by Paula Cox
There are tears on her cheeks, little black tears from her mascara spidering down to her lips and neck. Her hands are on her lap making her dress into a little ball. Her eyes look like they could burn someone.
I get up from the bed and sit down next to her on the sectional and put my arms around her and say, “Okay, okay” just like that. For five minutes, ten maybe. And the whole time I’m looking for something nice to tell her but I know that after her whole spiel there’s probably nothing she wants to hear except what I’m telling her, so I keep on saying it even when the bellhop comes up with her giant, pink bag and lays it on the floor and tiptoes out fast as he can go. Even then, just her and me.
Chapter 11
Maya tells me to order something nice from the bar while she’s unpacking. It’s slightly a problem because I know exactly nothing about wine except that some are red and some are white and all of them are overpriced.
There I am anyway, flipping through the menu with one hand and turning over the credit card with the other. The barman’s name is Donnie, and he has a white beard but is bald and says he comes from a place in the north of Spain, which he says with a lisp. When I ask him for his three recommendations, he names three wines in a foreign language I forget the second after he says them.
“Right, okay,” I say and order the three most expensive bottles they have, which are all red because my boy Palmer told me once that only queers and old writers drink white wine. The total comes to just under a thousand dollars. That is, what, toilet paper to a guy like Theo.
Maya’s in the shower by the time I come back.
“Quinn?” she shouts frantically. The water turns off. “Quinn!”
“Yes?”
“That’s you, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Okay. Kirill’t know why I’m so excited. Did you get something?”
“Three bottles,” I say. “Kab-ergnon Sofignon—one of those. And two pinnots.”
She giggles over the sound of the water.
“What is it? Is something wrong?”
“No—no not at all. That’s perfect. You’re a cultured man of the world, Quinn.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Sure am. Pour me a glass, won’t you?”
It’s probably the best thing for her to loosen up. There’s a small kitchen connected to the living room and some fancy crystal wine glasses in the cupboard along with a brand new corkscrew that even comes with instructions. I get one of the corks off and dump about a quarter of the bottle between the two glasses and set hers down in the bathroom outside the closed door of the showers and return to the sofa with mine and put it on the end table next to the remote.
Maya sticks an arm of the shower for her glass and closes the door back up again.
I flip through the TV, but there’s nothing on at two in the morning except for dating shows and old reruns of Cheers and M*A*S*H, which I never even watched even when there weren’t any reruns.
“What is that?” Maya calls from the shower.
“M*A*S*H. Can you hear that from in there?”
“Sure can. There are speakers right above my head. It’s really cool.”
“You want me to put on something?”
“Is there a music channel?”
I flip through and find the local classical radio station. There’s this Hungarian guy, and he’s sixteen, and he’s playing Mozart’s twenty-third piano concerto, the DJ says all quietly like she’s trying not to wake up a sleeping cat.
“Like that?’
“Perfect. Not a bad choice on the wine by the way. Did you get any white?”
“No. I can if you’d like,” I say, thinking something bad about Palmer Glass and his recommendation.
“No need. This works fine. How many bottles?”
“Three.”
“Par-fait. That leaves two and a half for you. I’m a feather if you hadn’t already guessed.”
“A lightweight?”
“The lightest weight. Two more sips of this and I’ll be reciting you my grade school Shakespeare. You’d best be prepared, Mr. Tolliver.”
The water shuts off. I leave the classical station on and finish the glass I’ve been working on and get up to pour myself more.
Maya’s on the sectional when I get back, wearing a bath towel and nothing else. Her little breasts push up against the towel like the halves of two globes. Her legs are the color of bronze and look like some kind of rich liquid, like she was made out of straight champagne.
She twirls her glass around and makes a tornado out of her wine. It looks like she hasn’t even touched it, but from the flush in her cheeks, that’s definitely not true.
“Something is wrong with the speakers.” She looks at me with an expression between a smile and a pout. “I’m too short to reach them. Can you take a look?”
“No problem.” I leave the wine in the kitchen and try not to trip over my feet getting into the bathroom. The boss’s daughter is sitting there naked in your living room. The boss’s daughter is sitting there naked in your living room, a little drunk, and scared for her life, and she’s utterly naked and has legs like syrup and smells like flowers, like the nicest thing you’ve ever smelt before. I slip off my socks and get into the still-warm shower and get up on my toes to have a look at the speakers. They’re playing fine, far as I can tell.
Then suddenly Maya pads into the shower and presses her breasts up behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist like a belt; like she wants to just attach herself to me and maybe even never let go, judging from how hard she’s squeezing me.
“Quinn.” Her lips are hot and pressed up against my ear. Her tongue comes out and flicks around the lobe of my ear.
