It Had Been Years Read online

  It Had Been Years

  It Had Been Years

  An Erotic Love Story

  by

  Michael Malflic

  Copyright 2012

  This novel is a work of fiction and solely the creation of the author’s imagination. All places mentioned are used fictitiously any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidence.

  305

  It Had Been Years

  305

  It Had Been Years

  It had been years

  It had been years since he had heard from her, perhaps decades would be a more suitable explanation for the passing of time that had occurred. It’s not that she hadn’t crossed his mind since they last saw each other, it was merely that she was not and never had been part of his everyday world. When he found the note from her in an undisclosed email address he kept, it was almost mistaken for spam along with all the other porno & Viagra ads. Deleted without ever being opened, the fate suffered by most of the unsolicited email, but something in the subject line caught his eye.

  She asked in the subject line are you and inserted a name that he hadn’t been openly known by for almost as long as it had been since they had last seen each other. The email contained a series of words that only someone who was around him many years ago could have quoted back to him so exactly. “It would hurt less if I killed you slowly than if I loved you because everything I have ever loved died inside of me” her recall of his morbid, long forgotten proclamation lingered on. Were his words of a dark and twisted sexuality so engrained in her that she carried them in her mind all these years as he did? He doubted that anyone in the world could ever remember the words he had spoken as another man so long ago. His blood ran cold as to how she found him, not that there was any great evil involved, his mind wondered back to a time long ago as he read on. After a few more verses of his long since abandoned poetry, she inquired if he remembered when she had asked him for a particular favor of sorts. How could he forget? It was the one consistent thing he thought of each and every time he remembered her, it was emblazoned into his memory seemingly as much as his words were to her.

  How strange life could be, that after all these years on a seemingly uneventful night she had once again emerged from the shadows, almost as quickly as he had disappeared into them two decades ago. Her life much different on the surface than it had been then but each of them at a cross roads just as before, feeling there was something more, something that might make it all a little bit bearable. He replied to her with words that he had only ever spoken to her, at a place he hadn’t been to since or before they were there together and that only she could ever know, as to confirm that he was indeed who he had claimed and who she suspected him to be by finishing the part of the conversation she had not, the part that ended “…and my greatest fear is that there is nothing, there is no escape not even death.” He thought to himself how true the words were then and even more so now.

  ****************************

  Her last memory of him was not the last time they had seen each other, but weeks before as he stumbled out of a party. Paul had taken to self medicating, if you will. He was just another dreamer drowning his sorrows in whiskey and drugs. Trying desperately to numb the pain of who he at that time perceived himself to be and the lack of future it held for him. It would not be uncommon to find him in the company of some tawdry catholic school girl at the time, coked up to heaven, and drinking whiskey like someone dying of thirst would do with water. It all seemed so perfect to everyone around him, but he was a very lost and lonely young man. That is what drew her to him, not his personality, his status or his possessions, but what she found intrinsically alluring was his unspoken sadness. As time passed however briefly and quickly she understood that he was not as sad, as he was dark. He was not as lonely as she thought either, he was alone in a world to which she had only peeked into before thinking better of entering into it at any depth.

  The last memory that Paul had of Donna was as he drove away in that shit Camero of Mark’s. She was walking toward her house in the early twilight of a warm September evening in a white tank top and black leather pants, hair blowing in the breeze, and his last smoke dangling in her hand. It was almost a classic Hollywood ending since he knew that it would be unlikely that they would ever see each other again. It was not that any words that had been spoken would lead someone to this thought, but more of a feeling, an impending sense of reality. He could see her lighting up his Marlboro as he took the left toward the highway, riding into the darkness of night as he headed for home.

  But time and the frivolity of youth had passed. He was in function what he had always been, but now with a middle upper class existence and a day job that some perceived as important. He was and would continue to be a family man. He loved his wife and told her so often, he loved his children, and told them so often, but he always wondered what else there might be in the world. He did not wonder these things to the exclusion of his family, but quite the opposite he wondered them to the inclusion of his family. His wife was not as young as she once was, but Paul thought to himself neither was he. Smiling on the inside he’d tell himself that men, like some wine, got better with age, and then laughed out loud as he thought of how wine that was kept too long turn to vinegar, he wondered when he would become vinegar. Life was not grand, it was predictable and he had become the same way. Predictable, in bed by ten up at 5:00 a picture of a planned life and scheduled behavior.

  Donna had no intention of becoming a mother, a wife or any other such a thing. She walked with the people who walked the halls power in DC. She had chosen a life of power and ambition, a long cry from the awkward nights looking for someone who would love her that she had in her youth. She was after all looking for something to make up for her distracted mother and addicted father who could always be found after his shift at the local mill at the bar with the boys and not at home with his daughters and wife. Donna had never been a closet whore, she had been a slut from her early teens on, exchanging her modesty and virtue to meet her need to be loved and cared for with any man who might be willing to do so. Now though she whored her mind and her thoughts pandering them for the finer things in life, as for her sexuality, Virtue was something best left to be handled by French literature and conformist religious idealism. She owned her desires proudly. Every single, sordid, wicked little one of them. Often Donna could be found as a casual interloper at clubs that aren’t discussed in polite company throughout the metro.

