The Adjusters I: Whatever Happened to Marjorie Duquesne?
Chapter 2: The Three Musketeers
The Chocolate Inn was a small unassuming cafe nestled between two taller buildings in the middle of what was affectionately called the Darnell Ghetto, the part of town adjacent to the university campus that sprung up to cater to the student population and offer cheap restaurants and bars as well as relatively affordable student housing. The Ghetto was quiet at that time of the evening, before the dinner crowds started prowling the streets.
The Inn was busier than the street, but not by much. An old pub converted into a coffeehouse specializing in deserts of the chocolate variety, it had retained its original decor, with wooden tables and chairs suited more to a rundown British pub than a coffeehouse with somewhat tongue-in-cheek upscale tendencies. Nodding to the employee behind the old-fashioned bar, Daniel spotted Serena and Radhu at a table near the back of the main room, already deep in discussion.
To be fair, Serena was already deep in discussion. Radhu seemed content to lean back and listen. The tall black girl was making wide motions with her hands, and the tone of her voice, if not the words, told Daniel that she was angry. He smiled as he approached the table.
“And then,” she was saying, “and then, after all that, he has the balls—the balls!—to ask me whether we could still have that threesome! He ran out, the filthy fuck, when I reached for the kitchen knife.”
“Let me guess,” said Daniel, pulling up a chair while glancing at the drinks on the table—no alcohol, good. “You were the one that suggested that threesome in the first, place didn’t you?”
“Daniel!” Serena said with delight. Radhu nodded to Daniel pleasantly, but remained silent. “Yes, I did casually mention the possibility of a threesome to Dickhead, but it’s not my fault that he took it as an invitation to tell me he had the hots for one of my girlfriends. And from there to asking whether we could have an open relationship, well, that was a leap I wasn’t ready to take without a word about it.”
“So you had a fight.”
“Yeah, it got ugly pretty quick. I kindda lost my temper and started screaming at him and kicked him out.”
Daniel shook his head, amused. “Serena, you’re going to have to learn, one of these days. You can’t just spring those things on people. It takes a certain amount of building-up to. You take a certain amount of building-up to. How long did you know that guy anyways, two weeks?”
“Three,” Serena said, defiant.
“Okay, three weeks. And knowing you, those three weeks were spent in long discussions of the relative merits of McLuhan and Baudrillard, right?”
Serena mumbled under her breath, looking down at her drink.
“What was that?” asked Daniel, smiling.
“I said that the sex was great.”
“Right. So no talking, all fucking. And then you spring up the threesome trap on him, and you expect him to walk the thin line between acceding to your sexual fetishes and assuring you that you are still the only girl he has eyes for? Good luck.”
“You don’t seem to have any problems understanding. So why couldn’t he?”
“He, my dear, hasn’t had more than ten years practice deciphering what goes on in that thick head of yours.”
She frowned at him, but did not argue.
Ten years. Daniel looked at the beautiful black girl before him, long hair straight as rain down the middle of her back, and recalled the first time he saw her, in grade school, half a lifetime earlier.
They had both grown up in the same Connecticut small town, and Daniel had seen her around the small grade school that served their whole county but had never talked to her. That changed on one sunny day when Serena called on him in the middle of recess to arbitrate a dispute she was having with a friend over some fine details of the rules of hopscotch. Things got iffy, Daniel remembered, when he had sided with Serena’s opponent, whereupon Serena had punched him in the stomach and kicked him in the shins. She then left, head held high, leaving Daniel to deal with the consequences of having been beaten up by a girl, and not even a big girl at that. The laughter in that school yard would follow him for a good three years.
A few days after that incident, Daniel finally found the resolve to confront Serena, but that did not go well. Not only had his mother raised him with the chivalrous notion that boys did not go around hitting girls, he was admittedly scared of the smaller girl. Therefore, rather than teach her a lesson that day behind the school gymnasium, he struck a deal with her. In exchange for her willingness to admit that he got even with her, he would supply her with malt shakes for two weeks. After he sweetened the deal with two pocketfuls of blow-pops, she scratched her arm with a sharp rock, “for effect,” she had said. He ended up joining her for those daily shakes, and before two weeks had elapsed they were fast friends.
