The rain violently spattered against the windows, the strong gusts making it come in on the diagonal, as I sat at the kitchen table and tried to do my budgets for the month. Bills and letters were lain out before me, in a neat and methodical pile, although my mind was anything but. It felt disorganized and scattered with thoughts. Internally I felt chaotic.
‘Maybe if I didn’t fill up the car this week, that would save a bit of cash? I have an old bus card here somewhere that’s surely still valid? Or I could see if I can carpool with Jane instead? Yeah, that might work.’
That was fifty stinking bucks saved, what about the rest of my money worries? I was already overdue on rent and owed an additional two months, I didn’t want to be late again. And then there was the electric bill which was due, but I could always put that off until next week.
Trying to clear my mind and find a moment of calm, I picked up my mug and drank deeply, the coffee having the dual effect of waking and warming me. I closed my eyes and zoned out for just a second.
‘You are calm. You are zen. Breathe in, breathe out. You can do this. Calm and tranquil.’
My moment of peace and calm was shattered, however, when my older sister Erika burst through the door, threw her handbag on the kitchen counter and went straight for my fridge.
“You’ll get no joy or happiness from there,” I told her. “I’m on diet factory.”
Erika sighed angrily and shut the fridge, a little too heavily for my liking, the wine glasses and bottles of expensive merlot I had on top of there clinking and shaking with the impact. I turned around in my chair and looked first at Erika, and then the kitchen clock. It was a quarter to nine in the morning. “Gee,” I said. “What’s the point in ever going home? You may as well move in you’re so keen on the place.”
Erika gave me a rude, scowly look, her usual chirpy self. Funny that we both had marriage problems, although Erika’s were her own doing, totally self-inflicted, half of them were in her head anyway. She treated her husband like trash sometimes, either putting him in the cone of silence or being frosty and cold as hell. He adored my sister though, it had to be said. He loved her more than anything else. I had always thought he could do better than Erika, he didn’t deserve half the crap she gave him or the way she treated him. She was so self-absorbed though, me, me, me, and if he just happened to say no to something or suggest otherwise, she threw a tantrum like a spoiled brat sixteen-year-old.
My marriage breakdown, on the other hand, had been out of my control, and all because my husband couldn’t keep it in his pants or keep his fluids to himself. To make matters worse, he’d run off with an older woman, some soccer mom that he worked with. Wasn’t it supposed to be a young piece the middle-aged man found himself? Although I guess that had been me when we met.
I got married too young, that was a given. Nearly all my friends told me that I needed to slow down, give myself some time to sow my wild oats and look at my options. I couldn’t help it though, I fell for Richard hard. He was the suave older gentleman who had come in and rescued me from parents who didn’t give a shit. If I’d known that when he first met he was still technically married, I never would have agreed to go around with him, and if I’d known when I married him five years ago, that he would ditch me for some MILF while we were together, I never would have agreed to say ‘I do,’ with him.
Now here I was, at the age of twenty four, going through what was panning out to be a messy divorce, living in an apartment I could no longer afford, with an errant husband who’d run off to Hong Kong, to live it up in some tax haven, and who would only communicate with me through lawyers letters and court documents. His name may have been Richard, but he didn’t have to be such a dick.
“What’s all this, Laney?” asked Erika. She fixed herself some coffee from the pot and was sitting down next to me.
“Just bills and payments.”
Erika sorted through some of the papers I had in front of me, reading some of the amounts of the bills, and looking at the monthly budget I was planning. Her eyes widened when she alighted upon an amount I had written down for the car. “Is that how much money it costs to keep that car running?” she asked, her voice growing louder with shock.
“Yes, it is,” I said, hating that I sounded defensive over it. I quickly slid the paper back towards me and buried it at the bottom of my pile. Out of sight out of mind.
