As I approach the man, he presses his back against his seawall and stands stiffly. I pull out my credentials and show them to him.
“What’s your name, mister?”
“Henry Hyde.”
I feel the hair standing on my arms. “We have to talk,” I tell him.
He’s about six feet tall with prematurely greying hair that hasn’t been brushed in God knows how long. His smooth, pinkish face is almost adolescent looking. His grey T-shirt is two sizes too small and his pants cuffs end a good inch above his black, high-top tennis shoes.
Jane is definitely good luck.
While Henry Hyde festers in a tiny, windowless interview room, I locate an old buddy from the academy, now one of our ace fingerprint technicians and call in a favour – on a Sunday. Thankfully, Hyde has a criminal record, arrests for shoplifting and cruelty to animals.
Sitting at my desk in the wide Detective Bureau squad room, Jane and I sip the fresh coffee I made.
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“With this new computer equipment, not long I hope.”
Just as we start on our second cup, my phone rings.
One of the prints lifted from Priscilla’s body and the print lifted from the missing left shoe are positively Henry Hyde’s right index fingerprint. Two of the others look promising too.
I lead Jane into the interview room, turn on the video camera in the corner and sit next to Hyde at the small table. He bats his eyes at me like a myopic goldfish.
I tell the videotape the date and time, then, “I’m Detective John Raven Beau, New Orleans Police Homicide Division. Also present is Detective Jane Palmer of the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office and Mr Henry Hyde.” I read his date of birth and address aloud, then read him his Miranda Rights. After each right, I ask if he understands. He answers yes in a high, shaky voice.
Henry stares into my eyes, but won’t look at Jane.
“Well?”
He shrugs.
“You might feel better if you tell us how it happened.”
His chin sinks and he closes his eyes.
Over the next two hours, I become Henry Hyde’s friend. He doesn’t admit it, not at first, but describes how Priscilla strolled around a lot. He’d seen her several times.
He gets choked up and I press in closer, talking in a low, controlled voice. Priscilla did communicate with Henry Hyde. She ignored him. I press on, eventually explaining to Henry about his fingerprints.
Tears form in his eyes and, like a good plains warrior, I pounce.
“You were ashamed, weren’t you?”
He starts crying.
“That’s why you straightened her dress, isn’t it?”
It takes a while to get him to stop crying and even longer to tell the story in narrative form. He’d followed Priscilla several times but never too closely, until this time, until she turned suddenly and almost ran into him.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her!”
“I know,” I say unemotionally.
Eventually he explains that she didn’t resist. That made him madder.
I control my natural inclination to strangle this bastard. I keep remembering Priscilla’s twisted body and her Little Mermaid underwear, torn and lying on that filthy landing.
At 7 p.m., Jane and I walk out of Central Lock-up after Henry Hyde. She grabs my arm and says, “That was exhilarating!”
I feel it too, the natural high from solving the case, from putting it all together.
“You are definitely a good luck charm,” I tell her. “How about a nice New Orleans supper?”
“Absolutely!”
I drive straight to Pascal’s Manale where we feast on alligator soup, barbecue shrimp, spicy crawfish etouffée and a bottle of Burgundy. She tells me what it was like growing up on a farm with a hard-working father and a stern, Bible-preaching mother. She’s very curious when I tell her how I grew up on the swamp next to Vermilion Bay with a Cajun father and a Sioux mother.
Walking across the street to Dive Inn, Jane tucks her arms around mine. Probably the wine. She drank most of it. She thanks me again for dinner and especially for letting her work on the case.
We spot Mr Yokura immediately as he works his magic fingers along the backside of a long, lean blonde woman on the exercise table. Bruce Wayne, elbows up on the bar, watches Yokura work. Norm Norling, still in the same tan suit, sits on the stool next to Bruce, his stetson up on the bar.
“Join us,” Bruce calls out.
I hesitate, but Jane, staring intently at Yokura and the blonde woman, pulls me to the bar.
