by Gabi Moore
Anyway the solution was simple; I’d just have to keep my eyes open, then. I fell asleep eventually, but I made sure to keep my hands outside the covers, you know.
Time floated away and soon it was Sunday evening and they came back, much the same way they had left. Jared seemed even more tanned than when he left and my aunt even ditzier somehow, and with more hippie bangles jangling on her arms. They were sorry, the flight was delayed a little, then there was some traffic on the drive back, and they hoped I hadn’t been bored here all alone.
I was happy to leave, shall we say, the scene of the crime, and was hurriedly packing my backpack; my warm and innocent bed only a 10-minute bus ride away.
“Oh don’t be silly, sweetie! Sleep here the night and I’ll drop you in the morning. Your mom won’t mind.”
But will I?
Jared seemed completely unfazed by this suggestion, as outrageous as it was. It was like he just waltzed around all his life vacationing with women his mother’s age and sleeping in houses with …girls.
I cleared my throat to explain that I was a good girl and so on and that I couldn’t possibly do that, but she was speaking again, rattling off in that excited way of hers.
“We can all watch a movie or something, I’m exhausted.”
I most certainly did not want to watch a movie, and even more so didn’t want to do “or something”. Ok, just relax. Maybe my nasty secret (not that one, the other one) was making me jump to conclusions. I looked over at her two seater couch and imagined how hard I was going to judge this boy if he even so much as tried to get a crush on me, which he obviously would.
“Ok, sure, we can watch a movie. Or have an early night. Whatever.”
Well, I was now in Aunt Carol’s house, with a stranger, a stranger who was probably paid to you-know-what no less. I was irritated that they seemed totally unashamed of themselves. I suddenly had a thought. What if I paid him? He couldn’t turn it down, it was his job basically, so he’d have to do whatever I told him, right? Technically? What a stupid thought. I went and sat on the couch and played with Buttons. My aunt flitted in and out of her room as she unpacked her bags, then, and you won’t believe this, then he came and sat next to me.
“Get all your ‘work’ done this weekend?” he said, teasing me and making two quotes in the air as he spoke. I would later learn that this was one of his most stubborn habits. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and the redder I went, the more it seemed to suggest exactly the answer I didn’t want to give.
“Aunt Carol? Aunt Carol I think I’d better go home actually. I really need to finish this essay for tomorrow and I have classes in the morning anyway. I can still catch the bus …”
He chuckled at me, getting far too close on the sofa.
Aunt Carol stuck her head through the living room door and frowned at me, a half-filled toiletry back in her hands. “Oh sweetie, you’re so studious. Such a good girl. Fine, but why doesn’t Jared take you? Jared just take my car, be a lamb.”
“Yes ma’am” he said, and I wanted to smack him.
Chapter Five
“Seriously, you’ve never had a boyfriend? Not even one?” he was saying.
I couldn’t believe he had gotten this nosy in a car trip this short. Was he deliberately driving slower than he needed to? “No, not one, and I might say it’s not really any of your business, jeez.”
He paused a little. “Really, but not even one?”
I fumed. He was driving my aunt’s car like he owned it, spreading his legs wider than you’d think any human male was capable of, resting his elbow on the lip of the window like a total ass.
“Nope, not one. I suppose that’s a little hard for someone like you to understand, huh?” I could hear my mother’s voice in my own again.
“Aw, now what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nevermind. Whatever.” I looked out the window, contemplating diving out and running home, anything to get rid of this smell of his cologne, filling up the car now. He was pretty hot, okay, if that’s what you were wondering.
“No, what do you mean by that? Someone like me?”
“Jeez, I don’t know. Forget it,” and I wanted to, but before I knew it I was blurting out, “why are you with my aunt anyway? It’s weird.” I sounded like a little kid.
He grinned. “Weird? What’s weird about it? Your aunt’s a beautiful woman,” he said this last piece like a joke, and it made me defensive.
