by Mark Henry
Thad offered his arm and against my better judgment I accepted. We walked about twenty feet before we arrived at the back door of the bar. Fishing nets obscured a smoking area; buoys lined a crushed seashell path to the door. Exactly what you’d expect of an aging hooch shack.
“Well, I’m glad we had this chat, Thad. You could have saved a shitload of time by just pointing.”
Thad grinned, those jagged teeth sort of growing on me. Probably because they seemed to go with his predatory behavior. That’s when it dawned on me. I coughed and spat the word quickly, “Wereshark.”
Thad’s brows raised and his grin stretched into a full-blown smile. “I’m not sure I heard you.”
“Oh, I think you did.”
“Let’s talk about it inside. They have an excellent bourbon selection.”
And that’s all he had to say. He was so much more charming when he was leading me to the liquor.
The Driftwood looked exactly like you’d expect it to, wooden ship steering wheels, seagulls on posts and a barnacled porthole for every booth. We sidled up to the bar, the keep not so much greeting us as gargling a welcome through a gaping hole in his neck that he tamped off with the butt of a lit cigar.
“Mr. Chumley. Miss. What’ll it be?”
“The lady’s going to need some brown stuff, Burt,” Thad said, slapping the bar top. “On the rocks and some of that old brine you keep for us sharks in the back for me.”
“You got it.”
He disappeared through a swinging door and when I returned my gaze to Thad, I wasn’t surprised that his black eyes were locked on mine.
“I heard you back on the beach. You said something and did it in such a way that you weren’t particularly scared of the repercussions.”
I pretended to forget. Shook my head no, just to make the time go faster.
“You said that a guy had eaten Miss Sandflea. Eaten was the word.”
“Did I? Maybe I was just hungry.”
“Or maybe you think I did it.” He grinned, his lips curling back to reveal those pointy bastards. “That I ratcheted my cold jaws open and devoured the poor lackluster girl...oh wait. That’s what you would have done.” He leaned in close, his hand on my outer thigh, fingertips tingling despite the fabric separating us. “I can smell it on you.”
Okay. So he knew I was a rotting corpse. That hand didn’t feel like it bothered him any.
“Well, I can smell it on you,” I returned, poking his chest with each word. “Very. Fishy.”
Thad straightened, pounded a palm on the bar. “Where are those drinks, Burt?”
Two glasses slid toward us. I grabbed mine greedily and tossed it back, slamming the empty on the bar for effect.
“Okay, Thad. I know you’re a predator. You know I am, too. And I think we’ve figured out the pedigrees. But that doesn’t explain the latent aroma of cheap cosmetics wafting out of your chumhole.”
This time it was my turn to play the seductive interrogator, I tapped my fingers against the back of his hand resting on the bar, stroking the skin across the ridges of tendon. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand the need for a healthy dinner. I do. It’s just that Miss Sandflea happens to be the daughter of the local bookseller, Mrs. Swinton, and I’m sort of indentured to turn over her killer. So, if you wouldn’t mind, we could set that up for tomorrow. Give you a chance to settle your affairs?”
Thad nodded, stabbed his tongue against his cheek. “Sure. Sounds good.”
I laughed. Clearly it wasn’t going to be that easy. “Unless you have another idea.”
“How about we split her. I’ll be hungry tomorrow, too. Three squares.”
“I can’t do that. I need her to spread the word about my book. Publishing is a cutthroat world and I need all the supporters I can get, so I’m afraid I’m gonna have to throw you to the sharks...so to speak.”
Thad groaned. “That was terrible.”
“Agreed.”
“What if I told you I was completely set up?”
“I’m listening.”
“I was minding my own business. Having a smoke when Miss Sandflea came out into the alley. She was holding a note and looking around like she was supposed to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“Me. And I’ll tell you why I think that.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a note. It read:
Thad, Meet me in the alley. Your Secret admirer.
“Oh yeah. That’s not at all juvenile, except for the fact is typewritten. Strange little ‘s’ though, huh?”
