Crumbled Sanctuary
Extra Ribbing
Liam
This is a joke. Tell me I’m not listening to fucking mid-eighties Madonna blasting through my walls at seven in the fucking morning. On a Saturday no less.
There’s no way I’m running on three hours of sleep and waking up to this shit.
Throwing off the covers, I stalk naked as the day I was born to grab my phone from the kitchen, where I tossed it when I got home last night.
I’m too old for a bender, but I’m way too old for fucking Madonna, and… Is that Christina Aguilera now? No, I’m way too young for it.
Maybe this is a terrible dream, and my subconscious is playing tricks on me. Horrible, disgusting, repressed- memory-type tricks. This is it. This is how I die—ear-wormed to death by eighties and nineties pop divas until my brain revolts and gives up the ghost.
Here lies Liam Murphy, a once vibrant man who died to death of eyeliner and hairspray overload and repeated synthesized choruses.
Sliding my phone open, I open the app for my cameras around my property with one hand and scratch my balls with the other. A flick of my thumb too close means I can’t decide whether rubbing one out would make this better. Yes to relief. No to the fucking soundtrack. Not no—fuck no.
Cameras tell me what I was already dreading… A new neighbor. A next-door neighbor with whom I’ll share a townhouse wall, who obviously has terrible taste in music and wakes up at the ass-crack of dawn.
That’s it. I need to move. I’ll call the realtor today, when it’s actually a decent hour because seven in the morning is fucking not.
I’m about to find some appropriate eighties metal to respond to the ridiculous new neighbor when she pops her head out of the front door to yell to the movers. Fuck me. She’s… Yeah, maybe the rubbing one out is good idea.
She’s short and cute, with sleek black hair, and nerdy glasses. Creamy unmarred pale skin as far as the eye can see. And her ass? The globes fall out of the back of short shorts, playing peek-a-boo with me.
My cock is certainly interested and considering getting her attention, even if I’m apt to hear Britney Spears or some other shit.
I finger the piercing at the tip of my dick and wonder if wholesome, white bread, cute girls are used to thick cocks with extra ribbing.
It could be fun as shit to find out. First my cock meets the new neighbor, then I’ll call the realtor.
Priorities and all.
The music switches, and it doesn’t get better. But at least it’s… Yeah, there’s no but. Equally as horrid. Equally as poppy. Equally as bubblegum.
But the front door cam shows Trixie, or whatever her Rainbow Bright name might be, doing a little shimmy from her top step. Now if she’d just bend over—
It’s the sun reflecting off the blade of a knife that catches my attention. The two men with the moving company gaze left and right before dropping the boxes on the stoop and entering Trixie’s house.
Shit.
I pull on gray cut-off sweats from the laundry room floor as I run out my front door. I leap the entry steps and manage to get inside her house within moments.
Elbow to her throat, knife to her neck, Goon One makes the lethal mistake of looking back to make eye contact with me. Brandishing my own knife, I give him the option. “Step away. Or you lose an eye.”
He looks to Goon Two who makes a mad dash for the door, only to be clotheslined by my waiting arm. One down.
I return my gaze to the guy holding my new neighbor, who’s stupid enough to think I negotiate. “Let me go or I slice her throat.”
“See… That’s not how the game is played.” I kick his foot out from under him. He ass hits the floor with a thump, but Goon Two sees an opening and lunges for me.
Two on one isn’t a fair fight, but they don’t know that yet. It takes more than that with me. And that’s only if they’re trained.
The scream that rends the condo is from Goon Two as he stares at his eyeball in his outstretched palm. That is, before he pisses himself and blacks out.
Goon One blanches of all color and looks like he wants to vomit. He looks at the wide-open door and me standing in his way. At that, I can’t help it. I smile. “Oh, fuck no. But I dare you to try.”
With the barest glance at the terrified, but cute-as-fuck new neighbor, I say, “Call 9-1-1, Trix.”
“What?”
