Confessed

by Nicola Rendell

  “Who…the hell…are you?” she gasps.

  God, the way her abs flex, the way she hooks her legs around my body. “That’s what I wanted to ask you,” I say.

  Her fingers find their way between mine on the cuffed hand, and I press our knotted fists back onto the pillow by her head. Her other hand moves down towards my pants. She undoes my button and inches my fly downwards. I help her, our hands all tangled up on my zipper, and then my cock springs free. The head lands on the soft flesh of her thigh.

  One of the bobby pins slips off. She gasps. I fix it for her, and she whimpers.

  “Talk to me,” she says, thrashing her head back and forth a little bit in pain. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Her voice is just a pant, and the very sound of it sends a bolt through my cock and balls. I stroke my length on her stomach, pressing into her belly button with my tip. “I want to fuck you until you can’t take it anymore.”

  She flattens her cheek into the pillows and moans. “I need it. Just like that.”

  I let a stream of saliva fall onto my palm and grip myself hard. Jesus, this woman. So exactly what I need.

  “What else?” she says. “Tell me a dream.”

  I unzip her shorts and pull them down just far enough to get inside her. I was right. She’s fucking soaked. The smell makes me feel completely drunk.

  “You mean besides fucking you until you cry a little?”

  “Shiiiiiiiit,” she says. Her breasts rise and fall. I drag my tongue between them, down her breast bone. My ear is right against her chest as she says, “Tell me one dream. Just one.”

  I stroke again, and her hand joins mine. Her little fingers make their way to my balls. There is no feeling like that one in the entire fucking world. I come up on my knees and keep stroking. “You’re gonna ask me to talk about dreams when you’ve got me like this?”

  “Uh huh,” she whispers. “I want to know what kind of man can make me feel so…insane.”

  I pull my foreskin back and edge myself into her. “You’re sure you want to keep talking?”

  Her hips rise. Her eyes close. But she’s a tough little pistol. Spoiled rotten. “One. Dream.”

  She wants a dream? I’ll give her a fucking dream. The dream. I drive into her, growl out the word, “Artist,” in her ear, and ram into her cervix.

  She feels so fucking good around me. Better than last night. Better than this morning. “Ever time I get inside you, it feels better than the last time. How is that possible, huh?” I keep my lips to her shoulder as I move in and out of her. Gently, she runs her hand along the side of my head. My ear, my neck. Her pinkie moves up my sideburn. I turn my face and place a kiss on her palm.

  “I don’t know. But God, I know what you mean.” Her body falls into rhythm with mine.

  I’ve got to focus on car theft stats again. Three pumps and she’s going to make me lose my load. No way is that going to happen.

  I pull out of her a little but leave my head inside.

  She reaches up for my face and runs her thumb down my sideburn. “I think that’s an amazing dream to have.”

  “Good girl,” I say. But enough talk. I staved off the first wave and now I can take her until she really does cry a little. I gather some saliva in my mouth, which I let dribble from my lips onto my cock, and a little on her pussy. She’s plenty wet enough, but I like the idea of getting her even wetter.

  “Oh God, oh God, Vince…”

  “Yeah, Lucy Burchett?” I watch her as I say it.

  She smiles into her own arm as she writhes. “You went through my stuff.”

  I nod. “But I’ll keep your secrets. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Will you?” she says.

  One plunge into her. Another. “I hid your 20K under the lining of your purse,” I say. “You’ve got some fucking learning to do.”

  Now we’re finding our rhythm again. It feels like we’re turning into one single body.

  She bears down on my cock with the muscles of her pussy, and I growl into her throat. “Promise,” she says, and I hear it deep and low against my ear. “Don’t give me up.”

  “I fucking promise.”

  As I fuck her, I drive my pelvis into her clit, using the friction of her lips and folds to bring her closer. Closer. Closer. I’m getting to know her now, her pants and gasps, so I can tell she’s almost there. I double down, and then those little feet ball up. Her toes dig into the mattress. I pull out of her and add more saliva. With the tip of my cock, I work her clit. A drop of precum spills from me onto her. “I wish you could see this. I’m working my cum into you.”

