Orchid Ch. 00

Gill sighed as he walked around his car. He hadn't meant to slam the door that hard, and he didn't like to think of himself as the kind of man who took his frustrations out on others. His car was certainly not one of the sources of that frustration, but, admittedly, he was only human. Mentally, he apologized.

The indifferent teen behind the counter neither looked up from his phone nor removed his earbuds as Gill entered the convenience store. At first he thought they were alone but, as Gill ambled his way to the altar of carbonated offerings, he did a double-take. A pretty, pink-haired girl in an extremely short skirt crouched thoughtfully with her fingers poised over several sugary sweets in the candy aisle. She peered back at him as he walked by. Her shoulder length hair, straight and parted in the middle, was tucked behind her ear on one side.

He walked along the doors, passing the prominent Coke and Pepsi displays. Gill was a Dr. Pepper man, always had been. He grabbed a 20 oz, and sighed as he walked back to the register. He hadn't meant to slam the glass door either.

"Excuse me," Gill said, but the boy behind the counter didn't look up from his phone. "Excuse me."

"What are you doing?" the girl asked, leaning to see around the end of the aisle. She had a rough voice, gritty. It seemed wrong for her thin frame, but it suited her eyes in a way Gill couldn't quite put his finger on.

"...I just want to pay for my pop and go."

The girl grinned incredulously. "Why?"

"Why... do I want to pay for my pop?"

"Yeah." She bounced to her feet and joined him. "He doesn't care, and it's his ass on the line." She casually unwrapped the chocolate bar in her hand and took a bite. Her lips parted with every chew, and the baby blue nub of her tongue piercing kept catching Gill's eye. "Why should you care?"

Gill smiled ruefully as he pulled out his wallet.

"Five bucks?!"

"What?"

The girl shook her head, snatching the bill off the counter with inhuman quickness. Gill's eyes followed the money until she shoved it inside her bra, glancing away with a blush. She was young. Much younger than him, even if she did at least look 18. "I'm keeping this," she said with a meaningful look, "to teach you a lesson."

"Oh?" Gill turned toward her and folded his arms across his chest, fully aware of how much broader he was. "And what lesson is that?"

"Well obviously I can't tell you what it is," she said with exaggerated patience, smiling sweetly. "You wouldn't learn anything, aaaaaaand you'd be less inclined to give me a ride?"

Gill chuckled as he watched her turn the charm on full blast. Eyelashes batted. Face turned slightly down and away for that Facebook selfie angle. A picture of absolute innocence that barely came up to his shoulder. Her eyes seemed to twinkle. "That is the strangest way anyone has ever asked me for a lift."

"Did it work?" She winced slightly, biting her lip and turning the charm to 11.

"Oh my god, stop! You're gonna blow a fuse!"

The girl laughed musically. "It worked!"

"I didn't say yes.".

"Yeah, but yer gunna," she sang confidently, as she walked around him toward the door. Gill arched an eyebrow and looked back at the attendant, who he was shocked to find staring at him.

"Dude," the kid said, "what are you waiting for?" Gill's mouth hung open. He slowly reached for his soda, his arm moving in fits and bursts while he gauged the teen's reaction. "Go!"

"Thanks?" Gill said, as he turned.

The girl was waiting outside, facing away as she stood on the edge of the curb. She wore white sneakers with bright pink coloring on the inside and laces. The pink matched her socks and one of the supporting colors in her plaid, pleated skirt that just managed to reach mid-thigh. She was wearing a black hoodie above that, but he thought he'd seen a white button-down shirt underneath it earlier. The pink-dyed color of her hair was almost the same color too, muted by what he guessed was a week's worth of showers. Not that he really knew anything about how long hair dye lasted.

He tilted his head as he walked through the door, categorizing his attraction to her. She wasn't his normal type. Gill had always pined for the cheerleaders. The bombastic blonde with the nice rack. The smile that could put the sun to shame. The low cut shirt and the come hither eyes. Pink girl, which is what he was calling her in his head, had nice legs. Pale, yes, but smooth. Like milk. Underneath her skirt, Pink girl seemed to have a nice ass. Gill had never thought of himself as an ass man.

And yet, as she turned and smirked at him over her shoulder, there was something indescribable about her. She had... presence.

