Elite

©
Copyright 2014

Dedi
cated to those who believed I could…

Chapter 1

He watched the clock intently.

Five o’clock could not come soon enough. It was Friday, and all he could think about was getting out of the building and back to his apartment so he could put his feet up, knock a few back, and chill. For the past few months it felt like Friday night had never come soon enough.

Daniel Hart sat patiently, hoping to avoid any last minute contact with a co-worker that might result in any last minute projects that would keep him there past five. He had managed to cram three weeks’ worth of work into five days, and wasn’t looking to squeeze in a fourth. He wanted out, and he wanted out now.

Truthfully, if he wanted to, he probably could have left the office an hour ago and gone unnoticed. Of course with his luck, this would have been the week that someone would have noticed, leading to a potential tongue lashing from the Account Executives, which could have ultimately lead to him losing his job. As much as he was tired of his job, he needed it. Without it odds were he would have to leave the city and move back home. He had worked too hard to get here to squander it all just to add a single hour to his weekend.

As a Media Sales Assistant, Daniel hadn’t ended up with the exciting job in radio he had hoped for when he received his degree in broadcasting. Instead, he took what he could get, making the location his top priority and putting the job title second. He could have accepted a job doing production in some Podunk town in rural Indiana, but Chicago was where he truly wanted to be. It was his absolute favorite city in the world, and it was where he always dreamed he would end up. It just didn’t look quite like this in the dream.

He worked at Clean Sound radio in Chicago. Clean Sound owned and operated four stations in the market, and on the nation level had pretty much become a powerhouse as far as radio was concerned. It was a good company to be associated with, and this job was a solid first stepping stone on the way to a successful career.
Sales was the department that kept the wheels spinning. They were the ones who brought in the money, and like with any business, money is everything.

While the Account Execs were the fuel that kept the station up and running, as a Sales Assistant Daniel would have been the one pumping the gas. His job was to do any of the side work the AEs didn’t feel like doing themselves. They were the ones who met with the clients, won them over, developed advertising campaign proposals and presented them to their clients. It was Daniels job to send the emails, organize the proposals when the AEs needed assistance, and pick up any of the slack when they became overwhelmed. It was also his job to su
bmit the invoices, which was where he felt the gas pumping metaphor was at its strongest.

It wasn’t terrible work, and for a while Daniel had actually enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what he genuinely wanted to be doing. He had grown very tired of his work recently, though he didn’t blame that entirely on the job itself. His whole life had become monotonous, and he knew he needed a spark to bring some excitement back into his life. Here he was, living in Chicago, exactly where he wanted to be, and he had already become bored with his life in just two-and-a-half years. It was unacceptable. He needed to find a way to escape his rut.

And now was the time to start looking for his way out. It was finally five. He stood up and put on his hooded zip-up sweatshirt. The weather had become very mild as March was winding to a close and spring had begun announcing its arrival. Daniel couldn’t wait for the summer, when he would be able to spend his evenings at the Landshark Biergarten on Navy Pier. Maybe that was why he had been so down. He was a warm weather soul and winters always took a lot of the fire out of his spirit.

Daniel hurried out of the building and started his walk toward the subway station. When he first moved to Chicago he had a hard time differentiating the “L” Train from the subway. The trains that ran through the majority of the city were referred to as the “L” because they were “elevated,” and ran above ground throughout the city. However in many parts of the downtown area the train ran
underground, and the signs labeled it as the “subway.” However, any good Chicagoan generally refers to the rail system as the “L.” As far as Daniel was concerned if you wanted to ride the subway you went to New York.

Riding the “L” was one of his favorite occurrences in his daily routine because it always reminded him that he had accomplished his goal of becoming a true Chicagoan. He had been to New York City, but in his mind New York had nothing on Chicago. He had never been to L.A., but he felt he knew enough to assume that he wouldn’t fit in to well with the people of Southern California. No, he was too Midwest for those places, and he was quite proud of that fact. He had always known that the “Jewel of the Midwest” was exactly where he needed to be. Big city flavor with a Midwest attitude – a perfect fit.

As Daniel made his way below ground to meet the southbound redline train that would take him to his neighborhood, he ran his fingers through his hair. His thick brown hair had gotten long enough now that it completely engulfed his fingers and they glided across the top of his scalp, which meant it would soon be time for a cut. He liked to push his bangs up and sort of brush them back when he styled his hair, but he always tried not to use too much gel as he didn’t much like the look, or feel, of wet, crunchy hair. He liked his hair to have shape while still appearing dry and feeling smooth.

He moved his hand from his hair, down across his face, and over his high cheekbones. He could feel the stubble of his five o’clock shadow starting to make
itself known.

As he stood waiting for his train to arrive, he leaned the set of broad shoulders which stood atop his six-foot frame against a nearby pole. He saw himself as one of those guys caught between hefty and thin – not in shape, but also not out of it. His broad shoulders sat high on his frame and gave way to his arms which were of descent bulk, but without considerable tone. His chest gave hint to some developing pectoral
muscles, however they were far from a prominent body feature. In the area of his midsection he displayed a solid one-pack. It was no means a protruding gut, but it wasn’t any sort of washboard either.

It was quiet at this particular subway stop today – the lack of street performers in search of tips being quite evident. Everyone down there at the moment seemed to be directing their focus toward what their phones had to tell them of the world beyond their own dull existences, and therefore it remained eerily quiet.

After only a three-minute wait Daniel’s train arrived, and after the doors to the train opened he climbed on board and found an open seat to sit down in.

