“You always like drinking whiskey with your mom in the room?” I asked, forgetting that they had issues.
“I like doing what I want and what I want is to have a drink with a gentleman caller. Especially when my ‘mom’ isn’t up to playing host.”
“I don’t need to be hosted.”
“You don’t need a host, you don’t need a drink—what do you need, Mr. Krank?”
That got a blink of me. I hadn’t realized I could still do that.
“Chloe…” Penelope moaned in the quiet between us. “Give me another…” Then she began to snore, a sound that tapered off quick to return us to silence.
I didn’t let it soak in. “You know who I am.”
“You’ve been in all the papers. They say you might have been irradiated; the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with you. Gossip Gus said maybe you were poisoned.”
“You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.”
“Let me read your palm. Maybe I can figure out how much time you have left.” She took my hand and I was in no position to take it back. Turning it up, she looked over the whorls of my fingerprints. Her pointer finger traced some of the lines on my palm. “You’re hard to read, Mr. Krank.”
“Maybe you’re just bad at it.”
“You like women, I can tell that much. You like Penelope. I don’t know why, though. It’s really embarrassing for someone as pretty as her not to be able to control herself. Her looks will go soon if she’s not careful.” She dropped my hand.
“Are you going to read her palm next?”
“No need. Daddy will get bored with her. Or he won’t. It doesn’t make much difference. He doesn’t have a lot of time left.”
“I heard. Sal.”
“No, not Sal, he’s an interloper.” She went back to the drink cart and actually poured this time. “Then again, it does make some difference. If Daddy knew I was here with you unchaperoned, he’d have you killed. Once he’s gone, though, then I can do whatever I want.”
“I heard you like that.”
She toasted me, then Penelope, up on high heels, every line of her body alive, her breasts moving with every inhale and exhale. She drank.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know.” She dropped the glass, leaving it to the houseman. “I never get to do what I want. If it’s not what Daddy wants, it’s what Penelope wants.”
She got the other glass she’d filled and brought it to me. Brought herself to me. Flowing steps jiggled her curves until she was kneeling before me, opening up my knees to fit between them…
“Maybe it should be what you want. I don’t think I’d mind doing what you want. I’m not happy here.” She laid her body against mine. Just feeling it was a caress. “You’re not worried about Daddy, are you? Even if you weren’t dying, you wouldn’t be. You know the world doesn’t need little girls. It needs women. Real, live women. You could make me a woman, Mr. Krank.”
One hand pressured the back of my neck and the other held the glass to my lips. When she tilted it up, I drank the whiskey down. It burned. I didn’t know there was anything left in me that wasn’t already ash.
“Just like I made you a drink,” she concluded.
“You could do better than a dead man,” I told her.
“Haven’t you heard? Every girl wants a guy who reminds her of her father. How about it, Mr. Krank? Would you like to be my daddy?”
“If I were, I’d spank you.”
“Oh, Mr. Krank, you do know how to talk to a girl.”
Her lips went against mine. They were soft and wet and I guess mine felt good against hers too, because she moaned into my mouth. She took her lips away like she was only doing it so she could linger as much as possible, look at how much I wanted them back.
“You’re nice to kiss,” she whispered. “I’m nice to spank. I need a strong man. Do you need a bad girl? One who’s just a few spankings away from being good?”
“What would your mother think?” I babbled.
“She’ll think she should’ve cut back on the wine before you ended up my daddy instead of hers. Let me show you how bad I am. I really could use a spanking.”
She kissed me again. I forgot the danger. I damn near forgot I was dying. Suddenly all that weakness, that soreness, the shortness of breath, everything—it had all departed my body. I felt like me again, not some dying wretch on a kamikaze mission. I was so enthused with myself that I stood up, spilling the girl out of my lap… I hadn’t even noticed she’d climbed onto me.
And all of me was back. We both realized at the same time that I was fully erect, the girl now on eye level with how hard I was.
“Oh my goodness,” she gasped, sounding very sincere for someone who’d been going on about her badness for so long.
I’d always had a low boiling point when it came to beautiful women, but no woman was so lovely or man so ready that I could go from deathbed to marriage bed so rapidly. I could understand it not at all, but suddenly Parente was a distant second on my list of priorities. I could get in one last screw and this girl was offering. I didn’t care if her mother was snoring. I’d do this if I were in the middle of her family reunion.
Chloe stood. As she came up, her head came so close to my cock that I worried she was about to ram into it. I didn't shy away though. I held rigid, in more ways than one. And like a snake charmer… or a charmed snake… she slowed inches from the bulge, barely bringing her head higher if it meant coming away from my erection. She stared without blinking, her eyes wide, like if she looked long enough, hard enough, she'd see through the teeth of my zipper and the fabric of my boxers.
I felt myself throbbing, knowing she could see it. Probably smell the precum soaking into my underwear. Her tongue leaked out of her mouth and then, like she'd remembered herself… maybe at some particularly vivid imagining, shocking even herself… and she kept coming to her feet, weaving drunkenly.
Maybe that ran in the family. I knew plenty of women who couldn't hold their liquor. There were plenty more, particularly young women, who couldn't handle being turned on. But she was on her feet now, much as she staggered, and being the only two awake enough to stand up was a lot like being all alone.
“Oh. Oh my,” she said, her cheeks flushed, and she suddenly seemed awash with thankfulness. Throwing both arms around my neck and hugging me in what I could only imagine was preemptive gratitude. Her fantasy was so pleasing that she felt thankful to me for it. Then she remembered my hardness or noticed it for the first time in her tipsy state.
I stumbled back, falling to the couch beside Penelope, who didn't even mutter. Chloe followed me down. Her weight was a burden far sweeter than being unencumbered. Her skirt slid up with how she fell and I got a taste of a thigh soft enough and warm enough to burn through the leg of my trousers.
It would just take a little movement for her to be in contact with my bulging endowment. I didn't want to wait for her to make the first move—play your idea, my idea. I put my hand on the small of her back, where my fingers just reached the beginning of her pertly sloping ass, and gave her an urging little touch. The kind of goad that would only work on a horse that was very well-trained… or being told to go where it already wanted to go.
She pressed in on me. The careful friction propelling her skirt up out of the way. So when she felt my swollen cock, it was right against her panties. She sighed a little and somehow I knew it was from feeling the cold kiss of my zipper teeth where she was all molten woman.
“My… my goodness… my…” Her voice trailed off into a quiet that seemed easier on her. The shock and nerviness on her face became an expression I could tell she wasn't used to wearing. But it fit well on her face. Her long lashes lowered. I couldn't tell if she wanted to hide her own desire or avoid the candor of mine.
She held still. Working through the discovery she'd made. So overwhelmed by what she'd already learned that she needed to stop and figure it out. I was just about to content to sit there, with her in my lap, and just feeling that delicious weight on top of me, her skin against mine and so soft it was like she was trying to be a part of me.
I smiled in gratification and at the look on my face, she gave a little moan. The rise and fall of her breasts quickened. Their warm trembling dragged against my chest with her breathing, her breathing that was coming fast like she liked the friction between us as much as I did.
Moonlight peeked through the windows but did nothing to cool our shared ardor. Even silver can melt. So could the bronze of Chloe's imperturbable flesh.