by Various
“How’s it going, fellas?”
They all nodded.
“We’re good,” a second, shorter man with a round belly and a gray beard said. He held his beer up slightly. “Can we get you one?”
I didn’t really feel like drinking, but a pack of cigarettes that peeked out from the top of Bandana Man’s breast pocket was calling my name.
“No thanks. Can I just bum a smoke?”
He smiled and tossed me the pack.
“Lighter’s inside.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Under the red flip top, a crumpled, golden leaf covered eight circles of white and the bottom end of a black lighter. Its edges were scraped and jagged from all the times it was used as a bottle opener. With its sharp ridges poking into the palm of my hand, I flicked it on and puffed a cigarette to life with the very tip of its yellow flame. I dropped the lighter back into the box, tossed it back and took a much-needed drag.
“So what brings you to our neck of the woods?”
Perhaps I should’ve expected someone to ask me something along those lines, but I didn’t. Instead, I took my sweet time exhaling a cloud of smoke while I tore through my brain for any excuse other than the truth. As the last whispers of burning tobacco rolled over my tongue and into clear skies above us that glittered with stars, I decided to just lie.
“One of you guys invited me last week when you were passing through. Hell if I can remember who it was, though.”
Another guy in the group chimed in, “Good luck. After a while, assholes all start to look the same.”
I looked past the circle of chuckling bikers to the backyard. There was a long, cleared lawn that extended over the crest of the hill and continued beyond it. I knew it didn’t go on forever, because the top third of a line of trees was visible over the hilltop. Flanking the left and right sides of the house, the lonely woods hugged a chain-link perimeter where dozens of coolers were lined up. Countless people buzzed about around them, making conversation and having a good time.
“This is a nice piece of land.”
“Yes ma’am,” a tall, thin man with long, gray hair replied. “It’s been our spot for as long as I can remember.”
Even though I walked into the place feeling nervous beyond comprehension, the steady chirp of crickets and other bugs that filled the cool evening started to put me at ease. I sucked down another hot drag of smoke and let it seep out of my nostrils as a particularly crisp gust cut through the mass of people, blowing back vests and jackets along a visible path. Just as I felt the muscles in my chest start to grip a little looser, a familiar voice brought me right back to the tense state that I thought was behind me.
“There you are,” I heard David call through the din. He broke through the crowd and greeted me with a simple pat on the back of the shoulder. I stood there, hardly moving. “I was wondering when you were going to show up. You fellas don’t mind if I steal her, do you?”
“Do we ever?” a bald man asked with a chortle and sucked down the last of his beer.
David nodded and placed his hand on the small of my back. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be alone with him--I was almost feeling normal again--but I wasn’t about to turn him down, either.
“Let’s get out of here before these guys eat you alive.”
For all of their tattoos and rough appearances, it wasn’t the guys that I was worried about.
“Are you sure? Maybe we could just talk here.”
He raised an eyebrow, plucked the nearly-dead cigarette from my fingers and crushed it beneath his boot. “Come on. It’s a quieter down by the trees.”
People moved to the side as we cut a path through the party, making it relatively easy for us to slip away. On the other hand, it meant that pretty much everyone knew where to find us, too. Once we were out of sight of most people, he took my hand and pulled me through the blurred line where the yard ended and the forest picked back up again. In an instant, we were swallowed by the tall trees. The only light guiding us was what managed to spill down from the party that raged not too far away. Thankfully, the buzz of voices, music and laughing gave way to the sound of water. Not far back, a small creek babbled through the woods. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to help melt my tensions a little.
“David?”
He grabbed my hand and stopped walking a few feet shy of the water. There, a patch of the canopy overhead had been cleared by a fallen limb, allowing a deluge of pale moon light to flood a small patch of ground. The large branch, its leaves still mostly green, sat across the pattering water like a bridge.
David looked over his shoulder and pulled me forward so that we stood side-by-side.
“What’s up?”
I wanted to say something; to just let everything out right then and there. But when his arm snaked its way around my waist and he pulled me in for a kiss, I suddenly felt like I didn’t understand English anymore. There were emotions and urges and thoughts, but no words.
My eyes sank shut just as his tongue slipped past my lips and he forced his body against mine. The coarse hair on his face tickled my skin and continued to do so when he directed his lips south, inching them over my neck and collar bone. When he came back up for more, he cupped my face in both hands and kept our lips locked together. By the time that he finally let go, I felt like the breath in my lungs was gone. My chest heaved up and down and my head started to spin.
Together, we fell back against one of the forest’s ancient trees and David’s hands started to wander. Faster than I could protest, they pushed between my thighs and started to massage my pussy through my jean shorts. I moaned into his eager mouth and, without even thinking, opened my legs up for him. Despite what I went there to do, I realized, I was already addicted to his touch and desperately in need of a fix.
“David,” I whispered like it would make any difference. Instead, my weak voice was washed away by the creek beside us, just as the voices of his fellow bikers were before. My secret lover’s fingers hooked around the crotch of my shorts and yanked them to the side. After that, they moved past my panties.
