The water gushing out of the showerhead almost burned off a layer of her skin. Veronica snatched her hand away and dialed down the heat before stepping in, almost wishing she could do the same to the pressure. Almost, but not quite. Anything was better than the water pressure she had at home. She was lucky if the hot water lasted through even a quick shower. Something told her she didn’t have to worry about running out of hot water here. The walk-in shower was all stone, one of those fancy ones that didn’t even have a door or curtain, just a sloped tiled floor that funneled water down the drain.
This place is nice. Actually, everything of theirs was nice. Nice cars. Nice clothes. Too bad their son doesn’t stack up.
Nando was as clean-cut as they came. Straight A’s. Sharply parted hair. A mouthful of perfect teeth—bought and paid for by mommy and daddy, of course. Went to mass every Sunday. An altar boy at St. Athammaus.
If she was honest, the goody-two-shoes act was the primary reason she set her sights on him. Looks-wise he wasn’t anything to go wild about. When he went off to college—Ivy League, no doubt, following in his parents’ footsteps—he wouldn’t be the panty-dropper of the frat. His idea of foreplay was a little over-the-bra action. When she’d gone down on him, he’d popped before she even got a mouthful.
Not that he’s even packing a mouthful.
Nando had two things going for him—aside from the clean bed, money, and gloriously hot shower. He recovered quickly, and he was a skilled linguist. No, really. The guy could speak five languages.
It just so happened that one of those languages is pussy, because the guy ate me out like it was his job.
She fiddled with the temperature once more and then fully stepped into the current. Fog filled the spacious bathroom, the hot water on cold stone causing a considerable amount of steam.
Above the pluming cloud of mist, obfuscated by the wafting vapors, a thin black tendril snaked along the ceiling ever closer to the shower’s occupant.
Veronica’s skin pinked almost instantly, but she was going to enjoy the heat while she had it. She always had the urge to shower after sex. It wasn’t any Freudian compulsion to wash her sins away or anything like that. People called her a slut, but she wasn’t ashamed that she took charge of her sexual fulfillment. It just so happened that fulfillment for her meant a series of partners.
Monogamy was overrated. People didn’t eat the same meal day after day. Why should dick be any different?
She showered after sex because she wanted to be clean. Women got a raw deal having to be humanity’s cum catchers. If it wasn’t in their snatches, it was in their mouths, on their tits, or on their faces. She didn’t understand how guys could just lay around after sex stewing in the post-coital soup. It was probably some macho bullshit, the stench of their sex some kind of Neanderthal trophy-displaying ritual.
The thought made her skin crawl, and she shivered despite the water’s heat. It was more than just the thought of Nando lying in bed covered in sweat and worse. This bathroom was unnaturally large. With the dim lights, thick clouds of steam, and the stone tiles echoing every sound, it was like she was in a cave. Or entombed. Another quiver skittered up her spine, and she quickened her pace.
The shower had three heads. One in the regular place, one in the ceiling large as a family-sized pizza, and a detachable head on a long hose. It took a minute to figure out how to make the detachable nozzle spray, but when she did, she set it to stun and blasted away every last bit of Fernando Alvarez from all her nooks and crannies.
In contrast to the elegance of the bathroom, Nando’s soap of choice was a large bottle of Battleaxe 3-in-1 shower gel. She never had the urge to smell like medieval weaponry, but that was what you got when you hooked up with teenage guys still firmly ensconced in their man-child phase. With a sigh that somehow communicated all her angst, frustrations, and disappointments with the male of the species, Veronica squirted out a blob of foul-smelling goo that looked more like a sparkly booger than soap and began to wash herself.
A scraping sound caught her attention. “Nando, is that you?”
She brushed a few damp strands of hair out of her eyes and peered through the thickening fog. The sound like a bare foot sliding against tile floor shushed through the room. The bathroom was starting to give her the creeps. She considered calling for Nando and inviting him in with her. The last thing she wanted was another romp, but she would have welcomed the company if not his advances.
Directly above the shower, the black vine crawled down the walls toward the naked beauty, one filament finding the showerhead’s pipe and coiling along its length, inching out over Veronica’s head.
