The Man Named Carlos Ch. 11

Chapter 11: A Day Later

The book closed slowly under his power. He thought of the words within. He found himself unable to look away from her

She was as beautiful as he had ever known. It was not simply outward beauty. He recalled everything, from her love of animals to her care of people. She had come from a wealthy Indian family that had immigrated to the States.

Some might have called her spoiled, and he could not deny that she had once been guilty of such a fault. However, when he looked at her, he only thought of how she had helped do fundraiser work for wildlife conservation.

That generous spirit and love for every creature is what had once drawn him to her. The amber in her brown eyes had kept him. When she smiled, her nose would kind of inflate.

For her, it was some kind of defect and others had insulted her for the size of it, but to him, it completed her facial features. That said nothing about her perfectly straight, silky soft hair.

She was all he could have wanted in a woman. Leaning over her, he pressed a kiss to her forehead when he quoted the book he had only just read to her.

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger."

He kissed her head once more as tears were forming in her eyes.

"You have to wake up, Priya. You just have to. I don't care if you spend the rest of your life with someone else, just wake up."

He grabbed a tissue from the nightstand. He wiped his tears and collected his books.

He walked out and Nancy out of her nurse's uniform.

"Come on, babe. I know these visits are hard. Let's get you good and drunk."

"Sam's?" he asked.

She nodded. "That'll work."

As they started off, he got a text from Autumn. He looked to his phone before shaking his head and muting her texts.

"Anybody important?" Nancy asked.

"Not right now," Carlos said.

---

When the late night came for Juan and Tiffany, Juan could not keep his hands off his wife.

Tiffany was, at first, confused by his single-minded interest in her, but as he touched her, she knew how desperately he wanted her. This, more than anything, made Tiffany want to reciprocate.

"God! I want you, babe!" Juan said.

"You have me! Fuck you have me!"

She tore his shirt off as she had him. It was so very clear her husband was hard for her.

"Did you have fun, babe?" Juan asked.

"Fun?" Tiffany wondered. She could not hide her confusion as the question had come out of nowhere.

Her bra was off as he touched her breast. The marks from what Carlos did were still there.

"With Carlos... He didn't cross a line, right babe?"

And that, in that single, solitary moment was when Tiffany could see how little Juan remembered or agreed to. The possessiveness of his love was on full display. If that were so, it was entirely reasonable for her to understand that the outcome of her telling her husband that she had let another man between her legs might destroy him.

Maybe he had been drunk. Maybe he was too horny the other day. Whatever it was, she knew Juan would be broken if she told him what had happened.

As they were naked before one another, she made a choice that would potentially save her marriage.

"No. Babe. He just sucked my tits, babe. Then you were so drunk... Fuck!"

She felt her husband enter her. He was much more forceful than he had been before, and far less controlled that Carlos had been with her.

"You were so drunk that I felt we had to stop."

She moaned between the words. She could feel her husband's cock deep inside of her. She wrapped her legs around his waist.

While she enjoyed every second of it, she could not help but compare the two men. Carlos had been as focused as her husband, but where her husband failed and Carlos succeeded was that Juan wanted to fuck her, Carlos wanted to make her cum.

The distinction between them made it clear.

"Did you want to go farther?" Juan asked.

"Maybe!" Tiffany groaned. When she felt him going in her harder but not faster, she could tell he enjoyed the response. "I almost wish he had. What if he had fucked me, babe?"

"Fuck! I won't let him!"

"Then don't!" Tiffany said. "Fuck me better than he ever could."

And Juan tried. He buried his cock into his wife. He felt every inch of her pussy wrap around his cock as he drove into her. He could feel her slick sex, and all it did was push him to go harder and faster.

He was so lost that he barely heard his wife climax. Instead, he let out his own groan as he finally released a long ropey shot of his semen into her.

---

George Weiss was not one to take simple calls from someone's secretary, and he was very firm that Carlos not get special treatment.

That was all well and good in theory. After all, George was very selective in his clients. These were men and women used to getting what they wanted. Some were successful financially much like Carlos, or influential like a state senator or one of two mayors he treated, some were simply well known like the head of the local churches, but some were everyday people.

The one rule he had for them when he treated them was that he did not make exceptions.

With one like Carlos, that was entirely the point. Carlos was used to getting his way in almost every aspect of his life. With George, Carlos had to be told no.

When secretaries of others called George directly, he ensured that the calls were always the same. He cited them to call his assistant. This was not only professional, but it protected him should he ever have to go to court.

He did not like that, but it ensured if litigation were ever done, he could simply say, "I told them to talk to my assistant, and I hung up."

However, Stacy was not like most secretaries. It was clear that she was a secret keeper for Carlos. He would not marry her, as he did not hold much respect for the institution of marriage after losing Priya, but he could not lose Stacy. This meant he kept her close, financially secure, and likely, in George's opinion, kept her in a pseudo-sexual relationship with him.

He shook his head at that notion. Carlos would not know what a healthy relationship looked like if it walked right up to him and smacked him in the face.

