‘It Won’t Grow Back’ by James L. Grant
Cats: Vampire Fiction|So there he was at the party, all dressed up with nobody to bang. Justin knew he looked good, no, looked excellent in his brick-red suit. He’d had it custom-tailored, cut just right to hang off of his muscles and accent his physique. The fabric clung to his chiseled curves, not hiding but accentuating. A body this hard took hours and hours of maintenance, and he wanted to show it off as much as possible. His hundred-dollar haircut was snarled and messy, a stylish kind of do, what all the kids twenty years younger than Justin were wearing. Two handfuls of sticky gel had been applied to his scalp and ruffled with his fingers, and if it was all the rage to look like you’d just gotten out of bed, Justin had no problem. Modern Fashion was a beast so ugly that its face changed every five minutes, and the trick wasn’t in protesting how ugly the beast was, but actually keeping pace and matching it.
Justin was a good-looking guy and this wasn’t by accident. Even if you got rid of the expensive ankle-boots, the slacks and the diamond pinky ring, if you looked at Justin fresh out of the shower with no styling products, he was a damned attractive man. He worked out for 30 hours a week, and the results were evident no matter what he wore – perfectly chiseled abs and pectorals, biceps that flexed without a hint of flab and an ass that could crush tennis balls flat in its crack. Good genetics had given him a classically powerful profile, with a nose that was neither too big, nor too small. It had been busted once (during a volleyball game), and the tiny bend in the bridge lent his face an aggressive, rough-and-tumble cast that made every woman’s thigh hinges oil up a bit. Especially when he told them about the time that he’d broken his nose in a bar brawl, taken a fist to the face from a biker and still managed to stomp the fucker flat. No volleyball for Justin Pirelli, no fucking way. He wasn’t the kind of guy that played volleyball, not Justin, although his tall and muscled frame was the kind that women wanted to imagine diving around bare-chested in the sand.
Aside from the perfectly flawed nose, Justin had a strong chin (cleft, of course), high and powerful cheekbones, and a tan that would have made a professional surfer blush with envy. Add into the mix that he was rich, ran with a dangerous and mysterious crowd, and had enough style to his wardrobe and hair to turn the heads of chicks from a mile away, and you had Justin Pirelli, God amongst men, party animal of the Dallas circuit.
This was one of Tyler’s shindigs. They’d met one another at an expensive topless bar several years before, and the shorter man had immediately taken a liking to Justin. After all, Justin fit right in with Tyler’s world of drug dealing, fast women, and violence. It turned out to be the kind of partnership that benefited both of them immeasurably – Tyler provided the drugs and a place to get crazy, and Justin brought the chicks and cash. Tyler’s house was a little out of the way, but fuck, people; he lived in a fucking mansion way out by Frisco, where there weren’t any neighbors or – more importantly – cops in the dead of a Saturday night.
Just a whole lot of attractive people and more cocaine and high-dollar vodka than the crowd could possibly rip through before morning. Not that that meant anything- Tyler’s parties sometimes lasted until the following afternoon. Justin scoped the room out, and then checked his Rolex. Hell, it was barely midnight – half the strippers wouldn’t even show up for another three hours, and already a crowd was sneaking in, one flashy bastard or pair of jiggling, fake tits at a time.
A swarm of shouts rose above the background techno beats as Justin walked over to the bar, as well as a layer of thin whispers and giggles behind him.
“‘Sup, Just?”
“Whassup, Julio?”
Handslap, melting into a handshake, slowing without stopping. “Man, you gotta meet this bitch I brung up here with me. She wanna meet you.”
“Cool, I gotta get a drink. Later.” Headtoss, strut in the jacket and matching slacks.
“Hey, baby!”
“Kimberly!” Hug, airkiss next to each other’s cheeks, stopping this time with her arms resting lightly on his shoulders and her copious breasts lightly grazing his shirt. She smelled like something expensive, some perfume that clamped around his head like a flowery demon. “How are you tonight, pretty lady?”
