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48
The cock in her mouth swelled. Carol Edwards liked having a cock in her mouth. During the past year she had become a connoisseur, like an oenophile who can from a single sip identify the vineyard, vintage, and, legendarily, even the slope on which the original grapes grew.
She liked the fullness of a cock, the shape, the texture, the salty taste, although often the cocks that entered her mouth carried the flavor of her own ass or cunt or both. She liked the smell. She liked having her flesh penetrated by other flesh. She liked the back and forth motion. She liked the animal aggression when a man forced his cock down her throat. She liked moving her tongue over pulsing veins and arteries.. She liked the differing tastes of come. But most of all she liked this moment when an already hard cock hardened just that bit more, engorged as semen flowed from balls.
Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked and fluttered her tongue. The fingers of her right hand stroked balls. She forced her head forward, burying her nose in crinkly public hair. Cock fully engulfed. And there it was: the first explosive spurt. She swallowed Vern’s thick come and listened to him groan. When she was sure he was finished, she raised her head and let his cock plop from her lips.
She looked up at him and smiled. He looked down at her dazed.
Holding the red, wet, glistening cock in one hand, she carefully licked it clean, even opening the tip and sucking out the last hidden drop, causing Vern to groan again.
Almost all of those who used Carol Edwards had other sex partners as well; but as far as she knew Vern did not. Getting to her feet, the thought came to her that Vern might not ever have sex with a woman again unless he paid for it; and somehow she did not see him doing that. Beyond an orgasm Vern wanted the illusion that someone cared for him. It was a sad thought. He wasn’t that much older than she. Decades of glancing surreptitiously and shyly at the students in his physics classes. Decades of masturbating, fantasizing about them, remembering her. She leaned over and kissed him tenderly on the cheek instead of playfully on the top of his bald head as usual. His eyes widened with pleased surprise.
She pulled on her dress, slipped into her shoes, and left.
...
Making the decision was like closing a door behind her. Her last decision. Ever. Or so she believed. Carol Edwards was completely, preternaturally calm. There had been momentary shock when she had asked what she should wear, and Brad had replied that he didn’t think it mattered; and she realized that of course it didn’t matter because whatever she wore would be taken from her and what she wore, or didn’t wear, would henceforth be decided by someone else. A small thing, but it caused her, briefly, to wonder what else about the loss of freedom she hadn’t considered.
Finished with her last morning rounds, she showered, and thought, but with detachment: when I next bathe will be decided by someone else.
She brushed her teeth and put the brush back in the holder, although she realized she didn’t need to.
She watched herself distantly in the mirror, brushing her hair, applying red lipstick, having to raise the nose ring with her left hand to do so with her right.
From her closet she took the trench coat she had worn to that first gangbang at Brad’s house near Julian and slipped into the same black backless sandals, whose high heels clipped/clopped down the hardwood hallway.
In the kitchen she tore the top sheet from a pad on which she made grocery lists, wrote a few words, and left it on the dark green granite counter top.
From her wrist she removed the Cartier Santos watch her parents had given her when she graduated from Stanford and placed it on top of the sheet of paper. She was beyond time.
She walked out onto the balcony and stood, looking down at San Diego Bay. A sailboat was sailing slowly. She watched it for a minute, took a deep breath--eucalyptus trees, mown grass--turned and left the condo without looking back, closing the door only because Brad had told her too.
The elevator took her to the parking level. She knew that the next elevator would take her farther.
Ross’s Land Rover was still in its space. He had said he would come back for his possessions, but hadn’t yet.
She climbed into her cheerful yellow Beetle and drove down the hill to Mission Beach, where she turned left and followed Mission Boulevard to its south end where there is a small public parking lot near the jetty.
Brad’s silver Lexis was already there. She pulled into the space beside it, turned off the engine, got out of her car, locked the door--Brad wanted it to be found not stolen--and quickly stepped into the Lexis, tying not to glance across the beach to the ocean. She had lived all her life near the Pacific Ocean whose clear horizon had always seemed to offer endless possibility. She could not face that; but for a few seconds she could not avoid the sound of surf.
…
Ten thousand cars on Interstate 5, rushing north and south, business, pleasure, make a deal, see a client, visit relatives, go to Disneyland, entering, exiting: the freeway as life.
A silver Lexis moved with the flow. Inside two people. A man. A woman. Silent. Distant. Only a few words had been spoken. “What music would you like?” “I’ve made my last decision.” So it was Bach’s “Inventions and Sinfonias” played by Tatiana Nikolayeva on the piano. Carol had kicked off her shoes and was remembering the sensation of sand beneath the soles of her bare feet.
...
It was just after noon when they merged from the Santa Anna Freeway onto the Santa Monica. At La Brea Brad exited.
“Are you hungry? Do you want to stop for lunch?”
“No.”
He drove north to Wilshire, turned left, and after a few blocks pulled into the parking entrance of a fifteen story office building. Their eyes took a moment to adjust to the transition from bright sunlight to the artificially lit darkness of a man-made cave.
