have a lot to talk about.

It’s funny how things like that happen. We were in completely different cliques in high school. I don’t think we ever exchanged a single word, and here we are chatting like old friends.

People can change, and your relationships with them can change.

Everything in the universe seems to be screaming at me to give Noah a second chance. Or at the very least to tell him that James is his son.

Tammy makes a really good point.

Finally, Tammy admits that she’s just worked a very long shift and that she needs to get home to get some sleep.

And I need to be picking James up from camp in an hour. We say goodbye and hug in the parking lot, and now I’m left on my own, walking through the sunny streets, the same streets that I’ve walked all my life. But today they look different. The light seems to shine through the trees in a more magical way than before.

But I should be feeling depressed. I should be feeling this horrible weight tugging at my heart. After all, the man that I know I love (but haven’t ever admitted it) is gone. And he needs to do some serious work before he can join my family… and not only that, but I have a horrible secret that will surely tear us all apart.

But instead of feeling heavy, my heart feels as light as a feather.

I don’t have any idea why I feel like this.

Maybe it’s the sun, streaming down on me through the trees, shining right through me, illuminating every inch of my interior, right down to my bones that have been cold for so long.

A car beeps loudly near me.

It startles me, and I spin around to see who it is.

It’s just some generic car that doesn’t look familiar at all.

Maybe it’s just someone who’s honking at something else, at some other car. But there isn’t another car on the street. Well, maybe they honked by mistake, accidentally hitting the horn with their elbow or something.

I’m all alone on the sunny road. Before this car arrived, I could hear my own footsteps. Everyone has apparently gone down to the shore for the summer, leaving the town surprisingly empty. But it’s like this every year.

“Hana!” cries a voice. It’s from the car. The voice is unmistakable. It’s Noah.

Shit.

I’m happy to see him. My heart jumps, leaps, really.

But at the same time, I’m filled with dread.

Tammy’s right. I have to tell him.

I feel dread because I was thinking that I’d have a few days, if not a few weeks, before I heard from him again, before I had to tell him. I’d have weeks and weeks to convince myself that telling him really is the right thing to do.

Instead, here he is now.

And I promised myself.

I need to tell him, and I need to tell him now.

Maybe Tammy’s right. I don’t have anything to lose. I already know that he needs to do a lot of work before something works between us…

The car pulls over and Noah gets out.

He’s never looked more handsome, never looked hotter. He stands tall, the sun shining on him. He’s wearing a short sleeve button down shirt that’s open just enough that I can see his powerful chest.

His hair is perfect and his eyes shine as he looks at me.

He walks over to me and I stand still, paralyzed like a rabbit on somebody’s lawn.

“Hana,” he says, his voice soft but intense and masculine.

“Hi, Noah,” I say, my voice trembling out of me. “I didn’t think I’d see you so soon…”

“I decided to cut the book tour short,” he says. “It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I just want to be writing, not spending all my time promoting my books. And… I wanted to see you. Actually, I needed to see you.”

I don’t say anything. But he gazes into my eyes and my heart seems to skip a beat as he takes both my hands in his.

“Hana,” he says. “I realized that… Well, I don’t quite know how to say this. But I realize that you were right. I do have some problems that are based on my experiences in the armed services. It doesn’t mean I’m weak or anything. I’m not sure if it’s PTSD. But I’m going to see a therapist who’s great. I found someone I can work with here, so I can stay in town.”

“You’re staying here?” I say. My voice is weak with surprise.

My knees seem to buckle… at the idea that he’s going to be here with me, right in town.

“Yeah,” says Noah. “When I was in LA, I went to a vets’ group. It was like a talk therapy group, and a lot of the guys had similar experiences to what I’ve been going through… It turns out I don’t need to go through it alone. I can talk to people who’ve had experience with these issues…”

“That’s great, Noah,” I say.

“Hana,” he says. “I want you back. I’m willing to change for you. I’m willing to keep improving myself. I don’t know exactly what those changes are yet. But there’s one thing I know. There’s one thing I’m completely sure of. I’m completely certain I want you in my life…”

“Noah,” I say, my voice rising in joy and happiness. “That’s so wonderful to hear. I want you in my life too…”

But a little voice in my head is screaming at me. I have to tell him. And I have to tell him now.

There’s a pause where neither of us speak.

“Noah,” I say. “There’s something I need to tell you. I should have told you long ago. I hate that I’ve done this…”

“What is it?” says Noah.

“You’re James’s father,” I say.

Suddenly, it feels like a huge weight has lifted off me. I feel free and unburdened for the first time in a long, long time.

But then I remember that Noah… he might not take this well.

I watch his face intently.

He doesn’t move a single muscle on his face. He seems frozen somehow.

I’m waiting, waiting for him to say something.

But he says nothing. He just keeps looking at me, his face completely unreadable.

“I wanted to tell you for so long,” I say. “But things were going so well that I didn’t want to ruin it all by telling you this… I feel terrible about it all, Noah. You’ve got to believe me.”

I start babbling, telling Noah everything.

Meanwhile, he doesn’t move a muscle.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he speaks.

“So James is really my son?”

“Yes,” I say. “I wasn’t on birth control. I lied about it… I didn’t know you would, you know, finish inside me… I didn’t know what to do. You were gone, and I didn’t know… I was a young mother, confused and alone. I did the best I could. I did the best I could to raise our son…”

To my surprise, Noah cracks a smile.

“There’s something I’ve learned,” says Noah. “And that’s that not everything is in our control…”

“What do you mean by that? Aren’t you angry about all this?” I ask because he doesn’t look angry. I was expecting an explosion. I was half expecting him to yell at me and storm off, furious at me for ruining his chances of being a father through James’s early years.

Noah gives me a curious look. Finally he moves.

He doesn’t look mad.

“You know,” he says. “I should be mad, I suppose, but…”

His words hang in the air. And I practically hold my breath waiting for what he’s about to say next.

“But… he’s a great kid. It sort of makes sense, I guess…”

Noah chuckles lightly.

“Yeah,” he says, starting to smile. “That doesn’t sound too bad…”

“What doesn’t sound too bad?”

“Being a father…”

I smile at him.

“Aren’t you mad?”

“Maybe I will be… That’s kind of screwed up, not to tell me and all that.”

“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I just… I didn’t know what to do. I was so confused.”

Noah nods understandingly. “I’m really his father?”

“Yes,” I say. “Really.”

“Well,” says Noah. “That happens to work well with my plan…”

“What plan?”

Noah doesn’t say anything at first. Instead, he gets down on one knee, right here on the sidewalk.

The sun is shining down, and the trees are a perfect green, waving gently in the wind. No street has ever looked more peaceful, more exciting.

Noah fishes in his pocket for something.

He takes my hand, opens the box, and holds out a shimmering diamond ring.

“Noah!” I exclaim. “That’s gorgeous.”

“Hana,” says Noah. “I’ve been planning this… not for very long, but I’m sure in my heart that this is what I want to do. We’ve known each other for a long time, in some ways. And in other ways, we’re just getting to know each other. What I’m absolutely certain of is that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to continue to know you better, to learn more about you, all your beautiful little quirks that make you who you are. Hana, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

“Oh my God!” I say, a tear of joy, surprise, and shock running down my cheek.

I don’t say anything for a moment. I’m that shocked.

Now I remember to speak.

“Yes!” I say. “Yes, of course!”

Noah slides the ring on my finger slowly, gazing up into my eyes.

I’m crying fully now, the tears streaming down my cheek.

Noah stands up, takes me by the hips, and pulls me close to him. Our mouths connect, open, a hot and passionate kiss nearly knocking the wind right out of me.

“You’re going to make me very happy,” says Noah. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Noah,” I say.

Epilogue

Hana

The weeks leading up to the wedding seem to come and go with the speed of a hurricane. Before we knew what had hit us, the wedding was upon us. It was intense, and I was more nervous than I’ve been about anything in my entire life. But it was that good type of nervous, where you know everything is going to go all right.

The wedding went off without a hitch. It was the best feeling of my entire life, standing up on that altar, gazing into Noah’s beautiful eyes.

We went on our honeymoon to Hawaii, intent on soaking up the rays on the beach, sipping cocktails by the ocean. In reality, we spent almost the entire trip in the gorgeous hotel room, making love on the bed. We joked that we were trying for our second secret baby. Although, of course, this one wouldn’t be a secret from anyone.

I still can’t get over how much anxiety I held over the James and Noah situation, and for so long. I was so used to holding this secret so close to my chest that I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me. Now, I go about my day with a clean conscience and my body actually feels lighter for it. I used to have this heavy kind of feeling. It was as if I was holding my breath for five years. Not literally, of course. Now I breathe freely.

Noah’s new book is doing even better than expected. It turns out that he doesn’t need a lot of television promotion to get his book into the hands of millions of people. He became something of an overnight sensation when a magazine ran an article about how he didn’t want to self-promote anymore. It turned out that people got more interested in him because he was turning down opportunities to go on TV shows to promote his work. The more he turned down, the more the interview offers came. And he turned them all down, so that he could spend time at home with me and James.

We’ve moved into a beautiful new house in the same town where we both grew up. The yard is large and full of big tress that give plenty of shade to the house in the summer.

“You boys ready for dinner yet?” I say, sticking my head out of the screen porch door.

“Just another ten minutes, Mom!” yells James.

He’s got a huge grin on his face.

Noah look at me and waves. The baseball mitt is on his hand.

He and James have been practicing a lot out in the yard. James wants to play baseball next year, and Noah is showing him the ropes. Although I think secretly Noah is hoping that James will follow in his footsteps and eventually play football.

It’s amazing how cute they look together. Just like father and son. They’re so much alike. I can see it now in the way they move, and especially in their faces, although everyone else says that James takes more after me.

I’ve got dinner ready by the time Noah and James come barging in from outside.

“Mitts outside,” I say. “And take your shoes off, both of you.”

They grumble politely, and I laugh.

“When will you boys learn that you make a mess every time.”

“We always help you clean it up, Mom,” says James.

“Yeah, Hana,” says Noah, slipping an arm around my shoulder. “Don’t we?”

“That’s true,” I say.

They’ve been great about getting the housework done. And when Noah does something, James wants to do the same thing. So even though he’s young, he’s always following Noah around doing chores, or at least trying to do them. It’s impossibly cute.

“I hope you boys are hungry,” I say. “Because I’ve made a ton of hamburgers. And French fries. Real ones.”

“French fries!” says James, almost shouting in excitement.

“That’s right,” I say. “But you have to eat your hamburger first, OK?”

“Sure, Mom,” says James, sitting down at the table all excited, ready to eat.

Noah helps me serve everything. The French fries are great. It’s the first time I’ve used the deep fryer that we just bought a couple weeks ago. They actually came out great, better than the ones they serve in restaurants.

After dinner, the three of us play a card game. Noah lets James win, and James couldn’t be happier.

“All right, buddy,” says Noah. “I think it’s time for bed.”

“Aw, come on. I want to play more.”

“You heard your dad, James,” I say.

“I’ll get the dishes,” says Noah. “Goodnight, James.”

“Goodnight, Dad,” says Noah.

“Come on, James,” I say, leading him up the stairs.

I get him into bed, making sure that he brushes his teeth.

“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” says James, as I pull the sheets and blanket up over him.

“But you look so sleepy, James,” I say. “Don’t you think you can go to bed? You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“Yeah,” says James, so sleepy that he barely pronounces the words. “Mom…”

“Yes, James?”

“I’m really happy you and Dad are together.”

“Me, too, James,” I say.

I smile to myself as I watch James fall softly asleep, ready to dream the night away with pleasant visions of baseball games and adventures on his bicycle.

I head back downstairs and find Noah just finishing up with the dishes.

He moves towards me and embraces me. I’ll never tire of the feeling of his solid body against mine, of him holding me tightly.

“James get to bed OK?” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “That gives us a little free time, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m glad this house is entirely soundproof,” growls Noah, before kissing me deeply.

“Me too,” I say.

I still feel weak, like putty in his strong arms.

His hand cups my breast from below, and I moan as he kisses me on the nape of my neck, the soft and gentle portion of skin that’s so sensitive to touch.

“I’m going to take you on the couch,” growls Noah.

I rush over to the couch as Noah closes the door to the living room, locking the latch as he does so.

“It’s been too long,” growls Noah.

“It’s been less than a day,” I say. “Remember this morning?”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” growls Noah, flashing me a grin, before kissing me passionately again.

I’ll never get tired of this, I think to myself.

Sometimes we go slow, creating long and passionate sessions.

But tonight it’s fast. We both want each other’s bodies too much. Simply too much.

Our clothes are coming off rapidly. I’m losing track of who’s taking off what.

The next thing I know, I’m shirtless, my shirt halfway across the room. Noah removes my bra with a simple motion, a single flick of his fingers.

My breasts come out, and Noah sucks on my erect nipples, cupping my breasts with his strong, powerful hands.

I’m at his crotch now, his pants off completely. His cock is thick and hard, a massive mighty shaft that I take between my lips. I tighten my mouth around it and let myself enjoy the girth and the might of his cock.

Noah groans as he starts thrusting into my mouth.

“I need you,” he growls at me.

He picks me up and places me on the couch, taking my naked, shining legs and holding them high in the air, hoisting them over his shoulders as he dives in, licking my pussy in a long, broad stroke. His finger enters me and he sucks on my clit, the pleasure overtaking me.

I’ve never felt closer to anyone. This is the most powerful sensation I’ve ever felt, and it’s not the orgasm rushing through me as I cry out. No, it’ something more than that, something deeper and even more powerful. And that’s love. True love.

Noah’s cock enters me, and I cry out.

“I love you,” growls Noah, as he pumps his cock in and out of me.

“I love you, too, Noah,” I say.

A second later, I cry out as the orgasm floods me.

Noah comes too, his cock pumping and pulsating inside of me. He keeps his cock buried inside me until every last drop has entered me.

“Here’s hoping for that second baby,” says Noah, chuckling.

“I have a good feeling about it,” I say, before Noah kisses me.

Turn the page to read Billionaire Boss’s Baby

Billionaire Boss’s Baby

A Secret Baby Romance

John

“There’s another woman here to see you, Mr. Clark,” says my secretary Carla, a busty woman with her thick long hair up in a tight bun. She wears a skirt that goes below her knees, but is tight enough to showcase her ample ass.

“Send her in,” I say.

“Very well, sir,” says Carla, turning around. She’s about to close my office door behind her.

“Oh, Carla,” I say, with a casual wave of my hand. “What’s this one here for?”

“A job, I believe, sir,” says Carla, finally leaving the room.

Another new hire? I’ve honestly started to lose track of all the new hires. Ever since I got Johnson to start sending me potential recruits, it’s felt like I’ve been enveloped inside a whirlwind of business.

“Knock, knock?” says a woman, standing in the door. She’s already opened the door, and she’s just making a knocking motion with her hand.

“Come on in,” I say, waving her in.

I put my feet up on the desk and lean back in my chair. I notice that when she comes in, she takes a careful and wide-eyed look around the office.

“Thanks for meeting with me, Mr. Clark,” she says.

“Have a seat,” I say, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk. “And remind me of your name again.”

She arranges her skirt carefully as she sits down, crossing her shapely legs in front of her. I catch a glimpse of her busty breasts, and I feel a twang of something deep inside me. She’s dressed conservatively in formal business attire that’s appropriate for an office, but she can’t conceal what’s obviously an incredibly sexy body, with curves in all the right places.

“My name’s Sarah Duphry,” she says. Her voice is soft and sweet, and honestly it gives me a hard on when she talks. I know that from where she’s sitting, though, she can’t see my crotch, which is good, since I’m not exactly small, if you know what I mean, and the fabric on these suit pants is very thin and does little to hide a growing bulge.

“Nice to meet you, Sarah,” I say. “What can I do for you today? There are honestly so many people coming in for jobs that I can’t keep track of who is who. One of my guys sets up the interviews for me.”

“Oh,” says Sarah, looking a little flustered. “Well, first, Mr. Clark, I want to say that I think it’s a really interesting way you run your company.”

“What do you mean?” I say, putting my hands behind my head, interlocking my fingers, and taking an even harder look at this beautiful creature sitting in front of me.

“Well, it’s admirable how you interview all your potential employees, regardless of the position.”

I nod. “I see,” I say. “And what position are you applying for, Sarah?”

“Oh,” she says, somewhat shyly, looking down at the ground. “Just a cleaning position.”

I’m shocked. She’s dressed so professionally. She looks better than my current secretary. I figure she’d have been to all the finest schools, judging by her way of speaking, her manners…just everything.

“Oh,” I say. “I see.”

I want to say a lot more, but I really can’t, since there are lawsuits around every corner, after all. Even when you’ve got your own business and you’re literally a billionaire, you still have to watch out for what you say, since it could cost you a lot of money.

“It’s a long story,” says Sarah, probably sensing part of my reaction. Maybe she realizes she doesn’t belong in a cleaning role really.

I think for a moment before speaking. “There’s nothing wrong with being a cleaner,” I say. “Everyone’s got to start somewhere, after all. I mean, hell, I started out literally delivering newspapers door to door, and look where I am now.”

Sara nods. Wow, does she look gorgeous. “I’ve read some interviews with you,” she says. “You have a very unusual way of running a business.”

I nod. “Some people call me eccentric. But, hell, I’m just what I am. Anyway, you’re hired. You can arrange everything with my secretary. I like the cut of your jib, so to speak. You’ve got the job.”

“Oh, Mr. Clark,” she says, rising from her seat and beaming. “Thank you so much! This really made my day. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

She’s leaning in with her big breasts to hug me across the table. My cock’s aching and hard, so I don’t think that’d be a good idea. Plus, you’ve got to watch out for lawsuits.

“Sorry,” I say. “No hugs at work. You know how those lawyers are.”

She frowns slightly, but then smiles quickly again. “I understand,” she says.

I watch her plump and sexy ass as she leaves through the door.

Wow, I think to myself. That’s a shame she’s going to be cleaning. I doubt I’ll even get to see much of her. And now that she works for me, the chances of hooking up with her…well, let’s just say it’s a hell of a lot more dangerous.

Well, she may be the hottest woman I’ve ever seen, but it’s not like I’m working with any shortage of women. In fact, I had two dates last night. Yup, two. That’s how I roll. I don’t mess around, and I always go big.

I look around at my luxurious office for a couple moments. My erection, meanwhile is fading.

I suddenly realize that the office is wearing me down. I really don’t want to be here right now. And, hey, I’m the boss so I can do whatever I want.

“I’m taking off for the day,” I say, to Carla, as I walk briskly past her.

“But, Mr. Clark, there’s still… I need to tell you…”

“I’ll worry about it tomorrow,” I say, cutting her off.

I’m already inside the elevator. Carla’s rushing up to get into the elevator with me, since evidently she has something very important she wants to tell me, but the elevator door closes before she can step inside. I chuckle to myself as the elevator heads down to the parking garage below the lobby.

You don’t get to be a billionaire while thinking and acting conventionally, I think to myself. No, you can’t act like everyone else unless you want the results that everyone else has. And I certainly didn’t want what everyone else had. I wanted more, and I got more.

I pull out my phone, which is a special advanced prototype. My friend is a CEO at Gellson phones, and he got me one of the new not-yet-released models for me to try out. The dating APP opens itself automatically, since the phone knows what I am normally looking at this time of the day. It’s just pictures of beautiful women, most of them models. All I have to do is swipe left or swipe right. The women obviously already swiped right for me. They all like me and want me.

I take only a second to look at me. Sure, they’re all incredibly hot and gorgeous. But they’re just not doing it for me right now. Somehow I’m getting bored of my lifestyle—it’s just too much and too often. It’s the same thing over and over again. There’s never anything new. The women just want my money. They want me to take them to fancy dinners and buy them fancy cars and nothing more. They don’t want to know me for who I am.

The elevator beeps at me. I’ve reached the garage floor, and the doors slide open. My gleaming sports car awaits me as I step off, but I’m in the mood for something more dangerous today. Today, I’m taking the motorcycle. Or, should say, one of the motorcycles.

It’s waiting here for me, in a line with the others. It’s a 1200 CC sports bike that could practically break the land speed record, provided it was a little more souped up. This thing has been fully customized, and it was wickedly expensive to begin with.

Without bothering with a helmet, or with motorcycle gear, I slide my leg over the motorcycle, as if I’m a cowboy mounting a horse in the old days. The key’s in he ignition, and soon the motorcycles is roaring to life. Smoke is billowing around me, and the roar of the engine echoes across the halls of the parking garage.

In a moment, I’m speeding through the entrance, where I give the parking attendant a mock salute. Now, I’m out on the open New York City streets, dodging through traffic. The wind is in my hair, and it feels wonderful.

Where should I go? That’s always the question. Usually I’m off to meet a date from online. I always know that she just wants money, but that’s ok, since I also know I can get laid. Hey, I’ve got needs, right?

Or if there’s nothing lined up online, maybe I’ll normally head to a bar or a club. Or a fancy place for lunch. But, recently, ever since I started yet another company, these places are horribly boring and completely filled with sycophants, people who just want to get close to me for my money and nothing else. Men and women of all types sidling up to me. That’s what happens when you’re famous and in all the papers and magazines just for being rich. There’s no way to avoid it.

So, to hell with all that. Today, I’m going somewhere new.

I swerve in and out of cars, reaching 100 MPH at one point. I keep going and going, driving all the way through the city. As the time passes, the sun has shifted in the sky. I know there’s no way to get what I want in this city.

I need to get out.

Half out of boredom, and half out of a need to explore something new, I find myself having driven all the way out of the city, cruising along country roads, with the tall New York state trees shielding me from the harsh sun.

I’m somewhere in the Hamptons now. My mind was wandering and racing so much on the drive out here I barely even noticed that I’d arrived.

I pull the bike up to a small corner store that sells the basics, just the regular supplies. It doesn’t look like there’s much to this town. From the main street, it looks like just any other sleepy small American town, with not much going on, but I know that the private residences here are simply loaded with wealth. This is where the richest of the rich of New York City and all over the world come to party and relax on the weekends. The only reason I don’t own a house here is simply out of my growing distaste for hanging around other rich people—they all just talk about money and money and more money, and I want something more, something different out of life, I guess.

People probably think that the reason I don’t have a house out here in the Hamptons is because I’m not an outdoors guy. They’ve only seen me in the magazines in the city, so they figure I’m just another city guy. But, in reality, I spent half my childhood and early adult years out in the wilderness on furious trips and camping excursions. I know not only how to hunt, but how to clean a fish, how to field dress a deer, and how to start a fire with practically nothing except what I can find in the woods.

“Howdy,” says the man behind the counter, as I walk into the simple general store.

“Anything going on here tonight?” I say.

The man gives me a curious smile and shrugs his shoulders. “Depends what you’re looking for, I suppose,” he says.

“I’m John Clark,” I say, knowing that my name is usually enough of a password whenever it’s needed.

“Ha,” says the man. “You think I didn’t recognize you?”

I shrug my shoulders. “It’s hard to keep track of my name in the papers these days. I don’t know how often it’s appearing.”

“Must be a nice problem,” says the old man. “Hey, maybe I should introduce you to someone here.”

He calls over a tall man who’s well dressed. He’s over at the canned foods aisle, and he comes over and shakes my hand. It turns out he’s another CEO type, but he’s slightly more interesting. He’s not from NYC, and instead is from California. He only comes out to the Hamptons once in a while to organize massive parties.

“Why don’t you come out tonight?” he says. “If you don’t have anything else to do.”

“I would,” I say. “I am looking for something to do. But, to tell you the truth, I’m trying to get away from the CEO NYC scene.”

“You’re in luck then,” says the tall man. “This is going to have just as many regular folk as CEOs. To me, the Hamptons is my escape from the suffocating tech scene out west where I am in California”

So I agree and I take his card and the address. I spend another couple hours wandering around the small town. I park my motorcycle, and I go hiking up into the hills for a while. Occasionally, I pull out my pocketknife and cut down a stick to whittle.

When the time comes, I make my way to the party.

To my surprise, the location of the party is an enormous mansion on the lake. The host claimed that the party was for normal people, but when I get there, there are valets, caterers, and all sorts of staff. It clearly just isn’t any relaxing lake party. This is looking just like another one of the CEO parties that I’m trying to avoid, except that it’s in the Hamptons instead of Manhattan. I’ve had enough of this shit. And the valet gives me a completely bewildered look when he sees my motorcycle.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “You don’t need to park it. I’m not going to stay anyway.”

He gives me an even more confused look, but shrugs his shoulders and nods. I guess he figures if he doesn’t have to deal with me, then his job is easier. What does he care if I leave the party before even setting foot in the mansion?

I roar the engine and start circling back around the driveway. I’ve only gone about 100 feet down the driveway, when an old rambling beat up car passes me. There are two people in the old car and the one in the passenger seat is only about two feet away from me on my motorcycle. She turns and looks at me. They’re on their way into the party. I pass them going slowly.

The woman is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Despite the horribly old car she’s driving, she looks incredibly beautiful in an elegant gown. Her hair is up in a fancy style, and she’s wearing just enough makeup to make her look insanely hot.

My head won’t turn back around to look forward as I drive past them. I just keep staring at her, and she keep staring at me. We don’t exchange a word.

Weird. She looks somewhat familiar. I’m normally good with faces, but maybe I met her in a wildly different context, where she wasn’t dressed up as nicely as she is tonight.

I make a snap decision. CEO fancy parties be damned. I’m going to return to this one. I need to talk to this woman if it’s the last thing I do. I haven’t yet reached the end of the circular portion of the driveway, so I just circle back around once more.

The valet gives me the most perplexed look I’ve ever seen on anyone. He actually opens his mouth and says, “What the hell, man?” which is so unprofessional I actually laugh at him, rather than getting annoyed.

Another valet has already taken away the horribly old car of the two women, and I catch a glimpse of the beautiful one’s ass as she slinks into the house. The door closes behind her before I can even get off my motorcycle, but the image of her delicious ass is still stuck in my head.

“You can’t park this, can you?” I say to the valet.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a helmet?” he says.

“I don’t wear helmets when I don’t feel like it,” I say. “Now answer the question.” If this guy were one of my employees, I’d fire him in an instant. But that’s a discussion for another time.

“I can’t,” he says. “You can go put it in the garage by yourself,” I guess.

“Very professional of you,” I say sarcastically, and once again I turn on the motorcycle and slowly ride towards the garage where I park it.

Between the cobwebs, I park the motorcycle. All the while, the only thing I can think about is this gorgeous woman in the slinky evening gown. As I walk across the lawn, towards the mansion, I’m positive that I’ve met her somewhere before. But, where? I know that I know her, but I also know it’s from some context that I wouldn’t necessarily expect. I feel like I’ve met her recently, and that I’ve met her a long time ago—all at the same time. It’s that feeling that you get when you have met someone but you feel like you’ve already known them for a long time.

“Can I take your coat, sir?” says the attendant inside the house.

The mansion is even more luxurious inside than outside.

I scan the party. I’m not sure exactly how I’ve ended up here for a moment. Wasn’t I trying to get away from all this bullshit? And here I am again.

Then I remember: I’m here for that woman that I saw. The most gorgeous and mysterious woman I’ve ever seen in my life…the one who seemed so familiar, as if I had just met her in some other context.

I scan the room…and…there she is.

I catch just a glimpse of her chest as she walks into the other room. She’s already out of reach again. Is she headed into the kitchen?

I push my way through the crowd, not even bothering to apologize when I knock into people. I knock over their champagne glasses and I step on men’s dress shoes by mistake. But by the time I get to the other side of the room, to the door that I saw this gorgeous creature disappear through, she’s already gone.

The next room is just like this one, but with fewer people in it. An oriental carpet and an ornate chandelier decorate the room, which is otherwise fairly bare, except for a couple horrendous portraits of disgusting monarch types.

She’s gone, no where to be scene.

Sarah

“Come on,” says Janet, pulling me by the hand outdoors. We’re at the craziest house I’ve ever been to. It’s not only luxurious and obviously owned by someone with a ton of money, but it’s inhabited by the richest of the richest and the most famous of the famous. It seems like every step I take, Janet has to drag me away from staring at some famous celebrity or someone I’ve seen in the gossip columns of the newspapers. “Come on,” says Janet again, really pulling on my hand this time.

“But, I just saw…” I say, realizing I don’t actually know his name, but I do know that I’ve seen all his movies. I guess I’m just used to these Hamptons parties.

“You’re going to embarrass me,” says Janet. “Plus, we didn’t come here to ogle celebrities. We came to celebrate your new job.”

“You mean my job, not my new job,” I say. “After being unemployed for over a year, I don’t really have an “old” job that this can be a “new” job in relation to.”

“You’re so weird,” says Janet, taking some champagne from a passing waiter who’s wearing a suit. She hands two glasses to me, and keeps two for herself. “We’re supposed to get drunk,” she says, somewhat seriously, with a very serious expression on her face. “You haven’t had fun in so long that you don’t remember how you have to do it. But that’s why you have me here, and I’m here to tell you that the thing to do is to get drunk, and then the fun happens.”

“How can you have fun when you’re so serious all the time?” I say, laughing at Janet.

“Just wait and see,” says Janet, giving me another serious glare. She downs one champagne glass, and then the other. Then she takes two more from another passing waiter.

I take a meager sip of my own glass. I’ve never really been one to get drunk or wasted. I’ll have a glass of wine once in a while, but heavy drinking isn’t really my thing.

“Come on,” says Janet, downing another glass, a glassy expression appearing on her face. “Bottoms up!”

I take a small sip just to appease her.

“Let’s check out the garden,” I say, and it’s my turn to pull Janet away from the champagne waiter.

“I’m staying here,” says Janet, obstinately.

I’m getting annoyed with her, because the next time I turn to talk to her, she’s chatting up some movie star, and ogling him quite clearly. She’s flashing her breasts at him and sticking out her chest.

“So much for not ogling the famous,” I mutter under my breath.

Janet pretends to not even see me so I just walk into the garden by myself.

The night is gorgeous and slightly cool. I shiver a little in my jacket.

I think about the last year, and about today.

I can’t believe I finally have a job after all this time. This means that I can finally move out of my Mom’s apartment, which is becoming more than cramped. This means I can get my own place. This means that, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be ready for another relationship in a couple months, once I’m established and on my own, with my own apartment.

I’ve heard a lot of different rumors about my new boss, John Clark, and his strange way of running a business. For one thing, it was like no other interview I’ve ever had.

I mean, hell, I’m waxing all poetic about my new job, but it’s really nothing more than the simplest job you could have. It’s a cleaning job. I’ve going to be doing the least glamorous work in the world. I’m going to be scrubbing toilets and doing whatever the hell they tell me to do.

It’s not like I don’t have an education or can’t get another job in the future. I was training to be a nurse, actually. I would have gone to medical school, considering my grades and the recommendations I got, but it was way too much for me to afford.

I hit a serious patch of depression when my dad died and found that I couldn’t continue in nursing school. I dropped out, and I worked for a time at some low level jobs, but I Just couldn’t keep them up.

I’ve finally got a handle on my depression now, and I’m determined to work my way up again. I’m not going to settle for being a nurse. I’m going to do everything I can. Hell, maybe I’ll go back to medical school.

I change my attention from scrubbing toilets and minimum wage for a moment to that meeting I had with John Clark. He certainly was…hot. He’s honestly one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen in my life. He has broad shoulders, and a slight stubble beard that compliments his piercing dark eyes. He really looks like a billionaire, if you know what I mean, and not in any negative way at all.

It was so strange that he wanted to interview everyone who worked for his company personally. But that’s his reputation. He apparently has a very unique way of doing business, and it’s obviously worked well for him, since he started out without any money at all and worked his way up all the way to the tippy top of a variety of industries. Honestly, I’m not even sure what it is that his company actually does. All I know is that I’m going to be cleaning one of the biggest and tallest and fanciest buildings in all of Manhattan. Well, it’s not like I’m going to have to do everything myself—I’m just one girl on a huge team, probably one of the biggest teams. I’ve never cleaned anything before, and my own room at my Mom’s apartment is incredibly messy. My mom actually laughed in my face when I said I was going to become a cleaner—“but you can’t even clean your own room. Is that what you want to do instead of becoming a doctor like you wanted to? You were valedictorian of your school, and now you’re cleaning floors?”

I didn’t know what to say. I mean, how else can I move forward? How else can I get on with my life if I don’t take a job like this?

I turn over my shoulder and look through the darkened garden to the open door. Inside, I can see Janet flirting quite severely with her catch, her celebrity.

I sigh, and look up at the moon.

There’s a noise behind me.

It sounds like someone is sneaking up on me. It’s all those creepy sounds from the movies—a twig breaking, a heavy footstep. Then I catch my breath and remember that I’m at an upscale party. A party that my friend dragged me to because she had an extra invitation. It’s a party that I don’t even belong at. I should be cleaning the floors here, I think to myself, rather than masquerading as a guest. I don’t really belong in this company of the famous, rich and beautiful.

“Hey, beautiful,” says someone behind me.

I turn around. So there was someone there!

I spin around, and almost gasp in surprise. I instantly recognize him. He’s my new boss, the famous CEO and billionaire John Clark, looking as hot as ever. Actually, he looks even hotter.

He looks hotter than anyone else at this party. He’s not wearing a suit like everyone else here. And he’s not clean-shaven. He looks rugged, with a motorcycle helmet under one arm. His eyes cut through everything, and seem to pierce me. He looks slightly bigger than I remember. Maybe that’s because he’s standing up now and he was sitting down the last time I saw him.

“Hi,” I say.

I figure he knows who I am and he’s just joking around with this “hey beautiful” stuff. There’s no way a billionaire like John Clark could think I’m beautiful, and there’s certainly no way he could be hitting on me at a party where there are women who literally work as models and movie actresses.

“What brings you to a party like this,” he says, handing me a drink.

“Oh,” I say. “Thanks, but I already have one.”

He takes it back, and tosses it back, down his throat in one gulp. But, unlike Janet, he seems to have a high tolerance and it doesn’t affect him. I really wouldn’t expect a couple drinks to affect him much, since he’s a big, powerful man, with a muscular build and broad shoulders. He looks like he’s the type they’d say has a “strong back,” whatever the hell that means.

He’s both lean and muscular, and I wonder if he’s ridden his motorcycle here all the way from Manhattan, because he’s a little sweaty, and looks like he’s been on the bike for quite a while. They say a woman is attracted to a man’s smell before anything else, and he smells fucking delicious. I just want to jump his bones already…it’s something about my hormones…or it must be, since no rational woman would want to jump her CEO Billionaire bosses’ bones right away, right?

“My friend had an invitation,” I say, hoping that this explains the presence of his newly-hired cleaner at one of the fanciest parties I’ve ever been to, one that I certainly don’t really belong at.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” says John. “I just had to get out of the city…I work in Manhattan at a company…well, you don’t really want to hear about it. I’m sure it’d be really boring for someone to listen to me talk about. And I’m always talking about it. Anyway, I just had to get away from Manhattan, from the clubs, the parties…everything is just all the same there.”

That’s weird. Why does he think that I don’t know what he does for work? Does he think that a lowly cleaner wouldn’t understand what it is the business is all about?

I don’t say anything, though, except to comment that it’s a nice party after all.

“I guess,” he says. “But, listen, I came over to talk to you for a reason. I was going to leave the party. I was pulling up on my bike just as you were passing by in your car. Well, what I mean to say is that I was just going to turn around and leave on my bike, and then I saw you in the car, and I knew I had to come back to the party to talk to you, to find you. I knew there was something special about you at first glance.”

At first glance? He means earlier today. “You mean earlier today?” I say.

He gives me a confused look. “No,” he says. “When I saw you in the car with your friend, pulling up the driveway here. Here, in the Hamptons.” He ads this last sentence, as if it’s necessary to make it overly clear what he’s talking about.

Suddenly, something dawns on me: he doesn’t have any idea who I am. He either doesn’t remember me from earlier today at the interview, or doesn’t recognize me in my dress with my makeup. I probably do look quite different than the professional version of myself, wearing my ridiculous interview clothes. I was probably totally overdressed for a cleaner position, but, what the hell? I mean, I couldn’t afford to take any chances and not get the job.

Should I tell him?

No, I should have a little fun with this first. Well, that’s my first thought, and then I realize that it’s a really stupid one. I could be risking my job. But, on the other hand, if I tell him who I am right now, he might get upset and fire me or something. I heard he’s eccentric, after all.

But, really, if I’m being honest with myself, I know that I’m just having too much of a good time talking (and potentially flirting?) with this gorgeous billionaire. For one moment, I don’t have to be the broke woman applying for a cleaning job. I don’t have to be a cleaner. I get to look all fancy and apparently fit in and act like I’m the equal to this billionaire.

John

I can’t believe I’m talking to her. She’s playing with her hair in a way that drives me crazy. Her body seems to be calling to me. Her legs seem to go on forever, and the dress she’s wearing is quite revealing, and also quite slim, hugging her gorgeous figure. I just want to bury my cock in her mouth right away, and then move on to her more delicate areas… I would show her what the word pleasure meant, right here on this lawn if I had to.

That’s what gets me down, though. Everyone is so hung up on this code of morals or something. Everyone is so hung up on doing what other people think is the right thing to do, and most people would think that fucking a guest, with her consent of course, right here on this gorgeous Hamptons lawn in the cool night time would be, well, it would be considered something of a party foul by most.

So what can I do?

Well, the reasonable voice in me tells me to flirt with her, and then hopefully take her up to one of the bedrooms. She’s sure looking at me like she’s interested, so possibly she’ll want me to do a lot more to her than just pleasure her in a simple and crude way.

“So,” I say, determined to start the flirting process. “You come here often?”

She laughs, a strange high-pitched laugh. It’s kind of weird, but honestly it just turns me on further. She’s really hot when she laughs, but it seems like she doesn’t know it.

“So what do you do?” I say, trying to start up the conversation another way, since she still hasn’t responded to my joke, except to laugh, and she doesn’t seem the least bit drunk.

“Oh,” she says, giving me a strange look and a somewhat evasive answer. “A little of this and a little of that.”

“That’s how I feel, too,” I say, determined to take the ball and run with it, so to speak. I’m going to do the best I can with this little bit that she’s given me. “Just today I was having, well, a kind of a rough day. It seemed like I was running all over the place. Sometimes, it seems like I’m running around doing everything at my company. So then why do I have so many employees, right?”

“Oh,” she says. “You have your own company?”

I groan inwardly. The last thing I wanted to do tonight was meet another woman interested in me for my money. I was trying to play it cool and incognito, not admitting that I’m a billionaire CEO with my own company.

But, on second thought, looking at her, she really doesn’t react the way I’d expect one of those women to act. She doesn’t seem to flinch when I say I have my own company.

Hell, this is the Hamptons after all, and it’s a pretty fancy party. She might be a billionaire herself, or the owner of two, three, or even four big companies. She probably has more money than me.

No point in mentioning anything about my company then, even if I was in the mood to try to impress her. Just looking at her, and listening to her, the more sure I am that she’s some kind of secret billionaire. She certainly has a superb education, that’s for sure. Just the way she talks makes her seem impossibly intelligent.

“You want to take a walk with me?” I say.

“Sure,” she says.

“Here,” I say. “Take my coat.”

“That should help quite a bit,” she says, with some biting sarcasm. “There’s nothing I like more than filthy biker sweat.”

The comment takes me a back for a moment.

“I had you pegged for a super sweet girl,” I say.

She gives me a haughty laugh. “That’s what you think,” she says.

“That is what I thought,” I say. “Obviously you’re proving me wrong.”

I take the jacket and drape it around her shoulders.

She looks at me contently. She doesn’t wrinkle up her nose at all, showing me that she really does appreciate the jacket, even if it does smell.

She now breathes in deeply, with a pleasant look of mild delight on her face. “I like the way you smell,” she says.

“Yeah?” I say.

I take another look at her. With my leather motorcycle jacket wrapped around her body, it looks like she’s not wearing any pants, because of how short her evening dress is. Her legs shine in the moonlight, and her hair does as well. Her eyes are just so fucking cute, so beautiful that she looks like some gorgeous nymph of the woods—that’s what I think of anyway, even thought it’s a strange thought. Obviously she’s a human, but somehow she almost seems too beautiful to be a human.

“Where are we headed?” she says, her big eyes looking at me.

I shrug my shoulders. “To tell you the truth,” I say. “I don’t know. This is my first time here. I don’t even know the hosts of the party, or anyone else.”

She laughs. “Me neither,” she says. “But it sounds like you’re not going to be the most reliable guide. Maybe I should get someone else.”

I still can’t believe I’m walking along side her. My eyes travel down her body.

She giggles and looks up at me. “Don’t think I don’t see you looking me up and down.”

“I just can’t help it,” I say, and put my hand on the small of her back.

We walk for another couple minutes in silence, enjoying the night, glancing up at the moon and the stars. Of course, I don’t look up at the sky nearly as much as I look at her.

“I’m John,” I say, suddenly worried that I haven’t introduced myself. This type of anxiety isn’t normal for me at all, and it must only be here because she’s just so fucking hot. My heart is fluttering.

But, one of the biggest reasons of my success is that my anxiety doesn’t work like other people’s anxiety. For me, anxiety just makes me want to push harder and faster. Anxiety just makes me want to take action, rather than withdrawing. Other people are different and anxiety paralyzes them. But as soon as I feel that adrenaline hit from the anxiety, I’m all over it, and I just feel fucking awesome and know that this is the time to act, if there is any at all.

“You’re incredibly beautiful,” I say to her, as I step forward and kiss her on the lips. I put my hand on her cheek and gently pull her head towards me, farther into the kiss.

She kisses me back, and her lips taste like the most delicious thing on the planet. They are soft and plump and moist.

I’m not able to contain myself. And she isn’t either. We didn’t need much to get us going. After the kiss, our hands are all over each other.

She’s grabbing my ass with both hands, and pulling me against her. I feel her breasts and body against me. It’s warm. Her breasts are soft but her body is firm. She’s the perfect size for me. Something just feels completely right about this. Her body feels like it’s made for me and me alone.

“I’ve wanted you ever since this morning,” she says, breathily whispering into my ear as I bite her neck gently. She moans.

Since this morning? That’s weird, since I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever seen her.

Something in the back of my head tells me to think about this further: after all, she seemed to react strangely earlier when I mentioned seeing her for the first time today. Have I met her somewhere else, in some other context, and simply not remembered her?

My mind’s trying to run through the possibilities. In my line of work, after all, you have to be pretty careful. People are always after your billions and your possessions. But my body tells me to screw it, and my mind obeys. Soon I’m not thinking about it at all. Now my mind is filled just with the soft pleasures of her flesh. Just holding her against me is one of the most divine pleasures someone could imagine.

“I want you right now,” I say, whispering into her ear.

“I want you too,” she says. “I want you inside me.”

My cock is already hard and pressed into her flesh, only separated from her by her dress and my pants. But upon hearing this my cock suddenly gets another rush of blood. It’s so strong and hard that it’s actually almost painful to feel it. The pressure is intense. I seriously worry that my pants might actually explode just from the force of trying to contain my intense erection.

“But where are we going to go?” she says.

“Out here?” I say, glancing down at the ground. The grass is soft, but it might not be the right temperature. Plus, another guest is liable to come this way at some point, and I don’t need another scandal with the newspapers saying that I’m fornicating on people’s front lawns. (Even though that’s not exactly what happened.) That’s just part of being a famous billionaire—people are always looking for scandals. People are always looking for you to misbehave.

But, hell, I’d fuck her right here. I don’t care about what people think about me right now. She’s far more important than public opinion.

But by her face I can see that she’s not going to go for it. So I come up with an idea instantly. That’s something that’s also good for running a business—you see a problem, and your mind doesn’t stop racing until you’ve found the solution, whatever it is. Whatever it takes—that should be written in all the business textbooks of the country. Hell, those textbooks don’t tell you anything, though. I went to college and everything, but it didn’t help me one bit. Dealing with people, facing problems head on, and cutting deals—that’s what’s gotten me my money and nothing else.

“Come on,” I say. “Follow me.”

She takes my hand and I run in the opposite direction from the house.

She giggles as she runs behind me. I turn around to see her long legs glinting again in the moonlight, and her breasts bouncing.

Sarah

“Where are you taking me?” I say, laughing. “I hope you’re not some pirate who’s come to kidnap me and steal me away.”

“I’d never think of it,” he says, laughing himself. “A lot of these Hamptons houses are on the property of old farm houses. There’s always a barn around here somewhere. And if I’m right…ah, here it is.”

We emerge from a little patch of woods into a clearing where sure enough there’s an old barn.

“It looks so romantic,” I say. “Is that where we’re going to fuck?”

I don’t know what makes me say things like that sometimes. But, sometimes, I like to just say the most inappropriate thing I can think of to say. I find it’s good for breaking the tension sometimes.

He laughs, and takes my hand again, and leads me inside.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, looking around.

Inside the barn, it’s warmer than outside. It’s incredibly cozy. The moonlight is streaming in from the rafters above. It seems like it’s still a functional barn, because it’s filled with nice soft fresh hay.

“It’s almost like you planned this,” I say. “It’s just too perfect. It’s really like something out of an old movie.”

He laughs at this, and motions for me to sit down next to him on the hay. We can hear the wind as the wooden boards creak around us, just slightly so that it’s more romantic than creepy. Although, if I wasn’t here with John, I might be a little creeped out. I momentarily wonder what Janet is doing, but the thoughts soon rush out of my mind as John leans in and kisses me.

I’m very aware of the incredible bulge in his pants. After all, it was pressing against me when we were outside. Now I glance down at it, without him noticing that I’m doing it. It looks huge in his pants, and I wonder what it’s going to look like naked, and how big and girthy it’s going to be. For having such an erection, he kisses me with an incredible softness. His hand moves to my thigh where it rests softly.

I’m impressed that he’s able to control himself like this, rather than just kissing me sloppily and going right for my tits. It gives me the feeling that he’s going to be quite good at sex, and that he’s not going to rush me.

I think back to the last sexual encounter I had—it wasn’t good, to put it lightly. The guy just couldn’t wait to get off himself, and didn’t make much of an effort to give me any pleasure at all, except to say “did you come yet?” after he had already finished himself.

I realize suddenly that I’ve completely forgotten that I don’t belong at this party. After all, I’m broke and I’ve just been hired as a cleaner. This isn’t my scene, and what’s more, I’m kissing John, my future boss, the man who just hired me this morning. Apparently he doesn’t recognize me, but I sure recognize him. And what are the consequences going to be if I hook up with him now, and then show up tomorrow for work. I mean, he did hire me, but that’s just because he’s somewhat eccentric. It’s not like I’m going to be working directly with him. I’m just a cleaner, so who knows if I’ll ever see him again.

I realize that I’m just trying to justify this to myself. After all, I know deep down that I should definitely not hook up right now with my future boss. This job may seem like something simple to everyone else, but it’s going to get me out of my mother’s house and out on my own. Then, I’m going to work my way up until no one can ever stop me again. My mother thinks the job is a joke, but I need to get out of her constant and criticizing grasp if I’m ever going to do anything on my own.

But my hormones are raging. John is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. He’s thin but muscular. Somehow he seems bulky and thin at the same time. His face is chiseled and he has just the right amount of stubble. His hair is dark and vaguely presidential. I wonder why super rich guys always seem to have such good hair? Or is that just in my imagination?

“You’re so beautiful,” he says to me.

I don’t know why but it makes my heart flutter. Such a simple thing to say, and yet it throws all my worries out the window completely.

He kisses me on my neck and I moan. Thoughts of whether or not this is appropriate are completely gone. There’s no turning back now, and I already know it. So I might lose my job when he realizes who I am (especially considering the very strict workplace relationship rules that all big companies now use), but so what? I mean, I have to think about my mental health too, right?

“I really want you to fuck me,” I say, suddenly blurting out exactly what I’ve been thinking but holding back. I guess all this tension makes it just come out suddenly.

He laughs, and I giggle.

“I like it when women know what they want, and I like it when they tell me,” says John, looking me in the eyes. He has the most beautiful eyes.

He’s got his hands up under my dress. His hands are strong and tough, and actually somewhat rough. Not what I would expect from a billionaire, but then again John isn’t your typical billionaire. He rides a motorcycle and does his own maintenance. He hunts, fishes, mountain bikes, climbs crazy tall mountains just for fun—basically he does everything, whether its physical or mental.

His hands are on my breasts, and I’m moaning softly, tilting my head back as he kisses me again gently on my neck.

Suddenly, my dress is off, sliding down to the ground. My bra, too, a moment later, is completely gone, and I’m completely naked except for my earrings (which Janet lent me, since I don’t even own a single pair, which is another long story of its own). I’ve never felt so potentially vulnerable yet protected. I know I’m safe with John.

His arms are around me and his head is between my breasts, licking them. Now he’s sucking on my nipples.

He’s quickly removing his coat and shirt.

“I want to see what you’re hiding underneath those pants of yours,” I say, with a greedy note in my voice that I can’t conceal and don’t really want to.

“Again, I like how forward you are with me,” says John, grinning at me.

He’s now standing above me, and I’m sitting on a bit of hay that’s working the way a chair would.

“Come closer,” I say. “And let me help you with those pants.”

I realize I’m breathing very heavily now that his bulge is just centimeters away from my face. I feel like I can almost smell his cock underneath his pants.

I can’t even help myself. I give one look up at John and then reach out and unbuckle his belt buckle. I unzip his jeans and reach in. I feel his cock immediately. It’s huge and incredibly thick and hard. It’s definitely the biggest cock I’ve ever seen in my life, and it’s here, inches away from my face.

“You want me to make you feel good?” I say. I don’t know where I’m getting this confidence for dirty talk from, but it feels good to say it, and I’m proud of myself. Then again, he is my future employer, so maybe this isn’t such a good idea. But I push the worry to the back of my mind again where it belongs.

I slide my tongue along his cock and taste the salty taste that his cock seems to have. Wow, I can’t believe I’m having such dirty thoughts. I mean, I’m a sexual person, like I imagine everyone is (secretly, sometimes), but I’ve managed to avoid thinking about certain things.

I’m extremely turned on as I take his cock in my mouth and start bobbing my head up and down.

“You’re so sexy,” says John, holding my head on either side gently with both hands. “That feels so good. Don’t stop, whatever you do.”

I keep going, and going, for another minute, until John finally says, “Oh, God, that feels too good. Stop, stop, stop.”

I pull my mouth away from his cock for a moment to say, “You told me never to stop.”

“I’m going to come, though,” he says, winking at me. He’s breathing heavily. “I want to save that all for you.”

I give his cock one more lick, and then put my mouth all over it once again. I wait until it feels like his cock is starting to pulsate and his breath is getting incredibly ragged, before pulling my head away.

“You’re quite the tease,” he says.

I wink at him.

“Lie back,” says John, and I do what he says.

I like the way he tells me what to do, in a gentle but firm way. I know what he’s planning now.

We’re both naked now and I lie back on the hay that has become warmed from the heat of our bodies. The interior of the barn feels like the coziest place in the world, as if we’re lying by the warm fire in a ski cabin somewhere in the Colorado mountains, not that I’ve ever had the money to do that. But, hey, I’ve seen the movies, like everyone has.

I spread my legs, and John comes towards me, facing me, and holds onto my thighs with his strong hands.

His tongue grazes me down below, and I sigh in incredible pleasure. He uses his fingers ever so gently to explore the areas. I feel like he’s exploring something new—he’s bringing a sense of adventure to the endeavor that I appreciate, rather than just executing maneuvers that he’s looked up on the internet. No, this isn’t that type of man. This is a man who knows what he wants and knows what women want too. This is a man of passion and… what the hell have I gotten myself into?

But the little worry flies away as soon as John really starts to work his magic on me. Wow! I didn’t know oral sex could even feel this good. Certainly none of the men I’ve been with before (not that many) could do anything like this.

“Oh my God!” I cry out.

John looks up ever so briefly at my face, apparently just to enjoy the expression I’m making before going back down between my legs.

I’m coming before I know it.

“I’m going to come if you don’t stop!” I manage to say, before John goes even harder, which pushes me over the edge and I come spectacularly.

My whole body feels warm and fuzzy and an incredible feeling shoots through me from my toes up to my heart and up through my head, radiating out.

There’s no way to even begin to describe this orgasm. It’s pushed my over the edge in terms of my desires. I wasn’t exactly shy before but now I’m completely in the moment. There’s nothing else on my mind but sex and John’s body and my body. There’s nothing else in the world but us and I’m completely safe from anything that could happen.

Instead of satisfying my sexual craving, the orgasm just left me wanting more…just wanting John’s massive and throbbing cock with the huge head.

John’s on top of my, lying across me. I can feel his strong and hard and muscled body against me, but there’s a gentleness to it that comforts me and he’s not putting all his weight on me.

“I want you inside me,” I whisper throatily into his ear as he bites my neck ever so gently.

His hands are now on my breasts and more of his weight is on top of me but it feels good. I feel for a moment like he’s my man, and we’ve done this a thousand times before—a moment where the moment feels eternal, like it will last forever even though it won’t.

John doesn’t say anything as he positions his cock to line up with me, and now he pushes just the tip in ever so gently.

I gasp as it enters me. Even though he goes slowly I can’t help myself—it’s one thing to see the massive cock or have it in my mouth but it’s a completely different thing to have it inside me.

“I want all of you,” I say, without realizing that I’m saying it. But that’s what I’m craving deep down. That’s what my body wants. I want to be completely filled by his massive cock. I want it like nothing else in the world.

John slides his cock in farther. I can feel the whole thing. It’s really, really thick. Really big.

It fills me up in every way I could possibly imagine and even more ways than just that.

He’s completely inside me now, and he’s pumping away. His hands are on my breasts, but now he moves them to the sides to get better support on the bed. The hay is moving under us and I’m sinking down into it, but honestly it’s much more comfortable than any mattress I’ve ever had sex on.

There’s no way to describe the feeling of him rocking on top of me.

“You’re so hot,” he says to me. His face is full of passion and his eyes are staring right into mine.

He’s now moving his hands towards my leg, and I’m completely splayed out so that he can get deep inside me.

The warm feeling is starting to run through me again as his cock pounds into me. The largeness of his cock feels wonderful and the hardness turns me on like nothing else.

“Here we go,” says John, between his sexy grunts, as he repositions one of my legs so that he’s holding it up in front of him, giving him better access with his cock.

“Oh my God,” I cry out, involuntarily, as my vision starts to go hazy. He was starting off somewhat slow, I realize now, and now he’s starting to show me his real speed. My own body is moving beneath him, rocking in the hay and underneath him.

John grunts again, and then signals that he wants to change positions.

“I want to suck your cock more,” I say, and John flashes me a grin.

His hands are on my head again and I’m kneeling in front of him, my knees sinking into the hay.

One of John’s hands moves steadily down below and starts pleasuring me with fingers. He really does know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing, actually. Maybe he can even do it better than I can.

I’m slurping on his cock and being pleasured and I feel like I’m totally his. I forget that this is just a casual encounter, and I completely forget he’s going to be my boss next time I show up for my new job.

Whatever, though. This moment feels like it’s never going to end. Not now. Not ever.

“I need to be inside you again,” says John, and gently guides me back down to the hay. His cock is shining with my saliva and it’s as big as ever, probably bigger and harder than it was when we started. It looks like it’s going to burst all over the place any second. But I’m impressed by his stamina. Most guys just want to fuck, fuck, and fuck until they burst. But not John. He knows how to pleasure me, and pleasure himself too. He knows how to make a good thing last. Maybe that’s why he’s gotten so rich.

I’m on my stomach now in the hay. It’s not scratchy like I thought it would be.

John lowers his big and powerful body on top of mine. His weight feels comforting rather than oppressive.

I moan instinctively as his cock slides up against me. His cock comes inside me just like before. My pussy seems to swallow him up and he starts coming in at me hard and fast. The angle is different from before but it feels just as good, if not better. I’m more turned on now than I think I ever have been in my life. I can think of nothing but his strong arms, his strong and hard cock, and his hard body pressed against mine. I want to stay like this forever.

The warm feeling is building and building. It’s gathering intense momentum and I’m about to go over the edge.

Suddenly, I remember that John’s not wearing a condom. That is, unless he put it on when I didn’t notice.

But can I even stop or pause for a moment to question this? Should I? After all, maybe he put it on surreptitiously.

With my last effort, I try to be responsible, despite the intenseness of the sex. After all, his cock is pounding into me, filling me completely, and I’m sure that we’re both about to orgasm.

“Did you use a condom?” I manage to say. It takes all my effort.

I may be sleeping with my future boss, but at least I’m going to try to be safe.

“I thought you said you were on the pill,” says John.

My mind’s racing.

I can’t quit now. I just can’t. This is the best sex I’ve ever had. This might be the best I’ve ever felt.

Well, I think to myself. If I get pregnant, this one is going to be on me, not him.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding my head vaguely. “I am.”

Of course, I haven’t been on the pill for a year. It’s hard to justify taking a pill that costs money when you don’t have any money, especially when you’re not having any sex.

“Good,” says John. “I wouldn’t want to stop now. I’m about to come.”

“Me too,” I say. “Come inside me,” I add, not really sure why I do it. After all, the pull out method is, according to some, a method of contraception that can at times be effective. At least it gives you a window of opportunity, a margin of error, rather than what we’re about to do. But I just can’t help myself. John’s so incredibly sexy that I don’t want him to pull out at all. That’s on me, though, not him.

“OK,” grunts John, driving his cock into me again.

“I’m coming,” I say, crying out. I’m vaguely aware that I’m thrashing around underneath him. I’m moaning and John’s groaning as he slams into me over and over.

He doesn’t stop pumping his cock into me as I come.

Soon he’s grunting sexily as he comes too.

I can smell his muskiness all around me. I feel completely enveloped in it and never want to leave it.

I’ve forgotten where I am. I’ve forgotten I’m in a cozy barn at a party I don’t belong at.

For tonight, I’m Cinderella. I don’t want to think about what happens when the clock strikes midnight.

My vision is completely blurry. It feels like I’m in a dream world. There’s no way to describe it. It’s an incredible rush, and then it’s all over, with only the fading afterglow of the sex, which I have to say, though, is incredibly strong and potent.

We cuddle in the hay wordlessly, caressing each other softly.

“Wow,” says John, finally. “That was really something.”

“Yeah,” I say, softly, aware that all my fears and apprehensions are now flooding back. I just had condom-less sex with my future billionaire boss. Not only that, but I’m not who he thinks I am. I’m just a lowly cleaner. Hell, I’m lucky to have this cleaner job. But he doesn’t know any of that. He just saw me at this party in that dress and thinks that I belong here. What’s going to happen next? A brief worry of pregnancy flashes across my brain, the way a star shoots across the sky. But, no, there’s no way I could get pregnant from this, right? I mean, hell, some couples try for months and years to get pregnant and they can’t. So how could this one time encounter result in a pregnancy.

We cuddle for another hour, when John stirs a little and says, “Well, I hate for this to end. But maybe I should get you back to the party. You’re friend is bound to be worried about you.”

Oh yeah, that’s another thing I didn’t consider: Janet. She’s going to have a field day with this. If she finds out, that is.

“I guess so,” I say.

John kisses me tenderly on the lips, and then the forehead. It feels strange considering that he was just inside me powerfully thrusting into me without restraint—and now he’s being so gentle. But I like it. I like that dichotomy between intense passion and intense gentleness.

John

I’m walking her back arm in arm through the chilly night. I’ve lent her my jacket which drapes down atop the tops of her legs, making them stand out, making it look like she’s not wearing any pants or a dress at all. She looks even sexier now after we’ve had sex. That’s kind of unusual, actually. Usually once the lust is gone, the attraction diminishes greatly. That’s unfortunately been my experience with the majority of women that I’ve slept with. But, no, not with her. Not with Sarah. She’s like a goddess of sexiness, of gentleness. I can almost still taste her on my lips and feel the way she felt around my cock. It was beyond incredible. It was pure ecstasy.

“So where do you live?” I manage to say, suddenly feeling strangely nervous around her. It must be something about her beatify. Beauty is always unsettling in a way, even after you’ve shared an intimate moment with someone. You catch them in the light a certain way, looking more beautiful than ever, and your heart stops. That’s got to mean something…we’ve got some kind of connection. I can already tell.

“New York City,” she says.

“I figured,” I say, chuckling a little. “It’s not like anyone at this party actually lives in the Hamptons. But what part of town? I have a place in Manhattan that I’m usually at. Maybe we could get together or something… I don’t know.” I decide to come clean and just admit to her that I’m nervous. “I don’t know why but I suddenly feel nervous around you even though you’re wearing my jacket and we just…”

“Fucked,” she says, giggling at her own frankness.

“Yeah,” I say. “Anyway I feel all giddy and nervous around you. I think that’s a good sign. I think it means we should meet again. No pressure though. I mean, we can do something normal like having dinner at a nice restaurant rather than…”

“Fucking in the hay,” she says, giggling again.

“Yeah,” I say. “So what do you say? Will you give me your number?”

She pauses and looks at me. It’s a strange look. I get the feeling she’s making some mental calculations that involve me but I have no idea what they are.

“Yeah,” she says, slowly.

“Great,” I say, tightening my arm around her shoulder.

“But,” she says, speaking slowly, as if she’s choosing her words carefully. “What happens if you find out something about me that you don’t like…?”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Maybe I’m not exactly who you think I am,” she says.

I laugh. “I don’t even know the first thing about you,” I say. “I don’t even know your last name. You can’t break any preconceived notions I have about you because I don’t have any. I just know that you’re beautiful and sexy. Easily the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.”

She pauses again. “But I don’t really belong at this party,” she says.

I get the feeling she’s trying to say something else but doesn’t know how to say it.

“I don’t either,” I say. “Hell, I don’t think I know anyone here. I just showed up on a whim really. I was looking to get away from this scene. And I wound up here again.”

“But,” she begins to speak again, but just as she does I realize we’re approaching the party again.

We’re suddenly in the middle of a swarm of people. We’re right smack in the middle of the party again, which is completely overwhelming since we just spend the last couple hours alone together in a seemingly abandoned barn.

It takes me a moment to piece together what happened. Since we’re not yet actually inside the building, the influx of people is disconcerting. What happened was everyone decided this needed to be a really wild Hamptons party and someone convinced everyone to strip down inside and rush off to the swimming pool, which Sarah and I apparently missed on our walk through the grounds. I guess we were so involved in each other we didn’t see the pool at all.

Sarah is completely cut off from what she was about to say. And I feel like it was going to be something really important.

I suddenly have the feeling that I know her from somewhere. Didn’t I feel like this another time tonight? I can’t remember. If only I could place her. She seems so familiar, but surely I would remember a face and a body like her, wouldn’t I, even if it were in a completely different context?

“Looks like everyone’s naked,” I say, dryly, and Sarah laughs. I figure that’s a good sign, since at times I can have a kind of deadpan style of observational humor that not everyone appreciates.

There must be fifty buck naked people rushing around us. We’re the only ones wearing clothes and it’s a strange feeling for sure.

“Yeee-haa,” everyone is yelling.

Normally, I’d be ogling all the naked women. But I only have eyes for Sarah. What a strange idea, especially coming from the famous womanizing billionaire that I am. That’s my reputation and it’s pretty accurate, for better or for worse.

“Want to go swimming?” I say, winking at Sarah. “I wouldn’t mind getting another look at your beautiful body.”

“It’s a little cold,” says Sarah, shivering a little.

“It’ll be warmer in the water,” I say.

“I thought guys were always self conscious about how their cocks look in cold water,” says Sarah. “Don’t they shrivel up, or is that just a legend.”

“Totally true,” I say, smiling at her. “But you’ve already seen mine, and even interacted with it more than that. So I don’t feel my usual self consciousness about my penis size with you.”

“And you don’t have any reason to,” says Sarah, giving my butt a playful tap.

I smile to myself. I already know my cock is on the larger side, to put it mildly, but it’s never bad hearing that from your lover. My lover… yes, she may not be my lover yet, but she’ll certainly become my lover. Perhaps the greatest love of my life. I have that special feeling that means I’m not going to let her go.

“You were in the middle of telling me something important,” I say, taking her by the hand. “Before we run off and get naked with everyone else at the pool, was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“Yeah,” she says, after a slight pause.

She looks me right in the eyes and opens her mouth.

But right before she can speak, her friend that I recognize from earlier rushes up and grabs her arm.

“Where have you been, Sarah? I’ve been worried sick.”

“Oh,” says Sarah, flushing slightly, making her cheeks look a beautiful rosy red. I get a sudden flash of dirty thoughts: I want to burry my cock again in her face. Hey, I know I’m a filthy bastard but what can I say? I’m a guy, after all. Any guy who tells you he doesn’t think like this either has low testosterone or is lying through his teeth. Probably most men just lie through their teeth about it. Whatever, I want to push my cock into her delicious looking mouth and have her hair fall around my cock and my balls again.

“Where were you?” says Janet, looking Sarah up and down. Now she looks me up and down and she doesn’t look pleased. “I thought we weren’t going to…”

“I know, I know,” says Sarah. “But you were off with someone…”

“I wasn’t,” says Janet.

“I saw you,” says Sarah.

“He was just showing me around.”

I chuckle lightly. I know how these Hamptons parties go. That’s a classic line that guys will give. Like, oh I just want to show you around. Or, oh, there’s a great piece of art upstairs in one of the private bedrooms that you just have to see. That’s just to get them into the bedroom.

Janet gives me a harsh look and scoffs at me.

“Where’d you pick up this loser?” she says to Sarah, but obviously I can hear her since I’m standing right here.

“I thought we were going swimming,” I say to Sarah. “Come on, let’s go.”

“With all those lunatics who got all naked?” says Janet, rolling her eyes. “Sure, that sounds like a good career move.”

“It’s the Hamptons,” I say. “Who cares?”

“This isn’t Las Vegas,” says Janet.

“Obviously you haven’t spent much time in the Hamptons,” I say.

“Whatever,” says Janet. “Come on, Sarah. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Sarah looks between me and Janet.

“I was hoping to stay a little longer,” says Sarah.

“Hey,” says Janet. “You’re coming back with me. I’m going right now. I mean, unless you have another way of getting back to the city. Be my guest. But the train’s getting ready now. It’s already boarded and it’s about to debark.”

“Clever metaphor,” I say, rolling my eyes so that only Sarah can see me. “Very original.”

Sarah giggles.

“I could give you a ride back to the city,” I say, giving Sarah an important look.

“Yeah,” she says, her eyes brightening. But then a darkness falls across her face. “But you took your motorcycle here, didn’t you?”

“What gave it away?” I say.

“The thing is,” says Sarah. “I’m deathly afraid of motorcycles.”

“I can drive slow,” I say. “And I have to say I’m a pretty good rider. I’ve never had a serious accident.”

“Emphasis on the word serious, I guess,” says Janet. Now it’s her turn to roll her eyes.

“I’d love to, really I would,” says Sarah, and my heart sinks because I know what she’s going to say. “But I’m like seriously terrified of them. It’s like that kind of irrational fear that people have of spiders and insects and heights. I don’t know why but it’s always been motorcycles for me.”

“Then that settles it,” says Janet. “You’re coming back with me. Come on, let’s go.”

Janet’s literally trying to drag Sarah away from me.

“Wait,” I say. “Why don’t you give me your number so we can meet up in Manhattan.”

“Manhattan?” scoffs Janet. “Who do you think we are?”

“I thought you lived in Manhattan?” I say.

“Around there,” says Sarah. “I go into Manhattan a lot.”

“Oh,” I say, somewhat confused. I can’t quite remember now if she said she’s from Manhattan or not. Maybe it’s just my imagination. Wait, wasn’t there something important she wanted to tell me? That was right before the nude bathers rushed past us, and right before Janet came by. Janet obviously doesn’t like me one bit. She’d probably think differently of me if she knew how much is in my investment portfolio, my bank accounts, or even my wallet for that matter. Or if she knew how much my motorcycle alone is worth.

“Here’s my number,” says Sarah, taking my phone from me and programming her number in.

“See you,” I say, feeling somewhat pained, and I’m not sure why. I guess this just isn’t how I imagined us saying goodbye, with her getting literally dragged off by her friend who thinks I’m some type of motorcycle punk.

“Bye,” says Sarah, giving me a kiss on the lips.

Janet looks on with disapproval.

“Oh, your jacket,” says Sarah, turning back around, to Janet’s strong disapproving gaze.

“Keep it,” I say. “It might be cold on the ride back to the city.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve got hundreds of them,” I say.

“Hundreds?” says Janet, sounding like she doesn’t believe me at all.

But Sarah believes me. I can see it in her eyes. Is that because she trusts me, or because she already knows who I am? I haven’t told her who I am, but it’s not hard to imagine she might know who I am. After all, my picture has been on hundreds of magazine covers.

A paranoid thought flashes before me: is she just into me for my money? That’s the question I unfortunately have to ask myself so often with women. I hate that I have to do it but it’s a reality. There have been a lot of women in my life and a lot of them wanted my money.

But Sarah doesn’t seem like that at all. I feel like I already know her, even though I don’t know anything about her. What I do know is she wouldn’t just be after me for my money.

As she walks away with Janet tugging at her sleeve, Sarah turns back around to look at me.

I dial her number on my phone and watch as her own phone rings. She pulls it from somewhere (was it in her brassier?) and smiles at me before disappearing from my view behind a hedge.

“Nice meeting you,” I say into the phone.

“You too,” she says.

“See you soon,” I say.

“What’s that?” she says.

Suddenly, the line is filled with an intense buzzing static. I’ve lost the connection already. That’s the Hamptons for you. I’m actually surprised these rich Hampton types haven’t lobbied for a zillion cell phone towers in the area to improve their reception so that they can make business calls whenever they need to. I’m usually not like that myself. I like to separate business and pleasure when I can. I haven’t even checked my phone or my email all evening.

I don’t bother saying goodbye to anyone at the party. I just get my bike from where I parked it, give the valet guys a hefty tip for keeping the bike safe, and get back on the road.

The moon is out and the road is quite and lonely. I’m freezing my ass off on the whole drive back without my jacket, but I’m glad that Sarah has it.

Sarah

The next morning I’m practically in a panic. Now I have to go into work. Am I going to run into John? He hasn’t contacted me yet by phone or text, and I know since I’ve been checking my phone every couple minutes all night. I barely slept at all.

I’m all dressed, showered, and I’m on my third cup of coffee.

“I can’t believe you’re going to work as a cleaner,” says my mom, staring at me from across the cramped breakfast table. The apartment is small. My mom isn’t a hoarder in the sense that she couldn’t be on one of those reality shows but the apartment is pretty damn crowded.

“It’s what I could find,” I say, already upset at her. We’ve had this argument a thousand times if not more.

“I just wish you’d do something more with your life.”

“What do you want me to do?” I say. “Have you seen what the economy is like? It’s easy for you because you’re already out. You’re already retired.”

“Way to shove that in my face,” says my mom.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I say, but I already feel a little bad. I know my mom doesn’t like being retired, but that’s what she had to do. “I didn’t mean that that’s a bad thing. It’s just that the work force and economy has changed a lot in the last couple years.”

“It’s because all the billionaires are taking all the money,” says my mom.

I think back to last night and a shiver runs down my spine. “I don’t know if they’re all bad,” I say, thinking of John. An image of his massive cock floods my mind and I can almost taste his cock again. I push the image out of my mind. This isn’t the time or place to be thinking about that. After all, I have to confront him soon enough…possibly.

“You’re going to be late,” says my mom.

“Thanks,” I say, checking my phone. I should be leaving now. She’s right.

At this point, I’m already exhausted from being awake almost all night.

“See you later,” I say, giving my mom a kiss on the cheek.

“Hope it goes well,” says my mom, wearing a stony expression on her face.

“Thanks,” I say, beaming at her. I know that’s the warmest goodbye and congratulations that I’m going to get from her. I’ve just got to take what I can get, I guess. That’s the way life is sometimes.

I take the subway into work. We live pretty far away from Manhattan, so it’s almost a fifty minute commute with a lot of changing trains in the middle. People on the train look sleepy and depressed. That’s what working all your life will get you, I think to myself. If only I was a billionaire like John.

Thinking of John, I check my phone again. But still no text or call. It is early, I think to myself.

I get out of the subway and walk through the crowds of Manhattan to the big building. It looks intimidating standing outside of it. I remember I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do about John if and when I see him at work—he is my “boss” after all. I take a deep breath, tell myself it’s OK, and head into the job.

I don’t see John anywhere around, and get the sense that he’s not interacting a lot with the cleaning staff, which makes sense. In fact, we’re far away from most of the other employees. We have our own little place in the basement with washers and dryers. For the first month or so I’m just going to be doing trash dumpster work and manning some of the dryers—folding sheets and stuff like that.

My immediate boss is a woman in her fifties who’s nice enough but she has a sort of New York edge to her voice. I can tell she’s dealt with a lot of employees in her years, and she’s been working a long, hard time.

“Do you ever see John?” I suddenly blurt out without thinking about it.

“John? You mean the plumber? Do you know him? He comes around once in a wile, but he works another building too.”

“No,” I say, now wishing I hadn’t said anything.

“Which John?”

“John Clark.”

The woman laughs in my face. She actually does.

I blush again, completely red in the face I’m sure of it.

“Sorry, honey,” she says. “I just couldn’t help it.”

“It’s OK,” I say. “I guess a lot of people ask about him? I just saw him in a magazine…”

“And you thought he was cute, right? Let me tell you, honey, almost every woman here is in love with him. But I doubt you’ll ever see him.”

“He did my interview,” I say.

“Oh, he does that sometimes. I remember he interviewed me five years ago when I started here but I must have just seen him at a distance maybe once in all the rest of the years.”

I nod my head and wish I hadn’t asked the question.

Suddenly, my phone beeps.

“No phone time allowed while at work,” says Cindy, my boss, her sternness coming back across her face and in her demeanor.

“Sorry,” I say. “Won’t happen again.”

Inside, my mind is racing. Is that John texting me? I’m sure it is. I have a feeling about it already.

“Time to get to work on those dumpsters,” says Cindy. “You’ll find a pile of cardboard boxes out back. Just break them down and thrown them in the dumpster marked for cardboard.”

I nod my head, thinking it’s a little strange for me to be breaking down boxes, since I thought that’s what the maintenance guys would be doing. But this isn’t the time to question practices. Not on my first day. Not when I really need the job.

“Your first check will take an extra week to arrive,” says Cindy, calling out behind me.

I’m already halfway out the door, a box cutter in one hand, and probably a strained expression on my face.

“Thanks,” I say, groaning inside all the while. I could really use the money. This means I’m going to have to borrow more money from my mom, and it means I’m going to be another week farther away from getting my own place.

Outside, it’s a little chilly in the sun.

I spend at least an hour on the boxes, since the pile is enormous.

Since I’m so nervous about losing my job, I manage to resist the urge to check my phone during the whole hour.

Only when I go back in, do I steal myself away to the bathroom for a minute. I lock the stall door behind me in the florescent-lit bathroom that’s clean but not too pleasant, and take out my phone.

“Can’t wait to see you again,” says the text from John.

My heart flutters in my chest.

“I want to see you too,” I write, and press send before thinking that that’s an idiotic thing to write.

“When can we meet?” says John.

“I’m at work now,” I say, not mentioning, of course, that I’m working at this very office. I wonder how long I can keep this charade up. What happens if we really start dating, or if we take things a step further? He doesn’t have any idea I’m a lowly cleaner, let alone a cleaner at his own business. Aren’t there rules against dating people in the workplace or something like that?

“Me too,” says John, adding a frowny face that makes me laugh.

I get a little excited thinking that John’s in the same building I’m in, albeit many, many floors above where I sit in the basement.

I check the time on the phone and realize I need to be getting back to work as soon as I can. I doubt Cindy approves of prolonged bathroom breaks, considering her super stern attitude.

“What about tomorrow?” I write back to John, thinking that I’m going to be really, really tired after my first day of work. As much as I want to see him again, I don’t want to fall asleep on our first real date. I want to make a good impression, which is going to involve borrowing another dress from Janet. I can’t very well show up in my cleaner’s uniform, which I don’t think is flattering in the slightest.

“I’m actually headed out of town for business tonight,” says John.

“That’s OK,” I write back. “When will you be back?”

“One month,” says John, adding a series of frowney faces.

My heart sinks.

But I know I can’t do tonight.

I really, really, really don’t have anything to wear.

“I’ll wait for you,” I write, without really thinking about it.

“Nice,” says John. “I thought we had a really special connection…”

“Me too,” I write back.

John adds a smiley face. I laugh. I guess I think it’s funny that a billionaire communicates with smiley and frowney faces the way a normal person would.

“You promise you’ll wait for me?” says John.

“If you do,” I say.

“Deal,” says John.

“I’ve got to go,” I say. “Work calls.”

Just then, there’s a knock on the door.

“You in there, new girl?” shouts Cindy, sounding somewhat upset and perturbed.

“My name’s Sarah,” I call back. “I’ll be right out.”

I send John a kissy face and put away my phone, making sure it’s on silent. Well, a month isn’t too bad, I guess. That way I can get settled into my new job, get more set up, and then maybe by the time John gets back, I’ll be able to afford my own dresses and maybe even be on the way to getting my own place. That’s a better way to date a billionaire, I think to myself. But, still, my heart feels a little sunken as I leave the stall and head out of the bathroom.

Cindy’s stern face greets me.

“I don’t appreciate that kind of sass,” says Cindy.

“What do you mean? Telling you my name is sass?”

“It is in my book, depending on the circumstances. And these circumstances are that you’ve been in the bathroom for a full five minutes.”

Wow, she’s a tough boss. Had she followed me to the bathroom or something? How did she know how long I’d been in there? I could have sworn I’d been in there only a couple minutes. I guess time flies when you’re talking to John by text on the phone.

“Won’t happen again,” I say. “I had a stomach problem. Just nervous from it being the first day.”

“No problem,” says Cindy, sternly. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

I briefly wonder what would happen if I showed her the text and told her I was talking with her ultimate boss, John Clark, the head of the whole operation, and that he was fine with me spending as much time in the bathroom as I liked. Of course, that’s a pure fantasy, since I’m going to avoid telling John I work for him for as long as I can. Hopefully forever. Maybe I can get another job, a better job, a real job, like working as a secretary or something. Eventually, I’m headed back to school. And after that the world is going to be my oyster. No one will be able to stop me.

John

I put my phone back in my pocket. I don’t really know what it is about that woman from last night but she really drives me crazy. Just texting her has me with a hard on. I just imagine her naked flesh before me, and her mouth around my cock. The way her body moved and jiggled…it was just too perfect. I really don’t know if I can wait another month to see her. But business is business, and I really can’t cancel anything. I’m going to be on the West Coast for four solid weeks of boring meetings. But these boring meetings will also net me another few million that the company could really use right now. It’s not like I’m hurting personally, but the company sometimes goes through little dips and valleys.

I figure there’s no point in hanging around the office for the rest of the day, so I grab my stuff and head out of the office.

“John, could I grab you for a second,” says someone off to my right. I turn and look at him and realize it’s Jeff, one of my higher level guys.

No one in the whole building is supposed to call me Mr. Clark or anything like that, but not everyone has the courage to call me by my first name.

“I’m headed out, Jeff,” I say. “Won’t be back for a month. Can you make it quick?”

“It’s just that there’s a problem with this month’s books,” says Jeff.

“What do you mean?” I say. He suddenly has my attention.

He pulls a tablet out from somewhere and pulls up some complicated looking charts and graphs.

I wave my hand dismissively. “I don’t have time for that stuff,” I say. “Just tell me in plane language what the hell’s going on.” I can read the charts better than anyone else, but I like to get my employee’s own perspective. That’s one of the core tenants of my business model.

“Well,” says Jeff, fumbling for his words. I know he was going to rely on the charts to mitigate the damage of what he’s telling me, but I’m not going to let it happen. “Sales projections aren’t matching actual sales. Stock prices are down as a result.”

“Why haven’t I noticed anything?” I say. “I check the stocks everyday. They look fine to me.”

“They’re fine in the sense that the numbers are OK, but the volume of trading has gone down significantly.”

I’m on top of all the numbers for the company. Nothing gets by me. “I check those too,” I say.

“They’re down compared to the projections that are new team came up with last month.”

“Well maybe your new team is wrong,” I say. “I don’t have time for this now, Jeff.”

I’m getting a little annoyed. It’s not like I have anywhere to go exactly. I’m in no hurry. But I just don’t like it when my employees try to but in and tell me everything is horrible. I mean, hell, when I started out things really were horrible and no one in the world thought I’d make a single cent. But I just chose to put on my blinders and work, work, and work. And that’s what worked. And that’s what’s going to work for me again.

“Can I send you the numbers?” says Jeff. “Maybe you’ll see… It’s just that I’m worried…”

“Fine,” I say. “Send me the numbers.”

“Alright,” says Jeff. “Hey, have a good trip.” He adds this last part in a more friendly tone. When we’re not talking business, Jeff and I can actually be somewhat buddy-buddy, although I make sure to show him where his place is, and he makes sure to acknowledge that I’m the boss. That doesn’t mean we can chat a little bit here and there and joke around. We’ve even enjoyed a couple beers together once in a while after work.

“Thanks,” I say. “Enjoy your time here in the office.” Jeff is used to the occasional sarcastic remarks and I know he can take them in good humor without filling out a grudge report against me or something with the personnel department. Not that many would dare do that with me anyway.

“Oh,” says Jeff, a weird grin on his face. “I will. I will, for sure.”

“What makes you suddenly so excited about work?” I say. “I know you too well. You’d rather be out on your boat than stuck here in the office. You know you don’t have to bullshit me, Jeff.”

“It’s this new girl in cleaning,” says Jeff. “Have you seen her? She’s probably the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Honestly it looks like she stepped out of a centerfold of a magazine or something. She’s that hot… Man, I’m headed down to the basement after lunch just to see if I can catch a glimpse of her. I saw her breaking down cardboard outside…”

“Hot new cleaning girl?” I say, slowly, my mind working over on itself. Something about that sounds familiar.

“Yeah, did you see her?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I must have, since I do an interview with everyone.”

“Well you made a good decision,” says Jeff. “I can’t believe you don’t remember her though.”

Something about his words rings a bell… the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in my life was Sarah. And she had seemed so familiar. Suddenly her image flashes across my mind, but it’s not the image from last night. It’s the image from yesterday when she was in my office, and I was interviewing her.

I slap myself on the forehead, completely dumbstruck.

How the hell did I not realize it was her?

Sure, she had looked hot in the interview. But she had shown a difference side of herself in the Hamptons, all decked out in that dress and the jewelry. She had really looked even beyond incredible.

Then again, she hadn’t looked bad in the interview.

I wonder if that’s what she had kept trying to tell me, when everyone was interrupting her?

I don’t know what to think at first. A thousand possibilities are running through my mind being deceived, workplace romance laws, and a thousand other horribly boring possibilities.

But, finally, I laugh.

I laugh and I can’t stop laughing.

So the woman who charmed the hell out of me was a cleaning woman I had just hired that same day. We were both in the Hamptons by pure chance and I thought she was some other rich person or a celebrity at the very least…

“What’s so funny?” says Jeff, looking at me with a strange look. “You seen her then?”

“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “Haven’t seen her. See you later, Jeff. Have a good month.”

I leave Jeff there with a puzzled expression on his face.

As I walk away, I pull out my phone which has access to the entire employee database and pull up Sarah’s name. Sure enough, Sarah Dumphrey, a recently hired cleaner is listed along with a picture in which she looks surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because no one looks good in the employee photos. I make a mental note to get some tech guy to fix that.

I’m laughing to myself all the way down the elevator.

I take the elevator all the way down to the basement and get off at the cleaning area.

There she is, looking incredibly beautiful. Her waste tapers. Her hair flows. Her eyes shine. She’s busy working on something, and doesn’t see me for a moment.

A horrible woman, Cindy or Cynthia, or something, is standing there, lecturing her somewhat meanly.

“Howdy,” I say, walking up to the two of them.

“Mr. Clark,” says Cindy, almost dropping her clipboard and pencil. “I never see you all the way down here.”

“I just wanted to stop and say hello to Sarah,” I say.

“Hi,” says Sarah, looking completely dumbstruck.

I lean in to Sarah’s ear. “I didn’t recognize you last night, but you couldn’t have thought that would last forever, right?”

Sarah wears a puzzled expression on her face as I pull away from her. I let my cheek graze her cheek as I do so.

“I don’t care though,” I say, loud enough for both to here, knowing that what I’m saying won’t make any sense to Cindy. “It’s totally fine with me.”

Sarah glows as I say this, smiling at me.

“Well,” I say. “I’d better be going. I’m headed out for a moment. I want you to treat this young lady with the utmost respect, Cindy. She’s a special friend, and I don’t want her to have to do all the dirty jobs like all the other employees. Go easy on her, OK?”

Cindy nods her head, obviously confused.

“See you soon, Sarah,” I say, winking at her as I walk away.

Before I walk away, I point over Cindy’s shoulder and say, “Hey, what’s that?”

Cindy turns and I use the opportunity to slap Sarah’s ass.

Sarah giggles and I give her a smirk.

“See you later,” I say, mouthing a kiss at her.

“What was that noise?” says Cindy, turning around.

I start laughing as I get back on the elevator. Cindy’s been there forever but she never did seem too bright to me. Sarah, on the other hand, has that special spark to her. I’m going almost die waiting for the next time I can get close to her.

Sarah

“Oh no,” I groan out loud, sitting on the toilet as I check the electronic calendar on my smart phone. “This is not good. Not good. Not good.” I repeat these words over and over to myself like some kind of a mantra.

It’s been over a week and I haven’t had my period. While getting accustomed to my new job, I guess I forgot about it somehow.

It’s been a somewhat busy month for me, just with adapting to the new job, which is a hell of a lot harder than it sounds. Ask anyone who’s cleaned for a big company, and I’m sure they’ll tell you how tough it is. John hasn’t been around, since he’s spending an extra week in California, but we’ve been exchanging a lot of text messages.

But back to what’s going on.

I’ve missed my period.

I never miss my period.

“What’s going on in there?” comes my mom’s screechy voice from the other side of the door. I can almost picture her face looking all scrunched up and concerned.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Are you having indigestion again?” says my mom.

“Yeah,” I say, grateful for an excuse. “That’s what’s going on.”

“It doesn’t sound like you have indigestion,” says my mom, her voice growing shriller through the door. “When your stomach is upset your voice gets all funny.”

“Kind of like your voice?” I say, instantly regretting that I said it.

“That’s no way to talk to your mother,” says my mom.

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m just not feeling well.”

“You’ve missed your period, haven’t you?” says my mom.

“No,” I say, annoyed that my mom is sometimes so good at getting what’s happened to me. “Absolutely not. I had it last week.”

I can hear my mom grumbling as she walks away from the door, muttering things under her breath.

I grab my phone from my pants that are down around my ankles and call Janet.

“What’s up?” says Janet.

“I missed my period,” I say, whispering as quietly as I can into the phone.

“Oh my God!” says Janet, in a breathless voice. It almost sounds like she heard the news herself. Sometimes Janet can be a little over dramatic.

“It’s not that bad, right?” I say, trying to keep my voice calm.

“Are you crazy?” says Janet. “It is that bad. Whose is it? How did this happen? How did you get this one past me? I thought I had my eye on you.”

“You had your eye on me? What the hell does that mean?” I say, forgetting to whisper.

“Who are you talking to in there?” says my mom, apparently reappearing on the other side of the bathroom door.

“No one,” I say.

“What did you say?” says Janet. “How could no one at all impregnate you?”

“I better just meet you in person,” I say. “Can you meet me for coffee at our regular spot during my lunch break?”

“Sure,” says Janet, hanging up the phone right after that.

“I’m headed out,” I say to my mom, rushing past her so that she won’t have time to question me or my motives.

“You always have some problem,” says my mom. “You’re always rushing off somewhere.”

As I head out the door, I get a text from John, “Coming back to NYC this afternoon. Want to meet up?”

Ugh. I don’t know how to deal with John’s text right now. I can still see his perfectly tapered body and muscular shoulders, his perfect hair, not to mention his massive cock rock hard in front of me…that one night. I’ve waited so long to see him again. And now the problem with him being my employer is completely resolved. He didn’t seem to care. He blew my mind that day when he came down to the basement. But now there’s a whole new problem.

Wait, I say to myself, catching my swirling thoughts just in time. You don’t yet know that you’re pregnant with John’s baby. This might just be a fluke. After all, women miss their periods for all kinds of reasons, not just being pregnant.

I don’t respond to his text and put my phone away as I get on the subway.

The morning at work is normal as usual. Despite John telling Cindy to go easy on me, she’s about as strict with me as she is with everyone else. Once in a while, she gives me an easier chore to do, but other times she seems intent on showing me that she’s not going to give me special treatment just because I know the CEO.

“I’m headed out for lunch,” I say, to Cindy, who’s standing with her clipboard as always, watching all the other cleaners carefully.

“Just don’t be late, and make sure to clock out.”

“I always clock out,” I say.

Cindy rolls her eyes. She never believes her employees, no matter what. It seems to be one of her personal managerial policies.

“So what’s the deal?” says Janet, who’s already sitting down in the coffee shop, some insanely overpriced cold coffee drink in front of her.

“I missed my period,” I say.

“Oh my God!” says Janet, covering her mouth.

“I already told you that on the phone,” I say.

“I know, I know,” says Janet. “But it’s worse hearing it in person.”

“Come on,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to be like playing the role of the supportive friend right now.”

“I don’t know how I can do that,” says Janet, starting to rearrange her hair. “This is bad. Really bad.”

“Wow,” I say. “You’re a lot of help.”

“Fine, if you want me to help you, then let’s go get you a pregnancy test. Or have you taken one already?”

I shake my head. “I haven’t done one yet. But do you think it’s really necessary? Maybe I should just wait longer and see what happens. I mean, who knows, maybe I’ll get my period later today…”

“Who did you have sex with?” says Janet, cutting me off.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Was it that guy at the party?”

I nod my head slowly.

“How could you?” says Janet.

“He’s really hot,” I say. “It had been so long. Plus, it had been a really, really long time for me…it was wonderful really.”

“I can’t believe it,” says Janet, shaking her head. “You didn’t even tell me.”

“Well,” I say. “I guess I’m going to have to be the responsible one. Let’s go get a pregnancy test and I can do it in the bathroom here.”

“Who is that guy, anyway?” says Janet, while we’re walking through the aisles of the pharmacy.

I’m full of nerves like I never have been before. I feel like I might pass out at any moment just from anxiety.

“He’s actually my boss,” I say. “He didn’t know it at the time, but he had just hired me…”

“You’re insane,” says Janet, simply, her face not reacting at all to the news. “How do you think you’re going to have your boss’s baby? This is just insane…”

“First of all,” I say. “I don’t know that I’m pregnant yet. And second of all…”

“Come on,” says Janet, dragging me from the cash register to the bathroom in the back of the store.

“I thought we were going to do the test at the coffee shop?”

“Who can wait for that?” says Janet.

She pushes me not so gently into a stall in the bathroom and tells me sternly to drop my pants and do the test.

“Pink is good, right?” I say.

“No,” says Janet, simply.

I come out of the stall and the world seems to be spinning beneath me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t keep calm now. I feel like I’m having an anxiety attack. Having a baby wasn’t in the plan for me… I was going to get myself an apartment. I was going to start dating John. I was going to go back to school…

“It’s going to be OK,” says Janet, becoming sweet and speaking to me softly and calmly. “It’s going to be OK, Sarah. Plenty of women have had babies.”

“Not their billionaire boss’s baby,” I say, before passing out. My vision goes blank. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital.

“Well,” says Sarah. “You’re definitely pregnant. They ran an ultrasound on you while you were passed out.”

I groan.

“It’s going to be OK,” says Janet again, which only makes me groan harder.

I take the pillow and push it over my face.

I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.

“They say the baby’s going to be healthy and there’s nothing wrong with you medically at all,” says Janet. “You just had a garden variety panic attack. Happens to a lot of women when they find out they’re pregnant, apparently.”

“OK,” I say.

Inside, I’m trying to talk myself out of this anxiety, by saying things like “It’s ok, Sarah. You can do this. You’ve been through harder stuff than this before. You can get out of it. You can beat this.”

“First thing’s first,” says Janet, speaking to me in an annoyingly motherly tone, as if she knows exactly what I need to do and how I need to do it. “You need to tell the father.”

I shake my head.

“Why in the world not? Why wouldn’t you tell him? After all, if he’s really a billionaire…”

“He is,” I say. “He’s the CEO at the place I work at…”

“OK,” says Janet. “That’s good. He can help you with the expenses. Do you have any idea how much it costs to have a baby?”

“Why did I have unprotected sex while not on birth control?” I say, groaning again.

“Yeah,” says Janet, looking at me severely. “Why did you do that?”

“He’s just so hot…” I say. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“Well then maybe you should tell him that and tell him you’re going to be carrying his baby.”

I shake my head again.

“Why the hell not?” she says.

“I just wanted to have a normal dating experience with him,” I say. “I just want to take it slow and see where things went. I wanted to be normal for once… I met a nice guy and I don’t want to ruin it with this baby stuff.”

“This is totally crazy,” says Janet. “He could really help you out financially. You might not even have to work after this… You’ll never have to work as a cleaner again, don’t you realize that?”

I shake my head. “I don’t want his money,” I say. “That’s not why I like him. I really like him for who he is, not because of his money… And he’s undoubtedly got women fawning all over him all the time for his money. If I tell him this, he’s just going to think I’m just like everyone else. He’s going to think I’m just after his money…”

“So what?” says Janet. “He’ll be legally obligated to give you some money and then if he has a big problem with that, you can find someone else…”

“I don’t want anyone else,” I say. “I want John.”

Janet just looks away, towards the window, while shaking her head. She looks completely exasperated.

But while having this conversation, my anxiety is actually diminishing. I can do this, I tell myself.

All I have to do is not tell John that I’m pregnant. That way I can continue to date him. And then, when things are developing really nicely between us, I’ll drop the news. Or maybe I’ll never have to tell him. Even now, I realize that sounds completely crazy. How can you never tell a guy you’re pregnant with his child, especially when you’re dating him? But with my currently scrambled brain that’s riddled with anxiety… it all makes sense somehow.

John

I’ve been waiting a month to get back to NYC and I’ve been unusually excited about it. Normally, I’d be completely bored and bitter about the prospect of returning to the city where everyone just wants a piece of me. But this time there’s Sarah, who doesn’t seem to care that I have money.

Our texting conversations have gone great. They’re perhaps more flirty than normal pre-date texts where people try to act all suave and not-interested. That might have something to do with the fact that we’ve already had sex. And now just any sex, but hot passionate sex in the middle of the night in a barn in the Hamptons. I still think about that night, and I doubt I’ll ever forget it, whatever happens. Sarah’s naked body still glimmers in my mind’s eye.

I’m strangely nervous when I pick up the phone to call her.

“So I’m back,” I say, not bothering to mince my words or say something cute.

“Good,” says Sarah. “I’d love to get together.”

“What about tonight?” I say. “It’d be nice to take you to a real dinner. Something nice. Something you haven’t had before.”

“There’s just one little problem,” says Sarah.

Oh no, here it comes. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Everything has just seemed too perfect with her, so it would make sense that there’s going to be some huge problem coming up.

“What is it?” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “You can tell me. Whatever the problem is, I know we can come up with a work around. I have a lot of contacts in the city, you know. We can handle anything.”

She pauses for a moment and I hold my breath, waiting to see what she’s going to say.

“It’s nothing huge,” says Sarah. “It’s just that we never talked about me working for you.”

All that build up for nothing.

The tension breaks and suddenly I burst out laughing.

“Honestly I forgot all about that,” I say. “It honestly hadn’t even crossed my mind once.”

“It was hard for me not to think about,” says Sarah. “After all, I work in your building every day, and have been working there since you left.”

“I bet it’s a lot of fun,” I say. “Cleaning the floors and everything sounds like a real drag. Why don’t you let me promote you to something better. You could have your own office or cubicle or whatever you want. Maybe even your own bathroom.”

“That won’t be necessary,” says Sarah, cutting me off somewhat curtly. But I’m impressed with her—she really doesn’t want financial favors from me, that’s clear enough. “I always make my own way. I’ve got a whole plan on working my way up…classes…and all that.”

“That’s great,” I say. “I was just offering. But I really respect that you want to do it all yourself.”

“Thanks,” says Sarah. “I just didn’t want things to be weird between us…you know, if we’re dating and also you’re my boss.”

“I may have interviewed you,” I say. “But Cindy’s really your boss. And I doubt she’s going to listen to me no matter what I tell her. That’s one of the reasons I hired her—she’s really tough and gets the job done.”

Sarah laughs, her laugh sounding beautiful even over the cell phone connection that could use a little to be desired. “That’s for sure,” she says. “I’ve certainly noticed.”

I laugh too. “It’s hard to avoid noticing Cindy’s personality,” I say. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you that night…”

“Yeah,” says Sarah, laughing. The tension is broken and it feels good to be more relaxed. “I was wondering when you would notice.”

I laugh again. “I guess I was just taken aback by your beauty,” I say. “I was completely stunned. Shell chocked by how beautiful you were.”

“You mean how beautiful I am,” says Sarah, chuckling.

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what I meant. Anyway, it doesn’t bother me that you’re a cleaner for my business. I mean, I do employ a lot of people and all that. I have to say, it’s refreshing that you’re not into me for my money. Most women would jump on the opportunity to get their own office and a big salary.”

“I’m not like that,” says Sarah.

“I noticed,” I say. “Anyway, if it gets more serious between us, we can fill out a employee relationship form, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. After all, I’m the head of the whole company, so I can kind of do what I want there. Anyway, should I pick you up at 7 tonight? I know a good place we could eat at.”

Sarah hesitates for a moment, and I’m not sure why. But in the end she says yes and we say goodbye and hang up our phones.

I stare at the wall for a moment with a smile on my face. I knew I liked her from the moment I saw her, and now I have a feeling that this is really going to go somewhere serious, somewhere special. There’s just something about her that I can’t describe.

I look down at my pants and notice that I’ve got a hard on just thinking about her. The bulge is quite large in my pants and my cock feels as hard as it’s ever been. It’s amazing the way a woman like Sarah can do that to me—get me so hard without even being in the same room as me.

Well, I think to myself, this hard on will just have to wait until tonight, where hopefully I can “reconnect” with Sarah the way I’ve been hoping to.

But no more unprotected sex, I think to myself. As good as it feels, and as much as I want to do it, I don’t want to take any more risks. That was pretty irresponsible of me that night. So tonight I’ll make sure I bring some condoms with me. Not that I’m expecting sex, but it’d sure be a welcome surprise. I haven’t been with anyone the entire month I was in California. I haven’t been with anyone since I met Sarah, which is definitely the longest time I’ve been without sex since…well, since I was about 18.

That may sound unbelievable to some, but even before I was rich I never had any problems picking up women. Sometimes I don’t even have to make a move. The women just come up to me. Some of them have told me there’s just something about my presence that draws them to me.

I whittle away the rest of the day. The hours go by much, much too slowly.

When the time comes, I deck myself out in a suit. I usually never wear suits. But Sarah’s worth it. She’s more important than any business meeting, that’s for sure.

I plug her address into my phone, and cringe when I see which neighborhood she’s in. She certainly doesn’t live in Manhattan, that’s for sure. And actually her neighborhood is a place I’d really think twice about if I was walking alone at night. And I’m a pretty big guy and I’m no slouch at hand-to-hand combat either.

I take one of my sports cars out of the garage at my penthouse and cruised through the Manhattan streets. I’m used to scoping out the women as I drive. A lot of them like to look and see who’s driving such an expensive sports car. Normally I’d be rating them and admiring their bodies. But strangely, none of them hold any interest for me right now. All I can think about is Sarah and seeing her again.

I double-park the car on Sarah’s street.

I stand in front of her house and gaze up at the dilapidated row homes. This part of the city looks so dismal, so bleak and grey. That’s what poverty does to an area. There’s hardly anything living or green on the whole block. Down on the corner, there’s a white cross in the ground, probably signifying where some poor young person was gunned down. This isn’t a place I want anyone I care about living, I think to myself. Then again, I remind myself, aren’t I getting ahead of myself? I just met Sarah, basically.

But, no, there’s something else. There’s something special between us already.

I can almost feel or sense that she’s near me, even though I can’t see her. She’s probably upstairs putting the finishing touches on her makeup.

I look up again and this time I see her. It looks like she’s standing in the bathroom window, adjusting her earrings.

Even though I have a picture of her on my phone, and I have her image basically tattooed in my memory, seeing her in person is enough to make me catch my breath again and make my heart leap in surprise.

Somehow, she notices that I’m looking at her, and she looks down. We smile at each other.

I head up the steps and ring the doorbell.

“Coming,” says a shrill voice that doesn’t sound anything like Sarah.

“Hello,” I say. “I’m John Clark. Is Sarah here?”

“One minute,” she says. “Won’t you come in?”

The situation doesn’t make sense for a moment as I enter the cramped house. There’s stuff piled high in every possible location. I haven’t been into a home this dilapidated or stuffed for a long, long time. Not since before I became very rich. For a moment I wonder if this woman is her roommate?

Oh, I realize, it’s her mother. She lives with her mother.

Wow, I mean I knew she was poor. She’s working as a cleaner after all. But who lives with their mother?

Not that I care. Sarah could be homeless and I’d still date her. She could live on the bottom of the ocean, in a giant seashell, and I’d rent the scuba gear necessary to date her.

“You look beautiful,” I say, as Sarah appears at the bottom of the stairs.

“Could be better,” says her mother, giving her a disapproving look. “Where’d you get that dress?”

“Janet lent it to me,” says Sarah, blushing.

She looks gorgeous, with her long hair flowing down around her shoulders. Her breasts are pushed up slightly and create a very attractive bulge in the dress. The dress is short and doesn’t even approach her knees, leaving her legs bare and beautiful.

“Ready?” I say, anxious not to stick around to the mother’s sure-to-be probing questions. It’s been a long time since I’ve faced the interrogations of the mother’s of the daughter’s I’m dating. Maybe that’s because I’ve often gone out with super models who come from other countries. But Sarah’s just a regular American girl with a regular mother, and she’s hotter and sexier and more alluring than all the rest of the models put together.

I take Sarah by the arm and we leave quickly through the door.

“I can’t believe we got out of there without her doing anything,” says Sarah, giggling. She pushes her body up against mine from the side and it feels wonderful.

“It feels so nice to be close to you again,” I say.

“I hope it feels more than nice,” says Sarah, giving me a big kiss.

“Watch out you don’t get her pregnant,” calls her mother from inside the screen door.

I think we both blush.

By the time we’re in my sports car, my cock is already rock hard. Sarah and I are making out heavily, but I finally have to pull away to drive the car.

“I’ve got us a table at a decent restaurant,” I say.

“I hope I’m dressed OK,” says Sarah. “It’s not everyday a cleaner gets to dine with a billionaire.”

“You’ll look better than anyone else in there,” I say. “Just wait and see.”

Sarah

I was surprisingly nervous before the date. After all, I’m going out with my billionaire boss. And I happen to be carrying his baby. And he doesn’t know.

But we have such a good natural chemistry that soon all these worries fly right out of my head. I settle into the evening and enjoy John’s company. The drive is nice as we cruise through Manhattan. John’s an excellent driver and he downshifts expertly as he passes the slower cars. It’s exhilarating to race through the streets of Manhattan in his luxury sports car. For once, I’m above ground, rather than on the subway. It’s a totally different world up here. I’ve never even owned a car—like many of New York City’s poorer inhabitants.

Passing cars and speeding doesn’t bother me at all and I’m calm the whole drive.

But when we pull up to the restaurant, my heart suddenly starts to pound. I knew the restaurant would be fancy but I had no idea it would be this fancy.

I can tell just from the outside this is the type of place I’d never step foot in normally. Well, maybe it’s the type of place I’d work as a cleaner. But it’s not even the type of place I’ve ever worked as a waitress—it’s far too nice.