She giggled with her lower lip caught in her teeth, and gave him a subtle ass-wiggle with a twitch of her hips. Kim was good at that. He remembered how she’d moved on several occasions before, like a snake between the satin sheets of his bed, sucking and fucking him well into the night and faking orgasms like an Academy Award nominee.
“Feeling fine,” she purred, and stroked her mane of platinum blonde hair back with one hand and a sideways, half-lidded glance. “How’s your week been?”
“Nice,” he said, pulling away a little. Kim followed by leaning forward, and his smile became genuine for a moment. They always followed. “You gonna be here awhile? I gotta meet with someone real quick.”
“Uh huh,” she crooned with another nod, putting on her old Bimbo act. That was just fine by Justin – her airhead persona made him harder than a cold iron I-beam, and when she did it in bed it just about made him blow his own eyeballs out through his cock.
“Okay, cool. Catch you in a little while, babe.” Justin broke eye contact first, his smile fake again, and they parted. He didn’t actually have to meet anyone, hell no, but he wanted a fucking drink, and although Kimberly was one hot piece of ass he’d already taken her home on more than one night. The magic was there, but not as strong. He’d already relegated her to the shelf in his mind labeled “Been There, Fucked That”, and now he would take her home only if another piece of prime babe didn’t appear. A quick scan of the crowd revealed plenty of other women from the same shelf as Kim, but he also spotted a couple of new chicks. A Latino girl in a strapless grey dress stood talking to some other guys, one of who noticed Justin and gave him a friendly nod. He continued walking, unable to shake the feeling that he’d possibly laid that Chiquita some years ago. Still, if enough time had gone by, he could go back for a return visit.
The white-tiled kitchen contained a couple of nodding acquaintances, including Topaz and her new boyfriend. Without acknowledging them, he marched over to a row of bottles and the pair evaporated into another room. Good. The boyfriend, a wiry little fucker who looked like he’d done time, had been giving Justin angry eyes ever since they’d met, but Justin’s reputation had caught up with the little prick not long after. He snatched up a plastic cup and poured two fingers of Monopolowa. I fucked your woman in the ass repeatedly, he thought with a smirk, and she loved it. She couldn’t get enough of that action. You came along way after I’d tossed her out the door like a used Kleenex, and now you’re pissy because she’s sobbed some tales to you of what a bastard I am. Fuck you, pal. I’ve seen the looks Topaz has sneaked at me more than once, sometimes with you in the room, and all she’s thinking about is my cock in her thirsty butt, and if you ever step up to me I’ll fucking end you.
He could do it, too. Justin had lucked out one night when a really huge, hulking biker named Kurt had polished off a little bit too much bourbon and gotten shitty. When the big motherfucker had stepped to Justin and splashed him in the face with a drink (ruining a goddamned International Male crew-neck, let’s be honest, it hadn’t just been the disrespect to Justin, it had also been the damage to his shirt that had pissed the shorter man off), the biker had met the ass end of a glass vodka bottle so hard that it had shattered and slashed the slob’s face open. Word of that kind of shit got around. Now when other men stepped up, Justin’s reputation had already put the fear of God into them, and it didn’t take much to slap the fight out of any little son of a bitch who got his ass in a knot.
The kickboxing lessons hadn’t hurt, either.
He sipped the vodka, posing against the countertop like he hadn’t a care in the world. A couple of fine bitches nearby took note, and he smiled to himself. It was gonna be a good night.
At one, Trish walked in with the woman. Justin perked up as they entered and the coke fiends in the room squabbled over to the new arrivals, flapping hands and making chicken noises of greeting.