Serena Banks was everything young Daniel was not. She was spontaneous, vivacious, liked to laugh out loud, and often. She was a breath of fresh air. It was love, before he could fathom what romantic love was. Several years later, in the summer preceding their last year of middle school, she moved away when her father, a military man, was relocated.
They ran into each other again at Darnell completely by accident during Daniel’s freshman year. Neither was aware that the other had applied and been accepted to the university. That day, he was looking for a classroom—English in the Disciplines—in one of the buildings on the Arts Quad, and wandered into a cafeteria that reminded him of a museum cafeteria, with ancient sculptures competing with coffee prices and desert offerings on the walls. Serena was there hanging out with two friends. She was studying Journalism, he was to learn later. She saw him first, or more accurately, she recognized him first. He did not realize that the tall black girl in the tank top and the tight black jeans clinging to a set of impressive curves was his old childhood friend, at least not before she shouted in glee and crossed half the room and jumped into his arms for a crushing hug, much to the surprise of her companions.
“Daniel! What are you doing here? It’s wonderful to see you!” Her voice was the confirmation he needed.
“Well, I came to see you, clearly.” He put her down, not wholly able to avoid noticing how she had changed over the previous few years. She had always been a small somewhat scrawny kid, but she had filled out since then, if his eyes and the feeling of her full breasts pressing like hard pillows against his chest when she had hugged him were anything to go by.
Heading back to her table where her two friends were looking at her with amusement and at him with interest, she brought him up to speed with the shortened account of her life since they had last seen each other. They then picked up their friendship where it had left off, as if nothing had happened.
Serena was Daniel’s introduction to the underground party scene at Darnell. Beyond the facile social life of official university events and the shock-and-awe of Greek parties subsisted a dedicated network of low-key parties that did not advertise. Cycling through a half-dozen locations, publicized by word of mouth, a few hundred people would meet most Friday nights for drinking, dancing, and hooking up. The first time Daniel attended such an event, held in an old barn a few miles from campus, he was stunned. He was no prude, and had been to his fair share of parties since his high-school days, but this went far beyond anything he had ever experienced. Sofas and two-seaters had been brought in—how and by whom was unclear—as well as thick carpeting and tapestries, and between the low lighting, the loud bass music, the people dancing, the people sitting and sprawling and kissing and fondling and sucking, the party appeared to Daniel like nothing less than the bastard child of the love-ins of the Sixties and the raves of the Eighties.
Daniel ended up not frequenting that party scene much, to Serena’s chagrin. She, on the other hand, made it a point to attend as many of them as she could. It was astonishing to casual observers that Serena did not tank and in fact managed both to remain on the Honor’s Roll for three years going and to become one of the star reporters on the college paper, the Darnell Daily. This was all old news for Daniel, who had known for a long while that Serena was brilliant. She had kept it toned down in middle school for a variety of reasons, and still tended to do so in college, though she would not deny it if presented with the facts. She enjoyed acting dumber than she was at times—a great way to get information, she’d told Jenn one day. The sad thing, she would sometimes add, is that it was simply too easy for people to buy the dumb girl routine, given her looks.
Because she was beautiful, there was no denying it: a model’s body with curves in all the right places, flawless mocha skin, and features sculpted by an artist. She had a steady supply of boyfriends, who generally stuck around for a week, on average, turned away more often than not by her sharp tongue. That she always went for brawny idiots did not help, reflected Daniel, not for the first time. Her sexual appetite, seemingly unquenchable, also played a role in scaring potentials away, partly because it coexisted with cravings for faithfulness, exclusiveness, and complete and utter devotion. If what Daniel overheard when he first sat down was anything to go by, that is what happened to Serena’s current—well, latest—beau. Daniel did not even bother learning their names anymore.
