souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 114: organs

*one of the few times i have to put up a smut warning*

One thing that Marla told them before they showed back up at the complex was that Alex could take to Belinda's bed, as long as he changed the sheets once the morning came given it was Friday and Belinda would be on her way home soon enough.
Meanwhile, it was almost two o'clock in the morning by the time Sam, Marla, Alex, and Chuck made the triumphant return to Hell's Kitchen, and at that point, the rain from the thick of winter was upon them. But despite the late time, Sam was wide awake and ready to do something she knew would get her away from Bill once and for all. It may have been the late time doing a number on her mind so to speak, but at that point, she would do anything to move her away from that old life, that old prison where she was far and removed from her friends and her parents. Her old home that had become anything but a home at that point and she would cross the line to ensure that it would stay that way forever.
Marla meanwhile struggled to take her keys out of her pocket: she fumbled them as she handled the one for the dead bolt. Alex lingered right next to her side so she could better focus on the keyhole.
"Put it in the hole," Marla muttered, "c'mon, go in the hole!"
"It's the keyhole with the keyhole!" he declared right then, and Sam burst out laughing at that.
But they soon heard a soft click and Marla opened the door. The dark apartment showed no signs of life abound, and thus Sam's only conclusion was Belinda had gone back up to Albany and back to work up there. The perfect setting for them to do this.
"So what do you think we should do first?" Sam asked her once Alex had closed the door behind him.
"Well, let's turn on the light first," Marla began, and careful not to trip over anything, she ambled across the room for the lamp on the floor there. The apartment filled with that familiar golden light.
"Seeing as it's late," she started again, "Chuck, how 'bout you get yourself comfortable?"
"Gladly!" Without another moment's hesitation, he kicked his shoes off, and then Marla led Sam out of the front room and down the hall to that dark bedroom there.
The dresser closest to the door made Sam wonder what exactly her best friend had in mind at that moment.
"So what're you gonna do? You just gonna take Polaroids of me and Chuck in funky positions and then go with that?"
"Not quite," Marla replied as she picked out a little black tape recorder from the bottom dresser drawer. She removed the protective cap on the lens, and then she gestured for Sam to take to the front room once again. Alex had disappeared from there, but neither Sam nor Marla saw him in the other bedroom on the way out from the hallway.
"Where's the little man?" Marla asked Chuck, who had taken his seat there on Sam's couch.
"He's hanging out with the kitty cat out on the porch," he replied with a twinkle in his eye. Sam turned her attention to the door which separated the apartment from the porch out there: in the dim light from the street, she recognized Alex's helmet of jet black hair over the railing. The little sliver of gray shone under the dim light such that it appeared as an icicle from the ground up.
"I'll just put it here," Marla told them as she set it down on the edge of the coffee table. She adjusted it so the lens was pointed right down to the floor on the other side of the room.
"So what should we do?" Sam asked her.
Chuck took to the floor, flat on his back and with his arms spread out before him.
"Take 'em off for me," he commanded her. "We're gonna rip his throat out with this, Sammich. Rip out his throat and let him bleed out."
Marla squatted down behind the coffee table and she kept her fingers over the two main buttons.
"Could really go for a ginger snap right about now," Alex confessed from behind the glass doors.
"A ginger snap?" Chuck replied back.
"We had a few of those upon the most recent times we hung out," Sam explained as she took a step back from Chuck and towards the front door. "I'm guessing he associates them with hanging out."
"And it's early in the morning, too," Marla pointed out, "—his little body's all out of whack."
"Samantha Shelley and Chuck Billy make a porno, too," Sam joked, and that made Alex laugh out loud. He clasped a hand to his mouth right then, even though he had no reason to with New York City all around them. Marla adjusted her spot behind the coffee table: not only was Sam about to make her debut as an actress but Marla her debut as a director and filmographer.
Sam peeled off her top and showed off her body to Chuck. He lifted his head and moved his hands right underneath the nape of his neck: he pushed his hair out from underneath so it all fanned out from the back of his head. She knelt down before him and he gazed up at her: a thick patch of wavy hair spread over one side of his forehead. She gazed into his eyes and he raised his eyebrows at her.
