Frenzy

by V. J. Chambers

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I was pre-law at Princeton, where I was going before. But now I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t think I want to be a lawyer.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what I want either,” he said. “That’s the problem, I think. See… once I started doing this stuff, things seemed different to me. Like the things I thought were important stopped seeming so important. You know, you come to a party like this, everybody’s rolling, everybody loves everyone else, and you start wondering, like, why it isn’t it like that in the rest of the world?”

  I sucked on the menthol cigarette, considering. “Well, because people aren’t on drugs. That’s why.”

  He laughed. “Okay, sure. I mean, you’re right. But… if this is what it takes to keep people from hurting each other, then maybe everybody should be on drugs.”

  I made a face. “You could hurt someone on ecstasy.”

  “No, you couldn’t.” He eyed me. “Could you hurt someone right now?”

  I thought about it. “No. I don’t want to hurt people. I love everyone.”

  “Yeah, exactly,” he said.

  “I love you, Wyatt.” I pointed at him. “And everybody I’ve met tonight. I just got here today, you know. And everybody’s been so nice. I feel so close to everybody right now. But I guess that’s just because I’m high.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s the drugs, but it still feels real, you know?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I love you, Molly,” he said. “You’re the most amazing girl I think I’ve ever met.”

  I grinned at him. “And you have dreadlocks. Which is really good.”

  He laughed. “And you have…” His eyes traveled over my body. “Breasts. Which is good too.”

  “Hey,” I said, covering my chest with my arms. But I was laughing too.

  “What?” he said. “I was being honest. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed.”

  I uncovered my chest, looking down at myself. The shirt I was wearing was tight, and my boobs were pretty prominent in it, but I’d never really thought that there was much to my boobs. I always figured they were sort of normal—not too big and not too small. Duncan had liked them, but he’d been sort of biased.

  I arched my back, making my breasts jut out.

  “Whoa,” said Wyatt.

  I looked at him. “This is because we’re high.”

  “Does it matter?” he said. He was staring at my breasts.

  I grabbed him under the chin and forced him to look at my face. “You’re horrible. Really. You’re too forward, and you’re ogling me.”

  “Sorry.” He looked deep into my eyes. “I just think you’re awesome. I’m so lucky to have gotten to hang out with you tonight.”

  I felt a strange tug towards him, like he was the most perfect being I’d ever seen.

  He touched me, rubbing his thumb over my lips. “You want to get out of here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “My friend… I never found her.”

  “Do you have her phone number? Can you text her?”

  My jaw dropped. “Oh my god, that is a really good idea! Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re on drugs,” he said.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. I stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table. “Isn’t that a good reason not to go anywhere with you?”

  “I live like two houses down,” he said. “If you want to get away from me, you can come back to the party anytime.”

  I bit my lip. I liked his dreads.

  “Look,” he said. “I don’t usually do stuff like this. I used to have a girlfriend, but I fucked things up with her, and… anyway, I’ve been alone mostly. And, uh, there’s something about you. I don’t know if it’s just because we’re both fucked up. But… like even if it is, I think we owe it to ourselves to try it anyway. Like, because, what if it’s something amazing?”

  I cocked my head. “I should text my friend.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  I got out my phone. It was hard to type. The screen was really, really bright. I giggled.

  Wyatt stroked my hair.

  I looked up at him. “That’s nice.”

  “You don’t have a boyfriend or something, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not anymore. Actually, I kind of fucked things up with him.”

  “What did you do?”

  I turned back to the phone. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He kissed my neck.

  I closed my eyes, sensation blocking out reality.

  “I don’t know what I want from you, Molly. I don’t know if it’s just a night or just a kiss or more. But I know I want you.”

  I looked at him, swallowing.

  “I really want you,” he breathed.

  I pressed send on the text I was writing to Jill. It said, Met a guy. Don’t wait up.

  * * *

  Wyatt’s room was on the third floor of an old house that was practically right next door to the party. He cracked open the window, and we could hear the music.

  But it was too cold, so I told him to close the window.

  He put on music instead, plugging his iPad into a set of speakers.

  We lay on his bed, on top of a plaid comforter in a room that smelled like cigarettes and pumpkin scented candles (a gift from his mom, he said) and ran our fingers over each other’s skin.

  “Who is this that we’re listening to?” I asked.

  “The Glitch Mob,” he said. “They’re pretty cool, huh?”

  “Yeah. They’re perfect.”

  He smiled lazily. “You’re perfect.”

  I closed my eyes, sighing. “I am, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And you’re perfect.”

  “Am I?”

  “You know you are. Don’t you feel perfect right now?”

  He kissed me. “Yeah. Maybe I do.”

  “It’s like, I’ve always been perfect, and I’ve never noticed. It’s like the world has always been perfect, and I’ve been too busy worrying about other things to see it. You know?”

  “I know,” he said. He pushed my shirt up, baring my bra, running his fingers over my waist.

