December 11, 2009
Fiction
Anything Can Happen
“Hey! Do you live here, too?”
The voice coming out of the shadows had me ducking for cover. In a neighborhood where only the shadows can be trusted, it’s best to render one’s countenance invisible. I had inadvertently moved into a drug haven and now all I wanted was to put this house of cards behind me. But, of course, I can always make time to talk to a fuckable bad boy.
Allow me to limn my type: bad, bad down to the balbriggans, bad.
“My name’s Dillon. So, do you live here or what?”
“I’m Bonnie. Yeah, I live on the second floor but I’m getting the hell out of here next week.” Dillon took in this information while looking me over and taking a final drag on his Camel. He had a craggy face, prematurely lined, no doubt from hard living. He was wiry but muscular, like he could jump a fence, chase a rabbit and skin it for dinner, no charge. I wondered what he’d look like naked. Then I wondered why I was so sex-obsessed.
“There were cops here this morning. I mean, I just moved in and I see this girl bawling in the driveway while a bunch of police officers searched the rooms. What happened, do you know?”
“That would be Sara. She was out of town and four days late with the rent. The ghetto trash used that as an excuse to break into her room and steal all her stuff.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Two months and that’s been far too long. The guy across the hall has a substance abuse problem. He was in on the heist. So was his girlfriend.”
“Wow. Did the cops find Sara’s stuff?”
“Cops couldn’t find a pair of handcuffs at an S&M party. Anyway, their sole purpose in life is to serve and protect the rich.”
“Hmpf.” Dill dropped his cigarette butt in a coffee mug he had been holding, filled with just enough liquid to absorb a threat. He was frowning and looking away. I knew I was sounding cynical but pettifogging power trippers don’t bring out the best in me, especially ones who go to school for a whole six months to learn how to play bad cop/no cop.
“So, Dillon. I have to ask. What’s a nice-looking guy like you doing in a place like this?”
That made him laugh. He sat on one of the buckled wooden steps that supported an army of tenants and squatters as they traipsed up to the front door and repaired to their hovels.
“I needed a place right away. Got kicked out of my apartment when a corporation bought my building and jacked up the rent. Happening all over the city.”
“You can find cheap rent near the university.”
Dillon shook his head and crossed his arms over a threadbare T-shirt. I noticed a chip of paint dotting his sandy brown hair, perched as delicately as a moth — I resisted the urge to pluck it.
“My ex-wife wrote a bunch of bad checks, leaving me with lousy credit. I don’t have a bank account. Can’t pass a credit check. That’s how I ended up here.”
“Wow, I was just being cheap.” I was suddenly grateful I had never married. I once had a friend whose husband emptied her bank funds, maxed out mutually held credit cards and skipped town, leaving her essentially ruined. What’s that adage? Marry in haste, repent at leisure.
“What do you do for a living?”
“House painting, mostly. It’s hard work, but pays okay. Listen, I have to go, but talk to me before you leave. I’m in the room across from the laundry.”
As he walked away, I noticed how labored his stride was, how beleaguered his gait. Somehow, I knew I was just the girl to relax those aching muscles.
That night, as I twisted and turned in my twin bed, unable to sleep for want of Dillon in my arms, I decided to make the pilgrimage downstairs, to the netherworld of the haunted house. I found Dillon. His door was ajar and when I knocked ever so lightly, that door gave way to the full panorama of his room which consisted of weights, a faceless alarm clock, a hillock of clothes and a few other items which could be tossed in a pillowcase were a horn to blare in the middle of the night, calling all Argonauts.
“Hey,” he murmured casually, not at all surprised to receive a visitor at half past midnight. “I’ve been thinking about you. All day, in fact.”
“Have you used the power of your thoughts to will me down here, or did I come on the strength of my own volition?”
“You decide. First, let me get you a beer.”
I sat on the edge of his unmade bed and watched his body move, imagining how well we could undulate together. He handed me a refreshing beverage and told me a little more about his situation. As he sat cross-legged, gripping his beer, I noticed how his fingernails were piebald with nicotine stains.
“It’s a wonder you don’t hate women after what your ex has put you through,” I told him.
“Nah. I believe in learning from your mistakes and moving on. My heart is totally open to meeting someone new.”
Even in the glim of a low-wattage desk lamp, I could see the vulnerability in my housemate’s flickering green eyes. I moved closer to Dillon and he moved in for a kiss, putting his hand on my knee, his palm reassuringly warm as I trapped his knuckles between my thighs. He still managed to inch two fingers to the crotch of my jeans, pressing and probing the grillwork of the seam. His tongue looped around mine and suddenly he was on top of me, his narrow but muscular chest heavier than a manhole cover, his knees prying my legs apart as I held onto his back like a lifesaver. Though we both still had our jeans intact, I could feel my panties and denim practically dissolve as Dillon’s cock kneaded my groin.
