Knox County Ch. 04

Aimee's stomach tightened. She turned back and looked at David, who had a smile curling his lips. "Hello, Cynthia."

"David."

"How are you?"

"Been better." She pulled out a chair and sat, sipping from her wine and looking at Aimee. "My replacement?"

Aimee looked down at her glass, shaking her head.

"As a matter of fact, Cynthia, I'd like you to meet Aimee." He was enjoying this. She could hear the anticipation in his voice.

"Little young for you, isn't she?" The bitch, Aimee thought, swiveling her eyes and looking at Cynthia. Cynthia smiled and said, "And feisty, too."

"Actually, I'm the same age as my husband," she said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, and married too. How quaint." She sipped her wine, a grin widening her cheeks. "What's his name? Maybe he should know about this."

Aimee smiled back at her now, her voice going sickly sweet, and she cupped her chin in her hands. "His name's Tim. Most people call him Officer Holloway, though." Cynthia choked on her wine, coughing violently, her eyes going wide. "Maybe you can tell him about this the next time he's fucking you in the parking lot."

Cynthia put down her wine and fled the restaurant, nearly knocking over the waitress bringing their food.

"That was fun," Aimee said, placing the napkin on her lap and picking up her fork.

David laughed.

* * *

Will had spent the past week trying to find out where Elizabeth lived. He had taken a few days and traveled to the sprawling University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, but the admissions office was no help. He'd walked around campus, asking anyone he could find whether they knew a pharmacology student named Elizabeth. Tall, dark hair, almond eyes, really pretty. None of them knew her, but some of the boys told him to give them a call when he found her because she sounded hot.

He finally struck paydirt when he unknowingly asked a girl for the second time. The girl was impatient, but told him to get his head out of his ass and just go to the School of Pharmacology and ask around. The professors should be somewhere, and if she's upper level someone would know her.

None of the professors were around, but he finally found a grad student willing to help. She was short, her shiny black hair cut short to match, dark skinned, wearing a white lab jacket and horn-rimmed glasses with a chain around back of them. She was at a desk in front of a large, empty classroom, hunched over a pile of papers.

Will didn't think she was listening as he started in on how he was looking for an upper-level student named Elizabeth Han. He described her, but the Latina pixie behind the horned rims said nothing. Just as he was about to leave, she looked up.

"Elizabeth?"

He nodded.

"Sure. I know her. She'll be a senior, right?" He nodded. "Yeah, she was in my pathology class last year. Spring semester."

She looked him up and down. "Why you wanna know?"

He fidgeted. "I'm kind of looking for her."

"Why?"

"Rather not say."

She nodded. "Fair enough. What do you want to know?"

"Where does she live? Her address."

The pixie shook her head. "Not a clue." He sighed and turned to leave. "Doesn't mean I can't find out, though," she said to his back. He turned back and looked at her. She was looking him up and down, appraising him. When she finished, she looked him in the eyes. She seemed to like what she saw, and said, "Too cute to be a stalker. Why you wanna know?"

"It's complicated."

"Then how bad you wanna know?" He said nothing, didn't know what to say or what she expected him to say.

"Tell you what." She dropped the glasses and leaned back in the chair, her face making clear what was to come. "You meet me in a couple hours, make it eight or so. Just out front. I'll see what I can get for you." He nodded. "Don't you wanna know what it's going to cost?" He nodded again, knowing what the answer would be and dreading it. She smiled, seeing the hesitation in his face. "Don't worry. You'll like it. I'm not that kinky."

He nodded and looked at her. "And if I-- "

She cut him off. "How badly do you wanna find her?"

He nodded.

Three and a half hours later she bounced out the doors and saw him. She walked over and hooked his arm in hers, leading him down the sidewalk. He fell into step with her.

"I got it," she said.

"You sure?"

She nodded. "Simple call to Admissions. She just paid her tuition. Gotta have all of that information every time you enroll you know."

"Then can I have it?"

"Not yet." They turned a corner. "You hungry?"

"Not really." He was hungrier than hell, but he wanted this over with.

"Good. Me neither." They crossed the street and she turned him left. "We're over this way," she said.

"You do this often?"

"What?"

"Just pick up total strangers and take them back to your place."

She laughed. "Just the cute ones."