There’s a team of professional-appearing valet parkers that greet John as he pulls up. The engine roars and the clean-shaven valets look appreciatively at the car.

One valet opens my door, and another takes my hand, helping me out of the car.

John tips one of the valets two crisp one hundred dollar bills. “That’s for not taking the car joy riding,” says John. “It’s got a computer system in it that tells me where it’s been, so if I were you I wouldn’t even try.”

The valets are so professional they don’t even crack a smile. They act more like military men than anything else—or those guards in England that don’t move for hours and hours. All John and I get is a series of polite nods.

John swoops me into the restaurant where a series of waiters and maître d’s are there to bow at us and accommodate our every whim.

“A bottle of your finest champagne,” says John.

The waiter pours the bubbling substance for us, and we clink glasses. I’ve got the glass to my lips before I remember that I’m pregnant. So I just keep my lips closed and pretend to take a sip. John takes an inquisitive look at my glass but doesn’t say anything.

“I hope this isn’t too formal,” says John.

“This is great,” I say, my eyes growing wide as I glance around the restaurant.

This isn’t a restaurant for ordinary people. There are celebrities all over the place. I recognize this people not from my daily life but from the tabloid pages of the newspapers and internet. I’ve read about a lot of their lives and feel like I know them.

I can’t help but noticing that John’s getting a lot of women checking him out, looking him up and down.

“Looks like you have a lot of female admirers,” I say.

“I don’t care about them at all,” says John, with a wave of his hand. “I’m only interested in you.”

“I couldn’t help doing a little research on you over the last month,” I say, slowly, not sure how to broach the topic.

“Oh?” says John, smiling at me. “And you found out I’m a womanizing…guy?”

“Exactly,” I say, winking at him. “You’ve been romantically linked, as they say, with some of the highest paid super models in the country. What do you want with a poor cleaning girl like me?”

John laughs. “I like how direct you are. Frankly, Sarah, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know why you’re working as a cleaner now, but I know you’re destined for much greater things. Of course, you can do whatever you want. I couldn’t care less that you’re a cleaner and not a movie star. Plus, you don’t know how these movie stars and supermodels are. They’re not down to earth like you. They think the world is just waiting for an opportunity to serve them and give them what they want.”

“How do you know I’m not like that?” I say, with a twinkle in my eyes.

“You didn’t even accept my offer to promote you unfairly,” I say.

“How do you know it’d be unfair?”

“I love your sarcasm,” says John without a trace of sarcasm in his own voice.

Suddenly, John leans forward and kisses me full on the lips, right across the fancy table. He almost knocks over a very expensive looking glass full of water.

“They’re all looking at us,” I whisper to John.

“Let them look,” he says.

As John pulls away, the taste of his lips still on mine, I catch the glares of at least ten elegant women who obviously wonder what a cleaner is doing with the famous billionaire John Clark.

But they don’t know you’re a cleaner, I tell myself.

We order from the obsequious waiters. John gets us an appetizer of some small lobster dish I’ve never even heard of. We both have steaks and fancy pasta.

We laugh and joke all through dinner. Our own table’s atmosphere is in sharp contrast to the somewhat strained and formal atmosphere around us. We’re clearly having a better time than everyone else around us. Unlike us, they’re all more concerned with taking selfies and with the possibility of paparazzi than with actually enjoying their meals.

“This is like, seriously, the best food I’ve ever eaten in my life,” I say, with my mouth still full.

John laughs and hands me a napkin. “Wait until you try the desert,” he says.

The desert arrives and of course it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

“But this doesn’t compare to the real desert, of course,” I say, winking at John.

“What real dessert?” says John. “You don’t like the cake?”

“Oh,” I say. “It’s delicious. Best thing I’ve ever eaten. I just mean I was hoping we could hook up again after the meal. Before I have to return to my mom’s house, I mean.”

John laughs. “I love your frankness,” he says. “You may not know this, but people are always trying to bullshit me in my line of work. Usually people want a lot of money. But you’re not like that. You’re just different.”

“So you’re taking me straight home to my house, or you’ve got something else planned?” I say.

John smiles a coy smile at me. “I was hoping to take you out on the water,” he says.

“Swimming in the Hudson?” I say. “Is that what you had in mind?”

“Something a little less tiring,” says John. “I’ve arranged a yacht to take us out. It’ll just be me, you, and the captain.”

“You can’t steer a yacht yourself? I thought you were the all purpose billionaire who can do anything he wants?”

“I’ve won some competitions,” says John, modestly. “Yachting, sailing small boats. I even had a phase where I was doing motorboat racing. Now those things are really fast…”

“And you don’t think taking the yacht out will be as tiring as swimming?” I say.

“Why would it be tiring?” says John, a look of concern growing across his face. “I just thought it’d be nice. There’s a private cabin and everything.”

“I was referring to what we’re going to be doing in the cabin,” I say, not quite knowing where I’ve gotten the gall to say this. But I feel comfortable with John.”

John nearly spits out his champagne. I still haven’t touched mine, but I feel giddy from anticipation about what John and I are going to do tonight. Sober yet completely giddy as if I’ve been drinking champagne all evening. For a moment, I think of the baby growing inside me, and remember that it’s John’s. I look into his eyes and see them shining back at me. I know there’s something important between us… we just haven’t really spoken about it out loud yet. I know he feels it too. I wish I could tell him that I’m pregnant, but…

“Tell you what,” says John. “Let me up the ante on that one…”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Here,” says John, taking my hand under the table and placing it on his crotch. His massive cock is rock hard, and I can feel the blood pulsating through it through his thin dress pants.

“You’ve got my attention,” I say.

“I’ll meet you in the women’s bathroom,” says John.

“At this restaurant? Won’t the waiters be upset if they catch us?”

“For the money I’m paying for this meal, I don’t think so,” says John. “That’s the thing about money. It kind of gets you what you want.”

“But I heard of some celebrities being arrested for something after…you know…doing it in the bathroom.”

John grins at me. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he says. “After all, I can always have someone bail us out of jail if we wind up there. I’ve got the money for it.”

My mind flashes to how my mother would react if she heard the news I’d been messing around in a restraint bathroom with a billionaire. At first I’m horrified at the potential embarrassment of that scenario, but then I start chuckling and realize I’d actually relish it. Does that make me a bad girl? Hey, I’m in my twenties though, right? It’s not like I have to do what makes other people happy and not work towards my own happiness.

Without saying another word, I get up from the table as suavely as I can and walk towards the ladies’ room, which is in the back of the restaurant.

Before entering the bathroom, I turn and flash John a wicked smile from across the restaurant.

Inside, the bathroom, I take a deep breath. I’ve never done anything like this before. And this bathroom is just as fancy as the rest of the restaurant, which means it’s fancier than my entire mother’s apartment by a long shot.

Upscale sex in an upscale bathroom I think to myself.

A moment later, the door swings open and John rushes in. He’s holding a napkin in front of his crotch, which he removes to reveal the tremendous bulge in his slacks.

“You walked through the restaurant like that?” I say. “It’s it a bit obvious? Couldn’t you think of baseball or something?”

“I don’t care what they think,” says John, throwing the latch on the door behind him.

“You know this is the only bathroom,” I say. “There are multiple stalls…”

“They’ll just have to wait,” says John, an aggressiveness coming into his voice. He almost seems to possess a savage desire for me that turns me on. I can feel my body reacting to his desire, to his crotch, to the lust that I feel from him towards me.

He approaches me and he’s never looked so big and powerful. His eyes are gleaming with something I haven’t seen before.

I feel myself trembling a little in anticipation.

John kisses me deeply and with both hands grabs my waist. He picks me up as if I were nothing at all and places me on the sink.

My back rests against the mirror.

Before I know what’s happening, John’s lifting up my dress so that it’s around my hips.

“Oh my God!” I say, as John’s tongue contacts my thigh. He works his way around each thigh before grazing my outer lips.

I moan as he starts licking me. I’d forgotten how incredible it was that first night we were together.

He has technique but he also has passion.

His finger is inside me, deep inside me, moving in a way that drives me crazy.

“I love the way you taste,” says John. It’s probably the dirtiest thing anyone’s ever said to me and I might be grossed out if I wasn’t so turned on.

His hands are pushing my thighs apart…his strong and powerful hands. Now they’re massaging my breasts underneath my dress.

“Oh my God” I say. “I’m going to…”

But before I can even pronounce the word “come,” I do come. And hard.

Massive shivers running through me like sparks, from my groin up to my head, all the way through me. My body feels light and I feel like I’m going to faint, but in a wonderful way.

I’m trying to stop from shrieking but I can’t stop moaning and John doesn’t make any effort to keep me quite. He just keeps going, doubling his intensity. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

“I need to taste your cock,” I say, towards the end of my orgasm. “Give it to me now.”

I’ve never been this forward with any man before.

Before I know it, I’m on my knees in front of John, unbuckling his belt buckle. His massive throbbing cock springs out to greet me, and I take it in my mouth.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” says John, grunting as I slurp on his cock, bobbing my head up and down.

John’s cock is so long he can easily take the base of it in his fist, even with the rest being in my mouth. He starts working away, and the idea of him jerking himself off into my mouth is so hot in the moment that it almost sends me over the edge to another orgasm. Almost, but not quite. But I feel like I’m teetering between two intense orgasms—the one I just had and the one I know is approaching. It’s only a matter of time.

But honestly, just sucking his cock is enough for me.

Now John’s removed his fist and he’s pumping lightly into my mouth, moving his hips almost as if he were fucking me.

“I need to be inside you,” says John, gruffly, as if he’s straining against an orgasm, as if his cock is going to explode at any moment.

And, sure enough, his cock is pulsating. It’s harder and larger than it’s ever been. I can feel it in my mouth. I swirl my tongue around it and tighten my mouth.

“Oh God,” says John, groaning in response.

There’s a loud knock on the door. “Anyone in there?” says a shrill voice that I’m sure belongs to a super model.

“Just a minute,” says John, trying his best to keep his voice even. But there’s the sexual undertone to it that probably doesn’t go unnoticed by the woman on the other side of the door.

“Is someone in there?” says another voice outside the door.

“I think so,” says the first woman. “The door’s locked.

This isn’t good. I don’t know if we’re going to have time for real sex now.

“We better hurry up,” I whisper to John as softly as I can.

“I guess you’re right,” says John, with a single look. It’s interesting how we can communicate quite well with just a look now.

“Hurry up in there,” says the woman.

“Here,” I whisper to John, using my hand to guide John’s hand to his own cock.

I get back up on the sink and spread my legs wide open. I start fingering myself intensely, going as hard and fast as I absolutely can. The pleasure wracks through my body making me shiver. I’m starting down the barrel of John’s massive cock and it’s making me so fucking horny I can barely contain myself. My body is shivering and moving involuntarily, my head snapping back and forth slightly as my open mouth faces towards the ceiling and my eyes start to close on their own.

I’m trying desperately not to make any noise but the moans manage to come out of me.

Meanwhile, John is standing directly in front of me, looking me right in the eyes. He’s fisting his powerful cock as hard and fast as he can. I imagine that it’s me he’s fucking, rather than jerking off his cock with his powerful hand.

John has the most intense look on his face.

We come at exactly the same time.

His cock is pulsating and I watch it intensely, looking back and forth between it and his eyes.

His cock explodes and the come shoots straight at me. I watch it come at me in ropes and it hits my upper thigh.

My own orgasm explodes just as his seed hits me.

“Really!” says the woman outside. “This is too much. I’m going to have to talk to someone.”

“I will too,” says someone who sounds like a newcomer.

Now there are three women outside the door?

“We’d better get going?” I say, as soon as I can talk again.

My body feels light and heavy at the same time. The after glow of the orgasm is still rushing through me. I want to do nothing more than curl up in John’s arms. Of course, then I want him to pierce me with his massive cock. He can fuck me while he holds me. Then we can cuddle. That’ll all have to wait until the yacht though, since we had better get out of this bathroom as quick as we can.

I watch as John shoves his still rock-hard cock back into his pants and buckles his belt. He zips up his fly and he throws the latch on the door just as I pull my dress down around myself. There’s no time to make sure my makeup and hair are OK.

John and I rush through the restaurant. People turn their heads to look at us.

“There they are,” say three very pissed off looking women, pointing us out to a gaggle of stern looking waiters.

John and I are giggling as John takes out his thick wallet and throws down more than a few hundred dollar bills. Hell, I’m not keeping track, but he could easily have thrown down a thousand dollars. It’s hard to tell because the bills are so crisp and clean and tend to stick together.

“Better to pay in cash then wait around while they run the card,” says John.

A waiter is approaching the table but John takes my hand and we rush out of the restaurant, not even looking behind us at the stunned onlookers. And the most important thing is that we don’t care what they think of us.

John

“That was a rush,” says Sarah, her body pressed up against me as we wait for the valet. I drape my arm around my shoulder and gaze down at her beautiful body. Her dress is a little out of order and I can see much more cleavage than I could before. My hands were just on those plump and delicious breasts. They’re just perfect and I feel like I could bury my head in them forever.

I’m so intent on her breasts that I don’t even watch as the valet drives the car up. Normally I’m watching to make sure the guy knows how to drive and isn’t destroying the transmission as he tries inexpertly to shift.

“Ready for the boat ride?” I say.

“I’m ready to do anything with you,” says Sarah, gazing up at me with her beautiful eyes.

“You’re really special,” I say.

“That’s quite the talk for a first date.”

“I guess I’m counting this as our second,” I say.

“In that case,” says Sarah. “I feel comfortable telling you that I can’t wait until your cock is buried deep inside me on that boat of yours.”

I laugh. “I can’t wait either,” I say, gazing down at her breasts one last time before walking her over to the passenger’s side of the car and helping her get into the sports car. There’s no way in hell I’m going to leave such an important job to one of the valets whose only going to ogle her as she gets into the car. Even so, as I turn around to head to the driver’s side of the car, I catch just about every one of the valets looking her up and down before they close the door for her.

“Watch it fellows,” I say, giving them a stern glance.

They know who the boss is. They know who I am. And even if they didn’t, they can read my demeanor and stance and know I’m not someone you want to mess around with.

“They were really trying to get an eyeful of you,” I say, as I close my own door before the valet can try to do it for me.

“Let them look,” says Sarah, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“It doesn’t upset you?” I say.

“Not when you’re with me,” she says. “I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

Sarah puts her gorgeous hand on my thigh as we drive along. I shift the car and merge into traffic. We have a comfortable silence on the way down to the dock, where my boat guy meets us. He takes care of the yacht when I’m not around, making sure everything’s in tip top shape. When I want to take the boat out, it’s always ready at a moment’s notice. This time, though, I sent him a message earlier today to make sure to get the boat ready for a romantic evening. I’ve had a lot of women on the yacht in days past, but none of them can hold a candle to Sarah in her beauty or that connection that I’m feeling is developing.

Right before getting out of the car, Sarah looks at me in the eyes. It looks like she wants to tell me something.

“Is there something you wanted to say?” I say, not sure where she’s going to go with this.

“I…”

“Yeah?” I say, after a long pause on her part. “It’s OK, Sarah, you can tell me anything you want. Whatever it is. If you’ve got a problem”—I have a sense now that this is something serious that’s been on her mind a long time, but don’t ask me why I think that—“I’ll do everything in my power to fix it.”

“It’s…nothing,” says Sarah after another long pause. But the look on her face tells me that it is something, although I don’t have the slightest idea what it is. “I just had a really good time with you so far tonight. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“I had a great time with you,” I say, knowing that this isn’t what she wanted to tell me.

“The bathroom was the highlight,” says Sarah, flashing me a grin.

“Well then let’s just see if we can top that,” I say.

I help Sarah out of the car and shake Tom, my boat guy’s hand.

“What’s the word, Tom?” I say.

“Not much new,” says Tom. “Gave the motor a work down yesterday, though.”

“Good work,” I say.

“I thought this was a sailboat,” says Sarah, gazing up at the large and gleaming yacht towering in front of us.

“It is,” I say. “But there’s usually a motor in case there’s no wind.”

“Good to have a backup,” says Tom, simply. He’s a man of few words. A classic man of the sea. He even looks the part, with a knit sweater and a large but neatly trimmed beard. I’ve never seen him smoke a pipe but I wouldn’t be surprised to find him with one some day, gazing calmly out at the sea. Tom’s only in New York City because of me. I had to offer him a lot of money to come up here, since he’s never been a city guy and hates all the loud noise and traffic. He essentially just lives on the boat year round, except on the rare occasions I take the boat out without Tom.

I help Sarah get on the boat and Tom gets the boat started up and starts undoing the lines.

“You wait here on the bow and I’m just going to go over and help Tom a little bit,” I say, giving Sarah a kiss.

“You really know about boats too?” says Sarah, her eyes widening.

I nod my head, and head out to help Tom with some of the lines.

We talk for a minute about a possible route but in the end I Just say, “Whatever you think is best, Tom. It’s going to be a romantic evening, hopefully, the way things are looking, so it might be better to keep to calmer waters.”

Tom gives me a wink. “It’s always a romantic evening for you, isn’t it?”

“She’s different,” I say. “She’s something special.”

“I can see that in the way you look at her.”

“When did you get so good at reading people? I thought you spent all your time looking at navigational charts and sharpening your boat knives?”

Tom chuckles at my joke. I like him and one of the reasons is because he doesn’t mind when you go at him hard with some personal jabs. “I may not spend a lot of time with people, John, but that doesn’t mean I’m not good at reading them.”

“You’re good at reading people, eh?” I say. “What do you read in me?”

Tom gives me a long and careful look. “You haven’t been happy in a long time,” he says.

“I’m half expecting you to pull out a pipe any minute and calmly light it up I say. Is this a wise man of the sea routine or something?”

Tom nods. “I didn’t even know that was a cliché,” he says. “But I know that you’ve got everything you could want except that one thing…”

“You mean a woman that I can really share my life with?” I say.

Tom nods.

“Do you think she’s the one?”

“The one tonight? I just talked to her for less than a minute,” says Tom. “But…”

“Come on,” I say. “Dish it out.”

“I see the way you look at each other and there’s something very powerful and special there.”

“And what do you make of her? What can you tell me about her? I’d be surprised if you can tell me something I don’t already know. Do you know she’s working as a cleaner?”

“Never would have guessed it,” says Tom. “But this ability to read people doesn’t exactly fall on those lines…employment and things like that. It’s more about something deeper inside them.”

“So what can you tell me?” I say.

“She’s hiding something,” says Tom.

I’m taken aback. Partly because that’s the feeling I’ve had rumbling around deep down. It’s the feeling that I haven’t admitted to myself but I know it’s true. After all, how many times has Sarah started to tell me something only to be cut off or to stop herself? At first, I thought it was just that she was scared to admit that she was a cleaner, but… no, there’s something else.

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you,” says Tom. “I don’t get the sense she’s pulling one over on you.”

“Pulling one over on me?”

“You know,” says Tom, slowly. “Going after your money.”

“I’ve got to get back to her,” I say. “Just try to keep the boat steady. And I apologize in advance if we make too much noise.”

“I never hear anything over the sound of the sea,” says Tom, giving me a wink.

“Good,” I say. “Keep it that way.”

Tom gives me a salute as he’s accustomed to do and I head back to the bow where Sarah’s shivering slightly in the cold wind. The boat is already underway and the water is dark. We can see the lights from the city and when we get farther out the lights from the stars will become clearer.

“Hey there,” I say, draping my arm around her shoulder.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” says Sarah.

I give her a deep kiss on the mouth and she tastes better than she ever has. Less than an hour ago I was spraying her with my come, as I pumped my cock as hard as I feverishly could. I already know the night has much more where that came from in store for us. I’ve never been the type of guy to get drained after just one orgasm.

But Tom’s words echo in my head. Is she hiding something? Is there something she doesn’t want me to find out? Tom mentioned she’s not after my money, but who knows if he’s right? After all, he’s not some sage. He’s just my very knowledgeable boat guy and I never before pegged him for someone who had a good read on human nature. After all, he spends all his time getting as far away from humans as he can.

She is poor. Maybe she is after my money after all?

But her caresses push the thought out of my mind.

“Want some wine or anything?” I say, taking her by the hand.

“I’m OK,” says Sarah. “I’m not drinking much these days.”

I nod.

“I noticed,” I say. “Any particular reason?”

“Oh,” says Sarah, vaguely. “I just thought it’d be healthier not to drink so much. Not that I had a problem or anything. I just never was much of a drinker.”

I wish I could say the same for myself. I haven’t been drinking much with Sarah, but before her, I certainly downed my fair share of booze. That’s part of the billionaire womanizing life style I guess. I never had a problem and I never was a drunk, but I had to spend my money on something and fancy dinners with fancy wine is a vice common to almost everyone who has a lot of money.

“Come with me up to the top,” I say.

“Isn’t Tom there?”

“There’s a steering wheel up there, but he’s down below on the main deck. We’ve got an incredible view up there.”

“Can anyone see us up there?”

“I don’t think so,” I say.

I lead her up there, helping her with the ladder.

She climbs in front of me up the steep ladder that leads up to the top. I can’t help but looking greedily up her dress as she climbs. I can see her towering legs shining all the way up to where her underwear would be if she hadn’t left it in the bathroom. I chuckle a little to myself but the growing bulge in my pants keeps me from looking anywhere but her glorious pussy lips. I just want to dive right in there again. I want to shove my hard cock into her until she’s full with it. I want to taste her again on my lips. I want to crawl inside there and stay there forever. Wasn’t there a movie like that once? What a weird idea for a movie? That’s the mind of a guy for you. Sometimes we think the dirtiest strangest things that we could never tell anyone else, and this is a perfect example of just that.

“Wow,” says Sarah, when we’re finally up there. “The view is incredible.”

I put my arm around her again and we gaze together at the city lights that are disappearing as Tom takes us farther away from the city. There’s just the slightest swell to the waves beneath us, making Sarah and I rock gently where we stand.

Suddenly, Sarah’s getting to her knees.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“I can’t wait for the cabin,” she says. “I didn’t get nearly enough of your cock in that fancy bathroom.”

“You’re something else,” I say, as I listen eagerly to the sounds of her unbuckling my hefty belt buckle and unzipping my pants.

A moment later she has my very hard cock out and is just holding it in the palm of her hand. I look down and she’s admiring it, just gazing at it. Now she’s lightly stroking it with her other hand—these are the lightest strokes you could possibly imagine.

Now she takes my hard cock in her mouth. She really knows what she’s doing.

Holy fuck. That’s all I can think of as she starts to suck, bobbing her gorgeous head along my cock.

I cant’ explain how incredible it is to have such a gorgeous creature kneeling before you working on your hard cock. It’s just…absolutely amazing. The sensation, the view, absolutely everything.

“I’m going to come,” I manage to grunt out after just a couple minutes of her working and working.

She pulls her head away from her cock to speak to me briefly. “I want you to come,” she says. There’s a somewhat wicked glint to her eyes that tells me she couldn’t get any more cock hungry no matter what.

“But…” I say, trying vaguely to protest.

“What is it?” she says, that glint still in her eyes. I know she’s going to stop at nothing but me coming.

“I don’t want to come just yet,” I say, breathlessly. “I still want to get inside you.”

“You still want to fuck me? Is that it?”

I nod my head and groan as she gives me another lick and a suck, while working the base of my thick cock with her delicate and gorgeous hands.

“I know you can come and still fuck me,” she says, looking me right in the eyes. “You’re one of those powerful guys who can just come and come.”

“How do you know that?” I say.

“I can just tell.”

She pulls out her breasts so that they’re sticking out of her dress and I can look down and see them so gorgeous. The moon has come out from behind the clouds and it shines down on her bare skin. Her nipples are hard and she’s breathing heavily and also reaching down and fingering herself. She’s so turned on and wants my cock and my come so badly that I get even more turned on by myself.

“Oh my God,” I groan, as the orgasm floods through me.

This is one of the most powerful orgasms of my life. Something about being out in the open air… it’s just incredible.

She removes her mouth just before I come and keeps working on my cock furiously with her hand, jerking my throbbing and swollen cock, milking it to get everything out. I shoot my load all over the floor. Oh well, I think to myself. Another job for the janitorial staff. That’s what’s good about being a billionaire I suppose. Then I think to Sarah being a cleaner—I don’t like it one bit. What if she had to clean up something like this?

Oh well, actually, the ocean breeze and wind will probably wash it all away at some point. Nothing really sticks to this boat.

“Time to go downstairs,” she says to me with a delicious smile on her face.

“You don’t want me to take you up here?” I say.

“Not this time,” says Sarah, and she starts climbing down the ladder.

I let go of her hand and follow her.

Once on the main deck, I lead her below to the cabin.

It’s softly lit with candles. Tom did a good job setting everything up. The sheets are clean and the cabin looks inviting with the wood paneling all around. It’s small but not cramped. There’s a bottle of champagne waiting for us with two flute glasses but I already know we’re not going to be drinking any of it. Not that we need it. We’ve reached a level where we’re uninhibited with each other and don’t need anything else.

“You’re still rock hard,” says Sarah. “What did I tell you?”

“What about a condom?” I say, suddenly becoming pragmatic out of nowhere. But I remember my thoughts from earlier. Time to be responsible.

“Oh,” says Sarah, a strange look coming onto her face. “I don’t think we need that, do you?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I wanted to be responsible. I don’t want to get you pregnant.” I almost add, “not just yet,” but maybe that’d be too much. But I feel such a strong connection to her. She’s just the type of woman who I’d want to bear me children and help me raise them…together, just the two of us with a batch of kids. Who knows how many. It’s time I settled down and got serious and this is just the type of woman to do it with. I don’t give a damn that she’s a cleaner. She won’t be forever. And I’ve got enough money for the two of us. She’s classy but also uninhibited with sex. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to take it. She’s also not after my money…but then I remember what Tom said. Could she just be more clever than the rest of them? Could she want my money but know how to play the game? No, I think to myself, as I gaze at her body, which she’s spreading out gracefully and sexily on top of the sheets of the bed. She’s still wearing her dress but she’s kicked off her heels. Her legs shine. The swell of her breasts draws me like nothing else.

“I want you so much,” I say, grabbing a condom from an artfully hidden drawer.

“It’s going to feel better without a condom,” she says.

“You’re not trying to get pregnant, are you?” I say, knowing full well that she best way a woman could get my money is to get pregnant by me. The lawyers would have a field day and there’s nothing I could do but pay out. Not that I give a damn about the money. Hell, I’d give money right now to Sarah if I thought she’d take it.

“I’m on the pill,” says Sarah, confidently, but I don’t quite believe her.

In the end, though, her body calls to me, and I want to do nothing more but sink my cock into her delicious soft body without anything between us, certainly not a disgusting throw away piece of plastic.

“I trust you,” I say, looking her right in the eyes.

Now I sink onto of her body. We’re all over each other. We’re kissing each other heavily on the mouth.

My hands are on her breasts. Now my hands are under her dress, playing her down below. She moans softly and looks me right in the eyes.

I help her take the dress off over her head.

“Wow,” I can’t help but saying as I get a glimpse of her naked body again. Now it’s more than a glimpse—a full-fledged stare. There’s nothing like a woman like this. What I mean to say is there isn’t another woman on the planet who looks like this.

Her hair fans out across the pillow.

“I need you,” I say. “I need to be inside you right now.” Maybe not the classiest thing to say but it’s the absolute truth.

“I need you inside me too,” says Sarah.

My cock is throbbing again, just aching and begging for release, even though it’s going to be at least the third time tonight. But, hey, who’s counting?

It glides into her without me needing to use my hand for guidance. Our bodies feel magnetically connected, as if there’s something strong and incredible drawing us together.

Sarah’s eyes close in ecstasy as my cock sinks into her.

I push my cock into her slowly, using my hips. My weight rests on top of her and my hands are on her breasts. My body is enveloping hers and hers is receiving me as if it was meant to do this.

I’m kissing her neck and she starts moaning wildly while my cock is still penetrating her at an incredibly slow pace.

“It feels so good,” Sarah manages to say.

She’s moaning as if she’s already having another orgasm.

“Fuck me hard,” says Sarah, suddenly, before her voice retreats back to nothing but moans—the sexiest moans I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

Her body is writhing beneath me. I was going to go slow, but I can’t do it. She’s begging me for it and my own body is telling me what to do.

I start thrusting into her hard. She takes me, getting louder and louder in her moans.

I’m vaguely aware I’m making noises too. I’m normally the strong and silent type during sex. Guys aren’t supposed to make much noise, right? Maybe when we come and that’s it. That’s how the porn videos are anyway, not that I have much time or interest in them. I’ve always been much more interested in real women than moving pictures on a screen. And it all seems to fake to me—no emotion, no nothing.

Sarah’s going crazy with noises. I must be grunting myself. I know we’re making a hell of a lot of noise.

I vaguely think of trying another position, but the thought of potentially removing my cock from her delicious body makes me cringe. No, it’s going to be like this.

I’m thrusting and fucking her as hard as I can. Soon, we’re both coming. It only takes a couple minutes, but neither of us can wait.

“Oh!” is all Sarah manages to say as she comes. She’s simply moaning too much.

I’m just a moment behind her. I feel my cock spasming crazily as I fill her up with my seed. A brief worry of pregnancy flashes across my mind, but the pleasure is too great. The lust is too great.

“Don’t stop,” cries Sarah, as I start to slow down. As all guys know, it’s incredibly hard to keep thrusting when you’re coming. For one thing, the cock gets incredibly sensitive right at that moment and it’s almost so pleasurable that it’s painful. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” cries Sarah again.

So I don’t stop. I start thrusting harder and faster than I was before, anxious to do what I can do fuck her to the best of my ability, to give us both the most pleasure that I absolutely can.

Sarah’s moaning beneath me and I’m still fucking her. I suddenly get an idea, and guide Sarah to a standing up position with my strong hands.

I position her so that she’s facing the wall. She puts her palms against the wall and I slide my cock ride into her with ease from behind. Her pussy feels as good as it ever has, and we fuck for another solid five minutes in this position before changing positions.

We’re so turned on and horny that we don’t even bother with the bed. Instead, we get down on the hard floor and she spreads her legs out and I plunge my cock into her again.

We rotate through a variety of positions—she likes being on her stomach with her whole body squeezed underneath mine, me plunging into her from behind.

She also likes being on top, and while it’s a little hard for me to let go of being the super dominating alpha type, I end up enjoying it as well. I’m on the hard floor and she’s riding me, facing me. In this position, she can tease me, but that doesn’t last long, since she wants my cock as much as I want to be inside her.

She rides me and I watch her magnificent breasts bouncing wildly up and down.

We’re about to come when she suddenly gets off me and grabs me, puling me down on top of her. We go for the classic position to finish in—her on her back with her legs as wide as they can be. I don’t even bother with holding her legs like I was doing before, or even trying to support my weight. I simply let my body sink onto hers as my mind goes completely blank and completely wild. My cock inside her and her body are the only things I can think of.

We come in an explosive twin orgasm that leaves us both completely spent, completely exhausted.

“That was…”

I know she’s going to say something complimentary, but she doesn’t even need to, and she realizes she doesn’t need to either.

We lie in complete silence, except for the sound of the waves and our own heavy breathing that’s gradually dying down. We’re completely naked, on the floor, the cozy bed forgotten. At some point, we’ll get back into the bed and curl up with each other, but for now we’re still glistening with sweat and too spent to even think of getting up onto that bed.

Sarah

My life has been completely changed by meeting John. We’re going out now, somewhat officially, I guess. The next month is so glorious and fun and carefree that for the most part I manage to completely forget that I’ve got John’s child growing steadily inside me. How much longer can I keep this up? Surely, he’s going to realize at some point. I can’t be eight months pregnant with a heaving belly—it’s not like he’s not going to notice, especially given the amount of time we spend naked together.

I’m still working as a cleaner for John’s company and the work hasn’t gotten any easier. I’m still living with my mom and that hasn’t gotten any easier either. Janet and I still meet up for coffee and we still talk on the phone a lot and she spends a lot of time chiding me for being so silly and foolish. So that part of my day to day life is exactly the same, but knowing that John and I are going to be spending time together in just a couple days is always my saving grace—it’s the thing that makes everything worthwhile.

Knowing that John and I care so much for each other, not to mention thinking of his hulking muscular body that’s just completely perfect—this is what makes my hum drum life more than tolerable.

I’m happy for the first time since I can remember.

But how can it last?

“I can’t believe you haven’t told him yet,” says Janet, speaking to me through my phone.

I’m locked in the bathroom again at work, something that’s become something of a habit for me.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say.

“Well you’ve got to do something,” says Janet. “How long do you think you can keep this up for?”

“I know, I know,” I say, my voice practically becoming a whine. “But I’m having so much fun. I don’t want to ruin it all. He’ll never talk to me again if I tell him.”

“You don’t know that,” says Janet. “And like I said…”

“I’m not interested in his money,” I say, cutting her off. “And I don’t want him to think I’m interested in him only for his money.”

“But you’ve got to admit it’s one of his attractive features,” says Janet. “I mean, hell, if you weren’t already a couple, I’d go after him.”

“Yeah?” I say, my attention drifting to the countless times John and I have spent on his yacht the last month. He even took me skiing for a weekend in Colorado. Not that we got much skiing done at all. Instead, we spent the majority of our time completely naked in front of a roaring fire. The sex hasn’t lost any of its charm in the least bit, and I was even compelled to give John a blowjob in another restaurant bathroom, this one even fancier than the last.

It’s not that I care about his money, but it is nice, I have to admit, to be whisked away from my impoverished lifestyle by John and his series of expensive sports cars, his private jet, and his yacht. I haven’t even cracked the surface, really, of his immense wealth. He has a number of houses around the world, and we’ve been talking about taking some longer vacations together. One of the reasons I haven’t yet experienced the true extent of John’s wealth is because he doesn’t want to show off in front of me. But that’s maybe a minor reason. The bigger reason is that during the crucial business periods, he likes to spend his time as close to his business as he can. He’s still a businessman and can’t go gallivanting around the world at every chance he gets. Well, he could, but he’s not that kind of guy. He’s got a good head for business and I get the feeling he likes to be really involved in the deals. He’s not the kind of guy to just leave his business for other people to run while he relaxes on a beach in Europe or something.

But in a couple months, things are going to be a little slower, and John usually takes a month long vacation. He goes different places each time. We’ve talked about where I might like to go, and he’s promised he’ll arrange everything with the company so that I can have all the time off I want. Of course, he even offered to pay me for the vacation, but I didn’t like that idea at all. “I don’t want to be paid to spend time with you,” I said. He promised it was nothing like that at all, and I realized he was being genuine, but I still didn’t like the idea, and I still don’t.

“Earth to Sarah,” says Janet’s voice, cutting across my daydreaming.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Are you even listening to me?” says Janet.

“Of course,” I say. “You were chastising me as always for…”

“That was like five minutes ago,” says Janet. “I was telling you about the article that came out about you. Haven’t you seen it? I just saw it pop up on my phone.”

“An article?” I say, vaguely.

Why would someone write an article about me? I’m just a cleaner, after all.

“Bathroom time’s up,” comes Cindy’s harsh voice from the other side of the bathroom door. “I don’t care if you’re dating the CEO himself. Rules are rules and there’s work to be done.”

“I’ve got to go,” I say, quickly and quietly to Janet, before hanging up the phone.

I hastily pull up my pants (I would hate to admit to Janet that I was actually in the bathroom), and rush out of the bathroom.

“Sorry, Cindy,” I say, holding my stomach. “Another upset stomach. You know how it is.”

“Too much fancy food with our CEO,” says Cindy, rolling her eyes at me. “Time to clean up some vomit on the second floor.”

In the past month, I’ve been promoted to the regular cleaner duties, which I quickly realize aren’t much better than what I was doing before. In fact, on days like today, when half the employees seem to be vomiting every chance they get, they’re much, much worse.

“No problem,” I say, trying to smile.

I grab a bucket, a mop, some sawdust, and one of the chemical cleaners we use for vomit, and get onto the service elevator.

I’m halfway through pouring sawdust on the vomit when I start noticing I’m getting some strange looks from the regular employees. These are the computer jockeys, the traders, the analysts, the financial people, and of course the techies.

“That’s her,” I hear someone whisper.

Soon, the whispers are getting louder and louder and I absolutely can’t ignore them, no matter what.

People are pointing at me, and they aren’t being too surreptitious or stealthy.

“I can’t believe he’s dating a cleaner,” says someone, not even bothering to whisper.

“What a shame. Look at that body. But she’s cleaning up vomit.”

“That’s Johnson’s vomit, none the less.”

“Gross.”

I just keep my head down and go about my business. There’s no point in getting upset about what I don’t understand, but I can still feel my face flushing.

Finally, I’ve got the vomit situation under control and walk into the service elevator again. The ride back down to the basement is long because the service elevator, despite the name, apparently hasn’t been serviced in years and years and is unbearably slow. Normally this is a source of incredible frustration, but right now it gives me the opportunity to take out my cell phone and check the news source.

I don’t know where to look, so I just head to one of the big news sites, not seriously thinking that an article about me would show up somewhere big like that.

“CEO Billionaire John Clark dates his cleaner,” reads the headline of the article.

Not exactly accurate, I think to myself.

At first, I just chuckle, along with my disbelief. This is amusing, actually. Imagine me, a lowly cleaner living with my mother appearing on the front page of these news sites, just because of who I’m dating.

But my jaw drops when I see the article. There’s a picture of me in my cleaning uniform, entering the big building. That must have been one of the few days that I didn’t think I’d have time to change at work and wore my cleaner outfit to work.

But as I keep reading the article, I start to grow livid. My disbelieve changes to complete anger.

There are about ten pictures of me, many of them with John. There are some of us captured when we were on the yacht together. How did they even get these pictures? It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t realize John was being followed so closely by the paparazzi, but then again I haven’t been following the news much in recent months.

“You see the article?” says a text from John that pops up on my phone.

“Just saw it,” I write. “I can’t believe it…”

“I’m coming to see you,” John writes.

“No,” I write. “It’s OK.”

“You must be upset…”

Upset isn’t the word that would accurately describe how I feel. But the last thing I want right now is for John to come down again to the service basement and for everyone to see us together. It’s better, I figure, if I just ignore the news and keep on with my normal life.

But there are bound to be more articles in the future.

That thought gives me an idea to check another news site. And another. And another. Sure enough, I’m on all of the major news outlets, as well as some of the minor ones that I come across purely by accident.

Some of the articles just repeat the same news over and over, but others add their own speculation. A few of the articles say that I’m just using John for his money. A few hint at something even more sinister.

“Checking your phone again?” says Cindy’s voice as the elevator door opens.

I just look up at her, my jaw practically resting on the floor, completely speechless.

“That’s it, young lady…”

“I’m not a young lady,” I say.

My mood is bad. These articles have pushed me over the edge. Who does this woman think she is? I’m in a fighting mood now, ready to fight anyone by any means necessary. I don’t care whether it’s Cindy or the cops or anyone else. I’ll fight whoever right now. There’s no way I’m going to take this lying down. I can’t believe these bastards would write this kind of trash about me. My mother’s going to read this.

Oh my God! My mother! What’s she going to say? It’s going to be disastrous.

My phone beeps at me. A text from my mother. I don’t have the heart to read it right now. I should have known she’d be up on top of all the newest celebrity gossip.

I can’t deal with her right now. I’m too angry.

“Listen, you old hag,” I say, right to Cindy’s face, obviously not mincing my words in the slightest. “This is a tough day for me. And it’s not the vomit that’s bothering me. You must live under a cave like I do if you don’t know the news yet. So just leave me the fuck alone.”

Cindy stares at me with her mouth open. I doubt anyone has ever spoken to her like that before in her whole time here as a manager.

“You’re fired!” she finally screams at me.

“No she’s not,” says John, appearing out of nowhere behind Cindy, practically skidding to a stop.

He’s dressed casually, in jeans and a hoodie.

“Listen, Cindy,” he says. “I can explain… it’s been a hard day for her.”

“I don’t care what kind of day it’s been for her,” says Cindy, turning around to face John. “You may be the CEO here but I have to deal with these cleaners day in and day out. And I don’t care if you two are dating. You can fire me if I can’t fire her. I can’t work with someone so insubordinate.”

“No, wait,” says John, his face contorted in a kind of frozen polite smile. He’s obviously trying to be political. He’s told me in private that it’s been hell for him trying to get good managers in the building, and I know that with how reliable Cindy is, whatever her temperament and demeanor, he really doesn’t want to let her go.

“It’s OK,” I say, calming down a little, but still fuming. “I don’t need this job. I don’t need people staring at me and whispering behind my back, or in full earshot like today. I’m leaving.”

I march towards the locker room where I intend to take off my uniform and never put back on again.

“Sarah!” cries out John. “Wait for me.”

But he can’t catch me. I’m too fast.

But he does know where the locker room is.

In a fury of anger and confusion, I start tearing off my clothes. I’ve got the top of my tight cleaner shirt off, when the door opens. Because of my anger, I don’t even move to cover my breasts. For some reason, I decided to not wear a bra today, although for the life of me I can’t remember what in the world that reason was right now.

“Wow,” says someone. I don’t realize who it is at first. I’m just standing with my breasts completely exposed.

Oh, it’s John.

Almost faint in relief.

John takes one look at me and won’t stop staring at my breasts.

“It’s going to be OK, Sarah,” he finally says.

“No it’s not!” I say. “I can’t keep working here. Everyone knows about us now. This is crazy. They say I’m after your money, but that’s not true at all.”

“I know it’s not true,” says John, in a soothing voice, taking my hand. “I know it’s not true. You wouldn’t do that.”

“I’m not working here,” I say.

“That’s OK,” says John. “You don’t have to. You can work somewhere else. I can help get you a job at…”

“I don’t need any help,” I say.

“Come on, baby, don’t be like that.”

John’s hand reaches out to start lightly massaging my breasts. But that’s the last thing I’m in the mood for now.

“Not now,” I say, puling away from him.

“Sorry,” says John, withdrawing himself.

“I’m going home,” I say, confused about my own mood. I don’t know what I feel or what I’m supposed to be feeling, but it isn’t fun.

“Call me?” says John.

I let the door slam on the way out. I don’t know why this whole event has made me mad at John, even though none of this is his fault.

I walk in a huff out of the building, vowing never to come back, at least not as an employee.

But now I’m out of luck when it comes to work and money. And now John is going to be mad at me for the way I behaved.

John

I head home early today and make a couple calls to some friends I have in the media. I ask them why nothing was run by my PR guy. They all basically apologize and give me the same answer, “it was too tempting. You dating a cleaner that works for you. It’s just too good of a story. They’re planning on running the Cinderella angle eventually.”

“Well don’t plan on it,” I say.

I’m fuming. I’m absolutely fuming.

I’m not mad at Sarah at all, though. I’m just mat at this whole system that doesn’t value us as people at all—this whole media system that preys on people’s situations just to make a quick buck.

Sure, I’ve had some run ins with the media before, but nothing quite as serious as this.

I’m just staring at the wall in my apartment, surrounded by luxury that means absolutely nothing at all to me right now. This apartment is completely worthless if I don’t have Sarah with me to share it with.

I grab my phone to call her, but realize I don’t know what to say. After all, I don’t yet have a solution to our problem. I just wish she would let me use one of my contacts to get her a job. I know she has money problems. If only she wasn’t so strong headed. Then again, that’s one of the things I like most about her.

Finally, I press call.

“Hello?” says Sarah.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” I say.

Get that out of the way, I think to myself. First thing’s first. Truth is, I feel sorry as hell.

“What are you sorry for?” says Sarah. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. After all, I just quit that job and walked out and probably embarrassed you and…”

She’s talking fast, and I tell her to slow down and that everything’s going to be OK.

“It’s not going to be OK,” she says, almost wailing.

“What I’m sorry for is not warning you that this was a real possibility. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”

“But you couldn’t do anything about it?” There’s a bit of edge to her voice that makes me uneasy. Are we about to have our first argument?

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I have a PR guy and some connections in the media, but this one got by me. This story was too profitable for them to hold onto or to ask for permission to publish.”

“They ask you permission sometimes?” she says, sounding interested.

“Yeah,” I say. “Once you have money you realize things don’t work quite as you thought they did…”

“I’ll never have that problem,” says Sarah.

“What are you going to do for work?” I say.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe get another cleaner job or something. The good thing is I do have a little money saved up now.”

“I want to see you tonight,” I say.

“I was thinking the same thing,” says Sarah. “You know…never mind.”

“What is it?” I say.

“Once I calmed down a little, I kept fantasizing about you fucking me in that locker room down there in the basement. That’d be a way to really stick it to Cindy…”

I laugh. “Well we can make it happen if you really want to, but it would probably be a good idea to do it after hours rather than in the middle of the day. Who knows who might walk in…”

“That’s what makes it so fun,” says Sarah.

“You’re dirty today!” I say.

“Sorry,” she says.

“No,” I say. “I like it.”

“I was just kidding anyway.”

“I know,” I say. “Anyway, how about tonight?”

She agrees, and we make plans to meet this evening.

Crisis averted, I think to myself.

I flip on the TV with my remote and kick my legs up onto the coffee table. I’m still wearing my shoes but who the hell cares, right?

My phone rings.

“Clark,” I say, loudly and clearly into the phone, trying to convey the sense that I’m a little busy right now. That’s one of the funny little rules that make me so successful—in business, always act like you’re really busy, and everything tends to work out better for you. If you’re busy, people think you know what you’re doing.

“John, it’s Jeff.”

“What’s going on, Jeff?” I say.

“Remember a few weeks ago when I talked to you about the numbers?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I looked into it. Everything looked OK.”

“Well they’re not OK now,” says Jeff. “We’ve got a crisis situation on our hands.”

“What’s going on?” I say, taking a deep breath to stay calm. If you cant’ stay calm in this business, the sharks will tear you apart. That’s what I learned early on. Things can change from one minute to the next and you’ve got to be ready for it. “Same problem as before or a new one?”

“New one,” says Jeff. “People are dumping stocks.”

Dumping stocks… hmm… that means people don’t think the company’s any good. I rack my brain for possible problems. What happened in the news recently? Has anything been screwy with our new product releases? No, everything looks fine.

“Any ideas?” I say.

“Well,” says Jeff, and he starts hemming and hawing.

I don’t like this way of talking when we’re in a crisis situation. Jeff and I are usually good at communicating in curt but effective ways when problems are afoot.

“Out with it,” I say. “What’s the problem?”

“The thing is that everything is good on the business side of things. Those problems from before are still there in a way—and I know you say you don’t see them—but from my analysis they’re still there. The thing is that they can’t account for the dumping of the stocks.”

“So what can?” I say, a mean edge taking over my voice. He better tell me—that’s all I’m trying to convey with my tone.

“I think it could be this article about you dating the…”

“About dating Sarah?”

“Is she the cleaner?”

“She’s a hell of a lot more than that,” I say, anger growing in my voice. “This doesn’t make any sense, Jeff. Why the hell would the investors care what happens in my personal life? I’ve had plenty of scandals before?”

“Yeah…” says Jeff slowly. “I know, and I’m with you on this. It seems really, really strange. But I’ve been following the blogs and social media too. And a lot of people are unfortunately saying that this shows you’re not right in the head. There’s this rumor going around that you’re being taken for a ride by some poor working girl who wants your money. People worry about that company.”

I sit there in stunned silence without saying anything for almost a full minute. A thousand thoughts are rushing through my head.

Those bastards. Those assholes.

Who do they think they are, saying stuff like that about me?

But I can always keep a calm head.

I take a deep breath, and say, “Well, you may be right Jeff. What can we do to fix it?”

“I don’t know,” says Jeff. “I mean you want to stay with her?”

Now I’m really angry.

“Listen, asshole,” I say. “I appreciate what you do for the company, but stay the fuck out of my personal life, got it?”

“OK,” says Jeff. “It was just a question.”

“A question that I don’t like one bit,” I say.

“Well,” says Jeff. “I’ll talk to the PR guy and see what we can do.”

“Listen,” I say. “He’s good and all, but maybe we should get some outside help on this. I wouldn’t mind spending some money if it means getting the investors back.”

“OK,” says Jeff. “I know just the team that could help us. They’re good at…situations like this.”

“Do it,” I say, before hanging up the phone.

I take another deep breath.

The TV’s still on, and it’s playing some bullshit news story about me and Sarah. What garbage. Can’t they think of anything else to talk about?

I flick the TV off, and take another deep breath before heading down to the garage.

I want nothing more than to see Sarah right now.

After thirty minutes of sitting in traffic, I finally arrive at her apartment. She’s waiting for me on the steps outside.

“I didn’t want my mother to see you,” she says. “She’s gone crazy with the news.”

“Isn’t everyone,” I say, but I resolve not to tell her about the investors dumping their stocks. I don’t want her to worry about my business.

Sarah leans in and gives me a kiss. Her hand caresses my crotch as it often does when we’re somewhere semi-private. “I can tell you’re happy to see me,” she says, giving my hard cock a squeeze. She winks at me.

“You’re in better spirits than when I saw you earlier today,” I say.

“Oh,” says Sarah. “No offense, but I realize I never really liked that job anyway.”

I laugh. “I don’t think anyone likes that job,” I say. “What were you normally doing anyway?”

“Well, the last thing I did today before quitting was clean up a lot of Johnson’s vomit.”

“Ewww,” I say, laughing, the laughter driving away my worries. “Johnson’s vomit. Are you serious?”

“It was something else,” she says. “Do you know him?”

I shake my head in wonder. “That guy vomits more than anyone else on the planet.”

Sarah laughs and suggests that maybe he should see a doctor.

“Maybe it’s something serious,” I say. “I guess he should really get it checked out.”

“It’s not so funny when you put it that way,” says Sarah.

“Listen,” I say. “I feel like I’m forgetting things a little…what I want to say, and maybe I already said it, is that it’s OK with me if you don’t want to work at my company as a cleaner. Hell, I wouldn’t want to do it. I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you more about the dangers of the press. I should have told you what things can be like with me… But, the most important thing to me is that I’m with you.”

I gaze into her eyes and she gazes back at me with those huge beautiful eyes.

“That’s the most important thing to me too,” she says.

She pauses and I get the feeling she’s going to say something else, but instead she doesn’t say anything at all.

“It seems like you wanted to tell me something else,” I say, softly.

“I…” she starts, but seems to think better of it. “No, there’s nothing else.”

“OK,” I say, not sure that I want to push the issue right now.

She kisses me deeply on the mouth and her hand slides across my chest.

My cock is already raging from being so close to her.

“You want to go back to the locker room?” she says.

“If that’s what you want to do,” I say, laughing.

We end up making love in my apartment, and the next few weeks seem to glide by in a daze. There are problems with the business, as there always are, but in the end most of the investors come back to the company. We’re pushing out a new product soon, anyway so that’s going to make up for any problems we have with stocks and investors.

Hell, in the end, it doesn’t really matter to me personally about the company. I have enough money stashed away around the world that I don’t need the company. Obviously I’ll never have to work again a day in my life. The only reason that I keep working is for my own sanity…but, well, the real reason is that I care about my employees. Personally, I don’t think it’s fair that I have so much money, even though I worked so hard for it, and people like Sarah don’t even have enough money for a place to live. But that’s the way it is, and the only way I can help them is to keep the company going, keeping the company making money so that they’ll all have jobs.

In the end, Sarah gets a better job as a bank teller. The pay is better, and she’s now able to move out of her apartment.

The last month, all I’ve been thinking about is Sarah, but I’ve also been thinking about asking her to move in with me. This would be a huge step, and we’re not even engaged or anything yet. Not that it matters to me at all, but I still don’t have a sense of whether or not it’s important to Sarah. I know that her mother wouldn’t approve, though, that’s for sure. I still haven’t spent much time with Sarah’s mother, but Sarah tells me a lot about her and I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of who she is as a person.

Despite Sarah and me spending so much time together, our love seems to cloak her in an air of mystery. I feel like I’m getting to know her again each day for the first time. The one thing I do know for certain about her is that she loves me, and also that she’s fiercely independent. Because of how headstrong and independent she can be, I decide to wait for another few months, maybe a year, until I ask her to move in with me. I know how hard she’s worked to have this apartment of her own, and I don’t want to trivialize that or take it away from her by simply swooping her up into my billionaire’s apartment.

“You know,” I say, walking around Sarah’s new apartment, which is completely bare of furniture. “This place isn’t too bad.”

I don’t mention the spider webs or the mouse I saw in the bathroom. And of course I don’t mention how cold the apartment is, or how the paint is peeling off.

I do, though, think it’s a good idea to mention that the apartment’s in somewhat of a dangerous area.

“I just want you to be careful,” I say.

“I will,” says Sarah, putting her arm around me.

“Now I think it’s time to get you some furniture.”

“What’s wrong with what I have?” she says.

I look around the apartment and I know her eyes are following mine. There’s almost nothing in it except for a duffel bag and a single straight backed wooden chair that Sarah’s had ever since she was a kid.

“Well,” I say, slowly and calmly, trying not to offend her. “What are you going to sleep on? Or are you going to spend each night at my place?”

Sarah laughs. “I’ve been spending almost every other night at your place, haven’t I?”

“Oh?” I say, mocking surprise. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Sarah slaps my ass and giggles. “That’s what you get,” she says.

“For what?” I say, slapping her ass.

She giggles and starts dancing around the apartment, twirling and sliding in her socks.

“Isn’t this place great?” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “It sure is an improvement on your mother’s place.”

The doorbell rings.

“Oh,” says Sarah. “That must be Janet.”

“Let’s hope so,” I say, eyeing the door cautiously. “I want you to be careful answering the door by yourself in this place. I’ll get you some pepper spray.”

“Don’t worry,” says Sarah, bending down and picking up a metal baseball bat that’s sticking partially out of her duffel bag. Her ass looks so delicious in her tight and faded blue jeans. I can’t help but stare at her. She then spins around and does a mock swing as if she’s in a baseball game. “I was a champion hitter in high school softball,” she says. “They even wanted me to play on the boy’s team. That’s how good I was. Don’t worry, John, I can take care of myself.”

“I’d be scared of you, that’s for sure,” I say.

Someone’s knocking in the door furiously.

“Coming,” says Sarah.

I hold her back, saying “I’ll get it.”

I go to the door and try to look to see who it is but the peephole is made out of such old glass that’s so fogged that I can’t see out of it at all.

Finally, I just decide to open the door. It’s not that I’m being overly cautious. When I was just starting out, before I had made my billions, before I had made any money at all, I lived in a very similar neighborhood, not too far away. The neighborhood has since become gentrified and now it’s full of upscale stores, but back in the day, I got mugged at least three times that I can remember. Once I even got beat up pretty badly and was in the hospital for a week. That was before I took self-defense courses and became thoroughly trained. You don’t want to try to mug me in a dark alley some night, that’s for sure.

“Finally,” says Sarah’s friend Janet, looking frustrated as I open the door. I haven’t seen her since that first night that Sarah and I met, and I didn’t get a very good look at her. To tell the truth, I was paying much more attention to Sarah. She brushes past me without giving me a second look, or even saying hello. I study her face now, as I close the door. She’s one of those people that looks pissed off all the time, no matter what. Or maybe she’s just pissed off now. It’s hard to tell.

“Hey,” says Sarah, opening up her arms. “Welcome to my new place.”

“Ugh,” says Janet, looking around, her face scrunching up with disgust. “This is it? This is the best you could do?”

“What’s wrong with it?” says Sarah, sounding a little hurt, but not too fazed.

“It’s just…ewww,” says Sarah. She turns to me and says, “You couldn’t have chipped in to get her a decent place?”

I shrug my shoulders.

“He offered of course,” says Sarah.

Janet sighs and sits down in a huff on the one wooden chair. “Well,” she says. “I hope he’ll at least buy you some furniture.”

She doesn’t look directly at me for the rest of the hour we spend in the apartment.

Janet and Sarah start chatting about this and that, about people they knew from high school. Apparently, a couple of them live around here in this neighborhood, but from the sound of it, Janet doesn’t think too highly of them.

For a moment, I wonder why Sarah and Janet are friends at all. Or, to put it more bluntly, I wonder why Sarah is friends with Janet, since from the sound of it, Janet is very critical of Sarah, to the point that it starts to bother me.

To keep myself busy, I take out my trusty multi-tool and start hunting for things to fix or improve. The bathroom is a good place to start, since the door latches don’t work, the cabinet above the sink doesn’t close, and the shower knobs are threatening to fall off.

“I’ve made a couple improvements,” I announce, coming back into the main room.

“Thanks!” says Sarah, beaming at me. “Isn’t he great?” she says to Janet.

“Yeah,” says Janet, the sarcasm unmistakable in her voice.

Sarah

In the end, I let John buy me furniture.

“You know,” he finally says to me, as the weeks pass us by, and we grow more and more content with each other. “I’d be happy to have you come live with me.”

I don’t know what to say. “That means to much to me,” I say. “But…”

“I know, I know,” says John. “I hesitated so long to tell you because I know how independent you are.”

“And to top it off,” I say. “I don’t want people thinking that I’m into you for your money. You know I wouldn’t care if you were working at a gas station and didn’t have a car, let alone the twenty you have.”

“More like thirty,” says John, apparently unable to help himself.

I laugh

“What are we going to do about all these reporters following us around?” I say.

“I guess just learn to ignore them,” says John.

“Easy for you to say. You’re used to them.”

“Well,” says John. “We can talk about it again when the time is right. For now, I’m glad you have a better job and that you’re on your own rather than living with your mother.”

“Me too.”

“So I was thinking again about a trip you and I could take.”

“Yeah? I’d love to, but I don’t know if I can get time off from work. I haven’t been there that long, you know?”

“There’s no way I can help out with that?”

“No…” I say. “I know you probably have connections at the bank and everything, but I want to do this all myself.”

John nods his head thoughtfully. For a moment, when he thinks I’m not looking, I catch him taking a look at my belly. All my fears come rushing back to me: somehow, over the last few months, I’ve avoided thinking about the pregnancy myself. But time is running along, with or without my attention, and sooner or later I’m going to start showing. John’s glance throws me into a panic: am I already showing enough that he can notice?

Despite all my cherished independence, and how responsible I am, I’ve still done one of the most irresponsible things in the world, and that is not telling John I’m carrying his baby.

Janet has been really on my case about it, telling me over and over how irresponsible I’m being.

It’s not like I’m being irresponsible with the baby, though. I’m still not drinking at all, and I’ve taken out a ton of maternity books from the library. I’m taking prenatal vitamins. The only thing I haven’t done yet is go to the follow up appointment with the doctor. Janet accompanied me to the initial one, to confirm my pregnancy, but the appointments are going to be becoming more and more numerous as the pregnancy approaches.

I’ve got to tell John, I think to myself. It’s like a mantra that I repeat over and over in my head. I’ve got to tell John. I’ve got to tell him. But the moment never seems right, and the days continue to slide by.

“What are you looking at?” I say, trying to keep the worry out of my voice.

“Nothing,” says John, quickly, giving me the idea that he’s been looking at my belly and that he’s noticed something.

“I’m just having some indigestion,” I say, putting my hand on my belly, and sticking it out in an exaggerated way.

John nods. “I wish you’d let me buy you some decent food for your apartment.”

“What’s the need when you take me out to dinner almost every night?” I say. “All the girls at the bank are always really jealous when you pull up in one of your new cars.”

John laughs. “I should be embarrassed about those new cars. But, hey, someone’s got to keep the luxury car market afloat. Maybe you’ll let me buy you one for yourself one day.”

“That wouldn’t look too good, puling up to the bank in Manhattan with a car like that. Hell, I wouldn’t even have enough money to pay for the parking.”

John laughs, and puts his arm around me. “I just want you to know that you’re really important to me.”

I reach around and slap his ass. “You’re really important to me too,” I say.

John’s hand starts sliding down my back and his strong hand cups my ass and squeezes it.

“Someone’s amorous today,” I say.

“I’m like this everyday,” says John.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m not in the mood today.”

John seems disappointed but he takes it well. Frankly, my mind is getting too distracted by thoughts of telling or not telling John about his baby to make love right now.

If I tell him, he’ll be mad. I’m sure of it. I’ve never seen him truly mad, and I don’t want to.

My greatest fear is that I’ll tell him and then he’ll leave me out of anger—that he’ll leave me for some young supermodel with tits the size of mountains and a face that’s on every cover of every magazine around the world.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” says John, suddenly.

We’re just sitting around my admittedly crummy apartment (but it’s mine, all mine), looking at the wall, since I still don’t have TV and I won’t let John buy me one.

“Sounds good,” I say, eager to get out of the house and to get some distraction from my cycling thoughts.

You’ve got to tell him today, I tell myself. It’s now or never.

“Just wait for me. I’ve got to tidy up in the bathroom a minute.”

“I know what a minute means in lady language,” says John, slapping me gently on the ass as I walk by him.

I head into the bathroom where I take my secret stash of pre natal vitamins that I’ve hidden by the pregnancy books. I’ve got everything hidden in an old towel in the bottom of the chest of drawers John bought me. I unscrew the caps and consult my checklist of vitamins, making sure I’m OK for today. Not a day goes by that I don’t take the vitamins I’m supposed to. Today is follate, Vitamin D, and a B Vitamin Complex.

“Ready,” I say, taking John’s hand and we walk together through the crummy interior of the apartment building until we’re outside in the cold air. John turns his collar up and I hug my body close to his.

People look at us as we walk down the street.

It’s been a while since we’ve been out like this, just walking down the street, rather than entering a fancy restaurant or inside a museum. I hadn’t quite realized how famous we are and how many ordinary people recognize us. When we’re in a fancy restaurant, people look at us, sure, but inside those restaurants there are also a ton of other more famous people who get their own stares, including mine, I’m willing to admit.

“Hey,” someone whispers. “That’s John Clark and that cleaner.”

That makes me mad.

“I’m not a cleaner anymore,” I shout.

But John tugs me along, eager to avoid a confrontation.

“The paparazzi could be anywhere,” he says. “We’ve got to keep a cool head when we’re in public.”

John shows me how he breathes deeply. “This is the secret to my success,” he says, without a note of irony in his voice. “This will keep away the anger and the frustration.”

I breathe in deeply, following John’s example, and to my surprise, everything starts to seem calmer.

“Yeah,” I say. “I think it’s working. Hey, aren’t the trees pretty up there.”

We’re approaching a park where people are playing with their kids. The kids are all bundled up against the cold and the leaves on the trees are long gone, but the park still has a charming feel. I wonder if someday John and I will come to a park like this with our kid.

I’ve got to tell him, I think to myself, and suddenly the anxiety is back, double-force this time, stronger than ever.

My phone rings.

“Hello?” I say, taking off my gloves in order to fish the phone out of my coat pocket.

“Where the hell are you?” says Janet, her voice coming in loud and clear through the phone. She sounds upset, and strangely similar to my mother.

“What are you talking about?” I say, taking a couple steps away from John, who wears a bemused expression on his face. I don’t want him to overhear anything about my pregnancy in case Janet mentions it, and I know how loud her voice can be, even over the phone.

“I’m at your apartment right now,” says Janet. “You have your appointment in twenty minutes. We’re supposed to go together. Remember?”

“Oh shit,” I say, unable to help myself.

“What’s wrong?” mouths John.

“I’ll be right there,” I say into the phone, before hanging up.

I can hear Janet cursing before the phone slams shut.

“I’ve got to go,” I say to John, quickly, not giving him a chance to react.

But he does anyway. Of course he does. Because he cares about me.

I’ve got to think fast to come up with a lie. I’m terrible at lying, which you might not expect from someone who’s spent so much time hiding her pregnancy from her boyfriend.

“Janet’s in trouble,” I say.

“I’m coming too,” says John. “I don’t like her much and don’t think she likes me, but maybe there’s some way I can help.”

“Oh,” I say. “It’s nothing like that. Just boyfriend problems. Her boyfriend is giving her a hard time.”

“I didn’t know she even was dating anyone,” says John.

“Oh,” I say. “She keeps everything on the down low. Even though you wouldn’t expect that from her personality, that’s what she does. Sorry, baby, but I’ve got to run.”

I give John a quick peck on the cheek and take off running in the direction of my apartment. I don’t dare turn around since I know John’s going to be a little hurt with me running off like this.

“Took you long enough,” says Janet, who’s waiting outside her car in front of my apartment.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Having so much fun with your billionaire boyfriend that his baby just slipped your mind?” says Janet, getting into the car, a horrible expression on her face.

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Janet drives in silence to the doctor’s office, which is in downtown Manhattan.

“I’ll pay for parking,” I say.

Janet doesn’t say anything. She’s pissed at me and remains pouty and silent all through the appointment.

“Well,” says the doctor, who wears a white lab coat and has a goatee. Unfortunately I’ve already forgotten his name, even though this is the third appointment I’ve had with him. “Everything looks good. Blood work is fine. I can see you’re taking your vitamins which is great.”

“See,” I say to Janet, who’s sitting in the room with me. “I’m not such a terrible person after all.”

Janet rolls her eyes.

The doctor gives Janet a strange look and turns back to me. “So everything is going great. Congratulations on a healthy pregnancy so far. Just check in with the receptionist for your next appointment. They’re going to be getting more and more frequent and you’re going to have to start thinking about doing birthing classes with your husband.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’m not married.” I hold up my ring finger to show him.

The doctor remains unfazed. I figure he must deal with these kinds of “delicate situations” all the time.

“You’re welcome to attend alone,” he says. “Sometimes it’s good to bring an understanding friend.”

He gives Janet a look again, and then winks at me.

I almost laugh but resist.

Janet’s back to talking to me again after the appointment. “So am I going to be like the Godmother or anything?” she says, twirling her hair, as we stand in the elevator on the way down to the first floor.

“I haven’t really worked that out yet,” I say. “But you’ll be the first on my list.”

“John’s got a list too? He doesn’t even know? I still can’t believe you haven’t told him… I know I say it over and over again but it’s just completely crazy.”

“I know, I know,” I say. “You know what. I’m going to tell him tonight. I promise.”

“You sound serious this time,” says Janet.

“I am,” I say. “I’ve got to tell him.”

We step outside into the cool air and I know it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me, but I think I feel a kick inside my belly. This imaginary kick sends my imagination reeling—I already love my unborn baby so much, and I know John will love him or her too. Scenes of the three of us playing in the park and relaxing in far away foreign places flood my mind.

The flash of a dozen cameras snaps me out of my fantasy.

“Get away, get away,” screams Janet, swinging her purse at them on its long imitation leather strap. “You vultures.”

“Come on, Janet,” I say, grabbing her my the sleeve and practically dragging her through the pack of paparazzi into the parking garage.

“You get used to it,” I say, once we settle into the car.

“They’re animals,” she says.

“It’s fine,” I say. “They’re always taking pictures of me now. I just have to remember not to read the tabloid newspapers or look online at the celebrity gossip.”

“Easy for you to say,” says Janet. “The whole world is watching your every move.”

John

I wake up in something of a daze and throw my two pillows to the other side of the bed. I sit up a little, resting myself

I pull out my phone and check the news sites as I always do before even getting out of bed. I have a number of alerts set to myself and my company. It’s one of the ways I stay on top of the competition.

The annoying thing is that occasionally the news alerts bring up some gossip stories about me and Sarah. There’s nothing that I haven’t seen before, though.

Nothing I haven’t seen before, that is, until today.

The headline catches my eye and I can’t get it out of my head.

“Billionaire’s Girlfriend Pregnant. Who’s the father?” reads the headline.

My head starts spinning. This isn’t going to make the morning any easier. I haven’t even had my coffee yet. I take a deep breath and clap my hands, turning the lights in the bedroom on.

I hold the phone closer to my face and keep reading. The brightness of the phone is somewhat jarring this early in the morning, so I turn it down on one of the settings.

“Cleaner girlfriend of billionaire spotted coming from prenatal visit. You’ll note from the pictures that she’s been wearing less and less revealing clothing over the last few weeks. Sources confirm that her baby bump is developing nicely. The doctor in question has refused to comment at this time…”

I’m just scanning the article.

My heart feels like it’s hit the floor.

I’m good at interpreting news. You have to be in my line of work. And while this article comes from one of the least reputable online sites, it still has the ring of truth to it. Or, in this case, the stink of truth.

Following the article are a series of pictures that show zoomed in shots of Sarah’s belly. There’s an unmistakable bulge, like the one I noticed yesterday. This isn’t indigestion, that’s for sure.

I’m not 100% certain Sarah’s pregnant, but right now I’d wager that there’s a 90% chance that she’s pregnant.

I take a series of deep breaths before calling Sarah.

“Hello?” says Sarah.

“Did you see the article?” I say, somehow unable to make my tone sound friendly and caring.

After all, how could she be hiding this from me? Is she seeing someone else on the side? Was she seeing someone right before me, and got pregnant with his kid? What the hell is going on?”

“What article?” says Sarah.

“There’s a new article about you,” I say.

“You told me it’s probably better not to read what the tabloids have to say about me.”

“Did you get a paparazzi attack yesterday?” I say.

Sarah pauses for a moment. “Yeah,” she says. “I was with Janet and I had to stop her from killing them all with her pocket book.”

Sarah laughs but I don’t.

“Where were you coming from?”

“Oh,” says Sarah. “A doctor’s appointment.”

“Are you pregnant?” I say.

I finally just say it. I don’t know how to skirt around the possible truth any longer.

There’s an incredibly long pause on the other side of the line.

“Yes,” comes Sarah’s answer, incredibly faint. Her voice sounds like it’s fallen off a cliff. It barely reaches me.

“I don’t know what to say,” I say.

“It’s not what you think!” says Sarah, her voice becoming livelier again, but sounding frantic.

“I don’t know what to say,” I say again, before hanging up the phone.

I’ve never hung up on Sarah before and she’s never hung up on me.

I look around the room and it suddenly appears incredibly bleak, as if nothing has ever lived in this room, including me. I feel horrible dead inside. My world is crashing around me. There’s nothing… My thoughts are jumbled.

My eyes close and I fall into a world of anxiety. No amount of deep breathing will help me now. No amount of meditation will help me.

My eyes open and the room appears again, but it looks fuzzy this time.

The cell phone lies on the bed where I dropped it. Sarah’s name is on the “most recently called” list.

I want the lights out. They’re too bright, even though they’re soft. I don’t have the energy to clap my hands.

All my fears about dating woman are rushing through my anxious mind. With good reason, I’ve always been worried that they’re just after me for my money. Everyone knows the best way to get a billionaire’s money is either marry him…but, what’s actually the best way is to have his baby. Countless lawyers have counseled me on the possibility.

What am I suppose to think? Sarah doesn’t seem like that at all. But has she been playing me all along? She got pregnant by me. I remember we’ve never once used a condom. She always told me she was on the pill. And I trusted her.

But, maybe it’s not my baby. Maybe Sarah knew she wouldn’t get pregnant from me because she was already pregnant.

But isn’t that possibility much, much worse? Sarah pregnant with another man’s child.

I don’t know what to think.

I spend at least an hour lying in bed not knowing what to think or how to think it. The phone rings more than a few times and I don’t check it, but I know that it’s Sarah calling me, trying to explain things. But I don’t know what to say to her and I don’t want to listen to her explanations right now.

She’s pregnant and she didn’t tell me.

My head is getting a little clearer now. If she has my baby, that’d be great. If she’s going to have someone else’s baby, that’d be OK too, and I’d be willing to help Sarah raise the kid…just like it was my own.

The part I can’t get around is that Sarah lied to me. And lied to me about such a big thing. This isn’t a little lie. This isn’t her telling me that she had something else for lunch when she really had a box of doughnuts. Not that I would care about that either.

The phone rings and this time I pick it up.

“Hello?” I say, my voice sounding strangely weak.

“The stocks have tanked again,” says Jeff.

“What?” I say, unable to comprehend what he’s saying.

“It’s bad this time. I read the news. I know you’re going through a lot…”

“Going through a lot? Is that all you have to say to me. I don’t give a damn about the fucking stocks, you asshole.”

“I just thought we had to keep the business going…after all, people’s jobs depend on those stock prices… people have their entire retirements in those stocks…”

I hang up the phone, and it doesn’t ring again.

Jeff is right but I can’t deal with that stuff now. Stock prices are the last thing on my mind.

The phone rings again and I look at it, this time actually hoping that it’s Sarah so I can talk to her.

“Hello?” I say, my voice still faint.

“John, I want to explain everything,” she says, her voice sounding frantic. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But everything was going so well. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

I let the phone drop to my side and Sarah’s voice continues talking. But I can’t make out what she’s saying because the volume isn’t loud enough to reach my ears.

I just stare at the phone, which is now on the floor, the battery case having fallen away. Sarah’s very faint voice continues to chatter away. I can just barely hear that’s there but I can’t even hear the tone of her voice. Eventually she stops talking and I see that the screen of the phone goes blank and black.

Somehow, I fall asleep. That happens to me sometimes with anxiety. The world goes dark despite the lights in the luxurious bedroom that now means absolutely nothing to me. I’d give all my worldly riches away and live in a cardboard shack if it meant Sarah and I could be happy together, but how can that be when she’s been deceiving me this entire time? Our whole relationship is built on a huge lie.

My dreams are terrifying I awake when it’s dark outside, shivering, in a cold sweat.

Sarah

“What am I going to do?” I say, sitting on my busted up hard wood floor.

“I don’t know,” says Janet, sitting on the sofa, looking about as concerned as I am.

“Isn’t this where you tell me it was going to happen? Isn’t this where you tell me that you were right all along and that I should have been more honest with him?”

“I don’t really feel like it,” says Janet. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“I know,” I say, my voice sounding faint. “He’s not answering his phone.”

“He’s probably upset,” says Janet.

“Don’t you think I know that?” I say, snapping at her angrily.

“There’s no need to get upset with me,” says Janet. “I’m not the one who did this.”

“There you go. Now it starts. Come on, tell me what an idiot I’ve been.”

But to my surprise, Janet doesn’t do anything like that. Instead, she comes and sits on the floor with me and puts her arm around me.

“It’s going to be OK,” she says, her voice sounding surprisingly soothing for Janet’s voice. Normally it’s as shrill as my mother’s.

Oh God. My mother… I’d completely forgotten about her. It’s much easier to do now that I live on my own.

“I’ve got to call my mom,” I say. “She’s going to be freaking out.”

But just as I reach for my phone, the phone starts to ring. It’s my mother.

“Hi, mom,” I say, making an effort to keep my voice normal.

“You didn’t want to tell me you were pregnant? How long has this been going on?” She’s not yelling and her voice isn’t even shrill but from many, many years of experience I know that this means she’s actually truly angry right now.

“I…” I start to say, but my mom cuts me off and launches into another tirade.

“How could you?” she says. “How could you do it? Were you going to keep your grandchildren hidden from me too? Have you been pregnant since that day when you were stuck in the bathroom, talking on the phone with someone?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“OK,” says my mom. “That makes sense that you’re showing then.”

“Since when do you know so much about pregnancies?”

“Well I had you, didn’t I?”

For some reason, this makes me laugh. I don’t know if it’s tension breaking, since the problems are all still here, and the tension’s still here, but I laugh and laugh. Janet looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Feel better?” says my mom, her voice sounding more normal and more shrill. That’s actually a good sign.

“A little,” I admit. “I would have told you, mom, but I was scared of what you’d say. I didn’t even tell the father.”

“And he’s this billionaire you’ve been going out with?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know some of the tabloids are saying it’s his kid and some are saying it’s someone else’s but I haven’t been with anyone else in a long time, well before John.”

“And you were worried that if he found out he’d freak out and you’d ruin the relationship?”

“Yeah,” I say, surprised that my mom is being so understanding. “I didn’t want to start the relationship off on the wrong foot so to speak and then the days just went on and on and soon they slipped into months.”

“Have you talked to him about it yet?”

“Not really,” I say. “He’s not picking up the phone.”

“He’s probably just going through a bit of shock,” says my mom. “It’s a lot to digest from his point of view. I’m sure you two will work it out. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”

“Where have you seen that?”

“In the tabloids of course,” says my mom.

“I knew you followed the tabloids,” I say. “But I didn’t realize you followed me so closely in them.”

“Well of course I do,” says my mom. “You’re my daughter after all.”

With Janet sitting there and with John probably furious with me, I end up having one of the best conversations with my mom that I’ve ever had. I guess it took a tabloid crisis situation for her to act understanding towards me. Oh well, if that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes.

When I get off the phone, I tell Janet that I’ve got to talk to John.

“You’re going over to his place?” she says.

I shrug. “I don’t know what else to do. I’ve got to talk to him. I’ve got to make him understand somehow. First of all, I realize he doesn’t even know if it’s his baby or not. That might make him upset—if he thought I was running around with other guys and then keeping their babies secret from him.

“I’m coming with you,” says Janet.

I shake my head. “I’d better go alone,” I say.

“I’ll keep my phone by if you need me,” she says.

I still don’t have a car, and I wouldn’t want one in this city, so I take the train over to Manhattan and walk from the station over to John’s apartment building. I doubt he’d be at work.

It’s kind of interesting to me, if I can step back from the mild crisis situation—I feel strangely calm.

I doubt John’s feeling like that though. After all, I have the feeling that everything is going to work out in the end. But that’s because I know the truth about the baby. John, however, has no idea what’s going on. My heart reels for him momentarily. He must feel completely terrible. He must feel like I betrayed him.

I’ve never just gone into his building before without calling him. He’s always just suggested I call him and he’d meet me at the front lobby by the elevator.

So I try calling him again but of course he doesn’t pick up.

OK, I said I was strangely calm, but I’m starting to panic. After all, I remember, he hasn’t answered his phone all day. How many hours has it been now? I glance at my cell phone’s clock and I’m not sure.

I take a deep breath and walk into the building, realizing that I have no idea how this super fancy super high tech building works. All I know is that John has some kind of keyless entry device that opens up the elevator doors for him. He has one of those penthouses where the elevator door opens right up into his apartment without any extra doors. Of course, for a place like that, the security has to be extremely high.

“Can I help you, miss?” says the decidedly human doorman. And I was half expecting a robot doorman, but I don’t know why, since I’ve seen this particular doorman at least twenty or thirty times since I started seeing John.

“I’m trying to see John,” I say, and I explain that I’m worried about him and that he’s not answering my phone calls.

“John who?” says the man, his eyes not giving a hint of acknowledgement that he even recognizes me.

“John Clark,” I say.

“I see,” says the man. “And how do you know that Mr. Clark lives here?”

“Come on,” I say. “Don’t pull this crap with me. I’ve seen you a couple dozen times. And each time I’ve been with John. Can’t you just let me up to his apartment? I’m really worried about him.”

“I’m sure Mr. Clark will appreciate your concern,” says the doorman. “But I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

I walk away in a huff. I send John a text message with a ton of exclamation marks that says, “Are you OK? Doorman is being an asshole. Come down and let me in. Just let me know you’re OK!!!”

Of course, no response from the text message.

But now I’m worried for a slightly different reason. The way that doorman acted, it was almost as if he has special instructions not to let me up and to ignore me. That’s the way people act in positions like that when they’ve been told something, isn’t it?

Does that mean John’s just going to cut me off and stop seeing me? I go into a mild panic, and have to sit down against the building outside. The wind is cold and blowing fast and freely. I pull my knees up to my chest and sit there on the cold concrete sidewalk shivering like I’ve never shivered before.

I feel my slightly bulging belly against my legs and suddenly I begin to really freak out.

Is this the end of my relationship with John? Why isn’t he contacting me?

Why was I such an idiot? Why didn’t I tell him? Maybe this entire thing would have gone completely differently if I’d just told him right from the beginning that I was pregnant from that first night. I can’t believe it! I can’t believe I thought it was OK to do what I’ve done.

“Are you OK, lady?” says an old man who’s walking by. He’s dressed to the nines and holds a fancy looking poodle by a long leash.

I shake my head and now I’m sobbing. I can’t even get the words out.

“It’ going to be OK,” says the old man, squatting down to get a better look at me. He puts a comforting hand on my arm.

His dog comes over and starts licking my face. At any other time it would make me giggle but right now it just has the effect of making me feel a little better.

“Thanks for stopping,” I say. “I’m not having the best day of my life right now.”

“We all have moments like that,” says the man. “What’s your name, young lady?”

“Sarah,” I say, choking through the tears.

“Oh,” says the old man, recoiling and removing his arm from me. “You’re that Sarah I saw in the papers. You’ve been cheating on John Clark! I’ll have you know he employs my son and he’s a good man!”

I start sobbing again as the man commands his poodle to leave me. He has to take the dog by the leash and drag it away. The old man turns once as he walks away and scowls at me.

I start sobbing again. Who wouldn’t? This is really too much.

Now people are sure that I am having someone else’s baby, and they’re going to start stopping me in the street and chastising me for something I didn’t even do?

I try calling John once more and it goes straight to voicemail. “Listen, John,” I say, trying to speak clearly despite my tears. “I didn’t sleep with anyone else. That’s the truth. The baby is yours. It was conceived that first night we were together, back in the Hamptons where we met. I didn’t want to tell you because things were going so great. And I kept meaning to tell you. Oh, I’m so sorry John. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my whole life. It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever done in my whole life too, and I can’t believe I’ve done it to you the person I care the most about in the whole world.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s true. John is the person I care the most about. I don’t care that he’s a billionaire. But I care about him and I want him to be mine. If he was here right now I’d propose to him, even though I’ve always been a traditionalist in that respect. Men should propose to women, except in extreme circumstances. But, hey, that’s just my opinion. What do I know?

The wind is cold but I start walking home. The light in the sky is fading. The city scape has never looked so sinister to me.

Walking on my own sure isn’t as easy as being driven by John in one of his luxury cars. But that’s not what’s hurting right now. No, it’s not the pain in my feet, but the pain in my heart, where it feels like John tore out a piece of my beating heart. But, in reality, it was me who did it. It’s all my fault and I can’t blame John for how he’s reacting.

I get home and start cleaning the apartment. In a way, I guess I’m trying to absolve my sins through cleanliness. I don’t think it’s ever worked for anyone before and it’s certainly not working for me now, but at least it’s giving me something to do.

I fall asleep on the couch, one hand on the broom and the other on the small vacuum cleaner.

I wake up early in the morning, six o’clock, and immediately regret waking up. Coming from the land of dreams, now I have to face reality again. And it’s a reality I don’t want to face, where John doesn’t want to have anything to do with me and I hurt him in one of the worst ways I possibly could. It’s a world where only I am to blame. How could I blame John at all?

Grabbing my phone is the first thing I do, but there still isn’t any word from John. I send him another text, and then an email, in case there’s some problem with his phone (even though I don’t that’s not a possibility.)

I decide I’ve got to go to work after all, despite everything’s that’s happened, and I gather up my things.

The day is horrible. Still no word from John. This is the worst day ever. A horrible hazy depression hangs over me and I make a billion mistakes at work that I cant’ avoid at all.

“Are you OK, Sarah?” asks one of my coworkers, when I almost give a guy the wrong amount of money.

I shake my head. “I don’t think so,” I say.

“You poor girl,” she says. She starts telling me how she’s been in a similar situation and everything turned out all right.

“Thanks,” I say. “It’s really nice to have people to talk to.”

In the end, though, she just was talking to me because she needed to borrow money. She figured that since I was dating a billionaire and all, I’d have a couple extra dollars to throw out to a sympathetic coworker.

“Sorry,” I tell her. “I’m barely paying rent as it is and my billionaire boyfriend won’t call me back.”

John

A few weeks go by and I try not to think about Sarah. I don’t know what’s come over me but I just don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to feel that hurt that she made me feel. I figure that if I just kind of ignore the situation and pretend nothing’s going on I can stay in this numb state for a long time.

Anyway, the business demands a lot of my attention so I’ve at least got something to occupy my time.

“So what are you going to do?” says Jeff to me, after one meeting.

“About the stocks?” I say, annoyed. “What the hell do you think we just had that whole meeting about? Were you drunk or asleep or something?”

“No,” says Jeff, calmly. “I mean about Sarah… You haven’t mentioned her at all this last week. Or maybe it’s been two weeks. And you seem… I don’t know, I’m just worried about you.”

“Well don’t concern yourself with me,” I say. “I’m fine. I’ve been through worse.”

“That’s all fine and well,” says Jeff, leaning in closer to me. “But she’s pregnant, right?”

I nod stiffly. Doesn’t he know that? Is he some kind of idiot or is he a hermit who hasn’t seen the news in years? “Yeah,” I say. “She’s pregnant and if you haven’t noticed that’s the whole problem.”

“OK,” says Jeff, still talking to me calmly even though I’m being an asshole to him. “I get that. And whatever you decide to do with your relationship is up to you. I don’t want to get in the middle of that. Believe me. I just want to make sure you’re thinking this thing through.”

“What do you mean thinking it through?” I say, growing angrier by the second. Why the fuck does he think it’s any of his business? I’m speaking to him now through obviously gritted teeth.

“It’s just that you’ve got to think of the baby, man,” says Jeff. “You’ve got to find out if it’s yours because if it is don’t you think you have like a moral responsibility or something to help raise it?”

I’m silent and in shock. Yeah, I guess I hadn’t even thought about it.

“You OK?” says Jeff. “You look like you’re going to pass out.

My face feels completely drained. I feel like I’m going to faint. But billionaire CEOs don’t faint, so I don’t. I take a couple more deep breaths.

How had I not thought about that? About the kid? Am I really that selfish? I’ve just been thinking about my own hurt feelings?

“I’m OK,” I finally say. “I think you’re right, Jeff. I should see about the kid.”

I walk back to my office and shut the door behind me. I still have on the heavy metal music that I was listening to before.

I try to clear my head by doing some meditation. That is, I try to clear my head, because I know that I’m going to have to call her soon. I’m going to have to call Sarah.

But the meditation isn’t working. Maybe I need to take a ride through Manhattan on one of my motorcycles.

I don’t have any of my motorcycle gear with me though.

Maybe that’s not such a good idea though. I can see how it would play out now: I’m frustrated, and I weave through the traffic as fast as I can. I’m being more careless than usual, and I get in an accident. They rush me to the hospital where they at least attend to me because I’m rich and have good insurance—the hospital knows I’m good for the treatment essentially and they’re not going to throw me out on the street like they might… Anyway, then Sarah comes rushing to my side, but at that point I’ve already slipped into a coma and then a couple weeks later I die. She gives birth to a beautiful baby and I’m not around to see it.

I shake my head, trying to get the fantasy out of here. No, that’s not what I want to happen. After all, I might be a father. I might be a father. The words ring through my head. Doesn’t that mean I’ve got to act responsible now? Hell, if I really am a father I might have to sell all the motorcycles or only ride them in safer conditions. And New York City certainly isn’t what I would call safe conditions.

OK. Time to call her. Time to call Sarah.

Just thinking her name gets my mind going off onto a fantasy. It’s been so long that I’ve thought about her that now that I do, well, my body reacts. My cock is swelling up as I picture her naked body in my mind’s eye. There’s no one else like her in the world. I realize now that it’s not just lust though that I feel for. It’s something much, much more. I’ve just never told her. Why not? Maybe this is all my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t been so closed off from her, maybe if I’d told her my feelings, then maybe she wouldn’t have felt the need to keep this a secret from me for so long?

OK. Fuck it. I’ve got to call her. Something’s holding me back. I manage to press the call button next to her name.

But I hang up before the first ring even sounds.

I almost put the phone back on my desk, but to my surprise it rings. Is it Sarah?

Maybe. It’s an unknown number.

“Hello?” I say, my voice shaking since I’m half expecting it to be Sarah calling me back.

“Hi, John Clark?” says a voice that sounds a little familiar.”

“Speaking,” I say.

“Hi,” says the female voice. “This is Janet, Sarah’s friend.”

“Oh,” I say. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” says Janet. I can’t read the tone of her voice. “Listen, Sarah wanted me to call you. I’m not sure if you got her message, but…”

Her message?

“No,” I say. “I didn’t get a message from her.”

“Oh,” says Janet. “Well, I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this. But I’ll tell you anyway. This kid is yours.”

That almost floors me.

I don’t know whether to cry or smile. I don’t know how to react.

“That’s not what I called to tell you, though,” says Janet. “That’s just the prelude to the next part.”

“OK,” I manage to say. “Just tell me. Is it bad news?”

“We’re not sure yet,” says Janet. “What I’m supposed to tell you is that Sarah’s having some potential complications with the pregnancy. And she thought you should know.”

“Of course,” I say. “Of course I should know. I’m glad you called, Janet.”

“OK,” says Janet, not sounding the least bit pleased. I can tell she still heartily disapproves of me.

“What kind of complications?” I say.

“She’s not feeling well,” says Janet. “Some stomach pains and… A slight fever. We’re not sure what it is. So we’re in the emergency room now.”

“OK,” I say. “I’ll be right over.”

“Good,” says Janet.

She tersely tells me which hospital she’s in and then hangs up the phone without even saying goodbye.

Holy shit I’m a father.

I’m a father. I’m going to be a father.

The words run through my head over and over as I sit in a stunned daze at my office desk, the heavy metal music still playing loudly around me.

But there’s not much time to dwell on this amazing fact. Sarah could be in trouble. I just hope she hasn’t gotten some butcher for a doctor. I need to get over there and see if I can use my connections and money to get her the best doctor that they have.

“I’m headed out,” I say to one of the secretaries on the way out, brushing past everyone who tries to talk to me.

I don’t even put on my jacket before stepping into the cold garage below.

There are a couple of my cars here, as well as a few of my motorcycles.

Looking at the cars, I realize that at this time of day, it’s going to take me forever to get over to the hospital during this traffic. The motorcycle might not be the safest, but it’s going to be the fastest, and I need to be responsible…but does being responsible always mean doing the safest thing? I don’t think so, and I walk over to the bike.

I start the bike, not even bothering to put on a helmet, since I don’t have one down here with me. I’m not wearing any protective gear at all, and as I exit the garage, the wind is already cold and I’m not even moving fast yet.

This might be a bad idea, I think to myself, as I shift gears and merge into traffic.

But the cold wind and the potential danger of a crash isn’t enough to deter me from keeping Sarah safe, from making sure our baby is safe.

The thought that Sarah and I aren’t really talking really doesn’t enter my head yet…

Sarah

“It’s going to be OK, Sarah,” says Janet, holding my hand.

“But we haven’t even gotten in to sea the doctor yet,” I say, the annoyance and worry probably unmistakable in my voice.

“I’ll go talk to the secretary,” says Janet, getting up from the uncomfortable emergency room waiting chairs and walking over to the secretary.

I watch as the conversation progresses, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Since I know Janet, I just hope she’s being vaguely polite.

Janet walks back with her hands in her pockets. “No luck,” she says.

“Did you explain that I’m pregnant?” I say. I always thought emergency rooms would give special preference to pregnant women.

Janet nods her head.

“So John said he was coming?” I say. I realize that I’m holding out hope that John will fix everything, even though we haven’t been talking much. Well, not at all, really. With each passing day since I left that message, I’ve gotten angrier and angrier with him. I still feel angry with him today, but I don’t know what else to go or who to turn to. I’m terrified of losing the baby right now and the hospital staff doesn’t seem to care.

I have every right to be angry with him. He refused to take my calls even when I left him that message telling him that I’m carrying his very own baby. Who the hell does that? It doesn’t sound like John, that’s for sure.

Then I start blaming myself. I start telling myself that it’s all my fault for keeping this a secret from him for so long. But there’s only so much you can beat yourself up before you start looking for other people to blame.

“He said he didn’t get your message about him being the father,” says Janet.

“What?” I say, completely taken aback with surprise.

“You heard me. He didn’t get your message about being the father.”

“Are you sure?” I say.

Janet shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she says. “That’s what he told me anyway.”

Unlike me, I’ve never known John to lie. Not ever. Not even when it’s to his great advantage. So I guess he’s telling the truth.

“So he’s coming over?” I say.

“Yeah,” says Janet.

But an hour goes by and John still isn’t here. I start having all sorts of worries and feeling sick on top of the worries isn’t helping at all. What if John has decided to abandon me and the baby after all? What if he’s had enough of me and just decided to leave me here to rot in the hospital?

Or, even worse (or is it worse, since what’s worse than being abandoned like that?) he’s had some kind of terrible accident on his way here to the hospital. I know how he likes to ride his motorcycles and he fancies himself quite the racer. He actually was a racer, and in his younger years, he actually did compete as a semi pro motorcycle racer. But those days are long behind him and he never talks about them. I wonder if his reflexes are still up to what he now thinks his skill level is.

“This is taking forever,” says Janet, giving me a worried look.

“Hey,” I say. “At least you’re not the one that’s sick.”

“Yeah…” Janet starts speaking but I don’t give her a chance to finish.

Instead, I start vomiting all over the place.

“I’m sorry,” I manage to say, starting to choke a little on my own vomit. I’m gagging and I’ve now got vomit all over my face and the front of my shirt.

Is this my lowest point? In the hospital emergency room, covered in vomit, sick as a stray dog.

If it is, then John picks a hell of a time to show up.

He rushes into the emergency room through the main doors, looking around wildly. He’s wearing a t-shirt that’s torn across the back, as if he was sliced with a large knife. His hair is wild and his eyes shine with fury or worry.

“There you are!” he says, crying out as he sees me.

He rushes up to me and gives me a huge hug before I can do anything.

His strong arms wrap around me and for a moment I completely forget that I’m covered in vomit and that I’m sick and that I don’t know what’s happening with the baby.

“She’s covered in vomit,” cuts in Janet’s voice, and John look surprised and I think for a moment that he’s going to pull away but in the end he just shrugs his shoulders and goes back to hugging me.

“I don’t care that I’m not covered in vomit,” he says. “I didn’t get your message ever. I just heard it from Janet. Honest. I thought it was someone else’s kid. I didn’t know it was mine… You didn’t have to hide it from me. I’m so sorry, baby.”

“I’m the one who’s so sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have ever done that to you, no matter what. I should never have lied to you.”

The last thing I remember is John hugging me tightly and feeling the happiest I’ve felt in a long time. Then I remember feeling very, very sick despite feeling happy. Then my vision went black and I suppose I passed out because the next thing I know I’m lying in a hospital bed with some people in the corner of the room.

“She’s awake,” says someone.

It’s John.

“Hey, baby,” he says, leaning over me and taking my hand. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be all right.”

“I can’t…” but I’m too weak to talk. I can’t even think of what it is I wanted to say.

“Don’t worry, Sarah,” says John, in a soothing voice. “I’ve got one of the best obstetricians in the entire city. He’s going to make sure everything’s OK.”

I squeeze John’s hand as tight as I can but my hand feels too weak to grip it hard. He does the squeezing for me, and squeezes back.

The doctor comes over, his white lab coat flapping as he walks. He’s in his late sixties and has a dignified look about him.

He consults his tablet computer, which I guess is the new clipboard (it’s been a while since I’ve been in a hospital) and nods at me gravely. At this point, because of his demeanor, I’m expecting the absolute worst.

“Good news,” he says. “We’ve run all the lab tests and everything came back normal…”

“Then what’s wrong with me?” I say, growing so frantic that I suddenly have the energy to talk again. But this sentence takes all the energy out of me again and I lie back against the pillow, completely exhausted.

I see Janet in the corner of the room, looking on with a concerned look on her face. She’s on her phone, tapping away, and I know she’s probably relaying the whole thing to my mother, who must be beside herself with worry.

“Yeah,” says John, his voice showing an unusual amount of concern. Normally he sounds so calm no matter what the situation. “What’s going on, doc?”

“The one thing that came back abnormal was her blood sugar,” says the doctor, who’s name, if it was said to me, I’ve already forgotten. “This can be quite common with pregnant women. Especially if they’re working…” He gives me the once over, and I figure he determines quite accurately that I’m a working girl and not some rich girl with an inheritance to live on. “We just have to do one final test to see if that’s the source of the problem.”

“And what’s that going to be?” I say, gathering the strength to speak again. “Is it going to hurt? Is there a cure?”

“Here,” says the doctor, in the gentlest voice imaginable. He holds out a regular banana, already partially peeled.

“What’s this?” says John.

“It’s the test,” says the doctor. “Here, eat the banana, Sara.”

John helps me put the banana to my mouth. Seconds after I’ve taken the first bite, I feel better. My strength is returning!

“Wow,” I say, feeling like I can now talk without a horrendous effort. “Here, give me the rest of that.”

I gobble down the rest of the banana, completely forgetting about any attempt at modesty.

“There’s more where that came from,” says a nurse from the other side of the room. I hadn’t even noticed that she was here in the room with us. She holds out a glass of orange juice and another banana.

“It’d be wise to eat up,” says the doctor. “Babies brains need a lot of glucose when they’re growing. It can sometimes cause the mother’s blood sugar to drop dramatically, causing all sorts of problems like weakness and even temporary blindness. If you eat you may be able to restore your liver’s glycogen stores.”

“You mean like carb loading for a marathon?” I say, having heard the term before, even though I doubt I’ll get within a mile of a marathon race.

“Exactly,” says the doctor, smiling.

”Wow,” I say. “I feel stupid now. All I had to do was eat some more fruit?”

The doctor nods, but adds, “Don’t feel stupid. A lot of women go through this and your friend has been telling me that you’re taking the appropriate prenatal vitamins and have read many book son the subject. But don’t be worried, because sometimes even the experts aren’t aware of how common this condition can be for pregnant women.”

“So I’m really going to be OK?” I say.

“So she’s really going to be OK?” says John.

The doctor nods. “You’re going to be just great. I hope that you’ll let me serve as your birth doctor for the special day.

John looks at me expectedly. “He’s very good,” he says.

“That’d be great,” I say, smiling.

I look down and notice that while I was passed out they must have changed me out of my vomit clothes. I’m glad I’m not covered in vomit right now because John leans in over me and kisses me deeply on the mouth.

I kiss him back and for a moment I completely forget that I’m here in the hospital.

We make out for another thirty seconds until the doctor’s gentle cough reminds us where we are.

“Geeze,” says Janet from the corner. “Get a room you two.”

The nurse tries to stifle a giggle.

“Well, I’ve got to be getting to my next appointment,” says the doctor, politely, coming over and shaking my hand and John’s hand.

“Thanks so much, doc,” says John.

I catch Janet checking out the doctor’s ass as he walks out the room and I giggle.

“Good guy,” says John, to me. “He’s helped me out before.”

“You’ve had a baby before?” I say.

John laughs. “No,” he says. “This will be the first one.”

“Well,” says Janet, coughing slightly herself, apparently worried that John and I are going to start making out again. “I’ll leave you two alone. I’ll let your mother know that you’re OK, Sarah.”

“Thanks,” I say, winking at her as she leaves the room.

The nurse asks me if I need anything else and exits the room after Janet.

“Just the two of us,” says John, smiling down at me.

“You’re so far away,” I say.

“Is this better?” says John, kicking off his shoes and getting into the bed next to me. He puts his arm around me and I snuggle up into the crook of his arm, turning my belly so that it faces him. He puts his hand on my belly and smiles at me.

“You’re so sexy,” he says, leaning in and kissing me. “I’m so glad you and the baby are OK.”

“Our baby,” I add.

“That’s right,” says John. “I’m so sorry I doubted you. I just didn’t know… It was so unexpected and the tabloid stories were making everything so much more confusing.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I should be the one who’s sorry, not you.”

“Maybe we can both me sorry,” says John.

“That sounds good,” I say. “But I really am very sorry. I should have never deceived you like that. I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me. It’s just that even right from the beginning I was sure something good was going to come from our relationship and I didn’t want to ruin it so early on with something like an unexpected baby…”

“It’s OK,” says John, patting my head gently. “I understand. Who knows, maybe I would have done the same thing if I were you in your position and the roles were reversed.”

I laugh at the thought of John getting pregnant by me.

John laughs too, picking up at what I’m laughing at.

“It’s nice we have a room all to ourselves,” I say. “Rather than just a couple curtains around us to protect us.”

“That’s one of the advantages of having a lot of money,” says John, and I laugh. “You can usually get what you want. Speaking of which, I hope you’ll let me help you with the baby financially. If you want to keep working, that’s fine with me. As long as you take off some time to give birth. You know, at least a couple hours or so.”

I laugh. “Maybe I’ll take the whole day off,” I say. “And of course you’re helping with the finances. Don’t you know how expensive raising kids can be? I can’t possibly afford that on my tiny little salary.”

John kisses me and then pulls away and looks me dead in the eyes.

“There’s something I wanted to tell you,” he says.

“Me first,” I say, gazing back into his eyes, the most beautiful eyes that I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“Let me go first,” says John. “It’s important.”

“OK,” I say, not breaking eye contact.

“I just wanted to tell you that… I love you,” says John.

My smile is as big as the moon, swinging across my face like the brilliant ocean on a faraway tropical island. I’m happier than I ever have been in my life.

“I love you,” says John, putting a hand on my belly. “And I love our baby. And I want us to be a family.”

“I love you too,” I say.

John leans in and kisses me.

“You want to have sex?” says John.

“You’re certainly direct,” I say.

“That’s how you always are,” says John.

“OK,” I say, rubbing my hand across his crotch. I can feel his massive cock.

“It’s been so long since I felt your cock,” I say, as I start unzipping his fly. I fish around and don’t have any problems finding his massive cock that’s throbbing as I pull it out of his pants.

“I’m really glad now I sprung for the private room,” says John.

“I bet you are,” I say.

“I bet you are too,” says John. “You just can’t keep away from my cock, can you?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say, in a cute little voice. “I can’t. But I know you cant’ stay away from my body either.”

“That’s true,” says John, starting to massage my breasts through my hospital gown. “I’m sure glad they cleaned all that vomit off you.”

“I bet you’d still want to fuck me even if I was covered in vomit.”

“It’s true,” says John, making a face.

“Eww,” I say. “That’s disgusting, John.” I giggle.

“It’s disgusting but true,” says John.

I’ve got my hand wrapped around his cock and now I’m stroking it. My mouth is inching towards his massive cock, and now my tongue is close enough to lick the tip of it.

“Oh God that feels good,” says John.

“Already?” I say. “It doesn’t take much for you, does it?”

“It’s been so long,” says John. “We can’t ever go that long without having sex again.”

“What about when I get really big from the baby?” I say.

“I don’t care,” says John. “You’re probably just going to look even sexier.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m already really, really big. You think I look sexy now?”

“Sexier than ever,” says John.

I make him stop talking by putting his entire massive cock right into my mouth. I swirl my tongue around and tighten my lips, pursing them so that my mouth is a tight hole that he can fuck. He starts bucking his hips and pushing his cock into my mouth, lifting his hips off the bed.

“I’m going to come,” grunts John.

Good, I think. Of course, I can’t exactly talk right now, given the position I’m in. But I want him to come desperately. I want to give him pleasure, to give him the pleasure that he’s given me just from being with him. I feel an overwhelming sense of love for him.

I’m so turned on from having his massive cock in my mouth that all I want is to take his come in my mouth, to swallow his seed. And I’ve never even done anything like that before.

His cock starts pulsating and I can feel it in my mouth.

John groans powerfully and thrusts his hips up and his cock farther into my mouth. It shakes as it explodes and my mouth is full of his sweet and delicious come.

Oh my God! I’ve never thought it would be pleasurable. I’ve always thought it was gross that women let their men finish in their mouths. But now that I’m properly turned on (and in love!) it’s one of the most delicious and spectacular things I’ve ever experienced.

Well, that’s what I think until John turns the tables on me. He gets up and starts pulling my pants down.

“I want to make you feel really good,” he whispers into my ear.

“Good,” I say, which is kind of a dumb thing to say, but I’m so turned on I don’t feel like my brain is working that well.

John starts slowly licking my thighs and works his way slowly, ever so slowly, up to my outer lips. He touches them delicately with his tongue, and then runs his tongue over the entire thing. First he uses light strokes and then starts using the rougher base of his tongue, covering my entire pussy.

“Oh John!” I cry out, and soon I’m writhing around.

It’s been so long that we’ve been together that I’m the most turned on that I can remember. And it doesn’t take me any time at all to come.

I’m moaning and my body is practically shaking.

John keeps going as I orgasm. It rushes through me like a tidal wave of pleasure. It feels like my eyes roll back. The world goes completely white. My body feels light like a feather. There’s nothing that has ever felt better than this.

