Romance: Catching Helena Handbasket (9 page)

     Trey chuckled.

     “Don’t worry about it, Helena,” he purred, emphasizing his words with the powerful thrust of his hard, trim hips.  “Just relax and enjoy the experience.”

     Heeding his words, Helena relaxed immediately in her chair and watched enraptured as Trey thrust forth his ample endowments for her sublime pleasure; shaking some family jewels that seemed sizable and well-defined in proportion.

     “The dude is hung!”  Helena summarized, letting loose with a giddy giggle.  “And how.”

     As if sensing her interest, Trey rolled his abs and rocked his hips in a way that erased all distance between them; giving her an up close view of his bulging shaft as the music surged around them.

     “Would you like to touch me, baby?” he hissed, fixing her with a narrow eyed stare that dripped with seduction.  “Touch the body that belongs to you.  It’s all yours, Helena—just have your way with me.”

     Helena’s breath suspended as these provocative, softly spoken words drove her insane; making her heart pound and her pulse race as desire overcame her.

     Lifting her fingers to further explore her bulging masculine gift, Helena ran her fingertips across the fabric of his tight fitting G-string; grazing the warm, pulsating member that flew erect within its confines.

     “Oh baby!”  Trey moaned, pitching his gorgeous head back as his entire body gyrated beneath the effects of his stimulating touch.  “You’re torturing me.”

     “Well right back at ya,” Helena sighed, opening her arms to him.  “I want more, Trey.  I want to touch you.  Right.  Now.”

     Immediately obeying this whisper soft command, her gorgeous lover descended in her lap; filling her waiting arms as he continued his dance on a far more intimate level.

     Wriggling and writhing his masculine nakedness deep in her embrace, Trey pressed his bulging, sweat lined chest against hers as his hips locked with hers; his long, hard shaft now gyrating hard against her aroused femininity.

     Laying her head on his sculpted chest and closing her eyes tight, Helena wrapped her arms around his sculpted back as he continued to gyrate against her; bracing herself as she felt the tip of his barely concealed shaft graze her wettening privates.

     His own strong arms holding her tighter than tight, Trey slithered and swayed in her embrace as their legs entwined; running his hands through her mussy blonde hair before rubbing and massaging her back.

     Her own body starting to move in a way that matched and mirrored his rhythm, Helena lost herself in his heated embrace; throwing herself into his hard, sweaty nakedness as she felt his impressive masculinity harden and stiffen against her.

     Their hands joined between them as their thighs locked and their fingers intertwined; Helena completed the union by raising her head and locking her gaze with his—staring deep into his passion struck eyes as he continued to rub his hard, hot body against hers.

     “You’re amazing,” she breathed, smiling into his flawless face as he lifted his hands to her flushed cheeks—his fingers caressing her heated skin as his movements suddenly stilled.

     “Well right back at ya,” he echoed her earlier words, his lips spreading in a flawless beam as he added, “I have to kiss you, Helena.  Right. Now.”

     Suddenly he descended upon her, his lips claiming hers in a passionate kiss.  Slowly and warmly his full, moist mouth molded onto hers, his lips stroking hers as their tongues entangled between them.

     Meeting his advance in full, Helena plied her lips onto his and leaned hard into his kiss; moaning as their kisses deepened and intensified, and their sighs intermingled in the air above them.

     Soon she lost herself in all things Trey; sinking in his powerful arms as she threw her body against his and inhaled his sweet citrus-tinged scent.  Her heart pounded in her ears as her passion intensified; joined by a sharp, high pitched wail that—or so she suspected—resounded from deep within her soul.

     “You’ve got me hearin’ bells, babe,” she whispered against Trey’s lips.  “Damn you’re good.”

     Her lover nodded.

     “That I am babe,” he affirmed, throwing all signs and semblance of false modesty totally out the window.  “I’m afraid, though, that the ringing in your ears has nothing to do with me.  I fear that our fire alarm is going off—and that if you and I don’t get out of here—and post haste—we’re going to die in one another’s arms.  This could, of course, be a romantic proposition; but if I exit this world without getting the opportunity to sleep with you, I’m going to be supremely pissed.”

