Page 28 of Free Fall

Her eyes bulged and welled with tears as she shook her head.

“You want me to collar you? Feed you my cum from my tongue? Fuck your face until you can’t breathe?” I ran my nose along her jaw. “Tell me. Answer me.”

“I want a divorce,” she whispered.

My fist slammed into the door next to her head. “Fucking good. Me too.”

She lunged up and kissed me, tried to press her tongue between my lips. Her hand snaked down to my flaccid cock. Nothing. Not a twinge. I wrenched myself away and looked at her in disgust.

She was a mess, her chest heaving, tears streaming from her eyes as she wiped her mouth. “Let me try to fix it, please…” she begged, going back on herself, looking like shit. “I can try…”

I shook my head. It wasn’t the sex that had ended our bond, finished this relationship. No, it was communication, falling out of love, hating her choices and her opinions. I looked at her and tried to remember the woman I’d married, but she was gone. The incompatible sex was an excuse, a thing to place the blame on when we didn’t want to admit it was plain and simple drifting apart. Turning on my heel, I aimed for the door. “I’m going out.”

Henry found me at the office a few hours later, as surprised to see me as I was him. It was late evening, but we were both a mess with jetlag and both shit sleepers at the best of times. We’d promised each other we'd take another day off to re-acclimatize, but we re-opened tomorrow after an extended Christmas break, and there was shit loads to do. It was an easy place to get lost in menial tasks when we didn’t want our brains bugging us.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, making his way into my office. The light from my lamp would have seeped under the door, letting him know I was here. We often worked with our doors open, having shared a room for the first five or so years of the company.

We’d grown it from the ground up with tonnes of effort and sweat, with young families and little support. Our first office had been his spare bedroom. It was supposed to be Zelda’s nursery, but she stayed in a cot in her parents’ room so we could work late into the night and store all our shit. It paid off when we were in our mid-twenties, a large corporation going under, letting us snap up their clientele. Now we were building houses for the wealthy, designing neighborhoods for cities. A staff of thirty in the building didn’t sound a lot, but we also had construction crews, interior designers and landscapers off site.

Together, we’d found success.

“Didn’t want to relax anymore. Sick of it,” I told him, grinning as he traversed my space and grabbed the bottle of whiskey I kept hidden in a bottom cabinet. There wasn’t much furniture in my office, but what I did have was useful. A desk, a chair either side, a cabinet there mostly to hide my booze stash. It was all fucking digital these days, could run a company from a laptop in a coffee shop.

“Horrible job,” he said, pouring two glasses full. “That relaxing stuff.”

“You’re here too,” I pointed out. “Delilah kick you out already?”

He shrugged. “She was displeased we went to that club.”

Henry had gone back the next day, needing his fix too much to handle fucking his wife instead. He told me over a beer the following afternoon how he’d fucked a couple, persuading the husband to blow him while he ate out the wife. I enjoyed his story, would have enjoyed watching too, but the thought of telling him what I’d been up to made nausea heat my throat. The disconnect between us was growing, and I knew he could see it. He could tell I was keeping secrets.

“Neither was Ali,” I replied, hiding my wince. “Even though I didn’t get to fucking do anything.”

“Always next time.”

“You aren’t going to stop?”

“Nah, we just need to be more discrete.” Henry pulled out his phone. “Del thinks I’ll be here all night.”

Henry was aware I was in the shit with Alison, so I couldn’t say no. I hadn’t told him the big d word had come up tonight, but he knew anyway.

I looked at my best friend, grinning at me as he listed all the things he wanted to do, and the type of person he’d decided to do them with. And I couldn’t help myself.

Two hours later, we walked through the doors of a strip club ninety minutes from home. We drove past the kids’ college on the way in and my mind wandered again to Zelda. This forced separation was bound to drive me insane.

The club was busy. It was a Friday, a special event on to sell their extra services, their basement adult rooms and hook-up app. A free use night was going to kick off after some performances. Henry immediately had his gaze on one of the topless waitresses, who were wandering around with trays of shots and sex toys. He sauntered up to her, and I rolled my eyes as she grinned wide, running her gaze up and down his bulky figure.

Henry and I had a no questioned asked ditch policy in these places. It wasn’t my business to be annoyed at him for leaving me on my own so fast. So I watched him go with a grin, ordered a beer at the bar and settled in for the first show, turning to lean on the counter as the announcer hushed the room.

A low beat sounded at the same time the lights dimmed, and whoops and cheers echoed from the excited crowd. Whoever was performing was a regular, by the looks of things. People muttered and pointed and the energy was high. I looked around for Henry again, catching the back of his head as he ducked into a side room, the waitress’s arm tugging him in. Fucking hell, man worked fast.

My eyes dragged back to the stage in time to watch a womanly figure, hidden in shadow, step out onto the floor. I swigged my beer and watched her move and sway, rapt. Her body was fluid, soft and graceful as she reached for the pole in the center of the stage and wrapped one long leg around it.

She wore a mask. My chest tightened at the side of the neon smile on a black face covering. Like mine from Halloween. A glowing green grin hiding my face. Her face. I couldn’t look away.

Shit. My cock hardened fast at the sight, throbbing and reaching for the witch elevated above the desperate crowd. I palmed my crotch to relieve the instant ache, leaning forward to get closer to her. She had me. I was hers. I wanted inside her. Excited for the rest of the show, I sipped my beer and grinned, dragging my gaze to study her shadowed figure.

Then she swung into the light.

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