Lady Smith Lock and Key

I apologize for the delay. I try to get something out at least once a month. The last few months have been chaotic.

—

When I was a little girl, my dad would let me sit on his lap when he played poker with his friends. That’s how I learned how to play cards. I’d sit in a room clouded by a fog of cigar and cigarette smoke, and my father would even let me have a sip of his whiskey. I would wince from the harsh beverage, but I didn’t want to appear weak to him, so asked for more even though I hated it. Thankfully, he only ever allowed me to have one sip.

Cards destroyed my father. I remember hearing the fights through the thin walls of our trailer. My dad withdrawing cash for a game and coming home drunk and broke. Winning never made it better, it just encouraged a riskier bet and an eventual worse loss. My mom began to hide cash from him. She’d take her paycheck, withdraw all of it immediately and stuff it away like a squirrel.

Dad figured out she was hiding money and tore the trailer apart one night. He broke the walls, tore up the couch cushions, and threw all the glasses and plates out of the cabinets. I was too scared to ask him what he was doing, so stood petrified in the center of the living room as a tornado of desperation destroyed everything. Mom came home and started screaming, and that was the first time I saw my father strike my mother.

The more she refused to tell him where the money was, the more he hit her. He held her against the wall by her throat, choking her so hard she couldn’t tell him even if she wanted to. He let her go, and she took a picture frame off the wall and smashed it against the top of his head. A little piece of wood and glass did nothing more than piss him off.

The entire time I remained frozen in place.

One of the neighbors called the police, and my dad became belligerent with the officers. Even after everything she lied to the police and asked them to leave. The cops weren’t stupid and tried to coax my mother to tell them the truth, but just like she wouldn’t tell my father were the money was, she wouldn’t tell them anything either. They left, and my father started asking nicely. My mother, tired, scared, but more than anything, frustrated, gave him enough to make him go away.

My parents never divorced, but soon after they never lived under the same roof again. I split my time between them, and when I was with my dad, he’d let me play poker with him. Hold’em was always my favorite. My dad let me win, so I let myself believe I was a better player than I actually was. Winning felt amazing. Walking away from a table with more money than I arrived with was exhilarating. In those days I was pocketing five to ten dollars, but to a child, I might as well have won the World Series of Poker.

The last time I saw my father I was twelve. My mother wouldn’t let him in her house, so asked me to the door so he could talk to me. He kissed my forehead, and said he might be away for some time. I watched him walk down the porch, and I never saw him again. A year later, his debts caught up to him, and he was found shot dead in a motel room in an apparent robbery. It remains unsolved to this day.

I continued to play poker, but now I didn’t have my father to let me win. When I was a teenager, I stole money from my mother for late night games in dark rooms no teenaged girl had any business being in. She started to hide money again, but I always knew where she put it. Her hiding spots had never changed. She saw me becoming my father, so kicked me out when I was seventeen. My grandfather was the only person willing to take me in.

My father’s father was a locksmith. I dropped out of high school not long after mom gave me the boot. My grandfather’s deal was I work for him, go back to school, or get out. So, I worked for him. I rode along in his van and learned the trade by watching him do it. No door was locked to him. No safe couldn’t be cracked. There was nothing that could stand in his way. Like my father, he was a card shark. Unlike my father, he never let me win.

My grandfather would have me disassemble old pocket watches and then reassemble them. It taught me to understand how things work. To make the complicated, simple. To undress problems to their bare parts and examine the pieces independent from the whole. Once I could do it with a watch, I started to do it with locks.

When I was twenty-two, having been under his tutelage for five years, he collapsed on a job. The doctor told us stage IV lung cancer. He opted not to go through treatment and was dead in three months. I didn’t cry for my father, nor for myself when my mother removed me from her life as if I was disease. I cried for him.

With no one of support to turn to, I returned to cards.

—

Thursday – April 7, 2021

The sun is high enough in the sky to penetrate my blinds and strike my face. The sudden light stirs me awake, and I lift my hands to shield my eyes. I place my hands on the bed below me, and push myself up, so my back is against the wall. Headboards are expensive. I’ve never had one.

My mind is foggy, and I don’t remember much before I went to sleep. There is this nagging feeling I wasn’t alone when I closed my eyes. I scan my room and see a suit jacket neatly folded over the side of my dresser. My brain buffers to life, and I remember who is likely still in my apartment.

