3
ON THE EDGE OF DESIRE
Right
now, I want something. I am craving something. Actually, someone… Someone with long wavy locks of strawberry blonde hair,
full luscious lips and killer legs. I can’t get those azure eyes looking at me
first with shock, then fury and finally the suppressed, unwelcome desire out of
my mind. Unwelcome. This is something
I have never encountered before. The unknown territory gives me unease. I’ve
been bewitched since I first laid eyes on her on the yacht. Am I losing my
edge? Women look to find ways to get themselves noticed and in my presence, my
bed.
I
don’t waste time chasing them like some playboy. I know exactly what I like and
I get what I want, when I want them without useless relationships. Yet, I want
to chase her. I have been seeking her since I first laid eyes on her. Isn’t
that the very definition of chase? Shit! The need for that thrill is
unbearable, utterly foreign to me. I’m completely intrigued by her. Maybe she
can provide me with enough distraction for a little while. The sight of her on
the yacht, dissipated the suffocating mood I’ve been experiencing lately. It
was as thick as the haze of the heavy smog weighing over the cityscape I can
see through the tinted windows of my forty-eighth floor office of the Gibson
Grand Tower in downtown Los Angeles. I need to know more about her. I can’t get
her out of my mind.
The
stiletto heeled boots’ irritated fast pace meeting the Italian marble floor
outside my office and the two protesting voices of my assistants bring me back
from my reveries.
“For
heaven’s sake, Jude, I can find my way in!” It’s Lei’s voice.
“Miss
Giovanni, Mr. Gibson has a full schedule this afternoon. I can’t possibly fit
you in at the last minute!” I did tell them not to bother me until I went
through the contract my lawyers prepared for this investment project. But I
can’t seem to focus.
“I
can see his door is wide open! He couldn’t be that busy!”
“He
just returned from a meeting ma’am. Perhaps we can schedule you for a different
day.”
“Let
her in,” I buzz my assistants. They both have concealed earphones to hear me as
opposed to a loud intercom system. A few seconds later, there is a knock at my
door.
Lei
Giovanni glides in flanked by my irritated assistants Jude and Eliza, with her
regal head held high shaded by a custom made summer hat and covering her eyes
by sporting one of the priciest pair of sun glasses her fashion design company
is offering only to the financially worthy. With an hourglass figure wearing a
black dress that pours over her curves, her plunging neckline reaching below
her belly-button giving a glimpse to her perfectly altered breasts, she walks
toward my desk with her hips swaying with a pronounced sexuality. Her
stilettoes are making love to the floor with a measured rhythm. She could be
one of the overpriced runway models in one of her fashion shows in Milan, or Paris
or New York. I sit back and enjoy the show she’s putting on for my benefit.
“Can
I get you anything Ms. Giovanni?” Jude asks with his South African accent laced
with the Queen’s English he learned no doubt when he was at Oxford.
“Aren’t
you the sweet one, Jude?” but turns to Eliza to order.
“Ace
of Spades Rose, please, Elizabeth, something or other,” she says snapping her
finger to Eliza.
“It’s
Eliza, Ms. Giovanni.”
“Well,
chop-chop Eliza!” as she claps her hands together, scolding my assistant then turns
back to Jude again.
“Tell
me, what do you owe that delicious accent and that exotic look of yours to? I
could make you one of my models… that is if Ronan didn’t mind parting with
you,” she purrs.
“My
mother is South African, a black woman and my father is Swiss, ma’am.”
“Delicious.
That tan skin with those blue-green eyes. Hmmmm… Anytime you are ready to make
the leap…”
“Thank
you, Miss Giovanni. But, I’m quite happy here.”
“You
may leave Jude.” I order to save him from Lei verbally molesting my young gay
assistant. He nods and leaves quickly.
“Ciao,
Lei,” I greet her with a smile. “I don’t endorse your attempts at coercing or
seducing my assistants into leaving my employment. You, of all people should
know well by now that I don’t take kindly to those who steal anything from me.”
She knows. I forgive of course… that is as long as I get the opportunity to
punish first. She takes off her sun glasses. Her impeccably made up brown eyes
sparkle with excitement. I rise from my seat then corner my desk and stand
before it.
“Perhaps
I have forgotten what you do to those who steal from you. I might just have to
make an attempt so you can remind me what may come of it.” She challenges.
