Only At Night update

Going home, I showered, shaved, and put on my best suit. Armstrong’s apartment was in the nice part of town, where people started getting complexes about whose high-rise was the highest. I didn’t want to make the drive there just to be arrested for vagrancy. Putting Armstrong’s folder into a briefcase that I’d gotten for some birthday or another and then never used, even though it had my initials on it—I’m a backpack kinda guy—I made the drive. 

Olympic Heights almost lived up to the name. I walked right in to the marble-walled lobby and used the elevator. No one stopped me. Either Thana had cleared the way for me or security here was just as overhyped as elsewhere, despite the five-digit rent. I got out on the right floor, found Armstrong’s apartment, and let myself in.

Gratifyingly, it wasn’t that much bigger than my apartment, just with a way better view—if you went for looking at other monoliths of concrete and glass from your own monolith. Coming in, there was a bathroom on the immediate left; past that, the door to a laundry room that was basically a booth around a washer-dryer unit. You kept going down the hallway, left again and there was the bedroom, half again as big as the king-sized bed it held, and with a closet. You passed that and finally the hallway opened up into a decent-sized living room and kitchen, with one wall pure glass to give you a view. There wasn’t even a balcony. 

The furniture looked like a showroom for some brand or another and there were expensive art prints on the wall. Or so I assumed. In my experience, the less you’re able to tell what artwork is depicting, the pricier it is.

I checked the obvious hiding places, which were any places that I looked at and thought ‘I could hide something there.’ I wasn’t expecting to find much. Just shy of two dollars in change, as it turned out. I assumed Thana had someone for basic thuggery who would’ve swept the place already, if she herself hadn’t done it. And even if no one had bothered to check the trash for a hotel booking slip or bus ticket receipts, I doubted someone could finish accounting school and still be stupid enough to leave tracks like that. This wasn’t like the movies, where anyone going on the run made sure to leave some little puzzle behind just for convenience’s sake. He’d just destroy anything that could give him away, or ditch it five blocks from here in a storm drain.

But then there was the computer. It didn’t look like he’d taken an axe to the tower, which meant I had something to work with. Armstrong had his desk against the wall where the kitchen spiritually met the living room. I sat down, powered it on, and took my tools out of my go-bag. One USB connection later and I was into his system. 

The guy wasn’t totally stupid. He’d deleted just about everything but Solitaire. I ran file recovery. His e-mails told me nothing. There was just very little personal stuff, no one RSVPing about parties or anything, not even a forum about whale-watching or whatever. He was subscribed to some word of the day, daily trivia kinda websites, and that made up a good forty percent of his e-mails. The rest were work-related. His family only seemed to remember he existed at his birthday and Christmas.

I checked his calendar. His future appointments were wiped, as in nonexistent. I could only assume he’d stopped making them for after his disappearance day. I suppose ‘note to self: take money and go to Kansas City, room 101 at the Ramada Inn on Clancy Street’ was too much to hope for. So I went backwards instead of forwards. Guess what? Armstrong was a season ticket holder at our own Tribeca Stadium. And there was a game tonight or rather at three o’clock.

I scanned through Armstrong’s e-mails again, finding a message he’d gotten confirming his purchase. There was a number for a helpline at the bottom. I went to the apartment’s landline and dialed it. They picked up on the third ring. And they call that customer service.

“Hello,” I said, carefully straining any hint of an accent out of my voice. “I’m Chris Armstrong. I lost my season ticket pass and was wondering if you could send me a voucher of some sort for tonight’s game?”

The lady asked me for ‘my’ birthday. Consulting the file Thana Morgan had gave me, I answered her. Then she asked for mother’s maiden name. I gave her that too.

“Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. We’re sending you a replacement card now, but in the meantime, we’ll e-mail you an electronic pass you can use for tonight’s game. We hope you find that satisfactory.”

I saw the e-mail pop up in Armstrong’s inbox; I forwarded it to myself and heard the notification ping on my own phone. “Yes, thank you, that’ll be just fine.”

