Icarus Rising Read online

  My manhood throbs painfully, aching for release, pressed against her I know she can feel my hardness. She loses her pants next and I am rewarded with the sight of her black lace panties. I lift her and she wraps her legs around my waist. I carry her to the bedroom.

  I gently lay her down on the bed and smile seductively as I slowly unbutton the dozen or so silver buttons on my long tunic. Her eyes widen at the sight of my chest, my abs, and she smiles broadly. The tunic hits the floor and my pants follow. Playfully, I take her legs and spread them open.

  I move between her legs and claim her mouth once more. The kiss is soft, but quick, I don’t open my mouth to her. I steal several kisses before moving to her neck. Again, softly I taste her skin, small kisses I place down her neck. I think of Rachel St. Claire, but banish thoughts of her quickly from my mind. Leisurely, my mouth works down from my lover’s neck, until I reach the barrier of her bra.

  A theatrical frown I give to my companion and she can’t seem to get her bra off quickly enough. Her breasts are firm, her nipples hard, and my mouth claims her right breast. I lightly bite and nip at her breast, my mouth hot, her skin almost feverish. My hand goes to caress her neglected left breast. My partner’s breathing becomes shallow, she moans as if in anguish. I alternate kissing, sucking, biting, one breast, then the other.

  “Please please,” she whimpers.

  I look into her eyes and smile. “Yes?”

  “Fuck me. Just fuck me, please,” she pleads.

  I tear my boxer briefs off and am greeted with an appreciative smile from my lover, tinged with a little apprehension at my size. I grab a condom from the nightstand, rip it open and slowly roll it over my girth. She sucks in a deep breath as I move on top of her. I don’t even take her panties off. Moving the fabric that covers her pussy to the side, I line my hardness up with her wet slit.

  “You want me to fuck you?” I wait with barely the tip of my cock between her wet lips.

  “Please. Please,” again she pleads.

  “Please what?” I move my hips forward a little, piercing her inner lips, and tapping at the entrance to her incredibly well lubricated hole.

  “Fuck me. Please fuck me.” How badly she wants it is in her voice, in her eyes.

  I lunge forward, driving my manhood deep within her in a single stroke. There is a sharp inhalation of breath from her as I take her fully with one powerful motion. I hold perfectly still letting her adjust to my size, stretching her around my thickness, and I think of Rachel St. Claire again, before I am lost to the frantic coupling, the oblivion I crave in the carnal act.

  I wake up and the girl from last night is still in my bed. In sleep she looks angelic, but I feel nothing, I feel hollow. I watch the soft heaving of her breasts as she sleeps, and wish she were Rachel St. Claire, and wish I had not picked up this girl, wished she didn’t sleep so peacefully in my bed.

  A large part of me wants to rustle up her discarded clothes. They litter the floor of my bedroom; her pants are in the hallway, I think. We were barely inside the front door when we were tearing off our clothes in the throes of passion and now the regret strikes as the sun rises. “How are you greeting the day, Rachel?” I silently ask myself and move naked from the bed, careful not to wake my latest lover.

  I catch sight of my companion’s black bra and want to scoop up her clothes and throw them at her, want her to not be here, want to erase the sins of last night. I can’t even remember my latest conquest’s name, a model I have used several times professionally, and used again last night, not professionally. In sleep she is beautiful and I curse myself for my thoughts.

  I grab a robe and move to the shower. I’m not twenty anymore and this isn’t fun anymore. I can’t remember when it stopped being fun, some time ago I imagine, but so slowly did it creep in I can’t say when the one night stands stopped working. I step into the shower and turn the hot water until it is nearly scalding.

  The water burns as I step into the shower, quickly reddening my skin. The pain makes me feel alive, banishes the thoughts of the night before and my latest victim who sleeps unaware of how much I loathe her, how much I loathe myself. “Can you save me, Rachel?” I think to myself.

  Breakfast together, half hearted smiles and forced laughter, and blissfully she is gone. A vow that I will not put myself through this again, a vow I know I will break likely before the sun sets. And now, time to up the bidding on my latest works. I pick up the phone and call the Countess.

