by Anne Conley
“Has he asked about me? Lately?”
A sigh. “Not really. But he’s happy and busy. I would like you to come see him.” A quiet pause. “He looks so much like you.” She didn’t know what to say to that. “Are you? Better?” He sounded hesitant, as if he were afraid of the answer.
“Yes, I’m better, but…if he’s happy with you and Sarah, why mess with a good thing?” Sarah. She was perfect. She had a master’s degree in nursing, loved Adam with everything she had, and raised Charlie’s son as her own, as well as two other girls with Adam. She’d told herself a long time ago to let her have him, they would be happy together.
“Because you’re his mother, and I thought, if you were better, you might want to come see your son. You don’t have to come to the party afterward, although you’re invited. But just come see Trent. You don’t even have to talk to him or anything. I think it would be good for you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. This trip to such a different place had managed to bring back so many memories for her. Of all places, why had a road trip to California brought all this back to the surface? She knew the answers to that question. Les’s kindness reminded her constantly of Adam. The motel rooms he’d insisted on. The way she had to constantly remind herself she didn’t deserve someone like Les, because Adam’s actions so long ago had shown her that.
“Always looking out for me, Adam.” Her voice was choked, and she sucked the blood off her quivering lip.
“You’re my girl, Charlie. I’ll always do what I can. Please come.”
“I’ll think about it. Okay?”
“That’s all I can ask.”
They hung up and Charlie sank to the ground clutching her phone, as the memories washed through her. Adam had gotten her out of that house full of frat-boys in training and taken her to the cops, who’d in turn taken her to a safe house for prostitutes escaping pimps. Later, she’d been installed in a mental-health wing of the local charity hospital. That was not a fun place. She’d spent a lot of time with Adam and his family during those times, discovering how fucked up her life really was compared to a normal family.
She tricked Adam into getting her pregnant, telling him she was on the pill, which she wasn’t. Somehow, with all the psychiatric sessions, and group homes, and medical visits, her pill prescription had slipped between the cracks. The psychotropics made it through though. With a vengeance. It was a miracle above all others that Trent had been born normal and healthy.
While her body was coping with a pregnancy, and trying to metabolize her sudden med requirements, Adam’s parents had freaked about the entire thing, and Adam had done the right thing. Of course, her parents had signed the waiver from jail, because CPS and the courts were shuffling paperwork on her custodial rights, and the whole thing had been a media sensation: High school hero falls in love with his distressed damsel. He’d graduated from high school and taken college classes while working to support her and the baby. But the baby had taken too much of his attention. She hated Trent for keeping Adam from spending time with her alone. So she’d done what she thought she needed to do to get his attention, and drove him out of her life forever.
Signing over her parental rights hadn’t been a difficult choice, and from what she’d understood, Adam’s parents had taken on the majority of Trent’s upbringing in the beginning, while he was finishing school. Then he’d met Sarah, and they’d all started the perfect life together.
Adam had been the nicest person she’d ever known and she’d ruined it. She’d begged for attention from him any way her unbalanced sixteen-year-old fucked-up brain knew. She’d used drugs, gotten drunk, cut herself—the final straw was an attempt at suicide. She’d failed on purpose, the quintessential cliché, but she was supposed to be watching their baby while he worked in the evenings to support them. She’d endangered Trent. So Adam had taken the baby and left her.
A hand on her shoulder interrupted her ruminations. Les.
“Are you okay?” His eye was swollen shut and purple after the altercation with the drunk at the wedding, but concern etched his features nonetheless.
It seemed like he was always asking her if she was okay. And of course, she would lie like a rug to keep from telling him the truth. She swiped ineffectively at her eyes, and with a panic remembered the stained glass she was here for. Her eyes searched for it, to no avail. It had been sold.
“No. I missed it.”
“The stained glass?”
“Yeah.” Dejected, she turned and stomped off toward her truck. “Fuck!”