“I know what you want, Quinn,” she whispers. Her towel drops to the floor. “I want it, too.”
Her hand slides down my jeans and her right hand forms a circle around my crotch. “God, I want it too,” she whispers. She sucks the lobe of my ear again, then brings her tongue deep inside my ear and twirls it around.
I twist around so suddenly it breaks contact. She flinches like she’s afraid I’m going to do something to her, but she doesn’t move one step back, just stands there completely naked like she’s accepted a challenge.
Whatever I was thinking before is gone, rooted out. I don’t care if this is a mobster’s daughter. I don’t care what has happened today or what’s going to happen in the future. I know that she wants me, and I’m going to have her.
I take her by the shoulders and wrap her up close to me and force her lips apart with my tongue. She takes me willingly, her body immediately going limp. I put more and more of my tongue in her mouth, and she takes it all like her throat was some bottomless pit. She kisses me back just as hard, like an animal that has been let out of its cage, with lips soft as butter. They seem to be everywhere at once, on my lips, nose, chin, neck, ears, face, and throat.
Her hands work my shirt up to my neck, and she slides her hands over my body without waiting to get everything off. Her hands are on my abs and my chest and even in the sensitive parts beneath by ribs at my side, which stars me shaking for some reason like she’s just flipped a switch.
“You like that?”
“It tickles a little.”
“Like, uncomfortably tickles?”
“No, not uncomfortable.”
“Good. Hey. Can you turn the water on? I’m cold.”
“This is my only pair of clothes.”
She rips the rest of the shirt off like it’s on fire and starts to work on my belt buckle. She slaps it off in three moves like a trained expert, slipping my jeans down past my knees and tells me to do the rest because she doesn’t want to trip and break my neck in the shower she’s planning on using.
The water is hot but just the right kind of hot. The air steams thick. Everything goes blurry and wet, soft and warm, and Maya is all there with me. Her tongue in my mouth, her hand slipping over my body, cupping my butt, and bringing me close, so close t
hat my penis slides against her belly.
“Quinn,” she says my name, over and over like it’s a kind of chant. “God—Quinn, you’re the biggest I’ve ever seen. You’re so big.”
“You like that?” I whisper fiercely, biting the tip of her ear. “You want that? Tell me you want it?”
With one hand I cup almost her entire belly. I rotate it on her skin, her hot and champagne-soft skin. My fingers dip down, edging along the cleft just above her clit.
“I want it,” she moans. “I want you.”
My forefinger goes down her navel and massages the light pubic hairs above her clit. She moans louder, with indiscriminate words I don’t catch.
I slip another finger down and ease the first one forward, then lightly run it over her clit. Maya gasps, throwing herself against me. Her whole body is quivering. Her hand comes up to my mouth and I know what she wants me to do so I take her hand by the wrist and cover it in kisses, then open my mouth and let her put her fingers inside.
I’ve got both fingers moving back and forth over her vagina, dipping in carefully and randomly. Each time I do it’s like someone is running a charge through her body. And each time she shakes against me she moans in my ear, and it’s like in that moan there’s something she’s tossing up, something that has settled down in the pit of her body for years, for much much longer than I’ve known her. And it’s something only I can bring up to the surface; that she needs me for.
She takes her fingers out of my mouth and wraps them around my penis and starts to tug me with my own saliva. She’s got her rhythm down pat like she’s playing an instrument. None of the jerking hard hand movement like with bad hand jobs I’ve gotten in the past. Her hands are moving slow and easily just like mine are moving slow and easily, cupping her clit like she’s moving on my penis.
“Are you gonna give it to me?”
“I don’t know.” I slide in the first finger, and it goes in easy. She’s not tight at all. “I don’t have a condom.”
“I’m on birth control. Kirill’t you dare worry about it.”
“Then I still don’t know. I still don’t know what I’m going to do. Seven inches is a lot to take. Are you sure you want it all?”
“I want it, Quinn. You don’t know how much. I’ve been wanting it for so long.”
“I don’t know. You’re right. Beg me for it. Beg me for it right now.”
I curl my fingers and put the second one next to the first. She gasps, throwing her arms around me, stuffing her tongue into my ear.
“I beg you, Quinn,” she whimpers. “Give it to me. Give me all of it.”
I bring in a third finger and use it to stroke around her labia while the other two massage her inside, stroking and curling up in a way that sends the same little spasms shooting through her body.
“No,” I say. “I want you to beg again. Beg me to let you blow me.”
“I beg you, Quinn. Give it to me in my mouth. I want it more than anything else I’ve ever wanted.”
“Get on your knees.”
