Fire in the Hole

by Debra Anastasia

She slapped the door hard with her hand repeatedly.

  Shannon knew she was going to be happy spending her time in Florida and South Carolina. Preston had found such peace as soon as their annual passes were printed. His rock collection was just getting started, and he said he had rocks in storage all over the world. So technically, King Preston and Queen Shannon were retired. He told her that he had felt le shame at being a crotch hair resource for beautiful wigs, but now he was embracing his talents. He’d quit his job at Target over the phone. Shannon did the same with hers. They both wore velour outfits monogramed with their titles on their left shoulders. The cast members were incredibly nice; they always addressed Shannon and Preston by their “names.” Shannon used her rubber bracelet to pay for the things Preston felt he was entitled to. He didn’t know about that handy way to pay, so he really felt like the Disney people were respecting his right to the land. It was like a happily ever after, and that’s all Shannon needed.

  They’d purchased a lovely timeshare close to their kingdom, and she invited her friends to visit anytime.

  Dove gave Duke a wide-eyed stare as she heard the banging on his door. She was no expert, but she was pretty sure it was Flower.

  Duke shrugged. “I think she thinks she and I are dating.”

  “Have you been?” she asked, suddenly wildly aware that she was naked in the bed of the man that her friend perceived as hers.

  “We haven’t done this together.” He motioned to Dove’s naked body.

  “I really should have given her some thought. I mean, you brought her to Southern or Bust. Why have you not done the sex together?” Dove rolled away from Duke and tried to piecemeal an outfit together considering her pajamas were torn beyond repair while the banging continued. She wound up in his sweatpants and T-shirt.

  He had his jeans back on and was in the process of stuffing his man meat into the fly. “She’s super in love with her cat. This might not be pretty. Maybe you should stay here.”

  “I feel like I have to say something. This wasn’t cool. I should have asked her first. I just wasn’t thinking, it was selfish. I just needed to find you.” Dove reached for his hand.

  “Yeah.” His smile was so genuine as he held her hand for a moment; she hoped Flower would understand.

  She followed Duke out. He swung the door open as Flower went to slap it, and she stumbled in. Dove wasn’t totally sure it was Flower until she began using gestures instead of words.

  She looked stunning. Gone was the thick, black makeup and the dark, greasy hair. She wore beautiful heels and looked like a goddamned supermodel.

  Dove looked at her bare feet. Figured. Fucking figured. She guessed she deserved it on every damn level. She had finally, finally fallen for Duke, and now his girlfriend was here looking like she was just back from a modeling shoot. And Dove was fairly certain Duke was into her, being that he had recently withdrawn his fingers from her yeti mound of love, but seeing Flower, who at this second could drop anyone’s jaw, there was just no fucking way he wouldn’t make a go with Flower now.

  Dove pushed past the scene, past Flower, who tried to grab her, but Dove pulled away. “Congrats. You look beautiful. Take him. Take all of them. This is what I deserve.”

  And Dove ran up the stairs to her apartment like a big fucking bitchy baby. She opened her apartment door, slammed it shut behind her, and secured all the chains so she would be alone no matter how many people had the key.

  She hugged her middle and slid down the door. Things were better before. Everything was all better before, when she was helping kids on the carousel and pretending to be important on the internet. She wasn’t built for this—for feelings, for hopes and dreams. A reclusive, farting, period fearing nincompoop was her true self. If she’d never felt the sun shine on her skin she wouldn’t have known how cold she’d normally been.

  Dove was a sad, sorry sack and lay down on her floor and sobbed. Humans sucked. Feelings blew chunks, and her vagina was an asshole for wanting men.

  Johnson paid the cab driver and offered, “Thanks for the ride; it’s a point of pride to get from there to here.”

  The cabbie gave him a sorry shake of his head and drove away. Johnson was as wasted as he could get on a six pack. He’d run out of finished beer and tried drinking some that wasn’t totally ready yet. It was still two weeks from done and had tasted funky, he couldn’t even get it down. So he was here for Dove. To fight Duke for her. To apologize and get between her luscious thighs. Without good timing.

