Complementary Colors Read online

  I used the cover to gyrate my hips. This time when I tightened my muscles, I gave it everything I had. The scowl on my fuck buddy’s face turned hungry. I licked his palm.

  Righty joined his friend. “I’ll see what I can do.” Whatever they said next was covered up by the dryer. It cut off, and their voices faded away as they left the bathroom.

  My new friend rested his forehead between my shoulders and groaned.

  I shook free of his hand. “Don’t tell me you’re ready to quit. I’m just getting started.”

  He lifted his gaze. Anger seethed from his black, black eyes. “Better cram your fist in your mouth.” His hips shot forward.

  I was able to grab the toilet paper dispenser to keep from falling, but I still wound up off balance with my head bent to the side until my ear was pressed to my shoulder.

  Every thrust slammed my cheek into the wall until my jawbone throbbed. I pushed myself upright, but he gripped the back of my head and shoved me back into the corner. The man whose name I didn’t know fucked me so hard I couldn’t even inhale a full breath before it was knocked out of me again.

  It wasn’t long before his body tensed. The jump of his cock was nearly lost to the thump of my heart in my ears.

  “Turn around.”

  I thought my muscles couldn’t scream any louder, but as I stood, the pain chomping at the nerves crescendoed in my spine. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t keep from trembling.

  “I said turn around.” He grabbed me by my shoulder and pinned me to the wall. “Do you want to come?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  He ran a finger down my aching cock. I bit back a plea.

  “I’m definitely going to have to do something about that smart mouth.” He squeezed my cock. When I clenched my teeth, he laughed. “Hurt much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you like it.”

  “Had better.”

  His strokes quickened. Precum leaked from the tip of my cock until the foreskin rubbed the head with a wet sound.

  The smug look on his face made me want to hold back just to see how long he could jack me before his hand gave out. I knew I could outlast him, but the last thing I needed was Julia hunting me down.

  He twisted his wrist and at the same time did something with his thumb. A bolt shot up my cock, making me cry out, and I came. He continued to stroke me until the orgasm turned ugly and all I could do was writhe against the wall, pawing at his chest while every nerve in the head of my dick was set on fire.

  Then he stopped, and my knees gave out.

  “Right where you belong.” He tilted my head up and pushed his cum-coated fingers into my mouth. “That’s it. Every drop.”

  I even licked his palm. When he was clean, he leaned down and kissed me.

  “Better get back to dinner before we’re missed,” he said.

  “Way past that already, I’m sure.”

  He fixed his clothes, and left me to struggle to my feet. We stood side by side at the sink like strangers. I fully expected to look worse than I did. I washed my hands and ran my hand through my bangs.

  “You first.” He nodded at the door.

  The violence playing in Julia’s eyes was bright even from across the room. She’d long ago surpassed anger and shot into psychotic.

  The man fell in behind me. He clapped me on the back of my shoulder and grinned. “Laugh like I’ve just told you the best joke in the world.”

  I did. Julia’s gaze went from him to me. We stopped at the table.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, but Paris and I got to talking.”

  “About what?” Julia looked at me when said it.

  “His paintings,” the man said.

  “Really?”

  “Don’t worry, Julia, I didn’t reveal any of my trade secrets.” I sat.

  “Your little brother is quite the salesman.”

  Now she looked at him. “Excuse me?”

  He drank from his wine glass. “Oh yes, he’s convinced me to commission him to do a mural in my summer home.”

  “I didn’t know you did murals?” That from the balding guy.

  “It would be my first.”

  “How big a mural?” Julia said.

  The man propped an elbow on the table and held his chin. “I don’t know the exact dimensions, but I am sure it will take a while. He would have to come stay with me. A week…maybe two.”

  Julia coughed into her napkin. “I don’t know, Gregory, he’s very busy.”

  “I’ll make sure to pay him a fair price. I figured we could start the bidding at three million.”

  Mrs. Crayson dropped her fork. While everyone at the table stared at Gregory, Julia stared at me.

  “Of course if it takes longer, I’ll be sure to compensate him.”

  “Why, that’s very…uh…”

  I leaned closer to Julia. “I think the word you’re looking for is generous.”

  “Yes.” Julia plastered on a shiny happy expression. “Yes, thank you.”

  “So then I’ll have my secretary call you to make the arrangements?” Gregory said.

  “Yes. Please.”

  “You’ve been holding out on us, Julia.” The older gentlemen on her left said. “We had no idea Paris could be commissioned for murals.”

  “Would he be willing to fly to France?” His wife patted him on the hand. “He could paint on that enormous blank wall at the cottage.” She turned her attention back to us. “The interior designer has yet to come up with something acceptable.”

  “I don’t know, Paris and I will have to…”

  “We’ll pay for the flight, of course,” she said. “And the lodging.”

  “You know.” Mrs. Crayson nodded at her husband. “Robert’s brother owns a charter company. A private jet would be much nicer than a commercial flight.”