"Let me guess. You drive the Prius over there 'cus it's sensible." Very pretty face, with strong hints of cute. Her nose was pixie-ish, her smile was wide, and her eyes were very large. He knew that, sometimes, large eyes was an optical illusion girls could do with makeup, but he suspected Pink girl's eyes were a feature everyone noticed, makeup or not.

"It is sensible," Gill said, as he stepped up next to her. "Great gas milage. But no." He tilted his head to the right, and Pink girl leaned forward to look around him.

"That's a Barracuda," she stated, as if he wasn't keenly aware of what he drove. "You do not drive a Barracuda." She slowly wandered past him, eyefucking his recently-waxed muscle car. "How do you drive a Barracuda?"

"I built it," he shrugged, as he walked around to the driver side.

"That explains the arms," Pink girl murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. Gill laughed as he slid into the driver's seat. "I've seen you around town, you know. Here and there. You've always looked so nice, and I've..." She paused to giggle flirtatiously. "...I've always wanted to say hello."

Gill frowned and leaned across the center panel. "I, um—"

"Oh, this old thing?" she replied, putting her hands on the hems of her skirt and blushing. "You're too kind."

"Oh," he mumbled.

"You'll have to excuse me," she crooned, stepping up next to the car. "I can't seem to keep my hands off you. Just let me know if any of this is... uncomfortable. Or unwanted." The last, barely whisper.

"Is this really necessary?"

"I'm gonna come inside you now." Her voice, breathy and dramatic, as she gently pulled on the handle. "No no, shhhhhh. Just let it happen."

"Will you just get in the car?"

"Don't listen to him, sugar." She stroked her hand along the dash as she settled into the deep bucket seat. "He's just jealous." She squirmed lewdly in the chair, legs writhing, and sucked her lower lip between her teeth as he turned the key with extreme prejudice. "It's rude to stare."

He hadn't even realized he was staring at her legs, and he fumbled an apology that she giggled mercilessly through. "Where am I going?" he sighed.

"You know where Babylon and Kingsland is?"

Gill nodded and threw it into reverse. The massive V8 rumbled as they pulled out into the street. "Isn't that in an industrial park?"

"Yeah," she purred just loud enough to be heard, as she ran her hands over the leather seat beneath her. "This is the sexiest thing I have ever seen."

"You sure know how to make a guy feel special," Gill snarked.

"Ooooh, don't be like that," Pink girl pouted. "If it makes you feel any better, it's giving me an inferiority complex too."

"A little."

Gill leaned back as they pulled up to a red light, and his spine tingled as he realized she was staring at him. She pulled her left foot up so that the heel of her sneaker was planted on the edge of the seat. He opened his mouth to ask her to move it, but lost his train of thought while he stared at her leg again. His eyes shot forward as his mental 'I'm being creepy'-meter pinged wildly, and he swallowed hard.

"Have you ever gotten a blowjob in this thing?"

"What?" Gill sputtered. "Uhh, no? I mean... no? What?" Panic steadily rising.

"Eyes on the road, mister," she lectured, as he looked sideways at her. "Just drive." She popped off her seatbelt and curled her knees up onto the chair.

"Ahhhm," he managed, as she ducked her head underneath his right arm. "Should I..." His jeans, unbuttoned. Unzipped.

"Don't pull over, and don't stop." She parted the seam in his boxers, and his cock sprung outwards to meet her. "Just act natural. You don't want to be caught with an underage girl in your car, do you?"

"What?!" he squealed, but she was already laughing.

"Relax! I'm 19. I'll show you my license when I'm done."

"Can I see it now?"

She turned slowly and looked up at him, her eyes hungry. "Do you really want me to stop?"

Gill shook his head and mumbled, "I'm going to hell," under his breath, which elicited another giggle from Pink girl just before she laid her tongue across his head for the first time. "Y-y-you don't have to do that," he stammered. Her lips against the tip, suckling gently. "I'd have just g-given you the ride."

"I never do things just because I have to," she said in between long licks up the side. He shivered as he felt the hard end of her tongue piercing pressing into his pulsing length. "Only because I want to."

Gill's entire body stiffened as his cock slid between her lips. His senses screamed for his attention to be on her, watching and soaking this in, but his mind refused to let him look away from the road. Instead, the back of her pink head rose and fell at the bottom of his field of vision as she bobbed up and down. "I... Jesus... fuck..."

