I yawned as if to prove myself.
“You need to get some sleep tonight.”
“I plan on it. I hope Liu gets to move to another room. She tries to get all up on me every night.”
Patton laughed. “Really?”
“Every freakin’ night. She’s the horniest girl I’ve ever met—even more than Kate.”
“I’ll be talking to Sean about that tomorrow. If there’s an available room, I doubt he’ll care.”
“Good. I can’t take her anymore.”
“She’s a little childish.”
“A little?” I laughed mockingly. “She throws a fit whenever she doesn’t get what she wants.”
“Oh, I know.”
“You do, huh?” I pinched his side to get his attention. “She comes on to you at work, doesn’t she?”
“Quite a bit, yes.”
A beat of silence passed.
“And?”
“And what?” he said.
“How do you deal with that?”
He shrugged. “Well, let’s see.” He started rubbing my forehead with his thumb and I closed my eyes. “Generally I fuck her in the ass while drinking my coffee and making her suck my finger.”
My eyes opened again. I shook my head, gritted my teeth. “You mother fucker.”
He burst out laughing as I punched wildly at his chest.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” he exclaimed.
I pinched him again, this time on the stomach. “You ever touch that little bitch, I’ll cut your dick off and keep it in a jar.”
He snorted. “Now you sound like Brian.”
“Yeah, what’s with all those … things he has on his shelves?”
“They’re failed clone attempts.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I agree. He thinks he’s a mad scientist.”
“He is! I mean, he’s obviously brilliant. Nerdy fuck needed to get laid more as a teenager and he probably wouldn’t be so evil.”
“As a teenager, Brian was too busy performing autopsies on neighborhood pets to think about girls.”
“Sick, Patton!”
“Well, it’s true. He was a weird kid.”
“What about Mr. Shriver?”
“I never knew him to be a kid. He was twenty years old when I was born. We didn’t even meet until he came back to work for our father.”
He started talking about his dad and I closed my eyes again, listening intently, absorbing the sound of his voice. A strict, education-oriented upbringing, a father who valued violence as a child development tool. Patton knew he was going to work for his father before he entered grade school. I could tell he grew up afraid to defy his father, afraid to break away from his inheritance and forge a new path for himself. The way he talked, such a decision might have even cost him his life.
“No wonder you people are so fucked up,” I said when he was finished. He didn’t reply. I’d hurt his feelings. “Sorry. It’s been a really bad day.”
“You ready to talk about earlier?” he asked.
“Are you ready is the question.”
He sighed. “Let’s have it. Tell me what happened up there.”
I wasn’t sure where to start, but the most striking image forced its way to the forefront of my mind.
“He killed a Vampire Girl right in front of me. Stabbed her in the chest.”
“Jesus, Melissa. I’m sorry.”
“It gets worse. He said Mr. Shriver wants him to clear out the ‘old inventory.’ He’s going to kill them all.” I turned over to face him, placing my elbow between his legs. “And soon he’s going to kill the girls, too. Your girls. Sean said—”
Patton sat forward, his eyes wide and panicky. “He said that? When? I mean when is he going to do it?”
“I don’t know. Probably when Mr. Shriver gets back.”
“No.”
I moved quickly as Patton jumped to his feet. He paced back and forth across the room, punching his palm, shaking his head, gritting his teeth.
He stopped suddenly and looked at me. “If it comes to it I’ll kill them all. Mr. Shriver, Sean, his guards, Brian … even Clifton. I’ll go down for murder, corruption, sex slavery, a million other things—it’ll all fall on me—but they’re not hurting my girls.”
“Patton, they’ve been hurting your girls. For fifty years.”
The look on his face told me he knew that I knew.
“Fifty years,” I repeated.
I stood and came over to him. He shied away when I tried to raise the sleeve of his white t-shirt, but he brought his shoulder back slowly and let me expose the small scar on his upper bicep, just like the one on Flora’s arm.
“You old fuck. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
“Well it is fucking creepy, but at least you’ve aged well.”
A tear brimmed on his eyelid and spilled down his cheek. He put his face in his hands and wept silently. In this moment, he did look old. A lifetime of regret with another hundred years to follow.
I dropped to my knees, unbuckled his belt, and pulled his pants and boxer shorts down to his ankles. I kissed his thighs, brushing my face against his limp penis as I moved from one to the other. I ran my hand around him and grabbed his ass, watching it swell, tickling him with my hair, and then finally gripping his balls and taking him in my mouth.
I sucked him for a moment, then pulled away.
“If you have any other secrets, now’s the time to tell me. You have until you come in my mouth. If I find out you’ve kept anything else from me, we’re through.”
I recommenced aggressively, making him breath hard through his open mouth, only slowing down when he started talking.
“The girls,” he said. “All clones. I’m the one who picked out the prototypes, the DNA sources. I seduced them, took them to hotels, fucked them … drugged them … and collected what Brian needed.”
I wanted to stop, but I also wanted to see if he had anything else to say.
“I didn’t want to do it. I had no choice. I agreed only on the condition that I would get to care for the clones, raise them like my own daughters.”
