Dear Neighbor

by River Laurent

  ‘Forget my tongue. It’s my cock you have to worry about, Wildcat.’

  Someone tries the door and I freeze, but he doesn’t stop until I come with a muffled cry of ecstasy, and even his cock is completely satiated.

  ‘Shit. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much sex with one girl,’ he says.

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’

  ‘Nope. Come on. It’s time I bought my girl a drink.’

  ‘My girl?’

  ‘Yeah. My girl. You’re mine, Tori Diamond,’ he says possessively and opens the door.

  Tori

  We are halfway down the stairs when I know that something is wrong. The music has stopped and I can hear Octavia’s voice coming from the main room. There is no other voice except hers. She seems to be reading something aloud.

  Suddenly my blood runs cold. I stand stock still. I can’t move. My feet feel as if they are encased in concrete.

  Oh, Jesus. No. No. No.

  How could it be? This can’t be real. Please don’t be real.

  I turn to look at Cash. There is a frown on his face. Instinctively he knows that something is wrong, but he still has not realized what she is reading. This is just a fucking nightmare. I just have to wake up, but I can’t wake up. I’m already awake.

  Then my brain goes crazy and I run into the living room. I can see her at the end of it surrounded by people. The voice she is using to read is different than her usual one, and she has changed her accent to an American one. I realize that she is pretending she is me!

  ‘Can you believe it, Monstrosity? I got the job. I’ll have to put up with a totally selfish, vacuous, self-absorbed teenager, but it will be worth it. I finally, finally get to meet Cash Hunter. The guy I’ve been madly in love with since I was thirteen. It’s been a long time, but here I am.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I scream, my body shaking uncontrollably.

  Octavia stops reading and smiles at me. It is the cruel, gloating smile of a winner. The smile of someone who knows she will take everything that you hold precious. At that moment I hate her. I actually feel murderous towards her.

  Frantically, I look at all the faces of all the people gathered there. Some are looking at me with disgust, others pity and some are jeering. I look at Britney and she is looking at me with so much hurt.

  Jesus.

  I want to scream that it’s not true. That was at the beginning. I changed my mind. I love her like a sister now, but my throat has closed over.

  I turn to see Cash standing just inside the doorway and he just looks so shocked. He is looking at me as if he never knew me. As if I cheated him or betrayed him.

  Jesus.

  It’s not like that, I want to scream.

  I didn’t come here to stalk you. I came here to get over you. I was going to tell you tonight. But when I open my mouth nothing comes out. I am so embarrassed, so humiliated I feel suffocated. I gasp for air to fill my empty lungs and my chest hurts. It literally hurts to breathe. Tears begin to flood my vision and I snap.

  With a cry of shame and defeat, I run out of the room, out of the hallway, through the open door, down the stone steps, and out into the street.

  Cash

  It’s like a hurricane that comes in from nowhere. First the shingles are ripped off the roof. As hundreds of them fly off, water starts coming into the house, then the rafters crack and, with a sickening sound, the whole fucking roof flies off.

  That’s what this instant feels like.

  One moment my life is great, my palm is on the warm skin of Tori’s back, her smile familiar and sexy, then the next instant, the heavens rip open and unleash this black vortex. It’s only purpose was to destroy everything in its path. In seconds it sucks up what I believed was mine. And there is not a fucking thing I can do about it.

  I look at Octavia reading from a furry blue book and don’t register what is happening. My mind refuses to believe that, that poison dropping out of her mouth could ever have been hatched in Tori’s head. Lovely, kind hearted Tori, but one look at Tori’s horrified, guilty face and I know it’s true.

  That is her diary.

  She did write those hateful words and she is that mad stalker that every celebrity fears. I never heard the warning bells. Not once. Her disguise was perfect. She insinuated herself seamlessly into my father’s house. An imposter. She’s not real. Nothing was real. I thought I put my tongue into her cunt and felt her heartbeat. I know the truth now. I didn’t. It was all an elaborate lie.