He smiled at her energy. He'd been in college once, knew how some of the girls were. They'd never taken him back, though.

"Don't tell me you've never had a one night stand."

"Actually, I haven't."

She stopped and spun to face him. "You're kidding me, right?" He shook his head. "Oh my God," she said, spinning and leading him onward.

"So what's your name?"

"Maria."

"And you go to school with Elizabeth?"

"I'm a grad student--teaching assistant--so I taught her. How well do you know her?"

"What do you mean."

"I mean you come up here, to this fuckin' huge campus, and you what? You start asking around?"

He shrugged.

"So what gives? What's so special about her?"

He thought about it for a moment. He wasn't sure, really. He'd had other girlfriends before, but he'd never chase after one of them like this. "I don't know," he finally said, "we just clicked."

"So why don't you know where she lives?"

"We only met a couple of times. In the city. Chicago."

"And she wouldn't tell you where she lives?"

He shook his head. "It's complicated."

"Try me."

"She just . . . she didn't want anyone in her life."

"But you wouldn't take no for an answer? Maybe you are a stalker."

"Nothing like that. She thought having someone--someone like me--would just complicate things."

"And you're going to go after her? Convince her she's wrong?"

He nodded. "Guess so."

"Wow, that's fuckin' awesome. Like something from a movie, right?" She turned him into a vestibule. "We're here."

She led him through the doorway and up the stairs, saying hello to students going the other way. When they got to the third floor, she let go of his arm and unlocked her door. They walked in and she locked it behind them. "Don't want you escaping."

He looked around the tiny studio. It was neat. Mostly. The bed wasn't made, and there were a couple of piles of books on the floor next to a love seat, some dishes in the sink. Still, it was a hell of a lot neater than his place own place had been in college.

"Home sweet home," she said. She turned into him and started unbuttoning his shirt. He froze, unsure whether he wanted to go forward with this. "Time for you to earn that address, my man."

She didnt' seem to notice, or care about, his hesitation. Instead, she kissed his chest as it was exposed by her fingers. He had to admit it felt good, her cool lips pressing into his chest, her tongue tasting him. She pulled the shirt from his waist and sucked in his nipple, biting hard enough to make him wince. He reached his arms around her head and unbuttoned his cuffs.

"That's what I'm talking about," she said. "A little bit of help."

She knelt before him and reached to his pants, unzipping them before reaching her hand in and feeling around. He reached down and unbuttoned the waist, pushing them down past her hands. Despite himself, his feelings of doubt, he felt himself getting aroused. It'd been weeks since he'd been with Elizabeth, and many more months before that.

"Oh baby," she said as she pulled his boxers down. "Look at what Santa brought." She leaned in and sucked him in fully, and he gasped. He felt her hands go around and cup his ass, pulling him in deeper before moving her mouth back off.

She looked up at him. "Wanna play?"

He nodded, reaching down and grasping her blouse at the shoulders. She lifted her arms and let him pull the blouse over her head. Then she sucked him back into her mouth as her hands went behind and unclasped her bra. She shimmied it off her shoulders and to the floor, and he saw her pert tits, dark brown areolae and nipples pointing up at him. Her nipples were already hard, he noticed, her eyes glazed over with lust.

She was humming, he noticed. Through his cock he could hear it and feel it, and it tickled. But it added something, too. A tingling, the cum already beginning to build.

"Oh man," he said. "You'd better slow down a second."

She ignored him, using her hands on his ass to thrust him in and out of her mouth.

What the fuck did I miss in college? he thought. His hips picked up speed and, against his own wishes, feeling guilty even as he watched himself, he reached down and grabbed the side of her head, tangling her hair in his fingers and guiding her back and forth along his length. He was getting close, his breathing getting shallower, the pressure building.

"I'm gonna cum," he warned her.

In response, he felt the humming pick up around his shaft, the pressure building. As he began to twitch, he pulled her head in close, and she helped him by squeezing his ass and pulling him in even deeper.

It started at the base of his sac and traveled to the tips of his toes before coming back up and out the end of his throbbing cock. He felt his head against the back of her throat, pulsing as he exploded in her. He heard her gulping, then gagging before she broke from him. He looked down and watched the last jet hit her in the middle of the forehead, watched her sucking in her breath.

