Cherry Blossoms

by KT Morrison

  She turned and went into her room. She left the doors open and she sat on her bed. She couldn’t see the bathroom door but she could hear him in there. Heard him get into the shower stall, heard the glass door thunk closed, the steaming splashing water change its sound as it splashed now differently around his massive masculine frame. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? She could walk in there and he’d smile through the stall door. He would be half hard, that big thing hanging and wagging. She’d smile too, let him watch her take her clothes off. She’d step in and they’d let their hands explore…

  Instead she stayed on her bed and listened and fantasized. She took her own top off, pulled the black shirt up over her head, and tossed it farther up the bed. She put her hands in her bra and she scooped her bosom up, let her breasts plump forward and fill her cup. She tossed her hair and ran her hands through it. Licked her lips. Rocco’s shower was done, she heard a squeak as he turned the lever again and the splashing stopped. She put her long legs out on the floor in front of her and she crossed them over. She waited.

  Then he was there. Six-five, muscled, tattooed, three-hundred-plus pounds. Naked.

  It could happen right now. He could walk right through that threshold and she wouldn’t stop him. He could come and take her right now if he wanted. He passed slowly across his room, sideways across the open passage. He was naked, holding a towel in one hand. He was purposely letting her see the incredible thing the good Lord had blessed him with. Cursed him with. It swung between his legs as he walked, slapping heavily against one thigh then the other. He’d probably got it plumped in the shower but he definitely wasn’t hard. Looked a lot like his brother’s big cock, same features—but just like the rest of him, much bigger than Dino.

  She held her breath. He looked to her as he passed, saw her in her bra and her bare legs stretching out. He gave no reaction. He kept walking and he was past. Her scalp tingled, her heart pounded. She got herself up quietly and crossed to the doorway. Her ears pounded with an overwhelming sucking and pulsing…the hammering of her heart.

  GEOFF

  It was done. He was sure it was done.

  10 P.M. Dark now. Dark in Montreal. The two of them in adjoining rooms. She’d fucked him. He felt it. She’d been taken by another man and she loved it.

  He lay in his bed, still on his side of it, facing where his Nia would lay. Instead of watching her sleep he had his arms stretched out in front of him, his hands delicately holding his iPhone. Waiting for some sign from her. Something. A proof of life. Was she okay? Was she safe? Had she slept with Rocco?

  She’d wanted to suck his cock. His wife had fantasized about sucking Rocco’s cock. His wife fantasized about servicing another man. Not just sleeping with him and being pleasured by him, but submitting to him. On her knees. Her pretty mouth working over what was most assuredly a large and quite ugly penis. His wife. His pretty Nia…

  His hand clutched his phone too tightly again and he had to consciously ease his grip. He thumbed the black screen, wishing it would come to life with some sort of message from the woman he loved. This was torture. Beautiful torture. His ribs were tight, a full breath impossible. His temples pulsed with tension. His jaw clenching and his teeth grinding together until, like his grip, he had to will them to relax.

  Please, Nia. Something. Anything.

  He had no idea how he was going to manage tomorrow. Big old Book Expo. Usually a nice little moneymaker. Pressing hands with fans and taking pics with kids. Sell some books, sell some prints. A happy day. Receiving compliments, seeing kid’s smile at his drawings.

  But he ached. His heart ached and his cock ached. He was hard. He couldn’t concentrate. How would he be tomorrow if he still didn’t know?

  Please, baby. Please, Nia. Something. Anything.

  NIA

  She’d closed the door. Said, “Good night, Rocco. See you in the morning.” Closed the door and let him hear her twist the lock. Did it firm, the clicking mechanism a final word on the evening.

  She’d slumped against the wall next to the door, released from her own wicked desires. Seeing him like that. Knowing she wanted it, he wanted it—it raced a salacious needle pulling an electrified thread, from her pussy around her heart, three times around her heart, tightening and tightening, then a slippery tickle up the back of her brain…her knees went weak and she fell to the wall, smiling. Wow. She wanted this so bad. So, so bad. She wanted to be penetrated, filled, she wanted to be taken by him, completely consumed. She wanted it. Desperately wanted. But not like this. Not easy like this.

