Chapter 12
John
John fidgeted with the pack of cigarettes in front of him. He wanted to smoke so fucking badly but he was overdue for sleep as it was; the last thing his body needed was nicotine.
Daniel’s list lay in front of him. After her most recent attempt to burn Castle by the Sea down around their ears, this time by deliberately fraying a TV cord Elkin suggested she write down a list of things that they could get to keep her entertained. She’d slid her response through the postal slot this morning.
Things I want by Daniel Schwartz
1) Puppy
2) Pipe organ
3) Marijuana. Either Death Star or Purple Kush is okay.
4) Vape pen. Or Bong. Or rolling papers and a deck of post- it notes.
5) Unicorn
6) Dick. Preferably with a man attached. I’m sick of using my hands like an ape. And no, not from any of you. Seb while handsome and nice is taken, you have dead eyes and Colt’s what? Fifty?
7) Salad
Side note: Literally nothing makes me happier than annoying you and since it’s free I’m just going to keep doing it no matter what you give me. Just thought you should know. Dani.
The firm butt of a cigarette had wedged itself between his lips without him even registering it. He took it out, squinted at Daniel then put it back in. Fuck it. He’d quit once the job was over. Buy a hundred thousand bucks worth of patches. She was all curled up on the couch still wearing the leotard and legwarmers she’d put on at four in the morning when she put on stupid aerobics DVD. You could see her nipples straining through the thin black cotton. John’s cock throbbed and he dragged so hard on his smoke the entire thing almost turned to ash.
He was grinding out the butt when Colt burst in his wetsuit pulled down around his hips. He waved a hand through the air and glaring at him. “Jesus, Blackwood, you’re smoking inside now?”
“Get off my dick, it’s already out. How was the surf?”
“Decent. Tons of people down there now.” Colt shook his shaggy head spraying drops of seawater everywhere like a dog. “How’s the girl?”
John jerked his head toward the monitors.
“Sleeping, nice. Why’s she wearing eighties shit?”
“Because she’s a fucked up hippie who doesn’t understand common sense?”
Colt eyed her nipples. “You’re probably right. Where’s Seb?”
“In bed. Should be up soon.”
“Good, I’m fucking exhausted,” Colt said, yawning to prove it. “Are you gonna let him watch her alone today?”
John hesitated. On the one hand, he really needed some sleep, on the other, the kid’s crush hadn’t gone anywhere. “Not sure, what do you think?”
“I think if Rhodes’ girlfriend could see the way he looks at Daniel she’d drag him out of here by his ball sack and fuck the hundred thousand.”
John huffed out a laugh. “Maybe we should hire her.”
“Be almost worth it to see the look on the kid’s face when she showed up.” Colt walked over to the fridge and pulled out the milk. “I don’t get why he doesn’t just dump her and get it over with. I mean I know they’ve been together eight years but he was deployed most of that time, then he was in New York and now he’s here. I bet if you add it all up it’s like…two actual years.”
John stared at his friend. “You ever wonder why you’re still single?”
“Because I won’t settle for a woman who calls me at three in the morning to tell me what an asshole I am?” Colt threw himself into the seat beside him, John’s milk in one hand, Cheerios in the other. “Enough about Seb’s girl, fill me in, what’s Miss Cuckoo-Bird been up to?”
John watched his friend pour milk directly into his cereal packet with legitimate pain. “Would it kill you to use a bowl?”
“Maybe. Answer my fucking question.”
John shoved Daniel’s list under Colt’s nose. “She put this in with her food order form.”
“She actually made a list? That’s good.”
“Yeah, you might wanna read it before you get excited.”
Colt read, between irritatingly loud chomps of cereal, his expression growing darker with every line.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to get her a pipe organ, do you?” John said when he finished.
Colt glared at the monitors where Daniel was still fast asleep. “Crazy little…I am not fifty.”
He crumpled the paper in his fist. John snatched it back and smoothed it out again. “Asshole. Elkin’s gonna want to see this.”
“Why? She’s just fucking with us. Unless…” Colt raised an eyebrow. “I can get her pot.”
“We’re not getting her pot.”
Colt dropped his spoon on the desk with a loud clatter. “Why the fuck not? I can’t deal with another day of her acting the way she is. You know yesterday she played that Mya CD eight times, even though I begged, actually begged for her to stop?”
John rolled his eyes. Colt still didn’t get that Daniel liked winding him up. “I didn’t make you read the list so you could get pissed off. What do you think?”
“I think she’s batshit and I do not look fucking fifty.”
