Shimmers of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 3) (11 page)

The man’s breathy response was weak. “No.”

“Do you want your wife and kids to know who you are, what you did?”

He shook his head pitifully. “Where am I to send the money?”

“To young girls who have been abused by men like you – I’ll give you the details. Men who thought their actions held no consequences. Now, pull the car over, right here.”

They were on a remote beach miles from anywhere. With one hand still holding the pistol, Alexandre handed Jim a bit of paper with the bank account number of the charity he had set up. “Now, you have a choice. We are going to get out of the car. You can either strip naked and walk home in your bare feet in the snow or we can fight this out, man to man. Whichever you choose, the donation will go ahead as planned.” Alexandre chuckled facetiously. “Hey, don’t look so glum, it’ll be tax deductable – the fact I need you to make that donation means I’m not going to kill you now.”

“You have a weapon!”

“I’ll put the gun in the trunk of my car. We can fight it out weapon-free just using the tools that God gave us. Or, Jim, you can strip naked and walk home.”

“I’d catch hypothermia, are you crazy?” The man began to wheeze.

“That’s just what I thought you’d say.”

“Give me a break, man!”

“Oh I
am
giving you a break. You’d already be dead if I weren’t such a reasonable man.”

“This is crazy. It was nearly twenty years ago. What kind of fucked-up vendetta is this?”

“The Sicilian kind. You know, if you’d just said one simple word beginning with S and showed some kind of remorse, some kind of feeling for the woman you hurt, I would have felt so much more compassion for you.”

“Jesus! I’m
sorry,
okay.”

“Too late, Jim. I know what kind of person you are. The kind who thinks he’s the master of the universe, the kind whose ego gets the best of him. Now find those numbers of your friends in your Smartphone and tell me their names and any extra details you have. Here, you can write them on this piece of paper.” Alexandre got out a scrap of paper and handed the man a pen from his coat pocket.

Jim was shaking uncontrollably but managed to scrawl down some names.

“If none of this makes sense, if these names are false or you happen to be playing any kind of game with me, remember, I know where you and your family live. I also have your New York address. I know where you work. I know everything about you, Jim. Give me your cell phone.”

“Why?”

“I said we’d leave all weapons behind. I leave my gun, you leave your phone. Get out of the car…slowly.”

Jim opened the car door and exited carefully. A gust of icy wind blew into the vehicle. It was crisp outside and pitch-black. Alexandre quickly got out, too; he noticed the man’s large shoulders were shaking. “Hand me your phone,” Alexandre said quietly. His breath was making steam in the frosty air.

Jim handed over his cell. Alexandre’s black gloved hands took it and he proceeded to frisk him all over; just in case the guy had two phones, or even a gun or knife on him. But he was clean.

Alexandre said, “Now hand me over your car keys.”

Jim obliged. Alexandre took the Smartphone, then threw it with the gun into the trunk, took off his long coat which he chucked over the back seat, closed the car doors, zapped them locked and pocketed the car keys. “We’re both weapon-free now.” He smiled.

“You still have my car keys, man!” Jim replied with a sneer.

“Come and get them. Come on, you’re a big man - throw me one of your best punches and you can have it all. Me, the car keys, your car, your phone – even the gun.”

Jim eyed him suspiciously and rocked from one heavy foot to the other as if weighing up his options.

“Come on, you pussy,” taunted Alexandre. “If you’re the big, bad money-maker, Wall St. master of the universe footballer, come on! Show me what you’re made of! Come and get me.”

Jim launched himself at him, flailing his fist as it caught the air because Alexandre ducked and side-stepped so fast. Jim swung again and Alexandre dodged to the left. A third swing had Jim’s punch meet the edge of his SUV and he shouted out curses then shoved his bashed hand in his mouth to ease the pain of his bleeding wound. He then pushed his feet on the side of the car to give himself momentum and threw himself at Alexandre smashing hard into his torso, but Alexandre didn’t fall. Alexandre simultaneously elbowed his adversary in the face and drew up his knee sharply into Jim’s crotch – Jim stepped backwards, buckling up in pain as he cupped his testicles protectively.

“You need to lose weight, you rapist scum,” shouted Alexandre.

Then it happened so quickly: Alexandre moved his body with fierce momentum as his leg swung in a semi-circle landing like a bolt of lightning on Jim’s head. Jim toppled over instantly, groaning in agony. Blood was pouring from his ear.