“My
assistants are far more valuable than just strutting on the runway,” I say
sitting at the edge of my desk, my arms crossed. She gives me an appreciating
look from the wave of my hair, to my torso, blatantly staring at my bulge below
my belt then my legs. She licks her lips in approval, and extends her hand. I
take it as I come to a full stance and she leans in for kisses on both cheeks.
She then pulls back and turns around, giving me a view of her backside, then
sits on a chair crossing her long legs displaying her Manolo Blahnik lace
backed ankle boots with open toes drawing the eyes up her long shapely legs.
“I
don’t want both of them. You can keep the girl. I’ve no use for her. It’s him I
want,” she says smiling. I know exactly what she wants: her next boy toy.
“He’s
gay. He’d be of no use for your personal demands.”
“Not
even a little bit? Hmmm. Pity,” she murmurs.
“I’m
sure you didn’t come here to discuss Jude. I received the monthly report from
your business manager. You’re settling into the American market well, and my
company helped the Lei brand take hold in North America with new marketing
strategies. So, what do I owe to your visit?”
“Couldn’t
I have just missed you?”
I
smile in response. We do meet once a week, but she usually doesn’t come to my
office unless there is something urgent. We both know that’s not the reason. I
shake my head.
“May I remind you that you have Lucas.” My
response causes her to make a bored face.
“Yes,
he provides plenty of pleasure. As a submissive…” she qualifies. “And I am
enjoying myself quite a lot but I hate breaking in the proverbial virgins to
the scene. It takes time to train them properly. I much prefer you.” Her
admittance surprises me.
“That
is never happening, Lei.”
There’s
a knock at my door. Eliza walks in with Lei’s chilled champagne in a bucket
along with two flutes. She pours one for Lei, and looks at me to see if I want
some, I shake my head no. After Eliza leaves, Lei turns to me again.
“I
know! I made a huge mistake. A judgement in error,” she looks at me with
pleading eyes. The aloof persona slips and for a moment I get a glimpse of the
woman I’d met prior to her total body makeover when I was only nineteen.
Underground sex clubs have patrons from the most elite in the world with lots
of disposable income to secure the privacy, pleasure, the toys and the trained
bodies they require. I was first introduced to them in London while I was at
Cambridge attending uni.
“Lei,
we have something better going. We have a valuable friendship, respect for one
another, trust, an exceedingly successful business partnership in the fashion
industry, and an understanding of each other. I care enough about you that I
don’t want more than that. We are much too toxic for one another in that way.
We both know that.”
“That
was then. You needed to be pushed and it was my duty to push you as your
Dominatrix. I had not realized it was your breaking point. Will you never
forgive me for it?” She pleads which falls onto deaf ears.
“It’s
been over five years Lei. Let it go,” I reiterate. Rule Number 1 in any BDSM
relationship is to know one another’s limits and to strictly adhere to the
safewords. Yet, I had never used a safeword for my pain threshold no matter how
hard she punished me. I asked her to push me to my limits in pain in order to
cover the old scars, to feel that I exist, that there’s life within me, to be
deserving of feeling self-worth, to be rid of the guilt of the constant
reminder because I was the unplanned pregnancy that got my parents into a
loveless marriage, to even have the right to feel pleasure.
I
had one cardinal rule: NO SHARING! She broke my trust by forcing me to be
shared with another woman. I never share and I don’t like to be shared. But,
this couldn’t be the reason she’s here today, to settle an old tab that I had
written off long ago.
“I
have offered myself to you to do with as you wish, Ronan. For as long as you
wish… Yet you continue punishing me by just remaining a friend, not even as
friends with benefits, and never touching me that way or letting me get near
your body again.” She takes a long sip of her champagne.
“But
this has had a lasting effect, has it not? It made you more aware of your other
partners’ needs and limits. But that’s not why you are here. The only time you
start robbing the cradle is when…”
Realization
dawns on me. I raise my eyebrows quizzically. She looks at me with hurt in her
eyes. Of course!
“The
anniversary is tomorrow,” she whispers. “If I didn’t have his pictures, I’d forget
the shape of his face, the way he looked at me. I’ve already forgotten the feel
of his body on mine.” She rises from her seat and paces impatiently.
“Twelve
years! I have forgotten everything he meant to me except the pain of his loss.
