seventeen #2
“So it was all talk all along,” I say. “Pussy.”
He shrugs. “Someone finally made an honest man of me. Should’ve climbed the ladder while you had the chance.”
I climb out of the car and slam the door as hard as I can. I stomp up the steps and into the house. Mabel’s house. She should have made an honest man out of me. She’s my girlfriend, and I love her. But where the fuck is she when I need her?
Off with Baron, that’s where.
Seeley Boots meows at me like a demand, so I go and fill his bowl. He crouches over it and starts eating. I try to pet him, but he gives me a dirty look and growls, so I back off. Even the fucking cat hates me.
I grab the box of beer from the fridge and slog upstairs to our room, ignoring the voice whispering behind me.
I could lie in the bed and chain smoke to piss them off.
I consider it, but it doesn’t bring any real joy.
So I step out the sliding glass door onto the small balcony.
Each of the bedrooms has its own little private deck, three in a row.
From here, there’s not much of a view, just the big backyard and the woods beyond.
I’m glad I can’t see Maverick leaving. I don’t even like him. He’s a dick with an ego the size of Manhattan, so I shouldn’t care that he didn’t want to hang out. I’m not even sure I wanted to hang out with him. I just didn’t want to be alone.
Popping the top off a beer, I wash down a handful of pearls.
I hear the crunch of his tires on gravel, and then the growl and roar of his engine as he accelerates. When the noise dies away, the sawing sound of summer insects fills the silence.
I open another beer.
The cap bounces across the balcony and tumbles through the railing, over the edge. It seems to float down, but finally, it clinks musically into the gravel below.
I wonder how it would feel to float like that.
But of course I’d fall faster, probably land with a disgusting crunch.
I wonder if the drop would kill me. Probably not.
It’s only twenty or twenty-five feet. It would break a lot of bones, though.
I wonder how long I’d lie there before they came home.
Maybe they wouldn’t even notice I was gone.
They wouldn’t think anything about it until tonight, when I don’t come home from Royal’s house.
By then, I would have died from internal bleeding or some other slow death.
They’d get home and shower and fuck and make dinner. They wouldn’t even miss me. They’d be happy to have the house to themselves.
And all the while, I’d be lying right outside the door, slowly succumbing to my injuries.
Maybe they’d finally feel bad then.
Or maybe they’d be happy I was out of the way for good, without them even having to get their hands dirty and make it happen. No one else would care. I saw that with Dad.
Oh, they’ll make a big spectacle, have a funeral and play sad for a few days. But then they’ll go on with their lives, just happy it’s over. One less Dolce in Faulkner. And in a few years, someone will remember to ask about me, and they’ll say what Colt said about Dad.
The world is a better place without him in it.
The Alice finally takes hold, and I put on some music and vibe, and then jerk off for a while. Finally, the door closes downstairs. I hear Mabel greeting her cat. I lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“Duke?”
I look up and there’s a girl in the shadows of the hallway. “Blue?”
She steps into the doorway, and it’s not Blue.
It’s Mabel, with her hair in two pigtails, each dyed a different color.
She has a long, butcher knife in one hand.
She lifts it and grins, her tongue flicking over the end.
Her mouth is full of blood, and it pours out, down the knife blade, but she just laughs.
“Duke’s fucking a dead girl,” she sings, her words a twisted mockery of what I said when I pushed the dead guy into her.
The blood gushes faster from her mouth, and she chokes on it, spraying it from her grinning mouth.
“Duke?” It’s Baron’s voice, more demanding now.
I try to blink the vision away.
Heavy footsteps ascend the creaky old steps, and then Baron is standing in the doorway. I blink a few times to make sure it’s really him, that the Harley Quinn Mabel is gone.
“Why didn’t you answer?” he demands, stepping into the room and flipping on the light.
“I don’t know,” I mumble. Even high, I know it would sound dumb to say I was waiting to see if he’d come find me, and even worse to tell him what I saw.
He studies me from behind his glasses, like I’m a specimen, just like Jane.
“You’re drunk?”
“I had a few beers.”
Mabel appears in the doorway next to Baron, holding Seeley Boots. She’s smiling, happy. Her teeth are white, without a trace of blood. Despite what she says, she’s clearly fine after being alone with Baron all day.
“What took you so long?” I ask.
“We had to talk to the police,” she says, checking Baron from the corner of her eye.
She looks positively giddy.
“The police?” I ask, sitting up, my heart pounding erratically. “What for? Are they coming here?”
I just got the fucking pearls after days without. If I have to flush them, I’m going to be pissed.
Or maybe they knew.
