by Louise Krieg
Well, he was more of a man than either of them would ever know. He ground his teeth together as he stepped onto the elevator and then watched the doors slowly close off his view of Audrey. Her eyes flicked up at him just before they shut completely, and he was about to say something, but then the doors closed and the elevator moved and he was out of luck.
That was the way things went for him. He was a man looking for love, but he was never able to find it. Either the girls ignored him, or they laughed in his face, or they gave him some half-baked excuse about why they couldn’t date Tom Henderson. He knew he wasn’t much to look at, but if he could only get them to see him…
Well. They weren’t going to look at him unless something changed. He would have to make it change somehow.
Only, he had no idea how to make that happen.
He looked up when the elevator doors dinged open. He was in the lobby. First floor, not second. He looked at the buttons on the elevator. The number two was still lit up from where he had pushed it, but for some reason the damned thing had brought him all the way down to the spacious entry area. Security guards at their station between the doors to the street and the elevators turned around to look at him. Not wanting to look stupider than he already did, Tom got off the elevator here like that had been the plan all along.
“Hey, buddy,” one of the guards called to him. “1975 called. It wants its shirt back.”
The other guard laughed so hard coffee spit out the corner of his mouth. Tom bent his head and balled his fists. Then he turned on his heel and made a beeline out the front doors, down the limestone steps, and tuned up the sidewalk in a random direction. He imagined he could still hear the laughter behind him.
Well, that was just great. That was exactly the way the whole day was going. He decided he needed a breather anyway. He didn’t usually leave the office until lunchtime but as far as anyone was concerned he was still up on the fourth floor fixing a computer issue, so he had some time to walk and clear his thoughts.
Only, his thoughts didn’t want to be cleared. He kept thinking about Sasha’s tight body, and Audrey’s repressed sexual desires, and soon it was hard to walk straight and keep his toolkit strategically placed to hide the bulge in his pants. There had to be something he could do to get one of the two women to notice him. Didn’t there?
“Come on, Tom,” he mumbled to himself. “You’re a smart guy. Figure it out, damn it.”
“Excuse me, sir,” an old woman said to him. “Were you talking to me?”
She was sitting in a rocking chair in the alcove of her shop, smoking a pipe of all things. A colorful piece of cloth held back her long gray hair. The sun had dried her skin to the color and texture of leather and Tom had to wonder if she didn’t spend all day, every day, right here on the street talking to passersby. Her dress and shawl were as colorful as her headpiece and he knew what she was, and what her business would be selling, before he even caught sight of the name spelled out in gold stick-on letters in the window.
Madame Toufou, Teller of Truths.
“You’re a fortune teller,” he blurted out. He wasn’t trying to be rude, but it still surprised him that anyone believed in this stuff in a society marked by amazing scientific discoveries and technologies. It was all right, he supposed, if it was just for fun.
“Ah, I am more than a fortune teller,” Madame Toufou told him with a grin that showed a missing front tooth. Her voice was raspy and accented with Italian. “I am the seer of the future. I am the finder of truths. For an extra few dollars, I even dabble in love spells to attract the fairer sex.”
She cackled at that, and Tom had to wonder if she’d ever been considered one of the faire sex by a man in her youth. Then again, she was a woman, and she did understand these things better than he would. He was here, and he had a few minutes to spare…
And who knew? It might be fun.
She saw his decision on his face. “All right, then! Come with me, young man. Come into Madame Toufou’s domain.”
She levered herself up from her chair, standing stoop shouldered and leaning heavily on a stout wooden cane. Then she led him inside the shop.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the gloom. Candles were the only light, burning on shelves and side tables, illuminating stacks of books and display cases full of crystals and glass orbs for sale. At the back of the small room there was a round table set up with a deep purple cloth hanging over it. On top, a large crystal ball sat in place on a round wooden disc. Madame Toufou sat in one chair on the far side of the table. With the stem of her pipe, she motioned or Tom to take the other chair.
“This is a little theatrical, isn’t it?” he asked her as he sat himself down.
“Shh,” she ordered. “I am already reading your wants and desires.”
She held her hands up in the air, swinging the fingers on her one hand and the pipe in the other. Eyes half closed, she murmured an incantation of some kind.
Then she stopped, and stared directly at him.
“You wish the affections of two women.” Her voice was strong and certain as she said it. “One is tall and dark. Asian, I think. She has a way about he that makes you want to take her forcefully and spend out all of you desires on her until she lies quivering in your arms, begging for more.”
Tom gaped. Madame Toufou was describing Sasha. “How did you—?”
“Quiet,” she snapped. “Do not interrupt. The second is a woman who hides her sexual nature behind a mask of inhibition. She is beautiful but doesn’t know to show it. This one makes you want to draw her out a little at a time until she comes pouring over you like a tidal wave that can not stop. You wish to make her burn with passion for you.”
Audrey. That was a perfect description of Audrey. “Uh. Yes. Yes, there are two women like that, in my office. I’ve been trying to meet them.”
“Shush! You will not speak except to answer my question. Which one do you desire most?”