She caught his eye like a flashing neon light. Tall, for one thing; this new chick was almost as tall as Justin, and it was all leg. She wore a black leather catsuit, the sleeveless kind that secured the top around the back of her neck. Chin-length, coppery hair hung straight as a knife blade, and her skin was almost milk-white, with a smattering of freckles along the top of her exposed shoulders. It was her eyes that made the best impression on Justin- two gorgeous green orbs rimmed in thick kohl, sparkling bright and hot like two baked emeralds. Cute face, no doubt about it, but those eyes did the trick. She didn’t flap her hands or make chicken noises either- everyone she met got a prim handshake and a tiny twist of a smile. Tough bitch, from her posture. Justin sat on the couch and knew that he wanted to take her home and fire his load all over her petite chest, grab her by the hair and take her from behind.
She was the woman of the party, no doubt about it.
Trish led the newcomer over and Justin stood up fluidly. Chicks dug that kind of corny shit.
“Oh my God, it’s soamazingtoseeyou!” Trish blurted out and squealed, wrapping him in one of her demented hugs. He looked at the new girl over Trish’s shoulder, and rolled his eyes as if to say What can you do, huh?
“How are ya, Trish?” he asked, and backed away a little.
“Ohmygod, I found the best goddamned blow earlier tonight,” the short brunette blurted, still flapping her hands. “There’s this guy, name’s Donnie…”
“Donnie G.? Little Mexican fucker about yea tall?” he asked, indicating a height around Trish’s nose.
“I knew you were a friend of his!” Trish laughed so hard she snorted, rocking at the waist with completely bloodshot eyes of mirth. She was obviously amped like nobody’s business. “He has the most amazing shit ever! Have you done it?”
Justin pretended to examine his fingernails. “Who do you think sold it to him?” he asked nonchalantly.
“What? No fucking way!”
“Yep,” he said, cool as a cucumber, but when he looked up the redhead was gone. “Hey, where’d your friend get off to?”
“What?” Trish looked around like a rabbit, fast and furious twitches of her neck, and then melodramatically struck a pose with her hands on her hips. “Well, fuck, I wanted you to meet Shawna. She just started dancing at Cabaret. Hold on one second,” she said, clasping one of Justin’s hands in her own. “Don’t leave, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, carefully untangling his fingers from hers.
“Promise? Okay, I’ll be back” Trish bubbled, and then ran off to find her missing chum.
Justin waited about five minutes, and then checked his watch. Fuck this. He wanted a rail.
Three sharp raps at the door jostled him, and he nearly spilled the coke all over the floor. A trail of fire burned up his left nostril, and he checked the mirror for any telltale halos.
“Occupied,” he called out, and was answered by a female giggle. The doorknob rattled, so he covered his mirror with a dry hand-towel. Kimberly stepped in the moment he opened the door, her eyes locked in his, and shut it firmly behind her.
“Now it’s occupied,” she purred, and put her arms around his neck. He backed away with a slightly annoyed expression.
“Hold it. Not so fast, Kim.”
She gave him a hurt look that didn’t go very far into her eyes, and dropped her hands to his waist.
“Why don’t you ever call me?” she asked, cocking her head. God, she had a face like a high-budget porn star, big plump lips that almost looked swollen and eyes bigger than satellite dishes.
“You know how it is. I get busy, I make my living, you know.” She looked even more hurt, and he didn’t want to start a ruckus here at the party. Not yet, anyway – drama was best saved for when everyone was good and wasted, around five in the morning or so. Justin removed the washcloth to reveal a pocket-sized mirror, razorblade and two thin lines of crushed white powder, and Kim’s eyes snapped to it like a kid who’d spied a particularly cool toy. “You wanna hit it?” he asked, and held out a thin chrome tube to her.
“Come to mama,” she murmured, all disappointment vanishing. She plucked the snooter from his hand with a ninja-like movement.
Ten minutes later he walked out of the bathroom, cool as a cucumber, with his dick still turgid. Kim would probably stay in there for a good half an hour, polishing off the last two lines to get the taste of his cum out of the back of her throat. Nobody else needed to know that he’d gotten some work done on his root, however.
