Chapter 11: Escapes and Heartbreaks

"Hurry," whispered Bess as soon as I picked up the phone.

"What's going on?" I asked. Her voice could barely be heard.

"He knows about us. He demanded I stop loving you. I laughed in his face. Come quick. I don't know what he'll do or I'll do. I'm barricaded in, but ... I gotta go. Hurry."

I arrived too late. An ambulance sat on the round driveway. "Fucking bitch," muttered the King laid out on a gurney--his left chest wrapped in gauze and bandages--an ambulance attendant pressing there. He glanced at me before being lifted into the back. "It's your fucking fault you fucking slimy fucking Jew!"

"What happened?" I asked the gay limo driver/bodyguard. He looked defeated and breathed heavily.

"I lost her. She ran off," he said.

"Back up," I requested.

"I just caught the end of it, but I guess I knew what the problem was. We had you followed."

"So him going off alone on a business trip for the first time since they got married was a ruse?" I realized.

Travelling with him on business trips and slipping out and into my room in the middle of the night or during parties like at the reception in her room or on top of coats or sneaking into an empty office on another floor of King's headquarters, we snuck fucks whenever we could. The way a serial criminal tends to became more frequently villainous, our trysts gradually occurred with less time in between. A year attached to the King as if leashed, Bess needed to breathe, and she seemed to breathe best in my arms or under my tongue or glowing after rapture.

Though we seemed to be getting away with it, his presence could never be ignored. However, after a year of apparently devoting herself singly to the King, the first weekend in June, a couple weeks before their first anniversary, he went off on his own on a trip--an unusual gesture of trust.

"You could say that," said the gay driver. "He confronted her. He slapped her. He jumped on her and tore her dress."

"You saw that?" I asked.

"When things got loud I investigated. They made noise when they fucked but the difference ... I figured I needed to protect ... someone."

"Your boss," I filled in.

He slowly nodded. "I really like Beth though, but ... Anyway I saw her coming out of his room with her dress nearly torn off and her cheek red. 'He raped me, ' she said. I froze. 'Fuck you, ' she yelled and dashed to her room. He soon followed. He pounded on the door. 'You're going to give this up for a... '"

"I know what he thinks of me," I said.

"Yeah, so he's screaming and then pleading and then demanding. Finally he tells me to break down the door. I had keys and searched for the appropriate one. 'Break it down, goddamnit!' he yells. So I did. As soon as he runs in, she stabs him with a bronze letter opener aiming for his heart. It bounces off and by the time I can grab her, she shoves it into his chest near the shoulder. She ducks my lunge and jumps through the window. It's like jumping three stories jumping from the second storey of her room. I look out and she rolls to her feet. She gives me the finger. Her face looks bloody. She limps. I notice she's got the sable coat on and a large bag around her neck. She starts running gingerly. I ran downstairs figuring I could catch her easily. In the distance she seems to be running like nothing bothered her. By the time I reach the road, I have no clue where she went."

The King's timing seemed perfect. The long weekend he left her alone my son and Melissa graduated. Bess accompanied Devi and me to the ceremony. Bess took all the pictures, keeping out of them.

Afterwards my son's band played a party. We helped set up the quartet, consisting of Benjamin on keyboards--a nice Yamaha electric piano I had bought him the summer before so he could work on music and words with Melissa--in fact the project they worked on they used as an excuse to have Melissa stay through July—a sort of jazz/rock musical based on Devi's difficult life and from which a couple songs were taken as part of the set the band played that night—and Melissa on guitar and singing and another couple—Bruce playing lead guitar and Maureen playing drums and harmonizing with Melissa—Benjamin playing the bass part on his keyboard. "Gobstopped," Benjamin's band reminded me of a jazzier and more poetic and esoteric Steely Dan.

"Wow," I said to Bess when they proceeded into their first song. Too casual to worry about sound check, a young man bounced around from microphone set-up to the small sound board while they ignored him.

"They're really quite good," said Bess.

The 5/4 rhythm had a Brubeck feel. Melissa's voice never held notes long and had a fragile delicacy to her midrange, but she expanded her range up and down impressively and seemed spot on tonally. Without the ferocity of a belter or the smoothness of a crooner, she reminded me of the cool quality of Jon Hendricks combined with the charming innocence of an untrained pop/rock singer.

Wanting to get Devi's feedback, her blissful look told all.

Despite my pleasure and pride, I felt like an ancient stick in the midst of fresh growth of the surrounding teenagers. "We should let the kids have their fun," I said to Bess.

"I feel like parents at a sleepover," Bess agreed. "I never felt older."

