Devil In The Waters, Book 3 (so far . . .) (Patreon)

Alright, so this last scene brings us to Book 3's midpoint. I know, I know . . . would they just do it already. Hang in there, hold the sides of the cart 'cause it's going to get shaky as we hurtle now to the third book's end point.

So, as I get through the book, there needs to be some re-structuring and organizing, so I'm going to post the book so far here with the new chapter organizations.

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CHAPTER 1

All morning he’d been in a bad mood he couldn’t shake.

Quarter to eleven now and he was on break finally, coming out of the cafeteria line at Swanson with a coffee and a croissant, looking to find Steve who’d got out into the seating area ahead of him.

The thing between him and Kimmy right now wasn’t what you would call a fight. That’s because he wasn’t putting up any obstacles to his wife working for Devlin. It was like he was afraid of a fight, or at least actively avoiding one. If he were to express what he wanted he was afraid Kimmy would reject his objection. Deep down the truth was simple. He did not want Kimmy to work for Devlin. Simple. He could say to his wife: “Kimmy, it’s a bad idea.” And where would that leave him? She would ask why it’s a bad idea and he would express his doubts at . . . at what? The state of their marriage? What would he say to her? I’m afraid you’ll cheat on me . . . If you haven’t already. And Kimmy (who hadn’t cheated on him, nor would she) would be offended. Or worse: Mad. And wouldn’t she have that right?

He tried to picture it like he had a new and attractive female co-worker with a loose and over-sexed reputation and this imaginary girl was all over him, and Kimmy objected to his proximity to her. Would that make him mad? . . . Hard to say. Proud maybe. Like riled that she valued him so much to worry. But what if she flat out forbade it? He could see scenarios where she became unreasonable that might make him angry. He could see it, could hear himself saying “So, what?—you want me to give up the chance at all this money because you don’t trust me? . . .” If he could picture himself mad then he could understand how he might sound irrational to Kimmy if he expressed how he didn’t want her to work for Devlin Stone.

Steve sat at their usual table by the window, and Josh worked his way between the seating to get there.

Here’s the thing: the texts from Devlin had been deleted from his phone. The contact deleted as well. So now he couldn’t even go back over them to remind himself how real the taunting had been. And the more time passed after Tiffany’s post-reunion cottage party the more unreal that interaction with Devlin in the tent seemed. Would a grown man come into his tent and show off his penis? It didn’t even sound right.

He’d had so much to drink at Tiffany’s party that even in the light of the following day, surmising the veracity of his dreamy memory had been tainted by alcohol. How trustworthy was his interpretation of that dream? Since the party there’d been no contact with Devlin. Not for sure at least. No direct taunts, nothing. And in retrospect, he couldn’t even remember talking to the guy. Dream Devlin’d said they talked at the picnic table. Had they? And if dream Devlin was only a dream, had he ever talked to the guy at all? Could parts of this be fabrication—his fearful mind filling in drunken memory gaps with horrible little gems of hurt? . . . Another particularly shiny red gem: When he couldn’t get erect, all he’d had to do was think of Devlin’s big hard bulge dry-humping Kimmy and his own penis went off like a rocket. How much of this was all in his head?

It helped to analyze his situation by taking the pile of components and arranging them into two boxes. True and Unsure. Devlin in the tent was unsure. Devlin’s taunting texts were unsure. Close to True but proof would remain in Devlin’s mouth. It would go into the True box when he heard directly from Devlin: “Yes, Josh, I sent you those texts.” And if Devlin didn’t send them? Who knows—maybe Amy. . . . It was something to consider. In the True box was that Devlin had held down his wife and tried to kiss her. Kimmy’d said Devlin was hard.

And that there was the real sticking point. That was the only leverage he could use against Kimmy to question why she’d decide to go work as a lawyer in-house at Devlin’s import-export business. But the more-than-valid point had already been countered by a whopping dollar sign. Yeah, the guy tried to hump me, Josh, but he offered me a great-paying job.

The fact that Kimmy’d never said “You know you can trust me,” could go either way. “I don’t even have to say it,” is what that could mean (which was where his head was at), but sometimes at night he’d wonder if maybe his wife knew not to make promises she couldn’t keep. Like Kimmy wouldn’t say “Trust me,” because even she was afraid she couldn’t honor that.

His tray of food went down hard on the cafeteria table making Steve jump. “Jesus, take it easy.” Steve scowled, thumb and finger still in his mouth where he’d just tucked in the heel of his tuna bagel.

Josh apologized, dropped his weight down on the chair and scooted nearer the table. Steve eyed him.

“You guys aren’t fighting, are you?”

“Me and Kimmy? No, we’re not fighting,” he said. The thing between them wasn’t a fight . . . but it could be called a disturbance. “We’re not fighting at all.” But maybe they should. Maybe he should have a sit-down head-to-head and lay it all on the table. I don’t like Devlin at all, not one bit, and you know it, and while I trust you . . . I don’t trust him. Shit, when he put it that way it didn’t sound so bad at all. Little late now though isn’t it, Josh? I mean, she’s already working for him.

Steve said, “And it’s Monday. Today’s Kimmy’s big day.”

“It is,” Josh said, fists on either side of his tray, the curve of his croissant like a smug smile on a plate.

***

Tami was in her mid-twenties, an effusive and endearing girl with Indian parents. And her new secretary. Tami was currently appearing busy but side-glancing into the office to see what Kimmy was up to. She was being assessed.

Her new office faced south on the tenth floor of the P&G Building, Yonge and Sheppard, North Toronto. A furnished but otherwise empty space, about ten-by-fifteen, that she was currently setting up with artwork bought using an allowance from Devlin. Or at least deciding where it should go. She asked for Tami’s help.

Sunlight streamed through the window wall, falling across the space where another picture had once hung, the gray-painted wall sun-faded but for a darker square. Tami bustled, glad to be of help and not hanging around out front spying, taking up the end of a framed print depicting a traditional Chinese painted landscape, a pine branch and two stylized long-necked cranes in the foreground.

They both regarded the square of darker paint and Kimmy said, “What was up here before?”

“A landscape, like, a Group Of Seven, I think.”

Kimmy said, “Who had the office before me?”

“Mel. Mel Wilson. The guy who you replaced.”

Replaced? She’d thought she was added on. Did Devlin remove a lawyer to make room for her?

“I think your picture’s going to cover the square,” Tami said hopefully as the two women hoisted it up in place, getting the braided cable to hug the hook already in the wall.

“Let’s hope so,” Kimmy said, both of them now carefully removing their hands, seeing if the big picture would stay up. It did.

They stepped back to admire, gauge levelness, both of them with hands on hips. Tami wore a dark suit jacket and skirt with a satiny wine-colored blouse. Kimmy’s suit was also black, hers with pants that came to a high waist, pointed toes of her shoes under the hem like two patent leather daggers. It was a treat she’d purchased for herself in congratulations for her new job. She had suits she wore at Immigration, but this one was far nicer. It felt nicer, it looked nicer. She loved how it fit. The shaggy cut of her hair was pulled back, all business, the dullness chased away with gleaming product, bangs tidied and combed, the remaining length collected in a tight and neat bun. No makeup except for a line of black around her eyes and a shimmering lipstick in a color not unlike the natural dusky rose of her own lips.

“It’s beautiful,” Tami said. “Where did you get it?”

“Pacific Mall. My dad picked it out.”

“Aw, that’s nice,” Tami said. “He live in Markham?”

“He does now. We grew up in Kingston.”

