Broken (21 page)

He’s got a nice cock. I measure it with my eyes. Length and girth, very nice. I can’t tell much more, because of the condom Candy was smart enough to put on him. The fluff of hair around the base is thick and darker than the hair on his head and body, but looks well-groomed.

I take the hand he holds out to me. He pulls me gently onto his lap, where I sit perched on one knee. My pussy must be wet against his leg, and I wonder if that excites him, to know that Barbie got me so aroused.

“Put your hand on my cock, Kitten.” He says my name like it amuses him. Hell, it amuses me, too. I do as he says, feeling his heat through the latex. His cock pulses a bit in my fingers.

Together, we watch Barbie and Candy kissing. Joe’s hand moves around in front of me. He circles my clit with the tip of his finger. I’m already set on fire from Barbie’s excellent cunt-eating, so Joe’s touch makes me push my pussy into his hand.

“Sit still.”

It’s hard to do that when he keeps rubbing my button. “Slower,” he says when my hand starts moving faster on his erection.

“Candy, I think I’d like to see you lick Barbie’s pussy.”

The three of us let out a little gasp/sigh/moan at that. I’ll say one thing for Joe, he knows how to orchestrate this. I’ve been with guys who barely know what to do with one girl, much less three. Or guys who get so turned on watching us go at it, they shoot their loads right away. Or even guys who get pissed off when they feel they’re not getting enough attention.

Not Joe, though. He’s stroking my clit so nicely I’m jittering on the edge of coming, and his cock shows no sign of getting soft or shooting off. Candy’s on her knees in front of Barbie, spreading her pussy and lapping away at it with more enthusiasm than skill, but like I said, Barbie’s got more patience than I. She tilts her hips against Candy’s mouth, cooing encouragement. One hand goes to Candy’s head, guiding her, while the other twists and twirls her nipples to tight little peaks just begging to be sucked.

“Are you going to come?” Joe’s words startle me a little and I have to swallow hard before I can answer.

“I…I think so.”

He stops and puts his hand flat over my pussy, pressing my clit with the heel of his hand. “Do you usually come with your gentlemen?”

I laugh at that, more at his use of the term
gentlemen
than anything else. The motion of my laughter rocks me against his hand, and I give a little gasp. “Sometimes.”

“If they pay you enough?”

Candy’s still going to town, but Barbie turns her head to look over at us.

“That helps.”

“Tell me,” Joe says. “Have I paid you enough?”

Barbie answers before I can. “Yeah, Joe. I think so.”

She looks at me, and I look at her. We share a smile. I love working with Barbie. I wish it were me lapping her sweet honey instead of Candy, who doesn’t really like girls all that much. Joe presses my cunt and I shift on his knee.

“Get on the bed. Candy, on your back. Barbie and Kitten, on your hands and knees.”

We manage to arrange this somewhat awkward position with a minimum of giggling and shifting. When we’re done, Candy’s spread on her back while Barbie and I, our asses in the air and our feet hanging over the bed’s edge, are half-straddling her, facing her pussy. We give each other a look. This is definitely something I’ve never done before, but I can’t wait to see what he tells us to do next.

My cunt feels soft and open. Slick. My clit’s a hard, tight bump, aching to be touched. I wait. I have a feeling this is going to be good.

Candy’s breath caresses my pussy and thighs. I consider hers. She’s shaved her pubic hair into a heart. Cute. I might not like Candy as much as I like Barbie, but I’ll admit she’s been good to work with tonight.

Joe’s hand weighs on my lower back. I look at Barbie, who’s grinning widely. If I turn my head a tiny bit more, I can see that Joe’s between us, his hand just above her ass, too.

I turn my neck harder to look at his face. He’s looking at us like he’s solving a mystery in one of the books he’s paying us to discuss. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and for a second a shiver of unease goes through me. He doesn’t exactly look like a man who’s getting his rocks off, even though his jutting prick makes no mystery of his arousal.

