She wasn’t used to the attentions of men, having insulated herself from the gender for several years after a bad breakup with Jose. The poor man didn’t understand the deviant thoughts that her mind creatively nurtured into remarkably dark fantasies. Their lovemaking began in exhilarating fashion, passionate and almost savage the way they clawed each other’s bodies when they first began to copulate. Frenetic and wild when they first clashed, though the passion faded over time. Could sex like horny teenagers be enough for her, when for so many years of celibacy she played the masochist in her raunchy daydreams? About five months in to their affair, boredom struck, and she let the sexy Venezuelan peek into her mysterious realms. A slap of his hand and her ass undulated, on her lips the sensuous, Oh, yes, Jose, more! A refrain repeating, though her boyfriend for the last five months wasn’t getting the message. He thought she meant ‘Fuck me harder!’ a skill at which he was most adept. All she got was banged hard. Considering the size of his erection, her pussy needed days to recover from the ache. This was not the kind of pain that fed her soul. To find that, she’d need someone other than Jose. Jose didn’t understand; he wanted to marry her; bring her home to Mama in Venezuela; make her a housewife with a picket fence locked tight around her sex, the apron strings tied in a grand show of conventional female submission. She walked away, swore him off, even slapped Jose’s face when he came after her, aggressively pursuing a woman he refused to know. This was something daring for a woman who made submission to men her goal. It was a bad break-up. Enough to leave her mind reeling and her psyche scarred. The Deviant, Marilyn Hayworth, 2005
***
Jackson Brandt…
I admit, I didn’t pay much attention to her at first. I was merely interested in getting a break from the small talk, and the endless handshaking and congratulations that seemed a little bizarre. What kind of honor is it to be feted for doing my job well and making millions in the process? Do I score points with Jefferson College because being a greedy bastard is the pinnacle of worldly success? Or because I’m willing to part with a mil or two when they need seed money for their latest building project? I know what they’re after with the tributes and awards, and I can’t let it bother me. I take my accolades, smile, shake hands and go out to the terrace for a smoke when the air gets too thick with admiration I hardly deserve.
So there I found her, looking as though she was as bored with the champagne reception as I was. Instead of a cigarette, she clung to a champagne glass, trying to casually sip the bubbly, when I imagined she would rather impolitely gulp it down. Of course, this woman wouldn’t do that. She was a pretty brunette, diminutive, with a body she chose to hide behind drab and unfashionable clothes. Still, I liked looking at her, imagining the shape of her breasts and the sensuous swell of her belly underneath the stuffy blue business suit, and what appeared to be a nicely rounded ass. I love the female ass, the hips, the curves, the rise and fall of their soft flesh. The suit she wore was not particularly expensive, something made for a reasonable woman, like one in my secretarial pool, or a teacher, certainly it was fit for a librarian. Yes, that was it. She had the studious look of a librarian or college professor.
I had no illusions about the woman and what a conversation with her might bring, but for lack of anything else to do, I found myself politely moving her way – we were the only people on the terrace and it seemed only civil that I say something. I could get away with being aloof, which I imagined is what she expected.
She stood by the balcony looking out over the campus quadrangle, as if lost in a daydream.
“You remember it like yesterday?” I stared out, mimicking her studious pose while remaining a reasonable five feet away.
“Not really,” she said. She turned to look at me and I felt a shudder of recognition. Suddenly nervous, she stared at my cigarette instead of my face. “I hear it’s bad for your heart to smoke,” she flippantly asserted, her tone quaintly haughty.
“I have to have some vices,” I replied.
“I’ll bet you have many,” she curtly snipped.
After that, perhaps I should have moved on, but I found something in her eyes beyond the first vague and dreamy look, a captivating spark that had me baffled. “Sorry, did I do something?” I asked.
“No, not really. But you’re Jackson Brandt and I don’t imagine that we have a thing in common, so…” she stopped suddenly. Soon as her retort left her lips, she looked as if she’d like to take it back. She turned shy and beguiling, shrugging almost bashfully in an amazing transformation from bitch to bewitching.
“So, why am I talking to you…?” I finished the question she would have asked, and waited. When she didn’t respond, I answered. “Because there really is a real person behind all this silly reunion bravado.” I nodded to the reception hall from which a wealth of rich laughter poured and the tinkle of glassware transported the mind into an altered state.
“Is there?” She almost…almost seemed intrigued.
“So, you know me, but I don’t know you,” I ventured on. “I’m guessing you’re about ten years behind me at Jefferson?”
“I am.”
“But do you have a name?” I tried the joke and discovered that she could smile.
A lovely one that turned what was at first an ordinary face into a beautiful one.
