by L. D. Fox
He sat beside her and bit into the sandwich. His mouth began drooling.
“You seen this one?”
He glanced up at a couple talking animatedly on a beach as they walked a dog. He shook his head, devoured another bite, and watched the opening credits of something that looked like it would be most dreadful two hours of his life if he stayed to watch.
Angel retrieved her drink, peeking over at his untouched glass. “Did I get it wrong?”
Drew forced the moisture from his mouth and glanced reluctantly at the beading glass. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“What’s wrong?” Angel set her glass down with a clink, abandoning the rest of her sandwich for a cigarette plucked from a diamond-encrusted cigarette box. Then she paused, smoke held an inch from her lips and eyes slowly widening at him. “Crap! You a teetotaler or something? I mean, there’s booze in your cupboard and Penny didn’t say—”
“No,” he said with a quiet, mirthless laugh. “It’s just… after Juliet…”
Those had been dark days.
Everyone he knew kept harping on about how there were five stages of grief. That he had to work through them in whatever way he could to get to acceptance. But he kept see-sawing between anger and depression, every repetition driving him deeper inside himself. He’d exhausted his bereavement leave and almost all of his boss’s patience. If it hadn’t been for Penny, he’d probably still be knee-deep in gin and cigarette butts, sporting an unruly beard and purple shadows under his eyes.
“She was Penny’s mom, right?” Angel shifted on the couch and turned down the volume on the movie. “She told me what happened. I’m sorr—”
“You didn’t even know her,” he cut in before clearing his throat. “And I’m not an alcoholic. I just… I don’t like how I get when I drink.”
“Oh.”
He gave her a sidelong glance, took another bite of the sandwich, and put the plate down. “I forget things when I’m drinking.”
Angel laughed, grabbed her glass from the table, and twisted to face him. Her slippered feet went onto the couch, the two halves of her jumper gaping to reveal a shadowed crevice between her breasts.
“That’s kinda the point, Mr. Sugar.”
He cleared his throat again, but it did nothing for the hoarseness of his voice. “I don’t want to forget.” Then, as if he hadn’t just spoken those words, his hand reached for the glass.
It felt heavy, familiar in his fingers. The sharp citrus stung his nose, and the swallow he took burned the back of his throat.
“Jesus, how many shots did you put in this?”
“It’s a double,” Angel said, sounding offended. “But if you don’t want—” She sat forward and reached for the glass, but he fended her off with his elbow.
“It’s been a year.” He took another swallow, his mouth working the liquid before it disappeared down his throat. “If I was going to forget, it would have happened already.”
“Forget what?”
His plate went beside hers, and he rummaged in his jean pocket for his cigarettes.
Angel held out a lit Zippo for him.
His eyes darted to her, to the lighter, and then he tipped forward to light the cigarette. Her body was briefly obscured by the cloud of smoke he exhaled before it cleared.
“You think I don’t know I work too much?” He took a pull of his cigarette. When he spoke, each word emerged in a puff of its own smoke. “Of course I know. It’s blatantly fucking obvious.” Drew sat forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees as he watched the now barely audible movie playing on the television. “I don’t have any photos of her.”
Angel remained silent beside him, but he could see her taking a deep breath, holding it.
“Not one. I know we had some of our wedding — her folks took some — but we lost them in a fire when Penny was six, seven.”
He lifted the glass, hesitated with it against his lip, and then tossed what remained down the back of his throat. Putting it down, he used his knuckles to slide it over the table toward Angel. She stiffened, and then slowly sat forward to pour him another.
“You only had wedding photos?”
“Never owned a camera.”
“Not even a camera phone?” The girl’s tone was a touch accusatory; whose wouldn’t be?
He watched her pour a measure of gin into the glass and then top it off with tonic from the ice-bucket. Then she topped her glass up too and slid his back to him.
“Had one. Never bothered to figure out how to use it. Never thought I’d need a photo to remember how my wife looked.”
