My heart stopped. “You can’t be serious. I only went out with that woman because you said—”
“I was referring to tonight only. You won’t sway me on this. Did you kiss her?”
I started inching towards the bathroom. I honestly thought I might throw up.
Oh God, that awkward kiss that I hadn’t even wanted. What was it going to cost me?
“Will you kiss him if I say yes?”
She shot me a surprised look, the first time she’d looked remotely interested since I’d gotten home. “Wow, how far did you guys go? Should I be jealous?”
I cursed, and cursed, and got nothing back. “We did not get far. She invited me into her house for a drink, and I said no. And I didn’t say I’d call her, or say we’d go out again. If you’re keeping score, remember that tomorrow.”
“But you did kiss her.”
“She kissed me, and I didn’t stop her. I was trying to be nice.”
She laughed, and it sounded almost bitter, for her. I wanted to cover my ears. She was always so sweet that it was near unbearable to listen to it turning sour. “How nice you are. Well, rest assured, I’ll be nice tomorrow, too.”
“Don’t, please,” I mouthed.
Why had I let Lourdes kiss me? Had it been to get some small ounce of revenge on Iris for making me go through that? Had I wanted her to be jealous?
Yes, that was it.
I felt like shit.
“How long of a kiss was it?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t timing it.” Lies, lies, lies.
“Was there tongue?”
I shut my eyes tight, picturing the huge guy from the park getting to kiss her, to wrap his beefy arms around her.
It was so wrong.
I moved to her, ready to beg. I crawled on the bed, burying my face in her belly.
She took pity on me and stroked my hair.
“It will be better if you just tell me. I’d hate to err on the side of caution.”
“This is cruel. You know that, right? I didn’t want anything to do with this nonsense.”
“I didn’t tell you to let her kiss you. There must have been something to it. I wouldn’t have kissed anybody, if I’d gone out tonight.”
I wanted to pull my hair out in frustration. “But you will now?”
“Yes, Dair, I will now. Just like I take your words seriously, I take your actions to mean something. You wanted us to try our own age. I’m going to give mine at least as much effort as you did.”
I was shaking as I climbed on top of her. “I love you,” I told her.
I didn’t undress either of us, just took my dick out of my pants and shoved her panties to the side.
I fucked her rough. She wasn’t even ready, but I didn’t stop. I was too upset and forgetting myself. I was too big of a man to forget my strength. I may well have bruised her, but she didn’t complain.
“I love you too,” she said softly, after I’d emptied myself inside of her. She hadn’t gotten off. I could tell by her calm tone that she hadn’t even come close. “But you keep telling me that’s not enough.”
I moved off her, shutting myself in the bathroom. My emotions were too raw to deal with her just then.
I took a bath, feeling wretched.
She joined me after a time, stripping down and climbing in to straddle me. She washed my hair, and I shut my eyes, still hoping to find some way to stop her.
“You won’t do more than kiss him, will you?” I whispered.
“I’ll give him an honest try, Dair. If he kisses me, and I want to do more, I will. I’m going to let it run its course, see if there’s more to this age thing than I’d realized.”
I shoved her off me, getting out of the bath. I didn’t trust myself to be in the same room with her just then.
I didn’t realize she was leaving until she walked out of the bathroom, fully dressed.
I shook my head. “No,” I told her.
I couldn’t let her leave me like this.
“I think it’s best if I sleep somewhere else tonight. Tomorrow, too, probably.”
I flinched. “Why are you punishing me like this?”
She just shook her head and walked out.
I tried to follow, to stop her, but even when I pinned her to the front door and kissed her, she only turned her face away.
“Come back here after the date. And be safe. Please.”
She kissed my cheek and left without a word.
It was one of the worst nights of sleep of my life.
I worked out hard the next day, in Frankie’s extensive home gym, went swimming, and took the dogs for three walks. I was trying to staunch the flow of awful anxiety inside of me with physical activity, and I couldn’t have said if any of it helped.
I didn’t know what to do that evening. I couldn’t sleep, had no idea when I’d see her again, when I’d know just what she did on her date. I knew I’d lose it if she did more than kiss that guy. Just the kiss felt like more than I could handle.
I felt relief to the point of weakness, elation to the point of pain, when the doorbell rang around midnight.
I answered it shirtless, because who else could it be?
She met my eyes squarely as she walked past me, wearing a skimpy pink dress that showed off her spectacular body to perfection.
“You wore that for him?”
She sighed.
“Tell me,” I growled at her.
“Yes, I wore this for him. It was a date. You dressed quite nicely for your date.”
“How far did you . . . ?”
“Only a kiss. A short kiss, though he did shove his tongue down my throat. He was a terrible kisser.”
“Did you . . . hit if off, other than the terrible kiss?”
She began to walk towards the kitchen, her body swaying in red stilettos. She toed them off between one room and the next, then lifted her dress over her head, dropping it on the floor.
I followed like a moth to a flame. I was that deep under her spell.
