Flashed

by Zoey Castile

  “Is there a secret room?” I ask. I trace the outline of his jagged ear and he lets me, shivering lightly at my touch.

  “It’s not a secret, but it is in on the second floor which—”

  “Which you forbade me from going to. I guess, other than your bedroom, I was just sort of accustomed to it.”

  He rests his forehead on mine. “Will you please come look at it?”

  “But I’m hungry,” I whine.

  “There will be plenty of time to eat. Just one look.”

  I take the hand he offers and follow upstairs and into the room that has always been off limits. I don’t know what I pictured the first time I was here. He already has the guest rooms and the torture room in the basement. The upstairs space is the in-progress library, and the downstairs is a living room. I think of what my mother would have said about this big house, this man all alone up on a hill surrounded by nothing but trees and mountains. She would have said he needed a family. I picture Ari taking ownership of one of the guest rooms and another one, painted all sorts of colors—maybe an underwater blue . . .

  Whatever he is, Mari referred to Pat. He’s not whatever. He’s mine. My stomach flutters with something I never let myself want. A family with Patrick. I know I’m being stupid and getting way ahead of myself, but when I look at him, I can’t imagine not waking up beside him.

  “Close your eyes,” he says.

  “Pat—”

  “Please, Lena. My Magdalena.”

  “You’ve been listening to my playlist.” I smirk and do as he’s asked.

  The instant he turns around, I peek. The door opens and I rush past him because I recognize what’s in the corner. My easel. There’s a long wooden table that still smells of varnish, and new paints and brushes arranged in a neat row. Each wall is an ice white, the only decorations are a series of photos on the wall. Printed-out photos framed in elegant black.

  “Your sister emailed me the photos,” he tells me.

  “How did you know what to buy?” I say, looking at the table.

  He smiles, pleased with himself. “Your syllabus and supplies are on the website.”

  “Pat,” I say, and turn to him a little breathless. “This is amazing. I’ve never had a studio before. You didn’t have to do this.”

  He takes my hands in his, kissing each and every one of my knuckles. “It’s not entirely selfless.”

  “How come?”

  “When you’re gone, I feel it right in here.” He presses his palm against his chest. “When you leave the room, I still smell you. When I sleep, I dream of you.”

  “Every night?”

  He shrugs. “Sometimes I dream of an all-you-can-eat buffet at Red Lobster.”

  “Gross.”

  “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”

  “I don’t know how much work I would get done with you down the hall,” I say, half serious and half playful. I bite my bottom lip. “You’re distracting.”

  “We can set up boundaries. When the door’s closed, I’ll stay out.” He kisses my cheekbone reverently. “Unless you invite me to come inside.”

  I moan as I kiss him because he knows just what to say to get me to melt at his fingertips. The only thing that stops me from ripping his clothes off is my rumbling stomach.

  “What do you say?” he asks me.

  “I accept your studio, Patrick Donatello. On one condition.”

  He arches a brow. “Which is?”

  “Will you be my date to the Halloween party?”

  He inhales, bright green eyes searching my face for something I don’t know how to answer. He licks his lips, a frown coming and going from his features. I’m pushing too far. Too much. I’m messing this up.

  “Never mind, it’s silly. I love—I love that you did this for me. No conditions.”

  “Lena?”

  “Pat?”

  “I would love to be your date for the Halloween party.”

  15

  The Monster Mash

  PAT

  “Aren’t you a little tall for a stormtrooper?” Lena asks from behind me.

  The stormtrooper costume is one I’ve had for a few years. I was blond enough and slimmer then, so I was Luke as a stormtrooper. Now, the black material stretches a bit over my biceps and thighs, warping the plastic white armor in some places, but it still works.

  With my helmet in hand, I turn to where she leans against the bedroom door.

  “Oh sweet Christ,” I swear under my breath because I’m straining through the cheap black nylon and white plastic. “Do we really have to go to this party?”