Baron might have contacted Maverick ahead of time, knowing that’s who I’d call. He might have told him to call if I asked for drugs, might have told the cops to come here so they can bust me and teach me a lesson.
“They’re not coming here,” Baron says, watching me with a frown.
He knows , my demon whispers . He’s going to turn you in. That’s why he made them in the first place. He knew you’d get hooked. He knows you’re weak.
“Grandpa Darling had an unfortunate accident,” Mabel says, beaming up at Baron.
“What kind of accident?” I ask, my heart still galloping at a concerning rate.
“He fell out a window,” Baron says.
Mabel giggles. “It really was quite unexpected.”
“I’m guessing you had something to do with that?” I ask, scowling at my brother.
He shrugs. “The police ruled it an accident. Mabel and I were the only witnesses, but Preston attested to the fact that he’s been unusually clumsy lately.”
“And you didn’t think you should run that by me first?”
“Would you have wanted to be there?” Baron asks.
“No,” I grumble. “But still.”
How can I tell him that I want to be part of everything they do, that I want to be included, even when they do shit I want no part of? I had my share of killing already—more than my share. Even if he is an evil bastard, I don’t want to kill anyone.
“It just happened,” Mabel says, coming over to the bed. “We didn’t plan it.”
Boots squirms free and drops to the floor, stalking off with his tail flicking back and forth like even being close to me is an annoyance. I don’t know what his problem is. I’m always nice to him.
“Whatever,” I say.
“You can be there for the next one,” Mabel offers.
“The next one?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Baron says. “In a town this small, if random people start showing up dead, they’re going to know it’s not an accident.”
“I didn’t mean for you to push Grandpa,” Mabel says. “I thought we’d lead the Black Widow Killer to him. Now he’s already dead, so we can’t test her and see if she’s still watching.”
Baron frowns. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I didn’t think you’d just kill someone like that,” she says, looking absolutely starstruck.
“Why not?” he asks. “You saw what happened to the last guy who fucked you.”
She blanches, her smile fading.
Blood gushes over her face, into her eyes, her mouth, bubbling in her nostrils.
Blood gushes out her mouth, and she cackles, ponytails swinging.
Baron doesn’t seem to notice.
Still, he’s the one who impressed her, which isn’t easy to do. He’s the one who defended her against her creepy abuser. He’s the one who killed for her.
I can’t compete with that, so I do the thing I know he never does.
“Come over here and sit on my face until your thighs quake.”
“Can I shower off first?” she asks, biting her bottom lip.
“No,” I say. “I want to taste how much murder turns you on.”
She approaches hesitantly, but when she reaches the bed, I lift her onto me in one swift motion. I shove her skirt up, pull her panties aside, and bury my tongue in her cunt. It tastes like blood and cum, and I realize someone else got here first.
“You fucked Baron?” I ask, looking up at her from between her thighs. But when I check the door, my brother’s gone.
Mabel nods, searching my eyes uncertainly.
“Then I guess we already know how much murder turns you on.”
I drag my tongue lazily through her slit from her hole to her clit, and she whimpers.
“Did you fuck on the body, like last time?” I ask.
She shakes her head. Her pigtails bob. Her teeth are sharp as glass, dripping blood.
I blink up at her, and she’s just Mabel again. “Or maybe thinking about doing this with the old creep turned you on,” I say. “Did he eat your pussy as good as me?”
“Let me go.”
“Or maybe the old guy just fucked you,” I say, swirling my tongue around her clit. “Does thinking about it get you wet, you little freak?”
I grin up at her, but she’s pale and frozen, unsmiling.
“I won’t judge,” I say. “Think about him while I’m eating you out if that’s what makes you cum.”
She tries to climb off, but I clamp my hands down on her thighs, dragging her down and plunging my tongue inside her.
“Please,” she whimpers, but I thrust my tongue deeper, harder, curling it inside her and making her quiver.
I hold her pinned, making her sit and endure until she gives me what I want.
When she’s climaxed, I finally pull her down on top of me after dragging off her panties and tossing them off the bed.
I notice she’s crying, though I’m not sure if it’s just because I made her cum or because of what I said to her.
She tries to roll away, but I keep her pinned on top of me, refusing to let her go.
“Baron?” she whispers against my chest, her fingers brushing the scar through my shirt.
“What?”
“Are you really Baron?” she asks.
“Does Baron eat your pussy like that?”
“I thought only he could be that cruel.”
“You thought wrong,” I say, adjusting myself between her legs and pushing up into her. “Now sit up and ride me like you did for your grandpa all those years.”