Nico

by J. B. Hartnett

  Five minutes at the bar, a woman I recognized from the video store decided to strike up a conversation with me, “How are you, Nico?” she asked. She was cute, her black pixie hairstyle slicked back like a man.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t elaborate. “You?” I asked, taking a swig from my beer and thinking I would move onto whiskey next.

  “That good, huh? The shop was so busy today, which is so weird because most people don’t rent movies anymore, mostly PS3 games and stuff like that, but it was like an eighties night marathon for everyone and their brother. Seriously, we were busy from like five all the way ‘til ten. I didn’t stop. I didn’t even have a dinner break.”

  Yeah. Gina talked my fuckin’ ear off every time I went in that place.

  “So, are you here with anyone?” she asked, a mixture of hope and desperation in her voice.

  I held up my hand with a twenty in a universal gesture of, ‘give me more booze’ and the bartender was in front of me. “Another Bud?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Another Bud and a shot of whisky; I don’t care what kind, just make it a double and whatever she’s having —”

  “Gina,” she interjected.

  “Yeah. Gina.” I smiled.

  “What kind of Breezer’s do you have?”

  Great. She was drinking candy. I’d be out of here and in her, thirty… forty minutes tops.

  Twenty minutes later, we were on the dance floor. I was grinding against Gina, and her arms were wrapped around my neck like I was rescuing her from drowning.

  “I always wanted to ask you out,” she shouted. “I didn’t think you’d go for my type.”

  “What’s my type?” I shouted back, my fingers gripping her hip.

  “Blonde. Blue eyes. Surfer chick,” she stated.

  I grabbed her chin in my fingers and got close to her ear. “Do you have a pussy?” I asked.

  “What?” she said, voice barely audible.

  “Do you have a nice warm pussy I can stick my dick in and fuck?” I breathed against her ear and waited for her answer while I worked my arrogant get-laid-magic.

  “Y… yes,” she answered.

  “Here’s the deal, Gina. I’ll give you a great ride for one night, but when it’s over, it’s over. Understand? It’s up to you, but I know how wet you must be right now from me just breathing on your neck. The choice is yours.”

  She stopped dancing altogether and leaned back to look me in the face. “A chance for one night with you?”

  “One,” I said.

  “I have to go tell my friends I’m leaving. Can you give me fifteen, twenty minutes?” She looked scared, actually terrified I was going to change my mind.

  “Of course. I’ll be right here.” I smiled.

  She walked away, albeit reluctantly, when I felt a hand wrap around my thigh and work its way up. “Hey, stranger.”

  Fuck. Georgia. What timing. Georgia was a hell of a fuck. Her real specialty was giving head, but I already had a plan for the night. I thought about my option for all of two seconds.

  I rolled up my sleeves, exposing the thick black inked sleeves of my arms and grinned. “I have fifteen minutes and a condom in my pocket. Where can I rock your world, sweetness?”

  Less than a minute later, I had Georgia in a handicap bathroom stall, holding onto a rail with her skirt up around her waist and no panties; she didn’t wear ‘em. This girl was a slut. Just out looking for some guy to buy her a drink and give her a fuck. I held onto her tits while she rubbed her clit and came. Two more thrusts, her heels lifting off the tiled floor, I came, too. I gave her ass a slap and adjusted myself, throwing the condom in the trash and waiting a minute for my dick to go down before I returned to the bar. I spotted Gina with who I assumed was one of her friends and couldn’t miss the dirty look the friend gave me. I walked around a few tables and stood back where I’d left her a few minutes before.

  “There you are? I thought you’d left.” Gina searched through her purse for something.

  “See ya, Nico. Thanks for the ride,” Georgia said as she sashayed her slut-ass by.

  “Did you drive her here?” asked Gina.

  “No,” I said and took her hand, leading her out of the bar to find a cab. She was quiet the entire time. I was sure she’d figured it out, seeing as how Georgia had used the exact words I had said to Gina earlier.

