Authors: Ashley Rhodes
Nick closed his eyes, drove deep, pulled out to the head and drove in again, until he felt the first tingling harbinger of release. “I’m close,” he said. “When I’m done this is over. Better hurry.”
She glared at him as she played with herself, racing him to the finish line, even though she’d lapped him twice already. Her angry eyes turned glassy, though, and then closed, and then her back was arching and she opened her mouth to wail a series of swears and epithets and other weird shit—something about her pussy eating his dick; rich girls were a strange bunch—and finally Nick’s balls tightened, weak but living fire rushed up his spine and popped off in his head the same moment he emptied himself into her. He didn’t make a sound.
Just like that, it was over.
He pulled out of her, their two bodies making a wet, slurping sound after having been joined for so long, and used his tee shirt to wipe the mix of her juices and his cum off his cock. “When you go back down,” he said, “use the service elevator. Tell Lars you got sick in the bathroom and he’ll believe it, probably. Better yet, tell him you got your period.”
Red snorted, and threw her panties at him from where they’d ended up at the corner of the bed. Nick caught them, and threw them back. “You’re gonna need those.”
“Keep ‘em,” she sighed as she pulled her dress up her legs and onto her shoulders. “Zip me?”
Nick did. She hadn’t worn a bra, so that was all there was to getting her dressed.
“What’s your name?” Red asked.
“I don’t have one,” Nick lied. “I’m a black-ops assassin. They scrub our identities when we join.”
Red raised an eyebrow, smirking, and then laughed. “Right. You could just say no names, no strings.”
“No names, no strings,” Nick said. “Thanks for the night cap.”
She left without saying much else—she probably had a hard enough time saying what she had—and Nick tossed her panties into the garbage. Well, it was nothing special—it never was, was it?—but it had tired him out a little along with the bourbon and the gin.
He picked up the envelop from the table, opened it, and slipped out Cassandra’s picture again.
She really was beautiful.
What a shame.
For five years, Cassandra Gonzales had been looking over her shoulder. Any day, she knew, her father’s men would find her, put an end to her running, and take her home to be his little princess again. The kind locked in a tower, getting daily glimpses of sunlight through a single, narrow window too small to escape through.
As she watched the news report announcing that Emilio Gonzales, a prominent Columbian businessman suspected of being involved in a number of major political corruption scandals, had been apparently assassinated she wished that she could feel more sadness. Really, what she felt was relief. That and guilt for having felt it.
“May God have mercy on you, Papa,” she muttered and brushed the gold cross hanging from her neck with her fingers. Papa had given it to her when she was fifteen, and for nine years it hadn’t left her. He’d been a misguided man, perhaps, but he’d ultimately meant well. His ends were righteous, he just hadn’t been concerned enough about the means.
Now that he was gone, there would be no one to hunt her. She was free.
Already Cassandra had been in one place too long. She had almost decided that it was time to pack up and move again, and wasn’t looking forward to it. Friends were a luxury she rarely enjoyed, but here in New Jersey she’d actually almost made a few. Generally, that’s how she could tell it was time.
That had changed, though, hadn’t it? In a certain sense it was… terrifying.
“Cassie?” A woman behind her asked politely.
Cassandra turned, and wiped her eyes when as she smiled at Loretta, the volunteer coordinator for the shelter Cassandra served lunch at on Saturdays. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry, just… got kind of zoned. Are we about to open?”
“They’re lined up,” Loretta said. “About to open the doors; all hands.”
Cassandra nodded, and checked her apron tie on her way to the long table where other volunteers manned massive soup pots or small mountains of sandwiches or baskets of apples and oranges. Her typical post was coffee.
The bedraggled masses of Newark poured through the double doors of the shelter kitchen in an eager but orderly procession, and made their way along the long tables. Familiar faces passed by her, accepting their cups of black coffee before they sought out a coveted spot among the dining tables. There was never enough space. There was hardly enough food.
“Thanks Cassie,” Thomas, an old black man with a white beard who walked with a makeshift cane, said as he took the fifth cup. He winked at her, and she smiled as he shuffled off with his plate and cup. He wasn’t the only one. She’d been around just long enough to people to know her name; or part of it, anyway. Normally, that was about the time she started packing.
Any other day, this would be the last day these people saw her.
When the line was almost out—but the food had run out—the disappointed stragglers wandered out, or meandered among the tables hoping someone had food left to share. She saw at least one man hand almost a full plate to one of the stragglers, and smiled.
