LAST NIGHT - LIBBY CUDMORE
Originally published at Eastern Standard Crime in August 2009
This is going to be the best and the hardest night of my life. I’ve been praying for this chance since I looked into those pretty blue peepers and, as I hike the stairs, I feel like I’ve got loose wires in my shorts. The electricity is enough to melt any second thoughts.
Renee thought of everything. She opens the door wearing a narrow black silk negligee and, past her centerfold figure, I see a bottle of wine and two glasses glittering red in the candlelight.
“Hello, Jack,” she purrs.
“Hello, Renee.”
She gives me that up-from-under glance and I kiss her slowly to melt the lead in my throat. She tastes like diamonds, the way I always imagined she’d taste. No sense in starting the evening off with a bang; I’ll work my way up. This is her night, I’ll do it how ever she wants.
She accepts my kiss with her body pressed tight to mine and, when she draws back to take a breath, she takes my hand, leading me inside. We sit on the couch and each take a glass of wine, tapping the rims together in a toast. “To tonight,” she says with a sly smile.
We drink without speaking. There’s nothing to say. As the level of the wine in our bottle begins to descend, my trembling hand slides further up her thigh, testing her offer. She’s not wearing panties. Smiling, I trace my index finger between her legs and she exhales as though she wasn’t planning on it.
“Shall we move to the bedroom?” she asks, as though we’re in a silver-screen romance.
“Whatever you wish,” I reply.
She stands and takes my hand again, leading me into another candlelit room.
She’s put on red satin sheets and we stand over the bed, my lips wet on hers, her arms tight around my neck, as though are bodies are wax, melting into each other. She unbuttons my gray shirt. I slide one black strap off her shoulder, crumpling the gown at her feet.
She drapes herself across the pillows with one leg drawn up at the knee and I don’t even bother getting any more undressed before I’m on all fours, pressing my tongue between her thighs the way lezzies like it done. She gasps and grips two handfuls of my hair, her nails raking against my scalp. I kiss deeper, savoring the taste of her. I’ll never have this chance again and I want to make sure I never forget. I don’t think that’s likely to happen any time soon.
She tugs on my hair and I kiss up her stomach until I reach her mouth. She’s biting my lower lip and unbuttoning my pants; I’m trying to finish getting my clothes off without moving any more than a breath from her mouth. I lay on top of her, kissing her neck. She wants me. This dame wants me the way I’ve wanted her for so long; the way I never thought I’d have her. I’m the luckiest man in the world right now. I fit inside her and moan into her shoulder. She doesn’t weep the way I expected her to, but this pleasure is insanity and I think I might start.
She arches her back and I clench my jaw. I don’t want this to be over but, when people say all good things have endings, they mean the good things that come when you’re between the gorgeous gams of a doll you’d kill for. I bury my face between her neck and the pillow, breathing like my heart’s going to explode. She nibbles my ear and I suck the sweat off her neck. I don’t know if it’s mine or hers, but it doesn’t matter, it’s ours now. Her breasts gasp against my weight and I open up some space, sliding my hand in—can’t let the night go by without getting a feel of that beautiful set. I haven’t been this hungry for tits since my mom stopped nursing me, but it’s time to get back to the main event before my ticket becomes useless.
A few more shoves and she swallows me with her kiss, tightening in ecstasy. I surrender. I lay on top of her, hands wandering up and down, trying to derive another few minutes of pleasure before she closes her eyes. She smiles as I fall back against the pillows and we both laugh, breathless stuttered sounds of uncertain happiness. Now comes the hard part.
She rests in my arms until her breath catches up with her and then stands to dress. I watch the muscles in her back tango with her shoulder blades as she enshrouds herself. She gives me one more smile and lays her body back on the mattress. I stroke her hair until her lashes fall to her baby cheeks and she sleeps.
She doesn’t wake when I get up to retrieve my bag. Her eyes don’t move as I put the pistol to her head. There’s no sound but the bite of the silencer as I pull the trigger.
BIO: Libby Cudmore is a regular contributor to Hardboiled magazine and Pop Matters. Her work has appeared in A Twist of Noir, Eastern Standard Crime, the Flash Fiction Offensive, Pulp Pusher, Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers, Crime and Suspense, Inertia, the Southern Women’s Review and Shaking Like a Mountain. She also has stories slated for upcoming issues of Thrilling Detective, PowderBurnFlash, Battered Suitcase and the anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts (with Matthew Quinn Martin).