“Thank you for calling and we hope you’ve enjoyed using—“ Blah blah blah. I hung up as soon as it was polite.

Now, did I think Armstrong would stop in the middle of his fugitive act to go to a ballgame? Of course not; not when anyone with two gray cells could watch it at a bar or on his phone or something. But if he was checking his e-mail, seeing that voucher in his inbox might rattle some cages. And if he wasn’t, it was possible I could find something out by talking to the other season ticket holders. You never knew what Armstrong might’ve let slip while he was shooting the shit and watching the game.

I checked my watch. I had enough time to get some sleep before the game. 

I got back to my place after a brief stop-off at the pharmacy to pick up some caffeine pills. They wouldn’t undo the havoc I was about to play on my sleep cycle, but they would even me out some. I went into my building and there was Carina, waiting for me in an actual dress. The skirt swept down her svelte legs, while translucent lace panels girded her waist, becoming opaque again at her breasts. It was the kind of outfit that had something to prove.

“You get off work early? What’s the occasion?” I asked her, getting my keys out.

“That look you’re giving me,” Carina said, following me into the elevator. I’d left my luggage in the car, so all I was holding was the caffeine pills in the little white pharmacy bag. “Birth control?”

“All-nighter fuel. I take some Sudafed to knock myself out, then take some caffeine with my coffee. I’ll feel almost,” I had been about to say ‘human’, “awake when I get up.”

Carina nodded curiously. “Sudafed, huh? So you’re not tired now?”

“No.”

“You will be.”

She pounced on me. There was no other way to describe it. She didn’t even let me press my floor. Suddenly she was against me, kissing me, her hands down my pants. Fingers wrapped around my cock. Jerking up and down with a pleasure so sudden it made me groan, which was just what Carina wanted to hear, judging from the grin that lit up her face.

I put my arms around her, not that I could pull her any closer. She was still stroking my prick as I reached to the neck of her dress and found the zipper. I slid it down; she mewled in my ear. “Yes. Yes. I want you. No waiting. Fuck me here.”

I glanced at the doors, knowing they were closed but looking anyway. I’d never fucked someone in an elevator before. I hadn’t fucked anyone many places other than a bed, but I guess the phallic modifications I’d done back when I was young and stupid were paying off now. 

I brought the zipper on Carina’s dress down to the small of her back, then eased either side open. Carina was breathing heavily as she took her hand out of my pants, letting her shoulder straps come off her arms. She gripped the handrail to steady herself—or to hold herself back—as I tugged the dress down her body. I did it slowly, exposing her body little by little. Despite the blackness of the dress, she had on a lacy white bra under it, ghosting the body underneath so I could make out tantalizing hints of her breasts without really seeing them except through the skimpy material. That would have to change.

I let her dress puddle at her waist, stopped by the curvature of her hips, and then went to her bra, deftly unclasping it. My fingers ran over her naked breasts; she panted in my ear as I touched her. I thought of a dog with its tongue hanging out, slavering over a steak. Of course, Carina made it far more sexual than some furry animal could ever be—at least on the side of the internet I visited.

I closed my lips around her left nipple, surprised by how hard it was. It seemed to pulse vaguely. Carina gasped as I sucked it, then swore lowly as I ran my tongue over her areola and up to her collarbone. I kept going. Up her throat, to the point of her chin before I pulled back. We looked each other in the eye as I left her nipple hard, tingling, and put my hands on her waist. Her flesh felt like it was electrically charged there too.

“Is this about Thana? The Abigail thing?” I asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with how she was looking at me. That ‘something to prove’ stuff. It was cute with the dress, not so much with her.

“Not exactly,” Carina replied, clearly feeling a bit iffy about the truth. “Do you really want to talk?”

“Some,” I said, lifting her dress slowly, moving my hands under it. 

Carina seemed mollified by my touching her again. “It’s just sex? You don’t have feelings for them?”

