by Kasia Fox
“Uh uh uh.” Berkley went to him and pressed her fingers against the lid to keep him from opening it. “Only the big spenders get to peek in my tickle box.”
Silent, Skinner kept snooping.
“Give it up, Skinner. Ronnie never gave a shit about any woman his entire life, and now you expect me to buy this kumbaya crap?”
Skinner fingered a filmy sheer robe hanging from a tree stand of lingerie. “I had my doubts too. But Ronnie really seems to love that girl. Go figure.”
“Maybe. But you’re not telling me the whole story.”
“No story.” Skinner pivoted and before Berkley could protest, went to the credenza and opened the tickle box. From it, he unearthed an enormous dildo.
“You guys are creeping around.” Berkley tried to keep the edge out of her voice. “Gathering information. I listen. I hear stuff. I want to know.”
“How bad do you want to know, Berkley?” The dildo wobbled back and forth in his hand.
Berkley crawled onto the bed. She got up on her knees and faced him, twisting a piece of hair around her finger. In a tiny voice, she said, “I want to know real bad.”
Skinner took a step toward her, smacking the dildo against the palm of his hand like a thug with a baseball bat.
“So what, if a dude spends enough, he gets to put this in you? That how it works?”
“I’m the only one who puts that in me,” she whispered. She let go of the piece of hair and groped her breasts. “But if you tell me what Ronnie’s up to, I’ll let you.”
“Yeah?” Skinner almost smiled, his eyes on her tits. Mesmerized by them. “What else can I put in you?”
“Mm,” she said, playing like Skinner inside her was the most tempting thought she’d ever had. “Whatever you want.”
“I want to fuck. Right here on this bed, right now.”
“Mmm.”
“I tell you what I know, and we fuck. So we’re clear here,” he said.
“Mmhm.”
“And you don’t tell Ronnie.”
“Fuck Ronnie.”
“I don’t know much but I’ll give you what I know.” For a moment after agreeing Skinner seemed to hesitate. Hooking her thumbs in either arm hole of the tank top Berkley pulled the fabric in a bunch in the middle of her chest so her tits popped out on either side. “Uh oh,” she giggled. She looked at Skinner’s crotch, the bulging denim. “I’ll take whatever you have baby.”
Like an overeager high school boy, his hand shot out and squeezed one of her tits.
Berkley slapped his hand. “Information first.”
With two fingers, Skinner pushed her; she toppled easily to her back on the bed. He climbed on the bed on his knees and straddled her as he talked.
“All I know is, Ronnie had me be the go between with this bum, Bert, he met working up north years ago. Ronnie’d been keeping tabs on Tessa and her mom. When her mom died, back around Christmas, he had me set it up so’s during the funeral when they’re finally out of the house, Bert goes and breaks in.”
“Looking for what?” Berkley said, tugging coyly at the hem of her top. She had spectacular underboob.
“A safe. A package. A letter addressed to her daughter.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Bert found nothing. It was all hypothetical. So we had to have him get Tessa to come here. Ronnie wanted to meet her, wow her with his big fancy life here, work her over for information.” Skinner pulled the leather tongue of the belt from its restraint.
“What information?”
“Who knows? We’re men, not teenage girls at a sleepover. Ronnie don’t tell me his secrets.” Skinner pulled his shirt over his head. He was skinny but surprisingly fit. A big dragon tattoo wrapped itself around his torso. Both his nipples were studded with thick silver bars. A very dark treasure trail disappeared into his bulging underpants. Berkley was surprised to find herself aroused. Ronnie had cheated on her many times, and up until she’d started working Skinner for info, she’d been faithful to him for all of their seven years together. Faithful to a faithless, beer-bellied, smush-faced asshole. Now here was a guy in his twenties, hard bodied, dumb and breathless to fuck her.
“Except there is one thing…” Skinner let his words trail off.
“Yes?”
“Actually, my memory is hazy. Give me a little taste. To jog my memory.”
