Little Ronnie

My readers will recognize Officer LaFratta and, from fleeting mentions in other tales, Brett Bourne. I'm entering this story in Lit's annual Valentine's Day contest; make sure you check out all the excellent entries and vote for your favorites!

* * *

I could see the blue lights flashing up the side of the building as I pulled into the back lot, competing with the building's garish red façade to make a disgusting purple hue that Tony had warned us we might see. "Beginning of January," he'd explained in his careful English, "it's always busy. We offer lower rates, you see. For holidayers returning home."

There'd been an awkward silence.

"You know. Vacationers? Um, travelers?" He'd smiled coolly. "And that includes the restaurant, yes? Winter dinners. Getaways. Drunk people, falling off the cart after the, uh, the resolutions? For the New Year? So I've instructed Jules to order more glassware, because some? Will break."

Some seemed to be breaking now, I reflected as I shut my car door. The place had been open just four months, and already the cops had to be sick of coming by; Jules' bartenders were not shy about overserving. It hadn't had much of an effect on me, though. Tony worked hard to keep the hotel side and the restaurant side separate.

I walked across the shining parking lot, the blue lights quivering in the puddles, taking care to avoid the slush piles. I was wearing my only comfortable pair of heels, and I didn't need cold wet feet all night. The cruisers were those big SUVs the cops were using these days, probably to compensate for their small dicks.

Speaking of which.

"Hi, officer." I knew the cop standing outside, eyeing everything with that look that said he was just hoping somebody fucked up so that they could be arrested. The other officers were undoubtedly inside, dealing with whatever had happened in the restaurant, and I wished they'd left someone else outside.

"Crime scene," he rapped back out, scanning me carefully; I knew that look, when guys try to see what you look like under a winter coat. He noticed my makeup, carefully done, and my gym bag. "Are you a guest?"

"I'm the night manager," I said quietly, wondering whether he recognized me. "I'm showing up for work."

"Huh." He continued his inspection, and I had to work hard to keep from rolling my eyes. He didn't need to examine me. This one knew what I looked like. He'd been the Resource Officer at my high school when I went there. He'd been the one who'd caught me that time that I was carrying Crystal's weed, then let me off once I'd sucked his dick. His not-very-impressive dick.

Hence, the SUV.

I remembered it with a little tinge of shame coloring my cheeks, though it probably just looked like I was cold. Mr Bourne had sicced him on me because one of Crystal's exes had tipped them off about the deal, and before I knew it I'd been standing alone on the wrong side of Officer LaFratta's locked door. I knew what was coming. Every girl at the school knew what could happen if you ended up in his office, as long as you were over eighteen and willing to play ball.

So I'd played ball. Both of them, in fact, his scrotum shuddering in my fingers as he'd unloaded all over my face. Inconsiderate prick, though to be fair to him he'd been as good as his word, taking a quarter of the stash and letting me go after he'd stuffed himself back into his pants and zipped up. "Stay out of trouble now, young lady," he'd smirked, and I'd hustled off to the bathroom thanking my lucky stars. It had been a felony amount of weed, after all.

Crystal had bought me a coffee, at least.

He was staring at me doubtfully now, and I was a little relieved that he didn't remember me. I wondered vaguely how many other eyes he'd shot his load into. Must lose track, after awhile; LaFratta's reputation was well known. "You can go on in," he allowed at last, jerking his head toward the doorway.

"Gee. Thanks," I said, not quite under my breath, and I could feel his eyes on me as I passed. Lech.

The lobby was a pigpen at feeding time, packed with clustered cops and paramedics, and I twisted through the crowd to find Tony, frowning off to the side. "Looks like an exciting evening," I ventured, never really quite sure how to act around him. I was just out of college, hired to keep the staff awake at night, and he was a guy who'd been working in European hotels for a decade and a half. He nodded now.

"You should have seen it thirty minutes ago." He scowled at the door. "They took away the drunk one, at least. Now is just a few questions for Jules to answer." He glanced at me. "I suppose it will be quiet by the time you take over, Ronnie, but I'll require you to keep the cleaners on top of their duties tonight."

"Okay."

"The restaurant must open tomorrow, on schedule, all sanitized. Yes?"

"Okay." His scowl turned my way now, me realizing belatedly that he probably wanted a stronger reply. "I'll handle it, Tony."