“Hey. It’s okay…”
“Les!” She spun around toward him. “Stop talking and take me someplace to get drunk. Now!” The entire trip was wasted. All the miles, the emotions coming to the surface, this… this thing with Les. All for nothing. Not a damn thing.
His face broke into a wicked grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 11
The average life expectancy of a child in “the life” is seven years.
—www.refugeoflight.org
Les struggled to keep up with Charlie as they hit a strip of after-hours establishments in LA. She’d decided to go ahead and drive into the city for the night. So they’d found a motel, dropped of the trailer, changed clothes, and now she was on the prowl for some unnamed level of intoxication, and he’d been ordered to “keep up or stay at the motel.”
He wasn’t about to let her go off to get drunk alone. Something had happened at the auction. He wondered if it was Justin, although he’d never gotten her this upset before. He certainly wasn’t worth the emotion she was spewing. Charlie had put back on the black dress she’d worn to the wedding and Les recognized the armor she put on when she exposed her tattoos. The dress was gorgeous, but it showed off her sleeves of tattoos, as well as glimpses of the ones on her thighs, including his name there. It was her way of telling the world to fuck off. He admired the duality of her nature, her rough-edged femininity, dueling with the tomboy exterior.
As she drove now, he watched her face carefully. When he asked her what they were doing, she’d simply reply, “Getting fucked up.” Her need to change though, indicated a desire for more, and Les wondered if she was planning on getting laid too. She wore a mask of determination on her face, but he knew her face well enough by now to see the vulnerability the mask was trying to hide.
The first place they’d stopped at was a complete dive, enabling Charlie to drink three shots of gut-rot whiskey with a beer chaser for under twenty bucks. After that, her mood improved, much to Les’s relief. She’d snapped at him so much every time he’d brought up the stained glass that he’d decided to just surprise her with it. Later.
Apparently, her eyes were opened after Charlie finished the beer because she looked at Les and said, “I’m not sure they even wash the glasses here. Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand and yanked him out the door, which was fine.
After that, they walked down the block to a more upscale type place; it had the words, The Lounge in red neon across the top of the building. Charlie turned to him, one hand on her hips. “Ten bucks says it’s a titty bar.”
“With pasties. They probably have zoning restrictions here.” Les knew she was hiding something dark under her lighthearted façade, but he was playing along. For whatever reason, she thought she needed this, and he wasn’t going to let her get drunk alone here, of all places.
“In LA? Come on!” She slapped his chest playfully, and Les relished this care-free side of her, although he knew it was spurred on by the phone call she’d gotten at the auction. He wondered who it could be She’d said she wouldn’t answer anymore of Justin’s calls, and to his knowledge, she hadn’t.
He laughed when they walked in. “Looks like you owe me ten bucks.” She turned to him suggestively and slid the bill into his shirt pocket, lingering there, teasing his nipple through the fabric.
He was instantly hard.
“Charlie…” he warned.
She slid him a sly smile and winked. “Oopsie. Didn’t me
an to do that.” It was a side of Charlie he hadn’t seen much of.
Ah hell, if she was a touchy-feely drunk, he was in some deep shit tonight.
It wasn’t an exotic dancing place, but it certainly had lots of dancing. And it was exotic. It was a dark place, not at all like the Gin he was accustomed to, with its sheet metal roofing and exposed stud walls. Everything here was painted dark purple, and lots of black vinyl covered everything. He hadn’t seen a club with cages for dancing in it outside of the movies, and the women who danced in these cages were clad so scantily, they looked like they were exotic dancers. There was so much bumping and grinding on the dance floor, even Les was blushing.
Charlie was unfazed, grabbing his arm and leading him to a table. Just as he was about to lower himself into the chair, his pocket buzzed. Looking at the ID, he found his friend Brent was calling.
“Will you be okay for a minute? I’ll be right back. Order me something.” She nodded, he thought. It was sort of hard to tell with her bouncing to the beat, but her wide smile was breath-taking and he took it as a yes.
