All My Sins

A thread

Marshall opened the door and quickly glanced over the entirety of the apartment with Maureen just behind him. The flat and stale smell of the hallway was gone with the first step that she took into his apartment. Inside the air smelt subtly sweet like a candle's scent had taken up residence in the air. The carpet was a light cream color. Two lamps in the far corners of the room provided a luminous peach overcast against the ivory walls.
It was a very simple apartment. Simple in a way that she appreciated. In fact, it was actually the kind of place that she imagined herself living in once she moved out of her parent's house - When her life would be easier. Simpler.

"You can set your bag down wherever." Marshall said before disappearing down the hallway.

Marshall emerged from the hallway, pulling at the collar of his tie in attempts to loosen it from around his neck.

"Just... make yourself at home. I wanna get started."

Marshall unbuttoned his dress-shirt and inadvertently revealed to her the muscles of his chest and abdomen.
While much of his skin was still hidden behind his wife beater, the thin undershirt clung to his torso's toned features. Maureen took the initiative to sit down at the kitchen table. As Marshall paced around the apartment, collecting what appeared to be folded and wrinkled pieces of paper, Maureen watched him from the corner of her eye. When he finally sat down across from her at the table, he began unfolding each paper and running his veiny hands over the folds, smoothing out the creases.
There were tiny, seemingly illegible scribbles and scratches all the way across the paper, corner to corner, top to bottom. No space was left unmarked. Her mind was turning over at what it was that he was doing, but in some sense she was beginning to understand everything. Once all of the papers were flattened and laid out, Marshall scratched his head, suddenly feeling very insecure.
"I want you to help me write." He said.

Maureen was at a loss for words. Her mind was trying to adjust to the newness of this world that she had stepped into while at the same time thrown completely off guard by his request.

"What?" Was all that she could manage to say. Marshall picked out a certain paper and handed it to her. She only skimmed the first few lines.

"These are lyrics?"

"Yeah..."

Suddenly it all made sense. Her mind was turning over at all of the seemingly insignificant memories of him in the past two weeks while he sat at his desk, completely entranced in writing something. And she remembered again, him telling her parents that he was looking to get into the music industry. Marshall lingered in her dark green eyes, eagerly but unsure.

"I have as much writing experience as anyone else in that shit school, if not less. There are advanced, college level classes based around writing. So why the hell do you need me to grade your papers and proofread?!?" She tightened her jaw so much that it began to hurt. Marshall furrowed his eyebrows at her little outburst.

It was that tone of voice which made him want to put her to her knees and feel her nails digging into his pelvis as he thrusted into her mouth.

"Don't talk to me like that, Maureen." He asserted with reasonable dominance which Maureen felt inferior to challenge.

Marshall was unmoving, genuine, and intent on getting her insight. He was unphased by her self-deprivations and recognized her being coy.
Still blind as to what the night and Mr. Mathers would hold for her, she was quite curious, in a writer to writer sense.
Before she could even make the decision to do it herself, Marshall slid another one of the papers across the table in front of her. He leaned in closely and lowered his voice.

"Your writing is unbelievable." He whispered to her, and her heart fell through the air like a missing step. "I wouldn't be askin' you to help me if I didn't know that you could.
Just read a little bit for me and tell me whatchu think."