What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 3)

by Lauren Hawkeye

  “No. Just a poor, sex-starved loser. I couldn’t give a fuck less what color you are.”

  “Ha, you don’t know me very well, do you?” Brandis snapped, tossing Jack a basketball then climbing behind the wheel of his Shelby Charger. “Don’t get your loser germs on my leather seats.”

  Jack grinned, flipped his friend off, then licked his palm and wiped it, ostentatiously, across the steering wheel. “There. Some of my ‘hitting it with regularity’ mojo for ya.”

  Brandis snorted. “You’re such a liar.”

  “Oh no, I’m not,” Jack said mildly, staring out the window and trying to come to terms with how lonely he felt at that moment.

  They screeched out onto the quiet street, stereo blaring, and parked at the high school where a couple of outdoor courts were already busy. Brandis kept his hands on the wheel a minute, staring out the windshield. Jack barely noticed, so sunk in his own stew of self-pity.

  “Where have you been?” he said quietly.

  Jack blinked then looked at his friend. “What do you…?”

  Brandis held up a hand. “Gordon, it’s not like I need you around me or anything but shit, dude, you are like…gone somewhere. You’ve missed the team workouts more than once. You never go out on the weekends. I mean…what is it?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” Jack said, suddenly needing to spill it, to tell somebody. Why not his best friend since elementary school? He rolled the basketball around in his hands, its familiar leather contours comforting.

  “Try me.”

  “I’ve been, uh, sort of hanging out, I mean, staying over…um…well.” He sighed and rubbed his neck. “I’ve been banging my father’s secretary nearly constantly for about three months. She’s um…been teaching me stuff and…ah….” He stopped, glanced at his friend who was staring at him, open-mouthed. “What?” Jack frowned, suddenly angry. “This is too much for you?”

  “Je-sus H. Christ. You lucky bastard!” Brandis smacked his shoulder. “Damn. I thought you were in a cult or got some bad acid or…I don’t know. Fuck!” He pounded the steering wheel. “Finally, no longer the Big V!”

  “Shut up,” Jack muttered, the day darkening around him again. He wanted Mindy, needed her. Did not want to be here, doing this. That made him furious with himself. He jumped out of the car and headed for the court. Movement, that would help and mindless hours of playing his favorite game.

  Jack spent the rest of the day focused on not missing Mindy. Doing everything in his power to regain his equilibrium, to not be the sniveling, douchebag of a kid he felt like—the one who’d give anything to be in her bed, between her legs, kissing her, touching her.

  He played basketball for three hours, drenching his shirt and hair and getting wobbly from lack of food. But it was good. And by the time Brandis dropped him at home he felt a little less like a needy loser. He showered, took Mo out for burgers and ice cream and promised he’d play board games with her all night if she wanted.

  She was ecstatic, back to her non-stop talkative self. By the time she’d fallen asleep draped over his lap while a video of “The Wizard of Oz” played in the family room, Jack had a small sensation of peace nestled in his chest. He allowed himself to drift, the sound of the movie relaxing and hypnotizing.

  His father’s angry cursing forced him awake and to stare around in panic as he got his bearings. Mo was gone. She must have put herself to bed. He lay sprawled on the couch, half on, half off.

  “You,” his father said, slurring, wobbling around and holding a beer bottle. His laugh was harsh, and Jack steeled himself for the usual round of ignoring the man’s insults and trying not to punch his idiot lights out.

  He rubbed his eyes and got to his feet. The time with Mindy had numbed him to John Gordon’s regular ranting, to his various bullshit tirades laced with long bouts of silence. A small sliver of guilt sliced through him when he realized that his little sister had been left to take the brunt of their father’s crap for the past weeks.

  Well that was over now. He was back in control. He’d see Mindy, sure, mess around with her no doubt. But it would not comprise the be-all, end-all of his existence anymore.

  He tried to shuffle past the man who stood, swaying slightly, in his way. His father stopped him with a firm hand against Jack’s chest. “You are an idiot.” The last word spat, literally, as a spray of saliva hit Jack’s face, making him close his eyes.