Tami nodded, her lips pursed but wriggling; a question forming there but her mind weighing whether or not it might be appropriate. “I . . . heard you knew Mr. Stone Junior from before.”

“Yes. We’re both from the suburbs outside Kingston. We went to school together.”

“U of T?”

“No,” Kimmy laughed. “High school.”

“Oh, really?” Tami laughed honestly and touched a hand to her chest.

“We go way back,” Kimmy said. Then out of the blue: “My husband, too. We both went to high school with Devlin. Mr. Stone, I mean. Junior.” She held up her left hand, waggled her fingers to show off her wedding ring. Like she had to prove it. Or was defensive.

It only made sense. It took two seconds to figure out this conclave would be a den of whispered gossip. Even the way Tami had presented the query: I heard that . . . It would be best to establish a professional veneer right from the get go and not let visible chumminess with Devlin prompt all sorts of office gossip and rumors.

The administration, legal, management, and accounting offices of Stone Custom Brokerage LLC took up an eighth of the tenth floor of the P&G. There was an office in Kingston (it had been the only office up till ten years ago, now it was a satellite) a shipping warehouse in Kington and another one in Toronto, down on the docks in the east end. Here at the P&G there were four secretaries, all young women in their twenties; two middle-aged guys in accounting, Joseph and Ronald; two managers who she hadn’t met yet; three middle aged women, Anna, Veronica, and Gail, who all performed HR duties and similar, Veronica and Gail were Chinese but weren’t lawyers. A lot of possible vectors for the spreading of rumors involving the new woman who was already familiar with their handsome alpha male boss. There was sure to already be a vast anthology of rumors, anecdotes, and salacious stories surrounding Devlin Stone around Stone Custom Brokerage. It would take effort to be distant from them.

It would be easy to get embroiled in gossip. Either as the subject or source. Tami would find value in her new boss through suggested inter-office scandal or by digging the mine of Devlin’s past to entertain her cohorts. A professional barrier needed to be erected if she wanted to ensure that her relationship with her boss wasn’t fodder.

Tami was already on a roll. “Your husband, is he one of Devlin’s buddies?”

“No, it’s not like that. We all just grew up in the same neighborhood.” Closed off the conversation, then turned, headed to her desk. “Dial my father for me, will you—his number’s in the list of contacts I gave you.”

With a “Yes, Mrs. Chang,” Tami returned to her desk out front, situated between Kimmy’s office and the accountants’. By the time Kimmy’d sat down in her leather office chair, her phone was lit with an active line.

“Hey, Pop,” she said into the receiver.

“Ah, my Kimmy, how are you? Big day today.”

“You know it. Hey, I got your picture hung on my wall and it’s perfect.”

“I hope you like it.”

She said she did, then filled him in on how it’d been going. Told him about the three days of training she’d attended in Kingston, getting to know how Devlin’s brokerage worked, and the three-day conference she went to on her own dime, freshening up her corporate law knowledge.

“And how’s Josh? He good?”

“He sure is, Pop,” she told him. Though to say there wasn’t disgruntlement would be a lie. Josh currently boogie-boarded on a wave of resentment, arms out, struggling for balance, not saying a word to her about how much he didn’t like her taking the job. But her husband was smart as well as sweet. He knew what it could mean for their future. And taking the job wasn’t just for her and what she needed. It was for him too. She’d vowed to make that known to him.

“Come and have dinner,” her dad said, “you and Josh, before the summer’s over . . .”

“Sure thing, Pop. When do you want to . . .”

Coming in from the elevators, Devlin appeared in the lobby, Tami jumping up now to greet him. Dark suit, white shirt, indigo tie, he had his sunglasses up in his hairline, and held at his chest was a bouquet of flowers in a silvery foil wrap. Shoot.

“Hey, Pop? . . . My boss is coming, can I call you later?”

Her dad was apologizing even though it was she who’d called him, and she was apologizing too, then they whispered quiet good-byes. Out in the lobby Devlin engaged Tami, their body language making her think they were talking about her.

Phone hung up now, she rose, nodded and waved to Devlin, putting her hands in her pockets, coming around the desk as Tami ushered Devlin into her office. She closed the door behind her, leaving them alone but completely visible behind the floor to ceiling glass barrier.

“What’s this?” she said, good natured but perturbed, nodding her chin at the flowers he held.

“Welcome to Stone Brokerage, Mrs. Chang.” He smiled to one side, light picking up the color in his eyes, looking devilish.

She said, “I still can’t believe you convinced me to put my maiden name on my card.”

“It’s for the best and you know it,” he said, bypassing her now, moving to the side table under her newly hung picture and setting down the flowers then beginning to arrange them.

“Thanks for the flowers, but, really . . .?”

Still arranging, he said, “What’s wrong with flowers?”

“I don’t know . . .” What was wrong?—she couldn’t tell. It seemed . . . intimate. Something a man gave a woman who he had an interest in. “It seems . . .”

Devlin crossed his arms, eyed her, enjoying himself, the smile giving that away. “Worried about the hen house?” he cocked his head out toward Tami who looked like she was busy but could also be keeping them in her periphery.

“You don’t worry about that?”

“Nothing I can do to do to stop them from obsessing where I put my cock.”

She scoffed, chuckled, rubbed the back of her neck. “You can be glib. Don’t hold back.”

He laughed and she didn’t like them looking too chummy; it was like they were on a stage or in a TV set the way they were on display for an audience.

Devlin said, “Let the hens cluck, Kimmy.”

“Do me a favor?”

“What’s that?” Smiling, smug, dashing.

“Just don’t . . . you know, not here.”

“Kimmy,” he said, up off the table where he’d been leaning, moving around the office and looking out toward sunny downtown. “Did you think I was going to lay you out on the desk and ravish you?”

“No . . . We just haven’t talked. I’ve hardly seen you.”

“Afraid I’ve lost interest?” His eyes traveled down her body then back up again, enjoying the teasing.

“I hope so,” she said, but with the words out in the air now she was pretty sure she hoped he was still interested. It had been three weeks since they’d fooled around in his car, and there’d been nothing untoward since then. Devlin’d been professional. Her life here would be easier if he lost interest but maybe she enjoyed some of the attention.

Devlin said, “Would it hurt your feelings?”

She sighed, crossed her arms tighter and didn’t look away—kept her eyes on his. “It would be a relief.”

“I can keep my hands off you, if you’re concerned I might try to tear your pants down in front of all your new co-workers and try to get it inside you again. I have the occasional bout of self-control.”

“The flowers make me nervous,” she said, turning and touching the white petals of a carnation in his bouquet.

“If I were you I’d worry about the color in your cheeks since I came in.”

She frowned, touched knuckles to a cheek looking for heat. “I’m not blushing.”

“Sure you’re not.” He got closer but kept some distance between them. “You look beautiful, by the way. This suit is killing me.”

“It’s new.”

“You have an incredible figure. All legs . . . and that beautiful face. And that brain. I think I’m getting lucky both ways.”

“We should have rules,” she said.

“We should,” he said, nodding. “Makes it really hot when we break them.”

“This is the relentless Devlin I anticipated.”

“You got what you expected. I hope I get what I paid for.”

“Why don’t we have lunch?”

“You just can’t wait, can you?”

She said, “We can talk about those rules.”

“Can’t, Kimmy. Sorry. Meetings all afternoon then I’m back in Kingston for the night.”

She gave him no reaction, hid a small seeping amount of disappointment.

He said, “But welcome to your new office.” Now he came closer, moved near so she could smell his musk, leaned past her to handle his own flowers he’d gifted. She looked at the soft petals held in his large masculine hand, his thumb caressing, the curled pink edge of a petal flipping under the pad of his thumb— and thought wondrously of her own labia under his touch . . . 

