Breath on the Wind

by Catherine Johnson

  Free of potential distractions, Chiz took a hold of Elmo’s hip with one hand, and slid the other over her back so that he could pull her closer. Bringing her flush against him only confirmed his earlier impression of her attributes.

  When Elmo gasped for breath Chiz took advantage, and it turned the kiss into a frantic dance of tongues and teeth. Elmo ran her teeth over his bottom lip, before nipping gently as she pulled back. Oh, he liked that. If she liked to play that way, they were going to get along extremely well.

  Chiz growled low in his throat. He slid the hand that had been smoothing over her shoulders up her slender neck, and into her thick, dark hair. He twisted his fingers into the strands, pulling firmly. His other hand slid around to her ass, assessing her curves as it went. She was on the slim side, but she still had plenty of meat where it mattered. Chiz squeezed her buttock, and tried hard not to moan into her mouth.

  He pulled her firmly against him. His cock was hard and bound up in his jeans. He wasn’t quite so crass as to simply throw her down on the bed and strip, not at this exact moment anyway, but he needed to ease the almost painful pressure. And he wanted her to know that he was solid as rock for her. She felt so fucking good in his arms that he found himself rhythmically thrusting his hips against hers. She was finding her own motion, as wound up as he was. No one would be backing out of this clinch anytime soon.

  At some point during the kiss they both started to shed their clothing. Chiz raised Elmo’s arms, curled his fingers around the hem of her top, and peeled it up and off her body, revealing a lace bra the color of chocolate. He got to work on her jeans while she was attempting to unbutton his shirt. He had a sudden and very urgent need to see if she was wearing matching panties. Oh fuck, she was. Her skin was pale, like never seen the sun pale. The rich brown color almost glowed against it.

  As pretty and astounding as it was, Chiz helped Elmo make short work of his shirt before disposing of her bra equally quickly. He pulled her in again, wanting, needing, to feel the stiff points of her tight pink nipples against his chest.

  In the rush of discovering the potential for the night, and the high of realizing it, Chiz had forgotten about the aching bruises, and the patchwork of purples, blues, and greens that was blooming across his torso. Elmo’s sharp intake of breath and wide eyes reminded him forcibly of his reasons for being so far from home. He didn’t want to think about those reasons. He’d come all this way to forget.

  He needed to distract her, so he slid his hand from her hair so that he could massage her breast, pulling sharply on her nipple. He kept his other hand on her ass, not wanting any space between them. His mouth didn’t leave hers, they gasped for air while tongues tangled and teeth nipped.

  The kiss undulated as they scrambled out of their jeans and footwear. As usual Chiz wasn’t wearing anything other than his denim. By an act of God he remembered to fumble a condom from the back pocket of his jeans, before they went sailing across the room.

  He maneuvered Elmo onto the bed and rose over her, kneeling between her spread thighs. They still hadn’t spoken a word since they’d entered the room. There were other, more effective, ways to communicate. He ripped the foil packet open with his teeth and rolled the latex onto his cock, which was about ready to jump free of his body with the need to be buried in a willing pussy.

  Chiz caught Elmo’s wrists and held them down, over her head. She fought slightly, not to get away, just testing his grip, before relaxing back as he caught her eyes. He watched the expressions fly across her face as he rubbed his cock over her mound, still covered by the lace of her panties.

  Chiz rubbed his calloused palm roughly over her breast, causing Elmo to squirm beneath him. He smoothed his palm down her body, down into the lace of her underwear. The feeling of his movement being slightly restricted tantalized him. She was shaved, completely bare. He was intrigued and beyond excited by the smooth skin he found. He fondled her, finding her wet and ready. He thrust two fingers into her, rubbing his thumb over her clit, making her writhe and strain against the hand pinning her wrists.

  That was enough fucking foreplay, as far as he was concerned. She was lit up like a Christmas tree, as impatient for this as he was. He curled his fingers into the waistband of her elegant panties and pulled them down her legs. Elmo raised her knees to her chest so that he could slip the satin and lace over her feet. As he tossed her underwear to the side of the bed, she opened her legs wide again in invitation. The sight of her, naked with her pussy bare, glistening and waiting, demanded every ounce of his attention.

  He positioned himself at her entrance, and in one thrust he was buried in her to the hilt. Now that was fucking Christmas. Tight and hot and wet and all the good things in the world clenching around his dick. He caught her eyes and watched the shock flash across her features. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Chiz might well have had a heart attack through shock if she’d turned out be a virgin, but she was about the furthest thing from a world weary whore. Chiz pulled almost all the way out and slammed back into her, this time catching her gasp with a hard kiss. If she’d been expecting gentle and tender tonight, she’d gotten the wrong guy.

  It was Chiz’s turn to moan when she started meeting his brutal thrusts, arching off the bed, opening her thighs wider, bringing her knees higher to allow him a better angle, more complete access to her body. He pulled out, and laughed when Elmo swore a blue streak at him, until he guided her to turn over onto her hands and knees. Chiz pushed back into her wet pussy in one long, hard thrust. He tangled his fingers into her hair, pulling her head back as he gripped her hips and pumped into her. Elmo pushed back against him, still meeting him thrust for thrust.

