Story Challenge

by Kathleen Bradean


Garce gave us the opening paragraph and asked us to take it from there.

She stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up. With a sigh, she made up her mind, stomped up the stairs and stood at his door. She opened her purse, took it out and held it in her hand. She hammered on the door with her fist. "Henry! Open up! It's me."

What was IT? The story hung on that question. Writing prompts almost always make my mind go blank. A minimum of 600 words. Even one seemed like more than I could produce. It took a while to coax something out. My answer is below. It's very much a first draft. Need I say Not Safe For Work? Okay then - not safe for work. Or anywhere, maybe.

~~

She stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up. With a sigh, she made up her mind, stomped up the stairs and stood at his door. She opened her purse, took it out and held it in her hand. She hammered on the door with her fist. "Henry! Open up! It's me."

The apartment door yanked open.

Henry's thick brows hunched over his narrowed eyes. His eyes widened as he saw what she held. He grasped her wrist and pulled her into his apartment. Even after the door slammed closed, he didn't let go. 

"Now why would you wave that around where anyone could see it?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure your..." 

"Be careful with it!" 

"As I started to say, I'm sure your neighbors have seen one before. They've probably even seen this particular package. It's not as if you close your drapes."

She peeled his fingers from her wrist and sauntered through the living room. It hadn't changed much since the last time she'd been there. The sour smell of fear had sunk into the furniture and rugs like cat piss.

Henry followed her into the kitchen with a weird gait - not like a drunk, but like a rudderless ship trying to correct its course in choppy water. "So, does this mean I can have it back?"

She twisted her wrist slowly, letting the tip flop over her thumb like a naked mole rat hoping for a belly rub. "You have to understand--"

"I need it back!"

He cringed as her fingers wrapped around the sac resting in the palm of her hand and squeezed.

"That is the second time you've interrupted me, Henry. Perhaps you don't take me seriously?"

"I do! I'm sorry! Please! God! Just stop!" A tear glinted in the corner of his eye as he held himself back. His shoulders curved forward as his hands clasped over his groin.

She regarded the package with one eyebrow cocked high. "What you have to understand is that I was led to believe that the package would have more substance. I made allowances when it was delivered. After all, you were quite frightened."

"And my heater doesn’t work," Henry mumbled.

"Of course." Her tone was meant to be soothing, but Henry gulped audibly. "But no matter what I tried, it failed to measure up to my expectations." She shook her head and sighed. "Henry. Did you really think I wouldn't be able to tell?"

Petulant now, Henry pursed his lips. "Length isn't everything."

She snorted.

"Or girth! There's foreplay, and, and, stuff like that..." His attempt at a rant lost steam as her eyebrow arced higher. "So, can I have it back now?"

"The terms of our arrangement were quite clear. Working order, Henry. It never got really hard, no matter what I did. But I noticed that there wasn't a lot of sensation. Oh, I felt some, but it was merely a ghost of reality. Which got me thinking. Did you feel anything, Henry? Did you know when I was using your cock?"

He couldn't look at her. She squeezed the balls again. "Answer me, Henry."

A groan escaped his lips. "Yes. I could feel it, every time."

"But you didn't come."

Was that another slam about his manhood? Fucking cunt. "How the hell was I supposed to know how you were using it? With some skanky whore? I hope you used protection."

"So you couldn't get it up all the way because you couldn't use your imagination?"

They way she bit her bottom lip normally would have turned him on, but she was thinking, and he knew that meant trouble. She was so damn inventive. Then the corners of her mouth curved up in a tight, dangerous smile. His cock shriveled in her palm.

***

Four hours. She said only four more hours. He wanted to look at the clock, but the metal cage she'd put over his head made him stare ahead. Even when he closed his eyes, he could heard the fake moans and the slick, wet slapping sounds of the porn she left playing on the huge TV in front of him.

The butt plug up his ass vibrated at random times. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

Henry wondered if it was possible to overdose on erectile dysfunction pills.

***

S/he paid the bored attendant and took the offered towel. Another customer stripped down at the lockers, but s/he knew hir suit helped hir pass. So did the artfully applied hint of a five o'clock shadow across hir upper lip and down hir narrow jaw. The fedora might have been a mistake, but the hipster douchbags wore them, and between hir voice and strapped down chest, she was the right age to be a hipster. The dead giveaway was hir hands, but where she was going, no one would see them.

She entered the dim hallway behind the locker room. The scent of bleach and stale poppers almost made her cough.

She passed open doors. Several bare asses, hairy and meaty or small and smooth, were on display. Some men leaned against doors and slowly stroked their cocks as she passed. Some made eye contact. Others turned away. She had no interest in a private room. Not yet. Maybe not at all.

The glory holes were along a wall, really just a set of wall partitions with a hole below waist height. A couple old dudes crouched down and sucked cocks of guys who looked a little annoyed when she met their eyes. 

She went into the only open one.

Men across the room watched hir without looking directly at hir. She lit a cigarette. What did she care? The lungs were on loan, one each from a different donor, just the same as the cock hanging from hir groin. Chin raised, she exhaled.

Don't fail me this time, boyo.

She unzipped hir fly and tugged Henry's cock through it. It wasn't hard, but it was getting there. Despite what she'd told Henry, the size was acceptable. The more she stroked it, the more acceptable it got. Still, the corners of hir mouth turned down. If only she could feel the full effect.

Cigarette hanging from hir lip, she pushed hir hat forward just a bit and slung his suit jacket over hir shoulder.

Porn, pills, or plug, something finally got Henry's cock fully hard.

Two fingers curved through the hole from the other side.

She pushed Henry's cock through the glory hole and into a warm, wet paradise.

Turning hir head slowly, she met the gazes of the men watching, and then beyond them.

~~