"Smith, Anthony Neil - Kills Bugs Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Anthony Neil)

= Kills Bugs Dead
by Anthony Neil Smith


Wendy has the exterminator come to the house for the third time that month, complaining, "What did I pay you for if the roaches are still here? They're running around like the Olympics."

So Peter visits again, smile on his face. He meets Wendy at the door and goes inside. It's ten in the morning. The baby is sleeping and her husband's at work. Peter sets his spray can down and wraps Wendy in his arms. She smells clean and turned-on, overpowering the fumes he deals with all day. She's a redhead, pale and dark-freckled, twenty-five, still hanging on to some of the weight from the baby, but Peter likes her soft that way. She giggles into his uniform as he holds her. Her long hair is loose, spread across her back, still damp from the shower. He slides his hands down--she is wearing nothing under her bathrobe.

Wendy steps back and moves her hands to the zipper on Peter's uniform jumpsuit. "This time, you have to check everywhere. Even if it means getting on your knees and sticking your nose in there."

"What happened to 'whatever you do feels good'?"

Wendy shrugs. "It's been so long. I used to get it all the time, but it's like he's scared of it now. Like a lost twin might pop out and choke him."

Peter was scared of it, too, but would give it a good try. Here he was, thirty-two and single, never had a very long relationship, maybe a year. He had been with a few older women, sure. And a handful of eighteen-year-olds fresh from his old Catholic high school. But a new mother, well, Wendy was unmapped territory.

The first time he sprayed the house, Wendy had followed him around, talking with her shirt tugged up to cover her mouth and nose. She had told him she expected an older guy with a gut, not a slab of beef with short blond hair. They had a nice little house, even it was only a step up from trailer life. Wendy was proud of the place. The furniture was nice but obviously had been given to them. The TV was small, the tables scratched but polished. Most noticeable were the gun cases, beautiful dark wood cabinets with frosted glass doors. Two in the living room, one in the hall, one in their bedroom. Peter peered through the glass, saw hunting rifles and shotguns, automatic pistols and revolvers, impressive collection.

"Your husband likes guns?" Peter asked then.

Wendy wrinkled her nose. "All little boys do, I think. It's his leftover little boy thing. But that's why he's excited about the baby. Now he's got a son he can teach to shoot."

After Peter had sprayed, Wendy offered coffee. Peter said no. She offered a beer. Peter said, "Why not?"

While he sat on the couch and sipped the beer, she straddled him. She unbuttoned her shirt, unfastened her bra. Her breasts were big and saggy with wide flat nipples. A little hair grew between them. Peter ignored that when she lifted one to his mouth.

"What about your husband?" Peter had asked as the image of a redneck gun nut loading a prized twelve gauge flashed in his mind.

Wendy exhaled sharply and said, "Look, I don't want it complicated. Do you want to fuck or not?"

And Peter, after all, just wanted to fuck.

This visit, Wendy takes him by the hand and leads him down the hall to the bedroom. She giggles the whole time, turns and says "Dah'ling," giggles louder. Peter smiles but doesn't speak. Hard to speak. His dick is rock hard, straining against his work pants. In the bedroom, Wendy turns the light on. She lets go of his hand, pulls the robe loose but leaves it on, hint of nipples, corridor of hair between her thighs. She sits on the corner of her bed, legs parted, toes wiggling. She reaches out a hand and waves him over. Peter takes her hand. She kisses his fingers one by one, kisses his palm, leaves wet circles with her tongue. And then she sings, off-key from any pitch ever, "On your knees, please. Please me on your knees."

* * *

Wendy pays him in cash after a lazy sweep with the spray wand. He is exhausted, a little woozy, and he wonders, Why cash? The first time he visited, he tried to explain the packages to her--the more expensive, all encompassing "Bug Apocalypse" down to the thorough but less intense "Bug Vacation"--but she just wanted the basic spray.

Peter leaves Wendy in the kitchen, taking slow steps outside into the June heat where the sunlight was heavy-duty squint-level. He shields his eyes with curved fingers, having left his cap in the truck. The round stepping stones that lead from the driveway to the front door are split in two, sometimes three places, the stones cheap crap from a big Superstore. At the van, he opens the back door and sets his spray can inside. He walks around to the driver's door and climbs in, already seated by the time he realizes there's a man in the passenger seat pointing a revolver at him.

"Stay still, do what I say," the man says. He is dressed better than his hick accent would let on, in slacks and a white dress shirt buttoned to the top. The hair is dirty, a scraggly dark mullet framing a thin face that droops like a sad dog. Peter compares the face to something vague in his mind that's not coming in clearly. A few moments later, it does: Wendy's husband. A better dressed version of the guy from those photos on the coffee table by the couch. He remembers looking at one of the pictures while Wendy was blowing him last week, trying to place the background in what looked like a honeymoon shot.

"There's a misunderstanding here. The gun might get us hurt," Peter says.

"How much did she give you?"

Peter waits a moment, decides he means money. "Forty bucks."

The man with the gun--Peter thinks the name is Gene--smiles and shakes the barrel. "How's that feel? You're a bug whore, man. How much action you get on this gig?"