Curved (12 page)

The friction combined with his hands on me, and the thickness of his cock, was enough to scream out loud.

I gasped, moaning, my throat burning from constantly yelling at my utmost capacity.

“Jesus,” I said, “God… Oh my God…”

Joseph’s cock pulled out completely, dripping over my clit, his utterances guttural and completing my cycle of orgasm.

“Christ,” I whispered.

Joseph enveloped me in his arms, holding me against him, biting my neck. “You really don’t understand,” he said. “You don’t get it… I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted… Everything from the top down.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Yet you don’t believe me,” he said. “I can just sense it… You still don’t trust me.”

How could he read my mind? Yeah, he was right. Still conflicted, I couldn’t reconcile my investment banking ways with my charity needs.

“I want to help people,” I said. “That matters a lot to me. Maybe not to you but…”

He gripped my shoulders, shaking me a little, and I giggled. Covering my mouth, I batted my eyelashes at him, totally enamored with his strength.

“See?” he said, grinning. “Anything. Even if it means making you smile.”

“All right,” I said, calming down more. The flesh of heat and euphoria was still over me, my brain, my body. Creating goosebumps, making my hairs stiff and on end.

“How about I take you out?” Joseph said. “I can… Take you anywhere you want.”

“Oh? A tour of the harbor sounds nice,” I said, rolling my eyes. “If you could even manage to do that.”

Joseph sat up, pulling me along with him, not missing two seconds to show off. “Come along with me than,” he said, me trailing behind him.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“Where do you think?”

My eyes widened. “You’re being serious? You’re going to take me around the harbor?”

“Yeah,” Joseph said, scooping me up in his arms. I laughed now, throwing my hands into the air, wrapping them around his neck. “Anything for you.”

***

He decided to go all out: on his yacht. We would travel in the harbor, dining in the privacy of a catered vessel. Butlers. Fine wines. Gourmet dinner. A personal chef.

We only had to wait for his attendants to set up and prepare the proper protocols.

I got on my regular clothes again, and Joseph went for his suits, which I helped him pick out and put on.

“This looks good,” I said, fixing up the dimple of his tie. I looked up at him, his shadow casting long over me. “Gray is a wonderful color on you…”

He kissed my lips. “We can go and stop by one of the stores over there—” and he pointed in a general direction “—get you something nice.”

I blushed. I was no prostitute. Not that I had anything against a working girl, it’s just I wasn’t.

Lindsay and Zena and Ricarda swirled in my head. What would they say if they knew?

What was Angela thinking?

Who cared. None of them did for me.

“All right,” I said, mustering up even more confidence than I had before. Why stick to my old system of morals? Hanging around the girls never brought me anything but pain and misery. Stress and status chasing. Now, with Joseph, I could go ahead and push with my plans. Joseph… Couldn’t be more correct. “I’m not really familiar with high-class places though.”

“I’m not either,” Joseph said, bending low to put on his dress socks. “Which is why you’re going to go and figure out what you want. Point and… I’ll pay.”

“Right now?” I said.

“With me,” he said, standing. He held my hand. The warmth of his body emanated into mine.

Maybe… I shouldn’t have resisted being with him so closely.

Chapter 14

We had a limousine drop us off at a luxury store. Small and out-of-the-way, this place had top designers with none of the gauche, tacky logos you might find in a middle-class-pretending-to-be-rich store. A quiet, meek woman came out from the back. The floors were all done in cashmere, so her steps were quiet and demure, especially when factoring in her stiletto heels. She had wireframe glasses, bobbed whenever she took a long stride, and nearly whispered while talking. “What can I do for you?”

Shopping with Angela was something I had done previously. Now, Joseph, I felt intimidated making a choice.

The woman gave me so many pretty gowns, ones that flowed from the back of my neck all the way to the bottom of my heels, fish tails, mermaid fins, elegant trains…

“I’m not getting married here,” I said to the woman, waving another dress. “Give me flirty and fun…”

By now, Joseph was standing at the front of the store, checking his phone. I probably bored him, as the night began to settle down over Manhattan.

But when he came over and saw me in the exposed, low-cut sheath, his eyes went straight to my lips. My cunt lips. “Very nice,” he said.

