Rough Cut

Mona Dale lived on a small street in a platted area of Norwood. Most of the houses were the already-cut-and-fitted types that were popping up all over America. Mona’s was no different—a story-and-a-half bungalow designed with bevel siding and painted yellow. The main roof sloped down over a large front porch that boasted two potted mums on stone columns. The architecture of the house had as many graceful curves as its occupant.

The lawn was littered with fallen leaves in decaying shades of red and orange. Moe shuffled through them searching for the sidewalk that led to the front door. Danja’s slack body seemed even heavier with the blood saturated blanket around it, and managing the few steps up to the porch wasn’t as easy as it should have been. The night’s autumn breeze blew across Moe’s wet leg and left him cold.

Carrying a half-dead girl had a way of disintegrating a man’s patience. He kicked at the door. “Mona, open up.” When she didn’t answer immediately, he kicked it again. The portico lamp switched on just in time to keep him from booting a third time.

A seasoned nurse like Mona was probably used to seeing a lot of blood, but not at midnight on her front porch. She swung open the door and said exactly what Moe was feeling. “Holy Mother of God!”

“Hurry, Mona. I need your help.”

Mona unlatched the screen door and stepped aside to let Moe and his bundle pass through. “She needs a doctor, Moe.”

“You’re the next best thing, baby, and there’s no time for debate.”

Mona motioned for Moe to follow her off to the right of the front door. “This way,” she said and led them up a short flight of stairs. “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know why she’s bleeding.”

Mona shot a look down at Moe’s pant leg. “Why are you bleeding?”

“I’m not.”

Mona’s eyes popped wide, but she held her tongue. She led them to a back room on the second floor and pointed to a twin bed in the corner. “Get that blanket off her while I get some supplies.” Mona yanked back the bedspread and then hurried out of the room.

Moe eased Danja’s body down on the crisp, white linens of the bed and worked at uncoiling the blanket from around her. Her pale blue lips and matted yellow hair stood out against her ashen skin. Moe had forgotten she was nude until he saw her under-ripened nipples flat against her chest. He’d nearly finished unwrapping the blanket when Mona rushed back in with rags and her medical bag. She stopped on a dime. “Where are her clothes?” The words scraped through teeth clenched so tight paper wouldn’t slide between them.

“There wasn’t time to find them …”

Moe started to explain, but he’d just freed Danja’s lower body, and the only thing he could hear was the whoosh of his pulse rumbling through his ears. Once, in a slaughterhouse, Moe had seen something that might compare to the crimson, jelly-like lump that lay between Danja’s legs. Tiny unformed limbs protruded from the mass. Moe swallowed hard, gulping for air and forgetting to breathe out. “Is that what I think it is?” He tried not to revisit his dinner.

Mona cast a look of pure disgust Moe’s way. “Go downstairs to the kitchen and clean yourself up. I have enough to do without trying to step over you.”

Finally, remembering to exhale, Moe heaved a sigh. “I figure I can help. I’ll do anything you want.”

“I think you’ve done enough already, don’t you?” There wasn’t an ounce of compassion in any syllable she spoke.

“Mona …”

She met Moe’s eye for the first time, and all he could see was a world of hurt. “Moe, it’ll be easier

for me

if you wait downstairs.”

There was nothing he could say to that. At least nothing more important than Mona fixing up Danja. So he turned to leave. “Holler if you need me.”

* * *

Moe spent the next two hours doing nothing but squeaking shoe leather. It didn’t take long before he could find his way through the first floor of Mona’s house with his eyes closed: living room, dining room, kitchen—living room, dining room, kitchen. He could have walked to Kentucky and back by now, if he hadn’t been afraid of leaving the house. On the umpteenth trip through the kitchen, he decided to step out on the back porch. It was two o’clock in the morning, the moon was high. The neighborhood was sleeping, but someone forgot to tell the damn crickets. Their trilling song nagged worse than a mother-in-law. The shadow of two large crosses—clothesline props—stood silently in the backyard. Against the house was a good-sized pile of split maple. He grabbed a couple of logs from the woodpile and headed back inside. The fireplace in the living room was as good a project as any to occupy his hands, if not his mind.