I’m still wearing the clothes I wore yesterday, so don’t need to get dressed to leave my bedroom. The apartment looks the same. My ears pick up the sound of keyboard typing in the kitchen, so I lean out of my room and see Matt at my two-person kitchen table working on something.

“Good morning,” he says, without lifting his eyes from the screen. He has placed glasses over his eyes, the refraction making me assume they’re to reduce blue light. I don’t reply and walking into the kitchen and start making coffee. When I arrive at the pot, it’s already brewed, with about one mugs worth missing. I continue saying nothing and pour myself a cup. “Feeling better?”

“I obviously wasn’t in the right head space last night. I guess, thanks for not taking advantage of that,” I say, taking a sip. I only drink it black.

“I wasn’t in a good place when we met either,” he says, ceasing typing and removing his glass. I took his money anyway. “You were my therapist, so do you want to talk about it.”

“I don’t know you,” I say. I lean against the counter and hold the cup in both hands.

“I’d imagine you don’t know many of your customers.”

“That’s different,” I say. “I don’t typically hash out my life with them.”

“I don’t typically call an escort.”

“That’s what they all say.”

The room is quiet, and we both wash the weird down with coffee.

“I couldn’t help but see your name when I needed to find your address,” he says, and I groan into the coffee. “Your name is literally Lady Smith?” I nod in embarrassment. “Like, at birth?”

“My mother said it made me sound regal,” I say, shaking my head. “She didn’t give me a middle name, so I can’t even go by that if I wanted to.”

“Lady Smith. Figured it was just the company.”

“That’s what I hope everyone assumes,” I say, and finally join him at the table. “What were you working on?”

“An audit,” he says. “I’m a forensic finance analyst.”

“Forensics? Like with law enforcement?”

“Sometimes. I’ve contracted with local, state, and federal investigations.”

“What does all of that mean?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“If the District Attorney or the police believe this business is a front for money laundering, they call me to run their books. That’s it in a nutshell. I look for routine expenses, spikes and dips, shell companies, proxies, and where they file.”

“How does one go about laundering money?”

“You take dirty money and run it through a legitimate business as gross profit. You fake receipts, business expenditures, things like that. When the money comes out the other side, it’s now clean, taxed, and spendable.”

Matt is a math nerd. When he talks numbers or his profession, he lights up, and it’s hard to make him stop talking once he starts. He’s enthusiastic about his work.

“How’d you start doing this?” I ask. I like when he talks. His excitement makes me excited, and his good mood is infectious.

“By cooking books and getting caught. Five years on probation, but that was ten years ago. Now I help the law catch people like me.”

Matt is a reformed felon. I look at him, and think he’s never even jaywalked. He has a trustable, boyish appearance that isn’t remotely threatening. The kind of guy who calls me after hours then can’t do it once I arrive. Then still pays me and returns my wallet.

“How’d you start?” he asks.

“Which one?” I ask.

“Which one?” he replies, then thinks for a moment. “You’re actually a lock smith?”

“Last time I checked.”

“You have the same phone number, and name, for your illegal side job?” he asks. When you say it like that. “And you use your real name?”

“I get it, I’m not a criminal mastermind. I’ve only been doing the other thing for six months. I got in a bad way with worse people, and I needed money.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No,” I say.

Matt removes his glasses from the keyboard and places it on the laptop after closing the screen. I cross my arms over my chest, displaying my unwillingness to go further into that conversation. My refusal melts just by the way he looks at me.

“I owe money. A lot of money. I owed it to the kind of people who break fingers to get it back. So I borrowed to pay it off, and those guys ended up being worse. They didn’t break my fingers, but they have their ways.”

“Like the bruise on your face?”

“I ran into my steering wheel,” I say.

My phone rings from my bedroom, and I excuse myself to retrieve it. It’s a customer who locked themselves out of their car. They just got off a night shift and now can’t go home. I ask details and give him an estimate on time and price before hanging up. I’m still in the dress from last night, and the bruise on my face has turned a sickly yellow. I quickly change into something casual, apply a little makeup, and grab sunglasses to obscure most of it.

Matt has packed up by the time I return to the kitchen. His laptop is in a backpack he places over one shoulder. He must have heard the conversation and understood I was about to start working today.

