by BB Easton
Before I could finish my rationalization, Dave leaned forward, grabbed the bottom edge of the blanket, made direct eye contact with me, and yanked it the fuck off. I gasped as cool air bathed my exposed flesh. I expected Harley to be pissed, but instead, he kicked my shorts the rest of the way off with his foot, wrapped a hand around my thigh, spread my legs open, and gave Dave a better view.
I squeezed my eyes shut as Harley began thrusting into me with abandon, no longer holding back for the sake of modesty. If I kept my eyes closed, I could pretend like Dave wasn’t watching. I could focus on the delicious pressure building in my core. But I couldn’t shut out the unmistakable sound of a zipper going down or the sickening smack of flesh against flesh. I knew without looking that Dave was jerking off. I didn’t dare open my eyes. Not because I was afraid to see it, but because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to look away.
Harley spread my legs wider and reached down to tease my clit piercing.
“Fuck, that’s hot,” Dave mumbled. “Can I touch it?”
“Fuck no,” Harley snapped.
“Let me see those titty rings then.”
Oh my God! Are they seriously having a fucking conversation right now?
Harley gripped the bottom of my T-shirt and pulled it up to my chin. Then, he grabbed the front of my bra and yanked it up and over the top of my tiny breasts.
“Fuckin’ A,” Dave hissed just as Harley gently tugged on one of my nipples.
It sent a bolt of electricity straight to my clit, and I involuntarily clenched around Harley’s cock. With my eyes still squeezed shut, I could hear Dave’s breathing, and beating off, accelerate. It was so erotic, the sound of him pleasuring himself while watching us, that I decided to take a peek.
I opened my eyes and saw Dave sitting with his back against the opposite armrest, casually fisting his cock. I’d never seen a guy masturbate before. It was freeing, in a weird way. Dave and Harley’s complete lack of inhibition, their love of life and all its pleasures, their trust in me, the lack of fucks they gave about what anybody thought—it made me feel like a sexy badass too. Like one of them.
Dave’s eyes locked on to mine. There was no shame in them. Only heat. Scorching blue heat. Dave and Harley had the same eyes, but Dave’s were rimmed in dark lashes and hooded by darker brows. They were beautiful. I wondered what he would have done to me if Harley had let him participate. Wondered if I would’ve liked it.
Our eye contact was broken when Harley wrapped his arms around my ribs tighter and rolled onto his back. I instinctively planted my feet on either side of his thighs for stability, which gave Dave a front row seat to Harley thrusting in and out of me from underneath. I let my head fall back against his shoulder as I gripped his rock-hard forearms for dear life. My orgasm was so close. I was so turned on, but that last little bit of shyness in the back of my brain refused to let me come in front of Dave.
Just then I felt a hesitant finger stroke the barbell between my legs. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that it didn’t belong to Harley—his arms were still wound around my torso. It was Dave, touching me after Harley told him not to.
And I loved him for it.
I decided not to look. If I didn’t look, then I could pretend like it was Harley. If I didn’t look, then—
Shit, I looked.
Dave was on his knees, straddling Harley’s long legs, jerking his dick with one hand and stroking my pussy with his other. His biceps strained against his tight white T-shirt, which glowed orange in the light of the neon signs. When he saw me watching him, Dave lifted his finger to his lips, silently telling me to keep quiet. Then he turned his baseball cap around backward.
I immediately discovered why when he bent forward and flicked my clit with his tongue.
My body detonated at once. Fireworks went off behind my eyes, and sparks coursed through my blood. Dave sat back up just before my thighs clamped shut, narrowly missing his head, as I tried to contain the tiny explosions rocking my core. Harley cursed as I contracted around him, thrusting into me harder until he followed me over the edge.
As I lay panting, my back to Harley’s front, naked aside from my bra and T-shirt—which were still hiked up to my armpits—I didn’t feel dirty.
I didn’t feel dirty when Harley pulled out of me, gave me a kiss, and headed to the bathroom to clean up.
I didn’t feel dirty until he was gone—when I discovered that my boyfriend’s brother had come all over my stomach.
I looked at Dave, who had already tucked his junk away and was sipping his now-warm beer on the other side of the couch as if nothing had even happened.
