Gezza came out onto the broken sidewalks of the apartment block where Riley lived, and the afternoon sun was burning thick jagged lines on the street.
The late afternoon sun. The call of Elena, the shake in her voice, her talk of Mike--it was the flame of his paranoia that it threw into fire.
His stomach was turning, the price of the Playbook gouging him, yet the terror of his harem being taken led him on.
The bungalow of Elena was only half a block away, and the drying paint and the wavering light of the porch were all too familiar.
He would meet her, investigate her, discover what she had told Mike.
The heat of the Playbook pierced: Control her. His heart beat was high, his fingers gripped his pack straps, and the book was pulling his questions
The city was so quiet, with so much cut grass and exhaust in the air.
Gezza was left turning what was in his mind--did Elena know of the Playbook--no one knew--but her call, her hesitation was not the right one.
He imagined Elena in the hotel room with her ponytail all messed up and her body ready with the lust he had given her. In case she was falling down, he would tighten the chains.
He went by his mom house and paused at the door of Elena.
The sound of his knock on her door was painful to the stillness. Elena opened it, her yoga all over her voluptuous hips, her tank top a bit out of place, her loose strands of ponytail floating around her face--she never looks messy otherwise.
"Gezza", she said, in her soft voice, which was touched with the coziness of the spell but bordered on something--nervousness, perhaps, uncertainty. "Didn't expect you."
She moved aside and admitted him, and her perfume of jasmine felt like a blow to him.
The home room was also in disarray with a yoga mat surprisingly rolled up in the corner and a half-empty coffee cup on the table.
Gezza placed his backpack aside and the glow of the Playbook thumped through the cloth lightly stinging his thigh.
There was a tightening of his jaws that he turned to the face of Elena.
He could not enquire about the book-- she knew nothing about it--but she could be pretending.
"What did you say to Mike?" his voice low he said, the Playbook charismaticing his paranoia. "You said you saw him at the bar. What's he saying?"
And then the eyes of Elena went round, and her fingers twitched where she stood, and the gleam in her eyes flickered like a broken bulb. "Just... he was upset", she said, " kept going on about you and how you might have possessed. Didn't say much else."
Touching him on the arm she came nearer, "I believe his just jealous. the infusion of lust that makes her feel hungry. Gezza's heart raced.
"What else?" he insisted, straining, and his voice was more piercing, make-a-guessing of the book. "say anything about me, about... what I do?"
Elena twitched, swingly hair, wavering eyes. No, and just, said you names of stuff, I said, her voice quaking, too fast. "You know Mike, always angry."
Her hand grabbed tighter to his arm, the spell struggling to retain her but the flicker became, a spark of defiance, as in the shower, like Riley herself, like something striving to escape.
And Gezza sank in the stomach, Mike screaming: She was right.
It was enough that her eyes, her hesitation, the manner in which she pronounced the name of Mike.
She did not even name the book, but something was wrong.
"I got to deal with something", he said to himself self, and I turned and scuffled with my sneakers on the floor.
The hand of Elena lingered, and her eyes were glittering and clouded that doubtful spark. "Just a minute, Gezza," she said, softly. He had his backpack in his hand "Not now.. "
His self-satisfaction at having smashed Mike was dust now, his paranoia a live wire. was Elena slipping,? and had she spoken to Mike, his empire was gone. Before fully built
---
As the neon light of the motel buzzed in the dusk, Gezza crept along towards it, past whose light in the broken parking lot his red flashes flicked as on a deathbed.
The motel was a low, dirty edifice, with walls blotched with years of slobbery, the ambiance heavy with tobacco smoke and foaming at the mouth liquor. Gezza had written to Elena to meet him here that he had to talk.
But desire to punish her, fuck her until she was infused with lust.
He got himself into a room and the bored eyes of the clerk hardly raised their eyes off her phone. It was a nasty room--peeling papering, a wilted bed, under the sheep, and a single lamp which fell unmercifully.
Gezza dropped his pack, he moved back and forth, his toes clumsily treading his worn carpet and his head was swirling.
The words of Mike were reverberating--The reluctance of Elena story, her speedy rejection of Mike, it was not sufficient to snap the spell, but it was sufficient to get him questioning.
He would provoke her, gauge her responses and in case she displayed any fault, he would apply the power of the book in order to squash it.
His phone rang--a message by Elena: Here. His cock was twitched with desire to take in control of her and fear.
He would tie her down, she would never waiver, she would never say another word to Mike.
The neon light continued buzzing, oozing through the thin curtains, providing red lines running through the room.
Gezza shivered and then the fingers twitched, and he held the Playbook in his itching fingers and waited to write her name again. Should I do it? He stared blanked at the playbook.
He was brought to his senses by the sound of a knock at the door. His breath snapped and Gezza was wire-walking paranoid. Elena was here.