The House at the Top of Briggs Road

"But I won't have to," she gasped, her mouth falling open a bit while I pulled at the front of her panties. The gasp turned into a low, warm breath when my fingers found her slit below a narrow, frizzy little bush of hair, sliding into her with a greasy wondrous sense of unreality, of detachment, like I hadn't just succeeded in penetrating the hottest woman I'd ever felt. "Oh. Oh!"she whined. "Yeah, baby. Get in there."

"You like that?" I certainly did. I loved being rough on a woman's cunt. My fingers didn't wait for her to adjust, slipping far into her hot, tight pussy while her whole body sagged down onto my hand. I kissed her again, savagely. "You do." I pulled my fingers out suddenly, stretching her panties, then delivered a quick, firm slap to her clit. She moaned. "Goddamn, you're so sexy," I raved, aware that she knew it. That she needed to know I knew it.

"Fucking hit me again," she rasped, her hips swiveling in great, wanton circles, and so I shoved her panties roughly down her thighs and cocked my wrist back, striking her pussy again and again, rapid little machine-gun slaps that had her yelping louder with each damp, splattering smack. "Goddamn!"

"Enough." I was going to love playing with her, but my cock was a demanding taskmaster trembling within her clutching fingers and I needed to sheathe it. I dipped my fingers once more into her pussy, then pushed them into her mouth. "Clean me off and then get naked in my fucking bedroom."

Her lips closed over me wordlessly, not even a thought of disobeying. She wanted to do whatever I told her to, which was handy because I felt exactly the same way. We were in for an amazing night, I knew, as if there'd been any doubt. Her mouth came off my fingers with a wet pop. "Yes, sir," she mocked, her neck and chest scarlet. I waited, breathing heavily, while her eyes slid sideways to make sure which hallway led to my room, and then she was easing herself out from between me and the couch, smiling that same wicked little smirk.

She didn't look back once she started strutting toward my bed, reaching low to gather her dress into her hands and then lift it up over her head. I saw it all from behind: those smooth, muscled runner's legs giving way to the round perfection of her splendid ass, outlined now by a crimson thong that marched in lacy glory around the firm muscle of her waist, her back then spreading upward crossed by bra straps the same color as her underwear. She paused, posing for me in my own hall, then rolled the thong decisively down her hips before stepping out of it onto my carpet. Her bra followed, unhooked contemptuously before her long, graceful arm tossed it back over her shoulder.

And then all that was left was naked perfection topped by wild, thick red hair.

I was stripping off my clothes before she'd even entered my room; I figured she could find the bed. I had enough difficulty navigating my pants and boxers off over my strong, jutting erection, which trembled like a leaf as I stared down at it. The pussy I'd just pulled my hand out of was about to take that very dick, and I marveled that I was about to score such a perfect example of the female body; the sight of her body as the dress revealed it had stolen my breath. Felix was far, far away from me now.

I was pulling on my cock when I entered my bedroom, knowing what I'd see and yet still unprepared for it: Julia lay sprawled on my comforter, her hair scattered across the pillows, her entire luscious body on full display for me as her fingers traced the red, swollen lips of her pussy. Her mouth was a cruel line. "Come fuck me," she demanded, husky like she was pushing the words out through a thick haze in her throat.

"Yeah?" I challenged, striding to my bedside, displaying my cock for her. She watched it greedily as I let it bounce over her body, but she made no move to touch it; she was too busy slicking her fingers with her own juices. "What was that? You want me to fuck you?"

"You know I do," she nodded, licking her lips. "And I know you do."

"Jesus," I sighed, dick surging, and then my legs were bending, climbing onto my own mattress atop this burgeoning, lush woman as if she were controlling them instead of me. We both watched, eyes narrowed, as her legs flew open, wide and needy, giving me her whole world between her own questing fingers. I knelt, settling, pushing my dick low to meet her hand as I leaned down. The room already reeked of naked, ready bodies, pushed to the limit of their tolerance, ready to unleash each other.

Our breathing had long since gone ragged as we both stared at where my thick head waited to split Julia's weepy pussy wide open, almost threatening in its raw power, she and I both wide-eyed. Her fingers had gone still, holding her lips wide open, showing me scarlet flesh and the bewitching symmetry of her perfect wet cunt, begging to swallow me even as I inched lower. "Oh my god!" she blurted, low and desperate, her head wallowing in the pillow at the moment we both felt that first contact, the first touch, the kiss of my cockhead against the overheated flesh between her fingers...