I love Aunt Carol, even though she had bad taste and freckled hands. “Yes, and she’s also inherited a lot of beautiful money, too” I said, thinking this was a pretty good quip, even if I did say so myself. I’m a pretty witty person, it just usually takes me the next day to think of things. The grin fell off his face and he stared at the road.
“Ah, I forgot, you’re only 18. You think that love has nothing to do with money, and money has nothing to do with sex?”
My ears pricked at this word. In my family, we call it you-know-what. “I’m 19, actually, and I’m not an idiot. How old are you? You’re old enough to be her son. That’s pretty disgusting.” To be honest, I didn’t know why I had such a flash of anger towards him, this person I had barely spent 10 minutes with.
He looked like he didn’t know either. “Well, I think it’s disgusting that you think so little of your aunt that you just assume she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
I opened my mouth to speak but he interrupted me.
“And by the way, have you considered that she may be using me?”
I looked at his smooth, boyish hands on the wheel, his unlined forehead. Nope. He was definitely preying on her; there was no way around it. Besides, I was never wrong on questions of morality, although obviously he didn’t know this yet.
“That’s ridiculous. She’s in a vulnerable condition. My uncle passed only a few months ago, did you know that?”
I couldn’t believe how personal things had gotten. In my home, we usually said …well, we just said nothing. Speaking of which, we were almost there.
“I did, because she told me. She’s a strong woman, I know that. But now it’s time for her to have a bit of fun, don’t you think?”
“Oh and I suppose that bit of fun is you?” I asked, with as much sarcasm as I could muster, secretly hoping he wouldn’t say the s-word again.
With a slick hand, he gestured towards his body and smiled a big cheesy grin. “Damn right it is!” he said.
“Gross”
Was he actually even wearing anything under that hoodie?
“You know, your aunt spent her whole life like you.”
“Like what?”
“Judgmental. Close-minded. I took care of that.” He chuckled, and I couldn’t help but stare at his crotch for a split second. Gross.
We had arrived in my drive way, thank the Lord. I gathered up my bag and tried to look indignant, although it did feel as though we were cut short in the middle of the conversation, and I don’t think he quite understood yet just how wrong he was.
“Be honest, are you going to keep seeing her?” Man he looked like such a douche, sitting there, legs spread wide, sideways smile and about 150% too much attitude, as though he was in his own music video or something.
He raised a single naughty eyebrow at me and smiled even more sideways. “Are you asking me if you get to keep seeing me?” he said, then winked.
I slammed the car door and marched inside. All I wanted to do was think about how wrong he was, but all I could think about was how my butt looked to him as I walked away and up the stairs.
Chapter Six
Just remember everyone, God never gives you any burdens that he knows you can’t handle.
My burden’s name was “Jared” (idiot) and my God did I carry him everywhere with me. To classes. As I watched TV. When I was alone, in bed, at night. Well, you can see the problem.
He was everywhere in real life too, and everyone in the family begrudgingly accepted his weird new role in my aunt’s life. He seemed part sex
-coach, part cheerleader, part gay friend. Thankfully there aren’t too many gays in my town, but I have seen a few, and I like to think I know what I’m looking for – Jared was irritating, and never really settled on a side, I felt. He was clean shaven, boyish, but still predatory. He was a bit of chameleon, changing subtly depending on who he spoke to. He chatted easily with my aunt about yoga and scatter cushions for her living room, and stood outside our house and vaped and wore name brand loungewear and a gold chain. He had the manners of a thug, yet somehow people responded to him as though he was a dapper gentleman. It was confusing. Not only was he spending so much time at our house, he was refusing to fit into any easy categories. Like I said, what an ass.
Anyway, let me cut to the chase here. He kissed me. It was one afternoon and I had no classes. I was killing time at my aunt’s, waiting for her so we could go out and shop for towels later. He barged in, found me in the kitchen and for some stupid reason, everything went quiet and he leaned in and kissed me. I froze. I wanted to tell him to do it again, but I was so angry with myself for thinking this that I blurted, “So, how much do I owe you now?”