     “Wha-?”  Helena’s eyes flew wide as she considered these words—immediately she and Trey jumped from the chair and ran through the back door fire escape that lead to the spacious back lawn behind Elmhurst Publishing.

     In a shocked haze Helena saw the vision of her equally stunned co-workers as they gathered close on the green space; all of them staring with wary eyes at their towering, crystal-planed office building.

     Yet even as the blaring fire alarm continued to ring in their defenseless ears, they saw no signs of blaze or smoke; for all intents and purposes, Elmhurst Publishing stood solid and unharmed as the alarm continued to indicate otherwise.

     “Kind of sounds like my mom whenever she caught me watching Skinemax After Dark,” Helena gritted her teeth, adding with a cringe, “The woman had such intense volume that the entire house could hear her.  Not to mention the neighborhood.  Not to mention the tri-county area.  And I’m passing sure that dogs in Russia and remote parts of Scandinavia could hear her as well.”

     As she dealt with this unbidden flood of rather uncomfortable memories, Helena scanned the faces of her co-workers and supervisors to assure that everyone was accounted for—gaping outright when she noted the absence of one contemporary that always stood out from the rest; and not always in the best of ways.

     “Where’s Irving?” she exclaimed, grasping Trey’s arm in a sudden fit of panic.  “He must still be in the building!  And as much of a psycho and all around lunatic as that gentleman happens to be, I would hate to see him decimated in the blazes of a random office fire—I’m just funny that way.”

     Trey opened his mouth to respond; that same mouth gaped wide seconds later, as the door of the fire escape flew open to reveal the co-worker in question; and he appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be as wide eyed and crazy as usual.

     “Don’t worry, everyone.”  Closing the door behind him, a visibly rattled Irving Birnbaum held his hands up to address his still shocked co-workers.  “I’ve already called the fire department, to tell them not to come.  I’m the one that set off the alarm.”

     Helena groaned.

     “Shocker,” she whispered as an aside to Trey, adding more loudly, “Were you the one that set the fire in the first place?  And did you put it out yourself when you decided against the kinda out there concept of murdering us all in our offices?”

     Irving shook his head.

     “Not exactly, Helena,” he corrected her, all the while totally unphased by the dire gravity of her verbal accusation.  “As it turns out there was no fire—at least not in the literal sense.  The blaze, Helena, was set in my mind as I was reviewing chapter eight of your manuscript, ‘Pride and Passion.’”  He paused here, pointing an accusing finger in her direction.  “You, Helena, ended a sentence with a preposition—and that, my dear, is a grave crime against literary proficiency that I just cannot deal with.”

     Helena snorted.

     “That you just cannot deal with?” she repeated, shaking her head in total disbelief.  “Irving, you just used a preposition-ending sentence to object to the fact that I ended my sentence with a preposition.”  She paused here, folding her arms before her as she added, “Don’t you just feel like a complete and total asshat right now?”

     Irving thought a moment, then shook his head.

     “I do see your point—yet I must point out, Helena, that my use of a preposition fell within the context of casual conversation; not a formal written piece,” he informed her, raising a skinny finger for emphasis.  “In addition, your horrid crime against the English language placed me under considerable duress—thus explaining and excusing my grammatical misstep.  And, of course, the fact that I was insane and incensed enough to stage my own impromptu fire drill.”  He said these last words on a hurried breath as color flushed his cheeks.

     Helena sighed.

     “Irving, I could ask you a million questions right now—up to and including, ‘Who are you, where do you come from, are your parents still living or did they form a suicide pact when they witnessed the effects of your upbringing, and—well—why, Irving?!  Just why?’ ”  She took a deep, sustaining breath here, adding in a more serious tone, “What I’d really like to ask you, though, is just where in my manuscript did I end a sentence with a dreaded, soul-condemning preposition?”

