Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “I'll be right back,” he says, but I just smile softly because I can already feel my lids drooping, because I know the video of me and Calix is out in the world, because I know our time is already coming to an end. “Holy shit.”

  I hear the words come from him in genuine shock and horror, laying my head back against the stone floor and closing my eyes.

  Heavy footsteps follow Barron as he moves over to stand beside me. When I open my eyes, he crouches down to look at me.

  “What?” I ask, trying to pretend like my heart isn’t beating a million miles an hour. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

  “Pearl Boehringer killed herself,” he tells me, and my eyes widen. Holy shit. Again?! Even when I take different paths, Pearl's seems to remain relatively the same. Guilt curdles in my stomach, but I swallow back the nervous lump in my throat. Tomorrow, it won't matter, right? Because everything will go back to the way it was. “That … and there's something else.”

  “I don't want to talk about it,” I say, sitting up suddenly and looking him straight in the face. “Whatever bad news there is, it can wait until tomorrow, can't it?”

  Barron's mouth flattens into a thin line, but, to my surprise, he nods, tucking his phone in the back pocket of his ruined leather pants. There are … love juices, so to speak, all over the front of them. His and mine both.

  “Do you want to see my art studio?” I ask, feeling breathless suddenly, desperate to keep this night going, if only for a short while. The surprise reflected back on his features is second only to the sudden look of triumph and pleasure on his face.

  Barron wants me to want him.

  “I would love to see your art studio,” he says, his mouth curving into a vicious smile. A small spark of fear ricochets through me as I remember his signature personality trait: light and shadows. Nothing Barron ever does is white or black; he's all shades of gray. Instead of disappearing out the door and leaving me alone and naked in the chapel—something I wouldn't have put past him before—he retrieves my dress and helps me pull it over my head, tightening the laces as I struggle to pretend that his presence is having no further effect on me.

  “Panties might be nice,” he adds, handing my discarded underwear back to me. “There's also the outdoor bathroom. You could use that to cleanup if you want.” His attention flicks down to my thighs, as if he knows that he's left his mark between them.

  “Thank you,” I snap, tearing the panties from his grip and putting them on over my boots. I lead the way out the door as Barron collects his sketchbook, following behind me as I pause in the bathroom for a moment.

  He doesn't give me any privacy either, slipping in to draw me while I wet a paper towel and slip into one of the stalls. It doesn't bother me as much as I thought, to have him there. Instead, I feel comforted by his presence. That doesn't change when we climb into Calix's stolen car and head back to the Diamond Point Mobile Home Park.

  The only light on is the porch light, and a quick peep inside the house shows me that both my parents are asleep. I back up and bump into Barron, spinning around to find him smirking down at me, his palms on the wall on either side of my head.

  The way he's looking at me, I expect a trick. With him, I'm always expecting a trick.

  “I know this probably won't help matters much …” I start, swallowing back a sudden surge of desire at the closeness of his body, his smell, even the cocky arrogance spreading across his lush mouth. “But please don't hurt me here.”

  There's a pause where the smirk nearly falls from his face, but he recovers it quickly, moving one of his hands off the wall to stroke strong fingers down my cheek.

  “I won't hurt you again, Karma,” he says, sounding almost surprised at the admission himself. His mouth thins into a flat line and he backs up a step. I smile back, but it's hard to resist the words clinging to the tip of my tongue: yes, you will. He will hurt me, even if he doesn't mean to, just by not remembering tonight ever happened.

  “Come with me.” I push aside my feelings and take Barron's warm hand in mine, dragging him down the steps and over to the greenhouse door. It's unlocked, as always. We don't really feel the need to lock our doors out here. There are some definite positives to living in such a small community. Everyone in Diamond Point knows my moms and appreciates the care and effort they put into the park where we all live.

  “A greenhouse turned art studio,” Barron comments as I push the door open, the sweet fragrance of violets and jasmine stirring in the cool air around us. “Interesting.”

