Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

him.
    Cassie had set her place where Daddy normally sat and had me on her right and Porter on her left. When she moved to her seat, Porter rushed to pull her chair out for her and then mine.
    “May I?” he asked, reaching for the wine.
    “Please do,” Cassie said. “Semantha is having wine with us tonight.”
    “Good,” he said, and poured our glasses and his own.
    Cassie leaned over to whisper.“I forgot to tell you to bring out the bread. And bring the olive oil, too.”
    I jumped up and quickly fetched them. She had the bread all sliced, with a touch of garlic, in the bread warmer. Porter was up again to pull out my chair as soon as I had returned. Cassie nodded at me as if to say,
This is what a gentleman is like. Get used to it.
    I had wondered what we would all talk about, but Cassie answered that almost immediately when she continued to talk about the Heavenstone Stores, especially the one Porter was in. She praised him, but I could see that he was far more pleased with how critical she was of the store’s manager. Porter was his assistant. When she started to discuss her financialanalysis of the store in dry details and he responded, I felt invisible. I drank my glass of wine before Cassie and I went into the kitchen to bring out the surf and turf.
    When we returned, I saw that Porter had poured me another glass of wine, and I looked to Cassie to see if she had noticed or cared. She said nothing. Porter raved about the food. Everything was wonderful, but I was surprised that I was beginning to feel the effects of the first glass of wine so soon. It actually slowed down my eating. I didn’t want to say anything and look like a little fool who couldn’t hold two glasses of red wine. I could just imagine my friends at school laughing at me. Wine was probably like soda to most of the girls. Most important, I didn’t want to embarrass Cassie. This was, after all, the first time she had invited a young man to our home. All I had to do was ruin it for her.
    Neither Cassie nor Porter seemed to notice how I was feeling, anyway. They talked on and on about the business and Cassie’s plans for changing this and that. Their voices began to drone in my ears, their words merging until I couldn’t distinguish one from the other. I felt myself waver and put my right palm down on the table to steady myself. It was as if the room was tilting first to the right and then to the left. I envisioned everything sliding off the table. Finally, their words were distorted, slowly pronounced, deeper in tone. I realized Cassie was talking to me, but I couldn’t respond. I was only vaguely aware of Porter rising and coming around the table. I thought I shouted as I slipped off my chair and fell into his arms.

    The rest of the night seemed to be one long dream. I was floating like an astronaut in space. My body had lost all of its weight. Like a helium balloon, I drifted up over the stairs, bounced off a wall, and floated into my bedroom. I thought I could hear Cassie and Porter talking, but their voices were very far off, and I couldn’t understand anything they said. I do remember Cassie’s fingers on my clothes and laughed to myself, imagining that I was a banana being peeled.
    In my dream, when I turned my head to the right, I saw Porter totally naked. He seemed to take forever to come toward me, but finally he did, and I could feel his hands over my now-naked breasts before he ran his palms down the sides of my hips and gently lifted my legs so he could fit himself comfortably between them. When he entered me, the shock sent me reeling backward into some dark cloud. My whole body seemed to undulate like a wave in the ocean. It went on and on, pushing me deeper into the darkness and then, when I began to emerge, pushing me back.
    I could hear their voices again. They sounded different this time. Cassie’s was higher-pitched, as if she was angry. Soon after, I felt Porter moving over me again, fitting himself into me and turning me once more into that undulating wave. I thought I moaned and cried out, but I couldn’t be sure. My own voice sounded far off, outside my body. It was as if I had completely left my body and was watching some erotic scene played before me on my bed.
    I would never be sure, but the same scene was replayed. I had no idea of time, how long it went on.I no longer had any sense of myself, any control. I felt whipped about, turned, and prodded, then finally deserted and left to linger in this