"It's almost Valentine's Day," Marla announced to the tape recorder, "Miss Shelley—or rather Mrs—whatever the fuck his last name is, Bill, his wife—is about to get down with the Indian chief, and without his permission as well."
Chuck gestured for her to come on closer to him.
"We're gonna have singing with no clothes on lessons," he declared, and that brought a laugh out of both Sam and Marla; the former gave her hair a little toss back from the side of her neck. She reached for Chuck's shoulder but she had no idea as to how to do it right there on the floor. At least when she and Alex lay next to each other in his bed they were in the safety of a bed.
The same thing went for when she and Joey got alone together when in England.
"Get on top of me," he begged her.
"I'll get on top of you if you show me how it's done, big guy," was all Sam could think of.
She moved her knee over his waist so she straddled his body. She stared right into his face: the camera pointed right on her felt as though she was being put on the spot right then and there. She was about to cross so many lines right then and there with Chuck.
There was a soft clicking noise but Sam paid no attention to it. Instead, she moved over Chuck's body and came within his face. He reached up and fondled her chest with the very tips of his fingers.
"Yeah—Yeah—Yeah, right there, Chief," she breathed out; it more tickled her than aroused her but she was on camera nonetheless.
"You like that, don't ya, baby?" he said with something of a grin on his face; Sam could tell he was trying really hard not to laugh.
"I'm going to leave the two of you alone," Marla said in a singsong voice, and once she had gone back into the rest of the apartment, Sam turned to Chuck with her face as warm and red as a fresh tomato.
"Let's get on it," he told her. Sam crawled over his body such that her hair dangled down onto his shoulders. He reached behind her and unhooked her bra so she had exposed herself to him.
She opened his jeans and exposed himself to her. If he fondled her then she should do the same thing for him. A little bit hard but she knew it would be enough for them.
He flashed her a wink, albeit with his right eye so it was out of the sight of the camera. Her knee obstructed the view so she could miss him, but it looked as though they were in fact doing it right there on the floor. She locked eyes with him all the while.
Every thrust of her hips she was right there right next to him. Chuck's chest rose and fell in heavy fashion as if it was genuine.
But they never made official contact with each other.
"Okay so like—like—like that!" he sputtered. "Here, Cowgirl, lemme help you—"
"Giddy up, ya dead horse!" she blurted out; out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Alex with his back turned in their direction. She raised her head and gave her hair a toss back from her neck. Even though she wasn't really upon Chuck's erection, the sheer excitement of being there right next to it was enough to get her going even more. She was so close to him that it proved to be enough. More than enough.
Add to this, the soft light from the lamp cast enough shadow over their genitals so it genuinely looked real as far as she could tell.
"Faster!" Chuck commanded. "Faster! Faster! Oh god, you do it like a pro!"
He breathed harder and harder, even though she knew he was faking it. Her necklaces clinked and clanked against each other with her movements.
A small fleeting thought ran through her mind that told her Bill would know the difference given he had two daughters. But then again, she was right there on the floor with Chuck, right there without Bill's knowledge, right there without a single prowess that indicated a good marriage.
Even Aurora and Emile wouldn't pull that on each other.
Chuck closed his eyes and lay his head flat on the floor as if he was reaching his peak. She gyrated her hips a few more times and then he gasped. He tilted his head back so those long inky black curls drifted right behind his head like the waves of the ocean.
"Okay, okay—okay, that's enough," he begged her and she climbed off of him. She kept her bare back to the camera but she lingered before him so he could have a view of it. His eyes were hooded and his mouth hung agape, as if he had genuinely achieved orgasm.
"Did you come, baby?" she asked him with a devilish grin.
"Like hell I did, yeah," he said in a broken voice. He let out a long low whistle and Sam stepped away from him. Marla had snuck back to the recorder, albeit with her Polaroid camera, and she kept her hand right over the button. Sam held still there right next to her as she pressed the stop button so it looked as though Sam herself had turned it off.
"Are we good?" Chuck called out.
"We are good!" Marla declared.
