“Justin, we’re adults. We have our own families now.”
“I know that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stick together. Hang out. Maybe we could…I don’t know…get a drink sometime?”
She gave him a thin, tired smile. “I’d like that,” she said. “Obviously not now, ‘cause I got a—”
“—urine sample. Right. Sure.”
Her smile broadened a bit, into something that reminded her that no matter how much shit she’d had to put up with, she was still the sister with whom he’d once made George’s Marvelous Medicine concoctions in the basement, the sister who had laughed until she literally puked that time Nana’s whole top denture had fallen out into the chocolate pudding.
“Mine’s a super glamorous life,” she said.
“You should see mine, sometimes.”
Cher shook her head. “I saw the photos. You looked very glamorous. Beautiful, actually.”
“Oh…um…thanks,” Justin said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think I’m gonna do it again, though. It’s not really me.”
“Well, whatever makes you happy,” she said. “Although I think you have better legs than me, so, you know…fuck you for that.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll see you, okay?” she said, and sounded like she meant it.
“Yeah. See you.”
Justin went back indoors, where it was chaos. Helena had obviously gone to change and shower, while Bunny was on hands and knees with a bottle of disinfectant, scrubbing the floor and bitching the air blue. “There’s piss and glitter everywhere. I feel like I’m living in an early Kesha song…” Ryan was trying to sweep, but somehow making more of a mess.
“Where’s Rose?” said Justin.
Bunny looked up. “Upstairs. Recharging. I don’t know why she can’t just do it in the morning when she’s supposed to.”
“She had a lot on her mind, I guess.”
“Didn’t we all?” said Bunny. “That is one high maintenance kid.”
Justin guessed Bunny hadn’t heard about the rest, which was fine. For now. He could only deal with so many hysterics in one day. He went up to the kitchen, made a cup of peppermint tea and took it in to Rose, who was hanging out in the armchair that would now forever be known as ‘the recharging chair.’
She had that wary look, the one that said she really didn’t want to have the conversation that was coming. Well, too bad. Sometimes you had to be the adult in the room.
“Are you okay?” said Justin, taking a seat on the end of the couch.
“I’m fine,” said Rose. “I took the antibiotics like they said. All of them. My throat’s much better.”
That wasn’t the right answer. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Rose sighed. “Because,” she said, and ran her fingers through her hair. “Look…I sucked a dick or five, okay? I don’t remember. It’s prison. You do what you have to do to get by, especially if you’re little.” She saw Justin’s expression shift and hurried to fill in the blanks. “I wasn’t raped, okay?”
“Jesus, Rose.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I’m not a victim. I’m not.”
“But why didn’t you talk to me? I thought we were friends?”
“We are, but…” Rose sighed again.
“But what?”
Rose paused to sip her tea. The steam rose and misted her cheeks, tangled in the ends of her lashes. “Do you remember,” she said. “When I was talking about that crib? The one my abuela had from Spain?”
“Yeah.”
She sniffed. “Well, I only talked about the good parts. You know what happened to it?”
Justin shook his head.
“My stepdad’s dog ate the baby Jesus. One day we were setting it up and the dog came in, sniffed at it and the next thing baby Jesus was gone. One gulp. Didn’t even have to chew. And this wasn’t the kind of dog where you could grab it and look in its mouth if it had eaten something it shouldn’t, if you know what I mean. My stepdad was one of those dog owners who give pitbulls a bad rep.” She took another sip of tea. “My abuela went fucking nuts. This was back before Mom went to prison, when she used to clap back. She told him to follow that dog around with a baggie and get her baby Jesus back. He was like ‘no, I’m not poking around in dogshit on account of your cheapass crib’, and I guess during the course of the conversation she let slip how much it was really worth. He went digging after that, I guess. Or sold it without. I don’t know how much he got for it without the baby Jesus, but it was enough to keep in heroin until New Year’s.”
Her big, toffee colored eyes were wet.
“Rose…”
She blinked away the tears. “That’s my life, Justin. All my stories have some horrible side to them. Even the one about my abuela teaching me to sew, because you know how that ended. She kept right on sewing until she couldn’t feel her feet, and then her foot went all black and she died. And left me all alone.”
