by Tiffany Sala
“He’s all right. A bit cheeky, like he’ll flirt with me right in front of Lucas, but I think he just likes to mess around. He seems pretty calm and happy in himself most of the time.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with that answer. How did it fit with the guy who’d pushed me around just because he saw me watching his friends from a distance? I wasn’t going to bring that up, though. Steven didn’t seem to be a danger to Callie at least, and making her worry about him would just cause problems between her and Lucas.
“I guess I’m interested in getting to know a bit more about him,” I admitted, which wasn’t giving away too much. It was as much because I wanted to assure myself he was safe as because of how I personally felt around him. “Where is this party supposed to be, anyway?”
I could tell from the way her face changed then I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Ashleigh’s house.”
I rolled my head as well as my eyes. “Can’t you get Aileen to come keep you company?”
“I already asked her too,” Callie said. “She said yes right away.”
Aileen would. “Why am I on the chopping block, then? One friend not enough of a buffer?”
“At Ashleigh’s place?” Callie mimed some dramatic gagging in case I wasn’t able to grasp her point. “She’s probably too cultured to hold regular parties. I can just see it now: I’ll be stuck talking to her parents’ business colleagues or something, because of course she’ll have to bring some serious adult contacts to this thing, you know? At least Aileen is a good buffer against that sort of thing, because I can’t imagine any serious business-type person in their right mind would have anything to do with her, but…”
“But, what?” Of course Callie suddenly had nothing to say all of a sudden. “Come on, Callie. What am I?”
“Nothing, you’re great.” Callie folded one leg up on her chair to scratch at her thigh. “You’re so suspicious these days, I don’t remember you being like this before. You’re just someone who is going to help me out at this party, right?”
Just? But I didn’t press her any further, and she changed the topic more smoothly than I remembered Callie being able to do usually.
I think we were both very aware that our friendship was never going to sit the same way it had before Callie found her way even to the fringes of the popular world. It wasn’t like we were rock-solid best friends before, but I’d never worried about it before. I had a feeling I would never be able to stop worrying now.
I ended up in the back of Callie’s hideous convertible, with Aileen on one side of me and Axel on the other. Callie and Lucas were our ‘parents’ in the front seat. They weren’t saying much to one another, but I had a feeling that was because they didn’t have much on their minds they could say in front of us. I was surprised Lucas wasn’t the one driving, but apparently he didn’t have a licence at the moment… and apparently, he didn’t want to talk about that either.
Well, I respected that. I’d left for the party from Callie’s place, because there was no way I wanted my mother knowing I was going to one. I even had to borrow something to wear from Callie, which didn’t sit quite right on my frame. I didn’t have enough hips or boobs to hold it where it was designed to be held. It frustrated me that I didn’t look quite right the one time someone might actually care, and it bugged me even more that I was caring about this at all.
Axel looked me up and down in an appraising sort of way that was all the more creepy for not seeming to have anything sexual about it. He asked me where I worked, and when I said I didn’t at the moment, he stopped looking me in the eye and just talked about himself, his fabulous business ideas or whatever. I had to wonder what this guy was doing hanging around Lucas, who sure as hell didn’t work. There was just no logic when it came to popular groups.
“That guy has the biggest pipe up his butt,” Aileen whispered to me, clinging to my arm as we went in like that encounter had completely shattered her confidence. Although just going into Ashleigh’s house, even as part of a group, was so intimidating it wasn’t like an actual person was needed to make it scary. The place sort of felt like one of those American TV soap sets, with the high ceilings and chandeliers and every doorway curved instead of having proper corners you could fit a proper door into.
“It’s not as nice as yours,” Callie whispered to Lucas. I traded grimaces with Aileen. Did she say things like that to turn him on?
This whole scene was already too weird for me and I wanted to leave, but Aileen and I were now in the spotlight with Ashleigh extending a hand to us at the entrance to a big room beyond. “Tamara… uh, Ailey, welcome, nice to see you.”
Aileen leaned towards me as soon as we’d gotten past that unsettling roadblock. “She’s never even noticed I exist before, has she?”
“I had the strange feeling we were at one of those parties where, like, the Prime Minister is hob-nobbing with a whole bunch of important people and needs to crib off notes to actually know who they’re saying hello to and why they should care.”
Aileen groaned. “I already want to leave.”
I was feeling her pain. Callie had been (almost) completely wrong: unusually clean venue aside, the scene in front of us looked pretty much like I had always expected a teenage party to look. Early in the night, at least. There was a sound system pumping out music I didn’t really like, and a bunch of kids I knew from school—as well as some I didn’t know at all—milling about drinking.
As predicted, Lucas started waving to someone at the oposite end of the room and was soon lost in the crowds. Axel hung back and chatted to Ashleigh, who was already looking pained.
Aileen started to move closer to Callie—and before I could follow her, Steven was in my path.
He extended a hand to me. “I was hoping I’d find you here. Come on.”
“I’m thinking of just leaving,” I told him.
Steven scowled at me. “You just got here.”
“Yes, and I don’t like these sorts of parties. I just came as a favour to Callie, and I don’t really know now why I thought that was a good idea.”
