Burn Scars, Eddie Generous [read full novel txt] 📗

Christine stepped into a sock and huffed at Rusty’s libido and choice of words. “A peach, huh? Good enough to eat I bet.”

“I’m always down for a fair exchange.”

“News to me.”

Rusty got to his knees. “Want me to prove it?” He grabbed her by the thighs and nuzzled his nose into cotton over the V of her sex, careful to keep the rough scar ridges on his face from touching her soft flesh. Not for her, she’d made it clear she had no qualms about the rough tissue, but he tried to keep that ugly part to himself. Lock it up whenever he could.

She squirmed away nonetheless. “Get out of here. Some of us still have to go to work first thing.”

Rusty fell back and made eye contact with her nipples until she hid them away behind a bra that almost matched her panties—the bra being grey rather than off white. “Not like I’m enjoying it. There’s these idiot kids, you wouldn’t believe.”

Christine pouted her bottom lip and shrugged. “I would believe. What do you expect? You’re an easy target, but you’re an adult, so it doesn’t matter. Those kids might need to steal on you, only way they can deal with themselves. Being a teenager sucks, don’t you remember?”

Rusty was twenty and had been on his own since sixteen, so high school, before he dropped out the second time, had been kind of fun. He was a hero to most of the other kids. The bad boy on the wrong side of the tracks for enough girls—that still mostly held true from the far side of it, they were interested, but he looked no further than Christine. Also, the teachers had reached a level of respect for his autonomy—though it had worn off some this time through and they were sick of looking at him. He was sick of looking at them, so, stalemate. Now, the majority of his classmates were only seventeen and had their mommies washing the skids out of their boxer shorts or drying their tears when they didn’t make a team. His school peers lived in a whole different world and treated him as foreign, a thing to poke and prod. Mostly. Though there were exceptions.

Rusty reached for the golden pack of Matinee cigarettes from the floor next to the mounded bedding. The lighter he used was one of four or five tossed willy-nilly around the small patch of floor he had between his bed, chair, closet, and dresser. He exhaled a cloud.

Christine was already into her jeans and t-shirt. She sat to slip on her other sock—once she located it. “You graduate, you maybe get a better job. Maybe come with me.” She reached out with her fingers spread. She was trying to quit, typically only smoked when she drank, and sometimes the morning after a good night, also sometimes when she was stressed.

Rusty handed off the cigarette. “Come with you where?”

“College in North Bay, probably. North Bay is cheaper and you get the same paper to become a dental assistant after. I got the early acceptance, didn’t want to say until I knew I’d get in. I applied to a couple others, too, but most places aren’t even open to applicants until April.”

“College. No way?”

“Way.” She took a long drag and spoke around the exhale. “You should think about college, or a trade. No future in moving heavy stuff. Double no future at Logic. Dwayne wouldn’t let you on the sales floor for any damned reason and there’s no up in the delivery department, not really. Make you sick if you knew how little Dwayne pays Cary, and how long he’s been there.” She handed the cigarette back and slipped a foot into a short leather boot with a zipper running up its side. A cheap boot that only looked cheap under a microscope.

“Dwayne’s an idiot and Cary’s too nice for his own good.”

“No doubt. To both.” Christine stood and gave Rusty a grin. “Give me a kiss goodbye.”

He rested the cigarette in the corner groove of the heavy glass ashtray he’d kept from his grandmother’s estate—the only thing of value to him—and got to his feet. He was naked aside from a pair of green boxer shorts. His middle was washboard tight, like a runway model, but skinny due to replacing at least one meal a day with coffee and cigarettes, sometimes two; rather than the gym and health living. Any abs that appeared were all natural, no sit-ups, no crunches, no Russian twists. His arms were ropey strong and his legs were rock hard from kicking out movers’ dolly wheels and lugging appliances into thankless customers’ basements. He kept a buzzed head and a shaved face—part of that due to burn, because nothing grew there.

Rusty and Christine were about the same height so kissing was good and right, a gloved hand in a snowstorm. They never knocked teeth. He leaned in, momentarily surprised when her tongue slipped between his lips and her right hand gave his manhood a quick squeeze, her index finger tracing inside the fly of his boxers, playing against the corona of his glans.

“Want to come over for supper tonight?” Christine said.

“Your dad home?”

“Probably.”

“Think I’ll pass. He hates me, and he’s still mad. Might be, one of these days, he gets really mad when he catches us.”

“You shouldn’t’ve been doing that. “Dad’s don’t like to see their daughters in situations like that.” Her words were heated whispers against his ear as her hand continued its gentle squeezing and brushing.

“Doing what? I was just sitting there. You were doing it.”

Christine pulled her hand away and lifted her eyebrows way up. She then tilted her head, straight attitude. “Oh, and here I thought you were all about the fair exchange.”

Rusty smirked enough to show off a few teeth.