The Story of Lansing Lotte (2 page)

The shock in my mind matched the shock on her face, as I called out the name of another woman. A woman who was not mine and belonged to another man. My best friend. 

“Elaine?” I asked again. “What the fuck are you doing?”

She smiled sheepishly at me. Her bright green eyes sparkled in mischief as her strawberry blond hair tumbled back off her shoulders. Her pale skin was bare as she crawled up my body to balance over me, dangling her breasts mere millimeters from my chest. 

“What happened?” I demanded of her as she continued to smile at me.

“You don’t remember?” she giggled as she leaned forward, pressing those breasts into me and nibbling on my neck with soft kisses.

“I…I don’t think I do,” I replied honestly to Elaine Corbin.

Elaine Corbin was one of my longest female friends. She’d grown up around Lake Avalon in upstate New York, like Perk and me, spending her summers with Arturo, Perk, and I. She’d had an unabashed crush on me, for as long as I could remember. I was careful not to return her attention, until the past summer.

It was at Arturo’s upstate retreat in late May, when he made his desire for Guinevere DeGrance known, at a party held in Elaine Corbin’s family home. His public displays of affection were not unnoticed to those gathered, as the whispers and mummers filled the night, speculating on the status of their relationship. I would have punched anyone who claimed that Guinevere was a one-night stand of Arturo’s, because I had respect for her. I’d known her a long time, even if she didn’t act like she remembered me during that stay at Arturo’s home on Lake Avalon. 

A few nights after that party, while Tristan and I were at Arturo’s home enjoying the cool night air and some beers, I was certain of Arturo’s intentions with Guinevere. That’s the night I foolishly kissed Elaine Corbin for the first time. We weren’t a couple. We weren’t on a date. We were old friends hanging out with members of the band, who ended up at Arturo’s for an impromptu jam session. The spontaneity of the moment made me react, however, when I saw Arturo’s hands on Guinevere and her response to his caresses.

I didn’t mind hanging out with Elaine, but I tried to keep that kiss on the down low after it happened. I didn’t want to play it off like I was drunk, back then. I respected Elaine too much. I couldn’t admit I had done it to distract myself from Arturo’s attention to Guinevere. I didn’t have an explanation for Elaine when she asked me why I kissed her, after all that time, or why I kissed her that night. I tried to laugh it off and say I was caught up in the sensual charge of the night.

Elaine was sweet, but she was a high maintenance girl. Her father sustained an injury that left him paralyzed when she was still young. Her brother suffered in the same accident. There were rumors that the family line was dead. Elaine would brag that it was up to her to fulfill a prophecy to replenish the family. It was a frightening admission of her need for commitment and marriage. Something I did not want with her or anyone else; until the one girl I couldn’t have.

I felt Elaine’s warm breath in my ear before she nipped me.

“Where’d you go?” She smiled against my neck. I realized my hands were absentmindedly stroking up her bare sides.

“Nowhere,” I choked. “Just trying to put this all together.”

She pulled back from my warm skin and looked into my eyes.

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

I didn’t want to hurt her, but I was in a difficult position. I
didn’t
remember. Plus I was afraid that the brush off I would have to give her, after last night, would make things even more hurtful.

“I met you at The Round Table. You’d been drinking and the women were just ferocious with you and Tristan. I almost had to fight a few off, quite literally. One almost had you undressed against the bar. The whole place was about to get a show. Tristan was no help until I put myself between you and the nymph.”

Elaine used her hand to push back my wayward hair.

“You asked me to get you out of there,” she continued. “I brought you to my apartment because it was closer.”

She smiled shyly at me.

“Is your father here?” I suddenly panicked. I knew Elaine lived with her father, in order to take care of him.

“How do you think I got you in here?” she laughed.

Impossible
, I thought. Her father was wheelchair bound. He had no feeling in his legs and wouldn’t have had the upper body strength to move a drunken man. I was certain I had been so drunk I couldn’t have moved my own body without some assistance.

My body was reacting, though. Elaine’s legs straddled me and I felt her wet center press against my growing shaft. I would like to have thought I had control to
not
do that with her. I feared I would be doing something I’d already done with her the previous night. As my length grew solid under her pressure, she slid forward and worked me into her, slamming down on me as if impaling herself. I growled.

I wanted to deny her. It was not going to end well. But my body was taking over my mind and I let Elaine work me. Other snapshots of the night before were flashing in my head.  She pushed me on the bed and I lay on my back. She stripped off my clothes as I fumbled with hers. She didn’t remove her dress before she had me exposed, and she was on me in the same position she then rode me. I couldn’t recall the sensation of being with her. I had drunk so much the night before, but my body was with her, even if my head and my heart were not. 

I grunted as my body gave complete betrayal. She came on top of me, as I reached my own release for a second time in the early morning hours. Too late, I realized I wasn’t wearing a condom.

Suddenly I heard the ring of my phone. It was set to a ringtone that I knew I wouldn’t hear, unless it was an emergency. She swore she would never call me again.

I reached off the side of the bed, hoping my pants were on the floor nearby. I fumbled with Elaine over me, although we were no longer joined. My fingers struggled with slipping the phone out of my jeans’ pocket. As I held the phone finally, I worried I was too late when the ringing stopped.

I flinched when the song began again, vibrating the phone in my hand.

“Guinie?” I breathed as I answered.

“Lansing,” she said softly, her voice choked by sobs. “There’s been an accident.” 

She hiccupped before she could speak again. Her voice caught and I knew she was struggling to say a name.

“It’s Arturo,” she said and broke into open cries beyond the phone. My heart broke at the obvious pain she suffered.

