Bad Things
Authors: Varian Krylov
BAD THINGS
By Varian Krylov
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
All sexually active characters in this work are eighteen years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and places are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though references may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, including events, areas, business establishments, locations and situations is entirely coincidental.
Cover Photograph: Ekaterina Zakharova
Cover design: Jay Aheer
Bad Things © 2014 Varian Krylov
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved
Acknowledgments
Although I’ve been writing novels for years, it was only a few months ago that I made the wild and reckless decision to be a writer: to give in to the deep and inescapable urge I’ve always had to create worlds, and let it be my vocation, rather than a hobby. In the months since, it’s been my good luck and great pleasure to discover a thriving, playful, pervy, witty, generous and supportive community of readers and authors. I would love to thank everyone who’s filled the sometimes somewhat solitary weeks of writing and editing with laughter, encouragement, and friendship. And I’d like to give special thanks to the patient and generous people who took a lot of time out of their own busy lives to beta read Bad Things: Adrienne Wilder, Vicki Johnson Howard, Yael Aver, Sherri Jordan Asble, and Toni Tardy, and to my editor Sharon Stogner.
My eternal love and gratitude to SG, CM and AJ for helping me become me.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
“The humiliations and defeats,
given with a primitive honesty,
end not in frustration, despair or futility,
but in hunger, an ecstatic devouring hunger—for more life.”
- Anais Nin
“Get down on your hands and knees.”
He did it the way he´d done everything he´d been told: with alacrity, like he’d been born to obey.
When Xavier knelt down behind him and peeled back the sticky rectangle of saran wrap and bared the still-seeping tattoo on his lower back, the kid was completely naked.
Kid
. What had he said? Twenty-one. A little fawn compared to the big game Xavier usually hunted.
Delicate hide, soft as a yearling’s pelt. After touching that silky skin through three hours of tattooing, feeling the erratic rise and fall of his ribs as be panted through the pain of the needle, hearing those fretful groans of suffering not quite muffled behind his bitten lips, how could Xavier resist when the guy offered to blow him, or yield to whatever other demand he might like to make? Because he’d sensed that the man on his table was squirming and panting with arousal as much as pain, Xavier laying one hand on his back, Jacob’s smooth body warm and damp under his palm and fingers while he drove the pigment under his skin with the needle in his other hand. So Xavier had let those half-muffled grunts and the way the guy’s ass and hips flexed against the pain work on him, enjoying the slow thrum of blood flowing to his cock. Then all he’d had to do was wait. Let the guy beg for it.
Xavier planted his hands on Jacob’s pale, narrow cheeks and spread him. Delicate pink asshole, surprisingly big balls, waxed bare. That always had a strange effect on Xavier, made the guy he was about to fuck seem slightly unreal. Plastic, doll-like. Not quite human.
His phone vibrated again just as he popped the cap on the lube; third call in five minutes. Still holding the bottle of lube, he grabbed the phone off the tool cart. A local number, not one he recognized. Gazing at that sweet, narrow rump raised up to him, he answered.
“Xavier.”
“
Hello. Do I have Xavier Gutierrez?” The austere tone of the question caught every last bit of his attention in the pull of that unfamiliar, deep voice.
“
Yes, this is Xavier Gutierrez.”
“
This is Detective James Porter with the LAPD. I’m here with your sister Elena.”
Xavier’s whole body went cold before the next words came out.
“She’s fine, but there’s been an incident here at her building, and she’s a tad unsettled. I think she’d appreciate having a family member with her, if you’re able to get here.”
“
She’s okay?”
“
Yes, Sir. She…well, witnessed something disturbing. She’s a little upset. Are you able to come to her apartment?”
“
I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“
Thank you, Sir.”
“
Tell her I’m coming.”
“
I’ll do that, Sir,” the deep voice said in a patient, soothing tone. Xavier was vaguely aware of the cop saying, “Thank you,” as he was stuffing the phone back into his pocket.
