Peggy sat with Thom.
He was talking, she wasn’t listening. She was thinking.
The usual question: To cut, or not to cut.
The arms were out. Not today. Maybe never again. Too many scars. Too many questions. Too many disgusted looks. Or worse, the pity. The horrible, sinking, ingratiating, slimy pity.
The legs were better. She wore black and if things weren’t totally cleaned up the way they needed to be, the way they usually were, the black could cover any excess seepage.
Any of her that spilled out when it wasn’t supposed to.
Her friend Anna asked her once why she did it. Only once. Peggy had heard the question and hadn’t responded. That was a long time ago. She hadn’t spoken to Anna in a long time, too.
Maybe she would change that. Maybe sometime soon.
Thomas would know what she should do.
Doubting Thomas.
He worked at the laundromat. That is to say, his income was generated from the laundromat. He borrowed clothes and then loaned them out to pawn shops. One day he would get around to tracking down all those borrowed pairs of Victoria’s Secret tights. It shouldn’t be that hard. There was only a butt-load, literally, of the things around town.
Thomas had read a story once called The Borrowers. “That’s what I am, Peggy,” he explained. “One of the little people. I take a piece here and there, something so small nobody will miss it. I take it as a recycler. As a part of the great chain.”
“You’re a thief, Thom.” Peggy shrugged her shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m not totally sure why but I think it’s sexy.”
Thomas smiled a slow, lazy smile. The kind of smile, Peggy thought, a guy might get after somebody gave him a really good blowjob. It turned her on directly, like a short spike of electricity.
“Hey, I never said I felt guilty about it.”
“Do you?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t either.” He got up from his chair overlooking the parking lot. They were sitting in front of room 214 drinking beer. He was, anyway. She was drinking mineral water and chewing on pieces of carrot. He threw a beer can down off the balcony.
Peggy felt a part of herself resist, wanting to complain at his littering. She hated littering. The waste. The buildup of debris and carelessness. She was about to tell Thom that you had to be a real heel, a real selfish pig if you littered. But she didn’t. This moment with him – it was tenative. Fleeting. She’d deal with the imperfection. Pay the price.
When she heard the can hit the side and then bottom of a iron container below her she felt so guilty she wanted to cut a thick line down her quadricep.
Fuck Thom for being better than her.
“Do you want a beer?” Thom asked.
“No.”
He opened two Coronas from an open, faded pink cooler at their feet. Stuffed lime slices in the necks. Handed one to her.
She ataşehir escort looked up at him, irritated.
His eyes squinted. He looked displeased. Mean even.
“C’mon Peggy. It’s hot outside. It’s social to drink with a friend. Polite. Civilized.”
She shook her head.
“I cut lines up and down my legs. You think I’m worried about being civilized?”
“Yes,” he said. He put the beer down between her crossed legs as she sat on her yoga mat. He eased into his chair and seemingly with one motion finished a third of the golden liquid. “If you weren’t worried about civilization you’d cut lines on your arms.”
He touched her on her wrist, slid a soft finger slowly up the scars on her arm.
“Here. Like before.”
A wave of goosebumps erupted from his touch. She pulled away.
She found herself chewing on her bottom lip. It wouldn’t be long before the acid tang of blood would burst onto her tongue like wine. Like sadness. Like any other Thursday night.
Fuck it. Thomas was better than sadness.
Drunk was better than bloody.
She took the beer, lifted it to her lips and drank. She didn’t stop until it was gone.
She felt herself resisting, pulling backwards, fighting against the tremendous momentum of dopamine and fear and ennui, but the words came out of her mouth anyway:
“Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s fuck.”
She stared out into the sodium vapor orange, not looking at him.
Thomas choked, sending out a spray of Corona into the night air.
“Mmmph.” He wiped his mouth and chin and then regarded her more closely. Like a lion might regard a gazelle. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
She leaned over and took another beer out of the cooler. Popped the lid with his Eagle Scout lighter. Slipped a lime into the neck.
Drank.
The silence lasted seconds and hours. She wasn’t sure which.
He lifted the cold bottle in his hands and slid the edge of it along the side of her neck. Down the exposed skin of her back, above the cotton of her halter top and then over her shirt.
She refused to shiver.
“When was the last time you did it?”
His words were low, thicker, like honey.
“Did what?”
“Whatever. Anything.”
The cold of the glass was against her skin again, still slipping down.
“I forget.”
She closed her eyes. Stood up. Opened them.
“I’m leaving,” she announced.
“Like hell you are,” Thom said. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down onto his lap. Not very gently, either.
She collapsed into him. She shuddered when his finger entered her. It drew patient, agonizing circles, destroying the ley-lines of her barely existant self-control.
Her eyes rolled back into her head.
“Please…” she whispered. “They can see us…”
She didn’t try and move. She couldn’t kadıköy escort have. It was too much and she was too far gone.
