Sweet Fate Read online

  Ah, fuck.

  I pushed down my sweats and my boxers, just far enough to release my cock from its imprisonment. There was already lube on my nightstand, and I grabbed it now and applied it liberally to the throbbing steel in my hand.

  All the while, my eyes were on her. My ears were tuned to her.

  She was breathing heavily while her hand moved inside her shorts. I couldn’t see the pink flesh of her cunt, couldn’t see if she was still bare or if her lips were glistening with her wetness.

  “Are you wet?” I asked, desperate to know.

  “I’m so wet.”

  The moans in the background increased. “What’s happening in your video? Describe it to me. In detail.”

  She turned her head to look toward the screen, her eyes not quite looking at me. “He’s going down on her. He’s licking her clit, and she’s really into it.”

  I could still taste Audrey’s pussy on my lips. Stroking the length of myself, I imagined I was the one eating her out. That I was the one making her make those sounds. Those sweet, sweet cries as she played with herself, stroking herself toward climax.

  I bloody needed her pants down. I needed to see her.

  “Audrey, be a good girl. Pull down your shorts and let me watch.” The words were out before I could decide if they might cross the line.

  Fortunately, she didn’t bat an eye. Just stripped off her shorts and knickers entirely, tossing them across the bed. Then she spread her legs and moved her screen so that I had a prime view of her gorgeous, pink cunt. Moisture dripped from her entrance. Her clit was swollen and red under her fingers. It was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. Buddy booths couldn’t possibly have been this titillating.

  “Put your laptop where I can see you, too, Dylan,” she said as she strummed across her sensitive bud, her voice thick.

  I set my laptop down immediately, angling the screen so I could see her without turning my head too far.

  “There’s that monster cock,” she said, and I grew even thicker. “What’s going on in your video? Tell me what they’re doing.”

  I’d never turned on a porn of my own. The only woman I wanted to watch was the one filling up my screen.

  So that was the one I described, giving her directions in the guise of details. “She’s alone. She’s playing with herself. One hand is squeezing her clit, and with the other, she’s pulling on her tit.”

  Audrey was such a good girl, such a good, good girl. She lifted the tank she was wearing, exposing her round, pert tits. With one hand, she tugged at the tight bead of one nipple, rolling it between her fingers. Lower, she pinched at her clit, harder until her hips were bucking.

  The strokes of my hand quickened over my cock. “Now she’s putting her fingers inside her. Two of them. She’s so wet. She’s drenched.”

  Again, Audrey followed the action of my imaginary porno. Two fingers disappeared inside her. When she pulled them out again, they were dripping with her juices.

  “Fuck, that’s beautiful.” I sat up so I could really watch her when she did it again. And again. And again.

  I matched my own rhythm to hers, pretended it was her warm hole I was plunging into instead of the palm of my own hand. I was getting close. I could feel my balls pulling up, could feel the tingling in the base of my spine.

  “This isn’t enough. I need—hold on.” Abruptly, Audrey left the screen for a minute. When she returned, she had a purple dildo.

  Jesus.

  It wasn’t even that big, but it was wider than her fingers. Longer, too. She turned the toy on to vibrate and lined it up to her entrance. If she put that in her tight hole, I was done for.

  The truth was, I wanted to be done for.

  “Shove it in, now, Audrey. Show me how good you take your fucking.” My words were ragged and desperate. And when she shoved it in, I nearly exploded right then. “Ah, that’s it. Take it. Put it all the way in. As far as it can go.”

  She pushed it in until it was deep inside her, then pulled it out halfway before driving it back in. Her tempo was fast, her breathing more shallow with each thrust. Her eyes moved back and forth from her pussy, to the screen—to me or the video, I wasn’t sure—but each time I saw them they were more and more glazed over. She was close. As close as I was.

  I increased my own speed as I neared the edge. I was out of control, out of my mind. “Does it fill you as good as I can?” I begged for her to answer. “Does it make you feel as good as I do?”

