by Ashe, Karina
“Just walk away,” Dolly murmurs softly as she pats Cassie’s back. Cassie balls her hands into fists and reluctantly replies. “Laura, why oh why didn’t you tell me it was David?” she cries.
I put my hand on her arm and give her an awkward pat. “It was awkward, alright? And it doesn’t even matter because it won’t happen again.”
At that second I look up and instantly regret it, because David’s looking at me like I’d just hit him.
Chapter 11
My life becomes a blur of sex and shadows. I think of him when I shouldn’t. Even the strangled tree in the courtyard covered with trembling leaves that should have fallen weeks ago reminds me of him. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re the color of his eyes…but no, that can’t be it because I’ve never seen them.
I feel empty when I practice cello or go to class. Even when I speak with my friends I feel like it’s someone else laughing and talking. I’m avoiding David for reasons I don’t fully understand. I finally joined Bruigh na Boinne just so I’d have something other than thoughts of him to fill my time with.
It doesn’t work. I don’t feel alive until I hear his voice from a corner, or until I get a letter that tells me where to meet him.
He used to write me all sorts of things. Now, he often just scribbles down a place and a time. Sometimes it’s a cheap hotel with a rough coverlet that scratches my hands and knees. Sometimes it’s not even that—a university closet with brooms and buckets that knock against us and constrain our movements, or an an empty classroom. Often, we don’t even make it that far. He hikes my legs up around his body in the stairwell, and our stifled moans echo under the buzzing overhead lights.
He almost never writes down his thoughts anymore. I don’t know if it’s because of what he said the morning after the first time—that words feel cheap or silly because they can’t compare to the reality—or if it’s because he doesn’t need to now that he’s already ensnared me. I have a feeling it’s the second reason, but I don’t ask. I don’t do anything but give in.
I’m giving too much of myself away. I feel as if he’s a different person from the one who wrote me those letters. Yet I keep going back, and even if I didn’t, he’d find me. Sometimes I shut my locker and I feel him pressing into my back. His hand slides up my stomach and my heart beats again as I lose myself in that rough passion.
It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t care anymore, if I ever did in the first place. The more I give into this addiction, the more I need it. I feel myself bleeding out, into all the cold, unfamiliar, and uncaring places in the city, but I’m not afraid because his hands are always there, pulling me in.
This is enough for me. It has to be enough.
The dreams come almost every night now. Sometimes my mother speaks to me when she’s dead. She gargles blood and it bubbles onto my hands. The boy who did it is gone. It’s just the two of us. She’s trying to tell me something—something I’ve forgotten.
I wake with sweaty, slick hands. I don’t feel safe wiping them on the bed. I think it might be blood. So I get up without touching anything, run to the bathroom, and wipe them on one of the towels.
Yes. It’s sweat. Not blood.
I grip the edges of the sink and fall forward until my head hits the mirror. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I glance up. I look composed. I always do. But deep inside, some part of me is breaking.
There isn’t much time before my next class starts. I skipped lunch to get down on my knees in an all too familiar janitor’s closet. Students move up and down the halls. Their footsteps disturb the light sneaking through the bottom of the door, creating long but fleeting shadows. They can’t hear or see us.
I also can’t see anything, but I know the polished tiles beneath me are a bland, inoffensive beige with white specks. I’m well acquainted with them at this point. I shut my eyes and lean forward until my lips brush against the top button of his jeans.
He’s dressed casually today. Sometimes he wears suits that look and feel as if they cost more than what most people make in a year. Other times he’s in clothes that are ripped, soft and worn thin from overwork. He always smells the same—a clean, simple masculine scent that makes my heart race frantically and my pussy ache.
I take his zipper in my teeth. His breath catches. I haven’t even touched him yet, and already we’re both anxious and desperate. My tongue tastes metal. Slowly, I lower my head, unzipping him. Then I take his already erect cock in my mouth.
I swirl my tongue around the tip. He groans but doesn’t push forward. His hands come to either side of my head, brushing my hair behind my ears as I push myself over him further. It stretches the back of my throat. It hurts a bit. But I push deeper, sucking harder, moving over his cock faster and faster. I don’t stop until I taste him.
He’s still for a moment, his cock still erect and in my mouth. I swallow and it twitches and he sucks in a breath. He’s still sensitive.
His hands relinquish my face as I fall back. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and look up. My eyes have adjusted to the dark now. I can just barely make out his masked face.
“Do you like this, solnyshko moyo?”
The sound of his voice startles me. I wasn’t expecting him to ask me any questions—I wasn’t expecting him to care. I nod. I don’t know if he sees it in the dark, but he doesn’t ask again.
It’s true. I like this—everything about this. I don’t know why I do, but I do. Or maybe I do know why and it just scares me. For years I’ve wanted to escape from myself, and he gives that to me.
Maybe I like it better when we don’t speak, because if we did, he would no longer be the means through which I escape. What we have would just be another precious thing in my life. And like all those other precious things, this would also one day break.