She was fully nude by the time she made it to the kitchen. She perched on the counter, parting her legs. “Of course not, Dair. I’m in love with you. It was a doomed experiment from the start, but now you’ll know that I speak with authority when I tell you that your age theory is garbage.”
I moaned, not from my throat but from my chest, my heart. “Never do that to me again.”
I moved between her legs.
She shoved my boxers down, gripping me.
I was throbbing, burning for her. “Quit fighting against this, Dair, and start fighting for it. That’s all I ask. Actually, I insist. Do you understand?”
I nodded, grabbing her tits with both hands, bending down and sucking at them until she shook and moaned.
I knelt down and ate her out, her hands clutched in my hair. I didn’t stop when she came, my tongue on her clit, two fingers shoved deep inside of her.
I brought her over again. And again.
“God, you’re amazing,” she moaned.
As far as sops to my bruised ego went, that was helpful.
“Fuck me, baby. Come on.”
I straightened, moving close. I sank into her slowly, leaning back to watch my cock disappear inside of her, watched her cunt suck in every slow inch.
“You want this to be all yours, baby?” she asked me as I started to move hard inside of her.
“Yes, yes, you’re all mine.”
“You need to start acting like it. Don’t be a passive partner. This relationship is not something that’s happening to you. We are the drivers here. You’re pretending that you just can’t resist me, so you’re letting it happen. I need more from you.”
I didn’t know how she could stay so coherent when I was losing my mind. I grunted an affirmative and fucked her senseless.
I took her upstairs and delved into every inch of her. I was on her back, panting, buried in her, when she spoke again.
“Do you still think that our age difference is too much of an obst
acle for us?”
“I don’t care,” I grunted over her. “I want you, regardless. I’ll fight for you, for this. This is mine. You’re mine.” As though to prove a point, I took her hard, rutting into her from behind.
I felt her come and pulled out, still hard.
I hadn’t been like this since my twenties, needing relief so many times. And even back then, I hadn’t had a partner who met my needs with any kind of enthusiasm, even when I ate her out for hours. Iris was at least as insatiable as I was, perhaps more so, and my touch made her weak.
It was a heady feeling.
It was later when Iris suddenly left my arms, rose from the bed, and went into the bathroom.
Curious, I followed.
I came up behind her, watching her in the vanity mirror. Her face was downcast, her always thick lashes brought up to pinup status with some heavy mascara, her lipstick wiped clean, but her mouth still swollen and red.
She looked so vulnerable, and I wanted to ravage her again, just like that.
“Heath found us,” she said quietly, and my entire body stiffened. “This house is being watched.”
“I don’t understand. How?”
“He made you the night you went out with Lourdes and has had eyes on us ever since. He was actually being considerate, letting me have a little time with you, as long as I wasn’t risking myself, but he spoke to me tonight and said it’s time to go back.”
I shut my eyes tight, fists clenched. “No,” I said firmly.
She didn’t argue, just washed off her makeup and got back into bed with me.
I must have slept deeply that night, because I didn’t rouse when she left.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was sitting through one of my rare phone conversations with my mother. She was going on about something, and all I could think, as I usually did, was what a strange woman she was. Or strange to me, at least. I’d never understood her. It was hard to even relate in the most superficial way, most of the time, though luckily she didn’t require that of me.
We weren’t close; she’d always been too busy for that, even when I was in diapers, but you wouldn’t know it by our infrequent phone conversations. At least on her end, the flow of information seemed endless, as though we did this every day, not every six months.
Though it should be noted that, for my part, I hardly got a sentence in.
She’d been an English professor at Columbia for over forty years—starting at a time when it was rare to see women on campus, let alone teaching—and showed no signs of ever retiring. It was consuming work, always had been, and when she decided she had time to talk to me, she expected me to listen, even if we hadn’t spoken a word to each other in months.
She was the epitome of successful not only in her career, but in her marriage and her personal associations.
The one thing I knew with certainty about her, more than anything else, was her need for the world to admire her and her accomplishments.
When the notion of a woman having it was mentioned, Susan Johnson-Masters should have come to mind. Married to a man as successful as herself, best friends with the first female vice president, a force to be reckoned with in academia, a feminist trailblazer, and the mother of a very successful author, to boot.
Of course, you couldn’t look too closely at that mother part. A nanny or six had made sure that I, her only son, was fed and cared for, because she sure as hell hadn’t been around for even one waking hour of each day to do it. And while I was a successful author, in her circles it couldn’t help but be noted that I wrote fiction.
It wasn’t that I was bitter about my mother’s role in my life. I was a few decades too old to hold onto any mommy issues. But her part in my upbringing didn’t need to be over-exaggerated. Even she would have emphasized that her priorities had never included being a caregiver.
And even when I’d been very young, I hadn’t been bitter. I’d always been made aware of the fact (by her) that my mother had a mission in life that was far more important than just being one boy’s mommy.
She had so much to live up to. Coming from a distinguished family, married to old money, and close childhood friends with two of the most notable women in the nation, one who grew up to be the VP of the United States, and the other the outspoken activist wife of a powerful senator.