  “Whatever, Dad. I’m going to bed.” He pushed the hand off his chest.

  The man laughed again, harsh, loud, making Jack’s scalp prickle with dread. “No, really. Jack, son, are you that stupid? That naïve? You knocked her up, you goddamned walking, talking horn dog.”

  Jack stared, trying to compute what was being said, but unable or unwilling to as he watched his father drop into his usual chair and plop his feet on the ottoman. “Fucking idiot,” he muttered, letting the beer bottle fall to the carpet.

  “What are you talking about?” His jaw clenched so tight it hurt, but he was unable to move from his spot across the room.

  His father sat up, fixed him with a bleary glare, and pointed. “I got your cherry popped, son. Bought and paid for the Lose-My-Virginity party, I did. And what do you do? How do you repay me? Jesus.” He flopped back and stared at the ceiling. “You ruin the best piece of ass I’ve had in years with your stupidity. You don’t fuck a woman without a rubber. Christ. That’s how they get you.” He leered at Jack, who was convinced he was having a heart attack. “Every time… they get you with their bullshit.” He got up and stared at his son for a few seconds. “Don’t stand there with your mouth hanging open like a retard. Get me a beer. I took care of it. Don’t worry. But don’t count on seeing her ever again either, stupid cry baby cunt.”

  Jack’s vision dimmed, and he barely remembered the next few minutes. As a matter of fact, the next thing he knew Mo was crying, yanking on his arm as he reared back to punch his father’s nose, again. This time the man had been ready for him and landed his own blows, defended himself enough that Jack’s face bore bruises and his nose was crooked for a week until he got the damn thing re-set.

  He did see Mindy again once when she was cleaning out her desk a few days after the confrontation. She was teary-eyed but didn’t speak until he followed her out to her car and tried to hold her, kiss her, tell her how sorry he was that they’d both been so badly screwed by his father.

  “Jack,” she’d muttered into his chest as he held her close and tried not to yell. “Don’t be him. Whatever you do.” A tear dropped from her lashes. He touched it, panicked fury beating its bat wings against the inside of his ribcage, hurting him, making him furious and wanting to hit something. “I…I’ll miss you.” She leaned into him.

  He pulled back, held onto her arms. “Tell me something,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Why? I mean…how much did he give you to…fuck me?”

  She kept her eyes down, staying quiet so long he thought she hadn’t heard his question. “I took his money that first time. But I gave it back the next day, and wouldn’t take any more after that. I told him….” She put a hand over her mouth and shut her eyes. Jack felt his heart pounding, as a bizarre combination of anger and frustration grabbed his gut. He tried not to shake her.

  “Told him what,” he croaked out.

  “I told him to keep his money. That I….” She looked down again, biting her lip. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell you this if he helped me…now.”

  Jack dropped to his knees, a raging desperation roiling through him. “I love you. I’m sorry. Don’t go. Stay. I want to be with you…please…it’s okay. A baby, it will be…fine.” He heard himself begging and hated it, but couldn’t halt the rush of words. “Mindy. God, please….” He wrapped his arms around her waist and held onto her for dear life.

  She threaded her fingers in his hair until he got control of himself again and stood. He tried to kiss her but she kept avoiding him. “No, Jackie. You don’t love me. And the last thing you need is t
o…well, let’s just say it’s one thing your father and I do agree on.” She took a breath. “I did love being your first.” She touched her fingers to his lips. “I only wish….” She stopped and broke off a little piece of his heart in the process.

  She got into her car without another word. He knocked on her window, terror making him breathless. He hated how he felt right then. Wanted that horrible sensation gone, never to feel it again. That dependence on someone else—it was…not good. He had to banish it. She shook her head and wouldn’t roll down her window. So he stepped back as she gunned the engine and peeled out into the street.

  Head pounding with fury, he jumped into the truck and headed straight for Brandis’s place. “Let’s go,” he called out to his friend who sat on the edge of the pool behind his house. “It is party time now, my brother. Jack is ready to roll.”

