Chapter 4: Word getting around.
The roof was a blistering skillet. Brandon moved across the steep pitch with a cautious, spider-like grace, each foot placement deliberate on the gritty shingles. The August sun pinned him there, reflecting off the pale, weathered wood. He’d spent the morning tearing off the rotten patches, the old nails shrieking as he pried them loose. The smell was tar and decayed plywood and the iron scent of his own sweat.
Now, he was laying the new Driftwood shingles from the lumberyard. The work was methodical, satisfying in its linear progress. Align, nail, move up. Align, nail, move up. The hammer’s thwack-thwack-thwack was a steady metronome beating time against the silent, simmering neighborhood. He’d catch glimpses of the world from up there: the pristine green of other yards, a kid riding a bike in lazy circles, the empty, sun-bleached deck of his own house next door. It all felt distant, a diorama under glass.
A shadow moved below. Kim emerged onto the back porch, a glass of iced tea sweating in her hand. She wore a simple yellow sundress, her hair tied back. She watched him work for a long time, saying nothing, just following his movements with a placid, unreadable expression. Finally, she called up, her voice cutting through the thick air.
“You want a break, or are you gonna fuse to that roof?”
He wiped his forearm across his brow, leaving a gray streak. “Almost done this row!”
“Suit yourself, Tarzan.”
He finished the final shingle on the main slope, sealing the ridge cap with a bead of black plastic cement. He stood, stretching his back, a series of pops echoing up his spine. The job was done. The repaired section looked like a neat, dark patch on the faded original roof. A job well done. He gathered his tools, dropped them into the five-gallon bucket, and carefully navigated the ladder down.
His t-shirt was plastered to his torso, his jeans powdered with gray grit and stuck with bits of roofing tar. He set the bucket on the weed-choked grass just as Kim stepped off the porch.
She didn’t say a word. She simply closed the distance, her fingers hooking into the belt loops of his filthy jeans. She pulled him gently, lovingly, towards the back door. He stumbled a step, then laughed, a low, exhausted giggle that was pure relief.
Inside, the dim coolness of the kitchen was a shock. The blinds were drawn, stripes of sunlight cutting across the linoleum. The table was clear, just a fruit bowl and a pile of mail in the center.
Still pulling him by the loops, she guided him to the table’s edge. He giggled again, a boyish sound, as he fumbled with his belt, the buckle clinking. He undid his jeans, pushed them down his hips just enough, and freed himself. She hitched her sundress up around her waist, no underwear, and hopped up onto the cleared table, laying back amid the scattered envelopes. She opened for him.
He stepped into the space between her legs and entered her in one smooth, knowing motion. It was rhythmic, efficient, a piston working in a well-oiled chamber. There was no desperate frenzy, not like in the truck. This was different. This was the ease of a now-familiar dance. The table was solid under her, barely rocking. Her breath came in soft huffs, her eyes fixed on the water-stained ceiling tiles.
Her first climax built slowly, a cresting wave that made her back arch gently off the wood, her mouth forming a silent ‘O’. He kept the pace, steady, deep. The second one followed quicker, a shivering internal pulse that had her toes curling against his lower back. He felt the flutters, the exquisite grip, and that was his trigger.
He drove in once, twice more, and spilled into her, a hot, overflowing rush that made her sigh, a contented, almost sleepy sound. He stayed there, buried, for a handful of heartbeats, before softening and slipping out.
He pulled his jeans up but didn’t fasten them. She slid off the table, her dress falling back into place as if nothing had happened. She padded to the counter, fetched two clean glasses, and filled them with ice and amber liquid from a bottle of bourbon. She lit two cigarettes from a pack on the windowsill, handed one to him, and brought the drinks to the table.
They sat side by side on the kitchen chairs, not looking at each other, smoking, taking slow sips. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator. It was peaceful. No drama, just the calm exhaustion of physical labor and physical release on a hot summer day.
“So,” she said after a while, tapping ash into a saucer. “Three weeks left, right?”
“About that,” he said, taking a drag. The smoke mixed with the bourbon, a warm, adult taste. “Move-in day is the twenty-eighth.”
“You excited? Or just ready to be done with all this?” She gestured vaguely, a swirl of her cigarette taking in the roof, the house, herself.
“Both, I guess.” He stared at his drink. “Nervous. It’s a good engineering program. Tough, but good.”
“Engineering,” she said, the word sitting comfortably in her husky voice. “That’s a real thing. You’ll be good at it. You’re good with your hands, with figuring things out.” She didn’t mean it as a double entendre. It was a plain statement of fact.
“Thanks. Hope so. The plan is just to get through it, get the credentials. Then, you know, maybe get a job at a firm. Learn how everything really works. Or,” he took another sip, the idea still new enough to feel bold saying it aloud, “maybe use it to start something. My own company, eventually. Design stuff.”
She turned her head to look at him then. Her makeup was soft, a little smudged at the corners of her eyes. She smiled, a genuine, warm expression that erased the weary lines around her mouth. “That’s a real plan. A bright future. You should do that. Build things.”
She sounded genuinely grateful, as if his potential were a small, pleasant light in the room. There was no envy, no bitterness about roads not taken. It was just a nice conversation on a hot afternoon.
It was just a nice conversation on a hot afternoon. The ice had melted in their glasses, diluting the bourbon to a pale gold. Brandon studied the water rings on the table, his mind moving from roof angles to the unknowable geometry of the future.
He finally glanced over at her. “What about you?”
Kim chuckled, a dry rustle of sound. She took a final drag and stubbed her cigarette out, grinding it with more force than necessary. “Honey, I have my lot in life.” She waved a hand, encompassing the silent house, the fresh shingles overhead, the absent husband. “This is it. The days just… go.”
She looked at him, her eyes sharpening. “Don’t get married young. Take your time. Find a woman who has a better idea of what she wants than I ever did.” Her smile was thin, a crack in her gloss. “And not just what she wants in bed. That’s the easy part.”
He smiled, a little sadly, and she saw the understanding there. It was a wisdom that hadn’t come from books. “I get it,” he said.
“Good,” she nodded. “And don’t let girls your age make you cynical. They’re just figuring it out, too. All that drama. It’s not real. Not yet.”
He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking. “After you,” he said, his voice soft and impossibly sweet, “it’ll be hard to take them seriously.”
A real laugh burst from her then, loud in the quiet kitchen. “Oh, sweetie. Once word gets around about that magic meat wand you carry between your legs, you’re gonna deal with a lot of attention. And not the good kind. The desperate, confusing kind.”
He looked at her, his boyish eyes steady. “It’s about quality over quantity.”
She held his gaze, her smirk softening. Then she looked down at her lap, at the sundress fabric. A slow, damp patch was darkening the yellow cotton between her thighs. She shrugged, hooked a finger under the hem, and gathered a thick, pearlescent string of him as it escaped her. She brought her finger to her lips, sucked it clean with a slow, deliberate pull, and swallowed.
“I believe you,” she said, her voice gone low and rough.
He unbuttoned his jeans while still seated, the metal teeth giving way. She stood, the chair legs scraping back, and walked over to him. He pulled her dress up, bunching it around her waist, and leaned forward, pressing his lips to the warm, flat plane of her belly. His kiss was gentle, a whisper against her skin.
She placed her hands on his shoulders for balance and lowered herself onto him, taking his hard cock inside her in one slow, inexorable slide until he was buried to the hilt.
She threw her head back in an audible moan as he massaged her g-spot with the broad head of his massive cock, a deep, resonating pulse that seemed to stop the very air in the sun-striped room.