dance floor where the bride and groom are all the rage. The bride’s let her hair down and changed into a white bustier crop top with spaghetti straps, a knee–length flamingo pink tutu, and glossy hot pink stilettos for the reception. The main attraction. The lion of the zoo. Can but one guest stand aside to let me through? I make my way, little toeing. Inwards, this knavery succeeds at last. One in which I whisper as I pass,
“Is it not the simplest delight? The Sapporo white sweetheart chocolate biscuits, light as powdered clay, honeyed as the yellow moonlight, awaiting there, in the inner courts, wanting to charge all gourmets with rapture?”
They’re clueless for I only want to see the fox. I shove people making my way towards Abeni when Kosta appears from the rest of the crowd. Before me he stands six–foot–two because of his hair. The rooster of the family. His spiked up mohawk with buzzed sides begs no more attention than a street rat from a king. His jet black hair’s as dark as a cursed goblet. If it wasn’t for that stupid haircut of his people would think we’re twins. He’s two years my senior. Still, he’s kept a baby face.
“Step out of my way Kosta. I need to find Abeni. Wait—” I stop myself. “Have you seen Malia?”
“She’s left with Jake. About half an hour ago just as the dinner course was being served.”
Super, I muse, letting the news sink in. Malia was my ride home and I left my cellphone and wallet in her boyfriend’s car. Wasn’t going to risk my phone going off during the wedding ceremony. I move past Kosta, rolling my eyes, pushing him out of my way nettled, not at him but at Malia. No matter though. I’ll go home with someone else here. There’s to be someone around that’d be so generous as to provide me with a ride home. I think of my options.
Kosta can’t take me for his plans after the wedding involve his girlfriend and a nearby hotel. Quite sincerely I don’t think I could endure another car ride with him. I’m tired of listening about his intern position as a broker’s shadow. Don’t know if he’s taking the internship seriously. He seems to be more adept at clandestine services than stocks.
The broker he works for, Cadu, has some abundantly rich clientele that require Kosta to analyze the market and continuously research stocks. Sometimes Kosta is his own telemarketing center, on duty and making calls twenty–four seven. Cadu, when hiring for this position Kosta has filled, was heedless of the person he was hiring. Cadu is Erik Manta’s broker and it seems by hiring his client’s new bride’s brother, he’s made his job vulnerable to watchful eyes. He hasn’t bought any bad stocks or sold any inordinately profitable ones so I’m unsure what information Kosta’s trying to extract from Erik’s investments.
I could go talk to my sister’s boss, Rick Harford, about giving me a ride home. Forget it. That guy’s a clown. My sister’s unavailable. Obviously. She’s going on some romantic getaway right after this with her lovebird, Erik. They’re traveling to Bora Bora. I went to surf near there when I was a kid with my dad and the waves were tiny and the water was immoderately light blue.
Come to think of it, the chlorine–based pool look of beach water is actually kind of nice. The color is natural, and they’ll be staying in one of those huts overwater. Their lush bungalow is on a private island surrounded by the crystal lagoon of Bora Bora. My side of it is that if and when I get married, I’ll ask the honeymoon not be situated in an alluring, touristy go–to spot because no matter what my new wife and I will be spending the whole time in the hotel room. It’ll most certainly be more pleasurable than any of the features a site may possess.
The problem I find in most girls is their unpredictability. One of the reasons I might never find a girl to be betrothed to. Malia never struck me as a great surfer yet she’s terrific. She’s so uptight you’d think she spent her leisure time practicing ashtanga and power yoga to demarcate stress. Debby never seemed like a woman who was unhappy with her marriage but acting like a coquette cougar got me to think twice on where her loyalty lies. Then there’s Jade who’s made a great replacement mom for Kosta and me, and Mocha who’s smart enough to run the front desk of a high–end company but who can’t remember a guy’s name to save her life. I’m the company’s vice president’s brother and I’m nearly there twice a week. She can at the very least remember my face.
As for Abeni, she’s mysterious about herself but says plenty about others. Her gossip crew is a woman–only club. She’s a quiet gal with the boys. The first time I met her was in Hawaii with my family and hers bonding over the engaged couple. It was a short trip, but I got Erik to surf on that trip while his brothers were busy with wives of their own to attend to.
