She's something I've never felt so good with before. She's something that makes my blood do little loops of excitement. She's exceptional, and stunning, and I'm inexorably drawn to her.
I kept her number for months. And it just might be that she'll be willing to help me become respectable...
* * *
Chapter One
Slamming the door behind me, I scream, “I don't care!” My mother's response is muffled as a cold gust of wind sweeps the doorstep, sending bone-chilling shivers down my spine. Hands shaking from the unexpected temperature drop, I fumble for the zip and do up my jacket. The wind freezes whatever tears are leaking out of my eyes, ripping away their heat. It's a bad night for jogging, but right now, I want to be anywhere but in my house.
We've never been the ones to get along. You can read stories of single mothers who do everything in their power to make their children's lives work, and it's exceptional and uplifting to learn of these tales. And then you have my mother, who lurks in the background like a festering wound, making sure to remind me at every turn that she could have given me up, but she didn't. She could have chosen not to pay for my education, but she didn't. She could have kicked me out years ago due to the massive waste of space I am in the household, but she didn't. Her voice is the one that seeps into you, corrupting the fragments of your soul until before you know it, nothing is left but darkness.
We had another one of our classic fights. She'd been drinking, which always exacerbates the effect, and dived into the usual litany of my lack of appreciation for everything she's done, that she doesn't understand how she raised such an ungrateful daughter. Then, for extra ammo, she tried the “you're just like your dad” card – which is great, because I never knew him, so I can only take her word on it – and the ever looming threat of turfing me out onto the street.
Fuck it, I think. If she wants to throw me out, I should let her do it. Good riddance. I check my car, giving another half-hearted attempt to start the engine. I know it won't – the car has been on its last legs for years, and is probably about a hundred years old, since rust flakes at the once dark blue coat on the Ford. I can't go to my favorite spot by the river, so I settle for the nearby park, and take my iPod earbuds out of my pocket, leaving the tracklist on random.
I'll be Good by Jaymes Young starts playing, and I hum along to the lyrics as I reach the entrance to the park, and begin jogging down the lamp-lit lane. Leaves rustle in the trees, which are scraggly and budding from the advance of spring. I love the sound my breath makes as I huff through the exercise, along with the jarring thud of my legs, and it allows me to slip away from the bad thoughts for a moment.
I don't have anyone to keep me company tonight, though I crave the support when I'm at odds with my mother, which is about ninety percent of the time. I don't include the times when she's sleeping.
I might not have someone to keep my bed warm, but there's one thing that's always been good for me, and that's running. When I run, I can forget about all the negative things in my life, simply by thinking them into exhaustion, or focusing on nothing but the hiss and scrape of my breathing.
I vaguely regret ending it with my boyfriend, but at the same time, I don't. I more feel sorry for the fact I can't go to his house and just sink into his body to escape from the real world for a while. I don't miss the fact he had turned from super charming and handsome guy to scary manipulative mental abuser. I ditched him before our relationship advanced to the stage where I'd probably be stuffed in his basement, chained to the wall and never allowed out to see daylight again.
I'll have to go back home at some point. If I leave it long enough, my mother might be asleep in her bed, so I can crawl into my covers without her blasting my ears off and doing those fake, weepy tears that are supposed to make me feel so bad that I end up apologizing to her, even though she's often the instigator. The issue is, I encourage and feed that behaviour each time I submit to it, and she feels justified in repeating it to win her arguments. I've wondered sometimes why she's like this, and why she blames me for all the sorrows in her life.
She blames me even for my father leaving, when she's not cursing his name through a bottle of whisky, with puffy red eyes glaring at me as if I'm a speck of dirt.
Ugh.
I'm half-tempted to drop into a random bar and see if I can take advantage of some guys who are always up and willing to buy a lady a drink, but there's pros and cons with the idea. It ultimately leaves a hollow echo inside, to wake up in the morning next to a stranger and to sneak out of their house, have breakfast then depart, or find the bedsheets cold. The pro is that they don't know me, nor care about my life story, and are just in it for a good time. Perhaps somewhere they want to forget their problems as well, so it works out for the both of us.
The cons I think outweigh the pros. Doesn't stop me when the craving hits. Any company is better than no company at all. At least, that's what I tell myself when the self-loathing hits.
It's clear though that staying with my mother is getting me nowhere. My bones rattle from the jogging, and my blood warms up, protecting me against the icy chill – though my cheeks still feel like flabs of frozen meat.
I've made so many mistakes, honestly. Some humiliating, some horrible. My need for instant gratification is an addiction, an issue that I can't seem to stop it. I just can't.
Some people might phone their friends when they feel down. My friends, if I can call them that, are people who tend to chew their insides up with jealously. I'm good to talk to when they have no one else to turn to, but I'm ditched at the first chance. I asked one of them, Maria, once why she did that, and she said that they feared my man-eating habits, and that I sometimes “showed them up” when they tried to pull someone for themselves.
