“Hey, baby thing,” said Adam. “What are you reading?”
Luis flashed the cover. It was one of Helena’s – a biography of Harry Houdini.
“Please don’t tell me you’re getting ideas about escaping from that ankle bracelet?”
“Uh uh,” said Luis. “Houdini never had to deal with anything electronic. Or GPS. And if he had he might not have been so impressive. Hey, do you know he never even finished high school?”
“Nope.”
“He was younger than me when he performed on the midway at the World Fair in Chicago. Are you making tea?”
“I can,” said Adam, recognizing yet another post-prison symptom. “You know, I was exactly the same as you when I got out: I read everything there was to read, just because I could.”
“You don’t have to tell me. That prison library fucking sucked. The only thing worse was that time that chick decided to start a book club.”
Ryan wandered in from the kitchen. “What chick?”
“Some well-meaning hausfrau from the suburbs,” said Adam. “She was doing community service, probably for something white collar—”
“—credit cards,” said Luis. “My money was always on credit card fraud. She never showed up with the same shoes or purse twice. I think she went on a spending frenzy with someone else’s plastic.”
“Anyway,” said Adam. “She decides that what we really need to drag our minds out of the criminal gutter is the improving influence of a good book—”
“—except her idea of a good book was Eat, Pray, Love.”
Ryan gave an incredulous laugh. “Eat, Pray, Love? As a prison book club choice?”
“It was great,” said Adam. “We all sat down, and she’s like ‘What do you think is the central dilemma facing the protagonist in the first few chapters of the book?’”
Luis started to laugh at the memory. “And then Big Marcus was like ‘White bitch got too much money.’ Boom. End of discussion.”
“And that’s why we should be funding minority scholarships,” said Adam. “If Big Marcus had become a literary critic for the Atlantic, think how many bullshit middle brow bestsellers we could have been spared. I could have bypassed the trouble of wading through The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, because Marcus would have been all, ‘Swedish financial journalism is fucking dull, fam. Oh, and the Vanger girl was alive all along. Bye.’” He picked up Luis’s cup from the coffee table. “You want peppermint again?”
“Yeah. Please. Lots of honey. My throat’s kind of sore again.”
“Didn’t they look at that before you left?” said Ryan, who was sweet and innocent enough to believe that the prison system still gave a shit.
Luis snorted and flipped his hair. “Are you kidding me? The only box they check healthwise is ‘Is the prisoner still alive?’, and that’s only because if you’re not they have to fill out a bunch of paper work to requisition a body bag and a cardboard coffin.”
“Want me to take a look?”
“Why? Are you a doctor?”
“No,” said Ryan. “But I am a high school sports coach, which makes me an expert in telling sick kids from kids who are just saying they’re sick because they want to get out of doing exercise. Let me feel your neck.”
Adam watched as Ryan walked his fingers over Luis’s throat. A part of him couldn’t help wondering what Ryan might look like in a naughty nurse outfit, because panties. Jesus. Ryan in satin panties.
“Well, your glands feel swollen,” Ryan said. “Have you been feeling tired lately?”
“Nope. If anything, I can’t sleep.”
“Open up. Say ‘ahh.’”
“Ahh,” said Luis.
“Ew,” said Ryan, recoiling.
“What?” said Adam, unable to resist a medical trainwreck. “Is it disgusting?”
“Your tonsils look like asteroids covered in pus,” Ryan told Luis. “And no offence, but your breath—”
“—is terrible. Yeah. I know. I got gingivitis,” said Luis, without a flicker of shame. “Dental floss is like gold in prison.”
“Let me get your tea,” Adam said, and went back to the kitchen. Ryan followed.
“How does that work?” Adam said, thinking out loud. “He needs a doctor, but we can’t take him out of the building without that thing going off. Are we going to have to find someone who does house calls?”
Ryan shrugged. “Guess so. His throat looks nasty. Could very well be strep. I can’t believe they didn’t check him out before they let him leave.”
“No, honey. They don’t give a shit. Prison is basically a storage facility these days. Should I call his probation officer?”