  She does a little twirl in the white Princess Leia costume. It’s a Rated R version of the one I grew up with as a kid. A lot less Wholesome Princess and more Alderaan Girls Gone Wild. I especially love the addition of the hip-length slip that displays her thighs.

  “I considered going as a slutty cupcake,” she says, “but it was this or slutty Wookie and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to traumatize you or not.”

  “As long as you’re not slutty Darth Vader, otherwise this role play is going to be real weird. Come to think of it, I’m just a plain stormtrooper now.” I set the helmet on the bed and grip her around the waist. Her hair is pinned in two buns at the sides, and with every step she takes, I get a flash of her light-brown skin.

  She’s got boots on, so she doesn’t have to push up on her toes too much to kiss me. I wonder if I can convince her to stay in for the night. To let me get my head under that skirt.

  “Come, we’re already an hour late.”

  “Can anyone really be late to a college party?” I ask.

  “I promised Mari.”

  I succumb to her will and follow her downstairs with my helmet under my arm. Before we get in the car, she kisses me, flicking her tongue against mine.

  “You good?”

  “I’m fine, Lena.”

  What if I really am fine? I think.

  She drives, and I hold my helmet in my lap. It’s like all of my adrenaline is in my legs, because I’m more jittery than I’ve ever been before.

  I can do this. I can do this for Lena.

  “We don’t have to stay long,” she says.

  At that, I frown. “You don’t have to make excuses for me.”

  “I’m not.” Her words are tight. “I want to make sure you’re comfortable. Usually when people say they’re fine, they aren’t.”

  “Look at me, baby,” I say. “Do I look fine?”

  I try to put everything I’ve learned with Chris over the last couple of weeks into practice. This morning, while Lena was in the shower, I got in a call to him, and he encouraged me to wear something that made me feel comfortable. The helmet will help with that.

  “You’re fine in so many ways, Pat,” she says, a suggestiveness in her sexy voice. “It means a lot that you’re here with me.”

  When we get to the house and she parks at an angle on the lawn, which is probably illegal, she holds my hand. I grip it tight.

  The house is decorated from porch to roof with cobwebs and an entire elaborate graveyard complete with skeletons in various stages of resurrection. I already forgot whose place this is, but their neighbors must be pissed at all the cars surrounding their property.

  I put on my helmet, then step out of the car. For a few steps, it feels like wading into mud. I focus on each and every single movement of my body. Shut the door. Adjust the helmet on the face. Take a step. Then another.

  Thankfully, people littering the front lawn are too young and too drunk to really pay attention to me. This isn’t the small neighborhood that I grew up in. These aren’t the families that knew mine. This is the college town with enough people that I am just a guy in a costume trying to impress the woman he’s falling in love with.

  “Pat?” Lena asks, and her voice, clear as a bell, rings through my thoughts. Her voice is the thing that brings me back. Her touch anchors me. I am out of the mud, crunching on leaves, on solid ground.

  I tug on Lena
’s hand and bring her ear close. Damn this helmet. “Thank you for bringing me out, Lena. I’d completely forgotten what it was like to see college kids puking before midnight.”

  At that, she barks a laugh and we waltz in through the door, crowned with bright orange lights. Everything is filtered through the pane of my helmet, making the hanging lights that much brighter. I can hear my breath, feel it get hot in here, which, I can already tell, is going to be a mistake.

  Lena finds her friend Mari right away, sitting on a tall armchair dressed in a flowing robe and a garland propped on her long, dark curls.

  “Who are you supposed to be?” Lena asks.

  “A Greek goddess,” I say, my voice too deep, too muffled under this thing.

  But Mari isn’t scared. She makes a scandalized face, completely pleased. “See?! I am Aphrodite, goddess of sex.”

  “She’s the goddess of love,” Lena corrects.

  “I’m about to well, actually you on this one,” Mari says, “But she was literally born of the sea when Zeus spilled his god jizz into the waters. That’s about sex. Not love.”