  The Countess has been my long time patron and owns many of my early works.

  “Europe is rotten with nobility,” she told me once. “You can’t throw a dinner roll without hitting a Duke or an Earl or a Baron. True nobility is about taste, culture, and refinement.”

  I like the Countess. She expects little from me but a phone call now and again, and it is out of courtesy I call her. She will have heard of the latest auction and of my latest scandalous paintings, but there was a time when a bid from the Countess would have made my career and so I call her.

  The phone rings half a dozen times before I hear that familiar saccharine sweet voice and I am warmed. The warmth rolls through me, banishing the sin of last night like a confessional and I smile genuinely.

  “Brandon Fahr,” she purrs. The Countess is near sixty but retains an alluring seductive voice, and obviously has call display. “You don’t call enough, love. Not nearly enough,” she scolds with her clipped upper class British accent.

  “I called to let you know there is an auction tomorrow night featuring my latest works.” At times like these I wish I am better at small talk. I find it tedious but wish it came more naturally to me; I really do enjoy talking with the Countess.

  “And next you will tell me the sky is blue, love?” She laughs gently. “Do you think you could make a move that I wouldn’t know about?” Again that wonderful laugh that makes me ache a little.

  “I wanted you to hear it from me, Countess.” I fumble for easy words, a conversational tone. I really don’t want the phone call to end, I want to listen to that voice for hours.

  “Brandon, Brandon, Brandon, my boy, I love talking with you, yet each word you save like a miser. There is no shortage of words, love; any fool will tell you words are not at a premium. But since one of us must keep the conversation going, tell me, love. Which of the three paintings do you find to be the strongest? I have the names here and adore them. “Icarus Rising”, “Icarus Ascendant”, or “Icarus Falling”?”

  “I think “Icarus Falling” is the strongest of the three,” I admit honestly.

  “From what I have seen I am inclined to agree, love. You know if you had called me earlier I might have attended the auction in person. As it stands I’ll have to scream my bids into the telephone.” That amazing laugh she graces me with once more. “Now tell me, my darling boy, exactly how the paintings were made, and leave not a detail out.”

  This I am more comfortable with and I speak for a long time about my process, until finally the conversation had run its course. There is that point where there is nothing more I can think to say, but I feel truly happy for the first time in a long time and it is hard for me not to beg the Countess to talk, just talk to me, like the old days.

  After talking to the Countess I stare out the window for a long time, thinking of nothing, until the phone breaks my revelry. I pick up the receiver and am greeted by an enthusiastic Wayne.

  “Brandon?” he half asks, half exclaims.

  “I thought you got lost. Didn’t I tell you to call me the minute you landed? And why do you always sound so surprised when I answer the phone? You called me. Who else were you expecting?” I feel like torturing him a bit, but am glad to hear from him.

  “As soon as I landed I got a room at the Delta Chelsea, not far from the Royal York, where Rachel St. Claire is staying. As soon as I checked in I went to her hotel. I had an idea on the plane and wanted to see if it would work.”

  “And, what was your idea?” I purposely take the bait and smile. Way
ne’s ideas are either notoriously poor or breathtakingly clever. From his tone, I take it this particular scheme has worked extraordinarily well.

  “I paid the front desk clerk at the Royal York a shitload of money to call up to St. Claire’s room and claim there was a problem with the billing information. I figured that was the sort of thing a personal assistant would be sent down to clear up and I was right. Guy handles everything for St. Claire. I ambushed him in the lobby and he was pretty taken with me. We talked for ten minutes or so then arranged to meet for drinks later last night.”

  “Of course he was taken with you. You will make a fine wife to some man some day. How did drinks go?” I laugh softly. So much could have gone wrong with his little scheme, but it had worked. “What did you find out?”

