Chapter 8
The smell of breakfast roused me from a deep, ejaculation induced slumber. I had no chance of staying awake after the tension relieving encounter the night prior with my newly anointed Head Housekeeper, the operative word being head.
That, and pussy I’d never forget.
Monica and I woke up in the middle of night for round two beside a sleeping Cassie, slow missionary style until I blew another balls deep load inside her pussy. I had to bite her shoulder just to keep from moaning too loud.
A night to remember.
I stirred and stretched before opening my eyes to the blue morning haze outside the blinds, noting that both Cassie and Monica had already gotten up and out of bed.
With a lethargic utterance, I lifted my legs and set my feet down on the floor to my left, glancing to my right at the bathroom light. I shuffled across the carpeted floor and took a piss so long it could have filled Lake Michigan.
Then I threw on some pants, tossed on a plain shirt, and headed out to the kitchen. The aroma of French toast powerfully smacked me in the olfactories, but this time it was coming from the stove, not from a take-out bag.
Cassie was happily humming to herself while playing some chill lo-fi music through Monica’s bluetooth boombox, sizzling up a pile of brown squared bread with a dusting of what looked like cocoa power.
She’d already set the counter with some plates and forks, with a bottle of real maple syrup. Sorry Mrs. Butterworth, but a man’s gotta move up in the world.
With her back turned to me, I came to the counter island and looked around, but didn’t see Monica anywhere. So I waited, propped up my elbow to lean on my palm and watch Cassie’s ass sway back and forth.
The woman hadn’t even bothered to put on normal clothes, just a white sports bra and red yoga shorts. Part of me wished I wasn’t attracted to her, given her preferences, but I couldn’t resist sneaking a peek at her figure before she noticed me.
When she turned around with a slice on the spatula, she gasped with widened eyes at my unexpected appearance, flipping it up and onto the counter rather than the platter plate.
“Oh, shit—Jax,” she exhaled in relief, touching her free hand to her chest. “Why didn’t you tell me you were there?”
“I was letting you do your thing,” I said, picking up the piece of toast she’d dropped and putting it on my plate before stacking two more on top of it. “Where’s Monica?”
“Uh, she got up early and went for a run,” Cassie replied, turned off the stove and came over to sit across from me, pushing the syrup toward me while she prepped her own meal, giving me a friendly smile. “Watcha doin’ today?”
“I’ve gotta pull a few strings to move some of this cash onto some cards, but otherwise, no plans—besides shopping, I assume.”
“You wanna give me a ride over to Michelle’s place later?”
“Who’s Michelle?”
“Mimi! Remember?”
“Oh! Right. My bad.”
“It’s okay,” Cassie laughed. “She doesn’t have a car, and getting her to leave her apartment is a pain in the ass as it is.”
“Sure,” I said, cutting a triangle out of my square of French toast after drizzling the whole stack with sweet maple goo, then pointed my fork at Cassie’s outfit. “Did you go for a run, too?”
“Me?” Cassie looked down at herself and then shook her head with a light giggle. “No. It’s just comfortable. Why get dressed if I don’t have to? Ooh! That reminds me, all I really brought were my work clothes.
“Do you think maybe we could stop by my old place first? My cat’s still there and I don’t want him ‘accidentally’ running away.”
“I gotcha,” I said, forking another chewy mouthful down my gullet. “We’ll head out after breakfast.
“Thank you,” said Cassie.
She eyed me with a peculiar glimmer, then placed her palms down with her fingers pointing inward toward her plate, leaning forward with inquisition written all over her face.
“So what’s going on with you and Monica?” she questioned.
I recoiled with a furrowed face. “What do you mean? You were there.”
“Yeah, but do you like her? Or was it a fuck and chuck?”
“I’m not throwing her out after one night, if that’s what you mean,” I chuckled, shaking my head as I looked down at my plate to get another bite.
“What if she likes you? What if Mimi likes you?” Cassie asked pointedly, turning her hands forward on the counter with a laminated sliding sound.
I paused for a moment to take a breath. It was too early for this shit, but I knew my answer would make its way back to Monica, so I had to come up with something.
So I chose sincerity.
“Honestly? I doubt that would happen. Besides, Monica already said—”
“What you wanted to hear, Jax,” Cassie interjected. “But she’s not heartless. If you keep sleeping with her she’s gonna catch feels eventually.”
“I see what this is,” I realized as I leaned back to sit up straight on my stool.