She tugged at his waistband, bringing down his underwear and jeans. At the sight of his thick dick, pink-skinned and eager, she let out a genuine sigh of appreciation. Berkley licked the smooth tip of it, getting it slippery wet for its easy passage into her mouth. She drew it in and out, making noisy slurping sounds. For good measure, she gave his balls a squeeze.
Skinner ran both hands down the back of her head. “You’re so sexy,” he said. “Your hair is like a Tequila Sunrise.”
She abruptly pulled away, wiping her bottom lip with the side of her finger. “Did that shake up any memories?”
“Ronnie had me get Bert to break into Tessa’s place since she’s been here. And Bert said he didn’t find nothing. Whatever Ronnie wants, it’s something that Tessa’s mom had and it’s something he’s real concerned about.”
“And that’s all you know?” Berkley said.
“Swear to God.”
Going into the room, Berkley had considered welshing on her promise when Skinner gave her what she wanted. But she was always capable of changing her mind.
“Come here, big boy,” she whispered to him.
With one hand Skinner ripped off her top while he tried to get his pants the rest of the way off with the other. Berkley helped him. She leaned back to shimmy her tiny shorts off and when they reached her ankles, Skinner said, “Leave those heels on.”
The heels stayed on. Berkley fed her pussy his cock, pumping up and down. Skinner tried pinning her arms to the bed, but she flipped him over with a movement so fluid his dick stayed inside her. Once she was on top, she rode him hard, grinding against him, relishing in his firmness, the dark hair on his body, his strange tattoos, his glinting nipples. All of it new and different. Propelling himself by scooting up onto the heels of his feet, Skinner drove his hips into her. She squeezed his small, hard ass as his thrusting body lifted them off the bed.
“You like that don’t you,” he muttered.
“Harder. Don’t be such a pussy,” she growled at him.
Skinner stopped and pulled out.
“What’d you say to me?” Skinner looked pissed.
“I want it harder. Give it to me harder.” She sounded less certain.
“Get on your stomach, woman.”
Berkley lay on her front on the bed, propped up on her elbows so she could see behind her. Her legs extended off the back of the bed.
“You’re dripping for me, aren’t you?”
“Mmhm,” she said.
“You like this young cock.”
“Yes.”
“Now I’m going to take you from behind, hard. You want it right? Tell me you want it, Berkley.”
“I want it. Shut up and fuck me.”
Skinner rammed into her, hammering her from behind. She was so wet he moved in and out with ease, rubbing her clit with his thumb. Over her shoulder, she watched his body move, licking her lips. Skinner’s hand drifted up, stroking her asshole.
“Mm,” she moaned.
He plunged the finger, wet with her own juices, inside her asshole while his cock drove into her pussy. The unexpected sliver of pain, the tightening and release, set her over the edge. Berkley jerked into a convulsive orgasm, crying out into the empty house. She ground her pussy against the bed, coming for a second and third time as Skinner finished fucking her in both holes. Finished, he collapsed on top of her, their bodies sweat-slick and deliciously sore. They lay like this, panting, for a full minute before Berkley elbowed him to get off of her.
Skinner loomed above her, hands on his hips, like he stood atop an Olympic podium.
“Bet you would’ve done that even if I ha
dn’t given you any information,” he said.
Berkley rose from the bed and arranged her hair. Then she smacked Skinner across the face.
“That’s for putting your finger in my asshole.”
Stung, Skinner brought his hand to his cheek like a hurt school boy. “You said I could put whatever I wanted in you! You seemed to be enjoying yourself just fine.”
Berkley smirked. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
After that, she told him to get the fuck out of Her Special Place. When they parted he kissed her and she sucked his tongue. With Skinner gone, the air had changed in the room. It smelled like sex. Never had she fucked a man in there, not even Ronnie. She felt like getting it fumigated. She felt like doing it all over again.
31.