Norm turns to us and almost falls off the stool. Giving me a bleary-eyed stare, he says, “Shit. Why ain’t you the Jap?” He picks up his latest Budweiser and finishes it off.
“You mean him?” I point to Yokura.
Norm looks over his shoulder and blinks as if he’s noticed the show for the first time. He lets out a loud moan, stumbles away from the bar, does a little spin and crashes flat on his back, spread eagle.
Bruce puts an icy Coke in front of me.
“You live here, or something?” I ask Bruce.
“I own the place.”
Still watching the Yokura show, Jane asks for a glass of Burgundy.
Bruce obliges as I turn and watch. The woman rolls on her back, Yokura pouring oil between her round breasts. She arches her back when he starts rubbing the oil in.
We watch in silence as the hands work the woman to a heavy-breathing high. Yokura’s right hand moves from breast to breast as his left hand slips between her legs, rubbing through her slightly-darker-than-blonde pubic hair.
“That’s Mrs Panemy,” Bruce tells us. “A widow.”
Jane takes a drink of her wine.
Yokura moves between Mrs Panemy’s open legs and uses both hands, one fingering her clit, two fingers from the other hand slipping inside. He takes his time, but she’s bouncing already and crying out.
“He’s good,” I hear myself stating the obvious.
Jane lets out a long breath. “Very good, I’d say.”
Just as Mrs Panemy’s groaning and gyrating seems to reach its peak, Yokura backs away and bows to her open pussy. It takes her a few seconds to catch her breath. She leans up on her elbows and looks our way.
“Excuse me,” Bruce says as he passes us. He extends a hand for Mrs Panemy and pulls her up off the table. She wraps an arm around his waist and they walk back past us on their way to the rooms.
“Well,” Jane says as she finishes her wine. “Can’t say I blame him.” She reaches over the bar for the bottle of Burgundy.
I notice Yokura moving our way. Jane doesn’t see him until he’s next to her. When she’s finished pouring herself another drink, she turns to face him.
“Would you like to be next?” he asks her with only a hint of accent in his voice.
The blue eyes widen. She softly bites her lower lip and turns to me. And I can see it in her eyes. She’s thinking about it.
In life there are pivotal moments where we can go one way or the other.
Yokura steps aside and opens his hand towards the exercise table.
Jane’s chest rises as she stares at the white, cushioned table. She takes another drink of wine, hands me the glass and climbs off the stool. She takes a hesitant step forwards, her back to me now. I feel a surge of excitement as she unbuttons her blouse and hands it to me. I lay it on the bar away from the wine glass.
She wears a lacy white bra. Unfastening the lone button at the front of her skirt, she pulls it away and hands it to me. She steps out of her heels and works her pantyhose down. Her panties are also lacy white.
Turning to me, Jane smiles and reaches back to unhook her bra. She hands it to me, her eyes staring into mine, daring me to look at her breasts. I smile back and look down at a pair of beautifully formed breasts, not too big, not too small. Her pink areolae look so soft and kissable, her small nipples hard and ready.
Jane climbs out of her panties, steps around me and
drops them on the bar. Scooping up the stetson, she walks over to Norm-the-unconscious. Standing naked over him, she sneers, “Prude, huh?” Bending over, she covers his face with the stetson.
Yokura already has his bottle of oil in hand as he stands next to the table. Jane gives me a sexy look as she moves over and climbs on, face down. I step off my stool and straighten my swollen dick.
Her skin looks extra pale under the fluorescent lights, Yokura’s hands darker and gnarled like magnolia branches. He works the oil across her back and up to her shoulders. Moving down to her hips, I watch as he rubs her ass and then works the oil into her thighs.
I finish my Coke, walk over and ask Yokura how much. In New Orleans, we pay as we go. He tells me 20 and I drop a 20 dollar bill into his open case.
Jane turns over. I’m breathing heavy now.