“Duty calls,” I say. I double check all the equipment in my bags, and he hovers where the living room and kitchen divide.

“I made a decision about Rose, by the way,” he says. I turn my head to him, my expression showing I don’t remember who that was. “My daughter.”

“Oh, yeah. The one who…yeah,” I say. I vaguely remember his wife had affairs and one of those affairs overlaps with a conception. “And?”

“Nothing can erase seven years of unconditional love. She’s my daughter, paternity test be damned,” he says. I can’t help but smile. So many men shirk their duty of fatherhood, it’s nice to see one who has good reason to bow out still hold to his responsibility.

“Glad to hear you figured something out. I need to get to work, so grab your jacket from my room so I can leave.”

Matt finishes collected his things and we walk across the balcony and down the stairs to the parking lot. He offered to help carry my bags but stops trying when I pull my hand away from his. Morning traffic is bustling by on the overpass above us. Car zips off the exit feet away. It felt like that awkward moment when you say goodbye to someone and start walking in the same direction. He’s driving a nicer car than me, but that’s not saying much. His car is years old while mine still has windows I crank down by hand.

“You want to talk again some time?” Matt asks.

I don’t understand this man.

“Look. Thanks again for last night but trust me, you don’t need me in your life. In any capacity. I’m a shit magnet. I owe bad people money, and if they perceive we’re friends, founded or not, you become leverage. Treat me like uranium, okay?”

I’m radioactive. Everything around me withers and dies. Nothing around me is safe. Anything that I touch is contaminated for centuries.

“You have money problems, and you happened to meet an auditor. Things happen for a reason.” Is he a pastor too?

“I don’t need an auditor to tell me I’m broke,” I say.

“You owe bad people money, right? Drugs, alcohol, prostitution, none of that is the reason Al Capone was charged. Taxes were. Do what I did,” he says, leaning against his car.

“Do what? Turn snitch?” I ask, and he shrugs. I shake my head. “I got in this hole on my own, I’ll dig my own way out of it.”

“You don’t get out of a hole by digging. You get out by putting the shovel down.”

I start to say something but freeze when a paranoid thought crosses my mind. At the same time a detective is trying to make me a snitch, a former snitch is saying I should become a snitch. Assuming anything he’s told me is true. Does he work for Detective Miles Deacon, and this is his latest attempt to turn me?

“I gotta go,” I say, and end the conversation by sitting in my car and immediately driving away.

—

Seven calls before lunch. Four car lock outs, two apartments, and one lock install at a private residence. I didn’t see anything worth telling the 9^th Legion about. Around noon, I stop at a diner I frequent for lunch when I’m in the area. My last call put me two blocks away just before noon.

The Queen of Hearts is a quaint diner so old fashion it only has bar seating. It’s built from the façade of what used to be a one pump gas station. Thirteen stools with spinning cushions line the bar, each with a different number or face card like suited with hearts. I always sit on the queen of hearts if it’s open. Today it is, so I take my favorite seat.

The owner and her daughter are here, filling cups with fresh coffee and taking orders on small note pads. These two women have always been excellent hosts, even when you take Dinah’s social awkwardness into consideration. I’ve never asked, but I have a feeling she was sheltered or abused as a child, and her mother makes her take orders to force her to get over it. Regardless, Dinah is an enviable beautiful. Her hair is dyed dark, but I can see her roots are naturally blonde. Glasses hide how blue her eyes are. The start of a tattoo sleeve is under her long shirt, and her hands are always hidden by thin black fingerless gloves.

“Good to see you again. Whatcha getting?” Dinah asks shortly after I sit down. She’s less unusual around me because I’m a regular. If it’s a new customer, she stutters and stammers horribly, sometimes even freezing up for ten full seconds. She’ll turn beat red in embarrassment until her mother saves her.

“Coffee. Two eggs, make them dippers, bacon, and toast,” I say. I always order breakfast. I don’t even have to take the menu she was in the process of handing me. She fumbles it a little, not sure what to do now that I don’t need it. She places it down and drops her notepad during the transition.

“Dang it.” Dinah is adorable when she’s flustered like this. I love how she swears like a Catholic school girl.

She retrieves her notebook and writes my order, rips it out, and puts it on a clip attached to a circular weight connected to wire over her head. In one motion she sends the order to the kitchen like a bullet train. A moment later a clap from two pieces of metal colliding echoes from the back.

