Right in a Bad Way

Chapter Two: Decorating Schemes





This is a classy neighborhood, Jounouchi thought to himself as he followed Mai up to her building. Not that he had expected anything else—this was Mai after all. With a bow and a murmured greeting, the doorman held open the heavy glass door for them. He found himself feeling a little self-conscious in the polished and marbled lobby, but Mai strode to the elevator, tossing a reply and a smile to the doorman over her shoulder, and Jou had to keep up. The elevator operator didn’t need to be told what button to push and evidently he and Mai knew each other, as they made small talk all the way up to the twentieth floor.



This gave Jounouchi time to get a handle on himself. Not only was this place much fancier than anything he was used to (the small hole in his jeans seemed huge right about now), but the excitable, teenaged-boy part of his brain (the part in his pants) seemed to have latched on to the idea that he was going to be with Mai in her apartment—alone. The fact that Yuugi, Honda and Anzu would be along in an hour didn’t even seem to be helping matters. Why was his head connected to his dick for some things and not for others? Damn it—this was going to end badly.



When she opened the door to her apartment and turned on the light, he was struck by hues of green. The leather sofa, the glass lampshades, and the shaggy rug, all dark green. The floor was black tile, the bookshelf, coffee table and entertainment center the same color. The walls were a slightly minty-green and in the right-hand corner, where living room faded to kitchen, there was a burst of red-orange. As he looked at the rooms around him, it seemed that he should be appalled, yet what had been done had been done with style and deliberation. The overall effect was . . . trendy—the kind of thing you saw in magazines but would never do to your own home. It was clean, but not meticulously so. A pile of magazines sat lopsided on the coffee table, the one on top open. A pair of obviously expensive shoes lay on the ground near the couch and, on the lamp table, there was an empty wineglass and an open box of crackers.



“Sorry,” she said, “I haven’t been home in a month and a half, so things are a little dusty.”



He made a noise of acknowledgement as his reply and followed her into the apartment.



“Would you like something to drink?” She crossed to the refrigerator. “I have milk—it’s probably bad, orange juice, Pepsi, and vodka.”



He smiled at her selection. “Pepsi.”



She opened a cabinet to reveal rows of red-orange wine glasses like the one sitting on the lamp table.



“Wow.”



Mai smiled. “I know; they’re the only cups I have.”



She opened the can of Pepsi and split it evenly between the two glasses, handing one of them to him.



They sipped their drinks in silence. Man did the conversation die when we found out we needed to come here, Jou thought. While his head couldn’t think of anything to say, his eyes occupied themselves by running up and down her legs.



She finished her drink. “Well, I’m going downstairs to pick up my mail and tell the doorman I’m expecting company.”



“Would it be alright if I used your bathroom?”



“Sure,” she gestured towards the closed door right where the kitchen and living room met, “it’s just through the bedroom.”



Jou put his empty wine glass in the sink as she left and moved to the door she had indicated. When he turned the knob, he stopped still. He even turned around to glance at the rooms behind him to be sure, but they were as he remembered. There was no way they and the bedroom could have come from the same person. The floors were wood and walls faded white. The room was dominated by two large pieces of furniture, the bed and a huge chest of drawers. The bed was old fashioned and Western, with a canopy and many messed covers. The curtains on the French doors leading out to the balcony were the same lightweight white muslin as the canopy on the bed, and they barely covered the windows. There was nothing frilly, but everything was feminine. White and wood and light made the whole room, save a small shell-pink lamp on the night table. The kitchen and living room were about boldness and intensity, this room was about leisure and tranquility.



A door to a walk-in closet next to the drawers was open to reveal mounds of designer shoes and clothes, so it was clearly not the door to the bathroom. That meant it was the other door. Whatever the decorating schemes of the rest of the apartment, they could not have prepared him for what he saw in the bathroom.



Lingerie. It was everywhere—hanging from the shower curtain rod, the towel rods, the shower head and tub faucet, the corners of the mirror, the cabinet doors, the hook on the ceiling meant for hanging plants. There wasn’t a particular theme, either. Some were lacy, some silky; some were simply form-fitting nightgowns, some were mere scraps of fabric; some were white or innocent pink, some were red or black.



He felt himself go from mildly aroused to rock hard in only a few seconds. Damn it. She was going to be back in a few minutes; he wouldn’t be able to hide this. He gritted his teeth and walked to the toilet to do what he came to do, doing his best to think about anything but sex. This proved difficult, however, because above the toilet, right at his eye-level, was a crotch-less, black, corseted teddy.



He had to get the hell out of there—now. He fumbled frantically with his zipper and pinched the skin of one of his fingers. Cursing and growling, he turned on the faucet in the sink and ran his injured hand under the water. He reached for a hand towel from the towel bar and came away with a pair of white, lacy boy-shorts.



He froze. A pair of Mai’s underwear was in his hands; he was touching something which had touched her most intimate places. An odd wave of possessiveness washed over him. Now that he held the panties, he didn’t want to put them down. He found himself rubbing them against the skin of his hands. He told himself that it was just a substitute for a towel, but he knew what he was doing and why.



Through his lust-filled haze, Jou heard the front door open and close. He started and knocked over a can of hair mousse sitting on the counter. Swearing, he stuffed the underwear in his pocket and set the mousse upright again. He jerked the bathroom door open, banging his foot in the process, and had just slammed the door shut behind him when Mai walked into her room.



She smiled. “There you are.”



“Yeah.” Holy shit, he had her panties in his pocket. He couldn’t put them back now—she was right there. Looking at him.



Her brows came together. “Are you okay?”



