Billionaire Badboy (5 page)

“Do you have interest in being on television?”

“No, it’s just a class I’m required to take.”

“You should be on television.”

“I’m not looking for fame. I’m looking for the truth.”

“It’s annoying me that you’re such a good person.”

“Is it because you’re not?”

We talked about the requirements for a law degree:

“This silly writing project has to be about eight thousand
words. That’s crazy.”

“That’s nothing. What, like eighteen pages?”

“Yes, actually. Exactly eighteen pages. How did you do
that?”

“My entire major is writing.”

“Why? Why would you subject yourself to that?”

“Are you really looking at corporate law? You better get
used to writing all the time.”

“Shit.”

We talked about her childhood dog:

“That’s a fake name.”

“Rover? No, it’s not.”

“It’s so cliché that no one uses it. And no one should use
it.”

“I named him when I was six!”

“I am judging six year old you.”

And we talked about my secret underground gambling ring:

“Three of my professors are in on it.”

“Three? Which three?”

“Okay, Miss Journalist: I’m drunk, but I’m not that drunk.”

Before I knew it, we were rushing up the steps of her fourth
floor walkup. I waited for the moment she would open the door to her apartment
and I would push her up against the wall and crush her mouth with my own. I
thought about what she would taste like: the whiskey, the beer, the curried
popcorn we had been snacking on for hours. I saw the entire evening play out,
the way my evenings normally did. We’d throw each other around for a bit, maybe
break a few lamps or vases in the process, and then we’d bid each other
goodnight and never speak of it again. It seemed to be exactly what we needed
to break the tension between the two of us.

But as she pushed her door open, something stopped me. I
couldn’t go through with it. It was pathetic, but I couldn’t play out my
fantasy. I froze.

“This is a nice place you got here.” I half-jokingly
admired, just to get out of my head. I’d put the entire apartment at about four
hundred square feet but that was totally a guess, as I never did see the
bedroom. The “kitchen” was lined up against the wall, and a small baker’s rack
separated it from the open living room. The walls were an ugly sort of yellow,
and the cracks in the ceiling had me more than a bit worried that the roof
would cave in at any moment.

“Shut up. What, do you have some sort of four bedroom
brownstone waiting for you?” She turned to me, very accusatory.

“Something like that.” I gave her a side grin. She didn’t
need to know just how much nicer my living quarters were compared to hers.

“Oh my God. You just made a choice not to brag, and I’m
pretty sure it was so you wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Who are you and what did
you do with Teddy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I spent an entire summer writing about you. I know you have
a ridiculous twenty-seven room mansion.”

“Oh.”

“And you just…” She slowed her words as she moved closer to
me. “…Made a decision not to flaunt your wealth. I’m impressed.”

“I told you I wasn’t as bad as you made me out to be.” I
lightly jested, but in reality, I knew it was only because I was with her. I
would’ve gladly boasted of my upper west side home to anyone who would listen.

“So, you’re in my apartment. What happens next?” You’d think
she was trying to flirt with me, but the way she said it was more of an
interview question.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not stupid, Teddy. This is where you’re supposed to
throw me up against the wall and stick your tongue down my throat for a bit,
until we eventually end up breaking a few of my glass trinkets while we have
our inevitable one night stand.”

For the longest time when looking back at that night I
assumed I must have, in my drunken state, admitted my fantasy aloud. But as I
lived it for the second time, I realized that wasn’t the case. I didn’t speak
those words; she came up with them on her own. Either she read my mind, or she
had done so much research on me that she knew the route of my sexual escapades.
Either way, she took me completely by surprise. I didn’t know if I was turned
on or turned off.

“It’s not happening.”

“Yes, it is. You climbed four flights of stairs. There’s no
reason to do that otherwise.”

“So I can’t just spend time with you? What have we been
doing the last few hours then?”

“Oh, come on, you knew getting me drunk would lead us here. That’s
how you work.”

“Don’t just assume things about me because you’ve read a few
page six articles. And don’t you dare think that you know anything about me
just because you’ve written those half-assed articles of your own.”

“And don’t you dare criticize my life’s work.”

Our voices were becoming too loud, but I couldn’t control
the anger coming up my throat. Why was I so angry? It was a silly little
conversation. It didn’t need to be so heated. “Your puerile pieces on my bad
boy billionaire lifestyle are your life’s work now? What happened to avenging
your father’s death?”

“You don’t get to bring up my father.”

“Then you shouldn’t have told me about him.”

“You know what?” She took a step back, bringing her hands to
her head and brushing them back through her hair. “This was a mistake. Get
out.”

“No.”

“Then have your way with me.” She threw her arms out to the
side. “You have two options. Pick one.”

“What? So you can write a story about it tomorrow? How I took
advantage of another drunk girl who was too vulnerable to make a decision for
herself?”

“Yes. Yes, exactly.”

“So that’s what this was about the whole time? You’re
whoring yourself out for an up close and personal story? Well that’s too bad,
sister.”

I slid past her, making my way to the door, but she grabbed
onto my sleeve and flipped me around to face her before she slammed me up
against the wall. My head bounced off the concrete.

“No you don’t.” I growled at her as I lifted her easily off
of her feet and replaced her spot with mine. I had her shoulders pinned back as
her chest quickly rose and fell with her staggering breath.

“Kiss me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Then kiss me, you coward.”

