by Julia Kent
They both looked, well...
Constipated.
“Shit.”
Their eyes widened at the profanity.
“Sorry.”
Tight smiles greeted me.
“Would you be willing to wear a mask?”
“Yes,” Elder Jonney said slyly. “Can we talk with you a bit about the Bible?”
“Are there wolves and bears in the Bible?”
“Oh!” The elders looked at each other, as if it hadn’t occurred to them to take this line of missionarying, or whatever you called their thing. “Absolutely!”
“‘Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves,’ is from Matthew 7, uh...” muttered Elder Yanklos. Elder Jonney made a face indicating he couldn’t pinpoint the verse, either.
“Yes! I need you to be a ravenous wolf, Elder Yanklos!” I urged.
He bared his teeth, looking more like Garfield the Cat.
“Hang on!” The idea merged with my memory of a bunch of junk crammed in the back of my closet. I gestured to their glasses of water and ran into the bedroom, unstacking a few half-crushed boxes before finding what I wanted.
“I wish I had a wolf and a bear mask, but I don’t. This is all I got.”
I handed Elder Yanklos a brown horse mask, the big kind you see people wearing all the time. “This will have to do for the wolf costume.”
“And for the bear?” Elder Jonney asked.
“Pfft. Look at you. I can tell you’re a bear with one glance.”
“You can?” He seemed bewildered and proud.
“Your acting skills. It’s like you already infused yourself with the essence of a bear.” That, and the man could do with a little more deodorant, but I wasn’t gonna insult him. Not when he was helping me like this.
“Bears do appear in the Bible,” he said, pausing and making eye contact, slowing down to really catch my attention. A wave of guilt flowed over me. These were nice men. Really. And I was using them for their bodies under covert circumstances to write a scene involving imaginary shifter characters who pretty much violated every tenet of their religion.
I was definitely going to hell.
“Really?” I asked as he took the mask from Elder Yanklos, put it on and nodded, laughing. Visions of the band’s gig on the island of Eden a few years ago suddenly washed over me, making the room wobble a bit. Right after Trev, Joe, and I had gotten together, a mysterious series of invitations had come to us. We’d been paid an obscene amount of money to have the band perform at a private resort.
That turned out to be a kink island.
Men frolicked on the beaches wearing nothing but unicorn and horse masks, having squirt gun fights and fucking right there in public. It had been a free-for-all, and as Elder Jonney removed the mask and handed it back to his partner, I suddenly puckered up.
Not my lips.
My butthole.
“You ever get a full Brazilian?” I blurted out, remembering my time in the spa at Eden, and how, uh… thorough they were when they waxed me.
“What is a Brazilian?” The two looked puzzled. “You mean,” Elder Jonney asked, “when you go out for Brazilian food?”
“Uh, yeah. Exactly.”
“Miss Jennings,” Elder Yanklos said kindly. “You seem troubled.” His eyes darted to the front door. Trevor really was supposed to come home sometime fairly soon. I just didn’t know exactly when.
I nodded. “I am. I just… you mentioned bears in the Bible?” My brain was processing information on a time delay.
“Yes!” The elders perked up. “Samuel has a passage about bears rising up, and I can’t remember the other, but a ‘rushing bear’ is compared to a bad ruler.”
I blinked for a bit, absorbing that.
“See?” Elder Yanklos said with a blinding smile. “The Bible has advice for every part of daily life.”
Even writing shifter novels? I wanted to ask, but thankfully some part of me had the basic restraint not to.
“God’s word can make a difference in so many ways,” Elder Jonney chimed in.
I looked at both of them. Really looked at them.
What in the hell was I doing?
“I think you should go,” I said nicely, wanting to spare them any more time with me. All I was doing was taking two really earnest men and using them to block out a scene from a book they’d sooner set on fire than ever read.
“Have we, have we offended you?” Elder Yanklos looked close to tears.
“No! No, not at all. It’s just, I feel like I’m not worth wasting your precious time. You have other people to see.”
“We’re not going to leave, Darla,” Elder Jonney declared.
That sounded ominous.
“You don’t get to make yourself less important than everyone else.”
Huh?
“No, no, this isn’t about –”
“We know what this is about.” Elder Yanklos looked at me with pity eyes. “You don’t feel worthy. But you’re a child of God. You’re worthy.”
Visions of the local Baptist church van, coming around the trailer park to collect all the straggling children (like me) to take to church for cookies, grape Kool-Aid, and a heaping dose of Jesus flashed through my mind.
“What, exactly, do Mormons believe in, anyhow?” I murmured.
You would have thought I’d given them both blow jobs. Oh, how they grinned.
“I’m so glad you asked that.”
Aw, shit.
“But I can see what you’re doing,” Elder Jonney said. More pity eyes.
“What I’m doing?” Was I really going to need to explain what I was writing?
“You’re placing yourself last. And we’re not letting that happen. Darla, you matter, too.”
Oh my fucking God.
“Trevor?” I looked up, combing my eyes over the crown molding in the apartment. “TREVOR? Is this a prank? Am I being punk’d?” I screamed.