We had argued the day he came home with the Alfa Romeo. Why we needed a luxury car, I never knew. I think it came down to a matter of Richard’s ego and what he could laud over people. As it turned out, I was right about the stupid bloody thing. It was harder and more expensive to fix when it did have problems. European cars always are. That was no longer his concern though. He’d let me keep the car, and the ritzy apartment, in the full knowledge that I couldn’t afford to maintain the lifestyle after we split.
“Why don’t you sell it?” Erika asked. She stood up and grabbed her handbag from the counter, lighting a cigarette after she’d found the pack.
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s in Richard’s name, he owns it, and you can’t sell something you don’t legally own.”
“What does he care? He ran off with Deanne Peterson. Just get your lawyers onto it, and then sell the car,” Erika replied, taking a drag from her cigarette.
“I’ve already got the lawyer looking it. Can you smoke outside, please? You’re making it very difficult for me to stick to my quitting smoking regime.”
“It’s raining outside!” she said.
“The balcony is partially covered,” I replied. Erika gave me a look that was completely unimpressed. “Well then go and open the French doors and make the smoke go outside or crack open a window, I don’t care, just don’t smoke inside.”
“You are antsy, aren’t you?” Erika sauntered across my living room, opening up the French doors and standing in the doorway with her Newport. “Have you heard from Nelli?” she asked across the living room.
“No, I haven’t,” I said, sighing. Nelli was Richard’s daughter from his first marriage to Carly Ward, his high school sweetheart. She had just turned twenty-one and had hated my guts from the first moment we met. I didn’t blame her though, not at all. If I had been fifteen, and my father had married an eighteen-year-old, I’d be furious too.
That wasn’t to say I hadn’t tried with her. Boy had I tried. She had been my maid-of-honor at my wedding, we’d had brunch dates together, I helped dress her for her school formal, she had even come to me once when she was seventeen and asked about boys and sex and her body, too afraid to ask her own mother, who was very prudish and sexually repressed. Had that helped? Not one bit, as she’d go straight back to hating me the next day.
Nelli was in a tough position, I could understand that; caught between a mother who was way too tough on her, and a father who sure as shit didn’t care much for her, I had tried to use my position of influence to get him to engage more with her, but every time I was told to leave it be, or butt out. It wasn’t that I was trying too hard to be the ‘cool step-mother’ I was just trying to be a friend to her.
She had an uneasy relationship with her father; it would be even rougher now that Richard had run off with the mother of her best friend from high school.
I polished off my coffee and stared vacantly at my bills. I couldn’t think, not now. I was too stressed and frazzled. I stood up, cleared the cups from the table and walked around, stretching. I needed to get out of the apartment. I needed to let go. I had turfed off my dressing gown before I even got to my bedroom, quickly deciding to go to yoga. If I hurried, I could make the half past class.
“Where are you off too?” Erika asked when I emerged from my bedroom in my yoga pants and tank top.
“I’m going to the gym.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Go home to your husband,” I replied.
“Dean is at work, he’s picked up extra shifts at the hospital. I was bored at home, so I came here.”
“Well come with me to the gym then, or you can stay here, I don’t care. But you need to make yourself scarce by tonight, please. I’m having dinner with Ruth and her new partner Tammy, then we’re coming back here for a few drinks.”
Erika looked almost puzzled. “What?” she asked. “Ruth Brown? Is she gay? I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not something she advertises to the world, Erika. Are you coming or not, I need to go to the mall afterward anyway.”
“Yes, alright, alright,” I heard her say. She stubbed out her cigarette on the wet balcony and shut the French doors.
------------------------------
I was taking great joy in drinking Richard’s expensive red wines that he’d been hoarding and storing away. There was also some bubbles and two bottles of aged Lagavulin whiskey, stored in the closet of the spare room, that I was determined to drink. The man could be an asshat sometimes, by damn he had good taste.