Her hands began to move again in time to a music only she could hear.
Which one? Tom had no idea how to answer that. He’d lusted after both of them for a very long time. Which one?
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
“You must choose.” Madame Toufou began chanting again, murmuring and waving her hands, leaning her head back, her eyes lidding over. “Choose.”
“I can’t. I mean, either of them, I guess…”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know what to say. Uh, I don’t know…”
“Choose!”
“I don’t know…Sasha…no, wait…Audrey…no…”
“You must choose!” Her chanting grew louder, and louder still. “Choose!”
“Audrey! No, Sasha. Definitely Sasha…no…”
“Choose now! Now!”
“Either of them. No, wait. Both of them! I want both of them!”
Madame Toufou rushed her hands together over her head, and the sound of them meeting was impossibly loud. Like a thunderclap. The force of it pushed Tom’s chair back against the floor and left his ears ringing. He found he was panting, as if he’d just run a mile. The whole experience left him shaking.
What had he just done?
“That,” Madame Toufou said as she went back to puffing on her pipe, “will be two hundred dollars. I accept credit cards, I you prefer.”
Then she smiled at him, like she’d just done him the biggest favor of his life…or played the biggest practical joke in history.
Chapter Two
Laying on his couch made his head stop pounding. A cold towel over his eyes helped, too. His boss hadn’t sounded happy when he’d called in for a sick day but he hadn’t taken any time off in two years. They didn’t have much choice but to say okay.
So it was time to rest and recuperate. Fun or not, the fortune teller had taken a seriously whacked out direction. He needed the rest.
Then the doorbell rang, and his idea of taking a nap on the couch was going to have to wait.
Wha
t stung the most, he thought to himself, is how he’d paid over the two hundred dollars by using his debit card without even hesitating. Like she’d done him some big favor by pointing out that he had two hot women in his life who could be his but weren’t, and he had no one else to fill that void. So, thanks a lot Madame Nutjob, but next time he wanted to be screwed over he’d just bend over and—
When he opened the door, Sasha was standing there.
She looked at him with those big, brown eyes of hers and bit her lower lip as she drank him in with her gaze. “Um, hello Tom. I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
Her voice was soft and smoky, and her eyes would not stop fidgeting over his body, snagging on his hips and his wiry chest and his...man parts. He’d changed out of his plaid collared shirt as soon as he got home, into a more comfortable t-shirt and now, considering who it was that had rang his doorbell, he was glad he had. Even if the shirt had the image of the TARDIS on it made from Doctor Who slogans. It was obviously working for her.
“Hey, Sasha.” He felt oddly at ease talking to her, which was completely out of character for him. Maybe it was because he was at home, on his own turf, and not seeing her at the office. Or heck, maybe it was the spell that Madame Mumbo Jumbo had cast. Whatever. He didn’t care. As long as he felt so much in control, so damned masculine, he was going to use it to his advantage. “You want to come in?”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, nodding her head and already easing past him in a way that made her body brush against his. Her breasts slid over his shoulder and sent heat coursing through him. “I want you to take a look at my laptop. They said you’d gone home though so I came here…I hope that’s all right.”
She lowered her head and looked at him through her lashes. Tom closed the door behind him, staring at Sasha the whole time. Was this what it felt like to have a woman come on to you? Was Sasha…here…now? With him? He stepped closer to her. Her scent filled his senses, the spice of her perfume, the heat of her body. Her hands trembled as they reached over to him and began tracing their way up his arms.
“You don’t have a laptop,” he pointed out.
“What?”
“You said you needed me to take a look at your laptop,” he explained. “But you don’t have one with you.”
“Oh.” Her mouth made a perfectly round circle with that simple word, the tip of her tongue resting on her teeth as her hands cupped his neck, and she pulled herself in close and tight to him. “I must have forgotten it at the office.”
Then she pushed up on her tiptoes, and put her trembling lips to his. Tom’s body instantly responded and he knew what paradise must feel like. This was everything he had wanted from Sasha but had always been too afraid to take.
No. Not everything.
He wrapped his arms around her petite waist and sealed her body to his. She gasped against his lips as his throbbing erection pressed into her, begging to be let out. The kiss turned hot, and needful, and when she bit his lip he moaned and began walking her backward to the bedroom. This was happening. Right now, this was going to happen.
Her hands found his, and forcefully she pulled them to the front of her. “Here,” she instructed him. “Touch me here. I have another lap you can play with.”
She pressed his fingers in between her legs, bunching up the fabric of her dress, directing him to her secret notch. She fell against him when he found it through her clothing and her trembling became a forceful spasm that sent her over her edge as she bit down on his shoulder to keep from screaming.
“Tom…” she said, begging him, pleading with him, telling him that she was his to do whatever he wanted to.
In the bedroom, he laid her down on the bed, gently, and helped her pull her dress up to her hips. She took it up further, up over her arms and then her head. She tossed it aside, panting and gasping, prostrate before him.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the perfect roundness of her breasts struck him as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her white panties were wet, and she took his hands again, and showed him where to touch her.
