The Fifth Favor

“Sex with a stranger. You can’t rationalize it or justify it, but you can enjoy it. And I promise you will.”

“You tell yourself that, and maybe it buys you a modicum of propriety. But the truth is you don’t know me outside of what I want you to know. And still you’re here, and you desire me, and I desire you. Names don’t matter. Pleasure matters. This.”

“Sex with a stranger. You can’t rationalize it or justify it, but you can enjoy it. And I promise you will.”

“You tell yourself that, and maybe it buys you a modicum of propriety. But the truth is you don’t know me outside  of what I want you to know. And still you’re here, and you desire me, and I desire you. Names don’t matter. Pleasure matters. This.”

"(…)As for me, I simply enjoy sex, enjoy giving pleasure, especially when the woman appears to have known so little in her life.” His black gaze dropped to her lips. “The sound of her cry at climax, the astonishment, the shatter of every pretense at that instant of ecstasy…it’s nearly as satisfying to me as the experience of orgasm itself.” He waited, attention unwavering on her face.
 
“Haven’t you ever had a man withhold his orgasm for your own pleasure, Billie? It’s a privilege to me. A test of strength and generosity and self-control. It offers its own kind of pleasure. The pleasure of giving.”
“It sounds supremely difficult,” she said huskily.
 
“A skilled lover is also a skilled listener, Ms. Cort.”
Despite the fact that I pride myself on sensing a woman’s need, the occasion does arise when I have to stop and simply…ask.”

“It’s because you haven’t explored sexual boundaries of any sort, Billie,” he went on, “I’d venture to say you’re virginal in every aspect except the physical. Pleasure could become so familiar to you, so certain and reaffirming, if you felt safe and loved and sure about what you were doing. But you don’t feel safe when you’re giving yourself to a man, do you? It terrifies you.”
 
“I want to show you what I do.” He slid a hand along the back of the sofa and inched toward her. “I want you to know why women pay for me.” Billie recovered just in time to flatten a palm against his chest. "Adrian, no."
He paused. "I'm sorry--no?"
"Right. That's what I said." She swallowed and felt like a child bypassing a jar labeled Free Candy.
(…)
“Our track record is beginning to worry me.”
The dry comment brought a reluctant smile to her lips. “You don’t hear ‘no’ very often, do you?”
“I can’t remember the last time.”

“I won’t have sex with you.”
“It’s not required.” A somnolent mask dropped over his features as he caught the top button of her blouse between two fingers and unfastened it. “I can touch you right here on this sofa, in a million different ways. Taste you. Take you to heaven and back again. I’m offering you the ultimate research for your article, Billie. You can say you don’t want what I have to give, but I’ll know you’re lying.”
 
They kissed, long and ravenous and angry. Catching her hand, he folded  it against his chest, where his own heart beat a quickened, steady rhythm. Instantly the kiss softened, became languid, a little contrite, laced with lingering desire.
“If you write about us, he said breathlessly, resting his forehead against hers, “you’ll owe me.”
“A favor for a favor?” She kissed him again, her lips clinging to his. No one had ever tasted as good as this man.

“I share the blame. This is what you truly wanted to hear from me, and I admit it. I’m nothing. I have nothing of value to give you. No heart, not an ounce of love in me. It’s all been fucked away.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, leaning her head  back against  the hard brick rather than look at him. “Shut up, Adrian. You’re a liar.”

“What are you doing to me?” he groaned against her lips, his voice feverish and hoarse. “Whatever it is, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop touching me. Don’t ever stop loving me…”
“I can’t stop,” she replied, her words shaken as she clutched his hair and stared up into his eyes. “I don’t know how.”

“What’s your pleasure?” he asked from across the room. She met his eyes and leaned to remove first one pump from her foot, then the other. “You.”

This is a world where the rich and powerful anonymous females have their way in buying their way through their satisfaction.

This is a world where the rich and powerful anonymous females have their way in buying their way through their satisfaction.

"Billie. I want my life back.”
“Then hang up and don’t call me again, because I’m not going to pay you for sex, Adrian. What I offer is a worthless currency in your world.”



The phone disconnected with a muted click. Billie lay there, dry-eyed, receiver clutched to her chest, and forced her illogical grief back to a place of common sense. But it wasn’t until much, much later that it really sank in…the score was finally even. Pleasure for pleasure. Truth for truth. Injury for injury. Equally given, equally received. No debt bound them. No emotion. No trust.



“Walking away from you with a broken heart is easier to handle than selling my soul to make love with you. I’m sorry, Adrian. I might be lonely, and naïve, and all the things you think about me. But I’m also true to myself, and I won’t denigrate my feelings for you. They’re much too precious in a world that offers so little love.”






“You can’t keep me here.”
“No, I can’t.”
“What do you want?”
He stepped impossibly closer, and the warm, familiar scent of his skin, mixed with the lingering smell of liquor, assailed her senses.
“You,” he said starkly. “And not seeing you for the past two weeks has only made you seem like an unreachable fantasy. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I can’t remember what my life was like before you were in it.” His voice dropped, the words dredged up from some deep well of despondency within him. “I can’t remember what my life was like before I became a stranger to everyone and everything that used to feel right, and good, and valuable to me.”

"In another time, another place, he could have loved this woman. He could have deserved her love. But the sentiment was as far removed from his grasp as reality was from Avalon. He'd forfeited it in exchange for life in a gilded cage, and his relationship with Billie was a casualty of that choice, plain and simple."

"Walking away from you with a broken heart is easier to handle than selling my soul to make love with you. I'm sorry, Adrian. I might be lonely, and naïve, and all the things you think about me. But I'm also true to myself, and I won't denigrate my feelings for you. They're much too precious in a world that offers so little love."

fab·u·lous /ˈfabyələs/
Adjective
1. Extraordinary, amazingly good; wonderful.

fab·u·lous /ˈfabyələs/
Adjective
1. Extraordinary, amazingly good; wonderful.