The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,42
sits down with her drink and watches me once more. Every now and then, between sips of her drink, she raises those light blue wolfish eyes of hers and looks at me.
I want her. Not in the way I want Cassie, but I can’t have Cassie. Cassie is too fragile and vulnerable for me to fuck and run, and that’s what it would have to be with Liza back at the house, waiting like the spider she is, spinning her web around me.
I sigh, shift in my seat, and take a sip of my drink, glancing at the woman as I swallow. She smiles, I smile. We’re flirting now, without words, using our bodies to convey a message as old as time.
I’m contemplating whether to go over, when she stands. I think she must be leaving and am about to chalk it up to one of those things, a could-have-been, when she walks over to me and indicates the spare patch of velvet by my side.
“May I?”
“Yes, of course,” I reply.
“Listen,” she says.
Oh, I’m listening alright.
“I don’t normally do this,” she continues. “I don’t pick up random strangers in bars, but I’ve had the worst week of my life, and the alcohol alone isn’t cutting it. Do you want to come back to my place and fuck?”
Her words take me aback. So direct. I try not to be a sexist pig, but sometimes the views of my home nation and my upbringing prove hard to shake. No Russian woman in my village would say such a thing. She’d be branded a slut by all and sundry. Those are double standards, though, because women like sex, often just as much as men do, and why shouldn’t they sometimes be the ones to do the asking?
Then I wonder if Cassie made the first move when she fucked Ted, but that makes me ragey. I don’t like the idea of Cassie getting fucked by anyone but me.
“I’d like nothing more,” I reply, putting Cassie out of my head. This is what I need, random, sweaty sex with a stranger.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. Then I follow her out the door, leaving my drink half finished.
It’s a short walk to her place, before she lets us into a decidedly dingy hallway, where she walks to the end and turns right, before going to the last door. She takes out her key, opens the door, and leads me into a small, depressing space. No wonder she’s had a shitty week. Her place is a dump.
If I had to live here, I’d be permanently depressed.
She’s on me before I can look around further. Alcohol and sugar explode on my lips as she presses her mouth to mine. I get with the program quickly and wrap my arms around her. My hands find their way down past her hips to grab the flesh of her ass. It’s skinnier than my tastes normally like, and her tits are small pressed against my chest, but I don’t care. She’s a warm body, she’s willing, and she’s here.
I take my jacket off and place it over a chair, loosening my tie undoing the top button on my shirt before I grab her again.
We’re kissing and stumbling around her depressingly small front room, when I realize I need to take a leak before we get down to business.
Gently, I push her away from me and smile at the lipstick all over the lower half of her face. “Where’s the bathroom?” I ask.
“Down the hall,” she says, breathing heavily.
I leave her wanting more and head down the small dark hallway. I flick the bathroom light switch and stop in my tracks. On the hallway walls, lit by the light streaming out of the bathroom, are some of the most incredible drawings I’ve ever seen. They are the sort of things you see in graphic novels, and they are brilliant. Unique. There’s a sense of threat in all of them despite their undeniable beauty. This isn’t my world, it’s not something I’m into, but I recognize raw talent when I see it.
The company, Bridge Tech, that I’m currently trying to turn around, have been happy to keep using the same graphics team for the longest time. They don’t use in-house illustrators anymore, they’re too big for that now, but that’s why their games don’t have the same ground-breaking look they used to.
These illustrations are moving, threatening, bold.
I turn on my heel and head back to the woman whose name I don’t even know.
“Where