“I get that. Look man, I’m really sorry for whatever is up with you right now. I hope money will help you out. It can fix a lot, but not everything.”
James looks at him. “It’ll give me a chance to breathe.” Darkness surrounds his eyes making the green of his irises radiate. His unruly hair shadows his brow and hangs in his eyes. He looks like a runaway teen. “Feels like I’ve been suffocating forever,” he whispers.
“Relax, James, we’ll get you set up.” Steve looks back at his monitor. As with all his clients, he’d spread James’ holdings across a fairly wide range to keep him diverse. “I’ve killed most of your popular tech stocks, Cisco, Oracle, Samsung, Google and the like. That gives you close to four million. We can raise the rest of the cash with your Diamonds and Spyders. Want me to hold on to your long-term stuff, or cash out now and you take the hit?”
“Keep it. It’s yours. Payment for services beyond the call. It’s the only way I’ve got to repay you.”
“You don’t owe me anything. It’s your money, James, much of which has helped me make mine. You have every right to claim it.” Steve retrieves a tablet and stylus from his desk, gets up and hands them to James then points where to sign. “Full signature on pages two, four and five, and initial pages six through ten, then sign and date at the end. And remember to sign Michael James Edison. You’ll have two million plus left. What should I do with it?”
James scrawls his signature on the screen repeatedly. “Do whatever you want with it.” He puts the tablet and stylus back on the desk. “Donate it to a worthy charity before the Feds find it and take it. I don’t care. If twelve million can’t salvage me, a couple more on top of that sure as hell won’t.”
There’s something in the finality of his phrasing Steve doesn’t care for.
“I just need the accounts set up as soon as possible. And I need some cash, Stephen. I have like ten bucks left on me.”
“I’ll give you the cash I have here, but it’s not much. A few hundred maybe.” He goes to the wall safe behind the Monet print, spins the dial four times and opens the safe. “I’ll hold on to the rest of your money, James, invest it, hopefully multiply it, do my job.” He pulls out a small stack of cash and counts it, then hands it to James. “There’s only four hundred and sixty dollars here. You need more, I can go the bank.” Steve lifts the license and social security card off his desk and hands them to James.
“This’ll do. Thank you.” James retrieves his wallet from his back pocket, inserts the cash and I.D., then slides the billfold back in his pocket.
“I’m taking you out of the original pseudonym we set you up with, and putting your remaining assets in a living trust under your new pseudonym. When, and if you need it, it’ll be here for you.” He pauses, swallows back his trepidation. “But Julia won’t be. I’m going to ask her to marry me, when the time is right. If you’ve got a problem with that, James, we ought to work it out now.”
James stares at him, it feels like probes him, then he manages a quick smile. “You really are one of the good guys, Stephen.” He bows slightly then straightens, winces. “Are we done?” He holds his side, breathing in quick gasps like he’s trying to catch his breath.
“You okay?” Steve has to ask. The man looks like he’s about to pass out.
He nods. Steve sees him swallow, his jaw line tighten. “Fuck,” he whispers. His skin tone goes ashen. Sweat trickles down his cheeks and neck. He runs both hands through his hair then clasps them on top of his head. His sleeves pull back a bit with his motion, and Steve notices chaff marks and bruises on his wrists, like scarring from restraints. Jagged red scars at the base of his wrists continue up his forearms under his shirtsleeves. James catches him looking, folds his arms across his chest, tucks his hands under his arms, turns away, and freezes.
Julia stands on the stairs a step from the bottom, three feet from him.
“What did you do?” She glares at him, her brown eyes wide, her brow narrow. “Come here.” It sounds like she’s commanding a dog.
James stares at her wide-eyed, frozen like a deer in the headlights. Julia moves on him, comes off the stairs, grabs his hand and pulls his shirtsleeve back exposing his forearm.
Steve literally gasps. An ugly red scar runs along the full length of James’ forearm.
James pulls his hand away, moves back, but she stays on him, grabs his other wrist but he pulls his arm away before she can pull up his shirtsleeve. “What did you do!? Why!?”
He just stands there staring at her, shaking his head.