Showing posts with label Libby Cudmore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libby Cudmore. Show all posts
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
A Twist Of Noir 146 - Libby Cudmore
FIRST NIGHT IN A NEW TOWN - LIBBY CUDMORE
I’m told on the payphone that it’s too late to go to the orphanage tonight. The social worker in charge of these things tells me to get a room and wait it out until morning. I’m down to fifty-five bucks after paying for a room in what I know is a hot-sheet, but the Tropical motel is the cleanest place I can find on my limited budget. And with no idea when my first paycheck will arrive, I can’t be choosy about my lodging. I thought Derris Falls was a pit, but Crimson City is even worse. This place needs me. This place needs God.
I’m just out of the shower when I hear a knock at my door. I dress quickly and answer to a pink pants girl with too much eye makeup trying to hide an amphetamine stare. “Just you in here?” she asks, trying to peek past me.
“I intend for it to stay that way,” I say. “Goodnight.”
She sticks her plastic shoe in the door and grins at the Bible in my hands. “A preacher, huh? I’m pretty good on my knees.”
My hands want to shove her, but my heart tells me to do otherwise. I take the chain off the lock and invite her inside. She sidles in, hangs her purse on the door and sits on the bed with her legs spread. The crotch seams of her fishnet stockings are torn, revealing muted bloodstains on blue cotton panties. “Five bucks for a kiss, twenty for a full party hour. If you can go longer than that, it’s ten bucks extra every half hour. You gotta pay the twenty up front, though, the rest you can leave on the dresser.” She looks me over and smirks. “What can I call you?”
“Gregory is fine.”
“All right, Gregory, I’m Amy. You seem like you’ve done this before.”
“Close ’em,” I say. “I’ll pay you for your time, but we’re going to talk.”
She rolls her eyes. “Christ, if I wanted to sit around yapping, I would have become a hairdresser. If you don’t want to party, fine, but I’m not one of those girls who wants to hear about your wife leaving you.”
She stands to leave, but I pull a ten out of my wallet and hold it up. “Half an hour, that’s all, I promise. That’s two back-alley jobs with no scraped knees.” I’m not in the habit of paying people to listen to me, but if I can save her soul in the next thirty minutes, it’ll be worth a hundred times what came out of my pocket. Then maybe she’ll tell her friends and I can start my congregation. It worked in Derris Falls, there’s no reason it won’t work here.
She can’t resist my offer, not when it’s getting late and her high is crashing fast. She pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and puts one between her purple lips. “Mind if I smoke?”
She’s stalling. She holds the pack out to me and I shake my head. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.” I just quit and, as tempting as her offer is, I wouldn’t be a very good model for resisting sin if I gave in to my own.
She puts the cigarette back in the pack and crosses her ankles. “Tell me all about her,” she says, stifling a yawn.
I pull a wobbly wooden chair around to face her. “Do you believe in God?” I ask.
“Ha!” She leans back on her hands. “The only reason I know God exists is because he’s doing me hard up the ass.”
Now I’m getting somewhere. At least she has some belief, skewed as it is. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh hell,” she sneers. “Is that what’s gonna get you off? Are you one of those fire-and-brimstone bastards who want me to recite my sins while you pound into me so you can gloat about the eternal damnation I’m facing? Save it, Reverend, my rent’s due tomorrow and I don’t have time for the sermon.”
“I bought half an hour,” I say. “And if you want that ten-spot, and I know you do, you’ll sit and listen. I don’t care what you’ve done, all I care about it what you’re going to do. Are you going to walk out that door and buy more drugs to abuse the body that God blessed you with? Are you going to continue to ignore His love and refuse His forgiveness? God’s not the one doing you up the ass, honey. He’s the one offering his hand to help you up off all fours.”
“So you’re saying that it’s my fault, you’re saying that I choose to live like this?” Her eyes fill with tears. “Screw you, pal, you don’t know what I’m about.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I say, putting my hand on hers. She snatches them away and folds her arms under her breasts, pushing them up as though a little cleavage will make me change my mind about her services and shut up about the whole salvation thing. I wish I could put all the fault on her—no one forced her to use drugs, and if she’s like any of the other hundreds of beat girls I’ve met, she only started standing under lampposts to support her wretched habit. I’m not in this to judge. That job belongs to someone a lot higher on the cosmic pay scale. “Every day you have the choice to use or not to use drugs, to stay home or go out. You need to accept your responsibility for your addiction, and the easiest way to do that is to accept that God will help your break your wicked habits with His divine love.”
I’ve given some version of this sermon time and time again, sometimes girls come up to me and hug me and ask, Do you know of anyplace I can get clean? and other times they grab a few extra donuts when they sneak out during the Lord’s Prayer.
