Experiment In Terror

Chapter One-2

He studied me for a while, and my temples began to throb, my head hurt. Maybe it was the wine. Or maybe it was just Jackson Brandt.

“You don’t think much of my world, do you?” he probed. “Is that because you envy it or think you’re above it?”

This sounded like a good natured query, but I understood the barb. “I don’t envy or think I’m above it. You call it your world. It is. But it’s not mine.”

“And you still can’t figure what you’re doing here with me, can you?”

“You’re right.”

His reflective expression made me believe there was something more that he wanted to say, something important.

“Would it be too trite to say that I’m looking for the right woman,” he finally got to the point and turned the conversation on a dime.

Was this artful seduction or a serious statement of fact? Right woman?

“You mean that?”

“I do. But you think I’m too shallow for the right woman.” Saying this made him snicker.

“I guess I should take you seriously.”

“I wish you would.”

“And you think that I could be the right woman?”

“Why not?”

“Because I just can’t imagine us…I don’t even understand why I said yes to this date. I mean you’ve been very nice, and this restaurant is lovely. But…” I finally pulled my hand away from his, “…this just makes me so uncomfortable.”

“All right then we can leave. Go somewhere you’re not uncomfortable.”

“Like the McDonalds down the street?” A wisecrack to be sure, with a sarcastic twist. I still couldn’t take him seriously.

“Oh, c’mon, you’re not anymore McDonalds than you are this place.”

“And what am I if I’m not The Shiva Bar, and I’m not McDonalds.”

He sat back, appraising me, just as he’d appraised me all evening.

“I’d say that you’re quiet bistros or trendy coffee shops, ethnic food, the farmer’s market type. How’s that for a start?”

I had to blush because he hit the mark so closely. “Very close.”

“Let’s see. I imagine you like the symphony and art fairs, estate sales with great bargains, the theater, drama mostly, and no doubt Shakespeare, anything English and upper crust, that’s why you’re a bit of a snob. I can see you taking Bed Breakfast weekends in the country. Walks on the beach. Simple. Easy. Unadorned.” He paused, wrapping me up in his easy grin. “Have I missed yet?”

“No.” I started to shudder strangely, though I kept it veiled.

“So maybe that’s the kind of woman I’m looking for.”

“As in a serious relationship?”

“Yes. But all night you’ve treated this date like a joke. You don’t seem to understand that I’m really, honestly, interested in you.”

A sudden rush of energy from lord knows where made me almost dizzy. For a moment, I felt as if I were going to throw up every morsel of food I had downed since lunch, including the scallops. I finally got my bearings and came back at him with the truth. “No, I didn’t understand that at all, Jackson.”

“I don’t waste my time on casual dates.” There was a subtle accusation in his voice.

Meanwhile, I was getting edgy, restless. “I’m sorry if I haven’t taken you seriously. I really am. That’s a disservice to you, probably based on my snap judgments of people. I tend to do that. I am snobbish in my own way. But listen…you don’t know me…who I am or what I do…”

“I know more than you think, Rachel.” He gazed at me earnestly. His eyes were a little droopy and a lot seductive. He had an avant garde flair around him. Chic. Slick. The hair, the suit, everything down to his manicured nails and the elegant way he dressed. My attraction to him was becoming more evident to me and I didn’t like that.

“Just what do you think you know?” I managed the remark, at the same time damned scared of what he’d say.

“I know that behind your studious, college professor façade you’ve written several dozen erotic novels.”

I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. My face became instantly hot. A blush rose like a wildfire up my neck. I so hated being where I was at that moment. I would have pulled myself from the table and taken a taxi home if my legs hadn’t been so weak.

“You’re Marilyn Hayworth, when you’re not Rachel Linney.”

“How do you know that?” My anxiety rose to a fevered peak.

“You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not embarrassed, just shocked to have you blurt that out, like…”

“Like what?”

“I don’t tell people about Marilyn Hayworth.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t, and it’s not a subject I’ll discuss with you. I prefer to keep her private.” The burning feeling started to subside, but I still didn’t know what to do with the emotion and the flagrant s****l desire – yes, goddammit it was s****l desire – that continued to churn inside my belly. “I don’t understand. How did you know?”

“I’m a rich man…I can make inquiries.”

“What? So, being rich makes it okay to pry into a woman’s life?”

“I’ve read several of your books.”

“You’ve read my books?”

“Yes, I’ve read your books. I admire your writing and what’s behind it.”

“What do you mean ‘what’s behind it’?”

“The passion, the fantasy, the desire. You write persuasively as if you know your subject well.”

I squirmed uncomfortably. “I said, it’s not a topic I’ll discuss.”

“Are you serious about the relationships you write about?”

“I said, it’s not a topic…”

He wouldn’t let me finish. “No, it is a topic we’ll discuss. It’s regarding you and I want to know more about Rachel Linney, about Marilyn Hayworth.”

“Jackson, I’d really like this date to end now.” My ears were burning, my heart beating too fast.

“But it’s not going to end,” he responded, nothing ruffled in his cool manner, while I felt as if I were falling apart. “I’m not a man you can throw off easily. I just want a few answers, I just want a peek inside. That’s all.”

“What I write about is just fantasy. That is it, I swear.”

He must have read my fear because he skillfully backed off the intensity, morphing into the charming, laidback Jackson of our first meeting. “Hey, don’t look so frightened. I’m not planning to rape you. I’m just curious.”

