Alex Haley
-1-
“You look fucking hot.”
Juliana Clark steps out of the Spa Belles West Village changing room and grimaces. She smooths her hand over her belly.
I motion for her to come to the full sized mirror so she can see
the full picture. The black jumpsuit looked
effortlessly glamorous on her body. The draping over the stomach and batwing
sleeves added the modesty I knew she liked. Plus, the Jimmy Choo stilettos ( with the cute
little gold bows on the back) make her ass and legs look amazing.
The outfit was courtesy of the late Charlotte Washington. Her daughters had shipped their mother’s wardrobe to their family's Manhattan apartment with the intention of consigning them at Charlotte’s favorite Brooklyn consignment shop.
But it had never happened.
El and her sisters never came to the East Coast and hundreds of thousands of dollars of designer clothes had just been sitting in their fully-furnished Manhattan condo for over year. When Juliana’s cousin, Aubrey, messaged me on Facebook about planning a night out for Juliana I’d gone to the apartment to get some of the clothes in case she wanted something special to wear. When I told El why I needed the door code she insisted Rhett and Juliana have the condo for the entire weekend.
While Luce and Rhett went to drop luggage off at the condo I took Juliana to Spa Belles, a quirky little West Village spa. The owner had been an old friend of Jean Dory's and told his staff we could get whatever services we wanted for free. We both got massages and they did Juliana's hair and make up.
“Okay,” Juliana exhales to her mirror image, smoothing her hands over her stomach again. “I’ll wear this.”
“I’m so jealous. You're gorgeous, I mean it.”
She mouths thank you.
“Ready to meet the boys ?”
She nods, I wave goodbye to the spa manager and open the door for Juliana to pass through. She smiles and her brown eyes get dewy with gratitude for the ten thousandth time that night. “Thank you so much for all this….I’m so overwhelmed by it all--”
“Stop thanking me,” I tell her. “We’re friends.”
She acted like no one ever did anything nice for her---which maybe they didn’t. Being
a full time mom was a thankless job and I knew how easy it was to push your basic
needs aside for someone else. And I couldn’t see Rhett Clark as attentive as Luce was to me.
I loved Juliana and her family but I was sure her husband didn’t like me. He wasn’t my favorite person either. He came off a little judgmental, entitled and arrogant.
Then again I’d never spent much time around straight men so maybe they were all just like that.
“That massage was amazing,” Juliana says, carefully picking her way through the cobblestoned West Village streets in the stilettos like a god damn pro. “We should have let Rhett and Luce come to the spa too.”
“Luce is a killjoy and I figured your husband wouldn’t be into it either.”
“Knowing Rhett he’d probably think you were taking us to an illicit massage parlor.”
“Like with happy endings ? Because Luce could have taken him to one,” I tell her. “A lot of them are human trafficking but we found one in New Jersey that isn’t and they also have this great massage with hot cups on your back.”
Juliana shakes her head quickly and I realize that was TMI. I needed to pull it back.
“I think Rhett gets plenty of happy endings on a weekly basis from home,” she says, which surprises me.
Juliana and I had similar past with sex work. We both got into it young, although my experiences were....different that hers. I knew she carried trauma from it. Because of that I didn’t bring up sex unless she did.
“You have sex every week ? How in the world do you manage that ?”
Juliana shrugs.
I barely had time to look Luce in the eye once a week.
The hospital was making me get a bachelor’s degree and between Nova, working in the ER, online classes and clinicals I was exhausted all the time. Luce and I had snuck away for Labor Day but we’d had to leave the minute we got there when a neighbor informed us about the party Nova was having.
“We just find the pockets of time. It doesn’t take us long anymore since we have a routine.”
“Routine ?”
I barely understood the world of vanilla sex but routine sex sounded even worse
“I guess that happens after you’ve been married for 16 years. You get in a habit,” she explains.
“No way. Luce and I’ve been together a long ass time. You just need new habits.”
“I’ve thought about it…but those things in Cosmo seem dangerous--”
“That’s because they’re written for clickbait.”
I stop short at the light and point to a corner shop’s lighted display of slutty lingerie and discount bondage gear.
“Want to go inside ?”
She stares at the sex shop’s display.
“I wouldn’t even know what I was looking at--”
“I’ll show you. It’s kind of fun. If you want ?”
She seems to think on it and then nods. Like everything in this city, the sex shop is bigger on the inside. Since everything was online now I hadn’t been in a store like this in years.
I glance at Juliana and she looks overwhelmed but not in distress. I pull her over to a far wall and get on my toes to pull a package off the rack.
“Guessing that’s not a Bluetooth headset,” she quips looking at it,.
“It’s a prostate massager,” I explain, “He’ll lose his mind.”
She turns it around to look at the insertion instructions.
“I…don’t think Rhett would go for this.”
This wasn't supposed to be about him anyway. I pull her over to a small display of silicone cock rings.
“This is cheap.” I pick up a black ring. “It goes around the base and makes men last forever. And this one vibrates which I hear is a plus for women. If he doesn’t like it he can just take it off. But if he really cares about blowing your mind he won’t.”
She picks it up and stretches it between her fingers.
“You must think I’m such a prude,” she mumbles.
“I don’t have opinions about other people’s sex life.”
It was mostly because I was sick of hearing other people's opinions about mine.
I convince her to buy the ring along with a small bottle of temperature changing lubricant and some military themed condoms as a funny gag. The packaging had a hilarious pun about saluting your member.
