by Jess Bentley
But I have to go to school, and I want some breakfast for my growling tummy, so I try to rouse her. Like I always do. Just to wake her up even for a moment. I’d even be happy to go to school with an empty belly if I could get a kiss goodbye from her, but she doesn’t respond to me, like usual. She just breathes like an old motor, before settling back into whatever stupor she got herself into.
I give up and go into the kitchen. I pull a chair over to the counter, and climb up on it. I probably could jump right straight up on it if I tried. I’ve always been athletic, that’s for sure. I’m the best in my class at pretty much all the sports. Thank heaven, because otherwise everyone would think I was stupid. No matter what Mommy yells, I don’t think I’m that stupid. I’m just a little different than the other kids. It’s not my fault, though. I’m not sure how much I want to be like all of them anyhow.
I pull down a tattered box of sugary cereal from the cupboard and set it on the counter. Then a bowl, which has a rim of flowers around the edge and a little chip. I jump down from the counter and go to the fridge, but there’s no milk in there. Just a half bottle of cheap wine and a container of mustard, and some dried-out moldy hot dog buns.
Oh well. I don’t think wine would go too well with Lucky Charms. But maybe I’ll just eat them dry.
They jump out of my spoon as I try to bring it to my mouth, so I go to the faucet and pour some water on them. They’re sticky against my teeth, but the rush of sugar is pretty nice. Sure would be better with some milk though, I think as I crunch them.
When I’m done, I put on a different shirt, grab my school bag which has been untouched since last night, and run my fingers through my dark hair. It’s always been unruly, but nobody’s around to tell me to brush it, or my teeth for that matter, so I just yell, “Bye, Mommy,” and go out the door, closing it behind me. I can’t lock it, but I do make sure that it’s at least good and shut, so that she’ll be as safe as possible. Poor Mommy, getting sick all the time.
Today could have been worse, I guess. The other kids didn’t pick on me as much as they sometimes do, and my teacher had her hands full with other things, so when I pretended to have my homework done again she didn’t come and look over my shoulder and hold up the blank page to show everyone in class how dumb I am. I sat in the back of the bus anyway on the way home, because I didn’t want to deal with the other kids. But Dilly came up and sat with me despite that.
“You’re a dirty old Indian, you know,” he whispered.
“Shut up, Dilly, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him.
I swear I’m gonna haul off and punch this kid one day. Even though I’ll likely get my ass kicked. Dilly’s a bully, and he’s not exactly a little kid. He got left back once or twice and he’s got some weight behind him. Most of the other kids are afraid of him, but I’m not. I think that’s why he likes to bother me. I’m more of a challenge.
“Do too,” he replies. “My daddy said that your mom was on the reservation.” He picks his nose and examines his trophy before wiping it on the seat back in front of me. “And now she effs every guy in town.”
“Shut up Dilly,” I say in a low voice. “You don’t know the first thing about it.”
“It’s true. She gives them bee-jays or she fucks ‘em.”
His fat face looks proud. Triumphant. There’s some spit on his chin and I stare at it as he laughs. He’s never looked so punchable as he does right now, so I figure what the hey, and my right arm shoots out and connects with his chin. The other kids go wild, screaming and hooting, and Dilly falls into the aisle between the seats. When he finally comes up for air, he’s clutching his chin and screaming, “Miss Heppner, Miss Heppner!” She’s our bus driver ever since the old one got shit-canned. “Kent hit me!”
I just turn and squint back out the window at the arid Texas landscape.
“Kent, what in glory’s name are you doing back there!” Miss Heppner yells.
I want to say that Dilly started it, that he starts everything, but what’s the point? He’s always going to be the one who wins in this situation. His daddy is the police chief, and he’s got it out for my mom and me. But it’s my honor at stake, and I don’t have much of a choice. Every kid knows that if someone puts down your mother that you have to stop them, and stopping them means punching them.
So that’s what I do.
