Advent Calendar: Day 25
“Surely, you don’t think I asked for this,” he says coming into the office to find Beth sitting on that gorgeous desk of his. He’s referring to the dress, of that, she’s sure. Designer because of course it is, black and white and form-fitting, the bow drawing the eye to her hip. Her hair is up, precisely pinned, her make up evening-dramatic like she never typically wears. Long legs ending in even longer Louboutin stiletto heels. To almost anyone else every last bit of her and the way she’s posed herself, she’d be devoured. But Larry isn’t anyone else. If anything, he’s the only person she knows less interested in carnality of that sort than she is and maybe that’s why she’s drawn to him. Why she wants to see how close to his fire she can dance before becoming immolated in his currently restrained and murderous fury. “Believe me, Lawrence, if I believe you evah had dat kind of want f’ me? I’d flay ya alive an’ dat’s before wha’evah my braddah would do to you for da insult.” Larry is new money. He’d probably say self made. He’s a businessman even if that business is questionable, and where she comes into play? Andy would see him as a beggar-peasant. And he’d be utterly appalled to know that she only encourages Larry to do his worst, waiting for him to show a single sign of weakness. He teases her with his desire for power, the kind that shouldn’t be possible but is. Slowly she re-crosses her legs and holds up a cut-crystal tumbler. The deep red of her lipstick mars its perfect rim and she watches with narrowed eyes as he takes it from her, sipping at it from the opposite side. He smells good. The cologne is subtle, just a faint whiff of sandalwood, cedar. Calabrian bergamot. Something a little sweeter on the base. Expensive. He was out for blood tonight, but like Scrooge, he finds himself in his office on Christmas Eve. Makes her wonder which ghost she’s supposed to be. Empty hand lays on his lapel. Glides upwards past his collar until she touches skin. She can all but feel his crawl from the contact but he doesn’t so much as flinch. Good boy, he’s learning. “Firs’ reason I’m here, is a lump of coal. You been a bad bunny, Lawrence. I warned you away from dat land deal for a reason an’ I know you’ve upped ya bid. Since carrot no work, gonna hafta be da stick.” Her razor sharp nails rake across the side of his neck, drawing a faint line of deep crimson. Viper-strike his empty hand lashes out and takes a hold of her wrist before she can like the tips clean of his viscera. She can hear the crack of bone beneath his white knuckled grip and rewards him with the first gasp of blistering pain. She tries to smile through it as he wrenches her arm to the side and hauls her off his desk. A moment later that warm edge presses into the space between her ribs and her belly, the arm high up at the spine. He stops just short of dislocating it. However he leans down over her, his lips right at the edge of her ear as he spits out his words. “What. Did. You. Do.” “Oh, no, bunny. S’what I’m gonna do. See….” She hisses as he gains fractions of centimetres. “Every day ya don’...ya don’...wi’draw ya bid…ya gonna be wrack by more pain dan ya evah felt. Crippling, mind-destroyin’ pain. In a week, ya heart gonna give, an’ den I’m gonna hafta find new custos. An’ I no can change it now, spell already been cast.” “You little-” “Yeah, like I nevah heah dat one before. Now, ya want ya present, or you gonna make good on ya advantage an’ finally gimme mine?”
