Life with Roxy was like a roller coaster that both thrilled and chilled. Sometimes your stomach gets queasy with the whole thing and you swear you’ll never get on again. Then before you know it, you find yourself lining up for another ride, like the adrenaline junkie you really are. The kind of relationships that make you sweat, in both good and bad ways, can become a lot like this over time. Eventually, if you’re lucky and not doomed to a life as a perpetual fuck up, the excitement of the ups and downs begin to fade and you start to crave stability again.

Roxy and I had been living together for a year by then and our particular brand of love no longer held the kind of shiny appeal it once had. All the little quirks and flaws that I’d found so exciting when we’d first met had finally begun to wear on me. It wasn’t a matter of relationship fatigue in so much as it was a matter of finally accepting a reality I’d done literally everything to avoid acknowledging. Roxy was never going to grow up. She was the sybaritic type, content on soaking up life’s fun and frivolity without taking any responsibility for anything other than getting what she wanted. 

At first it had charmed me. She was that dreamer goddess with her head in the clouds, always looking the next big high. It had been the perfect foil to get me away from my more practical and grounded tendencies. I’d been jaded and dispassionate before her, but the ride we’d taken together had come with some jarring twists and turns. Now I was beginning to consider the possibility that we were just a toxic match, and that the good times no longer overrode the bad. Up until then, I’d had my eyes tightly closed, childishly hoping all the bad stuff would go away. And yet, even if you’re not seeing it, it doesn’t mean it’s not still there, corrosively eating away at the foundation of everything you thought you had.

“I’m not altogether sure she’s right in the head,” I told Zane once, over beers near the Santa Monica Pier. We’d been spending more time together by then, hanging out like old times.

As my relationship continued to decay, a little separation was not only wanted, it was needed. Roxy’s rusted VW had long since been left in my garage and now she was driving my SUV whenever possible, dropping me off and then skidding away, off to another yoga class or maybe to drop some coin on Melrose. During the week, when I was at work, she thought nothing of fifty-dollar cab rides to the beach of her choice. Roxy was nothing but wholly dedicated to her pursuit of pleasure.

“Dude, I don’t know what to tell you. One day we were surfing and the next day you had yourself a full on wife. How does that happen exactly? Like how do you just go and move some strange girl into your house and give her the keys to your entire life?”

“She was special,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah, the golden pussy. I remember. Hell, that night in the club is still fresh in my head as far as hot scenes go. Fuck, it must be damn good, bro, to put up with this array of shit from her.” He took another swig of his beer. “So how much longer are you going to be her whipping boy?”

“I’m not a fucking whipping boy.”

“You are. Never let a girl take control like she has. She’s got you by the balls and she’s not letting go until you put a ring on that finger. I pegged that from the first moment you hooked up with her. She’s a smart one, that Roxy. Hot, yeah, but not relationship material. You’d have been better off leaving her at the beach that afternoon, after you’d had your fun.”

“Come on, it hasn’t been all bad,” I reminded him. “In some totally bent way, she’s still the best time I’ve ever had.”

“Had is the key word there, my friend. Seriously, it’s time to move on.”

“She’s got nowhere to go,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I can’t just kick her out.”

“Let her go back to Arizona or whatever. It’s not your problem. You’ve done more than enough, trust me. This girl is draining you. And not in a good way.”

I turned the beer bottle over and over in my hands, methodically considering all my options.

“Fuck, I don’t know,” I admitted finally. “When shit like this happens, you think it’s going to be easy to put it behind you, but it’s not. Maybe I’m just not quite ready to let her go yet.”

It was difficult to begin to indulge the idea of a genuine breakup coupled with the complications of her situation. She didn’t have a built-in network of girlfriends to fall back on, if we parted ways. And on her own, she certainly didn’t have the funds to secure the kind of lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to. Once I had brought up the idea of her returning to Arizona, mostly as a joke, but she had been very serious in return. She was a California girl now. There was no way she was going back to the desert. This was where she belonged, she’d told me. And yet, the obvious issues still remained. Beautiful, young and broke, she’d picked an expensive coastline to pin her hopes on.

I’d always considered it a bit of luck when we’d connected, fresh off her last breakup. I had been eager to take her in because the vibe between us had been so intense. Meant to be, she’d called in, in one of her more girly moments. How many times had she whispered it to me, hot with desire, that she’d never felt this way before, while running her tongue along my ear, her hand sliding down the front of my jeans to grip my cock. She had a hold on me, and I wanted to believe the effect I had on her was just as strong. In a way, we were enablers for each other’s vices in our relationship. She provided the excitement and I provided the stability. It’s a heady combination before you really take serious stock of your differences and see all the red-flags in between.

Logistics weren’t the only thing that had me continuously putting off a break up. There was also that awful little niggling doubt that happens when you’re on the cusp of ending a big love affair and all the ‘what ifs’ that start to play around in your head. What if you’re making a hasty mistake? What if there’s something there to salvage and make better? In a sick way maybe I thought I could fix her too. It’s easy to shrug off the shackles of a co-dependent relationship when you aren’t getting anything back in return. It’s far more difficult when there are the moments that still manage to keep you there, bound by all the little things that are pure magic at times. That was my constant struggle with Roxy. Even when it was dark, there were still sparks that had a kind of hypnotic effect on me.

