Page 9 of Sweet Thing

“About Emily…”

“Oh,” Simeon took a breath, “I’m terrified of her.”

“Good, you should be. The last man who lifted a hand to hurt me only has one ball now!”

“Noh! Are you serious?” Simeon’s eyes met Pieter’s as he nodded.

“Fuck” Simeon gulped a swallow.

“He was someone you know. He went nuts. She saved my life. She broke his cock, too. I actually didn’t know it was possible to break a man’s cock, but… The fucker deserved it and more!”

“Oh, my gaaah'd, Pieter. What they hell have I missed?” Simeon’s old gossip queen persona was desperate for the scoop.

Pieter had missed Sim. He leaned over and whispered the name Darien Hollgoode in Sim’s ear. Simeon jerked away at hearing it, as if he’d been burned.

“That asshole tried to hurt you? Fuck Peety, I’m so sorry.” Darien was an art director who Sim had once shared a very unsatisfying tryst with after a shoot in New York. He shuddered at the memory.

“You missed a lot. Everything has changed in my life in the past few years Sim. I’m not going into details. I don’t want to relive some of it.” Pieter was silent for a moment and then asked “And what of you? Are you really off the booze and pills?”

“Oh hell yeah! I’ve been clean for like, a year. I was so unwell. Peety, what I did to you—I didn’t mean it. That wasn’t the real me; you know that don’t you? You tried to help me when I was going off the rails, and I was a little shit to you. I truly am sorry. I can’t ever drink again; I can’t risk going back to being that crazy,” Simeon replied earnestly. “But, just so you are aware, I’m still a slut,” he added, offering a smirk and a flirty wink.

“Ah Sim, you will always be a cock slut!” Pieter sighed fondly. They both laughed and shouldered one another, just like old times.

Pieter heard his name being called and turned to see Gretchen and Lena standing near the far wall with the painting of Max Dimitri behind them.

Make-up artist Gretchen Steiner was in her fifties. She‘d been a punk in the nineteen-seventies and a goth in the eighties. That rebellious streak never died. Gretchen had a heart-shaped face with fine, characterful wrinkles, rouge painted thin lips, and she sported an edgy dyed black bob haircut with a slanted fringe. Her partner, Lena, had been by her side for over twenty years. Lena wore her chestnut hair in a short cropped style; she had a round face, and green rectangular spectacles sat over shrewd eyes.

Simeon followed Pieter’s gaze, and his face froze when he saw the women. Their eyes narrowed at seeing who Pieter was laughing and jostling with.

“Do they still hate me?” Simeon murmured.

“Yeah, they do. But I gave you a second chance; I want us all to be friends again. Let me go talk to them first, ja?”

Simeon turned away from the hateful glares as Pieter moved off toward the women. He knocked back the last of his apple juice and wended his way through the crowd to the drinks table for a refill.

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