There’s a knock on the door, and suddenly I remember that we’re in the hospital.

“Just a minute,” says John, his breathing still somewhat heavy.

“Here,” he says, whispering to me, helping me get under the sheets.

We’ve got the sheets pulled over our naked bodies by the time the door opens.

“Oh,” says a nurse, taking a look at us and smiling. “I just wanted to check to see if you needed anything.”

“We’re OK,” says John.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better,” says the nurse. I swear she winks at me before turning and leaving us in the room.

“At least they’re thorough,” says John. “Here, you’d better have another banana after all that exertion.”

I eat the banana in John’s arms, chomping on it slowly and savoring each bite. I’m back together with my man, and nothing has ever felt better.

John

The next few months pass quickly, like a happy dream.

I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. Sarah and I are barely apart, and I’ve even taken to carrying a small backpack with us wherever we go. The backpack I’ve got completely filled with fruit and candy and orange juice. That way, whenever her blood sugar drops slightly, she doesn’t have to hunt around for anything to eat. I’ve also invested in a couple very good blood sugar monitors, so in case there’s any doubt about what’s going on, we can test it ourselves.

I manage to convince Sarah to take the rest of the pregnancy off from work. That was quite a job convincing her, though, and she wanted to work all the way up to the actual delivery. But in the end it didn’t make since, considering the delicate situation with her blood sugar and the baby’s health.

Baby and pregnancy books line my shelves now. They’re scattered in the backseat of the car I bought just for the baby. It’s a very safe and very boring station wagon that’s going to be the dedicated baby car. Of course, it’s not like I’m getting rid of the motorcycles and the sports cars or anything like that. But they’re not suitable for a baby—we both agree on that.

“This is so nice just sitting around and relaxing with you,” says Sarah.

We’re lying on the beach chairs at an indoor pool in the city. We wanted to take a vacation, but with the months and weeks advancing so fast, it’s probably not a good idea. Better to stay close to home in case the baby decides to come out a little early, making a surprise appearance in the world.

“You know,” I say. “This is probably the least amount of time I’ve spent in the office in years.”

“It’s good for you,” says Sarah. “I’ve got to teach you how to relax.”

“I thought that’s what I was teaching you,” I say. “You’re the workaholic.”

“We both are,” says Sarah. “It’s just that you’ve always made a lot more money from your workaholic tendencies than I have.”

Hopefully I’m going to change that soon, I think to myself. I want Sarah to have as much money as she needs. And I know one way to do that.

“These lights feel good, don’t they?” I say looking up and shielding my eyes a little.

“Yeah,” says Sarah. “It’s almost as if we’re sitting outside on the real beach with the real sun.”

“I think they’re some kind of UV lights,” I say. “They’re kind of like tanning beds in that they feel really nice. But these ones are supposed to be completely safe.”

Sarah laughs. And I know why. It’s because I’ve become something a safety nut ever since the last incidence where she passed out in the hospital. Everything Sarah does I like to research ahead of time. If I have to, I’ll use one of my medical contacts to double and triple ensure that the product (or whatever it is) is completely safe for a pregnant mother.

“You look sexy,” I say, leaning over to Sarah’s chair and kissing her.

“I look big,” says Sarah, patting her ever-growing belly.

“You look sexy with that belly,” I say. “Why don’t we slip into the locker room and I’ll show you just how sexy you look.”

Sarah laughs. “I don’t think that’s something a pregnant woman should be doing,” she says.

“Since when are you so modest?” I say. “Don’t you remember all the crazy places we’ve had sex?”

“I know, I know, but I feel so conspicuous with my belly.”

“Then let’s go back to my place and I’ll show you just how sexy you are. I don’t care where the hell we are.”

Sarah

We were going to spend more time lying here by the pool. After all, the doctor says that the light is good for my pregnancy. But we can barely keep our hands off each other so John takes me back to his apartment.

Despite having been here many, many times, I’m still surprised at the elegance and luxury of his apartment. Some pieces of his furniture cost more than all the money I’d make in a whole years working at the bank. But to John, it’s all the same. “Just trying to stimulate the economy,” he says. He really couldn’t care less whether he had the cheapest table or the most expensive one. Unless you’re talking boats, cars, or motorcycles, material possessions aren’t important to John. Which is a little strange for a billionaire, I’ll admit.

“Let’s start with just regular sex,” I say. “No foreplay this time.”

“You really want it, don’t you?” says John. “It’s fine with me.”

His hands are already on my breasts underneath my clothes.

“All right,” I say. “That’s enough. I’m the pregnant one and I get what I want. And right now I really just want your cock deep inside me.”

“Is this one of those weird pregnancy cravings? Like how women want pickles and ice cream together or something?”

“I don’t think it’s that weird to want your cock inside me.”

John laughs and I help him get his pants off. We’re both naked now and I try to lie on my stomach but my belly is getting too big.

“From the side,” says John, and shows me how I can lie on my side and he can lie behind me.

His cock is so long that he doesn’t have any trouble getting it inside.

I groan as it enters me and fills me up completely.

“I read this in a pregnancy book,” says John.

“Some pregnancy book…” I manage to say, between groans as John continues to thrust hard into me.

It’s not long before I’m coming. For some reason, everything feels extra sensitive today.

John’s only a few moments behind me, increasing his speed as I come and releasing his seed deep inside me, holding his cock in me all the way up to the hilt.

“That’s it baby,” he says, stroking my hair as I continue to experience the orgasm, which rocks through me causing me to scream out.

“That felt…good,” I manage to say, flopping back on the bed.

Everything is more effort when you’re pregnant.

“I wanted to tell you something,” says John. “And I don’t know of a better time…”

“Yeah?” I say.

“I love you,” says John, simply, staring me in the eyes. “I’ve felt this way for a long time… I don’t know how long but the time never seemed right. Finally, I realize the time is never going to be perfect until I make it perfect…”

“I love you, too,” I say, and he leans down and kisses me gently on the mouth.

The days continue and turn into weeks. I spend most of my time at John’s place. We talk about our plans for when the baby is born.

The baby’s not premature, that’s for sure. It’s taking its sweet time.

Meanwhile, I make sure to keep my blood sugar stable with plenty of fruit. I’ve never looked better in my life and my hair and skin shine. John’s always bugging me to eat more and he keeps me properly fed. It turns out he’s actually quite a good chef. For health reasons, we’re not spending most of our meals together at his place, rather than eating out. That way we can be sure that I eat plenty of the right foods and don’t just fill up on expensive but not necessarily healthy restaurant food.

Finally, the day comes and my water breaks.

John’s at work, but he rushes home through the traffic on his motorcycle. (I forgot to mention what had happened to him when he rushed over to the hospital when I was sick. He had a minor accident but just got back on his bike and ignored his superficial injuries.) Even though it wasn’t a bad accident, I’ve been worried ever since…

But John arrives at his apartment (where I’m basically living now, even though John’s paying the rent on my other apartment). He’s got the bags already loaded and he helps me get into the station wagon.

“We’re all set,” says John, looking nervous for perhaps the second time in his entire life. “Right?”

“All set honey,” I say. “Let’s go have this baby!”

John turns around to look in the rear view mirror and backs the car out of the parking space. We’re in the garage underneath his massive Manhattan. apartment building.

He puts the car in park suddenly and turns to me.

“What’s going on?” I say. “Shouldn’t we get to the hospital. I don’t know how long I have before I go into labor and…”

“This will just take a minute,” says John. “Hey, I may be a billionaire but timing isn’t necessarily by strong suit…”

He suddenly opens up his car door and gets out of the car. Now I’m freaking out. I need to get to the hospital pronto.

“What the hell are you doing?” I say calling out to him.

He comes around to my side of the car and opens my passenger door.

But he doesn’t make any move to undo my seat belt or anything. He’s also not reaching into the glove box…he could have done that anyway from his seat.

He gets down on one knee on the cold parking garage concrete floor. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little box.

I know where this is going and I burst into tears of joy. I’m completely overwhelmed with emotion.

He cracks open the box and a tasteful yet very large and surely very expensive engagement ring greets me.

“Sarah,” says John. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

I’m crying but I manage to say, “Of course, John.”

He slips the engagement ring on my finger. He must have had it modified because it fits on my slightly swollen pregnant finger just perfectly.

We stare happily into each other’s eyes for a moment, after he kisses me, but he says, “Well, all right, we really better get going.”

“Yeah,” I say. “My contractions are…”

“Got it,” says John, already running around to the drivers’ seat again.

He doesn’t speed, which impresses me, but we get to the hospital probably with plenty of time to spare, all because John spent hours mapping out the best routes to the hospital at different times of the day, depending on different traffic patterns which are all tracked online.

He’s not a billionaire for nothing, I tell myself.

John

Two Years Later

“Why are you going, Daddy?” says John Junior, my son.

“Mommy and I never got to have a honey moon,” I say. “You’re going to stay with your grandmother. She’s going to come over here and take care of you.”

“What’s a hubby moon, daddy?”

“A honey moon,” I say, correcting him. “It’s a vacation when people get married.”

I’m probably not going to be able to explain the nuances of a honey moon and marital customs to my two year old son, but I try anyway.

The doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” says Sarah, rushing through the apartment towards the elevator, where she waits for her mother to arrive.

I still have the same ridiculous elevator door, where people just arrive directly into the apartment. Ever since having a child, I’ve wondered if it’s perhaps not too practical. Maybe a regular door would be better. Sarah and I have talked about moving out to long island, and we might do it someday. But for now we’re content to live in Manhattan.

We got married one year after Sarah gave birth to John Junior. It was a small wedding, and we managed to keep the paparazzi out of it. Now that we’re happily married, there’s no more “scandal,” so the press ends up just leaving us alone. In their eyes, we’re just boring old regular people, albeit very rich ones. We’re no longer celebrities with “scandals.” And that’s just fine with us. We’re happier than we’ve ever been. John has been an absolute joy, although at times he certainly can be a handful.

Despite my wealth, Sarah and I never wanted to take an exotic vacation because of John Junior. We didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone until after his second birthday.

“Hi, John,” says my mother in law, giving me a kiss on the cheek, and simultaneously handing me what feels like a zillion suitcases.

How long does she think she’s staying? I think to myself.

The honeymoon is supposed to be just two weeks. I don’t think either Sarah or I would want to spend more time away from John Junior. We thought about bringing him, but for what we have planned it might be a little too much for him.

“OK, honey,” says Sarah, bending down and kissing John Junior. “You’re going to stay here with your grandmother, OK? We’ll be back very soon. Just two weeks.”

“I’ll miss you,” says John Junior.

But he looks bravely up at us and I know that he’s actually looking forward to the time with his grandmother. Aside from us, she’s his favorite person.

My mother and law and I have in the past had a somewhat tense relationship, and Sarah certainly has had one with her own mother. Things have been very, very tense between them. But with John Junior, Sarah’s mother is like a completely transformed woman. With him, all her tenseness falls away completely. Her voice becomes sweet and soft and it’s a pleasure watching the two of them play John Junior’s games together.

“Ready, honey?” I say, putting my arm around Sarah.

“You take good care of your grandmother, John,” I say, winking at my son.

My son... I love saying those words. It’s a magical feeling being a parent. Something you can’t imagine until it happens to you. I know Sarah feels exactly the same way.

We’re both shedding a few tears as we leave the apartment.

“It’ll be OK,” I say. “It’s good for his development to spend some time with other people. I read it in one of the parenting books.” I’ve just about devoured all the books on parenting I could find. “This is just the right time for it to happen. Plus, it’ll be nice for just the two of us to spend some time together. We’ll be back really soon.”

“You’re right,” says Sarah, giving me a kiss on the lips. “How did I ever land a husband who’s not only so handsome but also so intelligent?”

“How did I ever get such a beautiful and smart wife?” I say.

I lean in and kiss her.

“Get a room, you two,” says the new doorman, waving at us jovially. He’s a big man who I can’t help think looks almost exactly like Santa Clause…or his twin brother.

We take a private jet that I’ve contracted out. First, we’re headed to a beach in Mexico, and then we’re headed to Japan, France, and Egypt. It’s not going to be your typical honey moon in that we’re not going to be spending all of our time at the beach. Sarah hasn’t spent much time traveling the world so we thought it might be good for her to get out and see some other cultures. I think she’s really excited about going to Japan and Egypt and of course France…

Of course, I’ve been to most of these places, but then again I’ve been to almost all the countries in the world. The difference is that I’ve never been to them with Sarah…

“I’m so glad we get to take this vacation,” says Sarah, sitting next to me. She takes my arm, grabbing it hard.

“You’re not afraid to fly, are you?” I say, suddenly realizing that I’ve never heard her talk about flying.

“I…I don’t know,” says Sarah.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I say.

“It’s just that I’ve never flown before.”

I almost laugh. In this day and age, it’s rare to find someone who’s never flown at all.

“Well,” I say. “That’s a good thing. That way your body hasn’t yet decided if you’re scared of flying or not. So let’s decide right here and now that you’re not scared of it.”

“OK,” says Sarah, leaning into me. “That sounds good. Anyway, I’m not scared of anything if you’re around.”

I laugh.

Even after two intense years of raising a kid together, our love hasn’t diminished at all. It’s as strong as it ever has been.

I give Sarah a couple mild over the counter sleeping pills, so that she can get some rest. She’s been up practically all night with John Junior who couldn’t sleep, apparently nervous that we’re leaving…

John Junior has changed my life just as much as Sarah has. I think back to the last three years, starting with that night in the Hamptons and almost laugh at how crazy the whole adventure has been…

There’s no way I could have known on that first night that this attractive woman at the party would change my life forever…change it for the better.

I think back to the wedding, and the speech I gave. I left out a couple of the most embarrassing details in the speech, but generally I told the whole story. After all, everyone pretty much already knew the story. It had been published ad nauseam in the tabloids anyway.

It was a nice wedding, and with Sarah asleep in on my shoulder, and the plane now cruising through the air at a good altitude, I let my mind drift back to that wedding day It was one of the happiest days in my entire life, when everything seems completely perfect. That feeling has never completely gone away. Sure, I have hard days here and there, and I still have a huge company to run, but something changed on that day that we got married. It was as if something magical happened…

But I don’t want to get too sappy.

Let me try to describe it another way.

It was a small wedding. But…

Well, I shouldn’t start describing something that I can’t remember that well.. Somehow, my happiness overwhelmed the memory of the actual wedding.

I do distinctly remember hiding out in the closet with Sarah after the ceremony was over. And everyone was looking for us, but I had my head up Sarah’s wedding dress and she was moaning crazily. Fortunately, no one found us.

I drift off to sleep, along with Sarah. As I’m dozing off, I wonder if we’ll share the same dreams. Sometime, when we happen to tell each other our dreams, it seems that we have been dreaming of the same things…

The plane lands in Mexico, and we’re helped to our hotel by a nice guide who speaks English.

I’ve never told Sarah, but I’m actually fluent in Spanish, and the guide is almost astounded when I respond to his English in fluent Spanish with a passable Mexican accent. I even know how to swear like a Chilango, which is a person from Mexico City. When I was a kid, before I got so interested in making money, I refused to watch anything on TV except for the telenovelas. I don’t know why, but I was completely obsessed with listening to Spanish, and after ten years, I could talk as well as any hispanohablante.

“You’re Spanish is really good,” the guide says to me in Spanish. Then he adds, in English, “Your husband speaks very good Spanish.”

“I didn’t have any idea you spoke Spanish,” says Sarah. “What other hidden talents are you hiding from me?”

“I think that’s it,” I say. “Spanish…not a lot else.”

“I’m sure there’s a ton of other things,” says Sarah, winking at me.

“Here’s a tip for your trouble,” I say, in Spanish, to the guide, who’s busy arranging our suitcases in the hotel room. I hand him a folded up 100 dollar bill. I know that’s going to be very valuable to him once he changes it in for pesos.

“I bet you have a lot of hidden talents yourself,” I say, as Sarah wraps her arms around me.

“Maybe this is the time to show them to you,” says Sarah.

“Oh yeah?” I say. “What are they?”

“Let me show you,” says Sarah. “Although, you’ve already seen some of them before. But I’ve saved a couple things for our honey moon, if you can believe it.”

“I think I like where this is going,” I say.

“I think you’re going to,” says Sarah, hugging me tightly, before sliding her body down along mine. I’m standing up and she drags her breasts along my body. By the time she’s kneeling on the ground, with her breasts pressed against my knees, and her mouth pressed against my crotch, my cock is raging against my pants.

“It’s been too long,” I say, as she undoes my belt buckle.

“What are you talking about? Didn’t we have sex yesterday?” she says, laughing.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I say.

Sarah laughs even harder.

Unlike other couples I’ve heard of, our sex life hasn’t died down in the least bit, even after having a kid. We just make sure that we set aside some time each day, after we’ve put John Junior to bed usually, to make love. We’ve grown in our abilities to appreciate one another’s bodies and we’ve continued to learn things about what we each like.

For instance, Sarah knows know exactly how to give me a blog job that will drive me completely wild and crazy. If she wants to, she knows how to bring me to orgasm now within thirty seconds. It’s not that my stamina has changed at all, but it’s just that Sarah knows me and my cock extremely well.

This isn’t one of those times though, and Sarah draws it out for ten glorious minutes before I come, my cock shooting my seed in one of the most delicious orgasms I’ve had in the last year.

“My turn,” I say, greedily, before she flops down on the bed and I stick my head up her skirt and go to town. There’s almost nothing I love the taste of more than my wife’s pussy. Eating her out is just…it’s like heaven. I absolutely can’t explain why some people don’t like going down on their girlfriends or wives. They talk about it as if it’s some chore that they don’t like doing. But to me, nothing could be further from the truth.

Sarah

We spend a few days in Mexico where John continues to impress me with his Spanish skills. Everyone we meet seems impressed to, since not only does he Speak very good Spanish, but he actually could pass for a native.

Next stop is Japan, where we are immersed in an intense cultural experience that’s nothing like Mexico.

“I miss John Junior,” I say to John, while we’re picking at some Sushi. John doesn’t speak Japanese and neither do I (not even a couple words), so there’s no way to tell what in the world we’ve ordered except to try it. John goes first, diving in with his chop sticks, and making a strange face as he takes his first bite.

“I’m just kidding,” he says, his face returning to normal. “It’s actually pretty good. I still don’t know what the hell it is, but it’s pretty good. But, yeah, Sarah, I miss him too. Maybe we can talk to him tonight on the computer.”

“That’d be great,” I say. “The times might line up so that it’s morning over there. I hope he’s not giving my mom too much trouble.”

“I think we should be more worried about your mother giving John Junior too much trouble,” says John.

I laugh. “But she’s so different with him,” I say. “She was never, ever like that with me.”

“I wish my parents were still alive to meet him,” says John, an unusually sad look appearing on his face.

“I’m sorry I never got to meet them,” I say. “I never hear you talk about them ever.”

John shrugs his shoulders. “They died when I was very young. I grew up with my grandmother who died the day I graduated college.”

“Wow,” I say. “That must have been really tough. I can’t believe you haven’t told me about all that before…” I mean, it’s not as if he’s never mentioned it. I knew the gist of it. It’s kind of amazing to me what you can learn about someone even after two years of marriage.

Mexico, Japan, and France turn out all to be fantastic in their own way. We return back home to Manhattan and John Junior greets us happily. He had a great time staying with my mother, which I still find hard to believe. But, what can I say, she’s a lot better with him than just about anyone else on the planet. Everyone else, including myself and John, seem to ignore her to no ends.

That night, John and I talk seriously about our trip, after we’ve put John Junior to bed of course.

“It was so nice to get out of the city,” I say. “I mean, I’ve always felt that New York City was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the planet. And I guess I thought that meant that I’d already traveled everyone in the world… When in reality, I’d never been on a plane before.

“I love travel,” says John. “I think it shows your parts of your personality that you’ve never known before… It can change everyone for the better. It can make you into who you need to be.”

“I’d already heard things like that,” I say. “But I never had the luxury to take off work and travel the world.”

“Well now you do,” says John.

“I no longer work at the bank,” I say. “Thanks to you and all your money. But you can’t just leave work, can you? And I can’t just leave you to go travel the world without you? And Johnny’s got to be here for school.”

“Well,” says John. “I was thinking about this a lot on the plane ride back. I think it’s time that I start taking a smaller role in the company. I’ve always said that I can’t do it because too many people rely on me for jobs… But it’s not entirely true. Someone else can run the company… Jeff is really good at what he does, for instance. There are a lot of people who, if I put them together in a team, could do what I do. It’s just really hard for me to leave the company that I built with my own hands.”

I nod sympathetically. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to, though,” I say. “If you don’t want to leave the company…”

“I do, though,” says John. “It’s time. I think I’ve made all the money we’ll ever need in a hundred lifetimes. And I’ve learned all I can about the business… Maybe the three of us could go traveling. John Junior is going to have at least three more years before he needs to start kindergarten. We could spend those three years traveling.”

My face breaks into a huge smile. “That’d be crazy,” I say. But I can’t stop smiling.

“I know,” says John. “It’s be completely crazy. But it’d be a hell of an adventure. It’d be really, really fun. Probably really, really hard. But also really interesting. Maybe the most interesting thing we’ve ever done. Imagine, a family of three traveling the world constantly…”

“It’d be a great way for John Junior to grow up,” I say. “Imagine all the experiences he’ll have by the time he enters kindergarten! And he could end up learning a couple extra languages, the way you know Spanish. You know how good kids are at learning languages, don’t you?”

John nods. “Yeah, they say that at his age it’ll be incredibly easy for him to pick up. He could easily learn one language a year if we stick to countries that have the same language…”

“Maybe you and I could learn some extra language too,” I say. “It’s something that’s on my bucket list.”

John laughs. “It’s too early for us to have bucket lists,” he says. “Our lives are just beginning.”

“That’s so sweat,” I say, giving him a kiss. “I like the way that sounds. Just beginning…”

“Imagine the possibilities,” says John. “It’ll just take me a couple months to break free of work, and then in let’s say four months, we could be anywhere in the world. Where do you want to go?”

“Fiji!” I say, responding instantly. “I don’t know why, but the name has always stuck in my memory.”

“Fiji it is then!” says John, in a comically grandiose way, waving his arms about dramatically.

“Seriously?” I say. “You’re really going to leave the business and Manhattan behind?’

“Yeah,” says John. “I want to spend more time with you and John Junior.”

“You’re so sweet,” I say, kissing him on the mouth.

John’s strong hands being caressing my body, and soon they’re under my nightgown on my breasts.

John moves my night gown aside so that my breasts pop out. He takes them in his hands and begins sucking on my very, very erect nipples.

“Oh, John,” I say, beginning to moan.

“I want you so much,” says John. “I need you right now.”

“I need you too,” I say. “I need you inside me.”

“First I need to taste you,” says John.

Well, how am I going to say no to that?

John keeps his hands on my breasts, massaging them and rubbing them, while he slides down my body, and his head is now between my legs.

He’s gotten even better than ever at this… The pleasure is intense, and I come quickly…not to mention hard.

And by coming hard, I mean the orgasm rocks me like a tidal wave. I forget momentarily where I am. The only thing I know for sure right now is that John’s head is between my legs.

“Oh my God!” I cry out.

When the orgasm has finally died down enough for me to speak, I tell John to get inside me quickly. “I need your thick cock deep inside me,” I say.

John obeys. He always sleeps naked, so it’s not like he needs to fish his cock out from anywhere.

His cock still surprises me every time. For one thing, it’s larger than almost all other cocks. It’s also more beautiful…

But there’s no time to behold it now. Right now, I want it deep inside me, and that’s exactly where John puts it.

He rides me slow at first, and now hard and fast. Very hard. Very fast.

John’s grunting with the effort and it’s still the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard on the whole planet. I’m moaning and we both come together, John’s cock pumping me full of his thick delicious seed.

Turn the page to read Her Boss: A Billionaire and Virgin Romance

Her Boss

A Billionaire and Virgin Romance

Lily

“What a prick,” says Hailey, shoving her phone in my face. “Look at this.”

We’re squished together on the little couch that we somehow stuffed into her tiny room after finding it at a garage sale for twenty dollars—a real steal in San Francisco, the city where people rent dumpsters for hundreds of dollars a night.

It’s morning, and Hailey’s just gotten home from some late night hook up. Me, I’ve been showered for an hour, but I haven’t yet changed into my work clothes.

I take the phone from her. On the screen, a picture of a man in his early thirties greets me. There’s a headline, but I’m not reading that now. Somehow, I’m mesmerized by him, his piercing blue eyes, the perfect amount of stubble, the chin so chiseled he’s probably a famous actor.

“Falling in love?” teases Hailey. “Found who you’re going to lose your v-card to?”

“No,” I sputter. “I’m just…”

“Just read it,” says Hailey. “You aren’t going to want to fantasize about him after you read the article.”

I force my eyes away from his face and killer body and scroll down, so that just the headline and the article are on my screen.

“Douchebag Billionaire at it Again,” reads the headline.

“Journalism at its finest,” I say, scoffing.

“It gets worse,” says Hailey. “I know it’s just a tabloid site, but keep reading.”

“Ryan Hudson seriously earns his title of Douchebag Billionaire of the year,” continues the article. “He was spotted last night driving over a pensioner’s wheelchair. Fortunately, she wasn’t in it, but it’s the thought that counts, right? The wheelchair, owned by Mrs. Sally Davison, a widower, is estimated to cost over $10,000. Damages to Hudson’s Maserati are currently unknown, and he was not available to make comments.”

“Wow,” I say, taking a sip of my coffee. “What a prick. Drives over an old lady’s wheelchair? What’s a pensioner, anyway?”

I feel Hailey shrugging against me. Yeah, we’re that squished on this couch, but we’ve gotten used to it. “I think it’s a British term for a retiree… But that’s not the first thing I’ve read about this guy. Supposedly he wants to use his company to run the world or something. And he’s…”

I should keep listening. Hailey’s my best friend, after all. But my fingers glide up, moving his image back into view.

My eyes gaze into his, and, yeah, it’s just a publicity photo on my friend’s phone, but…

“You even listening to me?” says Hailey.

“Yeah,” I say, scrolling down and then handing the phone back to her. “That’s really messed up.”

“Well,” says Hailey. “I’ve got to get to work.”

“Good luck.”

“It’s been a year,” says Hailey. “Good luck doesn’t happen at the Bigfoot Diner.”

I laugh.

“You’re the one who really needs it,” says Hailey. “Second day on the new job. An intimidating office environment. Professional dress.” She’s teasing me lightly, since she knows I hate all those things about my new job.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

I watch as Hailey throws on her work shirt and heads out the door.

“Pizza and wine after work?” I call out after her.

“Depends on what I make in tips,” she calls back.

Slowly, I unravel myself from the plush if somewhat dirty couch (mostly wine stains, since it was in perfect shape when Hailey and I carried it home, cursing all the way), and head back into my own room, which isn’t nearly as exciting as Hailey’s.

Her room is full of interesting knick knacks, weird things people have left her as tips (it still is San Francisco, after all, despite all the techies), and what must be a hundred posters of her favorite bands—a lot of ‘80s punk bands, but generally she’s a fan of everything under the sun.

My own room is boring in comparison, fairly neat and tidy, without any decoration at all. A couple of assembly language computer textbooks are on my makeshift desk. (My room, too, is cramped and tiny, but I make it work).

I’ve just moved in here a week ago, but Hailey’s been living here for an entire year. We’ve been best friends since high school, but we’ve never lived together before. She hooked me up with this room, and without it, I wouldn’t have any place to live in San Francisco. Instead, I’d be back home in Boston, working at the family furniture business, something I desperately want to avoid. Although, at times, it seems like a more secure, safe option… maybe I should just retreat to what’s comfortable.

But my dream, strange as it sounds, is to be a top notch coder, one who can compete with the techie boys of Silicon Valley, one who can out code them all with one hand tied behind my back. I want to really change things, and I want to help people, and coding seems like a viable way to do that.

Even though I was an academic, yet popular girl in high school, a cheerleader and all that, I taught myself everything I know about coding.

I pull off my t-shirt with holes in it, and grab my professional blouse, which is drab and boring by my tastes, but tight fitting and not terribly unflattering.

I stand before the mirror on the back of my door and suck in my stomach a little, looking at my breasts in my bra. Somehow, upon my turning 21, my breasts started to grow, and for a little while it seemed like I was going to need a new bra every few months. They’ve settled into a large B cup, but they might burst out of that any time now.

Checking the clock, I realize I don’t have much time left.

I take my skirt from the hanger and try to pull it up over my legs, but my ass and thighs have gotten bigger recently, too, and even though the skirt is almost brand new, I have to scrunch it and really tug it to get it on. Checking myself out in the mirror, turning sideways, the skirt looks almost too form fitting, too tight, my ass too big. I hope this isn’t too sensual for the somewhat stodgy office I work in.

After an hour on public transportation, I arrive at work, out of breath, but at least looking as professional as I ever have.

“Hi Ms. Wright,” I say to the secretary.

“Call me Sheila,” she says. “Second day, huh?”

“Yup. And I think I’ve got that employee manual memorized at this point. I read it all day yesterday.”

“Good,” says Sheila, nodding.

“And I think I’m ready to start coding,” I say. After all, coding is my dream. Coding is why I took this job, even though I imagined myself working in a t-shirt in some funky startup, rather than this stodgy super establishment office… at least I have a chance to code, right?

Sheila gives a little laugh that doesn’t make it sound like I’m going to be doing much coding.

She reaches down and pulls a binder as thick as a telephone book out and hands it to me. The weight of the binder makes my arms feel weak right away, dragging them down.

“That’s the extension of the employee manual,” she says. “It’s important to read that and understand it thoroughly.”

“Great,” I say, putting on a fake smile.

I walk down the hallway with the plush carpet to my cubicle. This office isn’t at all what I would consider the Silicon Valley norm. There aren’t any nap stations or crazy gadgets lying around. There isn’t a corporate culture of sharing. There’s nothing hipster or flashy or trendy about this place at all. Instead, it’s downright traditional. Very nice, sure, everything very tastefully done, but…

Looks like it’s going to be another day in my cubicle reading a boring book instead of coding. Why won’t they let me actually do any work? They’re paying me pretty good money. Most people would consider me lucky, landing this job at 21, right after graduating college. But I just want to code. I want to use what I’ve taught myself, and I need experience working with a group of other coders.

I sigh as I sit down in my swivel chair and open the massive binder.

The first page is something horrendously boring that I skip over. It’s a company mission for a company so boring and stodgy that it couldn’t actually have a mission. This isn’t anything like the mega hip companies with killer benefits, nor the hacker-style startups… nothing like what I was expecting. I know I said that before but it just keeps running through my head, making it hard to concentrate.

What I find on the next page makes me stop, though. Something so unexpected I can’t believe it.

It’s a picture of Ophelia Tech’s founder.

And it’s none other than the famous douchebag billionaire Ryan Hudson that Hailey showed me earlier this morning.

It’s exactly the same photograph. It must be his press photograph.

His eyes seem to pierce mine again. It’s almost as if he’s a real person gazing at me from the picture. It sends a warm shiver through me and creates a warm feeling between my legs.

My eyes move down past his perfectly chiseled jaw to his broad, muscular shoulders, which are visible even through his business suit.

I suddenly realize I’m holding my breath, and I let it out, and now I’m breathing faster than normal.

“You OK over there, new girl?” calls my cubicle neighbor, a man in his late fifties who I think is named Jim, or maybe Jerry. He’s got the typical old school programmer body. He’s balding on top, and somehow makes his unusually nice clothes (I think his wife dresses him, and shops for him) look slovenly and incredibly sloppy.

“Oh,” I say, trying to hold my breath again, which doesn’t work when talking, obviously. But I just can’t tear my eyes off this picture of Ryan Hudson. “Yeah,” I say. “I was just reading the extension of the company manual.”

My neighbor chuckles. “Hell of a document,” he says. “They make me reread it every quarter.”

“I just want to get on to programming,” I say.

“Well,” he says, sighing. “We don’t do a lot of that here.”

“You don’t do a lot of programming? Aren’t you a coder?”

“Going on twenty years now,” he says. “But Ryan came up with the algorithm, and there’s not a whole lot to do to it. It’s pretty much perfect, which never happens in programming. Then again, Ryan’s an unusual case like that…”

Ryan… he’s talking about Ryan Hudson like he knows him. He knows this gorgeous douchebag billionaire? Personally?

I have so many questions about what Jim/Jerry is saying, especially since all I want to do is program, and he’s telling me I’m not going to be doing much of that. But somehow, all I can think about is Ryan Hudson, with his gorgeous face that makes my virgin body quiver.

“So… where’s Ryan’s office?” I say, trying to sound casual, but I probably sound more like I’m just ridiculously awkward.

It’s just occurred to me that Ryan Hudson might actually be only a few hundred feet from me—here, in person, in his hot muscled flesh.

Jim/Jerry starts scooting his chair behind the cubicle wall, and I see him in the flesh today for the first time. He’s already got a coffee stain on his shirt.

He’s chuckling. “Ryan Hudson, here?” he says, a smile lighting up his face. “He hasn’t shown up here in years. Too busy being a billionaire playboy. I’m sure you’ve seen the news.”

I nod shyly, not knowing what to say.

This certainly isn’t the type of office for a billionaire playboy to hang out in, that’s for sure. So he doesn’t even work? He just designed some genius algorithm years ago, and now he never comes to work, just spends his time running over old ladies’ wheelchairs with his Maserati?

He sure doesn’t look like a coder…

I suddenly notice that my skirt is bunched up strangely around my thighs, exposing a lot of my leg.

I catch Jim/Jerry glancing down at me. Gross.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” I say.

I get up, leaving my chair spinning, and rush down the carpeted hallway in the ultra-quiet office building. It’s small, too small for a functioning company. So this explains it all: no real work goes on here.

I’m strangely turned on by the idea of the asshole billionaire Ryan Hudson, but at the same time I feel like I’m about to have an anxiety attack. This job isn’t what I thought it was. Will I even get to program at all, or will I just sit at my desk until I’m just like my cubicle neighbor?

I stare at myself in the mirror, breathing hard. The door is locked behind me.

“You’re just a stupid inexperienced little girl,” I tell myself, self-doubt rearing its head. “You’re still a virgin, and you just think you’re a coder. But what have you done?”

“Shut up,” I tell myself, sitting down on the tile. It’s a very nice bathroom, after all.

Ryan

“You had some night, eh?” says Marty, who’s sitting at the rooftop breakfast table with his legs kicked up onto one of the chairs. The white tablecloth is caught around his legs, bunching around his $5,000 suit pants.

His shoes don’t have a single scuff on them. It’s likely he’s never even worn them before, since he’s been known to simply throw out shoes with the least bit of dirt on them.

“I don’t even want to talk about it,” I say, sitting down at the table. I take off my sunglasses, fold them, and place them next to the glass pitcher of screwdrivers that are already taking the edge off of Marty’s morning.

“Well, that’s what you pay me for,” says Marty, chuckling, without even looking up from his phone. “I really like this last part, where they talk about the cost of the wheelchair you ran over.”

“The paparazzi were hounding me,” I say, trying to stay calm. “And there was a car coming right after me. I avoided an accident, which, of course, doesn’t get mentioned at all in the article.”

“Once they decide how to brand you, it tends to stick,” says Marty, finally looking up at me. “Damn, you look terrible, man.”

“Well how do you think I should feel after last night?” I say.

A waiter appears, and we stop talking while he silently pours me a screwdriver from the pitcher.

“Would you like to order anything to eat, sir?” he says, subserviently. His shirt is perfectly starched, and his gaze is politely not meeting mine, which annoys me like nothing else.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Just a coffee.”

“Just a coffee? Come on. All right, we’ll have two full English breakfasts… and don’t go light on the sausages, OK?” says Marty.

“I really don’t want anything.”

“It’ll do you good,” says Marty.

“I’m sorry, sir,” says the waiter. “But that’s, um, not on the menu.”

“Well put it on the menu then,” says Marty, slipping the guy a hundred dollar bill.

“Very well, sir,” says the waiter, disappearing from our table, looking worried as hell. He’s probably wondering what the hell a full English breakfast is and how he can get the ingredients for it. Hell, I’d like to know what a full English breakfast is myself.

Marty’s technically my employee, working for me as my publicity manager, but we’re more friends than anything else. He’s the one who taught me the importance of fine wine, expensive cars, nice clothes. He taught me how to spend my money. He’s been rich since he was born—very, very rich—and he basically took me on as a “client” for something to do, just for kicks, really.

Me, I grew up middle class and was up to my ears in student debt while I was working on my algorithm. I was technically working for Ophelia Tech, but I was my only employee, and I was working in diners, nursing lukewarm coffee for hours.

“Don’t worry so much about all this,” is Marty’s advice.

“Huh?” I say.

“The old lady, the wheelchair. You already forgot?”

“No,” I say. “I was just thinking about something.”

“Thinking’s no good for you,” says Marty. “Don’t think so much. Just try to enjoy everything. For instance, I know these guys have never served a full English breakfast in this fancy place, but I can guarantee you that for the money we’re paying, it’s going to be the best one you’ve ever had.”

“I’ve never had one,” I say.

Marty chuckles and sips his drink, and his gaze falls back onto his phone.

“Hot piece of ass, huh?” he says, showing me his phone.

It’s a model that I happen to already be personally acquainted with, if you want to put it that way. It was a one time thing, as all my relationships are. I like it that way. It’s easy. No mess. No complications. Just an exchange.

I nod my head stiffly.

“Damn,” says Marty. “You already slept with her, didn’t you?”

I shrug. I don’t like to kiss and tell.

“I can see it in your eyes,” he says, winking at me.

Marty’s hair is slicked back and his shirt is unbuttoned, showing a tuft of his chest hair. Even though he’s dressed to the nines, he can’t help coming off a bit sleazy, in a way. It’s weird, since he was practically born in restaurants like this, or at least raised in them.

There’s hardly anyone else in here, since not many people can afford this kind of place.

A team of waiters arrive and deliver the plates. It turns out a full English breakfast is just some sausages, beans, toast, an egg, tomato slices, and something I can’t identify. I laugh when I see such a “common” breakfast delivered on the ornate plates of the restaurant.

“So what am I going to do about this whole media disaster?” I say.

“Just embrace it,” says Marty, digging into his breakfast. “Who cares what people think? All press is good press, right? The Douchebag Billionaire—it has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

I laugh.

I never have cared what people think of me, anyway. I’ll send the old lady a check for triple the amount of her wheelchair and be done with it. Screw the reporters and everyone else.

We finish our breakfast and have another couple cups of coffee and a few laughs together. I pay the bill, and we head out. Marty’s off to the beach for the day, to hang out with the slew of models who hover around him whenever he lets them.

“Come on,” he says. “It’ll be fun. Did I show you the picture of the last time? That one with the red hair?”

“I’ll pass,” I say.

I can get women when I want them. I don’t need Marty’s help.

“Later, then,” he says.

I get into my Porsche, shift into first, and zoom on out of the parking garage. The Maserati is in the shop, but that’s fine with me. It’s good to get back into the Porsche. It’s a real classic, and it drives like nothing else. Why the hell have I been driving the Maserati for the last week?

San Francisco is all around me, separated from me just by my tinted windows, my windshield. The engine purrs as I downshift, slowing down as I approach a stoplight.

I easily classify the people here into groups: the wanna-be hackers, the “made” techies, the “real” San Francisco residents, who resent the techies, the service class… Everyone is divided by their jobs, by their ambitions.

Me? I’ve got it all, right?

I’m separate from the rest of them. Money does that to you.

Lily

“Any good tips today?” I say as Hailey comes into my room, sighing, and holding her back. She’s wearing her work t-shirt, and her forehead is sweaty, holding her bangs in place.

“Ugh,” says Hailey, flopping herself down on my floor, sitting with her back against the bare wall. “Don’t ask me about it.”

“Sorry,” I say, trying to sound sympathetic, but it’s a little hard after my strange day at work.

“What about your day?” says Hailey. “You get to code like you wanted to?”

“No,” I say. “I was supposed to be reading this instead.”

I hold out the thick work binder that I brought home with me, even though I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to stay in the office. After all, it has the words “FOR IN-OFFICE USE ONLY” printed in huge letters on the front.

“Ugh,” says Hailey. “Looks like your day wasn’t much better than mine. So they’re going to let you code eventually, though?

“I don’t think so,” I say, explaining a little of what Jim/James told me.

Hailey’s not too sympathetic, though, which is understandable, considering how back breaking her job can be for so little money.

“At least you get a good salary,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “But I haven’t told you the craziest thing of all from today.”

“It’s about a boy?” she says, her eyes taking on that classic Hailey look.

“How’d you know?” I say.

“I can just tell. From your tone of voice. Your body language.”

Shit, I didn’t realize I was giving so much away. I was hoping to avoid telling her that I’m somehow unbearably attracted to this picture of Ryan Hudson. After all, he is the douchebag billionaire, possible one of the most hated men in all of San Francisco.

“Look,” I say, holding open the binder to the page that shows his photo. “Ryan Hudson is my boss. He owns the whole company. He started it all.”

Hailey bursts out laughing. “How did you not realize he was your boss? Didn’t they tell you about the company? And you’re like the queen of research. I thought you would have searched the shit out of the company you’re going to work for?”

“I guess I just didn’t care,” I say. “It seemed like such a boring company… I don’t know. I thought I’d be working for something else. I know I should be thrilled with the money, but now it’s like I won’t even be coding…”

“Let’s get back to your boss,” says Hailey, sitting up a little, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Huh?”

“Well,” says Hailey, her voice turning coy. “He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I hadn’t really noticed…”

“Come on,” says Hailey, swatting my leg lightly with a magazine. “Just because you’re a virgin doesn’t mean you can’t find guys sexy or hot.”

“Shhh,” I say, putting my finger to my lips.

“They’re not going to hear,” says Hailey, referring to our housemates. “They’re not even here.”

“Where are they, anyway?” I still don’t think I’ve met half of them.

“Partying, probably,” says Hailey.

“They haven’t been here in days, though.”

Hailey shrugs. “Long parties.”

“I just don’t want anyone else to know,” I say.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” says Hailey. “I mean, we’ve talked about it before, and you know it’s no big deal, either way…”

“I know, I know,” I say. “I just… it didn’t bother me for a while, but now it’s like I’m not a real adult or something, having never had sex.”

“Plus you’re missing out on a lot of fun… if it’s good sex, that is.”

“What makes it good?”

“You’ll know, trust me.”

My imagination starts to run wild, and it just so happens that Ryan Hudson is featured prominently in my imagination. But that’s just a wild fantasy. A billionaire and me? That’s completely crazy.

“We’ve just got to get you laid,” says Hailey. “That’s going to end this whole torment of yours. It’ll make things so much easier.”

I’m thinking of Ryan Hudson when I say it. I don’t know why I say it. It just comes out: “Let’s do it,” I say.

Hailey looks at me with surprise. “You serious?” she says. “I thought you wanted to meet the right guy and all that.”

“Screw that,” I say, this newfound reckless confidence overtaking me in a way I didn’t think possible. All I know is that it somehow has to do with how much I’ve been fantasizing about Ryan Hudson, the douchebag billionaire, and my boss… to the point where I actually broke the rules and took that binder home with me, even though, of course, I can get his pictures online.

“Wow,” says Hailey. “Are you serious?”

“Very. Let’s go out tonight and just get it over with. I don’t care if it’s good or not. I just want to get it done once and for all.”

But as I’m saying this, I’m already getting cold feet.

What, I’m going to just march into some bar, walk up to a guy, and tell him to take my virginity? Or maybe I shouldn’t tell him at all. Maybe it would freak him out.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Hailey, reading my anxiety correctly on my face. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll try to find someone who’s not too much of an asshole. Let’s eat, and then go out tonight. There’s a nice bar that’s not too grody or anything.”

“I don’t know about this,” I say. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea after all.”

Hailey sighs. “You’ve been talking about this for so long,” she says. “How it’s interfering with your life and everything, how you don’t feel like a real adult. I think you’re right, I think it’s time to just get it over with. Then you can move on to dating and real relationships and all that stuff.”

“But I never pictured it like this,” I say.

“We haven’t even gone to the bar yet,” she says. “You’re not in some guy’s bed yet.”

“But you know what I mean. I just thought… I don’t know, I’d be in a relationship or something.”

“At this point, your virginity is just holding you back from actually dating anyone. And you have to do that to get into a relationship.”

“You’re right,” I say. “Fine, let’s do it.”

“Great!” says Hailey. “You hardly ever come out with me. This’ll be fun! A girl’s night out. And don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on you, and help you choose the guy.”

“You think it’s going to be that easy?” I say. “I mean, maybe we should just concentrate on having fun, and see what happens. I mean, how do we know someone’s just going to want to… have sex with me like that?”

Hailey looks me up and down and scoffs.

“You’re gorgeous,” she says. “Guys are going to be drooling all over you. You see? You haven’t been out in such a long time… too long.”

I blush a little. I’ve never been super confident in my appearance, especially now that I’m starting to um, blossom, like this, with all my curves growing bigger.

“I don’t know,” I say again.

“We’re going,” says Hailey, putting a note of finality in the conversation.

She heads back to her room, and I swallow hard, gulping. There’s a cold feeling of nervousness and anxiety in my stomach. What have I gotten myself into? I’m not ready for this.

To take my mind off things, I open up some computer code that I’ve been working on, just as an exercise for myself, and I let my mind sink deep into the C++ code, letting the algorithms, loops, and variables overtake me. Hey, it’s a way to get my mind off potentially losing my virginity to some idiot stranger.

Ryan

I’m back in my Mission District house, in my personal gym.

I’ve stripped off my shirt, and I’m wearing short gym shorts that go about halfway down my thighs, to give me more movement when working out.

My home gym has a treadmill which I hardly use, but it’s also got a complete set of free weights. When I started getting into weight lifting, I used the machines, because that’s what I saw everyone else at the gym doing. But I soon found the freedom and toughness I was looking for, that real grit, in free weights.

I’ve got a top of the line squat rack and a separate bench press bench. Lately, I’ve been getting into Olympic lifts, though, and I have a complete set of everything. I’m not messing around with this, the way other rich guys do. They spend a half hour on the treadmill and call it a day—they did their duty for the doctor. Me, this is the one place where my life isn’t easy anymore. And I long for that struggle. That’s what I love about weight lifting—it’s just me against the metal, against the weight that never changes no matter how much I’ve got in the bank. I can either lift it or I can’t.

I squat down, gripping the cold steel bar beneath me. I rotate my hands to a classic grip, letting the texture of the metal bite into my flesh a little. It’s good to have callouses. It’s good to feel a little discomfort, even pain. It keeps things real.

With perfect form, watching my body in the mirror, I quickly pull the weight up to my stomach and then over my head, holding it up, executing the clean and jerk perfectly. I step back and throw the 200 pounds down on the ground. This is just a warm up, but I’ll work up to my max.

An hour goes by, my mind completely clear, completely lost in the weights. The house is silent.

When I’m done, I head into the kitchen in my gym shorts and pour myself a glass of organic milk from the refrigerator.

I pull down my gym shorts, just because I can, and walk to the shower buck naked, my cock hanging before me like a pendulum.

With the hot water showering down on me, my cock starts to grow, as if on its own accord. I let my hand brush against it, and can’t help but gripping it in my fist.

But why not settle for the real thing?

I make a snap decision. The same one I’ve made a thousand times before. It’s not like I have a job to go to.

I’m going to hit the bars, pick up a hot piece of ass, and lay her down naked on my bed. Or, if I’m in the mood for something quicker, maybe we’ll fuck in the bathroom. I’ve been known to do worse.

In another twenty minutes, it’s dark outside, and I’m dressed, seated in my Porsche bucket seat, and roaring out onto the road.

The bar is called Bow Tie, a semi upscale place where people hang out, sipping martinis and trying to act richer than they actually are. It’s a hell of a lot different than the dive bars I used to hang out in when I was just getting my start, working on my algorithm.

There’s not much action yet in the bar. A couple women give me glances, and while they’re quite attractive, wearing low cut dresses that hug their bodies, there’s just not that special spark there. I need that. I long for that, and crave it. That moment of connection, however brief. That’s what does it for me. Well, that and a banging body.

I sip a glass of whiskey and chat with the bartender while I wait for the place to fill up.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been around here,” he says while wiping down the bar, as bartenders always seem to do. (I think it appears more professional if they’re always doing something, rather than just standing there.)

“You know how it is,” I say vaguely.

“A lot of work, huh?”

“Not exactly,” I say. “I spent some time down in the Bahamas, but it got boring.”

“Sounds like a problem I’d like to have,” he says, giving me a grin.

“Not a lot of action here, tonight?” I say.

He shrugs. “Maybe not tonight. It’s a Tuesday, after all.”

“Tuesday? Really?”

He gives me a wink and goes to attend to another customer.

I guess I really am a playboy billionaire, or whatever it is people like to call me. Apparently I don’t even realize what day of the week it is. Not because I’m out of it, or not organized, but simply because the days of the week don’t mean much to me. It’s not like I have to do something different on Tuesdays.

The bar is a fancy enough place, with an expensive looking bar. Everything has that elegant look to it. I think they renovate it every year, so that it keeps that “fresh” look and never appears dated. That’s what keeps the customers coming back and blowing a sizable portion of their paychecks on a night out.

As always in San Francisco, there’s a guy next to me on his laptop. I spot some code on his screen, probably Python, judging by the structure of the syntax, even though I can’t see the code because of a little bit of glare on his screen.

He catches me looking over in his direction.

“Working on an app,” he says.

I size him up. He’s one of these typical coder guys you see here. They’re practically swarming the city like insects. When I first came here to run my startup, it wasn’t quite like this. The city was still weirder, stranger, and more interesting. But there’ve been a lot of good changes too. Places like this bar wouldn’t exist, for instance.

“Startup?” I say.

He nods his bearded head excitedly and launches into an incredibly boring explanation of exactly what he’s trying to do. He’s a little pudgy, overweight, and already balding, even though he’s in his early twenties.

He’s got no idea who he’s talking to, obviously, because he’s talking to me like I’m not a coder myself, although frankly he’s doing a horrible job explaining what he’s trying to do. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the central piece of his project has already been done, likely a thousand times better and more efficiently, almost a decade ago. And the surface functions of his app are completely worthless. No one’s going to buy it: a dog walker app. Tells you where you pick up their crap, or something like that, or where the nearest available dumpster is.

“Sounds interesting,” I say, thinking that I need to get out of here as fast as possible.

I glance around the bar again. There’s no one who hits me with what I’m looking for.

Shit, I was looking for something new tonight.

I grab my phone and start scrolling through my contacts list. There are women listed under names such as “Hot red head from tennis” or “That ass from the gym.”

Horribly degrading, I know. But how else am I going to have any idea who they are? Like I care if it’s degrading anyway. It’s not like they’re going to see their name. And if they do, that’s their problem, right? They can make of it what they want.

My thumb flies past at least fifty women who would drop whatever they’re doing, their boyfriends included, for the chance to fuck my brains out tonight. And they wouldn’t expect anything of it. I chuckle when I think of the “douchebag billionaire” term thrown at me. Do people think that bothers me? Now that I’ve got my head on straight, it doesn’t matter one bit to me.

Why wait around this bar for someone to show up who’s never going to? Some mythical woman who’s going to blow my mind (and my cock)? Maybe it’s just that the same old thing isn’t doing it for me. I’ve got women literally at my finger tips. I need a bit of a… I don’t know… a challenge? Something like weight lifting, something real and visceral.

“So I’m writing this in Python,” says the guy next to me, the nerdy tech guy who doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing. He’s been talking to me all this time? I hadn’t even noticed.

“Wrong move,” I say.

“What?”

“You heard me. Don’t write it in Python. But better yet, don’t write it at all. It’s a useless app. Everyone’s talking about apps now, but industry is where you want to hit. The internet isn’t finished. It needs heavy duty algorithms, heavy duty task managers. Apps aren’t going to change the world. It’s just a cell phone game, essentially…”

The guy’s speechless for a moment. “But there’s a lot of money in apps.”

I shrug. “Do what you want,” I say. “Waste your own time if you want.”

I throw down some money on the bar and stand up. I’m tired of this place and need to get out. Looks like some lucky woman from my contact list is going to be getting a call from me tonight.

“Oh!” says the bearded nerd, literally slapping his forehead with his hand. “You’re… Ryan Hudson, designer of the Sisyphus Algorithm!”

I nod my head, not really paying attention.

“So nice to meet you,” he says, probably holding out his hand to shake mine, but I’m not looking in his direction. I’m just getting my sport coat situated on my shoulders before leaving.

“Nice to meet you too, kid,” I say, throwing him a bone.

“But aren’t you worried?”

That catches a bit of my attention, just enough to respond to him.

“Worried? About what?”

“Your business? What about the Zen Algorithm? It’s apparently clocking better performance than yours by miles.”

He’s got my attention now. My algorithm has always been untouchable. Nothing can beat it, and people have always said nothing ever will.

“Zen Algorithm?”

I don’t sit back down, but I turn back to him. This time, I notice all the acne on his face, and the ingrown hairs.

“Yeah,” he says, showing me his phone, which has an article about the Zen Algorithm open.

I take the phone from him and my eyes scan down the page quickly, my thumb scrolling along as the words flood my head.

“Ryan Hudson may have some new competition… etc., etc.,” goes the article, along with the usual bullshit. But at the bottom are some numbers. Some benchmark scores. Incredible ones. Scores that blow my algorithm out of the water.

Shit. This could be bad.

Why the hell wasn’t I aware of this?

“So, uh…” The nerd is talking to me, but I’m not listening.

And I’m not thinking about the algorithm either.

That’s all left my head.

The sudden worry, the disaster sounds of financial ruin… everything that was completely occupying my thoughts just a second ago—it all slides away.

The most gorgeous creature I’ve ever seen has just walked through the door.

It takes me a moment to realize what even happened. My attention simply zoomed in on her. She’s like a bulls eye. I’m not aware of anything. The moment seems frozen in time.

She’s just simply fucking gorgeous.

She’s young, but she’s grown up. She’s got curves in all the right places. She’s wearing an elegant short dress that hugs her hips and cuts off halfway down her thighs, exposing her shining legs.

Her breasts are probably a B cup—I have an eye for these things, but they’re pushing the boundaries of those size constraints. Pushing up and out, about to burst into a new size.

Her hair hangs around her face, framing it perfectly.

“So the algorithm is…” The nerd next to me is still talking to me, but I don’t pay him any mind and I step away from him.

I walk towards her confidently. She’s going to be mine. She’s the object of my desire tonight. The women in my contact list can wait until hell freezes over for all I care.

Lily

“That’s him,” I hiss in a whisper at Hailey.

“Who?”

“Ryan Hudson… my boss.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“So you were dreaming about him.”

“Shhh,” I say. “That’s my boss.”

“He’s coming right towards you.”

“No way,” I say, unable to believe what I’m seeing.

But it’s true. Ryan Hudson is walking right towards us. It feels like he’s looking right at me, his gaze running up and down my body, landing finally right on my eyes. He is looking right at me. But he couldn’t be, right? It must be some mistake.

“He’s coming right towards you,” whispers Hailey, sounding excited herself. “The douchebag billionaire in person.”

“Shhh,” I say again, hoping he won’t hear her. “He’s just looking at us.”

“No,” says Hailey. “He’s looking at you.”

Now we can’t talk. Ryan Hudson is right here. Right here in the flesh. The man whose picture I was lusting over just a few hours ago, and honestly, the one who inspired me to finally decide to lose my virginity.

Maybe he’s just going to ask me if I’m in the wrong place, I think to myself. There’s no way I look like I belong here. Hailey somehow stuffed me into one of her tight dresses, and I feel exposed wearing this, like my curves are tumbling out of the dress, about to spill out completely.

But he’s right in front of me. Clearly me, not Hailey. He looks me up and down without an expression on his face, but he finally breaks into a grin.

“You need a drink,” he says to me, his voice deep and confident.

He’s wearing a tailored sport coat over a button down shirt that’s open at the top, just enough to show me a little of his chest.

He’s much more impressive in person than in his picture. He’s muscled. That’s clearly evident even through his clothes.

His haircut is perfect. His beard is just right, just a couple days of perfect stubble. His pants are a good cut, and his shoes are un-scuffed. Everything about him screams refinement. And who am I? Just a recent college graduate who’s basically completely broke, living in some cramped house with a bunch of people I don’t even know. (With the exception of Hailey.)

I feel like I’m taking forever to speak. The words don’t seem to want to come out of my throat. They’re caught there, stuck.

He won’t take his eyes off mine, and my knees begin to feel weak, like I’m going to collapse under his gaze.

“She’d love one,” says Hailey for me.

“Yeah,” I say. “Drink.”

What an idiot! I think to myself. “Drink?” Who says that? It sounds like I don’t know how to speak. That’s far worse than just seeming like I’ve barely been in a bar before, like I’m new to this whole thing.

I nod my head vigorously to try to make up for my lack of proper speech.

Ryan just grins at me.

“Follow me,” he says, taking my hand in his and leading me to the bar.

His hand is strong, massive, and roughly textured. My own hand feels like a doll’s hand in his, small and delicate.

I turn my head to look at Hailey.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Hailey gives me a very suggestive wink and mouths something at me that I don’t quite catch. Maybe she mouthed, “Go for it!”

Ryan Hudson, Ryan Hudson—the words circle through my head.

My boss, my boss—the words won’t leave.

“Two martinis,” Ryan says to the bartender, still not releasing my hand.

Standing against the bar, he looks simply massive. Tall, but also just built. There’s something about his body that just draws me to him.

His hand still around mine, he pulls me closer to him, so that my breasts are only an inch away from his chest. He’s looking down at me, gazing into my eyes.

This can’t be real, this can’t be real.

“Do you always look so sexy?” says Ryan.

I should try to giggle, but instead some strange noise comes out of my throat.

I pass it off as a cough, putting my other hand to my mouth.

“Careful,” says Ryan. “You don’t want to get me sick.”

I don’t want to get him sick? That’s a strange thing to say.

“Or maybe you do,” he says, his mouth turning into a wicked grin. “Maybe you want to do naughty things to me.”

He comes on strong, doesn’t he?

“I… I was just coming out for a drink with my friend,” I say.

“I can see that,” he says, but his eyes don’t leave my body. “But you must want something more. Don’t you?”

I nod my head shyly.

Ryan chuckles deeply. “You know what you want,” he says.

The martinis arrive, and Ryan hands me my glass. My hand is shaking when I take it. Ryan’s hand is still around my other hand, his grip tight enough that it’s starting to become a little uncomfortable.

“Cheers,” says Ryan as we clink glasses.

“Cheers,” I say, my voice shy and meek.

He doesn’t take his eyes off mine as we each take a sip.

He simply drains his entire drink in one gulp.

I taste mine lightly, and almost spit it out. I’ve never had a martini before, and I don’t think it’s for me. It tastes slimy, rough, and not at all sweet. It’s nothing like the wine that I enjoy with Hailey, which is so loaded with sugar it might as well be alcoholic soda.

But I manage to swallow a sip of this stuff. If nothing else, I’m doing it for Ryan Hudson.

But he’s my boss, I think to myself.

And he’s also the douchebag billionaire, and he’s sure acting like it—a cocky, arrogant prick. But a hot one. My body simply won’t let me ignore that last part.

Don’t let him know that you’re a virgin, I think to myself. Just try to play this cool. Pretend like you’re any other normal adult, one who has sex regularly, who’s had sex at all.

My virginity’s never been a big deal to me… I guess… until now. There were just so many other things going on. I mean, sure, I dated guys when I was younger. I got asked out a good deal, actually, but they were always sweaty and too eager. In college, the closest I got was with one guy named Jake, but he actually came in his pants before even taking out his cock. All he had done was touch my breast a little, of course touching it too hard, without using any gentleness. He was a sweaty, smelly mess, and he made some excuse and rushed out of the room, and I never saw him again until the final exam in one of my courses. That kind of turned me off to the whole thing for a while. But this is different… and Ryan’s different. He’s a man.

“So you live here?” says Ryan, still not taking his eyes off me for even a moment.

I nod my head.

Don’t let him know he’s your boss, I think to myself.

So many things to remember: virgin, boss, virgin, boss. Those two words repeat themselves in my head. How am I ever going to remember what to say and what not to say, let alone think of something clever and witty?

But I’ve got to say something.

“You’re a little shy,” says Ryan. He’s not asking. It’s a statement. Everything he says is hammered home with authority.

“I am, but I’m not always.”

OK, not too bad, I tell myself. Not great, but it’s a start.

I’m way too aware that I’m starting to sweat.

This isn’t how I imagined it when I was staring at his picture all day in my cubicle.

“Shy girls are great in bed,” says Ryan. “Why don’t we get out of here? I can show you my house. I have a pool. We can go skinny-dipping.”

“You move fast, don’t you,” I say. I can’t help raising one eyebrow.

I take another sip of this gross drink.

“Only because I want you,” says Ryan. “And I know you want me too.”

“Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong.”

I think I’m getting the hang of this new skill: witty banter. Isn’t that what the couples in movies do? Maybe I don’t seem like a virgin at all.

“I know,” says Ryan simply. There’s no smile on his face. He puts his martini glass down on the bar with a thud and takes my arm.

“You coming?” he says. “It’s up to you, of course.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Hailey over at the other end of the bar. She gives me a very obvious thumbs up with both hands, not to mention an over the top wink.

I take a gulp of air before answering. It’s about to happen. I’m finally going to do it.

And with Ryan Hudson, no less. Who cares if he’s an asshole? He’s smoking hot. Smoldering, really.

“Sure,” I say, and Ryan leads me out of the bar.

He’s got his elbow cocked and I weave my arm through his, holding myself against his muscular body. I can feel the hardness of his muscles when I brush up against him, when he moves to turn.

Finally out in the night, the air is cooler than in the bar. I’d gotten used to the noise inside, and it suddenly seems stone cold quiet out here. The absence of sound makes my decision seem suddenly graver. Everything suddenly seems much more intense, scarier.

Before I know what’s happened, a valet drives a sparkling waxed European sports car to the curb. He’s wearing a valet uniform and runs over to open the door for me.

Ryan doesn’t even wait for me to buckle my belt.

The engine’s roaring, and we’re blasting off through the hills of San Francisco.

He turns his head completely away from the road. His eyes drink me in. His mouth turns up at the corners in a hungry grin. In any other situation, this kind of attention would make me feel incredibly uncomfortable, but right now I can’t think about anything else than how my body is feeling.

I’ve never felt like this before. It’s as if a magnet is drawing me towards him. My nipples are swelling, and I’m feeling a tingling sensation between my legs.

He seems to notice this. I can’t keep my eyes off his shoulders, and where his chin cuts across his face like a razor blade. His eyes seem to cut through me.

There’s something I’m not sure I like about him—but his arrogance, his self confidence, these things are just drawing me closer to him, just making him more attractive. I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who would fall for a guy like this.

Am I falling? What am I falling into?

“Here we are,” says Ryan. “I’m sure you’ll like it.”

He pulls quickly into a private underground garage, the door opening swiftly and automatically. I just get a glimpse of an immaculate, huge house, with a perfectly manicured small yard in front.

Even the garage, where we are now, screams elegance and luxury. Everything moves smoothly, easily. Everything is in its proper place. Everything is perfect.

Everything except me.

I’m a virgin.

He’s clear about his intentions.

Should I tell him I’m a virgin?

Will he find out anyway? Will he just think I’m really bad, and don’t know what I’m doing? Or will he think that I’m not really into him?

“I’m going to do things to you that will make you feel things you’ve never felt,” says Ryan, leaning over to me as he unbuckles his belt. His lips brush ever so gently against the nape of my neck, making me shiver in delight, sending tingling sensations of ecstasy down through my chest.

Ryan

We skip the swimming altogether.

She’s going to be mine soon.

“Why don’t you get undressed,” I tell her as I take off my blazer, tossing it casually onto one of the chairs.

The bed is a big four poster bed with a thick mattress and box spring. She stands next to it and the bed comes up to her waist.

I’d love to just bend her over the bed and take her from behind, sinking my cock deep into her pussy, filling her beyond her wildest dreams.

But no, it’s going to be better to take it slow.

She wants me. I can see it in her eyes. But there’s something else too, something like fear. Why would that be?

Is she intimidated by the famous Ryan Hudson? Has my reputation preceded me?

Whatever, it’s not important. The important thing is: her.

And that she wants me.

Her demeanor changes a little as she gets undressed. At first, she’s moving stiffly, like an automaton, or like she’s nervous as hell. She bends her body forward, her hand resting on the mattress for balance. She bends her knee back, moving those silky perfect legs, until her shoe is within reach of her arm. I watch with delight as she takes it off.

But what comes next is even better. She pushes a piece of shoulder fabric from the dress down and to the side, exposing more of her perfect neck, and her shoulder, which is delicate and refined.

Her hair seems wilder now, and she appears to me as an untamed wild woman, a sexy siren who I must conquer.

I move towards her, conscious of my growing cock, and pull her body an inch until her back is pressed against me. My cock’s growing fast, pressing against her ass, fully erect but encased in my pants. It longs to be free, and to plunge deep inside her.

Slow, I remind myself. Take it slow.

“I’ll help you with that,” I whisper into her ear, before kissing the bottom of it, and then the nape of her neck.

She breathes out a sigh of relief, a sigh almost of ecstasy, and her whole body relaxes against me.

I take her dress down, pulling it over her breasts, which burst out, still looking magnificent in their bra. Her ass is something to behold when the dress comes off of it.

Her body is simply fucking stunning.

“You’re going to fuck me?” she says.

I chuckle. “That’s what I want to do,” I say.

“I want you to… fuck me,” she says.

“Wait,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you what you need.”

I kiss her again on her neck, and move my left hand to cup her breast in my hand.

She moans, and her neck turns, her head turning back to me. I press my face against hers, devouring her mouth with mine.

So much for taking it slow. The delicate touch of my mouth now becomes a vicious kiss, my tongue lapping her up. Our tongues are pressed together.

“I need you,” she says, breaking away from my kiss. Both my hands are on her breasts. Her nipples are rock hard, and I let my fingers trace them, enjoying them, savoring them.

“What happened to the nervous girl at the bar?” I growl in her ear. “Now you want me.”

“I wanted you then,” she says. “How did you know I was nervous?”

“I knew,” I say simply. “What’s your name?”

“Lily,” she says.

“You know my name?”

She nods.

That’s enough for me.

Her dress is around her ankles, and I cup her ass cheeks with my palms. She’s wearing skimpy lace underwear that I enjoy for a moment, feeling it under my hands, before yanking it down in one swift motion, exposing her delicious ass.

I unbuckle my belt, which falls down heavily with a clank. Unzipping my pants with one swift motion, I reach in and free my cock, which is fully erect, ready to burst, just screaming at me for the satisfaction it craves.

A moment later, a condom is on my cock, and my swollen cock head is pressed against her ass, not quite near her pussy. I relish the sensation for a moment, as I guide her body down towards the bed. She pushes herself down even further, smushing her breasts against the mattress. I gaze down her long, beautiful back, and admire her ass.

So much for going slow, I tell myself.

She turns her head to look at me.

Her lipsticked mouth is pursed, and her eyes shine, and for a moment I regret not letting her go down on me first before fucking her.

She opens her mouth for a moment, and at first I think she wants my cock in her mouth. Hell, I’d go for that.

But now it looks like she’s about to say something.

My body is pressed against her ass. My cock is yearning, swollen and aching beyond anything I’ve ever felt before.

Nothing comes out of her mouth.

I pause for a moment.

“What is it?” I growl.

“I’ve never…”

She pauses again.

“You’ve never what?”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“You’ve never done it like this before?” I say, thinking she’s talking about me taking her from behind, which is strange, since as far as I know it’s a common enough sex position.

“I’ve never had sex before.”

“You’re a virgin?” I growl back, feeling my lips turn up at the corners. A string of filthy, delicious thoughts fill my head: untamed virgin flesh. She’s going to be tight, fucking tight. I’m going to be the first to conquer her beautiful virgin body.

“Yes,” she says, barely able to get the words out.

“I’ll be gentle,” I growl.

“I think I need to go slow,” she says.

“That’s fine,” I say, forcing myself to step back away from her. My cock practically screams out when I take it away from where it’s pressed into her ass cheeks.

I pause for a moment to remove my shirt, my pants, my socks, and my shoes, and now I get onto the bed next to her. She’s still folded over the edge of the bed, her legs looking long as they stretch down to the floor, where her toes barely connect with the ground.

I turn next to her, facing her head. Her hair is hanging loosely over one eye, and she looks up at me, her eyes seemingly filled with something… something I can’t quite capture.

“I can’t do it,” she says.

“I’ll be gentle,” I say.

“I can’t… it’s just too much. I don’t even know you.”

I shrug.

“That’s fine,” I say.

My cock is positively aching. It’s still rock hard.

But she’s made up her mind.

Lily

Ryan offered to fix me a cup of tea, but I felt so foolish I just needed to get out of there as fast as possible. I got dressed in an awkward silence, and he called me a taxi to take me home.

“What happened?” says Hailey, as soon as she sees my face.

I walk right into her room, lean against her wall, and let my body slide down until I’m sitting crouched on the floor, with my head in my hands.

“I couldn’t do it,” I say.

“Why? What happened? He found out you’re his employee or something?”

“I don’t know,” I say slowly.

At this point in the night, I no longer feel remotely sexy. I don’t feel the way Ryan made me feel for those brief moments, when he so clearly wanted me.

“It’s the whole virgin thing? Or something else?”

I nod my head. “A little of everything,” I say. “It’s not like I’m not ready to do it, but… I don’t know. He’s hot…”

“Smolderingly hot,” adds Hailey, pretending to fan herself.

“That’s not helping,” I say.

“Sorry.”

“And he made me feel things I’ve never felt before… he’s, I don’t know, a real man.”

“You can say that again.”

“Hailey,” I say, admonishing her.

This time she’s quiet.

“I mean, I’m ready to just get this done with… That’s how I felt earlier tonight. But now, I really want it.”

“You really want to lose it?” she says. “You mean you want to finally have sex?”

I nod my head. “It must be incredible,” I say.

“If he’s good.”

“And I’m sure Ryan Hudson is extremely good. But he’s just such a dick.”

“Well it’s not like you’re going to marry him.”

“It just didn’t feel right,” I say.

“Well,” says Hailey. “That’s totally within your right. I mean, it’s good you’re sure of your feelings. I’d say you did the right thing.”

“Really? I thought you were going to give me a stern talking to, telling me that I have to march back over there and let him have his way with me.”

“No,” says Hailey, shaking her head. “Nothing like that. I think you did the right thing. Maybe this whole ‘being picked up in a bar’ thing isn’t for you.

“I’m beginning to think it isn’t,” I say.

“Don’t worry,” says Hailey. “The right guy will come along. Something will happen.”

I nod my head, but I’m thinking it won’t ever happen. Why can’t I just be like Hailey, and enjoy myself for once? What the hell is wrong with me?

“Sorry,” says Hailey as her phone buzzes.

She picks it up and a grin forms on her face as she reads the text message.

“Something funny?” I say, thinking that if I hear it, it might cheer me up.

She shakes her head. “It’s from Dan.”

Dan’s one of her late night hook ups, a friends with benefits type of situation.

Nothing could make me feel worse right now. It’s like a slap in the face, exposing my own emotional “problems” or whatever they are.

Hailey types something on her phone, and then the phone buzzes again as she receives yet another message from Dan.

This time she giggles and blushes.

“Sorry,” says Hailey. “But I think I’m going to…”

“It’s fine,” I say. “You going over to his place?”

“Yeah,” says Hailey. “But, like, I’ll totally stay if you need someone to talk to.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s completely fine. Really.” Of course, it’s not completely fine, but it’s not like I’m going to try to screw up Hailey’s life too.

“You’re the best,” says Hailey. “And it’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Hailey’s still dressed in the skimpy dress that she wore earlier tonight at the bar.

She gets up, exposing quite a bit of leg, not to mention her breasts, grabs her purse somewhat sheepishly, and is out the door quicker than I could have imagined.

Now I’m alone.

In my room, I pull off the dress, which is somewhat wrinkled now after what it’s been through. I carefully hang it up and pull on an old t-shirt and some more normal underwear. I just have one pair of fancy underwear, and I wore that tonight—it’s not like I’m going to sleep in it.

I turn off the lights and crawl into bed, but I know the moment my head hits the pillow I won’t be able to sleep.

The night seems to keep replaying before my closed eyes—the luxurious bar, the type I never go to. Then Ryan’s luxury house, where even the garage was nice. Not that I saw much of the house at all, but everything was just super fancy, super expensive looking. Where I live must be like the polar opposite of his place.

I pick up my pillow and put it over my head, letting my head rest on the bare mattress, somehow thinking that this is going to change my thought pattern, but of course it does nothing. My head is just so full of anxiety and shame right now that nothing helps, not even trying to meditate by paying careful attention to my breathing. I could never get that trick to work anyway—my mind just wanders back to what it was thinking about before. Maybe I’m not doing it right.

And now I think about Hailey over at Dan’s house, giggling up a storm, having the time of her life on some sexy romp with no strings attached.

I was so close to having sex with Ryan, and the weird thing is I was so turned on. I can vividly remember how he made me feel, how it felt having his body so close to mine.

I need to distract myself. I can’t spend all night lying awake having an anxiety attack about how sexually attracted I am to my boss, and how I still couldn’t actually do it.

There were so many reasons not to, though. I have to remind myself of this, over and over again.

Oh, crap.

He’s my boss.

And yet, he doesn’t have any idea I’m one of his employees.

That could be wrong.

The thought that relaxes me is: he never comes to the office.

Thank God for that, that’s for sure.

I get up and flick on the light. I’m going to do what I do best: immerse myself in my work.

But I don’t mean that stupid binder they gave me. If they want to tell me I have to read crap like that all day, then that’s what I’ll do. I won’t touch a compiler at work, but at home I can do what I want, right?

Once he heard that I was really into coding, my cubicle neighbor gave me a USB drive with the code for the algorithm on it.

“Everyone has it,” he says. “Don’t worry. It’s not like it’s top secret or anything. It’s actually open, in a sense, but not open-source, because Hudson still has to make money on it.”

“So that means that if someone finds a problem with it, they could easily write their own algorithm that would directly compete with this one, right?” I asked him.

“Sure,” he said, chuckling. “But no one can. No one ever has. And that’s because it’s perfect programming. Perfect logic. No one can ever beat it. Ever.”

Well, I’d still like to take a look at it, I think to myself.

After all, one of the first things I learned when I started diving into all this is that nothing can ever be perfect. Nothing with computers, that is. People think it’s all math, and that math is all perfect. But actually, it all relies on human logic, and as I saw tonight, human logic can often be faulty.

I’m up until the early hours of the morning, completely immersed in the files on the USB drive. I have to admit that Ryan Hudson’s programming is perfect. And the algorithm… well, I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it, let alone criticize it. He does things that I’ve never seen done anywhere, things I’ve never even heard of.

It’s a strange sensation, reading the code written by the man who almost took my virginity tonight. In a way, it’s kind of like reading a book or poem he wrote. Programming, really, is a lot like writing—you have to make things consistent and precise, but they still have to all have important functions. Everything still has to do its job.

Finally, I cut the lights. I’m more confused than when I started. I thought maybe I’d learn something about the algorithm, but I’m not even sure I found the algorithm. Maybe I’m over my head with all this programming stuff. I’m certainly over my head with casual hook ups, or sex in general.

Ryan

I can still taste her on my lips. I can still picture her body lying before me, the gorgeous, perfect curve of her back, her plump ass pressed against my cock… my cock grows partially hard again just remembering the image.

I’m still sore from yesterday’s workout. I tend to push myself too hard, but that’s just part of my personality. Hell, that’s what’s gotten me as far as it has.

It’s a weird sensation waking up alone without a “friend” in the bed next to me, ready and eager for a second or third round before I send her home.

It’s not until my second cup of coffee that I remember what happened before I met the unobtainable virgin goddess last night. My cock swells just remembering her, but I force my thoughts back to the conversation in the bar with that app programmer.

He was saying there’s a new algorithm out.

A second later, I’ve got a laptop out, and I’m finding every article I can on it. The code isn’t freely available, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Even though I’m not programming these days, I still have friends who might be able to help me out with that. I need to get this code as soon as possible. If these benchmark speed scores that the articles are reporting are anything close to true, then my company’s in big trouble.

My entire company is my algorithm. I haven’t been to the office in years.

I don’t know or care what they do there, so long as there’s an office, and they sell the algorithm to some new companies each year, for enterprise use. But the algorithm basically sells itself. It’s just a website, and people can pay for the use of it. The whole thing is free, but pirating hasn’t been much of a problem, because people find out quick enough that it’s more cost effective to use the algorithm with the proper framework around it, rather than trying to build their own, like scaffolding that keeps falling down no matter how many times you try to put it back up.

The articles I read say the creator of the new algorithm is a guy named Simmons.

I’m not panicking, the way some people would. Nothing makes me panic.

But it’s certainly a serious situation.

Time to hit the office. Time to meet with the staff, for the first time in years. Many of them I’ve never even met, and I don’t remember the names of the people who were there.

There was one guy named Jim, or maybe it was James, who’s been programming for years. He helped me with some of the algorithm framework, back when I was getting things set up. A fresh pair of eyes is always good. Maybe he can give me some insights.

I may be a great coder, but I do know when to ask for help. Programming is usually a collaborative project. I just happen to be good enough at it that I don’t usually need anyone’s help.

Half an hour later, I’m on the road in my car, wearing a suit, heading towards the office.

For a moment, I have a flash of amnesia: where’s the office again?

But I let intuition take me there, driving down once-familiar streets.

The office building is by itself in a small complex. Now I remember why I stopped coming here—it’s too drab. The whole place just screams: office. There’s never anything fun going on. There aren’t ever any girls. No parties, no fun. Just dull, drab work—the kind of thing I’ve spent my life avoiding at all costs. And now that I can, what’s the point of being rich if you have to come to the office all the time?

I almost turn the car around and head back home. I’ve got enough money, anyway. I don’t really need to keep making money on the algorithm, do I?

But more money means more fun.

Plus, there’s a bit of pride. Something that I’ve always felt about my code. I can’t let it get beat. I just can’t.

The interior of the office is nice, if a little dated. Nothing flashy, just a normal high class office.

“Can I help you?” says the secretary, a woman on a swivel chair behind a huge desk.

I wonder what she does all day.

How does this office even function for years unattended like this?

“I need to speak to a programmer here,” I say. “I think his name is Jim, or maybe James… or maybe Jerry. Older guy… he’s been programming for years.”

“Oh,” she says. “We don’t get many requests like this. Are you interested in using the Sisyphus Algorithm for business applications?”

I shake my head. “I’m Ryan Hudson.”

“Oh!” she says, looking like she’s about to fall out of her chair in shock. Her mouth hangs open, and I can almost see the “oh” exclamation hanging comically in the air.

“I’ll go see if I can find him myself,” I say.

I walk past her, since she’s still not speaking. That’s not a problem. I always get what I want, regardless of anyone’s reaction. It doesn’t bother me in the least that people are going to be surprised to see me here, or that I haven’t been here in years. But I’m Ryan Hudson. I don’t owe anyone excuses, no matter what. Without me, none of these people would have the cushy jobs they have today

Heads turn in the office as I walk past rows of cubicles.

“That’s him,” someone whispers.

“Who?”

“Ryan Hudson.”

“Ryan Hudson!” come the whispered exclamations of surprise.

There’s a manager here for sure, someone with an office who keeps all these cubicle dwellers in check. I can’t remember their names, or their faces. I’m not interested in speaking with some managerial person now, though. I need a programmer.

Ah, there he is.

I can spot his rumpled shirt and slouched back all the way down the row of cubicles. No doubt he’s still got the coffee stains on his shirt. I wonder if it’s the same shirt that he wore when I last saw him.

My strides long, I cover the distance in no time, ignoring the spinning heads and whispers.

“Jim?” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He spins around, and his face drops when he sees me.

“Ryan!” he says.

“We need to talk.”

He regains his composure. “Back in the office, eh?” he says, chuckling. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk, Jim?”

“It’s Jerry, actually.”

“Let’s head to the conference room, Jerry,” I say.

He gets up stiffly, holding onto his desk for support.

“Gained a bit of weight over the years, eh?” I say.

“Cubicle life,” he says. “Not all of us get to spend our time on luxury cruises.”

I chuckle. “Same old Jerry.”

We head into the conference room and I close the door behind me.

I pull my laptop out of my briefcase, open it up with the articles already open, and place it in front of Jerry.

“What do you think?” I say, only giving him a minute to read all of it.

“Hmmph,” he says, frowning.

“Hmmph?” I say. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Well, you know what they say about programming?” he says. “Nothing ever stays at the top. If there’s a better way to do something, someone’s going to find it.”

“That’s not going to be good enough. This is the Sisyphus Algorithm we’re talking about, my algorithm. You helped me with some of it, with the framework. Either this guy’s lying, or there’s a major problem with my code that I didn’t spot.”

There’s a knock at the door, and before I can tell whoever it is to go away, the door opens.

“We’re busy in here,” I say, not looking up.

“Oh,” says Jerry. “This is Lily, our newest programmer. She’s been wanting to start coding. Maybe now she’ll have something to do.”

“Hello,” says a familiar voice… too familiar.

I look up, and get a huge surprise.

It’s none other than the hot virgin from last night, the one who didn’t want my cock inside her just yet, the one who fled back to her apartment.

I look at her, and she looks back at me.

Her hair is hanging down around her face, covering part of it, making her look mysterious and beautiful at the same time.

My gaze finds its way down to her breasts, and to her hips and her long legs.

She’s wearing a professional outfit that can’t do much to hide her curves. It can’t hide the body that makes my cock start to swell, and draws me to her.

But I’m not the type to fall for women.

“Lily, this is Ryan Hudson, the…”

“We’ve met,” says Lily.

“Oh, really? How did you two meet?”

“We’ve had romantic entanglements,” I say.

I can almost hear Lily gulping in embarrassment.

Jerry is silent for a moment, but the awkwardness doesn’t affect me.

“If you’ll excuse us, Lily,” I say. “We’ve got to get back to this. We’re going to be working on some coding…”

“Well, Lily’s a great coder,” says Jerry, apparently unaware that this might put the two of us in a situation we don’t want to be in… typical coder behavior, unaware of many social norms—everything that isn’t written in code.

“I’m new,” says Lily. “I wouldn’t know how to help.”

But I know she’s lying. I can hear the eagerness in her voice. She’s excited about being near me. I can see it in her eyes and in the way her body moves, subtly shifting.

But… she’s excited about the code, too?

“Nonsense,” says James. “From what you were telling me yesterday, you really know your stuff. And you were saying you were anxious to get into coding. Hey, it beats reading that office manual, doesn’t it?” Then he remembers I’m in the room. “No offense, Ryan.”

I shrug. “An office manual sounds boring as shit,” I say. “Is that what they have you doing here instead of coding?”

Lily nods shyly.

“All right,” I say, opening up two more laptops from my briefcase, and pulling up the right programs and code before handing them out one by one to Jerry and Lily. “Let’s get to work then.”

“We’re going to be coding?” says Lily.

“If you can help,” I say. “Then, yeah.”

Jerry is already tapping away at the keys, his eyes sinking into the code. “Wow,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “This is incredible.”

“I managed to get the source code that Simmons is running,” I say. “An old contact owed me a favor.”

“So we’re breaking industry rules?” says Lily, sounding worried.

I chuckle, putting my feet up on the table, pushing my chair back away from the conference table. “There are no industry rules,” I say. “If it’s too rich for you, back out now.”

“No,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her. “I want to work on the project. I just have to go get my own laptop.”

“There’s a laptop right here,” I say.

“I like coding on my own machine,” she says.

“Ah,” I say sarcastically. “We’ve got a real coder here.”

She turns away without saying anything, and I watch her delicious ass moving back and forth as she walks.

Lily

What a prick, I think to myself, as I head back to my cubicle and grab my personal laptop, which is covered in old stickers, mostly the names of white hat hacking collectives.

He’s got to be the most arrogant, self-assured asshole I’ve ever met in my life.

But he’s also fucking hot.

I can’t get the images from last night out of my head, no matter how much I try to focus on the project at hand. No matter what he says to me, I know I’m attracted to him like crazy.

Must just be my hormones, I think to myself.

I head back into the conference room, but before I enter I take a deep breath, promising myself not to let last night’s little adventure interfere with our work. That may sound like a far fetched idea, but I’ve manage to go 21 years without letting anyone interfere with me in that way, and so far it’s worked. But am I going to go another 21 years, and end up having never had sex with anyone?

I want him, and I don’t know why. Hell, I do know why: his broad shoulders, his jaw line as sharp as diamonds, and the way he looks at me. It makes me shiver just remembering his gaze.

I’m here to work, I remind myself. This is the programming opportunity of a lifetime, exactly what I’ve been looking for. This is an exciting, in the heat of the moment project. It’s going to require innovation.

Ryan just gives me a nod when I come back in.

My cubicle neighbor, whose name I finally learned is actually Jerry, is completely immersed in the code on the laptop Ryan handed him.

“Here,” grunts Ryan, tossing me a USB drive.

“The code?” I say.

He nods, and goes back to looking at his laptop.

A shiver goes down my spine… and he didn’t even look at me.

I find my gaze drifting down his body, soaking him all in.

Work, work, work, I chant to myself in my head. I’ve got to work.

I open up my laptop and plug in the USB.

This is an old machine, but I’ve heavily modified it, and it runs faster than anything you can buy new.

The processor is still one of the fastest, even though it’s a few years old. I upgraded the hard drive from the spinning disk kind to a wicked fast solid state, with the fastest type of connectors. The RAM was already maxed out, but I found a way to rig it up so that I’m running double the official max RAM. The real kicker, though, is the Linux distro I’m running, which uses less system memory, making the whole thing faster, regardless of the hardware.

There’s not much talking for the first couple hours, as the three of us dig into the code.

I get the feeling at first that I’m in way, way over my head. Whichever programmer did this is way beyond my level, and he didn’t use any comments in the code, so half the time I don’t even know what I’m looking at.

But all those hours squirrelled away in my room, examining code, start to pay off, and pretty soon, everything’s starting to make sense.

Wow, I keep saying to myself, marveling at the ingenuity of some of the programming here.

Then again, Ryan’s own code is really good.

There has to be something fundamentally different here that achieves these benchmark scores. Just writing clean fancy code isn’t going to be enough, if it’s still running off Ryan’s algorithm engine, which is the meat and potatoes of the whole program.

“Anything?” says Ryan, after hours of the three of us not talking.

We’re all hunched over our laptops, our eyes getting blurry from the screens.

I’ve managed to go this entire time without so much as glancing at Ryan, but it’s just been a testament to my strong will. Now that I have an excuse to look at him, I do so, and I drink him in. Just looking at him makes my body… respond.

“Nope,” says Jerry, sighing, and pushing himself back away from his laptop. “I mean, the code is good, but I can’t make heads or tails of the algorithm. Everything I’m finding makes it look just like your code.”

“Same,” says Ryan, frowning, somehow looking sexier. “To me, it just looks like he rewrote what I already did. But those little changes aren’t going to improve efficiency by any noticeable degree, and certainly not to the point where he’s getting these benchmark scores. Which makes sense. No one can seem to figure out how he’s doing it… What about you, Lily? Find anything?”

He sort of glares as he says this to me in a vaguely dismissive way, as if he’s sure I’m not going to find anything.

And, damn it, but he’s right. I have to admit that I haven’t found anything either.

“Shit,” says Ryan, checking his watch. I’m not even sure what a Rolex is, but I’m sure he has one, by the way it looks. “This is the most I’ve worked in years.”

“Me too,” says Jerry, chuckling. “It’s fun to be back into it, though. Should we call it a day? Maybe we’ll come up with something if we sleep on it.”

Ryan shakes his head. “No,” he says coldly. “We’re not going anywhere until we crack this.”

“I think I’m getting low blood sugar,” says Jerry. “I need to eat something.”

Ryan taps away at his phone. “I ordered us some food.”

I excuse myself, saying I need a breath of fresh air.

“Don’t take too long,” says Ryan. “We’ve got to crack this.”

I just feign a smile at him.

How can I be so attracted to such an asshole? Doesn’t he have any feelings about last night? If he does, he’s not letting them show, even in the most minimal of ways.

I take a deep breath at the vending machine, and remind myself that this is the programming opportunity I’ve been looking for… for a long, long time.

“Here,” I say, handing Ryan and Jerry energy drinks from the vending machine. “This’ll keep us going.”

I crack mine open and drink it down all at once. Now, I crack open the second one.

Ryan chuckles.

“This brings me back,” says Jerry. “Up all night, working on some code… Of course, back then we had to just use coffee and soda.”

“This stuff is great,” I say, looking at the label. “Three times the caffeine and twice the normal amount of sugar. Gives your brain some fuel.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“Come in,” calls Ryan gruffly.

The door opens. It’s Sheila, looking confused to see the three of us sitting around the conference table, apparently working.

“Uh, Mr. Hudson, there’s a delivery man here for you.”

But it’s not just any deliveryman. It’s not your normal pizza boy, with a scraggly beard and acne, reeking of pot.

This is a sleek waiter, looking like he just stepped out from a fancy restaurant. He’s wearing a black tie getup, and I look down, almost expecting to see tails on his dinner jacket.

“Mr. Hudson?” he says, bowing.

“Just bring it in,” says Ryan, barely looking up.

“Do you need help… uh… sir?” says Sheila to the waiter.

“I’ll be quite all right, thank you,” he says, and she retreats, confused, not knowing how to handle this situation.

The waiter wheels in a gleaming cart of silver covered dishes

Without getting in the way, the waiter/delivery man lays out a complicated set of silverware, complete with thick cloth napkins. Next, he starts with the plates, which aren’t disposable in the least bit. They’re nicer than the ones I use at home with Hailey.

It’s almost like being in a restaurant, the kind that’s far too expensive for me to go to.

The food is a light pasta dish with some kind of delicious beef sauce, one that’s not too heavy, just enough to keep us going.

“Anything to drink, miss?” says the waiter, making a small bow towards me.

I almost laugh at his bow.

I feel out of place, underdressed, even though I’m in my own office building. I do work here, after all.

“I’m fine,” I say, holding up my half-crumpled can of the energy drink.

Somehow, I’m outclassed here in my own office, but the waiter just nods politely.

Ryan slips him some bills for a tip and the waiter retires to the hallway, apparently to wait behind the closed door until we’re done dining.

Ryan absentmindedly picks up his fork and spears his spaghetti aggressively.

“I didn’t even know they delivered meals like this,” I say, in awe of what’s in front of me.

I take a bite. Damn, that’s good. I don’t know the last time I ate something this delicious.

Jerry is also admiring his food, and seems a little nervous to eat it. “I normally just eat from the vending machine,” he says, chuckling. “My wife’s going to kill me for filling up before her meals.”

“It’s good for the brain,” says Ryan, without looking up.

The three of us don’t talk through the meal, except to occasionally exchange comments about which part of the code we’re working on.

Eventually, we finish, and the waiter comes back somehow at exactly the right moment and takes everything away, wiping down the table.

Ryan tips him again, and I crack open another energy drink.

Jerry’s starting to look tired, his eyes blurry, and he starts taking frequent breaks because of his back.

“What time is it, anyway?” he says, making a show of checking his watch. He knows damn well what time it is, because our computers, of course, have the time clearly displayed.

“We just need a few more hours,” grunts Ryan, his laser focused gaze pointed at his computer. I do notice, however, that he occasionally looks me up and down, in an appraising sort of way, as if he’s giving me points for my breasts, my thighs, my ass. I don’t like the feeling, and it makes me feel cold. My desire is starting to turn to anger. Why hasn’t he mentioned last night at all? There were numerous opportunities when Jerry left to go to the vending machine, or to stretch his legs in the hallway. Instead, he remained stoic and stony, not saying anything that’s not related to programming.

Meanwhile, we haven’t made any progress, and the atmosphere in the room is getting tenser. And it’s not sexual tension. It’s the kind of tension three exhausted people find themselves in when they’re working on a problem that they can’t solve.

The lights for the rest of the office have been turned off, and now the door is open, the hallway like a gaping chasm. Everyone has left for the night.

Jerry’s phone rings. It’s his wife, and he promises to be home soon.

“Sorry, Ryan,” he says. “I’ve got to go home. The wife was worried, and the dinner is cold.”

Ryan grunts without looking up.

“All right,” says Jerry. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Jerry pads his way down the dark hallway to his cubicle. I watch as he takes his things and walks towards the exit of the office.

My eyes are blurry from staring at the screen, and all the code is starting to seem like the same thing.

“You can go if you want,” says Ryan, still not looking up.

He’s a fucking machine, apparently able to go hours and hours with his laser like concentration.

“That’s it?” I say. “I can go? You aren’t going to mention last night?”

I’m getting angry now. I can feel it rising in my chest. I don’t care if he is my boss. He doesn’t have the kind of power he has over others. Not if I don’t let him have it.

“What do you want to talk about?” says Ryan, finally looking up from his computer.

He stares right at me, his eyes not leaving mine. It seems for a moment as if he isn’t even blinking. His face is unreadable, impassive, set in stone. But… he’s fucking hot. He’s like some gorgeous model, right in front of me. But his body language screams… indifference.

But now he looks me up and down, taking me all in, his eyes lingering on my body. He raises his eyebrows when he looks back at me, not bothering or caring to hide that he’s been so obviously checking me out.

“You don’t want to talk about what happens?” I say, trying to get my anger under control. Am I angry because he seems indifferent to me? His desire for me is still clear, but…

Ryan shrugs. “You weren’t ready,” he says simply.

“But…?” I say, waiting for him to finish.

“But what? What’s there to talk about? If you want me, you know where to find me.”

With that, he goes back to his computer.

I can’t help myself… I’m a bundle of conflicting feelings… anger, lust, desire… but more than that, I feel tossed aside, even though we never officially had sex. I’m still a virgin, just an inexperienced girl, and he’s a billionaire playboy with hundreds of women who would beg for the opportunity to sleep with him. He’s got experience, and I have… nothing. I feel small and insignificant.

“I can see why they call you the douchebag billionaire,” I say.

Ryan chuckles. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a shit.

I get up in a huff, grab my laptop, slamming it closed as I do so, and head out into the dark hallway.

Ryan

I’m in the office until the early morning hours, and finally I decide to head back and get some sleep.

The next morning, I wake up early, despite the lack of sleep. Things like that have never bothered me much. I keep myself hardened, after all, with my intense workouts. I’ll never let myself go soft… especially not for a woman.

I wake up thinking about her, her body, and the way she looked at me last night. What did she want me to do, talk to her about our feelings or something? What’s there to talk about? We haven’t even fucked yet. And it’s not like I talk a lot to the women I have fucked.

I like my solitude, my independence, the ability to do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I feel like.

But I have the feeling now that this independence I’ve cherished is being threatened… by this new algorithm.

I’ve been running the rough numbers in my head, and if this new algorithm can actually compete with mine, it’ll become enterprise standard in a few short months, essentially cutting off my income entirely. It’s not like I’ve lived cheaply, squirreling away the pennies for a rainy day. I’ve had my fun, and I’ve spent my money to have it.

Usually I can get women out of my head easily. Usually I just fuck them and leave them. Hey, that may not be the best way to go about it, but that’s what I do, and I’m not apologetic about it. I don’t give them any illusions that it’s going to become a long term thing, unless they’re really lucky and get on my contacts list for future hookups.

If a woman doesn’t want me, which is very, very rare, than I just move on to the next one. There are plenty more who are ready for me, and willing.

But with Lily… I don’t know, I just can’t get her out of my head. I should be thinking about the algorithm and possible business strategies, contacts, that sort of thing, but she keeps popping up in my mind over and over again, no matter what I try to do.

I’m just going to have to have her, I think to myself. That’s the only way to get her off my mind and move past her. I’m going to do whatever it takes to have her, no matter what. I’ll make her see that she needs me and wants me. I already know she does… The way her body responded was incredible. I just need to show her what sex can be like, show her the pleasure I can give her. She wants me, and I know it. I just have to convince her. That shouldn’t be too hard.

The phone rings. It’s Johnny Robbins, one of my old programming buddies. He’s a crack coder, but he was never that interested in business or enterprise applications. He just wants to have fun on his computer, cracking away at algorithms and obscure programming metrics. He’s also a bit of a hacker, cracking his way into just about everything. So far, he’s been lucky and skilled enough not to get caught… for the most part.

Well, that’s not totally true. He has one arrest on his record, when he broke into a government system carelessly, leaving enough tracks that they were able to find him. Of course, now he’s much more careful.

“Yeah,” I say, answering the phone.

“Ryan,” says Johnny, speaking in his own peculiar fast way of talking. He always sounds like he’s from New Jersey, even though he claims he’s never been there. “I’ve got something for you.”

“Yeah? What is it, Johnny?”

“I found some stuff on this guy, Simmons.”

“Can you tell me over the phone?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why don’t you meet me at the office, then. We can talk about it there freely.”

“The office? Since when do you go to the office, man?”

“Since I heard about this Simmons guy,” I say. “I’m getting back into the game, in a big way.”

“Until you figure out what to do about your algorithm, you mean,” he says. “You’re just concerned about your money.”

“I’m interested in the code, too, wise ass,” I say. “Just like you are.”

“You sure you can still hack after spending so much time sipping fine wines and sampling the local cuisines, and by that, I mean the women…?”

“Just meet me at the office,” I say. “You’ll see I’m still better than you are.”

He laughs and hangs up.

I’m ready to head into the office.

My mind wanders back to Lily.

I kept looking at her yesterday, drinking in her body, and I can still picture her beautiful curves perfectly, the way her ass slopes down to her round, muscular thighs, the way her breasts slope, the way her neck…

I’m getting carried away here, and my cock is growing in my pants, pressing uncomfortably against the zipper.

I make a split second decision, and grab the phone and make an order with a very good florist that I’ve done some business with before. Although, honestly, it’s not like I’m in the habit of sending flowers to women.

Lily

“So you’re actually working with him now?” says Hailey.

It’s early morning and we’re both up unusually early.

Our housemates finally got back from their multi day party, and they made a hell of a racket this morning at 6AM when they were getting home. There’s about six of them, and I think some of them must share a room, because I’m pretty sure there aren’t even that many bedrooms in our house. It’s strange not even knowing who most of them are. I swear that I’d never seen two of them before at all, but Hailey assured me they’re our roommates. They were wearing work clothes, all scuffed up and half taken off. There were three guys and one girl, and I’m pretty sure they all coupled up and are still having sex now… with some additional ‘friends’ they brought home.

“Ugh,” says Hailey. “I can still hear them fucking.”

Sure enough, there’s the distinctive sound of mattress springs squealing and screeching, as well as a pounding on the floor above us.

“They’re really going at it, eh?” I say, feeling uncomfortable for obvious reasons.

Hailey shrugs. “Sounds pretty normal. Probably just missionary position.”

I’m pretty sure I blush. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know about different positions. I can name a lot of them, and I’ve seen the drawings, and even the porn, when I was curious. I mean, who hasn’t? But I have no idea what each position feels like, and I don’t know why someone would prefer one position over the other.

“How can you tell?”

“Don’t worry,” says Hailey, ignoring me. “You’ll get laid soon enough, as soon as you’re ready for it. As you saw the other night, the guys are just dying for you.”

I blush again as a seriously loud series of grunts erupts from the floor above us.

“I can’t believe we can hear that even down here,” says Hailey, cringing.

“People like sex,” I say. “Why don’t we like hearing it?”

“I guess because it’s sex we’re not having,” says Hailey, shrugging.

Sometimes, she’s not so much of a morning person.

“So tell me about working with him,” she says. “Was it weird, after the other night?”

I nod. “I was pretty uncomfortable at first,” I say. “But soon it just became about the programming…”

“You and those computers.”

I laugh. “It’s fun,” I say. “I don’t know why people say only guys can do it.”

Hailey shrugs. “It’s just run of the mill sexism.”

“I guess. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t sleep with him. He’s really kind of an asshole.”

“He is called the douchebag billionaire,” says Hailey. “I imagine he’s worked hard to earn such an esteemed nickname.”

“Yeah,” I say. “He’s just all about money. I mean… he’s really authoritative. I can just tell he knows what he wants and he gets it. I pissed him off by not sleeping with him… And now, someone’s threatening his position as this famous genius coder, and he’s going to do whatever it takes to exert his will…”

“What was that?” says Hailey.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“Sounded like the doorbell. Let me go check.”

“I didn’t even know we had a doorbell.”

“That’s because you’re always listening to your headphones.”

Hailey gets up and leaves my room. I can hear her treading softly in her socks as she moves through the rest of the house.

Up above, and around me, I can still hear the roommates having sex.

I blush, even though I’m by myself, and I find that my thoughts drift back to Ryan Hudson, and that night that we “spent together,” even though we didn’t actually have sex. How would I feel now if I had gone through with it? Would I resent it, regret it, or would it have been the best decision I’d ever made? People talk about just getting it over with and moving on, but I don’t think that kind of thing is even possible with Ryan Hudson. He doesn’t seem like the type of guy that you can just move on from.

Hailey comes back into the room, holding the largest bouquet of flowers I’ve ever seen.

“They’re roses,” she says, giving me a coy smile.

“Roses?” I say. “Who are they for?”

“Guess.”

I shrug. “No idea.”

“They’re for you. And guess who they’re from?”

“Ryan Hudson?”

“Yup!” she says, handing me the flowers. I have to stand up to take them, and they’re so big it’s actually hard to hold them without them overtaking my face and pushing into my hair.

“Wow,” says Hailey. “You must have made quite the impression, even without sleeping with him. What did you guys talk about yesterday at the office?”

“Nothing,” I say, confused. “I don’t understand. He basically ignored me yesterday. Why would he send me roses?”

“He’s thinking about you,” says Hailey, suppressing a giggle. “He wants you, that’s pretty clear. Guys like that don’t send roses usually. They just take what they want.”

“You think he really wants me?” I say.

“Of course.”

I put the roses down awkwardly on their side on the floor, since there’s nowhere else to put them. I try not to damage them, but I think one on the bottom is already a little mushed.

“They do smell nice,” I say, leaning down and inhaling deeply.

Hailey slaps my ass lightly. “Look at that ass,” she says, giggling. “It got you your own billionaire.”

I sit back up, so that my ass isn’t sticking out as it was.

“My own douchebag billionaire,” I say. “And I’m not so sure…”

“Come on,” says Hailey. “You two working together in the office… late nights… everyone else has gone home for the night… and he sent you roses… something’s bound to happen…”

“I’m not sure I want anything to happen,” I say.

“Let’s see how you feel about that in a week,” says Hailey, giving me a knowing smile and a wink.

There’s an extra loud groan from above, and finally the bed springs stop making their horrible noise.

“Looks like someone’s finally finished,” says Hailey.

“I’ve got to get to work,” I say, checking the time.

“Have fun,” says Hailey, trying to slap my ass again as a joke, but I pull away from her.

Half an hour later, I’m at the office, sitting in my cubicle next to Jerry, chatting with him about the algorithm.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s pretty crazy. I’ve never worked on a project like this.”

“Well, it’s a big opportunity,” says Jerry. “I just don’t know if we’re going to be able to come up with something. This sort of thing is usually done by a huge team of programmers with lots of experience. Me, I’ve been at this a long time, but I’m pretty rusty.”

“And I’m new,” I say. “But aren’t some of the best programs written by little teams of hackers?”

Jerry shrugs. “When you’re young, it’s different.”

Well, I think to myself, I’m pretty young.

And I’d be surprised if Ryan doesn’t still have it in him. There’s just something about his presence that simply… dominates and commands. If he wants to make a better algorithm, he’s just going to fucking do it.

“He’s not here yet?” I say.

Jerry shakes his head.

“I guess I should be reading this employee manual,” I say. “I still haven’t finished it yet.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” says Jerry. “You know, everyone in the office has been asking me about what’s going on. They’re really surprised to see Ryan here.”