If she hadn’t blushed before, now she could feel it. The tops of her ears burned.

He continued: “I hope you and I will do wonderful things here. We’ll have lunch together, you can bet on it. I know I’ll be seeing you a lot.” He chuckled like he had a window seat on that awful and salacious thought she’d just had, then straightened and passed her by.

At the door he paused. She turned, saw him standing in the gap of her open office door, Tami at her desk behind him.

“Maybe tomorrow. Busy schedule, but we should some fit some time in. Good seeing you . . .” Then tilting his head aside to regard Tami, he added: “Say hi to Josh for me.”

Then he was gone and she stood dumb for a moment, parsing how what he’d said may be interpreted by her secretary then worrying how it would appear if Tami were to turn and catch her standing like this in Devlin’s wake, caught in an obvious reverie . . . She returned to her desk, sat and spun away. In her iPhone’s camera she studied her own face, turning side to side, seeing a blush under her faint freckles . . . 

Damn it.

———

CHAPTER 2

At a table for four situated in the centre of the Martinique’s dining floor, Josh sat with Meyer and Sophie waiting for their fourth diner to arrive who swore she wouldn’t be late, but was. Above their head hung an upside down birdcage interwoven with fake ivy, but it was the re-purposed yellow traffic stoplight with a flashing green light that had Sophie’s attention, his little niece laughing and pointing at it occasionally but without saying her reasons for amusement, expecting her dad and uncle to just know exactly what it was so dazzling.

The Martinique was a family restaurant, kid friendly, every table filled with families and a handful of kids; the place was loud but clean and air conditioned, dim and nicely decorated, sun bright out in the strip mall’s parking lot early evening sun still bright enough to end up sparks off chrome and clean windshields. They were waiting for Kimmy but had ordered appetizers when she said she might be a little late (twenty minutes ago), the basket of mozzarella sticks reduced to crumbs and grease stains on the checkerboard wax paper. He was on his second Diet Coke, Meyer on a second iced tea, Sophie with a glass of water after her milk was done.

Only one thing on Josh’s mind right now, and he passed that thing to Meyer under the table so Sophie wouldn’t see, looking to get a second opinion. Meyer took it, frowning at him, not understanding.

Josh whispered. “Her card. Look at it.”

Still frowning, not understanding the need for spy craft, Meyer read the card. “What . . .?”

“Look at it again.”

His cousin’s frown deepened and he re-read Kimmy’s business card, still not seeing it. Meyer’d known Kimmy for years before they were married so it wasn’t obvious.

Josh hissed, “Jesus, Meyer, read it slow—”

Meyer got it now, head nodding, eyes widening. Then the brow went down again, this time lowered with concern. “Chang?” He gave Josh a scrunched what-the-fuck? face.

Sophie was bored and attentive, watching them saying, “What is it?”

Meyer said, “Daddy stuff, Soph,” then to Josh, “Why? Like why would she . . .”

“Her boss wants her to have a Chinese name so his Chinese clients will feel at ease, I guess . . .”

Meyer passed the card back, going under the table like he’d done. “Feels . . . I don’t know, kind of—” he leaned closer and whispered “—racist.”

“I don’t think it is,” Josh said, looking down in his lap where he held Kimmy Waters’s new business card. Kimmy Chang, Stone Brokerage LLC, underneath: Attorney At Law. But he wished he could convince Kimmy it was—just as a way to reel this thing back because it was feeling like he was losing control. Why had he agreed to it with all that was going on behind the scenes? Why would he risk his marriage? Up front he knew he would never stand in his wife’s way of anything—he wasn’t that kind of man—but on the back burner was something he feared: a dark curiosity that tickled him when he thought of Devlin and his wife. There was no truth to Devlin’s claims he’d asked for the man to fuck her (there was just no way), but he couldn’t deny that sinking feeling he liked low in his belly when he felt unsure of his wife and imagined a secret desire she might have for the man who made his youth unbearable.

A flash of white light raced back and forth across the restaurant and the faces of the diners across from him as the front door opened, sunlight reflected from its glass inset. Kimmy had arrived, his wife coming into the restaurant in a rush, eyes scanning the patrons quickly, pinpointing where he sat and heading their way. She was at the table before he had a chance to rise, and he watched as Meyer looked up and didn’t recognize her. It was a seconds-long moment his cousin stared quizzically at the woman he’d known about as long as Josh had. Then he shook his head and laughed, and his mouth fell open. He half rose from his chair saying, “Kimmy, I didn’t even recognize you, I was looking at you thinking who’s this and why’s she at our table? . . . Look at you, the suit and everything—and your hair . . .”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kimmy said, waving Meyer off, moving widdershins around the table behind Sophie who was wide-eyed, head oscillating around to follow her favorite auntie as Kimmy came to the chair next to Josh. She slung her purse over the seat back, sat then scooted forward. She leaned and he leaned to meet her. They kissed. Then Kimmy was laughing seeing Sophie staring incredulously. “What is it, Pumpkin—don’t you recognize me either?”

“Look at your hair,” Sophie whispered.

Kimmy leaned forward, tilting her head down, and Sophie patted the top of Kimmy’s head, her little hands moving over the rounded shape of Kimmy’s bun. Then she batted at her combed bangs. “Look at your hair,” Sophie whispered again.

Kimmy sat up. “Do you like it?”

“You’re so pretty.”

Kimmy made an affected expression (her niece’s words warming her), and tucked her chin down then held out her hands to Sophie saying, “Come sit in my lap for a minute. Come see me.”

As Sophie got out of her chair to climb up in Kimmy’s lap, Kimmy said to Meyer, “Did you guys order yet? Sorry, I’m late, it’s bumper-to-bumper all the way out of the city.”

“Get used to it,” Meyer said. “Josh says you stole his car.”

“We bought a new one. We’re up to two cars again, but Josh gave me his for a week before we pick up the new. Thanks for picking him up.”

“No prob. We didn’t order. We just had some mozzarella sticks.”

Kimmy made a face because she didn’t like cheese sticks, and Sophie got comfortable in Kimmy’s lap saying, “I like cheese sticks.”

Kimmy said, “Well I hope they didn’t eat them all on you.”

“I got some,” Sophie sang for Kimmy, putting on the cute act and still admiring her aunt’s hair.

Kimmy kissed Sophie’s forehead, then asked her, “Would you undo my hair for me?”

Sophie’s expression went to gleeful, and Kimmy leaned her ear toward Sophie who began trying to figure out how to get Kimmy’s bun to come apart. Her face was to him, and as Sophie worked the bun apart his wife made quiet but pained faces at him.

He said, “How was your first day?”

“Good,” she said, wincing, head jerking as Sophie tugged.

And like a dick, he went right to it. “How’s your buddy Devlin?”

She made an irritated sound but hid any chagrin from her expression. It should have been a sound expressed over Devlin but it sounded like his question was what bothered her. She said, “I hardly saw him. He was in for a few minutes.”

There were terrible words on his tongue but he kept them at bay. I’m sure you were disappointed . . . The words of the disgruntled, passive-aggressive, and resentful. If he didn’t keep himself in check he could put up a barrier between them before even realizing it.

He said nothing. Kimmy closed her eyes. Sophie saved the day. “Who’s the devil in?”

“Creepy, Soph,” Josh said.

Josh said, “You don’t want to know,” made devil horns with wiggling index fingers held up at his temples and loomed nearer his niece who hid behind the mane of Kimmy’s untied hair.

