Tryst Six Venom

by Douglas, Penelope

  I hold the rose, and she doesn’t look right away, but after a moment, she glances up.

  She eyes the rose, looking sad, and my heart pounds. “Pink?” she asks.

  I step into the room, closing the door and stopping in front of her. I lower myself to the floor and to my knees. “Thorns.”

  I set the flower on her dressing table and lie my head on her lap, hoping she forgives me. I’m late, and I promised her I wouldn’t be.

  “I’m full of thorns,” I say softly. “But there are things about me that I hope are worth it.”

  After a few seconds, I feel her hand in my hair. “I hate Romeo,” she says, stroking my scalp. “But I’m starting to understand him. Fuck you for that, Clay.”

  I half-smile, because I know she’s bitter, because she’s cracking, and I want that. I want what Trace promised. That the switch would flip, and she’d be mine.

  I peel up her sleeve and gaze at the octopus on the inside of her wrist. “This is mine.” I smooth my thumb over the ink. “Forever mine. My piece of you.” And then in a murmur, “‘Within this inch…I’m free.’”

  This patch of skin won’t be anyone else’s ever. It’ll be mine when she marries someone else. When she’s eighty. It’s all I really have of her.

  I kiss her wrist and tip my head up as she puts one of the costume hats on my head, a top hat like the one in her room.

  She regards me, the wheels turning in her head, but before I can ask what she’s thinking, she pinches my chin and leans down.

  Her breath brushes my lips, and I can almost taste her.

  “Let’s go get you naked,” she whispers.

  CAN’T WE JUST go park somewhere? Or go to my house like she suggested?

  What was I thinking?

  I gaze out the passenger side window, concentrating on keeping my hands on my lap instead of fidgeting, because all of these houses remind me of that feeling I’d been fighting since I was a kid. That there are places I don’t belong.

  Smooth roads void of any puddles or potholes. Gates and trimmed hedges.

  White houses.

  White Rovers.

  Lots of white people who will take one look at my last name and think I’m here to clean, cook, or rob something.

  I look over at Clay, wishing she would’ve let me drive, so I wouldn’t feel so vulnerable right now with nothing to do; but then I catch sight of her toned, tanned thighs peeking out of her skirt, and I exhale, remembering. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I shake my head at myself.

  She pulls into her driveway, and I look out at the oaks lining the circle, a fountain spilling water in the center. I scan the windows for lights.

  Everything appears dark, except for the gaslit lanterns—one on each side of the front door and two more posted farther down the exterior to the left and right. I can’t see the third floor from inside the car, though.

  Clay parks and climbs out.

  “Are your parents home?” I ask, leaving my school bag in the car and following her.

  “My dad, probably not.” She carries her bag, with her keys out as we head for the front door. “My mom won’t bother us.”

  She unlocks the door and steps inside, lights immediately illuminating without Clay doing anything. I hesitate a moment as she heads for the small entryway table and drops her keys into a blue glass bowl.

  “It doesn’t look like she’s home yet,” Clay says. “Her keys aren’t here.”

  The hair on my arms rises, feeling the air conditioning escaping as I inhale the scent of new things.

  Or really the scent of almost nothing. Like how a furniture store smells. Or a library or a car dealership. Like places where people don’t live.

  My house smells like wet wood, the spiced rum Trace spilled all over the floor last week, and last night’s spaghetti.

  I step inside, closing the door behind me, and hit the sensor on the wall, the lights dimming again. I feel a little safer in the dark. Just like Clay.

  She spins around, dropping her bag to the floor, and I approach her, the only warm thing in this house.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks.

  The crystals of the chandelier clink overhead as the air circulates, and the stairwell looms behind her, both rooms on either side of the center hall dark, except for the moonlight streaming through the sheer curtains.

  She drops her eyes, and I swear I see a blush.

  “My mom always keeps so much food in the fridge,” she laughs, sounding nervous, “I don’t know why. She barely eats, and my dad’s hardly here.”

