Quills and Daggers - A Second Chance at Love Romance: The Collective - Season 1, Episode 5

by Chris Genovese

  So we went for coffee and bagels down the street. Then we rushed back to my apartment, slid off our clothes, and got right back into bed. If this was what a real relationship felt like, I couldn’t wait to relish in it.

  We talked for a while, wrapped up in each other’s arms, until James planted kisses on my neck and ear. Once we got started, there was no stopping us. I eagerly waited as he lubed up and slid his cock into me again. Yes, we fucked again with the sun shining through the blinds. I’d never felt more wanted, more needed, or more loved.

  There in my bright room, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sense of touch. I didn’t need to see James to know he was there with me. His facial expressions were engrained in my mind and the thought of his smile lifted my heart. It takes true trust to sink into another person’s body. I was all his. His muscular chest pressed against my back and his hands held my stomach and tits. The way his muscular arms squeezed me tight, told me he was there, and I belonged to him. His hands worked my body, his mouth slid over my skin, and his cock brought me to ecstasy. It was even better than the night before.

  James had just finished inside me when his cell phone rang. I was still backing into him, trying to get myself off again, and he was still busy rubbing my clit and whispering hot shit into my ear. He would’ve been content with fucking me until he got soft, but his phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

  “Just answer it,” I said.

  “No,” he replied. “Fuck whoever that is.”

  I smiled and laughed as I turned my face to meet his. I kissed him and enjoyed the warmth of his lips on mine. Finally, the phone stopped ringing.

  “See?” he said. “Must not have been that important.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Then don’t stop. I’m almost there.”

  Knowing that I was almost out of time, I lowered my own hand to my pussy and worked my clit. I knew how to get myself off quickly and thank God I did because James’s phone rang again.

  “Answer it,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  James pulled away from me and looked down to see that I really did have it. My back arched and I fingered myself as I watched him watch me. It was a turn on.

  “Answer it,” I said.

  “This better be good.”

  Then he looked at his phone and sat up tall.

  “Shit,” he said. “It’s two o’clock. How did we sleep so much?”

  “We didn’t…umm…we didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping, babe,” I replied as I reached orgasm.

  My concentration was on myself so I didn’t hear any of his phone call, but then he was back at my side, kissing my neck, and apologizing for having to go.

  “It was Chunk,” he said. “It’s his day to open the shop. He said something happened and I needed to go down there and see it.”

  “What?” I said, all sexual thoughts fleeing from my mind as I wondered if it had something to do with Kevin or maybe the guys he’d beaten up for James. “Do you want me to go down there with you?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s fine. I’ll come back after.”

  God, how I loved the sound of that. I wanted him to always say that to me.

  “Do you want to shower first?” I asked.

  “I wish I could but I better get down there. You go ahead. I’ll shower when I get back. I can’t imagine it’ll take longer than an hour.”

  I found my towel and wrapped it around myself again so I could walk James to the door. There, I planted a kiss on his cheek and watched him walk out of my apartment. He turned once more to look at me and then leaned through the doorframe and bent down to kiss my forehead.

  “Don’t leave me, Nik,” he said. “You always leave. Please don’t do that to me.”

  “I promise I won’t,” I said.

  I meant it. It surprised even me, but I had no desire to grab my packed bag and leave town. With James, it was all different and I knew things were changing for the better. Once he finally closed my front door, I collapsed against it and rested my head there for a moment, grinning as wide as I could. James loved me and I loved him.

  I took a shower, and sat down in the tub to let the hot water run over me. This time I didn’t feel dirty. In fact, I felt cleaner than ever before. James’s declaration of love for me had done something. It had flipped a switch inside me. I felt great. The hot water burned and I loved it but I didn’t love it because it rinsed me free of filth. No, I loved it because it reminded me I was alive and had more to live for.

  By the time I got out of the shower, my skin was all wrinkled. I found a new towel to wrap around my waist and headed to my bedroom where I turned on the TV and quickly fixed my sheets and blanket so I could sit back. The news was on. It shouldn’t have been at this hour.

  If that wasn’t strange enough, the face that flashed on screen surely was. I immediately recognized the guy. The businessman from the other night at the Motor Quill. The guy Kevin had been tattooing while I worked on Jane. In the picture, he had his arm around a blonde woman and they were both smiling. It looked like a picture taken at an office party.

  Gloria Styles’s voice played over the picture.

  “Details are still sketchy but the body found yesterday morning on East 180th Street has now been identified as that of thirty-five year old Roderick Marsh…”

  I looked around the room, trying to locate my cell phone but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. I needed to call James and tell him. This only confirmed my earlier fears. Kevin was Simple Simon and he’d killed one of his customers. My home phone rang and I ran into the living room and over to the couch to answer it.

