by JD Hawkins
Not that I ever really get rid of this shit—the bad memories of mistakes and struggles, the guilt and grief. I’m just good at burying it. I never claimed to anyone that I was a good person—least of all myself. I know what I am: The high school dropout son of an alcoholic criminal. The kid who lived in that shitty trailer by the woods, the kid you wouldn’t trust to watch your jacket, to hire for your store, to be near your daughter. What good’s a free country when you’re given every chance you’ll ever get at birth? When the world takes one look at you and decides who you are?
It’s in my face. In my eyes. The way I stand, the way I talk. Bad boy. Unpredictable. Unemployable. Dangerous. You don’t get to choose that. The world does. Assumptions become inevitabilities. And before you know it the only friends you have all seem to possess criminal records, job interviews only last five minutes, cops like to ask you where you’re going, and girls wanna ride you to the wild side before they settle for the nice guy.
I don’t mind, except it meant I had to leave the one girl I ever wanted.
You don’t survive the kind of life I’ve had unless you get good at burying your feelings. The sensitive don’t last with fathers like mine, the expressive get into a lot of fights in the crowds I run in, and there sure as hell ain’t no time for self-pity when you’ve got to figure out how you’ll make rent.
It took me years to get where I am. After I left that town—left Ash—I just about did a grand tour of every cockroach-infested hellhole in America. Hustling money wherever I could, both sides of the law. Working the kind of jobs where the only topic of conversation was what we’d do when we had enough money, until I finally got to Europe, found something to get passionate about, something to build a life around, only to realize the hurt was still there.
I thought about Ash every day, even though I didn’t want to. As far as I knew that part of my life was over. I sealed the feelings up real tight and dragged them around like a weight, held them underwater until they stopped moving. I numbed so much of myself—just to avoid that pain—that it got hard to experience even joy. I had to drink more, fuck more, ride faster and fight harder just to feel the same as the next man.
Now she’s back. And all those things I buried like the dead, all those feelings and memories I tried to leave behind, are back. Like ghosts here to haunt, a hurricane that’s been brewing for a long time.
I call Kayla and tell her I won’t be coming into work today. I haven’t missed a day in over a year, but I can barely focus on myself right now, let alone somebody else’s tattoo. I take Duke out for a long run but it only tires him out, so that when he comes home he eats half a bowl of his food and settles in the yard for a long nap. I’m still pacing around the house with a static I can’t get rid of, however, so I grab my gym bag and leave.
The boxing gym’s half-empty when I get there. I nod to the few faces I know, making it clear I’m not in the mood for small talk. Once I get my gloves on I skip the warm up and head straight for the bag—the old one, the one that never breaks.
For a half hour I play with it, moving and swinging, ducking and weaving, throwing combinations and staying on my toes like it’s a real fighter. This is how I let off steam, how I burn myself out enough so I can relax—except this time it isn’t working. The more I try to forget about her, the more I can’t. I move and jab but my body only gets tighter, more tense, more frustrated. I stop moving and just start hitting. Big, thunderous punches that echo like a quake throughout the gym, drowning out the loud grunts of anger escaping my body. Slamming my fists into it like I’m trying to break down a wall.
“Teo!” I hear somebody shout in between punches, in a loud tone as if it’s not the first time they tried to get my attention.
I stop the bag swinging against me and turn to look. It’s Bobby, the co-owner of the gym, who’s in here almost every day training young boxers. He’s a good guy. Old school. Looks like an aging comedian but has a voice that sounds like a New York deli owner with severe tonsillitis.
“Hey Bobby.”
“You’re hitting pretty well these days,” he says. “Wanna spar with my boy?”
I raise a glove and say, “No thanks. I’m good,” before turning back to the bag.
“Come on! He’s a tough one—little green, but real natural. He needs a moving target though. Be good for both of you.”
