Stryker Read Free Page A

they knew which
fork to eat a fucking salad with. The higher I went the more I realized how
fickle life really was. The things people put stock in was almost comical when
you though about it. As long as I had a roof over my head and food on the table
that was enough. There was only so much you could do with money after all. But
for some that green paper was master of all. Not me, I went after it to serve a
purpose but it would never rule me.
    I was led to my place setting at the head table where other
couples that I’d dined with before at other formal events in the past were
already seated. Pleasantries were exchanged and small talk ensued before the
show began. Tonight’s entertainment was a fashion show to raise funds for a new
wing at the burn center here in the city. It was a worthy cause or I wouldn’t
be here and I settled in to be bored. These things were usually set up for the
foolishly rich to spend exorbitant fees on their wives and girlfriends or
mistresses, sometimes all the above for some. Models would parade on the stage
in the latest that some top designer had to offer. Usually fashion that had not
been exposed to the public as yet; all so some society maven could boast that
she owned an original whatever the name happened to be at the time. I had no
one to buy such things for, not on this particular night at least. I’d broken
things off with my latest bed partner when she started hearing wedding bells
and I started hearing the lock click into place on the chain she was trying so
valiantly to put around my neck. Not even close, I had no interest in marrying
the beautiful Sabrina. The spoilt daughter of a wealthy Greek tycoon who
thought she could use daddy’s money to get whatever she wanted, including me.
When I’d broken things off the sweet and biddable debutante had turned into a
she cat from hell. Who’d vowed to make me pay for spurning her. I hadn’t seen
or heard from her in two months, and since then the bad taste she’d left in my
mouth had lingered for so long that I hadn’t had any interest in seeking out a
replacement. She had been the last in a long line of many who had thought to
trap me with what they held between their thighs, but no such luck. When the
time came; if the time ever came I would be the hunter not the prey. I’ve always
been fascinated by the women I chose to take to my bed. A good observer would
say it was very telling. Only the crème de la crème for the bad boy from the
tough streets of the Bronx. It could be that I liked that look of delightful
surprise when they saw me unclothed for the first time. When that thin veneer
of civility was stripped away and the beast that dwelt beneath the five
thousand dollar suits was revealed. Tattoos do strange things to women of a
certain class. I don’t know what it is about them, but of the twenty or so
women I’ve fucked since college every last one of them would juice like a ripe
peach at just the sight of my ink. It wasn’t something I advertised; they never
knew it was there until my shirt came off around about the second date. Which
is about as long as it took me to decide if we were going to fuck. Why waste
time? I savored the quick intake of breath, the hunger that would flash in
their eyes and I could almost say what they were thinking out loud. Most
everyone who knew me knew my life story. I did not hide it or shy away from my
roots. I am what came from that place; it’s something to be lauded not swept
under the rug like some dirty little secret. However women as soon as they saw
the tattoos, I could see the wheels spinning. Street kid, tattoos, must be a
wild man in bed. And that’s before I got them under me to prove to them just
how much of a wild man I really am.
    “So Stryker I hear you made a killing on the Thompson
deal.” Old man Marley was an astute businessman who was one of the last
holdouts on the board of a firm that I was vying to take over. That was my
little hobby, though I don’t think the