  He follows me in, and I'm struck suddenly by how intimate this moment is. Glancing over my shoulder, I notice his eyes scanning the sacred space, and my pulse begins to thunder. This is me extending trust that I shouldn't rightfully give, far more invasive even than sharing my body. If Barron rejects me here, now, the violation will be something I'll never be able to forget, not in this timeline, or any other.

  “My moms believe art is the pinnacle of human invention,” I say, plugging in the lights and smiling as the strings of Edison bulbs strung through the space bloom to life.

  “Not medicine or space travel or bio-engineering?” Barron asks, but not like he's judging, just curious. He pauses next to the pottery wheel and then moves over to a stack of paintings, thumbing through the canvases as my heart freezes in terror. Some of my work is in there, and if he starts shit here … I'll probably kick him right in the balls.

  “All necessary inventions to keep people healthy and safe, so that they can make art,” I say with a laugh, the sound trailing off as Barron pulls out one of my pieces. It's just an oil painting of Little Bee, the bright yellow of the car at contrast with the dark woods behind her. There's a set of paints on the car's hood, a myriad of colors spilling over the sides and dripping to the grass beneath the wheels.

  Barron stares at it for a long moment, and then turns to look at me, his face dark and serious, contemplative as always.

  “Can I buy this from you?” he asks, and my brows go up.

  “Wh… What?” I stutter, pushing red and black hair over my shoulders. It's pretty, but I had to bleach the shit out of it to get it here, and it's dry as hell. Likely, I won't be doing this again anytime soon.

  Barron pauses for a moment to pull a unicorn-horn lollipop from the front pocket of his jacket. I'm honestly not even sure where it came from, probably some secret stash in Calix's car. He unwraps it, careful to keep the painting beneath his arm, and then sticks the whole damn thing in his mouth, twirling it in a circle as he studies me with one blue eye, and one brown.

  “I'll give you two thousand for it.”

  “Two … what?” I rub the bridge of my nose and close my eyes for a moment before opening them back up as Barron covers the length of the room in just a handful of careful strides. He gets far too close to me for propriety's sake, but I like it. It's almost like he can't bear to keep his distance anymore.

  “It's all I have in cash,” he says, clearly a son of privilege. He has no idea what two thousand dollars could do for me and my family.

  “Why would you pay two thousand dollars for that?” I ask, pointing at the painting. “I have better ones …” My voice trails off as Barron chuckles, pulling the rainbow lollipop from between his lips. I traded one poison for another, he'd said.

  “Because this is a Karma Sartain original. It'll be worth much more when you're famous one day.” Barron studies my face, absorbing every emotion I have before I’m even feeling it. “My parents are supporters of the arts,” he adds, and I decide it's best not to mention how my moms feel about rich people playing with art as tax write-offs. “Maybe they'll hang it in their gallery in New York?”

  “Please don't say things like that,” I tell him as he puts the canvas down on the worktable, next to a cluster of potted begonias. Barron puts the candy between his lips and then puts his hands on my shoulders.

  “I don't talk much,” he tells me, which is something I already knew. “Do you know why?”

  “Bec
ause words don't mean as much as actions?” I guess, and he laughs.

  “Because there's often nothing happening worth talking about. But you, Karma, you're worth talking about. Sell me the painting, please. And sign it.”

  “You're nuts,” I tell him, but I grab a metallic silver pen from an old coffee can sitting near the edge of the table, and I scribble my name and the year into one corner. Barron nods, like this is an acceptable outcome to him, and then pulls out his wallet, handing me a wad of hundreds like it's nothing. I don't bother to count them. Nobody will be spending this money, and tomorrow, Barron will have forgotten he gave it to me.

  Even though I tell myself I'm prepared for another reset, I'm not. I'm not at all.

  “Thank you for the painting,” he says, grinning around the candy in his mouth. He leans down to kiss me, and then we both pause as the door to the art studio opens and Mama Jane appears in a sea green robe. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and her expression is a nice even mix of surprise and confusion.

