The Darkness Within

by Taylor K. Scott

  “What’s up with you?” she frowns, taking in my grin over my own, silent musings, then blows gently across her cup.

  “Nothing,” I smirk, “just thinking how lucky I am to have you, babe. And also…” I reach over to take her hand inside of mine, wiping the smile from my face and giving her my full attention, “I’m sorry for losing my shit at school the other day. I guess I’m new to actually sleeping with a girl I really care about.” I brace myself for her response while she purses her lips in thought. “But I have an idea to make it up to you…if you’ll let me, that is?”

  “Go on,” she says slowly, almost suspiciously, and leans across the breakfast bar towards me, just enough to give me the perfect view of her chest. It’s enough to wake both Bowie Junior and my ass up.

  “Er…erm…,” I scratch at my head, floundering with my words because my mind has now fallen straight into the gutter.

  She looks confused by my sudden inability to speak, then looks straight down to my line of sight, and I have to laugh when she jumps up with a frown and a shake of her head. God knows why, for she knows I’m a simple, sexual being, with one thing on my mind for at least ninety-eight percent of the time.

  “My God, Bowie, are you that easy to distract?” She turns around to go and put her cup back into the sink, sashaying her ass in front of me, which is not helping my cause at all.

  “Now your ass is distracting me!” I turn my head to the side in an obvious fashion to not only get a better view but to also wind her up a little more. After all, it’s always been one of my favorite past times to rile Miss Thomas up, only now it usually ends in sex, which is even more satisfying. “It has been a few days, Mils!” She turns to see my eyebrow hook up suggestively, complete with a mischievous grin which more than conveys the fact I would quite like to take her right over this breakfast bar, hard and fast. She flicks water at me from the sink and instructs me to “Focus!” “Oh yeah,” I shake my head out of it. “How would you like to come with me to visit Sam?”

  “Really?” At first, her nervous expression has me doubting myself and my inner voice tells me this was perhaps the stupidest idea I’ve ever had, but then she quickly transforms it into one of pure excitement. Her face literally beams, and she couldn’t hide her eagerness even if she tried.

  “Wait, is she ok with that? I haven’t seen her since…well, since everything went down.”

  “I think her exact words were, ‘Please bring Mils along so I actually have someone intelligent to talk to.’” I burst into laughter over Millie now jumping around the kitchen and clapping her hands together. “So, am I forgiven?” I ask, walking slowly up to her like she’s an unpredictable wild animal, which is a pretty apt description for this girl.

  Still using slow, careful movements, with my mother’s advice of ‘Softly, softly, catch a monkey,’ I reach around her waist and begin pulling her into my hips before placing a chaste kiss upon her soft cheek. She sighs gently, so I kiss her again, this time along her jaw, locking her in before she has the chance to think any more about me being a dick at school the other day. They earn me a smile, so I chance again by placing my lips on top of hers. That earns me some tongue action and a gentle grinding between her thighs.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes,” I whisper before hauling her over my shoulder and marching her towards the stairs in true caveman style. She screams and laughs, but is totally up for this, even if her inner feminist voice is yelling at her for letting the less evolved man manipulate her into bed.

  Amelia

  Bowie and I spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, devouring one another with no regard for anything else. He uses his tongue to bring me to the edge of orgasm before he withdraws cruelly. He then sinks inside of me, thrusting wildly, hungrily and I enjoy every delicious moment of it. Inside the shower, I use my mouth to bring him to his own edge of insanity (thank you Pornhub), letting him fill my mouth with his hot, salty seed. Nothing is off limits with Bowie, and I don’t feel any kind of shame because afterward he always holds me tighter than anyone ever has done so before. I don’t know what I crave more from him, his body when we have sex, or his affection afterward. The human touch in an otherwise empty house. One thing is for sure though, Bowie is a fix I can’t stop going back for. With him, I have no will power.

  We talk endlessly about everything and anything, filling each other in on all the details we don’t know about one another. I tell him about my dream to practice medicine one day, even if it does mean I’m following in the steps of my bastard father. He tells me about what it was like to move around the country when his father was in the military, growing up with Sam, and trying to be ‘the man’ of the house. However, he then admits that his mother and sister undoubtedly ruled the roost. We then talk about our plans for Christmas, mine being sat at home alone, his being sat at his parents.

  “I’ll come over after all the family bullshit, if you like?” he smiles, lacing his fingers between mine. “Then we can really celebrate!” he says and waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

  “That would be nice,” I reply, ignoring the eyebrow dance, impressive though it is. His smirk drops and he looks at me with an intensity that’s beyond fooling around, a dangerous expression that fills me with hope for something more than satisfying each other’s sexual urges. “Tell me five things you don’t like, but they have to be deemed as controversial.”

  “Only five?” He smiles with his usual light-heartedness again, all the while brushing his lips against mine. “Well, ice-cream would be one.”

  “What?! That’s practically sacrilegious!” I gasp at him in horror. “How on earth can you not like ice-cream?!”