A particular heaviness tugged at her heart as she watched them. Maybe… if she could stay here, instead of having to keep moving… she could do more. That would have been nice. Already she’d reached out to some of the local sellers and small businesses looking for more support for the kitchen. If she could cultivate better relationships, she could make sure this place never ran dry again.
“What’ve you got planned for the rest of the day?” Loretta asked as she stretched her back and grimaced at her cracking spine.
Cassandra winced with her. “I have a shift at Leonard’s,” she said. “Other than that…” She shrugged.
“You know,” Loretta said, “I’ve been thinking… I should introduce you to my nephew, Wilson. He’s a nice boy, I think just a little older than you. Got his degree two years ago. You two would get a long. He needs a woman in his life.”
Cassandra laughed politely, and tried to look flattered. “Oh, I…” But, then again… “…I might be free sometimes soon,” she finished. Why not?
Loretta’s eyebrows rose and she smiled with surprise. “That so? I hate to go making matches but, you know, he really is very sweet. Handsome, too. Bit of a mess, but so smart.”
“I’m sure he is.” Cassandra smiled, and finished taking her apron off. “Well, I should get going. Don’t want to be late. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Same bat-time,” Loretta said, “same bat-channel.”
They hugged, and Cassandra left, waving and sometimes hugging the people at the tables who knew her particularly well. It wasn’t a very long walk home, where she changed, watched the time, had a quick bite to eat—the food at the shelter’s kitchen was better than what she could afford herself, but she’d gotten used to a lean, simple diet—and then made her way quickly to Leonard’s.
Almost the moment she walked in the door, she was accosted by one of the only other people who was close to being called a friend. Tamara, one of the other servers, was the only person in Newark who had actually been to Cassandra’s apartment, and the only person she spent time outside of work with.
“You will not believe what I have to tell you girl,” Tamara hissed, gleeful, and dragged Cassandra into the break room.
“What?” Cassandra asked, laughing as she pulled her other apron down from the hook. Seemed like she spent most of her day in one.
Tamara leaned against the wall, arms folded. “Sherise say she pregnant. Guess. Who.”
Cassandra tied her apron strap at the small of her back trying to imagine why this could be so exciting. Or scandalous. Tamara loved scandal. Probably it was their boss. “Leonard?” She wondered.
“What? Leonard ain’t get with Sherise,” Tamara laughed. “Man can’t even get with his right hand; can’t reach!”
Cassandra didn’t laugh with Tamara but it was probably true. “Okay,” she said. “Then who?”
“Cameron,” Tamara squeaked.
“What, what?” Cassandra’s hands dropped to her sides after she tied the knot. “Cameron’s gay.”
“I know! They went out to some club,” Tamara explained, “and like, Sherise was all, ‘I bet I could make you come’, and Cameron was like, ‘Pussy be gross, bitch’ and they made a bet and, well, I guess Sherise worked it like she do cause she got a baby in her by a gay man.”
“They didn’t use a condom?” Cassandra wondered.
Tamara slapped one thigh as she hooted her cackling laugh reserved for only the truly unfortunate. “You will not believe what that bitch said to me,” she howled. “She say—” she had to pause to get some giggles out, “—she say she didn’t think she could get pregnant by a gay dude!”
It was awful—poor Sherise was southern, and hadn’t had the benefit of actual sex-ed—but Cassandra couldn’t help laughing anyway. “Well,” Cassandra wondered when she’d gotten that out of the way, “what’s she going to do?”
“What you mean ‘what’s she gonna do’?” Tamara asked. “She’s gonna get rid of it. She can’t have Cameron’s baby. Cameron don’t wanna be nobody’s daddy. Especially not with Sherise.”
God. Poor Sherise. She was probably scared witless and a little heart broken. No doubt Cameron would stick to his side of the fence in the future, as well. They were good friends, too. Cassandra hope this didn’t ruin their relationship.
“Don’t be so mopey,” Tamara said, waving a hand at the air. “It’ll be fine. They grown.”
“Yeah,” Cassandra said. She glanced at the clock. “I’m almost late. I gotta go. Do we break together?”
“Nah, I’m headed home in a hour,” Tamara said. “But we was maybe going out tomorrow night, after work. You and me close. Wanna go?” She was only asking as a formality. Cassandra pretty much never ‘went out’, except to get groceries and go to work. Too dangerous, too many eyes.
She supposed lots of things were changing.
