Bishop (A Frat Chronicles Novel)

by B. T. Urruela

  I tilt my head, eyeing her with a grin. “I don’t think that was supposed to turn me on as much as it did.”

  She scoffs, laughing as she bats a hand at my chest. “You are capital T, trouble, Sergeant Bishop. Just plain trouble.” She throws her drink back and then eyes the now empty glass. “And I think that was my cue.” She takes down the rest of her drink and settles the glass on the bar top.

  I place a hand on her elbow. “No, not yet! It’s still so early. Playin’ doctor, remember? I have so many questions still.”

  She chuckles. “When’s the last time you checked the time? Maybe, we can grab dinner or something soon?”

  “Before our next session?”

  “I’ll try! I promise.” She looks around for a moment before kissing me with fervent passion, her soft Angelina Jolie lips sending jolts of pleasured energy throughout my body. It makes my body rage with desire.

  She separates from me, her eyes closed, a smile on her face. Opening her eyes slowly, she says, “It’s been a fantastic night, Bishop.”

  “An unforgettable one.” I give her one last peck before she makes her way to the door, leaving me with a racing heart, a hard dick, and a yearning for her unlike anything I ever remember feeling.

  I’m taken back to when I was nineteen and had my first experience with an older woman. I had just graduated basic training. I was spending time with some old high school friends, if friends is what you could even call them, and we were at a local country bar on a packed Saturday night. I was proud and humbled to have come as far as I did, graduating basic training and gaining bids to Airborne and Ranger schools, but I was also still young, cocky, and with a new sense of fearlessness. But that night … that night was different. That night a fifty-two-year-old found me. She wasn’t any bit my type, six-feet-plus in heels, spiky Pink-esque blonde hair, a cigar always clenched between her teeth. But she wooed me with her directness and undeniable sex appeal.

  When she zoned in on me, there was no stopping her. She filled me up with drinks and met me on the dance floor a few times, and by the time two a.m. rolled around, we were all at Denny’s; me with her, and my friends with their own girls, and she was playing with my cock under the table. I don’t think I’ve ever been harder. It was borderline painful.

  She offered me a ride home and I was quick to accept her offer. Of course, we detoured to her place first before returning me to my hotel. We drank glasses of wine, made out a lot and talked a little, and then she let the hunger take hold. It was then I knew I had been hunted. She was the cougar, I was her prey.

  She pounced on me as I sat in one of her dining chairs. She sucked my neck, ripping my shirt off, and then she bit my skin from chest to belt line. I threw my head back, desperate for to have my cock in her mouth, throat deep and basking in the warmth, as she pulls my belt off, tossing it to the floor. As she unbuttoned my pants, I fought the urge to come already. She hadn’t even touched my cock yet and he was already wanting to blow. I had time, but the feeling was stirring already, my young cock not yet equipped enough to deal with such a force of a woman.

  I grabbed for her freshly exposed tits with gimme hands as her tongue ran the length of my stiff cock.

  It’d be another five or six years of having an older fuck buddy to realize I was probably feeding off of some mommy issues, but it never bothered me. It still doesn’t. From that day forward, a handful of older women showed me the way of the cougar. I found myself turned on by the age difference, by how well they understand themselves, their desires, and know exactly how to go about getting those desires met. And it all stemmed from that night.

  I never had sex with that Amazonian cougar. I don’t remember her name, nor the reason we didn’t fuck, but I’ll never forget what we did do. After twenty or thirty minutes of toothy head, which was quite disappointing, I found myself in quite the precarious position.

  With my knees by my ears, my feet in the air, and my hands left to dangle from the chair, I should’ve felt emasculated, and I wanted to, but goddamn did her tongue feel good flicking against my asshole.

  I wait for the cab outside with a grin on my face as the memory plays out in my head, and my thoughts then trail to Carleigh, and what it’ll be like with her for the first time, cradling that thick ass with one hand, the other grasping her long braided ponytail like a rein, playing ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ with my thick cock and her wet pussy. And then letting her take control.