If I was brutally honest with myself, Tammy had been something of a rebellious statement to my mother, which accounted for some of her attraction, at least in the beginning. She was no Susan Johnson-Masters, in fact many would say she was the polar opposite, with very few personal ambitions.
Back then, Tammy had fed me some lines about wanting to live a life with an emphasis on family, and my young, already work consumed self had eaten it whole. Wouldn’t it be great to come home to someone who wanted to take care of my needs?
Years had turned into decades, and Tammy, who’d waxed poetic about wanting to be a mother, had somehow never quite been ready just yet for that step.
Twenty years later, and I was well aware that joke had been on me.
My mother’s voice brought me back to our conversation.
“. . . As though that poor, dear woman hasn’t been through enough . . . ”
Ah. I didn’t have to wonder who the dear woman was, though I hadn’t been listening prior. My mother and her two closest friends had achieved such a prominent, noted level of success that my mother had become accustomed to updating other people of each of their statuses before she was even asked. She did this when she spoke to me not because she even assumed I cared, but out of pure habit.
Though, incidentally, I did care.
The purpose of the automatic, obligatory update was for two reasons, as I saw it. One: To remind one and all about her important ties. Two: To assure everyone that the three influential women were as close as ever.
The dear woman could only be Diana, the VP. If she had said sweet, I’d have known she was referring to the senator’s wife, Vera.
It went without saying that these two forces of nature could in no way be described as either dear or sweet, but you couldn’t have paid me to tell that to my mother.
And of course, she knew they weren’t either of these things, but calling them that was yet another reminder about how special their relationship was, pointing out to whoever was listening that she knew a side of them both that no one else had seen or would ever be privileged to.
“. . . First her daughter and son-in-law die in a tragic accident, leaving her to raise all three of her grandchildren herself. And soon after, her oldest grandson cuts all ties from her, turns criminal, and has to be hidden from the public,” she continued. “And all before he was even eighteen. She could do nothing but suffer in silence and let him go. And then her granddaughters, those two beautiful, darling girls, both pass away, tragically, at such tender ages. And all of this she bears in silence, the epitome of a strong woman, and perseveres in her political career, holding the second highest office in the nation, a great example to all women . . . ”
She always spoke in what I liked to think of as her projecting/lecturing voice, every phrase thought out and rehearsed just so. She didn’t need to use it with me, but it was old hat for her at this point.
“. . . And now this, this outrage, these accusations of corruption, and ties to the mob, and even talk of a criminal investigation! All with some mysterious person, this witness that’s gathered this so called proof against her, yet remains anonymous!”
“You were saying, the last time we spoke, that there was finally some speculation that the deaths of her two granddaughters might be related,” I interrupted her, because that was literally the only way I’d ever be getting a word in.
“I said that? No, no, that can’t be right. They died a year apart. No connection, and that is all, sadly, water under the bridge. The press will forever have a field day with those two untimely tragedies, but it’s no use now. Now there is something new and dire to deal with. Just as she’s finishing up another successf
ul term, she’s become embroiled in a scandal. They are trying to put her behind bars, Alasdair. Can you believe that?”
“Well, it won’t come to that, if she’s innocent, right?”
I had my doubts about the innocent part. I knew Diana well enough to at least entertain the idea that she could be guilty. She was a formidable, terrifying woman, capable of eating her own young, as far as I could tell, but you could add that opinion to the list of things I’d never be telling my mother.
“Yes, yes, of course she’s innocent, but think of the damage this is doing to her impeccable reputation. It is tarnishing her good name. She’ll never be able to run for president, if this continues to escalate.”
I made a note to tell Iris about this latest scandal whenever she showed up again. She abhorred politicians on principal, and I knew I’d get a kick out of her reaction to a VP with direct ties to the mob.
“Now I know you don’t like to get sentimental . . . “
Me? She thought I was the one that didn’t like to get sentimental? This was news to me. Well, not news so much as the pot calling the kettle black.
“ . . . But, I don’t know, I think it’s all this thinking about what poor, dear Diana has been through with her grandchildren, and I just wanted to tell you that I love you. And, well, you must know this, but I’m extremely proud of you.”
I felt instant remorse for my usual snarky thoughts about her. I’d just heard her mission statement so many damn times that it was easy to apply it in a way that dehumanized her, when I should have felt a touch more sympathy for the single hardest working person I’d ever met. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a vacation.
“Love you too, Mom,” I said gruffly, the words feeling hopelessly unnatural, even if they were the truth.
When we finally hung up, I found myself searching online for news reports about Diana’s granddaughter, Francis. She was the older of the two girls, the second to die in a tragic accident, and the one I’d actually known, however briefly.
She’d had an impact on me, though I’d only spent a small amount of time with her. She’d been in her early teens, but already brilliant, a prodigy, and she’d been absolutely thrilled to meet me on one of the rare vacations where our families had all gotten together. I recalled spending one memorable afternoon with her, where she’d interviewed me for some school project.