“Let me touch you,” I murmured. “I want to feel you.”
Dillon obliged by rolling over and unzipping his jeans. Out sprang his eager penis longer than a stiletto and hard enough to rent through all the bunting at a St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I winkled out of my bloomers and blues and finally we were rolling around naked, kissing and exploring each other. I drew a line with my tongue from the bottom of Dillon’s chin, around his neck and over his sternum until I was able to maneuver my lust comfortably at hip level.
I let my mouth drop as if into an air pocket, lost as it was in a need to satiate an intensely carnal appetite. When we were talking earlier, I almost revealed to this new love match that blow jobs were my bailiwick. No matter: he was about to find that out for himself.
My tongue traveled the glacis down to his balls where I took each one gently for a ride. I planted hot, wet kisses at the base of his cock before spiraling up his magnificent shaft where I resumed my longing at the head of his now throbbing joy. Dillon was writhing and moaning endearments between purls of pleasure, but I wasn’t about to be distracted. I wanted to make him come over and over again starting with what may have been his first marathon lesson in oral sex.
My lover’s cock was biddable between my lips, rising and falling like a bascule as I sucked him into my lingual tunnel. As I sensed the beurre blanc boiling in his cauldron I sucked deeper and took longer pulls and just as I thought he was about to release all the pressures of the world and finally relax, he hurled me onto my back as easily as if he were flipping a pancake.
With my coccyx tucked neatly between two mattress coils, I wrapped my arms around Dillon’s tightly wound back muscles and clamped my legs around his all the while telling him how much I needed him inside me. I was grateful for his smooth skin. His face was lovely and clean shaven. He looked into my eyes and thrust me full of love.
And if it wasn’t love, I would take whatever it was, you grab your happiness where you can, I say. I so rarely feel that spark, that certain radical something that can make life so dangerous… and yet so exciting. I felt it the minute I saw Dillon smoking a Camel and looking over his shoulder as if ready to stave off an enemy. A neighbor might flash a smile or a gun. Students and teachers moonlight as sex workers and nothing is what it seems. In a place where anything can happen… anything will happen.
Dill and I came together in long ripsnorting waves until we were enisled on an oasis of bliss. When we fell asleep in each other’s arms, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
We woke to the sound of a fist crashing against the door (luckily I had thought to lock it sometime between post coital bliss and the ineffable dream state) and a male voice scratching at the surface of our day. That would be Angus, the lowlife who robbed Sara, Sara who was currently on the lam with her boyfriend Petey. Angus was what my mother would have called Shanty Irish, though we were hardly what you’d call Lace Curtain. Angus was bad news. He was an alcoholic who worked at a bar for the free drinks, blamed everyone for his troubles and could rival Chairman Mao with his diatribes of anti-intellectual rhetoric. Books were not for crooks, apparently. Angus had a long, pendulous face with a perpetual scowl plastered on it. He was too tall for the cavernous space he rented and was prone to stoop. Acne hectored his chin and neck. He was too dumb to communicate his needs through any means but violence yet was smart enough to hide when prospective tenants came to look at the house. That’s how I got suckered into moving in. And Dillon.
“Yeah, man. What do you want?” Dillon kept his hold on me while eyeing the door.
“Do you have anything to eat? Someone stole my food.” There was something sad in Angus’s tone, maudlin but not without guile.
I tried to demur, but Dillon said, “Babe, I’ll handle this.” When my lover reached the top of the stairs, I heard his battle cry along with a page of profanities. I forced myself to dress and do a little reconnaissance.
“Whoa,” was all I could say when I saw the mess. Even Reality TV wasn’t this sinister. Angus had emptied the contents of the refrigerator along with everything in the cupboards. Jars of spaghetti sauce were upended in the hallway. A new carton of milk had been tossed down the sink. The maw of a pizza box was splayed wide with fillings of cans opened solely for the purpose of destruction. Hard to believe in its incipient form, the name Angus (once spelled Oenghus) announced the Irish god of love.
I tugged at Dillon’s arm. “Should we call the police?”
He laughed. “Cops couldn’t find a pair of handcuffs at an S&M party.”
“Hey! You have to steal my heart before you can steal my lines, buddy.”
Dillon pulled me in for a quick kiss and said, “We’re getting out of here.”
