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  “Why is that, Eduard?”

  “Nearly all of them are members here.”

  Chapter 11

  Sunday, December 27

  After leaving the club, Ryan went directly to his hotel. He had difficulty falling asleep. His treatment of Alex and the argument with Eduard had frustrated him. So, when he was woken abruptly at 3:30 AM, he was annoyed.

  Someone was on the other side of his door, trying to gain entry to his room. It was likely only a confused drunk, but Ryan thought that it could be someone more sinister as well. He reached down from the side of the bed and retrieved his Sig Sauer semi-automatic from the floor.

  The intruder opened the door quietly and stepped into Ryan’s room. In the light from the hallway, Ryan could see that it was Alex. He placed his Sig gently back on the floor.

  In the dark now, Alex stepped out of her heels and walked barefoot toward Ryan’s bed. She moved her coat down past her shoulders and let it slide to the floor. Without yet speaking a word, she lifted a corner of the bed sheet and slipped naked into his bed.

  As she slid into his bed, Ryan wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her closer to him.

  “How did you...?” he began.

  “Shhh...” She placed her fingers over his mouth and whispered, “I didn’t come here to talk.”

  Then she brushed her soft lips against his and kissed him.

  He returned her kiss. He pulled her closer to him, pressing her slim body against his. She could not escape his grasp, but she did not want to. She took pleasure in the raw power of his arms and shoulders as he held her. She enjoyed the feel of his rough hands on her soft skin.

  Alex slid her fingers through his hair and caressed the back of his head. She pulled him closer to her, pressing her breasts against him as she kissed him. In the dark the scent of her perfume aroused him. He could not hold himself back any longer. He wanted her right away. He was about to take her when she turned her body in the bed and nestled her bottom against his groin. Instinctively he moved his right hand up to cup her breast, but she quickly caught it. She pushed his hand down along her torso. “Warm me up first,” she said and guided his fingers in a slow circular motion until he started massaging her on his own, slowly at first, softly, rhythmically, keeping pace with her breathing.

  She let out a soft sigh of pleasure. She moved her hand above her shoulder and caressed the back of Ryan’s head again. He was now kissing her and nipping her neck and ear lobe with his teeth while he continued massaging her. With his left hand, he grasped her breast. She felt her nipple harden in his callused fingers. She felt something deep inside her quiver.

  She became more excited now. Her breathing increased, and her body warmed, intensifying the scent of her perfume and further intoxicating them both. He kissed her on the nape of the neck. He could now taste the salt which had blossomed in the perspiration on her skin.

  She was nearing the edge now. She was breathing erratically, as if she were drowning, sucking in her breath sharply with each immersing wave of passion. Then she moaned deeply, arched her back, and went over the edge. She turned and kissed Ryan wildly as her body convulsed in wave after wave of orgasm.

  They held each other for a few moments. When Ryan started to move on top to mount her, she stopped him.

  “What is your rush, Billy?” she asked. “Do you have to check out in a few minutes?”

  “No. I’m here all night.”

  “So am I. Let’s take the time to savor this experience, shall we?

  She grasped his face with both hands and pulled him close to kiss him. They both started laughing while they were kissing.

  “Do you like it rough?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Good. So do I.”

  Then she pulled him closer to her and kissed him.

  When she woke long after dawn, Alex saw Ryan lying next to her and staring at the ceiling. She touched his arm and said, “Good morning.”

  He did not look at her. He continued staring at the ceiling.

  “Why would you come here after I had choked you last night?” he asked.

  “You are broken, Billy, but so am I. We are different from other people. In that respect we can understand each other in a way that other people cannot. In that respect I think we fit together. I want the chance to know you.”

  “But still, Alex, I should not have acted the way that I did last night. I lost my temper in the club. I never did that before, and I am sorry.”

  She touched his cheek tenderly with the palm of her hand. “There is no need to apologize to me, Billy. I told you earlier that we are very much alike. We understand each other. I was not surprised by your reaction at all. I expected it. In fact, I wanted it.”

  When he turned to look at her, he could see that her blue-green eyes were bright and sparkling. She was very happy.

  “Perhaps I should apologize to you,” she said. “Billy, you did nothing last night that was not natural. You did nothing that I did not expect. I had told you that there is darkness in all of us. You did not believe me then, but I pushed you last night and proved it to you. I did, didn’t I?”

  Ryan did not answer her. He was angry – still angry at himself for behaving as he did last night and now angry at her for pushing him.

  Alex saw that he was still sulking. “Listen, Billy, you can either be aware of your darkness or continue to ignore it. If you are aware of your darkness, you can channel it – you can use it to your advantage. If you continue to ignore your darkness, it will eventually control you. It will sit dormant and then explode like it did last night.”

  “I do not want to control or channel this darkness. I want to destroy it.”

  “It will never happen,” she said. “You can never destroy what is part of your being without destroying yourself. I have dealt with darkness all of my life. Like you, I have been abandoned, and, like you, I have had darkness within me all of my life. We are very much alike, Billy. I think that is why I am drawn so strongly to you.”

  He did not answer. He was still angry.