Alexandre bent over to check the damage. “You’ll live. That was for Jane Doe. Remember, the money. No fucking about. You might want to warn your rapist buddies to have their money ready, too. Two month’s wages, each one. They would be advised to give a little extra as a bonus just so I know they’re showing good will; call it a heartfelt apology. In fact, I’ll leave it to you, Jim, to collect the money. Within a few hours, I’ll know who they all are, what they all do for a living, how much they earn, so no bullshit.” He gave the man one last kick in the kidneys. “Have a nice walk home, scumbag.”

Jim was moaning in pain hunched into a fetal position, the icy ground was blotched red with his blood. He moaned, “You can’t leave me to walk back, it’s freezing!”

“Leaving people lying like garbage when you’re done with them? You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Jim?”

Alexandre zapped Jim’s SUV unlocked, got in and drove off. In his rear-view mirror he saw Jim get up and collapse on the ground again still cradling his groin. Alexandre sped off back to his own rental car. He’d rented it in a false name, just in case. Jim couldn’t prove a thing and he’d be an idiot if he tried.

He parked the SUV, took the gun out of the trunk, leaving Jim’s cell phone inside and the keys on the windscreen wipers, changed vehicles and screeched off back in the direction of New York. He smirked to himself about the gun. The ‘gun’. It was one of those cigarette lighters – pretty convincing, but if you pulled the trigger all that happened was that an orange flame ignited. Alexandre laughed out loud and then turned on the radio. It was that song again. The one Elodie kept listening to:
Little Things
by that boy band,
One
Direction
. It was uncanny, as if the song had been written especially for Pearl,
the dimples on her back, the crinkles by her eyes
– the lyrics spoke of a woman’s insecurities but how the guy loved her despite her faults, even
for
her faults. A beautiful song….

Pearl…fuck he missed hanging out with her; it was driving him crazy. He could feel his cock expand, now, just thinking about her face, her peachy ass. He had in his mind’s eye her soaking wet pussy and he could almost taste her, just thinking about it. So sweet. Always trimmed and neat, always tight and hot, and always, always ready to be fucked by him. Nothing in the world gave him more pleasure than making Pearl come – nothing. No woman had ever desired him as much, and that was the biggest aphrodisiac of all.

Jesus! His cock was rock hard now and it ached. He thought of that last time when he had her moaning as if she had a fever, squirming on the bed beneath him. He loved the way she was always so vulnerable; tried to act like a tough cookie but always gave in, in the end.

Except for now. Lately, she was being really stubborn. He wanted to fuck that stubbornness out of her, make her scream his name. He’d have to get her alone without Daisy there. Damn Daisy, always hovering about, and Amy, too – even worse. He could hardly just barge into the apartment with a five year old there, even though he still had keys. His mind ticked over, thinking of ways he could get Pearl alone, whisper into her ear, push her up against a wall and kiss her so she couldn’t…wouldn’t want to get away. His heart was beating like a drum out of rhythm, imagining how he would fuck her again, how he’d tease that little pearlette, prize open that glistening oyster with his big hard cock. He needed to control the beast in him, though. Needed to sweeten her up a bit more before he pounced. He
had
to have her, had to fuck her…Jesus, this was torture.

His cock was flexing and throbbing. He stopped the car and pulled over. He unbuttoned his jeans. He freed his cock from its prison and it sprang through his boxer briefs, rock hard and wet with pre-cum. It was huge, even he realized that. He knew the size of men’s dicks in general – seen them in the gym - he knew he was big (the only decent thing he had inherited from his father). Girls had told him all his life, too. More than once, he’d been too much for them to handle – he’d even scared some women away on occasions.

He let the car seat go all the way back and relaxed into it. He thought of Pearl now, kissing Alessandra Demarr and he gripped his hand about his pulsating phallus and squeezed hard. Ah, that was better. He moved his hand up and down his smooth length, with images of Pearl’s wet pussy and her mouth sucking his cock flitting like photos through his brain. He imagined the two women kissing and wished for a second he had been there, too, not enjoying a threesome but just to be a fly on the wall – because a threesome would have hurt Pearl. Not in the moment, no, she would have been turned on - but afterwards – she was too sweet, too easily wounded. Other men had screwed her over enough for several lifetimes – he wouldn’t go there. She was too vulnerable to experiment with. Besides, he’d been there, done that - had his fun with threesomes in his late teens; they weren’t all they were cracked up to be – two’s company, three’s a crowd. He didn’t like it when women felt hurt or jealous from feeling left out, which is invariably what happened, at some point, when there were three.