It doesn’t go away!” She’s talking about the death of her husband. His private
jet went down several years ago. She survived, he didn’t. Maybe this is why I’m
still friends with her. She was capable of loving so deeply. Maybe one of us
still has a soul indeed.
“Did
you see your shrink?” I ask concerned.
“Yes,”
she rolls her eyes. “I spend a fortune on weekly therapy. Basically, I pay
somebody to be my friend without worrying that they will write a Tell All book since he signed an NDA.
Trust is an expensive commodity in this town,” she waves her hand. Most
successful people are in the same pair of painful shoes. Real friends are
incredibly rare and betrayals are so common place, it’s almost a Hollywood
cliché.
“I
hoped that you had time for me this evening, for dinner perhaps.” Lei and I
have an understanding.
“I
have a business meeting at ten tonight. I could do dinner beforehand.”
“Great!
Where’s your meeting?”
“Sayers
Manor.”
“I’ll
have a table reserved at Capo. It’s practically next door. How about eight?”
“Great!
I don’t want you to feel like I’m shoving you out, but I’m shoving you out. I
have contracts to read through.”
“Why
pay your overpriced lawyers if you have to read them yourself?” She quizzes.
“Control,
Lei. You of all people should know that. To remind them who is in charge at all
times.”
“See
you at eight then.”
Once
she leaves, I call Jude in.
“Yes,
sir?”
“I
need you to make sure that my lawyer Whitaker comes to the Sayers Manor tonight
to execute the contracts. I also need you to be there. Arrive no later than
9:30 p.m. The meeting starts at 10:00 p.m.”
The
dim lights at Copa provides enough privacy and creates a comfortable ambiance.
When I arrive at the restaurant, Lei is already seated. I give her a friendly
smile and she reciprocates.
“Good
evening, Lei!”
“Buonasera Ronan!” She gets up and leans
in to receive kisses on her cheeks. Her hand connects with my upper arm. She
releases me and we both sit down at the same time. The waiter rushes to the
table to ask what we would like to drink. I order Châteauneuf-du-Pape White
2009 without even looking at the wine list.
After
the waiter scurries away, she scrutinizes me with an assessing gaze. Then
purses her lips.
“Hmmm…
Anxious, a little on the edge, nervous, and something else I can’t put my finger
on,” she states her findings nonchalantly.
“Business.” I answer a little too brusquely.
The fact is, I’m disappointed that little Miss Adler, the mysterious Aphrodite
won’t be at the meeting this evening. This knowledge and recognition surprises
me. I’m carrying the little memento I recovered in Cannes, waiting to return it
to its rightful owner in due time.
“Nooo,”
she croons thoughtfully. “That’s not it.”
“Alright,
if you say so,” I say with a smile playing on my lips.
“Maybe
you want to talk about her.” She probes.
If
not for the waiter interrupting with the wine, I’d have a surprised expression
on my face.
Lei
runs her tongue around the rim of her harlot red lips. “Well… How’s sex?” she
asks with the same mischief of a lover who had just given you a great blow job
and the waiter, whose name tag reads Kevin’s eyes widen and he blushes like the
Chinese flag. He quickly pours the wine, takes our order and scurries away.
“Sex
in general is always fantastic.”
“With
her… I take that it’s beyond your expectations if you are edgy like this for
having to endure an evening at that business meeting instead of being with
her.” She raises her eyebrows looking at me anew as if the old Ronan is gone
and he’s been replaced by a clone.
“You
come to this ridiculously erroneous conclusion, how?” I ask.
“Ah,
Ronan, I may not know the details of your current,” she tries to find a word
that would fit her definition, “acquisition,” she qualifies with a grin having
found the right noun, “I do know you, and I definitely know that look!”
“What
look would that be?”
She
leans in as if to make it look like she is letting me in on a secret.
“Longing.”
“Longing?”
I ask surprised. “I think you’re letting your unresolved issues with your late
husband cloud your judgement, and you end up attributing those feelings to me.
I long for no woman.” I think I’m trying to convince myself more than Lei by my
declaration. Miss Adler will just be a diversion, an acquisition. That’s all.