  So much rhyming.

  The front door was propped open with a rock and he was able to walk in without buzzing for entry.

  A brief glance into Duke’s apartment and Johnson saw that the man was talking to a tall blonde. That gave him hope that he hadn’t been engaging in intercourse with Dove. Johnson went upstairs and knocked gently on Dove’s door.

  “I drank too much. I don’t have a hutch. Dove, can you let me in? I won’t puke in your bin.” He drummed his fingers on the door.

  Eventually she opened it and looked at her feet while waving him in. Johnson nodded his thanks even though she didn’t see it.

  “It’s late.” She walked over to her couch and sat down.

  “I’m sorry. I know I was supposed to give you time to think, but I kept calling your phone and you didn’t answer and that made me concerned so I started to drink.” He sat down in the chair across from her. “Where were you?”

  “Johnson, I needed time. I wasn’t lying about that,” Dove said.

  She finally looked at him, and he could see she’d been crying. Or her red eyes indicated that she had allergies or a poor reaction to some eye drops.

  “I know. I drank a little and got up the guts to come back over because I hate to have this unsettled between us.” His rhymes had dried up, which was a clear indicator that his buzz was fading.

  “You texted me about Beth. You came over to break up with me.” Dove wiped at her red eyes before gathering her knees to her chest again like a pair of teddy bears. Her sweats and T-shirt were different than the pajamas he’d left her in. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach about his initial hunch that she might have had a sexual encounter he wasn’t a party to.

  “But it worked out. Thanks to Duke, we all found out that Beth is a liar.” He wanted to move next to her on the couch but stayed where he was.

  “But the things that you did before then, telling me we were breaking up without even allowing me a chance to help you or look for options? That still happened for me.” Dove shook her head. “When push comes to shove, I want to mean more to you than that. That your first impulse was to protect your family’s opinion of you instead of what we have together? That’s disappointing.”

  “You do mean more. You do. It’s my fault; I thought letting you know immediately was the right thing to do. I get stuff wrong, too. And the pressure from my family—you don’t understand about that. They have incredibly high expectations for me.” He needed her to understand that not marrying a girl he got pregnant wasn’t an option in his family.

  “So I don’t meet their high expectations?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “That’s not what I meant.” He tugged at his collar.

  “You seem to be conveying a lot of things you don’t mean.” Her jaw was tense.

  “You were right. About giving you time. I shouldn’t have come.” He stood while she nodded.

  “How’d you get here?” She stood, too.

  “A cab. He left. I expected this to go better. To make you see that I’m a jerk who did the wrong thing again.” He walked to her door and pulled it open.

  Dove put her slippers on and grabbed her car keys from the hook by the door. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “You don’t have to. I’ll call a car service.” She was close to him now. He stopped moving out of her way, and she was forced to look up at him. “This was extreme duress—this whole thing. I hope we aren’t done.”

  Dove wouldn’t meet his eyes and shrugg
ed. “Things have sort of changed.”

  Johnson feared as much. “Then I’ll take that ride.”

  He didn’t want to force her into a decision now because he was two hundred percent sure he wouldn’t like what she decided.

  He held the door for her, and she walked through. On their way out, Dove glanced in Duke’s apartment—he was still talking to the tall blonde. She turned and looked at Dove and Johnson as they passed by, pointing at them harshly. Johnson finally made the connection that the Goth girl who didn’t talk now looked remarkably different. And she was angry.

  Dove stalled like a deer in the headlights as Flower clearly pantomimed that Duke and Dove had been having sex. Johnson asked Dove, “Is what she’s miming true?”

  Dove sighed before answering. “Yes. And then Flower showed up looking like that. And I’m sure Duke will bang her, you’ll break up with me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life thinking about these past few weeks as the glory hole days. I knew it was too good to be true, that my luck would eventually catch up with me.”

  Duke rolled his eyes. “It’s not like that, Dove. Come on.”