Brad followed the signs and painted arrows, gradually descending.
On each level there were fewer parked cars. Level 4 was almost empty. Level 5 was empty. Clean concrete. Walls. Ceiling. Pavement seldom driven on. No tire marks. No oil smears. No discarded candy wrappers or ticket stubs. In the far wall a single elevator door.
Although he could have pulled up beside it, Brad Tomalin swung wide and stopped twenty feet away. When he switched off the engine, the silence was complete.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know.”
Brad reached into his pocket and came out with a gold chain on which dangled a gold key. Turning toward her he leaned forward and dropped it over her head. “If you do go, you’ll need this.”
Carol Edwards sat motionless, facing forward, not looking at him; but Brad noticed that her feet were slipping into her shoes. She seemed serene. His own pulse was pounding. He felt the blood throbbing in his temple. The moment stretched. Neither of them moved. It lengthened. Finally he could not endure it.
“I’m going to drive away.”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“It should have been the second level.”
“What?”
“Dante’s INFERNO. The second circle of hell is lust. The fifth is anger. I’m not angry. The elevator should be on the second level.”
Still staring forward, still not looking at him. “Tell me to go.”
“I can’t.”
“TELL ME TO GO!”
“GO.”
In one fluid motion Carol Edwards slipped from her trench coat and the Lexis and her life. Halfway to the elevator she kicked off her shoes. She didn’t have to press the call button. As she neared, the elevator doors silently opened. Brad Tomalin watched her perfect naked form step unhesitatingly in. She did not turn around. His eyes fixed on the cleft of her ass. The door closed.
He exhaled. Adrenaline was rushing to his brain. His hand shook as he started the car. His foot jerked against the accelerator. In unexpected panic, he who prided himself on always being in control, fled. Tires squealed. Circled upward. Back toward the light. Retreated. Were lost in distance.
Seventy-five feet below Wilshire Boulevard, the fifth level of a parking garage was silent. Hollow. Empty. Except for a pair of black high heeled sandals toppled onto their sides.
49
Although she knew it was unlocked and she had often entered before without seeking permission, Faye sensed that something was wrong and knocked on the door. No one had seen Carol Edwards for four days. Not in person or on the webcam. Two of those days were on the weekend when she was often away; but she had now twice missed her morning rounds . Faye waited, and when there was no response, knocked again louder. Then waited again before turning the knob.
“Carol? Are you home?”
The living room was empty. The doors to the balcony open. Curtains swayed in a light breeze coming up from the bay.
She crossed to the kitchen, blunt jaw clenching when she saw the Cartier wristwatch on the granite counter. She read the words on the sheet of paper without moving it.
“CAROL?” She called as she forced herself down the corridor, afraid of what she would find.
The guest bathroom was first. She entered and pulled back the shower curtain. Relief that it was empty.
Nothing in the guest bedroom.
“Carol?” again as she entered the master bedroom. No one in the bed or on the floor. She had expected it would be the master bathroom; but at a glance, it wasn’t.
Retracing her steps, she returned to the kitchen. Read the words on sheet of paper again.
Gone to another world
And dialed 911.
50
Brad Tomalin had good lawyers, good connections--several of the men and women who had used Carol Edwards held elective office--and no motive. The time of her disappearance was never precisely established so he needed no alibi. Her VW convertible was found. Surfers who daily ride the jetty break were questioned. They recalled seeing the car parked there, but could not recall when it first appeared. Shown a photograph of Carol Edwards, they, and everyone else to whom her photo was shown, said they had not seen her, and if they had, they would have remembered that face.
Although no body ever washed ashore, eventually the legal system decided that Carol Edwards had committed suicide. Only Brad Tomalin knew that it was an assisted suicide. She had died intestate.
Ross Edwards flew back from Singapore and hired a law firm to argue that he should have a portion of the estate. His claim was denied and he ended with nothing except the Land Rover and a few other personal possessions.
After the condo was sold and various IRAs and 401ks were transferred, Dr. and Mrs. Litchfield ended up with slightly more than a half million dollars they did not need. They donated the money in her name to the Salk Institute, whose research is worthwhile and whose Louis Kahn designed buildings Carol had caused her to decide to become an architect. They kept only the Cartier Santos watch, which Elaine Litchfield intended to wear in memory of her daughter; but found that she could not because each time she glanced at the watch she relived Carol’s last visit. She felt her daughter’s lips on hers, breasts against her breasts, the taste of Carol on her face, the building orgasm from Carol’s tongue. And then being fucked senseless by that man. It was too much. She put the watch in a drawer and tried, unsuccessfully, to forget.
Only one other relic remained of Carol Edwards’s life.
Brad Tomalin kept her trench coat. He knew there was danger in doing so, but was confident that he could, if ever necessary, explain it away.
The coat hung in his walk-in bedroom closet. Whenever he noticed it, he wondered.
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