Just when she saw me on the verge of checking out, she’d do something to confuse me and make me question everything again. When I would complain about maxed out credit cards, she’d buckle down and try to make things right. That spring, for example, she’d picked up a modeling gig with a local surfing apparel company. They needed a pretty thing that could ride the waves and Roxy was a perfect fit. Not only did she have the right look, but she could also give them the action shots they wanted, down at the beach. They’d sent her some of the digital proofs after the photo shoot and she’d been eager to show me. She was gorgeous alright, in her array of rash guards, bikini bottoms and wetsuits. A neoprene queen with her wet blonde strands and the kind of spray she could throw, doing her tricks on the board.

“See, they loved me,” she said with a satisfied grin. “I can bring it when I need to, Leo. Don’t underestimate me.”

She was determined to show me that she was competent when she wanted to be. Or more importantly, when something motivated her or caught her interest, which was still a rarity at best. She would go into a little ‘I can do no wrong’ bubble for a few weeks. I would encourage her to continue getting out there and looking for work or following up on contacts instead of falling back on her lazy lifestyle of partying and surfing. Instead of being buoyed by my support, however, she would grow resentful, like I was pressuring her or trying to control her free spirited ways. Inevitably the brighter moments were followed by those longer lulls of dissatisfaction again. It was a vicious cycle, the good times and the bad.

Things began to come to a head in early June. It was my birthday and I’d driven home from work filled with the kind of life-overhaul resolve that comes on milestone dates in the calendar year, like birthdays, anniversaries and New Year’s Eve. I’d had every intention of talking to her that night and sorting through our plans for the future. I’d even rehearsed my lines, while stuck in traffic. ‘It’s not you, or me, it’s us. We’re not good for each other. Surely you have to see that too.’ I walked in with a heavy heart and some trepidation over the idea of finally hashing it all out.

And then my big speech was effectively cut to ribbons by the image that greeted me.

There she was, naked and lounging on her side, propped up on an elbow atop a brand new surfboard that was positioned and perfectly balanced across my low coffee table. As if her sprawl wasn’t jaw-dropping enough, she’d placed a huge red bow on her ass, just barely visible behind the delicious curve of her hip.

“Happy Birthday, baby,” she sang. “Look what I got for you.”

I dropped my keys on the hall table and walked up to her like a moth to a flame.

“What did you do?”

Her eyes were sparkling as she batted her lashes in an exaggerated way, reminding me of a cartoon sexpot.

“Like it?”

“You or the board?” I smirked.

She playfully swatted me before sitting up. “It’s kind of a package deal.”

Roxy slid into my lap. “See, it’s all custom work,” she enthused, running her hand along the rails. “I had it designed especially for you.”

“Fuck, Roxy. You shouldn’t have. It must have cost a…”

“Hey, don’t worry about money. We’re beyond that aren’t we? We have love. Hot, liquid, fucking undeniable love.”

She slid her warm tongue into my mouth and all my plans quickly melted away.

She told me she’d used the money she’d made from her recent modeling job to buy me what was truly a stellar gift that outshone anything anyone had ever done for me before. It wasn’t the throwaway token I had been expecting that day when she’d mumbled a ‘happy birthday’ before rolling over to continue snoozing in the early morning hours before I got up for work.

Roxy walked around the board, taking me on a tour of all the custom artwork choices she’d made. She’d even had our initials discreetly blended into the graphic design on one of the fins.

“So now every time you’re waiting for a set, you’ll know I’m right there, under you, gripping the water, and helping maneuver you in the right direction. I’m your forever good luck charm, Leo.”

I drank in all of her excitement. Her energy was like a kid on Christmas morning and utterly contagious.

“And now it’s time for your second birthday gift,” she said, turning around and bending at the waist.

She braced her hands on the board, and I was presented with her glorious ribbon-adorned ass, the cheeks naturally splayed by her posture. She swayed her hips back and forth, tempting me with that juicy plum.

“It’s all for you, baby.”

“How’d you know it’s just what I wanted?” I teased.

I peeled the bow away and tossed it aside. My hands moved over her tight curves, inhaling the scent of her cunt before diving my tongue inside. I drew her back against me, drunk off another perfect moment.

Eventually I laid her across the board, christening it. I got down on my knees and put both of her legs over my shoulder, feeling the heat of her pussy against my lips before I locked on for a more thorough exploration of every slippery fold, that warm wet hole and that perfect little pink clit that trembled under my tongue. Her body began to move and arch, as she rhythmically bucked up against my mouth and probing fingers. I could even see the faint trace of juices on the board beneath her ass, like nectar on the resin.

I couldn’t get enough of her again. She was instantly addicting. The sight of her there, all tanned limbs, long blonde hair, and eager eyes completely distracted me from my earlier thoughts of getting her out of my life. She was rapturous and passionate that night too, as though trying to erase all doubts that she was in it again, and that she wanted to make it work. When I slid into her, it was easy. She wasn’t fighting me or jostling for control, we were connecting, like we had on the beach one year earlier. I could almost feel the warmth of the sun, the way it was on that day again. It was sweet. And fuck I didn’t want to let it go.

“You know what? I’m feeling optimistic about us again,” she’d said, laying in our mess of sheets later that night.

“It’s been kind of crazy lately, Rox,” I admitted. “Either way, something’s gotta give, right? Maybe if we both figure out where to focus our energies.”

She nodded. “Look, I know we haven’t had the smoothest year, but I just consider them growing pains. What couple doesn’t go through a bit of an adjustment period when they move in together?”

“Roxy, it’s been more than just an adjus…”

She put her fingers to my lips, silencing me. “Wait, I’m not finished yet. What I wanted to say is that I’ve done some thinking lately and I really want to get more serious this year about my future and what I want. And I’m ready to put some real effort into it, not just coasting anymore. I want to get a stable job, cut down on the partying, make a real try for it. For us.”