And he looked a little hurt. I ran out the kitchen and sat down at my laptop, where house rules dictated I couldn’t be bothered.
“By the way, you should clear your browser history” he said, closing the fridge and grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl. My skin nearly crawled off my face. He sidled up close to me, so close that his taut belly was right next to my face, so close I could smell a distant shower and …something else on his skin.
“You’re not my type, you know,” I said, praying to God his crotch didn’t move a single inch closer to my downturned eyes.
“Your type? Apparently, I am though,” he laughed, tapped the screen twice with his finger and then walked out with his stupid banana.
That night, I masturbated so furiously I think I nearly passed out.
Chapter Seven
The road to hell is paved with …well, I don’t know really. I don’t know how I ended up here, alone with Jared, as alone as Adam and Eve were in the garden. You know, my horizons were expanding. His argument that I was just as uptight as all the other women in my family had struck a nerve.
He was wrong: I was a reasonable person; I didn’t have any sexual hang ups, no way. Through a vague series of decisions which I had trouble justifying to myself later on, I got him to agree to drive me out to the Carlisle forest parking lot, which even I knew was a place people went to …do things.
My quiet rebellion took the form of a marijuana cigarette, and after some thought I decided this was not me falling into temptation, but rather me inoculating myself from it; doing research, you know, so I was prepared if I ever was tempted for real and so on. We parked and he rolled down the window to rest his elbow. Did he ever wear anything else but sportswear and caps? He pulled a wonky white cigarette from his pocket and gently tapped its dry end on the dashboard, his fat fingers seeming too crude for the task.
“Now, since you’re only a baby, you should just have a little, ok?” he said.
I snorted. Imagine him, this ruffian, telling me to moderate myself. He pressed his lips together, held it there between them and lit it delicately, focused intently for a second on breathing it to life. Then he turned to me and offered it. I took it gingerly, placed it to my lips, puffed a little then spat out a jagged ribbon of smoke. That’s it? That’s all? I gave it back to him.
He was giggling.
“Yeah, yeah, good job. But try again now, and this time, really suck.”
I shot him an unimpressed look.
“Sorry, I know, you already suck. Just inhale, ok? Like this.” He leaned forward in his seat, the leather creaking under him, and I could smell the smoke on his breath as he hovered his palm over my chest.
“Breath in deep, into your lungs, so that your chest touches my hand, ok?”
He was like a brother. Like a pervy, douche idiot of a brother. And I wanted to kiss him again. How dare he.
I did as he said, and a hot puff of smoke penetrated my lungs, and my chest rose up to gently meet his waiting hand. A wild buzz filled my head; I was so dizzy I felt as though I had been slapped.
“Good …good, ok hold it in now” he said quickly, pressing down hard on my chest and looking at me with laughing eyes. I held on as much as I could, but the burning eventually got the better of me, and I let go.
“Wow,” I coughed and sputtered, giddy.
“What a lightweight” he said smiling. His hand stayed exactly where it was.
“You didn’t say it would hurt,” I whined, “it really burns.”
The leather creaked again as he moved his hand up to my throat and stroked it there for a moment, then dragged it down again to rest on my breasts.
With my buzzing head, I looked down at his hands, then at him.
“Your hands are so soft” I said, which was totally not what I wanted to say then. I wanted to tell him to take his filthy hands off of me, and just what did he think he was doing and did I say he could? But all that came out was, “I didn’t imagine they’d be so soft.”
The moment was so awkward I fumbled and let the cigarette drop. It fell into the seat crevice, not before burning a quick pink hole on my thigh, and we both went scrambling after it.
