TAT Box Set

by Emjay Soren

  Stacy started giggling and I saw Chads hand sneak under her towel over her lap and wasn’t shocked when they left me sitting alone like always. They were already doing it and she would tell me all about the sex later.

  Every time they left to do it, Cal would come hang out with me and kiss me or touch me and it gave me butterflies. We started making out at his birthday party in the fall when we had seven minutes in heaven. It was too, he kissed me the whole time. It was sloppy and uncoordinated, but I loved him. I knew I would marry him one day.

  We made out all the time now and he started to grope my boobs or touch me between my legs. Right now, with his tongue down my throat he took my hand and put it on his dick. It was alarming, I mean I knew they got hard, but to feel it the first time was scary but so good.

  "Can I see it?" I asked as I looked at my hand gripping him through his shorts.

  "Hell yea." He said and stood, trying to hide it from our other friends. "Come with me." He said and balled the towel up in front of him.

  I followed him to the other side of the beach where the thick reeds were and the ground was rocky. There were a few fishermen a way down, but they couldn’t see us. Nobody could.

  Cal lay back and took my wrist pulling me down with him. Once I was hidden beside him he pulled the top of his trunks down and I saw the wet tip and the hair around the base and I definitely wanted to touch him...

  I am pulled from the memory and the journal because I hate how sweet and innocent we both were. It was real and true and he was so sweet after, telling me I was pretty and how good I did it. That was the first time I gave head and he coached me, telling me what he liked.

  My mind is in constant battle with the guy he was and who he became... all of it created the man who wanted me now. And I knew he did. He was giving me everything and I was too scared to let him have me. He had this 'hash it out as we go' mentality, but how do you hash it out when your memories are sweet or hateful?

  I feel like I want to cry as memories wash over me as I read this tattered journal and look for more. I thumb through the pages of my 2003 book knowing it was tenth grade.

  I find the entry I want and fall back into the memory as I trace the hearts and Cal's name that I doodled on the page.

  We just moved into our new apartment closer to harbor heights and far away from the shitty trailer we owned on the other side of the Bridge. I had my own room with a window that had glass and a screen in it instead of the old plywood momma had one of her boyfriend’s put in after a tree branch shatter it the year after daddy died. The bathtub drained like normal and we didn’t need four locks on the door.

  Momma finally stopped drinking and had a good job at a dentist office as a secretary and she didn’t need my monthly payment from daddys death anymore so I could finally start saving for college now and have a lot more at eighteen when I got the full inheritance.

  Daddy was hit while fixing a flat tire when I was ten. The guy driving a big Mac truck fell asleep and hit daddy and his car square on. Momma got his social security, her settlement for the accident and chose to never work. I was given a monthly stipend of eight hundred dollars a month until I was eighteen and received the remaining fifty grand.

  I would rather have my dad though. Things were different back then...

  I turn the pages because it kills me to remember him even now. I thumb through until I find the night momma skipped out.

  Cal made the second worst day of my life better last night. I came home from school yesterday to see a note and a thousand dollars cash from my mom telling me she would be gone a few months with Steve, a guy she met at work. Like always she told me he was going to go back to Oregon and finalize his divorce and then move me up there to live in his big beautiful house, blah blah blah.

  She would come back when she realized Steve was a liar and send's her packing. they always did. She told me that with my check I could afford the apartment to be good and not get kicked out. She said she still owned the trailer over the bridge if I couldn’t make the rent. She said she would meet me there if I couldn’t make the rent here. Told me not to worry, she would call soon.

  I hated the tears that fell, hated the hope she was finally being a mom again. I hated how she always let me down. I called Cal and tried to hide the fact I was crying from Mrs. Dorian.

  "Hold on a second sweetie. I'll get him." She said and I cried from her kindness, the tone of voice and comfort all the good moms have. I cry because it reminds me mom never sounded like that.

  I tell Cal I need him to come over and ramble off our address. I had never let him come to my world, but tonight I couldn’t be alone. He knew how to make me feel special and wanted and it comforted me.

  I close my eyes and tears fall at the memory. He told me he would keep my secret and didn’t care if I lived in the trailer. He told me he would always be there for me. He kissed me... he went down on me that night for the first time. He didn’t ask for a blow job or me to jack him off. He had said he wanted to take care of me.

  I put the books down knowing they kill me to read them. I know what comes next anyway. He took my virginity in the fall of senior year right before he turned eighteen. Once they started hitting up the eighteen and older clubs he wasn’t around much.

  Once we were old enough to drink, we saw each other at parties and fucked like rabbits... but he had changed. They were all the kings of Gig and pussy was the advantage. Our connection turned to sexual and no longer intimate. We drank we partied... One night I was so hurt and so mad at him for brushing me off for a couple of trashy Seattle girls, that looked like a whore... I ran to the beach crying and ended up fucking a drunk and high Noah.

  Cal knew and I know it bothered him. That became my first addiction. Any way I could get him to remember I was his Jen, even if it meant I was a whore. I was the VIP of the fangirls and fucked him as often as I could. Tay or one of the guys would send me money to meet them in near bye cities.