  She turned away from him, slid her feet to the floor, and started to get out of bed. He was afraid that he had now made her angry. He was afraid that she would leave him. He grasped her hand before she could stand up, and he kept her in the bed. “Don’t leave,” he said.

  “I have to.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to use the bathroom. You are behaving like such a dope.”

  “Oh,” he said. He let her go, but still he was worried that she would not come back to bed. He was worried that she would not come back to him.

  When Alex came out of the bathroom, she paused in the middle of the room. In daylight now, Ryan saw her naked for the first time. When she saw that Ryan was staring at her body, she looked into his eyes and smiled at him. She was not the least self-conscious. But why should she be? She knew exactly how stunning she looked. Ryan had seen many women naked, many beautiful women, but none as beautiful as her.

  Alex turned away from Ryan and looked down at the floor. Suddenly she bent down and retrieved the coat which she had dropped on the floor last night. It was a calf-length fur, made of red fox. She gently shook the coat and ran her hand across its luxurious surface. It rippled under her touch.

  “I should have hung this up last night,” she said.

  “That is a beautiful fur.”

  “Thank you. It is beautiful, isn’t it? It was a gift to me from an admirer, a very special person.”

  “That is a very expensive gift, Alex. Where did you meet this admirer?” he asked.

  “At the club,” she said.

  “But you told me that you did not date any men from the club.”

  “Did I say that my admirer is a man, Billy?”

  “What? What!”

  She laughed at his reaction. “You should not be so provincial, Billy. You are in the big city now.”

  “No. No. I am not judging you. I am simply surprised that you like women.”
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  “Why are you surprised? I love pleasure. Pleasure comes in many different forms, and women can be very pleasurable. You know that by now, don’t you, Billy?”

  “Oh, yes. I do. I am just surprised that you prefer women over men.”

  “You are missing the point, Billy. They are very different experiences. When I have sex with a man, I love it in its own way. I ache for the fierceness of the lovemaking – his powerful arms holding me and dominating me, my fingernails raking across his muscular back, and each violent thrust of his lovemaking punching the breath out of me. Experiencing his raw power is exhilarating.”

  “But?”

  “But not every man leaves me satisfied. Many men rush through sex. They feel that, once they are satisfied, I am satisfied; but women are different.”

  “What about women?”

  “Women are much deeper than men sexually. It may take a little longer for us to warm up, but, once our fire has been lit, it will burn hotter and longer than any man’s passion.”

  “Are you saying that a woman can satisfy another woman better than a man can?”

  “It’s simply logic, Billy. The one who knows best how to satisfy a lady... is another lady.”

  “What about your admirer?”

  “What about her?”

  “What is she like?”

  “She is exquisite.” Alex looked at her coat again. She shook it in her hand, and she watched its surface respond in luxurious ripples. “She looks so elegant in her furs. She is so very beautiful.” She smiled wistfully to herself. “She is so very beautiful,” she repeated.

  “Was she appreciative when you showed her how a lady can satisfy another lady?”

  She suddenly turned toward him and laughed, “She is the one who showed me.”

  “But she is the one who gave you the coat.”

  She smiled at him now. “I told you that I am a quick study.”

  “Damn — I should have guessed. But why did she give you such an expensive coat?”

  “She loves me, I guess – or at least she loves the way that I make her feel. And she loves furs. She has a lot of furs, and she has a lot of money. So, why shouldn’t she buy me an expensive fur?”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I love the pleasure that she gives me. I love the way that she makes me feel.” Alex suddenly seemed to be thinking of another time. “I love to see and to feel how she responds to my intimate touch,” she said. Suddenly she looked as if she were embarrassed slightly.

  “But you enjoyed our night together?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then, if you had to choose between a night with her and a night with me, which would you choose?”

  “I wouldn’t. Our relationships are totally different.”

  “I want to know which one you value more.”

  “I won’t choose between you two. I will not say that one relationship has more value than the other, because they are totally different. ”

  “But I am forcing you to choose.”

  “That is so unfair, Billy. If you are forcing me to make an impossible choice, then I choose a three-way.”

  “What? How would that work?”

  She gave him an amused, quizzical look and dropped her coat onto the floor again.

  “I can give you an idea,” she said.

  She climbed back into bed and kissed him again. She kept her face very close to his – their eyes only inches apart. And when he looked into those beautiful, blue-green eyes of hers, he could see that she was happy, excited, on fire.

  “And, while I am at it,” she said, “I will show you how to really please a lady.”

  They made love again. They made love for the rest of the morning, until time at last forced them to move on with their lives. They showered and dressed together. Together they left the room and took an empty elevator car to the lobby.

  Inside the elevator she was playful. Ryan stood next to her against the back wall. She looked at him and smiled. Then she backed into him, gently pushing him into the corner until he wrapped his arms around her. She took his left hand and slid it inside her coat, against her bare flesh.

  “This is your last chance to get it right, Ryan,” she said.

  “I hope that this won’t be my last chance.”

  “It might be,” she laughed.

  She nodded at the security camera in the corner of the elevator car.

  “You should look into the camera and smile,” she said.

  “Why should I do that?”

