After All

(Note to the reader: This is the first chapter of the third part of a three part erotic novella I've tentatively titled "Making Love to Horrible People." The first part is titled "Fear and Lusting." The second is "Yard Sale." Each part consists of about 4 or 5 chapters. I hope you enjoy it. Any feedback is more than welcome.)

*

The buzzer gave a nasally shriek and Dan turned his head sharply to look at his bedroom door. The room also served as his office, with a small desk near the windows in one corner, a tall bookcase and a queen-sized bed next to it along the wall that faced the door. The only other furnishing was a small tall dresser that stood against the wall near the door and an old upholstered chair. The room was not neat. Magazines and books were strewn about every surface. A computer hummed steadily on the battered desk top, but it was camouflaged in loose papers and sticky notes. He blinked at the door and started to turn back to his work before he heard the loud complaint again.

He opened the door and walked into the dining room and past the mini-kitchen and over to the front door. He pressed down on the buzzer call button. "Yes?"

"Hi! It's me," came a young female voice he didn't recognize. He waited, trying to sort through the list of possible visitors in his mind. "I'm the one who answered your ad for a cleaning service?" Dan pressed the button back down.

"Yes, of course, come on up. Third floor. 32." He buzzed her in.

Dan looked at the living room and dining room from where he stood and remembered he had spoken to the girl on the phone a couple of days ago about the ad he had placed on-line for someone to come and clean for a couple of hours on Thursdays and Sundays. Several people had already offered to take the job, but had never showed, so he had forgotten about her. He was delighted she had come, though. He couldn't stand living in his own filth but summoning the energy to clean it would have meant trying to live a normal life again. He wasn't ready for that. He needed help.

A knock at the door brought him out of his brooding and he undid the lock and opened it. A bright young face smiled at him. "Hi! I'm Jessica," she said with a wide friendly smile. Dan took her in with his eyes and almost felt self-conscious about his old, thin and stretched "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." black t-shirt and dirty gray sweat pants. Her beauty pounded at his eyes and he resented it. She was maybe 20 with slightly wavy blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her figure filled out her tight jeans and light sweater in a way that might make someone feel nostalgic about high school, even if you were the kid who got beat up. He wasn't, but when he looked at her he heard the lunch bell. He shook her proffered hand and smiled slowly as he looked at her face. Her eyes were dangerous. They were dark blue; wine-dark, like the sea about to swallow a ship in a sudden squall.

"Dan," he simply said. "Please, come in."

Jessica stepped in and surveyed the apartment out of the corners of her eyes. It didn't look that bad. It certainly needed someone to straighten it and polish the surfaces and dust the shelves, but far better than she had imagined when she answered the ad. She had expected to see old food left out and filthy smelling stains and a kitchen in need of an exorcism. Well, the kitchen came close to that, but everything else wasn't too bad.

"...Just need you for a couple hours on Thursdays and Sundays to help straighten the place," Dan was saying. He has tall and well built, if a little run down and ragged. His handsome face sported a couple days growth and his thinning brown hair was a little too long, as if it hadn't been cut in a few months. His eyes were dark brown and still held some kind of youthful light that made Jessica relax. She had worried he might be a creep, but the only disturbing thing about him was a kind of sadness around the edges of his eyes; a weariness and depression that sagged on his high cheekbones and bore down on his full lips. She wanted to see his smile, so she kept laughing a little and beaming at him as he showed her his place.

"What's in there?" she asked, pointing at the bedroom door.

"Oh, that's just my bedroom and office, but I won't need you in there."

"You sure?" She teased playfully with a big smile and giggle. "I'm just joking!"

Dan finally smiled and breathed out a laugh. It felt strange on his face. Jessica saw his lips part and arch and knew she had been right. When he smiled, he was beautiful. Now, she felt confident she could take the job without any worries. His apartment was just a ten-minute ride on the subway from her school and the hours he wanted her there, six to eight, fit perfectly with her schedule. Dan offered her twenty dollars an hour for the four hours a week, but said he'd make it an even hundred if she showed up for the full length of both shifts. Jessica agreed and said she would see him on Thursday. Dan showed her out and then retreated back to the bedroom.