He drew closer, but she waved him away. “No, don’t hug me, because I’ll cry and it doesn’t do any good. I’m tired of being sad. I’m tired of tears. I’m tired of horrible stories, and prison…well, that just made more of them, and I don’t want to tell them. I want to leave those stories behind bars, where they belong. I don’t want to talk about giving head in the showers or stuffing heroin up my ass. I’m out of there. I want to talk about Elvis and aliens and Disney movies and narwhals and the other dumb shit I talk about with you. I’m sick to fucking death of talking about sad, fucked up things. My whole life has been full of them and I hate it. I want to make stories about things that are clean and bright and shiny, with no horrible punch lines.”
Rose wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. Justin thought of that first night, when she’d come into his room and asked if she could sleep with him. And he’d lain there for a long time, listening to her breathing slow and her snores deepen, unsettled on some bone deep level about what had happened to this kid. Something so bad she couldn’t stand to sleep alone in the dark.
“If you ever need to…” he said. It was pathetic, under the circumstances, but it was the best he could do.
“Yeah, I know.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“I know,” said Rose, and managed a brave little smile. “Thank you, but I’m okay. God knows I’m gonna wind up having some intense conversation with Helena about what happened in prison. I can feel that one in the air.”
“In the water,” said Justin, and Rose giggled.
“You should have seen Bunny’s face,” he said. “There were piss jokes being set up left, right and center, and she couldn’t say a fucking thing. I thought she was gonna explode.”
“Oh my God, that bomb!”
“I know, right? Talk about overkill.”
“Don’t you think that Hu was one of those kids who was, like, super quiet but really into explosions?”
“Totally. Teenage pyromaniac. Always building rockets and shit. Is he still walking around with his finger in his ear?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” Rose wiped her eyes again. “We shouldn’t laugh. He might be legitimately fucked up.”
“No, don’t say that. Oh God, why am I still laughing?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t stop. I’ve never laughed so much in my life as I did these last few weeks. I don’t ever want to stop.”
“We have fun, right?” said Justin.
“So much fun. And I already have happy stories to tell. Like the time you ate your tits.”
“And those potatoes Helena dug out of the fridge—”
“—I know! Not even the same shape, let alone the same size…oh my God, I laughed…”
*
It was New Year’s Eve, and Bunny was wearing the French maid’s outfit. A little black dress with a short skirt that puffed out over a meringue-like froth of petticoats. Legs up to the goddamn ceiling. The ankle was taking one for the team in four-inch pin stilettos. Every now
and again Bunny would bend over and there would be a flash of thigh above the top of long, black stockings, secured with a lacy black garter belt. Ryan couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She came sashaying up to the bar, a tray of empties held high. “Guess what I’m not wearing?” she whispered in Justin’s ear as she passed. Justin turned on his heel and followed. The bar was busy, but he had no choice. It was like she’d tied an invisible string to his dick. He had to peek.
Bunny was briskly loading the dishwasher. Justin pounced and stuck a hand under her frills, where usually there would be a complicated bandage of duct tape and lingerie. But tonight there was just skin, and Bunny had such a pretty ass. Not big, but so silky and dimpled that you’d never imagine she was packing ten inches in the front.
Justin moaned and pulled her in by the hips. Too many damn petticoats. “Show me your dick,” he said.
“Uh uh,” said Bunny, closing the dishwasher and wriggling away. “Ten minutes.” She pointed to the clock, where it read ten minutes to midnight.
“Please. I just wanna see it.”
“Ten minutes,” said Bunny, relishing the tease. She licked the edge of his earlobe. “Ten more minutes and you can fucking eat it. Now go collect the rest of the empties.”
Justin gave a low whine of despair and adjusted his jeans. But Bunny was already gone, out the door and lost in drinks orders.
Helena, voluptuous in a gold and silver sheath that was pure Miss Monroe, was obviously still fretting over the stage effects.