Before his breathing could return to normal, she looked up at him, smiling from ear to ear. "Holy shit!"

He said nothing and she stood, wiping her finger across her forehead and holding it out, pressing it against his lips. He flicked his tongue out and touched it, then she pulled is back and sucked it into her mouth.

"My turn," she said. She bounced back to the bed and jumped on. She pulled her pants down, her panties with them, and looked over at him. Her hand traveled to the cleft between her parted legs, and he saw that she was shaved bare. "Well?"

He smiled and walked over to her. He reached under her ass and pressed her into him, his mouth going to a breast and sucking in a nipple. "Oh fuck," she said, and arched into him, grinding her pelvis against him. He alternated on her nipples, sucking them in, but felt a hand pushing his head downward. "My pussy."

He did as he was told, laying her back on the bed and getting between her legs. Her hand was rubbing her length and he grabbed her wrist, holding it away from her. Her other hand shot in, and he grabbed that wrist, too. He looked up the bed at her, and she was smiling down at him.

"This what you want?" He flicked his tongue over her clit, and she bucked her hips in response. He'd never been with anyone this turned on before. Not this early in the ball game. She was a nympho. A beautiful, energetic, funny, tiny bundle of sexual energy.

He licked again, the length of her slit, and she bucked into him again. Her wrists struggled to break his grip, and he leaned in and sucked her clit deep into his mouth. "Holy shit!" she screamed. She was jerking her hips now, trying to break the grip of his mouth, but he only sucked her in harder.

Then he felt his face get drenched and felt her body spasming. Her legs locked around his head and held him there, and he kept sucking her distended nubbin into his mouth, his teeth grazing the base.

After almost a minute, her legs loosened their grip and he let her go. She collapsed into the bed, panting.

"That was fast," he said.

"Look who's talking."

It took a few minutes for her breathing to come back to normal. Will used the opportunity to go to the bathroom and splash water over his face. He'd never had a girl squirt on him. He'd read about it, but until a few minutes ago he'd thought it was bullshit. He looked at himself in the mirror, looking for the shame or guilt in his face that had disappeared from his conscience. He'd do anything to find Elizabeth, but he wondered briefly if this was taking it too far. No, he finally decided. The alternative was to not find her, and he couldn't bear that thought. And, of course, the price could've been a lot worse.

It was a long, grueling, exciting three hours. Three hours and two more orgasms for him, God knows how many more for her. There had been some pounding on the thin walls, but that hadn't stopped her from fucking him silly.

When they were done, and he was dressing, she spoke. "It's in my pocket."

He looked at her spent figure splayed naked across the bed.

"The address. It's in my pocket. Front pants pocket."

He picked up the jeans and rummaged in the pockets. He felt a few more packets of condoms--how good did she think he was?--before his fingers felt a slip of paper. He pulled it out, unfolded, and read the neat printing. Elizabeth Han. 2734 Maplecrest. Armitage WI.

"Thanks," he said, pocketing the address.

He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him. "What's your name?"

He turned and looked at her, realizing he'd never told her. And she'd never asked.

"Will."

"Well, Will," she said, a smile coming to her lips as her hand went back between her legs, "things don't work out with you and Elizabeth, you call me. Okay?"

He smiled and nodded. "I'll do that, Maria."

* * * Cynthia had left Alexis sitting there and run to her car. She jumped in and started driving, her mind in a fog. She was . . . she didn't know. Humiliated? To be sure. That was the most embarrassing moment of her life. To be confronted by her secret lover's wife was something she'd never looked far enough ahead to see. Even when David collapsed on her, then threw her out, she figured the confrontations were over. She never figured she'd encounter the wife. And worse, that the wife would know all about it.

She remembered David's face. He was smirking just before the bomb dropped. Then he laughed at her reaction, at her terror. He hates me, she realized. Just like that, from love to hate.

Of course, he should hate her. It was not only understandable but actually inevitable. She'd betrayed him. But she'd never meant to. Didn't he see that? She was just . . . . Fuck, she thought, I don't know why I did it. The loneliness? The excitement? She had nothing to do all day. Play tennis, chat with the girls, make dinner that was nearly always thrown away or eaten cold and dried out when he finally got home. Still, the sex with Tim was just a thrill, a diversion, something to do. She loved David, not Tim. David, the ceaseless worker who, no matter how tired, would talk with her at night, listen to her, patiently hold her and hug her.

