by Rodd Clark
SHEA COULD see the confusion building on his face. She’d caught him unaware. He was wearing only jeans and the top button dangled open freely, and his hair was damp, telling her he’d just stepped out of the shower. He stood there sinfully dumbfounded, looking much like a Greek god in her eyes, masculine and posed seductively in the frame of his door, solely to elicit every secret desire from all her hiding places. All she could do was smile and look stunned.
“YES?” GABE asked. “What can I do for you?”
“My name is Shea Baltimore. I live across the courtyard in 180 . . . I just wanted to ask if you got my gift?” she asked with the timidity of a shy mouse. He had forgotten it, but then it suddenly came back.
“The drawing . . . that came from you?”
“Yes . . . I’m an artist of sorts . . .” she stammered out. The lilt in her voice and the way she offered up her own self-proclamation of “artist” seemed too pretty on the plate, making Church realize she didn’t get to make that announcement very often. “I thought you made a nice subject. I hope you don’t mind. I just noticed you across the yard and wanted to draw you.”
This was unexpected, thought Gabe. What did she want . . . him to model again? Did she expect to get paid for her drawing? In his confusion at the absurdity, he stepped aside.
“I’m sorry, come in . . . please.”
He opened the door farther, and the young woman brushed past him unafraid. He could smell the perfume wafting off her hair and noticed she was wearing makeup. He then guessed the girl was wearing one of her best outfits, making him question why she had crossed the yard and knocked so directly at his door. For a man like Gabe, it seemed clear that she had designs on him. Why else would you enter a stranger’s apartment just because you were invited? After all, he could’ve been a killer?
“I must admit I’ve seen you a few times coming and going. There’s not a lot of activity around here, and ever since I saw you, I wanted to stop by and welcome you to the complex.”
“So you’re the welcome committee?” he asked. “I must say that’s nice.”
He could see she was a woman overcoming her shyness with an unaccustomed bravery. She tried hard to appear sophisticated, but Gabe could smell her personal rise from a broken past, it surrounded her like a cloud.
“You’re my first guest, so I’m afraid the place isn’t much, and I haven’t cleaned in a while,” he said apologetically. “I’m not even dressed—”
“Not to worry,” she said quickly, cutting him off and preventing him from the awkward sense where he needed to leave the room and put on a shirt.
“I didn’t mean to bother you. I guessed you’d still be up . . . but welcome to the neighborhood anyway.” She smiled broadly, arms held wide, hinting at her own nervousness and uncertain where to go from there. But it was Gabe who filled the gap.
“Sorry . . . my name is Rumsfeld, Chris Rumsfeld.” Church had Keyser Sözed his alias by pulling Christian up in his mind before seeing a bottle of Bacardi Silver on the counter in his kitchen. It was a bottle he’d bought a week ago; it was already half empty, but it caught his awareness just as he extended his arm to shake the young woman’s outstretched, tinier hand. It was the perfection of casual pretense, and Gabe had always been one to be quick on his feet.
“So you’re the artist . . .” he began. He wanted to break her concentration from his earlier lie and lifted his own arm to indicate she could take a seat wherever she desired. “I was impressed with your talent. I just can’t figure why you’d wanna draw my picture,” he said with a smile, hoping he hadn’t crumpled up the drawing, or left it carelessly discarded where this Shea girl might find it and be disappointed. He couldn’t even remember where he’d laid it, but it was Shea who first noticed it, drawn to it like a magnet. She walked over and found it lying on a side table and picked it up with a satisfied glint in her eyes.
“It’s not my best work, but you were pretty far away and it was getting dark . . .”
She stopped at that, probably realizing how much it made her sound like some sick stalker who’d been spying on their neighbor, even though that was precisely the case.
“I think you make a good subject,” she said quietly. “I draw portraits mostly. You know, faces I run across, those that seem weathered and timeworn, overflowing and full of life. I don’t really draw for others though . . . just for me.”
Gabe sat on the edge of the shabby sofa that came with his rented room. “Not sure I have that kind of look, but you’re a good artist, I can tell . . . and I’m not a connoisseur of art, not usually.”
SHEA DROPPED the sketch and turned to look at him. Sitting there without a shirt on, a trail of black hairs peeking from his jeans and crawling up to mix with those on his chest—it was an image she believed she could simply bathe in. He wasn’t concerned with how he appeared to her in that moment, but she couldn’t determine whether it was confidence or him playing with her, a teasing smile hidden behind something stoic and cold. Either way, she had to fight the urge to walk over and run her tongue over his beard and allow his huge arms to pick her up. She looked around randomly, just to occupy her brain, but she was thinking how great it would be if he did pick her up and just fucked her right there on that crappy beige couch of his.
“MAYBE SOMEDAY you’ll let me sketch you in a posed stance. I plan on being famous in the future, and one never knows, it might be valuable someday.”
She grinned at that, and he witnessed her opening like a night-blooming flower right before his eyes. It must be quite an undertaking, he thought, to step out of one’s self like she is attempting. But Gabe had a knack for reading others pretty well. He could see it was a stretch for her to walk the short distance from her apartment to his, see how much she could tempt him with everything she could muster.
