Shimmers of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 3) (6 page)

I mustn’t let him win this round. It’s my turn to take the reins. “When you left Laura’s house, how did you leave?” I test him.

“What do you mean?”

I freeze my movements. “Which door?”

“Out the back.”

“What back?”

“Through the garden, through to the garage.”

“Why did you go to the garage?”

“What is this,
Homeland?
Why are you cross-questioning me?”

“Why did you go to the garage?” I repeat, punctuating my question with a thrust.

“Because I keep my Aston Martin there.”

“What! You have stuff at her house?”

“My Aston Martin is not ‘stuff’ – it happens to be a 1964 DB5, the same Bond car, I’ll have you know, that featured in
Goldfinger
and
Skyfall
. Anyway, the last I heard, it wasn’t Laura’s house but
James’s
and Laura’s house. Yes, I keep my car there, for now. They have the space – they borrow my house in Provence for summer vacations, I use their garage from time to time, what’s the big deal?”

I relax into him for a moment and go back to my stallion ride. I feel sore but then I drag my sleepy eyes over his body and get a renewed rush of desire. Christ he’s handsome. His wide chest is smooth, warm, his biceps chiseled and strong, and the cords of his forearms flex as he holds me around my waist, making me feel petite and feminine. His dark hair is mussed up about his face and when I lift up my butt and plunge back down on him he groans, biting his beautiful lower lip, red and lush. He grabs my ass and starts pumping from underneath.

“Not so fast, cowboy,” I scold. “I’m sore, remember.”

I lift myself almost off him and rest my body forward so just the tip of his crown is inside me. I tease myself with just the big satiny head of his cock and no more, all my nerve endings are gathering in a sensuous dance at my aroused entrance. My eyes flutter and I keep my rhythm as he groans beneath me. I pile cushions behind his head so he’s in the perfect position to suck at both of my nipples, pleasuring each one in turn, flicking his tongue over the puckered areolas. My clit’s rubbing up and down on his taut stomach with my rhythmical, almost horizontal movement, while his erection pushes in and out just a couple of inches inside my wet hole. Mixed with the tit sucking it’s driving me crazy with desire… I plunge hard back down and that’s it… I start coming in both places - a deep vaginal spasm mingles with a massive clitoral orgasm slapping against his hard abs, pulsating through me. This is a Mighty Big O and I start screaming. How I love the fact that every time I come, Alexandre’s button is also pushed. It’s impossible for a woman to come on command – our bodies just don’t work that way- but men are different; at least Alexandre is. My excitement always gets him hot and he, too, is crying out my name, his release intense – there seems to be no end to the semen inside him.

He starts kissing me, his tongue probing, pulling and sucking on it - he breathes into my mouth, “Pearl… Pearl, forever. You’re mine forever, please never leave me baby, I’m so in love with you.”

“Me too,” I cry out. “I love you, Alexandre,” as another wave rolls right through the core of me making me clench and contract with unbelievable tremors.

9.8 on the Richter Scale, this one.

I
t strikes me that I have a real problem. We both do. Alexandre and I are hooked on each other sexually. I think back to my marriage with Saul. He was completely faithful to me. Yet I was in The Desert. If Alexandre is not being faithful and he’s cheating on me with Laura, what do I do? Which would I rather be… in The Desert with a faithful man or in the flames with a cheater?

Cheating Flames…Alexandre?

Safe but Lonely Desert…Saul-type of man?

My head is opting for The Desert but my heart…

Not to mention my nether regions…

Because maybe the twain cannot meet. Maybe the sex-god, Mr. Good-Looks-Charmer only comes with the cheating strings attached.

It has been a week now. Alexandre wants me to move right back ‘home’ he said, (his place) but I have managed to resist. I’m still in my new apartment. Daisy and Amy have moved in, sharing the second bedroom. I have managed to keep a modicum of autonomy. Because a little voice inside my head is warning me to be cautious. All it has done is make Alexandre even keener.