  Even those parties changed though. The bigger the success, the harder to please. I was old enough by then to know I liked raw dirty sex, but the shit we all did... was disgraceful.

  I recall him passing me to the lead singer of the opening band one time after sending money to meet him in Oregon. Once I got there he was in bed with two chicks and trashed out of his mind. Seth from the other band asked me if I wanted to party. I agreed and we did party all night. Few whiskey and limes, few lines of coke and we didn’t stop the party until we fueled up in Idaho. After grabbing a Red Bull and some Doritos I walked outside to see the bus gone.

  He had left me and when I called Cal he told me I deserved it for not realizing the tour ended at a Shell in Idaho. He told me he would help me out and bought me a bus ticket home. After the sixteen-hour drive back to gig I was nursing the worst hangover from the booze and the come down from the coke that I used the remaining cash to buy a gram just to feel nothing.

  Two more years I let them use me, never believing he really didn’t care. It was all so twisted and ugly by then I couldn’t remember why I let myself fall apart for him. He asked me a few months later if I would suck Shame while he fucked me. He told me he knew it turned me on. and it did, they were so magnanimous and sexy. He said he knew it made me hot and that made him want me more. Like a dog to a bone I consented and loved every minute. Shame was so drunk he passed out on Cal's bed so we made a bed on the floor. We fucked all night, the swaying of the bus, the vibration from the motor intensified everything.

  Right before we passed out after coming down from the Ex high we were both on he admitted he hated seeing my mouth on Shame. Hated knowing I had done the same with Noah, that I fucked Noah on the beach so long ago.

  "Don’t fuck my friends Jen, Please?" He had asked... and that right there was when I fell too far to save myself from him.

  I spiraled out of control after that. I tried hanging on to the fourteen and fifteen-year old’s that were as close as could be, but by the end when I walked off his bus for good... I didn’t recog
nize either of us anymore.

  Once I got home I never went back to TAT. I forgot they existed. I gave birth to Axe and when I had free time and a sitter I partied on other busses, sometimes too close to them in hopes he would find me and I could tell him about Axe.

  It was all a lame fantasy. By then he was with Tayla and nobody else. The night I found out he was in love with her was through mutual friends of our that told us he was desperate to win her back. Swore he had changed and stopped womanizing and partying for her.

  It crushed me because I never stood a chance. I threw my life away chasing him like a desperate fool and he never knew the depth of my love. Those sweet moments when nobody was around and he would tell me to not go for his friends or that I was beautiful or he missed me and would tell me not to wait so long to come back...

  It was all bullshit because he loved someone else. I was cold comfort, an ole' factory memory that made him feel special and cared for. I was that one girl from high school who loved him enough to give her virginity to him. I was a warm memory and she was the fire.

  She ended up with the best Cal. I had the innocent, I tried capturing the wreck he became and she got the man and she threw him away never knowing how hard he truly did fight for her. He thinks I don’t know, but I do. I know it all because even if I wasn’t there, my best friend was. It was only Noah who partied and tried to tarnish everything good inside him and die, while the rest were settled down. Noah talked a lot when he came to Skin high. He bitched nonstop about Tayla and told me how much Cal changed for her.

  It broke my heart to know I failed, but I was comforted knowing he was happy and Axe was safe.

  Noah was the reward for my suffering for Cal. I just didn’t know it yet. Over the last few years Noah talks to me about those days. What we did, or what I did with all of them. He knows why I got lost and knew I would never step foot on a bus again.

  In all the talks and time spent helping each other he told me stories about Cal and how he fought for her. He told me how she was angry and forceful when she brought Bright on. He knew everything and confided it to me. I know he fought for her and it might be selfish but I don’t care. I deserve to be fought for too.

  That is what I need to hash out before I will cave.

  Too many memories have floated to the surface and I don’t know how to tell him it all... or if I ever can.

  Hashing it out and baring my soul isn’t fair when he won’t budge an inch. I need the fight, I need to feel his true self. I see mine in all these journals and I know that to save face and still show him my heart, bare and bleeding...it is all right here.

  I gather up the journals that are the most telling and put them in the bag I packed. I am with Cal and Axe the next three days while Cal does his interview with Sound Logic and I will let him see what he fails to the only way I can and still keep my dignity.

  Chapter Ten

  Cal

  I walk in the house after getting Axe from school. He was currently ignoring me because I didn’t drive the Lambo. "Axe I told you already. I had to get groceries and a few things from the music store. We can take the Lambo tomorrow." I signed as I spoke but he was being a brat so I let him and stopped trying to get him to reason. He was four and a stubborn shit when he felt like it.

  So, I left him be while he pouted.

  "What's wrong with the boy?" Jen asks when she comes down the stairs and sees him sitting at the window that faces the pool, arms folded and studiously ignoring me.

  "He's pitching a fit because I didn’t pick him up from Pre-School in the Lambo." I say and put the fresh vegetables in the fridge and look for my Jeep keys to get the gear from the back.

  "What is a Lambo?" She asks, and it's almost cute. I walk to her slow and invade her space before looking over my shoulder to see if he is still ignoring us; he is so I drop a quick kiss to her lips.

