by Mia Caldwell
He kicked himself mentally for thinking like that. That wouldn’t be right. He couldn’t take advantage of her that way. He was maintaining this fake story for her benefit, allegedly, not so he could get her in bed.
She was dragging him towards the back of the house.
“Come on,” she said. “What are you waiting for? Give me the tour.”
Merrick sucked in his libido and proceeded to conduct the tour. When they made it to the master bedroom, he held his breath as she walked inside. He couldn’t stop thinking about how much he wanted that women. Despite his clear comprehension that he had zero business ever touching her.
She ran inside the room – moving from the bathroom to the walk in closet – then hurried out to the balcony.
“Oh, Merrick, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said as she checked out his property. “It’s like a fairy tale. Is it really ours?”
When she said the word ours, Merrick felt another pang of guilt. How could he tell her it wasn’t actually hers at all, because he had no intention of marrying her? How could he tell her, that they weren’t in love and that he’d never proposed to her?
“Glad you like it,” he said, but kept himself in the doorway. He wanted to move on from the master bedroom and show her the rest of the house – then find a place to hide until he got her to Atlantic City.
She came back into the bedroom, leaving the French doors to the balcony open. She took off her jacket and laid in on his bed. Clearly, she considered it her bed as well. She bent over the bed, and tested the mattress springs with the flat of her hands. As she did, he caught the shape of her perfect round ass. He wanted to walk behind her and feel the weight of her in his hands. When she plopped herself on the bed, and rolled on her back, he almost lost his resolve to keep his distance. She propped herself up on her elbows and shook her hair.
She stared at him, a small smile on her face.
Oh, God. Is she coming on to me?
Merrick’s cock stirred in his pants and he turned away, pretending to be interested in something on top of the credenza, by the door. She’s only pretending to like you because she thinks she’s supposed to. Don’t let it get to your head. You’re bigger than this.
“Merrick,” she cooed, “You want to take a nap with me? Joann said, I needed to get as much rest as possible.”
His cock stirred inside him, clearly game. Merrick refused to allow a body part to rule his life.
“Merrick?”
She expected an answer. What should I say? He turned just enough to see her, but not enough for her to see his cock’s opinion on the current question at hand, then sucked in a breath at the sight of her. She’d gone from being half on the bed, feet still on the floor, and elbows propping her head up – to being all the way on the bed. She lay on her side, revealing her long curvaceous body to him. Even in the oversized sweat pants – he could see the luscious curves of her hour glass figure.
With one hand, she patted the mattress in front of her, beckoning him to join her. His pulse raced as blood rushed to his cock. Her mocha eyes were almost black against the heavy lids. She was squinting at him, daring him to walk away. With all the resolve inside him, he fought back an overpowering urge to strip her naked and lick every inch of her. He cleared his throat.
“You go ahead,” he said, his voice scratchy. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Why don’t you lie down and get some rest?” he said, instead of answering her.
With his lower half still out of sight of the girl, he left the room, closed the door behind him and fled downstairs, locking himself in his office.
After his body got back to normal, he stared gloomily at the clock. It was only ten in the morning. Joann and Charlie were off taking care of things, per his instructions and he didn’t expect them back until late afternoon. How in the name of hell was he going to keep his hands off her until then? He opened his computer, pulled the land line close, and looked for work related activities to keep his mind off the perfect women lying in his bed.
Chapter Ten
Holly drove Jimmy to the last place she’d seen her best friend. They parked in half empty parking lot and walked up the steps.
“Whoa!” Jimmy said as they walked inside. They took in the scene of the wrecked bar. “It looks a lot worse in day light.”
Holly noticed several townspeople in the room, armed with dustpans and broomsticks, starting the cleanup. Holly stomach turned at the sight. Seeing the damage reinforced that the whole thing really happen. Shit had in deed gone down last night and Jana had been in the thick of it.
“There’s the light,” Jimmy said. Holly followed him as they stepped over debris. “Damn it, the lens is cracked.” Jimmy bent down and flipped a switch and it powered to life. He sighed with relief, and turned it off. “Thank God it still works. You gonna help me pay for the lens? It was your idea to bring the spot.”
“I’ll try to, of course,” Holly said. But, she didn’t care about that right then. She wanted to find clues about Jana.
“What are you doing here?” came a harsh female voice. Holly and Jimmy both turned to see a sour faced women coming towards them, her hands covered in yellow dishwashing gloves, and apron tied around her bony waist.
Jimmy wasn’t easily intimidated. He raised his shoulders and chin up and Holly decided to let him speak. “I’ve come to get my spot light and check on something my friend left in the dressing room.”
“Who are you?” the woman asked, still sounding hostile.
“I’m Jimmy and this is Holly. We’re actually looking for a friend. She was here last night, one of the performers. She was the one singing when the fight started.”
“She never came home last night – she lives with me,” Holly added. “We’re super worried about her. We just came here to find any clues – because this was the last place anyone saw her.”
“There’s no clues here,” the women snapped. “You should leave.”
Holly bristled at the woman’s unpleasantness, but Jimmy just ignored her and started walking towards the stage.