  “No,” she gasped. “Nothing fills me as good as you do. Nothing.”

  With those words, I erupted. Cum spilled over my hand as I jerked again and again, slower now, determined to pull every last bit of my orgasm from my cock.

  She followed right after, her body spasming with the pleasure of the release. The utter beauty and carnality of the scene urged another wave of my own climax.

  I fell back on the bed and tried to remember how to breathe. And figure out what to say. How did a person comment after such an incredibly erotic experience as this?

  Audrey was the one who tried first. “That was...I mean...I don’t...words.” She sat up and reached for her tablet. “I’m trying to say that was good and thank you and all that, but I can’t seem to remember how to speak right now, so how about we call it a night and I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

  She’d done better conversing than I could have.

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.” The screen went dark when she hung up, but I stared at it for a long time wondering how it was possible that, after all that, I only wanted her more.

  Eight

  “What are you doing? I need you!”

  This was a common way for calls with Audrey to begin, as well as my favorite. Saturday when her image came through FaceTime she was dressed in another jumper-and-jeans outfit, half of her hair hidden inside a newsboy cap. She looked delectable. Good enough to eat.

  I thought she looked good in everything, though. Especially since the night of the buddy booth. It had been four days since we’d played the game. We’d talked every day since without mentioning what we’d done, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Couldn’t stop thinking about her moan as she came and her erotic confession. Nothing fills me as good as you do. Nothing.

  Words exchanged during sexual engagement are not to be trusted. I was old enough to have learned that lesson the hard way. Still, I liked the fantasy of it. Enjoyed the fancy of nothing being as good for Audrey as I could be.

  At my age, it appeared, a man was still capable of dreaming.

  “What’s wrong? Is Jeffrey an asshole?” It was too early for her date to be over. I’d spoken to her while she was getting ready, and she didn’t plan to be home until after ten. It was only six-fifteen. I was ready to be mad on her behalf.

  “Yes, Joffrey is a bad dude. He stood me up.”

  Thank goodness for him that was all he’d done. I’d never been one to endorse violence, but I’d fight barehanded and without hesitation if it were to defend Audrey’s honor in any way. In this case, he was an idiot, but hadn’t sparked my fighting instinct.

  “Another one bites the dust,” I said, perhaps not as conciliatory as I should have. “Now you can cross him off the list and have your evening free to do as you please. A win-win as far as I’m concerned.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down into that pout that taunted me so. “Except I’m the one who bought the tickets to the Jack the Ripper tour, and they weren’t cheap! Come and join me so they don’t go to waste.”

  “I’m afraid I have other plans.”

  She rolled her eyes, as obviously as my son did every time we spoke these days. “No, you don’t. You never have plans. You’re as homebody as they get. The tour doesn’t start for an hour, so you have time to throw some real clothes on and get out here.”

  Real clothes? I glanced down at the outfit I was wearing. They seemed fine to me, but I was wearing running pants and trainers. Guess I was changing before leaving the house.

  And I wa
s leaving the house. Soon, in fact. “I do have plans, thank you very much. Seems you don’t know as much about me as you think.” While I did feel disappointment at not being able to come to her rescue, there was also a sense of satisfaction at not being available. If she ever thought I was waiting around to rush to her aid, now she knew the truth was otherwise.

  The truth was otherwise tonight, anyway. I really didn’t usually get out for much that wasn’t related to work.

  She wasn’t buying it. “What are they?”

  “What are my plans? If you must know, I have a gig tonight.” One of the best things about playing with a band was how impressive it sounded to announce that I had a gig. More impressive than our actual music. We were not an original group in any way, shape, or form.

  I could practically see her eyes go wide. “You do? You didn’t tell me! Forget the Ripper. I’ll come to you. Where are you playing?”

  Oh dear. That was not at all where I’d planned for this to lead.

