The Sound of Broken Ribs(17)

“Who?” Tony and Fat Tom asked in tandem.

“The guy who got his jaw torn off? He was Brent Cummings—right?”

“Fuck if I know,” Fat Tom said, chuckling, even though Belinda didn’t think the man found anything funny. Fat Tom’s laughter seemed more of a nervous tick than real joviality. Like those bubbly people who were always smiling and cackling as if nothing in the world bothered them. “What I do know is that she was all fucked up. Jacked up stuff, gentlemen. Jacked up stuff.”

“What was her name?” Belinda asked.

Every face at the table turned to look at her as if she were a child who’d spoken out of turn. Belinda dropped her head, breaking eye contact, and said, “Just wondering.”

“Duncan?” Frank asked. “Lei Duncan?”

“How’d you know?” asked Tony.

“She’s the only female writer in town? She has to be who Tommy’s talkin’ about—right?”

“Yeah.” Fat Tom cracked open a fresh beer, chugged it, and burped to break the sound barrier. “Yeah. That was her name.” Although, by the look on Fat Tom’s face, Belinda didn’t think the big guy was all that certain about the woman’s name. Not certain in the least.

“This place just breeds writers.” Tony cracked his knuckles. “Remember that little fucktard—Trey Franklin? That cockhead grew up to write funny books or some shit.”

“Trey writes comics?” Frank asked.

“No. Funny books, you dunce. Books what are funny. Jesus, you’re dumb.”

“Sorry?” Even Frank’s apology sounded like a question. Belinda would have found him funny if he wasn’t so deserving of her pity. What a weak little man.

Paul leaned back in his chair. Belinda locked eyes (eye?) with him. He glanced down at his crotch and back up at her. She smiled.

“Rubber?” she mouthed.

He made a face, looked confused.

Her lips moved slower this time. “Con—Dom.”

His eyes got wide, as did his grin. “Oh yeah,” he mouthed. He got up, stretched, and sneakily patted his back pocket, and then sat back down as if nothing odd had just occurred.

Everyone at the table was staring at him.

“What? My back’s sore. Fuck off.”

Tony glanced to Belinda. Belinda shrugged. Tony looked back to his cards.

“Full house, bitches. Tell me you can beat that and I’ll suck your dick from behind.”

No one was getting their dick sucked tonight. Well, not by Tony, at least.

The game drew on, and The Boys got drunker and drunker. At some point, Belinda fully expected each man to drive home drunk, endangering the lives of any other luckless sorts out driving around at three in the morning, but it seemed Tony’s crew was more responsible than that. Frank and Carl curled up on the floor together, the bigger man’s crotch pushed up against the smaller ginger’s rump. Seeing the two men spooning only cemented an idea Belinda had earlier assumed to be true. Belinda hadn’t expected Tony to be the sort to accept friends with such preferences as Carl and Frank, but then again, she was coming to realize she knew almost nothing about her brother. He certainly wasn’t the same bullheaded teenager he’d once been. He was just as stupid, but he did seem more mature than she remembered. Or perhaps she was projecting maturity upon him because he was helping her.

She glanced behind her to where Paul was stationed in the hallway, propped up against a wall and clutching his package, giving her a look that said he was going to fill her ice cream cone with a load of his vanilla soft serve. She nodded to him, as if to say, “I’m coming,” and glanced back into the living room.

Fat Tom, who’d crashed in Tony’s recliner, was already snoring. Belinda was shocked the chair actually stayed together under the big man’s weight.

Tony had moved the coffee table under a window and had passed out on the couch.

All quiet on the western front.

Time to have some fun.

She led Paul into the guest bedroom. He was on her as soon as she eased the door shut behind them. Neither Paul nor Belinda turned the lights on, but the moon was close to full and the curtains were open so that a soft blue glow illuminated the room.

Paul pushed her up against the closed door. Shoved his hands up her shirt. Grabbed her heavy breasts. Squeezed and pulled and pinched painfully. She didn’t stop him. Didn’t tell him to go easy on her. She had hoped he’d be rough. She wanted to be used. Wanted the guilt fucked out of her.

She shoved him backward.

“What the fuck?” Paul said.

But when she dropped to her knees in front of him, he shut up.

Good boy.

Without hesitating, afraid she’d lose her nerve if she took any of this slowly, she unzipped his pants and freed his penis from the confines of his (as she had assumed) tighty-whities. The dick that sprung from the fly of Paul’s jeans was massive: a great, uncircumcised, banana-shaped cock as long as her forearm. Good God, was she going to be able to fit this thing inside of her? Fuck it, she was going to try. But, before that…

She gripped Paul’s shaft and shoved the penis into her mouth. She tried to ignore the taste (her girlfriends in high school had been right; uncircumcised dick smelled awful, like unwashed armpit and foot fungus) but gagged all the same.

Paul said, “That’s right. Choke on it.”