“Rachel Linney.” She raised the goblet.
“And what does Rachel Linney do?”
“I’m an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Valley.”
“Ah!” I was right, that explained so much. The clothes, the attitude, the nervousness, as if I were speaking with one of the secretaries in the firm. Our worlds, Rachel’s and mine, would rarely collide within a social context, which made this awkward for us both. Awkward for Rachel Linney because she’d find the world of actors and playwrights in which I lived and worked intimidating. Awkward for me because the more I was with this woman, the more I wanted to know her, yet suddenly, I found myself at a loss as to how to woo an ordinary woman. Why did I bother when I could have had ingénues and gorgeous starlets on my arm? Because Rachel Linney was so much more than she seemed. I knew that without understanding why. I knew the attraction was real, I felt it in my gut. I also felt it lower in my crotch, which, if I stayed with her much longer, would have given me away with an obvious boner tenting my suit pants.
Maybe that’s all it was. Sexual chemistry. I could have fucked her in a heartbeat and left her wasted and wanting; I’d certainly done that enough in my forty-two years. But no, not this time.
“You know, I have to go back to the party,” I finally began my exit.
“Sure, you’re the guest of honor.” She seemed relieved.
“But I can call you at Valley, the English Department, Rachel Linney?”
She was not so relieved now. Almost a look of shock in her eyes. “Yes, I suppose you can,” she said with a bewildered smile.
I smiled back, casually stuffed my hands in my pants’ pockets and sauntered toward the subtle glow of the crowded room.
***
Rachel…
Jackson Brandt. He was not exactly a dreamboat, but he did give my body a rush. Must have been the power he wielded. Partner in an exclusive law firm. Attorney for up and coming starlets, for muscled hunks looking to be the next soap opera heart-throb. I was told he had a few New York stage actors as clients, but the casual observer of Jackson Brandt’s notoriety wouldn’t know that. And I was just a casual observer. He graduated cum laude from Jefferson, took the fast route to the Bar Exam and had been gracing the pages of my college newsletter ever since, with glowing reports of his star-studded success. I noted that he hadn’t had such luck with women, but how can a man stay married and faithful when they’re in the constant company of ravishing females?
It’s a world I couldn’t have cared less about, except that while I was getting a breather from the phony smiles and one-upmanship of my college reunion – I could kill Dana for dragging me there – he accosted me. Well not exactly accosted me. He was very nice, sending my romantic heart all pitter-patter. Dammit, my crotch was dancing and not at all subtly. I prayed he didn’t notice, that I was cool enough not to turn into a sniveling groupie. I really didn’t care for men like Jackson Brandt, but the lights, the show, the personal charisma of a powerful man was so mesmerizing, he was difficult to resist. I certainly didn’t expect to react the way I did; perhaps that disarmed me most of all.
And then he called. He asked me out. Like I actually believed he’d remember my name and where I worked and in which department he could find me. He did.
“Yes, sure, why not?” I replied when he asked if I’d like dinner Friday night.
No, I don’t want dinner with Jackson Brandt Friday night. I couldn’t imagine what we’d find to talk about, and I had nervous jitters four days before. However, the date was made and I couldn’t back out without looking like an idiot.
The date…
I had a house in the hills overlooking LA – cute but unassuming, and all I could afford on my salary. It was hardly the neighborhood where you’d expect to find a classy black Mercedes limo. He brought me flowers, peonies. Who heard of peonies in LA? They are huge fuchsia-colored blooms that smell like roses.
“I should put them in water,” I said, and I rushed away without actually inviting him inside.
“Yes, do that,” he agreed. I turned to find that he followed me inside and was casually reviewing my modest house. “1920’s, I’ll bet.” He noted the Craftsman style, which I carefully tried to preserve.
“It’s a work in progress,” I told him. “Renovations don’t come cheap.” No, Rachel, no reason to feel defensive, I kept telling myself.
“No, but you’re doing a beautiful job.” He observed the stained glass and the original wood that I had painstakingly refinished, then whipped around suddenly, seeing that I’d stuffed the beautiful peonies in a crystal vase and placed it on the center of my dining room table. “They look perfect there, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” I was practically beaming.
“We should go now, reservations are for eight.”
“Yes, right.” I grabbed my wrap, which I wouldn’t need, though it would make me less self-conscious having it handy. I got daring when he named the restaurant in downtown LA. The dress was stylishly black with a plunging neckline. I’d bought it the year before when I thought I was going to a movie premiere in Hollywood. I got sick and had to back out, so the dress had been hanging lonely in my closet ever since. As soon as Jackson’s eyes finally found my jiggling breasts, I got nervous. I was sure the dress was perfect for the occasion, at the same time hoped that it didn’t communicate too much to Jackson Brandt. It was a date, just one measly date. I was no starlet quality. I didn’t care to be. Although I wasn’t a dowdy spinster either.
