4. An Endless Cycle
Chapter 4
An Endless Cycle
Cole
“Yes, yes, yes, mi amor!”
I glance down at the writhing woman underneath me. Head thrown back, full lips still stained red from the lipstick she’d had on them for most of the night open as she moans in ecstasy.
“Ohhhhhh! Yes, Papi, right there,” she moans, clawing at my back as she tries to pull me even deeper into her. It’s probably for the best that her eyes are closed. No woman would want to see an expression as uninterested as the one on my face right now, while I’m thrusting inside of her.
When I first got with her, it was exciting. I was on a high from the thrill of the chase, drawn in by her beautiful features and model perfect body. But now, barely a month later, I’m starting to lose interest.
It’s a routine that I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. Women are a temporary accessory in my life. They come and they go. Too many faces to count. Some I could walk past in a crowded room and not even remember ever meeting.
They’re all the same to me, and they all want the same thing. Fortunately for me, I happen to have what they want. Money. So, I take from them, just as they do from me.
It’s a convenient exchange that is meant to be purely transactional, but it never fails that somewhere down the line, they always decide that they want something more.
They try to convince me of the sincerity of their “love,” but I’ve heard every single lie that they could ever come up with, even the most creative ones.
“Oh, Papi, you’re soooo big!” She continues to writhe under me, clutching me even tighter. My thrusts get faster now, desperate to bring this session to an end.
“I’m so close,” she murmurs under her breath, pulling my head down for a kiss.
I oblige her, knowing it’s probably the last time she’ll ever get to kiss me again.
She squeals as her orgasm starts to tear through her body, speaking feverishly in Spanish as she grinds against me, wrapping her legs around my hips as she pulls me deep.
Once she’s ridden out her orgasm, I pull out of her, rolling onto my back. I don’t even care that I didn’t get to come. I pull off the condom and throw it in the wastebasket by the bed.
As soon as I turn back around, she instantly curls up against me, snuggling into my chest.
“That was amazing, baby,” she yawns, rubbing up and down my chest softly. Her nails scratch my skin as she does so, and I resist the urge to hold her hand in place.
“I love you, Papi,” she says.
I freeze, my entire body seizing up at those words.
Shit. Now I really have to end things with her.
I stare down at the glossy head of bleached golden blonde hair resting on my chest. I can’t see her face, but judging from the way her own body tenses, I can tell that she’s waiting with bated breath for me to say it back too.
I blame myself for not seeing this coming. We’ve been doing this for a little over a month now. This seems to be the usual timeline. Of course, she would expect me to say that I loved her too.
But I can’t, because I don’t.
“Katrina…” I start, dragging a hand across my tired eyes.
“What? Huh? What is it, Cole?” she says stiffly, instantly pulling away from my body and sitting up.
I sigh, knowing what’s coming next. If it weren’t for the pleasures they gave me, I would avoid women completely. Moments like this always make me wonder if even this pleasure is worth dealing with the stress that comes with keeping them in your life. There never seems to be a real benefit.
“Katrina, why are you doing this? You know what my response is going to be,” I say, sitting up too.
The sheets pool around her waist, leaving her full, honey hued breasts with their rosy-brown nipples completely exposed to my gaze. Once again, I’m reminded of why I had to have her from the second I laid eyes on her a month ago.
She has a body that looks like it was sculpted by the gods. One that had even a man like me hooked. For a while.
I’d been invited by a business associate to the launch of his summer fashion collection. She was the new hot Spanish model walking his runway. He’d had her dressed in a dramatic two-piece swimsuit that left nothing to the imagination.
I knew I had to have her the second her eyes met mine while she walked down that runway. But it was purely lust. It would never be anything else, and that’s what she forgot.
“I’m not a man who falls in love, Katrina. You know this about me. I told you right from the moment we met. I wanted you in my bed, but that would be all I’d ever be able to offer you. You knew that when you came to me,” I say sternly.
Her eyes start to tear, as have the eyes of every other woman I’ve been in this situation with over the years. Somehow, they always convince themselves that they can change me, and when they don’t, they try to manipulate me with their tears.