Men see a girl like her and think she’s naïve and easy. I used to think that too. Until a male customer pinched her butt, and she nearly broke his wrist when she grabbed his hand. She might be naïve, but defenseless she certainly isn’t. I really want to ask her where she took her self-defense classes, but I’ve never found a good way to inquire.

“Coffee?” a voice asks from behind me. I turn over my shoulder, and Dinah’s mother is behind me with a pot spewing steam from the spout. I hear a cup land in front of me, Dinah having placed it, and her mother begins to pour.

Carroll is older, but her voluptuousness has not faltered with age. Even smothered by an apron and fully buttoned shirt, her breasts fight their containment. She almost appears like a woman intentionally dulling her attractive qualities. She has very short tomboy hair, but I can tell she swings hard straight. This kind of work is evidently beneath her, but she does it without complaint and a warm smile.

“Pull down the shades,” Carroll says to me, and I turn to her again. She must have saw the bruise between the frames and my face when she was standing over me. When I don’t move, she places the coffee pot on the bar and sits on the Jack of Hearts next to me. She stares me down until I remove the sunglasses. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No, I don’t,” I say, and pick up the coffee cup. “It’s nothing.”

“I know a lot of women who say nothing happened.” I look at Dinah for a moment, then back to her.

“I was working on a lock install and the customer forgot I was there and opened the door into my face,” I say, and watch her not believe me in real time. She forms a fist with her hand and places it next to my face for comparison.

“Not a fist, at least not one strike. Looks more like you were thrown into something,” she says. Carroll relaxes her hand and places it on the bar.

“Or something was opened into my face. Like I said, don’t want to talk about it.”

Carroll’s motherly eyes blink at me. She turns to watch Dinah take an order from a customer, and I lean over to watch as well. Dinah is fidgety, and stutters when she repeats the customer’s order. Once written down, she flings the order toward the back and comes for the coffee pot between Carroll and me. Her hand touches the handle, but Carroll places her hand on her daughter’s.

“Breathe,” Carroll says, and Dinah takes a moment to calm herself. “It’s just an order. Smile.” Dinah looks at her mother and gives her the most awkward grin I’ve ever seen. It’s exaggerated, like her face will rip if her cheeks stretch any further. “Too much.”

“You say smile, and this is smiling,” Dinah says, slightly distorted because she didn’t relax her expression.

“Little less Cheshire Cat,” Carroll says, and Dinah slowly drops her smile into normal parameters. “Remember what I said about thinking of something funny? Or something you like?”

Dinah closes her eyes, and five seconds later snorts while holding back a laugh she didn’t intend to be so harsh. Carroll laughs with her, and Dinah opens her eyes with a gorgeously genuine smile.

“There it is. Go to work, love and proud of you,” Carroll says, releasing her hand after rubbing her thumb on an exposed finger. Dinah picks up the pot and returns to the customer. “I worry about her.”

“What happened to her that makes her like that?” I ask.

“You got some things you don’t want to talk about, so does she.”

“Fair’s far,” I say, and sip my coffee. “What about her makes you worry?”

“What happens if I’m not here.”

“That someone will hurt her?”

“You were here when someone tried to play grab ass with her. I’m worried about her hurting other people.”

I remember almost a year ago when someone put their hands on Dinah. A man, likely still drunk from a night of escapades, reach over the counter to grab Dinah. A moment later he was shouting in pain, because Dinah was strangely efficient at small joint manipulation. She pulled him off his seat and onto the bar, while twisting his wrist until he begged. Carroll ran over, grabbed her, and had to whisper into her ear to make her stop. Other customers saw why it happened, and they told the man to leave before they had their turn with him next.

“I didn’t see that coming from her.”

“She doesn’t like being touched, and for good reason,” Carroll says, and I have a feeling she won’t elaborate if asked. “When you want to talk about that shiner, you know where I’m at.”

Carroll resumes her work, and I put the sunglasses back on.

—

I received twenty-three calls before the end of my business hours. Mostly car lock outs, but three home lock outs were sprinkled throughout the day. Over a thousand dollars for a single day. I haven’t managed that for months. Unfortunately, all I want to do is find a card game right now. I think about calling Dante, but last time I did that the Caesar of the 9^th Legion slammed my face into a steering wheel. Instead, I play it safe and go to the casino.