  “Karma,” she says, looking at Barron in his faerie jacket and dirty leather pants, his buckled boots and his rainbow Mohawk. “And who is your friend?”

  “Mom, this is Barron Farrar,” I say, lifting up a hand uselessly in his direction. Mom notices the wad of cash in my hand before she registers Barron's name. I try to keep my issues with the Knight Crew mostly to myself, but there's been a time or two when it's all come pouring out. My moms know Barron's name. “He just bought one of my paintings,” I offer up, forcing a smile as Barron studies my mother the way he studies everyone else—with an artist's eye. That's what that intense stare of his is. I'm just wondering why it took me so long to notice it.

  “That's lovely,” Mama Jane says, but she doesn't sound convinced. “Are you okay, honey?” The way she's looking at me, it's like she thinks the cash in my hand is for something else. Wouldn't she be shocked to learn that Barron didn't need to pay me for sex; I wanted him as much as he wanted me.

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. …” Barron trails off and pauses, waiting for Mama Jane to fill in the empty space.

  “Jane Sartain,” she says, stepping forward and offering her hand. It's weird, seeing Barron in the same room as my mom. My head spins with the implications. “Karma, I …” She starts, but then she looks at me in my black funereal gown, my red and black hair, and the glitter all over my face from when it rubbed off of Barron's chest and onto me. I just hope she doesn't make the connection as to how it got there.

  “Yeah?” I ask, heart beating like a hummingbird's wings. She's going to bring up the sex tape. And that's the last thing I want to spend my limited time discussing.

  Jane opens her mouth, pauses, and closes it again.

  “Never mind. We can discuss it tomorrow.” She turns to go, pausing in the doorway to the studio before looking back at me, brown eyes dark with worry. “If you two want to come in the house, that's okay, just don't wake your sisters up. There are condoms underneath the sink in the bathroom.”

  “Mom!” I snap, gritting my teeth and giving her a look. Barron just chuckles and swirls his candy around in his mouth as he watches us. “Please leave. We're just fine in here. Barron is an artist, too.”

  Her expression shifts slightly, but I can tell she's going to wait up and peek out the blinds in her room every now and then.

  “Your daughter inspires creativity,” Barron says, but mom still gives him a dark look.

  “I can agree to that,” she says before turning to me. “Your mom and I are inside if you need us.” She disappears back the way she came, padding down the curved path between the art studio and the house. It's made of mosaic tiles, each one handmade by me, the moms, or my sisters. Everything in my world is designed to be both functional and beautiful at the same time.

  I never realized until now how lucky I am to have that.

  “She doesn't like me,” Barron says, but not like he's surprised. He picks up the painting of Little Bee, cracks his candy between pearly white teeth, and then disappears out the door. I watch him head toward the Aston Martin, my heart sinking and a well of loneliness opening up within me. That's it? He's just done with me now?

  I watch him, hating how happy it makes me when he actually comes back.

  That's the shit I need to stop doing, letting other's actions influence my own happiness. I am the source of my happiness. I must also remember that I am the designer of my own catastrophe.

  Barron has his sketchbook now, that and a couple of beers. He uses a bottle opener from Calix's key ring and then hands the drink over to me. It's even cold.

  “Cooler in the trunk,” he says, gesturing with his chin in the direction of the stolen car. Calix, Raz, and Barron act like they don't even really like each other, yet Barron took Calix's fancy ass car, as if it were nothing.

  We clink our bottles together as Barron takes a seat in Cathy's favorite chair, this paint-splattered green Adirondack chair in the corner. He flips the cover up on the sketchbook and then glances over at me.

  “I may very well draw your tits this time,” he says, giving me a lascivious little smile. “Or other parts of you. My face is well-acquainted with your—”

  “What about your friends?” I quip, interrupting him before he can mention his tongue on my cunt again. Just the thought of it makes me want to take him into my room for the rest of the night. “What if they see those drawings?”