She missed him, she realized. She'd missed him from the moment she'd seen him huddled in the corner and realized she'd lost him. And now he'd found someone else. The other woman, the woman whose marriage she'd also helped destroy. Serves me right, she thought, resigning herself to the situation.

Without realizing it, she pulled into Sean's driveway. She was in the garage shutting the door behind her before she remembered why she'd left earlier. She hesitated, unsure whether to just barge in. God knows what they're doing in there.

Still, she had nowhere to go. The pre-nuptial agreement had seen to that. It would be a fifty-fifty split in case of divorce unless she was guilty of adultery. If so, she got fifty thousand, no alimony, and on her way. There was no counter clause punishing him for adultery, which she figured was fair since he'd had the company before they'd even met. Still, she knew she couldn't last long on fifty grand. Couldn't even buy a house unless she went back, finished her degree, and got a job. All of that would take a few years, so she was truly screwed no matter how you looked at it.

She opened the kitchen door slowly, peeking through the crack. The lights were on in the great room, but no one was there. She tiptoed through the kitchen and waited, listening. There were no sounds coming from the bedroom wing, so she started walking to her room.

Then she heard voices, coming from behind her. A laugh, then some talking. She stopped for a moment, then tiptoed back down the other hallway, toward the studio door. She stood outside the door and listened.

"So then he says, 'You know, bloke, this isn't half bad. Probably bring you a fair farthing in the right market.' And she chirps in, 'You should listen to him. He's very good you know.'" It was Sean's voice, impersonating first Hollister then Emily and doing passable jobs with each. "So then they what?" she heard Elizabeth's voice.

"Well, he says . . . no, chin up please . . . little more . . . good. Then he says, 'You come with me, produce some canvases, and I shall procure for you the top dollar in the art world.'"

Cynthia cracked the door open and peeked in. Sean was sitting behind his easel, talking and drawing. Elizabeth was laying in a lounger, her legs kicked over the side, a light coming from behind her head and casting shadows across her legs.

Sean looked back up from the easel and gazed at Elizabeth. A questioning look came over his face and his eyes traveled to the crack in the door that had just appeared, traveling up quickly until his eyes met Cynthia's.

"Cynthia?" Elizabeth looked back over the chair, seeing her and smiling.

"I thought you were going away for the weekend?" he continued.

She opened the door and stepped in. "No. Well, yes. Something came up."

"You've been crying," he said.

She didn't realize that she had. She reached her hand to her cheeks, felt the dried tears.

He got up from behind the easel. "Come on," he said, pulling another lounger from the corner and dragging it across the wood floor.

"No," she whispered. "I'll leave you two alone."

"Nonsense. Get over here and sit." He placed the chair next to Elizabeth's and cocked it at an angle to the other lounger. He stood back, adjusted the angle a little and pulled it in closer. Then he looked back to Cynthia and jerked his head at the chair. "Come on, sit."

She looked at Elizabeth, who smiled back at her. Then she walked to the chair and sat. She leaned back in and crossed her legs, and Sean went back behind the easel.

"Not like that," he said. "You'll never last. Sit like Elizabeth, facing her." She looked over at Elizabeth sitting sideways in the chair, legs over one arm, elbows on the other. Cynthia turned in the chair and struck the pose.

"No, not like that, either, I suppose. Try laying on your side, cuddling in a little." She did, drawing her legs in a touch and resting the side of her head in her hands. "Yes, kind of like the fetal position. That's good. Relax. There you go."

He tore off the previous drawing from the pad and picked up a pencil. "Now," he said, pencil getting poised, "why don't you tell us why you've been crying?"

She did. From the very beginning.

* * *

It was ten to midnight. Barring a tavern fight or domestic disorder, Tim would be done in ten minutes. He spent the time parked in front of the Tastee Freeze, filling out some reports.

He was nearly finished with a vandalism he's responded to a few days back when his radar beeped. He looked up, saw the bright green 53, and flipped the car in drive. He pulled out and flipped on the cherries. The little black Toyota pulled over almost immediately. He recognized the vehicle and lowered his head.

When he approached the window, she was glaring at him. "Where the fuck you been? I waited for almost an hour."