Page 5 of Lust

It’s not that I don’t have a suit I can wear to my father’s funeral. Hell, I have five of them back at the hotel. But I want something black and ugly, just like my feelings for the old man. Something I can wear once and then burn with the rest of my memories of the person who abandoned me when it mattered most. I still won’t be cheap, though. Whatever I buy will remind the other assholes at the funeral that the skinny beanpole, Gumby pancake hands, the nerdy bookworm, turned out to be far more successful than their wildest dreams.

The nearest cardboard turkey clearly wasn’t hung with tall people in mind. As I duck to escape its dangling tail feathers, something catches the corner of my eye. I nearly ignore the subtle glimpse, but then it registers: an ear. A delicate swirl of pink skin framed by a soft golden curl. And along the edge of that ear, a row of tiny diamond studs.

That delicate line of gems lives in my fantasies daily. My fingers have traced that swirl of flesh a million times in my mind. My lips continually caress their surfaces and my tongue demands to be unleashed into the center of that spiral, to whisper the lust trapped inside me for twenty long years.

At first, I’m sure I’m hallucinating. I step behind a tree and inhale deeply, willing the oxygen to calm my brain. Exhaling a cloud of breath into my fist, I sneak a glance from behind the tree.

The world stops spinning.

My heart nears explosion.

It’s her.

Her red hair has been bleached blonde, but I’d know that face anywhere. Her plump lips. The soft curve of her jaw. The way her eyes nestle into the roundness of her cheeks. Her button nose, her perfect little nostrils that flare when she laughs.

But she’s not laughing now.

No, I’m seeing my Ruby for the first time in twenty years and she has clearly been crying. Sitting behind the wheel of her silver SUV in the parking lot of this stupid mall, my queen has rivulets of mascara running along the arches of her flushed cheeks. Her beautiful blue eyes are scrunched closed and rimmed with red.

She wipes her eyes with a paper napkin and then blows her nose. I duck further behind the tree. I’ve dreamed for years of this moment, but I won’t intrude on her, not now. I’ll wait until the perfect opportunity, when she will have no possible option but to become mine forever.

My queen swipes below her eyes again and sniffs visibly. Straightening her shoulders, she inhales deeply, her chest rising and straining against the top button of her blouse. She tugs the fabric together and smoothes it, hiding her incredible cleavage, then adjusts the name-tag pinned above her left breast. It says ‘Carol’.

But I know she’s Ruby. I’ve searched fruitlessly for her for twenty years, and here she is, so close I could reach out and touch her. But why is she using a fake name? Why is she covering herself up? And who the fuck made her cry!?

Thank you, Dad, for dying when you did. Otherwise, I might never have found my new sole purpose in life: I will learn every aspect of her existence, and I will destroy whoever caused an ounce of sadness to mar her beautiful face.

Ruby’s car door opens. I shrink behind the tree, but she seems too focused on holding her head up to notice me. Her long blonde hair falls in lustrous waves over her proud shoulders, cascading down her back. She straightens her pale green blouse, checking again to ensure that she’s covered, then tugs it down at the hem to conceal the roundness of her ass.

Briefly, I avert my gaze, just to control my growing erection. How many nights have I imagined that ass bare in front of me, pictured the pattern of my handprint emblazoned on her flesh? But now is not the time. Before I claim her, I’ll solve whatever caused those tears.

At a safe distance, I follow Ruby discretely toward the mall. She shivers in only her blouse, pausing briefly by a large concrete waste bin to toss her tissue. Only then, when she lifts her hand up into the thin November sunlight, do I notice the tiny spark on her left ring finger. I laugh. The thing is like a poppy seed. A speck.Motherfucker.Whoever he is, he doesn’t deserve to even kiss the ground beneath my Ruby’s feet.

Ruby enters Henchley’s department store through a side entrance, one with a small brown sign over the door that says “employees only”. I hurry to the nearest public entrance and stroll to the men’s section, head on a swivel, searching continuously for any sign of the object of my every fantasy.

The first black suit I see will do. I grab it off the rack and wave it toward a tall, slim man in tight red pants and a gray button-down shirt. The black lettering on his gold name-tag reads ‘Manuel’.

“Can you find this in a tall?”

“Let me see, sir.” Manuel scans me from top to toe and back again. I’m used to the hungry way his eyes take in my broad shoulders, lingering on the muscles of my chest before swooping down the length of my thighs. My height is a constant topic of conversation, as though no one can meet me without evaluating themselves against me. Just wait until they see my bank account! Not to mention other things...

Once he’s fully undressed me with his eyes, Manuel meets my gaze again.

“We can certainly find a way to accommodate you, sir.” As he whirls and speeds off across the floor, a familiar smirk plays across my lips. Being rich opens doors, but I sure as hell enjoy being sexy. People will do just about anything once you spark their lust.

Still no sign of Ruby. I follow the man toward the fitting rooms, where he unlocks a door and ushers me inside. While I wait for him to get the suit, a conversation leaks through the paper-thin walls between the dressing room and what must be an office on the other side.

“What took you so long?” It’s a man’s voice—a high-pitched, nasal, wheedling tone.

“I’m sorry, I was only gone two extra minutes. I’ll cut my next break short.”

It’s her. It’s definitely her. I’d know that voice anywhere, the voice that shouted my name down the long hallways of our school. Someone’s criticizing her? Which asshole with a death wish dares to speak to my Ruby like that?

“It’s not just today, Carol, it’s your whole attitude. When will you do what it takes to make it at this job?”

It takes all of my willpower not to punch a hole through the wall and grab the motherfucker by the throat.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Barnum. I’ll try harder, I promise. You know I really care about this job.”

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