"Phew! That was unreal."
"That all sounded like it was completely real, though," Alex told him from the porch. Sam rejoined Chuck there on the floor, still with no pants on: her bra straps hung loose all about her arms and shoulders, even as she lay back down.
She had seen Joey naked and she had seen Cliff naked, but neither one of them held a candle to what she had done there on the floor, even if it was fake.
Marla held her Polaroid camera up to her face for the perfect shot.
"Some photos to show off to the whole wide world, too," she declared with a devilish grin upon her face. Sam lay down next to Chuck with no clothes on as Marla flashed a pair of Polaroid pictures of them. Both photographs slid out from the slot on the camera's front and onto the floor by Chuck's feet.
"A little something for Testament's new album," she added as he put his arm around Sam and held her close to his warm body.
"This is how you practice what you preach," Sam proclaimed which brought a big hearty laugh out of Alex from out on the porch.
"How you practice what you preach and with your shirt still on," Chuck added as he fondled the bottom of his shirt with two fingers.
"And that, my friends, is how sex is made into a weapon," Marla pointed out as she took another photograph of them. "There's just enough of a sheen on your faces to make it look real, too."
That third Polaroid fell right next to Sam's bare foot, and she sat upright for a better look at it.
Something about the lighting and the way in which it bathed over Chuck's body and his brown skin in particular. Maybe it was the fact that they had put on a show to get her out of an unlawful marriage, or maybe it was the fact that it was so late at night, but the sight of that photograph woke something up in Sam. Chuck himself then sat upright and fixed his pants even while there on the floor.
That Polaroid needed something more as she lifted it right off of the floor and examined it better. With her free hand, she brought her bra straps back up over her shoulders; and yet she set the photograph in her lap so she could hook it back up. Even though she didn't have her panties and her jeans back on, Alex stepped back into the apartment with Genie, who darted ahead of him and bowed around the corner to the hallway.
"Can you make a copy of this one?" she asked Marla. "I kind of want to draw it."
Alex had a twinkle in his eye when she said that, but he kept on going into the next room.
"You wanna draw that?" Marla chuckled at that as she set the camera down on the table next to them. "I guess we should do more stuff late at night more often, Sam." Her expression then turned serious. "Also—because you guys did a little hanky panky here on the floor, you might wanna take a shower, Sam."
"We didn't have any contact with each other, though," Chuck pointed out.
"Oh, you didn't?" She was amazed by that.
"No way. She got pretty close to me but—no cigar."
"Wow!" Marla showed Sam an excited smile. "Do I see a career in acting for Miss Shelley?"
"I dunno, though," she confessed with a shrug. "There's so much that I wanna do."
"Right?" Marla extended a hand to her and she stood up right before her.
"Where are my pants?" Sam asked her.
"Right there." Marla gestured to the floor right behind her, and she stooped down and she picked up Sam's underwear from the floor.
"Okay—don't touch 'em. I'll be right back."
She made her way down the hall to the bathroom and ultimately the shower: she took off her necklaces and her bracelets and set them down on the counter top. If nothing, she got a free shower. Every time she closed her eyes and let the water wash over her, she pictured the act itself once again.
So close to that taut skin and there was nothing further than that. Even though it was fake, the very thought of the act itself had liberated her in a way: laying there with Chuck had set her free in the best way she could possibly imagine. More so than her drawing Joey or Cliff, or even laying next to Cliff in her old bed.
She had officially become the bad girl and the art vixen.
Once she had cleaned off and rinsed away all of the residue, she switched off the water, and then she climbed out of the bathtub and put a towel around her waist. Even with it being fake, to think that she had not only lost her virginity to Chuck but she did it in the most satisfying way possible. And now there had to be a way for Bill to witness it all himself, three photographs and all.
Once she dried off and put her panties back on, and she put her hair up in the towel, she made her way across the hall to her old room, now Belinda's room, but there was no way she could sleep on her couch that night especially with Chuck out there for the rest of the night. Alex meanwhile had taken to Belinda's bed: he sat there on the edge of the narrow mattress in nothing more than his own underwear and his shirt.
