I’m such a dweeb. The dweebest of all dweebs.
I was surprised when I heard tapping on my window. I wasn’t scared or worried since it could only be Vicky. She told her parents she was spending the night with me, when in actuality she had made plans to spend the night with Ben. They had started having sex a couple of months ago and now they created opportunities when they could. They must have gotten into a fight and were off again.
I got up and padded my way to the window. I pulled the blinds up and it wasn’t my red haired, freckled face best friend I was looking at. It was Damien Greystone.
What the ever loving fuck?
I opened the window out of shock more than anything else. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer me. He just placed his hands on the window ledge and hauled himself over. I stepped back still in a little bit of shock at seeing Damien Greystone entering my bedroom through the window. “Why aren’t you at Ben’s party?” I tried again to find out what he’s doing here.
It wasn’t until I noticed his green gaze leave my face and journey downward that I remembered I was only wearing my nighttime blue tank top and a pair of white lace panties. To be fair, I had never imagined in a million years that Damien would be in my bedroom tonight when I got ready for bed earlier. Never having been a confident girl, my first instinct was to cover myself up, but he had already seen me in all my big boobs, wide hips and thick thighs glory, so what was the point?
Besides, I wasn’t confused about what he thought about me. My body wasn’t going to make a difference in how he saw me or felt about me.
“Why’d you leave the party?” he asked.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I was bored.” I’d never tell him the truth.
He kept walking until he was directly in front of me. With each step I had to lean my head backwards to keep his face in my line of sight. Damien was well over six feet now and playing sports had molded his body into a work of art. He may hate me and I may despise him, but I wasn’t blind.
My entire being froze in astonishment and disbelief when Damien reached out and ran his hand, every so softly, down my neck, over my collar bone and down to my breast. I stood mannequin still as he held the weight of my breast in his hand and began running his thumb back and forth over the nipple.
His eyes never left mine and I swear to God I was on the verge of having a heart attack. He had to be able to feel my heart trying to beat out of my chest. I mean…his hand was right there and everything, so he surely had to feel it? Hell, he could probably hear it. I couldn’t hear anything except the blood rushing through my ears. Because I was a rookie and because I didn’t know what the hell was going on, my chest started to heave in huge breaths giving him more permission to touch me.
My voice was all gargled glass. “Damien, wh…what are y…you doing?”
He moved until his stomach was pressed up against my chest and running the hand on my breast upward, he gripped the back of my neck and started kissing me. He took his other hand and grabbed my hip and held me firm as his mouth did unexpected things to me. I could feel myself being swept away in the tornado that is Damien Greystone when I finally came to my senses.
I pulled my head back and pushed at his body. “No. Stop it, Damien.”
He gave me a smirk in response. “Oh really, stop it? And why would I want to stop?”
I wanted to stab myself with a fork at my next words, but I couldn’t help it. “Y...you can’t come to me after being with He…Heather.” I lifted my chin. “I’m better than that even if you don’t think I am.” I was disappointed when my voice cracked. “There’s a guy out there for me who will think so, too.”
His eyes lit like a fire and he clenched his jaw. “I’m not going to explain Heather or any other girl to you because you wouldn’t believe me anyways. All you need to know is that I haven’t been with her in the way you think I have.” He put his hand back behind my neck again and his voice was all male and rust. “Also, there will never be another guy for you, Halloween. Never.”
Damien leaned down and this time he took the kiss. It wasn’t soft or sweet or gentle. He was all force and dangerous energy. My entire body was humming with the sensation of him. His other hand found its way back to my hip and his grip was punishing. It felt like he was kissing me to survive and I was getting high off the thought.
He maneuvered me backwards until the back of my legs hit the edge of my bed. All at once, I was hit with the realization of what exactly we were doing. He was here for my virginity and I was inexplicably handing it over to him. Was I really so twisted by all his years of torment that he’s really what I craved now? He’s been awful to me for years, yet here I was, wanting to do anything he asked of me. I must have been sicker and more broken than I thought. Weak and pathetic, I wanted him to finally like me.
He pulled away ending the kiss and I watched in fascination as he yanked his shirt over his head leaving his torso bare. God, he was stunning. How could this boy possible want to be with me?
Damien wasn’t shy in his undress. He didn’t stop until he was completely naked in front of me, shoes, socks and all. Before I could get a good look, his hands were already lifting the edge of my tank top and I numbly let him pulled it over my head and toss it on the floor next to his clothes.
I wanted to ask him if he like what he saw, but the growl emitting from his throat was encouragement enough. His green eyes never wavered from my brown ones as he hooked his fingers on either side of my panties and dragged them down my legs. I wanted to be embarrassed. I should have been embarrassed. I should have been mortified. I’ve only kiss one boy…well, one and half…and here I was letting Damien strip me naked to take whatever he wanted from me.