Bobby’s thumbing back over his shoulder and I lean to look at the ring. The kid looks like he’s half-bull, about two weight-classes higher than me. I’m tempted for a second, but the only thing I want right now is to be alone while I try to get rid of this monkey on my back.
“Looks good,” I say. “But like I said, I’m not in the mood.”
“Hey, you owe me!” he says, smiling impishly. “You know how much business I’ve sent your way? Just this month?”
I can’t help but smile at Bobby saying that—he knows I don’t need the business.
“Ok,” I say, stepping away from the bag and slapping my gloves together. “Let’s see what he’s got.”
Bobby smiles gleefully and almost jogs back to the ring as I follow him.
“You’re up, Alex!” Bobby says to the broad-shouldered beast in the ring, pointing at me as I get somebody to help me put the head guard on.
It isn’t until I get in the ring that I truly see how big the kid is. He’s got a couple of inches on me and looks like he’s been drawn to life by an over-compensating comic book artist. We nod at each other, a quick exchange to show we’re cool, and Bobby steps in between us, pulling us into the center of the ring.
“He ok?” the kid asks him.
“Teo?” says Bobby. “Don’t worry about him—he can handle himself. Worry about you. Remember, precision. Don’t be rash. You good to go, Teo?”
“Ready when you are.”
“Let’s do it,” Bobby says, backing away.
I touch gloves with the kid and then we’re away, guards up and circling for space.
I wait to see if the kid will make the first move, and sure enough he does, but I keep distance. I open myself a little, let him take a few shots, watching close for tells, to get a sense of his movements. Then I start throwing a few combinations myself—nothing too committed, just enough to see how he ducks, how he weaves, getting a sense for what kind of fighter he is.
Soon we start boxing proper, showing a little more aggression. He’s good, jabs harder than most can hook, something of the Tyson about him. He tries cornering me, and I try to get past that jab good enough to counter. He gets close a couple of times, I land a few body shots but nothing he notices.
Then something happens. Some dark energy starts swirling at my core, winding itself around me. The ghosts back to haunt, the frustrations back to torture. Before I know it I’m thinking of Ash, of her leaving last night, of the uncertainty of whether I’ll see her again. Thoughts that anger and pummel me like the gloves striking at my head. Suddenly I’m not in a ring sparring with some rookie, I’m fighting demons, I’m trying to put the pain back in a bottle.
The kid’s coming close now, like he senses a chance to really connect, and suddenly I’m weaving past his left to deliver an uppercut that lands on his chin like a homing missile. The kid goes down like a plank and I snap back to reality with a sense of guilt.
“Shit,” I say, kneeling beside him. “You ok?”
The kid blinks himself back to sobriety and nods.
“I’m good, I’m good.”
I hook my arms under his and lift him up.
Bobby runs into the ring smiling.
“Didn’t mean to go that rough,” I tell him. “Got a little carried away.”
“You kidding?” Bobby says. “That’s just what he needs. See how Teo lulled you in there? You thought he was dizzy there, didn’t you? Let yourself get suckerpunched—that’s the kinda thing you’ll see all the time when you…”
I leave Bobby to lecture the kid as I exit the ring and pull off my gloves and head guard. I head back to the locker room, touchi
ng a sore spot in my side where the kid landed a few good ones. I make my way to my locker and open it to grab a towel, then run it over my face and arms. Then I start unwrapping the bandages around my hands.
“Hey.”
I glance up in the direction of the voice, and find it hard to put my eyes back on my hands again.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this girl before, pretty sure I’d remember a figure like that. Big hips and long legs in yoga pants so tight they leave nothing to the imagination, a sports bra that struggles to hold back giant, explosive tits. So many curves it looks like she’s moving even when she’s not. Her black hair in a ponytail so I get a clear look at those smoky eyes beneath seductively-arched eyebrows, lips big and pouted in a permanent expression of lust.
“Teo, right?” she says, stepping closer.
“Uh-huh,” I reply, turning back to the task of unwrapping my hands.
