The Lion's Den

by Katherine St. John

  “If you don’t wanna do it, I can take you back,” she offered. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Thunder rumbled overhead. “It’ll be fun.”

  The song on the radio switched to our latest Madonna favorite, and she turned it up. “It’s a sign: You’re frozen.” She sang along, and I joined in, trying to force myself to relax.

  The first fat drops of rain were just beginning to fall as we got out of the car at Silver Creek; after dashing the hundred yards from visitor parking to Ryan and Tyler’s apartment, we were drenched.

  A clap of thunder cracked as Ryan swung open the door. We darted inside, dripping all over the carpet.

  “Sorry,” I said, shivering in the air-conditioning.

  “Tyler, towels!” Ryan shouted over his shoulder.

  I wrapped my arms around my chest, acutely aware that my soaked tennis whites were now completely transparent. Summer was unfazed, giving Ryan a kiss on the cheek as though she hung out at her teacher’s apartment every day of the week.

  Tyler emerged from the back with towels, and I immediately remembered why I agreed to this. He flashed a lopsided smile and wrapped me up in a big towel, lingering with his arms around me. He smelled of Drakkar Noir. I could feel his muscular chest and strong arms, the scruff on his chin roughing my forehead. None of the guys in my class had strength or stubble like that.

  “So I guess we’re not playing tennis today,” I said stupidly, looking up at him.

  “Guess not.”

  “I ordered pizza,” Ryan offered.

  “And we have beer and bourbon,” Tyler added.

  “Perfect,” Summer said. “I’m usually more of a Scotch girl, but a shot of bourbon sounds like just the thing to warm me up. Who’s with me?”

  I, for one, was definitely in need of a drink to loosen up.

  “Nice,” Tyler said, and we followed him through their sparsely decorated living room to the kitchen. He grabbed a half-empty bottle of bourbon from the top of the refrigerator and poured generous shots into four red Solo cups.

  “We don’t believe in dishes.” He winked. “Bottoms up.”

  Summer promptly downed her shot, shivering as it slid down her throat. Tyler watched with admiration, Ryan with something bordering on apprehension.

  Tyler raised his cup to me, and we threw back our drinks simultaneously. The alcohol hit me like a ball of fire. I’d never actually had bourbon, and in that moment I discovered that I did not like it.

  “Yech,” I blurted. “Ohmygod.” I grabbed Tyler’s open beer and gulped, desperately attempting to wash away the taste.

  Tyler laughed. “I take it you don’t like bourbon?”

  “That was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!”

  “But I bet you’re warm now,” Summer added.

  And she was right. I was. I’d just had what must’ve been about three ounces of bourbon and half a beer on an empty stomach, and I was feeling much warmer. So warm, in fact, that I noticed I’d dropped my towel on the floor.

  “You guys wanna throw your clothes in the dryer?” Ryan asked. “We have sweats you can wear.”

  “Or, of course, you don’t have to put on clothes if you don’t want to,” Tyler chimed in with an exaggerated wink.

  “Sweats sound great.” Summer turned to Ryan. “Why don’t you show me where they are?”

  She followed him to his bedroom, and I heard the click of the door as it shut behind them.

  “You want me to get you some dry clothes?” Tyler asked.

  It did sound great to be dry, but the outfit I was wearing had a built-in bra, and my push-up pad was wedged under righty. I didn’t want to be braless and lopsided in whatever T-shirt he handed me. “No, I’m okay.” I picked up my towel and draped it over my shoulders. “This fabric dries fast. I’m almost dry.”

  “Okay.” He cracked open a fresh beer and handed it to me. “We could watch a movie in my room, or…”

  I perched on the arm of the brown La-Z-Boy couch. “Isn’t the pizza gonna be here soon?”

  “Yeah, but whatever.”

  He swigged his beer; I stared up at the framed Texas flag over the couch. “You from Texas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.” I sipped the beer, trying not to wince. “This is good.”

