Intoxicated Read online

  I drag my ungrateful feet into the house where I grew up. My room is still mostly the same from my college days, although I elected to move into a campus apartment instead of commuting from here to Lewis & Clark College in Southwest Portland. Staying with guys I went to class with, threw footballs with, and attending parts with was way more important than keeping my family happy, let alone saving them the thousands of dollars it cost to room and board me across town. Do I regret it? Hell, no. I had two of my favorite girlfriends that were only possible because I lived on campus! Let me tell you, though, I had great fun sneaking them into my family’s house for Sunday night dinner. It was the only way to drive it into my mother’s head that I wasn’t gay – because, for some really weird reason, she told herself that was why I wanted to live with a bunch of guys. (The 24/7 booze and girls wasn’t it, huh?)

  “Guess I’m staying for dinner,” I say to Opal, who is scrubbing down the counters in the house’s giant chef’s kitchen. She’s not much of a cook, but my mom enjoys Opal’s takes on Eastern European and Indian cuisines. Honestly, you get way better if you head east a ways and hit up the local neighborhood eateries, but whatever. My mom’s never gonna do that. “Otherwise, her highness might have a conniption.” I don’t mention my father or sister, two people I rarely talk to if I can help it. My mother is enough drama. I don’t need my father’s golf stories or my sister haranguing me for not getting involved with the family business. She’s got more balls than me for it.

  Opal flips her wet towel over before giving me a sly look “Only for dinner, Mr. Benton?”

  I tell you, she doesn’t look a day over the thirty-seven she was when I made the grievous mistake of sleeping with the help. She has to be almost fifty by now. It’s rare for Opal to openly flirt with me, but I suppose with everyone but me out of the house, she feels freer to do so.

  Not sure how I feel about that, honestly.

  “Yes, and it’s only me. Afraid my girlfriend couldn’t make it tonight.”

  Opal isn’t the only one I lie to about having a steady love life. My parents are convinced I’m dating some Seattle socialite or working class girl at any moment. (As you probably noticed, my mother is really convinced I’m paying women to be my girlfriends. Which could not be further from the truth. While I may indulge in the occasional lap dance at the neighborhood strip club, I don’t have the patience for shopping for temporary girlfriends around here.) It’s better than them thinking I’m single, though. Otherwise, my mother would shove her best friends’ daughters in my face, and my father would join my mother in questioning my sexuality. I may be the youngest, but my parents have always been more concerned about my genetic longevity than my sister’s. It’s honestly gotten worse since she took up the mantle of heir and I’ve struck out on my own. Granted, everyone in my family knows I like to date around – and they’ve faced the ire of some of my marks – but I’m half convinced that I’ll wake up one day to a priest and a young, virginal bride hovering over me.

  Telling Opal I have a girlfriend keeps her from flirting. She merely shrugs, makes note of my comments on the calendar she uses to keep track of family meals, and goes back to cleaning the kitchen. I don’t linger.

  I don’t linger anywhere, really.

  The house is a cocoon of memories, every single one wrapped in a fragile shell that could tear at any moment. The gardens are so expansive and immaculate that it feels like a waste to have all this space and no one around to enjoy it. Photographs and paintings on the walls remind me of people I don’t like. Extended family who are more concerned with money and status and the soil they tread upon. Animals that are only worth what prestige they bring to the family – pets are not permitted unless they’re prized racehorses or show dogs and cats. My father fancied himself a falconer when he had a platonic affair with eccentric, adventuring billionaire Mr. Bradley. (That didn’t last long. My father wasn’t willing to pack up and hike up Kilimanjaro whenever Bradley felt like it.) You can still see a few remnants of my family’s meddling with animals all over the property.

  Everything is disposable to them. I suppose I probably am as well.

  That’s the conclusion I always come to whenever I stroll the property and reflect upon my life. To the sounds of my mother summoning Opal for something or other, I sit beneath a tree and attempt to inhale the sweet spring air. June is around the corner. In a perfect world, I would be out there picking up chicks and showing them the summer of their lives.

