He sliced through the beef, sampling a small portion. His eyes rolled up in his head, and began to water. Simple. Elegant. Perfection to the end of a work day. This was all he’d asked of Stacey, his ex-wife, and she had spent more time feeding her cats versus the man who put a roof over her head.
“If it’s not too much, then in return, what do I receive, another round of your cock and compliments on my magical vag?” she asked him.
“No, I shall provide the tether you need. Strap it to my back, wrap it around my heart, smother me in it, and together, we figure it out,” Wyatt said.
“You shall be my rope?”
“I’ll be whatever you fucking need me to be, Jeffrí Jones,” he said. “All I want is to be spoiled or at least feel like I am. In return, I shall do the same for you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, “but there are things about me you need to know.”
“The night terrors?” he asked, enjoying the food and loving the home cooked meal so much that he didn’t bother to look up when he addressed her deepest concern.
“Yes, I don’t want you to stay the night, Wyatt,” she said.
“Sorry, after this meal, I don’t think I’ll be able to drive anywhere,” he said, “plus, I need to see what I’m dealing with so we can plan for it moving forward.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Hell yeah! Your massaging magical coochie—is that a better word than pussy—will have me fighting demons in the middle of night if need be to stay at your side,” Wyatt said, with wide eyes.
“Man, what is wrong with you?” she squinted her eyes as she stared at him. “I could have sworn... you looked so normal. Even acted normal.”
“Jeffrí, we all need a tether to keep us in the game of life,” he said. “You came along just when I was giving up. You have given me hope.”
“Hope is always a good thing, and you’re giving me a couple of things to think about as well, especially the memoir thing,” she said. “Let’s finish up. I have a surprise for you.”
“I like surprises,” he said, happily eating away. However, the surprise she had wasn’t what the man expected. After dinner, she instructed him to put back on his regular clothing, while she, in black jeans and a white tee, disappeared down the hall. He opted to sit on the front porch and wait for the lady, enjoying the warm evening.
Wyatt, fully dressed and sitting in one of the cushioned rockers, he believed he was truly seeing things. The sound greeted him first as the shiny object rolled out from around the side of the house. Jeffrí revved the engine and waved at Wyatt to join her. Surely, she didn’t expect him to partake in such a dangerous activity. It was one thing to have sex in a morgue office, but he was not in a hurry to be a customer on the table.
“It’s a motorcycle,” he said.
“My motorcycle,” she told him, handing him a helmet. “Get on. Let’s go for a ride.”
“On a motorcycle,” he repeated. She wore the same black jeans and a black cut vest with pink and white angel wings over the white tee shirt, raising concerns in Wyatt. “Are you in a motorcycle gang?”
“No, I’m a member of a motorcycle club called the Lady Guardians,” she said. “With my helmet on, I can be anyone I want. Come on, let’s get going before it’s too late.”
Reluctantly, he climbed on the back of the Valkyrie, holding on tightly around her waist. Inside the helmet, he heard her voice providing instructions as she kick started the bike, and it came alive.
“Talk about a hummer,” he said aloud as the vibration from the bike tickled his undercarriage.
“Hold on, Wyatt,” she said, pulling out of the driveway and heading down the street. His arms wrapped tightly around her as he held on for dear life. She zigged and zagged through the streets, entering I-20 and speeding down the road, only going one exit before turning around and heading back to the house. On wobbly legs, he got off the bike and stumbled his way onto the front porch. “Oh no, you don’t get to stop there.”
Jeffrí opened the front door and led him inside. She dropped the helmets on the couch as she pulled him by the hand down the hallway to her bedroom. Eager hands pulled down his pants, freeing his penis. She didn’t need him undressed for this portion. Provide the man service then send him home; one, two, and easy.
“I recall promising you this,” she said, taking him into her mouth. Hot lips covered his penis, sucking and teasing with the tip of her tongue while her fingers massaged the sack of life givers.
