The Evolution of Ivy: Poison

by Lauren Campbell

  Eliza says she has a disgusting kitchen and needs to clean it, and I tell her I’ll see her later. I almost reach my door, but I hear footsteps behind me.

  “Hey! Emily, right?” I turn around, and the hot neighbor is approaching me. “Sorry. Bad with names,” he adds. But that’s not it. He’s bad at sticking to one woman. I couldn’t begin to calculate how many women have entered and exited his apartment since I first met him. Heels echo loudly in the halls of this building, and I’ve heard a lot of them, and they always sound as if they stop outside my door. At first, I would look out of the peephole, but after the third or fourth girl, I got used to the sound.

  “Yeah. Jared … right?” I mock him, smiling.

  “That’s right.” He smiles back, oozing friendliness and trying to draw me in like a magnet. He is the definition of tall, dark, and handsome with his deep tan and blindingly white teeth. “Feel like joining me for a run?” I hadn’t even noticed he was in his jogging pants, because my mind is always on Brooks.

  “Oh, I can’t. I have plans,” I reply, because I’m exhausted, and I just want to go back to sleep. He lives right across the hall, so it can wait.

  “Well, what about tomorrow? Netflix and chill?”

  I know he only wants to get into my pants, and that’s quite all right with me. I need practice, and it might as well be with someone who clearly has a lot of experience. I guess the sooner, the better, and if I blow him off, I may piss him off. “Okay,” I say. “Tomorrow is good.”

  “Cool,” he says. “See you then.”

  I’ve never seen so many fake penises. Hell, I’ve never seen so many penises, period. As I maneuver through the sex shop, I’m simultaneously horrified, fascinated, and embarrassed. I’ve seen these types of things before, of course, but they’re much more barbaric in real life. Anal beads? More like anal torture. Clit pump? I have no desire for a testicle on my pussy. Glass dildo? Maybe if this were a Freddy Krueger film. All this shit is weird. A simple dildo will do.

  My hands graze the endless packages of dicks. Fascinating. Truly fascinating. I pick out an eight-inch silicone and some strawberry lube so I can practice blowjobs, too.

  The sleazy, greasy-haired guy at the counter checks me out, amused, and I want to drop the penis on the counter and run as fast as I can out the door. But I can’t do that. I don’t have time to be picky.

  It looks like I’m going to lose my virginity to a dildo, after all. I can’t believe I’m actually going through with this. But it’s not like I have a choice. I’d started to panic over the thought of losing my virginity to Jared. It’s terrifying thinking about having sex for the first time, especially with someone with so many notches in their belt. I need to work up my courage.

  I settle back onto my bed, the laptop resting next to my naked body. I do a search for porn, something I’ve looked at a few times, but have never actually touched myself to, though I’m unsure as to why.

  Every video I play is too rough or too disgusting, so I do another Google search: porn for women. Some Danish company pops up, and I fall in love with a guy named Martin. His gentle touch, the passion that fuels his kisses—every thrust is how I dream Brooks will fuck me. Heat radiates between my legs as I watch Martin worship a timid blonde. I lube up the dildo, spread my legs, and try to ease it in while he goes down on her—imagining it’s Brooks’s mouth between my legs instead of Martin’s between the girl’s. But the dildo isn’t going in. After several attempts, I have to give up on being delicate. I grit my teeth and shove it in an inch or two. It hurts like a bitch. Why the hell do people like sex?

  Push through it, I tell myself, and then I laugh at the pun and will myself to stop so I can get back into the mood. I move it slowly in and out. Short strokes at first, but the longer I watch Martin, the farther and deeper I’m able to push it inside. As the minutes go by, the pain gives way to pleasure. But I don’t come from the dildo, even though I’m aroused at the anticipation of having Brooks inside of me in due time.

  After the video ends, I give up and rub myself instead, and when I’m done, there is a small amount of blood on my sheets.

  I take a shower and clean my penis, then spend the rest of the day and all night watching more of Martin. I take mental notes, shoving the dildo inside of me in various positions so that I’m not surprised by anything.

  I can’t believe I lost my virginity to a piece of plastic, I think. I can definitely never tell anyone that … ever. But I do wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.

