The Debt

by Tyler King

  I didn’t understand until many years later, but it was Hadley who freed me from the foster system and the daily hell I’d endured. For a week straight after going home with Tom, Hadley pitched fits, had nightmares, and ran away. When Tom exhausted his parental knowledge on how to deal with the situation, he took Hadley to see a psychiatrist named Dr. Simon MacKay. After a few sessions, Simon learned the truth. That this little girl had left behind her only friend, a boy in pain who needed help. So that was it. Simon and Carmen put in a call to start my adoption proceedings and put my tormentor in prison.

  Hadley had needed me once. Instead of being her savior and repaying that outstanding debt, I failed her. It only sickened me further that, despite all of this, Hadley still showed me compassion. She still lived in my house because she felt safer with me sleeping next door than she did in her own home.

  If that didn’t just twist the knife.

  * * *

  After my last class of the day, I went to meet Hadley. Through the narrow window in the lecture hall’s door, I saw her sitting alone in the back of the room. Her head was bent over her sketchpad, her long cascade of dark hair concealing her profile.

  I checked my phone and noticed I’d missed a text message from Scott.

  I want my money from the last gig.

  Fat chance. He’d pissed all over any goodwill I had for him. Besides, I’d already split his share with Corey and Trey. So I sent what I thought was an appropriate reply.

  Tough shit.

  A loud pop caught my attention. Leaning against the opposite wall, a chick stood popping a sheet of bubble wrap hanging out of her purse. She looked like half a Kardashian escaped from a Judas Priest concert: layers of black fashionably distressed clothing and metal studs. Her long black hair hung over her shoulder, one side of her head shaved down to stubble.

  She stared at me, though I couldn’t place her. Not exactly the kind of girl I would forget.

  “You look deep in thought,” she said, pinching tiny plastic bubbles between her fingers.

  “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Asha.”

  “And?”

  “And I need a ride to your place.”

  “That’s forward. Don’t even offer to buy me dinner first.”

  “Sorry, you’re not my type.” Her red lips curved into a sarcastic smile. “You’re pretty and all, but I don’t do the whole tattoos and piercings thing.”

  “You sure?” I would have pegged her for exactly that type. She was attractive, and maybe in another life...

  Asha leaned her weight on one foot and studied my arms. “I find it all too distracting. You”—she came closer and twirled her finger in my face—“are too high maintenance. I don’t have that kind of time on my hands.”

  “I’m confused.”

  She was fucking with me. Had to be.

  “I’m Asha. You’re giving me a ride.”

  “That’s the part I’m having trouble with.”

  The door to Hadley’s class swung open, people pouring into the hall. Asha pushed her way into the stampede.

  “Late much?” She snagged Hadley by the wrist to tug her over. “I met Josh already. We’re old friends now. Ready to go?”

  Hadley dug her sunglasses out of her messenger bag and slid them on top of her head. “You don’t mind, Josh?”

  “No. But, uh, how is she getting home?”

  Making another trip into the city and back today was out of the question.

  “I’ll catch a ride with Trey.” Asha put her arm around Hadley and turned on her heel to head down the hallway. “You coming or what?”

  Well, damn. That was something.

  Chapter 8

  “Fuck it!” Corey shouted as he crashed into the greenroom. He was always half deaf after our shows. “We don’t need a fourth guy. We killed it tonight.”

  We’d auditioned two replacements for Scott but found no one we could all agree on.

  “There’s still that guy from my econ class.” Trey took a swig of water and wiped a towel over his face. “And, uh, What’s-his-face.”

  “I want to keep looking.” I collapsed on the scratchy brown couch and stretched my arms along the back. “It’s only been a couple weeks.”

  “I’m getting used to splitting the cash three ways,” Corey said. “It’s a nice bump in my income.”

  Asha, looking like the unholy love child of Skrillex and an Iron Maiden album cover, pranced her happy ass inside and straight to Trey’s lap. “You guys just missed an entertaining after-show.”

  “Thanks for knocking,” I said.