Serena’s unquenchable sexual appetite was the stuff of legends. Daniel recalled that one party, late on a Friday night three years earlier, no more than two months after Serena and he had met in that cafeteria in the Arts Quad. Daniel was in a wonderful mood then, after a week where everything had gone his way: the coursework had been interesting, the mid-semester examination had been easy, and one of his essays on the upcoming elections had been accepted as an invited op-ed piece in the Daily. The party was in a large basement in some abandoned building on the edge of town, and he was reclining in a one-seater whose springs had been bad at the turn of the century— the twentieth most likely—his eyes drawn to a cute young blonde girl wearing clothes that would have been indecent in a strip club and who was dancing with slow sensual movements almost directly in front of him. Once in a while she would send a glance his way, with only a hint of suggestion. Before he could move and do something about it, however, his view was hindered by a vision of loveliness. Serena, dressed in a silver dress that would have been looser on her body had it been painted on, gave him one look, one long look from the tip of his feet to the top of his head that drank him in, and just like that the cute blonde was all but forgotten.
Serena climbed on his lap, and her dress was so short she did not need to pull it up. He felt the feel of her body on his lap, the heat from her skin, the softness of her thighs. Serena’s chest was right there in front of his face, and there was no way for him to not stare. Her dress exposed a fantastic amount of cleavage and from the way her nipples were poking through the silvery material Daniel guessed that Serena was braless, or perhaps wearing a semi-bra the only purpose of which must have been to lift her breasts up and offer them to scrutiny.
Serena leaned in, and without saying a word, put her face next to his. He was transfixed, feeling what he figured a deer trapped in headlights on a deserted highway in the middle of the night must feel. When Serena’s lips pressed on his, when they parted to let her tongue out, when her tongue toyed with his lips then his tongue then sneaked her way inside his mouth, he surrendered to the sudden onslaught of lust that coursed through him. That he was slightly drunk helped him make that decision.
His hands took position on her hips, and slowly traced the outline of her body up to her shoulders left bare by the dress, and down her arms. He would have reached for her breasts if it were not for Serena pressing against him, putting her whole body into the kiss. Instead, he moved his hands down to her thighs, and caressed the soft skin that was exposed. His hands then moved up to the hem of her dress, following the outside of her thighs, at which point Serena started to moan, pushing herself against him. She bucked her hips, and the movement sent a wave of lust up Daniel’s cock.
Serena, feeling the noticeable lump in his pants, proceeded to rock her hips back and forth on his lap, rubbing his cock with her panty-covered snatch so thoroughly that he feared he would come in his pants.
Between the heated kisses that Serena continued giving him and the sensations through his cock, between the darkened room illuminated at random intervals by dazzling flashes of color and the sight of Serena’s body undulating on top of him, dark skin shiny and flawless, between the throbbing music in the background and the moans of Serena in his mouth and his ear when she hung on around his neck, Daniel’s whole being felt like he was jacked into a power socket during a lightning strike. His overwhelmed senses were shooting sparks, leaving him scorched and heady. He kissed with more force, his hands grabbing her hips and pushing her down on his cock harder, increasing the friction. Serena, drunk, high, subject to the same attack on her senses, did not protest. Daniel moved his hands to her ass, and happily fondled the tight cheeks that he had often admired in the past, and was now feeling in their full glory.
Serena reclaimed her aggressive attitude a few minutes later, first raising herself up slightly—the effect on her ass was incredible— and then scrambling to unbutton Daniel’s pants and free his massive erection. Daniel had a momentary hesitation when his cock sprang out in the open air, but the general darkness of the room and the casual fornicating all around them, not to mention the feeling of Serena’s astonishingly tight pussy clamping down on his cock as she lowered herself on him after having unceremoniously shoved the gusset of her panties aside, made quick work of any doubts he entertained.
He laid back in the chair and, his hands on Serena’s thighs and hips, he let her take charge of the fucking. She alternated between pulling herself up so that his cock would be on the verge of popping out only to forcefully sink back down and impale herself to the hilt, and rocking her hips back and forth and left and right, his cock deep inside her, squeezing him tight with her internal muscles the whole while.
