Blue Collar Gentleman

Their music is too loud.

The walls are paper-thin.

What were they thinking when they decided to build this townhouse complex... in the hood.

Those were her waking thoughts every morning. Closing her eyes tightly, Phoenix dreamed and prayed that she would wake up somewhere else. A place where silence was golden and conversations were not being overheard through drywall. This day, like most days, she had opened her brown eyes and huffed in anguish. Everything was the same. Nothing changed over the period of 6 hours that she had been asleep.

Can they shut that damn music off now...? It's seven in the morning, for Christ's sake.

Phoenix had been living with her sister for over a year and she still complained about the living situation. No matter how many times she would notify the apartment manager, there was nothing that they, nor, she could do about the infrastructure of the home. It was something that she hadn't been used to since she moved from Las Vegas to her hometown of St. Louis. At this point, She wasn't sure what was driving her crazier. A mixture of the apartment, the neighbors or her "mother hen" sister were to blame. She had moved in with her three years and two months older sister, Sydney, and her four kids. Phoenix had only planned to stay with her for a few months until she was able to get a place of her own. It had been a long time since Phoenix had been back home and even longer since she had lived with family.

Phoenix had traveled all over the US just to land back into the city that never slept. She wanted to avoid ever coming back to the place where nothing but death surrounded her growing up. Whether it was people she had knew as a child or dreams that they had, she knew that she had to get out of Illinois the first chance that she was given. After graduating from high school, she had the very opportunity to explore the world by enrolling into an HBCU down in New Orleans. Seeing various places throughout the US and meeting numerous people, Phoenix had then fallen in love with a dentist of a start-up clinic near her home in Pierre. After months of spending time with Benny, she had decided to take the next step and move in with him.

One evening, Phoenix was heading home from a long meeting at the dermatologist office when she had decided to pick her boyfriend of nine months up from his job. They would regularly finish up work around the same times so she decided to take her man out for dinner. She pulled into the parking spot of the clinic and noticed that one of the room's curtains were shuffling when there was no window open. Knowing what room the curtains were moving from, it didn't take long for Phoenix to go into the clinic to find Benny and his assistant putting on their clothes.

"Let me explain," Benny pleaded, holding his shirt and tie.

The assistant was looking for her shirt when Phoenix met the assistant's searching eyes with a right hook punch. Her face met Phoenix's rage as she fell, out cold, unto the office floor. Phoenix didn't want to hear the explanations that Benny had or that he had "loved" her. Phoenix got into her car, drove back to their studio apartment, packed and headed out of Pierre with no destination in mind. Allowing the road to take her places throughout the mid-west, she had decided to settle in Idaho. Before she could get her feet wet there, her mother had fallen ill and she headed back to St. Louis.

That was five years ago, yet, she was back to where her whole life had started. A year had passed and Phoenix was beginning to feel trapped. Stuck in the mundane, she counted the days until she was able to escape the city. Throwing her legs over her blow-up bed, she stretched her arms while cursing into the sky. Phoenix had thought about the time where she had thought she could have made a life in Vegas work. After her mother passed away, Phoenix had taken her portion of the life insurance policy and started to set up her life there. Unfortunately, she had lost her money while dating a con artist who had promised to "invest" her money in stock.

"Baby, you don't know how much we can make if we put half of your insurance money in this starting company," he said, pleading his case.

"Why not in other names like Google?" She asked.

"You're never gonna make money if everyone is buying from that same stock," He replied, "If it's just you who has that one stock, you reap all the benefits."

He was smooth which drew Phoenix's attention when they had met at the dry cleaners. He was retrieving his suit while she was getting her dress steamed when their eyes met. Their romance started off quickly and as quick as he came into her life; he went just as fast. She was now left with the decision to move back home, broke and broken-hearted.

"You know I have rules," Sydney said on the phone.

Phoenix was packing the last few items when her sister had video chatted her about the move.

"When don't you have rules?"

"Rule one: No parties."

"Uh, not in college anymore, sis."

"Doesn't mean you aren't done partying," her sister said.

"Oh my god."

"Rule two," Sydney yelled to make Phoenix jump, "Don't use the Lord's name in vain."

"Oh, good glorybeans," Phoenix twanged.

"Rule three..."

"Which is?"

"No fornicating with anyone."

Phoenix brought the phone to her face to look into her sister's eyes. Hoping that she was joking.

"Say what now?"

"No fornicating with anyone in this house."