     “Page 150, paragraph four,” Irving answered immediately, pinning her with a condemning gaze.  “Lady Helen’s scullery maid, when accused of stealing her lady’s favorite pearl lapel pin, responds to this charge by saying, ‘What is this madness that you speak of?’”  He paused here, adding in a bellowing tone that just dripped with notes of eternal condemnation, “Of, dear Helena, is a preposition.”

     Helena shut her eyes tight a moment, summoning every ounce of her earthly strength before saying, “As Hildy is a scullery maid, Irving, her dialect is not likely to be as polished as that spoken by Lady Helen, Lord Trace, or most of the other characters featured in my book.  Would it not make perfect sense, then, that she would commit the occasional grammatical error?”

     Irving thought a moment, then nodded.

     “You know, I do believe you’re right,” he allowed, adding with a bright smile, “You permitted your character to speak in her own words—not yours.  Good thinking, Kid!  Now let’s put this whole misadventure behind us and get back to work….”

     “Wait a minute, Irving.”

     Stepping forward with his fists balled, Trey pinned his errant (OK, bat shit crazy) employee with a cold, unyielding stare.

     “Just be aware, Irving, that I am strongly tempted to fire you on the spot,” he released between gritted teeth, adding as he shook his head from side to side, “Thankfully for you, though, I feel just sorry enough for you to allow you to retain your position here at Elmhurst Publishing—providing, of course, that you are willing to undergo a thorough psychological evaluation.  Call me crazy, dude, but methinks they need to up your meds.  Substantially, if not exponentially.”

     Irving rolled his eyes.

     “Somehow, Boss, your words would sound a mite more forceful and authoritative if you weren’t standing there wearing a glittery red G-string—one that more than markedly clashes with your usual business grey,” he scoffed, adding as he turned away, “I swear.  Some people are just so blasted weird.”

     With this grand declaration he walked with broad strides back into the office building; very politely holding the door open for any co-workers that wished to follow him.

     Only none of the numerous co-workers gathered outside the building chose to take him up on his offer; no, they seemed altogether too transfixed by the vision of their fearless leader, clad in nothing more than a sparkly red G-string that would—in all likelihood—make a Chippendale blush.

     “Did the dude actually shave his chest?” queried Norma Linville, a senior administrative assistant who paused to adjust her grandmotherly spectacles in an attempt to get a better view.  “And, I daresay, oil it?”

     Harley Preston, a senior editor who also served as Norma’s direct supervisor, shook his head as he regarded the patently near naked state of his own direct supervisor.

    “I’m not altogether sure of anything right now,” he told Norma, adding with a shrug, “One thing I do know, though—since the last time I saw that guy in the buff, which I believe would be three months ago in the locker room at the lower Manhattan YMCA, in the immediate aftermath of our Execs versus Secretaries charity basketball game…”

     “…which we secretaries won, by the way,” Norma smirked, raising her wrinkled chin to very proud effect.

     Ignoring this rather untimely interjection (especially untimely, Harley mused, for someone who had just recently asked him for a raise), Harley continued, “All I’m saying, dear Norma, is that—since the last time I witnessed the vision of a naked Trey Lawrence—he’s been training up, so to speak.  And the reason for this intensified exercise regime just may be standing beside him right now in the middle of the lawn; looking as though she’d quite like it if said lawn would at this point open up and swallow her whole.”

     Helena had heard enough.

     “Irving, wait up!” she cried, ignoring Trey’s protests as she followed her co-worker through the portal that would give them access to their Elmhurst offices.

     Indeed, she figured that at this point she’d far rather be alone in an abandoned office building with a semi certifiable maniac than be sharing a public green space with the rest of her co-workers—most of which were now pinning her and her lover with looks that just screamed, “Oh you slut!!!”

     “Hey, he’s the one wearing the sparkly G-string,” Helena mused silently, slamming the door behind her as she retreated to the confines of her office cubbyhole.