Burn

by Dawn Steele

  Abby is early for her first day at work. Richard Krieg is nowhere to be seen, but Rachel arrives ten minutes later. She is even taller than Abby remembered and so blonde that the sun casts horizontal bars of light on her hair. She is very sharply dressed in a woolen lilac jacket, matched with a pair of well-cut black trousers.

  Abby feels terribly shabby compared to her. The image of Devon’s naked body pressed against Rachel’s flawless white one fleets through her envious mind, but she quickly pushes it away.

  “Good morning,” Abby greets her.

  “Good morning.” Rachel flashes her a genuine smile as she bends down to unlock the shutters. “I suppose that no good brother of mine hasn’t turned up yet.”

  Abby doesn’t say anything. She isn’t sure of the relationship between Rachel and her brother. For all she knows, Rachel may be trying to bait her, and she isn’t about to fall into that trap.

  Richard shows up at about eleven thirty, and the first thing he does is to leer at Abby.

  “You look different today.” He sniffs the air about her.

  Abby cringes inwardly, but she doesn’t let it show.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Krieg,” she says coolly, “can I help you?”

  He doesn’t stop sniffing the air, like a dog. “You smell different.” A slow, sly smile spreads across his face. “You got laid last night.”

  Abby’s skin crawls. “What’s it to you if I did?”

  She moves away. He may be her junior boss, but there is only so much she can take.

  “Richard, may I have a word with you?” Rachel stands at the small corridor that leads to her office. Her expression is unreadable.

  Richard grimaces and gives Abby a final stare before shuffling into the office with his sister. The door closes purposefully behind them. Abby supposes Rachel will berate her brother for flirting with the staff, if you can call what Richard did ‘flirting’.

  At the end of the day, she made four sales, including a five thousand dollar urn from Egypt, modern day, not pharaohnic. She is extremely proud of herself.

  Rachel beams at her. “That was quite an accomplished first day.”

  “I know. It’s unreal!”

  Abby never thought her interview sales repartee would actually translate into real life, and into real sales. But it was so easy once she got started. Everything flowed naturally. She finds that she actually likes talking to the customers as well and taking a genuine interest in them. And they seem to sense it.

  In another part of the store, Richard scowls darkly.

  Abby pays him no heed. She can’t wait to get back home. It’s funny how she thinks of Devon’s apartment as home now in such a short period of time.

  Devon is waiting for her when she gets home. He has ordered Chinese takeout. But food isn’t on his mind as she enters. Instead, he has set up the easel and canvas.

  “I’m on a high today,” he explains. “I have to paint you while the inspiration strikes.”

  “Do I pose nude?” she asks coyly.

  He laughs. “Only if you must. I’m going to paint a dress over you anyway.”

  She opts for nude. She splays herself on the couch in a wanton gesture. He tries very hard to keep his face straight as he paints.

  “How was your first day at work?”

  “Great. I sold four vases.”

  He whistles. “And those are worth ten thousand dollars each?”

  “Not quite, but the sum of them is around there.”

  “You’re a natural,” he says proudly.

  “I know.”

  “And modest too.”

  For answer, she lifts her small breasts to his gaze.

  “Shit,” he says hoarsely, his face flushed, “you’re gonna get me hard again.”

  Just as she orchestrated, he puts down his paintbrush and starts to strip, his eyes burning into hers. When he comes to her, his cock is willing and ready.

  “Let’s go to bed,” he rasps.

  “Make me.”

  He scoops her up in his strong arms, and she gives a shriek. He laughs and carries her into the bedroom, where he throws her onto the bed and jumps in beside her. After much kissing and nuzzling, he rolls over to put on a condom, but she says, “Wait.”

  She makes him lie back as she strokes his hard member until it becomes even harder, if possible. Then she bends her head to take him into her mouth. He groans softly as she sucks his head and rod, sliding his warm flesh in and out of her mouth as if it’s a popsicle. She enjoys the texture of his cock – the ridge of flesh that separates his crown from his shaft. Loves the way it fills her mouth like it is meant to be there. Loves the way it tastes – so sweet and salty and silky.

  “I swear I’m going to come in your mouth if you go on doing that,” he warns.

  She doesn’t reply for obvious reasons.

  He arches his back and cries out as he spurts out his semen in two geysers. She captures his hot seed and lets it roll over her tongue, tasting its acridness – like bitter almonds. He allows himself to rest for a moment, and then he starts to stroke himself again into hardness. She watches him, soaking in his beauty. She is amazed at his ability to get hard so many times in a day. Maybe it’s youthful hormones, but it sure comes in handy in his profession.

  He finally straps on the condom and rolls her onto her belly.

  Lifting her waist so that she is perched on her knees, he enters her from behind. She is so wet for him that there is a squish, a soft sliding of flesh into flesh.

  He pounds into her until she comes, screaming his name. And then he climaxes for the second time and rolls off her body, breathing heavily.

  “You will be the death of me,” he mutters. “I won’t be able to get any painting done at this rate.”

  “So I won’t pose for you naked anymore.”