Closing her eyes, Veronica let the water run over her face, careful not to get her hair wet. She didn’t have time to deal with that whole process. The hot water pounded against her face, and she turned off the flow to the detachable wand, placing it back on its cradle.
Her thumb brushed the rough surface of a thin tentacle, but its coarse flesh felt rough like a loofa, and she didn’t think twice about it. Her hand was gone before it could grasp her finger.
The flow of water shut off with a trumpeting cry, the high pressure turning the pipes into an orchestra’s brass section. Veronica ran her hands over her body, sluicing the water off, and then wrapped herself in a towel. The ever-present steam redoubled its efforts to blanket the room in dense fog. Luckily, the bathroom was spacious enough she didn’t worry about tripping on anything while she picked her way toward the door.
As if realizing its quarry was about to escape, the vines lunged toward her, but the nude girl was too quick. For a moment, the roots act as if irked, shaking in the air like a frustrated politician wrung his hands. The moment passed, and the grasping vines in the shower settle into motionlessness like a trapdoor spider lying in wait for its prey to make a fatal misstep.
As the tendrils in the shower settled, those on the ceiling bulged and split, new shoots erupting and beginning the pursuit anew. The creeping, crawling things made a beeline for the door.
Veronica, wrapped in a towel large enough to be a small blanket, slipped through the door and back into Nando’s room, oblivious to the fate she narrowly avoided.
Nando’s bedroom wasn’t like any other room in the house that she’d seen. No ornate crown molding, no rich Merlot drapes adorning the windows. It looked just like any other teenage boy’s room…if that boy grew up rich and sexually repressed. The furniture all matched. The floor was some kind of wood she didn’t recognize. Maple? Walnut, possibly? A desktop computer lit with multicolored LEDs, at least two laptops, more gaming systems than she could name. But no pictures of scantily clad women. No Sports Illustrated magazines. Not even a hotrod calendar with babes in suggestive positions.
She had been in a lot of guys’ rooms, but Nando’s looked like it belonged to a bachelor in his 30s. Clean, tastefully decorated, and full of gadgets.
It must suck to be Catholic. She had friends who were Catholic. Christmas mass. Lent. Confession. Her grandma called them “good-time Catholics.” But Nando’s parents were like, seriously Catholic.
“Hey, sexy.” Nando paused whatever he was watching, the dim light from the TV the only illumination aside from the weak moonlight slipping through the window. As expected, he was still lying in bed. By the expanse of skin she could see, he was still naked under the rumpled silk sheets. Nando smiled and stretched, the sheets sliding down to expose his shapeless stomach, revealing a mass of dark, manscaped hair. “No need to rush. Why don’t you stay, and we can see how long this party can last?”
Veronica spotted her discarded clothes in a pile near the closet. “No thanks. I don’t have time, even for a party that’ll only last fifteen to thirty seconds.” Despite the shadows cast over him, she saw the scowl slide over his face. She hooked her toes into the pile of clothes and kicked them up.
If it weren’t so dark, and if she had been looking, she’d have seen the root under the heap, wriggling toward her.
Walking to the chair in the corner, she dropped the clothes in a pile and sorted through to find her bra and panties.
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“Don’t get me wrong, Nando. When it comes to oral, you’ve got game for days, but when it comes to laying the pipe…” She scrunched up her face and shrugged one shoulder. “I know it’s a sin, but maybe spend a little more time cranking it. Do you mind?” Taking his scowl as all the answer she’d get, she shrugged out of the towel and slipped her undies on.
Might as well give the poor guy something for his spank bank.
Nodes formed on the pulsing dark vines, and new offshoots sprouted. Then more nodes and more offshoots. Soon, every wall in the room was crawling with the skittering things. Some crawled toward the dressing girl. Some wriggled their way along the wall toward the bed and the blushing boy atop it. Anger and lust heated his blood to an irresistible temperature. Still others raced for the door.
Nando’s face flushed with scarlet indignance, and he jerked upright in bed, the sheet falling away completely. “You fucking slut, you think you’re better than me?”
Classic fragile male ego. She almost laughed. “In bed? Yes.” She popped her head out of the top of her blouse and gave him a cheeky smile.
