She moved her mouth down the outline of his jaw, bowed her head toward the counter and put her lips over the full shot glass in front of him. Without using her hands, she hoisted the glass in her mouth – her lips caressing its edges – tilted her head back, and downed the whisky in a single swallow.
Marty slowly twisted the empty cup from the grip of her mouth and set it on the bar. He was enormously aroused, but played it as cool as he could. He leaned forward, put his lips to her ear, grazed her lobe softly with his teeth, and whispered, “Meet me outside in the car.” He playfully bit and kissed the side of her face, sending erotic shivers up her spine before adding, “And bring the bottle with you.”
2
James Albert Delaney – better known to his teammates as “Jimmy” or “Jimbo” or “Numb Nuts”, if you’d ask his coach – was back at the hospital, nursing a sore, pudgy jaw and a broken rib when Terry – a long-time friend and teammate – cruised into his room and tossed a magazine at his lap from a few feet away. It fluttered sideways in the sterile, hospital air and landed on Jimmy’s stomach as he lay recovering, broken and bruised. Jimmy cringed when it hit him and Terry laughed with a mischievous grin. (Terry always had a sort of caring look in his eyes, even when being overly obnoxious.)
“Oww! Shit, man, take it easy! I got three broken ribs here!” It didn’t hurt as much as he let on. Really, he only had one fractured rib, but he liked to embellish his misfortunes and bask in his friend’s sympathies as often as possible. He looked down at the magazine and flipped it over. “What’s this?”
“What’s it look like?”
Jimmy’s focus was a touch off from him being pummeled by needles earlier and generously injected with pain meds. His hair was out of place and his little potbelly protruded to say “hello” from under the hospital sheets. He turned the magazine right-side-up and read the title out loud before it sunk in.
“Top M.I.L.F. Magazine?” The picture on the cover was of an older woman with breasts the size of beach balls and thin lips caked with pink lipstick. “Aww, gnarly, dude!” Despite his verbal rejection, he started flipping through the pages out of some estranged, delinquent curiosity. The look on his face was one of caution, as if expecting something jarringly unappealing to jump from the pages and attach itself to his jugular. “These chicks are like fifty years old!”
Terry laughed and sat down next to him. “Check out the centerfold.”
He leaned in as Jimmy unveiled the center page to see a busty blond in her late forties wearing an older style, strapless corset and thong, spread out without a hint of modesty on a fluffy, leopard-print fur comforter. Terry pointed at the picture to his point of interest.
“Look, dude,” he tapped the page, “…C-section.”
“Aww, man!” Jimmy cringed. “That’s nasty!” Then he added curiously, tilting the magazine to an angle, “And she kinda looks like my aunt…”
Terry laughed, caught off guard. “Dude, if yur aunt looks like that… I’d definitely bone her.”
Jimmy smiled and responded distantly, thoughts drifting into a distant land of sensual, softcore fantasies.
“Yeah, me too…”
Terry shot him a look, his eyebrows scrunched over a glare. “Dude…you’d bone yur aunt?”
A sour snare took the place of Jimmy’s fallen grin. “No, you asshole, I mean I’d bone this chick.” He shook the magazine for clarity.
“But you’d be thinking about yur aunt, man, that’s sick!”
“No, I…” He shook his head. “Well, yeah… I mean…” He ultimately decided no amount of rationale would dig himself from the pit of this uncomfortable imbroglio. “Okay,” he looked over at Terry, annoyed but amused, “you got me, dude. I’d bone my aunt. You happy now?”
Terry shook his head sarcastically. “Jimmy, my friend, you,” he offered a pat on the shoulder, “are one fucked up puppy.” He leaned back and shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me, though. When I was fourteen, I made out with one of my cousins.” Jimmy squeezed a laugh from his lips like a fart, trying to hold it in to not irritate his fractured rib. “She was cute, but she had an overbite and hairy nipples… It was the weirdest shit I ever saw.” Jimmy broke out in a full-on laugh, groaning in pain at the same time. “That and she woofed like a dog when I touched her cooch.” He acted out the sound by making deep, animal noises to add to the hilarity. Jimmy was still laughing, but trying not to, squinting in painful amusement, clenching his gut, hugging the M.I.L.F. magazine. “She woke her parents up with that damn sound she made. My uncle chased me out their house in his boxers. It was dark, though. I don’t think he ever found out it was me.” Terry saw Jimmy still trying to hold his laugh so he woofed again, but louder, howling in exaggeration. Jimmy would’ve been rolling if he could’ve moved, but instead stayed put, jiggling with glee, pudgy cheeks beat-red.
