been
able to go through with her streetwalking attempt. If only he was one of those
wayward priests, who gave into women and wine. She might have a place to stay
now, and food in her stomach.
She closed her eyes. His face floated in the darkness.
She might have actually enjoyed servicing him. She could
have done it. He would have been delicious.
What did forbidden lips taste like? What was the scent of
soiled virtue?
That tight stuffy collar. She bet it smelled of wine and
incense. And the body under the black shirt... hard. Toned from years of
ascetic self-denial. Thick hair, full lips. She wished she could have kissed
them. A man married to the church, in the arms of a woman not his wife. She
could have been the other woman for him. She would have slid her hands over his
body, nipped at his skin, devoured his flesh. Could have teased his nipples
between her lips, dipped her tongue into his navel. His cock, untouched, would
have lain full to bursting in her palm.
She could imagine the taste of it—dark, sour. His hot
breath in the confines of his car, coming fast as she sucked his member. His
fingers tangling in her hair as he sampled earthly pleasure for the first time.
And when he came, she would suck every last drop from him. It would be a sin to
spill it.
Her hands were in her pants. Too many drugs had her
underweight, and it was nothing at all to slip her fingers through the tuft of
her pubic hair and down into her slit.
She was slick, wet, hot. Her index finger stroked and
circled her clit as, in her head, she defrocked him, climbed into his lap,
straddled his hips, stole his kisses, muffled his prayers, destroyed all his
do-gooder faith with a thrust of her hips. Him inside her. She wanted that.
Her orgasm came on her quick and painful, and she choked
on a cry, bucking against the couch. She stroked her pussy, fast, hard. Her
hands were his hands.
In the dark of her head, pierced by green eyes in the
gloom of her mind, a father’s hands weren’t so bad.
Three corners later and they were out of food and needles
and condoms, but still had plenty of blankets. Tara surveyed the back of the
van and the devastation wrought by sixty street walkers. It was amazing.
"I can't believe how much those girls can eat,"
she said at last, closing the door. "They are like black holes."
"I've heard the same said of college students,"
Michael said.
She gave him a smile. Her nerves had calmed with each corner
and each successful encounter. She was starting to feel like herself again. Her
new self. Not her old self.
Michael smiled back at her, and her heart flopped over in
her chest.
Or was she feeling like her old self again?
Turning away from him, Tara lifted her face to the sky and
inhaled. High above the city, the clouds reflected the lights, and, as she
watched, one small, lone snowflake fluttered down, tumbling through the air.
"You were a college student once, right?" she
said. "Don't you remember how hungry you were?"
He laughed. "I do remember," he said. "Hungry
for the worst things. If there had been a free salad bar on campus I would
never have touched it."
"I'm a sucker for the fluffernutters the hall RA serves
on Thursday nights," Tara said. “It's definitely better than dumpster
diving.”
He made a noise in his throat. “Have you told anyone about
your teenage years?” he asked. “Any of your friends?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said simply. “I don't want to
depress anyone.” She peeked at him from the corner of her eye.
He stood, wrapped in black, staring at her. She knew the
sort of picture she must present to him: the girl who he saved. The one he
lifted up and rescued. Standing in the cold of the Baltimore night as the snow
began to fall.
What must it feel like to rescue someone that way? She
wanted to know. She wanted him to show her.
She wanted many impossible things.
Blowing out a stream of vapor into the cold air, she turned
back to him. "Well, what now?"
He shrugged.