And right now he, ironically, found himself in this situation of
three
with Laura right there in the middle. He knew how poor Pearl’s heart was bleeding, but what could he do?

He thought of all the women that had come and gone over the years.
Come
and gone. There had been too many to count. How he was taught – no
trained,
by a professional - how to make love. How to really get a woman turned on. It was Sophie’s co-worker, Hélene, the one who pulled his sister into the game when she was seventeen. Sophie worked with her for years. By the time Alexandre got to be broken in, the woman was thirty - Alexandre was fourteen. His hand was moving fast, now, remembering his first fuck-orgasm, how mind-blowing it was for him as a skinny teenager and how he feared his penis might explode with pleasure.

He and Hélene needed each other. It had been the perfect symbiotic relationship. She taught him everything about the art of sex.
Because never forget, great sex is an art
…How to take his time, how to wait until she was really wet and never enter her too early. She taught him that if he had to use lube then he must be doing something wrong. She explained how women want to be told sweet nothings and dirty talk but nothing too crude. To be dominant, but never aggressive…to hold out until the woman was begging for sex, take his time; it wasn’t a race – that if the man could be patient he’d get paid back double-fold by her passion.

She explained to him that many men were fools…so obsessed with the chase that they lost focus. Forget the chase, she said. That’s ‘old-school.’ Don’t end up with a woman just because she says ‘no’ to you or plays hard to get. Just because she says no doesn’t make her any more special. Look into her soul, her eyes. Don’t judge a woman by her past. A woman in love with you, she let him know, was a woman who would be sexy as hell. And loyal, too. Loyalty, she said, was like a sovereign coin - never abandon family…never abandon those who truly love you.

Hélene told him how all women were different; there was no blueprint and how he must pay attention to the girl’s whole body not just her orifices and breasts. Stroking and caressing – foreplay was imperative. Any man could ‘stick it in’, she said - and don’t be fooled into thinking you were good in bed - women were good at faking orgasms. She’d warned him about this on countless occasions.

She drummed it into him that the woman must always come first – well, he’d got that wrong once or twice with Pearl. Fuck, with her, sometimes, he couldn’t control himself- even just one of her kisses could drive him wild. No woman ever had gotten him as horny, no woman could hold a candle to Pearl in the sack. Why? Even he couldn’t explain. Was she the most beautiful woman he had ever dated? No. But she had something, something irresistible. The smell of her skin. Her flavor. Her humor…her sweetness…her smile.

An image of Pearl’s tits flashed through his head – couldn’t put a pencil under those. No – too pert. Her ass, her tits, her face, her wet pussy – which was his very own little private pearl, his pearlette - her lips, those big blue eyes….

He groaned out loud and felt the spurt of his climax pulsing through him. Fuck, his cum was all over the seat. But it wasn’t enough – he needed the real thing. He couldn’t stand it anymore – the minute he got back to New York he’d have to fuck her.

Fuck her till she screamed.

H
ere I am in the kitchen again, eating ice-cream. They say just as much ice-cream is sold in the winter as in the summer months, and I believe it. Daisy and Amy are fast asleep. That will be me, soon….a single mother with my child…although, I suddenly remember…Daisy and Zac – wow, that came out of left field. She may not be a single mother for long. I have mixed feelings; delighted for them but…well. Time will tell if he’s good enough for her.

My ice-cream reverie is interrupted by the sound of the front door opening - I forgot to lock it with the safety latch. A rush of adrenaline surges through my body but then I remember… Alexandre still has keys. I pray it’s him and not some armed robber, although Alexandre is just as dangerous, in another way. I go to grab the first thing I can think of for protection; a kitchen knife – just in case it really is an intruder. No, that’s dangerous; it could be seized from me. I see Amy’s cowboy gun lying on the kitchen table, snatch it up - it looks quite realistic - and tiptoe quietly down the hallway towards the front door. It isn’t a thief. Well, it is. A thief of my emotions…Alexandre.