Wyatt Miland didn’t care if the Boogie Man came and sat on her bed every damned night. He planned to be there as well with a pickaxe, sawed off shotgun, and giant shovel to bury the dream dragging drunkard if he disturbed Jeffrí’s sleep. He gave into the pleasure, imagining having her over to his house tomorrow. His plan was to show her around the place and have her pick a room to make a home office. Wyatt wasn’t sure about how she would feel about moving in with him or how she would react to his creating her a workplace to write her memoirs and coming home every day to the lady.
“Well, damn,” he muttered as he closed his eyes. The pleasure of her mouth was almost as good as the pleasure of the words which trickled off that magical tongue. An enchanted tongue and a magical coochie all in one woman. He never planned to let her go.
In Wyatt’s estimation, it didn’t matter what he had to do. Jeffrí Jones was sent to his office to be under his watchful eye and to be in his care. That is what he planned to do, take care of the lady whether she wanted it or not.
JEFFRÍ COULDN’T CONVINCE the man to go home. One hot sexual romp on top of a desk in a morgue, a hot bath, a good meal later and he refused to move. The overzealous fellatio she provided also didn’t help. Wyatt lay out on the bed like a swollen puppy wanting his belly scratched after she was done with him.
“It has been a great day with you, but it’s time for you to go home,” she told him, pushing on his leg.
“Nope, not going,” he said, reaching overhead to grab a pillow. Fluffing the square buckwheat-filled head rest, he shoved it under his noggin. “I rode on the back of a motorcycle, had a wonderful goblet of wine, and a fantastic dinner. I even had a wonderful soak in the tub. That hummer was Grade A, and I can’t move. I don’t trust myself to drive home.”
“Well, you may sleep in the guest room,” she told him, pushing at his leg again.
“Or we can pull back the covers, slip into the bed, and I get to cuddle with you, which is one of my all-time favorite things to do,” Wyatt said, rolling off the bed.
He kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt, and removed his trousers. She hadn’t taken them completely off when she removed his body part to suckle. Wyatt yanked back the covers, climbed in the bed, and patted her side. Jeffrí was hesitant, bordering on defiant.
“This isn’t funny, Wyatt,” she exclaimed. “If you’re planning to stay the night, do it in the other room.”
“Why, because of your night terrors?”
“Yes, they are horrible,” she said. “I wake up all sweaty, terrified, and sometimes, as I’ve been told by my mother, I scream in my sleep.”
Wyatt leaned over in the bed, reaching for her hand. “Jeffrí, a great deal of night terrors stems from anxiety. You are afraid to close your eyes and sleep out of fear of seeing the accident replay over and over again in your dreams. This activates your brain and causes more anxiety, which in turn creates the terrors.”
“And when did you become a fucking psychologist?”
“When my mother went through the same thing after witnessing the death of my father in a car accident, and he died in her arms,” Wyatt said. “He died a few feet from her job, broadsided by a truck. She couldn’t go back to work because it held too many bad memories. It took years of therapy, yoga, and everything else I could find, but we found something that worked. Come to bed. Let me take care of you.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, as his hands reached for her body, “Is this how you took care of your
mother’s night terrors?”
“Oh, hell no,” he chuckled. “I took her to a hypnotist who taught her relaxation techniques before bed. The anxiety comes from knowing you will have a restless night. I’m going to relax you so you’ll be able to sleep the whole evening.”
Jeffrí sat down on the bed, a wry smile on her lips, her hand covering the dimpled skin on her face. His hands were gentle when he pushed the lady back on the bed. Wyatt’s movements were slow as he slid down in the bed, pulling her jeans down, along with her underpants. She remained silent, watching him as he buried his face between her thighs.
“Hmmm,” she moaned at the pressure from his tongue lapping at her clit and his lips sucking with just the right amount of pressure.
“Your pussy tastes so fucking sweet, like candy corn,” he moaned, enjoying the job he was performing. “I could put drops of this shit in my morning coffee.”
“Again, please stop talking,” she cautioned, grabbing a handful of his hair to get him to focus on the task at mouth.
