Author's note:
Hello all! There is a conversation missing from the middle of this story. It's not a huge deal, but it will be obvious to you, the reader. This is because I wrote the missing scene three times and hated every take! Male/male dialogue is difficult for me.
However, I wanted to post this in the hopes of getting some feedback on the characters and general feel of the piece. I find writing from the male POV exhausting, but I feel some connection to the cast I've created. Any feedback you can offer will really help me decide if I should pursue these guys some more!
Despite the patchwork nature of this thing, I can promise you some delightfully dirty/weird sex if you decide to read it.
*****
"That's a lot of money," I told Madeline Hook, looking down at the deposit slip she'd just handed me. The five figure number was, apparently, my Christmas bonus.
The older businesswoman shrugged and wandered over to the private let's minibar. And though her actions were blocked from my view, the mischief in her voice was impossible to miss, "I gave Drake more."
"Really?" I asked, in spite of myself. Immediately I felt stupid. Stupid for looking this gift horse in the mouth. Stupider for taking Madeline's bait.
Drake leaned towards me from his own seat, hand outstretched to take my bank slip. "How much did you get?" he drawled. Everything Drake says meanders from his lips in the same slow, vaguely southern, roll. When we first met, it was infuriating. Now, it's just part of his charm.
I let Drake pull the slip from my hands. He fished his own identical stub from his jacket's breast pocket and held the two up to compare. "Yup," he confirmed, "I got more then you."
"As business partners, we should split the difference," I suggested.
"I forbid it," came Madeline's voice from the minibar. "Check your bank accounts."
Drake and I looked to each other and, confirming that the other was just as puzzled as we were, we pulled out our phones, set to run off of the plane's WiFi, and tapped out the addresses of our respective bank's websites.
"Well fuck me sideways," I heard Drake intone.
The little spinning circle on my phone's screen faded away to be replaced by my bank account status. "Fuck me any way you want," I told my partner. "I've hit one million. Exactly."
"No shit Mike; so did I. That's why I got more then you. Brains of this operation my ass."
My response, which was sure to be a real gem of whit, was stifled by Madeline's reappearance. She was holding three low-ball glasses, scotch probably, and she was beaming.
Drake and I took the glasses reflexively. "Seriously, that you so much Ms. Hook. But you know we can't drink on the job," I told her, raising my glass in a toast, but never bringing it to my lips. I think I heard Drake mutter something as well. He's not so good with gratitude.
"I thought I was your boss?" probed Madeline, inflicting the two of us with a surprisingly powerful pair of 40 year old puppy-dog-eyes. "I'm telling you this is OK."
I met Drake's eyes. They told me it was a shame to let the caliber of liquor that Madeline buys go to waste, but that he'd differ to my decision.
"Ms. Hook," I began, meeting her with hard eyes, but remaining seated. I wanted to be firm but not chastising, "you're paying us quite a bit of money to keep you safe. We can only do this with clear heads. There are no second chances in our line of work." On the fringe of my vision I saw Drake already mourning the scotch with his own pair of puppy-dog-eyes.
There was a moment of tension between Madeline and I. Executives in her position are not known for being understanding, or even forgiving, of refusal.
Then, in a flash, a pleased smile chased away the hard eyes and pursed lips. Madeline fell into her chair, and plucked the glasses from both of our hands. "OK then, more for me!" she twittered, mixing the three drinks into a single glass. "Also, you get to keep your jobs."
I leaned back into my seat, hands behind my head, and gave Drake my most meaningful look.
"Brains of the operation indeed," he told me, toasting me with an imaginary glass.
-----
Home was an apartment. The nice kind. A quarter-floor, eight stories up, with one of those big glass windows that really make you feel like the king of the world.
Maybe it's time for a bigger place, I found myself thinking while fishing for my keys.
I opened the door into the kitchen, and looked up just in time to see my girlfriend's bare bottom disappear around a corner. A moment later her head poked back around to corner to watch me close the kitchen door. At which point she hopped energetically out from her hiding place and skipped over to me.