  “Then they'll know you're mine,” he says, his voice dark and dangerous. But that anger, it isn't directed at me. I bite my lower lip for a moment, wondering if I should challenge his bullshit caveman mine, mine, mine nonsense. Only … this is my night. Tomorrow, it'll all be gone. If I want to enjoy a guilty pleasure, that's my prerogative, isn't it? “But they won't look. They know that anyone who touches my sketchbook gets their face broken.” Barron pauses to look up at me. “Except for you. You pepper sprayed me, and I let it go. That must account for something?”

  A long moment of silence follows, and I glance toward the glass walls of the greenhouse, reminded of the chapel and my palms pressed into its own cool, glass exterior. I move over to the plug-in and yank the lights free, leaving us with moonlight and shadows.

  “I'm tempted to make a Titanic joke …” I start, reaching back for the laces on the corset. “Draw me like one of your French girls?” I let the gown fall to the floor in a puddle of black tulle and lace. “But you probably haven't seen it.”

  “Will the lifeboats be seated according to class?” Barron retorts, quoting the movie and then smirking at me as he puts his pencil to the page.

  “I'd be locked below deck with the other peasants as the boat sank,” I reply, sitting on the edge of the table in the center of the room, fern fronds teasing my naked skin as the sound of Barron's charcoal tip scrapes across the paper, staining his beautiful hands.

  “I'd rescue you; I'd be the Rose to your Jack.”

  Fuck, he's charming when he wants to be …

  I close my eyes, a smile lighting on my face.

  I stay that way for a while, until Barron's footsteps bring my head up, my eyes opening to see him standing in front of me. He shows me the drawing, of this beautiful girl with her head thrown back, moonlight creating enigmatic shadows on her bare skin.

  “There's no way that girl is me,” I whisper as Barron chucks the sketchbook aside, and steps between my thighs.

  “No,” he agrees as he slides his palms down the curves of my waist. “You're much prettier.”

  His mouth finds mine as my hands fumble with the fly on his leather pants, freeing the velvety length of his cock into my suddenly sweaty palm. I stroke Barron as he kisses me, claiming me with his tongue, imprinting himself on me in a way that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forget.

  I guide him to the wet heat between my thighs and let him fuck me into the table until I come.

  “Stay with me tonight?” I ask, sweaty and shaking in his arms. Barron nods and lets me lead him inside and down the hall to my bedroom, watching as I shut
and lock the door behind us.

  He strips down so that we're both naked, crawling into my bed and curling up behind me, sliding into me and moving until he's coming again, too.

  We spend hours like that, naked, touching, kissing, fucking.

  I don't even remember falling asleep.

  But when my eyes open, and I see the blood on my steering wheel, my heart breaks just a little.

  It feels impossible to leave Barron after that, like being separated from him and Raz both might just break me. So that next day, I repeat the script exactly, ending up naked in the chapel with Barron tasting me between my thighs, rising above me in the dark and the moonlight, fucking me with my palms pressed to the glass. Every night, I ask him back to my mothers' house, and he comes. He always comes. The only difference is that he picks a different painting to buy, every single time.

  I do that for four nights, until, on the fourth night, I resist the urge to fall asleep for once, climbing out from under Barron's arm to look at his sketchbook again. There are some new drawings in the back I didn't see before.

  One of them … is me, sitting on the podium inside the chapel as I did the first night. Every night, he draws me in a different place, and as I flip through, I see all four days represented somehow, someway.

  My throat closes up as I curl up beside him and cry myself to sleep.

  I don't repeat that same day again.

  Waking up every day at the moment of the crash is exhausting. There is no respite for me, no early morning sunrise, no lying in bed and waiting for one of my moms to bring me coffee or tea. And it's not like I can take the day to nap and recuperate. If I fall asleep, I wake up right back where I started.

  Over and over and over again.

  Today, I hit the lock before Calix can get to me, and then head straight home.

  Now my heart feels not only cracked, broken, but also torn. Looking at Raz makes me feel sick, looking at Barron makes me feel sick, looking at Calix has always made me feel sick. Today, I just want my moms.