Kill the Next One

by Federico Axat

  Behind the castle there was, in fact, a path leading into the woods.

  “Here it is,” Ted announced gravely. His eyes had hardened and he seemed to be issuing this narrow footpath a challenge.

  “Let’s go, then,” said Laura. There was anxiety in her voice.

  62

  1994

  To get to the party, they had to walk almost a mile through an unfamiliar section of the sprawling campus. Luckily Ted had the whole map in his head; moreover, his sense of direction was infallible. He assured Justin that the winding path they were on was the most direct route to the frat, and he was correct. The blaring music confirmed that they were headed in the right direction, and before long they came to the wood fence surrounding the backyard of Delta Tau House.

  It was past ten and the party was just getting started. The large Greek letters above the front door were conveniently illuminated. Two guys, bigger than Ted and Justin in every sense of the word, greeted them with snarls. Ted turned to one of them and gave their names. Just then a car pulled into the parking lot in front of the house. Three girls jumped out and walked into the house without a word to the bouncers; the girls merely nodded at them without interrupting their giggling conversation. Ted looked at his leather jacket and at Justin’s coat—Justin was in his long black trench coat, which was a bit too much for a spring night by anyone’s standard—and then at the girls’ tiny tops and skirts, and he felt out of place. The guy holding the list found their names and gave his okay to the other bouncer, who seemed unconvinced and asked for ID. Justin pulled his university ID from his wallet and unwillingly showed it to them.

  “Not you,” the other bouncer said without looking at him. “Your friend.”

  Another second and Ted would have turned around and left. Justin would have followed him, of course. Seeing how things turned out, it would have been the smartest decision of his life.

  But Ted took out his ID, and they went into the yard.

  Most of the partygoers were inside, though others were scattered in groups through the yard, drinking and shouting to be heard over the music. A droning, pulsating bass line invited them to stay away. Justin and Ted crossed the yard and forced themselves to take a peek inside. A fairly large crowd was jumping and shaking—to call it dancing would be too generous—while the rest milled about with big red plastic cups in their hands. A DJ stood on a small platform, working twin turntables. There were a couple of tables covered with strategically arranged drinks. Ted counted five coolers of ice and many cans of Keystone beer. It was hot inside, so they took off their coats and didn’t know exactly what to do next. There were hardly any other freshmen at the party—that was obvious.

  Ted recognized Dan Norris in the group standing around the drink tables. Norris, who at that moment was drinking tequila with his frat brothers, was the idiot who had invited him. Fortunately, he didn’t notice Ted, who suggested to Justin that they keep moving. They each grabbed a beer and went out a side door and onto a porch, where things were much quieter. A couple was kissing frantically in one corner; another couple was making out in a hammock. This side of the house was lit by a single low-wattage bulb.

  A cooler with more cans sat on a corner of the porch. They headed toward it and perched on the railing, where they could see inside the house through an open window. They each finished their first beer and grabbed another. Then another. Neither was used to drinking heavily, so three beers was plenty to get them dizzy.

  “We should have gotten something to eat first,” Ted observed.

  Justin agreed.

  “How are things going with Denise from creative writing?”

  Ted jumped down from the railing, but when he headed off to get another beer from the cooler, he lost his balance. He spread his arms to recover, moving like a surfer on his board. After the porch stopped swaying, he continued toward the cooler. He picked up two cans and tossed one to Justin, who of course missed it. The can bounced off his chest and fell to the floor. That made them laugh so hard that for more than a minute they couldn’t do anything but hold their stomachs.

  Ted picked up the fallen can and handed it to Justin. When Justin opened it, a yellow jet shot straight into his face, and for a second his attempts to catch it in his mouth were in vain. This unleashed another fit of laughter.

  “So?” Ted sat down again on the railing, paying special attention to not falling over backward.

  “Nothing’s going to happen with Denise, fortunately,” Justin said. “She’s taken.”