It was everything I’d wanted to hear for months. I lay in bed that night, long after she’d fallen asleep, wondering if I was being naïve about the whole thing. Roxy was so convincing when she wanted to be. There was no guile behind her words that night or sense that she was feeding me what I wanted to hear. I believed in her, at least as much as she believed it herself. And that’s the real trouble with trust in relationships, when moments are fleeting and feelings change as quickly as a riptide. You can put your faith into the way the currents are moving, but there’s always that damned undertow, ready to pull you away from safe shores and change up the game completely.

* * *

The big party was on the Fourth of July. There were five of us that year: Zane, Noah and his flavor of the month girl, and Roxy and I. We’d spent most of the day cruising The Strand at Hermosa Beach among the throngs of people. Roxy was working it as usual in a red string bikini and shredded denim shorts that barely covered her ass. While there were plenty of bikinis along that beach, Roxy’s ultra-toned surfer girl curves gave her an edge and she welcomed the attention. Rather than hover the way I used to, I let her do her thing. It had only been a few short weeks past my birthday and things were green again between us. My confidence had been restored about where we were headed and I wasn’t looking back.

Zane noticed the stars in my eyes and I knew he wasn’t impressed.

“You’re gonna regret it, man. I’m telling you. This is all a temporary smokescreen.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I’ll have bigger regrets not seeing it through. I have to know for sure before I make a move either way.”

He gave me a sidelong glance, as though in disbelief over my newfound faith in her.

“Golden pussy,” he said, snidely reminding us both. “That’s always been the key.”

“Dude, why don’t you just chill on the whole thing for a while, okay?” I snapped. “I get it. You hate her. But gimme some space. Let me figure it out on my own.”

At first I’d been down with everything Zane had been saying about her and the fate of the relationship but now it was all grating on me, making me feel bristly about even talking to him about her. I’d kept my mouth shut and supported him through an endless number of female train-wrecks over the years without making moral judgments, and now I wasn’t feeling any similar level of support.

“Bro, you know I’m just looking out for you,” he said quietly, quickly downing the rest of his drink. He dropped it on one of the bar tables with an authoritative crash of glass on wood and turned to me with a wide amiable grin. “But fine, I’ll shut up about it. It’s your life, your chick. You’ll see it when you want to see it…”

Roxy was back within earshot and I quickly changed the topic. She ambled over to us, double-fisting vodka shots that were constantly being passed to her on account of being a hot girl.

“Happy Fourth,” she sang, downing them both with aplomb before going up on her toes and hanging on my neck to drop a long open kiss on me.

I could hear the sighs and low groans coming from the bar, as would-be players realized that she was already taken. I wasn’t shy about drawing her in for a vodka-fueled make out, pulling her little waist up against my abs as my mouth moved against hers. It was only when I heard Zane clearing his throat that I let her down for a breath of air.

“Fuck, get a room,” Zane laughed.

“Oh, come on,” Roxy chastised, “as if you’d do it any differently.”

“Sorry, I don’t do public fucking anymore, Dollface. Crowds like this aren’t my thing.”

“How do you do your fucking then, Zane?” she giggled. “Come on, I wanna know.”

“With stealth,” he teased, leaning in close. “I’m not the type that needs to show off. Unlike you.”

“Owwww,” she laughed, pretending he’d landed a sinking insult. “If you don’t like the show, then why do I keep notice you looking? Wanna buy tickets?”

“Not if you’re giving them away for free, darlin'.”

It was the first time I’d noticed a genuinely flirty repartee between them. I had assumed it was a result of the copious amounts of alcohol we’d all been consuming, but it still surprised me. And yet just as quickly, before I let my territorial paranoia sink in, the moment had passed. Zane put a respectable distance between them again and returned to ogling the female bartender.

“I’m heading in,” he said with a wink, nodding toward the sexy redhead pouring shots.

We watched his confident stride to the bar, having honed in on his night’s prize. The bartender was already awaiting the approach. She cocked her head to the side, smiling at him as she leaned in to hear his pitch.

Roxy, in the meantime, was ready to put the focus back on her. She pressed back into my chest, wiggling her little ass into me.

“Better watch it, you’re going to get me hard, dirty girl,” I whispered into her ear.

“That’s kind of the point.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got all night.”

She turned in my arms, gazing up at me.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. There’s nothing like a night of fireworks to clear all the cobwebs of the past, don’t you think? You just let it all out and send it off with a bang. It’s like a fresh start.”

“Hmm… I like that analogy,” I said thoughtfully.

I was caught off guard by the swell of emotion I was suddenly feeling for her again. When she told me she loved me, the intensity of those words returned full force. I did love her. More than I wanted to. It was a masochistic romance to be sure, but I was still utterly hooked, pulled back into the blissful euphoria of those first few months when she looked at me like that. Like I was still her whole world.

Zane handed us another round of drinks and continued to busy himself at the bar. The pretty redhead was laughing at something he’d said, amused in the way women typically were when Zane turned the full force of his off-beat charms on them.

“He’s shameless,” she giggled.

“Yeah, but you’d be surprised at how many girls he gets. I honestly can’t remember the last long-term relationship he’s had. I think he’s paranoid about the money. Zane has major trust issues.”

“What money? He’s a painter! I’ve seen him down at Venice Beach. And he’s always asking you for a ride. He’s hardly a big catch in the LA gold digger sweepstakes.”

“Nah, he paints cause that’s his thing. He’s a trust fund baby though. He’s never had to do any real work a day in his life. His dad’s in the oil business and provides plenty of cushion for his only son. Zane’s got his future locked down tight, believe me. But he thinks most women are whores, so he plays it off cause he doesn’t wanna get played.”