  She knew what she wanted.

  Now she was in bed, comforter up to her neck. The curtains were open, bright blue city-lit sky a blank midnight haze across the deep double windows. She had her hands between her legs.

  She thought of the things she said to him at dinner. The insinuations, the eye batting, twisting a lock of hair while she talked. Showing him she wanted it, seeing he wanted it. Bringing out that masculine energy. Making him lean forward, seeing that frighteningly dominant look in his eye, one that told her what she wanted. He’d leaned his bulk, smirked; he was unafraid, he was big and powerful and he was rich and he was hot and he was fucking hung. Her legs writhed under the sheets. The only sound in the room, soft skin sliding on stiff clean cotton. Her feet flexed, her knees bent and her hips swivelled against her pressing fingers.

  His big hands had dwarfed her feet. His thick thumbs, his huge knuckles, long blunt and strong fingers. Almost impossibly large. His touch on her sensitive skin had been amazing. His skin was hard and rough. She thought of the day she’d seen him turn the bolts on a pump. Fuck a wrench. I’m Rocco. He turned them with the strength of his fingers. She thought of what they might feel like grabbing at her, his harsh skin on her soft breasts, their calloused abrasive feel on her oh-so-sensitive nipples. Plunging two of those fingers inside her, one hand on her throat his tongue in her mouth.

  “Mmngh,” she grunted as a switch was flipped inside her. She was going to fucking come. She thought how close he was and how easy it would be to open that door and climb into bed with him. What was he doing right now? His big rough hand grabbing that big rough cock. Stroking himself while he thought of Nia, the wet sticky sound of his foreskin peeling and rippling in his hand while he thought of fucking her. What if he was coming right now? The two of them thinking of each other, two able-bodied animals with nothing stopping them from fucking. But touching themselves, stroking themselves, thirty feet apart. She pictured him coming into his sheets. Gripping that cock tightly and grunting, spewing the underside of his comforter with his hot thick milk. His face squinting, his balls rising and falling as they pumped his excitement out the end of that huge cock head. She shuddered at the thought—driving him crazy, making him go out of his mind with lust. She wanted him to be unstoppable.

  “Angh,” she blurted as she came. A little rising wave in her heart, that made her eyes wide, a quivering example of the bigger orgasm cresting right behind that one. “Ah, ah, ah,” glottal gasps into her quiet room.

  That cock of his, it bounced from leg to leg. Just like Dino’s. That night young teen Nia first fucked that boy who would dominate her thoughts for years…she’d cried from pain. She’d gone to Ang’s the next day and they watched XXX to see Vin Diesel, curled up in the family room with a bowl of microwave popcorn, Ang trying to cheer up her frightened friend. Angie held her and laughed, not taking her seriously. Nia didn’t think she could sleep with him again. She would. She grew to love him and love what he had. It was inhuman. Odd. Like an animal’s. Thick, uncircumcised, grotesque. But oh, could he fuck.

  Her legs shot out straight as she came again, came hard this time. Her butt clenched tight til it cramped and she pressed the flats of her fingertips against her swollen clit and pulled like she was trying to lift herself. She exhaled, short bursts, huffing, huffs turning to chortles as she thought how fucking crazy all of this was.

  13

  The Expos

  Saturday, July
15th

  GEOFF

  Winslow showed up at eight in the morning with two coffees from the bakery and a hot chocolate for Odie (who was developing a crush on the good looking kid).

  Geoff had got up and taken an Advil. His neck was so stiff he was sure he had spinal meningitis, at least the early onset of it. His stomach was clenched tight as a drum and while he made bacon and eggs he didn’t have any and Odie ate the share he’d made for himself. He’d talked to O in the morning about her behaviour yesterday. He said it was fine to be upset with mom, he understood, but that in this family they weren’t going to do that. Leave things the way she’d left them.

  Said, How do you think mom feels away from us, away from her family, and that was the last exchange between you two? Odie said mom doesn’t care and he didn’t like that. He put his hand over her forearm and said of course she does, I think you hurt her feelings.