She begins slapping him about the arms and face. He moves back, but doesn’t try to stop her, as if he deserves to be hit, like he’s a child being scolded by a parent, but he backs away from her until she has him up against the glass wall.
“Stop, Julia.” Steve moves to pull her off him.
“You lied!” she yells at James.
“I didn’t lie, Julia!” James yells back, finally grabbing her wrists and holding them.
“You weren’t institutionalized for killing someone. They locked you up for trying to kill yourself, didn’t they?” She pushes Steve back, glares at James a foot from her. He stares back at her but remains mute. “Talk to me,” she screams. “And I want the truth this time!”
“What is going on!?” Steve interjects, but they ignore him.
“I swear, everything I told you is the truth—”
“Omission is a lie, James. You didn’t tell me everything.” Julia’s crying now. Tears streak down her face while she glares at James, outraged, undermined, afraid. She yanks her wrists from his grasp and turns away.
James winces, grabs his side again. “I tried to kill myself in Langside, Julia. I was in hell and it was intolerable.” He speaks only to her, as if Steve isn’t there. “They messed with my head. They screwed with my body, and I couldn’t get out of there, couldn’t get away from them—it was my only way out.” Tears streak down his gaunt cheeks. He holds his ribs, his eyes fixed on her. He’s begging her for absolution.
“I didn’t know,” Julia whispers. “I thought we were through.” She turns to face him, all the blush gone from her tear-streaked cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t go there, Jules.” James shakes his head, glances at Steve.
Julia finally looks at Steve, and her eyes fill with tenderness, he’s sure of it. “He’s sick, Stephen. You can see that. He needs more than money. He needs professional help,” she says softly. “Now. Today.” She turns back to James and he recoils, bangs his head into the glass wall behind him.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m one of your fucking psychotics, Julia.” He glares at her then moves past her to the center of the room, holding both sleeve cuffs in his fists, hiding his scars. “And I sure as hell don’t need some academic prescribing me meds. I’ve had enough of those already. Money’s the only help I need.”
“Ultimately not, James. Unless you deal with what happened that allowed you to justify taking your life, you will forever stand on the precipice of that exit,” Julia says rather clinically.
James stares at her and shakes his head, then looks at Steve. “My humblest apologies for all this, Stephen. And profound gratitude.” He wipes the tears from his eyes and cheeks with his shirtsleeve. “
[email protected], right?”
Steve nods, suddenly exhausted, drained of all anger, resentment, jealously of James, watching the broken man before him. “I’ll set up the accounts with your liquidated securities as we discussed. You can expect them to top out by the end of the week.” He looks at Julia. She glances at him, her expression more defeat than anger, then she turns away, goes to the glass wall and stares out. James watches her, but Steve talks to him anyway. “My suggestion would be that you invest a good portion of it in real estate, bonds, stocks, whatever—be good cover to have a strong portfolio under your new I.D.”
“Yeah. Good idea. Thanks again, for everything.” He looks at Julia. She turns around to face him, and Steve feels them connect with an intensity he knows h
e’ll never share with her. “Did you know that even though she professes to be an atheist, she prays.” James keeps his eyes fixed on hers as he speaks. “You’re a lucky man, Stephen.” He finally looks at Steve, gives him a pensive smile and extends his hand.
“Good luck, James.” He grips James’ hand firmly and shakes it.
James releases him then fixes his eyes back on Julia. “In a different life, my dear...” He whispers. “Have the time of your life in this one.” He doesn’t acknowledge Steve. He stays on Julia, and she on him. A moment passes between them, as if they are the only two people on the face of the Earth, then James turns away and disappears up the stairs.
Julia stares at the staircase a moment, as if hoping he’ll come back, but then she looks down, seemingly, consciously, avoiding Steve. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, Stephen. I’m sorry I made this hard. You deserve better, better than me.”
“I want you, Jules. Unless you can’t get him out from under your skin. I want a lifetime with you, without James between us.”
Steve hears James padding across the wood floor of the living room above his office. He watches Julia as he hears the front door shut.
“James is gone, Stephen. He’s not coming back. He’s no longer between us. The truth is, he was never really here at all.”
