by Amber Burns
“Alright,” he said. “Not bad. What is that, malted barley?”
“How much they cost?” the girl asked again. Rowan took another sip, taking his time, enjoying his beer. He swallowed and looked at her.
“They cost me about a thousand dollars,” he said coolly, tipping the glass back again, refilling his mouth with booze.
The girl’s eyes widened to big blue saucers, and her lips flopped open.
“One thousand bucks?!” She repeated, her voice pitching higher with shock.
Rowan nodded, took another sip of his beer. He let out a refreshed sigh.
“Yep,” he confirmed, placing the glass on the bar and dragging his finger along the frosted outside, creating little pictures upon the glass. “One thousand bucks. Each.”
The girl looked as if she might pass out. She stared incredulously at the silver cuff links, squinting at them.
“Two thousand bucks for these teeny tiny things?” She asked, jabbing a pink nail at the cuff links.
Rowan nodded.
“Yea, well, they’re real silver, you know. That stuff’s not cheap.”
He sipped at his beer as the girl lowered her face down, just inches away from the cuff links, staring at them, her jaw still hanging open. She then stood up, turned abruptly, and walked away, her ponytail bouncing against the back of her head as she hurried to the table of young men who sat drinking beers, their rifles at rest behind them.
Rowan watched out of the corner of his eye as she spoke in hushed tones to the group of young men, then pointed his way. The men eyed him suspiciously, then ducked their heads back together. They looked at him again, then one of them, a tall, blonde haired man with a buzz cut and well-worked hands, stood up from the table and began to amble across the room towards Rowan.
The man lumbered up to Rowan and stared at him unblinkingly. He shrugged his hefty body onto the bar stool next to Rowan’s and placed his hairy hands upon the dingy counter, never once removing his gaze from Rowan’s eyes. Rowan held his stare as the man cleared his throat and tapped the bar. The busty barmaid with the ponytail scurried over and slid a pint of something that uncannily resembled foggy urine at the burly man. Still staring Rowan straight in his eyes, the young man clutched the beer, yanked it towards his lips, and chugged half the glass down in one sip. He sighed in satisfaction, dragged his hairy wrist across his lips, and slammed the half empty glass back down on the bar. Rowan had had enough of this playing around. He cleared his throat and arched an inky eyebrow at the young, barrel-chested stranger.
“What can I do for you?” Rowan asked, folding his hands upon the bar to match the stranger’s stance.
The man’s lips curled into a snarl, and his unblinking eyes narrowed.
“Oh I’ll tell you what you can do fer me,” he choked, his voice coming out in a smoker’s wheeze.
He coughed and poured the rest of the yellow beer down his gullet, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he gulped the beverage down. Rowan watched him steadily, calmly, not moving or showing any emotion. The man burped and continued.
“Kandi here tells me you gots some money,” the man said, tilting his head roughly towards the ponytailed girl behind the bar. She peeked out at Rowan from behind the keg taps and waved a teeny wave, grinning a small, apologetic smile. Then she scampered away, her long ponytail bobbing as she ran.
“Oh, yeah?” Rowan countered calmly. He placed his hands very close to the silver cuff links that still lay upon the bar, forcing the man’s gaze to fall upon the expensive items. Rowan caught the burly stranger swallowing, his cheeks ruddy with alcohol, his eyes wide with greed.
“Mmhm mmhm that’s right, my brother,” the man said, suddenly favoring Rowan with a friendlier tone. He slammed his hand back down on the bar, signaling Kandi for another round. “And I, being a gentlemanly fellow, thought, hey, maybe I best be talking to him, this money man, seeing as he has something I want,” the man leaned forward, his breath rancid and dry as it hit Rowan’s face. “And I gots something he wants.”
Rowan looked at the man curiously. He tipped the rest of his dark beer down past his lips and sucked the remaining droplets of the alcohol out of his beard. Then he placed his glass down on the bar and turned to the man.
“Do you now?” Rowan asked patiently. “And what might that be?”