  I backtracked quickly. “No, you don’t want to come to this. It’s not your type of music. Barely music at all.”

  “I don’t care how good you are. It’s you, and I’ve been dying to see you play! Thrashheads, right?”

  I couldn’t believe she remembered. The only time I’d mentioned it had been in passing. “You don’t want to see us. I promise. It’s going to be a terrible show. Don’t ruin your night.”

  “What time do you go on? What’s the address?”

  “Audrey, I mean it. Go on the Ripper tour by yourself instead. That will be a much better use of your time.”

  Her pout had returned, I could hear it, and I prepared myself for another battle round, but she surprised me with her easy acquiescence. “Fine. If you don’t want me there…”

  I ran my thumb and first finger across my forehead in a pinching motion. “It’s not that I don’t want you there—”

  “You just don’t want me to see you play. I get it. Whatever. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Make sure you text me when you’re home!” I shouted after her, but she’d already ended the call.

  Fantastic.

  I’d hurt her feelings. That hadn’t been the goal. I considered for a moment, calling her back and inviting her after all, but there were reasons why that wasn’t a wise idea. In the end, I deferred to an idiom I lived by—the more you stir a turd, the more it stinks.

  I decided not to stir the pot.

  It was almost two hours later when I heard from her again.

  We had thirty minutes before our show started, and I was tuning my bass. The pub tonight near Regents Park was similar to most of the places we played—cheap, old, and empty. The owner of this particular venue was a cousin of a cousin or some equally far-off relation to the drummer, Russell, and the gig was more of a favor to us than to the pub. They didn’t feature live music, as a rule, so rather than playing on a stage, the tables and benches in one area of the establishment had been stacked in the corner. We were to perform in front of this precarious tower.

  I tuned my bass while Ian and Clancy, our keyboardist, set up their equipment and exchanged digs about the venue. I was doing my best to ignore them, but their sour mood was starting to get under my skin. Why was it we played together, again, if none of us found it any fun anymore? It had been an obligation for so long, I couldn’t remember a time that it had been fun at all.

  “Holy cow! This is fantastic!”

  Oh, God. I knew that enthusiastic voice. It was the last sound I heard before going to bed most nights, the first sound I thought about when I woke up every morning.

  With dread, I turned around to face the naughty little vixen. “Audrey,” I huffed. “I told you not to come.” I was already thinking up excuses to get her out of the place.

  They don’t allow women. They don’t allow women under twenty-five. They don’t allow women who know members of the band.

  Lame excuses, yes. I’d never been very creative on the spot. And yet I was desperate to paint a picture that didn’t include her.

  “I’m glad I didn’t listen,” she said, stepping past the duct tape border on the floor that was meant to distinguish the “stage” from the rest of the pub. “This is, like, a real band, Dylan. With real instruments and real drums.”

  She used two fingers to do a roll on the cymbal. Russell was going to be livid. No one touched his drums but him.

  But I was more concerned about what she’d just said.

  “What do you mean this is like a real band? Of course we’re a real band. What did you think I meant when I said I was in a band?”

  “I don’t know.” She sat down on the drummer’s stool and began thumping the bass drum pedal with her foot. “I guess I pictured more of a bunch of men with microphones and a karaoke machine. Especially when I saw on the map that this place was in the Drunk People Who Missed Camden part of town.”

  Ba dum da. She’d found the drumsticks now, and her rhythm wasn’t that bad.

  Russell’s voice boomed across the pub. “Who’s touching my drums?”

  Good. Maybe he’d scare Audrey off.

  “How did you find out where I was playing?” I asked, still more focused on the how and the why of her being there.

  “Internet. Turns out Thrashheads has a website! A pretty good one, too.”

  I couldn’t help puffing my chest a bit. The website was my doing. “It’s more of a Wordpress account, really, but it does…” She was distracting me from the point. The point being I preferred she wasn’t here. “Look, Audrey. I can’t have you in the audience when I play.”

