Whiskey Sour Noir (The Hard Stuff) Read Online Free Page B

tried to hold in a beer fart. We were close, but not that kind of intimate. “Reminds me of time spent with my clients at the DIC,” I said. “All those bruised people so numbed down they can never figure out why the hurt and why not go back for more. We talk it out and they blame everybody but themselves. Called self-victimization, Avery.”
    “Hey,” he yelled, loud enough for me to squeak out my gas. “I was victimized. No joke, counselor. I got had, and there had to be a reason for it. I’ve been thinking about what that reason could be and who could have had it. Thinking hard for a hell of a long time.”
    He grabbed my head and turned it, held his face mashed up to mine. I could see the pores on his straight nose, the fine wrinkles at the edges of his clear eyes. His breath mixed beer with pineapple, a hoppy aroma I’d grown accustomed to. He’d said he didn’t drink, but he didn’t drink much . Just a beer or two with me after work. Did this constitute a lie? At the very least, it was a parole violation, or that such.
    “I wouldn’t be here with you if I liked little tykes, now would I?” He didn’t let go of my face until I shook my head, as in no sir . His eyes beckoned to me and welcomed me inside, where the truth lay waiting for me to embrace it. “I need you to believe in me, Tami Lee. It’s difficult enough without having to prove myself to you, too.”
    That pissed me off. “Is that what this is all about? You proving you’re a he-man by banging the local bar-hopper?” I sat up against the wall where the wallpaper was darkened from people leaning against it to smoke in bed. Love House is the kind of place where you get a furnished room, usually by the hour, so it comes without headboards or other such amenities. “I’m good for a go with all kinds of pitiable men, but I do not abide being used.”
    He snickered. “Tami Lee, you are a real character.” He reached over to play with my belly ring, twiddling it until I almost jumped out of my overheated and overly sensitive skin. He began to stroke my hip, carefully sidling the other warm hand down between my legs. “I like you and I want you to know me and like me for who I am. If that’s using you, I can’t see how.”
    He slipped a finger inside me and I slid into it while he talked. I got to say, he had a special way of convincing a girl of his truth and intent.
    He kept talking and, somehow, I kept listening.
    “After much consideration, I narrowed the possibilities to three persons of interest. My boss, my wife, and the grad student who worked as my teaching assistant. Of the three, Rindle Champion is most likely. He’s a top-notch teacher and I liked having him with me in the classroom. But he’s got a killer instinct when it comes to climbing the hierarchy. Killer. And he’d be up his own asshole if that would help jumpstart his fledgling career. If you’ll excuse the phrase.”
    Not one to take offense while on the verge of a raging orgasm, I let it pass, said nothing. My hips twitched against his hand. The train was coming, full steam ahead. I guess my heavy breathing encouraged Avery to continue talking about his prime suspect. First time I hear about the man who ruined Cat Avery’s life and I’m less than a minute away from screaming his name like I love him. Which I kind of did.
    “Rindle Champion took over my old job at the high school less than a year after I left. He was still a grad student when I was there, worked in my classroom on a part-time basis, then subbed for me while I went on temporary leave. I had to sit in a rubber room while he taught my kids where Iran was located on the world map, showed them the Persian Gulf, Tasmania, the fucking Côte d’Ivoire. After all I did for him, all the guidance I gave him in the classroom, the off-duty time I spent listening to him, advising him. All along, what he wanted was to replace me. Any way he could.” Avery wasn’t paying attention to his hand, and I began to