In Case of Emergency

She was in the tub, as expected.  What I didn't expect was being rendered breathless.  Incapable of taking action. This should have been easy.  I slip in while she is relaxing in the tub.  I quickly slip the cloth over her mouth and control her brief struggles.  I gently push her under the water and watch for air bubbles.  Pay day.  Yet this... her dark hair spilling over the rolled rim of the claw foot tub. Her small, high breasts peeking through the white bubbly foam.  I didn't expect that it was her.

"It's only fitting," she said.

:"I swear. I didn't realize it was you."

She smiled a sad, wise smile and I was uncertain that she believed me.  I was uncertain that I believed myself.  I pulled my gun out of the inside pocket of my jacket and laid it on the back of the toilet tank.  Her eyes opened wide.  It wasn't my usual style.

"Emergancies only," I explained.

I didn't want to ask my question.  I didn't want her answer.  Yet, I couldn't help it.  I moved to sit on the edge of the tub, removed one glove, and reached beneath the water to trace a single fingertip down her arm.  Her entire body tensed.  I can't say that I blamed her.  Mine did too.

"What... what did you do?"

She closed her eyes and whispered, "I slept with another man."

The pang in my chest was that it wasn't me.  Not anymore.  I waited, knowing that there was more.  They'd both cheated.  I half expected that the boss knew about she and I.  Maybe he did.  Maybe this job was his justice.

"His brother," she continued.  "I fucked Johnny.  That was the end.  I've been waiting for you ever since."

My cuff dipped into the water as I traced her breast.  I tugged on her nipple the way that always used to make her whimper.  Her eyes closed and her breath escaped in a rush.

"You're here to kill me," she says.

My mouth opens, but the words hang on my tongue.  I can"t lie to her.  I never could; that was the problem.

"Get out of the tub."

"If you don't kill me, he'll kill you."

I know this deep into my bones.

"Get out of the tub.  Please.  Let me touch you.  Let me kiss you.   Please... one more time."

She does.  Her small, wet body was in my arms.  Her tongue slid along mine, sparring and dancing.  I palmed her small breasts and took her nipples in my mouth.  I did everything that she loved.  And for that moment, I loved her the way I used to.  I loved her until she moaned around my cock.  Until she whispered my name as she came.  Then I loved her again.

I collected myself, tugging my glove on, knowing I'd still smell her on my fingertips when I took it off again.  I picked up my gun.  She didn't flinch this time.

We walked to the hallway, where she lifted on her tiptoes and kissed me again.  She saw it.  I gave myself away.  I single tear fell down my cheek.  She wiped it away.

"I'm glad that it was you," she said.

"Me too."

I stepped back, leveled the gun, and pulled the trigger.  There was no moment of shocked outrage on her face.  No false hope.  Only a tear to match my own.

I stepped over her body and out of their lives, tucking away my gun and locking the door behind me.  I shook my head.

"Emergencies only."

Glory Days

He held the bong between his naked thighs.  I loved to watch his dick twitch as I fit my mouth to the blown glass tube.  I'd pull the bowl and take a hit and he would pull my mouth up to his.  He loved a good shotgun.  I wrapped my hand around the glass and pulled it from between his thighs.  My knuckles grazed his cock and he flinched.  My mouth curled into a slow smile.

"I know what I'd like to wrap my lips around."

I leaned in as he reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.  That's when I knew that I loved him.  Unfortunately, I had loved someone else first.  So had he.  None of that mattered that first night.  I took him between my lips and the world fell away.  It rained that night.  We lay wrapped tight in each other in the back of his old bus.  The roof took a good pounding and so did I.  But then I cried.  I laid in his arms and wept of the thought of losing him.  There was nothing we could do.  

His body moved over mine and eased my sorrow.  His touch was a symphony that drowned out the rain.  He brought me over and over.  In the morning I left his bus and returned to my world with the promise of next year.  It happened.  It happened each year for four years.  I left my life, he left his, and we met at the music festival.

I waited in our spot the fifth year.  I squealed and clapped as his bus pulled in.  He kept driving.  He wrapped around and parked a little ways down. He wasn't alone.  She slid from the cab and grabbed the baby.  I sat and watched until he saw me.  All he did was shake his head, but I saw it.  I saw that it hurt him, ending things that way. 