  “James?” I said.

  “Not quite,” a familiar voice said. “B…b…but you l…like him d…don’t you?”

  The phone fell from my hand and bounced off the couch. I let it lie there for a few seconds, too afraid to pick it up. How did Kevin have my home phone number? Fear turned to rage and I picked up the phone again.

  “I know it’s you! Leave me the fuck alone!” I yelled.

  “But I l…l…like you, N…N…Nikki.”

  He said my name exactly the way Kevin always did. Then the whistling. Ring around the Rosy…pocket full of posy…ashes…ashes…

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Only to cha…cha…chat,” he said. “I tr…tr…tried to chat wa…with V…V…Valerie.”

  “Valerie?” I asked.

  What the fuck does he mean?

  “Yes,” he said. “BUT SHE WOULDN’T GIVE ME THE FUCKING TIME OF DAY!”

  My knees knocked and my legs trembled. His scream held so much rage. And he didn’t stutter at all. Was Kevin able to hide the stutter? Was his stutter fake all this time? It would be absurd.

  “So, I t…t…turned her insides into a f…fucking omelet.”

  I hung up the phone. My hands shook so badly I could barely dial James’s phone number. It went to voice mail. I tried again. Same thing. I needed to get out of my house. If he knew my number, he could easily find out where I lived.

  I ran to my bedroom and yanked open the walk-in closet door. I turned on the light and was about to reach for a dress when I saw something strange. It didn’t make sense. Not in my closet. Sitting there, perched on the shoulders of my hung dresses, was a black fedora hat. Vomit rose in my throat as I backed up, my feet barely moving. In what must have been only a few seconds, I went through a whole range of emotions. Everything from confusion to wonder to absolute terror.

  Black boots moved near my feet.

  Metal hangers screeched as they were pulled along the metal bar.

  The dresses moved.

  The hat rose.

  A black mask.

  And the world went black.

  Chapter 10 – Ivory

  My mind was full of great thoughts on my drive over to the shop. Chunk had sounded worried about what I might find when I get there, but after my night with Nikki, I couldn’t imagine anything bringing me down. Probably some kids had egged the window or some drunk customer had th
rown up all over one of our booths.

  So am I now officially with Nikki? After all these years are we actually together?

  The answer seemed like an easy one, but then again, I’d been pretty sure that Valerie and I had a good thing going. Turns out she was a royal bitch who just wanted some dick. I felt used and that made me laugh. How many guys out there would complain about getting fucked and then dumped? Most guys would be thrilled about it. Besides, I didn’t need to worry about her anymore. I was in love with my girl.

  It wasn’t until I’d parked my car and walked up to the shop door that I finally realized what Chunk had been concerned about.

  The shop window had been smashed in. A parking meter lay in a scatter of glass on the shop floor. Chunk sat inside at one of the booths with his large arms folded in front of him, watching the wall-mounted TV. I stepped inside, trying my best not to disturb the crime scene. Like CSI would be showing up to dust for fingerprints. It was a broken fucking window, not a Simple Simon bloodbath.

  “Can you believe this shit?” Chunk said. “I told you a long time ago you needed to get some roll down gates at least.”

  “This has never happened before,” I said.

  “So will you get ‘em now?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll get ‘em now.”

  “Good cause they took some of my shit,” Chunk said. “Nothing much, just a DVD player and a pretty nice surround sound system I took in trade for a butterfly tat last Saturday.”

  As angry as the broken window made me, I kind of wanted to laugh. Having some of Chunk’s random shit taken out of the shop would be a blessing. Of course I couldn’t tell him that.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “You could say that,” he replied. “They took all the machines too. Ain’t none of us gonna be working anytime soon.”

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I said as I rushed to the first booth in the row, mine, and glanced down to see my tattoo machine was gone. I looked over at the next one, Kevin’s, and his too was missing.

  Now I was fucking pissed. A window I could live with, but you don’t fuck with a business’s main source of income. Come on. You don’t rob a gas station and kidnap the pumps. You don’t rob a bank and steal the cash registers. You don’t rob a tattoo parlor and steal the fucking machines.

  “You think it was those punks that jumped me?” I asked. “I haven’t told anybody this, but Kevin put some of ‘em in the hospital. He fucked ‘em up bad.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Would they have a reason for writing that?”

  He was pointing back at the broken window so I turned around and saw what he meant. No, those punks wouldn’t have a reason for writing what was painted in red above the broken window. It read: WE ALL FALL DOWN.

  To be continued.