She looks at him then, her eyes still wet with tears, shakes her head slowly and looks down again. After a moment Steve moves to her, lifts her head with his forefinger, cups her cheek in his hand as she looks up at him. His eyes connect with hers, and he feels her sadness, confusion, doubt, fear. He extends his love, his longing, his desire for her as he moves his other hand to her face, lets his eyes travel to her lips, hesitates for her response then catches the hint of her smile, then pulls her to him halfway, and kisses her.
Chapter Nine
I’m in a mammoth aqua curl. Wave arcs over me and I glide on my board through the tunnel of water. Reach out and touch the curling wave, water streaming off my hand like liquid mercury. Rushing wave sounds like a symphony—highest treble to lowest bass of a tempestuous orchestral sonnet. I fly towards the light beyond the breaking wave, but it doesn’t get any closer, and I look back just as the wave engulfs me.
I’m on the sand, the sun lifting the wetness from my skin and baking me warm. Can’t remember how I got here. Just glad I survived the wipe out. Tickle of sand sprays my torso, and open my eyes as Julia, wearing her black one-piece straddles me with her long, slender legs and sits on my stomach. She has a beer in both hands and takes a swig of hers as she puts the other icy bottle on my bare chest. Gasp with the shock of the cold and she laughs, more mean-spirited than funny, and it kind of creeps me out. The laugh is familiar, but I’ve never heard it from Julia before.
Then her lips are on mine, her tongue in my mouth, she’s sucking me in. My body responds before my brain and I feel pulsing in my groin, my cock hardening. She slides her hand down my body, under my swim trunks and wraps her fingers around my shaft. And while it should feel good, it doesn’t. Her touch is aggressive, overly rough as she moves her hand up and down my length. She laughs again, that cold laugh, and I look up at her, but she’s now kissing her way down my torso. See the top of her head, her long, thick brown hair cascading across my stomach, but instead of soft, it feels stringy, damp, like an old-style mop.
But Julia cut her hair. It’s short now.
She’s running her tongue along the line of my pelvic bone, then stops at the base of my penis, and Parker looks up at me.
I’m naked. Exposed. No longer at the beach.
Her black eyes are wild. She’s speeding, per usual. She smiles, laughs coldly, holding my dick with her laced, Goth-gloved hand. Try to get her off me but can’t move my arms—they’re spread and pinned above my head by leather straps fixed to the metal bed frame of the bare mattress I’m on. Try kicking her off me, but I can’t move my legs either. They’re spread wide, pinned by leather straps around my knees and ankles.
I go berserk, writhing, fighting against the restraints. Feel her hand on my ass and every part of my body tightens as she slides her fingers between my balls to my anus. Squirm to get away from her, but the restraints cut into me, holding my legs back and forcing my body to arch upwards at the hips fully exposing all of me. I can’t move. I’m beyond prostrate, and helpless, and scared out of my mind.
“No! Stop!” I try and yell, but something’s in my mouth, a hard leather rod, holding my tongue down and my mouth open so my words are garbled, my voice slight. Tears of frustration, rage, shame well, then stream down the sides of my face into my hair.
She runs her finger round the rim of my anus then sticks it up my ass. I groan with the painful pressure, and continue to grunt with the cramping in my stomach and groin as she rotates her finger, finally release a panting gasp when she finally pulls it out. Struggle to lift my head but the gag around the back of my neck is so tight I can only lift it an inch or so. Parker looks at me, smiles as she releases my cock, draws her fingernails across my stomach as she turns away from the bed. I hear high pitched rustling of metal. My terror mounts.
I’m trembling uncontrollably, drenched in sweat, and succumb to tears for a moment. Peeling plaster reveals ancient stone brick walls. Bare light bulbs hang on wires from the ceiling, which is also coated with peeling plaster exposing the arched Cathedral vaulting. There are no windows.
Parker returns, looming over me, brings a black plastic wand with a small metal fitting on the top between my spread legs, up against me but not touching, and turns it on, her face suddenly awash in blue light. She smiles broadly, her yellowed teeth especially bright against her black lipstick and blue skin, the scene right out of Clockwork Orange, but it’s happening to me.
