Serial (4 page)

“Anything interesting?” she asked and raised her eyebrows at my paper. Her eyebrows were perfect, delicate little arches of light brown hair a shade darker than the golden hair on her head.

“Nothing much, just looking over today’s numbers.”

“Numbers? What do you mean? Are you a gambler? One time my uncle won eight thousand dollars on a long shot out at Portland Meadows.”

“Oh wow,” I said and acted duly impressed, “did he invest it?” What a stupid thing to say, of course her lowbrow relative didn’t invest it. He probably bought a shitty used car and drank the rest away.

Her face grew dark and she glanced away, “No,” she said, “he lost it again. He was robbed, shot in the parking lot. None of us ever got to see a penny of it.”

“Oh, how tragic,” I said and affected a sympathetic tone, “but I guess the good news is that he had a chance to hold it in his hands, right? Better to have loved and lost and all that.” Or had a chance to lose everything and make up a pathetic lie to explain the disappearing money to his wife and kids. I briefly wondered where this uncle was now, how much family she had in town here. Who would miss her if she disappeared?

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” she replied and brightened up. She turned back to the front of the store and headed towards a booth of rowdy looking construction workers. She poured their coffee and let their disgusting comments roll off her thick skin. A woman as beautiful as she must be used to shit like that in this profession, in this area. She looked back my way, a slight blush on her cheeks as she brushed a strand of hair from her forehead.

She’s embarrassed that I saw their crude reaction towards her. This pleased me. It meant she recognized that I was above her; that I was on the level she should strive towards. And it meant she was ashamed of her own low background.

This meant she was vulnerable and I liked vulnerable women.

I sipped my coffee black. I usually liked something a little fancier and much less like gun cleaner, but I would drink anything she put in front of me to spend a few moments longer studying her.

My phone buzzed and I ignored it. Of course it would be my office wondering where the fuck I’d gotten off to, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

I hadn’t meant to stop in this morning, she usually worked the night shift, but I drove by and there she was.

I couldn’t lie, it was more than a little out of my way to drive by on my morning commute, but the thrill of possibly seeing her in daylight got the best of me.

And there she had been.

I had pulled in front, not giving a shit about my nine o’clock board meeting, the grubby fuckers hanging around my Range Rover, or the fact that she might recognize me from that night with my friends, even though it was so long ago. I had needed to see her, as if daring myself to find out if she was real.

I had been half hoping for a flaw, like bad teeth or a shitty attitude, something that would let me kill her and get it over with…but there had been nothing.

She was just as intoxicating this morning as the first night I had met her.

“Here’s your omelet,” she said and thrust her hip out to balance as she set the platter on the tabletop. “Whole wheat toast, cut diagonally with butter on the side,” she continued and handed me the side dish with the bread.

She remembered me from weeks ago, shit. I don’t want to be remembered, I had spent a lifetime around women just blending in.

I knew I was handsome enough, and the money made up for any flaws I might have had, but I wasn’t used to women knowing exactly who I was.

I’m flattered though; a part of me experienced a tiny electric thrill that she remembered me. “Yes,” I say, “good memory. You’re the one who should be at the track.” I smiled and she mirrored me with one of her own.

“I reckon I should be,” she said and stood up straight. She ran her hands down the front of her polyester uniform, smoothed out invisible wrinkles and shifted from foot to foot. She was nervous around me. I made her nervous. This was good. “It’s not such a big deal though, you guys stood out around here. It’s not often we get good looking rich guys crashing our little end of town.”

“You think I’m good looking?” I asked and winked. She blushed and looked deliciously wicked.

“Well, you’re not exactly ugly,” she laughed and brushed her stray hair away from her forehead again. I resisted the urge to reach out and touch it. To stroke her skin and feel it, cool and moist under my fingers.

“Well, I thank you for that,” I said and picked up the saltshaker. I tapped the bottom and sprinkled a dash on my food.

“You should watch your salt intake,” she told me and I looked up. She blushed again and added, “I mean no offense, but I read an article recently that salt isn’t good for you. You would be amazed at how many things it’s in, too.”

