Minka
Relying on people sucks. And I don’t mean relying on your plumber to unblock drains, or relying on a builder to keep your home up. I don’t mean relying on your Chinese delivery guy to feed you, or your local bartender to provide coffee early every morning.
I mean, relying on another human being to remain in your life… that shit sucks.
Because people die. Some commit suicide.
Some simply get married and move clear across the city without even considering the loss you might feel because you’ve come to depend on their presence next door.
And some wind up in the hospital with clogged arteries and too many birthdays on the wrong side of the calendar.
Steve is okay… today. But he won’t be around forever.
“We can’t move him into our apartment, because there’s not enough room. But we can’t leave him in his apartment either. He’ll need around-the-clock care, because eventually…”
Archer tugs me up the stairs inside our building, one slow step at a time, while my knee struggles and we both pretend not to notice the impediment.
“We’ll get him a nurse. A hot one,” he jokes.
“One with a giant rack and big, blonde hair. She’ll check his blood pressure, and then she’ll check his blood pressure.
” He flashes a wide, taunting grin. “He’ll love us for it. ”
“She sounds exactly like your type.” I harrumph and make my way up another stair. “You like them blonde and tit-a-licious, huh?”
“And you like to pick fights, since arguing is better than crying.” He takes my weight and helps me move faster. “I’m sweating like a nun locked in a room full of cucumbers, Mayet. This summer is fuckin’ ridiculous.”
“Wait…” The heat is making my brain slow. Or maybe that’s my exhaustion and thinking about Steve. Pausing on the second-to-last stair, I blink, blink, blink, and shake my head. “What did you say about cucumbers?”
He chokes out a laugh and lifts me straight off my feet, setting me down again on the fourth floor of our dumb four-floor walk-up.
“Do we have to argue tonight?” He hooks his arm across my back, cinching me close and taking most of my weight.
“I know you’re stressed, and, fuck knows, we’re tired. But can we bang instead of bicker?”
“You’re a pig.”
“Loud. Shouting. Panting. It’s basically the same damn thing. Can’t we direct our energies in a more positive, pleasurable way instead?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious!” He takes out his keys and slips one into the lock, turning the handle and pushing the door open. “If we’re gonna get our heart rates racing, why can’t we just—”
I get only as far as the threshold before Archer’s arm comes across, barring my way like a steel-constructed seatbelt.
But that doesn’t stop me from meeting Cato’s eyes.
It doesn’t stop me from cataloging the sweat on his brow.
Or worse, the harsh expression of the woman he pounds from behind, her long dirty-blonde hair fisted and tangled around his wrist.
“Dammit, Cato!” Archer startles the poor woman out of her trance and up like a freakin’ meerkat in the wild.
But Cato continues to ride her, unfazed by his audience and not at all ashamed.
“I’m going to kill you, you little fucker!
” Archer shoves me back and attempts to stalk forward, like he intends to lock me out and commit a crime behind closed doors.
But I stumble forward, laughter bouncing through my chest and along my throat.
“You stay outside!” he growls, trying, but failing, to detangle my grabbing hands.
“He’s lived a good, long life. It’s done now. ”
“You ruined it.” Cato pulls out of his… uh… companion… with a fast slide and an easy flip of the waistband of his shorts, covering himself up without showing even an iota of skin.
Well, except for his exposed chest, that is.
“You couldn’t stay gone for five more minutes?” He releases the woman onto my couch, allowing her a moment of privacy while she dresses. “I was nearly done, you prick.”
“Me? A prick?” Archer’s eyes go wild, his pupils expanding and his brows shooting high on his forehead. “Me? I’m the prick?”
“Get up and get out.” I toss his hand and cross my apartment, picking up a single high heel—doesn’t belong to me—then the second when I find it peeking out from beneath the couch.
I stand over the woman who is easily my age, maybe even older, and while she hurriedly shrugs her dress back on and contorts in awkward angles to fasten the tie at the back, I allow her shoes to dangle off my pointed fingers.
“He’s a child, just so you’re aware. And you’re a grown-ass woman.
” I hook a thumb in Archer’s direction. It’s possible he’s suffering a mental breakdown.