  “Oh God, you’re gonna make me…”

  “Atta girl,” I whisper, and hold her cuffed hand tighter.

  She’s about to come. I feel her thighs trembling under me, shaking, building up to it…

  Which is when there’s a loud thump on the door. She freezes, and so do I.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. It sounds like the fucking SWAT team. Her toes grip my thighs. We stay there, eye to eye, as the air conditioner kicks into overdrive.

  “Who is it?” Lucy mouths at me.

  “I don’t know,” I mouth back.

  We stay frozen. Whoever it is, we can wait it out. I move my body over hers, sheltering her from whatever’s outside.

  Except now it’s a kick to the door and a familiar fucking voice. “Vincent Russo! Open door! I am here to collect and put your balls on barbeque.”

  11

  I slap the cuffed hand over her mouth, hook my free arm around her stomach, drag her off the bed, and hustle her into the bathroom. She doesn’t fight me, just stays balled up and grips my arm tight. I sling her into the tub and set her down. Her bare feet skitter and squeal on the smooth plastic. I keep my hand over her mouth and grip the back of her neck with my palm.

  “Don’t say a fucking word,” I tell her in her ear.

  She nods into my hand. She looks petrified. Good. She should be fucking petrified. They don’t call him the Mercenary for nothing. I let her mouth go and snap the bobby pins off her nipples. With my teeth, I take the wax end off one of the pins and jam it into the lock.

  “Stay here,” I growl softly into her ear.

  She grips the shower curtain. I hear her breathing, labored and pained. I glance up at her. “It’s okay.”

  She still hasn’t said anything. But her eyes say I don’t think it’s okay!

  Click go the cuffs, and we’re free. I get right in her face. “Not a motherfucking sound. You hear me?”

  Another nod. She lets go of the curtain and lowers herself into a crouch in the tub.

  I grab her face in both my hands and kiss her hard. She lowers herself to her knees and grips the edge of the tub with her fingers. She looks so tiny, so vulnerable.

  I close the curtain and shut the door behind me.

  As I walk through the room, I make sure there’s no evidence of her anywhere. I grab her purse, flats, and bra and stuff them into the mini-fridge. Then I grab my boxers and go to the door.

  He really is a dead ringer for Boris Yeltsin, if Yeltsin was a totally sociopathic bank robber with a Russian Orthodox cross tattooed on his neck. Indistinguishable otherwise.

  “Vincent Russo,” Gregorovich says. “I tell you I find. I find.” He comes right in, shouldering past me like a bull.

  I don’t even want to fucking know how this happened. Images of that couple who ran the run-down service station where I stole the Tennessee plate flash into my head. They’re trussed up like turkeys and dripping blood onto their linoleum floor. Rumor has it, shit like that was his specialty back in Ukraine or wherever the fuck. How he ended up robbing banks in Jersey, I don’t know. Fucking New Jersey. Hair trap of the universe. All the human refuse in the world funnels down under the bridges and tunnels.

  He’s pacing around, sniffing. I know what he’s looking for. A woman. The best way to get a guy by the balls? Abduct the woman who’s got him by the balls already. Oldest thug trick in the book. Which is
exactly why I stuck Lucy in the bathroom and scared her shitless to keep her quiet.

  Gregorovich looks down at my boxers. I’m still hard, but it’s withering. I adjust my balls. “Coke, alright? It does that to me.”

  I reach for my jeans and grab a cigarette from my pants and light up. I take a long drag and flick my ashes onto the laminated NO SMOKING! sign on the bedside table. I have to keep her safe “What the fuck do you want?”

  “What you think?” He waddles over. “You owe me monies, and you owe jobs. We do job. I hire you for job. But now what you do?” Gregorovich looks around. “You go on vacation? In shithole?”

  I lean on my elbow, watching him while I smoke. The plan had been to never, ever see Boris Goddamned Yeltsin here again. Three months ago, we hit a bank near Rutgers. Just about at the moment when he stabbed the teller in the throat with a ballpoint pen, our partnership started to, you know, dissolve. If I hadn’t been so hard up for cash five years ago, I’d never have gotten involved with this piece of shit.