  Chiz knew he wasn’t a small man and that there was a chance he might be hurting her, although from the grunts and moans she was making it sure didn’t sound like she was complaining. Either way, right at that moment, he didn’t care. Elmo began to keen, almost a constant low moan. He could feel her start to come, could feel her pussy tightening around him as she pushed back even harder against his brutal thrusts. Chiz clasped her hips in both hands, slamming into her with a yell as he came so hard it almost hurt.

  They collapsed flat on the bed in a sweat-slicked tangle of limbs. Chiz knew he was crushing her, but he didn’t think he could move if he tried. After a couple of long, dizzy moments he rolled to one side, leaving Elmo clear to roll onto her back. She threw her arms over her head and stretched out, looking for all the world like a cat basking in a patch of sunshine. For several minutes they didn’t talk as they regained the use of their senses and bodies.

  After a while Chiz gathered himself enough find his cigarettes. Elmo watched him search his clothing, light one, and take the first satisfying lungful of smoke. He lay back down on the bed, his back propped against the headboard. He kept hold of his cigarette, but he let his other hand trail absently over her body, stroking her soft skin. She didn’t seem in any great hurry to move, but she wasn’t snuggling in for a nap.

  Chiz was debating whether starting round two might be taken as an invitation to stay the night, and questioning whether that would be such a bad thing, when Elmo rolled over, leant up on one elbow and gave Chiz a quick kiss, a brief peck on the lips. “I need to get gone.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to another round, but if you wanna go, I ain’t gonna stop you.”

  “I would, but I got shit to do and places to be, baby.”

  She rolled off the bed, and he took his turn to watch her as she located her clothing and re-dressed. Seeing that luxurious lingerie against her skin had his cock hardening again. Elmo smirked when she saw it, but didn’t do anything about it for him. Once she was fully dressed, she leaned over him and gave him another peck, this one on the cheek. “Thanks for the fuck.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, doll.”

  “Not all, baby.”

  And with that she left.

  Chiz watched her let herself out of the room, and finished the last of his cigarette, wondering idly whether he
could be bothered jacking off to relieve the hard-on that remained after watching her dress. He decided that his cock had had enough excitement for the night and that he needed to sleep. Actually, sleep was becoming quite an urgent need. His eyelids were refusing to stay open each time he blinked. He figured this was as good a place as any to spend a couple of days. He didn’t feel like going home just yet.

  Chapter Three

  It was the early hours of the morning by the time Andy locked her front door behind her and dropped her keys into the ceramic bowl on the low table just inside the door. She hadn’t taken a bag or a jacket out with her, just a few bills and her keys. She’d wanted to feel free and unencumbered. She’d certainly achieved that.

  With her little Miata parked securely in the concrete driveway of her tiny, one-bedroom house, she skirted the small sectional sofa that took up most of the space in her living room and walked through to her bedroom, her heels making a dull tap on the laminate flooring. Dawn was a few hours away yet, and she had a few hours beyond that before she needed to be up. It was time she got some sleep.

  Her house was out in the suburbs, an entire subdivision of teeny Monopoly houses. They were almost literally the size of Monopoly houses. The site had once been a trailer park, until a tornado had come whirling through and obliterated everything in its path. A developer had bought the land at about the lowest price that dirt could cost, and had crammed it with minute, single story, detached, one-bedroom properties that cost three times as much as a trailer that fit a family of six.

  Each property was a slightly different style, in a vague attempt to ease the cookie-cutter compound vibe, and they were painted in various bland shades of pastels, predominantly blues, greens and grays, nothing quite so exciting as pinks, oranges or yellows. The areas on either side of the pristine blacktop were brutally landscaped between concrete and mulch-covered beds that contained a few anemic bushes that hadn’t yet had chance to find their roots.

  It was perfect for Andy.

  She had no interest in spending her free time keeping house or gardening. She didn’t need more than her own bedroom, she never had guests that stayed the night. She didn’t want the sociability of an apartment, of having to run a gauntlet of communal areas to get to her front door.

  Although these properties were piled virtually on top of each other, with not more than four feet between her wall and her neighbors, it was the most private place in which she had ever lived. The entire neighborhood was populated with yuppies, singles and couples, most barely more than kids starting out on the housing ladder with some help from mom and pop. Everyone was at work all day, usually six days a week, in some bland corporate box in the city. There were no soccer moms, no retirees. Andy could go a whole month and not see one of her neighbors on the sidewalk.

  Her encounter tonight with Chiz, whatever fucking sort of name that was, was typical of her style, too. A hit and run. It had been a natural inclination to keep her real name secret. The sex had been surprisingly good, which more often than not wasn’t the case with one-night stands. There was something about his overabundance of self confidence, coupled with a body that he obviously took some pride in, that had made her want to find out if he lived up to his own hype. And he had, deliciously so.