Even though you fucked the originals.
“Melissa,” he said, taking a deep breath. “The real Flora was named Melissa. She was a runaway. A little hippie girl. I met her at a diner. We spent a week together. I took her to California. I tried … to raise the Floras … to have her … personali—”
I felt a hot spatter hit the back of my mouth.
He was done.
I swallowed it and stood, still holding onto his cock.
“Is that it?” I asked.
He nodded.
“You’re sure.”
“Yes,” he said. “Melissa, I’m sorry.”
“See me out please.”
I waited by the door while he pulled his pants up and buckled his belt, trying to decide how mad I was to learn this new information. Part of me felt like an irrational girlfriend asked about my boyfriend’s past lovers and then getting jealous. After all, I did give him an ultimatum to come clean or lose me forever.
Still, the news was hard to take.
As we walked to the elevator, Patton asked about Judy.
“She’s fine I suppose. She went back to her room.”
“I’m working on a solution to her problem.”
“Why don’t you focus on Brian? He’s the problem.”
“Part of the problem, yes, but Sean is a bigger obstacle, and Mr. Shriver’s will is the ultimate dilemma.”
We reached the elevator. I turned to him.
“You forgot about me,” I said.
“Huh?”
“I’m part of the problem, too.”
“What do you mean?”
I smirked and stepped on the elevator. “You’ll see tomorrow.”
“Melissa, tell me!”
The doors closed and I rode to Level C feeling exhausted and in desperate need of some m
outh wash.
When I opened the door to my room, the smell of brownies hit my nose and reenergized me enough that I was able to acknowledge my hunger.
Flora was setting a tray of them on the table. She wore a white apron over a light blue dress. A housewife from a fifties advertisement, only prettier.
Liu lay on the bed in nothing but panties, watching TV at high volume and stuffing her face with brownies, her feet kicking around wildly. The perfect image of an attention whore. After meeting Kate, I never thought I’d encounter someone who liked being naked more. The two of them would probably be best friends if Kate wasn’t comatose.
I went to the table and grabbed a brownie. Flora studied my face as I bit into it.
Amazing, just as she’d claimed.
“Wow, Flora!”
“I told you,” she said. “He’s a great cook.”
“You’re a great cook. You made them.”
She shrugged, but I could tell she was proud of herself.
“It’s still Patton’s recipe,” Liu yelled over the television.
“Turn that down!” I shot back.
“Make me!”
I was in no mood for this. With a half-eaten brownie still in my hand, I stormed over to the bed, snatched up the remote, and turned off the TV.
“Turn it back on!” Liu demanded, sitting up and mean-mugging me.
“If you can’t keep it down, you’re not watching it at all.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“The fuck I’m not. This is my room.”
“It’s Kate’s room. You poisoned her.”
“Who told you that?”
“None of your business.” She held out her hand palm up.
“Put some fucking clothes on,” I said, turning to walk away.
Liu let out a frustrated growl. I could hear her flopping around, throwing a fit. Flora looked like she was trying not to laugh. Liu’s naked temper tantrum must have been a pretty funny sight.
“No wonder your husband cheated on you.”
I turned and started back towards her. “What did you say?”
She smiled and blinked. “You heard me, dried up bitch. It’s only a matter of time before Patton fucks around, too, just like Ted.” She scooted back on the bed, still smiling but apprehensive.
“Melissa, no,” Flora pleaded.
It was too late. I jumped on the bed, wrapped both hands around her scrawny neck, the brownie smearing all over her and squeezing through my fingers, and slammed her down on her back, choking her, then punching her three times on her pointy little nose.
Flora was screaming, begging me to stop, but I ignored her. Liu’s screams were of a different sort. She sobbed uncontrollably, mouth wide open, blood gusting out of both nostrils.
I pinched her left nipple and squeezed hard, muting her cries to an infinitesimal squeal.
She wasn’t fighting me. She was just taking it. I started to back off, suspecting this was a trap, that she’d provoked me to attack her for some greater purpose, but that just made me more furious, so I slapped her, then brought the back of my hand across her other cheek, then again.
Before the shift in the mattress registered in my mind, an arm came around my neck and started pulling me backwards. I reached over my right shoulder, grabbed the arm with both hands, squeezed as hard as I could, and yanked while bending forward.
When she flipped over on top of Liu, I realized it was Flora.
“Oh my God, Flora, I’m so sorry!”
Flora rolled off of Liu and sat up slowly. Tears streamed down her face and her mouth was slightly agape. She took in a long, deep breath, let it out. Then her eyes widened, mouth opened a little more.
“Flora, I-I’m sorry,” I struggled to say. “I didn’t mean it. I freaked out.”
Liu cupped her nose and turned away from us. Her whole body was flushed. In our struggle her underwear had rolled down to the curve of her butt cheeks. When I turned back to Flora, that’s where she was looking: Liu’s butt. She reached out and squeezed it, drew in a sharp breath.
“Flora, what are you—”
She looked up at me, eyes glazed over. When the right strap of her dress fell off her shoulder, I tried to scoot off the bed, but she came at me too quickly, wrapping her arms around my waist and pressing her lips to mine.