  O didn’t like that. Didn’t like that maybe she’d hurt mom’s feelings. She was quiet after that and he sat and watched her eat and he drank his coffee.

  Now they were in the studio, Winslow, O, and Geoff, and he was pulling back the tab on his fourth coffee of the day. Odie was helping Winslow. Helping by standing on a stool, both hands on her hot chocolate and cutely bossing him around, telling him which boxes of prints got loaded, then changing her mind and saying no not those ones, bringing him back, then saying yes those ones. He played along and got her giggling.

  One year ago it was Nia, Odie, and Geoff doing this. He wasn’t as well known then but, boy, it seemed like the family business and it was a lot of fun. All three of them going to the Expo. Nia had taken Odie around by the hand and the two of them had a great time, she bought Odie a dozen books she wanted. Then look at them this year…how things had changed. Nia working all the time. Odie growing up. An assistant. And the fucking thing he was trying not to think about this morning: Nia having dirty sex with another man last night.

  “Geoff, I think we got it all,” Winslow said. He was young, practically a Geoff doppleganger. Sandy hair, a beard, medium height, light build. He dressed similarly too, a staid sort of intellectual artist type. He adjusted his glasses as Geoff hoisted himself off the Herman Miller and went to the door of the studio.

  Winslow and Odie had loaded up all the books he was bringing, all the prints. He’d sat at his table in reverie. He pat Winslow on the shoulder, didn’t say anything, but Winslow nodded to him, a warm smile, not understanding what was on Geoff’s mind but recognizing something was going on. He pat him again, pointed him out to the car, then locked the studio up behind him. He wished there was someone he could talk to. He’d never admit what he and Nia were up to but it would be nice to talk to someone who loved him. Someone who wasn’t Nia. But Nia was his best and almost only real friend.

  NIA

  Rocco was in a bad mood. He was slamming a drawer, looking for where he’d left his wallet. The coat hangers still softly jangled behind him from when he’d charged through his things hanging in there, jamming his massive hands into pockets.

  She bit her lip, felt very small under his anger. She sat down on his bed and waited for him, spread her hands out behind her on his unmade sheets, clenched them in her fists. She wondered if he had jerked himself off last night. She wondered if the sheets under her well-dressed tush right now were stiff with his semen.

  He found it in the washroom finally and he grunted to her when he came out. He had a pair of jeans on, his thick thighs and ass jammed into them. She wondered how he’d stuffed that dick in there. He had a nice bulge but it didn’t look like what she’d seen last night. The denim must really keep it in place. Black T-shirt with a V neck and those thick arms stretching its sleeves as he stuffed the wallet into his back pocket.

  Nia was up at six-thirty, had a hot shower and got her hair dried. The show started at nine and they wanted to be there at opening. They still had to do the thing they came here to do. The other thing that they came here to do.

  “Let’s go,” he said gruffly.

  She went to him, laptop in a bag under her arm and she got herself close to him. She could feel the heat off his body like his frustration was an engine in his body and she had it in the red zone. She put her hand on his arm, just below his shoulder, as they left the room. An innocent gesture. Two friends starting a long day together. She didn’t want his pot boiling over. He looked at her hand and he snorted, gestured ahead of himself for her to go on down the hall. She felt his eyes burning her ass as she walked to the elevator.

  GEOFF

  Geoff introduced Winslow to Jenny from Evergreen.

  “Hey, Winslow, this is Jenny Brown, editor over at Evergreen—she did the Choo books with me. Jenny, this is my assistant, Winslow.”

  They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries. Then Odele was looking for attention, being a little cutie behind his leg until Jenny noticed her and she bent down and hugged her. Jenny had brought boxes of special edition Choo books to sell at the table and Geoff sent Winslow over to her car to get them and bring them to the table.

  Jenny said, “Nia not here?”

  “No, she had to work this weekend. She’s in Montréal.”

  Jenny cocked her head, furrowed her brow and her narrow but pouting lips pursed. She said, “Aww, I really miss her.”

  It caught him off guard somehow. Maybe it was the sweet way her eyebrows went up in the middle, the tone of her aww…something about that reaction poked him in the belly. He felt himself buckle. His breath caught instantly in his throat, his eyes swelled like he would cry.