“I think I’d like that. It might be nice to have a great picture to leave behind.” Shea was too involved in her own head to hear the implications that fell from his lips by accident. She was helping him forget about Chris by just her simple presence, and her sheer dress and the lithe way her body moved so effortlessly made his cock stir to life.
“Do you draw many nudes?” he said.
Shea heard his words, which sounded like the run of heavy-laden syrup down her spine. His voice had a quality that could control and his tone was suggestive. She smiled sheepishly at his intimations but somehow found the courage to bat the ball back to him.
“I have,” she lied, “but I’d like to do more. Are you offering to model now?”
“Well, Shea . . . we could start there,” he said coolly. Purposely using her name because he understood well how women needed that personal connection from the beginning. But for him, he was just committing her name to his own brain; they had, after all, met only minutes earlier.
SHEA HAD never been so brazen before, but even unfamiliar as it felt, it seemed right. This man had a way of bringing out what was hidden. His manner didn’t just encourage it, it demanded it. His hot looks aside, he had some alien skill of breaking your guard into pieces on the floor. His eyes implored you to see whatever lie he told you and assure you that it was truth. His talents in disarming you were even less than his aptitude to get you to free yourself from every burden you carried. She had chosen her subject well.
Perspiration made her hands feel clammy. She was caught between being a bad girl and deciding not to be one . . . and she didn’t know exactly which way she’d turn. He was the exact opposite. He sat without emotion and peered directly into her soul; he was calm and reserved. But even that couldn’t hide that animalistic thing she had created in her head. She could see he was a cheetah poised to lunge, and each and every defining muscle was starched but eager. His smile crept crooked on his face but veiled what images were going through his mind. He was tentative but readied, and the seconds between them turned into hours flying by.
“I didn’t bring my pad with me, but I suppose I could draw from memory . . .”
She gingerly untied a tin
y string that held the collar of her dress taut around her frail neck. She suddenly felt relief she’d decided to wear her best panties and a matching bra. He stood up and closed the distance between them as she was considering running from the room with horrified amazement in her own actions. But she was already deep in the water, and there was no escaping what was going to happen.
GABE MOVED his hands to help her with removing her dress, trying to calm her anxiety with slow and steady actions. She appeared a gazelle who would either sprint away or fall with submission at his feet. His fingers gently brushed her cheek, and he leaned in close enough to allow their bodies to touch, hoping he could wrap her up in his embrace before she could bolt.
AS HER dress fell to the floor, Shea seemed to bud into some weak creature, held upright by his strong grip. She had to fight the buckling tremor in her knees or risk falling like some marionette doll whose strings were abruptly cut. His lips found hers as he held her face in one oversized hand while the other supported her back. It was a strange phenomenon, one that would enable her to seduce a man she barely knew at all. But she had desired him for days, and her life had transformed into something too small and contained . . . and he represented a departure from that awful feeling. He was her salvation.
As his tongue wrestled wetly with hers, she could smell the clean scent of fresh soap mixing with his own perspiration. She felt his excitement growing as he leaned into her, and she became impressed at the weighty thing brushing her thigh. Because of her size, it took nothing to hoist her up in his arms. He carried her into the bedroom and laid her gently down on the comforter, nothing but her bra and panties separating them.
Tugging at his jeans, they too fell to the floor, and she lost her breath at the sight of his naked arousal. She was young and had never had a man that much older than her—he was furry and toned, and she suspected he knew many things that could please her. Straddling her body, he raked his rough hands along her frame, deftly removing her panties without any awkward or unskilled gesture. He raised her up and ran his mouth at her navel and bare abdomen while simultaneously unhooking her bra from behind her back, and then rubbed his palms underneath the loose garment and squeezed gently at her breasts. She bent and twisted to give herself sufficient room to wriggle from her bra, and he grabbed it and tossed it over the side as his lips again continued laving her body, softly moving downward.
Shea didn’t know what to expect from the man she knew as Chris. She was yielding because he was the one holding the switch . . . it was his hand resting on the throttle and directing which track the train would run on. He was her chief conductor, the one responsible for all that tangible power, and it was his choice whether they derailed or whether he guaranteed her safe return to the station.
She might have presumed his hands would remain gentle, but they did not. Gripping her at the knees, he pulled her closer to the edge of the bed and drew her slick pussy to his wanting mouth. She had never experienced anything as visceral and primal as his lack of hesitation. He licked at her with his twitching tongue and forced it inside; his grunts of pleasure released even more passion from between her legs. She had a vibrator and used it often, but she had the instantaneous desire to throw it across her room at home and watch as it hit the wall breaking into a dozen tiny electrical parts. She would never believe she alone would ever be able to fulfill her own hunger like he could.
Hanging on the verge of climax, she arched her back and whimpered as his tongue did its job. Before he would allow her to come, he raised her body up with each hand holding firm at her waist. His cock was rigid and taut, practically beseeching her to yield and reminding her of back seat sweaty tumbles after graduation, though this was no youthful and inexperienced lover from her past. He drove his dick in like spearing a lion; it was both painful and glorious. She had become his wounded prey, and the look in his eyes had darkened, telling her he was there to finish what he started.
