Killer Queen: A Painted Faces Novel (15 page)

When the party had died down and there were only a
few guests left, a very drunk Phil decided to take it upon himself to liven
things up a bit. He stood by the karaoke machine, holding the microphone in his
hand.

“Okay, everyone, I know something that will spice up
this shindig. How about we play a game of seduction karaoke?”

I smirked to myself, knowing that seduction karaoke
definitely wasn’t a thing, and he’d probably just made it up. I’d confessed my
attraction for Fred to him this week, and I thought he might be trying to
meddle. When Fred asked him what the game entailed, he explained that someone
would act as the judge while several people took turns singing to them. Whoever
the judge decided gave the most seductive performance would be proclaimed the
winner.

Oh, yeah, he had definitely made that shite up.

Dorotea (yes, she was still hanging around) seemed
very excited to take part. I wanted her to leave already, but I couldn’t tell
her to piss off. It just wasn’t in my nature, and I always tried my best to
treat people with dignity when I could manage it.

 Before I knew it, Phil was setting his sights on me
and waggling his brows. “Well, Miss Blue, do you want to be the judge, then?”

I absolutely did not, but when I considered the idea
of Fred singing to seduce me, being the judge seemed far more appealing, so I
replied, “I'd love to, Philip.”

I laughed when Dorotea dived for the microphone, but
Phil held it out of her reach. “Not so fast, love. I'm going to go first.” He
grinned.

For the next few minutes I sat through a very camp
performance of “I Want Your Sex” by George Michael courtesy of Phil, and a
rather awkward and uncomfortable performance of “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls
from Dorotea.

 “Okay, who wants to go next?” said Phil, eyeing up
Fred. I turned to her, smiled, and folded my arms. I was dying for her to try
to seduce me. Though to be honest, the girl could be wearing a potato sack, and
I’d still think she was the most seductive thing in the room.

“Fred, how about you?” Phil went on determinedly.
Fred fidgeted in discomfort. She clearly didn’t want to do it, and I had to
admit I was disappointed.

“No, Phil, I can't sing for shit,” she replied
dismissively.

“Oh, come on, karaoke isn't about being able to
sing. People with good voices who do karaoke just come across as show-off
wankers. It's supposed to be funny!” Phil countered, and went to pull her from
her seat.

She protested a little more, but in the end she gave
in. She spoke quietly to Phil when he asked her which song she wanted to sing.
I tried to appear casual when really I was relishing the moment. I wanted to
see Fred try to be sexy. I mean, she was sexy enough even when she wasn’t
trying.

When she started to sing, I knew that I wasn’t going
to get sexy. What I got was better, because it was the funniest, heartfelt,
most adorable thing anyone had ever done for me. The song she chose was
“Combine Harvester” by The Wurzels, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I’d forgotten
just how many innuendos you could make about farming. She winked at me, and she
was so cute right then that I wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt.

Sitting through Dorotea’s performance had been quite
the awkward experience, but Fred had chosen just the right song to completely
decimate that awkwardness. She was making fun of the whole charade and playing
Phil at his own game in a very subtle way.

By the time the song ended, I was standing up and
striding toward her with purpose. I had to touch her. Her mouth opened slightly
when she saw me coming. As soon I reached her, I captured her face in my hands
and stared at her. She made me feel light and heavy all at once.

“You’re adorable,” I breathed, and then I claimed
her mouth like a man starving of hunger, my tongue sinking past her soft, plump
lips.

 “Well, I think we know who won this round,” Phil
joked in the background.

Fred was blushing hard when she broke the kiss, her
eyes unfocused and trained on my shirt. Then Dorotea was up from her seat,
shouting insults at Fred in her native Italian tongue. I turned to her, moving
Fred behind me, because Dorotea looked like she might attack her. I frowned, my
expression turning hard.

 “Speak to her like that again, and I'll throw you
out of here,” I said sharply so that Dorotea got the warning. I wasn’t going to
stand for her insulting Fred in my own apartment.

“What are you doing, kissing her? I have told you I
want you tonight, and you do this!”

Oh, for crying out loud. I rubbed at the back of my
neck in frustration. It was difficult to remain cordial at this stage, but I
tried to be reasonable. “And I told you I wasn't interested. It's not my fault
you refused to listen.”

Dorotea’s mouth twisted, and an ugly expression
marked her usually attractive face.

“Why do you want her? She's fat.”

What she said angered me a great deal, but before I
could defend Fred, Nora was stepping in and doing it for me.

 “Don't fucking talk about Fred like that,” she
said, pointing her finger at Dorotea, who sneered in return.

 “I say what I like,
brutta
.”

 Fred moved by me then. “Leave it, Nora. She's just
drunk.”

“Did you hear what she said? She called me a bitch
in Italian. Who does she think she is?”

“I don't know, a hybrid of John Travolta and Tony
Soprano maybe?” Fred joked, and Nora started to laugh.

“John Travolta! Because of the suit, right?”

I suppose I should mention that Dorotea was wearing
an all-white suit that was tailored to fit her very snugly. I could tell Fred
had been dying to make a joke about it all night but was holding back. Since
Dorotea had verbally attacked her, she had no cause to restrain herself any
longer.

 “What did you say about me?” Dorotea slurred, and I
wondered if she would normally behave like this if she weren’t so drunk. Of
course, I was in no position to judge. I’d done far worse when inebriated. When
I looked to Fred again, I saw she was leading Nora toward the door, so I went
to her.

“We're going to leave. Things are getting a little
hairy in here,” she told me, not meeting my eyes. She was pretending to be
fine, but I could tell that Dorotea’s insult had hurt her feelings.

