Dwelling by Thomas S. Flowers Read Free Book Online

to God somehow she was just messing with him. She smiled back, flicking a mile high stack of ash into a motel foam cup. Jake blinked. The booze was wearing off and the woman was losing her appeal. Not bad for a bar called The Cockeyed Seagull. She’s no Malin Akerman. No Mila Kunis or Bar Refaeli. Hell, she ain’t even a close second to Scarlett Johansson. But not bad for a weeknight in some piss hole. Not bad. Not bad at all. And she was a good distraction.
    Yes, the stranger at the bar may have looked a little thinner with a few burning drinks down the hatch, but Jake had seen worse with sober eyes, and at the very least, she had filled the void of silence. For this failed and miserable preacher, to ask for anything more would be presumptuous.
    Jake watched her in silence for a moment longer. He admired her sandy, near red hair that floated around her bare shoulders. Her skin, despite the sweat, looked tender with a few small pimples around her inner thigh, which Jake could still see as clear as day. He couldn’t remember her eye color, but from where he stood they looked brown. Her hips were wide and inviting. Her pubic hair was darker than on top. Her vagina looked swollen and pink. He could feel himself getting hard again. Looking at her, he imagined going down on her. He imagined taking her from behind, imagined his thighs slapping against her voluminous bottom. He could picture the ripples spreading up to her lower back. He could imagine her screaming. He could imagine grunting, thrusting, pounding.
    “What?” asked the woman, noticing his sudden renewed interest. “Ready for round two, big boy?” she smiled, opening her legs further. She massaged herself.
    For moment, Jake nearly unzipped his fly, but thought better of it. Quit now. Walk away before this becomes a thing. You gave in already once—twice. Third time is not the charm. “No,” he finally said. “I need to get going. Room is rented for the night. Feel free to stay, if you want. Check out is around noon, I think.” He moved toward the door. His back turned to the girl. In another place and time she might be worth knowing.
    “Got a hot sermon to get ready for, Padre? Maybe I’ll come and check it out.”
    Guess not . Jake ignored her and opened the door. The humidity hit him like a wave. “You can keep the smokes,” he said over his shoulder.
    “Gee, thanks,” the woman scoffed.
    Jake disappeared into the swampy Houston night.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 6
     
     
    LEARNING TO WALK
     
    Johnathan
     
    The hardest trick with walking on a prosthetic was learning how to balance. The day the VA doc strapped Johnny-Boy in one of those nice Genium poly-silicon legs, he’d struggled like some dopey eyed toddler desperately yearning toward mama’s open arms. It had been nearly seven months since he had to relearn how to walk , starting out in slow painful limps braced against balancing beams gymnasts used. His above-knee prosthetic pinched the hell out of his skin, the gnarled paint-by-number flesh. And it had also been nearly a year since the attack that put him in the prosthetic, a year since the rocket-propelled-grenade and the crater sized hole through his Humvee and the chunk of leg of which the docs at the Green Zone eventually had to amputate.
    But at least he lived. Ricky had not been so lucky. And as Johnathan hobbled into the kitchen to join his bride and step daughter for a late morning breakfast, thoughts of his lost friend were not far from mind.
    Bright sunbeams bore in between the blinds of the kitchen window. Johnathan slumped down in one of the oak chairs directly across from Tabitha, Karen’s little girl, now his little girl too. His new family. Johnathan and Karen had gotten hitched before his enlistment in a fast and furious wedding ceremony which consisted of her, him, and Tabitha, and the Justice of the Peace.
    God bless her. She had stuck with him through the hell of basic, assignment, and the eventual