John scowled. “Can you not make this about you for five seconds? Middlebend are all about meeting Daniel’s needs. Most of this list is bullshit but I think if Elkin saw it she might actually bring in a man for her to…you know.”
Colt’s dark eyes narrowed. “I am not watching that.”
“Don’t think we’ll have a choice,” John said, his guts knotting with images the idea instilled in him.
“No. I fucking refuse. It’s bad enough I have to see her…” He wriggled two fingers in John’s face. “Every day. I’m not watching her fuck some rent boy on top of that.”
“Yeah, but what can we do about it?”
“I tell you what we can do.” Colt picked up the list and tore it in half.
“What the fuck?” John tried to grab the pieces but Colt swiveled away on his office chair, ripping the list into even smaller bits. “You should be thanking me. No list, no rent boy, no problems.”
“And Middlebend not finding out she called you fifty?”
“I didn’t say there weren’t side benefits.” Colt threw the shredded pieces in the bin then dumped soggy cereal on them. “Done.”
“Thanks,” John said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know I wanted Seb to read that.”
“Why? So he can find out Daniel thinks he’s handsome and slobber over her even more?”
“Good point.”
“Don’t know why she likes him,” Colt said absently. “I’m handsome and nice.”
“You told her she was a waste of tits.”
“Only because she kept playing that music!” Colt stared moodily at the monitors. “Bet the kid’s all vanilla in the sack. He’d bore a girl like her to tears.”
John knew better than to respond. Daniel and Seb had chemistry—anyone with a pulse could feel it. They were both young, both good looking, and Seb was as charmed by her boldness as Daniel was by his sincerity. In other circumstances, though John struggled to imagine other circumstances in which an ex-marine from Tennessee and a socialist nightmare from New Zealand met, they’d probably have wound up in bed together within a couple hours. But in this Twilight Zone existence, where they were constantly watching Daniel yet unable to interact with her, Seb’s crush was calcifying, and Colt was becoming as fixated on it as he was Daniel’s ass. He swiped a palm across his forehead feeling the sweat and grease that collected there and wishing, for the millionth time, they’d never taken this stupid gig.
“Hey,” Colt said suddenly, as though struck by the inspiration fairy. “If we met her somewhere else would you hit that?”
“No.”
“What about with me there?”
John rolled his eyes. “Thought you were pissed at her for calling you fifty?”
“She’s just joking. Come on, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t wanna watch me and get it on.”
“Not sure,” he lied. “You know chicks like her aren’t my scene.”
He meant Daniel’s looks but that could easily apply to her sharp tongue and darting brain. He’d never be able to relax enough to touch a girl like Daniel. She was too perceptive; too capable of drawing conclusions he didn’t want to be drawn.
“Yeah you’re right, they’re mine though.” Colt’s smile suggested Daniel was already naked and on her knees in front of him. Who knows, maybe when this is all over I’ll take her out for a drink.”
John didn’t respond. Wherever Daniel was going once Elkin squeezed whatever information she needed out of her, he doubted it was to a bar.
“Oh fuck.” Colt pointed at the monitors where Daniel was sitting up and yawning.
John swore. “She only went down for thirty minutes. It’s gonna be a rough day. Go get Seb up already, he’s slept long enough.”
As Colt left the room John watched Daniel pad toward the kitchen and pull half a dozen boxes of cereal from the pantry. She proceeded to mix Cap’n Crunch, Rice Bubbles, Frosted Flakes, Coco Pops, and Froot Loops, getting as much on the floor as she did her bowl. Seb and Daniel might have chemistry but she and Colt shared a profoundly offensive sloppiness. They were the kind of people who couldn’t enter a room without leaving drawers open and shit everywhere and they had a total disregard for germs or mice or any of the other hazards of treating the world as your own personal compost heap. John kept crunching Cheerios under the wheels of his chair and the sight of that sticky dust made him want to kill something.
Colt reappeared in the doorway. “Kid’s coming. Can you tell her to put some actual clothes on? I don’t want him pitching a tent while I’m sitting beside him.”
“You know she won’t listen.”
Colt blew out a frustrated breath. “This job…I spend half my time being pissed off, and the rest feeling like a pervert.”
“Then don’t look at her ass all the time.”
“The whole point of this job is looking at her ass. I’m contractually obliged to watch a hot chick’s ass.”
“Well at least you don’t go on about it.” John decided it was high time for a smoke; he pulled the carton from his breast pocket and tapped one out.
Colt glared at him. “You better not smoke that in here.”