A part of her was surprised and upset when he withdrew his finger. Another part of her watched, bemused, grateful to observe any action that didn’t involve mutilation.
Not physical mutilation, anyway.
Thomas reached between her legs and opened the flap on his shorts. Withdrew his cock.
“Touch it,” he ordered, his voice husky.
She obeyed. She put one finger in her mouth, coated it with saliva, and then ran it along the tip of him.
He hissed in response.
She drew a circle along the diameter of his hardness, reveling in that ever fascinating combination of steel and velvet. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and pumped him slowly. Put her finger back in her mouth and took more saliva. Returned her fingers and then her fist around his shaft.
She felt first the softness of lips on her neck then teeth.
“Ahhh.” She cried out and he clamped his hand over her mouth. She nodded and he let go.
Then, with a single motion, he took her shorts and underwear in one hand and pushed them partway down her legs. His cock slipped and slid along the folds of her.
She lifted up, not thinking, simply reacting. He pulled her down onto him. Wrapped his arms around her. She could feel him flexing inside her.
Peggy couldn’t remember the last time she felt this turned on. Which meant this was the best sexual experience she’d ever had, right? It was funny that she could look down on her own body, watching as Thomas the Thief stole her modesty and her decency, and still wonder what it would be like when he came. Wonder what it would be like when he woke up in the morning. She thought about his new shoes, the faded sunglasses, his motorcycle that was always broken, his ex-girlfriend (or were they back on again?). The smell of sweat and Old Spice and lime and alcohol.
He pinched her nipple and she jerked against him. Her mouth made a sound like a cry.
“Quiet,” he hissed. He fucked up into her and she moaned and then put her hand over her own mouth.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
After the waves of her orgasm grew large and impending and then threatening, she felt him push harder into her. Relentlessly. She felt worried. Maybe this was too much.
“Thomas,” she whispered.
He slowed but did not stop.
“Yeah?”
“Do you like me?”
He laughed at that, a big booming laugh.
“No shit I like you,” he said. He turned her face and kissed her on the corner of her lips. His eyes were dark.
She felt him flex and then release inside her.
“Isn’t it obvious? What more proof do you need?”
She fell back against him, limp, and he stopped moving inside her.
She looked out at the Motel California bostancı escort sign. At the lights of Phoenix in the distance. At the dark shapes of mesas. At the red and white lights of cars drawing lines along the highway.
“I just wonder sometimes. I mean, I knew this was going to happen. Of course it was. Ever since I met you. But now that it’s here, now that it’s real, I just wonder, is it good for you? Is it more than just, you know, ‘doin it?”
She wriggled her hips back and forth, then looked back over her shoulder at him.
Thom’s eyes were closed. His lips were just slightly open. He moved against her and she pushed back at him.
He opened his eyes, green like serpentine, like a liquid forest.
“Peggy, you talk too much. Here.” He reached up and closed her eyes and then held his hand over them. “Close your eyes. Stop worrying about tomorrow morning or next month or orphans in India or the federal deficit or global fucking warming. Just let yourself feel. Feel me. Touch me. Let me take you. Let me come in you. Let go and let me take control of you.”
“But…”
He twisted her nipple hard and she cried out.
“Ow, hey…”
“I said shut up.”
“Um…”
He twisted her nipple again and then caressed it, pulling at the material of her bra, sliding his hand down into her shirt.
“Fuck” she said. “Thom, I…”
“Fine” Thom said. “Have it your way.” She felt him lift her up, still impaled on his rock hardness. He leaned her over the railing. She felt the rusting metal of the rail and gripped it. Everyone could see it now. Motel guests. People on the highway. The night manager. The security guard. Derek in 252. Everyone.
Then he fucked her. Fucked her until her knees felt weak.
“I…” She moaned, but the orgasm was a tidal wave, hundreds of feet over her head.
Thom came, crushing her against the rail, her breasts mashed against the iron, his cock possessing her absolutely. She cried out, whimpering and cursing and collapsing at once as the wave broke and scattered her consciousness into a million useless pieces.
Later that night when she got up to use the bathroom, Thom was passed out and snoring lightly. He was naked and somehow once again erect. She smiled and kissed the tip of her finger, pressing it to the apex of his shaft.
Such a simple thing, she thought.
Just a few inches.
Just a few thrusts, in and out, up and down.
Just a few minutes.
How could something so simple make her feel so much better?
She went to the bathroom, took the final three straight razors from the package and flushed them down the toilet.
She might want them later but later was later. One thing at a time.
She finished peeing, washed her hands, made sure her face was still her own face and found herself smiling in the mirror.
Yeah, her pussy hurt. But it was a good kind of hurt. And there was no blood anywhere.
Maybe she could make it a few more days after all.
She turned out the lights in the bathroom, crawled back in bed beside Thom and fell asleep.