He wandered to the kitchen, still horny as fuck, and replenished the cup of vodka. The cap was almost back on when he heard Trish’s voice in a side hallway, audible above the din of many more partygoers and the thumping bass beat of the stereo. He sauntered to the hall, invisible to anyone around the corner, and leaned back to eavesdrop.
“…you wanna go, I’ll take you home,” Trish was burbling in her regular tweaker voice. “I just thought it would help for you to, like, get out of the house and meet people and stuff.”
“Hey, I appreciate the offer, but you’re fucking amped and I can’t drive. It’s not so bad here. Your friends are interesting and stuff, in sort of a brain-dead way.” Her voice was smoky and clear, low for a woman without being masculine and no hint of an accent.
“Don’t be like that, Shawn. You need to make some friends, get away from that old crowd.”
Shawna snorted. “Yeah, I guess.” Tough bitch.
“C’mon, lemme go introduce you to my friend Justin. He’s a great guy, lots of fun to talk to.”
“The dick in the red suit? Please. After Brian, his kind of crap is the last thing I need.” Oho, he’d apparently made an impression, and he smirked while sipping the vodka.
“What you talkin’ about? He didn’t even get a chance to say hello to you.”
“A prick is a prick, Trish me girl. I’ve met his kind before.” Hey. “He’s got money and drugs and all the dumb chickys want to thump on his knob, so he thinks his shit doesn’t stink.” Hey. That was uncalled for. True, but uncalled for.
“At least give him a chance to talk to you?”
“I don’t think so. Why are you trying to hook me up so quick after Brian, anyway?” Aha! Rebound action.
“I’m tired of hearin’ about him,” Trish chuckled. “You two split, it was nasty, now it’s time to get you back out there and in the game.”
“You know what he did. You know why I can’t just turn my back on it,”
Shawna intoned with a voice that was as serious as an embolism. “Fucker stole my heart, and won’t give it back.”
“Don’t start, not here, babe. Please, let’s get you a drink.” The two of them rounded the corner and there he was, leaning against the wall and grinning.
“Justin!” Trish turned and grabbed Shawna by the arm, a look of delight on her face. “This is who I wanted you to…”
“How long have you been listening?” The redhead’s eyes were cold and sharp, and her face was stiff with anger. Justin put on his best ladykiller smile, backed away with a little cock of his head, and held his hands up at about chest level.
“Only a couple seconds. Wasn’t trying to spy or anything, you two sounded like you were having a personal conversation.” His perfectly veneered teeth came out in his best boyish grin, and he proffered a hand to Shawna. “Name’s Justin Pirelli.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied coldly, ignoring his hand. “You’re a damned liar, Mister Pirelli.” Then she turned on her heel and stalked away. Justin’s eyes were glued to the freckles on her back, and his cock twitched in his slacks.
“What was that about?” Trish asked, eyes wide. “You know her already or something?”
“Not yet,” he mumbled, and took another sip of his drink. He was gonna fuck the living daylights out of Shawna before the sun came up, and he knew that for a fact. The ones that played hard to get were always better in bed.
The party raged on. More people showed up, and a whole lot of reckless substance abuse and spontaneous sexual acts burst forth. A fight erupted between two drunken homeboys, and Justin watched as the perpetrators were thrown out. Sometime around four in the morning an off-work stripper named Elaine and one of her busty co-workers got busy on a couch for the crowd to hoot and holler at, licking, poking, and stroking while digital cameras flashed and surrounding males gave each other high-fives.
Justin kept his eyes on Shawna. The tight leather skin of her catsuit kept him glancing across the room, stealing moments where he traced the sweet curves of her body with his eyes. She was a looker, all right. Even surrounded by women whose jobs were to look lusty, the newcomer had a hard, lethal tone to her muscles and a manner to her movements that spoke of one steely woman. The kind that would fight you off even when she really wanted a deep dicking, and knew how to play rough.