I came back the following year.  Even the year after that.  He didn't.

Now here I am, waiting for him again.  A chance meeting fifteen years later.  I was buying concert tickets.  He was buying a CD.  Same band.  He wasn't wearing a ring and mine was long gone.  I hear a familiar sound and laugh as the old bus rattles into the parking lot.  I felt it again when I saw him, that old spark.  The one that still made me blush when I recalled that first night.  He walks in and a I smile.  I always thought those were our glory days.  He smiles back.  I was wrong.  I think these will be.

The Hunger

His eyes may be different, but the hunger is the same.  He watches from a distance.  It's the other him that she watches for.  This, this flimsy handsome body is harmless.  As harmless as hers.

She made her way through the desolate woods.  It was time to take her basket to Grandma's.  She was warned.  Her step father warned her with his own wolfish leer to avoid strangers.  Stay pure.  Fear the wolf.  She did.  She feared him every night.  These woods, they were barren.  Creepy.  But the wolf she feared the most wasn't in them.  The wolf in the woods was a great shaggy beast with powerful fast claws and sharp flesh-tearing teeth.  He snarled and howled.  She would know him by the hunger in his gaze.  She laughed to herself.  No, she knew real predators.  This mythic beast instilled no fear in her.

He skulked behind the trees, watching.  Waiting.  She slowed.  With a furtive glance, she removed her cloak with a flourish and spread it out on the ground.  Grandma wouldn't miss just one currant roll.  She sat on her cloak for a nibble.

He wore simple clothes.  Modern.  Unobtrusive.  It was part of the magic.  Whenever he turned, he kept his clothing with him.  He was just a young man.  His eyes maybe different, but the hunger was the same.  Not the same.  As fierce, but not the same.

She pulled out a second bun.  She saw him watching, this handsome young man.  He must be hungry.  Starving, really.  She held out the roll and he crept close, forgetting his form.  She thought him odd.  Isolated. Handsome.  He took the food from her hand with a smile.  She's done this before.

She shook her head.  Handsome.  Beautiful.  Hunger.  she kissed him.  He tried to walk away, but there was no way now.  Not when she bared her her ripe ivory breasts with nipples like juicy cherries.  Not when he could sink his teeth into her plump ass.  She was warned.  But it was her that howled as he took her on the red cloak.  Her touch on his human skin.  Her wet heat around him.  A tangle of frail human flesh.  a mess of hunger and need.  But only she was warned.

The knife was quick.  A flash of silver.  His warm blood on her hands.  Shock and pain twisted his face.  At least she'd let him cum, she thought.  She pushed him off her to watch him change.  His nose elongated into a grey muzzle.  His skin covered with thick, grey-black fur.  His beautifully powerful limbs curled into a silent leap.  She wiped the blade on the ground and fixed her clothes.  She gathered Grandma's basket.

She shook off a brief sting of sadness.  No, she wasn't afraid.  She knew real predators

The Canvas

Something had to give.  She'd grown so weary of her dispassionate gaze and her insidious perfection.  It wasn't always like this.  They'd been something to one another once.  She slipped her own blouse down over her arms, mirroring the black coat of her former lover.  While she continued and let her blouse slip to the floor, she left the other woman's arms trapped at her sides.

"You will not be placed on a canvas today," she said.  "You will be the canvas."

The artist grabbed a soft sable brush and dipped it into a glob of cerulean paint that matched the model's heavy-lidded eyes.  She began a long line from the hollow of her flawless collarbone and extended between her breasts.  Her expression was unwavering.  Her own hands trembled as she gripped the brush.  She remembered when the brush was her fingertips, when the paint was the tip of her greedy tongue.  She swirled her brush around the globe of one breast, then the other.  Her model remained as still as an actual canvas, though goosebumps bloomed across her ivory skin.  She took a deep breath and dipped her fingertips in another pool of paint before sweeping them in an arc across her abdomen. A deep ache registered in her gut as she recalled the silken flesh below.  How it felt beneath her fingers.  Her sweet, smoky taste.  She was trying so hard to pull out something in her former lover, but there was nothing.  Stroke after stroke across her skin, and nothing came at all.  Finally, she uttered her name.

