Chapter 6: Miko has friends
The air inside the Home Depot was a stagnant cocktail of fertilizer, sawdust, and despair. Simon moved through the aisles on autopilot, his cart clattering over the concrete floor. He needed quarter-round for his own living room, a task that felt impossibly mundane. His body ached in peculiar ways—a pleasant soreness in his lower back, a raw tenderness on his skin where paint and stubble burn coexisted. The scent of Miko’s shower soap still seemed to linger in his nostrils, cutting through the pine scent of two-by-fours.
He was sanding down the sharp edges of the morning in his mind, trying to shape it into something that could be stored away and forgotten, when he felt a presence beside him at the lumber cut station.
“They never make it straight, do they?”
The voice was warm, lightly amused. He turned. A woman, maybe mid-fifties, stood appraising a piece of trim. She wore a simple blue sundress, the color of a summer sky, and her blonde hair was cut in a sharp, stylish bob. She held herself with an easy confidence.
“You’ve got to pick through every piece,” Simon said, his voice rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat. “Like finding a good avocado.”
She smiled, and her eyes, a clear blue, crinkled at the corners. “A man who knows his produce and his pine. A rare breed.”
They chatted as they waited. It was nothing—comments on the price of lumber, the incompetence of the kid at the saw, the merits of oil-based versus water-based primer. Her name was Sarah. She was refreshing a porch swing. The conversation was a balm, normal and clean. It held no steam, no flickering lights, no unspeakable words painted on walls. For five minutes, Simon wasn’t a man who had fucked a client’s ass in a shower while his kids waited for pizza. He was just a guy in a flannel, buying trim.
His order was cut. Hers was ready. They walked toward the exits together, their carts in tandem.
“Well, good luck with the swing,” he said, pushing through the automatic doors into the blinding afternoon sun. The parking lot asphalt shimmered with heat.
“You too,” Sarah said. She paused, squinting up at him. “Simon, right?”
He stopped, a cold trickle of awareness cutting through the heat. “Yeah.”
“I thought so. Miko described you.” Sarah’s smile didn’t fade, but it changed. The warmth was still there, but it was layered now with something knowing, something intimate and unsettling. “She said you were… very helpful.”
All the air left his lungs. He could only stare.
“I’m a friend,” Sarah continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “A good friend. She called me this morning. Quite the story.” She let that hang, watching the panic flicker in his eyes. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe. She just wanted me to tell you that she won’t be needing any more… help. With the painting.”
The finality of the message was a physical blow. She won’t be needing any more help. Of course not. The job was done, in every conceivable way. He nodded stiffly, his throat tight. “Right. Okay. Thanks.”
He began to turn, desperate to escape to the sanctuary of his truck, to the smell of his own sawdust and regret.
“Although,” Sarah said, “I could use a bit of a hand myself.”
He paused.
“It’s just one box of screws for the swing. But it’s heavy, and my truck is a hike.” She gestured vaguely toward the far end of the lot. Her blue eyes were guileless. “Would you be kind enough? I’d owe you one.”
It was a trap. He knew it was a trap with every wired instinct in his body. He also knew he would walk into it. The need to atone, to be useful, to connect again to that world of color and transgression through its nearest proxy, was too strong. “Sure. No problem.”
Her truck was an older Ford, red and slightly rusty. The bed was a chaotic workshop—tools, a tarp, bags of mulch. She unlocked the passenger door. “Just pop it on the seat.”
He lifted the box—it was not heavy—and placed it on the worn cloth seat. As he turned to say a final goodbye, her hand rested lightly on his arm.
“You look like you could use a minute off your feet,” she said. Her gaze was direct, fearless. “It’s sweltering. Have a seat. Cool down.”
The cab smelled of gasoline, old coffee, and her perfume—something floral and expensive. He slid onto the passenger seat, the springs groaning under his weight. He left the door open, one foot on the asphalt, a token gesture toward escape.