I’d made him wear his Apple watch tonight so he had no excuses for not getting text messages. He texts me back from seconds later---which is a record for Luce Grace.
L: Where the hell are you ? We’re waiting at the restaurant. What is taking you two so long to get here ?
A: Made a quick stop with Juliana. Did you see the picture I sent you ? Y/N on the collar ?
L: What is Y/N ?
A: ok, boomer 😆
Anytime Nova enlightened us about his generation’s slang Luce always tuned him out but I tried to learn. If for no other reason then to use it against Luce later.
L: Why do you keep using abbreviations ? You have a full fucking keyboard, Alex. How far away are you ?
A: Y/N means Yes or No. Can I have the collar ? Y/N
L: How much ?
A: $99. Genuine leather.
L: Yes. Then get your ass to this restaurant.
A: You’re so obsessed with my ass. 🙄
L: We can finish this conversation tonight. Just hurry up.
A: Yes, sir. 🍆🍆🍆💦
L: Are those eggplants ? Why is that even an option ?
A: 🍑😋
L: I'm so confused. You make no damn sense.
L: ❤️
A: 💖
I get one of the beautiful but bored looking store associates to get the magenta collar from behind the glass for me. I pay for it with my phone and slip it into my pocket as Juliana finishes up at the register.
“And what was that ?,” Juliana asks as we leave.
I wasn’t sure if she’d seen what I bought. I’d let it slip to
her that Luce and I had a kinky side when I accidentally got drunk at their 4th of July cook out because Nova didn't feel the need to tell me White Claws and LaCroix were not the same thing.
“Luce and I are going to this fetish club opening after dinner tonight,” I explain to her. “I didn’t mention it earlier because I didn’t want to make it weird.”
She nods in understanding but I wonder if I was rude about it.
My old boss, Jean Dory, still got invites to club openings and parties all over the world and he sometimes passed the invites along to Luce and I. Usually we ignored them but the opening weekend for Rapture NYC, a private BDSM and fetish club, coincided with the weekend Nova would be out of the house.
We couldn’t afford Rapture’s monthly membership fee so I’d mostly just be drinking the complimentary refreshments and taking as
much free shit as possible while Luce people watched in the lobby.
“Unless…you wanted to check it out ?,” I add quickly.
“Oh. Hm. Well, I don’t know. I mean Rhett wouldn’t--”
I’d told Juliana from day one she could tell me no if I was crossing a boundary. But she hadn’t just said no.
She’s said what Rhett would say.
“You’re coming,” I tell her. “If for nothing than the free Dom Perignon and passed appetizers from Nobu. It’s supposed to be really nice. Rhett does let you make your own decisions, right ?”
I didn’t like how every one of her decisions had to go through his filter. The Clarks had no business in Rapture but since he wouldn’t like it, it’s all I wanted for her.
“Of course he does,” Juliana frowns.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. I get it,” she smiles weakly and I know she does.
***
Rhett Clark
-2-
Juliana was convinced Luce Grace and I had shit to talk about and we did—we’d just run though it all when we met last summer. When he was in the cab I'd noticed he had a slight speech impediment like he was born deaf or something. I think he is self conscious about it.
The only thing I haven’t asked him about was how he ended up in the wheelchair in the first place. Juliana had said Haley told her they didn’t like to talk about it. They’d warned us he had seizures but it wasn’t clear what those were or if they were related to the wheelchair or not.
Luce and I had dropped the bags off at the condo and had been sitting at this restaurant table in silence for the last half hour waiting for our spouses. I was on my second whiskey and he was on his third glass of red wine. He didn’t even have the decency to take out his phone to pass the time so I’d feel like a jerk if I took out mine.
I’d spent the entire time eavesdropping on two college students having the world’s worst first date at the table behind us. They poor guy just couldn’t figure out how to stop talking about himself.
“Miss when you could smoke in restaurants,” Luce grumbles randomly. It’s the first thing he’s said in 30 minutes.
“I mean…it wasn’t great for kids.”
“Adults can’t have anything. Can’t smoke….can’t have guns--”
“You second amendment guy ?”
I knew a lot of gun freaks but I didn’t take him as one.
“No,” he says. “They can take them all for all I care. I just want to have mine.”
“Do you still have yours after…,” I start, referring to the school
shooting. The kid who did it had used his gun.
“Police kept them as evidence,” he says. “Bought a new one at a gun show. Locked it in the drawer in the bedroom and didn’t tell the kid where it was.”
“All my kids know where my gun safe is and Mason has the code,” I tell him. “You just have to teach kids respect for your rules. Especially teenagers. Mine don’t even think about touching my gun because they know better.”
Luce didn’t look at all happy I was giving him parenting advice.
I didn’t care that he was 14 years older then me, it was absolutely absurd the
way they their 16-year-old ran all over them. They'd let him have alcohol at our 4th of July party.
Luce narrows his eyes and a muscle in his jaw ticks. Before he can retort his Apple Watch vibrates with a text alert. He rolls his wrist around awkwardly to look at it and then takes his phone out his pocket, turns it on and starts texting with a rye smile on his face.
I go back to eavesdropping on the couple but the girl is saying she has to go home and wash her hair. They split the check and she insists on calling her own Lyft.
“Poor guy,” I say when the couple leaves. “First dates suck. Do you remember your first date ?”
“I married him.”
“Oh. Ya’ll met in school ?”
“No.”
