that I’d be at your disposal. You remember?”
“I remember,” Eva said. “Anthony? Right?”
“Yes. And you are the police.”
Eva gave him a radiant smile as he sat down beside her.
“My name is Eva,” she said.
“Well, Eva from the police, I just finished at the bar. So I’m all yours.”
“Now that’s interesting.”
She picked up one of the pints, and he took the other. They raised their glasses, and the boy downed half his beer in one go.
“So tell me, Anthony, I was wondering if you ever saw a girl wearing a mask in here. A porcelain mask.”
He thought about it for few moments and said, “Yeah, last Tuesday there was someone wearing one of those. She was dressed like a flower picker.”
Eva smiled.
“An old-fashioned dress, you mean?”
“Yep. She stayed for a while, but she didn’t dance. I remember her staying near the bar for over an hour, just looking at people, but she didn’t order a single drink.”
“Did she talk to anybody?”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, she left pretty early.”
“Do you think you could recognize her if you saw her again?”
“Hard to say. There were like five hundred people in here for that ball and lots of new faces. It’s the new school year, you know.”
“Yes, of course.”
She took in the scene, the people dancing, some hoisting their beers. Anthony’s life had to be simple. One night following the other.
Then she looked at
“Anthony?”
“Yes?”
“You feel like going elsewhere to talk?”
“Elsewhere? Like where?”
“Like my place, for example,” she said with a very explicit smile.
34
Eva turned in her bed and surveyed the naked boy lying next to her. His hair was spread in coils on the pillow and all around his youthful face. His right arm was folded over his chest, showing his round, firm biceps. Eva smiled to herself.
She ran her fingertips along his arm and then his back, feeling his lean muscles under his skin. She traced the curve of his buttocks. He shivered under the caress.
He moaned.
Eva’s fingers made their way slowly up his back. She ran her hand in his braids, savoring the feel of their rough texture, and as she leaned over him, she took in the delectable scents of musk and cinnamon.
Grunting, the boy finally turned onto his back. Eva caressed his hairless and well-delineated pecs. His left nipple was pierced, and she gently tugged at it, making him sigh again. Her hand ventured lower to his cut abs adorned with the tattoo of a scorpion and farther down still, grazing his flaccid penis.
Moving down, she blew lightly on it and watched it swell slowly. Then, when it had bulged enough, she leaned forward and took it in her mouth, feeling it growing bigger still against her palate. She licked it gently. Then sucked it even more gently.
Anthony moaned, fully awake now, and arched his back so she could swallow him deeper.
Instead, Eva sat up, straddled the boy, and slipped his penis into her wet vagina. He was exquisitely hard and throbbing. She wrapped her thighs around him and hurled him deeper inside her with each blow. Moaning, the boy met her every movement with a thrust of his own pelvis. Eva leaned back, eyes closed as he thrust his long rod deep into and out of her. Soon she felt hot waves rising in the back of her neck and her lower spine, like two opposing rivers of energy rushing toward each other and powerfully converging in the center of her back.
Finally, she collapsed on him, trembling, shaken by her own climax, as the penis in her also pulsed with pleasure.
He whispered something she could not understand. Probably a compliment or some thanks, something useless. She rolled to her side, got up, went to the chaise lounge facing the bed, and sat down. She reached for the glass she had set on the table an hour earlier. It was still half filled with vodka, and she brought it to her lips.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m waiting for you to leave,” Eva said, her voice very calm.
“To leave?”
Anthony sat up and stared at her.
“But…”
“You didn’t think you were going to sleep here, did you?”
He thought about it for a moment.
“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand? I have to be at work in less than four hours. I really don’t have the time, you know. So, please.”
“Really?”
Eva raised her glass.
“Don’t make me kick you out, okay?”
Anthony staggered out of bed. He picked his clothes off the floor and started to get dressed. Eva went to the bathroom. She got into the shower, closed the glass door, and let the stream of water cascade over her body.
As she turned off the water, she heard the sound of the door being closed at the far end of the apartment. The boy had gotten the message.
She did not particularly like being so direct, but she had long ago come to the conclusion that it was the only way to avoid trouble. This way, at least, she was sure she would never see him again.
She turned the shower back on to shampoo her hair.
She spent a few more minutes at the sink brushing her teeth. Then she rinsed her mouth and dried her face with a towel.
When she came back into her bedroom, she saw a piece of paper on the bed. She picked it up and, somewhat amused, saw that the boy had left his phone number for her.
It was touching. She balled up the note and tossed it into the wastebasket across the room.
She felt a sudden draft on her naked legs.
Deep inside, an alarm went off.
She turned to the archway that opened to the living room. Lights came from the moving city outside the window.
“Anthony? Are you still here?”
She got no answer.
She crossed the bedroom. No, her living room was deserted. At the far end of the room, the hallway light