“Riley,” she says, offering a hand regally.
I shake it with my bandaged hand, noticing the way she trails her fingers against my palm when I pull away, and smile at her.
“Nice to meet you. You get lost on the way to the ladies’ locker room?”
Riley laughs. “So you’re hot as hell and funny.”
She smiles now, those lips demure, and leans back against the locker beside mine. Back arched so only her shoulders and ass touch it, arms folded and pushing up those breasts, one foot stepping back, making those thick thighs impossible not to notice. The girl moves like she’s acting in a porno, every gesture calculated and direct.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” she purrs through those lips, her eyes studying my tattooed arms with the intensity of a starving man at a steakhouse menu. “You run a tattoo place, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I was thinking of getting one.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, grabbing a fresh shirt from my locker. “You had one before?”
“No. I’m a virgin,” she says, swaying her shoulders playfully.
I let out a little chuckle without looking at her.
“Well, what were you thinking of getting?” I say.
I pull off my shirt, ready to put a new one on, but in the split-second it takes to pull it up over my head she moves closer, long fingers pressing against my abs, face so close to mine I can feel her breath on my chest, eyes looking up at me through long lashes, biting her lip.
In a slow drawl she says, “Maybe you can check out my body and tell me what you think would work.”
Her fingers trace across my skin. Her eyes make promises that the breasts she’s squeezing up against me are ready and willing to keep. Sucking breath through her teeth like a heated sigh. The testosterone should be flooding my body like poison now; I should be feeling a cold, hard lust just looking at this woman. I should be ready to slam her up against the locker, tear her clothes off with my teeth, to press my hard cock between those breasts, those lips, those thighs. About to do what I do best and enjoy most.
But I can’t.
A wave of guilt passes over me so thoroughly I can taste it, can feel it on my skin, and I feel dirty because of it. Suddenly repulsed, by her, by the idea of doing this. I try to fight it. It’s not like I’m married, I’m a free man, perfectly willing and capable of fucking anybody I like. Even as I try to tell myself that, though, I realize it’s not true.
I remember Ash, remember how she looked last night, how she felt dancing against me, and suddenly Riley doesn’t look so good. Those smoky eyes suddenly vacant and hollow when I remember how Ash’s sparkle. Those forward lips, those giant tits, all seem so tacky and unreal, an imitation of beauty, a desperate attempt to manufacture the natural allure Ash doesn’t even know she has.
I take her hand away from my chest and move her gently away from me, smiling almost apologetically.
“I’m flattered. Really. But no thanks,” I say, pulling on my fresh shirt and slamming my locker shut.
Riley eyes me curiously, as if she’s trying to understand if I’m just playing by different rules to her.
“Are you…taken?” she asks.
I heave my bag to my shoulder and shuffle aside past her, frowning as I think over the question myself.
“You know what? I think I might be.”
When I get home I dump my stuff and pull out my phone to stare at Ash’s number as I pace around the room, trying to shake these physical urges that course through my tired muscles.
I think about calling her, think about what I’d say. I wanna tell her how good she looked dancing like that last night, how she’s been dancing like that in my head all day, my body aching and itching with unfinished business. How I still taste her lips, feel her body, see her face whenever I close my eyes. My heart still thumping with the rush of blood I got having her so close.
Only I know I wouldn’t get to tell her all that. I know she’d only ask me once again why I left, wouldn’t let it slide for long enough to see how much I want her. Have always wanted her.
I toss the phone onto the couch and pull my shirt off as I make for the shower. Still irritable, emotions still on edge. I step out of my shorts and turn the water up until it scalds, stepping under the stream and letting the heat force all the other emotions from my body.
I push water through my hair, close my eyes and try to let my mind go blank.