"I don't think Jesus appreciates you stringing those words together," she gasped, as she popped up for air, "but I do." He groaned loudly as she took his sensitive organ back inside the warm, wet confines of her mouth. His ears burned as he listened to the soft, contented gurgles.

Through several blocks and two left turns, he barely kept his cool. It had been a very long time, but he was proud of himself that he hadn't immediately lost it. Not only was this far and away the best blowjob he'd ever had on technique alone, but the whole whirlwind of it was setting him on fire; in his car, while driving, with a girl he'd just met, whose name he still didn't know, and-

A flash of color to his left and Gill twitched. Nestled ten yards away down a side road, a police car lay in wait. Gill grabbed the back of Pink girl's head and pushed down hard out of panic, lest her very noticeable hair appear suspiciously in his lap, but Pink girl immediately moaned. Deeply. The war being waged by discomfort, nervousness, panic, and his raging libido reached new heights as he held her there. Fuck, her lips against his groin. His guilt kicked in once they passed out of danger, and he yanked her off.

"Oh Daddy," she murmured in between gasps.

"What? No!"

"No?" she asked, peering up at him with an innocent look that was somewhat undermined by her tongue running in circles around his swollen mushroom.

"No."

"Your call." She shrugged and smiled sweetly before going right back at it. Gill felt his throat tighten, watching her head bob faster and faster. The tiny sounds she made. The sensation of her saliva dribbling down his shaft. That fucking piercing!

"I-um... listen... I—"

"Mmmmhmmmm," she mumbled around a mouthful of cock. Pink girl pulled back and gasped, her hand stroking rapidly. "Don't worry. I had a feeling you were a little backed up. I'm prepared," she added with a devilish grin.

Gill's face and neck flushed as she worked him in and out of her mouth, pushing deeper and deeper again. He bit hard on his lip as he grabbed her hair and pushed down again, and her appreciative groans pushed him right up to the brink. His jaw fell slack as she reached up and tucked her pink locks behind her ear so he could see; her eyes pinched tight, the tiny bubbles in the saliva at the edges of her lips. She wanted to be seen. By him.

Ahead, the light turned yellow; the strain of pressing on the brakes proved one muscle contraction too many, and he loosed a guttural grunt as he stood on the pedal. He came hard. Inertia, cruel mistress that it is, thrust both of them forward against the steering wheel, and the Barracuda came to a hard, honking, tire-squealing, graceless stop 30 feet before the stop line.

"Are you ok?" Gill panted, knuckles white on the wheel.

"Let's see," she said cheerily, as she popped back into her chair and lowered the visor. "Lipstick is smeared, mascara ran a bit."

His eyes bulged when he saw a ring of her lipstick around his cock, and he squirmed in his seat while he tucked himself back in. For a moment, his mind spun its wheels as he wondered what Jennifer would think of this.

"Good news! I think I'll survive!"

"That's good to hear," he croaked, his voice failing him briefly.

"And now, as promised."

Gill had to stare at her license for several seconds before he knew what he was looking at, or remembered why he was looking at it. "How are you smiling in your license photo? I thought that was against the rules."

Pink girl laughed lightly. "You mean, how did I convince all those curmudgeons at the DMV to let me get away with it?"

"Yes."

"How did I get here in your car?" she asked.

Gill blinked, still unsure himself of how that had happened. "Everett, huh? That's a very pretty name for a girl."

"I just go by Eve," Pink girl said, nonchalantly. Eve said, he corrected mentally. Gill handed her back her license, satisfied that she was, in fact, 19. He watched her surreptitiously as she ran her tongue over her teeth in the mirror, and could think of only one thing she'd be checking for. It had almost completely gone over his head that Eve had swallowed. "It's green."

"What?"

"The light?"

Gill accidentally chirped the tires as they passed through the intersection.

"There is a lucrative career in subterfuge and espionage if this whole building cars business doesn't work out for ya," she chuckled.

"I'm a mechanic." He smiled mirthlessly as they pulled into the vast, empty parking lot at the southwest corner of Kingsland and Babylon. "I only built this one. Where am I headed from here?"

"Actually, you can just park. We'll walk from here."

"We?" he asked, as he slowed to a stop.

"You can't go yet," she whined. "You haven't learned your lesson!"

"What lesson?"

"Exactly!" She smiled brightly as she popped out onto the cracked asphalt, and then leaned back in through the open window. She bit her lip and cupped one hand inside the other. Her hoodie hung loose off her shoulders, and Gill could make out her black bra underneath the white shirt. Eyes up. "Where were you going tonight? I mean," she added after a brief pause, "am I keeping you from anything?"

