Author's Note: Two things about this story. One, if this story seems familiar to you, it is possible you have seen it before. A couple of months ago some lit authors got together for an anonymous writers challenge. We could not use our names and all stories went into the little read chain story category. After the contest I pulled the story and am now releasing it under my name and in its proper category of Mature. Second point is ever since I wrote Home is Where The Heart is, people have been asking me to do another story that focused more on romance than taboo, or hardcore erotica. "Home" was a very different story for me and I did not think I had another one in me, but my muse said otherwise and here is my second attempt to show off my softer side. On that note, keep in mind that being a bit of a romance it takes a while to get to the fun stuff. I hope you enjoy. LC68
I sat on the couch waiting to hear the tell tale creak of the stairs signaling my landlords inevitable visit. Toying with the locket my mother had given me four years ago on my sixteenth birthday; I stared at the two suitcases on the floor, hoping I wouldn't need them. I shouldn't have to; after all I was a big believer in my namesake and had been doing all the right things. I was a full time student; worked four mornings a week at the diner, didn't party like many of my girlfriends, and was proud to be referred to as a prude rather than a slut by the asshole frat boys at school.
My grades were good; I was responsible, reliable and had my own place. Well now it was my own place, which was the problem. Up until two weeks ago, I had shared the cute little two-bedroom apartment with my former best friend Jen. Former because she had dropped the bomb on me she was moving out to go live with her boyfriend. Not so bad, if she hadn't meant that night, and worse, stiffed me her half of the rent due the next day.
Because wait staff received tips, state law only required we be paid two fifty an hour. Billy, the owner of Kim's Kitchen, was a sport and paid us an extra dollar an hour so between hourly and tips I had been able to pay my half of the five hundred dollar a month rent. I had given Hal my half on the first and told him the story, but he was unsympathetic and started on about how easy he could get somebody else to take the apartment seeing it was only two blocks from the university.
I had to all but beg him to give me a little time and he said he would give me a week to get the other half or get a roommate. I'd put an ad on every bulletin board at school, but had no takers and I'd had to buy books for the semester with the last of my savings. The money accessible money I had left from mom's life insurance had been used to fix the transmission in my car only to have the motor blow a month later. Per mom's will, her attorney would use the rest of the money only to pay my tuition each year.
I had tried to get some of it to get a cheap used car and he seemed to sincerely feel bad for me, but said his hands were tied. It would be a waste of time to ask for help with the rent. My stomach twisted at the sound of the steps creaking from beyond my front door. I held my breath then released it when the footsteps passed my room and headed down the hallway. I had no idea what to tell Hal and truth was he could have the place rented before my bed grew cold.
Hal had a deal with the school that students received a discount from him and the school paid the rest, which was covered in my tuition. This allowed him to charge close to a thousand dollars a month for what really was only worth what we paid. But the lease stated in order to get that discounted rate the rent could not be more than three days late. If this had happened early in the semester I could have found a roomie easily, but this far in everyone was settled in.
I looked down at the locket I'd been fondling and felt that all too familiar burning sensation in my eyes, I glanced over at the cheap end table I had bought at a yard sale and looked at the picture of mom and I taken at my high school graduation.
Mom hadn't come from the best of stock as she'd put it and I was the first in her family to finish high school. The fact I'd graduated with honors and was now in college was a source of great pride for her and she would tell anyone who would stand still long enough about it. Mom had quit school, but when I was barely a year old earned her GED and through a state program to help young mother's received a bachelor of science in hospitality, which had led to her running a local Marriott.
Mom was making good money, but tended to spend it, mostly on spoiling me and going on cruises. She had some money put away, but not much. After all she probably figured she had plenty of time to do that. She certainly hadn't planned on being diagnosed with stage four liver cancer at the age of thirty five. She had passed away six months later, mercifully quick according to the doctors who said she suffered much less that way.
I'd sat and cried by her side and told her many times she was too young, but mom's response had been because of her past many people had though she would never make it past eighteen so for her the last eighteen years had been a bonus. She had made me promise to graduate and continue to do the right things because good things came to people who did them. That's why she had named me...
"Carmen!"
The voice from the other side of the door startled me and was followed by a loud knock. Dropping the charm back against the old baggy Nickelback t-shirt I was wearing, I called out "Coming!"
I took a deep breath and crossed the room on trembling legs. I paused in front of the door and flipping my long brown hair back out of my face, squeezed my locket for luck and opened the door.
"Hey were you sleeping?" Hal asked without so much as a hello, "I knocked twice."
"Oh," I gave him a nervous laugh while stepping back to let him into the living room, "Guess I was just kind of zoning on the couch."
"Zoning or boning?" he leered at me.
Saying Hal was a pervert was like saying the sun was warm. He blatantly stared at every girl in the building and was always making lewd remarks. Most of the time it was under his breath, but he had been pretty forward with me in our last conversation and was already starting in, probably because he knew I was in a bind and wouldn't say anything. As if to enforce my point he had turned around to look at me and was staring at my legs. I was wearing a pair of loose jogging shorts, which combined with my mussed hair and unflattering t-shirt, left me feeling far from sexy, but he was all but licking his lips.
"I told you before, I don't have a boyfriend." I told him as I walked past him.
I could feel his eyes on me and knew they were glued to my ass. What he was seeing I had no idea. I was on the thin side, but had run track throughout high school. I knew my legs and ass were my best feature body wise, which was good compensation for the fact I didn't have a whole lot on top. But I doubted the shorts were showing anything.
"Oh? Cute little thing like you? Why not?"
"I need to work and study, no time for that right now." Sitting down, I pointed at the old armchair across from the couch, "Would you like to sit?"
"I own the place kid, I don't need your permission." He smirked, "So you play a lot of sticky finger?"
"What's that mean?" I widened my big brown eyes, feigning ignorance.
"Oh come on!" he waved his hand at me, "You know."
I shook my head and shrugged and he rolled his eyes. He didn't sit, but instead walked over to the couch until he was only an arm's length from me. Hal was a big guy, around six feet, with broad shoulders and what at one point, was probably a decent set of arms. But his gut hung past his belt and his arms appeared to have as much flab as muscle. His face was always red and he was sporting a pretty decent whiskey bloom as my mother had always referred to the tell tale sign of a serious drinker.
I could smell beer on his breath now and his eyes seemed brighter than usual. That explained his more forward behavior and I did the best I could to try not to look nervous. I wasn't worried he would hurt me, but I doubted I would get any leeway in his current state.
"Well maybe you kill a lot of batteries instead; I forget you girls watch as much smut as guys these days."
"I don't watch..."
"Whatever, your goody two shoes bullshit doesn't fool me. The nicest girls are always the biggest sluts." He paused, waiting for me to bite, but I let it go. He frowned, then with the grin returning shrugged, "Anyway Carmen."
"Karma." I corrected him.
"What?" he asked, while wiping at his watery blue eyes.
"My name isn't Carmen, its Karma."
"Like Sutra."
"Like what comes around goes around." I said with an edge in my voice.
"Ohh, feisty! I like that!" he laughed and I sighed, realizing I should just say as little as possible.
"Well let's see if you're a feisty girl who has the rent."
"I..." As always my hand found my locket, trying to draw strength from it, "I'm sorry Hal, but I don't."
"I gave you an extra week kid." He spread his arms, "You work don't you?"
"Yes, but I had to pay off my books and I have to eat and do laundry and..."
"Maybe you should get another job." The leer was back, "stead of serving coffee you should be showing some of that cute little body of yours and making some real money."