We’d never quite got the story on how they met. I get the sense he isn’t going to ask me anything so I just talk.
“J and I didn’t do the normal dating thing either. We wrote letters for years. She spent the weekend at my house for Memorial’s Weekend and I just knew she belonged in my life. I asked her to marry me on the next date. Where was the first place you took Haley ?”
“Don’t remember.”
The door to the restaurant mercifully opens and I see Haley but I have to do a double take at the knockout blonde strutting in behind him. Juliana still looked like herself but her natural beauty had been magnified by big lashes and dewy lips. Her chest is on full display and her hips and ass swing with every step. My fingers itch to run my fingers down every curve of her body.
She looks flush and happy.
I notice a few heads at the bar turn as she walks by and I’ll admit, I get a little kick of pride when I stand with my arms open and she walks into them.
“Damn, baby. you look beautiful,” I tell her and I mean it. She smiles as I pull her chair out.
“What were you boys talking about ?,” Haley asks, sitting in the chair next to Luce’s wheelchair.
Luce kisses a black leather cuff on Haley's wrist and their hands interlace on top of the table.
“Uh, we were talking first dates,” I say.
“Did he tell you ours was in a crappy hotel room with Pizza Hut
discussing the merits of Hot Potsie ?,” Haley grins across the table.
Before I can ask what Hot Potsie is Luce speaks up.
“That wasn’t a date,” Luce tells him, a look of concern passing through his usual stoic features.
Haley shrugs and Luce kisses him for a lot longer than seems necessary. The waiter comes just as it looks like they are about to start making out.
Haley and Juliana’s chatter fills the rest of dinner. The food is a prix fixe menu and fucking amazing. Our bill comes to almost $700 but the meal is comped since Luce’s deceased brother had been on the venture capital firm that funded the chef.
-3-
For dessert we go downtown to a swanky luxury hotel restaurant for some specialty sundae Juliana saw on a YouTube video. It’s the kind of restaurant with only a communal table and as I pull Juliana’s chair out for her I hear a familiar voice.
“---Yes, I have a preference for Ms. Winter’s parents. I just think Ms. Winter is a much better influence for Rose overall than those wild boys she insists on spending so much time with--”
Mr. Fierro stops talking abruptly when he realizes I’m the one pulling out a chair to sit next to him. Across the table are Clara and Emile doing a not so great job of looking innocent.
“Fancy seeing you all here,” Emile grins. “Was bed time cancelled ?”
“This was a surprise for them,” Haley fills in. “Sorry, I lied. They didn’t know we were taking them out.”
“This is a good coincidence,” Clara smiles. “We can finally get to know each other! What a small world.”
“It’s about to get smaller,” Emile adds flatly. “Isn’t that right, Luce Grace ?”
“How so ?,” Luce grunts.
He’d moved from his chair to the communal table’s stool.
“You don’t remember me, do you ?” Emile grins in amusement.
Luce frowns. “You were at the park earlier--”
“No. Well, yes I was but not that.” Emile says shaking his head. “You lived around Palo Alto in the late 90’s right ?”
Luce stills abruptly.
“Yeah. Did I know you ?”
“We kind of went out--”
“Oh, I want to hear all about this,” Haley chimes in while also wrapping his arm somewhat possessively around Luce’s broad chest.
“Well, not out out,” Emile adds. “Luce sat next to me at a hole in the wall bar in The Mission, we hit it off and ended up shutting the place down--”
“Really ?,” Haley brightens. “That doesn’t sound at all like Luce.”
“How the hell do you remember a guy you had drinks with over 20 years ago ?,” Luce asks.
At this Clara lets out a soft giggle, like she knows the punchline to this.
“Well,” Emile drawls. “As we waited for a cab I told you how I was following my dream and applying to Berkeley’s creative writing program. You laughed in my face, said I was wasting my time, people won’t be reading books in the future and if I wasn’t a complete idiot I’d get into the tech industry. I politely walked away, threw your number in the trash and then wrote a character named Luce Grace into my novel and had him meet a graphic, grisly end.”
“Oh, okay that sounds like Luce,” Haley laughs. “Please tell me you published this novel ?”
“Harper Collins bought it before I even graduated,” Emile beams. “Of course, it only sold 200 copies and they pulped the rest. Never even made it to ebook but I can mail you a copy.”
As Haley scribbles his address and Luce half-apologizes for his younger self, the tension seems to break and Clara insists we all try the restaurant’s signature cocktail, which is some sparkling blue drink with edible flowers and something called an ice orb.
Clara DeLune reminded me a of the girls I’d dated in college. The blue blood equivalent of debutantes who got a thrill out of dating men their fathers would hate. She’s intensely interested in hearing about all the places I’ve traveled for work.
“How was your orchestra fundraiser ?,” Juliana asks during a lull.
“It was the symphony,” Clara corrects and then pouts. “They raised a lot of money but I lost out on an exclusive tour of Fiji in the silent auction.”
“Oh, and the music was absolutely lovely,” Emile adds. “Mina Gordon came out of retirement and her motif on the Debussy was breathtaking. Clara joined her at the piano, you should have seen it!”
I make the appropriate amount of impressed head nod. God, who were these people ?
“Her arrangements of Debussy are masterful,” Clara says. “It’s always a treat when something old is done in a new way. It was an honor to be asked to play with her. It was all so…lovely, wasn’t it ?”
“Yes…lovely,” Mr. Fierro agrees…though he’s looking directly at Clara when he says it.
