GREEN
Tommy Luthor could kill that damn cat easy. His mouth would crack apart with a laugh to feel its small bones snap. Once, he twisted the P-trap off a fussy sink with his bare hands. Killing the cat would be easy.
"What are you up to with Hector?" Lizzy said.
Tommy looked at her standing there in the doorway before pouring Hector from his hands. Hot fur and sharp claws spilled. The little shit scampered away. Took all of three seconds before another crash. His lips shaped the words, but big teeth cluttered them up. Nothing ever came out right. It was supposed to be: Listen, I'm gonna kill that damn cat cause it pisses me. And killing it is gonna feel like banging the hottest high school bitch there is and having her beg for more. That's the sentence he wants to say, bumpy and long as a Baby Ruth, but his teeth clutter it up. "Nuthin." is what came out.
"Are you gonna fix the ceiling fan or not?" she asked.
"Flick the switch."
She flipped the switch twice. "It doesn't work.”
He stood in the middle of their bed, turning the ceiling fan with his hand. "Should."
"Well, it's not."
He squinted at the top of the fan. "White to white. Black to black. Ground to ground. Blue for the light. It's put together right."
Lizzy wiped her palm across her forehead. "I know someone we can call." Her nipples darkened against her thin dress as she sucked in a breath.
"You're not doing the switch right." He stepped off the bed. The floor creaked. "Move." he said, shoving pliers and a screwdriver into the back pocket of his jeans.
She stepped back and crossed her arms. Her exhale slow and loud.
He flipped the switch five times.
"Well," she said.
"It should work." He flipped the switch again.
"It doesn't. It's hot."
"Maybe the switch here's bad." He pulled the screwdriver out and unscrewed the light switch panel.
"You shouldn't have tried to do it yourself." she said. "You should've called my friend. He already said he'd come over."
"You want to do this?" He held the screwdriver out to her. "Want to?"
A little huff of despair. "I'm just hot is all."
"We're all hot. You're not the only one's hot."
She sat on the edge of the bed, scrunched her toes in the balding carpet. A crash somewhere else in the house. "Damn cat." he said. He pulled the lightswitch panel off and poked the screwdriver at the wires in the back. She picked up a screw off the bed and pretended to drill it into her knee.
She stared at his hairy belly while he pulled up his shirt and wiped the sweat from his face. "Want a towel?" she asked.
"Maybe some tea. Tea sounds good."
Lizzy blew down the front of her dress. "It's too hot to make tea." She looked at her breasts. "Maybe I should call my friend, Rupert. He's a professional electrician."
In high school, he had once ripped a low-hanging gutter off the side of a house and threatened an older bully with it. That reputation had followed him everywhere. No one fucked with Tommy Luthor. No one but Lizzy. He remembered standing there in that alleyway, swinging around eight feet of rusted gutter, yelling "Bring it on. Bring it on. Bring it on." That fucker's name could have been Rupert too. Rupert sounded like some slim, candy bar of a fellow. He'd chew him up. She must know that. "I can fix this." he said. "Besides, electricians don't come to this part of town. No money here." With the screwdriver, he scratched at the clot of black hair that sprouted from under the rim of his underwear. "They're upper class as far as I'm concerned."
Along with sharp elbows, her ankles were ugly and fat. Not sweatpants fat, but they jiggled a little in her flip-flops. Tommy pictured her stepping on an apple, twisting that foot around enough that her toes turned cold and purple. Besides the ankles, Lizzy was all hot sex and cigarette smoke. Always had been. Tommy stared at Lizzy's parted and moist mouth. He thought about the last time she took him in there, how he had grabbed her hair and made her his, her leaked out moan so deep it vibrated his balls. Her little belly quivered when she got it on, like a roll of cottage cheese on a pickup's dash. That space at the base of her throat tasted like salt and Marlboros. Tasting it made a weak noise wiggle from his throat.
She leaned forward, swinging her breasts against the fabric of her dress. "I'm sure he'd come if I asked him to."
"No need." He tightened all the screws till the plastic panel creaked and threatened to crack. He put the screwdriver back into his pocket. "I know what it is."
"Oh yeah?"
"It's the polarity." He climbed onto the bed. "I got the polarity screwed."
When he stood on the bed, the screws rolled into a metal puddle by his feet. She picked one up. "Hey, wanna screw?" She held it up for him to see.
Tommy looked at her, at the sweat glistening between her tits, at her toes bunched in the carpet. God, she was so fucking hot. His chin trembled just a little when he imagined Rupert's hands in Lizzy's hair, her pulling up and wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. "You want I should fix this or not?" he asked.
She threw the screw at him and walked out of the room. He shook his head and turned the fan blades with his fingers. Another crash from that piece of shit Hector. He jabbed the screwdriver through the drywall and put his hand on the ceiling to steady himself. He could kill that damn cat easy.