  I don’t want food.

  “I want to see your room,” I tell her.

  I’m pretty sure she saw mine even before I invited her in. I can’t imagine she resisted the urge at Night Tide.

  I’ll feel safer behind a closed door. Hopefully she doesn’t have a chandelier in there, too, and I can forget that I’m in the house of one of St. Carmen’s most influential families.

  I cock my head, watching her. But then… I kind of like that I’m here. In the house of one of St. Carmen’s most influential families.

  About to fuck their daughter.

  I keep my smile to myself, loving that she’s suddenly nervous like it’s our first time.

  Turning, she rounds the table and heads up the stairs, my eyes memorizing her body as I follow. When we reach the top, she veers left, and we head down a hallway, over hardwood floors decorated with white Persian runners and portraits on the walls in silver frames. Two blond kids on a beach, building a sandcastle. A little boy on her dad’s shoulder as Clay and her mom cheer next to him at a Florida State game. The two kids making faces for the camera under the water, in a pool.

  Clay stops at the first door on the right, but I’m already staring ahead at the first door on the left, several feet farther down the hall. Dark blue, wooden letters that read HENRY hang on the door above a tin sign warning of “Gamer At Play—Do Not Disturb, No Girls Allowed (Except Mom)”.

  She opens her door, but I tip my head toward her brother’s room. “Show me.”

  She shifts, looking uneasy, but doesn’t budge.

  I study her. “When’s the last time you were in there?”

  “I don’t go in there.”

  I know I shouldn’t press it. What happened to Clay is devastating and personal, but something pushes me toward her brother’s room, because I want more between us.

  “No, just…” She calls, running up to catch me. “Another time, okay? Don’t ruin this. Don’t ruin tonight.”

  “You were in my brother’s room,” I point out.

  I saw the video. Everyone saw it. Macon wasn’t as livid as the rest of my brothers, though, because Macon doesn’t look for fights with frilly teenage girls who are just trying to get famous.

  “Open the door, Clay.”

  What happened to her brother had a profound impact on her. And on me, as it would turn out. I need this piece of her.

  She opens the door, probably because she knows I’ll leave if she doesn’t.

  I step inside, the room dim but the curtains open and shining moonlight on the floor. I walk into the room, keeping the lamps off and my feet gentle, as if too hard a step will be disrespectful.

  His twin bed sits made without a single wrinkle on the blue duvet cover, the carpet beige, but everything else matches the bedspread. Light blue walls with white trim. Blue curtains. Bookshelves, posters, a desk with art supplies, and model cars and planes sit on shelves. A PS4 sits on a table under a flatscreen on the wall, and a gumball machine sits on top of his dresser, still half-full. A picture of him and some friends, or cousins maybe, stands next to it, all of them holding a papier-mâché planet they made in class or in summer camp. I lean in close, seeing the same smile on him that I see on Clay’s sometimes.

  “He looked like he was going to be Jensen Ackles someday,” she says, sadness in her voice.

  I look over, seeing she’s still hovering in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

  “He was
a cute kid,” I tell her.

  “Dynamite personality, too.” She sighs, smiling and crossing her arms. “He would draw spiders on the toilet paper and replace my yogurt with mayo.”

  I walk over toward the window, checking out his view. “And what did you do to deserve that?” I tease.

  As if he was the instigator. If I know Clay at all, he was simply retaliating.

  “I may have replaced the filling in his Oreos with toothpaste,” she says.

  I grin.

  The room is spotless. Tidy, clean, not a speck of dust. Someone cleans in here regularly, and I’m guessing it’s the one room Clay’s mom doesn’t let anyone touch but herself.

  “You loved him a lot.”

  “I didn’t realize how much.” She nods. “He was annoying and we fought a lot, but when he got sick, I almost couldn’t breathe.” I hear the tears thicken her voice. “It wasn’t fair for him to go through that. I just wanted it to stop.”