  She was shocked by my affection but, I ignore it and grab the keys to the Lamborghini Estoque. "Come see." I say and press the alert button on my intercom to get Axe's attention. "I am going to show mom the Lamborghini if you want to quit pouting?" I sign to him and he swiftly turns back around.

  "Sticking to it huh?" I say to no one in particular and make my way to the garage. "Way to commit."

  She follows me to the garage and stops short at the deep charcoal car shimmering under the LED lights in my garage.

  "Holy shit!" She exclaims and starts looking in the windows. "This is a Lambo? Lamborghini?"

  I laugh and nod. "Yeah. Step back red." I say and unarm the alarm and hit the FOB to lift the suicide Countach doors and laugh when she squeals.

  "Oh my God, it is gorgeous Cal." She says and is grinning ear from ear. "No wonder the kids pissed." She laughs and I shrug it off.

  "Watch this." I say and get inside and rev the engine and we both watch the door waiting for Axe to come running out. I que ‘Hail to the King’ and blast it from the system and lay on the horn. "This should work!" I yell.

  We watch as hid head peaks from the side of the door and once he confirms he is hearing it I lay off the horn and the revving and wait for him to hop in his booster and turn down the music.

  I turn to face him and smile as he head-bangs in his seat, so I dad whistle to get his attention. "Should we take momma for a drive?" I sign and speak though he could care less if I spoke he just nods enthusiastically.

  Half way around the block he starts clapping to get our attention and Jen turns to read what he needs and looks to me. "He wants to feel music."

  I turn up the tunes as he laughs hysterically from the vibration. I grab the protectors from the glove compartment and ask Jen to put them on his ears. They protect the negative noise from damaging his ears anymore and he can jam with his mom and dad.

  By the time we get home Axe is content to go play with toys now that his desires were fulfilled and I ask Jen to help me get the gear out of my Jeep.

  "What is all this shit?" She asks as I hand her a brand-new fluorescent red Fender Strat and the new case as well as cords, pedals and smaller amps.

  "I need different pedals for the new sound, always need cords. Smaller amps for Noah's studio as a gift and the Fender is for Lexington."

  We head to the studio and leave everything on the production side as I start putting the chords away. "Why did you buy her a guitar?"

  I turn to look at her and see the glint of jealousy and it ignites me. "Because she got her guitar out of a dumpster and fixed it as best she could and didn’t have a case for it either. I figured she needed the right guitar for what we were doing and she deserves it." I make my way to her as she fidgets with one of the handles on the bag. "There is nothing to fear with Lex. I promise you, she is the one thing we never need to hash out. It is my way of saying thank you for attempting this."

  She nods and lets me kiss her. "Speaking of hashing it out. I have something for you on your bed."

  "Will it be you naked?" I ask and kiss along her jaw and hope she lets me go pervert on her later.

  "Maybe, if it helps you understand my fear."

  I nod and smack her ass as we head up the stairs. "And this thing will help me understand?" I ask, watching her ass in front of me step by step.

  "They’re a clearer picture than I can try to paint or explain because shit has been skewed these last few years. They are journals, my perception of us over the years. I want you to read them and see what I saw. Right or wrong they are what I felt and saw and experienced. Some of it is awful and humiliating, but this for me is what I need hashed out Cal."

  Cal

  I settled Axe with Jen and ate a quick dinner with them before turning to go start the reading process. I grabbed the brown gift bag on my bed with me to the studio and set the lock.

  I don’t really know what to think as I sit on the couch and pull the five notebooks out. I don’t know which is better to start with, but decide it is always best to go from the beginning. Within minutes, I was able to remember so much more. So many little things I had forgotten.
Even that first hand job. I forgot she had asked to touch it, or that I asked her to lick the tip where it was glistening. Even at fifteen and fourteen we were sexual deviants.

  What I don’t remember were the conversations or the non-sexual shit we did. Concerts, fairs, the boardwalk. I never knew where her trailer was, but she talks about the creepy men that live there or putting her drunk mom to bed most nights. There was little to no quality of life for Jenny Pope outside of school and friends. She talks about the girls in school and how they make fun of her for being poor and on a special permit to attend school in Harbor Heights and that they used her to get to me and the guys.

  I throw the book down when I hate that I was so blind to not know the real hell she lived in. Or the fact that every time she touched me she felt clean and special and important and how I made her feel like the trailer park was miles and miles away when we hung out.

  I ponder the journal on the last page and try to picture her in my memory and see her fire red hair and her sun kissed skin on the beach. She had auburn hair back then, a little darker than it is now. Her green eyes were always so big and sweet and a smile like a fairy. I recall the first time I really paid attention to her and it was seven minutes in heaven at my birthday party.

  I can only recall the one time ever seeing Jenny so weak and sad when we were young and it was when her mom left her. I never knew how guarded she was. Noah's words telling me her issues go way back and will gut me... he was right. I feel for Red and all she missed out on.

  I am on the Senior year journal and in it she talks of me not asking her to prom in eleventh grade and how the Senior prom would be our year. She talks about how her mom finally came back that year after Jen was left with no option other than the trailer court to avoid being caught at fifteen living on her own.