Snap!
I hold her as her little body shudders in my arms. My cock's getting squeezed left and right and in and out and her pelvis crushes against mine. Her eyes roll back. Her lips part. Her legs spasm against me and she screams. "Oh, God. Oh, yes. Oh! Yes! Argh. Oh, Axle."
I can't hold it anymore. She's clenching and contracting too hard, too fast. Aw, hell. Urgh! "Damn! Urrrrrgh!"
I hold her head to me and our ears touch as we both ride the thing together. She finishes before me and holds me while the pleasure's still coursing through me. I snap twice more inside her—just the last bits of juice.
I kiss her sweaty neck, her drenched hair.
She says nothing, just runs her fingers through my own sodden hair.
There's silence between us.
It feels like love. This is what love feels like, isn't it? This closeness, this feeling that you would do everything for the woman you're holding in your arms, that you'd kill for her.
That you'd die for her.
Only, I wouldn't die for her. Because I know what dying would do to her.
But I'd kill. I'd maim. I'd hunt.
I'd do everything for her. To keep her out of harm.
Our bodies are soaked. I lick her salty chest. I look at her face and she has that dazed smile that people get when there's no one else, nothing else. Perfection.
I might as well be looking in the mirror. Because I feel that way about her, too.
I want to tell her I love her, but it's too soon. It's not that I think I'll scare her. I won't. Gen and I tell each other things.
It's that...I'll scare myself.
I'm not ready for love.
CHAPTER 40
-1-
A.
Dec. 6, 2013 — Friday, Late at night
We're at Irish Greenbacks celebrating Gen's success. It's also the first time she and I are coming out officially in public "as an item."
Her words.
I meet her friend, Brooke, and she's way overdressed for a night of excessive merrymaking. But, hey, that's how it goes with the arty types. Personally, I'm glad Gen took the whole grunge look for tonight. Grunge with style.
That Karolin babe and the Thomas dude must've had a fall-out because neither talks to the other. We order up a few pints of Guinness and get the ball rolling. About my fourth Guinness down, Thomas snuggles up to me a little too closely and asks, "Axle, you are good with the women, no?"
I almost spit my drink out. "Wh—excuse me?"
"Women. You understand them, no?"
"No."
"I have a question."
I let him ask it. The dude has got these puppy eyes and he continues to look up at that Karolin babe. Maybe it's because of Gen's photos but I think she's actually quite attractive. I was never into bigger girls, but I look at her now with a different eye.
Gen did a good job.
She finds beauty in everything, I realize. Maybe that's why she ended up with such a deadbeat—she was probably the only person in the whole fricking world that found, under the cesspool which was his soul, an actual ounce of something beautiful in him.
Or a quarter-ounce.
"So, my question," says Mr. Puppy Eyes.
"Oh, right, shoot."
"That means 'go ahead.' I understand."
He's confusing the shit out of me. Must be the booze. Either on his part, or mine.
"If a girl tell you she not looking for relationship night after you have sex, then, technically, you are not in relationship with her, right?"
Oh, no... I get where this is going.
I put my arm around the poor sod. "Thomas..." I bring him firmly closer, almost in a headlock. He gulps. "Are you telling me that you slept with a woman, and then the woman told you she wasn't interested in a relationship, and then you fucked someone else?"
"How you know I fuck—?"
"Did you?"
He gulps, nods forcefully.
"And..." I look at Karolin. She keeps eyeing this freaking dude with the same sad puppy eyes he had for her. "...Would that girl, perhaps, be that young lady over there with the black hair and the larger-than-average cup size?"
Nods forcefully.
"Did you fuck her?"
"Make love."
"OK, whatever, have sex. Did you have sex with her?"
Forceful nod.
"And then...?"
"Then she say to me next morning she no look for relationship. I ask why. She tell me she afraid of getting hurt—"
"OH NO!" I put my hand to my head. "Son, you have so much to learn! Do you see that she is a little bigger than what they are promoting in the fashion magazines?"
"Yes, she is beautiful."
Man, this boy is so in love. "Fine, yes, she is beautiful. But do you think maybe she was teased as a kid about her weight?"
"Maybe."
"Do you think she maybe didn't get the guy she wanted because he went for some heroin addict instead because that's what his friends told him to do?"
"Is possible."
I wait for the penny to drop. It doesn't. I continue. "So, do you think maybe she's been hurt a few times in her life?"
"Is possible."
"Thomas, work with me, bro. When she told you she wasn't looking for a relationship, did she do it like this?" I mimic someone feeling the waters with a statement. Thomas gets so excited he almost starts clapping and jumping up and down in his seat.
I tighten my lips and shake my head disappointedly at the young man. "You really have no clue about woman, do you?"
"Or men. Both. But I do know that I think about that Rubenesque beauty every minute of every day and my heart hurt like it is stuck in that machine that squeeze things."
"A vise."
"Yes, I need advice."
"No, that thing, it's called a vise."
"Yes, advice is what I need now."
"Never mind."
"I don't even enjoy sex anymore. With men or women!"
"You really are a romantic aren't you?"
He says nothing because he's too busy ogling his so-called Rubens portrait there.