I could only wait a second or two. That was the only self-control I could muster before, with a whimpery sigh of relief, I sank into her, balls-deep, her pussy nearly sucking me in with its fiery urgency. We both groaned, shifting, merging.

I was pumping at once, desperate to make her orgasm, wanting that for her more than I wanted it for myself. Her hips bucked hard up toward me, in control, her rhythm matching mine as precisely as any professional whore's, as if she'd been taking dick all her life. She was made for sex, crafted for it with a master sculptor's eye for detail. Julia fucked me with her whole body, breasts moving in hypnotic unison, even her face chiseled into a rictus of agonized need, eyes closing as she focused on her release with her hand still, always, gracefully circling her own clit.

So I changed my motion, arching up and down rather than in and out, so that my shaft would saw across where her fingers were playing. She reacted at once, crying out, and in a lustful haze I felt the hot bite of her teeth on my shoulder as she choked back a shout of ecstasy. I was panting, holding her close under her arms and around her shoulders, my sweat dripping from my face to hers as we stared at each other.

"Fuck me," she breathed, over and over. "Fuck me. Fuck me." Her hips continued swinging in strong, capable arcs, using my cock to claw her way toward orgasm while I gritted my teeth, striving to avoid shooting until she'd already gotten there. Our bodies slithered close, needing the contact, her feet drawn high up above my ass, fucking me back in a tight, sturdy rhythm, just as determined for me to cum as I was for her.

So? Why not a tie?

I slid my cheek beside hers, our hips slamming. "I need to cum, baby. Where do you want me to?" This was unheard-of; I was not known for letting the woman choose. I was hoping she'd give me the right answer, though, and as with everything else about her, she did not disappoint.

She pushed my shoulders off her, both of us still churning, my cock making lewdly glorious soupy noises as I plunged into her. She waited until my eyes focused on hers. "I want you to cum in my pussy, stud," she grunted, her face red.

"Cum with me," I urged, but it came out as more of a bark, and then she was nodding, her perfect body straining as my cock sang past her clit, pushing her, driving her off the cliff we were both racing for.

"Yes," she gasped, guttural, craving it just like I was, and when she came she clung to my body hard with every part of her, legs and fingers and pussy and lips, sucking my tongue deep against hers. I felt her cunt surge and flutter along my length in spasms, and I was only dimly aware of my own cum surging out my cock and deep, deep into her perfect body, realizing only after I'd released that I was pushing far inside her, her hips angled up, accepting me as she gusted cracked breaths into my face.

The closeness. The connection. Lightning passed between our eyes that night, I'm convinced. And it forked as it reached us, ending up where my semen sloshed, corked deep inside her while we held each other impossibly tight, staring into each others' eyes as the night deepened around us on my puddled bed.

* * *

III. Malum

* * *

We fucked everywhere that October.

I took her ass, her pussy, her mouth. She gave me handjobs and titfucks and even, once, a footjob I didn't even know I'd want. She let me watch her do her yoga routines without her clothes on, and then afterward she took my dick eagerly. We went to the beach in the early morning and I claimed her from behind among the dunes. We parked in my Charger in the night overlooking the town and she rode me in the backseat before I had her over the hood. She returned from her National Guard drill the weekend after I met her and I practically slashed the fatigues from her dirty body.

I sent her to school almost every morning sloshing with my cum, and in the process I'm afraid I neglected poor Kaylee's training. And poor Rita's mouth. And Catherine's tendency to dawdle when she was supposed to be hustling. And Lisa's homelessness. And my lawyer's endless entreaties for more money. And my real-estate guy's demands for a commitment of some sort on that shop space on the South Side, which surely wasn't going to stay vacant for long...

None of that mattered. She mattered.

She captured me as effortlessly as she'd always captured every other man in her life, probably. I'm not sure I was in love, but I was certainly getting there: my mind suddenly spun with ideas, wild plans involving bank robberies and scams and other assorted skullduggeries. I needed her, and I needed to be free of my crushing debt, and in the dark days around the twentieth I sat down one day for an avocado-toast breakfast and found myself wondering whether Felix would take Rita instead. Or Rita and Catherine, on a two-for-one. Or both of them, plus Danae.