A thick finger probed inside the opening. His tongue flicked back and forth across the sensitive nub of flesh while she writhed in the bed under his machinations. It didn’t take long for her to reach the summit as she cried out his name, arched her back, and went limp. Jeffrí’s eyelids fluttered. A deep sigh came from her mouth as she lay her head deep into the pillow and began drifting into a light slumber.
If she woke in the middle of the night and scared the shit out of him, it would be nothing less than he deserved. She merited some sleep, and she planned to get as much as she could tonight for as long as she could. The man fucked like a machine and licked her just enough to get the horse down the track without muddying her hoofs.
“You’re a keeper,” she mumbled.
Chapter Six – Tomato...Ta-ma-toe
Contemplation.
At five a.m., Wyatt was up, dressed, and ready to head out the door. Twice she’d awakened and screamed as if the banshees were nipping at her heels. The first time had scared the bejesus out of him. The second time only startled him a bit. Jeffrí rested comfortably in the bed as he planted a gentle kiss on her forehead before easing his way out of the front door. His thoughts were all over the place as he made his way home.
The home she had was comfortable, but loaded with memories of her past life as a breaking news journalist. Maybe a change of scenery would help her rest easier and focus on moving forward versus losing what she had. In many ways, they were a great deal alike. He, more focused on the connection with people who left this world, and she, focused on the disconnection with the world she left.
“What a fucking pair we make,” he said, pulling into his own driveway.
SHOWERED AND FRESHLY dressed in a loose fitted pair of slacks and a button-down blouse, Jeffrí made it to the office. A new pile of files had come into her inbox, leaving her with a great number of questions about the murder rate in Atlanta. In the past two days, she’d received three more files, which brought the count to five.
The old investigative journalist came back to her in a wave of nit-picking, seeing the connecting dots, following by the nagging feeling of there’s a story here rumbling in her gut. She asked the question that no one else seemed to put together. “Are these dead women homeless people or victims of domestic violence, or is there a new Wayne Williams?”
Her mind went into overdrive as she began to pen out the first report for the database.
Atlanta Annie, a young black female whose body was discovered on October 1, 2019, in downtown Atlanta off Peachtree Street, left this world in the early hours of the morning. This decedent is believed to have been in her late teens or early twenties at the time of death. Black, short, and curly natural hair, brown eyes, with a distinguishing red heart-shaped tattoo on the left side of her neck are features friends and family would say described the young woman. Annie, in stocking feet, stood at five feet seven inches. The deceased had received good dental care during her life, having seven fillings in her teeth. Annie’s remains denotes she had her appendix removed in life, which left a visible vertical scar upon her abdomen.
Her remains will be cremated on Thursday, November 21, 2019.
“Not a bad start,” she said while printing out the document to take it to her boss for review. Tapping on his door, she walked in with two copies of the obituary.
“Good morning, Mr. Miland. I wrote my first report and wanted to run it by you,” she said, passing a sheet to him.
“Morning to you as well, Ms. Jones,” Wyatt said. “Let’s see what you have here.”
Brown eyes scanned over the sheet of paper, noting the flow of the words. She was a natural born storyteller live on the television screen and verbally stimulating on paper. The ‘Atlanta Annie’ was a nice touch, which he respected. He used his green pen to make notes on the bottom of the sheet and handed it back to her.
“Nice work, Ms. Jones,” he said, going back to his computer.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, looking down at what he’d written. “Wait, what’s this?’
“My address,” he said. “Dinner is at seven. Don’t be late.”
Smiling, she marched to her desk and tackled the stack left by Ben Richardson, combing through the files from the morgue. Jeffrí got an idea to start her own database for cross-referencing the deaths of young women, wound patterns, times and causes of death. By the time lunch rolled around, she was so far into the idea in her head that she felt like the old Jeffrí Jones, hard charging reporter on the case.
At the end of the day, she came around the corner with a stack of papers, a smile on her face, and eyes wide.
“Ms. Jones?” Wyatt asked.