I brought my hand to her cheek and stroked down
toward her neck, pleading, “Don't go. If anyone should be leaving, it's her.”

She glanced up at me and swallowed, her voice quiet
as she said, “I'm wrecked anyway. I want to go to bed. We'll talk soon, though,
okay?”

My eyes flickered back and forth between hers. I
wanted to convince her to stay, but I could tell she’d made up her mind. Still,
I needed her to understand that Dorotea’s insults were untrue, that they were
the product of jealousy and nothing more. I needed her to know that to me she was
beautiful in every way.

“We will,” I finally told her, brushing my lips over
hers. “And you're not fat. You're perfect.”

She gazed at me, but there was a wall behind her
eyes, so I couldn’t tell whether or not my words had penetrated. And then she
and Nora left. I sighed and turned back to the others. Dorotea was still
standing with her arms folded, and Phil was hovering by the karaoke machine, a
guilty look on his face. He had, after all, been the one to instigate all this.
Looking around the apartment, I noticed the place was a mess, but I was in no
mood to start cleaning yet. Instead, I abruptly announced that I was going to
bed and closed myself inside my room.

July
24
^th
, 2012.

Soundtrack: “Growing on Me” by The
Darkness

In the days following my party, things
went back to normal between me and Fred, yet at the same time our relationship
had irrevocably changed. Where once there was distance, now there was none.
Don’t get me wrong — it wasn’t because we were shagging like rabbits or
anything. I wouldn’t dream of depriving you pretty little perverts of all the
details in
that
department. Something had shifted, though. A closeness
had developed, a gap had been bridged between our souls, a link solidified.

Whenever I was home, Fred
would call in, and we’d hang out. Or I’d call into her place. We’d go for
coffee together, have lunch, shop. A comfortable companionship was being
formed; however, the sexual tension was constantly there, forever lingering
beneath the surface.

Today she had a special
order of cupcakes to make for a children’s birthday party and had roped me into
helping her. I was more than happy to do it, because I loved watching her when
she was focused. Women were often at their most beautiful when they were unaware
of being observed, and when Fred baked, she was too concentrated on the task to
be conscious of the fact that I was staring at her like a loon. And yes, I
might have surreptitiously pulled out my phone and snapped a picture. She was
utterly beautiful, a flush to her cheeks as she worked, tendrils of hair
falling from the bun she wore. My fingers itched to pull it loose.

We’d had a couple of
long conversations since my party that had opened my eyes to some things. One
was the reason why she was so antsy and reluctant to give in to my advances.
She’d had a boyfriend in the past named Aaron who’d made her wary of
relationships, because after they broke up, he’d started stalking her. This guy
had also recently shown up in her life again. In fact, we’d bumped into him
while out shopping the other day, and Fred had been fretting over whether or
not he was up to his old tricks.

His presence concerned
me, and I was seriously considering finding out where the fucker lived so I
could warn him off for good. While they were together, he’d been controlling
and unpredictable with Fred, and it had taken her a long time to cut him out of
her life. In essence, she was scarred and mistrustful when it came to men.

Suddenly, I felt like I
was seeing her clearly for the very first time. I could now understand why she
acted the way she did with me. It also made me feel fiercely protective. I
didn’t want her to have to go through anything like that again, and I’d go out
of my way to make sure the prick didn’t ever get to her.

I was careful not to
bring him up in conversation, because whenever I did, she got anxious. Her
reaction to just the mention of him made me feel like something needed to be
done, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

I was sitting on a stool
in her kitchen as she mixed orange cupcake frosting; she’d set me to work
placing paper cake holders into oven trays. Fred was wearing a royal blue top
with a sweetheart neckline that framed her tits to perfection. Needless to say,
I was quite happy with the scenery. She was too flustered trying to get
everything ready on time to notice my ogling, which was an added bonus.

“This is hazardous
work,” I said playfully. “A boy could give himself a paper cut. Am I going to
get danger pay?”

She raised one eyebrow
as she used a big spoon to stir. “You’re getting no pay, Viv. This is my reward
for going shopping with you the other day. I’ve never known a straight man who
enjoyed fashion as much as you. I’ve got blisters on my feet and everything.”

I chuckled and reached
out to dip two fingers in the frosting she was stirring. Then I deviously
brought them to my mouth as she watched, forming a “V” as I licked it away, my
eyes levelled on her all the while. Her breath hitched, and I saw a tiny hint
of red colour her cheeks as she studiously avoided my gaze. She knew exactly
what I was imitating, and I hoped it made her think naughty thoughts.

I wanted her to imagine
my lips and tongue between her legs, licking her just like I was licking the
frosting, the scratch of my stubble on her inner thigh.

Loudly, she cleared her
throat and gave me a reprimanding look. “Stop eating that. I’ve got to make
thirty cupcakes before lunchtime, and I don’t want to run out.”

“I can’t help it,
Freda. Your frosting is delicious. I could eat it all day long.”

She shook her head at
me. “Mm-hmm.”

Giving her a dark,
challenging smirk, I brazenly reached out and dipped my fingers into the bowl
again. This time when I licked it away, I made sure to add an unmistakably
sexual groan of appreciation.

Her chest began to rise
and fall swiftly as she breathed, and I knew my behaviour was having the
desired effect.

“You’re such a fucking
tease,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

My smirk deepened. “Did
you just call me a tease?”

She sighed and put down
the bowl, walking to the fridge and pulling out a cold bottle of water. She
held it to her cheek for a second before unscrewing the cap and taking a long,
hard gulp, then wiped her mouth clean with the back of her hand.

“You know you are, so
quit being coy,” she finally answered quietly.

“Coy?
Moi?
I
think you need to explain yourself, Miss Wilson.”