  “What about…the secretary?” His friend waggled his eyebrows at Jack.

  “Screw her,” Jack said, sinking into his dismay nice and deep.

  Brandis shrugged and didn’t say anything else about it, thankfully. He got dressed, and they headed to a party, which blended into another and another for the entire summer until all Jack knew was how many girls he could fuck and not give two shits about, every single night.

  Chapter Seven

  After his senior year ended Jack spent a surreal few months filled with beer, pot, and pussy. When he wasn’t working his ass off for his father, learning everything he could about all aspects of building a house, he was studying for his contractor’s and electrician’s licenses.

  And when he wasn’t doing those things, he was out deflowering virgins. He and Brandis had developed an unspoken and very successful tag-team system, approaching each party with two goals—getting drunk and getting laid, preferably by more than one girl. Jack prided himself on identifying the cherries, zeroing in on them, and relieving them of their burden, typically with enough finesse they hardly noticed it was happening.

  Brandis claimed not to enjoy that, saying it was too much work for too little reward. But Jack felt as though he was on a mission. He wanted every one of the girls he had to have a positive first sexual experience and took the whole thing on as a personal challenge. By the time they graduated and were into that unique position of freedom—no more high school, yet not yet in college—Jack was firmly entrenched as the life of pretty much every party.

  “You are a man whore, you know it?” Brandis declared from his perch atop a float in the middle of his pool. Jack shrugged and drifted off in the sun, on one of his very rare days off, dreaming as always of the lovely and giving Mindy.

  When he woke, the place was crawling with girl-flesh barely covered in bikinis. Beer was flowing and the party was on yet again. Sitting and sipping and taking it all in his brain slipped out of “missing Mindy like a bitch” mode and into locating his target for the night. He tried not to grin too widely when he spotted her, a blonde, unfamiliar to him, sitting with another girl nearly as hot, with her long, black hair tugged back in a ponytail. Then, he saw a familiar face at the edge of the party. He frowned and got up.

  “Mo, what the hell are you doing here?” His little sister sat in large swing with some strange boy way too old to be sitting that close to her. Jack grabbed her wrist and yanked her away. She yelped and smacked his arm.

  “Get off me, Jack. Jeez.” Her light complexion reddened as she scampered inside. Jack watched her go, trying to square that his sister was way too mature-looking for her own good, then shook his head. His father had hired a lady to cook, clean, and serve as extended babysitter so that Maureen wouldn’t be left alone for long stretches of time now that Jack worked nearly around the clock. She was on her own a lot though, which bothered him.

  Détente existed once more between Jack and his father, although Jack could hardly look at the man without remembering his words, what he said about Mindy, the woman he’d paid to fuck his own son.

  A soft hand on his arm startled him. He turned, smiled, and accepted the cup the blonde girl held out.

  “Thanks, gorgeous.” He leaned into her. “What a scene, huh?” He sipped, not looking at her but sensing her gaze on him. He knew he looked great. Between the pure physical labor he put in daily on the job sites, lugging drywall, holding up trusses, hammering, and carrying every manner of tools around, he also ran every morning without fail, and did three hundred sit-ups and push-ups no matter how tired he was. The routine of it soothed him, helped him forget, for a moment, his fucked-up family life and that he had but a few more weeks before he could escape to college.

  Worry about leaving his sister behind tickled at his conscience but Mo seemed at ease with her relationship with their father for now. She was a tough cookie and had a solid set of friends around.

  The discipline Jack imposed on himself felt great. The punishing exercise coupled with the long hours of work and determined study so he could achieve beyond what his asshole father expected of him centered him, gave him purpose. Well, that and what he was about to do with the lovely female now under his arm, giggling and running her hand up his thigh.

  He tugged her inside, down to the basement, needing a connection so badly his teeth ached. She sighed as he eased her down on the couch, kissing her gently but with purpose, increasing his pressure slowly as his cock sprang to attention under his swim trunks.

  “Mmm…this feels promising,” she declared, reaching into his shorts.