“I can imagine,” I say. “After years of not really doing any work… but why doesn’t Ryan get everyone to work on it?”

“Most of the people here aren’t programmers,” says Jerry. “They’re basically just salesmen who know a little about programming, just enough to sell the product.”

I swear that I feel his presence before I see him.

It’s just a solid, commanding presence. He’s here to get what he wants. He’s here to do what he needs to do.

But does he want a better algorithm, or does he want me?

I’m so confused.

I see him, his suit practically gleaming even in the dull fluorescent lighting. His stubble is still perfect, as it perpetually is. His eyes seem to drill right into me. He focuses in on me and doesn’t look at anything else in the office as he walks right towards me.

There’s an arrogant grin on his face.

“You like the flowers?” he growls.

“Flowers?” says Jerry.

Ryan completely ignores him.

I don’t say anything for a moment out of embarrassment. After all, Jerry’s right here.

“Well?” growls Ryan, seeming to look straight through me.

My breathing gets tighter, faster. I feel something happening in my body…

“Yeah,” I say. “They’re nice.”

Ryan continues to look at me for what feels like an eternity. Jerry’s silent. He knows who the boss is.

“Well,” says Ryan. “Let’s get to work. We’ve got a special member of the team for today.”

“Who?” I say.

“Johnny Robbins.”

“Like the Johnny Robbins, the guy who hacked the…?”

“I’m surprised you know about him,” says Ryan, cutting me off.

“Of course,” I say. “He’s famous…”

“Only in certain circles.”

“Well, I am interested in computers…”

Ryan makes a sound that’s something between a grunt and a “hmmph,” a sound that’s unreadable. Like always with him, I feel like I don’t know what he’s thinking.

But one thing is crystal clear now, despite all the other doubts—and that’s that he wants me. He wants me. It’s clear in the way he looks at me, the way that he moves, and of course, the flowers.

Ryan

Johnny Robbins is late, so the three of us get started. That’s typical of Johnny, and in fact, I’m surprised he called me so early. Like most expert hackers, he’s an extreme night owl. For all I know, he was actually still awake from the night before when he called me this morning.

The three of us get started, poring over the code.

Lily is drinking coffees from the vending machine back to back, and Jerry is already having trouble staying awake. This is a little too much for him.

I can’t take my eyes off Lily. It’s no longer just her body for me, and her incredible curves, but it’s every little way that she moves. I find myself watching her, not caring whether she notices, just to see how she’ll brush her hair back, or how she’ll adjust herself in her seat.

My cock twitches each time she moves.

I find myself focusing on every little sound she makes, especially her breathing, which I know changes, growing more rapid, when she glances over and sees me staring at her.

It’s hard to get my mind on the code.

I can only think about her.

No woman has ever had this effect on me before. Sure, I’ve felt lust. I’ve been with countless supermodels, but they pale in comparison to her.

Today, she’s wearing something professional, but I can’t help but notice that she’s got on a different type of bra, one that pushes her breasts up and forward more, augmenting her already ample bust, which rises and falls with her breathing.

“I didn’t think I was in the right place,” says someone, appearing at the door.

“Hey Johnny,” I say, aware that my cock is half hard in my pants and probably visible, but I don’t care. That’s what happens when I stare at Lily for so long.

“So this is the office?” he says, making a face.

“You’re used to more luxury?” I say. “I find that hard to believe.”

Johnny laughs. He’s wearing all black: black jeans, black shoes, and a black button up shirt that’s unbuttoned up top. His hair is long, and a very dark brown that’s almost black. He’s thin, and while not conventionally handsome, certain women have been known to fall for him. His skin looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in years.

“I’m used to more like… squatter hacker spaces, and all that…”

“Oh yeah,” I say, dismissively. “Hacking away in abandoned buildings, stealing wi-fi.”

“You’re all about the money, though,” says Johnny. “You always were.”

“But you’re here,” I say.

“I’m just here for the code.”

“Oh, let me introduce you…”

I present him to Lily, whose eyes widen since she knows his hacking fame, and Jerry, whose eyes are filled with sleep.

“Well,” says Johnny unceremoniously. “Let’s get to work.”

“I figure you’ve got your own laptop,” I say.

“You know it,” says Johnny, launching into an explanation of the specs of his machine, which I could frankly care less about.

I’ve never been that kind of tech guy. I just want the stuff to work. I don’t care about the specs. Like I said, I’ve never been a nerd. I just happen to have a mind for programming.

Johnny hunches over in his horrible posture, pulls out his laptop, and says, “Here, this is what I wanted to show you.”

It’s a research paper that’s never been published. It’s by Simmons, the creator of the new algorithm.

“Where’d you get this?” I say.

Johnny just chuckles. “Let’s just say it’d be better not to say.”

“Wow,” says Lily, who’s leaning over to see the machine. Johnny is sitting to the left of me, and I’m extremely aware of Lily’s body as she leans in, approaching me. Her left breast is only a couple inches from my shoulder.

She notices it too, and glances at me sideways for just a fraction of a second. If I wasn’t already looking at her, I never would have noticed it… but I see something in her eyes.

She seems to be holding her breath slightly, aware that my presence makes her breathe harder.

“So,” I say, getting the gist of the article by reading it quickly. “This basically outlines his approach. But then he realized that he could just write the algorithm himself and not publish it, making a lot of money instead of getting academic fame… my kind of guy.”

“Yeah,” says John. “And I think we can reverse engineer his algorithm with this approach. Basically he’s going…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I get it. He’s basically rewriting the simple shuffle algorithm. But that doesn’t give us quite enough information…”

Johnny gives us all a copy of Simmons’s unpublished research paper on a USB drive. “This isn’t something you email,” he says with a wink.

Another ten minutes go by, with all us on our own computers, trying to figure out how to apply the article to the code we’ve been studying.

“Oh!” says Lily, suddenly sitting up, her eyes looking excited.

I use the moment as another opportunity to take her all in. The curve of her spine, this time, drives me wild, not to mention her breasts, which are pushed forward…

“I’ve got something!” she says.

“Yeah?” says Johnny somewhat dismissively. He’s never been keen on women programmers. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t think they’re as good as men. Me, I just care about results, whoever the programmer is.

Jerry’s asleep in his chair, snoring lightly.

“What do you have?” I say.

Suddenly, an alarm sounds. It’s a vicious, intense noise that seems to drive right through you, making you feel frantic.

“The fire alarm,” I say.

“What’s going on?” says Jerry, waking up.

“It’s probably just a drill,” I say.

“But there’s smoke coming from the hallway,” says Johnny, frantic.

“Probably just a little trash can fire or something,” I say. “Nothing to worry about.”

But people are screaming now out in the rest of the office.

Someone out there shouts, “Not a drill!”

“It’s probably fine,” I say, not looking up from my computer.

“I’m not taking any chances, not since the last time,” says Johnny, rushing out in the hallway, where he disappears into the smoke.

Jerry is next, rushing past him. “Come on!” he calls out after us. “Come on!”

“Looks like we’d better get going,” I say, still calm.

But she’s still staring at her computer, not looking at me or the smoke. She’s completely immersed in her work, and for a moment I’m completely immersed in her beauty.

“No,” I say, snapping out of my little trance. “We’ve really got to go.”

The smoke is denser now, and it’s completely black.

“This looks like it might be serious,” I say.

“But I’ve just figured something out!” she says.

“We can talk about that later.”

“I’m so close, though!”

“Seriously, Lily,” I say. “We’ve really got to go.”

“Fine,” she says, closing her laptop.

Suddenly, she notices the smoke around her. “Oh shit!” she says.

I laugh. “Finally you notice it. Come on.”

I take her by the hand. She won’t leave her laptop there so she carries it with her. Me, I’ve got a hundred laptops, and copies of everything I need.

We rush out of the conference room, into the hallway that has the cubicles where Lily and Jerry usually work.

The smoke is thicker now, and it’s all around us.

I cough involuntarily, and Lily sounds like she’s choking.

The fire alarm is intensely loud out here, so loud I have to shout over it to be heard. Jerry and Johnny are long gone, and so is everyone else. It seems like we’re the only ones left in the office.

“Stay there,” I yell at her. “I’m going to see if we can get through.”

I leave her there, and go further into the smoke, towards the main entrance and exit.

I feel like I’m choking, the black smoke filling my lungs. I can’t breathe properly, not nearly at all.

And it’s hot. Everything around me is incredibly hot, even the floor. This isn’t just some trash can fire.

I can see the flames now. The entire kitchen at the other end of the hallway is in flames, huge flames that lick the celling. The fire has spread, blocking the way to the receptionist’s desk where the entrance is.

I turn around just as I feel like I can’t breathe at all, and rush back to Lily, who’s looking petrified.

Lily

“We can’t go out that way,” shouts Ryan at me. I can barely hear him above the noise of the fire and the alarm.

“What are we going to do?” I say.

“Is there another exit?”

This is his office, and he doesn’t even know the layout. He really doesn’t come to work often.

It’s weird to have this thought in such a crisis situation.

For a moment, I feel calm.

But now I’m panicking again.

It’s a fire! We’re going to burn alive.

Shit, this isn’t the way I wanted to go.

My whole body feels like it’s freezing up.

I haven’t even had sex yet! I can’t die a virgin.

How ironic, if that’s the right use of the word, to die, burnt alive, with the sexiest man in San Francisco, who I rejected just a couple nights ago.

I have a sudden urge, despite my full-body anxiety and panic, to jump his bones right now, to thrust myself onto his rock hard cock.

“Lily! Listen to me, do you know where the exit is?”

He snaps me out of it.

We’re not going to burn alive. There’s another exit!

“There’s another exit!” I finally say. It feels like my brain isn’t working properly, and I don’t know whether it’s thinking about Ryan and his cock that’s distracting me, or the fire.

“Show me,” says Ryan, in an understanding, yet commanding way.

I take him by the hand, finding it strange to be leading this huge man by the hand, and we rush down to the other end of the hallway.

The smoke is a little less dense here, but by the end of the hallway, we’re both coughing almost comfortably.

I feel like I might vomit, and I actually bend over once, thinking that I’m going to puke, but fortunately, nothing comes out. He may be a prick, and this may be a serious fire, but I still don’t want to puke in front of Ryan Hudson. What does that mean? Probably nothing, right?

“We’ve got to get out of here,” says Ryan. There’s urgency in his voice, something I’ve never heard from him, but there isn’t a hint of panic.

“I…” I start to speak, but I start choking again.

All I can do is point to the other exit, which is hard to find, near one of the back closets. It’s not something Ryan would know about, since apparently he never comes here. I only know about it because I spent so long reading the employee manual, which covers fire escapes very carefully, as well as all other emergency procedures.

I feel like I’m about to pass out, but his strong arms suddenly embrace me and pick me up as easily as if I were a rag doll.

He carries me through the smoke, and I’m barely aware of what’s happening.

There’s smoke and heat, and I’m still coughing intensely, a rough, hurried cough, feeling like I’m on the verge of blacking out.

Next thing I know, we’re standing in the back alley by the rear parking lot. I’m still in Ryan’s arms, which are huge and strong. I can feel his hard muscular chest pressed against me. My breasts are against him, and so is my face. I look up, and see him looking down at me, smiling.

“You survived,” he says, his smile cracking, growing bigger.

I cough right into his face.

“Sorry…” I manage to say.

“I’m just glad we got out of there,” he says.

“My laptop?” I say.

“I’ve got it,” says Ryan. “Tucked into my pants.”

“I thought I must have dropped it…”

“Don’t worry about that right now,” he says.

I take in deep breaths of the fresh air. It’s a strange sensation, being able to breathe properly for the first time… in… I don’t know how long all of that took. It felt like an eternity, trapped in all that smoke. But it probably wasn’t more than a few minutes.

“I think I figured it out…” I say, trying to speak, but my voice is crackly and hoarse.

“It’s OK,” says Ryan. “You can tell me about it later.”

He’s carrying me around the building, walking at a safe distance from it. I can see smoke coming off the building roof. The fire turned out to be much, much worse than we’d thought.

The sound of fire engine sirens is close by, and wailing.

We’re almost around the corner of the building, where even in my state I know that the rest of the office will be waiting, looking at the building in awe, as they watch their workplace burn to the ground. Can the firemen still save it?

Despite what just happened, barely escaping with my life, I feel safe in Ryan’s huge arms. I feel completely protected, and I let my head fall to the side and rest against his chest, feeling his breathing as his chest moves up and down.

He looks down at me, gazing into my eyes without saying anything, and I look back up at him.

We’re around the corner now, and everyone from the office is gathered, just as I thought they would be, standing a safe distance from the burning office building.

There are two huge fire engines parked here, with the firemen in their suits and boots already shooting huge streams of water on the building’s roof. Other firemen are standing by the front door, apparently considering if they should enter or not.

There’s an ambulance by the fire engines, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see someone sitting upright with a blanket around them, inhaling deeply from an oxygen mask. A huge cylindrical oxygen tank is sitting nearby.

“Is she hurt?” says someone, an EMT rushing up to us. He’s outfitted in a navy blue uniform, with all sorts of gear hanging off his belt. He’s got a wide face, close cropped hair, and a bit of a belly.

“I don’t think so,” says Ryan. “She inhaled a lot of smoke.”

“What about you?” says the EMT.

“I’m fine,” says Ryan, his voice deep and powerful. “You’d better check her out. I’ll take her.”

With the EMT trailing behind, Ryan walks me over to the ambulance and sets me down ever so gently.

The EMT starts checking my vitals, hooking up various gadgets to me that I can’t keep track of.

“You’re going to be fine,” says Ryan to me, his voice deep but gentle.

“I didn’t know you were like that,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.”

I do know, but I don’t want to tell him. I didn’t realize there was another side to him. I thought he was just the douchebag billionaire, the tough alpha, the muscular badass, the guy who didn’t take shit from anyone, who just wanted money and didn’t care about anyone but himself. I didn’t realize there was a, dare I say, tender side to him.

Ryan just shrugs.

“Looks like you’re fine,” says the EMT after several minutes. “But you’d better use this.”

He hands me an oxygen mask that I gratefully take in my hand and breathe in from.

Instantly, my head starts to feel clearer. I didn’t realize how foggy headed I’d become.

I’m grateful that I’m not able to speak without taking the mask away from me, because I don’t want to tell Ryan that I’m seeing this new side of him. I don’t want to tell him that I… have feelings for him.

Do I, though? Maybe it was just all that smoke that I breathed in. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly.

But as I watch the firemen and the burning building, I’m actually focused intently out of the corner of my eye on Ryan, staring at the side of his head as he watches his building with folded arms. My head’s clear now, but I still see something in him that I didn’t see before.

The firemen seem to have put out most of the fire. A few of them have entered the building now. I think that means it’s structurally intact to a certain level.

Ryan gives me one final look before walking away, towards the office building.

He doesn’t ask if I’m OK, but I can see it in his eyes. I can see something else… something like caring for me. But that’s absurd, right? He’s the douchebag billionaire, and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself and his money.

Ryan

Somehow she still manages to look incredibly sexy, sitting there hunched over with an oxygen mask over her face. She looks so innocent, but yet her body screams at me at the same time. Her curves draw my gaze towards her, and I have to pull my head away, quite literally, to keep from staring at her. She’s been looking up at me with those beautiful eyes, her long eyelashes flittering down along them. There’s a look of sleepiness or exhaustion in her gaze, but there’s something else too.

“I’m the owner of the building,” I say to the nearest fireman. “Can you tell me what the damages are?”

“Pretty bad,” says the fireman, wiping some black grime off his face.

He’s one of the ones who’s just come out of the building, and he’s covered in black smoke residue.

In one hand, he’s holding a huge fireman’s ax.

“How bad are we talking about? Do you think we’ll be able to use the building again?”

He shakes his head vigorously at me. “There’s no way,” he says. “The structure is holding up for now, but the inside is completely destroyed, and we don’t yet know what kind of damage has been done to the walls, the foundation, and the roof. Except just by looking at it, I know the roof isn’t going to hold up for more than another day.”

“Isn’t it risky going in there now?”

He shrugs. “That’s what we do, though.”

I nod my head. “So the place is basically fried?”

He nods. “In situations like this, usually the whole building has to be razed.”

I nod my head.

This puts a bit of a damper on my plans, but not much. It’s not like the office building was doing me much good, anyway. I’ll have to find a temporary place for the sales team, in case there are any new clients. But as of right now, the potential new clients are probably just waiting to see what happens with the Simmons algorithm, waiting to see whether they should buy that instead of mine when it comes on the market.

The office workers are standing around looking at the burned out building. They see me approaching and look nervous. That’s understandable, since they don’t really know me at all. Many of them I’ve never seen in my life, and they’ve probably just seen me in the news.

There’s a middle-aged woman who I think is the secretary. She’s biting her lip nervously. Her clothes have a little bit of soot on them.

“Is it Stacey?” I say, approaching her.

“It’s Sheila,” she says, looking up at me. “Are you OK, Mr. Hudson?”

I nod. “I’m fine,” I say. “Is everyone all right?”

She nods. “Everyone got out fine. At first, we didn’t see you or the new employee, Lily, and we thought the worst.”

“We were trapped in there, until Lily pointed out the other exit,” I say. “At first, we didn’t think it was a real fire alarm.”

She nods and continues biting her lip. Her finger nails are painted neon green and if they weren’t, I imagine she’d be biting those too.

“So,” I say. “Do you think you can organize the set up of a new office?”

“Right now?” she says, sounding shocked.

I guess I’m understanding how traumatic an experience like this could be for people. But we’ve got to get back to work. That’s one of the things that helps me make money—staying on track with a laser like focus, no matter what happens.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “It’s going to take me at least a day to lease a new office building.”

She nods at me, but looks worried.

“Why don’t you pick a couple good people in the office that you work well with,” I say. “And you guys can make a little team to organize the distribution and ordering of new office equipment. Here, take this.”

I hand her one of my no-limit credit cards. “I forget how the finances were set up for office materials but you might need a higher limit. Order whatever you had in the old office, or whatever you need. And it goes without saying that it’s not to be used for anything personal.”

“Of course, Mr. Hudson,” she says.

“Great,” I say. “Give me your cell number, and I’ll send you the details. You’ll be responsible for letting the rest of the other employees know the new address. I’m going to get a place with a good conference room so that my small programming team can keep working on our new project.”

“Is everything OK with the… uh… algorithm, Mr. Hudson?” she says.

I nod. “Of course,” I say. “We just might need to make a few updates. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but tell everyone not to worry.”

I walk away and stand looking at the building for a moment. There goes the end of an era that I was barely part of. I can count the number of times on one hand that I actually came into this office building, and I don’t think I’ve ever spent a whole day there until very recently, trying to fix this new problem with the algorithm.

I scroll through the contacts list on my phone, and find a guy named Jeremy Green who helps me get what I need. He works as a sort of intermediary for things like real estate and business equipment, so that I don’t have to deal with realtors.

He’s not there, but I leave a simple message. “It’s Ryan Hudson,” I say. “I need a new office building, quickly. I’ll text you the capacity details right now. Tomorrow would be best. Money isn’t a problem, as always. But keep it reasonable. These employees don’t need anything too fancy. Professional, but not luxurious.”

I hang up the phone and my gaze finds its way back to Lily, who’s still breathing through the oxygen mask.

“You can probably take that off now,” I say, approaching her.

She removes it.

She looks shaken, the way she’s huddled there. Her clothes are tinged with soot, and her hair is a mess, but she still looks fabulous.

“You’ve got some soot on your cheek,” I say, using my hand to wipe some of it off.

As I do so, she gazes into my eyes, and my hand lingers on her cheek for a moment.

“Let me take you somewhere and buy you a drink,” I say. “You need to put that spark back in you.”

“I can’t go anywhere looking like this,” she says.

“Then come back to my place,” I say. “I’ve got a full bar. You need to relax a little.”

“It’s OK,” says Lily. “I’ll just go home.”

“Really,” I say. “It’s the least I can do, after my office almost killed you.”

“But you also rescued me,” she says.

“Then I guess you owe me,” I say, trying not to wink at her.

I can see her interpret the meaning a variety of ways. I can see it in her eyes as the thought passes through her.

“Not like that,” I say. “I just mean that you’d be doing me a favor if you let me give you a drink and feed you, after all that you’ve been through. That is, if you can stand hanging out with the douchebag billionaire for an hour or so.”

She shrugs, looking somewhat noncommittal in her body posture. But I see something there in her eyes, a desire for me that she might not even be admitting to herself yet.

“OK,” she says, after a long pause.

“My car’s this way.”

She walks with me, and as we walk, she leans her head towards my torso. She’s more than a full head shorter than me, and her head doesn’t fall right on my shoulder. That’s pretty normal for me, since I’m just over six foot.

I let my left arm drape around her shoulder and pull her closer into me, and she doesn’t fight back.

We walk in silence, and when we get to my car, I open the passenger side door for her. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that—maybe just when I was first starting to date.

“Wow,” she says. “Fancy car.” But she doesn’t sound impressed. I’m getting the sense that these kinds of displays of wealth don’t do much for her… she’s so much different than the other women I’ve known.

I start the car and pull out of the parking lot, leaving the burned office building behind us.

“Did you happen to see Johnny?” I say.

“I didn’t.”

“He must have run off,” I say. “That’s just like Johnny. He always runs at the first sign of any trouble now. But I can hardly blame him, since he basically lives his life in constant fear that some authority figures are going to come knocking on his door. That’s what it’s like to be in the black hat world, I guess.”

“At least he gave us the article,” she says, perking up a little at the mention of programming.

“Yeah,” I say. “We don’t really need him.”

“Oh!” she says suddenly, excited. “I completely forgot! But just before the alarm went off, I found something…”

“You figured out what Simmons is doing?” I say.

“Yeah” she says, her voice barely containing her excitement.

I’m driving slowly, and I look over at her. For a moment, I forget all about the algorithm, because all I see is how her face is lit up with excitement, shining with beauty.

My cock starts to swell in my pants.

I want her, and I need her.

I need to sink my cock into her tight virgin body. That’s all I need.

This has never happened to me before—mentally putting a woman above my business needs in a time of business crisis, not even for a moment.

I force my mind back onto what she’s talking about.

“Yeah,” she’s saying. “So I don’t have the terminology to describe it. But basically I think I found what to look for in Simmons’s algorithm. He isn’t doing exactly what he’s doing in the paper, which I don’t think would have worked. But it was a jumping off point for him, where he was able to find something else… something that worked… worked really, really well…”

I have to force myself to keep my eyes off her, with her breasts heaving in and out in excitement as she talks, and keep myself focused on the road.

In another couple minutes we’ll be at my house.

“That’s incredible,” I say. “You’ll have to show me. It’s a good thing you still have your laptop.” I gesture to the back seat where her laptop sits. I stuffed it into my belt when I was carrying her, and it should be fine. My own laptops I left in the building, and I’m sure they’re destroyed at this point, just bits of melted plastic with ruined hard drives inside.

Lily

The house looks completely different in the daytime. Maybe part of it is because last time, we went almost straight to the bedroom. Last time I was here, I was overwhelmed with the luxury and wealth that his house displayed, but it also had a sort of calculated coldness to it. It didn’t seem like someone lived in it, like everything had been bought and rarely used.

But now, with the sunlight streaming in generously through the windows, the whole house has a lighter feel to it. I can start to appreciate how nice everything is. It’s nothing like my apartment, where the stove has to be a few decades old, and the refrigerator is an ancient beast filled with my roommate’s forgotten and rotting food.

“Wow,” I say, probably with my mouth gaping open. “This place is nice.”

Ryan just shrugs.

It’s a little strange to be walking alongside him, following him through the downstairs of the house to the bar. I could get used to him carrying me in his arms, the way he carried me out of that building.

“It’s just a place to relax,” he says. “I’ve got some other houses, too.” He says this casually, not to brag. For a billionaire, I haven’t heard him boasting about his possessions. But then again, when you’re really rich, I doubt you care much about money in the way people like me do. For a moment, I find myself wondering what it would be like to be so rich, to have all my financial problems vanish away. For one thing, I’d never have to go back to work at that furniture store, not that I’m planning on doing that anyway.

“Well,” says Ryan. “Let me order some food. What would you like to eat?”

For a moment, the only thing I can think of is pizza. It sounds so warm and comforting, full of carbs. There’s nothing like stuffing yourself full of pizza. It’s the ultimate comfort food. But then I think back to the last meal that Ryan bought us, that incredibly fancy take out Italian food, which was like nothing I’d ever eaten before.

Plus, I’m not sure I want to be seen stuffing myself with pizza in front of Ryan. That’s something to do with Hailey at my side.

“Well?” he says.

Apparently it’s been a little while since I’ve said anything.

“Uhhh…” I manage to say. “I don’t know. Whatever you want to get.”

“You’re probably still shaken up from that fire,” says Ryan. “Why don’t we get you changed out of those clothes. Would you like to take a shower? Then we can worry about food.”

“Uhh…” I say. I’m not sure where this is going to go, taking a shower here at Ryan’s house, changing here.

Back when I thought he was the billionaire douchebag, which was just a few hours ago, I never would have even agreed to come here. But now, well, I’m not even sure what I think.

“First food you can think of,” says Ryan. His voice is commanding, and he says it all of a sudden.

I respond without thinking. “Pizza!” I say, with so much enthusiasm that Ryan laughs.

“Pizza it is, then,” he says, chuckling to himself and tapping away at his phone. “Don’t worry. I know the best pizza place in San Francisco. And they’re exclusive.”

I let out a groan involuntarily.

“Hm?” says Ryan, looking up at me, because of the strange sound I just made.

“Oh,” I say. I’m not sure why I’m suddenly all clammy and nervous around him. I guess it’s because maybe I’m actually considering sleeping with him now… This thought brings back all of my anxieties and insecurities about my virginity. “I was just thinking about how fancy that last meal was…”

“Don’t worry,” says Ryan. “The whole point of pizza is to relax, right? This comes in a plain brown box. It’s only like 10 bucks, too, which is a steal for San Francisco. Most people just don’t know about this place.”

He pauses, tapping away at his phone for a moment, and looks me up and down. His gaze lingers on my breasts and my face. I can feel him drinking in my body. My panties become instantly wet as I imagine what it would be like to feel him inside of me. Not that I can imagine it that well, yet, having never had a cock inside me before.

“I forgot where I put the number,” says Ryan. “Ah, here it is. These guys don’t have an app or anything. It’s just the phone for them, and if you’re lucky, they’ll even answer.”

Ryan calls and begins speaking fluent Spanish. I have no idea what he’s saying.

When he hangs up, I look at him incredulously. “You speak Spanish?” I say.

He shrugs. “I like to learn new things. Plus, they don’t speak any English. It should be here in about half an hour. Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll put out some clean clothes for you.”

“I don’t know…” I say. “I think I’m fine.”

“You’re filthy,” says Ryan, cracking a smile.

It’s true. I look down at my clothes, and I’m covered in soot.

“Well…” I say. “So are you.”

“True,” says Ryan, looking down at himself.

He starts unbuttoning his shirt, and pulling it off, revealing his incredibly toned and cut muscular physique. I can’t keep my eyes off his abs, which seem to ripple and glow before my eyes. I never noticed it the other night, but he’s got a full sleeve tattoo on one arm. It’s an intricate set of black designs that I can’t make out. And it looks hot, even though I never thought I’d be one to go for tattoos.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“My clothes are dirty, remember?” says Ryan. “Come on, take a shower. You’ll feel better.”

He says this last part almost like a command.

“OK,” I say. “I’ll do it, if it’s going to make you that happy. I think you just want to see me naked.”

He just grins at me. “Follow me, and I’ll show you the guest bathroom.”

We don’t go into his room like we did the other night. Instead, he takes me to another room, which is just as large. It looks like something out of a catalogue for fancy homes. But the bathroom is what really impresses me. Everything is sleek and shiny, and the shower is huge. I can’t even identify the material that it’s made out of.

We stand in the bathroom for a moment, and I turn to face him.

He looks down at me and smiles. “I’ll put the clothes out for you,” he says. “Give me those and I’ll get them washed.”

“You’re going to put them in the washing machine?”

“I’ll send them out,” he says. “Someone will come by to pick them up. They should be ready in an hour.”

An hour to wash and dry clothes? This must be some fancy service he uses.

“Well…?” says Ryan, grinning down at me.

“You expect me to take off my clothes right now, right in front of you?”

“Only if you want to,” says Ryan. “I certainly wouldn’t object.”

“I thought you were just taking me here to be nice.” I say this even though I know the unspoken undercurrent of this whole interaction. And I know that I didn’t object when he invited me home. In fact, it felt perfect.

“I am being nice,” says Ryan.

“Why don’t you stand outside the bathroom,” I say. “And I’ll hand you the things.”

“If that’s what you want.”

He doesn’t move for a long, long moment. He just looks me in the eyes, and I wonder if he’s going to kiss me.

He’s still shirtless, and I can’t help but let my gaze slide down along his ripped torso.

My panties are wet. I can’t hand him my wet panties like this.

I feel drawn to him like a magnet. I’m so conscious of his presence, so close to me… half naked. I imagine what his hands would feel like on me, moving slowly over my shirt.

Is he going to kiss me? Is he going to make his move? I don’t think I would be able to say no.

But he doesn’t, and he turns his back on me and leaves the bathroom, closing the door completely behind him.

“Just leave them outside the door,” he calls through the thick door that muffles a lot of his deep voice. “I’ll send the delivery person up for them.”

Thank God, I think to myself, as I breathe out a sigh of relief.

I can’t let him see my soaking wet panties.

But honestly, the thought of him touching them and feeling their wetness and warmth—it makes me even wetter. My breathing is changing. My nipples are hard, as I unhook my bra and drop it to the floor.

I look at myself in the mirror, naked now, my clothes in a pile.

I’ve always had issues with my appearance. I mean, I know some men have found me attractive, catcalling me, and things like that, but on the other hand, people always say that guys are just horny and will sleep with anyone.

I don’t get that sense from Ryan. I can see it in his body, and his eyes, and the way he talks to me—he wants me, and not in the crude way that the catcallers wanted me. But that doesn’t mean Ryan doesn’t want to take my body…

For the first time in my life, my image in the mirror looks good. My breasts look plump, and I think I might even look sexy. That’s a rare thought for me, honestly, and it must have something to do with feeling desired.

I turn on the shower, and admire how fluidly the water flows out. The steam starts to build in the bathroom, and I step underneath the perfectly regulated flow, letting the water drench me, washing away all the soot and grime from the fire this afternoon.

Suddenly, a thought hits me: my algorithm discovery from earlier this afternoon! I don’t know how I’ve forgotten about it. It’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me in all my years of learning programming. Only Ryan Hudson and his naked torso could drive those thoughts right out of my head.

Ryan

I take a shower myself, and wonder why I didn’t suggest showering together. I know she would have gone for it. I saw the way she was looking at me. But I want to take it slow with her. It’s going to be so much better when I finally sink my cock deep into her tight pussy.

She’s a virgin. She’s a virgin.

The water runs over me, and I soap up, letting the suds stay on my body for a moment.

My cock is fully erect, with soap suds gathering around it. The head is swollen far beyond its normal extent.

Just wait, I think to myself. Just wait.

As I towel off, the door bell rings.

“Yeah?” I say, hitting the intercom button in my bathroom.

A moment later, a video shows up on the intercom screen, showing me the delivery guy from Changasitos out front, who’s idly shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he holds the plain brown pizza box. I ordered an extra large with everything on it, which is the only kind of pizza to order from Changasitos, and frankly, the other pizza in San Francisco isn’t even worth eating in my opinion—it’s all foodie nonsense. Sure, that’s good sometimes, but not with pizza.

“Be right there,” I say into the intercom.

I throw on a pair of shorts and plain t-shirt from the bathroom closet where I keep most of my casual clothes and head downstairs.

“Thanks, man,” I say, opening the door quickly, taking the pizza, and handing the guy a hefty tip.

Before I can close the door, a van from Rapid-Cleaners shows up, with the emblem painted on the side, and I wave the man on over.

I tell him where to pick up the clothes, and he goes jogging up the stairs.

He’s back down in less than a minute, and racing away in his van.

“Pizza’s here,” I say into the intercom, pressing the button to let me speak directly into the bathroom where Lily is showering. She’s probably out of the shower now, completely naked, drying herself. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine what she must look like.

My cock stiffens in my pants.

“I’ll be right down,” she says. I guess she figured out how to use the intercom.

I’m in one of the living rooms, with the pizza box in front of me, my feet kicked up on a soft piece of furniture that serves as a sort of a coffee table.

It’s not like I designed the room myself. I had someone do it, of course. They asked me a bunch of questions about what I like and dislike in furniture, and at the time I didn’t have any idea whatsoever, so I just pointed to things in a catalogue. In the end, the decorator just used her best judgment, which was probably for the best.

Lily steps into the room, her hair wet and falling down around her. I didn’t realize just how long it really is. It looks beautiful wet.

She’s wearing a pair of my gym shorts, which are short on me, but somewhat long on her, covering about half of her thigh. I can still see the creamy, beautiful texture of her thigh, and as she moves, the shorts move along with her, revealing more of her leg.

She’s wearing a button down shirt. I left her a t-shirt, though.

“I found this in the closet,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind that I put it on. I thought it might be a little cold in here with the air conditioning on.”

I nod and grin at her. “Of course,” I say.

I don’t know what it is about seeing her in my clothes, but it’s hot. The button down shirt is quite long on her, but she doesn’t have it buttoned all the way up, and while I can’t see much of her cleavage, I can make out that she’s not wearing a bra.

My cock stiffens as she walks towards me.

Slow, I remind myself.

She sits down.

“Pizza! I’m starving.”

“You’re going to love this,” I say, opening the box and handing it to her.

She takes a bite daintily, eating just the tip of the triangular slice.

‘Wow,” she says out of the corner of her mouth as she chews.

I chuckle. “Best pizza in San Francisco,” I say. “And I’m willing to defend that.”

“You don’t need to,” she says.

I grab myself some, and a minute later, we’ve both devoured our first slice.

“I guess that fire took a lot out of us,” I say.

She nods. “So,” she says. “I remembered in the shower about what it was I figured out in Simmons’s paper… I think we can use it to reverse engineer his algorithm… and now I know why it’s been so hard to figure out what he’s doing, even though we have all the code…”

“Shhh…” I say, putting my finger to her lips.

“Don’t you want to hear about it?”

“Let’s just relax,” I say.

“But what’s more important than this? Your whole company is at stake.”

“You’re more important,” I say, looking her right in the eyes, speaking calmly.

She pauses for a moment, not saying anything.

She moves slightly, and I look down to see that her nipples are hard in her shirt.

My cock springs up, swelling completely. The ache is so strong, it’s painful.

Lily

There’s just something about him.

I can’t keep my eyes off him. I find my eyes moving along his arms to his shoulders, where his sleeve is bunched up a little, revealing more of his tattoos, more of his muscular shoulders and upper arms.

It’s now or never, I tell myself.

This is why you’re a virgin, I tell myself. You’re never admitting to yourself what you really feel. You never have before.

But now I am. I know what I feel. I know that the gym shorts I’m wearing are wet. I know I’m breathing differently. I know I can’t stop thinking about his cock, and what it would be like to taste it, to have it deep inside me.

He’s right. There are more important things that the algorithm.

I lean in towards him, and he leans towards me at exactly the same moment.

We don’t have to speak.

Our lips connect, and for a moment it’s gentle and sweet.

He’s a real man. My mind won’t let go of this thought. He’s a man, not the awkward gangly guys I’ve messed around with before.

Something clicks in my body, and my desire is suddenly unleashed. All it took was feeling his lips on mine.

Now I’m all over him, pressing my mouth forcefully onto his. Our tongues mash into each other. His breathing is hot and heavy. I press my hand onto his torso, pushing my palm against his hard muscles.

His hands are gripping me on my sides, pulling me towards him. We’re both on the couch, and there’s hardly any space between us. I can feel the heat from his body now that I’m near him.

I push my hand forcefully down along his torso until I reach his cock. It’s massive and rock hard. I don’t think he’s wearing underwear. Just these thin mesh gym shorts covering his massive manhood, which is raging hard… hard for me.

“I need you,” I say, breathless, pulling my mouth away from his for a moment.

He uses the opportunity to bite my neck very lightly, and now he kisses my earlobe.

I moan softly as he does so.

“You sure you’re ready?” he growls, pulling his head back to look at me.

His hands are still gripping my thighs. The gym shorts I’m wearing have ridden up along my thigh, exposing it. I’m incredibly conscious that I’m not wearing any panties, and there’s not much space between his cock and my pussy.

My clit is swollen and aching.

I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He looks at me and his eyes are filled with desire.

His mouth is back on mine, pressing savagely against me. Our teeth connect for a moment. His tongue pushes into my mouth viciously.

His hands are on my breasts, but he doesn’t bother going under my shirt.

My nipples are rock hard.

He rips the shirt off with two hands, grasping the edges and pulling like a savage. The buttons pop off and the shirt comes open. My breasts hang out and he pulls me further against him. My legs are splayed open in a crouching position. He repositions himself so that I’m straddling him and pulls me even closer.

I wrap my legs around his back and I feel his chest against my breasts and my stomach.

His hands are on my breasts, cupping them gently.

I can feel his breath against my neck, hot, heavy, ragged.

He pulls off his shirt and pushes my body towards him, trying to merge with his flesh.

Unconsciously, I’m grinding my pelvis against him. His cock pushes against me, right up against my swollen clit, and it already feels so good, even without him inside me. I’m rocking my body against him, riding my clit against his cock.

It reminds me of when I would sometimes masturbate by riding my pillow, face down on my bed. Only this is completely different…

“Let me show you something better,” he growls, and picks me up easily and places me down on the couch.

With a single motion, he pulls off my soaked gym shorts and tosses them aside.

Now I’m completely naked, with my wet hair in a mess around my head, which is pushed into the plush couch cushions. I’ve never been so vulnerable, but I love it.

He pushes his hand down between my legs, his other hand on my stomach.

I breathe in suddenly and sharply as his tongue does a broad stroke along my pussy, just barely touching my hot, swollen clit.

I moan as he keeps licking me. It’s so intimate.

It’s a good thing I shaved, I think to myself.

But that’s the last thought that enters my head as the pleasure overtakes me, running like a bubble through my body.

My body begins to shake slightly. This is so different from getting myself off. So much better.

So much more intense.

He’s concentrating on my clit now, using the tip of his tongue expertly, and I moan loudly without trying to. It just comes out of me, an extension of the intense pleasure I’m feeling.

“I’m going to… come…” I manage to say.

“Good,” he growls, pausing for just a moment.

His hands are now gripping my ass, between me and the couch cushions. He’s holding on tight, and I grip his head with my thighs, squeezing my legs tight around him.

The orgasm pulses through me.

I let out a cry as it hits me full on.

He doesn’t stop for a moment, continuing his magic with his tongue until I’ve reached my crescendo.

He reads my body. He doesn’t just know what he’s doing—he anticipates my response, as if he knows what each shiver and moan mean exactly.

“Your turn,” he growls at me, standing up.

He towers over me and looks down.

I feel miniscule in comparison to his massive, muscular figure.

I’m still feeling the after effects of the orgasm, and I’m breathing heavily, my breasts rising and falling.

He drops his shorts, kicking them aside as they slide easily down his thick, powerful legs.

He’s buck naked, his erect cock pointing up and out, like a spear.

I can’t keep my eyes off his cock. I zone in on it and I want it.

“Come here,” he growls.

As I move my head towards him, almost instinctually, he grips my head with both his powerful hands and pulls me towards his cock.

Not that I need it.

I couldn’t keep away from it if I wanted to.

I purse my lips as I take him in my mouth.

Oh fuck is this hot.

My clit is throbbing intensely.

I take him all the way in my mouth. His girth fills my mouth completely, and I long for it inside my pussy, filling me up in the same way.

I jam my head down along his cock, until it hits the back of my throat.

I gag slightly, but I fucking love it.

He pulls my head away but I want more; I want his cock jammed inside my mouth.

“You’re eager,” he growls. “That’s good, but I’m not coming yet. I need your pussy.”

I keep my eyes locked onto his as I throw myself back down on the couch, which is wide and deep. I can throw my legs out, spreading them widely while I’m on my back.

He lowers his massive body on top of mine, his cock falling right between my legs.

“Fuck me,” I say, practically breathless.

He just growls as his cock enters me. He doesn’t even use his hands. It just glides right in.

Holy fuck.

It hurts like nothing else.

But there’s pleasure too, more pleasure than I’ve ever felt.

“Does it hurt?” he says.

His cock is pushing its way into me, very, very slowly.

But its girth fills me and stretches me.

I nod my head. “Don’t stop!” I say frantically, thinking that he might because he doesn’t want to hurt me.

“Don’t worry,” he growls.

His cock is all the way in and now he’s moving it in and out with quicker strokes.

I’m groaning with the pleasure and the pain.

The pleasure takes over and the pain is mostly gone.

He’s riding me faster now, and gradually his strokes grow harder.

He’s grunting as he rides me.

I’m crying out as he’s fucking me harder and harder.

Suddenly, the release happens, and my second orgasm bursts through me. It’s more intense than the first, incredible.

My vision starts to go.

My body feels light and exhausted at the same time.

I’ve never felt anything like this.

I’m looking him right in the eyes and his powerful gaze is piercing me, concentrating on me and me alone as he continues to ram his thick cock into me.

Ryan grunts as he pulls out of me.

My small hand instinctively moves to his cock, but his hand is already on it, sliding up and down it, from the girthy base to the massive head. I let my hand fall around his own and move my arm back and forth with his.

A moment later, his cock erupts, and he comes, shooting his thick load onto my naked stomach.

Ryan

It’s afternoon, the next day. The sunlight is streaming into my kitchen, where I’ve just lunched on a steak and a huge pile of potatoes. I worked out this morning, going beyond my normal max, so I know I’ve got to carbo load and get in my protein if I want to keep the gains going.

Lily fell asleep right after we fucked, and I drove her back this morning, to a beat up old house that she shares with a thousand roommates or something. She was still sleepy in the car ride back. We kissed and I said we should meet up again today.

Meanwhile, my cock still grows instantly hard at the mere thought of her.

She was incredible.

Except for a certain innocence about her, I would have never guessed she was a virgin. She was drawn to me, doing everything instinctually, sinking her mouth around my cock, for instance.

It wasn’t exactly slow like I’d promised myself, but it was fucking hot.

But there’s business to take care of today. There are things to do. I can’t be thinking about a woman all day, no matter how fucking sexy she is, no matter how hard she still makes my cock, just thinking about her.

I make a few phone calls, making sure that the new office is ready. Sounds like everything is set up.

I don’t bother calling Johnny, the black hat hacker, since I’ve gotten everything I need from him.

I grab another laptop and load up the information I need: the Simmons algorithm along with the unpublished research paper that Johnny delivered.

Lily said she was onto something, and not to insult her intelligence, but I’ve been in this game for years, and if she can find it, then I can too.

But an hour later, and a couple cups of strong coffee later, I haven’t found anything that she was talking about. Maybe she was mistaken.

But maybe she’s right. Sometimes it takes another programmer with a different mentality to find something you can’t. I may be a good programmer, but I’m not block headed enough to think that I can see everything, or find every solution. Some people are, and that’s what gets them into trouble.

I don’t regret, however, fucking her, feeling her sweet pussy gripping my cock as I plunged into her.

My phone rings. It’s Sheila, the secretary who’s now working as the de facto office set up person.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Hudson,” she says, nervous.

“What’s up?”

“Well, I wanted to let you know that we’ve gotten the office set up. The crews were here in the morning and the cubicles and phones and computers and everything were delivered… everything’s fine.”

I check my watch, turning my wrist slightly.

“Sounds good.” I paid good money for everything to be set up as quickly as possible, so that business can go on as normal. I don’t see the point in waiting around while the business flounders—that’s money that could be coming in.

“The thing is, Mr. Hudson, is that there aren’t any sales.”

“Well…” I say, dumbfounded for a moment. “How often do you expect sales?”

I realize now I don’t have a good idea of how much we’re actually selling or at what frequency.

“Usually there are some calls, at least… But today, there’s absolutely nothing.”

“Maybe it’s just a problem with the phones,” I say. “Check everything. Get a couple good people to do some tests and make sure everyone has our correct contact information… Although that all should be the same.”

“OK, Mr. Hudson.”

I hang up the phone just in time for it to ring again.

This time it’s Marty.

I groan. I don’t need to talk to him right now. He’s just going to want to tell me about some women he fucked at the beach or something.

“Marty, what’s up?”

“We’ve got to talk, Ryan,” he says. “Can you meet me at Lugino’s for lunch?”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“This is important, Ryan.” His voice sounds anxious. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him like this before. There’s a rare urgency in his voice.

“I don’t have time to listen to you brag about your beach trip,” I say.

“We’ve got to talk about your business.”

“Since when do you want to talk about business? I thought this was just a hobby for you.”

“I’ll admit that… well, I do feel a certain responsibility when things are going… well, poorly.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Marty? Could my business really be doing that horribly that you’re suddenly concerned about your own reputation?”

“Basically,” says Marty.

Shit, then it must be really bad.

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” I say, hanging up the phone, not even waiting for a reply.

I drop what I’m doing and race over to the restaurant, one of these fancy lunch places that suits Marty’s taste. I doubt he knows of any other types of restaurants.

The waiter takes my order for a water and I pull out my phone to wait.

A few minutes later, Marty arrives. His suit is rumpled and his hair is messy and plastered down onto his forehead with sweat.

“What the hell happened to you?” I say.

“Don’t worry about that,” says Marty. “We’ve got a big problem.”

“An image problem or something? What? Did I run over some old lady and not even notice? You know, I paid her for the damages, plus a whole lot extra. She’s probably wheeling around in the Rolls Royce equivalent of a wheelchair.”

Marty makes a grimace instead of laughing. “No one’s buying your algorithm,” he says.

Something clicks… The phone call with Sheila earlier. She was saying there weren’t any calls coming through, but I figured it was just something to do with the office wiring or something.

“Yeah?”

“Seriously,” says Marty.

“But the Simmons algo isn’t even out yet. What are they using in the meantime?”

“That’s the thing,” says Marty. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard. His algorithm is already incorporated into a fully functioning enterprise system… it’s ready to go… boom, just like that.”

“What the fuck?”

I grab my phone again and hit the standard tech websites. They’re not saying anything about it, but that makes sense, since they tend to just focus on personal gadgetry. But I heard over to another site, one that focuses more on business tech…

…and there it is, staring me in the face.

I check this site almost every day, but somehow I must have missed it.

“Simmons’s Algorithm Packaged and Ready to Run,” reads the headline.

“Fuck,” I say. “How did they pull this off?”

“There’s something else,” says Marty, handing me his phone.

There’s an article with a picture of me at the top.

The headline reads, “Douchebag Billionaire Voted Douchiest in…”

I stop reading and hand the phone back to him.

“So?” I say.

“So?” says Marty. “This is huge. It’s not just this site. You’re everywhere. They’ve got all this dirt on you from over the years. Remember that time that you…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I get the idea. You don’t need to give me the whole history.”

“And that time that you fucked that waitress right on the table in the corner of the restaurant, right before the dinner rush…”

I wave away his words with my hand. That’s all ancient history at this point.

“This is a coordinated attack,” he says. “This is something they’ve been planning. They got all the articles out on the same day… And they’re all up to date and accurate.”

“It’s slander,” I say. “Let’s sue them.”

“It’s not slander if it’s true, and they’ve done their homework… honestly, I’m impressed… an incredible PR team.”

“Why do you care so much about this?” I say. “It’s just your own reputation, right? But when have you cared about that?”

“Uh,” says Marty, pulling at his necktie uncomfortably. It’s damp from his sweat. “I may be having a personal financial crisis.”

“Dad cut you off?”

“Something like that. I don’t want to get into details.”

“All I care about is whether you can get me out of this,” I say. “Or I’m finding someone new who can handle it properly.”

“Come on, man, we’re old friends.”

I just stare at him. “I need you to seriously do your fucking job,” I say, coldly.

“No problem,” says Marty, eager to agree with me. “I’m already on it. I even made a visit to the office…”

“You actually have an office?”

“Of course,” says Marty, trying to play it cool. But he knows too damn well that he’s been bragging to me about spending all his time at the beach with models.

“I need to work on the coding side of things. You’re going to have to handle this bullshit PR stuff. I need you to clean up my image so that my new product can destroy Simmons’s.”

“But do you have a new product?”

“Don’t worry about that,” I say.

Lily

“Oh my God!” says Hailey in an exaggerated voice. “You fucked him?”

“Shhh!” I say, looking around nervously.

We’re in a crowded coffee shop near our apartment.

“Don’t worry,” says Hailey, waving her hand dismissively. “Everyone here’s on their laptops.”

It’s true. Supposedly, coffee shops used to be a place to socialize. But here, in the modern world, everyone’s just on their laptops, with their headphones on.

“I think I even saw a guy over there watching porn,” says Hailey.

“Eww,” I say, making a face.

“Don’t give me that,” says Hailey. “Now you’re one of us. You’re one of the initiated. And you can obsess about sex all the time like the rest of us.”

“It’s not like that…” I start to say, but Hailey cuts me off.

“Oh,” says Hailey, her face falling. “It wasn’t any good? His cock wasn’t… you know?”

I have to laugh at this. I may be inexperienced, but Ryan’s cock was completely massive.

“It was…”

Hailey’s face is too funny, waiting expectedly for me to say it… She’s hanging on my every word.

“It was amazing,” I finally conclude, getting some enjoyment out of her face.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I say, lowering my voice. “It was… really incredible… I had no idea it could feel that way.”

“You did everything?”

“I think so,” I say.

Her face lights up in surprise.

“Oh,” I say, realizing she thinks I’m talking about anal or something. “Maybe not… everything, if you know what I mean… But it was everything for me… I’m no longer a virgin.”

I know Hailey likes to talk about sex a lot, and I’ll sometimes hear her talking about it with her other friends. I know she’s going kind of easy on me, knowing that I might not feel comfortable discussing exactly everything about the experience.

“Well, cheers,” says Hailey, raising her coffee mug.

We clink our mugs together and grin at each other.

“So now you’ve just got to find a decent guy,” says Hailey. “I don’t see you as the type for a bunch of flings… Then again, it might do you some good… embracing that side of yourself… until you get a little more experienced, and then you can go after exactly what it is you like…”

“Well,” I say. “About that…”

“About what?”

“Finding another guy…”

“Oh no!” says Hailey, her eyes almost popping open in worry. “You’re not falling for him, are you? Really? The douchebag billionaire?”

“Oh,” I say. “No…” But inside, I’m wondering if I’m not. After all… Well…

“I can see it in your eyes,” says Hailey. “It’s already happened. I should have warned you about this.”

“About what?”

“About falling for the first guy you sleep with. You know, when you’re a virgin, it just seems so wonderful, but trust me, there are better guys out there than the douchebag billionaire. Didn’t you see all those articles about him?”

“You mean that first one that you showed me?”

“Oh, you haven’t seen the new ones then,” says Hailey.

She pulls out her phone, taps away for a moment, and then hands the phone to me.

“And that’s just one of like ten,” she says.

I start reading, just to appease her. But I have to admit, I have some curiosity of my own. What do I really know about Ryan, after all? Not a whole lot.

I feel my eyes growing wide as I read. “Oh my God!” I say, after half a page. “Did he really do that?”

The article starts off describing how Ryan Hudson didn’t show up for an important press conference once, so they all started. There were about a dozen high class business guys there, as well as a ton of reporters, seated. About halfway through, noises started coming from behind a curtain, where Ryan’s presentation for the press was supposedly set up, in waiting. There were grunts and squeals and moans, and less than thirty seconds later, Ryan and a naked woman fell through the curtain… and continued fucking.

“Yup,” says Hailey.

I get through two of the articles before I’ve had enough. They describe Ryan’s various sexual exploits, which include more than a few instances of him having sex in public places. And a host of other things.

“I can’t read any more,” I say, handing the phone back to Hailey.

“I don’t think he’s exactly boyfriend material,” says Hailey, apologetic now. “But don’t worry, we’ll find you a nice guy. Just let me work my magic.”

My own phone rings.

“Hey,” I say as I pick up. I’m conscious of the fact that my voice becomes somewhat girlish and flirty. It is Ryan Hudson, after all, the man who made me feel things I’ve never felt before.

“Is it him?” mouths Hailey, motioning for me to hang up the phone.

“He’s my boss, remember?” I mouth back at her, but I’m not sure how good I am at mouthing, and I don’t know if she understands.

“We need to work on the algorithm today,” he says.

Oh shit!

I can’t believe I forgot that I still have a job to go to.

The trauma of the fire, and the huge event of losing my virginity to Ryan Hudson… it pushed everything out of my mind. Instead of heading into work, I agreed to meet Hailey for coffee.

“Are you at the office?” I say.

“Not yet,” he says. “I’ll meet you there, OK?”

“OK,” I say, not sure if I should tell him I’m not there.

My mind is going a thousand miles a minute as I imagine how I could beat Ryan to the new office. First of all, I don’t even know where it is yet. I’d have to use my phone to get there, and I’d have to take a taxi or an Uber. But Ryan has all those fast sports cars. There’s no way I could beat him there.

“You still there?” says Ryan.

“Actually,” I say. “This sounds really dumb, but I forgot to go to work…”

I have no idea how he’s going to react. I hold my breath. He still is my boss, after all.

“Whatever,” says Ryan. “Just meet me there.”

He hangs up and I put the phone down, confused. He didn’t mention last night, or talk to me any differently than before we had sex.

“You forgot to go to work?” says Hailey, starting to laugh.

“Hey,” I say. “A lot’s happened to me in the last 24 hours.”

“You’d better get going,” says Hailey. “Don’t want to keep the boss waiting.” She winks at me.

“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “Actually, he didn’t even mention last night…”

“… the douchebag billionaire,” says Hailey.

I grab my bag, which has my laptop in it, thankfully, and rush out the door after saying goodbye to Hailey.

I’m trying to hail a cab when I realize that I’m just dressed casually, not in my work clothes. I’m wearing a casual sort of spring dress with flower prints on it. The hemline is certainly higher than would be considered appropriate for an office, showing off a good bit of my thigh.

Oh well, they’re just going to have to deal with it.

Plus, I hope Ryan won’t mind. Maybe he’ll even think I look sexy.

I imagine him telling me I look hot today, and I imagine it sending a shiver down my spine as he looks me up and down, his eyes full of desire like last night.

I’d better not keep thinking about this, or I’m going to get the taxi seat soaking wet.

Ryan

“You’re finally here,” I say to Lily, who looks up at me with kissy eyes.

“Sorry,” she says.

“Don’t forget you still work for me,” I say coldly.

A few minutes later, we’re in the conference room, where Jerry and I have been waiting for her.

“OK,” I say, standing in front of Jerry and Lily, who are seated around the conference table with their laptops in front of them. “So we don’t need Johnny. We’ve had some set backs… the building burning down… but the Simmons algorithm is apparently already ready…”

“Basically we’re screwed,” says Jerry, in a rare display of negativity.

“Not necessarily,” I say. “As I always say, fuck them before they can fuck you. That’s gotten me far in this business.”

Why do we even need Jerry here? says a little voice in my head.

Trust me, though, we need him. An old hand like that—well, he might not come up with the newest or most innovative ideas, but he’s going to be perfect for things that Lily and I could easily miss.

Lily may be bright but she lacks the experience that Jerry has under that stretched belt of his.

Lily’s making eyes at me, but I ignore it.

I can’t let pleasure get in the way of business. That’s a rule that I haven’t always followed. But I’ve got to follow it now. I’ve got to fuck over Simmons before he can fuck over me and everything I’ve worked so hard to build.

“So, you found something yesterday, Lily?” I say.

I speak to her as if she’s just my regular employee, and she looks taken aback for a moment. She probably thinks that I’m doing it because Jerry is here, but that’s only a half truth. Even if I did just fuck her yesterday, taking that sweet virginity from her, she still is my employee. And she’s going to have to work hard for me, whether she wants to or not. She’s got to know that I’m the boss.

What I say goes.

“Uh…” says Lily. “Yeah, I was looking at the algorithm and I was thinking what I would do if I had been in Simmons’s shoes when he was writing the paper. There was basically only one path that he didn’t take, only one path that he didn’t describe.”

“You mean a reverse stack algorithm sorting subroutine?” says Jerry.

“So you actually did read the paper instead of just falling asleep,” I say.

He looks hurt, but he can take it.

Anyway, I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to fuck over Simmons by whatever means necessary. I’m going to take my company back.

“Yeah,” says Lily. “And…”

“But it would never work,” says Jerry. “That’s an antiquated method… the efficiency is terrible… All the other types of subroutines would run circles around it.”

“That’s what I thought at first, too,” says Lily. “But then I started thinking that actually with the rest of the algorithm it would work really well… if you look at the way the rest of the thing is set up, an old piece of code might actually be more efficient.”

What she’s saying actually makes sense.

Maybe she’s smarter than I had initially thought.

She’s wearing a cute little flower dress that shows a good bit of her thighs.

I’m not looking so much at her dress, though.

She’s wearing a pushup bra that makes her tits stand up perfectly, and I can see a bit of the side of one through her dress.

That’s not something she should be wearing to work.

People might get distracted. People meaning me.

My cock is stiffening in my pants. I can’t take my eyes off her, and now I’m not even listening to what she was saying.

I know I’ve got my rule not to let pleasure interfere with business. But fuck is she hot. Her body is calling to me.

And what’s the point of being the boss if you can’t break your own rules?

I snap out of my little day dream and notice she and Jerry are both staring at me. Apparently she’s finished talking, and they’re both waiting for me to say something, to give the orders, as it were.

“All right,” I say. “Get to work on that, Jerry. I’m going to be, uh… working on something else. I want you to run some simulations. Use my code and plug in this other subroutine and see what happens. I don’t expect it to be perfect but the benchmark scores will hopefully be good enough to blow Simmons’s out of the water…”

“That’s going to take hours, possibly days,” says Jerry. “I’m going to need some help with that.”

“Don’t forget who you work for,” I say. “Just do it.”

“OK, boss,” says Jerry, looking upset and frustrated.

“Lily,” I say. “Come with me. I have an important assignment for you.”

“Don’t you want me to help Jerry with the algorithm?”

That would make the most sense. But fuck, I have needs.

“No,” I say. “Come with me.”

I say it like the order that it is.

“Leave your laptop here.”

I can’t take my eyes off her smooth thighs. They’re just so fucking perfect.

She’s awakened the beast in me.

My cock is almost fully hard.

Not that I give a shit if anyone sees it.

“What do you need help with?” says Lily, as I close the door hard behind her.

“I need you,” I say. “I need your body. Go into the closet there and wait for me.”

“The closet?” says Lily, surprised.

I nod sternly.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I say.

She gives me a hesitant look.

“Just do it,” I say. “You’re going to like it. Trust me.”

She demurely heads into the closet, closing the door softly behind her.

With my cock fully hard now, threatening to burst through my suit pants, I head back into the conference room.

Jerry looks up, waiting for me to give him more orders.

I just head to my laptop case, where I have a pack of condoms stashed.

I grab the entire box, and Jerry sees it, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Special project,” I say, before heading back out the door.

I open the closet door in the hallway, step inside, and pull the door closed behind us.

The lights are on, but they’re not bright. Just little lights that softly illuminate Lily in front of me.

She looks hesitant, or a little confused.

But now she knows what I’m here for.

I push my body against her, pushing my hard cock against her lower stomach.

“I can’t wait,” I growl at her. “I need you.”

“I thought today was all business,” she says.

I shake my head.

“This is part of business,” I say.

“Last night was incredible,” she says.

“I know,” I say. “And that’s not all. Let me show you some more.”

“There’s more?”

Her eyes are wide with anticipation and a little fear.

“Don’t you want me to eat you out?” I say. “Don’t you want me to lick that tight little wet pussy again?”

She nods her head shyly.

The closet is cramped and there’s not much room for the two of us in here. It’s already getting hot from our body heat.

There’s nothing else here in the closet with us, since it’s a completely new office building, probably recently vacated, given the price I’m paying for it.

Her back is against the wall opposite the door, and I push her gently.

She lets out a moan as I do so, and my hands aren’t even on her. I’m just pressing my body against her soft, innocent body. Her breasts press perfectly into me. I look down and can see that her nipples are pointed and rock hard.

I’m sure she’s lusciously wet.

I can’t wait to taste her.

I get down on my knees and shove my head under her skirt. She pulls it up for a moment, holding it.

Her panties, a pink pair of plain ones, are completely soaked. That’s to be expected, though. Who doesn’t soak their panties for me?

With one hand, I yank them down. They fall down around her slender ankles, hanging over her shoes.

She’s naked and bare, her perfect pussy staring me straight in the face. Her clit is swollen and red.

I push my head further into her, licking her with broad strokes. She tastes perfect.

She moans hard now, and I wonder briefly if people in the office will be able to hear. Then I realize I couldn’t give a fuck. I just want her. I don’t care about anything else.

I just fucking need her.

My cock feels like it’s going to explode out of my pants. There’s just so much pressure.

I lick her clit, and she practically screams.

Only a minute later, her orgasm crashes through her, and her whole body shivers and shakes as I keep licking her swollen clit.

She moans loudly.

“Your turn,” I say.

I take her head in my hands, ready to guide her mouth to my cock.

With one hand on her head, I use my other hand to free my cock from my pants, letting my belt buckle clank and fall away. My pants down around my knees, my cock finally free, I suddenly think better of it.

“I need to be inside you,” I say.

“I want your cock,” she moans, her voice practically dripping with desire.

“Tell me you need it,” I growl.

“It’s true,” she moans. “I need your cock. I fucking need it. Just put it in.”

I put the swollen cock head up against her sweet pussy and massage it against her swollen clit.

She cries out.

“Fuck me!”

“Only if you really need it,” I say.

“I need it,” she cries, her voice loud and frantic.

A moment later, the condom’s on my cock, and I enter her.

Fuck, does she feel good.

Fuck, she’s tight.

“Yeah, baby,” I growl. “That feels good. Don’t you like it?”

“Yes!” she cries out frantically.

I’m fucking her, hard and powerful strokes, slowly.

With each thrust, my hips move up and into her, pushing her against the wall.

I’ve got my hands on her shoulders now, gripping down around behind them, holding onto her back.

I need more leverage, and I take her whole body and hold her up against me. She wraps her legs around me, keeping them locked around my back.

“Good girl,” I say, and I start to fuck her harder and faster.

Her back is still against the wall, but I can fuck her like crazy now. And that’s exactly what I do.

“Oh my God!” she cries out, as another orgasm pulses through her.

“Tell me you love it,” I growl.

But she can’t. She can’t even speak. She’s too overwhelmed with the orgasm that is smashing into her like a thirty foot tall wave.

My cock is pulsing like crazy.

“That’s good,” I growl.

I put her down, taking my cock out of her.

I can see her face drain as she realizes my cock isn’t in her.

She’s looking frantic, so eager for my cock that she’s ready to grab it and stuff it back into her.

But the orgasm distracts her.

I tear the condom off with a single motion, and grip my cock in one hand, hard.

She senses what I’m going to do, and she’s dying for my cock, so she gets down on her knees, kneeling before me.

I tower over her, my cock above her head.

She cranes her neck so that she’s looking up at my monster cock.

With my other hand, I reach down, bending my legs slightly, to shove two fingers inside her pussy.

She grunts as I do so, but her focus is on my cock.

She looks impossibly sexy in her dress, kneeling down, the look of eagerness impossible to miss on her face.

Her tongue makes contact with the thick bottom of my girthy cock. My fist is around the base, gripping tightly.

My cock explodes, the pleasure overwhelming me.

I let out a low growl as I shoot my hot load all over her. It feels so fucking good.

“You’re mine now,” I growl at her.

She nods her head as she stares up at me, her eyes wide, innocent and full of desire.

Lily

“See you in the conference room,” he says, heading out the door.

Wow, that was incredible.

I never thought sex could be like that. So fast, but yet so hot and intense, so carnal.

I try my best to straighten my hair and my dress, and do a little bit of cleanup with some wipes I have in my handbag, which thankfully, I thought to bring with me.

I also pick up Ryan’s condom and condom wrapper from the floor and stuff it into my handbag. I’m sure he wouldn’t care if someone found it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t.

Before I head back into the conference room, I need to clear my head, so I go into the ladies’ room, which is strangely empty. Oh, I remember, it’s a completely new office.

But still, there’s a couch here, and I sit down on it for a moment, after making sure I look OK in the mirror.

Hailey’s going to kill me.

She was worried I’m falling for the douchebag billionaire, and I think I am. Worse, I fucked him again.

But that’s the kind of stuff Hailey does all the time. She’s always complaining to me about a boy, and then she doesn’t come home the next night, and I find out later she’s slept with him again.

I’ve seen the guys that Hailey hooks up with—they’re nothing like Ryan. Ryan’s a man, with commanding muscles, presence, not to mention his cock…

I could dream about his cock for hours.

I never understood what all the fuss was about, honestly, when Hailey used to go on and on about a guy’s cock, keeping the descriptions supposedly “light” for me since I was still inexperienced… still a virgin.

But now I get it. I get it like nothing else I’ve ever gotten. It’s just this primal attraction, this primal need I have for Ryan’s massive, girthy cock, which always seems to be rock hard, always ready to penetrate me.

“I sort of slept with him again,” I write to Hailey in a text message. I’m not even sure why I’m writing it, since I probably already know how she’s going to respond with admonishments. But I just have to tell someone.

“Are you serious?” she writes back.

I pause for a moment, wondering what to write.

But while I do, another text message pops up. “So how was it?”

“Intense. Awesome.”

Maybe that sounds cheesy, but I just don’t have the vocabulary to describe what happened.

I put my phone away, check my hair and dress again in the mirror, and go back into the conference room.

Jerry raises an eyebrow as I enter, but doesn’t say anything.

“Finally decided to join us,” says Ryan, his voice cold. But his eyes still burn with lust for me.

Seriously? He’s going to talk to me like that after what we just did?

I don’t say anything. I don’t even know what to say, but my face burns with embarrassment.

At least he’s not the type to kiss and tell, or at least it doesn’t seem like it. I don’t even know if he has any friends. He’s simply too much for someone to handle in that sense. Could Jerry be his friend? Not in a thousand years. They might work well together, but Ryan’s always going to be the boss, no matter what the situation is.

“Jerry’s started on the simulations,” says Ryan. “The three of us are going to have to hunker down and bang this thing out today.”

“Today?” I say. “That’s going to take a week at minimum.” I may be a novice in the world of corporate programming, but even I know that much.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” says Jerry.

“I bet it took Simmons at least a month,” I say.

“The Sisyphus Algorithm is going to destroy the Simmons Algorithm, or the Zen Algorithm, or whatever the hell it’s called,” says Ryan simply. But his voice has power behind it. It’s unquestionable, and authoritative. “We’re going to do whatever it takes, even if it means staying here all night.”

There’s obviously no room for discussion or argument.

So the three of us hunker down over our laptops.

The only conversation we have is our brief comments about who should work on what.

I take a deep breath, trying to keep my mind focused on programming. It’s hard to concentrate. After all, a lot just happened. I should be furious with Ryan, after all, for the way he just talked to me. But I can’t even think about that. Soon, I’m breathing heavily, and it’s not because I’m upset, it’s because I’m turned on again, just thinking about what Ryan did to me in that closet. I need more.

Who would have guessed that the innocent twenty-one year old virgin would turn out to have such an insatiable appetite for the billionaire’s throbbing cock?

OK, I tell myself. Get your head in the game. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for a coder… to work on this Sisyphus Algorithm, to improve it…

I finally manage to focus on the code, with only occasional glances over at Ryan, who’s transfixed by his laptop, pounding away at the keys with rapidly moving fingers.

He’s not like any coder I’ve ever seen.

His body is massive, athletic, and he stands at least a head taller than anyone else in any room. His body screams power and control.

OK, programming, I tell myself, practically screaming the word in my head. Programming, programing, programming. I say this over and over again to myself, like a mantra.

It works.

I’m in the code now, doing things I never imagined I’d be doing.

I’m way over my head, way over my skill set.

This stuff is complicated. We’re doing stuff that researchers at top universities never dreamed could be done.

And it’s just the three of us.

Hey, I guess this is kind of like what I wanted, after all? This may be corporate, but it’s much more like a little group of hackers banging out some serious code.

My phone buzzes in my bag, and it’s another message from Hailey.

“Just be careful,” she says. She includes a link to another article about the famous douchebag billionaire.

I scan the headline. It says something about Ryan Hudson being arrested naked with a woman.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” comes Ryan’s deep voice.

“Oh,” I say. “Nothing. Just a text from my friend.”

He holds out his hand.

“As your boss, I should see what’s keeping you from your work.”

I sigh, and grow red in the face again.

“Whatever,” I say.

Jerry raises another eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. He just bows his head down and pours his fingers into his laptop again.

To my surprise, Ryan starts chuckling when he reads the headline.

“All true,” he says, handing the phone back to me. “They certainly did their homework, whatever PR company is behind this.”

“You…?”

Ryan nods. “Of course,” he says.

“… but not anymore?” I’m not sure how to phrase this question, and it comes out awkward and stilted.

I mean, sure, I know he’s been with a lot of women in the past… but… am I the only one, now?

“You’re already wondering if you’re the only one,” he says, his eyes twinkling, like he’s making fun of me.

I don’t say anything.

“I don’t need anyone else,” he says simply.

So he’s not seeing anyone else, but it’s not exactly like he’s committing to me.

Is the douchebag billionaire even capable of doing that?

I suddenly realize that our relationship is out in the open in front of Jerry, but he knows enough not to even look up. Whatever, I’m sure it was pretty obvious when the two of us disappeared to fuck in the closet in the hallway.

The hours go by, and my fingers start to feel weary from banging away at the keyboard. I’ve never learned how to type properly, letting my fingers drift over the keys the way some coders do. Instead, I tend to bang on the keyboard hard, making each press of the key really count.

“Time for food,” says Ryan, pulling out his phone, not even asking us if we’re hungry.

“My wife’s going to kill me if I eat another meal here,” says Jerry.

“You didn’t eat her cooking?”

“That’s the problem,” says Jerry, patting his stomach. “I ate two dinners instead of one.”

Ryan ignores him and makes the call anyway.

He starts speaking in Spanish, and Jerry looks confused for a moment.

“The best pizza in San Francisco,” I whisper to him, talking under Ryan’s loud and slangy Spanish.

I was pretty good at Spanish in high school, but Ryan’s talking like a native, with plenty of slangy curse words thrown in for good measure.

“A little reminder of last night,” says Ryan, smirking at me, as he hangs up the phone.

Jerry doesn’t comment, except to say, “pizza sounds good.”

The pizza arrives, and Ryan again tips generously, almost frivolously.

“Now we’re acting like real programmers,” says Jerry, his mouth full of pizza, as he cracks open another energy drink. “This time I’m not telling my wife.”

“I don’t think you’ll be seeing her tonight,” says Ryan. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Sure enough, when I went to go buy the energy drinks from the vending machine, which was apparently recently installed, since it still had warning stickers all over it, the rest of the office had all gone home for the night, and the lights were already off.

Jerry knows enough not to argue. His now-greasy pizza fingers just start tapping away at the keys again.

“I think we’re really onto something,” I say. “I mean, I can’t even compile my part yet…”

“We’ve got a lot to do,” says Ryan. “But show me what you have already.”

He takes my laptop from me before I can push it across the table to him.

He moves his swivel chair over towards me, so that he doesn’t have to rearrange where his own laptop is. In this new position, he presses his thigh quite obviously against mine.

My pulse starts to grow rapid. Just at the slightest touch of his body, I quiver…

“Hmm,” says Ryan, looking over my code. “Not bad… Not bad…”

“What’s wrong with it?” I say, immediately growing a little defensive.

“It might work,” is all Ryan says.

Damn, he’s harsh.

By the time midnight rolls around, we think we’ve made some serious progress.

But it’s tough going, and it’s hard to know what we’ve actually managed to do.

Basically, all this work requires hours and hours of coding on the mere hope that my idea could work. But we won’t have any idea if it works until we can compile the program and actually run it. And we can’t compile it or run it the way it is. It’s essentially nothing more than a bunch of little scattered pieces. We’ve taken apart Ryan’s original Sisyphus algorithm, and we’re trying to patch it with little pieces, the way you would add beer cans to a muffler. The code is kind of messy, but hopefully it’s going to work.

“I’m sorry guys,” says Jerry, standing up, as his phone rings for the fifth time tonight. “But I really have to get going.”

“Do what you got to do,” says Ryan, apparently disinterested now.

“All right,” says Jerry. “Goodnight, guys.”

“Goodnight, Jerry,” I say.

Ryan doesn’t say anything. He’s transfixed by his laptop.

I check the time on my cell phone.

I turned it on silent the last time I put it away, and there’s another message from Hailey.

“Where the hell are you?” she wrote. “Another night with the douchebag billionaire? Or just working late? Come home and tell me your latest adventure. You’re getting more action than me.”

I’m too tired to even write back, and I vaguely realize that this means I’m too tired to write code properly.

A minute later, I suddenly wake up with a jerk. I fell asleep without realizing it.

“What happened?” I say.

“You fell asleep,” says Ryan. “You’re too tired to code any longer. Go home.”

Where’s the sweetness in his voice that I imagined we’d share together? Where are the little inside jokes and where’s the flirtiness?

Am I just another one of his women, just another notch on the bedpost? He’s going to take what he wants from me and discard me like all the rest?

I suppose that’s what I wanted, in a way, since I just wanted some hot guy to take my virginity so I could move on. But now that I’ve had sex with him, I realize I want something more. I know there’s something else hiding inside his hard shell… I just don’t know how to get to it.

“Could we talk?” I suggest in my softest voice.

“Talk? About what?” He barely looks up from his computer as he speaks to me.

“Never mind,” I say, realizing that he’s not going to be present with me no matter what. He’s completely focused on his code, on his business. I’m just something secondary to him… It shouldn’t have taken me this long to realize this.

“I’m going home,” I say.

“Be here early tomorrow,” is all he says, still not looking up.

What a prick, I think to myself, as I gather up my things and head out the door.

But he’s fucking hot… The sex we had today was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Like, seriously, it was that good.

At least we made some progress on the code, I think to myself.

But then I realize that all the credit is going to go to the douchebag billionaire. I’m just another employee to him… sure, one he likes to fuck and finds hot, but still… just another programmer.

My mind’s in turmoil as I enter the parking lot.

But… was I really expecting some kind of emotional commitment from the douchebag billionaire?

Maybe not, but at least I was expecting something.

I get that he gets absorbed in his work, but this is simply too much.

Fuck! I just realized it’s past midnight, and the buses aren’t going to be running.

I don’t even know what the bus lines are like out here.

I check my phone quickly, trying to figure it out… after all, maybe there’s a bus that runs late or something to this area.

But I can’t for the life of me figure out the San Francisco transit page. The organization doesn’t make any sense. Now I remember that it took me almost a week of planning to figure out how to get to the old office, and it still wasn’t convenient.

There’s a PDF file that I can’t download.

Well, now I can download it, but my phone won’t open it, and there’s probably no wi-fi out here for my laptop to pick up.

Here I am, supposedly a programmer, and I can’t figure out this simple tech thing.

I’m so overwhelmed, I almost feel like I’m going to cry, but I fight back the tears with all my force. If Ryan comes out here, I’m not going to let him see me crying.

The logical thing to do would be to go back inside and ask Ryan for a ride, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that.

The more I think about it, the more it bothers me that he just basically ignored me after that hot session in the closet. I mean, who does that?

The answer is as clear as day: the douchebag billionaire, that’s who.

Even though I don’t have a ton of money in the bank right now, since I’m still waiting for my first check, I break down and order an Uber.

My eyes are starting to well up with tears of exhaustion by the time the car arrives.

Ryan

It’s not like I’m clueless. You can’t do well in this business, after all, unless you’re highly perceptive. It’s not enough to just write a killer program. You have to be able to read people, and you have to take charge.

I know Lily’s upset, but she just doesn’t understand that this business means everything to me. It’s not just my money that’s at stake, it’s my reputation.

She should understand that.

You can’t know me without understanding that about me.

Honestly, it makes me a little angry.

And it’s not like I can go chase her down tonight, running out to the parking lot. After all, there’s code that has to be written, and she and Jerry are going to be at home sleeping while I’ll be doing all the real work.

It’s far too late in the project to call in some hired help. I’ve got plenty of good programmers for hire in my contacts list, guys who are essentially on call, and who can bang out damn good code in a short period of time. But they’re not familiar at all with what we’re doing here. I’d have to explain the whole thing to them, starting from Lily’s original hypothesis, and the three of us have come so far since then in our theory that it would take hours to explain everything to them.

I crack open another energy drink and keep my eyes on the code. I’ve got to keep my head clear.

But my cock twitches as my thoughts go back to Lily…

The night goes on, and I try not to think about her.

It’s not like she’s running away, right?

The coding is getting tricky, and now I have to incorporate Jerry and Lily’s code into mine.

Three o’clock rolls around and I hardly notice it. Four o’clock hits, and I feel a little tired, but not by too much.

I’m totally absorbed in the code.

I’m so close, but there’s something missing… The programming is getting more and more tedious now. The innovation already happened, and I just have to do the brick laying to get things up and running.

But I’m so damn close.

A light flashes in my peripheral vision. I look up for the first time in hours, my vision fuzzy from staring at the computer screen for so long, and I see that a janitor has arrived to start the morning cleaning before the workers come in.

“Hey,” he says gruffly, dragging a vacuum unenthusiastically behind him.

I nod at him and go back to coding.

About an hour later, the workers start to show up. I don’t know most of them, but I recognize Sheila.

Jerry arrives looking sleepy, and I nod at him. He sits there waiting for me to tell him what to do, since by now he’s hours behind on the project.

But there’s really not much for him to do. I’m so close to running the program, so close to hitting “compile.”

“Anything I can help with?” says Jerry, taking a sip from his coffee mug.

“Is Lily here yet?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

I go back to typing away.

“I’m hitting compile,” I suddenly say.

Jerry gets up excitedly and comes to stand behind me, anxious to see if the thing runs.

It compiles.

No errors.

“Nice,” says Jerry.

“Now we just have to feed it some data and see how the benchmark scores are.”

“I’m sure it’s going to do well,” says Jerry.

“It better,” I say.

Another hour goes by as Jerry helps me set up a test run. We’re using the same benchmark system that Simmons used. This will tell us whether my new updated algorithm is worse, as good, or better than the Simmons algorithm.

There’s still no sign of Lily, but I shrug it off.

“OK,” says Jerry. “Looks like we’re ready.”

We’ve got the program running on a remote server that I rent by the year. It’s a powerful set of computers that can really crunch data.

The algorithm isn’t something that can run well on a laptop, which is very underpowered.

“It’s running,” says Jerry, monitoring the process from his laptop.

I’m staring at my screen. My mental fingers are crossed.

I’m holding my breath.

My mind briefly flashes to Lily, and my cock stiffens again.

Even though I’m on no sleep, I’d fuck her hard and fast if she was here right now.

But she’s not.

I wonder what happened to her? She’s not one to miss running the algorithm for the first time. After all, it was her idea that led to this new development. I’m sure she’s anxious to see how well it works, since she seems to be so into programming.

“Shit,” says Jerry.

My attention snaps back to my computer screen.

The test isn’t over, but the preliminary benchmark scores are already coming in, and they’re not good.

They’re a little faster than my old algorithm, but they’re nothing compared to what Simmons has accomplished.

“Fuck,” I say.

“Maybe there’s just something that needs tweaking,” says Jerry meekly.

I shake my head. “I set up everything perfectly,” I say. “Fuck it, I’m going home.”

I leave Jerry looking worried and confused. But he doesn’t have nearly as much at stake on this as I do. After all, it’s my algorithm.

So this means that Simmons’s algorithm is still faster than mine, and everyone’s going to buy his. His will be the new enterprise business standard.

On the way home, my eyes are bleary, but I’m fine to drive.

Grabbing my phone, I give Lily a call, but she doesn’t pick up.

I don’t leave a voicemail.

Instead, I head home, but it’s always been hard for me to sleep when the sun’s up. I feel like I’m not being productive.

So instead of heading right to bed, I decide to do a lifting session.

My muscles ache with fatigue as I arrange the weights, getting ready. I do it still wearing my business clothes, so it’s time for me to change.

I switch quickly into a pair of gym shorts. I don’t bother putting on a shirt.

It’s not until I’m already wearing them that I smell it. More like I smell her.

These are the shorts I lent Lily, the first night that we fucked. I can smell her delicious scent coming up from my own shorts. It sends my cock rocketing out, swelling with blood.

I’ve got to push on through, though. I’ve got to do something strong.

I lay down on the bench press bench, arranging myself so that the bar is right above my eyes, right where it should be. I grip my hands around the cold textured steel and push, lifting the weight off the rack where it rests.

Fuck, I can’t believe the Simmons’s algorithm is better than mine.

But it just can’t be true. There’s just no fucking way. I know I’m better at algorithms than just about anyone. I’m a better coder.

There’s got to be some trick to this.

There’s got to be something strange going on.

Could Simmons possibly be manipulating his benchmark speed scores?

The weight feels heavier than usual because I’m on no sleep, and it threatens to crash down on my chest for a moment, but I push through it, using all my strength to do ten reps.

When I slam the bar back on the stand, panting from exertion, my cock is still hard and sticking straight up, making a tent in my gym shorts. My cock is straining against the thin fabric, the very spot where her sweet pussy was.

I can’t concentrate on lifting with images of her flashing in my mind… her breasts, her perfect curves, the feeling of her pressed against my soft body.

I pull my cock out of my shorts, letting the elastic waist band fall down to the thick base of my cock.

Gripping my cock in my fist, I slide my hand up and down my shaft.

I concentrate on what Lily looked like when I was entering her, making her face contort in ecstasy.

Lily

“But that’s crazy,” says Hailey. “You can’t just quit your job like that.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” I say.

My eyes feel tired and strained. It’s been a long day of self-debate and self-criticism, a ton of emotional confusion.

“Welcome to the world of the non-virgins,” says Hailey, sighing. “Sex just makes everything so much more complicated, doesn’t it?”

I nod my head.

She’s right. She’s totally right. Maybe I never should have had sex with Ryan. I’d be better off, in a way.

But then again, if I could go back and do it all over again, I’d do exactly the same thing. It was just too hot to pass up, even if I could time travel like in one of those silly movies.

I’ve spent the entire day debating about whether or not I should go in to work.

I ended up debating the whole day and not going at all. That’s why I’m sitting here with Hailey now. She’s got the day off from her job, which is good because she’s really starting to hate it with a passion. These last few days, a series of horrible things have happened to her at work. One customer even threw a bowl of cold soup in her face, while yelling at her about the temperature—“If it’s not hot enough to burn your face, it’s not hot enough to drink.” What a freak. I mean, who does that?

But also, who just stops going to work? I basically just started the job, and it’s not my dream job… but it’s becoming my dream job. I’m working on exciting new programming projects, and I’m just dying to know if my idea worked and was as good or better than the Simmons algorithm.

We’re sitting on a bench at a park near our house. There are sounds of children playing from far away, but they’re out of our field of vision.

An old man is sitting on the bench opposite us, and he keeps drifting in and out of sleep. There’s even drool hanging out of his mouth, getting tangled up in his long white beard. Even in his sleep, he’s still clutching a cup that says, “Hungry. Please help.”

I get up and put a five dollar bill in it. He doesn’t wake up.

“Why’d you do that?” hisses Hailey at me.

I shrug. “Feeling guilty, I guess.”

“Guilty? Lily, come on. What are you going to do? You don’t have time to feel guilty, and I don’t even understand that…”

“I got what I wanted,” I say. “I had the interesting job… the cool programming project, the super hot billionaire who loved fucking me…”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” says Hailey.

She says that, but she’s also been admonishing me about my decision. So that’s not a huge help.

“But what am I going to do?” I say. I’m completely overwhelmed, completely confused. My pulse feels much faster than it normally is, which I don’t think is a good sign.

“You can’t keep fucking him,” says Hailey. “I know this isn’t much help. But did you really think the douchebag billionaire was going to be emotionally available? After all the stories that I sent you? After everything you had heard about him?”

I shrug. “I just didn’t think he’d be so cold… and right after sex, too.”

“Some guys are just douchebags,” says Hailey.

“I know, I know,” I say.

“Listen,” says Hailey. “You don’t have to fuck him to work there… He didn’t even know you were his employee. Why don’t you just go back to work? Make up some excuse about how your dog was sick or something… or better yet, use me as an excuse. Tell them they can phone me and I’ll tell them I had to go to the hospital for appendicitis or something good like that…”

“I can’t just show back up,” I say.

“Sure you can. Or tell them you went to the old office or something. Just play up the airhead thing…”

I shrug. “Maybe it would work. But I just can’t work with him. I just can’t do it. Not after the way he was ignoring me. I can’t be anywhere near him.”

“So what are you going to do for work?”

“Maybe I’ll go back home and work at the furniture store.”

“You can’t do that,” says Hailey, her eyes widening. “You just can’t.”

I shrug. I’m feeling despondent and apathetic. “It’d be easy,” I say. “Trust me, I know all there is to know about furniture. I grew up with it.”

“But this is your dream,” says Hailey. “You’re a good programmer. I mean, you were the one who came up with the idea on how to imitate this other algo thingy that you’re talking about.”

“I don’t even know if it works.”

My phone beeps at me.

“This better not be Ryan calling me again.” I’ve lost interest in fiddling with the phone settings because of my depression, and for right now the text messages and calls make exactly the same sounds.

“Just pick up and tell him it’s over between you two, but you’re still going to work…”

“I’m not going back there,” I say. “I’m just not”

“Just pick it up!”

I finally grab my phone, and realize upon looking at the screen that it’s a text message rather than a phone call.

“It didn’t work,” says the text message. It’s from Ryan, of course.

“Shit,” I say.

“What is it?”

“The algorithm didn’t work.”

Hailey shrugs. “What does that mean?”

“It means Ryan’s company is screwed. No one’s going to buy something that’s not as good as the new one, which is like a thousand times better.”

“Well screw him,” says Hailey. “He’s a douchebag, remember? Remember the way he treated you?”

“Yeah… but I thought my idea would work.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re a bad programmer,” says Hailey.

“I think it does,” I say. “I hardly have any experience, and the one thing I tried on a real project didn’t work at all.”

“Doesn’t beat Simmons’s algo,” says another text message that comes from Ryan.

“He’s not even asking about me,” I say. “Why I’m not at work.”

“This algo thingy is just way more important to him,” says Hailey. “Don’t take it personally… You’re hot, trust me. You’ll find someone new in no time.”

She actually starts turning her head to look around, as if she’s trying to find someone for me.

I laugh at this.

“What?” says Hailey.

“You’re not going to find anyone for me at the park…”

“Well then, I just might find someone for myself. Hey, why don’t we find a pair of hot guys and just flirt like crazy with them. They’re bound to want to get some action. You know how guys are.”

“I don’t think I do,” I say sadly. “But I’m starting to realize…”

“You just need some more cock,” says Hailey. “You just need to see that this Ryan guy isn’t the best guy ever.”

But he is. That’s the thing. I’ve never even seen anyone as hot as he is, not in magazines, TV, or the movies. And even without experience, I know that no one’s going to fuck me like he can.

“Come on,” says Hailey, standing up and tugging on my arm.

“I’m not in the mood,” I say.

Hailey sighs and sits down again on the bench.

“What am I going to do with you?” she says.

My phone beeps again. Another text from Ryan.

“Where are you?” he writes.

I pause for a moment, hesitating.

“Either don’t write him, or tell him to fuck off,” says Hailey.

But part of me longs for him still… I don’t think I can just do it like that. I’m not like Hailey. And Hailey’s never been with anyone like Ryan Hudson. Not that there is anyone like him.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I say, pointing to a little structure that houses the park bathrooms.

“Don’t write him anything stupid,” Hailey calls out after me as I walk towards it.

In the bathroom, I stand there, locking the door behind me with a deadbolt that slides roughly. The toilet is disgusting and I’m certainly not going to sit on it, let alone stand anywhere near it, so I stay by the door where the sink is.

“I’m quitting,” I write back to Ryan, in a sudden flurry of my fingers.

“OK,” says his text message. “Meet me at my place. I need your pussy.”

Despite my feelings for him, it makes me blush.

But what fucking nerve!

Who the hell writes something like that?

“You don’t even care why I’m quitting?” I write back quickly. Too quickly. I let my emotions take over without thinking clearly about what I’m writing.

I’m starting to sweat from anxiety, even though it’s not hot today, just a comfortable cool that now feels chilly to me. The bathroom is horribly drafty and the smell is starting to get to me.

“I figure you’ve got your reasons,” writes Ryan. “Are you coming over or not?”

“And if I don’t? You’re just going to call someone else?”

There’s no text for a long moment.

I take the opportunity to write back.

“If you don’t even care about me, then forget it,” I write. “We’re over.”

Fuck him.

He doesn’t give a shit about me.

My face is flushing with anger as I jam open the deadbolt, pulling the door with too much force, causing it to slam into the bathroom wall.

I stomp back across the park to Hailey.

“What happened?” she says, upon seeing my face.

“I told him it’s over,” I say. “I just can’t do it. There’s just no way… a guy like that…”

Ryan

My cock is hard even as I get the last text from her. I wasn’t expecting this.

What woman doesn’t want me? What woman is going to pass up the opportunity to come over to my house and fuck me, riding my cock until she comes spectacularly?

Famous models and celebrities wouldn’t pass up the opportunity. And now this little post-virgin novice coder thinks she can deny me?

It makes me angry.

But it only lasts for a moment.

I suddenly realize she’s not like the others. She’s nothing like the others.

And I fucking need her.

My cock is still raging hard at the thought of fucking her as I slam my car door.

I’m going to show her that I need her. I’m going to show her that she wants me. I know she does.

Grabbing my cell phone, I pull up an app that’s under development. It’s one of Johnny’s little hacking projects, and I doubt it’s ever going to be legally available to the general public. What it does is trace the location of the person you’ve been texting with. Not exactly legal, but what do I care right now? I need to see her, no matter what I have to do.

She’s at Buena Vista Park, which is near another park called the Panhandle, which is shaped like a long, thin cock.

Peeling out onto the street, I shift gears and jam my foot onto the accelerator.

The engine’s revs go wild, shooting up into the red zone.

I don’t care if I burn the car’s engine, or have to outrun a dozen cop cars, I’m going to get to her.

Blasting through a red light, I completely floor it. For a car this powerful, that’s really saying something.

My cock is still raging hard in my pants, and I can’t get the image of her pussy out of my mind.

I pull up to the park only a few minutes later. I don’t bother parking the car properly. Instead, I just pull up onto the curb and leave the car there, half on the grass and half on the street. It’s not great for the car, but who the fuck cares? I’ve got a ton of them.

The semi-legal app from Johnny doesn’t give very specific information, so I just start running through the park, turning my head to look for her.

That’s her!

I spot her, sitting sadly and forlornly on a park bench.

There’s a homeless guy on the opposite bench, who looks like he’s fallen asleep.

Lily’s wearing just a sweatshirt and tight athletic pants, but she looks as hot as ever. Her hair is done up, showing off her face, the way her neck runs up…

She’s sitting next to someone about her age. Maybe it’s her friend who was at the bar with her, that night that I picked her up? I’m not sure.

“Lily,” I say, running up to her.

This has got to be a new record for me—the douchebag billionaire never runs after chicks. Never.

“Hi,” she says, barely looking at me.

Her friend doesn’t say anything, but she can’t stop staring at me. She’s looking at me with her mouth open. I guess she didn’t get a good look at me at the bar the other night, and now she’s impressed. But I’ve got no interest in her, or anyone else, for that matter.

“Come with me,” I say to Lily.

“Why?” she says, not meeting my gaze. “I told you, it’s over. I’m not going to be your fuck toy any longer.”

Her friend leans over and whispers something in Lily’s ear.

“No!” says Lily, speaking at full volume. “I’m not reconsidering, no matter how hot he is!”

She suddenly realizes I can hear her—it happens sometimes when people are very emotional.

They both blush.

I don’t give a shit, though.

Hell, I know they think I’m hot.

“Come with me,” I say.

“I’ll be right back,” says the friend. “Sounds like you two have some things you need to talk about.”

“Don’t go,” says Lily.

“I’m just going to take a walk.” And she mouths very obviously, “He’s hot!” at Lily.

The friend walks away.

“Why do you want me to come with you?” says Lily.

“I need to feel your tight pussy again,” I say. “I need to sink my cock deep inside you. I can show you more pleasure than you can imagine. We haven’t even gotten started.”

I can see that this has a physical effect on her, but…

“Is that all you care about?” says Lily. “What about how you didn’t even speak to me after you fucked me in the closet? How about that?”

“What’s there to talk about?” I say.

“Typical,” says Lily, crossing her arms. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about. You really are the douchebag billionaire.”

“Fine,” I say, growing angry. “I’m leaving… You know, maybe I am the douchebag billionaire. But at least I know what I want, and I admit it. I know you know you want me. You just don’t admit it to yourself.”

I turn and start walking away. It’s not like I’m going to stay and beg her.

I just don’t do that.

She either comes with me or she doesn’t.

“By the way,” says Lily. “I’m quitting, boss.” She says the last word with scorn.

But I don’t turn around.

I head back to my car, which has been towed.

There’s a big torn up spot on the grass where I left it parked. There’s a ticket from the city taped to a nearby sign, which gives me the number to call if I want to pick up the car, paying a hefty fine, of course.

Whatever, I don’t even need that car. I doubt I’ll bother going through the lengthy headache of getting it back. If the mood strikes me, maybe I’ll pay someone to do it for me.

I’m reaching into my pocket for my phone, about to call an Uber, when my phone rings.

It’s Johnny.

“Didn’t expect to hear from you, Johnny,” I say. “You ran off as soon as things got a little ugly. It was just a little fire. You sure scare easy.”

“I’ve got to be careful when any authority figures are bound to show up,” says Johnny. “Sorry, Ryan.”

I don’t say anything.

“Listen,” says Johnny. “I’ve got some information that might interest you. We can’t talk about it over the phone.”

“Of course,” I say. “Always the same old Johnny.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at… uh… Buena Vista Park, you know, the one by Haight Ashbury.”

“The one that’s shaped like a giant cock?”

“No, the other one.”

“I’m nearby. I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t be late. I’m not going to wait around for you,” I say.

“I’ll be right there, Ryan,” says Johnny. “But…”

I hang up the phone before he can keep speaking. He’s testing my patience with all this secretive stuff. The last thing he brought me wasn’t any good… I doubt this one is going to be either.

But there’s not a whole lot else to go on.

The Simmons Algo is going to overtake mine.

The Sisyphus Algorithm will be no more.

I’ve lost it.

And I’ve lost her.

A sporty black car catches my attention by skidding around the corner.

It’s lowered, the bottom almost scraping the pavement, and smoke billows out of one of the windows. The windows are tinted, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s Johnny.

I get in.

“I didn’t even know you could drive,” I say, waving the smoke out of my face. It actually turns out to be vapor.

Johnny’s got one of those fancy vaporizers, and judging from the smell, it’s weed rather than tobacco that he’s vaping.

“Can’t you cut that shit out?” I say, gesturing to the vaporizer.

“Sorry,” he says, putting it down. “It helps me think.”

I let out a little rumble of a laugh, expressing my skepticism.

“I don’t know how well you’ve been thinking lately,” I say. “You didn’t do me much good with that Simmons report. I know I’ve got good enough security that you’re not tapped into my systems, so here it is… Lily, uh, one of my employees, came up with a solution based on what Simmons might have done, and it didn’t work. And I just can’t see any other options, any other way that he might have done things.”

Johnny turns the car hard.

“Do you always drive this badly?” I say. “Or just when you’re high?”

Johnny just shrugs and lights a cigarette.

“Sorry,” he says. “Hey, you having woman problems by any chance?”

“What the hell does that mean?” I say.

“I dunno,” he says. “You don’t seem like the type to get all tied up in knots over a chick, but… there was something going between you and that programmer chick, wasn’t there? You know, the smoking hot one?”

I don’t answer him. “Tell me what you’ve got,” I say. “Your driving sucks. Either drop me off at my house or tell me what’s going on. I don’t think I can take much more of this. What kind of junker is this that you’re driving, anyway?”

“Custom job,” says Johnny. “Got it in a trade for some information.”

“Remember,” I say. “You still owe me big time. Your debt’s not paid off. I got you off the…”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Johnny. “Listen, you helped me out big time, and that’s why I’m going to give you a little piece of gold.”

“This had better be good.”

We pull up to a stop light. The San Francisco sun looks weak through Johnny’s obviously illegally tinted windows.

“I can barely see what’s going on outside this rust heap of yours,” I say.

“Hey,” says Johnny, finally sounding offended. “This ain’t no rust heap.”

“Let me give you a piece of advice,” I say. “Start dressing better, and get yourself a decent car. I know you’ve got the money. Or at least you should have some.”

“What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

“All black? Come on? You want to be a hacker cliché or something?”

Johnny pouts for a moment.

“Come on,” I say. “Tell me what this so-called golden news is.”

“OK,” says Johnny, looking around shiftily as if someone else is bound to pop up from behind the back seat or something. “I’ve got good reason to believe Simmons faked the benchmark tests.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. If this is true, it’s big news. It would mean that my Sisyphus Algorithm is still the best, that no one can beat it.

“Supposing that were true,” I say. “How would he fake it in the published tests? I mean, it’s one thing to fake it on his own servers… but those tests were run by that tech magazine, whatever it’s called…”

“Trust me,” says Johnny. “It’s probably true.”

“Doesn’t sound that convincing,” I say. “Maybe you’re just telling me what I want to hear. The more I interact with you, Johnny, the less I trust you.”

“See for yourself,” says Johnny, reaching into one of his filthy pockets and handing me a small USB drive.

Lily

Everything is just so damn fucked…

I can’t get out of this funk.

Days have gone by, and I’ve officially given my notification, or whatever you want to call it to Ryan, so no matter what Hailey tries to tell me I can’t go back to the office.

I still can’t get over how she reacted when he showed up in the park. I guess seeing him again in person was just too much for her or something. She wanted me to go after him even after he had walked away. She was just standing around the corner, and she rushed back, telling me he was too hot to give up, and that I’d never find another guy that hot in a thousand years. Yeah, real helpful.

And now I’ve got no job whatsoever, and I haven’t talked to my parents in a month.

I’m sure they’d welcome me back to the East Coast, and I’d have a secure place in the family furniture store business.

Look, I don’t have anything against furniture per se.

It’s just not what I want to be doing.

But I can’t seem to even get myself to apply for any more jobs. It’s not like there aren’t a zillion highly qualified programmers already in San Fran, ready to take any job that I would apply for… programmers with much more experience than me. What can I put on my resume now? That I couldn’t hack it as Ryan’s company? That I’ve had one good programming idea (which was just how to copy another programmer) and it didn’t even work?

I can’t stop thinking about Ryan.

No matter what I try to do, I just can’t stop it.

I keep thinking about the two times we had sex… It was so incredible, and it’s never going to happen again. Not if I can help it.

I may be insanely drawn to his body, his rippling muscles, his huge, girthy cock, but I just can’t get over what a dick he is.

I mean, sure, there’s also that commanding presence he has… that doesn’t help strengthen my resolution to stay as far away from him as possible.

He hasn’t even tried calling. He hasn’t contacted me at all, and I haven’t sent so much as a single text message his way, no matter what Hailey tries to tell me. It’s still amazing how much she can flip flop, which is even more disheartening, given that she’s my best friend in the whole world.

How would I have liked things to go? I wish he would have told me that he cared about me, but obviously that’s not going to happen. I wish he would have said that he feels differently about me than any other woman he’s ever met.

But I guess that’s all just a fantasy.

I thought there was something underneath that hot (yet emotionally cold) exterior, that billionaire shell, that gorgeous body… but I guess that’s just wishful thinking.

I’m nothing more than another notch in his bed post.

I just can’t live with that.

Finally, after a week of moping around, avoiding Hailey, not to mention the rest of my roommates, who seem to have the week off from work for some reason, and are using their free time to drink and have loud sex all over the house, I decide I need to get a job.

I’m probably just going to be headed back East to work at the furniture store. Without really deciding on anything, I’ve decided to take the easy approach, and just resign myself that I’m going to be doing what generations of my family have been doing. There’s nothing wrong with selling furniture, right? It has a good function—people sit on it, eat on it. It helps people… sort of, I guess.

It’s just not what I want to be doing. But who gets to do what they want to do? Only rare individuals, people like Ryan Hudson. He’s a perfect example of someone who just does exactly what he wants to do without regard for the consequences, without regard for anyone else but himself. Do I want to be like that? No. Definitely not.

But even if I’m headed back East, I need money immediately.

I haven’t even called Ryan’s office to ask about the check. I doubt it’s coming.

And with my bank account dwindling, I need some money fast, unless I want to call my parents. They’d be happy to send me the money for me to come East. They’d be more than happy to do that. It would prove that they were right all along, that there was no way I could make it as a programmer in San Francisco, that it was just a lofty idea I had because I’m young and inexperienced.

Well at least I’m not exactly inexperienced anymore. Ryan Hudson took care of that problem… it’s what happened after that didn’t turn out as I expected. Or maybe my expectations changed after the fact. Who knows.

It’s unlikely I’m going to get an office job in a short amount of time, and I’d have to wait for the pay check anyway.

No, I need something that’s going to get me fast cash quick.

I know Hailey could get me a job where she works, but I’ve decided that I’m not speaking to her. I can’t believe how she flip flopped there at the park, once she saw Ryan Hudson again in person. I mean, if she really thinks he’s that hot, why doesn’t she just go after him herself? I’d love to tell her that, but I don’t have the nerve. Plus, I know that would kill me. That’s the last thing I want for her to do.

I’m in such a funk that I feel like everyone is completely against me. Everyone, and the whole world, so when I show up at a coffee shop, looking for a job, I’m not in a good mood, to say the least.

“Are you guys hiring?” I say to the barista, a young man in his early twenties with about a dozen earrings, as is typical here in San Fran, and a very long beard that he must have been growing for years.

He shrugs at me, and goes to help the next customer.

I’m sort of standing to the side of the line here, a little out of the way of the normal traffic.

“You’re just going to ignore me?” I say, already feeling conspicuous and out of place. I’m not sure why I do it, but I raise my voice at him, making it clear that I’m not pleased.

He shrugs at me again, as he prepares some kind of fancy espresso drink.

If I were here with Ryan, I find myself thinking, this guy wouldn’t ignore me.

No one ignores Ryan Hudson.

Except for me.

I’ve ignored another one of his phone calls today. I’m sure he was just going to tell me he needs to fuck me again, and command me to come over to his place, without telling me how he feels about me.

“Listen,” I say, louder this time. “I’m looking for work, and I can tell you need the help, the way you’re treating me. Just give me the phone number of the owner and I’ll take care of all this myself. I can see that’s how things go in this place.”

I realize I’m being unreasonable, but I don’t care right now. I’m pissed, and the world is against me. At least it feels that way.

“That’s not the way to get a job,” says the woman who’s waiting on her drink. She says it in a half-whisper, which annoys me.

“Don’t you get started on me,” I say.

“Listen,” says the barista, coming over to me, putting his hands down on the counter, facing me directly. “I’m the owner. And you’d better get out of here before I call the cops.”

“Asshole,” I mutter under my breath as I walk out of the coffee shop.

Well, that could have gone better.

How is that twenty year old guy the owner of that packed coffee shop? Everyone in San Francisco is an entrepreneur except for me.

I’m just a furniture seller, and I’d better admit it now.

With tears welling in my eyes, I take out my phone and press my mom’s name on the contact list. She’s labeled quite creatively as “mom” on the list.

“Lily? Is that you? What happened, dear? What’s wrong?”

“Why do you think something is wrong?”

