Filthy Gorgeous (19 page)

Bzzzz.

No answer. I press again.

Answer, goddammit.

And again.

“Take it easy. They’re probably out buying kitty litter,” Parker jokes. “Let’s go.”

I spin round. “Parker, I’ve spent the best part of a week locked away, nursing a black eye and a sore ego. I’ll wait an eternity and a day if it means I get to see her, even if it’s just a two-second glimpse of her naked silhouette through the window as she showers.”

Parker thrusts his hands on his pockets. “Pervert.”

I know, I know.

I need to get laid already.

An elderly lady with architecturally-unstable hair shuffles along the sidewalk. She stills at the foot of the stone steps, regarding Parker and I with suspicion.

Interesting
.

If she lives here, then she has a key. If she has a key, then she’s my best friend.

It’s time to work the charm.

I eyeball Parker and nod toward her grocery bags. If mom’s and cougars are my forte, grandmothers are Parker’s territory. I’m told it’s his smile. He has this look he reserves solely for senior citizens over a certain age. It’s both mixture of disarming kindness and pity, topped off with a disarming wink.

Just look at him go.

Parker hops merrily down the steps. “Here, let me help you with those.” He tries to take the old woman’s arm like a good citizen, but she’s having none of it.

“Get your hands off me! I’ve been happily married for thirty-six years!”

I brace my arm against the doorframe to block her progress.

Big mistake.

She lowers her head like a bull to a matador and reaches into her handbag. Surprisingly, pivots on her heels. Parker drops to the floor like a block of concrete. Now he’s rolling around on the flagstones, screaming like a banshee.

Because the old bitch pepper-sprayed him.

“My fucking eyes! I can’t see!”

I step back and let the lady barge past me. The door slams shut. Entry denied.

Shit.

A booming voice showers us from above. “What the hell is going on?”

I look up.

It’s Carrie, and she’s with my beauty. I cup my hand around my mouth and yell skywards. “Some senile old bat pepper-sprayed Parker. He needs help.”

The girls duck back inside. Moments later, the door flings open and Carrie bounds outside with a cloth. She stoops down over Parker. “That’s a doozy of a black eye, Slade.” She turns to Parker.

“Did you provoke Mrs. Ramirez?”

“Hell, no!” Parker bellows.

Carrie grinds. “Come on, Sparky. Let’s get you an eyebath.”

Did you hear that?

We’re going inside. God bless you Mrs. Ramirez, and your bat-shit crazy paranoia.

Taking an arm each, we guide Parker upstairs, where we’re met by a stony-faced Ella. She’s wearing black sweat pants and a baggy T-shirt. Her golden hair has been tamed back into a wild, messy up-do, and her beautiful eyes are puffy and red.

All because of me and Jockass.

She clocks my bruise and her expression flickers between disgust and concern. Carrie and Ella exchange a knowing look, like they’re communicating in some secret telepathic code on a frequency that only women can hear and decipher.

“Alright, you can come inside, too. But I’m warning you, one false move and I’ll kick your sorry ass from here to Brooklyn.”

We’re going in. Mission accomplished.
Almost.

Carrie ushers a whimpering Parker inside the apartment and sits him down on the couch. I follow behind. Wow—Carrie wasn’t shitting me when she said the flowers were overkill. The place looks like a fucking funeral parlor.

I follow Ella into the kitchen. She’s making coffee. She looks exhausted, doesn’t she? Her expression is unreadable and unwelcoming.

I brace an arm against the wall and try to humor her. “I don’t take milk, remember?”

She smiles sweetly. Then she walks purposely toward me with a mug in her hand. I’m about to inwardly congratulate myself for bringing a smile to her face … until she pours hot milk all over my crotch.

Jesus. Christ. It. Hurts.

I grit my teeth and back up against the wall.
Keep smiling, Slade. Take it like a man.

She teases me. “Oops—it looks like my hand slipped. I know! Why don’t we call it a cock-a-latte? It’s on the house.”

I had that coming, didn’t I? Let’s decipher the body language. Look at the way her arms are crosses in front of her chest. Her foot is tapping impatiently. It’s quite simple: she wants to kill me.

I swallow, hard. “Ella, I know I should have told you about Tyler. I’m sorry, okay?”

She doesn’t speak.

I’ll show her how sorry I am. I grab a wooden spoon from a rack on the wall. “Ella, I know you’re angry. Let me be your punch bag.” I thrust the weapon into her hand.

She raises a quizzical eyebrow. “Really? You’re sure about this? Because I’m pretty angry, Alex.”

I nod.

She raises the spoon.

Whack.

My right bicep tingles with pain.
Go to your happy place, Slade. Just pretend she’s spanking you with a riding crop.
Now she’s bouncing from one foot to the other, like a boxer getting ready to deliver a knockout blow.

“I hate you!”

Whack.

“You arrogant asshole!”

Whack.

“I hate you, and I hate men!”

That’s a shame, because this is such a turn on. I’d bang her like a screen door in a hurricane. Given my current situation, I’m not going to say that out loud.

Whack.

“You’re all the same! Assholes!”

Whack.

“You know something, Alex. You’re right. This
is
fun.” She backs away and riffles through the nearest drawer, never taking her eyes off mine. Ella pulls out a garlic press, and snaps the handle up and down so it makes a clinking sound.

She holds it close to my crotch.

Too close.

With a benevolent smile, she holds up a meat tenderizer and taps it lightly against the palm of her hand. “What about this? It’s kind of
pointy
, isn’t it?”

Whipping. Handcuffs. Wax. Silk scarves.

