Were All Animals

by Mima

  Chase nodded and felt a shot of desire spring through him, as he silently wondered what kinds of things they did when on Skype. Was it an innocent conversation or-

  “Text me later,” She continued and Chase merely smiled as he climbed out of the car.

  “Thanks for the drive,” He smiled as he stepped out, feeling a few raindrops hitting the back of his neck. “You’re the best, Mags.”

  A flush of color ran through her cheeks as he shut the door. He watched her drive away, hesitant to enter his home. No longer a safe place to be, he once again considered running away from home, just as he had as a child. Back then, he had made a pathetic attempt to hitchhike to Calgary to live with his aunt Maureen. He didn’t get far before his dad picked him up and brought him home.

  His sister sat at the end of the table, drinking a cup of tea and having a lively discussion with their father, who stood nearby. Their mother was in the living room watching some crappy womanish movie about love and weddings and Chase felt like the odd one out, ignored or unnoticed as he quietly sauntered upstairs, in a way hoping to not have a conversation with anyone.

  His room was Chases’ sanctuary. Of course, that wouldn’t be for much longer since plans were already in motion for him to move in with his ‘fiance’ in her great-grandmother’s house.

  She texted him at least a million times a day and Chase never answered. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to marry her and he definitely didn’t want to fuck her. She would probably have a litter of kids if his dick went near her again. In many ways, his hell was just beginning.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  September can be a deceitful mistress that lures you in with the belief that the summer will never end regardless of what the calendar page tells you. Some people in Hennessey commented on how that particular month was much hotter, stickier than the entire summer had been; something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Chase. Feeling locked in his own personal hell, each day only signified one step closer to moving in with Audrey and starting a life that he hadn’t asked for or wanted. However, things were about to make a drastic transformation. Like the leaves outside his window, Chase was also changing colors as fiery shades of orange and red started to shine through him.

  It started on a typical afternoon as he prepared a green smoothie before heading to work. His mother sat at the kitchen table, an irritating smile glued to her face, as she flipped through some stupid bride magazine. The obnoxiously loud noise of the blender made conversation impossible; which was perfect, since he was too angry to speak. In fact, he felt a fire that was about to ignite from his stomach, exploding into a wild tantrum of rage that would leave no one unscathed.

  The blender continued to work hard, pureeing the combination of kale, swiss chard, spinach, strawberries, almond milk and flaxseed that would create a late lunch. His diet was limited to skinless chicken breasts, rice, fruits, vegetables and on occasion, he would treat himself to a burger or pizza. While his parents gathered around the table with a hearty breakfast every Sunday morning, he opted for only boiled eggs, refusing the array of processed meats, greasy hash browns and most of all, bread. His sister surprisingly was the only person who seemed to understand his limited diet, but now that she was back in university, he had no one to really take his side when it came to his eating habits.

  Liquifying his smoothie in order to make it easy to drink on his way to work, Chase turned off the blender and started to clean up. His few moments of welcomed silence when the blender stopped were short lived and before long, Louise Jacobs was talking about the wedding again. He didn’t respond.

  “I said, what do you think, Chase?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Come on honey,” She said with coaxing eyes that he now viewed as manipulative, an impression that overflowed into the entire spectrum of women in his life. Even the female clients at his work, who he once naively believed were at the gym to improve their physical shape and health, now seemed cunning and vile. Always batting their eyelashes, showing their cleavage and playing the role of scared girl when faced with the prospect of any form of exercise that would make them break a sweat. While some men probably walked into their trap, it was a mistake Chase had no intention of making again.

  “Mom, I don’t care,” He abruptly replied while rinsing the blender.

  “It’s your wedding.” His mother said, the smile slipping off her lips, her eyes becoming narrow and he recognized this as the look that was supposed to put him in line, but today was a new day and he had nothing more to lose.