“And what about you?” she asked with a nudge.

I grinned sarcastically. “I don’t wanna get played either.”

“No, I mean that bit about all women being whores. Is that your deal too?”

For a moment, I looked at her incredulously. “No, fuck no.”

And then I realized she had only been teasing.

“That’s too bad, Leo. I was thinking about being your little whore tonight. But if you only want the good girls…”

“Since when have you ever been a good girl?” I asked, dropping a warm kiss on her neck.

“That’s true,” she said.

It might have been the first honest thing she’d said in our entire relationship.

Later that night we spilled onto the streets with the crowds to watch the fireworks over the ocean. We sat in the sand. Noah was there with his girl and Zane had successfully reeled in the bartender, who’d finished her shift at midnight and brought a bottle of premium Tequila with her. It was like old times with Roxy in my lap, snuggling into my shirt, watching the explosion of lights across the night sky. At a casual glance we were the couple everyone wanted to be. My fingers traced the fringed denim along her inner thigh, slipping inside to tease her clit, getting her all hot again. Somewhere in the early hours of the morning, we lost track of everyone else and walked back to my townhouse, drunk, laughing, crashing through the front door.

It felt easy again with her in my arms. There were no dark undercurrents or hard edges. We were connecting in a deeper way than we had in months and in my deluded state, I was even starting to fantasize about her in a white dress and veil on the beach. I could marry this girl. Yeah, that’s what a day’s worth of drinking and a beautiful girl will do to you. Not to mention a tongue that wasn’t shy about going anywhere.

By the time we’d spent our energies, the sex and the alcohol had made my head heavy with exhaustion. We fell asleep, limbs entwined, for what seemed like hours but was obviously far less than that. The sound of the door being unceremoniously knocked open momentarily woke us both. I realized I probably hadn’t locked it and we weren’t far from the main strip that was still packed with both locals and tourists.

I left Roxy in bed and crept out into the hall. My first thought was a possible break-in, but once I’d taken a few steps down the stairs, I saw Zane staggering in. I heard him swearing as he bashed his toe on a table, feeling his way along the couch.

“Are you ok? What happened to what’s her name? The redhead. Kelly.” I was scratching my head, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together in my fog as I turned on a side lamp in the hall.

“Whores, they’re all whores, Leo,” he sighed. “I tested her. Told her I lived in a shit apartment with three roommates. Told her I was a caricature artist, just to really drive it home. She pretended to be impressed, like 'wow it’s all about following your dreams, good for you.' She told me she was going to the bathroom for a minute. An hour later, I’m snoozing on the beach. I’m not going to tell her I live in a beachside penthouse. Fuck that. You can’t trust any of them.”

“So, you’re going to crash here tonight?”

“Yeah, I can’t get a cab at this time of night with those crowds all trying to do the same thing. I’ll sleep it off on your couch. Be out before you’re up in the morning. Go back to bed.”

I tossed him a pillow and some blankets from the hall closet and returned to Roxy. I found her staring out the window, uncharacteristically lost in thought.

“Babe?”

“I was just thinking about all the fun we’ve had over the past year.”

“It’s been a trip,” I agreed, sinking down into the covers beside her. “Ups and downs. The ups have been pretty damn good though, haven’t they?”

She barely smiled. “I know I can be frustrating.”

“It’s part of the package,” I acknowledged. “But I’ve always liked a challenge. So do you, Roxy.”

“Do you think people can change, Leo?”

“Not really.”

Yeah,” she said, looking wistful. “You’re probably right.”

I should have heard it in her tone right then and there. I should have flipped on the lights and talked her through whatever was bouncing around in her head, but I didn’t. Instead I kissed her softly and closed my eyes to everything, choosing sleep over a chance to fight for what I thought I wanted. It was just supposed to be a few hours. Just a few mindless restful dreamscapes after a long day that had been one of our best in a long while.

I’d thought we were in that comfortable place, that holding pattern before the next wave, where we could just drift for a little while, side by side, the sun reflecting off our faces as we floated in the cool blue. In reality, I’d gotten lost in the curves of her face and that salty tangle of hair that clung like ocean weeds. That smile lulled me in with a dangerous wink. I didn’t even hear the monstrous wave rising up behind me, reading to crash.

It was the noise that woke me up that night. A car backfiring in the streets, or maybe it was some late fireworks finishing their rounds. Roxy wasn’t in bed and the bathroom light wasn’t on. Sometimes I wish I’d closed my eyes again. Maybe it would have been easier. I lay there for a little while before getting up, contemplating something a guy in a solid relationship would never have.

I don’t know what exactly I was expecting to find. Fuck it, even as I claim that now, I know it’s a lie. What I wanted to find was Roxy in the kitchen getting a glass of water, or maybe sitting on the overstuffed chair in the corner talking to Zane about how he needed to treat women better and learn how to trust.

That’s the irony of it all.

Mid-hallway and illuminated by the wash of moonlight through the windows, I saw her silhouette. She was as gorgeous as ever, I’ll admit that right now. And I hated her something fierce watching the natural rhythm of her body, the muscles in her back moving. Her head tilted back and I caught her in full profile, mouth slightly open, the moonbeams bouncing off those stiff nipples that I’d tongued just hours earlier.

I wanted to believe she had been the succubus all along, climbing on top of him while he was nearly passed out. I wanted to imagine that he was barely cognizant of what was going on, instead of seeing his hands sink down into the flesh of her lower hips, biting into the skin as he pulled her down on his cock and began to thrust violently up inside her. I heard his low moan and I knew she was working his cock from the inside, her cunt squeezing and contracting along the length of his shaft. Now Zane knew, first hand, just how special Foxy Roxy was.

