Siren’s Call
Sesame Swallow and the Secret of the Missing Fucks
In Sesame Swallow and the Secret of the Missing Fucks, Sesame investigates the theft of Lindsay’s art discovered missing during the opening gala in Baltimore. This theft leads Sesame, Lindsay and Eve Everclear on an adventure to retrieve the three art pieces, the titular missing fucks, which she’s selling at auction for a local charity. She has ten days to solve the case before the buyers from New York leave empty-handed.
In this scene, Sesame has just broken into the art gallery to gather clues and heads out to find someone who will make her world better, at least for the the night.
The walk barely registered, just a few cars going by like ghosts in the night. The sirens far behind me as I crossed under I-83. I’d dropped the little bag of horror somewhere. I vaguely remember a dumpster, even touching it with my hand, which should have been the most disgusting thing I’d ever done besides walk half a block in a dark Baltimore alley carrying my own vomit in a plastic bag. No one would ever know; at least there was some consolation in that.
It was as if my brain had shut down, which was why I was so pleased that I’d taken a picture. Multiple pictures even. A video even. Nothing I’d seen made an ounce of sense, but the only thing that had mattered in the moment was me getting the fuck out of that loading dock and down the alley as the sirens grew louder and louder until I could see the flashing lights pulsing in the darkness under the highway overpass.
Not a word, not a single sound the whole time, just the soft padding of my boots on the sidewalk and my own steady breathing. When I crossed under the highway myself on Monument, I knew I was good, too far away, the cameras off the whole time, and no evidence left behind. I’d never even taken off my gloves, which in hindsight had been unintentional and lucky all at the same time.
The bright lights of that familiar Baltimore icon streamed down into the cold, empty street at Monument and Falls Road, and I smiled at the bouncers standing in the cold outside of Baltimore’s premier strip club, Scores.
Welcome heat and music hit me square in the face when the door opened, and I made straight for the bathroom, where the attendant had laid out the most amazing array of products I’d ever seen outside of Sephora or Ulta. It always struck me as the oddest thing to have your own concierge in a bathroom, and why that kind of thing was only available at a strip club was beyond my enfeebled brain at the moment. I took everything the girl offered — mouthwash, gum, a breath spritz, and even a handful of mints — after I rinsed my mouth out three times. The slender black girl was all smiles, but behind her eyes, I knew she was wondering how many dicks I’d just sucked in the parking lot.
All of them, girlfriend, or at least that what my mouth felt like. I left her a twenty in her tip jar.
When I hit the floor, I was as fresh as a new snow and ready to climb the ladder from drunk to smashed to tanked to wasted. There was only one thing stopping me from all of those stops on the rail to Hell’s hangover, and she was standing behind the bar with a big smile on her face.
“Did you get my text?” said Mia, her icy blue eyes leering at me from under jet black bangs.
I licked my lips, feeling the stir between my legs that always came when she was around. “Yes.”
“Sit down, Ses. I think I have what you need.” She cocked her head and pursed her lips. “I’m pretty sure I know what you like.”
I swallowed, my eyes riveted on hers as I climbed onto the stool, oblivious to whatever was happening around me. “I definitely need something.”
“Well, let me see what I can do to wet those pretty lips.”