  Feeling sated and at peace, she shed her clothes, dumped everything that she was wearing into the laundry hamper at the end of her bed, and made sure that its lid was closed properly. She couldn’t abide clutter at the best of times, but in a space this small, it was anathema. Neatness was essential to her ability to maneuver around rooms.

  She closed the heavy, plum velvet drapes across the window behind the head of her bed and climbed beneath the downy white comforter without bothering to shower. Truth be told, she enjoyed the lingering scent of Chiz on her skin. It was undeniably male, an aroma she was well used to, but didn’t usually retain as a matter of choice. She fell asleep while she replayed the night’s events in her mind, too tired to bother masturbating to the memories.

  ~o0o~

  Andy’s alarm woke her at eight a.m. Christmas was over, and this was the odd limbo period before New Year’s Eve closed the festive season for good. Some people would be on vacation for the entire holiday week; she was not one of them, she had a business to run.

  She showered, slicked on black mascara and scarlet lipstick, and blow-dried her hair before dressing. Her personal style was similar to the décor in her apartment, simple and no fuss or frills. She preferred clean lines and block colors over patterns in all things. However, there was an element of playing up to her role that she needed to take into account when dressing for work. A quick expedition into her closet resulted in a black pencil skirt, sheer black stockings, complete with seam running up the backs of the legs, a stiff red blouse with cap sleeves and a wide neckline that did obscene things for her cleavage, and her beloved black patent Louboutin Pigalles.

  Her heels struck a staccato tempo on the fake wood of the flooring as she wandered into the kitchen. She’d given up caring whether or not she left tiny dents in her wake. It was an unavoidable side effect of wearing spike heels in the house. Deciding that breakfast was optional and best imbibed as liquid since she’d already done her makeup, Andy fixed a cup of strong, black coffee and flicked through the news apps on her phone while she drank it. There was frustratingly little to distract her since it was the holiday season.

  Outside, the street was silent. There were few cars in her neighbors’ driveways. It was more than likely they were all back home visiting family. Andy took a moment to bask in the absolute silence, and wondered if this was what the zombie apocalypse would feel like before the tide of shambling undead turned up. But she didn’t have time to relax. She slid into the driver’s seat of her little, cherry-red sports car, and headed to work.

  There wasn’t a great deal of traffic on the roads leading into the city. Only the most diehard of visiting family members were up and about, and businesses were slow to open

  Andy parked her baby in the private lot at the opposite end of the block from her building. The street was silent except for the sound of her shoes on the sidewalk echoing off the empty, locked buildings. The establishments in this section of the street were nightlife-oriented, mostly clubs, bars and restaurants. Some would open around mid afternoon, to provide sanctuary to the disenfranchised, or as a refuge for those who’d had enough of making nice with Great Aunt Mabel, but most would stay closed up until the early evening.

  The street itself encompassed many blocks, leading from the center of the city to the outskirts. It was part of the historical district and oozed personality, although the section that her business was located in was closer to the outskirts, and therefore more rundown than the tourist trap at the other end, which was overshadowed by the glass and chrome monoliths of the business district. The structures on this street were predominantly red brick, and many had been painted vivid colors, lots of greens, lilacs and golds, a year-round commitment to the spirit of Mardi Gras. The ornate ironwork which embellished each block, either in the form of awnings or balconies, was generally painted deep green, and it lent a cohesiveness to the vibrantly different personalities of each business.

  Andy’s building was on the corner of the block. The red brick had been painted a muted mint green by a previous owner, but it suited her to keep the shade. The intricate ironwork formed a balcony around the second story on both sides of the building. At this time of day, the lower windows were unlit. The windows in the second story were permanently blacked out.

  The whole street was known as the place to find a party, but some patrons came to Andy’s club to find a different kind of party, and regardless of the holiday, or maybe because of it, some would arrive within an hour or so.

  Andy fished a large bunch of keys of all shapes and sizes from her handbag and unlocked the front door. As soon as she was inside the foyer she was greeted by the muted sounds of vacuuming and chatter. As early as she was, she’d known she wouldn’t be the first person
here. Her club was open every day of the year; it was one of the attractions for her more abstract clientele.

  The business, or businesses, that Andrea Broussard owned comprised a strip club that was located in the ground floor of the building, and a BDSM ‘dungeon’ which, because not many buildings had actual basements in the area due to the flood risk, was located upstairs on the second floor. Both enterprises operated under the name the Pumpkin Patch.

  Andy locked the heavy, reinforced doors behind her and passed through the foyer to the main room. Josiah, one of two bouncers that guarded the door of the club on rotation, was sitting at the bar. Andy knew that he would be drinking coffee. He was almost as big a caffeine addict as she was, and he preferred his drug of choice straight up and uncontaminated as she did. He was a massive man, six and a half feet tall and almost as broad. He had to turn sideways to fit through most of the doorways in the building. His skin was as dark as the coffee he was drinking. When he was working the door, his expression was dour, verging on menacing, but when he was relaxed, as he was now, his smile and rolling bass laugh filled the whole room.