“Oh just wait til you hear about this,” the stranger grinned, showing off a mouth of yellowed teeth. “Ohhhh you best be holding onto your seat right now, buddy,” he laughed. “Because here I is right this now offering you the deal of a lifetime. Are you ready?”
“It sounds like I should be ready,” Rowan said curtly.
“Alrighhhhhtttt then, my friend, my man. Here’s the situation we is looking at here.” The man spread his hairy arms wide, setting up the picture for Rowan. “So. I gots this land, you see. But it ain’t no ordinary land. Because it is out in the middle of nowhere, ok? Like miles and miles and miles away from the civilized places, ok? But here’s the thing: it’s all yours if you want it. Middle of a forest. Ample room for gardening. Little shack on there already and whatnot. Acres n’ acres… like that? Would normally go for a million. But for you, my friend.” Here, the man clapped a hairy, yellow nailed hand upon Rowan’s shoulder. “For you, tell ya what… I like you, fellow, you’re a man I can really get with, a man I really understand. So for you, you just gimme them two silver bits of cuff holders right there, and I sign over the property to you. And that’s a deal.” The man leaned back, his eyes widening in a display of his sincerity. “Cross my heart.” He traced an X across his heart, his yellowed, dirty nails bouncing across his chest.
Rowan stared at him, completely caught off guard, but entirely unwilling to show it. He blinked several times, swallowed, and tried to force moisture back into his mouth. Kandi skipped into view and slid a beer at the man and Rowan waved his hand at her, signaling another round for him as well. She slipped him an extra tall pour of the dark liquid he had sipped before, and without a moment’s pause he chugged it down, suddenly impossibly thirsty. The burly man watched in awe as Rowan proceeded to down the entire beverage in one shot, then slapped the empty glass back down onto the chipping linoleum of the bar. Rowan waved his hand again for another round. Kandi slid another beer across the slippery linoleum, and Rowan caught in his hand, lifted it to his lips, and began to sip at it blindly. He stared ahead, his eyes bleary, his mind playing out different scenarios, different possibilities, across the slate of his imagination.
Should I really do this? He heard his consciousness speaking to him. Fuck, Rowan, this is everything you have ever wanted, to get away from it all. A big ol’ hearty fuck you to the establishment, to run from all of the SHIT that most people fucking wade through every day, day in and day out, until they die, and it has just been handed to you on a silver platter. For the price of what? Mother fucking cuff links? That you have never thought twice about? That, if anything, you fuckin’ hated because they were stupid bits of over excessiveness that always just served to remind you of how much of a shit hole of a world you had got yourself in?
He chugged the beer and slammed it back down on the bar, his eyes still staring straight ahead. He ran his tattooed fingers through his hair and laughed soundlessly.
Fuck, man, look at you, all these inky tattoos crawling up and down your body. You might be able to fake it, you might be able to make that six digit figure a year, but holy fuck you are NOT a corporate pawn. You are not here on this planet to serve corporations and make money. You are here to live. And this guy right here, this guy right here, he has just served you the chance of a lifetime. So what are you gonna do? What the fuck are you going to do, Rowan Davis?
The burly twenty-something eyed Rowan, his brow crinkling with the anxiety that waiting for the well-dressed man’s answer brought upon him.
“Well?” he asked. Rowan said nothing and enjoyed how the man slammed his fists upon the bar, wiggled his knees, looked as if he might explode with curiosity. “WELL?!”
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Rowan scratched at his beard, pretending to be thinking very hard about this proposition. Then he reached into his pocket and snatched his cell phone from the depths of the gray material.
“Hmm,” he said, putting on his best professional asshole face. “I’ll have to make a few calls.”
The bearded man stared at him, then raised his hairy hands upward.
“No, no, no, of course, of course,” he said, waving his fingers in the air. “I know it’s all a shitton to think about, dude, but I feel your energy, and I’m just feeling like you really gotta, uh, want this, yea so… yea, you make those calls.” The man turned away quickly and smashed the beer down his thick, meaty throat.