“Right? But still effective as it turns out. When I went to talk to the girl that’s when it happened.” He closed his eyes tight in the memory.
“What happened? Don’t leave me hanging.”
“She was doused with blood and fish chunks. And I, well, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Feeding frenzy,” I said, nodding. “Been there, done that.”
The excuse didn’t mean I wouldn’t throw him into the ring as the killer; it just meant he probably wasn’t guilty. What kind of person chums the pageant queen? I mean, besides the obvious answer…a hilarious one.
I stared at him, trying to divine my next move and for some unknown reason neglecting to notice his. Thad’s hand ran down my spine, lingering on the bow of my ass. I jerked.
“You’re disgusting, Thad.”
He shrugged, innocently. “I don’t mean to be crass.”
“You come by that naturally, then?”
“It’s a trait of the species. Whether scything through the water toward my prey, or weaving through a crowded bar to relieve a smoking hot undead lady, such as yourself, of her panties, I’m all stealth.”
“I mean, you literally make me sick to my stomach. So, I think what’s best in this situation is for us to go back to my room and fuck and then never talk about it again.”
His mouth dropped open and then he settled into the idea and duckfaced. “All right, just as long as I get to go down on you.”
“You can’t be serious.”
The wereshark belched, sucked his teeth.
Both sets.
“You have two rows of jagged teeth. That doesn’t even fly in Arkansas.”
“You know what they say about sharks?”
“Predators of the sea?”
He shook his head. “We like to eat. Feeding machines. In the sea it takes the form of tearing into our prey, devouring them. On land, it means we know how to eat…”
“Wait, don’t say it.”
“Pussy.”
Now, normally, my first thought upon coming face to face with the possibility of surprise cunnilingus is hygiene. I worry about certain—there’s no way around this—odors. But Thad Chumley was so disgusting—a real shipwreck-scavenging, barnacled shit show—I really didn’t think even my worst snatch day would hang the fucker up. Which begs the question: why would I even consider it?
Right?
Did I mention the hotness? Jesus Christ the man was…sleek. That was the word.
I imagined we all had our secrets. I hadn’t told Wendy or Gil that Scott and I were “taking a break”. And I certainly didn’t want Thad to think I was available for all his drooling tongue acrobatics. Though, if I were being honest, at the mere mention of his “ability,” I began to wonder if he was as skilled as he bragged.
It’s called a dry spell.
Scott had left two weeks previously and despite the way we left it, amicably and by that I mean he smiled as I threw shit at him and called him a son of whore and such. You know, the usual. It’s not like I’m required to take the news that my boyfriend wanted to explore other options without going a little nuts on his ass. Making absolutely no promises that I would stick around waiting for him to return to his senses, in fact, I’m pretty sure I threatened to find someone exactly like Thad to get back at him.
The exact words I used, “And just when I’d decided to let you do that thing you always talk about.”
Scott’s brow had ruffled painfully a
t that.
Of course, I was talking about anal—don’t pretend you just give that up without bargaining. I’ve always held off until the last possible moment and used it as my trump card. “Let’s go to Hawaii. No? Is that a no? Well, if we do go I’ll probably be so glad and warm in the tropical heat, I’d let you explore deepest darkest Amanda.”
“You’re considering it,” Thad said, his voice reeking of roadhouse whiskey, the back of his hand brushing my thigh.
Entwined in each other’s arms, Thad turned me and used my back to push open the fire exit. We burst onto the smoking patio of the roadhouse and settled onto the bench of a nearby picnic table, both of us straddling it, legs scissoring together awkwardly as we kissed, zippers grinding.
I caught the scent of cigar smoke and without extracting my tongue from Thad’s lips, I glanced to my left and into the toothless grin of a regular to both the bar and the smoking area. The man’s head bobbed drunkenly and his teeth were flecked with tobacco from the stub he chomped.
Pushing back, I reached up and turned Thad’s head toward the audience.