“Mr. Miland, I found a pattern in the deaths,” she said, “I think there may be a serial killer on the loose in Atlanta.”
HIS BRAIN WAS IN OVERDRIVE. From the moment Jeffrí left the office, he had sat behind the desk looking at the materials she handed him and seeing the pattern but before he took it forward to anyone else, they needed to have a serious conversation. Catherine felt the same way. The woman materialized at his office door just as he packed his briefcase to leave for the night.
“Got a minute, Wyatt?” Catherine asked, easing her way into the office. “I need to speak with you.”
“Sure, come on in. I was on my way out and have plans for the evening, so I hope this doesn’t require a long conversation,” he replied.
“You’re dating her, aren’t you?” Catherine asked.
“Not really dating per se,” he quipped.
“Don’t be smug with me,” she replied. “This could be a potential problem. She’s only been on the job as a temp for three days and already you’re trying to fuck her. That could be detrimental to the paper, and it is my responsibility to head this off before it goes too far.”
“Catherine, why are you really here? You’ve never concerned yourself with how I’ve run my Department, and now you’re full of professional ethics,” he said. “Does the idea of me being happy bother you that much?”
“No, Wyatt, it doesn’t. However, if what you’re doing is going to come back on the paper, it will be up to me to determine whether or not you keep your job. In the era of the MeToo Movement and post White men in power taking advantage of women trying to make a living, then yes, there is a matter of professional ethics to consider,” she told him. “Why her?”
“Ah, there it is. Now we get to the heart of the conversation,” Wyatt said. “You still look at me and treat me like I broke Stacey. She was broken before I married her and just went downhill.”
“There’s the pattern, Wyatt,” Catherine said through clenched teeth. “You find these broken women and bring them into your world of fine wine, French collectible furniture, and one-of-a-kind paintings as if you’re collecting trophies. Jeffrí Jones is going to heal and when she does, that woman is going to eat your lunch.”
“Or she is going to heal and we live happily ever after, sipping fine wine in front of my Renoir on my ridi
culously expensive Louis XVI sofa, deciding where we want to go first in the French wine country for our vacation,” he said, cocking his head. “Did you ever think that maybe I’m the one who also needs to heal? Stacey hurt me more than you’ll ever know.”
“So that’s what this is about, you getting back at her. Hurting your career? Hurting me?”
Wyatt, shook his head in disbelief. “You? How the hell do you factor into this?”
Catherine stood up, brushing down the creases in her very expensive skirt. She was done with the conversation. Wyatt Miland was still the same self-centered asshole he had been in college. He would never learn what a woman truly wanted or needed. Stacey was a prime example of the havoc he could wreak in a woman’s life.
“Wyatt, I’m living with the result of what you can do to a woman. You don’t understand women or what they need. Stacey compensated for everything she couldn’t get from you by collecting cats. Each time you let her down, she brought home another cat,” Catherine said. “She is half out of her gourd and fixated upon those damned mousers. I have stared into her eyes and no one is there.”
“You blame that on me? Stacey came home late one evening after a function at the art gallery...different,” he said softly. “I tried to get her to talk and she wouldn’t. We went to counseling together, and she still wouldn’t talk. I sent her alone to speak with the therapist, who said she’d experienced a trauma. Not by my hand, Catherine. What did you want me to do, put my life on hold? It has been on hold for more than 10 years. I like my job, but it’s just that, a fucking job. I can get another if you really feel that my being here infringes upon whatever it is you think I’m doing.”
“She didn’t tell me you went for counseling,” Catherine said, surprised by his admission.
“She also didn’t tell you that we stopped having marital relations after our second year of marriage,” he said softly, “not that it’s any of this is your business, but I will let you know that in the following six years of her imposing an unwanted abstinence on me, I never cheated on her. Not a single damned time. I was a good husband. I tried, Catherine, honestly, I did, but now I want to be happy. Hate me if you want, fire me if you need to, but for all that is holy, get the fuck off my back about Stacey!”
Lunchtime Chronicles: A Yummy Sub Page 5