  There’s no sign of his illness in this room. No medical equipment. No prescriptions. I have no idea if he died at home or passed in the hospital, but I can bet the family was with him every hour.

  Clay’s breathing shakes, and I see her trying to hold back the tears. I walk over, taking her face in my hands.

  “Why were you so patient with me?” she whispers. “So tolerant? I didn’t deserve it.”

  I lean in, her silky hair brushing the backs of my hands. “Happy people don’t fixate on things they hate,” I explain. “They move on. I knew it was coming from somewhere, Clay.” I glide my hands down her body and circle her waist as we hold each other, and I stare into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter how much money we have or don’t have or how stable our home is. Anyone can have problems.”

  I never thought Clay’s life was gold just because she’s rich and beautiful. Happy people don’t act how she did.

  She kept up the façade for a long time, though. Resisting me.

  “Why did you finally let it happen?” I ask, nearly brushing her nose and gazing at her mouth that I want so badly.

  She kisses me softly. “Because for four years, if I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking of you,” she murmurs. “And even then sometimes, in my dreams.”

  Her mouth lingers on my cheek, and I know now what the tattoo means. The one on the inside of her finger and what she meant at the theater earlier when she didn’t think I heard her. Within this inch, I’m free.

  It’s a paraphrase of a quote from V for Vendetta. A part of us that we’ll never sell—a small piece we keep to ourselves and covet and hold tightly for dear life, because it’s the only place inside of us we truly live.

  Just an inch. But it’s ours.

  “I wanted to be alone with you and touch you and smell you and talk to you with every part of my body, except my voice,” she says.

  My eyelids flutter closed, and I understand. After years of her treatment, my pride is dented, because I should’ve told her to go to hell, but… There was always more. Almost as if I knew we’d be here eventually.

  She bites my jaw gently, the heat and wet of her mouth sending tingles spiraling down to my stomach.

  “Do you hear that?” she asks. And then kisses me where she bit. “And that?”

  I nod. I hear you.

  “Take me to your room,” I tell her.

  “You should call home.” She continues to peck on my jaw. “Tell them you won’t be home tonight.”

  “Later.”

  Macon tracks my phone, so he never really worries.

  She pulls me, backing up toward her bedroom as I pull the door closed behind me and follow. Her mouth covers mine, her moans sinking down my throat as we nearly trip over our feet.

  I work my ponytail out, my long locks falling down around me, and Clay pushes me up against her desk, closing her door and locking it.

  “You’re so beautiful.” She kisses me again and again, lifting my shirt over my head. “Especially on stage. God, you blew my mind tonight. I loved watching you.”

  We keep the lights off, and I forget to even to look around to see if my predictions of either a white or pink color scheme are correct.

  “I know someday everyone will be watching you,” she says, biting my ear. “As you play…” She pauses, thinking. “Mad Max surrendering to the animal inside you as you navigate the barren wasteland of Earth to avenge the death of your wife and child.”

  I laugh, but she’s kissing and biting everything—my ear, my neck—and my head drops back, my eyes closing.

  “Or maybe, you’ll be her love interest,” Clay teases. “A damsel in distress?”

  Never. I’m always in charge.

  But then I hear a click and feel something cold and sharp between my legs.

  I go still, a jolt of surprise hitting me. Maybe I’m not always in charge, after all. “Clay?”

  And just then, I register my blade missing from where it was hooked onto my skirt.

  She holds it drawn, between my legs, as she glides her mouth up my neck and paws my breast with her other hand.

  “You’re so pretty, Liv,” she breathes out. “You know you’re never getting away from me, right?”

  Clay Collins presses her body into mine, kneading me—squeezing what’s hers—and inhaling my scent as she nibbles my neck.

  “Say ‘yes, I know’,” she orders me.

  “Yes.”

  Holding the knife, she peels down my underwear. “You know you’re mine. Say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  My knees quiver, and I’m turned on but a little scared too, because her voice is more of a warning than a comfort. Like no matter how much I think I’ll stand up for myself and fight back, she’ll always have power over me.

