The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [120]
“I sincerely apologize,” Ronald said, his tone dripping with insincerity as she dropped her coat and then allowed him to take her hand in his own and bring it to his lips. He looked up at her, and it was only at this moment that he, too, seemed to waver. “Just so we’re on the same page,” he went on as he lightly kissed each one of her fingers in turn, “this is why you’re here?”
“I thought,” Maria responded in a low, breathy tone that almost made her laugh at the idea of playing such a sexpot, “you were going to give me the name of your agent.”
She pulled him up to her and leaned into him, close enough that his taut belly jutted up against her own, close enough that she could see the wrinkles around his eyes and his thinning hair, and so that she could even smell the slightly foreign and mildewed aroma of a man so much older than any she had ever experienced, and like a cheap wine all of this left her both nauseated and intoxicated. She was filled with suspense as she again wondered whether she was actually going ahead with this, but as she lowered her lips to meet his she knew the answer was yes, apparently, she was.
Ronald returned the kiss with some violence before he pushed her away. “Let’s not rush,” he said as he unhitched the top button of her jeans and caressed the small patch of exposed skin above the line of her underwear. He fell back onto the bed and pulled Maria on top of him, where she straddled him for a few seconds before he rolled her off and then somewhat more forcefully unfastened the remaining buttons on her jeans, which he removed one leg at a time and then dropped, inside out, onto the floor. He dispensed with his own clothes with the calculated speed and acuity of one who had been through thousands of costume changes, first his shirt—to expose a fat, hairless chest of fish-belly white—then his pants, and finally his socks and underwear. For a second he glowered over Maria, who was now flat on her back, before he collapsed onto her in what was practically a body slam—not that she minded, since she was a lot taller than he was, although he definitely weighed more—and attacked her with his tongue. He quickly traversed her body, a strategy that soon delivered her to delirious heights she had never suspected could exist until she realized that he was fucking her with the slow, heavy force of twenty elephants.
The frame of the bed was knocking furiously against the wall, which made her hope that the neighbors were out to dinner. She gasped and writhed under his weight, smothered by a mix of pain—his dick was not long but, like the rest of his body, squat and almost grotesquely hard—and bliss unlike anything she had ever experienced. When, however many minutes later, she regained her senses, she felt more calm than frightened, although both emotions were present. She turned to Ronald and noted how his eyes—shiny, black, and limpid, like those of a seal—stared up at the ceiling as he softly hummed to himself. She observed his bloated body with renewed admiration and disgust. “I can’t tell you how much I needed that.”
“Uh, anytime?”
Maria laughed and ran her pinkie over the hill of his stomach. “You’re married, right?”
He turned toward her abruptly. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“That’s not exactly an innocuous question.”
“Does your wife know that you—?”
“No—and I’d like to keep it that way.” He sat up on the bed, his back to her. “It’s not like I do this all the time.”
“I wouldn’t care if you did,” Maria said with genuine nonchalance as she got up and went into the bathroom.
After a quick shower, she peered at herself in the mirror and was surprised—but pleased—by who stared back: not only was she older than Maria had imagined but there was a graceful quality to the way she brushed the hair away from her face and turned the spigot on the sink, a physical maturity she would not have believed possible had she not just seen it herself. If there was something flawed about what she had done—to the extent that it was not very romantic—it struck her as a necessary flaw, rooted in