by BB Easton
“What the fuck was that?” Harley growled, releasing me so that I could turn to face him.
“What the fuck was what?” I said, genuinely confused.
“You made me look like a fuckin’ bitch out there!”
Why are you being such an asshole?
“Harley,” I said, putting my hands up, “I didn’t do anything.”
“You laughed in my fucking face!”
Okay, this is definitely Cuervo-and-cocaine Harley. Guess I know at least part of what he was doing in the parking lot. His trunk is probably a few Uzis and sawed-off shotguns lighter, too.
“I wasn’t laughing at you,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I was just nervous. I don’t know any of these people.”
“I heard you talking about him.” Harley’s nostrils flared. He couldn’t even say his name.
Shit. Think, BB. Think.
“So? He did Tracey’s thigh tattoo. She was just trying to figure out how to get it finished now that he’s overseas.”
Remember? He’s overseas. As in far, far away. As in you can stop being crazy now.
Harley took a step closer to me, and I took a step deeper into the shadows of the smoky hallway. “If that jarhead motherfucker had been here tonight and he’d asked you to marry him, what would you have said?”
Um…well…
“You can’t even answer the fucking question!” Harley pounded the wall closest to us with his fist, causing me to jump.
It also caused me to snap, “I wouldn’t have said anything because Knight wouldn’t have asked me to marry him in a fucking bar!”
Harley’s eyes flared at the mention of his name.
Shit.
I dropped my voice an octave and took another step backward. “Sorry. I don’t know why we’re even talking about this. Harley, you don’t want to marry me. This is just a game we play. You ask me to marry you in front of big groups of people because you love to embarrass me, and I always say no. Remember? I don’t understand why you’re so mad that I rejected you this time.”
Harley’s face contorted into something wicked as he advanced toward me. I went to take another step backward but stopped when my heel met the wall.
“Oh, you rejected me?” He said the word as if it were in a foreign language that he hadn’t practiced, as if he’d never said it in his life. “You. Rejected me?”
Harley caged me in with his palms on either side of my head, his face a backlit shadow. I could smell the tequila on his breath and feel the adrenaline in my veins.
“Do it again then,” Harley said, grabbing the backs of my thighs and hoisting me up so that my back was against the wall, my legs were around his waist, and his bulging erection was against my crotch. “Reject me.”
I didn’t reject him. I did something even worse.
I poured gasoline on the fire.
I kissed him.
As soon as my tongue grazed his, Harley crashed into me—kissing me so hard my head hit the wall behind me, grinding into me until I thought he was going to bruise my clit. He didn’t give two motherfucks that we were in a hallway in a crowded bar. And honestly, I didn’t either.
Until he let go of me with one hand and began unbuckling his belt.
Shit!
“Harley,” I whispered-yelled over the Social Distortion blasting through the bar, “we can’t…not here.”
I had to hold my own weight up completely as Harley used both of his hands to work on my studded belt and zipper.
“Why the fuck not?”
Um…because we’re in public. Because my purse full of condoms is back at the bar. Because your gun is digging into my thigh. Because I’m way too fucking sober for this shit.
“Because my pants are too tight.”
My eyes darted around the hallway as I tried to come up with a solution. I didn’t want to “reject” Harley again, but I also didn’t want to get arrested for public indecency. Just then a skinhead came out of the men’s room, zipping up his fly.
Lowering my legs back down to the cement floor, I pushed Harley away far enough to wriggle free and tugged him toward the vacated men’s room. “In here,” I whispered.
As soon as we were inside, I locked the door behind us, relieved that it was a single-toilet-sink situation and not a bustling five-stall operation. Too bad it smelled—no, reeked of piss. Not that Harley cared. Before I could even turn back around, he was behind me, yanking my already-unfastened jeans down to my knees.
I braced myself against the door as hot pulsing flesh pressed against my ass. Harley bit down on my earlobe, his breath warm and ragged on my oversensitive skin. I wanted to push back against him. I wanted to let him fuck me, right there against the restroom door. I wanted to pretend like he was Knight, and I was one of the little skin chicks he used to pick up at the bar. I wanted him to pull a butterfly knife out of his pocket and make me bleed.
