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Max and I lay side by side on the floor after round one of a marathon of sex. The bell rang, and I realized I had forgotten that I had ordered dinner. He scrambled to put on his pants. I got up to run and he threw me his coat. “What will the waiter think?”
“I don’t care. Maybe he’ll think that Mr. Blackstone is getting a piece from his hot wife. Maybe he’ll tell the others that I’m not homosexual.”
“Well, are you?”
He turned with his bright, expensive smile and his dimples carving dents in both sides of his jaw and said, “I’ll let you answer that.” He opened the door and told the waiter to place everything on the floor, because he was having a picnic with his new wife.
The waiter never looked in my direction, setting the food down on a white tablecloth he had spread on the floor. Like a dutiful employee, he smiled and backed out of the room. “They probably think we’re crazy. That’s what they think of the rich,” he said, opening a bottle of wine. Max had forgotten that I was included in that group who thought that the rich were arrogant, insane, unsympathetic people.
As Max prepared to pour me a drink to celebrate our compromise, a phone rang. By the old-fashioned ring it was my phone. I had left it on just in case there was news from Jonas and Maxim. I had to be available out of my concern for Jonas and my child. Max stood, searching around the room for my phone, and found it. He looked at it.
“You have a missed call from Charles St. John.” His forehead wrinkled with disapproval, his eyes seething with jealousy and his thick eyebrows narrowing. “Did you fuck him, Alex?”
“Would you believe me if I told you?” Max didn’t say a word, and turned his back and tilted his head to the right.
“Then why would I waste my time to go through that with you?” The conversation had taken an ugly turn. After the wonderful lovemaking we were back to where we started.
I stood, and the only cover I had on my naked body dropped to the floor. His eyes wandered to my mound, and he grabbed my hand. “You are not going anywhere.”
“And who is going to stop me?”
“I am,” Max said, throwing me across his knee. He began paddling my ass with his large hands.
“Stop, Max. You are hurting me.”
“Yes. But it’s making me feel a lot better.” He stopped, and his hand slid over my butt, and he gently began rubbing where he had turned my butt cheeks red. “This makes me want you more. I don’t know what is wrong with me.” He reached for the soft butter on a tray and rubbed it on me. He then circled the rim of my anus and slid his buttered fingered into my opening, while with the finger of his right hand he played with my folds. He then placed his finger into my vagina.
With one finger in my ass and the other on my clit, I managed to get to my knees, propping my body against the couch. Max took out the finger in my anus and guided his hard dick into my opening and plunged forward. I felt it in my stomach, and then it hit a wall and would go no farther. His movements were hard and powerful, and when I thought I would burst, he slowed down and used his large finger in my vagina to simulate a dick. I was being fucked at both holes, and Max’s movements were so in sync that a chill raced up my spine and settled at the nape of my neck.
“I’m coming, Max.”
“Go ahead and come, baby. I’m going to be here a while. I want to make love to you so anyone that comes after me knows that I have been here.”
“No one has ever made love to me but you, Max.”
“Please, say that again.” His movements became wild and erratic. He pushed into me harder than he had ever.
“No one has ever fucked me, Max. Only you.” His head fell back, and my head rested on his chest as he continued his drilling into my anus. His heart beat quickly, and he exhaled and grabbed my hips with both hands and brought me into him. Then he let out a cry of satisfaction, and I felt his come and his dick ease from my body.
The invasion of that part of my body had lasted long enough that a part of me had disappeared, but I found what was left of me, which was exciting and sexual. The intensity of the lovemaking was like exorcising an alien entity; I was exhausted, breathless, and weak. Max picked me up in his large arms and brought me to the shower.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m doing fine.”
He washed my body with such care. I was seeing a different man. I saw a man who could change. I saw a man who showed his feelings. I saw a man who cared, but whether he would change or not, I would have to take a chance on him. After our shower, we ate. Max laid me down in his bed and climbed in with me. We lay entwined in each other’s arms, asleep. Max slept that night. I think he had not slept since Jonas was arrested.
I woke, and Max wasn’t lying in the bed. All my fears began to revisit me. I had fallen for the lie after I had convinced myself that he had changed. The only one that had changed was me. I searched around for the damn notes that he was notorious for, but I couldn’t find one. Then I smelled coffee and eggs and bacon. I looked up, and standing in the doorway was Max with a tray.
Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes and passed my hand over my hair. I must have looked a sight. I had been sleeping hard; rubbing my hand across my mouth, I felt a piece of my hair and the indention it had made in my cheek.
“You are so beautiful,” Max said, looking at me as if I were a painting by Monet hanging on his wall. I guessed when a woman felt loved, she was beautiful, but that was hardly how I felt. I was hungry, and my breasts and feet were swollen like a Botero sculpture.
“Can you believe that the first job I had was working in my foster parents’ restaurants? I started as a bus boy and made my way up to a waiter. Every summer during my college years I could count on that job. I was good at it. I learned about the restaurant and hotel business.”