When he joined her on the bed, she screamed his name. She wanted all he could give her and when he thought she was done, she took him again.
It was hours later when they were naked and sweating and panting in the bed, worn out and still wanting each other. Sasha cried, and wiped away the tears with her fingers, explaining she always cried when a man did her right because nobody knew how to treat a woman anymore. Moments later, she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
This wasn’t love, he told himself. This was crazy, was what it was. Crazy, and exciting. Now he knew a little more of what made Sasha tick. She wanted to be loved. She wanted tender sex from a man who respected her. He could so be that guy. At least for today.
Then he fell asleep beside her with a smile on his face.
The sky outside was dark when he woke up again. It was the feel of feathery light somethings brushing over his face that had brought him out of a deep, deep sleep. At first, he thought that maybe Sasha was ready to go again. He was sore, to be sure, but he was definitely willing to show her how good a man could be to her again…
Only, in the backsplash from the hallway light he could see that it wasn’t Sasha. It was Aubrey.
She wore her hair back in a ponytail now, and she had on a black t-shirt and black pants and black, fingerless leather gloves. He hardly recognized her. This was the bad girl side of her, he realized, the side that he had always known was there but could never hope to enjoy himself.
Looked like his luck had changed with Aubrey, too.
“Wait,” he said, whispering so he wouldn’t wake up Sasha sleeping next to him. “How did you get in here?”
She winked at him, leaning in close to whisper in his ear. “A girl needs her secrets.”
Then she bit his ear. Not gently.
He didn’t even have time to cry out. She was standing up over him again already, and he was very aware of how naked he was when she took her time looking him up and down. This was different than the way Sasha had looked at him. There was a hunger in Audrey’s gaze. A need to take, and not give. A need to have him in any way she could.
She looked over at Sasha, and sneered. “You’ve been with the little girl.” Grabbing his hand, she pulled him out of bed. “Now come be with a woman.”
He stumbled along with her, to the living room, to the couch, like he didn’t have a choice. When they got there she pushed him and he stumbled onto the cushions of the sectional, on his hands and knees. She was on him in an instant, reaching around between his legs and grabbing hold of his junk. She squeezed, and he froze.
“Do everything I say,” she told him, running her other hand up his side, under his chest, until her fingers found his nipple. “I can make this feel good.”
She circled his nipple, and she kneaded his balls, and damn it all to hell if he didn’t think his brain was going to explode from the sheer pleasure of it.
Then she yanked on him and he gagged, even as his cock went to full attention in a split second.
“If you don’t do what I say,” she told him, “I’ll make it hurt. We clear?”
She was everything he knew she would be. Forceful, inventive, wild and crazy. He wanted more of this. He wanted her to abuse him. This was the best night of his life! Two girls with wildly different sexual needs, and both of them taking it from him!
This time she used her nails. “I said, are we clear?”
“Yes,” he told her.
Somehow she managed to slide under him, through his legs. She was using his hips for leverage. “Good. Now…stay very still.”
Her mouth slid over his tip, and his whole body shook from the pleasure of what she did next.
Chapter Three
Tom ached all over when his eyes opened again. In a good way. In a way that he was going to remember for the rest of his life.
He was in bed again, with two beautiful and naked women tangled up with him. Sasha’s hand was stroking him
gently in his abused crotch, circling the globes of his testicles and drawing designs on the back of his little head with a fingernail. Audrey’s mouth was suckling at his nipple. Even in sleep, these two couldn’t get enough of him.
Finally arrived, he thought. I’m a stud.
Nestling down in the press of warm bodies, he let himself start to be aroused again. A man never knows his limitations until he comes right up against them. That made him chuckle. “Pun intended,” he whispered to himself.
“Shut up,” Audrey’s sleepy voice ordered him. “Talk when I tell ya to.”
“You shut up,” Sasha told her. “He’s mine, and he can do whatever he wants.”
Audrey raised her head, her eyes flashing a warning at the other woman. “He’s mine, and he will be obedient or I’ll whip him again.”
An involuntary twinge clenched Tom’s butt cheeks. The whipping had been unexpected, especially with his own belt, but…it had been oddly enjoyable.
As the two of them continued to snarl at each other—over him, he realized with a smile—Tom rolled to the side to check the clock. Damn it!
“Hey, we’re all late for work,” he told them. “We have to go. Last night was…wow. Last night was beyond amazing. Can we do it again tonight?”
Audrey’s hand pushed down on his chest. “You aren’t leaving.”
“Don’t go,” Sasha pleaded with him.
“Hey, come on,” he chuckled, extricating himself from them with a little effort. “We’ve got to work. Remember? Paychecks and lives and bills and stuff? We’ll do it again. Tonight.”
He kissed them both on their foreheads, and went to take a shower. He really needed a shower. And maybe a bandaid for that one spot where Audrey had scratched him.
At the door to the bedroom, he looked back. Both women were sitting there, naked and glorious…and staring at him. Kind of creepy, but hey. Who was he to complain? He’d been screwed by two women last night. And then by the same two women at the same time. The miracle was that they had gotten any sleep last night at all.