In a few dazed blocks of walking, an industrial part of the city had become a sketchy part of the city. The sky was dark and the moon was full. A shirtless man in his seventies, skin hanging from his bony frame, limped across the road and went into a gas station. A babbling homeless woman pushed her shopping cart to close on Tessa’s heels for comfort. She slowed and let the woman overtake her. People were definitely out tonight. Tessa remembered her mom – who, under normal circumstances found superstition vaguely blasphemous – saying that the full moon turned people strange.
The fact that Ron might have killed a man in a parking lot fight wasn’t the day’s greatest surprise. Beneath his good cheer and fatherly pride around Tessa, she sensed an inner darkness. One look at his face told you the guy had been in a lot of fights. Harder to accept, was the idea that her mom could be an accomplice to murder. All at once, Tessa felt tired and the streets seemed ominous. Tessa stepped onto the street as an obese man buzzed by on a motorized scooter. An ambulance wailed in the distance.
There was a check cashing store nearby, and a 7-11 with a rusty taco truck parked in the corner of its lot. Half a block away was a dive bar; Tessa went inside. A couple of regulars glanced up when she walked in and then turned their faces back to their video poker machines. At the bar, she ordered a beer from a shirtless man in a black leather vest. That had to be some sort of health code violation. She took her beer to a table at the back and drank until she felt calm enough to cold call the detective on the piece of paper Deb had given her. She turned her phone on, her pulse quickening as the screen went from black to pale gray. Finally, her home screen appeared. The phone buzzed. Two messages from Cal. Tessa ignored them and dialed the detective’s number. After five rings, voicemail picked up. She left her first name and phone number and said she’d got his number from Deb Furnish. She chewed her lip, considering her options. The phone buzzed, loud, loud on the wooden table. It was Cal.
“Are you okay?” he demanded when she answered.
“I’m fine.”
“I stopped by your house on my way home from the office.”
Tessa winced, afraid of what he’d say. “Did anyone answer?”
“Berkley.” From the tone of his voice, he was low-key pissed off.
“Yeah. I told her I was going out with you tonight. I’m sorry.”
“She told me some guy picked you up.”
Of course she did. “I don’t know why Berkley would say that.”
“I do.”
“Well, it’s not true.”
“That woman is bad news, Tessa.” There was a long pause as he waited for her to agree with him. When she said nothing, he said, “Look, if you are out with someone else, that’s fine –”
“I’m not. My phone is off because I had to do something important and I didn’t want to keep getting distracted by wondering if you were going to call.”
A man and woman came in the bar, drunk and whooping. The man went to the bar and the woman racked up the balls on a pool table. Tessa pressed one finger into her free ear to hear better.
“Where are you?” Cal asked.
“Some dive bar.”
“What bar?”
She was about to make a snappy remark about not needing him to rescue her. The truth was, she wanted to see him. She’d waited all day to see him. The day could only get better from here.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to come across town and pick me up,” she said.
“Of course I want to come pick you up.”
“Excuse me?” Tessa waved to get the attention of the bartender. “What is the name of this place?”
The man at the pool table looked up, briefly, from aiming his cue. Then he took his shot. There was a clatter and the soft thud of balls rolling around the felt.
“Angry Roddy’s,” the bartender replied and turned back to the television. That show about pawn shops was on.
Twenty minutes later Cal entered the bar. He sat at the table, its old wood top scarred with cigarette burns and knifed in graffiti. Pictures torn from hot rod magazines of women in short shorts and bikinis humping cars were taped to the nearest wall. Cal took all of this in.
“Tessa,” was all he said. His expression said, Are you serious?
“Yes, Cal?”
“This is a bad part of town.”
“A big guy like you shouldn’t be worried about this neighborhood.”
“If trouble finds me, I can handle myself,” he said. “I was worried about you.”
“I can handle myself too. You don’t need to come rescue me.”