He placed the tray across my lap. “Good morning, sleepyhead.” Then he leaned forward and kissed me on my cheek.
“Max, you didn’t have to do this.” I sat straight up, and before my words could drop, I had a piece of toast dangling from my mouth.
“I know, but I wanted to. I want you to see that we can have a good life together and I will take care of you. If you marry me, I’m going to sell some of my business ventures.” I looked up with raised eyebrows. “Especially the hotels in Las Vegas,” he said. “We can raise our son together. Go to Little League, soccer, or football games. Do something besides roam the world looking to build more hotels and never enjoying the money I’ve made. I want to take you to Paris. It’s not fun if I can’t give you something. What’s the purpose?”
I realized how unhappy Max had been. I wanted to make him happy, but I needed answers that he refused to give me. Max sat on the bed. I fixed my tea and took a sip. “Max, what are you going to do about Jonas?”
“Until the truth is uncovered, there isn’t much I can do. He can’t do time; he’s mentally unstable. Now he’s worried about Crystal leaving him for Joshua.”
“Max, I know you love your brother, but don’t do anything to Joshua to cause him any problems. I know Joshua. He will bounce back from Crystal, and Crystal likes Jonas a lot.”
“I wouldn’t do anything. I have enough problems with you.” We glanced at each other, and he took my hair and placed it behind my ear.
I looked casually at the clock on the wall, and then I screamed.
“What day is it? I was supposed to be at work this morning. I will lose my job.”
“You don’t need a job. I called St. John and told him that you will no longer work for him.”
“Why would you do that, Max?”
“I thought that because we were finally intimate, everything was better between us.”
“You don’t know women. You must have thought that you could fuck that Beaumont woman and say it was over between the two of you and that was that. Well it wasn’t. And what you did by calling Charles is unforgivable. Where is my phone?”
“Alex, if you call St. John and don’t marry me now, then it’s over.”
Did he just say that? Am I supposed to beg him not to leave me? Just like that after he has fucked me all night? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. If it’s not his way, it’s the highway? Weren’t those supposed to be my words? Clearly someone has gotten full of himself. He wasn’t acting that way until I told him I have never had another man and will never have another man but him. That’s what I get for confessing.
I grimaced at Max and retrieved my smartphone. Max stood watching me as I hit a button, and then Charles came on the line.
“Charles.” I glanced at Max, standing and waiting, daring me to continue. “I want you to disregard what Max said. I’m not quitting my job, and I am not marrying Max.”
Max was silent, and his eyes were glazed over as if he couldn’t see me. He walked out of the room, into the next. I placed the tray on the table with the breakfast Max had cooked for me. I tried to get up, but I was too weak.
Oh, how I wished it was yesterday and I could go back.
I pulled the covers up to my chest and closed my eyes. I heard Max talking, and somehow I fell back to sleep. When I woke, I felt someone staring down at me. “I’m leaving now, Alex. Stay as long as you want. Hell, I’ll give you this apartment.”
“I don’t want anything from you but my son.”
“He comes with the father. Take it or leave it.”
“That’s your compromise?”
“I don’t compromise.”
“That’s a threat,” I said.
“Absolutely!” And Max walked away from me leaving me in his bed. I scrambled to get to my feet. I wasn’t going to let him have the last word, but I was too late; he had gone. Where? I didn’t know. I never knew.
Would I know where he was if I were his wife?
***
I dreaded returning to my bungalow because I had to face Crystal and her questions. I walked in the door and found Crystal sitting facing the television but not watching it. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes swollen.
“Where have you been, Alex? I called everywhere looking for you. I saw St. John yesterday at his restaurant, and he asked about you. No one could find you.”
“I was with Max.”
“You said...”
“I know what I said. It’s been a long day.” I threw my things down in the dining area and lumbered to my room. Crystal followed me into the room, waiting for answers. I started to undress, and when she could no longer wait for me to respond to her, she questioned me.
“What is happening to Jonas? Did Blackstone get him out of jail?”
“I don’t think Jonas can get bond because he’s a flight risk.” She put her head in her hand and sank into a chair near my bed. “Max has too much money, and the judge knows he would do anything for his brother.”
“I need him out of jail,” Crystal said, flailing her arms.
“I’m sure he doesn’t want to be there, Crystal. You need to calm down and have some patience.” Here I was, giving advice to her when I never took anyone’s advice.
“Do you think he could have done such a thing to that woman, Alex? Not Jonas, I mean Max,” Crystal stated. I grimaced. “He has a dark nature,” Crystal said, trying to convince me of Max’s guilt.
“No. No, neither one is capable of doing that, Crystal. Max will take care of everything.”
“If he did it, he might want to frame Jonas.”
“Stop it, Crystal. Nothing is going to happen to Jonas, and blaming Max is not helping the situation.” I climbed into my bed, and Crystal stayed curled up in the chair looking for reassurance, which was a waste of time, because I needed some myself.