“I’ll be right there,” I breathed and hung up.

Elaine had removed herself from my lap, hopefully sensing the severity of the phone call. She still remained draped over my upper back with her arms around me and kissed my shoulder.

“Everything okay?”

I was hastily pulling on my jeans, not concerned with finding my boxers, as I replied,

“There’s been an accident. It’s Arturo.”

I stood briskly, feeling Elaine’s hands brush down my back. I suddenly felt like I needed a shower, a scalding hot one to wash myself clean. I turned to look down at Elaine who leaned back on her hands. She was fully exposed to me. Large supple breasts, white milky skin, and a mischievous grin as she was aware I observed her nakedness. 

“Like what you see?” she laughed in a playful tone, but I wasn’t in the mood to play any longer. I needed to get to Guinevere.

My heart skipped a bit at the thought. I needed to get to her to help her through the unknown, regarding Arturo. Another man. Who was my best friend. I sighed deeply and ran my fingers through my hair that only fell back across my forehead.

“I gotta go,” I said softly, not responding to her flirtatious words.

I leaned forward and gave Elaine a chaste kiss on the cheek. When I pulled back, the questions on her face were clear. She expected more of me after what happened, and I wasn’t about to give it to her.

“Call me?” she said weakly. “To let me know about Arturo?”

It was obvious she meant other things, but my mind was far away from the room right in that moment.

“I’ll let you know what happened.”

When I arrived at Arturo’s apartment, the place was eerily quiet, as if someone had already died. 

Was I too late?

Guinie was on the couch, encased in Tristan’s arms, her head buried in his chest, quietly crying.

A head nod was my first response from him as a greeting.

“Am I…What happen…?” I couldn’t form complete thoughts.

“There’s been an accident,” Tristan began. “Arturo was on your bike and he crashed into an underpass wall. I guess he was being chased, but we don’t know if the crash was intentional.”

“Intentional? Like he purposely ran into a cement wall?” My voice was rising in my disbelief.

I heard Guinevere whimper and Tristan wrapped her tighter into his chest, placing a hand on her head as if he was covering her ears.

“No, asswipe, not intentional,” Tristan bit. “As if the chase into the wall was intentional, like the followers meant to run him into it.”

I was breathing heavy, both my hands slipped into my hair as I paced back and forth in front of the Tristan-Guinie combination.

“What details do you have?”

“I don’t have many. Hang on.” Tristan mumbled something into Guinie’s ear and then untangled himself from her. He stood slowly, and I recognized the signs of a hangover. He must have felt like I did – shaky, clammy, and in need of coffee. Tristan motioned with his head toward the bar that spanned a section of the wall behind the couch. It was far enough away that Tristan might be able to whisper, but not too far away that he couldn’t still see Guinie, who was perched sideways on the couch with her head resting on the back cushions.

“All I know,” he began in a hushed voice, “is when Arturo and Perkins left the club, they were apparently followed. We don’t know if it was paparazzi, or Mel Agent’s guys, or what.  Either way, Perk and Arturo separated at some point, and Arturo’s bike was the one found.”

I paused to take it all in.

“My bike?”

“What?”

“It was my bike he was on.”

“Dude, does that matter?”

“No. I’m just saying. I don’t know why I’m saying…” I stopped speaking. My mind had wandered to a place it shouldn’t have gone.

“So, where’s Arturo?  Why are we here and not at a hospital?”

“That’s the thing. His body’s missing.”

“What?” I shouted, and we both turned to see Guinie flinch against the couch.

“What?” I quietly repeated, looking back at Tristan while he continued to watch Guinevere for a moment.

“His body wasn’t at the scene. We have no idea what happened to him. There was lots of blood, and the bike was almost indistinguishable…but no body. No fucking body.”

Tristan wiped a hand down his face, his own voice displaying the rising hysteria in him. 

How did a body just disappear?

“Where’s Perk?” I swallowed hard. I thought Tristan said they had separated.

“We don’t know, yet. Kaye has been on the phone with everyone he can think of. Guinie put in the calls to all of us, but she said Perk hasn’t answered his phone.”

“What about the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The girl he left with?”

“The girl he…shit…I forgot about her.”

We stared at each other for a moment, uncertain what to say, but each deep in our own thoughts.

I knew enough about Perkins Vale to know he hadn’t tried to save that girl for any other reason than she must have been something special. Perk was one of the kindest people I knew, if for no other reason than he was greatly naïve. He would have helped an old lady cross the street and not thought twice. The extreme he went through last night, to make a public display with that girl and then whisk her out of The Round Table, could only mean one of two things.  Either he was a better man than I ever knew, or she was someone special. 

I didn’t have the brainpower to analyze Perk’s motives, though. I could only think about how I hoped my other best friend was not hurt and was not missing. Suddenly, Tristan and I both heard a loud sob coming from the couch. As if reading each other’s minds, we approached her.  When I went to touch her shoulder, she flinched. I pulled back as if I had been shocked. It wasn’t that good feeling of an electric connection; it was more a sense of electric repulsion. Guinie was rejecting me.

I knew she had guilt over what happened between us. I tried to assure her it was nothing.  It was a natural reaction in a stressful situation; it would have happened with anyone. It was relief, I told her; relief that she had been found. Relief that I had found her in Mel Agent’s home after he drugged her with the intention to do who knew what to her. I was her champion, yet she could not live with the guilt.

I don’t think she ever told Arturo. At first, she begged me not to mention it to him, and then I found myself being the one to tell her not to say anything. It was innocent. It didn’t mean anything to her. But it meant everything to me.