The adrenaline rush that comes with seeing the girl you love in a moment like that overwhelms to the core. A slow fire spread upward inside me as I hesitated there, caught up in my own private hell. All along I had been subconsciously expecting something like this, a red flag in itself for sure, but part of me never really trusted Roxy. There was blame on my part as well. I had baited her and lost. There had been a warning signal back in the bar that I’d pushed aside. I sensed the mechanics in her brain turning things over, her natural predilection to be self-serving, winning out at all costs. He wasn’t a broke surfer anymore. Now he had potential. What I hadn’t counted on was her climbing on top of him on my couch, one floor below our bedroom, and riding him like a perfect ten point wave to seal the deal.

I contemplated storming in and throwing them both out on the street. I even contemplated violent thoughts of putting my fist through his blue-blood face. After all the lectures he’d given me, all the warnings and cautionary tales he’d spun when it came to her, there he was, just as hedonistic and unscrupulous as she was. She was exactly the kind of girl he’d claimed to hate the most. All his encouraging talk, pushing me to break up with her now seemed to pale and become something less than genuine as he continued his up-thrust into my girlfriend’s slutty cunt, gripping the back of her hair into a ponytail and using his biceps to trap her upper shoulders for leverage.

Two steps forward and one step back. I was held immobilized by the moment. Something dark and debased came over me that night. I was hot with emotion at seeing them, conflicted by my own inner dialogue. Maybe I wanted to seal that taste of deception so that I didn’t have second thoughts when she smiled at me in the morning sunlight. Or maybe I’m just a dirty and deviant fuck. Instead of giving into the rage, I let it boil within me. I hovered just outside the room, hidden by the shadows of the hall alcove. They couldn’t see me, but from my vantage point I could see and hear everything.

A peculiar backdrop to the potent mixture of disbelief and betrayal was my own sense of arousal. There’s nothing like the taboo to make the libido flame hot. It raged through me like an inferno. I began to give myself over to that dangerous void of a mind space where I wasn’t thinking about the future or the implications to either my friendship or my relationship. I was just watching them, absorbed by the clash of energies, caught up in the way they moved.

I had never watched Roxy fuck from that angle. I saw the curves of her back changing and her sway of her hips as she rode him, the way her apple bottom clenched as she bore down for a slow grind. I could see his balls pulled up tight beneath her, his legs slightly bent, his hands around her throat as she let out a moan.

“Mmm…yeah, squeeze harder. Make me your dirty whore, Zane.”

“Uh huh, you’ve been wanting that for a while, haven’t you,” he said through clenched teeth. “I fuckin' know you, Roxy. Better than you even know yourself.”

Her hair veiled her face as she tilted her head back, wholly embracing the grip he had around her neck. She was moving up and down on him with purpose, the underside of her ass bouncing against his hips. I could hear the wetness, the sound of her sloppy cunt along his shaft. I imagined his cock stirring into my own cum, having just unloaded in her hours earlier. There was something perverse about it and yet it turned me on too. I wondered if it was doing the same thing for him. It obviously hadn’t given him any pause.

“Work that dick, baby-doll,” I heard him murmur in a hushed voice. “Fuck yeah, just like that.”

He lifted her up off of him and roughly put her on her knees over the back of the couch.

“Are you ready to give up this sweet little ass?” he taunted. “Isn’t that what you’ve been teasing me with all day?”

“Yeah, you wanna fuck it, don’t you?” she teased back.

“Girl, I’m gonna fuck it so hard you’re going to have cum running down the back of your legs for days.”

She moaned her response and he clamped his hand over her mouth. “First we have to find a way to keep that dirty mouth of yours closed. You don’t wanna get caught, do you?”

I watched as he gagged her with his own boxer shorts, muffling her cries.

Keeping her bent over at an angle, he roughly ran his hands down the length of her spine before diving down to tongue her ass. There was nothing gentle about his approach as he spread the cheeks of her ass and assaulted her with his tongue, wriggling back and forth before spitting on her tight knot several times until it was glistening wet. His hand slapped the cheeks of her ass as if he was punishing her, before I watched him working his fingers inside.

“You know how long I’ve been wanting to fuck this little ass of yours, Roxy?” I heard him say in a low voice. “How long I’ve been waiting for this goddamn breakup of yours that never seems to happen? I wanna know what gets all these guys so worked up for you. And fuck, maybe we’re both going straight to hell for this, but damn, you pushed me over the edge tonight. No more waiting.”

My own throat tightened as I watched him sink that thick rod into her tiny ass. Her hands clutched the back of the couch and had she not been gagged I knew she would have been unleashing the screams without restraint. This was Foxy Roxy at her finest, getting her sweet ass pummeled and punished for being the kind of girl she knew she was. Maybe she even found it cathartic, like a kind of release or sexual penance. Of course, that was assuming she had a conscience at all and I wasn’t entirely sure anymore.

If Roxy wanted to be treated like a dirty thing, there was no doubt in my mind that Zane was the perfect one to give her exactly that. She was no Malibu princess to him, she was the kind of girl he liked to use and forget the next morning. There was a kind of satisfaction that came with knowing her games wouldn’t work this time. In a way, I welcomed every thrust, eager to see her dominated by him.

As I stood there, listening, hearing her muffled sobs as she took each thrust, something in me let go. She did as well. Roxy came, maybe twice. I could see the rise and fall of her upper body as she leaned over the sofa. I saw the way her spine stiffened and even the way her toes curled. Zane leaned over her and pulled the shorts from her mouth. He put his lips to her ear, his fingers cupped around her jaw so that she couldn’t escape his words.