  “I found out Guy is pretty handsy.” He laughs. “And after a few drinks he started talking about the flowers you sent as “Icarus.” They were a big hit and a mystery that is driving St. Claire crazy. But she reads the Arts and Entertainment section of at least a dozen newspapers, and found out about you and the much anticipated names of the paintings. St. Claire had Guy do some research on you and he figures she hopes the flowers are from you. Shit, Guy can talk, and talk, and talk. Not a bad looking guy, but not my type either, too much penis and not enough vagina.” Wayne laughs, amused at himself.

  My admiration of St. Claire climbs a few notches and I grin widely. “You did a good job, Wayne. Don’t be afraid to put out if you must.” I tease him. “When are you meeting Guy again? Tell me you are meeting him again.”

  “St. Claire is in rehearsal for twelve or fourteen hours a day then Guy is free. We’re meeting again for drinks tonight. Shit, he can drink. When Guy went to the bathroom I had to tell the bartender to hold the rum and serve me straight coke. I’m afraid I’m going to end up on my back with my legs in the air like one of your girls.” Again he laughs.

  I shake my head and bite back the urge to rebuke him, to put him in his place for the last comment, but I am in far too high spirits. St. Claire has done a little research on me, flattering.

  “Seriously, Wayne, great work.” Wayne sucks up kind words from me like a sponge. “Find out what you can of St. Claire and call me again tomorrow morning. You’ve made me very happy, Wayne. Thank you.” I know he can babble on indefinitely so I cut off any response by replacing the receiver on its cradle. He is not unaccustomed to me ending our conversations this way.

  I smile.

  Thursday, Day 4

  I’ve decided to leave for Toronto tonight. After hearing Wayne’s report I might have left immediately, I am that taken with St. Claire, but guilt holds me here. I visit my sister, Elise, each week without fail, but I doubt she would realize if I have missed a week, or indeed if I never visited her again.

  My mother was “not well” is how it is politely put. My earliest memory is of scalding hot water and the stink of bleach. I remember vividly my mother pouring bleach on my tender young skin and scrubbing my hands raw with a wire brush. “Dirty, so dirty, how do you get so dirty?” she would intone over and over again as she flayed the skin from my hands. I would cry out in agony and Elise, my saviour, my older sister, would come to my rescue.

  I can hear her shaky, terrified little voice as she interceded on my behalf. “Mother,” she would say in that weak voice, struggling to be strong for me, to take the pain from her younger brother. “Look at my hands. I’m filthy, so dirty.”

  Mother would drop my hands and appraise Elise as my sister held out her hands to Mother for inspection. Elise was my Christ. But Mother didn’t stop with Elise’s hands. Mother would also attack Elise’s beautiful sweet face with the wire brush and scrub raw her porcelain skin.

  This terrible ritual seemed to bring Mother to a cathartic release of sorts. Realizing at last what she had done to her children she would hold us close and weep, begging us for forgiveness, promising to never lay a hand on us again. And then she would take to her bed for weeks or months. Her “lazy days” is what she called them and how thankful I was when they would come.

  Home was a sprawling twelve bedroom prison to me. Most of the rooms were never used and we were not allowed to go into much of the house. At night I was tied to my bed, and there were days when Mother would leave me restrained, days when I would scream and scream because I didn’t want to empty my bowels and be left in my own excrement. Mother kept the place like a museum. Her husband, my father, left her before I was born. Elise told me years later that Mother thought her love would one day come home and she must keep the house as he left it.

  We had two servants that served the family faithfully for decades, a married couple, Charles and Abigail. They served my grandmother before my mother inherited the family estate and by all accounts my grandmother was, like my mother, “not well.” They were, therefore, accustomed to my painfully eccentric family. They were kind to Elise and me, but kept silent about what went on under the roof of their long time employers.

  I’ve never blamed them. They lived in the little cottage house on the grounds, were paid little, and were already advanced in age when I was young. I don’t think either can read or write and serving our family was all they knew. They must be in their late seventies now and they still live in their little cottage house on the grounds of what is now my estate, I suppose. They care for my museum prison. I pay them well and Abigail keeps the place spotless for visitors that will never come. Charles, I am told, still maintains gardens that are the envy of the neighbourhood. They were kind to Elise and me so I am kind to them.