Speeding the seventeen blocks from Second Skin Tattoos on Abbot Kinney to Elena’s building, Xavier shoved away every awful image that tried to form, forcing himself to focus on the needle of the speedometer. Cramming other innocuous thoughts into his brain to displace the pointless dread trying to plant itself and blossom, he thought the needle, the analog gauge of his vintage Impala was obsolete, now. Modern cars had digital readouts for everything. Gas left in the tank. How much fuel was being burned at that moment, at that speed, on that grade of incline. How many miles and fractions of miles were left before the tank would be empty.
Five police cars in front of her apartment complex, red and blue light sweeping over Elena’s and the surrounding Spanish Colonial buildings, snagging on the bristling palms and the spikes of the yuccas along the low stucco walls bordering the sidewalk. Two cops interviewing a cluster of people, all young like Elena, all gesturing and pointing toward a blackness in the night that Xavier knew was an alley only because he’d been back there a couple times to take out Elena’s garbage.
Climbing the four flights of terracotta steps to Elena’s floor, he overheard the bleep and indecipherable chatter of a police radio leaking from down one of the corridors. The resonant bass of the voice from the phone call emanated from the wide open door of Elena’s apartment.
Elena was standing by the living room window that looked down on that blackness that masked the alley, but her eyes were fixed on the cop standing in the center of the room—Detective James Porter, Xavier remembered—dressed in street clothes, holding his radio, saying to Elena, “They’ve apprehended three suspects. I think we’ve got ’em.”
The cop did that thing men usually did when they saw Xavier. Almost always, they’d straighten up to their full height, probably not even aware they were doing it, the way their guard went up like watching a man’s hand go to his holstered gun and hover there, ready.
When Elena saw him, her composed expression didn’t change. Of everyone he knew, she was the best at keeping her feelings hidden. Xavier put his arms around her, but she stayed straight and stiff as he held her. Elena wouldn’t let herself be weak, not with the detective in the room.
“Are you okay?”
“
I’m fine.” Her voice was thin. Flat.
When Xavier opened his arms she turned back to the window, staring down at the roving flashlights carving swaths of alley out of the pitch dark.
Xavier shook hands with the detective. “What happened?”
“
There was an assault in the alley,” Detective Porter said when Elena didn’t answer. “Your sister called it in and scared the perpetrators off.” The detective turned to Elena. “That young woman might have been much worse off, if it weren’t for you. That was a brave thing you did.”
Elena huffed, which Xavier knew was her short-hand for, “Bullshit.”
A strange twinge pulled at his chest and stomach; Xavier so rarely felt afraid. “What did you do?”
Again, the detective filled Elena’s silence. “Shined a light down on them, told them she was filming them. Scared the bastards off.”
The nauseating cold squeezing his gut relented. She hadn’t gone down, hadn’t confronted them. “And the woman?”
“
The ambulance left a few minutes ago.” The detective went to the window and said to Elena, “I’ve got your statement, so now that your brother’s here, I’ll let you get some rest. You have my number, right? In case you think of anything else. Or if you just need to talk.”
Hardly even looking at him, Elena nodded, then went back to looking out the window.
“Here.” The detective handed a card to Xavier. “In case you have any questions, or need anything.” For a cop, he had surprisingly kind eyes. And for a guy with a ring on his finger, he held Xavier’s gaze a couple seconds too long.
When the detective left, Xavier got two glasses out of the cupboard and brought the bottle of tequila over to the dining table, hoping to lure her away from that fucking window.
“Am I drinking alone?”
She came and sat beside him. “I think they had a knife. Or a gun. She didn’t scream. I heard her crying. Who knows how long it had already been going on, by then. I didn’t know what I was hearing, at first. If the window hadn’t been open, I wouldn’t have even noticed.”
She did her shot, and he refilled her glass.
“
I can take you to my place.”
“
No.”
“
I’ll spend the night here, then.”
They emptied their glasses, and Elena got up and drifted off into her room. Sounds of drawers sliding, hanger clanging. Then water running, Elena brushing her teeth. Xavier rinsed out their glasses and set them in the rack.
“Want me to put a sheet down on the couch?” he asked when Elena appeared in her bedroom doorway.
“
No. Sleep in here.”
He followed her into her room, took off his shoes and curled in behind her, holding her against him, just like he had those first three nights after she’d been raped
.