Or? Hell. Felix could have the whole damn string.

I stopped thinking about him after a week or so, just enjoying myself with Julia. She yelled at me to go running with her, until I finally did... at which point I held her back so badly that she just smiled next time I asked about it. "Dumbass," she told me, "I'm not going running with you again. I don't run with slowpokes." Then I laughed, and tackled her, and fucked her mouth until she drank my cum.

But reality was bound to intrude sooner or later, and for me it happened when I sat at Mezzo watching one of the employees put up a plastic jack o' lantern for the next night's big Halloween function. I wondered, later on, whether I just should have avoided the Mezzo Bar on snappy autumn nights, or at least left my phone at home... but this time, it whirred again as it vibrated next to my napkin.

I was waiting there to meet Julia. Of course.

My lips spread into a scowl when I saw the contact on my phone: Briggs. I debated about whether to ignore it, but then I remembered the menace of Felix and his weirdo buddies and I picked it up to study the incoming text. My blood froze as soon as I saw it. Your deadline approaches. You may bring Julia Cooney tonight, or anytime after sunset tomorrow. Thank you.

I dropped that phone like a hot potato, my nerveless fingers trembling already. I glanced at my tonic water, pretty sure I didn't want it anymore, a sudden sick dread drifting over my heart as if it came from the phone. Across the street from me, at Third and Armistead, Rita and Danae leaned coolly against the wall of Trovatore's Bistro in their fishnets and leather bustiers, and suddenly they were in a completely different world. My planet no longer included my girls. It was now cold, a chilly icy hilltop at the upper end of Briggs Road, fringed by woods and crowned with a mysterious manse up the path from a soggy garden... Traffic whirled by, but I didn't see it. The waitress hovered, but I didn't even look at her ass. Everything was that damning text, and what it implied: two million dollars.

I closed my eyes against a sudden spastic wave of fear, and when I opened them again I raised my head to see Julia, my Julia, Felix' Julia, standing there in a mid-length skirt and a leather coat that went down about as far, leaving her lower legs sticking out from an old pair of Uggs in a set of purple striped tights I'd last seen sailing across the room at her place, after I jerked them off her legs. She cocked her head. "Something wrong, Ricky-baby?" She'd started calling me that after she'd let me have her ass the first time.

Already, it sounded like the past.

So I forced a smile, patted the little metal seat beside me, and turned my phone facedown. "Nothing at all. Let's get some dessert."

* * *

I'm still not sure why I took her up Briggs Road the next night, wending through crowds of early trick-or-treaters. It wasn't that I wanted to lose her forever, of course; it was mostly the promise of Mr Felix' 2 million, and everything it represented in my life once my lawyer got ahold of it. But it was more than that.

The text from Felix had reminded me of something: that the weirdos up Briggs had a hold on me, something I'd never be able to shake. I was into this way, way too deep already, even before I'd met Julia. And that was the point, naturally: Felix had selected me to do this because he'd known I wouldn't, couldn't, say no.

And he knew I knew it.

I was staring out the window as we motored through the dusk, my Charger growling. If taking my other girls up there had made me uncomfortable, this one made me want to kill myself. Every part of me yelled that I should slam on the brakes, flip a U-turn, and skedaddle...

...to what, though? To a life of pimping inadequately, my ready money shut off like a spigot? To telling Julia the truth about me, and having her leave me? And what did I think Felix and his spooky brothers would do to me? Leave me alone? Fuck that. I'd be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

Hell, I reflected. I already would be.

So, like a fly enmeshing itself more deeply into the web, I gritted my teeth and went doggedly on. And tried to ignore my passenger seat.

She'd come with me willingly, even smilingly, believing some tale I spun about rumors of a really nice haunted house party up in the hills out south of Adams. "Cool!" she'd enthused. "I love a haunted house!" And so here she was, tapping placidly into her phone, texting arbitrarily with some friends of hers. Friends who would probably be calling the cops in a few days, I reflected with a sinking feeling, when she didn't turn up anywhere.

Nothing I could do about that.

I turned onto Briggs, my engine purring, and began wending my way up the hill just as the moon started to pop out. "So," I managed at last, forcing a smile, "there's, like, a theme. Sort of like a version of that Kubrick movie, with the weird house and the secret society and all that?"

