Red String of Fate

We are connected by a red string of fate, or as it is said in Japanese, "Akai ito de musubareteru."

According to a timeless Japanese tale whispered throughout the ages, an invisible red string of fate binds all lovers. That tenuous thread connects you to your soulmate, although you may not yet know one another. Although this string may stretch or tangle itself with others in your walk through life, it will never break the bonds of true lovers, even if we traverse the world from Tokyo to the Heartland of America. Inevitably, you are destined to follow the red silk thread to your mate attached and waiting for you at its other end.

Ethan Reynolds made that long arduous journey in life as did Minami Sasaki. This is their tale.

"I don't believe this, Allen." Ethan Reynolds bristled, waving a copy of a newly surfaced four-year-old one paragraph addendum in his attorney's face, as he confronted Allen in the echoey courthouse hallway.

As they were about to enter the courtroom, he turned on Allen, a university friend from Caltech, like an angry dog tugging against its leash. The contract addendum, which seemed harmless at first glance, gave the senior partner exclusive rights to dissolve the restructured company and keep all the intellectual property rights for himself. The second partner, Ethan, was to be compensated and "cashed out." However, if Ethan chose to challenge the dissolution, he would receive no compensation at all, as the contested amount was set at zero dollars and two cents.

"Ethan, calm down!" Alan growled. "Lower your damn voice. People are staring at us. For Christ's sake, it happened. That's all there is to it. You knew going in four years ago; you signed the damn addendum to your contract without reading it. Hell! You just gave me the damned original without it after you contested the settlement. You trusted the red-headed bitch. I can't fix what you screwed up," Allen Arman countered, nearly as loudly as Ethan. Nervously, he looked around, trying to regain his composure to see who had witnessed Ethan's outburst.

After a four-year battle, it all came down to this document's validity in the courtroom today. The outcome, Allen surmised, would be as muddled as the words chiseled beneath the granite frieze of Lady Justice's blindfold and scale on the courtroom wall: "Equal Justice Under Law."

"So, she's going to screw me over?" Reynolds seethed, tucking the addendum into his hand-tailored Italian suit pocket. He felt like a puppet, maneuvered into a helpless stance, his dejected demeanor didn't mirror the elegance seen in the pages of 'The Rake,' a men's magazine he frequently perused.

His exasperated attorney let out a sharp breath. "You did this to yourself, Ethan, by agreeing without reading it. That smug bitch just handed you the anal lube. But maybe there's a chance to salvage something, if the judge has an ounce of mercy. Considering your time invested in it, there might be a silver lining. That's entirely up to the judge... so, for the love of Christ, maintain your composure and don't piss him off again."

Something smoldering in the back of Ethan's mind had him doubting that. As he flung open the heavy courtroom door, he muttered to Allen, "Who coined the phrase, 'Litigation is a machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage?'"

"That's Ambrose Bierce before he mysteriously vanished," Allen responded through gritted teeth, regretting his involvement in this case.

Ethan fell silent, his jaw clenching as his gaze fell upon Amanda, his soon-to-be ex-business partner, seated alongside her trio of lawyers. She was adorned with yet another provocatively low-cut red dress that barely covered her ass. It was a calculated choice meant to tempt the judge with an unapologetic display of her thighs and ample cleavage. Ethan recognized her deliberate intent to provoke erotic thoughts; she was a damned master at playing mind games.

'Well,' he stewed, 'screw her and the three stallions she rode in on!' He glared as he watched her casually pull off a loose crimson silk thread and discard it onto the floor.

Ethan couldn't help but find his thoughts on riding stallions dripping with wasted irony on Amanda. His mind raced back to the day he and Amanda first crossed paths. It was during their sole shared class at Caltech, the Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Boot Camp. Ethan, a wide-eyed eighteen-year-old brimming with potential, had arrived at prestigious Caltech, driven by the unassailable perfection of his SAT scores. Amanda, a graduate student, had enrolled in the boot camp as a mere requirement for her business major.

On that auspicious day, she sauntered into the class fashionably late, her voice dripping with insouciance as she announced, "Hello, Professor Lieu. Sorry, I'm late. The dean stopped me to ask me why I was taking your low-level class ... I assured him it was because I needed to fill a small knowledge gap."