“Kent hit Dilly, Miss Heppner,” a little girl named Daisy yells out. “And Dilly didn’t do nuthin’!”
“Am I gonna have to stop the bus early?” yells Miss Heppner. Her voice sounds a bit like my mother’s does sometimes. Blustery, but weak somehow.
“No Miss Heppner,” I finally say. “Fight’s over.”
“Well it better be. You’re on thin ice, young man. After I drop you off I’ll have to talk to the superintendent about letting you back on!” She struggles to turn the large wheel of the bus as she yells.
“Yes ma’am,” I say, but just loud enough that she’ll hear and stop yelling.
She’s muttering to herself now, and I can tune that out. I’m glad, because often people say the meanest things just under their breath. The other kids are all riled up, excited that something happened on the bus. Everyone except the one kid, Jerry, who sits at the front since Dilly pushed his face into the window really hard and held it there.
I guess he’s happy that he’s not the one that got messed with today.
We drive by a field of steer and I see an old bull standing in an open field, by himself, with all the cows in the next field. He’s just peacefully eating grass, and I wonder why he has to be all alone.
Climbing off the bus, I hear Miss Heppner shout, “You better behave now, Kent. We’ve had just about enough of your antics, you know,” and a few kids jeer after me. I drag my backpack filled with tonight’s homework in crumpled, mimeographed sheets, and watch the dust raise in its trail. I take the “scenic route” back since I don’t want to walk in on my mom doing effs or bee-jays or whatever it is that it’s called.
I hope we have something to eat for dinner tonight.
I wish my dad didn’t leave us. Then my mom wouldn’t have to do anything for money. We’d still have a normal family and I wouldn’t have to listen to Dilly making fun of her as I took the bus home. He might even have helped me with my homework. I’m completely lost in math class.
When I become a daddy I’m never going to leave my kid. He’s going to be the most important person in my life. That’s just gonna be the way it is and nobody will be able to change that. Not my mommy, the police chief’s son, or anyone. My kid will be number one.
And so will I.
I’m not going to let any kid bully me, no matter what trouble I get in. No way, no how. I kick the ground and watch the swirls of dust rise up around my shoe.
I’m starting to regret going by an English name at school. These kids are going to hate me no matter what. Maybe I should go by Kanen again. My uncle told me it means “one who is a leader.”
That’s who I really am. Not Kent who gets bullied by some police chief’s son for not being who he really is.
Thirteen
Chastity
It’s one of those days. I let myself into my apartment, and immediately change into the softest, most comfortable clothes I have, and curl up on the overstuffed couch. I grab a throw pillow and hug it to myself. I’m not sure why I agreed to interview for that dumb job, and then to take it, of all things. Why do I need it? The answer is that I don’t. At least not yet. The insurance settlement gave me enough cash that I could live decently down here for a little while, especially if I scrimp and cut corners a little bit. And besides, my feet will thank me if I quit.
I rub my feet, which are still aching up a storm, and am reminded again of Kanen’s expert hands on me. The muscles in his arms were rippling and bulging as he massaged my feet, deftly finding all the spots that were bent out of shape by those ill-fitting heels. I could watch those tattoos and ripped arms all day. But don’t get too excited
, Chastity, it doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. Not anything real, anyhow.
Or does it? After all, what ended up happening with Jeffrey may have been because I didn’t ever have these feelings for him. It just seemed natural when I was a teenager to go for the guy who loved me, rather than the one I loved. Or had passion for. Maybe it was partly the neighborhood I grew up in, or our parents’ subtle pressure. “Look at those two, it’s like they’re made for each other!” Because if I admit it to myself, Jeffrey never did really seem like the one for me.
I get up and grab a Coke with some ice, and as I take a long sip, something in me releases, and with it some tears. Part of me can see why Jeffrey felt the way he did, and why he had a hard time telling me how he felt. We were just going along some pre-determined track, just trying to be what we thought adults were supposed to be. People who fell in love with the first person they had sex with, got engaged, had a big party and then got married—and after that comes the baby.