Abeni’s lived a great portion of life under conservative rule. She might not remember when she was taken out of Eritrea by Robert Jr. but he sure remembers the dangers that faced her. She was abandoned in a mudbrick house as her whole village was attacked by rebels, leaving her to fend for herself at the age of nine. When Robert Jr. took her under his wing, he raised her like another one of his military comrades but as the struggle of raising a child that was approaching teenage years and having to always be out of the country got to him, he had no other choice but to find her a new home.
At the time Robert Jr. wasn’t married so Abeni couldn’t keep getting raised under different nannies. It wasn’t a healthy living. It’d seem that this type of tutelage was more foster care, less basic social unit. Lucky for him, his parents always wanted a daughter, viewing their son’s burdensome balancing act with work and fatherhood as a gift from above.
The lessons taught to her by Robert Jr. impelled her to guard herself from the outside world. That restraint from the outside has made her as gentle as a daffodil. Those lessons continued under Robert and Debby’s household as they’ve raised four military bound sons who know the world’s not so pretty. For every daffodil in the world there’s a rodent. Her guardians have put forth this idea of adding a fifth soldier to their legacy. Abeni’s cordially declined—twice. And while she’s negated interest, the option remains on the table.
I’m not surprised she hasn’t considered a role in the military given her isolated upbringing. Maybe that’s why she’s quiet, cloistering herself from the family regime and becoming a doughty champion of individuality. Forevermore on the outside of honor.
Outside. That’s just where she heads as I notice her red dress drift through the wind made by a closing backroom door at the far end of the ballroom. The dress catches itself on the closed door and only a piece of it is left for the eye to see. The door then reopens to let that part in. I make my path, walking casually to the door and staring back at the guests to check if anyone’s watching. I don’t believe I’m allowed in here, but I do let myself in only to enter an inner roofless courtyard.
There’s a sizeable garden full of genetically engineered blue rose bushes and imported date–plum trees with a bountiful of miniature orange dates on their branches. They’re illuminated by blue wind chimes with a powerful inner light source. For a second, I even thought those dates were blueberries. The light–up brilliant blue tubes are lined up in a row suspended from a high ledge above me. At first blush, an endless row of Atlantean performance mufflers.
There’s one false balcony on the second floor behind Abeni; ideal for growing a Mediterranean herb garden. The balcony’s black iron double doors have a scrolling and floral window grill design; incongruous with the Plain Jane design of its contracted belly railing.
A bobble–headed brown cat with incandescent jasper red eyes casts a long and furtive look down past the bowed rails. It moves sinuously across the balcony, balancing itself within what limited space it has, flirting with the curves of shadows. Through the camera lens of its freakish eyes, it appears to be staring right at a ballooning flame. Howbeit, from where I’m standing there’s only blue.
Abeni sits with her long thick legs crossed on a durable fiberstone replica of an Ancient Greek garden bench.
Thought this place was designed strictly off French influence.
The elongated, somewhat curved bench carries with it the carved images of Theseus and Pirithous. I can tell it’s them, finding no need for words. Several panels depict their narrative on each side of the squared–off pillars holding the bench. Such meticulously rendered scenes, speaking volumes of mythic tales and timeless camaraderie.
Best friends from an Ancient Greek myth. The two thought themselves worthy of marrying the daughters of Zeus, Helen of Troy and Persephone, and thus attempted to kidnap them. Zeus’ brother Hades, wise to their plan, invited them to feast with him. The friends sat on chairs to dine with Hades. These chairs were cursed, erasing their memories of an identity and of their mission. Hercules took on the role of hero, as he often does in these myths, and saved Theseus but failed in freeing Pirithous. Pirithous stayed, forever trapped in the underworld.
Abeni’s head is leveled down with her eyes closed. Her beige, chunky–heeled ankle boots rest next to her on the bench. She’s roused from a phony nap, noticing me staring. She lifts her arms up and then extends them to separate sides of the bench with a long yawn. She begins to size me up head to toe. “You followed me out here for a reason.”
“I–I wanted to check up on you.” My speech falters awkwardly as I approach her.
“Get comfortable sweetie,” she says rising from her seat and then shaking her head like a wet dog as she’s preparing for what’s to come. She communicates to me her lust. I stop in front of her, slip out of my black dress shoes, and kick them off to the side. She snarls like a cat, and I pick up what she’s throwing down.
