Mind F*ck (3 page)

By the time Mary and I have both sides of the second floor unpacked, she has me in stitches I’m laughing so hard. I don’t think I’ve smiled, let alone laughed this much in as long as I can remember.

And while me and my mom are close, it’s times like this that makes me wish we were closer. But it seems like the longer I’m married, the more further she moves away, and the less time we get to spend together.

I smile when Mary says something about big girl panties as we make our way downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of wine, but my saddening thoughts go to my mother. I haven’t seen Gigi since last Christmas, and that’s really too long.

My mother, Gigi, has never really approved in my choice of husband. But Liam hasn’t really ever approved of my mother either. This tends to further complicate our spending time together, but I do as much as I can, when I can. And once a week I listen to my mother bitch about it.

After Mary’s poured herself a glass of water and I have a glass of wine, she finishes her very mother-like story that I’m sure has a much deeper meaning behind it with some motherly connotations directed towards me.

“So, even though it’s hard, I told her just like my momma told me: I know it’s easier to let them fall down, but no matter what, ya gotta keep your big girl panties up.” She smiles at me and I return it.

“And she’s nineteen? That’s about right, that’s the age my mother gave me similar advice.” I blow my long bangs from my face as exhaustion sets in. It’s been a long day, and it’ll be an even longer night, I’m sure.

My worry begins getting the better of me as my mind digresses…I’m tired, and I’m ready to go to bed. But more than anything, I hope Liam doesn’t get a second wind when his friend and new co-worker, Travis, comes over for their meeting.

“Tell me about your mother, Lexy. What’s she like?” Mary’s change in conversation causes my attention to focus solely back on her.

“My mom? She’s just like any other mom, I guess.” I shrug while trying to cover a yawn. “I never really knew my dad, he left when I was too young to remember. But me and my mother have always been pretty close.” I chuckle, “We’re nothing alike. Nothing.”

“Oh? How so?” she asks as Liam stalks into the kitchen looking debonair as hell in his black on black suit while clasping his cuff links.

When his hazel eyes land on mine, he smirks before speaking and his dark voice sends chills across my skin. “Baby girl.” He nods, smiling at me before glancing towards Mary, then back to me. “It’s about time for Mary to get home to her husband, don’t you think? We have a big day tomorrow, and she’ll need to be back here early tomorrow morning.” He politely nods at my new friend as he tucks me into his side. “Mary, I knew my wife would love you. I’m so glad I was right about you.”

I don’t think I could ever accurately describe to you my husband’s presence. Ever. Not with all the English words I have at my disposal. So I’ll leave you with this, subpar explanation: His presence is both unnerving and welcoming at the same time. And I’m his wife.

So when Mary just blinks in response to Liam’s words, I completely understand her silence. I can sympathize, I truly can.

But I mess up when I step over the line and speak for her.

I move away from his side and reach my hand for hers, and when our fingers clasp I look up at Liam and smile. “You were right, honey. I’m surprised you’re surprised,” I say innocently enough.

My husband glances down at his Patek Philippe watch and tsks under his breath. When his eyes land on mine, chills of a different kind skate across my flesh. And then he speaks, “Baby girl, Travis and I have decided our business discussions will proceed at McClearn’s. I’m uncertain of what time to tell to you to expect me, so instead, I’ll tell you not to. However, since we do have a lot to do in the next few weeks, starting tomorrow morning, I will tell you, you have one hour. One. And I want you in bed and resting.” He glances at Mary, then settles his eyes back on mine. “Is that understood?”

In unison Mary and I speak, “Yes, sir.”

After he leans in and lightly kisses me goodbye, his dark voice whispers, “I love you, baby girl.”

But he’s gone and my chance to tell him that I love him too is over before I speak.

As I fall asleep fifty-six minutes after Liam left, and fifteen after Mary did, I lay there worrying. Worrying about Liam. About this stress that keeps bombarding him. I worry about Mary, and when I’ll tell Liam about her pregnancy. I worry about the three of us spending so much time together over the next few days. I worry about keeping things smoothed over without Liam knowing they are. I worry about worrying. And somewhere around worrying about the stress of worrying, something else took over, and I drifted asleep.

Confidence has always been my virtue as well as my strongest suit. It’s a given.

It just is.

I’m attractive. I stand six-feet-four, and I weigh one seventy-five. I like to keep myself fit by running at least eight miles a day every morning before the sun rises, but other than that and some determination, I had nothing to do with it.

Both of my parents’ had strong genes and stunning features on their own, and I am the result of them. I had nothing to do with it, and like I said, it is what it is. Or what is was. Had been.

