Going Under

by S. Walden

  We were quiet for a time before I spoke. “Are you upset with me about the date?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No, Brooke. But I do wish you would have listened to me in the restaurant. I wasn’t kidding when I said that Cal was a bad guy.”

  I nodded. I wanted so much to know why Ryan thought Cal was bad. A tiny part of me suspected that he had some knowledge of Cal’s devious sexual behavior, but I was unwilling or too scared to ask him. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want Ryan involved in my investigation. I liked him on the outside, and I liked escaping to the outside every time we were together.

  “I should have asked you a long time ago to be my girlfriend. Officially speaking. Will you?” he said.

  Were we just talking about Cal? Because I couldn’t remember. All I knew in this moment was that Ryan wanted me as his official girlfriend, and it felt like a huge box of fireworks had been set off all at once inside my heart and mind. An ecstatic explosion.

  I nodded enthusiastically and crushed my lips to his.

  I’m sure people at school knew we were together even though we kept our relationship low key. We talked with one another when we got the chance between classes and sat together at lunch. We were never physical, though. He preferred to keep that behind closed doors, and I was never one for open displays of affection anyway. I think Cal understood that Ryan and I were together, and he stopped bothering me with his “That guy is bad news” rhetoric.

  Perhaps making our relationship official right before a major holiday like Christmas wasn’t the wisest idea considering neither one of us felt comfortable giving each other presents. We didn’t want to deal with the pressure of it and thought time spent together was the most appropriate gift we could give. He took me to dinner one evening and then to the North Carolina Museum of Art to see a Picasso exhibit. He listened intently while I jabbered about lighting and colors and meanings that were even over my head. It was a perfect night, made all the more perfect by what he asked me on the way back to our neighborhood.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Brooke,” Ryan began.

  “Mmhmm.”

  “And I sort of had this planned out in the hopes that you’d say ‘yes’.”

  My heartbeat sped up. “Okay.”

  “My sister is at a friend’s house for the night, and my parents went out of town for the weekend on their annual Christmas trip for two,” he said.

  “Where did they go?” I was curious.

  “They went to some bed and breakfast in the mountains,” Ryan replied.

  I smirked. “And they trust you at home alone?”

  “Oh, I’m very responsible, Brooklyn. You haven’t figured that out by now?”

  I shrugged as he pulled into his driveway.

  “So would you like to come in?” he said.

  I was nervous. I’d waited an eternity to have sex with Ryan. I thought I even acted too brazen or too impatient from time to time, coming across as a common street hussy. Now, he was asking me, and I felt clammy and awkward, like a virgin. I tried for humor.

  “Come in for what?”

  Ryan grinned. “Coffee.”

  “Oh, I don’t drink coffee,” I teased.

  Ryan leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Then perhaps you’d like to come in so that I can kiss all over your body and then make love to you.”

  Yes. I would definitely like to come in for that.

  He placed his hand over my heart, feeling the rapid, uneven beating. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

  The last time Ryan saw me topless, I wasn’t timid about it. I remember straddling his hips and giving him a good view of my breasts, knowing he liked them, knowing I was in control. But now I was suddenly shy, and I crawled into his sheets, pulling up the comforter to hide my half-naked body from him. He had stripped me down to my bra and panties during an intense kissing session. Afterwards he asked me what I wanted him to do to me. I blushed fiercely and made for the covers.

  “Oh, Brooklyn,” Ryan said, crawling in beside me. “Why so shy?”

  I shook my head and grinned. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I like you this way,” he said, kissing my cheek.

  I feared it would come out sounding corny, but I took the chance. “I just feel like this is really special, you know? What we’re about to do. I just want to do it right.”

  “What do you mean by ‘do it right’?” he asked.

  I turned my face away. “I just want to be good for you.” My cheeks were burning, and then the burning moved down my arms and legs. Suddenly I didn’t need the warmth of the sheets anymore.

  Ryan turned my face to his. “Brooke, you will be good for me. Better than I deserve. Do you understand? I’m not expecting us to make love like experts. We’re eighteen. How about you just relax and let me do all the work.”

  “But that’s not fair,” I argued.

  “Who said anything about fair?” he asked, and kissed me before I could object.

  Ryan didn’t do all the work, however. He did for awhile, cradling me gently underneath him while he stroked me softly, then more urgently when he told me he needed to feel all of me. I wasn’t sure I understood what that meant until he reached under me, lifted my hips, and drove deeper, eliciting screams that he promptly stifled with his mouth.

  He rolled us over and forced me to straddle him, holding my hips and helping me move to a slow, almost tortuous rhythm. I felt utterly exposed, and he stared at me unabashedly, making my nipples harden without him touching them.

  “I love your body,” he breathed, increasing my speed.

  I couldn’t sit up any longer, and leaned into him, but he shook his head and smiled.

  “Sit up, Brooklyn,” he said.

  “I can’t.” It was exquisite torture now, my legs shaking from the work.

  “Yes you can,” Ryan said, and gathered my wrists behind my back, holding them there with one hand while his other rested, fingers splayed, on my stomach.

  He tickled my skin, and I squirmed, but he kept his hold on my wrists. The hand on my stomach inched lower, lower until his thumb found my trigger, and I cried out for him to stop.

  “Do you really want me to stop?” he asked, rubbing me slowly and gently.

  I answered with a moan.

  “Do you want me to stop, Brooklyn?” he asked again, and I shook my head violently. He smiled, satisfied. “I want you to ride me, Brooklyn. Nice and slow.”

  I think if he told me to jump off a bridge or rock climb with no safety ropes, I would. I moved my hips, feeling him swell inside me while he stroked me with his thumb. How did he do that so perfectly? Usually I was the only one who could touch that intimate spot exactly right to send myself over the edge. But he understood my body, bringing me to the heights of ecstasy every time he touched me there. It was skill. That was certain. But I thought that perhaps he and I had a deeper kind of connection, like he always knew my body before we even met.

  My legs were beginning to scream in protest, and it was a delicious mixture of pleasure and pain. I couldn’t hide my face from him when I came. He kept my wrists trapped, and I struggled vainly, wanting so much to cover my face with my hands. I’m sure I looked ridiculous, and he was kind enough to let go of my wrists towards the end so that I could collapse on him and bury my face in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me, murmured things in my ear I couldn’t comprehend, and then moved his hips.

  I tensed immediately, then tried to break free of his hold.

  “No Brooklyn,” he whispered, and held me tighter. There was no use trying to struggle. He was too strong, and I had to accept what was about to happen. I was spent in every way, but he made me work a little longer.

  “I’ll die,” I cried in his shoulder.

  “Look at me,” he demanded gently, and I lifted my face to his. “You won’t die. I promise,” and he kissed me while he moved his hips against me, finding a rhythm that I knew would send him over the edge and me to my grave.

  I cried
in his mouth, struggled some more as his rhythm came faster, but he held me still, forcing me to feel every bit of it, something new and frightening and beautiful. A mixture of heaven and hell.

  I buried my face in his shoulder once more as his thrusts became more urgent. Then jerky. He grunted from the force of it, coming hard in me, his body drenched with sweat.

  My hips and thighs were sore from my legs being spread for so long. I rolled off of Ryan and pulled my knees to my chest, sighing deeply as my muscles relaxed. He went to the bathroom to dispose of the condom before climbing into bed again.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” I replied. I stretched my legs, burying them once more under the sheets, and turned to face my boyfriend.

  “Did you like it?” he asked.

  “What kind of question is that?” I asked, chuckling. “Did I look like I liked it? Did I sound like I liked it?”

  Ryan laughed.

  I eyed him curiously. “It’s not my business, really, but how many girls have you slept with? I only ask because you’ve got mad skills.”

  Ryan pushed the sheet down over my hips. “I like you like this. Full frontal.”

  I tried to pull the sheet up once more, but he pushed my hands away.

  “You want to know the truth?” he asked.

  “No, I want you to lie to me.”

  “Funny.” He scratched his head and screwed up his face in thought. “I’ve slept with six girls.”

  “Holy shit.” The words escaped my lips before I could stop them.

  “And I suppose now we fight about it?” he asked.

  That irked me. I had no plans to fight with him about anything. “No. Why would we fight about it?”

  “Well, it’s happened in the past, is all.”

  “Well, I’m not your past. I’m your present. And I’m fine with it,” I said. I didn’t know if I was completely fine with it, but I didn’t think I had a reason not to be.

  “What are you thinking?” Ryan asked.

  “You said you hadn’t made out in a year,” I said, just now remembering our first make-out session.

  Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, I slept with those girls in tenth grade and part of eleventh grade.”

  “That’s kind of young,” I said.

  “I know it’s young. And I know it’s a lot of girls in a short period of time. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”

  “Well, no and yes. I mean, did you love those girls?”

  “When I was making love to them, yes.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  “Were they all your girlfriends at one point or another?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you a player?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t get it.”

  Ryan looked like he was debating how much to share with me. I didn’t like that either. I was his girlfriend. I thought he should feel comfortable telling me anything.

  “Some of the girls were my friends. I lost my virginity to one of them. We both wanted to experience it with someone we could trust. We dated briefly after that, but we weren’t right for each other.”

  “Uh huh.” I was utterly fascinated.

  “Sometimes I did it as an escape, but I always made sure she understood that.”

  He rolled on to his back and placed his hands under his head.

  “Sometimes I did it because I wanted . . . I needed to make someone feel good. It made me feel good to make someone else feel good.”

  He glanced at me briefly. “I suppose you think I’ve got issues.”

  “No. I don’t think you have issues.” But I did think he was hiding something from me. Some sort of terrible pain that made him seek solace in sex. No wonder he was so damn good at it. What was that talk about not being “experts”? That we’re just eighteen? He certainly was no amateur, and I suddenly felt foolish and unstudied.

  “And, really, if I’m being perfectly honest, I just love a woman’s body. I love to touch it. I love to kiss it. I love to make her feel important and special,” he said. “And I really love to make her come.”

  “Are you a sex addict?” Again, I did not mean for those words to slip out of my mouth.

  He chuckled. “No Brooke, but I can understand why you would ask that.”

  What I wouldn’t give to open his brain up right now and peek inside. Get an idea about this stranger I’d just given it up to.

  “I hope this doesn’t make you look at me differently. I mean, I understand if it does. I understand if you can’t be with me.”

  Whoa! Back it up, buddy!

  “Who said anything about that?” I asked. I curled into him, resting my head on his bicep and wrapping my arm around his waist. “Please don’t ever say something like that again.”

  He kissed my forehead. “I won’t. I’m sorry. It’s just I know what I must sound like. A sex-crazed teenager who’s got an unhealthy obsession with the female body.”

  I giggled. “I don’t know that I mind all that much.” I thought back to my orgasm. No, I didn’t think I minded at all.

  But one little unsettling feeling poked and jabbed at my heart. I was no psychologist, and I thought therapy was a load of bullshit, but Ryan was sleeping with women because he felt guilty. That was my assessment. I’m sure Dr. Merryweather would concur. Guilty of what, I didn’t know. But he felt guilty.

  Eighteen

  I missed the swim practice three weeks in a row. I kept forgetting about it, and only showed up today because Cal reminded me right after school. I still didn’t know how to use the yearbook camera, and I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable being in the same room with three predators.

  The pool atmosphere was exactly as I expected: sticky and humid. I had to work harder to breathe, taking long, moist gulps of air in my mouth and holding it deep in my chest before expelling it. I breathed through my mouth the entire time. Boys were diving in here and there, swimming laps, yelling and calling each other names the way men do to show camaraderie. I felt out of place and turned to leave.

  “There you are,” Cal said. “Glad you could make it.”

  He had on his swim gear which amounted to basically nothing. Speedos, goggles, and swim cap. I could see why girls thought he was hot. He had cut muscles, a ripped chest, and strong, thick legs. “All the better to pin you down, my dear,” I could hear him say.

  “It only took close to a month,” I replied. I got right to the point. “Listen, I don’t really feel all that comfortable taking pictures. I still don’t know how to use this thing.”

  “That’s not true. You used it during that chorus production,” Cal said.

  “Yeah, but did you see those pictures?” I asked, chuckling. “They sucked.”

  “Well, nothing like taking pictures of a practice to give you some practice, huh?”

  Cute.

  I smiled begrudgingly.

  “Here. Lemme give you a quick tutorial,” Cal said, and ran through the buttons for me once more, watching to make sure I understood how to zoom the lens correctly. “You’re a pro,” he said afterwards, and dove into the pool.

  I got splashed a little, and it annoyed me to no end.

  I walked up and down the side of the pool methodically taking horrible pictures. In the beginning, I pulled the camera from my face after each shot to look at it. And every picture was the same: fuzzy splashes, and if I got lucky, maybe a hand or part of a head poking out of the water.

  I quit looking at my work halfway through and decided it was time to leave. It wasn’t so much my irritation at being the world’s worst photographer. I didn’t care. It was really that I grew increasingly nervous the longer I stayed. Where was the swim coach? There was no adult, I realized, and only a handful of swimmers. Where was the rest of the team? I counted them. Just six. The swim team had at least twenty members.

  I caught Parker and Tim glaring at me from time to time. I tried to ignore them. They were trying to intimidate me, and I k
new why. Tim probably told his buddies about his thwarted dates and how I was responsible for them. He climbed out of the pool along with Cal.

  I turned towards my book bag sitting in the far corner of the room.

  “Hey, Brooke!” Cal called. “Hold up!”

  I should have kept walking.

  I should have.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” Cal said, extending his hand for the camera. I walked over to the edge of the pool and turned it over with a huff.

  “They’re really bad, Cal,” I said. “I told you I was no good.”

  Cal sported a furrowed brow as he flipped through the pictures.

  “You’re right, Brooke. You can’t take a picture to save your life.”

  I shrugged, then screamed as I was pushed into the pool. I broke the surface breathing heavily, wiping my eyes to discover my attacker. I let loose a string of filthy words as I watched Tim dive in beside me. He hid beneath the water, and I feared he was circling me like a shark. I couldn’t touch the bottom and started panicking, kicking my legs hard to tread water.

  I moved closer to the edge of the pool and was nearly there when Tim popped up blocking my way.

  “You’re a jackass,” I hissed.

  “Just having a little fun, Brooklyn,” Tim replied. He pushed off from the edge, wrapping his left arm around my waist and pulling me along in the water.

  “Let go!” I screamed, struggling against him. My head felt heavy from the water pulling on the ends of my hair, raking wet furrows in a trail behind me.

  I turned to look at the others in the water. Oh my God. How could I be so stupid? There was Hunter hanging on the edge of the pool watching. Aaron oblivious to the scene as he continued his laps. Mike, slipping through the changing room doors, ignoring my plight. Parker staring at me from a bench on the far side of the pool. All the boys in the Fantasy Slut League, and no one was coming to my rescue.

  I twisted harder, pushing against Tim’s arm with all my might. But he was too strong, and in that second I cursed God for making women so fucking weak. “Get off!”

  “Okay,” he said, releasing me and pushing me under the water.

  I fought ferociously, certain he would drown me. I hadn’t the opportunity to take a breath before being plunged beneath the surface, and already felt my chest burning for air: just one small breath of life.