Hell Is Other People by Danielle Bellwood (books under 200 pages .txt) 📕

head and pulling the round O in its center toward her lips, lining up their mouth holes so that the toxin could ooze through her pores, arcing wildly through her circulatory system and straight to her rapidly beating heart.”

“Gross,” Arlo said softly.

Phil paused in his writing to cock his head critically at the uncomfortable and unnatural pose that poor Arlo and Gillian were holding for his “inspiration.”

“Black, describe Frost to me. What would you say are her best features? What attracts you the most to her?”

“Ummm…” Arlo stuttered. He felt suddenly very hot. This whole thing was a lot easier if he didn’t think about how the gorgeous woman lying prone beneath him on the bed looked.

“You promised to cooperate,” Phil reminded him. “I need inspiration. Quid pro quo, Black.”

“Okay,” Arlo said.

Arlo glanced down at Gillian’s snarling face. Even curled up in annoyance like that, her lips were still so kissable. Her face still perfect like a carving from alabaster even with the angry red color high on her cheeks, or maybe because of it.

“I guess… the way her skin catches the light,” he said. “It’s like it glows.”

The snarl melted off Gillian’s face to be replaced by a suspicious look. Slightly less hostile, still not approachable.

“And the way the little lines at the corners of her eyes only show up when she smiles, which she doesn’t do very often. But when she does, it makes her look more alive somehow. More real. Like most of the time she’s this unreal porcelain goddess…”

Gillian snorted a laugh.

“No really,” Arlo said, looking into her eyes. The dark brown had golden flecks he noticed for the first time, now that he was close enough to them to really see the depth of color. “It’s like no way that’s a real girl. That’s like some artist’s fantastical ideal of the perfect female form, you know? Like one of those old Greek sculptors made a real woman from cold, hard marble…” he was speaking directly to her now. “But when you smile… Wow… you come alive.”

Arlo stopped talking. He just stared into her eyes. The not brown eyes. The dark roast coffee with bands of ochre and flecks of pure gold eyes.

“Ahem…” Phil said, clearing his throat.

Arlo’s concentration broke and he chuckled nervously, his chest shaking slightly with the sound. Gillian rolled her eyes and let out a huff.

“That’s very helpful,” Phil said, scribbling away on his notepad. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Arlo mumbled.

“What about you, Frost?” Phil pointed his pencil at Gillian. “Gun to your head. What attributes does young master Black possess that one might label as positive?”

Arlo laughed nervously.

“Well not that, obviously,” Gillian said.

Arlo made a concerted effort to bite off the laugh, the silence left behind sounding nearly as awkward.

“I suppose…” Gillian said, squinting slightly as she looked at Arlo’s face, eyes running quickly over his features and hair. “He’s handsome in a Joe America kind of way.”

“Expound,” Phil said.

“Well, his nose is exactly what you’d think of as the perfect shape of a nose.”

“Ah, hold it right there,” Phil said excitedly. He scribbled on his pad. “The vixen curled the length of her prehensile tongue around the sharp protrusion of the knight’s nasal appendage. The jagged edge cutting cruelly against the underside of her tongue aroused her further. In her excitement she quivered, her royal jelly gathering on her pores casting prismatic rainbows across every surface of the tiny space steaming with their lovemaking.”

“I think I might puke,” Gillian said.

“Everyone’s a critic,” Phil grumbled as he wrote. “Any other positive traits readily apparent?”

“Not if you’re going to turn them into urp-worthy gagfests,” she said.

Arlo laughed at her choice of idioms. The sound was surprisingly pleasant, not like his usual forced nervous chuckle. The natural sound made Gillian smile in response and Arlo’s heart beat faster as the tiny lines appeared at the corners of her eyes.

“I’m sure someone would say he was charming, in a still moldable kind of way, like clay that you could shape into an ideal man,” Gillian said, “Not that he’s there yet by any means, but that he seems open to self-improvement.”

Arlo nodded enthusiastically. Yes, he was that. Definitely.

“And he…” she paused, and Arlo was shocked to see her flush slightly as though she was… embarrassed? Was it even possible?

“Yes, Frost?” Phil said. “Continue.”

“He smells nice,” she said quickly. Yes, she was definitely blushing now, Arlo could see. “Like a campfire or a sunset or something. Warm. Relaxing.”

“Hmmm…” Phil chewed on the end of his pencil for a second before writing as he said, “His musk aroused her basest, most animalistic desires…”

“I did not say musk,” Gillian objected.

“Riding his steed in the hot Venutian rains all day left an odor of the great outdoors on his moist skin,” Phil said, pen scratching against the lined pages of his notepad. “The vixen purred ‘My Knight, you make me want to lick the toxin off every square particle of your being. I want to bathe in your sultry sweet sweat and bottle your essence so that I can pour it in my every orifice for days and evenings to come-”

“Okay, that’s it,” Gillian said, shoving Arlo off of her. He wasn’t prepared for the movement and his exhausted arms wobbled, wholly failing to prevent him from falling right off the side of the bed and crashing to the floorboards beside her. “I’m done.” Gillian stepped over Arlo as she walked out of the bedroom.

“You’re not done until I say you’re done,” Phil said from behind her. He stood beside the arm chair, glaring angrily at her. “We had a deal.”

“Screw your deal,” Gillian said. “It was a bad deal anyway. Humiliate ourselves to get a better job? A nicer apartment?”

“I wouldn’t say humiliate…” Arlo said.

“I assure you, people do it every day,” Phil said. “In fact, it’s what steers the engine of capitalism. Lowering oneself…” He looked down at Arlo on the floor. “As it were, for a chance at more… stuff.”

Arlo scrambled up, and stood before