Hooked Up: Book 3 (15 page)

And right now I, ironically, found myself in this situation of
three,
with Laura right there in the middle. I knew how poor Pearl’s heart was bleeding, but what could I do?

I thought of all the women that had come and gone over the years.
Come
and gone. There had been too many to count. How I was taught—no,
trained
by a professional—how to make love. How to really get a woman turned on. It was Sophie’s co-worker, Hélene, the one who pulled my sister into the game when she was seventeen. Sophie worked with her for years. By the time I got to be broken in—the woman was thirty—I was fourteen. My hand was moving fast, now, remembering my first fuck-orgasm, how mind-blowing it was for me as a skinny teenager and how I feared my dick might explode with pleasure.

Hélene and I had needed each other. It was the perfect symbiotic relationship. She taught me everything about the art of sex.
Because never forget, great sex is an art
. How to take my time, how to wait until she was really wet, and never enter her too early. She taught me that if I had to use lube then I was doing something wrong. She explained how women wanted to be told sweet nothings, and dirty talk, but nothing too crude. To be dominant, but never aggressive. To hold out until the woman was begging for sex, take my time; it wasn’t a race That if the man could be patient he’d get paid back double-fold by her passion.

She explained to me that many men were fools . . . so obsessed with the chase they lost focus. “Forget the chase,” she told me. “That’s old-school. Don’t end up with a woman just because she says ‘no’ to you, or plays hard to get. Just because she says no doesn’t make her any more special. Look into her soul, her eyes. Don’t judge a woman by her past. A woman in love with you,” she let me know, “is a woman who’ll be sexy as hell. And loyal, too. Loyalty is like a sovereign coin. Never abandon family . . . never abandon those who truly love you.”

Hélene told me how all women were different; there was no blueprint, and how I must pay attention to the girl’s whole body, not just her orifices and breasts. Stroking and caressing . . . foreplay was imperative. Any man could “stick it in,” she said – “and don’t be fooled into thinking you’re good in bed, women are good at faking orgasms.” She’d warned me about this on countless occasions.

She drummed it into me that the woman must always come first—well, I’d gotten that wrong once or twice with Pearl. Fuck, with her sometimes, I couldn’t control myself, even just one of her kisses could drive me wild. No woman ever had gotten me as horny, no woman could hold a candle to Pearl in the sack. Why? Even I couldn’t explain. Was she the most beautiful woman I had ever dated? No. But she had something, something irresistible. The smell of her skin. Her flavor. Her humor . . . her sweetness . . . her smile.

An image of Pearl’s tits flashed through my head—couldn’t put a pencil under those. No, too pert. Her ass, her tits, her face, her wet pussy, which was my very own little private pearl, my pearlette—her lips, those big blue eyes . . .

I groaned out loud and felt the spurt of my climax pulsing through me. Fuck, my cum was all over the seat. But it wasn’t enough; I needed the real thing. I couldn’t stand it anymore; the minute I got back to New York I’d have to fuck her.

Fuck her till she screamed.

I couldn’t stand to be without her a second more. Despite my promises to my mother, I’d have to tell Pearl the truth because I was dying inside.

I left Mystic and drove back to New York, singing along with the car radio to the Kinks,
You
Really Got Me
. I had to make Pearl mine, whatever it took.
You got me so I can’t sleep at night
 . . . so true.

Sleep . . . it was hitting me now. I pulled the car over. I felt spent and needed five minutes shut-eye before I continued driving—I didn’t want to have an accident through tiredness. The image of Pearl had had me needing to jack off—to expel the heat I felt inside after the fight. I had blood on my knuckles, a bruised lip; the idea of her kissing it better had made my cock swell with longing. I’d come fast and hard, her tits and ass on rewind and play, rewind and play, as I’d raced myself to that intense orgasm . . . better this way—I needed to see her and didn’t want to behave like a feral animal, the way I had in Central Park. Now I was less frenetic, but now I felt sleepy. I closed my eyes, calmer now, reclined the leather seat, and drifted off into a brief but heavy catnap.