I am a fit 5 feet 6 inches, with nice, rounded breasts and shapely hips and legs. Nothing to be embarrassed about there. But I couldn’t imagine that I was right for Jackson Brandt, or he for me. As I left my house on his arm, I couldn’t wait until the date was over and I’d be home again, safe in my own bed.
Jackson covered my hand when I casually laid it on the table and he looked sincerely into my eyes, smiling. I was immediately self-conscious and uncomfortable. My hand was clammy and cold and I wanted to draw it back. Even worse than that, his eyes pierced right through my defenses and I squirmed uneasily, alarmed by the way he seemed to throw me off-balance.
“Enjoying the scallops?” he asked.
“Love them.” I smiled back. “But then I expected they’d be perfect,” I added with a haughty twist, quite unlike me. “I mean, the last time I was here they were a little overcooked,” I playfully quipped. As if this was a place where I’d frequently dined! He got the joke immediately and laughed. I’d pulled it off with some aplomb, and felt a little confidence muster in my nerve weary body.
He studied me for a while, and my temples began to throb, my head hurt. Maybe it was the wine. Or maybe it was just Jackson Brandt.
“You don’t think much of my world, do you?” he probed. “Is that because you envy it or think you’re above it?”
This sounded like a good natured query, but I understood the barb. “I don’t envy or think I’m above it. You call it your world. It is. But it’s not mine.”
“And you still can’t figure what you’re doing here with me, can you?”
“You’re right.”
His reflective expression made me believe there was something more that he wanted to say, something important.
“Would it be too trite to say that I’m looking for the right woman,” he finally got to the point and turned the conversation on a dime.
Was this artful seduction or a serious statement of fact? Right woman?
“You mean that?”
“I do. But you think I’m too shallow for the right woman.” Saying this made him snicker.
“I guess I should take you seriously.”
“I wish you would.”
“And you think that I could be the right woman?”
“Why not?”
“Because I just can’t imagine us…I don’t even understand why I said yes to this date. I mean you’ve been very nice, and this restaurant is lovely. But…” I finally pulled my hand away from his, “…this just makes me so uncomfortable.”
“All right then we can leave. Go somewhere you’re not uncomfortable.”
“Like the McDonalds down the street?” A wisecrack to be sure, with a sarcastic twist. I still couldn’t take him seriously.
“Oh, c’mon, you’re not anymore McDonalds than you are this place.”
“And what am I if I’m not The Shiva Bar, and I’m not McDonalds.”
He sat back, appraising me, just as he’d appraised me all evening.
“I’d say that you’re quiet bistros or trendy coffee shops, ethnic food, the farmer’s market type. How’s that for a start?”
I had to blush because he hit the mark so closely. “Very close.”
“Let’s see. I imagine you like the symphony and art fairs, estate sales with great bargains, the theater, drama mostly, and no doubt Shakespeare, anything English and upper crust, that’s why you’re a bit of a snob. I can see you taking Bed Breakfast weekends in the country. Walks on the beach. Simple. Easy. Unadorned.” He paused, wrapping me up in his easy grin. “Have I missed yet?”
“No.” I started to shudder strangely, though I kept it veiled.
“So maybe that’s the kind of woman I’m looking for.”
“As in a serious relationship?”
“Yes. But all night you’ve treated this date like a joke. You don’t seem to understand that I’m really, honestly, interested in you.”
A sudden rush of energy from lord knows where made me almost dizzy. For a moment, I felt as if I were going to throw up every morsel of food I had downed since lunch, including the scallops. I finally got my bearings and came back at him with the truth. “No, I didn’t understand that at all, Jackson.”
“I don’t waste my time on casual dates.” There was a subtle accusation in his voice.
Meanwhile, I was getting edgy, restless. “I’m sorry if I haven’t taken you seriously. I really am. That’s a disservice to you, probably based on my snap judgments of people. I tend to do that. I am snobbish in my own way. But listen…you don’t know me…who I am or what I do…”
“I know more than you think, Rachel.” He gazed at me earnestly. His eyes were a little droopy and a lot seductive. He had an avant garde flair around him. Chic. Slick. The hair, the suit, everything down to his manicured nails and the elegant way he dressed. My attraction to him was becoming more evident to me and I didn’t like that.
“Just what do you think you know?” I managed the remark, at the same time damned scared of what he’d say.
“I know that behind your studious, college professor façade you’ve written several dozen erotic novels.”