She
leans in even further and continues in a firm whisper as if I have said
nothing. “I don’t think she’s meeting all your needs. You have needs that even
a very experienced submissive can’t fulfill. It takes the proper amount of pain
to receive the ultimate ratio of pleasure…”
She
finally leans back letting the rest of her thoughts linger in the air, letting
it sink in. Her gaze drifts to the waiter pouring wine for the patrons at the
next table. As if she has no care in the world; she eyes the flowers on the
table finding something interesting about them, then looks at the wall art. I
know exactly what she’s doing. It’s a play for control.
“Do
tell about this woman I don’t have. So, maybe when I actually meet such a
woman, I’ll recognize her from your description.” My arms are crossed and my
eyebrows are raised in challenge.
“I’ve
known you since you were 19 and we’ve done everything under the sun. Your time
at Cambridge would be dull as ditchwater had it not been for the entertainment
I provided on the weekends in London. Besides, what you’ve learned since you
were 14, was it, about the scene only gave you pain and little pleasure.” She
was right of course. She showed me that I can get pleasure without guilt. What
I’d learned in Paris as a lost young teen was mostly detrimental to me. She
changed the tides for me. I
couldn’t think of a life without her guidance. When I moved
to attend Harvard for my MBA, Lei followed me to the States.
She
continues her assessment. “As much as you can comprehend my body language, so
can I of yours. I know that it’s not anyone you’ve been pictured with in the
magazines or the newspapers. I haven’t seen you with anyone twice. That means
those are just arm candies. I’m almost positive that you’ve never been
photographed with this one. She must be quite new.”
Lei
and I met at a sex club in London and she recognized the masochistic
self-destructiveness in me. Surviving a jet crash that killed her husband made
her drown in survivor’s guilt and she was punishing herself for living. She had
lost the love of her life, and I had never known unconditional love. In a way,
we saved each other by being what the other needed at the time.
Always looking for ways to have the ultimate
control, I’m not cut out to be a submissive. It was however what I needed when
I was in my teens. I know she’s attempting to control my reins. It’s a game I
have mastered.
“Lei,”
I whisper leaning in as if she’s finally going to be privy to that secret.
“There is no such woman. Even the commander in chief is entitled to have a few
nerves from time to time. I take big risks after all and over sixty thousand
people’s jobs around the globe depend on me making the right business
decisions. Don’t keep probing because you’ll find nothing other than irritating
the fuck out of me! Save both of us the misery of it.”
She
rolls her eyes.
“For
fuck’s sake! You’re too touchy today.” She wants to say something else, but she
restrains herself and we finally can resume our dinner peacefully.
By
the time it’s 9:30, my assistant Jude calls me to let me know he’s here. When I
walk Lei out, the warm California evening breeze greets us with a hint of the
Pacific’s brine. I hand the ticket to the valet for Lei’s car. Dre is waiting
for me with vigilant eyes, always alert, always scanning the vicinity. While we
are waiting for her car to arrive, a yellow cab passes the Sayers Manor and
stops between the Copa and Sayers. I don’t pay attention to it until I see the
passenger. The bright light from the Sayer as well as Copa softly reflect the
long strawberry blonde hair brightly as the waves fall onto her white dress,
nearly identical to the one I saw on the yacht in Cannes hugging every curve of
her body softly. She leans in to the taxi cab and pays him, then straightens
up. As if she senses my presence, she turns to our direction. When she sees me
with Lei waiting for the valet, her recognition of me is written all over her
face. Miss Adler’s eyes are locked on mine, almost in a trance and I find that
I can’t take my eyes away from her either.
Why
is she here? Didn’t she say she wasn’t coming, that she can’t even afford the
cover charge? Did she finally accept the producer’s offer for a date? I feel an
explosion of drowning emotions charging at me in a wave: anger, envy,
resentment, sadness, fear and insecurity. The onslaught of this cocktail of
toxic emotions surprises me. I’ve no reason to feel this way! Oh fuck!
My
mind doesn’t stop spinning. Why did she just arrive in a cab? Doesn’t she have
a car? The cab moves and I can see that the dress is about five inches above
her knee. She stands frozen in her place resembling a deer caught in the
headlights facing towards me. I must be wearing the identical surprised
expression on my face. Even though we manage to break the connection, she makes
an effort to turn her back giving me a glimpse of that sweet ass. The next
thing I hear is Lei’s voice, bringing me back to the here and now.
“That’s
her! Isn’t it? It’s your new woman!” Her voice is incredulous, laced with
surprise and something else. That something else is the same feeling I have
towards Miss Adler: Jealousy! Shit!