The boys didn’t notice, but they’d gained company. Alex had been standing at the doorway for a few moments, witnessing the childlike behavior from the two grown men in front of her. She decided it was about time she let her brother’s friends know she was there, so she cleared her throat.
“Ahem!” She was leaning against the door frame, dressed casually sophisticated in heels, dark jeans, a white collared shirt unbuttoned to its middle, and a cropped jacket that teased her hips. She had on a pair of black framed reading glasses with her dark hair pulled tight into a ponytail.
Terry heard her first and looked over his shoulder, smiling at Jimmy’s flushed dimples. “Hi, Alex.” He was laughing a little when he spoke.
Jimmy finally noticed his dream girl posted under the door’s frame and clenched up, embarrassed. He let out an “Oh shit!” under his breath and slipped the Milf Mag below the sheet.
“Uhh…hi, Alex.”
He and Alex were close to the same age; in their early twenties. The two of them were the babies of the group. Terry was closer to Marty’s age being almost thirty going on twelve, Alex thought.
She smiled with a sort of cocky immodesty knowing Jimmy’s embarrassment stemmed from him having a crush.
“Hey, guys. Am I interrupting?”
Terry shook his head and Jimmy answered her. “No…uh, come in. Sit down.” Terry was sitting in the only seat so Jimmy shooed him along. “Terry, get up. Let the lady sit.”
Terry grew a look like, “you’ve gotta be shiting me”, but as it turned out, didn’t have to give up his seat since Alex declined Jimmy’s chivalry with a forced smile.
“No, it’s okay. I just stopped by to see my brother, but he’s not in his room. Have you guys seen him?”
“Who, Marty?” Jimmy was a little nervous. “Yeah, he, uh, came by earlier. He wanted to check you out…uh, I mean, check out err…up on me. I don’t know why, you know… I mean, I’m fine. It’s just a few broken ribs. No big deal.” He shrugged off the mention of his pain and his friend chuckled at his bravado.
Terry leaned forward, reaching his arm toward his friend. “Yeah, he’s fine. Jimmy’s a tough kid.” His tone hinted at mockery, smiling when he jabbed his friend in the ribs with a finger.
“Oww! Shit!” Jimmy whined like a child exaggerating his pain. “Stop, you dick!”
Terry laughed obnoxiously and Alex smiled, but lowered her head to try not to let Jimmy see. She didn’t want to embarrass him anymore than he already was. Terry, on the other hand, had exactly that in mind.
Alex disguised her smile under clearing her throat and went on. “Did he say where he was going or why he left?”
Jimmy, still wincing, wrangled his discomfort with his dedication to machismo. “No. Sorry.” His voice a half-whisper, strained from pain. “Oh, wait…yeah. He said he needed a drink. He probably went to the G-Spot…err, the bar. …Yeah, he went to see Tara, I think. Said he needed to get laid…” He tried to quit talking before making an ass of himself, but as usual, found the effort to be hopeless. “Uhh, sorry, I mea
n he…”
“…said…he…needed to ‘get laid’…” She finished his sentence for him, eyes oozing disbelief. “Yeah… Great… That’s exactly what he needs.” Her hands flew up in her unsurprised annoyance. “I mean, who wants to talk to a lawyer when your balls are blue?”
Her joke didn’t mask her irritation. Terry chuckled at the remark anyway and Jimmy shot him a look. Alex sighed and just crossed her arms over her chest. She decided to move past her frustrations for now and change the subject.
“Are you guys going tomorrow?”