  “I thought you said she didn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “She does now. An arrogant prick who looks like he’ll be the next Michael Jordan. She told me so herself, so you can imagine why I say it’s lucky I didn’t get mixed up with her.”

  Justin’s face suddenly darkened. He was about to ask his friend about his own girlfriend, Georgia. That’s what good manners dictated he should do, wasn’t it? But Justin was afraid he wouldn’t be able to hide what he had found out about her a couple of weeks earlier. Now he was wondering if his silence wasn’t worse. Ted was intelligence personified, and he might realize something was wrong. It wasn’t as if they talked about their romantic lives all the time, but Justin’s lack of interest in Ted’s could look suspicious. He knew it.

  Justin hadn’t given up his nocturnal habits; he was familiar with the campus routine of lights going out in the dorm windows one at a time. As an invisible observer, he could see boyfriends climbing out through back windows and slipping away through the shadows, thinking they hadn’t been seen, as well as couples looking for a bit of privacy in the bushes, while others simply strolled hand in hand. It wasn’t that Justin was particularly nosy about other people’s business. These rituals were part of the night, like the hooting of owls or the prowling of raccoons.

  It was on one of these nights, back behind the library, that he saw Georgia McKenzie with another guy. She stood waiting for him by a corner of the building, where it was so dark that at first Justin didn’t see her. The guy showed up a few minutes later, walking briskly. He was wearing a varsity hoodie and baseball cap, making him almost impossible to identify. Justin didn’t even realize that the girl was Georgia that first time. The same scene repeated a few days later, except that this time it was the girl who showed up later. They did the usual: indulge in a long kiss, talk for a short time, and go their separate ways. Neither of these encounters went on for more than ten minutes, and they showed no signs of the frenzied lovemaking typical of students.

  The third time he saw them, Justin had pretty much decided that he would follow the guy afterward to find out who he was. Then he’d tell Ted. He didn’t worry much about it; after all, his friend didn’t seem that interested in the girl. And from what Justin had seen behind the library, the feeling was mutual with Georgia, who seemed to have a real connection with the mystery fellow. So it was that Justin trailed him at a distance, watching him as he rounded the library and walked along a footpath that led to the parking lot by the central administration building. As he walked, the young man did something odd: he took off his hoodie, folded it up, and put it away in his shoulder bag. Then he took off his cap, and a thinner head of hair than the campus norm gave Justin his first hunch. This hunch was confirmed when the man went to the professors’ parking area, where the sodium lights revealed him to be quite a bit older than Georgia, though his athletic body might have fooled a casual observer. He got into a car and drove away.

  Justin recognized him immediately. It was Thomas Tyler, his creative writing professor.

  Four weeks had passed since that regrettable first discovery. Justin had seen them several more times, and he was sure there was something real between them. Otherwise, why take such a risk? All that time he had been hoping that Ted would tell him he had broken up with Georgia, and then Justin would silently nod and that would be that. Why hadn’t he done so yet? Justin knew he couldn’t keep avoiding the issue. Why hide something like this? Why didn’t Georgia tell Ted herself?
/>   Now Ted was watching him with a comically drunken perceptiveness, which was luckily cut short by a woman’s voice calling out to them from the window. Turning around, they saw two girls lifting their plastic cups and waving at them, as if they knew them. Ted and Justin exchanged a confused glance—neither of them knew these girls—and a second later they saw the pair run out the door and straight toward them. One was dragging the other along. A short girl, the leader moved at just the right speed to make her ample bosom swing from side to side. She was pretty, wore her hair short, and smiled constantly. The red plastic cup looked enormous in her hand.

  “Hey, guys!”

  Her friend was also pretty and apparently not as uninhibited as the first girl, because she blushed like a tomato when her friend greeted these strangers. She was a head taller, very thin, and wore a discreetly low-cut top.

  “I’m Tessa. And this is Maria. My cousin.”

  Ted and Justin introduced themselves and shook hands with the girls.

  Tessa went up to Justin, still sitting on the railing, and stood in front of him, her left leg out to the side.