With all that in mind, for Stacy to call George, knowing how he felt about it, and telling him to schedule an appointment with Carlos, George could tell something had happened. There was a change or some kind of event that happened. It mattered.

The problem was that George had no idea what it could be.

He opened up his notes on Carlos. He considered all he knew about the successful young man. To talk about Priya or any part of his past was a touchy subject. The relationships that man kept were not healthy as they were so very one sided.

Carlos was good about holding all of the cards because he did not trust anyone else to have them. It worked out for him and whoever else did what he wanted. By no means was it sustainable for the average person.

The problem was that Carlos was not average. He had the kind of financial backing that made it possible to explore any avenue of life, and absolutely no public notoriety to fear losing. Sure, he donated here and there, but Carlos was one of hundreds of millionaires in the State that could do what he liked, as he liked, with no real oversight.

When it came to how he picked his partners, he was no one to risk an STD, and if he were to get any of the many women he slept with pregnant, George was sure that Carlos would either provide money for an abortion or some kind of fund that provided for the child and mother for the next eighteen years.

So long as he did not break the law in some ridiculous manner, he would be safe from any and all consequences.

This, of course, made things entirely confusing and frustrating for George Adler Weiss.

He leaned back in his chair. Thoughts of the kind of man Carlos was were swirling with the advice he would give the younger man. He knew that Carlos had promise and potential to do so much good with his life, but men who did not listen to others by the age of forty became entirely difficult to help or steer in the right direction.

Looking over his bookshelf, he pulled some books from the helpful section as well as more of the literature. This would be one of the defining moments, not just of his career, but of Carlos' life.

---

Sam's was a small hole-in-wall place. The owner was some woman that Carlos was sure he had met a hundred times over.

The only fact he held onto beyond that was the fact that she was a woman, and her name was not Sam, which bothered him more than words could suggest.

However, Nancy sat down in a booth across from him. He went over to the bar and asked if the woman had bourbon and a mason jar of ginger ale. She made the order, and when she pointed out that the grill was still open, Carlos ordered a bacon cheeseburger with extra fries for Nancy and a large Caesar salad for himself.

He went back to his table with the booze, knowing the food would be well on its way.

"What are you doing, Carlos?" Nancy asked, purse on the table.

"Having dinner with you?" Carlos said back in the form of a question.

"Baby... We both know that is not what I meant. Why are you still holding onto Priya. It's been more than a year, Hon. You know she's gone."

"Coming to do Elliot's work for him?" Carlos asked back as he sipped at his bourbon.

The nurse did not hesitate to respond to his jibe.

"We both know that I barely do my job for that man," she said, barely holding back a laugh.

"Then why are you worrying about me?"

"Aw baby," Nancy said sweetly. "I always worry about you. Good men are hard to find."

Carlos restrained a snort of laughter.

"Trust me. There's not a lot good about me."

"You're loyal to a woman in a hospital bed, Hon," Nancy contradicted. "From where I sit, it doesn't get more romantic or good, for that matter, than that."

Carlos stared at her after she said those words as if he had been slapped in the face.

"Nancy. You and I both know that I..."

He trailed off in an attempt to be respectful of Nancy's sensibility.

"That you mess around with married women?" Nancy finished his sentence for him in the form of a question.

Her inquiry was a sarcastic one. She gave him a knowing look.

"What's that mean to me? It's their marriage, not yours. And honey... There's a difference between fucking around and being in love. My husband has never looked at me the same way you look at her."

Carlos let out a laugh.

"It's easy to be in love with someone whose asleep," he said, just before taking a drink.

"It's hard to love someone you can't have," Nancy countered.

The look she gave him was her warning. She would not hear an argument against her logic.

They both paused their conversation as the cook, in dirty apron and all, approached and put down their food. When he was gone, Nancy shook her head.

"How you eat like this and look as good as you do is just wrong to me," she said, bordering on whining.

"Yeah... the high stressful days and the being at the gym six days a week don't make it easy to be thin. Hush up."

The two laughed and started eating before Nancy turned serious.

"I'm serious, babe. You know you need to let her go soon. Eli is doing the best he can for her, but Priya might be gone."

Carlos dipped his fries in ketchup as he sipped from the ginger ale. He was staring into his food, and there were no answers there.

"I know I should, but I can't," he said through a breath.

"I know what she meant to you, babe. I do. BELIEVE me, I do. The fact she's married to that piece of shit husband doesn't help, but honey, you have to start living your life. This fucking around is fun, I am sure, but what if she does wake up? She's still going to be married. Her husband will wave away his bad behavior, and you're going to get left at the wayside. You have to live your life for you."

"You know... Most men would see sleeping with multiple women every week as living their own life," Carlos mused, smirking into his drink.

"Honey, you ain't most people."

"I think that's the best compliment you've ever given me."

Nancy paused. She looked up at a full figured woman looking at Carlos. Her mind started to do the arithmetic that made sense to her.