"Why'd you take your pants off?" she asked him in a hushed voice, and Alex chuckled at her a bit.
"Why not? It's not like we're gonna get caught."
"You just wanna lay next to a girl who had weaponized sex, don't you?" she teased him.
"I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you, Samantha," he started, "that was—that was something."
"Did you see it?" she asked him, and he peered behind her to the door to ensure Chuck and Marla weren't eavesdropping on them.
"Only a small sliver of it," he confessed to her. "Like—I happened to look over my shoulder at one point for a few seconds, but a few seconds proved to be enough, though."
He chuckled at that and she took her spot right next to him there on the bed, and she adjusted the wrapped up towel upon her head.
"So you think I did a good job?" she asked him.
"I do, yes!"
"Do you think I could go into acting like what Marla said to me after the fact?"
"Maybe. It's definitely within you, and it's definitely without you, too."
"You're something, Alex," she retorted back to him, and with a shake of her head. "You are really just—something."
"Something?" he echoed her with a single raise of an eyebrow.
"Yeah. Something."
She eyed the tip of his nose and she never realized how full the end was before: like a little button.
She then stopped right in her tracks.
"Ah, shit," she muttered.
"What's up?" he asked her in a soft voice, and she moved her head forward so the towel came unraveled down into her hands. Wet locks of dark hair fell over her face; she lifted her head so it all relaxed all about her shoulders and the sides of her neck.
"I forgot to call Eric," she replied. "I promised him I would when we got here to New York."
"Well, it's about three in the morning over there, though," Alex pointed out as he rubbed his eyes.
"Could always leave a message," she told him.
"Yeah, that's true." He shifted his weight on the bed right next to her. She turned her attention to him. They were both sitting there in their underwear, especially her: at least he had his shirt still on. She thought about Joey and if he was really alright back at his place, back there upstate.
She meant every word she had said to him back there: she wanted to help him in every fashion possible. But she had to let him go if she really loved him, and she was sure that she loved him.
Sam kept her gaze fixed on Alex right next to her, right on his bare legs and those slender knees. Where Joey had those knobby knee caps and those sleek sinewy legs, perfect for running and moving fast along the ice, Alex's legs were pale and slender, and his thighs were rather narrow. Even sitting there next to her on the edge of Belinda's bed, he was statuesque.
"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked her in a soft voice.
They had traveled hundreds of miles together: it only made sense that she could respond to that in the best way possible.
"I wanna touch you," she confessed.
"Then touch me," he encouraged her with a little gyration of his head.
"But I also don't," she added. "I want to keep you intact for the rest of your life."
"But you also wanna touch me?" He raised an eyebrow at her again.
"Yes."
"Then touch me. Get it out of your system, Samantha. You can do it above the belt."
"One thing I did with Frankie once was run my fingers through his hair right before I drew him," she explained, "I did it with Joey and Cliff, too. I saw it as a gateway into what I'm getting myself into."
"It's like you're taking our rhythm," he followed along.
"Exactly!" She raised her hands to the sides of his head as if she was about to run her fingers through his hair. But instead, she tucked his hair behind his small ears, which resembled to those of an elf. His face appeared rounder and softer than before, and his eyes stood out more.
"You look—so much better with long hair," she told him. "I mean—I can kind of see a short 'do here, but you have the kind of face that's perfect for long hair."
"What about shoulder length?" he asked her.
"Yeah, I can see it," she said.
"I'm beat," he admitted with a shake of his head.
"I was just going to say, you look tired."
Alex rubbed his eyes and Sam slung the towel over the back of the chair before her. He lay closest to the wall and then she lay down right next to him.
Since they were in Belinda's bed, she kept her clearance between the two of them even once she turned off the light and she lay her head down on the pillow next to him. Alex sighed through his nose, and she listened to Marla and Chuck button up the apartment for the remainder of the night.
Even though the sun would be up within a couple of hours time, a little bit of sleep would help herself as well as Alex. A couple of hours proved to be enough for the mysterious man in her dreams.