“That’s the Beetle Man,” he said, shrugging and returning his attention to my mouth, his hot hands kneading my hips, tugging at my shirt.
Startled, I gave his lip a nip and pushed away once more. “He’s watching us,” I hissed.
The Beetle Man continued to gaze dreamily in our direction, no question in my mind what he was thinking about, either. He pulled a wad of handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the corners of his lips.
“And that’s the end of anything sexy.” I tried to pull free from the tangle of Thad’s legs.
“Oh, come on.” He pulled at me, forcing me close once more.
I rested my cheek against his and said, “If you want to keep those arms, you’ll let me go.”
Thad threw up his hands and bit his lip. “We can go anywhere you want. Totally up to you. We could go back to Mrs. Winterford’s. Get comfortable. Get you out of those tight clothes. So constricting.”
I debated whether Thad just didn’t have any concern as to whether we were being watched, as though it simply didn’t matter. Big fish myopia. The biggest, probably. The rest of the men at the bar, the Beetleman included, were no more than scavengers. He barely noticed them.
He led me past a smattering of cars huddling around the single column of light shining from the front of the bar like a drunken beacon, and out onto the slimmest definition of a path possible, differentiated from the road by a few tufts of grass and an occasional brick.
“Is your place close by?” I asked, stopping to remove my shoes again.
He winced. “Yeah, just up here. But don’t expect much. It’s more of a place to store my clothes. I spend most of my time in the water. I guess you could say that the sharks call me a wereman for the amount of time I’m on two legs.”
“Sharks talk?”
“Well, it’s more of a scent thing. It’s carried in our byproduct.”
“Do you mean pee?”
“I was trying to be delicate.”
“That’d be a first.”
He pulled me into a rough embrace. “And a last. I’m going to tear you up.”
“Way to make it sound romantic,” I hissed against his cheek. “I would appreciate an attempt at gentleness. I’m not porcelain, but I’m not all that sturdy.”
“Naturally.” Thad’s grip softened, his lids drifted to a half-mast and he reached for my hand, clamping it between both of his. “I’ll treat you real good.”
“Spoken like a true one night stand. Though you could have slurred more, from that salty dog to remind me that you won’t remember any of this in the morning.”
“I’m going to remember this for hours, days maybe.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Fucking asshole.”
“I’ll let you touch that, too.”
I shook my head. “Not with these hands. Do you happen to have a fireplace poker?”
Thad nodded, grin gone sinister. He pressed my hand to his tenting crotch, what struggled behind that cotton twill wasn’t entirely familiar, but it was big and hard as stone. “Enough banter.”
He pulled me tight again to his frame, an embrace at once sexy and uncomfortable, what with his hard-on digging into my stomach. He was about Scott’s height, which, of course gave me nostalgic pangs for my big hairy wolf. That probably should have stopped me from doing what I was most certainly about to, but, well, my morality has always been suspect—if your expectations of a man-eating zombie are that she’d always make the best decisions, then that’s on you.
I’m not fucking Mandy Moore. I’m a monster.
He pulled me down a path toward a jumble of plywood and corrugated metal more suited to a Mexican border shanty town than anything in America—I’m exaggerating obviously, the tent cities of Seattle wouldn’t be making the Condé Nast Traveler Gold List anytime soon. At least at Thad’s place I wasn’t teetering on two by fours bridging pools of sewage. If that were the case, I’d lose my lady boner quicker than you could say three-day pay or vacate.
He shouldered us into the hut, his tongue darting into my mouth. I hesitate to call it a kiss. He was tasting me, searching inside my mouth in a way that was less passionate and yet more erotic than just about anything I’d experienced.
Just about.
His tongue was long and the tip of it rolled magnificently across mine as he moaned, his weight falling against me like he might pass out. I jerked my hands up to steady him and as we broke apart I saw his eyes rolled back in his head and remembered a television program about great white sharks and how they seemed to be lost in ecstasy as they devoured their prey, a sensation most humans will never understand, until they eat Filipino, which is a burst of flavor sensation like no other—I’m talking about the people not that vinegary chicken shit or pancit. Gah. Though, I do miss Lumpia. Those little deep fried wonders are the king of egg rolls. Just saying.