I’ve only been in a situation that went bad once, and when it did, it went really bad. Blood and hospital stay bad. Later, I found out the guy who assaulted me had made a habit of it. He’d killed the girl after me. He’d looked a little bit like Joe does now.

I tense, and he looks at me. His hands smoothes over my ass. I must look scared because he shakes his head the tiniest bit. His palm strokes my skin like he’s soothing what I’ve become, a skittish Kitten.

“Shhh,” he whispers.

Barbie knows what happened to me. She’s turning to look at him, too, and I see her face go dark. Barbie can kick a fucker’s ass, if she has to. But Joe shushes her, too, and we’re both staring at each other. My heart’s beating hard. Sweat cools, and I shiver.

Candy shifts likes she’s bored. The motion breaks the spell. Joe’s hands are moving over my skin, and Barbie’s.

“Lick each other,” he says.

Two mouths dip into Candy’s heart-shaved pussy. Barbie and I take turns licking her, kissing in between. Tongues twist like snakes, in each other’s mouths and in her cunt. She goes back and forth between the two of us, fluttering and lapping at us.

Barbie grunts beside me, then sighs. She tips her ass higher. Joe’s fucking her. His hand grips her hip, while the fingers of his other hand slip into me from behind. I’ve got a tongue on my clit and her fingers up my cunt. I rock with it, licking and sucking Candy from above. I take a break to nibble and kiss her belly and thighs while Barbie puts her expertise to work. Pretty soon, Candy’s hips are lifting. Her pussy’s open and wet. Her clit’s a pretty shade of pink, peeking out from the tiny tuft of pubes at the base of the heart. I flick it with my tongue and she cries out. I can see it move as her orgasm starts. I love watching women come. I love the way their bodies move, all trembling and shuddering. If I had my fingers inside her, I’d feel her cunt bearing down on them with each spasm. I feel it start to echo inside my own pussy just as Joe fills me with his cock.

It takes more room than his fingers had, and I make almost the identical sound that Barbie did when he pushed inside her. Shit, it feels good. He fucks me slowly, then faster.

Candy’s flailing all over the place and Barbie and I are pinning her down. She’s making these little high-pitched squeals, and selfishly, I wish she’d finish coming so she can get back to licking me.

I’m close. Every stroke of Joe’s cock inside me urges me toward the edge of an orgasm I know is going to blow my fucking mind. It’s a rare thing, one I’m tempted to believe isn’t even really true but the product of some male-oriented fantasy of pleasing three women at once, except there’s no denying the push and pull of my cunt and ass as my body prepares to explode.

It’s the noise he makes that sends me over at last. He grunts once, low in his throat and thrusts so deep I shout. Climax tears me apart so far and so hard I can’t believe I’ll ever do anything but come forever.

His thrusts ease as I shake and quake. He pulls another, smaller orgasm out of me by changing the angle just enough to rub my G-spot. Candy makes a muffled noise of surprise. I try to breathe and can’t.

When he pulls out, I collapse alongside Candy. We both watch while Joe moves back to Barbie and fucks her so hard she lets out a hoarse, fierce shout. I’m not sure she came until her eyes open and she looks dazed, like she can’t believe it really happened, either.

Joe finishes a moment after that. He’s got a good come-face. Not too twisted or ridiculous, but then again, I’m looking at it through the haze of post-orgasmic bliss. He pauses, panting, only briefly, before he pulls out and Barbie joins me and Candy in a pile on the bed.

“Ladies,” Joe says from the doorway. How did he get dressed so fast? “It’s been a pleasure.”

Then he’s gone, and none of us quite know what to say. Things like this happen in porno movies all the time, but I never believed it would happen to me. Maybe, I think, still dazed, it hasn’t. Maybe it’s all just a story.

A book.

A mystery.

I was off the bench before I realized it, taking two steps away from him. What did I say? That I didn’t believe him? That I couldn’t?

