The latch bearings churn and grind in the recess of the heavy reinforced door to the apartment. The large door groans as it pushes free from its scarred, patched, and over-mended doorframe. The door is covered front and back with nailed-on patches of scrap steel, hastily applied over time to provide a defense from numerous assaults—both actual and imagined.
A slight woman, Vicky, pushes the door open. She gives the room a quick once-over before inviting her clients in to view the apartment. Vicky is dressed as professionally as can be expected, but her outfit looks like it pieced together from hand-me-downs and thrift store purchases. She is the weather worn shell of somebody who had coasted for a long while on the benefits of her looks. She has to look to her clipboard to remember the names of her clients, but after doing so, she angrily ushers them along.
“Come on Bob and Cindy, step on in, get a look at the place, I have to show it six more times today.”
Vicky is the first to step into the room; she looks around timidly but steps forward steadily. Bob enters last, and he smiles as he enjoys watching Vicky’s shapely body as she steps over the splintered threshold. Bob is well dressed and adorned with jewelry and symbols of status and wealth. His attire draws attention away from the scars that cover his face and his ears that are missing pieces. Bob’s gazes moves from the distraction of his partner’s appearance to the equally appealing view of the room.
Cindy walks around the chalk-lined sillohette of a human body on the center of the floor. The floor and all of the surfaces are dusty and a thick musk hangs in the air. The apartment smells like a forgotten bag of gym laundry, and the air is hot and uncirculated like a sauna. Cindy studies the pools of dried and congealing blood that stain the floor around various portions of the prostrate effigy of the previous owner. Cindy’s attention turns to the layout of the apartment; it is an open floor plan with a kitchen to the back, a small bathroom, a curtain-covered wall and a ladder-like stairway to the sleeping loft above the main room.
Vicky pushes past the two and stomps her way like a guided missile towards an object peeking out from behind the countertop island that separates the living room from the kitchen. Her irritation boils to a rage, which is unexpectedly ferocious and intimidating for a person of her composure. Vicky stomps up to a black pair of wingtips sticking out from around the corner of the island cabinetry. “Those sons of bitches were supposed to get rid of this before I showed this place today! Honestly, how often in this world do you find yourself giving up a whole orifice just to get a half an ass’s worth of work done around here in return? I’m sorry people, this body will be moved by the time you move in.” she exasperatedly explains. Her two clients are unaffected by the issue, instead taking in the potential of the layout.
The legs on the floor connected to the wingtips begin to twitch a little and then lay still again.
“A whole body?” Bob asks, casually, as if more concerned about stalling for time than actually interested in the answer.
“No, just the legs, and the part that holds them together.” She replied, still annoyed.
“The cock and ass?” Bob offers.
“No, those parts are gone, just that, you know, what’s left between the two.”
“The taint?” Cindy offers helpfully.
“Yeah, sure, the taint that holds the legs together, it taint much.” Vicky smirks at her own joke and then shrugs off any residual frustration about her staff and she moves back to the center of the room. “…or I can leave it for you two if you want? Whatever gets you off, money talks and that guy sure won’t be walking any time soon.” Vicky continues.
Both Bob and Cindy shake their heads in disinterest—both of their attentions are drawn to the high ceilings of the apartment and the glimpse over the railing of the loft bedroom with mirrored ceilings revealing that it is wall-to-wall mattress up there.
“So what’s it going to be you two? Are you in? or are you just donkey-punching me here?” Vicky demands.
“It’s kind of dark.” Bob whines.
“Your Ma’s cunt is dark.” Vicky snaps, in a seemingly involuntary snarl, and then composing herself to a blank stare. After a momentary pause, Vicky realizes that she has forgotten a key selling feature of her tour. “Oh shit, that’s right, maybe this’ll seal it for you?” Vicky moves over to the side of the black curtain that covers the largest wall of the unit. She pulls on a rope and the curtains part to reveal a giant window looking out over a twenty-story view. The chaotic rooflines of the surrounding city seem to part just enough to reveal a majestic view of a large lake engulfed in flames, nestled in the foothills of a rocky mountainside. The sky is black and orange with swirling clouds of combusting gasses. Bob and Cindy are stunned by the view and they both stare with mouths open. Cindy manages to move herself to Bob’s side and nestles herself under his arm in subservient bliss.
“We’ll take it.” Bob acquiesces.
“But it’s so expensive.” Cindy counters to Bob, springing up from his armpit to look him in the face.
“It’s worth it, plus it’s safe.” He replies to Cindy, encouraging her. Vicky looks back to the chalk outline on the floor and scowls at it resentfully as a symbol of everything that makes her job harder than it needs to be. Vicky returns her attention to the couple, now with a new energy fueled by a combination of impatience and the thrill of the kill in sealing a deal, she moves in like a hyena on a wounded and trapped animal.
“So it’s quiver cheeks here who’s got the cash?” Vicky says motioning to Cindy. Without a reply she locks eyes with Cindy. “What do you got?” she hungrily inquires.
Cindy becomes timid, and shoots a desperate look to Bob for support, but he just replies with an encouraging gesture to proceed. Cindy looks back into Vicky’s eyes.
“Well, I have my first kiss, at the prom…”
“Did you get lucky?” Vicky prods.
“Yes, I guess, I wouldn’t call it luck…”
Vicky turns to Bob. “That’s not even enough for the deposit.”
“Just count it.” Bob replies.
Vicky turns back to Cindy and leans in, pressing her nose against Cindy’s ear. Vicky takes in a deep pleasured breath. Vicky’s tranquility is broken by something that seems to choke her up, as if she had inhaled a fly. Her choke turns into a sly laugh and she steps back to look Cindy in the face.
“You naughty girl, a gang rape?” she smirks.
Cindy is distraught by this reaction. She tries to reply “It wasn’t my….” She is cut off by Vicky returning her gaze to Bob and sharing a laugh with him. “…and kept fresh this whole time? How did you score this one?” she winks to Bob, who nods in agreement.
Vicky looks back to Cindy and dives in toward her neck to indulge in more. Bob sheepishly offers toward Vicky “all that plus we have my sex dungeon, and my first divorce—complete with custody battle.”
Vicky pries herself away from Cindy’s neck in a labored show of self-restraint. She looks back and forth between the two clients.
“All right, I’ll take it. I’ve already collected a deposit from an earlier client, but he’s a fruit and we have enough of them in this building already. I for one am looking forward to hearing the fucking sounds of a hetero couple for a change—they are by far the funniest.” Vicky smiles as she offers her hand out. Bob and Cindy fill her hands with large gold coins. She sniffs one that was placed there by Cindy and she gives Cindy a knowing look. Cindy shivers from a feeling of discomfort and she looks away from Vicky’s gaze. Vicky gleefully turns to Bob. “Is she a screamer?”
Bob smiles and nods “Yes, she is.”
Vicky closes her eyes imagining it and then looks back at the two of them. “A squirter?”
Bob and Cindy both laugh and agree that ‘yes’, she is quite a squirter.
Vicky eagerly leaves the two alone to enjoy their view, which is interrupted only briefly by the blur of a falling body streaking past their window toward the pavement below.
Cindy clings to Bob’s side, her head resting in it’s familiar nook, she gazes out over the building-tops, and as if speaking from within a trance Cindy asks “what did she take?”
Imperceptibly, Bob’s lower lip begins to quiver, and a tear sneaks out from the corner of his eye as his focus stays fixed on their new view. “Nothing much, you won’t even miss it.” He whispers unsteadily.