"Mm. See that you do," he sniffed. He'd not been very enthusiastic about hiring me; that had been plain enough when he offered me the job, but when you're a major European hotel chain trying to penetrate the American airport market, you take what you can get. Under the circumstances, my state-college business degree and a little bit of chutzpah had worked for me so far. He nodded toward the front desk. "I am sure Brandon will give you all the information you require to take over."

"I thought Becca was on today."

"She was." He frowned at where one of the cops, a dykey-looking Hispanic woman, had her boots propped on one of his coffee tables. "She is dealing with the police."

"Oh." It was hot in here with all the people, and I could feel the sweat in my armpits already. Goddamn January, with the heaters on full. "I'll get ready, then. Thanks!" Hard to figure, I reflected as I moved toward Brandon, whose look had been more calculating as I retreated: Tony's, or LaFratta's. I sighed my way behind the reception station, grateful that at least the arrival of the po-po had already cleared the bar out. The restaurant wasn't our responsibility, but trying to do my work on the hotel side all night was hard when the drunks at the bar were ogling my cleavage from across the lobby. "All good, Brand-o?" I smiled.

Poor Brandon, still with acne at twenty-four or so. He'd have been cute, otherwise. "Hi, Ronnie." Speaking of cleavage-ogling, his eyes sank straight down into there. I eased my shoulders back a tad, giving him a little post-Hanukkah present, but the poor kid was probably too much of a virgin to notice. "You missed all the fun." He tossed his head toward the dykey cop. "The only question now is whether the cops will demand a drink before they vanish."

I liked Brandon, but I stayed away from him. He smelled like chlorine. "What else is up, babe?"

He smiled, that distant smile a man gives when he's pretty sure you're just flirting with him for pity but wishes you weren't. "Becca can tell you when the police are done with her. I spent the day lining up a company to come unclog the pool." I chuckled; that fucking pool. Half the time it was closed due to balky plumbing, and the other half? It

should

gave been closed due to balky plumbing. "It was not exciting. We're... fifty-six percent full?" He crouched, consulting the computer. "Yeah."

"That's not bad for a weeknight," I reflected. Maybe Tony was right, and the hotel wouldn't be a failure after all.

"Nothing too unusual." He frowned at the screen. "Room 305. They called down twice, bitching about 303."

I arched an eyebrow as I logged myself into the management system. "Party?" Seemed unlikely, on a weeknight. Brandon shrugged.

"I don't know. Becca took the complaint; it's just logged here. I was messing with the pool."

"Okay." I ran my eyes across the room, the cops starting to put their notebooks away. "Whatever. I'll ask her. Head on out, Brand-o."

"Don't need to tell me twice." He smiled that lopsided smile of his and shuffled off. "Night."

"Sleep tight, babe," I purred, throwing a little extra husk into my voice. He was fun. I wondered whether I should set him up with my friend Skanky Marie, who would devour him. Or, better, my other friend Izzy; she was a little less intimidating. He stirred, glancing back like he wanted to tell me something, but by that time the dykey cop was sliding her feet off the coffee table with an audible squeak and Tony was motioning poor Brandon over to clean the streaks off before he went home.

Tony wouldn't tell me when he left. He never did. He just melted away, heading to his house or apartment or, hell, to the supply closet or a vacant room. Nobody knew. But he was an okay boss, anyway. I gave Bec a sympathetic smile as she came back over, a police detective's card dangling from her hand. "Hi, Ronnie."

"Shit, Bec." I sent my gaze around the room to make sure there were no guests around. "Looks like a pain in the ass."

"It's Jules' pain, mostly." She was realizing she had noplace to put the detective's info; her tight skirt couldn't possibly sustain pockets and the poor skinny bitch had no tits at all, so her bra was out. She dealt with it by throwing the card into the wastebasket. "Your pain is fucking 305. They've called twice."

"Yeah, Brandon told me they were whiny bitches."

"I went up, the second time, but you know how guests shut up and act all sweet when they know we're coming." She shrugged her bony shoulders. "They said they were being quiet, so." She suppressed a smile. "A real hottie, the chick in 303."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah. She was in a bathrobe when I got there. No sign of a man, but it's not like I was going to hang around and watch."

"Watch what?"