  “Nasty.” She recoiled when Trey wrapped his sweaty arms around her waist. “You’re all gross.”

  Those two as a couple was difficult to get my head around. He was a buttoned-up take-home-to-daddy type. Asha was...something else.

  Corey sank onto the couch beside me. “What happened?”

  “One of your groupies got tossed out,” Asha announced, wiping her lipstick from Trey’s cheek. “Some blond chick Hadley was talking to earlier. She was arguing with some guy and threw a drink at him. Bouncer tried to break it up and the guy slugged him. They both got dragged to the door.”

  “What does that have to do with us?” I asked.

  “She kept shouting that they couldn’t kick her out because she was with the band. I think her name was Stacey?”

  “Stephanie?” Trey shot me an accusing look.

  “Yep, that’s it.”

  Wonderful. Somehow this would become my fault. Like my dick was responsible for the future indiscretions of everyone it came into contact with.

  “On that note...” Corey stood up and pulled a fresh shirt out of his bag. “I’m buying the first round.”

  “Oh, Corey, there’s someone I want you to meet.” Asha hopped up, briefly scowling at Corey’s post-show stench. “She’s just your type. But I’m warning you now—she hates your music. So, maybe skip over that part of the conversation. And put on some deodorant.”

  “Does she have a nice rack?”

  Asha smacked his arm, tilting her head back to glare at him. “You’re a pig. I have a class with her, so don’t embarrass me.”

  “You’re impossible to embarrass,” I said.

  “True. But still. At least don’t hump her leg. And try to make eye contact, okay?”

  “Do I do that?” Corey looked between me and Trey. “I’ve never humped a girl’s leg in a bar, right? I’ve clubbed a few over the head and dragged them back to my hut, but I’m not a canine.”

  “I regret this already,” Asha groaned as she tugged him out. “I don’t know why I bother.”

  * * *

  By the time I got our pay from Nate, Hadley was at the bar in the middle of Andre and his friends. Since I had no interest in playing the fifth wheel to Trey and Asha trying to engineer a love connection between Corey and the girl of the week, I hung out at the end of the bar with a glass of Jameson. I was maybe a half hour into tracing patterns in the wood grain of the sticky bar top, half my attention on Hadley laughing among the din of conversation, when Kate slid in beside me.

  “You look like shit,” she said, waving down the bartender. “Want another?”

  I glanced down at my untouched drink, then back to the empty spot where Hadley no longer stood. Fuck it. I swallowed the mouthful of whiskey and nodded at Troy to pour me a second with Kate’s gin and tonic.

  “You sounded good tonight.” Kate turned her back to the bar, pulling the little black straw toward her lips to sip her drink and make sure I watched her do it.

  “You don’t care.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Kate wasn’t here for the music. Blond hair tied up in a messy bun. Oversized cropped T-shirt hanging just right over her tits. I took a moment to appreciate how the light created a fuzzy outline along the legs of her tight leather pants. Fifteen minutes later, I appreciated the way the material stuck to her pale ass as I peeled the leather to her thighs and bent her over the sink in the greenroom
.

  Staring at myself in the mirror, my mind was on anything but sex. In my head, I composed a melody that had plagued me recently.

  With both hands gripping the sink, Kate was demanding. Harder. Faster. More. I composed the bridge, hearing the chords clearly as she reached her orgasm.

  I tried to get there. Grabbing her hips, I slammed into her. Harder. Faster. More. But I couldn’t come. My body wanted it. Every muscle begged for release. When she braced her hand against my leg to tell me to slow down, I gave up and faked it before I slipped out of her and quickly tossed the condom.

  I was fucking pathetic.

  * * *

  That night, like most nights, I dreamt of Hadley.

  * * *

  I couldn’t get enough of her lips. There was an entire naked landscape of Punky beneath me, but all I wanted to do was feel her mouth on mine. She tasted like sugar and salt, soda and popcorn. Lying in her bed, I was wrapped in the scent of her hair, her skin. It soaked into every part of me.

  And she laughed at me.

