Niki’s laughter got the better of her, and she fell off her chair onto the floor. Grim hopped up, and moved to help his sister up. Danika also slipped out of her chair and bent down to pick up Niki. The two kept wrestling with the cackling young woman.
“Is she okay?” Penny questioned.
Niki’s voice barked out from under the table, “Bork! Bork! Bork!”
Penny sat back down, “To think that I share a bed with one of these two adorable morons.”
Grim and Danika helped Niki back up before Grim turned to Penny, “I may be a moron, but I’m your moron.” Then he smiled, “Besides, what does it say about you that you stay with me?”
“It says that I’m very patient…saintly even.” Penny let a wry smile grow across her face.
Danika grinned, “If you think he’s bad, just remember that I’ve got version two point zero…all the crazy, half the size.”
“Hey, I resemble that remark.” Niki groused.
“That you do…that you do.” Danika gave a big toothy grin.
I think the four of them could have kept playfully sparring for the rest of the night, but Emilia cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. Normally a waitress may give a gentle cough in a semi polite attempt to get your attention, but Emilia made it very clear that she didn’t appreciate waiting on us. Talk about crummy service. I caught my breath. Grim likes a little nonsense from time to time, and if Emilia was going to be grumpy about serving us, then Grim might just take it as a green light to screw with her more than he already had. I just hoped the fact that Emilia knew Katy personally would be enough to get him to restrain himself a little.
Grim smiled, “Sorry, inside joke. I would like some lobster and butter sauce to go with my steak please, if that’s not too much trouble.”
“Whatever.” Emilia turned and stomped away.
“You know we’ve been here less than a day, and the service at this place sucks.” Danika griped.
“Well let’s make the best of it.” Penny sighed.
“Bork! Bork! Bork!” Grim and Niki both chimed in, and immediately broke into laughter.
Danika groused, “Niki, I love you. You know I love you, but if you two don’t stop it then I’ll have to take desperate measures.”
“Desperate measures? I’m not scared of you.”
“You don’t have to be scared of me, but you’re just going to have to ask yourself if all this attention you and Grim are drawing is worth having to search around for all your favorite toys. Then you have to ask yourself what the odds are of you finding them after a werewolf decides to hide them.”
“Yes dear.” Niki pouted a little, but conceded to the werewolf.
“HA-HA, or should I say Bork! Bork! Bork!” Grim gave a snarky laugh. It was one of those laughs that only siblings know how to do properly. He then followed it up with a whip sound.
Penny leaned over, “Keep it up Mr. Muppet, and you can handle your own Swedish meatballs this weekend.”
“Yes dear.” Grim stopped immediately. There was not even a hint of humor in his response. We must have all looked a little shocked at how quickly Danika and Penny got the situation under control because Penny laughed, “What can I say? The man loves his nookie.”
“It must be genetic.” Danika laughed.
“Thank God they’re both horndogs, or there’d be no controlling them.” Penny giggled, and then leaned over to Danika for a high five.
“When did we lose all the power in our relationships?” Niki asked playfully.
“When did we ever have any to begin with?” Grim chuckled.
I watched as the brother and sister glared in mock menace at their partners. After a few seconds they couldn’t pretend to even be irritated. They both leaned in and planted big sloppy kisses on their lovers. It was adorable. You really can’t appreciate how similar these two are until you see them together for a while.
“I still can’t believe you remembered how much I loved the chef from the Muppets.” Niki grinned.
“Please, I babysat you for years. You think I wouldn’t remember the only way I could get you to go to sleep.”
“You used to watch the Muppets with her?” Janine questioned.
“Yeah, I used to babysit her and my other sisters when Mom and Dad were having their date night. Niki wouldn’t go to sleep unless I played a DVD of the Muppet Show. She really loved the Chef, and of course Fozzie Bear.” Grim smiled at his little sister.
“Wocka Wocka Wocka!” Niki grinned at her brother.
“I’m warning you…one more Wocka I’m hiding all your batteries.” Danika teased.