“Well, you never call me anymore. I figured something must be wrong.”

“Everything’s fine, Mom,” I say, lying through my teeth. In reality, everything is terrible.

“Oh, well, I was just speaking to your father about you. We were wondering how that new job was going, the one you wrote to us about in that email.”

I can tell from her tone of voice that she knows something is up. After all, I really don’t call home very often. I know I should but my mom always ends up criticizing my choices and telling me I should just come work at the furniture store. Well, she had better be glad to hear it then, that I’m finally giving up.

“I quit the job,” I say. “I was wondering if I could come work at the store.”

“Come work at the store?” says my mom, her tone of voice turning strange, and not too pleasant.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’re always saying I should just give up here and come work with you and Dad.”

“But what about your programming? What about your passion? You can’t just give up!”

“But that’s exactly what you’re always telling me to do. This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Sometimes,” says my mother, her tone of voice severe and beyond frustrating for me to listen to. “That’s the way things are. They’re confusing.”

“Mom,” I say. “I don’t know what this is all about. I don’t know what you’re saying. But I don’t have a job, and I’m running out of money. What if I just come work at the store.”

“I was reading the other day about how people do a lot of computer work online. I’d hate for you to give it all up. Why don’t you come home, and you can work on your computer work while you’re at the store. That way, you won’t be giving it up.”

“Is something wrong with the store or something?” I say. “Why this sudden change of heart about me working there? I thought it’s all you and Dad ever wanted me to do.”

“No, everything’s fine. We’re doing better than ever, actually. We’ve been selling a lot of dining room tables recently. You know, those ones with the spiral things?” (My mom’s never been very good at describing things, even though she’s worked in the business for decades, and should know the official names.)

“Yeah,” I say. “I know those. I think I saw them on a TV show I was watching with Hailey.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Fine,” I say, not wanting to get into the whole thing. “So why don’t you want me to work there?”

“Well, of course it’s not like that,” says my mother. “It’s just that your father and I just saw a program on television about following your dreams. And I think that’s what you should do.”

“All right,” I say. “That’s what I’ll do then.”

I say goodbye, after listening to a couple stories about my aunt’s dog.

I guess I’ve been away for a while, because I didn’t even know that my Aunt Allison had a dog, or that it could get into so much trouble.

I should be grateful to my mother—she’s finally changed her mind and thinks I should be a programmer. But it’s not like she called me to tell me that. No, I had to call her.

The world still sucks. I’m still angry.

Ryan’s still a prick.

That’s what’s changed my outlook completely—Ryan. Everything in my world right now seems to come tumbling back to Ryan, no matter what I try to do.

So now that I’m broke and don’t have a job—this is when I’m supposed to be following my dreams?

Ryan

I doubt Johnny Robbins would go to the trouble to doctor these screenshots. Then again, he’s capable of anything, and I trust him less and less each day. Not that I trusted him much at all.

I’m back at my house, down in the basement where there isn’t any light, except for a dim bulb hanging over my head.

I’m sitting at a folding card table. It’s nothing like the luxurious wooden desks I usually work at—when I work, that is. Which is a lot, recently, but not a whole lot before this whole Simmons Algorithm crisis came up. I’m hunched over my laptop, enjoying the darkness and the small patch of light that this bare light bulb illuminates.

This is how I used to work before I was rich—hunched over the computer, in a darkened room.

Plus, I don’t like to get into my emotions much. Ignoring them and simply dominating them with sheer force of will is what’s gotten me this far… but something feels different.

And I know exactly what it is.

It’s Lily.

More like her absence.

The absence of Lily.

It’s still hitting me hard. It feels like a physical pain, like a hard punch in the stomach, or the absence of some vital organ.

How do I deal with it?

I fucking work, that’s how.

I’ve been down here in the basement for days, only retiring up to my room to sleep for a few hours, or to hit the kitchen to grab some beef jerky.

Everyone always told me to redo the basement, to make it inhabitable. After all, I have the money to do whatever I want to do to it.

But I never wanted to. Honestly, I prefer the completely unfurnished typical basement look. There’s everything a classic basement has here. There are cobwebs, an old washing machine and dryer (not that I use it, since I just send my clothes out), a water heater.

The floor is just a basic concrete floor. In one corner, there’s a big pile of some cardboard boxes that contain the possessions I had before I became rich. I’ve never looked back. I’ve never even opened the boxes.

The boxes contain all the regular stuff you would expect from a single programmer in San Francisco, who was living on people’s couches when he couldn’t pay the rent. Those were hard times, but I got through it.

The boxes also contain family pictures that I haven’t looked at in years. Hell, I’ve never opened the boxes since I moved here.

When I grew up, it was just me and my mom. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and I don’t have a dad either. He took off when I was just a kid, leaving my mom to work as a secretary and a typist for years, struggling to raise me.

When I was little, she often had to finish her assignments at home. For that, she had a computer, one of those old basic ones.

But it provided me hours of entertainment. And she not only let me use it, she taught me how to use it. I knew all the commands, and she taught me how to program it a little, since she was also taking a community college course on programming in order to try to get a better job for herself, in order to give me something better in life.

I took to it like a fish in water.

Of course, I knew I didn’t want to be a nerd, much less a computer nerd, so I did every sport I could in high school. I started working out in high school, and everybody knew I wasn’t someone you’d want to mess with.

By the time I got to college, my mom had to stop working. She’d gotten sick and at first, and we didn’t know what it was. She didn’t have any energy and simply couldn’t get out of bed. The doctors weren’t any help. They told her to do exercises or something… and they told this to a woman who could barely get out of bed. And it’s not like she looked fine and healthy sitting there in the doctors’ offices.

But I wouldn’t give up. I kept taking her to doctor’s appointments after doctor’s appointments, even when she didn’t want to go.

They finally found something wrong with her and gave her a diagnosis. It was lung cancer, which was quite obvious when they put her in the MRI machine. She’d never smoked a day in her life, not a single cigarette. It just wasn’t fair. She died only a few months later. The disease had already progressed too far. And there wasn’t any treatment available anywhere… stage 4, the kind you don’t tend to recover from.

I blamed myself. I blamed myself for her having to raise me, even though that wasn’t my fault. And I blamed myself for taking her to the doctor who finally diagnosed her. I know it wasn’t my fault that she was sick, and the doctor only found the problem, instead of causing it. But maybe she would have been happier not knowing just how sick she was… happier until the end.

My eyes are blurry and my fingers are tired to the bone.

My mind’s been wandering to strange places…

I force myself to focus back on the computer screen. I’ve been looking over the evidence that Johnny gave me on that USB drive for the hundredth time. Johnny wouldn’t tell me where he got these, but they seem legitimate. Apparently these are the real tests that Simmons ran himself, and they actually show worse performance than my own algorithm.

So it’s true? Simmons faked the benchmark speed scores?

His algorithm is really just a steaming pile of shit? It’s not even not better than mine, it’s far worse?

But I need evidence. I need more than what Johnny gave me.

I need to figure out how Simmons could have possibly faked someone else’s benchmark scores. I really doubt he had any undue influence—the guys who run the tests aren’t the sorts of people who can be influenced by money. They’re huge nerds, interested in the technology itself.

No, it couldn’t have been that.

If Simmons did do it, he must have hacked their system. And those aren’t the types of systems that are easy to hack. He would have had to have some very specialized and highly advanced code… something like a worm that would be able to manipulate their data.

But how? How would that be possible? Nothing’s impossible.

I feel like my mind’s running in circles.

I can’t remember the last time I slept.

I rub my eyes.

My thoughts go back to Lily.

That’s not doing me any good. Better not to think of her. She’s convinced I’m just the douchebag billionaire, that there’s nothing else to me…

I look over again at the old cardboard boxes.

Something about them draws me towards them. Honestly, I haven’t opened them in all these years because it’s just too painful to look at pictures of my mother. That probably just makes me seem like more of a douchebag—that I don’t have pictures of her anywhere in the house. But she was the only family I had. How can I bare to think about her, and the way she looked when she died, emaciated and weak, completely confined to the bed?

Without knowing why, I get up out of my metal chair and walk over to the cardboard boxes.

I stare at them for a moment, considering the decision I’m about to make.

My heart is actually beating faster as I grab a utility knife from a shelf of tools and make the first cut into the packing tape that seals up the first box.

This one’s just clothes, things I used to wear when I was broke and working on my now-famous algorithm. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t throw these out years ago. They’re all dated, but also cheap.

Basically, I never had an extra cent until I made my fortune, and I knew I could get girls just with my body… the fancy clothes weren’t necessary. They still aren’t… not that I want anyone except Lily. I haven’t been hitting up my contacts list, and I haven’t been hitting the clubs. I don’t want to admit it, but it’s all because of her.

I toss the first box aside before cutting into the second one.

This is it.

A single tear starts to well up in my eyes as I pull out the framed pictures of my mother. Here’s a picture that shows me as a little kid, probably ten years old. My mother was beautiful, with long blonde hair that came down past her shoulders. She dressed a little like a refined hippie, or something like that, when she wasn’t at work. I can remember the day the picture was taken. It was a day trip to the beach.

I spend another hour looking through the pictures and thinking about my mother. I feel guilty as hell now that I have these pictures out. I couldn’t deal with the sight of her pictures, and that’s why I kept them down in these boxes in the basement. But how ridiculous is that, that I can’t confront my feelings? I’m supposed to be able to tackle anything, anything at all, emotions included.

After a while, I can’t keep looking at the pictures.

But they have an effect on me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like looking at them let something out of me, or freed me up somehow.

My mind, of course, finds its way back to Lily again, and her tight ass and her perfect tits… but there’s more to her than that. There’s more than how she can suck my cock and take me all the way in…

There’s something that I haven’t been able to admit to.

I know she’s not going to pick up the phone.

But, to my complete surprise, she does.

“Come over,” I say.

“Why? You just want to fuck me.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But there’s something else…”

I’ve got her attention now.

I know what she craves and what she needs.

“Something else?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

Lily

I’m standing in a supermarket line when he calls me. Actually, to be more accurate, I’m standing in the line at the customer service desk, ready to ask about a job.

Not that there’s anything wrong with working at the supermarket, but it’s not the same as being a programmer. It’s not what I want to be doing, and this isn’t exactly a nice supermarket.

I don’t know why I pick up.

Maybe it’s because I’m missing him. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe I’m just crazy.

He is, after all, the douchebag billionaire.

But this time, when he talks, there’s something different in his voice. Something different in the quality. He says he wants to talk about something. He says he wants to tell me something. And I know from the way he says it that it’s not about work. I can’t explain it, but I just know.

I take one more look at the supermarket around me, and realize that while I really don’t want to work here until I find a programming job, I must be crazy for walking out of here right now because I apparently “know” that Ryan wants to tell me… something, instead of just jamming his cock into me.

About an hour later, I’m at his house.

I really can’t afford taxis or Ubers anymore, so it’s public transit for me, with the crowds and strange smells. Not that I have anything against it, in general, but you know when you’re sitting next to someone who’s just gotten off a long shift of manual labor?

Yeah, walking down the street with the fancy houses towards Ryan’s place… it’s a breath of fresh air. I hope seeing him is going to be too. Not that I don’t want to make another bad decision and just jump his bones… but I can’t. I need something else from him. I just don’t know if he can really give it to me.

I stand on the fancy front porch with the pillars and stare at the door for a moment.

Should I really be doing this?

What would Hailey tell me to do? Not that I’m talking to Hailey anymore.

What would my mom say to do? The mother I know would tell me to come home and work at the furniture store. But the mother I just spoke to most recently would tell me to… follow my dreams? Those are her words, not mine.

Well, let’s hope this dream pays off. Let’s hope I’m not doing something incredibly stupid… again.

Before I can ring the doorbell, the front door flies open.

It’s Ryan, looking as hot as ever, with his broad shoulders, his perfect model-like jaw line.

He’s wearing just some old jeans and a t-shirt, showing off his tattoos, as well as his incredible arms.

His hair is a little disheveled, and he looks tired but also excited at the same time.

Looking at him again, so many emotions come up: anger, excitement, attraction. All the big ones, wrapped together in a confusing package.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the slightest idea, so I say something basic and stupid instead of something real. “How did you know I was here? I haven’t even rung the doorbell yet.”

“Intercom system and cameras,” says Ryan, pointing to the camera up in the corner of the porch roof.

“Oh,” I say.

“Come in,” says Ryan, holding the door open for me.

I had better not be doing something stupid again, I think to myself, before walking past him into the house.

I’m so nervous that I find myself holding my breath as I do so, as if that would somehow protect me.

I have to squeeze past him to get into the house, since he’s not holding the door open that wide. My body brushes up against his, and it sends a thrill through me.

We walk into the living room. The sun is shining brightly all through the house, lighting everything up inside here. Once again, I’m struck by the luxury of the house, the decorations.

We sit down on the couch, side by side, but with plenty of space between us.

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” I say.

I’m practically holding my breath, waiting for an answer.

His demeanor is a little different… he’s still rocking his commanding presence as always. He’s obviously the boss of just about everything and anyone, whether or not they’re working for him. I’m not going to call it a softness, but there’s something else there.

“I wanted to talk to you,” says Ryan, turning his body to look me right in the eyes. “I… I don’t know where to start, but, well, I just wanted to tell you a story.”

“A story?”

I guess I was thinking he was going to admit his love for me… this isn’t exactly what I was expecting. But he’s talking differently than he usually does—I’m not growing angry.

“My mother raised me,” he says. “My dad ran off… It was just me and her. That’s how I got started in computers, you see…”

The story comes tumbling out of him. He tells me all about his childhood with his mother, and how if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have known anything about computers whatsoever. He tells me how close he and his mom were, how she made dinner for him every night, despite being dead tired from her job as a secretary. And he tells me how she took classes along with her job and still managed to raise him.

There aren’t any tears in his eyes, but I can see the sadness in his face as he tells me how his mom started getting sick, and about how he finally found a doctor who was able to diagnose her, only to find out that she was going to die very, very soon from terminal lung cancer.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I say. There may be no tears in his eyes, but there are some in mine. The way he tells the story is just heartbreaking. I’ve never had anyone open up like this to me ever, and the douchebag billionaire is certainly the last person that I would ever expect to talk like this.

He tells me more, about how he locked away all these feelings for so long, and about how it wasn’t until today that he opened the box that contained the pictures of his mother… feelings that he’d been trying to lock away for so long came rushing back… he’s glad he did so.

“And I wanted to tell you all this,” he says. “Because… well, I realized I’ve been locking away all sorts of emotions… not just those about my family history…”

His words come out in spurts, but he’s still not awkward and he’s never stumbling over his words.

“Thanks for telling me,” I say.

“And this has a lot to do with you.”

“With me? What do you mean?” I know what he’s going to say, I think, but I have to ask anyway.

“I feel something different for you… Something intense, and I didn’t want to admit it.”

I pause for a moment. A thousand thoughts are buzzing in my mind, with a thousand possible things to say. In the end, I let my instincts guide me, and tell him what I feel. “I feel the same way about you,” I say, my voice soft. “You hurt me… I thought there was something between us, but then you treated me like any one of your other girls.”

“There aren’t any other girls. You’re different from anyone I’ve ever been with… and I feel something for you… I think I…”

I hold my breath, but he doesn’t say it.

“Let’s give it another chance,” he says.

I don’t say anything. For a response, I lean across the wide gap between us and kiss him softly on the mouth, letting my lips fall against his like rose petals.

He kisses me back, softly, but not so gently.

“Let’s take it slow this time,” he says.

“OK,” I say.

We continue kissing, and his strong hands work their way across my back and down my shoulders. He pushes my hair aside and kisses my neck gently.

I moan softly.

“I don’t know if I can take it slow with you,” I say, my voice soft and throaty, filled with lust.

Just being near him again, having his hands on me, it’s incredible.

This time may not be slow, but it’s different than the other times we’ve had sex. I can already tell this isn’t just fucking. There’s more than lust here, something else, something powerful between us that pulses through our bodies.

I feel his hard cock in his pants, pushing outward and upward.

“We’ll go to the bedroom,” he says. “No more closets and couches for you.”

“None?” I say, inflecting my voice. “But I liked the closet.”

“I know you did.”

He picks me up in his arms easily and carries me against his dense chest. He carries me through the house, up the stairs, and lays me gently on the plush mattress.

It’s almost dusk outside. We’ve been talking for hours without me realizing it. Ryan closes the blinds gently, and comes to lay beside me on the bed, putting one of his strong hands on me.

I snuggle up to him, and his hard cock presses against me.

“I love having your cock pressed into me,” I whisper.

Slowly, I start grinding my body against him and his cock. I can’t help it. I do it almost automatically.

The tension builds and builds between us, and finally it snaps like a twig. There’s simply too much attraction between us to take it slow.

His mouth mashes against mine, our tongues tangling. His hands are all over me, and mine are on him.

I push my way on top of him, laying my body flat on his. His cock pushes right into the space between my legs.

We go through the clumsy business of removing our clothes, only it’s not clumsy at all. Instead, it feels romantic and special. With me straddling him now, he reaches down and removes my shirt from my torso, and he unhooks my bra from behind, letting it fall away.

He leans up and sucks on my nipples, which are hard little daggers pointing right into his mouth.

I unbuckle his belt, undoing his pants, and move aside and off of him so that I can tug them down.

Soon, our clothes are on a pile on the floor, and I straddle him once again.

A condom appears nearly out of nowhere, and I help him put in on his big cock, letting my hand stay there, pushing my palm into the base of his cock.

When I remove my hand, there’s an instant where I’m about to slide myself down onto his cock, taking him into me.

He pulls me down with his hands on his shoulders and kisses me, gently this time, but passionately.

“I love you,” he says.

I can see it in his eyes that he means it. This isn’t just some line. My heart fills with the most intense joy I’ve ever experienced.

“I love you too,” I say.

I slide myself down onto his cock and it enters me. I love being able to control the speed, and I start out thinking I’m going to ride him slowly. I actually do for a little while, long slow rocking motions, rocking back and forth along his muscular body.

But soon, the tension builds, and I simply want him too much.

With my eyes locked onto his, I start riding him faster and faster, until I’m panting with exertion.

His cock feels so fucking good inside me. I don’t ever want it to leave. My hands are planted on his chest, palms downward.

He growls as he winks at me and basically just picks me up and flips me over, getting on top of me quickly, without his cock ever leaving me.

I start moaning as soon as he’s on top of me. He doesn’t break the rhythm at all. He’s riding me hard and fast, with his eyes still locked onto mine.

His hands hold my head around the side, cupping me like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him. It’s sweet and also ragingly hot at the same time.

This is just as hot as when we fucked in the closet, but it’s different… it’s impossible to explain, but there’s emotion now. That doesn’t make it any less hot, less naughty, or less intense. It makes it more intense.

The orgasm rushes through me and I cry out as he keeps riding me.

He comes a moment later, his cock twitching inside me, frozen, buried deep.

We stay like this for a full minute before disengaging. We’re both panting, and he’s still looking into my eyes, brushing the hair out of my eyes.

“Wow,” I say, finally getting the strength to talk again.

“Wow is right,” he says.

“So this is where you run off again, right?”

He laughs, a deep chuckle coming from his chest.

“Not this time,” he says. “You’re staying right here with me.” He pulls me close to him. He’s on his back, and I nestle my head into the crook of his arm. His muscular arm drapes up and around me, holding me close to him.

We fall asleep like this, drifting off into the night, into dreams that are as sweet as what’s developing between us.

“I love you,” I tell him, right before finally closing my eyes.

“I love you too, Lily,” he says.

Ryan

I don’t know how to express it to her, but I try my best the next morning.

“That was incredible,” I say. “I’ve never… You know, I’ve fucked plenty of times.”

“I know,” she says, winking at me.

“But I’ve never made love before. That was different… so different.”

She just kisses me and hugs me. “Remember,” she says. “It’s new for me, too.”

We eat breakfast together in the kitchen, with the light coming in.

For me, it’s the longest I’ve been in daylight in a few days, maybe more. I’ve been locked away down there in that basement, bleeding my eyes out onto the computer screen.

Everything seemed impossible, impractical, completely pointless. I was lost, and for more time than I thought. I’ve been lost for years, and now I’ve found her. I was adrift, like a sailor at sea. Except the sailor knows he’s lost, and I didn’t.

I wish I could tell her everything, exactly how I feel. But it’s hard starting to express myself like this…

It’s not like I’m a new person. No, I’m still the same commanding guy who can tackle everything, just like before. But I’m better equipped now to confront challenges than ever. I was missing the critical thing. I was missing Lily.

I tell her what I can. I do my best, which isn’t enough. There will be time for that later. She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.

We don’t talk much through breakfast, finding ourselves just staring at each other instead.

The rest of the day goes by like a pleasant dream. We walk in the park in the sun, and she falls asleep with her head in my lap as we sit in the warm grass. Children are playing nearby, laughing and running around.

The day floats by and I don’t think about my business problems at all. They simply don’t enter my head, so enthralled am I to have this beautiful creature at my side.

“You want to get some ice cream?” I say as Lily wakes up, smiling at me as she opens her eyes.

“Ice cream?” she says sleepily.

I nod.

“Oh!” says Lily. “What happened with the algorithm? You said…”

I tell her everything, including the news that I got from Jonny Robbins, and I share with her the struggles I’ve been having with trying to figure out how Simmons could have faked the results.

“So what do you need to do to prove that he faked it all?” she says.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I’d have to have access to the tech magazine’s servers.”

“What’s it called again?”

“Tech Bee Bumble,” I say. “Only a bunch of computer nerds could have come up with a name like that.”

“Can’t you just hack in?”

I shrug. “It would be tricky. I mean, they’re tech guys who talk about security all day long. Believe me, I’ve tried, but their servers are probably more secure than the government’s. And that makes me wonder if Simmons really could have cracked it himself in order to manipulate everything.”

“Wait, did you say Tech Bee Bumble?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Why? I bet you’ve heard of them. They’re pretty big in the algorithm world. Not a lot of people outside the business know them.”

“You know,” says Lily. “I have all these roommates… and I thought they were all finance people. They party really hard, and they’re never home. I hadn’t even met any of them until recently… because I was at home.”

“Because you quit?”

“Yeah,” she says, letting her word trail off into nothing, into embarrassment.

“Just say the word and you’re hired again.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” I say. “But keep in mind that I’ll be your boss again.” I wink at her.

“You’ll always be my boss,” she says.

“That’s kind of weird,” I say, laughing.

She laughs. “But, yes, I desperately need the job. Money’s kind of tight right now.”

“No problem. But I don’t know how much longer the company’s going to be around if I don’t fix this problem.”

“Wait,” says Lily. “Before you say that, I think I have a way we could get into the system…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so get this. One of my roommates is this guy named Blake with a real big head. He doesn’t talk much. And he’s not a finance guy at all. He actually works for that same magazine.”

“He works for Tech Bee Bumble?” I say.

“Yeah, I’m positive. He told me the name and I didn’t remember it right away, so I asked him again. He’s kind of a weird guy. He finally just pulled out his ID card and showed me the name on that. Maybe he is a finance guy after all or something, I couldn’t really get the whole story out of him. But what I do know is that he definitely works for Tech Bee Bumble.”

“You think he’d let us into the building, or give us access to the server? I personally doubt it. They’re going to have top security over there.”

“I really don’t know him at all, and he didn’t seem too friendly. I doubt he’d do anything willingly, but maybe…”

“Are you suggesting we use his credentials or something to gain access?”

“It could work, couldn’t it?”

“You’re naughty,” I say. “Very naughty. And I like it.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to punish me later,” says Lily. “First of all, what do we need? What would give us access?”

“Well, if we could get onto his laptop or something… That’s pretty much all we need.”

“Great,” says Lily. “Let’s go to my place then.”

“Right now?”

“Of course. It’s important, right? And the company’s in jeopardy.”

“I just care about you,” I say. “But now that you mention it, I would like to crush Simmons…”

“That’s the Ryan Hudson I know,” says Lily, giving me a forceful kiss on the mouth.

My cock grows, pressing against the fabric of my pants. I can feel her body against me, ready.

But there’s business to take care of. We’re going to have all the time in the world to fuck.

“I’ll get us a car,” I say, using my phone to order one.

Less than a minute later, while we’re still making out, a sleek black car pulls gracefully to a stop only about fifteen feet from where we’re sitting.

“Good service,” says Lily, impressed. “I could get used to this lifestyle.”

“It’ll be an easy transition,” I say. “But we have to prove Simmons a fraud first.”

The driver drops us off by Haight Ashbury, where Lily’s apartment is tucked into the back side of an old rambling Victorian.

Lily takes my hand and leads me through the entrance hallway, which has cracked paint and a strange, moldy smell.

“I used to live in places like this,” I say.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“It’s not bad,” I say, eyeing a broken broom that’s leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“I’m this way,” says Lily, opening the door to her apartment with her key.

The kitchen is… intense. It looks like a bunch of college kids live here or something. The sink is full of dirty dishes, and there are half empty vodka bottles lined up on the counter.

My first thought is: where’s the maid? What’s she been doing? Is she on vacation?

Then I realize most people don’t have maids, let alone a staff of them.

“Nice place,” I say.

“No need to bullshit me,” says Lily.

I laugh. “Just trying to be nice.”

“That’s not really your style. Come on, it’s this way.”

“Blake?” she calls out, moving down the hallway. I follow. “Blake? Hailey? Is anyone home? Seems like everyone is out.”

“How much time do you think we have?” I say.

“It’s hard to say. Someone could come home at any time. I don’t know their schedules. Hailey’s at work… she’s my best friend… the one from the park.”

“The one who wanted you to jump my bones again in the park?”

“Yeah,” she says. “And come to think of it, I need to apologize to her.”

There’s a noise in the hallway.

“Is that someone?” I whisper.

“Maybe…”

The noise goes away, and the front door doesn’t swing open.

“A lot of my roommates are never here. Blake’s one of them. Here’s his room.”

We enter the room, which is sparsely furnished with a mattress on the floor and not much else.

“They must not be paying well over at Tech Bee Bumble,” I say.

“Here’s his laptop.”

Hailey goes over to his laptop, which is lying on the floor near the mattress.

“He probably fell asleep jacking off to porn or something,” I say.

“Gross,” says Lily.

I crouch down in front of the laptop, careful not to move it from its position. I’m also careful to avoid sitting on the mattress because, as Lily points out quite accurately, it’s quite filthy.

I open the laptop.

“No sticky keys,” I say. “Good sign.”

“Sticky keys? Is that a programming thing?”

“I don’t want to sully your mind with telling you what that is. It’s just a joke.”

“There’s a password,” says Lily, upon seeing the password screen come up. “Damn, this whole thing is ruined. I have no idea what his password might be.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, pulling a little USB drive from my pocket. “This thing will break through anything. It’s a special little program I made for circumstances just like this. You never know when it might come in handy.”

I plug the USB drive in and sure enough, the computer boots right up.

“Piece of cake,” I say. “Now comes the tricky bit.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Let’s see if I can use this machine to access the Tech Bee Bumble server,” I say. “With any luck he’ll at least have an email log on there… and then I can plant my worm.”

“You have a worm?”

“I made one at home… I modified it a little bit, in case this situation came up. That’s what I was doing all this week… mostly. I just couldn’t figure out how to get the worm in. Don’t worry, it’s not going to hurt their system at all. It’ll just plant a back door and give us the access we need to snoop around.”

“Sounds good,” says Lily, looking nervous. “They might be getting back any minute.”

“It won’t take long,” I say.

Sure enough, there’s an email log on to the server, and I’m able to parlay that into an installation of the worm. Another piece of cake, although frankly not many people would be able to pull this off.

There’s a sound in the apartment, the slamming of a door, footsteps.

“Someone’s coming,” says Lily. “Let’s hope it’s my friend Hailey….” A few seconds go by. “It doesn’t sound like her. Shit, I think it might be Blake… he’s kind of heavy… What are we going to do?”

She’s almost sweating with anxiety. She doesn’t want to be caught in his room, and I can understand that.

I quickly remove the USB drive and shut the laptop.

The door begins to open.

Thinking quickly, I grab Lily just like in the movies and kiss her.

I can tell she’s surprised, but she kisses me back.

To make it extra realistic, and for my own pleasure, I put my hand up her shirt and grab her breast gently, squeezing it. I can feel her nipples getting hard. I’m tempted to put a hand down her pants, but that might be going too far for this situation.

The door opens fully.

A young man, slightly overweight, with a large head, steps in. This must be Blake.

“Oh!” says Lily, pulling away from me, doing a great job of following along with my trick and pretending to be surprised. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t… I was just showing my friend here the apartment.”

“How’s it going?” I say.

Blake looks incredibly embarrassed. “Uh… I’ll be back in a minute,” he says.

“You think that worked?” says Lily.

“Of course. He bought it hook, line, and sinker.”

Lily

Back at Ryan’s house, we’re hunched over a couple of laptops in the kitchen.

“Look!” says Ryan, turning his computer towards me. “Here it is! Didn’t take long at all. Simmons left his tracks all over the place. You just need to know what to look for. It looks like he installed a worm that messed with the tests they were running, making his algorithm look a lot better than it really was…”

“But won’t people who buy the algorithm notice?”

He shrugs. “Not necessarily. A lot of people who run servers and stuff are pretty clueless when it comes to speed metrics. People are just going to buy it because this tech magazine has such a huge influence and it’s so trusted.”

“Doesn’t look like it was so secure, though.”

“I don’t know how Simmons got in. He must be a good hacker.”

“You got in.”

“Only with your help, though.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to make someone do a lot of work,” says Ryan.

I pick up my phone and dial Marty.

“Marty,” he says. “No, no, I don’t care about that. Just listen to me. I’ve got something I need you to do. That’s right, don’t worry, you’re not out of a job. Once you turn the douchebag billionaire into a decent businessmen in the public eye, you’re going to be begging for the new clients to stop calling you. Yeah, I’ve got proof that Simmons’s is a fraud. My Sisyphus Algorithm is the only one that works. Yeah, I’ll send you the info. Just don’t fuck it up. Got it.”

He hangs up the phone before Marty can respond.

“That should take care of that,” he says. “There’s just one more thing I wanted to take care of.”

“What’s that?”

“I want you to marry me.”

“Oh my God!” I’m trembling, actually trembling. “Of course!” I say.

He pulls me towards him, kissing me deeply.

“I love you,” I say, as I collapse against him, into his arms.

“I love you, too, Lily,” he says.

* * *

The next few weeks are a blur of activity and excitement. The plan worked perfectly, and Simmons was exposed as the fraud that he is. Ryan’s publicist did a brilliant job, making sure there were a ton of articles explaining the whole story. Not only did Ryan’s company get all its business back, but it got him a lot of good media attention for once, and brought his company to a new level of excellence and profit.

Ryan’s no longer satisfied to be the kind of guy he once was. For one thing, there’s me, and I’ve already moved into his place. He’s still the same commanding guy he always was, but there’s something else there… he says I’ve changed him in ways I can’t even imagine.

He’s also no longer satisfied to just live off the profits of his algorithm, letting his company function just as a sales team. He’s back in the office, working tirelessly on new and innovative programs.

He hired me back, of course, and I head the development team in the office. I thought I’d be out of my league here, but it turns out I have a lot of good programming ideas. I don’t always know exactly how to implement them, but that’s why there’s a whole team at my disposal, after all.

Ryan’s no longer called the Douchebag Billionaire. Articles now actually use his real name, and there was a flood of articles featuring our relationship, describing how he’s turned his life around.

“Well I guess you won’t be coming back to work at the furniture store,” said my mother, when we talked on the phone.

The wedding is scheduled for six months down the road, once we get our newest piece of software up and off the ground. Hailey, of course, is my maid of honor. We made up, of course. A life with Hailey wouldn’t be a complete life for me. But a life without Ryan… at this point that would be impossible to even dream of.

My parents, and everyone else I invite, are thrilled about coming to the wedding, perhaps more so than usual, since it’s going to be quite an expensive and fancy affair. Ryan’s company is doing better than ever, and the money is rolling in. I never have to worry about money ever again, but the work is fun, exactly what I want to be doing, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

The wedding date seems to zoom up out of nowhere, burning through calendar days.

Before I know it, it’s the night before the wedding.

And I’m at Ryan’s house.

“Aren’t I supposed to be staying somewhere else before the wedding night?” I say, snuggling up to Ryan on the couch in his living room. “I’m not supposed to see you for a full day, right?”

The soothing sounds of outdoor fountains come faintly into the living room.

“That’s just a superstition,” growls Ryan. “And plus, don’t you remember that you’re not longer a virgin?”

I laugh. “How could I ever forget? But I’m still pure, aren’t I?”

Ryan chuckles deeply. “Of course, baby. But I’m about to change that.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Come to the bedroom and you’ll find out.”

“I like the sound of that,” I say, as his body presses against me, and his mouth mashes into mine.

I know I’m wet. My clit is already swollen. My body is eager for him. I feel his rock hard cock pressing into me.

But before things go too far here on the couch, he picks me up and walks me to the bedroom.

I gasp when I see the room.

“When did you have time to do all this?”

The lights of the master bedroom are off, but the entire room is filled with small candles that cast flickering light on the walls.

The sheets on the bed are pulled partially down, and the entire surface is covered in beautiful rose pedals.

“I thought it’d be a surprise for our pre-wedding night,” growls Ryan.

“It’s breathtaking,” I say.

It’s only as Ryan lowers me to the bed, that I notice the long strips of silk that are hanging off the bedpost where they are tied.

“What are these?”

“You’ll see,” growls Ryan, as he ties me up, gently.

Now he’s removing my clothes, and his. I watch as he unzips his pants and lets them fall away, and as he pulls out his massive cock, already erect and swollen for me.

He pulls tight the last knot, and my wrists are attached securely to the bedposts.

“I like this,” I say, my eyes locking onto his.

“I thought you would,” he growls.

His hands brush across the bare skin on my arms. His tongue twirls around my erect nipples. I’m already panting.

I moan as his hands move across me.

“Fuck me, please,” I moan, straining my arms against the silk bindings.

Ryan’s on top of me, his rippling abs pressing against me. His cock enters me, and I gasp.

“It’s going to be a long night,” growls Ryan.

THE END

Turn the page to read Daddy’s Virgin Bride: A Fake Marriage Romance

Daddy’s Virgin Bride

A Fake Marriage Romance

Olivia

He doesn’t just enter the room. He takes the room, as if by force. His presence is commanding, and his shoulders are huge, muscular, and wide.

Except for his suit, he doesn’t look like any billionaire finance man I’ve ever seen. His hair isn’t slicked back, and he’s not clean shaven. His stubble is a fine grit that runs along his razor-sharp jaw line.

An intricate tattoo is partially visible on the side of his neck, above his shirt collar. Normally I don’t go for tattoos, but on him… it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

Everyone stares at him. It’s impossible to look away.

He’s a head taller than everyone else, and he moves with the muscular power of an athlete.

A look of intense concentration runs across his face. The message is clear: he’s the boss, and he’s not taking shit from anyone.

“That’s the boss,” whispers Natalie, one of my coworkers.

“I don’t think anyone would doubt that,” I say.

Before Natalie can say anything, his eyes lock onto mine.

I second guess myself at first. Out of everyone here, why would he be staring at me? Does he think I’m someone else?

But there’s really no second guessing. He devours me with his eyes.

I should look away, but I just can’t.

“He was staring at you,” exclaims Natalie, when he finally moves into the next room.

“I don’t think so,” I whisper. “He couldn’t be.”

But it becomes clear that he is. There’s no denying the fact that he’s staring right at me, without breaking his gaze as he moves across the floor.

He moves out of the room, and everyone’s gaze follows him until he’s gone.

I hope Natalie doesn’t notice that my breathing has grown more rapid. If I had a fan with me, I’d fan myself.

“It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” I say, trying to play off my blushing face.

Natalie just gives me a look. “Don’t worry,” she says. “He made me feel the same way the first time I saw him.”

“I don’t know if I can get used to that look,” I say.

“You’re new here, right?” says Natalie.

She’s actually one of the few people here whose name I know.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s my first week.”

There’s so much more to my story, but I’ve grown cautious about overwhelming people by dumping my whole life story on them, so I just try to keep it simple.

“Well, welcome aboard,” says Natalie. “Looks like the boss has taken a fancy to you.”

We introduced ourselves my first day on the job, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t remember my name. I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, though, by reminding her. I tend to remember people’s names when they don’t remember mine, and it makes me nervous.

Natalie heads out of the mailroom, clutching a bundle of copies.

I’m the mail room worker. But there isn’t really much intra-office mail these days, with email and all. Mostly, working in a mail room these days means being something like a secretary’s assistant. I help people make copies. I scan documents, and print things, along with making posters for business presentations.

I never thought I’d be working in a mail room. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. But less than a year ago, I was on track to finishing law school. I was working like a demon, studying 80 hours a week, and I was on track to graduating first in my class. Basically, I was headed for a successful career right after graduation. People said I would make partner within a few years.

Then came the fatigue, which hit me like a ton of bricks. People said I was just overworked and exhausted, and that’s what the doctor said at first too. But the diagnosis quickly became more severe, the specialist telling me that I had full blown chronic fatigue syndrome. It was like drowning—just trying to do everyday tasks became impossible. It was a herculean effort just to lift my arm up, or to try to get out of bed.

It didn’t help that my dad used my identity to create a bunch of credit cards in my name, squandering a huge amount of money and then leaving me with the debt. That was the straw that broke my back, so to speak. I felt I couldn’t trust anyone. Just thinking about it made me even more exhausted.

Here I am, a little less than a year later, basically completely recovered. I don’t have any more fatigue. I got into meditation and yoga, and learned to go easy on myself.

Losing my virginity wasn’t exactly on the top of my list of things to deal with when I had all that crazy fatigue.

I try to keep my mind focused on reloading the paper for one of the printers, but my mind keeps going back to that man, the boss, who wouldn’t stop staring at me. Even though it’s been almost ten minutes since he’s passed by, I’m still flustered.

Does he stare that way at everyone? Or is it just me?

He couldn’t possibly see something special in me, could he?

But even amidst my doubts, deep down, I know the answer: no, that was a special look, just for me.

But it’s not like I can do anything about it. The last thing I need in my life right now is more complication. I’m trying to simplify. Keeping things simple is what’s kept me from the fatigue.

And it’s not like I have any experience anyway.

I graduated high school early, and then graduated college early. I was the youngest student in my law class. I was always motivated, an overachiever. That meant that I never had time for socializing, or for… sex.

Yup, I’m a virgin.

Hardly anyone knows, except my best friend June. After all, in this day and age, it’s considered something shameful. It’s not exactly something you go around telling people.

But, at this point, I’m getting the feeling that I just need to go ahead and do something about it. It’s becoming a problem, a problem I keep telling myself I should tackle with the same enthusiasm I always tackled my studies with.

David

As usual, it’s a long day of business as usual. That essentially means keeping people in line, and doing what’s necessary to maintain my power in the finance world. The competitors are always at my throat, always looking for a weak point, but it’s easy for me to show them that I’m not someone they want to mess with.

Despite the long day of meetings and heated private calls, the sight of that girl in the mailroom won’t leave my mind.

She was hot, and not in the normal way. It’s like she has no idea how fucking hot she is. I could just see it in her body, in the way she stood, in the little movement she made.

She couldn’t look away from me. That’s to be expected. I tend to have that effect on women, whether I try to or not.

My cock’s swelling just thinking about her on my drive home.

But I’ve got other things to occupy my mind.

A thousand of them.

Anyway, she’ll be mine sooner or later. I’ll make sure of that.

I downshift my BMW M3 and slowly pull into my driveway, making sure not to scrape the bottom of the car.

The garage door senses the device in my car and automatically opens, swiftly and smoothly.

I park the M3 next to my other car, a Porsche 911, and get out.

“Nancy?” I call out, entering the house from the garage.

“Welcome home, Mr. Masters,” says Nancy, appearing from around a corner in the hallway. She can be strangely formal sometimes, but I like to keep a distance between myself and my employees, anyway.

“How’s Laura doing?”

“She’s in bed. She had a tough day at school.”

“Anything I should know about?”

“I don’t want to bother you with it, Mr. Masters. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t want her falling behind in school,” I say. “See to it that the tutors are aware of the situation.”

“Of course, Mr. Masters.”

I nod my head stiffly.

Laura’s my daughter. She just started fourth grade this year. She needs to do well, and she has all the opportunities I can give her. She’s in the best private school here in Philadelphia, and she’s got the best tutors money can buy. I don’t see what my ex-wife has to complain about.

My phone rings, and I groan as I look at my ex-wife’s name on the screen.

“Let’s keep it short this time, Alicia,” I say as I pick up.

“How dare you talk to me like that!” She’s talking a mile a minute, rapid and frantic. She’s probably on something again, but who the hell knows what. Our marriage fell apart when she decided she liked drugs better than me or our daughter. Yeah, addiction is a disease, but she’s had all the help she could get. I sent her to the most expensive addiction centers and bought her the best counseling available. And she kept making the wrong choices.

Great, we’re already at it.

“I’ll talk to you any way I like,” I say. “Where are you, under a bridge somewhere?”

“I’m clean, don’t you know that?”

“We’ll see what the court says about that,” I say. “Listen, I’m not going to stay on the phone long. You’re clearly on something. If you have something to say, spit it out now.”

Her voice suddenly changes in tone. It becomes low, slower, and sinister. “I just want you to know,” she says, “that I’m going to get her. I’m going to get full custody of Laura, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ve got a plan this time,” she says, her voice becoming darker. “You’re never going to see your daughter again.”

“This has been fun,” I say. “Next time, call when you’re sober.”

I hang up the phone to the sounds of her screaming at me.

I don’t see how she could possibly get full custody of Laura, especially since the last I heard she was kicked out of a halfway house for drug use. It’s just another one of her delusions, and it’s sad that this is what’s become of her. But it was never going to work out between us anyway.

Since the divorce, I’ve made sure to provide for Laura—giving her the best of everything.

And I’ve had my fun, too. I’m not exactly the type to stay at home after work. Unless there’s female company involved, and we’re headed straight to the bedroom. Nancy, my daughter’s caretaker, knows not to disturb me, and I’ve paid to have my bedroom soundproofed.

I head to the bar in the living room and pour myself a whiskey on the rocks, settling down into an armchair. Nancy has made herself scarce, and isn’t anywhere to be seen.

The cleaning staff comes every day when I’m at work, making sure everything is immaculate.

I chuckle to myself, thinking about a judge ruling in Alicia’s favor, especially if he could see this place. I mean, how could Alicia possibly provide a better life for Laura?

My phone rings and I groan again. It better not be someone from work. I told my assistant not to bother me at home unless it’s very, very important. Like nuclear meltdown level important.

But I grin when I see who it is.

“Jordan!” I say. “You’d better not be calling to ask me for money again.”

“No such luck,” says Jordan. “Just thought I’d see what the hell you’re getting up to tonight.”

“Looks like I’m staying in tonight. The ex-wife called and killed the urge, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s the way it goes with ex-wives,” says Jordan. “I should know. I’ve lost track of how many I have.”

“I don’t have any idea how you make all those alimony payments.”

Jordan chuckles. “Good investing, just like you taught me. So what was it this time? She wanted money to get high?”

“It was weird. She threatened to take Laura away from me. She said she had a plan. Honestly, it sounded pretty bizarre, but you know her.”

“Just a delusion, probably,” says Jordan.

Let’s hope so, I think to myself.

Olivia

I ride the trolley from Center City, where I work, to West Philly, where I love. I get off the crowded trolley at 46th and Chestnut, right by Clark Park, a sloping park tucked away in the middle of the city.

It’s still light out, and I can see the trees that are turning orange and brown for the fall, preparing for the coming winter months, when the wind will blow fiercely through these streets, gaining strength with each building they pass.

My feet are tired as I walk the two blocks to my apartment. I’m only 21. My feet aren’t supposed to be tired yet, are they?

People drive by lazily and angrily in their cars—that’s a style of driving that only true Philadelphians can accomplish. Everyone’s angry and casual at the same time, not bothering to follow the traffic laws. People say that the lines on the road here are more suggestions than rules to follow.

As I cross the street, carefully stepping over the trolley tracks that run down the middle of the road, a biker swerves at the last minute.

If I was a regular Philadelphian, I’d yell at him and possibly chase him down. But I’m not like that.

People might describe me as overwhelmingly studious and shy.

Maybe that’s why I’m still a virgin, even at 21.

I used to think it was worth it, sacrificing my social life for my studies. Now, after the fatigue incident and dropping out of law school, I’m not sure.

I went to college a year early because I took all the AP courses available at my suburban high school, and I did them a year before everyone else. I graduated early, and then I graduated college a year early because of all the AP credits I’d accumulated in high school. So I was the youngest person in my law school class.

I punch the code into my building, shifting my bag on my shoulder to do so.

I live in an old, run down West Philly apartment building. There must be at least fifty apartments here. Every time I walk past the mail boxes, I get a strong whiff of natural gas, but everyone tells me that it’s always been like that and not to worry. I try to just hold my breath and not think about the possible explosion that could happen from a leak like that.

I try not to think about all that too much now.

At least I have a job, and at least I’m somewhat on track to paying off my debts. Sure, it’s going to take me two decades, with what I’ve accumulated between law school and my gambling father, but it’ll happen. Eventually.

“Here,” says Sasha, my friend and roommate, holding out a glass of wine for me as soon as I open the door to our shared apartment. “I figure you’d need this after a day at the office.”

“Thanks,” I say, taking the glass from her and dropping my work bag on the floor accidentally. “Oops.”

But I don’t make a move to pick it up. Now that I’m here in the apartment, I realize just how exhausted I am.

“I’m just so tired,” I say, taking a small sip of the wine, which frankly doesn’t taste very good.

“It’s the cheap stuff,” says Sasha, giving me a wink.

I imagine she’s already had a couple glasses.

“I think I should just go right to bed,” I say.

“That’s normal for the first week at a new job,” says Sasha, picking up my bag for me. “Plus, it’s been a while since you were on your feet all day.”

“Tell me about it,” I say.

We get to talking, and Sasha tells me all about this hot guy in one of her grad school classes. She’s just starting school again for the first time. She’s two years older than me, but we’ve been best friends since high school. I was advanced enough that I was often in classes with older kids, like Sasha.

“You think you’re going to ask him out?”

Sasha’s notoriously bold with guys that she likes.

She shrugs. “If I feel like it. I’ve still got Andy, though.”

I nod. Andy’s her on and off again boyfriend, or friend with benefits, or whatever the hell he is. Frankly, I can’t keep track of it.

“So any cute guys at the office?” says Sasha, giving me a wink.

“How much wine have you had?” I say, trying to take another sip of mine, but the taste is just too much for me.

“Come on,” says Sasha. “You never talk to me about guys.”

“That’s because… you know…”

“Just because you’ve never had sex doesn’t mean you can’t think about it, or think about guys. I know you do…”

“Shhh,” I say, putting my finger to my lips.

I’m so embarrassed about my virginity. I was so much more advanced than any of the other students at everything academic. I think it’s embarrassing to me that they’re so far ahead of me when it comes to sex and relationships. Sure, I had some dates here and there, and a guy put his hand up my shirt once, before promptly coming in his pants… That turned me off to the whole thing for a good while.

“Come on, no one can hear us,” says Sasha.

“I’m not so sure. I heard our neighbors having sex last night.”

Sasha laughs. “I did too,” she says. “They were really going at it.”

I make a face, trying to express my distaste. But secretly, I found it interesting, and even a little… hot.

“Come on,” says Sasha. “There’s got to be somebody cute there.”

My mind flashes to the boss whose eyes locked onto mine.

“Well…” I say. “He’s not exactly cute… But he’s… hot, like really, really hot.”

“Who?” says Sasha, her eyes widening with interest.

“Nobody,” I say. “Just some guy.” But my expression must give me away, and she asks again.

“I think he’s the boss,” I say.

“You think he’s the boss? I’m pretty sure you know he’s the boss.”

“There’s really no way not to know.”

I tell her all about him, how he looked, with his stature, his muscular body, his tattoos, and the way his eyes locked onto mine. What I don’t tell her is how it made me feel, and how I’m still emotionally reeling from that look.

“What are you doing?” I say, as Sasha takes out her laptop and props it up on her knees.

“Just looking for a picture of him.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“Wow,” says Sasha, her eyes widening. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Let me see.”

I move over on the couch so I’m closer to Sasha. Her breath reeks of the cheap wine.

Seeing his picture sends a shiver up my spine and gives me goose bumps. His eyes are like magic, and I want to swim in them. It’s almost like he’s gazing at me from the picture.

“David Masters,” says Sasha, reading the article, “otherwise known as the richest man in Philadelphia, has just increased his portfolio by… blah blah…”

I scan the article quickly. It says that David Masters is not only the richest man in Philadelphia, but one of the richest in the country. He started a financial empire a decade ago, and each year he acquires more and more holdings.

“I don’t have a chance with him,” I say.

“Why not?” says Sasha. “Who better to lose your v-card to, right? Some cozy night, when you’re both there late and everyone else has gone home. He asks you to photocopy some documents and then one thing leads to another…”

I laugh. There’s no way that would happen. What would he want with someone like me, the boring overachiever and inexperienced virgin?

My phone rings.

“I’d better get this,” I say. “It’s my dad, and I should at least know if he’s going to try to steal more money from me.”

“He tells you when he’s going to steal money from you?”

“Sometimes,” I say, picking up the phone.

“How my beautiful daughter doing today?” comes my dad’s voice. He always sounds a little like he’s one of those old carnival workers, trying to scam you into—or out of—something.

“Hi, Dad,” I say. “How’s it going?”

“Couldn’t be better now that I’m talking to you.”

“Do you need money?” I say.

“What kind of question is that?” says my dad. “This is an expensive long distance call just to check up on you.”

“There aren’t any more long distance calls, Dad,” I say, moving into my bedroom so that Sasha wont hear this embarrassing call. “And plus, you’re the one whose cost me thousands of dollars. Just tell me what you want. I have a lot of work to do.”

“Well,” says my dad, pretending to sound hurt. “If that’s the way it’s going to be. I wanted to let you know I’m coming to Philly.”

I groan inwardly. “For a visit?”

My dad chuckles. “You don’t want me to stay longer than few days, right? Well, I’m moving there, to be closer to you.”

I groan out loud this time.

This is the last thing I needed to hear.

David

I’m sitting at a table in a Center City restaurant that I use sometimes for casual business meetings. The wait staff know me here. They know I tip well, and they know not to bother me too much.

“Anything else, Mr. Masters?” says the waiter.

I shake my head, indicating “no,” and check my watch.

He should be here by now.

I’m meeting the judge who’s going to be presiding over the custody battle. It turns out my ex-wife wasn’t delusional when she said she was going to try to take Laura from me. But there’s no doubt that she’s delusional about getting Laura back.

This is an annoyance, meeting with the judge, but at least my position and influence in Philadelphia allow me to do this. This is my standard operating procedure for legal trouble: meet with the judge beforehand, so that he can advise me on what he’s going to look for in the case and how he’s likely to rule.

“Finally,” I say, standing up to shake Judge Carter’s hand.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says.

I don’t say anything, but merely look at my watch.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says again.

I shrug. “So what can you tell me? I’m assuming my ex-wife doesn’t have a case at all.”

“Well,” says Judge Carter, grimacing as he takes some papers out from a briefcase. “I’m afraid that…”

A waiter comes over and Carter falls silent. “Can I get you anything, sir?”

“Just a water, thanks.”

I take a sip from my whiskey on the rocks.

“You were saying?” I say, as the waiter disappears.

“Yes, so she actually has quite a good lawyer, a guy known colloquially in the circuit as the Jackal.”

“The Jackal?” I say, raising my eyebrows.

“Yeah, he’s vicious. But he always makes a good case…”

“I don’t see how she’d have the money for that. My alimony payments are quite a bit, sure, but…”

“I don’t know,” says Judge Carter, pausing again as the waiter delivers the water before disappearing obsequiously. “But I’ve been reviewing this, and… honestly, it looks like she has a good case.”

“A good case? Are you serious?” My anger is rising, and it shows in my voice.

“From what I can see, you’ve had full custody since the divorce.”

“Yeah, because my ex-wife’s been in and out of rehabilitation centers since Laura was born. She’s a junkie.”

“Well, that may be the case, but it looks like she’s turned her life around… and frankly, I’m always kind of a sucker for that. Plus, all parents should have a right to see their kids…”

I’m almost left speechless, but that’s not really my thing.

“You’re serious? That’s completely insane. I give my daughter the best of everything…”

“But recently, there’ve been a lot of rumors about you. Frankly, you don’t have the best character references.”

I sigh.

“I work hard, and I play hard,” I say. “I don’t make excuses for my behavior. What’s the difference, anyway?”

“Well,” says Judge Carter slowly. He’s obviously scared of me, and he speaks softly and weakly. “In the eyes of the court, character counts for a great deal when it comes to these things. Your wife has cleaned up her act, and done what she’s had to do to get things on the right track… Addiction is a tough battle…” He pauses for a long moment. “On the other hand, you’ve had a number of mistresses… and…”

“They’re not mistresses,” I say. “I don’t let anyone stay around long enough to become a ‘mistress,’ and that’s my own personal life. Aside from that, I pay for my daughter to have the best tutors. She goes to…”

“I’m aware of where she goes to school, but I don’t see why she couldn’t continue her education with her mother.”

“I’ve heard all I need to hear,” I say. “I’ll be seeing you in court. And trust me, you don’t want to get on the bad side of my lawyers.”

I stand up, throwing some cash down on the table.

“Remember, Mr. Masters, I make the final decision, not your lawyers.”

He gives me a weak smile as he says it. I’m not sure if it’s a smirk or not, but either way, it’s clear he’s an asshole.

I storm out of the restaurant, not turning around to look at the smug little judge.

Who does he think he is? And does he have any idea what kind of power I wield in this town?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a sleek black car pull up slowly to the curb.

The window rolls down, and Jordan’s head sticks out.

“Hey, buddy,” he calls out.

I head over to the door and shake his hand.

“What’s shaking?” he says.

“You don’t want to know,” I say. “Remember what I told you about my ex-wife?”

“What’s her name again?”

“Alicia,” I say, grimacing a little.

“Like I said, at least you’ve only got one.”

“Looks like she’s pretending she’s cleaned up her act, and the judge is already on her side.”

“Shit. Hey, why don’t you get in?”

The door opens, and Jordan slides over for me as I sit down on the plush black leather seats.

“Continue,” says Jordan, pressing the intercom button to let the driver know what to do.

“You always use a driver?”

“Only when I’m half cocked,” says Jordan.

I see that he’s holding a glass of whiskey, and there’s a full bar in front of us. Jordan’s wearing his hair slicked back as always, but it’s coming a little undone around his ears. His suit, while expensive, is rumpled, and I wonder whether he’s been up since the night before. Not that it matters to me. That’s just Jordan, and it’s not like I’ve never done the same thing.

He offers me a drink, but I decline.

The car glides along the Center City streets. The windows are heavily tinted, and I get lost in my own thoughts for a moment, staring at the people through the glass that walk along the city sidewalks. There are all types of people in Philadelphia, poor, rich, bums, students…

“I just don’t get it,” I say. “I mean, I give her the best tutors…. And it’s simply not safe with my ex-wife… she’s a fucking drug addict.”

“You spend a lot of time with your kid?”

“No, not much, but she’s got everything she needs.”

“Hmmph.”

“What does that mean?” I say.

“Nothing.”

“And what really gets me is that she’s probably just using all the alimony money I pay her for some slick young lawyer…. What she doesn’t spend on drugs, I mean.”

“So you already had the court case?”

“No, I met with the judge ahead of time, to get the scoop.”

“I see. So he told you the way he’s going to be ruling ahead of time?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Doesn’t sound legal.”

I shrug.

“So what can you do?”

“I’ve already got the best lawyers, but I’m not sure what they’re going to be able to do. Sometimes, I think they’re all idiots.”

“So what’s so bad about you?” says Jordan, taking a big gulp of his drink. “You’re not such a bad guy, right?”

“Judge said I had a bad reputation. Word gets around.”

Jordan laughs. “If you’ve got a bad reputation, I wonder what kind of reputation I have.”

“What’s wrong with the old ‘work hard, play hard’?” I say. “When did that become such a bad thing? Sure, I have my fun, but so fucking what?”

“You know what you should do?” says Jordan. “You know the only way you can win this thing and keep your daughter?”

“I’m all ears,” I say sarcastically. “I doubt you’ve got any good ideas left in that alcohol-soaked skull of yours.”

“Don’t be so sure,” says Jordan, cackling, as he spills some whiskey on his thousand-dollar tie. “I’ve got a couple left.” He raps his knuckles against his skull, making an unpleasant sound.

“Well spit it out then,” I say. “Let’s hear this brilliant idea.”

“Improve your reputation,” says Jordan, starting to slur his words.

“Improve my reputation?”

“Yeah, it’s your reputation that’s gotten you into this, right? If you were like, upstanding businessman of the year instead of the… whatever you are… fucking a quarter of the women in Philadelphia… maybe you’d…”

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that, though?”

“Why are you such a bad guy in his eyes?”

“I’m not married, and I fuck whoever I please, and I don’t care who knows about it… except my daughter.”

“So get yourself a wife,” says Jordan, breaking into a grin as he says it.

“I’m not just going to get married…”

“Shhh…” says Jordan, holding up his finger to his mouth, as if he’s telling me a huge secret. He leans into my ear and whispers, “a fake wife.”

“A fake wife?” I say, at my regular volume. “That’s your brilliant idea? Get myself a fake wife. You’re drunk off your ass, Jordan.”

The car glides to a stop. “We’ve arrived, sir,” says the driver’s voice through the intercom.

“Where are we?” I say.

“The best strip club in Philadelphia,” says Jordan.

I look out the window to see that Jordan’s taken us to a sleazy strip club out by the airport. A couple neon signs compete with each other, advertising fully naked women.

“I’m going,” I say. “And you’re an idiot.”

“No like my idea? At least come strip club with me.”

“You should go home,” I say. “Not that I give a shit.”

I get out of the car and slam the door behind me.

I don’t feel like waiting for a hired car, and I’ve never had a driver since I prefer to drive my own cars. But there’s a taxi sitting here, because apparently people need to leave this strip club in a hurry, and an already-waiting taxi is convenient for them. That doesn’t surprise me, given the looks of this place. Not that I’m above hanging out in places like this when I’m not at work, but I’m certainly not in the mood now, with this Alicia shit hanging over my head like a dark cloud that’s about to rain.

“Take me to Center City,” I say to the cabbie, tossing him a few twenties. “And step on it.”

On the ride home, I fume over the whole situation. It’s my alimony money she’s using to sue me. And that slimy little judge. Who is he to talk about morals and all that shit? I’ve known him from other cases, and he’s no fucking stand up guy, let me tell you that much.

And that idiot Jordan… a fake wife, really?

But as we drive, entering the city again, I start to actually consider the idea. Maybe I’m losing my mind, I don’t know.

There are tons of people out today, enjoying the fall weather and the changing trees. The majority of them are couples, walking hand in hand.

There’s no doubt that a couple is less threatening… I mean, who gets mugged by a couple? If you’re walking down a dark alley in Philly late at night, and a single guy approaches you, chances are you’re going to get mugged. But if it’s a couple? Forget about it.

If I had a wife, there’d be no question about my reputation… bad boy finance guy who turns his life around and settles down. People love a good redemption story, as evidenced by the judge falling over backwards for my scheming wife and her supposed “recovery.”

But I have no intention of really marrying. After all, I’ve been on that ride once before. And I need my freedom.

My mind suddenly shifts to that hot piece of ass I saw in the mail room the other day. She must be new, because if I’d seen her before, there’s no way I would forget her.

She was wearing a longish professional skirt, but it couldn’t hide that delicious plump ass, and her button down shirt couldn’t hide her perfect breasts.

Just thinking about her curves gets me hard.

Normally, I’d just fuck her.

…but she’d be perfect for a fake wife.

She’s got that post-nerdy kind of look, like she was super studious in the past. There’s something wholesome about her, which just makes my cock harder thinking about what’d I do to her.

But if I keep my cock in my pants for once, and make her a financial offer she can’t refuse, why couldn’t she be the perfect cover for my lifestyle?

I may not spend a lot of time with my daughter, but I do want the best for her. It’s been hard being a single dad. The most important thing I can do for Laura is just to keep her out of the hands of Alicia. Who knows what Alicia would do to her. Laura simply can’t be living in halfway houses growing up.

Olivia

Judging from the snoring sounds coming from the next room, Sasha is sleeping off another mild hangover, but I know she doesn’t have to be in class until 11 AM today.

It’s still a little early for me. Sasha usually wakes up before me.

I wouldn’t be awake now if it wasn’t for the neighbors on the other side of the wall fucking each other’s brains out as noisily as they possibly could. They woke me up half an hour before I need to be awake for work.

My body’s in that half awake half asleep state. The last thing I want to do is get out of bed right now, but I if go back to sleep, I’ll probably sleep through my alarm. Coming into work late isn’t an option for me, considering the financial situation I’m in.

Thankfully, my mind doesn’t turn to early morning worries as it often does.

Something else fills my mind instead.

It’s my boss from yesterday, David Masters. I simply can’t forget the way he looked at me.

My phone is on my nightstand, and I grab it sleepily, navigating to the article that I was reading yesterday with Sasha.

Instead of looking at the text, though, I just gaze at his picture. His eyes are simply smoldering. His jaw looks like you could cut steel on it.

There’s a warm feeling between my legs, and there’s no doubt about it… I’m turned on.

Just because I’m a virgin, and embarrassed about it, and about my own sexual inexperience, doesn’t mean I don’t get horny. It doesn’t mean I don’t long for guys, or their thick, hard cocks.

I can’t count how many hours I’ve spent wondering what it would feel like to have a thick cock filling me up, to have a hot shirtless guy pressing himself against me.

I position my phone next to my pillow and stare at the picture… hard.

My clit is swollen, practically on fire. My breathing is rapid.

I can still hear Sasha’s snores. If she was awake, I’d be worried about her hearing me, but there’s no chance of her waking up. I don’t think anything can.

I’m on my side now, but I flip over on my stomach, putting my pillow underneath my stomach and breasts, length wise.

My hand goes under my body, against the mattress, underneath the elastic of my panties.

I rub my clit, starting out slow, but I keep staring at his picture, and I can’t help myself. Soon I’m moving my finger fast, really fast.

This isn’t enough for me, and I revert to a style of masturbation I’m embarrassed of, and would die if anyone ever knew about.

I pull my body up, and push the pillow farther down, so that it’s between my legs, and I’m straddling it.

I remove my hand and concentrate on humping and riding the pillow. It feels so good against my clit that I have to suppress a moan. I close my eyes and picture David Masters, my boss. I imagine we’re back in the office yesterday, but this time in my fantasy, he walks right up to me and pulls out his cock. I don’t know why my imagination goes here, but the next thing I picture is that he takes his strong hands and guides my head down towards his cock, which I take out of his pants. It’s massive and hard, and my mouth falls around it.

I come, and I bite my lip to keep any sounds from coming out.

I roll over, off the pillow, to look at the clock.

Shit, I’m running five minutes late now.

The only thing I can think about as I get ready, taking a shower, but skipping breakfast, is how embarrassed I’m going to be today if I see him. I’d just die if he came up and talked to me. Knowing myself, I’d turn beet red in my face and not be able to speak at all.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Although I wouldn’t mind catching another glimpse of him from afar.

I catch the trolley just in time. Otherwise, I’d be stuck on the other side of the river from Center City. It’s at least a two hour walk and cabs are ridiculously expensive. And the trolleys haven’t been reliable recently.

Today, I’m wearing a shorter skirt than yesterday, one that shows off as much of my thigh as could be considered appropriate for a professional environment. I’m wearing another button down shirt, and I don’t know why, but I unbutton it one button more than usual.

Of course, being me, the first thing I do at work is rush into the bathroom to make sure my bra isn’t visible, and that too much cleavage isn’t showing.

It’s not like I unbuttoned it far—it’s just that I normally keep everything buttoned all the way up. I guess I’m just a prude, a sexless virgin prude. I get really down on myself about all this quite often. Especially recently, possibly because when I was in school I was just simply too busy to worry about my sexual inexperience. But now that I’m out in the working world, I feel like I’m not a real adult. I’m positive I’m the only virgin in the office here. I just hope no one else suspects anything.

The morning goes by slowly and tediously. I’ve got a particularly boring job to do today, printing a few thousand individual files. Most of the work is sorting through the files that come in individually from different workers, and trying to keep track of what I’ve printed yet and what I haven’t.

I don’t see so much as a glimpse of the boss.

Until, that is, I turn around, and he’s standing right in front of me, only a few feet away from me, right here in the mail room.

“Oh!” I gasp, dropping my papers.

He chuckles, and doesn’t move to help me pick up the papers.

I’m conscious of his eyes on me as I bend down to pick them up. Great, I think to myself, this is the one day that I decide to unbutton that extra button.

My thoughts flit back to the fantasy I had this morning, where I was on my knees in front of his towering figure. It hits a little too close to home right now.

I finally get up, flattening down my skirt as I do so, clutching the messy stack of papers in front of me.

He just looks me up and down and doesn’t say anything.

Up close, he’s even hotter than I’d thought. His eyes are piercing. His features are super defined, impeccable. He doesn’t have a single flaw.

His shoulders are wide and he’s tall. Just from the way he stands, you know there’s a tremendous amount of athletic power in him… I don’t even dare to think of what he could do to me with that power.

“Can I help you?” I finally say, since I’m feeling like the silence is getting awkward.

But he seems perfectly comfortable, with his hands thrust into his pockets, his posture confident and relaxed.

“Just stopped by to admire the view,” he says. His voice is deep and rumbly, and most of all, powerful.

“Can I help you with something?” I say. “Do you need some copies?” It’s a dumb thing to say, but I can’t think of anything else, and I want to cover my embarrassment. Of course, he has no way of knowing that I was fantasizing about him this morning right before coming to work. Well, I hope so, at least.

“What’s your name?” he says.

“Olivia,” I say.

He nods, as if considering this new information very carefully. He looks me up and down again. His gaze makes me blush even more.

“I’d like you to come with me, Olivia,” he says. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Are you sure?” I say, thinking he might have the wrong person. After all, what could the boss want with me?

He nods.

“Come with me,” he says, standing back from the doorway, gesturing with his arm for me to lead the way.

“Am I in trouble?” I say. I guess my goodie-two-shoes mind goes right to the fear that I might have some something wrong. After all, I can’t lose this job. I’m just a jumble of conflicting feelings right now: embarrassment, fear, and confusion.

He just chuckles deeply without answering me. He won’t take his eyes off me.

“I have a lot of work to do,” I say frantically. “They’re expecting these print outs from me.”

“Don’t worry about that,” says David.

I don’t know why I’m so reluctant to go with him. After all, I was hoping for a just a glance of him today. I’m certainly going to get an eyeful of him if I go with him to this “private meeting.”

I’m out of excuses, and there’s nothing to do but walk past him timidly out the door.

He follows me. “Down the hallway here,” he says. “To my office.”

I glance back once to make sure he’s behind me. I’ve never been down this hallway before, since the only thing it leads to is his office. He’s clearly checking out my ass as he walks behind me and he doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed when I catch him looking. He just grins at me and winks.

I blush and continue walking.

Finally, after what seems like forever, we get to his office.

I stand awkwardly by the door.

The office is incredibly luxurious, with wood paneled walls and two huge walls of windows. It’s one of those covered corner offices. The desk is massive, conveying power, made of a very expensive looking wood. I can see that the wood’s grain curves perfectly into spiral patterns—it must have taken an expert woodworker years to make this desk.

The desk is almost bare, except for a computer and a framed picture of a little blonde girl who’s probably in elementary school. She must be his daughter. That’s weird—he doesn’t seem like the type to have kids, and I’ve already heard rumors that he has a reputation as a huge womanizer.

“Take a seat,” he says. It’s more of a command than a suggestion, and he doesn’t seem like the type of guy you want to disobey.

I take a seat, crossing my legs carefully and sitting upright, trying to look professional. There’s no way he could be interested in me… that’s where my mind goes, even though I just caught him checking out my ass. I guess he just does that to all women, whether or not they’re attractive to him.

He’s the kind of guy who can get any woman he wants.

Just look at him…

He’s absolutely perfect.

Up close, I can’t even believe he really looks like that. I mean, no one looks that good.

His eyes are even more intense up close, and I find myself getting lost in them, before quickly looking away, my face flushing.

He’s sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, with his hands in his lap.

“I’m sorry if I haven’t been doing a good job,” I say, getting the words out with some difficulty, because at this point I’m beyond nervous, with my heart feeling like it’s going to beat right out of my chest. “I haven’t been here that long, but I’m sure in the future I can learn…”

“I’m sure your copying is fine,” he says, cutting me off. “I wanted to discuss something else with you.”

I’m practically holding my breath, waiting for an answer. I have no idea what to expect.

“What’s your story?” he continues. “Any history of drug use, alcohol use, excess partying… maybe one crazy night back in college that you want to forget?”

I shake my head.

“And keep in mind that this won’t affect your employment here. This is more of a… personal matter.”

Now I’m really nervous.

“No,” I say hastily. “Nothing like that. I was always too busy studying to do anything like that. I was top of my class, and I graduated early…”

“Sounds perfect,” he says, cutting me off again. “So nothing unsavory in your record?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head vigorously, still believing that despite what he says, this is going to affect my job here somewhat. “And if you need another copy of my resume, I can…”

“Won’t be necessary,” he says, cutting me off for what must be the third time. This is getting a little annoying. What’s this all about anyway? He just pulls me into his office and questions me about my personal past? Who does that? “So you’re a good girl? I mean, you have the look and everything.”

“I’m afraid I don’t really know where you’re going with this, Mr. Masters.”

“I’m in a bit of a situation,” he says. “My ex-wife is suing me again, and this time she wants full custody of my daughter, Laura. Apparently I have a bit of a reputation around town, one that might impede my defense in the eyes of the court. I’m looking to improve my image.”

I nod my head. What I want to ask is: what the hell do I have to do with this? Instead, I just say “oh,” in the most demure voice I can muster.

“What I need,” he says, “is a wife.”

I’m silent for a long moment as he stares at me. I shift in my chair uncomfortably. “Is that so?” I finally say.

He nods. “I need someone who can improve my image. I need someone who’s an upstanding citizen, that sort of person. And someone attractive enough that the whole thing is believable.”

I have absolutely no idea what to say, so I remain silent.

“And that’s why you’re perfect for the job.”

What?

I’m completely frozen.

He wants me to be his wife? There’s no way that’s what he’s saying. I don’t even know him!

This must be some kind of misunderstanding. Or maybe it’s an elaborate joke. No one mentioned that he was a big prankster, but maybe this is something he does to the new employees. He doesn’t seem to be the type to be worried about sexual harassment lawsuits.

“You’ve got a clean record, and you’ve got that studious look, but you’re hot, too, so no one will find it unbelievable that I’d choose you as my wife. Now, I’m prepared to offer sizable compensation. Let me see, what do you earn here?”

I can’t help it. The situation is just so ridiculous and absurd that I burst out laughing.

I just keep on laughing until I’m red in the face.

He doesn’t say anything, but merely looks at me and raises his eyebrows.

When I’m finally done laughing, the laughter dying in spurts, I fall completely silent, as if I’m trying to make up for my laughter. I cross my hands in my lap and try to sit up straighter.

“$30,000 a year, roughly, I would imagine,” he says, referring to my salary. In reality, it’s far lower than that, but I don’t dare correct him. “I’m prepared to offer a one time sum of, let’s say, half a million dollars to be paid in various installments, provided you do a good enough job, act convincingly, and that sort of thing. There will, of course, be various stipulations and penalties… we can go over all that later.”

Half a million dollars!

“Wait,” I say. “Are you serious?”

For the first time, it dawns on me that this is a serious offer.

“Serious? Of course I’m serious. And remember, this isn’t a real marriage. You’ll have to sign a pre-nup. I can’t afford to give you all my money in a lawsuit when we get divorced, and there will not, of course, be any alimony payments. And you’ll have to do a convincing job of it, or else, as I mentioned, there will be penalties.”

He says this last word rather severely, and for a moment, it frightens me.

The situation is absurd, but as my shock starts to fade, anger starts to grow.

So he thinks he can just buy me at his own convenience? He thinks I’m so desperate for money that I’ll just agree to this degrading position?

“This is only for show,” he says. “So don’t expect me to curtail my sexual activities. And don’t expect that we’ll have sex. This is strictly a business arrangement.”

So he thinks he’s so hot that I’m just dying to sleep with him? Even though this is true, it still annoys the hell out of me. He doesn’t even wonder if I want to sleep with him? He just assumes that every woman wants him?

The regular me would just demurely decline the offer, acting shy and nervous. But there’s real anger inside me. I feel more insulted than I ever have in my life.

I’m never sticking up for myself. When I had my extreme chronic fatigue episode, I ended up apologizing to everyone I could, even when they were jerks to me. I even ended up apologizing to my dad when he sent me into debt, falsifying my identity. And inside, it just made me even more angry that I couldn’t stick up for myself.

This is my chance.

I stand up, somewhat awkwardly and abruptly.

I’m red in the face, and aware that my anger might cost me the job that I desperately need.

“I’ve never been more insulted in my life,” I blurt out, my voice rising, full of anger. “You think you can just do that? You think you can just make an offer like that?”

He sits calmly, unmoving, watching me.

“And you’re so arrogant that you think every woman is just dying to sleep with you? I’ve never met someone so, uh, pigheaded in my entire life!”

I’m yelling now. Maybe it’s not the most coherent tirade ever, but at least I stuck up for myself.

I’m already at the door, yanking it open too hard, so that it slams against the wall.

I pause for a moment before leaving to see if he’ll say something, to see if he’ll fire me on the spot.

But he still doesn’t move.

He just looks at me.

“One million dollars,” is all he says. “And that’s my final offer.”

“Never in a million years,” I say, trying to keep my voice down in case someone is in the hallway.

“We’ll see about that,” he says.

I storm down the empty hallway back to the mailroom, and I stand here, contemplating my fury. In a strange way, I’m proud of myself.

But when my anger starts to fade, and I start to calm down, I’m left standing here wondering whether or not I should just go right home, whether or not I still have a job.

But as the minutes tick by, seeming to take forever, no one comes to tell me I’m fired.

I check my email on my phone, knowing that some companies send emails to fire employees. But there’s nothing, except for an email from my dad telling me that his move to Philly is already underway. Great.

Well, it looks like I still have my job for now. So I start reorganizing the papers I dropped on the floor when Mr. Masters came to see me.

I’m still referring to him in my head as Mr. Masters. How stupid is that? After all, he just “proposed” to me. It’s time to drop the formality in my head. I’m so formal and so uptight—it annoys me. I’m just annoyed at myself.

I’m sure I acted like a fool back there.

Could it possibly be a joke, a prank? Well, no one is rushing up to me showing me a hidden camera or anything like that, so I doubt it.

No, it was a serious offer. Mr. Masters isn’t the type of man to joke around.

That much is clear.

David

She didn’t take the offer, but she will. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’ll do it. It’s just a matter of how long it’ll take her to decide.

The quicker she makes her decision, the better.

The court date is coming up in two weeks, and it’s going to look a hell of a lot better if I’ve been married for more than a day or two.

I can’t get her out of my mind. Her image is practically burned into my retinas. I needed to know that she was hot, true, but I already knew that. I was just looking at her out of a deep lust.

My cock twitches just thinking about her.

She’s so sexy, with that innocence and those curves—it’s going to be very hard to resist my urges and not fuck her, when she finally does agree to this fake marriage. But I’m going to have to resist. It’s either that or lose the court case.

Meanwhile, my balls feel like they’re made of lead, they’re so full. I’m used to a certain frequency in my sexual activity. I need to fuck at least five times a week, but for the last week or so, I haven’t fucked anyone. The court case has interfered with everything, even my personal life. It simply kills my mood, but my desire lingers in the background, and it’s about to rear its fierce head.

“Hi Mr. Masters,” says Nancy, greeting me as I enter the house.

I grunt a hello. “How’s Laura doing?” I say. “Did you figure out the thing with the tutors?”

To be completely honest, I remember that there was some sort of academic problem the other day, but for the life of me I can’t exactly remember what it was. But that doesn’t make me a bad father, does it? After all, I’m still paying for the tutors.

It’s not like my own father was in my life much. He wasn’t the “hands on” sort of dad, but he worked double shifts to give me the education I needed. He did his part, and then I did mine. My dad worked as a bricklayer here in Philly, and I knew I didn’t want that for myself, so I simply did what I had to do to become the richest man in Philadelphia.

I never had any doubts I could do it. So I just fucking did it. And it worked.

“I think it’s going fine,” says Nancy. She seems nervous, like she’s about to ask me for a favor. “But, um, Laura would really like to spend some time with you. I think she misses you.”

“Misses me?” I say. “How could she miss me? We live in the same house, don’t we?”

“Yes, but, well…” Nancy seems incredibly nervous, doing a poor job of hiding her fidgeting hands. “She doesn’t get to see you very much.”

I nod. I suppose that’s true. She’s often in bed by the time I get home, and anyway, the rest of the time, she should be studying, shouldn’t she? And I have things to do, deals to make, and people to contact.

“Is she still awake?”

“I think so, sir.”

I walk past Nancy, leaving her looking stunned and nervous. I head upstairs, up the carpeted steps to the second floor, where Laura’s bedroom is.

I knock on the door.

“Laura,” I say. “Are you awake?”

“Daddy?”

“It’s me.”

I open the door and walk in.

The lights are off, but Laura’s illuminated by a tablet computer that she has propped up against a large teddy bear on her bed.

She’s sitting cross legged in front of the tablet, clearly wide awake.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” I say.

I stand somewhat awkwardly by her bed, looking down on her. If there’s one place I’m not my normal confident self, it’s with my daughter. My own parents didn’t talk to me much—I was just supposed to do my homework, go to work, and do my chores. It was almost more a business relationship, and at the time I didn’t realize there was anything unusual about it. I didn’t realize that normal parents showed and expressed their love for their children. It wasn’t until I started seeing my friends’ parents that I realized something was different about my own.

But I don’t resent it. It gave me a good head for business, and I learned to become confident in myself, and I learned to take what I need, without apologizing for it.

But the fact remains that I don’t feel comfortable with my own daughter, and it eats me up inside. It’s a secret horrible feeling of doubt that I keep buried away. No one knows, and I’ll never tell anyone.

After all, I provide Laura with everything she needs. She’s got the best of everything, and she always will.

My ex-wife, Alicia, was better, when she was sober, at talking to Laura. And that fact only makes me feel worse.

“I don’t know,” says Laura.

“Your bed time is at nine, right?”

“I don’t know.”

I sigh, and sit down carefully on the very edge of her bed. I’m aware that my posture is stiff, my back straight.

“Are you playing a game on your tablet?”

“I’m reading.”

“That’s good. What are you reading?”

“A scary book.”

“A scary book? Is that for school?”

She shakes her head. She always seems nervous around me, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I don’t spend enough time with her. But hell, I have to work to provide for her, don’t I? But deep down, I know this is just an excuse.

But I do try.

“What makes the books scary?”

“Ghosts.”

“Ghosts,” I say, shaking my head and laughing. “Those can be pretty scary.”

“Did you ever see a ghost?”

“Not quite,” I say. “They’re not real, you know. They’re just something that exists in books and movies, to scare little girls.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding disappointed.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not a good story,” I say. “Let me take a look at that.”

I take the tablet from her and read through the page that she has open.

“It does look pretty scary,” I say. “So the ghosts end up chasing the main character?”

“Yeah, but she has a friend who’s a ghost too. And the other ghost helps her.”

I nod.

“So Nancy says you’re having some trouble in school.”

I hope it was school. Why can’t I remember what it is? I can quote average stock prices from three years ago, but I can’t remember simple facts about my own daughter.

Laura just shrugs her shoulders. It’s clear she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Well,” I say. “Just try your best. That’s the most important thing. I’m sure it’ll work out in the end.”

I say goodnight to Laura, and tell her she can keep reading her book, that I won’t mind, and she won’t get in trouble.

“How is she, Mr. Masters?” says Nancy, appearing in the hallway.

“Fine,” I say.

“She’s reading those awful books again, isn’t she? She should be asleep.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “Let her read them. Who knows, maybe she’ll grow up to be a writer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be in my study,” I say.

Nancy nods and disappears again. She’s good at doing that.

In my study, I sit down in a leather armchair and put my feet up. I grab a laptop from the side table and check my email.

There’s an email from Jordan. There’s no text, just a picture of him with his arms around two topless women, evidently from the strip club.

I shake my head.

“Still at the strip club?” I mutter.

Is he living there or something? He looks completely trashed in the picture, with his eyes blood shot.

Sometimes, I do wonder if I’m on the right track, hanging out with guys like Jordan, spending my time fucking every woman I can.

Work hard, play hard—that’s always been my motto.

It’s better not to think about it, I decide.

I take another look at the picture, and my thoughts turn to Olivia, who I offered the fake marriage proposal to. I know she’ll accept it, but I also know that it’ll go against every fiber of her being.

Even though I don’t know her well, I think I have a pretty good read on her—wholesome, somewhat studious, and possibly unaware of how hot she is, how she draws the stares of every man in the room.

She’s nothing like these women that Jordan’s got his arms around, and she’s nothing like the women I normally sleep with. I certainly don’t go after strippers, unless it’s a particularly strange night. No, my contacts list is full of models, socialites, and actresses.

They’re all hot, but they’re all interested in one thing—and that’s money. They’re all superficial, with a sort of washed out personality that seems to define them all as a group.

My cock is hard just thinking about her.

Damn, it’s been a long time since I’ve fucked anyone.

The next email is from my ex-wife’s lawyer, re-explaining what I already know and making it quite clear that they expect to win.

We’ll see about that.

Once I have Olivia officially at my side, there’s no way the judge can rule against me. I’ll have it all, a proper wife who will turn my reputation round, and the wealth to give Laura whatever she needs. Alicia simply can’t compete with that, even if she has gotten off the drugs.

Olivia

“He did what?” says Sasha, who’s just gotten home from studying in the library.

She drops her big bags of books in the entrance way and rushes over to me where I’m on the couch.

I couldn’t resist telling her first thing when she got home.

“He offered me a million dollars to marry him,” I say. “For a fake marriage.”

“A fake marriage?”

“You know, not a real marriage. No sex or anything. Just a marriage on paper. Apparently he needs to change his image to a respectable businessman, and I’m just the woman to make it happen.”

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know,” I say. “… and a million dollars.”

“Wait,” says Sasha. “You’re not actually considering this, are you?”

“What? Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

“I saw the way your eyes lit up when you said ‘a million dollars.’”

“It’s just that it’s a lot of money. It would solve all my financial problems.”

“Yeah, but you just can’t.”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry. That’s the last thing I’m going to do.”

“How did he do it? Right there in the office?”

I tell her the whole story, sparing no details, except of course for how hot I found him, how I couldn’t take my eyes off him during the whole meeting. And of course I don’t tell her how he makes me feel, and how I fantasized about him this morning.

“What a prick,” says Sasha, putting her arm around me. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

I shrug. “I guess I should be flattered,” I say. “I mean, in a weird way it is kind of… flattering.”

“Don’t start thinking like that,” says Sasha. “Or else you’re one step closer to actually accepting his offer.”

“Are you crazy? You know me, I’d never do that, not in a million years. I haven’t even had…”

“I know,” says Sasha, patting me on the shoulder in a weird sort of way. “But we’ll find you someone decent. Don’t worry.”

Sasha’s phone beeps at her, and she giggles as she reads a text message.

“Who is it?”

“This guy from school. I just met him today at the library.” She blushes.

“What is it?”

“He asked me out.”

“Nice,” I say, trying to find the enthusiasm that I need to muster, but I worry my voice sounds too flat.

“Are you OK if I head out? I could stay if you want…”

“No,” I say. “I’m fine. The whole thing is over. You go out and have fun.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

“Great!” she says, practically jumping off of the couch with excitement. She runs into her room to get changed, and then into the bathroom.

“See you later,” she calls out, practically rushing out the door, so fast that I don’t even really have time to say goodbye.

I’m left with my own thoughts stewing around.

The anger from my encounter has dissipated somewhat. I’m left somewhat puzzled, embarrassed, and even flattered. I mean, he did pick me, saying that I would be a believable wife. I’ve never thought I was attractive, and certainly not attractive enough for David Masters.

The money is, honestly, tempting.

But there’s no way I would ever do that. It’d be as bad as if I sold myself on the street. Only for a lot more money says a little voice inside my head.

My thoughts end up whirling around a little crazily for a little while, before landing back, inevitably, on David Masters. In particular, I start thinking about his body, and how it makes me feel.

Why the hell am I still a virgin?

Sure, I’ve lamented this fact before, countless times.

But for some strange reason, what happened today makes me really lament it.

If I was just normal, I could perhaps go have a fling with David Masters. It’s not like I would marry him, of course. But maybe I could enjoy him, by having casual sex the way so many adults to. There’s no doubt in my mind, for instant, that Sasha’ going to have sex tonight, and she’s going to tell me all about it tomorrow.

She’s out there having the time of her life right now, and I’m stuck here moping around.

The door buzzes.

Who the hell rings the doorbell these days? Or, more accurately, the buzzer. It’s not like I’ve ever spoken to the neighbors here, and as far as I know neither Sasha or I are expecting any packaged. The delivery guys tend to just leave them in the entranceway anyway, without ringing the buzzer.

I press the intercom button before remembering that the apartment is old and the intercom probably hasn’t worked in decades.

Sighing, I unlock the deadbolt and head into the hallway where the unpleasant fluorescent lights and dirty carpet greet me.

“There’s my girl!”

It’s my dad, standing in the lobby.

“How did you get in?” After all, you need a key or a code to get inside the front door.

“Is that how you greet your father after so long?”

“Hi Dad,” I say, not bothering to hide my enthusiasm much at all.

My dad is somewhat short, about 5’5”, balding on top, with a big paunch for a stomach. He’s always had a belly, but it’s gotten bigger in recent years. Today, it looks like he’s swallowed a couple bowling balls. He’s got one tattered fake leather duffel bag on the floor beside him.

“Come here!” he says, opening up his arms.

I walk towards him slowly and unenthusiastically.

He embraces me, hugging me tightly. I do my best to put my arms around his back, patting him the way guys who when they hug each other.

“What are you doing here?” I say.

“Dong here? Come on, can’t I visit you unannounced? Plus, I’m moving here, remember?”

“I thought that wasn’t for a couple weeks or something.”

“My plans changed a little, but that’s the way it goes right?”

That’s the way it always goes with him. Something is always changing, and he never does what he tells me he’ll do.

Just look at my dad’s smiling face makes me angry. The anger’s boiling in my stomach, making me seethe internally. But on the outside, I wear this bland face that hides my true feelings.

I want to scream at him, telling him that he’s practically ruined my life, or at leas my financial one, by stealing so much money from me.

But, in reality, I’ve already done that. I got mad at him on the phone, and he just laughed it off like it was no big deal. If there’s one thing he’s good at doing, it’s laughing things off.

I can’t tell him how I really feel. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.

That doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed with him, even visibly annoyed. In fact, I’m not sure, but I think I’m coming across as cold, although you’d never guess it from the way he’s acting, like he’s completely thrilled to see me, no matter how I act towards him.

“Where are you staying?” I say.

“Hey, why don’t we get some dinner?”

“I’ve already eaten. But you’re avoiding the question.”

“I’m doing no such thing. Hey, did you say you take the trolley to work? I can’t believe that thing still operates. They were using trolleys the last time I was here in the ‘70s.”

That’s typical of him—denying that he’s even denying anything. According to my dad, he’s never avoided a question or never done anything to harm me. He’ll never admit that he screwed me over by stealing my identity.

I had to change all my online banking passwords. I have to change all my credit and debit cards. I canceled everything and even changed my phone number because the creditors were waking me up at night.

“So,” says my dad. “Aren’t you going to show me where I’m going to sleep?”

“Wait,” I say. “You think you’re staying here?”

“You’re going to turn your own father away?”

I don’t say anything. The anger is seething up inside me, but I just can’t let it out.

“Oh,” says my dad. “There’s one little thing I should mention… I had to borrow your debit card number to pay for the bus ticket here.”

“You stole more money for me?”

“Stole? No, of course not. I’d never steal money from anyone, let alone my own daughter. It was just that they were asking me for a card number, and I didn’t happen to have one available, so I…”

“I know you know how banking works,” I say. “For someone who gambles all his money away, you’d think you’d have a better understanding of finances…”

“Come on,” says my dad. “Why don’t we talk about this over dinner before we get carried away here.”

“Out,” I say, simply, pointing to the door to the street.

The door opens, and someone comes in. It’s a man in his early thirties, and he seems to sense that something is going on between me and my dad, so he avoids looking at us by looking down at the ground and walking past us without saying anything.

“Are you serious?” says my dad, chuckling to himself.

That’s how he gets through life being such a sketch ball, just laughing everything off, refusing to take anything seriously whatsoever.

The more he fucks up, the more he laughs.

“Out,” I say. “You’re not staying here.”

I should scream at him. That’s what I desperately want to do, but I just can’t find it within myself. Well, I can find it, but I can’t get it out. There’s something blocking it.

“All right,” says my dad, grinning at me. “I can see you’re having a bad day. So I’ll let you settle down. What about dinner tomorrow?”

I don’t say anything. Instead, I just turn around and walk back towards my apartment, through the dirty hallway that stinks of natural gas.

The only thing I want to do right now is curl up in my bed and cry, but the tears don’t come. I’ve been through so much with my dad and his gambling, and his constant scheming that I simply find it hard to have a reaction to anything he’s done. I feel numb inside.

There’s a hollow space inside me, I can feel the emptiness palpably. Nothing’s go the way I want it. Nothing at all.

If only Sasha were here, instead of having fun on her date. She’s probably trying some crazy new sex position that I’ll have to hear about tomorrow, all the while wondering why I don’t go on dates. Well, the answer is obvious. I’m ashamed of my virginity. What would I do, anyway, if I went on a date and the guy asked me back to his place? Would I have to explain ahead of time that I don’t even know how to have sex, even though I’m ostensibly an adult?

I might as well do something practical, I think to myself, as I open up my computer and log on to my online banking. I might as well see how screwed I am financially. There’s no telling how much my dad actually charged to my debit card. How did he get my number anyway? After all, it is a new card.

Sure enough, the computer tells me that my dad charged not only an expensive bus ticket, but a number of other things. It looks like he went to the grocery store with my card, and also bought himself a few items on Amazon.com.

Great, just great.

And now that he’s here in the city, there’s no end to the number of ways he can screw me over.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds out where I work and shows up someday, trying to scam my coworkers out of money somehow. That’s just the kind of person he is. I can’t change him.

If my mother were still alive, things might be different, but he changed after her death, for the worse.

It’s sobering seeing my bank account. My dad withdrew all the cash, and I’m left with a whopping total of two dollars and seventy nine cents. My paycheck from work wont’ from for another two weeks at least, and they told me that sometimes the first paycheck can come a couple weeks later than usual.

I should be able to borrow money from Sasha so it’s not like I’m going to starve, but my account total just further hits hoe the reality of my financial situation.

Realistically, I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life. I’ll be in a nursing home, still owing money.

I’ll be a slave to the financial institutions, working only for them. I’m selling myself, essentially.

If I’m going to sell myself, I might as well do it so that I won’t have to worry about money for the rest of my life.

If I took up David Masters on his insane offer, I’d still have a cool $800,000 left after I paid off all my loans.

And it’s not like I’d be really selling myself, right? After all, it’s just a job, really. It’s not like I’m selling my body. He made it clear that there wouldn’t be any sex. Actually, he said not to expect any sex from him—what an arrogant jerk. But a hot arrogant jerk. Honestly, my mind starts wondering again what it would be like to have sex with him, to have his hot muscular body pressed against mine, to feel his thick cock deep inside me, penetrating me.

But it’d be completely crazy to marry him, wouldn’t it?

Then again, how long could it possibly take, right? Probably just a couple of months. What would I have to do, live there and show up in court a couple times? It couldn’t really involve all that much, right? And if I divide one million dollars by the total number of hours that I actually have to “work” at the job, the hourly rate is going to be insanely good.

Because I’m a huge nerd, I bust out the calculator on my laptop op an do some calculations, coming up with an hourly rate of $20,000, provided I have to do about 50 hours of work, which is completely insane. There’s no way I’m ever going to have another job offer this good, not for the rest of my natural life. Honestly, I can’t even see how I’d have to put in a total of 50 hours. Unless he expects me to clean and cook for him, but I’m sure he has a maid to do that. Actually, this might be a pretty cushy gig. I can just imagine living at the house of the richest man in Philadelphia—there will be maids and cooks. It’s going to be a huge step up from the crappy apartment Sasha and I share.

But what would Sasha say?

Well, I’ll just have to worry about that when the time come.

Or maybe I can avoid telling her.

David

“That was quick,” I say. “It didn’t take you long to decide to do it.”

Olivia’s standing in front of my desk in my office. She’s wearing a knee-length dress that doesn’t even manage to hide her curves. It’s tight, and there’s a slit that runs up the side of her leg, showing her bare thigh. Her body drives me wild and makes my cock start to swell in my thin suit pants.

But, I tell myself, you can’t fuck her.

Why not, though?

It’s not like the court’s going to find out if I fuck her.

It’s just the beginning, and I’m already making excuses about why I should be able to fuck her, about why there won’t be any consequences.

Maybe the judge is right about my reputation.

The court date’s coming up soon. At the very least, I’ll have to keep my cock in my pants until that. There’s no telling what a cock like mine would do to a goodie-two-shoes girl like Olivia. It might turn her into a completely cock hungry woman over night, and she’d lose the veneer of respectability that’s going to be vital for my court case.

“I didn’t even tell you if I was going to accept,” she says, still standing.

“Take a seat,” I say, chuckling. “What else would you be here for?”

“Maybe I’d want to file a formal harassment complaint.”

“I’ve never heard of a marriage proposal being considered harassment.”

“It’s not a real marriage.”

“No,” I say. “No it’s not, and remember that, because you’re not going to be getting any alimony payments.”

She shrugs. “Well, you’re right. I’m going to accept the offer, but I had some things I wanted to discuss first. Doing this goes against every fiber of my being, and against every conviction I’ve ever had.”

“Of course it does,” I say, chuckling again. “And that’s why you’re so perfect for the part.”

“First, I wanted to say that…”

“Don’t worry about all that now,” I say, cutting her off. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ve already worked it all out. You’ll have your own bedroom in my house. You’ll have to live there, but that’s not going to be a problem for you. It’s a very nice place. You won’t have to do anything in the house. Your responsibilities will be mainly social. We’ll have to be seen at various functions, and of course, the courtroom.”

“I’d like to have some sort of agreement,” she says, finally sitting down. As she does so, her skirt rides up higher on her thigh, and I don’t bother averting my eyes. She leans forward a little, crossing her arms in front of her underneath her breasts, pushing them up and out unintentionally. My cock is raging hard now and aching. “That way, there won’t be any surprises, and we’ll both, um, know exactly what the expectations are.”

It sounds like it’s hard for her to speak up and defend herself. Perfect, she’s respectable and shy. The judge is going to just eat this up. I’m going to be a changed man in his eyes.

“We can’t exactly sign a formal agreement,” I say. “After all, this is probably illegal, and it’s not like we want to leave a bunch of signed evidence around.”

“Oh,” she says. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Don’t worry about the details,” I say. “I do this kind of thing all day long. Everything will be taken care of.”

We sit silently for a moment, staring at each other. I wonder if she knows that my cock is as hard as it is. I’m leaning back in my chair, with my hands behind my head. My cock’s very large, and it makes a huge tent in my pants. From where she’s sitting, she could see it if she wanted to, but she keeps her eyes carefully averted. We’ll see how long that lasts.

“Well,” she says. “How do we do this, then? I’m not sure exactly how to…”

“It’s easy,” I say. “You’ll continue working here. You can move in tonight, and tomorrow we’ll have the wedding. It shouldn’t last longer than a couple months, until this whole thing with my ex-wife has settled down. Then we can get divorced amicably.”

“The wedding?”

I laugh. “Of course,” I say. “We’re getting married, after all. Did you think there wouldn’t be a wedding?”

“I thought maybe we’d do something at the courthouse.”

I wave the suggestion away with my hand. “No one would believe that I’d get married in a courthouse. I buy the best of everything, and there’s no way I would skimp on my own wedding.”

“Oh,” she says, looking down at her lap.

“No,” I say. “It’s going to be a proper wedding. I simply wouldn’t do it any other way. For good measure, I’m going to invite the judge that’s presiding over this case. He’ll see first hand that it’s for real.”

“But…”

“Do you have an objection?” I say.

“It’s just that… I’ve never been a very good actress.”

This makes me really laugh.

“Don’t worry, honey,” I say. “With me, you won’t need to act.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Well,” I say, adjusting my posture so that I’m leaning forward, both hands on the desk. “We’ll shake on it.”

She moves forward timidly, her hand coming slowly towards mine.

I take it in mine. Hers is dainty and delicate. I grip her hand in my powerful, rough hand, and hold her tight. I lock eyes with her.

“Well,” I say. “That’s that. You can go back to work now.”

“Um,” she says. She’s become more timid through his whole meeting. “When do I start?”

“Tonight, of course. Write down your address, and I’ll send a car for you after work.”

“What about my things.”

“You won’t need them. Everything will be provided for you.”

“But what about my clothes? My makeup?”

I chuckle, eyeing her up and down. “I’ll see to it that you get some nice things. No wife of mine will be seen walking around wearing clothes from the thrift store.”

Her mouth falls open and hangs there in surprise.

“Didn’t think I knew, eh? Now, come on, back to work, or they’ll think we’re having an affair. Although, to think of it, that’s exactly what we want them to think, isn’t it?”

She stands frozen, not sure what to do.

“Come on,” I say. “Sit down again. We’ll tell people we fell in love at work and all that. After all, it’s conceivable. Now, what did you say your last name was again?”

“Jenson,” she says.

She sits down, crossing her legs again. And again, I take a good look at her thigh. My cock’s still swollen and aching.

This time, I catch her glancing down just for a moment at my crotch.

I grin at her and she blushes furiously.

“Jenson,” I say, playing with the word in my mind. “Olivia Jenson. Not bad, not bad at all. But it’ll sound much better as Olivia Masters.”

“You want me to change my name?”

“Of course,” I say. “My ex-wife changed her name, and men in my position simply don’t let their names go to waste.”

“I don’t know… it might be confusing for people, for my family.”

“Ah,” I say. “You have family? A mother, father? Sisters, brothers?”

“Just my dad. My mom died when I was younger. I don’t have any siblings. It’s just me and my dad. And that’s a whole… thing.”

The idea of her losing her mother sends a pang through me. It’s an emotional pang of… something. It’s painful to feel it and it reminds me of something else, but I quickly brush it aside and bury it away.

“I lost both my parents,” I say brusquely.

“Oh?”

“I hope your father can attend the wedding,” I say, changing the subject.

“My dad? No, that’d be… I mean, it’s not a real wedding, right? I wasn’t even going to tell him.”

“It’s not a real wedding, but it has to seem like one. The more details we can add to this, the better it’ll turn out. I’m not paying you for nothing, you know.”

“OK,” she says. “I’ll invite him. But I’ll have to tell him it isn’t real.”

“You won’t,” I say.

“I won’t?”

“Like I said, you’re not going to tell him anything about this arrangement. It’s good we’re spending more time together, actually, so we can clarify a few things. I need to lay out some ground rules.”

“Rules?”

“Yes, and the first one is that no one, and I repeat, no one, is to know about our arrangement. That includes your father, your best friend, your roommate, coworkers, anyone. Understand?”

She nods.

As I look at her, I’m seriously starting to reconsider the promise I made to myself to not fuck her. After all, she’s just so fucking perfect. So innocent. So fucking hot. I can’t take my eyes off her, and my cock is just aching. After all, what would be the harm in fucking her? Who would know?

The way she glanced at my crotch, the way she doesn’t take her eyes off me now, except when she becomes embarrassed—it’s further proof that she wants me just as much as I want her.

“And the second rule?” she says, interrupting my thoughts.

To be honest, I hadn’t thought of one, so I use an old business tactic and change the subject.

“So what’s your story?” I say. “It’ll be good if we know a little about each other, to make it all seem more realistic.”

“Why don’t you go first?”

“Very well. My father was a bricklayer.” I pause for a moment as an image of my father, dressed in a white t-shirt, comes rushing into my mind. He’s got a beer bottle in one hand and a belt in another. I shake the image off and continue. “My mother stayed at home. They did everything they could to give me the life I have now. Of course, they left it mostly up to me. So I worked my ass off, went to school, learned about investing, and now I’m here, the richest man in Philadelphia.”

She nods her head. There’s a strange look in her eyes, as if she caught me in some private moment. But she can’t read my thoughts—I have to remind myself of that. She doesn’t know anything about my father. Nothing at all.

“Tell me about yourself,” I say.

“Like I said, my mom died when I was young… We’re from western Pennsylvania.”

“Pittsburgh?”

She shakes her head. “A little rural town. Nobody’s ever heard of it.”

I nod.

“And I basically, well… I basically studied hard, and I went to law school earlier. I had to drop out, though.”

“Why?”

“Chronic fatigue problems… it’s a long story, but I’m over that now.”

I nod my head stiffly. “Good,” I say. “I don’t want my wife to have chronic fatigue. Doesn’t have a good ring to it, does it?”

She seems not to know what to say.

“Well,” I say, checking my watch. “That should be enough time.”

“Don’t you want to know anything else?”

“Anything else?”

“About me, I mean.”

I shrug. “I think I got the gist.”

Olivia

I leave his office not knowing what to think. A thousand emotions are running through my head.

First and foremost is the anger that I always suppress, always hide away.

He really surprised me. He’s just such a… dick. Yeah, he’s a dick. There’s really no other way to describe it. Although, if had to, I’d say that he’s an arrogant cocky bastard.

But, then again, he’s paying me a million dollars for a few months of easy work.

I shouldn’t complain, right?

But that’s what I’ve been telling myself for my whole life, that I shouldn’t be complaining. That’s what I told myself when my dad stole all that money from me. I know it’s absurd, but I said to myself, ‘you’re just lucky to have him in your life. So he needed a little extra money, what’s the big deal?’ But even as I told that to myself, I knew it was completely false and completely insane.

I knew at the time that what he did was completely wrong, completely uncalled for.

But here I go again with the same dialogue.

I guess I have daddy issues?

But while David Masters is older than me, it’s not like he’s close to my dad’s age. My own dad is fast approaching 60, and David seems like he’s somewhere in his 40s. But he doesn’t look it. He has the body of a man much younger. He’s fit in all the right ways. There’s absolutely nothing physically wrong with him. But personality wise? I don’t know.

Everything David said came across like an order. He kept cutting me off, and he seemed to barely listen to me. What he did seem to be doing was checking me out, quite obviously.

And I couldn’t help noticing his massive erection that sent his dress pants up like a circus tent.

I may be a virgin, but it’s not like I’ve never seen a cock in real life. So I know that even though I just saw it through his pants, David’s cock is massive. Not only long, but thick. It gets my pulse racing just thinking about it.

But I’m just doing this for the money. After all, it’s not like I’d want to get involved with a man like David sexually. I always imagined that I’d lose my virginity to a sweet but intense guy, full of masculinity, a boyfriend who understood me and my situation well enough to go gentle on me. If there’s anything I know for certain about David, it’s that he’d be anything but gentle. He’d just take me.

That sends a shiver through me, and I don’t know why.

I’m back in the mailroom, sorting through some papers absentmindedly, not really paying attention to what I’m doing.

I’m completely in shock. What in the world have I agreed to? It hits me like a ton of bricks. I’m going to be moving into his house, spending time with him at social functions. That sounds exhausting. And I’m supposed to be taking it easy, recuperating. I’m lucky to have gotten over chronic fatigue. Not a lot of people do.

