Page 92 of Five
“Why aren’t you?”
“You want me to be?”
“Are you?” He’s using an uninterested tone with a hint of murder.
“Really? Bez is so uninterested in this conversation that he’s humming a fucking song.”
“And you, Gabe?”
“I’m taken,” I confess to stop this nonsense.
“Ah! I’m impressed by your honesty. So much that I’ll let you stab the shithead a couple of times. I need a drink while you do it.”
“We must still have a bottle of tequila in the fridge,” I tell him, as he places his palm on the wall scanner. Serena welcomes him and the wall magically slides open, revealing the descending metal stairwell to the base.
When I get home three hours later, Lori doesn’t welcome me from the sofa where he’s usually reading or watching TV, nor from the kitchen making one of his salads. I like to see him barefoot in a comfy, baggy t-shirt, looking all snuggly when I open the door. He never fails to send me a smile or a flirty look. His glares make me want to fuck him until he screams my name and then cuddle him until he falls asleep.
What the fuck have you become, man?Bez mocks me.
Something in me calms knowing Lori is somewhere in my home, safe.
I walk to my bedroom and feel pleased when I can see the outline of his body under the sheets. He really followed my order.
I take off my clothes and slide in front of him. Bez is oddly still, not pushing me down to take what he wants. He’s compromising, just like Meg said.
Lori is wearing one of my jackets again. He usually puts on the one I used the day before because it’s covered in my scent. Whenever I come back home and find him dressed only in it, I know he needs me, that he needs to be fucked, to feel me close to him. All around him. So I haul him over my shoulder and pin him in the shower, letting him wrap his whole body around me while I take what’s mine under the cascading water.
I decide to bathe in his dainty form for a minute. Shadows and lights interplay on each curve, angle, and edge, making him lookalmost ethereal. Exquisite. The lily scent. Those high cheeks. The upturned nose. I could drown in him.
His lips suddenly part, and he shifts, sliding closer to me until his palms flatten on my pecs like blazing coals. He nuzzles my neck, moaning in bliss after he takes a long inhale. Christ, how did my feelings change this fast? From wariness and curiosity, to fixation and craving. To obsession and possessiveness.
His tongue suddenly forms a wet, warm circle on my neck, and I can’t resist him anymore.
My hands glide down his back, reaching his already slick, prepped hole, and with a smooth buck of my hips I thrust inside him.
He feels simply and utterly mine. Ours.
Bez and I make an inner promise that we’ll do anything in our power to keep him with us, just before we lose ourself to him once again.
ten
LORI
Another five days passes. And nothing on the revenge front. My murderous urges haven’t disappeared, they need an outlet. I need to get even somehow. I can’t wait patiently at home near the phone. That’s unthinkable. Absurd. Murder-inducing.
So in the afternoon after work, instead of going home and study I instruct Arnold to take me to Rami and Hunter’s house to see Dare.
While waiting at a red light in the back seats my eyes focus on that damn bloke wearing a white mask again. He is leaning against a wall in a narrow alleyway entrance. Same gray hoodie, broad shoulders, and tense stance. The white mask covers his whole face leaving only two small narrow holes for his eyes. But he’s always too far to discern the color. It looks like he’s staring at a restaurant. Isn’t it one of Uri’s? He owns a buttload of them, hard to remember every single one.
When I look back the bloke has pulled a Houdini again and disappeared. Who is he? Is he real? I might be in need of a psychiatrist, not an eye doctor. Meg will hear from me soon.
When I arrive at Dare’s—kind of a farm in the suburbs—he’s alone. His brothers are both at work, and Rami and Hunter at the pet shelter. Fred, his blind squirrel is wrapped around his neck, like a scarf, taking a nap.
“What do you need?” I like how to the point he always is.
“I want to cyber kill a maggot,” I respond with the same directness as I grab a juice from the kitchen fridge.
He doesn't even blink at my odd request. “You want me to falsify a death certificate?”