So, in other words, they're a bunch of bitches, but my friend pool isn't the deepest around. I have that unfortunate habit of becoming friends with the insecure types, because I keep thinking I can help them and boost their confidence. Even with the clique groups at school, I've drifted in and out of them. The easiest groups to maintain are the boy-focused ones, because they're all horny teenagers and I have a weakness when it comes to needing attention. You know those jokes where there's that one girl who has slept with the entire swim team? Yeah. That jokes practically exists for me.
Regarding my current selection of friends, I'm like the fat kid they keep hanging around the group out of sympathy, rather than the fact they actually like me. It's okay, though. High school ends soon. The current job I have, which is a part-time waitress position, gives me pennies. If I'm to get out, I need to look into getting another part-time job or wave my graduation in an employers face for a better job.
Time to use that education my mother's been paying for.
Reaching the end of the park, I spin on my heel and jog back the way I came, my thoughts slowing as the weight of sleep presses on my skull. Past the trees and up the street, I hesitate outside my door for a few moments. The lights are off, but I listen for my mother before quietly gouging my key into the lock and creeping inside.
I'm fast asleep after that, with the conviction that I need a better job. Just so I don't have to live here anymore.
Chapter Two
Old habits die hard. Two months later, I'm out of school and have breezed it past interviews to land a job at an media station as an editor. Reluctantly, I have to admit that without my mother's push for my education, and some of the private tutors she had paid for me to have, I likely wouldn't have been able to get this position – at least, not without a college degree. The references of my tutors was enough.
It irritates me to know that I need her, even though she's never needed me, nor shown any real signs that she actively cares about me, other than presenting a good image to her friends of all the sacrifices she's made.
If I had a cent for every time she's used that line, believe me, I'd be super rich by now.
Walking into work, Richard Larkin, my boss, greets me. “Hey, Maya.” He'
s dark haired, with a twinkle in his brown eyes, and I'm already contemplating him, wondering what he might be like in bed. “Wendy will show you the ropes – she babysits all the newcomers. From what I understand, she's good at teaching as well, which is brilliant, because I'm terrible at it.”
Wendy, as I also spot on her gleaming name-badge, trills a high-pitched giggle, instantly annoying me. She adjusts blue-rimmed spectacles. “Oh, you! You flatter me!” She fans her face in a self-conscious manner.
Richard smiles charmingly at her, before placing a hand on my back and steering me to my desk, Wendy following suit. “If you need any help at all, don't hesitate to contact me. I imagine you'll be fine with just Wendy...” his eyes dip to my exposed cleavage, my dark blonde hair, and there's a flicker of sexual interest, “but like I said. I'm always available to people who need me.”
“Thanks,” I reply, rewarding him with a winning smile, whilst simultaneously cursing myself in my head. Richard is pretty handsome, and I wouldn't be opposed to jumping his bones. However, if I did that, I'm fairly certain my short-lived foray into the career of media coverage will grind to an ungainly halt. It doesn't help that the other male colleagues at their work stations are all attractive in their own, varying ways.
Fuck my life. My thoughts make me cringe. Almost as much as Wendy does. The way she hovers over me and babbles incessantly make me want to gag her. She also wears ridiculously high heels for her overweight frame, which I'm surprised haven't buckled under her weight. I wonder if she's one of the types who claims they're big-boned or takes part in skinny shaming.
Immediately, I know I'm being unfair to Wendy. I'm coming up with assumptions as if I'm hanging out with my bitchy cheerleader friends. She doesn't deserve that, and I redirect my thoughts to cleaner pastures. Everything about this place is clean and immaculate. The floors gleam with polish, and the cubicles are devoid of graffiti and wear and tear. Everyone rushes around with a purpose, and I'm here more on a whim, rather than a burning desire to pursue the job of my dreams.
I'm an imposter and I don't belong. I'm just the lucky one standing here.
“I'm sure you'll be totally fine with this, since all you have to do is click on this, and... there! See? Simple. Just so you know, I'm dating Brad at the moment, so try to be respectful of him in the workplace, okay?” she points to a balding, middle aged guy who is actually kind of handsome, but definitely looks like the married type. I'm nineteen, and I highly doubt I'll be dating a forty-something, but the way she casually dropped the ball makes me go and ask Brad later if he is dating Wendy.
His look of utter bafflement cements it for me. Wendy just doesn't want her younger, fitter competition to take away her man choices. I find this funny and sad at the same time. Maybe she can tell I'm one of the flirty types, or she sees me as a threat. I know I have a problem when it comes to keeping my mitts off the men, but I'm also not a complete asshole. If someone has a man or woman they're attracted to, I won't go out of my way to snag them. This habit of trawling clubs and bars for sex is already bad enough without adding a legion of perpetual singles who want to carve out pieces of my liver.
I do, however, go to the bar that night, giving into the craving, the need to seek solace, escape and company.
One person in particular arrests my attention. It's a woman, and she sports a platinum blonde mop on her hair, and striking blue eyes that remind me of a bird's eye view of the pacific ocean – with white cloud swirls over scintillating blue. It was what prompted me to choose her above the rest. There may have been plenty of guys crawling over me, but it was this woman, sitting there with an alluring smile, a wink and a light brush of my shoulder that piqued my attention – as well as everyone else in the bar that night.