  It’s the next day, and my eyes look through the peephole to find Jared. I open the door, and he smiles.

  “Your place or mine?” he asks.

  “Yours.” I don’t want environmental details triggering memories of sex with Jared when Brooks and I finally get to make love.

  His apartment has been meticulously cleaned. Sterile. He must be some kind of a freak to be this neat. Hopefully that means he’s just as meticulous about safe sex, because I don’t want any STDs.

  “Something to drink?” he asks.

  “Yes, please.” I shuffle awkwardly from foot to foot, not knowing whether to sit down or stay standing. “Vodka, if you have any.”

  “Of course. Orange juice? Red bull?”

  “Juice works.”

  We sit on his couch, drinking multiple drinks while watching some crime drama that doesn’t hold my interest. I don’t waste time. When the show is finally over, I ask him for two more drinks, because I’m not quite drunk yet. And I need to be.

  He puts on Pandora, his station settling on Justin Timberlake. He’s so into himself. Thinks he’s priming me, but I’m priming him. Let him think he’s winning this. During a round of poker, I have a fifth drink—or sixth, I can’t remember—and his hand casually falls to my thigh—my cue. My hands find his biceps, and he kisses me hungrily. We grab at each other, and then he pulls off my shirt, flinging it to the floor. Next, my lacy bra, and then he stares at my breasts. The fucking things I do for Brooks Jansen.

  I stand up, breath shallow from fear. My hands tug at his wrists, pulling him off the couch, and he kisses my lips as he walks us backward into his bedroom. I hope his sheets are clean.

  His shirt flies up over his head, and he steps out of his pants. His cock is sticking straight out in his briefs, and I’m scared, because it’s not plastic. It’s a real live penis. I tremble as he unbuttons my pants, working them off along with my panties. I start to protest, but there’s no turning back now, because his mouth lands between my legs. I’m mortified with the suddenness of it all, and, instinctively, I try to clamp my knees together, closing my thighs tightly against his head. But almost just as quickly, I realize how much I’ve been missing out on as the heat of his mouth encloses me. He flicks his tongue back and forth, sucking me, and I almost come. I haven’t even been on this bed longer than a minute.

  “Don’t come,” he says.

  His mouth pulls from between my legs. From the nightstand, he grabs a condom and slips it on. Then he slaps it against my vagina, and I can’t believe that’s a thing. Is that a thing? He kisses me as he thrusts into me, causing me to yelp, because holy fuck that hurt! He moans like I motivated him—as if he thinks his dick is too much for me to handle—and he goes faster, then flips me over and does that doggy position porn stars love so much. I’ve learned enough that I reach between my legs and rub myself, moaning a little less dramatically than the stars in the Martin movies. I know I’m not going to be able to come, because guilt is creeping up, but I pretend I’m close. In reality, I want to be sick.

  What a psycho I am to have gotten all this plastic surgery and befriend Eliza and kiss Deacon and fuck a dildo, and now I’m whoring myself out for some Netflix and chill. I hate myself. But then again, Eliza is an evil cheating bitch, and Brooks doesn’t deserve that, even if he hates ugly girls. He has a right to have his own standards, but I’m not broken anymore. I’m fixed, and it’s not just about us now, either. I have to save him. I won’t let him be Eliza’s backup guy. I love him
too much not to help him.

  I moan louder, faking orgasm. Jared pumps a few more times and comes. I guess that’s what it was, anyway.

  “Wow. That was amazing,” he says, leaving over me and kissing my shoulder. “You’re unbelievably tight.”

  He rolls off the bed and walks into his kitchen, naked.

  “Want a drink?” he calls.

  “No.”

  I start to get dressed, but I can’t find my panties. I look under the blanket. Move the pillows. They’re nowhere. What the hell? I scramble to the floor and look under the bed. There’s a basket underneath. I don’t know why I get a sinking feeling, but I do. I pull out the basket, and I find my panties. But I also find a lot of others—all colors, all types—so I leave mine there and shove the basket back in disgust. Commando, it is.