“I’m not rescuing you. I’m picking you up from a scummy bar you have no business being in the first place.” He breathed out a long stream of air. Then he reached over and placed his big hand over her long, slender fingers. Tessa turned her hand so the palm was up, lacing her fingers with his.
“You told me to asked around about my dad and I asked around,” Tessa said. She chewed her bottom lip. “Before I tell you more, I want to know why you don’t you like my dad and Berkley.”
“I never said I didn’t like your dad.”
“The first day we met you said, ‘I’d never make the mistake of getting involved with a daughter of Ronnie Doucette’s.’”
“Are you ever going to–”
“I deserve to know.”
Cal groaned and leaned his head back against the wall. “I wanted to stay out of this.”
“I asked. I want to know.”
Eventually, after much shifting around in his seat and spinning his car key on the table, Cal spoke. “With Berkley, it’s simple: An ex of mine had done some modeling and Berkley slid into her DMs to recruit her for some network of camgirls she was trying to get running.”
“So, like a cam girl madam?” Tessa was thinking out loud.
“But it’s not really that. With Berkley, it’s just a bad vibe I got. How much she was trying to get you to drink the other night. The way she watched you. Lying to me tonight. Something’s off.” He toyed with the zipper of Tessa’s purse with his big fingers.
“And Ron?”
“To be fair, the stuff I heard is all from back in the day, okay? Before me, my dad was an amateur boxer. They met because back then, Ron was trying to be this big Vegas promoter. Clubs. Fights. Shows. All that. Ron promoted these amateur fights and hired my dad a couple of times. Rumor was he paid guys to take falls because he was in with some shady bookmakers. My dad never outright said he took an incentive from Ron, but I think that’s what happened. He’s a solid guy but he had a family to support and he was still trying to chase his dream. He was supposed to be the next big thing but he ended up flaming out hard because of injuries. Moved the family back to Queens and got into the family contracting business. By the time I made it out here, Ron had his clubs and whatnot and I didn’t hear from him. Then, when I was first getting my company going, when it looked like it might be a big deal, I got a call. Ron’s dropping my dad’s name at reception to get a meeting. Once he’s in the door he’s implying that he and my dad were great buddies back in the day, that my dad never would’ve won a single fight without him, suggesting that my dad split town because he’d borrowed money from him, blah, blah, blah. All bullshit. He was t
rying to elbow his way into my business. Said he had connections and if I wanted to grow the company he could put me in touch with the people who helped him. Dad thinks he was hooked up with the mob somehow, but I don’t know. The mafia here isn’t what it used to be back in the Rat Pack days. I told him to fuck right off and Ron didn’t like that.”
Tessa nodded slowly. “And that’s all?” she said. “Or have you heard other things?” She peeled the label off her beer bottle and let the pieces flutter to the table.
“There are rumors that have nothing to do with me.”
“Rumors about my dad murdering someone?”
Cal shifted in his seat. “Murder? Maybe not. Talk that he killed someone in a bar fight, yeah. I can’t speak to the truth of that. Since our meeting I’ve avoided him but it’s hard, seeing as I accidentally bought a house down the street from him.”
“There’s a woman parked in front of his strip club every day who is convinced he murdered her son and got away with it. That’s why I’m down here. I went to talk to her.” Tessa took a deep breath.
“What’d you find out?”
She wished she hadn’t said anything at all. He could think what he wanted about Ron, but she couldn’t handle Cal judging her mom. “Nothing good. Do you mind if we leave? I’m suddenly desperate to get out of here.”
As they left the bar, the noisy drunk guy at the pool table approached. He looked off balance. “What’re you doing in here, son?” he said. The guy was shorter than Cal, but broadly built. “Seems like your girl isn’t too happy with you, huh.”
“Mind your own business,” Tessa said.
Ignoring the guy, Cal held the door open for Tessa. His jaw was clenched.
“Mind your own business,” the man mocked, in a high-pitched, nasally voice.
“Don’t,” Cal warned.
“Or what?”