Her dimples did little to diffuse his anger. “I’m gonna tell everyone what you did.”
“And what would that be? Give you the best sex of your life?”
“No! The other stuff—”
She cut him off. “Listen, Nando, I’m gonna stop you right there. First, I’m not ashamed of who I am. I am a little mortified that I jumped in your bed, but I take life by the balls and squeeze it for all it’s worth. If there’s a person in school who doesn’t think I’m a slut already, they’re either an idiot or woefully naïve. I have no problems taking ownership of my actions. Which brings me to my second point…” She wriggled the skirt up her thighs, over her hips, then scooped up her shoes. Sauntering toward the bed, she leaned over the naked boy, a lewd smile plastered on her face.
A dopey smile grew on his round face, and she noticed his growing excitement. Boys are so fucking dumb.
Her voice purred, deep and throaty. “You, on the other hand…you like to pretend you’re this little goody-two-shoes. I wonder what your parents would think about what you did to me tonight?” The blood drained out of his face and dick like she’d slit his throat.
“I wonder what Maria Ortega would think. Haven’t you two been promised to each other or some bullshit since the seventh grade? Isn’t that ring on your finger supposed to represent chastity?”
Veronica chuckled and slipped her shoes on. As she walked to the door, she shot Nando double finger guns, stepping over the grasping tendrils without noticing. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll keep your secret. The last thing I want is to get that tongue locked down. You’ve got a gift, Nando. It’d be a shame if your ’rents shipped you off to seminary.”
Her back bumped against the door, and her hand found the knob, not realizing that no matter how hard she pulled, the door wouldn’t budge. A web of veins crisscross the portal, locking it in place, the black filaments nearly invisible in the dark room.
“Toodles,” she said, giving him a jaunty wave.
“Wait!”
“I know you Catholics are into shame and flagellation, but this conversation”—she pointed at herself and him—“wasn’t a precursor to a post-game.”
“Not that. Listen!”
They fell silent, and then she heard it. The gravel in the driveway popped and crunched underneath car tires. Nando’s parents were home.
“Whoops. Guess that mouth will be shifting gears to sucking off priests sooner rather than later.”
“Wait! Don’t go out the front.”
“Excuse me?”
Nando jumped up, anxiety overriding any shame or embarrassment he felt about his nakedness. He grabbed her arm and steered her away from the door. He was gentle about it, so she didn’t break his nose. Not yet, anyway.
“What, you want me to slip out the servant’s entrance?”
“Not exactly.” He led her toward the window. Through it, she could see the headlights snap off. The crushed gravel glowed in the dim moonlight.
“Oh, no. No way.”
“Please,” he pleaded. “They’ll kill me if they find out.” Nando’s grip tightened on her arm. “I’ll give you four hundred dollars.”
“What? Fuck you! I’m not a whore.”
“Not for the sex. For climbing out the window. It’s easy. I do it all the time.”
She glanced out the window again, judging the difficulty. “Five hundred.”
“Fine.”
“And I get to drive your car for a month.”
“A week.”
“Two weeks.”
“Okay, fine. Just go. Please.” Nando slid open the large window. The chill air hit her and did Nando’s naked form little favor. “Go that way. There’s a wall around the corner that’ll get you to the ground.”
The thin vinyl rails of the window frame cut into her palms and her ass. I should have asked for more. She picked her way slowly across the darkened roof.
He called out to her, his voice quiet but pitched to carry. “I’ll call you an Uber at the intersection.”
Fuck. She forgot Nando had picked her up. The window slid shut before she could change her mind, and the curtains dropped, effectively blocking her from view. She hoped he was smart enough to light some incense to cover up the stench of sweat and sex. Otherwise, this was all for nothing.
***
Nando plodded from the window, completely enervated as the adrenaline drained away. Something on the floor caught his foot, and he stumbled a few steps, catching himself on the bed. With the curtains closed, what little light the sliver of moon shed was now cut off, and he couldn’t see anything.
Probably the laptop charger. As soon as they made induction charges for laptops, he was totally upgrading. Until then, he would ask his mom to call an electrician. This old house just didn’t have enough plugs.