  “You want something to drink?” I asked her. I took her purse and set it on my kitchen counter then grabbed a beer from the fridge.

  “No, thanks. I think I’ve had all the alcohol I should consume tonight.” She nervously looked around my place. “This is nice.”

  “Thanks. My parents gave it to me,” I said, taking a swig off a cold Bud.

  “That’s a pretty good gift.”

  I left my beer on the coffee table and stood at her side. “I’m an only child.” I slipped her thin straps from her shoulders, exposing her tits in their lacy black push-up bra.

  “Sorry, they’re small.” She put her arms in front of her and tried to cover up her normal-sized tits. “You probably like them huge or something.”

  “I’m a man. I like tits in all their variations.” I went down on my knees and pulled her shirt down, her tits sitting atop the stretched collar. I pulled one breast out, then the other, and looked at them. “These are great tits, Gina. Never doubt it.” And I wasn’t lying; they were. I scraped one nipple with my teeth then the other as her breath shuddered.

  “I’ve never had a one-night stand before,” she blurted out.

  “We can stop if you want.” I was a dick, but I wasn’t that much of a dick.

  “No, I want to. It’ll be a good experience for me. You only live once, right?”

  “Right.” I didn’t leave her much of a choice as I sucked one small, pink nipple into my mouth. I pulled her jeans down and moved her panties to the side to find her absolutely drenched. “You are fucking soaked.”

  “It’s been a while,” she said, embarrassed.

  “Lucky me.” I pulled her to the floor so she was sitting in front of me, face-to-face. “I’m on the bigger side, so I’ll go slowly.” I reached between her legs and moved two fingers inside her tight pussy as she gasped. At that point, I couldn’t get inside her fast enough. I pulled a condom from my pocket and shoved my jeans and boxers off, letting my dick spring to life in her face.

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding,” she said breathlessly and lay back on the floor.

  “It’s my gift,” I smirked, rolling the condom down my length.

  “I bet.”

  I pushed between her legs and eased myself slowly inside her. Nothing was said, and that was it; I had my escape from all thought, all stress, every horror that belonged to someone else, but played like a movie in my mind like it was my own. It was the only freedom I had from reality that seemed to work. I wasn’t a big drug user; I drank but that didn’t quiet my mind. I smoked every now and then, but I wasn’t a fiend. I swam in the ocean, but it didn’t give me that connection to another human being.

  I could hear horns blare from cars as they sped down the highway. Then the quiet came again as I moved slowly inside her. I remembered she wasn’t the usual kind of woman I picked up. Gina lacked confidence. For whatever reason, maybe she’d been burned or heartbroken, who knew. I normally wouldn’t give a fuck, but she was sweet, always polite when I came into the shop, and I knew I made her nervous. That was probably the reason she talked so much.

  I looked into her eyes as she stared so intently at me, still unsure of herself. “You’re a beautiful girl, Gina.” I brushed my fingers across her cheek and lips while I pushed deeper.

  “You don’t have to say that, Nico. I’m already here.” Her voice sounded small and defeated.

  Suddenly it clicked. “Someone hurt you,” I said.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  After that revelation, I made sure she felt beautiful. I didn’t want to know what happened to her. This was meant to be my escape from all of that, but it went against my nature n
ot to want to make her feel whole again, my own fault for asking. It was probably the closest I had been to “making love” in my entire life. I felt nothing for Gina except sympathy, but to be buried inside her warmth, her arms wrapped around me tight, her pussy clenching in not one but two orgasms without me so much as breathing on her clit while she kissed and licked my neck… I let myself go.

  I finally took her mouth, something I usually avoided but felt compelled to do, and kissed her softly as I slowed my movements. I couldn’t deny there was an intensity between us. I didn’t care that I hadn’t come. I cared that I could smell her perfume mixed with sweat. Then I let that impossible train of thought go and pulled out. I sat beside her and tied off the condom out of habit while she gathered her clothing.

  “I know you had sex with that other girl before we left,” she said. “I knew what I was getting into.”

  Shit.