Just as our dessert comes Rose’s family gets up to leave so they can be at the house when the kids arrive. Once they are out the door I turn to Juliana.
“Did you hear Fierro when we came in ?,” I ask her. “He thinks his kid is too good for our kid.”
Haley says something under his breath and for the second time that night Luce Grace smiles
“What did you just say ?,” I ask.
“Oh, nothing,” Haley says taking out his phone. “Just that I should check in on Nova.”
He opens the phone tracking app we’d only threatened our kids with because we could actually trust them.
“Well, he’s at the school,” Haley says and then opens Snapchat.
I didn’t know what Snapchat was all about but he looks at a short video of Nova smiling at a table and pointing the camera at what looks like a portrait that Rose Fierro had sketched on a napkin. I catch a glimpse of Rose in the video and she seems overwhelmed by the whole dance.
Haley closes the app and opens Instagram. He clicks on Nova’s account and starts scrolling through-- just looking at the pictures of his son absently.
Admittedly, in some ways, Nova was the kid I’d been in high school. Doing stupid shit for attention. If I’d had a way to document what I was doing back then I’m sure I’d be kicked out of the Coast Guard.
Haley stops on a picture of Nova standing next to the Harry Potter display he’d made at the school library. The caption reads Mischief Managed and he has a huge grin on his face, his hand is up in a peace sign showing off the Harry Potter tattoo on his wrist.
“I secretly love that tattoo,” Haley says and it sounds like he’s talking to himself but he might be talking to Luce.
Haley zooms in on the tattoo
“And before you judge us, no, he didn’t ask for permission,” Luce says.
“We wouldn’t judge you,” Juliana says even though I’d been judging them for it
“He tried to hide it and it got really badly infected,” Haley says. “I’d probably be more angry about the tattoo if it wasn’t so good.”
“This was at a convention, right ?,”? Luce says. He experimentally clicks on the Instagram post the same way my Mom used to click on phone apps. “The shop is here in the city. We should go.”
“What about the club--”
“We can be late,” Luce says and then gives that half smile. “I want to see you get inked. Who knows ? Maybe I’ll get one.”
Haley’s eyes go wide and he turns suddenly to J and I.
“Oh, we should all get one!” he says. “I bet they have little flash tattoos. Wouldn’t that be fun ?”
I can’t read Juliana’s expression because she’s mid-sip on the
cocktail. I had two tattoos and I'd been in a few tattoo shops with the guys I worked with and they weren’t exactly the kinds of places my wife would like.
“Nah, I don’t think so--”
“Yes,” Juliana says, surprising me.
---
Luce Grace
-4-
I hated a lot about this city.
Everything was cramped as hell.
I couldn’t use most subway stops or bathrooms.
The Uber drivers were impatient assholes when I needed to transfer from my chair to their fucking cars.
But I loved how happy being in New York made Alex so I went along with his ridiculous whims.
By some miracle there is a wheelchair ramp outside of VBA Studios. The shops is small like everything in this city but the doorway had been widened so my wheelchair easily rolls through. The interior is eclectic and welcoming.
“This ain’t like any tattoo shop I’ve ever been in,” Rhett drawls, bemused.
The Clarks were surprisingly game for this whole flash tattoo side adventure. It helped that they were a little buzzed from the cocktail that DeLune girl told us to order.
“Hi! Is Tomas Alexander here?,” Alex asks, bounding up to the pierced girl behind the counter. “We don’t have an appointment but I was hoping he could squeeze in some flash tattoos ?”
“Mmm… I’m not sure if he can do that. Let me check, hang out a sec!,” the girl smiles and disappears to the back of the shop.
Alex looks a little discouraged but when he turns to sit in one of the waiting room chairs he sees the one thing that always makes him light up---a baby.
Whatever the fuck a baby was doing in a tattoo shop this time of night.
The baby is starting to fuss in the arms of it’s mother—a brunette girl that looked barely in her twenties—and does not look at all amused when Alex starts waving at it.
“Sorry,” the young mother apologizes, fumbling to make a bottle.
“Oh, do you need a hand…,” Juliana steps in, holding out her arms for the screaming kid. “I raised six babies. My name is Juliana.”
The girl looks at her skeptically. Probably because tonight Juliana Clark didn’t look like a mother of six. She’d ditched the Mormon Sunday school teacher look for ball busting sex kitten.
Still, the girl gives Juliana the baby.
“Um, I’m Sofia,” Sofia says as she rummages in her bag for a nipple. “That’s Eli.”
“Hi, Eli,” Juliana says softly as the baby presses his head into the mountain of cleavage spilling out of Juliana’s top.
Juliana widens her stance, bends at her knees and rocks her arms while moving her body up and down. It looks like overkill but the baby settles as she makes the big up and down swaying motions.
“Wait, Sofia Alexander ? Holy shit, I knew I knew you!,” Alex exclaims loudly. He was a little buzzed too. He couldn't hold his liquor and had only had two sips of the cocktail but that was just enough. “You were teaching clinicals at Lennox Hill last weekend. Right ? Right ?”
Alex had missed a month of his clinicals because he had to sit with Nova through some mandated class about the dangers of teen drug and alcohol as part of his probation. He’d gotten permission to make up the missed clinical hours at Lennox Hill in New York.
“Oh, no,” Sofia shakes her head. “I’m not an instructor. I was just helping Miss Melanie out. I’m still getting my degree. I’ll be an RN next fall.”