She arched an innocent eyebrow. "The one with Tom Cruise?"

"I guess?" To be honest, I mostly just remembered boobs from that movie. I glanced at the rearview mirror, but just like with every other time I'd come up here, there were no headlights. Nobody had a good reason to come to the top of Briggs Road, it seemed. Even me. "All I know is a buddy of mine texted me. There's a dress code, but they give you the costume."

"Oh!" I felt a stab of intense guilt when she grinned mischievously. "I love a costume party." She looked again at my suit. "You look so fucking good, honey. I'm going to make you fuck me so hard later." She rubbed her hands together. "I'm totally going to get eaten tonight!" she announced.

I sighed and looked away once more, the clouds riding over the moon. "Yeah," I replied faintly, "count on it." The trees thinned out as we passed over the river into Glenview, and below me the lights of the South Side blanketed the whole flat expanse of darkness, down to where a dark silent horizon showed me where the sea lay. But my road didn't lead that way. "So. I came to this party last year," I started, sighing, "and it's a little... weird. Great party but, like, secretive."

"I'm intrigued." Her fine brows rose to her lustrous hair as I made myself smile and went into my spiel.

"We'll go inside. I'll be with you; just follow me. Just inside the front door is, like, a little room with a coat rack; you'll take your clothes off and there'll be, like, a robe there..."

She almost launched herself out of the car when I pulled up at the gates, champing at the bit, overwhelmed with curiosity. "Will I know anyone?" She was twisting her hair around her long fingers, her lower lip between her teeth, and I had to grit my teeth as I told myself what a mistake I was making. "I mean, not that I'm all that cool, but I did pass up another party for this, Ricky-baby." She winked. "For you."

Fuck.

"I'm telling you," I said weakly, "this is a once-in-a-lifetime." I nodded at the house. "See? You can't beat this atmosphere, huh?"

"Dude." She sprang up the walk between those brooding gateposts, with me following along like a threatened dog. "I hope there's food. I'm hungry."

This time, I couldn't even answer. I just followed, admiring her butt for the very last time before I lost her forever. The big door opened for me one more time, the drafty foyer beckoning. Julia squinted inside.

"This is, like, an actual haunted house." She laid a hand on my arm. "Feels like it, huh?" She peered more closely at me. "Ricky-baby! Are you scared? You look like you're being dragged into the grave, or something."

I made myself meet those lively eyes, forcing a smile. "I mean, it's Halloween. I think I'm just tired, baby."

She smiled, leaned in, and kissed me softly. "Don't worry. I'll protect you." She giggled, her laughter a mockery of what I knew was coming, and leapt lightly over the threshold.

The vestibule yawned to our right, the hanging cloaks there waiting to shield her nakedness. And I looked away once more as they did.

I know my hand trembled as I took her through that great, echoing hall, to those vast arched doors leading to the fateful dining room, and toward the chamber where those three awful figures had always awaited me. Just before I reached the dining-room door, I held her up and whispered into her ear. "Look, um, there's a ritual. It's a little weird. Just... whatever goes down, just close your eyes and let it happen." I sighed deeply. "Sooner it's over, the better."

"Why? So that we can eat?" Mischief still danced in her beautiful eyes, for another few moments at least, but then she chuckled again. "Don't worry. I can play a role. As long as you weren't lying when you said this was a super-cool party."

"Oh. You'll never go to another one like it. Just, again, remember to be quiet at first. Say nothing." I hesitated one final moment, then gave her one last smile as my dress shoes hit the checkerboard tiling of that ghostly dining room. I cleared my throat, my eyes adjusting to the usual hazy gloom. "Your servant comes, my lords..." I began, but all at once my voice died out like a fading fire.

For there were no lords in the room now. There was only one. Felix stood in an old-school tailcoat, looking like European royalty in the strong shadowy firelight, his hand trembling on the back of one of their ornately carved chairs. He let the silence stretch; behind me I heard Julia's feet enter the room unbidden, her stupendous face and hair shadowed under the heavy cloak and hood. I saw Felix purse his lips, a strange fiery light in his pallid eyes. "Go on, please," he said, making an obvious effort to control his voice. "I wait."

I gulped, knowing I was in over my head as never before, but knowing also that I was far, far past any point at which it was safe for me to duck out. I tried again. "My lord," I tried, my tongue finally settling. "I bring you a gift."