“Where are you going?” the woman demanded. “I thought I told you to get out.”
“Whoa nelly. What’s going on?” said a man’s voice. Holly was relieved to see Sam, the owner of the bar. She knew him from his visits to the diner, where he become much beloved because he also had free drink and food tickets to pass out whenever he came into the diner. He was the nicest guy, everyone always said.
“They’re poking their noses where they don’t belong,” said the woman.
“Now, now, dear. I’m sure they’re not hurting anyone. Why don’t you young people come to my office and tell me what’s troubling you?”
“You shouldn’t do that,” the woman said, a threat more than a warning in her voice.
“Don’t be silly, Florence,” the man said with a nervous laugh as he escorted Holly and Jimmy towards his office.
Holly looked back at the woman, who she now knew must be Fish-Face Florence. The women glared at Holly then gave her the bird. Holly’s mouth fell open a little and she was torn between laughing and running away. She caught up with Sam and Jimmy and remembered what she’d heard about Sam’s wife. She now she understood why everyone in town hated her. She was the total opposite of her kind and beloved husband. How such an odd couple had ever gotten together?
Inside the cramped office, Sam pulled out the security footage from the night before and rewound it. He then fast-forwarded it until he got to the point where the parking lot was filling up for the ten o’clock show. He kept fast-forwarding, when Holly shouted, “There, and stop.”
The security footage showed a view looking out from the front of the bar, down towards the entrance, and a portion of the parking lot.
“That’s my car,” she explained. Sure enough, the top of Jana’s body could be seen as she got out of the car. A moment later, Jana’s head disappeared off screen. Sam fast-forwarded until about the time of the incident in the bar.
People were running out of the bar, and what could be seen of the parking lot was emptying fast.
“Stop,” Holly said again when Jana reappeared on screen. She was running alongside a man who was clearly dragging her by the arm. Then they ran off camera. “Shit,” Holly said. Sam continued to run through the footage, slowing it down.
“There’s the sheriff,” Jimmy shouted, pointing to the bottom of the screen. The sheriff had his arm out in front of him, the gun clearly visible. The gun suddenly rose slightly, then fell. There was no sound. “He just took a shot!” Holly said.
“You’ve got a video of the County sheriff firing a gun without provocation. Wow.” Jimmy said.
A moment later, part of a car backed into the top part of the screen, just for a second. Then a part of another car appeared on camera as if thrown into the shot. “Hey, that’s my car,” Jimmy said. “The bastard hit my car.”
“Back it up,” Holly said. Sam ran the tape back in slow motion until Holly told him to stop. “There,” she said, “see that white car – there’s just a part of it. Do you think that’s the car Jana left it?”
“Maybe,” Sam said.
“Can you guys read the license plate? Can you magnify that image?”
Sam stared at Holly. “Uh, sorry, miss - this isn’t some fancy equipment you find on some a TV show. This is just a basic recording. I’m afraid.”
He was being so nice. Holly felt guilty for asking too much.
“Of course, I’m sorry to be such a pain. Can either of you make out the numbers?”
The all stared at the image. It was fuzzy, but in the end they all agreed on the first few letters of the partial plate.
Sam wrote it down on a yellow sticky, and handed it to Holly. “I’m sorry about your friend, I hope you find her. Is there anything else I can do?”
Holly thought about something. “Hey, when we saw Jana leaving with that man – was she carrying anything?”
“No,” both Sam and Jimmy said together.
“Then, her stuff – her purse, her bag of clothes – must be still in the bar. Do you have a dressing room or somewhere – where we can look?”
“Sure, follow me.”
Holly and Jimmy followed Sam to a backstage area. They searched the entire room and came up short. No sign of Jana’s purse or clothes. Nada.
“I wonder what could have happened to her things,” Holly said to Jimmy after they thanked Sam for his help and went back outside to see how bad Jimmy’s car had been hit.
~~*~~
After the young people left, Sam locked himself in his office and berated himself for being such a coward. He had evidence now – evidence that could put the sheriff down. The SSB was in the building. He could show the security footage to the group and surely that would give them the courage to reach out to some higher authority. They could make their move – put the Sheriff out of commission – get back to their former, easy going lives. But, he couldn’t do it.
He was always the one dissuading the group from taking any drastic action. Why? Because Florence ordered him not to rock the boat. She told him he wasn’t meant to be a tough guy. She told him he was a coward. She fucked around on him and flaunted it in his face. And even though it killed him knowing she was screwing other men, it was also the only thing that made him feel alive.
She rarely told him who she was screwing, mostly she just gave him the physical details. She loved describing the hardness and the power of her lover’s thick cocks. His own cock had no power, no ability to satisfy her. Soft and impotent since the hunting accident, it was the constant target of her scorn. The only thing she let him do to her was spank her. She liked to be spanked. Sometimes she’d let him eat her out after he spanked her, but that hadn’t happened now in years. Now all she was willing to do, was masturbate in front of him with that giant black cock ordered from China. She’d pound it in and out of her pussy and tell him about her most recent fuck. Sam, didn’t even have the balls to walk over to her and squeeze her tits. He’d just sit there, on the chair by the bed and groan with pleasure as she cuckolded the fuck out of him.