"Thomas, young man, in short, you screwed up. The way to tell you are certainly and definitely not in a relationship with a girl is if she slaps you and says, 'I never wanna see you again. Ever!' Then, after six months, if you still haven't seen her. Then you know it's over."
I know it isn't like that, but I'm trying to sow a seed here between him and this girl specifically. Because I can tell that Gen likes them both, and if this dude screws this up, there's gonna be hell to pay on my part. Because, by some weird and twisting turn of fate, I'm somehow playing matchmaker here.
"Six month?"
"Monthsssss. Plural. Monthssss."
"Six month?"
Let's hope he's not this bad when I get him to grovel and apologize to her. "At least."
He stares at me. Amazed. Then he smiles. "You joke—"
"No!" I squeeze his shoulder and see him grimace. "I don't 'joke.'"
"OK. Six monthsss."
OK, not a hopeless case. "So, you know what to do?"
"No."
I shake my head and have a large sip of beer. "You need to go and explain to her that you misunderstood. You need to beg her on your knees. Outside in the cold. Maybe even naked. You need to tell her you have some disease that stops you from keeping your pecker in your pants and so you ended up banging a girl—or a dude, whatever—the day you thought you weren't in a relationship with her."
"Pecker?"
"Your dick!"
"Americans. Hmpf."
"Are you listening to me?"
"I am: Begging. Knees. Pecker. Naked. Understand."
"I don't know, maybe she'll wanna whip you or have you kiss her toes or— I don't know. You might have lost her forever, dude."
He bows his head in despair. Man, he really screwed this up. And if I was in the babe's shoes and this dude started coming to me, I wouldn't care how many pretty-boy eyelashes he made at me or how
many abs he had, I wouldn't take him back.
I get up and go to Gen. I explain the situation. She's amazed. She's shocked. It dawns on her that the guy is simply too stupid to actually know he was cheating on Karolin and that, technically, he was just going on about his daily business because he thought she didn't like him.
I ask Gen to explain the situation to her because Loverboy there probably won't do such a good job at it and needs some help.
She does.
I go back to Loverboy. He's got his forehead on the table. I slap him on the back of the head. Just hard enough so it hurts.
"Loverboy, go talk to her."
He gets up.
I snatch his wrist and sit him back down. An idea just came to me.
I do that "Is it a hug? Is it a headlock? Is it a death grip?" hold again and bring him toward me. I tighten up around his neck so it's pretty uncomfortable for him and so he gets the point.
"It's Thomas, right?"
He can't answer verbally because it looks like he's passing out. He nods instead.
"That pecker of yours. You know the one?"
Nods.
"If I hear that it is ever again the reason for any heartbreak caused to that lady over there, I am going to personally cut it off. Understand?"
He's passing out so I loosen up.
"Understand?" I repeat.
He nods forcefully.
"I want to make sure you understand." I squeeze his neck again. "Not only the pecker. Anything. If I hear of that girl shedding a single tear because of you..." I make the snip-snip scissors motion by his penis.
I don't even have to ask if he understands this time. He starts nodding away like mad. "Understand. Understand!"
I let him go. Then I make like Robert DeNiro in Meet the Fockers and pretend like nothing ever happened. I slap him on the back. "Go and get 'em, tiger?"
"Tiger?"
"Just go already!"
-2-
While we party it up, Alicia's bruised and swollen eye keeps slamming itself into my thoughts. It makes me wanna bury someone's head inside the nearest wall.
But I can't do it.
Not anymore. Gen is my priority.
I watch her drinking her Guinness with her friends. Her friends. She made them fast. She's got that kind of personality. She smiles and taps her beer to Brooke's. When Thomas arrives back inside after no doubt groveling on his knees—I sincerely hope—with his arm around Karolin's neck and both of them smiling, Gen gives them a high five and they all hug and order another round.
I'll be watching him...
Gen's paying, she said. But I go to Frankie and tell him to run it all on my card.
I'm the man in this relationship, and I'm sure as hell gonna act like one.
I haven't been a real man in five years. Zoey would be ashamed of me.
More importantly, Gen would be ashamed of me. Because Zoey is no longer my life.
Gen is.
I admit this to myself finally.
And I'm not scared about it now. Not at all.
-3-
Back home, we make love, drunk. So drunk that we can barely stand and she's laughing as I enter her. I'm also laughing. Somewhere in between that she has an orgasm. She thinks.
It's a little easier to tell for a man.
Even though she's done, I'm still not because the booze has numbed me up too much.
"You can do it, baby," she says, cracking up and spreading her legs while I'm inside her like that's gonna help me in some way.
"I can do it if you stop laughing."
She laughs some more.
I also do.
I move in closer and we continue to piss ourselves but I'm slowly rocking into her and her laughter then settles into the sounds of gentle moans while she caresses my hair. Slow and easy. And then, I empty myself.
"I love you," I say.
"I love you, too." Pause. "Hey, wait, that's not the booze talking, is it?"
"It's not. You?"
"Not at all."
CHAPTER 41
-1-
A.