She stares at her reflection in the blank TV screen behind me.
“What do you say?” I ask. “Will you accept God’s love?”
“I say you just used up all your time.” She stands and holds out her hand. “Ten bucks.”
My own watch tells me otherwise. “I’ll be preaching over at the Church on Byrne street starting this Sunday. I’d like it if you’d come; there’ll be lunch afterwards.”
“I’ll be singing hymns in the front row,” she snarls. “Pay up.”
I hand her the ten wrapped around Psalm 142.7: Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name. She takes the ten, grabs her purse and slams the door behind her. Probably off to laugh with her fellow street sisters about the weirdo she serviced tonight. Of all the guys in Crimson City, the pimps, the junkies, the wife-beaters and other scum, I’m the crazy johnnie trying to save her soul.
I sigh and sit on the bed. I can still smell her drugstore perfume, artificially fruity alcohol trying to mask the scent of lubricant and unwashed bodies. I exhale and stand. I need a drink. I need a cigarette. I quit both. A cup of coffee will have to do.
Putting on my coat, I briefly consider taking my Bible and preaching at some of the bars I saw on the cab ride over here. I change my mind when I find my crumpled prayer card by the stairs. Converting Crimson City is going to be a lot harder than I thought.
BIO: Libby Cudmore is a regular contributor to Hardboiled magazine and Pop Matters. Her work has appeared in A Twist of Noir, Eastern Standard Crime, the Flash Fiction Offensive, Pulp Pusher, Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers, Crime and Suspense, Inertia, the Southern Women’s Review and Shaking Like a Mountain. She also has stories slated for upcoming issues of Thrilling Detective, PowderBurnFlash, Battered Suitcase and the anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts (with Matthew Quinn Martin).
I’m told on the payphone that it’s too late to go to the orphanage tonight. The social worker in charge of these things tells me to get a room and wait it out until morning. I’m down to fifty-five bucks after paying for a room in what I know is a hot-sheet, but the Tropical motel is the cleanest place I can find on my limited budget. And with no idea when my first paycheck will arrive, I can’t be choosy about my lodging. I thought Derris Falls was a pit, but Crimson City is even worse. This place needs me. This place needs God.
I’m just out of the shower when I hear a knock at my door. I dress quickly and answer to a pink pants girl with too much eye makeup trying to hide an amphetamine stare. “Just you in here?” she asks, trying to peek past me.
“I intend for it to stay that way,” I say. “Goodnight.”
She sticks her plastic shoe in the door and grins at the Bible in my hands. “A preacher, huh? I’m pretty good on my knees.”
My hands want to shove her, but my heart tells me to do otherwise. I take the chain off the lock and invite her inside. She sidles in, hangs her purse on the door and sits on the bed with her legs spread. The crotch seams of her fishnet stockings are torn, revealing muted bloodstains on blue cotton panties. “Five bucks for a kiss, twenty for a full party hour. If you can go longer than that, it’s ten bucks extra every half hour. You gotta pay the twenty up front, though, the rest you can leave on the dresser.” She looks me over and smirks. “What can I call you?”
“Gregory is fine.”
“All right, Gregory, I’m Amy. You seem like you’ve done this before.”
“Close ’em,” I say. “I’ll pay you for your time, but we’re going to talk.”
She rolls her eyes. “Christ, if I wanted to sit around yapping, I would have become a hairdresser. If you don’t want to party, fine, but I’m not one of those girls who wants to hear about your wife leaving you.”
She stands to leave, but I pull a ten out of my wallet and hold it up. “Half an hour, that’s all, I promise. That’s two back-alley jobs with no scraped knees.” I’m not in the habit of paying people to listen to me, but if I can save her soul in the next thirty minutes, it’ll be worth a hundred times what came out of my pocket. Then maybe she’ll tell her friends and I can start my congregation. It worked in Derris Falls, there’s no reason it won’t work here.
She can’t resist my offer, not when it’s getting late and her high is crashing fast. She pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and puts one between her purple lips. “Mind if I smoke?”
She’s stalling. She holds the pack out to me and I shake my head. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.” I just quit and, as tempting as her offer is, I wouldn’t be a very good model for resisting sin if I gave in to my own.
She puts the cigarette back in the pack and crosses her ankles. “Tell me all about her,” she says, stifling a yawn.
I pull a wobbly wooden chair around to face her. “Do you believe in God?” I ask.
“Ha!” She leans back on her hands. “The only reason I know God exists is because he’s doing me hard up the ass.”