  “What?” I looked down into her eyes, Hadley’s face barely visible in the darkness.

  “I can’t help it. You’re funny.”

  “Why? Am I not—”

  “No.” She wove her fingers through my hair, tugging my face closer to hers. “You’re a good kisser. Are you ready?”

  “Are you?”

  She nodded with a cute, nervous smile and bit her lip. My dick twitched every time she did that, and this time Hadley noticed, giggling at me.

  “You have to stop doing that. You’re killing my ego.”

  “Sorry,” she said, sucking her lips together to hold back a laugh.

  Balancing my weight on one forearm beside her pillow, I reached between us and held my dick in my right hand, adjusting my position to find her entrance. Her breath caught when I slid the head of my cock through her slit. I froze there, thrilled and terrified about what came next.

  “Go ahead,” she said, spreading her legs and placing her hands around my back to urge me forward.

  Slowly, I pushed inside her, deliberate and excruciating. I was scared to hurt her and afraid I might buckle under the pressure to restrain myself. She cringed, tensing. My forehead dropped to hers.

  “I’m okay. Keep going. Gently.”

  Inch by inch.

  “Still okay?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Inch by inch.

  “I’m—”

  Hadley looked into my eyes. It was the sweetest, most vulnerable expression I’d ever seen, and it broke my fucking heart. It seemed barbaric that I had to cause her pain to love her.

  “I’m ready.” Her fingers flexed against my back. “Do it.”

  I pushed past her barrier and stilled inside her. She clenched around me, squeezing my cock as she adjusted to the pain. Neither of us could take a breath. My arms shook to hold my body in place.

  Then Punky let out a long exhale and smiled, bright and mischievous. “That part sucked.”

  All the tension drained from my muscles as I kissed her forehead. “Sorry?”

  “Yeah. Gah, you should be. That thing’s dangerous.”

  “You want to keep going, or should I pack up my toys and go home?”

  “Well, we’re already here, so...”

  The bliss was short-lived. It was always at that moment that my conscious mind tried to take control of the dream. I knew where this was going, but no matter how hard I fought for a different outcome, the result was the same.

  My hips jerked. Sweat slid down my spine. Moving inside her, every muscle clenched for release.

  “Hadley,” I panted, “I’m gonna come.”

  My fingers went numb and a cold shiver crept up my legs. I came on her stomach because what the fuck, I didn’t know what I was doing and we didn’t have a condom. The relief of climax turned to a sick, black feeling that squeezed my stomach. My chest caved in. No air could reach my lungs. Everywhere my naked skin was exposed felt like acid bubbling on the flesh.

  I saw him kneeling over me. Smelled the musty carpet of the foster home. The moment he opened his eyes and looked down at what he’d done, as if it only then occurred to him that he was a monster.

  * * *

  I woke from the nightmare in a puddle of sweat, the bedsheets tangled around my feet. There wasn’t enough air in the room. I gasped, choking on my own spit, seizing with panic. My right hand firmly gripped my semi-erect cock. On my abdomen, a stream of semen.

  Falling out of bed, I scrambled in the dark to my bathroom. With the door shut behind me, I crawled in total darkness to the toilet and poured out my stomach, heaving with violent convulsions. Everything hurt. Even the air from the vent above me was too much stimulation against my flesh. The disgusted, unnerving feeling persisted in agitating every inch of me.

  When there was nothing left to throw up, I stumbled into the bathtub and let the spray from the showerhead drown me until the shaking stopped.

  During a panic attack, I always had an absolute certainty that I was going to die. I mean, in that moment, with my lungs caving in like two wrinkled, expended balloons, the only thing real was his rough hands on my bare skin and the thought that I was going to die on my bathroom floor with my dick in my hand and semen between my fingers.

  Every single time.

  Nothing helped. There was no cure that packed the memories of that man away and locked the box. I just kept hoping that if I tried, maybe one day I’d fight my way past it. That surely there had to arrive a day when I could have sex with a woman and come without faking it or shriveling up in a ball. The alternative was too devastating to consider.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, I woke to a loud thwack as something hard smacked me on the forehead. Sunlight bled through my clenched eyelids.