I was enjoying one of his merlot’s as I got ready to have dinner with Ruth and Tammy. I couldn’t actually afford to go out, and secretly I hoped that either Ruth or her partner would offer to pay for my meal, but if not then that was fine, I could always pick up an extra shift at work or find overtime from somewhere at the office. I’m sure my boss wouldn’t mind having a personal assistant who wanted extra work to do.
As I dressed that night I looked at my wardrobe with longing. If worse came to worse I could always sell some of my clothing, but that was a scenario I didn’t want to imagine. A life without designer labels was like a life without air. I was vainly proud of my wardrobe, and my appearance, for that matter. Miss High-Maintenance, that was me. Guilty as charged.
I decided on an emerald green wiggle dress that night, that I only just managed to squeeze myself into. I found my grandmother’s dark purple Hyacinth brooch and pinned it to my dress. The Ink Spots were wailing from the speaker as I put the finishing touches to my outward appearance. Ruth, of course, would scold me and tell me I was overdressed, that I’d gone to too much trouble, but her words would fall on deaf ears, as they always did.
It was a knock at the door that disturbed me and kept me from finishing getting ready. I was expecting to see Ruth and her new partner on the other side of the door, extra early, as Ruth usually was, but instead it was my landlord, who I had been trying to avoid the last week or so.
Secretly, I couldn’t stand the guy, he was an old friend of Richard’s from school, now part of the tennis and country club crowd. He surely knew of the situation between myself and Richard, but he’d never mentioned it, which was a small mercy. However, he was now standing on my doorstep, and I just knew he’d be asking after the rent money.
“Hello Blondie,” he said, looking more smug than usual. I hated when he called me that, and he surely knew it.
“Hi, Stephen.”
“This isn't bad timing, is it? You’re not about to go out, are you?” he asked, which of course he knew the answer to, given that I was all tarted up. There had always been something about Stephen that had infuriated me. He just had a smug air about him. Of course I could see he was a damned attractive man, I was only human after all, and there had always been an undercurrent of electricity between us, but his ‘I’m hot shit and I know it’ attitude was such a turn off.
“No, it’s not a bad time,” I lied, still holding the door, not letting him in.
“May I come in?” he asked. Grudgingly I stepped aside and let him in. “Now, I have something to discuss with you, Elaine,” he paused for a second, and then asked, “Do you prefer Elaine or Laney?”
“I don’t mind either,” I told him.
“It’s a rather delicate issue,” he said. “I know you’ve had it tough since the split and money is tight.” He looked me up and down for emphasis, everything about my appearance at that point in time screaming that I was still living it up, rather than having money worries. “But, you’re behind in your rent payments.”
“I know, Stephen, and if you could just be patient with me, I can get it paid. I’ve got some money coming into my account soon and-,”
Stephen cut me off. “I’ve been patient enough already, Elaine. C’mon love, this is my bread and butter, if you don’t pay me, then I don’t eat.”
“I am good for the money,” I told him.
“I don’t want to have to evict you, Elaine.”
“Stephen please,” I said. I could feel myself becoming more and more desperate and flustered. “Please don’t kick me out, I can get the money to you soon.”
“I need the money now,” he said. “I’m sorry love, but if you haven’t paid me within three days then you’ll have to go.”
In my darkest moment, I acted quickly and used my assets to advantage. Grabbing him as he turned to walk away, I looked up at him from under my lashes, with pleading eyes. Begging eyes. “Please, Stephen,” I said. I was more concerned about my ex-husband in that moment and how it would look if I were to be booted from the apartment. He’d just love that. Probably he was just waiting for me to fail or slip up, but I couldn’t let that happen.
Stephen looked down at my hand on his shirt sleeve, and then up at me. He smirked at first, and then smiled, more smug than usual.
I didn’t have to say anything more. All Stephen asked was, “Really? You’re willing to do that to stay?” My eyes flicked down to his crotch, and then back to his blueish gray gaze. His eyes were mocking me and laughing at me, I could see it, but I continued to look at him and plead. “And if I say no?” he asked. “If I walk out this door and forget you? What will happen then?”