Flopping onto the bed, he buried his face into a pillow. As close a call as this was, even almost getting caught by his parents wasn’t enough to dampen his mood.
I fucked Veronica Chambers.
Everyone knew she got around, but it wasn’t like she was a total slut. She didn’t fuck just anyone. With a deep breath, he could still smell her lingering scent on the sheets. He lay there, naked and with growing arousal as the memories flooded through him, his face buried in the pillow that still smelled of her.
His feet tangled in the sheets, but he paid it no mind. An hour ago, Veronica was pulling on those same sheets while he was tonsils-deep inside her.
I can still taste her. He may never brush his teeth again.
The maid would have to change his sheets tomorrow. Silk felt good on the skin, and it impressed the ladies—okay, the two ladies who'd graced his bed thus far—but they sure got clingy. Nando rolled onto his back, one hand pressing the pillow to his face so he could breathe in Veronica’s lingering aroma. The other hand slid down his body and grasped his swollen cock.
He had made her scream. It wasn’t like the pornos he watched. There wasn’t an audience she was performing for. Just him. She really liked it when he used his mouth. His ears still rang with the sweet sound of her ecstasy.
His hand stroked, and he felt the familiar tingling in his toes and fingers as the orgasm built up. The tingling sensation worked its way up his legs to his stomach. His chest tightened, and he had a fleeting thought that maybe he was pressing the pillow too firmly to his face.
Is this what auto-erotic asphyxiation is like? If so, he understood the appeal. The sensation was intoxicating. His thoughts began to fog, blurring around the edges like the world’s best high. It was almost painful, but it sharpened his focus. The pain drove back the orgasm momentarily, taking the euphoria to new heights.
It wasn’t until he came, hot ejaculate splashing onto his doughy stomach, that he realized something was wrong. The waves of ecstasy were gone, a fleeting memory in his trembling muscles, but the pain lingered. The sensation wasn’t just a tingle anymore. His skin burned like fire ants swarmed him. He ripped the pillow from his face and gasped a breath. It didn’t smell like Veronica anymore, but that gasp of air was sweet.
For a second, at least.
Until the pulsing, writhing tendrils dove into his mouth and burrowed down his throat.
***
“Honey?”
Carmen Alvarez knocked again. “Honey, did you fall asleep again? You know you aren’t supposed to take naps. You’ll just be up all night.” The escitalopram did wonders to curb Ferdie’s social anxiety, but the stuff did a real number on his circadian rhythm.
“Ferdie? Nando?” She remembered the nickname they were supposed to call him.
She knew she wasn’t supposed to open the door without being invited—they’d had a family meeting about that where Ferdie had very passionately explained why he needed his privacy—but dinner had come and gone over an hour ago, and he wasn’t responding to her texts—Ferdie’s preferred method of speaking to his parents even when they were all home.
Carmen steeled herself and turned the knob. The door swung on oiled hinges without a single peep. She made a mental note to thank Jackson for that. It was important for the staff to hear when they were doing a good job.
A stench hit her that wrinkled her nose. A miasma of body odor, sweat, and something metallic.
He made us install a gym in the garage so that he could start exercising, and he insists on working out in his room. Teenage boys. Even after all these years, she was no closer to understanding them. Emmeline would have to shampoo Ferdie’s room again. For the second time this year.
All the lights were off, even the TV—and that thing was hardly ever off—and the drapes were drawn. Carmen wasn’t that old, but still, her eyes struggled to pierce the dark. Her hand swiped along the wall until she found the light switch.
When lights came on, she wished she hadn’t been the one to check on their son.
Nando lay in bed, naked. He was half sitting up like his body was propped on a pile of pillows. But it wasn’t pillows that held him up. Hundreds, thousands of thin dark roots pierced his body, lifting and anchoring him to the queen size bed beneath. His mouth and eyes gaped like he was terrified, but instead of horror, the cavities were filled with thick cords of wood, growing up, twining around other branches that grew from his chest and stomach. Slender branches sprouted from bright green nodes, and vestigial leaves the color of blood emerged from the buds at their tips.