A little later on, he abandoned his writing and tried to masturbate to thoughts of the young and sexy college student, but the dark specter of a woman from his past rose up into his brain and chased her away. He mixed a drink, sank down in his chair and smoked and thought and listened to the distant sound of the train. He tried again, as he had on several other nights, to project his thoughts onto it so they could be carried away.

The buzzer shrieked and this time Dan was ready for it. He had shaved and even put on pants. He still had on a t-shirt -- he didn't want to let on he was getting dressed for her or anything. Letting her in, he smelled the soft hint of lilacs as she brushed past him. He had to concentrate to keep from swooning. Lilacs were the most feminine scent imaginable and he fought the impulse to bury his head in her neck and breath deeply. She turned and looked at him expectantly. She had on tight jeans and a tight white lacey top. Her blonde hair fell a little below her shoulders in gentle waves. Dan fought the impulse to work up any excuse to touch her tanned skin as it radiated before him.

"So, where should I start?" she asked.

"Ah, well, there's cleaning supplies below the sink in the kitchen. That's probably the best place to start anyway. If you don't get to the other rooms today... trust me, I'll understand."

Jessica went to the sink and Dan went back to his office door. Before he opened it, she asked, "So, I know you're a writer from your ad, but what do you write?" Dan turned and looked at her and saw her body, as it was bent over and leaning on the sink and searching the cabinet below. Her ass filled out her jeans, looking far more full and tight than any white girl's ass had a right to look. He bet there were some black genes in her ancestry. His cock started to thicken and in order to hide it, he moved himself behind the half wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room.

"Well, uh... technical manuals, mostly... how-to stuff," he lied. It was only slightly a lie, since he certainly had written some technical documents in his past, but it wasn't what he was doing now.

"Oh, yeah? Like putting together cabinets and things?" she asked with her head under the sink and her arm shaking the little wooden door as an example.

"Yeah... something like that."

"Cool," she said nonchalantly as she straightened and began arranging things on the counter in preparation for cleaning. Dan gave a last long look at her form as she leaned over the kitchen counter.

"I left your money on the dining room table... I don't wish to be disturbed."

Jessica looked back as he disappeared into the bedroom. She saw the bills on the table, but was disappointed he wasn't going to stay and talk. She was certain he was writing more than just how-to guides, or else he would have droned on and on about them as she cleaned. Even that would have been welcome. Cleaning was not at all something she took any pleasure in, but she knew she could do it without even thinking. Still, it was boring and she usually put on music or the TV while she did it in her dorm room. That thought made her walk into the living room and turn on the set he had planted on a small cabinet in the corner. It wasn't one of those new plasma TV screens, just some old box from years ago. She loved the hum it made as it flicked on. It took her a couple of minutes to figure out the controls, but she finally managed to find E and left it on while she cleaned. Gossip was a guilty pleasure of hers.

Although the kitchen was small, it was pretty dirty and took her most of an hour to clean. Another half hour she spent on the bathroom, which wasn't too bad. It didn't seem like he took that many showers. The rest of the time she straightened the living and dining rooms and tried to organize the papers and books and photos into piles he could go through and see what he wanted discarded and saved.

The photos interested Jessica and she sat on the couch and looked through them. The majority of them showed a brown haired, brown eyed woman closer to Dan's age than herself. He was in most of the pictures with her, smiling his broad smile next to her face. She was perhaps the most beautiful woman Jessica had ever seen outside of the airbrushed models in magazines. Her face was soft and hard at the same time and her eyes dark and sultry. Her figure was something any woman would be envious of and the way she looked at Dan... Jessica's heart froze as she began to process what she was holding. She looked up at a picture on the wall she hadn't really noticed before. It was a photo of this woman's face pressed near to his in a loving embrace, close to a kiss. She gently put the pictures back in a pile and delicately straightened their edges, realizing she had been handling the pieces of a broken heart.

She almost wanted to cry. What had gone wrong? It was none of her business, she knew. She blinked a few times and looked about the room. The cable box said it was 3 minutes past eight. She wanted to draw him out and ask him, but felt it was something way beyond her ability to inspect and help with at this point. She collected the bills and stood at his bedroom door.

"I straightened some things in the living and dining rooms," she addressed the door. "I put them in piles for you to go through. Whatever you don't want you can just put in a heap next to the door and I'll put it in the dumpster next time."