Seb appeared in doorway shirtless, his sandy hair mussed. “Morning, boss, how are you?”
Ever since the ‘boo-boo incident,’ as Colt had christened it, Seb was prone being over-polite. “Morning, kid, how’d you sleep?”
“Fine, did Ms. Elkin call you back about my tax forms?”
“Nope, dialed four times and no one picked up.”
“Typical,” Daniel said through a mouthful of assorted cereals. “When I get out of here I’m going to send so many dildos to her place of work.”
John groaned as he realized she’d been listening to them the whole time. It was so fucking hard to break the habit of speaking in front of her.
“Schwartz, get off the intercom,” Colt barked.
Daniel assumed a little-girl simper. “Daddy, why are you always so angry?”
Knowing he was seconds away from saying something inappropriate, John pointed at Colt. “Don’t listen to her. Get dressed and get your ass back here.”
He shot Seb a look. “Both of you. Hurry the fuck up.”
Both of them loped off. Colt indignant, Seb wistful. John tucked the smoke between his lips and wished for the million and oneth time they’d never taken this fucking gig.
“Hey, Dead Eyes, can you help me with something?” Daniel asked.
John ignored her, igniting the end of his smoke he took a deep drag, breathing it in with a quiet satisfaction.
John heard a chair being pushed back on the monitors. “Fine, suit yourself,” Daniel said.
“I will,” John muttered, taking another drag. Christ he loved smoking, he was already in mourning for when he’d have to quit again.
Suddenly a throbbing pain stuck in his side like a switchblade. Danger. Warning. Urgent. Without thinking he looked up and saw the magnetically sealed front door snapping shut as a flash of dark hair went shimmering down the steps. His lit cigarette tumbled from his mouth. “Fuck!”
“What’s happening?” Colt called from other room.
“She’s out.” John’s office chair clattered to the floor. “Fuck!”
He stamped on his cigarette and started to run. Daniel’s timing was perfect, he realized as he flung the back door open. Colt and Seb were gone and he’d been stupid, childishly goaded into ignoring her. Too busy indulging a vice to concentrate on his fucking job.
Still, where’s she gonna go dressed like…John swore. The leotard. It looked exactly like a one-piece bathing suit. If she made it to the beach she’d be able to lose herself in the Saturday morning crowd in seconds. His stomach cramped and a vision flashed in front of his eyes; Daniel getting into a red Honda and vanishing. He ran faster, urging his dirty lungs to suck down more air. John knew he could stop the vision from manifesting, he’d done it before. The vision of Daniel stepping into the car didn’t have the brittle sharpness of her floating in black stickiness. It had been glazed which meant it was open to change if he could just move quickly enough. He rounded the corner of the mansion narrowly avoiding a concrete fountain and saw Daniel at the front gate. For a second he rejoiced, sure she’d been trapped but she began pressing at the control box and the wrought iron gate began to creak open.
“Schwartz!” John shouted. “Get back here!”
Daniel turned and grinned at him the sunlight turning her hair the color of molten chocolate. She looked bizarre in the open air, too bright and three-dimensional to be real. “Sorry, Dead Eyes, I choose life.”
She slipped into the gradually expanding gap and began to sprint toward the beach. John chased after her, watching in horror as the gate began to close again. The vision in his head flashed, brighter and sharper than before. If he didn’t get her back she was going to disappear forever.
He sprinted toward the closing gate knowing if it shut too fast he was going to knock himself the fuck out.
“Come on,” he muttered narrowing his eyes. “Come on.”
He made it, but the metal took its due; tearing long red strips from his biceps. John barely felt the cuts, he could see Daniel’s head bobbing in front of him as she ran down the path towards the beach. The vision of her escape evaporated. Her one shot had been delaying the gate, she didn’t have a hope of outpacing him. She was barefoot and in a leotard and besides, figures like hers weren’t made to run fast. He grinned. “Daniel!”
She turned to look at him and her face fell. “Fuck!”
“Stop or I’m gonna tackle you.”
For a moment she hesitated then she flipped him off and kept running down the sandy ravine that led to the beach.
Fine. He’d warned her. John’s legs ate up the ground between them in seconds, he snatched Daniel around her middle and swung her into the air like some parody of romantic affection. “Gotcha,” he snarled tasting blood in the back of his throat.
Daniel didn’t resist, except to say “Boo. Do over. Do over.”
“Not a chance.” John bundled her into his chest like a child, his arms forming bands around her shoulders and legs. It was strange, he thought, carrying three hundred thousand dollars in your arms.