His thrusts became powerful, quick jabs meant to inflict the greatest satisfaction. He had substantial girth, and she felt every inch of him inside her stretched lips. He didn’t speak a word—outside the exhalations of short, strenuous bursts of oxygen, he had remained relatively quiet. She on the other hand moaned to the heavens, loud enough that even she suspected the neighbors were listening. It didn’t take long after that, she wasn’t sure she could have continued longer anyway. She felt his seed slam into her, and she withered and folded while she watched tiny beads of sweat fall from his chest and forehead.
The beast was being subdued, he was regulating his breathing now, but he’d not withdrawn his sword. It parted her and drained there like a bleeding snake. Little changed about him after that . . . except his eyes. She had seen them darken while they fucked, but she wasn’t sure if it was the dim lighting escaping his bathroom that was playing tricks with her imagination, or whether his eyes had indeed turned darker. Whatever the case, they were lightening up now and regaining their brilliance as he recovered from his furious lovemaking.
GABE LIKED that during their quick pounding he hadn’t thought a single moment about Chris, but of course even as he pulled his cock from inside her, he had to concede that he was thinking about him now.
Chapter Twenty-four
AS GABRIEL TURNED in a huff then disappeared into the crowd, there wasn’t much Christian could do but watch him leave, realizing once again he’d screwed up. Maybe this was too complicated a thing to work, he wondered. Hanging his head, the writer felt alone and confused. If he didn’t get through to Gabriel, there would be only devastation and ruin, and certainly there would be no thatched-roof hut in the San Blas Islands with Gabriel at his side.
He knew the insanity—being in love with a killer—but as the water from the shoreline blew trickles of wet across his face, he thought the sanity was in finally finding someone he loved. He felt dejected because he’d muddled through every inconvenient conversation he tried to have with Gabriel. His hand reached up to the bristle on his face, he’d forgotten to shave in his rush to meet Gabriel. He was exhausted, and he didn’t know why. The book was so far on the back burner now that it was light years away. There would be no book, no written confession that would only serve to take Gabriel from him . . . and as horrified as he was at what Church had done, he was sure he couldn’t be the one to assist him in his race to find some death and redemption.
He had questioned Gabriel’s motives many times in allowing his story to be told. He’d originally assumed it was guilt, before the truth was illuminated that the man simply wanted the world to know why he’d done what he’d done. He wondered how many people out there in the real world might be in love with something they knew to be insane. There might be medications he could be prescribed, perhaps there were therapies that might alter his fucked up ideologies and skewed reasoning, but what did that mean for Gabriel and him?
You might love a schizophrenic, you might care for someone with deep mental scars or addictions, but he was in love with a man he knew to have murdered others without remorse. That seed, once planted, would only bear dark fruit and withered blooms. It seemed a challenge existed either way he turned.
Walking back to where he’d parked his car, he felt alone even in the throng of club goers and tourists surrounding him taking photos of the Seattle skyline dancing on a rippled mirror across the bay. His heart had sunk too far to be retrieved, and he was crushed under the weight of the man versus all the things he knew. His key turned the ignition, and he pulled into the side streets to get to his place and wondered if he was ever going to see Gabriel again.
SHEA HAD pulled on her panties and her bra as her sexy neighbor reclined on his bed and watched her. He hadn’t tried to pull on his jeans or hide his flaccid phallus. The man didn’t have a tincture of shyness or shame in his genetic material; his DNA was different than any man she’d known. To her eyes, seeing him propped on one elbow, he was a hairy, strong, and beautiful creature, but she didn’t trust him completely. She knew that once she’d entered hi
s apartment she couldn’t trust herself, but it had not dawned on her how much she could not trust him.
For her it was an awkward few moments. She’d just stepped over some cavernous hollow and fucked a man she didn’t know, and as she was getting dressed, she wondered what the protocol for her escape was? Do you thank him . . . promise to do it again sometime real soon, or just apologize . . . she didn’t know.
Those pale eyes stared at her as she fumbled with her clothing. She expected a smile of appreciation, or at least satisfaction, but he was blank like some dark, deep water where she couldn’t perceive a bottom. Breaking the tension, she felt she had to say something.
“I hope you know I don’t do this with every new tenant. I mean . . . I’m great as a welcoming committee, but not every resident gets the gift basket you did.”
There it was . . . that tiny semblance of a grin reaching the corners of his mouth. However no words of comfort escaped. It made her even more nervous, and the stillness between them grew heavy as she wriggled into her tiny dress and bent to retrieve her sandals, which had been discarded under the sofa.
HE WAS lost in thought, but not about her or what they’d done. Gabe had no guilt in his body to offer. He hadn’t considered how Chris would feel about his infidelity because that was a concept beyond his reach. Sex was sex. He had suggested he and Chris get into a three-way once because carnal acts had no boundaries and couldn’t be pigeon-holed into anything more than they were—it was just fucking.