It’s amazing how fast you can change your life. With my good credit and Dillon’s good money, we found a lovely apartment in a desirable neighborhood. A residential area where people traipse behind their dogs with little baggies to transport canine excrement. There is one woman in particular I see on a daily basis walking to the local coffee shop. She is über-thin of course, tall and urbane and always carrying a different designer handbag. For a moment I wish I could be her, seep into her skin and be someone who has never had to protect herself as she lets life guide her smoothly by the elbow onto a path cleared of want. The woman strikes me as cold, an adept of her clime and calm as its ceaseless calm.
I do not know from calm. I am so hot for Dillon I wake up every morning feeling as though my limbs are being licked by flames. When he calls me at work, I squirm in my seat as a temblor of lust rocks my torso, zipping between my thighs making my panties moist and friable.
When we first moved into our love pad, we didn’t make it to the bedroom, not at first. We kissed for a long time and drank wine in the kitchen, kissed some more while moving toward the living room where Dill eased me onto the couch, gently pinching my panties and letting his fingers surf to the crotch and with one firm tug those panties were gone, out of the picture and Dill had my clit between his knuckles kneading it like a piece of candy while my sensitive flesh thrilled at his touch.
“I want you so bad,” I murmured.
“Not yet.” And then he was all over me, covering my breasts with his open mouth, inhaling my nipples before striping my abdomen with his velvety tongue. Soon his mouth was a dancing dervish between my legs, nibbling my thighs, cradling my sweetmeat between his lips and then it was up and down like he was bobbing for apples, licking me like I was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. It was almost too good, provoking an agonized splendor my body had never known and when I told him if he didn’t stop I would come like mad, he clamped my clit between his tongue and upper lip using his lower lip to apply more and more pressure while his hands roamed between my thighs and reached under my buttocks for some rapid cheek squeezes. Oh, it was magnificent. I didn’t think it possible to heighten my body’s pleasure until Dillon mounted me right there on the couch and each thrust of his cock was so fleet and sure, the folds of my wetness opening like clouds in a thunder boomer as I arched my back and clasped tightly to his. When we finally clambered to bed we ladled each other into the morn with long, tender caresses and promises of devotion.
Dillon at last started his own house painting company and we managed to locate his ex who is now making restitution for at least some of those bad checks. I saw a newspaper picture of Angus, a mug shot that is, after he robbed a gas station. I recognized the familiar refrain: I didn’t do it. It wasn’t my fault. Everyone’s out to get me. Someone stole my food… I looked at that photo and felt I was observing a stranger when in fact I had shared a bathroom and a kitchen with this lunatic for two months. His girlfriend was the type of female who makes me embarrassed for my gender: a vapid vessel of bottomless greed.
Dill came up behind me and gently took the newspaper, tossing it into the trashcan.
“Bonnie, love, you can’t live in the past. Remember, anything can happen. Look how quickly things changed for us.”
Dillon lowered his face to mine and planted a firm, sweet kiss on my lips. His tongue tipped mine up to the firmament of joy and I could feel his hard-on knocking against my waist. He had so much vim and virility smelling of fresh-cut grass and a sunny day of handsome activity.
“Do you know how lovable you are, Dill?”
“Stop it,” he protested while smiling big and taking off his torn T-shirt. He squared me against the wall and kissed me again, this time even fuller and deeper.
“You exude lovability,” I mushed into his mouth. “I want to make you feel so loved you’ll never go looking for love again.
As usual, we didn’t make it to the bedroom. Faster than you can toss a coin in a wishing well, we were naked and Dill was bracing me against the wall for a stand-up fuck but I wanted to taste the swell and thrum of his penis first. I held fast to his thighs while I let my languet of desire weave around his shaft before perching on his opalescent bulb. I let my lips delicately suck the head while my tongue made its insistent strides licking around the rim then the sides with lots of rainbow motions then back up to the tip of his cock. As I sucked the length of him I could feel every frisson of appreciative approval running up Dill’s calves, thighs and hips. I could have sucked on that golden rod forever but Dillon hoisted me up and positioned my legs around his lower back.
I was so wet for him I could feel rivulets of passion coursing down my inner thighs, but still felt a shock of renewal when I realized I was being supported mostly by his erection like a purlin holding up the roof of a house. With each thrust, my lover’s cock claimed a little more of my inner core and I didn’t see how I could ever live without these beautiful deep strokes of carnal purpose. The strokes grew increasingly urgent and Dillon moaned near my ear as we came together collapsing on the floor.
“Well, this isn’t very comfortable,” I said, pulling Dillon up and toward the nearest shower. “Let’s take a long, hot bath and finally see what we can do in the bedroom.”
Dill ran a hand through his sun-starched hair and laughed. “Just wait and see the kinds of things we’ll make happen in there.” Pulling me into an embrace, he added, “We have the rest of our lives to make things happen.”
• • •