Her ass in those tight leather pants, the feeling of her wet pussy in my hand, her hands pulling my chest on the bike, the sun shining on her sweat-soaked skin in Runyon Canyon, her mesmerizing smile when she saw me in the tattoo shop… Soon the images and sensations run through my mind, flooding over me like the water. My lust manifesting big and hard in my hand.
I roll back my mind to last night, back before the argument, back to us grinding against each other, to that low-cut top, the pressure of her ass against my cock. I fix and focus upon the memory intensely, as if I can somehow bring it back to reality by force of will. Stroking my cock to the rhythm of her dance, feeling the softness of her belly under my fingers once more. In my mind I push them deeper than I did, in my imagination I tease those pants down around her ankles, spreading her thighs to lap at her pussy with my tongue. Then I spin her around against the wall, cock unleashed, and thrust into her from behind, her hands pressed to the bricks as she begs me to fuck her.
I picture how she would look laid out in front of me like an altar, tits shaking with the force of my strokes. I imagine her moaning, what her face would look like when she’s losing control. Her mouth open to let the warm groans escape, eyes losing focus as I fuck all sense of reality from her. In my mind I kiss the glistening sweat from her body on the trail in Runyon Canyon, making her laugh that delicate laugh. I push her hand down into my pants as she rides behind me on the bike. Her cool, delicate fingers stroking as she whispers my name in my ear, tells me every single dirty thing she wants me to do to her, hard, fast, now.
It’s too much, the idea of her, the memory of her—the tightness in me becomes unbearable to hold any longer and I release it into the hot water. A jackhammer thudding deep inside, pushing this energy out of me, leaving me panting and exhausted as the water massages away the tightness of my body. My muscles relaxed, my mind a little clearer, but something inside still rolling and twisting, unfulfilled.
7
Ash
Lunch with Jenny is more like a refueling of our bodies with caffeine—the wraps and sandwiches just help the triple-espresso shots wrapped in sugar flavoring go down. When things are really bad we’ll head around the corner to the place with the cute waiters and replace caffeine with cosmos. Today’s not that bad—but we considered it.
As we ingest caffeine/alcohol, and just enough calories to keep hunger from tipping our stress levels into breakdown territory, we bitch—about Hollywood Night, about Candace, about Carlos (the vain, sleazy host)—about the industry at large, about the pointless tasks we’re given on a daily basis that stop us from doing our jobs. Like a couple of cynical aunts we tear into the lot of them, di
smantling and exposing their idiocy like a couple of witches casting spells through insults, mean nicknames, and tutting eye-rolls. We say all the things we wouldn’t even dare think inside the office, nothing that annoys us going unpunished. It’s not pretty, and anyone overhearing us would think we’re the worst people in the world, but we know it’s just for us, just so that we can save ourselves the money and bother of the therapist’s couch or the confessional booth.
Today, though, Jenny is more interested in listening than venting, and my issues aren’t work-related. I give her the story of last night, dwelling longer than I probably should on how Teo looked when he picked me up, and getting a little embarrassed when I have to describe what we were doing in the crowd later on. It’s the argument that I really want to talk about though, and Jenny leans forward, wide eyes almost filling her thick-rimmed glasses, when I tell her about the confrontation.
“…and then I just walked away. Left him there in the alleyway. Got an Uber, came home, and watched trashy television to distract me from thinking about it until I went to sleep.”
Jenny says nothing for a second, her face frowning with thought.
“I don’t get it,” she says, as if I left something out. “He left town because you wouldn’t run away with him?”
“No. I mean, yes he asked me to run away with him a ton of times, but he was supposed to meet me at prom that night—we’d talked about it for weeks. Either he was trying to play some cruel trick on me, or he isn’t telling me something… I don’t know. I just know I’m done trying to get through to him, trying to get him to explain it.”
Jenny drains the last of her coffee and shakes her head empathetically.
“Well I can see why you’re so confused. You think maybe he had someone else? Maybe he was just overwhelmed by everything? Or maybe he…you know, didn’t actually love you like that?”