Moe might have been able to ignore how the flames reminded him of Mona’s hair if the red-headed nurse hadn’t come down the steps just as the kindling flared up in a perfect flame. She looked tired—eyes heavy, hair mussed, clothes disheveled. In her arms she carried a bundle, supporting it like it was bone china.

“I don’t know what to do with this.” She pulled the bundle tighter to her chest, and tears welled in her eyes.

“Is it …?”

“It’s a fetus.” Mona sniffled, “Maybe three or four months along.”

“Four months? She didn’t even look pregnant.”

“Some women take awhile to show, especially if it’s their first pregnancy. Add that to poor health. It’s possible.”

This was out of Moe’s league. Cheating wives, one-eyed chumps, and sleazy politicians Moe knew how to deal with. But a baby born before it was ready was a different matter. “We’ll have to bury it, Mona.” His heart sank at the look of grief spilling all over Mona’s face. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

“It’s a girl.”

“You can tell that?”

She nodded and hugged the bundle.

“And Danja?”

“I don’t know. She’s lost a lot of blood, but I think the bleeding has stopped. It’ll be a day or more before we’ll know about infection.”

“And if there is infection?”

“Then she’s going to the hospital.” Mona’s green eyes blazed as she glared at Moe. “No matter what you say. She should be there now.”

“I had to bring her here, Mona. And I don’t know if the hospital is a safe place for her.”

“Not safe? Why?”

“Let’s just say her sugar daddy has too many connections.”

Mona blinked several times like she was flipping through a calendar and looking for the right date. “Then you’re not responsible for her condition?” she finally asked.

Moe shook his head and felt the tension in his neck pull at his muscles. “I may be a two-bit dick, Mona, but I would never do that to a woman.”

“My god, Moe. She’s undernourished and covered in bruises. She’s torn in places I don’t want to talk about, and she reeks of sex. What the hell were you doing with her?”

“Trying to save her without getting a friend in trouble.”

Mona held out the bundle. “You’re friends with a man who would do this to a woman?” She quickly cuddled the infant close again.

Moe rubbed his hands over his face, wishing he could say more and hoping through some miracle that Mona would understand. “It’s complicated. But believe me, Mona, the scut who is responsible for that girl upstairs is not my friend.”

“Then tell me what’s going on, Moe.”

“The less you know, the better.”

“Let me be the judge of that.” Her face softened. She glanced down at the tightly wrapped dead baby in her arms. “You can trust me, Moe.”

Moe knew it was true. She’d stuck up for him. Mona could have turned her back on him more than once. For instance, when the cops hauled them into the clink house. Instead, she gave him an alibi. She could have put him out on his ear when he showed up tonight. And she could have called an ambulance at any time in the last two hours. But she hadn’t. Mona Dale was trustworthy. There was no doubt about it. But he’d made a promise to keep her out of it. Never mind that showing up at Mona’s house with Danja already kicked that promise in the rear. Moe was able to slim down his guilt by believing what Mona didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

“It’s not about trust, doll. It’s about bad people doing bad things to people who know too much.”

She stood there staring—eyes big and green—and too smart for her own good. “It’s a little late to pretend I don’t know anything. Isn’t it?”

“It’s business, Mona. Ugly business.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a fragile knick-knack. Not after I just spent the last two hours cleaning up that girl.” Mona stared at the carefully-wrapped infant remains in her arms. Teardrops sneaked down her cheeks in shaky rows. She let them drip off her face without embarrassment. “Just because I’m crying does not mean I’m fragile,” she said with indignation, punching each word like a shadowboxing pugilist.

“Baby, there are a ton of words I would use to describe you,” Moe said. “Fragile isn’t anywhere on the list.”

Mona glanced over at Moe with watery eyes and trembling lips. “We need to burry this girl, Moe. And when we’re done, you’re going to give me an explanation.”