“You’re looking out for your friends. Look, we’re in a position to do what we want—who we want.
If Monica wants to keep this up, I’m game to try it.
And if Mimi and I click, I don’t mind exploring… other arrangements.”
“So then you’re gonna date them at the same time?”
“Why not? It doesn’t seem fair to lead a bunch of girls on and then draw straws for the one I’m keeping. If they know about each other and don’t have an issue, then neither do I.”
Cassie shot me a satisfied little grin, then took another nibble. “Okay. I’ll help you with it, then.”
“Help me with what?”
“Bitch management,” she laughed. “No offense, but, you’re waaay out of your comfort zone here. A straight girl isn’t going to tell you the game, but I will. Think of me as your inside track.”
I raised an eyebrow in genuine interest. “You’re gonna turn me into the Bitch Whisperer? Nice.”
We shared a laugh at my crude description, then gobbled down the rest of our food before I went to get my coat, leaving the back patio unlocked so Monica could get back in.
“Meet you in the garage,” I said as I slung my gun into my chest holster, but Cassie just followed straight behind me with nothing but her phone in her hand—no pockets. “You’re not getting dressed?”
“I am dressed,” Cassie countered, sweeping her hand down to present herself. “Besides, we’re just going to my ex’s, and she’s already seen it.”
I spun my keys around on my index finger and then caught them on my palm. “Alright, let’s go.”
***
Cassie DJ’ed the whole way there, trying to rouse me out of my grousing given my total lack of interest in her ex or her cat.
I didn’t voice this of course, but then there was this tiny little part—okay it was a big part, a voice inside me that was selfishly, shamelessly, concerned that they’d make up.
I went to Cassie’s bar at least once a week just to talk to her. Not the other patrons, not to pick anyone up, just the pleasure of her conversation. And now she was living with me, I didn’t have to drive thirty minutes across town to see her anymore.
But we were headed into no man’s land, literally.
What if her ex groveled and they cried it out and got back together? Then Cassie would move back in and take my secret with her. I wasn’t okay with that. Was it wrong that I was rooting against their reconciliation?
Probably.
But I didn’t give a shit.
Cassie was all over the place with the music. One minute she blasting old school Paramore, the next she was blasting a song sung almost entirely in French called Feel Good by Charlotte Cardin.
For a girl about to confront her ex, she was surprisingly chipper. We arrived on the east side apartments where she lived, a noticeable uptick in condition from the dregs of the south side.
At least these streets were paved. The south side might as well have been the lunar surface. I pulled up to the front of her building, four stories with a gray front stoop and bright blue painted brick exterior, the entrance a steel security door with an intercom buzzer.
We turned to each other and met eyes, with Cassie flaring her nostrils with a long nasal sigh.
“I’ll wait out here,” I said as I parallel parked right out front, the roads mostly free of traffic as everyone else had gone to work.
“Will you come with me?” Cassie asked with a look of concern. “I’m not bringing any furniture, I just don’t have enough hands.”
“Sure,” I replied with expeditious relief, then opened my driver side door and stepped onto the curb.
Cassie, then took off her seatbelt and hopped out, walking around the front of the truck to go inside while I stepped onto the curb from my side.
She led the way up the stoop, my boots crunching on peeling old paint and chipped concrete pebbles. Cassie used a four digit passcode on a little analog box beside the intercom, with every pageable apartment listed above it.
The heavy door opened with a clanking buzz, bidding us entry to an old checkered black and yellow floor, smelling of dust mites and asbestos.
There was a staircase to our immediate right after the vestibule; she lived on the second.
We stepped into a long hallway with dirty gray berber carpet with a newer air conditioner installed below the forward facing window.
Cassie’s apartment was on the opposite end, for which she used her key on the heavy deadbolt and pushed the door open, where an older portly woman with blue dyed hair was finger banging a younger, longer haired brunette with a single hand down her shorts on an old brown couch.
And from the mortified look on the brunette’s face, she was the ex.
Cassie immediately freaked out.
“What the fuck Gwen?” she shouted as the door swung itself shut behind us.
The brunette, Gwen, immediately scooted further away from the older woman and hurriedly started fixing her hair. “Cassie, I swear I didn’t—“
“You fucking cheating bitch!” Cassie paced in front of me with shaking hands. “This is why you wanted to break up?”
“Let’s just all try to calm down here,” said the older butch woman as she slowly stood up.
“Shut the fuck up, Rosie O’Donnell!” Cassie spat back with a forward lean and balled fists.