  “It’s my funeral, is more like it,” He muttered as he finished cleaning up and grabbed his smoothie. Glancing around the kitchen, Chase was hoping to quickly find the keys to the truck. His mother rarely allowed him to use her car, but fortunately, his dad was kind enough to leave the truck and get a drive to work with a friend.

  “What? Chase, why would you say such a cruel thing?” His mother shook her head and she rose from her chair. “I don’t understand you. This isn’t the boy I brought up.”

  “Mom, I’ve told you a million times, I don’t want to marry Audrey,” Chase sharply replied, feeling irritable for every reason under the sun - the heat, his future, his lack of sex life - everything was making him feel trapped and unable to escape. Only months earlier, he was still with Lucy and everything was completely different. Although he was slowly starting to see that their relationships was less than ideal, at least she never tried to entrap him.

  “Baby, you have no choice. You got her pregnant and that was very irresponsible, so now you have to do the honorable thing and marry her,” His mother spoke like a character in one of her ridiculous movies and sometimes he wondered if she was delusional. She really seemed to believe all the foolishness of romance novels; that men only fucked women they loved or would love, that babies were the result of that love and that everyone lived happily ever after. It was fucking bullshit. “You will grow to love her.”

  “I don’t even like her,” Chase replied and he immediately saw the veil of naivety fall from her face, quickly replaced by a flash of anger. It was the same anger he saw in her face on the night she slapped him and insisted he marry Audrey. Unlike that day, he was no longer that naive boy, now realizing that it was just a game and he was merely a player to be controlled. “I don’t want to be in the same room as her, let alone house, with a kid and that’s not about to change.”

  “Chase I didn’t bring you up this way,” She snapped, her voice a combination of shame and hurt. He was tall, well over 6’ and merely looked down at her face as it tightened up into a scowl that communicated her disappointment in him. “I brought you up to respect women. You shouldn’t have bedded her if you had no true feelings. Now you will have to learn to love her.”

  “Oh come on!” Chase couldn’t help but laugh in between long drinks of his smoothie. “Are you serious? Bedded her? As if it was this grand romantic gesture? She gave me some kind of drugs, I barely remember hooking up with her and that was it. It was a huge mistake. The biggest mistake of my life. I don’t have feelings for her and I never will. This isn’t one of your romance novels, this is real life.”

  “My books are real life to some people,” She retorted and crossed her arms over her chest, reminding him of an angry child. “I didn’t bring you up to be amoral. Audrey loves you very much and believes this baby came to you because of your destiny to be together.”

  “This baby came because she drugged me, made sure she had sex with me without birth control and now my life is a mess,” Chase snapped and walked away from her, something he wouldn’t have done only a few months earlier, knowing that it was considered disrespectful. Grabbing the keys on the way to the door, his mother’s final comments were like a slap in the face.

  “You made a decision that night. You can blame her all you want, but you also decided to be with her and use no form of birth control and if you ask me, that was irresponsi
ble on so many levels.”

  Without replying, he tightened his grip on the keys and walked out the door. Infuriated, he climbed behind the wheel and turned the ignition. He hated that she was right. Although it was easy to blame Audrey for everything, he had been stupid enough to have sex with her without a condom and yet, he had done it and now he was paying. He briefly considered something Maggie had said during the summer; what if the baby wasn’t even his child? Audrey certainly seemed like someone who would have no modesty about getting naked and climbing on any guy, so perhaps he wasn’t the only one?

  Arriving at work, he finished his smoothie just as he walked in the door. The gym was quiet and his coworker Cindy was helping one, middle-aged lady with a more challenging piece of equipment. She gave him a quick wave as he walked to the employees only section and rinsed out his cup, filling it with water and looked in the mirror. The whites of his eyes were red from lack of sleep and that combined with the two day’s worth of stubble on his face hardly made him highly attractive, instead, he appeared to be a dirtbag that had no pride in his appearance. He continued to sport a buzz cut, something Maggie pointed out worked with his face and his large, intense eyes and rich tan. He had merely laughed at the time, but now under closer inspection, he wondered if it was true.