  Instead, I’m professionally breaking hearts. Because why not.

  It’s a winding path that led me to this point in my life. On one hand, I’m proud of myself for starting my own business with little input from my family. On the other, I’m now in my thirties and spending my time hunting down women like Cher Lieberman and trying to get them to fall in love with me – all so I can hurt them where it matters most.

  Why? What has she done to me? I can read reports about her sucking the money and vitality of half the rich men around her, but come on, I know these men. Some of them deserve a little shakeup. They’re so complacent with their young girlfriends that they take as much advantage of them as those young ladies do of them. The symbiotic – perhaps parasitic – nature of dating while rich is like that. You never know what women want from you. Men, too, I guess.

  I bump my head against the tree and close my eyes. I focus on only one thing, and that’s clearing my head.

  Unfortunately, the more I try to empty my head of outside thoughts, the more it’s invaded with the sly smile of the woman I’m supposed to be destroying with my wallet, words, and cock.

  Somewhere in the distance of my broken head is the curdling laughter of Cher Lieberman, the frisky beauty who prophetically bats her eyelashes and draws her finger across her lips. Everything she hurls at me is meant to seduce me, deflect from her shortcomings, and make me give her everything she wants.

  I get it, honestly. I get why so many men throw themselves at her the moment she crosses their paths. She probably fell into her role as naturally as she grew into her unforgiving figure and learned to flirt from an early age. She’s as effortless as a black widow slinking across her web and going for her life-sustaining kill. She’s never had to know anything else. I may be on to her – hell, so many of her exes probably saw the warning signs early on and chose to ignore them – but that doesn’t stop her from putting a hand on my shoulder and whispering promises of everything I could ever want into my ear.

  If you took away the belittling nature and ill-intentions, you would still have a knock-out, gorgeous woman who carefully wields her powers like a sorceress viewing the world from the tip top of her tower. Some women are like that, you know. They’re unfathomably beautiful without trying. Angelic beings blessed by good genes. They’re hit on by pervs from an early age and either get so knocked down by the system or they prevail enough to become the next queen bee of the social sphere.

  Cher Lieberman could have any man she wants. She’s had any man she wants. She’s found them all so wanting that she’s made a life out of breaking hearts and getting paid.

  I suppose we’re not so different. That may be why I find her so fascinating – while acknowledging the danger lurking within her calculating eyes.

  You know, if I can look away from her cleavage for two seconds. That’s the hard part.

  Okay.

  Not the only hard part.

  You know what I mean!

  Chapter 6

  CHER

  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when a man gets under my skin.

  While attempting to get under my skirt, no less.

  It’s early Tuesday afternoon as I sit in one of my favorite nooks of Northwest Portland. We don’t hurt for coffee shops, cafés, and teatime around here. We’re a freakin’ cornucopia of coffee, for fuck’s sake. Pick up a rock and throw it. Bam. You’ve broken the front window of the corner coffee shop. Probably got someone right in the face, too. Someone either working on their MacBook or doodling in their
artbook.

  Students? Oh, them, too. Although at this time of year, places are devoid of the O-Chem kids and wannabe computer programmers. It’s nice, really. You’ve got a few locals who come here to chill, and tourists who are tickled pink to see “real Portland.” (While you whisper to yourself that this place was on the front lines of city-wide gentrification.) I don’t mind either, honestly. When you lead the kind of life I do, it’s important to have your sacred spaces. Those corners of the city where you can take a book, your Spotify playlist, or a notepad full of ideas you’ll never fulfill. When the weather is a perfect eighty degrees with little to no humidity, you’ll find me at the far corner of the patio, where I nurse my favorite bubble tea of the moment and munch on cookies I’ve smuggled in from the Trader Joe’s two blocks away.

  Or sometimes I don’t bother to smuggle them. I’ll brazenly pack my stack back to the patio while the baristas shrug, because I tip and they’re not paid enough to care, anyway.

  A breeze tickles my cotton blouse that threatens to flutter in the wind. I have it tucked into my knee-length skirt, however. Nothing – and I mean nothing – will cool down my midsection if I can help it.