Grim smiled at the two women. “Well anyway, Niki always loved the Muppets. It was the only way to get short stuff here to go to bed. Then the DVD got busted, and I had to do some quick thinking. So I started doing the voice of the Swedish Chef.”
“He used to read bedtime stories using that voice. We’d all laugh so hard that we’d be too tired to stay awake. You have never heard The Cat in the Hat until you’ve heard it from the Muppet Chef. We all loved it when Grim was babysitting us. Our friends even wanted to stay over because Grim was so much fun.” Niki’s words really made Grim swell with pride. His eyes even watered up a bit.
“I just can’t picture you babysitting.” Katy laughed.
“Oh my big bro here is a natural with kids. He doesn’t look it, but deep down he’s just a big softy.” Niki’s face suddenly turned sad, and her eyes started tearing up. “I’m really sorry that you can’t have kids. You’d have been a really great dad.”
Grim’s eyes watered up, and he kept blinking to fight off the tears. “It is what it is. I can’t change it, and I’m still trying to make my peace with it. Some days are better than others. At least I have the love of a wonderful woman, a happy family, and some really awesome friends. That’s a whole lot more than some people have. Besides, someday one of our sisters is going to pop out five or six little ones, and I’ll be able to spoil them rotten. All the perks of kids without all the hassles of being a parent, what more could a guy ask for?” Grim laughed, but the joke never reached his eyes. Anyone watching knew right then how much the big man had wanted children. He was just trying to joke with us to make us feel better. He used comedy a lot. Sometimes it was to put other people at ease, and sometimes it was just his way of dealing with something stressful. Right now it was a little bit of both. I just wanted to hug the man for being such a sweetie, but that would be admitting that I knew how much he was hurting. That was the last thing he wanted. I think everyone else knew it as well, and so we played along. What else could we do?
“A wonderful woman?” Penny leaned over and hugged her man.
“The best.” Grimmy smiled and gave her a kiss. “And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Penny looked quizzical.
“Sorry for being an asshat. You’re right about earlier. I’m not saying completely right, but right enough that I need to pull my head out of my ass and we need to work together to get things straightened out.”
“Apology accepted, and don’t worry about it. I’m sure we’ll get things…straightened out.” Penny’s eyes had a playfully devilish glint in them.
Grim opened his mouth to say something, but then froze for a moment. His body tensed slightly, and then relaxed. His eyes took on a new life, and a wolfish grin grew across his face. “I really should apologize more often.” He then gave her a kiss that nearly curled my toes. Wowza!
As Emilia brought us our food I gave her another look. She was thin. No, it was more than that. She was the poster child for an eating disorder. She looked as though she’d lost some hair, and her skin had a slight grayness to it. I’ve always been a big girl, and I’ve tried to lose a few pounds here and there, but at no time have I ever wanted to look like that. I always felt kind of sorry for girls like Emilia. They start out trying to be skinny and look their best, but they just go crazy with it. I know that they really can’t control themselves. It’s purely psychological, but at some
point don’t you just have to see yourself in a mirror and realize that you’re getting too skinny? That it just isn’t sexy anymore? I mean, when you look like skin stretched on bones, shouldn’t a warning light go on in your head? I guess it doesn’t, and maybe that’s why they have problems.
It’s not like I can say much. I mean I’m a mood eater. Get me stressed or upset, and a slice of cake becomes like heroin to me. So when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to take care of all the finances, I kind of lived on Ben and Jerry’s, cheesecake, and chocolate. Well, that just put on the pounds. I’ve never been a little woman, but I really got heavy. Then I’d see myself in the mirror, or whenever I realized I’d gotten too big to be healthy, and I’d get depressed. Then once that happened, I’d run to something fattening and sugary to try and cheer myself up. So it became a vicious cycle. Now things were much less stressful, and I’ve gone back to being a lot more curvaceous. I really haven’t changed my diet, but now I’m not depressed so I don’t want to eat all the time.