Sophie cupped a hand to Kimmy’s ear and whispered. Kimmy nodded, then looked his way. She said, “Sophie thinks you guys were talking about me.”

Josh said, “When?”

Meyer laughed, said, “Oh yeah, we were definitely talking about you.”

Kimmy side-eyed Josh.

“Only good things,” Josh said.

Kimmy said to Sophie, “What do you think. Were they saying good things?”

“Yes. Something about racing.”

Kimmy showed Soph a perplexed face. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”

Sophie shrugged then smiled.

“Well, thanks for looking out for me, Sophie.”

Kimmy looked his way, but instead of any irritation Kimmy only showed him warmth and affection. With Soph braced in a hugging arm, she leaned toward him again and he leaned closer. She gave him a long sighing kiss against his cheek.

The touch of her lips healed whatever irritable angst scratched at his heart. Her lips slipped away and she met his eyes. Then she chuckled and wiped at his cheek where she must have left a mark with her lipstick. Sophie giggled. Kimmy looked at her point blank. Put a lipstick mark on Sophie’s forehead while Sophie squealed.

———

CHAPTER 3

Back in the Mercedes, Devlin asked her: “Whatever happened with your baskets?”

The cloudless sky beyond the windshield was a brilliant blue, gulls swooping above the geometric anti-arcology of multi-colored cargo containers stacked all around them in streets and narrows, tall as apartment buildings. The Mercedes sat in the cool blue shade of the enormous Jourlet Maersk, a Triple-E container ship coming in from Africa.

She said, “That’s what you wanted to ask me?”

They’d just come from a congenial and friendly meeting with Eddie Chang and a woman who was his lawyer and translator. Devlin’d wanted her to study Eddie, assess whether the translator was accurate and to look for what Eddie’s intent may be. 

“Alright, go ahead,” Devlin said. “What do you think?”

She said, “The translator was accurate, in my opinion.”

“And what about Eddie’s intent?”

“The terms are reasonable.”

Devlin nodded. “For him or for me?”

“I don’t know. It’s a middle ground . . . beneficial for both of you.” She frowned, contemplating. “Tell me what you want.”

“My lawyer, naked in bed, begging me for round two.”

She chuckled—she’d been wondering when this Devlin would make an appearance. He’d been well-behaved all morning. She said, “Very clever,” rubbed her neck, looking up at the Jourlet, watching then as Eddie and his lawyer pulled away in his red Audi, on to their next appointment, looking for someone with well-greased connections to move braided steel from northern Ontario back to China. “I don’t think he’s trying to fuck you.”

Now Devlin chuckled, his head rolling her way. They looked at each other. He said, “Very clever.”

“Two can play at that game,” she said.

He kept her gaze and didn’t look away.

At last he said, “What do you say we meet up one night this week.”

“For work?”

He smiled warmly, eyes narrow and devilish. “You know what I mean.”

She sighed, rubbed her neck again. “I’m not sure, Devlin.”

He made a disappointed sound. “Couple of weeks apart and you’ve forgotten about me.”

“It’s not that.”

He raised his eyebrows like he was intrigued. “What is it then?”

She looked up at the gulls, let out a long exhausted sigh. “You asked about the baskets . . . I finished all my orders, completed them. The Katt Basket shop is closed. Josh helped me. Took days of his own time, two whole weekends with his sleeves rolled up—you should see his hands. They’re all scratched up.”

“Josh is a nice guy. I know Josh is a nice guy.”

She stared out the window, deliberating. “He really is. I don’t . . . think I can do that. Would you be mad?”

Devlin said, “Mad, no. Heartbroken.”

In her periphery she could see him clutch a hand to his chest.

She rolled her eyes saying, “Oh, come on.”

“Are you saying no?”

She shrugged, shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Devlin nodded, hand smoothing his tie. “I took too long.”

She said, “Maybe you did.”

Devlin sighed, touched the Merc’s start button, big engine roaring to life. “Well, we could have been good.”

With the car brought to life it was like their conversation was over and she didn't think it was. Devlin was going to move on without her and that was for the best, but she couldn’t escape a cold sinking feeling, like being left behind. She said, “I’m not saying no.” Then hated that she said it, hugging her arms, looking to get her seatbelt.

Devlin shut off the car, the cabin going quiet again. He said, “Take a walk with me.”

***

The erection was unexpected and sudden. At his desk after lunch, planning a team meeting for the next morning, making notes, his mind wandered . . . and then . . .? Strange and dirty possibilities wavered before him like passing street signs in a dense fog.

What was Kimmy doing right now? Two in the afternoon, working for Devlin . . . what was her day like? The horrors of misinterpretation and betrayal stabbed out of the brume. You’re wrong about Kimmy. She only took the job to be close to Devlin. She wants him. She wants to cheat but she’s scared. Then a clear image of his beloved Kimmy on her back on her desk, all the items cleared off in one swipe, and between her legs Devlin loomed, his mouth sucking on hers, only she’s pulling away, gasping for breath, squeaking in pain as Devlin pushes his huge cock inside her—her nails tear his back . . . and then he’s at home, Kimmy’s in the kitchen like nothing happened, he’s sitting on the couch and the taunting texts return, a message from Devlin saying Kimmy was too tight and he’d have to work her in, the only way it was possible to fuck her, Joshy, old Double-A, was how fucking wet your wife’s pussy gets for me . . . 

Two in the afternoon, plenty of work to do, and he’s sitting at his desk now with a full and throbbing erection straining at the fly of his suit pants. Thoughts of his wife with Devlin were inescapable, and his cock ached with need. Hard as steel, straight and upright he palmed it hoping to ease the ache.

He muttered, “What the hell . . .?” rising up hunched over then creeping to his office door and closing it.

When he returned to his chair, he leaned back with fingers laced behind his head, staring up at the florescent lights. He peeked down, looked at his bulge and pondered. Why in the middle of the day would this happen to him? Just the mere thought of Kimmy with Devlin was arousing him, and that truth was frightening. Because there was nothing else that had prompted it other than thinking of Kimmy and Devlin. Just like Devlin had said in the tent. And what if, as he suspected, the thing in the tent never even really happened? You’re going to have to address this . . . If Devlin didn’t appear in the tent—and it was crazy to believe he did—that meant the whole scenario was prompted from within your own mind, Josh. You were the one who made the story up. But was it horror? Was it nightmare? What was it in him that would conjure such a devilish scenario as his high school bully taking advantage of his wife and his wife letting it happen? Did it arouse him?

“What do you think?” he said to his empty office, sitting more upright, palming the humped belly of the erection in his pants. There’s your proof.

Then he was moving before thinking, bringing over his phone, bypassing texting, straight to dialing. The phone rang and rang and his heart sank, squeezing his eyes shut at the horrible but lubricious image of Kimmy now with her hands on the bathroom sink of Devlin’s office, squeaking and gasping as Devlin with his suit pants around his ankles pummeled her hard from behind, Kimmy’s thighs shaking—

“Hello?” Kimmy sounding upbeat and outside, definitely not engaged in sex from behind with Devlin in a bathroom.

“Where are you?” There was the sound of heavy equipment, banging and clanging.

“What’s going on, Josh?”

“Just thinking of you and I wanted to call you—” and now he felt stupid, coming up with a reason to call, saying, “—make plans with you for tonight . . .”

She said loudly over the din: “What did you want to do?”

He said, “Where are you?”

“Hold on,” she said, and he could hear clicking heels on concrete, picturing her now with one hand cupped over the opposite ear, trying to listen, getting somewhere quiet. She said, “I’m at the docks.”

“The docks? Where?”