“Don’t fucking move.” One hand is clamped on my neck. His breathing is heaving fast and furious, his nails like bear’s claws digging into me. His other hand is pulling down my pajama bottoms. Am I dreaming? I open my eyes wide and try to roll forward but he’s got me in a tight grip. I jab my elbow backwards and it whacks into his shoulder, but I can’t escape. Maman is in the hospital for the night. Because of him. Yesterday, I attacked him, trying to protect her, and he left the apartment, saying he wouldn’t ever return, muttering under his whiskey breath as Maman lay in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. I dialed the fire brigade because the ambulance is always too slow.

I didn’t hear him come in tonight. I didn’t bolt the door from inside, in case Sophie came home late. Stupid me. I’m all alone. He’s naked. He smells of sweat and whiskey.

“I said don’t fucking move or it’ll hurt.” I hear him grab his bottle and slug down the booze. I take the moment to slither out from his grip but it makes him roar. “Why can’t you just let me love you, goddamn it? You’re my son; I love you.”

I hop to my bedroom door—my pajamas are around my ankles, so I can’t move fast—I can’t open the door in time. He chases me, tackling me like a rugby player. We both fall with a thud to the ground.

“Papa, please, you’re drunk. Let me go!” I crawl up on my knees. I’m panting hard but he pushes me down on the floor again. My teeth smash against my lips. I’m bleeding. “Please, Papa,” I beg, my face crushed on the black and white tiled linoleum. I thrash like a snake but he holds me down. My pajamas are still caught around my ankles like a net. He’s sticking it in and it hurts. I scream out in pain and manage to get to my knees so it slips out.

“Stop jiggling about, Alexandre Dubois—stop disobeying your father!”

I roll on my side. I’m on my back now. I take his arm, bring my mouth up to his shoulder and bite into it with all the power I have.

“Ah! You fuck!” he cries out in a blood-curdling yell. He gets up and staggers towards his whiskey bottle, grabs it and races at me, swinging it wildly. My hand is on the doorknob and I turn it. The door is ajar; it’s open. I stick my barefoot in the gap but I’m too late. He smashes the bottle against the door. I shove my head through—whiskey spills all over my back. I feel a thump on my bottom and see blood pooling on the floor. My bottom is stinging as the whiskey trickles between my crack. It’s my blood I see. He jams the broken bottle inside me, twisting it like a corkscrew and I’m screaming in pain now. Shards of glass, whiskey, blood—my blood—all over the floor. I hear a noise. I look up and see Sophie rushing towards me. She’s clutching a kitchen knife—

I sat bolt upright with a jerk. Jesus! I was lying on something sticking right into my butt. My wallet. I let out the breath that I had been holding in without realizing. That memory hadn’t been around for a while. Why now? I thought of the guy’s blood tonight in Mystic, pooling around his ears, after I struck him with my ruthless kick. I remembered my own blood, the glass, the metallic taste in my mouth, my chipped tooth, my father with the knife stuck in his groin, and how Sophie and I ran and ran and never returned.

Maman had a choice and she chose
him
. After everything, she betrayed us. I sat there now in the rental car, my head slumped on the steering wheel and choked back the lump in my throat.
I will not be broken. I will not be broken.
Finally, I had my chance at happiness with Pearl, but I was jeopardizing it all for a woman who had not protected me, who had not put me before her own desires. I couldn’t shoulder her weight any longer. I needed to be honest with Pearl. Or I would lose her. I
had
lost her. But maybe, just maybe, I could win her back. If.

If I told her the whole story.

She needed to know who and what my mother really was.

I
WAS IN THE kitchen, eating ice cream again. They say just as much ice cream is sold in the winter as in the summer months . . . so true. Daisy and Amy were fast asleep. That would be me soon: a single mother with my child, although, I suddenly remembered . . . Daisy and Zac, wow, that came out of left field.
She may not be a single mother for long.
I had mixed feelings; delighted for them but . . . well. Time would tell if he was good enough for her.

My ice cream reverie was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening—I’d forgotten to lock it with the safety latch. A rush of adrenaline surged through my body, but then I remembered . . . Alexandre still had keys. I prayed it was him and not some armed robber, although Alexandre was just as dangerous in another way. I went to grab the first thing I could think of for protection; a kitchen knife, just in case it really was an intruder. No, that was dangerous; it could be seized from me. I saw Amy’s cowboy gun lying on the kitchen table, snatched it up—it looked quite realistic—and tiptoed quietly down the hallway, toward the front door. It wasn’t a thief. Well, it was. A thief of my emotions . . . Alexandre.