“Good,” Steven said, “let’s leave.”
He grabbed my hand and started walking, but a grip on my other wrist stopped me from moving anywhere.
Aileen was holding onto me. “Tamara, are you okay with him?”
“Fine,” I told her. I was far from fine, but if I explained I was terrified at that moment she’d react in all the wrong ways. I’d never be able to explain to her how I was scared of something because I really wanted it. That didn’t make sense to me yet.
Aileen nodded and dropped my arm. “Okay, well if you—” Steven yanked me away before I could hear the rest.
I glared after him even though he was facing forward and couldn’t see at all. “It’s quite rude to just grab someone and drag them off like that, Steven.”
“You said you wanted to go.” Sumptuous rooms streaked past my vision, and then I stumbled on a back step and found myself in an unreal outside fairyland. “And you don’t want everyone staring at the two of us together, do you?”
I shook my head, even though he still wasn’t looking at me. I was mostly glancing behind too, trying to catch sight of the house again. We’d turned a corner on the path (whose backyard had a path?) and it was like we were in a completely different world.
Then something white caught my attention up ahead. A little building was tucked up against the rear fence—and when I said ‘little’, it was probably not that much smaller than Callie’s whole house.
Steven led me right up the steps, opened the door without hesitation, like he knew it would be unlocked, and then once we were inside he turned a bolt behind us. When he flicked a light switch, a whole living space in one room was revealed to me: kitchenette, a couch and coffee table in front of a big wall-mounted TV, a low bed base with a plush-looking mattress. I tried not to look too much at that.
Steven flopped on the couch and somehow instantly had the remote in his hand to
switch the TV on. He started scrolling through Netflix or some other streaming service. I made my wary way over to sit next to him. I was certain he hadn’t just brought me out here to watch TV. This was an unexpected diversion, and I didn’t entirely hate it.
“Um.” Steven finally turned to me on my awkward attempt to start a conversation. “I guess you’ve come out here a lot?”
“Only a few times. Ashleigh has absolutely no interest in me as a person, so I only come to her place when Lucas has an excuse to bring me along.” He glanced down at the remote in his hand and smirked as he wiggled it. “But I’m pretty quick at learning my way around things.”
Had he intended that to have a double meaning or was it just me? It was hard for me not to think of everything he said with some sort of subtext, because…
I ended up saying what was in my head. “You are really very sexy, for a meathead.”
His laugh was loud and I think scared him as much as me. “I’m a meathead to you, am I.”
“You’re a pretty good meathead,” I allowed. “Except for that massive chip on your shoulder.”
“On my shoulder? What about your own, huh?” He slung an arm across me, dragging me closer, and started squeezing the shoulder nearest to him. “The girl who decides to storm out of a party ten seconds after she arrives.”
“It was a bit longer than ten seconds, and how did you know how long I’d been there unless you were waiting to see me?” I was surprised by all the words coming out of my mouth. I sounded so flirty, so sassy—a completely different girl.
“Maybe I just like your terrible attitude,” said Steven. He shot a strangely judgemental look at the television. “You know what, I’m not interested in waiting. I don’t want to take the ri—the trouble of coming to this stupid party and then getting interrupted.”
I wanted to say something smug about him not liking the party either, but I was distracted by him unzipping on one side and pulling on another, taking Callie’s dress off me.
“Okay?” he said, unhooking my bra.
“Okay,” I told him.
Chapter Eleven: Tamara
He took off all my clothes first and then made me stand at a good watching distance while he slowly stripped off his own. I was shivering a little, but mostly distracted by the pornographic scene in front of me. I’d never seen so many hard muscles in one place before. There was a little tattoo on one of his pecs, a small complicated symbol I didn’t recognise. I didn’t remember seeing that in Carlene’s photo.
Steven saw me leaning in to look at it and smirked. “That’s a faction logo from a game I play,” he explained. “Heard of Wild Duty?”
I shook my head, a little bewildered that we were suddenly talking about games when we were both standing naked in front of one another. “I’ve never played games, Ryan doesn’t either. My mother doesn’t like them.”
“I bet your mother would hate what’s happening right now.” Steven started kicking our scattered clothes on the floor into a pile… and then he grabbed me, spun me around, and settled me on my back on top of them.
I caught my breath back. “Oh yeah, I think she’d straight-up murder you if she could see this.” Well, there were probably a lot of good reasons not to use the available bed in this room. Now I was thinking slightly rationally, there were a lot of good reasons not to be doing this in here at all. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it would be to have Ashleigh beating on the door… or worse, her parents. Or half the partygoers standing outside and cheering us on. That was the sort of messed-up behaviour you could expect from drunk eighteen-year-olds, right?
What if some of the other guys decided they wanted a turn?
For just a second I was too nervous to be embarrassed, but then Steven’s body began to press over mine, something hot and firm leaving a slick trail on my thigh, and then I couldn’t think in sentences any more.
He was sucking on my neck, on my nipples. Was I really touching his body back? I couldn’t believe someone who felt like that would be in this situation with me. Something was moving between my legs, pushing inside me—his fingers, but I could barely feel them. I wanted more. I had to have more.
