No one could tell her that he had not transmitted want in his fingertips, that his mouth hadn’t conveyed desire, real and deep. The way he had touched her, the sighs, the groans, the little sounds of pleasure that bounced between the two, on and off camera, were a language that only they could speak. You don’t create a reality like that and push it aside like a role in a play or a sitcom. Matt Jones had wanted her as much as she’d wanted him, and Michael Bournham, she suspected, wanted her even more. So here she sat in her tiny guest-house room, eating potato chips and salt licorice, watching Who’s the Boss? in reruns on Icelandic television at three in the morning. She was coffeed out, cried out, and in desperate need of a hug.
In four hours she would need to rouse, shower, and walk to work, where she’d made no inroads in weeks. No one would tell her what her job was. The others at the office had work, duties, responsibilities, issued reports, and all gave her a palms-up shrug when she asked about her role. The senior vice-president for communications still wouldn’t answer her phone calls or emails.
If Michael Bournham’s intent had been to reward her for a job well done, he had failed miserably, just as he had failed in his effort to raise profits by using the reality TV show. If his goal had been to make her a kept woman, then he’d succeeded wildly.
Minus the sex.
And then there was Jeremy…
Her phone rang, making her squeak with surprise as she fumbled through her pants pocket to find it. Krysta. What was she doing calling this late?
“Why are you calling me at 3 a.m.?” Lydia demanded.
“Found a hot Viking yet?” Krysta asked, her voice infused with a smile. “Is he in bed with you? And it’s only eleven here. Time difference.”
Lydia was grateful for the call. She needed it. With no one here to talk to other than the occasional hello to Siggi or Elsa’s polite two-sentence morning conversations, Lydia had found herself clearing her throat constantly, the lack of conversation killing her. “No, no hot Vikings, and no hot job either.”
“They still aren’t telling you what you’re supposed to do, or how you’re supposed to act, or what?” Krysta asked.
Lydia could feel the incredulity in her voice, and it wasn't anything that she herself hadn't wondered. “I know, right? I keep emailing the senior vice-president for communications and she’s ignoring me. I’ve called. If I knew the woman’s mobile number I would text her. I’ve even resorted to texting Matt—er, Michael Bournham, but he’s not answering.” Her voice cracked at the end. She wasn't sure if it was from disuse or emotion. When tears filled her eyes, she knew.
“Oh, Lydia, I don't think he’s going to answer.”
“Oh,” she said, wiping the corner of her left eye, “I know. He’s too important and he’s probably gone off and gotten some high-powered CEO job where he makes forty million a year there, too.” The silence that greeted her made her pull back and frown. “Krysta?”
“Yeah.”
“Spill it. What do you know about him?”
“They fired him, Lydia.”
“Yeah…”
“He’s disappeared. Nobody can find him.”
Her heart thumped against her ribcage, fast and furious. “What do you mean, disappeared? Like, disappeared like something’s wrong? Some sort of crime?”
“No, no, no,” Krysta assured her. “More like he just went away, and when people try to talk to his people—”
“He has people?”
“I guess he has people,” Krysta responded. “They just won’t comment on where he is.”
A thousand thoughts crashed through Lydia’s mind at once. “Could he have, like, a drinking problem or a drug problem? People don't just disappear like that, Krysta! Not people like Michael Bournham.”
“I know. We’re all talking about it here at work and no one has any answers.”
Lydia could imagine Krysta’s shrug, the way her right cheek lifted up when she didn't know the answer to something. She missed her best friend, she missed her old life, she missed Matt Jones. She even missed home. All of this was getting out of hand. Michael Bournham had set her up in a job that no one cared out, that had no responsibilities, and that she suspected wasn’t going to be around for much longer, especially if he wasn’t.
“Lyd. It’s only a few days before the big talent show you were telling me about…”
“You remember that?”
“It’s kind of hard not to. You made it sound like it was the freakin’ Oscars of Maine!”
They both laughed.
“My mom would love it if I showed up. That would be a hell of a surprise, wouldn’t it?”
“Can you get time off from work?”
She’d already composed a resignation letter. Hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, but it had given her a sense of peace to write it, to have it on her hard drive, ready to submit. Maybe that would be her final act of malicious obedience. Because if Michael Bournham could disappear, could pull away from corporate life and from his own company and make a change, then imitating him may be the best next step.
Hot, strong hands traveled up the swell of her ass, over the soft nip of her waist, finding the edge of her ribcage, her sternum an altar. His lips enveloped one perked nipple and sucked until a thin line of electricity stretched down to her little red nub, which now pulsated in time with his heartbeat. Too tall to kiss, even on tiptoes, he was wet with rivulets of water from the shower, her hands slip-sliding across his broad chest, the smattering of hair thickening in a V towards his throbbing rod. She found the shower’s spray a full blast to the face as he moved, dipping his hands lower, finding the source of her heat and need with fingers that seemed programmed with lust code to enact a program designed to produce a singular outcome.
Her release.