  The sun sets on a new day (Paul & Donna)

  She continued to write and he continued to respond. She would tell him about the latest happenings in the political world, the must have drink Du Jour, hot fashions and the good beltway political gossip. Her writing and her topics would be as sporadic and diverse as the life she lived, one minutes hopelessly obsessed with work, the next wasting time waiting to go to some party or event, rubbing elbows with people in power by day and under the cover of night spending time fulfilling some basal needs and occupying her time with a series of friends, familiar lovers, and the occasional random dalliance. Paul would write back sharing ambiguous details of his very average existence, things in his day were far more routine, predictable to a mind numbing fault.

  For a brief time he was jealous of her life. She clubbed and partied like time had never passed. Neither of them smoked any longer, but both still drank. He drank to remember, remember the possibility of what he could have been, of expectations and of a seemingly limitless future and she drank to forget. She drank to forget who she was, not who she had become. Who she was before all of her current pride and privilege. She drank to forget that she was a poor girl in a Midwestern town, that she was (despite her beauty which is a quality that she had alw
ays possessed) was not considered to be the pretty daughter. She drank because that was the only thing that she ever loved that hadn’t used her and then simply left. Her mother asks for money and her father’s drinking is worse, there are nights when the boys drop him off outside and he passes out before getting into the house.

  Just last winter she got a call from her sister Shelly. Shelly was part of her past that she would rather forget, a link to what and who she was. To times that were not memorable in any uplifting way. Donna always was in competition with Shelly. Shelly had kids, what else had she ever done that made a difference other than increase the world’s population.

  “How pretty is the bitch now?” Donna thought to herself. “Five kids and 150 extra pounds later. How can he still love her?” she wondered.

  Shelly was married to a kind and gentle man named Aaron who loved his wife deeply. In truth Shelly and Aaron and their brood of children knew joys that Donna couldn’t ever imagine. They were simple people with a modest life but their house was filled with love and their lives were filled with the simple joys that a close family can bring. Perhaps Shelly had the body of a woman who lived to raise her five kids with little regard to herself. A few extra pounds and sagging breasts, but she was not nearly the goliath that Donna imagined. She tried to forget the bitch and her happy unimportant life as her chocolate martini arrives. Nadrea is babbling on incessantly, self obsessed about the penis size of her last lover, seemingly not stopping to breathe. Sitting among the other beautiful people in high gloss vinyl chairs and booths surrounded the glossy cushions and the dark chestnut walls. Shapes of people carrying large glasses of intoxicating liquid drifted through the dimly lit bar back to the tables where wealthy and powerful men cavorted with their mistresses. Nadrea paused only to drink, order another appletini, and complain briefly about how long it would take to arrive before returning to the inadequacy of her latest love interest.

  Donna and Nadrea’s usual haunt is a Martini and Cigar Lounge on M Street NW, it use to be on K and it was far better on K but the new location was fine…and the crowd was as pretentious as always. It was out of the way of the work crowd that would hang at a lounge on Capital Hill. Too many people knew Donna there and she was about to indulge her dark side, the side that had always been there in the light of day but had never been spoken about. She was a party girl with cash that was soon to be past her prime chronologically but not physically; an aging party girl with old habits die hard.

  “Besides,” she thought to herself “everyone has dirty little secrets and bad habits mine just combine rough sex and married men.”

  Not just any married men but high profile, public figures who at least to some degree have influence and power. A laundry list of businessmen and lobbyist but in the last few months a particular elected official has been a regular companion. She broke her pattern with this one. Robert was actually a decent guy and not involved with anyone else, this would be almost a first for her. She liked men who had to keep their distance and needed to be discreet; men who wanted an interlude for a period, but not a wife and mother. She knew she was the other woman but unlike so many is that position never had any delusions of them leaving their spouses or other lovers for her. She would tell herself that it was simpler that way. That fewer commitments of time made life easier, but in truth it also made certain holidays quiet and lonely rather than hectic and stress filled. One supposes that it is a matter of preference as to whether that is a good thing or not.

  It is not uncommon for such a thing as affairs and trysts to happen in a town built on greed and deceit with a hint of the public well being thrown in just for good measure. Most men in this city or for that matter most men of power have liaisons from time to time at the very least. In just a few hours she would introduce her lover into a world that he may have never even imagined. A world so deeply hidden from most who knew her that she gave him acceptable wardrobe recommendations and told him where to meet her and her companion.