“Fuck.” He gave me more. I could feel the friction of his fingers sliding inside me now, stinging a little but mostly just feeling good. “You are too ready for this. I can’t—”
The next hard stab down there widened my eyes and shook my horniness out of centre stage. He was inside me, his dick was inside me, and I’d been a bit too embarrassed to look in that direction before but I was pretty sure he hadn’t exactly showed up already wearing a condom.
My fingers were digging into the powerful arm muscles holding him up on either side of me. “Yeah,” said Steven, eyes squeezed shut, “it’s good for me too, babe,” and he began to thrust hard into me.
I’d assumed he would guess I hadn’t exactly done this before, but this did not seem like the way a guy treated a girl he knew was a virgin. I was clinging to him now just to keep him from tearing me apart; it felt like this was about level ten in one of Steven’s video games or something.
But one thing I was learning sex definitely didn’t do for you was make the person you were having sex with easy to talk to. Even with his dick pulsing in me, I felt awkward at the thought of telling him I was a virgin now.
Had been a virgin, I supposed.
The shock of the intrusion had faded. Things were starting to feel good again. I decided I actually didn’t want Steven to know the truth. That was my business, and I already felt so completely opened to him in this situation, I needed to keep something to myself.
As he kept thrusting, a feeling started moving through me that made me push my hands against his chest in a stupid attempt to get away from him. I’d felt this before, on occasions when I’d dared to touch myself, and it had always scared me into stopping because I didn’t know where it would go.
Steven’s body was pinning me in place, his thrusts causing those feelings in me to expand while he nibbled at my earlobe and then my neck and shoulder. There was no getting away from it this time.
The noise I made as my body throbbed madly, gripping tightly onto his, was half triumph and half defeat. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening to me—then when he groaned and I felt a smaller version of the same thing from whatever his body was doing, I understood.
I shut my eyes as Steven drew out of me. He grabbed my jaw and shook my head a little until I opened my eyes into his.
“Just making sure I haven’t killed you, babe.” His face was practically glowing. Obviously I hadn’t needed to worry about being good for him. I was still kind of in shock over what had happened at the end, actually. My body was still throbbing. That wasn’t supposed to be something you could just do your first time, or even at all, right?
Steven dug around in the pile of clothes under me, palming my arse in what I’m sure was a complete accident, and produced a tissue he started using to wipe off his dick. I found other things to point my eyes at. I was even less able to deal with looking at it at this point.
“Shouldn’t have done that without a condom though,” he said. “Absolutely fucking naughty. Well, I’m clean, I got tested after the last girl I was with. And I get the feeling you’re not the type of girl to fuck around with guys all over the place. As for the other problem… I guess you’ve got that covered.”
I was so dazed it took me seconds to realise he meant pregnancy. Why did he assume I was on the pill?
I was too stunned to speak for seconds more, and then the moment passed. Steven rolled onto his back and pulled me in against his chest. It felt amazing, like we were in some movie, except real life was so much better because nobody had to go to any awkward lengths to cover their rude bits from the cameras.
And, well, worse, because now I was going to have to make sure I wasn’t pregnant and maybe Steven would assume he could just do it bare like that every time since I’d allowed it once. But in a strange way there was something exhilarating about ha
ving to deal with those problems. Suddenly I felt like I really had a whole adult world of my own, instead of being eighteen and still a baby.
And just like every other adult, I now had very practical concerns seeping in. I nuzzled into Steven to smell his skin and so there was a small chance he wouldn’t hear my words. “Should we, um, get back to the party now before anyone misses us?”
“Nah,” said Steven. “I fucking hate those things too. Ashleigh doesn’t fucking want to see my face either. What I’ll do is, I’ll take you home after. Let Callie know you’re good for a ride back.”
“I’m understanding less and less how you can even be friends with Lucas’s bunch,” I commented.
I somehow felt Steven’s smile come into his face though I couldn’t see it, and I thought I recognised there were two parts to that reaction. He liked the idea that he was messing with my expectations… and he really liked Lucas.
“Lucas and me, we’re just a good team. We had to work together in a class a few years back, hit it off right away and we’ve been tight ever since. I’m not like all his other little rich friends… and that’s just fucking fine by both of us.”
“Callie isn’t like those other friends either,” I had to point out.
A grunt. “Ah yes, the little chigger.”
I punched him in the chest, and I swear my fist just bounced right off. He was so built I couldn’t believe he was essentially in my bed. “You be on your best behaviour talking about my friends.”
“Ah, yes. You being the only one who can harass them.” Steven sat up suddenly so I slid off him. I thought at first I’d pissed him off with my comments, but he was staring at the television. “So are you interested in games, or just not at all?”
“I don’t have anything against the idea of them?”
“Good enough for me.” Steven bounced over to a cabinet under the TV. “I’m pretty sure Ashleigh has an old 360 in here. Bound to have Halo at least.”
I shook myself out of staring at his naked arse to fumble for Callie’s poor dress and start wriggling it over my head.