  “Hey.” I waited until I got her eyes on mine. “I said one night.”

  She adjusted her shirt and pulled up her panties and jeans as she looked for anything left behind. “I know you did; I just can’t believe you can have that kind of experience with someone and that’s it. That wasn’t just random sex we had, Nico; that was more. I’ve had… more.”

  She made her way to the front door, grabbed her purse from the counter, and, against my better judgment, I followed her there.

  “What do you want from me, Gina?” I asked, and confronted her like a defensive dickhead.

  “Nothing,” her small voice replied.

  “You think that was special?” I asked with a pompous grin, my defense mechanism of ‘asshole’ sliding into place. “I admit, it was pretty fuckin’ good, but it was just a fuck.” I went on because I had to make sure Gina was so burned she’d never give me a second thought. “Just like that slut before you at the club. You’re a nice girl, a beautiful one, too, and you’ll find a good guy if you don’t let yourself be a doormat.” I leaned against the white wall behind me, pulled on my boxers, and braced myself for the deserved verbal assault about to come my way.

  She took a step back and looked at me. “I heard a rumor about you, and I say rumor because I can’t believe it’s true.” She started counting out bills for cab fare as I grabbed my jeans. “I heard from my friend, Sharee, that, after her cousin was raped, you listened to her tell you the whole thing, beginning to end, and held her in your big, strong arms while she cried. And during the tattoo, when she started crying again, you stopped, picked her up, and rocked her. You,” she said in sarcastic disbelief, “rocked her in your loving arms until she was ready for you to start those huge fairy wings on her back. How can you be so great, so empathetic, and such a giant asshole all at the same time?”

  I handed her a twenty from my wallet. “Not that much of an asshole.”

  “Fuck you, Nico. You can keep your money. You need medication.” She reached for the door handle.

  I put my arm out to stop her. I didn’t know what made Gina different from any other woman, maybe because she called me out. Maybe because we did have a rare but brief “moment”, but I felt compelled to explain.

  I looked down at her, saw the hurt in her eyes, and gave her the first explanation I had ever bothered to give anyone. “It takes everything out of me. I can’t have relationships because I have nothing else left to give. I can’t do it.”

  I moved my arm out of the way, but she didn’t move. She was warring with herself—the nice, sweet girl who wanted to break out and be like all the other bimbos, just so she could fit in, but it didn’t fit her.

  “I just wanted to be healed the same way you healed her. I wanted the same compassion from the first man I gave myself to since he left me.”

  I could hear she was on the verge of tears. How could I have been so fuckin’ blind? I knew better; I could see it written all over her at the club, but my ego ate it up. I should’ve just fucked Georgia and gone home.

  “What do you mean he left? Did he cheat on you or something?”

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” She turned the handle.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said, leaning closer to her.

  “I should’ve just come to you for a tattoo instead.”

  Fuck.

  “What happened?” I asked more firmly.

  She stopped and locked her eyes with mine. “He died.”

  I took her hand and pulled her to me as she let her head fall against my bare chest. Skin against skin, she needed that connection as much as I did. The only difference being, this was just another normal night for me. For her, it was a step in moving forward, and I’d been a fucking dick. I leaned down and kissed her; a soft, beautiful kiss with as much as I could give her with my mouth and tongue. She didn’t fight it, but she did pull away first.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as she walked away. “Goodnight, Gina.”

  She didn’t turn around, and it was better that way. A long, fucked up day and night, had gone into what should have been a few hours of distraction from reality. Tomorrow would be the same. So would next week and the week after that, because I didn’t know any other way.

  I locked the door, grabbed the bottle of Bud, and flipped on the stereo. My jeans hung open, my bare feet propped on the bricks of the fireplace in front of me, and my other hand on my dick. The night ended like all the rest—in my living room, sitting in that big fuckin’ chair… alone.