But I couldn’t. Because my responsible, sober brain chose that moment to blurt out the word, “Condom?”
Harley slid his cock between my thighs, wetting it against my slippery sex. My knees buckled a little at the contact, which only increased the pressure. God, it felt good.
Harley placed his right hand on the door to brace his weight and snaked his left around my rib cage, pulling my back into his chest like a vise. He didn’t answer my question. And, judging by the way he was dragging the head of his cock over my seam, he wasn’t going to.
I was at war with myself. I could either push him away and risk pissing off Hulk Harley—or whoever it was that he became when he’d had too much blow and booze—or I could give in and risk contracting God knows what from a man who couldn’t even tell me how many people he’d slept with.
As much as it turned me on whenever Harley got rough, in that moment, I knew that he wasn’t like Knight at all. Knight would never have put me at risk. Knight hadn’t fucked me without a condom until he personally took me to the doctor to get on the pill and made sure that he was clean. And even then it had been my suggestion. This person…this person didn’t even know I was on the pill.
Because I hadn’t told him.
As Harley’s cock pressed against my entrance and his grip around my ribs tightened, panic seized the lungs they were sworn to protect.
No!
I clamped my thighs shut and wriggled around until I was facing Harley. Well, I was facing his neck. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him. Instead, I kissed his pounding pulse point as my hands found their way to his cock, which throbbed to the same beat.
I’d gone down on him before but never to completion. The few times I’d let Knight come in my mouth, I’d thought I was going to drown—it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to relive—but making Harley come was my ticket out of that piss-soaked hellhole. So I took a deep breath…and I sank to my knees.
Harley fisted my shaggy bleach-blonde hair as I struggled with his size. I couldn’t take him very deep before I gagged, so I tried to make up for it by wrapping my bony fingers around his length. Harley tightened his grip on my hair and guided my movements until he finally went stiff as a rod in my hands.
Memories of Knight coming down my throat hijacked my control center, causing me to pull my face away suddenly—just as Harley blew his load. With his hands gripping my head, I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, and Harley’s first spurt of cum narrowly missed my eye. It grazed my cheekbone and landed in my hair. His second spurt hit the back of the door. And his third dribbled down his cock and onto my hands.
But at least I hadn’t drowned.
Wiping my mouth and cheek on the sleeve of my cropped leopard-print sweater, I stood up and looked into the heavy-lidded, smiling eyes of someone I recognized.
“Damn, woman. You been holdin’ out on me,” Harley mumbled on unsteady feet.
Relief washed over me. “Don’t get used to it,” I teased, patting him on the shoulder as I stepped around him and made my way to the grimiest sink in America. “You almost put my eye out.”
>
I heard Harley chuckle as I turned on the faucet, and I watched his reflection as I washed my hands. I could see his profile, smiling as he buckled his pants. With his scar and tattoo temporarily hidden from my view, he almost looked like the Harley I remembered. Playful yet powerful. Baby-faced but no longer blond.
I lowered my head to wash the cum out of my hair and felt two arms wrap around my torso. Fear shot through me in an instant but left just as quickly as the warmth of Harley’s embrace sank in. These arms weren’t viselike; they were tender. Appreciative. Almost loving.
Almost.
FEBRUARY 2, 1999
DEAR BB,
SHIT HAS CALMED DOWN A LOT AROUND HERE SINCE WE BOMBED THE EVER-LOVING FUCK OUT OF THE IRAQI MILITARY LAST MONTH. EVEN THE LOCAL MILITIAS HAVE BACKED OFF.
YOU’D THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD THING, BUT I FUCKING HATE IT. I’M GOING OUT OF MY MIND. I’M FUCKING STUCK HERE, IN THIS CARDBOARD BOX, ON FUCKING MARS, AND ALL I DO IS THINK ABOUT YOU AND WONDER IF YOU EVEN REMEMBER THAT I EXIST.