Ethan had arrived early, along with four eager, bespectacled nerds ready to embark on their remarkable educational journey. His eyes widened as the flame-haired temptress took a sweeping glance around the room. Her nose in the air, she took a seat strategically placed away from the nerds and conveniently next to him. He couldn't help but steal a few discreet glances at her, as the professor resumed speaking.

'This is going to be a hell of a class,' Amanda thought, a wry smile playing on her lips, 'Me, four wimpy nerds and one nerdy jock.' She sensually eased herself into the chair beside Ethan, her every move calculated to disrupt the harmony of the room. All eyes focused on the goddess dressed in fire-engine red. She didn't even bother to attempt to pull down her short skirt as it rode up her thighs.

"As I was explaining," Professor Lieu continued, "throughout this course, you will collaborate in pairs, working on a singular project meticulously designed to integrate with the fundamental applications of AI seamlessly. These areas encompass Neural Networks, which are inspired by the structure of the human brain and are pivotal for tasks like image and speech recognition. We'll also explore Computer Vision, a field dedicated to enabling machines to comprehend and interpret visual information, similar to how humans perceive the world through their eyes. Additionally, we will delve into Natural Language Processing (NLP), which focuses on bridging the gap between computers and human language, allowing machines to understand, generate, and interact with text and speech. These concepts form the backbone of modern AI and will be the cornerstone of our journey through this course."

Those words no sooner left his lips when Amanda brazenly pipped up, "I'll work with the jock, Doc, if you don't mind." She smiled sweetly, expecting an ''okay' from the Prof and Ethan.

"Sorry, Miss. Amanda. We will draw for partners. If Fate puts you with Mr. Reynolds, you might consider yourself lucky here."

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he retrieved a small red bag and untied the intricately woven red thread around it. He passed the bag around for each person to draw. The first nerd drew a blue marble and announced, "Blue ball," with a smirky smile. The second draw was yellow, the third yellow ... the fourth blue.

"That settles it, Doc; Fate got the choice, right?" Amanda quipped, snatched the bag, turned it upside down, and poured two red balls into her hand.

She turned to Reynolds like an anaconda eyeing a hapless meal and said, "I'm counting on you, Mr. Reynolds. Don't let me down." Amanda's serious stare conveyed her expectation that Ethan would provide the solutions and she would tick off a needless class requirement on her rise to riches.

"Ethan," is all he managed to reply, by way of introduction, in response to one domineering sizzling-hot redhead.

Amanda invited Ethan to her studio apartment to review their team project three days into their assignments. Her objective was clear: to reinforce and ensure Reynolds carried her load. Ethan, away from home for the first time and out from under his mother's watchful eye, was about to wade waist-deep into California's young adult lifestyles. It was a world teaming with open-minded hormonal youth as he got his feet wet in academia.

"Reynolds," Amanda complained an hour into their study session, "this is due in three weeks. Get your head out of your ass. You're staring at my tits. What's wrong with you — your girlfriend isn't taking care of you?"

"I ... don't have a girlfriend," he sputtered sheepishly.

Amanda grew quiet, pursed her lips, and studied Ethan as he glanced away, trying not to stare again. They had been in class less than a week, but she could see he could handle the subject with aplomb from class conversations. On the other hand, she didn't know a damned thing about Artificial Intelligence. But she was damned good at intelligently reading men and was masterful at getting her way with them. Ethan wasn't focused on the project at hand.

'I need this damn grade! I'll fix your lack of concentration, Ethan.' She fumed to herself. Studying his sweet, shy face, she did just that.

She startled Ethan as she pushed her chair back, put one foot behind the other, and slipped out of her tennis shoes. He stared, wondering, 'What the hell?'

Just as quickly, Amanda crossed her hands, reached for the hem of her Caltech sweatshirt, drew it over her head, and tossed it onto the desk. Her flushed face bore a determined look as her rose-colored nipples grabbed Ethan's singular focus.

"I'm going to get your mind back on track, Ethan Reynolds. Come on, let's get on with this," she smirked, as she stood and began unbuckling her jeans.

