He saw again the guy she’d gone with, some asshole football player named Dubois. He saw him pawing rudely at those paragons and remembered the way he’d bragged around the school about how righteously he’d f****d the s**t out of that Strauss chick later. He felt again the eviscerating, teeth-grinding jealousy. Now who had the last laugh though? Dubois had married a raving b***h and was a salesman at his father-in-law’s car dealership. If all went well this summer, it would be Bob’s far more appreciative hands on those heavenly swells for the next sixty or so years.
It seemed lovely Kim had learned her lesson.
The marriage she’d gone to college to acquire had failed. At first Bob had just been relieved for her; he had met the guy at their five-year reunion.
Formerly boisterous Kim had been uneasy and intimidated, barely daring to smile. The guy (who she timidly introduced with the absurd name of Edgar) had been every bit the A-type overachiever she’d gone shopping for. It was clear immediately too that he was an even bigger d**k than Dubois, monopolizing his wife all night and driving everyone else away with his possessiveness and hostility. Bob had barely had a chance to tell her how gorgeous she looked, all coiffed up and dripping with diamonds like she’d wanted, before the guy tried to start a fight.
Screw that; Bob avoided them both the rest of the night. He felt bad for his beloved, but hey, he was a poor prospect, not exciting (read ‘asshole’) enough for her. Nice guys finish last. But often even hot chicks that marry rich wind up unhappy. It was a hard world. Still sometimes a light appears at the end of the most interminable tunnel. Last month Kim’s f*******: page, forever the site of the usual banality, came to sudden life.
Kim Brennan had gone back to being Kim Strauss. She’d received a divorce for physical and emotional abuse and had moved from New York to their second home in Boston, which she had received as part of the settlement. She was asking everyone’s forgiveness for years of uncharacteristic reticence. She was reborn in glory, and suddenly she was posting directly on Bob’s own page, apologizing for the reunion and wanting to catch up on the last eight years.
It was like the sun rising after eons of darkness.
All of Bob’s walled-off love crashed through his pose of resigned disinterest in an instant. Eight years had been wasted for him but they were still young. Nevertheless he played it as cool as he could. She could merely be reaching out to old friends, with no other motive beyond the surface one. He mustn’t drive her away with desperation.
They exchanged a few bland public posts and then she asked him for the greater privacy (?) of e-mail. Freed of inhibition they penned long missives back and forth, reminiscing about good times and lamenting how much they missed each other. Bob subtly made clear his lack of any attachments. Kim likewise rued that though she’d gotten the wealth and life of ease she’d sought, she pined for the soul-mate she’d had to spurn to get it.
Her alpha-male asshole had grown just as domineering and narrow-focused at home as he was required to be on Wall Street. Paranoid and controlling and finally abusive, he’d made her reconsider the merits of having a more passive mate. By the time Kim and Bob had moved on to chatting on-line in real time, the circumlocutions were nearly done.
Hints were turning to flirting. Finally, with a rare allusion to ten years ago and seemingly psychic knowledge of how it had come to obsess him, Kim began to narrow in on what she was offering. After another rant about her ex-husband, she tendered her mea culpa and gave him the opening he was dying for.
“God, you must be so sick of hearing me b***h about Edgar! I’m sorry, I know it’s heartless. Don’t you want to get back at me by saying ‘I told you so’?”
“I did warn you after the prom, and that jerk Dubois.”
“Okay, you were right. And I was full of crap about the mysteries of love and all. I was trying to soften the blow and got kicked in my own ass instead. I should have stayed middle-class and humble and hooked up with a ‘nice’ guy, someone that was just dotty with love for me and would have happily done everything I said.”
“It’s not too late you know. You’re no longer poor and the nice guy is still around, just as dotty with love for you as ever.”
“Believe me, I’m tempted! Unfortunately Mr. Nice Guy, I am no longer such a nice girl.”
“What’d you do, beat up some terrified little kid on the school bus?”
“LOL! No, wiseass. I decided I’m never again taking any crap from any man, ever. Five years was enough. From now on, I wear the pants in any relationship. Now that I’m wealthy and secure I might even go back to being a bit of a bully.”
“I can live with that. I mean it wouldn’t be the first time. Would you like to b***h-slap me around now, or wait until I get off the bus? I don’t have a car or I’d be there tomorrow.”
“STOP IT! I’m going to bust a gut over here! Oh, this is why I love you so much, Bobby.”
“You’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t excite you. If it’s not the mystery that brings the magic and passion, what does?”
“Good question. Here’s a good answer. It is endless mutual self-discovery, pushing the bounds of love and commitment and erotic expression further together every day.”
“As a writer I consider that evasively vague rhetoric.”
“It means endlessly living out our maddest fantasies. You excited me one night Bobby. I know you remember it well, though we’ve never spoken of it the way we all agreed. You were terribly excited too, tears and struggling and finally defeated denial and all. It made seeing my boobs a year and a half later seem tame, didn’t it?”
“I confess. Please torture me some more.”
“LOL. You’ve thought about that a lot over the years though, haven’t you? You’ve jerked off to the memories and fantasized about doing it all again, and SO much more.”
