Sticky Fingers

Just for the record, okay? When I went to Owney's vacant Warrendale house, it was not to meet a total stranger for sex.

I went there because the security company reported an alarm. Turned out to be legit, I found when I got there. Somebody had busted up the rear storm door pretty good, then fled.

I studied the mess, made a mental list of repair parts to buy, then hoofed through the deep snow around the side of the house toward the street, idly eyeing a trail of fresh footprints. At the curb, behind my blue salt-encrusted '71 Mustang, now sat a shiny maroon Mercury Mersa. Out popped a short slight blond woman wearing a black leather coat, gray dress slacks, and soft furry calf-high boots. "Excuse me," she called, breath clouding the frozen air as she came around the front of her car. "Do you live here?"

"No, ma'am. It's empty. Can I help you?"

She took off a glove and, striding toward me with a smile, extended her bare hand. "Sky Williams." We shook, her long slender fingers warm in my big cold mitt. "And you are?"

"Ben Perkins."

"A pleasure." She was maybe my age, pale complected, compact. High cheekbones, full lips, fine gray eyes that stayed locked on mine. First take: money, brains, and a heaping helping of intensity. "Are you some sort of utility man?"

I was wearing my Detroit Tigers ball cap, navy peacoat, jeans, and high topped work shoes. What tipped her off? "Caretaker. For the owner."

"Oh, perfect." She was right up on me now. So close that, even in the frigid air, I could smell her warm fruity scents. Sexy black sunglasses were pushed back on her head, holding down her short, coarse, blond hair. "I'd really like to take a look around."

"You could call the agent," I said, gesturing at the red Bullet Realty sign leaning in the snow.

"Oh, no no no. I don't want to buy it," she said. Her speech was rapid, tone flutey. Her hair had white streaks in it but no other adornment: thick and whacked off around her slender pretty neck. "This is going to sound silly. Please don't laugh."

"I won't," I promised, smiling back. Quite the cutie, I decided, though the tiniest little thing.

"I grew up in this house," she said. "I'd like to pop inside, look around, reminisce a little. Could you let me in?"

"Sure," I said. "Tell you what. I got a chore to run. But if you sit tight till I get back–"

"Or," she countered, "you could unlock the door, and I'll do my sentimental journey while you run your errands."

I almost agreed. Came so close. If I had, things would have turned out way different. Did I answer the way I did out of duty? Nope. Did I smell in her story a big fat rat? Uh-uh. Fact is, I was drawn to her. I wanted inside with her. All because of her smile, the way she looked at me, her cool, pale, chiseled beauty, the closeness with which she stood, the undeniable pull.

"Oh, what the hell," I said. "Let's go do it."

Little did I know.

---

The nondescript wood frame ranch had a black roof, white siding, gray brick facing, and an alarm system keypad by the front door. Blocking Sky Williams's view without making a big deal of it, I mashed out the security code, sorted through my key bunch, and let us in. The place had sat empty for a year or more, and smelled it. According to Owney Busbee the house had, since last lived in, been flipped several times. Then it foreclosed and was auctioned off with a package of properties that he'd picked up for what, at that point, seemed like a song. Now, during these dismal dark Detroit depressed days, it sat available and ignored like 65,781 others. Values kept sinking, Owney's costs kept rising. Tax expense, maintenance fees, and–just his luck–even bigger bucks to fix the main bathroom plumbing that had just went to shit. Now I'd be nicking Owney a C-note and change for storm door repairs, further displeasing the big guy.

Unbuttoning her coat, Sky Williams led me on a guided tour: living room, kitchen, and down the hallway, which was cluttered with tools, boxes, pipes, and fixtures from the half-done bathroom repair. She prattled on about siblings and Christmases and family dinners and evenings in front of the TV. In the back bedroom she stopped and faced me, smiling. "This was mine."

"Nice." The twelve by fifteen bedroom was half again as big as the Bennett Street cubby I'd shared with big brother Bill. It was empty, echoing, a riot of neutral colors from ceiling to carpet.

Still smiling, Sky stepped closer, tapped my chest gently with her thumb. "It's where I lost my virginity," she whispered. As our eyes locked, she stretched up on tip-toes to kiss me. Not soft, not sweet, all do me now.

Before I knew it we hit the berber. Sky kicked off her boots and shimmied out of her pants. I shucked my peacoat and got my belt undone. By then she was mounting me, smile now feral, gray eyes flashing, breathing hard. She helped wrestle my jeans and skivvies down just far enough, straddled me, tugged her pale pink panties aside. Gripping her hips, with a single smooth move I coupled us.

It was a fast fierce hot piece of work, silent save for thrusts and gasps that echoed in the empty house. At the end Sky gave an arch-backed gasp-cry, fingernails lancing into my shoulders, and clutched herself to me as I ended. Rolling us onto our sides, I felt the cold air of the house creeping up my back, and the even chillier murmur of my conscience.

Sky, face pressed against my neck, whispered, "My heart's beating so fast."

I took a deep breath, thinking exit strategy. "You know what, we'd better–"

A hard clatter-bang sound from somewhere close. The front door, scraping open. Then a voice. Male.

"Shit," I said. Scrambling to my feet, I swung the bedroom door just to the jamb. Quickly we dressed. Footsteps, two sets, wandered the other end of the house. Sky gave the occasional compressed giggle as she put herself together. The male voice, indistinct but now familiar, sounded from the hallway. Sky was just hand-combing her blond hair into place when the door swung open. There stood squat, broad-shouldered Owney Busbee, flat face pale, small eyes squinty with suspicion but otherwise dead-pan as he stared at us. Behind him was a middle-aged woman I did not know.

Sky bent to pick up her sunglasses off the floor.

Behind Owney, the woman's mouth went to a big O.

"Hey y'all," I said, trying to grin.