She had not said a single word to him, but was slowly starting to moan and gasp. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be on her way to a shattering orgasm. Daniel looked at her, and was struck by how beautiful she was, and how much he cared for her.
He lifted a hand, and squeezed a large breast—larger than Serena’s small frame might suggest—feeling her hard nipple through the fabric. If Serena’s shift in rhythm on his lap was any indication, she enjoyed the attention, so he started to play with her other breast before pulling down a strap of her dress, uncovering a perfect sphere of flesh tipped with a large and dark nipple that begged to be nibbled on. Which he did, with gusto. It took no time for Serena, prodded by that additional stimulation, to crest through her orgasm, sending shudders all the way down her body that Daniel felt through his cock that was pushed deep within her.
Serena collapsed against Daniel, her body going limp, her breathing regaining some semblance of normalcy, her head leaning against his shoulder. Daniel ran a hand up her back, settling on the warm skin of her upper back, left uncovered by the dress she was wearing. He was still hard inside her.
“Fuck, I needed that,” she said, in what was probably meant as a loving whisper, but had to be almost shouted for him to hear. “Thank you...”
“Serena, look, I... we... I—”
“Relax,” she said, pulling herself up just enough to look at him. “This is just a fuck, no strings attached. Two friends, looking for a good time, for a way to release some tension. Right?”
Daniel frowned. He never was one for one-night stands or casual hook-ups. He liked to think of sex as meaningful, an emotional link with another person, mediated by a physical connection. A position that in the past had made him an object of derision among his more open-minded friends. He had never minded, secure in his own understanding of what was right for him, but right then, with Serena’s sensuous body against him, her arms wrapped around him, her breath on his neck, he felt the treacherous stirrings of doubt.
Serena guessed what was going through his mind, and snapped him out of it. “Hey, this isn’t you tossing your principles out the window. This is just me letting off steam, and having my way with you. Consider it an act of charity on your part.”
She kissed him softly on the lips. “Of course, I maybe—just maybe—had this little crush on you when we were younger, and maybe —maybe—I just wanted to get a feel for what might have been. Can’t fault a girl for that, can you?” Serena managed to look coy. “Anyways. Now...” She leaned over and kissed him again, this time softly, and Daniel was unable to subdue his reaction. He was still inside her, his cock still hard, and even then shivering with renewed vigor.
“And now,” Serena continued in his ear, “would you like to come, and if so, where?” There was an undeniable teasing tone to her voice, to which Daniel responded. He did not say anything right then, choosing instead to move his hips upwards and push his shaft deeper inside her. She sighed at the sensation, closed her eyes, and pushed down against him to help.
Daniel was too tired to resist, and maybe there was something in the air, with all the partying that was going on around them, even though it felt right then like all of it was happening behind a glass wall, away from them. He let his hands trail all over Serena’s body and pulled her dress down to uncover her two large breasts which begged to be kissed and fondled. He was not especially a breast man, but he had to appreciate that hers were spectacular.
Serena again seemed to enjoy the attention he was giving her chest, as she sighed deeply and started to piston up and down on his cock faster, working herself up to another orgasm. Daniel, drowned by the sensations, had one hand on her lower back and ass, one hand on her thigh, and his face shoved between her breasts, kissing and licking and alternatively sucking on one nipple or the other.
And after Serena once more crested the wave of her orgasm—more subdued this second time and infinitely more poignant to Daniel because of it—Daniel knew he was getting ready to come as well.
Sensing it as well—how Daniel had no idea—Serena smiled at him and ground her ass against his crotch harder, while muscles he had not known existed were squeezing his cock deep inside her pussy.
“While I’d love to feel you spunk inside me,” she said, looking at him with a gaze that was both lusty and drug-addled, “that’s probably not a great idea. So where do you want to come? In my hands? On my face?” Her smile grew wider. “In my mouth? On my tits? I couldn’t help but notice how fascinated you were with them.”