  Like she knows that she’ll be Mrs. Ames someday, and I’ll be working for her, part of my job taking place in her bed when her husband’s not around.

  “Clay…”

  But she releases my breast and grips my neck, instead. I gasp. “You’re never getting away from me, Jaeger,” she whispers and drags her tongue across my collarbone to my shoulder where she bites my bra strap. “Take it off.”

  And at the moment, I want nothing more than to do everything she tells me to. I reach behind me and unhook my bra, the cool air caressing my nipples, and Clay’s warm hand covering one.

  But before I know what’s happening, she’s swiping her arm across her desktop, sending everything crashing to the floor and bending me over the top of it.

  I plant my hands on the desk on both sides of my head, sucking in air like I can’t catch my breath. She yanks my underwear, tearing them from my body, and then she lifts my skirt and spreads my legs.

  “Clay…” I moan.

  But her fist is in my hair, her hand palms my breast, and her mouth trails up and down my back, sucking, kissing, and biting like she’s starved.

  I feel a flood of warmth between my legs as she presses into my ass.

  “God, what are you doing?” The world tips sideways, and I close my eyes. “I’m so wet for you.”

  “You’re never getting away from me,” she says again.

  I know, baby. I know. God, what is she doing to me? Just when I think I’m in control, and I have a handle on her, she sweeps me away.

  She rises, pulling me up with her, and whispers in my ear. “I love these.” She squeezes my breast, moving from one to the other as she kisses my shoulder. “They feel so good.”

  I kiss her, tasting her with my tongue again and again.

  But then I spot something on the floor, something she’d pushed off her desk. “You got film in that camera?” I ask.

  She follows my gaze, seeing her vintage Edixa 35mm on the floor.

  I got a video of her. Fair is fair, I guess.

  “Take my picture,” I tell her.

  A gleam hits her eyes, and she walks over and picks it up, blowing on the lens before adjusting the settings.

  I lean over the desk again, propping myself up with my hands and leaving my skirt hiked up in the
back where she left it. I push up on my tiptoes and let a little hair fall in my eyes as she starts some music, “Take Me to the River” playing. When she looks up again, her chest caves and she almost drops the camera.

  “You okay?” I tease.

  A lump moves up and down her throat as she takes in the sight of me, but slowly, she raises the camera to her face.

  The camera clicks, and I almost smile at the thrill that runs through me. It feels like a touch, having your picture taken.

  Tipping my chin down, I look at her as she snaps shot after shot, moving around my body and getting different angles. She gets a shot or two in the front and then moves behind me, diving in for a really naughty one I certainly hope she knows how to develop herself, because Walmart won’t touch these photos.

  I peer at her over my shoulder as she snaps more shots, and then I turn around, scooting up onto the desktop, and slowly dragging my skirt up my thighs. I tease her as she watches and waits, knowing I don’t have anything on underneath as the camera falls away from her face and she’s captivated.

  I don’t go all the way. I smile, pulling my skirt back down, but she drops the camera onto the carpet and rushes me all of a sudden. Gripping me under my arms and pulling me into her body, she kisses me hard. Her mouth moves over mine, and I hook an arm around her neck, pulling up her shirt with my other hand.

  “Not yet,” she pants.

  I kick off my shoes as she slips her hands underneath my skirt, locking her eyes onto mine as she touches me with her fingers.

  “I’m dying to kiss it,” she murmurs, stroking me.

  My eyelids flutter at her soft touch, loving how she touches. How she explores, because everything is new to her and with every touch, she learns who she is.

  I love that I’m here for it.

  The tip of her fingers play just inside me, teasing but not taking, and she pulls her hand back out, her fingertips glistening.

  Her mouth falls open a little, watching herself rub her fingers together and rub me over her fingers, and I think she’ll lick it off, but she doesn’t. Instead, she slips it under her skirt and into her own underwear, rubbing me on herself. All over her.

  “Clay…” My body shakes.