I admired Sarah's body, as she crossed the space. Taking in all the bits of her that bounced and all the bits that didn't. Her hair was getting long. The straight blond strands hopping along behind her reached almost to her hips when her momentum didn't have have them flying this way or that.
More noticeably, however, were the dark crimson stains on Sarah's skin. Flecks of dark coloring dotted her breasts and midriff. And her fingers and lips were stained with it. Also, my trained masculine senses noticed, there was a definite sheen of wetness on the protruding bits of her pussy. The surrounding skin, delightfully bare, also sported little red flecks of the... something. Had I not know better, I might have suspected Sarah of having just partaken in gleeful homicide.
"You surprised me!" said my girlfriend of four years as she skidded to a stop in front of me. "You should make more noise next time. Imagine if you had brought a friend!"
"You're wet," I told her, letting my eyes roll down her splattered torso. "And what's the red stuff?"
Sarah popped a stained finger into her mouth, sucking at it experimentally. When the digit escaped it was still stained, but now more of a pink then the deep crimson which the rest of her markings were. "Beet juice!" she told me happily.
Then my naked girlfriend, with pussy visibly damp, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and scampered over to the stove top, where every pot, pan, and skillet I owned was in some stage of boiling, bubbling, or nuclear fission.
I shook my head, bemused, and carefully threaded my way through the disaster area towards the bedroom. I wanted to get out of my suit before it fell victim to the same treatment as Sarah's flesh.
I should probably explain that this scene is not uncommon in my apartment. Sarah is a chef, and while my pallet is decidedly unrefined, I've been told she's quite a good one. A savant, if you will, boasting a intimate connection with cuisine that simply cannot be taught.
Sarah's greatest complaint is that her little bistro will not let her cook naked. You see, what I had interrupted moments earlier had been, quite literary, Sarah's love affair with food. To her, cooking is the other intercourse. Every splatter of juice and hot oil is, to her, a lover's touch. Each seasoning and baste, a caress. For my girlfriend, the food she makes can be literally orgasmic.
When her 'secret' was revealed to me, Sarah asked if I felt threatened. I told her that I didn't, because what kind of man is threatened by something he will later consume, but that I wouldn't mind being around if she decided to cook with cucumbers, if you know what I mean.
"It's not like that," she'd told me. Then she'd paused, put a finger to her lips, and murmurer thoughtfully, "Though those may be complementary flavors."
When we go out to eat as Sarah's bistro, Drake is not allowed to order anything with cucumbers.
-----
Roughly forty five minutes later, Sarah called to me that dinner was ready.
Though I was already changed into jeans and a sweater, I grabbed Sarah's heavy bathrobe from the closet. It was Christmas time, she would want it soon enough.
When I returned to the kitchen my girlfriend was sitting naked on one of the counter stools. She was bent forward, face over the dish in front of her, basking in the heat and smell of it. Her contours, in this position, called to me. They screamed at me to pace up behind her and pull her hips back just an inch, maybe two. That's all the room I would need to take her from behind. She would reach down, I imagined, and hold onto the top of the stool for leverage, wobbling her perch as she pushed back into me.
But it wasn't time for that. I'm relegated to an observer in Sarah's culinary romance.
I sat on my own stool across from her. The dish in front of me didn't smell like beets anymore. It resided in a little rectangular baking pan, there was a breaded crust on top.
Looking up at Sarah, it was difficult to hold my amusement in check. Her usually pale skin was the exception on her breasts, and her arms were completely crimson up to the elbows. She goes out of the way to get messy, it's part of the thrill.
It wouldn't have been right to laugh at her though. Because, through the veneer of beet juice, I could see Sarah's nipples were hard and her stained lips were parted expectantly.
"What is it?" I asked, indicating the dish.
"It has beets in it," my girlfriend told me, glazed eyes pointing meaningfully in the direction of my fork.