Daniel’s cock responded for him, jerking at that last option. Serena laughed. “Tits it is then. You and every other boy out there.”
In one single swift motion, Serena slid off Daniel’s cock, and went down to her knees between his legs, her dress bunched up around her waist. Daniel had a quick glimpse of a sparsely covered pussy perfectly trimmed, but has no time to reflect on that image as Serena took hold of his cock and guided it with a sure hand between magnificent globes, where it nestled comfortably.
Still with a smile on her face, Serena pushed her breasts together, smothering Daniel’s cock in sensations both delightful and different from those he had experienced when he was inside her, never once letting her eyes stray from his. Her chest was slick with sweat, and this proved to be sufficient lubrication for Serena’s needs. She then picked up exactly where she had left off when fucking earlier, and pumped up and down, jerking Daniel’s cock off in the valley of her breasts. Between the feelings coursing through him, and the visuals of his cock peeking up from Serena’s cleavage on her every down-thrust and her face, eyes closed in appreciation of the act, lips parted just enough to reveal her tongue beyond, lips so full and red and that Daniel could not keep from imagining wrapped around his cock, sucking him in deep, caressing and nibbling and teasing. Cock-sucking lips, he had heard them called. And on that image, that thought of Serena blowing him, Daniel came, copious blasts of semen flying upwards and landing all over Serena’s upper chest and neck, reaching all the way up to her chin. Serena went from harboring a large smile to laughing while massaging Daniel’s cum into her skin, while Daniel laid panting on the sofa, all life sucked out of him.
Serena crawled to cuddle up next to him and laid her head on his shoulder, looking fulfilled for no reason Daniel could discern.
“Thanks,” she said, “That was perfect.”
Daniel mumbled something indistinctive, opening his eyes to see her pull her dress back up over her breasts, and adjust its hem down her legs, covering up the pussy that he had been getting acquainted with. “I don’t know what—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Serena interrupted. “As I said, this was just having fun. No commitments, no obligations, no regrets. I needed a good fuck, and Lord knows you provided that in spades. You’re quite the stud, I’m happy to say. We’ll have to do this again.”
But they never did it again. After Serena had given him an altogether chaste kiss on the lips, she had left in a quest for more intoxicants, and Daniel had watched her go, short dress clinging to her body in ways that had made his cock stir again. He had gone home shortly thereafter.
Neither Serena nor he had ever broached the subject of that evening. Daniel had been content to chalk the whole thing up as a once-in-a-lifetime event, an oddity—enjoyable but also disturbing —and the experience did nothing to change his views regarding one-night stands. Serena, as far as Daniel had been able to ascertain, had seemed to remember little of the party, although the odd looks she had given him in the weeks that had followed suggested otherwise.
At the Chocolate Inn, lost in those recollections, Daniel looked at Serena, who was still talking to Radhu. Three years later, and his relationship with her was not damaged. He knew he was lucky, doubly so because Jenn, who knew of the events of that night, was neither bothered nor threatened by Serena, and had in fact befriended the beautiful girl. Jenn had once suggested, in the midst of a heavy love-making session, that she might be one day persuaded to have a threesome, the three of them, and that image, Jenn and Serena getting it on while he watched spellbound, had been enough to get him off that one time. But Jenn had never picked up the topic again, and Daniel knew better than to bring it up himself.
Serena had stopped talking, and was looking back at Daniel, a quizzical expression on her face. They stared at each other a few seconds; Daniel wondered if she ever thought back to that party, what they had shared. He was certain she did not love him, not in that way. There was no crush there anymore, no infatuation—not on her side, not on his. But a deep friendship remained, for which he was ever so grateful.
Radhu cleared his throat without any attempt at being subtle, breaking the silence that had settled on the table. Shaking his head, Daniel turned to his other friend.