Well, she wasn’t exactly Einstein, but her allure wasn’t tarnished. This surprised me; I tended to appreciate brains as well as beauty. It is sweet that she cared though. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied and set the salt back down.

“I should get back,” she said but didn’t move.

“Yeah, you should,” I told her brusquely and watched her face crumple in uncertainty. I couldn’t be too nice straight off, wouldn’t want to set a precedent.

“I’m sorry,” she said and turned around, walked slowly back to the table full of the lowbrow construction workers. They were finished and I heard them make a few choice comments about what else they’d like to have if she was on the menu.

When she’s mine, she won’t have to deal with that shit. When she belongs to me, if shitbags like this disrespected her, I would fucking kill them.

Until then, I appreciated their role in all this. They were helping direct her closer to my little trap, making my lure seem that much more appealing.

I finished my meal with only one more interruption from her, she warmed up my coffee. We made awkward small talk briefly and she scuttled away knowing she’d offended me somehow, but not sure why.

I left her a large tip and exited while she was busy with another table.

I got in my car and watched as she found the extra fifty, looked around almost ashamed as though she’d stolen it, then tucked it into her pocket and went about her day.

I’d forgotten to get her name again, but at this point it was irrelevant. She would simply become Pet when she came to live with me.

Chapter Four

Jude

My friends were idiots. I should rephrase that. My former frat brothers were idiots; I didn’t technically have any friends.

We were driving around in Luka’s new ride, a Porsche Cayenne turbo. We had gone for a short trip down south along the I5 so he could show us how fast it was. Zero-to-sixty in four seconds flat he claimed, but I wasn’t so sure. I whooped it up and faked being impressed as much as the others, but ultimately I didn’t give a shit. I was looking more for cargo space than speed when I picked a vehicle these days.

Tonight it was just the three guys, and I as usual. Luka, Tony and Marcus...aka Lucky, Ton Ton and Marcy. Sometimes I disliked them, actually most of the time I disliked them, but I needed them to appear normal.

They called me Holy Roller. I don’t know why, probably something I said on one drunken night at Harvard and they couldn’t let it go.

We were driving around looking for something to do, which when you were with these guys could mean tag teaming some drunk chick behind the club or smashing the windows of some douche bag rival’s car.

Good old-fashioned wholesome fun.

God I hope we weren’t going to fuck somebody tonight; I haven’t been able to get
her
out of my mind since the other morning at breakfast. It’s ridiculous really, here we were starting our weekend with a bang and yet I couldn’t muster enough excitement to get a hard on at the potential girl we’d grace with our “attention”.

“Fuck yeah!” Tony bellowed and whacked the dashboard. “Let’s get fucked up tonight!”

“Yeah,” I contributed to the hell yeahs and fucking yeahs going around the vehicle. Hey, they don’t expect much more, and that was all I could muster with her dominating my head.

“Dudes,” Luka said while navigating through the thickening evening traffic, “did Marcus tell you his big news?”

“No,” I said and saw Tony shrug, he was as out of the loop as I.

“He fucking proposed! Tiff said yes, the fucker’s getting married!”

I looked at Marcus and he raised his shoulders in a, “What, me?” gesture. This infuriated me for some reason. I forced a smile on my face and congratulated him through gritted teeth. Nobody seemed to notice my anger.

I knew why this pissed me off though, I knew why it enraged and terrified me.

I was the last single one. The lone wolf, the outlier.

And outliers get caught.

They decided this meant a celebratory shit faced night at a local restaurant, one of our favorites. If we had favorites that is, I didn’t even know if any of us liked each other anymore, but we’d been faking it so long we didn’t know how to stop.

“I guess this means you’re the last lucky rat bastard to stay single,” Tony said and clapped me on the back as we bypassed the long line of people waiting for a table and breezed in. Money talks.

“Shit,” I said as if I just realized it, “I guess I’d better settle down so all our kids can grow up together, hey?”

