by Jessie Cooke
Daria was driven at that point by nothing other than the orgasm that she could feel rising up inside of her. She sat up straighter, gripped the outer parts of his thighs with the muscles in hers, and threw her head back as she ground her pelvis down against his and continued rocking back and forth wildly. She was right on the verge, panting and gasping…whispering his name like a woman crazed…when he used that hand to pull her off him. She cried out in surprise and anguish, but before she could form words to ask him why, he’d used his legs to pull his body toward the bottom of the bed, and his strong arm to lift her body up so that he could get his mouth underneath her and bury his face in her sopping wet pussy.
She almost screamed when he touched her clit with his tongue. He flicked it back and forth and licked her from top to bottom several times before sucking the entire swollen button into his mouth. She couldn’t remember ever being so overstimulated. Hell, she could barely remember her own name. She gripped his face with her thighs like a vise when the orgasm finally slammed into her. If she’d been standing, that feeling would have knocked her off her feet, and maybe even across the room. She had the longest, hottest, most satisfying orgasm of her life, one that touched every nerve fiber in her body and even reached places that she was sure had never been touched before.
She was exhausted once the orgasm finally subsided, but when she slid off his wet face and saw the lust in his eyes, the tingling between her legs returned quickly and once again she found his hard cock with her pussy and for the next ten delicious minutes, she gave and took the ride of her life. When Sledge finally reached his peak, he exploded with a growl, like a wild animal or a caveman that had just satisfied one of his primal urges. It took him several long, hot minutes to finish and once he had, he pulled her sweaty body back down against his chest, kissed the side of her face and said:
“Fuck.” Daria smiled. Those were her sentiments exactly.
“So, I should just ask her not to go back to her home and her life…? Ouch! Fuck, Doc!”
Doc was doing the fifth debridement of the burns on Sledge’s arms. He did it with what felt like a metal sponge, scraping the dead cells off, he said, so that the new skin could grow and the scar tissue wouldn’t tighten up so much that he would lose the use of his arm and his hand. Sledge was happy to know that his left hand would probably work as good as new eventually…but that debridement shit fucking hurt. “Sorry, Sledge,” Doc said, for the tenth time that morning. He wasn’t sorry enough to stop, however. He continued to scrape Sledge’s skin with his torture device without even looking up.
“Yes,” Ash said, keeping his eyes averted from what Doc was doing to his friend. “You should ask her.”
Sledge chuckled through the pain. “Because I have so much more to offer her than a posh penthouse in Manhattan, parties probably every weekend, fancy clothes and cars and restaurants…”
“She’s made it clear over the past couple of weeks that none of that really means anything to her. She’s like me and Mack. She fits in here like she was born here.”
“But she wasn’t born here,” he said, through gritted teeth. “She was born into a family that would disown her if they even knew she was fucking me.” Doc did look up at him then, with his eyebrow cocked. “Oh, go back to your torture and knock off the holier-than-thou routine,” Sledge told him, rolling his eyes. To Ash he said, “You and Mack never really got into any of that. Daria has lived that life, completely, for twenty-eight years. She’d never be happy living in a trailer behind the clubhouse.”
“So, you get to make all of her decisions or only the important ones?” Ash said. Doc made a noise in the back of his throat.
“Fuck both of you,” Sledge said. “I’m not making her decisions for her. I’m just choosing not to put her in an uncomfortable spot.”
“Okay,” Ash said, looking at Doc and rolling his eyes. “I’ll tell Mack to move forward with the plans for her going-away party tomorrow night. We were both hoping that you’d grow a pair and talk to her before then, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.”
“Ouch! Fuck!” Doc had scrubbed a spot raw and it had begun to bleed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled again. Sledge looked at the back of the other man’s head and envisioned slamming it down onto the table he was bent over.
“On that note,” Ash said, “I’ll leave the two of you to it.”
“Pussy,” Sledge said.