A hot current of electricity shot through my body.
I turned it on. Oh God. I turned it on.
I slipped my hands between us, intent on pushing her away, but when I felt her breasts I squeezed them. We kissed deeply, licking each other’s tongue. I became lost in the contrast between the smooth muscle of her tongue’s bottom and the rougher texture of her taste buds. Her fingertips glided down my sides, across the seam of my jeans. We both sat up on our knees as Flora unbuttoned my pants and I ran my hand down her stomach, around her inner thigh, back up again, raising the skirt of her dress until I found the warmth of her crotch.
In my periphery, Liu flopped off the bed and skittered away, probably to the shower room.
“We have … to stop,” I breathed, but Flora’s lips never left mine, and soon I was on my back with my legs in the air, watching her loose ponytail bounce as she fought with my jeans.
A few moments without contact brought my senses back, and as Flora pulled her dress over her head, I spun around, jumped down off the bed, and backed away, still watching her. She moved as if in slow motion, the dress like a curtain revealing the prize behind it. Sharp hip bones, naval, smooth, honey-colored midriff, perfect breasts, and finally her adorable face.
She brought her arms down, still clutching the dress with one hand but slipping the other into her panties and starting to hump her own fingers.
“What’s … h-happening … to me?” she asked. Her head rolled back and her back arched and she gasped at the ceiling. “Fuck me … please …”
I had to act quickly. If I stared at her long enough, I would be drawn back in. On top of the pleasure coursing through my veins, I could feel the Love Drug taking effect, bathing me in emotional warmth, making my heart feel bruised, evoking laughter and undue happiness, naivety, innocence.
Flora’s ocean-blue eyes remained fixed on me as she masturbated with both hands. She cried out, muscles tensing.
I dove for her arm, clutching it just above the elbow and squeezing the little scar with my thumb until I felt the click of the button inside.
Then I fell on top of her and we lay in a tight embrace fingering each other and making out until the Libido Drug began to taper.
A while later we lay on our backs, glistening with sweat and panting, holding hands atop the damp comforter.
“That was amazing,” Flora said. “Amazing.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know I could feel that way.”
I turned over, intending to put my arm around her, but instead I ran my finger up and down her breast and around her nipple as I spoke. “It’s not real, Flora. It’s a chemical. Not natural, not good for you.”
She nodded, swallowed.
“Have you ever read William S. Burroughs?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“He’s a writer.”
“Okay.”
“He said, ‘Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.’ I read that once.”
“You read a lot, don’t you?”
Another nod. “I love books. And music. I just love learning new things, committing them to memory.”
The more time I spent around Flora and Judy, the more I felt like a dumbass. All I had for a counterbalance was Liu, and I’d just broken her nose.
“We better go find Liu. I hurt her pretty bad.”
Flora shot up like a weed and climbed off the bed. She spoke with deep, sincere concern, her voice almost cracking. “Oh no, I forgot. Where did she go?”
Meeting her at the bedside, I took her hand and led her through the corridor into the shower room, where Liu sat by the water holding a bloody wad of toilet
paper to her nose.
Flora leaned close to me as we approached and whispered, “Tell her you’re sorry.”
I wasn’t sorry. I’d reduced her to a beaten child, whimpering and helpless, but despite her very real pain, I knew it was all an act. The only thing I could think about now was Patton coming to pick her up in the morning. Liu would play the innocent victim. She would cry her beady little eyes out and plea for rescue.
And Patton was a sucker for girls in need.
“Is it broken?” I asked.
“I dunno.” Her deadpan, nasally voice made me feel giggly inside.
“She needs a doctor,” Flora said.
“Only one of those around here,” Liu said. She pulled the toilet paper away to expose her swollen nose and crusty, coagulated smile.
“Do you want me to call him?” I asked dry.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Flora asked.
“Did I fucking stutter?”
Flora tensed and squeezed my hand.
I didn’t know where to go from here. Sighing, I said, “Can we get you anything?”
“Sure can,” Liu said. She started kicking her feet out like a little kid anticipating a birthday gift. “I get to see James whenever I want, and tomorrow I’ll tell Patton I fell. If I don’t get to see James whenever I want, I tell Patton something different.”
“How about I just finish the job?”
Liu stood shakily, but she stared me down like a hawk.
“Go ahead,” she said.
Flora squeezed so hard I could feel her rapid pulse—or maybe it was my own. I turned away and pulled her along with me, back to the room.
We got dressed and sat at the table eating more brownies with soda. For a while neither of us spoke. Guilt was starting to weigh on me heavily, not for hurting Liu but for hurting Flora. I had disappointed her, and I wasn’t sure she’d ever look at me the same way again.
“I can’t get over these brownies,” I said finally, trying to spark some kind of conversation.
Flora nodded slowly and chewed, eyes cast to the tabletop.
I opened my mouth to say something else—more meaningless small talk that would have amounted to nothing—but Flora beat me to it.
“I don’t like violence,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“It scares me.”
“I won’t do anything like that again. I promise.”
His Favorite Girl Page 9