  “I smell some pussy,” he says, leering and sniffing again.

  The rage I feel is instant and overwhelming. I smell some pussy.

  How about I shove your ball sack into your kidneys? She’s not some pussy. She’s Lucy.

  I take a drag and exhale through my nose. Meditative breathing is a fuckload more effective through a high-tar smoke.

  He sniffs again and looks under the bed. He crouches down, and his pants crackle.

  “Must be the hooker you found on the way here,” I say.

  Gregorovich straightens up. He’s got sweat stains in the armpits of his golf shirt, and it makes me think of a line from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I read it about seven thousand times when I was in jail. “My blood is too thick for California. I’ve never been able to properly explain myself in this climate.”

  Fucking Gregor. His blood’s too thick for anywhere but Siberia. He’s sweating under his man breasts.

  But make no mistake. He might be flabby and dull-eyed, he’s still fucking dangerous.

  He takes his knife from his pocket and flips it open. He puts the tip on his thumbnail and spins it while he watches me.

  “I’m out of the fucking game, Gregor,” I say. “I think I made that clear. Remember? Because I sure fucking do.” Damn near drowned the bastard in his own toilet making the point. It was magnificent.

  Gregorovich sniffs. “You are dangerous man, Vincent,” he says, taking a step closer and giving me this look that I’m pretty sure they’ve patented in the slums of Leningrad or wherever the fuck. Only Russian mobsters can look at you like they’re planning to use your intestines for potato sausage.

  “Yeah, I am a dangerous man,” I say, standing and stalking towards him. I shove him against the wall. I’m twenty years younger and still strong as shit from jail. I grab him by the knuckles and squeeze. One of them pops in my hand. I stare him down and let another finger break.

  For one fucking instant, I’m distracted by one of Lucy’s hairs, long and blonde, caught up on the wallpaper right behind Gregor’s head.

  He seizes his moment, slams me against the door and drives his own blade against my throat. He might be getting old, but he’s a beast. If I’m the young Rottweiler, he’s the old bull mastiff. He presses his thumb hard into my windpipe, and I feel the cold blade right at my jugular. But I play it cool. How many dipshits have lost it right here because they panic?

  Gregor says, “But I am dangerous man too.” He wiggles the knife. I feel my blood on my neck. Not much, but enough. Truly dangerous guys will look at the wound when they’re cutting you, not at your face. They like the blood. They like the pain. And that’s where this motherfucker is looking right now. At the blood on my throat.

  So, fuck it. It’s either act fast or get fucked up royally.

  I make like I’m going to take my cigarette out of my mouth to exhale. I feel the smoke moving through my throat, narrower now than it was a second ago. But instead of taking another drag, I jam the cigarette into his forehead, grab his knife hand, and snap his wrist. The knife falls to the floor, and I kick it away.

  “Motherbitch!” “Yeah, yeah. Get the fuck out of here,” I say, wrenching his wrist back in the other direction and opening the door with my free hand. He doubles over, and I kick his ass out into the walkway.

  He snarls something that sounds dirty even without translation, and clutches his arm. I put my foot on the knife and lean on the doorframe.

  “Probably should get yourself to a hospital. You don’t get that wrist set, they’ll start calling you the Mercenary Cripple.”

  “No, Vincent Russo. This was big mistake.” He glares up at me, face all contorted in pain. “You will not get away. Your life is mine.”

  “Out,” I say, and knee him down the walkway. The fluorescent bulbs above me buzz, and there’s the noise of traffic far away on the highway. When I’ve got him near the steps, I put my hand to my knife in my pocket, just in case. “Get the fuck out of here or I boot you down these steps. Want to take bets on where your head cracks open?”

  “You motherfucker,” he growls.

  “You’re learning. That’s actually a word,” I say, and head back to the room, walking backwards. That’s another thing about Russians: Never turn your back. I get inside and bolt the door. I grab a chair and wedge it under the knob. I stare at the knife on the ground and rub my mouth with my hand. Motherfuck it. I figure I’ve got about six hours before he or one of his degenerate cousins comes to finish the job he just tried to start. Great. Fucking great.