Just like Lydia did all those years ago.
I was the one who’d been cheated on. I was the one who’d been lied to and deceived for months. I was the one who was about to raise a child who wasn’t mine, just because the woman I loved was a greedy whore who gave it up for money.
I was the one who had everything stolen from me, yet she was the one crying.
Lydia was a lesson. A painful one, but a lesson nonetheless. After her, I finally came to understand how women worked. She was the code to deciphering all of them.
I’d been so blind and stupid, believing that love was what they wanted, when really, all they wanted was money.
Those backstabbing creatures would do anything for it.
Once I came to understand this, life got simpler for me. Never again would I try to make a woman mine. She’d only be mine for as long as I was inside her.
“What is wrong with you, Cole? Why are you so fucked up in the head? Huh?” Katrina yells, proceeding to cuss me out in Spanish.
“So much for love,” I mutter underneath my breath, dragging myself out of the bed.
It’s obvious that neither of us is going to get any sleep now. I might as well head back to the office. There’s too much to do for me to be here arguing with a woman.
I can see her eyes greedily rake over my body. I know the effect my 6’3”, muscular physique has on them. Even though I’ve lost all interest in sex, my erection is still jutting out large and hard.
She licks her lips. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry for raising my voice at you, mi amor,” she begs frantically now. “I really do love you, mi amor. Please let me—”
I pick up my pants that had previously been discarded on the floor.
“You don’t love me, Katrina. You love the idea of me,” I explain while I button my shirt. “You love having a rich, powerful man at your disposal. A man that commands respect. One who can give you everything you want, and more. You can hang off his arm at events and feel superior to all the other women in the room. What’s to say that when someone richer and more powerful comes along, you won’t spread your legs for them the first chance you get? I mean, you did it for me the first night we met.” I shrug, unable to wipe the smirk off my lips at the dark expression on her face. “I mean, we’re both adults here. Would you really have wanted me, if I was just one of the servers at the fashion show?” I ask.
She glares at me, anger turning her face red. Her mouth opens and closes several times, but no words come out of it.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought, Katrina.”
Her eyes throw daggers at me as I make my way to the door, but she’s completely quiet, processing everything quietly. Deep down, she knows as well as I do that this is the last time she’ll ever get me in bed again.
“You know you’re an asshole, right?” she says calmly.
“This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called one,” I say quietly, my mind going back to the first time a woman called me that eight years ago.
Over the years, it’s a term I’ve gotten used to being called by the scores of scorned women who were upset when I ended things with them.
But the first woman who actually deserved to call me that because of the way I treated her, was Lila Smith.
My breath slows down again at the thought of her. I’m taken back to the way those stunning eyes had filled up with tears at the sharp, condescending words that I couldn’t stop spewing from my mouth.
I should have told her I was sorry, and that she’d done a really great job planning my best friend’s wedding. I could tell that an incredible amount of thought had gone into every detail.
I was hurting so much. It felt like my life was at a breaking point, and I was filled with so much pain and anger with no outlet to let it out.
I was so bitter that any woman within a ten-mile radius of me repulsed me. But her—her hurt had somehow managed to pierce through my ice-cold heart, even after I’d convinced myself that no woman ever would again.
I tore her down with my words and reduced her hard work to nothing in seconds, and I had an audience while I did it. When she called me an asshole, I knew I deserved it. I had been one to her, and it was the first time I’d treated any woman like that.
That was the point I realized just how much damage Lydia had done to me.
I really need to apologize to Lila. I've been on the brink of it a few times over the years, but her frosty glares, and the way she’d do a disappearing act whenever I was around made it crystal clear she wanted nothing to do with me. I’ve even tried to get Greg and Sue to help, but she’s forbidden them from ever bringing my name up. Still, for some reason it’s been weighing more on my mind lately. I mean, better late than never, right?
“You’re such a fucking douchebag. I don’t know what I ever saw in you,” Katrina rages, her glares sharp enough to cut through ice.
I force myself to focus on Katrina.