She found herself back on the edge of that black ocean once again, right inside of the harbor as it was lit up by the fire opals on the bracelet Chuck had given her. The mysterious man took his seat right next to her on the edge of the heavy wooden dock: his deep hollow eyes looked on at her as if he was about to bestow final judgment onto her. She turned her attention to him and the large streak upon his head. He held something inside of his hands as he lay them upon his lap.
She brought her gaze to his palms and what lay there as the black waters swirled all around underneath their feet. Out of the corner of her eye, the water seemed to catch fire, or maybe the orange and yellow fire opal glints within it all. But she paid more attention to what he had in his hand.
He held out one hand and she made out the sight of the three black cherries there upon his skin. Their smooth skin glimmered and twinkled with the swirling waters underneath them.
"Take one," he beckoned her.
"But they're poison," she told him.
"Take one," he insisted.
Nibbling on her bottom lip, she picked up the one cherry closest to her as the skin fizzled out and formed a deep haze, as if they were covered in black fur.
"They're poison," she insisted.
"Take it," he encouraged her. "You'll feel better."
She held the cherry closer to her lips and she placed it on her tongue.
Sam awoke at that moment, and to bright white sunlight no less: she was alone in the bedroom, and as far as she could tell, she was alone in the apartment. She sat upright and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her wet hair left a cold wet spot there on the bed sheet next to her: even if it wasn't Belinda's bed, she and Alex would have to change the sheets anyway.
Alex himself surfaced in the doorway with his pants unfastened.
"There you are," he told her as he zipped up, "I was just about to see if you woke up yet. I guess Belinda's gonna be home in like an hour or so."
"What time is it?" she asked him.
"Almost ten o'clock. Marla went to get us breakfast." He eyed her bare legs. "You want your jeans?"
"Please."
He doubled back into the next room for her pants and her top, and then he left the room so as to give her privacy.
Once she was fully dressed, she returned to the bathroom for her necklaces and then she headed into the front room, where Chuck had taken a spot on her couch, along with Genie: she rubbed on his legs and raised her head up to him.
"Pretty cool kitty cat you ladies have here," he told her once she came into the room.
"She's a love sponge," Sam told him, and the front door swung open right then and Marla stepped in with two brown paper bags in hand.
"There you are!" she proclaimed once she shut the door with her hip. "I was kind of worried you wouldn't wake up until way after."
"Nah," Sam assured her with a shake of her head. Marla set down the one bag in her left hand on the coffee.
"There's a muffin in there for Chuck, a couple of scones for you and me—there are four cups of coffee out here on the deck, too. Also, Alex?"
He turned to her and she handed him the one in her right hand.
"Oh boy!" he declared, and he eagerly took it and took his seat there at the kitchen table. He took out a ginger snap and a breakfast sandwich on an English muffin, and rested both on the table before him; Marla returned with a cardboard holder with four paper cups inside.
"They were out of tea," she told him as she handed him one of the cups. "So I got you coffee."
"Works for me," he assured her, and Sam and Marla both joined him there at the table.
"They didn't have gyros, though," she continued.
"Dammit!"
"A gyro, Alex?" Chuck called out to him from the living room.
"It just sounded good," he confessed. "When Marla said that they sell gyros, I was like 'yes please.'"
"I got you that cookie plus a little breakfast sandwich."
Alex shrugged, and then he leaned back in his chair and bit away at the ginger snap as if he was a little boy again. Sam and Marla watched him with smiles on their faces; the former then turned to Marla.
"Okay, so now the next question," she started in a low voice; Marla proceeded to sip on her coffee. "How are we getting that tape and the Polaroids over there to the house in Elsinore?"
"A man named Dave," Marla replied and she held the cup at the base with both hands. "I called him before you and Alex got up, and I told him where it is and he'll drop it off for us. Told him the whole story and he relayed the account he would have to tell Bill once he saw him there at the house."
"Hope this works," Sam confessed. "That's my fear is Bill will see it as obvious."
"Sam, if it was easy for Bel and me to break into his house, it should be easy for him to believe that that tape is real. I thought you did it for real! You guys pretty much had your organs hanging out."