“What about Penny?”
Drew snorted softly and tipped most of the drink into his mouth. The next drag on his smoke was long and hard. He blew out the smoke in a stream that struck the surface of the television.
“You’ve met my daughter. She barely knows how to press the answer button on her phone.”
“True that,” Angel murmured.
“She get back to you yet?”
“Nope. But she’s fine, I promise. Fred’s a nice guy.”
“You sure it’s Fred? Not Harry?” he asked with a soft snort.
“Definitely Fred,” Angel said. “She’ll be here tomorrow.” Then, softly, “I’m sorry, Mr. Sugar. About your wife.”
His eyes slid away from her, to the television. Drawn by beckoning alpha waves. Held there. The couple on the screen stared at each other with comical shock. Their mouths moved in unison before they both grappled each other and fell into a messy, clothing-strewn bed. Drew put his glass down and slid it back to Angel.
This time, she didn’t refill it. Instead, she took it and rolled it between her palms.
“I got an idea.” She set his glass down. “Wanna hear it?”
“Sure,” he said, pointing at the glass. “When you’re done topping me up.”
From the corner of his eyes, he could see Angel licking her lips. “Look, Mr. Sugar, I really don’t think you should be—”
Drew slammed his fist down on the coffee table. “What the fuck did you think was going to happen here?”
The girl flinched and hugged her legs to her chest. He kept his eyes fixed on the TV screen where the couple was as nude as they were probably ever going to be without the film getting an R rating. He watched them fake-fucking for a few seconds and then slowly turned to Angel.
“You come into my house, flashing your almost-twenty-something self around in front of me without a care in the fucking world? You think that shit’s not going to affect me?”
He was wrong — he had forgotten.
He’d forgotten just how goddamn angry gin made him.
Angel tried to burrow into the crook of the couch. “Mr. Sugar—”
“Mr. Sugar nothing, sweetheart.” He spoke right over her shaking voice. “You don’t get to work an angle on me. And you sure as shit don’t get to judge me. You think I work too hard? Wait until you’re old enough to grasp the fact that you can never work too hard. Not if you want to buy any of those pretty pink things you see in your little girly magazines and on your stupid, girly TV shows.”
The last of his cigarette tasted like heaven on a cancer stick. He extinguished the butt in the ashtray and let a generous measure of gin glug into his glass as he stared at the girl beside him.
“This house? It’s mine, Angel. Paid for with hundreds of thousands of hours of hard work. It’s the house of a working-class man with working-class issues. I don’t have time for you and whatever silly little game you think you’re playing with me.” He tossed back the gin, grimaced, and brushed his hands on his jeans.
Angel’s shoulders relaxed. She released the grip she’d had on her legs, letting them fall open, so she was sitting cross-legged on the couch. Then she shook her head and tugged down the zipper on the front of her jumper.
“I’m not playing, Mr. Sugar.” Her blue eyes fluttered as the two halves of her jumper parted.
Beneath it? Naked skin.
* * *
&nb
sp; Drew’s eyes weren’t under his control anymore. They slid down the girl’s neck, over the hollow in her throat, and tried to stare at both her breasts at once.
“Don’t do that,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“I remember you, Mr. Sugar. You’ve hardly changed at all.”
He forced his eyes up. Shook his head.
“When I saw you again, after so long?” Her eyelashes fluttered almost imperceptibly. “I got this ache.” She ran her fingertips over the two halves of her jumper, let them meet over her bare belly. “Right… here.” Both hands slid between her legs.
“You don’t get it. This—” he dashed his fingers between them “—isn’t happening. Not in a million years. You can…” He gestured vaguely toward her bared breasts — holy shit, her nipples were the most glorious shade of pink he’d ever seen — and took a deep breath. “This isn’t happening.”
“We’re both adults, Mr. Sugar.” She was doing something to her voice; husky, it lingered on his name in a way that made his dick stir behind his jeans. “There’s nothing wrong with me wanting you. Or you wanting me.”