  “Get up, jerkoff.”

  I knew that voice. I loathed that voice. Another thwack, this one to the bridge of my nose. I groaned, swatting at the air to no avail. Evil hag.

  “Get.” Thwack. “Up.” Thwack.

  “Fucking hell, Asha. Lay off me. And get the fuck out of my room.” I pulled a pillow over my face. I was naked under the sheets. Unless she wanted a show, she needed to leave.

  “No.”

  Goddammit! That little wench smacked my nuts through the blanket with what now definitely felt like a rolled magazine.

  “Shit,” I hissed, and clutched my junk as I rolled over. “What is wrong with you?”

  “We need to talk. Now.” The bed dipped as she sat on the edge.

  “What time is it? Why are you here?”

  “Morning, asshat. Hadley and I are going out. Honestly, Josh, I thought she was exaggerating.”

  That got my attention. I tossed the pillow aside and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. There was Asha, glaring daggers. I put the pillow over my lap.

  “Hadley? What did she say?”

  “Oh, now you’re interested? This needs to stop.” She waved the rolled magazine over me. “First, it’s gross. Second, it’s gross! Third, I can’t believe you’d do that to her.”

  “Hey. You’re way out of your depth here. This is my house and my room. Feel free to fuck off. I don’t need your approval.”

  “You two have a twisted relationship. I see you looking at her like a sad puppy half the time. The other half you’re just blatantly staring at her ass like you’re going to drop to your knees and take a bite out of it. And here’s the real kicker: She’s looking at you, too, asshole. While you’re up there singing, Hadley is eye-fucking you like she might burst a blood vessel.” She stopped, staring at me as if I’d missed my cue. “Shall I go on, or are you getting a clear picture?”

  “You’re full of shit.”

  “No, Josh. I’m just the only person who cares enough to tell you the truth but not enough to worry about pissing you off. So, suck on that.” She smacked me on the nose again to emphasize her point and then sauntered toward the door.

  “Why do you care?”

  “Maybe I
’m a sucker for a lost cause. Don’t make a fool of me, Josh. I can be an ally. If you can get your shit together.”

  “I don’t want your advice.”

  “No, you don’t.” Asha took a hard look at me. I got the impression she found me lacking on a fundamental level. That shit pissed me off. “But you should take it. Step one: try keeping it in your pants. You’re this close”—she held her fingers an inch apart—“to losing her.” With that, Asha walked out of my room and slammed the door behind her.

  What the fuck just happened?

  * * *

  There was no trace of breakfast waiting for me downstairs. Not even a discarded meal in the trash can or a note saying, “Fend for yourself, dickhead.” Nothing. Just a too-big and empty house. I didn’t much care for that feeling. Even though I’d heard the girls leave after I’d gotten out of the shower, I still stopped at the bottom of the stairs and glanced at the living room—not expecting Hadley to be there with her fingers up, but still sort of hoping she would be.

  Fine. Whatever. This was better. Hadley was out having fun with a girlfriend, doing girly shit, and I could be lazy on a Sunday morning in peace. Perfect.

  Except that the house was too big and too quiet. And Punky hated girly shit. And I hadn’t bothered to buy cereal the last time we’d gone shopping.

  On an empty stomach, I went to the garage. I picked up my acoustic guitar and attempted to play the bits and pieces of the song that had been swirling around in my head, but it was complete garbage, nothing like the melody that had so easily composed itself last night.

  Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, partially tattooed to wind around my right forearm, stared back at me as I strummed.

  I used to wake up at the crack of dawn like every morning was Christmas. I’d run down the stairs, push open the heavy soundproof door to the music room, and spend hours fiddling with Carmen’s piano. At first it was just noise. One morning, my mother came in and sat quietly amused as I played total nonsense. But it wasn’t nonsense to her. Something in the notes struck her. We sat at the piano all morning and well into the afternoon as she attempted to teach me a simple series of notes.