She couldn't believe that her sister would make a rule that would metaphorically restrain her to a chair or possibly a bedroom with multiple locks. She couldn't show her anger for the rule nor showed that it bothered her. Sydney hadn't been in touch with her since their mother died and she knew why. Making rules was something she had done to cope, the very same that their mother has done when they were younger when feelings weren't expressed. It was apparent that Sydney aspired to be more like their mother, whereas, Phoenix just looked like their mother.

"You got it, sis. Now should I make sure that my chastity belt is polished?" Phoenix said sarcastically

"Very funny, but I'm serious."

"I know."

Home was always unsettling for Phoenix, so much that she had purposely taken the long way back to St.Louis. She felt a sense of peace when she was on the open road, nothing but land and her thoughts. She needed that calming energy before she would cross the border into Illinois. Once there, there was no turning back for her. This was the only option for the time being and she believed that it was the best one presented. Given the various options, It would have ultimately cost her more than she was willing to admit. Her wisdom of everything she had known to be right morally was all that she had left to carry her until her luck changed.

Phoenix snapped back to her reality of clothes and shoes scattered all over her room. Ranging from little tyke to a six-year-old, Sydney had given Phoenix the room where her nieces and nephew would come and get their clothes to wear for school. What had been a storage room, her family had started to make changes to the room for her arrival but stopped in the middle of the process. Her clothes and suitcase were in the corner of the small room and everything else she had brought over time in her travels were now gone.

Over the course of a year, Phoenix had started to pick herself up and had begun working the city. Still in her dermatology field, she was beginning to reestablish herself while finding herself at the bottom of the seniority totem pole. Being at the bottom, there weren't many work hours given out so she would find herself home more times than she liked. Working for little hours and even smaller pay, Phoenix woke up every day and took the long, scenic train ride downtown. A routine that was never without grunting or huffing while she got ready for work or hearing a command from Sydney.

How did I get here?

This particular morning, Phoenix heard her sister and the kids leave the house and she was alone. Finally. She turned on her sisters' bass speakers, changed her nieces' music station to one that she could dance to.

"Me... Can you focussss on me? Baby, can you focus... on me?"

H.E.R played out and Phoenix sang along while she started to clean the house. Whenever her sister left, Phoenix had a moment in the day where she could be free. Moments that were few in between, however, when it did occur, she took full advantage. Holding onto memories and feelings that had made her elated, Phoenix would wait for the moment where she could reembody that feeling again. Dancing naked throughout the house, singing, she didn't care about the neighbors or the thin walls. She was in a home that she had yet to go into herself. An imaginary home in which she would create anytime she was by herself.

She heard a knock on the door while she was dancing which made her jump. She wasn't expecting anyone to stop by the house.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Maintenance," a deep voice answered.

Her ears perked up and a low growl escaped her throat. She shook her head, trying to hit the imaginary water out of her ears. Her stomach started to bubble and her hands began to sweat.

No... Not this shit... c'mon...

There was something about a tone of voice that would send shock-waves throughout her body. The texture of the voice and how the person spoke would cause a different woman to emerge from inside her. A woman in which was a dark, mysterious, and sinister.

"Come in," she responded.

The door opened and she heard his footsteps making their way to the kitchen.

"Hi," he said.

Phoenix looked at the man, who was slightly taller than her. His six foot height had nothing on his football built frame. It looked like he might have kept up on the physical aspect of the sport over time, but she wasn't able to ask him his regimen. His rich, dark chocolate skin had left her drooling and without the ability to form words.

His goatee was neatly trimmed and his hair cut low but it was the speckles of gray that made her utter back, "Hello."

She had managed to tap into her manners when everything else she had been thinking was unable to come out.

"Yeah, I'm here to, uh, fix an issue."

She scanned him, noting his beautifully almond-shaped eyes and strong jawline. She felt the purring begin to get louder as she finished the last dish and directed him to where the issue was.

"The ceiling is leaking water," she mentioned.

"Yeah, I know, I'm working on fixing the valves," he said.

He had begun to turn on and off the faucets in the bathroom, hearing the puddles of water that were beginning to form on the floor. She watched him work, noticing how well he handled the tools needed for the task. He had bent over and she looked at the fullness of his tight ass. She felt her veins get warmer and heat had begun to come from her hands.

No... I'm good... I'm good.

Phoenix breathed in as he began to explain the issues that her bathroom was having. Each word he spoke, she felt herself slipping in and out of reality. She recalled moments in which she would find herself under a "spell" only to come back to deal with the consequences that occurred. She had learned how to control this feeling by intensive therapy and a weekend camping out in Death Valley, California. She learned all possible coping mechanism for situations like this but with each statement he said, she was losing the battle between modesty and animalistic impulse.

