CHAPTER NINE
(Matthew)
It had been a long time since I’d hosted circle jerk night, and if I was going to stay a part of the club, I needed to step up to my obligation.
The only obstacle had been Charlotte. The gatherings were private, to the point that my staff even left before guests arrived.
But Charlotte had cheerfully informed me that it would be okay.
She would be spending the evening with her new friend, Sophie, and meeting some other people around town.
I’d sent Charlotte away with a warning not to get too drunk and to stay aware of her surroundings while she gamboled all over the city, but I wasn’t that worried about her.
Yes, Manhattan was a different beast than any other city on the continent, but she was a fast learner, and she would be with someone who could show her the ropes.
Plus, it was nice to get to an evening with the guys after months of seclusion.
The evening progressed, as the evening always did, with staggered arrivals.
Most of the guys came directly from work, exhausted and in desperate need of an evening caffeine pick-me-up, which the host met with energy drinks and snacks.
When we met at my apartment, my staff laid out a buffet mix of junk food and health food; half of my friends were perpetually training for some physical endurance contest, the other half lived off stuff that had mostly synthesized ingredients.
I did not judge, because he who is without the occasional gut full of Mountain Dew and Doritos cast the first stone.
Snacks and focused socializing happened in our formal living room.
The casual, group masturbation happened in the media room, where there were plenty of couches and chairs, lubes and tissues, and optional condoms for the guys self-conscious about mess.
Not that anyone was very self-conscious; the dress code ranged from open flies to total strip-down.
Crisp surround sound carried the moans and wet slapping noises of the porn on the 115” plasma tv.
Sometimes, I didn’t jerk off at all while I was hosting.
There was a pressure on me to be available to my guests that came from years of proper manners and hospitality.
When my mother had trained Catherine and I in all those genteel society ways, I was one hundred percent sure that she’d never intended for me to apply my knowledge to a room full of heavy-breathing, lightly perspiring bros with their dicks in their hands.
Still, it was hard to shake the deeply rooted urge to be present for everyone.
Alex came out of the media room and grabbed some hand sanitizer, rubbing it in as he approached me.
“Record time this week, man,” he said with a bashful laugh. “I needed that. Something about your apartment is super relaxing.”
“The altitude,” I answered automatically. “The oxygen is thinner up here.”
“Then why do I have such trouble staying hard in Denver?”
We laughed, but his died away faster than mine. He gave me a long, serious look. “Everything okay? I know I just saw you, but those were different circumstances. Now that you’re back, how are you holding up?”
“With this.” I leaned my hip against the snack table and popped my cane up, waving it in front of me.
“That’s not what I meant.” At Ascend Red, Alex was all about play. But in our friendship beyond the resort’s shores, he worried about me like I was a little brother. Which was weird, considering he was ten years younger than me.
“Things are going great. There was a hiccup with Charlotte when we got back, but she’s here now.” I clarified, “Living here, I mean. She’s not in the apartment right now. She’s out running around with Neil Elwood’s wife.”
“I see that girl all over Page Six ,” Alex warned. “Be careful or Charlotte’s gonna end up on there with her.”
“I’m surprised the Elwoods don’t have a reality show yet,” I said, and felt like that might be a cheap shot.
“That Sophie does look like Kim,” he mused. “So, you’ve got a live-in girlfriend. You’re settling down with her. I knew that would happen when I met her.”
“She’s perfect for me.” I could state that confidently now that she wasn’t going to run away.
“I’m glad you’re happy.” Alex hesitated, then said, “Nah, I’m not gonna say it.”
I hated when people did that. “You might as well, now that I know there’s something to say.”
Alex sighed and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, clearly resolved but prepping for what he wanted to say.
“Look, I know we’ve only been friends for like three years.
So, maybe I don’t know you like this. But I did see what your previous relationship was like and. .. I think you should be careful.”
I bristled. “What, do you think Charlotte is a gold digger or something?”
“I think everyone is, at heart, a gold digger,” he said firmly. “But it’s not her you should be careful of. You move through...phases of fascination—”
“That would be a good album title,” I interjected.