  In strange silence I watch her run away. Strange. I don’t stop her. I let her go. It doesn’t even feel real. She’s left a book sitting face down to mark its page. She’ll never finish it now. Then I look at Brit’s face and my heart breaks for her. I start to seethe. I stride over to Octavia. How dare she? I’d like to snap her scrawny neck. It’s tempting, so tempting. She is six feet away, four, two, one. Zero.

  I hold my hand out.

  ‘She was no good. I did you a favor.’ Her voice is cold and hard.

  I look into her eyes. Funny how I’ve never looked deep into her eyes before. Malicious. ‘You’re a bitch, Octavia. You didn’t do me a favor. You just got yourself fired.’

  I reach my hand out and pluck the book from hers.

  ‘Cash,’ Octavia calls.

  I ignore her and walk up to Britney. ‘Do you want to come with me, Brit?’

  Her face is white and her chin is wobbly. She shakes her head. ‘No, you go on. I’ll be all right. This is my party.’

  I stare at her, even in my moment of loss it occurs to me how much she has changed. She used to be so fragile and unstable.

  Then she does something strange. She goes up on her tiptoes and whispers in my ears. Her words are like a lightning bolt. The whole world goes red.

  Tori

  The paparazzi completely ignore me, and I run down the street in my little flirty fun dress and no panties. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go back. I have no money even to make a phone call. I go down the steps into the tube station. Tears are pouring down my face. I go to the ticket inspector and I tell him I have no money, but if he lets me through the barriers I will come back tomorrow and pay him. He is a kindly, middle-aged black man. He tuts and takes me to the ticket counter where he buys me a ticket.

  ‘Where to?’ he asks.

  ‘Virginia Water.’ I try to fight back the sob inside me. It’s picking up force the way a storm does.

  He hands me the ticket. ‘Listen love. It’s never as bad as it seems.’

  ‘Thank you.’ A sob escapes, the sound erupting from deep within my chest. I feel as if I’m breaking apart.

  He pats me on the arm and I go down the escalator in a daze. At Waterloo station I get off and find my way up to the train station. I wait for my train and then I go in and sit on an empty seat and stare blankly out of the window. Once someone comes to sit opposite me. I look up confused. A woman in a long grey and white dress smiles kindly at me

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper.

  All I see in my head is Octavia reading my diary in that strange voice and Cash’s face. He looked as if he had been stabbed. I have never seen him look like that. He was white under his tan.

  Oh God! Britney.

  Her face. Her birthday party was ruined.

  God, why did I keep that diary. I frown. How did she get it? The hateful bitch must have taken it out of my room. When I saw her coming down the stairs she must have already taken it. But she wasn’t holding it. She must have put it somewhere else temporarily to wait for the best moment. I remember her telling me to smile.

  And the award for Idiot of The Year goes to …

  Tears run down my face. I fucked up, and so spectacularly too.

  When the woman opposite me leaves at the next station, a man comes to sit beside me. ‘Do you need help?’ he asks.

  I shake my head. I can’t talk. The motion of the train has made me feel physically sick. When I get to Virginia Water, I stumble off the train and sit fo
r a moment on the bench before I make a collect call to my aunt. She tells me she will be there in ten minutes. I sit on the steps outside and wait for her. As soon as her car arrives she jumps out and comes to me. I can barely stand. I know my face must be red and my eyes swollen.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ she soothes as she takes the last few steps towards me.

  ‘Oh, Aunt Claire. What am I going to do? I’ve made such a mess of everything.’ The words spill from my mouth as I fall into her arms.

  ‘Shhh, it’s OK. It’s OK,’ she croons softly.

  She holds me tight while I cry racking sobs. I think people pass by and probably stare at us, but I’m dead to everything.

  Eventually my aunt sighs. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’

  I feel bruised, battered and irreparably damaged, but my feet somehow move forward and I get into the car. My aunt closes the car door and gets into the driver’s seat. The tears fall and fall. They refuse to stop. Some part of me won’t give up, but I know in my aching heart that he is gone. No more illusions. No more fairy tale endings. This is real life. He’s gone.