Her doe eyes opened, impossibly wide like they often were. Becca was gorgeous, in that pixie-ish kind of way. If I were a lesbian, I'd have wanted to smack her around a little during sex, put a little fear into those big eyes. Like I wished DeVaunte would put a little fear into mine. "Brandon didn't tell you what the complaint was about?"

"Said he was in with the pool." I smirked. "Said you would tell me."

She laughed her bell-like laugh. "So 305 was all pissy because 303 was fucking, like, super-loud. Like, headboard-against-the-wall loud." She snapped her fingers. "Oh! And that's not even all of it. 303 had called down earlier, asking for a package of condoms." She giggled.

"What, they didn't bring their own?" I'd not been aware that supplying prophylactics was something Petrotel establishments were supposed to do from their front desks.

"They ran out. Or broke them; I dunno."

"So we're providing cumbags now?"

She shrugged. "It was on the way. I had to go up there anyway, to do daily inspection? I asked Tony about it; he said to go get some from the Grab'n'Save next door, then put them on the room bill at a 300% markup." She nodded down at a plastic bag jammed under the desk. "I bought extra."

I gnawed at my lower lip and thought about that. "That's pretty smart," I finally admitted.

"Yeah. And, like he's always saying, it's about service. 'Five star service, two star pricing.'

"Well," I laughed dryly, "two stars plus 300%, anyway."

She flapped a dismissive hand, then covered a yawn. "I told 303 to quiet down, but 305 was a frowny old lady. Super-ugly. She was probably just jealous." She frowned. "Oh. And Lucy's on the desk tonight instead of Jeff."

I'd noticed the yawn. I glanced over at the cops. "Go. Get out of here. I can deal with it."

"Oh!" Her eyes strayed to the clock. "Right. You sure?"

"I can manage," I reminded her. "It's why I'm a manager." We giggled, the joke already old even though the damn hotel had only been open for a few months, and even before she'd cleared the lobby I was already smiling at a perspiring man with a massive bag and an even bigger gut, looking hopeless because his flights had been delayed all day.

58% full, now. And there was a guy behind him, too.

* * *

I was propping my eyes vaguely open long after midnight, my thumb flickering through my Pixboox feed while Lucy snored openly at Reception. The restaurant at night always depressed me when I looked over there from the concierge station, all its ovens cold and with the nothing but the emergency lighting picking out Jules' empty tables. The cleaning company I'd called in had gotten the blood all cleared up just after midnight, after I'd let it be known I'd give them a good tip out of Tony's petty cash, so now it was ready for the morning crew to come in and kick off the breakfast service in a few hours.

And my mom had thought hotel work would be hard.

I listened to the building humming around me, all systems go: the occasional wheeze of the elevators as the night cleaner trundled around the hallways, the infrequent jarring thunk of the ice machine by the fitness center, the constant underhum of the HVAC. The place almost seemed alive some nights, just sleeping restlessly like the guy I'd finally kicked out of the bar and up to 212 at half past eleven.

I leaned back in the sleek, creaky European office chair and unraveled my neck, my arms high over my head, listening with half an ear as the fountain splashed into its little marble pool in the foyer and the phone at Reception beeped softly again, and again, and again...

I bolted upright, the chair nearly rolling away under my butt as I scrambled to my feet and crossed to Reception. The phone was ringing, and I'd been dozing. Lucy slouched over the counter in a little puddle of drool as I swept the phone off its base. "Front desk," I spat, my tone calm and even as Lucy stirred. "This is Veronica, how can I help you?"

The voice that came floating back into my ear was confident, self-assured, with a hint of a mocking smile behind the words. "Hi!" He sounded like it was midday and he was wide awake. And he sounded distantly familiar. "This is room 303. I was wondering if you could help us out up here?"

"Absolutely, sir." Lucy was blearing up at me now, her mind obviously still tripping through whatever drooly dream she'd been caught up in. "What can I do for you?"

The familiarity of the voice nagged at me, like it belonged to the brother of a friend or something, someone I'd met once or twice in passing. "Well, I was wondering, since your coworker Rebecca was polite enough to help us out with, ah, some condoms earlier this evening? I was hoping you could sort of bring up another box?"

I smiled despite myself, thinking of the plastic bag Becca had jammed under the reception counter. "Oh, well, of course. Just give me a second and I'll send one right up. On your room tab," I added firmly.

"Thanks." It came out as the long, smooth drawl of the truly sexually-satisfied man, something I often heard from DeVaunte but, tragically, never seemed able to give him back. I frowned down at where Lucy sat wiping her mouth, looking dull.