  “WISH I WOULD’VE HEARD FROM you this week,” I say, flashing a tight smile as I analyze the wrinkles in her forehead, the sadness in her eyes.

  “Bishop …” Carleigh lets out a heavy breath. Her eyes still stray from my own, as if she feels guilty of something. “I want to say so much, it’s just … it’s hard.” She bites her bottom lip, dropping her head into her hands. She lets out a groan.

  “You’re a therapist. Ain’t you supposed to be good at this whole talkin’ thing?”

  I smirk. She forces a smile, but the dread remains in her eyes.

  “What happened, Bishop, it shouldn’t have. It was a mistake,” she says in a hushed tone.

  The words strike me in the chest like a brand, but I fight the disappointment from my face. “A mistake? Which part? Gettin’ to know each other?” I wave my hand around the room. “Not caught up in this goddamn white ass room?”

  “Bishop …”

  “I just thought it was different. It seemed different.” There’s a little whine to my tone and it makes my skin crawl. I lean back in my chair to look a little more at ease, but the tension in my shoulders remains. “It felt different.”

  “I told you at the start of the night that I just couldn’t do this. I’m your therapist. We have too many sessions left. And God, Bishop, I’m forty-seven years old. How old are you again?”

  “You know the answer to that. So …” I respond, my jaw clinching as the anxiety rolls over me like a storm, my face red hot.

  “So, it’s a big difference! And I’m your doctor,” she repeats, as if that’ll change the fact that I find this woman irresistible—even more so now that her brow is all furrowed and her face is flustered.

  The tangled feelings of insecurity and desire confuse me. Overwhelm me.

  “You can’t deny what we both felt that night in each other’s arms, kissin’. It was different. It was electric.”

  She looks nervous, her eyes continuously flitting toward the door. “Can we not talk about this here? We really should be doing therapy during this time.”

  “Where then? When?”

  She breathes out a heavy sigh and nods her head toward the computer. “Is the number we have on file your cell phone?”

  I nod.

  “How about I call you tonight? After work … say … eight o’clock?”

  “You’re lyin’,” I respond, putting both feet on the floor and leaning forward, studying her. She looks me in the eyes now, a new confidence in her stature.

  “Well, you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?” she says, tilting her head down and pinching her brows. A smirk appears.

  “I guess I will.”

  “How has your week been?” she asks, jumping right into it.

  “I had an absolutely incredible Saturday night.” I grin, and she shakes her head.

  “After Saturday. Anymore drinking this week? I know you haven’t been the past two days, at least. Donna brought me the results.”

  “Nothing but a few beers on Sunday.”

  “And the trace amounts of marijuana in your urine?”

  A spiky heat prickles up my neck. “I swear I didn’t smoke!” I plead.

  She puts a hand up to calm me. “No, you’re fine. It was only trace amounts, which tells us it was secondhand, but you really need to watch that. You don’t need to be around it. It’ll just tempt you, and all the time we spend together over these seven weeks will go to waste, you’ll face charges, and worse than what may come from those, I will have failed you in here.”

  “I don’
t think I’m as addicted to this stuff as people would like to think.”

  “If you had to quit everything right now, could you? Say you were sent to jail over this. Can you tell me sincerely that you wouldn’t feel the effects of withdrawal?”

  I take a deep breath, my eyes tracing the lines of the tile floor and my thoughts racing.

  She’s right.

  “No, I couldn’t quit everything and not feel fucked up.”

  “That’s okay. You aren’t a lesser man for admitting that. You’re not weaker somehow. In fact, I think it makes you stronger.”

  “I gave up a lot when I left home at sixteen … I wasn’t sure where I was gonna sleep for a good while. Barely graduated high school.” I pause, catching myself as the words spill out. I hadn’t thought about them, simply let them fall from my lips.

  “But you did.”

  “Thank God for that.” I chuckle, passing a quick glance toward the ceiling.