David softly dragged the tips of two fingers alongside my slit.
“What?”
By then, I’d lost my resolve. I wasn’t able to respond. David, on the other hand, was more than ready. He pushed his fingers past my wet entrance and buried them deep. In no time, he placed his hand on the lowest part of my stomach and fingered me right where I stood. It was only a matter of time before I collapsed, but even that wasn’t enough to deter me. Like someone who had been starved for days, I greedily enjoyed every thrust that he drove in.
For some reason, I opened my eyes after a little while and looked down to the patch that had been carefully sewn onto his vest. Below it, a small rectangle of black with red writing read simply: Boss. Like a wave, my conversation with Alonso came back and crashed through my wants and desires.
“Is it true?” I asked hoarsely.
He paused with his fingers knuckle-deep and leaned in close.
“Is what true?”
“You’re married, aren’t you?”
David kissed me again in lieu of an answer but, in a way, the subtle change in his body language spoke volumes. I struggled beneath him and placed both hands on his chest. It took everything that I had to pry his lips away from mine, but there was nothing that I could do about his thick, probing fingers.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I whispered and tried to escape him but couldn’t.
“Anybody here could’ve told you that.”
“Why did you bring me here?” I said and dug my nails into his vest. “What were you thinking?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, his fingers did the talking. I tried to resist him, but he used his free hand to push my legs open again every time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to fuck him again; I wanted it more than I ever wanted anything, but my sober mind was apparently less easily persuaded. I knew that it was wrong. I kn
ew that someone could come over the hill at any second and see us there, pinned against a tree with David’s fingers so deep that his knuckles rested against my quivering flesh. Like there was a battle that raged between my mind and my body, I would rise up to escape him, only to fall back down as the promise of his knowing touch started to fade.
“If I’m so crazy for inviting you,” he said and kissed the side of my neck, “why did you come?”
“I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“That’s the problem with expectations. Sometimes it’s just better to roll with it.”
He curled his fingers inside of me and coaxed forward, massaging the small, ridged spot that made me go wild. I fell back against the tree and moaned with my lips pressed shut. I knew I couldn’t scream for him like I wanted to, just like how I knew that I couldn’t go through with it, no matter how much I longed to feel his thick manhood inside of me one more time.
“I can’t.”
He paused and looked me in the eye. I tried to search his expression for some kind of hint at his intentions but found none. It was like trying to read a stone wall.
“Are you saying no?” The regret sank in moments after I nodded my head. David slipped his fingers out and leaned in to give me a soft, slow kiss before he said, “Go home. I won’t bother you again.”
“It’s just that-”
“It’s fine,” he abruptly cut me off. The way that he still seemed so cool and collected while I felt like I might collapse into a heap blew me away, though there were a few times when I thought that I heard his voice waver as he continued, “You can clean up in the bathroom. Go through the back. Second door on the left.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I just walked away. I couldn’t even look back as I stumbled toward the cozy, white-washed house that sat atop the entire property. My feet dragged through the wild grass and fallen leaves, making every step harder than the one before. I wanted so desperately to go back and let him take me. It took about all I had to force myself into the home’s understandably small guest bathroom.
When I slapped my hand around the dark corner, it landed on a switch and popped on two sconces above a tarnished mirror. The room didn’t have any windows, so the duo of old light bulbs flooded the area with a stiff shade of yellow that reminded me of the streetlights by my house. Then I went deeper and recalled the way that their light barged through the open front door while David and I made love, threatening to expose our dirty little secret to the world.
I dipped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind me. After twisting the lock into place, I sank back against it and shook my head.
“What am I doing here?”
In a way, I guess that I needed to see it for myself; to see if everything Alonso told me was true. Now, because of my stubborn will, I was neck deep in a world that I knew nothing about. None of the people that buzzed in the backyard were my friends. They knew of me, sure, but what would they do if Brooke told them to pounce? Though her clout wasn’t the same as David’s, I wasn’t about to test my luck.
I pushed away from the door and started the sink. Cool water poured through the faucet, beckoning me to the relief of its sharp bite against my burning cheeks. With both of my hands pressed together, I leaned down and splashed pools of it onto my skin. Long after I was sure the last traces of nervous sweat and dust were gone, I kept going. With my eyes pressed shut, the darkness and the sound of rushing water drowned out the pangs of regret that I tried to fight back. I didn’t want to regret David, just like how I didn’t want to look back on what we did and feel guilt. Even more than that, I wished that I could just grow and pair and run back down that hill for him, no matter what the people at the party would think.
I just wasn’t that kind of girl.
Behind me, a burst of fresh air against my back alerted me to the door opening before the sound of its rusted hinges did the same. I thought for sure that I’d locked it and I was about to say as much when something hit my senses that stopped me dead in my tracks. I knew that smell.
Oh shit.