  Britney

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SI2EDM6Lo

  I lift onto my toes, grasp my brother’s shoulder and, putting my ear close to it, whisper, ‘You can’t trust Gavin either. He tried to rape me at your party.’

  Of course you want to know why I whispered that bit of venom right at that confusing moment when my brother’s heart would have been racing fast enough to explode?

  It’s not because I’m a trouble maker.

  It’s because I look at his shell-shocked face (it was glowing less than fifteen minutes ago) and I feel a rush of pity for him. His die has been cast. There he is. A sex God. Everywhere he goes he is mobbed and loved the world over. Almost any woman he wants he can have and yet at that instant I realize he is the loneliest person in the world.

  There is not a single person in the world outside my dad, me, and Cora that he can truly trust. I knew then that if I did not tell him about Gavin, all I would be doing is leading him down a path where he would stand shell-shocked by still another betrayal.

  It is like I slapped him. His whole body contracts at my words and he looks at me as if it is his fault that Gavin is a bastard. He takes my hand gently as if he is afraid I would break there and then, and I say clearly. I want to spare him the humiliation of being here. Of having his heart ripped out of his chest in front of an audience. ‘Go now. I’m all right.’

  ‘But you …’ he trails off as if it is too painful to even say the words.

  ‘I’m a big girl. I can handle this.’

  He nods, turns on his heels and walks out of the room. The room is so silent you could have heard a pin drop. I walk up to Octavia. She blinks slowly at me.

  ‘Get out of my house you vindictive bitch,’ I growl at her.

  There are shocked gasps all around us. No one has seen this side of me. I am the loony little sister. Be nice to me to get to my brother.

  She takes a step back. ‘What’s wrong with you all? Don’t kill the messenger. I’m not the bitch here. Tori Diamond is a lying, cheating slut and I just exposed the truth. You should be thanking me. She was about to ruin your brother. Couldn’t you see, he was intoxicated by her?’

  I look at her. Yes, Tori turned out to be a snake in the grass, but I always liked her, there was something warm and kind about her, but this cold, black-hearted, mercenary bitch, I disliked her from the first second I laid eyes on her.

  I let my eyes run down her skinny body in her designer leather dress. ‘Tori has more class in her little finger than you ever dreamed of having.’

  Her eyes register shock and fury. She always dismissed me as the inconsequential little sister. Well, I’m not. Not anymore. Thanks to Tori. So I’m not going to say a bad word about her.

  ‘You don’t mean it,’ she says, trying to look dignified, but her face is red with humiliation.

  ‘I never wanted anything more in my life. Get out of my house before I get the bouncers outside to escort you out. With the paparazzi vultures gathered outside that would make very interesting breakfast reading.’

  For a second she hesitates, then she lifts her chin proudly, and leaves the room. The sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood floor is loud.

  I look at the DJ and smile at him. ‘Can we have some music before this party dies of boredom.’

  He raises his eyebrows in an impressed way and spins a revved up version of Taio Cruz and Ludacris’ Break Your Heart. Adrenaline is pumping in my veins, but soon the tears will come. With my head held high I walk away to the kitchen. Cora. Cora will know what to do.

  Cash

  Clutching Tori’s poisonous diary in my hand, I go out through the kitchen door, cross the garden, and vault over the brick wall. I’m halfway up Mrs. Herrington-Little’s garden when she spots me through her kitchen window and comes to open the sliding door.

  ‘Wipe your feet,’ she instructs as if I’m still thirteen.

  I wipe my feet and automatically ask about her son. My voice sounds normal, not like my head is on fire and Tori’s name is vibrating in my chest like a fucking cell phone. Cash calling Tori. Cash calling Tori. Cash calling Tori. Fuck it.

  Mrs. H chatters about her son as she walks me to her front door. I don’t hear a word.

  I open the door. ‘Thanks, Mrs. H.’

