By Minim Calibre
Notes: Pre-series, spoilers through 5×04, The End. Thanks to the Usual Suspects for the beta, the hand holding, and the text message pom-poms.
Three and a half shots of Jägermeister (interrupted by two baskets of fries and she’s lost count of how many coffee refills) into her combo study session and one-woman pity party, Rhonda gives up on reading about Caravaggio. It bodes ill for her actually getting any of the week’s reading done: when Caravaggio with his deadly bar brawls and drowned hooker models can’t hold a person’s attention for more than five minutes at a time, something’s not right, and if she can’t make it through the section on Caravaggio, there’s no way she’ll be getting through Bernini and Rubens. Maybe it’s just a really bad textbook, but unfortunately, it’s probably just her.
Using corpses for artist’s models sounds completely brilliant right about now. Corpses don’t ditch you for parties, and if you can position them before rigor mortis sets in, you don’t have to worry about them moving, shifting, talking, sneezing, or generally fucking up the pose.
It’s probably for the best that even well into her so-called college career that she has no idea where they keep the morgue in this town, or else she might be tempted to steal a body.
Pushing the book away, she chews on the edge of a cold, soggy french fry and stares at her surroundings. The lurid red booths patched with duct tape and the chipped and butt-laden amber glass ashtrays are pathetic and familiar. Comforting, even. Probably why she still hangs out in the restaurant section, even though she’s been old enough to head back to the bar for a year now. Besides, in the restaurant section, there’s way less in the way of leering.
Not that it’s totally absent from this part of the Reef tonight, but at least it’s just the one guy, he’s actually trying to be subtle about it, and he’s younger than her grandpa. She glances over at him. Prettier than her grandpa, too. Caravaggio pretty. In fact…
“Hey, you.” She finishes the Jäger, sets her shot glass down hard for emphasis, and looks him straight in the eye.
His eyes flick away for a second, straight to the door. Great. She’s spooked him. But then he looks back, eyebrows slightly raised, and says, “You talkin’ to me?” like he hasn’t been leering at her all evening.
“No, Travis Bickle, I’m talking to the walls. Of course I’m talking to you. Do you see anyone else around?”
“There’s the guy back there.” He jerks his thumb behind him to where two booths away, the same old guy who’s always there sits, picking at his hash browns daintily, paper napkin tucked into his shirt collar, liver spotted cheeks moving slowly as he chews.
“Very funny. What’s your name?”
“Dean.”
“You any good at standing still, Dean?” He’s probably the exact kind of obnoxious, idiot townie that’s at the root of their house rule about no bringing home local boys, but damn, he’s got an amazing bone structure.
“I beg your pardon?” Huge green eyes look at her in blank confusion.
“You know, standing still? Not moving?”
“No offense, lady, but that is one weird question.”
“And are you gonna answer it?”
Dean smiles, and it’s somehow smooth and feral at the same time, and she is going to break so many of her own rules if he doesn’t stop it. “What’s in it for me?”
Rhonda smiles back, stifling the voice in her head telling her in bored tones that this is not one of her brighter ideas. “Depends on the answer, doesn’t it?”
“Okay. I’m okay at it, I guess. ”
“Got any plans for tonight?”
He taps his fingers against the formica consideringly, still smiling. “Not really.”
“Want to come back to my place? I’d like to draw you.”
Those eyebrows go up again. “That all you want to do to me?”
She raises her own brows, wets her lips with the tip of her tongue. “We’ll see.”
***
Her place is only a few blocks away. She leads him up the narrow stairs to the converted attic that serves as bedroom and studio both, the slight buzz making her laugh more than is called for when he has to duck his head to get through the totally not to code doorway.
“Sorry. I’m 5’2″. I forget the door’s not made for normal people.” She turns on the studio lights and switches off the overhead. “You can leave your underwear on. Let me get my equipment out first, then I’ll show you the pose I want you to hold.”
The pause is long enough that she thinks he’s going to back out now that he knows she’s serious, then he says, “Okay,” and starts shrugging off his clothes. He pointedly leaves the necklace he’s wearing on, but she thinks she can work around it.
“I really am an art student,” she explains, digging out a box of willow charcoal and a drawing pad from under her bed. “I swear, it’s not just the worst pick up line since let me show you my etchings.”
“Kind of hard to miss that.” Her walls are covered in sketches, canvasses in progress lean against every available surface.
Rhonda reaches up and tilts his head until the shadows are hitting where she wants them. “Try to keep your head there and stand like this.” She steps back and demonstrates. “I’m doing a series on Greek myths, and it’s harder than you’d think to find a good Adonis in this town.”
“Look on the bright side: Dionysus and Chronos are a dime a dozen.”
Smarter than she’d thought, or at least he knows something about mythology. She laughs and adjusts the placement of his arms, tugging them gently into position. “You’re not wrong there. Hold still while I drape you.”