Now I’m getting somewhere. At least she has some belief, skewed as it is. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh hell,” she sneers. “Is that what’s gonna get you off? Are you one of those fire-and-brimstone bastards who want me to recite my sins while you pound into me so you can gloat about the eternal damnation I’m facing? Save it, Reverend, my rent’s due tomorrow and I don’t have time for the sermon.”
“I bought half an hour,” I say. “And if you want that ten-spot, and I know you do, you’ll sit and listen. I don’t care what you’ve done, all I care about it what you’re going to do. Are you going to walk out that door and buy more drugs to abuse the body that God blessed you with? Are you going to continue to ignore His love and refuse His forgiveness? God’s not the one doing you up the ass, honey. He’s the one offering his hand to help you up off all fours.”
“So you’re saying that it’s my fault, you’re saying that I choose to live like this?” Her eyes fill with tears. “Screw you, pal, you don’t know what I’m about.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I say, putting my hand on hers. She snatches them away and folds her arms under her breasts, pushing them up as though a little cleavage will make me change my mind about her services and shut up about the whole salvation thing. I wish I could put all the fault on her—no one forced her to use drugs, and if she’s like any of the other hundreds of beat girls I’ve met, she only started standing under lampposts to support her wretched habit. I’m not in this to judge. That job belongs to someone a lot higher on the cosmic pay scale. “Every day you have the choice to use or not to use drugs, to stay home or go out. You need to accept your responsibility for your addiction, and the easiest way to do that is to accept that God will help your break your wicked habits with His divine love.”
I’ve given some version of this sermon time and time again, sometimes girls come up to me and hug me and ask, Do you know of anyplace I can get clean? and other times they grab a few extra donuts when they sneak out during the Lord’s Prayer.
She stares at her reflection in the blank TV screen behind me.
“What do you say?” I ask. “Will you accept God’s love?”
“I say you just used up all your time.” She stands and holds out her hand. “Ten bucks.”
My own watch tells me otherwise. “I’ll be preaching over at the Church on Byrne street starting this Sunday. I’d like it if you’d come; there’ll be lunch afterwards.”
“I’ll be singing hymns in the front row,” she snarls. “Pay up.”
I hand her the ten wrapped around Psalm 142.7: Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name. She takes the ten, grabs her purse and slams the door behind her. Probably off to laugh with her fellow street sisters about the weirdo she serviced tonight. Of all the guys in Crimson City, the pimps, the junkies, the wife-beaters and other scum, I’m the crazy johnnie trying to save her soul.
I sigh and sit on the bed. I can still smell her drugstore perfume, artificially fruity alcohol trying to mask the scent of lubricant and unwashed bodies. I exhale and stand. I need a drink. I need a cigarette. I quit both. A cup of coffee will have to do.
Putting on my coat, I briefly consider taking my Bible and preaching at some of the bars I saw on the cab ride over here. I change my mind when I find my crumpled prayer card by the stairs. Converting Crimson City is going to be a lot harder than I thought.
BIO: Libby Cudmore is a regular contributor to Hardboiled magazine and Pop Matters. Her work has appeared in A Twist of Noir, Eastern Standard Crime, the Flash Fiction Offensive, Pulp Pusher, Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers, Crime and Suspense, Inertia, the Southern Women’s Review and Shaking Like a Mountain. She also has stories slated for upcoming issues of Thrilling Detective, PowderBurnFlash, Battered Suitcase and the anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts (with Matthew Quinn Martin).
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
A Twist Of Noir 125 - Libby Cudmore
PROPS - LIBBY CUDMORE
I can’t drink enough. A fifth of bourbon, a snoutful of coke, a pack of cigarettes, nothing helps. Nothing on the evening news. Nothing puts me to sleep.
A routine call. They stuck me with the new kid, Christian. I’m the detective, he’s the rookie, fresh off the test and relieved of guard duty. He could learn a thing or two from a hero like me. He’d be better off with Archer Finn, someone who could take his sissy ass and make him a man. I hate patrolmen. I’m sure he’s a rat and the captain just put him on to make sure I’m not buying drugs on company time.
Shoplifter. Some girl caught snagging lace panties from some overpriced uptown department store, probably a Mimi gang kid doing her initiation stunt. Owner wants us to teach her a lesson, Captain wants me to baby-sit. I’ve got better things to do than spank some brat, but I take her to the car anyways. She pulls a gun. I’m not used to little girls pulling pieces on me; I can finally say I’ve seen everything. She fires and I catch the bullet in the shoulder. Now she’s in trouble. I fumble for my flask and drain it. Christian can’t rat me for this, not when I’m bleeding all over the sidewalk. Adrenaline and bourbon is my favorite cocktail and I’m lit hot like a brothel on Friday night. I pick up the chase and follow her down the street.