The water comes down in hot blasts, spraying over Maya’s blonde hair. It’s dripping, golden and soft, and wet as I hold it in her hands while Maya’s tongue slides out and over my shaft. Then she fits it all down her throat like it’s nothing and pulls out gently, working the tip with the edge of her tongue while her hand works round and round over the still-moist shaft. I’ve got to admit I wasn’t expecting her to be anywhere near the expert she is. I wasn’t expecting anything at all. Not from a girl as prim and girly as Maya.
She has her mouth on the tip now and her hand working the base while both my hands knot around her hair and rub her head.
“Are you gonna cum for me?” Maya rests her chin on my penis and looks up at me with those soft, brown doe eyes. “Would you like to cum in my mouth?”
She starts to put me back in her mouth, but I stand her up and twist her around so that she’s up against the wall.
“I’m not going to cum in your mouth,” I hiss into her ear. I scoop my hand down and find her wet spot. She tries to twist her head around and see what I’m doing, but I force her to face the wall.
“You asked me for it. You begged for it. You begged for me to fuck you. You begged because you wanted me to make you mine. Well, you’re mine now, and I’m going to do with you whatever the hell I want to do.”
I place my hands on her small, perfect breasts and squeeze. She twists her head around and licks me on the nose.
“All of you? All seven? Is it going to hurt?” I can hear the excitement in her voice, and the nervousness and the desire, all mixing together into the drive that drives me closer and closer. My cock presses against the small of her back and my tongue runs along her shoulder blades.
“It will, at first. Are you scared?”
“No. I want it. I want to hurt for you. I want to take all of you inside me.”
I dangle the end of my penis against her asshole before moving it further down, in line with her clit.
“Yes, yes,” her voice strangles the words out. “There. That’s it. Oh God, I can feel you.”
She puts a hand back to adjust me. “Right there. That’s it.”.
And slowly, with the water still thundering down on us from overhead, and the whole place so damned fogged up by the heat that I can’t see three inches in any direction, I slide into her inch by inch. Three inches, then four. Maya whimpers and I come back out.
“Was that too much?”
“A hair too much.”
“There’s still a long way to go, you know.”
“Are we halfway there?”
“Not even.”
She laughs. It’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. She laughs and turns around and throws her arms around my neck and ropes me into one of her wet, soft kisses. It’s like swallowing some beautiful drug. A kiss like that can make you forget everything. Can even make you forget the feeling of hot water raining down on your skin or the sounds of Mozart coming from right above you, or the feeling of a beautiful girl’s body moving so closely against your own.
Maya breaks off the kiss abruptly and moves some wet hair away from her face and smiles. The pleasantest smile I’ve ever seen. That’s just the right word for it. An everything is absolutely perfect smile. A sleeping in on a rainy Sunday morning smile. A post-sex we’ve still got wine to finish smile.
“And a job well done, sir,” she says promptly.
“What?”
“That’s how employers talk when they give out their Christmas bonuses. ‘Thanks for the good work, Mr. Tolliver, and a job well done.’ ”
“So this is my bonus?” I kiss her on the nose.
“Bonus. Raise. Incentivizer—”
“I don’t think ‘Incentivizer’ is a real word.”
“—and promotion,” she finishes with another smile. “If you’re lucky.”
I think about asking her what she means by promotion but all of a sudden she’s kissing me again, and it’s not even a full minute later until I’ve forgotten to ask the question. I’ve got a feeling that I’ll find out soon enough.
Chapter 12
Here’s the thing about Stitches and girls— when a guy tucks a loaded Item into his belt, lights a cig, and tells his piece he’s gonna be back later, she thinks there’s nothing sexier in the world. The reality is, though, if you so much as bring a loaded Item into the room, or an unloaded one, and try acting like it’s no big deal around a girl—even one you might’ve known for years—the first thing she’s gonna do is scream bloody murder. After that, there’s a whole list of shit she’s liable to do, from calling the cops to trying to bite your ear off like poor Crash, to grabbing the Item away and aiming it right back at you.
The thing is, it’s not just the Item. It’s the fact that if you’re a Stitch, nine times out of ten your girl doesn’t know you’ve got it. Simple truth is making hits is sexy only if you’re James Bond. Meaning if any of us ever gets any actual feelings for a tail, first things he’s gonna do is pu
t as much distance between her and his work as he can, up to and including bailing out of town or dropping the whole business altogether. You’ve got your exceptions, sure thing. My boy Palmert’s got a Stitchette he met at a bar and pulled out right under her boyfriend’s nose after he saw the guy slapping her around. Told her that night what he did and where he kept his Item and who he’d killed and she said that’s all cool with her long as he wasn’t into dope.