  “My friend Rogelio will want to know whose room key he gave me last night.”

  Ryan grinned at the camera and shouted, “Well, thank you, Rogelio.”

  She giggled, turned back to look at Ryan, and smiled at him.

  Ryan smiled back at her and said, “I enjoyed our time together, Alex. I want to get together again soon.”

  At that moment the doors of the elevator opened. Alex pulled away from Ryan and walked out into the lobby without answering him. Ryan hurried after her and caught her arm so that she turned to face him. Then he said, “And this is when you are supposed to say, ‘You were not bad either, Billy. I would like to go out with you too.’”

  She smiled at him, and her blue-green eyes twinkled with amusement. She reached up for him and kissed him, softly but longingly. Then she turned and walked toward the door. As she raised her fox collar against the cold, she spoke over her shoulder to Ryan, loudly enough so that he and everyone in the lobby could hear, “You should call me for New Year’s Eve, William. You are not the best lover that I have had, Sergeant Ryan, but you are quite possibly the best of the males. Congratulations.”

  Chapter 12

  Ryan drove from New York directly to his home outside of Trenton. During the drive, he could think only of Alex. She was right, he thought. They shared a common experience. They shared abandonment. They shared a history. They were very much the same. She knew him as well as he knew himself. No, she knew him better than he knew himself. She proved that last night, when she took him to his dark side. He had never met anyone who knew him as well as she did. She was unique, and she had become special to him.

  Ryan had just enough time to dress for the dinner at his Uncle Mike’s house. This was an important dinner for Mike. For years, on the Sunday after Christmas, Mike’s wife had hosted a dinner in their house for the parish’s priests and nuns who were not able to go home for the holidays. After his wife had passed away, Mike continued their tradition. This was the dinner that they were having tonight.

  When Ryan arrived at Mike’s house, Mike was entertaining Pete Mueller and Annie. Pete was stoking a log in the fireplace while Annie and Mike were laughing over a story. The room — like Mike’s home — was very cozy and comfortable.

  They were wondering what was delaying their guests from the parish, when at last they heard a car on the street. Mike opened the front door to greet his guests.

  First through the door was the Reverend Wilfred B. Hoffman or Father Fred, the pastor of the parish. He was a man in his mid-60s with a smiling face and kind blue eyes behind very thick glasses. He shook Mike’s hand and said, “I am sorry if we are a little late. We had a damned flat tire halfway here.”

  “You had better not let Sister Ben hear you cussin’, Fred. She’ll fine you again.”

  He laughed as he handed Mike his coat and brushed his hand across his thinning brown hair. He smiled and nodded to the others in the room. There were no introductions because they all knew each other from church.

  Behind Father Fred came Sylvester “Ves” Heinz. Fred and Ves had been friends since boyhood, and Ves routinely served as Fred’s chauffer because of the priest’s poor eyesight. Ves was a big man, 6 feet tall and 240 pounds, with muscular arms and a prominent beer belly. Ves was the same age as Fred and wore his gray hair in a crew cut.

  Fred and Ves had followed separate career paths after high school but met again in an Army battalion in Vietnam. Fred was the battalion’s chaplain, and Ves was the s
upply sergeant for the battalion.

  As the chaplain, Fred tried to provide for his soldiers a spiritual place of refuge from the numbing boredom and crippling terror that made up a soldier’s daily life in Vietnam. As the supply sergeant, Ves acquired the physical means to create God’s kingdom on earth for Fred and his soldiers — but his methods were sometimes less than virtuous.

  Fred and Ves continued their friendship after Vietnam. When Fred became the pastor of Saint Philomena’s parish, he hired Ves as the caretaker for both the church and the parish school.

  When Fred wanted to provide a seashore vacation home for both the nuns and the poor families in his parish, Ves started a business to generate the funds for this project.

  In the vestibule of the main entrance to the church, Ves sold newspapers and baked goods after Sunday masses. Ves enticed his suppliers each week to donate their inventory to the stand by assuring them that Father Fred would persuade his parishioners to patronize their businesses over their competitors during the week. And on Sunday Ves coaxed the faithful to buy more than they should by reminding them that their purchases would benefit the church and that their pastor would learn of their generosity. Under Ves’s management, this little stand became a very profitable enterprise for the greater glory of God and for Saint Philomena’s parish.

  When he walked into the room, Ves grinned at Mike. His teeth were clenched on the short, unlit remnant of his cigar. “Hiya, Mike!” he said.

  “It was lucky for Fred and Ben that you were along to change the flat, Ves,” Mike said.

  Ves laughed at Mike. “Oh, I didn’t change the flat. Fred and I wanted to call AAA, but Sister Ben insisted that we could do it before the mechanic would get there in his truck. She changed the tire. I just held the lug nuts for her.”

  Mike looked toward the street to see what had become of the nun. Sister Benigna Consolata Dei – “God’s Kind Comforter” – was hurrying up the steps, taking them three at a time in her habit. When she entered the house, she filled the doorway. She was massive, taller than anyone in the room, and her muscular body made her seem mannish. She smiled broadly when she saw Mike, and her brown eyes sparkled.