“That’s excellent,” Alex smiles. “You were so good at everything. I’ve been an LPN for years and this degree is killing me. It’s so much harder to get in the field then when I did it.”
As she and Alex start talking about nursing she lights up. That was one of my favorite things about him; he had to make everyone he met feel precious and validated. I’d watched him do it with everyone out of habit.
Well, except Rhett Clark.
An emaciated looking young man in a shitty wheelchair rolls out of the back of the shop with a binder in his lap. He’s got dark hair, light eyes and a concerned expression on his face as he takes in the crowd in the waiting room.
“Where’s--,” he starts and Sofia points to where Juliana had quieted the baby and Rhett is looking over her shoulder and making corny jokes about no more babies.
“You wanted to look at my book of flash art ?,” he says to Alex
and hands him the binder.
I notice the way Tomas notices Alex shaking his hips to the music in the shop before checking himself. I loved that Alex loved his body and had started dressing how he wanted. He’d toned down over the years and usually kept it conservative but when we went out he still liked to dress slutty.
I liked it too.
Although Nova informed us we couldn’t say slut or whore or even prostitute anymore. It had only come up because he and Alex spent a rare free weekend binge watching a show called Pose and felt the need to recap every single character arc to me over dinner.
Tomas wheels over to Sofia, giving me and my chair a once over as he goes. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been in a room, that wasn't rehab, where someone else was in a chair.
“Sorry you had to wait,” Tomas says under his breath to Sofia.
He digs into his pocket and pulls out a thick wad of bills. She takes them and puts them in her purse.
The Clarks and Alex pick out a flash tattoo design that Tomas says he can do it in 10 minutes or less on each of us.
The Clarks go back to get tattooed first since we all can’t fit in the back. Lex and I sit in the waiting room. He holds Sofia’s baby while she rests her eyes. The poor girl is fast asleep in less than a minute.
When the Clarks come out from getting tattooed, Alex hands off the baby to Juliana without waking Sofia. I really thought the Clarks were going to punk out of the tattoo bullshit but Rhett got the flash tattoo on his ankle where it is barely visible. Juliana got hers on her shoulder.
Alex asks me where he should get his and I tell him on his right hip bone. Tomas immediately advises against it because of how sensitive the area was.
“Not my first time on the rodeo....I’m a little bit of a sadist,” Alex smiles and shrugs like he’s joking even though he very much isn’t.
Alex pulls off the button up shirt he’d worn over the midriff baring shirt, revealing some of his existing pieces.
He lies back in the chair and tugs his pants down a few inches of his hips, Tomas doesn’t flinch as he pushes the string of Alex’s thong back a few inches to make space for the tattoo.
This guy has probably seen it all.
Alex sits up in the chair as Tomas puts on gloves and prepares the ink.
“Oh, I almost forgot, I’m mad at you,” Alex says, lighly slapping Tomas’ thigh
playfully.
Tomas’ face goes white with pain.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, honey--”
“It’s okay, why--” Tomas grimaces. He doesn’t look okay but grits out the rest of his sentence. “--Why are you mad at me ?”
“Oh. I was just joking. Um, you…gave my 15 year-old a tattoo at the Las Vegas Tattoo convention last year.”
“You have a 15-year-old ?”
“He’s 16 now.”
Alex takes out his phone and shows Tomas the photo of Nova.
Tomas looks a little green because he had to know Nova’s ID was bullshit.
“Shit. I wasn’t in charge of checking IDs that day—I--”
“I’m not really mad at you, I was just joking,” Alex smiles and sighs. “I blame him more than you. Plus, I really like your work.”
“Thanks,” he says softly.
Tomas rolls up his shirt sleeve to start inking and Alex reaches for Tomas’ hand to still him.
“What is it ?,” Tomas asks.
Alex slowly turns Tomas’ hand over in his own and traces a painted fingernail over the word on Tomas’ wrist: POSITIVE.
“HIV ?,” Alex frowns.
Tomas nods and a crease forms in his brow.
“Still want the tattoo ?,” Tomas spits in the tone of a man who’d lost customers to his status.
Alex brings Tomas’ wrist to his face and presses his lips to it before settling back into the chair and looking Tomas in the eye.
“Me too,” he says quietly.
I watch Alex get inked. He was so fucking hot and I have to periodically look away so I don’t get hard in this tattoo parlor.
I decide not to get my own tattoo because the whole idea behind the flash tattoo was fucking ridiculous.
When Tomas goes to get plastic wrap, Alex motions for me to take the place Tomas just vacated. I usually sat next to him when he got inked but the space could barely fit one wheelchair, let alone two.
Alex sits up in the chair and puts his hand on my neck to bring
me closer. I pull down the v-neck of his shirt to kiss the tattoo on his chest--the word owned in my script. I move back to his lips and when his
tongue slides against the seam of my lips I open my mouth
to him. The smooth slide of his round tongue ring against the roof of my
mouth drives me fucking insane. It takes all my willpower to put a stop to this.
“Control yourself,” I warn under my breath.
“Make me.”
“You’re such a fucking whore. So undisciplined.”
“Mm,” he sighs in agreement against my lips.
As much as he was a sadist I was a masochist. We’d gotten a hotel room in the city and I was ready to cut this night short so we could enjoy it.
“Oh,” Haley says suddenly and pulls away. He’d snapped so quickly out his submissive space. “Give me one of your business cards--”
I take the holder out of my pocket and pull a Fallwater business card out. I’d had the cards for over a decade because Ma and I didn’t make a habit of finding clients. They usually found us.