“You’re gonna clean this up, asshole,” I said with a pointed stare.
“Want me to lick it off?” Dave said, flicking his talented tongue at me.
“Ugh,” I huffed, pretending to be offended as I grabbed my clothes and stomped off to join Harley in the bathroom. In reality, I was running away to keep from taking him up on his offer. Who even was I?
“Harley, Dave came on meeee,” I whined once I got to the bathroom.
Harley laughed and said, “Better on you than on the couch. C’mere.”
He wet a washcloth in the sink and turned around to wipe me off. I watched his face as he worked.
Even though he was three years older than Knight, almost four, Harley’s face looked younger somehow. He didn’t have an angry V creased into his forehead or fine lines around the corners of his eyes from a lifetime of scowling. His cheekbones were rounded where Knight’s were angular, and his mouth was full and pursed where Knight’s was drawn and sharp. While Knight carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, Harley let it roll right off his back. I loved that about him.
Sure, Knight’d had a shitty childhood—I didn’t exactly know how shitty because he refused to talk about it—but Harley hadn’t exactly had a perfect life either. He just didn’t let it bring him down. Maybe it was because he was high all the time. Maybe that was the secret. My mom was high all the time, and she was pretty fucking happy, too. Knight fucking hated drugs, and look at how angry he was. Maybe that was it. Maybe Knight just needed to smoke some weed and relax. I giggled, picturing him sparking up a fatty, and realized that I was obviously still high.
Harley looked up. “Did that tickle?”
“Mmhmm,” I said, pinching my closed lips between my teeth to keep from cracking up.
Harley threw the washcloth into the sink and asked, “Does this tickle?” He grabbed my ribs and wiggled his fingertips in between my bones.
I screamed and wriggled away from him, only to find that there was nowhere to go. Harley grabbed me again, but instead of tickling me, he pulled me in for a hug. I molded into his body and sighed in relief.
Wrapping his colorful arms around me, Harley rocked me from side to side with his face buried in my neck.
“Hey, lady?” he mumbled against my skin.
“Mmhmm?” I mumbled back.
“Does this tickle?”
Then, he snorted like a pig against the sensitive skin just below my ear.
I squealed and pushed his face away, laughing even harder than before.
“Hey! What the fuck are you doing to my girlfriend in there?” Dave yelled from the living room.
Harley looked at me and smiled, disarming me with his pretty blue gaze and his mop of sunny sexy hair. Then he yelled back, “She’s my girlfriend, motherfucker!”
And then I died.
JULY 15, 1998
DEAR BB,
I SWORE I WASN’T GOING TO WRITE YOU, BUT I CAN’T GET YOU THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD.
KINDA LIKE HOW I SWORE I WAS GOING TO STAY AWAY FROM YOU, TOO. I’M SORRY I CAME TO SEE YOU. IT PROBABLY MADE SHIT HARDER ON YOU, BUT I CAN PROMISE YOU, IT’S BEEN A THOUSAND TIMES HARDER ON ME. IT’S LIKE I’M NOT EVEN HERE. MY BODY IS HERE, BUT IN MY MIND I’M STILL IN THE BACKSEAT OF YOUR CAR, OR I’M WATCHING THAT MOTHERFUCKER MAKE OUT WITH YOU IN THE PARKING LOT.
KNOWING THAT I’M STUCK HERE WHILE THA
T PIECE OF SHIT IS OUT THERE TRYING TO FUCK YOU IS DRIVING ME CRAZY. I CAN’T STAND THE THOUGHT OF YOU BEING WITH SOMEONE ELSE, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I CAN’T STAND THE THOUGHT OF YOU ENDING UP WITH ME EITHER. SO I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE GO FROM HERE.
ALL I KNOW IS THAT I MISS YOU. I THOUGHT I COULD GO BACK TO BEING MISERABLE AND ALONE, BUT NOW THAT I KNOW WHAT BEING HAPPY FEELS LIKE, IT’S NOT THAT FUCKING EASY.
ESPECIALLY WHEN I KNOW THAT ALL I HAVE TO DO TO FEEL THAT WAY AGAIN IS FIND YOU.
I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I STILL LOVE YOU. I’LL ALWAYS FUCKING LOVE YOU, PUNK. EVEN WHEN I’M BEING A FUCKING ASSHOLE.