“That felt good to cum for me, didn’t it? You like having my cock in your ass, don’t you?”

“Yes,” came her strangled moan. “Fuck, it feels so good.”

“Now it’s my turn to cum. You think you can keep that dirty mouth of yours closed while I flood that sweet ass of yours?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. I watched him turn her face to the side and saw a shadowed glimpse of his tongue sliding into her mouth. He continued working her, I could see the sweat on his upper back and the muscles of his buttocks clenching with each slow deep thrust. It was nearly unbearable and in so many other ways, it was the breaking of every dark fantasy I thought I’d never had.

I’d harbored so many latent anxieties about a moment like this, dreading it to my core. I’d fought so many jealousies throughout our relationship almost to the point of paranoia. As irrational as it had seemed along the way, maybe I’d always known it would become an eventual reality. And now that it was happening right in front of my eyes, with everything confirmed, the intensity of it was making me throb. It wasn’t just the heat in my cock, it was a fiery energy running through my veins like a Molotov cocktail. I felt my own body reacting when Zane’s guttural groans announced that he was flooding her ass with his cum. I stood there in the shadows, breathing hard, my heart thudding in my chest.

In the aftermath, I didn’t wait around to see if there would be any post-coital cuddling or talk. I was furious with them, and even more furious with myself. I snuck up the stairs in darkness, careful not to let the floorboards creak under my steps. I sat on the side of my bed, trying to make sense of what would happen when the sun rose up over the Pacific coast a few hours later. Everything was different now. I hadn’t had time to properly formulate a plan or calculate a reaction. I heard a noise in the hallway and to bide more time, I slipped into bed and closed my eyes. Yet behind those lids, I was reliving each moment, like a highlight reel to a new film.

I heard Roxy sneaking back into the bedroom and the gentle shift of the mattress as she slipped under the covers with me. I could feel the latent adrenaline still pulsing in my veins. The girl on the pedestal had fallen so far. I listened to her breathing, felt her warmth along my back as she dared to snuggle into my stiff and unyielding form. I watched the clock on my nightstand ticking. We had been bound so tight, maybe we were destined to go over the edge and drown anyway. It was the beginning of the end, and each minute that elapsed heralded that new reality.

Waiting. Planning. Thinking. Fuck it all.

Sometime before dawn, I exploded with a caged heat. The synapses in my brain had finally become unwired and I was acting on impulse now. Just like her. I gave in to the crashing wave, instead of fighting to control it. I let it knock me completely off-balance and into the deep blue and there I tumbled, my mind free-falling, shot through with watercolor snapshots of our entire relationship, irrevocably sinking straight to the bottom. I smothered Roxy with the weight of my body as my mouth found hers. I was kissing her, consuming her, and she was coming alive for me the way she always had, yet now she was unable to meet my eyes. She let her head loll from side to side when I hooked her thighs over my shoulders and drove my cock into her like a steel piston.

“Oh yeah, fuck me, Leo. Fuck me!”

And I was fucking her. Just like she’d fucked me. I was shredding everything we had together, obliterating it with each thrust, reveling in the heat of her from the inside because I knew that’s all I’d ever really get from her. This was just business for her and maybe it always had been. I no longer cared. I was free of all my expectations and liberated from the weight of the past. I crushed my mouth to hers, bruising her lips as I continued fucking away every soiled memory, every trace of love I’d held out for her.

This time I was the one calling the shots, and I wanted her to know it. I pinned her on her knees and wasted no time on warming her up. With one clean movement I drove myself into her ass, feeling the warm cum squelch around my shaft, even as she protested, for what might have been the first time in her life.

I put my mouth to her ear, biting the lobe, my breath hot against her neck. “What’s wrong, you don’t want my cock in your ass?”

She had to have known in that moment that I could feel it inside her, hot and liquid, lubricating every thrust. I felt her muscles instinctively clenching, I watched her fingers clutch desperately at the bed sheets. It was the final real checkmate in the game we’d been playing for the last year. Finally, I watched her give up the ghost.

“You know I love your cock in my ass,” she breathed finally.

“Say it again.”

“Leo…”

“Say it!”

Roxy, of course, didn’t like getting called out on her own games. She was too proud for that. For any normal girl that would have told me to stop or plead for forgiveness over her kind of betrayal, she wasn’t having any of it. She turned her face, looking over her shoulder and defiantly met my eyes. She even smiled that Cheshire cat grin of hers, before tossing the long length of her hair over her back. She bowed her upper body down low on the sheets, reaching back to spread her cheeks for me. It gave me a perfect view of the cum glistening on the muscular ring of her knot as it pulsed around my shaft.

“I love your cock in my ass, Leo,” she said purposefully, letting me know that she would remain feisty, no matter how much I pushed her. “I love the way it feels, nice and deep. I can feel it throbbing right now. Like you really want to fuck me.”

She reached behind and I watched her hand slide down until her fingers were wrapped around the root of my shaft, still leaving it buried inside her. I didn’t dare move. I was intent on watching those fingers becoming slippery with the cum that was leaking from her and glazing the inner corners of her thighs. She brought her fingers back around to her pretty lips and sucked them inside, licking the cum off each dirty digit as though issuing me a challenge. Our eyes locked, inexplicably bound tight.

This time, my thrusts were slow and deliberate and deep. The more she made a show of enjoying the taste of him, the more I wanted to fuck his cum right out of her.