And then, just as her skin shot from fire to ice, two more hands and a muscled wall came up from behind her. Steel-blue eyes and wet, silver hair. A body as tight and compact as a soccer player’s, legs so thick she could anchor a sailboat to them.
“Lydia,” both men whispered, the sound of her name in two timbres as sensual as the four hands that found her breasts, sank into the soft, pliant flesh of her deepest cravings, her breath coming in little pants as the water steamed up the room, two erections seeking her body, her attention, her approval.
Mike slid his shaft between her legs and pulled up, short thrusts sliding his foreskin in and out of her soft skin, the friction against her labia and the very edge of her clit maddening. Simulfucking him was too keen; she needed to be filled by him, but Jeremy had other ideas, bending down to take her in his mouth, her hood shocked as his tongue nudged it back, and then Mike was at her opening, the tip pushing gently as she—
“Oh! Oh!” she gasped, waking to find her hands on her clit, one rubbing in perfect circles to bring her out of sleep and into a massive orgasm, pussy walls clamping hard against one finger deep inside her, body slamming against the sheets as her hips thrust up against an invisible lover, a man—men—who faded quickly from her unconscious, the dream somehow triggering this…what did you call it?
Sleepsturbation? Was she really masturbating in her sleep? Musk covered her fingers, her body shivering in the cool night air, no break from the endless day as light peeked in around the blackout curtains. Guilty and a bit pathetic, she bundled her hands into fists and punched her pillow. Really? Now she was having threesome dreams and fingerfucking herself in her sleep?
The interlude with Jeremy at the lagoon had been just a little too much. He'd invited her to go clubbing and as her eyes found her phone—6:11 a.m.—she wondered what the evening would be like.
And then there was Mike…
Both had been in her dream, equally engaged and aroused, both wanting her and sharing her. Mike’s hands were what she missed most, the preternatural command in his touch, the way he owned her with a groan. Jeremy was new, and, most of all, here. And here on Mike’s command, no less. The way Jeremy obeyed made it seem that way, as if Mike had conjured him. She’d stopped thinking of him as Matt, allowing Mike to slowly seep in.
After all, how could she ever hope to know who Michael Bournham really was if she couldn’t let go of who she thought he was?
Years ago Mike had discovered that if you really want to know someone, sit in complete silence with them. How they respond will tell you more about them than anything they could say with words. On this journey here at the campground, Mike had tried this out repeatedly, at the heated outdoor pool, on the shore, sitting and watching the sunset. Person after person had responded with radically different cues.
Pete had just sat and stared into the horizon as the sun had slowly made its descent, the two men companions in watching its exit. For a good twenty minutes neither had said a word, just stretching, moving, watching in peace. Pete was a good man. Mike sensed it second by second, look by look, breeze by breeze. He had tried to sit in silence with Sandy, and if thirty seconds had passed by he’d be surprised. Her small talk kicked in quite quickly, and he sensed a nervousness in her at the prospect of silence.
If he’d raised six kids, he supposed, he might be uncomfortable with peace and serenity too. Maybe that wasn’t it, though. Maybe there was more, but he wasn’t going to pry. It just wasn’t his place.
Lydia’s brother, Miles, had the most distinct reaction, which involved sitting quietly in front of a burning campfire down to the coals, perfect for the last few marshmallows. And as each had sat, sticks outstretched, the warm day turned to a chilly night, Miles had finally turned, looked at Mike and said, “So, you know about the silence trick too, huh?”
Flashing a big grin, Mike just looked him in the eye and said, “Ah-yup.” Which had elicited a grumbling gurgle of laughter from the enormous man, who shook his head wryly and said, “So, what did you learn about me?”
“I learned you know the silent trick,” Mike said.
Miles had just nodded and then his marshmallow caught fire. “Oh, fuck!” he shouted, blowing it out. “Dammit!”
“Well, I learned two things, I guess. You don’t like burnt marshmallows.”
If he sat next to Lydia in complete silence, what would she do? No way, he thought. No way he could sit next to her, immobile, breathing in and out, for more than a few seconds. Her tantalizing self, mind, body, soul, would be too tempting. In that moment he would learn far more about himself than he would about her. And maybe that was why he was here, after all, among her family. Disguised as a mere customer but covertly finding himself within the world of Lydia.
Sandy had damn near begged him to come up with an act for the talent show. “No,” he’d told her. Not his style. He could play guitar and he had gone to camp as a kid, mostly church camps that had been all about inclusion and fun and drama and polar bear swims. But standing up on a stage would draw too much attention to him. Staying under the radar had been a healing process. He didn’t want to screw that up now by trying to get in the spotlight.
Just enough people over the past weeks had done a double-take when they saw him. But his new persona—which wasn’t a persona, it really was him—looked just different enough from the famous Michael Bournham that he was able to maintain this whiff of privacy. Besides, campgrounds generally weren’t havens for failed CEOs of near-Fortune 500 companies. So, while he had gotten a few looks, no one had really pressed him.