Ash laughed. “Trust me, Doc and I have had our moments, and the plastic surgeon my old lady and sister are forcing me to see isn’t any gentler.”
“Poor little rich boy,” Sledge said, with a smile. Ash flipped him off as he left and just as Doc pronounced he was finished scrubbing for the day and began to apply the salve that he put on afterwards each time, Sledge’s phone rang. Without missing a beat with his right hand, Doc reached over and pressed the answer button, and then the speaker.
“Hello?” Daria’s voice floated out of the little box and Sledge’s heart reacted by speeding up. For the past two weeks he’d seen her every night when she wrapped up whatever she was doing on set. They ate dinner together, watched movies, drank beer at the club, and watched Freddie win his first fight. Most importantly of all, she’d given up her hotel room and she’d spent every night with him. Sledge had never gone to sleep and woken up with any woman more than twice in his life. He wasn’t one of those guys that thought that was a bad thing…it had just never worked out for him before. Now that he was used to it, Daria was leaving, and he’d have to go to sleep and wake up alone again, knowing she was three thousand miles away.
“Hi, beautiful.”
“Hey! I thought the call dropped at first. How are you? Did Doc the Terrible inflict his ancient torture on you yet?”
Doc chuckled, and Sledge said, “Finishing up as we speak, on speaker phone.”
“Oh, shoot! Hi, Doc.”
Doc smiled. “Hi, Daria. How’s life on the movie set today?”
She sighed. “Hot, and kind of boring. I’m just following the director around today in case he has any questions, or I have any suggestions.”
“Well, at least you get to spend your day with beautiful people,” he said with another chuckle. “I mean, if you were here, you’d have to look at the likes of Sledge.”
“Ha-ha!” she said. “That’s where you’re wrong, Doc. The beautiful people are the likes of Sledge.” Her kind words warmed Sledge’s blood and embarrassed him at the same time. He had found a place where people cared about him, but he was definitely not used to sweet compliments like that. The club’s idea of a compliment was saying something nice about another guy’s bike.
“Thank you,” he said, with a burn in his cheeks. “But I think Doc is having too much fun eavesdropping on our conversation. Can I call you back in a few?”
“I actually need to get back and I’ll have to turn my phone off. But the reason I was calling is that the cast and crew are having a wrap party tomorrow night and I was wondering if you’d go with me?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This was exactly what he was just trying to tell Ash. The “cast and crew” of a movie were not going to be people he’d be comfortable around, or fit in with, at all, especially with fresh burns all over his arms. What was she thinking? He suddenly realized he’d been silent for too long. Doc was even looking at him. He glared at Doc, who went back to work wrapping his arms, and cleared his throat before saying, “Sorry, Doc had me distracted. Can we talk more about this later?”
“Sure; they were trying to get a head count, though. I’ll just tell her yes for now and I can change it later if you don’t want to go.” He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard her voice crack. He had a flashback to ten years ago when she invited him to her sister’s wedding. He’d only accepted then because she’d gotten tears in her eyes when telling him how important it was to her that he went. He sighed and said:
“Sure, that sounds good. I’ll talk to you soon.” He gestured to the phone with his head and Doc pressed the end cal
l button. As soon as he did, while still wrapping Sledge’s right arm with gauze he said:
“Sounds important to her.”
“Jesus, did you take the same fucking Dear Abby course that Ash did?”
Doc finished what he was doing and secured the gauze with a piece of tape before looking up at Sledge and saying, “You know, I read a quote somewhere once that stuck with me, I can’t even remember who said it, but it said something like Just because our lives don’t fit together doesn’t mean our souls don’t know how to dance. Love’s supposed to be blind, brother.”
“Pussy,” Sledge said, with a shake of his head. Doc laughed and began putting his things back in the canvas bag he carried around. As Sledge watched him, he wondered if the EMT and his best friend were right. He and Daria weren’t kids anymore and as adults, their self-worth shouldn’t depend on what their peers thought of them any longer. It shouldn’t…but shamefully he wasn’t sure he could say it didn’t.