“You like that?” she dared to tease. Her body rhythmically bumped forward until my balls were slapping her pussy and the wet sounds of our fucking filled the room. “Is that what you want?”

“That’s what I want,” I intoned. “Roxy being Roxy. We’re going to let it all out tonight.”

For all the times I’d gotten rough with her in the past, giving her the kind of sex she wanted as a way to pacify her, nothing quite approximated the intensity of fucking her when I had nothing left to lose. I knew she’d felt the energy between us shifting as well. We were raw and naked now and we both knew it. I wasn’t giving into her needs, I was claiming my own. I fucked her like I wanted to break her. And dammit if that didn’t turn her on as well. I could feel her little claws digging into my back, hearing the sobs in her throat when she came for me. It was even in the way she fought back while still urging me on, when I pinned her against the sheets. Her gleeful lusty grin was undeniable as the headboard rattled against the wall. We were wet with sweat as the night reached its feverish pitch just before dawn.

Finally, I leaned back on the bed, and pulled her over me, pushing her mouth toward my cock. She bobbed on the glistening head just as I knew she would, making a show of each move. She dragged her tongue along my shaft as her eyes met mine, before she began moving up and down on me. My hands slid into her hair and I gripped the back of her head, controlling the pace. I fucked her mouth until I was bumping the back of her throat, enjoying the froth of wetness that dripped from her chin.

Into the depths of her warm mouth, I unloaded everything I had for her. It gushed unexpectedly as though it had been boiling in my balls for months. She swallowed every drop, licking my shaft clean. It ended the way I wanted it to. Mine would be the last trace of cum that crossed her lips that night.

She watched me in the darkness as my hard breathing began to subside, her pretty lips forming that familiar pout. She was waiting for me to make my move, as my fingers absently stroked the damp tresses of her hair. Instead of pulling her against me so that she could rest her head on my chest and cuddle into my warmth, I let her fall back against the pillow on her own side of the bed.

“This isn’t working out.” I said.

She didn’t skip a beat. “I think you’re right.”

* * *

The next morning, under the harsh light of the summer sun, I watched her pack her bags. Zane had left before we’d gotten up, as I knew he would. There would be no immediate comeuppance from his actions. In fact, I wouldn’t see him for months after that fateful night. I didn’t call him and he must have known better than to call me.

Roxy, in the true spirit of who she was, wore my favorite crisp white Armani shirt as she packed, sans panties, taking her time. I don’t know if it was to tempt me or punish me. I didn’t bother asking for it back. She had already taken so much more as it was. I did watch her walking away from me as she got into the old VW that she hadn’t driven in nearly a year. There was a bit of ceremony in saying goodbye to what would soon become the past. I wanted to close the chapter with one final beautiful image. The way I’d seen her before we’d first met. That blonde spill of hair, the faded aqua paint on her ride, and the smile that had made silent promises of adventures to be had.

A lot of people might say that I played the willing fool with Roxy. That I’d willfully ignored all the signs that pointed to the traps she’d laid. After all, how can any one girl, golden pussy or not, be that compelling or irresistible?

I could wax on about her clever games, but my memories are biased, tainted by the way I wanted to see her. I might have even doubted myself had it not been for a fateful run in with Zane the following winter on Surfrider beach. I’d been avoiding the place since the fall out, sticking to Huntington or Hermosa. I hadn’t walked the Venice strip either, not wanting to be reminded of his betrayal. But eventually old habits die hard, and I found myself back at the familiar hotspot, chasing waves with the other shredders. I knew it was inevitable that our paths would cross.

Our first conversation was awkward, no doubt, but eventually we got back into a familiar rhythm. I never brought up Roxy and neither did he. We skirted around the big bang up on the Fourth of July and eventually settled back into a comfortable yet markedly standoffish acquaintanceship. We didn’t hang out per se, but we managed to be friendly during our run-ins at the beach. By then, Roxy had been tucked away into my vault of memories, no longer actively haunting me.

My new Zen state hadn’t happened overnight, in fact it had been months in the making. I’d cleaned my house of all traces of her in the weeks after our break up. I broke that surfboard she’d given me into fine chunks in my garage one night with a sledgehammer and a bottle of tequila by my side. It was my way of making peace with all the fury I had over losing my girlfriend and one of my best friends in one fell swoop. By the time I finally ran into Zane again, I just felt apathy. We’d been friends for far longer than Roxy’s brief time in my life. I’d wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt now that the little blonde she-devil wasn’t an influence anymore.

Of course, just like I’d been wrong in the past, it turned out that I was destined to be wrong again.

It was early in the New Year on a lazy Sunday when it happened. I’d been waiting by Zane’s new Range Rover to borrow wax for my board when I happened to notice the seafoam green bikini top in his backseat. That scrap of fabric was like seeing a ghost and Zane’s panicked reaction left little doubt in my mind. He scrambled, but I moved faster, dangling it from my finger and twirling it around like a prize. It was there between us finally, like a specter rising from the grave. Finally I was ready to accuse him of everything that had built up for so long.

Zane had no choice but to come clean, and my heart sank with every word of his confession. The day after Roxy had left my place, instead of driving back to Arizona like she told me she had intended to, she’d driven straight to his. Even worse, she’d been there ever since. Of course, it all made sense in retrospect. His flashy penthouse apartment must have been the ideal nesting spot for Roxy, the magpie. And Zane, the guy who refused to trust any woman, who thought relationships were for chumps, had welcomed her in with open arms, like a delusional parasitic host. I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him.

“It just happened,” he swore. “It wasn’t intentional, I promise. I was drunk and hugely wound up that night from that damned bartender chick. I wasn’t thinking. I was dead asleep when she woke me up. She was by the refrigerator door, rustling around inside, stark naked.”