He answered the phone with a “hold on a minute…” and walked around trying to find a quiet place to take the call. He ended up down a hallway full of doors leading off it, and scrunched himself into a corner. Putting the phone back up to his ear, he said, “I’m so glad to hear a buddy’s voice. How’s it going, man?”
“Pretty good, how’s your trip?”
“Wild.”
“Sounds like it. Where are you?”
“At a club in LA. You remember Sweetness? From Charlie’s Recycled Restoration?”
“That secretary you’ve been talking about?”
“Yeah, turns out, she’s Charlie, short for Charlotte.” He gave Brent the run-down of the events of the past week as quickly as he could, and waited for sage advice. He got a low whistle.
“Sounds like you’re in deep, brother.”
“You can say that again. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never climbed walls this high before, and something tells me she’s different, but I can’t get her to let me in to find out.”
“Season tickets on the fifty yard line of the Cowboys, or sex with Charlie?” This was a familiar either/or game they used to play when they were kids to gauge the level of devotion to their many girls.
“Fuck, man, she can carry my balls around in her purse and take me shopping if she wanted to. I’d do anything with Charlie over season tickets. Especially after last season.”
“Wow.”
Les wasn’t impressed with Brent’s speechlessness. He needed answers. Trying not to sound as aggravated as he felt, he snapped, “I know. So what do I do?”
“You’ve made some moves and she’s pulled away?”
“Yeah. She seems receptive, but something’s holding her back. She says she doesn’t do relationships.”
“Then just do sex.” Les noticed a woman leading a man past him by a thin leather leash, and they disappeared into a room down the hallway. He raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.
“I wish. She won’t do that either, because she says I won’t be happy with just sex.” Suddenly, Les was seeing odd things everywhere he looked, and it wasn’t just the dress-code. Man, LA was weird.
“How well she’s figured you out, man.”
Les let out an exasperated sigh just as he heard the sounds of leather smacking flesh from the door he was leaning against, couple with low moans of pleasure.
“Let her make the next move, then take over. Like if she kisses you, kiss her back for all it’s worth and let it lead to more. Make her realize how great you are in the sack. If she’s all about sex, with no relationships, let her think that’s all it is, then before you know it, she’ll be hooked.”
“I’m not sure I won’t end up the one that’s demolished if I do it that way.”
“Then forget about her. She’s not worth it.”
“Oh, she’s totally worth it.” Les had to force himself to focus on his friend’s words. They made sense to him, but the sudden dawning realization of the type of club he was in had him anxious to get back to Charlie to gauge her reaction.
“Then go for it.”
Les hung up the phone, not feeling any more enlightened. Making his way back to the table, he noticed more chains, cuffs, leather, and collars.
He slid back into his chair across from Charlie and leaned forward. A couple of empty drink glasses were on the table, and he wondered how drunk she was.
“I think this is a sex club,” he stage whispered to her, the smirk curving his lips fading when he saw her pale face. She looked at him wildly, her eyes unfocused. “How many drinks have you had, Sweetness?”
“Dunno. A few.”
Shit, he hadn’t been gone that long. Was she slamming them? “What’s wrong?”
“Let’s get out of here, please?”
He grabbed her hand and threw a wad of money on the table before dragging her out. They walked down the street, Charlie still clutching his hand, when he stopped and turned her toward him.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong with you?”
Her sweet blue eyes pierced his, and he felt the sadness from them pour into his body, washing him with sorrow he didn’t know the source of. Her baby blues grew glassy and shone with tears, and Les clutched at her face. “Tell me, Charlie. Please.”
She bit a quivering bottom lip and shook her head. “Everything, Les. Everything.” Blinking, she continued. “I need more alcohol.”
“I don’t think you do.”
She shook herself away from him and disappointment flooded his body. “Well, I may not, but I’m not going back conscious, so you’re either with me, or not.”
Well, he still wasn’t letting her drown whatever was bothering her alone, so he reluctantly followed her down the block to another dance club, where she went inside, paying the bouncer for both of them.