And what am I going to tell my dad, let alone Sasha?

I’m supposed to move out tonight? With none of my things?

It’s hard to even imagine how the next few months are going to go.

But I’ll treat it just like law school—I’ll just tough it out and get through it. I’m good at doing that. At least until I get chronic fatigue or something even worse.

But a million dollars.

I’ll have to research how to keep it away from my dad. There’s no way I can let him know anything about this, or he’s going to do his best to get his hands all over that money.

If I have to, I’ll put it in shady foreign bank accounts, like people do when they’re running some illegal business. Whatever it takes, I’m going to make sure my dad doesn’t get his grubby hands anywhere near my million.

I start daydreaming about what I’m going to do with the money.

Obviously I’m too responsible to go out and buy a new car and a bunch of expensive purses, although that’s tempting.

No, the first thing I’ll do is pay off my debts, in cash. I’ll march right into whatever offices I have to and smack down the total amount, with interest of course, in cash, and watch their faces fall.

That’s so like me—fantasizing about paying off my loans with my million dollars.

But it’s not like I have to win the lottery to bring this fantasy to reality. I just have to pretend to be his wife for a few months.

How hard could that be?

“How’s it going, Olivia?” says Natalie, sidling up to me out of nowhere, and snapping me out of my own thoughts.

“Oh,” I say, startled. “Good, just working on these papers.”

I’m vaguely holding a handful of disorganized papers.

“Looks like it,” says Natalie with a smirk.

She looks me up and down, spending a lot of time examining my hair and my skirt.

“Hmmm,” she says, making a face.

“What is it?”

“You were in his office for quite a while, weren’t you?”

“Whose office?”

“David Masters. You know, the boss?”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, he just wanted to discuss some… things.” That’s probably the least convincing thing I’ve ever said in my life.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” says Natalie, winking at me. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone what?”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “You’re not going to get in trouble or anything. He’s slept with plenty of women in the office.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” says Natalie. “And most of them still work here.”

“Most of them?”

Natalie laughs. “Don’t worry,” she says. “So… what was it like?”

So she thinks I’m the type of person to sleep with the boss, even though I’m brand new?

My first instinct is to deny the whole thing. But then I think better of it. After all, I’m being paid a million dollars to pretend that I’m his wife, right? And right now, I’m supposed to be pretending that I’m going to be his wife. What better way to do that than to pretend I slept with him in the office?

After all, if I’m anything, it’s an overachiever. I’ve been one all my life.

I may as well do this job right.

“Well, OK,” I say, lowering my voice to almost a whisper. “If you must know, we… had sex.”

Her eyes light up and her eyebrows rise.

“I knew it,” she says.

I nod my head, not knowing what to say next. After all, I’m a virgin. What do I know about lying about sex? I don’t have the slightest idea of how to describe it.

“So how was it?” she says.

“It was… good.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding disappointed. “It was that bad, eh?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It was wonderful. Really… wonderful.”

“Oh,” says Natalie. “So… tell me. Is it true? What they say about his cock?”

“Yes,” I say, nodding my head vigorously, trying to look and sound convincing. “Absolutely.”

She’s looking at me, clearly expecting me to say something more.

What do women say about guys’ cocks once they’ve slept with them?

I think back to what Sasha tells me, but I’m pretty sure she goes light on the details for me because she knows very well that I’m a virgin, and I’m uncomfortable sometimes when she tells me too much.

“It was… wonderful,” I say.

Natalie laughs. “So they’re all lying? It’s actually, you know, small?” She holds up her fingers to demonstrate what must be the size of a small penis.

“Oh, no,” I say, knowing that I’ve got to make it seem like I’m head over heels for David. “It was massive.” I hold out my fingers, emulating her, but making the size quite large, almost a foot.

Natalie doesn’t seem to know whether I’m joking or being serious. She laughs nervously.

“Yup,” I say. “That was some of the best sex I’ve ever had. I tell you, if it was up to me, I’d marry him today. You’ve got to lock guys like that down.”

I’m so bad at lying and acting that this comes out really stilted and bizarre.

“Well,” says Natalie, looking at me in a new way, apparently not sure what to make of me. “I don’t think he’s the type to marry.”

We’ll see about that, I think to myself as I turn towards the photocopier.

David

I wake up startled, my heart beating rapidly, as if I’ve just run the mile in four minutes flat.

The images of my dream are starting to fade, but I can still remember some of them.

My dad was there in my dream, the way he often is. His pants were sagging around his waist because his belt was in his hand.

“Come here, you little brat,” he was saying, speaking out of the corner of his mouth in the nastiest, cruelest tone imaginable. “You know what I do for you? You know how hard I work for you? And what do you do? Nothing, you’re just a little piece of shit, a little brat.”

Just a dream, I tell myself. Just a dream.

I sit up and reach for the glass of water on my nightstand. The water is room temperature, and it soothes me, calming my system down.

I take a couple deep breaths and lie back down on the pillow. But as soon as I close my eyes, the images come back.

But it wasn’t so bad, right? It was basically a spanking with a belt. Nothing more. That happens to a lot of people, right, especially when I grew up? It’s nothing I should be having nightmares about. It’s not like it affected me in any negative way. For proof, just look at how far I’ve come in the business world.

I open my eyes again and check the clock. 4 AM, on the dot.

I might as well get up. Too much sleep is bad for a man anyway. Makes him weak.

That’s what my dad used to tell me when he would wake me up, screaming at me, early in the morning before the sun was up. He’d have been up all night drinking, and couldn’t stand the idea of me sleeping away in my bed, comfortable, and not working on anything, not doing anything productive.

Getting out of bed, I throw on some gym shorts and a t-shirt. Time to hit the home gym.

The lights in the rest of the house are off. Nancy’s in her room, sleeping, presumably.

I stop by Laura’s room, standing outside, and I put my ear against the door. Her soft, cute little snores come through the door, and they make me smile.

After all, Laura’s the most important thing in the world to me. The reason I’m doing this whole crazy fake marriage thing is just to keep her safe. It’s the reason I work so hard. Well, one of the reasons.

But a pang of longing hits me in my stomach. I wish I could connect with her better.

It’s one thing to keep her away from Alicia, but am I really providing such a great home for her, after all, if I’m not really there for her?

Am I acting just like my own parents, being so emotionally distant?

I walk down the darkened hallway and pass one of the other bedrooms. The door isn’t usually closed, but tonight it is. Putting my ear against the door, I can hear faint breathing sounds coming from it.

In my sleepy state, I’d completely forgotten that Olivia’s already moved in. That’s her, sleeping behind the door. She’s probably in a thin nightgown, with the sheets tossed halfway off of her, revealing her perfect, half naked body.

I was still at work when she moved in. Everything is set up for the wedding, which is taking place in two days. I’m going to play it off as a love at first sight sort of situation, where she’s showed me the errors of my ways and showed me that I don’t need to be a player anymore. I just hope the judge buys it.

He will, though. I’m sure of it.

I head into my home gym in the basement, flipping on the lights and standing by the weight racks for a moment, trying to wake up. But the weights will wake me up. That’s all I need.

I need to feel the cold steel in my hands. After long days in the office, I crave something that’s decidedly not cerebral, something that’s real.

Two hours fly by, doing bench presses, leg lifts, squats, and deadlifts, with a considerable amount of weight.

At about six o’clock, I head upstairs, and Nancy’s the only person awake.

“We’ve got a new member of the household,” I say to her.

“I met her last night, sir,” says Nancy.

I nod. “Everything go OK?”

“I had to show her some… things.”

I nod. I don’t want to know what they were. Probably feminine things.

“Sir, I have a question,” says Nancy, standing nervously with her hands folded in front of her.

“Shoot,” I say, pouring myself a tall glass of milk and hitting the button on the automatic coffee maker, one of the finest, that I purchased from overseas.

“Well, sir, I was wondering if your daughter knows about the new guest.”

“Oh,” I say, my face falling. In truth, I hadn’t given it much thought. I guess I am a shitty dad. I haven’t even told my daughter that I’m getting married, or figured out what I’m going to tell her about the fake marriage.

But I take a deep breath and try to think clearly about the situation.

I do some quick mental calculations, trying to figure out the various risks with each decision. That’s the way I make my business decisions. It’s just a matter of risk analysis.

I guess the only reasonable thing to do is to lie to Laura and tell her that I’m really getting married. She’s just a kid and I can’t count on her to keep a secret.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this,” I say. “But I’m getting married to our house guest. Two days from now, if the plans go through.”

“Oh,” says Nancy, apparently not knowing what to say. “…Congratulations, sir.”

I nod. “Why don’t you tell Laura for me? OK?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to be the one to tell her? That’s a big change for a girl her age.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure out how to do it,” I say.

I down my glass of milk and jog upstairs, still wearing my gym shorts and t-shirt.

Laura’s still asleep, of course. She doesn’t need to wake up for school for another two hours.

I head to Olivia’s door and knock softly on it, so that I don’t wake up Laura.

“Whaaa?” comes a sleepy reply.

“Rise and shine,” I say.

“Not time,” she says, her voice about as full of sleep as a voice can get.

Ignoring her protest, I open the door and walk into the room. It’s dark in here, with the shades completely drawn.

Olivia’s just a pile on the bed. The sheets completely cover her body and her head.

Her breathing tells me that she’s gone back to sleep, or that she never really woke up.

I walk over to the bed and pull the sheets back from her head with one swift motion.

“Time to wake up,” I say. “We’ve got a lot of things to discuss. The wedding’s in two days.”

She lets out a scream, her eyes wide and her eyebrows rising.

“It’s just me,” I say. “Remember, I’m your future husband.” I flash her a grin. “You wouldn’t scream at your future husband, would you?”

“Sorry,” she says, sounding a little more awake, probably because of the adrenaline. “I just got startled. But what are you doing in my room?”

“I didn’t realize you were going to sleep so late.”

She looks at the clock. “It’s six AM.”

I don’t say anything.

Instead, I take a good look at her. The sheets are starting to fall away from her as she shifts around in the bed sleepily.

She’s not wearing a negligee as I imagined. Instead, she’s been sleeping in a tight t-shirt that clearly displays the form of her breasts, which are naked and braless beneath it.

My cock twitches in my gym shorts.

The sheets are clumped up in a way that shows me the form of her hips and legs beneath it.

My cock twitches again.

Her hair is messy, and she’s never looked hotter. She’s not wearing any makeup, but her natural features don’t need any. Her skin is crisp and clear, and her hair and eyes shine.

“I thought this was going to be my room,” she says. “You know, my own private space.” She says it softly, as if she doesn’t want to upset me. I guess she’s worried about not getting her million dollars if she upsets me, or more likely, she’s the type who isn’t good at confrontation or expressing her own opinion.

“How was the move?” I say, ignoring her comment.

Let’s see what happens when I push her a little bit.

“It was… interesting,” she says. “But, like I was saying, maybe it would be good if we set some boundaries… I think I need to have my own personal space.” It’s obviously costing her a lot of mental effort to say this, fighting her own anxieties and insecurities. She’s not the type who can tell someone something easily.

“It’s my house,” I say. “And I’m paying good money for you. You’re going to do what you’re told, is that clear?”

She nods her head.

“And since this is my house, that means this is my room. Is it your room?”

She shakes her head.

“This is my room, right?”

She nods her head.

“And that means I can come in here whenever I like. Trust me, there’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

At this point, my cock is raging hard from staring at her, from the proximity of her half naked form. My mind is running a thousand miles a minute wondering if she’s wearing panties underneath those sheets.

My cock is bulging up conspicuously in my thin athletic shorts, pulling them up farther on my muscular thighs.

I see her glance at it, and then look away, her face blushing.

Olivia

The last few days have been a whirlwind of confusion.

Moving out of my apartment was the most awkward and confusing thing I’ve ever done in my life. A team of movers arrived unannounced, simply walking into the apartment. I don’t have any idea how they got the key or the access codes to the apartment. But I suppose when you’re as rich and powerful as David Masters, you have your ways of doing things.

A dapper man in a suit and slicked back hair arrived with the moving team. He was in charge, and directed them.

He introduced himself quite formally to me. He didn’t lift a single thing in the apartment. In fact, he seemed to want to avoid touching anything at all, giving the impression that he thought the apartment was simply too filthy for his tastes. He asked me what I would like to take, and then made decisions on his own about what would be appropriate. Basically, in the end, he didn’t let me take much at all.

Sasha arrived halfway through the whole thing, completely confused. At first, she thought they were robbing the place, and then she saw me and asked me what was going on.

The worst part was that I couldn’t tell her anything. I couldn’t tell her the real story.

I’m essentially contractually obligated to lie. I have to lie, or else I risk losing the million dollars. It’s not like Sasha would intentionally tell anyone, even if she’s opposed to the whole idea, but I could see her letting it slip on a particularly boozy night, which to be honest, is quite common with her.

“You’re getting married?” she said.

“Yup,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

“But you haven’t even had sex yet!” Sasha practically yelled. “You’re a virgin!”

This made the movers look up, startled. A few of them dropped what they were carrying. Only the dapper man in the expensive suit didn’t move a muscle. The movers spent the rest of the time eyeing me up and down, probably thinking filthy things about taking my virginity from me. If I’ve learned one thing from all this, it’s that guys do find me attractive. I seem to give David Masters an erection every time he sees me and I’m pretty sure one of the movers was sporting an erection, although it wasn’t nearly as big or as impressive as David’s.

I managed to avoid meeting David’s daughter, who apparently spends most of her time alone in her room, or off with her private tutors. The house caretaker, Nancy, showed me the ropes of the house. Embarrassingly, I didn’t know what a bidet was, or any of the other fancy bathroom contraptions that are apparently normal for the wealthy and completely unknown amongst us common folks.

I finally fell asleep that night and managed to forget everything. I slept so soundly that I didn’t remember where I was when I woke up.

I guess my body thought that the whole thing had been a dream.

But it certainly wasn’t a dream when David Masters came into my room when I was still in bed.

He was wearing a tight t-shirt that showed his massive muscles, not to mention his tattoos. And his shorts—well, they were short and showed his massive thighs, not to mention his constant and growing erection.

Today’s the day of the wedding. It’s scheduled for 5 o’clock.

I’ve spent the entire day so far locked in my room, heading into the private bathroom for water, which I drink out of the faucet, because there isn’t a cup.

I’m simply too embarrassed and shy to head into the kitchen where I might encounter any number of house staff, not to mention David himself.

When he was in here earlier, David told me to take the day off of work, and that the team would be in to see me before the wedding.

“The team?” I asked him.

“The make up team, and the fitting team for the dress. You’ve got to look good.”

So I’m just waiting, biding my time. I’m completely terrified of what this team is going to do to me. The closest I’ve ever done to something like this is getting my nails done once with Sasha, and honestly I found the whole process unpleasant. I haven’t ever even been to a spa—the idea of getting pampered simply isn’t in my workaholic achiever nature.

But I’m going to have to pretend. After all, that’s what I’m getting paid for. I’m going to have to pretend to be the perfect, happy bride, ecstatic to be marrying David Masters.

I have my Kindle with me, since the dapper man in the suit nodded his head when I asked if I could bring it along. I bide my time reading romance novels, in which the heroine always falls for the muscular hero, who cares deeply for her from the beginning of the book. Why can’t my life be like that? David Masters certainly doesn’t seem anything like these heroes.

The room is nice. Way nicer than the fanciest hotel I’ve ever been in. But that’s what the room, and honestly the house, remind me of—a fancy hotel. Everything is exactly where it should be, and everything seems to be for show, rather than for some purpose.

It couldn’t be more different from my apartment, where the window sticks when I try to open it, and the heat is either on full blast, or not on at all.

Here, the temperature is exactly right. It’s simply too perfect, to the point almost of annoyance.

The door flies open.

David Masters stands tall in the door frame, his shoulders massive and his eyes intense.

He’s wearing an elegant suit, with a great cut that shows off his torso and his tapered waist.

He’s clean shaven, absent, for once, of his perpetual stubble.

Normally, I like a little bit of stubble, so long as it isn’t approaching a full on beard. But he looks good clean shaven.

“You don’t knock?” I say, finding a little bit of the confidence I’ve been looking for. I know he’s paying me a million dollars, but he is asking an awful lot, isn’t he?

“Remember what we talked about? It’s my property.”

“And I’m your employee, right, right,” I say.

“You’ve been in here all day.”

“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t want to… bother anyone.”

“The team will be here soon with the dress,” he says, eyeing me up and down. Did you invite your father to the wedding yet?”

“Uh…”

“And your friends?”

“I only really have one friend.”

“You’re popular, aren’t you?”

I shrug. “I’ve always been busy.”

“You need to call them and invite them,” he says. “I’ve invited Judge Carter himself, and this has to look realistic. It’s not going to look good if you don’t have anyone there for you.”

“Can’t we just say that I’m from out of town?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t get the sense that you’re a good liar. It would come out at some point.”

That makes me angry. Sure, it might be true. I probably am a terrible liar, but how could he know that? And why does he have to keep putting me down?

This is the same way I’ve always felt when people are wronging me. And normally, I squish the anger down.

But, when I think about it, maybe I don’t have as much to lose in this situation as I’d previously thought. After all, he needs me to act as his fake wife. It’s too late to get anyone else. And he offered me double what he originally offered me because I’m perfect for the role. Maybe I have more leverage than I thought.

“How do you know I’m not a good liar?”

“It’s why you’re perfect for this. You’re wholesome.”

“Is that so?”

He just stares at me.

“Look,” I say. “I’m doing this for the money. I’m going to need to set up sound boundaries, though. We need some ground rules.”

“I’ve already made the rules for you.”

“Rules for me to follow, not for you.”

He’s silent.

“You can’t just come into my room like this,” I say. “I’m going to invite my father and my friend, so that it’s realistic. I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make this wedding look as realistic as I possibly can. And I’m going to do my very best to make it seem like I’m madly in love with you. And when the divorce inevitably comes, I’ll do my very best to show that I hate you with all my guts.” I almost add “that won’t be too hard, though,” but I think better of it. “But I need my privacy. You need to respect that.”

My heart is pounding in my chest as I say this. I never stick up for myself, and I certainly don’t do it to David Masters, the richest man in Philadelphia, the man whose mere presence is commanding.

I don’t look at him for a moment, keeping my eyes averted and cast down. I’m absolutely sure that he’s going to be furious, completely enraged. I’m expecting his face to be on fire with pure fury that I dare stick up for myself.

But when I finally look up, he’s grinning at me, his mouth wide and turned up at the corners.

“Nice,” he says. “I like a little fire in my women.” He turns his back to me, about to leave the doorway. “I won’t bother you with any more unannounced visits. And the team will be here shortly. I’ll tell them to knock.”

And he’s gone.

I’m left sitting by myself, wondering what that all meant.

But I’m not left long to contemplate. Less than a minute later, there’s a flurry of knocking on my door.

I open it, expecting to see a couple people carrying a wedding dress.

Instead, at least a dozen women rush past me into my room.

“No,” says one, looking me up and down. “That won’t do at all.”

I’m still wearing the t-shirt that I slept in, along with some baggy sweatpants I found in one of the drawers. After all, I don’t have but a few of my own articles of clothing with me.

“It’s just…”

“No,” she says, snapping her head back the way I’ve seen some people on TV do. “Not at all.”

She’s wearing all white. In fact, all of them are wearing white.

As I look between them, I realize I can barely even tell the difference between any of them. They all have similar facial features, similar body shapes (tall and very thin, without any curves), and metallic blonde hair that’s cut in an intense bob.

They’re moving around the room rapidly, setting up mirrors and lighting.

Another couple arrive, carrying huge trunks between them. They set them down on the floor with a thud.

“So I understand there’s a wedding?” says one of them.

“That’s right. I would have thought you’d know that…”

“We just like to confirm. Once we thought we were doing a dog wedding and it turned out to be a human funeral.”

“Oh.”

“This is a human wedding, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Don’t I look like a human to you?”

They’re all speaking at me, but almost as one person. I can’t keep track of who is who. It’s just a jumble of metallic looking hair.

“One never can tell.”

That’s the end of the conversation. They start working in a fury, rushing around, knocking things over, and basically attacking me with all manner of makeup brushes, lipstick tubes, and devices that I can’t even begin to identify.

This is not what I was expecting. I was sure David Masters would hire only the best. These people… I don’t know what they are.

As proud of myself (if that’s the right word) as I am for standing up, in my own way, to David Masters, I just back down with these people, and basically let them do whatever they want to me.

David

I chuckle to myself as I knock lightly on the door. I’m going to respect her wishes, and I’m going to knock… for now.

“How’s it going in there?”

“Come on! Please!”

I open the door to find a completely chaotic mess of a dozen odd looking women attacking Olivia’s face with strange devices.

“I thought you said these people were professionals?” she says, as one of them knocks over a stand of something. Don’t ask me what any of this makeup stuff is.

“They’re very highly recommended,” I say. “They’re perhaps a little eccentric, though.”

That gets me a look from one or two of them, but I’ve never been one to care what people think of me.

“You’re going to get her into the dress too, right?”

“Of course. Human wedding, right? Not a dog wedding?”

“No,” I say. “A human wedding, not a dog wedding.”

“I told you,” whispers Olivia, out of the side of her mouth. “Can you help me?”

“Looks like they’re doing an excellent job,” I say, pretending to inspect her face.

In reality, I can’t even see her. There’s a thick green goop covering her entire face, including her eyes, which are hopefully closed.

“Well, looks like everything’s under control,” I say, checking my watch. “Meet me downstairs. You’ll take a separate car, of course.”

“A separate car.”

“We’re not supposed to show up together,” I say.

I leave the room, and go over to Laura’s room.

“How’s it going?” I ask, watching Nancy braid Laura’s hair.

“I hate this,” says Laura, pouting.

“Just a little bit longer, sweetie,” says Nancy, tugging on Laura’s hair hard.

“Go easy on her,” I say.

“It needs to look right.”

“I don’t understand this, Dad,” says Laura, turning her head to Nancy’s annoyance and frustration. “Why are you getting married? You’ve already been married.”

“Sometimes that’s the way things work,” I say. “We’re very much in love, so we want to get married. I’m sure you’ll like Olivia.”

“I already don’t like her.”

“You haven’t even met her, have you?”

“I don’t know.”

I laugh. “I think you’d know,” I say. “She’s very pretty.”

“You just met her, didn’t you?”

“That’s right,” I say. “But sometimes these things happen fast. We’re adults, so we can make decisions like this.”

Nancy gives me a pleading look, essentially begging me to leave so that she can finish Laura’s hair. Although, of course, she’d never feel comfortable actually expressing that idea to me verbally.

Down at the bar, I pour myself a small whiskey on the rocks.

As I take the first sip, the vague smile fades completely from my face.

I really must be a horrible father. Who lies to their daughter like that? I just told her I was in love with someone that I’m not. I told her… yeah, I basically fed her a huge crock of shit.

But it’s for her own good, right?

Otherwise, she’s going to be living with Alicia under a bridge somewhere, begging for coins under some interstate overpass. That’s no life for a kid. That’s no life for anyone.

About the time I’m finished my drink, Olivia comes down the stairs.

The team of the strange women rush past her, clamoring down the stairs and out the door, leaving just the two of us here.

“Holy shit,” is the only thing I can say. My mouth falls open.

“Do I look all right?”

“You look incredible,” I say.

“Got to keep it realistic, right?”

“No, really. You look… insanely beautiful.”

She blushes, and I mean it. And I mean that I mean it.

I’ve never seen someone as radiant as she is.

They did a number on her, but it’s not like she’s unrecognizable. She’s still the same Olivia, but that team of strange women managed to enhance her natural features, really bringing out the beauty that was already there.

I thought she was hot before, as in a hot piece of ass, but now she’s just… at a different level entirely.

Seeing her like this sends a strange pang through me. It’s a pain of… I don’t know, longing? Maybe guilt? At putting an innocent girl through this whole charade.

But the pang doesn’t last long, and it’s time for her to be rushed off into the car that’s waiting for her.

Nancy arrives downstairs, with Laura in tow, and I pick up Laura and swing her around, despite her protesting, possibly because I’m feeling guilty about all this.

Laura, Nancy, and I pile into the back of a car that takes us to the wedding.

Most kids would be fascinated by being in the back of a chartered car, but Laura’s been through this kind of thing many times. Occasionally, there are business or social functions that children are allowed to attend, and I do always try to take her along, since I think it’s good for her education.

“Who’s going to be at the wedding?” says Laura.

“So it’s not so stupid now, is it? You want to know all about it?”

Laura shrugs.

“That’s good,” I say. “I’m glad you’re interested. I think you’ll have fun, and I’m sure you’ll like Olivia.”

She shrugs and doesn’t say anything.

Nancy is biting her lip for some reason.

“What’s wrong, Nancy?”

“Nothing, sir.”

It’s always like that with her. She’ll rarely tell me what she’s thinking.

“Anyway,” I say. “It’s a smaller sort of wedding. Only about a hundred people or so.”

“A hundred!”

“Yup,” I say.

“Who’s going to be there?”

“Oh, you know, family friends. Business associates. Those sorts of people.”

“Sounds boring. Will my mom be there?”

I sigh.

“I don’t think she’ll be able to make it.”

“I miss her.”

I don’t know what to say, so I close my eyes and don’t say anything.

I’m a guy who can take on entire companies and dominate entire industries, but I suddenly feel overwhelmed by my current situation, the situation that I’ve created myself.

Olivia

“I thought he said it was going to be a small wedding?” I say to one of my bridesmaids, who I’ve never met before.

We’re in a back room, ostensibly getting ready, but the team back at the house did such an… intense job on me that there’s really nothing more left to be done.

“It is small. I think it’s only a hundred people.”

I take a good look at her. She’s high-class, and completely unlike myself in every way. Even without her jewelry, her dress, and her thousand dollar shoes, her mere presence would scream refinement and sophistication. And yeah, snobbery, too. She has a way of looking at everything with her nose slightly pointed to the celling, and I get the feeling that I don’t like her very much.

“How do you know David again?” I say.

“We’re old friends,” she says, without offering any more by way of explanation.

So these are the sorts of people he hangs out with?

“It’s too bad you didn’t have any close friends,” she says, giving me an odd look. “But I’m glad David asked me, since I always do love being a bridesmaid.”

“I do have friends,” I say, basically lying, unfortunately. “They just couldn’t make it. But my friend Sasha is going to be here. You haven’t seen her, have you?”

“Sasha,” she says, rolling the word around in her mouth as if she doesn’t like the taste of it. “She’s your friend?”

“You sound like you don’t believe me.”

There I go, sticking up for myself again.

The door opens, and Sasha enters, wearing jeans and a partially ripped t-shirt. She looks like she’s been up all night drinking.

“This, um, person is your friend?” says the snooty woman, whose name I don’t even want to know, let alone remember.

“Sasha!” I say.

“Olivia, what the hell are you doing?”

“You’re late,” I say. “But I think they can still get you into the dress. Did you bring any shoes?”

“Never mind,” says the snooty woman, sounding pleased with herself. “I have some extras. I always do travel with extras.”

“Great,” I say.

“Olivia, you’re really getting married? To your boss? You’re going through with that crazy plan? I thought you said you’d never do it, not in a thousand years. And you told just recently that you’d considered it but turned it down. You lied to me?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Yup,” I say.

“I thought the whole thing at the apartment with the movers was some kind of really elaborate practical joke.”

I can’t answer. All I can do is shrug my shoulders. I hate lying to her.

“It’s real,” I say.

“Look,” says Sasha, giving the snooty woman a nasty look. “Can I speak to you in private?”

I nod and follow her out into the hallway.

She pulls me into the bathroom violently and slams the door.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on with you, but if you’re having some kind of crisis about your virginity, this isn’t the way to handle it. I mean, getting married just so you can get laid.”

I’m about to tell her that that’s completely wrong, and that I’m in love with him. But that doesn’t sound that believable either, and honestly her idea is more plausible. She might get mad, but at least she’ll believe it.

“That’s right,” I say. “That’s what I’m doing. But at least I’ll finally lose my virginity, right? That’s what the whole wedding ceremony is about, right?”

“You’re crazy,” says Sasha, shaking her head.

“Come on,” I say. “Sasha, listen to me. I know this is crazy. But… it’s like, I never do anything crazy. And this is my chance to break out of that. This is my chance to break out of my little shell, and to do something different crazy. I just want to be like you, out having fun all the time, but I’m just not like that. This is just my own way of doing something totally insane.”

Sasha breaks into a grin. “That does sound like you,” she says. “But this is really crazy. You know that, right?”

“Yup,” I say. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no time for that. You’re going to do the wedding, right? It wouldn’t be my wedding without you there.”

“Of course,” says Sasha.

“OK, come on then.”

Now it’s my turn to drag her back into the room, where she strips down and changes into one of the dresses. The snooty woman, whose name we learn is Chloe, helps us do Sasha’s hair. Chloe ends up coming through with shoes, rushing out to her car to bring back another pair of thousand dollar shoes. Despite her obvious feelings about Chloe and her snootiness, Sasha can’t help but break into a smile when she puts the shoes on.

“They’re really nice,” she says.

“They’re the best,” says Chloe.

“They’re very pretty,” I say.

Apparently once you get Chloe talking about shoes, she simply won’t shut up. Sasha nods along politely for a while, while I completely tune out.

What’s happened to me?

It hits me all of a sudden: what I’m doing is completely crazy, right? Sasha’s completely right.

I’m getting married to a man that I barely even know, and I’m already living in his house. Sure, it’s not a real wedding in the sense that I’m doing it for the money. But even though it’s not real, here I am in a beautiful building wearing a beautiful wedding dress, getting ready with my bridesmaids. It sure feels real, even though it’s not. And in everyone else’s eyes, it is real. Sasha thinks it’s real, and so does my dad.

To my horror, my dad took the whole marriage thing very well. He didn’t even ask me any questions about who the guy was, or why he’d never heard of me dating anyone. He simply congratulated me way too enthusiastically, as if he’d just been waiting to marry me off his entire life.

I’m lost in my own thoughts, and before I know it, there are people rushing all around us. The wedding coordinators are dressed to the nines, wearing headsets, talking to each other over the radio, and shuffling us around.

Everything becomes an absolute blur of confusion and chaos. I barely even know what’s going on, except that they’re getting me ready to walk me down the aisle.

My dad’s here, and he gives me a grin, before taking me by the arm and weaving it through his. He’s wearing a suit, looking better than normal. But his hair is still slicked back in the way that only long time gamblers can manage. He can’t shake the sleaze, not one bit.

Oh yeah, this is what happens: I take his arm and he walks me down the aisle.

I thought David said it was going to be a small wedding. But as I glance around, trying not to do so obviously, it seems like there are a couple hundred people here. And they’re all staring at me. Most of them are smiling, but there are about a dozen faces here or there, all women, who glare daggers at me. I suppose I’m taking their man away from them. Or at least that’s what they think.

The building is some kind of non-religious chapel, and it’s simply beautiful. Intricate and ornate stained glass windows run practically from the floor to the high vaulted ceiling. There’s a pulpit, and a woman who looks something like a Buddhist monk is standing at the front.

David Masters is there, and he takes my breath away.

…quite literally.

For a second, I think I’m going to start coughing. It feels as if I’m choking.

But I get my breath back, taking in deep sighs that I hope no one else notices.

He looks incredible.

His hair is perfect, and the navy blue suit he’s wearing hugs his body in just the right way.

Most importantly, he’s staring at me like he’s never stared at me before. His eyes lock into mine and there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s nothing in them but intense desire for me.

But this is a fake wedding, right?

It’s not real, I remind myself.

It’s not real. He’s not really going to be my husband.

Well, in the eyes of the law, he is.

As I stand in front of him, not listening to the words that the monk lady is saying, gazing into his eyes, I have to remind myself to breathe.

The rest of the world has fallen away to a dull roar, and the only thing that remains for me is David Masters, who doesn’t cease fucking me with his eyes for a single moment.

I can’t believe how incredibly lucky I am to be marrying this man, this Adonis who stands before me, who’s completely fixated on me and nothing else.

But, wait, I’m not really going to be marrying him.

…right?

But it wouldn’t be a real fake wedding without a fake wedding night, right?

David

I’m sitting in the back of the car, Olivia squished up next to me. I’m extremely aware of her body pressed against me. The side of her right breast is pushing into my shoulder. My cock is, of course, as hard as a rock in my suit pants.

She smells like, I don’t know, something delicious and sexy. Wisps of her hair are coming undone and poking gently into my face.

The driver’s just pulling away from the wedding. Outside of the car, the wedding guests are standing around chanting at us and clapping.

“I think that went pretty well, right?” she says, turning towards me.

“I think they bought it,” I say.

“This is a nice touch, driving away together.”

“It wouldn’t seem like a wedding without. I mean, what are we supposed to do, just part ways right after walking down the aisle?”

“This is a really nice ring,” she says, raising her finger to her face to examine the ring better.

“Sorry I didn’t get you an engagement ring,” I say.

She shrugs. “That’s more modern anyway, right?”

“I don’t think so. I think people still do engagement rings.”

“I don’t mind,” she says, peering at the gold band. “Let me see yours.”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m just curious.”

I hold it up for her and she takes my large hand in both of her small hands. Her skin is silky smooth and soft, and she leans in closer to my hand, her breasts spilling onto my chest.

She looks so fucking hot in that wedding dress. I just want to rip it off of her and take her right here in the limo.

“Ooh,” she says, apparently impressed with my ring. She holds my hand in hers for a couple moments longer than I would have expected. She doesn’t seem to want to let go.

“I wouldn’t peg you for the kind of girl interested in rings,” I say.

“Why’s that?”

“You seem practically minded. Weddings and rings are the opposite of practical, aren’t they?”

She shrugs. “I guess I’m still a woman at heart.”

She giggles after saying this.

“You’re in a good mood,” I say.

“That was surprisingly fun,” she says. “I’ve never had a wedding before.”

“I have. Trust me, this is the best part. It only goes downhill from here on out.”

“Your marriage didn’t go well?”

I shrug. I’m not sharing her giggling effervescent mood. I’m on the edge of being grumpy. That happens sometimes when I’m horny and sexually unsatisfied. The thing that would take the edge off this mood of mine that’s developing is if she bent all the way down over my lap and blew me right here in the car. My cock swings as I think this. It’s simply aching.

“That’s one way to put it,” I say. “My ex-wife is a real piece of work… She’s not a bad person. But she’s got a drug problem that she couldn’t beat.”

“I thought you hated her or something? After all, she’s trying to take your daughter from you, right? This is a weird conversation to be having right after our wedding, by the way.”

That makes me chuckle, lifting me out of my mood slightly.

“I guess you’re right,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking about it like that. But, about my ex-wife… no, I don’t hate her, really, despite how I might talk about her sometimes. I can understand her position. She just wants to be with her daughter. And she’s convinced that I spend all my time partying and… uh… womanizing, not to mention working, rather than spending time with Laura. She thinks I’m a terrible dad, and in some ways she’s right.”

“Don’t say that.”

I shrug. “It’s true in some ways. I don’t spend enough time with her. But it’s not that I don’t have the time, it’s just that I don’t really know how to do it.”

“You don’t know how to spend time with her.”

“I mean, I know how to go into her room, but once I open my mouth it’s like I don’t have anything to say… I just don’t know how to talk to someone her age…”

“What were your parents like?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.” I’m suddenly feeling uncomfortable and defensive.

“Did they talk to you a lot?” she asks sweetly.

That makes me laugh, a kind of rough, callous laugh that comes out naturally. “Not at all,” I say. “My dad preferred the belt to words, if you want to put it like that.”

“That’s awful,” says Olivia, pushing her curvy body further up against me.

“You know,” I say, looking down sideways at her body. “You remember that this is a fake marriage, right?”

“Of course,” says Olivia. “But you have to admit that it’s kind of fun, right?”

“I guess in a way,” I say. “But what happened to the shy, studious girl that I fake proposed to only a couple days ago? You’re acting completely differently.”

She giggles as she answers. “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m honestly just as surprised as you are. I guess I just never realized how much fun this would be.”

“You really found it fun?”

“Sure, the building was beautiful. And I have to admit that I love the dress…”

There’s something else that she’s thinking but that she’s not saying out loud.

“Well,” I say. “If you really think it’s that fun, what if we just go along with it and pretend that we really are getting married, just for tonight?”

“You mean…?”

Realizing she’s referring to sex, I add, “Oh, I don’t mean that we’re going to fuck.”

She blushes at my coarse language.

“I’m not in the habit of buying sex,” I continue. “And I’m not going to start with you. This is a business arrangement only, but that doesn’t mean we can’t, you know, enjoy the situation. And by that, don’t get the wrong idea. I just mean that we can enjoy the couple’s massages at the hotel, and sit around and play card games like the bored newlyweds used to do, clinking champagne glasses and all. It’s just fun, like make believe.”

“I’m surprised you would suggest something like that.”

“Why?”

“You’re always so serious. You’ve got this ‘my way or fuck you’ attitude.”

I laugh. “I hope I’m not like that all the time.”

“Maybe this marriage is lightening you up a little.”

“I think it’s lightening you up a little,” I say. “So what do you say? Are you in?”

“Sure,” she says, looking me in the eyes.

I know we’re both wondering the same thing…

We fall silent for a few minutes, before I speak again, breaking the silence. We’ve got about twenty more minutes until the limo reaches the hotel.

“I got us two rooms, because I really doubt anyone would go to the trouble of checking up on this little detail. And I can just say that you snore and I had to get a separate room. Lots of couples do that.”

“Why do I have to be the one to snore?”

I shrug. “I’ve slept with a lot of women, and no one’s ever said that I snore before.”

A weird look creeps onto her face.

Is she hurt by that, that I’ve slept with a lot of women?

“It’s not that many,” I say. For some reason, I find myself wanting to ease this apparent pain of hers.

“No? That’s not what I hear.”

“Who would you hear that from? I may be notorious, but I didn’t think I was that notorious.”

“People at work talk about it,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. “I guess that makes sense. I may have had a few… dalliances at work. But that’s normal. I mean, you must have slept with your fair share of guys, right?”

She blushes a deep red.

“Come on,” I say. “It’s our wedding night. This is where we traditionally tell each other all the secrets of our past, especially our sexual past.”

“How many women have you slept with?” she says.

I shrug my shoulders. “If I knew, I’d tell you,” I say. “But honestly I lost track after a hundred. And that was in my twenties, so…”

“A hundred!” she says, her mouth falling open in surprise.

I can’t help fixating on her plump, lipsticked lips, wondering what it would look like with my thick cock jammed inside, her lips pushing forward in a pout as she sucks my cock deeply and slowly.

“More than a hundred in total,” I say. “But it’s 2017. It’s not like it used to be. Come on, maybe you haven’t slept with a hundred guys, but you must have slept with like ten, right? I mean, you did go to college, didn’t you?”

“I was pretty studious in college,” she says.

“There’s always time for a little fun, though, right?”

She’s growing redder all the time. She suddenly shakes her head.

“You mean you haven’t slept with ten guys?”

She shakes her head again, indicating a firm “no.”

It’s honestly not a sadistic streak that makes me continue with this. It’s just that I really want to show her that it’s normal to have sex with people and it’s nothing that she needs to be embarrassed about.

Well, that, and I want to basically justify my own womanizing ways, by showing that we’re not all that different. What’s the difference, really, if it’s eight men or a couple hundred women?

“Come on,” I say. “You must have slept with at least five guys?”

She shakes her head again.

“Not even five?” I say, honestly amazed at this point.

“OK,” I say. “Two guys.”

She shakes her head.

“One?” I say, my voice trailing off in disbelief.

She shakes her head again.

At this point, she’s blushing a deep reddish purple that covers her entire face, which honestly looks comical against her brilliantly white wedding dress.

“You’re a virgin?” I say, chuckling.

She nods her head.

I feel her embarrassment, but the fact that she’s a virgin also does something else to me: it drives me completely wild. My cock is as hard as it’s ever been, straining against my pants. The fabric of these pants is thin, and honestly I’m running a real risk of it bursting right through my pants, or at least popping the zipper open.

Just think of it… I’d be the first to sink my cock into her sweet virgin pussy, the first to make her come, and I mean really come. The first to show her how intensely pleasurable sex can be.

“You’ve done… things, though?” I say, not sure how to word it. Suddenly, here I am, shy about talking about sex acts. That’s certainly not me. But I do feel like a different person now. Maybe it’s the excitement of the wedding day, even though it’s fake, or maybe it’s something about her mere presence that seems to bring me out of myself and turn me into someone else, someone that I used to be a long, long time ago.

“Yeah,” she says, her face still crimson. But the flash is diminishing, and that’s good, because it was starting to look uncomfortable. Her face must have felt like it was on fire. “I just haven’t gone all the way. I was always so concentrated on working hard and going to law school early. And I did all that… until I basically overworked myself and got hit with chronic fatigue that came at me like a cinder block falling from the sky. It completely wiped me out. So I haven’t really had time or energy for dating…”

“That’s understandable,” I say.

“Really? Because you don’t seem like the type of guy to understand something like that.”

“Maybe I’m more than I seem,” I say. “Plus, you bring a completely different side of me out.”

“Isn’t that just some kind of line? You’re starting to hit on me, aren’t you? As soon as you learn that I’m a virgin,” she says this word quietly, as if someone might hear it, even though the limo cabin is soundproofed and the driver can’t hear anything. “Is that a thing? That guys just suddenly go crazy when they learn you’re a virgin?”

I smile at her. “I’ll admit that it does have a certain appeal,” I say. “But I don’t need to hit on you. After all, we’re already married.”

Olivia

The subject of my virginity, thankfully, doesn’t come up again. I can’t believe I even told him. After all, he’s not just my fake husband, but he’s my boss. I would die if anyone at work knew my secret.

But… there’s something different about him. He’s still just as commanding, just as authoritative, just as hot, but I feel like I’m really seeing a different side of him.

“Where are we?” I say, looking out the tinted windows. There’s a sea of tall trees around us. “It’s beautiful here.” There’s not another car in sight, nor a single building. We’ve completely left the city, and the suburbs, too, from the looks of it.

“There’s a really high end hotel in the Poconos,” he says. “That’s where we’re headed. And by the looks of it, we’re getting close.”

Sure enough, twenty minutes later, the limo glides to a gentle stop in front of a massive stone building that looks more like an elegant castle than a hotel.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I say.

“Well,” he says. “We’ve got to keep it realistic, right? My friends know that I always pay the extra bucks for the best of the best, whatever it is.”

“I guess that includes your brides?”

He laughs and looks down at me. That smile of his just kills me.

“Well,” he says. “Shall I show you your room, Ms. Master?”

I take his arm and giggle.

“So my name is really Olivia Masters now?”

“Yup,” he says. “And it has a certain ring to it, if I do say so myself.”

He leads me up to the hotel and checks in for us while I hang back.

Even at the front desk of the hotel, he takes charge. He doesn’t walk up there nervously. Instead, he walks up there like he fucking owns the place, and is going to take names and prisoners if anything doesn’t go exactly the way he wants it.

It’s nice not having to do that sort of thing myself. It’s not like I have a problem going into stores or walking up to people. Anxiety’s never really been a problem of mine. I’ve simply been too highly motivated to let something like anxiety get in the way of my goals.

But, partly because of that, I’m always the one who’s doing everything. Like with my apartment situation, for instance, I’m always the one who talks to the landlord when there’s a problem, instead of Sasha. I’m always the one who orders the take out food for the two of us, and I’m always the one… who basically does everything, really.

And here’s David Masters, my husband, simply taking care of things.

“All set,” he says, coming over to me, swinging an old fashioned key on his finger. This isn’t the sort of place that has key cards. It’s way too classy for something like that.

A bell man follows us up to our rooms, unloads the bags, and quite courteously explains to us the function of everything in the room.

“We get the idea,” says David, as the bell man’s monologue starts to drag on and on. “Here, take this and have some fun with it.” He shoves some crisp bills into his hand, and the bell man disappears.

“Sometimes it’s just a matter of paying them to leave you alone,” says David.

We’re standing in the doorway that separates our two rooms. There’s a door, thick and wooden, but it’s open.

“The room’s beautiful,” I say, admiring it, perhaps to ease the awkwardness that I suddenly feel being alone in this gorgeous honeymoon suite with my new “husband.”

But it’s true, the rooms are gorgeous. The walls are beautiful stone that’s fit together expertly, just like on the outside of this hotel. There’s also wood paneling that runs into the wood floor with a fine grain that seems to swim before my eyes.

“Do you need help with that dress?” he says, his eyes hungrily looking at my breasts.

“I’ll be OK,” I say. “I’ll change out of it and then we can go… get that massage or something.”

He nods and closes the door.

I’m left in my own room, but I’m only a few feet from him, separated only by a single wall.

Why was I so eager to suggest that we leave the room immediately?

Obviously, it’s because I’m terrified of my virginity, of the implication that’s hanging in the air.

Honestly, there isn’t a man in the world that I’d rather lose my virginity to than David Masters.

Just the mere thought of it sends a tingling sensation of excitement through my entire body, from my feet up to my head.

There’s a beautiful full length mirror on an elaborate antique wooden stand.

I stand before it and admire my reflection.

It sounds silly, but I’ve never been one of those women who can admire themselves in the mirror, complimenting themselves on their various features. I’ve always been too much into self improvement, driving full speed towards success, which leads to self-criticism. I normally can’t look in the mirror without seeing something that could be improved, some feature that could be better.

But today, I have to admit even to myself that I look completely beautiful. The dress is a type of dress that I simply would never be able to afford for myself. Well, maybe now I could, with my million dollars.

My skin and hair have never looked better.

It’s so weird to even hear myself think these thoughts.

It’s almost a shame to take the dress off, but I’m going to have to. It’s so pretty, I don’t want to damage it by continuing to wear it.

Twisting almost into a pretzel, I move my arms around awkwardly, trying to reach the zipper in the back that I’m sure I saw someone zip up earlier today.

But there’s no way I can reach it. My fingers don’t even contact anything.

Is there even a zipper here?

I sigh, knowing there’s only one person who can help me with this.

But inside, if I’m being honest with myself, I feel that tingle of excitement again. I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I have an inkling of it.

The world seems to shimmer around me in that special magical way when you know something incredible is about to happen.

My knuckles feel light on the door as I knock on it.

“Who is it?” comes David’s deep voice, booming through the thick wooden door.

I laugh. “Who do you think?”

“Are you armed? Should I be scared?”

“I need help with my dress.”

“Just a minute.”

I can hear him in his room, moving something around.

He opens the door just a crack. The room is dark, but there’s a small flicker of light coming from somewhere that illuminates just enough of David for me to see that he’s shirtless. Through the sliver of the open door, I see his rippling abs and his bulging shoulder muscles, and I actually have to suppress a gasp of surprise.

“You didn’t expect to see your husband?” he says, leaning his head down towards me as he opens the door a little more.

“What’s going on in there? Why are all the lights off?”

He ignores me, and says, “You said you needed help with your dress?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I can’t even find the zipper. Do you think you can unzip it for me?”

“Why don’t you come in?” he says.

“I don’t know… I really need to get this dress off. I don’t want to damage it.”

“Don’t worry about that. Come in.” He says this more like a command than a request.

“OK,” I say.

He opens the door wide, and I suddenly see that the room has been lit with a couple dozen candles, which are scattered around, on the bureau, on the floor, on the window sill.

The flickering candle lights cast beautiful shadows on the stone walls. The room feels cozy and romantic.

“Wow,” I say. “It’s beautiful.”

…but not as beautiful as David Masters, who I can now see completely.

He’s buck naked.

I can’t keep my eyes off him. They travel down from his massive chest to his cock, which is growing hard as I look at it, getting bigger and bigger, apparently never stopping.

I actually let out a gasp, and he chuckles deeply.

“I was in the middle of changing when you knocked,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, conscious that I’m going to avoid the obvious implications of this scenario. “So do you think you can help me with this dress? Or… maybe I should go.”

“Stay,” he says. “Don’t worry about the dress.”

“It’s so beautiful,” I say. “And it looks expensive.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Again, it’s more of a command than anything else. “We can always get a new dress if we… ruin it.”

“You’re going to ruin it? I don’t understand.”

I’m talking like I don’t know what’s going on… but why would he be putting all these candles up? I don’t mention them.

“Sit on the bed and I’ll see what I can do with the dress,” he says.

I do as he says and sit on the very edge of the bed, with my hands folded in my lap.

He moves in front of me, his massive cock fully erect. The head itself is enormous and swollen and his shaft is thick as it runs down to his incredibly girthy base. It doesn’t swing as he moves, but stands pointed upward, massive and stiff.

My breathing is increasing… shallow, rapid breaths.

My nipples are hard, and I can feel myself getting wet… very wet. I’m going to soak right through my panties and ruin this beautiful dress.

“I thought we were going to go to the massage…” I say vaguely, feeling awkward because neither one of us is saying anything.

David doesn’t respond.

“Get on your stomach,” he says. “Lie down.”

“Why?” I say, startled.

“I need to find the zipper.”

I do as he says, positioning myself so that I’m on my stomach with my hands awkwardly lying straight at my sides.

The mattress is incredibly soft and plush, like no mattress I’ve ever felt before. My breasts sink into it underneath me. I feel the mattress shift as David gets onto it, his weight shifting the mattress much more than my own.

“You’re tense,” he says. “There’s no need to be tense.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders and digs them deep into my muscles, moving them like he’s giving me a massage.

I’m incredibly conscious that he’s buck naked and that I’m very aroused. How could I not be aware of it, when his cock is so obviously erect. I can’t see him, with my face pushed into the mattress, but I can palpably feel the presence of his cock so very close to me.

“So you’ve never had sex?” he growls at me. “Is that really true?”

I nod my head before realizing that he can’t see my head moving, since it’s sunk down in the mattress and the comforter.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice timid and meek, the complete opposite of his.

“That’s incredible,” he says.

“I can’t talk like this,” I say, sitting up.

I try to keep my feet straight, my toes pointed out towards the edge of the bed, so as not to wrinkle the dress any more than I have to. But parts of it have already been caught underneath me as I moved around the bed.

“I better get this off,” I say. “Or I’m really going to ruin it.”

“Who cares about the dress?” he growls.

“I do,” I say. “It’s pretty.”

“It’s nothing compared to you.”

Before I know what’s happening, he’s leaning in towards me. His already naked body is giving off heat, and as his shoulder presses against me casually, I feel something like an electric charger that seems to connect our bodies together.

His eyes are only inches away from my face, and he’s staring right into mine.

I don’t know what makes me do it, except for the incredible attraction I feel for him. It feels like my body is drawn towards him.

It’s something deep inside me, something instinctual, some kind of primal attraction.

My lips gingerly touch his, and for a moment his own lips are completely still.

My eyes are closed, and the next thing I feel is his mouth smashing against mine, his lips pushing hard onto mine.

His hands move onto my breasts, cupping them gently.

David pulls his mouth away from me, and moves it towards my neck, kissing me gently.

“I can make you feel things you’ve never felt before,” he whispers in a low growl right into my ear. I can feel his hot breath me. “Don’t you want to feel pleasure and don’t you want to please your husband?”

“I thought this was just a fake marriage,” I say, my voice faint and far away, completely lacking in any type of conviction.

“It still is,” he says. “But let me show you what sex is really like. You’re missing out on so much.”

He doesn’t need to convince me. I already want him more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.

I throw myself against him, forgetting my concerns about ruining the wedding dress. The white fabric is bunched up all around me as my body slams into his.

But he doesn’t get knocked over. His body is solid and strong, like a pillar of muscle that presses back against me.

The next thing I know, I’m on my back, and he’s on top of me, gazing down into my eyes.

“I’ll be gentle on you,” he growls.

“Take me,” is the only thing I can say.

I can’t take it any longer. The tension of my virginity is simply too much to bear. And I want him so badly, like I’ve never wanted anyone before in my life.

“Be careful with the dress” is the last thing I remember to say before he kisses me again.

He’s on top of me, ignoring my pleas to keep the dress unruffled. He’s crushing it, destroying its pure original state.

His hands are on my breasts, and now they’re squished between me and the mattress, looking for the zipper.

He growls as he gives up on the zipper and goes right for the shoulder straps, which he tears off me. It doesn’t hurt me, but the sound of it surprises me.

But I could care less.

He yanks the top down the front of me, exposing my breasts. I don’t have a bra on, since the dress isn’t made that way.

I gasp, and he growls at me, diving his head down to my breasts.

My nipples are rock hard and his mouth sinks down on them, sucking on them, cupping his rough, strong hands underneath my breasts.

I’ve envisioned what my first time would be like… at least a thousand times. I never thought it would be anything like this. I never thought it would be on my wedding night, for one. But most of all I never thought that it would be so… intense.

His cock is raging hard and pressing against my leg. I’m painfully aware of it, and I’m aching for it.

My hand slides down between us, gripping his cock. It feels even thicker than it looks, and he grunts lightly as I squeeze it.

David nibbles my ear lobe and kisses my neck.

He gets up off me, on his knees next to me on the mattress. His cock is in his fist, which is gliding up and down along his shaft.

He doesn’t need to tell me what to do. I just do it.

I’m flipping over on my stomach again. I never imagined sex would involve so much moving around, so much changing positions… weird thoughts like this pop occasionally into my head, but they’re drowned out by the sheer intensity I’m feeling.

His cock and his fist are an inch away from my face. I can smell his manliness, the scent filling my nostrils in a delicious way.

David places his strong hands gently on the sides of my head, digging them into my hair, which is becoming more undone with each passing minute, slowly guiding my head towards his cock.

But I thrust my head forward, ignoring his guiding hands, and his cock enters my mouth.

He chuckles deeply as I almost gag on his massive cock, which hits the back of my throat, completely filling my mouth. If it felt thick in my hand, it tastes even thicker.

I pucker my lips, tightening them around his shaft.

I’m vaguely aware in the back of mind that I have absolutely no idea what the hell I’m doing, but I don’t let that stop me or hinder my enthusiasm for his massive member.

David groans and tightens his grip on my head. He’s bucking his hips now, thrusting his cock into my mouth.

The air is thick with the scent of his manliness, with sex.

My dress is still half on me.

“I want you flat on your back,” he growls at me. There’s a look of intense determination in his eyes. It’s almost a glare.

At this point, my dress is completely soaked. I’m wetter than I’ve ever been.

I’m simply dying to feel him inside me.

If it was this good so far, penetration must be way better.

I’m panting as I flop myself eagerly down onto the mattress.

I yank the skirt of my dress up above my legs, pulling it so that it covers my torso, revealing my long legs.

“Take me,” I say. “Fuck me.”

It’s so unlike me to say something dirty like that. Or is it? Maybe I’ve just never had the opportunity. After all, it’s not like I can use that line at work or at the grocery store.

“Not just yet,” growls David, giving me a wicked grin.

He jams his head between my legs suddenly, but he doesn’t touch my pussy yet. Instead, he runs his tongue along the inner part of my thigh, sending a strange sensation of longing coursing through my body.

I’ve never experienced anything like this… I’m dying now for his tongue to simply touch me, to simply make contact with my clit, which is intensely swollen, almost to the point of pain.

Finally, he licks me, a long, broad stroke that seems to savor me, seems to intensely take me in.

I gasp as his tongue slowly moves across me, finally reaching my clit. It sends shivers of intense pleasure from my toes up to my head.

But my clit’s as swollen as it’s ever been.

“Fuck me,” I moan, anxious for his cock.

“Not just yet,” he says, pausing for a moment.

His tongue hits me again, this time concentrating on my clit, quick jabs of intense pleasure as he flicks his tongue expertly across me.

A finger plays with me and slowly enters me, and I moan again and my back arches, my breasts rising towards the ceiling, my eyes closing and my mouth falling open. Sounds are escaping me, but I’m not aware of them.

I’m lost in a world of pleasure I could have never imagined.

“I’m going to… come,” I manage to say, fighting the pleasure to speak.

“Good,” he growls, pausing for a moment.

I can’t take this brief pause, and I seize his head with my hands and thrust him back down towards me.

His finger is moving in and out of me, and he’s sucking on my clit.

The first wave of the orgasm hits me. And it’s not subtle at all.

It’s more like a tsunami crashing against a cliff of sheer rock.

It explodes inside me and I cry out. My body contorts like I didn’t know it could and my legs involuntarily seize up, straightening out, as my muscles tense.

The peak leaves, but the ecstasy doesn’t fade. My whole body falls limp, like a rag doll.

“Time for the real thing,” growls David, pulling himself up and over me.

He’s supporting himself on his elbows, his mouth pushed against mine. Our tongues meet and crash, two tidal forces ravaging each other.

His breath is hot and heavy, his mouth now pushed against my neck. He kisses me.

I can feel his cock between my legs, the swollen head barely brushing my clit.

He shifts his weight, moving his hips, running the bottom of his shaft up and down along my clit. I moan softly.

“This… is no good,” he growls, appraising my wedding dress, the skirt still bunched up over my body and keeping us apart.

Letting his body fall completely onto mine, his weight making me want him even more, he jams his hands between our bodies, takes the fabric of the dress in the middle, and pulls savagely, ripping it completely in half.

The beautiful dress falls away from me, torn and fraying, like the shell of some insect that’s about to transform into something beautiful. David pulls it completely out from under me, picking my body up for a moment, only inches off the bed, tossing the remains of the dress off the bed entirely.

Now I’m entirely naked and I feel all of his warm skin against me for the first time. Our bodies are entwined and connected.

The dress is the last thing on my mind at this point.

“I need you,” I pant.

“I know,” he growls, as the head of his cock enters me slowly.

It’s just an inch of his cock, but the pain is so intense it takes me by surprise.

He pulls almost completely out, and then begins to thrust his shaft into me slowly again, this time taking it a little farther.

I cry out with the pain, and I bite my lip, trying to keep the pain to myself.

“Shhh,” he whispers to me. “It’s OK. It’s OK.”

He holds my head in his rough, strong hands, cradling me as his cock enters me farther this time.

I cry out even louder.

But the warm feeling of… satisfaction is beginning to accompany the pain.

It’s like nothing I could have imagined. He’s inside me, filling me.

David grunts softly as he pumps into me, thrusting his hips with force, bucking them.

I moan as the pain starts to fade. It never completely leaves, but the pleasure overtakes it to the point that I’m only aware of it as one is of a distant memory, something that’s almost no longer pleasant.

The long slow strokes become gradually faster until David is pounding into me, fucking me with an incredible intensity. His eyes lock onto mine, his weight pushing against me, his cock entering me, and the second orgasm begins to break.

I cry out, unaware of my volume this time, not making any effort to hold it back. My cries and moans become part of the pleasure.

My mind ceases to function as it normally does as the orgasm fills me.

The world right now is nothing but David and his body and his massive cock.

His pelvis is grinding into my clit now as he shifts his position, fucking me by coming into and over me a little.

The peak hits, and my body writhes and contorts like it never has. I’ve never felt anything like this. I think of picking up my head to kiss him, but I can’t even manage it. My body is no longer my own, but the pleasure is.

David jams his mouth down onto mine, kissing me long and hard, as he pulls out his cock, getting onto one of his elbows, picking his body partly off mine.

His thickly muscled chest shines with the light of the candles as he pumps his cock in his fist. He grunts as his cock twitches and explodes, his come shooting onto me.

David

“Wow,” she says, her voice soft and sultry.

We’re lying next to each other on the bed, our bodies not touching.

Two of the candles have gone out, and the light in the room is dimming significantly. Another candle is about to go out.

“You like it?” I say.

“I don’t even have the words to…”

“Don’t even try,” I say.

“Do you remember when you lost your virginity?”

I have to laugh at this, a deep chuckle that comes out of me uninvited. What an absurd question.

She suddenly strikes me as incredibly innocent, which is funny, considering that I just took her virginity from her.

She seems new to the world, and certainly new to sex.

Now, normally, I don’t even spend a minute in bed with a woman that I’ve slept with. On very rare occasions, I’ve fallen asleep, and gotten out of there as fast as I can. Or, if she passes out from exhaustion (from my intense fucking, is more like it), I just leave her there and move into the next room.

But I’m on my honeymoon. I know, I know, it’s not a real honeymoon, but it wouldn’t seem right to just leave her here, would it?

Anyway, it’s my room.

Plus… I’m hesitant to admit it even to myself, but there’s something… different about her. There was something different about the sex, and it wasn’t just that she’s a virgin.

My thoughts flit back to her being a virgin…

I took her. I deflowered her with my massive cock.

Talk about an ego boost.

Like you could use one, says a little voice in my head.

“What are you thinking about?” she says sleepily, hoisting her head up on her hand, her elbow pushed into the mattress.

Her naked breasts fall at an angle, but remain buoyantly beautiful. Her nipples are perfectly placed, and even in the candle light I can see their delicate color.

My cock twinges as I look at her, growing slightly, despite just coming.

“Oh,” I say. “This and that.”

“Is it weird that we just consummated our marriage?” She smiles as she says it.

I chuckle. “I’ve consummated a lot of times,” I say.

Her face starts to fall a little.

People always talk about the afterglow of sex. Personally, I’ve never experienced that. Sure, I’ve felt powerful and vigorous after sex. I’ve felt relaxed and mildly euphoric, but I’ve never felt that intense connection with another human being that people talk about. Not even with my ex-wife Alicia…

But there’s something here, something between us. I’m not going to say it’s an afterglow, or anything like it. But there’s a hint of something.

“You want to go for a walk?” I say, apparently uncomfortable with just starting to feel the hint of something.

“A walk?”

“Yeah… they’ve got impressive grounds.”

“Oh,” she says. She sounds disappointed, but I don’t see why. Who wouldn’t want to get out and see what the hell is around? What’s the point of coming to the Poconos just to stay in a room, however nice it is?

“Come on,” I say. “You’ll like it. We can see the stars.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Of course,” I say. “How do you think I knew about this place?”

“When did you come here?” Her voice is quiet but it’s lost some of its delicacy. It comes across as crisp, clear, and cold.

“Oh, with my ex-wife, Alicia.”

“And when was that?”

It’s only now that I realize I could be in trouble. I glance at her face and she’s glaring at me, as if she already knows what the answer is.

But this is absurd. She’s not my wife. I’m paying her good money to impersonate my wife. And we fucked, but so what? Lots of people fuck, whether or not they’re married.

But fuck it. I tell it like it is.

“For our honeymoon,” I say.

“For your honeymoon?” she says, her voice freezing over. I can almost see the icicles in the air.

“Yeah,” I say. “But we’re not really married. It’d be one thing if this were real.”

“So none of this is real?”

“What do you mean by that?”

She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she gets up off the bed, crossing her arms in front of her breasts.

I laugh. “Come on,” I say. “We fucked, but that doesn’t mean we need to have a fight. I don’t really do that.”

“You don’t do what?”

“I don’t do the whole ‘couple fighting’ thing,” I say. “The way I see it, we’re business associates, and we happened to have a fling. What’s the big deal? You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

She doesn’t answer.

She’s bending over, looking for something on the floor.

Another one of the candles flickers out, dying. But I can still see her perfectly round ass and her perfectly shaped thigh as she bends over.

My erection rears its head, my cock bursting to its full length again.

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” I say. “And I’ll show you some more tricks.”

“The dress,” she’s saying. “Where’s the dress?”

“Don’t you want more of my cock?” I say. “Aren’t virgins always hungry for more cock once they get a taste of it?”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she says. “Look. Look what you’ve done to this beautiful dress.”

She holds up the torn dress, which is crumpled. It’s now two completely separate pieces of fabric.

“I guess I don’t know my own strength,” I say, chuckling. “What’s the big deal? I could buy another one, but it’s not like I’m going to need it soon. It’s not like I’m planning on getting married again.”

She makes a face that I can’t read exactly, but she turns on her heel and stomps off towards her room.

She moves so quickly that she extinguishes another candle as she passes it, and knocks over another one.

I watch her beautiful ass disappear into the darkness of her room, catching a glimpse of the side of her swinging breast.

She slams the door without saying anything.

I get off the bed quickly to make sure the candle she knocked over isn’t going to start a fire. Fortunately, it just went out, and the glass base didn’t even break.

I crouch over the last remaining candles and extinguish them with my fingers.

What the hell’s she so upset about?

She’s acting like we’re really married or something. In the morning, I’ll have to remind her that this is a business relationship, albeit with some unexpected benefits.

Unexpected, though? Who am I kidding? I wanted to fuck her the moment I saw her. I knew I would fuck her the moment I saw her. I just never imagined I’d be tearing off a wedding dress to do it.

I fall asleep with my cock aching and stiff.

The next morning, she knocks on my door before I’m even awake.

“What is it?” I say sleepily, getting out of bed and heading to the door.

“I thought you’d want to get an early start today,” she says, her voice muffled through the door. “I know you have a lot to do.”

I pull the door open, and she’s fully dressed, in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. It almost looks as if she’s doing her best to hide her body, but there’s no way she can hide those curves.

“I’ll wait until you’re dressed,” she says, her voice not cold, but not warm either. If I had to describe it, I’d say that it’s professional, a little chilly perhaps, but still courteous.

She moves to close the door again.

I shrug and grab some clothes off of my leather duffel bag that I’ve had forever.

I wait until she knocks on the door again, and I just tell her to come in. I’m not going to be opening doors all day long for her.

“It’s silly after last night,” I say.

She shrugs. “I realized you were right,” she says. “I was thinking it over, and you were completely right. This is just a business arrangement. And what happened was just a fling between colleagues.”

“Right,” I say. “You’ve only got one point wrong.”

She raises her eyebrows at me.

“We’re not colleagues. I’m the boss.”

She remains silent as she crosses her arms in front of her. It makes her breasts stick up and out a little, unintentionally, I’m sure. My cock twitches and swells.

“I’m the one paying you,” I say. “This is not a colleague situation.”

“But you said…”

I shake my head. “I was just being polite. In reality, I call the shots, and don’t forget that.”

She doesn’t say anything.

After a delicious breakfast of fruit, bacon, and the finest coffee, the bell men load the bags into the limo that’s waiting for us. We don’t speak during breakfast or the limo ride, which is fine with me.

I’ve got a lot of business to catch up on.

The first thing I do, though, is pull out my phone and send a message to my lawyer, asking how things are progressing.

In reality, I’ve got a team of lawyers, but typically only deal with the most senior partner, a guy named Jonestone, who leads the rest of the team.

“Looking good,” he writes. “Alicia rescheduled the court case, delaying it by a month.”

“Looks like she already knows she’s going to lose,” I write.

“Quite possibly,” he writes back.

I glance over briefly at Olivia, who’s looking out the window, not doing anything at all.

“Looks like this job is going to last a little longer than we anticipated,” I say. “You’re going to work another couple months.”

“Why?” She sounds pissed, somewhat aggressive in her tone.

“The court date’s been pushed back,” I say. “You’ll need to work until after the court date, so that it’s not suspicious at all.”

She’s silent for a moment. That seems to be the overwhelming theme right now for her: silence.

“What about compensation?”

I laugh. “Don’t you think you’re already getting enough?”

“It’s plenty,” she says. “But it was for an already agreed upon amount of time…”

“It was always flexible,” I say, cutting her off. “It’s not like this is a cut and dry deal. The essence of the contract was that you help me win this court case. The stipulated time frame was never set in stone. Trust me, you don’t want to go head to head on me with contractual details. I do this kind of thing all day long.”

“But…”

“End of discussion,” I say, and that ends it.

The rest of the ride is completely silent.

Olivia

I couldn’t believe that he ruined the wedding dress like that, but what hurt me the most was how he didn’t seem to see that anything special had happened.

I should have been aware of this. I should have known this would happen. After all, he’s the same arrogant guy he always was. Nothing changed with him, but everything changed with me.

I had sex for the first time, losing my virginity, and Sasha had warned me a thousand times that I didn’t want to get emotionally attached to the first guy that I slept with.

Well, that’s what happened. It was almost instantaneous. I was already beginning to see him in a new light, to see his power and authority as… well, great things, sexy things.

Now, he’s showing his true colors.

Whatever, I just need to finish this job, collect my million dollars, and then I’ll never have to worry about money again. I can move on with my life, and he can move on with his.

From now on out, I’m just going to be the consummate professional.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t be surly.

After all, he’s paying me for my acting abilities, the demeanor I present during certain times. The agreement never stipulated that I needed to be pleasant to him when we’re in private.

The driver unloads our bags from the car, and the only thing I want to do now is go into my room and curl up under the covers, with my Kindle and a couple good romance books.

But I’m not going to get a chance.

Nancy greets us at the door. “Laura’s been asking for you,” she says to David.

She doesn’t even look at me. I know that she doesn’t trust me and doesn’t trust the reasons that I’m here, but she’s too much of a good employee to express this in anything but nonverbal cues. I can’t complain, though. After all, I am a fraud. And I sold myself for money, essentially, when you break it down. I’m not feeling great about myself right now, but I did what I had to do.

“What’s going on with her?” says David.

“She’s not doing well, since the wedding. She’s feeling really lonely.”

“Hasn’t she had her lessons today?”

Nancy nods. “But it’s not enough. She needs her father.”

I can tell that Nancy, whatever she thinks about me and David, too, for that matter, really cares about Laura.

She must, since she doesn’t seem like the type of woman to ever even so much as suggest that she’s contradicting David. And I can’t blame her.

David nods stiffly. “I was going to go to the office today.”

Laura suddenly comes running in from the other room, hugging David around his legs.

I suddenly realize that I haven’t actually seen David interact with his daughter at all. And seeing it now, it seems… strange.

He hugs her back stiffly, but I can tell by the way his body is moving that he’s uncomfortable and doesn’t quite know what to do.

What a weird thing… to be a father yet feel uncomfortable with your own daughter.

It makes me feel angry, but also sympathetic for him at the same time.

Most of all, I feel emotional pangs for the daughter, who has this distant rich father who doesn’t know how to even hug her right.

“I missed you,” says Laura, looking up at her father.

“I missed you too,” he says, his voice stiff and strange sounding.

“Can we do something today?”

“You know I have a lot of work to do,” says David, checking his fancy watch.

“But Daddy…”

“You know,” I say. “Why don’t we go to a museum or something? It’s been a while since I’ve been to one.”

Laura looks at me for the first time. Her face is… unreadable. Who knows what she’s thinking about me. For her, I’m probably a complete unknown. David warned me that he didn’t tell Laura that this whole arrangement was just for legal purposes. As far as she knows, I’m her dad’s new wife, and that must mean also that I’m direct competition for his attention.

“The museum?” says David, raising his eyebrows as he gives me a look.

“Yeah,” I say. “What if the three of us went there?”

I put some emphasis on the word “three.”

“I don’t know,” says David. “I have a couple deals that are still pending…”

“Come on, Daddy. I want to go to the museum.”

“Come on, David,” I say, poking him in the ribs gently, the way a real wife might, trying to encourage her husband to do something that’s out of his comfort zone.

“Fine,” says David curtly. “Let’s go now.”

Laura’s all smiles.

“Right now? I haven’t even changed,” I say.

“You need special clothes for the museum?”

I shake my head.

There goes my bed under the covers with my Kindle. And it’s my own fault.

Why did I encourage this?

Laura runs away from us, towards the garage, where David’s car is presumably parked.

“Why are you doing this?” whispers David to me.

I shrug my shoulders. “Just trying to fulfill my contractual obligations.”

“It was more about social obligations. No one said anything about spending time with my daughter.”

He seems upset, perhaps at the idea that I would get to know his daughter, perhaps becoming close to her.

“You don’t want me to get close to her?”

“I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“I won’t get too close.”

But as the day goes on, this becomes harder and harder to do.

After a short period of suspicion, Laura warms up to me. She turns out to be a wonderful child who can’t manage to hold a grudge against her father’s new bride for very long at all. By the end of the car ride, we’re already chatting away like old friends.

“Do you think they’re going to have dinosaurs there?” say Laura.

“You like dinosaurs?” I say, mildly surprised that a little girl would like dinosaurs. I always figured that was a common obsession of boys, rather than girls, but who am I to try to reinforce gender stereotypes?

David buys the three of us tickets, and we set off into the museum in search of the dinosaur exhibit.

Laura’s cute in her braided pigtails, rushing in front of us to see the giant reassembled dinosaur skeletons.

“She’s really cute,” I say to David, with Laura out of earshot.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re already getting along with her better than I ever have.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She talks to you…”

“She talks to you too. You’re her father. There’s nothing that can come between that… I’ll only know her for a few short months… You’re going to be in her life forever.”

I think of my own father, who, for better or for worse, has always been in my life… usually for worse, though.

“I never know what to say to her.”

“It’s easy, “ I say. “Just talk to her like you were talking to a friend.”

“I can’t talk to her like I talk to my friends,” says David.

“This is a rare side of you I’m seeing,” I say. “You’re always super confident. You’re always in charge.”

“I know, I know. And here I am completely unable to interact properly with my own daughter…”

“It’s just something that’s… well, let me put it this way. You can learn it. You just have to loosen up a little.”

The day passes by quickly at the museum, with Laura’s high energy leading us through almost every exhibit they have.

I start to feel bad for David, who seems to leave himself out of most of the conversations that Laura and I have about the exhibits.

Laura reminds me a lot of a friend I had back in school when I was her age. She’s interested in everything, intelligent, but also shy. I can tell she wants a lot from her father, but that he’s not able or not willing to totally commit himself to the type of relationship she would want from him.

When Laura and I are chatting, David stands a little off to the side, surveying everything, making sure everything is OK, without directly participating. It reminds me so much of the archetypical American father, who always remains a little removed from the typical family dynamic.

But there’s so much more to him. I know it’s in there, but he’s wearing this shell, this armor of the tough, no-nonsense businessman who gets exactly what he wants all the time, no matter what.

… including me, I guess.

“Wow,” I say. “That was quite a day.”

We’re just leaving an exhibit on ancient armor that has Laura just as fascinated as she was with the dinosaurs.

“Can we go to another museum?” says Laura.

“We’ve got to go home to eat,” says David, checking his watch.

“Why don’t we get some pizza?” I say. “I know a great place just around the corner.”

Truth be told, it’s one of the few pizza places I know about in Philadelphia. Sasha took me here a year ago, swearing against my skepticism that it was by far the best pizza place in all of Philly. And she was right.

“Yeah!” says Laura.

“We should get home,” says David.

“When’s the last time you ate pizza?” I say, smiling at him the way a new wife would, coaxing him and teasing him.

David shrugs. “A long time ago. They don’t serve it much at the office.”

“Or at all those fancy restaurants where you have your business meetings.” Or at the exclusive clubs where you find your model one nights stands, I would say if his daughter weren’t right here.

“You never let me eat pizza,” says Laura.

“It’s not good for you.”

“Just this once,” I say.

I don’t know exactly why I’m choosing this small fight. I don’t know why I volunteered to come out today, except for the fact that I feel bad for Laura… and, to be honest, I feel bad for David, despite the way he treated me after our “honeymoon night.” I feel like he’s wearing another personality as a disguise because he thinks he needs to.

“Fine,” says David, and starts walking towards the garage where the car is parked.

“We can walk there,” I say. “It’s just a block.”

He nods stiffly and walks in the direction that I point. Laura and I tag along behind, chatting the entire time excitedly about what we saw in the museum.

It’s honestly fun talking to her. This could be an unexpected job perk that I never even considered. I never though I’d be the type to have kids… it wasn’t a conscious decision I ever made. It was just something I never really considered… maybe because I’d never had sex, and even I know that you need to have sex at least once in order to have children.

For a moment, I wonder to myself if the world seems any different now that I’m no longer a virgin.

And the answer is a resounding no.

The world’s the same, but something is different about me. I don’t know what it is. It’s something ethereal, something that’s impossible to define, to put my finger on.

David

“Just try to engage in the conversation,” whispers Olivia. “Seriously, you can do it.”

I just grunt at her.

But… maybe she’s onto something.

I order pizza for the three of us, and it’s delicious.

“So the Stegosaurus was your favorite?” says Olivia to Laura.

“Yeah,” says Laura, who begins reciting the facts she remembers from the museum. I don’t think they’re all correct, but it’s still impressive.

“I think I liked the T-rex,” I say. Normally, I would never try to talk to Laura like this, engaging her on this level. But Olivia really does seem to have some kind of rapport with her. I might as well try it, if it’s working so well for her. That’s something I learned running my own business—if something is working well for someone else, and you’re struggling with it, just give it a try yourself. Most of the time, if it works for them, it’ll work for you too.

“The T-rex?” says Laura, looking at me with a puzzled expression her face. She’s used to me telling her what to do, telling her she needs to study harder, not talking about her favorite dinosaurs.

“Yeah,” I say, my words faltering for a moment, until I find them. “It was so big and powerful. It was the king of the whole world, right?”

“The Stegosaurus had cool spikes,” says Laura. “And it didn’t hurt animals like the T-rex. It just ate plants.”

“That’s a good point,” I say. “It’s nice that they were just eating plants and not hurting things. I guess the T-rex had to do it, but it’s a little unfortunate.”

The rest of the meal goes stellar. Laura and I are chatting away about dinosaurs and everything else in the museum. Olivia hangs back a little in the conversation, but interjects when I’m starting to falter. But mostly she just smiles at us.

When it’s time to go, Laura goes to the bathroom and Olivia smiles at me.

“What is it?” I say.

“It’s so nice to see you getting along with your daughter.”

“I didn’t know it was this… easy,” I say.

“Why do you have such a hard time talking to her?”

“I think it’s because my own parents didn’t really talk to me.”

“What do you mean they didn’t talk to you?”

“You know, they just ordered me around, told me to do chores, do my work… threatened me.” I’m about to add “beat me,” but Laura comes back from the bathroom, all smiles, full of pizza and good dinosaur conversation.

“Well,” I say. “Looks like we should really be getting back.”

“I’m tired,” says Laura, her whole mood suddenly changing from excitement to satisfied exhaustion.

“I’ll carry you,” I say, and I scoop down and pick her up.

She smiles at me before falling fast asleep in my arms.

“I haven’t done this since she was a little kid,” I say.

“She still is a little kid,” says Olivia.

“You know what I mean.”

At the car, I lay her gently into the backseat and buckle the seatbelt. I lean down and kiss her forehead.

“Thanks,” I say, getting into the driver’s seat, with Olivia beside me in the passenger seat.

“For what?”

“For all this,” I say. “You’ve really helped me, and I don’t know why. You didn’t have to do all this. It’s not part of the agreement.”

Olivia shrugs. “I just wanted to see you two have a good relationship,” she says. “And, it’s not like this is going to fix everything. You’re going to have to work at it, but you can do it.”

I nod.

I don’t know what to say. For once, I’m lost for words with Olivia.

I guess I was kind of a dick to her, in a way.

“Hey,” I say. “Did I tell you yet about the dinner party?”

“Nope,” says Olivia, starting to giggle.

“What’s so funny? It’s just a dinner party.”

“It’s just that you’re not giving me an order,” she says. “Usually when you talk to me you just tell me what to do, and you’re not doing that now.”

I shrug. “I hadn’t noticed,” I say. “Anyway, I’m hosting it tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?” she says.

I nod. “I’m inviting the judge and a couple business partners. This is the chance to show you off as my new respectable bride. And it’s my chance to show them I’m a changed man and all that.”

“You think they’ll buy that?”

“People can be surprisingly gullible,” I say.

“So who’s going to be there? A bunch of other rich guys and their trophy wives?”

“A few,” I say. “You might actually like some of them, though. My old friend, Ryan Hudson, is coming in from San Francisco with his new wife, who I’ve never met.”

“He’s another business guy?”

“Sort of. He’s a programmer. He did it all himself, basically inventing something that earned him his money.”

“Impressive,” says Olivia, but she doesn’t sound impressed.

When we get back home, Olivia walks with me to Laura’s room. I carry Laura, and set her down on her bed. She doesn’t wake up the entire time.

“Those dinosaurs must have really tired her out,” I whisper.

Olivia nods and smiles down at Laura.

“You really like her, don’t you?” I say.

“Yeah,” says Olivia. “She’s great, and I never thought I’d be the type of person to enjoy kids.”

We leave Laura’s room, closing the door gently behind us.

There’s an awkward moment as we look at each other. I can tell that we’re both thinking about the same thing: the awkwardly silent and angry car trip back from the Poconos this morning, and last night.

My cock starts to stiffen in my pants as I remember tearing the dress off of her and plunging my cock deep inside her.

“Well,” she says. “I’m heading to bed.”

“Got it,” I say.

Down at the bar, I pour myself a light whiskey on the rocks, and sit, contemplating a painting that’s been hanging on the wall for years, one that I’ve never paid much attention to before.

Olivia

Today I actually have to go back to work, which is a real change from the fairy tale fake wedding billionaire lifestyle I’ve been leading for the last couple days.

People are staring at me when I get into work, whispering at me quite obviously behind my back. No one seems to dare to approach me. After all, to them I’m the one who finally landed David Masters, the one who was unattainable in that way.

I’m sure everyone is jealous of me. If only they knew the real story.

Whatever, I just have to keep my head down and get through this. Once I get my payment from David, I can leave this job in the dust and do whatever I want. Maybe I’ll go back to school and study something that I really want to, taking my time so that I don’t get overworked again and develop that horrible crippling fatigue.

The day goes by in a blur, with the only notable thing happening being a call from Sasha.

“What’s going on?” she says. “What’s the married life like?”

“Oh,” I say. “You know, pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” says Sasha, sounding shocked. “Is that really all you’ve got for me? You disappear and suddenly get married and all that… and presumably you’re not a virgin. How was it?”

I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her that the whole thing is faked and that I don’t have any other options, considering how deep in debt I am. But I can’t. I just can’t, even though it’s Sasha, my best friend in the whole world.

“It was great,” I say. “I wish I’d gotten that whole thing over with sooner.”

“Your virginity, you mean?”

“I mean having sex.”

“The apartment is lonely without you,” says Sasha. “I’m going to have to get a roommate or something.”

“I’ll pay the rent until you find someone,” I say, figuring that at the very least I can not screw her over.

But the conversation between us is becoming stiff and strange. This doesn’t feel like it used to, chatting and laughing with Sasha.

“I’ll find someone soon,” says Sasha.

I want to tell her that it’s all fake, that I need a place to live after this is all over. I want to scream at her that she can’t give up my room. She can’t give it to some stranger.

But I don’t. I just don’t tell her. After all, how can I?

The conversation ends abruptly and strangely, after petering out and becoming stilted and slow.

I hang up the phone feeling terrible about myself. What have I become? I’ve sold my whole life for a million dollars and now I’m abandoning my best friend who was always there for me, no matter what happened.

Tonight’s the night of the dinner party, and despite getting along well with David yesterday when we took Laura out, I’m not looking forward to it at all. Yesterday with David and Laura, I was able to be myself. I was able to do something that I thought was important, by starting to help David interact more naturally with his daughter. But tonight I’m going to have to take up the role of his super proper respectable wife.

“Hi, Nancy,” I say, entering the kitchen to find Nancy rearranging things in the refrigerator.

She nods at me. She still doesn’t seem to like me very much.

“David called,” she says. “He said he’ll be home soon, and that you need to get ready. There’s a dress for you upstairs. The guests will be arriving in an hour, and the food will arrive afterwards.”

I know that if she didn’t have to relay this message to me, she wouldn’t be speaking to me. She doesn’t trust me. I want to tell her, just like I told Sasha, the real story. I want to tell her that I’m just like her. I’m just another one of David Masters’ employees, working for my wage, doing what I have to do.

“Thanks,” I say, heading upstairs, where I find a beautiful gown waiting for me on a little stand that houses a clothes hanger.

It’s a beautiful blue shimmering gown that goes down to my ankles.

It’s a struggle getting it on me, because, to my surprise, it’s form fitting, hugging my breasts and my stomach, along with my hips. It may be a long gown that doesn’t show a lot of skin, but it’s not exactly conservative in its design.

There’s a knock on my door.

“Come in,” I say, observing myself in the full-length mirror.

David steps in, wearing a suit as usual. He grins when he sees me, something of a self-satisfied smirk.

“Why do I get the feeling you just wanted to see me in this gown?” I say.

“And what if that’s true,” he says, moving closer to me, standing a little behind me so that he can see my reflection in the mirror by looking over my shoulder.

“You know we’re not really married?” I say.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun, right?”

“Just to clarify,” I say, my tone taking on a sarcastic bite. “You’re talking about on the clock fun or off the clock fun?”

“Whichever,” he says, placing his hands on my shoulders. “It’s all the same to me.”

His hands feel good on my shoulders. I can feel my nipples harden and I’m becoming wet… Let’s just hope I don’t ruin this beautiful gown.

Then again, I might not have to worry about ruining it myself. If I go through with this, David’s liable to just tear the gown off of me the way he did with that wedding dress.

Thinking about that dress again sends a shiver of anger through me. It’s a weird feeling, being turned on and angry at the same time. I don’t know why that dress meant so much to me…. except that it was something beautiful he destroyed with his arrogance.

“So what’s it going to be?” growls David in my ear, his breath hot on my skin.

“Aren’t the guests coming soon?”

“Very soon.”

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” I say as I turn around, break free from his hands, and kiss him deep on the mouth. I just can’t resist him. My mouth crashes on to his.

He pulls back and grins savagely at me.

“I thought the other night was a mistake?” he says, taunting me.

“Maybe it was,” I say. “But I’m not necessarily opposed to making the same mistake twice.”

“How irresponsible of you,” says David. “I can’t believe you’re my wife.”

“You don’t have to believe it. Just everyone else.”

My hands reach towards his crotch, where I feel his massive shaft, his raging erection that fights against his pants.

“Tell me that you want me,” growls David. It’s an order.

“I want you,” I say, breathing heavily. My voice is thick with lust. My dress is probably ruined, at least for tonight.

“Tell me that you need my cock,” orders David. “And that you don’t care if the guests are waiting downstairs.”

He walks over and closes the door, sealing the two of us together and alone in my room.

“I want you,” I say. “I want your cock.”

“Tell me you need my cock.”

“It’s true,” I say. “I need it.” I can’t think about anything but his massive cock filling me up. It was so intense the other night.

“If you need it, come and get it,” growls David, undoing his belt and now his zipper.

I kneel before him, my gown folding with my legs, my hair all done up, and reach inside his boxers and seize his cock. I grip it, hard, and he groans as I do so.

I pull down his pants and boxers. His cock springs up, his massive shaft glistening. The head is swollen and I lean my head down and wrap my lips around his shaft.

My whole body responds to taking him in my mouth. It’s an inexplicable sensation, as if my whole body is on fire, as if my entire body craves him.

His strong hands seize my head, but he gives me room to bob my head up and down, letting his cock fill me up, pumping in and out. Now he starts thrusting, groaning as he fucks my mouth. I tighten my lips and push my tongue up forcefully against the base of his cock.

“Enough,” growls David, withdrawing his cock from my mouth. “It’s your turn. Get on the bed.”

I do as he says, pulling my gown as best I can up towards my hips, revealing my soaked panties.

“That’s what I like to see,” growls David, bending down to examine me.

The gown is bunched up around my legs, tight.

“You’ll have to find something else to wear to the dinner party,” growls David.

There’s a knock on the door, soft at first, but it grows louder.

“Mr. Masters,” comes Nancy’s voice. “The guests are arriving. Mr. Hudson and his wife are downstairs.”

David just ignores her and pulls my panties aside with his hand, licking me softly, using his tongue in a broad stroke.

I moan.

“Mr. Masters?” comes Nancy’s voice, through the door.

“We’ll be there soon,” I call out, my voice high and strange sounding.

David chuckles. “That’ll show her to interrupt us,” he says.

He’s licking me fast now, his tongue hitting my swollen clit in just the right way. It drives me completely wild. I don’t care that he’s an arrogant son of a bitch. Right now, I don’t care how he treated me the other night, or in the morning. I don’t care that he’s emotionally unavailable… I just care about his cock.

“I need it,” I moan.

“Need what?” says David, pausing.

“Your cock,” I moan.

David chuckles, and just continues moving his tongue, inserting a finger now.

He keeps going until the orgasm overtakes me, peaking in a huge crescendo of intense ecstasy that courses through my shivering body.

“Now it’s time for my cock,” growls David, getting on top of me, my dress remaining on.

“Don’t tear it,” I say, still breathless from the orgasm.

“Tell me you need my cock,” orders David.

“I fucking need it,” I almost shout.

I’ve never needed anything more in my life. I’ve never wanted anything more, or craved anything the way I do his hard cock.

I hear a crinkle of foil as David unwraps a condom and unrolls it onto his cock.

David grunts slightly as he enters me, his mouth kissing my neck.

My head is thrown back and my back arches.

It feels so fucking good.

He enters me slowly. The pain isn’t like last time.

Now it’s mostly pleasure. Pleasure that overwhelms me and takes me captive.

David thrusts into me rapidly and I cry out.

He rides me, his hips thrusting, his cock entering me rapidly and powerfully.

“We’re going to change positions,” says David.

He helps me up onto all fours and he gets behind me. I can feel his thick thighs pressed into mine.

“Beautiful ass,” growls David, caressing my buttocks, my smooth skin.

He’s still wearing his coat and tie, his dress shirt.

My gown is bunched up above my ass, at my waist.

His cock enters me from behind and I gasp in surprise. It feels so different.

Even though I’m no longer a virgin, I still have a lot to learn about sex.

There’s a slapping sound as David’s body connects with mine with each rapid thrust. He’s fucking me hard and fast, and the second orgasm is coming soon, barreling down on me like a speeding locomotive, with all the power of a magnificent thunderstorm.

I come right when David does.

He doesn’t pull out. Instead, he buries his cock inside me, pushing it even farther, even deeper.

I cry out, unable to contain my volume. My body’s tingling, the ecstasy coursing through me.

David finally pulls out, and I fall down in a heap on the bed, completely exhausted.

The dress is a mess.

David stands tall above me, pulling up his pants, zipping them up, and buckling them.

He gives me a surveying look. “You’re going to have to do something about that dress,” he says. “You don’t look presentable. I’ll expect you downstairs in five minutes. I don’t want to keep the guests waiting.”

He turns on his heel and walks out the door.

Olivia

For a full two minutes, I’m simply fuming with anger. I can’t think of anything else, except what a fucking bastard!

He didn’t even stay to help me get another dress.

In the end, I decide, though, that a million dollars is worth it… in the sense that I’m going to do whatever it takes to look presentable and get downstairs to meet the guests and to pretend to be the perfect wife for David Masters.

The first thing I do is fix my hair, which is not a complete mess, but it’s come undone. Fortunately, this doesn’t take me that long.

The next thing is the dress, which is still awkwardly bunched up around my thighs.

I do my best to pull it down and flatten it out. It looks a little strange, though. I hunt through the closet looking for something else… but there’s nothing here that looks remotely like a gown.

The best I could do is maybe dress myself like I dress for work, but that’s certainly going to seem strange at a dinner party.

I can’t risk giving David the slightest excuse to say that I haven’t been fulfilling my end of the bargain, presenting myself to the world as the perfect wife.

Tears well in my eyes as I look at myself in the mirror.

Looking down at it, the skirt of the gown looks more or less OK, but in the mirror it looks really awful.

What am I going to do?

There’s a knock on the door.

“I’m not ready, Nancy,” I call out, my voice cracking with distress. “Maybe you should just tell David I’m not going to be able to do it… I can’t do this. I just can’t.”

“Can I come in?” says a soft feminine voice that sounds nothing like Nancy’s.

“Sure,” I say, although I’m not sure why I agree, except that the woman sounds nice.

The door opens and a young woman enters. She’s about my age, maybe a year older or younger. It’s hard to tell.

She has gorgeous hair and innocently beautiful features.

Her figure isn’t unlike mine. She’s wearing a gown similar to the one I have on, although, of course, hers isn’t destroyed.

The first impression I get from her is that in different circumstances, we might have been friends. There’s just something pleasant and understanding about the vibe she gives off…

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Lily.”

“Hi,” I say, my eyes about to burst with tears.

“I’m the wife of one of your husband’s friends,” she says, her voice kind as she looks at me. “Maybe David has talked about him, Ryan Hudson.”

“I think so,” I say, my voice quavering.

There’s no way I can go through with this. I can’t go downstairs looking like this, no matter how nice this woman is.

“You were taking a long time to come downstairs, so I suggested that I come up to see if I could help,” says Lily. “Men just don’t understand how much harder it is for us women to get ready.”

I shrug. “I guess not.”

“Oh my,” says Lily, moving so that she can see my full reflection in the tall mirror. “What happened to this beautiful gown?”

“Well,” I say, deciding for some reason to tell the truth. I just implicitly trust this woman. “We had sex just a moment ago, and then he didn’t… he didn’t do anything to help me with this gown. And it just makes me so sad, seeing this happen…”

“I’m sorry,” says Lily, putting her hand on my shoulder in a comforting way.

Her present is calming, and I don’t feel like I’m going to burst into tears.

“Men can be… difficult. Especially our men. David is just like Ryan, in a lot of ways. Why don’t I see if I can get you something else to wear? I have a back up dress in the car.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“What do you mean?”

I do trust her, but I can’t tell her that this is a fake marriage.

“I don’t think I can do this party,” I say. “There’s too much pressure.”

“You’ve just gotten married, right?” says Lily. “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to the wedding. Ryan had an important conference to give… and it was very last minute. How long have you and David known each other?”

“Just a few days before we got married,” I say, telling the truth.

“That’s not very much time,” says Lily. “Well, if David’s as much like Ryan as I think he is, you’re going to need to give him some… time to sort things out.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

Lily tells me about how she met Ryan, how they worked together. It sounds vaguely similar to my story with David. Except my story has more complications, more deception, more disappointment.

Lily tells me how Ryan would have sex with her and then just ignore her, focusing instead on his code. She tells me how Ryan had to figure out how to open up a part of himself that he had been hiding away. And it was then that she and Ryan really understood each other and got to where they are now, which is very, very happy with each other.

“I don’t know,” I say. “That does sound a lot like David. I feel like there’s a part of him that’s… beautiful, but it just won’t come out. Or when it does come out… when we’re, um, making love for instance, it’s gone so soon… it just disappears.”

Lily nods understandingly.

“You know,” she says. “I wasn’t with anyone before Ryan.”

“You mean, you were a…?”

“Yeah,” says Lily, giggling a little nervously. “So it wasn’t just Ryan who had to do some work. I had to come out of my shell a little, too.”

I nod. “I’d never done… you know, before either. I’d never had sex.”

Lily smiles at me. “It seems like we’re more similar than we would have thought,” she says. “Honestly, I was just expecting this party to be full of some stuck up women, but I’m glad you’re here.”

I nod. “I’m glad I met you,” I say. “And thanks for telling me all that… it’s not like you needed to.”

“But I wanted to.”

“Thanks,” I say. “We’re similar in a lot of ways, but my situation is… more complicated.”

“It can’t be that complicated,” says Lily.

“I can’t explain it. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Why don’t I go to the car and bring up that dress that I have,” says Lily. “I’m sure it’ll look great on you, and then you and I can chat at dinner, while our husbands talk about business and sports.”

I nod sadly, and Lily gets up and leaves the room.

The decision comes to me suddenly. There’s only one thing I can do, and it’s not going down to the dinner party.

No matter how nice the dress is that Lily brings me, I can’t face them. I can’t face them and pretend that everything is fine between me and David. And most of all, I can’t face David.

There’s no doubt in my mind I’m incredibly attracted to him. He does things to my body that I couldn’t have ever imagined, and he makes me feel… incredible.

There’s an attraction there, and it’s mutual.

But he’s such a dick. And he doesn’t seem willing to leave behind his arrogance, his complete indifference to me…. his apparent indifference.

If he doesn’t know how to express something, that’s his problem, not mine. I shouldn’t have to deal with it. It’s not my job to change him.

After all, I’m his fake wife, not his real wife.

This has just gotten completely out of control. I should have never slept with him.

If I walk away now, there goes my cool million.

But I don’t have any other choice. I just can’t do it.

Still wearing the ruined gown, I grab everything that I think is mine in the room and rush out the door.

I take the back staircase that leads to a spot downstairs very close to the garage.

I pause for a moment, listening to the booming voices in the dinning room.

“And then she said, ‘I can’t do that, sir, that’s a cocker spaniel, not a husky,’” comes David’s booming deep voice, apparently telling some joke.

Male and female laughs come from the dining room.

“Anyone know where Lily is?”

“I think she’s helping my wife. She may be having some wardrobe difficulties.”

“Hopefully not a wardrobe malfunction.”

“You know how women are.”

With tears in my eyes, I open the garage door and walk past David’s gleaming cars.

“I need your help, desperately,” I write into my phone, tapping away at the screen. “Can you pick me up at…?”

“Be right there,” writes back Sasha.

I sigh in relief as the garage door buckles open.

There’s a slew of cars parked in the driveway that leads to the garage, and a couple more on the street. They’re all fancy, but it’s not like I know anything about makes or models. It’s all the same to me. I’d be happy to just have a car.

But what I’m doing right now, running away, is going to ruin all my chances of owning a car in the next couple decades, considering the debts I need to pay off.

It’s going to be public transportation for me for the rest of my life.

But I’ve got to stick to what I think is right.

Lily is bent over, her head in the back seat of one of the larger cars.

I feel bad leaving her without saying goodbye. She’s the only one who was nice to me, except maybe David’s daughter, Laura. I feel about bad leaving her too.

Tears are welling in my eyes as I rush down the city street in my gown, my leather backpack slung over my shoulder, flapping against my back.

Sasha’s car comes barreling down the road towards me.

I’m walking right in the middle, like some crazy woman in distress, with a ruined dress and tears.

One of Sasha’s headlights is out, and the other is pointed at a strange angle.

Her car is at least a couple decades old, riding low to the ground because the suspension is completely busted. The car makes a horrible clanking sound. Coupled with a grinding sound, and the sound of a loud whistle, the car makes enough of a racket that as I look behind me, I see Lily looking up from her car to see what’s going on.

“Where are you going?” calls Lily after me, waving her hands for me to come back. She holds up the dress, and it looks gorgeous, perfect.

I’m standing here in the middle of the street, with Sasha’s car rushing towards me, with Lily behind me, holding the dress that will allow me to keep my million dollars.

All I have to do is dry my tears, change, and go to the dinner party. David Masters will never know the difference.

But I know what I have to do.

Sasha skids to a stop right in front of me, blaring her horn. She opens her door and rushes out to me, her face full of worry.

“Are you OK?” she says frantically, gripping my arms. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Can you take me home?”

“Get in,” says Sasha, trying to open the passenger door for me.

But it’s stuck.

Sasha lets go of me to give the door a good, solid kick right at the handle.

“It always sticks like this,” she says.

“Olivia!” cries Lily, from behind us.

“Who’s she?” asks Sasha.

“Nobody,” I say.

Finally, the door is open and I get inside, tossing my bag into the back seat.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Sasha jams her foot onto the gas pedal, turning the car around wildly on the empty street. I look into the mirror and see Lily, a symbol of the life I’m leaving behind.

David

“I’m sorry for the delay, gentlemen,” I say. “I’m sure she’ll be down any minute.”

Suddenly, Ryan’s wife, Lily, comes into the room.

Everyone stares at her, probably wondering where the hell Olivia is. A lot of them haven’t met her before. So far, this is going terribly. The judge is asking me all sorts of questions about her, about how we met, and what she’s like. My plan is crumbling at my feet.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” she whispers to me.

I get up, excusing myself, and follow Lily into the kitchen, where Nancy is pretending to clean the sink, but is obviously only interested in listening to what we have to say.

“She’s left,” says Lily.

“What do you mean she’s left?”

“I don’t know what happened. Her dress was… messed up… from…”

I nod my head, and urge her to continue.

“She was really upset, and I told her I’d get her a new dress… but next thing I knew she was running down the street and some beat up old car came and picked her up.”

I nod, and feel something inside me…

It’s a feeling I haven’t felt for a long time, and it’s guilt. It’s almost hard to recognize it, but it’s palpable, like a physical thing that’s been lodged inside me, and it’s impossible to ignore.

Why did I treat her like that? Why did I act like such a dick and tell her to figure something out? Why didn’t I at least send Nancy up to help her get something else to wear?

“Why don’t you head back in with everyone else?” I say to Lily.

“What’s happened?” says Nancy, uncharacteristically.

I ignore her.

I dial Olivia’s number, but of course it goes straight to voice mail.

I don’t need to be told exactly what this means.

She’s left.

But it’s only now that I realize… that the thing I’m most worried about isn’t whether or not the judge is going to believe me… believe that I’m a changed man and that Olivia is really my wife.

It hits me in a single split second. No, I’m not worried about any of that.

I’m worried about Olivia.

I want her and I need her.

I need her back, for real this time.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about keeping Laura away from Alicia.

“What’s going on?” says Judge Carter, with a bit of a smirk on his face. “Your new wife hasn’t shown up yet?”

“She lives here,” I say coldly. “Where would she be showing up from? It turns out, though, that she’s come down with a bit of the flu, and she won’t be able to join us for dinner.”

“I see,” says Judge Carter, obviously not believing me.

“Don’t worry,” says Ryan, looking at me. “These things happen. I’m sure everyone is anxious to meet her just like Lily and me, but we’ll be fine waiting for another time.”

I nod my head.

“And,” says Ryan, giving me a knowing look. “We all have our ups and downs, and trust me, Lily and I have had ours. But they always end up OK.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.

“Nothing,” says Ryan.

I dig back into my steak and take a sip of the wine, swishing it around in my mouth.

“This isn’t any good,” I say, untruthfully. “I’m so sorry to have served this to you all. Let me go get you something better from the cellar. It won’t take a minute.”

“It’s delicious,” says Ryan.

“Quite good,” says someone else.

“Perfectly adequate,” says Judge Carter, making a face.

That pisses me off. It is, after all, a very nice wine. There’s nothing wrong with it at all.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, grabbing the wine bottle from the table by the neck and heading out of the room.

I don’t have any intentions of going back to the table.

Running into the garage, I hop into the Porsche and jam the button that opens the garage door, only to find that it’s already open.

No problem. Makes it easier on me. I jam the stick shift into reverse and hit the accelerator and clutch, revving the engine and roaring out of the driveway.

I call her again on my phone, but there’s no answer.

“Listen,” I say, speaking to the voicemail. “I’ve been a… I don’t even know what the word is. And this isn’t like the movies, where I… you know how it goes.”

Despite considering myself quite eloquent normally, especially when it comes to business matters, I just don’t know what to say. I’m completely lost for words, and I’m not even trying to talk to her. I’m just speaking to a damn machine, leaving a message that she’s not even ever going to listen to. It’s pretty clear she wants nothing to do with me.

I hang up without finishing the message.

My phone beeps at me. It’s a text from Olivia.

“I quit,” says the simple message.

“Won’t you reconsider?” I write. “For increased compensation?”

This isn’t what I want to say. I want to tell her so much, but I don’t have the words for her. I only have the words for a business deal, for a financial transaction. And that’s not what she is…

She’s a person, a person that I might care a lot about.

“No, don’t contact me again,” reads the next text message.

Damn it.

Fuck.

I toss the phone into the passenger seat and pull the car over to the side of the road, putting it in neutral and letting it coast to a dead stop.

The night around me is silent and dark. There’s nothing here, except buildings that appear empty and a couple of dead trees.

Philly is a strange city in that on one block the houses are nice, and the streets are full of activity, and then on the next the houses are falling down and no one’s out.

This is one of those blocks.

I’m usually just driving from one place to the next, never looking at my surroundings. I’m on the phone, on my headset, or dictating a business note to my phone, or I’m thinking about negotiations or tactics.

I must have driven this route a hundred times, but I’ve never pulled the car over and stopped to look.

Most of the houses have busted up windows and boarded up doors. They’re abandoned, except for maybe some vagrants that live inside.

I hadn’t noticed, but the radio is playing some soft jazz music. I turn it off in frustration.

I’m feeling all these emotions that I’ve been stuffing deep away for so long, and I don’t know what to do about them.

The world seems dead and empty, and I’m the same way. Everything has come to nothing, and I realize that I need her, and that I can’t have her. Everything is lost. Completely.