"You coming?" I asked Devi. Never losing her beatific smile, she shook her head.

After making sweet, unworried love for a couple hours Bess and I returned to hear the end of their final set and helped tear down the instruments. Melissa, Devi and my son got reacquainted in Devi and my room while Bess and I continued our lovemaking in her room.

After dropping off Melissa, we spent time at the uncomfortable space of my ex's house to be with Sam who enjoyed Bess's and Devi's presence while Lisa looked longingly at Bess, tempted by their history and our threesomes, ("God I miss fucking you," whispered Lisa into Bess's ear. "Tough shit," Bess whispered back, never losing her smile).

As I drove meanderingly along the edge of Maryland and Pennsylvania looking for signs for rental cabins and trying a couple of dusty little roads, Devi and I teased Bess unmercifully. While driving, my hand remained busy between Bess's thighs under her skirt--her panties removed. Devi kissed her and fondled her braless tits. Bess kept busy as well caressing our genitals. The little bit of traffic couldn't see much. We got some honks and gawks from speedy young drivers--probably celebratory graduates passing us on the two lane highway.

Finding a cabin, I rushed through the rental process and parked beside its riverside location. As soon as the lock succumbed to my turn of the key, Devi pushed us inside. She removed what was left of Bess's clothes and straddled her mouth. I rid myself of mine and dove for her honey pot. "Fuck me Joe," she mumbled into Devi's cunt. I understood. On my knees, I held Bess's hips while Devi guided me in. I thrust and entered and drove deep. "Mmm," moaned Bess. The buzz she made on Devi's clit made her agree. Devi manipulated her clit while kissing me hungrily. Seconds later Bess screamed into Devi's pussy and passed out. Slowing my fuck, as soon as I felt Bess revive I pumped at full speed.

"Come here with that," I groaned at Devi masturbating herself. Turning around and sticking her ass high, my mouth went to work sucking and licking. The women kissed and twisted each other's nipples. Holding back, I let them succumb to orgasms before letting go and sending sperm deep into Bess.

Later when night blinded the world, after strolling the edges of the small river we found a brook emptying its waters into it and farther up a waterfall and its pool. Bess stripped naked and dove in. Devi and I joined her. Hugging me, Bess screamed, "Oh my god I need this."

Becoming two nymphs and a satyr, our bodies danced nakedly in the perfect pool. The falls' quiet roar, the delicate and earthy fragrance of unmanipulated nature, skin against skin or against gentle or pouring water tasting of the minerals of natural existence as fresh as life just born, the infinitely subtle glow of moonlight off water and leaves within shifting shadows, all senses bathed in the eternal moments cleansed of the dirt and the noise and the constant nervous tension of life in New York City left us blissfully refreshed and relaxed.

Creating a Bess sandwich, me in the front poking her with my cock and Devi pushing her pubic mound and her perfect tits into her back, Bess sighed. "It's like we're eight again. I wish we never left." I kissed her lips, communicating my love. She returned the sentiment. Then I felt her shiver.

"I guess it's time to leave," said Devi sadly.

The retreating sound of the waterfall seemed to be metaphorical. Innocence retreated and eventually disappeared and the cruel world of man returned.

We fought it off. Making love that night so gently that sleep overcame us without our noticing, we had another day in nature and another night of love before heading home to face the penalty for our too brief bliss.

The King must have hired spies. Looking back, I remember faces attentive and cars behind us even on lonely roads, but having two beautiful women with me and being used to constant traffic, my sense of being watched never kicked in.

Of course we all lost our jobs.

With the King's wealth and web of interests, I figured Bess used her underworld friends. I had friends in the police from my prosecution days and found various baubles and the sable coat given to Bess by the King listed as stolen. In one of our few private moments, Bess informed me she kept a stash of baubles in a bank vault. I had a detective friend check and the box had been emptied and the account ended. Devi and I swung by the forger's place and found someone else there.

The King's vast influence prevented me from being hired by any prestigious law firm. Feeling like a loser and losing my true love again, I became bitter and angry and impossible to live with. Devi left me.

I awoke late and hung over to find a letter from Devi under the pepper grinder in our breakfast nook:

My head remained firmly ensconced in my rectum through much of the summer. Once Devi gave me her new number I decided to get rid of the expensive apartment and moved into an efficiency apartment in the West Village near the Village Vanguard. I slept days and wandered nights often haunting jazz clubs. When drunk but not staggering I tended towards the loquacious. I befriended and bought drinks for a few musicians enjoying their loose intelligence. Through those loquacious moments I escaped the lugubrious.