  My fondest memories are of working in the garden with Charles when Mother had her “lazy days” and of sitting in the kitchen and listening to Abigail sing as she prepared elaborate meals that only my sister and I would eat.

  When Mother began wandering the halls of the estate in her faded and tattered wedding gown, cradling a shotgun, Abigail was finally moved to call the police.

  It ended as you might expect. Police officers shot my mother dead on the front lawn.

  You must understand a little of where Elise and I come from, to understand the relationship Elise and I now share, she locked away in a prison of her own making, and I tied to her with chains of guilt.

  The years passed quickly, that seems a suitable segue, and Elise met and married a portly older doctor. He adored her, and together they had three beautiful girls. As Elise grew older it became apparent that she too was “not well”. She was diagnosed as bipolar and put on medication that allowed her to live the semblance of an ordinary life.

  Over the years there were only several frantic calls I received from her husband saying Elise was out of control, that she had taken a wire brush to her face and that he didn’t know what to do, that he didn’t want to have her committed, would I fly to the rescue?

  I couldn’t get to her side quickly enough and usually my presence alone would tame her, soothe the beast. Her medication would be adjusted and life would go on.

  Until the night she handcuffed her husband to the bed, tucked and tied the children to their beds, and lit the house on fire.

  They found her on the front lawn, holding herself and shaking uncontrollably, watching the flames devour her family. She said to the first officer on the scene, “They will never be like me. I’ve saved them all.”

  It surprised no one that Elise was found not to have the capacity to stand trial. She was committed to a mental institution for the rest of her natural life. Money may not be able to buy happiness but money can, certainly, buy the best bed in a mental hospital, and that is what I did, that is all I could do. Before I can go to St. Claire I must see Elise.

  I find Elise in her room. The nurses tell me she spends most of her time in her room, almost twenty two hours a day in the little twenty by twenty room. I am not shocked to find they have taken her bed again, afraid she might hurt herself. There is only a mattress on the floor, the bed has been removed for her own safety. She sits on the mattress and stares up at me; there is no recognition in her eye
s. Today is not a good day.

  No matter how many times I see the wreckage of her face, I am never prepared. Scars upon scars upon scars, some new, most old, make my older sister look decades older than she is.

  “Lisee,” I whisper. As a boy I couldn’t say Elise. The best I could manage was “Lisee”, a secret name only we share. There is nothing in those eyes. I am a stranger to her.

  “Lisee,” I implore her, the name comes out far more desperate than I want it to. Then there is a spark of something, a smile that takes an eternity to cross her lips.

  “Brandon?” I can tell she is unsure, and my conceit allows me to believe she is glad to see me. “My beautiful baby brother.” She reaches out a hand to me, her hand as marked as her face.

  “I’m here, Lisee.” I take her hand and squeeze it gently.

  “Do you remember when we were children? Do you remember how beautiful I was?”

  This is familiar ground, a play that we act out again and again, two actors stuck with a painful script that we are powerless to change. “With the fairest skin and the most beautiful golden hair,” I answer. A tear rolls down my cheek as I look at her and wonder, not for the first time, how many of those scars belong to me.

  “I am ugly now.” She admonishes me before I can even open my mouth. “You’ll say I am beautiful, you always say that. You lie. They won’t even let me have a mirror. I know how ugly I am. But remember how beautiful I was?”

  “Yes Lisee, I remember, with the fairest skin and the most beautiful golden hair.” It takes all I have to force a smile. I won’t hurt her with another tear.

  She smiles and her eyes go far away as her hand goes limp in my hand. I’ve lost her again. “Lisee,” I whisper. “Lisee.” I can hear the pleading in my voice, but she has retreated. I wait for her, wait for the miracle, but it doesn’t come. The minutes tick by as I kneel holding her hand. An hour passes, or a lifetime, and finally an orderly comes and releases me.