Chapter 17 – Niki
Chapter Seventeen
NIKI
Andy’s apartment is pretty bare. A couple of the walls have sheer shimmery fabric hung up, and there are a couple plants that survived the previous break-in that have been resettled onto the window ledge in the living room. It’s liveable now, but the standards are low.
I shift toward Andy, who is unpacking her backpack. “What do you want to study?”
“Medicine. I’d like to be a nurse. They make good money now. I read that traveling nurses can make six figures. Can you imagine that?” She stares off blankly at the wall in front of her and then shakes her head, turning toward me. “Like what would you do with that kind of money?”
“Send my little sister to college.” College kids aren’t on the streets selling themselves or beating people up for money. They aren’t looking over their shoulders wondering who might stab them, with an actual knife, in the back.
Andy nods slowly as she ponders my response. “I’d buy a house. One of those houses that look like everybody else’s houses with a front porch and those chairs—do you know what I’m talking about? They’re big and lean really far back.” She tilts her head back to show me what she means.
“I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t know what the name is.”
“Starts with A like my name. Andy, Andrea, Andirondack.” She snaps her figures.
“Adirondack. That’s what they’re called.
Anyway, I’d sit in one of those and watch my kid play with other kids in the neighborhood.
And I’d be close to the school which wouldn’t have graffiti on the wall and all the computers in the lab would work. ”
“And your house wouldn’t have to be tagged with a gang sign to keep you safe.”
The corner of her mouth curls up. “Yeah, you get it.”
I do, and want those things too.
“What does it take to be a nurse?”
“Four years of schooling, but I can work my way up.” Her face is bright and animated as she talks about the nursing school.
It obviously excites her. “There are these jobs called PCTs or patient care technicians. There’s no education or training required.
It’s a tough job because you are at the bottom and you literally have to clean shit, and the hours and pay are terrible. ”
“Is there a but somewhere?”
She giggles. “Yes, you get tuition assistance to study to be a licensed practical nurse, and from there I can save money to train to be a registered nurse.”
“You have it all planned out.” I have never looked that far ahead. My life is day to day or night to night or gerbil to gerbil. Andy’s way too good for me. I know it. I think she knows it, too, but for some reason she likes having me around.
I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You have a man in your future?”
She shivers under my touch. “I hadn’t put one in there. No.”
“Not even for the kids playing in your front yard?” My thumb drags over her lower lip, pulling it down until I can see the deep, hidden pink.
“It’s all a fantasy,” she says, not moving, barely breathing. She rubs her lips together, drawing away from my thumb. “I shouldn’t, but it’s my birthday.”
I don’t ask her what she shouldn’t do. I know.
Me. She shouldn’t do me, but she wants to anyway.
A guy can only take so much before he breaks.
The wistfulness, the hopefulness, the longing in her voice strikes me deep.
She’s got a hook in me, and I know it’s going to hurt like hell when she pulls free, but I don’t care.
I lick my lips and then press my mouth against hers.
She’s soft and pillowy. I’ve never laid my lips against any other girl before.
Hell, I don’t even remember kissing my mom’s cheek.
I’m just not that kind of guy. Andy’s my first, and she tastes like sugar and chocolate and every other sweet thing I’ve ever been blessed enough to try.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ve heard plenty of stuff, and I know that tongues are involved, so when her lips part, I sweep my tongue inside.
It’s as shocking as if she’d laid her hand around my cock.
I tighten my hand around her hair and angle her head back so that I can plunge deeper.
Is this what her pussy feels like—a warm, wet cavern of sweetness?
Need pulses through my veins, an insistent drum that wants more, more, more.
I grab her hand and place it over my rod, squeezing my fist around her tiny hand and my growing shaft.
She’s tentative at first but then grows bold, folding her fingers around the outline of my meat.
She squeezes on her own, and it’s not as hard, but it’s so much more delicious.
My hand drops from her hair to the bottom of her shirt.
I sweep my palms up underneath that cloth.
My work-battered knuckles scrape against her delicate skin, but she doesn’t shy away even when my palms find the side of her breasts encased in nylon.
I hear a whimper, and again I don’t know if it’s from her or from me, but I take it as a go sign.
I move my hands to her breasts. Her nipples are taut and pointed, like hard erasers.
Abruptly, it's not enough to kiss her mouth.
I have to have more, taste more, discover more.
I lift up her shirt, peel back one cup, lean down, and take one tight nipple into my mouth.
This time the cry is clearly hers. She bucks under my mouth, shoving her breast against my face.
I sweep my free hand under her ass and bring her jean-clad pussy against my denim-covered dick.
There are way too many layers of clothing between us.
Instinct takes over, and she begins to ride me, rubbing herself up and down along my shaft.
My head spins. I free the other tit and switch back and forth between them, kissing and licking, nipping and soothing.
My hands are busy kneading them into rounder, fuller shapes.
She tenses under my grip, and a high, keening sound escapes from the back of her throat.
“I want, I want, I need…” She doesn’t know what the words are.
Can’t find the right ones to finish her sentence, but I can feel the moisture flooding between us.
I can’t hold back anymore. I grab her head again, forcing her back so I can plunder her mouth, sucking down her cries as we both come.
She collapses against me, tucking her face in the crook of my neck.
I rub her back with broad, slow strokes, all the while burning with the need to be inside of her.
She allows this for a few seconds before wiggling off my lap. Suddenly she’s shy. Her cheeks are pink, and I don’t know whether it’s from what we just did or embarrassment. Her eyes are fixed on the floor somewhere between her feet and mine.
“I have to—I need to—maybe you should—” Like before, she can’t finish the sentence, and this time, she runs away instead of toward me. The bathroom door slams shut behind her.
I stare at the door and then down at the wet spot on my jeans.
Inside the bathroom, I hear the water turn on.
It runs for a while until I realize that she’s not coming out until I leave.
I stand up and pull my T-shirt out of my jeans.
It’s not really long enough to cover, but it’ll have to do until I get home.
The bathroom door pops open, and a pair of gray sweats fly out.
Before I can say anything, the door shuts again.
“They're from a friend of my mom‘s. I don’t know if they’ll fit. But you can have them. Keep them.”
“I take it you want me to leave.”
“I think I should spend the rest of the night alone.”
I slide out of the jeans and pull on the sweats. They’re too short and too tight but better than walking around with a wet spot on my crotch. “My number is in your new phone. I’ll see you in the morning. But if you need me before then, call me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m sure you have had people who have handled this so much better than me. I come off as a child.”
“No. I wouldn’t kiss a child like that. I’m not interested in children. And I haven’t kissed anyone before anyway.”
I don’t get an immediate response to that. I lay my jeans over the arm of the loveseat. I’m not leaving them here for her to clean. They’re my excuse to come back.
I make sure the door locks behind me before I make my way out of the apartment building and spot a tatted stranger leaning against my mark on the apartment building. He shoves away from the wall when he sees me.
“You behind the tag?” He jerks his head toward the graffiti.
I nod slowly. I hear the sound before I see anything. The snick of a switchblade is ingrained in my head. I spin out of the way to see a guy fall forward. His blade flashes in the light.
Great. Someone was unhappy I made the tag, but this is how territory is gained—and lost. Might makes right.
There are four guys in total. They come after me, two with blades and one with a bat.
The bat catches me on the side, and I block it with my forearm, but other than that, I leave unscathed.
Can’t say the same about the others. One of them is gonna be walking with a limp.
Three noses are broken. One is going to have a problem seeing out of one eye.
I don’t think anyone will be trying to take this territory from me. Not anytime soon.