“Wait—why don’t you have your phone number or e-mail on here ?,” he frowns flipping the business card over.
“I don’t want people bothering me.”
“Luce,” he says, rolling his eyes.
He takes a pen off Tomas’s work station and scribbles his cell phone number on the back of the card.
“I’m going to give this to the artist and tell him to have Sofia call me if she needs someone to talk to. Can you go pay with your Black Card and leave a nice tip, baby ?”
He always called it ‘your Black Card’ but it wasn’t mine. It belonged to my nieces.
They forced Ma and I to keep a card in case we needed something. It was a nice gesture but I didn’t want to be financially beholden to my little nieces, it had been tough enough to accept charity from my baby brother. Alex occasionally asked me use the card to give big tips to servers, prostitutes and strippers he liked. Which was usually all of them. But we’d barely spent 10 minutes with this guy.
“Why ? Because you hit him ?”
“I think he has neuropathy,” Alex mouths quietly. “God…I’m so fucking stupid I shouldn’t have even touched him--”
“Hey, you didn’t know,” I remind him. “You apologized and I’ll leave the tip so shut the fuck about it. Okay ?”
He nods and I kiss him again.
“And after we ditch the Clarks I say we skip out on Rapture and go straight to the hotel --”
He fake laughs and rubs my forearms. It’s the fake laugh he does when he’s going to say something that will piss me off.
“What did you do ?,” I ask.
“I love you--”
“Fuck. What is it?”
“I...kind of invited the Clarks to come to Rapture with us.”
-5-
In the elevator down to
Rapture NYC, Alex slips the dark pink
leather collar around his neck. It looks like it matches his outfit and he
pulls it off flawlessly but I don’t know
if he’s wearing it for fashion purposes or because we’re in a BDSM club. Our friends (and fuck, even the adults in my family) knew what we were into but we usually played it cool in front of them.
I didn’t want embarrass him in front of the Clarks.
The elevators doors open
and the club lobby is nicer than any club we’d ever visited. The space was filled with brand new buttery leather couches,
industrial style lighting, ice sculptures and models in skin tight latex carrying
trays of the complimentary Dom Perignon and fancy appetizers from some big time restaurant.
I’m not going to be able to move much in the crowd so I get out of my chair and settle into one of the leather couches while Alex plays tour guide to the Clarks, guiding them to other side of the lobby to the demonstrations.
Nothing too exciting usually happens at these openings but I like to people watch and get a sense of my space. I’d sometimes find new things I’d never thought I’d be into. Most people are just drinking and talking---I do spot two women tangled up in an oversized armchair clearly going at it. One of them I recognize as starring in a Disney Channel movie Nova has been obsessed with a few years ago.
A deliberate hand swipes the back of my neck.
I turn and lock eyes with the woman who had been with Mason Clark’s date at the park. She hadn’t bothered to introduce herself to us. She’s wearing all black and even though I preferred curvier women, this woman was doing something for me. She was younger than I liked with a lean frame and hard muscle.
She’s with a skeletal, sunken faced man around her age in an elaborate suit that would give Fierro a run for his money. He’s also got some pretty ugly scarring on his cheeks. The woman sits next to me and the man sits next to her, his arm draped around her waist.
I was too old to be self-conscious, but I never felt fully myself in clubs like this if I didn’t have Alex next to me.
I’d noticed the woman at the park immediately.I had a specific type and it was hard to find women who fit into it. She had to have big dominant energy while still letting me fuck her into submission.
The way this this woman looked at me in the park told me she was into some shit. Her being here of all placed proved that.
“I saw you at the park,” I break our silence.
She doesn’t respond, she just looks at me with that same intense stare. I bet she’s used to men withering under that gaze.
“Is he the one you told me about, Cupcake ?,” the man asks, touching her reverently.
People always said Alex and I were in our own little world but these two seem totally unconcerned that I can clearly hear them.
“Paris,” he introduces himself to me finally.
Cupcake doesn’t bother with an introduction. She takes note of my empty wheelchair sitting next to the couch.
“That’s real,” I warn her.
More than once people thought I had a medical fetish which got awkward fast but Cupcake seems unconcerned. She stands, takes off the brakes and rolls the empty chair towards the coat room and kicks it into a dark corner.
Power play. Okay.
She walks back towards me and straddles my waist, her knees pushing deep into the couch.
Her dress has a high slit in it and I can feel the heat of her pussy pressed against my cock.
I look over at Paris and he seems to be enjoying the show.
“You like dominant women ?,” she asks, gripping my hair and pulling my head back.
I nod.
“Use your fucking words.”
“Yes.”
“You fuck them until they are good little obedient girls who come when you say ?,” she seems to read my mind.
I smirk and she slaps me across the face—it’s a real slap too. She yanks my head back farther and starts moving her hips against me as she reaches for the case in Paris’ lap. She unzips it, pushes a strap on aside and takes out a tube of lipstick.
I watch her uncap it and I think she’s going to put it on herself but she turns it on me.
The tip of the lipstick feels oddly satisfying against my forehead. She writes all over my face with it, all while calling me the filthiest names. I’d never been into humiliation but I was so fucking hard right now and I know she can feel it. She looks down at my zipper briefly, a little shocked about what she feels.
“You’re a big boy,” she says.
I want to bring this bitch to her knees.