“No,” I said, feeling distinctly weird as I petted her ass, feeling out the lacy daintiness of her panties before I tugged them out of the way. 

“Good. Then I’m fine with it. Just as long as you remember who you do have feelings for.”

I squeezed and stroked her delicious buttocks, spreading them slightly and then running my forefinger along the valley between them. Carina bit her lip to keep from moaning as the pad of my finger brushed over her asshole, then went down between her legs, finding her pussy. The expression on her face was incredible: delighting in what was happening while anticipating more, far more.

“You’re pretty memorable,” I said.

“Thanks.” Then she flicked my nipple. It stung.

“Hey!”

“Next time give me a heads-up that you’re going to have a threesome with the boss.”

I eased the length of my finger inside her, as if that might shut her up. She breathed in sharply, feeling my entrance, then keened as the forefinger of my other hand touched her clit. I rubbed it insistently, making her quiver, face contort, feeling her pussy tighten on my other finger. Her cunt was dripping wet. She was ready to be fucked.

“It was hardly a threesome,” I said.

“Thana got off, didn’t she? Sounds like a threesome to me.”

I took my hand off her clit and moved it to her breast, squeezing it slowly. With my other hand, I added a second finger inside of her, taking my time, letting Carina feel herself being penetrated as my left hand molded itself to her breast. She whimpered and leaned against me, but there was no mistaking how she was pouting. Still, her cunt pressured my fingers like it was milking them. She needed it bad.

“Anyway, she did spring it on me. I didn’t have time to send a text.”

“And did you think we were exclusive or did you know we weren’t?”

Shit. I nuzzled Carina’s neck as I slid my fingers out of her, lifting them to our faces as they hovered next to each other. I ran my fingers over her lip and mine before I kissed her, sharing the taste of her cunt. Carina was reluctant at first, numbly taking my kiss, but then she kissed me hungrily, licking at my fingers before she bobbed her head on them, sucking them clean of her own juices.

“I thought we were semi-exclusive—kind of to be determined,” I said.

Carina busied herself unbuttoning my shirt, as if they were vexing her. “And if I had wanted to be exclusive, you would’ve just fucked someone else? One last hurrah?”

I put my hand back under her dress, pulling the crotch of her panties out of the way to enter her with two fingers again. She squirmed in angry pleasure, rubbing her breasts against my opened shirt, my chest. My prick was begging to be inside her. From the way her cunt was twisting on my fingers in a riot of squeezing pressure, she needed it just as bad.

“You don’t want to be exclusive. You said you didn’t care!”

“I care that you don’t consider my feelings one way or the other!”

I couldn’t wait any longer, no matter how the argument was going. I grabbed hold of her panties and pulled them down her legs, Carina pulling my hair as she did it. I didn’t know if it was anger or lust. It hurt, but in a good way.

“Everything I’m doing,” I said, “is so those dead vampires don’t come back to haunt us.”

“And I did that for you!” she insisted.

“I know you did! That’s my point!” She’d had her panties on over her garters. I could easily slid them down her stockings. She’d come here to get fucked as much as have it out with me. I couldn’t stop looking at her gorgeously toned thighs as I ripped her panties down them. The whole thing was insane: I couldn’t take my hands off her long enough to argue with her. “You did it for me, I did it for you!”

And then, Carina did a funny thing. She cooed. “You fucked Thana for me?”

“Abigail.” Oh, who cared? “Yeah.”

“Even though you didn’t want to.”

“In all honesty, I wouldn’t say ‘didn’t want to.’ More like—‘didn’t ask.’”

Carina nodded understandingly. “I’m going to fuck you better than she ever could. Better than either of them ever could.” She stepped out of her panties. “Put those in your pocket. I don’t want them getting stepped on.”

I did as she asked. She pressed the button to my floor. The elevator heaved into motion as I got up, making me a little unsteady on my feet, but Carina grabbed me by the lapels and held me tight.

“But you’re going to make it up to me for being so inconsiderate,” she said. Then I was back down on my knees. “I want your tongue.”