  “Is that a threat?” He grins, taking her chin in his hand and twisting her face gently towards his. He kisses her wetly and lovingly.

  She throws her arm around his waist and holds him close to her. She can feel his slowing heartbeat against her flesh. She wishes they can stay like this forever, skin to skin, beating heart to beating heart, imbibing the scent of their sweat and flesh and lovemaking. She doesn’t want to let him go. Ever.

  After a while, he says, “I have to go.”

  She feels a prickle of dismay.

  “Do you really have to?”

  “Yes.”

  She sits up, refusing to look at him. She trembles slightly. “I thought you were past that.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a long time.

  Then: “I never said I was past that. We still have to eat. We both do.”

  She turns abruptly from him. Her pulse thrums like butterfly wings against her neck, and there’s an ache in her stomach that has nothing to do with the fact that neither of them had dinner.

  “Abby,” he pleads, stroking her back. “It’s just a job. I need to pay the rent. I won’t get paid for the mural until I finish. Billy is on to me now. And you won’t get paid until a month in.”

  “It’s not just a job.” She shudders.

  His touch is calming, relaxing.

  “It is just a job,” he insists. “I don’t feel anything for those women. Not in the way I feel for you.”

  “What do you feel for me?”

  She can’t stand the thought of him being intimate with other women the way he has been with her. The thought of him doing to them what he did to her with his mouth and hands and cock is so excruciating all of a sudden that the images hit her like a visceral wave.

  She lets him stroke her back, the way one would placate a child. Then he sighs and gets up.

  “I have to go or I’ll be late.”

  She wonders if he is meeting Rachel. And God help her, but she likes Rachel despite everything.

  “Do I wait up?” she says sullenly.

  “No.”

  He puts on a sleeveless back tee and blue jeans. With his dark hair and golden skin, he is sex on a stick.

/>   “It’s just sex for money, Abby,” he says softly.

  She doesn’t reply as he walks out of the bedroom, looking like a young god, and closes the front door gently on her.

  JOY

  The next few weeks are filled with bliss for Abby. The passion between her and Devon burns hot and furious. He would jump her as soon as one of them comes back from work, and they would make love on whatever surface presents itself at the opportune moment – couch, floor, wall, bed, bathtub.

  If anything, the copious amount of sex she has been getting – sometimes three or four times a day – makes her hungry for even more. He can’t seem to get enough of her body, and she him. They explore each other intimately, never seeming to tire of each other. Her murky past blurs almost into cessation and she can wholly devote herself into the present. A present filled with Devon and his warm, deep eyes, which simmer with emotions he can never seem to utter to her.

  The ‘love’ word does not crop up between them, but yet it is there – the unspoken fiber that connects them. She loves him, that’s for sure, but she doesn’t want to say it to him just in case it jinxes them. And she is sure that he loves her too. He only says it in a moment of sheer orgasm –

  “I love you!”

  like an explosive utterance, but she knows better than to take it as the gospel truth.

  But he is nothing short of the perfect boyfriend. Completely and breathtakingly gorgeous, completely devoted to her pleasure and needs save but one, completely attentive and completely wonderful. Abby never knew she could be so lucky to find someone like this.

  But of course, in light of everything that has happened to her, she is wary of too much happiness, like a deluge of rain before a devastating, soul-killing drought. She still has not told Devon about her recent past that has caused her to flee to New York. Perhaps she never will. Why tear everything down when it has been going so well?

  Devon’s night job still hangs between them like the three ton elephant in the room. She doesn’t talk to him about it again. It is pointless. But it still hurts when he gets up from their bed or from painting or whatever he is engaged in to go into the bedroom to change into what she calls his fuck clothes.

  “I have to go out,” he would announce, and she knows exactly what he means.

  His mural painting is going well, and he has started to take painting commissions again. Abby has been to Padraig sparingly to watch his progress, but she doesn’t dare stay too long. She avoids Billy Dee like the plague, afraid of recognition, afraid of the sudden “Hey, I know who you are!” that will be plucked out of the blue. Her hair is growing longer again, and she is careful to keep it tied up when she’s out with people other than Devon.

  They are perfectly happy otherwise. And they are a couple in all appearances. They are young and happy and delirious with the first flush of love between them, even if it is unspoken, and nothing could be better in their worlds.

  Abby’s salesgirl job is going well too. Her natural salesmanship is a boon for the store, and business has never been better. Rachel is forever beaming when toting up the numbers. She isn’t there for large parts of the day, and so Abby has to contend with that creep, Richard, whom she refuses to let rile her.

  Richard tries to put the moves on her more than once. The very first time he did that, Abby firmly pushes his hands away and said, “If you touch me again, I’ll do worse than tell your sister. I’ll yell ‘rape’, and those cameras up there will back me up.”

  She pointed to the roving security cameras that Rachel had installed in all four corners of the store.

  Richard backed away quickly.

  *

  Payday is a great day for Abby. In her office, Rachel totes up her commissions on an Excel file and beams.

  “What an excellent first month.”

  She writes Abby a check and presents it to her with a flourish.

  Abby’s eyes widen when she sees the amount. This is something she has earned all on her own, and the fact thrills her like no other.