“Come to my husband and I’s hotel,” I tell her.
I’d make Alex get rid of the Clarks.
“No need,” Paris says. “We can use our private room at the club.”
I feel like a little bit of an ignorant fuck because I’d assumed most of the Homeland refugees were poor. Access to the private rooms at Rapture meant committing to pay the $3,000 platinum membership fee every month.
Cupcake kisses me and the touch conveys nothing but lust and challenge. I meet that challenge the best I can. Meeting every one of her bruising kiss with one of my own.
A flash of pink comes into my peripheral as Alex approaches us. He’s alone---thank, god--and is looking at me very knowingly. He He had to know she was my type from the moment we saw her.
I pull away from her kiss to look at him. Cupcake looks impatient and seems to barely tolerate Alex’s sudden presence. He kneels on the couch next to me.
“Where are the Clarks ?," I ask.
“They left suddenly,” he shrugs. “Juliana kind of ran out of here…I think it was too much for her.”
“This is my husband, Alex,” I say. “Lex, they invited us to their private room.”
Cupcake looks Alex up and down. She frowns at the metal angel wing detail on his collar.
“Okay. I can make it a threesome,” she finally says, standing.
“Don’t you mean foursome ?,” I say looking at Paris.
She just shakes her head.
“Go get my chair,” I tell Alex pointing to the coat closet.
I was sick of being teased. I needed bury my cock into one of them in the next 5 minutes.
“What’s your name, Cupcake ?,” I ask as Alex comes back with the chair and helps me into it.
“Why ? I didn’t ask yours,” she shoots back.
Once I’m in the chair ,Alex sits in my lap, resting his head on my chest. He wraps one arm around my neck and puts the other down my pants to tease my erection through my underwear.
“I’m not calling a grown ass woman Cupcake when I fuck her.”
“You like to talk dirty ?,” she asks with a raised eyebrow. I did.
“Mine name is Luce,” I offer.
“Fine,” she smirks. “It’s Sera.”
I’m momentarily stunned and Alex let’s out a loud bark of laughter.
“No way,” he laughs,
burying his head in my chest to mute the sound of his laughter. I feel his body quaking uncontrollably against me.
I’d never lost an
erection so quickly in my fucking life. Cupcake just looks at us confused and
Alex won't shut up.
Of course. Of fucking course. The woman of my fantasies walks right into my life and this would happen.
I want to unhear her real name, a name that brought up a clear image of my mother every time I heard it.
But I’d never be able to. The moment was over.
“Fuck,” I shout in frustration, rolling away.
-6-
Juliana Clark
I’m sure the views from a 26th floor luxury Manhattan sky rise were one of a kind. I imagine the 2000 square foot apartment is decorated like a home I could only dream about.
But right now I don’t care.
All I cared about is Rhett and how much I want his hands on my body while the tiny little sensations running through it were still alive.
Rhett closes the door to the apartment and I lean against it. He drops to his knees and gropes his way around my thighs, legs and waist. He rubs his fingers around my waist and I giggle at the ticking sensation.
“Rhett--”
“You gotta help me out, baby,” Rhett says from the floor. “Where is the zipper on this fucking thing ?”
“Oh, sorry,”
I reach behind my back and pull the zipper down causing the whole garment to tumble down my body. I’d put on a strapless bra but hadn’t bothered to change out of my plain cotton underwear that came in a pack from Walmart. I start to take the shoes off to help get the underwear down but Rhett grips my ankles to still me.
“Leave the shoes on,” he breathes from where he was still on his knees.
He hooks my leg over his shoulder and I arch against the door as his mouth finds me. His fingers are inside of me and his tongue barely touches my center before my knees buckle and pleasure ricochets across my body.
The minute we’d walked into Rapture NYC, Rhett was amused. But I was in way over my head. Haley had warned me there might be some nudity and I’d brushed it off. I’d worked at a strip club in Miami. I’d seen naked bodies. Sure, I’d never looked at pornographic material, but I’d come across it a few times on Rhett’s laptop.
But I’d never seen bodies like this.
We’d been trailing a scantily clad Amazonian waitress so I could have my first sip of Dom Peringon when we rounded a corner to see a nearly naked woman sprawled on a table with a man touching her. It wasn’t lewd. He just stroked a finger up her calf or down her neck. But her back bowed and a soft moan left her lips with every small touch and I couldn’t look away.
Something about it sent bright sensation to every nerve ending in my body. I didn’t want the feeling to wane. I wanted Rhett inside me while I still felt the tingles so I’d made up a ridiculous excuse and we left.
I’d tried to make it seem casual but Haley seemed whiplashed when I bolted out with Rhett following on my heels.
I couldn’t put the feeling into words so I put it into kisses in the back of the taxi and Rhett seemed to have gotten the message.
I unhook my foot from Rhett’s shoulder so he can stand and he leads my boneless body into the bedroom, shedding his own clothes along the way.
I sit on the bed and he picks me up, tossing me farther up on the bed before getting in himself. He lies down behind me to cradle my body with his, sliding his arm around to my chest and massaging my breasts. I knew what would happen next. He’d bring us closer so we were spooning and I’d open my legs just enough for him to find the place to penetrate me. I’d feel the muscles is his stomach against my back and marvel at the places where he was hard and I was softer than I liked. His hand might slip to my belly and I’d hate myself for moving it away. Then he’d go faster and I’d tune back in, momentarily forgetting whatever diet plans I’d been imagining when he makes me orgasm.