He leaned into me until I was forced to lie down on the bed and his huge body lowered with me, covering me completely. I couldn’t get a handle on my out of control breathing and every time I inhaled, the tips of my breasts would rub against his chest.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I mean, I’ve read novels and seen movies, but I knew that was make believe and not a realistic interpretation of actual sex. “I don’t know what to do,” I confessed. “I...I don’t know what you want from me.”
He leaned his head down and started kissing my neck and the pure euphoria of the act had me out of my mind with pleasure. “I just want you, Fiona…just you.”
The next thing I knew, he was settled in between my legs with his penis rubbing up against my center. Oh my God, this is really happening! Before I had a chance to change my mind, I felt a searing pain ripping me apart from the inside. I was on the verge of letting out a scream so loud it would surely bring the house down and my parents running, but he had immediately covered my mouth with his hand.
I was expecting him to wait until the pain had subsided and I was used to his size, but he didn’t. He started ramming into me with no regard for my pain or discomfort. It was agony and it consumed my entire being. It wasn’t until after a few minutes the pain lessened and something else took its place.
Pleasure. Pleasure started surfacing in all the nerves that ran along my body. I didn’t know what was happening, and I couldn’t ask for his opinion because Damien kept his hand over my mouth as he used his other arm to brace himself above me.
Damien started pushing into me faster and harder and with each thrust I was taken higher and higher into a world that didn’t exist outside of drugs. I felt heat start at the center of my core and shoot out like a starburst throughout my body. I screamed louder than I did when he had ripped me open.
I felt Damien strain and lock up above me and he let out a cursed ‘fuuuuck’ before collapsing on top of me. After a few quiet seconds, he removed his hand from my mouth and just like that, he lifted off my body and I watched stunned as he began to dress.
“What now?” I whispered, feeling overwhelmed and scared. We didn’t use a condom.
He didn’t bother with looking at me as he finished dressing. “Nothing.” And then I knew.
“You didn’t really think I’d leave for Yale without one last ‘fuck you’, did you?” He was halfway out the window when he finished slicing me open. “Have a nice life, Halloween.”
Chapter 5
Fiona – 10 Years Later – There’s family and then there are relatives.
There are moments in your life that you remember forever. They are embedded into your memory and no amount of alcohol in the world can make you forget. There are always drugs but even they can only make you forget for a little while.
My entire childhood is made up of moments I’d like to forget, so I know that of which I speak. But this one right here…I couldn’t contain my rage if I tried.
Sitting across from my parents, I asked the questions that made no difference because the answers wouldn’t change the situation. “How could you do this? How could you not seek help before it got to this point? What the fuck, Dad?!”
“You better watch how you speak to me, Fiona. I am still your father and-”
His face was red and I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to puff up. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve, Dad! You let me live close to poverty growing up because placing bets took priority over putting food on the table and you’re going to utter the words ‘I’m still your father’ at me?” I looked over at my mother. She was quietly crying, playing the perfect accomplice to my father’s addiction. “Then you guys call me over, telling me you’re on the verge of losing everything you guys own, dumping your problem in my lap and you have to balls to try and get demanding with me?” I let out a humorless scoff. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“Fiona, please…” my mother pleaded.
“Please what, Mother? What exactly is it you expect me to do here?”
My words didn’t register with my father because he kept on like he was entitled to saving. “We are still your parents and deserve some respect, Fiona! You may not have had designer clothes and handbags growing up, but you did have clothes, not to mention food and a home.”
This man is unbelievable. “Jesus Christ, Dad. I’m your daughter. All those things are basic things you were supposed to provide for me by law, if not by conscience. If supporting me was such a burden, maybe you and Mom shouldn’t have had kids. There’s an idea.”
“Fiona! Of course that is not what your dad is implying. We love you and of course we wanted you.” She darted a side glance towards my dad. “Your dad is just trying to remind you that family helps family, that’s all.”
“Family helps family?” I picked up all the documents that scattered the coffee table in their living room and waved them in the air. “These….this…this is not family asking family for help. Asking family for help is asking them to co-sign for a car loan or asking to crash on their couch until they get back on their feet. Family asking family for help is not asking them to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover their gambling debts because they’re about to lose everything!”
“Yes, it is,” she argued. “When we both know that all you have to do is take a second mortgage out on your house or take out a loan against Fiona’s.”
I wish I could say I was surprised, but what life has taught me in my 28 years, is that while people may love you, they don’t necessarily love you in the way you would like for them to. My father has always been a reserved parent when I was growing up. He spent most of his time working and fighting with my mom about all the things we couldn’t afford. I sometimes wonder if his mistreatment of my mother led me to crave the same kind of mistreatment from a certain boy at school growing up.
My mom did her best, but she was weak. She let herself believe that as long as we had a home, food and clothes that my dad’s little problem wasn’t really a problem. She did her best to shelter me from their arguments, but the older I got, the harder it was to shield me.
Although I spent all my high school years studying my ass off, I didn’t graduate with straight A’s. I did graduate with good enough grades to apply for and get partial scholarships. I was only forced to take out one loan that I paid off as soon as I could. While it took most people four years to finish college, I had to go to community college and because the day only has 24 hours in it, it took me six years to finish my BA in business management. I still plan on going back for my Masters one day.