Rowan allowed himself a small, private grin, his long black locks of hair concealing his face from view. He quickly dialed his go-to real estate’s number and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Quinton?” he said. “Yes, it’s me. Yes, I know it is late. My apologies. I just wanted to ask you if you could please sell the property.” A moment passed as Rowan listened to the voice on the other end leap and jump with shock and rage. “No, I know, and you are correct, it is a ridiculous request. Ah haha! No, Quint, I have not been drinking,” Rowan said, reaching behind him to tap the bar for another round. “Look, I just know that this is right at this moment in my life. So please, Quinton, do not make me ask again.” The barmaid slipped Rowan another glass of deep amber liquid, and he nodded his thanks. He shouldered the phone to his other ear and swiveled around on the bar stool so that he could look directly at the burly, hairy man. The man stared back, his shoulders raised in a questioning motion. Rowan nodded several times, said several “mmhm. mmhms” , and then nodded again, more firmly and absolutely this time. “7.5 million. That’s decent. Alright. Yes. First thing. Thank you, Quinton. Thanks.” He slipped the phone away from his ear, punched the end call button, and dropped it back in his pocket. Then he turned his attention towards the fresh beer, wrapping his fingers fondly around the frosted glass, staring deeply into the foamy top head of the liquid.
The burly man leaned forward, eyebrows raised, eyes wide, not wanting to say anything, but desperately desiring an answer from the well-dressed man he had propositioned. Rowan took a small sip, then another. He dunked his finger into the foamy head of the beer, pulled it out, licked it. The stranger could take no more. He jumped up and took a step towards Rowan.
“Well?” he asked, his voice jumping up several octaves, excitement piquing his bassy vocals to new never before explored heights. “Well? Whaddaya think old buddy, old pal, my guy, good sport? Twenty-seven whopping acres in the middle of fucking nowhere, uh, central to everything. Whaddaya think? Sounds like paradise, huh?”
The man stared at Rowan intently, biting down nervously on his bottom lip. Rowan still sipped his beer. The man glanced back at his friends, still seated with their rifles at the booth in the back. The men all leaned forward in their seats, staring at their buddy. They nodded encouragingly, gripping their beers nervously.
“Well?!” the burly man asked again, hopping from foot to foot.
Rowan finished the beer and placed it neatly back on top of the counter. He smoothed out one of the bits of peeling linoleum. He cleared his throat. He turned towards the impressively hairy young man.
“Well,” he said. “Well, you hairy, unfortunate man, my answer is… I am interested, yes. And I would very much like to take you up on your proposition.”
The man stared at Rowan, frozen to the spot, and Rowan suddenly realized he was not certain that the stranger had understood what he had just said. To be emphatically clear, Rowan plucked the two shiny, silver cuff links from off the scuffed counter and slapped them into the stranger’s hairy hand. The man stared down at his hand for a moment, visibly overwhelmed by the fact that he now clutched two thousand dollars in his sweaty palm. Then he looked up at Rowan, grinned a broken toothed smile, and pumped the man’s hand up and down enthusiastically.
“Alright, my man, ALRIGHT!” he bellowed, laughing and shaking Rowan’s hand so hard Rowan worried his arm might become accidentally dislocated.
Then the man turned to his friends and raised his hands high into the air, balling the hairy digits into triumphant fists. The men leaped from the booth and belly thumped each other, screaming and yelping in joy. Rowan watched, absolutely amazed at what was happening before his eyes. And suddenly he found that he, too, was laughing, belly thumping with the hairy, burly stranger, wrapping a muscular arm around the man’s rounded back and thumping him warmly on the shoulder, thanking him for this opportunity. And then he was signing a document, and then he was shaking hands again, pouring scotch down his throat, kissing Kandi on her plump, bubble gum painted lips, slapping hands in stinging high fives with the other young men from the back booth, buying shots for the entire bar.
