shingles all over your body.”
“He’s...huh?”
“He’s an asshole.”
“Yeah, she knows how to pick ’em. Shoulda met my last dad.” She slowly looked around at the things on the walls and shelves.
Adam sat on the edge of his bed to put on socks and sneakers. “Oh, that’s right. I heard about your dad. I’m really sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“The fire.”
“Oh, that.” She laughed. “You don’t have to be sorry about that.”
Certain he had misunderstood her, he said, “What?”
“Oops. Shouldn’ta said that, huh?” She smiled poutingly.
“What do you mean, I don’t have to be sorry about that?”
She giggled and pulled him with her as she flopped onto the mattress. Put an arm across his chest, ran fingers through his hair. “C’mon, let’s fuck,” she said.
“I’m not dressed for it.”
“So take ’em off, dammit.” She pulled at his shirt. “Why’d you put ’em on in the first fuckin’ place, anyway?” she asked, her voice suddenly loud and angry.
“Hey, hey, stop it, okay?” He pushed her hands away and sat up. “Are you on drugs, or something?”
“Just a little.” She sat up, threw herself onto Adam and pinned him to the mattress. “Want some?” she asked. Her mouth was on his before he could reply.
Adam’s lips experienced fresh new sensations as they were, for the first time ever, sucked open. His tongue was drawn out hard, its roots straining. Cheeks compressed, gums puckered. His lungs emptied as breath was sucked out of them, and he suspected teeth had shifted in his head. She ground herself against his erection while opening his jeans with her right hand wedged between them.
With a firm push, Adam got her off of him. Pulled his head back to peel their faces apart. The disengagement of their mouths sounded unearthly.
“You want some?” Rain asked.
“Some what?”
“Drugs. You were asking.”
“No, I don’t want any drugs. Don’t you watch Cops? You want to show up on Fox being hog-tied and thrown in the back seat of a patrol car?”
“What makes you think I’d have to be hog-tied?” Rain asked.
“You’re right. They’d probably taser you just to save time.”
“I’ve fucked a few cops. They were all so stuck on themselves. Kept wanting to hear how big their cocks were. Average or less, every one of them.”
“Was this a series of incidents?” Adam asked. “Or did you all meet at once?”
Rain lay on her back, propped up on her elbows, legs wide open. Her face was angular, sculpted. Hard. Her eyes, large and deep brown, were half-closed as they looked around the room. Delicate cheekbones and a perfectly straight nose hinted at a beauty somehow concealed, while the rest of her face remained guarded, closed up. A small cartoon mushroom-cloud tattoo was frozen in mid-explosion from the top of her left nipple.
“What, you mean was it a gangbang?” she asked. “So what if it was, huh?”
Uncomfortable, embarrassed, Adam tried to think of a way to cut down the fallout from his remark. “Then you, uh...you must have been very tired afterwards.”
“I’ll tell you what I was. Not in trouble with my dad, who never found out his little girl had been stripping in a pool hall and selling blow jobs in the storeroom. In exchange for the train, the cops fixed it for me. We all have ways of getting what we want, Mr. Douglas. Mine is sex. What’s yours?”
Adam found himself chuckling. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. My dad...he gets them small parts in his movies. The cops. In exchange for no speeding tickets.”
Rain shrugged a shoulder and cocked her head in a knowing, cynical way. “Hey. Whatever it takes, huh?”
He looked across the room at the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701 clock on top of his dresser. “I should move my butt.” As Adam stood, his jeans dropped. He didn’t even see Rain move. Suddenly on her knees in front of him, she pulled down his boxers. Ignorant of morals and good taste, deeply unconcerned