"Damn," Ethan sputtered as he realized what she was offering.

And what she offered looked beautiful to his eyes. She peeled down those tight jeans over the curve of her hips, revealing an unabashed California-suntanned woman accustomed to sunbathing on nude-access-only beaches. Ethan sat stunned with his lips partly open.

"You do know how this works?" she prodded, standing naked in front of him as he sat with his mouth agape and still hadn't moved. Her fingers dipped into her slit and stroked the hairless peach and nubbin to ease his penetration as her other hand held up her red-lace silk panties. When he didn't answer, she tossed them in Ethan's face, breaking his spellbound stare.

"Yes, I do," he managed to answer as his breathing deepened. Ethan wasn't a virgin, though not a boy with a lot of experience either. His sexual conquests had been two girls at prom, both quick and fleeting. Alone with Amanda and absent a hint of getting interrupted, his mind went wild over a woman so seemingly uninhibited.

It was in the aftermath of twelve minutes of fast and heart-pounding sex, Ethan rolled over beside her, and his flushed face broke into a wry grin. He floated on a euphoric cloud of satisfaction. It didn't last long.

She rocked up onto her elbow, her breasts pressed against his chest, and glared. Then shook that long, mangled rusty-red hair out of her eyes and declared, "Ethan, you can wipe that shit-faced grin off because this is a one-time event. I prefer girls making my wet clam happy. So, let's get this project back on track."

Amanda spotted Ethan's name and photo in the Tech journals six years later. They called him an upcoming genius in the world of artificial intelligence development. The next day, she showed up on his doorstep unannounced with a get-rich joint business venture offer. The lesbian Caltech project partner had parlayed her wiles and business savviness into a multi-million-dollar adventure capital business and needed talent — Ethan's kind of tech talent — not the wet-clam variety. For enticement, Amanda brought along a raven-haired vixen, named Michelle. Ethan grew fond of Michelle close over the next two years as Ethan's career vaulted into the Stratosphere.

The judge's arrival from his chambers awoke Ethan from his reverie. Perturbed, he glanced at Ethan and lingeringly took in the ravishingly hot redhead while nodding to her trio of stallions. Despite his anger toward his former college project partner, the irony of these thoughts about the lesbian riding in on the three stallions put a grim smirk on his face.

Ethan Reynolds sat next to his attorney to await his fate at the hands of a judge sitting above him — staring at Amanda's two half-exposed breasts and generously exposed thighs before him. Ethan shook his head — thinking it would be nice to have a set of tits like his damn lesbian business partner; it might help him out, he mused, maybe.

'Wonder if the judge knows she only likes girls doing her wet clam?' he smirked as the judge gaveled in the session.

Michelle curled up in her favorite spot on the couch with a glass of wine and watched the panoramic view of the bay from Ethan's plush place as the afternoon sun warmed the room.

She called out, hearing the door of Ethan's condo open, "Hey, Babe, I found us my summer dream home in Martha's Vineyard. I think you're going to really ..."

"Not going to happen," Ethan growled, cutting off her words.

He wasn't in the mood to indulge her attempts to spend his money ... the funds he no longer had after a bitter day in court.

"Sa'matter, Honey?" his off-and-on girlfriend purred, attempting to temper his ruffled feathers.

She'd found Ethan to be in a funk lately, and when he was, he didn't lavish her with presents the way she expected. To reset his attitude, Michelle had let herself into his place with his spare key and slipped into her favorite loungewear: a diaphanous shimmering robe and scanty, red-silk panties.

"Come here, sugar. Don't brood so! Let me ease those wrinkles out of your brow. Micki is going to blow some wind into your spinnaker," she crooned as she held out her arms. "I'll have you soaring over 'Frisco Bay in under two minutes," she teased smiling as he walked into her reach.

A role-playing vixen, Michelle liked using the nautical terms he had taught her on his sailboat; her words had that undisguised veiled innuendo. She had worked hard to gain his trust in the last two years, and as her reward, she had set her sights on a summer home in Martha's Vineyard. Well, it would be Ethan's, but she'd have the lifestyle she wanted — that was good enough for Michelle.