“Come here,” she tells me as Yokura pours a thick slurp of oil between her breasts. She cranes her neck up, her lips pursed for me. I bend over and kiss her lips lightly as Yokura starts rubbing the oil on her breasts.
She lets out a deep breath and presses her lips against mine, her tongue in my mouth. We French kiss while Yokura rubs her breasts. When he moves down her body, pouring oil on her belly, Jane takes my hands and moves them to her chest.
I come up for breath, Jane gasping as I start feeling-up her breasts, rubbing them softly. My fingers rolls over her nipples, tweak them and rub them.
Yokura moves between her open legs. Kneading her breasts, I continue feeling her up as I watch Yokura’s fingers work the oil through her thick mat of pubic hair.
Breathing heavily Jane lets out a series of tiny squeals. Yokura’s fingers slide into her.
She cries out and tells me not to stop. I’ve slowed down my squeezing. I knead her breasts a little harder.
“Kiss me!”
I kiss her – a maddening, tongue-probing, hot kiss. Her body rises, then falls. Her hips gyrate in long, smooth strokes to Yokura’s fingering. She has to pull her mouth away to breathe.
Yokura leans forwards and blows on her pussy as his fingers continue working in her. She cries out. I reach down and run my finger through her pubic hair. I reach her clit and rub it softly. She presses it against my hand, bouncing now.
Yokura motions to me with his free hand, then suddenly steps away.
I move around quickly and stick my tongue into the folds of her wet pussy.
She shudders and grinds against my tongue. I lick her clit and work my tongue in and out and up and down. I taste her juice and feel the heat from her pussy as I continue Frenching it.
When I stick a finger deep inside, my tongue not missing a stroke, Jane screeches and pulls at my ears. I don’t stop, moving my finger in a tight circle inside her, moving my tongue in quick licks across her pussy lips.
Jane’s back arches, her hips rising high. Gasping, she holds it there for a second, then goes through a withering climax, an ass-bouncer, a legs-squeezing-my-ears, loud orgasm.
I think she calls me God, or maybe just calls his name.
She tries to pull away, but I won’t stop, which sends her hips bouncing high. I don’t stop until she finally collapses in a heap on the table.
It takes me a minute to catch my breath.
Jane sits up and pulls me forwards, wrapping her arms around my chest, her legs around my waist.
“That was soooo delicious,” she gasps. “Take me to my room, Mister, and I’ll get rid of those blue balls for you.”
Scooping her in my arms, I wink as I pass Yokura on our way to the hall. She points to the third room on the left. The door’s unlocked. I place her on the bed. Jane grabs my belt as I pull off my over shirt, pull out my Beretta and place it on the end table.
She yanks at my T-shirt and has me naked in two minutes, holding on to my diamond-cutter dick as she pulls me atop her. She guides it to her pussy and I work it in slowly, feeling the hot, wet walls of her tight pussy. Sinking it all the way in, I stop for a second as Jane gasps and pulls my mouth down to hers.
I fuck this girl, riding her, grinding my dick in her, pumping hard and then not so hard and then hard again. She pumps her hips in rhythm to my humping. When I get close, I stop. She won’t and keeps pumping against me. As soon as I’ve got it under control, I start again and she increases the pace until I can hold back no longer. I come in her in long, deep spurts, my legs shuddering. I jam her and continue until I collapse atop her.
The air-conditioned air feels good on our sweaty bodies. We lay in the scent of our sex, arms and legs around each other.
“I don’t believe this,” Jane finally says. Her voice doesn’t indicate regret, but incredulity.
I tell her she’s hot, an incredibly hot woman.
“I don’t mean that. I don’t believe how I’ve felt ever since I got here.” She snuggles her face against my chest. “This place got to me.”
“Dive Inn?”
“The city. I’ve been turned on since I got here.”
“I’ve been that way since I was fifteen.”
She pinches my side.
“OK. I know what you mean. There’s something about New Orleans. Maybe it’s the air or the humidity or . . . I don’t know.”