“I mean… It’s not exactly what I’m used to,” I said. My hips were sticking out. My body, being so curvy, seemed unattractive in the mirror before me. I shaped the dress to make it look more like what I’d seen in advertisements: skinny women fit in, quite literally, better than I could.

Joseph stood behind me, his hands on my hips, chin on my head. Resting. The woman clapped. “You’re very cute, you two together,” she said.

“She doesn’t believe in herself,” Joseph said, smirking. “You’re beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said, the red of my cheeks bruising into a golden rouge. “I’m never told that enough.”

Instead, I was berated, lorded over, and simply unappreciated by my cohort at Columbia.

“You’re welcome,” he said, purring in my ears, “but you don’t need me to tell you that you’re excellent.”

My self-confidence shot up.

He believed in me, my abilities, and who I was.

“So it’s this one?” the woman said. I pivoted in my shoes, twirling the dress around me.

The deep V at the front showed off my cleavage, maybe too much of it, because I couldn’t stop looking at it, couldn’t stop glancing there. Neither could Joseph.

It made me feel good.

“We’ll take it,” I said.

***

Once we paid, we stopped over by a boutique shoe outlet, picking up glossy red pumps for myself.

They were expensive, over $1000, but Joseph paid my way through. Never once even flinching at the cost, never once even complaining about having to spend so much money on me.

“Wow,” I said, when I slipped the heels over my feet. “That feels so nice…”

“You like?”

“I love.”

Maybe being a banker’s girl wasn’t so bad after all.

Why did I ever fight against him?

***

A limousine picked us up from the boutique store, driving all the way to the Lower East Side, where a massive yacht sat in the bay. It nearly blotted out the stars and clouds from my vantage point, which only attracted my eyes along the steel hull, the bow, the prow.

“It’s so nice,” I said, looking at the exterior, resting at the pier. There were several maids and shipmates bustling and hustling around us, nearly knocking us over with their hubbub.

“Sorry,” Joseph said, gracing my arms with his fingertips. He kissed the back of my neck, holding his hands over my waist, pressing my ass against him. “They’re ready for you though. Ready to serve.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Joseph swung my hand between us as we walked, all the way to the entrance of the yacht, which opened up wide like a black maw.

Stepping inside, I was greeted by a man wearing a sailor’s outfit, white pants, pleated shirt, white belt. He had gloves on, also pristine and white, which he used to indicate us towards the dining room.

“Take a left and then a right, sir,” the man said.

“Do you own this yacht?” I said.

Joseph nodded, and then shrugged. “Well, every year I like to rebuild my models. So I get a new one when January passes into the new year.”

My hands came up over my mouth, and I gasped.

“Yeah,” he said. “Every year.”

My heart conflicted with my mind. On one hand, staying with Joseph was a good idea, a beneficial action towards a greater future for myself. Plus, he was stable, gentle with me, nice, kind. He cared about me. The sex could not be more incredible—fucking him was like fucking around with all the dream guys I had ever called up in my mind during classes.

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but see him as being wasteful.

“You have to enjoy yourself some,” he said, as we entered the dining room.

Which was true enough. I had been working so hard, slaving away at my job and then school and with little recompense.

“You’re reward for the day,” Joseph said, brandishing his arms over the table. I looked up and down the length of mahogany wood, staring at the various plates being lowered onto the top. Sniffing with my nose, I inhaled deeply all the food being cooked in the kitchen not too far away from me.

“For the day?” I said. “I haven’t even done anything.”

“I can tell you’ve had a hard one though,” Joseph said.

I smirked, giggling. “Yeah, I guess I have.” When no one was looking, I groped his cock, stroking upwards to his mushroom head. “A very hard one.”

Joseph winked at me, pulling open a chair. I sat down in the luxurious cloth, velvety silk, the cushion made out of raw leather. Running my hands across the seams, I imagined myself running this very ship, at the helm, commanding, acting as Joseph’s wife.

I shook my head. Crazy thoughts were invading my mind. His wife? I couldn’t be his wife. We hardly even knew each other.

But then again, did that really matter?

Since he was treating me out so well, I might as well enjoy what we were doing and daydream away.