Wanting something different, I tried engaging in conversation with her, but it was clear she was here for the same purpose as me. It's hard to hold a coherent talk when one moment you're sitting there, foaming beer in hand, sizing up the sexuality of the woman in question, and the next, she's straddling your legs, in the bar right in front of everyone, and passionately kissing you. Throwing caution to the winds, I accept the kiss, the flare of heat that shot between us, before whispering into her lips, “Don't you care about what people will think of us?”
At this point, of course, some guys are wolf whistling. Some of the women in the bar look at us in disgust. The woman gives me a salacious grin, wriggles her hips in a slightly too pleasant way on my lap, and purrs, “Why should that matter? We're the ones having fun. Not them.” She used the pause to chug down half a mug of beer, before letting out a refreshed sigh. She then hisses into my left ear, “I can sense something about you... something wild and dark. Turns me on.”
I shiver, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. Hopping off me, she hooks me by the collar, pulling me up from the chair, abandoning our drinks to lure me outside. We hail a cab and together decide to head to a motel to finish what we've started. There's a fair amount of groping and kissing in the cab, of course, and it's easier to smell her like this, without the oppressive heat of the bar and the sweat of other human bodies in the vicinity. She's got this cinnamon tang to her skin, which I can taste as I run my tongue just under her ear. I'm usually the pushy, dominant one, knowing what I want and how to get it, but she overwhelms me with her presence. I'm shoved into the seat and she pins my hands back, her hot breath spiking my nervous system with arousal and desire. It takes all self-restraint possible to not strip in front of the poor taxi driver. We quickly register in the motel, some two star with a horrible design and ragged furniture, but we don't care. All that matters is we have a bed, a shower, and a night of promised passion.
I catch a snippet of her name as she slams me onto the bed and pounces on top, a tigress in action. Ria Talbot, twenty-four, packed in enough leather to make me scream. Her ocean eyes devour me with a glance, and I growl my approval, running my hands over this leather, liking the way it crackles and glides under my palms.
Ria slaps my hands away and tugs at my shirt lightly, to fully expose my cleavage through my low cut top, and she sinks her teeth into my collarbone, before yanking the bra cups down so they no longer cover my breasts, but the clasp still clings to my back. She then proceeds to give me a rather interesting time with her tongue there, and I mewl in delight, writhing on the bed as she tries to hold me still.
Despite having a lot to drink, she attacks me with precision, and it's not long before we're sharing orgasms together, though she dictates the flow of the night.
When I wake up in the morning, she's gone, but there's a number on the pillow next to me, with a scruffily written note: Call me if you're up for another night like this. Ria.
No nonsense, no illusions as to what the night was about, and I feel both sexually satisfied but hollow at the same time.
I keep telling myself I'll stop doing this. And each time, I fail. I stare at the number for a while, debating whether to throw it in the trash or not. After all, it's unlikely we will meet again. One night stands fail to remain as one night stands if you keep contacting the person you slept with. Doesn't really work out. I do, however, feel like shit, the more I think about ditching the number.
I'm nineteen years old, and I've lost count of the amount of people I've taken. Some might see it as a badge of honor, others see it as one of shame. One of my friends asked a few weeks ago if I had ever considered working in the porn industry, since I'm promiscuous. I told her no. One, because I want to enjoy sex on my own terms, and two, I'm planning to ditch the habit at some point, since as much as I enjoy the moment, the excitement tussling in the sheets with a stranger, I hate the emptiness afterwards. A voice of shame chants at the back of my mind of all the things I've done, all the mistakes I've made.
Not all one-night stands end well.
Over the course of the next few months, my mother continues to snipe at me, but she's otherwise as pleased as she can be with the fact that I'm busy working. She's obviously not kicked me out, but the threat looms, along
with a sense of relief that she won't be put in a position to feel guilty if she ever did act upon her words. I don't tell her that I have a new job, I just tell her I've increased my hours at the waitressing joint, which I've scrapped since accepting the new offer.
If I'm honest, I find it easy, far too easy, to point the finger at my mother and blame her for all my problems. Just like she does to me. She claims I'm just like my wretched father, ungrateful and slovenly. But I suspect I take after her more.
I work hard in my job, discovering that the writing comes naturally, and the structures and mechanisms of the workplace all being something I can sink into – but I'm still finding my gratification off-scene. Sometimes it's a quickie, in time for me to go home, with the gross feeling of my dirty panties clinging to me as I hobble awkwardly back. Other times I go to their apartment or house, but I've not had another motel incident since Ria, whose number is still tucked in my purse, though I'm not sure why.
I get to know Wendy better, and it sucks that she fits into the stereotypes, because I actually do like her. Unfortunately, she's exactly the kind of person who likely got bullied at school, and learned to take massive offense if someone even crept along the subject of her weight or how woman look at her in disgust.
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