He gave me a look as though challenging me to deny his story, but I couldn’t say anything. If I chose not to believe this, would I have to admit the others had been lies, too? If I accepted this one as truth, what did that mean?

I knew much about Joe, but in the end, I couldn’t be sure I knew anything about him at all. When I spoke, I couldn’t keep the triumph out of my voice no matter how much I wished I didn’t feel it.

“Do you want me to say I told you so?”

A tiny smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “Do you want to say it?”

“No.” I gave him an honest answer. I’d come here today to end this on my terms, not Joe’s.

Pride is a nasty creature, but I had no illusions it was anything else that had brought me back to that bench. Joe had broken the rules by taking Priscilla to our place. He’d mingled real life with the fantasy one we’d been sharing. I didn’t pretend to know his reasons for it, but I wasn’t about to let him be the one to finish it. Not like that.

“No?” He cocked his head, his smile growing wider. “You’re sure?”

“Is that what you want?” Confident in my superiority, I couldn’t help sounding smug. “To say I knew you couldn’t do it? I knew you’d never make it last?”

Joe studied me. Despite the smile, his expression was unreadable. For the first time since he’d sat, I noticed he was wearing the tie he knew I liked.

“Fine,” I said coldly. “I told you so, Joe. I knew you’d never be able to make it last. I knew you’d never be able to be faithful. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because this is over. It’s done. I’m not coming back here anymore.”

He nodded throughout my mini-rant, which only annoyed me.

“No more stories,” I finished, almost sneering. My throat had gone tight with tears I swallowed. There was too much emotion here, things I didn’t want to face. Guilt not the least, but other, far more tangled threads of desire and affection I wanted to make go away.

“No more stories,” Joe said.

His calm reaction stole some of my thunder. I brushed hair from my face and straightened, unwillingly grateful that he was allowing me to have my say and letting me have what I wanted. To be the one finishing it.

“Good luck, Joe.”

“Thanks, Sadie.” He stood, facing me. “I’ll need it.”

I felt the question on my face but it didn’t escape my lips.

Joe, however, seemed to understand me without my needing to speak. He put his hands in his pockets in a gesture I was shamed to find so familiar.

I’d sounded smug. He looked triumphant. He leaned in close, lowering his voice as though he meant to tell me a secret, one more serious and titillating than any of the others. I knew before he said a word that he wasn’t going to let me be the one to finish this, after all. I wanted to slap him, angry at him but furious with myself for giving him the chance to end this, whatever it had been, on his terms. Yet all I could do was listen while he made that true.

“I asked her to marry me, Sadie. And she said yes.”

What had been lies? What had been truth? And in the end, did it matter?

In Joe’s stories he’d played the parts of prince and villain with equal skill…but I’d never been one of his stories. Would I become one? A secret story, kept to himself? Or had he already told Priscilla about our lunches and the stories shared? I guessed I’d never know.

There were no more chapters to this novel; Joe had written “The End” and there was no point in hoping for an epilogue. The story was over.

November

I
didn’t know what to do with myself the first Friday in November. None of my clothes fit, my hair refused to curl, my mascara clumped. The air had the bite of snow and I couldn’t find my gloves. My car smelled like onions. The universe was conspiring against me, the holiday atmosphere in my office suffocating, my body rebelling and demanding to be fed on a day I didn’t want to go to lunch.

I went out anyway. There are some things not even will-power can control, and my hunger was making me nauseous and grouchy. I avoided the atrium and the park. That entire side of town, in fact. I went to the mall, meaning to grab a quick bite at a small sandwich café and maybe treat myself to retail therapy. Adam had banned Christmas from our house years ago, saying he hated the pomp and circumstance of celebrating a holiday he didn’t believe, but I had family and colleagues who still expected gifts.