As silly as that sounds, thinking about what had gone on with Manhattan’s Concern made it feel like the world was ending. And that I had no future except the one I presently was admiring. And it kept changing, this future, ever-evolving and twisting into something greater than I could manifest.

“I have had a really hard day,” I said, finally. The plates were still arranging themselves around us, now with food on them, some with cut pork, others lentils and beans. The steam wafted over our faces, underneath my nose, around my head like a crown.

Facing Joseph, I did feel like a queen.

“Rest yourself,” he said. “You know, I’ve known plenty of people like you.”

“Yeah?”

“The type to keep to themselves, not revealing their emotions until the last second.”

“Yeah.”

“You can tell me anything,” Joseph said. He pushed his legs underneath mine, wrapping the back of his dress shoes behind my heels. “Anything at all.”

My heart palpitated, slamming in my chest suddenly.

“I mean, I want to be with you,” I said. “But I guess I am still having trouble enjoying myself.”

“It can be a hard thing,” Joseph said. “Like I mentioned before.”

He winked, and I only could laugh.

“Don’t get carried away with yourself,” he said. “With all of these thoughts of yours. You’ll keep yourself tortured if you don’t stop thinking about the past.”

“It happened today though. When they kicked me out of the club. They ganged up on me.”

“And you’re here now,” Joseph said. “And they are…?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” I said. “But I’m… I feel bad whenever I have fun, I guess that’s the truth. For some reason, I can’t enjoy myself. I always think about what I could be doing, who I could be helping.”

“And I think that’s great,” Joseph said. “I also donate as much as I can to various groups… Red Cross, Goodwill, smaller orgs meant to help those in developing countries… Of course, helping others is important.”

“I just…”

“See? Like I said before. You have two different people inside of yourself.” Joseph leaned on the table, his tie puffing out of his shirt briefly. “You want to be the owner of a company, but the same time help people while receiving the public applause. You want to have your cake and eat it too.”

I shirked my shoulders away from him, my dress shifting against the chair. “That’s not true,” I said. “I promise… But… That’s not true at all.”

“I can see it written all over you,” Joseph said. “You’re just the girl who wants it all. An Ivy League girl… A Columbia girl.”

“I’m not a status chaser,” I mumbled. Making a fist, I nearly slammed the table with my hands when a pair of waiters came in.

They set down several plates of duck, spiced with an exotic medley comprising cilantro, oregano, and pepper, plus some other ingredients I couldn’t identify. The smell struck my nose innately, from even before they entered the room, and I salivated.

“You’re lucky this is so delicious,” I said, once the waiters left us. “I’m… Sometimes I don’t get you.”

“When I say is true,” Joseph said. “Isn’t it? I’ve given you pretty much the rundown about who you are.”

“Maybe,” I conceded. “Not entirely…”

“Somewhat,” Joseph said. “Come on, admit it. You’re a girl who likes and wants both the power and prestige.”

“It’s not like that,” I said.

Conflicted, I glanced away from him. Was it true? Did he read me completely from the outside looking in? Did he know more than I was willing to acknowledge?

“There’s no shame in having ambitions,” Joseph said. “You shouldn’t feel bad about wanting to rise above the rest.”

“I don’t think that I’m necessarily better,” I said. “It’s not like I’m a chosen one.”

The waiters brought more food. Gourmet bananas deep-fried, ice cream sorbet.

It just kept reeling out from the kitchen.

The yacht’s engine started, revving from behind us, smoothly departing from the bay. Because we had spent so much time fucking around, shopping, it was already night. The sun had left its rays only on the edge of planet earth, shining behind clouds, jutting up into the sky.

“It’s really nice tonight,” I said, absentmindedly. “It’s really beautiful out here. I don’t get to ever spend much time near the bay.”

“You’re always working,” Joseph said.

“Always.”

“Which is why you should allocate more of your life to play and fun,” Joseph whispered. He walked up from his chair to my own, guiding me from my seat to the window next to us.

His hands curled around my waist, fingers walking towards my breasts. He held me in place, my head upright towards the emerging moon. Only a crescent was visible enough.

I glanced at Joseph, his eyes drifting to me.

“Enjoy yourself,” Joseph said. I nodded, swallowing whatever was left of my pride. “Just enjoy.”