Radhu Krishnamurthy, the tall lanky Indian that Daniel had also met during his freshman year was staring at him, long fingers steepled before him. He was, by any account, the smartest man Daniel had ever known, and was a few stock phrases away from being a cliche—a scary-smart Indian, quiet, nerdy, with the ability to concentrate his attention to diamond-precise focus. Less charitable souls would have qualified such a description, pointing out a certain lack of social adjustment on his part. Daniel did not mind the sometimes overwhelming awkwardness that seemed to engulf Radhu when he was put on the spot socially, and took it upon himself to help Radhu develop his full potential.
Radhu had come to Darnell University for his undergraduate education directly from India, a difficult and expensive decision. He pursued a double major in Physics and Mathematics. Daniel had met him through Serena, oddly enough, at one of those underground parties, Serena had taken Radhu under her wing, with the goal of transforming the awkward Indian boy still adjusting to life in America into a suave playboy, a dark-skinned Don Juan. She had soon realized how misguided and hopeless her task was, and eventually settled for being a friend and confidant, passing the baton of social education to Daniel in an unspoken pact. Radhu, by that point, had fallen hard for the beautiful black girl, something that Serena had never shown any sign of having noticed. Radhu, for his part, had never said anything out loud, although his every action spoke the words louder than he could have.
Daniel had urged Radhu to ask Serena out, to tell her how he felt, to make a move on her, anything to break this status quo, but Radhu had shook his head and remained stubborn in his unrequited love. Jenn and Daniel, who discussed such matters freely, had come to the conclusion that Radhu would not know how to handle the situation were he and Serena to get together, and that he preferred to admire from afar and dream in safety rather than take a chance and be hurt. Jenn had thought that was a stupid idea, while Daniel had thought it was romantic—a notion at which Jenn had rolled her eyes.
Daniel and Radhu had hit it off from the beginning. Despite their different majors, they shared similar interests, including an appreciation for feminine beauty, Radhu being intellectual about much of it and Daniel more romantic. The one oddity that Daniel could not understand in his friend was Radhu’s propensity to swallow various conspiracy theories, always with his quiet unassuming demeanor.
Daniel, Radhu, Serena: the three musketeers, as Jenn was fond of calling them. She had developed the analogy further. Serena was affable Porthos, Radhu clerical Aramis, and Daniel level-headed Athos. When Daniel had remarked that d’Artagnan remained unaccounted for, she had pointed to herself, “She who sets it all in motion,” she had said. “You should remember that.”
Daniel smiled to himself at the memory, then shook it off when he noticed that Serena and Radhu were both looking at him, now with a vaguely worried expression on their faces.
“Sorry, just thinking about... stuff. I’ve been in a contemplative mood today. Don’t worry about it.”
Serena sighed. “Anyways. All that to say, the little bastard is out of my life, and I’m free again.”
To Daniel’s practiced eye, Radhu perked up at that statement, although the only visible manifestation of that joy was a slight raising of the eyebrows.
“Where’s Jenn?” asked Serena.
“She’s going to be a bit late. Something came up,” said Daniel. “But she told me about Marjorie.” Upon seeing Radhu’s puzzled look, Serena proceeded to give him an overview that matched what Jenn had told Daniel earlier.
Radhu suddenly lit up. “I have a theory,” he said. “She’s been brainwashed. They’re forcing her to prostitute herself for those gangs on the south side.”
“What?” asked Serena.
“I read something about this in the National Probe, about an international group bent on dominating world economics and politics —”
“Pray tell how does getting a girl in the boonies of New England to turn tricks help one’s world domination agenda?” asked Daniel, amused.
Radhu was at a loss. “Grassroots movement?”
Serena looked at Daniel. “At least he’s not talking about alien abductions.”
“Well, that was my second idea,” said Radhu.
Serena’s cell phone sang out. She flipped it open.
“Yes?” She listened intently. “She was? Where? The Spirited Flesh. Yeah, I know it, the club on High street. I’ll be there in a flash. Thanks. And stay there.”
She flipped her phone closed, looking energized. “Marjorie’s been spotted,” she said, “at the Spirited Flesh.”
All thoughts of her ex-boyfriend had cleared her mind. She turned to Radhu and Daniel, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“So... how do you guys feel about going to a strip club tonight?”