Well, fuck. He looked guilty—he knew he did. He could feel himself twitching, spazzing . . . and he couldn’t stop. He was babbling, too. God, he didn’t even know what he was coming out of his mouth.



Her face was getting darker and darker as she, no doubt, began to think the worst. “Well, I need to use the bathroom now.”



“No!” he reflexively blocked the door.



“Excuse me? It’s my bathroom.” Her eyes were flashing.



Now his mouth stopped working.



Suddenly, her face cleared and she just looked annoyed. “For God’s sake, Jounouchi,” she said rolling her eyes, “go sit on the couch and eat crackers.”



Stiffly, he did as he was told, his head hanging just a bit. He was going to be in so much trouble.



As he sank into her green leather couch, he shook himself mentally. He was such an idiot. What had possessed him to put her panties in his pocket? What kind of lapse in judgment was that? It wasn’t. You took them because you wanted them. He had just stolen a woman’s underwear. Since when was he that depraved? Always. God, he was going to be in so much trouble.



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Shaking her head and holding her breath, Mai opened the door to the bathroom. Immediately, she stopped short. Then she laughed.



When Jou acted so funny about letting her in the bathroom she had assumed that he had done something of an aromatic nature he didn’t want her to know about. She had forgotten that before she left for the tournament, she had hand-washed a portion of her lingerie collection and, because the fabrics were too sensitive to put in a dryer, hung them up to dry in her bathroom. This explained why he was so jumpy—though this was Jounouchi; getting him worked up didn’t take much. This sight must have sent his hormones into overdrive.



She liked that thought—of him getting excited at seeing her undergarments, some specifically designed for bedtime, not day-wear. She liked it a little more than she should. But she ignored the way a drop of heat stirred low in her belly, the beginnings of arousal, and instead began gathering up her recreational clothing to put it away.



However, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t seem to put her feelings for Jounouchi away. Now that she was willing to admit (to herself at least) that she adored him, she was encountering this problem more and more often. Sometimes she wanted to shake herself. He was eight years younger than her for God’s sake! And in high school! (albeit his last year). What the hell was wrong with her? But she was crazy about him. Even dating the fabulously sexy, bad-boy Varon hadn’t cured her—not that dating Varon was something she could file as a good idea. Still, even though Varon had a gang history, a prison record, and had . . . ah . . . taken paychecks from an evil wacko bent on world destruction (not that she could judge there), he was still a better idea than Jounouchi, because Varon was at the time of her interest, you know, legal. Even though Jou had had his eighteenth birthday a month ago, she had difficulty thinking of him as an adult--it was a wedge she'd used to seperate them for too long.



As she picked up each article, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was one that Jou had looked at, liked, touched. The teddy hanging over the toilet she knew had had the pleasure of his eyes, just from where it was hanging.



She picked up one of her favorite white, lacy, strapless bras from the towel ring by the sink. That’s funny, she thought, where are the matching panties? She made a point of always washing her sets together, if she didn’t she might lose track of what went with what. It wasn’t that she was disorganized, or colorblind, or an idiot, just that her lingerie collection was extensive, and each piece wasn’t necessarily distinctive. But this set was one of her favorites. The panties should have been right next to the bra on the towel bar. They weren’t on the ground, nor hanging anywhere else in the bathroom.



Unless . . . they were there earlier, and not now. No, that was silly; Jounouchi would never—yes, yes he would. Son of a bitch; that pervert stole her underwear. She would make him bleed for this—or tear off his pants and do seriously dirty things to him. Of course she had no proof; she may have just made a mistake, but this explanation made sense, thinking of his reaction to her need to use the bathroom.



Mai opened up her chest of drawers, putting her lingerie in its rightful place. She needed to get a grip. If she was being honest, she was more horny than upset, and that had to stop.



But the thoughts wouldn’t end, instead they kept building on each other. She found her imagination filling in what he might do with her panties if he had them. She pictured him at him home (not really filling in the details because she’d never been there), lying naked on his bed, or perhaps, in his haste, only partially undressed. He held her lacy underwear in his right hand and slowly moved it to his hard, swollen penis. She imagined the lace would chafe a bit, but he would move slow and careful at first, until he lost sanity enough that it wouldn’t matter. He would groan and grunt, a loud radio the only thing to mask his voice. She envisioned sweat at his temples, his face flushed as he panted in exertion. Then he’d tense, choke out her name, and shoot his jism all over her panties.



She was gasping now, heat had pooled between her legs and her hands itched to assuage it. But Jou was in the next room. For a moment she thought about dragging him into the bedroom—why have a game for one if two were available? But she new it was a matter of minutes before a knock would sound at her door. While this was probably enough time for Jounouchi, she wanted a more leisurely experience. That meant not picturing him naked. Which was easier said than done.



She turned around and her eyes fell on her bed. Unmade and disheveled, it invited, enticed. It was all too easy to picture him in it; his hair against her pillows, his naked skin against her sheets . . . his hands tied above his head to the headboard. God, she wanted him.



He was probably a virgin, and if he wasn’t, certainly inexperienced. She wanted to be the one to teach him about sex, to let him slake his lust with her body as many times as he needed to, to be the first woman he slid into, came inside of.



Not today, she told herself, not today. Maybe later.



It wasn’t that simple, but she tried to make it so.



She strode into the next room. “I could sure use another drink, how about you?”



After opening up the fridge, she steeled herself and looked up at him. He was sitting on her couch, just as she had told him to, and had turned around slightly in his seat to look at her. All doubts that he had taken her underwear were quashed at the sight of him; he was slouching exaggeratedly, as if hiding somewhat, he wouldn’t meet her eyes and he was red in the face.



Oh yeah, she was going to need the vodka.