“Yeah, you used to be Colton Carryage, right?” She paused and offered a small smile. “That sounded rude. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sound like some kinda has-been or something—”
“No, it’s okay.” He offered his pearly whites in return. “And I still am, by the way. Colton Carryage, I mean. Not a has-been.”
She laughed.
Still holding her hand. “You new to Eidolon?”
“No, I’m just here to see someone.” In the harsh fluorescent light, her skin looked ashen, her hair almost blonde. “And, between you and me, I hope they show up soon. I’ve been waiting forever and I basically drank a barrel of water at lunch.”
He longed for the feel of her blonde hair gripped in his fist and the taste of tears against her pale cheek. “As long as you don’t mind navigating around packing boxes, you’re more than welcome to use my restroom, if you like.”
“Um, wow. Thank you.” She nodded. “That’s very kind.”
He’d started up the stairs.
“It’s a shame you’re leaving Eidolon so soon,” she said as she followed.
“How do you know I’m leaving?” He turned back to her.
“Just a hunch. You said packing boxes, right? ”
“No, no, you’re right,” he said. He felt something, then. An alarm bell. A warning. The hair rising on the back of his neck. A fist clenching in his guts. A lump building in his throat. Ignoring it, his eyes scanned the freckled cleavage, the thin arms, the bare shoulders in the sundress. “You’re good.”
***
She seemed so small standing in the hall to the bathroom. She paused, her eyes on the cramped room, the packing boxes, the yellowing walls, the rain pelting the narrow kitchen window.
“What’s it like?” She turned to him. She’d yet to use the restroom.
“What’s what like?” He wondered if he should offer her a glass of water and then realized the cups were packed in a box somewhere.
“Being famously handsome.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her tits rising in the thin sun dress.
He laughed.
“I’m serious.” She came close. “You and your family, you guys are, like, bold faced names, you know? It’s not like I look up every day and see ‘The golden son of a favored Senator,’ or whatever it was The Post called you.”
“Ah, The Post.”
“‘The favored soon felon, the son’s light dimmed.’”
He laughed. A sharp, short burst of sound. One that wasn’t happy, but was, instead, meant to interrupt and stop.
“That was after, you know—” A quick shake of the head as she fell silent.
“I know.” His arms crossed over his chest.
“I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes for a brief moment. “What is it with me and my . . . damn, what do you call it? TMI?”
“Yeah, TMI. Too much info.”
“Ugh. I know. I just get all OCD when it comes to finishing a thought.”
“Or a quote from The Post.”
“Right. Forgive me.” She uncrossed her arms, her fingers soon laced at her waist.
“Done.” He grinned through gritted teeth. “Journalism major?”
“Nah, just a nobody. A nobody who’s curious what it’s like to live that charmed silver spoon Ivy League life.”
“It isn’t like that. Not anymore.”
“Of course.” She stood in front of him. “And what’s that other thing like?”
He paused. The bedroom door was closed, he reminded himself. She was a stranger to him. He’d never spoken with her. She knew nothing. He almost sighed with relief. “I don’t know.” He shrugged.
“Is that why you’re leaving?” Her hand reached out to fleck an imaginary piece of lint off his shirt, her palm pausing to lay flat against his muscular chest.
“No, not really.” He stopped. Rain pelted the window. For a moment, the day grew darker. Again, the hair rose on the back of his neck. The tips of his fingers tingled and buzzed. Now that she was close, now that she was no longer a vision in the distance, some beautiful gift yet to be unwrapped, he realized there was a strange something about her. Not dangerous, but off. Something that made his throat tight and his skin crawl. That made his cheeks flush. “Family’s called me back now that Dad’s out and we’re circling the wagons, so to speak.”
“You think that’ll help?” Her breath was warm against his neck.
“They think it will, so . . . ” He stopped and closed his eyes. She was so close the scent of her lingered in his nose. The scent of something simple and chaste. And clean. His mouth watered. He swallowed, ignoring the warnings ricocheting through his mind like errant bullets and the warmth crawling down the back of his neck. “Once people see he’s innocent I-”
“Despite the overwhelming evidence.”