Sarah didn’t get in the driver’s side. She closed the passenger door, sealing them in. The heat became immediate, thick. She stood in the V of the open door, looking down at him. Then, without a word, she reached out and began to unbutton his fly.
He should have stopped her. He didn’t. He watched her capable hands work the brass button, drag down his zipper. The sound was loud in the quiet cab. She reached in, her cool fingers wrapping around his softness. He gasped, hardening instantly under her touch, as if his body belonged to her and not to him.
“Miko said you were impressive,” Sarah whispered, her eyes on her work. She tugged his jeans and boxer briefs down over his hips just enough to free him. His cock sprang out, already thick and eager in the humid air.
Then she hitched the hem of her blue sundress. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The sight was brutally explicit: a thatch of blonde pubic hair, the soft folds of her cunt already glistening with wetness in the dim light. She’d been ready. This had always been the plan.
“What are you—” he started, but she was already moving.
“Shut up,” she said softly, not unkindly. She put a hand on his shoulder, steadied herself, and guided him inside her with a practiced, devastating accuracy. She sank down onto his lap, taking his entire length in one smooth, deep slide.
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, his head falling back against the seat rest. She was tight and wet and impossibly hot, her body sheathing him completely. The confinement of the cab, the public peril of the parking lot, the sheer audacity of it, sent a shock of adrenaline through his veins that sharpened every sensation.
Sarah began to ride him. She set a slow, deep, grinding rhythm, using her thighs for leverage. She wasn’t frantic; she was deliberate, savoring. Her eyes were open, watching his face. One hand braced against the dashboard, the other unbuttoned the top of her dress, pulling it down to free her breasts. They were fuller than Miko’s, with large, dark nipples. She pinched one, rolling it between her fingers as she moved on him.
“She told me everything,” Sarah breathed, leaning close. Her perfume and the smell of their sex mixed with the gasoline. “How you fucked her in her pretty living room. How you painted her. How you made her come in the shower.” She punctuated each sentence with a hard, downward slam of her hips. “She was very… descriptive.”
Simon could only grip her hips, his calloused fingers digging into her soft flesh. He was hurtling toward his peak, shame and wild arousal twisting together into a single irresistible force.
“You like that, don’t you?” she taunted, her rhythm becoming harder, faster. The truck rocked slightly on its springs. “Being her dirty little secret. Being my dirty little secret. Just a handy man with a hard cock.”
Her words were a catalyst. With a guttural sound, he took over. He thrust up into her, driving deep from beneath, making her cry out. He fucked up into her with a desperate, pounding intensity, the seat creaking wildly in protest. The world narrowed to the slap of skin, her choked gasps, the blinding white heat coiling in his gut.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice ragged.
“Do it,” she commanded, grinding down onto him fiercely. “Come in me. Give me what you gave her.”
It was the permission, the order, that shattered him. His orgasm ripped through him, violent and emptying. He held her hips locked to his, pulsing deep inside her in long, shuddering jets. She clenched around him, milking him, a low, satisfied moan escaping her lips as she rocked through her own climax.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. The heat was stifling. Sticky.
Slowly, she lifted herself off him. He slumped back, utterly spent, exposed. She pulled her dress down, rearranged herself with a shocking casualness. She looked at him, his cock still wet and glistening between his legs, and smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile.
She handed him a napkin from the glove box.
“Miko doesn’t need your help anymore,” Sarah said, her voice cool and clear now. “But I think you understand the situation. Friends talk. We share.” She leaned in, her lips close to his ear. “I’ll be in touch about my porch swing, Simon. I have a feeling you’ll be very motivated to make it perfect.”
She opened the door, letting in a blast of hot, real world air. She walked around the front of the truck, got in the driver’s side, and started the engine. She didn’t look at him again.
He sat there, fumbling his clothes closed, the metal of the zipper burning his fingers. He watched the red truck pull away, disappearing into the river of traffic. The box of screws sat beside him, a mundane, mocking weight.
He was no longer just a man who had made a mistake. He was a man who had just been claimed.