Chapter 12
The rest of the day passes pretty much without incident. Well, almost without incident. I got three angry texts from Cassie. Derrick has been leaving Cassie little handwritten notes in her locker at Bertram. Why does this asshole have time to come all the way over here and bother me? she asks. She sends me an angry text every time he does, not that I can blame her. If only you’d come clean about David sooner! she often wines. She’s upset about blowing up at him, of course, but mostly pissed about the way he keeps playing with his head. She wished she’d kept his number so she could leave creepy messages breathing heavily into the phone. Personally, after she said that I thought it was a good thing she didn’t keep it. He’d probably like it.
My last class seemed to drag on forever. The walk home also seemed to go on forever. I love the cello, but lugging it around after a long day can sometimes be a bit rough. There are times I wish gramps played the flute.
Finally, I’m home. I kick open the door to our place and groan as I stomp up the stairs. I set the cello down as I fish out my keys, open the door and scream.
Thank God I’d already set down my cello! “Dolly, what the hell are you doing?”
Dolly’s face is inches away from mine. “I heard you coming up the stairs.”
That didn’t surprise me. It would be more impressive if she hadn’t heard me. “Why did you come up right next to the door and…” I glance down, “why are you holding a knife?”
She inches back. “You kinda sounded like a zombie.”
“What?” I screech, picking up my cello case and setting it down inside.
She closes the door behind me. “Relax. I’m chopping up some veggies for a salad.” She grins. “You did kinda sound like a zombie, though.”
“Thanks.” I shrug off my coat and place it on the gigantic monstrosity Anna bought from some Asian antique dealer in Chinatown. Antique my ass. It looks like something malfunctioned at the factory two years ago and they dumped it into the ocean to hide the evidence. I swear to God those weird white, puffy hard things on the edges are barnacles instead of lotus flowers. Man that girl has weird taste.
Dolly grimaces. “You’re a braver girl th
an me, Laura. I don’t even touch that thing.”
I laugh. “Why did we let Anna stick this by the door again?”
“It’s too big to fit through her bedroom door. Also, we’d kill ourselves if we tried to lug it back downstairs. I still don’t understand how they got it up here.” Dolly waves her knife at me. “You, me and Cassie need to find some hot, strong men.”
I cover my mouth with my hand so she can’t see my smile. “We’re not that hot.”
Dolly walks to the kitchen area, pouting. She puts some salad on a plate. “Hey.”
“It’s not like I’m trying to be mean! I don’t think that anyone is that hot.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. It looks like someone put a curse on that thing.” She hands me the plate with a huff. “And speaking of curses, you’re not allowed to wear that coat when we go out tonight.”
I sit at the counter. “Where are we going?”
She winks. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”
My stomach drops. “I’ll like what?” I ask slowly.
Dolly sighs. “I know you weren’t with David,” she whispers.
I’m glad I’m sitting. Otherwise I would have dropped the plate. “Uh…uh…”
“Don’t even try, Laura,” she murmurs. “I didn’t say anything at the cafeteria because Cass was having a meltdown and wouldn’t see reason. And I know it wasn’t Derrick, either. I don’t even think the guy knows your name.”
I wanted to ask: Is it really so weird for him to not know my name? I mean, people can develop feelings without knowing one another’s name, bare their souls, join their bodies…
And then I realize what I’m thinking, and how incredibly sick I am.
“Yeah,” I respond.
Her mouth tightens. “Who is it then?”
My eyes feel dry. My stomach drops. I can’t think of an excuse.
“That’s what I thought, and that’s why we’re going out—not to find you something new, mind you, I don’t think going on the rebound is a good idea—but you need to dance that guy, whoever he is, out of your system.” She looks me over. “A few drinks wouldn’t hurt, either.”
“Why do you think I need him out of my system?”
Her eyes soften again. “Because you can’t talk about him. That’s never a good sign.”
I can’t argue with that. Though dancing him out of my system is impossible, a night out with my friends wasn’t going to end in disaster. In fact, it might be just what I needed.
I wobble down the street in spiked heels I can only stay upright in because when we first moved in together, Dolly made us all practice strutting our stuff for twenty minutes on every girls’ night for five months. The silver ‘dress’ I’m wearing is decked out in sequins and barely covers my ass. It also barely covers my boobs, but that isn’t because they’re insanely large or anything. The front of it has a few rips right where my cleavage is. When I asked Dolly what the hell was up with that, she curled her hand into a claw and said rawwr! After that, Cassie and I looked at each other and decided we weren’t going to ask her any more questions.
Needless to say, I’m a little cold in a few places.
Cassie looks a lot more sophisticated, but then again, she’d bitch-slap anyone who told her how to dress, especially if that someone was Dolly. She’s in the same fuck-me heels, but she looks sophisticated and dominant despite the fact she’s also having some trouble walking. Tastefully untamed, thick hair fans around her face. Her red dress hugs her curves in all the right places and brings out the warmth in her caramel skin.
When we arrive, the bouncer doesn’t make us wait.
I feel awkward walking past everyone else in line. I never liked that about clubs—how some people are made to wait in line, how only ‘the chosen’ are allowed to enter. It makes everything seem seedy and artificial and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Dolly and Cassie don’t like such rituals either, but Dolly said it was unavoidable if we wanted to get into Clone.