MAYBE I DON’T. MAYBE THE ME THAT YOU KNEW DOESN’T EXIST ANYMORE. I KEEP LOOKING AT THAT PICTURE YOU SENT ME, AND IT FEELS LIKE IT HAPPENED TO SOMEBODY ELSE. IS THAT WHY YOU HAVEN’T WRITTEN ME BACK? BECAUSE I’M GONE? BECAUSE I’M SOMEBODY ELSE NOW?
PLEASE TELL ME. EVEN IF YOU’RE DONE WITH ME, JUST FUCKING TELL ME. YOU’RE ALL I FUCKING THINK ABOUT.
I LOVE YOU.
KNIGHT
My teeth chattered and my fingers shook as I finally lit my cigarette on the third attempt. I was huddled in the recessed entryway of the Humanities building, trying to hide from the wind. But it found me. It always found me.
Fuck you, winter, I thought. I get it. You’re cold. You don’t have to beat me over the head with it. Fucking show-off.
I watched as Juliet and Goth Girl ran-walked over from the Math and Science building, ducking their heads and pulling their collars up. We weren’t able to get the same classes during our second semester because I needed to take some specific advanced placement classes to graduate early. So Juliet and Goth Girl wound up together most of the day, and I wound up sitting in the back row of my classes alone, writing letters that I knew I would just toss in the garbage on my way out the door.
At least I got to hang out with Goth Girl after school sometimes. She liked coming with me to Harley’s house when we were both off work, mostly so that she could disappear into Dave’s room and do God only knows what. But they weren’t officially dating or anything. It was weird.
Just like the new strappy, swing-like apparatus hanging in the corner of his room.
Freaks.
Juliet had brought Romeo over after school once. Within ten minutes he’d managed to knock over a water bong and shove a fistful of cigarette butts into his mouth. Now I pretty much only saw her at school between classes.
“Will you bitches hurry up? It’s fucking freezing.” Juliet breathed into her cupped hands as Goth Girl lit up.
Juliet had quit smoking, very reluctantly, while she was pregnant with Romeo, and she always gave us a hard time about it.
“Oh, fuck it. If I have to stand out here you better give me one, too.”
And…she always caved.
“Okay, Mom,” Goth Girl deadpanned as she fished a second cigarette out of her pack.
Juliet fucking hated it when she called her that.
“You working today, BB?” Goth Girl asked, trying to sound nonchalant, which was easy for her. She had the emotional range of an oyster.
“Y-y-y-yeah,” I stuttered through my chattering teeth. “I’m off-f-f-f tomorrow though. You should c-c-come over.”
Goth Girl rolled her big black doll eyes. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Hey, g-g-guys, I gotta go talk to my teacher before class. I’ll see you at lunch, ok-k-k-kay?” I stamped out my cigarette beneath my boot.
Juliet just nodded—she was too busy orgasming over her cigarette to care what I’d said—and Goth Girl gave me a little two-fingered salute.
I dashed inside and up the central staircase to the second floor—my forty-pound backpack bouncing on my bony back like a horse jockey the entire way—and burst into my Psychology II class ten minutes early. My teacher, Dr. Raines, was standing at the whiteboard, jotting down vocabulary words and homework assignments. He was an older gentleman, short and round, and his wardrobe consisted of approximately three tweed blazers and two pairs of shapeless khakis.
“Good morning, Miss Bradley,” he said without turning away from the whiteboard. “You’re in early. Think maybe you’ll join us in the front row today?”
“Um, sure,” I said, dropping my backpack on the desk closest to the door. “Dr. Raines, can I talk to you for a minute? Before everybody gets here?”
Putting down his marker, Dr. Raines turned and looked at me over the top of his bifocals. “Everything okay, Miss Bradley?”
“Yeah, it’s just…” I really wished I had decided to sit. Standing felt awkward. “My ex-boyfriend…he joined the Marines, and he’s stationed in Iraq. He, um, writes me letters sometimes, and he says things about, like, not knowing who he is anymore. In his last one, he said he felt like he was ‘gone.’ I think he’s seen and done some really bad sh—stuff over there. I was just wondering if you had any suggestions on ways to, like, help him. I need to write him back, but I don’t know what to say.”