  I gasped at his touch. “Why didn’t I see it before?”

  He unclasped my bra and moved it out of the way, uncovering me.

  He groaned. “Jesus. You’re so beautiful.”

  I blinked, a tiny thread of fear winding its way through my body. “I don’t, um, I don’t usually do this kind of thing.”

  He smiled at me. “You mean take off your clothes with someone you just met?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Me either.”

  “Yeah, right. I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true,” he said. “I don’t. It’s not about taking your clothes off, anyway.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I mean it is,” he said. “But I’m not trying to take advantage of you. It’s… pure, you know. It’s about the two of us coming together, being close. It’s about there being nothing between us. About having a naked soul, not just a naked body.”

  I liked the sound of that. I kissed him.

  He touched my breasts, stroking them.

  I shuddered in pleasure.

  “You know,” he said, “that’s what I miss the most. I think. Not sex. Not orgasm. When I’m alone, I miss being close. You can’t be this close with someone unless it’s about sex, you know. You can’t be naked with someone.”

  I pulled his shirt over his head. Underneath, he had a tiny bit of dark chest hair. It accented his pecks. Made a trail to his belly button.

  I wanted to lick it.

  I pushed him back on the bed. I straddled him. I put my mouth on him.

  He sighed.

  I ran my tongue over his smooth, smooth skin.

  He rubbed my nipples, teasing them erect under his fingers.

  Pleasure shot through me—ecsta
tic and bright, bathing me in its brilliance. Consuming me.

  I let my mouth travel lower down his body. I kissed my way down to the waist of his jeans.

  I unbuttoned them.

  His hands traveled over my body, sliding inside my pants as well. “Everything about you is so sweet, Molly,” he murmured. “You’re like the sunrise. You’re like the sky glowing bright and pink.”

  I giggled against his skin. “You practice that?”

  “No.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

  “Serious?” I unzipped his pants. “Did you forget we’re on drugs?”

  He rolled over on the bed, trapping me under him. “I didn’t forget.” His mouth was on my nipple.

  It was like liquid bliss. I writhed under him, gasping.

  He lifted his head. He stared into my eyes. “Seriously, Molly. I don’t want you to feel like there’s any kind of pressure here. If you don’t want to do this—”

  “I want to.” I touched his chest. His muscles were taut and lean against my fingertips.

  He closed his eyes. “If some part of you thinks that maybe it would be a bad idea, we should stop. I don’t want you to regret this later.”

  I thrust my hand inside his pants. “I don’t want to stop.”

  He moaned. “Good. Me either.”

  * * *

  But several eternities later, after we were both completely naked, Wyatt had yet to achieve an erection.

  We lay sprawled on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

  We weren’t touching.

  “Motherfucker,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “It’s the fucking E,” he said. “I heard that sometimes it can make it so you can’t get it up. But I never tried to, you know, do it while I was rolling.”

  “It’s okay.” I rolled onto my side. I put a hand on his chest reassuringly. “You said you just wanted to be close. To be naked together. Well, we are.”

  He rolled onto his side too. Now our bodies were pressed together.

  “You sure?” he asked. “You’re not disappointed?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I can get disappointed right now.”

  He kissed my forehead.

  “Are you disappointed?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. His arms went tight around me, and he rolled me under him. Now he was on top of me, and my body was trapped beneath his. I could feel his warm, bare skin pressing into my bare skin. It was heaven. “I’d like to make love to you.”

  “We don’t need to,” I said. “This is already more intimate and more intense than any sex I’ve ever had.” I felt like I’d been wrapped up in joy, like my nerve endings were exploding intense exultation over my entire body. The places that our skin touched were alive and pulsing out rapture.

  Before this, I’d only ever been with Duncan, and our sex had always been sort of fumbling and awkward. I’d often been a little bored, lying under him as he pounded away at me.

  This was completely different.

  I knew it was because of the pill I’d taken. I knew enough about ecstasy to know that it did something to make your body release a whole bunch of serotonin, and that what I was feeling was chemical in nature.

  But it didn’t feel that way. It felt so real. It felt so good.

  He kissed me again, and I lost myself in his kisses, his caresses.

  I touched him, and he touched me, and it felt like my soul was bursting because everything was so wonderful.

  He whispered in my ear. “I feel like we’re melting into each other.”

  I sighed. “Yes. I feel that too.” I did. “Like there’s no barriers.”

  “Between anything,” he said. “Between you and me. Between the bedsheets and us. Between the air and our skin.”

  I let out an audible sigh, running my fingers over his bare back, reaching down to cup his ass.

  “You know, it’s true,” he said. “We are all just open space.”

  “What?” I said.

  In the background, the music was deep, pulsing bass beneath a delicious melody that spoke of softness and sweetness. His words fit into the places where the music was empty, filling it up, as if his words were meant to be part of it all, as if the music had been recorded just for him to speak.

