Chapter 9

Marqi was glad to have a single room. Last year she’d had a roommate who’d stolen everything from Marqi’s food to her socks. This year she only had to share a bathroom with her suitemate, and she found the new privacy offered a much better sense of security. She unpacked her meager belongings in a matter of minutes, quickly finding places for her clothes and books. She settled her small, battered television on the dresser and plugged it in. The dorm offered cable, and she gladly tapped into it, turning on the set for quasi-company as she went through the papers she’d acquired downstairs. Most of the pages were the same tired reminders-- no hot plates, no unauthorized overnight guests, and more of the same. There were a few flyers for upcoming rush weeks at the campus sororities, and a handful of coupons for nearby restaurants, only two of which delivered. Marqi tossed most of the pieces into the wastebasket, tucked the coupons into her desk drawer and plopped down on her bed with her economics textbook.

She’d barely read one line when her thoughts strayed to Dennis. She twirled a lock of dark hair around one finger and pondered the idea of calling him up. She then realized she didn’t know his phone number, or his technical address. She wondered if his number was listed in the directory. What an idiot she was that she couldn’t even call the man she’d done such illicit things with in recent days! She forced her eyes back onto her reading and immediately bounced off course again. Seriously, no email, no postal address, what sort of cheap, trampy moron was she?

“Grr!” Marqi said to herself, flinging the textbook aside. She was an utter fool! She couldn’t even send him a thank you note for the coat! And why? Because basically she was just a ho who relied on sight to navigate. She flopped onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. “Mrrr!”

Driving back to Jasmine Falls at this hour was completely out of the question. Actually, given the fact that she’d cruised into the school lot on less than a quarter of a tank of gas probably ruled out the idea of driving back to the Falls area until after she’d gotten a job. That was going to be awhile, too, since none of the work study positions would be posted for several weeks yet. Marqi rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Maybe the summer session would go quickly. Maybe she could find a flexible job off campus. She snorted at the unlikelihood of that and closed her eyes. Maybe things would be clearer after a nap.

Dennis scowled out his window at the storm raging outside. He was in a brutally foul mood, and although it had nothing to do with the weather, he couldn’t stare down Marqi, so he had to settle for the rain clouds in the sky. The world was unimpressed with his grimacing and waged on relentlessly.

He stalked back to his desk and swiveled himself in the leather chair to face his computer. Why had she not come back? Where was she? A quick trip out to that rat of a motel she’d been staying at had yielded nothing. She had checked out and her friend had apparently jumped the country and left the landlord in the lurch for that week’s rent. Dennis had paid the remainder of the balance mainly just to shut the man up, but as bank in case Marqi was in some kind of trouble and needed the hand up.

His driver had taken him up to the ranch where she’d been picking berries, but they paid cash under the table and didn’t offer much in the way of forwarding information. Frustrated, Dennis had driven home again. Six times he’d picked up the phone to call his companion service, and six times he’d hung up without dialing. He wanted sex. He wanted good sex. He wanted it with someone who wanted him as willingly as she did, not someone who he knew was paid to want him. Somehow she’d screwed up his whole life, his whole routine, gotten into his head, and now he was alone and frustrated without her.

He sat at his desk and scowled some more. He tried not to think about her, but that was virtually impossible these days. Whenever she wasn’t around, she consumed his thoughts. Knowing she wasn’t waiting for him in bed right now in a filthy negligee was aggravating him to no end. He wanted her. He wanted to be screwing her seven ways from Sunday in front of his fireplace.

With a choleric growl, Dennis grabbed the phone and dialed the familiar number. He didn’t care who he ordered tonight. Any girl would do. He wouldn’t be looking at her anyway. Whoever showed up, he would be imagining Marqi while he was with her. He left specific instructions with his housekeeper not to turn on the lights after he’d turned them off tonight. He made sure the guy told the girl not to talk, not to turn on the light when she was brought to him, and that all he wanted was a quick blow to release the tension he had.

He waited at his desk chair for over an hour until she arrived. He knew instantly that it wasn’t Marqi; this girl wore a heavy perfume that he didn’t like. He had half a mind to send her to wash it off, but by then, he was quite hard and wanted to get off as quickly as possible. The replacement stumbled around in the dark, knocking a vase off the side table and breaking it.

“Leave it,” he said harshly. “Come here.”

He could see her silhouette moving across the room with measured steps, groping in front of her as she walked. At last she found the desk and he reached out and grabbed her wrist, startling her. She gasped, but thankfully held her tongue. He swiveled the chair toward her, parting his knees as he pulled her down onto hers.

Her hands slid up his thighs, feeling for his belt buckle. She undressed him slowly, and Dennis kept his eyes closed, his carefully constructed fantasy of Marqi keeping him hard as the replacement worked. Her mouth was wet and warm and sucked his cock with suitable prowess. She stroked his balls with her fingertips while she worked his shaft with her mouth. She licked the vein, sliding her tongue all the way up to the tip. She took him in her mouth again, sucking him in deep while Dennis hunched down in his chair and moaned. It felt good, but he missed Marqi. He wished it was her mouth on his cock, he wished he was fucking her pussy right this minute. He wanted to feel her tight, slick muscles sliding up and down on his cock.

The replacement’s mouth worked hard, sucking his cock while he maintained his illusion. He was ready to come; he imagined coming inside Marqi’s wet pussy, imagined how good it would feel to thrust inside her as his cock spurted come in her cunt. The replacement gasped a little as he squirted come in her mouth. She swallowed dutifully, every drop, as he grabbed her head and forced her down on his coming cock. He felt good. He felt a little better, a little less irritable.

He released the replacement and sat in his chair with his eyes closed as his dick slowly came free of her mouth. He felt for the envelope prepared on the desk, pushed it into her hands, and commanded, “Get out.”

She scampered away in the darkness, and only after he heard the front door close again and the telling beep of Mei resetting the security alarm, only then did he dare to open his eyes.

“Fuck,” he said to himself. This was never going to cut it. He had to find Marqi. He had to find her. He couldn’t rest until he did.