I’m an adventurous guy—I’ve done them all. But I’ve never been spanked with a meat tenderizer before. Another first since I met her.

I flash Ella a dazzling smile. “Ella, can’t we just start with butt plugs and cock rings, and work our way up to kitchen apparatus?”

She twists the cleaver in a strangling motion.

“Okay, okay—I’ll take the meat cleaver.”

My balls are too swollen to fit in the garlic press, anyway. She edges closer, brandishing both penile-wincing implements. I lick my lips in anticipation.

“Seeing as though I missed the class on surgical precision at Cornell, I reckon I’m going to have to improvise.”

I plead with her. “If you go through with this, Ella, you’ll have a baying mob of irate females at your door in under an hour. Think about this
very
carefully.”

She strokes the cleaver under my chin. “You could have told me earlier. You had the chance and you said nothing!”

I flinch.

Man, this is hot.

She continues. “To be humiliated like that in front of all those people!”

I shake my head. “Ella, if it’s any consolation, I wanted to punch him out as soon as I met him. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I had my reasons. Anyway, you’re taking this out on the wrong guy.”

I’m saved from certain castration when Carrie bounds through the door, dragging a sorry-looking Parker by his collar. Ella lowers the cleaver, but her eyes continue to dance with rage.

I don’t think she’s finished with me yet, do you?

Carrie pushes Parker against the counter. “Keep blinking, Sparky. Water is not going to shift this. You need to cry.”

She thrusts her hands under his tee-shirt.

Parker groans huskily. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You’ll see.”

“Arrrgh! You’re insane!”

Did you see that? She just tweaked his nipples.

Carrie marches over to me. I’m not going to make excuses for you, Slade. You can’t put a bunch of flowers in an asshole and call it a vase.”

Then she turns to face Ella. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You two are going to get out of the apartment. Talk. Do whatever it takes to get whatever the hell it is out of your system.”

Ella snaps. “What?”

Carrie smacks an open palm against her own forehead and they exchange another one of their intimate glares. “Remember what you told me after the evening at the museum?”

Oh, hello.
This just got interesting.

I raise a hopeful eyebrow. “What exactly did she tell you?”

Ella’s scowls, her eyes brimming with horror. Carrie jabs me in the chest with her forefinger. “What she told me not to tell you is only for her to tell. Now, I wish you’d both get the hell out of my kitchen and for Christ’s sake,
talk
!”

Carrie’s eyes fall to my milky crotch. “Keep it zipped, Slade. Just because she’s rebounding, doesn’t mean your trousers should. I have boobs. I make the rules, alright?”

***

I once read that shock, denial, and isolation are the first three stages of a break-up. Judging by the way Ella is furiously defacing posters of Jockass, I’m betting we’ve arrived at the fourth.

Anger.

Men and women handle this stage differently. When Karl was a teenager, he dated a girl called Jenny Alderson for two years. She was hot—I’m talking model quality here. He dumped her after he realized she was never going to swallow. My point is this; do you think he sat around crying into my beer?

Hell, no. Later that evening we hit the city and got him laid.

By twins.

Two weeks after Splitsville, Jenny Alderson wound up on my doorstep wearing the teeniest skirt I’d ever seen. She wanted to know what she could do to win Karl back.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she needed to improve her technique with the skin flute. Jenny was vulnerable. She needed reassurance. She needed to be held, and told that she was beautiful.

I did just that during an al fresco tête-à-tête on the beach. Then we drank eight bottles of cider and humped like a couple of rabbits.

I’m telling you this because Ella is displaying that same vulnerability as Jenny Alderson. At times she may seem unaffected and in control, but her puffy eyes and demeanor tell me differently.

I decided that I don’t want her to do a Jenny Alderson and accept a pity fuck. I refuse to pounce on her in her time of need.

I want Ella to beg me to pound her.

It’s a male ego thing.

“Carrie was right. Going out with you is way more fun than slouching around in the apartment. Hand me the other pen.”

I oblige and watch in smug amusement as she sabotages another poster of Tyler Strickland.

It was all my idea. I figured she needed to diffuse some anger. To show her just how sorry I am, I suggested she deface posters of our own ad campaign. We’ve hit every bus shelter on the avenue, but she’s showing no sign of abating.

It’s immature, but I’m willing to do anything, even hack my legs off at the knee caps, if it helps to expedite the process to stage five

Acceptance. Because it’s only then that we can move on to stage six.

I don’t need to tell you what that is, do I?

Ella assesses her artwork. “How many is that now?”

I look back over my shoulder and count the damage. “Ten. Come on, Picasso, let’s go grab a drink.”

She stares at me for a moment, like she’s trying to figure out if she should forgive me and accept, or gauge my eyes out with the marker pen. “Alright.”

We grab a table outside a small bar and I order two Pink Sladies. Then I tell her all about my Pemberley suite.

She knits her brows. “Why are you staying there?”

I don’t want to tell her about my daddy issues, so I’m saved when our drinks arrive. She takes a sip. “God, this is just what I needed.”

I smile and flicker my eyes to her. “Am I forgiven?”

She leans back in her chair and takes a deep breath. “It’s too early to say.” She mindlessly stirs the straw around her glass. “I can’t believe I almost married him.”

“Have you seen him since the party?”

I know, I know—I can’t help myself.  I’m a masochist, remember?

She nods warily. “He came over. We argued.”

I lean forward and my face breaks into a concerned smile. “You’re not going to
forgive
him, are you?”

Say no, no, no.

Giving a ball licker like that another chance is like giving your biggest enemy an extra bullet for their gun because they missed you the first time.