“Hamilton. Port Authority.”

“You’re all the way in Hamilton?” It gave him a cold desperate feeling, his wife so far away . . . 

“Yeah, we’re down here for a meeting.”

“Who’s we?”

Pause. “Devlin,” she said.

“You’re with Devlin?” And just like that something cold slithered around his heart. God, and the erection just wouldn’t go away. He squeezed his thighs together.

Kimmy changed the subject. “What did you want to do tonight?”

He said, “I don’t want to bug you—if you’re working, if you’re busy, I’ll—”

“Our meeting’s over, we’re just taking a tour of the docks right now.”

Taking a tour of the docks? There was something date-like about it, and he could picture Devlin walking with her, showing her the sights, maybe the two of them holding hands . . . He said, “Is Devlin right there?”

“Yeah, he’s right here.”

And then he shushed her—afraid Devlin would overhear Josh talking about him. “Don’t say that near him . . .”

“He’s not listening, Josh—what do you want to do tonight?”

And now she sounded irritated (or was it his imagination?).

He said, “When are you going to be home?”

“I think I’ll be home regular time. We’re heading back soon.”

“Let’s do something fun. I want to spend time with you . . .” And then he had an image, the lure of family again, thinking now they would go see a movie, something PG, bring Meyer and Sophie . . . 

***

When the phone went back in her suit, Devlin was there, hands in his pockets, a summery lake breeze tossing his tie and ruffling his brushed back hair. He squinted into the sun saying to her, “Nice guy Josh checking up on his wife?”

“He wants to go out tonight.”

“Come on,” Devlin said, nodding his chin along the walkway where they’d headed before Josh called. The Mercedes was behind them, a small gleaming black slug aside the mass of the huge container ship. They strolled the concrete walk alongside the squared drop off into choppy Lake Ontario, the walkway separated by a massive chain strung on syncopated metal posts. The sun shone on them and the heat was nice on her cheeks.

Soon they’d left the bustle of moving equipment back by the Jourlet and the shipyard was quieter, not silent, but more peaceful. There was a patch of greenery ahead and she figured that was where Devlin would take her to talk, but now he veered inward, toward a low patch of grounded containers sitting around an abandoned forklift. She followed.

They got side by side again, and Devlin said, “You don’t have to apologize.”

“I didn’t—”

“I told you from the start the job was separate. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I mean, I was up front from the beginning.”

“You were . . .”

They paused at the forklift. Devlin leaned a shoulder on it and looked at her. She ran her hand on the sun-hot yellow metal.

When the moment was silent too long, she said, “It’s just . . .”

“Tell me,” he prompted when she paused.

She looked up, met his eyes. “Mel. Mel Wilson.”

Devlin raised his eyebrows. “What about him?”

“You let him go.”

“I did.”

“Before I got here.”

Devlin shrugged, frowned, watched her. Two cargo trucks lumbered their way, big smelly diesel motors churning and roaring. Both of them winced, and together saw the roiling dust storm in the trucks’ wake. Devlin led her to the nose of the forklift, took her hand and walked her into the cool dim space of an open cargo container a foot off the ground. He pulled her up and in as the trucks roared past.

The front quarter of the container had been emptied, or not yet loaded, the remaining space packed floor to ceiling with fifty-pound plastic bags stacked on pallets and wrapped in plastic. From the smell, they could be fertilizer.

Devlin, with his hands in his pants pockets again, turned saying, “Yeah. I fired Mel before you started.”

She stood in the line of light from the open cargo door. “You see what I’m thinking?”

“You’re not going to stop thinking of me in this way, are you?”

“What way’s that?”

“I needed you in bed so bad I just pushed out the closest dog to make room for you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You think I wanted you in here so I could fuck you. You think I got rid of someone so I could get you in my gunsights.”

“You need two lawyers or one?”

“In Toronto? One. You.”

“So . . .?”

“I need the right person. You’re the right person. When Mel was here, I hired you thinking I might need two lawyers. I only need one.”

“Double the workload for me.”

“You love it, I think. In high school, I knew Kimmy Chang always did her homework.”

“I always did my homework. So why is Mel gone?”

“Uh-oh,” Devlin said, flashing a mean smile.

“Uh-oh, what?”

“What’s that type of riddle the bad guy asks if you want to pass?”

“Pass? It’s a neck riddle if it’s to save your neck.”

“Perfect. I have a riddle.”

“To save my neck?”

“Mel lost his job because of it. It’s time sensitive. Are you up for the task?”

“What if I’m not?”

“You tell me.”

She scoffed. “What, you’re going to fire me like you fired Mel?”

“You going to cry on the way out too?”

“You wouldn’t fire me.”

“I hope I don’t have to decide.”

She studied him, showing him confidence while she scrutinized his intent. “So what’s the conundrum?”

“Border Services seized a load on us. Eighty containers. Mel Wilson fucked up his paperwork, now I’ve got a client with one-and-a-half million of perishables on a dry dock. Save my client’s money.”

“Where do I start?”

“Kimmy, Kimmy . . . you tell me. I already hired out of house, ABM in Toronto’s already working it. Hope you can beat them to the punch.”

She crossed her arms, smirking. “So if I fix it, I don’t have to have sex with you?”

“The job and its performance are always separate from sex. I told you that.”

“I was kidding, Devlin.”

Devlin adjusted his tie, working the knot looser saying, “The riddle’s a joke, Kimmy. I don’t need you to fix it. I told you ABM’s on it.”

“I can fix it,” she said standing up to him as he pulled his tie free and unbuttoned his shirt. “What are you doing?”

“Solving Kimmy’s riddle,” he said, coming closer.

———

CHAPTER 4

With his tie removed, Devlin stood before her with the silk fabric wound over his two large hands. Her heart raced. He wound the tie tighter around his right fist, smirking now. “Turn around,” he said.

She was wordless. Her brain gone cottony and disconnected. All snark removed, wit and cynicism stripped away. Devlin stood a head taller than her, the musky woodsy scent of him overpowering the chemical agriculture smell of the container. His shirt was open, and she could see the tanned skin of his chest and collar. Sunlight came in the open cargo door, painting one side of his face in bright pastel, the pale colors of floral bouquets drawing lines along the edge of his nose, the ridge of his cheekbone, his brow, the sharp angle of his strong jaw. And those hands, way the softness of the tie’s silk caressed their firm power . . . 

She turned around, dipping her chin, looking at the scratched and pitted metal floor, the angled edges of the container’s wall. When he said nothing, didn’t even touch her, she said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Put your hands behind you.”

There was a small clicking sound of protest in her throat, but she closed it off and put first her right hand behind her, then the left. Devlin maneuvered her wrists together, the left one over top of the right one, tugging higher the sleeves of her suit jacket and slipping the fabric of his tie around both wrists, tightening it, tying a knot, looping again and tucking the tie’s dangling ends through. Her arms were firmly affixed behind her back.

“Face me.”

When she came around now, that domineering expression had left his eyes, replaced with a certain pleasure. The dominance was still there, the base layer, but now it was like with her active compliance the next stage of his game would begin.

She whispered, “What are you going to do to me?”

It made him smile, and seeing the dimple form in his masculine cheek got her stomach fluttering. She sighed, leaned back until her shoulder blades touched the metal wall. He loomed closer.

“Well, Kimmy . . .” His hand came to her neck, his thumb tracing a line just under her chin, down her throat, then resting on her collarbone. “I’m going to give you what you want.”

Voice breathless, she said, “What’s that?”