"K," she heard through the door.

"I'll see you on Sunday," she said as her fingertip lightly touched the door.

"Thank you, Jessica," he responded from beyond the door. She turned and quietly left the apartment.

A couple of weeks passed and Jessica found the job to be very easy. It seemed like Dan hardly spent any time out of his room, so there just wasn't that much to clean. She also enjoyed where and how he lived. She liked the short walk to his place from the subway stop. It was a mix of small street level shops and well cared for urban sprawl. The people on the street were largely young and professional looking. It was the kind of neighborhood she imagined herself in once she graduated. Dan's building had that kind of 1920's look of brick outside and hardwood inside and noir glamour that excited some unnamed part of her every time she saw it.

His apartment fit in perfectly with the building's mystique. During the seventies, the owners had renovated all the rooms and painted all the hardwood surfaces with that god-awful thick white coating that was the style back then. His apartment, however, had been restored to the original look, with finished hardwood moldings and runners. A ceiling fan spun lazily in the living room and the wide front windows had Venetian blinds, making it seem like some charming office from an old Bogart movie. The hardwood floors were in great shape and hardly creaked.

She hadn't seen any more pictures of the woman after she had arranged the piles for him to go through. In fact, she couldn't find them anywhere. There was only the picture left on the wall. The woman seemed so happy, her eyes closed and her smiling face was reaching up to his lips as he bent over her shoulder, his wide mouth seeking her kiss. The look of passion and sincere love in their expressions was overwhelming and Jessica couldn't help but stare at it repeatedly. It was, to her, a piece of art.

One Thursday night, Jessica was getting ready to leave and heard the apartment door open. She was surprised and could only turn and stare from where she was gathering her coat in the living room. She had never thought to lock his door. A woman walked in and closed the door behind her.

"Hello?" Jessica asked.

The woman turned to face her and didn't seem surprised to see her there at all. She smiled thinly and said, "Hi." Jessica could only stare at what she thought was the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Her long straight brown hair was tied in a tight ponytail and her high cheekbones and delicate yet defined jaw were accentuated by a light application of rouge. Her wide dark eyes were sultry and mysterious under the dark mascara and long eyelashes. She seemed tall, but Jessica noticed she was wearing heels and a long black leather coat. For a brief second, she wondered if Dan had a date tonight and she immediately wanted to excuse herself, except suddenly she recognized the woman. She was the one from the photos and the picture on the wall.

"I'm Jen," she said in a soft and seemingly friendly voice. She took a couple of steps toward Jessica and extended a hand with long feminine fingers that displayed beautifully shaped and red-glossed fingernails.

"Jessica. Nice to meet you!" She said. She really was very happy to see this woman that had, until now, seemed only a shadowy part of Dan's past. "Dan hired me to do some cleaning for him-"

"I know," Jen said as her eyes sized up the young woman in front of her. "I'm glad. This place needed it," she said with a pretty laugh.

Jessica had to force herself to stop staring at her and continue gathering her things. She wanted to stay and find out everything that had happened, but the sheer allure of Jen was too much. Jessica felt frumpy and short next to her and there was no way she would let Dan see her like that. "Well, I should get going. Dan is in his room. It was very nice to meet you!"

"You too," Jen said as she made her way to the bedroom. Jessica had to pause by the front door and watch her. Jen stopped in front of his door and seemed to take a breath before removing her long coat and draping it over a nearby chair. Jessica's breath caught in her throat as she realized Jen was wearing a tight French-maid's costume. Jen knocked on the door and must have heard Dan's voice, because she started to enter. As she did, she turned and smiled back at Jessica and whispered goodbye as she disappeared. After a few seconds, Jessica realized her mouth had been open and she closed it and tried to calm the rapid beating of her heart. She considered sneaking over and listening to them, but couldn't convince herself to be so brazen. She slowly closed the door and then walked to the subway, fantasies and questions filling and teasing her.

The next Sunday night, Jessica showed up at the small brick-face apartment building and Dan buzzed her in. Over the past few days, she found her thoughts had returned repeatedly to what had happened that night and what was going on between them. The apartment seemed the same, but Jessica was determined to enter his bedroom and find any kind of clue. Everything was so simple to clean, Jessica finished a half hour early and was idly arranging glassware in the kitchen when Dan exited his room and went to the bathroom. Excited, she stepped in and looked around.