The mall was crowded, not unexpectedly. I gave up the idea of trying to shop after buying only one gift, a picture frame for my mother. Jostled and bustled, I finally got in line at the café, placed my order, took my latte and looked for a place to sit. Spotting a table near the back, I headed for it. I wasn’t quite fast enough. A pair of lunching ladies had apparently decided not to frequent their usual hoitytoity habitats and were slumming in the sandwich shop. They got to the table first, their cloud of perfume heady and expensive. I wanted to sneeze but didn’t even have the chance to do that before I was bumped from behind by someone pushing out of his seat. My bag hit the ground.

Someone bent to pick it up before I had a chance. Our hands touched. He let the bag go as I stood, clutching it.

“I hope it didn’t break,” said the man at the table.

“I think it’s fine.”

His smile was crooked, but friendly. He pointed to the empty seat across from him. “This seat’s empty, if you don’t mind sharing.”

I looked around, but there was no other place. I sat. “Thanks.”

We stared at each other for a few moments, strangers at a table. I sipped my latte self-consciously, uncertain what to say. My new companion seemed in no mood to break the silence, either. His broad, pleasant smile urged me to return it.

“I’m Greg, by the way.” He held out his hand, which I shook.

“Sadie.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Sadie.” His fingers squeezed mine briefly. His hand was very warm. In the next moment, so was my face.

I was saved at that moment by the arrival of the sandwich I’d ordered, and a scant minute later, Greg’s salad and soup. Around us the chatter of conversation rose and fell. It seemed rude not to talk to him, so I did.

It didn’t matter what we said. The weather was nice; yes, it was a shame about that fire downtown; of course the city needed new taxes like a cow needed a tennis racket. Greg carried the conversation without effort, leading me from topic to topic. The area became more and more crowded, necessitating us to move our chairs closer and closer. By the time we’d finished our lunches, we were sitting almost thigh to thigh.

He didn’t touch me on purpose. It was clearly the fault of the man behind us, who laughed loudly and shook his chair, causing Greg’s leg to rub mine. Just as it was the fault of the café employee squeezing by us for making Greg have to lean forward with his hand on my shoulder to keep from being bonked on the head by a tray. The napkin holder, too, conspired against us, for refusing to give up a napkin without Greg’s manly help.

Sitting next to Greg was like licking a battery. Shocking, sizzling and stupid. Each slight caress, every nonchalant stroke, echoed in the tightness of my nipples and the friction between my thighs. We danced, and if I fumbled the steps from lack of practice, Greg was a skilled enough partner to make up for it. I hadn’t thought it would be so easy to be seduced.

I didn’t want this. I craved it. I couldn’t. I would.

I didn’t.

If he’d been Joe, we’d have ended up going to a hotel room, or at least back to his car. But…he wasn’t Joe, this wasn’t a story. It was real life, and when lunch was over, so was the flirtation. When the crowds cleared and there could be no excuse to linger, Greg stood. I did, too. His gaze fell on the band on my finger. I looked at his hand, which wore a similar ring.

“It was nice meeting you, Sadie.”

“You, too. Thanks for letting me share your table.”

He had a nice smile, but the heat between us, if there had been any beyond my imagination, had faded. “Anytime.”

I hadn’t done anything wrong, even less than in the hours I’d spent listening to Joe tell his tales of sexual excess. Yet I felt twice as bad as I’d ever felt about that, and it took me some hard thinking to figure out why. It came down to something simple. It wasn’t the stories but Joe himself I’d come to depend upon. Substituting a random, unexpected flirtation wasn’t harmless, not when it meant I was trying to replace something I’d come to care about very much with something pretending to be as important.

The parking garage wasn’t the best place for contemplation, but with one hand on my car and the other holding my bag, I closed my eyes and let myself think about what I’d been avoiding all day. It was the first Friday of November and I hadn’t seen Joe. I might not ever see him again. The rest of my life would have no Joe in it. I’d lost something precious, and no matter how much things with Adam were changing, I missed what I’d had no right to have.

“Dr. Danning?”

I opened my eyes, turning, embarrassed at having been caught in such a socially awkward state. “Elle, hi!”