“Right,” I nod finally glancing at her. She’s standing there naked, arms folded across her beautiful breasts. “I’ll have my driver wait for you downstairs. He’ll take you wherever you want when you’re ready. Goodbye, Katrina.”
Before she can get another word out, I slip out the door, heading for the car I have parked in the garage. This is one of my many luxury penthouses that we’re in. I recently purchased a gorgeous home, but there’s no way that I would ever bring her there. I don’t even know what came over me to buy it to begin with, but Greg convinced me that I would fall in love with it if I ever saw it, and he was right. The moment I saw it, I knew I needed to have it.
I sigh. I must be getting sentimental in my old age. I am turning forty-two this year.
A glance at my Rolex tells me that it’s just a little after 7:00 P.M. I already know that I’m not going to get much sleep tonight, and going home to that big, empty house doesn’t sound appealing right now. I’ll just head to the office and finish up a few things.
I sit inside the car, the plush leather seats of my Mercedes cushioning my tired body. I sigh again, my mind drifting to what just happened upstairs. It never seems to get easier, no matter how many times I do it.
A small smile reluctantly pulls at my lips as I stare at the steering wheel in front of me, seeing but not really seeing it.
Once upon a time, I would’ve been beyond myself with happiness, if a woman like Katrina had told me she loved me. Hell, once upon a time, a woman like her would’ve been completely out of my league.
The me who worked a 9-5 data collecting job at an advertising firm eight years ago could’ve only ever dreamed of even meeting a woman like her.
Eight years later, I’ve not only met a woman like her. I’ve also slept with her and ended things with her and countless other women just like her.
In a way, what happened to me eight years ago was both the worst and best thing that could’ve ever happened to me. It forced me to change my life and become the man who took, rather than the one who was taken from.
Lydia had cheated on me with a richer man, so I decided I would become the richer man, and never let any woman close enough to hurt me like that again.
Goal achieved.
I ended up taking my entire six weeks of sabbatical and went on a backpacking trip to Southeast Asia. Eventually I returned to Seattle after Greg’s wedding, but I was not the same man who had left. I knew I needed to make a drastic change. I reached out to an old client and mentor, and with his encouragement I started to work on my brand and business. He’d always mentioned that I was the only reason that he did business with my employer, and that without me the entire company would fail. He was right.
He followed me, along with every other one of my clients. Within a few years, I’d become the go-to advertising firm for some of the most successful household name companies, including a few Fortune 500 ones.
Today, I own a string of companies across multiple industries with a net worth in the billions.
I was finally ready to get out of Seattle for good. If I were to be completely honest, the city had lost its shine for me a long time ago.
Greg was the closest thing I had to family—him, and Sue. I had to travel to Boston every couple of months for business anyway, so it just made sense.
A year ago I decided to move my headquarters over to Boston. Two months ago, I followed. I find myself thinking more and more about Lila since moving here. She’s the reason that I can’t seem to find fulfillment anymore in the beautiful body of Katrina.
Now there’ll be many more opportunities to see—. I stop myself from going down that path.
Over the years, I’ve found myself wanting to talk to her, apologize for what happened before, but her frosty demeanor made it clear she still wanted nothing to do with me. I’ve even tried to get Greg and Sue to help me break the ice, but she’s made it clear to them they were not allowed to ever bring up my name to her. I can’t say I blame her.
To be honest, I’m glad she never found out. What man wants the world to know that he’d been cuckolded?
My shoulders stiffen at the thought. I should actually send Lydia a thank you card. I’m living the life I could’ve only ever dreamed of eight years ago, and none of it would’ve been possible, if it weren’t for what she did to me. She ended up marrying her boss, but karma’s a bitch, and two years later they were divorced because she found out he was sleeping with a few other women at the office too.
Unfortunately for her he also had a gambling problem and had to file for bankruptcy. Last I heard she took her son and moved back home to be with her family in Alabama.
I chuckle, the sound bouncing off the surfaces of the empty car.
Yes. Karma’s a bitch.
Once upon a time, I believed in love.
But now I know better.