  “On that note, I’m going to get us some drinks,” Lena says. “Pat, can you keep Mari company so she doesn’t get into trouble?”

  “How dare?” Mari asks.

  I think of how Lena also said the same thing to me. Have I really been hiding for that long that everyone under thirty has come up with a different way of speaking?

  Lena gives me a small look, one that asks, “Will you be okay without me?”

  I don’t know. I don’t want to let go of her hand. I don’t want to find out the answer.

  But it’s like the time my brother Ronan shoved me into the lake and said swim. I swam all the way to the other end of the lake because the only other option was drowning. I nod, and she’s gone in the throng of bodies covered in glitter, lamé, and superhero costumes. While I don’t care for their lack of rhythm or inability to keep a beat, I miss music. I miss dancing.

  “So, you’re the mysterious recluse,” Mari says, her voice climbing over the music.

  “Guilty. But you can just call me Pat.” I take the empty seat beside her.

  “Just so you know, whatever way you hurt Lena, I will return the favor seven times worse.”

  I want to laugh at this girl, over a decade younger than me, swathed in gossamer fabric, and glittering powder on her skin. But there is nothing humorous in the way she juts her chin out and gives me a stare that defies her size. She is all heart.

  “I won’t. If I do, I promise you can use me for target practice.”

  She seems pleased with this answer.

  “I’m used to getting this little speech from dads,” I tell her.

  Mari sniffs her long Roman nose, pushing her hair aside. “Everyone is allowed to fight for the people they love, within reason. That role isn’t for just dads or whatever idea your generation has about patriarchy.”

  I laugh, the sound robotic against the plastic of my helmet. I consider taking it off. Who would look at me and stare? Who would take a photo and plaster it all over the internet? Though, in this crowd, I might be safe since celebrities get rinsed and recycled so quickly. Plus, I never got to be famous, just infamous.

  “How old exactly do you think I am?” I ask.

  For the first time during our conversation, I think she might actually look abashed. Thankfully, Lena returns and sits on my lap. I realize the problem with this scenario. How am I going to drink this beer without resorting to a straw?

  Mari and Lena get into a conversation about the holidays. This is going to be my first year without Jack. I try not to think about that, and the fact that Scarlett has invited us to her house for Thanksgiving. I would know everyone who is coming, and it would be a safe place since I can’t exactly wear my stormtrooper helmet everywhere I go.

  You can beat this, I remind myself.

  I keep my hand on Lena’s thigh, and she absentmindedly brushes her fingers on the inside of my wrist. I have never been with someone who touches me this way. I grew up skinny, but my brothers and I were breaking six feet in height before we reached high school. I have never been a small man. She doesn’t exactly make me feel small, but when Lena touches me, she makes me feel breakable. Like she’s handling me in a way that’s careful. I don’t want her to be afraid to touch me. I want her to know that she can be rough around those sexy fucking edges. She’s like that in the bedroom, but in public, she pulls back. It’s not that I want her to do to me the same things here that we do in the dark. That’s not it at all.

  What do I fucking want? I want this girl, this woman to love me hard and unconditionally. I want her to know that I will be strong enough to hold her up the way she has done for me.

  I take off my helmet.

  Mari does a double take, and I think I might have done the impossible. I have rendered her speechless.

  The room is dark, and the air humid from the costumes and bodies dancing beneath a strobe light. Why do college kids want strobe lights and smoke machines at their parties? I can feel Lena stiffen against me, a sharp little intake of breath as she turns her torso to settle wide brown eyes at my face.

  I’m scar-side to Mari, who only smirks and says something I’m not quite sure I understand. I drink from my beer and keep drinking because I feel like my mouth has become a desert and nothing will quench it except for this thing in my hand and maybe Lena’s mouth.

  Her mouth. She leans up to press a kiss on my jaw.

  I feel my dick twitch, and I decided to stop picturing the things I want to do with her because this costume is old, and I’m afraid my full erection will rip the seams.