If Elle had seen my close-eyed contemplation, she didn’t show it. “How are you?”

“Busy,” I said with a small laugh designed to hide the shakiness of my voice. I stood up straight and offered my hand to Elle’s companion. “Hello, I’m Sadie Danning.”

“This is my mother.” Elle took a deep breath. “We’ve been shopping.”

“Have you?” I smiled. “That sounds nice.”

Mrs. Kavanagh snorted. “Nice? If you like trudging around store after store and buying nothing, yes. Very nice.”

Elle’s smile didn’t waver. “My mother thinks I need to update my wardrobe.”

Comparing the two of them, I couldn’t agree. Elle’s mother might have been dressed in pieces of obvious expense and classic style, but Elle wore her simple black skirt and pale blue cardigan with far more class. I gave Elle’s arm a quick squeeze.

“That’s a pretty sweater,” I told her. Yes, to make her mother grit her teeth.

Elle beamed. “Dan bought it for me.”

Again, Mrs. Kavanagh snorted. Elle gave her mother a narrow, sideways glance, which the older woman saw. “What?”

“My mother,” said Elle with a serenity that could only have come from long practice, “thinks Dan’s tastes sucks.”

“Language, Ella! Mother Mary!”

Elle’s sweet smile remained unchanged as she shrugged innocently. I had to bite back a smile of my own. The heat in my cheeks started to fade.

“Did Ella call you doctor?” Mrs. Kavanagh, perhaps sensing she couldn’t niggle her daughter any further on the subject of clothes, piped up. “What kind of doctor are you?”

Before I could answer, Elle reached to touch my upper arm. “She was my shoulder.”

I’ve been called many things in my life, but that was one of the nicest. The affection in her voice made my throat thick. “Thank you, Elle.”

She nodded. Her mother looked confused, a state of mind in which I doubted she’d often found herself. She turned to her daughter with a frown.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I wasn’t about to tell Mrs. Kavanagh the role I’d played in her daughter’s life if Elle didn’t want me to. Consequently, for a minute neither of us spoke. This didn’t sit well with Mrs. Kavanagh, who really needed a house dropped on her.

“Ella?”

“Dr. Danning was my doctor.”

Silence while Mrs. Kavanagh assessed this. “Your…?”

“My shrink, Mother.” Elle sounded exasperated and amused.

The curl of Mrs. Kavanagh’s lip should have offended me, as should the looking over she gave me. I’d never been more aware of my shoes needing a polish or my stockings having snags as under Elle’s mother’s eagle eye. She sniffed.

“Well.” She put more meaning into that single word than if she’d recited a soliloquy.

“My mother doesn’t approve of psychologists,” Elle said. I don’t think I was mistaken about her glee.

“I’ll try not to let that bother me,” I said. Elle and I laughed. Her mother, predictably, did not.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the China Orchid,” Mrs. Kavanagh said, “if you want to…talk.”

Talk or kick puppies, perhaps? She made both actions sound as horrible. Elle sighed and waited until her mother had gone out of earshot before she spoke.

“Sorry about that. But I guess now you see what I mean.”

“I never doubted you were telling me the truth,” I said. “How are things?”

She laughed behind her hand, the sound echoing in the garage. “Much better, if you can believe it. With the wedding to plan she’s got caterers to give hell to. She leaves me alone. Sort of.”

“Yes, that’s in a couple weeks. You must be excited.”

Elle raised a brow. “That’s one way to put it. I’d have said sick to my stomach and ready to pull out my hair, but sure. Excited works.”

We laughed again. Her smile softened. She touched my arm again, a gesture of some significance, since she was not the touchy-feely sort.

“I miss our talks, Dr. Danning.”

“Do you think you need to see me again?” The question came out sounding professional.

She shook her head. “No. Not in that way. I’m doing really well, actually. Just that…it was nice to have someone to talk to. It’s nice to have someone you can tell your secrets to, you know? Without being afraid? I knew I could always tell you anything, and you’d give me advice but you wouldn’t judge me or get angry with me. It was nice to have a shoulder to cry on.”