  “It’s cold, sticky and a poor substitute for the real flavor,” he shrugs and rolls me over so I’m now lying on top of him. “If I want chocolate, I’ll have chocolate! Not a frozen, sticky goo that’s trying to be chocolate.”

  “Proper ice cream will be made with real chocolate,” I argue, running my fingers through his hair so it stands on end in a mess that still looks sexy. “And strawberry is made with real strawberries.”

  “Strawberry ice-cream doesn’t even taste of strawberry, it tastes of…pink,” he laughs, and I end up laughing with him, swatting at his bicep with pathetically little force behind it. “Secondly…fast food takeaway.”

  “Can’t argue with you on that one,” I sigh, “it never looks like the picture. Now, something not food related.”

  “Going to the movies,” he replies, after giving it a moment or two’s thought. I frown over his answer but remain silent, wanting to hear his explanation. “I get bored too easily! Sitting in silence, watching something that only really has my full attention for about half the time is not my idea of fun.”

  “Isn’t that like the standard first or second date kind of place to go?”

  “I don’t know, is it?” He flips me back over so he’s now hovering over me, kissing me lazily down my body.

  “Wouldn’t know, never been on one,” I shrug, which has him looking back up at me with an almost guilty expression.

  “Then we’ll change that, Fridge,” he grins mischievously, but it doesn’t strike me to berate him over his choice of nickname. This time he makes it sound affectionate and in such a way I kind of like it. “Where shall we go?”

  “The movies?” I laugh at him, just to tease. He groans and playfully nips my hip with his teeth.

  “I’ll think of something,” he whispers, “but none of your usual stuff…you deserve something much more special. Something you’ll remember me for.”

  “I’d really like that, Bowie,” I pull him back up and we kiss, sealing our pact to date properly, like a normal couple getting to know one another.

  Our kissing turns into more and I never do hear the other two things he doesn’t like, but I’m too content to pick him up on it.

  Chapter 24

  Amelia

  As the sun begins to lower in the sky, Bowie holds me from behind while I lazily run my finger up a
nd down his arm. I can hear him dozing from behind me as I lie completely sated from our active afternoon. Every now and then, he pulls me in tighter and I have to grin smugly to myself, knowing that he will not have done this with any of his past girl toys. Bowie Phillips has never done real relationships with girls and I bet post-sex it would have been a speedy departure before moving onto the next venture.

  “Bowie?” My voice seems to echo around the silence of the room.

  “Mmm,” he sighs and throws his leg over me possessively, as though I’m about to tell him I’m getting up and going.

  “The week we go to see Sam, will we be back by Monday morning?”

  “Mmm, yeah, sure…I know we have school,” he mumbles and kisses the back of my head softly, almost like he’s only half awake.

  “Yeah, I know we do, but I’m not at school until the Thursday after Christmas,” I shuffle around to face him, a difficult feat considering half his heavy body is splayed out on top of me. “I’m visiting Stanford and staying with Gabe, actually.”

  His eyes suddenly dart open with an instant deep-set frown settling in the middle of his forehead. His eyes literally turn black and stormy.

  “Dafuq?!” he snarls like a rabid dog just before it’s about to go in for the attack. I brace myself when he leans up onto his elbow, ready to let go of the building tension currently overtaking his entire body. “Why are you staying with him?!” he throws out as an accusation and I instantly sigh in frustration over this latest hit of jealous fury.

  “Because he’s my friend, Bowie,” I lean up on my elbow to mirror him, “and he’s Grant’s friend.”

  “Oh, gee whizz, that makes me feel so much fucking better, being that Grant’s a convicted rapist!”

  I scowl at him before shoving away and getting angrily out of my bed. I proceed to stomp off huffily into the bathroom where I slam the door without a second glance or comment, leaving the bastard to stew in his own assholeness. Before I have to listen to another word that might come out of his irritating mouth, I turn the shower on and begin shoving bottles around angrily, all the while trying to ignore his thudding on the door. If he’s trying to apologize, it’s too damn late. My stubbornness is settling in after his throw-away, insensitive, comment. It amazes me how he can be ridiculously jealous and possessive of me in the same breath as making me want to throw him out the window.

  “Come on, Millie, don’t be like this!” he shouts through the door, but his voice is so distorted I can no longer tell if he’s feeling angry, sorry, or indifferent. “Can you not see where I’m coming from here? The guy made out with you right in front of me!”

  “Yeah, because you were kind of an ass to me back then…,” I growl back and open the door, still fully naked and sneering. “You still are sometimes!”

  “If I’m such an ass, sweetheart,” he narrows his eyes, now showing me that it’s definitely anger he’s venting my way, “maybe you should sleep in the fucker’s bed as well?” My mouth drops open in outrage and I see the instant remorse sweep over his face, obviously not having meant to take things as far as he just did. “Look, Mils, come on! Please don’t be angry with me after what we’ve been doing all afternoon.”