“Everything will be fine.” He stepped back quickly and moved toward the door, ready to see her out. “Everything will be back to what it’s supposed to be.”
“Of course. A charmed life once again.” She stopped him.
He realized he wanted her. Had work to do but was bored. Wanted, instead, to fan the flames of her desire, give hope to her fantasies, and then break her heart. Be cruel. Callous. He gave a small smile, the chin ducking to the chest, the eyes, nice and slow, looking up at her. He sighed, his powerful chest rising.
She smiled.
Worked every time. Especially if you were Colton fucking Carryage.
Her fingers slipped between his. “I like your place.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Is that your bedroom? Over there?” She glanced at the closed door across the room.
“Yeah.” He looked down. Her eyes were on him. She was small. Smaller than him, at least. And light. The perfect height. Perfect weight. Despite the warning, despite the alarms, he was going to do this. It’d be quick. Brief and angry. He could overpower, invade, pummel and punish and still find relief. From failure, disappointment, humiliation. Could still, in her, taking her, making her his, remember who he still was despite everything. Reconnect to his power, his privilege. A quick release and then peace. A moment from now, he could wrap his arms around her, pick her up and carry her to the couch.
But no.
He tilted her face to his with the tip of his finger. “So, now what?”
“You tell me.” She waited.
He laughed.
“Well, I do have time, you know.” She smiled.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She watched him. “And you are who you are.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I know.”
“And how many times am I going to be this close to—”
“Colton fucking Carryage, right?”
She laughed. “Right.”
He moved closer, his lips near hers. “You wanna see it?”
“See what?” She waited, her eyes on his. Challenging him. Teasing him.
“You know.” He kissed her. Her lips were soft, her breath sweet. In her lips he found the unspoken promise of soft, secret places. “My bedroom. Is that what you want to see?”
She laughed. “The Colton Carryage’s bedroom? Um, yeah.”
“You sure?” He breathed her in. Clean soap and soft skin. Innocence and desire. Want. No fear. Not yet. He kissed her again. Her body leaned into his. “Answer me. I need to hear the words.”
She remained silent, but her lips, her hands, her body told him she was growing hungry. For his touch, his body.
“Yes or no. Do you want to see the bedroom?” His lips brushed against hers. “Say it.”
“Yes.” Her voice was almost a whisper.
His mouth curled, baring his teeth in a quiet burn of brilliant white. “Close your eyes.” She did, his tongue finding hers as his hands slid down to wrap around her throat.
***
She sat at the kitchen table, saying nothing.
“Ya snapped it, didn’t ya.” Brody leaned forward. Chiseled jaw and dark eyes, his teeth too white, his frat bro was all bulging biceps and bottl
ed tan. “Gonna shove her next to the ice cream?” Bro laughed and then lit a joint as he strolled to the window, his eyes peering at Eidolon below. “Predictable fucker, just like always.”
“It wasn’t something I planned, you know?” he said.
“Right,” his bro said. “She’ll end up with the meat in the walk-in.”
“Fuck you.” He turned away and closed his eyes.
“Awww,” he heard Brody, smelling like Axe body spray and sweaty feet, whispering in his ear. “Bro here’s gonna cry. Big ol’ pussy just like his pop-pop.”
Wrong again, asshole, he thought.
“You know what we do to big ol’ pussies, right, bro?”
“Shut up, dick head.” He clenched his fists and took a deep breath. A moment later, he opened his eyes. “Don’t listen to him.” He looked at her across the table. “I’m not like my dad. I’m . . . ” He stopped, not sure how to finish the thought.
She sat silent.
For a moment, he considered touching her. Stroking her skin. Tracing his fingers from the bruises on her throat through the freckles covering her chest down to the discreet slope of her small breasts.