Olivia

“So what the hell happened?” says Sasha, taking her eyes off the road to look at me and my gown. “You look crazy!”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know. The gown’s ruined.”

“What the hell happened? Are you OK? Do we need to go to the police or anything?”

“No,” I say. “It’s nothing like that. The gown just got ruined during… sex.”

There’s a long pause.

“So you’re not a virgin anymore. That totally changed our dynamic, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno,” says Sasha, shrugging. “We can talk about that later. But what happened? I haven’t heard from you at all from the wedding.”

“Things aren’t… as they seem,” I say.

“OK,” says Sasha. “This is getting really weird. You need to tell me exactly what’s happening or I’m driving us right to the police station. If you don’t want to go, I’m stopping the car then.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I say. “But it’s nothing like that. You don’t need to be worried. I’m fine. Now, at least. OK, so here it goes…”

I tell her everything that happened, down to every last detail, leaving out most of the sex, though. I may not be a virgin anymore, but there are some things I’d rather keep private, mainly how fucking great it felt, how incredible it was.

“That’s insane,” says Sasha. “So none of this was real? And you lied to me at the wedding? You made me think you were really getting married. Who does that? Who are you? And you had sex with him? Was that part of the contract too, to please his cock, to fulfill your wifely duties?”

“No,” I say. “That was just… spontaneous. In fact, we weren’t supposed to hook up. That was part of the deal. That’s when everything went south.”

“You’re telling me,” says Sasha.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I can’t believe you made me think it was all real.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” I say. “I’m sorry, Sasha. I really wanted to tell you… but who knows what would have happened. He would have found out somehow.” I don’t want to tell her that I know she would have opened her mouth somehow somewhere.

“I get it,” says Sasha. “It’s a lot of money. You said a million dollars?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot. Is he looking for another fake wife?”

“Sasha!”

“It’s just a lot of money.”

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“How can I be? Hell, I’d do that same thing for a million dollars.”

“Well now I’m not going to get any of it,” I say. “And I’ll have to quit that job. There’s no way I can work there now. I’m going to be completely broke and also in debt.”

“Join the club,” says Sasha. “But seriously, something will come along.”

“That was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” I say. “And I completely blew it.”

“You never know…”

“Come on,” I say. “When have you ever heard of something this crazy? Being offered a million dollars for a few months’ work.”

“But you’re doing the right thing,” says Sasha. “You just can’t do that. I’m glad you’re coming back.”

“Wait,” I say, my mind suddenly turning to the practical, despite how desperate and despairing I feel. “Is there even room for me? Didn’t you rent out my room?”

“Oh,” says Sasha, her voice falling. “I’m sorry, but yeah… I mean, what was I supposed to do, though?”

“But I sent you a check for the amount!”

“Well, I’m broke too!”

“So you stole the money from me?”

“Let’s not look at it that way.”

“I don’t see how I can’t.”

“I’ll give it back to you, now that I know you’re not really married to a zillionaire.”

“A billionaire,” I say, correcting her.

“Whatever. He’s got a lot of money. And I thought you did too. I thought you had more than you knew what to do with. What’s $500 to you?”

“It’s a lot now. Who’s in my room, anyway?”

“I don’t really know her. She’s some woman who responded to my Craigslist ad.”

“You got just some random roommate?”

“She’s kind of weird too. I haven’t seen her much, though. She generally stays in her room.”

“Does she work?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.

“How old is she?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions. Are you jealous or something?”

“I just don’t like the idea of someone in my room. I left a ton of my stuff in there.”

“Well it’s still there, so long as she didn’t do anything with it. I think she’s about 45.”

“That’s about how old David is.”

“He’s 45? Damn, he doesn’t look that old.”

“It’s not that old, really.”

“So how was the sex?”

“Sasha!”

“I’m just asking…”

“It was… great. But that’s the problem. It’s like we started this other relationship on top of the business one. I mean, in some ways, I love being with him. He makes me feel safe, and…”

“He gets you off?”

I nod my head and she glances over to see me. Hopefully she doesn’t notice that I’m blushing considerably.

“But the thing is that he’s just not there… emotionally… and I don’t think he ever will be.”

“That’s almost all men,” says Sasha. “Get used to it. It’s just the fuck and the dump. Or the disappear. Or the ghosting. That’s been getting more popular lately.”

“The ghosting? What the hell is that?”

“Oh, that’s when someone just stops replying to all of your texts, phone calls, emails, whatever. He fucks you and then bam, just disappears like a ghost.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Well, that’s what happened to me with my last hook up. I thought something was really there… I don’t know why I was so dumb.”

“Join the club,” I say.

Sasha laughs.

“But ghosting…” I say, toying with the idea in my mind. “That sounds good… that’s exactly what I’m going to do to David.”

“You’re just going to ghost him?”

“Yeah,” I say.

We get back to the apartment, and instead of feeling good to be back, I have a heavy feeling in my chest as I enter the building again. The lobby smells like gas, as always, and the hallway has that unpleasant flickering fluorescent light.

“Come on,” says Sasha, looking at me. “It’s not that bad. You’ll get used to it soon enough.”

“It’s just that…” I say, dragging my feet on the way in.

“You’re already used to the billionaire lifestyle,” she says. “But you’ll get back to our level soon enough.”

We enter the apartment, Sasha opening the door slowly, calling out, “Alicia? Alicia, are you there?”

“Hi!” says a woman with hair that’s sticking practically straight up. She’s about David’s age, but she looks much older. Her skin is gaunt and she’s way too thin.

“This is my friend, Olivia,” she says, presenting me. “Olivia, this is Alicia.”

We shake hands, and hers feels cold and clammy. Her hand is very thin and bony.

“I was just working on the roof,” says Alicia excitedly. Her eyes are wide and almost popping out of her head.

“The roof?” says Sasha, concerned.

As far as I know, there’s nothing wrong with the roof whatsoever. Sure, the pipes leak in the kitchen and the toilet clogs, but I’ve never had a problem with the roof.

“Of course! Didn’t you see it? It’s all filled with holes that leak.”

“That leak?”

“Yeah!” says Alicia, moving her body around strangely. “There’s ice coming down through them. I was getting so very cold and then I saw it! It was so obvious. There were a thousand holes and I plugged them all up! Don’t you see? We’re safe now?”

She’s talking like she’s crazy.

For the first time, I notice an odd smell in the apartment. It smells like burnt plastic.

I look around the common room, which is more of a mess than usual. There’s a broken glass tube on the coffee table.

“What’s that?” I whisper to Sasha, nudging her and pointing to the broken piece of glass.

“Shit,” mutters Sasha. “Let’s see what she’s done to the ceiling.”

“Where did you say you found her?”

Alicia practically drags us into her (really my) bedroom.

“What have you done to the ceiling?” says Sasha.

I sigh when I see the ceiling.

There’s glue all over it. It looks like she took glue and painted the ceiling with it.

And not only that, but she’s stuck all kinds of things into the ceiling. And they’re my things, the things that I left in my room and didn’t take to David’s. There’s my diary, my high school yearbook, my comb, and a teddy bear that my aunt gave me when I was four years old.

“What have you done to all my stuff?” I cry out, my voice cracking in frustration and despair.

“I’ve plugged up all the holes!” says Alicia, her face straining, her eyes practically popping out of her head.

“Damnit! You’ve destroyed all my stuff. There aren’t any holes.”

“Are you insane?” says Alicia. “I’ve stopped all the ice coming in. I would have hoped you wouldn’t have been so selfish… I had to use your things to save our lives!”

Sasha pulls me into the common room.

“She’s on drugs,” she says, pointing to the broken glass tube. “That’s some kind of pipe. I don’t know if she’s smoking crack or meth or what, but it’s something.”

“She destroyed all my stuff!”

“I know, I know,” says Sasha, giving me a hug. “I’m sorry. You’ve been through so much.”

David

“We were beginning to think you weren’t coming back,” says Judge Carter, who’s now sitting in my chair at the head of the table. He’s swirling a glass of cognac in a glass.

“Oh,” I say, startled. I’d honestly forgotten that they were here at my house.

Ryan and Lily are sitting nearby, cuddling in an armchair. Ryan looks up at me with the question plastered all over his face. “What happened?” he’s saying with his features.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not been a good night for my family. I’ll have to have you all over again another time to make up for it.”

“But I was looking forward to meet your new wife so much,” says Judge Carter, a nasty look spreading across his face. “Don’t tell me that she won’t be joining us after all?”

“I’m afraid… she won’t,” I say.

“Do tell me what happened,” says Judge Carter, his voice full of obviously fake concern.

“The truth is,” I say, “we had a bit of a disagreement. She went to stay with a friend.”

“Can I talk to you?” says Ryan, giving Lily a kiss on her forehead and getting up.

I nod at him, and we move to walk into another room, but Judge Carter gets up, his cognac glass still in hand.

“You know,” he says, “this is all starting to seem very strange indeed.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll have to have you over for another night.”

“Well,” says Judge Carter, “I don’t think that will be necessary. I have all the information I need.”

“What does that mean?”

“This night played out almost exactly as I expected it to. You see, your ex-wife’s lawyer recently provided me with some very interesting documentation… Apparently your wife isn’t your wife at all. The whole thing is merely a business arrangement. Isn’t it? Isn’t that the truth?”

“Think what you want,” I say. “Now get out of my house. I won’t be insulted like that.”

“Very well,” says Judge Carter. “But you should know that I don’t like having my time wasted. He takes his glass and turns it upside down, pouring the liquid on the hardwood floors.

He gives me a bitter look and leaves the room.

“Nancy,” I say, hitting the intercom. “Make sure Judge Carter gets out safely.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t punch him,” says Ryan.

I shrug. “Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to.”

“What’s going on?” says Ryan, sounding concerned.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, but Ryan I were always good friends, and when you’re a businessman like me, you’re not expected to be the type to have friends. And the truth is, I don’t have many. I have colleagues, associates, and business partners, but not many friends. But Ryan is one of those old friends that can’t ever go away. Each time you meet up years later, even a decade later, you just pick up where you left off before.

“Everything’s screwed,” I say. “I’m going to lose Laura.”

“What are you talking about?” says Ryan.

“It’s…”

“Come on,” says Ryan. “How long have we known each other? You can tell me, man.”

I walk over to the door of the study and close it, so that there’s no chance that anyone can overhear us.

“It goes without saying that this stays between us… and Lily, if you want to tell her,” I say.

Ryan gives me a stiff nod.

“OK,” I say. “Here it goes.”

I tell him all about the fake marriage, all about my crazy drug addict ex-wife Alicia, and how she wants to steal Laura from me to take her under a bridge somewhere to live some horrible life, probably getting her addicted to drugs.

“And now,” I say, “I don’t know how, but Judge Carter, who’s presiding over the case, knows that the whole thing is fake.”

Ryan nods but doesn’t say anything for a moment. He’s thinking, with that crazy techie brain of his, probably analyzing the situation as if it were a programming problem, or a math puzzle. He’s the best in the business. I’ve been using his Sisyphus Algorithm for years, and nothing in the industry can even come close to it. Hell, if I didn’t have his algorithm, I wouldn’t be able to make half the stock picks that I make.

“You know,” says Ryan. “Reading between the lines here…”

“There’s nothing to read between,” I say. “I told you everything.”

“I don’t think you did,” says Ryan, a grin growing on his face. “Do you know what I mean?”

“No.”

“You’re telling me this is a fake marriage, just a business arrangement. But frankly, I’ve never seen you get upset like this over a business arrangement. You’re known in the business for keeping a calm head no matter what and simply picking the next right move, no matter how bad things are or how bad the last deals were. That’s what makes you such a dangerous poker player. How much money have you won from me over the years, anyway?”

“A hundred thousand or so,” I say, thinking over what he’s saying.

He might be on to something.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” says Ryan. “Because for one thing, I know you never listen to anyone, even me. But think about Olivia and what she means to you.”

He excuses himself, saying that he and Lily need to be getting to bed. They’re staying here, in one of the rooms upstairs.

Everyone else has gone home, and I’m left in the study by myself, staring at the wood paneled wall, no drink in hand.

Maybe Ryan’s right… maybe he’s able to see what I’ve been avoiding myself.

When I look deep inside myself, there’s something there… something I haven’t been admitting.

And now that I uncover it, it’s staring me right in the face.

And it’s her… it’s Olivia.

Her beautiful face shines at me, her hair thrown back as if a gust of wind pushed it.

Her breasts stick up towards me, and her thighs glisten at me. She’s naked and shimmering in the moonlight.

And I wish that she was here.

I don’t care about the judge, the court case, or the fake marriage.

I don’t care about whether or not it’s been a successful deal.

Hell, this isn’t a business.

This is something else.

This is love.

I need to get her back, no matter what.

The custody situation—well, I’ll just have to figure out a way to work that all out. I always do.

But I need Olivia.

Olivia

“What are we going to do about her?” says Sasha.

We’re in my room, sitting cross-legged on my bed, facing each other.

“We can’t just kick her out,” I say.

“Why not?”

“She’s on the lease, right?”

“Yeah,” says Sasha.

“So she paid the rent. She’s on the lease. I don’t see any legal reason to kick her out.”

“What about the drugs? Whatever she’s using, it’s definitely not legal.”

“So what are we going to do? Call the cops on her? I feel sorry for her.”

Sasha looks up at my celling, where all of my possessions have been super glued to the ceiling.

“I just wish she’d used regular glue,” I say. “Whatever she used, that stuff’s never coming down.”

Sasha giggles, and it makes me giggle.

But the joyous moment doesn’t last long. I sink back into my depression.

My thoughts turn to David, and his muscular body, and the way he looks at me.

I’m never going to feel the way he made me feel again. And that’s not the depression talking, nor the hopelessness. That’s just reality. I can feel it in my bones, and I’m as sure of it as I ever have been of anything in my life.

Unless I get him back.

But how can I deal with his demanding personality? The way he talks to me… it’s terrible. It’s like each time after sex he turns into a different person altogether.

And, anyway, even if he was to open up… he’d be furious at me for ruining everything with his daughter. He’s going to lose her to his ex-wife and it’s going to all be my fault.

“Wait a second,” I say, an idea suddenly coming to me out of the blue. “What did you say her name was again?”

“Alicia, why?”

“There’s something familiar about her.”

“I’ve never met her before. Like I said, she’s just some random person from Craigslist. That’ll teach me, right?”

“But…”

“I don’t think you’ve met her either.”

“Wait,” I say. “This might sound crazy. But I think she might be David’s ex-wife. I’m pretty sure her name was Alicia too.”

“That’s crazy,” says Sasha. “She sure doesn’t seem like a billionaires-ess, or whatever it is you call them.”

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

“Where are you going?”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s OK.”

I leave Sasha sitting on my bed, pondering my very strange ceiling.

“Alicia?” I say, entering the common room. “Alicia? Are you here?”

“Hi,” says Alicia.

“Where are you?”

“I’m right here.”

Now I see her. Or, I see her foot. She’s lying behind the couch, apparently, with one foot sticking out.

“You’re behind the couch.”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I say, not knowing how to respond to this strange behavior. “Are you sure you don’t mind that I’m in your room?”

“No, it’s filled with bugs.”

“Bugs? I didn’t see any in there. I thought you fixed that problem by plugging the holes.”

“That was for the ice. But now there are bugs. They can’t get me here, though. I’m safe. You should come back here with me or else the bugs will get you.”

Her broken glass pipe is sitting in a different position on the table. I touch it and it’s so hot it almost burns my finger tips. She must have just smoked whatever it is she’s smoking. There’s that strange burnt plastic smell around.

“I’m OK up here,” I say. “But I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I’m safe.”

“Alicia,” I say. “I was wondering if you had a daughter.”

“A daughter?”

“Yeah, do you have a daughter?”

“Of course!” says Alicia, her voice turning angry and mean.

“What’s her name?” I say.

“Why do you want to know? Are you from the courts?”

Wow, she’s really out of it. She must be high as a kite and hallucinating. She doesn’t seem to remember who I am from one minute to the next.

“I’m your roommate,” I say. “Remember?”

“Oh. Yeah, I have a daughter named Laura. But I don’t have her.”

“Where is she?”

“With her asshole father, David.”

“David Masters?”

“Of course! Who else do you think I meant?”

So this is Laura’s mother!

Wow, so David wasn’t just acting out of self interest. Alicia may not be a bad person, but she obviously has some drug issues, just like David said, and it’s clear to me right now that she’s certainly not fit to be raising Laura, no matter what kind of father David is. He may have some work to do in terms of becoming more of a good conversationalist with his daughter, but he’s providing her a stable place to live and a stable life, something that Alicia is not capable of.

I turn on my heel to leave, to tell Sasha all about this.

Apparently Alicia hears me from behind the couch.

“Where are you going?” she cries out shrilly. “Don’t leave me. The bugs are going to get me.”

“I’m going to go get the bug spray,” I say, rushing away from the couch, without listening to what she has to say.

Sasha’s lying on my bed, looking up at the celling.

“You know,” she says. “This bed hasn’t even been touched. I don’t think she’s slept in it since you left.”

“She’s probably sleeping under it,” I say, and I tell Sasha how Alicia is hiding behind the couch. I tell her all about how Alicia is actually David Masters’ ex-wife.

“What are we going to do?”

“I think I can fix things,” I say.

“Fix what? What are you going to do?”

“I can get David full custody of his daughter,” I say. “I don’t know how, but I can do it.”

“What? I’m talking about the apartment. What are you going to do about the apartment?”

“Oh,” I say, realizing we’re on completely different pages. “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. I’ll just sleep in your room until we figure it out.”

Sasha sighs.

“That OK?”

“Yeah,” she says.

David

The court date is coming up, and I’m screwed. Completely screwed. I’m going to lose Laura completely, and I’ve already lost Olivia.

“There’s nothing you can do?” I say to my lawyer on the phone.

“It’s messy,” he says. “As your legal representative, I shouldn’t know anything about what you just told me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Save the spiel for someone else. So I tried to defraud the legal system and whatever other system.”

“It doesn’t look good,” he says, speaking in grave and serious tones.

“Just give it to me straight. Am I going to lose custody?”

“I’m afraid it’s looking like that.”

“Damnit. Aren’t you lawyers always supposed to give good news?”

“Not that it’s improbable.”

“Can’t we get another judge? Can’t you do something?”

“I’m afraid there’s really no further legal recourse at this point. You just need to wait until the trial and see what happens.”

He starts to drone on and on, and I simply hang up the phone. I’ve had enough. Simply enough.

Laura’s upstairs in her room, probably reading. I need to go talk to her. I need to tell her what could happen, but I just don’t know how. Again, I’m completely stumped about what to say.

I start running the words through my head, over and over, trying to prepare a little speech I can give her, telling her that I still love her, that I still care about her, that we need to prepare for the possibility that she might have to go live with her mother, but that I’m sure it won’t last long, and that I’ll always be there for her, no matter what, and no matter what the courts say.

Honestly, I’ve been avoiding talking to her since Olivia left. I don’t know how to explain that either.

I sigh as I get out of my chair and start the slow walk upstairs.

“Laura?” I say, knocking on her door.

“Daddy?”

I open the door.

Laura’s sitting cross legged on her bed, reading a book that has a picture of a dinosaur on the cover.

“Just talk to her,” said Olivia, when we were at the museum together. The memory gives me an internal pang of pain. That was such a great day, just the three of us together, enjoying one another’s company.

“What you reading?” I say.

“A book about dinosaurs,” says Laura. “Well, it’s about a girl who lived with dinosaurs.”

Normally, I would just not tell her that Olivia’s gone, and tell her the bad news about Alicia. But I’m going to try out Olivia’s advice, even though she’s long gone.

“Hmm,” I say. “That’s funny. I thought dinosaurs lived a long, long time before people.”

“Yeah,” says Laura, nodding her head excitedly. “But it’s a time travel story.”

“That sounds cool,” I say. “How does she time travel?”

“She’s got a time machine. Her crazy old uncle built one, and she went into it by mistake.”

I nod, wondering how I’m going to tell her everything, now that we’re talking about dinosaurs and time traveling.

“Are you listening, Daddy?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, Laura. It sounds like a cool story. I was just thinking about Olivia.”

“Where is she, Daddy?”

“She’s gone,” I say.

“Why? Where’d she go?”

“We had… sometimes grownups have problems with relationships.”

“Like you and Mommy?”

“Sort of,” I say. “Although your mother has some other… problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Grown up problems,” I say.

“I liked Olivia,” says Laura. “Is she going to come back?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m sorry, Laura.”

“Why don’t you get her to come back?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“There are things… I don’t know, Laura. It’s complicated. I don’t know what to tell her.”

“Just tell her you want her to come back.”

I look at Laura. It’s like a light bulb goes on in my head.

“You know, Laura,” I say, “I may just do that. You’re getting pretty smart, you know that?”

“Daddy,” says Laura.

“Yeah, Laura?”

“What’s happening with Mommy?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Nancy said something about it. Something about a judge.”

I sigh. Nancy shouldn’t have told her anything.

“What did she tell you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t understand it.”

“Your mother wants you to go live with her.”

“But I want to live with you.”

I smile.

“And I want you to live with me, too, Laura,” I say. “But your mom is suing me. Do you know what that means?”

Laura nods.

“And the judge might say that you have to go live with her. Now, your mother loves you very much, but she has some problems, and I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“Can’t you do something? Can’t you tell the judge that I don’t want to go live with her?”

“Unfortunately, the judge won’t listen to you until you’re fourteen years old. But don’t worry, it’s not over yet, and I’ll think of something. You’re going to live with me.”

“You promise?”

I know I shouldn’t, since the most likely outcome is that she’ll live with Alicia.

“Yes,” I say. “Now why don’t you go to bed now. It’s getting late.”

I give her a kiss on her forehead and leave, turning out the lights as I go out the door.

She’s so cute curled up in her bed, under the covers.

I can’t let anything happen to her. I just can’t.

I need to protect her, and I need Olivia back.

Normally my mind is completely filled with business. Business ideas, deals, stocks, cash flow, overhead.

Now it’s like my mind’s been rebooted completely. And the only two things that remain are: protect Laura, and get Olivia back.

I grab my phone, and then remember that she hasn’t been answering when I call.

“Nancy?” I say, pressing the intercom.

“Yes, sir?” comes her sleepy voice after a few moments. She’s probably in her room, asleep, even though she’s supposed to be putting Laura to bed. Any other night, I’d be enraged that she’s not fulfilling her duties. But tonight I have more important things to take care of.

“I’m headed out for the night,” I say. “Make sure Laura’s OK.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, her voice crackling a little through the intercom.

Grabbing my keys from where they hang in the garage, I hop on my motorcycle, a Japanese super bike.

The garage door isn’t even all the way open when I blast out of the garage, ducking my head down to avoid the heavy door.

I lean into the curves, revving the engine, my left hand puling back on the throttle, my fingers grasping the clutch lever, my foot kicking it higher and higher into gear.

The bike whines as I roar through the dark Philly streets, weaving in and out of traffic, speeding through red lights.

At her apartment, I pop the bike up onto the sidewalk, doing a small wheelie. I leave the bike there, running, kicking the kickstand down as a mere afterthought.

I rush towards the lobby, where I can smell natural gas even from outside. The fluorescent lights are bright. I grab the worn metal door handle, but the door is locked. The intercom box, when I go to use it, has been shattered into a hundred pieces. It looks like someone smashed it with a metal baseball bat.

“Damn,” I mutter.

I didn’t realize she lived in such a shithole apartment building.

The prize of a million dollars must have been quite a temptation for her when I made the offer.

And a huge temptation to walk away from.

But she had her reasons. And I understand them now.

I stand here for about five minutes, expecting someone to come along and open the door. But no one comes. The street is deserted.

I look back at the intercom box, thinking that maybe if I cross a couple of wires together, I can hot wire the thing. But it’s sparking ominously at me, and I doubt it would be a good idea.

But fuck it.

I need to see her.

I reach into the box, into the electronic innards. As soon as my finger makes contact with a piece of metal, I get a bad shock that runs through my entire body.

Fuck it.

There’s got to be another way in.

I walk down an alley on the side of the building.

There’s a man there passed out next to a dumpster that smells like rotten fish. He’s got a couple bottles of rubbing alcohol next to him. Only one of them is empty.

“Buddy,” I say, giving him a gentle nudge with the toe of my dress boot.

He stirs. “Get out of here!” he screams at me, and then falls back to the ground, passed out completely.

I check my phone for her exact address, her apartment number. 3F. Looks like she’s on the third floor.

In the apartment building right next door, one of the windows is open, and someone is screaming in Russian.

Just now, it starts to rain. It begins as a drizzle, and soon becomes a ferocious downpour.

There’s a fire escape that looks extremely rickety.

But it’s the only way up.

I put my foot on it, and the entire thing shakes, from the ground up to the roof.

But what the hell?

You only live once.

You only fall in love once.

I climb it as quickly as I can, figuring that that gives it less time to collapse under my weight.

I walk along the metal catwalk. It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of heights.

I pass by one window and a man inside screams at the sight of me.

In another window, someone is watching TV.

In another, three people are having sex on the floor. I don’t stop to look.

I’m beginning to wonder if I even have the right floor, until I see her.

There she is, standing with her hair flowing down. She looks painfully beautiful. The longing fills me, stabbing me like a spear. She’s so close. I need to get to her.

I watch her for a moment. She looks terribly sad.

I rap on the window with my knuckles and she jumps a few inches into the air.

Her face is in complete terror. Until she recognizes me, that is.

Her face turns into… a smile.

That’s not what I expected, not in the least bit.

I motion for her to open the window.

She’s mouthing something at me, but I can’t hear her, since the window separates us.

The catwalk of the fire escape is starting to tremble, and I hope it doesn’t fall until I at least get a chance to talk to her.

The window seems to be stuck on her end, so I put my fingers under the frame and tug on it until it pops open. Paint chips fly all over the place.

“Hi!” she says enthusiastically, leaning forward through the window, which I’m holding up so that it doesn’t fall on her neck. She kisses me deeply and passionately.

“Wow,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You came for me!”

“Of course. I can’t do it without you,” I say. “I have so much to tell you.”

“You’d better come in, before that fire escape falls down.”

“Has that happened before?”

“Only once, but it was before I moved in.”

I climb through the window quickly, half expecting the fire escape to collapse seconds after I make it into the window. But this isn’t the movies.

I’m standing next to her in the cramped bathroom. Her body is pressed up against mine, and I lean in and kiss her deeply. She kisses me back, her lips flush with mine.

Her breathing is heavy and fast with excitement. Her hair falls down around her.

“You look incredible,” I say.

“So do you,” she says.

“Look,” I say. “I know I was a dick. And I understand why you ran away.”

She smiles at me. “You can say that again.”

“Which part?”

“That you were a dick.”

I laugh. “All right,” I say. “I was a dick.”

“I didn’t mean it so literally.”

I kiss her again.

Suddenly, she looks startled, pulling away from my kiss.

“What is it?”

“I just remembered…”

“What? What’s going on?”

The bathroom is really small. There’s hardly enough room for the two of us to stand in here, let alone move around.

There isn’t a bathtub, just a shower stall, and a strange toilet that’s low to the ground.

Suddenly I notice that the mirror looks odd. The bottom half of it is completely covered with a strange substance. I lean in closer. It’s toothpaste.

Toothpaste… toothpaste. What a weird thing to smear onto a mirror. But I’ve seen it somewhere before. It’s familiar.

Suddenly, I remember. Alicia! When we were still married, she used to cover the mirrors with toothpaste when she would get high. I got used to it, and stopped even noticing that there was toothpaste on the mirrors.

“She’s here?” I say, pointing to the mirror.

The window, which was still open a moment ago, falls shut with a huge crashing bang.

Olivia gets startled and jumps again, moving closer to me, pressing her body against mine.

“It’s just the window,” I say.

But she still looks scared.

“How did you know?”

“Is Alicia here?” I say. “My ex-wife?”

“Yeah, what are we going to do? How did you know?”

“She used to do that to our mirrors all the time,” I say, pointing to the mirror with one hand. My other is holding Olivia tight against me.

“Oh,” says Olivia. “That makes sense. She’s hiding behind the couch in the living room. She thinks there are bugs everywhere. And she glued all my things to my ceiling…”

“Because of the ice?” I say.

Olivia nods.

I laugh.

“Sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t be laughing, but it’s kind of funny.”

“She moved in here at random,” says Olivia. “When I moved out, my roommate Sasha was looking for a roommate and your ex-wife replied to the advertisement. I didn’t realize it was her until just tonight. I was going to tell you.”

I chuckle. “So Alicia isn’t clean like she said.”

“Right, and I figured this would be good evidence that… you can keep custody of your daughter. There’s no way that woman should have custody of your daughter.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I say.

“The only problem is how are we going to convince the judge. How can we prove it? That’s what I was thinking about in the bathroom here right before you came in. I’m sure I’ve ruined everything by leaving.”

“Well,” I say, “the judge does somehow know that you’re not my real wife. I don’t know how he found out, but he did. I guess he’s smarter than I’d thought before.”

“I’m so sorry to run off,” says Olivia. “I ruined everything, and Lily was getting a dress for me from her car. She was so nice to me and she probably hates me now.”

“She still likes you,” I say. “Frankly, I’m sure she understood. After all, I haven’t been the easiest guy to be with.”

Olivia laughs.

“You can say that again,” she says.

I laugh. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s… not easy for me to…”

“Express your feelings?”

I nod. “But I’m going to work on it.”

“You’re already starting to,” says Olivia.

“Olivia,” I say. “Before we deal with my drug addict ex-wife, and figure out how to get her out of your apartment, there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Yeah?” says Olivia.

I get down on one knee as best I can. I take her hand in mine.

“Oh my God!” she says, before I even say anything.

“Olivia,” I say. “Will you be my real wife?”

“Oh my God!” she says, squealing in excitement.

I wait.

“Of course!” she says.

“I wasn’t planning this,” I say. “I don’t have a ring, except for this one.”

Gently, I remove the wedding ring and engagement ring that she still wears on her fingers.

“They were just for show, but now they’ll mean something real. I’ll get you another one, of course.”

I slide the engagement ring onto her finger, handing her the wedding ring.

“I love this one,” says Olivia.

“I love you, Olivia,” I say.

“I love you too, David Masters.”

Olivia

David ended up calling the judge over, who, despite being suspicious of him, still owed him a favor.

“Well,” says Judge Carter. “She does seem to be having some… issues.”

“Get the bugs off of me!” screams Alicia, still stuck behind the couch.

“As you can see,” says David, “she’s in no shape to be raising a kid. Maybe we can work out some kind of visitation schedule once she gets into rehab again.”

Judge Carter nods. “This worked out very well,” he says. “I would hate to think of what would have happened had I not been aware of her state. She did a very good job of hiding the information from the courts. And she had a very convincing lawyer.”

“Is that who gave you the information on my marriage?” says David.

Judge Carter nods. He’s fiddling with his pocket watch, running his fingers over it as he holds it in his palm.

“In light of the situation,” says Judge Carter, “I won’t be recommending that you be prosecuted for… faking a marriage. Frankly, under the circumstances, it’s entirely understandable.”

David’s grinning ear to ear.

This means he gets to keep full custody of Laura.

“The last thing I wanted to do was defraud the court,” says David. “But as you can see, I simply knew I needed to keep custody of Laura.”

“Yes,” says Judge Carter, frowning slightly. “And it’s lucky she ended up being Olivia’s roommate.” He looks at me. “Because otherwise, without the verbal invitation of her roommate to enter the premises, a court order would have been needed to enter.”

David and I both nod.

Things have worked out very well indeed.

“Well,” says Judge Carter, putting away his pocket watch and crossing his arms. “We’ll make sure she gets the help she needs. And the case won’t go to court.”

“Judge,” says David. “There’s one more thing I’d like your help with.”

Judge Carter raises an eyebrow.

“It turns out that… yes, while the marriage was initially fake for the court’s benefit, to prove that I had become a changed man… well, what happened was that Olivia’s taught me a lot about myself. And we’re in love. We’d like to get married, and I’d like you to be the one to officiate the ceremony.”

“Me?”

“It seems fitting,” says David.

“You know,” I say, chiming in, and taking David’s hand as I do so, “we already had a big wedding. At least it was big for me. I think it would be appropriate to just have a little ceremony at the courthouse.”

David beams at me.

“Very well,” says Judge Carter. “I can arrange that for you. Why don’t you come down tomorrow afternoon? Out of curiosity, Olivia, what made you fall for David? He doesn’t have the best reputation with women.”

I laugh, and so does David.

“There’s… something about him,” I say. “And I saw how much he loved his daughter… Once he got a little better at communicating with her, it opened him up a little emotionally…”

David’s actually blushing, and Judge Carter looks uncomfortable with all this talk about emotions.

“I see,” he says stiffly. “Well, I think I’d better be going.”

David sees Judge Carter out, and Sasha walks timidly into the room, looking confused.

“What’s going on?” she says. “I had my headphones on the whole time.”

“Oh,” I say, laughing. “Sasha, this is David Masters, my future husband…. Well, I guess he’s already my husband. But we’re getting married again.” I’m so excited that I’m talking quickly and I’m not sure I’m making any sense.

“What?” says Sasha, her mouth falling open.

“Hi,” says David. “I’m David Masters, nice to meet you.”

Sasha looks him up and down. “You’re getting married again? Seriously?”

“Yup,” I say.

David beams, and I kiss him.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” says Sasha. “But don’t think you’re not going to invite me to the wedding.”

“Of course you’re coming!” I say. “But it’s just going to be at the courthouse.”

“What should I wear?”

I shrug. “Just jeans.”

Sasha laughs.

David kisses me on the mouth.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” says Sasha, a teasing tone in her voice. “Oh, but what are we going to do about Alicia?”

“I’ll call someone to take her to rehab,” says David, grabbing his phone. “Fortunately, she’s always very happy to go. It’s being there that she doesn’t like.”

An hour later, the rehab team has come and taken Alicia away. She was all smiles.

“You’re going to pay for her rehab?” I say.

David shrugs. “It’s the least I can do,” he says. “It’s going to be better for Laura if she has her mother off of drugs. And with you in my life now, I don’t need to worry about Laura being taken away from me.”

“You’re really a changed man,” I say, teasing him.

“Not totally changed,” says David, pressing his body into mine.

We’re lying on my bed, which hasn’t been used since I moved out, and David and I are facing each other, lying on our sides.

“Let’s hope so,” I say.

I push my hand down between us and feel his hard cock, massive in his pants. “Some things are still exactly the same.”

David presses his mouth against mine. Our tongues and lips collide, practically creating sparks.

My body’s already on fire. I want him.

“Nothing like a little quality time with my wife,” growls David.

“Not your wife yet,” I say.

“Technically you still are.”

“Let’s make the best of it then,” I say. “None of this staying pure before the wedding night.”

David kisses my neck and thrusts his hard cock, still covered by his pants, into my crotch. It rubs against my clit, which is incredibly swollen.

I’m breathing shallow and fast, my breasts rising and falling.

“I want you so much, Olivia,” growls David.

“I want you too,” I say. “I want to feel your hard cock.”

We start undoing each other’s clothing, all at once. Everything is coming off, flying halfway across the room.

He pulls up my shirt, and undoes my bra in one swift motion. He kisses my nipples and cups his hands under my breasts.

I moan as he sucks on my nipples.

I try to take his pants off, or at least undo them. He tugs them the rest of the way off, lifting up his muscular legs, and throws the pants clear to the other side of the room.

Completely naked, we fall into a twisting pile of our tangled bodies, moving this way and that on the bed.

David’s on top of me, and his cock enters me, piercing my opening and plunging inside me.

He pumps his hips, thrusting into me, grinding on my clit in a way that makes me gasp.

I moan as he rides me. His body presses down onto mine and his hands cup my head like I’m the most precious thing in the whole world to him.

We come at the same moment. David grunts and I cry out, and we fall still, remaining frozen in our positions.

Olivia

“I have a surprise for you,” says David.

We’re back at his house, in his bedroom, getting ready for the court date this morning.

“Come here,” he says.

He pulls something out of his pocket. “I couldn’t let you get away with wearing that second glass ring,” he says.

He takes the first ring off my finger.

“I like it,” I say.

“Trust me, this one is better.”

And it is.

I watch as he slowly slides the engagement ring onto my finger.

It’s completely gorgeous, a massive diamond that’s cut in the most beautiful way I’ve ever seen.

“Wow,” I say, the sight simply taking my breath away. “I love it, David.”

“And what do you think of these?”

They’re wedding rings, perfect gold bands that somehow just have that something extra that the other ones were missing.

There’s a light knock on the door.

“Is that Laura?” I say.

The door opens, and Laura comes rushing in, wearing a beautiful dress.

“Olivia!” she says, running up to me and hugging me. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Laura.”

“It’s so nice to see my girls together,” says David. “Come on, we don’t want to be late for the court date.”

We all pile into the limousine.

“You sent Sasha the address, right?” I say.

“Right,” says David.

Laura won’t stop talking about dinosaurs for the whole car ride, which is fine, because I’m nervous. Even though it’s just a simple ceremony in the courthouse, this is for real and I couldn’t be more nervous. There are butterflies in my stomach and I find myself holding my breath for no reason whatsoever.

“Here we are,” says David, as the limo pulls up to the curb.

“You look ravishing,” says David, helping me out of the car.

I’m wearing a beautiful white wedding dress that David picked out for me and had rush delivered. The team of strange, almost identical women weren’t here this time, which I was very, very glad of.

“Seems like there’s a lot of people here,” I say.

“Hmm,” says David. “That’s odd. They must all be criminals or something on trial.”

“They don’t look like criminals,” I say. “They’re all dressed in formal wear.”

“Well, you know how people like to dress up for court,” says David, leading me to the courtroom.

“I thought we were just going to the office, not the courtroom.”

“Judge Carter changed it at the last minute. He said he was going to be there anyway, so I couldn’t object.”

Object? Since when does David Masters not object when he doesn’t get his way?

The closer we get to the courtroom, the more people there are… and some of them look familiar.

Suddenly, we come around a corner, and there’s a huge amount of people who jump up.

“Surprise!” they all say.

“Surprise!” yells Laura excitedly.

“Surprise, honey,” says David. “I know we talked about having just a courthouse wedding, but I wanted to give you a special courthouse wedding.”

“Surprise,” says Sasha, appearing from behind an old man, who must be one of David’s business partners. She’s wearing a beautiful bridesmaid’s gown, different from the one she wore before.

“Hey there, kiddo,” comes my dad’s sleazy voice, stepping towards us.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, beaming at everyone and everything.

“Sir, I’d like to congratulate you on picking one hell of a fine woman,” says my dad, shaking David’s hand. “I may not have always been the best dad, but, hell, I’ve done what I can.”

That makes me laugh like nothing else.

“You going to walk me down the aisle?”

“Of course! Why else would I be here?”

“To borrow money?” I say, without any rancor.

This cracks my dad up like nothing else, and he leans forward, clutching his stomach as he laughs uproariously.

“Are you ready, Olivia?” says David, beaming at me.

“More ready than I’ve ever been,” I say. “I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“I know,” says David. “And I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Don’t forget me!” pipes up Laura, making us all laugh.

David leans in and kisses me, making fireworks go off in my head.

Turn the page to read Doctor’s Virgin

Doctor’s Virgin

Chapter 1

Liam

“Well, that about does it,” I say, moving away from the patient on the surgery table. “He’ll be as good as new in no time.”

“You’re always so sure of yourself,” says Vivian, the nurse who unfortunately always seems to be assisting me. She’s become nothing more than a thorn in my ass recently, always trying to report me for some indiscretion or another.

I chuckle. “Well, Vivian,” I say, pulling off my gloves and dropping them in the trash cylinder. “How often have I been wrong?”

There’s nothing she can say to that, since I’m the best surgeon in the hospital, not to mention the entire city.

“I’ll be in my office,” I say, running my hands under the sink. “You can go talk to the family. I’m done for the day.”

“Administration wants to see you,” says Vivian, a nasty smirk on her face. She knows this is what I hate most, and she knows this is the way to get back at me the best she can.

“Tell them I don’t have time for their bullshit today.”

“Johnson said you’d say that,” says Vivian, her smile widening. “He said it’s imperative that you see him as soon as possible.”

“You’re just pissed because you never got to sleep with me again,” I say.

That shuts her up, and wipes the smile right off her face.

I know she’s just bitter about me slamming ass all over the hospital, laying practically every hot nurse in sight.

I chuckle to myself as I walk down to Johnson’s office. I’m on a natural high, to the point that I’m almost whistling. Even Johnson isn’t going to be able to bring me down with his usual drudgery and bullshit.

“Heard you were looking to see me, Johnson,” I say, walking in without knocking.

Johnson, who’s balding and won’t admit it, looks up from the computer he’s hunched over.

“Knock next time,” he grumbles.

“Don’t think so,” I say. “Now I’m about to hit the range. Let’s keep this as short as possible.”

Johnson sighs and shuffles some papers on his desk. He’s always overworked, always stressed, always rubbing his eyes, and always covered in dandruff.

“I don’t have all day, Johnson,” I say.

Johnson clears his throat awkwardly as he finds the paper he was looking for. He holds it up to the light, peering at it from behind his large glasses.

I can’t help but notice his big belly that his shirt crumples over as he leans over the paper.

“Wouldn’t kill you to hit the gym once in a while,” I say. “Plus, it’s not great advertising. We are a hospital after all. We’re supposed to be healthy.”

“There’s been a complaint filed about you,” says Johnson.

“Another? What’s that? Three this week? Which nurse is it from this time? I swear, once they get a taste of my cock, they get crazy with jealousy when they see me so much as talking to another nurse, let alone a patient.”

“You’re not supposed to be fraternizing with the nurses, and especially not the patients. The hospital doesn’t need another costly lawsuit.”

“I wouldn’t call it fraternizing,” I say. “Unless that’s a fancy word for fucking.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” says Johnson, wrinkling his nose at the thought of good old fashioned physical fun. That’s the kind of guy he is, scared of his own shadow, and probably his wife too.

“So what’s the deal?” I say. “You still didn’t tell me the pretty little nurse’s name who’s lodged a complaint against me.”

“It’s a malpractice suit,” says Johnson, handing me the paper.

Shit, that’s not what I was expecting.

“Malpractice? That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone knows I’m the best. Who else do these people think they’re going to go to? Who else is going to do as good of a job?”

“Just read the paper.”

I read the paper rapidly, an old trick from medical school. I taught myself to read very fast and retain almost everything. I can still quote almost verbatim the books I used in my coursework. But hell, you don’t become one of the country’s top brain surgeons without a heck of a brain yourself.

“This is total bullshit,” I say.

I might sound pissed off, but I’m not angry. It takes a lot to set me off. Instead, I’m just mildly amused.

“What are you going to do about it?” says Johnson, for once looking me right in the eyes.

“What am I going to do about it?” I say. “I don’t think that’s the right question, Johnson. You’re the administration. It’s your job to deal with this shit.”

“I’m not the one running around doing whatever the hell I feel like,” says Johnson.

I stare at him for a moment. I feel like punching him right in the jaw, but I’m not going to. It’s more paper work than it’s worth, especially for a guy as insignificant as Johnson.

My cell phone vibrates in my pocket.

“Hang on, Johnson,” I say. “I’ve got to take this.”

He goes red in the face, full of anger and frustration. “When you’re in my office, you…”

But I don’t bother listening to what he has to say.

“Hello?” I say, picking up the phone without looking to see who it is. I walk out the door, letting it fall back with a loud noise, leaving Johnson sitting there red in the face and furious. Anyone, even a telemarketer, is worth my time more than Johnson is.

“Liam? It’s John.”

It’s my old friend, John Smith. What a ridiculous name. Too simple. It almost sounds like a joke. But that’s what he was born with, and in his time he was a hell of surgeon. He’s been retired for a few years now, but once in a while we get out to the golf course together. Although, come to think of it, it’s been at least a year since I’ve even heard from him. That’s the way it goes with friends sometimes, they seem to drift away into the spiral of time, no matter what you try to do. Myself, I don’t try to hold onto anyone.

“What’s good, John?” I say, checking out the pert and plump ass of a passing nurse. I’ll never get tired of the way the scrubs look on those nurses. In my opinion, it’s one of the huge perks of the job, worth more than pensions or whatever crazy stock options they dream up as incentive.

Me? I’m in it for the nurses. And I’ll never admit it to anyone, but I like helping people. Nothing gives me quite as much of a thrill as slicing out just the right part of the brain, allowing the poor patient to get on with their life in a way they couldn’t have done without me. It still amazes me not how good I am at my job, but how bad the other surgeons are at theirs. I can’t figure it out. Sometimes it seems like John and me are the only competent surgeons in the whole area, and he’s retired. So he’s not much use to the patients now.

There’s a silence on the other end. My thoughts run fast, but not that fast.

“What’s going on, John?” I say. “You’re not saying anything.”

“Do you think we could meet somewhere?” says John. “I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.”

“Ehh,” I say. “That sounds like a whole thing. I’m not into it.”

“Come on, Liam. I need your help… It’s important.”

“Just spit it out then,” I say. “I’m just getting off work, and I’m about to get out and enjoy myself, if you know what I mean.”

John chuckles weakly.

“You know me,” I say, chuckling along with him. But his laughter sounds forced and fake. I wonder what is going on with him. Normally, he’s jovial and laughs at life just as much as I do. “Anyway, John. Just spit it out. You know me, nothing fazes me.”

The door to my Porsche in the hospital garage opens automatically. The key in my pocket activates a sensor that unlocks the door and starts the car for me.

I press my foot down onto the perfectly weighted clutch, pull the shifter into reverse, pressing down on the knob to do so, and let the engine roar as I back up.

“It’s just that… I’m having problems with my daughter, Mia.”

“What’s that, John?” I say, barely able to hear him with the windows down and the engine roaring as the guard at the ticket booth waves me through without checking my ticket. I’m out on the open street now, already passing a slowly moving minivan. My view is that I work hard and play even harder, and I don’t like things that get in the way of my work or play.

“You met her a few years ago at the club once, Mia.”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “I remember her. What’s going on with her? How old is she now? She need a recommendation to get into college or something? You know my signature works magic with those Ivy League schools.”

“It’s not that, Liam,” says John. “But I appreciate it. She had to drop out of college in her first semester.”

“Too much partying, eh?” I say, laughing. “She took a page out of the old man’s book, I see.”

“It’s not like that,” says John, sounding serious enough that I finally roll up the windows to hear him better, even though I love the feeling of the open air on my skin. “She has this rare medical condition. We don’t know what it is.”

Rare medical condition, eh? That catches my attention. There’s nothing I like more than a good puzzle.

“She’s allergic to everything. It’s gotten so bad that she simply faints when she goes outside. She’s been in her old childhood bedroom for a whole year now.”

“She hasn’t come out in all that time?”

“She tried. She passed out right away. After the fifth time, she stopped trying. She’s living like a bubble kid, sealed away in that room. And we had to take practically everything out. Everything seems to cause a reaction in her.”

I’m not one to mince words. Not now and not ever. If people don’t like what I have to say, then too bad. That’s just the way I work.

“She sounds like she’s having some psychological problems, John,” I say.

I know this isn’t what he wants to hear.

“I thought the same thing, Liam,” he says. “Trust me, I did. But there’s something more going on. I know it. We’ve taken her to every specialist I can think of, therapists and psychologists, endocrinologists, allergists, everyone.”

“Hmm,” I say. “That’s a tricky one. But it’s hard to catch those mental problems sometimes.”

“Listen, Liam. I need a favor from you. I need you to come and take a look at her. I know you can find something that no one else can.”

“I’m a brain surgeon, John,” I say. “I don’t work with the interior of the brain, or psychology. You know that. I just find the piece that needs cutting, and it doesn’t sound like she needs anything cut.”

“You owe me, Liam,” he says. “Remember that time you were caught with the two nurses in the closet and I helped you from getting fired? Come on, you owe me. Just come over tomorrow. It’ll take half an hour of your time.”

“Those nurses were asking for it!” I say. “They practically pulled me into that closet, but I was the one they wanted to punish.”

“Don’t I know it,” says John. “I’ll expect you over here at five tomorrow. Oh, one more thing. No touching my daughter, OK?”

“Don’t worry about a thing, John,” I say, hanging up the phone and pressing down on the Porsche accelerator.

Don’t touch his daughter? If he has to give me a warning, she must be some hot piece of ass. I know that game, though.

Then again, I don’t go out with women with mental problems… unless there’s an “extra incentive” in it for me.

Chapter 2

Mia

The phone rings. It’s my dad. Even though he’s in the same house as me, he has to call to speak to me, unless he wants to go through the lengthy process of changing all his clothes, putting on the gloves, the facemask, the hair net, the whole gambit. My mom and dad used to do that quite a bit, but over the last year, they’ve understandably gotten tired of having to redress themselves throughout the day just to enter my room. So we use the phone a lot to communicate. I would never tell them, but it makes me feel horribly lonely, not having much real human interaction at all except through technology.

“What’s up, Dad?” I say.

“How’s my little girl doing?” he says. Yeah, I’m 20 years old, but I’ll always be his little girl in his eyes. That’s OK, though.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just catching up on some chemistry homework.” Another lie. I’ve been wasting time on the internet as usual, looking for more information about my “disease” or whatever the hell it is.

“That’s good. Hey, I just wanted to let you know, there’s an old friend, a doctor… I was just talking to him on the phone yesterday, and he mentioned he thought he might be able to help. He wanted to come over today and pay you a visit. I hope that’s OK with you.”

I sigh. Another doctor. I’m getting really tired of them. When I first went to the appointments, I was all giddy with excitement, thinking that I would be helped immediately. But of course, that wasn’t the case, and the doctors and therapists and psychologists all got more and more perplexed with my case. Each visit to the doctor was something to dread, rather than something to look forward to.

“I don’t know, Dad,” I say. “I mean, I’ve seen a lot of doctors…”

“We can’t give up on you,” says my dad. “I know the cure is out there somewhere. I just want you to be able to go out there and live a normal life like everyone else your age.”

“I want the same thing,” I say. And, really, I would like to add that it’s not helpful having my parents repeat my own worst fears and my dreams back to me. I want to be out with my friends doing normal college girl stuff more than my parents want it for me.

Each hour I spend locked in my childhood bedroom is like another eternity, another period of damnation. And each second on the internet, where I waste so much of my time, I encounter yet another reminder that everyone else is out doing fun things, creating their lives, and falling in love, while I’m stuck in here, doing nothing at all.

“He’s really good,” says my dad. “If anyone can find a cure, he’s the one.”

“That’s what you said about the last woman,” I say.

“This guy’s different,” says my dad. “He’s the best brain surgeon in the whole city.”

“A brain surgeon?” I say. “Well, if you think I need brain surgery…” The thought makes me depressed, having someone cut open my brain to figure out what’s wrong with me and possibly cure me. But honestly at this point I’m so desperate that I’ll try anything at all.

“Oh,” says my dad. “I don’t think you’re going to need brain surgery. But he’s an incredible diagnostician. He can figure out practically anything. Even though he’s known as the top brain surgeon in the hospital where I used to work, doctors of all types are always bringing him their difficult cases, the ones they can’t figure out on their own. And with just a single look at the paper, he can almost always tell them something that helps them solve the case, if not the answer right away.”

“He sounds good,” I say, completely noncommittal, but for my dad’s sake, I try to keep my voice sounding somewhat positive.

“He’s going to come tomorrow afternoon,” says my dad.

“It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” I say.

My dad chuckles. Laughter has become rarer and rarer in this household. And it’s all because of me. It’s all my fault, and there’s nothing in the world I can do about it.

We say goodbye, and my dad hangs up.

I listen to the dead sound of the cell phone for a moment before putting it down. I can feel the human contact fading away.

I can see the blue sky through the window. Nothing has ever looked farther away, nothing ever seemed remote and inaccessible as that sky. I can’t count the hours and days that I’ve spent this past year looking up at it, gazing up at it.

Most of my friends have dropped away over the last year. The only one that remains is my best friend for life, Shelly, who I know will always be in my life no matter what. But we’re more like sisters than friends, and that means that we can spend a good amount of time annoyed at each other, or frustrated with each other, or nagging at each other to do the “right” thing.

Shelly goes to college here in Philadelphia, but she’s been busier lately and hasn’t been calling as much. We still write emails and texts to each other, and I would never want her to know how much those texts mean to me, how much I wait for them in the day, checking my phone to see if she’s written something that will give me a couple minutes of respite from the blank reality that awaits me here in my room.

Aside from going to the doctors, I’ve spent a lot of the last year trying to cure myself. I spent time online reading medical sites, trying to understand what was going on with me, trying to see if there was someone out there who had experienced similar symptoms to mine. So far, nothing.

I also tried to cure myself with sheer willpower. Mostly that involved forcing myself to go outside. Sooner or later, the symptoms would invariably start. I would gaze with joy at the sky and practically rejoice in the feeling of the real ground beneath my feet. But my nose would always start to run, my throat would start to constrict, my eyes watering to the point that I couldn’t see out of them. Sounds just like any old allergy attack, right? Well, it was… sort of. My body would start to swell up like someone with a shellfish allergy eating a couple pounds of fresh lobster. Then I would pass out, and they would take me to the hospital for emergency treatment, pumping me full of whatever chemical cocktail would revive me.

And then I’d wake up again in my room. My room, my prison. It’s really the same thing. There’s no difference anymore to me… I might as well be in jail for all it means to me.

Despite not wanting to see yet another doctor, probably to hear the same thing again, I can’t help feeling more than a little excited about the possibility of having a visitor here in my room.

I know, pathetic right?

But that’s how starved I am for social contact.

And who can blame me?

It’s been an entire year.

An entire year without so much as a single date.

You can’t really date when you’re like this. An entire year without so much as a single kiss…

Oh, and I’m still a virgin, and it doesn’t look like that’s ever going to change. I went through high school as the goody two shoes straight A student, figuring I’d have time for boyfriends once I got to college.

But then I started to get sick.

I think I got close once to losing my virginity, in my first semester of college. A hot but somewhat geeky guy had asked me out, and we were back at his place, facing each other on the couch. He was making some awkward conversation and truthfully all I could think about was just getting it over with. I didn’t want to have my virginity hanging over my head anymore, the way it had been for so long.

I finally blurted out, “Do you want to sleep with me or what?”

He grinned at me and led me awkwardly into his bedroom. I mean, he was good looking and all, but I knew he wasn’t exactly the sort of guy I’d spend the rest of my life with, let alone date seriously or anything like that. But at that point I wasn’t even looking to get off. I didn’t care about enjoying the experience to come. I just wanted to get it over with.

If I could have signed some sort of official contract, the way you do when you go to the bank to apply for a loan to buy a house, I would have just done that instead.

If I could have sacrificed a goat to a god, the way they used to do back in the “old” days, I would have done that instead.

But there wasn’t anything else to do but follow this vaguely awkward guy into his bedroom that smelled like old fish and let him put his penis inside me.

That’s how I was thinking about it—totally mechanically.

Unfortunately for me, we didn’t get very far.

Maybe it was the smell of the old fish, which he assured me very passionately was just the smell from his old socks, as if that was any better. Or maybe it was the stress. Or maybe it was something else altogether.

But I got a reaction, one of my first.

My throat started to swell up, to the point that I couldn’t talk. The guy was asking me what was wrong, telling me that my face was getting red and ballooning up like an inflatable swimming raft. To this day, I still don’t know why he felt it was necessary to compare my face to a swimming raft, no matter how bad the swelling was.

So I feel like you know the rest of the story.

The reactions got worse and worse, so I decided (along with my parents, the dean of admissions, and just about everyone else) that I needed to take some time off and get my medical situation sorted out. I figured I’d go to a couple doctors, take a couple pills, and be back for second semester, not having missed much that I couldn’t read about online.

But things got worse and worse.

And now I’ve been stuck in my room for a year, without a single prospect of losing my virginity, let alone getting out of here to go for a simple walk around the block.

At one point I was complaining about my virginity so much to Shelly that she offered to send over someone who was apparently very willing. She’d shown him pictures of me.

I grudgingly agreed, despite the horribly awkward nature of the situation.

But once we got down to discussing how he’d need to change his clothes, and not wear any deodorant, and that a latex condom might send me to the hospital… He lost interest.

And he was going to have to sneak past my parents by climbing up the side of the house where there’s a convenient trellis on which grows a beautiful wisteria vine that’s been there since I was a kid. He was fine with that part, because I guess he’d seen something like that in the movies. But there’s nothing in the movies about your date essentially being the real life bubble girl. Something about that phrase just doesn’t seem to get the guys hot and rarin’ to go.

The afternoon seems to be stretching forever. I’d like to call Shelly, but she’s still going to be in her afternoon class.

My phone vibrates. It’s a text from my dad.

“You remember Liam?” it reads. “Here’s a link to his website so you can learn a little about him before he comes over tomorrow. Remember that he does much more than surgery.”

I click the link, and my phone’s browser takes me a hospital staff page.

“Liam Horton” is the first name on there.

Holy fuck…

I was expecting an old guy, some distinguished gray haired doctor.

I was not expecting a guy with a jawline so sharp it looks like I could brush up against my phone’s screen and cut myself on it.

I was not expecting the way his colored shirt simply cannot hide his muscles. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s packing a six pack, maybe even an eight pack… rippling ab muscles that I can just imagine pressing against me…

My imagination’s already starting to get carried away a little bit…

I’m getting wet, and I can’t help sliding my hand under the thick elastic band of my panties (the ones that are completely not sexy, but comfortable as hell), letting my finger brush against my pussy that’s opening up and starting to get glistening wet…

Chapter 3

Liam

I’m taking the motorcycle today, a pristine vintage 1964 Triumph T100, the same bike that Dylan crashed so many years ago before going into seclusion in New York.

The only downside of taking the bike is that I can’t blast tunes.

But the glowing green trees, the smells, and the scenery all make up for that.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve never felt freer than when I’m cruising on my bike, my wrist bent back on the throttle, my leg brushing against the exhaust pipe that’s just starting to get uncomfortably hot.

It’s the little things about this bike that make it perfect. It’s special because it’s decidedly not perfect. It’s got a hell of an engine, but it’s a bike that you need to tinker with. It’s not the type of bike for guys who don’t know one end of a wrench from another.

I still remember how to get to John’s house. It’s down a winding road where the trees form a canopy over the center. The houses are big and spaced out.

John’s never been poor, and he’s certainly not doing badly now that he’s retired. I remember he happened to have a knack for picking exactly the right stocks at exactly the right time, to the point that others sometimes got upset with him for his good luck.

Me? I’ve never worried much about money. I make it and I spend it. To me, there’s not much point in keeping track of every last penny. Even when I was in in med school and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, I never bothered to worry much about my expenses.

John’s house is a big one with pink shutters. His wife must have picked those out.

In every respect, it looks exactly like a respectable well to do family home in the suburbs. Only in reality we’re still within the city limits, although you wouldn’t know it from the large well manicured lawns and soccer moms walking groomed poodles.

I ring the bell.

John answers, looking older and more weather beaten than the last time I saw him.

“Thanks for coming,” he says.

His tone is serious and his face is the same.

“If there’s anyone who can help, I know it’s you.”

I don’t much go for all this somber crap, even in the hospital when someone’s dying. I just like to see what I can do to help. There’s no point in over thinking things.

“Where’s her room?” I say.

“I’ll show you. Here, follow me. Now, you’re going to have to…”

As I follow him up the steps, past the family photographs from ten years ago, he explains to me the many steps that I’m going to need to complete in order to enter the room without his daughter passing out.

“First you’ve got to change all your clothes. Don’t worry, I’ve got a spare set that’ll fit you. Then just imagine you’re back in the surgery room. You’ve got to do the whole thing… gloves, a face mask… you know the drill, you’re a surgeon for crying out loud.”

I almost tell him, “Look, John, I know you care about your daughter and all but this is a little extreme, even for me…” But then I remember how he really did help me out of that jam. Bedding nurses is one thing, but bedding two of them in the hospital when you’re supposed to be on shift is another thing altogether. In reality, I should have been fired on the spot, but John has some pull with the administrators, and he got me some leniency that in truth I didn’t deserve, except that I am a great surgeon.

“All right, John,” I say. “Anything else I should know before going in there?”

“There’s a shot of epinephrine on the wall, and an emergency phone that’s dialed right to the hospital in case anything happens.”

I let out a sigh.

“I’ll take it from here then, John,” I say. “Don’t worry, we’ll find something for your little girl.”

John gives me a weak but worried grin and disappears down the hallway where his nervous wife is waiting. I give her a wave, but she disappears behind a door without responding. Oh yeah, now I remember—I must have offended her once, twice, or even three times. The memory is a little hazy now, but it had something to do with me and a waitress behaving “inappropriately” at a country club dinner that she’d invited me to.

Whatever. I’ll just go in and see their anxiety ridden daughter and get out of here. I’ll recommend a good psychologist and a cocktail of antidepressants and antianxiety meds.

As I go through the whole rigmarole of getting myself surgically clean, I realize that there’s really nothing else medically that could be wrong with this girl. It simply must be anxiety.

Decked out with plastic wrapped all around me, and a mask over my face, I knock hard on the door. Three quick rasps from my knuckles. I need to get this over with so I can head out to the club where the nurses hang out after work and score myself some sweet tight first year nurse’s ass.

“Coming,” says a voice unlike any I’ve heard. It’s sweet and innocent and almost knocks me back on my feet.

“I’m Liam Horton,” I say. “I’m a friend of your dad’s…”

The door opens slowly, and if her voice didn’t surprise me enough, her body is the fucking surprise of a lifetime.

Holy fuck, is all I can think.

My mind’s almost blank. Blank from her curves.

I had no idea John’s daughter looked like this.

Where the hell has he been hiding her away? Oh yeah, in her room, under the pretense of some horrible un-diagnosable allergy.

She didn’t look anything like this the last time I saw her. I can only vaguely remember her as a gangly awkward teenager with braces that seemed to take up her entire face.

Now she’d give any model or actress today a serious run for their money.

And what a crime that she’s locked away in this cramped little room.

Her ass is like two gorgeous volleyballs stuffed into the skin tight yoga pants that she wears. Her breasts are equally hot, preposterously hot.

My cock instantly springs to life, a stiff steel spear that calls out to me, that wants to impale her and make her cry my name as she comes like she’s never come before. All I can think about is riding her until she cries out not for me to stop, but for more, more, and more…

“Hi,” she says, her voice soft and sweet like a meadow, a meadow on steroids that make it impossibly sexy… the sexiest meadow that’s ever existed. Where the fuck is my mind going?

Her body has got my mind all twisted up into nonsense.

Finally, I regain my composure.

“Your dad wanted me to check in on you to see if there’s anything I could do,” I say, adopting my professional surgeon voice, still standing in her doorway.

“Yes,” she says, introducing herself as Mia, and asking me to come in. “I’ve heard all about you. My dad says you’re great, and that you can find the cure for anything.”

“Well,” I say, sitting on an armchair that she gestures towards. “I should clarify that I’m a surgeon, a brain surgeon, actually. So it would be an understatement to say that this isn’t my area of expertise.”

She sits down on the edge of her bed, putting her stretched out arms on her knees. She has excellent posture, letting her back stay straight, just enough curve in the spine for her pert breasts to stick out. It feels like they’re drilling right into my eyes. I have to tear myself away from glancing at them. She’s wearing a casual t-shirt but it’s tight enough to really show her body.

Bringing my mind back to what I came here to do, my first impression (and first impressions, in my world, mean quite a bit when it comes to diagnosing patients), she doesn’t seem the least bit odd, anxious, bipolar, or anything else that falls under the vast umbrella of mental problems.

She seems too sane, actually.

“So what can you tell me about your symptoms?” I say, taking out a pad of paper. The pad helps me keep my eyes off her.

She tells me what her dad told me, but goes into much more detail. She tells me how it all started gradually, and how she’s forced herself to go outside many times, always to disastrous consequences. Eventually she stopped trying because she kept ending up in the hospital over and over again. It simply became too dangerous to continue.

“And what about your blood work?” I say. In reality, I want to tell her to kneel down in front of me and wrap her gorgeous lips around my massive cock. I’m conscious of her glances down towards my crotch, but I’ve never been one to care about whether women can see my erection. It’s just natural, after all. I’m not going to apologize for the way a woman makes my body respond.

“All normal,” she says, her large eyes wide, innocent and beautiful, looking right at me.

It’s almost too much for me.

I want to throw her down on the bed and plunge my cock into her tight pussy.

But of course that would cause her to have an allergic reaction, and I’d have to drive her to the hospital on my motorcycle, trying to keep her on the bike with my own strength.

No, that wouldn’t be good.

But would it be worth it?

I know she wants me. That’s not unusual, though. Almost every woman wants me.

“Well,” I say, continuing to play doctor. “Maybe you can send me the lab work. Maybe there’s something in there that everyone else missed, but I doubt it. So you’ve been to see…”

“Yes, I’ve been to see plenty of therapists, if that’s what you were going to ask,” says Mia, her eyes turning playful. “I’m not crazy, and I’m not imagining it, although I can certainly understand why someone would think that. Hell, I thought that myself for a long time, but it kept happening over and over again.”

“I see,” I say, making a note.

I write down “crazy” with a question mark after it, before crossing it off.

Honestly, I’ve dealt with plenty of patients with mental issues of all types. I spent three years in the emergency room, and I learned to spot things that aren’t quite right. I don’t have anything against people with mental issues, and I know it can be a real struggle. But sometimes they make a hell of a patient to deal with if you’re not aware of what they’re struggling with. I found that getting better at diagnosing them on the spot made my job a lot easier.

“I never thought you were crazy,” I say, lying a little. “But honestly I did assume that anxiety must have been in play… but meeting you, you seem quite well adjusted for a young woman living alone in a room in her parents’ house. This would drive me insane.”

Mia laughs.

Her laugh is simply gorgeous. Her whole body goes into it, and I can tell that she really means that laugh. It’s not one of those high pitched false laughs that the nurses give me when I say something that’s not even intended as a joke.

She’s genuine, and genuinely gorgeous.

“It is difficult,” says Mia. “All my friends are out in the world, living it up, living their lives…”

A look of a sadness passes over her face like a shadow. But it doesn’t make her look any less beautiful.

“How old are you?” I say, holding my pen in the hopes that it seems like I’m just asking a standard medical question, rather than inquiring for personal reasons.

“Twenty,” she says.

I try not to take in a deep breath of air, but I do anyway. My cock is as hard as it’s ever been.

Twenty fucking years old and seeming more gorgeous every minute.

“Well,” I say. “This wouldn’t be a proper visit without some sort of cursory physical examination. Do you feel comfortable with me doing that? Just the standard stuff, you know…”

“Of course,” says Mia, sitting up straight. “As you said, it wouldn’t be a proper visit without one.”

Do I detect a hint of serious eagerness in her voice?

“All right,” I say, adjusting the stethoscope that always seems to be wrapped around my neck.

Fortunately, I’ve been thinking very hard about baseball and other boring, seriously unsexy shit, helping to tame my erection down to something more reasonable and not quite as noticeable.

“Am I good here?” says Mia, sounding eager to place.

“It’s great,” I say.

I stand next to her, close, and she smells wonderful. And it’s not that fake perfume scent that all the nurses have. After all, Mia is allergic to practically everything. There’s no way she could use perfume or even deodorant. But her smell alone, her natural smell, is enough to get my cock growing in my pants again.

“I’ll start with the lymph nodes,” I say.

Mia nods.

I put my hands on her delicate, smooth skin, right onto the lymph nodes around her neck.

“Sometimes these can be swollen when chronic conditions are present,” I say.

My mind fixates on the word “swollen,” and my chest brushes up ever so slightly against her pert, swollen breasts.

“Well these seem normal,” I say, reaching for the sterilized stethoscope around my neck.

“Aren’t you going to examine the rest of the lymph nodes?” says Mia. “My right armpits been feeling a little funny recently.”

“So you know something of medicine?” I say, taking an interest. Normally, patients who do their own “research” are something of a liability, but I don’t get that sense from Mia. She’s just a charming, intelligent young woman, an insane erection-causing young woman, I should add.

“Well,” says Mia. “As you know, my dad’s a doctor, and I’ve been reading a lot, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.”

I nod, and move my hands under her armpits.

“It is a little swollen,” I say. “How long has it been like this?”

“Not too long,” says Mia. “A couple weeks.”

“I don’t think it has much to do with your main symptoms,” I say. “But one thing that crossed my mind is that you’ve been inside for a long time. Have you been taking…”

“Vitamin D?” says Mia, interrupting me. “Yup, right over there.” She points to a bookshelf completely filled with prescription bottles and vitamin supplements. “Those are all the things I’ve tried that haven’t helped.”

She gives me a sad sort of grin.

“You know,” she says, after a moment. “I think I had some sort of mark on my stomach that I noticed the other day. Maybe it’s part of these allergic reactions.”

“A mark?” I say. “Is it red, like a rash?”

“I don’t know how to describe it,” she says. “I’d better show you.”

I nod.

She pulls up her t-shirt a little, revealing another piece of her perfect body.

I can practically feel my heart thumping in my chest.

I’ve examined hundreds, if not thousands, of women in all states of undress, but I’ve never felt like this, like I might not be able to keep it professional.

“You know,” she says, looking down at her skin. “I forgot, I guess it’s higher up. I’m going to have to take off my shirt for you to see it. You don’t mind, do you?”

For a second, I could have sworn that I saw a glint in her eye. A mischievous look, a delicious one.

She reaches down and grips her shirt. She pulls it up slowly, letting it rest on her breasts, her big sexy bumps of resistance.

My cock springs to life.

Her breasts spring out at me. She’s wearing a sexy lace bra, that shows plenty of her gorgeous nubile cleavage.

Chapter 4

Mia

I still can’t get over the fact that this gorgeous doctor is here in my room, standing right next to me.

And now I’ve pulled my shirt off over my head, and I know it’s not my imagination: he’s glancing quite conspicuously at my breasts.

And I can see his raging hard cock in his pants.

He’s not awkward in the slightest, like that guy in my first semester.

Sure, he’s wearing a surgical mask, and wrapped in some ridiculous plastic wrap that keeps me from going into anaphylactic shock, or passing out. But, still… under all that, he’s gorgeous.

“I never knew doctors had tattoos,” I say, noticing for the first time a tattoo on the inside of his bicep as his shirt rides up.

“We’re humans too,” he says, his voice deep, rich, and impossibly sexy.

Does that have another meaning? He’s a human, too, in that he has human urges?

“I can see that,” I say, trying to make an innuendo about his raging hard cock.

But I’m just a young girl essentially, after all, and I’m not sure I even really know how to make innuendo. I’m not just out of practice when it comes to flirting, I’ve almost never done it. After all, in high school, I ignored everyone’s advances. It wasn’t until college I started trying to flirt, and I still cringe when I think of some of the awkward exchanges I had at the ends of the college lectures. One time, I went up to a boy I thought was cute, said “It’s Tom, right?” Because I’m pretty sure I had heard someone say that before. He gave me a look like he thought I was a double headed alien, and nodded his head. I freaked out, and simply ran out of the room.

I can tell that he’s trying to remain professional, but I keep catching him staring at my breasts.

“You’re a very beautiful young woman,” says Liam. “It’s a shame you’re stuck inside all the time.”

His voice is rich, like some kind of smoked honey. Does that product even exist? If not, someone should make it.

“I don’t get a lot of visitors,” I say, letting my voice sort of trail off.

His head is near me, right up against my face.

His body is like a presence that I can viscerally feel. My own body’s responding, but right now I don’t care in the least bit that my rock hard nipples are going to be completely visible in this lacy bra.

(No, it’s not an accident that I’m wearing my one sexy bra, rather than the rather plain ones I normally wear.)

For a second, I think he’s going to move his mask away from his face.

In this moment, I don’t care if it makes me pass out. Fuck, it would be worth it, just to see his face in person, just to feel his lips against mine.

My cell phone rings.

“It’s my dad,” I say.

Liam doesn’t say anything, but he takes a respectful step back.

I see him glancing at my breasts. There’s no way he could miss my nipples.

I pull my shirt down as I answer the phone, unable to think of any plausible reason that I should keep my shirt up, exposing my breasts to Liam, even though I desperately want to show him a lot more.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, picking up the phone.

I don’t take my eyes off Liam, who’s taking notes on his pad.

“How’s the appointment going so far?” says my dad. “Liam’s been up there for a while, and your mother and I were just wondering how it’s going. Has he thought of anything?”

I feel a pang of regret. I feel so badly for my parents, especially my mother. It’s been hard for them to watch their only daughter drop out of school and shut herself up in her room, apparently never to come out again. The atmosphere in the house has become tense and painful to experience. My mother hasn’t come into my room in the last week, saying that she’s feeling a little sick, and doesn’t want to risk spreading anything to me, but I know that it’s simply become too painful for her to see me like this.

“It’s going great,” I say. “I think Liam’s found something. He won’t tell me what it is yet.”

Liam gives me a wild-eyed look, mouthing “What?” at me.

But I just can’t disappoint my parents more. False hope is better than no hope.

“Tell Liam I’ll be waiting for him when he comes out,” says my dad.

I hang up.

“Why did you tell them that?” says Liam.

He doesn’t seem mad, but for a second I’m worried I’ve ruined whatever spark I might have imagined between us.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Everything OK in there?” comes my dad’s voice.

“I just talked to you on the phone,” I call back.

“I just wanted to make sure,” says my dad.

Liam grins at me. “He’s probably worried I’m putting the moves on you,” he says in a low voice to me, so that only I can hear. “I don’t have the best reputation with women. Well, I’d better get going.”

“What about the exam?” I say, realizing that I might be sounding desperate, but not caring. After all, this is the first real human contact I’ve had in a long time… and it’s from the hottest guy I’ve ever met.

“I think I’ll come up with something,” he says, putting on an optimistic grin. I know that look all too well. That’s what countless doctors before me have told me, and nothing’s ever come from it.

“OK,” I say, trying to smile. But inside I’m more than disappointed.

When you’re locked in your room for a year, little things start to take on a much bigger significance.

As I watch Liam leaving through the door, walking through the folds of thick, clear sterilized plastic that create something of an airlock between my room and the outside, a feeling of complete desperation starts to take hold.

I want to reach out and grab him, pulling him towards me. I want to rip that mask off and just hold him.

Of course, I also want him to fuck me with that massive shaft that I saw in his pants earlier, fully erect at the sight of me.

But I’d settle for just being held, for just feeling his muscles against me, for feeling his bristly coating of stubble scratching my skin.

“Bye,” I say, my voice impossible to keep from sounding horribly sad.

“I’ll be back,” says Liam, his voice barely audible now through the mask and the plastic.

The door shuts behind him, and I can hear him talking to my dad on the other side. I can’t make out what they’re saying—just murmurs of their deep voices.

They’re discussing me, undoubtedly. For all I know, my worst fears will be confirmed and Liam will just tell my dad he thinks I’m some psychological nut case, just like plenty of the doctors. They always said that when they got fed up themselves and couldn’t come up with a solution. It’s an easy out for them, but it’s not an out for me at all.

I know I’m not making this up, and it’s not placebo. It’s something real.

I check my phone, almost frantically grabbing it from my nightstand, anxious for something, for some message from the outside world. Just a simple little message from Shelly would be enough.

Thankfully, there is a message from Shelly.

How pathetic is it that I care so much about receiving a little text message that only takes Shelly a couple seconds to write.

“What’s going on?” is all it says.

But it almost makes my heart leap. It makes me feel just a little less alone in the world, a little less despairing.

“You have time to talk?” I write back, adding a couple smiley faces. That’s definitely not representing my current mood, but what the hell, right?

She doesn’t write back. Instead, she calls me. Time to hide the sadness deep inside me and put on a happy face to accompany my happy phone voice. I realized long ago that even my best friend in the whole world doesn’t want to listen to me talk about how much it sucks being stuck in my room for a year. I’ve got to at least be vaguely entertaining to the extent that I can without any social contact.

“What’s going on?” says Shelly, sounding breathless. Her breathing is ragged.

“What are you doing?” I say. “You’re not…?”

“Oh,” says Shelly, realizing what I think she’s up to (either masturbation or sex… either is likely in Shelly’s case, honestly). “No, no… I’m at the gym. I’m on the treadmill.”

“Since when do you go on the treadmill? Since when do you exercise?”

Since college, Shelly’s lived on a steady diet of cheap wine and college boys, with the occasional bit of intense studying thrown in. She’s pretty smart, so she can get away with it, still making dean’s list each semester, no matter how many guys she sleeps with.

I like to give her a bit of a hard time about it all, but the truth is that I’m insanely jealous of all the action she’s getting… and she knows it, so she doesn’t take my gentle ribbing too hard.

Does that make me some kind of wannabe slut in training or something, since I really wish I was out there in college making all sorts of mistakes, sleeping with guys that I shouldn’t be? If it does, then fuck it. I’m totally guilty of having a sex drive. That’s not a sin, right? Well, if it is, give me whatever punishment is necessary. There’s almost nothing I regret more in this world than being a virgin.

“Just trying to burn a few calories,” says Shelly. “Trying to get healthy, you know? What’s wrong with that?” She’s still breathing hard. She’s got a good figure, but she’s definitely not in shape in the sense that she probably can’t walk up more than few flights of steps without breathing hard. She’s been known to indulge in the occasional joint here or there, which probably doesn’t help matters.

I laugh. “Don’t give me that,” I say. “You’re already as thin as a rail where it counts, and thick where you need it. How else would you be able to get all those guys?”

“Just looking to keep everything in its right place, you know?”

“Come on,” I say. “You’re the same age as me. Everything’s exactly where it needs to be. What, is there a cute guy at the gym or something?”

“He’s not just cute, he’s gorgeous.”

I laugh.

“So it is a guy after all.”

“Of course it’s a guy,” says Shelly in a hushed voice. “But I’m at the gym now and I can’t exactly talk about it.”

“He’s there now? Are you stalking him or something?”

“Of course not,” hisses Shelly. “And no, he’s not here now. But there are other people around.”

“Since when did you care if anyone else knew about your plans of sexual conquest?”

That makes Shelly laugh.

I can hear something hanging in the background. Her breathing is still heavy, but it starts to subside in intensity a little bit.

“All right,” she says. “That’s enough of the bike for me.”

“I’ll let you go then,” I say. “You probably want to hit the showers.”

“Are you kidding? I’m not using the showers here. They’re gross.”

“What’s more gross?” I say. “Walking around all sweaty or showering in a locker room with some other people?”

Shelly laughs. “I’m going to take my chances that I smell nice even when sweating,” she says.

“So tell me about this guy,” I say. “If you’re in a safe place that you can talk, that is.”

“I’m just walking through the hallway,” says Shelly. “No one’s around. But he’s fucking gorgeous.”

“So he’s going to be the lucky next guy?” I say.

“If everything goes according to plan,” says Shelly. “I’ve started with the suggestive eye contact, and the innuendo laden flirting state is next to come.”

“I give you two days before he’s in your bed,” I say.

“What makes you think I’m taking him back to my place? It’s a mess. No, I plan on going right to his apartment with him after the gym and fucking his brains out when we’re both all sweaty.”

I laugh. “How do you know he doesn’t shower at the gym?”

“Maybe I’ll invite myself over to his apartment for a shower,” says Shelly. “That ought to cover all my bases.”

“And it’d be pretty clear what you’re after,” I say.

“Well that’s the idea, isn’t it?” says Shelly. “So, what’s going on with you? How’s the year of solitude progressing?”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into A Hundred Years of Solitude,” I say.

“You know, that’s a great book,” says Shelly. “There’s this part where a priest drinks chocolate and starts to levitate, and a part where…”

“I know,” I say, interrupting her. “I’m the one who gave you the book, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Anyway, what’s going on?”

“Well,” I say. “Same old same old, I guess. But… another doctor came to see me. An old friend of my dad’s or something…”

“Sounds exciting,” says Shelly in a deadpan voice.

“Actually,” I say. “He was… really, really hot. Like movie actor hot. Crazy hot.”

Shelly giggles. “Sounds like someone’s in love,” she says.

“I am not,” I say. “Why can’t I say a guy’s hot?”

“You absolutely can,” says Shelly. “And you can tell me you want to feel his thick shaft in your mouth as he fondles your breasts.”

I laugh uncomfortably. Unfortunately, I’ve never been as comfortable as Shelly about talking about my own sexual fantasies and desires. That probably has something to do with being a virgin.

“I’m not going that far…” I say. “I’m just saying he’s cute.”

“A minute ago you said he was hot. I think you’ve found the guy you want to lose your virginity to and you don’t want to admit it.”

“Maybe I do,” I say.

“You do what?” says Shelly, toying with me and my uncomfortable feigns.

“You know,” I say. “Lose my virginity to him. But… he’s older than me. A friend of my dad’s…”

“Oooh, older men are great in bed,” says Shelly.

“But there’s no chance of any of that,” I say. “I mean he had to wear a mask just to come in my room, and all this horrible plastic wrap nonsense. You remember, from that time you came to visit me.”

“Ugh,” says Shelly. “Don’t remind me.”

“You’re not the one who has to deal with it every day.”

“You’ll figure out something,” says Shelly. “It’s just a matter of time.”

I’ve been telling myself that for a year, and I’ve finally given up hope that anything will ever work.

“Let’s be real, Shelly,” I say. “I’m going to die a virgin in this very room.”

Shelly starts to talk, but my phone starts vibrating, and in brief confusion, I accidentally touch the screen, switching over to the incoming call.

“Shelly?” I say. “Are you still there?”

Now I realize what’s happened.

“It’s me, Liam.”

“Liam?” I say, shocked that he’s calling me, the gorgeous doctor who I was just talking to my friend about… I hope he didn’t hear anything I said about being a virgin.

“Yeah, your dad gave me your number. Listen, I have something to tell you.”

I’m practically holding my breath.

Is he going to suddenly confesses his love for me over the phone?

Nope. “I didn’t want to get your parents’ hopes up, but I thought I needed to tell you. I was riding my bike home.” (He rides a bike? It seems strange to imagine a guy like him peddling along the road, all decked out in cycling gear, with the cars zooming past him.) “Anyway, I suddenly remembered there was a similar case in the literature… it was a very old case… I don’t remember the details, but there was a young woman who had a cellular condition that caused her to have intense allergic reactions, not unlike what you’re suffering.”

“A cellular condition?” I say. “What’s that mean?”

“The cells have these things called mitochondria. They’re like the power plant of the cell, producing all the energy. If they’re not functioning right, everything in the whole body can be off…”

“So it could be like my body doesn’t have the energy to fight off minor allergens or something?”

“Something like that,” says Liam. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow if I come up with something… I don’t want to get your hopes up… But I think there’s a cure.”

A cure?

I’ve heard a lot of things from doctors. I’ve heard that they could cure me, but I’ve never heard someone talk about it concretely like this, talking about an actual problem…

Well, I’ve been to holistic doctors who told me my “vibe” was off or something, but of course that never worked out.

But Liam’s a top surgeon. He’s not into anything crazy, just real hard science.

A smile growing on my face, my mind starts swimming in day dreams… I imagine myself out and about, enjoying life outside of this cursed room.

But will it really work? Am I just letting my dreams get ahead of reality?

“Are you sure?” I say. “I’ve been let down in the past.”

“I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t think so,” says Liam. “I really think there’s a chance it could work. And I never bullshit my patients. I always tell it like it is.”

Chapter 5

Liam

Have I promised too much? After all, it’s just a hunch, just a memory of an article. But then again, my hunches with patients are rarely if ever wrong.

But I already feel like she’s more than a patient. There’s more at stake here than there is with any old patient in the hospital. Well, I have more at stake.

I just can’t get her body out of my head. And her voice is so… sexy and innocent. Just incredible.

My cock twitches in my pants, beginning to stiffen, just thinking about her.

I set the Triumph motorcycle upright on its kickstand in the garage, near the Porsche, and head inside.

The house is large. Everything’s in its proper place. It doesn’t exactly look like what you might expect from a bachelor “pad,” or anything like that. I’ve got good furniture, a mixture of modern pieces with some antiques left over from my parents’ house.

All the lights are off, and I stand for a moment on the threshold from the garage, looking at the soft glow that comes from the streetlights outside, illuminating the curtains, making them glimmer like a backdrop. For some reason, it reminds me of my parents’ house, when I used to have insomnia growing up. I would wake up in the middle of the night and head into the living room without turning on any of the lights, and just admire things with my night vision. It was a sad time, with my parents arguing.

A feeling of sadness enters me now, but I brush it off. That’s what I’m good at anyway.

The easiest way to throw it off, I’ve found, is to throw myself at the nurses, or into my work. Or into a hobby, like my motorcycles and my cars, playing golf, staying intentionally intensely active, powering my way through life as if nothing ever affects me, just going from one thrill to the next.

Without turning the lights on, I grab a beer from the kitchen fridge, and head right down into the basement, flicking on the low level fluorescent lights.

I like it down here in the basement, where everything is exactly as I want it. Honestly, the rest of my house is really meant to make it easier for me to bed the women I bring home, not that I need much help. They’re usually begging for it by the time we get home, if we get that far and don’t fuck in a taxi or somewhere even more public first. But having a home that’s well put together certainly doesn’t hurt my chances.

But the basement, this is a place just for me. It’s not for the nurses, the waitresses, or the soccer moms that I pick up with ease.

I’ve got my tool bench down here, along with a bunch of expensive power tools I couldn’t help but buying. I’ve got a lathe, a circular saw, and even a kit for minor welding.

But tonight I’ve got a different sort of job.

A completely unpretentious metal table holds my work computer that I use for research. It’s hooked up to the hospital databases, allowing me to search through not only patient records but all the medical studies that aren’t even available to the public.

I crack the top of the beer by sticking the cap against my bicep and twisting, another bar trick meant to impress the ladies. Of course, I do it just for fun, though.

I log onto the medical databases and start looking for the study I remembered while riding my Triumph. An hour goes by, then another. I’m just barely drinking my beer, so engrossed am I in the studies.

I know there’s a cure out there for her, I just know it.

It’s just a matter of figuring out what’s really going on in her body. I know it has something to do with cellular fatigue, cellular energy. Nothing else makes sense. I asked her to send me blood work, but actually I have access to it through my computer. I have all her medical records pulled up, and nothing is amiss whatsoever. No wonder all the doctors haven’t been able to cure her—they always go by the tests themselves, and can’t do anything if everything appears normal.

It takes a mind like mine to look beyond what appears to be normal.

But so far, no progress.

I take occasional breaks, getting down on the concrete basement floor and doing 50 pushups at a time, until I’m out of breath, before diving back into the walls of text that the medical studies are.

I don’t bother checking the time, but I know I’m burning through the hours. Dawn’s not far away, when I think to start looking through the biological abstracts databases. These are studies for purely research purposes—researchers trying to figure out how biology works, how cellular energy works. These papers are the foundation on which the medical studies are based. We need to understand how things work before we can start devising drugs and cures for common medical problems.

After yet another hour of digging, I finally find it, the study I was thinking of.

The study describes some previously unknown mechanisms of cellular fatigue, conditions in which the mitochondria don’t produce the required energy. The summary of the study briefly speculates that these problems could cause all sorts of immunological problems.

That’s it!

Mia’s intense allergic reactions show that her immune system isn’t functioning. It’s got to be her mitochondria, her cells not producing enough energy for her body to cope with the demands of minor “foreign” substances like common dirt, pollen, perfumes, just about anything really.

Another couple hours go by, and finally… I find it.

The solution.

I know it is. There’s no way it can’t be.

And it’s something so simple I can barely believe it.

My cock starts to stiffen, just thinking about the possibility of Mia leaving that room. I imagine what she’ll wear… something like a halter top that shows her cleavage… thin spaghetti straps that show her gorgeous shoulders and plenty of her back…

I can be the one to show her the world.

But what about her dad? He’s an old friend. He’s not going to like the idea of me dating her daughter, is he?

I know I can have her. I just know it.

I lost track of the time hours ago. But it’s probably early morning by this point. I’ve been up all night looking for a cure for this sexpot beauty.

The phone rings. It’s John, Mia’s dad.

“Mia’s been rushed to the emergency room,” says John, breathless.

My heart starts to pound.

“What happened?”

“Some contamination. We don’t know. We found her in her room passed out. They’re worried she’s going to go into a coma…”

Chapter 6

Mia

I wake up in a hospital bed. My whole body feels stiff and painful, like I’ve been run over by a truck but don’t remember it.

I don’t have any memory of how I wound up here, but it’s not hard to put the pieces together. I must have had another allergy attack. Although this must have been a worse one than usual, because I can’t remember my body feeling this bad.

Plastic sheeting surrounds my bed, creating my own hypoallergenic bubble within the hospital. A normal hospital, with all its sanitary precautions, isn’t enough to keep me safe. No, I’m so weird and my body is so deranged that I need a special place just for myself, or else I’ll pass out again, who knows how many times and for how long.

The curtains start to move, rippling back and forth.

God, am I starting to hallucinate? I don’t need to that to my list of symptoms, do I?

Suddenly, a face appears, and I realize that I’m just exhausted—I’m not hallucinating. There’s an actual person there.

It takes me a couple seconds to recognize who it is.

It’s Liam.

God, that’s the last person I want to see here. I really don’t want Liam to see me in this state. Who knows what my hair looks like, and my skin is probably all blotchy and inflamed from whatever allergy attack I had.

“How are you feeling?” says Liam through his mask. He’s decked out in a surgical looking hospital suit.

“Why are you here?” I say.

“Your dad called me. I must have accidentally introduced some foreign allergenic agent to your room.”

I shrug my shoulders. “It’s not your fault,” I say. “You took all the precautions.”

I briefly wonder how I sound when speaking. It seems to take my mind forever to come up with the proper words.

The one thing that my mind is capable of doing, apparently, is getting excited. Despite the horrible pain I’ve feeling, my body is responding to Liam’s presence, to his huge muscles that can’t be concealed no matter how much ridiculous germ-shielding clothing he wears.

“Listen,” says Liam. “I’m not really supposed to be here.”

“You’re not?”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t my specialty,” he says. “And I’m not supposed to be treating people with your condition. I’m a brain surgeon, not an immunologist. I could get in a lot of trouble, but… I think I found it.”

“You found it?” I say, confused.

“Yeah, I found the cure for your problem. Just like I told you.”

My heart starts to beat quickly in excitement, but somehow this excitement just causes me more pain.

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” I manage to say, vaguely realizing that it’s out of the context of the conversation.

“You’ll feel better soon,” says Liam.

He pulls something out of his pocket, something that doesn’t look like it’s been sterilized.

“What’s that?”

“Fish medicine,” says Liam. I have the feeling he’s grinning at me from behind his mask. I can see it turning up, molding to his face.

“Fish medicine?” I say, suddenly getting worried.

Is Liam just crazy? He’s brought me fish medicine? Fish medicine that is probably in a dirty bottle that’s going to make me sick again.

“Has that been sanitized?” I ask, my voice quavering with fear. “The bottle, I mean?”

“No,” says Liam. And now he does the unthinkable, pulling his mask down.

I take a gasp in surprise… surprise at how hot he is in person, with his actual face showing… and surprise that he would dare to do that, when it’s certainly going to make me sick.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Here,” says Liam, starting to unscrew the bottle of fish medicine. He won’t stop grinning. “This is going to make you better. Trust me. It’s going to make you better instantly. It’s going to help your cells work. They’re going to make energy again, and you won’t get these crazy allergy attacks all the time.”

“Fish medicine?” I say. “How is that even possible?”

“It’s called methylene blue, and it’s used for many types of cellular diseases. It just happens to be useful for fish, and this was the easiest way to get it.”

I’m starting to feel my chest tightening, and my breathing is starting to go ragged. I know these symptoms like the back of my hand. My skin is getting itchy… the allergy attack is coming at any moment. Liam’s not wearing his mask. Who knows what kind of contamination he could have brought into the hospital room.

“I’m having an… attack…” I manage to say. “Get someone…”

“I’m a doctor,” says Liam, ceaselessly grinning at me. “Trust me, take this. Just a single drop will do.”

He holds out a dropper that he’s stuck into the fish medicine bottle. The dropper holds a deep blue liquid.

“That looks like dish cleaner,” I would like to say, but my throat is starting to swell up, making speaking impossible.

“It’s just blue in color,” says Liam. “There’s nothing to fear about it. It’s completely harmless. Here, look.” He takes the dropper and drops a couple drops onto his tongue, which stains a deep blue… he still looks sexy.

He holds the dropper towards my mouth and I cringe backwards.

Knowing that the dropper has been near his mouth makes me… shudder in fear that it’s going to instantly send me into another attack.

“You’re having another attack,” says Liam. “If you want, I can call the nurse and they’ll administer another round of epinephrine and you’ll deal with all the consequences of that, the swelling… everything. And then you’ll head back to your room to do the whole process over again. Or you can take this funny looking blue liquid, just a drop, and it’ll all be over. I promise.”

I nod my head.

“You want the methylene blue?”

I nod my head again.

I mean, fuck it, right? It’ll probably work… maybe.

The liquid hits my tongue that I hold out for Liam.

He gazes right into my eyes as he drops the liquid onto my tongue and I gaze right back into his.

It tastes bitter, a strange chemical like taste like no medicine I’ve ever tried before.

A couple seconds later, and something’s happening.

I don’t know how to describe it, but something feels different in my body.

“How are you feeling?” says Liam.

“Fine,” I say, before gasping in surprise, realizing that my throat has stopped swelling up, and I’m now able to speak.

Liam grins at me, his face close to mine. He takes my wrist and starts taking my pulse. “I’ve never liked to rely on those machines,” he says. “Better to get the real feel of the patient.”

“I can’t believe it!” I say, getting excited. “That worked! Do you think it’ll keep working?”

“This treats the cellular problem,” says Liam. “You’re fine now. You just need to take one drop a day or so and you’ll be fine the rest of your life.”

“I can’t believe it!” I say again.

There’s a knock at the door.

“That’ll be the nurses,” says Liam. “I’m sure they’ll be just as shocked as you are.”

“Why aren’t they coming in?”

“Oh,” says Liam, smirking. “I needed to give us some extra time in here so I locked the door. I had a feeling that you’d need some convincing. After all, it does seem a little strange, doesn’t it?”

There’s a banging at the door. Loud knocking. It sounds like a couple people are starting to knock.

“They’re probably worried about me,” I say. My voice is starting to sound a little faint and far away. After all, the whole course of the rest of my life has just changed before my eyes… I can go to college. I can walk in the park. I can go ice skating. Most importantly, I can leave that fucking room.

“I never want to go back to that room,” I say emphatically.

Liam laughs. “That’s understandable,” he says. “Here, make sure to take this bottle with you.”

He hands me the small bottle of fish medicine. “You sure it’s safe?” I say.

“I read the lab analysis,” says Liam. “No heavy metals, no impurities. Fish are very sensitive creatures, after all, and you can’t be giving them anything bad or they’ll die right off. It’s bad for business.”

His mouth is close to mine. I can feel his breath on me, and smell it. It’s the first time I’ve really smelled something that wasn’t my stale bedroom in so long. He smells wonderful, incredibly manly, incredibly sexy.

Before I know what’s happening, his mouth is against mine, kissing me. His mouth crashes onto mine.

And I kiss him back.

My whole body feels awake like it’s never felt before. Not only am I not burdened by the horrible feeling that I’ll never leave my room alive, but… well, my body is screaming at me, “Now you’ve got your chance, you’re out of that hell. Time to activate those ovaries and pump out babies! Time to collect all the hottest sperm you can!”

It’s kind of gross to think about it that way. But I don’t care right now. I’m so turned on right now, with Liam’s muscles pushing against me, with his mouth against mine. Our tongues swirl together. My nipples are hard, and I’m ready. I’m ready to lose my virginity. Right here and right now. I couldn’t care less that there’s a horde of nurses making a huge racket by banging on the door, or that I’m in a hospital bed, or that Liam’s older than I am, or that I really don’t know him well at all.

“What the hell’s going on in here?”

It’s my dad’s voice!

I open my eyes and Liam pulls away from me. I catch the grin in his eyes, but he puts on a serious face for my dad.

I’ve never been more horrified in my entire life. I’ve never been walked in on doing anything, well except if you count that one time last year when my mother walked in on me right after I had finished… pleasuring myself. But I’ve never been caught messing around with a guy. And by my dad! I could just curl up and die.

My dad’s dressed in the ridiculous plastic, with the full face mask on.

A couple nurses stand behind him, wearing the same get up, their arms crossed angrily in front of their ample bosoms.

“You’re not wearing your mask!” shouts my dad at Liam. “Do you want to kill her? What the hell are you doing here?”

Liam doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t look in the least bit fazed by my dad’s tirade.

“Just paying a visit,” he says simply.

“And you’re… kissing her! You could kill her like that. You’re a fucking brain surgeon, you think you’d know what that could do to her!”

“Dad,” I say, trying to interrupt. “I’m fine… Liam…”

Liam shoots me a look that for some reason I know for certain means, “I could get in trouble for giving you the blue liquid. Don’t tell them.”

“I’m going to get going,” says Liam. He gets up calmly and walks towards the door, pulling off the plastic wrap as he does so, revealing that he’s wearing nothing more than a tight black t-shirt that shows off his gorgeous torso and his bulging biceps.

“Don’t ever come near my daughter again,” says my dad, visibly intensely angry even behind his mask.

“I’ll call you,” says the defiant Liam as he walks through the doorway.

Liam just changed my life forever. It’ll never be the same again.

Chapter 7

Liam

I walk through the hospital with the taste of her lips on mine. My cock is half hard, but it was fully erect when we were kissing. This isn’t one of those kisses that you just forget. No, this is going to linger with me until I finally have her.

It’s just a matter of time before she comes running to my bed, begging for my cock.

“Dr. Horton!” says someone, coming up behind me and tugging on my shirt. I’ve already peeled the ridiculous plastic off my body, leaving it on the floor outside of Mia’s room.

“What?” I continue to walk without pausing.

“Dr. Horton,” says the shrill female voice. Whoever it is, she continues to tug on my shirt. “Administration needs to see you immediately!”

I stop, turning to look at her. She’s a young mousey looking nurse. Not too bad in the tits department, though. I’d give her a lay, let her have a chance at my cock… if it wasn’t for Mia. I have a feeling no one’s going to be able to scratch this itch until I finally sink my cock into Mia’s tight little pussy. No one’s going to do but her.

“Dr. Horton!” says the woman. “Are you listening to me?”

“No,” I say.

She looks completely stunned.

“Oh, sorry,” I say, sarcastically. “Were you telling me that administration needs to see me?”

She nods shyly.

“I’ll see them when I’m good and ready,” I say.

“But Dr. Horton!”

I sigh loudly.

“Liam!” shouts a male figure coming rapidly down the hallway. He’s walking stiffly, with his arms moving at his sides like he’s a robot. I’d recognize that walk anywhere. It’s Johnson.

“There is he,” says the nurse, in a low voice, without looking at me. She rushes past me, staring at the ground.

“There you are,” says Johnson, out of breath as he comes up to me. In one hand, he’s clutching his cell phone. In the other, he’s got a stack of papers, and it looks like he’s lost some, since they’re all ruffled and out of order.

“What’s up, Johnson?” I say.

“We’ve just received another complaint,” he says, still completely breathless.

“Great,” I say. “Just add it to the list. Bill me later, or whatever you do. I’ve got to get going.”

“But this is from… let me get this straight. Did you just administer an experimental drug to a highly allergic patient who had just come out of a coma?”

Great, so Mia’s dad found the bottle and complained to the staff. That’s just what I need, more complications. So much for him being an old friend, but that’s something I’ve learned over the years—people can turn on you when the situation is right and it’s to their advantage. Well, that and he’s just trying to protect his one daughter who has a life threatening health problem. I get that. I can understand that. But what I gave her worked and it’s going to continue to work. I know I’m right.

“Yes,” I say, staring Johnson right in the eyes.

“But…” he sputters. “You can’t do that… You’re a… You just can’t go around…”

“Listen,” I say. “If it doesn’t work, tell them they can sue me and I’ll admit to everything.”

“That’s not a very good legal position.”

“I don’t give a shit about my legal position,” I say.

I turn and walk away, leaving Johnson still sputtering and clutching his messy stack of papers.

Fishing in my pocket for my cell phone, I walk swiftly towards the elevator that will take me to my department.

I dial John’s number.

He picks up on the first ring.

“How dare you!” he says, sputtering his words just like Johnson.

“I’m going to cut you off right there, John,” I say. “I’m headed into surgery and I don’t have time for this bullshit. So listen. And listen carefully. I’m right about the methylene blue. Do the research yourself. It stopped her attacks, and you’ll notice over the next week that Mia doesn’t have any other attacks. She’ll be able to leave her room now.”

“But… you…” His words are nothing but anger and confusion. He might know I’m right.

“Sue me if I’m wrong,” I say. “Give it a week and see. You’re an old friend, John, and I’ll forgive this little stunt of yours, reporting me to that asshole Johnson. I know you’re just concerned about your daughter.”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line.

That might have calmed him down a little. But what I’m about to say next is sure to make him angry again, but fuck all if that’s going to stop me.

“And another thing,” I say. “I’m going to be asking your daughter out.”

I can hear the anger coming from him, but he’s not speaking. He’s just making vague guttural noises.

“I know that’s not what you wanted to hear,” I say. “But she’s been stuck in that room alone for a year. She deserves to get out and see the world.”

I almost say experience things, but that might be pushing it just a little too far, since the obvious implication is that she’s going to be experiencing my cock.

“You can’t!” is all he manages to say among all of his sputtering.

“I absolutely can ask her out,” I say. “And I have a hunch she’s going to accept. But the point is she’s an adult, and she can make her own choices. I’ve got to get to surgery.”

I hang up the phone.

Sometimes, friends need you to show them what’s what.

“Is the patient prepped?” I ask the nurse in the hallway.

She does a double take, seeing me in a t-shirt and jeans. “Not yet, Dr. Horton.”

“Get on it,” I say. “I’ll be ready in five.”

I pull off my t-shirt, and grab my phone. One last phone call before heading into surgery.

“Mia?” I say, as she picks up.

“Hi,” she says, giggling a little nervously. “Oh, I’m sorry that…”

“I know what you’re about to say,” I say. “I don’t have much time. I’ve already talked to your dad and everything. Don’t worry about the treatment. You’re going to be fine… And you’ll come out with me on Friday, right?”

“Sure,” she says eagerly. Then there’s a pause. “Oh,” she adds, sounding suddenly uncertain. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to. They’re really worried I’ll have a relapse…”

Chapter 8

Mia

My dad’s given me a stern talking to, as a doctor, of course, rather than a parent, telling me that the results I’ve seen so far may not be the ones that I will see in the future.

Whatever.

I trust Liam with this.

I feel a thousand times better than ever, and it’s not just being able to go outside. I guess I didn’t realize just how tired and run down I was all the time, because that had become my normal reality. There wasn’t anything else to compare it to.

But now my body feels light. I have energy, and most of all nothing makes me sick, nothing makes me pass out.

Getting out of my room, out of the house, is just insane. There’s really no way to describe it. Unless you’ve spent a full year locked away in a single room, there’s just no way you’ll ever understand the experience.

I was so excited to get out today that I woke up at the crack of dawn and left the house without even eating breakfast. Even though I’ve been eating an incredibly bland and hypoallergenic diet for a year, food is the last thing on my mind. I just need to get out, to explore, to live life.

My parents were still asleep when I left.

One thing I know for sure: I need to get my own place, or move in with some roommates. I’m too old to be living with my parents, and the thought of staying in my childhood room any longer makes me feel physically sick to my stomach.

The sun is shining. The sky is completely cloudless. The air smells sweet. It’s like I’ve been given a new chance on life, and second chance to get out, to live.

Oh yeah, and I have a date with Liam on Friday. That’s only two days away.

I know it’s early, but I can’t wait any longer, and I grab my phone and call Shelly.

“Huh?” she says, her voice full of sleep. I can just imagine her in bed with her hair all tousled, maybe a guy next to her. Pretty soon, I’ll be the one waking up with a guy next to me in bed… hopefully Liam.