Ethan caved. How could he not?

She had begun loosening his belt. He stood at the end of the couch and felt her warm fingers ease his boxers down. She was right as rain; she always had a way of blowing wind into his sails. She admired the Veet hair cream-treated cock pulsing inches away from her wet lips. Micki knelt on the leather cushions like a filly, opening her mouth and moaning while sucking in his slick, hairless prick. After a stressful, anxious, and sweat-laden day in court, it was like slurping a salty dill pickle, but she persevered. Something had him bent out of shape, and she was determined to erase that from his mind.

In under two minutes, she had his spinnaker at full sail. He huffed as he stood, his knees pressed against the arm of the leather couch for balance, and leaned into her face. She took all of him. He began lunging for more. His fingers threaded through her long, dark tresses as his body tensed in response. Closing his eyes, Ethan moaned as his breathing deepened. He pictured himself gripping the wheel of his sailboat, flying over San Francisco Bay with increasing speed as the waves broke over the pounding bow.

"Take it, choke on it, baby," he groaned.

The heat of her mouth and the sounds emanating from it being filled with cock felt good, as his body enjoyed using her to take out his Amanda frustrations. The courtroom storm clouds that had roiled up and churned in anger dimmed. Within five minutes, a loud groan burst out, as his body shook when he gave up what he held back — she swallowed his salty cum. Gasping, Ethan released his grip on her head; his tempest came down briefly. His bulbous purple-tipped spinnaker flagged and drooped, though covered with a blending of saliva and semen slowly dripping down his scrotum.

Michelle gasped and coughed, slowly recovering from Ethan plowing her throat.

"Now, tell me, Ethan, what has you so worked up today?" she struggled, wiping the drool from her chin with the back of her hand.

Ethan's answer was to strip naked, snatch her up in his arms, and carry her to the master suite, treating her like the slut role she liked to get off on. He didn't hold back; the court case loss burned his mind. He boned her hard, driving that loss fervently home. Each thrust between her thighs drove her body's ardor higher as they climbed to that smoldering, volcanic, second eruption.

"Damn, Ethan, what's gotten into you, honey — you fuck like ... hey, it's okay. You know I like it that way?"

They lay exhausted, Ethan with his head on the pillow and Michelle with her head nestled upon his nipples, breathing heavily. In the calm after the storm, Ethan opened his soul and recounted the judge's decision.

Upon learning of Ethan's fortune vaporizing over his lost court case and legal fees, Michelle sat bolt upright and fumed angrily, "You fucking lost everything? What the fuck am I supposed to do?"

Upon learning how his court case had gone as they lay in bed that afternoon, she railed bitterly as though she had lost her fortune, not Ethan's.

"I haven't lost everything, Michelle; I still have you. Life is full of do-overs, and I have enough ideas to get back on my feet. Besides, my recognition is well known, and it will just be a short time before I'm back in the driver's seat. This time, I'll get a good lawyer to work on contracts," he answered, somewhat sardonically, as he lay naked and sweaty at having jumped her bones until her face had contorted, choked out a scream, and stiffened in rapture as she ferociously came.

Exhausted from releasing his fury, Ethan was at a loss for further words and drifted to sleep in the stillness. Michelle lay beside him, staring at the ceiling until he lay as limp as a noodle. She watched his face contorting, restless in his sleep, thinking about Amanda.

"You poor innocent bastard, the bitch, got both of us," she whispered, before sliding out of bed and standing naked on display, gazing over the panoramic San Francisco Bay, absorbing its beauty from Ethan's condo — one last time.

Contemplating the conniving redhead, Michelle lashed out, "Amanda, bitch, the very least you could have done was give me a heads up you were going to castrate him. Bitch, look where you left me!"

The trio had lived in Amanda's carefully crafted, prosperous, symbiotic relationship. Ethan's brains spun out the ideas; Amanda's mind piled up the patents and parlayed them into piles of cash; and Michelle — her role was twofold: entertainment and to keep Ethan's guileless nature blind to what went on between Amanda and Michelle as they used him. Now, as it turns out, Michelle had also become a pawn. She should have seen the signs; Amanda had been turning to younger women.