  While the two couples discussed the possibilities, Gregory stalked me from across the table.

  “Please tell me you can paint murals,” Julia said.

  “A wall is just a bigger canvas.”

  Julia smiled. “I’m so proud of you.” She picked at the corner of my mouth. “Hold still.” She licked her thumb.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You have something on your face.” She scrubbed the spot. “Really, Paris, you need to work on your manners and use your napkin once in a while.” She wet her thumb again and made a few more swipes before she was satisfied. “There, that’s better.”

  I sipped my wine. “What would I ever do without you?”

  ********

  Layers of paint stained my hands, marking the hours I’d suffered under the brush and bleeding on the canvas.

  All I had to do was look at it, give it a name, then I could shove it on the drying rack and forget it ever existed. My hands trembled. My throat tightened. The bones in my neck creaked with the effort it took to raise my head.

  The writhing forms reached for me with skeletal hands covered in paper flesh. They had worn their fingertips away on their climb from the pit. Pleading cries turned into angry accusations.

  “Everything was fine until you were born.” The tone of Julia’s voice promised pain.

  “You made me do this. Fucking little whore.” I shrank away from my father.

  A woman knelt down. Her cheeks were wet from crying. “Por favor, dime dónde está.”

  I threw myself back and collided with one of the workbenches.

  The studio was empty.

  Leftovers from a dream. It had to be. I’d painted. I’d put everything there just like I was supposed to. Somewhere in the shadows, a twig snapped.

  I stuffed my wallet in my pocket and carried my shoes with me to the elevator. If Bill saw me leave the building, he didn’t say anything. And if he said anything, I didn’t hear.

  At two o’clock in the morning, even the cabs became endangered animals.

  After a few misses, I was finally able to get my feet into my shoes. At least my toes were safe from frostbite
. I couldn’t say the same for the rest of me. I wrapped my arms around my chest. It was useless. My thin shirt offered no protection.

  I went from shadows to halogen puddles until I reached the end of the block. The only sign of life was a twenty-four hour liquor store. I told myself it would be warm, but the truth was I planned on getting so smashed I wouldn’t be able to tell if it wasn’t.

  The man at the counter didn’t look up from his magazine. “If you’re looking for something particular, let me know.” He flipped the page.

  If I’d known what I wanted, I would have asked. Just to save myself the time.

  I headed to the back.

  Row after row of cheap wine, liquor, vodka. None of the names looked familiar. I grabbed the most expensive brand of…the letters on the label wouldn’t be still long enough for me to read them.

  I carried the bottle to the front.

  The man put his magazine on the counter and casually unsnapped the holster on his belt. I got out my wallet.

  He flicked a look from my hand to my face and nodded, then rang me up. “Sixty-five eighty.”

  I took out two fifties.

  “Forget your coat?”

  “Yeah, I was in a hurry.”

  “Supposed to get colder. They say it might even snow.”

  No wonder the streets were empty. The threat of snowflakes in the South might as well have been a promise of alien invasion.

  “Maybe you’d like to borrow the phone and call yourself a cab?”

  The thought of being trapped inside a metal box made my insides crawl.

  “No, no. I’m good.”

  He gave me my change. The dimes leapt from my hand and ticked against the wooden counter.

  Leaves clung to my legs. Everything smelled of wet earth.

  I dropped the tarp, and Julia screamed at me. “Pick up his feet.” The rain mashed the curls to her head and smeared her makeup. “This is your mess, and now you have to help clean it up.”

  “Son?”

  “Por favor, ¿ha visto ami hijo?”

  I pressed the heel of my hand against my temple.

  The man moved his hand close to his gun.

  “I’m okay. Just a migraine.”

  He nodded, but his hand remained near his holster.

  I stuffed the bills back into my wallet. When I closed it, Roy’s card stuck up from the folds. I pulled it out. The cheap paper was smooth between my fingers.

  “You said you had a phone I could borrow?”

  “It’s local, right?” I nodded. He set the phone in front of me.

  The time didn’t even dawn on me until after the third ring, not that I had a right to call him to begin with.

  “Hello?” Rough from sleep, his deep voice slid under my skin. The trembling in my hands stopped. “Hello?”

  “It’s Paris.”

  Sheet rustled. A mattress squeaked. I was very familiar with that sound as well as the thump of the headboard against the wall.

  “Are you okay?” Some of the grit left his tone.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Where are you?”

  “A liquor store near my apartment. Well, about two blocks from my apartment.”

  “What’s the address?”

  I asked the clerk and relayed it to Roy.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  He hung up, and I cradled the phone against my chest.

  “You done with that, son?”

  I handed the receiver back to the man. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  I put my wallet away and gathered up my merchandise. The night pressed against the glass door. I stood with my hand on the bar.

  “You can wait inside, if you want.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” He picked up his magazine and resumed reading.

  ********

  Roy wrapped his coat around my shoulders, and I stuffed the bottle of liquor in the pocket while he zipped it.