It was cluttered with dirty clothes and papers and books and a few empty bottles of scotch near the desk. The stale stench of cigarettes hung in the air. Something about the smell actually excited her a bit. She imagined him bent over his keyboard, chain-smoking and writing and missing his wife. Maybe she had just been a girlfriend, she didn't know, but Jessica doubted a man his age -- late thirties or early forties, she guessed -- would have held onto that many pictures of a simple failed romance. Without thinking she quickly crossed to the desk and looked at what was on his screen. She read what was written there and felt her breath catch in her throat. It looked like the hottest how-to manual she had ever read, that was for certain.

She read a passage about a woman tied to a bed and being used by 4 strangers while her husband watched. Jessica looked away and gulped. Her eyes rested on a small, framed picture of Jen standing on a beach in her bathing suit with her back to the camera. She was looking down at the waves rushing past her ankles while in the distance, above the vast ocean, an ominous bank of purple clouds gathered.

"Jessica."

She jumped and turned around. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was just so curious. I finished cleaning and didn't think you'd mind..." Dan had walked over to her, his eyes never leaving her face. He reached down and flicked off the monitor.

"Sorry," she breathed and placed the picture back down on the desk. Dan glanced at the picture and then turned to stand in front of her, very close to her. He inspected her face. She looked down and held her hands behind her back, unsure what to do.

"You weren't invited in here, Jessica," he said evenly. "It's my fault. I should have explained that better when you started."

"But really, I... I just was so curious about the woman who was here the other night... Jen."

Dan stared at her for a few seconds and Jessica lifted her head and looked at him. He seemed almost vulnerable.

"Is she... your wife?"

"She was," Dan whispered and blinked.

"I'm sorry, I guess it's none of my business," she said as she started to move past him. He let her go and she moved to the door, but hesitated and turned back. He was still standing there, staring out the window. "It's nice you can still... see her sometimes." It sounded lame, but it was the only thing she could think of to try to draw him out.

Dan turned slowly and regarded her with a new interest. "Yes," he said slowly. "She and I still have... some common interests."

Jessica felt her heart rate increase again and she couldn't resist asking, "Is that what you write about?"

Dan smiled and looked down as he walked over to her.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, I mean -- " she started to say, thinking he was embarrassed by what she had found. Dan seized her arms just beneath the shoulders and she froze and looked at him with fright.

"Shhh," he said. "I'm not ashamed of anything, Jessica. But you're prying and you should know that this is my office and my bedroom and it is not open to invasion anytime you're simply 'curious.' Is that understood?" Jessica nodded. "Good. Now, I'll forgive you this time, but the next time you wish to enter, you must knock and ask, ok? If I catch you in here without my permission, it will mean the end of your employment with me. All right?" Jessica nodded again.

Dan's hands released her and cupped her face gently. "I value the work you do here and I would hate for you to have to leave, but you need to respect my wishes." He held her face in front of him for a few seconds and Jessica felt her body tilting toward him. She wasn't sure if she actually was, but in her mind, his large hands cupping her jaw were guiding her lips up to meet his. He released her and she tried to remain steady as he walked away.

"Now, go on. I'll see you on Thursday." For some strange reason, she felt like she needed to pick up her clothes, but remembered she was wearing them. She left the apartment feeling slightly dizzy.

That night her boyfriend Tim made love to her in his dorm room. He was tall and thin and had tight skin over small, hard muscles. His chiseled face was smooth and his piercing blue eyes stared intently at her as he fucked her. The short blond hair on his head was thick and well groomed. He had perfect white teeth and a disarming smile. All her friends said they were the hottest couple they knew. His large and handsome dick slid in and out of her with grace and wonderful pacing. Sometimes he thrust slowly and his hands pinched and caressed her, and sometimes he went fast and hard. Tim was the loveliest fuck she had ever had. She loved him and hoped for a future with him after they graduated. The entire time Tim was making love to her, all Jessica could think of was Dan's tight grasp on her arms and his eyes slicing through her soul.