Because of my insistence, the wedding and the gown are on hold. I want to hear it from Laura’s lips that there is nothing going on between them and find out how she knew private stuff about me. Alexandre is on probation. The southern part of my body (the Deep South) may be foolish but I, the cerebral tough nut up north (the Rocky Mountains) am not.

My brain, at least, must stay intact. For the moment I have told him it’s just Sex, nothing more. No marriage, no living together officially, until this Laura nonsense gets sorted out. The only problem is that she isn’t answering my calls nor replying to emails and snail mail letters. I want to ask her why she’s pretending that they’re together if they aren’t.

I have also tried contacting her estranged husband, James, although rumor has it that he has slinked off to the Cayman Islands. Alexandre, too, tried to contact him but he won’t respond. Did Laura feed her husband the same story and now James hates Alexandre’s guts? For good measure, Alexandre’s precious, classic Aston Martin (how men love their cars) has been moved – collected and driven by his driver, Suresh, over to his house in Provence. That was one of my demands and he obliged without flinching.

Alexandre swears that he won’t see Laura again, not even as friends, and that all connection has been severed for good. Still, I am biding my time. In my head, I have moved our marriage to St. Valentine’s Day. It will still give me my white winter wedding but let me sort things out. I’m not telling Alexandre about my secret plans. Let him teeter on the edge – let him be the one to feel insecure for a change. I have thought long and hard about this. I imagined that if I ever got Alexandre back, I’d snap him up, rush to the altar just to seal the deal, but I want this marriage to be secure. I really do need to clear up the Laura issue – be one hundred percent sure.

A marriage is for life, not just for Christmas.

To my surprise, I’m enjoying being the Sex Only woman. I feel liberated – free. I hold the cards. I have control…

Except, of course, in the bedroom. Alexandre still seems to have jurisdiction over my body. It has a mind of its own as if it were a marionette - he being its puppet master.

To think that I spent eighteen years without anyone being able to give me an orgasm and he can just ease them out of me, every single time, like falling drops of rain. It’s a miracle.

***

Work is better than ever. I am still in contact with Sam Myers via Skype and have decided to keep the HookedUp Enterprises fifty/fifty deal going with Natalie – even with feature films. If a good movie script comes in, I’ll take it. But I will not get so emotionally involved again, and I certainly won’t tamper with any script, nor have private meetings with movie stars.

Natalie and I could have changed the name. After all, Alexandre severed any connection to HookedUp Enterprises by bowing out gracefully and handing the business over to us. We can buy him out over time – although, luckily, no money had yet come in before he and Natalie did their ‘sweet’ deal so, in effect, we are just buying options, rather than anything that exists. The features can help us budget our documentaries which, bit by bit, are gaining more recognition. Not to mention the favor Alexandre is granting us: HookedUp Enterprises gets free advertising on his social media site. Another reason to keep that name.

***

While I’m busy doing a spurt of cleaning, organizing, chucking out the old and in with the new, Laura calls. Finally. About time. Now I can get on with my life – my plans; get a few facts straightened out. I can tell, right away, by the tone in her voice that she’s feeling triumphant.

“Hello, Pearl,” she purrs in her upper class British drawl. She sounds like Cruella De Vil. Perhaps if she got her hands on Rex, she’d turn him into a fur wrap. “Sorry I haven’t got back to you but we’ve been busy.”

We’ve.

“Laura, stop trying to pretend that you and Alexandre are an item. I’m not buying it.”

She groans. “God, I hate that American expression, ‘buying it’. You lot should really learn how to speak properly. You’ve got
us
now infected with your way of speech - all your inane TV shows…going up at the end of perfectly normal sentences as if they’re questions when they’re not. Saying cute instead of sweet, warranty instead of guarantee, kidding instead of joking. Next thing you know we’ll be calling our knickers panties.”

“Speaking of panties, Laura, stop throwing yours at Alexandre. It’s over between you two and it has been for three years. You’re acting like some deluded fan who won’t take no for an answer.”

“Ooh, Pearl, I can see your claws are really out for the kill.”

“You bet they are, Laura. Just keep away from Alexandre, okay?”