But he didn’t. “I’m not like him. And you’re nothing like the others. That bothers me. I don’t know why.” He sat back, crossing his arms. He sighed.
Whatever. He’d already had her once. Had tasted her regret, her fear. Felt her underneath him. Toyed with the warmth of her tears. Usually, there was a second time. Sometimes a third. Before the chill of the flesh became too cold and the limbs no longer bent without breaking.
But not today. He couldn’t.
Still, there was nothing as thrilling as that click.
The one that quieted the racing heart and silenced the fingers digging into his flesh, pulling him close, pulling him near. The one that hushed the breathless moans and wordless pleading. That kicked their quickening desire from its peak and gave them, instead, the stumbling confusion of a sudden end into a world that was forever dark.
All with a simple click.
He hadn’t even learned her name.
Ah, now, that made her like the others.
“That’s not true,” he said to her.
“Another study partner?”
“No, Brody. I didn’t even meet her until—”
“Some student aid slacker?”
“Shut up.”
“Probably dumb as shit and just as desperate.”
“Fuck you.”
“Pussy.”
“She’s not like the others!” He ignored him. Focused on her. “She’s not.” His head hurt. “She’s different. Somehow.” He breathed deeply and watched her. “I just don’t know how yet.”
She still wore the sundress, though it now sat wrinkled above her hips, a nipple peaking from where a shoulder strap had slipped. Her arms hanging slack, her head tilted back, chin up, she waited, her legs open.
“Whore,” Brody said from his perch near the window.
He swallowed and looked away. It felt obscene, the way she was exposing herself, her panties laying scrunched somewhere on the floor. It made his throat tight with disgust. And desire.
“I knew their names, you know. At some point in the beginning.” He swallowed again. “Really. I did. I just forgot them because, you know, who cares, right? Tits. Freckles. Teeth. That’s who they were, in the end. Big Tits. Red Freckles. A mouthful of huge Teeth. So that’s what I named them. And this one?”
He looked back at her. The dull brown of her shoulder length hair. The skinny arms. The mouth smeared with lipstick. The jaw slack and drooling. The cheeks still shining with sweat. Her head sitting at an awkward tilt on her broken neck. “Well, her tits aren’t anything to write home about and she can’t be Freckles—” he said.
“Freckles?” his bro said.
“Yeah, man, Freckles. She had freckles, so . . . ”
“Fuck, man,” Brody said, laughing. “For real?”
“Anyway, there’s already a Freckles,” he said, ignoring his friend. “And this one, her teeth are just ordinary, boring teeth, so . . . ” He thought of her downstairs sitting on the steps. The surprise that shouldn’t have been. The sweet looking girl he’d spied so many times, but had never charmed. The gift who, not even an hour ago, had slammed him with his past. Who’d humiliated him with the rumors and lies about his once-charmed life.
The nobody who’d seen not the handsome young playboy and college quarterback with broad shoulders and killer abs, but instead the loser who lived in a dump on Eidolon Avenue.
“Why would she do that? As if I want to remember any of that?” He felt the color rise in his cheeks. His thoughts slow, his tongue thick, he clenched his fists and fought to remain calm. “Why would she, this person who didn’t even know me, be so mean?”
“She’s a bitch.”
“I know, man.”
“A slut.”
Colton smiled. “Ain’t that the damn truth.”
“She had it coming, you know?”
“Damn right,” he said, leaning forward, his elbows on the table.
“Can’t trust a ho, my friend,”Brody said, joint in hand, as he turned away from the window and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “Rule numero uno in the Bro Code, shit head.”
“I know, I know, I know.” He looked at her. Thought again of her lips on his as she’d gasped when he’d shoved himself deep, her hips pulling back in shock, her palms pushing him away in panic. He smiled.
“She was too easy.” The smile faded. “The others were worth my time. I charmed them. They trusted me.” His hand snaked across the table, the fingers coming close to, but not touching, hers. “With them, there was fear. The fear that comes with being vulnerable. With wanting something they’d thought they could never have. What they’d remembered of me—the hot guy, the quarterback, the money—all of that blinding them to how far everything’s, like, totally fall—”
“Can it, shit head.”