* * *

With Mona’s direction, Moe found a food crate in the basement. Mona cleaned the crate and lined it with a piece of plum-colored velvet cloth from her sewing basket. Nailing the lid shut was one of the hardest things Moe had ever done. That is, up until he had to dig a six foot hole in the back corner of Mona’s yard. “Under the weeping willow,” she told him. In Moe’s eyes, shroud-tailors skipped a couple rungs up the ladder of do-gooders for their undertaking work.

After a good deal of back-straining labor, the digging was done. Moe laid the crate in the bottom of the grave. He felt a chill under the cool October sky when he dropped the first shovelful of dirt back on top of the homemade coffin. When he was finished, he crossed his body like the nuns had taught him eons ago, and he fell to his knees. He prayed if there was a God that He would forgive Moe and take care of the little girl Moe had just delivered into His hands.

Moe dropped off the shovel in Mona’s shed and trudged back to the house. He could smell his own sweat. And Danja’s blood had dried, leaving his pants stiff and fetid. He felt dirty from the inside out. He stood on the back porch, waiting and shivering and hoping the breeze would blow off some of his stink.

The screen door creaked, and Mona slipped out beside him. She had bathed. Her skin was shiny and flushed and carried the scent of Ivory soap. She wore a white nightgown, the kind that buttoned from the neck to the toes, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. It made her look sixteen—fresh, unsullied, and sexy as hell.

The contrast of clean versus dirty, or her versus him, settled into a battle of good versus bad in Moe’s mind. He looked away from her and pretended to find the log pile captivating. “You’ll freeze your ass off standing out here.”

She edged closer. “I’ll take the risk.”

Moe wanted to think about anything but the picture perfect dame beside him. “How’s Danja?”

“She’s sleeping. I gave her laudanum.”

“She was awake?”

“Briefly. Earlier.” Mona fiddled with the buttons on her gown. “She told me how you rescued her.”

Moe glanced out over the yard to the freshly dug grave. He didn’t feel much like a rescuer and certainly nothing that should be thought of in glowing terms. “Did Danja say anything else?”

“Not really. She seemed relieved about the baby.” Mona put a hand on Moe’s arm. It was gentle and warm. “Moe, I’m sorry for assuming you were responsible.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It was an easy assumption to make, doll. I’m no angel.”

She pulled her hand away. The loss of contact made the night wind even chillier. “Let’s go inside, Moe.”

“I was hoping for a good rain.” Moe looked up toward the clear sky with its million stars hanging in place. “I could use a rubdown in water.”

“Will a sponge bath do?” Her giggle echoed in the night, and Moe could have sworn the crickets paused to admire the sound.

* * *

Mona sat on the forest green divan in the living room, sheathed in her white gown and looking like Gabriel without a harp, when Moe finished in the bathroom. The only light came from the fireplace, and the shadows from its fire danced across the walls in sybaritic jubilee. His shirt and trousers were missing—pinched while he wasn’t looking—so he settled for a hula skirt look with his towel. He held the edges together tight at his hip. “I could use some digs, baby.”

She languidly let her head fall on the back of the divan and gazed up at Moe with dark eyes—red-rimmed and slightly puffy. “I don’t know. I hear terry cloth is all the fashion on the runways of Paris.” Her smirk still let her come off looking like a hot number.

“You’re a riot, Doll, but I don’t think Costello is looking to replace Abbott just yet.”

She rose up from her seat and glided over in front of the fire. The fiery backlighting outlined her nudity beneath her gown like a Greek sculpture—curvy and smooth. “Your clothes are washed. They’re hanging up to dry.”

Moe felt a stirring no towel could hide. “Mona, a man can’t see you like this and not want to take advantage.”

“No expectations, Moe.” She gathered the gown in her hands and with a slow, deliberate motion lifted it over her head and let it slip to the floor. Unveiled, she made a classical sculpture look like modeling clay.