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage,” I say softly. That was our expectation of life, and life’s expectation of us. A template for high-school sweethearts. Maybe he always knew on some level we weren’t right, and since I never admitted it, neither did he.
I didn’t have enough self-confidence to know that I deserved anything more than the kind of relationship he and I had made. And Jeffrey probably agonized over every word in that letter, maybe stashing it in the nightstand when I came in unexpectedly. Struggling with the thoughts he harbored, his failures to be a dad, or even a good husband.
It doesn’t erase the anger I feel toward him, not entirely at least. He was still going to leave me with the baby as far as I could tell from what he wrote that day. What if I had felt the same way and didn’t want to be a mother? I wouldn’t have that escape route, just to say I feel differently now, and take off. But Jeffrey seemed to think that his feelings were important enough to stick me with all the childcare and all the responsibilities that went along with it. It wasn’t fair.
But maybe I could understand where it came from, at least. And they’re both gone from me now, so it doesn’t matter anymore.
I sigh and go back to the couch, flicking on the television, but not really watching it.
With Kanen, it doesn’t feel like the so-called “love” I had for Jeffrey. That was comfortable, plain, like an old sock. Kind of like the clothes I changed into when I got home. But whatever it is with Kanen is hard, electric, thrilling.
Maybe I should just have a one-night stand with him, and damn the consequences. He’d be worth it. I think about how his fine ass looked as he walked out of the restaurant. He almost caught me staring at it as he turned to tip his hat, but I ripped my eyes away in time. His ass flexing in those faded jeans, his black boots that clicked against the floor, the thick, muscular legs and broad shoulders.
And his cock. His jeans faded deliciously in front, hinting at, almost outlining the bulge barely contained in them. What I wouldn’t do right now to slide my hand down the front of his jeans, and grab the hardening length there. His body is like a sculpture, but moves so gracefully, in complete control, electrically responsive, beautifully lithe even with his undeniable bulk.
But if I did have an affair with him, could I protect my heart? Keep from falling in love? Could I let go and let him dominate me, the way he does the bulls he rides? Just one glorious moment, where we’re blurred and blended together like one, until one of us throws the other and then we go back to our normal lives? My mouth falls open wondering what it would be like to be with him, to have him inside me, ready and willing, filling and thick, grunting and moaning as he took me whatever way he pleased.
Ugh. I’m getting ahead of myself. Lunch and a phone number. It’s nothing when you think about it. He probably doesn’t want much to do with me anyway. A man like him has women crawling all over him, to the point where we’re all just playthings. And I’m not the kind of girl most men bother to play with.
No, like Jeffrey assumed, I’m the kind of girl that you marry…or make plans to marry, and then either leave with a note, or through a car accident—whatever way you can. You get out even if it means losing your life.
I sip my drink and ponder. Kanen is a tough nut to crack.
Grabbing the pillow again I wonder what things would be like if I hadn’t miscarried the little one. That baby was the one innocent part of the whole situation. I’d have a little bundle of love in my arms right now, a sweet baby face staring up at me, needing me. Instead of feeling completely lost, unbound to anything, and as far away from Canada as I could get without hitting Mexico. If I miss anything from that relationship, it’s my precious baby. Well, the baby, and the dreams that turned out to be nothing but dust.
Fourteen
Kanen
Canada’s on my mind, and I don’t mean the country. She’s tempting me. To get in touch with her, to talk to her, to see her. And the urge is bad. I decide to give her a call, see if I can persuade her to come out with me tonight. I figure we can drive out somewhere and drink a bottle of something under the stars.
Of course, she might have other ideas. A lot of women prefer something a little fancier, but that’s only occasionally my style, going out for dinner in tight clothes, a tie, and seeing people come up to me either fawning all over me or putting me down because they think a rodeo cowboy isn’t worth what they’re worth as a CEO in the oil industry. Little do they know that I am one and the same, that I have the same kind of money as they do, and for the same reasons, but I just don’t build my life on it. I build other people’s lives on it, truth be told. If someone else takes care of the oil, that’s good enough for me. And I’ll keep on keeping on with my life as is.