"Babe, I think that woman's looking for you," Nancy said, pointing her out. When she saw the happiness in the woman's eyes, Nancy started getting up. "Remember what I said, Carlos. Live your life. Have your fun for now, but you need to give some woman a real chance to know you."

She patted him on the cheek and walked away.

---

She had considered the call she had received from his secretary.

Tracy did not love Carlos. She was not some little guy playing at the idea of romance. Marriage and a realistic life had shown her that the sort of rapturous adoration of devoted passion was sentimental fancy found in stories and movies, but not real life.

That did not stop the truth of her feelings. She was drawn to Carlos. No one had kissed her as she had. There were many men that kissed her, sure. Some were more skilled, but no one had ever fed her such fervor. It was as though he had been dying of thirst in the desert and she, and only she, could be the tsunami that might quench his drought.

That alone was worth looking into.

Then she saw him. He was with someone.

She found him.

He was with some older black woman. For a moment, Tracy felt jealous, but that was silly. How could she be jealous? She was not his girlfriend or wife. She had no hold on him, yet still, the feeling was there, and she could not deny it simply because she was married. She had practically fucked him in the parking lot. All notions of appearances were gone. What mattered to her was identifying what was true.

The woman looked at Tracy and stood up to kiss Carlos on the cheek and touch his shoulder.

Then this same person made her way to Tracy's side before touching her on the shoulder and whispering at her.

"You're here for him?"

Tracy did not know what to say, so she simply nodded.

"Be gentle," the woman advised. "He needs that today. Give him a real shot at whatever you two are doing."

Tracy blinked, but before she could say anything, the woman walked out of the bar. Someone was singing Who Loves You by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on karaoke.

She walked over to Carlos slowly, and he looked like someone had just slapped him.

"Tracy? What are you doing here?"

"Well, your... I don't... the assistant... that woman?" Tracy stammered out.

Carlos looked at her as if she were crazy, but after a moment, she just stood up, offered her a seat and got her a menu.

Before too long, Carlos heard Tracy explain this his assistant called him to be here, which he said was her 'meddling', but then he explained that the woman who left was a nurse who was taking care of a loved one of his. While Tracy was curious, she thought it was best not to pry.

She liked him, sure, but they didn't have that kind of relationship.

They both laughed and a really beautiful medium well steak with asparagus and mashed potatoes and scottish whisky was brought to her. She blinked in astonishment.

"Why didn't you take to a place like this for the first meeting?"

Carlos laughed at the question. It was not a rude sort of laugh but one born of hearing someone say a pig was standing on its hind legs and planned to jump into a pool.

"Most people expect to be taken out somewhere nice on a date-slash-first meeting," he said. "This... This is much more personal."

"You know, you aren't like people expect when they think rich asshole. You know?"

"That's because I'm not," Carlos said back with a smile. "I'm just a poor guy that happened to get rich."

"Cute. I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Just the ones I like," he said with a smile.

"One of these days, I'm going to get past that whole cocky exterior you have going on," she said, motioning with her head at all of him.

"You'll have to stick around to see that."

There was the moment, Tracy knew. He was baiting her to allow herself to want him. Carlos was inviting her, in his own way, to get to know him. There was a price to this admission. He wanted her, he lusted after her, he craved, yearned, burned, and demanded her... and she would have to say yes.

"What if I want to?" she asked, leaning in.

Carlos seemed to be leaning into her as well before he stopped himself.

"I want you, Tracy," he admitted in the moment, but she could see he stopped.

For the longest three seconds of her life, Tracy could not help but think she made an absolute fool of herself.

"But does your husband know you're here?" Carlos asked.

Tracy struggled for a moment. There was some stammering and some fumbling explanation before she stopped herself.

"No."

"That's what I thought," Carlos said.

He stood up, put down eight nearly crisp twenty dollar bills that she was almost certain he he had gotten from the bank for this meal and just put it in his wallet because it was convenient.

He offered her a hand, which she accepted. Someone was singing Bobby Darin's Beyond the Sea in the background. He walked her to the door of the bar where they could hear the music but also see her car.

He wrapped his arms around her and started swaying to the beat. Either he had once taken dancing classes or he knew that song inside and out because every beat, move, and piece he knew. The song was not especially complicated, but for Tracy, it was the little things that did it for her.

"Tracy, I like you, but I have been trying to do better," he said.

Though she could feel the tone of rejection, she also felt this man meant every word he said.

"What's that mean?" Tracy asked.

"Your husband should want you to be here, Hon," he said softly. "If he does, then... maybe, we can discuss something more..."

His word trailed to allow her imagination to fill in the blanks.

"I would like that," Tracy said.

Carlos leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips. She accepted the tender mark of affection, wishing with all she had that this could be more.

However, when he broke away, she did understand why. She patted his chest in his somewhat wrinkled shirt and loosened vest.

"Until next time?" Tracy asked.

"Will there be a next time?" Carlos wondered.

All Tracy could do was nod.