Live Girls (5 page)

It looks like it's been chewed open
.

He stood up straight and sighed, regretting ever walking through that black curtained doorway into this dirty little place and wanting to leave as soon as possible. He felt his back beginning to perspire in the stuffy booth and removed his overcoat, folding it neatly over his arm until he bumped his head on a hook mounted on the back of the door behind him. He turned around and reluctantly hung up his coat, then once again turned his back to the door and opened the fist that held those four corpse-gray tokens. One at a time, he dropped them into the slot next to the tiny red light. They made thick, heavy
per-clink
sounds as they fell into the coin box.

Davey squinted as a rectangular section of the wall before him began to slide up with a low hum, pouring gentle but sudden light into the dark booth.

He saw her calves and knees first, then her thighs: skin that looked as smooth as the finest silk, the color of rich cream, was stretched tautly over firm muscles and perfectly structured bones. Her left knee was bent ever so slightly and she seemed to be swaying from side to side. The graceful fingers of her right hand fluttered through a triangle of hair of blackest black, moving in gentle, small circles below the tiny navel that was centered in the middle of her flat, firm belly. Her left hand rested lightly on her tight hip, rising and falling as her pelvis moved around and around in slow, luxurious circles. Her small rib cage was lightly outlined against the skin below her firmly uplifted breasts, two scoops of vanilla flesh topped with generous dollops of rich chocolate that had hardened in the center. Above them, two sharp ridges of bone sloped slightly toward regal shoulders and a slender, tightly muscled neck curved into a finely chiseled jaw. Her lips were dark and full, glistening and wet, and her cheekbones were prominent beneath huge dark eyes that sparkled with pupils that seemed to descend into a comforting darkness into which one might fall forever without ever reaching bottom. Thin black brows arched over long, thick lashes and midnight fell in long shining waves over her head, resting gently on her shoulders and shifting with her gentle movements.

Everything seemed to stop as he stared up at the woman who stood behind the thick glass.

This was not what he'd expected. He'd pictured hardened, coarse runaways who had been picked up in bus stations upon arriving from Nebraska, used to their limit, then discarded like paper napkins after a birthday party, dirty and torn. This woman did not belong in this place with its shuffling, faceless men and its disinfectants and its artificial indoor twenty-four-hour-a-day night!

He gawked at her like a little boy seeing his first department-store Santa Claus, feeling a strange sense of ... comfort.

After a few moments had passed, he realized what was expected of him. Without taking his eyes from her, he reached around for his coat, groped for his pocket, found his wallet, and took it out. Still without looking away, he removed a bill from his wallet, stuffed the wallet into his back pocket, and carefully reached down, pushing the bill through the slot below the window.

Her delicious lips curled into an emotionless, but embracing, smile. She knelt down gracefully; her right hand wrapped around the bill, tugging it from Davey's hand while, at the same time, her left hand gently took Davey's wrist.

He started at her touch. It was smooth and cool.

Her right hand moved behind her, then returned smoothly, the bill gone, and without the slightest hint of effort, she pushed the sleeves of Davey's suitcoat and shirt up his arm, at the same time pulling his arm through the hole all the way up to his elbow.

The inside of Davey's mouth became moist felt and he slid his tongue back and forth over his lips as she began to lightly dance her fingers up and down his forearm.

She tilted her head back slightly, her eyelids lowered until they were almost completely covering her deep, dark eyes, and the smile grew to one of promise and anticipation, her lips almost, but not quite, parting. Then she moved forward, pulling his hand toward her and touching it to her left thigh.

Davey's heart skipped a beat; he did not move his hand, did not react, at first, to the touch of her velvety flesh. He just watched her as she moved his hand over her thigh, up and down, her smile never wavering. She brought his hand up as she straightened her back and moved her pelvis forward. His fingers brushed lightly over the black mound of hair.

She bent her upper body down, then toward him, sliding his hand up over her strong belly, over her ribs, to her breasts, pressing it to one, then the other. His fingers began to gently flick the erect nipples and squeeze the breasts delicately.

This is illegal!
he thought frantically.
This
must
be illegal! But it's okay, it's okay, because she's letting me touch her
.

It seemed strange to him how very important touching her had suddenly become, but he took no time to question it.

She leaned forward even further and moved his hand to her throat, bent her head down and kissed his palm, then directed his hand back down over her breasts, her belly, and down between her legs. She pushed his fingers through the hair, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes as his fingers moved over her vulva, through the flowery folds and, finally, inside her.

He gasped softly and goose flesh rose on the back of his neck when he felt her moist center, moist but strangely cool and tingly. She pressed herself against his hand, and her long black hair swayed back and forth behind her.

Davey heard a sound in the distance and realized, after a moment, that it was the sound of his own pleasure. His eyelids fluttered and closed, but he snapped them back open immediately, as if not seeing her would mean his death.

She took his hand away from her, bent as far forward as she could, and brought his hand, fingers glistening, to her lips. She kissed his palm again and again, then the back of his hand, his fingers...

Davey's breathing became sporadic, his heart hammered in his chest, and a dull ache began to pound in his crotch.

Her hair brushed across Davey's arm, tickling him slightly.

Even her hair feels cool,
he thought.

The tip of her tongue slipped between her lips and she looked up at him through strands of her hair as she slowly licked the length of his exposed arm, first up, then back down, wrapping her lips around his index finger, rolling her tongue over it lazily, then sliding her mouth up and down over the knuckles. She did the same with the next finger, and the next, until she came to his pinky.