Dec. 9, 2013 — Monday, around noon
As gallant as I'd like to be about not getting a bullet in the head by playing Rambo at the Red Light, roofing work grinds to a halt in the winter and my wallet starts seeming a little too big for the money it's holding. As in, zero Euros.
I go past the district to scope out the scene like I promised Alicia. I also start working on a plan in my head as to how to keep the girls safe without having to endanger my own life as well.
Gen and I spent the weekend together and fucked like rabbits, and then fucked some more.
I'd really like to keep that going.
I could spend every minute of every hour in the sack with her. And it ain't a sexual need. It's something else.
But it's also sexual.
Very sexual.
I've never been more aroused by a woman than I am with her. No one comes close to her in that way.
No contest.
She mentioned to me wanting to get rid of the scar by her eye I and I asked her not to because that's how I met her. And that's how I fell in love with her. And I love her as she is. She said she'll think about it.
It's her choice at the end of the day.
I see Alicia standing by the Mickey D's. Her face has healed up. She doesn't look too impressed to see me.
"How you keepin'?" I ask.
She punches me on the arm. "You know I can't stay mad at you, hon."
"That's not the point. Mad or not, you're in trouble."
"Goes with the job, babe."
"Not in this country. You girls can do something about it. Go to the cops. You have rights—"
"Damn, that woman snipped your balls off."
"No, that woman gave me a reason to hold on a little longer to my balls!"
She laughs. "We miss you, Ax. You made us feel...like we weren't nothin', y'know? You're the only one who treats the security gig like it's more than just a fucking job. You actually care about these chicks."
"I ain't no saint, Alicia. I also do it for the money."
"Yeah, but you actually do something, that's the difference."
"But I can't do it alone."
"My point exactly."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You are a slow motherfucker, aren't you? Then don't do it alone. Hire some people. Start a business! Get some muscle up in here."
"A business."
"Yes!"
"Protecting hookers."
"Damn straight, baby. We'd protect you!"
"You started looking for other jobs?"
"Damn it, Ax, don't come to me with that shit again. This is me and this is gonna be me. Once you're in, you don't get out."
"You could."
"Hell, talking to you is like talking to a broken record. And what about the other girls?"
"They also have a choice, Alicia."
"Sometimes it's the only choice they have. You know my story, Ax. You know I would have chosen different if I could..."
I do know her story. Sexually abusive father. No one believed her. Ran away up here. Tried to find work and no one hired. Eventually, four days without an ounce of food except what she rummaged from trash cans, she had too much pride in herself to give in to a life of being nothing but a bum.
It must be a tough decision for a woman. One I will never understand. So I don't pretend to.
"I'll consider the business."
"That's better than nothing."
"Now who's this new dude at Kama?"
"He takes a higher room-cut than any of the others. He even wants some of the money we take from clients. Then he tells them all we'll do anything in the hour they've got us for. Anything! Whips, butt-fuck. You know I'm a straight-shooter. I'm not that desperate—yet. Some motherfucker wanted to slam one in my ass and I told him to shove it up his own ass and then he punched me.
"You better believe I took a whip off the wall and fucking slapped his dick
with it. He won't be fucking nobody's ass for a long time. Or a pussy."
"So what do you need me for?"
"I lost three days of business with that blue eye! I got the bottom of the barrel buyers for that. You know, those sick fucks who 'like it rough.' Somehow my blue eye gave them a hard-on. But most men that come here want a 'dream girl' or some bullshit. Pretty Woman or some crap. Hell, if the mofos over here looked anything like Richard Gere they wouldn't need to pay for a damn fuck. Hell, if they looked like Richard Gere, I'd do 'em for free! Goddamnit. Fucking men."
"OK, let me go poke my nose in there."
When I walk away, Alicia slaps me on the ass. I give her the evil eye and she says, "Sorry, worth a shot."
I go into Kama Inside Me and there's a Turkish dude behind the counter looking like he's from the seventies with his cream suit and red tie and wearing Ray Bans too dark even if it were the middle of summer.
I can see that he knows who I am but he says nothing about it.
"You the new guy?" I ask.
He nods and puts down the porno mag he's looking at.
"I hear you're taking a little extra on the side."
He swallows hard, then gets up the courage to stutter, "It's—it's—it's none of your business."
I shrug. "Maybe not. But I think it's time you stop doing it. And I think it's time you take security at this place a little more seriously. A person never knows who might come in here to cause trouble."
I think the dude goes pale. He swallows. Acts tough. "Give me your best shot."
I almost do. Almost. But I stop myself. Think of Gen, I say to myself.
I try a new tack.
I call the boss.
He tells me business is crashing and that I'm an asshole for ever leaving him.
I tell him I might consider working for him again but I have a problem with the guy managing things at Kama at the moment.
I peek a look at the new guy.
He starts waving his hands wildly at me.
"Boss, one second," I say.
"OK, I stop. I promise!" says Mr. Cream Suit.
Something tells me Cream Suit needs this gig more than I do. It's usually the case with foreigners. I know because I was like that once myself.
I tell the boss to hold for a second. "No cuts under the table," I tell Cream Suit.
Like You (Perfectly Flawed #1) Page 25