Trish and the redhead started drinking late, and he smiled when Shawna grabbed a cup and filled it with bourbon (neat) across the room. Yeah, go ahead, chick. Get a little bit loose. Take down that brick wall and let me pet the soft kitten inside. Women like that were all the same. Under the fierce facade of Ice Queen would be the reason for it, some injured girlie who was fighting the world off, but all she really wanted was for someone to understand her petty little tragedies. All Justin had to do was get sincere, show her that he understood, and wham! He’d be in the sack with her, tying her down and taking her like a goddamned bull in heat.
So he waited, and made jokes and small talk with the poseurs in the room, did a little more coke and brushed off a few women. The sky slowly began to lighten, and as always happened around daybreak at Tyler’s parties, the crowd began to separate into two distinct tribes: Those who went home, and those willing to stay high all day.
Trish and a couple other women (several of them already shelf material) went into a bedroom to talk, but Shawna was not among them. He caught a glimpse of black leather as it went out the back door to Tyler’s patio, and Justin saw his chance.
She was in one of the wrought iron chairs, smoking a long black cigarette. Justin shut the door and sat next to her as she eyeballed him the whole way.
“What the fuck do you want?” she growled as his ass hit the metal seat of the chair next to hers. Her words lacked the earlier intensity she’d shown. He supposed the bourbon had helped.
“Look,” he said placidly, keeping his eyes on his feet and his voice low. “I don’t know what I said or did earlier to piss you off, but somehow we started on the wrong foot.”
“You lied,” she said through teeth clamped on the cigarette. “When Trish asked you how long you’d been there, you lied to me. You’d been listening for a while.”
He leaned back in the chair and affected an air of chagrin as he pulled out his own pack of smokes. Justin didn’t partake much, but nothing put other smokers at ease like lighting up when they did.
“Okay, yeah, I was listening,” he admitted. “I’m sorry I fibbed. It sounded like I’d overheard something I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t want to butt in.”
“That didn’t stop you from eavesdropping,” she said, and were her words a little less vehement? By golly, they certainly were. She probably wasn’t used to guys apologizing when she caught them out. He looked up, and she was watching him, definitely less angry. He faked the most sheepish grin he could, and shrugged.
“I’m sorry. You said something about some guy you broke up with, and, well…” He dropped his eyes again and sighed dramatically. “I just don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“You.”
“What about me don’t you ‘get’, Mister Man?” she smirked, and that was a good sign. If you could make a woman smile even a little, for any reason, you were doing well. He snicked the lighter and sucked a lungful of carcinogens.
“I’ve been watching you all night. Can’t seem to stop. You’re one tough chick, that’s obvious.” He tapped ash on the patio and smudged it with the toe of his boot. “I mean, the way you walk says ‘don’t fuck with me’ so loud you might as well be yelling it.”
She chuckled, and nodded, her eyes firmly glued to the arm of her chair.
“You’re observant. Very nice.”
“So when I heard you say that some dude wrecked your heart,” he continued, “I was a little bit surprised.”
She laughed at that one, a real musical, throaty cackle that threw her head back. He smiled, and Shawna fanned herself with one hand as the outburst slowly died. Justin could smell perfume on her, not the cloying shit that the strippers inside were wearing, but something closer to animal musk.
“Oh, man,” she finally snickered. “Wrecked my heart? No.” She gave him another look this time, one with very little anger in it. “Brian stole my heart. Those were my words. My heart, as you overheard, is missing. It’s with someone else, and he won’t give it back.”
“Was this guy so fucking great that a tough chick like you let him steal your heart?” he asked, making sure that his voice sounded like it was on the verge of a chuckle. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who’s easily taken with a guy.”
