Page 40 of Alik

Has she been watching me?

Lifting the book, I carry it to the window and stare out at the street as if she’ll be there now. My brow is furrowed when I turn the page because this time, it can’t be an image she’s seen. It’s me in bed with a woman. We’re sleeping, her head on my chest, my arm around her. The woman’s tight curly hair lays over her shoulder, a barrette pinning it back so I see her face. And when I look closer, I recognize it.

“What the fuck?” I whisper, staring at an escort I slept with months ago.

I turn the page to see myself with another escort, only this time we aren’t sleeping. She’s riding me, our faces twisted with pleasure, and the only way I know Olive doesn’t have a camera in my bedroom is because she got the woman’s tits wrong. Her nipples were unusually large. This woman’s are perfect.

When I flip a few more pages, I find one with Olive and myself in her apartment, on her couch, my head between her legs. There’s a drawing of me posing fully nude for her, and I find myself trying to recall having a photo of this somewhere. I don’t. This is imagined. I can see her inaccuracies, the exaggerated hair on my chest, a tattoo on my hip that doesn’t exist. But it looks so … real.

The next page is of us together, and my cock hardens the instant my eyes land on her perky breasts, the same ones she gave inaccurately to the other woman. Only this time, I imagine she got it right. She worked from an image, a memory, amirror.

My eyes gaze along her slender form like she’s right in front of me. Like I can come up behind her as I have in the photo, kiss her lips, arch my hips into her. Her shaved pussy makes my cock strain against my pants, and I have to remind myself this is a drawing.

Blinking, I rip the paper from the book, knowing I’ll want it later.

I hungrily rake my eyes over the next page. She wasn’t horny when she drew this one. It’s of me on the sidewalk, walking with my hands in my pockets and my eyes forward.

After thirty more pages, it finally stops. She used half a sketchbook on me.

It must’ve taken her months. At least several because that first escort was… Jesus, five months ago?

I shuffle through the last pages to make sure that’s the end of the book. When I spot a splash of red, I open the page.

My brows lift.

It’s our frizzy-haired super again… Dead.

She’s laying in a pool of her own blood leaking from her slit throat. Her lifeless eyes stare at a phone that’s just out of reach from her grasping hand.

… Okay.

The next few pages are more of the same. The neighbor with the purple lipstick and our super seem to be the main victims, but in the last photo, they’re laying among a crowd of dead people, all with their intestines pulled from their abdomens.

The next drawing is of Purple Lips holding her own head in her manicured hand, her pointed nails the same color as the blood smearing her blonde hair.

“Jesus Christ.”

I close the book and set it on my countertop. Her panicked face appears in my mind from when she burst through the church doors looking for the thief who took this, and now I understand the panic.

Olive Solace is a little bit crazy.

10

OLIVE

Breaths stutter across my lips as my head tips back, my pelvis grinding on the hotel pillow. My tiny black bullet tucked inside my panties vibrates against my clit and sends sharp jolts of pleasure shooting through my core with every roll of my hips.

In my mind, I see him. He watches me in admiration, his strikingly strange eyes roaming my body as his hands slide up my thighs.

I place my palms where I imagine his would be and gently glide them up to my exposed breasts, brushing my fingertips over my nipples with a feather touch. The sensation makes my throbbing clit tighten to the point of pain, and I grind harder as my face twists with a groan.

I wish I could see him again. Gaze into his eyes instead of only imagining them in my mind. If my sketchbook hadn’t been stolen today, I could.

“Fuck,” I moan when my spine tingles.

My movements speed up, and my mouth opens on a cry as I come, imagining Alik beneath me instead of the pillow.

My core spasms, milking something that isn’t there while I swipe the sweat from my forehead. Panting, I wait to come downfrom the high before pulling on my bra and sweater. It’s only six in the evening, but I’m ready to pass out.