“Yeah,” she said. “You know what? I think I will.”
Tamara feigned shock and awe. “What? Seriously? Girl, what did you do with my friend?”
“I’m just coming out of my shell is all,” Cassandra told her. She laughed when Tamara pretended to get the vapors and pass out, slumping like one of those little souvenir giraffe toys that fell over when you pushed the bottom in. She never reached the floor, of course. “Alright,” she said when the show was over. “I know. It’s shocking. Go back to work.”
Cassandra smiled as she pressed through the break room door and out onto the diner floor. Possibly a date in the future—albeit it a blind one—and now something like a social life. Much as she regretted her father had come to an end like he had… it was hard not to be relieved that part of her life was finally over.
“I’m going, Lenny!” Cassandra called into the kitchen. “I locked the doors already!”
She waited, and after a second she heard Leonard give the all clear from the back. With that, she was done for the day. It had been uneventful, just the way she liked it, except a brief, strange encounter with a customer who had ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and left her a twenty dollar tip for it after taking one bite and airing some of his way too private issues to her. He’d been handsome at least, if a little odd. Newark was like that, though.
It had grown surprisingly cold rather quickly for this time of year. It was late fall, granted, but she hadn’t had to clutch her coat close yet until this night. She did now, shivering, as she made her way home.
There were other people on the street—Newark was as busy as Manhattan most of the time, which was to say it was a city with a twenty four hour schedule—but as usual none of them paid her any attention.
She supposed, then, that the feeling that she was being watched was some inner rebellion against the competing hope of being finally able to settle down. The moment she started to relax, it was like that instinct went into overdrive, warning her not to get complacent. It was just in her head, she knew, but it was intense, and she found herself glancing over her shoulder and checking the windows of the cars parked along the street ahead of her.
Every day she took a different route home. There were several, and she generally picked one randomly. Habit. This time, she took a left on Gillette toward Pennsylvania. From there, she would head home to the Lincoln Park area.
A small copse of young men were gathered at the corner of Gillette and Pennsylvania. They didn’t seem to pay her much attention initially, but her anxiety was already high so she saved herself the trouble of rushing past them by crossing the street.
Once she did, however, they crossed as well. It was casual, as though it was what they’d meant to do all along. But they gathered at the north corner now.
Cassandra reached into her purse and wrapper her fingers around a can of mace that wasn’t, strictly speaking, legal. Bear mace. The sort that might put down someone who’d been trained to withstand the regular stuff, which any of her father’s men would have been. This was going to be a bad night from some hood rats, potentially.
It took until she was almost on them before any of them acknowledged her directly.
“Yo girl,” one of them said, a skinny white boy with sagging shorts. Possibly handsome if he’d known how to dress. “Sup. What you so angry about?”
“Yeah,” a friend said, as Cassandra kept walking. “What you can’t smile? You have a bad day, baby?”
“Want a man who can fix that for you?”
“How about a good night?”
She heard feet moving, and glanced over her shoulder. They were following her. She squeezed the bottle of bear mace in her hand and steadied her breath.
When she turned, they stopped. She still had her hand in her purse, no reason to escalate unless it was needed. “I’m not interested, boys,” she said.
“How you know that?” One of them asked, anger twisting his face. “You don’t even know us.”
“I’m sure you’re all fine gentleman,” Cassandra assured them, holding her ground—she wanted to run, but they would chase her if she did, she knew. Best to stand firm. “I’m just not available.”
“You got a boyfriend?” The white boy asked. He looked around. “Where he at?”
“He make you walk home alone?” Another asked, and spat on the street. “Sounds like you need a new man.”
“I’d take care of you, baby,” White Boy said. “Real good. You gimme some of that hot Mexican spice, and no man’s gonna bother you again.”
“I’m Colombian,” Cassandra sighed.
They laughed, and then began to close in on her.
She pulled her mace out of her purse.
One of the boys dropped. There was an almost inaudible pinging sound, and something tiny and sharp grazed her cheek. At first none of the boys noticed. Two more dropped in quick succession, until the only two left turned tail and ran.
Cassandra’s heart was pounding, and at first she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. It didn’t take long for the picture to make itself clear, though.
Each of the boys that had dropped now had blood pooling around heads that had clean, steaming holes in them.
She’d been found.
The boys that survived had the right idea. Cassandra ran all the way to her apartment, grabbed her duffel and a small roll of cash, and left Newark behind forever.