  I walk on to the street and stride down it, my head lowered. I take a left at the end of the road and casually walk towards my car. A scruffy man standing near my father’s front door spots me. Shit. He raises his long lens camera and starts snapping away. It alerts the others and they begin running towards me. Everybody wanting to get the best shot. They remind me of a pack of hyenas. I get into my car and floor the pedal.

  I dial Gavin’s number.

  He answers on the third ring. His voice is cautious. ‘Hey, Bro.’

  ‘We need to talk,’ I say, my voice completely normal.

  ‘Yeah, I agree. Let’s talk, dude.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Home, but I’ve got company.’

  ‘Get rid of her.’

  ‘Right. Right. Got it,’ he stutters.

  I kill the connection.

  As I’m driving, my mind veers back to Tori. I can still smell her on me. Fuck, I was inside her pussy less than an hour ago. My hand slams into the steering wheel and the car swerves wildly. Someone behind me blows his horn. Asshole. I hit the button that brings the glass of my window down. Cool night air rushes in as I give him the middle finger and accelerate so fast my tires screech.

  The security guard at his post nods and lets me through the gates. I stop the car at the front of the house and run up the steps. Before I can put my finger on the doorbell, Gavin’s butler, Jeremy, opens the door. He is so pale and still, he always reminds me of what you’d expect to find inside a satin lined coffin.

  ‘Good evening, Mr. Hunter,’ he greets formally.

  I have no time for pleasantries. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the Blue room, Sir,’ he says, his eyes showing just the flicker of surprise. There is hope yet for him.

  I stride towards the room and open the door without knocking. I stand at the doorway and stare at him. I’ve known him since I was fifteen, but it would seem I’ve never really known him at all.

  He is standing nervously by the great marble fireplace. He has obviously heard me come in and is waiting for me. He has the expression of someone about to bolt. Fucking coward.

  ‘Why Britney?’ I ask, the fury in my voice barely leashed.

  Gavin shrugs. ‘I was drunk, man. I didn’t know what I was doing. I would never have touched her otherwise. You have to believe me.’

  I stare at him. Fucking liar.

  ‘I was drunk. It was dark. I didn’t even know it was her. I thought it was some chick. Come on. You must know I’d never do something like that.’

  ‘Tell me something I can believe,’ I tell him coldly.

  His m
outh quivers as he analyzes his next move. ‘It’s the truth, man. You gotta believe me. I swear it’s the God’s fucking truth.’ He takes a couple of steps forward, his voice pleading, his expression shifty. ‘We’re mates. You know me. I can get any girl I want.’

  Look at him. How weak he is. I haven’t even swung a punch yet and he is shaking like a fucking leaf.

  ‘So why her? All the women in the world and you picked my sister. Did you think I wouldn’t find out or when I did, I’d stand back and watch my little sister be hurt by a little, coke snorting, acid licking, waste of skin like you? What do you think I am? A moron? A coward like you?’

  ‘Oh fuck, Cash. I was so wasted. What’d you want from me? She came on to me,’ he cries desperately.

  Of all the things his twisting, turning devil tongue could have said. That was the worst. In the blink of an eye I had covered the distance between us and slammed my fist into his face. Pain blazes up my arm as my hand connects with his jaw. He stumbles back, blood flowing from his mouth and spilling down his chin. I don’t allow even a brief second for him to catch his breath. I drive back into him and he tries to throw a sloppy blow. I dodge it easily.

  Blood hums in my veins as I grab his head in my hands and bring my kneecap to his nose. There is a blunt crack before he screams in pain. I release his head. Two streams of crimson are running from his nostrils and his nose is twisted. He grabs hold of my body in a kind of protective hug. I tilt my head back and smash it into his. Stars burst in my vision, but he sinks to the ground barely conscious.

  His mouth moves, no words come out.

  ‘You tell anyone your version of what happened, call her name, or you come near her again and I swear I will fucking destroy you.’ I grab a handful of his hair. ‘Do you understand me?’

  He nods weakly. I open my wrist and his head lands on the carpet with a soft thud. I stand over him watching his chest rise and fall with every shallow breath he takes, then I walk to the bottle of whiskey on the table and I pour myself a generous measure.