Terry spoke up and put on a more serious look to address her question. “To the funeral?” Alex nodded. “Yeah, we all are…” He corrected himself. “Well, Marty isn’t goin’. I mean…at least not to the service. But, yeah, the rest of us are.”
She looked to Jimmy, cautious but curious. “Even you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. The guy was a douche, but…Coach says we all need to go and pay our respects.” A shrug lifted his shoulders under defeated brows. “Even me.”
“That’s nice, Jimmy. …I mean, not the ‘douche’ part, but…”
He almost smiled. “Yeah, well, I’ll leave the ‘douche’ part out when I’m paying my respects to his teammates.”
She faked a smile. For a second there was a brief silence as the three of them felt a kind of sadness in the moment, then Alex spoke up to allay the blues.
“Does he have any family?”
Terry shook his head. “Shit F—” He stopped himself and thought better of referring to Le’Duprie as something Alex might consider disrespectful. “Duprie doesn’t even have any friends let alone a wife or kids.”
She frowned. “No parents or cousins or anything?”
“Nope,” Terry answered. “Just us. And even his teammates thought he was an asshole.”
Jimmy swung the back of his hand into his friend’s shoulder, then sighed. “That’s why they’re performing the service here even though he’s Canadian,” he explained. “They’re even gonna give him the honor of being buried with our troops since he served in our Military for two years. No one will pay for him to be transported up north so they’re just gonna bury him here in the Veteran’s Remembrance Cemetery.”
“That’s…” Alex wasn’t sure what word to use to describe it. “…nice, I guess.” She decided on one, but wasn’t convinced she meant it. “It’s sort of sad, actually.”
Jimmy nodded in agreement. Not that he necessarily agreed, but he would’ve agreed to pretty much anything that came out of those beautiful, dark lips.
“Yeah, so, uh, you wanna go? …You know…to the funeral, I mean.”
Terry laughed. “Yeah, great idea for a first date, dumb-shit, take her to a funeral.”
Alex felt embarrassed for him, so she just answered in the nicest way she could.
“No, I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”
Jimmy felt like an ass, as usual, and Terry hadn’t made it any better. He tried reconciling himself with an explanation.
“No, I wasn’t…I didn’t mean with me, I—”
“Seriously, dude… Just quit now before she thinks yur brain got damaged in the collision.”
Alex looked back and forth at the two of them and awkwardly smiled.
“I’m…uhh…gonna go.” She pointed out to the hall in the direction of her retreat. “If Marty comes back, can you tell him to call me? He’s not answering his cell.”
Jimmy nodded obediently, trying to draw attention from his bumbling tendencies.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll tell him to call you. Do you wanna leave me yur number or…”
“He…has…my number.”
“Right! …Right. Sorry…stupid……umm… I’ll just…maybe, shut up now, before…you know, like Terry said…”
Terry had his face planted in his hands, shaking his head, shoulders jittering from restraining his laughs.
Alex gradually backed out, retreating from the deepening hole Jimmy had dived face-first into.
“Riiiight…” She drew the word out in sarcastic harmony. “I’m leaving now. Um…I’ll have the doctor come back in and maybe take another cat scan,” she shrugged. “They might’ve missed something the first time.”
Terry still had his face in his palms when Jimmy laughed forcibly at her remark.
“Ha! Yeah…cat scan. ’Cause I’m an idiot… Good one! That’s…that’s funny…” She’d already stepped out into the hallway before Jimmy finished his gibbering. “…funny, funny girl.”
Noticeably stunned by idiocies abound, he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, hoping he’d find an answer to why he was such a bumbling dill-weed written on the stucco above.
Terry was finally able to raise his head from his hands, his cheeks tinted with a sympathetic rouge. “Dude…you have no game.”
Jimmy sighed. “Shut the hell up, Terry. You’re an asshole.”
He laughed at that and Jimmy finally laughed too, unleashing a breath of nervous tension and easing his discomfort with an embarrassed smile.
3
“Since when do you smoke?”
Tara and Marty were sprawled over the bed in her apartment, the sheets wildly rearranged in an after-sex entanglement of twisted blankets and bodies.