“My pleasure,” I reply tugging on my teal tie as she leaps and cavorts toward me, winding up ensnared in my arms.
She leans in tight against me, grabs me by the hair on the back of my head, and pulls me into her lips—moist like succulent cherries. We start making out and it’s like second nature. She sticks her tongue down my throat, and I don’t know what else to do but to go with it and caress it with mine. I follow her lead, grabbing her by the waist, picking her up off her feet, and carrying her with me as I walk backwards. I then spin her to the wall with blue lights. I push her onto the wall with my body firm against hers and her legs wrapped around my waist. She places her soft hands on both of my cheeks, stopping me for a second to look playfully into my eyes.
“A bachelor so in demand. I never took you to be a man so in charge.” She smiles, biting her lip and stealing a glance at my belt.
“I had some awareness of you wanting me in Hawaii. Always sizing me up when I was shirtless on the beach, but I never thought much of pursuing it with you seeming the shy type.”
“Shy? Honey I’ve been playing hard to get,” she giggles.
I continue to kiss her vigorously and then she begins to kiss me on the neck while her hand slowly finds its way down to my belt buckle. Before she can loosen my belt, I take her off the wall and let her ground herself with her feet hard on the grass. She bustlingly undoes the buttons on my gray vest, white dress shirt, and pulls down my pant zipper. She gets lower, coolly tugging on my gray dress pants till they’re completely off. I tenderly push her away when her fingers slide in behind the elastic waistband on my black boxer briefs. I disrobe my tux jacket followed by the vest and shirt she’d unbuttoned.
I’m not acting like my regular self, but I can’t stop myself from going further so I bring her up to her feet, both my hands lifting her up from under her armpits. I put one hand behind her back to unclip her bra. With her dress still on, I place my hands under it, lifting it up to her stomach and then fondling inside. I squeeze her breasts with stiff hands. The liberation comes to me as I rip the rest of her gown right off.
“That was easy.”
“Cheap. I made the dress out of some sexy stripper gowns.”
“Oh yea?” I look at her pleadingly.
I’m able to let some ease back into my hands once I see the red lingerie. I make a short sinking whistle. “A girl can never go wrong with red or black,” I tell her, the anticipation for sex growing.
As her bra falls to the grass, I begin nibbling away at her nipples and then circling my tongue around the edges of the entire breasts, finding my way back to her lips. My fingertips dance along her luscious skin and voluptuous curves. Her soft brushing on my groin eradicated any guilt I had before doing this. I take off her panties using my bite and then get back up and sternly turn her on her back, seeing those precious dimples I love at the end of a woman’s back. I remove my black boxer briefs and my erection springs out into the open air, pointed like an arrow to her.
With one hand grabbing onto her waist and the other holding her wrist against her back, I put my throbbing thulian pink mushroom head inside her vagina. I slowly enter inside her allowing her vaginal fluids to ease my cock in. I fuck her and begin humping her at an intensely fast pace. She’s in for it. Small drops of sweat start to run down my forehead. I push deep inside her heart–shaped lips with cushion from her plush and round derriere banging on my pelvis. She slides her free hand on the wall in front of her.
“You’re mine,” I grunt.
She takes her hand off the wall and successively, I feel some minor pushback from her. Out of the blue she’s yelling stop. At first the cries are hesitant but then they come to me as exacting. Still, I don’t lull. I’m locked in by my sex drive. It’s clear she wants me.
I slam her head forth on the wall, demanding of her—silence. Her wrist jerks under my grip but I only tighten it further, causing her gross pain. Stark is her discomfort for she lets out a harrowing wail.
She twists her body sideways and an elbow plunks into me on my side. The blow to my stomach’s trifling. I yank her wrist, turning her full body towards me. Her face centimeters from mine, I glom onto her neck with terrible strength. Her body’s trembling and her breath’s short, languishing with every passing second.
“You fucking slut! Who do you think you are?” I ask spitefully; her face specked with my spit.
Abeni averts her eyes and strikes me passionately in the gut with her knee. She slithers from me. My vision’s blurring. I turn, managing to wrench her by the braids before she flees and violently shove her naked body onto the grass. She makes a piddling effort to get away, crawling towards the exit leading into the ballroom. I lunge at her body, seizing her mouth and continue inserting myself inside her. Tears roll down my knuckles as I tenaciously thrust harder, buried deep inside her.