“Most def,” he replied and turned away to wave at somebody he deemed important enough to acknowledge. He was so fucking gangster.

I did the same though, I saw several high stakes business associates, some with their wives, some with their mistresses, but all of them wealthy enough to pretend to give a shit about. I relaxed, loosened up and joined the pack for the night.

We ended up at some after hours club just outside the city. I was too hammered to kill efficiently so I found myself getting a blowjob in the men’s bathroom to alleviate some of the urgent desire to cut and maim.

I couldn’t remember her name, but she sucked like a pro. She could have been a pro for all I knew, I might have paid her. I got home somehow, alone, so the women of Portland were safe that night.

I crawled into bed, barely aware of my surroundings, and let the spinning room carry me to sleep.

My dreams were filled with soundless faces, screaming and anguished. At one point my own face filled my vision, screaming endlessly in a burning pit of fire.

She appeared to save me, dragged me from the pit and offered me cooling succor with her words and sweet touch.

My pet.

***

I woke up fuzzy headed and throbbing. My entire body was throbbing, from my headache to my swollen cock to my abdomen. I vaguely remembered having a punching contest with Marcus, hitting each other in the stomach until one of us went down. There was a lot of money bet, and a lot lost when I came out the victor.

The stupid bastards who’d bet against me might have seen Marcus’s bigger biceps, but they didn’t know I had the heart of a killer. And I just wanted it more. I always won.

I staggered to the kitchen and felt alone, empty. It was a strange feeling, one I wasn’t used to and I pondered the origin as I crushed a few Aspirin and mixed them with a glass of orange juice.

It was
her
. Or the lack of her. I hadn’t seen her for a few days, I’d been too busy to lurk, and I missed her.

After last night’s dream, I needed her by my side even more. I was convinced she’d be my salvation, the one magic path that would lead me out of the fringes of society and the blackness in my own head.

I downed my hangover mixture in one gulp and got ready to meet the contractor.

I’m having my guest room soundproofed. I even went to the expense of having a drum kit set up in there, so I could maintain the charade that I just didn’t want to disturb my neighbors.

In reality, I was constructing a gilded cage for my little Pet. I slid on a pair of jeans and a Foo Fighters tee shirt to blend in with the guys who will be doing the work. There’s nothing these types hate more than a smug, rich asshole, so I’d become one of them while they were here.

It took them only a few hours to insulate and install the acoustic panels. Such a short time to construct something that will mean so much to me once its sole occupant arrives.

“Are you sure nobody will hear me?” I asked John, the head of the install. “I’m a pretty shitty drummer and I don’t want Mrs. Findlay below me to bitch about it to the condo association.”

“I guarantee it, you can beat on those puppies all day, every day and she won’t hear a damn thing,” he assured me.

“Shit, I hope not. She’s kind of an old cunt, if you know what I mean. Always looking for a reason to yell at somebody,” I told him and took the bill. Eight thousand dollars and change, worth every damn penny.

“I do know the kind, and that sucks for you, dude,” he replied and took my cash. He didn’t count it in front of me, he trusted me. I had made it an even nine grand, so he would be pleasantly surprised when he unrolled the wad and counted it in the truck downstairs. He’d remember me warmly. “You oughtta think about moving to the ‘burbs. You could get a nice chunk of land with a big house out there.”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” I told him and watched as his workers set the drum kit up again. I should have told them not to bother; I’ll just be tearing it down the moment they leave. “My girl loves the city though, you know? The shopping, the dinners out, the theatre. I keep trying to get her to settle down somewhere nice, but she’s one of those high maintenance types.”

“Oh, I know those too,” John laughed. I was astounded at how easily the lie rolled off my tongue. She was my girl already, at least in my head. “You’ll have to knock her up to settle her down, just like my wife. Now she’s got nothing but babies on the brain and never wants to leave the house. It’s kinda nice, and easier on the wallet.”

“I’ll have to talk her into it,” I laughed and shook his hand, “thanks for everything though. I’ll keep you in mind if I ever manage to get her out of the city. We might need some remodeling done.”