Even if the phone rings after hours, I don’t plan on doing that tonight. I just sit back in jeans and a sweater and watch the numbers get called for Keno. Grandpa loved Keno, and I don’t know why. It’s bingo for lazy people. I mark my numbers as they roll across the screen, sip a beer, and lean into a comfy armchair next to an old woman with an oxygen tank doing the same. Is that me in sixty years?

My phone rings, and I ignore it.

Only one of my numbers played, so I get new numbers and come back to my chair. I mark my card as the numbers appear on the screen. Two right off the bat.

My phone rings, and I consider looking at it. After a moment of thought, I press the button on the side to silence it, then change the ring setting to vibrate.

Five numbers play, so I take those earnings and pick new numbers with a larger bet.

My phone buzzes, and I finally look at it. Number, not a name. It’s nearly eleven, but the recent win has put me in a better mood, so I answer.

“Lady Smith Lock and Key.”

“I need a lock drilled, heard you can help with that,” a man says.

“Single cylinder is…two hundred, double cylinder is four hundred,” I say. I feel like I’ve been selling myself too cheap. I’m worth it.

“Two hundred? That’s not what I was told.”

“Drill yourself then,” I say, and hang up. He’ll call back.

Eight numbers on a pick ten. Fuck it’s a good night.

My phone rings.

“Lady Smith Lock and Key.”

“Double cylinder.”

—

I feel great about myself tonight, so don’t even change what I’m wearing. The address is a hotel outside of the city, but still within the county. I pass a sign that says I’m leaving the city. Thirty minutes after I received the call, I pull into the parking lot and start a fast beauty check. I pull down the visor and look at myself in the vanity mirror. I look good even in a sweater tonight. The bruise isn’t distracting anymore. I double check the room number I wrote on the back of a Keno sheet before exiting my car.

Only one person is manning the front desk, and I breeze right through the lobby, and press up at the elevator. While I wait, I look into the lobby, and see a woman sitting alone. She has no bags, and doesn’t seem to be reading, or doing anything else to pass the time. She tilts her head to me, and slowly turns away from me when she sees I’m looking at her.

Ding.

The elevator opens, and I board. It’s a quick ride to the second floor. After initially turning the wrong way, I walk down the correct hallway and find the room toward the center of the hallway. I knock and wait. The man who opens the door is middle aged with a polo tucked into khakis with a brown belt. What completes his look is an extended stomach over the belt buckle and burly arms covered in hair.

“You lost?” he asks, confused, expecting someone else.

“Lady Smith Lock and Key.”

“The guy said you dressed up for this.” When you call an escort, you don’t expect a woman in mom jeans and a sweater.

“If the night goes well, what I wear is kind of irrelevant,” I say. He shrugs it off and lets me in. “Did this guy give you my ground rules.”

“He did.”

“What are they?” I ask, and he pauses to think. “No anal. No kissing…”

“…no condom is extra, I got it,” he says, walking toward the bed.

Woman on the first floor, conspicuous as all hell. The room is toward the center of the building, so away from any stairs or fire escapes. He’s misinformed or doesn’t know my ground rules. I turn and see the room next to this one is adjoining, and the deadbolt is turned open. You motherfucker Deacon.

“Here’s the money,” he says, and extends cash toward me. “You do blow jobs, right?”

Now he’s trying to get me to take money from him, after stating I perform sexual acts in exchange for that money. Where would I put a microphone and camera? I scan the room slowly, walking around as I do.

“You gonna take the money?” he asks.

“No,” I say, and keep looking for surveillance equipment. They hid it good, but I know this man has at least a microphone on him.

“I called you for a reason. Let’s get started. Take the money, drop the sweater and get to work,” he says. Fine line between a sting and entrapment. I walk to the man and lean my face toward his chest.

“Nice try Deacon,” I say, and walk out of the hotel room.

While I wait for the elevator to come up, I hear a door open and footsteps approach. Detective Miles Deacon enters the frame and leans against the wall with his arms crossed. Is he annoyed or impressed? That mustache hides his true feelings.

“What gave it away?” Deacon asks.