  “Don’t be a jerk then!” I turn my back on him and climb inside the shower, letting the warm water flow over my physically trembling body, all because of his stupid, runaway mouth.

  “Don’t stay with Gabe then!” he argues back.

  “Where the hell am I supposed to stay then? It’s been arranged for months, before we even became a thing!” Letting my fury take over, I pour shampoo over my head without any thought behind it and manage to get it inside my eyes. The burn of chemicals has me slamming them shut in pain. “Ow! Jesus Christ, this stings! Look what you made me do, you-”

  Before I can finish my accusatory rant, he’s pushing me underneath the stream of water and lifting my face to rinse what feels like acid out from my eyes. I’m still feeling like I could take on an army single-handed, but the relief eventually makes me relax in the soothing jet of water while he silently washes me. It’s so intimate, it halts all of our arguing and makes us face the ridiculousness of the fight we’re having.

  When my face is clear of soap and the burning sensation has mostly dissipated, I feel his hands brush over my face and his lips crash onto mine. I can’t help but reach my hands up behind his neck and slide my leg around his waist. He lifts my other leg and has me leaning up against the tiles behind us. He slides inside of me effortlessly, with our mouths not breaking their connection for a single second. Our lovemaking is deep but gentle, and I forget what we’re even arguing about.

  “Oh…God…,” I pant as he thrusts in and out of me over and over again. He hits a spot deep inside which has me galloping towards that precipice of an orgasm before digging my nails into his back just to keep upright. “What were we fighting about again?”

  Bowie laughs in the crook of my neck, just before emitting a growl from the back of his throat, signaling his own release is imminent.

  “You were going to let me take you to Stanford, remember?” he smirks when I grin back at his barefaced cheek.

  “I…was?” He nods while keeping the pace at a delicious rate. “Ok, but you’re organizing where we’re going to stay, right?”

  “Yeah…that’s right…Fuck!” He nuzzles into my neck, trying to keep his eruption at bay.

  “Ok…Oh!” I cry out as I explode with him inside of me.

  “Fuck, I do love arguing with you, Millie Thomas!” He then releases a guttural roar as he climaxes and we fall against the wall with the water still running at full pelt over our connected bodies.

  Bowie has another sleepover that night, but instead of humping like bunnies, like we seem to always do, we watch movies and eat pizza. I guess we were too tired from all the ‘arguing’ we had done that afternoon. We watch ‘Hot Fuzz’ and talk about visiting England one day to see if villages over there are really full of random weirdos.

  Halfway through, he switches off to the ongoing comedy and begins to tell me about the holidays he used to take with Sam when they were younger, mainly to Florida where they fully engaged in all of the shiny touristy stuff. He gasps when I tell him that theme parks would be on my own list of things I can’t stand. The idea of people walking around in fancy dress suits with over-the-top theatrics is my idea of a horror film and would likely have me freaking out and having nightmares about it. He tells me I’m the freak, then throws a pizza crust at me, just as I flick my water at him. It may be juvenile but it’s one of the first times we hang out together as friends would, just like I used to with Matt.

  After Bowie leaves the next morning, I wander over to the sofa, still in my PJs, because today is one of those blessings that is a Teacher Development day. While the teachers are still going in for some oh-so-exciting training, us students get to slum it at home, forever promising ourselves that we’ll use this special gift of time to get some studying done. However, I am feeling smug because, for once, past me did present me a favor by getting all my assignments done on Friday evening.

  To be honest, I’m still exhausted after yesterday’s trip to see Grant and my antics with Bowie. It’s a tiredness that will no doubt have me resting on my butt for most of the day, getting lost in cartoons and easy to reach food.

  A sudden knock on the bi-fold doors makes me physically jump and I end up dropping my glass onto the floor, which subsequently shatters with a tinkling sound all over the wooden surface. I shout out something not worth repeating, just as a huge shard flies up and buries itself inside of my leg. Matt hauls open the door and runs over to where the glass lies in glittering tiny pieces. He audibly gasps when he takes in the thin stream of blood now running down my naked shin.

  “Shit, Milly!” He makes a move over to me but halts when I stick both my hands out to stop him.

  “There’s glass everywhere, Matt!” I warn him, then have the stupid idea of trying to tip-toe over pieces of it, only to end up standing on abou
t a hundred tiny fragments that cut me up even further.

  Matt tuts, then throws down his rucksack, one he’s had since middle school and still bears my signature on it. He ignores my warning and crunches the glass underneath his Converses as he walks over to me, picking me up like a baby to take me out of harm’s way.

  He crouches before my seated position on the sofa, silently assessing my injury as he rests my foot upon his knee. His serious expression, together with his furrowed brow has me giggling, and he smiles back at me, looking like an all-star football player pin-up who is endorsing a whitening toothpaste. I half expect a flash to sparkle from his front teeth, but instead, he places my leg onto the coffee table and wanders over to the kitchen. I watch him head straight to where the first aid kit is religiously kept and pulls it down. He knows where everything is kept from memory; he’s been here that many times before.