I stared at him, having no idea what to do next. I admit there was a part of me that wanted to dive into the dominant aura that captured my imagination. He was hot, sexy and available. I could have screwed him on the spot same as the night we met, that same painfully needy dance of desire begging to take hold. But that doesn’t mean anything, Rachel! my inner voice screamed.

“You’re curious? Curiosity leads you to do background checks on potential dates, see if you can dig up any dirt?”

“You know, you’re awfully defensive about something that’s apparently important enough for you to write about copiously. I wonder why?”

He was right. He had me trapped in an argument that I did not want to win.

I tried the deep breathing routine. “I’m sorry. You’ve just struck a nerve. My erotica is personal and it’s not a subject I feel comfortable about with someone I hardly know.” My answer was succinct and sincere, dripping with, ‘let’s please close this conversation.’

To my surprise, he answered, “All right then, we won’t talk about it now. I really didn’t mean to upset you.”

Was I to believe that?

The part of me that said to trust him consented to a walk on the beach, the rest of my feelings, including all my misgivings, I ignored. The date began with my not wanting anything to do with Jackson Brandt, but at that moment, I found myself unable to resist the strange confluence of events that brought us to that rare moment.

We removed our shoes and he rolled up the cuffs of his pants to stroll along the water’s edge in front of his Malibu beach house. The setting sun sat off at a distance, coloring the clouds with a brilliance that lasted for just a short time. When the fireball finally slipped below the horizon, and was no more than a smoky glow, Jackson slipped his arm around my waist as if drawing me into the darkness of the evening.

He began kissing me, and I began a slow descent into the essence of the man’s compelling allure. I’d held him off until then, but found it impossible to prevail once my s*x was thrumming with desire, suddenly reborn. I remembered what it was to be a s****l being again, to feel the urgency in a man’s hunger oblige me to submit. I wrote about the fantasy so often, but this was real. Now. Immediate. I’d made no conscious decision that I’m aware of, but my decision to continue had been made nonetheless. I wanted him to take me, use me, f**k me and I was sure he would. Almost as sure as I was of being tomorrow’s castoff.

If nothing else, it would be something to write about, I rationalized. This put a smile on my face, as I enjoyed every kiss of his warm, demanding lips. Where he touched me my body lit with fire. My hips, my ass, my breasts – his hands were firm and certain. Soon, I felt his throbbing c**k against my leg. He took my breath away, like it was when I was seventeen, when s****l touch was so very new to me.

We remained at the water’s edge while he slowly slid the zipper down my back, and peeled the dress away. It dropped to the sand, leaving me shivering, wearing only a tiny thong. The ocean breeze danced across my nakedness. A wicked feeling of doing something terribly naughty almost made me laugh. Meanwhile, my crotch gave in to Jackson’s flaming hands as they poured over my s*x-drenched skin.

“But shouldn’t we…?” I start to protest. In the open spaces around me I felt vulnerable. The beach was long, stretching for miles in either direction, a foot path for beachcombers even in the dead of night.

“No,” he whispered in my ear.

His finger traced the line of the thong’s elastic waistband, dipping deeply under the edge and downward toward my throbbing s*x. With the dexterity that only comes from practice he suddenly tore the thong away. It broke at the seam and joined the black dress as a retreating tide threatened to carry them away. He was still fully clothed while I was naked. I couldn’t help but appreciate what this meant: how he was in control and it was for me to surrender.

“You care if I f**k you here?” he asked.

“I’m surprised you bothered to ask,” I answered. We spoke in whispers that mimicked the swooshing sounds of the tide that fell against the sand and then retreated out to sea.

By starlight I saw his snickering mouth, and as it descended to my mouth, I opened for him again. Our tongues went deep, deep as his hand was inside my crotch. I could have come without further stimulation, but I needed more than fingerplay. I’d had enough of that from my own hand, and though his fingers were warm and welcoming, I knew that the throbbing erection inside his pants would take me to a better bliss, a burning place, an end fit for a night like this.

He suddenly pulled away and took me by the hand, running up the beach to an outcropping of rock where we tumbled to the sand inside the shadowy cover it afforded – which was very scant.

By the rising moon, my white nakedness must have looked like a new moon on the beach. I felt as risqué as I’d ever felt, openly raunchy. We rolled in the sand, kissing still, hands clamoring for flesh, though mine were not content. I wanted him naked too, I wanted to press my nose to his chest and smell his aroma, revel in the scent of his body.

But he rolled back, opened his zipper and pulled out his c**k: long and hard, beckoning my mouth to suck. First, down my throat until I gagged, then I backed off working my lips and tongue over the veined flesh. I drank in his scent, quickly intoxicated by the heady stench of that beautiful organ. When he began to respond to the blowjob, I began to feel like a naked nymph from the sea, come to suck the man dry, wickedly, wantonly, a siren from the deep. He seemed to free me in a way I’ve never been free. The beach was magic. Jackson Brandt was magic. Maybe I’d cry and rant in the morning, when he tossed me out with yesterday’s trash. But for the moment, I was his s*x Goddess, flagrant, daring, more willing than even Jackson Brandt expected. More willing than I expected of myself when this night began. I wanted to take him to the edge until his organ couldn’t help but erupt inside my mouth. We’d f**k later in his master bedroom, which made this just foreplay.