"No, my fear is that he'll see it as me putting on a show," she clarified. "Like I had no passion, like I was faking it."
"Sam, let me ask you—did you and him ever do it?"
And Sam shook her head.
"Then how would he know that you were faking?" Marla asked her. "He wouldn't know what pleases you. He wouldn't know how to please you."
"Yeah, he wouldn't know how to please you the way Joey does," Alex pointed out.
"By the way, good job referring to Chuck as Chief, too," Marla chuckled.
"Hey, you introduced him as the Indian Chief," Sam said with a shrug of her shoulders. She turned to her scone, a fresh blueberry one straight out of the oven and still warm despite the freezing rain outside. No sooner had she begun to pick at it when Alex had already started on his sandwich. Sam had only reached halfway when he had downed all of it right then and there.
"My goodness, you were hungry," Marla declared.
"Quite." Alex leaned back with his hands on his stomach. "Stick a fork in me, I'm done for now."
Sam looked over at him, at his slender body: to think she had her arms around him at one point.
"I wanna touch you," she confessed to him right in front of Marla and Chuck.
"Then touch me," he said.
"Yeah, touch him," Chuck himself joined in from the living room.
A knock on the door caught all of their attention.
"That's probably Bel," Marla announced, and Alex grimaced at that. Sam nodded at him and she realized that they hadn't changed the sheets yet. Marla opened the door and gasped.
"Oh, hi. Come on in."
Wrapped up in a puffy winter jacket, Charlie stepped inside there and his big curly hair waved about from the cold outside.
"Hello, Charlie," Sam declared with a stern tone of voice.
"Hi," he greeted her as he took his seat at the table.
"Mr. Fire Joey Belladonna without any rhyme or reason," she continued, and Charlie stopped right in his tracks with his mouth agape. He looked over at Alex and the unimpressed expression on his face.
"What're ya doin'?" Alex demanded as he gave himself a little massage.
"I can explain," he started with a gesture of his hands.
"You better," Sam scolded him, "you know, we found Joey laid out at his house. With a syringe right next to him."
"What." Charlie was stunned by that.
"Yeah. He didn't inject, but it looked like he did, though. He could've overdosed, Charlie."
"What was in it?"
"That's beside the point," she continued, heated, "he could have died, Charlie!"
"Can I talk, please?" he asked her with a serious expression.
"Yes." Sam leaned back in her chair and fumed at him.
"We wanted him to have a break," he said.
"A break?" Sam echoed that.
"Yeah. Touring was—starting to get to him a little bit. So—we made the decision that it'd be best for him to take a break from the band for a few months. So we told him to go home."
"That's no reason to fire him, though," Alex pointed out.
"Actually—yeah, it is, Alex. When you guys weren't looking, he was often throwing down and getting down with all the drinking and partying. You know, Sam here tried to get him to stop but he just kept going. Don't think of it as firing, though, if that's what he told you. It's more like 'laying him off' because like I said we decided on a few months."
"Did you—at least tell him that?" Sam asked him.
"I think I did," Charlie confessed, "but I was just put in a hard position, though. I don't really remember everything I told him."
Sam and Alex looked at one another. There did in fact seem to be a bit of truth to it, but neither of them could tell for sure, especially Sam since she was the one who was on the phone with Joey on that day.
"Did you guys want a break, too?" Sam asked him, and he nodded his head and his dark eyes were serious all the while. She peered over at Alex, who then knitted his eyebrows at that.
"Why would he think you guys fired him?" Marla asked him, and Charlie shook his head.
"No clue. And all that—his taking a needle to the arm—tells me is we were ready for a break."
"You guys were still going great, though," Chuck joined in from behind; he stood right next to Charlie with his hands pressed to his hips.
"Yeah, we were on the outside," Charlie admitted, "but—things were just—not looking good within. I am looking forward to seeing you guys kick ass now."
"The door is open, Chuck," Alex declared.
"Hell yeah, it is, little man," Chuck said.
"No, really, the door is open."
"Yeah, it is," Sam chimed in, and Chuck shut the door behind Charlie with the back of his fist, and then he flashed the two of them the sign of the horns.