Chapter 2: The Favor
The smell of Katrina was still on him.
It clung to his skin, a musky perfume mixed with sweat and sex, buried under the clean scent of the soap he’d used that morning. Damon moved through his small apartment, the memory of her body under his, over his, around him, playing in a heated loop in his mind. His muscles, usually just tools for work, felt different. They carried the ghost of her nails, the ache of her grip. He dressed slowly, pulling on a tight grey t-shirt and his usual work jeans, the denim stiff over thighs that had driven into her for what felt like hours.
His phone buzzed on the counter. Frankie.
My shop. 11. Got a situation that needs your touch. The big touch.
Damon rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his fingers finding the faint scratch marks Katrina had left. A slow smile touched his lips. Then he remembered Frankie’s request from the bar. The ‘business associate.’ He sighed, the good memory fading under the simple, obliging part of his nature. Frankie needed help. He’d said yes.
The Rusty Bolt was quiet in the harsh morning light, just a dark storefront. He walked past it, the two blocks to Katrina’s apartment building. He paused, looking up at her window. The ceiling fan was still. He wondered if she was awake, if she was sore. The thought made his cock stir heavily against his zipper. He shook his head and kept walking.
Frankie’s Auto Shop sat on a corner lot surrounded by chain-link fence. The air outside hummed with the sound of impact wrenches and classic rock bleeding from rusty speakers. Damon ducked under a half-raised Cadillac and pushed through the side door into the garage proper.
The smell was a physical wall: burnt oil, gasoline, ozone from a welder, and the acrid tang of stale coffee. Tools were scattered like metallic confetti across stained concrete. Frankie stood near a workbench, talking to a woman in grease-streaked coveralls.
“Damon! Right on time.” Frankie’s grin was all teeth. He clapped a hand on Damon’s shoulder, steering him forward. “Damon, this is Lexi. Lexi, Damon. The solution to all your problems.”
Lexi looked up from an open toolbox. She was blonde, the kind of blonde that came from a bottle and was growing out dark at the roots. Her coveralls were unzipped to the sternum, revealing a tight black tank top stretched over impressive curves. She had a smudge of grease on one cheekbone. Her eyes, a sharp blue, travelled up Damon’s body with a mechanic’s appraisal—assessing load capacity, torque, horsepower.
“No shit,” she said, her voice a low rasp. She didn’t smile.
“Lexi’s got a transmission problem,” Frankie said, waving a hand toward a classic Mustang on the lift. “A real stubborn one. Needs something… persuasive to loosen it up. I told her you’ve got the biggest tools in the county.”
Lexi wiped her hands on a rag, her eyes never leaving Damon’s chest. “Frankie says you’re good with your hands.”
“I can fix most things,” Damon said, his voice neutral. He felt a familiar tension in the air, a charge he didn’t fully understand but was starting to recognize. It was the same charge from the bar before Katrina led him away. It hummed in the space between him and Lexi.
“This one’s in the back,” Frankie said, his smile turning slick. He gestured toward a door marked ‘OFFICE - PARTS.’ “Private. Less noise. Why don’t you two go take a look? See if you can’t… get it into gear.”
Lexi tossed her rag onto the bench. “Sure. Come on, big guy.”
She led the way, the back of her coveralls swaying. Damon followed, his boots scuffing on the gritty floor. The office was a cluttered cave. Parts catalogues stacked haphazardly on a metal desk. Faded posters of 80s muscle cars and bikini models peeling from the walls. The air was closer here, warmer, smelling of dust and old paper.
Lexi closed the door. The click of the lock was loud and final.
She turned, leaning back against the desk, and crossed her arms. The gesture pushed her tits up in the tank top. “Frankie says you’re the fix-it man. For all kinds of problems.”
“I try to help,” Damon said, standing awkwardly in the middle of the small room. He glanced around. “Where’s the transmission?”
A slow, knowing smirk spread across Lexi’s face. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Figure of speech.” She pushed off the desk and took a step toward him. “Frankie owes me. A lot. He said you were how he was gonna pay. Said you were… generous.”
Damon’s brow furrowed. The naive confusion was genuine. “I don’t have any money. I’m just here to help talk to someone.”
Lexi barked a short, humorless laugh. “Talk. Right.” She was in front of him now, close enough he could smell the coffee on her breath, the grease under her nails. Her eyes dropped to the front of his jeans. The thick, obvious bulge there, even soft, was impossible to hide in the tight denim. “He wasn’t lying about the tools, though.”
She didn’t ask. She just reached out and palmed him through his jeans. Her hand was rough, calloused. Damon jerked, a shock of sensation shooting up his spine.
“Whoa, hey—”
“Shut up,” Lexi said, her voice flat. Her fingers worked his button, his zipper. “This is the job. You help Frankie. I help myself. We’re all square.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes cold and direct. “Unless you want me to tell Frankie you weren’t up for it. That his big, strong friend couldn’t get it up.”
The challenge, the sheer transactional chill of it, warred with the heat of her hand now slipping inside his boxers. His cock, traitorous and simple, began to swell at the touch. It remembered the night before, the friction, the wet heat. It didn’t care about the reason.
“This… this isn’t right,” Damon managed, but his hips pushed forward into her grip.
“It’s just mechanics,” Lexi whispered, her lips close to his. She dropped to her knees on the dusty floor, the concrete hard under her. “Friction. Lubrication. Release.”
With her teeth, she tugged the waistband of his boxers down. His cock sprang free, already half-hard, thick and heavy. Lexi’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, the professional cool faltering. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathed. “That’s a transmission.”
She didn’t tease. She didn’t play. She opened her mouth, wrapped her lips around the head, and took him in. It was a dry, rough, greedy suck. Her tongue was abrasive, her technique all aggressive pressure. She was trying to consume him, to get the job done.
Damon gasped, his hands coming up to hover at his sides, unsure where to put them. He looked down at the top of her head, the dark roots, the blonde hair tied in a messy knot. This wasn’t like Katrina. There was no warmth, no laughter, no hungry admiration. This was a transaction. And his body, stupid and eager, was responding.
His cock thickened, swelling to its full, monstrous size in her mouth. She gagged immediately, pulling back with a wet choke, spit stringing from her lips to his tip. “Fuck,” she coughed, wiping her mouth. “You’re gonna split my throat.”
She didn’t stop. She spit into her palm, wrapped her fist around his shaft, and began to pump. Her grip was tight, her strokes efficient. Up. Down. Twist. She leaned in again, this time just licking and sucking at the head, her other hand roughly fondling his balls. She worked him like a stubborn bolt, applying force, seeking weakness.
“Come on, you big bastard,” she grunted, her voice muffled against his skin. “Frankie said you’re a quick shooter. Do it.”
Humiliation and raw, uncaring pleasure mixed in Damon’s gut. He was being used. Explicitly. And his cock, engulfed in that rough, urgent heat, was surging toward its peak. He couldn’t stop it. His thighs trembled. He braced a hand against the wall, his fingers pressing into the cheap paneling.
Lexi felt the change. The pulsing throb in her hand, the way his balls tightened. She redoubled her efforts, taking him deep again, her throat convulsing around the intrusion. She hammered her fist at the base of his shaft in time with her sucks.
Damon came with a strangled groan, his head hitting the wall. It wasn’t the roaring release of the night before. It was a brutal, mechanical evacuation. Thick ropes of cum shot into Lexi’s mouth. She took it, gulping, some of it spilling from the corners of her lips, dripping onto the floor between her knees. She didn’t let go until he was empty, until he was soft and sensitive in her abrasive grip.
She pulled back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. Then she stood, her knees popping. “Thanks,” she said, the word utterly devoid of meaning. She zipped her coveralls back up, business-like.
Damon stood there, exposed, spent, a slow shame creeping through him. He fumbled to tuck himself away, his fingers clumsy.
“Tell Frankie we’re square,” Lexi said, and walked out of the office, leaving the door swinging open behind her.
The sounds of the garage flooded back in. The radio. The air compressor. Frankie’s laugh from outside.
Damon leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. The smell of sex and dust filled his nose. He thought of Katrina’s warm laugh, the feel of her skin. This had been nothing like that. This had been a job. A greasy, degrading chore.
Frankie appeared in the doorway, his smile wide and false. “All fixed up?”
Damon looked at him, the naive confusion in his eyes finally hardening into something else—a dawning, ugly understanding. He’d been a tool. A lubricated, living tool. He nodded slowly, not trusting his voice.
“Good man,” Frankie said, stepping forward to pat his shoulder again. “Knew I could count on you. Listen, about that other thing, the guy who owes me… tomorrow. I’ll text you the details. Just show up. Your presence is the message, remember?”
Damon just stared at him. The phrase felt filthy now.
He left the garage without another word, the midday sun glaring down on him. He felt coated in grime, inside and out. His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Katrina.
Sore in the best way. Thinking about that fan. Might need you to check the bedframe next. It’s squeaking.
A real smile, painful and yearning, touched his lips. Then it faded. He had a job to do for Frankie tomorrow. A different kind of persuasion. He flexed his hands, the powerful, obedient hands that built things and broke them and got used. He started walking, not sure where he was going, just away from the smell of oil and the taste of a debt he never agreed to owe.