“Yeah. Maybe they can deactivate the tag for a doctor visit. That’s got to be a legit reason, right?”
“Right,” said Adam, and reached for the electronic tag paperwork on top of the microwave. “Court appearances, medical emergencies…it’s gotta be in here somewhere.” The file was heavy in his hands. “You know they always say kids don’t come with an instruction manual, but trust me to get the one that does.”
“Well, if it’s strep he needs antibiotics,” said Ryan, pouring Rose’s tea. “Tell them that upfront and don’t take no for an answer. You can lose limbs to that shit.”
Adam stared into the file and groaned. “This is all very official. You know me and official. Can you call? You’re so much better at it than me.”
“Baby, this is your residence. You’re on all the forms. They don’t know me from…well…”
“…from Adam?” said Adam, and couldn’t help giggling. “Maybe I can call up and say ‘Madam, I’m Adam.’ I always wanted to be a palindrome. You know I almost picked out Anna as a drag name?”
Ryan visibly winced. “I don’t even want to imagine what kind of last names you had in mind.”
Adam tried to look innocent, but Ryan couldn’t help asking.
“One of them was ‘Bortion’, wasn’t it?” he said.
Adam nodded. “You know me so well.”
Ryan bent down and kissed him. “You’re a sick puppy, Bunny Boyle. Listen, I’ll write you a crib sheet, okay? Things you need to say and things you need to insist on.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
“You’re welcome.” More kisses. This was all getting very domesticated. “I’m gonna take Rose’s tea, and then I gotta get a move on. I’ve got a…thing.”
“Thing? What thing? School’s out for the holidays.” Adam grabbed the front of Ryan’s t-shirt, holding him in place for a moment longer. “You got some kind of side hustle going?”
“Maybe.”
“What? What are you up to?”
“Meth,” said Ryan, stealing one last kiss. “I accidentally-on-purpose asphyxiated a pair of drug dealers in the back of an RV, and the body disposal is turning out to be a whole new fucking headache.”
Adam clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You see, this is why my mother told me never to shack up with a school teacher. Long hours, lousy pay and the inevitable methamphetamine connections.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Gotta go, baby. I gotta turn a couple of bad guys into the world’s worst soup.”
5
Helena’s new boobs were insane.
Justin had come upstairs while she was futzing with some new padding, so he’d caught her in sweatpants and a bra. And now she was trying to lay down the law, but Justin kept getting distracted by the two large, erect nipples that were staring directly at him like a pair of unblinking eyes. “Okay, so we covered family, right? You can’t satisfy the conditions of the bet by making friends with a member of your blood family or anyone you’re prevented from banging by law or the bounds of human decency. And cousins totally count for this rule, because you’re not supposed to fuck them anyway.”
“Then why do they call them kissing cousins?” asked Justin.
“Because we’ve been through this, Justin. Kissing cousins are like, third or fourth cousins. People you could possibly breed with and with whom there’d be
an outside chance that your kids didn’t come out all Habsburg.”
“Whatsburg?”
“Habsburg,” said Helena, like Wikipedia with tits. “Ruling European dynasty. Big on incest. And chins. The chins were a direct result of the incest. Kept a bunch of court painters busy with the thorny issue of how to paint a flattering portrait of a Habsburg without making it look like it had tried to swallow an entire violin without chewing. I’m talking several inches of underbite here.”
“Gross.”
“It was. But them’s the rules. Don’t come back to me and say you’re now best buds with your aunt, because it doesn’t count. People you have previously fucked don’t count either. Nor do people who are not single or monogamous. It has to be someone you would have sex with.”
“You said it could be anyone,” said Justin, annoyed. The goalposts were moving all over the place here.
“No, I didn’t. I said it could be anyone you could have sex with, but you choose not to, because instead you choose to be friends.” Helena sighed. “And my eyes are up here, by the way.”
“I can’t help it,” Justin said. “They’re hypnotic. What the hell is going on with your jugs?”
