The screen goes dark while she does whatever she does on her end and then an invitation to join Pixie’s Kit Kat room pops up. When I accept, her face appears in close up. My camera’s on and I smile at her.
“Hi, pretty girl.”
“Daddy M, how are you?”
“Sleepy and horny. Jack off with me and help me get back to sleep?”
I don’t beat around the bush with Pixie. I’m paying for every minute. Moreover, I can tell the difference between Pixie and Emily, even as clueless as I am about the daddy-little thing. Pixie’s playing at this. She’s got the pink boudoir and the babydoll clothes and the pout, but there’s none of the joy that radiates from Emily. Pixie’s role-playing being little because it turns guys like me on, but it’s not real for her. I get it, even though it makes some part of me cold and sad.
I don’t push it. I don’t ask her to color or play with dolls or any of the other stuff I’ve seen the idiots in her open chat space ask her to do. I just ask her to masturbate with me and if she’s in the mood for it, she’ll tell me she’s been naughty and spank herself. She’s offered to blow a dildo, but nothing about that appeals to me. Not that I have anything against blow jobs, as long as the girl wants to do them. That was all Julie ever wanted to do with me, and I was fine with it, although I should have guessed then what her game was.
“You got it!” She trots into the room she uses to shoot—I seriously doubt it’s her actual bedroom—and climbs up on thepink-draped bed. “Sure you want just the Kit Kat package? You know I don’t mind giving you extras.”
I know she doesn’t, but I feel squirmy about it. I’m not an idiot. Well, I’m less of an idiot than I was when I let Julie play me for ten grand. I investigated Pixie before I let her see my face and I know she can barely make the rent most months. I’m not taking anything from her for free.
“Just a Kit Kat, girlie. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Aww, you’re such a boo.”
I cringe internally but keep it off my face. Pixie’s twenty-five. I checked. Sometimes the six years between us feels like a lot more, though.
She sets up the camera so I’m looking up her body as she lies back on the bed, her long, pink and purple spirals spread on a pillow, tits and knees pointed toward the bed’s pink gauze canopy.
“Start with your nipples, girlie. Give ‘em a suck and then a big pinch for me.”
She cups her big tits and arcs her neck to reach her nipples while I grab the hand-lotion and a tissue.
two
The next timebuzzing wakes me, it’s morning. I roll out of bed, pull on sweats and running shoes, and hit the pavement. It won’t be long now before I’m no longer jogging alone. Mac, my unit’s Master Chief, has finally served his twenty and retired. He’s divorced a woman who is one of the few people on the planet, other than my family, that I can honestly say I hate and is moving to New York. We ran together every day when I reported to him, even when we weren’t training, and I’m looking forward to running with him again.
I’m also looking forward to talking with him about the daddy thing. He’s what Logan is—a dominant—but I don’t think he’s a daddy. Still, he’ll understand the weirdness. Mac’s one of the most unflinching people I’ve ever met. He doesn’t sugar-coat shit; if I’m fucking up, he’ll tell me.
A five-mile run in the late August heat leaves me sweaty but calm. Ready to go back to the fun and exciting task of building a database of Wilsons. I’ve got two other small jobs I’m doing for Manny, who handles the bodyguarding side of the business. I’ll knock those out while the database compiles. Focused and ready to tackle my morning, I take the stairs up to my apartment.
There’s a kid sitting with his back against my front door. He’s so skinny he could be just a bundle of sticks held together by a T-shirt and basketball shorts. His head’s on his knees with his thin arms wrapped around them, his sponge twists disarrayed like he’s been tugging on them. I can’t see his face, but I can see the still-oozing scrapes on his knees, knuckles, and elbows. He’s been in a fight. Again.
“My man,” I say as I walk up to him. I offered him a key months ago, but he gave it back to me after his mother found it, freaked out, and said I must be some kind of pedophile. She’s another of the few people I can honestly say I hate. “You have the best timing in the world. I was just about to order a pizza.”
I wasn’t. I usually save pizza for dinner and it’s not even late enough for brunch yet. But I’ve never known Tyrone to turn down pizza.
Tyrone lifts his face, cheeks still round with baby fat despite his skinny, adolescent body. Tears stain his cheeks charcoal. He hastily wipes them away with the collar of his shirt and pushes up my door to get out of my way.
“I’ll eat some if you don’t get those gross fish,” he says.
He always sounds a little belligerent when he first arrives on my doorstep. In an hour, when he’s cooled down from whatever fight landed him scraped and tearful on my door instead of at school, when he’s got a belly full of food and is playing on my gaming rig, he’ll be as light and funny and playful as Emily.
“Anchovies are the food of the gods, my man.”
He makes puking noises as he follows me into my apartment. After tapping in a pizza order—no anchovies but plenty of meat for us growing boys—I head up into the loft and grab a T-shirt and baller shorts for each of us, then duck into the bathroom and turn on the shower.
“You want the hot water, you better get in there first,” I tell him. “You got that kid stank onya again.”
He pulls a face at me but takes the spare clothes and heads into the bathroom. He does stink but it’s sweat and blood from the fight, not poor hygiene. One of the few things Ty’s mother does right is make him bathe every day.
When he’s finished, I duck in and wash off the sweat from my run. Ty’s left the toothbrush and hair pick I got for him on the edge of the sink. I tuck them away as I towel-dry my own hair, which is buzzed military-short on the sides with a longer fringe that I run wax through to keep it out of my face for the rest of the day. I check my phone to see where the pizza is. When I see it’s still ten minutes away, I use the time to trim up my short beard.
I hear gunfire as I click off my razor. For a moment, I panic. I grip the edge of the sink, breathing hard, until I can get a grip on it.