Apparently, Roxy hadn’t been shy about covering up, even though she told him she had no idea he’d been crashing on the sofa when she’d wandered down from the bedroom. She’d poured herself a glass of milk and casually strolled over to sink down into one of my leather club chairs, throwing her long legs over the armrest. I had to admit, even to myself, that she must have been quite the sight for his inebriated eyes.

They’d talked for a short while. He’d felt awkward at first, or so he’d told me, questioning whether she was purposely teasing him or whether she considered her nudity purely inconsequential to their conversation. Of course, his dick was hard, how could it not be. She’d tempted him, smiling, promising that I wouldn’t wake up. She told him that our relationship was at its eleventh hour by then anyway, finally ready to be put to rest.

Suddenly Roxy was spinning tales about the way she felt connected to him and always had, like they were the same kind of people. ‘You get me in ways Leo never will,’ she’d said, as she moved to straddle him. ‘I’ll always be bad, and so will you. Maybe we should just give into fate and be bad together.’

“I wasn’t thinking, bro, I swear,” Zane repeated, his eyes pleading with mine. He was clinging to the only sound bite that could make sense of his betrayal. “I just wasn’t thinking.”

Nor was he thinking when he moved her into his place the next day. Over the next several weeks, he used some of that trust fund money to buy a new SUV, a better wardrobe and a plush new lifestyle for our girl. Zane hadn’t known that I’d ratted out his secret of being a privileged California rich kid earlier that day. He’d believed all of Roxy’s talk and had even bought into her feigned shock when she first walked into his ocean-view penthouse. Of course that had nothing to do with the seduction scene at my place that night or her sudden interest in him. No, of course not.

As luck would have it, things had begun to sour, predictably enough, by the time we’d reconnected that fall. Now it was Zane with the shadowed eyes, sleepless nights and maxed out credit cards. Yet he was still in those fleeting early stages of doubting her, fierce with her heat and blinded by love. Naturally he begged me to forgive him, telling me it had been eating away at him for months. He was sure it had been his guilt over what happened that had begun to poison the well and affect their relationship. As much as I wanted to burst his bubble and call her out for what she was, the way he had done with me from the very beginning, I remained silent. I could see the telltale signs of the hold she still had on him and I knew he wouldn’t have listened anyway.

I would have been a fool to forgive him completely though, and my eyes were wide open now. We had been friends for the better part of our lives and I was ready for us to move on from aftermath of that night. Maybe it was because I’d found a way to put my west coast princess behind me. Or maybe it was because when he showed up on my doorstep later that summer, drunk and suitably devastated, I’d enjoyed a kind of karmic retribution as he sought my advice and support.

As it turned out, Zane had been on his way to his parents’ place that weekend, presumably to replenish the bank accounts that Roxy had such a skilled way of draining. He’d seen Noah’s Jeep parked near Huntington Beach and stopped to return a jacket he’d borrowed from him a few weeks earlier when he’d noticed the rustle of activity in the front seat. He’d just caught a glimpse of Roxy’s blonde hair as she struggled to get off his lap before being seen. But there had been no doubt about the way she’d been riding Noah in his front seat or the flustered way they’d acted as he walked up to confront them.

Zane and I drank a bottle of Jack Daniel’s that night on my front steps. Now we had something to commiserate over. Our friendship had survived its collision course with Roxy. In a way, we were stronger for it. Now we had the same scars. We carried the same baggage. Our bond would endure past those temporary turbulent times. I was already at the point where I could look at the past with fresh perspective, no longer caught up in the emotion of it. Zane was many steps behind me, his eyes still darkened by her first rate sucker punch.

He told me that he regretted mentioning Noah’s recent inheritance in the weeks leading up to the fall out. He’d just bought some property in Santa Monica, a few blocks from the beach. Zane had mentioned it to Roxy in such an innocuous way, he couldn’t have anticipated the repercussions. In hindsight, he admitted that it would have been the perfect test to set up and watch her fail at, but he hadn’t intended it that way at all. He loved her. Or so he thought at the time. Just as I’d loved her and just like we both knew Noah was destined to as well.

“So that’s it,” Zane said, finally resigned to being defeated by her game. “She’s just going to dick surf her way from guy to guy. As one wave crashes in, another swell begins.”

“Pretty much,” I said, clinking my glass with his. “The girl’s got game.” 

Roxy was a special breed and I knew she had no intention of booting it back to Arizona in her broken down VW. California was her new playground and that golden pussy would punch her ticket every time. The girl was far more ambitious than I’d ever given her credit for. I’d mistaken her laid-back carpe diem as innocence. But beneath the casual ease with which she led her life had been a careful series of calculations at every turn. She’d been waiting for each one of us, slowly biding her time until the real Roxy became too unbearable to love anymore.

I remembered her as she was back on that beach, nearly two years before, walking up to me on the sand. The hazy saltwater images of those early days when she was a sea-foam beauty queen riding the waves flooded my mind with nostalgia. The sunshine was behind her back then, the hit of white light deceptively casting haloes. Every step she took had been filled with intention. She spoke of fate and chance in the way we’d collided. She’d claimed she was a dreamer and had turned me back into one too. It had been one beautiful ride while it had lasted, like being inside the green room of the perfect wave. And for that you couldn’t quite hate her.

In the end, she had conquered the coast and won. After all, it was a surfer girl’s paradise.

~ The End ~

Copyright © 2014 Ashleigh Lake. All Rights Reserved. Under the DMCA, this story may not be copied or reproduced, without the express written permission of the author.