Chapter 5 Brazilian Dreams

“Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.”
— Maya Angelou

I woke up in my bed. My head felt huge, I could hardly open my eyes, like a hangover from a week long binge drunk, except, I haven’t binged on alcohol since I was sixteen. The light spelled evening. I couldn’t find my phone. Trying to sit up made every muscle scream. Though my mouth felt filled with kitty litter, I didn’t dare try to find a drink. Instead, I laid still and breathed slow. The technique helps me focus on healing. I needed to escape long enough to build up some strength.

I drifted into a half dream, still aware of the pain, but one step behind it. I thought about Mr. Carver and his message, and I knew I needed to check on Michael, and survey the damage to my loft, but all of those prospects were too far away. I had slept as much as I needed so I floated on my mattress listening to my breathing, punctuated by horns on Crosby three stories below.

Images bubbled up and faded: drinking wine with Michael, the black snow and ice splashed in front of us walking back from Starbucks, Mr. Carver and his friends Faulkner and Wolfe, Mari, an escort from Abalone Group. Her face wavering before my inner vision. Mari worked for the service nights, and took classes at Columbia days. I met her by chance, if you believe in that sort of thing.

I had forged an invitation to a fundraising dinner for Sam Bastion’s reelection campaign which required a plus one to complete my cover. I picked Mari up in a rented limo; she was dressed in an indigo silk gown with candy apple red stilettos. A midnight blue page boy framed her face. I told the Abalone that she would accompany Jay Smyth, but I didn’t specify Jay’s gender. Mari was surprised when she slipped in beside me. I wore a linen button down with a Lorenzo Cana tie and a pinstripe Brooks Brother’s three piece with my ostrich boots. My hair was tied up in a twisted braid. That was before I cut it and it was very long. I told her she was perfect. She blushed.

I told Mari that I was attending to get the measure of the candidate and that when I introduced her she should distract him with her cleavage so I could get a good look at him without him noticing. “Men reveal their secrets more clearly when they don’t know you are looking at them,” I said.

“Don’t I know it,” She replied.

We had a great time. $10,000 a plate dinners are a gas, especially if you aren’t paying. I strolled around during the cocktail portion of the evening like an oil tycoon with Mari draped on my arm. She played the role like she was born to it. I glad handed Bastion and slipped a Bluetooth bug into his pocket. Mari distracted him by standing too close while I assured him of his success. He was looking at her nipples, and hardly acknowledged me.

Mari and I spent the rest of the evening after dinner hanging out in the City Club library, drinking Lagavulin and talking about her dreams. I got her number and told her we should get coffee sometime. She tried to kiss my cheek when the limo stopped to drop her, but I pressed my body to hers, held her face with both hands and kissed her long and hard before she left.

I said, “Goodnight, Mari.”

She said, “Wow,” as the doorman closed me in.

I was pleasantly buzzed for the rest of my night.

When I returned home, I activated the bug. It gave me a satisfactory GPS location and an audio link, later I would break the security of Bastion’s local computer network and gain complete access. Satisfied that I was connected, I shut down my system and went to bed. I dreamed of spooning naked with Mari, my hand draped over her, fingering the delicate skin between hip and thigh. In the morning I took a cold shower; I felt teased and horny all day.

But that was not the last I saw of Mari. Some weeks later I followed Sarah Cargill to a nightclub as part of the surveillance on her husband, Citifund CEO, Brunner Cargill, but lost her on the dance floor. Heading to the ladies, I saw Mari with a client, a broad shouldered guy with a bald head. I caught her eye; we didn’t speak.

Earlier that day, on a whim, I’d gone in for a pedicure to get waxed. I was a swimmer when I was a kid, and I prefer bare legs, arms and pits. Call me old fashioned; call me colonized. The Works, essentially removing all the hair on my body in one shot, was cheaper. I had never gone full Brazilian before, but figured, what the hell. What could it hurt? Hair grows back, right?

Fuck me, never again. Besides the momentary pain of having the hair ripped out of my most delicate spots, raw naked pubes made me excruciatingly aware of my sex. The slight friction of my panties left me throbbing, wet and horny.

After I lost Sarah, I went to pee, and passed Mari on my way. In the bathroom I had to squeeze around a lesbian couple, lip locked with their hands up each other’s skirts. Once in the stall and relieved, I wiped, but continued rubbing, thinking I would have a quick orgasm and bolt.

The couple finished and left. I pictured their flushed faces, imagining I was one of them; my breathing grew deep and husky; this wasn’t going to take long. Just before I came, the door slammed open. I watched through the stall crack as the bald dude shoved Mari against the wall. She said, “Owe. Fuck you Simon, not so rough!”

Simon back handed her face and spun her around to the sinks, out of sight. My orgasm dissolved, I exploded out of the stall and lunged at him. He had pressed her face onto the counter, and ripped her underwear off. He gripped her hips, banging into her. I carry a rechargeable Taser the size of a disposable lighter. It’s tiny, but delivers 10,000 volts. I grabbed his shoulder, turning him away from her, and Tased his crotch. While he was convulsing on the filthy floor, gripping his balls with his pants around his ankles, I kicked him three times with my steel-toed Timberlines: one to the gut, one to the groin and one to the face. I heard his jaw brake.

I slipped a bug into Simon’s pocket and helped Mari wipe her bloody nose. She leaned on me and said, “Theo, you smell like vagina, and your panties are around your ankle.” I stuffed them in Simon’s mouth and left him moaning and shivering in fetal position. Mari I dropped at Mount Sinai Emergency and went home.

Michael had left a voice mail about coming over and I texted him a thumbs up. Between the adrenalin from Mari’s rape, being Brazilian hot and bothered, and my interrupted orgasm, I was energized to say the least. He didn’t want to have sex with me for a week after that.

The memory dissolved as I opened my eyes to the dusk filled room. Breathing didn’t hurt as badly. Replaying these events got my heart pumping. I almost forgot about the exploding door and being gassed in that cell. I got out of bed carefully, and peed like a racehorse. My phone was where I left it on the glass table in the living room. Any blast damage had been cleaned. There was no trace, and no wine stain on my cheap-ass Ikea rug. I checked my messages. There were several from Michael within the past few hours. Three days had passed.

fin

The entire story so far can be found on the Theodora Smith page