“There is.” He cleared his throat, tried for more emphasis. “There sure as hell is.”
Angel slid her feet under her and pushed forward, coming up on all fours. Putting her face less than a foot away from his, her breasts within easy groping reach. “You don’t make a very compelling argument.”
He pressed back, but the armrest was against his spine, holding him in place.
“I’m serious, Angel,” he said. “I can’t—”
“Nothing serious about this.”
“I can’t—”
“Fuck me?” She ran a slow, red tongue over her lips until they glistened. “Give yourself a little credit.” Her eyes dashed down to where his dick strained against his jeans. “You’re perfectly capable.”
He put his hand out, trying to ward off her tantalizingly slow approach. But instead of pushing her away, his fingers slid around her throat. Those sapphire eyes flashed wide. Drew forced a hard swallow, trying to urge his fingers open so he could release her.
Except…
He didn’t want to. As fucked-up crazy as it was, he didn’t want her to leave. Didn’t want her to zip up that ridiculously pink hoodie of hers and cover those immaculately shaped breasts.
He used that grip on her throat to draw her close. Until their lips almost touched. She didn’t struggle, didn’t squirm; in fact, she hardly moved at all. As if she held her breath in anticipation.
He lifted his other hand, touching the tip of his thumb against her bottom lip. She made the smallest sound at that touch, dipped her chin, and caught his thumb between her lips. Held him for a second. Then slowly sucked him inside her warm, wet mouth.
Her eyes never left his.
He tightened his grip on her throat. Her pulse quickened under his thumb.
Something brushed his stomach. Angel’s fingertips drew a slow, sinuous line to the button of his jeans. Then she scraped her nails over the rough fabric of his jeans, right over his throbbing dick.
Drew tried to keep his eyes open, but they flickered closed as if they’d joined the revolt his hands had led moments before. Angel’s tongue flicked against the pad of his thumb before she pushed that finger from her mouth with powerful lips.
Her breath was warm on his cheek as she leaned closer. Her hand closed hard over his dick, squeezing him.
“You won’t regret this, Mr. Sugar.” Her lips touched his earlobe, sending a shudder tearing through him.
He let out an unsteady sigh and managed to get his eyes open. Angel watched him, a tiny smile on her mouth. Her lips parted when she squeezed him again, harder than before.
Fuck. She’d been playing him this entire time, hadn’t she?
Drew groaned, tightening his fingers around that slim, warm neck of hers. Angel’s smile grew as she took hold of his wrist and positioned one of his hands on her breast.
Played him like a goddamn fiddle.
* * *
Whatever reservations had been holding him back evaporated. Drew lunged forward and crushed his mouth to Angel’s. Her mouth tasted of gin and cigarettes; surprising really since that was probably what his own mouth tasted like. Was it weird that he could distinguish her?
Her lips, her tongue, they were all so wet.
His jean button popped open, and Angel’s fingers disappeared behind his underwear. That hand was cold, small, and as adept at working his dick as he was.
“God,” he hissed in a tight voice. “Slow down. It’s been forever—”
She ignored him — no surprise there — and even a squeeze at her throat had no visible effect. Instead, it seemed to spur her on; her other hand joined the first.
“Please. Please, just slow—”
“Call me sweetheart; I love the way it sounds.”
“Jesus, slow down.” He tried pushing her back on the couch. She gasped, but instead of slowing, her hands sped up.
“Angel! Fuck, I can’t—”
“Come for me, Mr. Sugar.”
He did. Violently, suddenly, and all over Angel’s tits.
Groaning, Drew rested his head on her shoulder as he shuddered and pulsed in her hands.
“Next time, if you want me to listen to you,” Angel whispered into his ear, “try calling me sweetheart.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmured against her neck.
Both her hands disappeared. He opened his eyes, pushing back from her and letting go of her throat.
She watched him for a second. “Still okay if I stay here a few days?”
“What?” he managed.
