Jeff Gelb: Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

"What's with you?" Clark asked, wiping margarita stains from his shirt collar.

"Don't play dumb, asswipe. I saw the message in the men's room."

"I think you've had your fill, buddy boy. Time to go home to your girlfriend." Clark said the word «girlfriend» as if it were something dirty.

"You don't like Susan?" Mike snapped.

"I don't even know her — how could I like her? How could you, for that matter? You've hardly known her a week and she's already moved into your place. You ask me, she's digging for gold — yours."

Mike grabbed Clark's still-moist shirt collar. "Fuck your opinions," Mike growled. "And your lipstick." He shoved his friend roughly against the edge of the bar and walked out.

The apartment was dark as Mike entered, and the phone was ringing. He ran to answer it but the answering machine picked up the call. He heard a strange man's voice.

"Suzie? This is Dick Downes, 555-4330. I saw your message and I thought maybe we could go out sometime. Give me a call."

Mike stood in the darkened living room of his suburban condo, his hands clenched into tight fists.

"That asshole Clark," he snarled, stomping over to the answering machine and rewinding it. The machine recycled itself and started playing earlier messages.

"Hey, Suzie, baby, I got ten inches waitin' for ya. How's $50 sound? Call me. Bill — 555-4545."

"Hello? Hello? Is this Suzie, the one from the restaurant rest room? This is Henry. I'd like to speak with you sometime. My number's 555-2187."

Mike roared with anger, tearing the tape out of the answering machine and flinging it into a nearby waste basket.

"I'll kill the son-of-a-bitch," he muttered.

"Mike, you're not eating," Susan said. "Did I cook the fish too long?"

Mike looked at Susan's cute face, so full of midwestern innocence. How could he tell a girl who'd just moved out to the coast from her parents' farm in Indiana that his best buddy had made her the butt of a crude practical joke?

Mike shook his head. "Just not hungry tonight," he mumbled. Susan looked at him, concern etched across her fragile features. No wonder he'd fallen for her at the church social last weekend. She looked like a lost puppie, her big blue eyes roaming the room for a friendly face.

He'd struck up a conversation with Susan, and found her to be charmingly shy. As she warmed up to him, she explained that she was fresh out of college and had recently moved out west to work for a computer manufacturer. It was her first time away from home, she'd explained, and she'd found herself lonesome for family and friends. A girlfriend at work had told her about the weekly church social, which was basically a meeting place for divorced singles. Her friend, a stringy-haired plain-jane with thick thighs, had dragged Susan along for company, then immediately ran off to talk to any men who blinked in her direction. Susan had told Mike she was about to leave and catch a bus home when he'd rescued her.

Over coffee and donuts, Susan had explained that she was being evicted from her apartment because they were suddenly going condo. The look in her eyes and an itch in Mike's crotch made him ask if she would want to stay at his place until she saved enough money for an apartment.

She'd immediately blanched and studied her hands. Mike quickly added that his condo had two bedrooms, each with locking doors.

He'd talked her into returning to his apartment that night and, after verifying that the spare bedroom did indeed have its own lock, she thanked him profusely and went to bed.

It had taken every ounce of his discipline not to use his master key to enter her bedroom and jump her bones. There was something about her that absolutely drove him wild. God knows she wasn't the best looking woman he'd ever been with. But there was something in her angelic face that just slayed him.

True to his word, he'd left her alone that night, instead lying awake, thinking of her. He'd lazily stroked his cock as he recalled her marvelously blue eyes, her tiny, turned-up nose, and the full, pouty lips that were so out of place on the otherwise innocent face.

Ten days had passed and he still hadn't touched her.

She was a constant temptation, of course, but always in the most innocent ways: like the time she'd been watering his plants and the rays of sun streaming through the window had caught her in profile, outlining the tiny, upthrust breasts under her crisp, white cotton blouse. Or when she'd been searching through his cupboards for the frying pan and he'd seen her nipples under her t-shirt top.

Innocent. She was that, but she was driving him sexually crazy. What the hell was he waiting for? Why didn't he go for it? She certainly trusted him by now; in fact, he worried that she might have become too comfortable with him, thinking of him more as a big brother than a boyfriend.

Just when Mike was certain he'd blown any chance of a romance with her, she'd interrupted a quiet dinner in his apartment to lean over the small table and kiss him softly with her pillowy lips. He pulled her by the back of her head into his face, crushing those lips into his and slipping his tongue deep into her mouth. It was the first time he'd tasted her; she had an odd flavor Mike couldn't place.

She gasped, pulled back, then allowed herself to surrender to his embrace as he pulled her across the table top, sending dishes and cups crashing to the tiled floor. She was spread across the table like some luscious dessert.

He fumbled at his zipper, his huge erection bounding out of his pants thankfully. He approached her but she shook her head, whispering, "No."

Embarrassed that he'd overstepped his bounds, Mike backed away from her, adjusting himself back into his pants.

"I'm sorry, Susan," he stammered. "I don't know what came over me."

To his monumental surprise, she smiled at him and tugged at his undershorts. "I just don't do… that ," she explained. "We can do something else… if you like."

Mike watched as she wriggled out of her dress and panties and let them fall to the floor. She resumed her spread-legged prone position on the glass table top and whispered, "I want you inside me."

The telephone rang. Mike groaned. The answering machine clicked on.

"Suzie? I saw your little message in the men's room at the Racquet Club. You want some oral action? Just give me a call…"

Mike ran over to the phone and picked it up, but was answered by a dial tone. He slammed down the receiver and then, as if the telephone answering machine were at fault, he picked it up and threw it against the wall.

He turned to face Susan, but she'd disappeared into the bathroom, door closed behind her. Mike could hear the muffled sound of her crying.

Fists clenched, Mike thought, "This joke's gone too far."

Mike slammed open the real estate office's door. Joey Clark was helping a middle-aged couple fill out some forms.

Brushing his way past the startled clients, Mike slammed a hammy fist into Clark's surprised face, which turned pink and then began to spurt blood from its nose.

"God, I think it's broken!" Clark screamed. "Get out of here before I call the cops!"

The middle-aged couple ran from the office as Mike shoved Clark against the wall, shouting, "Where else did you scribble your nasty little note, you perverted bastard? Tell me!"

"You're out of your mind," Clark cried, as he tried to protect his face from further blows. "You're gonna land in jail for this, I swear to God."

Mike let go of Clark's shoulders, letting him drop to the floor in a heap, and then stomped out of the office, shouldering his way past astonished employees.

He phoned home but there was no answer and, of course, the answering machine was history. His anger somewhat abated, Mike decided to cook dinner for Susan, hoping to patch things up. He tried in frustration to think of a way to explain to her the cruelty of his "friend," but it was hopeless.