Page 48 of Slow Burn

“On the bed,” he said, and met her eyes. “On the money. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Her lips parted, and her tongue crept out to trace her lips. He reached down and ran his fingers up the inside of her leg under her dress.

“On top of the money?” she repeated. He touched silky panties and wriggled his fingers around the elastic, stroking, sliding slowly in. She bit her lip. He added another finger.

“In the whore’s bed,” he said, and eased his fingers out, then in. Warm and wet and slick. He watched her face change, her body shudder. “Like a whore.”

When she was whimpering and pushing hard against him, he stood up and unzipped his pants. He folded them neatly over a chair, draped his underwear on top, and when he turned around Kelly was naked on all fours, buttocks facing him like fat pink bubbles. Money sprayed green around her, crackled under his knees as he positioned himself behind her.

Robby. He thought of Robby, spreading herself for him. The surge of lust was almost painful. He guided himself into Kelly’s hot slick hole and pumped hard, hearing money shift and crumple as she crouched back to meet him. She was saying something, but all he thought about was Robby.

It only took about a minute, beginning to end. He pulled out at the end. White drops spattered over the money, and Kelly moaned in frustrated disappointment and collapsed face down on the sheets. Sol sat back on his heels, sucking in deep breaths that tasted of sex and cheap perfume and baby powder.

“Get the money,” he told her, and picked up his underwear. He checked the creases in his pants and frowned. “What’d you do with my gray suit, anyway? This piece of shit wrinkles like crazy.”

“It’s at the cleaners,” she whispered. It sounded like she was crying, which pissed him off. He brushed lint from olive wool.

“Well, is it ready?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Sol—”

“Get your ass up,” he interrupted. “We’ll get some lunch.”

He went in the bathroom to clean up. It smelled like the whore, more baby powder, more cheap perfume. As he pissed a big yellow puddle on the floor by the toilet, he said, “Something to remember me by.”

Kelly had the money in her purse and was waiting, eyes down, as he came out. Afraid again.

He slapped her, lightly, to let her know he wasn’t angry. In a final fit of humor, he locked the door back the way it had been when they’d come in.

“Surprise,” he murmured, and patted the wood. “Don’t fuck with me, sweetheart. Never again.”

“No, Sol,” Kelly murmured. His eyes cut to her face, the pouting lips, the trembling chin.

“Not you,” he said, and smiled. “Sweetheart.”

As they started down the stairs, a man turned the corner and started up, a weak-chinned, rabbity guy way too well dressed for this part of town. Sol took it slow and the guy kept his head down, his face turned away.

A john, definitely. She got the rich ones; Sol eyed the camel coat, the old-money suit. The guy looked scared to death.

Sol passed him whistling. At the last minute, he grabbed the guy’s arm and swung him around; from the look on his face, the guy was about to piss his pants.

“Hey,” Sol said in his friendliest tone. The guy looked too stunned to listen, so he slapped him. “Hey. Buddy. Tell Velvet that Sol Lipsky sends his regards.”

When he let him go, the guy stumbled on up the stairs, chin down, shoulders hunched. Sol laughed and patted Kelly’s hand as they strolled away.

He could hardly wait for the whore to come home.

Chapter Eighteen

Martin

He’d known by the sixth overhead that it wasn’t going to work, and from that moment on it had been a hell of long, long silences, fumbling explanations, bored faces. Not only had he not convinced them, he’d unconvinced himself. Martin sat in the empty room with the lights blazing, picking up one over-head, dropping it, picking up another. They were spread out like playing cards. A losing hand.

Nobody had even bothered to take his handouts. They littered the table like the sad aftermath of a parade. He scraped four or five together, but they slipped out of his hands and spilled over the edge to the floor.

He put his head in his hands and rocked back and forth, back and forth. His chair squeaked in faint protest. Had he been right? Had he ever been right?

Watch me, Daddy. Watch me.

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