21
“Hold still!” Mack scolded.
“You’re choking me.”
“Oh my God, you’re a huge baby.” She was tying Sledge’s tie…the new one that he’d just spent way too much money on. If he was going to this thing with Daria, he was at least going to look the part and not embarrass her by showing up in his kutte. But fuck, he hated suits and ties.
“Sorry, I hate these things.”
“I know,” she said, finishing the knot and stepping back to take him in. “But look at you, you’re so handsome.” Sledge stepped in front of the full-length mirror on the back of Ash’s and Mack’s bathroom door. He hardly recognized himself. Mack had done his hair for him, pulling it back into an elastic band the way he did most of the time, but somehow making it look a hell of a lot better. He’d shaved and without the stubble that normally covered his face, he looked five years younger. The suit fitted nicely, except on his arms, which were still bandaged. They made the jacket look too tight, he thought.
“Does it look like I’m holding my arms out like an ape?”
She laughed. “No. It’s your imagination. The only part of those bandages anyone will even notice is the part around your left hand, and it’s no big deal.”
“What about forks and shit?”
She made a face. “Your right hand works, right?”
“No, I mean, what if it’s a sit-down dinner and they have different forks for different stuff. It’s being held at a fancy-schmancy hotel. What if I use the wrong fork?”
“I’m sure they’ll only have one,” she said. “This is Fresno, not New York or LA. But if they have more than one, just start from the outside and work your way in. The forks will be on the left and the knives and spoons on the right.”
“Oh, shit! There’s more than one of those too?”
Mack laughed. “Yes, but outside/in. You can do this, take a deep breath.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to eat anyway. My stomach doesn’t feel so good. Maybe I’m getting a bug or something. I’d hate to make Daria sick right before she leaves to go home…”
“Oh, stop it! Big baby. You’re fine. Suck it up and do this for her. Trust me, she knows how hard this is for you and the fact that you’re doing it is going to mean so much to her. You worry too much anyway. No one is going to be scrutinizing you. She doesn’t know most of these people well herself; she’s only known them for a few weeks.”
“Yeah, but she fits, and I don’t. Maybe she won’t want to stay long. I really wanted to have a going-away party for her here. Maybe I’ll tell her that you guys have one planned…”
“No, you will not rush her to bring her back to this stinky club. You’ll stay as long as she wants you to, and you’ll have fun.”
With a groan he said, “Fun is pushing it. I’m going, but I didn’t agree to having any fun.” Mack looked up at his face and he grinned. She punched him on the shoulder. “Ouch!” he said, rubbing it.
“Big baby. Here.” She handed him the keys to her car. No way was he showing up for this fancy party on his bike, and the club cars were all black vans and black SUVs. Mack had a newer Toyota Camry. It was red and shiny, and Ash had fitted it with chrome wheels and a killer sound system. Sledge wouldn’t be embarrassed if he had to hand the keys off to a valet. The party was at a fancy hotel and Daria had gotten them a room for the night. She was there getting ready now…waiting for him. He still hadn’t figured that out. Why did she want him? What did she envision when she looked into their future, or did she? He knew he should ask her those questions, but the thought of having that conversation made him sick to his stomach. What he expected was that she’d go back to New York and forget about him. That was going to be hard enough without hearing her tell him to his face that she was just slumming it while she was in California. “Why are you frowning like that?”
“She’s leaving tomorrow, Mack.”
“She’ll be back.”
“You think so?”
“You two haven’t talked about it at all?”
He shook his head. “What am I supposed to say? Come on back because soon instead of living in a fifth-wheel behind the club on the west side of Fresno, I’ll be living in one on our new property in the Bluffs?”
“You think she really cares where you live, Sledge? You think she spent so much time pursuing you while she was here because three weeks was too long to go without a date, or sex, or…?”