"So... Max, Right?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"Tell me, is there any way we can do something about the thinnest of the walls here?"

"Meaning?"

"I can hear everyone conversation... in other houses."

He chuckled, "Sadly, the only way to fix the walls is rebuilding the whole townhouse."

Phoenix saw his smile and shook her head.

Shouldn't have done that...

"Damnit. It's great to see where our tax dollars really go," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You know, not to us." He said, pointing to each other.

Phoenix laughed, "It's sad, but true. We rather spend money on material things than to invest in our own communities. If we invested in our people, we would get to a point where we wouldn't need a government and sure as hell, not their contractors."

He laughed harder, "True, so true."

Max and Phoenix had begun to talk about topics that she knew she couldn't talk to her sister about. Enlightening conversations about world religions, conspiracy theories, and astrology, She had never met a man that was like him. Engaging and thought-provoking, she was taken by surprise but it had intrigued her in ways how smart he was. He wasn't like the "hood" men that she had encountered once she had moved back home. His intelligence shown through by how articulate he was, causing Phoenix's blood to rush to various parts of her body that had been asleep. He finished up his task and started to gather his tools to head out.

"The plumber should be by here tomorrow," he said.

"Will you?" She asked curiously.

"Yeah. For a little bit."

They headed downstairs and as they hugged, Phoenix felt his manhood press against her leg. The thickness of it had caused her then subtle purrs to escape her lips.

"You like that?" He whispered in her ear.

No words could be formed but she had let out an "mmmm" hoping it would be enough of a reaction for him. She pushed him out the door once he had grazed her booty, falling behind it once it shut. Her body was now on fire and the throbbing had begun to echo in her ears. She needed to put a lid on the feeling, seal it, and throw it away. Her drive was on turbo and she wasn't in control of it. She had tried to explain it to past lovers, but this had been a deal breaker for many people that she had gotten a connection with. The insatiable craving that when it became unbearable would take human form. Many of the relationships that she had started with the same physical response only to end leaving nothing but regret.

Max was a different man than Phoenix was used to. He had gotten into her mind and stimulated it with conversations that were enriching. Shaking their heads in acknowledgment of the various truths that they together lived in and went by. Laughing at the foolery that they would both encounter throughout the day, Max was someone she had never experienced before. A species of men that she had believed were extinct. Max was indeed from the intellectual gentleman species. She wondered how he would fare against a part of herself that many ran from.

The day came and Phoenix had gotten ready for Max's short visit. She had taken the time to make sure that everything on her was right, all the way down to her winter legs becoming smooth summer ones. She came out of the shower and lit her rose-red candle, creating an ambiance that she was certain he had never been exposed to. Lighting an incense, she had begun to dance and whisper a silent prayer for the event that was going to occur. Prior, she had prayed that she would be able to stop what she was beginning with Max. She wanted to forget the whole thing, but, as she continued to spin under the smoke; desire had taken a hold of her. Phoenix had begun to summon her dark, sultry self. Unleashing the starving succubus within.

He knocked on the door and she was there to welcome him, wearing a black teddy lingerie piece. Max looked her up and down, admiring her attempt to have him see her body through the lace robe she was wearing.

"Close the door," she said to him.

He closed the door and started to talk about what his work day consisted of.

Small talk... cute.

"A few vacancies and moving a fridge."

"Wow," She said, appearing interested, "So. How much time do you have?"

He looked at his watch and said, "About thirty minutes."

There was no time to waste, she was already halfway to completing her task. Phoenix tried to push her modesty away as she hugged Max, feeling his energy against her body. The coldness that was coming off of his uniform only made her body feel hotter. More awaken. She started to kiss on his neck, playfully tonguing his earlobe and his nervous energy had evaporated with every soft moan he uttered. His hands had started to travel down the nape of her back, squeezing her ass, which was soft to his touch. Phoenix couldn't stop him or herself. Her fingers started to trail down towards his belt, unloosing his pants. He began to take off her robe, allowing it to fall to her feet.

Stop! Turn around! Stop! Turn around!

She couldn't turn around, the will to stop was weaker than to desire to continue. She wanted to listen to the whispers of morality over the loudness of her desires. The cries would fall on deaf ears as Phoenix had sunk within herself and allowed her sinister self to show face. It was too late to turn back and as she slowly removed Max's wedding band off his hand; he couldn't turn back either. Their fates were now... sealed.