  After my clothes are on, I walk into the living room, grabbing my purse off the coffee table. “I have to go,” I say. “My girlfriend is coming over, and we’re going to watch The Bachelor.”

  Jared pulls his head out of the refrigerator and whirls around to face me. “Oh. All right. See you soon?” He’s still naked, his dick limp and floppy. I want to puke. I lost my virginity to a dildo, and then had sex with this stranger who’s never even taken me on a date. I’m a Netflix and Chill Slut.

  “Yeah.”

  He hugs me goodbye, and I try to keep it a side hug to avoid his soft dick. Once I’m in the hall, I can’t get my door open fast enough.

  I enter my apartment, slamming the door shut before collapsing on the floor.

  And I cry.

  September 25, 2015

  Eliza and I didn’t meet at The Flying Biscuit this morning. Instead, we’re in her apartment. She didn’t tell me the reason behind her demand for me to come over, but I hope she doesn’t expect me to have breakfast here, because it’s a mess—dirty.

  “What’s going on?” I ask as she leans against her kitchen counter, looking disheveled. There are dishes in the sink, her trash is about to spill out of the can, and clothes are thrown about.

  “I’m freaking out, Em.” She puts her head in her hands. A cat darts from somewhere and is now brushing up against her prickly legs, doing circles between them.

  “What? What is it?” I wish she’d cut to the chase.

  “I was watching the early news this morning, and I saw footage … of us at Bebe.” She whispers the last part as if there’s someone else here, but it’s just us.

  “What?”

  “We were on the news, Em! They’re looking for us!” Her eyes are large. Bloodshot.

  My heart begins to race. I can’t believe she’s done this to me. A stolen swimsuit from Bebe will be my undoing. “Eliza, tell me the truth,” I say. “How many times have you stolen from there?”

  She shakes her head, her face melting into her ugly cry, and she shrugs in defeat. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Just a few.” But I bet it’s much more than that.

  “Jesus. Fuck.” Silence hangs between us while I think. Then, a pinprick of hope as I redirect my thoughts. “Well, they obviously didn’t get a plate number or anything. If they did, they’d know who we were, and it wouldn’t be on the news. And I used cash.”

  She shakes her head, not wanting to absorb my words. “But they know what we look like. The footage was fuzzy, but you could clearly tell it was me. They’re calling us the Bimbo Bandits. Like, really? Being blonde means we’re stupid?”

  Of course our nickname is her only concern, because in her case, blonde does mean she’s stupid. I’m not sure why she keeps saying we when I did nothing wrong. She’s the thief. I paid for my bathing suit.

  She rushes to her laptop, fumbling around for a few minutes before bringing up the footage. The video is fuzzy, as she’d said. But, really, we look like any other pair of blondes from a distance, with the only standout being the black and white purse she’d been carrying.

  “How long have you had that purse?”

  “I don’t know. I got it online last year sometime, but that was the first time I used it.”

  “Ever been fingerprinted?”

  “No.” She shakes her head.

  “Well, that’s good,” I say, since she’d left the damn tags behind.

  “If his family finds out, Em … I think he would leave me.” Her voice breaks into hysterics.

  I want to punch her in the face, and hug her at the same time, because this is actually a good backup plan if shit starts to crumble. But I’d rather not be the subject of an investigation right now. “Don’t use that purse again. Get rid of it. And don’t go back to Phipps. Tonight, someone will get shot or steal some big screens from Walmart, and this will be old news. But for God’s sake, quit stealing. You’re loaded.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I’m gonna walk down to The Flying Biscuit and get us some coffee and food. What do you want?”

  “An omelet. Extra mushrooms,” I say, hoping the cook doesn’t make quick omelets.

  As soon as she leaves, I take her cat’s jingly ball and position it in front of the door. Her laptop is open, so I snoop through her desktop files, disappointed to find nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unusual in her browser history. No results other than Brooks show up when I type keywords like sex in her email search.

  She has to have some skeletons, pieces of a case I can build against her. She’s no saint. Anyone with an IQ of 70 could figure that out.

