Berger

 

The room wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be but the service was worse. The old bitch at the desk threw me my keys and told me take the last room at the end of the hall. When I opened the door, I was hit by the smell of lavender air freshener, the same stuff a guy last year had used to cover up the smell of his wife who he’d murdered.

Some cases just don’t leave you. As I lay down on the bed and kicked off my shoes, I remembered the day when I’d turned up to see the husband, a banker named Gerald with eyes as guilty as a shark’s, protest his innocence.

But there was no mistaking that smell, lavender and decomposition. It permeated everything. I had to throw the suit I was wearing in the trash. No matter how much I washed it, it somehow still smelled like decay. I liked that suit as well.

A knock sounded on the door and I yawned as I drifted over to answer it.

“Yup?”

“It’s Candy,” came a squeaky voice.

A short girl stood in the doorway in a silver dress that barely covered her ass. Despite her size, she was perfectly proportioned with slim legs and pert breasts.

“Is that Candy with a C or with a K?” I asked as I stepped aside to let her enter.

“With a great big C O C K,” she purred and licked her lips.

She gave me a little twirl as she walked past me then sat on the edge of the bed. Looking up from beneath her bangs with her big, blue eyes, she slapped the bed and blew me a kiss.

“Bertie said you were traveling through here,” she said.

“Bertie? Oh.. Yeah. You been working for him for long?”

I didn’t know why I was making idle conversation but I sat down beside her and placed my hand on the small of her back.

“I don’t work for him, silly. He works for us.”

“Whatever.”

I lay back on the bed and unzipped my fly.

“Ready to get down to business?” she asked, straddling my thighs.

“Having a real shit day,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”

“I can make your day aaaaall better,” she said. “It’s what I do best.”

She released me from my pants but I wasn’t hard enough yet. Frustrated, she pumped her hand up and down until she was satisfied I was aroused.

“Hmmm… You’re a big boy,” she hummed as she swallowed me up.

I waited to feel something, some sort of relief from my uneasiness, from the weird gnawing numbness that had been chasing me but I felt nothing. My body did what it was supposed to, my cock grew harder as she sucked and I shook beneath her touch but my brain was empty.

Tangling a strand of her gossamer hair around my finger, I imagined I was in bed with Miranda and she was sleeping peacefully on my chest. I thought about her kissing me as I ejaculated. It was the only time I felt anything at all.

The girl lifted her head, coughing and spluttering as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Woah, it’s been a while, eh?”

“Your money’s on the table.”

She took it and left without saying goodbye. I lay back on my bed and for the first time since I left, I turned my phone on. There were ten missed calls from Miranda and three angry messages.

You said you were coming back. Where the hell are you? The kids have been waiting for you all day.

With guilt racking my body, I called her back. She answered on the first ring with the sound of kids’ cartoons playing in the background.

“Frankie? What the hell? Where are you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

I thought about the girl who just left and felt the peculiar urge to cry. What had I done?

“I don’t know where I am,” I said, feeling stupid. “But I have to tell you something.”

“What do you mean you don’t know where you are?”

“Will you listen to me!”

I was crying properly now and couldn’t hide it in my voice.

“Franklin will you tell me what’s going on?”

“I… I don’t know.”

I let out a sob and it sounded so alien to me. No noise like it had escaped my body before.

“Fuck, Miranda I love you so much. I’m an asshole.”

The kids’ cartoons grew quieter as she shut herself in the bedroom.

“What’s going on? You know I love you too.”

There was fear in her voice and I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t deserve her. She needed better. I decided to come right out with it.

“Miranda, I’m so sorry but I’m not coming back.”

“You’re not…”

“I’m not coming back,” I clarified. “I love you too much to be anywhere near you.”

I hung up sobbing. She called back over and over but I was too afraid to answer. Instead I hurled my phone at the wall until it smashed into dozens of pieces.