Taking a break from looking at her prepossessing swanlike neck, I allow myself one sideways glim and see the unmistakable face of a soldier. There’s Kyle. His mouth wide open and eyes absolutely incensed, unforgiving of the scenario that’s unfolded. He backs away and descends further into the garden dropping his lit cigarette onto the grass.
I bust and Abeni moans without holding back. I slap her ass and it jiggles. I tell her to shut up, gathering my drawers and then picking up my pants to zip them back up. I start to buckle my belt that was left on my dress pants and realize I must hide this boner of mine to diverge unwarranted attention from my crotch region. I pin down my boner against my waist by tightening my belt.
“Damn it,” I whisper panting. I’m shocked. I raise my arms over my head and drag my hands from the back of my head over my face. She backs away from me and sits down on the bench jaded.
“What did you just get me into?” I say, looking away, rushing to gather my clothes off the grass. I position my white dress shirt on me, as neatly as I can, and throw my tux jacket over my shoulder.
“This was your idea! You said you wanted more fun in our sex life,” Abeni yells, her forehead creased.
“Can you keep it down? My god, do you want the whole world to know we’re fucking?” I tell her, my muscles tensing up.
“Is that what you think five months of my time is? Fucking! I’ve flown down here from New York more times in the last month than you’ve visited me throughout the entire time we’ve been dating. I don’t need this. You agreed you could do long distance. I try this carnal fantasy of yours of violating a stranger at a wedding and you get mad when we get caught.”
“Ugh,” I look away pained. She’s so reckless in her way of shoving off the fact that her brother caught us in the act. She seems indifferent to that aspect, but there’s a part of me that’s strangely drawn to that side of her.
I don’t even have time to button my dress shirt or tuck it into my dress pants before I leave, leaving Abeni there naked on the bench with a ripped dress and all the rest of her undergarments plus my vest and tie lying on the ground. The fluorescent blue lights make her look like an avatar of Lord Vishnu, sitting there with downcast eyes like the goddess she is who seduces her prey.
I run back into the ballroom and the first thing I see is the left side of Beckford’s face. He’s standing outside the door holding a round glass amber beer bottle, giving insight to the short gasp I make when I think it’s his twin, Kyle. He asks if I’m ok and I assure him I’m alright.
“You sure? You’re more naked than Jake in his vest,” he snickers.
I start buttoning up my dress shirt rapidly.
“You might want to tighten your belt there too buddy before your pants fall. What’s up with you?”
Crap. He’s seen my boner.
“I was going out for a swim,” I say the first thing that comes to me.
“Uh–huh, sure. Stay out of trouble kid. I was young too once. Your pants are fine by the way, but I did make you look.”
He asks if I know where the bathrooms are and I point him in the right direction. I glance back at the door I just closed and having neglected Abeni, a girl who was only helping my search for some release, I take the tux jacket off my shoulder, open the door, and lance the jacket at her face without taking a second look.
“You forgot your shoes by the way.” Beckford sneaks up on me.
“Jeez!” I slam the door shut.
“Thanks!” I say irritated.
He walks off joyously and raises his hand—perfectly rigid—to shoulder level. “No problem.”
For that split second, I think I saw her naked, curled into a ball on the grass and that it was crying I heard but it wasn’t because I left. I’m confident she was tearing up before that when I promoted ruff sex. I hope she uses that tux jacket as some form of coverage and not take it as a sign that I’m mad because I threw it. I talk to myself aloud. “Alright, pull yourself together. What’re you going to do?”
First thing, shoes. I open the door again and walk to my shoes where I left them. Abeni’s nowhere in sight but I hear Kyle, a few of his derogatory slut–shaming terms, and a female weeping.
I suppose I don’t have time to stay for the cheers.
I put my dress shoes back on. I need to go before things get out of hand. There’s that little voice in my head telling me to speak but I choose to grapple with it instead of blindly following it.
You’re a coward Koata. Stand up for her already! Is she not the one who makes your heart skip a beat? Go on, listen to your heart and be a man. Pffft, that mushy stuff? What do I know about matters of the heart? Should I intervene in family matters? God, you’re being a total chicken.
