Messy by Choice

Mess 13 (Lenox)

I must have blacked out eventually, or maybe Ally did. God this is all too much.

I fucked her long and hard enough that Ally didn't have the energy to send me out by the end of it. Her past out against my chest with a flurry of blonde hair tickling my chin is probably the best morning view I've ever woken up too. I've gotta find some way to repeat it—for eternity if I can. I know staying over and after sex kisses is probably overstepping the boundaries she's trying to set up, but Ally had been ignoring me for a week and that shit got me annoyed.

But even more annoying is getting done fucking her and wanting nothing more than to cuddle and tell her how beautiful she looks with flushed cheeks, and take pictures of her to use as my screensaver. Holding back from all of that is distressingly hard, but I have too because—she's a slippery one.

Honestly, Ally's really starting to piss me off for wanting me for nothing but my body when I have so much affection, I now need an outlet for. I think I'm starting to get why girls like cats so much.

I steal another moment of looking at Ally before remembering there is a game to be played here. And one wrong step and I'll lose it all. My mission starts as I survey her room. It's artsy, as I would expect. A little unorganized with some clothes on a chair in the corner and lots of unique decorative pieces. It smells like her too. With paint and vanilla that I now see comes from a soy candle. I spot her drawing desk in front of her only window and make my way as quietly as I can to it. Tons of sketches are sprawled out. I grab everyone. Especially the just-begun drafts that still has shreds of eraser laid on top. I smuggle them downstairs while a sleeping Ally is non-the-wiser.

Leaving like a thief in the early hours of the morning, I think about how this girl has now made me a sap, a bandit, and a mediocrely good Snape impersonator.

When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I spot one of her roommates. The short black haired one that didn't seem to so forwardly participate in my near assault last night. I hope I'm not wrong in taking it to mean that she might be safer than the others.

She looks me over with wicked onyx black eyes slanted in distrust. She's locked onto the handful of Ally's drawings under my arms.

"Your suspicion is warranted, but I promise I'm planning on giving them back," I plea to her.

She looks me over for one long languished second before pulling out some eggs from a boiling cast iron pot. I think she won't respond but then she does. "You can't make plans with Ally," she says in a sheepish tone. "She won't comply."

I nod. "Yeah, I figured that." I rub at the back of my neck. "And I don't want to keep seeing her just because of this game we're keeping up but what else am I to do with her? She's..." I try to find the right word, and only Pete's comes to mind. "Slippery."

It's the wrong one as the girl's eyes cut me a new one. I pale. Wow she's got a scary stank face. God, was I always this bad with girls? Or is this coven just impermeable to my once renowned bravo and charm?

Ally's roommate moves back to the task at hand which is placing one egg each into a mini egg-cup cauldron. "She's not slippery, she's hurt."

That takes me back for a second. I want to ask over what, but she keeps going. "If you diminish and dismiss her feelings by chalking her up to par with some fish you get a good hold on, you'll never get to see why." She looks me over again while sucking her cheek between her teeth like she's still debating me. "Or get her to leave her games behind."

"Yeah, ok," I say unsure of how to proceed. Thankfully my job has taught me ways out situations like this. "With the right to remain silent and the sense to use it I'm going to go now before I say anything else wrong."

"Before you do," she says and goes over to the kitchen table. There's a sketchbook there. She hands it to me.

"Tread carefully with her."

I nod my earnestly and look to see that there is, and has always been, another one of her roommates recessed into the back corner of the built in breakfast nook almost fully hidden behind a laptop.

"Um, morning," I awkwardly greet as I almost fumble one of the sketches.

The brown-hair girl slowly lifts up heavy eyes until they meet mine. Then in sudden alarm shouts "It's morning!"

She rushes off with her laptop crutch under her arm, and I make for my final departure.

But I'll never make it as a thief. I lack the stealth—or these girls are just unavoidably everywhere.

"Oie, Lenox!" the final one of Ally's other roommate's shouts at me as she skips downstairs, two at a time, right as I get the front door open. She's wearing, again, a witch's hat and a long witchy robe with hair a much brighter fire-red in the morning light. "The man behind the membrane!"

"Hey," I say tentatively, trying to avoid the fact I don't know her name.

"It's Sharon," she says. "Head witch of this bitch."

I nod, and then lack some sense because I have to ask. "Can you answer me a question? Is all this witching stuff like a fantasy for all women?"

"Different folks, different strokes, different cloaks." She floats away for the breakfast being plated on the kitchen table. And I break out at track-star speeds hearing my name being screeched from up the second floor.

I get my car turned on just as Ally pours out onto the porch in a thrown over robe. I signal to her I'm off with a two-finger salute. She rushes to scream after me "Give me my drawings back!"

Too late. I'm off and take momentary satisfaction in the one time she's chased after me.

Ally texts me not even a minute later.

'I know you heard me.'

I don't reply because I'm driving and a good citizen who only seldomly steals or has sexual rendezvous in public places.

Another text from Ally.

'Dare you to come give me my drawings back.'

I smile. Sweet victory.

'With pleasure.' I reply when I pull into a McDonald's drive thru. 'Will do at any time of your choosing next Saturday.'

'Now Lenox!'

'You should have defined your terms better beforehand. See you Saturday.'

Proactive and stupid I get myself a big mac and fudge sundae to celebrate my schemes victory. It truly never has tasted better as it did savoring it to a plethora and endless stream of curse words flashing across my car's tablet from Ally's next text tirade.