“Well this is intimate Dead Eyes.” Daniel patted his cheek and despite the fact that he was already touching her, it made his skin crawl.
He shook his head forcing her to drop her hand. “The only reason I’m not dragging your ass back to Castle by the Sea like a sack of corn is ‘cos that would be property damage. Now keep still and shut the fuck up.”
Daniel snuggled closer to his chest, filling his nose with the warm cocoa scent of her hair and skin. How the fuck did a woman make herself smell like chocolate? “Fine, just take me home. I think I stepped on a rusty Dr Pepper can and I haven’t had a tetanus booster in ages.”
“What did I just say?”
She traced a finger and thumb against her lips then mimed throwing away a key.
As they trekked back to the house John began to regret telling her to shut up. Without her near constant chatter he was free to pay attention to…other things. Like the way her hair felt against his neck and the fact that the near constant ache in his stomach had vanished in her presence. He’d carried the uneasy burden for so long, a year in fact, and its absence was like being born again.
Why her? He wondered staring down at Daniel’s shiny brown scalp. She’s the cause of all this shit, she’s an actual burden. Why would anything about her make me feel better?
A group of college looking surfers passed them on the sandy path back to Castle by the Sea, nudging one another and smiling approvingly at him. They stopped as soon as they saw the look on his face but it didn’t prevent the well-oiled cogs in his brain from turning.
He pictured Daniel tied to a table, her leotard torn so that her tits and pussy were exposed. He saw the surfers standing around her, cocks in their hands, arguing about who was going to go first. He saw himself counting notes, telling them to hurry up…
Daniel shifted in his arms and he caught another flash of her chocolate scent, craving and disgust blending with equal ferocity inside him. When he was sixteen he’d read Apt Pupil by Stephen King, a novel about an amoral and sexually sadistic teenager. Reading about his exploits had tapped into something deep inside him, something he’d been trying to deny for years. From the moment he closed the book he’d wished he’d never read it, yet he continued to read it almost weekly for a year. He’d wanted to become so familiar with the words they could have no power over him, instead he’d wound up committing almost every line of the novel to memory. He’d despised and admired how well written it was, hated that something as impotent as words strung together to form a story could make him feel so sick and helpless and horny. That was exactly how he felt about Daniel.
He’d wished they’d never met but now they had he couldn’t stop thoughts of her from whirring through his mind. In his most popular fantasies she was tied down for days on end, waiting for him. Getting fucked day in and day out until she got wet at the sound of his footsteps coming toward her door. He never bothered with foreplay, never bothered to make her finish just climbed on, got off, then got off her, leaving her so frustrated she cried.
“You wanna come?” he’d ask eventually. “What would you do for it?”
“Anything,” she said, fat tears running down her cheeks.
He put a collar on her, a heavy steel brace, and led her on her hands and knees to a room full of faceless friends and colleagues.
“Give it up for them. If they like you…And if they give me enough money for you, then I’ll let you come.”
And he’d watch, watch as other men borrowed what he owned, knowing she was his, knowing every drop of pleasure they wrung out of her body belonged to him. When the men were done he ushered them all out and took Daniel, now a sweating, panting, pleading mess from behind, making her come so hard she gushed all over his cock. Then he emptied himself between her legs, proving his ownership over her with his come. If Daniel knew about that fantasy, she’d probably confess whatever Middlebend wanted to know just to get away from him.
They had been fully formed by the time he’d hit puberty and while they’d never sat well with him, case in point Apt Pupil, he’d mostly accepted that they were what got his dick hard. He tried his best to keep them to himself, jerk it to gangbang porn and have three-ways where he could pretend the scenario was something other than what it was. Now after years of valiant effort he’d honed in on a woman he actually had an insane amount of control over. That terrified him. He’d built a wall between his fantasy life and reality for a hundred reasons, all of them good.
“Shit!” John stumbled on a pothole, almost dropping Daniel in the process. He caught her again but not before she rubbed against something he’d have given a year’s pay for her not to feel and of course, because she was Daniel Schwartz, she said something. “Whoa. Do you have a…?”
“No.” He hauled her back onto his chest, his face burning. Christ, he was sick, sick, sexist, and perverted. He could feel her watching him, her gaze like a hot brand against his skin. “Stop looking at me.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Daniel sighed. “You know what, Heathcliff?”
John was so caught up in his own head, he answered. “What?”
“You should really stop giving yourself so much grief about all this.” Daniel sat up in his arms and before John could do anything, she kissed him.