I don’t bother repeating myself. I said what I said. And the sheriff’s department being here sooner rather than later would help.
“Police and ambulance. Then go to the moving truck. Get a pic of the plate and any IDs on these two.”
She shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest. “What?”
“Now.” Turning to the still standing wannabe thief-slash-rapist-slash-whatever, I say, “Well, he lost an eye. That means you lose a testicle.” I smile my most menacing smile as he pisses himself and tries to run, but trips over passed-out-eyeball goon, and hits his head.
I hate stupid bad guys. The least they could do is be smart about it. This was too easy.
“Trix, I need zip ties. In my kitchen. Top right drawer. Bring the black ones. They’re heavy duty.”
*****
Lorien
Why I blindly followed his orders, I cannot say.
We’ll call it autopilot and say that’s that.
I’d guess the two men entering my home and holding me at knifepoint was enough, especially on a day that was supposed to be fun.
Exhausting and thrilling, but fun too. Throw in the loose eyeball, the smell of urine, and the walking work of art who unmistakably flops in his gray sweats, and we’ll assume I’m beyond thinking.
Did I mention his dick flopping in those sweats? I’m not that girl, but I couldn’t not notice. He’s like an online thirst trap striding through my door to save the day.
His front door is wide open; no lights are on except for the one over the kitchen sink.
It takes a second for my eyes to adjust from bright Colorado sunshine to the dark interior, but I’m focused and avoid looking around, even if I want to.
He said upper right drawer. Flashlights, Bic lighters, spare keys, multiple sizes and colors of zip ties, and an aggressive looking pistol litter the drawer.
Litter isn’t the right word. It’s meticulously organized actually.
His phone is on the counter, and I grab it as well, closing his door as I head home.
Home. Yeah, that’s the misnomer of the day.
I closed yesterday. Not even twenty-four hours ago and was all set to move in this morning. The weather is cooperating. I arrived early. I opened all the blinds and windows to let all the stuffiness out, and cleaned the floors.
By six-thirty, I’d had the pantry shelves and cabinets lined and smell-good stuff going in the bedrooms. Hell, I had hot coffee in the pot and cold soft drinks in the fridge, all so the movers could be refreshed.
Movers who wanted to violate me. I make a hard right-hand turn and go to the moving van at the street.
Using my well-hung neighbor’s phone, I snap photos of the license plate, the name on the side and the one on the side of the cab.
I open the door, leaning in, fighting to get past the stench of used tobacco and motor oil, and grab the two wallets from the center console as well as the two photo IDs on lanyards hanging over the rearview mirror. Fuckers.
I return to the house and offer the handful of zip ties I have in a death grip to the man I’d, more likely than not, cross the street to avoid.
He pries my fingers from the plastic one by one, the imprints of their outlines making grooves in my hand.
Heading past the … fuck. I don’t have movers any more.
All my stuff sits outside, and I don’t have a way to get it into my house.
Is it too early to hand the keys back and say never mind, I’ll go with a place less problematic?
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“This is Lorien Anderson.” I give her my address. “Two men entered my home and held me at knifepoint.”
“Units are in route. Are you still in danger?”
I look toward the living room where a man covered in ink from chin to toes ties the attackers together at the wrists and then their ankles. There are two untatted patches. His right leg below the knee and a spot over his left pec.
“No.” Though I don’t know if that’s the truth. “My neighbor disabled them.”
“Disabled them?”
“They’re zip tied in my living room. One needs an ambulance.”
“Disabled,” she repeats, but as if to herself. “Does your neighbor need a medical assistance?’
I slide the phone away from my mouth. “Are you okay? Do you need an ambulance?”
His annoyed look says more than any words.
“I don’t think so,” I offer to the operator.
“And his name?” The operator continues.
I pad back into the living room and make eye contact with the man who saved me, the one who seems annoyed at having to do so. “What’s your name?”
“Liam Murphy.” With strong emphasis, he adds, “No more Madonna.”