He unbuttoned her shirt, not looking in her eyes anymore, but watching his own hand work. Button after button, tugging then her shirttails so they hung over her skirt. He warmed the flat of his hand on her naked tummy. Her thighs began quivering, and her breath came short and shaky. “What is it I want?” She didn’t even know.

His hand caressed her rib cage, slipped behind her, underneath her shirt, headed to undo her bra. She pinched his hand under her arm saying, “No, don’t.”

“This is what you want, Kimmy. You don’t want to give it to me . . . but you want me to take it.”

Her mouth opened to say No, but stayed silent and agape, no words uttered. All she could think was the embarrassment when he removed her bra and saw her naked chest.

But she didn’t stop him as his hand moved again, going to the center of her back, unfastening her bra with thumb and two fingers. She pinched her arms again, holding the bra in place.

Devlin took his time, drawing his hand out, running the first knuckle up her sternum, hooking his finger under the front of her bra then tugging it up and free. Her left breast was completely exposed to him, her nipple large, hard, and engorged, a bursting cherry pit on her A-cup. Devlin made a small hiss of appreciation. She closed her eyes, suffered under his gaze, thinking of all those pretty girls with their swaying breasts he’d been with. Hurting inside waiting to hear what he might say . . . 

“Everything about you is beautiful,” he said.

Her eyes fluttered open, peeled up to look at the shipping container’s ceiling. She said nothing, breathing in long strong gusts, feeling his hand cup her meager bosom, then the pad of his thumb working over top of her aching nipple. Her knees loosened and she dipped, tightening her back muscles so she wouldn’t slump to the floor.

Devlin’s hand left her breast. He stood. “Stand up straighter,” he said, and she dug her heels in the metal floor and pushed her back up the wall, hands tied behind her, breast exposed. From her navel down, she’d gone like warm Jell-O. Her ass muscles loose, uncomplicated. Glowing embers in her belly, damp heat at her core.

Devlin put a hand in the pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a folded over sheaf of paper money. She chewed her lip, thinking he was going to peel off a few hundreds and offer money to fuck her. She formed complaint and anger but could say nothing.

But it wasn’t the paper he was interested in. He tugged the bills free from the gold money clip, put the bills back in his suit pocket.

Now he gripped her neck again, traced the pad of his thumb along the angle of her jaw, caressing the point of her chin, then pushing his thumb into her hung open mouth. She sucked it, closed her eyes. When he pulled it free, she watched then as he took the warm wetness from her mouth and thumb-smeared it into the pinch of the folded over metal money clip. His finger tucked into it, widening its mouth, and he placed it over the bud of her nipple.

“Oh no, no,” she moaned, shaking, chin tucked right down, eyes wide and watching, waiting . . . 

Devlin eased his finger out and let the natural tension of the clip bite its jaws down on her desperate throbbing nipple. She cried out, knees going watery again and slumping down the wall.

Devlin grabbed the waistband of her skirt, tugged her forward and helped her to stand. With fingers tented on her naked chest, he guided her backward to lean against the wall, every sensation in her body tuned into the wild radio waves emanating from the electric contact made with those metal jaws on that sensitive part of her. She could feel a growing heaviness between her legs. A wet hunger. Her knees shook.

With both hands on either side of her head, Devlin leaned very close and whispered in her ear now: “I want you on your knees.”

***

Devlin held the lapels of her suit jacket and she complied, lowering before him, Devlin’s grip making sure she didn’t collapse. The points of her knees touched the hard metal. She looked up, kneeling before this powerful man, hands tied behind her back, face upturned and waiting to see what he wanted. Though she knew what he wanted. He smiled. Without being told, her eyes lowered, looking straight ahead at the crotch of his pants. Waited for him to unzip it. Wanting to see it.

Devlin’s hands came together; she watched his pinched thumb and knuckle draw down his zipper. Waited, eager. He fished out his over-size penis, the long thing bending, then let it go to dangle and bob before her. Not hard but so incredibly enormous. The most perfectly masculine and sexual thing she’d ever seen. A heavy club of pale flesh, enormous and male and not even turgid yet. A frightening and powerful cudgel of sexual domination. It swayed side to side, heavy, veins beginning to rise against its gummy surface while she watched.

Devlin said, “Open your mouth,” and she did. He caressed her neck, guided her to look upright. Their eyes met, and then Devlin hefted his cock and rested it on her cheek. It crossed the corner of her mouth, along the side of her nose, the end bowing to rest its chin in the cup of her eye. She could feel the line of heat against her skin, lashes on her open eye fluttering, his cock heavy but boneless, like a warm cutlet. Devlin smiled, her boss enjoying the juxtaposition of his extra large cock resting on her face. She ran out her tongue, and he drew back his hips, the weight of his manhood sliding across her face, her tongue eager to accept the head. 

They worked together, him guiding his hips forward, stuffing with two fingers the head of his cock into her waiting mouth. She took him against her tongue and palate, eyes turned up to his, sucking on that fat corpulent part of his cock. It swelled and pulsed in her mouth; grew larger and firmer.

“That’s it,” he said, holding her ears and caressing her cheekbones with his thumbs. When he was stiff enough to suck, Devlin guided her forward, her weight on the points of her knees, arms flexing and tightening, her hands at the small of her back.

She wanted to please him. Wanted to submit to him.

With one hand on the back of her head, the webbing between thumb and forefinger braced on the base of her bun, he began to fuck her mouth. He grew even larger and harder. Too large to suck properly. She concentrated on the head, narrowing her mouth, tight bursts of flatulent suction as they both worked in unison, hips thrusting, neck and head bobbing. Spit overflowed and ran down her chin and neck. When he leaked in her mouth, she swallowed. Eyes squinted shut, her body tightened like a bow, his cock an arrow running back and forth in the notch of her mouth. She wanted him to come. Wanted to be the one to detonate that explosion of liquid pleasure. Wanted him to know she could do that for him. Wanted most his strong hands on her, wanted his control, wanted his domination.

It went for minutes, her shaping her tongue around his big cock and trying to pleasure him, snorting for breath.

She choked and cried, knowing finally he was close, knowing she could do it, make him come.

Her head bobbed faster, Devlin fucked her mouth harder. His breath came in quick animal snorts and she waited and waited, wanted it . . . And then he was coming in her mouth. Roaring and stabbing, his size forcing the ring of her lips wide, blasting hot jets against the back of her throat. Her nose flooded with the scent of his sexual brine and she coughed, choked, felt his come burn the inside of her right sinus. But she swallowed. Took all of it she could—though it was a tremendous amount—the excess blurting around her blubbering lips thinned by the girth of his cock, gushing over her chin, down her neck, one warm trickle somehow running in a jagged line toward her armpit.

Devlin roared and roared, still coming, still spurting, but falling exhausted toward her, his forearm banging against the metal wall above her head and making the cargo container hum. She moaned and hummed with his cock in her mouth, her boss panting above her.

Outside the whirring motor of a crane let something metal fall heavily against something else metal. A truck backed up, its warning beeps distant but sharp. Head pulled back, she jammed her tongue forward to push his cock out of her mouth, gasping to catch her breath. She fell back with her shoulders against the metal wall, his huge pendulous dick dangling in front of her as she gulped for air. She was hot, skin-slick, throat and mouth wetted by saliva and semen.

Devlin chuckled appreciation, and she liked the sound; a sign she’d done well for him. He dipped, hoisted her to stand with his hands shoveled under her arms. Instead of getting her to her feet, he guided her in a counter-clockwise circle till the backs of her legs touched a lone waist high stack of fertilizer bags on a pallet. He hefted her up to sit.