Even as he was typing another overly jocular admission, Bob’s thoughts turned with reflexive embarrassment to all the porno stories he’d published. These were all the result of the obsession she’d spoken of; a way to relieve the pressure of a shameful craving it had seemed would go forever un-sated. It was in a near-delirium of disbelieving euphoria that he now saw their risqué banter taking him way beyond his most ludicrous hopes.
“How have you been reading my mind? Is your power over me as infinite as your allure?”
“Do you wish it to be?”
“I do. I would walk to Boston on bleeding feet to belong to you.”
“I’ll decide how you can prove your commitment, Bobby. I mean besides waiting eight years for me to earn the money to support us in style. Are you trying to top from the bottom?”
“Perhaps. Forgive me, Mistress.”
“I do. And now that we’ve exchanged our vows, we need to consecrate our union, at least individually and provisionally. I’m going to sprawl on satin sheets in my big luxurious master suite, fantasize about using you here soon for my every depraved pleasure and diddle myself silly. You will do the same in your little loser’s shoebox. Picture me whipping you as foreplay, or tying you up again, and jerk that filthy thing until you spew. I’ll call you in a few days to tell you how you can become my most treasured of possessions.”
“I can’t wait! I worship you unreservedly, my school bus bully!”
“And I cherish you in expectation, my best friend ever and prospective slave-mate. I know you won’t let me down. Soon we will be together forever.”
Reading that last sentence was like mainlining cocaine – not that Bob had ever tried that. Needles were for idiots. But the rush he got from that promise (not to mention the prospect of not only his dreams coming true but his most deviant fantasies too) had all the snorting he’d ever done beat clean. It kept him keyed up for days without denting his appetite or (laugh out loud) his s*x drive. He caught himself giggling for no reason and letting out triumphant whoops in his empty apartment. Lustful elation was his default state. This was followed by sappy adoration. He sat and re-read the entire chat over and over again. And at the end he always followed orders, stripping down and m**********g feverishly while he fantasized about serving his now obviously always-destined lifelong mistress. For years (just as she’d said) he’d jerked off dreaming of that birthday party, or elaborating on the outrageous related scenarios that always evolved into his porno stories. Often he’d wept afterwards, tortured by the hopelessness of his obsession. Now each ejaculation jetted out of him in giddy exultation. Soon they would be together forever. And he would be forever the most blessed of men.
Long is the way and hard though that leads up to light.
When Bob first heard the challenge Kim was setting him, he was momentarily aghast. They were finally talking on the phone again, instantly at ease despite their long separation and heady plans. They must have babbled excitedly at each other for an hour before Kim allowed the conversation to turn to their kinky new union.
“So are you excited about coming to Boston, the city of winners? Are you finally ready to creep out of the safety and comfort of the old home town?”
“Yes , yes, a thousand times yes!”
Bob was lying on his narrow bachelor’s (okay, loser’s) bed, wearing only his briefs. Just hearing the familiar cadences of Kim’s voice had his heart soaring. Now the sultry throb in it was elevating another organ.
“Good boy. I can’t wait to have you. But you still have to prove that you’re cut out for the kind of life I intend for us. It won’t be easy; you’ve never demonstrated any kind of determination in the face of adversity. You need to be tempered as well as tamed and trained. Luckily I’ve come up with the perfect test, or maybe quest for you. Tell me, how long will it take you to wrap things up out there and disappear?”
“Less than a week.”
Bob tried to think about practicalities past the pounding of his heart – and the ache of his erection. Luckily he’d already considered this.
“I’m in tight with my landlord. He’ll let me box up my stuff and store it in the basement a while. He’ll even have it shipped to me if need be. The furniture is already his. I’ll let him keep the security deposit and he’ll be happy to help me out any way he can.”
“Awesome! Because your bus-riding days are over, baby. I’m not even letting you get on a plane. There’s another old friend of mine in town who’s planning to head up this way starting Saturday. You can travel with her. She’ll make sure you get here safely, not to mention properly prepared for me. Do you remember Jeri Stone?”
“Yeah. I haven’t seen her since high school, and I don’t think I passed a dozen words with her then. What’s she been up to?”
“What do you remember about her?”
“Well, she was a rock and we were jocks. We didn’t mix unless one clique couldn’t get any weed. Nobody wanted all the fights and bad feelings of before. You girls obviously all got along. Anyway, I remember she was a big butch-looking chick with huge t**s. She was almost always in trouble; I must have been in detention with her a dozen times.
“I guess you could say that as a guy I considered her hot enough to want to f**k – the t**s alone saw to that – but that there were barriers to attempting it. Besides being bigger than me, she was a tough b***h from the wrong part of town it was thought better not to mess with. Also, we all assumed she was gay.”
Kim laughed, a throaty sound that made Bob clutch what had forced down his elastic waistband and start pumping.
“That was accurate and succinct. Well done, writer. Anyway, just extrapolate that eight years ahead. She runs with the Devil Dykes now, a motorcycle gang. She leads your local chapter in fact. Apparently there is some kind of rally or retreat up in the mountains of Maine this summer. She and two other girls are biking across the country and right by Boston, joining up with others of her crew on the way to this event. You will deliver yourself to them and they will deliver you to me, primed for a lifetime as my willing little b***h.
Aksara