  “Will I be very distracting?”

  Jesus, she was so adorable sitting behind those drums, her cap tilted on her head, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

  Yes, she would be very distracting. She was very distracting already.

  “Hey—who are you?” Russell peered down at the woman on his stool, and from his expression, I could tell he was fuming.

  “Are you the drummer?” She stood up and handed him his drumsticks. “I’ve never met a real drummer before. Wow. Look at those biceps. Is that from playing?”

  Russell seemed taken aback. “I don’t know. A bit, I s’pose.”

  “That’s hot.” She gave him that glowing smile of hers, and between that and the compliment, he was won over.

  “It is hot, isn’t it?” He sat down and played through some of his riffs. Show off.

  “Nice,” she said.

  Not nice at all. Particularly not nice was the way Russell was looking at her now, like she was the groupie he planned to take home after the set. But she wasn’t.

  Not on my watch.

  “That’s enough now, Audrey. Let’s go outside and hail you a cab.” I put my bass in its stand, but she was right there, ready to pick it back up again.

  “Is this what you look like when you play?” she asked, striking a melodramatic pose. She strummed the strings, shifting to a new position with each sour note. “I bet you really get into it when you’re onstage.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t very flattering to tell her the truth—that I tended to stand in one place, playing through the chords with precision rather than passion. That I likely looked rather lame in the process. That I didn’t remember how to enjoy any of it while it was happening. That I didn’t want her to imagine a show that wasn’t happening.

  “Oh, yeah. Locke really puts on a show,” Ian guffawed.

  Audrey didn’t seem to realize he was being sardonic, or she was protecting me with her response. “Awesome. I can’t wait.” She pulled the bass strap over her head and handed me my instrument, her fingers brushing mine in the exchange.

  I’d forgotten about the power she had over me in real life after only seeing her on screen for the last several weeks. I’d forgotten the way the air vibrated around her, forgotten how she made my skin tingle and my mouth feel dry.

  I’d forgotten how much I utterly liked being in her presence.

  “I’m so g
lad my date bailed on me so I could be here. It’s kismet, you know.”

  There she was with that whole thing again. “I’m beginning to think that word doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

  “Oh, I know what it means. Your hair needs mussing. It’s too perfect.” She reached out to run her hand through the brown flop on the top of my head. My pulse sped up at her touch. “There. Much better.”

  Our eyes locked. There was something familiar about this, about all of this. About her. About me. Something I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

  “Are you going to introduce us to your girl, mate?” Ian asked, bringing me back to the present moment.

  Your girl. She most definitely wasn’t my girl. She was...

  “This is Audrey,” I said simply. “Audrey, this is Thrashheads. Ian. Russell. Clancy. Bloke flirting with the waitress is Dennis. He plays second guitar.”

  A chorus of hellos sounded followed by a weighted silence where each of my bandmates looked from me to Audrey questioningly.

  For Pete’s sake. We knew practically nothing about each other, and now they wanted to know more?

  “Audrey is...she’s…” I didn’t know how to explain Audrey.

  “I’m his niece,” she said, and everyone let out an audible, Ah! Because that made more sense, that she was a relative rather than a friend or a girlfriend. I got it, I truly did. “It’s great to meet you all!”

  She turned her focus back to me. “I’m going to grab a drink and get a seat before the show starts. Break a leg, and all that. Uncle Dylan.” As she often did, she pressed her lips to my cheek.

  I’d forgotten how much those kisses drove me out of my mind. Blissfully out of my mind.

  “She’s a looker,” Russell said. “Mind if I—”

  “No. Don’t even think about it.” There was no way in hell Russell was The One she was looking for.

  “I thought your brother didn’t have any kids,” Ian said. Apparently he knew more about me than I remembered.

  “She’s Ellen’s niece. She’s living here for a while, working at a gallery. I said I’d show her around.” As if I’d bring anyone to a Thrashheads show on purpose.