When she backed away from Davey's hand, stood up straighter, he thought it was over, thought that perhaps she wanted more money. But her smile seemed to say,
There's more, my friend, much more
....

Very carefully, she pulled his sleeves back down and gently pushed his arm out of the hole. Her eyes remained locked with his. She gave his hand a small squeeze as it slipped out of the hole.

When he felt her hand on his leg, Davey looked down and saw her arm snaking through the hole. He watched as her hand glided across his thigh to the bulge beneath his pants. Her arm twisted slowly until her palm was facing upward. She tucked her elegant fingers between his legs, just below his crotch, laid her thumb flush with the line of his zipper, and squeezed. Just a slight whisper of a squeeze, but enough to send white threads of electricity up the center of his body.

Davey looked through the glass again, saw the lids of her eyes grow heavy as she cupped his genitals in her palm. She pulled the zipper down with dreamlike slowness and wriggled her fingers through the opening. Through the thin material of his briefs, Davey felt her fingernail travel the length of his erection teasingly and he moaned, a long breathy moan. Her fingers pulled open the front of his briefs.

Her fingers were cool and velvety; they wrapped around his penis and pulled it carefully out of his pants.

Davey leaned forward and pressed a hand to the wall on each side of the window. His head drooped and he looked down at her hand, smooth and gentle, as it tugged him toward the hole. He took a small step forward. Another.

She nodded encouragingly to him, fondling a breast with her free hand. Her lips parted just enough for her tongue to ease out and slide across them, glistening lusciously.

“Oh, God,” Davey breathed as he allowed her to pull him through the hole. Its hard, ungiving edges, so harsh compared to her glassy-smooth skin, made him wince. He leaned almost his entire body against the thick glass as her tongue lightly touched him, her black hair draping each side of her head like curtains on a window, private and concealing. She flicked her tongue over the darkened head of his penis first, then slipped it underneath, running it the length of the shaft slowly, lovingly.

Davey swallowed several times.

She pulled her mouth away for a moment and held him close to her face, her fingers caressing him as she moved his penis just a bit to one side, holding it as a jeweler might hold a precious stone.

Davey felt her lips wrap around the side of his shaft, felt her wet, pillowy tongue, her teeth, then a slight sting so sudden that, amid all the other overpowering sensations, he wasn't even sure it was real.

She took him all the way into her mouth so swiftly that Davey's knees began to buckle and it was only with effort that he kept them from collapsing completely. She began sucking on him hungrily and he grunted as if he'd been slugged in the stomach.

He cried out, softly at first, his breath clouding the glass.

Cooooool,
he thought,
she feels sooo cooooool
.

His orgasm pounded inside him like an animal throwing itself against the bars of its cage, and when it was just a breath away from release, he clenched his teeth to hold back the cry. It came anyway, ripping from his chest as he slammed against the glass and shuddered uncontrollably, sweat rolling down his body, his heart drumming in his ears.

She finally slid her mouth from him but continued to stroke him with her hand.

His eyes were closed and he didn't seem to have enough energy left to open them. The panel began to hum down over the glass and he opened his eyes in time for one final glance, and saw her smiling, her mouth sparkling with his juices and ... something else ... smeared lipstick?

She was gone.

He pressed his cheek to the panel as she continued to stroke him on the other side. Then she let go and he pulled away, fell to the wall on his right, and slid down until he reached the floor. He remained there, curled up like a baby, trembling, trying to catch his breath, staring with wonder at the panel, at the hole through which soft light cast a glowing bar that landed in a distorted puddle on his hanging overcoat.

With effort, he stood, leaning on the wall. He zipped up, took his coat from the hook on the door, and clumsily slid his arms into the sleeves. He kept looking at the panel. Before he opened the door and left the booth, he reached out and touched his fingertips to the hard wood.

He burst from the booth and hurried through the shadows of Live Girls. He passed the cage by the entrance and looked through the bars as he went by. He saw nothing in the darkness, but he knew that someone was sitting there, someone with large, beautiful, pale hands. Someone watching him.

C
ASEY
T
HORNE HEADED FOR THE LOUNGE AS SOON AS SHE
arrived at Penn Publishing, lighting a cigarette as she walked down the corridor. She was a small woman with a fast, lively walk that swept her into the lounge like a sudden gust of wind. She went straight to the coffeepot, ignoring Chad Wilkes.

“Hey, Casey,” he said happily. “G'morning."

“Morning, Chad,” she said with an intentional chill as she took a styrofoam cup from the stack on the counter and tipped the steaming coffeepot over it.

“Your hair looks wet. Forget your umbrella?"

Her short strawberry-blond hair was damp and stringy; strands of it were still sticking to the sides of her face. “My umbrella broke this morning,” she replied slowly, trying to keep her voice from raising. All the way from the lobby up, people had been asking her, “Forget your umbrella?"

Not only had her umbrella broken, but her alarm clock had not gone off and she'd slept too late to fix breakfast or even have coffee. She'd gotten caught in the middle of a fight between her roommate Lisa and her boyfriend, Selig, then she'd missed her bus.

It was Monday.

Hunger was beginning to gurgle crankily in Casey's stomach as she tucked her cigarette between her lips. Chad was sitting at one of the two long rectangular tables in the lounge
—
the one closest to the tray
—
eating a Mars Bar, a cup of coffee on the table next to a manuscript he'd apparently been reading. He smiled at her as she stepped around the chairs that were scattered in disarray along the table, trying not to spill her coffee. She did not smile back.