Like the world was plunged into slow-motion, my hand inched out achingly slow and twisted the faucet’s knob shut. A fat drop of water let go of my eyebrow and rolled slowly over the tip of my nose. From there, it hung, suspended in air, before it dripped onto my lips and eventually rolled over my chin and down my neck. With my eyes still shut, every inch of skin registered the water as it moved across my face.
Just like my sense of touch, my sense of smell was also heightened. I lowered my hands onto the lip of the sink for stability as the familiar scent of perfume wafted up from behind me. Unlike when I smelled it on David, however, it was like a cloud that wrapped around me as I stood there, unable to move or even look up. I didn’t need eyes to tell me what was lurking just a foot behind. I knew exactly who it was.
Chapter 5
The door groaned as it closed behind Brooke Rivera. With my hands so tightly gripped onto the sink that my knuckles were as white as paper, I slowly opened my eyes. Even through cloudy drops of water that fell from my lashes and blurred my vision, it wasn’t hard to see why she was married to a man as sexy as David.
Brooke wasn’t much taller than me, but that’s where the similarities ended. Where I was willowy, she looked toned and muscular. Even as her arms rested at her sides, I could see the smooth contours of her biceps. They weren’t huge, but it was obvious that she didn’t slack off on arm days. Further up from there, a black tube-top allowed me to see the red stars that were inked into the front of both her shoulders, along with another tattoo that was partially hidden behind her left ear and a waterfall of blonde, straight locks.
The starkest difference between her and me was probably our age. She wasn’t old by a long shot, but I could tell that she was about ten years my senior from how sun-worn the skin on her shoulders and large, pillowy chest was. There were probably thousands of freckles that speckled her flesh with varying degrees of darkness before they were abruptly cut off by her skimpy shirt. Where the narrow garment ended, a sliver of her tight stomach was showing. The curved metal bar that went through her navel caught the soft light and glittered, drawing my eyes even further south.
Brooke cleared her throat. I started to panic, but bit the inside of my lip and forced my eyes up to meet hers. Right away, the woman’s stare pierced through me like an emerald knife. She knew. She had to. No words passed between us by that point, but already I felt like I understood all that I needed to about her. Despite her huge breasts, tight clothes and bleached-blonde hair, I was certain that the fire I saw in her gaze was a good indicator of the spirit that waited just below the surface. She was strong. She was beautiful. But she was also, I assumed, pretty fucking angry.
When her full, pink lips started to move, I thought my heart might give out for good.
“You already know who I am.” I nodded and took a deep breath, but I still couldn’t make myself speak. Brooke continued, “Because I know who you are. Roxy, right?”
“Yes,” I finally answered.
“So you do talk.” Maybe it wasn’t the best timing, but I fell silent again. I didn’t know how to answer her. After a second, she picked the conversation back up. “David is my husband, you know. We’ve been married for nine years for a reason: he tells me everything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
I licked my lips and tried to stand up straighter.
“Yes. I didn’t know, but I do now. It won’t happen again.”
“Do you want it to?”
The words coming from her mouth didn’t seem to register right away. What did she mean by that? Was it like a trick question? What the hell was I supposed to say?
“No,” I lied.
“That’s too bad.”
“Excuse me?”
She stepped toward me once and I stayed put. The second time, though, I flinched a little. When she reached out and started to toy with the bottom of my shirt, my breath stopped
short in my throat.
“W-what are you doing?”
She lifted my shirt a little and pushed my arms away with her elbows. The whole time, her green eyes watched intently. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to actually hit on me or if she was just trying to throw me off before she knocked me out, but Brooke was up to something.
“Well, I was going to make you an offer.”
“What,” I stammered, “what kind of offer?”
She let my shirt fall back down, but she wasn’t through with me yet. Both of her hot, thin hands came to a stop on my hips.
“David and I already talked about you. I was a little mad at first, but now I see it.”
I watched her hands move around under my shirt as she traced small circles onto my sides with the tips of her fingers.
“See what?”
“The same thing that he did.”
If the woman was going to wreck my shit, I just wanted to know. I was tired of all the games and wanted answers, so I finally spun around on my heels and met her face-to-face. Somehow, she was even more beautiful than her reflection let on. There was something about her that made her eyes shine like stars; like she was the kind of soul you don’t come across very often. Still, it was a little early for me to start making assumptions, so I tried my best to remain reserved.
“And what’s that?”
Brooke pulled the platinum hair off her shoulders and threw it behind her back. Only then could I see the small spot of black that was tucked behind her ear. In small, flowing cursive, it read simply: DR. David’s initials. She considered my question for a little longer. Clearly, there was something going on inside her head and I was dying to know what it was. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she replied, “A whole lot of something.”
“I hope it’s something good,” I said and feigned a chuckle.
With one last step forward, the tips of our noses hovered almost close enough for them to touch. More than ever before, the sweet scent that radiated off of her enveloped me. Carried right along with it were the even sweeter--if not sometimes foggy--memories of my night with her husband. Though the guilt was still there in a sense, a large part of me didn’t know how I should’ve felt.