“He’s a cop. Not only that, but that cop is his,” I point to Cato again, “brother. Cato is not actually mentally capable of consenting to sex, not since that tragic case of viral encephalitis he contracted a while back.”
“Encephalitis?” Cato blusters. “The fuck are you—”
“I’m not saying he’s suffering an active, current outbreak of the herpes virus, since he usually takes his medication as he should. Like… eighty-seven percent of the time. But I’m saying he wasn’t as responsible a few years ago, and that led to a worm that started to eat his brain.”
“Minka!”
“He’s never quite recovered from that ordeal.
Legally, he possesses the maturity of a pre-pubescent child, so whatever lines he used to get you here, I’m afraid to say he memorized those from Napoleon Dynamite.
You know…” I wrinkle my nose. “The movie. Was it the nunchuck skills that got you? Did he tell you he could hack computers?”
“I-I’m going to leave.” The poor woman snatches her shoes and bounds up from the couch like her ass is on fire.
Cato, on the other hand, sits on the coffee table and holds his head in his hands.
“S-sorry.” She swallows and stumbles across the apartment, squeaking and making a wide berth to stay as far from Archer as possible. “I’m so sorry, Officer. I didn’t know.”
“Was it the bow-hunting skills?” I turn and hobble back toward the door. “Because the judge ordered that he no longer use those. It’s for his own safety.”
“I’m leaving.” She snags her purse and hugs her things to her chest, then she skedaddles to the door and swings it wide. “I’m sorry.”
“Vote for Pedro!” I finger-wave and flash a tormenting smile, the last thing she sees before she wrenches the door shut, then I turn and walk back to Cato, and since he’s yet to apologize, I flick his ear with as much rage in the tiny digit as I can muster.
“You were warned, you little shit! I was nice. I was understanding.” I flick him again. “Stop having sex on my couch!”
“Stop flicking me!” He seizes my wrist before I can go for a third, and surging to his feet, he spins me around and leaves me turning, while he heads to the kitchen instead. “The fuck does encephalitis have to do with herpes, anyway? Oh, and while we’re on the subject; I have neither!”
“Herpes is a known cause of viral encephalitis, and encephalitis is a brain-eating disease. Ya know how you get herpes?” I limp around the couch and grab Archer’s arm before his mental breakdown clears and his rage returns.
“From sex with strangers, you dumb shit! How about you get one fuck buddy? Just one. Make her nice and normal, age-appropriate, clean, and not a complete dunderhead, and then maybe I’ll let you bring her around.
I might even text ahead sometimes, to allow you privacy in case you need just five more minutes. ”
“The fuck is a dunderhead?” He takes a Pepsi—my Pepsi—and slams the fridge shut. “That’s not even a real thing. And you just cost me an orgasm.”
“You just cost me an hour in a therapist’s office, so I guess we’re even.” I turn on my heels and drag Archer toward the hall. “Go to the bar and give us an hour alone.”
“If I don’t get to have sex, you don’t get to have sex!” Irrationally energetic, he pops the can of soda open, bubbles bursting from the top and spraying along his forearm, then he drops his head and sprints into the hall after us. “You don’t get to have sex, you dunderheads! I won’t allow it.”
“Stop us.” I sling Archer into the room and turn back, closing the door most of the way, then I meet Cato’s delirious stare and sneer. “Go away. Consider going to church. I’m sure you could bathe in the baptismal pool and maybe come out a little cleaner.”
“I’m gonna stay right here and listen!”
I whip the door closed in his face and brush my hands together. Good job, Minka.
But then he pounds his fist against the thick wood, startling me a whole foot off the ground.
“I’m not leaving! If you two think you’re gonna fuck, I’m gonna listen, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
Archer grabs my hair and wraps his hand over my mouth, trapping my squeal of surprise inside.
Then he swings me around and swaps his hand for his lips.
“I’m gonna fuck you while he’s listening.
” He speaks barely above a whisper, his hands bruising my flesh and his tongue feverishly dueling with mine.
“We’re gonna hurt each other, Minnnnka. And we’re gonna stay quiet anyway, because he’s gonna try to listen, and we’re gonna give him nothing. ”
“Archer!” I gasp at how quickly he relieves me of my shirt, peeling it up and over my head, tangling my hair in the fabric and whipping my ponytail around until the ends slash my back. Lightning fast, he drops to his knees and undoes the button on my pants. “Archer!”