He stopped. “Right.” A deep breath. “Thanks.”
“I gotchu, bro,” Brody said as he stretched his legs and crossed his ankles.
“And this one?” He considered touching her as she sat, peaceful, her head resting against the back of the chair. He remembered her scent. The tang of light sweat and the cloying stench of cheap vanilla. “Here’s the deal, man: she didn’t know her ‘place.’ Who the fuck is she, right? I’ve met Presidents. I’ve driven cars worth more than she makes in a year. Fucked bitches way hotter than her. To slam me? To treat me like some kind of nothing nobody? That kind of stupidity demands a response. Needs to be balanced. I have to. It’s like the Universe or something demands it of me. How else will people like her learn respect? Or learn what’s right and appropriate?” He laughed, a short staccato that punched the air. “If I do nothing they just stay uncouth, uncivilized animals or something.”
He leaned back. “But there’s always a fight, at first. And I need that, you know? I need that fear, that fight, that sense of regret. I need them to know a lesson is being learned and that I’m the one teaching it. That power and feeling of importance? Of strength? Nothing like it, bro. It’s so fuckin’ sweet.”
“Still a big ol’ pussy like your pop, though.” Brody said, stretching his arms above his head with a loud groan.
“But I’m not, dickwad. With a click, I end ‘em. I take their fear, their terror, their weak little fists punching me as they cry, and, like a fuckin’ god, I end it. Can you do that, Brody?”
Nothing.
“You can’t, shit head,” he said, answering himself. “But I can. And I do. And each time, I get a little bit of me back. Of who I still am. And, holy shit, hand to god, that right there, the little bitch laying there helpless while I overwhelm her, while I teach her, while she learns respect, that’s what makes me nut.” He leaned forward again, elbows on the table.
“But this one, here?” He looked to Brody, the six foot five jock with the chiseled jaw and billion dollar family at odds with the tattere
d carpet and sagging couch. The creased packing boxes and the rain falling outside. His bro a kick in the gut reminding him of all he could lose. Of all he’s lost. Of being an outcast. Of being alone. No friends. No family. No money.
He swallowed and then continued, his eyes back on her. “But this one here, man, she kissed too quick, spread her legs too quick. Said ‘yes’ too quick. Didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I grabbed her neck.” He stood to leave. “I don’t know. The whole thing is just off, you see? I’m telling you, there was nothing ‘right’ about her. She was wrong. It’s all wrong. She was better when she was some anonymous nobody in a sundress.”
Brody stood and headed to the closed bedroom door. “They always are, my friend.”
He thought of her in the park, off in the distance. Or at a table across from him in the cafe, sitting, no book, no coffee. Just sitting. Or under the awning at the corner store in the rain, standing silent. Always in a sundress, her eyes on him. And then glancing away. Teasing. Tantalizing. Untouchable.
Couldn’t remember seeing the little bitch in anything else. The image of her in a t-shirt and jeans somehow impossible to conjure.
“She really was unnecessary.” He looked at her again, searching for her name. “So that’s who she is. There’s Tits, Freckles, and Teeth. And now this one. Unnecessary.”
And leaving her at the kitchen table, he turned and walked to the bedroom, his bro in tow.
***
Two windows sat at the end of the small room, the sad stretch of Eidolon Avenue waiting below. Before that, along with the hardwood floors and dingy white walls scarred with long stains the color of rancid yellow mustard, there was nothing except a mattress shoved against a wall and a large deep freezer humming in the center. The kind with the lid that opened on the top, its wide base surrounded by bouquets of flowers and fragrant potted plants. A freezer made for heavy sides of beef and other large cuts of meat. And since Tits, Freckles and Teeth were laid out on the floor, it was empty.
“Should’ve hauled them out sooner,” Colton said, looking at the bodies.
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