LOVE,
KNIGHT
I stared at the piece of paper in my hands and waited to see which emotion, which thought would emerge first. But nothing came. I leaned back against the headboard of my bed and blinked at the psychotic, all-caps handwriting—handwriting that used to find its way into my pockets every day at school, handwriting as familiar to me as my own—but still…nothing. Was I broken? Was I a horrible person? Had I felt so much in such a short amount of time that I straight up run out of feelings?
I grabbed my pack of cigarettes from my nightstand and shook a Camel Light and a lighter into my palm. As I smoked, I read and reread Knight’s words. He loved me. He missed me. He was sorry. Harley is a piece of shit. And he wants me to be celibate for the rest of my life.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t feel anything. Because how do you feel grief, guilt, longing, and outrage all at the same time? I was going to have to pick one because my sixteen-year-old amygdala was not equipped to process that many contradictory emotions at once. The gears had simply jammed up. Nothing was getting through.
I remembered my mom saying that writing things down could help me express my feelings, so I slid my cigarette and lighter back into the pack and yanked my giant, fuzzy animal-print chasm of a purse off the floor. I was sure I had a piece of paper and a pen in there somewhere. I wasn’t going to write Knight back. I just wanted to figure out how to feel about what the fuck I’d just read.
I found a pen, but more importantly, I found some paper. Lots of it. Green rectangular pieces of paper with pictures of Benjamin Franklin on them to be exact. As I pulled fistful after fistful of hundred-dollar bills out from the recesses of my bag, one emotion finally burst free from the traffic jam in my mind. Delight. Giddy, mad, magical delight. Harley, that motherfucker, had snuck all the prize money back into my purse!
I giggled and squealed and kicked my feet, causing wads of cash to scatter across the bed like tumbleweeds. I loved Harley’s surprises. They were always crazy and fun and over-the-top. Knight was full of surprises, too. Surprises that ended in blood and/or tears being shed.
Suddenly feeling inspired to write, I grabbed one of the bills and smoothed it over the back of my thigh. Pulling the cap of the pen off with my teeth and spitting it across the room, I wrote in my own all-caps handwriting, right across the front, FUCK YOU, KNIGHT.
And I LOVE HARLEY across the back.
August 1998
When I’d decided to transfer to the local community college for eleventh grade so that I could double my credits and graduate from high school a year early, it sounded like a great idea. When I’d toured the campus and filled out my admission paperwork, it’d seemed new and exciting. I’d felt like a goddamn grown-up. But standing in the middle of the East Atlanta College parking lot, turning a map with at least fourteen different buildings on it upside down and right side up, trying to figure out where the Humanities department was, I began to have my doubts.
What the fuck even is the Humanities department? I thought as I stomped off in what I hoped was the right direction. Aren’t we all members of humanity? Are some of us more human than others? Do you have to be, like, extra human to get in? Are they gonna take a blood sample to check my DNA at the door?
The first building I passed was labeled Julius C. Wilcox Department of Mathematics.
If math were my first period, I’d already be in class by now.
But it was too late to switch my schedule. For one, courses available to high schoolers were limited, so you kinda had to take what you could get. But I’d also kinda forced Juliet to enroll, and I might have sorta signed her up for all the same classes as me.
By the time I found my Psychology 101 classroom, I was one of the last people in the door. I spotted Juliet right away—in the back of the auditorium, where I’d known she would be. And she looked incredible. Her hair had been woven into dozens of long braids, Janet Jackson style, and her signature black eyeliner and penciled-on black eyebrows were back. She looked like her old self again. Only better somehow.
I made my way up the stairs and sat down in the seat she’d saved for me. Giving her a sympathetic smile, I asked, “How you doin’, hon?”
Juliet had left Romeo in the college’s on-site daycare that morning. It was her first time being away from him since he was born, which was going on three months. I’d expected her to be a little emotional. I had not expected her face to split open in a megawatt grin.
“I’m fucking awesome. I feel like a person again, BB. Like an actual human, not just some disgusting, smooshy milk machine.”
“But do you feel extra human?” I grinned, beyond relieved that she was having a great first day. “I have this theory that to get into the Humanities department you have to be, like, extra human.”