  Fingers thread my hair as I peruse my playlist and think about that blasted Drew Benton. You know, the guy I’ve been touching myself to almost every night since I first met him? The guy I’m supposed to be having dinner with tomorrow? His address is written down in my phone, so I don’t forget. He’s texted to ask me what kind of food I like. I don’t believe for two minutes he’s actually going to cook for me. He’s going to order in, and I won’t mind as long as he doesn’t lie about it.

  I also hope he doesn’t lie about his intentions. It’s obvious he wants to bang me into next week. Based on how much I keep thinking about it, odds are heavy I’ll loosen myself up with a little alcohol and go for it. After all, it’s been a good, long while since I last rode cock for the sake of it and not because it was part of the master plan. Do I remember how to do it? Come naturally, that is. Shit, I don’t remember what I sound like when I orgasm during sex with another person. I think I’ve blocked that obnoxious whine more than one ex-boyfriend complained about from my mind. It’s not like I get to hear it much dating the kinds of guys I do. I have, however, perfected my porn star moan. Men love that. Makes the act end quicker, too.

  My fingers lower from my hair and drum upon the table. The soft hum of cars driving up and down the street lulls me into a half doze. My imagination instantly wanders to sitting next to Drew on his balcony overlooking the Willamette River, where we’ll sip wine and he’ll ask me to suck his cock.

  Trust me, he will.

  Ah, this is what blows about dating, isn’t it? Even when I approach it from a genuine mindset, I’m still spoiled by the realities of men. Specifically, men like Drew, who are dashingly handsome and grew up so privileged that they walk into a room and expect women to flock to them. I don’t consider myself lucky that he’s taken interest in me. Of course he did. I’m exactly the type of woman they go for, and I use it to my advantage. Not to mention, I really played it up when he came to my attention, didn’t I?

  This is why I take precautions. This is why I call in backup.

  Oh, you think I have friends. That’s quaint. Even if I did have the kind of friends I could call up and bounce some ideas off, I still wouldn’t trust them to give it to me straight about Drew Benton. They would be heavily biased. They’d want me to date him so they can live vicariously through me and hear the salacious stories about his body and how often he wants to do it. They’d want me to plunder his wallet and take them out for lunch at the trendiest place in town. I would do it, too, because I can be a pushover if I’m in the mood for attention.

  Including negative attention.

  The door to the patio flies open. Out strolls my contact, a woman who looks as equally glamorous as me when she puts her mind to it. Today, she has. It’s probably the sun that has Stella Moore marching in loud leggings, black pumps, and a flowy blouse that announces her to the entire room. Her big sunglasses almost detract from the healthy head of blond hair she currently has pulled back into a ponytail. The giant cloth bag hanging from her shoulder is full of her traveling private investigation business, something I throw money at now and again when I need her to dig into the men I’m dating.

  The look on her face is damning, but she’s too busy catching herself before she falls on her stiletto pumps. When she finally regains her balance, she sits down at my table with me and begins pulling out her iPad and Moleskin notebooks.

  “Afternoon,” she says, lifting up her sunglasses. “Absolutely lovely day, isn’t it?”

  I lean back in my seat, arms and legs crossed. “What did you dig up about Benton?”

  “Getting right down to it, huh?” Normally, the good-natured Stella would chuckle or chide me about my attitude, not that I pay her to do it. Except today she’s a little more guarded. Her demeanor suggests that the news in her bag isn’t good. I’m assuming she has news, anyway. That’s what I pay her for. What good is she to me if she does her digging and hacking and comes up empty? I still have to pay her for the time, but what skill is there to speak of? It doesn’t count unless I get dirty facts, like his diaper fetish or the ex-wife he’s been hiding from me!

  Oh, the ex-wife one is my favorite. Right up there with secret baby mamas. Rather hilarious how many of these guys try to hide them from me, thinking I’ll be disgusted, but I prefer for Stella or another investigator to tell me long before my boyfriends come confessing halfway through our relationships. That way I can bequeath them a kind smile, a hand to the cheek, and the words, “I don’t care about that, baby,” on my lips. I come across as an absolute angel because I wasn’t shocked into tears or screams of disbelief.