“Will you stop freaking out about the catches?” Hu was saying. “We’ve done enough dry runs. They’ll work.”
“I know. I can’t help it. I keep thinking back to my cousin’s wedding. The balloons were supposed to fall during their first dance, but the net got caught on something and it ended with them hopping up and down to Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong, trying to bat the balloons down from the ceiling.”
Justin snagged a bunch more glasses and went on his way. Rose was by the dance floor. She wore the red dress she’d made for him, having taken up the hem a few inches, and the rich color brought out the golden tints in her skin. Helena had curled her hair for her, and the loose waves brushed her shoulders. On the inside of one arm was a curly script tattoo – a joke – para siempre. Don’t get a tattoo, Abuela Rosa had said. It lasts forever. So of course Rose had gone out and got ‘forever’ tattooed on her arm.
“Hey, what time do you get off?” she said.
“January.”
Rose laughed and drew closer. “Dance with me.”
“It’s New Year’s Eve. I’m a bartender. Kinda busy.”
“Okay, then kiss me,” she said. “Kissing the bartender seems like a New Year’s Eve kind of thing to do, don’t you think?”
“What about your lips?”
Rose pouted. “They’re matte. They’re going nowhere. It’s okay. You don’t have to do tongue, and even if you did, I’m disease free.”
Justin quickly dumped the tray on the end of the bar and turned back to Rose. God, she was pretty. Too pretty. Perhaps it was because he knew the others so well that he could see the boy in them, even in full drag, but with Rose the illusion was so perfect that he couldn’t see her as anything other than a girl. And that meant tongue was definitely off the menu, because it was like kissing a little sister. He cupped her chin and planted a polite, Disney prince kiss on her velvet red lips.
“You look beautiful,” he said, gazing down into her big, golden-brown eyes. “Don’t get drunk, okay? And don’t do anything stupid.”
“Bleh,” said Rose, sticking out her tongue. “Sobriety fucking sucks.”
Justin’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Bunny.
should auld acquaintance go unfucked and left without a grind? not in my bar, baby. back room. xxx
“Gotta go,” he said. The phone buzzed again on his way across the room. A picture this time. Bunny’s ass with a dick in it. Ryan’s dick. Justin would know those dark gold pubes anywhere, and the frilly underskirts and black garter belt said that was Bunny’s ass. It was five minutes to midnight.
Justin opened the door.
Ryan was already banging Bunny on the sofa. She was on her hands and knees, skirt up, ass bared, big dick still frustratingly lost in that mass of white frills. Justin, his pulse beating in his pants, locked the door. “Five minutes,” he said. “You couldn’t wait five minutes?”
“She was running around out there with no panties,” said Ryan. “So…no.”
Bunny moaned, the falling curls of her bouffant blonde wig swaying in time with Ryan’s steady thrusts. “They don’t call them ‘fuck me’ shoes for nothing,” she said, and arched her ass. “God…there…oh God.”
Justin looked at his phone. “Shit. Four minutes.”
“Are you serious?” said Ryan. “You’re really going to be that…” He realized what he was about to say and trailed off.
“Anal?” said Bunny. “Why not? He waits four minutes and he wins five hundred bucks. And he gets anal.” She glanced over her shoulder, impatient. “There’s no reason you should stop. Come on. Talk and fuck. You never had any problem with multitasking before.”
“Yes, dear,” said Ryan, and beckoned Justin over. “You can watch, right?”
“Damn right.” Justin moved behind Ryan, eager to see the live version of the dirty picture on his phone. Ryan’s shirt was in the way and Justin lifted it. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to touch, but it was under four minutes now and Ryan’s body was smooth and hard and beautiful. He ran his hands over laboring hips, and pushed, shoving Ryan deeper into Bunny’s body and drawing moans from them both. Ryan pulled almost all the way out, so that Justin could have the thrill of watching him slide back in. It was hot enough to set his brain on fire, but still not what he wanted, because ever since Bunny had brushed up against him and said she wasn’t wearing panties, Justin had been obsessed with the idea of that big, boy dick swinging under those frilly, girly skirts.