  Johnson felt his cheeks burning at the thought of Dove sleeping with Duke right after he’d been in her apartment.

  “So that’s how you handle being angry with me? You sleep with him?” Johnson pointed at Duke then at her.

  Dove blew a raspberry and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Don’t point at her, pill pusher.” Duke was getting angry.

  Flower stepped in front of the sausage eater and put up her hands.

  “You know what, Dove? I’ll walk. You can figure this out for yourself. Solve it all.” Johnson stormed past her, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and flipped through to find his car service app on his phone. A car would be to him in ten minutes.

  Dove watched the pharmacist of her dreams walk out of her apartment building. Duke was trying to get her attention around Flower, who kept putting her hand over his mouth.

  Duke pulled Flower’s hand out of the way. “I’ll be up in a minute, okay?”

  She nodded. And then she spoke to Flower because even with all the bullshit going on, it wasn’t cool to sleep with a friend’s crush. “I’m sorry. You look amazing.”

  Flower looked at her menacingly. Dove probably should have felt some fear, but she didn’t. Instead she was numb, she went back upstairs and left the door partly open. If Duke wanted to talk, fine. Let him break up with her, too. If Flower wanted to kill her, Dove would point out the knives. She went to bed and curled up in the center. Steve the Cat jumped on the bed and walked up her like a plank. He could be the one to kill her. He’d sort of become an apartment building cat, walking in and out of the open doors, though favoring the Anastasia’s. Instead of doing something evil, Steve the Cat licked her cheek before walking down her and presumably out the door.

  The cat’s random kindness broke her down. She cried a little and punched her pillow, and before she could convince herself to fall asleep, the bed registered the weight of another person. When she felt an arm snake around her waist and pull her into a spoon position, she knew it was Duke.

  “I’m sorry. I explained everything to Flower. I think she understands.” He nuzzled her hair out of the way.

  “She looks like a model had a baby with an Olympic athlete. She had a ton of hotness hiding under her quiet anger.” Dove waited for Duke to tell her he would be seeing Flower exclusively now.

  “She looks good. But it’s you I’m rooting for. I’ve been waiting for you, Dove.” Duke kissed her shoulder.

  “I feel like I made everyone angry today. I can’t figure out how to human correctly.” She turned to face him until they were in a perfect, horizontal hug.

  “Yeah. Being human is fraught with stuff we don’t plan on. And sometimes good stuff happens on a bad day.” Duke kissed her forehead.

  “And sometimes bad stuff happens on a good day,” she added.

  “True, as well. But today I had a dream come true. A giant dog could take a shit on my head right now, and I would still be thrilled. Because I had you in the biblical sense.” He kissed her.

  She accepted it and eventually responded by hugging him closer. “I just don’t want to make anyone angry. And I feel like I did that.”

  “Girls say that shit all the time. Fuck that. Make people angry. Get what you want. Get what you need. It’s okay to have a space in this world. It’s okay to want my dick in you.” His deep voice was grumbly.

  She laughed a little before snuggling closer. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Sleep then. I’m here.” Duke made his biceps a pillow for her head and covered her with the blanket from her bed. She took his advice and closed her eyes.

  When Dove woke, Steve the Cat was sitting on her chest, looking at her face. She felt like maybe she’d been in a time machine and everything was the way it used to be until Duke walked in with two cups of coffee and a huge boner.

  “Coffee brought to you by morning wood. You should know that my farts smell like murder this morning. And I’m not apologizing.” He put down the mugs, picked up Steve, and set him down at the foot of the bed.

  “The Anastasias had to go to some giant, out-of-state sex shop, so we’re Steve’s primary caretakers for a few days. I think he’s pissed about it.” Duke sat down and helped her prop up enough pillows so she could sit up. She was at peace, not caring if Johnson had tried to contact her. Okay, she was a little curious, but Duke had quite a show going for her this morning between his shirtless torso and his giant, springy dick covered by his pants.

  “I’m sure he is.” She took a restorative sip from the coffee mug Duke handed her. She was cautious not to wiggle her feet. “Though he did lick me yesterday.”