There he was, gorgeous as ever.

He turned on his heel and observed me with wry amusement stealing across his face, ready with my toy gun.

“Sorry, baby,” he whispered, “I didn’t want to wake anybody so I thought I’d slip through the door quietly.”

I should have been furious, but all I could think was,
What took you so long, I’ve missed you.
My heart was racing with leftover fear of thinking I was being broken into, and renewed fear of being broken into . . . my body being broken into. No sex, the doctor had forbidden it. I kept saying this mantra to myself in my head. Despite all this, desire was circling me like Cupid with his arrow, and I was only too aware of an aching need for Alexandre to hold me.

Until I remembered the L word.

I was wearing pajama bottoms and a thin cotton tank, and his glittering green eyes strayed to my swollen breasts. A low rumble came from deep within him like a lion about to devour his prey. He didn’t say anything, though, but I could see the rise and fall of his chest—his heart was also pounding. His desire for me was palpable, and I sensed the familiar tingle between my legs.

“You need to leave, Alexandre.” My voice was weak, laced with yearning. My sexed-up pregnancy hormones were not helping one bit.

“I need to hold you, baby. To breathe you in.” He moved toward me. I was still grasping the gun, and his half-cocked smile broke into a grin. “But I think you’d better put that gun down, don’t you?”

In a moment of absurdity I gripped the handle even tighter and waved it in front of me.

He grinned, “Love the toy gun. You and I have more in common than you can possibly imagine.”

But I was not smiling back. “I mean it, Alexandre, you need to leave me alone and stop torturing me this way.”

His smile faded and he said sadly, “Yes, it
is
torture, you’re right. I just can’t go on like this, I can’t stand it anymore.” He slumped against the wall and slid down so he was sitting on the floor. His big boots dripped with melted snow on the polished parquet wood. Tears were welling in his eyes. I’d never seen him look so vulnerable, and it was breaking my heart.

I set Amy’s gun on the hall table and sat down opposite him. He held his dark ruffled head in his hands. He was wearing the long, World War One overcoat. He looked so handsome, like a movie star—the Hollywood legend kind, the kind they didn’t make anymore.

“Why are you doing this, Alexandre?” I spoke in a whisper because I didn’t want to wake Daisy and Amy. “Why can’t you stop seeing Laura?”

He looked up at me and a tear fell down his cheek. I wanted to hug him, but perhaps this was all part of his little-boy-lost act, the act that made dumb women like me swoon and lose all reason. Talk about Hollywood. This guy was a good actor.

“My plan was to come here and fuck you, Pearl. But I can’t play that game anymore. It isn’t fair on you.”

My heart started thumping like an oil well. What was worse than him wanting to use me for sex? Not wanting me at all. A lump gathered in my throat. “What’s going on, Alexandre? Why are you . . . practically crying?”

“Because all I want in the world is to be happy with you and it doesn’t seem possible.”

“But that’s your choice, Alexandre. It’s
you
that’s putting up all these barriers. All I want, too, is for us to be together, but I can’t be in a relationship with three people. You have to choose: me or Laura. You simply can’t have us both.”

“That’s why I keep asking you to marry me, baby . . . despite Laura. So you’d be my wife and you couldn’t testify against me.”

I flinched. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He templed his hands over his nose and let out an exasperated puff of air. “I literally don’t know what to do! With all my money and influence . . . yet still, she has me beat. I swear, I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re being so obtuse and enigmatic, right now, I’m completely lost.”

“Please come here, chérie, I need to hold you. I swear I won’t do anything. I won’t even try and kiss you. I promise.”

I tentatively shuffled my behind over to his side and sat close to him. He put his arm around me, his fingers squeezing me tight. He smelled of the night air and his Alexandre elixir that weakened me every time. I stroked his head and he sighed, closing his wet eyes and biting his lips, perhaps to stop himself from actually weeping. I was dumbfounded by his demonstration of emotion and understood now that it was for real. I lay my head against his shoulder and we just continued sitting there on the floor, in silence, with only the sound of our breathing between us.