Cassie and I both made a face when she told us the name of where we were going tonight. Clone? It sounded so…derivative. Dolly waved away our complaints. It was the hottest place in town, apparently. Never mind that New York City wasn’t exactly a town, and there were probably over a hundred hottest places. Then she pouted and told us that this really hot guy who’d seen her in that off-Broadway, post-modern play she’d done a few weeks back had invited her.
“Ohhhh,” Cassie and I had said at the same time as she shimmied into a tight black dress and pulled up her garters. “He sounds pretty sophisticated if he frequents places called Clone,” Cassie drawled.
Dolly had raised her eyebrows in challenge. “You should reserve judgment until you see the place.”
Grudgingly, we did. And as we step through the doors, all of us are speechless.
“Who is this fan of yours, Dolly?” I whisper as Cassie’s grip on my arm tightens.
“Yeah. What the hell is his job?” Cassie adds.
Dolly scrunches her nose. “I’m not…completely sure…but I’d heard this was a nice place, so…”
Even she is at a loss for words. This isn’t a nightclub. This is some crazy mash-up of a 19th century gentleman’s club and Showgirls. It’s most certainly not the kind of place a guy would come to to find a girl he’d take home to his mother.
“Oh, there he is!” Dolly grins, tugging on my arm. “And he has a friend.”
Two dark haired guys walk towards us.
“Hello Dolly,” one of them grins as he takes her by the arm.
She looks over her shoulder, glowing. “This is Michael. Michael, these are my friends Cassie and Laura.”
“Hello ladies,” Michael drawls. “This is my friend Alexander.”
“Pleased to meet you both,” Alexander purrs. He has a British accent. Unfortunately, his sexy voice does little to mask the eagerness in his eyes as he embraces my hand and Cassie’s at the same time. “You ladies are stunning, much better than I expected,” he tells us.
Excuse me?
Alexander’s lids grow heavy. “I cannot wait to…dance.”
Cassie and I share a look. The guy is a little too excited about the prospect of dancing with both of us.
Dolly’s mouth drops open. Sorry, she mouths.
“It’s alright,” Cassie grumbles. “Just go have fun with Michael. The two of us will…with this.”
For some reason, Alexander’s grin deepens as if Cassie just payed him a compliment.
Thank you, Dolly mouths as Michael leads her off to the dance floor.
Alexander is a little weird, but he’s no slouch. He orders drinks for us. Five minutes and three shots later, Cassie just can’t take the awkward silence anymore. “So, what do you do?” she asks.
Alexander raises his eyebrows.
“What do you do?” she repeats.
He flashes her a big, goofy grin. “Hey baby,” he slurs.
Oh man, this is not looking good. How can he get tipsy so fast? I stand up and almost fall over.
Cassie catches my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Hey, I barely feel it, alright? I can do everything,” I tell her.
Cassie rolls her eyes as Alexander closes in. I guess he doesn’t like the fact that the conversation is no longer focused on him. “Vanilla and chocolate. Yum. My two favorite flavors.”
It takes Cassie and me a moment to realize he’s talking about our skin color. This does not endear him to us.
He leans against the bar, his Tequila breath steaming down my neck. “We should dance.”
Cass yanks him away. “Uh, no. She’s not dancing in that condition.”
“Hey.” I swing my arm in her general direction. “I said I’m fine.”
“You want this guy to gallantly catch you if you fall on your face?” she whispers.
I frown. Glance at Alexander. He gives me his sexiest come-hither look, which is totally not sexy and definitely does not want me to come any closer.
I give Cassie p
uppy eyes, silently begging for help.
“That’s what I thought. And by the way, you so owe me.” She grabs his hand. “ I don’t like to share.”
He’s either too drunk or dense to detect anything mocking in her tone. I giggle as she leads him to the strobing dance floor.
I sulk as I finish my drink. I start to feel the music. I mean, it’s really bad club music but I feel too warm and giddy to care. I squirm back and forth on my seat, bobbing my head. I get a little too into it and spill some of my drink on Dolly’s dress.
Oops.
I set the drink down, and thank God I do, because at that moment someone comes up behind me.
“Dance with me.”
End of Book 1
Book 2, KEEP ME IN THE DARK, is available now!
I thought I could take the fantasy, but everything is suddenly becoming far too real. It was supposed to just be about sex, but I'm starting to want too much, and I think he is too. But what happens when I start to want something more...and he refuses to leave the shadows?
Sneak Peak
My mind is fuzzy. “Do I think what?”
“That I’m bad for you," he says.
“Maybe,” I admit, “but I don’t care.”
Bodies sway between us. The room is so hot—no, humid. There’s too much perfume and cologne. How could I dance for so long when it’s so hot? How can I breathe?
“Demetri was right.” My lover’s voice is barely audible over the music. “I shouldn’t have let you come here.”
“I was just dancing.”
His grip on me tightens.
“You’re not my keeper,” I tell him.
He doesn’t respond to that. “Meet me at the back of the club in five minutes.”
“What?”
He brushes my hair over the back of my neck, tucking the shorter strands behind my ear. “Please.”