  “Weird. I bet he was tasting you. Can’t blame him. I quite enjoyed it, I might add. You okay this morning? Have any regrets?”

  He asked it lightheartedly, but she knew he was concerned.

  “The only thing I’m regretting is that we don’t have the Marriage Saver blanket for your murder farts.” She took a few more sips and held out her hand to try to entice Steve into being petted. He gave her a look like her hands were made of horror. “Now you’re making me look bad in front of Duke. Where’s the love now?”

  Duke drank his coffee and watched her watch the cat. “The Anastasias claim he is wonderful with them. But they’re super not normal.”

  “And you think I’m normal?” Dove was surprised and set down her coffee mug.

  “Hell, no. Normal girls bore my ball sac. You’re very exciting.” He set down his mug as well.

  “I better shower.” Dove rolled out of bed and had to speed up the process as Steve attacked her feet.

  “Mind if I join?” Duke stood as well, and Steve totally left his feet alone.

  Dove felt her eyes widen. “Um. Sure.” It felt weird to invite Duke from downstairs in to her shower. She was more a fan of the semidark sex where she was beautiful in her head. And, oh God, now he would be comparing her to Flower, too.

  “Hey. Don’t get into your head so much. I’ve already memorized every inch of your body.” He tapped his temple. “So this show is in repeats already. Get comfortable, mama.”

  He followed her to the shower and was naked before the water was even warm. Once it was perfect, she tried to take off her sweats and T-shirt, but he stopped her. “Allow me and Mr. Boner to do this task for you.”

  Duke pulled her shirt over her head but ignored her breasts as the sweats and panties were next. He isolated the panties from the clothes and draped them on his erection as though it was a coat hook. He began to swing his hips until he had the material spinning like a helicopter blade.

  When she busted out laughing, he added, “I’m your stepbrother.”

  She turned and leaned over to check that the water temperature had held, and his hands were all over her, rubbing between her legs, rolling a nipple in his fingers. His cock rested between her ass cheeks, and he rubbed it up and down. “I c
all this the frisky hot dog.”

  She retaliated by reaching between her legs and grabbing a handful of him.

  “Whoa.”

  He stilled for a second while she proved she knew what she was doing a little, too.

  “Get in that shower and press your boobs against those new glass doors the landlord installed. I’ll show you what they’re for.” Duke helped her in and pulled the door closed. She flipped the water from the faucet to the showerhead and did as he said, soaping up her breasts and pressing them against the glass. Duke palmed himself and smiled wide at the sight of her.

  She opened the door, and he climbed in and took over the soap. He added a washcloth from inside the shower shelf and taught Dove how amazing his flat palm against her clit could be. By the time he had her bent over and holding her ankles while the water hit the back of her head, she was ready for him to enter her. He was big. And the scars from his dick piercing made him ribbed for her pleasure. He was amazing, and she met him thrust for thrust; he even had to steady her a few times when things got too slippery for her feet.

  He came loudly and then rested gently on her back, draped over her like a warm, wet blanket for a few beats before he got out and wrapped her in a towel. He lifted her in his arms and she whistled at his strength. He whistled as well until their pursed lips met in a kiss. Duke laid her on her bed.

  He smirked at her for a minute before unwrapping her towel and watching her body react to his gaze.

  “Lovely. Time to eat breakfast.” Duke clearly had a very specific plan for Dove’s lady parts and went to town.

  Dove forgot she’d been worried—over and over and over.

  Johnson looked at his phone for the millionth time. No Dove. She needed time. And he had to give that to her. Getting drunk and going over to her place had been a horrible idea.

  He focused on the customers in front of him. They had concerns about medications interacting with each other, and he had to concentrate; lives depended on him doing his job correctly. The older woman in front of him didn’t have a conflict and she left with a smile, knowing her day should be safe—at least from the concern of an allergic reaction. The next woman on line looked familiar. Very pretty, but super familiar. She handed her prescription to him, even though he didn’t normally work the desk anymore.