  “What about after high school? What was it like?”

  “Well, when I joined the Army, I gave up a lot, too. I gave up the freedom to piss, sleep, and eat when I wanted to. I gave up the ability to tell a grown-ass man screamin’ in my face to back the fuck up. I gave up a lot when I decided to get out of the Army and pursue this whole new life. I’ve given up a lot in this life. But I’ve controlled my own destiny each step of the way. I had the final say. I chose to leave home because I knew it’d make me better to get away from them. I chose to join the Army because I knew it was my only way outta that shithole I call my hometown. I chose civilian life because I knew I got everything out of the Army that I possibly could. It was time to move on. I made these choices for my own betterment. I took control.”

  She nods. “You mention ‘giving up’ a lot. Is there some resentment for having to give up so much?”

  “A lot of resentment all around, I guess. I wouldn’t have had to give up so much if I had a better start to this life game. I do love the Army, and I loved serving, but I wonder sometimes what it would’ve been like to have lived a different life.”

  “We all do. Really. I think it’d in our DNA to question our past. But it does us no good. You are where you are, and you’ve been through what you’ve been through, for a reason.”

  “See, and I know that to be true. But it doesn’t change a damn thing. I still worry and wonder. Sometimes I think about what it would’ve been like to have missed that mission too. I think that’s when my problems really started. It’s when I lost all control.”

  She leans in, her brows wrinkled. “Lost control of what?”

  “Of everything. After the RPG. Any semblance of control was ripped from my hands. And then, this alcohol thing … it’s just the path set forth from that day. My injury and addiction are two peas in the same fucked up pod.”

  “Bullshit.” She scoffs.

  “Which part?”

  “You can tell me you drink because of the explosion. That, I buy. That, I can understand. But to say it’s a path set out for you. To imply it can’t be changed. It’s bullshit.”

  “I never said it couldn’t be changed.”

  “I said ‘you implied it’.” She smirks as her fingers twirl the pen. “The question is, how much control do you really have? Personally, I think you have far more than you give yourself credit for, but that means nothing. You have to know it too. And down the road when you’re done with therapy, and this mess is behind you, will you have enough control to not let the alcohol control you?”

  “That is the question of the day.” I smile, but a determined look remains on her face.

  “You have to be willing to fight, Bishop. You have to take back control. This is a disease. It’s a sickness. And if you’re not careful, it can swallow you whole.”

  “I know. I watched my own father’s dance with the bottle. I promised myself I’d never get like that. But in the Army Infantry, you drink. It’s a way of life.”

  “And what about after you were hurt, while you were rehabbing?”

  I chuckle. “You don’t even wanna know,” I say, shaking my head.

  “I certainly do.”

  “I was a mess.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, first off, Walter Reed was a mess. No leadership. No accountability. I went to appointments and then nothin’ … no direction. No real support system. So, I spent a lot of time alone, oftentimes in pain. For a year it was like that … maybe a little less. I knew no one, didn’t drink a whole lot because I didn’t wanna leave my barracks room, but I was slowly dyin’ inside. I was a ship against a squall. I thought about suicide a lot. Not about doin’ it. I told you, I’ve never thought much about that. I focused more on the aspect of me not bein’ around anymore. What it would be like … whether anyone would miss me.”

  I gulp, clearing my throat before continuing, “And other guys are droppin’ like flies in their own barracks rooms around me, ODed on their pain pills, most of ‘em. A gunshot too, my first year. Guys couldn’t handle the loneliness … the quiet … the battle. I handled it as best I could, stuffin’ all that agony, anxiousness, and desperation deep down, where they could hide away from the world. And they did for a while. I fell into habits. Comedy shows, usually sitcoms. Comedy and action movies. Drama, if I was feelin’ weepy. They’d play on repeat, one show after another. One movie to the next, and it saved me. It really did. I fell in love all over again with all those movies that stole my heart when I was younger.”

  “And when did the alcohol come into play?”