“Don’t worry about your brother,” Elder Jonney said. “And no, this isn’t a prank. See? Your self-esteem is so low, you can’t even believe that two missionaries would put your needs first. And it’s our job to serve.”
“TREVOR!”
Before I could take another breath, the elders surrounded me, leaving plenty of room for Jesus. They smelled like shaving cream and Old Spice, like mint and lemon, like sweat and a little body odor. If naiveté had a scent, this was it.
“Darla,” Elder Jonney said seriously, “let’s block out that scene.”
So we did. Don’t blame me. Who am I to stand in the way of the Lord’s work?
And that is how he found us.
Not he with a capital H. I meant Trevor.
About ten minutes later, Trevor opened the door to find Elder Yanklos wearing a horse mask, his body up against the wall, Elder Jones’s hands on his shoulders, kneeing him in the groin. Or at least pretending to. Meanwhile I watched, hands on my hips, instructing. “Act more rabid! Dig deep! You can find that animal inside you!”
I turned away from Elder Yanklos and gave Trevor a sweet smile. “Hi, Trevor.”
His eyes scanned the room, taking in Elder Jonney, who was smoothing his tie and wiping his large forehead with a crisply pressed handkerchief. Meanwhile, Elder Yanklos took off the horse mask and set it carefully on the table. He grabbed both of their Bibles and looked at the front door like he was in anaphylactic shock and it was an EpiPen.
Trev finally walked across the room and stood before me, his face a mix of emotions as he clearly tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Mr. Connor?” Elder Jonney asked, rattled but trying to look professional.
“Yes?”
“So good to meet you. We’ve been talking with your –”
Just then, Trevor scooped me into his arms, the weight of his inner elbows hugging my lower ribs like a blanket of love. His lips met mine in a sweet, then wet, then deeply hot kiss that had our tongues tangled like Christmas
tree lights put away by preschoolers then pulled out after years in a centrifuge.
His hands moved to my ass, pressing me into his erection, nice and snug.
“– sister,” Elder Jonney finished, though I barely heard him as Trevor kissed the dickens out of me, the two Mormons fleeing the apartment like the building was on fire.
Which it kinda was, if my current temperature was any indication.
Trevor broke the kiss. “What the hell was that about? Who were those guys?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s always a long story with you.”
“Yeah, but now? Now it’s a better story.”
JOE
If Darla is on her laptop, it’s for one of three reasons. Work, school, or to find some good threesome porn we can all watch together. As images flickered on her screen, I felt my pants getting tighter.
And then I got close enough to see the videos she watched.
“Why,” I asked, not even trying to hide my disappointment, “are you watching gambling videos?”
She slammed the top shut. “I’m not! I’m watching Vegas videos.”
“Same difference.”
“Nope. I am learning where the best buffets are.”
“Because you want us all to get food poisoning?”
“Because we do have a budget, and also because, Joe – they have sushi buffets! And Champagne buffets. Chocolate buffets where you can eat real gold on your piece of chocolate.”
“Yeah. Sure.” I flopped on the couch next to her, kneading my hand. We’d just spent six hours at the studio and my body hummed, strung like my bass. Calluses on your fingers only go so far. The music has to be drilled into you, and only time can make that happen. I felt it in my bones.
She wasn’t making eye contact. Something was up. I opened her laptop, the internet frozen for a few seconds as Darla looked at me, nervous.
“You are watching gambling videos,” I pointed out as the videos resumed. “Roulette.”
She shrugged, but in that shrug was an entire factory’s worth of lying going on, her brain turned into an assembly line of covering her ass and trying to throw me off the scent of what she was really doing.
“Why watch roulette? Games of skill like poker or blackjack I can understand, but roulette? It’s just a numbers game, and one that favors the house,” I pointed out.
Her lips were moving as she watched the video. Peering closely, I watched the wheel spin, the ball land on red, then looked at her mouth.
Oh, that mouth. I wanted that mouth on my rising cock more than anything right now, but there was an obstacle.
The obstacle was that Darla was wrong.
“Are you memorizing the sequence of numbers on a roulette wheel?” I stared at her, astounded. I’d taken enough stats classes during undergrad and played with enough numbers geeks to know all about the ways people tried to beat the house. Darla never struck me as someone who would ever touch that kind of activity. More likely to buy lottery tickets than to learn card game strategy, she now surprised me.
It was kind of hot.
“What? Why are you asking?”
“That’s not a no, Darla.”
She muted the video and turned to me, wide green eyes fringed by long lashes. Makeup was never her thing, her face always bare and bold, ready to face me without pretense. Sometimes her openness angered me. What was it like to walk around through life without feeling a need for a shell?
“I am counting, Joe. I read all about it on this website.”
“What website?”
She navigated to a website that looked like 2005 called and asked for its sales letter back.
“You didn’t buy this guy’s ‘program,’ did you?” Yellow and royal blue colors screamed at me, with Times New Roman fonts in various sizes competing with Arial. I half expected Comic Sans, but the guy who created this rip-off ‘program’ for how to beat the dealer in Vegas got one thing right:
The ‘Buy’ button.