So maybe in some ways Emilia and I are more alike than I first realized. We both have problems with food, but our problems are just at opposite ends. Maybe what Emilia really needs is kindness and understanding. Maybe if someone showed her some love and friendship, then she might learn to love herself enough to see what she’s actually doing to her own body.
That was until she set steamed broccoli, and some baked chicken in front of me. The woman actually had the gall to say, “I thought you might like this better. A bigger girl like you really should start watching her caloric intake.” I felt my left eye begin to twitch and spasm as a red hot rage settled over me. I couldn’t even get my mouth to form coherent words. All that came out was a sputtering stutter that sounded a lot like “no please”, but what was I really meant was that I was going to “beat her like a piñata until the candy pops out.” I’m not proud to say that if I could have figured out how to open my napkin to get to the knife, I might have had to cut a bitch.
Katy stepped in, “Hey, that’s not okay. She ordered a steak and potato.”
“Oh Coconut, don’t be silly. She needs to learn to watch her weight.” Emilia answered.
“My name is Katy. K-A-T-Y! Not Coconut. You bullied me growing up, and now you’re trying to bully my friends.” Katy hissed.
“Well, if you feel that way then maybe we should just call your parents and see how they feel about their daughter being in the city without having called them. Now, if no one else needs anything I have to go to my other tables.” Katy shut up immediately and stared coldly at Emilia. Without a second thought about the little witch, she turned to me, and her voice took that sick sweet tone all wicked stepmothers use in fairy tales, “Now eat up, and remember that chubby girls need to learn to eat better. Maybe someday, if you eat right and exercise you can be as sexy as I am.”
My eye kept twitching, and I kept sputtering. Then Penny stepped in, “Excuse me.”
Emilia turned towards the vampire, and gave Penny a withering stare. Of course Penny isn’t the type of girl to “wither” for anything. Penny took a sip from her drink, and then she said, “Personally, I think DD is very sexy. In fact, if my options are a night with her luscious curves, or the bag of bones that you see in the mirror every morning…well it’s not a really a hard decision. You know what else is a really easy decision?” Penny’s words were cold, and without any emotion.
“What?” Emilia huffed.
“Do you like this job?” Penny said as her mouth twisted into a cruel smile.
“It pays the bills.” Emilia snorted.
“Well then, another really easy decision is whether you like this job or not. If you like this job, then you’ll shut your fucking mouth. You’ll bring my friend what she ordered, and then you’ll apologize to DD and Katy about your behavior. Otherwise, we’ll be speaking to your manager. I’m pretty sure that since we rented out a whole floor of the hotel, that if we even hint that we’re unhappy with you, then you’ll be out of this place, and out of a job faster than you can say, “a blowjob is twenty bucks”, and I’m betting a scrawny piece of trash like you has said those words plenty of times before.”
Emilia sputtered, “I…I…I’ve never.”
“Oh please, I know a whore when I see one.” Penny’s voice was sharp, and a little too precise for my own comfort. She was like a shark, and Emilia was splashing around in bloody water.
“I’ve never…ever…taken money for sex.” Emilia huffed.
“No, you’re just the kind of girl that gives her man a blowjob because he buys her some fancy little bauble. You’re the girl that keeps a running tab on what her date bought her so that you know exactly what kind of sexual favors you’re going to give him in return. I’m sorry to burst your bubble sweetie, but if your sex life is based on quid pro quo.” Penny stopped because Emilia looked confused. Penny’s eyes were starting to take on a faint red tint. She was really enjoying tearing Emilia to shreds.
“Quid pro quo…it means an exchange. A little tit for tat, and speaking of little tits…just how many guys have seen those little ant bites you call breasts? My guess is that there have been a lot more than you’d ever want anyone to know, but as I was saying. If you are basing what you do with a man on what he spends on you…then you’re just as much a whore as the girl standing on the street corner.” Penny laughed as she watched the woman’s eyes start to tear up. She was about to cry, and Penny was eating it up like candy.