"I... wasn't going anywhere," he said honestly.

"You wanna know why I really approached you?"

Gill nodded, and she gave a surprisingly serious smile.

"You seemed like you were in kind of a bad place."

"That obvious?"

She smiled sardonically. "I mean, you weren't wearing a sign or anything, but... yeah."

Gill blew out a long breath and tossed his head back into the headrest. "I had a bad day at work is all."

"Something to do with your dad?"

"Jesus," he shouted. He pulled his hands back with the intention of slamming the palms into the steering wheel, and instead just tightened and flexed his fingers. "What was that about wearing a sign?"

Eve shrugged dismissively. "I figured I had a fifty/fifty shot with the way you reacted earlier."

Gill took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I don't usually like going to parties."

"Don't worry! I'll make sure you have a good time."

Gill turned and stared at her, and she bounced away with a wink.

"Come on!" she shouted.

He watched her walk, sure in his mind that she was exaggerating her hip sway for his benefit, and he thought about Jennifer again.

"I knew you'd come," she said, as he jogged up next to her.

Gill shook his head, annoyed at being pegged so easily by this girl. He didn't think of himself as a complicated man, but it was still humbling to have her read him like a book. She seemed to be walking straight toward an Acme grocery store that had been closed longer than he could remember, but he was content to let her lead the way. "I work at my father's garage," he offered.

"The family business," she said, with mocking solemnity.

"Exactly." In the back of his mind he began to question himself. To question why he was telling this stranger anything at all. "I been... I been saving up money for a while now. Wanted to get out of doing that, finish up my GED, and start taking some classes for graphic design."

"Holy shit, Billy, that's awesome!" Her plainly-evident awe was bolstering. "Congratulations!"

"It's not Billy, it's Gill."

"I'm pretty sure it's Billy." They turned as they reached the walkway along the front of the store, and strode along beside the boarded-over facade. "Anyway, go on."

Gill swallowed. "My dad tells me today that we're getting a dyno at the shop." Eve blinked and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "It's like two big rollers in the floor, and you park your car on it with the car wheels in between. Then you put it in drive and gun it, and the dyno tells you how fast you went."

"Um... ok?" She walked to one of the boarded-over doors and inspected the wood covering it. "I'm listening."

"He told me we-whoa!" Gill took a step back as she popped the door open. Dust blew out in its wake, swirling into the night.

Eve gave him another sly grin and disappeared into the darkness. "Keep going," she called.

"What are you doing?" Gill walked up to the doorway and stared. Behind him, a quiet clear night. A night much like the night before, sans the side trip across town. He could cut bait and be back home in plenty of time to catch Saturday Night Live. Before him, yawning pitch black, and the enchanting memory of the girl who went in first.

Gill took a deep breath and stepped into the unknown.

He could hear Eve ahead of him, sneakers scuffing across dusty tile. He kept his steps short, fearing the unseen board with a nail in it that his imagination told him must be everywhere. The floor would be littered with them once the lights turned on. That's what you get for reachin' too far. His father's voice. Know your place.

"Almost there," she called. A brief surge of panic that she was farther ahead than he'd thought, but he fought it down. The dark had never held monsters for him. "Aaaaaaaaand..."

Gill flinched when the spotty fluorescents kicked in above. "Huh," she said, as she turned back toward him. "Less than last time. Not a good sign."

His eyes adjusted slowly. The interior of the store was mostly empty except for a few decrepit shelves and a refrigerated cooler that looked to be built into the ground.

"Isn't this awesome?"

"It's something alright."

"Come oooon," she urged. "Look around!"

"At what? There's like... nothing here."

"Nothing? Or the lack of something!"

Gill frowned and turned. There was a whole lot of the lack of something.

Eve's voice echoed loudly. "I used to come here and think a lot. It's a decent metaphor for life, yanno? Open for like 50 years. Time went on, less and less people came. Reached a certain point, and got retired. Now, hardly anyone comes to see it at all. It's just... perpetuating. Or maybe stagnant? Probably one of those two," she added thoughtfully.

"Uh huh," Gill said, mostly following what she was saying as he wandered. There was a can of carrots on one of the shelves. At least, it was probably carrots. Label was pretty well faded.