Page 124 of Them Bones

She sped up, her muscles clenching deliciously, his cock kicking so hard he thought it would punch right through her belly.

“Fuck, fuck… I’m gonna come, Laney – I’m gonna come…”

She slid off him and in one swift motion lowered herself between his legs, swallowing him whole, taking him right to the back of her throat.

He exploded in her mouth.

She looked up at him with twinkling green eyes, her mouth full of him and her face full of lust, her hand finding his balls and the other pushing his hips down to keep him from fucking upwards into her mouth and making her choke.

He came, and came, and she swallowed all of it, her eyes hot and heavy and driving him wild.

When she’d sucked him dry, she released his dick with apop,a satisfied smile on her face, and licked her lips. Then she crawled back up his body and kissed him.

“You taste like us,” he murmured against her lips.

“Happy birthday, baby,” she whispered.

DUSTIN

Dustin got a lot of attention at school. His dragon installation, which he called Speciocide, had been shipped and assembled at the end of September. New York Magazine had phoned the school, asking for him to do an interview.

He’d declined.

Cary was back but had been staying at his apartment above the tow shop. Shane let Laney drive the truck to check on the house a few times now that she had her learner’s permit, yelling at her from the passenger seat tofocusand reaching across her lap and grabbing the wheel whenever she talked with her hands and took them off it. He always looked like he was going to have a heart attack, when she drove.

Nobody had heard from Linette since Christmas.

Sarita showed up at Jerry’s one night, screeching into Jerry’s driveway and banging on the door, screaming at them that it was their fault that Cary had left her. Jerry drove her home in her car, Shane following in his truck to bring Jerry back. They smoked a lot of hash on the porch, that night.

Shane drove Dustin to the bus stop every day, and then drove Laney right to school. If he didn’t take her she wouldn’t go, preferring to lay in Shane’s bed, trying to get him to skip work.Sometimes she succeeded. It grossed Dustin out, whenever he heard the moans and grunts and other sounds coming from Shane’s room.

It grossed Jerry out, too, and Jerry started spending a lot of time in the detached shop with Dustin, watching him work on his next piece.

Mr. Bard had insisted on an exclusive contract for Dustin’s next three pieces of installation art, but Dustin was taking a break from the heavy metals, his fingers burning in the cold, and was working on a series of large paintings instead, four canvases ten feet wide. He was trying to find a way to get the paint to look like metal, but it was hard work, and he fell into bed exhausted and stained with oil paint every night, the constant sounds of Shane and Laney’s love-making the backdrop of his nightly dreams.

As Christmas approached, the canvases took on a decidedly ominous feel, the blues bleeding into blacks, the yellows into greys, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t seem to work any colour into the pictures.

It was like the canvas was trying to warn him that something was coming.

He wished he’d listened.

KIM

“What are you doing for Christmas?” Kim asked Cary, watching him chug a carton of milk right out of the container, standing in front of her fridge in his bare feet.

“Dunno,” Cary said. “Nothing, I guess. Work.”

Kim admired Cary’s work ethic. When he wasn't buried in her, he spent almost all his time at the shop. He’d even had to go away for several months over the summer, helping with some big mechanic convention across the border.

It was nice, being in a relationship with someone who worked as much as she did. He never gave her a hard time about her odd hours, always equally happy to show up at 11:00am for a nooner as he was to crawl into her bed at 3:00am after a twelve-hour shift.

Susan, her work partner and friend, was half in-love with Cary and kept begging her to get him to set her up.

“Someone that good-looking has got to have hot friends,” Susan whined.

Kim honestly didn’t know. Cary never introduced her to any of his friends or family, and she’d only met one or two colleagues in passing the few times she’d been around his shop. She knew he had a sister, the one who had been sick theChristmas before, but he didn’t talk about himself much. In fact, he didn’t talk aboutanythingmuch, unless you counted groaning andyou like that, don't you.

He did like to go to the movies, though. She loved walking through the theatre with Cary’s arm slung loosely around her shoulders, basking in the envious looks the other girls threw at her. They were always offered free snacks and free tickets at the theatre, always bumped up the list while waiting for a table at a bar or restaurant, always given a discount or sent an extra appetizer… She could never have imagined how much easier life was, for him. How many more doors opened for you just because you were beautiful.

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