Moe let the towel drop from his hips but stayed glued to his spot. Her mouth parted, and her eyes wandered over his body like she was memorizing for a test, but she didn’t budge. She looked her fill and then raised her eyes to meet Moe’s. Her face gleamed with undisguised desire. Moe understood. He had a craving of his own. And the longer they stood apart, the more his desire was stoked. He wanted her. He wanted her long, smooth legs wrapped around him. He wanted her tits playing patty-cake with his chest. And he wanted his cock seeking her heat and finding her fire.

In the past, he might have rushed and just taken what was being offered from a woman, but this dame had him going against his grain. He wanted to take his time, remember every second and employ every sense: the snap, crackle, pop of the fire, the smell of her soap and how it mixed with pure scent of woman; the rise and fall of her chest as her breathing speeded up; and the warmth of her hand when he finally grasped it in his.

“I feel drunk, Moe. Like I’m not real.”

“If you were any more real, baby, I’d implode.”

They came together like puzzle pieces—her every curve molded to his every line. Their mouths locked. Their lips softened, and their tongues parried. Her hands slid down his back and over his ass, caressing and squeezing and encouraging him closer. There was only one way to get closer that Moe could see. He pulled apart from her and slipped his hands in her armpits, lifting her in the air. Mona went limp until she understood his intent, and then she spread her thighs, wrapped her calves around his hips, and hooked her ankles. He lowered her down slowly while she wiggled her hips to line up hole to pole. She threw her arms around his neck and held tight as Moe eased pussy and penis together. Her cunt was warm and wet and cozy, and her cunny-lips kissed the base of his shaft when he was in as deep as he could get. He wrapped his arms around her and they embraced. Intimately.

Mona used all her muscles to squeeze, and Moe’s legs began to shake. He managed to slump to the floor, sitting flat-assed on the rug, bringing her with him without breaking the connection.

“Is this right, Moe?” She rocked against him, forcing her breasts to swing up to his mouth. Her taut nipples poked at his lips and played catch-me-if-you-can.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yessss. Oh, yes.”

“Then it must be right, doll.” He caught one of her nipples and forcefully sucked it into his mouth. Her body tensed, and she moaned in pure pleasure. He teased and slurped until her nipple popped free, and her moan became more of a growl.

Moe leaned back until he was stretched out on the floor. Mona sat perched over him. Her creamy skin was flushed, and her breathing was hard and fast. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Ever ride a horse, Mona?”

“Yes.”

“Sidesaddle?

“Yes, but I’ve also ridden astride.”

“Well, doll. That’s what you do. Ride me like you’re riding that horse astride.”

It didn’t take long before Moe realized Mona was an accomplished rider. Rather than rising straight up, she pushed her hips forwards and upwards in a gentle thrusting movement, and then back down full circle into Moe’s saddle. Her back remained soft and supple and as soon as her ass touched, she was on her way up again in a continuous rhythmic motion. She was as good as any jockey at the Kentucky Derby. Better. She had tits that swayed, and a mouth that gasped in delight.

Her climax, when it came, was worthy of the winner’s circle—all oohs and ahhs and heavenly smiles. She fell forward, their torsos together, and Moe wrapped his arms around her, bucking against her, harder and harder, until sweat covered them both. His orgasm whipped through him like lightning. With the spurt of his jizz, Mona pushed against him, allowing her pussy to suckle his cock and milk every drop.

Moe was exhausted. If he’d been standing, he would have collapsed. The sex hadn’t lasted long, but its intensity outweighed its duration. The dame was a thoroughbred, and Moe felt like a stud readied for pasture.

Minutes later, Mona was snuggled against him, her head resting on his chest. Moe felt the smattering of teardrops.

“Someone break your doll, Mona?”

“What?”

“Why the tears?” he asked.

“It’s not fair that I should be so happy. Not with Danja in such bad shape.”

“Some folks are just born under a bad sign, Mona. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Mona rolled away and sat up. She reached for her nightgown. “I should go check on her.”

Moe sat up himself. He didn’t want her to leave just yet. He didn’t want to lose her heat. “I thought you said she’d be sleeping.”

Mona stood to push her arms through the sleeves of the gown. “I need to see how she is. She lost a lot of blood tonight, Moe. And a baby.”