I nodded, touched. “I’m glad I was able to help.”

She chewed her lower lip, looking awkward. “It’s important to have someone like that? Don’t you think?”

“I do.” I studied her.

“I mean, I talk to Dan. He listens. To everything. I think he might wish I didn’t talk so much, actually. It’s been…interesting. But he listens.”

“That’s good.” I meant it, even as once again I found myself in the unenviable position of envying her.

“So, anyway. I should get back to my mother. I’ll see you next week?”

“Of course. I’m looking forward to it.”

She laughed with genuine humor. “I’m glad someone is!”

“Oh, Elle,” I told her. “You don’t mean that, do you?”

She shook her head after a pause. “No. I guess I don’t. Tell me something, Dr. Danning. It’s worth it, isn’t it? Getting married?”

If we’d been in my office with a desk between us, my answer might have been different. Standing in the parking garage, with her no longer my client, my reply was more forthright. “I used to think so.”

She made a small noise, as if she understood my answer so completely it needed no comment. I nodded, a wind-up doll with rusted gears. She stepped back and gave a little wave, walking backward a few steps before turning and disappearing around the corner. I couldn’t move at first, when she’d gone, but after a moment I managed to unlock my door and slide behind the wheel, where I sat for a very long time.

I wished I had someone to talk to.

It was difficult to mourn losing something I wasn’t supposed to have. I might have spent more time quietly missing the stories I’d never hear again, but I frankly had no time. Adam up was happier than Adam down, but twice as exhausting. He stopped sleeping as much as he’d been, preferring to stay up late chatting. Instead of spending most of his time in bed, he insisted on getting into his chair. He wanted to go places, do things he’d been refusing to do for years.

“But I don’t want to see that movie,” I protested, half-heartedly. I sprawled on the recliner, watching Adam looking up film showings on the Internet. His hair was growing back, but he was still pale. He looked frailer in the chair than he did in bed. “Why don’t we just go out to dinner? Or better yet, stay home?”

He spun around to face me. “I thought you’d want to go to the movies!”

“Well…” I tried to think of an answer that didn’t sound lame. “I’m tired, Adam. I’ve worked all week. I was sort of hoping to take it easy.”

“I’ve worked all week, too, Sadie.”

Adam never wheedled. He never pleaded his case. He didn’t even try to make me want what he wanted. He just tried to get me to agree to give him what he wanted.

“I don’t like serial killer movies.” I took off my shoes and stood to strip out of my nylons with a breath of relief.

“We could see something else.”

“Tomorrow?” I tossed my shed stockings into the laundry basket. “We can go to a Saturday matinee.”

“Fine.” He spun the chair again and ordered his computer to close the browser.

I sighed. “Honey, I think it’s great you want to go out and do things. But I’m tired. Okay? I get up at 4:00 a.m. every day—”

“Forget it.” I didn’t need to see his face to know he was frowning.

“How about I order some Chinese and we watch those episodes of
Monty Python
we have on DVD?”

I could see the shrug he meant to make, though it was the barest lift of shoulder. I sighed. Now he was pissed.

“You bitched because I didn’t want to do anything, now you bitch when I do.”

That stung. “I’m not bitching! We’ll go tomorrow, it’s not a big deal!”

“I said fine.”

In the past I’d have tried to placate him, or allowed him to goad me into an argument. This time, I simply left the room. I went to my own room, picked up a book I’d been trying to read for months and snuggled into my easy chair to finish it.

It took him fifteen minutes to shout for me. I put the book aside and answered his call. He was muttering curses.

“Your fucking shoes, Sadie!”

I’d left my shoes on the floor and he’d rolled over one. Now it lodged against the wheel, preventing him from moving. All he needed to do was back up and go around it, which I explained as I moved the offending items and cleared his path.