  “Molecules,” he said. “All of us are made up of molecules and atoms, and inside them are only tiny particles clinging to each other. Electrons, spinning in a mad cloud around nuclei. And when we touch, it feels like we’re solid, but we’re not. It’s only that particles are pushing against each other, creating the illusion of something solid. It’s all just charges—attraction and repulsion. If you get close enough with a microscope, everything is swimming into each other.”

  I shut my eyes, listening to his voice, feeling his fingers and his mouth on me.

  “We’re all made of the same things,” he breathed. “Everything here on earth. It’s leftover from exploding stars. All the pieces of us are the same things that you can find anywhere in the universe. Anywhere. Everywhere. So, in some ways, we really are the same. We really are connected. Not just to each other. And not just to all the people at the party who were rolling with us. Not just to the things we touch in this room. But to all the people on the entire planet. To the trees. And the animals. The birds and the flowers. The lightning and the rain. To the sun itself. And the moon. And the stars that are out there, far, far away. To the whole universe. We’re part of it. It’s part of us.”

  I gasped. “I can feel it,” I murmured. “I can feel all of it.”

  His mouth found mine. His fingers found my breasts. His fingers burrowed between my legs. My eyes rolled back in my head. And I fell between the cracks of the universe, discovered only by Wyatt’s touch.

  * * *

  The sun split the sky purple and blue, overtaking the horizon. Wyatt and I hadn’t been asleep. The ecstasy had worn off a few hours ago, and I felt tired. It was a peaceful kind of exhaustion, like I’d been to kiss the face of God and had now floated down to touch the dirt again.

  I was wrapped in Wyatt’s sheets. He was sitting in the window, staring at the sky, smoking a cigarette.

  “It’s morning,” I said. “Does it feel to you like a spell is being broken?”

  He grinned at me. His grin was lopsided. In the morning light, he looked a little haggard, but there was something incredibly sexy about him, still the same. And I felt… I still felt something towards him. A connection. We’d shared something together.

  “Well, you haven’t run off on me yet,” said Wyatt. “I guess that’s a good thing.”

  “I need to sleep, though.” I yawned. “I’m very tired.”

  “Sleep here,” he said. “Sleep next to me. We can hold each other.”

  I lay back against his pillows. “That sounds nice. Maybe I should text Jill again, though. She never texted me back after I told her I was leaving the party.”

  He gave me a funny look. “Jill?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “She’s my new roommate.”

  “Jill Rogers?” he said.

  “You know her?”

  He stubbed out the cigarette. “Yeah, I used to date her. She broke up with me because I was messing around with Cori Donovan.”

  What? I pulled the covers tight around me. “You’re Jill’s ex?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Shit,” I said.

  He came back around and sat down on the bed. He started to pull on his pants. “So, you’re living in Cori’s old room?”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “Dude,” he said. “That’s, uh…”

  I reached for my bra. It was lying on the floor next to the bed. “I should probably go.”

  He dragged a hand over his face. “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  My feet pounded out a rhythm on the sidewalk as I made my way back to my dorm room. Outside, it was freez
ing cold. My breath made clouds of vapor as I puffed out air.

  My chest hurt.

  I shouldn’t have smoked those cigarettes.

  Hell, I shouldn’t have done any of that.

  I wasn’t that kind of girl. I didn’t hook up with random guys and go back to their houses and let them cover my body with their mouths and hands.

  Internally, I remembered how good it had all felt.

  And then there was a painful squeeze of guilt.

  The whole thing was so screwed up, I couldn’t even begin to fathom it.

  It was because you were high, I told myself.

  But the thought was scant comfort. After all, it wasn’t like I hadn’t got myself in trouble before because I’d let substances do the thinking for me. I’d been drunk when the stuff had happened with Heidi, and I hadn’t had any alcohol last night, but that hardly mattered. I’d still lost myself in a drug, and things had gotten out of control.

  God, how had this happened to me? How had I become this person?

  I remembered the way things had been in the fall of last year. I’d been starting my freshman year of college at Princeton with Duncan. We’d been close. I’d been so in love with him.

  And I’d been a different girl back then. I’d been good. I’d been motivated. I cut loose occasionally, but I always kept it under control. I never did anything that would jeopardize my grades or my relationship or my life. I’d been such a good girl.

  And then…

  Well, college wasn’t like high school. It was so much harder than high school had ever been, because there were so many distractions. My parents weren’t there to give me a curfew. I could do whatever I wanted.

  And I began to realize that I didn’t have the best self-control.

  I didn’t know when to stop.

  No. Hell. It wasn’t that I didn’t know. It was that I didn’t want to stop.

  All my life, I’d been responsible. I’d done whatever was asked of me, and I’d tried my best to follow the rules.

  And suddenly, here I was at college, and there were parties, and there were bars that served me even though I was underage, and there were so many exciting things. All of them at my fingertips. With no one to tell me that I couldn’t do them.

  For some reason, right about then, I wasn’t about to stop myself.