  “I do t—” he couldn’t continue. His voice wavered, the sad sound of it making it worse and he knew if he tried to finish his sentence he’d bust out. He cleared his throat. Jenny looked at him and she didn’t know what to do. There was nothing wrong between him and Nia but everything he was communicating to Jenny suggested trouble in the marriage. It was the opposite. He turned self-consciously and faced the lake behind them, watched the seagulls and the waves and blinked furiously. He missed her so much. He never loved her more, or needed her more. He was suffering because she was truly missed. Jenny looked around, bit her lower lip and looked to Odie who seemed oblivious. She rubbed Geoff’s arm awkwardly.

  He laughed, shook his head, tried to shake it away, he said, “Hoo, I just really miss her…”

  They were standing near the boardwalk by Lake Ontario, next to The Power Plant, the art gallery down by the waterfront. There was an open expanse, a fountain, and a rectangular pond of shallow water. When they’d got here, Odele had asked, Didn’t we go skating here? They had, two years ago he and Nia brought her here when this was frozen over and they’d held her between them as she skittered around, her tiny white figure skates barely scratching the ice.

  The Book Expo, more officially The Canadian Author Festival, was at the Harbourfront Centre. Fifty-Thousand guests over the two days, coming for signings, for readings, and to buy lots and lots of books (hopefully!). Geoff had a major signing at one o’clock. That would be the official one, the one the folks at the Expo would make attendees line up for behind velvet ropes and he would sit in front of a black curtain with his black-lettered name on white corplast hanging askew behind him. They had ushers that kept visits brief. It would be a panel, he would sit with four other authors at a long table. The 1 P.M. signing was all children’s authors and illustrators. Then at three o’clock he had a Q&A panel in one of the smaller rooms. Probably twenty people, most looking for insight on how to break in to the business rather than fans. The rest of the time he would float between the Evergreen Booth, sign books there, meet interested people, and he had a table where Winslow would sit. He’d have books for sale, personally printed sketchbooks, his silkscreens, and two boxes of a special gold foil spine of Little Choo that Winslow was now getting from Jenny’s car. Geoff dried his eyes, as surreptitiously as he could, while they both watched Winslow wheeling two cardboard boxes along the sidewalk to them on a red metal push cart. Jenny stood close to him and she made
light cheerful small talk while they waited, Odie had her hand on a tree set in a metal grate at the side of the path and she walked in circles around it singing.

  “How’s the turnout?” he asked her, sniffing.

  “It looks good this year.”

  He nodded and sighed, feeling better now. Book festivals in the city had become tricky, a lot of them going under. He’d thought of getting a table at the comic conventions just to get exposure. Sell some prints. He didn’t work in comics but he had a lot of other kids illustrators telling him they had success too. Attendance at those shows was never an issue.

  Winslow caught up with them, gave Jenny her keys back, and all four of them weaved through the gathering crowds heading for the side entrance to the Harbourfront building.

  NIA

  There was a new company that dealt with pigment for concrete. When Dragon laid decks and pathways some customers liked a colour added, something to make it look like it wasn’t concrete. There was a new company and they wanted Rocco’s business. Knew he was big in Toronto and wanted him to try their product.

  Rocco did this thing when he talked to other men about business, wasn’t sure if he did it on purpose but she could see the effect. He’d lean on something, on an elbow, lean in, left hand on hip, one leg folded up. He’d get himself very close to the other person’s personal space, not in it, but right on the border, enough that they’d tilted their head. Then he’d look down coolly at them through narrowed eyes.

  They were at a booth in the busy Expo, Level Two, in the Hall Viger of the Palais des congrès de Montréal. The show was very busy, the floor in this side building, with the smaller vendors, was cramped and warm despite the air conditioning. She stood off to the side and let people by and she kept herself in the line of sight of the man Rocco was talking to. She looked professional. Too professional compared to some of the other rough construction characters at the show. With Rocco’s size and her pretty charm and professional appearance they were a great team. Rocco was in a shit mood but things at the show had been going very well. She knew her value.