He took a pull from one of her cigarettes – a giant lungful proportionate to a chest his size – and exhaled hard toward the ceiling. She reached up for the Marlboro in his hands and guided it to her lips, stealing a hit from between his fingers. He didn’t answer her question. He got the impression she already knew more than she’d let on. She let his hand go and he took another drag while she curled up on his chest.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” She said it delicately, with her head down as though she expected him to react harshly and wanted to shield herself from a potential scowling.
He inhaled another cloud, almost without taking a breath in between, and exhaled somewhat more easily this time – the nicotine’s calming effect appeared to be doing him a temporary service.
She played with the hair on his chest and listened to the sound of his heartbeat ease itself into a steady drumming. She wondered what it must’ve been like for him face the fact his rage drove him to kill a man with his bare fists. She knew he felt remorse. He’d never been very comfortable with his temper for as long as she’d known him. He hated even raising his voice to her or his sister, and would leave the room if it was even a possibility. It was like he feared the anger in his heart and thought it might take control of him one day and drive him to do something unforgivable. He felt as if there were a monster inside, constantly thrashing at his self-control, working to break free of its psychological impound. This monster had a face, he thought, and it was that of his father. He could see his father’s crazed eyes buried beneath his own through the reflection in a mirror or pane of glass whenever he’d get too heated and lock himself in a room. It was never a sight he could stand to stomach for long.
He finally took a breath outside the cigarette stuck between his swollen knuckles and cleared his throat, preparing his voice to speak. When he did, he spoke softly, with a sincerity Tara thought she’d never heard in his tone before.
“When I was fifteen, and Alex was seven or eight, I was walkin’ her home from school,” he began meekly, staring at the ceiling as he shared. “I used to get so irritated that I always had to take care of her. I just wanted to do my own thing, you know? I was just gettin’ into high school and instead of hangin’ out with girls after class, I had to meet up with my little sister and walk her home.”
He shook his head, disappointed by who he was as a teen and siphoned another pull from his smoke. Tara couldn’t help but intently listen.
“She was always such a happy little girl, and I think that pissed me off even more because I was never happy when I was younger – especially not at her age. When I was her age, my mom was sti
ll alive, and her and my dad were constantly fighting, and yelling, and throwing shit at each other. God, they were fuckin’ horrible together…”
He shook his head again and gave Tara a puff from his cigarette. She never looked directly at him when he spoke, not wanting her emotions to show through and become a distraction. She’d just roll her head around on his chest and listen to the steady sound of his voice, exhaling carcinogens into the warm air.
“We were walkin’ home and Alex was jumpin’ around and tuggin’ on my arm, pullin’ on my shirt – just being a fucking spazz; driving me nuts. So I was already irritated as it was… And this group of older kids was comin’ towards us; all laughin’ and smokin’ their squares, blowin’ smoke in our face when they passed.” He exhaled another cloud as he spoke that rolled into the haze that hung at the top of the room. “So, I run my mouth and call one of the kids an asshole, right? And the little prick flicks his cigarette at me… Except it doesn’t hit me… It hit’s Alex, right in her fucking eye.”
Tara froze, knowing this was where the story would get out of hand.
“I fucking flip. Alex is screamin’ bloody murder… The kid looks like he didn’t mean to hit her, but I’m already way too worked up to give a shit if it was an accident or not… So, I rush this kid and swing as hard as I can, right for his nose… Bam! Broke it instantly. Blood starts pourin’ out of his face like a faucet. The kid stumbles back and I hit him again – hard as shit. Not until the other night have I ever felt like I hit somebody as hard as I hit him.” He paused, working through the memories in his mind.
“The only thing keepin’ this kid conscious was probably the adrenalin pumpin’ through his veins. His brain was tryin’ to give his body a fighting chance, you know? The rest of the kids were too shocked to even try and stop me, so they’re just standin’ there, watchin’ me go to work on this guy. I mean, he was at least two grades above me, but I was tall and skinny back then and probably got into more fights in any given month than any of these kids had seen in their lives. I don’t even know how this guy was still on his feet, but he was…so I kept swingin’, and he kept stumbling backwards and…eventually, he tripped…into the street…”
Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell Page 9