  A summer of frustration combined with the heavy bags in the corner of the gym had helped enhance his upper body, enlarging his muscles while creating a sleek chest met and a flat stomach. He was in the best shape of his life and yet, he knew he could do much better. His goals were lofty when it came to his physical shape and endurance and his boss assured him that he had the ability to meet them.

  “You’re young, strong and determined, nothing can stop you from any of your goals,” His boss had insisted with complete sincerity and yet, Chase almost laughed when he considered the reality of his life. If only he knew that there were some invisible limitations that were pulling away from his goals, from his life, from his future. He was spiraling into someone else’s dreams and goals, losing the biggest part of himself along the way.

  Satisfied that he was ready to start another shift, he sent a quick text to Maggie and ignored the several that were from Audrey. Unfortunately, his lone friend was unable to drop by the gym that day for their regular training sessions, something he looked forward to since getting her a deal. Harold was happy to accommodate a discount for the young woman after Chase insisted they were close. He knew it came off sounding like she was his girlfriend and although he wasn’t about to lie, there was a part of him proud of the fact that the beautiful young woman that gracefully slipped in the gym 3-5 days a week could be seen as such; so he didn’t exactly unravel the truth yet. He needed that fantasy. Maybe, he briefly considered, he was adapting a delusional world like his mother.

  His supervisor, Cindy, usually opened the gym and left after Chase’s arrival. Now working full-time hours, since the student left at the end of August, Chase and Cindy were the two main employees with a couple of other trainers in on occasion. It wasn’t busy during that time of year, so Harold didn’t want to have much staff working at once.

  “It’s been kind of dead today,” Cindy said as she met him on the floor, carrying her water bottle and pointing toward the one, lone customer on the other side of the room. Married with one child, Cindy rarely wore makeup and he only had ever seen her with a ponytail, an oversized T-shirt, and yoga pants. Pale and thin, she didn’t appear to be very healthy for someone who worked at a gym, but she was friendly and kind to him.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Only had a few people in,” She confessed and pointed toward the window. “Too hot outside, no one wants to workout even with the air conditioning back.” She let out a short laugh and he joined her. “I don’t think the phone even rang.”

  “So a long night?” Chase asked as he glanced toward the window and the empty parking lot outside.

  “Probably,” Cindy smiled and started toward the door. “But at least you can get your own workout in.”

  He nodded and said goodbye. Glancing at the woman on the other side of the room, he noted that she was finishing and talking to Cindy, who wandered back and seemed to be waiting for her. The two left together.

  Alone, Chase decided to sit behind the desk and check his phone. Deleting Audrey’s messages, he replied to the ones from Maggie, who was complaining about some of her customers that day. She had one guy who came in daily, flirting with her, not realizing that he was way out of his league. They referred to him as her ‘stalker’ and joked about the guy that they both knew from high school.

  He texted her about his conversation with Louise Jacobs before work, confessing his own frustrations with life. In fact, he told Maggie everything. Well, almost everything. He wasn’t about to tell her about his hormones were in high gear lately and he was dying to get laid. He knew there were some things that girls just didn’t want to know about and besides, she might think he was a perve or something.

  The day dragged on and although a few people were in after work, things died off that evening. Knowing that he still had a couple more hours to go, Chase considered that he might want to work out some of his frustrations on the punching bag. Plus, he wanted to gain some muscle and it wasn’t going to happen if he was sitting on his ass.

  He approached the punching bags and immediately felt the wrath of the day rising inside him. As he started to wrap his hands, he considered how his entire life was run by other people. At work, he was an employee, always having to help customers, regardless of how rude or unpleasant they were; he had to plant a smile on his face, understanding in his eyes and someone else’s words slipping through his lips. When at home, he felt silenced. He could argue his point, but no one was listening. His father spinelessly stood back, while Louise Jacobs took over and forced his hand into a marriage that Chase didn’t want. He hated Audrey now. At one time, he felt sorry for her predicament and guilty over his part, but now, he despised her.