I faltered slightly and dropped my gaze. “I, I don’t know.”
“Well then,” Stephen said. He turned around fully so he was facing me, his handsome face so smug I just wanted to slap him, but the way he looked at me sparked arousal in my core that I couldn’t deny. It had been a while since a man had looked at me with sex on his mind and hunger in his eyes.
“No kissing,” I said, laying down my only rule.
Stephen shrugged. “Fine by me, Blondie.”
He took me by the hand as we walked the few steps over to the white Federal-style couch, which was soon to be tainted with sex. He unzipped and dropped his Levi’s quickly, before plonking himself down on the couch, his cock somewhat hard, but still pretty useless in its near flaccid state. Needing no prompting, I got to my knees and took his cock all the way down my throat, a task that was easy to accomplish as he was not yet fully erect. He soon would be though, as I felt him pulse and grow in my mouth.
He made a low noise of appreciation as I set to work, his hand lazily on the back of my head, guiding me, yet he was not so firm in his grip that he pulled my hair. To say his cock was impressive when fully erect would be an understatement. I had taken a perverse sort of pleasure in seeing how small he was when soft, wondering if that was the reason he was a smug asshole, feeling the need to make up for his shortcomings, but the man was a grower, much to my surprise.
His cock was not the best looking one I’d ever seen, but, in all honesty, what cock was good looking? His was thick and veiny, getting slightly fatter in the middle of the shaft. As he became more aroused and his cock got harder, it was becoming more and more difficult to suck him deeply and make a good job of what I was doing. I had to employ the use of my right hand to help, sucking on the head while I worked the rest of his cock.
“Suck my balls,” I heard him say, grabbing some hair and guiding me lower. His balls were large and hairy, the texture feeling strange on my tongue. I was used to seeing men's bits that were shaved, almost hair free, as that was what Richard had preferred.
My right hand still on his cock, I jacked him off while I licked and sucked his balls. My nipples were stiff and rubbing against the lace of my bra, which in itself was a pleasant sensation, adding to my growing levels of arousal.
Adjusting his position on the couch, his legs in the air, Stephen said, “Lick my ass.” Not giving me a moment to hesitate, he guided my head lower, the point of my tongue making contact with his asshole, licking enthusiastically.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath, making a low growling sound. His cock was rigid, sticking straight up and pointing toward the coffered ceiling. Louder, he said to me, “You really do want to keep the apartment, don’t you?”
The melodic, crooner tones of the Ink Spots poured from the speakers in the living room, as I rimmed a man I didn’t actually like very much, on what was an expensive couch. If Richard found out his couch had been sullied with sex he’d be livid. That thought oddly spurred me on, as I grew more enthusiastic in what I was doing, taking great pride in my oral skills. The tip of my tongue was in a steady rhythm as it licked and probed against his asshole, drawing heavy breathing and moans from the recipient.
“Stand up,” he said, grabbing and pulling my hair a little too roughly as he tried to raise me up. He put his legs down and sat back up, his back straight up against the couch. I hitched my dress up and went to move my panties aside, thinking this would be a quick transaction. “Whoa, whoa, stop,” he said. “Strip for me. I want you fully naked.”
Not saying anything, I turned around and motioned for him to unzip me. He made quick work of it, and the dress was in an emerald green puddle around my feet. Standing there in my underwear, my nipples jutted out, stiff and proud in my lace bra, which was quickly taken off.
“You’ve got great tits,” he told me. He sounded sincere, rather than smug, which was a nice change. “Let those honey curls of yours loose, and take your panties off, I want to see you in all your naked glory.”
I let my hair down, the curls bouncing around my shoulders. My panties were next and, teasingly, I slid them slowly down my legs, watching for his reaction. Despite myself, I was enjoying this and the effect it was having on my arousal.