I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. My face became instantly hot. A blush rose like a wildfire up my neck. I so hated being where I was at that moment. I would have pulled myself from the table and taken a taxi home if my legs hadn’t been so weak.
“You’re Marilyn Hayworth, when you’re not Rachel Linney.”
“How do you know that?” My anxiety rose to a fevered peak.
“You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not embarrassed, just shocked to have you blurt that out, like…”
“Like what?”
“I don’t tell people about Marilyn Hayworth.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t, and it’s not a subject I’ll discuss with you. I prefer to keep her private.” The burning feeling started to subside, but I still didn’t know what to do with the emotion and the flagrant sexual desire – yes, goddammit it was sexual desire – that continued to churn inside my belly. “I don’t understand. How did you know?”
“I’m a rich man…I can make inquiries.”
“What? So, being rich makes it okay to pry into a woman’s life?”
“I’ve read several of your books.”
“You’ve read my books?”
“Yes, I’ve read your books. I admire your writing and what’s behind it.”
“What do you mean ‘what’s behind it’?”
“The passion, the fantasy, the desire. You write persuasively as if you know your subject well.”
I squirmed uncomfortably. “I said, it’s not a topic I’ll discuss.”
“Are you serious about the relationships you write about?”
“I said, it’s not a topic…”
He wouldn’t let me finish. “No, it is a topic we’ll discuss. It’s regarding you and I want to know more about Rachel Linney, about Marilyn Hayworth.”
“Jackson, I’d really like this date to end now.” My ears were burning, my heart beating too fast.
“But it’s not going to end,” he responded, nothing ruffled in his cool manner, while I felt as if I were falling apart. “I’m not a man you can throw off easily. I just want a few answers, I just want a peek inside. That’s all.”
“What I write about is just fantasy. That is it, I swear.”
He must have read my fear because he skillfully backed off the intensity, morphing into the charming, laidback Jackson of our first meeting. “Hey, don’t look so frightened. I’m not planning to rape you. I’m just curious.”
I stared at him, having no idea what to do next. I admit there was a part of me that wanted to dive into the dominant aura that captured my imagination. He was hot, sexy and available. I could have screwed him on the spot same as the night we met, that same painfully needy dance of desire begging to take hold. But that doesn’t mean anything, Rachel! my inner voice screamed.
“You’re curious? Curiosity leads you to do background checks on potential dates, see if you can dig up any dirt?”
“You know, you’re awfully defensive about something that’s apparently important enough for you to write about copiously. I wonder why?”
He was right. He had me trapped in an argument that I did not want to win.
I tried the deep breathing routine. “I’m sorry. You’ve just struck a nerve. My erotica is personal and it’s not a subject I feel comfortable about with someone I hardly know.” My answer was succinct and sincere, dripping with, ‘let’s please close this conversation.’
To my surprise, he answered, “All right then, we won’t talk about it now. I really didn’t mean to upset you.”
Was I to believe that?
The part of me that said to trust him consented to a walk on the beach, the rest of my feelings, including all my misgivings, I ignored. The date began with my not wanting anything to do with Jackson Brandt, but at that moment, I found myself unable to resist the strange confluence of events that brought us to that rare moment.
We removed our shoes and he rolled up the cuffs of his pants to stroll along the water’s edge in front of his Malibu beach house. The setting sun sat off at a distance, coloring the clouds with a brilliance that lasted for just a short time. When the fireball finally slipped below the horizon, and was no more than a smoky glow, Jackson slipped his arm around my waist as if drawing me into the darkness of the evening.
He began kissing me, and I began a slow descent into the essence of the man’s compelling allure. I’d held him off until then, but found it impossible to prevail once my sex was thrumming with desire, suddenly reborn. I remembered what it was to be a sexual being again, to feel the urgency in a man’s hunger oblige me to submit. I wrote about the fantasy so often, but this was real. Now. Immediate. I’d made no conscious decision that I’m aware of, but my decision to continue had been made nonetheless. I wanted him to take me, use me, fuck me and I was sure he would. Almost as sure as I was of being tomorrow’s castoff.
If nothing else, it would be something to write about, I rationalized. This put a smile on my face, as I enjoyed every kiss of his warm, demanding lips. Where he touched me my body lit with fire. My hips, my ass, my breasts – his hands were firm and certain. Soon, I felt his throbbing cock against my leg. He took my breath away, like it was when I was seventeen, when sexual touch was so very new to me.
We remained at the water’s edge while he slowly slid the zipper down my back, and peeled the dress away. It dropped to the sand, leaving me shivering, wearing only a tiny thong. The ocean breeze danced across my nakedness. A wicked feeling of doing something terribly naughty almost made me laugh. Meanwhile, my crotch gave in to Jackson’s flaming hands as they poured over my sex-drenched skin.