“Enjoying yourself?”
He groaned beneath a smile broader than a normal human’s but somehow contained, not slipping into an aquatic gray grin, toothed with more rows than a movie theater. This wasn’t his first time at the buffet.
Thad’s passion was bordering on frenzied and you know what that means, time to start worrying about whether he’ll turn landshark on me and gnaw off a leg. I’ll be damned if I have to pay the Reaper Clinic for another limb reattachment. His lips worked their way down my throat, his big hands cupping my breasts, kneading them and then pinching the sides of my dress and lifting it, he sank to his knees. His eyes filled with blackened lust and he rose between my legs as though up through the depths of a murky ocean to chomp on my wet seal—or you know, my snatch.
If the Shark Week references get too much for you feel free to skip ahead.
Your loss.
My ex—let’s call him that now, I think we’ve established that I’m moving on, at least while I’m getting head from a shark in a shanty—needed careful instruction in regards to the female anatomy. Not so, Thad. He pushed my panties aside like flotsam and dove right in licking at my lips, tugging them gently between his. Fluttering his tongue over my clit.
Good shark. Good. Shark.
It occurs to me that men who are good at eating pussy must keep it a secret from their buddies, because most assholes don’t know what the fuck to do when faced with ladyparts. There’s really only one instruction that they’ll understand (and ladies, take this note), do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Go ahead and treat that clit like a little dick, bitch. No teeth. Don’t pinch the tip. Keep it rhythmic. Nothing too crazy.
Simple. Or at least that’s how Thad made it seem as, without losing his stride, he wrangled me out of my panties and tossed them next to my Louboutin Pigalle Platos.
“Just like that!” I cried out as he gripped my ass and nuzzled his nose against me as he threaded his tongue inside, twisting, thrusting.
How long was that fucking thing?
Waves of pleasure
washed over me, the kind that would’ve brought a rare blush of warmth to my skin, if I weren’t, you know, dead. I found myself pushing against him, working my cunt against the whole of his face, his jaw, his brow. I was so into it I’d have ground against a damn ear. And then he was almost there. Lapping. Thumping his tongue rapidly against my clit, his fingers on either side of the little nub, pressing into me, vibrating the root of my sex.
And then he stopped.
“Shit!” I screamed. “What the—”
He turned me roughly to face the shelves, stacks of fisherman’s sweaters, baby fresh and neat in cubbies. His breath was hot on my cold skin and as he rose up behind me, I felt his thick member brush against my calf—that’s when I remembered Gil’s story from Davenport magazine and terror filled me.
“You don’t have two dicks, do you?” I asked, panting.
Silence.
I spun around, and against my better judgment glanced down at his throbbing cocks—even just thinking those words hurts all of my orifices. Thick individually, Thad’s manhoods were doubly threatening rigid and tight against each other. Words caught in my throat—for once—and Thad seemed to notice my fear.
He winced, worried that I might deny him. But he’d worked me up so far that I probably would have impaled myself on a one of the buoys dangling from the shack walls.
“I’ll take it slow,” he said and reached beneath a stack of jeans to produce a bottle of lube.
“Alright, but don’t even think of tackling both holes. I’m not one of the drunk bitches you bring back here to savage. I’m much more delicate and fucking dangerous so keep that in mind, fish.”
Thad pressed himself against me, whispering into my ear. “Now you’re just trying to turn me on.”
“Fuck if that’s not full mast, then you can find yourself another dead girl.”
“No no. It is. I promise. No bigger.”
He pressed it against me, slipping it between my lips before testing the waters, dipping one head in, then the other. He must’ve separated the two because as he pushed himself deep inside me I felt the rigid pleasure of the second dick sluicing between my lips. The thick cock head rubbing over my already tortured clit.