“Okay.”
She pins the a torn sheet around his waist and over one shoulder, a rough approximation of a loose interpretation of a chiton.
“And then while I draw you. Don’t move, don’t talk, and if you have to breathe, just try to make it shallow, ‘k?” Settling into her chair, Rhonda adds, “I’m kidding about the breathing part. Mostly.”
The pose she’s got him in may be easy on the eyes, but it isn’t exactly easy on the body–she’d felt like a contortionist when she showed it to him. Still, he holds it like a pro. Thank god for small mercies. Maybe she’ll finish this stupid painting series in her lifetime, after all. Quick strokes of charcoal across the paper to capture the outline of his body, the placement of the shadows, then a new page and new strokes for details she wants to highlight in the finished piece: the sweep of the lashes, the curve of the lips, the faint play of muscles on his chest and arms.
“Have you done this before?” she asks as she finishes the last of her sketches, setting it with the rest for a date with a can of fixative. “Oh, and I’m done. You can talk now.”
“Thanks, and no. First time.”
“You know, the school’s always looking for life models. You could make a quick buck in the buff if you wanted.”
“Thanks, but–” he stretches and shifts, wincing slightly–“I think I’ll stick to a more comfortable line of work. So, uh.” Dean clears his throat. “Do you have a name?”
Oh. Right. That. “Rhonda. Rhonda Hurley.”
“Next question: should I put on my clothes?”
Her turn for the throat clearing. She gnaws on her lower lip and considers taking the offered out, but it’s a Friday night, she’s been single since the middle of the last quarter of the previous school year, and, damn it, he’s really, really hot. “No.”
***
The double bed that’s felt too big for half a year suddenly feels too small. She’s not even sure if she remembers what to do with someone else in it. She feels herself start to tense up.
Dean must feel it too, because he lifts his head from where he’d been kissing her neck and brushes the hair away from her face. “You don’t bring guys home much, do you?”
“Not for a while, no.”
“Relax. It’s like riding a bicycle.”
“The last time I was on my bike, I wound up with thirteen stitches and a mild concussion.”
“So maybe not quite like riding a bike.”
“Hey, at least I’d remembered my helmet. Speaking of, the ugly piece of unglazed ceramic over there?” She points to a pottery project gone wrong, a repurposed relic from her freshman year of high school. “Is filled with your typical student health center assortment. Trojans, Lifestyles, Durex, you name it.”
He leans over, stretching out his arm to grab it off the milk crate she uses as a bedside table. Up close, she can see the waxen sheen of scar tissue littering his right shoulder blade, rough thin lines of it that dimple at the edges from stitching. One stitch, two… she’s up to fifteen when he asks, “Any special requests?” as he rummages through the embarrassingly full jar.
Rhonda pulls her attention away from his scapula. “I’ve always had a soft spot for the Tuxedo ones.” It’s more the idea of them than anything. That you can turn your one-night stand or spring fling into a black tie affair, just add the right bit of latex.
He digs two out, and sets them next to the pillow before setting the jar back on the crate. “Now,” he says, reaching between her breasts to unclasp her bra, “where were we?”
She runs her hand down his back, slips under the elastic of his boxers and strokes the soft skin of his ass. “You were convincing me I’m not going to fall off and look like an idiot.”
“Right.” The fingers that rub across her nipple are calloused and cool, the lips on her ear soft and warm. She likes the contrast. “How am I doing with that?”
They’re sprawled on her bedspread, each of them with a leg between the other’s thighs. Rhonda shifts until she’s under him, wrapping her legs around his hips and pushing up against him. “I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job.”
“Means there’s room for improvement.” And then he’s making his way down her body, mouth and hands teasing out gasps and whimpers until her legs are up at his shoulders and his tongue is pressing against the crotch of her panties. He stops just long enough to ease them off, then buries his head between her legs again.
When he comes up for air, his lips and chin are wet, and she wants to lick it off him, lick herself off him, so she does while he finger-fucks her. She hooks her toes into the fabric of his boxers and tugs them down with her feet. “Neat trick,” he says, barely lifting his head.
Rhonda just smiles and slides one hand between their bodies to stroke his dick. With the other, she’s already fumbling for the Lifestyles packet. She brings it to her mouth, finds the notch and opens it carefully with her teeth so they don’t have to stop touching. Then she spits out the thin strip of plastic and helps him roll the condom on. He pushes inside her in one quick stroke, her legs back up around his hips, bodies grinding and colliding in the best way possible.
She’ll grant him the slightly smug, self-satisfied smile that he gives her when they’ve finished: he’s more than earned it. Hell, she’s not even going to complain about him drifting off and drooling on her pillow, even though it’s her favorite of the two, and even though the bed’s back to feeling way too small because someone’s turned out to be a sprawler. He’s also a human space heater, and given that it’s the middle of October and her place is lacking in insulation, she appreciates the extra warmth.