“Shut up.” Emilia’s words were weak, and tiny. The woman looked like she was about to crumble. Penny had found the soft spot in Emilia’s armor, and now she was ripping her apart.
“Certainly. I’ll be quiet. All you have to do is apologize to Katy, apologize to DD, and bring her the correct meal, and it better be perfect, or I’ll be very cranky. Oh, and if you even think about calling Katy’s parents, then I’ll make sure you are out of a job before we leave. Now be a good girl, and know your place.” Penny was almost gloating as Emilia apologized to Katy, and then to me. She then ran off to get me my steak.
“You’re my hero.” I laughed.
“Thank you.” Katy looked ready to cry.
“Please, I’m over three hundred years old, and I spent part of that living at my father’s royal court. You don’t know bitchiness until you’ve spent an evening dealing with all the intrigues and gossip that come from a group of vampires with an over developed sense of entitlement. If I haven’t learned how to put someone in their place by now, then I should just pull out my fangs and quit calling myself vampire.” Then she laughed. Penny had actually enjoyed herself.
“Still, thank you. I don’t handle confrontation well.” I said.
“Yeah, we kind of noticed the gibbering and sputtering. You looked like you were having a stroke.” Janine laughed.
“I can’t help it. I just don’t stand up for myself very well.” I said sheepishly.
“Don’t worry, that’s what you have me for.” Penny grinned. She was just awesome. I was so happy about how she handled everything that I didn’t realize one of my spoons was on the edge of the table. I moved and it fell to the floor.
“Whoops.” I blushed a bit, and then went under the table to get my spoon. When I got down there I froze. Right in my line of sight was Grim’s giant, throbbing, penis. Oh my God! The whole time Penny’s been talking to us she’s been jerking Grim off. I thought back for a moment, and remembered the expression on Grim’s face right after he apologized. She’s been stroking him since then. She was doing that while putting our waitress in her place. Wow, talk about multitasking!
I knew I should move, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He was…massive. It was actually a little scary to think that could fit inside anyone. I think if someone came after me with that I’d run away screaming…of course that is if I could scream with all this drool. I mean it was scary, and still had a kind of primal attraction. It was kind of like the sensation mountain climbers must get when they see a really tall mountain. There�
�s just that part of you that wonders, “could I do this?”. To think Penny and Katy have been able to…I mean how could it even fit?
I watched as Penny picked up speed. Then Grim began spurting his seed under the table. Thankfully there wasn’t much. I suppose that was because Grim and Penny were constantly having sex, and so he really hadn’t had enough time to really build up any “fluid”. Grim coughed a little, probably to cover up his orgasm. They covered it up seamlessly. They did it so well that I had to think they’ve probably done it before. That thought was actually kind of hot.
“Find what you’re looking for yet?” Penny’s voice was teasing. She even wiggled Grim’s head at me.
“Y-y-yes! Found it.” I stuttered. My eyes just couldn’t turn away from Grim’s manhood.
Penny moved it around and said, “Well, I was getting worried that you might have gotten lost.” She made the head of Grim’s penis bob up and down like it was speaking for her. It was like she’d turned his penis into a puppet. One heavy drop of semen was still on the tip like frosting. I scrambled back out and got to my seat. I felt my face red with embarrassment. Everyone was chatting back and forth, and no one was really paying attention to Penny but me, so I’m almost certain that I was the only one that saw her hand come up from under the table. Then she subtly brought one of her fingers to her mouth and sucked on it, making a happy little yum sound as she did. I had no doubt about what she’d just sucked off of her finger. I felt myself getting wet again. Sometimes that vampire is just too perverted, too evil, and way too sexy for my own good.
Emilia came back with my steak. It was way too fast for them to have made my meal, and concern must have shown on my face because she immediately said, “Table four ordered the steak as well. Now is there anything else I can do? Anything at all?” She was nervous, and rattled. Penny really knew where to stick the knives. In the future I need to remember to stay on her good side.
Midnight Squad: The Ties That Bind Page 10