“Oh, he’s a badass,” Shawna muttered, looking at the ground. “Big bad motherfucker, that’s what he is. But yeah, I let him get too close, and he took advantage of me.” She tossed the spent butt of her cigarette into the bushes by the house, and stretched her arms over her head. Goddamn, her tits weren’t big, but they were sure fucking nice to look at in all that tight leather. Her stomach was flat too, Jesus, flat as a pancake.
“You wanna talk about it any?” he asked, and she smiled.
“Not really. Not a lot to tell. I just have a heart to find.”
“Why not just let it grow back?” he asked, and allowed his grin to get a little more rakish. He was a fucking master of different smiles, from those that intimidated to those that made women’s hidden places get hot.
“What?” She looked at him as if he’d spoken in Swahili.
“Have you heard that old fairy tale? The princess who wanted the moon?”
“Wh… what the hell are you talking about?” she blurted out, smiling in a confused kind of way.
“A fairy tale. The old story about the Princess who wanted the Moon?”
“I don’t think I’ve heard that one,” she said, and now he had her interest, oh fuck yes, she was really watching him now. He’d caught her. Tough bitches always fell for the really sappy shit. He’d have her back at his place by noon, and there was a camera, fully loaded with film, that was going to capture her naked ass just the second he could.
“Once upon a time,” he said after a pull on the cig, “There was a Princess who got really, really sick. She was lying in bed, really fuckin’ close to death’s door. Her father, the King, was worried as hell. I mean, it’s his only daughter, she’s all sick, and there’s not a lot he can do other than send in the doctors. Finally, one night, he goes in to kiss his daughter goodnight, and he tells her he’ll give her anything she wants as long as she promises to get better. His daughter looks up at Dad and says:
“‘I want the moon.’”
Justin watched the redhead as he spoke, noted that she seemed genuinely interested in this fucking corny kid’s story. Once again, tough bitch goes down in the first round with a few well-placed strikes. He couldn’t wait to bone this one.
“The King thinks for a bit,” he continued, “and then goes down to the royal Silversmith. Tells the guy what he wants, and the Silversmith says ‘No problemo, Senor King.’ Starts working right away, makes a perfect little medallion. The king gets it and looks at it, and it’s a beaut. Perfect round, shiny silver pendant the size of a quarter, looks just like someone reached into the fuckin’ sky and stole the moon. He gives it to his Princess, and she gets all happy, because Daddy gave her the moon.
“Sure enough, the Princess starts getting better, and the King suddenly realizes one day, holy fuck, she’s gonna see the moon in the sky and Daddy’s gonna catch hell. So he calls together his counselors, and they all start working on plans of how to keep the Princess from seeing the moon. They’re all stupid plans – putting giant black curtains over the entire kingdom every night, painting the Princess’s windows black, that kind of shit. They realize their own stupidity, and the wisest counselor the King’s got comes up with the final plan: Just wait and see. Wing it. See what the Princess says, and play along.”
Shawna was really looking at him now, totally caught up in his words. Justin was good at telling these kinds of stories, and he’d collected tons of them over the years. The old axiom stated that there was no knowledge that was not power, and he had plenty of power to use when convincing a piece of ass to get naked.
“So the Princess gets better, and the first night that she’s up and about is a full moon. The King goes up to her bedroom, finds his daughter staring out the window at the night sky with a perfect smile on her face, and the pendant in her hands.
“‘What are you looking at, daughter?’ he asks.
“‘The moon,’ his little girl says back.
“‘Isn’t that the moon around your neck?’”
“‘Yes,’ the Princess replies, ‘but the moon grew back.’ The King doesn’t get it, so he sits down and asks his little girl to explain it to him. ‘Father, doesn’t a lost tooth from your mouth grow back?’ The King agrees that they do. ‘And doesn’t a rose trimmed from the hedge grow back?’ Yeah, the King has to give her that one. ‘So the moon grew back too, after you plucked it from the sky,’ she says and gives the King a big old hug.”
Justin smiled at Shawna, who had an intent grin on her face now. Yeah, this chick was totally his for the night. Any second now she was gonna start giving him signs.