When he loomed close, she turned her mouth away fearing he would kiss her. He pushed her to lay back with his hand on her chest and she allowed it. He guided her knees up and she let him. He hoisted the front of her skirt up to her waist and she didn’t protest. Instead she rocked and writhed on the plastic fertilizer bags. Hungry, desperate, needing his touch. He gripped the inside of her thigh and she cried out. His hand slipped between her legs, cupped her sex, and she closed her thighs on him, her knees touching.

Devlin’s hand jostled and jiggled, working his fingers into the folds between her legs, and feeling his hand pushing against her sex got her to gasp a bursting echo of air throughout the container. He chuckled again, began massaging circles against her opening over the satin of her panties, face looming close, eyes watching her. He said, “You ever get this wet before?”

“Yes-ss . . .”

“I think you’re lying to me . . .”

“No,” she complained, fighting against her folded arms, eyes opening and closing and opening again. All attention on what his hand did to her pussy, catching glimpses of his face then looking at stacks of pallets and the roof of the container.

“I’ve never seen a woman get as wet as you.”

She gasped again, bucking, stomach tightening and bouncing as a trigger mechanism for her impending orgasm clicked. “Please,” she moaned . . . 

“Please what?”

“Make me come.”

With rough hands, Devlin jabbed thumbs under her skirt and jacked it up to her waist, exposing her naked below her belly button. He grabbed her panties, ripped them at her left hip then pulled hard, the fabric scoring down her long leg and hanging at her ankle. He said, “Show it to me.”

“What . . .?”

“I want to see Kimmy Chang’s little gash.”

“No,” she whimpered, closing her legs, making her knees touch again.

Devlin stepped back, cock wagging half hard, shining wet with her saliva and his come. He moved to the container door, opened it wider to let light flood in. He returned, slow, saying, “Open your legs and show me.”

“No,” she whimpered again, hands straining to be free, wanting to cover them between her legs.

“I want to see it, Kimmy. Show me.”

She moaned, gasped, arched her back, wrists struggling against the fabric of his tie. She stared at the metal ceiling, heart racing, a tap dance pulse on the right side of her neck. The blood had rushed between her legs; her sex felt heavy with engorged weight, her opening had widened to a yawn in her underwear—she’d never felt so sexual in all her life.

With slow submission, her legs opened. She drew up her feet, high heel shoes folding over against fertilizer bags, opening her legs very wide for Devlin. Showed him exactly what she had between her thighs.

“Fuck, look at that little pussy.”

It was awful. He was disgusting. But he got her stomach tight, and a flock of butterflies lifting up from her sexual core. Her breaths came quicker. Devlin took out his phone, held it up like he would take a picture and she tried to work her legs closed again.

“No. Open them.”

She whimpered, let her knees part, turned her chin up facing away from his camera. Devlin took pictures of her exposed pussy.

”Fuck me . . . God, what a perfect little slit . . .”

The phone tucked in his pocket, Devlin got closer, touched her hipbones, both his large hands resting over them, then his thumbs working over her pubic hair, the curled back right thumb massaging her clitoris, making her mewl and cry out.

“Yeah, you’re going to come,” he said. “You want to come for me? Show your boss how you come . . .”

“Make me,” she said, “God, I love how you make me come . . .”

———

CHAPTER 5

Devlin’s large warm hand worked down the flat of her stomach then crested her mound. The back of her thighs and her ass muscles tightened, and she pumped her hips forward to meet his touch. Blood raced between her legs, and her sex throbbed hot. The sound of her wetness was enormous in the metal confines of the container, slick squishing between her legs as Devlin worked his hand forward and back, her humping against it, his fingers weaving between her sopping furrowed membranes.

Devlin said, “I’ve never seen a woman get so wet.”

She gasped, knots of pain blossoming in the fronts of her shoulders as her wrists struggled against the restraint of his silk tie. She writhed on the bags of fertilizer, her heel points puncturing the plastic wrap, her feet locked in place now, pointed knees wagging open and closed as Devlin pleasured her with the cup of his palm, creating suction against her opening. And her aperture felt wide and ready to accept his large member. Twenty minutes ago she was telling him she didn’t want to do this, and now she was moments away from another one of Devlin’s huge orgasms. “Make me come . . .”

“Kimmy wants to come . . .”

“Please, make me come . . .”

Devlin pushed his fingers down between her legs, the pads of his two middle fingers tugging on the bottom yoke of her membranes, massaging against that thin banjo string between her vagina and anus. She held her breath as he teased her anus with his middle finger, pulsing and circling. Then the two fingers came up quick and she inhaled, dropping her ass down on the fertilizer, Devlin sliding two fingers inside her vagina, spreading her lips wide, going deep, the finger points bounding over her front wall, smoothing out the folds of her corrugated roof.

“God, your fingers are so big . . .”

“Kimmy, you’re so tight you’re crushing my fingers.”

“Make me come . . .”

Devlin was slow and careful and deliberate. Drawing two fingers out, pushing them in, running the points of them over her front wall, whirling typhoons of white light pleasure behind her closed off eyes. In and out, in and out, getting her writhing and squirming, knees opening and closing, the slow-motion flapping of a bird’s wings as she humped against his fingers’ thrusts, wanting him deep, loving the feel of him inside her body. She told him again: “I love the way you make me come . . .”

“I love watching your face when you do.”

She wanted to say No—hated the thought of being studied—but then submitted. Her hands were behind her back, her shirt open her skirt tugged up; a breast was bared, the nipple bitten hard by the smooth-mouth bite of his gold money clip. He was fucking her with his fingers and she was going to come. It wasn’t time to be shy. Let him have what he wanted.

Her mouth opened and closed as she gasped, surprising soft airy squeaks at the incredible pleasure he delivered. He went slower, then he went faster, then he went too fast and she cried out. Slow again, deep, then deeper. Now from her stomach down she was blazing hot. The container grew dank now, the sex smell more powerful than ammonium nitrate, heavy and funky; the light woodsy musk of Devlin’s cologne suffocated now by the overpowering stench of her pussy. The wetness was unbelievable. The insides of her thighs were slick—she could feel them slick. Rivulets of her juices ran in the crack of her ass. Her butt cheeks were wet; she was sure it was spilling over the fertilizer bags. She’d never been so wet in her whole life.

“Come for me,” he said.

“I’m coming,” she whispered, and the words tightened her stomach as she humped his hand. Devlin gave her exactly what she wanted. The perfect rhythm, the perfect pace, the perfect depth. He fucked her with two fingers—two huge fingers—and then she was rising, high and higher, her ears going soundless and the shut-off space behind her eyes going bright; light as a feather she floated, drew in breath and held it, and then with one sudden crash, she clapped her legs shut tight, a loud flesh-slap, humped forward and threw her legs open, the outsides of her thighs slapping down against the fertilizer bags. She arched her back, and when the thunderclap of orgasm rocketed through her like a lightning bolt, the arch of her back bowed forward and she hunched, chin to her collar, eyes wide, looking between her spread open legs. Devlin’s hand down there glistening with her sex sweat, sparkles of her dew on the dark fabric of his sleeve. His hand pulsed and his fingers thrust deep; his palm pushed down hard on her clitoris and she cried out. All the tight-packed muscles underneath her pelvic floor seized hard in an undulating wave; they tightened while her stomach muscles loosened, then bellowed outward.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she babbled, and then began spritzing all around Devlin’s hand. Shining wet droplets sparkling in the sliver of daylight coming into the cargo container, squirting from her pussy.

She cried, thrust her hips forward, cramps forming from her shoulder blades down the small of her back. She tightened fists behind her.