I felt like stretching my legs. "There's a bag full of spooge-balloons under the register. Can you hand it to me? I'm going to go deliver it."

"Bag full of what?" She was digging around in there, heavy-eyed and frowning.

"Condoms. It's a Grab'n'Save bag." She pawed around down there long enough until she eventually found the prize, much like my prom date from long ago, and I took off toward the elevator with the bag swinging against my legs.

The ride up was smooth and slow, the elevator's glass back giving me a nice view of the midnight lobby with Lucy sitting there adjusting her bra. The Back Bay Suites. It had been built in about six fervid months, a compact box of four floors and a mock-chic restaurant. It represented part of the big push by Petrotel to invade the American airport market.

And if that was the push, then Tony was the unlikely spearhead. He was good at his job, but he didn't get Americans. He didn't understand, for example, why we received so many questions asking what fees we charged for our doggie daycare services. "They think Petrotel means, like, a pet hotel," we'd explained a dozen times.

"No! It is the company!" His careful English tended to disintegrate as he grew animated, so he was hard to understand sometimes. "Petrotel! We're a subsidiary of EuroPetrol!"

Subsidiary

had taken us awhile to get, accent-wise. "It's petrol! Not pets!"

But in general the hotel worked okay, even if the indoor pool was balky and the restaurant manager had no idea how to shut off drunks. The elevator dinged, and out I strode into the third-floor hallway, my eyes sweeping automatically to make sure the cleaning crew had gotten the edges of the purple patterned carpeting. I pulled up and finally looked in the bag. "Ah," I said to myself, "Becca got a variety pack." She'd left me three boxes with different spunksacks, and I shrugged as I left the plastic bag on the floor in front of 305. I'd pick it up on my way back down; no way was a guest going to see me pull rubbers out of a Grab'n'Save bag.

I straightened my skirt and made sure my second button was fastened, my tits (as always) threatening the integrity of my blouse. Goddamn things could be a curse sometimes, but I had to admit to myself that it was better to have and not need than to need and not have. I took a breath as I stopped in front of 303, tossing back that one tendril of thick curly hair that always escaped even the heaviest of scrunchies before ringing the doorbell.

The Back Bay Suites was the first hotel I'd ever seen that had doorbells in the rooms.

I heard a guffaw from deep within, and when the door opened the man standing there was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers with Disney characters on them. His eyes found my face, though they hit my tits first; I could hardly blame him, though, since my own peepers were spending an unprofessional amount of time on his sparse chest hair and the mildly curved gut beneath before they took in his face.

And stopped dead.

"I've got your condoms, sir," I blurted, shocked. I held out the three boxes in my cupped palms, knowing I was blushing furiously. "Ribbed, lubricated, or, uh, flavored."

He smiled, that crafty smile the cat had with his mouthful of canary, a Cheshire cat grin, and a voice floated out from the gloom behind him. "Ooh! Get the ribbed, Brett." It was a mocking voice, tinged with coquettish laughter, and when I glanced past the man's topless shoulder I caught sight of a woman, quite casually naked, peering out of the bathroom with a flushed face and a crazy look in her eyes. "Sounds like fun." The smells of sweat and skin rolled out of the room.

"Whatever you say, Danielle." The man plucked the box from my hand, and I found that my eyes were riveted to the floor, to his bare feet and his hairy legs. I cleared my throat.

"I'll just add that to your room tab, sir," I went on, my voice a low mutter. "Have a nice night."

"We will. Thank you!" The woman's laughter followed me as I started back toward the elevator, not forgetting to pick up the bag from in front of 305, my mind racing back to my graduation day from high school almost six years ago. The administrators up by the podium, all their families sitting under a big awning in North Adams red and gold...

The vice-principal had been Mr Brett Bourne, and now I'd just handed him a box of ribbed jizzbags at a grossly unethical markup. And the nude woman he was planning on using them on had, very emphatically,

not

been Mrs Bourne.

* * *

I'd recovered a bit by the time he came down the next morning at the tail-end of the morning checkout rush, just before the last airport shuttle pulled out. Lucy and I plunged through the credit card payments and the room clearance checklists with those grimly tired end-of-shift smiles Tony was always whining about while the breakfast crowd began to shrink across the lobby.