8
The strong smell of well-brewed coffee woke him up. It pulled him from the dream world and back into reality. Rowan rubbed at his eyes and shrugged himself into a sitting position. He was back in his bed, away from the drunken clamor of that tawdry bar on that dusty night. He blinked several times and a grin spread across his sleepy face. He realized that Nina straddled his body, her breasts perked up in a good morning salute, her bare pussy pressed against his legs. In her hands she cradled a cup of fresh coffee, steam swirling from the top of the glass in a beautiful S. Rowan smiled more deeply and shook the hair from his eyes. He leaned forward and wrapped his big hands around Nina’s tiny waist, squeezing her to him. She yelped as hot coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and splashed them both, the hot liquid staining the white bed sheets and dribbling over the mountains of Nina’s breasts. Rowan laughed and ran his tongue over Nina’s nipples, lapping up the hot liquid, enjoying her squirming and moaning. Then he looked up at her, felt the piercing warmth of those green eyes pressing against his own irises, and kissed her, deeply, gripping her neck gently, pulling her into him, closer, closer, wishing the moment would never end.
Rowan reached out with itching fingers and tore the bathrobe from off of Nina’s shoulders, beyond eager to set her bouncing breasts free. At the same time as Rowan worked the bathrobe off of Nina’s body, Nina reached an arm beneath the waves of white blankets and yanked Rowan’s jeans down his muscular legs. She grabbed at his bulge and squeezed lightly, staring into his dark eyes. Rowan’s eyebrows slanted upward, and he dove towards her, that tiny squeeze was all the encouragement he had ever needed.
He finally freed the bathrobe from Nina’s shoulders and allowed the full slant of morning sunlight to warm the entirety of her naked body. Nina’s perfect breasts burst out towards him as if in an overexcited salutation and he pressed his face into her chest, licking and biting and kissing and sucking those impressively buoyant tits. She purred with pleasure as his fingers wound their way down her stomach, lovingly tracing the slender curves of her body, and finally, his fingers slipped inside her tight pussy. She shoved her hand into his briefs and began to work her fingers up and down the girth of his thick shaft, easing him into ecstasy. Rowan’s eyes rolled back, and he pressed his fingers hard against Nina’s insides, feeling her body roiling in pleasure around him.
He hurriedly pulled his hardened dick from his briefs and threw the blankets away from Nina’s body and turned her around so her perky ass greeted him. Rowan spanked her lightly and watched in joy as her flesh sang back at his touch. She shivered with pleasure, and he slipped his throbbing cock into her soft pussy. He drove himself deeper and deeper inside her, faster and harder, and Nina cried out and grabbed at the soft blankets underneath her painted nails. Rowan gasped for breath as he slammed his thick cock inside of Nina's warm center that gripped him tightly as she came. Her back arched and she began to tremble just as he pulled himself free of her pussy and released his sperm across her shivering ass. With the glow of their releases seemingly warming the small room, Rowan collapsed back onto the bed and pulled Nina's still trembling body next to his.
Rowan wished they c
ould stay forever like this, pressed closely together, breathing, gasping in pure pleasure, grabbing handfuls of each other’s’ flesh and making each other’s’ bodies sing just by uniting them together so nakedly, so wholly. He reached out to press a loving hand lightly upon Nina’s head, to fondly stroke that fire of a head of a hair, to cup her soft pale cheek, flushed now with the exertion of their loving, in his own hand. He ran his trembling fingers down her back, tracing her spine, staring at her; this woman, this goddess, in true wonder. He wished he could always have her here, pressed to him like this; if Rowan could have chosen to make it eternal: that moment, with the golden sunlight falling across their naked bodies, the white sheets tangled like turbulent ocean waves, Nina’s ass sliding up and down his thighs in rhythm with her breathing, he would have. He would have chosen foreverness without so much as a single second thought.
And then, abruptly, Nina pulled away. She smacked his hands down, the coffee sloshing over his chest this time, and her not reaching out her small pointed tongue to lap it up. She shuffled backward on the bed, slapping the mug onto the top of the wood fire stove, her ass leaving ruffled imprints in the quilts as she pushed herself away from him. Rowan stared at her in shock, his hands till hanging in the air where they had formerly been caressing her neck, his lips still parted as if he might lean back any second and continue to enjoy the feel of her warm pink lips upon his flesh. Yet Nina did not pull herself back towards him. Instead, she pulled her legs into her chest and stared at Rowan, her face unreadable, her cheeks pale and her eyes cold.