***
The sound of her roommate getting home wakes them both. Dean makes an ungainly scramble to seated and looks around, eyes wide. “Shit. What time is it?”
Rhonda leans over the side of the bed and pushes a pile of discarded sketches off the alarm clock, peering bleary-eyed at the glowing green numbers. “1:27.”
“Crap. Dad’s going to kill me.” He swings himself off the bed and starts pulling on his clothes.
The feeling in the pit of her stomach is quickly identified as panic. She pulls the sheets around her and asks, “How old are you?”
“Nineteen. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.” Just the sinking fear that the guy she’d brought home after one shot too many was underage.
She’d never make a living as a poker player. “Rhonda, trust me: I’m nineteen.”
“I’m just not used to nineteen year old guys freaking out because of their dads.”
“Yeah, well, most nineteen year old guys aren’t supposed to be making sure their fifteen year old brother is getting to bed safe and sound, and most dads aren’t my Dad.” He shoves his feet into his boots. “And before you ask, I wasn’t ditching Sammy to go out tonight: he kicked me out. Said I was interrupting his calculus homework or something.”
“That’s a new one.”
“Not for Sam. He really is just that big of a nerd.”
That wasn’t quite what she meant, but she lets it drop. Reluctantly, she leaves the warmth of the bed and puts on her jeans and yesterday’s shirt so she can walk him out. At the front door, he startles her with a quick kiss and a, “Thanks. It was fun.”
Jeannie pokes her head out of the kitchen as soon as the door shuts again and says, “Rhon, did I just see you do the walk of shame with a townie?”
Rhonda flips her off with a tight smile and hurries back upstairs. She can’t get back to sleep, and she can’t find where she put the fixative, so she sprays the night’s sketches with Aqua Net Extra Hold and pulls a stretched and gessoed canvas out from the pile of them in her closet.
***
When she runs into Dean again, it’s three weeks later and at the library of all places. It’s not that she’s been looking for him, but she hasn’t not been looking for him, and at this point, she’s half-convinced she made him up.
He’s sitting at one of the long tables, flipping through a magazine while the kid next to him goes through a pile of books, occasionally poking Dean’s shoulder to get his attention so he can point something out. The family resemblance is vague, but there. She’s still trying to decide if she should say something or duck between the stacks and hide when Dean spies her watching them. He sets down the magazine–Car and Driver, she sees now–says something to his brother, and heads her way.
“Hi.” Dean’s smiling slightly, like this isn’t at all awkward. In daylight and with her stone-cold sober, he’s just as pretty as her memory and her sketches indicated. Caravaggio’s Narcissus with short-cropped hair and freckles. It makes her wish she didn’t feel like photo references were somehow cheating.
Rhonda tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hi.”
“Hey, look, I’m sorry I had to duck out the other night.” It sounds sincere, but she’s a bad judge of that.
“Oh, no problem.” It’s a little too cheery when it comes out, and she winces. “You seem to have escaped the wrath of Dad.”
“Sammy covered for me when he called. Said I was in the shower.” He scratches at the back of his neck. “Doesn’t mean he won’t rip me a new one when he gets back, but I’ve got a stay of execution, at least for now.”
It’s more bravado than anything that makes her say, “Would he cover for you again tonight?”
“You need to do some more sketching?”
“I thought we’d maybe just skip that part. The painting’s already half-done. I’ve been feeling inspired.”
A slight nod, an upward quirk of his brows, then a shrug and, “Okay.”
“I’m meeting a friend for dinner, but I could call you when I get home.” She opens her purse and starts digging around. “What’s your number? I’ve got a pen in here somewhere, I can write it down. Okay. Found it. Shoot.”
He hesitates, then says, “555-7634, room 102.”
“You’re staying in a motel?” Well, hell.
The look that crosses his face could best be described as guarded. “Yeah. But, hey, it’s got a kitchenette and free cable.”
“Sorry. I guess I thought you lived here.”
Another shrug. “I do. For now. Till Dad finishes up the job he’s working and we roll out.”
She’s curious, but she doesn’t ask. She gets the feeling he wouldn’t tell, anyhow. “Call you around 8?”
“Sure. I’ll let Sammy know he’ll be on his own for a few hours.”
***
In the end, she bails on dinner and calls him at 7:00. After all, she can see Case whenever she wants, and Dean’s a limited time offer. So to speak.
She changes her shirt three times and her underthings twice while she waits, finally settling on her trashiest black top and her one matching bra and panty set. It’s hot pink satin with stretch lace trim, and she bought it on a dare right after she and Jacob split and promptly tucked it away in the back of the lingerie drawer. When she finds herself considering changing again, she realizes she’s over thinking things. Somehow, planning a hookup has managed to make her more nervous than just going for it did. There’s a lesson somewhere in that. At least she’d stayed happy with this morning’s jeans.