“Tell the cop in the lobby to bring a bag with her. No one just sits in a hotel lobby after midnight unless they’re checking in or leaving early,” I reply. The elevator arrives, and the female cop from downstairs is in it.

“I’ll remember that next time,” she says, having heard me. “Detective Trixie Kirkpatrick. Got a minute Ms. Smith?”

“No, I don’t,” I say, and enter the elevator. I press the first floor, but she presses the button to keep the doors from closing “Arrest me or fuck off.”

“Prostitution a crime Miles?” Trixie asks.

“Sure is. Got you on tape haggling price for services,” Deacons says. He leans his body on a door to keep the elevator open.

“I believe I was talking about drilling a double or single-cylinder lock. In a two-party consent state,” I say.

“We got a street lawyer here. Active police investigation supersedes that counsel,” Trixie says. That might be true, but cops can lie after all.

“Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction?” I ask. I strictly remember passing a sign saying leaving city limits.

“Unfortunately for you, the street crimes unit is cross deputized with the county. I’m a deputy sheriff. We’re still in Yellowstone, so you’re still in our jurisdiction.”

I’m smart enough to know unless I’m in handcuffs, this is over when I say it is. And I’m saying it’s over.

“It’s a cute attempt. Trying to wrap up a locksmith in a prostitution sting. Only problem is that I’m not a prostitute,” I say.

“I know the girls prefer the word escort these days. You can call a handicapped person in a wheelchair handicapable, but it doesn’t mean they can walk,” Trixie says.

“And you can call a locksmith a prostitute, doesn’t mean she’s not drilling a single cylinder,” I retort, and press the button to close the elevator doors. They push against Deacon for a moment and stay shut. “Put me in handcuffs and accuse me of a crime or let me go. Those are your options.”

“We have more choices than that,” Trixie says.

“No you don’t,” I say, and they look at each other. “Stop me when I’m wrong. You got me on tape, possible illegally, haggling price for a service in my known profession. I show up in jeans and a sweater. I take no money…”

“…you said you don’t do anal…”

“…a woman who doesn’t do anal? Stop the fucking presses. You do much anal detective?” I ask, and Trixie blushes a little. Too much by the looks of her. “Stop this door from shutting again, and I file a complaint.”

This time I manage to press the button without harassment and exit the elevator on the first floor. The lobby is now empty, and I get to my car. Before I enter, I light a cigarette and lean against the driver’s door.

“Close one,” I say to myself. Deacon was right when he told me I’m running out of time. Either the law gets me, or the Legion will. I need to get rid of both. First I need enough money. I think about all those cars. Rolls Royce. Benz. BMW. Legion wants them, but they think it might be too risky. I could do all the scoping, for a job that never happens.

Even after walking into a sting, I’m still in a decent mood. Eight on a pick ten will do that to a gambling addict. I can’t drag my feet anymore. This needs to be done. This is my only chance to maybe get out. And I know just who to talk to about it.

—

I’m not surprised Ryan Justin isn’t asleep at this hour. A guy running girls on the side of a luxury business has to be a night owl. I knock on his back door, and he opens it in less than a minute. His expression suggests he was waiting for me. He invites me in a for a drink.

“Take it you thought about it?” he asks. He uncorks a bottle of whiskey in his kitchen that’s bigger than my apartment.

“How does it work?” I ask. “When they get picked up, am I just already in the backseat? Wrapped up naked with a bow on my bush?”

“You’re the driver,” he says. He pours us both a finger of whiskey and hands me a glass. “On our payroll and everything. We even have dental.” I run my tongue along a cavity I can’t pay to get filled. “You have a license, right?”

“Never been pulled over, and shockingly no record.”

“You’d pass the background check too, good. A lot of clients like to run their own. The economic class we service is often a little cautious. They don’t want to get in a car with a felon or a person with DWIs.”

“My ground rules are a thing. They don’t like it, I’ll drop them off on the curb and you can deal with them,” I say, making him laugh. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are. Use that, sometimes they like the challenge.”

“So, when I get a call, I come down to the warehouse, pick up a car, and do what I do?” I ask. He replies with a nod and downs his drink. “Wardrobe requirements?”

“Depends on the customer. Leave in uniform, change in route.”

“Anyone a little weird from your experience?”

“I had a girl in Seattle quit because the client was a furry. Wanted to fuck a giraffe.”