“Come over here,” Bunny said, in a fucked, filthy voice. “I wanna suck you the moment the clock strikes midnight.”
Justin moved. His cock felt like it was about to explode out of his fly. Bunny looked up, smudged, panting lips almost at dick height, false lashes trembling in time with the strokes of Ryan’s hips.
“Show me your cock,” Justin begged, once more. “Please. I wanna see it.”
Bunny tried to get up on her knees, but almost slid off balance. There were too many petticoats in the way. She reached beneath them and touched herself, then offered her fingers to Justin to taste. Two minutes. He dropped to his knees and greedily sucked the flavor of pre-come from Bunny’s fingertips.
“You wanna touch yourself so bad, don’t you?” she said, breath hitching as Ryan fucked harder. “I’m right where you want to be, aren’t I? On your hands and knees with a big dick in your ass.” Ryan moaned and Bunny shuddered, teeth sinking into a painted lip. “Are you jealous?”
“As hell,” said Justin.
Bunny reached down again and gave him her fingers. “Taste. Suck. Not long now. You can have all this and more. You can see it. You can suck it. You can get down on your knees and…oh God…drink…my…come.”
Ryan cried out. He looked like he was hanging on by his fingernails in there. There was a sudden hush outside, and then people started chanting.
“Ten…nine…eight…”
Bunny moaned, long skinny thighs shaking as Ryan pulled her back onto his prick. His fingers left white marks in her hips. Justin reached for his fly buttons.
“…seven…six…five…four…”
Oh God. The touch of his own hand was like heaven. Bunny wet her lips and reached out.
“…three…two…”
“…YES!” Justin threw back his head and howled with pleasure. He heard glitter bombs exploding in the bar, people cheering, but it was nothing compared to the party going on downstairs. Holy shit, three weeks was a long time to go without a mouth on your dick, and especi
ally one as dirty and talented as Bunny’s. He caught Ryan’s eyes, and the look of pure bliss and relief on his face must have been the last straw for Ryan, because he pressed his lips tight together, pushed deep and came, the sharp judders of his hips making Bunny gasp around Justin’s dick.
“Shit,” he said, drooping behind Bunny. “Oh shit. Too fast.”
Bunny released Justin and looked up. Half of her lipstick was all over her face and the other half was all over Justin’s dick. She fished between the couch cushions and produced a condom. Trust her to stage manage this shit. “You gonna finish me off?” she said.
Justin nodded frantically. “Turn over. On your back.”
The knees of Bunny’s stockings were ruined. She hitched up her high heels and gave Justin a look at what he’d been craving for so long. Pink and thick and huge. He shoved his jeans down to his ankles and leaned down to lick as he rolled down the condom. Bunny arched and cried out, and Justin felt Ryan’s hands on his back and hips, and realized Ryan was about to push him into Bunny the way he’d done to Ryan. He scrambled up, and barely had to push: Bunny was slick and soft and freshly fucked.
“Hard,” Bunny said. “Fuck me hard, baby. Make me come. I need to…oh God…”
Justin couldn’t have slowed down if he wanted to. His ass seemed to have developed a mind of its own. He felt Ryan’s kiss on the back of his shoulder, and then a finger tracing the crack of his butt. Down…oh God…Ryan’s finger was on his asshole, and Bunny was nearly there, greedy for the pounding Justin had been dying to give her for the past three weeks. “Oh yeah…don’t stop, don’t stop…I’m…”
Justin felt it inside. He pushed deeper, and so did Ryan, and then Ryan’s finger was all the way up his ass, rummaging around for his prostate, and Bunny was coming like crazy, squeezing and bucking. Justin moaned, and then Ryan’s finger found its target and he went off like a rocket, crying out and shaking hard enough to make the old couch rock on its feet.
Ryan laughed and licked the edge of Justin’s earlobe. “Happy New Year, Hot Stuff.”
Justin caught his breath. A lovely peace was already settling in his veins. “Fuckin’ understatement,” he said, and bent down to kiss Bunny.
Seven Deadly Queens (The FuBar Book 3) Page 24