Something to fix.
Someone to patch up.
Some asshole to kick off the premises.
They also know that, in case of a true emergency, calling once isn’t enough, so when the buzzing starts up again, I figure it’s one of the sanctioned reasons and pick up. “Better be good.”
“Need you down here stat, Boss!” Kris Koski, aka Lamé, replies, not nearly frantic enough to be making this kind of call.
“What is it?” With the phone tucked between my ear and my shoulder, I’m already halfway down the scaffold.
“Coffee machine’s on the fritz. Just won’t work. There’s a line out the door and you know how the morning crowd is, right? It’ll beLord of the Flieshere soon. I know you’re working and it’s a bad time, but…”
I half listen as Kris lists all the reasons this is a national emergency. The fact is, I don’t much care if people get their morning coffee or not. It’s not life or death, unlike some of the calls I’ve gotten, like last year, when I had to climb a tree to cut a woman out of some asshole’s sub-par rope work. Then, of course, I had to throw her play partner out for general idiocy.
I grab my tool box and let Lamé go on, more because I know they’ve got an audience down there than for my own sake, push through my front gate, taking the time to latch it behind me, and head off for the coffee shop at a jog. After a minute, Lamé stops long enough for me to mention I’m on my way, says a rushed, “Okaybye,” and hangs up.
By the time I get there, the crowd’s overflowing practically to the pool. I’m used to their stares and ignore them, along with their not-so-subtly whispered mentions of the Overlord, as I walk by.
Yes, they call me the Overlord. Yes, I know this. No, I don’t give a shit. They can call me whatever the hell they want. Overlord makes a funny kind of sense, if you consider that the camp is mine and I watch over it from my house up on the hill, only stepping in when something goes wrong. It’s not a name I’d have chosen and wasn’t the name I used back when I was an active part of the scene, but it’s stuck.
I ignore it.
“Oh, my God. Oh my God. Thank God you’re here, I’ve tried everything. Absolutely everything. Turned it off. On again. Flipped those little switchies on the back.” Lamé goes on, listing every possible thing they could have done to fix the fickle, old machine.
Tuning them out, I head around the counter and set down my tools. I have to admit, at least to myself, that I’m happy for the distraction. Work wasn’t doing it for me today. Maybe if I were in the early stages, cutting out big chunks of rock to uncover the sculpture’s more general shapes, I’d have been able to lose myself in it, but this late stage finishing isn’t all that exciting, which means my mind’s been wandering.
Right back to last night.
Shit, even now, here, with a perfectly good problem to solve, Lamé’s lamenting, and a couple dozen observers thrown in as added distraction, I can picture it perfectly.
My pulse kicks up, my dick goes half-hard, and every muscle tenses with the memory of her arms and legs and fingers tearing at me, her ragged breathing blowing life into my lungs.
It was a fluke, how good it was, but it felt so fucking real. So right. I can’t pinpoint one thing that made her different from all the others.
But it’s there.
“Line’s blocked,” I say over my shoulder. “You flush it?”
“Oh, of course, Boss. Yeah. Yep. Flushed it, washed it…”
I expect a third line from Lamé, who likes rhythm. When nothing comes, I look up, then narrow my eyes at their expression. Instantly, my hackles are up, the way they were when I walked into the house the one time Helen set up a surprise party for my birthday.
My arms drop to my sides. “What’s going on?”
Lamé’s eyes widen innocently, just compounding the whole sensation. “What? Nothing.”
I give them a long, narrow look and then follow the line back to the source of the problem. While my hands work, I ignore the disquiet and let myself remember.
Last night was like dancing or something. The way I imagine a really good pair of dancers feel when they come together. The moves felt choreographed, although not rehearsed, which makes no fucking sense, except in my brain. Every time I moved, she responded and every response was straight from my playbook.
Then there was the mystery woman’s voice.
All the blood in my body goes to my dick.
I sigh and shut my eyes, just for a second.
“You okay, Boss?” Of course Lamé notices. We’ve known each other too long and too well for any change in my behavior to get past them. Shit, I knew Lamé as a teen who came to the local Kink and Fetish group for help and wound up talking to me. There’s been so much pain in their life. So much misunderstanding, so much hatred from family, peers, even professionals who should have known better.