“Can I stay?” Angel cocked her head at him. “I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
“Shit.” He swallowed, ran both his hands over his face, and began glancing around for something to wipe his load off the girl’s breasts. “No. Fuck no. This is—Jesus, no.”
“Sure about that, Mr. Sugar? I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.” Her smile faded. “Whatever you want.”
6
Mahogany & Brimstone
It turned out that the persistent, agonizing buzzing in Drew’s head came from his alarm clock. He levered open eyes that had been replaced with smoldering bags of sand and focused, after some concentration, at the digital readout on his alarm clock.
07:45
Thank God for Sundays.
He rolled onto his back, slid his hand over his eyes, and tried to imagine a world where pain didn’t exist.
“Coffee, Mr. Sugar?”
Drew started, shoved himself into a sit, and glared at Angel through slitted eyes. She wore a faded Hello Kitty t-shirt. Despite being four sizes too large for her — perhaps through some mysterious feat of design — it clung to her in all the right places. Her breasts, her hips, her thighs.
“Thanks,” he murmured when the girl put a steaming cup of coffee on his nightstand. She sat down on the edge of the bed, rummaged through the stuff laying on the table, and lit a cigarette.
Drew shuffled higher up the bed until his back was against the crushed velvet headboard, and let his head sink back as he sighed.
“Brought you some painkillers, too. Will you have them with the coffee, or do you want some water?”
“Coffee’s fine.” His voice was hoarse, his mouth dry.
He waved away the cigarette she proffered and took a swallow of coffee instead.
About ten seconds later, reality crashed back.
“Jesus, I’m late!”
Angel watched, nonplussed, as he slid out of bed. Cool air surrounded him in an instant, and he hurriedly yanked the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around his naked waist.
Angel’s eyebrows twitched.
“Why didn’t wake me? You must have heard—”
He glanced at the bed beside him. It was clear he’d been the only one in it — the other side of the duvet was still tucked in under the pillow.
“I only got you into bed like after two.” Angel shrugg
ed. “Figured you needed the extra z’s. Don’t you have like a big meeting today?”
Drew stared at her for a moment, mouth open but unable to produce anything resembling words. A few waves with his arms in her general direction did nothing to convey his irritation.
He let out a strangled, “Exactly!”
“So that was today?” Angel took a deep drag of his cigarette. “You were slurring so much, I could hardly make anything out.”
“Yes, it’s today!” Shouting did torturous things to his head, but he couldn’t restrain himself. “And it’s in twenty-fucking-minutes.”
Angel blinked round, wounded eyes at him and pointed to the cupboard. “You just got to shower, Mr. Sugar. I got your stuff ready.”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then swung to his cupboard. Through a haze of aching eyes and a throbbing head, he could make out one of his suits hanging on the cupboard door’s handle.
She’d even matched a tie and pair of oxford’s to it.
“You know,” Angel said, putting down the cigarette and climbing onto his bed, “Sex really helps with anxiety. Dopamine levels and shit.”
The girl hitched up her t-shirt, displaying a pair of pristine, white panties to him. A touch of lace fringed them.
He groaned, squeezed his eyes shut, and stormed blindly into the shower, wincing when it slammed shut behind him.
Was he still drunk? The floor was unmistakably too spongy and, once his eyes focused on the mirror, his reflection pulsated in time with his headache. A glance in the mirror confirmed that he did, indeed, look like regurgitated shit.
Promotion? There was a better chance of him getting a written warning today.
Even after a shower, the fastest shave he’d ever performed without injuring himself and running a comb through his hair, he still didn’t look like a bright-eyed protégé worthy of being bumped up any corporate ladder. He stared back at his reflection, trying to will his bloodshot corneas to whiten, for his wrinkles to smooth out, for the shadows under his eyes to disappear.
He failed.
Angel wasn’t in the room when he came out. He chugged down the rest of his coffee, glared at the cigarette burning in his ashtray, and put on his suit.