The woman immediately plopped back down onto the couch beside Gwen.
“I can’t believe this… All this time I thought it was my fault we weren’t sleeping together, when the real reason was Shamu the Killer Clit over here,” Cassie said with red-faced fury and glistening eyes.
The older woman frowned. “You don’t have to be so offensive.”
Cassie looked above her head, slightly off to the side with her finger raised in warning. “Say another fucking word, I’m going to drop kick you in the ovaries.” —she then put her hands on her hips and glared at Gwen. “So that’s it? Nothing to say?”
Gwen looked uneasily to her paramour, briefly glanced at me, then tucked her hands between her knees as she responded to Cassie.
“I’m really sorry, Cassie. It’s just that I’m…” Gwen trailed off.
“It’s just that you’re what, a whore?”
“Bored.”
Cassie jaw dropped. Wow. The balls on this one.
I averted my eyes to look at their humble little hovel. Wooden shelving they probably got from a thrift store or garage sale, random motivational pictures and potted plants in every corner, with a smell like someone hadn’t vacuumed or mopped in a while.
Even the spot on the beige carpet where I was standing was so old and worn it was blackened and flat.
“You know what?” Cassie took a deep breath. “I’m fine with this, you know why? ‘Cause I’ve been cheating on you too!”
“You have?” Gwen breathed.
“You have?” I asked in shock.
“Yeah,” Cassie then turned around in silence and looked at me with a meaningful, imploring gaze. “With him.”
“The fuck?” Gwen stood up abruptly. “He’s a guy!”
“So much for your gold star…” the older woman remarked with a smarmy grin.
Cassie immediately glared with murderous eyes that I felt in my bones.
The old woman literally went limp, slid down to the floor, then crouch-walked around us to leave through the front door without another word, closing it so quietly that you could barely hear the ‘click.’
And just like that, I’d been enlisted in Cassie’s ruse.
Which was fair, all things considered.
She did pose for my ex after all.
“Since when do you date guys?” Gwen doubled-down.
“Since I found out women ain’t shit,” Cassie retorted.
Gwen put her hands on her hips. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Maybe it’s because of who he is, not what he is,” she said, her ire focused on Gwen, but giving me a look I couldn’t quite place.
That one hit me a little close to home.
She was talking in subtext; not about my dick, but about the fact that I was something more than just human.
I chose to chime in so we could get this show on the road.
“We’re here for the cat,” I announced.
Gwen glared disdainfully at me, then pointed off to her left at the door behind her at the end of a short hall linking the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry closet.
“I’ll get him,” Cassie hissed, then stomped away into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Gwen stood with her arms crossed, refusing to look at me while I tucked my thumbs into my pockets and chilled out, enduring the awkwardness until Cassie came barging back out with a cat carrier and calico inside.
We left without another word, with me stifling a cringe as I took one last look at the flustered Gwen, then stepping outside where her new squeeze stood beside the door holding onto herself defensively.
Cassie took one step down the hall and then stopped, slowly turned her head and then jerked toward her with her free fist raised.
“Gahh!” the woman yelped before fleeing back inside the apartment, shutting it loudly before locking both the deadbolt and the doorknob.
Cassie lowered her fist with a long sigh, sinking her shoulders before giving me a bittersweet smile.
“Thanks, Jax,” she uttered. “Sorry for putting you on the spot like that.”
“No problem, Boo,” I joked.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head with an airy, laughing scoff. “I can’t believe she’d cheat on me with that.”
“Hey, maybe it’s because of who she is, not what she is,” I taunted as we kept walking.
Cassie punched me in the shoulder. “That’s not funny, you dick!”
“It kind of is,” I said with a wink.
“Yeah… it is,” she giggled. “I bet she moans in whale song.”
“Now that’s just insulting to whales everywhere.”
“You’re right. She moans in Wookie.”
I snickered through my nose, shaking my head as we came to the end of the hall to turn toward the staircase.
“So what’s your cat’s name?” I asked.
Cassie lifted the carrier and wiggled her finger through the cage door. “This ‘wittle’ guy is Jimmy. He’s my best friend—after you of course.”
I smiled deviously. “How about that? Until today, the only thing in your apartment with a dick was a hairy pussy.”
Cassie cackled with a playful shove. I shoved back. Then, with hopeful faces and endeared eye contact, we left the building and breathed in the air of a new chapter.
Next stop, Mimi’s.