  “Are you a first-year student?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Great! So’s Maria.”

  Maria nodded to confirm this information. They still hadn’t heard her voice.

  “So, Justin,” Tessa said as if they were old friends, “I was telling my cousin you’re kind of hot. Right, Maria?” Tessa shifted her weight to her left and now stood between Justin’s legs, subtly rubbing her boobs against his crotch.

  Maria, for her part, was keeping a prudent distance from Ted.

  “Shit,” Tessa observed, seeing that her cup was empty. She crushed it and tossed it in the bushes. Turning away, in two hops she was at the cooler. She came back with a pair of cans and handed one to Justin.

  Your fifth…

  “Tessa, are you sure…” Maria began.

  “Of course! Don’t worry about it. Your cousin knows what she’s doing.”

  They continued drinking for quite a while, talking about college, their hometowns, and not a word about any girlfriends or boyfriends. Every now and then Tessa would hop over to the cooler and come back with more beers, handing them around without asking. She must have done this a couple hundred times. At some point she pulled Justin, still perched on the railing, by the arm, and he barely had time to stretch his legs and land on his feet. The porch swayed dangerously for several seconds, like a ship on the high seas. Justin took a swig from his can as a kind of reflex action. He was barely aware of the liquid sliding down his throat, and then immediately took another swig, this time longer than the one before. Tessa was dragging him toward the stairs down to the yard. How many steps were there? Three? Four? Eighty? Justin tried to put his foot on the second step, but the little fucker ducked down a couple of inches and he nearly fell. Tessa held him up by the arm. One of her breasts squeezed against his ribs. Even in his drunken daze, he was fully conscious of the delicious sensation.

  They headed off across the yard, far from the lamplight.

  “Where’re you taking me?” he asked. He felt that he was literally being taken away against his will, though that was impossible. This girl couldn’t be taller than five foot two.

  Tessa laughed and didn’t let go of him.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna rape you,” she said, giggling.

  They went maybe twenty yards from the house, far enough that the music was muffled by the trees. All that came through was the raucous, pulsing beat. They slipped behind some bushes and Tessa handed Justin her beer can. He stood there, confused, with both of their beers in his hands. They were standing at what looked like the foot of a small hill. Tessa squatted and lifted her skirt above her hips. Acting natural as could be, she pulled down her panties, spread her legs ninety degrees, and let loose a thick yellow stream in a perfect arc.

  “The line for the bathroom goes all the way down the stairs. It’s incredible,” Tessa said. She sighed as the stream of liquid lost pressure.

  Justin also felt an urgent need to pee, but at that moment a powerful erection radically rearranged his little buddy’s priorities. There was something about Tessa’s uninhibited attitude that sent his hormones skyrocketing. When at last she had almost emptied her bladder, Tessa shook her pelvis with a rhythm that drove Justin wild.

  Tessa smoothed her skirt and lay back on a blanket of pine needles. Her pee flowed downhill in a silvery rivulet. Again she emitted that sigh of relaxation, like a long, low moan, and Justin couldn’t resist. He sat beside her and handed her a beer, knowing perfectly well what would happen next.

  “Can I tell you something sick?” he said.

  “Mmmmm…sick.” She immediately sounded interested. “Let’s hear it.”

  “That was very sexy.”

  Tessa laughed. Now that they were sitting side by side, their faces were closer than ever.

  “That isn’t sick, silly. Sick would be if we did it on top of that,” she said, pointing at the steaming liquid that was disappearing into the earth.

  Justin was left speechless. Lila had never talked to him like this. Lila would have been horrified by the very thought of peeing in front of him.

  “You’re really handsome,” Tessa said, caressing his face. She had drunk more than the rest of them put together, yet she seemed to be in complete control.

  Justin sensed a hint of acidity on her fingers that excited him even more. It was the pine needles, the discomfort of the setting; there was something primitive and potentially violent about all this that had put him in a state he’d never known.