I had also started working at All Things Alice, a small coffee shop that sold baked pastries, while I was in college. The claim to Alice’s fame was that every pastry she sold was a homemade hand me down family recipe. And each item she sold was delicious. She also had a small one bedroom apartment over the shop that she had let me live in rent-free as I went to school. If I owed anyone, I owed her. Everything she ever did for me was to help me be a better me, not to cash in on whatever I’d achieved.
I looked my dad in the same brown eyes that mirrored mine. “Are you seriously asking me to risk my home and my business to pay off your gambling debts?”
The man had no shame, but then, most people with addictions don’t. “We’re asking our daughter to help us out in our time of need.”
I looked back at my mom. “I suffered through our financial struggles growing up just like you did and I didn’t ask you guys for anything when I chose to go to college. I worked and I studied and I created a life for myself without any help from you. Are you telling me, as my mother, I’m obligated as your daughter to risk it all for him?”
She broke down in sobs. “We’ll lose everything, Fiona.”
Well…I guess she’s telling me exactly that.
I should feel some sort of sympathy for her, but I couldn’t help it. I was done being a doormat the night of my high school graduation. “Even if I did mortgage my house to the hilt and get a loan against Fiona’s, it’s not enough to cover the total amount of your debts. So even on the off chance that whoever holds your loans would work with us, how do you plan on paying off whatever’s left?”
She darted a look at my dad and I knew what she’s going to say next. “Well, Fiona’s is very successful. We were thinking that you could arrange a payment plan or something. You can afford it, honey.” She shook her head. “We simply can’t.”
I barked out a humorless laugh. “There are no words to describe just how callous and selfish you two are.” I found I was more upset with my mother than I was with my father. “You are willing to stand by and watch your daughter lose everything she’s ever worked hard for in order to save a man who doesn’t give a shit about anything other than his next bet.”
“That’s enough Fiona!” my father finally interjected.
“Oh, on that we agree.” I stood up to leave. I was not going to bail out my ungrateful, self-absorbed parents. “You guys are going to have to find your own way out of this mess. I’m not risking everything I have worked my entire life for because you have a problem you refuse to get help for.”
My mother stood up with me. “What if he agrees to get help?”
And at that, my father stood up…incensed. “Maryanne, I do not need help. I enjoy betting from time to time and that’s it. It’s not my fault if the bets fall bad!”
“Do you hear yourself?” I shrieked. “You owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debt and you’re seriously standing here telling us that you don’t have a problem! You are on the verge of losing everything and you’re still in denial? You are a real piece of work, Dad.”
“Fiona! That’s enough. This situation is hard enough without you point fingers and assigning blame,” my mother snapped. “It doesn’t matter how or why we got here, all that matters is that this is where we are and we need your help.” It seems like my mom only has balls when it comes to her daughter, but not when it comes to Jared Eldstead.
“Mom, I am not going to bail you guys out just so he can continue with his not-a-problem gambling problem. If you end up homeless, you are more than welcome to live with me until you guys get back on your feet. But I am not jeopardizing my home and business for you guys and, quite frankly, you guys are shitty parents for
asking me to.”
I didn’t see the slap coming.
It took a few seconds for the pain to radiate across my cheek and into my eyes. Once it did, I cupped my cheek and applied pressure, hoping it would ease the burn shooting across my face.
“Jared!” I could hear my mother shout in disbelief.
“If you think I’m going to stand by and let you insult us…your parents…in our own home, you are mistaken young woman!”
If you were to ask me what I was feeling in this moment, I wouldn’t be able to come up with one word in the English language. My father’s never struck me before, so it should have given me an indication as to how desperate he was, but all it did was make me loathe him more.
I turned and, without a word, I walked out of their house. If there was any chance of me helping them before, it was gone the instant his hand made contact with my face.
What a bastard!
I got into my car and slammed the door shut once I was inside. I started up the car, but I sat there trying to breathe away my rage. My phone rang in my purse as I tried to calm down, and glancing down, I saw Vicky’s name flashing across the screen. God, this crazy lady had perfect timing. I didn’t know what I’d do without her.
“How may I help The Crazy?” I answered.
“Personalized straightjackets would be a good start. I’m tired of the residents stealing mine all the time. How hard is it to sew on a name patch anyways?” she answered.
I didn’t expect any other kind of answer. It felt good to laugh. “What’s up, chick?”
“Tell me you know I had a shitty day, so you went out and had a shitty day because you’re loyal like that and now we can both go to Mercury’s and drink our shitty days away.” I could hear her letting out a deep breath.
“What a coincidence. I was certain that you knew I was having a shitty day, so like the loyal friend you are, you went out and had a shitty day also, and you were going to offer to get an Uber so we could get stupid drunk at Mercury’s.”
In Enemy Territory Page 3