Elena whispered, “I just left her there. After they ran off, I just stood there, leaning out my window, listening to her cry. Let her lie there, all alone.”
The cold fist grabbed his guts again at the image of Elena walking out into that dark night, those men coming back with their knife or their gun. A hot, hard rage seared his chest, remembering how broken and hollow those other three men had left her nine years ago. He pulled her closer and kissed the crown of her head, her hair soft and warm against his lips.
He spent the entire night trying to lie still and not wake Elena. It was almost fucking impossible with that rage he hadn’t felt in over a year seething through him. Before that, it had been almost a decade. Who could be still, be quiet, do nothing with that much anger poisoning their blood?
But even if he could move, what would he do? Go home, go down to the basement, get into his boxing gloves and beat on his heavy bag? What good would that do? What he wanted was to find the men who’d been in Elena’s alley, beat the first one to death with his bare hands while the other two watched, then shove the second one down on the torn, broken body of the first and crush his head in with his boot, then drown the third in the blood and gore of the first two.
Forcing himself, he slowed and deepened his next breath, and held it for a count of five before releasing, emptying his lungs completely, then waiting before inhaling. In. Out. He worked his way up from his toes, consciously relaxing every muscle in his body, gradually slowing the violent racing of his heart, softening the steel net squeezing and cutting into his stomach.
Now he could think.
Guilt was uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. It came on so rarely, and only with Elena.
In the morning, Xavier killed time making coffee and doing Elena’s dishes from the day before, until he heard the bathroom door close. When the sound of water humming in the pipes promised at least a few minutes of safety, he flipped open her laptop and typed in her password. Found her work folder, opened an anonymous browser window, logged in to Dropbox, and copied everything over.
By the time she was out of the shower, he had her laptop back in place and he’d planted himself at the table with a mug of coffee.
“
If you’re not up to working today, we could go to Venice and have brunch at Figtree’s.” He ran his fingertip back and forth along a flaw in the surface of the maple tabletop.
“
I think work is exactly what I need today. At least I can pretend I’m doing some good.”
“
What are you working on?”
“
The same case. The same five douchebags we’ve been trying to nail for the last three years.”
Gratitude that Elena was a desk jockey and not a field agent hit him almost as hard as it had when she’d switched career tracks soon after joining the Bureau. “Any progress?”
Elena sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Going in circles. Every time we think we’re closing in on something concrete, they switch everything up and we’re back to square one.”
“
Suspend a few civil liberties, and I bet you’d get a lock on them.”
“
And have another case thrown out of court.” She was stirring the shit out of the coffee, like she was whipping cake batter instead of dissolving a sugar cube. “Those assholes would just love that. And then we’d have to put James in a medical coma. He almost died of an aneurism when the case got dismissed last time.”
“
Is that guy trying to get into your pants, or something?” Xavier teased, sorry he’d aggravated her, asking about the case, after what she’d been through the night before. “Vice detectives don’t usually show up for assaults in alleys, do they?”
“
He was nearby when he heard the call on the police radio. I guess he recognized my address.”
“
Because he’s already in your pants?”
“
Porter’s married.” Amusing, how she’d defensively switched from his first name, to his last. “So he won’t be getting into my pants, not that he’s ever tried. And you won’t be getting into his pants, either, so next time I call the cops on a pack of rapists in my alley, you can skip the seductive stare you were giving him last night.”
“
Puta mentira
, Elena.”
“
Lie, my ass. I saw that thing happening.” She mocked some version of a seductive stare, gestured the trajectory of exchanged glances. “You ever stop your search and destroy mission, even for five minutes?”
Xavier laughed. “This thing,” he imitated her gesture, “was all him.”
“
Puta mentira
.” Such a relief, her teasing him. “My brother the slut. When are you going to find a nice boy and settle down?”
Then her smile faded, and her hazel eyes filled with a familiar, pensive look.
“Thinking about last night?”
She sighed, combed her fingers through his sleep-wrecked hair. “No,
hermanito
. I’m thinking about you. It makes me sad, thinking you’ve never been in love. That you’ll probably never let yourself fall in love.”