Dr. Raines took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “PTSD,” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head. Looking up at me with sad eyes, Dr. Raines said, “I know what your friend is going through quite personally, I’m afraid. I was drafted during the Vietnam War.”
Oh, shit.
“The official diagnostic term is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, although we didn’t know that back then. When the surviving members of my platoon and I came home, we all had…difficulties.” Dr. Raines pulled a hankie from his pocket and rubbed the lenses of his glasses with it as he spoke, “Identity integration issues, insomnia, increased irritability and aggression, flashbacks, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and behaviors.” Putting his bifocals back on, he continued, “It’s actually the reason why I pursued a career in psychology. I wanted to understand what was happening to us.”
I sputtered, “I…I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“That’s quite all right, Miss Bradley,” Dr. Raines said with a small smile. “These things can break us, or they can inspire us to help others, correct?”
I nodded. And swallowed. And cleared my throat. “So, what can I do…to help?”
“Something I found quite therapeutic while I was recovering was doing things I’d enjoyed as a child. Figuring out how to integrate my newly formed soldier identity with my newly formed young man identity was difficult, but the identity I’d formed as a child was very crystalized. If I was feeling on edge, I would simply sit down and build a model airplane. It always made me feel more like myself.”
“He liked to draw as a kid,” I said. “He’s really talented. He’s actually a tattoo artist. Or…he was.”
“That’s wonderful. You could encourage this young man to draw whenever he’s feeling…out of sorts.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“I have a few other strategies that might prove to be helpful, but unfortunately, class is about to begin. If you would like to come by before class again, I’ll put together a list for you.”
“Oh my God. That would be amazing. Thank you.”
Dr. Raines smiled. “Anything to help out a fellow vet. He’s very lucky to have someone like you looking out for him.”
Guilt slithered up my spine. Knight didn’t have me. Not anymore.
“Dr. Raines, can I ask you one more thing?”
“Certainly.”
“Can you get PTSD from other things, besides combat? Like…like a really, really, really bad fight? Or seeing somebody get killed? Or having your friend commit suicide?”
Or all of the above in the same month?
“Absolutely. Any situation in wh
ich you feel extremely threatened or frightened or upset can cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress.”
“Like flashbacks? And panic attacks?”
Dr. Raines looked at me over the top of his glasses, as if he had X-ray vision and was snooping around inside my brain. “Miss Bradley, are you sure everything is okay? I could set you up with our counseling department if—”
“Nope. Fine. Thanks!” I chirped, grabbing my backpack and running to the safety of the back row.
As the rest of my classmates trickled in, I took out my notebook and began to write. It wasn’t any different from what I did every other day, but this time, the fruits of my labor weren’t going to end up in the garbage can on my way out the door.
February 10, 1999
Dear Knight,
I’m sorry I haven’t written you back until now. Actually, I did write you back. A lot. I just didn’t send any of it. Nothing I wrote felt right. If I just talked about myself I felt shitty, but when I tried to write about what you must be going through I was afraid I would upset you. I didn’t want to bring up the past because that didn’t seem helpful. So, what does that leave for us to talk about? The future? That seems depressing, too. I mean, what’s going to happen to my Mustang when everybody starts driving flying cars? I don’t even want to think about it.
So I got an idea. What if we talk about the past-past? Like shit from when we were kids. I know you didn’t have a great childhood, so just tell me the good stuff. What were you like when you were little? What did you like to do? What were your favorite cartoons? What did you want to be when you grew up?
I was a fucking nightmare. My mom couldn’t make me do shit. I refused to wear anything she’d laid out for me, and I basically walked around looking like Pippi Longstocking every day. Red hair. Freckles. Nothing matched. I wore tutus and grass hula skirts over my jeans, and I was always trying to cut my own hair. (Still am.) I was obsessed with my She-Ra Princess of Power Crystal Castle, mostly because of the way it smelled. They must have put lead in the paint or something. That shit got me high. My favorite color was “rainbow,” and I wanted to be a “jet pilot architect” when I grew up. Oh, and my favorite things to do were pretend to write very important notes in my notebook (just squiggles), draw with sidewalk chalk on the driveway, and drag all my mom’s pots and pans into the backyard and make mud pies.