Gray Areas

Candaces stammers, "But...?"

"But nothing," Matt laughs. Then, serious once more, "Y'know, Michael is a good man. He just wants to protect me—protect the business. He still is ready to remove you from the playing field at a moment's notice." Matt gives a wry chuckle, before adding, "But I have faith in you, my dear." When his caressing fingers drop from her face, Candace feels a sudden, terrifying emptiness consuming her—that is, until Matt gently takes her hand. Giving it a delicate squeeze, he changes tacks, adding, almost as an aside, "Anyway, I like the name Candace better than Nora—or Ashley—or Candy, for that matter."

"We'll talk more about this later," he says, lifting from her side and scrambling into his clothing.

————— OXO —————

It is a couple days before Matt and Candace are able to spend time together again. But even while tenderly making love there is an almost palpable tension between them. Holding tight as they come down from their shared climax, Matt enters the pregnant silence with a whisper. "I have," he confides, "a secluded bit of beachfront property on a tropical island, that pretty much no one else knows about." He watches Candace's eyes, not knowing what he's looking for—then, apparently finding it, he continues, "It may not be Nirvana, but it's certainly not purgatory, either." He pauses once again, taking a deep, calming breath. "I'd like to take you there."

Candace detects an uncharacteristically unsure note in his voice—almost a pleading quality. She simply nods, her lips quivering, until, after a long, long mysteriously charged pause, she whispers, almost inaudibly, "I would like that. I would like that very, very, very much."

Not really surprisingly, criminal connections make high-quality false and forged documents easier to come by. And so it was that, within a matter of a few short weeks, the odd couple—gangster and detective—vanish, as if they've fallen off the face of the earth. After several flights and tickets and complex subterfuge, it is some other anonymous rich couple that lands on Santa Katerina, a small island in the Caribbean, where Matt had, steadily and quietly, over the past many years, amassed a huge wealth—both legitimate and ill-gotten.

Matthew and Candice North claim to be a married couple who have been travelling the world and now feel like settling. Candice is ostensibly a retired model, while Matthew—not Matt—is a sometime stocks investor, but mainly the indolent heir to an electronics fortune.

They meet a few other ex-pats—including Marissa, a fallen tourist who now supports her indefinite stay on the island through prostitution [see Actually, It Does]—but mostly they keep to themselves. Matthew and Candice embrace their quiet life together, allowing their previous existence to dissipate and disperse, like smoke in the wind.

————— OXO —————

The sound of surf and the ocean breeze through the window wakes her. She stares at the ceiling, watching the fan circle lazily, then rising on one elbow, she gazes at the slumbering figure beside her. God, but he is beautiful! The intensity of her adoration leaves her light-headed. She knows she should just let him sleep but she can't help herself. She carefully reaches down and lifts his limp, dangling penis with her hand. She feels it gaining substance even as she slurps it into her mouth.

"I could get used to this," he thinks as he wakes to the gentle felatio. "Dirty rotten copper," he mutters as he luxuriates in the caresses of her tongue and lips on his growing erection. "I ain't never gonna let you go."