“Ha! Only users lose drugs,” he said and fished it out, although to do so meant he had to stretch the full length of his body over mine and grope around the other side of my seat. He triumphantly held up the now extinguished cigarette, but instead of going over to his side of the car again, he stayed there, on my lap, smiling. For some reason, this seemed incredibly funny to me. I burst out laughing and he laughed with me.
He was laying on my lap, smiling up at me, striking joke poses like some 50s belle in a magazine shoot. He put his hands under his chin, pouting, pretended to fluff his hair.
“Cut it out!” I laughed. I looked at his face, suddenly seeing for the first time how open it was, how hopeful and simple and playful. It made me feel weird.
“You sell your body for sex,” I said, and instantly regretted it. It was like I was unable to say all the things I should be saying, and could only blather like an idiot.
He didn’t respond. He lit the thing again, took a long drag and blew the stream of smoke out the window, watching it go. He took another hit then stubbed it out on the ashtray. His face changed.
“Mel, I don’t sell sex, you know.”
“Then what do you sell?” There was no more judgment in my voice. I really was curious. I really wanted to know everything. I hated playing the clueless religious girl all the time; was it so bad that I just wanted to know? Did he kiss them? Did they pay for his time? Per act? Per each …body part?
“I provide a service.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah… Look at me, what do you see?”
“An idiot.” I giggled.
“Exactly, you see a totally handsome and charming young buck. I’m a machine, Mel. I can fuck holes into walls, I can ruin a marriage just by looking at a woman’s ass right. I’m young. I’m hot.”
I was giggling uncontrollably now at the thought of him with his you-know-what stuck in a bit of drywall.
“But I give women what they really want, and for that service I get compensation. In this case, money.”
I had never heard him speak with so much passion. “So what do they really want then…?” I asked quietly, the hot fuzzy feeling in my head was starting to creep down to the rest of my body.
“Let me show you” he said, and sat up quickly.
The air in the car seemed heavier all of a sudden. My eyes felt like they were swimming in my skull. The thought of this made me start giggling again. He reached out and placed two hands on my shoulders, shooting his gaze straight at mine, like a laser.
It shut me right up and I stared back, hypnotized.
He began cooing at me softly, with a buttery, unspeakably sexy look on his face. “Mel, oh my god Mel, have I said how beauti
ful you are? You’re like a sexy witch, I feel like you’ve cast a spell on me… your eyes …”
Here he slowly, slowly extended gentle fingertips and touched the edge of my cheek, as though he was surprised I was made of flesh and blood and not mist. His eyes were riveted right on mine, and as overwhelming as they were, I couldn’t look away. There was nothing at that moment but the stillness in the car and his rapt attention on me, so raw it was more like worship, so intense it felt like a spotlight, but one that was not only illuminating me, but devouring me, seeing down into concealed depths. Blood rushed to my face and I stammered, trying to say something.
“Is this …is this real?” I said.
He smiled one long, slow, languid smile and then snapped his eyes away from mine, throwing himself back into his seat. “Nah. That was just an illustration. That’s what I’m talking about. That feeling, that thing you felt right there? That’s what women want. And how much would you pay for that?”
I tried to think, but my head was a little scrambled.
“Yeah, well, they pay a lot,” he said.
We sat in silence.
“I’ll probably have to pay someone to have sex with me one day you know. Or just die a virgin,” I said, surprised at how easily I had spoken this confession, and how it hurt me the moment I said it out loud. All at once I felt like I wanted to cry.
He looked at me quizzically. “Hey, hey Mel, don’t say stuff like that. God, your family is really fucked up.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
My tongue felt loose and it suddenly seemed like, well, why not tell him all this stuff? He was the last person on earth who was allowed to judge me. Listening to people was basically part of his job, anyway.
“Do you ever, you know, with …younger women?” The voice I spoke with was not my own, and seemed to come from far away, somewhere outside my body. This, I guess, was what they called being “high”. It was nice I guess. He looked at me again, the quizzical look intensifying.