“You haven’t shaved in a while,” he observed, looking at the patch of dark blonde pubic hair that had grown in. Ashamedly, since leaving Richard, I had given up on that part of my routine, and while there was hair there, it wasn’t wild or untamed, but the fact he’d mentioned it, got my back up.
One hand on my naked hip, I looked him straight in the eye for the first time since we’d started and said, “I haven’t needed to, I haven’t had sex in a while.”
Stephen smiled. “God, you’re sexy when you’re proud. Come here, I need you.”
‘I need you,’ I thought. I had to give it to the smug bastard, he knew what to say to make a woman feel wanted and sexy.
Gripping his cock at the base, I knelt astride him and lowered myself onto him. I felt some resistance and I bit my lip. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go slow, take your time.”
God, he was making it difficult to hate fuck him with this sudden onset of understanding. Slowly I sank on top of him, his girth stretching my pussy until I was able to comfortably accommodate him. Stephen made a long, drawn-out contented sigh, and slowly thrust upward.
He felt good, that was for fucking certain, and in that moment, as I was on his lap, his cock buried deep inside me, I realized that five months was an awful long time to go without sex. I didn’t care if he lasted two minutes or two hours, I was going to give him all I had, and focus all my sexual energy on cumming.
“Fuck you’re tight,” he said. “Richard was a fucking moron for ditching you.”
Passive aggressively, I shushed him. No mention of my ex-husband would ruin this moment of sexual liberation for me. I closed my eyes, wrapped one hand around the back of his head, and rode him.
“You’re so wet,” I heard him whisper in my ear. I moaned in response. I felt a hand spank my ass, the sound loud, reverberating off the walls. SMACK! SMACK! he did it twice more, my ass stinging and feeling like it were on fire, but fuck it felt good.
SMACK! again he spanked me, but then, to my surprise, I felt a finger pressing gently against my asshole, teasing me, daring me to stick my ass out that little bit further so he could penetrate me back there with a long, probing finger. Wantonly, I did just that, and I was rewarded with the sensations of having both holes used.
“Cum for me,” he demanded. “Cum on my cock.”
Taking two fingers to my clitoris, I started touching myself, in an almost violent manner, so caught up in the sensations and feelings of having the first cock inside me since Richard. I was like a woman possessed, my only goal being the sexual release of an orgasm. My mind was narrowed and focused only on fucking, it was an all-consuming feeling. I needed to cum.
He built up a rhythm with his cock in my pussy and his finger in my ass, pumping each in turn, in and out. The muscles in my thighs flexed and twitched, my breathing deepened, and in a moment of orgasmic glory, I threw my head back and moaned loudly, letting loose and living for the moment as the waves of orgasm washed over and ravished me. I didn’t care if the neighbors heard. Let them know that I was being used and well fucked.
Swear words erupted from my mouth as his cock kept its pace deep inside me. Lost in the moment, I didn’t hear him at first when he said my name. When he withdrew his finger from my ass, leaving a distinct feeling of emptiness back there, and repeated my name, I was snapped out of my own little world, suddenly very aware.
“I’m gonna cum, get down on your knees,” he demanded. My feelings of emptiness were increased as I disengaged myself from him and quickly got to the floor, kneeling. Without being asked, I opened my mouth. A few short moments later, I felt his warm cum spatter my tongue, some of it flying onto my cheeks, some of it dripping down onto my chin.
“God you look beautiful covered in cum,” he said. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. I swiped the cum off my cheek and chin and sucked it off my fingers, makeup mixed in with it, leaving a weird tang in my mouth. “I’ll be back tomorrow night, for the rest of my late payment fee,” he laughed. The smug Stephen was back, looking at me sardonically, mocking me. “I want that tight little asshole of yours.”
“What?” I burst out.
He smiled. “Never had a cock back there, Blondie? I am in for a treat.”
He quickly pulled up his jeans and left, slamming the door behind him. Still nude, I found my phone and quickly rang Ruth and Tammy, apologizing for running late.