Helena grinned and tweaked her fake nipples. “My secret weapon,” she said. “I’ve been working on a custom bra. I call it ‘The Aniston.’”
Justin nodded. “Hotness.”
“I know, right? I’ve got this whole slumber party idea for Sloth. It’s gonna be bunny slippers, sheer nightwear, sleep mask and a lot of boobage.”
Justin circled her, inspecting the silhouette. “You padding them bigger?”
“I gotta. My tatas have to keep pace with my expanding ass.” Helena squeezed a butt cheek. “Turns out true love is really fattening, especially when your boyfriend keeps buying you dinner.” She glanced towards the door of Bunny’s room, where someone was moving about. “Hey, Rose? You want to try that glitter lip effect I told you about?”
‘Rose’ stepped out, wearing a full face of make-up and a bathrobe. It was the first time Justin had seen her, and she was every bit as pretty as he thought she’d be, and then some. Smooth brown skin, black brows, vamp-red lips and enormous golden eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I might stick with the red lip. Anyway, you shouldn’t be getting that close to me. Ryan thinks I might have strep.”
“Oh my God. You need to see a doctor.”
“I know.” Rose hitched up the outsize bathrobe, baring the tag. “But there’s this, so it’s a whole thing. Bunny’s chasing up the probation officer right now.” Her eyes were drawn inevitably to the nipples. “Those boobs are amazing, by the way.”
“Custom bra. Want me to make you one?”
“What? That big?”
“I don’t think so,” said Helena, advancing on Rose with a tape measure. “You don’t have to balance out boy shoulders and a big fat ass. No, I think little champagne cup breasts are going to be more your kind of speed.”
“Oh, stop. Your ass isn’t fat.”
“It totally is. I had to ruffle a whole new set of panties for the Seven Deadly Sins thing.” The door buzzer went and Helena picked it up. “Oh, hey, Sheila. Come on up.”
Shit. Sheila was really unclear on the whole abstinence situation, which wasn’t his fault, because Justin hadn’t been the greatest at explaining how this worked. It was always tricky with non-Catholics, especially when they were trying to give you blow jobs.
“Abstinent,” he said, under his breath, looking at his reflection in the mirror. “I’m abstinent. At least until Christmas. It’s a Catholic thing. I’m trying to be a better person.”
Which was all very well, but it was a whole lot harder when you could hear your latest hook-up talking on the other side of the door. And then there was Bunny. And Ryan.
For the first time Justin had a sense of the enormity of what he’d signed up for. Bunny had given the green light for another threeway and Justin was going to have to turn it down. Or at least postpone it until after Christmas.
This was a terrible mistake, but two hundred bucks was two hundred bucks, and keeping it in his pants would give him an edge on winning that bet. Not that Helena had to know about the whole abstinence thing, of course. Justin felt no conscience about being devious in that direction, because frankly little Miss Making Up New Rules As We Go Along had that shit coming.
But turning down Bunny? Ooh, that was gonna suck. Suck even harder than Bunny, who could take him to the root and frequently did. Justin tuned out the conversation in the next room, unzipped and opened up Bunny’s Instagram on his phone. Just a little something to take the edge off, so he’d be running on empty and in a better position to turn down temptation if Sheila suggested a quickie. And Bunny provided plenty of inspiration. Big eyes, shining lips, fake tits, and the eternal mystery of how he ever managed to tuck that thing, because his dick had made the corners of Justin’s lips ache on more than one occasion.
Oh yeah, this was working. Justin bit his lip as he stroked himself, imagining sliding down between Bunny’s fishnet thighs. High heels grazing his back, making a mush-brained mess of Ryan, who was right there with him, licking and sucking, his tongue and Justin’s tongue colliding on Bunny’s cockhead.
“That’s it,” Bunny whispered. “Kiss him. Make out. Make it sloppy – suck on his lip…that’s it, baby. Like that…”
Kissing Ryan, wet and deep and so damn good, while Bunny jerked it just inches away, then gave them his slutty, gold-tipped fingers to suck, all slick and delectable with pre-come. Fuck, yes – Justin could practically taste it already.