“Want to meet for breakfast?” I say.

“Breakfast? Huh?”

“Yeah, there’s a diner down by your place.”

“A diner? What?”

“Yeah,” I say, laughing at her sleepy antics.

“Who’s that?” says a deep male voice in the background.

I laugh. “I knew it,” I say. “I knew there’d be a guy in your bed.”

“So what?” says Shelly, sounding a little annoyed and a little more awake.

“I’d like to invite the two of you to breakfast,” I say.

“In your room?”

“I’m outside,” I say. “I’m out! I’m cured. I’m a free woman.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“No, I’m serious. Come on, meet me at the diner.”

“Want to get breakfast?” says Shelly to her male companion, her voice only slightly muffled as she holds the phone away from her mouth to ask the question.

“Sure,” he says sleepily.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I say. “I’m going to take the train down.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” says Shelly. “Mia… out of her room. Who would have thought?”

We say goodbye, and I find myself staring again at the beautiful sky, with the rich blue.

I’m a free woman now. This is as good as I’ve ever felt, and as free.

And by the end of Friday, I’ll hopefully no longer be a virgin.

What do I mean by hopefully?

I mean I’m going to do everything in my womanly power to take Liam by the cock and have my way with him. I’ll do whatever it takes to lose this badge of embarrassment that’s been haunting me for so long.

Some women have good excuses for being virgins. I mean, in some situations, it’s a perfectly valid state to exist in. Some women have personal belief systems, and they don’t tend to mind being virgins so much.

Others have medical excuses. I know, I know. It seems like I would have a medical excuse as well. But in reality I was only in my room for a year. Some women fall into comas as teens and wake up ten years later and, boom, they’re adult virgins just like that. Me? I had my chances. Well, I could have had them.

I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. I’m tired of not being a real adult, and I’m tired of missing out on a whole sphere of reality and experience. It’s downright disturbing how much I’ve missed.

The train ride is just amazing.

I remember taking the train more than a year ago, before I got “locked” in my room and I was just complaining to Shelly the entire time about how boring it was.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The whole world that passes by the windows on the train has that magical sheen that it used to have for me as a kid. It took being in my room for a year to see the world like this. Even the boring paunchy ticket collector fascinates me, the way he walks, the way he grumbles to himself—it all appears beautiful, perfect, fascinating… exactly the way it should be.

The heart of the city where I’m meeting Shelly is even more fascinating, if that’s even possible. I watch with glee as the cars zip by, as the commuters bustle past me with their briefcases and their umbrellas. (Who needs an umbrella on a gorgeous day like today?)

There’s Shelly!

It’s strange to see her on the street after so much time. She looks different, more grown up, and her hair is longer than I remember it being. The last time I saw her in person was when she came to visit me at my parents’ house, and of course she was decked out in the ridiculous plastic wrap.

She looks like she’s going into shock when she first sees me. Her jaw nearly drops to the floor.

I can’t help it. I run towards her, and she runs towards me.

She’s about to give me a hug, but she stops.

“Can I?” she says. “You’re not going to pass out?”

I shake my head, unable to hide the huge smile on my face.

We hug, and it feels good to feel her against me.

…Not in the way it’s going to feel to have Liam pressed against me, his hard cock pushing into me.

“You’re out of your room! I can’t believe it. I thought it was some kind of joke, but I came down anyway.”

“It’s not a joke,” I say. “I’m cured… Where’s your guy friend?”

“Oh, he started following me here, and then he saw some girl he recognized from his class and he started chatting her up.”

“With you right there? What an asshole.”

“Yeah, and they were taking so long, and flirting so obviously that I just walked away without him.”

I laugh. “Serves him right,” I say. “What a pig.”

“You’re telling me. But he was great in bed.”

“Come on,” I say, not sure how to respond. “Let’s get something to eat. It’s been way too long since I had some real food and not that gruel they feed me.”

“You’ve been eating a lot of porridge?”

I laugh.

We enter the diner and sit down at a big booth opposite each other.

The waitress comes over to take our orders.

She’s a rail-thin woman with an interesting face. A year ago, I would have barely looked at her. But because I’ve been cooped up for so long, and everything is so interesting, I find myself just staring at her, studying her face.

“Mia!” says Shelly, snapping me out of it. “She asked you what you’re having.”

“Oh,” I say, vaguely, picking up the menu again. “OK, I’ll have the breakfast platter, the fruit platter, and the full English breakfast… and a cup of coffee, and a tall orange juice.”

The waitress just raises her eyebrow at me but she writes it all down.

Shelly laughs. “Hungry, eh?”

“I just want to try everything.”

“So tell me what the hell happened,” says Shelly, leaning across the table. “I don’t get it. You’re just suddenly all better?”

I tell her everything, including the date I have with Liam.

“Wow,” says Shelly, clearly amazed. “He’s like your knight in shining armor, you know? He just swoops in and a day later cures you! It’s incredible. And now he can take care of your other problem, if you know what I mean.”

I blush. “That’s the plan,” I say. “I can’t even tell you the things I want to do to him.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Shelly, giving me a wink. “You’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Just be careful,” says Shelly.

“What do you mean?”

She doesn’t respond. The waitress is back, carrying plate after plate of food.

By the end, I’ve got more than five full plates in front of me, with various juices and drinks spread around the plates.

“I hope that’s enough for you,” says the waitress, her voice cracking as she speaks. “Will there be anything else for you?”

“That’s it, thanks.”

“I mean,” says Shelly, taking a sip of her coffee, her eyes widening as I start digging into the food in front of me at a rapid pace. “Your first is… well, I mean it doesn’t always work out, right?”

“Oh,” I say, speaking with my mouth full of… the most delicious flavors I’ve ever tasted in my life. “I know that. Hey, this food is amazing, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know…” says Shelly, eyeing a forkful of her omelet suspiciously. I watch as she delicately pinches out a suspiciously thick hair from the bite.

“It’s great!” I say.

Shelly laughs. “It also could hurt, but you know that, right?”

“Of course,” I say, trying to brush it off like it’s no big deal. In reality, I’m more than a little scared. It’s a weird feeling to be scared and excited about something at the same time.

“I just can’t believe you’re out,” says Shelly. “So are you going to come back to school?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, my mouth full of bacon and fruit at the same time. “I mean, yeah, eventually. But I want to experience the world a little bit, you know?”

“You sure you’re fine?” says Shelly. “You’re sure this isn’t a temporary thing?”

“Liam explained it to me,” I say. “He’s a brain surgeon. He knows what he’s talking about.”

“Yeah, he’s a brain surgeon, but he’s not an immunologist. He doesn’t specialize in allergies.”

“That’s just because he’s smarter,” I say. “What, you want me to have to go back to my room for another year or what?” I’m a little angry that Shelly would suggest this.

“But… look, I just don’t want you to get disappointed if something happens. You know what they say, right? Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.”

“I thought you were my friend and would want the best for me?” I say.

Suddenly, I start coughing.

“Are you OK?” says Shelly, looking worried.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Just went down the wrong pipe. I’m not used to eating proper food.”

“You look a little red, though.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

The truth is that my face feels like it’s on fire, eerily similar to the feeling I would get before some of my worst allergy attacks.

I put my napkin and fork down and rush towards the bathroom, which fortunately is clearly marked.

Closing the door behind me and locking it, I rush to the mirror to see what I look like.

To my horror, my face is completely red, looking like some sort of rash.

Surprisingly, my first thought isn’t that I’m going to have to go back to my room. It’s that I won’t be able to make my date on Friday. After all, how can I go looking like this? I’ll never get Liam into bed with my face a giant red rash, will I?

Chapter 9

Liam

After the surgery, I have to leave the hospital through the fire escape entrance. Sure, the sound is deafening when I open the door, but it saves me the hassle of having to talk to Johnson another time.

The surgery was a success, and I even notified the family myself of the good news.

It was a long surgery. I’m not sure how many hours. But dangerous and complicated is how I like them. Most of the time.

I’m not feeling like heading back indoors.

For some reason, the thrill of finding the most nubile and busty of the nurses is fading away. I can’t seem to get up the enthusiasm to track them down in the hospital. This is the longest I’ve been in a long time without getting laid.

Mia has something to do with it. I’m not sure exactly what. But ever since I visited her that first day in her room, I can’t get her off my mind.

It’s not like I’m thinking about her every single second, but she’s always there in the background of my thoughts, even when I’m doing surgery.

My phone rings.

“Yeah?” I say.

“It’s me. It’s Mia.”

She sounds upset, even frantic.

“I was just thinking about you,” I say.

“You were?” It sounds like she’s trying to return my vaguely flirtatious comment, but it’s quite obvious that she’s simply too worried to do it properly. Her voice is still frantic, but she’s trying to control it.

“What’s going on, Mia?” I say. “Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, oh yeah, everything’s fine.”

“What’s going on, Mia?” I say. “You can tell me.”

There’s a long pause.

“Where are you, Mia? Do you need help?”

“I’m in the bathroom…”

“You’re in the bathroom?”

“I think I’m having another attack.”

Shit.

“What are your symptoms?” I say. “Did you eat something strange.”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you have?”

“Just about everything… I’m at a diner having breakfast.”

“What are your symptoms, Mia?”

“My face feels like it’s burning. It’s all… red.”

“Any of your other symptoms? Is your throat closing up? Can you still breathe?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“OK,” I say. “It might just be that your system still is going to have a little difficulty with a lot of different foreign substances. After all, you haven’t had a lot of those foods in a long time, and your body doesn’t know what to do with it all. Do you still have the little bottle that I gave you?”

“Yeah.” She sounds intensely nervous, only answering me in short little bursts.

“Do you have it with you?”

“Yeah.”

“OK, Mia. I think you might just need another drop of the blue liquid. It’ll help your cells produce enough energy to cope with the food you’ve eaten. It’s going to calm everything down. I’ll wait on the phone while you take it.”

There’s a long pause, and I can hear her rummaging around in her purse.

I almost chuckle to myself—she’s been stuck for a year in her room, and her purse is still full of all sorts of things.

“OK, I’ve got it. I’ve taken it.”

“Good,” I say. “Call me back if there’s a problem. I’m sure it’s going to be all right. I’ll call back in ten minutes to make sure you’re OK. In the meantime, go back to the table. If you do pass out, which is highly unlikely, you don’t want to do it alone in the bathroom where no one can find you.”

“OK, thanks,” she says, already sounding better.

I hang up.

I suddenly notice that my cock is raging hard. Damn, my body wants her just as much as my mind does.

Despite the potential seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t help but picturing what she looked like all alone in that bathroom. Did she have all her clothes on, or had she taken off her panties to use the toilet and forgotten to pull them up when she went to the mirror?

These are the sort of degenerate sexual thoughts men like me, with high sex drives, have to deal with on a constant and ceaseless basis. In some ways, it’s not fair. It’s like being sentenced to something… then again, I don’t mind it. My cock doesn’t mind it. Sooner or later, I’ll have her.

Let’s just hope it’s soon. I’m getting backed up.

I hop on my motorcycle, which I’ve got parked on the street today, so I don’t have to deal with the parking garage nonsense. Slinging on my helmet, I straddle the bike, my erection making the position a little uncomfortable at first. The engine roars to life as I kick down with my boot, and I’m off, down the street, heading towards a hardcore outdoor gym I go to once in a while, when I don’t feel like working out indoors.

The wind feels good on my face. I’ve got the visor up, and the curves of the road feel good as I lean into them. Not much in life feels better than riding a bike like this. Well, surgery, fucking… It’s going to feel great fucking Mia. I always have a feeling about these things, and I’m always right.

If I could just get her out of my head…

But it’s not going to happen until I sink my cock deep inside her and hear her moaning my name. The look on her face as she comes is going to be glorious, as beautiful as a fucking sunset.

I park the bike at the park. There’s no one here. Sometimes they come after work, a whole group of tough guys who looked at me funny when I first started coming here. But all they had to do was see me benching 300 pounds, and that was that. Soon they were coming up to me, asking me for tips. Then they found out I was a doctor, and they’d come up to me and ask me, “Hey doc, what do you think I should do for my training?”

“Eat right and work your ass off,” I’d always say.

It works, if they’re willing to stick to it. But it takes dedication to hit the iron bars on a frequent basis, and it takes dedication to eat right, stay off the booze, making sure you carb up and get your protein sources in a row for each day out of the week.

I do a quick warm up set on the bench press. The equipment here isn’t exactly what you’d call sophisticated. It’s just rusty steel, at least a decade old. But it fucking works. That’s what I like about this place. You can get just as good of a workout here as you can in one of those pretentious gyms. This is like one of those gyms but with all the bullshit stripped away completely, leaving just the bare essentials. It’s just me and iron. Just me and the weights. Just my hands on cold steel. I can either push the weight or I can’t. It’s a zero sum game, where the only thing that matters is determination.

I finish my set of twelve reps, 150 pounds on the bar, and then I call Mia back.

“It worked!” she says, as soon as she picks up.

“Good,” I say, slightly out of breath. “I knew it would, but just wanted to make sure. I can send you the link later so you can buy some more. And I might be able to get you some purer stuff through some connections I have with the hospital, but what you have now is fine.”

“I can’t believe it works…” says Mia. “It’s incredible. I have my whole life back… And it’s just some over the counter product… It’s insane. I always figured it would be some crazy kind of expensive treatment, and that was on my good days when I actually thought something would work.”

I look down to see my cock rock hard, sticking up in my pants, making a huge tent.

“Listen,” I say. “I’m glad it worked, too. I’ve been thinking about you. And I’m glad you’re out of that room because I wouldn’t be able to do what I want to do to you in that room, wearing all that crazy plastic wrap stuff.”

She laughs, somewhat nervously.

“That plastic was terrible, wasn’t it?”

“You’re supposed to ask me what I want to do to you,” I say, chuckling.

“Oh yeah, sorry, my… um… flirting skills are a little out of practice, being locked in my room for a year.”

“I know we said Friday,” I say. “But what about today? You want to come over to my place tonight?”

She pauses for a moment, but I know she’s going to say yes.

“Sure,” she says. “That’d be great. Should I bring anything?”

“Just bring yourself,” I say. “I’ll cook something for us.”

“Sounds great.”

“I’ll text you the address. Or do you need me to pick you up?”

“I’m not sure my dad would like that.”

“You’re an adult,” I say. “You can make your own choices. Do you have a way to get to my place?”

“Only the train.”

“That’s no good,” I say. “It’ll take you forever that way. I’ll pick you up at 8, OK?”

There’s a pause. “I guess that’s OK.”

“See you at 8,” I say.

Slipping the phone in my pocket, I head back to the bench press. This time it’s not a warm up. This time it’s for real.

I arch my back slightly with perfect technique and grip the cold, rusty steel. Bits of rust flake off and fall onto my body. That’s just part of the fun. I’ve got more weight on this time. I’m ready to go to my max, and Mia’s ready for me. She’s been locked in that room for a full year, dreaming about guys like me and what they’d do to her. She’s going to moan all night long. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that she’s a complete wild woman in bed already—I know her type. And after a full year without a single cock, she’s going to be simply dying for it.

Chapter 10

Mia

I’ve never felt so nervous for anything in my entire life. I didn’t feel this nervous when I had my first attack and woke up in the hospital hyperventilating with anxiety about what had happened.

The big question is: should I tell him I’m a virgin or not.

Shelly assured me that I should most definitely tell him.

“But what if he’s not interested in me after that?” I asked her at the diner, after I’d taken my extra drop of the bitter tasting blue liquid that made me completely better. My face cleared up almost immediately.

“Are you kidding? Guys love fucking virgins. It’s like a fantasy for them or something.”

“Really?”

“Have you been living under a rock or something?” she said.

“I’ve been in my room for a year. And I’m a virgin. Basically new to the world.” I laughed uncomfortably.

“Oh yeah,” said Shelly.

I’m all dressed up, wearing the one dress I have that still fits me. Somehow, over the last year, I’ve gotten bigger in my bust, my ass, and my hips. I’m surprised to see myself in the mirror, nearly spilling out of the dress in all the right places.

“Where are you going dressed like that?” says my dad, sitting in front of the television in the living room.

“I’m going out,” I say.

“On a date?” says my mom, sitting in a chair next to my dad. She has her hair up in curlers and is wearing a cream face mask that’s supposed to help with her skin, a mania that started years ago—there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her skin in any way, shape, or form.

I nod. “Maybe,” I say.

“Yes, or maybe?” says my dad.

“Look,” I say. “I need to get out. I’ve been in this house for a year. I thought you would both understand that.”

“We do, dear,” says my mom. “We’re just worried about you. What if you have another attack? What if something happens?”

“You’ve been in here a long time,” says my dad. “This world is a… tough place.”

For some reason, this makes me angry. I feel like they’re trying to control me. It’s not like I’m a kid. I’m an actual adult. So what if I’ve never had sex and I’ve been locked in my room for a year? That doesn’t make me any less of an adult…. Well, that’s what I tell myself.

“I’ve got to get going,” I say, opening the door.

Through the screen door, I can see Liam’s sports car pulling up to the curb.

I need to meet him at his car before he comes to the door. The last thing I want is some kind of confrontation between him and my dad.

“You’re not going to meet Liam, are you?”

Surprisingly, he doesn’t sound angry, like he was before.

“I am,” I say, speaking the words definitely. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Listen,” says my dad, his tone reasonable and calm, which somehow annoys me even more. “I just want you to be careful. I’ve known Liam for a long time, and he has a… reputation. He’s been with a lot of women, and he’s a bit older than you are.”

“Good,” I say. “That’ll mean he knows what he’s doing.”

The look on my dad’s face is priceless.

My mom actually gasps as I say this.

“See you later,” I say, pushing my way through the screen door.

Liam is waiting in the car for me and he reaches across to the passenger side to open the door for me from the inside.

“Hey,” I say.

“Your dad upset?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, not sure if it’s the truth or not.

“I got some stuff to cook us a curry,” says Liam, pointing to the small back seat of the sports car where there’s a bag of groceries.

For some reason, I feel nervous all of a sudden, sitting next to him in his car. He doesn’t look much older than me. He’s probably six years older or so, maybe more? I don’t know. He’s in great shape, either way. But he does seem much more mature. Next to him, I feel completely foolish, really.

“Looks like a lot of fresh vegetables,” I say, since I can’t think of what else to say.

“I figure you’d enjoy all the different flavors,” says Liam. “After eating that hypoallergenic gruel for so long.”

“Tell me about it,” I say.

On the rest of the drive through the dark night, the conversation becomes easier and easier, and by the time we pull up to his house, I’m acting and talking like I’m relaxed. The conversation flows easily. But inside, my heart is thumping. After all, I’m about to lose my virginity to Liam. There’s no question in my mind that this is what I want. I don’t just want it. I need it. And it’s clear from the way he looks at me, as if he’s devouring me, that he wants me just as much as I want him. I’m not used to guys looking at me like this, especially not guys like Liam.

Before getting gout of the car, Liam leans over and kisses me.

It’s a gentler kiss than our first one, but it’s still intense. I can feel his stubble prickling me, and I love it for some reason, even though I always thought it seemed gross. That was before I met Liam. I have a feeling a lot of things in my life are going to go that way—ways I felt and thought before I met Liam.

“You’re beautiful,” growls Liam.

I kiss him again, thrusting my body out of my seat towards him.

His strong hands move to my body, cupping my breasts. It feels perfect to have his hand there, as if it was meant to be there.

After a few moments, I pull away. I’m not going to lose my virginity in a car, after all.

“Let’s get dinner started, shall we?” I say, immediately cringing at the way I say it. To me, it sounds like the most awkward thing in the world to say, even though it’s not. But that’s how nervous I’m feeling. It’s strange feeling this combination of intense lust and intense anxiety at the same exact time.

“Sure,” says Liam, getting out of the car and leading me into his house.

“Wow,” I say. “Nice place.”

It’s a large house and everything looks perfectly placed. It’s full of expensive nice stuff, and there’s tons of space everywhere. It’s a huge change from the cramped and messy room I’ve been living in for so long.

“Do you want a drink first?” says Liam as we enter the kitchen, with its marble topped counters and its fancy industrial style stove and a refrigerator that looks like it could feed a family of ten.

“I’m not twenty-one yet,” I say, starting to giggle with nerves.

“Oh right,” says Liam, a grin appearing on his face.

He walks towards me slowly.

“What if we just skip dinner?” he says.

I am hungry, but my body isn’t concerned with my hunger now. It’s telling me something completely else—I need Liam. My pussy’s yearning for his cock to fill me up, even though I don’t yet even know what it’s going to feel like. Sure, I have a remote idea, but I have a feeling I’m going to be surprised.

Should I tell him? Or shouldn’t I tell him. That’s what’s running through my head, making me nervous at the same time that I’m incredibly horny.

The closer he gets to me, his huge muscular body approaching me slowly, the more the lust overtakes my anxiety.

Liam puts his strong hands on my side, pulling me close to him. All my thoughts fly out the window—who cares about telling him, right? It’s not like it matters that much. I’ll just go through with it and maybe he’ll never notice the difference. Or maybe he’ll just think I’m a little out of practice after spending so much time in my room.

Plus, I don’t want him to think I’m some sort of freak, having never had sex before. I know Shelly told me it can be like a fetish or something that excites a lot of guys, but I don’t know. He might just think I’m really weird or something.

Liam kisses me. His mouth feels hot on mine. My nipples are rock hard, and I’m wet.

“Why don’t we head up to the bedroom?” says Liam, grinning at me.

I like how there’s none of this pretending that we’re just going up to the bedroom for some other reason, like showing me his art collection. I’ve heard from Shelly that this is a common tactic among the college guys she dates—they invited her into their room to watch a movie or something on the internet, and the next thing she knows they’re putting the moves on her. Of course, that’s what she wanted all along, but she complains to me about it, and I can understand why. Even though I don’t have a lot of other experiences, it’s just refreshing that Liam simply invites me up to his room without pretext.

“OK,” I say.

Time seems to slow down and my heart seems to be thumping faster and harder than ever as Liam leads me by the hand up the staircase. I don’t take my eyes off his muscular ass and back as he leads the way.

“Wow,” I say, entering the room. “Fancy.”

Liam shrugs.

“The room looks a hell of a lot better with you in it,” he growls, his voice growing deeper.

I look down and see the erection in his pants, seeming to grow harder and bigger before my eyes.

Liam walks towards me again, and this time pulls me harder against him. I love the way his body feels against mine. I love the way his cock feels, hot and hard, against me.

Liam’s kissing my neck, gently at first, and now harder. His hands are on my breasts.

I’m wearing my hair down, and Liam pushes it gently back to reveal more of my neck. He moves my shirt aside, moving his mouth down to my breasts.

I moan slightly as his hand circles my nipple delicately, finally making contact with it, as he kisses me.

The next thing I know, he’s helping me pull my shirt off over my head, making sure to keep my hair out of the way.

“I have the feeling you’ve done this before,” I say, trying to make a joke. And I’m also suddenly changing my mind, thinking that maybe I should tell him after all. Why can’t I just make up my mind? It keeps switching back and forth.

“That’s for sure,” growls Liam, undoing my bra with a single motion with one hand behind my back. He undoes it faster than even I can.

My breasts are out and Liam attacks them gently with his mouth and his hands. He knows what he’s doing. It feels incredible, much better than when those guys in my past have groped at me. They always pushed too hard and in the wrong way. But Liam does it better than even I do. (Yeah, I cup my breast with my hand and massage my nipples when I masturbate, so what?)

“You’re beautiful,” growls Liam. “You have an incredible body.”

“Thanks,” I say, moaning suddenly as he takes my nipple in his mouth and sucks on it. My nipples are as hard as spikes, sticking straight out.

I can’t remember ever being this turned on before. And it has an interesting effect on me. My entire body is screaming at me: go for the cock. Cock. Liam’s cock. It’s all I can think about, his massive hard shaft. I want to feel it in my hand, and I want it in my mouth. I want to taste it and savor it.

“I want… your cock,” I say, hoping it doesn’t sound as awkward as I think it sounds, coming out of my mouth.

“I think we could arrange that,” says Liam, chuckling.

He starts undoing his belt buckle, and I hear it clinking and falling heavily away from his pants.

Liam guides me gently down onto my knees. He remains standing, and his hands run through my hair, caressing my head.

I reach into his pants. My face is right against his crotch. I can smell him, all of him, his musky, manly scent filling my nostrils and pushing my lust completely over the edge.

My hand grips his cock in his pants, and I take it out. Liam helps by lowering his pants, pulling his cock back through his fly and pulling his boxers down.

His cock almost pokes me in the face. It’s monstrous. I honestly didn’t know it would be this big. It’s almost scary, but it’s far sexier. It’s harder than I thought it would be, as if it were made out of pure steel. The base is thick and the head is swollen beyond belief.

“That’s right,” growls Liam. “You’re going to suck my big cock, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you want to do?”

I nod my head shyly, staring down the barrel of his huge shaft.

I bend my head down towards it and I kiss the head gently. The truth is, I have no idea what I’m doing. But I have seen porn, like probably everyone else on the planet, and I’ve even studied it, realizing that there might come a day and time when I need to know how to do certain things, like give a blowjob.

I’m feeling a mixture of lust and curiosity. How’s this cock going to taste?

The answer greets me a moment later as I sink my lips down onto his cock, tightening them as the cock head enters my mouth.

It’s… exactly as I would have expected it to taste… fucking perfect.

I start bobbing my head, moving my lips down the shaft and then back up. I try to keep my tongue pressed against the base of his cock, and my lips tight. By the sound of things, I’m doing a good job. Liam is grunting and holding my head.

Liam starts thrusting his hips, surprising me, pushing his cock in and out of my mouth. I love the feeling of my mouth being fucked… It’s just fucking hot, and I reach down and slip a hand inside my one pair of sexy panties. I slip a finger inside myself, and let the heel of my hand dig into my clit. If I could moan with Liam’s gigantic cock in my mouth, I would.

Suddenly, it’s over.

“That’s enough,” growls Liam. “I don’t want to come just yet.”

I pull my head off his cock, the saliva dripping a little, forming a chain between my mouth and his cock. And it’s not gross. It’s hot.

“Your turn,” growls Liam, grabbing me by the waist and picking me up completely, and now laying me on my back on his comfy bed.

“Nice mattress,” I say.

Liam doesn’t answer.

He kisses me at my navel, and tugs at my waist line, pulling my panties down along with the rest of my clothes, down past my knees, and I help him kick everything off my ankles.

I’m completely naked, on my back, my nipples hard… and in Liam’s bed no less.

The reality of the situation suddenly hits me: I’m about to do it. I’m about to lose my virginity.

Liam’s running his tongue along my inner thighs, and getting closer and closer to my pussy, closer and closer to my hot wetness, the place where I long for him to touch.

I’ve never desired something so much in my life.

But suddenly the fear strikes me. It must be coming from this realization that it’s about to happen.

And I’m not ready.

“Sorry,” I say, moving my legs suddenly. My knee collides with Liam’s skull, making a thunking sound.

He sits up, looking a little confused, but laughing to himself.

“What is it?” he says. “Everything OK?”

“I just…”

I pull my legs towards me, and tuck them under my body, and I lean forward, crossing my arms in front of my naked breasts, as if I’m trying to cover as much of my body as I can.

“What’s wrong, Mia?” says Liam, his voice deep and sexy, yet full of concern. He’s looking me right in the eyes and I can see that he sees that something is wrong.

“It’s just that… I’ve never done this before.”

“You’ve never done what before? Had a guy go down on you?”

I shake my head.

“Well, we don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.”

I shake my head again, and open my mouth, trying to speak, but it takes the words what feels like forever to actually come out of my mouth, to be formed in my throat.

“I’ve never had sex before,” I say, my voice low and full of the pain of embarrassment. “I’m a virgin.”

Liam pauses for a moment.

“That’s OK,” he says. “Everyone has to start sometime. You’ve been in that room for quite a while, eh? I guess it’s understandable…”

“I just don’t think I can right now,” I say. “Trust me, I really want to. I really do, but it’s just so… intense. I mean, I’m just getting back out into the world. I’m sorry, I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“That’s OK,” says Liam. “Why don’t we go downstairs and I’ll cook us some of that curry. I think you’re going to like it. We can talk more about this later if you like.”

“Damnit,” I say, suddenly getting angry and I’m not even sure why. I guess it’s probably that I’m frustrated with myself but I’m not admitting that to myself right now. “Why can’t you get angry about it?” I say, my voice rising. “I thought you wanted me.”

Liam pauses for a moment, apparently considering his words carefully.

“I do want you, Mia. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and I mean that.”

“Hmmph,” I say. “You just want to fuck me, that’s why you’re saying that.”

Liam laughs.

“Now I’m just a trophy for you,” I say. “A virgin trophy, isn’t that right?”

Liam shakes his head. “No, Mia,” he says, his voice seriousness. “It’s not like that. I didn’t even know you were a virgin, remember?”

He has a good point, but I’m angry, even though I’m not sure why, and I’m not going to admit that to him now.

“Oh yeah,” I say, realizing I sound really stupid.

I suddenly feel horribly embarrassed. All the desire leaves my body, and the situation suddenly seems horribly unsexy in that I no longer feel sexy. I feel completely ridiculous, sitting here naked on his bed, covering myself as best as I can.

“Why don’t we go get something to eat downstairs?” says Liam kindly, with a smile on his face.

“I think I should go,” I say. “I don’t feel well…”

“You’re having another attack?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say.

I feel too embarrassed to even stay here with Liam.

“Well,” says Liam. “That’s fine. If you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. I’ll give you a ride back.”

But the thought of sitting in the car with Liam all the way back to my parents’ house is just… too terrible to imagine. I feel too silly, like a non-adult who’s gotten into something that’s way over my head. The problem is it’s just something normal, something that adults do all the time, but apparently I can’t even handle something normal like sex.

I get up, getting dressed quickly, while trying to cover my body.

“I’ll call you a cab then,” says Liam.

I shake my head.

I’ve become a mute due to embarrassment or something.

How silly is that?

Before I even know what’s happening, I’m rushing downstairs, and I’m out the door, into the night that’s become somehow much cooler, even chilly.

Chapter 11

Liam

My cock doesn’t drop even the slightest bit as I watch her sexy ass swishing out the door.

So she’s a virgin… things just got a hell of a lot more interesting.

She’ll be back. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind that she’ll be back. She got a taste of my rock hard cock, and I know she liked it.

Sure, she got a little freaked out about actually going through the whole thing. Interestingly, she got freaked out about receiving pleasure. Probably it’s some kind of complex, as if she doesn’t deserve to feel good herself. Unfortunately, a lot of women have something like that.

Sex in our culture can be so one sided. The message a lot of women get is that they’re supposed to please men, and sure that’s all well and good, especially from my perspective. But they should also know that they need to feel good too. Sex isn’t just for men.

I look out my bedroom window and see her getting into a passing taxi. Good, at least she’s going to get home safe, and she’ll probably call me tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have this massive, aching erection to deal with. Normally I can exercise it away if I really need to, but not when I’ve been this close to sinking it into some sweet, tight pussy.

Now normally, getting pussy isn’t a problem. I’d just scroll through my phone and find one of the many willing women, and call whichever one strikes my fancy that night.

But ever since meeting Mia, I just can’t. It’s not like we’re going out. It’s not some loyalty thing. At least I don’t think it is. But I just don’t want anyone else. The thought of sinking my cock into some nurse’s pussy just isn’t doing it for me.

Instead, I sink back onto the bed, and grip my hard cock in my hand.

I close my eyes and arch my back as my fist travels up and down my cock, and I think of Mia and her breasts and the way it felt when her mouth was wrapped around my cock.

I imagine that she gets on top of me and sinks her pussy down onto me and my cock and it feels so fucking good, so fucking tight. She cries out a little bit with the pain, but after a moment it’s gone and she’s moaning in pleasure. My fat cock fills her completely and she braces her hands on my hard pecs and rides me insanely. She can’t get enough, and soon we’re both coming together.

My fist is a blur on my cock as I tense up the muscles in my legs and I come, shooting my load high and far onto my chest.

Damn, a fucking sticky mess awaits me when I open my eyes.

I head to the shower and let the steam pile up around me, keeping the window open a crack, because I like to feel a bit of a chill when I step out of the shower.

I hit the sack early, falling asleep to uneasy dreams that I can’t quite remember when I wake up.

In the morning, I check my phone, and of course there’s a message from Mia. “I’m sorry about last night,” she writes. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I write. “It wasn’t a problem. Maybe we could meet later this week? We still have that date on Friday, remember?”

“Sounds good,” writes Mia.

I smile to myself as I put my phone down as I’m getting ready for work. Friday. She’s in. That means she’s in for the cock. It’s only a matter of time before I get to test her sweet virgin pussy.

The ride to work is uneventful. I take the Porsche instead of the Triumph today, for the only reason being that I just feel like it.

“Administration wants to see you,” says someone. I don’t even notice who it is.

This has become the constant refrain to my life here in the hospital. Administration always wants to see me. Apparently, to them, I’m always causing trouble.

To me, I’m doing exactly what it is I need to be doing. I’m saving lives, performing life saving, complicated surgeries that not many others can perform. If it ends up costing the hospital a little more money, or if I violated a couple of their precious procedures in the process, then I’m just going to keep doing what it is I do best, and that’s making sick people better.

I head off to Johnson’s office, not bothering to knock. I just open the door and walk in.

“What is it this time, Johnson?” I say. “Let’s just get this thing…” I’m about to say “over with,” but I suddenly notice that it’s not just Johnson that’s here, but two others, a well-dressed man and an elegant looking woman.

The woman is seated behind Johnson’s desk, and Johnson and the man are standing near her, looking grim and serious.

I don’t like the look of this.

“What’s the deal? You finally decided Johnson doesn’t deserve his own office? Hey, I can understand that.”

“This isn’t a time for joking, Dr. Horton,” says the woman. “I’m Ms. Besley, from the oversight committee.”

“Ah,” I say. “Now it makes sense. What? Johnson’s been giving you a hard time, and you needed to bring in the big guns to keep him in line?”

Johnson glares at me. Whatever, I can take glares and nasty looks all day.

I sit down in the chair in front of Ms. Besley, not waiting to be offered a seat.

She stares at me with daggers in her eyes. Her posture is serious and business like, not to mention annoying.

“It has come to our attention, Dr. Horton, that you have been intentionally violating hospital procedure for years.”

“Only when I can,” I say.

“This isn’t the time for joking. I thought we had already established that.”

“Fine,” I say, bringing out my serious tone. “Look, I’m a good surgeon, and you all know that. I’m not going to say I’m the absolute best, although there have been those who claimed that, and in my more arrogant times, I’ve said the same thing. But the point is that I’m good. I help the patients in a way that others can’t. And if I have to break a few rules to do that, then my view is that the overall outcome is worth it.”

Ms. Besley just stares me down. She doesn’t speak. There’s an uncomfortable silence in the room as Johnson shifts his weight. The other man stands perfectly still. For a second, I wonder if he’s alive, but then I hear him slightly sigh, letting out his breath slowly and torturously, as if he’s been trying to hold it in the whole time.

“We are not here to dispute your talents in the operating room,” says Ms. Besley. “But you have shown with your work history that you seem to have committed to constantly violating hospital policy, which I might add is not arbitrary in the least bit.”

I just smile at her, a forced smile, sure, but a smile nonetheless.

I nod at her. “That may be true,” I say.

She glares at me again.

“Dr. Horton is a great surgeon,” says Johnson, suddenly speaking up. “He’s done what others can’t.”

Wow, I can’t believe it. Is Johnson, my constant nemesis, sticking up for me?

“We’re not here to hear your opinions, Mr. Johnson,” says Ms. Besley, shooting him a glare almost as bad as the one she’s been giving me.

“Sorry,” says Johnson, shuffling his weight again.

I almost feel sorry for the guy, despite all the shit he’s given me over the years. Here he is, in his own office, with someone else sitting behind his desk, someone who’s essentially just telling to shut up.

“It has come to my attention that recently you prescribed a completely untested drug to a young woman who wasn’t even your patient. As you are certainly aware, this goes beyond violating mere hospital policy…”

“I’m going to have to interrupt you right there,” I say. “Can you tell me which case you’re referring to?”

“You’re suggesting you’ve done this multiple times, enough times that you don’t know which single instance I’m referring to?”

“I’m not going to answer questions like that without a lawyer. Just level with me.”

“Fine, a Miss Mia Smith…”

“Ah,” I say, cutting her off. “Yeah, the daughter of an old friend…” I should say “ex-friend,” but that sounds weird. After all, I’m sure we’ll patch things up once he realizes what I’ve done for his daughter, that I’ve completely cured her.

“So what happened?”

I explain the situation, how Mia hadn’t been outside in a year. And I explain the research supporting my use of methylene blue in the case, and I explain that it’s not a prescription drug and that there’s no legal precedent that would prevent me from providing it to her as a mere suggestion.

Ms. Besley makes a sour face, puckering her lips unpleasantly at me. “It sounds to me like the girl has psychological problems and that you just further encouraged her problems with some untested and unproven substance.”

“This supposedly unproven substance is in the WHO book of necessary emergency medicines,” I say. “It has a number of proven uses, and it’s currently being investigated for Progeria, which has a terrible effect, as you know, on children.”

I get the sense she’s not a doctor herself, and doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But she can look it up later. After all, I’m sure she’s recording this conversation surreptitiously for evidence purposes, or so she can listen to it later and congratulate herself on how hard nosed she was.

“That may very well be,” she says. “But you’ve gone too far this time, Dr. Horton. We’ve had too many complaints.”

“Great,” I say. “What are you going to do? Suspend me?”

“Not yet, but…”

“What? One more false move and I’m toast, lost license and everything? I’ve been hearing that from Johnson for years.”

“No,” says Ms. Besley, shaking her head vigorously. “That isn’t the current situation. I’m going to recommend that the board investigate this further.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m going to recommend that your employment with the hospital be terminated and that your medical credentials be thoroughly investigated by a review committee.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

“Have you?”

The truth is, I haven’t. But I’m not worried. They’re going to fire me, their best surgeon? Who else is going to cut out all the brain tumors?

“I’m done,” I say. “I’ve had enough of this shit for today.”

“We’ll be speaking soon,” says Ms. Besley.

“Looking forward to it,” I say.

11.

Mia

“You did what?”

“I told the hospital about what he did to you.”

“Did to me? Are you kidding, Dad? He helped me. I can leave my room now. See? I’m in the kitchen right now. I’m not stuck up in that horrible room.”

“We don’t know how long the effects are going to last, or whether or not it’s safe.”

“That’s crazy. You asked Liam to come help me. And he researched it all. There aren’t any side effects. I thought you’d be happy for me, to have finally found something that worked. And what really doesn’t make any sense is that you wanted Liam to come help me. And then you report him?”

My dad shrugs and goes back to his coffee.

“Asshole,” I mutter under my breath.

“What was that?”

“I called you an asshole,” I say.

My dad pauses for a moment. “You’ve never spoken to me like that before.”

“Well maybe it’s time I start calling you on your bullshit,” I say.

“What’s going on in here?” says my mom, entering from the living room. “Are you two arguing again?”

“You already know what happened,” I say to her. “Dad reported Liam to the hospital. He’s in trouble now. They’re investigating him and everything.”

“It’s fine,” says my dad. “I just wanted to scare him a little. He’s been in worse situations before, trust me. He has a record a mile long.”

“Well maybe that won’t help him with this case,” I say. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe this is the final straw for him.”

My dad doesn’t say anything and my mom looks worried.

“I’ve had enough of this place,” I say. “I’m moving out as soon as I can. I’m too old to be living at home anyway.”

“But what will you do?” says my mom, sounding worried.

I shrug. “Get a job, go to college. Do what everyone else my age is doing. I just want to be normal.”

I Just want to have sex, is what I think to myself, but I’m not yet bold enough to say that to my parents. After all, I’m not crazy. But it’s my own stupidity, my own embarrassment, or whatever it is, that’s kept me from having sex. I have no excuses now. But tonight’s the night. Tonight’s the night that I’m going to finally let Liam have me. I’m completely determined to have his cock.

“Are you all right?” says my mother.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m going out.”

“Where to?”

I shrug.

I grab my purse and head out the door.

I’m wearing a short skirt today, letting my bare legs show. I have on a tight t-shirt, and the look is somewhat interesting. It’s vaguely… something. Who knows, maybe I’m inventing my own style. That wouldn’t be too bad, would it? Every style has to start somewhere, after all. Someone had to wear it first, and then it just evolved from there.

I spend the day just wandering around the city. It’s still strange to be out in the world, but the effect is starting to wear off. I guess I’m starting to experience something like reverse culture shock, even though I’m not sure what that really means. I found a book at a bookstore that talked about people coming back to the US from years living abroad. And they all had some trouble adjusting to the culture, even though it was their own. Maybe that’s what happening to me. I’m just having some trouble adjusting.

But then again, some people take a year off from college to do whatever. And they’re fine. Shouldn’t I be fine? Then again, they don’t stay locked up in their rooms thinking that they’re never going to be able to come outside again. And that’s what happened to me. Shit, I’m getting tired of myself, just thinking these same thoughts over and over again.

I’ve got my date tonight. I don’t even want to return home. I’m just going to take the bus over to Liam’s place even if it takes me an hour or more. I’ll walk if I have to. I’m not going to go through the possibility of a confrontation between him and my dad, and I don’t want to face my parents again either. I feel a little guilty about how I spoke to my dad, but on the other hand he really deserved it.

It’s kind of weird, because he and Liam are supposedly friends. But I guess they’re the type of friends that like to “give each other shit.” And my dad’s not going to let anyone, even a friend, no matter how long he’s known him, endanger the health of his daughter. So I get that. He’s just trying to protect me. He’s doing what any good dad would do. But he’s taken it too far. I’m fine. Can’t he see that? I’m better than I’ve ever been, health wise. I’ve been taking two drops a day and haven’t had a single attack since that day in the diner.

The day goes by quickly. I barely even notice what it is that I get up to the entire day. If I had to guess, I’d say I spent the majority of the time people watching. I wander through the parks in the city, admiring the trees and the grass, the simple things, and watching couples going by, hand in hand, talking happily, and sometimes arguing. I want that. I know I want that. I’ve been alone too long, and I can’t take it anymore. And more than that, I want to experience what it is that everyone else seems to like and love so much. Not just sex, but a real relationship. Could Liam be that for me? I sure hope so, although he doesn’t exactly seem like a relationship kind of guy. Then again, I can tell there’s something between us, something powerful that can’t be denied.

Liam calls me.

“I was just thinking about you,” I say.

“We still on for dinner? I thought we’d try a restaurant this time instead of my house.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “I’m already in Center City. Do you want to meet me somewhere?”

“There’s a fancy Italian place…”

“What about something simpler? I left the house early today, and I’m not exactly dressed for a fancy dinner.”

“What are you wearing?”

“A t-shirt and a skirt.”

“Sounds hot.”

“Listen,” I say. “I’m sorry about the other night… I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Liam. “I wish you had told me earlier, but it’s not a big deal. We can go slow, if you like.”

“I don’t want to go slow tonight,” I say.

Liam laughs. “Honestly, that’s what I was hoping to hear. OK, I’ll send you the address of the place soon. Meet me there in twenty minutes?”

“Sound good,” I say, saying goodbye and hanging up.

He sends me the directions to a Thai place a moment later and I smile reading his message. “I may be a decent cook, but I’m sure these guys do a better Thai curry anyway.”

I can’t wait for tonight. I’m still a little nervous. But for some reason, seeing that Liam didn’t totally freak out at the revelation that I was a virgin—this all makes me feel more comfortable somehow. I can’t really explain it. But I already know tonight is going to be a special night, one that I’m going to remember for a long, long time.

And hopefully I’ll be remembering it with Liam.

But is that just my own little fantasy? Does he just think of me as a hot little fling, another notch on the bedpost?

I don’t know. I don’t know how I could know.

“Excuse me,” says someone, walking right into me from behind.

“That’s OK,” I say, turning around to see who’s just run into me.

It’s a nurse, wearing her blue scrubs. She’s bending over, trying to pick up a couple shopping bags that she must have dropped when she ran into me.

“Here,” I say, bending down. “Let me help you with those. You’ve done a lot of shopping,” I say, trying to make a joke, as I hand her small bag after small bag.

“Just trying to deal with the stress of work,” she says, making an exaggerated grin.

“You work at the hospital?” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “Mercy H., actually.”

“Oh,” I say. “Maybe you know Liam Horton, then.”

She makes a face that I don’t know how to interpret.

I look at her more carefully. She’s a woman a few years older than me, maybe around 25. She’s very pretty, with long blonde hair, a big bust, and a shapely figure overall. The scrub pants hug her thighs tightly. I can imagine that the guys would be all over her.

“Yeah,” she says, after a pause. “I know him. We used to go out, if you could call it that.”

“Oh,” I say. “Actually, I’m meeting him tonight for dinner.”

We both stand up, and I hand her the last of her little bags. For the first time, I notice that she’s been shopping for fancy lingerie from a local boutique.

“Well,” she says. “Just be careful, that’s all I’ll say.”

“Be careful? What do you mean?”

“How well do you know Liam?”

I shake my head. “Not that well.” I don’t want to get into the whole story here, about how he’s my dad’s friend, and how he cured my weird immunological illness.

“I still work with him,” says the woman. “And we went out a couple times. It was the old pump and dump, just so you know. Then again, it was hot.”

A wistful, faraway look appears on her face for a moment, as if she’s remembering a time of great pleasure or happiness.

“The pump and dump?” I say.

She laughs. “Oh, right. You’re young enough not to know.”

That annoys me a little. Some might take it as a compliment, but after all I’m already thinking that I’m not a real adult, that I’m too young and most of all, too inexperienced.

“The pump and dump,” she says, “is something that sooner or later, all women on the market encounter. It’s when a guy uses you…” She lowers her voice so that no one around us will be able to hear. “Just to fuck, and then you never hear from him again.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling stupid. “But you still work with him. That must be awkward, right?”

“He just pretends nothing ever happened. He got his fuck. And then he moved on. As far as he’s concerned that’s all he needed from me.”

“Oh,” I say, a sinking feeling appearing inside me, making me feel like I’m drowning from the inside out, if that makes any sense.

“But he was good,” she says, that wistful look appearing on her face again. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s worth it. You decide. Just a warning. I’ve got to go.”

“OK,” I say, not knowing what to say. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says, starting to walk away, her blonde hair flopping in her utilitarian pony tail.

Chapter 12

Liam

She walks in wearing a skirt that hugs her hips just right. And I can see the side of her ass almost bulging out of the skirt. It gets my cock stiffening just at the sight of her. Her t-shirt is tight and shows her breasts, buoyant and firm, but plump and soft. Just fucking perfect. I can’t wait… I just can’t wait.

“Hey,” she says, coming over to my table.

I get up and hold my napkin in front of my crotch so that my erection won’t be apparent to the entire restaurant. It’s not like I care, but it makes things easier sometimes, just putting in a little extra effort like this.

I hug her, letting my hard cock push into her skirt. She gives me a shy grin.

“Want anything to drink?” I say, holding up my beer as if I’m clinking glasses with her.

“Just the water’s fine,” she says.

“What’s wrong?” I say, noticing that as her nervous smile falls away, there’s a look of something like discomfort on her face.

“It’s nothing,” she says.

“Come on,” I say. “We can talk about it. If you want to talk about what happened the other night, that’s fine with me. I don’t have a problem with it, you know, your situation… It’s perfectly normal.”

“Not that normal at my age.”

I shrug. “Everyone gets to stuff at their own time in their own way,” I say.

“It’s not that… it’s just that…”

I wait as she seems to be deciding what to say and how to say it.

“I met someone who knows you,” I say.

“Who?”

“I don’t know her name. She’s a nurse at your hospital. I guess she works with you.”

I laugh and Mia looks surprised that I’m laughing.

“Why are you laughing?”

“It’s just that I can guess where this is going. She warned you that I’m bad news or something like that?”

“Eh, sort of,” says Mia. “She said you’d pump and dump me.”

That makes me laugh even harder. “Sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t be laughing. But, hey, I’ve got nothing to apologize for. Sure, I’ve slept with a lot of the nurses at the hospital, but I’m open about it, and they all know that it’s just for a good time. I’m always upfront about that. I never made any promises that I couldn’t keep. And if they feel upset about it, that’s on their end.”

“Oh,” says Mia, looking down into her glass of water that she’s shifting around on the table, making the surface of the water ripple slightly.

“Look, Mia,” I say. “It’s too early to say where this is heading between you and me. But so far… well, all I know is that you’re different from all those nurses, from all the women I’ve dated or slept with.”

“You mean that?”

“Yeah, now I’m not saying we’re going to get married…”

Mia laughs.

She’s smiling now. I’ve managed to break the ice.

The truth is that I’m telling the truth. Just not the complete truth. I mean, I don’t want to upset her. Have I ever made promises I couldn’t keep? No, I never have. But at certain times perhaps I’ve let things be implied where they shouldn’t be, with the nurses. I don’t know which nurse Mia ran into, or how they got talking about me. In fact, there’s no way to know which nurse it was. There are simply too many of them, and I’ve fucked practically all of them.

“You feel any better now?” I say.

“Yeah,” says Mia, smiling at me.

“Great, let’s order.”

I motion for the waiter to come over.

“I’ll have the red curry,” says Mia.

“Excellent choice.”

“The same for me,” I say.

“Another beer, sir?”

“I’m good,” I say, eyeing my beer.

I’ve never been a big drinker. I’ll have two at the most, and usually just one on alternating days. I’m too into weight lifting and working to let drinking get in the way of either of those things. And I’ve known too many doctors who succumb to the siren’s call of drinking due to extreme stress in the hospital. Me? I have my own ways of dealing with stress. Getting laid, weights, motorcycles, a whole host of things that keep the stress at bay.

I haven’t had a steady girlfriend in a long, long time. The idea is strange to me. But Mia… I could see the two of us living together in my house, fucking all hours of the day and night… It sure would kill the stress, coming home to a woman like that, with a body like that. Fuck, I need to get into her pussy. I don’t even know if I can wait until after dinner. I would just take her into the bathroom, but she’s a virgin after all, and I’m not going to be the guy that takes her virginity in the bathroom of a Thai restaurant. That’s a little too crude, even for a guy like me. But damn if my cock isn’t telling me to just go ahead and do it.

The food arrives, and Mia and I fall into easy conversation, laughing quite a bit. Once she relaxes, she’s really funny, much funnier than any of the women I’ve slept with recently. And there’s just something about her, as if her body is giving off a sort of glow that reaches across the table to me and tugs me closer and closer to her.

“It’s really fun to talk to you,” says Mia. “I never would have thought a doctor could be so funny, before I met you that is.”

“I never thought a patient could be so funny,” I say.

The waiter takes the plates away.

“So what’s going on with you and the hospital?” says Mia. “I got into an argument about my dad reporting you.”

I shrug. “I can understand why he did it,” I say. “He’s just worried about his daughter.”

“Yeah, but he shouldn’t have done it. I told him you could get into serious trouble.”

“I’ve been in serious trouble with the administration since I started working there,” I say. “I can deal with a little heat.”

I don’t want to tell her that this time it’s actually a lot worse, that this time other people are involved, people much higher up the food chain than my former nemesis, Johnson.

“Hey,” I say. “This is getting me down. Let’s head back to my place, OK?”

“OK,” says Mia, her eyes as big as saucers, as if she’s drinking me all in.

“Let’s go,” I say, getting up from the table and helping to pull her chair back.

I throw some money down for the bill, take Mia’s hand, and walk with her through the restaurant. It feels like all eyes are on the two of us, and I can’t blame them. Mia’s a catch, and I look like I know it.

“It’s a little chilly,” says Mia, and sure enough, when I look down her nipples are rock hard in her shirt.

I chuckle to myself a little as I put my arm around her.

This is going to be incredible. My cock’s already growing stiff again.

We’re standing outside the restaurant, my arm around her, holding her tight against me, just admiring the city night.

“It looks pretty, doesn’t it?” says Mia.

I nod my head. “Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes the city really can be beautiful. It’s just that you’ve got to know where to look sometimes.”

Suddenly, there’s the sound of screeching tires.

“What’s that?” says Mia.

“Some nut job,” I say. “Driving too fast.”

Of course, I’ve been that nut job myself a few times, especially when I’m on my motorcycle.

A car pulls up right in front of us, screeching to a halt. The suspension moves as the car buckles from braking so hard.

It’s a minivan, and partially up on the curb.

Who the hell drives a minivan like that?

“Oh my God,” says Mia, suddenly seeming to cringe all over, and covering her hand with her face. “It’s my dad.”

Chapter 13

Mia

“Mia, get in the car!” shouts my dad, rolling down the passenger’s side window.

“Dad, what the hell are you doing here?” I whisper frantically and angrily, approaching the family minivan, hoping against hope that no one’s going to notice. I’ve always dreaded public spectacles.

“He’s not the guy for you,” says my dad, red in the face, and seeming to grow angrier by the second. “He’s a trouble maker.”

“I thought he was your friend.”

“He is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t protect my daughter from him.”

“Hey, John,” says Liam, walking up casually to the car.

“Liam,” says my dad, clearly angry. But he’s at least keeping his voice down. “I don’t want you seeing my daughter. You’ve already put her life in danger, and I know your reputation with women.”

Liam just grins at my dad.

“We’re old friends,” says Liam. “But listen to me. You’re daughter’s a grown woman. She’s able to leave the house now, and she couldn’t do that before. As far as I’m concerned, she should see whoever she wants. And that happens to be me.”

“A lack of respect,” mutters my dad, his fury not fading.

“It’s not a lack of respect to you,” says Liam. “In fact, what you’re doing is disrespectful.”

Liam doesn’t raise his voice in the slightest, but he speaks with calm conviction. He knows that he doesn’t have to raise his voice because he’s right, and not only does he know he’s right, but he wants my dad to know too.

“Go home, Dad,” I say. “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

My dad mutters to himself, puts the car in gear, and drives off. Fortunately, he doesn’t speed away or squeal the tires. He just drives off slowly and normally, but still very, very mad.

“Sorry about that,” I say, horribly embarrassed.

“It’s not your fault,” says Liam. “And he’s just worried about you.”

“But it’s clear I’m not going to have another attack.”

“I think he’s more worried about me,” he says.

“Should I be worried about you?” I say it half as a joke and half as a serious question.

“Maybe,” he says, playing it off like a joke. “Maybe you should.”

The sexual tension between us is back. I can feel it between us, practically sparking.

My body wants him, and I want him. He touches me again, gently, brushing my shoulder. He puts his arm around me again and leads me to his car.

I have the feeling it’s going to be a long night.

“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks for standing up to him.”

Liam laughs. “I don’t think about it that way,” he says. “I’m not doing what’s right. Plus, I’m not going to let him to take you away from me tonight. I’ve been looking forward to this for too long.”

I see his eyes drifting down my body, catching every curve and devouring me with just his gaze.

“Just so you know,” I say, awkwardly as hell. “I’m ready… I’m not going to run away like the other night, and it’s not because… What I’m trying to say is that I want to do it… I just got nervous the other night.”

“Don’t worry,” says Liam. “We’ll go slow.”

“I’m not sure I want to go slow,” I say.

The drive back to Liam’s house seems to go by in a single minute, although in reality it’s probably a twenty minute drive or more.

Liam doesn’t take his strong hand off my thigh and he slowly works it up my bare leg underneath my skirt until he’s touching me and massaging me. I’ve never had a guy touch me here before. It’s… incredible.

He doesn’t finger me, but he rubs my clit with his knuckle or something. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but it’s got me completely breathless, panting, my nipples rock hard, my breasts rising and falling with my chest as I breathe in and out intensely.

By the end of the driving, I feel like I’ve almost had an orgasm already. It’s an intense feeling that seems to bubble up through my entire body, it’s something indescribable. It’s incredible having his strong hand working on me, a hand other than my own, a hand that belongs to the hottest man on the planet, at least in my opinion, certainly the hottest man I’ve ever met.

“Let’s go right up to your room,” I say, breathless.

“It’s a deal,” growls Liam.

He comes over to my side of the car after parking, and, before I can get out of the low sports car seats, he simply reaches down and pulls me out of the car, carrying me easily against his strong chest.

He leans down and kisses me, a deep, passionate kiss. I have to crane my neck to reach his mouth, which is hot and intense like a blazing fire.

His eyes shine as he looks at me, a deepness to them that is indescribable, something profound.

“You sure you’re ready?” growls Liam, not taking his eyes off mine.

I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “Now let’s go up to your bedroom. I need your cock.”

Liam chuckles deeply.

He somehow unlocks the front doors while still carrying me.

For a second, I wonder what the neighbors are going to think, seeing Liam carrying a woman into his house like this, and then I remember that they’re probably already used to it. But, hey, what do I really care if he’s been with a bunch of women before me, right? I mean, at least I know for sure that he’s “certified.” He knows what he’s doing, and he’s got the skills that my body might require.

What a weird and mechanical way to think about it. But that’s where my mind goes sometimes. Who knows why, and at this point I don’t care. After all, I’m as wet as I’ve ever been. I’m intensely craving him, Liam, his whole body. And I want to feel him on top of me, pressing down on me. I want to feel his cock against me and inside of me. I don’t want him to be my first—I need him to be my first. It’s a need that’s more intense than any need I’ve ever felt before. I’ve never needed anything as badly as right now.

We don’t actually make it up to the bedroom.

We get as far as the couch in the living room before we start kissing intensely, while Liam still holds me. Slowly, the two of us fall gently onto the couch which we’re right next to.

My body falls and sinks into the plush cushions, and Liam falls onto me slowly, both of us sinking down as his mouth smashes into mine, his hands all over me. One hand is up my skirt, pulling my panties down savagely. For a second, I worry that they’re going to rip but he pulls them down to my ankles, and the next thing I know he’s pulling my skirt up.

He doesn’t bother to take it off. He just needs access.

Liam’s head is between my legs, his stubble bristling against my thighs.

I seize his head and pull him harder into me. His tongue runs across me, slowly and deliberately, with a lot of pressure. It’s incredible. I gasp with the sensation.

Instinctively, I put my hand down there, reaching for my clit. I touch it for a second and it seems to erupt in pleasure. But Liam pushes my hand away, and a second later I know why. He attacks my clit with his tongue, using small, forceful motions.

The sensation is a thousand times more powerful than when I use my own finger to rub myself. Liam seems to know my body better than I do.

His fingers are inside me. He puts one in first, slowly, followed by another, and he finger fucks me as he gives me head. He pauses occasionally to suck, hard and with plenty of pressure.

My body is writhing and Liam holds my sides with his strong hands. Meanwhile, I grab his head again and try to pull him even harder into me.

“I’m going to come,” I cry out.

Liam just goes harder than ever, harder and faster.

Oh fuck. It’s coming.

The most powerful orgasm of my life so far.

Fuck, fuck.

My body suddenly feels light, and as if an electrical current is coursing through me. My vision is going dim at the periphery. I’m panting like I just ran a half marathon, and crying out—what I’m saying I’m not even sure.

Finally, it’s over, and I’m left with the most intense afterglow.

Liam finally emerges from between my legs and he smiles at me.

“Fuck…” I say.

“Like it?” growls Liam.

I nod my exhausted head.

“I’m not done with you yet,” growls Liam.

I suddenly realize that I’m only partially undressed, my skirt pulled up over my torso. Liam’s still wearing all his clothes.

He stands up and pulls off his shirt, unbuttoning the top buttons and simply pulling it over his head. His abs are incredible. His muscles are defined and bulging. He looks like he could be on the cover of some magazine. It’s hard to believe he’s a doctor, but I guess he does know the human body, as he’s just proved.

Liam picks me up again, pulling my body easily off the couch. My head is against his naked chest.

“What are you going to do to me?” I say, my voice faint and far away sounding. I feel a little lightheaded from the intensity of the orgasm.

“To my bedroom to fuck you,” growls Liam.

“I like that,” I say. “That’s what I want. I want you to fuck me, Liam.”

Liam grins savagely at me. He bounded up the stairs, and now we’re in his bedroom.

We’re falling onto the plush mattress, sinking into it. My hands are at Liam’s waist, undoing his belt buckle, trying to unzip his pants, but I’m too excited, and I can’t get it open all the way.

Liam helps me undo it, and in a flash, his pants are off.

He pulls my t-shirt off over my head, my breasts in my bra popping out. And Liam goes right to them, unhooking my bra in a second and starting to suck on my nipples. He cups the underside of my breasts with his hands. Now it’s my skirt, pulling it all the way off.

Everything is off. We’re completely naked, and Liam is above me and on top of me. I can feel his cock between my legs, sandwiched between my naked thighs. The skin on skin contact feels perfect, refreshing. I feel light and sexy.

I don’t feel how I thought I was going to feel when this moment came. It does feel momentous for me, but it doesn’t get confusing—what I mean is that I don’t find myself getting lost in it. No, instead, I’m able to enjoy the moment thoroughly. I’m actually present, rather than thinking about how I’m going to remember this. Or thinking about how big a deal this is.

Liam’s cock is raging hard, like a piece of warm steel piping between my legs, waiting to enter me.

He takes a condom from somewhere nearby and rips open the wrapper, and I watch as he unrolls it onto his massive cock.

For some reason, I start giggling as he kisses my neck. But it feels fucking good.

“I want your cock,” I say, still giggling slightly, probably because I’m nervous.

“Good,” growls Liam.

He pushes it forward, thrusting his hips. The head of his cock presses against me, but it doesn’t go inside.

I take a deep breath, the giggles stopping instantly.

His cock enters me, slowly, just the head of it at first.

“Oh fuck,” I cry out.

As it enters me slowly, the whole cock inching its way inside, Liam doesn’t take his eyes off me.

It hurts, but it’s a good kind of hurt, mixed with pleasure.

I’m intensely aware of every inch of his cock and the way it feels inside me. And I’m intensely aware of Liam’s body pressed against mine, the way his skin feels against mine.

Soon, Liam’s cock is all the way inside me and he starts pumping slowly, drawing his shaft in and out of me.

I reach down and start massaging my clit, which adds another level to the experience.

Liam continues slowly and rhythmically, and the pain starts to fade until it’s nothing more than something in the background, a vague distraction from the intense pleasure that washes through me, gushing up from my pussy through the rest of me, making my body feel light and perfect.

“Fuck me harder,” I breathe out.

“That’s what I like to here,” growls Liam.

Almost instantly, he’s increasing his speed, thrusting his hips harder and faster.

He continues to increase, and by the end of a couple minutes, he’s fucking me intensely, slamming his cock into me.

“Harder,” I’m crying out. “Fuck me harder.”

One hand is still on my clit, rubbing myself silly. Its squished between Liam’s body and mine, and I can feel his thrusts not only inside me but against my hand and my body.

Liam suddenly grabs me around my sides, and with his cock still inside me, flips over onto his back. He pulls me with him, so that I’m not on top of him.

“Ride my cock,” growls Liam. “Fuck yourself silly on my shaft.”

I do as he says, but I don’t need to be told once, and certainly not twice.

Bracing my hands against his pecs, I soon find my rhythm. I find the way to move myself up and down his cock, back and forth. I tilt my head back to the ceiling, thrusting my breasts forward. Liam rises and takes one in his mouth briefly, sucking hard on my nipple.

Then Liam grabs me and holds me tight, his immensely strong hands on my body. He pulls me closer to him. I try to keep fucking him, moving my body, but it’s hard.

But Liam starts thrusting his hips up and towards me, entering me with his cock. His muscular ass sinks into the mattress and he fucks me from below, holding me tight to him.

My face is pressed into his. My eyes are so close to his that it’s hard to focus on them. I feel his hot, sweet breath on me, warm and intense. His mouth smashes against mine as he fucks me harder and harder, faster than before.

A warm feeling creeps through my body, quickly becoming shooting sensations of pleasure.

Suddenly, we’re tumbling over again, and Liam’s positioning me so that I’m on my stomach.

He grunts as he mounts me from behind, his cock sliding into my pussy easily.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he growls, his cock entering me slowly.

I love the feeling of being taken like this, of him entering me from behind.

My breasts feel good smushed against the mattress. I’m face down, unable to deal with the intensity of the pleasure with my face off to the side. The mattress muffles my moans and cries. I soon scream for him to fuck me harder, harder and harder.

Liam slams into me from behind. At first, his body is above and behind me. But as he continues to fuck me, he lets himself fall down. His chest presses against my back, and we both sink farther into the mattress. I feel his breath on my neck and I feel his muscles against me.

The pleasure erupts inside me.

It’s insanely intense.

Liam’s grunting as he starts to come too. He keeps fucking me, speeding up even more.

The orgasm rushes through me. The orgasm takes me. My whole body goes limp. I cry out even louder.

We come together, letting the pleasure wash over us both. For a second, I feel as if we are one creature instead of two, connected by the intensity of the pleasure.

My body feels weak. I’m panting. I turn my head to the side, letting more air rush into my mouth. Liam’s still on me, his cock still inside me. He’s panting.

“Wow,” he finally says.

“Wow is right,” I say.

Liam moves off of me, but his body is still pressed against mine. The presence of his body is reassuring.

Liam props his head up on his arm, looking at me.

Suddenly, a strange look comes across his face.

“Are you feeling OK?” he says, his tone of voice showing some concern.

“Yeah,” I say. “That was incredible… I can’t get over how it felt…”

“No, I mean with your… allergies. You’re not feeling another attack coming on?”

“No,” I say, suddenly growing worried. “Should I be? Do I look weird or something? What is it?”

“It’s probably nothing,” says Liam, moving even closer to my face and peering at something. “It’s just that your face is a little red…”

“Oh God,” I say, suddenly feeling like I can’t breathe.

Chapter 14

Liam

“It’s going to be all right, Mia,” I say. “Let me just get a closer look at you.”

“I’m going to have another attack,” she says. Her voice is starting to sound frantic.

“Just take a deep breath, Mia,” I say, in my calming doctor’s voice. But it doesn’t have the desired effect.

My cock is still hard, and honestly, I was hoping to get another shot at her sweet, tight pussy. As soon as I got my cock in there, I knew I was going to have to have it again. I was going to have to take her again, shoving my steely pipe right into her. But looks like that’s going to have to wait for now. I don’t think she’s having an attack. But it’s always better to err on the side of caution, rather than let something happen that you weren’t expecting.

“Take a deep breath, Mia,” I say. I model the breathing for her, sitting cross legged on the bed, and very obviously breathing in and out slowly.

Mia copies me as best she can.

“Just keep breathing, Mia,” I say. “You’re in good hands. I’m a doctor, remember? Let me just get my flashlight. Keep breathing. That’s right. Slowly. Good.”

She sits cross legged just like I was. She’s completely naked, and the breathing makes her gorgeous breasts rise and fall. My cock yearns to enter her again. But I can’t do that now, damnit.

I rummage around in the bedside table drawer for a small medical flashlight, and I bring it close to her face, pointing it at her skin. It does look a little red and inflamed. The redness could just be from exertion, but the inflammation would be unusual after sex.

My normal question would be: are you allergic to latex, considering the condom I used. But the fact is we don’t know if Mia still has any remaining allergies. Her medical history showed that she had no known allergies before these attacks started, so it’s unlikely that once the general cellular energy problem was cured, that she would have any remaining problems with substances like latex.

“I’m going to have another attack,” says Mia, her voice still frantic. She’s losing control of her soothing breathing exercise.

“It’s OK, Mia,” I say. “Just keep breathing.”

“But it’s not just one attack… it means I’ll have to go back to my room. I’ll never come out again. It that blue stuff doesn’t work, then I’m screwed…”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I say.

But what I see on her face worries me. The redness is clearly growing, and her face is starting to look puffy. I have some epinephrine in the house, but a shot of that requires real medical attention with a very short time span. I’m not fully equipped here at the house to deal with problems like that.

“Do you still have the blue drops with you?” I say. “The methylene blue?”

Mia shakes her head. “I took two drops this morning. I didn’t bring any with me. Don’t you have some?”

I shake my head. “I gave you the last of what I had.”

I think for just a moment, trying to think of the best course of action. I can’t let anything happen to Mia, I just can’t.

“I think I’d better take you to the hospital,” I say.

“What?” She’s completely freaking out now, looking like she’s about to start hyperventilating.

“It’s faster than calling an ambulance,” I say.

“But I can’t go back into my room!”

“Mia,” I say. “I don’t know what’s happening, but…”

“The blue drops aren’t working anymore! I knew it. They’re not working!”

“You may just need a bigger dose, Mia,” I say. “But we don’t have it here with us. We need to get you to the hospital in case you have a severe reaction.”

“Fuck, fuck… Fuck…”

I get up and get dressed quickly, throwing my clothes on as fast as I can.

I start handing Mia her clothes, but she’s just repeating “fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over again.

So I put her clothes on for her, doing the best job I can.

Her hair is tousled, and I don’t bother putting her bra back on her. Her breasts show clearly, their outlines and her nipples printing in the tight t-shirt.

“I’m not going back there!” cries Mia. “I’m not going back to my room for another year or for the rest of my life.”

“I’m not taking you to your room, Mia,” I say. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Her body goes completely limp. There’s no way she’s going to walk to the car herself. I pick her up and carry her in front of me, the way I carried her up here to the bedroom.

I rush down to the garage, and with some difficulty opening the door while holding her, I get her into the passenger’s seat of my Porsche.

Running around the front of the car, I hop into the driver’s bucket seat, and gun the engine, turning the key as I jam down the accelerator. I’ve already hit the garage door opener. But the door is opening too slowly.

I glance over at Mia. She looks completely despondent, which is understandable, considering that she thinks she’s going to have to spend the rest of her life back in her childhood room, after only a brief moment of freedom.

Her face is growing redder and puffier by the second.

I need to get her to the hospital fast.

On the way out, I grabbed a shot of epinephrine that’s in my pocket now. But I don’t want to use it unless I have to, unless she can’t breathe.

“Hang in there, Mia,” I say. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

The garage door isn’t yet completely open.

I have a pocket knife with me. I can perform a tracheotomy if I need to, but I don’t want it to come to that.

“Hang in there, Mia,” I say again.

I jam the car into reverse, releasing the clutch, sending us in reverse barreling towards the garage door.

Mia lets out a scream. The door is still opening. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be enough time. It doesn’t look like we’re going to make it.

But we make it, with less than an inch to spare.

The Porsche whizzes out into the street. Someone honks. I jam the car into first, the second. I’m shifting rapidly, accelerating as fast I can, pushing the car to its limits.

“I’m getting you to that hospital, Mia,” I say. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

I weave through cars, blowing through stop lights and stop signs. I know the route to the hospital like the back of my hand. We’re there in under ten minutes flat.

By the time we get there, Mia’s face is very swollen, but she can still breathe.

“You still with me?”

She nods.

“I need verbal conformation,” I say, falling back into my doctor way of talking.

“I’m fine,” says Mia.

She’s obviously not fine, though.

I pull the Porsche right up to the emergency room door, and get out without turning off the car.

Grabbing Mia from the passenger’s seat, I carry her into the hospital.

I rush through the waiting room, past the desk where the nurses on duty sit.

“Sir! Excuse me, sir! You can’t go back there.”

But I ignore her, and push my way right through the double doors.

I grab a cot, and lay Mia down on it.

The nurse has followed me. She’s angry, almost as red in the face as Mia.

Then she sees who I am.

I completely ignore her.

“Epinephrine!” I shout.

The nurses here know me.

Someone hands me a shot, and I jam it into Mia’s leg.

“You’re going to be just fine, Mia,” I say.

“You,” I say, pointing to a nurse. “I need methylene blue, pure. Get it from the pharmacy. As fast as you can!”

“What’s going on?” says Mia, looking around. She’s probably feeling more awake from the shot of what is essentially adrenaline. “What’s going on?” She looks wide eyed and scared.

Chapter 15

Mia

I wake up in a hospital bed. I always know when I’m in a hospital bed. This has happened to me so many times that I’ve gotten somewhat used to it that I can now always tell where I am.

But I don’t remember exactly what happened. My memories are a blur.

I remember losing my virginity finally. It was incredible.

And then I started to have a reaction.

Liam did something. He didn’t have the blue drops.

He took me here in his car, a terrifying drive.

“You’re awake,” says someone, a nurse with kind eyes, who peers down at me.

“What happened?” I say. “Am I OK?”

“Everything’s going to be all right,” says the nurse.

Suddenly, I notice something… something that horrifies me completely. It sends a chill down my spine, through my whole body. It makes me shiver in terror.

The nurse is wearing a mask. Not only that, she’s wearing the ridiculous plastic wrap suit that’s meant to protect me from allergens.

I look around the room, frantically. It’s one of those sealed off plastic rooms.

“Damnit!” I suddenly yell.

The nurse looks taken aback.

“Everything’s going to be OK, dear,” she says. “You just had another reaction.”

“Why am I in the hypoallergenic room again?” I say, almost yelling. “Why are you wearing a mask again?”

“Don’t you remember, dear? You have a condition where your immune system doesn’t function properly…. We need to protect you. That’s why you had a reaction. You shouldn’t be out there in the world without protection. You’re a delicate creature, aren’t you?”

“I am not a delicate creature,” I say emphatically. “Not anymore. Liam cured me. He gave me…”

I can hear the nurse sighing through her mask.

“What happened?” I say. “Didn’t the blue drops work again? Where’s Liam?”

“If you’re referring to Dr. Horton, he’s been suspended.”

“Suspended? What the hell are you talking about?”

“We can discuss that all later, dear,” says the nurse. “Right now, I need to take some measurements.”

She examines the machine that I’m hooked up to, looking at my vital signs apparently.

Now she looks at me.

“The swelling has gone down significantly,” she says. “I’ll be back soon to check up on you again. For now, just rest. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.”

“But tell me what happened!”

“There’s time for that later,” says the nurse. She clearly has no intention of explaining what happened to me.

Shit.

The nurse disappears through the double folds of plastic wrap. And I’m left alone again.

I’m alone, just like I was in my room for that horrible year.

This has to be a joke, right? I get one little taste of freedom, and now I’m back in the same situation as before.

I just don’t understand what happened. Did the blue drops suddenly stop working?

And what happened to Liam?

Suddenly, I get a memory coming back to me. Liam’s standing over me with a shot of epinephrine. I’m worried, but I know he’s looking out for me. After all, he got me to the hospital. I feel safer with him than with anyone else. And then a severe looking woman comes into the emergency room, trailed by five security guards. The security guards grab Liam by the arms and pull him away from me. He’s yelling at them, and he punches one of them in the face, but the others grab him.

Is that memory right?

The security guards came and pulled Liam away from me, when he was only trying to help me?

I look around for my phone to call Liam, to ask him what happened, to see if he’s OK. I know being a doctor is incredibly important to him. I know he’s not going to like being suspended from duty at the hospital. After all, as he’s always saying, he has people to save and brains to cut open. He’s got to get on with his work. What are they playing at?

But my phone is gone, and there’s no hospital phone. No doubt, my phone is considered a risk because it’s been in the outside world.

My mind starts going into a cycle of worry that I can’t escape from.

But at some point, my body is so exhausted from everything that happened, from the allergy attack, from whatever drugs they’ve given me, that I fall asleep.

I wake up to see my dad’s head above me. He, too, is wearing a mask.

“How are you feeling?” he says.

“Hi, Dad,” I say.

“Are you OK?”

I nod.

“Can’t you take that mask off?”

“You had another attack,” says my dad. “This is what I was afraid of.”

“But I’m fine. I just need to take more of those blue drops.”

My dad sighs. “That’s not going to happen, Mia,” he says. “The doctors have all agreed that there’s no evidence that the methylene blue works. And it seems to make you think you can go into the outside world when you can’t. It’s just a matter of time, if you take that stuff, before you have another attack.”

“But maybe I just need a drop,” I say. “I had the attack when I hadn’t had it for the whole day. I was fine before that. Maybe I just need to take it more frequently.”

My dad shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “That’s not a good idea, Mia. We just don’t know what’s going to happen. You need to be away from all allergens until the doctors here figure out a treatment for you, a real treatment that’s been proven.”

“No treatment like that exists,” I say. “But Liam found one! He cured me, and you want to put me back in my room. I can’t spend another year there. I can’t!”

“Mia, listen to me. Liam may have been trying to help. I won’t deny that. But he violated many of medicine’s codes. I was a doctor, remember? I know how doctors are supposed to act. We need evidence before we can just give a drug to someone. Liam used you like a guinea pig, and it didn’t work. The hospital has suspended him for a good reason, Mia. They didn’t do it for nothing. He’s been flouting convention here for years, violating every procedure there is. It was just a matter of time before someone got hurt. I’m just glad you’re OK.”

“But, Dad…”

“Goodbye, Mia,” says my dad. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about this anymore.”

My dad’s gone, through the double plastic folds that seem to swallow him up.

And I’m alone in the hypoallergenic hospital room yet again.

My thoughts turn to Liam.

Why hasn’t he tried to communicate with me? Even though he’s been suspended, I’m sure he could find some way to see me, or to pass me a note.

I’m sure he could do something.

Suddenly, the words of that nurse that I bumped into on the street ring through my memory: “the pump and dump.”

My heart starts beating fast in fear.

Is that what he’s doing to me? Just fucking me and then leaving me here, never to speak to me again?

Maybe it’s not that big a deal about the nurses he’s slept with in the past. But I really thought there was something between us. He was my first sexual partner, after all. And the way he talked to me…

But was that all a ruse?

And then the most horrifying thought comes to me: what if he just gave me the methylene blue so that I could leave my room long enough for him to fuck me. Meanwhile, he knew it wouldn’t last forever, and that I’d end up stuck back in my room.

Meanwhile, of course, I was led to believe that it was a cure for life, and that I’d never have to live this horrible lifestyle ever again.

That couldn’t be true, could it?

Then again… he’s been nice to me, but I do have to look at the evidence. How many women has he done something similar to before?

Do I really think that I’m so special that Liam would completely change his previous behavior just for me? Just for little old me, the virgin who doesn’t even know how to have sex properly… possibly? He did seem to enjoy it. I can still remember the way he was grunting. But was I good? I doubt it. It was my first time, after all.

Chapter 16

Liam

There’s a knock at my door.

Wearing my gym shorts and a t-shirt, I head to the door and peer through the peephole. I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.

But the face I see through the peephole changes my mind.

I open the door.

“Ryan Hudson,” I say slowly. “I can’t believe my fucking eyes. Where the fuck have you been?”

“Nice to see you, too,” says Ryan, grinning at me and shoving a six pack of beer against my chest.

“Come on in,” I say, gesturing to my living room, which is frankly a huge mess.

“Damn,” says Ryan. “You going through a divorce or something? What the hell happened here?”

“Wouldn’t you have known if I’d gotten married?” I say.

Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s been what…”

“Ten years,” I say.

“Long time,” says Ryan, appearing a little awkward for the first time.

“Yup,” I say.

Ryan and I were great friends at one point, before he got so involved with his company, and I got so involved with medical residency, working constantly.

“So what brings you around?” I say, flopping myself down on the couch.

Ryan sits down on the armchair near me, and holds out his hand for a beer. I crack one of the ones that he brought open and hand it to him. I crack myself one, and it feels good to hold something so cold. I savor the feeling of the cold glass in my hand, but I don’t take a sip. I’m not in the mood for alcohol.

Ryan takes a long sip, though, and sits back, relaxing in the chair.

“Well,” says Ryan, after a long pause. “My wife’s overseas for work. Just for a month. I thought I’d look up some old friends. You’re first on the list. I was hoping we could hit the bars, have a few laughs, but frankly, it doesn’t seem like you’re in any condition to do that.”

“Why not?”

Ryan looks me up and down and cracks a smile, the kind of smile that only Ryan Hudson has. It’s both arrogant and well-meaning at the same time.

“Look at this place, for one thing. What the hell happened? I already asked you if you lost your wife.”

“I’ve never been married.”

“So what happened?”

“I’m suspended from the hospital,” I say.

“Shit. What’d you do? Fuck one too many of the nurses? Or did you go after a patient this time?”

“A little of both.”

Ryan laughs.

“Tell me about it.”

I tell him everything, the whole history I have with Johnson and the hospital administration. And I tell him about Mia, and how she got better, how I rushed her to the hospital. I tell him she’s gorgeous, completely hot, but what I’m not able to admit to him is that I have feelings for her.

“Look,” says Ryan. “I used to be just like you, a new girl every week. Then my wife came along… You wouldn’t believe how similar they sound to each other. All I know is that you feel something for this Mia. She’s important to you. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Where’s the Ryan Hudson I used to know?” I say, joking. “I’ve never heard you talk like this before.”

“I’m changed, man. My wife did that to me. I wasn’t expecting it, but it just happened. So what bothers you more?” says Ryan, taking another long sip of his beer. “Her or the hospital?”

I pause.

“Her,” I say.

“You called her? What happened exactly?”

“She’s back home, stuck in her room.”

“Stuck in her room. You mean the allergy thing?”

“Yeah. It’s complicated. She won’t return my phone calls, my emails, or anything at all.”

“That’s a tough one,” says Ryan.

“Yeah,” I say. “So since you’ve got it all figured out apparently, what should I do?”

Ryan shrugs.

“Want to go play golf?”

“Golf?”

“Yeah, I know you still play. You were too obsessed with the game to ever leave it.”

“What good is golf going to do me?”

“Get your mind off things, and get you out of this stinking pit you’ve created for yourself. This place is a disaster.”

Ryan kicks a dinner plate that’s been lying on the floor for a week. Normally, I’d never leave something like that lying around.

“OK,” I say. “Let’s go.”

“You know a good place?”

“Yeah. Come on,” I say, standing up. “Let’s go.”

Ryan stands up, still holding his beer. He looks me up and down. “You look like shit, man, no offense.”

I laugh.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Take a shower while you’re at it,” calls Ryan to me, as I’m already bounding up the stairs.

“Fuck off,” I yell back at him.

“There’s the Liam I know!” shouts Ryan. I can barely hear him. I’m already in the bathroom.

I turn on the cold water tap, and strip off my shirt and shorts.

I step into the water and let the cold take over me. I don’t shudder and I don’t flinch.

Unlike the pain I feel from Mia’s absence, the pain from the freezing cold water is something that I can control. I can cope with physical pain. I can cope with losing my job at the hospital. I can cope with anything…

What I didn’t count on was how much she means to me.

I didn’t realize it until she was gone from my life.

I just need to talk to her. I just need to explain things to her.

I’ve pieced it together somewhat… She’s upset that the attacks came back. She must think that I conned her somehow.

That was never my intention.

Sure, I wanted to fuck her.

But more than that, I wanted to help her. I want to help all my patients. Maybe I wanted to help Mia more in particular.

I try to bring my mind back to the present. I soap up and rinse off. By the time I’m out of the bathroom, toweled off and changed, Ryan’s already out in the garage looking through my golf clubs, beer in hand.

I find him out there.

“Anything you like?” I say. “Or does Ryan Hudson now travel with his own clubs all the time?”

“I didn’t bring any,” he says. “But I should have. I thought for a brain surgeon you’d have some better clubs.”

Normally, I would laugh. But the thoughts of Mia have me down, unable to do so much as chuckle right now.

“Those are my old ones,” I say. “They’re only for lending out. But I suppose you deserve something better.”

I go to the corner of the garage and remove a tarp from what looks like just a pile of tools. Underneath the tarp, there are three sets of the best golf clubs money can buy.

Ryan grins.

“Now we’re talking,” he says, examining the clubs with awe. “Damn, I don’t even have these. They just came out, didn’t they?”

I nod.

“Should we get going?”

“All right.”

We climb into the Porsche.

“Smells nice in here,” says Ryan, inhaling deeply.

I don’t say anything. I can smell it too. It’s Mia’s scent, still hanging onto the upholstery from the last time she was in the car, when I drove her to the hospital.

The events of that night keep replaying themselves in my mind.

Should I have done something differently?

I’m convinced that Mia simply needed another drop of the methylene blue. Those blue drops would have saved her. If only I’d had some on hand.

But why didn’t she bring any with her?

Over the last week, I’ve spent hours poring over the research papers. The way the blue drops work is that they enhance mitochondrial cellular function for a period, but they don’t work indefinitely. It’s probably necessary to take it at least twice a day. I suspect Mia was taking two drops in the morning.

By the time she was over at my place, the blue drops had probably worn off. Her cells and her body had returned to her “normal” state, making her allergic to everything. Her allergic reaction could have been triggered by anything really, some cologne I was wearing, something in the house. Most likely, though, it was the latex condom, or the lubrication that it comes with.

I feel bad, guilty about exposing her to a condom that made her sick.

If I could just explain this all to her, I know she would listen.

But her dad’s probably convinced her that I was just using her.

I shudder to think what Mia thinks about me now. She probably imagines she’s just another notch on my bedpost.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

“You’re not saying much,” says Ryan from the passenger’s seat.

He’s looking out the window on our way to the golf course.

I shrug. “Just thinking,” I say, taking a turn on a red light.

“About your girl?”

“Doesn’t seem like she wants to be my girl,” I say. “I’ve got a bad reputation, you know. She probably figured she’s just like the rest of the girls.”

“That’s a tough one,” says Ryan, speaking slowly and deliberately. “You know, I went through something similar. My wife was scarred. She thought I was just using her. I mean, I can understand that. Because in a way, I’d just been using women up until that point. It wasn’t until that point that I realized I wanted something more.”

“What do you mean? What made you realize it?”

“It was her… But I had to do some deep searching to figure it all out… I had to learn to open myself up…”

Surprisingly myself, I laugh. “Opening yourself up? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I used to be just like you,” says Ryan. “But we all act in certain ways because… well, we’re damaged in some way on the inside. But most of us don’t even admit that ourselves.”

I don’t say anything.

Is Ryan right? Am I damaged somehow, and don’t realize it?

There’s something of the ring of truth to what he says, but I don’t have the slightest clue how it is that I’m damaged. If that’s even the case.

“So how do you figure all that out?” I say.

“It’s something you’ve got to figure out for yourself,” says Ryan.

“You’re not much of a therapist,” I say.

“Nope,” says Ryan. “I’m not. Come on, let’s hit some fucking golf balls, OK? It’ll get your mind off things.”

We’ve arrived at the golf course, a sprawling, beautiful collection of greens, with hills and sand traps and even a small lake.

I park the car and we both get out, grabbing our golf bags from the trunk of the Porsche.

Suddenly my phone rings.

For some reason, I don’t respond right away.

“Your phone’s ringing,” says Ryan.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Aren’t you going to get it?”

I shrug.

“I doubt it’s who I want it to be. She’s not calling me back.”

Ryan just looks at me.

He’s not going to give me that speech about getting on with my life.

Whatever.

I’ve got to do it anyway.

I’ve never been the type to sit around and mope, anyway. I’m going to get Mia back, no matter what it takes.

I don’t know where this resolve suddenly comes from, whether it’s from looking out at the beautiful golf course. Or from holding the heavy bag in my hands. Or from the phone ringing. I don’t know. I doubt it has anything to do with any of those things. That would be crazy.

I’m going to get her back.

This thought gives me strength.

I pull the phone out of my pocket and look at the screen.

Holy shit.

It’s Mia.

Mia’s calling me.

Chapter 17

Mia

“Mia?” comes Liam’s voice through the phone.

I don’t say anything.

My heart is pounding in my chest. My body feels all tingly with anxiety.

“Mia, is that you? Are you there?”

Panicking, I press the red button to hang up and put the phone down.

I wait for it to ring again, and it does, and I send it straight through to voicemail.

Damnit, why did I just do that?

No, I’m not calling him to tell him that everything’s OK between us, and that I want to be with him. After all, how could I possibly be with him now that I’m back in my parent’s house, in my room, not able to go outside?

I was calling him to yell at him, to scream at him. I want to scream at him for using me, for selling me on a false cure that was never going to work. One that was never going to last. I want to scream in his face, but of course I can’t get close to him. The phone is the next best thing, I suppose.

My dad explained to me exactly what Liam’s hospital history is like, with regard to his extreme womanizing. It’s even worse than what I’d thought before. It’s even worse than what the nurse told me.

And he’s been suspended from the hospital. Mostly because he gave me this treatment that didn’t work. But also because of his long, long history of defying direct orders.

There was a time when I thought that made him seem exciting.

Of course, that was before I had my attack at his house.

Sure, he drove me to the hospital. But he’s a doctor. A good doctor. Why didn’t he treat me there? He said something about not having the blue drops on hand. But what good would they have done? I already took them that day.

My dad’s thrown away the methylene blue. The blue drops are gone forever. That foul tasting liquid did nothing but give me false hope.

My phone rings. Damnit, it’s probably Liam calling me back. Why did I have to call him in the first place, when I didn’t have the nerve to actually scream at him?

At the very least, I could have sent him an angry text message. That’s kind of lame. But I should have done it. It would have been easier that way. It would have gotten some of this anger off my chest.

I grab the phone, looking at it. To my surprise, it’s not Liam. It’s Shelly.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I say.

“How are you holding up?”

I’ve already told her everything.

“Not good.”

“Damnit” says Shelly. “I’m so sorry this has happened to you.”

“Whatever,” I say. “I should have known…”

“But it was so nice to see you, when you were out…”

“I know,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me. Those were some of the best days of my life…”

“Hey,” says Shelly. “At least you’re not a virgin anymore.”

That actually makes me laugh. It’s not my true laugh, though. It’s a desperate laugh, in a way completely horrible.

“I guess,” I say. “Now I can sit in my room for the rest of my life knowing that I had sex once, with an opportunistic asshole.”

“Is he really that bad?” says Shelly. “I mean you liked him fine a week ago.”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice turning harsh. “He is that bad. He’s fucked up.”

Shelly doesn’t say anything. “I mean, maybe he was just trying to help?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “He’s supposedly this brilliant doctor and he did all this research. Shouldn’t he have known it wasn’t going to keep working? The crazy thing is that that’s exactly what my dad was telling me the whole time. He was worried about the treatment. And he was telling me we shouldn’t get our expectations up, that it might not last…”

“That really sucks,” says Shelly. “I hate it when my parents are right.”

That makes me laugh. Another desperate sound.

Shelly picks up on the strange sound of my laugher.

“I’ve never heard such a depressing laugh,” she says.

“What can I do?” I say. “I’m stuck in this room forever. I’m never coming out.”

“I’m sure they’ll find something. They always do. They’re always coming up for cures for weird diseases… not that it’s a weird disease.” She adds this last part hastily. I can tell she doesn’t want to offend me.

“It’s OK,” I say. “It is a weird disease.”

“Not that weird. I’m sure other people have it.”

“Like two in the whole country or something.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like there’s a lot of money to be made curing this. So the drug companies aren’t exactly working on a cure as we speak.”

“But the researchers? Come on, someone’s probably doing something now that will help in the future. You never know how these things will turn out.”

I don’t want to argue with her, but my mind’s already made up. I know I’m going to be stuck in this room forever.

“I’ll come visit you,” says Shelly. “I know I haven’t been good about it, but hell, I’ll come once a week if that’ll cheer you up.”

“I guess,” I say. “You’ll have to put on that mask and all that plastic gear.”

“That’s fine,” says Shelly. “At least I won’t have to put on makeup on those days.”

“That’s funny,” I say, without laughing. The laugher has died out of me.

“Well,” says Shelly. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I just wanted to call and check up on you. Call me anytime.”

“Thanks,” I say. “You got a date tonight or something?”

Shelly hesitates for a moment. I can tell she’s worried about hurting my feelings.

“It’s OK,” I say. “It’s not going to bother me if you’re going on a date.”

“OK,” says Shelly quickly. “You sure?”

“It’s fine,” I say. “I can live vicariously through you. What’s he like?”

“He’s gorgeous,” says Shelly. I can hear the desire in her voice.

“Have you already slept with him?”

“Maybe,” says Shelly, giggling. That’s a little unlike her.

“What happened? For some reason I thought this was your first date or something.”

“It is, but we met at the gym.”

“Shelly,” I say. “You fucked him at the gym?”

Shelly giggles even harder. “I couldn’t help it,” I say. “There was no one else there, and so I went into the showers…”

“You went into the men’s showers?” I say, my voice rising in disbelief.

“Yeah,” says Shelly. Her voice gets a wistful sound to it. “It was incredible. He took me right there in the shower… You should have seen him. He was buck naked, and his cock was already rock hard. He said it was because of me. He’d seen me in the gym.”

“Damn, Shelly,” I say. “You’re getting bolder.”

“I know,” says Shelly, sounding surprised herself.

“Well,” I say. “Have fun. Send pictures if you can.”

“You wish,” says Shelly, hanging up the phone.

Putting the phone down, I stare at the ceiling. The depression starts to take over quickly. Talking to Shelly was just a minor reprieve from my normal state. Yeah, depression has become my normal state.

At least I’m not a virgin anymore.

But I’m stuck in my room forever.

And what really bothers me is that I wasn’t anything important to Liam. I was just another fuck, another notch in his belt…

There’s a crashing sound outside. I hear somewhere muttering something. It sounds like swearing.

Next there’s a thud.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think someone had just fallen from a tree or something right outside my window.

Rushing to the window, I peer out of it.

There’s Liam, lying on the ground.

He’s wearing a tight white t-shirt and jeans, looking more muscular than ever.

He’s holding his knee, an expression of pain on his face. Did he just try to climb up the trellis outside and fall down?

He knows I can’t open the window.

What the hell is he doing here?

Chapter 18

Liam

I just couldn’t let it go.

I don’t care if she’s not answering my phone calls. I don’t care if she doesn’t want to see me. I know that if I can just talk to her, I can explain everything to her. And not only that, I know deep down that even though I’ve been suspended from the hospital, I can fix her.

I look up at the window but I don’t see anyone. I don’t think anyone heard me fall.

It’s been a little while since I’ve been rock climbing. It wouldn’t be a reach to say that I’m completely out of practice when it comes to climbing rocks. And scaling the sides of houses, even when wisteria trellises are involved, forget about it. I’ve never been good at that.

Good, so no one heard me. Her dad’s not going to rush out and threaten me with a shotgun. Or, more likely, a cell phone with the police on the other end.

That’s the last thing I need right now, considering everything that’s going on. If I have an arrest for attempted breaking and entering, I’d really be in danger of losing my medical license.

I feel around in my pocket for the vial of pure methylene blue that I brought with me. I got it by sneaking back into the hospital, breaking all the rules for suspended doctors, and removing it from the lab. No one’s going to notice, though, and it’s not going to hurt anyone. They have plenty of it.

I’m completely convinced that if Mia just takes her blue drops more regularly, then she’ll be fine. It’s just a matter of letting her cells get used to functioning at a higher level. For the first few months, at least, she’s not going to be able to go long periods of time without taking her medicine.

But the good news is that it might not be like that forever. When I was looking for more research papers on methylene blue, I discovered that for Mia’s condition, it’s unlikely it would work for more than a few hours. In a sense, she was lucky that it worked as long as it did.

The research paper also showed that over time, the cells get used to functioning better.

All she needs to do is take it for a few months frequently, and then she can probably relax her schedule. But she’ll always need to have a little bottle of methylene blue with her, in case an emergency situation pops up.

The only problem now is convincing her… while she won’t talk to me.

And, first and foremost, I need to get to her.

My knee hurts like hell, but as a doctor I know that I didn’t do any serious damage to it. It’s going to be fine, so long as I can deal with the pain.

Wincing a little, gritting my teeth, I stand up. I don’t put much weight on the knee, but it still flares up with pain.

Whatever. I’ve been through worse.

I grit my teeth and grab onto the wooden trellis that leads past her window.

This time I’ll just be more careful when climbing.

But the wood is impossibly thin, making it extremely difficult to get a grip on it. But I start like anything else, one foot at a time, knowing that I could very well fall again.

I’m going to keep climbing this trellis until I get up there, and I’m not leaving this house until I convince Mia to give the methylene blue another shot.

Normally it’s my cock that drives me to do things. It’s my cock that motivated me most of the time so far with Mia. But now… I feel something different. Even if she doesn’t want my cock, I want her to be better. I want her to be out and living a real life.

And of course, I want that life she’s living to be with me.

I know now that I simply can’t live without her.

But it’s not just her pussy that calls me… even though the mere thought of her tight, wet hole sends shivers down my spine and makes my cock swell incredibly.

I need her.

I need Mia.

My fingers hang on the thin wooden edge, in pain. But I can take it. I need the pain. It feels good. I’m accomplishing something. I’m doing something.

I pull myself up. My muscles strain. My fingers strain in pain. But I can’t let go.

My right hand grabs the wooden ledge, and I let go with my left hand, letting my body hang for a moment.

Minutes go by, seeming to take forever.

My body hurts. But I love it.

I’m closer to her.

Finally, I’m at the window.

To my surprise, she’s already there.

She’s looking at me through the window, her eyes wide.

“Open the window,” I mouth at her.

She shakes her head, and points at her ear and my mouth.

“You can’t hear me?” I mouth at her.

If I speak loudly enough for her to hear me, then I’ll surely wake up her parents, screaming outside their daughter’s window in the middle of the night.

Hanging on with just one hand from the trellis, the wisteria vine all around me, I grab my phone from my pocket, and press her name on the contacts list. It’s a little tricky with just one hand. But she can’t ignore me now.

She’s got to pick up the phone.

She does.

“Hi,” I say.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she says.

“Open the window,” I say.

“Are you crazy? I don’t want to talk to you. Go away. You’re just going to try to fuck me again, aren’t you? You just want another notch on your belt or something.”

“No, Mia,” I say. “It’s not like that. I need you. And I want to help you. Can’t we just talk? Can’t I just come in?”

“If I open the window, I’ll be exposed to every allergen around,” she says. “You’re a doctor. You should know that.”

“Listen, Mia,” I say. “The methylene blue works. We already saw that it works. We know it works. It’s just that it didn’t last as long as we thought. You just need to take more of the drops.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No,” I say. I explain to her the research that I found that proves what I’m saying. “Remember when you called me when you were eating breakfast with your friend? You said you were having another attack, and then you took another drop and you were better.”

“Yeah,” says Mia. “But so what? That doesn’t prove anything. I had another attack. You said that two drops was going to be enough each day, and it wasn’t.”

“I was wrong,” I say. “I thought that two drops total for the day would be enough. But what was really going on was that the drug has a half life in your system, and you need to take it every couple hours. It’s not the total dose that matters for the day, but how frequently you take the dose.”

There’s a silence on the other end.

“Mia,” I say. “I’m not going to force the window open and make you take the drops, even though that’s what I think I should do. But I’m going to leave the decision up to you. You need to make the right decision, Mia.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I need you, Mia,” I say. “I need you in my life, and I can’t have you wasting away in that room, not out living life… with me.”

“I’m really that important to you?”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s what I’ve realized. You’re worried you’re just another notch on my belt, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You’re different, Mia. You’re different from any woman I’ve ever been with before. There’s something just… incredible about you. I need you, Mia.”

There’s a long pause.

I’m staring deep into her eyes through the window. I can partly see my reflection in the window, overlaid onto her face. I look sad, desperate, but sure of what I want. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life before.

I need her. I don’t just want her. I can’t go on without her.

Mia keeps looking at me, deep into my eyes. I feel like her gaze is piercing my soul.

My heart skips a beat as Mia reaches the window and unlocks it. She pulls the window up.

I’m suddenly much closer to her. There’s nothing between us. There’s no glass, nothing but the screen, which I lift up.

“OK,” Mia says, starting to say something longer.

But I cut her off and lean in to kiss her.

But I pause.

“Wait,” I say. “Let’s try the drops first. You’re already exposed to more allergens this way. Kissing me would certainly expose you to something much worse.”

“You’ve been eating something foul?” says Mia. “A lot of garlic or something?”

I chuckle. “Just the normal.”

“Here,” says Mia. “If you’re waiting for a formal invitation into my room, here it is: please join me in my little bubble.”

“Why thank you, lady,” I say, suddenly realizing again that I’m hanging rather precariously off the side of her house.

“Here, could you take this?” I say, handing her my cell phone.

“Sure,” says Mia.

She watches as I climb through the window.

Once inside, I close the window behind me.

“So if I’m right,” I say. “We still don’t have long before your attack starts again. The methylene blue has been out of your system for a long time and I don’t think we have very long before another attack comes along…”

“You’re right,” says Mia. “It doesn’t normally take long. You have some with you, I hope?”

“Of course,” I say, winking at her. “I had a feeling that your parents had taken it away.”

“I think the hospital wanted it,” says Mia.

“Oh,” I say, shrugging. “Yeah, that makes sense. They’re trying to build a solid legal case or something against me.”

“Are you going to be OK?”

“Sure,” I say. “I’m not worried about it. I mean, they can take my license from me if they really want. But I know that all along I’ve been trying to do the right thing even if I’m a little unorthodox in my methods.”

“You can say that again,” says Mia, taking a look at the little bottle of blue liquid that I pull out of my pocket.

“Are you OK?” I say, looking at her more closely.

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Your face is getting red,” I say slowly. “It must have been the allergens introduced from opening the window…”

“No shit,” she says.

She looks horribly worried.

“I don’t want to go back to the hospital,” she says.

“I don’t want you to have to go back there either.”

“But I have to… Or I could die…”

“I don’t want you to have to stay in this room forever,” I say. “Here, take one of these… It’s going to help. Just a little drop of this bitter blue liquid…”

“I’m starting to feel it,” she says. “My throat… it’s closing up.”

Chapter 19

Mia

Oh shit. It’s happening again.

Liam’s next to me.

His body is comforting, just feeling him near me.

He pulls the dropper from the bottle and holds it out for me. A drop falls accidentally onto the carpet.

“Shit,” he says. “That’s never going to come out. This stuff stains.”

It’s a beige white carpet, and the stain is a deep blue. But I don’t care about that right now.

So much is riding on this.

I make a snap decision to just try it. I hold out my tongue and Liam drops the liquid onto it.

The taste somehow seems more bitter than before. I almost gag.

“It’s OK,” says Liam, putting his strong hand on my back. “Everything’s going to be OK.”

“Let me just sit down. I need to sit down.”

I’m not sure at this point which part of the reaction is anxiety and which part is the crazy allergies.

Five minutes go by, the two of us sitting on my bed, side by side, with Liam’s strong arm around me, holding me close to him.

Nothing happens. My throat feels about the same.

By this point, normally I’d be having trouble breathing.

Ten minutes go by.

I still haven’t passed out. I’m still not dead.

“I think it worked,” I say, looking up and smiling at Liam.

Relief washes over me.

Liam smiles at me. “I think it did too,” he says. “But let’s just make sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I should take you to the hospital anyway, just in case something happens. Opening the window exposed you to all sorts of allergens. I want you to take this methylene blue with you. Put the little bottle in your pocket and don’t let them take it away from you.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” I say. “I thought you’d want to fuck me again.”

Liam grins at me. “I do,” he says. “I really do. But I want to do the responsible thing for once, and take you with me to the hospital. I want to make sure, beyond all doubt, that you’ll be completely safe.”

“OK,” I say.

“Should we go back out the window?” says Liam.

I laugh. “Are you serious? I’d break my neck.”

“I was joking,” says Liam.

“Hell of a time to joke. Come on, we’ll go down the normal way. Just stay quiet.”

“Yeah,” says Liam. “It’d be better not to get your parents involved in this one.”

It’s a strange sensation, pushing my way through the double plastic that guards my door from germs. It’s strange, leaving the room like this… even though I’ve done it before.

But this time I’m leaving it with Liam. He’s right here, by my side.

He follows me as I tiptoe down the steps that lead to the front door on the first floor.

“I’ve got my car out front,” whispers Liam.

I unlock the door, sliding back the bolt, and Liam follows me outside.

“I have to say,” I say. “I’m really impressed.”

“With what?”

“With you. For wanting to do the responsible thing, taking me to the hospital. Even though I know you don’t want to go back, and I don’t either. But it’s the right thing to do.”

“There’s just one more thing I want to do,” says Liam, putting his arms around my waist.

“What’s that?”

Liam kisses me instead of answering me. That is his answer. His mouth presses against mine and it feels intensely good, sweet and passionate. I feel his hard cock pressed against me, and his muscles feel good against my breasts.

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