  I chuckle, the memory of the man I’d grow quite close to over a year’s time washing over me. “Once I met my buddy Tim. He was a man’s man, with a rough edge to him. Pretty boy looks with a country boy’s swagger. The ladies fuckin’ loved him, and after gettin’ to know him during occupational therapy, I came to see why.”

  “He was injured as well?”

  “Yeah, he lost his leg to a roadside bomb. One that killed the rest of his guys. He never showed a sign of despair over it, though. Never talked about it, really. And in turn, I didn’t talk about the men I lost. We bonded over other shit. Baseball, girls, video games, and eventually, Jameson. I’d never really had it before him. Never liked it, at least. But I admired and looked up to him. He was the man I wanted to become, even if he was only two years my senior. He was just so … grounded. Level-headed. Always so aware of his actions, and the actions of others.”

  “Do you still keep in contact with him?”

  I don’t even feel the tear well in my eye, but I do feel it cascade down my cheek. I’m quick to catch it with a shaky finger.

  Her compassionate eyes study me. “What happened, Bishop?”

  I take a deep breath, letting it out slow as my hands squeeze the hand rests. “He missed the fightin’ too much. I tried to talk him out of it. Tried to get him to get out and go to college like me, but he was too set in his ways. Like me, the Army was the only thing he ever loved. Unlike me, a set of real legs isn’t as imperative as two workin’ eyes. He worked his ass off to get back in the fight, and before long, I was left alone again. It wasn’t too long after that I met Chelsea.”

  “And your friend … what’s his name?”

  “Sergeant Adrian Lang.”

  “Did you keep in touch with Sergeant Lang?”

  “For a while. I called him every now and then, once he got to his new unit in Germany. From the sound of it, he was gettin’ used to the workload with a prosthetic, and they were rampin’ up for a deployment.”

  A knot tightens in my throat and my palms sweat; the tears punish my eye sockets, but I fight to hold them back.

  “I didn’t even find out until four months later.” I draw in a quick breath. “From a fuckin’ Myspace post. I couldn’t—” I drop my head in my hands and let out a groan. “I just couldn’t fuckin’ believe I had to find out he was killed in action from some random motherfucker’s Myspace post. I couldn’t believe he made it out alive once, just to go back again and never return. I lost it. Fuckin’ l
ost it. Deleted that Myspace shit, the Facebook I had started, any presence I had online. I closed myself off from everyone, and I drank. Poor Chelsea, she was there for the worst of it.”

  I smile, though the sadness engulfs me.

  “You know … as much as I want to hate her for how she ended things, as much as it hurt me to see her go, I don’t blame her one damn bit. I hate who I was then. I don’t much like myself now. There’s a lot I’d change, but I’m proud to look back on who that man was and say, ‘I don’t even recognize him.’”

  “That is good. It’s excellent. We need to continue encouraging that progression. You’ve come so far on your own. Let me help you to get the rest of the way, will you?”

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” I joke, but she narrows her eyes at me. My eyes drop to the floor in defeat. “I will let you help me. I want you to help me. I guess, maybe, I need you to.”

  “If you want to change, I mean, really want to change, the power is in your hands. With everything you have gone through, you’ve developed an unparalleled strength. We are going to use that strength to fight this addiction.”

  “Can we use a different word?”

  She scrunches her brows. “Different word?”

  “Yeah, a different word to use than addiction. It has such negative connotations.”

  “What would you like me to call it then, Bishop?”

  “Hmmm…” I tap a pointer against my chin before shrugging. “Maybe, like, The Thirst. Kind of sounds like a superhero. Or we could go with manageable vice?”

  She stifles a laugh as she shakes her head at me. “This isn’t funny. Addiction isn’t funny.”

  “Alcohol ultra-enthusiast kind of is, though,” I say, grinning like an idiot.

  “You actually called,” I say into my phone, sprawled across my bed with Scrubs on the tube. “I wasn’t expectin’ that.”

  “Well, I said I would. And we do need to discuss this.”