Chapter 3: Candi's Apartment
The number stayed on his arm for two days. He scrubbed at it in the shower until his skin was raw and pink, but the ink, embedded by sweat and pressure, only faded to a stubborn grey ghost. It was a tattoo of intent. On the third evening, after his shift ended and the empty silence of his apartment began to press in, he picked up his phone.
It rang four times. He was about to hang up.
“Yeah?” Her voice was different. Flat, guarded.
“Uh. Candi? It’s… it’s Todd.”
The change was instantaneous. He could hear the smile. “Baby! I was startin’ to think you lost my digits. Or my ass wrote ‘em wrong.” A lighter flicked, a long exhale. “You comin’ over?”
“I… I could. If that’s okay.”
She gave him an address in a part of town known for crumbling balconies and perpetually wet laundry hanging from rails. “Thirty minutes,” she said. “Don’t make me wait.”
He stopped at a bodega, pacing the fluorescent aisle. Flowers seemed like a thing people did. He bought a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of drooping carnations and dyed-blue daisies.
Her building smelled of fried food and mildew. He knocked on 3B. The door flew open.
She was framed in the yellow light of the doorway, wearing what could only be described as a red lace harness and a pair of rhinestone-studded denim shorts so short the frayed bottoms barely grazed the undercurve of her ass. The tramp stamp was on full display.
“You came,” she said, her eyes dropping to the flowers. She blinked, then a strange, almost fragile delight broke across her face. “You brought me flowers? Aw, shit. That’s sweet.” She snatched them, buried her nose in the limp blooms, and pulled him inside. “Get in here.”
Her apartment was a shrine to impulsive purchasing. A huge velvet painting of a panther dominated one wall. LED strip lights glowed pink under mismatched shelves cluttered with body sprays, cheap vodka, and empty candy bags. The air was thick with the scent of peach air freshener and underlying cigarettes.
She tossed the flowers onto a cluttered kitchen counter and turned, pushing him back onto a plaid couch that sighed a cloud of dust. She didn’t kiss him. She dropped to her knees, her hands already working his belt.
“I been thinking about this all day,” she muttered, pulling his jeans and boxers down to his ankles. His cock, half-hard from sheer anxiety, began to swell under her gaze. “There he is. Hello, handsome.”
She didn’t tease. She took him deep, immediately, using her hands to pull him forward to the couch edge. Her technique was ruthless, a starvation being addressed. Gag reflex triggered, she pulled back, strings of saliva and pre-come webbing between her lips and the head. She choked, spat thickly onto the stained carpet, and dove back down.
“Yeah, feed it to me,” she gurgled, coming up for a ragged breath. Her eyes were watering, her mascara beginning to smear. “You my big-dick daddy, ain’t you? Huh? You gonna take care of this nasty bitch?”
The words, so absurdly incongruent with his sense of self, did something to him. A hot, unfamiliar coil of power tightened in his gut. As she bobbed again, a desperate, rhythmic slobbering, he lifted a hand. It hovered, trembling, above the full, jiggling curve of her ass.
He brought it down. A soft, tentative pat.
She froze, his cock popping from her mouth with a wet plop. She looked back over her shoulder, her expression unreadable.
He panicked. “Sorry! I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”
“Do it again,” she breathed. Her voice was low, serious. “Harder.”
He swallowed. He did it again, a firmer smack this time. The flesh wobbled, a faint pink imprint rising.
A moan vibrated from her chest, long and deep. She turned, scrambling to get on the couch, pushing him flat. “You spank me? You spank this ass?” She was straddling him now, her eyes wild with excitement. “Fuck, that’s hot. Do it while you’re in me. C’mon.”
She guided him inside her, sinking down with a guttural cry. The position was devastatingly deep. She rode him with frantic energy, her tits bouncing, her head thrown back. “Spank it!” she demanded, a ragged shout.
He complied, his thin arm swinging, connecting with her cheek. The sound was a sharp crack in the small room. She yelped, but her pace only increased, her inner muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses.
“Yeah! Punish this pussy! Own it!”
He was losing himself, the slapping of flesh on flesh, her shrieks, the overwhelming sensory overload. He rolled her over, pressing her face into a cushion. He drove into her from behind, each thrust a full-body commitment, pounding her down into the couch with a force that shook the frame. The couch groaned in protest.
She was screaming into the fabric, a mantra of “yes” and “more” and “don’t stop.” Then, with one particularly deep, grinding plunge, her body clenched in a different way. A low, guttural groan escaped her, and a distinctly organic, sour smell cut through the peach spray.
He froze, horrified. He knew what it was.
She felt him stop. “Wha… why’d you stop?” she panted.
“I… I think…” He couldn’t say it.
She pushed back against him, wiggling. Then she laughed, a real, hearty, trashy laugh. “Oh, shit. Did I just shit? I did, didn’t I?” She twisted, trying to look. “Fuck, baby, you drilled it right out of me. That’s hardcore.”
She wasn’t disgusted. She was enthralled. She reached back, grabbing his hip, pulling him into her again. “It’s just a little mess. Don’t be a pussy. Keep going. Claim it.”
Dazed, he obeyed. The smell mingled with their sweat, a primal, filthy truth. He finished with a shuddering, silent cry, collapsing onto her back.
They lay there, sticky and spent, for a long time. Finally, she slid out from under him and waddled to the bathroom. He heard the shower run. She returned ten minutes later, damp, wrapped in a pink towel. She lit a cigarette and then sat squarely on his lap, the towel falling open. She took a deep drag and exhaled smoke toward the panther painting.
“So,” she said, her voice scratchy. “You got a girlfriend?”
He was still adrift. “What? No.”
“Good.” She tapped ash into an empty soda can on the side table. “You do now.” She stated it as a simple fact, like announcing a change in the weather. “This ain’t no club thing. This is a me-and-you thing. I’m your girlfriend. You’re my man with the monster dick. We clear?”
Todd looked around the chaotic, smelly room. He felt the ache in his hips, saw the faint, proud smile on her swollen lips. He had never been claimed by anything before, not even a stray cat. The flowers were already wilting on the counter.
He nodded, slowly. “We’re clear.”
She smiled, a wide, genuine, gap-toothed grin, and nestled her head against his scrawny chest. “Good boy,” she murmured, taking another satisfied drag. “Now, you wanna order a pizza? I’m fuckin’ starved.”