  “You’re beautiful,” Justin said. And, no longer able to restrain himself, he grabbed one of those huge breasts. He had to spread his hand wide, all the way, and even so, he couldn’t encompass it all. His mind was about to explode.

  63

  1994

  Ted had a nice conversation with Maria, who, it turned out, was in one of his classes and had even heard a few things about him. She knew about his academic abilities and was surprised to find him at the party, which she had gone to only because her cousin had insisted. Ted replied almost robotically. He promised himself that the beer he was holding would be his last, and he took short sips while Maria told him how hard she had worked at school, only to get Bs, and so on about other things that Ted would be hard-pressed to recall a few hours later in spite of his prodigious memory. They were interrupted a couple of times by Tessa, who would come running back from the bushes in search of more beer and disappear again in a flutter of giggles and bouncing breasts.

  The party was in full swing around one in the morning. Ted felt ready to start walking back to the Box and the calm of night, far from this jarring racket, but he didn’t want to abandon Justin.

  “My cousin’s a little forward,” Maria said, almost in apology.

  “Justin can take care of himself.”

  “Oh, sure, but that’s not what I meant.” Maria blushed. Poor kid. Her face was an open book.

  The porch was a lot more crowded now than at first. Suddenly the bodies parted and two muscular students strode through like a couple of gunslingers. One of them was Dan Norris.

  “Hey, McKay!” he barked.

  He walked over to Ted, smiling broadly. He slapped him on the back and gave him a sort of quick hug, or rather a simultaneous pat on his chest and back.

  “Great you came!” said Norris. Turning to his buddy, he added, “Get this, Tim: this guy’s a wiz at poker.”

  Tim kept a neutral expression. He was thick-necked and had a buzz cut.

  “I came to pass the time,” Ted forced himself to say. He thought of thanking Dan for the invitation, but he kept his mouth shut. He had already figured out that these upperclassmen weren’t there to act friendly, and he hoped to get out of this with a modicum of dignity.

  Maria had turned white as a sheet. Dan and Tim were juniors. What were they doing here? Several faces had turned to watch. Something was about to happen…

 
; “Really, Tim,” Dan barked. “You shoulda seen it. Almost seemed like he was cheating!”

  “Oh, really?” Tim sounded interested.

  “I’ve never seen anybody win so many hands in a row. Dude won thirty bucks offa me!”

  Ted was holding himself together, trying to keep his cool. Maria looked as though she were about to cry.

  “What’s your trick, McKay?”

  “No trick,” Ted said, shrugging. “Practice, I guess.”

  Dan exploded with laughter. Tim nodded, and then nodded again.

  “Tell you what we’re gonna do, McKay,” Dan said. “Later we’ll head upstairs and play us a little poker. Whatcha say?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s kind of late.”

  “Late? C’mon, man! You owe me a chance to get my money back.”

  Dan gave him another frat hug with his powerful arms. The alcohol on his breath was unbearable, though the man-mountain didn’t seem very drunk, at least not from the way he talked. Ted, for his part, had regained total control of his senses as if by magic; his dizziness and his piercing headache were gone, and his usual mental acuity was back. The healing power of fear, he thought with a touch of amusement. Better play along with Dan, he reflected. If he was forced to play poker, he wouldn’t have any problem with letting himself lose a few hands. If need be, he could even give Dan back his stupid thirty bucks. It would be a good lesson for next time: don’t make it look so easy to fleece upperclassmen.

  “Sure, Dan.”

  “Excellent!” Dan gave him a thump on the shoulder that he made look gentle. “See ya soon, then.”

  Tim threw Ted a threatening glance as they left. Through the window Dan and Tim could be seen joining up with another group and heading over to a table for shots of vodka. The impromptu group formed a semicircle. They shouted in unison at every shot and then pounded their shot glasses on the wooden table. Dan downed three in less than a minute. Ted told himself he had nothing to worry about: Dan Norris would be under the table in no time if he kept this up. There would be no poker party that night.