“But shouldn’t we…?” I start to protest. In the open spaces around me I felt vulnerable. The beach was long, stretching for miles in either direction, a foot path for beachcombers even in the dead of night.
“No,” he whispered in my ear.
His finger traced the line of the thong’s elastic waistband, dipping deeply under the edge and downward toward my throbbing sex. With the dexterity that only comes from practice he suddenly tore the thong away. It broke at the seam and joined the black dress as a retreating tide threatened to carry them away. He was still fully clothed while I was naked. I couldn’t help but appreciate what this meant: how he was in control and it was for me to surrender.
“You care if I fuck you here?” he asked.
“I’m surprised you bothered to ask,” I answered. We spoke in whispers that mimicked the swooshing sounds of the tide that fell against the sand and then retreated out to sea.
By starlight I saw his snickering mouth, and as it descended to my mouth, I opened for him again. Our tongues went deep, deep as his hand was inside my crotch. I could have come without further stimulation, but I needed more than fingerplay. I’d had enough of that from my own hand, and though his fingers were warm and welcoming, I knew that the throbbing erection inside his pants would take me to a better bliss, a burning place, an end fit for a night like this.
He suddenly pulled away and took me by the hand, running up the beach to an outcropping of rock where we tumbled to the sand inside the shadowy cover it afforded – which was very scant.
By the rising moon, my white nakedness must have looked like a new moon on the beach. I felt as risqué as I’d ever felt, openly raunchy. We rolled in the sand, kissing still, hands clamoring for flesh, though mine were not content. I wanted him naked too, I wanted to press my nose to his chest and smell his aroma, revel in the scent of his body.
But he rolled back, opened his zipper and pulled out his cock: long and hard, beckoning my mouth to suck. First, down my throat until I gagged, then I backed off working my lips and tongue over the veined flesh. I drank in his scent, quickly intoxicated by the heady stench of that beautiful organ. When he began to respond to the blowjob, I began to feel like a naked nymph from the sea, come to suck the man dry, wickedly, wantonly, a siren from the deep. He seemed to free me in a way I’ve never been free. The beach was magic. Jackson Brandt was magic. Maybe I’d cry and rant in the morning, when he tossed me out with yesterday’s trash. But for the moment, I was his sex Goddess, flagrant, daring, more willing than even Jackson Brandt expected. More willing than I expected of myself when this night began. I wanted to take him to the edge until his organ couldn’t help but erupt inside my mouth. We’d fuck later in his master bedroom, which made this just foreplay.
But, suddenly, he pushed my face away and sat up. Then he grabbed me about the waist and tossed me over. My hands and knees sank into the sand, while he lined up behind me with his freshly primed cock poised at my sex. He slapped my ass with determined force and without restraint, plumbed the depths of desires I hadn’t experienced in so long that I was almost crying from the fear and joy of it. The sting began to submerge into the orgasmic fire. I wanted more, a harder, faster, nastier spanking, and began uttering nonsense things to encourage his assault. Even as he made my ass cheeks flame with heat, he plunged his cock inside and drove it to the farthest reaches of my pulsing channel. The fucking began in earnest.
I came abruptly.
My inner channel milked his muscled cock. Blood pumped through his veins and his come shot deep inside me. The sound of his groans and the feel of his hands grabbing the same flesh he’d spanked with such earnest glee drove my climax to new places. I was used. Terrorized. Frantically in lust.
“Oh, my god,” was all I could manage to utter to the ocean’s bitter wind.
Until that moment, I hadn’t felt the chill. But I was chilled as my consciousness dawned again and I realized what I’d done. While my pretty black dress had washed out to sea, I’d given myself to a man I hardly knew.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to climb to the house naked.” He’d been down at the water’s edge looking for my clothes and found nothing.
“How about I wear your suit coat?” I suggested. He’d snatched it off the sand and now carried it over his arm.
“No, I don’t think so,” he stared down at me, no smile, though his grim dominant expression drew my attention. “I like you naked. And I think you’d love being wicked enough to climb to the house in your birthday suit.”
Protest was out of the question. He was a man in charge, one not to be toyed with or taken lightly. And since I’d willingly put myself in his hands for one night, who was I to argue? After all, he was right. I was in love with the wicked thrill of what I’d done and I didn’t want that thrill to end until my thirst for sex had finally been sated.
He’d already started up the stairs and I had to scramble after him. But once I caught up, he pulled me close inside his arm, and we climbed the rest of the way together, letting the brief feeling of oneness wash over us.