“Ry – I think you need to fuck Justin. He’s so horny, poor thing.” Justin stifled a moan and gave himself entirely to the fantasy, Bunny’s bedroom voice hissing in the center of his brain. “You want that, baby? You wanna suck my cock while Ryan sticks it up your ass?”
“Oh God, Jesus, yes…” Justin whispered, under his breath, and came.
There. Not a problem. He could quit any time he liked. He cleaned up and washed his hands, listening to the conversation outside.
“…it’s a nightmare,” Sheila was saying. “Everywhere I go everyone is like ‘I’m Lust, I’m Lust – no, I’m Lust.’ It’s like Spartacus, but with horny drag queens. And they’re all trying so hard.”
“Ugh,” said Helena. “No, there’s nothing less sexy than thirst. Really, you need someone who isn’t even trying.” Justin opened the door. “Someone who’s a natural born slut.”
Sheila turned to look, saw Justin and started to laugh.
“How do you time these entrances?” said Helena.
“Oh my God,” said Sheila. “I’m an idiot. The answer was literally sitting on the end of my dick the whole time.”
“What?” said Justin.
“Lust,” said Sheila.
“Me? Um…no.”
“Ye-es,” said Rose, and got the same frightening glazed look that the others had in their eyes. Like they were about to attack him with Maybelline and eyelash curlers. And do terrible things to do his dick with duct tape. “Justin, you’re gonna be so hot.”
Justin shook his head. “Fuck, no.”
“Fuck, yes,” said Sheila, advancing on him. “It’s the perfect twist. We get a drag virgin to be Lust.”
“Uh uh. I’m a boy.”
“Red,” said Rose. “It has to be red. Blazing slut scarlet.”
Sheila nodded. “And blonde. Like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys.”
Helena, who was holding her tape measure like a garrote, gasped. “Oh, hell yes. Now we’re making whoopee. Bunny’s Jayne Mansfield will be perfect.”
They were far too close for comfort now. Justin slithered down the wall and contemplated making a break for it between their legs. “Help…”
*
The woman from the Probation Service was back. Her name was Dupree and Adam couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew her from somewhere else. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and looked a littl
e like Chloe Sevigny around the mouth and chin, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t a strong enough celebrity resemblance to say she definitely looked like Chloe Sevigny, and her ears – of all things – were giving Adam serious déjà vu.
“About the bar,” she said, as they entered the building by the side door. “Has Luis been down in the bar? Because he’s not supposed to be.”
“Yes, I know,” said Adam. “He’s underage. We’re aware.”
“What about drugs?”
“Absolutely not,” said Adam, trying not to sniff as he remembered snorting Adderall off Justin’s nipples. “Besides, if he does drugs it’s going to show up on a piss test, right?”
“Correct.”
“Then he’s not going to do drugs. Because the kid’s not stupid.”
Adam opened the front door. That ear. What the hell was going on with her ears? Small, pretty, attached lobes, but there was something hauntingly familiar about the way her hair – the roots a telltale shade darker – curled around the tops of her ears.
But he didn’t have time to think more about it, because the first things he saw were three drag queens, backing a nervous looking Justin against the living room wall.
“…Bunny’s Jayne Mansfield will be perfect,” Helena was saying. Justin made a low, whimpering noise.
“For what?” said Bunny. “You stay away from my Jayne Mansfield, Helena. Not after what happened to your Marilyn: she still reeks of Astroglide. And what are you bitches doing to Justin?”
Sheila grinned. “He’s going to be my Lust.”
“I’m fucking not,” said Justin.
“Oh my God,” said Bunny, assessing Justin in a whole new light. Great cheekbones, bright blue eyes. And a very pretty nose. The douchebag tattoos were a problem, but they could be covered. And if he took some of those stupid spikes out of his ears…
Once again Adam found himself staring at someone’s ears, and the worst part was he knew it meant something.
Seven Deadly Queens (The FuBar Book 3) Page 7