  Not that I would be, anyway, but I don’t like it when these men catch me off guard. Tell me your dirty laundry up front. Tell me what I’m getting into!

  “Let’s start with the basics.” Stella pulls out a small stack of papers, both publicly searchable and the kind only she, a former FBI agent, can access. I really do love looking at my boyfriends’ college transcripts. I want to find out who took Gender Studies for the “easy A” but got a fucking C in it. I also want to know who padded their schedule with remedial math and science. Looking at you, millionaire plastic surgeon I dated for two months! “Drew Benton is the youngest child of Cindy and Alexander Benton, of Benton, Enterprises, based out of Beaverton. They’ve got their hands in every industry you can imagine. Collectively, they’re worth a few billion dollars, although your boy will probably only get a few hundred million.”

  Oh, no, whatever shall I do if I ever become the next Mrs. Benton? Ha! Sure.

  “His sister is the one about to take over the company, though.” A barista pops out with Stella’s to-go order. She thanks him and returns to her files. “After he graduated from Lewis & Clark, Drew struck out on his own. Had a few startups that didn’t go anywhere, until he finally landed into something big. Really big. You, uh, should probably know about it.”

  I raise a concerned eyebrow. “Tell me, is this the one who could check ‘drug lord’ off my bingo sheet?”

  “Nothing like that. Well, nothing illegal. Morally reprehensible? Hmm.”

  She definitely has my attention now. “Excuse me?”

  “Have you ever heard of Benton Leveraging?”

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  “I didn’t think so. It’s an LLC based out of Seattle. They’re commercially classified as ‘relationship consultants.’”

  There’s no way to tell where this is going, and I do not like it. “What does this mean? Relationship consulting? Don’t tell me Drew is a couples’ therapist or something.” That would definitely be new. And unexpected. “Or is he living the Hitch life?”

  “One of those is a lot closer than you may anticipate.”

  Both of my eyebrows are up now. “I was joking about the Hitch thing.” Awful movie. Awful premise. Awful everything.


  “Drew is not a Hitch. He’s like… an anti-Hitch.”

  “He’s what?”

  I’m presented with print-outs of a website. “Benton Leveraging” requires a paid membership to gain access to the juicy details of the site. When I look closely at the “Our Services” printout, I nearly gag.

  “He’s a professional heartbreaker, Cher.” Stella spreads out more pages. Some of them are emails of her posing as a Vancouver-based millionaire having problems with his needy ex-girlfriend. Some guy named Brent goes over the same information available on the website while also saying, “Our guy knows how to get the job done. He has a 96% approval rating from past clients. I’m sure he can help you with your little ex-girlfriend problem.” “Men hire him to fuck up their exes or other women they want ‘rid of.’ We’re talking some really nasty shit.” What she brings up on her tablet is from a private forum of women discussing Benton Leveraging. Some of them are talking about a group lawsuit to sue for emotional damages. “To put it briefly, Drew Benton is a guy creepy exes hire to pump and dump the women they want taken down a peg. Drew has an amazing track record of getting women to fall in love with him and then dumping them in humiliating ways.”

  “So I see.” My hands are shaking. Why? So Drew has an abhorrent business. It’s not like I’m in love with the guy. I was merely fantasizing about riding his face for a few days. Now I know he’s not someone I’m going to see anymore.

  So why am I really fucking angry?

  “One of his marks from earlier this year was left at an altar in Vegas.”

  “I see.” I’m imagining some lost woman standing in front of an Elvis impersonator as she looks around the Vegas chapel, wondering where the man she drunkenly agreed to marry has gone. I’m guessing Drew either returned to Seattle or here. Was this before or after someone hired him to…

  Hired him to…

  “Who did it?” My hands grip the edge of the table. My knuckles turn white. “Which one of my bastard exes hired Drew Benton to fuck with me?”