  There were dark circles under his eyes, and his flannel shirt was buttoned crooked. The jeans he wore had a hole in the knee, but any skin was hidden behind the long johns underneath.

  “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I shouldn’t have called.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  I never did the right thing. I did what was selfish and shortsighted. I did the things that got me what I wanted. And yes, I admit, I wanted him.

  I wanted the warmth of his body against mine. His arms holding me together. That voice, that wonderful voice, promising me safety.

  Roy thanked the liquor storeowner and led me outside. “I think there’s a cab parked up the way.”

  “I don’t want a cab.”

  “You don’t have any socks on. Your feet are going to freeze before you can get home.”

  They were already freezing. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “Do you want to go to my place?”

  “No.”

  “Is there somewhere else?”

  “No.”

  He stopped. “Paris, what’s wrong?”

  I pressed myself to him. “Just hold me for a moment.” The heat radiating from his skin, the hardness of his body, the strength in his arms erased all the bad things.

  The spicy scent I’d come to know as his seemed stronger than usual. I buried my face against his neck. He exhaled, and I inhaled. His heart beat and so did mine.

  Roy kissed my temple. “Talk to me, please. I want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “Yes.”

  He ran a hand over my head. “Then it’s because I want to.”

  “Why? Why do you want to?”

  His sigh was warm against my ear. “Because maybe if I can help you, then the world will be a better place.”

  I huffed. “You sound like a Greenpeace commercial.”

  His laugh vibrated through to my core and wrapped me in layers of orange and yellow.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  The tires on a passing car made a wet sound against the asphalt. After another long moment, I said, “You’re wrong, you know. Helping me won’t make the world a better place.”

  He cupped my chin. The shadows made the lines around his eyes deeper. Instead of looking older, he looked more rugged. “Why not?”

  “Because the world will only be a better place when people like me are no longer in it.”

  He cradled me. “That’s not true, and whoever told you that is a liar.”

  I stepped back. But I don’t think he wanted to let me go. “Do you think there’s a coffee shop open?”

  “There’s a Waffle House about a half mile from here.”

  “Sounds greasy.”

  “It is. But the coffee is good.”

  I loved it already. “C’mon. My feet are cold.”

  He put his arm over my shoulders. “I see a cab.”

  The yellow car pulled up under a streetlight.

  “I don’t want to get in a cab.”

  “Why not?”

  “Can we please walk?”

  He cast a look at the car, then me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Five blocks up, the street split into a tangle of asphalt. Highway traffic hissed from behind a line of carefully arranged shrubbery. Amber running lights outlined semis and RVs parked beside a gas station. The rumble of their engines pumped into the night.

  Fluorescent light spilled out the windows of the Waffle House, illuminating the parking lot. The scent of toast and bacon replaced the oily smell of exhaust.

  My stomach growled.

  “Hungry much?” Roy held open the door.

  “Maybe.” I was hungry, and I was never hungry.

  There were more people than I’d expected. The short-order cook yelled out a hello, and the waitresses echoed him.

  “Do they know you?” I said.

  “No. They just do
that.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess to make you feel welcome.” Roy found us a booth for two in the corner.

  One of the waitresses walked over. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Roy said.

  “Sugar and cream?”

  “Paris?”

  I nodded.

  “Please.” Roy smiled at her, and she left.

  “Aren’t you a Boy Scout?”

  He handed me a menu. “Why do you say that?”

  “Please, ma’am, thank you.”

  “That’s just being polite.”

  I turned the laminated rectangle over. Nothing in the pictures looked edible. I couldn’t even be sure if it was real food. I squinted at what was supposed to be a T-bone steak. “So what’s good to eat here?”

  “I guess that depends on what you like.”

  “What’s the greasiest?”

  “Greasiest?”

  “Yeah. I want heartburn and indigestion.”

  “Why would you want that?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  The waitress dropped off our coffee along with a bowl full of cream packets. I could only imagine the shit fit Julia would have if she’d been expected to get her cream from plastic containers.

  I poured several into the coffee. The empties left smears of white on the tabletop. Roy wiped up the mess with a napkin, then collected the plastic containers. He put everything off to the side.

  “See, you are a Boy Scout.”

  “I’m just like anyone else.”

  I drank my coffee. It was still hot enough to burn my tongue. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Roy, I have news for you. Not everyone is like you. They don’t even come close to you.”

  “They are where I come from.”

  “And what planet is that?”

  “A town called Arrington.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. The most exciting thing to ever come out of there was soy beans and cotton.”

  “Sounds riveting.”

  He humpfed. “In the summer, they have a fair where they race bull frogs and wiener dogs.”

  My mouthful of coffee went up my nose. I grabbed some napkins.

  “You okay?”

  My eyes burned almost as bad as my sinuses. “Fine.” I blew, clearing out the coffee. “Next time, warn me when you say things like that.”

  “I had no idea I said anything needing a warning.”