She scrambles through the boarded-up door of a theater that hasn’t seen showgirls since my granddad knocked up their kick-line leader. I punt down the door and follow, firing random shots up the stairs. She stumbles. Blood. She keeps climbing and Christian screams my name. I don’t respond, I can’t stop.
She crawls through another door and I bust through. It’s an old dressing room, filled floor to ceiling with costumes and props and dust and junk. She’s crouched behind an ottoman that looks like it belongs in an Arabian harem. She stares at me with terror in her eyes. My rod feels heavy in my hand. “I’ve got you now,” I growl, relishing the capture.
She looks away and puts her own gun to her head. Christian arrives just in time for the finale. “No!” he shrieks. He runs to the body and I sink into a leather chair. The room spins now.
Blackness. Somewhere in the oblivion, Christian bawls. “She’s just a kid, Frankie!” he sobs. “She’s just a kid!”
I wake up in the hospital, arm bandaged, on my own. Cab takes me home. Painkillers, coke, bourbon, smokes. No sleep. I watch the news and wait for the call from the captain putting me out of job. The phone never rings. No one comes to visit and when I go back to work, I’m on desk duty until my arm heals. Christian’s reassigned to Archer and won’t look at me. It’s days before I sleep again.
BIO: Libby Cudmore is a MFA candidate at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast Pop Fiction program and a regular contributor to Hardboiled and Pop Matters. Additionally, her work has appeared in Pulp Pusher, Crime and Suspense, Inertia, the Southern Women's Review, Shaking Like a Mountain, and upcoming issues of Thrilling Detective, Battered Suitcase and the anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts (with Matthew Quinn Martin).
I can’t drink enough. A fifth of bourbon, a snoutful of coke, a pack of cigarettes, nothing helps. Nothing on the evening news. Nothing puts me to sleep.
A routine call. They stuck me with the new kid, Christian. I’m the detective, he’s the rookie, fresh off the test and relieved of guard duty. He could learn a thing or two from a hero like me. He’d be better off with Archer Finn, someone who could take his sissy ass and make him a man. I hate patrolmen. I’m sure he’s a rat and the captain just put him on to make sure I’m not buying drugs on company time.
Shoplifter. Some girl caught snagging lace panties from some overpriced uptown department store, probably a Mimi gang kid doing her initiation stunt. Owner wants us to teach her a lesson, Captain wants me to baby-sit. I’ve got better things to do than spank some brat, but I take her to the car anyways. She pulls a gun. I’m not used to little girls pulling pieces on me; I can finally say I’ve seen everything. She fires and I catch the bullet in the shoulder. Now she’s in trouble. I fumble for my flask and drain it. Christian can’t rat me for this, not when I’m bleeding all over the sidewalk. Adrenaline and bourbon is my favorite cocktail and I’m lit hot like a brothel on Friday night. I pick up the chase and follow her down the street.
She scrambles through the boarded-up door of a theater that hasn’t seen showgirls since my granddad knocked up their kick-line leader. I punt down the door and follow, firing random shots up the stairs. She stumbles. Blood. She keeps climbing and Christian screams my name. I don’t respond, I can’t stop.
She crawls through another door and I bust through. It’s an old dressing room, filled floor to ceiling with costumes and props and dust and junk. She’s crouched behind an ottoman that looks like it belongs in an Arabian harem. She stares at me with terror in her eyes. My rod feels heavy in my hand. “I’ve got you now,” I growl, relishing the capture.
She looks away and puts her own gun to her head. Christian arrives just in time for the finale. “No!” he shrieks. He runs to the body and I sink into a leather chair. The room spins now.
Blackness. Somewhere in the oblivion, Christian bawls. “She’s just a kid, Frankie!” he sobs. “She’s just a kid!”
I wake up in the hospital, arm bandaged, on my own. Cab takes me home. Painkillers, coke, bourbon, smokes. No sleep. I watch the news and wait for the call from the captain putting me out of job. The phone never rings. No one comes to visit and when I go back to work, I’m on desk duty until my arm heals. Christian’s reassigned to Archer and won’t look at me. It’s days before I sleep again.
BIO: Libby Cudmore is a MFA candidate at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast Pop Fiction program and a regular contributor to Hardboiled and Pop Matters. Additionally, her work has appeared in Pulp Pusher, Crime and Suspense, Inertia, the Southern Women's Review, Shaking Like a Mountain, and upcoming issues of Thrilling Detective, Battered Suitcase and the anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts (with Matthew Quinn Martin).
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