Travis is sharp.

He's successful. Good looking, wealthy, and he has a damn fine wife. Not as fine as Lexy. Not by a long shot. But what Travis lacks for not having a wife as sexy as Lexy, which isn’t much, he more than makes up for with his contacts. Family contacts. The kind of contacts that come with blood. And that makes Travis, the only Jackson heir, my only real competition.

But here in lies the problem: I like Travis. A lot. He’s the only guy I’ve ever met that I not only respect, but sometimes, look up to. Which is absurd.

I’ve been with this company for years. Whereas Travis, in all of his twenty-four years, has been here half the time I have. He has his bachelor degree. In finance. He doesn’t even have plans for transferring to his masters.

He’s absurd. He’s as ridiculous as he is genius, and it’s as confusing as it is confounding to witness.

But just like this move, this new way of life will be hard, learning new people will be hard. Climbing another ladder of rungs will be hard. It’s not my idea of how I want to spend the rest of my career life.

I have much bigger plans. Much more grandiose.

As Travis blatantly sketches out a few lines in front of me and the busy passersby that hurry past us on their way home, I lean back and observe my new odd friend.

My eyes scan him from head to toe as I sip from my tumbler of scotch.

He's young. A lot younger than me, and he's also a great deal more fearless than I was at his age. He has the world at his finger tips, and all he has to do is grab it. But instead, he's more interested in listening to my thoughts on the stock market trends in between me listening to his philosophical ramblings.

As the passersby continue to make their way home past the old buildings floor to ceiling windows, Travis and I watch while discussing the high notes of my transferring to Jackson’s Agency in New York. After we’ve each downed our scotch neat in silence, my new, closest confidant speaks, “Liam, I don’t see why you’re so nervous about it. Honestly, we could’ve had this conversation at your new place. While I watched your beautiful wife and her beautiful ass pack shit away. Where’d you find her, again?”

It irks me when he speaks of my wife in this manner, but not enough for me to say anything about it. Not yet.

“The reason I am so concerned is because there’s only one first impression. And I have to make this first impression count. And as for where this conversation unfolds, this business and my home life, won’t be intermingling. Period.” I zero my eyes on his and lower my voice, “Travis, I don’t think you’re mature enough to grasp how just how pivotal this career move is for me.”

My eyes follow his movements and probably widen a bit when he, again, nonchalantly pulls a vial from his suit pocket in front of all these people, and snorts whatever contents it held.

When he seems satisfied with his few hits, he tucks the vial away in his suit pocket, rubs his pointer and middle fingers against his front teeth, and then looks up at me with a sinister smile. “My maturity has nothing to do with it, and you know it. You want power. And I can insure that you have it.” He looks me dead in my eyes and finishes. And if I had an ounce of concern, if I were a lessor man, the look in his eyes would have caused chills.

But it did not.

“Just follow suit, do what I tell you. Keep your nose clean, and don’t shit in your own bed. No one likes a kiss ass, and no one likes a goodie two shoe.” This time, when he smirks, it does cause chills. “This is about control. You can do as I do, just make sure you do as I say when it comes time. Capisce?”

I nod towards my friend. I understand his encrypted ramblings, I do.

I know the ugly side of business politics. I know that with money comes greed, and with greed comes gluttony. I understand all of this. I’ve lived in the stock exchange world since I passed my series seven. I’ve sat on the sidelines and watched the ones who couldn’t handle the pressure of this lifestyle crash and burn.

But so has Lexy. I’ve not once hid the ugly of this life from my bride. I’ve built beauty around it in hopes of distracting her. Sure. But the hardcore truth of this life, the part where you see what happens when people aren’t looking, that part, Lexy knows about.

Now that does nothing to help the fact that she hates it, detests it, really.

But she can’t balk at it. She can’t balk at me, finally living it. She’s not going to like it. Not one bit.

“And how long do you think it’ll take for your hackles not to rise at the thought of me banging that beautiful wife of yours?” Travis’s glassy eyes lock onto mine.

My confidence, my strong suit, does not waver.

“You won’t be banging my beautiful wife, Travis. Ever.” And before he has a chance to speak again, I abruptly stand from my seat and make my way towards the bar for another scotch.

I never had intentions of ever doing illegal drugs again. Especially, after I graduated with my masters decorated with honors and passed my series seven.

In my opinion, I’d survived once using things like speed to pick me up and downers to grab some ever illusive sleep when needed. I didn’t like it, I didn’t like doing it. But it was an evil necessity.

One I’d endured in order to prove myself to the world, to my father, and to my deceased mother.