  A few more drinks then Donna and Nadrea found themselves outside on to the street to catch a cab. As they wondered toward the car, Donna stopped to pause and think about Paul. The two slid into the cab and headed for the corner of the nation’s capital where the latest fetish party was being held, Loud music, carnal vices and just about every other guilty pleasure the world had to offer could be found there.

  Nadrea

  She was not the kind of woman you would introduce to your mother. She was not the kind of person who would give a fuck about ever meeting your mother or anyone else for that matter. Nadrea was everything you expect from a fetish sex kitten, nothing different and nothing more. She was the adult version of a trust fund kid, the fully grown spawn of a successful Wall Street investment banker. She was pretty but even when dressed in a somewhat demure manner her look is still exotic and edgy; 5’5” with dark reddish brown hair and a thin but curvaceous build. Life presents so many of us with choices and we must decide who we become. Since money has never been an issue to her, Nadrea has chosen to become the only thing she knew how. Perhaps it was lack of hugs and parental affection, or it could have been the that no one ever treated her as just a little girl, but almost always she was catered to as if she were a princess. She grew up with a magnificent view of Central Park from her bedroom and Fifth Avenue from her family room, and of course she attended only the finest schools. She never took the subway although the station was just a few blocks away. But the family took a driver in a black Mercedes , as a family they did not take the subway or train, not even once. Such things were just not done! Not long after her escape from New York to American University it became obvious that D.C. would become her home.

  D.C. after all would add a measure of safety to her world, large and diverse enough to fulfill her desires, a short hop back to Manhattan if needed and most importantly distant enough from the prying eyes of her advisors, father’s friends, and associates. All of who she was most certain had their own demons that were well hidden from sight. She was not as certain that she could or wanted to hide her lifestyle from plain sight and housekeepers who would inevitably become friends by working across the many different family residences and would undoubtedly discuss her less than modest proclivities. Her brownstone was, of course, in an affluent part of town in a predominately gay neighborhood. She was not gay, perhaps Bi Sexual at times, but she most often preferred the company of men. The home’s three stories stood there in a stately fashion more akin to the past than the present. The interior décor excluding one bedroom and the entire third floor was a traditional Colonial American and English. Many of the portraits had come from a friend who was redoing an apartment on the Upper East Side. Tens of thousands of dollars of art would be wastefully discarded if it were not otherwise passed to her to adorn her walls. These were images of people and places long since gone, from an era long since past. Her tastes certainly didn’t fit her lifestyle, but it was elegant none the less.

  Nadrea’s life had been filled with unrealistic expectations and social pressures, all of which came from being a child of two outwardly successful and high profile people. Her father found Wall Street to be a playground and the fortunes and egos such a place can create are so vast they are beyond the imagination of most ordinary people. His was no exception. Her mother had no soul, a strange characteristic for an educated woman who had dedicated her life to healing others, it’s not that she didn’t love her offspring, but showing a kind and patient love can be an awkward thing for a person so driven, it was best left to those more capable or paid to do so. Nadrea had been a bright girl but lacked the desire to deal with such trivial things as a parent’s reluctant attention. Her friends were few and far between and if anything her best friend growing up was not of the New York elite, but Sam who was the son of their single parent door man, Billy.

  Billy always spoke to her. Perhaps spoke was the wrong word…he talked to her, he listened and kidded. He was as much her friend as anyone. He knew she was a lonely awkward child and he knew beca
use he was much the same at her age. Sam, Billy’s son would be around throughout the days in the summer coming and going without purpose and with a pleasant youthful abandon. Her time spent with Sam was simpler, it was refreshing, it was never about possession but about doing things, going to the park, playing ball. Once on what she considered to be an especially daring day they left the island of Manhattan and crossed into each of the other boroughs by train or by cab. She had never left her part of the city to go to its other parts except for journeys to see her Grandmother on Long Island Sound or on weekends at the family’s summer house in the Hamptons. It felt as if she was seeing strange new worlds with each stop, each new cab ride. She marveled at how busy and a city unto itself Brooklyn Avenue seemed. At last, they found themselves in a small pizza place between a laundry mat and a Chinese owned nail salon on Staten Island. Feasting on thin crust pizza and stealing glances at each other. Sam was wearing jean shorts, Blue & White Nike Running shoes, and a Yankees T-shirt that was large enough to fit his father. She was in her black short shorts from Banana Republic, a Brooks brothers ladies Golf shirt and her favorite Prada Sandals. The pizza was perhaps the best she would ever have and often when the subject of pizza comes up she would remember the day with Sam and how good the pizza tasted. Sam could always get her to be braver than she ever intended and he ordered up Calamari for them to try. The appeal for him was it was something he imagined would connect her world to his. Little did he know that she already felt connected and such a simple thing as food could never bridge the gap between their worlds any more than his friendship already had.