INIQUITOUS

CHAPTER LXII

CHAPTER LXII

The man was in his late twenties. White, naturally lean and dressed in a cosy cobalt sweater and washed blue jeans, he studied us with a heated interest. With hair the colour of dirt brown, he was conventionally attractive and ticked the boxes for romantic interest found in a coffee shop in a book tailored for college girls. Not my type. If I had seen him on the street, I wouldn't have spared him a second glance. However, I found him to be fascinating on this occasion. It could have been the blonde eyebrows that didn't match his hair or it could have been the gleam in his hungry eyes.

Eton bristled at his disrespectful and caustic tone. Granite shade eyes blackened and his mouth curled up into a distasteful expression. "Calla," he started off forcefully, "this is the German shithead, a should-have-been unwanted cum stain on his mother's blouse, and unfortunately, Zeus' dearest friend."

The German shithead laughed. "Charming as always, Eton." He wasn't as amused as he portrayed. The glimmer in his gaze was unpleasant. 

"How lovely to meet you, shithead," I angled towards him slightly, looking up at him sideways from long eyelashes and quirking my mouth up slightly. "I assume you have another name beside the dear nickname my brother has bestowed upon you."

"Koen Kock," he introduced himself.

"A mouthful," I commented, ignoring his hand he held out to shake.

"The same mouthful your mother should've swallowed like an obedient slut," Eton said without missing a beat.

I watched as the man before me refused to rise to Eton's level of pettiness and concealed his anger. "Your lip twitched." I revealed his mannerism in an offhand remark.

"What?"

I grazed my finger across my lip. "Your lip ...twitched."

Koen's gaze fell to my mouth. After a pause, he met my gaze once more. "So?"

"Your eyes are revealing. Your face is a confession. And your speech is a spade to soft muddy ground, digging, digging, digging for more."

"I am a journalist, after all," he straightened his spine, regaining composure, keen gaze unwavering from my own.

"How telling," I acknowledged coldly.

Eton's gaze flickered in my direction. He leaned forward slightly like a predator awaiting to pounce, bony shoulders hunched in his oversized sweater and slate black curls pushed away from his forehead to reveal a calculating and unrelenting stare. And then he turned to me, met my warning look, and smiled slightly. "I'm famished."

"Make yourself a sandwich." I rubbed a thumb on my left cheek.

He made a noise of pondering, disobeying and careless. "No, I'm in the mood for meat. Something bloody. Perhaps a steak. I like it rare. What do you say, Kock? Steak for dinner?"

"It's barely dawn."

"Planning ahead avoids messy splatters and disappointment. I'll make a shopping list and go to the supermarket later. I want to apologise for yesterday's episode. Thanksgiving is a sore remembrance for me. How about you allow me to make it up to you? We'll skip the second date and go right to the seventh, you can even meet my parents. Spoiler alert: they're dead."

After Eton's departure, Koen flipped the light switch and took a seat at the blush red armchair. Eton was a bratty child he had no respect for while I had ruffled his feathers, and rubbed him the wrong way. He viewed me warily. After a while of the hum of the fridge from the kitchen and colliding glances, he asked with politeness. "Boyfriend?"

"Interested?"

"You're far too young for me."

"And yet given the chance a man will disregard his morals and the law to fuck a barely legal teen. The opportunity is yours."

"I have a girlfriend."

"Who is as meaningless as sex."

He was silent.

I viewed him with hooded eyes. "Am I a scope for your next piece?"

"No–"

"Is my brother?"

"No,"

"That's a lie. Would you like to fuck him, too?"

"What is it with you and sex?" frustration coloured his words.

I shrugged. "Sex is power. And yet, it's a quick thirty seconds of humping, sticky stains and three minutes of thrusting. And then: a spurt of semen and it's over. As disbelieving as this is, I hate the act of sex. The aftermath of lying next to someone whose sweat clogs the air and whose cold hands reach to touch the warmest parts of you...I hate it. It's vulgar – two strangers so desperately aching to feel something other than loneliness or a husband and wife bored of one another, committing a ritual duty, bound by meaningless words and a Middle Eastern man who died on a cross."

"Then what do you love?"

"Terror. Desperation. Hopelessness. Acceptance."

"In that particular order?"

"In that particular order."

"From what act?"

"Love."

"Love?" he repeated dubiously.

"Familial love. A human's greatest downfall and another's ascent. Using sex to break-up friends, to destroy a child's faith in their father, to lead the whoring mother down the devil's path, to stick a thorn in the lover's path, to pit brothers against each other. Oh, the power in something so fickle as sex." I divulged heatedly, fervent. "Such a murderous act."

"How utterly vindictive and cruel."

"And despite this, you're yearning to fuck me," I raised my sultry gaze to his, an eyebrow raised in challenge. Voice noticeably lower as if we were two lovers in secret. My hand crept down my stomach, a slow and soft touch across exposed skin as he watched, unable to tear his gaze away. "Am I right?"

He succumbed, swallowed harshly. "You're right. I need to fuck you."

My tone changed. "Too bad. I don't and will not ever feel the desire to touch you, let alone fuck you. Disrespect my brother again and I'll hurt you in ways you'll never recover from. Oh, and tell Zeus how much you wanted to fuck his sister before I confess your wicked thoughts over dinner." My mouth curled up into an impish grin. "See you around, Koen."

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