He’s in the same clothes he was wearing at the library: faded flannel over a grey t-shirt, a battered pair of blue jeans, and a brown leather jacket that’s about a half-size too large.
“Nice shirt,” he tells her.
“Thanks. I’m hoping it won’t stay on too long.”
“I’m guessing two, maybe three minutes, tops.”
She licks her lips. “That might be too long.”
He’s got her out of it about a minute and a half later. The bra lasts a little longer. He thinks it’s hot.
Just a little longer, though. Not much.
***
Dean’s dozing, splayed prone next to her. The light picks out the curve of his spine, the sheen of his still-damp skin. Her fingers twitch, itching for a pencil, but she’s too lazy and fuck-drunk to dig one out, so she stays there, watching him, until her bladder convinces her she really, really needs to get up and use the toilet. His flannel’s on the top of their pile of clothes, so she throws it on for the trip downstairs. It smells faintly of butane and wood smoke, making her want s’mores.
It’s colder downstairs than up, the November chill seeping through the floorboards and the thin glass of the old windowpanes. Rhonda shivers and hurries through her business. It’s chilly enough that she uses just the hot when she goes to wash her hands. Not quite so chilly that she forgoes a quick side trip to the kitchen to grab a couple of cans of Dr Pepper, though. She can hear Jeannie moving around in her room, and knows she’ll get an earful in the morning. The only sin worse than bringing a townie home is double dipping with one. Dean’s not really a townie, just a temporary one, but she doubts Jeannie will make the distinction. But who cares? It’s a stupid rule, anyhow.
When she gets back, he’s awake, leaning against her headboard with both of her pillows propped behind him.
“Thought you might be thirsty,” she explains, tossing him one of the cans.
He catches it one handed, pops it open and takes a greedy sip before he sets it aside. “You look really good wearing my shirt.” His voice is still slightly sleep-muddled. “I don’t think I’d look as good wearing yours.”
“Maybe not my shirt, but I bet you’d look fantastic in my underpants.” She looks at his lean hips, barely covered by the sheet. Rhonda kneels and fetches them from the bottom of the clothing pile, twirling them on her index finger as she stands back up. “Probably better than fantastic, want to find out?”
The green eyes narrow. “Thanks, but that’s not really my style.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. C’mon. I dare you.”
“Fine. But just this once, and no drawings and don’t tell anyone.” He snatches them from her as he gets out of bed, and she watches him pull them on, one leg then the next, fussing around in front of her mirror trying to fit everything into something that’s small enough to be impractical, even for a girl.
When he’s done, the lace rides low across his hip bones, while the satin stretches over his crotch, a clingy and obscene hot pink second skin. It’s too bad he’s not going to be around long enough for her to convince him to let her draw him like this.
Rhonda watches him watch himself, his hands smoothing out invisible wrinkles. “See?” she tells him. “Better than fantastic.”
He shifts under her regard, cheeks flushing to match the underwear like he’s been caught out. “So. Can I get out of these now, or is there something else you’d like me to do?” But he’s hard under the fabric, chewing nervously on his lower lip, all uncertainty and arousal.
“Are you sure you want to get out of them?”
His Adam’s apple bobs and his cheeks grow even pinker. “No.”
“Good.” She walks the few steps between them and drops to her knees. “Because I have plans for those panties.” She presses her lips against his shaft, enjoying his quick intake of breath. When she pulls her head away, there are two dark spots spreading wet across the satin, and only one is from her mouth. Dean’s head’s thrown back, his lips slightly parted. His hands are clenched at his sides, and she files the image away for her private sketchbook before she pushes her underwear down his hips and takes him into her mouth.
The taste of latex lingers on his skin, mixed with the baking soda tang of semen. It’s going to clash like hell with the Dr Pepper when she’s done, but oh well. She works him with her mouth and her hands, relishing the helpless, guttural sounds coming from his throat, to where she’s almost disappointed when comes to an end and his hips jerk and stutter while she brings him off. She pushes one hand between her legs as she swallows, barely needing to touch herself to get the job done.
“Wow,” he says, sinking to the floor next to her, her underwear still bunched around his thighs.
“You can keep them, if you want.” She pops open her can and manages to drink about half of it, despite being right about the tastes clashing.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but the moment Sam finds something like these in my bag, I’ll never hear the end of it. But thanks.”
Rhonda leans her head against his shoulder. “Tell him it’s a memento from your stay in the world’s crappiest college town.”
“This town doesn’t even make the top ten of those. Count your blessings, it could be Pullman.”
“Fine. Eleventh crappiest college town.”
“Maybe fifteenth. And that’s all they’d be, a memento.”
His cheeks are pink again. Well, whatever he needs to tell himself. When they crawl back into bed, he pulls them up, he doesn’t take them off.