“Okay,” he said, holding his good hand up. “I get it, she likes me…I just can’t figure out why.”
“When you’re like this, neither can I,” she said. Sledge laughed.
“Your honesty is so endearing.”
“I know, it’s one of my many charms.”
“Thanks for all of this, Mack.”
“It’s my pleasure,” she said. “I tried hard not to like Daria, but I actually do. I never thought I’d say this, but I think she’s good for you.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” he said. “It’s whether or not I’m good for her that I’m worried about.”
“I’m having flashbacks,” she said. “I feel like I’m talking to high school Steve instead of 29-year-old Sledge.”
“He still lives in there,” Sledge said, “but don’t tell anyone.”
Mack rose up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “I love them both, but for tonight, leave Steve at home.”
He nodded. “Thanks, Mack. I guess I’d better go.”
“Have fun, and you kids don’t stay out too late.”
Sledge smiled and shook his head. Inwardly, he prayed that Daria would be ready to leave early. With one last look at himself and a wink in Mack’s direction, he left the house and headed toward the car. On his way there he heard a wolf whistle. He turned to see Maz coming in his direction. “Joli!”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Maz laughed. “You look so pretty.”
“Stop lusting after me, fucker, you’re not my type.”
“Everybody loves a Frenchman with a giant cock.”
Sledge laughed at that as he pulled open the car door. “You’re not French and from what I’ve heard…” He had to stop there. Truth was, what he’d heard from the gossip among the ladies in the club was that Maz was so huge some of them wouldn’t even let him near them with it.
Maz was laughing. “See, you know. It’s énorme!”
Sledge didn’t know what énorme meant, but he was sure Maz was still bragging. He rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah well, knowing how to use it goes a long way and from what I’ve been told…”
“By who, your mama?”
“Fuck you.” Sledge said with a smile. Maz walked away, laughing.
The idea of going to the party had eaten away at him all night and day. When Daria had shown up the night before after work, she’d seemed so excited about it that he just hadn’t had the heart to tell her no. As soon as she left for work that morning, he’d gotten Ransom to drive him to the mall and he’d spent three hours at Macy’s Men, trying to find a suit
he could afford that would make him look like he belonged. He drove both Ransom and the sales guy crazy before he’d finally settled on a black one made by Ralph Lauren and a white shirt and black, white and blue striped tie. He had to get the shirt and jacket a size too big in order to accommodate the bandages and he’d worried about that too. He’d been in a bear of a mood by the time he made it home, but Mack, and now Maz, had put him in a much better one. Hopefully the good mood would conquer the anxiety that was still eating at his stomach like acid.
When he drove up to the hotel, and the valet came around to get his keys, he looked at the line of German cars and limousines behind him. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he had to struggle again with whether or not he could go through with it. He reluctantly gave up the keys before he could make his escape, and he slipped the valet a ten-dollar bill. He’d had to ask Mack how much to tip them. He’d never used valet service before.
He could feel himself sweating underneath the bulky suit jacket as he walked into the lobby of the hotel. The place was huge, and fancy…all glass and white marble and gold accents. It looked cold to him, but from what he remembered about rich people, they liked cold. The lobby was already full of people, all dressed in the latest fashion, or so he assumed, since he didn’t know anything about it. Security roamed around, and photographers were taking pictures and doing interviews in front of a large poster board on the wall with a picture of an attractive man in a cowboy hat and no shirt, and a woman in a fancy dress. They were kissing. Sledge had seen the picture before, when he Googled Daria. It was her book, the one they were basing the movie on. He was overwhelmed already, and he hadn’t picked up Daria and made it to the ballroom yet. He avoided the crowd and took the stairs. The room she’d rented was on the fifth floor and by the time he got there, he had resolved to give up the smoking. He didn’t do it often, but after about two flights, he had sure as hell felt the need.