So when I graduated at the top of my class, there may have been promises made, not only to myself but to Lexy, that I wouldn’t depend on them again, once they weren’t needed.

But the world that was my oyster at twenty-three, doesn’t seem as fulfilling as it once was in California.

In fact, my Cali oyster looks nothing short of pathetic sitting beside Travis’s New York one.

And the longer I watched as Travis wowed the other businessmen from Jackson’s NY, the more time I spent on the sidelines observing his suave demeanor with every beautiful woman who sauntered by, the more I witnessed him roll through social and business politeness, the more I realized just how much I can learn from this kid.

It wasn’t hard to brush away his offers of shared candy and whores at the beginning of our meeting. Even when I was five scotch’s in, and Travis handed the Barbie twins five hundred dollar bills to suck my cock in tandem, I waved the two lovely sisters away, smirking while they begged for just one drop of my cum.

I’ve never cheated on my wife. Not once.

I honestly haven’t seen any reason to. The girls in my circles are either whores or wives of my associates. And as far as I’m concerned, I have the best looking wife. There’s no reason to mess that up over someone else’s wife or someone else’s whore.

There are moments in a persons life, moments that are so significant, they change every thing.

Had I been better prepared for this moment, everything would have been okay.

Everything I had worked so hard for in life, would have finally began to come to fruition.

But I wasn’t prepared.

My confidence, however, was. A little too prepared.

With the amount of coke I ingested, along with the amount of scotch, I’m surprised I fell asleep the night before when I wake up the next morning in a strange bed and an even stranger house.

The pitch darkness of the room prevents me from the immediate onslaught of my transgressions from the night before.

However, the hands on my thigh and the mouth swallowing my cock puts shit in pretty close perspective.

I sink my fingers into the hair of the head, currently giving me head, as mine rolls back and a grunt escapes my throat. And for no more than a brief moment, I revel in the wet warm suck and pull that is her mouth.

But only for a moment.

The whore with her head between my legs huffs when I move my hands to the side of her face and pull her off my cock. I chastise her slightly as I stand and move to turn on a lamp I can barely make out on the bedside table.

“Tsk tsk, baby girl. You did more than well last night, I assure you. Unfortunately, the time has come for me to make my leave. If you thought you knew my name, lose it. As far as we’re concerned, this…us, never happened.”

Once the light from the bedside table spills across the room, I’m caught off guard by the beautiful young blonde thing occupying the bed.

She’s breathtaking. Every part of her.

From the long, big pale blonde curls hanging down her back to her pale green eyes dipped in fear, she’s beautiful. Every bit as beautiful as Lexy was the very first time I saw her. And every bit as star struck by the sight of me.

I like the look in her eyes when she watches me. It’s a look of both fear and worship. It does something to me to see something as beautiful and scared looking at me like I’m the first and only meal she’s seen in weeks. The contrast of hunger and fear…it fucking does something to me.

I am a bad man.

The thought crosses my fumbling mind and without reason or explanation, the words fall from my mouth, “What’s your name, baby girl?”

The look in her eyes feeds me power and destruction all in the same glance. And it’s effortless.

“I’m Summer,” she quietly speaks.

“And I’ll take it you enjoyed yourself last night, baby girl?” When I finish buttoning my slacks and I tuck in my shirt, I reach my hand out and softly touch her face as images of Lexy, young and so full of life when we were teenagers, flash before my eyes right where Summer’s naked form lays across the messy bed. When my fingertips feel the silky strands of her hair, I wrench her head back until her eyes fill with a new brand of fear when she looks back up at me.

“All good times earn a modicum of silence, Summer. Certainly you understand?”

As soon as I see her nod yes, I keep my eyes glued to hers before nodding in return.

Then I storm from the room, down several stairs, and out of a front door I don’t remember entering the night before.

Once I’m finally in my Range Rover and I’m buckled in, I allow the pent up frustrated breath to leave my lungs before cranking the quiet engine and directing myself on the path towards home.

Towards Lexy.

And after I’ve pulled into the six car garage, made my way through my disorganized home, I contemplate whether or not to shower. A quick step under a spray of water so hot it rivals the water in Hell in order to wash away any and all traces of last night seems the better idea, but I decide to forgo it and instead head to bed after brushing my teeth, shaving, and washing my face and hands.

As I slip my flannel pajama bottoms up, I catch a glimpse of something and look back to see blood raised just under the surface of skin on the inside of my thigh. A mark in the shape of a heart hickey left behind by little miss Summer with the long blonde hair.

I don’t feel much in the way of shame as I glance up at myself in the mirror, tying the flannel ties of my pants.