She was already bouncing to the beat of the music, and he was desperate to get the light shining back in her eyes, even if it was alcohol-fueled. “You feel like dancing?”
“Sure!”
If he couldn’t get her to open up to him, he’d at least watch her let go of her demons.
She pushed into a mass of sweaty bodies, and turned her back to him, wrapping his arms around her so she was flush against the front of his body, and then she started to move.
Christ, he was not going to survive tonight.
She entwined her fingers with his, and wrapped them around her body, leaving them on her stomach, directly under her breasts. Then she started writhing, rubbing her own palms along the outside of his thighs. The smell of her hair was intoxicating, a mixture of floral and fruity, and the feel of her ass as it rubbed against his ever-swelling cock was making the blood race south.
He tried to bounce along with her, managing to keep their bodies together, while his hands started roaming of their own accord. Her head fell back onto his shoulder, and he lowered his mouth to the smooth skin of her neck.
“You are so hot, Charlie,” he mumbled against the skin there, before laying a hot kiss on the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Her writhing increased and she pressed against him, letting out a small moan he felt vibrate through her body.
One hand was on her full breast, and he felt the pebble of her nipple through the thin fabric of the dress. She moaned again while his other hand moved southward, skimming her luscious thigh, tracing the hem of her skirt. She arched her back, pressing her ass into his groin, and then bent forward, touching the ground with her hands, still moving her body.
Holy shit.
If clothes were gone, he’d be buried inside her so fast, her head would spin.
His hands had a mind of their own and couldn’t resist roaming around to the amazing backside pressed against him. He squeezed the globes of flesh before grabbing her hips and pulling her toward him. Looking around through the glaze of lust he saw nobody was watching them, lost in their own worlds. One couple next to them looked like they were actua
lly having sex. The woman was wearing a skirt and had both of her legs wrapped around the man’s waist, who seemed to be pumping in and out of her. Her face was buried in his shoulder, so he couldn’t see her expression, but the way her fingernails were digging into his back seemed a little obvious.
Uncomfortable with the temptation to touch her under her skirt, Les flipped her around so she was facing him, and pulled her body flush against his, burying his face in her sweet-smelling hair, satisfying himself with that instead. Almost immediately, Charlie began rubbing against him, her eyes closed, and Les forced his own hands to stay outside her clothes.
This was the most sexual dancing Les had ever experienced. Charlie straddled his thigh, and the warmth of her core rubbed against him. He couldn’t help the groan that escaped as he clutched her waist desperately. Her skirt had ridden up, and he watched her legs as they moved in her heels on either side of his legs.
Wishing he had her alone in their motel room, Les was helpless to do anything but rake his eyes up her body as it writhed and undulated against his.
She clutched at his belt loops, tugging on them as if her life depended on it, as her top half bowed away from him, giving him an exquisite view of her breasts, nipples puckered against the taut fabric. Her pulse pounded in the vein on her neck, and Les lowered his mouth to it, feeling her desire flow through her veins as she continued grinding against his leg.
Her eyes were closed, and he wondered where she was, if she was even with him. Was she so drunk she’d gone someplace inside her mind he’d never be able to reach? When her rhythm changed, Les realized she was chasing release, humping on his leg here on the dance floor, and the thought turned him on painfully. Helpless to do anything but watch, he saw her face contort into a mask of concentration. He pulled her back against him, feeling the crush of her breasts against his chest.
“Fuck, Charlie,” he whispered against her ear as her motions grew even more frantic. “I want to get you the hell out of here, right now.” Her hands were gripping his waist, and his went to her ass, clutching it against him. Her mouth opened against his shoulder and the heat of her breaths rivaled that on his thigh. When her thighs clamped around his, he felt her climax shudder through her as she bit into his shoulder. The pain was a superb rendition of her pleasure, and as she went limp in his arms, Les’s excitement grew at the evening’s prospects.
