Chapter Two
Marcel
What a breath of fresh air. Juliet is so unlike most of the women I have the opportunity to meet. She's gorgeous with her long auburn curls, sultry curves, and perfectly refined features: rosy, pink cheeks, streamlined nose, and thick rich lips. What I find most beautiful about Juliet, however, is the fact that she has absolutely no idea how truly gorgeous she is. Some women walk around with full awareness of their physical attributes and the power they hold over everyone for having superior looks. Juliet has no fucking clue.
She's not refined or polished like the women you usually see in first class. She's sweet, bright-eyed, and a little goofy, which I don't generally like romantically. Juliet is one-hundred percent genuine and that makes her irresistible. She's nervous with the turbulence and so takes a few more drinks of her wine. I know the vintage well and the winery; that one glass of wine is enough to knock a novice on her ass. I'm assuming it's a matter of time before Juliet is either asleep or a little loopy.
“You should probably order dinner before they turn the lights out,” I suggest as I pull the menu from the holder in front of her. “Although it is airline food I do recommend the steak with a tuna tartare as an appetizer.” She gives me a shocked grimace and I wonder what that is about? “Did you already eat?”
“No, it's just I'm a vegan so I've never eaten a steak or anything from the ocean except for seaweed.” Now it’s my turn to grimace.
“A vegan?” My heart drops. This beautiful creature has never tasted butter, perfectly aged cheese, or a seared filet? Scandalous.
“Yes, well, I'm lactose intolerant. I have been since I was a baby. After I went to college I found all these really amazing vegan restaurants and I just decided that I really liked the way my body felt after I ate this clean, rich, healthy food. I brought some bars with me so I don't need to order anything.”
Ugh protein bars? No ... no, no, no.
The flight attendant is listening to our conversation and she walks over to see if she can be of assistance. I think she likes Juliet, maybe not in the same way I'm finding her attractive, but she's enjoying how naive and sweet my seatmate is.
“I think we can drum up something vegan, might just be salad and steamed vegetables. Do you eat bread?” Bless the flight attendant, she knows as much about veganism as I do.
“Salad and veggies sound great. Thank you so much.” Juliet is appreciative even if all she’s going to eat all night long is garnish.
She can’t be real.
“Dear God,” I say under my breath and she offers me a flirty smile and takes another sip of wine. It’s getting to her, which makes her even more delectable.
She tries to cover up the fact that she's reading a smutty novel and I love her more for it. Hunkering down into the seat, Juliet sips on her wine as she devours page after page. I want to engage her further in conversation but I can't think of a reason to interrupt her reading. I assume I will speak to her when our meal comes, which isn't more than fifteen minutes later. They have a chef on board for the first class patrons; there's only ten of us with two empty seats. I assume they have whatever they’ve planned on serving pre-made before we take off. Of course Juliet's rabbit food takes no effort whatsoever. In less than a half-hour our first course comes. For Juliet it's a scraggly mess of plants, for me it is the tuna tartar.
“Bon appetit,” I say in my native tongue.
I was born in Quebec and lived in Montreal until my late twenties when I made my journey to the United States to study at NYU where I met Griffin. At the time, we were both studying business law, but I later veered into entrepreneurial real estate and international business. We remained friends and he was the one who brought me to the Chester Street Society where I quickly became a member, mostly because of my wealth and budding business alliances.
My parents, like many affluent, self-absorbed, business-minded people who should never have replicated themselves, were crap people. I was raised by nannies and since I had too many to name, I never remembered any of them. They are all just a blur of pale blue and white. I have a few vague recollections of plastic smiles and high-pitched voices and then off to boarding school at seven: a Catholic all-boys school in Quebec less than twenty minutes from my parents with whom I’d spend one dismal week at Christmas and that’s it. With the ‘school summer trips’ I was shipped off to this country andthat, and that’s where my love for the world dulled my hatred for my parents. One thing I can absolutely guarantee you, I’ll never become a parent or a vegan. I hate children as much as my parents did and I love meat, cheese, cream, butter ... the list is endless.
After tasting a pretty satisfying bite of the tartar I thought I’d check in with Little Miss Baby Barf Smut Reader and see how her hedge clippings fared as she all but gobbled the three leaves and various spines down.
“How was the salad?” I side-eyed her because, please: salad is a very generous interpretation.
“Fun,” is her boppy little response.
Fuck, she’d be fun. I take the last bite of tuna and scoop it onto a fork. “I can’t tempt you?” I waft the utensils across my section of our cozy little nook and all she does is laugh at me.
“You don’t want to know what I think that looks like,” she gives me a pretty decent side-eye of her own, feisty little thing.
I can’t stop thinking of what she’d do if I whipped out my cock. Would she scream, or more to my delightful imagination’s benefit, lick her lips? I am struggling with getting the idea of plunging straight into this woman out of my mind. After seeing the brief flash of her fairly good sized tits in nothing but a camisole when she was zipping up her hoodie after coming out of the bathroom, I’m dealing with a lot. She isn’t wearing a bra. Her C-cups are bright and perky with just the tiniest amount of slope. She’s not thin and has a bit of a sweet belly, ample thighs, and a tight, round ass that brushed past me when she was escorted to her seat.
I love women with curves. Juliet is fit, very fit, but also fine. Stick figures are not interesting to me. Both Beckett and Griffin married slim women, and while they are beautiful, especially after giving birth, they are no Juliet. Juliet has raw sexual appeal; a woman made the way women are supposed to be made: soft, supple, warm, and fleshy, with curves to sink into. Fuck, I’m throwing myself into a total tailspin.
“What do you think tuna of all things looks like? I’m curious what a vegan sees,” I make sure to emphasize the word vegan with sheer mockery, because why not? Vegans are strange creatures; they don’t deserve respect because they’ve abolished food from their diet.
“Guts,” she says softly and I look at the bit of minced raw tuna dripping with ponzu and sesame oil and ... well, if you squint, perhaps guts might be a possibility.
“And yours looks like grass clippings.” I raise my nose to her and she giggles.
“To each their own.” She picks her book back up and the flight attendant comes to collect our dishes.
She’s a quiet attendant, but Juliet never misses the opportunity to thank her for the smallest gesture. She’s such a sweet woman. It almost forgives the veganism. My steak comes next and she’s served a small bowl of broth with a few vegetables obviously from the economy meal, a plate of exquisitely cut fresh fruit, two pieces each of black bread and seeded bread with an olive oil dipping sauce that has a few spices swirling around. She’s also given a plate of steamed broccolini, baby carrots, and petite potatoes. A sad, prison-issue meal if I’ve ever seen one. At least the woman offers her a nice little spice flight with smoked salt, cracked pepper, rosemary, oregano, saffron, and paprika.