  I rummage through the drawers in her bedroom. Her lingerie makes me queasy, knowing she wears it when she and Brooks are intimate. I study it all, figuring after ten years she knows what he likes. Pictures of her and Brooks line her dresser mirror. Brooks smiles solo from another frame next to the bed. Upon opening her nightstand drawer, I want to kill her when I see naked photos of them, close-ups that one of them took in the middle of the action. Shutting the drawer again, I lift her mattress next. People love to hide things under mattresses. But nothing is there, so I drop down to the floor. I’m almost scared I’ll find another basket of panties or sex toys, but I only find dark emptiness. In her closet, I’m reaching into the pockets of her clothes when I come to a leather jacket and feel something, an envelope or paper. I pull it out, but it’s just a Comcast bill, so I put it back.

  In the corner, hidden away by her cocktail dresses, is a stack of plastic storage boxes—all with different labels, like “Eliza—elementary,” and “Eliza—middle school,” and so forth through college. I bet the bitch has at least one journal in there. She’s so into herself. I have no doubt she’s chronicled every day of her life. Maybe they contain some dirt on Tenth Grade Guy. I want to go through them, but the sudden jingle of the cat’s ball startles me.

  She’s back.

  I switch off her closet light, and quickly scan the room to be sure I didn’t leave any signs of my presence.

  “Em?” she calls out.

  I don’t make it out of her bedroom before she comes walking in.

  “What are you doing in my room?” Her eyebrows are knitted together.

  “Oh, uh, the cat … ran off somewhere. I was looking for it.”

  She squints at me, but then her face relaxes into a smile. “Ralph is on the couch.”

  I eat my omelet. She eats her pancakes. We drink the coffee. All in relative silence. It’s uncomfortable, but she didn’t say anything else about me being in her room, so I don’t either. An innocent person wouldn’t feel the need to keep defending themselves.

  Her phone chirps with a new text. “Deacon wants to know if we all want to get dinner tonight,” she says.

  Her question is delivered in a happy, cheerful tone, so I decide I’m just paranoid. I thank Deacon telepathically for breaking the ice that was our silent breakfast and wonder what I’ll wear tonight.

  We arrive at Canoe at eight—me in a tight, lacy dress, Eliza in a long, Bohemian skirt. I win the wardrobe award. Brooks and Deacon patiently wait out front while we’re in line for valet. Then we’re shown to a table with candles o
n a patio overlooking a garden and pond. This would be a great place for a first date. Perhaps Brooks and I can come here alone one day, but for now I’ll settle for it being the four of us.

  Eliza takes her seat next to Brooks, and I take mine next to Deacon. Brooks’s eyes glow with his blue button-up, and it’s killing me to watch as he looks into Eliza’s eyes, and then leans over to whisper something. To see her face light up in reaction to it.

  While we eat some strangely addictive spicy bread as we wait on our chicken and steak and kangaroo, Deacon reaches over and rests a hand on my thigh. Another cue.

  “I just want you to know you look absolutely stunning this evening,” he says, his voice thick with appreciation.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself.” He doesn’t. He’s hot. Sweet. But Brooks and I have history, and that’s special.

  Deacon pecks me on the lips. Tells me about his day. How some dickwad emptied a bottle of water out in a supermarket aisle, broke his leg, and now claims they’re responsible for his intentional fall. It occurs to me how weird it is that Deacon doesn’t have the classic attorney haircut. I tell him I hung out with Eliza all day, and he says I’m a spoiled little rich girl. I laugh, but it’s because, save for the past few months, nothing could be further from the truth.

  Eliza interrupts us and says we should all ask random questions until our food finally comes out, because she’s unoriginal. She nominates Brooks to go first since he’s been the quietest.

  He thinks a minute and rubs his stubble. “Okay. Question for Emily since we’re all still getting to know you. I wanna hear more about this sex toy business. How exactly did that happen?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  He smiles. “Well, it’s not exactly your typical mom and pop.”

  He’s right. Definitely not one of those. I take a sip of water, buying time to lie. “Well, my parents had a lot of financial difficulties when they first married. Intimacy was also an issue. One day my mom got invited to one of those sex toy parties, and then she was inspired to get into the business. But my dad wanted to cut out the middleman, so they found a manufacturer. The rest is history,” I shrug.