“I can hear you!” Cato singsongs. “And I’m man enough to take a seat and listen. Ain’t no one said I was a nice, normal human being. I grew up Malone which means I became a freak long before I should have.”
“Oh my God.” I plug my ears. “Tell him to shut up.”
“You shut up.” Archer tears my zipper down and peels the fabric of my pants back, exposing my hipbones.
It’s still so friggin’ hot, even in my bedroom.
Even with the cooling on. Even though it’s dinnertime and the world should have cooled down by now.
He slides his hands into my pants, gliding his palm over my bare skin, then he looks up at me with a devilish grin and eyes that glint hungrily.
“No panties, Doctor Mayet? You dirty girl.”
“I didn’t have any to change into!” I fold and cup his face, trying, but failing, to pull him to his feet. I lost control of this—whatever this is—right around the time Cato decided he would listen, and Archer decided he didn’t care. “We are not having sex while he’s out there!”
“We are, actually.” He drags my pants down, but his frenzied rush is gone, replaced with a slow, sensual reveal instead.
For every inch of flesh he uncovers, he trails behind with a lave of his tongue.
For every shudder that rocks through my body, he kisses my thigh.
And when I knot my fingers in his hair to avoid falling, closing my eyes because somehow, at some point, panic turned to lust, he dives forward and buries his tongue between my legs, tasting what he so often covets.
Taking what he already owns.
“How to do this?” he wonders, suckling on my clit and massaging my thighs with his broad, powerful hands.
“Bend you over the bed, you’ll hurt your knee.
Lay you on the bed, still gonna hurt your knee.
” Skillfully, he draws me to the razor’s edge of sanity.
“If I fuck you against the wall… still gonna bend your legs, which will hurt your stitches. Fuck you like you’re a dog… ”
“Stitches.” I tilt my head back and pant… like a dog. “Sounds like you’ve got some figuring out to do.”
“Can’t even make you ride me,” he groans. “Because that’ll hurt your knee, too.”
I tighten my fingers in his hair and lose myself to his talented tongue, my pulse pounding where his lips touch, my release already lubricating and awaiting his entry. “I could stay standing.” I moan. “I guess.”
“Standing?” He unsnaps my bra with an easy flick of his fingers and cups my breast. All without looking. “Against the door?”
Cato’s face flashes in my mind, the idea of fucking so close to the boy ruining the buzz that so easily moves through my blood.
Immediately, I shake my head. “Wall. Window.” I gulp, lubricating my dry throat.
“You could sit, and I could sit on your lap. I could keep my leg reasonably straight. Fuck.” I swallow the whimper tickling the back of my throat, battling the blaze burning in my veins. “Jesus, Archer.”
“Wall.” He surges to his feet and slams his fingers deep into my pussy, capturing my lips and my cry of pleasure long before sound travels along my throat.
Then he turns me to the left, walking me backwards until I hit the wall and my breath escapes on a grunt.
“I hate when you’re injured, Mayet. Because I fucking hate knowing you’re in pain.
” He pulls his hand away, stealing from me a single moment before my release would set me free, then he grabs the back of my neck and crushes me to the wall, chest first.
Following me in, he rests against my back, his lips by my ear.
And because he’s so, so ridiculously talented, he reaches around with one hand and plays with my clit, while with the other, he unfastens his jeans, frees his cock, and fills me with a single, brutal shove that knocks the oxygen from my lungs and the world as I know it, straight off its axis.
“But I especially hate knowing you’re hurt—” He rears back, then slams forward again, filling me to the brim and stoking a fire that burns deep in my core.
“—Because I like to be the one hurting you. I enjoy knowing this is the one time in my day where I can be rough and it won’t last longer than us.
I love making you cry out for God, knowing you’re crying out for me.
You want more. You want it harder. You want me to destroy your cunt and call you a good Mrs. Malone. ”
He slips his fingers into my pussy, taking up room where there already is none to spare. Biting my earlobe, he fucks me viciously. “Now be a good girl and come, Minnnka.” He wraps his free hand over my mouth, pinching my nostrils shut. “Explode… silently.”
Fuck.