“No. Didn’t buy it. Just looking at all the free videos about it. I’m not that naïve, Joe. I’m not buying some scammy online internet marketer’s ‘program.’”
“Good. Because all this guy is selling is hope. People who actually figure out how to beat the house never, ever share that information. Why would they? They’d make more money gambling than selling books or videos.”
She frowned, the skin between her eyes puckering, making me want to kiss the stress away. “Good point. But what about all these videos that show people gambling in Vegas and Atlantic City and at Native American reservation casinos and winning?”
“Those are fake, Darla. People make them to earn ad revenue on YouTube.”
“Not this one.” She clicked on a video labeled 2004 and someone’s name. For the next fifteen minutes, we watched as some guy from England bet his whole life savings and doubled it on roulette.
“So?” I said when it ended. “The exception never, ever disproves the rule, and the rule is that you will lose.”
“What about the Brazilian dude who bet $35,000 on a roulette number and won a million? That just happened this year.”
“We can talk about lots of exceptions, Darla, but that’s what they are. One-offs. Do you really think you can master some technique after a few hours of study, walk in, and make a profit?”
“I won’t know unless I try.”
“It’s the trying that sinks you. For some games, you’re right – the only way to win is to play. But for any casino games in Vegas that don’t require skill, the only way to win is not to play.”
“Now you’re quoting cheesy old 1980s sci fi movies? Come on, Joe. There are systems out there for roulette. I’m working on learning them.”
“So you can gamble?”
“So I can have fun.”
“Gambling when you play odds you can’t influence is like flushing money down a toilet. Casinos love people like you, Darla,” I said, shaking my head slowly. When our eyes met, hers were narrowed with determination, and bright, like she was controlling her emotions a little too well.
I’d put her on guard.
“Contain your excitement,” she said, her mood turning dark.
“I’ve been to Vegas. I know how this works.”
“Then be excited for meeeeeeee!”
I put her hand on my crotch. “I am. See?”
“That’s not the same.”
“You have a serious empathy problem, Darla.”
“Pot. Kettle. Black.”
“If I pretend to be excited about Vegas, will it get me a blow job?”
“If you want a blow job, just ask for one.”
“Can I have a blow job?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because according to you, I have an empathy problem.”
“So what? Your mouth works. I don’t need you to empathize with me for that,” I grumbled.
“Is that all I am to you? A mouth?”
“No.”
“Good, ‘cause you’re walking on thin ice.”
“You’re a pussy, too.”
“Joe...”
“And you’ve got tits and ass galore.” I pulled her to me. She pretended to struggle, then softened, snuggling in, her hand stroking my cock over the zipper of my jeans.
Bzzzzz.
Startled, she jumped back slightly, her hand whacking against her own hip bone then punching me square on the tip.
I howled.
She gaped.
My phone, meanwhile, twitched in my pocket like it was going through death throes on behalf of my dick, which was curled in the fetal position between my balls.
“I’m sorry!” Darla gasped, then began patting my crotch. Patting it, like you soothe a crying child. I moved away, turning my back to her, and shoved my hand in my front pocket where I’d stowed my phone.
Caller ID: my mom.
Figures. Literal cockblocker.
“Yeah?” I snapped as Darla made a series of movements
like a game of charades where you apologize.
“Joey, are you still going to Vegas?” Mom asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you be back in time?”
“In time for what?”
“In time for the filing deadline?”
“What filing deadline?”
“To go back and finish your last year of law school.”
“When is it?”
“When is it? When is it?”
“That’s what I asked.”
Darla opened up her laptop, pointedly ignoring my call, and began watching some video of a roulette table.
“Joseph Herbert Ross, don’t you stand there and tell me you don’t know the date of the only important day in your life this year.”
“You mean the day Darla told me she was pregnant?”
That got my girl’s attention. She looked up at me and smiled a nice, wide, evil grin, giving me a thumbs-up. Any mindfuck involving my mom got Darla’s seal of approval. Maybe this alone would get me that blow job after all.
“That joke doesn’t work on me, Joey. You’ve overused it.”
“Just like you’ve overused the topic of law school with me, Mom. I’m not going back.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m hanging up now, Mom.”
“But you –”
Click.
“Still?” Darla inhaled through clenched teeth. “She’s like Marlene with a traveling salesman.”
Oh, God. Another one of Darla’s stories was coming.
“Mmmm,” I said, trying not to offer even the slightest hook for Darla to get started. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t verbally encourage. Being around Darla when she was about to start one of her shaggy dog stories was like negotiating with a hostage taker.
Only I was the hostage.
“So, you see, Marlene...”
I failed.
“...she finds these traveling salesmen at the truck stop nearby. And she talks ‘em up and probably gives ‘em blow jobs. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about what she actually does with them to convince them to come home with her. But she does.”
“You’re comparing my mother’s relentless pursuit of my return to law school with your aunt’s luring of strange men to her home via blow jobs?”
“Yes. Hold on. It’ll all make sense by the time I’m done.”
“I highly doubt that.”