  “Yeah, it’s cheap, but it’s my favorite,” he agreed. “And you can drink a lot of it and not get too full, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, studying my beer. I literally had no idea what else to say to him. What did grown men like to talk about? I didn’t know anything about sports, cars, or hunting. The boys I’d dated all knew the same people I did, had the same teachers. But this was a whole different ball game. I looked up to see him gazing at me. I gave him a nervous smile.

  “You’re really pretty when you smile,” he said.

  A flush of heat rushed to my head. “Thanks,” I mumbled, caught off guard.

  He held my gaze, his eyes a soulful muddy brown. My stomach flipped. He reached for my face and pulled me into a kiss, his face rough against my skin as his tongue pried my lips apart, reaching into my mouth with fervor.

  The scent of his cologne was thick as he pulled me off the arm of the couch into his lap, his arms encircling me, his hands all over me. I wanted to enjoy it, but he kept thrusting his tongue into my mouth like he was digging for something, and it wasn’t as pleasurable as I’d thought it would be. His tongue was big and in there so deep for so long that I had to pull away to breathe, and when I did, he buried his face between my boobs and made an animal-sounding grunt as he pulled my hips forcefully in to his. “Oh God, I just want to eat you.” He bit my arm.

  He wasn’t biting hard, but still it kinda hurt, and I didn’t want to be eaten. I wanted to be caressed. But now I wasn’t sure I wanted to be caressed by him anymore. Was this how sex was supposed to be? Maybe I was just naive. The farthest I’d gone was dry humping with fumbling high school boys. I’d never been with someone experienced. His tongue again. By this point I was trying hard to like it, but it didn’t feel like he was interested in me at all; he just wanted to ravage my body.

  He kept his eyes trained on my boobs as he threw me down on the couch, lying on top of me, and I didn’t feel what I thought passion should feel like; I just felt squashed and claustrophobic. One hand shot up my top, groping my boob, while the other pawed at my bodysuit.

  “Okay.” I tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. I was in the corner of the couch with a two-hundred-pound man on top of me. “Hey.”

  He was clawing at my hips, trying to get my panties off, but thankfully my tennis outfit was a one-piece, so finally he just gripped the crotch of it and pulled it aside while he pushed his gym shorts down with his other hand.

  “Hey,” I managed, “wait a minute. Slow down.” I was still trying to sound nice, but I was getting a little panicky.

  “Oh baby.” He held my shoulder down with one hand while gripping his dick with the other. “It’s just so hot.”

  He moved his fleshy torpedo toward my mouth, and I ducked, trying to squirm down through his legs and out from under him, but he was too heavy. “You wanna just fuck, let’s just fuck,” he groaned, fumbling for my crotch.

  I was trapped. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to fuck him.

  “Wait!” I squirmed, trying to push him away. “I don’t.”

  But he didn’t hear. “God you’re sexy,” he grunted, maneuvering his dick between my legs.

  “No!” I cried, tears stinging my eyes. “Please.” I could feel his dick poking my inner thigh. I mustered all my strength and shoved him as hard as I could. “I’m a virgin! I’m only sixteen, please!”

  Immediately he stopped, his dick flopping over the top of his shorts. “What did you just say?”

  “I’m sorry,” I croaked, my heart in my throat. I rose up on my elbows. “I wasn’t trying to have sex. I’m a virgin.”

  “No, the other thing,” he snapped, his eyes dark.


  “I’m sixteen,” I said quietly.

  He scowled. “You said you were eighteen.”

  “I didn’t.”

  But this only seemed to make him madder.

  “Why the hell did you come here?” He grabbed one of the pillows from the couch and whacked it into my chest so hard my head hit the armrest. “What the fuck?”

  He stormed into the kitchen, leaving me to quickly scramble to my feet as Summer and Ryan emerged from his room, disheveled, she in nothing but his T-shirt, he in boxer briefs. “What’s going on out here?” Ryan demanded.

  Tyler stalked out of the kitchen, the bottle of bourbon dangling from his fist. “She’s sixteen.” He pointed at me. “Did you know that?”

  “Calm down,” Ryan said.

  “Underage!” Tyler pushed Ryan up against the wall, pinning him with his forearm. “What the fuck!”

  Summer skirted around them as they yelled expletives at each other and put her arms around me. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

  I wiped my wet cheeks with the back of my hand. “I just wanna go home.”

  “Come with me while I get dressed.”

  She grabbed my hand and dragged me to Ryan’s messy room, where she quickly changed back into her tennis outfit. The guys were in the kitchen talking heatedly when we emerged. We grabbed our purses from the entry table and slipped out the front door without saying goodbye.

  Neither of us spoke until we were in the cocoon of the car, safely past the gates of Silver Creek. As we turned onto the road home, Summer asked quietly, “What happened?”

  My words tumbled out in a jumbled mess, mixing with tears as I detailed what had happened. “I’m sorry I ruined your night,” I finished.

  “No! Belle! Are you kidding? That guy’s an asshole! I’m just glad he didn’t take it further with you.”

  “Thanks for understanding.”

  “I’m always there for you,” she promised.

  “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “Of course not,” she said. Then, “Are you really a virgin?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “I tell you everything. I think I woulda told you if I’d done the deed.” She laughed. “Wait, are you?”

  She gave me the side-eye. “Not anymore.” She grinned.

  Thankfully, we didn’t have to see Ryan in class the rest of the week because of the July Fourth holiday. Summer tagged along with my family to my uncle’s lake house for a few days, ostensibly to get away from Rhonda and Three’s constant fighting, but in reality I could tell she was worried about me. I kept turning it over in my mind, wondering if I’d actually led him on.

  “It’s not your fault,” she’d remind me when she caught me chewing my lip with intensity, furrowing my brow. “Guys are just like that.” I figured she would know.

  When we got back home, a U-Haul was hooked up to the back of Rhonda’s red Mitsubishi. Summer sighed when she saw it. “Well, I guess we’re moving again. Thanks for letting me know, Rhonda.”

  We said our tearful goodbyes a few days later, vowing to keep in touch. It was funny—Summer had been in my life less than two years, but I felt like I’d known her so much longer. She swore she’d miss me and made me promise to come visit them in Arizona, both of us knowing it would never happen. At least we’d have Skype and text. As she waved goodbye, I felt like a deflating helium balloon spinning into space.

  I returned to French class on Monday to find that Summer wasn’t the only one missing. To my relief, Mrs. Price, the regular high school French teacher, was at the blackboard writing conjugations. No one was able to get anything out of her regarding what happened to Mr. Stokes, but she did confirm that he would not be returning.

  When I called Summer to tell her, she insisted that there was no way anyone could know what had happened, and maybe she was right. Regardless, I felt lighter than I had in months. That evening I dyed my hair pink.

  Day 2

  Sunday morning—Genoa, Italy

  I wake to a hand gently shaking my shoulder, and the voice of the stewardess. “Time to wake up. We’re landing in an hour.”

  The smell of brewing coffee fills the cabin. I struggle to rouse myself, feeling as though I’m surfacing from the depths of the ocean. I extract my arm from the tangled blanket and check my watch. While I managed to make it to the bathroom the three times I threw up, I upchucked the sleeping pill somewhere along the way and counted at least five torturous hours staring at the ceiling while the others slept soundly. So I probably got about three hours of sleep. I should be in rare form today.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, making a vow to myself to let go of the whole rear-facing nausea-inducing shit storm that was the oh-so-perfect start to this “dream trip,” and spend the next seven days playing my part in Summer’s extravaganza.

  I push up the sleeping mask to see Amythest’s glittery purple toenails three inches from my face. At least they’re pedicured. I instinctively pull my knees into my chest, realizing if her toes are on my pillow, mine are probably on hers. She must have the same thought, because she simultaneously jerks her feet away and our knees ram into each other.

  “Ow!” We squirm to sit up. Our eyes meet and we laugh. “Sorry,” we say at the same time.

  “How you feeling?” she asks.

  “I think I got three hours. But I’m not nauseous anymore, so that’s good.”

  The cabin is still configured for sleep, with all the seats converted to single beds barely big enough to hold two girls. On the berth behind us, Brittani and Rhonda are still dozing, and across the aisle from us, Wendy and Claire are waking up as well.

  Wendy pushes up her sleep mask and stretches, looking refreshed. “Oh my God, I think that was the best sleep I’ve had in years! How’d you guys sleep?”

  “Fine.” I force a smile.

  “I could sleep another eight hours.” Claire yawns, lying back down.

  Wendy claps her hands, ever perky, and pulls Claire up. “Oh no you don’t!” she chirps. “Private airports in vacation destinations this time of year are a total scene. We’ve got to freshen up before we land.”

  As Wendy unwinds her navy silk hair wrap, I notice her makeup is unsmudged, and her face shows no signs of pillow creasing, “But you’re already fresh,” I grumble. “How is it possible? It’s like you’re a fucking unicorn.”

  “It’s this pillowcase,” she says, removing the satin cover from the pillow and folding it neatly. “Keeps your skin and hair from creasing.” She tucks it in her travel bag, hops out of bed, and spritzes her hair with a travel-size bottle of leave-in conditioner.

  “I don’t know how I live with you.” Claire moans, curling up on the bed.

  The younger stewardess comes down the aisle with a tray of fresh coffee and sets it on the table near the divider between Summer and John’s half of the plane and ours. “If you could all have a seat at the table, we’ll prepare the plane for landing.”

  We make our way over to the table, and I quickly sit down on the forward-facing side, next to Wendy. The stewardess hands us each an immigration form to fill out, and a stapled legal document. I scan the document, emblazoned at the top with LIONSHARE HOLDINGS. It’s a nondisclosure agreement.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “It’s an NDA. Standard procedure. I’ll need it returned before deboarding,” the stewardess says.

  I turn my gaze back to the document, alarm bells ringing in my head.

  “Excuse me,” Wendy calls to the stewardess, distressed. “It says here no photography. Does that mean we can’t take any pictures?”

  The stewardess freezes, a deer in headlights. “Um, I don’t…”

  Vinny steps in. “No photos of John or any of his associates.” I look up, surprised. I hadn’t seen him, but there he is, hovering behind us. “And anything taken on the boat or the plane will need to be approved by one of us before posting publicly.”

  We all nod uneasily.

  Wendy makes a show of scribbling h
er name and handing it over, and the rest of the girls follow suit. I’m still less than comfortable signing, but I don’t want to rock the boat before the trip’s even truly begun, so I do it, providing my parents’ address and phone number as my emergency contact.

  Wendy eyes me over her compact as she touches up her foundation. “You sure you slept okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “I threw up my sleeping pill,” I confess, “so it took me a while to get to sleep.”

  She hands me her makeup bag. “The little green tube is eye depuffer.”

  “Thanks.” I squeeze a dot of the cream on my finger and gently apply it beneath my eyes.

  “You can keep it,” she says. “I never use it.”

  “Must be nice,” Summer says.

  We look up to see her standing behind us in the open doorway between her section and ours, freshly showered.

  “I’ll tell you what must be nice,” Wendy teases. “A shower.”

  “You’ll have one as soon as we get to the boat.” Summer squeezes in next to Wendy and me. “Can you pass me one of those coffees?”

  Brittani slides her a coffee and she takes a sip. “Mmmm.” She leans in to Wendy and me, speaking under her breath. “I had to have sex with John twice before we could go to sleep. He accidentally took a Viagra instead of his sleeping pill.”

  “Accidentally?” I chide.

  “Seriously,” Summer says. “He’s blind as a bat without his glasses, and he left them up front.”

  “Maybe I should slip Wes a Viagra,” Wendy comments.

  “You guys still aren’t having sex?” I ask.

  “He’s just so stressed over work, he doesn’t feel like it. But he bought me these shoes for the trip. Said every girl needs a pair of Louboutin wedges to go to Europe in the summer. How sweet is that?”