  Chapter 3

  September 15, 2006

  I wished this guy would just shut the fuck up. Even Zack kept looking over at me, his new silver ear plugs catching the sun every time he turned his head. His new fling—not girlfriend, he had made that clear several times—was a high-class stripper and bondage queen. She needed a man to tie up as her submissive for a class she was teaching. In an effort to get this guy to stop moving while I shaded the cheekbone of his “bitch,” as he referred to his wife, I started up a conversation with Zack.

  “So, you couldn’t move at all?” I asked. I tried to imagine Zack, tied up, helpless, and at the mercy of “Teensy”. She was about five-feet tall, long raven hair that she wore in an Amy Winehouse sort of way, but the difference was, this girl was all class. That statement probably went against how most would describe a stripper, but she was more like a performance artist.

  “No man, she had me in this thing where my wrists and ankles were together. She told me before we started that if I talked, I’d get the cat. Fuck man! My back, my ass, my thighs… they hurt so good.” He grinned. “You shoulda heard me, man. ‘Mistress T? Can I have a snack?’ Then those little leather strips would hit me. Then she’d talk to these men and women who were riveted to every word. Then she’d say, ‘Silence, pet.’ And that was it, man, I just wanted her attention no matter how much it fuckin’ hurt.” He laughed. “Oh, oh and then she was saying some shit about how I was being disobedient, and the next question I asked, she was gonna plug my ass. Now that, I wasn’t expecting. I’m all for a little finger in my ass when my dick is in her mouth, but I didn’t think she’d do it. So I waited, listened to her talk and walk around me, and, you know, my face was covered, so what the fuck did I care, right? So she walked around me like three times, and I said, ‘Mistress, can I stick my dick in your mouth when you stick something in my ass?’ And dude, man, she shoved this —”

  “You boys are sick in the head,” my client said, lifting from the chair.

  “Sir, if you could try not to move, I’m almost done.” He couldn’t see the smirk on my face as I dipped the needle in ink and returned to finish just below the earlobe.

  “You were saying?” I smiled at Zack, knowing he understood my appreciation of his storytelling. I also knew the client hung on every word.

  “Dude. I was rock hard the entire fuckin’ time. I’m talking a full forty-five minutes of California Redwood. And the way she had me like, strapped in, I swear to God, it just kept getting bigger. Then she shoved whatever that thing was in my virgin ass and, fuck me, man, I blew my load all over
the fuckin’ floor.” He laughed heartily.

  The client said nothing at all.

  After the client had left and Zack and I were alone, he decided to make conversation.

  “So,” he began. “I, uh, heard through the grapevine you fucked Georgia in the gimp-stable at Roscoe’s.”

  I shoved back from the desk, where I was ordering stock, and looked at him, “Gimp stable?”

  “The handicap stall.”

  “No, I didn’t need clarification; I got it the first time. How did you come up with that fucked-up term?”

  He laughed, as usual, “Don’t get all P.C. on me. That shit is funny and you know it. So, Georgia?”

  “Dude, I fucked her. The end.” I moved back in and scrolled down the menu and wondered how in the hell Zack got his intel.

  “Yeah, but then you left with that girl from Video-Jack’s.”

  That’s it, I had to know. “How the fuck do you know all this?”

  “People love me, man. I have all sorts of little spies working the great city of Laguna Beach. I am the eyes and ears, man. The eyes and ears.” He chuckled and went back to whatever design he was working on.

  Suddenly, he shoved the sketch-pad in front of my face.

  “What is that?” I asked, trying to decipher how whatever position he had put the two nudes in was even possible.

  “That’s what Teensy and I tried last night. Dude, she is one twisted bitch.” He started pointing at the drawing, making arrows, and labeling body parts so I could keep up with the description.

  “She must be flexible,” I commented.

  The bell above the door rang out and pulled me from my not deep and meaningful conversation with Zack.

  “Nicolas.”

  My pop stood in the doorway of the studio, his face drawn. I hadn’t seen my folks in a few weeks. They’d been busy with some project. They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t think to ask.

  “Pop, what are you doing here?” I closed the order screen and decided it could wait. I was just killing time anyway.