“Not really.” He continued with his original point. “From what I saw on the island, you two are super compatible. But that’s on the island. That’s all sex. Now, you’re back in your old life after how long?”
I tried to mentally add it up. “Six months?”
“You’re still learning how to walk, you’ve got a lot of new challenges, and then you’re adding a brand-new relationship into the mix. On hyper speed. She’s already living with you.”
“That’s because I couldn’t stand to be away from her.” Okay, not the healthy answer I was going for. “That sounds worse than it is.”
“But it’s not one of those Florence Nightengale syndrome things where you’re falling for her because she stood by you through your injury?” he asked warily.
I shook my head. “No. In fact, Charlotte was most helpful through my recovery because she didn’t take an interest in making me better.
She asked about my injuries and kept in touch with me, but when everything in my life was completely focused on my leg and trying not to get another blood clot and die, she was this other part.
Set aside from all the hospital shit and the dressing changes and the pain.
She gave me something else to focus on.”
“I can see how she would command a man’s focus.” The set of Alex’s shoulders relaxed. “None of this was my business. But I care about you. I don’t want to see you go low the way you did after the Jason thing.”
“This is nothing like Jason.” I briefly considered how desperate and weird it might make me sound to tell the story, but I decided to, anyway. “She left. After the island, she was supposed to come back here with me. But I said the wrong thing, and she bolted. You know what made her come back?”
Alex waited for my answer.
“Scott came to me and said it would cost me all of my money to have a second chance with his sister. And I wrote him a check for thirty billion without hesitation.” I still wondered what would have happened if he’d decided to cash it.
I wouldn’t have put it past Scott to do so as a joke. “When she saw that, she came back.”
“Well, that’s certainly more impressive than an engagement ring.” Alex snagged a bottle of mineral water and twisted the cap off.
“Whoa, whoa. I don’t think we’re quite at engagement ring yet.” I chuckled nervously.
“Aren’t you? You were willing to give up thirty billion to be with her, but you don’t think you can make a marital commitment?” Alex held my gaze as he took a long drink of his water.
“It’s... complicated.” The thirty billion had been an impressive romantic gesture, but a ring felt different.
“Because you’ve been engaged so often?” Alex asked, throat tight from the carbonation.
“There’s that, and she has a lot of stuff to work through.
Not stuff that’s mine to tell, but she needs therapy.
If I tried to propose to her right now, I have no doubt that she would run again.
” Even though her dragon had instructed her not to.
The lure of escape from her own personal shackles would be too strong.
“Right now, I’m perfectly happy living together. And working together.”
That got a huge, kind of mean laugh from Alex. “You gave her a job?”
“What?” I tried not to get offended at how funny he found it. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.” He swiped one big hand through the air, as if totally brushing the remark aside.
But I wouldn’t let it go. “You’re going to laugh yourself right out of a membership to Ascend Manhattan.”
That sobered him quickly. “Wait, what? You’re making a resort here?”
“Not a resort. A kink club. It was Charlotte’s idea. That’s why I hired her to consult on it.”
“And for no other reason.”
I ignored him. “It turns out, there aren’t any laws specifically forbidding the operation of a kink club in New York.
All of the clubs operating in secrecy aren’t doing it to stay on the right side of the law.
It’s for privacy concerns. Ascend Manhattan will be the same way.
Invited guests only, in a hotel with a hot restaurant that will provide a believable cover if someone is spotted coming or going. ”
“Nice pun,” Alex said.
“Unintentional.”
“Your girl came up with the idea, and it never occurred to you?” Alex scoffed. “Major missed opportunity. You’re lucky you inherited that company.”
I could handle the teasing, because I knew I’d gotten everything I had by luck of birth. “That’s why I need Charlotte. Fresh eyes.”
“I’m sorry to be a downer about it. I do like her. And you two seemed happy on the island.” He held out his hand for a shake. “No hard feelings?”
“Never.”
“Bros, gross,” a voice said, I looked past Alex to see Mike, an old college acquaintance and perpetual prep, gesturing at Alex’s and my hands. “You know what we were just doing in there?”
Alex turned and smacked Mike’s hand as Mike reached for the chips. “Yeah, we do, so get some sanitizer on those paws before you go rooting around in the communal food.”