“Oh yeah,” she said with that classic Juliet sarcasm. “I’m sooo extra.”
Just then a girl about our age sat next to me in the one remaining seat on our row. She looked like a Caucasian version of Juliet. Long black hair, eyes rimmed in black liner, but alabaster skin, like she hadn’t seen the sun all summer. And the black baby-doll dress she was wearing made her look like Wednesday Addams.
“Hey,” she said, her voice as monotone as Juliet’s was sarcastic.
“Hey,” I chirped. “I’m BB. This is Juliet.”
Juliet gave a half-smile and a chin nod, trying to look like a badass. She was terrible at making girl friends. Or guy friends, for that matter.
“I’m Victoria,” Goth Girl said.
“Which high school did you transfer from?” I flicked my thumb back and forth between myself and Juliet. “We’re from Peach State. Couldn’t get out of that hellhole fast enough.”
“Central.”
Juliet and I both recoiled and gasped in unison. Central High had a reputation for being even worse than Peach State. The joke was that you didn’t graduate from Central; you got paroled.
“Do you guys know where I can buy some weed around here?” Goth Girl asked.
I liked her. She didn’t beat around the bush.
“No, but my boyfriend would probably sell you some,” I said.
Considering that he might, in fact, be a drug dealer, I added in my head.
“I’m going over to his house after school if you want to come. It’s his birthday, so I’m sure there will be plenty of weed to go around.”
Goth Girl shrugged and kind of nodded, so I took that as a yes.
Turning to Juliet, I asked, “You wanna come, too, now that you’re a person again?”
“Nah, I probably shouldn’t take my baby to a drug deal, but thanks anyway.” Juliet smiled and rolled her eyes, but I could hear a hint of bitterness in her voice. She totally wanted to come. Poor thing.
The day went by in a blur of syllabi, scribbled notes, and the sound of my own voice chanting, I can’t believe I’m in college. I can’t believe I’m in fucking college, over and over in my head.
I’d been dying to go to college since middle school. No tardy bells. No bullies. No bullshit. You choose your own schedule, show up wearing whatever the fuck you want, do the work, and go home. For somebody who loved school but hated rules, college was a dream come true.
Juliet, Goth Girl, and I made a pretty good team, too. Juliet’s bossy ass took over map and time management duties. I listened and took notes during class. And Goth Girl scoped out the social scene, det
ermining who the cool kids were and where they hung out between classes. We looked like a bad joke—So a goth chick, a punk chick, and Janet Jackson circa Poetic Justice walk into a bar…stop me if you’ve heard this one before—but we felt like rock stars.
With my first day of college under my belt and a new friend following me in her hand-me-down Buick LeSabre, I sped over to the birthday boy’s house to celebrate.
Instead of pulling around to the backyard, like I’d intended, I slammed it into park the second I spotted Harley and Dave in the front yard. Goth Girl almost rear-ended me, but I had to stop. The scene was just too fucking ridiculous.
The James brothers were sitting in a couple of old rusty lawn chairs under a pine tree with their bare feet submerged in a kiddie pool. They had on matching spring-break-style airbrushed T-shirts that said, Picture Me Rolling, with a pair of dice on the front. Matching cheap plastic sunglasses. And they were each holding a beer in one hand and a tiny battery-powered fan in the other. But the best part was the patch of sand haphazardly dumped on the grass with an inflatable palm tree sticking out of it a few feet away from Harley.
Yanking my key out of the ignition, I threw open my car door and ran out into the yard. “What the fuck are you guys doing?” I cackled.
“It’s my birthday present.” Harley beamed, spreading his arms and sloshing his Natty Ice as he gestured at the fever dream before me.
Dave smiled and chimed in, “I figured, if we can’t go to the beach, we’ll just bring the beach to us.”
“Why can’t you go to the beach?” Goth Girl’s deadpan drawl came from somewhere to my right.
I turned to look at her and had to shield my eyes. The sun reflected off her pallid skin worse than a Twilight vampire.
Harley and Dave traded glances as some silent understanding passed between them. I didn’t like it. It felt like they were speaking in some kind of telepathic twin language that I didn’t comprehend. Dave eventually gestured toward Harley, inviting him to answer Goth Girl’s question.