He took the security footage out of the player and made a decision. He shoved it under the desk and scooted it out of sight. If the kids said anything to anyone about the footage, he’d claim not to recall anything and act surprised that the video had been lost.
He called for his wife, but she wasn’t around. Some of his friends still worked on cleanup.
“You guys, go home – I’m not opening tonight. Maybe not for a few days. I’ve got this.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah – thanks, I’m sure.”
Sam locked the bar and headed out. Florence’s car was gone. She’d be out screwing someone, he had no doubt. She come home afterwards and make him dinner. Then she’d tell him all about her latest fuck, and if maybe if he was lucky, she’d let him spank her.
~~*~~
As soon as her husband took those nosey young people back to this office, Florence hurried backstage. After a moment of hunting, she found a plastic bag, stuffed behind a chair in the corner. Inside the bag, she found some clothes and a woman’s purse. She looked inside and opened the wallet. The ID showed the black women, the one who thought she was such hot shit, she didn’t need to use her real name on the form. What had she called herself? Bombshell?
Florence stared at the name again. Why did that ring a bell? Then it hit her. The last time she’d seen Harold, he’d dropped by her house – not to give her a quickie, but to show her a picture of a black girl. He’d asked if Florence had seen her. Something about needing to ask her questions about some police business.
Florence licked her lips, excited to have a reason to encourage Harold back into her bed. They’d had an amazing fling for several months, about a year ago - but then he’d lost interest in her.
She gathered up the bag and headed back towards the front. Remembering that the young people were looking for their friends things – she made the bag smaller in her arms and turned her body so they wouldn’t see what she was carrying.
But as she approached the partially opened door to Sam’s office, she heard something that made her stop in her tracks.
“That’s the sheriff pointing a gun. You’ve got it on tape!” She recognized the faggot’s voice. She needed to warn Harold.
She’d hurried past them unnoticed and almost ran to her car, anticipation coursing through her body. She stashed the women’s thing in her trunk, then drove out of the lot. Away from the bar, she pulled into a turn out and slowed to a stop.
She called Harold.
“What?” he said, he sounded annoyed.
“I’ve got something important to tell you about that woman you were looking for, and I wanted to warn you about what happened at the bar last night.”
“Can you meet me, in an hour?”
“Yes,” she said, breathlessly.
“Good, I’ll send you the text.”
“Where is it?”
“Out of town a bit. Oh, and Florence, wear something special for me – alright.”
“Yes, Harold.”
Thrilled beyond measure, Florence sped home to her house in the heart of Misty Falls. She showered and shaved then dressed in an outfit, she was sure he’d enjoy. She switched cars, opting for her convertible. She used her GPS to locate the house. It was farther in the mountains than she’d expected. The dirt road, took her into a part of the mountains with very few homes. She went past a boarded up home with several dilapidated and rusted out school busses parked out, then followed the signal until she came to a small wooden cabin nestled in a stand of pines. She saw not the Sheriff’s car, but another vehicle that she thought might be his. She checked her watch as she rolled to a stop. Good, she was late. “I hope, you plan to punish me,” she said out loud, as she added another coat of lipstick to her thin dry lips.
Chapter Eleven
After Merrick left, Bombshell was confused. She’d wanted to make love to him, but he’d rejected h
er. Why? They were supposed to be engaged, which meant they were in love, right? And people who were in love made love to each other. She didn’t get it.
Frustrated, and not tired enough to sleep, she nevertheless had no desire to run into him anytime soon, nor experience his rejection again. She looked in the mirror and gasped at the sight of herself. Her hair was a mess, and the ugly bandage didn’t help. She was wearing a clean but stained stretched-out t-shirt and no bra. The sweatpants did nothing for her figure, too tight in the waist and too short in the legs. No wonder he didn’t want to kiss her, or touch her.
She got out of bed and explored their bedroom. Or maybe it wouldn’t be their bedroom much longer. Maybe he was planning on dumping her. She looked in the mirror again and flinched. She wouldn’t blame him if he did. She had to do something about her appearance.
She looked through the room and checked the closet. He had a suitcase zipped up in the corner, but she had no luggage. She couldn’t understand how she’d lost her purse, her luggage and her memory, but he still had his suitcase.
She lifted it up. It felt pretty light. There were a few shirts hanging in the closet, so maybe he’d already unpacked it. Still, curiosity got the better of her, so she opened it up. It was empty except for some dirty clothes stuffed in a plastic bag. When she touched the bag, a shiver ran down her fingertips. Something about the plastic feel made her immediately drop it from her hand.
She shook her head, trying to ignore the unpleasant feeling. Maybe it was guilt. Just because they were engaged didn’t give her the right to go through his things. Did it? She zipped up the suitcase and put it back where she’d found it. Then she went to his jacket and put her hand into his pockets. The first pocket turned out to be empty, but there was a paper napkin in the other.