“We gonna put on a good show today, baby?” Parker slurs her cockney delivery. Her breath is sour, stinks of liquor.
Then searing pain shoots through my balls, my groin, right to my brain as she touches the wand to my testicles. Scream—loud, long, then I’m choking for breath, the restraints cut into my wrists and knees like knives as I recoil from the white hot shocks.
“Ooh. Very good, puppet.” She laughs again, touches the wand to my thighs, my pelvis, my stomach, my cock.
Light worms squirm across my eyes, obscure my vision, the pain so agonizing it’s commanding all my attention, overriding even my fear. My body jerks convulsively with each shock, my hips coming off the mattress only a fraction with each electric pulse, my limbs ripping as I pull against the restraints.
Parker is all smiles as she bends over me, grasps my flaccid dick and starts sucking me, touching the wand to my ass, scrotum, inner thighs again and again, putting me into a convulsive rhythm. She holds my cock so the head stays between her lips and goes in and out of her mouth as I contort against the pain.
I’m screaming at her to stop, to let me go, begging her to stop hurting me, the sounds coming out of my gagged mouth more animal than human.
My screaming wakes me. I’m on a train, sunlight coming in through the picture window momentarily blinding me from the view beyond, but then I catch a glimpse of the flat, chaparral landscape and somehow know it’s the Sacramento Valley. The compartment is old-Europe though, with two bench seats for three, facing each other. Kate sits across from me, her enigmatic smile on her freckled face, her long red hair tumbling over and blending into her thin, burgundy camisole.
We enter a tunnel. The lights blink, then go out, then come back on, and Kate is gone.
I stand, bang my head on something above me and wake with a start. I’ve smashed my head into the elaborately carved wooden headboard of the huge king size bed I’m in. Lay back into the pile of down pillows rubbing the side of my forehead to counter the throbbing, then throw the heavy white quilt aside. Sea breeze coming in from the open balcony door sweeps over my sweaty skin and cools.
Daylight shimmers through the sheer white drapes over two thirds of the glass wall. Beyond is the sparkling Ionian. I lay in bed staring at the textured ceiling, re
calling the dream integrated into the memory of Langside. I shudder picturing Parker again, shocking the shit out of me with her electric wand. I’m writhing in agony, screaming with each stinging pulse, No! Don’t! Stop! as my dick grows under her grasp, her warm wet mouth...
Tears of rage and shame well in my eyes and I get out of bed to stop mentally cycling. I go out onto the patio overlooking a sweeping view of Govino Bay, the rocky shoreline and rolling hills of the island of Corfu. Turquoise Ionian Sea glitters with the early morning sun. Greece lies beyond the horizon.
I stand at the short, marble-columned railing bordering the balcony of my private villa surveying the scene of what money buys. Below the bedroom and sitting room is the living room and kitchen which open out to a patio complete with dining area and jacuzzi the size of a lap pool. A small path leads down to a private dock which sports two chaise lounges. No beach to speak of, mostly rocky and shrouded with low trees and ground foliage that hides the villa next door.
Haven’t left this bungalow in two weeks. Haven’t seen nor heard any neighbors, and haven’t spoken to anyone in as long. Gonna have to go shopping if I want to keep eating, or call in room service. Food I brought in with me has been gone for a week now. Been subsisting on the nuts and candy set in bowls around the villa they keep refilling when they come in to clean. Doesn’t bother me. Not really hungry. More like exhausted all the time. Don’t sleep much though. Scared of dreaming.
Gonna have to stop hiding in this bedroom if I want any semblance of a life. I get that. Just don’t know how to convince fear to let me walk out the front door.
BOOK TWO
Recovery
Chapter One
Elisabeth wakes to Cameron crying and brings him out on the roof garden to suckle her breast. She strokes his silky fine golden hair and cradles his face, seeing Jack there, feeling every fiber of her being extending to her son with love. And then the tears come, as they always do lately, and she sits on the lounge chair, perusing Google Maps on her tablet for where to go from here, and cries. Cameron doesn’t seem to notice, engaged in his Lego blocks and Thomas trains, which sometimes gets to her, though she’s probably expecting way too much of an eleven month old.