  Anger flowed to his heart, that raced with ferocity, his breathing became heavy as he removed his T-shirt and threw it on the ground. Grabbing a set of boxing gloves, he felt arousal as he thought about his earlier conversation with Maggie, the object of his desire since they first became friends; ironically on the same night he knocked up Audrey. Although he attempted to fight it, ignore the realities of the many lust-filled thoughts that sprang up in his mind, there was no way to deny that he wanted her like he had never wanted any woman in his life. Her sensual curves, how she moved while using the various equipment in the gym, her innocent gaze as she talked about the many ‘conversations’ she had on Skype with women throughout the country - women she was attracted to - drove him over the edge. He wanted to touch her skin, taste her in the most intimate way and get inside her, feel her hot breath on his neck, listen to her soft moans as he hungrily thrust into her, eventually giving in to both their physical needs; the kind these women on Skype certainly couldn’t give her. He didn’t want to be an asshole, but it was hard to believe that another woman could bring her the pleasures he would. Lesbianism, in his mind, was like eating the icing but skipping the cake.

  Maybe it was a safety factor. Maybe women felt safer with other women? He certainly did understand the desire to be with a woman, they were silky, curvaceous, with soft voices, only second to their slender tongues running over your body, teasing you, until that triumphant release that made all worth every second.

  Raising his arm, he hit the heavy bag with such vigor that he thought it would break away from the chains that held it in place. He continued to pound it with all his irate anger that could’ve sent him half way around the world and the intense lust that could’ve taken in the rest of the way. He was so caught up in the passion that flowed through his body that he hadn’t heard the door open.

  Suddenly feeling a set of eyes on him, he turned around and saw her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ch
ase stuttered, suddenly embarrassed by the fury he was taking out on the heavy bag. Lost in the zone, he hadn’t heard the door open or the client approaching him. Abruptly removing his boxing gloves Chase grabbed his T-shirt from the ground. It wasn’t until he pulled the thin material over his head and started to unwrap his hands, that he could feel the humiliation burning through his skin, briefly avoiding the eyes of a regular that came in every other evening. “I…I didn’t think anyone would be in again tonight.”

  Knowing that this answer was highly unacceptable - he was, after all, at work - Chase was relieved when the brunette standing across from him merely giggled and shrugged to indicate that she was unconcerned with his lack of professionalism. In fact, she appeared pretty casual, her eyes full of amusement, which should’ve relaxed him but instead, made him face grow warmer, as he abruptly finished unwrapping his hands.

  It wasn’t as if she was one of the town soccer mom’s, casually strutting in with a friend, only half working out, but mostly chatting about her kids. This lady usually came in later at night, always alone and rarely talked to him, but went right to work. He recognized her as being older, probably in her late 30s, but he wasn’t sure. She occasionally arrived still wearing professional clothing so he suspected she worked in an office setting.

  Oh…and she was hot. She was pretty enough, but her body was phenomenal. The hours she spent at the gym were definitely working in her favor. It was another reason why he felt awkward when she caught him shirtless, pummelling the punching bag like some kind of maniac.

  “That’s quite all right,” Her voice was smooth and sent an electrical sensation through him, causing him to shuffle uncomfortably and avoid her eyes. “I didn’t mean to startle you and you didn’t need to stop for me.”

  Her grin was suggestive as her eyes connected with his briefly, before she turned and headed toward the other side of the room, walking toward a treadmill. His vision automatically zeroed in on her yoga pants and he couldn’t help but notice how they clung to her. She was wearing a tank top that was loose, but not enough to hide her full breasts especially after she climbed on the treadmill and started to run. She was staring at the television across the room, currently set on a news channel, but he noted that she was wearing earbuds, so only reading the headlines across the screen.