  He smiled into her mouth. He’d found one with a little experience—a pleasant change of pace. “Hope you’re prepared, big boy,” the girl said.

  Jack sighed and leaned over to snag a condom from the supply he kept in the drawer of an unused table in the corner. “Like a Boy Scout, sweetheart,” he said, handing it to her.

  She grinned and stood, slipping out of her barely there bikini and standing in front of him in all her curvy glory. He licked his lips, sat up, and yanked her hips close so he could bury his face between her legs. She gripped his hair then pushed back, forcing him to flop over onto the couch so she could straddle his face.

  He groaned and flicked at the tender button of flesh. He loved pussy, loved looking at it, licking it, watching it come to life under his careful attention. The girl was moist, her folds were soft, and she tasted like the sweetest honey.

  He slid a finger inside and moaned as she gripped him hard. The knee-jerk girls were the best, he had discovered. They came fast and typically had no clue that they were among the rarest of women—the multi-orgasmic—and his favorite.

  He looked up, watched her cup her own breasts and tug her nipples. Perfect, just perfect.

  “Jesus,” he yelped, nearly coming out of his skin when a soft set of lips encircled his dick and a finger traced down his balls and lower. “Baby, I didn’t know this was gonna be a party,” he whispered.

  The girl looked down at him and smiled, angling her hips so he kept going as the other girl sucked his cock like a pro, until he couldn’t hold back another minute. The girl on his face came again too, completing the moment. The other girl still palming his balls moaned. Girl number one climbed off him, and Jack put his arms under his head and watched girl number two get fucked by his friend from behind. “Nice,” he said, admiring the way her tits bounced.

  “Her idea,” Brandis ground out then closed his eyes and pounded harder. Jack reached down to fondle girl number two’s clit, making her eyes fly open at the last minute. Her lips were so full. He had to kiss them. So he did, and all was well for everyone in the room.

  “You are gonna kill me,” Brandis groaned as he slipped into the pool later, once the party had calmed. Their two girls of the night had gone home after another round of mutually beneficial playtime.

  Jack drank a beer and squinted into the moonlight. His body was sated once more, but his heart still hurt. It was a feeling he was getting a lot lately, but sublimated, unwilling to acknowledge his own need to connect beyond the physical.

  He was fine, he loved fucking, and he was damn go
od at it. So be it. “Quit your bitching, ya big baby. I didn’t hear you complaining earlier.” He heaved the empty beer can at his friend. Brandis caught it without a glance and tossed it to the side. Then he swam to the other end of the pool, leaving Jack with his aching heart and sore cock.

  He woke with a start, not even realizing he’d fallen asleep and saw a different girl sitting on the edge of the pool. It took him a solid minute to realize it was Mo again. Her body had matured in ways that pissed him off, made him want to throw a blanket over her.

  But Brandis and his sister Denise were laughing and joking with her. So he tugged a slightly damp towel up over himself and went back to sleep.

  The morning he left for college he woke, ran the usual ten miles, did push-ups and sit-ups in his mostly empty room. At the last minute, Jack pulled open his desk drawer and found it—the photo he had planned on leaving behind.

  It was of him, probably about age six, standing next to his mother. The woman was wearing her usual mysterious half-smile, but Jack was staring at her with pure adoration on his face. He touched the photo, trying to remember her.

  But she was gone. He had let her go completely. That fact hurt his heart more than anything. He started to put the photo back in the drawer but at the last minute tucked it in the one remaining open box that held sheets and towels, ready to move on to the next stage of his life in East Lansing.

  “Let’s get a move on, boy. I paid the tuition—you need to get out of here.” Jack looked up at his father, suddenly transported back to his six-year-old self, wishing the daddy who’d carried him on his shoulders, taught him how to fish, to hammer a nail, and fiddle around under the hood of a car, would come back. That boy’s father had morphed into something nasty, evil in Jack’s eyes and his heart hardened yet more. This asshole had driven Jack’s beautiful mother to drink, then to seek attention from a stranger next door. And then to death.