  “Well, hello,” Mari says, and without the helmet, I can see her dress is the color of Caribbean seas, her eyes a sharp green, and the glitter on her skin a gold that brings out the warm brown.

  “Hello yourself, princess,” I say, and I soak up the way the two of them fall into giggles.

  I sit here, like this is a perfectly normal thing. Like I am the kind of guy who is better. Like I’m a regular guy on a regular date with his incredible girl.

  “Oh, this is my song!” Mari shouts. “Dance with me, please.”

  She’s taking both of our hands. A familiar panic starts to build between my ribs. Sitting in a dark corner with Lena and her best friend is one thing, but it’s another to stand in the center of a throng.

  But I pop my helmet back on and follow the girls. The song has a hard and fast beat that even I can’t follow, but it doesn’t matter because Mari and Lena seem to sandwich me playfully.

  This look on Lena’s face, sheer happiness without the worry of our families or her school or anything—I would do anything to maintain it. Mari “whoos” behind us, but then the song changes to one I actually know. Slow with a heavy bass. I grab Lena and pull her tight against me, her skirt riding up high, so the top of those slits reveals the black lace panties she’s wearing. Somehow, we dance into a dark hallway all alone.

  Lena’s eyes spark with lust, because she can feel my dick pressing against her thigh. She rubs her hand across it and I lift my helmet to taste her waiting mouth. Her nipples are perked up and showing through that flimsy little dress.

  “Take me home,” she whispers in my ear.

  I don’t know what makes me harder—the feel of her body against me or when she calls my house home.

  We push through the crowd. For a moment, I catch that smirking Keillor kid in the corner, drinking from his red plastic cup. He tries to catch Lena’s eyes as she’s leaving, but she doesn’t look his way, and when he sees me, he says, “Sup, Donatello.”

  I say nothing, despite the unreasonable slap of rage against my chest. This is the guy who wants to sell my photos to the highest bidder. He doesn’t know it’s me, can only make his best fucking guess, but for the briefest moment, I make a fist.

  What if he caught a photo of that kiss just now? What if he saw us in that corner before?

  I think of what Chris said earlier this mon
th. What if I do another thing I’ll regret? What if I just keep following Lena outside? What if this night continues to be great once we get home and naked?

  I walk and walk. Lena’s round ass is my North fucking Star.

  She drives us home, singing in her god-awful, beautiful voice.

  “You are truly terrible,” I tell her, removing my helmet for the last time tonight.

  She glances at me. “That’s not going to get you any cookies tonight.”

  “Please,” I scoff. “You always say that and you can’t resist me, Lena.”

  “In that case, I’ll just keep singing.”

  I take her hand and kiss the tops of her knuckles. “It still sounds—perfect. In Spanish and all.”

  She only purses her lips, but when we’re home and kissing up the stairs, that purse melts away into a perfect circle gasping as I spread her legs and nestle myself between her thighs like I’ve wanted to all night. I push the black lace to the side and slurp up her sweet, wet pussy.

  The white plastic of my suit has started to rip when I sit on my knees to have a better position of her. I yank off the gloves and fuck her with my fingers until she’s utterly demanding my cock.

  Amazingly, the buns of her hair have stayed in place and she makes no motion to remove that dress. She crawls on her knees and gets on all fours. The way she moves the fabric to reveal her ass is an art form.

  “Get inside me, trooper,” she says.

  I can’t reach the ridiculous fucking zipper, so I rip the flimsy seams and whip out my dick. She sits back as I guide myself inside her, parting her ass so I can watch myself disappear in Lena. She cries out, sinking her hands and face on the mattress like she’s praying. Then, she reaches back and slaps her ass cheek, leaving a red print that fades when she moves her hand.

  “Do you want to slap my fucking ass?” she asks.

  I do. More than anything I do. I pound harder, my heart seizing in my chest. I slap her full, delicious cheeks and when she makes high-pitched sounds, pushing hard against her, I can’t hold it back anymore and come.