Charlie J Forrest

The sun slams down on the maze of bright orange tiles. Below in the walkways tourists flit from shadowy alley to shadowy alley across scattered squares and exposed bridges. The great antique city buzzes with the all consuming pestilence of tourism, but up here, up on the roofs, all is calm. There is only the sun, and the tiles, and Andrea. He paces along the ridge of the roof, the heat filtering through the thin soles of his climbing shoes. He stops at his mark, the tile with the little symbol scratched into it. 3rd floor, left, ten meters of rope.

He ties the rope off to the rickety chimney and lets the rest of the length slide down the roof and drop out of sight.

He moves to straddle the rope and lowers himself, bracing his weight as he goes, stepping down onto his shins, and shuffling backwards until his feet flex into free air. Then it’s just another shuffle and a sickening pivot backwards as he trusts himself completely to the rope in his hands.

The weight of his backpack always comes as a surprise, but he doesn’t let it get the better of him, not this time at least.

The window is where his mark said it was, the green wooden shutters flung back and the casement wide open. He pushes off from the wall, swinging around the open part of the window and planting his feet on the bleached stone of the lintel.

The room is dark. He steps down from the window and glides across to the cupboard. The safe is there, closed and locked.

Perfect.

He puts the bag onto the floor, tugging it open and sliding his hands inside. Grunting with exertion, he pulls out an identical safe, well, nearly identical. He has to be careful how he holds it in order to keep the door from falling open. The rest of the process takes maybe a minute, lifting the original safe from the cupboard to the rucksack, positioning its doppelganger in the cupboard and turning to head back the way he came.

There is a click, like someone snapping a pair of metal fingers.

“That, is quite far enough Andrea.”

“Fancullo!” he says.

The woman laughs.

“I’m sorry, perhaps you prefer your professional name, Il Toscanno, yes?”

He grunts, turning to face the shadows where the voice is coming from, but not putting down the bag.

“Tell me,” she continues, “how long exactly did you think you could carry on your little racket without attracting attention from those higher up?”

“Hey, this isn’t Naples, there’s no Cosa Nostra here!”

“This is Italy, there is always someone. Look at the Gondoliers, do you think they get that job easily? Or the apprentices in Murano? There is always a piper to be paid, be it family, or government, or the man who cuts holes in hotel wardrobes so you can’t screw down the safe.”

Fuck!

The fact she knows his name, where to find him, and exactly how he runs his business is enough to guarantee that the click he’d heard is not just a novelty lighter.

“What do you want?”

“Surely the question is what do my superiors want?”

“Stronzo! If they knew about me I’d be dead. What do you want?”

In the darkness he can see the faint glimmer of her smile.

“I want your babies.”

“Well hey, sorry, but I don’t fuck too good with a gun at my head.”

“Oh I’m sure I can find a way around that. Now, turn around.”

He turns, keeping his hands by his side. Her movements behind him are quiet, slow. He feels a hand sliding around his wrist, a bright staccato series of ‘clicks and the cool touch of handcuffs. She pulls his hands toward each other into the small of his back, repeating the procedure on his free hand. Her touch snakes up his back, fingernails tracing rivulets of sensation through his shirt. Then, fingers splayed, she pushes him, suddenly, sharply and his body thumps into the wall.

She presses herself up against him, her breasts to his back, his restrained hands touching her belly. Hands snake around his waist, unfastening his belt and plucking away at the buttons of his fly. She jerks his trousers down to mid-thigh, eliciting a grunt of faux rage and arousal from him. For a moment her hands glide over the swelling form of his cock, only to disappear again.

There’s a rustling sound, followed by the squeak and snap of something plastic, the sounds of caps being unscrewed and screwed.

“Are you ready?” she says, reaching back around him. Except this time, instead of her hand he just feels the harsh touch of the lip of a beaker against his cock. Then it happens.

At first the fingers slide casually over his buttocks, dancing from one to the other, then working their way towards the centre, dry fingers prying apart his buttocks, probing deeper and deeper. Then he feels a digit, cold and slimy, against his ring, rubbing in little circles, but pressing firmly against him, demanding entrance.

“Wha…?” he says.

She pushes harder and he opens to her touch with a gasp. Her lubricated finger shoving its way into position, keen to make up for lost time. He gasps again as she reaches his lump, rubbing it in slow, firm circles. The sensation is like suddenly discovering a bowling ball deep inside his abdomen, tight and, if not painful, certainly unexpected. Yet despite this, he feels his cock hardening, the underside brushing against the beaker as it twitches back and forth. She continues her firm little rubs, teasing his most hidden place, until he feels hot runny spunk trickling out of the end of his cock.

As if sensing his disappointment, the hand the holds the beaker moves, keeping the plastic in place, but reaching up to stroke a few fingers back and forth along the underside of his cock. This draws more gasps from him and, as she quickens her pace within and without, he is soon grunting and twitching as he fills the beaker with jet after jet of spunk.

She pulls away and he listens to the sound of the gloves being peeled off, the clink of the keys in the handcuffs, the moment the second steel band releases he moves.

He ducks, rolls, grabbing the bag with the safe, diving for the window, one hand around the safe, the other yanking up his trousers. In a moment he’s gone, with only the splash of water far below to suggest he was ever here.

Well, that and the little memento she’s collected. She screws on the lid and then slides the pot into her bra, to keep it nice and warm, ready for the buyer.