Jane runs her fingers across my chest.
“When you’re ready for seconds, let me know,” she says softly.
And it occurs to me, this didn’t turn out to be a bad weekend after all.
Tell Me a Story
Susannah Indigo
“Take a deep breath, Rikki.”
She smiles, inhales, and tries to relax.
“Now, slow down and tell me again,” Alex says with a laugh.
“Oh, Alex, I won. I really won! I got the letter today, and I’m going to Italy. Thank you for all of your help.”
He leans back in his chair behind the big mahogany desk and watches as she is barely able to sit still in her seat.
“Rikki, you look like 16 when you’re this excited.”
She blushes. “I’m glad that I’m not. I never could have written that story without my years of experience. I can’t believe it.”
“Come here, Rikki. I haven’t seen you in almost a month.”
She looks up in slight surprise. Dr Alex Russ has always been friendly to her, but he’s never looked at her in quite this way before. She steps over towards his desk, still bouncing with excitement, unable to quite discern the look on his face, that handsome bearded face that has cajoled and laughed with her through so many of her writing struggles.
“Sit up here on my desk. Let’s talk about what you wrote.”
Rikki blushes again. A tale of sexual obsession was her choice of subject matter for the winning entry. The theme of the contest had been “The End of the World”, and what would truly matter when that time came near. She had ditched her original ideas about survival and gone for what she knew.
“I’m pretty sure I was the only one to turn in an erotic story of domination and possession for my entry,” she says. “But what else is there, when you strip away all of our pretences?”
“Rikki, I have to tell you – talking about sexual obsession for those two months with a 32-year-old woman who just dropped in to audit my class has been the highlight of my year.
Perched on his desk, she pulls the folds of her full forest green silk dress over her stockinged legs and crosses her ankles primly in front of him. “Well, you helped me a lot. Like we talked about, the only themes that really matter are sex, religion, death, and art.”
“I’ve thought about you and your story day and night, and I have a secret to share with you.”
Forgetting the writing contest for now, she begins to notice Alex’s deep voice reaching her in strange ways.
“A secret? I love secrets,” she says, trying to laugh it off
“Look at me. I’m quite serious. I want to act out your story. With you.”
“Oh, my.”
“Yes, exactly. It’s all I thought of every time you left my office.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know, Alex, what are you saying?”
His eyes lock on hers, and she begins to feel the need for his hands on her, somewhere, anywhere.
“I want to feel it. I want to know if one person can truly possess another. Your writing is so clear, so erotic. We’re going to take that journey together. Nothing else matters. We can think of it as the end of the world.”
“Maybe it won’t work in real life?” she asks, feeling the wetness growing between her legs.
“Rikki, I can see it on your face. You want it as much as I do. Ask me to act out your story with you.”
“We both have real lives elsewhere. And, we both know how it ends.”
“It doesn’t have to end that way. We can stop whenever we want to. We can create our own little secret world. Go close the drapes.”
Alex lights a single candle, places it on the coffee table, opens a bottle of wine and pours two glasses.
“Do you like Coltrane, Rikki? You must.”
“God, yes, I listen to him all the time when I write.”
He starts one of her favourite CDs, “The Last Giant.”
“Come sit on the floor with me, Rikki, and let’s talk. You look nervous – tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, you know. You know. I don’t know if I can do it.” “Unbutton the top button of your dress.”
She pauses.
“Do it.”
She slowly reaches down and undoes the first button.
“That’s not near enough. Undo another one.”
She unbuttons the next pearl button on her dress, exposing the top of her cleavage.
“That’s beautiful. Tell me you can do this.”
She just smiles.
“You’ll learn, every time you come into this office.”
“Yes.”
“Much better Now, tell me what you’re wearing beneath that lovely dress.”
Rikki looks down shyly and says, “I’m wearing a white lace bra.”
“Does it fasten in the front?”
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