“All long as he doesn’t want to fuck a giraffe in the ass.”

Ryan laughs and pours himself another drink. I place my still full glass on the kitchen counter. He takes my glass and pours it into his own cup.

“Stop by tomorrow, we’ll handle the paperwork, file the background check, make it legit,” he says.

“Tomorrow or this afternoon?” I ask. He looks at his watch, realizing it’s after midnight.

“See you in a few hours.”

—

I turn on the lights in my shitty apartment, which feels worse than usual after I was in Ryan’s kitchen. My equipment is dropped at the door. I sit on my couch and fan open the money I made today. Is there a card game soon? Keno can only hold me off for so long. I shake my head and try to bury the thought. You need this money to be free. Don’t piss it away. Don’t be dad.

I try to remember some techniques from group, but honestly, I don’t really pay attention. Half of the time it feels like a meeting to ask people where the best tables are. Closing my eyes, I think of grandpa. What would he tell me? I realize he’d say, “you made your bed, sleep in it,” and tell myself to stop thinking about him. You can’t tell yourself to not think about something though.

Grandpa was in the Army, served in Vietnam. He almost never talked about it. A lot of men from his generation didn’t. All I know was that he wasn’t drafted. He volunteered to serve, and somehow managed to come back physically unscathed. Mentally was something else entirely. He had violent episodes, and eventually left his family because he was worried, he’d hurt them. He told me he regretted that more than anything in his life. Taking me in was some last-ditch way of making up for it, I guess.

My grandpa never played the radio in the car. I remember that. Long, quiet drives between jobs. Sometimes we’d talk, but he mostly sang. He only sang one song.

‘Oh, death

Oh, death

Won’t you spare me over, til another year.’

I imagined him marching through the Vietnamese jungle singing that song. Begging Death to let him make it home. The average deployment was a year. I envision Death is sitting next to me, just bidding his time. No rush, I’ll get there. I sing.

‘Well what is this, that I can’t see

With ice cold hands takin hold of me’

He sings back.

‘Oh I am death, none can excel

I open the doors to heaven or hell‘

I open my eyes, and Death isn’t next to me. Not yet. Thanks, grandpa, for such uplifting memories. I tuck the money into my couch cushion and stand up to stretch. I walk to my bedroom knowing I’m too tired to sleep. That feeling is a bitch slap. My face goes straight into my pillow regardless.

My phone is stabbing my leg, so I pull it from my pocket. Before I put it on the nightstand, I see there is a message I hadn’t noticed yet. I changed my phone to vibrate at the casino and didn’t feel the buzz on my leg. The message is only twenty minutes old.

“Let me determine my own level of risk.” Number, not a name. Who the fuck?

“Umm, who are you?” is my reply.

“Save my number, I’m the guy who should know better by now.” Matt?

“Audit your life before you’re bankrupt.”

“You’re the one who needs an audit. I happen to know an auditor.”

I catch myself smiling, then laugh a little. Did I just bite my lower lip? Did I really just do that? That’s just what I need right now. Start an affair with a married man going through a divorce. Does that even count at this juncture? Can’t deny I could really use the distraction. Plus, decent sex might help me sleep. I completely ignore my early feeling he might be a snitch.

“Taxes are due soon, right? You got thirty minutes before I call H&R Block.”

Ten seconds later there is a knock at my door. Are you shitting me?

I leave my bed, and trot to the door, but stop just shy of the living room. I jump back into my room, check myself in the mirror, and sigh. I forgot about the sweater and mom jeans. Fuck it. I doubt that’s a deal breaker.

I’m not ready for the Matt who comes through the door. The guy who calls an escort and chickens out. He could have taken horrible advantage of me last night but didn’t. I open the door, expecting to see him awkwardly standing there. I’d have to grab him with both hand at his collar and drag him backward into my apartment. That’s not what happens.

Matt lunges and breaks my first rule, no kissing. I’m forced to backpedal but manage to reach over his shoulder and slam the door shut. He grabs the bottom of my sweater, and I instinctually extend my arms over my head. It comes off in a swift motion and is dropped in the walkway. He resumes breaking my rule, as I try to steer us to the bedroom. My back hits the frame of the door, and a picture hung on the wall falls to the floor.