  Rachel laughs at her glee. “Wonderful feeling, isn’t it? I totally understand. I felt the same way when I earned my first real paycheck too. My family has money, and Richard and I never had to struggle or want for anything, but there’s nothing quite like doing it all on your own. That’s why I opened this business, among my other enterprises.” She waves her hand around. “I just didn’t want to take handouts from Daddy anymore.”

  Abby understands this more than Rachel thinks. She smiles at the older woman, thinking how much she likes her, despite the fact that she is one of Devon’s clients. One he doesn’t talk about at all, it seems. One that he is outwardly wary about. But still, people run deep – deeper than you can ever imagine.

  She should know.

  “Abby, I know you are having problems with Richard – ”

  “I’m not really. Nothing I can’t handle,” Abby says quickly, not wanting her boss to think that it may not be prudent to keep her around.

  “ – but don’t mind him, OK? He has always been a little weird. But he’s not dangerous, and you have to believe that.”

  Rachel looks so earnest that Abby doesn’t want to disillusion her over her brother. She has felt the meanness in Richard more than once, and she reckons Richard is more dangerous than his sister wants to believe. But still, there is nothing she can’t handle.

  At least, she keeps on telling herself that.

  “So what are you going to do with your first paycheck?” Rachel asks.

  She is a good boss, Abby decides. No, more than good. She is great boss. She’s caring, understanding, helpful and always informative about what she knows, and she is always keen to pass that information on.

  “I don’t know.” Abby laughs. “It’s rather overwhelming. Pay my part of the rent, I guess.”

  “Where do you live?”

  Abby tells her.

  “You have a boyfriend?” Rachel asks. They have never gone personal before because Rachel sensed that Abby doesn’t much want to talk about her past, especially if Richard was around.

  “Yes.”

  “You live with him? In his pad?”

  “Yes.”

  Rachel nods. “I’m mixed on the issue of boyfriends.”

  “Why?” Abby settles into the chair. This is her chance to find out why Rachel goes for male prostitutes once and for all. She can feel her pulse ticking mildly, as it always does when there are deceptive layers in the room.

  “I had a boyfriend once. We went out together for years. We were really serious, about to get married and all that. And then he started getting weird on me.”

  “Weird?”

  “He started getting all obsessive on me. He would call me every hour I was not with him, demanding to know what I was doing. When we were together, he wouldn’t let me out of his sight. He was sick in the head, but I didn’t realize it then.” Rachel shakes her head regretfully. “Still . . . it’s all water under the bridge now.”

  “What happened between you and him?”

  “He freaked out on me one day in one of his explosive episodes. He threatened to commit suicide if I didn’t yield to him. I had to get a restraining order. It was ugly. I broke it off with him, of course. He moved away to Washington State, and that was the last I ever saw of him. Still . . . ” she seems to shake herself. “Anyway, I’m wary of having a permanent boyfriend now. And at my age, it’s not as easy to attract men as it used to be.”

  She laughs.

  “Are you kidding? You are gorgeous.”

  “Maybe, but do you know how old I really am, Abby?” Rachel gives her a small, sad smile. She lifts a hand to her face. “This face you see . . . this veneer . . . is all cosmetic. I’m far older than I look.”

  “Hard to believe.” Abby is not just being polite either. She wishes she can look as good as Rachel in her old age, whatever age Rachel claims or is not claiming to be.

  “Well, you better get started on spending that money on your boyfriend now. Is he a looker?
”

  “Yes, extremely.” Abby flinches as she says this. “What will you be doing tonight?”

  Rachel’s eyes darken and her smile becomes wider.

  “Giving myself a little treat.”

  APARTMENT

  “I have to go out tonight,” Devon announces as he puts his fuck clothes on after they made love for the second time that evening.

  Abby lies back on her pillow. Her body is covered with sweat, and her loins have never felt so swollen and satiated. She pushes the tangled quilt off her body. After a marathon session like that, it is just too hot to have anything touch her skin.

  “Where are you going?”

  He gives her a cross-eyed look. “You know.”

  “Oh. OK.”

  She wonders when it’s going to end. Somewhere down the line, she thinks, Devon got too comfortable with the money. It won’t be easy to wean him off it. He does have a point about paying the rent, however. She had offered to pay her fair share of it with her first paycheck, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  “But I thought we agreed,” she began.

  “It isn’t fair on you,” he interrupted. “I use the lounge for my personal studio, and so I occupy a lot more space than you do. If you must, you can contribute a token two hundred dollars to the rent.”

  She knew that two hundred dollars wasn’t even a fraction of what he paid for the apartment.

  He waved her ‘buts’ away. “So spend it on our grocery money, I don’t care.”

  She bit back her retort.

  It is not just about him being generous and the fact they are lovers now. She thinks he has gotten used to being financially independent and that he likes providing for her, now that they are together. He is terribly alpha that way, though he would never realize or admit it.

  So now he is going out again to fuck some rich client.

  “What’s her name?” Abby asks. She thinks she knows, but she just wants to be sure.

  He favors her with a stare, and then decides her interest is warranted.