  But the worst thing is, he was exactly fucking right—I am dangerous, and I’ll never lead a normal life. I’m bad fucking news and always have been.

  From the bare rod behind the door, I take the complimentary laundry bag and pick up the knife for safe keeping. I put it in my duffel and head to the bathroom. Before I open the door, I wipe the blood off my throat. What a fucking mess. When I open the door, Lucy jumps back, her bare feet squeaking on the tile.

  I get ready to tell her the whole story. But her eyes are like a little foal’s eyes, wide open and fucking terrified. They’re locked on the blood on my neck.

  “Are you okay?” she says. It’s like she’s frozen.

  “Totally fucking fine.”

  And then I watch her start to panic. She starts trembling and straps her arms around her body.

  “Lucy,” I say, reaching for her, but she’s already scurrying away. Out of the bathroom and towards the bed.

  “Where is my stuff!” she says.

  She’s in a frenzy. She lifts up the mattress, she flings the pillows off the bed. “Vince, where are my things? Give me my things.”

  I open the fridge door and point.

  She grabs her shorts and wriggles into them in silence. She keeps glancing up at my face and then away.

  ‘Lucy,” I say, reaching out to her. “I can explain…”

  Jesus, how am I going to finish that sentence? It started when I lost my shirt on a horse called Friday Night Lights and then I found I had a knack for bank robbery? Smooth, Vince. Fucking smooth. Real romantic. “Right, of course, you can! This is all totally fine!” she says. She looks like she doesn’t know me, like we’ve never met. Like we don’t have this fire between us. “Totally normal!” She’s almost shrieking, not sounding like the woman I’ve gotten to know at all. Panicked and strangled.

  I want to grab her and take her by the shoulders. But she’s already scared enough. And the last thing I want is her scared of me on top of the rest of it.

  “Vince, I just… I’ve got to…” She’s got her pretty hand pressed to her chest. I see the necklace right up close, and I can focus on it now that I’m not kissing that skin.

  “Will you just fucking tell me about that, at least? Just that one last thing?” I say, looking at the peanut. If only I can get her talking, I think I can get her to stay.

  But with her palm, she hides the necklace. That’s when my heart drops. She’s closing up. Blocking me
. Tapping out of the fight. I grab her arm, but she yanks it away from me.

  “It’s okay. I can keep you safe,” I tell her. It sounds like a lot of bullshit. It’s not bullshit. I just need to sit down and have some time to make a motherfucking plan. And passports. We need passports.

  “Oh yes, I’m sure you can!” Lucy says. “It’s just I’ve got to… I’ve got places to be. People to see…”

  “Please, Lucy. Just fucking sit down, listen to me. Give me five minutes. I can explain.” She steps into her flats, wincing as they dig into the red blisters at her heels. “I’m sure you can, but honestly, I don’t want to know. Really. You have your thing, and I have my thing. And this was nice and all, but…”

  But. Fuck. But.

  I reach out my hand to her. That’s all I can do now. I can’t make her stay. All I can do is put my hand out there in the air and hope she takes it.

  She stares at my palm. Her eyes slide up my tattoos. Then they dart over to the knife in the clear plastic bag.

  While I pray, I fucking pray, that she doesn’t bolt. “Please. Give me a chance.”

  Her eyes flash and get a little shimmery. She dislodges the chair from the doorknob and grabs her purse. “Keys. Where are my fucking keys?”

  “Please, Lucy. I’m begging you. Please.”

  For one second, she pauses, but doesn’t say anything. “Please,” her voice quivers, “I shouldn’t be here.”

  She’s right. I know she’s right. It isn’t safe, and right now, with it all on the line, that’s what matters. So I take the keys from under the Bible in the bedside table and hand them over. Then she turns, and she’s gone. The sound of her footsteps on the concrete is all she’s left me. And within seconds, I can’t hear those either.

  I close my eyes. I hear the BMW come to life. She peels out of the parking lot, and I that V8 roars away.

  I fall back slowly onto the bed and stare up at the water-stained, disgusting ceiling. On the television, the final round puzzle pops up on the screen: THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES.