Chapter 5: Corner Store Quickie
The lock clicked into place with a satisfying finality. Ashanti stood on the sidewalk outside the pharmacy, the keys still warm in her palm, the night air pressing against her skin like a damp cloth. The street was quiet—just the distant hum of traffic and the occasional bark of a dog from somewhere down the block.
She pulled the pack of cigarettes from her hoodie pocket. Empty. Of course it was.
She crumpled the cardboard and tossed it into the gutter, watching it tumble end over end before it disappeared into a storm drain. Her tongue still tasted like artificial cherry and the faint bitterness of Gotherik's mouth. She needed a drink. She needed a smoke. She needed something to scrape the residue of the day off her skin.
The note she'd left for Gotherik sat on the counter inside, scrawled on the back of a receipt: Locked up. Inventory done. Don't forget to order more ibuprofen. —A
Short. Professional. Nothing that could be used against either of them if someone came looking.
She turned and walked south, her boots scuffing against the cracked pavement.
The corner store squatted on the intersection of Ninth and Vermillion like a toad that had given up on being a toad and decided to be a monument to decay instead. Its windows were clouded with grime and old posters—LOTTO, CIGARETTES, NO LOITERING—and the fluorescent light inside buzzed with the frantic energy of a dying insect.
Ashanti pushed through the door. The bell above it didn't jingle so much as wheeze.
The clerk looked up from behind the counter. He was young—maybe twenty-two, twenty-three—with greasy hair that fell across his forehead in strings and a face that had the hollowed-out look of someone who subsisted entirely on energy drinks and spite. His name tag read DERRICK in letters that had been picked at until only the D and the R remained.
"Yo," he said, straightening up. His eyes did a quick inventory of her body—tits, hips, the curve of her thighs in the tight black jeans—and lingered a beat too long. "Ashanti, right? From the pharmacy?"
She didn't answer. She walked past him to the cooler in the back, grabbed a six-pack of cheap beer—the kind that tasted like aluminum and regret—and then doubled back to the counter. She set the beer down. Reached past him to the rack of cigarettes hanging behind the register.
"Newports," she said. "Two packs."
Derrick didn't move. He was leaning on the counter now, one elbow propped up, his chin in his hand. His fingernails were dirty. "You know, I've seen you in here before. You always look pissed off. Like you're about to curse someone out."
"Maybe I am."
"Maybe I like that."
Ashanti's eyes flicked up to meet his. Green and sharp. Flickering with something that wasn't quite light and wasn't quite darkness.
Derrick grinned. His teeth were yellow at the edges, but his mouth was wide and his jaw was sharp. There was something hungry in the way he looked at her—something that had nothing to do with charm and everything to do with the fact that he was young and bored and she was standing close enough that he could smell her perfume.
"You got a boyfriend?" he asked.
"No."
"You got a girlfriend?"
"No."
"So what do you got?"
Ashanti leaned forward, planting both hands on the counter. The movement pushed her tits together, the crop hoodie pulling tight across her chest. Derrick's eyes dropped immediately.
"I got a bad day," she said. "And I got a mouth that's tired of talking."
His Adam's apple bobbed. "So what do you want?"
She held his gaze. Let the silence stretch. Then she reached up, hooked her finger into the collar of his shirt, and pulled him closer.
"You," she said. "Right here."
His breath hitched. "Here? Like... here here?"
"Unless you got somewhere better."
He glanced toward the front windows. The street was empty. The store was empty. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting its sickly glow over the aisles of expired snacks and questionable meat.
"Nah," he said, his voice dropping. "Here's fine."
Ashanti didn't wait for further confirmation. She walked around the counter, her hip brushing against his as she passed, and then she dropped to her knees.
The floor was sticky. She didn't care.
Derrick stared down at her, his eyes wide, his hands hovering at his sides like he didn't know what to do with them. "Shit," he breathed. "You're serious."
"I'm always serious."
She reached for his belt. The leather was cheap and cracked, and the buckle came loose with a metallic click. She pulled his jeans down just enough to free him—his cock was already half-hard, twitching against his thigh, pale and veined and leaking at the tip.
"Been thinking about this for a while," he admitted, his voice shaky. "Every time you come in here, I—"
"Stop talking."
She wrapped her hand around the base of his cock and guided him into her mouth.
The taste hit her immediately—salt and sweat and the faint bitterness of unwashed skin. She ran her tongue along the underside, from root to tip, then took him deeper. His hips jerked. His hand found the back of her head, fingers tangling in her messy bun.
"Oh fuck," he gasped. "Oh fuck, that's—"
She hummed against him, the vibration making his thighs tense. Her free hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently, while her mouth worked up and down his shaft. Her lips stretched around him, saliva pooling at the corners of her mouth and dripping down her chin.
He was leaking already. She could taste it—thick and salty—and she swallowed it down, her throat working around him. His fingers tightened in her hair. His breathing turned ragged.
"Look at me," he said.
She looked up. Her green eyes met his dark ones, and something passed between them—something raw and electric and utterly devoid of pretense.
"You're gonna make me come," he warned.
She pulled off him with a wet pop. His cock glistened in the fluorescent light, slick with her spit.
"Not yet," she said. "I want you inside me first."
She stood, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and turned around. The counter was waist-high and covered in grease-stained receipts and a half-empty cup of coffee that had gone cold hours ago. She swept them aside with her forearm and bent over, her palms flat against the surface.
"Come on," she said. "Before I change my mind."
Derrick didn't need to be told twice. He fumbled with a condom—she heard the foil wrapper tear—and then his hands were on her hips, pulling her jeans down just past her ass. The air was cool against her skin. Her pussy was already wet, already throbbing from the memory of Gotherik's hands shaking and the taste of Derrick's cock in her mouth.
He pushed into her in one slow, steady thrust.
"Fuck," he groaned. "Fuck, you're tight."
She clenched around him in response, and he shuddered.
For a moment, neither of them moved. He was fully inside her, his hips pressed against her ass, his fingers digging into the flesh of her hips. The fluorescent light buzzed. The fridge in the back hummed. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off and then stopped.
Then he started to move.
His thrusts were clumsy at first—too fast, too shallow—and she arched her back, tilting her hips to take him deeper.
"Slow down," she said. "Jesus. You're not jackhammering a sidewalk."
He laughed, breathless. "Sorry. Sorry. You just—fuck."
He found a rhythm. Slow and deep, pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in. The slap of skin against skin echoed in the empty store. Her nails scraped against the counter.
"That's it," she murmured. "Right there."
He reached around her, his fingers finding her clit. The touch was clumsy and unpracticed, but she didn't care. She was already close. She'd been wound up since Hilda stormed through the pharmacy door, since Gotherik's hand had shaken, since she'd spent the whole afternoon pretending she wasn't thinking about the way his cock had felt inside her that morning.
The bell above the door jingled.
Ashanti didn't stop. Neither did Derrick.
A man walked in—middle-aged, balding, wearing a windbreaker that had seen better decades—and froze when he saw them. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Uh—"
"Closed," Ashanti said, not looking at him. "Come back in twenty minutes."
The man turned and walked back out. The bell jingled again.
Derrick laughed, the sound turning into a groan as she clenched around him. "You just—you just told a customer we're closed."
"I'm busy."
He kissed the back of her neck. His fingers pressed harder against her clit, and she moaned, low and guttural.
"I'm gonna come," he said.
"Not yet."
She shoved herself back against him, meeting his thrusts, and he made a sound like he was dying. His hips stuttered. His fingers dug into her hips hard enough to bruise.
"Now," she said. "Come now."
He did.
His cock pulsed inside her, flooding the condom with heat. His whole body stiffened, his breath catching in his throat, and he held himself there, buried to the hilt, until the last shudder passed through him.
Then he slumped forward, his forehead resting against her shoulder blade.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
Ashanti waited a beat. Two. Then she pushed back against him, straightening up.
He staggered back, breathing hard, his softening cock slipping out of her with a wet sound that echoed off the linoleum. The condom was full, sagging against his thigh like an overripe fruit.
"Trash," Ashanti said, gesturing vaguely at the floor.
Derrick blinked at her, still dazed. "What?"
"The condom. Trash. You got a can behind the counter, right?"
He pulled it off with clumsy fingers, tied a knot in it, and tossed it toward a wastebasket in the corner. It missed. He didn't pick it up.
Ashanti pulled her jeans back up, the denim scraping against her damp skin. She could feel her cum starting to seep out of her—not from the condom, but from her own body, her pussy still clenching from the orgasm that had ripped through her right before he finished. It trickled down her inner thigh, warm and thick.
"Newports," she said. "And the beer."
Derrick stared at her. "That's it? That's all you got to say?"
"What else is there?"
He laughed, but it came out wrong—hollow and confused. "I don't know. Maybe 'thanks'? Maybe 'that was fun'? Maybe your fucking phone number?"
Ashanti grabbed the two packs of cigarettes from the rack and set them on the counter next to the six-pack. She pulled a crumpled twenty from her pocket and smoothed it flat.
"Keep the change," she said.
"You're something else, you know that?"
"I know."
The bell above the door jingled again. This time it was a woman—early fifties, floral print dress, sensible shoes—who took one look at the scene and immediately about-faced. The door wheezed shut behind her.
Derrick was still looking at Ashanti like she'd grown a second head. "You're not even gonna pretend that didn't happen?"
"Why would I pretend?"
"I don't know. Most people—"
"I'm not most people."
She pocketed the cigarettes, grabbed the six-pack by its plastic ring, and headed for the door. Her legs felt loose, her cunt still pulsing with the aftershocks of coming. The taste of his cock lingered on her tongue, salty and faintly metallic.
"Hey," Derrick called after her.
She paused, hand on the door.
"You gonna come back?"
Ashanti glanced over her shoulder. Her green eyes caught the fluorescent light, and for a moment they seemed to glow.
"Maybe," she said. "If I feel like it."
The bell wheezed as she stepped out into the night.
The air hit her like a slap. Cool and damp, carrying the smell of rain that hadn't fallen yet. She cracked open one of the beers—the aluminum can sweating against her palm—and took a long drink as she walked.
The beer was shit. Cheap and watery and bitter in all the wrong ways.
She drank it anyway.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She fished it out with her free hand and glanced at the screen.
Jackie: You coming home tonight or what? Logan's making that pasta thing. The one with the weird cheese.
Ashanti typed back with her thumb: On my way.
Jackie: You okay?
Ashanti stared at the question for a long moment. The cursor blinked at her, patient and accusing.
She typed: Fine.
Then she pocketed the phone and kept walking.
She climbed the stairs, the six-pack dangling from her fingers, and pushed through the front door.
The smell hit her first—garlic and tomatoes and something burning. Then the sound of Jackie yelling from the kitchen.
"Logan, I swear to god, if you put that cheese in there—"
"It's called gorgonzola, Jackie, it's a legitimate—"
"It smells like feet!"
James was sprawled on the couch, long legs dangling over the armrest, a book propped open on his chest. He looked up when Ashanti walked in and raised an eyebrow.
"You look like shit," he said.
"Thanks."
"Rough day?"
She set the beer on the coffee table and dropped onto the other end of the couch. Her body ached in ways she didn't want to examine too closely. The ghost of Derrick's fingers was still pressed into her hips.
"Something like that," she said.
James didn't push. He never did. He just turned a page and went back to reading, one hand absently scratching at the scruff on his jaw.
From the kitchen: "—I'M NOT EATING THAT!"
"THEN STARVE!"
Ashanti closed her eyes. The fluorescent light from the corner store was still burned into her retinas. The taste of cheap beer and cheaper come coated her tongue.
She reached for another can.
Tomorrow she'd deal with Gotherik. Tomorrow she'd figure out what the hell she was doing with her life. Tomorrow she'd stop fucking strangers in convenience stores and married orcs in pharmacy back rooms.
Tonight, she just wanted to get drunk.
The can hissed open. James turned another page. Jackie and Logan kept screaming at each other in the kitchen.
Ashanti took a long drink and let the noise wash over her.
The night was still young. But she was already tired of it.