It would all take less than five minutes. Because we had a routine.
Ugh, why had I said that to Haley. And why was it so true ?
“Wait--”
“What ?,” he asks breathlessly, turning me so we are face to face. He kisses me. “You want to be on top--”
That was the alternative when the kids weren’t in the house. Rhett loved it but I didn’t like doing it completely naked.
“No. I--”
I get out of the bed and he calls after me as I rush back out to where I’d dropped my purse and pull out the items I’d bought at the sex shop. I lay them out on the comforter for him to see. I don’t bring the military condoms because even though Haley thought it would be a funny joke Rhett would probably disagree.
“It’s called a cock ring--” I explain picking up the rubber ring.
“I know what it is,” he smirks.
“You do ?...Do you want to try it”
He shrugs and I remember what Haley had said.
“I mean to say I want to try it.”
“Alright. Yes, ma’am,” he grins.
He takes it from me and grimaces as he fits it on. It’s a little ridiculous but it also makes him look bigger somehow.
“I want to…I want to try something different,” I tell him.
“Okay. I like you Ms. Bossy,” he smiles. “Like what ?”
“I haven’t gotten that far,” I admit.
“Do you want to get on your hands and knees ?,” he says. “I think it would be sexy.”
I'm hesitant. He seems to read my mind because he rubs his thumbs on the stretch marks on the back of my upper thighs.
“I love your body,” he purrs. “Please ?”
I nod and Rhett flips me over and with no warning pulls me back on to him. As his hips start moving, I experiment; moving my legs farther and closer together to see what feels good. His erection seems to only get harder as we go well past the five minute mark and he finds new angles that I never even knew existed. I feel uninhibited and free. My mind blanks after a while and I sink into the intimacy of being with him, quietly whispering his name.
He plasters himself to my back, our bodies moving in a quiet rhythm punctuated by our ragged breathe. When his moans sound closer to pain than pleasure he takes the ring off and finishes with an intensity that makes us come at the same time.
He collapses on top of me and I roll around to face him. Before I can get words out we’re kissing and within minutes he’s asleep, clutching me close like I was his favorite toy. And I can’t be mad at him.
***
-7-
It’s not until sunrise that we get a full look at the apartment..
“How could someone own this place and not live here everyday ?,” Rhett says, pulling me into the crook of his arm.
I nod.
We were on the apartment’s city view balcony in our pajamas, drinking lattes from the fancy coffee machine that had
been sitting on the counter still in the
box. We’d snuggled up to watch the city waking
up from the balcony. It was perfect and
quiet and serene.
This morning we’d woken up wordlessly and made love again in the shower. I always forgot that even though his leg acted up he was still physically strong. The shower itself was bigger than the master bathroom at our old house and we’d spent an hour figuring out what all the buttons on the iPad looking control panel did.
I tip back my mug to get the last of the latte and he licks the bit of foam that lands on my chin.
“Want a refill--,” he starts.
“I want you to stop drinking so much,” I respond. It spills out.
“What the fuck, J ?” he laughs.
“—and I….I want you stop using anger as a crutch...and to put your family before job and duty--”
“Juliana…baby...Did I do something ?”
“It’s hard being a wife and mother but I love it. And I know it can’t be all about me. But…I also liked getting what I wanted last night. And even if I can’t always get it…I want to do a better job letting you know what I want when I want something.”
“I--”
“We’re in a new place, Rhett. I don’t want everything to be the same.”
He just looks hurt.
“I didn’t know you felt that way,” he says. “We could have talked about this in Freeport.”
“I know but…. I’ve never been good at asking for what I needed.”
He nods.
“You know I love you,” he says.
“Of course I do. I love you too, Rhett,” I tell him. “I always have and always will.”
“Do you want to move this back into the bedroom ?,” he suggests.
“We should do some exploring before we have to go back,” I tell him. “I want a real New York City bagel and to see the top of the Empire State Building and I have a list of at least three knitting stores we have to go to. Maybe even a nice lingerie store.”
The last part makes his eyebrows raise.
We get up and I go back to the bedroom and change from my pajamas to a tea length sundress and denim jean jacket. Rhett comes up behind me without pants and a small bottle of cream.
“We gotta put this on the tattoos so they don’t get infected,” he reminds me.
The impulsive flash tattoos we’d gotten at VBA Studios seemed like a lifetime ago. Rhett moves aside the strap of my dress to rub lotion into mine and then he acts like a baby and puts his leg in my lap so I can put cream on his.
The design we’d settled on was a tiny black star. When we were looking through the book at the tattoo shop Haley had pointed it out. He’d said it was the perfect representation of our night together.
“How’s that ?,” Rhett had asked him.
“Because,” Haley had smiled. “We all belong to the same universe.”
----
A/N
I'd do a Q&A but I can explain almost nothing about why a thing happens in this novella. Most of Lile characters’ scenes/lines/descriptions are
lifted from her serials. I know my Fierro is still off, but I'd written this before Lile explained he was a little bit warmer and just shy. I have no idea why Sera and Paris have money.
I don’t know why I do any of this serial stuff but writing these
silly fanfics has been oddly therapeutic ? Like they never stopped being escapist
fun ? I'm sad they are over but I think most of all I’ll miss Lile’s dissertation comments breaking down
my attempts at her characters.
Anyway, that’s all she wrote crossover fanfic-wise, thanks for
coming along...next up is Years and then , well, who knows (cause I don't...)?