I was the dominating one. I told women where I wanted them
and when I wanted them. Her complete disregard for the role I expected her to
play angered me so much that I felt a fire within me I couldn’t control. I
thought about the fantasy where I put her over my lap as I slowly lowered my
face to hers, keeping my mouth inches from her moistened lips. I wanted to
taste them. I wanted to suck on her bottom lip until she screamed with pain. I
wanted to push my body up against her so she could feel what her disobedience
was doing to me.

“I said, don’t tell me what to do.” My words were slow,
deliberate, and I breathed each syllable into her mouth. Her eyes closed, and
she purred softly at the taste of my breath. I lowered further, until our lips
met, but I did not kiss her. I sat there, feeling her want me. I felt her craving
grow strong as my warmth invaded her. She purred again, this time, louder, and
I groaned as my pants tightened in response. I allowed my tongue to slide into
her mouth, tasting her ever so briefly before I took it away. I wanted her to
want me for reasons other than a story. I wanted her to think of me as a man
rather than a boy. I wanted to prove wrong every degrading thing she had
reported of me.

I felt her mouth begin to close, begging for my lips to
follow, but I held strong. She needed to learn the pain of wanting, and I was
going to teach it to her. I was going to teach it to her, I was going to teach
it to her again, and then I was going to fuck her. And then she would have
nothing to write about, because I would own her.

Just as I was about to bite down, bringing her into the most
wanted kiss she had ever experienced, I remembered my father, and what he had
said the night he had first laid eyes on her.

“All she needed was a good fuck from me and she would’ve
known her place. She would’ve shut her mouth forever.”

That’s what I was doing. I was being my father. I was about
to fuck a girl so she would shut her mouth. How had I so easily turned into him
with just barely a nudge?

I quickly stood, releasing Ashley from my grip.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to go.” I searched frantically for the door.

“No.” She stood in front of me.

“Yes, please, just let me leave.”

“Why?”

She was hurt. I could see it in her eyes. What kind of a
bastard turns down a woman who is throwing herself at him? And I wish I
could’ve explained it to her: how my biggest fear was turning into my father,
and sleeping with her would be a step in a direction I just couldn’t take. I
wish I could’ve told her how I watched for years as my mother stood idly by as he
fucked any woman who stepped foot in our house; how he claimed that no one dare
say no to him, and I witnessed firsthand that no one was willing to prove him
wrong. I wish I could’ve told her that, when I looked into her eyes, I was
scared of what I could do to her. I was scared of who she might be able to let
me become.

Instead, I did what any bastard who knew exactly how to hurt
someone would do. I lied to her.

“I don’t want to fuck you.”

“Shut up, Teddy.”

“You would be a waste of a condom.”

She slapped me right across the face, her palm flattening
against my cheek. But it wasn’t anger I felt in that slap; it was that hurt
again. I felt a pain in my chest as I said it, but it was nowhere near the pain
she must have felt in hers. She was such a beautifully confident creature, even
if that confidence was only a single layer deep, and I knocked her off the
pedestal on which she had every right to be.

CHAPTER NINE

Teddy

TEDDY TRIBUNE

This Bad Boy is Sorry

By Theodore Vincent Stoneguard IV

The other night, Teddy did something unforgiveable. He
wishes he could explain his actions, but he cannot. He wishes he knew a way to
apologize that would prove to Ashley how much he truly means the words, but
alas, he is not believable as that man. He is, however, the man capable of
tearing down someone so harshly that they begin to see themselves in a
different light…in an unhealthy lig—

The next memory plaguing my final moments was my silly
attempt at an apology. It ended there, as after finding myself halfway through
the word “light”, I tore the paper in two and tossed it in the trash.

Remember earlier when I mentioned that I was the one stories
were written about? For the first time in my life, I had tried to do the right
thing. I did not take advantage of a woman who was sad and hurt and drunk. I
did not let her know that my father had every intention of forcing himself onto
her the night she had assumed she was playing the crowd the way a socialite
would. I took the blame. I let her hate me.

And she wrote a story. I was the predator, and I was the
gambler. I was the guy people write stories about.

Because no one writes stories about the good guy: the guy
who does everything right, the guy who doesn’t hurt those around him. But
doesn’t that guy’s story deserve to be heard?

There is a man in this world that wakes up in the morning
and kisses his wife. He’s a good guy. He’s the guy every other guy secretly
wishes he could be. That man then smiles as he thinks of how lucky he is to
have won the hand of the woman sleeping next to him. Then he checks on his
sleeping children and fixes the blankets that have inevitably fallen from their
beds. He then drinks his coffee and reads the morning paper, and thanks God
that the terrors of this world are not troubling his little household. He
happily goes to work, knowing that he is doing what should be done: he is
providing for his family. He comes home, spends time with his wife and kids,
says his prayers, and then goes to sleep, ready to do it all again the next
day.

He’s the dream. He’s the one every woman says she wants.

I am not that man. And the thing is, even when I tried, no
one allowed me to be.  They still wrote the stories. They still made me the one
to watch. I am the man they actually want: the one that needs to be fixed. I am
the man that is exciting and scary and has every possibility of crushing you. I
am that man because they made me that man. And although deep down they yearn
for that man, on the surface, they hate him. That’s why they tell the stories.

And that’s why they laugh when he fails.

When speaking earlier of my dreams to run my father’s
company, I made an oath:

I will never be the person they claim doesn’t deserve
what he was given.

I’m sure when the article goes out tomorrow about my death,
everyone will say that I deserved what I was given. At least I’ll get my wish.