“Peachtree,” she said in a slightly amused voice, like someone who’d discovered where their car keys had fallen behind the sofa. The word sent a powerful shock down his spine, and Justin’s grin melted like a snowflake dumped in a hot bath. He was utterly speechless. “Peachtree,” she repeated, and he didn’t like the predatory look that came over her face when she said it. “Your true name is Justin Peachtree.”
“Ha… how in the fuck…” he stammered, completely flabbergasted.
“Quiet,” she snapped, and he was suddenly unable to speak. His voice just stopped, the words caught in his throat like a big mouthful of lumpy mashed potatoes. “Be silent, Justin Peachtree. I bind you. Be still. I bind you to the iron you sit in, and I bind you to my bidding, Justin Peachtree, Justin Peachtree, Justin Peachtree.”
When she said his name the third time, a blanket of chilled lead came down over his mind. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even fucking blink. Something horrible was going down here, no fucking doubt about it, but he couldn’t figure out what the fuck was up.
Shawna got up from her chair and walked past him. He heard her open the door, mumble something, and then shut it again a minute later. She walked back, walked right up in front of his sitting body, and then crouched on her haunches like a cat. The look on her face terrified him. She looked homicidal.
“So, Justin Peachtree. Nice name you chose to go by, and why is that?” Her eyes drilled into him, and although he felt no new sensations, he had the distinct impression that Shawna was rooting around in his brain. “Ah. So nobody would believe a guy with the last name of Peachtree was a badass, so you changed it to Pirelli? Way to go, Champ.” She flickered her eyes around his again for a few minutes, and then smirked. “Yeah, you’re really fucking bad, mister. You honestly gauge how much of a supreme motherfucker you are by how many women you take to bed?” She shook her head, and the motion made her hair swing back and forth a little bit. Even though she was scaring the holy hell out of him, Justin still thought her hair was the kind he could wrap his fist in while fucking her from behind…
She slapped him. Hard. He couldn’t duck out of the way, couldn’t move, but he certainly felt the crack of that one. His teeth cut into the inside of his cheek, and he tasted blood. The look on her face was cold as she stared into his eyes and balled her hand into a fist, and even though his reflexes were screaming out for him to move, duck, block and retaliate, goddamn it, the sack of potatoes he called a body refused to even twitch. Her knuckles met his nose with brutal force, like a brick thrown at point blank. A flash of white, and pain slammed through him. His eyes teared up, and he felt the warm blood as it rolled down his lips, onto his goddamned expensive silk shirt, but he still couldn’t even blink. All he could do was stare at this fucking cunt who was busy dishing it out on him, and let’s face it folks, he couldn’t even raise a finger. This bitch was beating his ass.
“Damn right,” she growled, and licked a spot of his blood from her knuckle. He noted for the very first time that she had sprouted fangs, Jesus Christ, her canines had turned long like something out of a goddamned Bela Lugosi film. “And you can slap a lid on the rest of the bullshit you’re thinking. I’m going easy on you because you’re bound. If you were able to fight back,” and she moved so fast that Justin didn’t even see her get up, just zip, and she was suddenly face to face with him, almost close enough to give him a kiss, “I’d rip your fucking lungs out of your asshole and make you eat them, Mister Peachtree,” she whispered, and then laughed.
He believed her. He also believed that he was possibly a dead man.
“You really thought you were gonna fuck me, huh?” She stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of him. “Take me home to your sex toys and your camera, nail me so hard and long that you’d spoil me for other men?” She snickered. “Guess again, bitch. You’re pathetic. I wouldn’t fuck you with a rubber strap-on. Your whole life is bullshit, you built an entire persona that you live by and it’s all bullshit. I’m not impressed by any of it, outside of the sheer goddamned balls you had to think I was in your league.”
She stopped pacing, and then sat back down to his left, out of his vision.