The train, like the station, was silent, all but for the sounds of the metal wheels screeching along the tracks leading through the tunnels running under Downtown Chicago. He sat, staring blankly out the window when suddenly the sound of
lightsabers clashing together broke the silence. It was his text message notification. He took his phone out of his pocket and lit up the screen to see who had texted him. It was Jordan.

Jordan Hill was an old friend from college, who if he was being honest with himself, was the love of Daniel’s life. Never had he felt so drawn to another human being. In fact, since meeting Jordan he found most other women rather uninteresting. For Daniel, she was the one that got away – although in all fairness circumstances were beyond his control.

The two had a class together their second semester of their junior year at Ball State University. They had eyes for each other from day one, and would make small flirty comments in passing on their way in and out of class. It wasn’t until the end of the semester when they were paired together for a class project that they would become much closer.

Daniel found that Jordan had a knack for finding ways to make him smile, and she always seemed to laugh at his jokes in return. It seemed both were smitten, and well on their way to a very intense relationship.

That was all derailed near the end of the semester when Jordan announced that she would be transferring for the coming fall semester. She would be going to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, two hours away from where Daniel would be in
Muncy, Indiana. Being the romantic he was Daniel was certain they could make it work. Jordan was far less confident, and at the end of the semester she ended whatever it was they had.

They would always stay in touch, as a bond like theirs was not so easily broken. He made the drive to Purdue to see her several times over the next two years, and she would occasionally return to Ball State to visit old friends. They would often stumble upon familiar intimacy on such occasions, but they would never reach the level of romantic involvement that Daniel had so desperately hoped for.

Daniel had never had sex with Jordan, which in time had become one of his strongest regrets. They’d had their fair share of make-out sessions, and even gotten as far as to shed their clothes on more than one occasion, but that was as far as it had ever gotten. Still to this day, Jordan was the sexiest woman he had ever met. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the fact that he had never actually been fortunate enough to have her entirely – leaving a bit of mystery that kept him overly intrigued – or if it was due to the fact that he was completely and entirely in love with her. All he knew was that one day, before his bachelor life was over, he had to have her – all of her.

It didn’t help that he had seen – not to mention
felt
– her naked body when they had fooled around in the past. Just recalling her soft skin and supple curves was enough to drive him wild. Although Daniel believed Jordan’s hottest traits were not physical but rooted within her personality.

On the outside Jordan was innocent enough. She was a church going girl to whom family was the most important thing in life – a sentiment he himself echoed. But on the inside she had deep desires and urges that would drive any man insane. He found out about those urges months after her transfer, in a few sultry text messages, many of which had probably sent under the influence of alcohol. All she had to do was tell him that one of his texts had turned her on and he would lose all control.

Yes, Jordan was a woman he had to have. There could be no doubt about it. But she was also a curse.

Daniel hadn’t had sex with any woman since falling for Jordan. He wasn’t completely sure why that was either. It was true that she was always in his heart and that no other woman amounted to her, but there were always nights when he’d had a few beers and found himself suddenly overcome by the urge to take a particularly attractive woman home.

On several occasions he had done just that. However he had never been able to bring himself past an aggressive make-out session. Something had always held him back. The worst of it usually occurred the next morning, where upon having just an hour or so of sober conversation Daniel was ready to be through with the woman he had chosen to bring home with him.

They always got so attached too. He wouldn’t even have sex with them and after one night they would act as though they were incredibly into him. He could not understand it. It was extremely doubtful that he was that good of a kisser. He had to admit he always saw himself as a smooth-talker and a charmer, but after just one drunken night? He felt terrible about blowing them off afterward – he really did – but he knew there were plenty of women out there who understood that going home drunk with a man usually indicated a one-night fling, and they were okay with that. Why did he always end up with the women who took a drunken encounter to be a means to starting a relationship? Every encounter made him more and more skeptical of the next. He was now incapable of enjoying an intimate experience with any woman he didn’t feel a strong connection with. He had become – in essence – a chick.

In the two years since he had graduated college he had spent only one night with a woman other than Jordan. It was a moment of desperate horniness, and at the time he had hoped this one would be the woman to take his mind off of Jordan. He was always in search of that girl who could prove him wrong. To show him that Jordan in fact was not “the one” and that he could have an incredibly loving, and intensely sexual relationship with someone else. But it only took through lunch the next day for her to become as uninteresting to him as all the rest.

It had been three years since Jordan had transferred and left him so scarred. Three years was entirely too long for a 25 year-old male to go without sex – he knew that. He was too embarrassed to ever
mention it to any of his friends. In fact, there was only one person on the planet who did know – Jordan. He told her everything and had no shame in doing so. No matter what he seemed to tell her, it for some reason never changed her opinion of him. She continued to find him sexy, and always came back for more. He even told her about his late-night rendezvous with some of the women he had fooled around with, which always made her jealous. He liked that. But it never scared her away.

Partly because she knew it would be hypocritical to do so. She had her own experiences with other men, and had gone as far as to actually date some of those men. Unlike him, he knew she’d had sex since their parting. She was slightly more hesitant to share that information with him, but he could always tell when she was hiding something from h
im. He always managed to drag it out of her eventually.

It worried him a little. He knew that overall he still had more notches in his bedpost than she did, but he didn’t like the thought of her having sex more recently than him. He was afraid that when the time came, he would be out of practice, and that she would find his performance less than impressive. That was unacceptable. When he did finally get her to open up she always described her sex life with other men as “vanilla.” He knew her well enough to know that she desired much more than vanilla. He hoped he would be able to provide that.