I ignore the voice. It wasn’t loud enough this time around. I walk back inside and to the main dancehall. I run up the lateral steps of the ballroom where the rooms used by the bride and bridesmaids to get ready are located. Rustic Greek blue doors mark both sides of the upstairs hallway. Anyone would recognize these blue doors as distinct to the Cyclades. They mark the white stucco towns overlooking the Aegean Sea. At once I open the first blue doors to my right revealing a large balcony with an exquisite view of the large red rose gardens—an adjunct to Califf Manor since the roses are only seasonal.
I scope out the area. The temporary great hall’s straightforward with its roof now closed, about half a quarter mile away. Dark clouds float above it. I notice Malia’s white Porsche Carrera parked by the tent with the inside fogged out. The car’s bouncing up and down sporadically. They haven’t left then. Still, the brief jaunt to get there isn’t worth discovering her and Jake in the nude, thrusting in a tight space.
The balcony is set up with blue cushioned teak lounge chairs, cream outdoor sofas, and silver–plated round tables. I need to rest my head before I go on looking for a phone. I feel nauseous but if I don’t call someone to pick me up right now, I may be exposed in front of Erik’s family. I owe it to Jade not to ruin anything else from her wedding day. I was already late. I walk to a curved, cream sofa with navy accent pillows when hastily I look up in response to the sound of fireworks.
It’s only thunder. I stare up at the myriad of clouds unfolding like rolled cookie dough in the sky and see lightning jutting through their curves. I sense a rainstorm heading down the path of the empty road from which this wind approaches. Thumb tacks poke at me with a dainty touch as mist gets into position from right above me. It blows onto me, washing away the hint of cologne coupled with skin on my neck and the glimmer from my black dress shoes.
I look at the time on my timepiece. It’s swapped its earlier red rubber strap for an orange one. Gulixua watches have a proclivity for changing colors. It’s 10:00 P.M. sharp. One more hour till ‘Zombie Surfer Utami’ is on channel fifty–two.
Red rose pedals flow onto the balcony floor from out in the gardens and swirl around my feet. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of my heart beating. A cap is twisted on a shaken–up bottle of soda. There’s a slight pop. A bullet explodes out of a gun and into my back. Pain dawns on me. As I open my eyes, the pain pilfers my sense of time and seconds begin to drag.
Not a bottle of soda.
Whose gun was triggered that broke the clock? The roses beyond the balcony turn into a maroon mirage. The confines of the gardens are deluged with blood. The woman’s suicide. Her fall from Tunglo Tower’s penthouse flashes to me. The crimson swathe left over on the sand from her head’s collision with the ground is what I see now. It’s what I saw the following morning when I went to Sebastian Inlet to surf with my father.
“Life is strange,” he’d said.
I then, for whatever reason, think back to when I first saw a double rainbow. The fact that after this coming storm kicks the bucket one might appear and I might not be here to see it is sorrowful.
Why am I visualizing rainbows? They don’t appear at night.
The mist disappears with it blurring into the background as my sight tries and runs away. But I still hear it. The shavings of mist pass over the fields of roses. Never thought there should be directions to smell a rose but to me, if I’m smelling them correctly as I’m dying, their wholesome smell projects the mellowness of ripe apples.
My heart stops racing.
Inflicted are the systems in my body that’ve halted blood flow to all my other bodily organs and are now gushing blood out of my back. Incomprehensible is the mind of the one who’s placed a bullet into my back and through my chest. I collapse to the ground watching everything else fall with me at a slower pace than my tilting body.
In an undeniable position am I to state that I’ve just died as my eyes roll to the back of my head and my body collides with the sprayed ceramic tiles mimicking veined black stone. My whole universe suddenly fades into an unworldly spiral of darkness, though I feel something taking a hold of me as all memories slip away.
Did I really just get shot? Who am I? What exactly just happened?
I stray from what pulls me, grasping me as I yell at it to let go.
“Stop!”
Still conscious enough to know I’m dead but not conscious enough to know if maybe this is all a dream. The bullet that’s shot me, the powerful force lifting me as I struggle to separate from it, and my thoughts still running despite my heart no longer beating. Should I accept this ending? It’s just too restless of a concept to wrap my head around that this is the end and I’m indeed dead. Whether for it or against it…I’m dead.