It kept coming, and Devlin kept fucking with his fingers. Bright streams arced higher now, and Devlin made way for them, stepping aside, closer to her, grabbing the back of her neck and caressing her jawline with his thumb. She rode out overwhelming pleasure with his hand between her legs and her head in the cup of his palm.

He left her whimpering, broken and blown out. She babbled, moaned; tears ran into her hairline. “Oh God, oh God,” she sighed.

“Fuck, you can come,” he said, still stroking fingers in and out of her.

“Holy, oh wow,” she laughed, her stomach bouncing, head falling back. “Oh my God,” she said, looking up at the roof of the cargo container. Every little touch between her legs got her legs and back, jolting like being tickled. “Ah, ha, mm,” she said, “oh, you’ve got to stop . . .”

***

With her head in his hand, his face loomed nearer to hers like he would kiss her. He was smiling, his handsome face proud above hers. And in that moment, if he had put his lips to hers she might have accepted it. But instead he studied her face as his middle fingers explored her opening again, opening her petals, teasing her clit. “Say you want me to fuck you,” he said.

No hesitation: “I want you to fuck me,” she murmured.

“I know you do,” he said, rose a little higher to show her his huge cock at full hardness again. “Tell me to put it in you.”

“Put it in me,” she said, trying to get up on her elbows while her legs opened wider.

He came around between her legs, his cock thrust up hard and impossibly thick, and she noticed while it bowed it also turned the slightest corkscrew. And she wondered what that would feel like driving in and out of her. “Fuck me,” she whispered.

He put hands on the bags, either side of her waist, looming over her face again and smiling. She looked down, could feel his hardness between her legs. The deep cup of his urethra filled with the white of his cum, spilling a stream on her stomach as he hunched, and he ran his cock back ready to plunge it into her depths.

“Fuck me,” she said, knowing they needed a condom but there wasn’t any time.

He said, “You want to get fucked, don’t you?”

“Do it,” she said, “fuck me.”

The huge plump and shining head of his cock teased at her pussy, slipping up and down, pushing in and pulling out. The backs of her arms and her collar blazed with fire; her scalp tingled and felt peeled. “I want it in me so bad,” she whispered, humping her hips up, trying to get him to put it in her. He pushed the head in, then pulled it out. She cried out, her nails biting into her palms.

Devlin came in for that kiss again, and she raised her chin up and away. He bit her neck, and her nipples hardened, the one still trapped in the bra bitten sharply by the fabric. “Just fuck me, please, Devlin, fuck me . . .” She moaned then a sound of pain—psychic and physical.

Then Devlin was gone.

Her eyelashes fluttered; she worked up onto her elbows again. Devlin was tugging on his pants and trying to get that huge cock tucked inside.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not going to fuck you on some fertilizer bags, Kimmy. Not the first time, anyway. I want you to remember the first time.”

“I would remember it,” she said, frowning, feeling hurt and mad, and overflowing with disbelief.

He got his fly up, said, “We gotta get back to Toronto.”

She growled, her stomach hurting, her pussy literally quivering, her head falling back. She growled, “Devlin, you are such an asshole.”

Then he was back, looming over her, enjoying his affect. “I got what I wanted.”

She made a disgusted sound, said, “Me to suck your cock?”

“Close. It’s what I wanted out of your mouth. Not in it.” He touched her chin and pushed his index finger between her lips. She sucked his finger and could taste herself on it. He said, “I wanted you to tell me the truth. I wanted you to admit you need me to fuck you.”

She nodded with his finger in her mouth, her eyes on his. Obeying him, and even a tiny glimmer of hope there that the act of sucking his finger and looking in his eyes would change his mind and he would finally give it to her. Though her orgasm had been huge, there were tight knots inside her hip bones that ached with need right now. She wanted to come again and again and again. Spend the whole afternoon in this cargo container.

She tongued his finger out.

Devlin chuckled, stood up over her, pulled the kerchief from his lapel pocket. He unfolded it, dabbed at his finger then tossed it to cover her sex. “You’re going to have to clean that up if you want to get back in my car.”

“You’re a pig,” she whispered under her breath. The more you said stuff like that, the more he liked it. Dignity would be clawed back here. Louder, she said, “Untie me.”

With the lapels of her suit coat, he pulled her to sit, put his arms around her like a hug, untying the knot of his tie behind her back while she breathed in the hot musk emanating from under his shirt collar. She rested her cheek against his chest and waited.

He stood, winding his tie and shoving it in his pocket. “Fuck, you’re hot,” he said looking at her admiringly with her skirt bunched up around her waist, her naked legs hanging over the bags of fertilizer, one shoe who-knows-where, the other one stuck with its heel stabbed into a fertilizer bag. She rubbed her wrists, worked her neck around, getting the kinks out of her back and shoulders.

“Clean yourself up,” he said. “I’m going to be outside.”

He moved into the sunlight, stepping down and walking away toward the forklift where she couldn’t see him.

Now she looked at her hands, looked at her wrists where they were lined with the tightness of his silk tie restraints. She chuckled, then the sound of her own laughter brought shame and remorse, so she choked it off, hunched forward, took his handkerchief and wiped at her thighs.

“Oh my God,” she said, standing up, looking at her own mess. The seat of her skirt was stained dark on the inside, bleeding right through to darken the other side as well. Her wetness leaked to her knees. She wiped her neck and her mouth, wishing she had two more handkerchiefs to do the job.

Bra done up, shirt buttoned and tucked in, she withdrew her iPhone and checked her face on the screen. Eyes wet and bleary, lipstick totally gone. Cheeks red, freckles blazing. She looked like she got fucked. Hadn’t even been with Devlin’s cock. This is what she looked like after he fucked her with two fingers. Devlin’s two fingers were as big as her husband’s erection.

With that thought, she closed off the phone and pocketed it, stood, straightened, put her feet in her shoes. In the doorway of the container, she saw Devlin now standing in that pose he did, feet shoulder width apart, his back to her, one fist on a hip. He was talking on his phone, saying, “What seats? . . . Yeah? . . . What time? . . .”

She stood there, incredulous, while Devlin made plans with friends to get suite seats at the Jays game. 

***

They’d walked together back to the Mercedes in silence, cocooned in the Port’s cacophony of clanging machinery, the whole while Devlin with a smug and satisfied smile. In the quiet of the cab, Devlin said, “All better now?”

She said, “Give me your phone.”

“What for?”

“You took pictures.”

“I did,” he said.

“Give me your phone,” she said and gave him a stone-serious look.

He held her gaze, vacillating, head cocking, raising his eyebrows, closing his eyes . . . then submitting.

“Fine,” he said, passing his phone.

She brought it awake it, aimed it his way, and he craned his face for verification. It opened, she tapped photos, afraid what she would see there. Sure enough, he really had taken pictures. And there it was, what he’d seen . . . 

The photo was mostly dark, except for the vertex of two spread open bright honey thighs and a rosy-brown stripe at its center, topped with a dark comma of her thin pelt. The sparseness of her pubic hair matted and clung to her skin; she was looking at her own vulva in this way for the first time. It was lubricious, and its sight got snakes squirming in her stomach. She looked closer; couldn’t believe that was her. Her face wasn’t seen, just that intimate and secret part of her only shared with her husband.

Her finger hovered over the trashcan icon ready to dump it. Gone. Dumped another, and another. On the last one, her finger hovered over the trash. This time she swiped up and turned off his phone. “You can have one.” She passed back his phone.

Devlin took it, made a low sound in his chest. He said, “You can’t know how happy that makes me, Kimmy . . .”