“So I’ll tell you what, Mister Fucking Peachtree. You said you wanted to know about Brian, and how he stole my heart? Fine. Here you fucking go.”
Justin didn’t actually care anymore. He didn’t want to know anything else. His eyes burned from the lack of blinking. Blood dripped down his motionless chin, and he wished he had stayed home instead of coming to Tyler’s house. He wished he’d never met Tyler.
“As you probably have some idea, I’m not a human,” she said conversationally, and he heard her snick another cigarette alight. “Not even close. Neither was Brian. We look like you people, but we’re very much different kinds of creatures altogether. He and I are from the same place, and we’ve been trotting around this planet for the last fifteen years. A long relationship to you monkeys, but a fling for our kind. Well, last week we found the guy we’ve been looking for, a guy by the name of Skreigh. A fugitive, you could say, with a bounty on his head. And if you want to get even more specific, it was a bounty on his heart, since many of our kind can look like anything we want to.”
She puffed smoke, and Justin sat like a lump on a log, watching the glow on the horizon get brighter.
“Last week, working together, we cornered that ratfuck Skreigh down in Houston, and with Brian’s help, not direct assistance, I killed that motherfucker dead as a doornail and took his heart. And when I took it, Brian fucking double-crossed me.” Cold, hard rage bled into her voice, and Justin felt like he was sitting next to the most lethal animal on earth. “That whelp, that goddamned germ, named the heart while it was in my fucking hand. Oldest fucking trick in the book, but it works if done right and I fucking fell for it, like some wet-behind-the-ears rookie. He named the heart, bound it to himself, and fled before I even knew my hand was empty.”
She sighed. “So I’ve been poleaxed, completely slain by this turn of events. I thought I could trust his ass, and instead he basically fucks me over and steals the one thing I’ve been working on for fifteen years. That heart could have kept me in the gold with the True Courts for a century, but that sneaky little shit has already claimed the bounty on it, no doubts there. If I kill him it will be judged murder, and I’d be the next bounty on the list. I have no proof at all that the heart was mine. Can’t get close to him, either – fucker’s gonna probably hide out for the next hundred years. So no, Mister Peachtree, my heart’s not just going to grow the fuck back. It’s gone. And now I just have to get calm and figure out what the hell to do next.” Shawna stood up, and tossed something on his chest, a rag of some kind. “Here. Wipe that shit off your face before you go back in. I’m not gonna tell anyone about your real name, you fucking coward. This party blows, and I want to go home. I release you, Justin Peachtree, of all bonds, Justin Peachtree, of all bindings. Justin Peachtree.”
The third time she said it, the blanket of lead lifted. Justin jerked forward in the seat, snapped his head around to stare at the redheaded chick, gasping and shuddering.
“You need…” he choked out.
“I need to get some sleep, and then figure out what my plan is,” she said, turning for the back door.
“…to get laid,” he finished, and wiped the blood from his face.
“Seriously. When was the last time you got some?”
Shawna stopped so suddenly that her leather boots squeaked on the concrete. A look of absolute disbelief flooded her features, and she turned around slowly, like a rotating tank turret, jaw wide open.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, and he felt a scrabbling in his brain.
“You’re still trying.”
“Let’s face it.” He stood on shaky legs, but tried his best Mister Macho pose. “You could do worse than me. I’m good in bed, and right now a couple really hard orgasms would lighten you the fuck up. Get your mind off this dude who fucked you over, make you feel better. I might be a player, and I might be a… liar,” he stammered,
“But you’re hot as hell, and I can do you right. C’mon, take a chance on this.”
She faced him for about fifteen seconds, shaking her head with an amused, mouth agape smirk.
“You are fucking unbelievable.”
“I’m even better than that,” he said with as much brazen charm as he’d ever flexed
in his life, and reached up to touch her hair.
She broke his neck.
* * * * *
(c) James L. Grant, All Rights Reserved
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