But it’s true that sometimes that life gets a little lonely, despite the endless supply of women that I’ve availed myself of in the past. Yeah, the women who throw themselves at me. They’re good in a pinch, when you don’t feel like being alone, or when you have a hankering to bury your dick in a warm wet hole. Truth be told, I haven’t wanted much more than that in quite some time. Hungry, eat a steak. Horny, pick up the next hot chick and let her wrap her lips or her wet pussy around your cock. It hasn’t been too difficult for me, not to brag. Once I reached about seventeen, I hit my stride, and women haven’t been able to stay away since. Nor for long.
But a woman like Canada—or I should say, Chastity—well, someone like that is a bit different. She doesn’t even understand how gorgeous she is. She’s innocent, somehow. Like a flower that opens its face toward the sun. Look at me getting all poetic. Man alive, I’ve got it bad.
But I know that she’s not just some empty-headed moron like most of the women I’ve been with. There’s something in her eyes that tells me more of what I need to know than anything else, and I can’t say the same about the skanks that line up outside my door. Not that I have anything against sex, hell... I don’t mind admitting that I love it. Every part of it. And I like pleasing a woman probably more than the next guy does. But if that’s all a girl has to offer, she shouldn’t be surprised if someone takes it and leaves the rest.
I pick my phone out of my pocket for the third time and decide to text Canada.
“Hey Chastity, you feeling better, you want to meet up a little later?”
I’m surprised to see that she’s instantly writing me back, the little dots on my screen tell me at least. They start and then stop… and start and then stop.
“Cat got your tongue?” I text her finally. “I can help.”
She writes back. “Haha,” and then after a moment. “Yeah? What do you have in mind?”
I’ll tell you exactly what I have in mind. I have in mind to kiss you like you’ve never been kissed before. Passionately, sweetly, hungrily. I have in mind to slide your shirt from your shoulders and kiss your neck and the tops of your breasts before I take one nipple in my mouth and then the other, watching your eyes close in pleasure as your nipple hardens under in my mouth
. I have in mind running my tongue over the nub as my hand sneaks around and pulls you to me, my thigh between your legs, you grinding against me as I squeeze your sweet ass. To have you beg me to fuck you, and fuck you hard, because I’ve teased you so much you can’t take it anymore. To not let you have my entire length right away, but to kiss and suck your quivering clit as I rub your g-spot and you struggle to stand up against the wall. Then to bend you over and fill you again and again with my hard stiff cock as your pussy wraps around me, hot and wet and needful. Us crying out together simultaneously, me shooting jets of seed inside you, and you taking it all, as we catch our breath, right before we do it all again.
“Maybe a picnic?” I write.
“Sounds good.”
“Pick you up at six.”
When she climbs into my truck, she looks radiantly beautiful. And goddamned sexy as hell. She isn’t done up like she had been in the restaurant, all legs and tits and ass and hair, but she looks more subtle. She’s wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a white blouse that falls off of one shoulder. And I can’t see a bra strap on that shoulder either. She has flats on, after those killer shoes in the pub, but her legs look as long as ever, and her ass as pert.
“Hi,” she says, shyly.
“Hey there, don’t you look pretty as a picture,” I say, and watch the pink blush creep up from her neck. She’s nervous, and I guess on some level so am I. It’s been years since I cared what a girl thought. Now I’m wondering if my old game is gonna work with this new player. Or will it turn her off? Aw, who cares. I just like her is all.
I put my hand out and grab hers which was resting on her denim-clad thigh. I pull it over to me and immediately it’s like her hand is made of electricity. I know they talk about sparks flying, but for us it was more like when my uncle used to weld. A nonstop stream of sparks that had no intention of stopping or slowing. Is she feeling it too?