“How can I keep away from him when he won’t keep away from me?”

“Stop bullshitting me, Laura.”

“I think you’ll find out in time, Pearl, that you’re the deluded one, not me.”

“I want to ask you a few direct questions and I’d like direct answers, please.”

Silence.

“Laura? Are you still there?” I ask between gritted teeth.

“I really don’t think I owe you a thing after you insulted me. Do you know what it’s like being in a wheelchair? To imagine never being able to dance again? Or sail. Or even walk. Can you imagine that?”

“I apologize - I do, for insulting you at your front door. It was a gross, unkind thing to say and I’m glad that you are no longer in a wheelchair, but it doesn’t give you license to lie to me. Pretending that Sophie was out to kill me. Lying about you and Alexandre, telling me that you were sleeping with him again and getting married and—”

“What makes you so sure that’s not true, Pearl?”

“Because Alexandre swears it’s not true, that’s why.”

“He’ll swear his father just ‘disappeared,’ too. He’s a good liar, Pearl. Anything to get into your ‘panties’ - as you so vulgarly call them.”

I can see this conversation is going nowhere, fast. “Why did you lie to me about Sophie?”

“For your own good.”

I sit on the edge of my bed, kick off my shoes furiously and hold the phone closer. “Something tells me, Laura, that you are so
not
concerned about my welfare.”

“Listen, it’s only a matter of time until Alexandre and I are back on track. It was kinder to nip things in the bud between you two - sooner rather than later.”

This woman is something else!

“You don’t give up, do you?” I spit out.

“Alexandre and I are meant to be together. One day, you will accept that. Really, Pearl, give up. I’m stronger, mentally, than you are. I’m like a Rottweiler with a bone. You’ll see. Soon, you’ll be so exhausted by this whole ordeal that you’ll be handing me Alexandre on a platter, relieved to be out of it. Do you really want to go into battle with me? Do you
really
want to find out what I’m capable of?”

“I don’t take threats lightly.”

“Oh, please, don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a threat. Oh no. This is a friendly warning.”

I lean against the headboard. Maybe this conversation will be longer than planned. “Where’s your husband?”

“James is indisposed right now. He’s having a holiday.”

“Why isn’t he returning Alexandre’s calls?”

“You know how it is, Pearl…sometimes people just go AWOL. Bit like Alexandre’s father…just slipped off one day never to be seen again.”

“What are you telling me, Laura?”

“I’m not telling you a thing. You’re a bright girl…summa cum laude and all that – I think you can work it all out for yourself. Especially with your penchant for super-sleuthing.” She bursts out into a demonic cackle.

“Speaking of sleuths, Laura, how did you know about me and Alessandra Demarr?”

“Alexandre told me.”

“No, Laura. You know that’s a lie. Tell me the truth.”

“You are a bit thick…I’m amazed you passed any exams at all.”

“Just tell me, Laura, I need to know.”

“Well, because I don’t
need to know
what you’re up to anymore, plus I really couldn’t give a toss now that I’ve got Alexandre’s attention back…well, I’ll give you a clue.”

“I’m listening.”

“I really shouldn’t be divulging my secrets.”

I sigh into the receiver.

“Alright, but this is just between you, me and the gatepost.”

I claw my nails into a cushion.

She whispers, “I’ll give you a itsy, bitsy, little hint…does your phone have trouble shutting itself off or stay lit up after you’ve switched it off, or does it light up even when you aren’t using it at all?”

Yes, I think. All of the above, which surprises me because it’s new.
“My Smartphone. But how? You’ve never had my cell in your possession.”

“As I said, you’re a bit slow on the uptake. You’re so 1972, Pearl. So Watergate. But I suppose it makes sense for you, at your age, to be locked in a time warp. Anyway, must dash. Lovely chatting.”

“Wait! That means you’ve hacked Alexandre’s phone too? Maybe even Sophie’s…hello? Laura are you there? Laura!!”

In a frenzy, I go online and look up cell phone hacking. The British newspapers did it, so why couldn’t Laura? Especially with all her money and contacts.

I read hungrily: