by Skye Warren
His rough sounds bounce off the walls on either side, her wet sucking sounds the most sexually graphic thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m standing with my mouth open, more shocked than I would have thought to see sex performed so publicly… so degradingly. I’ve seen plenty of frat party shenanigans, even a few that went down in the record books. Girls on girls. Multiple partners. Drunken acrobatics.
None of them come close to this.
He turns them so she’s against the wall, him shuffling with his jeans around his ankles. Then he thrusts into her hard and fast, so hard her sounds become louder, his ass muscles tensing on every push forward. He looks down at the top of her head like it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Her hands are splayed against the brick behind her, holding her up in a crouch.
A roar and then he’s coming into her mouth, pressing his hips flush against her face. I watch as her hands fist, my insides twisted with worry for her throat, for her ability to breathe. I take a step forward, ready to intervene, when finally he lets her go. She falls to the ground, panting against the gravel and decades’ worth of detritus. He zips up, still panting loudly enough to be heard from twenty feet away. Then he pulls something out of his pocket. Money? He tosses it onto the floor in front of her before leaving the alleyway toward the street.
God. God. He just paid her for that blowjob. My body is confused as hell, torn between being hot at the explicit sexual display and angered by an act she probably did not enjoy.
Someone from my sorority was a cam girl. One corner of her room was decorated with frilly pink pillows and carefully placed composition notebooks and banners from a nonexistent sorority so she couldn’t be traced. Sometimes we would join her for a playful little striptease to watch the horny Internet anons go crazy and make enough money to order shots at the bar later. She didn’t enjoy what she did, not in a sexual way. It was a job to her, the way you might be a clerk at the bookstore or a waitress at the diner off campus. She didn’t get off on it, but she did like the money. And she had options. It wasn’t a last resort to her, but as I watch the girl snatch the money and shove it into her shoe, I think this isn’t a choice for her.
She stands gingerly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “You like the show?”
I stand there in silent shock before I’m sure she’s talking to me. There’s no point in hiding anymore, so I take a step into the alleyway, my body still flushed in confused arousal. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s usually a charge for someone watching.”
“I didn’t mean to… but I can pay you.” I fumble for my purse, feeling slow and disconnected. This was happening outside the library, maybe every single night that I was inside, sculpting as if I could change the world with art. “How much is it? Never mind, I can just give you what I have—”
A harsh laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I know you weren’t with him.”
“How do you know?”
“Besides the fact that you look like you stepped out of an ad for Anthropologie? Because he’s a regular. And he doesn’t bring girls around or ask for anything more complicated than a BJ.”
There are things more complicated than that blowjob? Because it looked intense and difficult, every movement with subtle undertones of power. “A regular. Do you live around here?”
“Guess you could say that. I stay closer to here than you do, I’m guessing.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions based on jeans and a T-shirt.”
“Am I wrong?”
That makes me laugh. “Nah, I guess I’m easy to read.”
“I’m surprised you stuck around once you saw what was happening. You a perv?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t know that it was a… you know, a professional situation at first.”
She giggles, which unsettles me because of how young she sounds. “A professional. Well, I’m not putting on a suit and carrying my briefcase into work, but yeah, I’m a pro.”
I take a few steps closer, but the shadows don’t reveal her face to me. “How old are you, anyway?”
That makes her stop laughing. “You aren’t a cop, are you?”
“God no.”
“It’s none of your damn business how old I am.” The bravado in her voice doesn’t scare me. It just makes me sad that she needs such strong defenses. “So go get your pervy kicks somewhere else.”
She takes a step back, and panic rises in my throat. “Wait. Let me give you the cash I have with me. It’s not that much, but it should be a couple nights at a motel or something.”
That makes her pause, at least. “That’s what you are. A Mother Theresa.”
I’m the one who snorts a laugh. “Definitely not.”
“You want to save me? You want to protect me from the big bad wolves of the world?”
“I don’t—” Except of course I do. “I just want to help, like a tiny bit. That’s all.”
There’s a pause while she wanders forward, almost as if she is a deer walking through the forest, unknowing of the dangers within. Then she’s a few feet away. The eyeliner can’t hide the hurt in her eyes. Her lips are still swollen and slick from the blowjob. This is why the community needs a library; this is why they need art that looks like hope. Because the west side takes girls and turns them into prostitutes. It leaves them on their hands and knees with money lying on the pavement. Books are the answer to this. Knowledge and a safe space in which to learn it.
“I’m not some kind of fashion genius,” she says, her voice hard and cold. “I figured you were the library girl as soon as I saw you.”
“The library girl?”
“The one who painted the library and made it fall down.”
There’s a wealth of condemnation in that voice. I wasn’t the reason the wrecking ball went into the front of the library, but I blame myself that I didn’t stop it sooner. “I’m sorry.”
“Nah, it wasn’t so bad. I had a stash of the painted pieces for a while. That shit was like gold. I’d sell them for twenty bucks when people would come around during the day.”
Twenty bucks, and those people would turn around and sell them online for hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. My stomach twists with a sense of hopelessness. “I’m so sorry.”
“Now you just sound like the suit.”
“The what?”
She nods toward the library. Over the roof a skyscraper rises, gleaming in the wasteland. “The suit. He owns that building. Has eyes that look like coffee without any cream or sugar.”
Comes around to pay for rough blowjobs from desperate young women? Bile rises in my throat. I never had any right to expect monogamy from Christopher Bardot, but I pictured him with soap opera actresses and local socialites. “Is he…” I have to swallow down the acid before I can finish. “Is he a customer?” Don’t break my heart, Christopher.
“Nah,” she says, oblivious to the way relief fills me, warmth in my cold limbs. “He never touches me. But he gives me money whenever he comes down. Whatever he has with him, like you’re trying to do.”
I never would have expected that of Christopher. It makes me feel uneasy in my own skin, as if I’m a little itchy, sitting inside a world that doesn’t fit me anymore. “He does?” I ask faintly.
“It’s different when he gives me money, though, ’cause if he ever wanted a fuck, I’d give it to him for free anyway. I figure it’s kind of like a deposit until he gets hard up.”
That makes me laugh. “You wouldn’t consider the money I give you an advance?”
“Nah, you aren’t gonna fuck me. I already know. Besides that’s part of the deal with the suit. He told me to keep an eye on you. If any of my johns give you a hard time, I’m supposed to call him.”
I want to seek out Christopher, but something holds me back. It’s been bothering me since the night of the poker game, questions half-formed and smoky in my head. Only Sutton can tell me the truth about this.
Except Sutton isn’t here.
He works at t
he library every day with the crew. He’s the main person I talk to, how I know about the many, many problems they’ve found. The foundation problems.
The plumbing leaks. The termites. The broken pipes.
If testosterone were to stand up and walk around, it would look like Asher Cook. The foreman of the construction crew wears a white T-shirt, always crisp and clean in the morning. He’s the only person here I actually know, now that Sutton’s disappeared.
Always smudged in dirt and sweat by the end of the day.
His muscles bulge in a way that looks explicit, even fully clothed. A beard does little to hide his constantly surly expression. Dark eyebrows slash over pale green eyes, making me shiver every time he glances at me. He has a yellow hard hat, like everyone else, but frankly his head is probably made of tougher material. As if to prove the point, I find him hanging from the ceiling like some kind of explorer on Mount Kilimanjaro, some kind of complicated tool in his hand, shouting measurements to someone on the ground taking notes. From twenty feet in the air he manages to scowl when he sees me.
Which just makes my smile more cheerful. “Hello, Mr. Cook. Have you seen Sutton?”
At a rough gesture a pulley system lowers him to the ground. “Come with me.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. His long strides take him halfway across the library before I catch up to him.
Asher stops at the wall so suddenly I almost fall into him.
I stand there looking for Sutton, because that must be why he brought me here. Except there’s no one around. He gestures impatiently toward a tall metal structure on wheels. “Where the hell did this come from?”
“I don’t know, it was just there one day.” From Christopher, my mind helpfully supplies. This seems to confirm that he had it moved here for me. Like he can pull anything out of his pocket, even sea salt grilled edamame and forty foot scaffolding towers.
“Hell,” he mutters. “I suppose that’s better than you using our ladders.”
A huff escapes me. “I put them back where I found them.”
His pale green gaze could sear a hole straight through me. “After drawing graffiti all over the expensive fiberglass. In permanent marker. Don’t think I didn’t see that.”
“Knowing my luck they’re probably worth a fortune on the Internet.” I have a tendency for turning straw into gold, but it doesn’t feel like a blessing lately. Is this how Daddy felt? For maybe the first time in my life I feel an similarity with the man who fathered me. Money comes easy, but love is the elusive dream, the one thing always out of reach.
Asher makes a low sound of dissent. “I don’t want to sell the ladders on the Internet. I want my men to use them, not jack off to them. And you should be wearing a hard hat inside the building. It’s not safe for you to be here without one.”
“Is it my fault your men would jack off to hand-drawn images of the goddess Circe? If that had been on a thousand-year-old cave, it would have been a sociological marvel. Because I’m born in the present time it’s suddenly ‘graffiti.’” I make quotes with my fingers, and I swear, there’s a hint of a smile beneath that unruly beard before he frowns.
“This is serious. Hard hat or get the fuck out.”
In that case I’ll be getting the fuck out. “Have you seen Sutton?”
Asher looks uncomfortable, which makes me wonder if it’s more than coincidence. Is Sutton avoiding me? “He isn’t coming in today,” Asher says finally. “He went to his ranch.”
“Right,” I say, trying not to sound deflated. “His ranch.”
What does it mean?
Probably nothing, I tell myself, but I can’t quite believe the lie.
I create new pieces with clay and use the new scaffolding to place them high, examining them in the afternoon light. The clay is only for me to test how things will look, because I go through ten ideas. And then ten more. And then throw it all away to start over.
Usually I’m decisive when it comes to my art. That’s why I can paint a wall in one night without stopping. Inspiration drives me until I’m done. With the wall I’m all over the place. I’m not sure what makes this piece so different. Maybe because it’s not a blank canvas. It’s someone else’s art, and I’m trying to add to it. Or maybe the wall is just a metaphor.
It could be there’s a crack inside me, too.
Maybe my ability to create art is breaking, breaking, gone.
In desperation I go to the library during the day, hoping that the sunlight will give me a fresh perspective. Sutton would usually yell at me for being in the library at all, for being here without a hard hat, but he’s gone.
My inspiration on the sculptures goes from bad to worse. I can’t even bring myself to mix a batch of clay. Instead I order twelve pumpkins from grocery delivery and carve them one after the other, until my hands are a sticky mess. I don’t carve cocks… at least, not all the pumpkins are cocks. I’ve been sculpting things that would fit into the giant crack in the wall—so really, it’s no wonder my mind turned dirty.
By the time evening falls on the third day, I’ve made up my mind, but I still drive home. Mom and I share chicken noodle soup and freshly baked biscuits, which came out pretty amazing considering I got them from the refrigerated aisle. I pulled at the corner of the wrapper until it popped, startling both of us and making us laugh.
Her sleep patterns are all over the place lately. Instead of nodding off early, she stays awake all night, sorting through old photo albums of Dad and her and me when I was a baby. She finally falls asleep by the time the nurse shows up, and even though I haven’t slept, I get in my car and head out of the city.
The ranch is an hour away from Tanglewood, but the drive feels quicker now. Sand streams through the funnel faster and faster. I don’t bother to knock on the door. I met his sister six months ago. She hated me on sight; she’s hardly going to be more welcoming to me now.
Instead I head straight for the stables.
I half expect Sutton to already be working; don’t ranchers wake up at three a.m. or something ridiculous? The sun already stretches across the rolling green.
The empty rolling green.
Dew gathers on my rose-gold leather flats. I’m wearing skinny jeans and a boatneck T-shirt that says Namaste in Bed. My hair is in a messy bun that looks pretty cute considering I tied it back before getting out of the car.
The stables are soft with the shuffle and snorts of horses. They watch me from their sideways eyes, their lashes long and beautifully curled. “Hello again,” I say with a lame wave. “Do you remember me? I came here and brought your human back to the city.”
No response, but that’s probably not the way to win them over.
I walk past a gorgeous ebony horse who reminds me of the book Black Beauty. And a smaller chestnut brown with long hair that seems to fall into his eyes. I don’t actually know whether they’re male or female, and it seems rude to try to peek. I didn’t even buy them dinner first.
Gold Rush is in the last stall, standing as far away from the door as she can. Her beautiful white-beige mane shines in the faint morning light. Her eyes are a pale color too, a sort of gray that seems to go on for miles. “You really are beautiful,” I tell her, a little wistful. “I can’t be too mad at Sutton for coming to visit you, can I?”
She shakes her head, a little show of defiance at me for speaking.
“I bet you give him a hard time when he’s been gone too long, don’t you? The cold shoulder. Make him really work for it. I feel you, sister. You and me both.”
The stall next to hers is empty, which I think might not be an accident. She’s wary around humans, I already know, but is she also nervous around horses? Probably, which makes me terribly sad. To be isolated from everyone, even your own kind. It’s a goddamn tragedy.
I take a step closer to the door, muscles tense in case I need to jump away. “Do they judge you for being different?” I whisper. “Do they wish you would be obedient like they are?”
Her foreleg lifts and then st
omps lightly, sending up a small cloud of dust.
“They don’t understand,” I say. “Do they? They don’t know why you fight it so hard.”
She takes a step toward me, and I hold my breath, waiting for something violent. Something wild. Except she only stretches her neck toward me. Softly, softly. I hold my hand out, unwilling to reach past the door. I’m right on the edge, waiting.
Her breath whooshes against my palm.
“Get away from her.”
The strident command makes Gold Rush pull away with an indignant snort, and I jump back in surprise. Sutton is only a dark shadow against the backdrop of sunrise. Hurt clenches my chest, and I take a step back nice and slow. “Are you avoiding me?”
A pause while he crosses the stable to stand beside me. He comes into focus in parts—his golden hair, his tanned skin. His blue eyes. They look hard this morning. “No.”
Except the reserve in his expression wasn’t there last time I saw him. He is avoiding me. “You said you weren’t mad at me,” I whisper, regret a cold rock in my throat.
“Is that what you think this is? Some kind of revenge bullshit?”
“Not when you put it that way. But I don’t know what else it could be.” I don’t know how else to reconcile the charming man who pushed me up against the wall of L’Etoile with the man who had sex with me and then immediately left. The man who sat in my kitchen with a warm smile and then left town to avoid me.
He swears softly, turning away toward the back door of the stable, where a honeycomb of pastures begins. “You shouldn’t have come here. And you sure as hell shouldn’t go near Gold Rush. Not anywhere near her stall.”
“Because she’s been neglected?”
“Because she’s dangerous.”
“Maybe she’ll get socialized faster if you don’t put her in the corner.”
“Yeah? Or maybe she’ll kick hard enough to break the door down.”
“Why are you being so hard on her?”