"Annabelle..."

With a barely perceptible shudder, the model replied, "Are we done?"

"Yes.  We're done."

The brush clattered to the floor.  Tears filled the artist's eyes.

The model slowly walked away.

Strange Ties

She bent over the ledge in front of the window.  When she heard the door, she leaned over even farther.  This had to work.  It was the last night of their vacation and he hadn't touched her; not once.   A hand slid over her hip and she smiled.  His other hand fisted her hair, bracing her for his cock.  He slid inside her, deep and hard.  She cried out over his silence.  He'd never fucked her like this... just FUCKED her.  It's what she wanted.  Needed.  Wild.  Unrestrained.  Until she heard the door again.  Until his voice whispered "honey" from the doorway.  A backward glance showed the tan legs and sandals of the boy she'd flirted with by the pool.  They froze.

A moment of panic took her before she heard her husband cross the floor.  She began to stammer the words, "I thought he was you," but he silenced her with a fingertip.  Then he saw her.  He truly saw her, the woman he married, wanted, and desired.  His hand slid through her hair as the other man's hand fell away, yet the two men looked at each other and the husband nodded.  She braced herself and moaned as he plunged back inside her.  Her husband pressed his lips to her, murmuring "beautiful" as a tear slid down her cheek.  His mouth molded to hers with fresh heat.  His tongue slipped between her lips and danced in a way it hadn't in what felt like forever.  Strange hands found her shoulders and pulled her deep as she came, but it was her husband's kiss.  His kiss was her satisfaction.

Quiet Now

One graceful finger perched on his nose, the other on her own lips.  She'd thought it was such an odd gift.  But when she'd told her husband, he'd said It only made sense. She'd be staying in her old room while she visited her folks.  It was only appropriate. But her thoughts weren't appropriate.  She hated being away from him, away from his touch.  His kiss.  Her fingertips traced the edge of her black bra and brushed over her stomach.  The moment they brushed the smooth flesh between her thighs, she moaned.

"Shhh."

She nearly threw the bear across the room.

"You have to be quiet, baby."

Her voice came out in a shaky whisper as she recognized the bear's voice.

"Mike?"

She heard her husband laugh.  Leave it to him to put his sneaky spy shit in a stuffed toy.

"Sound activated.  It let's me know when there's a peep to be heard.  I liked that peep."  His voice got that husky edge that turned her all molten inside.  "I want to hear more.  Tell me what you were doing."

"I was thinking of you."

She sat up just enough to take off her bra.  The soft fur brushed against the taut peaks of her nipples and she moaned again.  It all seemed so deliciously naughty.  She reached back between her legs and slid her fingers across slick flesh.  Her breath caught in her throat.

"More,"  he said.  His own breath grew deeper, ragged, and she pictured him palming his hard cock.  "You know I want more."

So did she.  She closed her eyes and listened to his disembodied breath.  Pictured his mouth tasting her, his tongue teasing her.  She pictured him entering her as her own fingers explored her depths.  He heard every whimper.  Every moan.  Every gasp.  In her childhood bedroom she told him all the dirty things she wanted him to do to her.

And then they came.

"I miss you," she said.

"I miss you, too," he said.  "Until tomorrow."

She heard the mic click and rolled contentedly to her side, clutching tight to the memory of his voice.

The Stairwell

This is the way he said he wanted her: natural, raw, and wild.  Wild bush.  Natural pits. The tattoo that snaked across her ribcage and writhed beneath his tongue.  This is the last place he fucked her while his wife slept upstairs.  He didn't care then.  Why should she now?  She wouldn't put her wild away.

She ground her palms into her swollen eyes while the stone steps dug into her ass and her back.  He would see her and stop.  He would see the words "fuck me" on the wall and he would obey.  It was his turn to obey.

The door opened.  She knew his gait as well as his schedule; knew it was him that climbed the stairs.  She said nothing as he approached.  Nothing when she knew he saw her.  Nothing when the heel of his shoe scuffed her hard nipple as he stepped up over her body.

She knew his gait.  It didn't slow until he unlocked his apartment, opened the door, stepped through it to his his safe world and locked it behind him.

She said nothing today.

There is always tomorrow.