When we pause at the door, I start working on his buttons. He leaves my lips and begins to kiss my neck. I swear a feel him nibble a little. The last button is done, and I tug the shirt off his shoulders. He stops to quickly undo his cuffs while I start at his belt. His shirt lands next to my sweater and his belt is undone. The top button of my jeans is loose, and they immediately sag off my hips.

Forward movement resumes. We’re a tangled mess of limbs and loose clothing. He leads me to the bed, my legs colliding causing me to topple backwards. He grabs the waist band of my jeans and pulls them clean off. My panties only made it to my knees, but he only pulls them off my right ankle, leaving them dangling on my left. He lifts my legs up and drags me to the edge of the bed, and dives face first into my pussy. I did say I might make an exception for the other pair of lips.

I don’t know how long Matt has gone without sex since his marriage fell apart, but he’s hungry. His tongue swirls deep inside, then up to my clit, and I twitch when he flicks it. Two fingers are inserted rapidly while his tongue keeps pressure. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

I look at my nightstand and start stretching out for the drawer. It’s just out of reach. My condoms are in that drawer, and I have a feeling I need to get them before our momentum is stalled. I try to shift my body up to close the distance, but that’s when it arrives. One hand on a pillow, the other grabs his hair as I orgasm into his face. He knows it’s happening and doesn’t stop. He continues until my body is buzzing numb.

Matt stands up and finishes undressing. I scale up the bed, and take off my shirt, then successfully open the drawer. I feel the bed shift from his weight and feel his body between my legs. I hand him a condom and take off my bra while he opens the sliver package.

He’s in. I break my first rule this time. He’s fast and eager. Too eager, and I feel him tense up less than a minute later.

“Fuck,” he says, and plants his face into my pillow next to my face.

“You serious?” I ask. He groans into the pillow, and I laugh. I destroy what remains of his ego and laugh myself silly. “Been awhile I take it?”

“Nearly a year,” he mumbles into the pillow.

“I needed that laugh more than the sex,” I say, and he rolls off me. He takes in a deep breath and turns toward me. I’m now trying to hold it back, and my restrained expression causing him to chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.”

“You got a good rebound?”

“We’ll find out.”

While we wait to find out, he starts kissing me again. I don’t remember the last time I had this much fun in bed. His mouth suckles my breasts as he slides his hand down to start rubbing and fingering. I grab his manhood, trying to get him in the mood again. He starts getting hard again so I expedite the process by slithering below. I remove the condom and lower my mouth onto him. He groans and helps with my hair.

I feel him trying to spin me, and I understand what he’s doing so help. We settle into a mutual position of sixty-nine, and I can barely focus on him. He’s good at this, not gonna lie. When I feel a second orgasm, I muzzle myself with his dick.

“I think I’m ready,” he says, and pushes me forward. When he starts sitting up I know it’s not reverse cowgirl, and prepare myself for doggy. He rubs himself up and down my slit. He’s teasing me.

“Hurry up,” I say, and he listens. I’m so wet he glides in with ease. He grabs my hips and uses them to control his pace. When he’s lasted longer than the first time, I finally notice he broke another rule. I’ve never had a raw dick before, so I feel the difference. I don’t want to stop.

“Pull out,” I exhale between thrusts.

After he’s satiated himself in that position, we adjust to reverse cowgirl. I squat over him and drop myself down hard. His hands grips by sides, helping lift and lower myself onto him. When he knows I’m tired because I slow down, he spins me around while still on him, then twirls me to my back. Back to basic missionary. I ask for it deep, and he obliges. He keeps my legs and hips lifted by resting them in the crook of his elbows, and dives into me.

He drills me with a hard and consistent speed for several minutes, before announcing he’s close.

“Almost there,” he grunts, and picks up the speed for a moment.

“Get on your back,” I say.

“Almost there…”

“…on your back,” I say, pushing him off me. He finally hears me, and rolls to the side. I grab his shaft, and he’s squirting as I cusp my mouth over the head. He finishes, and I milk what’s left of it.

“Holy shit,” he gasps. He’s already gone and I’m still sucking. Easiest way to turn a man into putty. “Oh my god.”

“Want me to stop?” I ask, coming up for air. The pleasure has left him tongue tied, so I continue. I planned on going until he turned into a noodle, but it just doesn’t happen. Five minutes straight and he’s still a brick.

“I’m getting another one,” I say, and mount him.