Read Paradise - Part Two (The Erotic Adventures of Sophia Durant) for Free Online Page A

then information was king. And the information gathering was becoming like an unquenchable thirst. An addiction.
    I sat on the floor, drinking espresso and reading an article on Flipboard, when Anna found me with a concerned look on her face.
    “What is it?”
    “Mrs. Gardner is returning today, sometime this evening.”
    “Isabella?” I said more to myself than to her.
    “Yes. We are behind on so much. The staff has so much to do to catch up. Can you help us?”
    “Of course. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
    “Thank you. At least while Savannah’s asleep you can help.”
    I handed her the iPad and stood up.
    “Mr. Stafford’s also returning this morning and they say he is not happy.”
    “Some more bad business…”
    This was an afterthought.
    “Excuse me?”
    Anna gave me a stern look, like I had no right to be prying into Mr. Stafford’s affairs.
    “Nothing,” I said and coughed. “I’m going upstairs to shower and get dressed and ready for the day.”
    “Go ahead, Sophia, but hurry.”
    As I headed upstairs, I wondered what had crawled up her skirt. I’d never seen Anna like this before. There had to be something else to it. I wondered if it could have something to do with the fact that she knew there was something going on between Stafford and me.
    In the room I booted up the MacBook and laid it on the bedside table. Then I undressed in front of the mirror. I turned and looked out the window, thinking that if there were any gardeners close by they could probably see me. I cupped my breasts, walked over to the window and looked out, but there was nobody there. Passing the bedside table, I double-clicked the Minerva icon before going into the bathroom and running the shower. In the bathroom mirror I saw that my five o’clock shadow had flourished and become a full on V-shaped fern gully. Once in the shower I took out my razor and rectified the situation, watching the hair scatter in the water and run down the drain.
    Drying off in the room, I saw that Minerva indicated a new entry in Stafford’s notes. It was dated yesterday.
     
    Mark Stafford’s Notes
    August 6
     
    I’m sitting out by the beach under an umbrella, sipping apple juice as the sun goes down before us. Isabella’s coming home tomorrow. She has been away long enough and was sweet enough on the phone that I actually feel something about her arrival tomorrow. I’ve felt weak for the sins I’d committed while she’s been away. I want to repent to her and make things right again. These are new ideas to me, but I’m curious to see where they will lead. I’m not the type to see sorrow or repentance as weakness, but instead I see them as strengths. They are just strengths I never felt much inclined toward. Until now. Am I softening up at last? Doubtful. Perhaps the new girl has opened some emotional valve in me that has gone heretofore unseen. A comforting sea breeze sweeps over me at these thoughts and I feel the universe telling me something. I feel a renewal of spirits, the kind of feeling one generally only gets in the spring. These feelings might also spring from a new infatuation, but a new infatuation with whom? Isabella, the new girl, or someone else? Confusion is nothing new to me. It seems to me, you’re more and more confused by life until one day you die of it.
    Sophia has been amazing, inspiring, refreshing, enlightening—when it came to company and conversation and definitely the other thing. That part of our encounter that had lasted for hours the last time with hardly a word. But all that did was make me want to talk to her more. It made me want to unravel her mysteries, know her inmost thoughts, her core. There’s the feeling that abundant new worlds are opening up to me, that the white hot flame of inspiration burns in her, that meeting her was reminiscent of some strange fear-inspired childhood dream—all this hits me like a ton of bricks. The company that surrounds me is a million miles away with their talk