by BB Easton
“It’s okay, lady,” Harley said. “I accept apologies in the form of cash, grass, and ass.”
Ass?
“Harley, I have to go!”
Harley’s grip around my waist only tightened. “Not until you apologize,” he teased.
“I’m sorry!” I brought my arms up and squeezed him back, the hair and toothbrush still clutched in my fists. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Mmm…nope. Not good enough.”
I looked up to find Harley smirking down at me, the light from the TV painting a kaleidoscope of colors on the left side of his face. “Harley, I promise, I’ll apologize any way you want tomorrow—cash, grass, ass, fuckin’ sassafras—but right now, I gotta go. My dad said he’s gonna take my keys for a month the next time I’m late. A fucking month!”
Harley sighed and released me. I darted around him and began picking up the envelopes that had been scattered all over the floor. Harley picked a few up too, but he didn’t hand them to me. He just stood there, inspecting the calligraphied addresses on the front.
“These are really fuckin’ good,” he said. “Your mom teach you how to write like this?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking over at him from where I was crouched on the floor. “She taught me calligraphy when I was a kid so that I could help her address our Christmas cards”—I gestured toward the scattered white rectangles all around me—“and now I’m her bitch.”
Harley crouched down next to me and handed over his stack of envelopes. “No. You’re my bitch,” he said with a grin.
Being that close to him, feeling the heat coming off his shirtless, tattooed body, hearing the warmth behind his words—it was all making it really fucking hard for me to remember why I was in such a hurry to leave.
“You think you could draw a tattoo for me?” Harley asked, sitting with his back against the side of the couch and stretching his long legs out in front of himself.
“Really?” I asked, perking up.
Me? Draw a tattoo? To like, go on your body forever? Because you love me and want to take a piece of me with you wherever you go?
“I mean, yeah. Totally. I can do that. What do you want?”
“Somethin’ in Old English. Across my knuckles,” Harley said, offering me his right hand with an arched brow and a coy little smile. “Surprise me.”
Now I was the one sporting a devilish smile.
Challenge accepted, motherfucker.
I found my calligraphy pen among the debris on the floor, yanked the cap off with my teeth, and went to work, penning my best Old English across Harley’s knuckles.
When I finally released his hand, Harley turned it around so he could admire the four-letter word I’d scrawled upon his knuckles. “Lady,” he read aloud.
Harley’s eyes met mine and morphed from curious to wicked in an instant. Opening his inked fist, Harley closed it again around a handful of my T-shirt and pulled me onto his lap.
“I’m never gonna wash this hand again,” he said so close that every syllable vibrated through me, thrumming like a fucking tuning fork between my legs.
Without realizing it, I hummed out loud in response.
“Mmm?” Harley replied, mocking the noise I’d just made. “You like to hum, lady?” He ran the silver hoop containing his plump bottom lip slowly across the seam of my parted mouth. “So do I.”
I prayed for him to kiss me—to stop teasing me and crash those perfect, pillow-like lips into mine—but unfortunately for my time-management issues, Harley was in the mood to play.
Pulling away from my desperate mouth, Harley slipped my T-shirt off over my head—the one with the cover of The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me album on it.
How ironic.
As soon as my shirt and water bra were added to the pile of invitations, calligraphy pens, black hair, and purple toothbrushes on the carpet, I leaned back in for that goddamn kiss. Harley threaded his inked-up knuckles into my shaggy blonde waves, but instead of pulling me toward him, he closed his fist in my hair and tilted my head backward, denying me what I wanted yet again.
I grumbled out of frustration, but the sound dissolved into a purr as the coolness of Harley’s lip ring mixed with the heat of his breath on my neck. My nipples hardened in anticipation as Harley dragged his mouth down my throat, humming along the way. His thick, oil-stained hands wrapped around my pale, protruding rib cage as he continued his descent.
I ran my nails along Harley’s buzzed head, encouraging him to go faster, and was unpleasantly surprised when I realized that it wasn’t soft, like Knight’s. Not even a little bit. Harley’s scalp felt like beard stubble under my fingertips—a fact that I pushed out of my mind as soon as the seam of his mouth slid across the surface of my pierced, pink flesh. Between the vibration from his humming and the way his lip ring tugged against my nipple ring with every pass, I was practically whimpering in frustration.
I felt Harley smile against my skin at the sound of my agony. I was just about to call him an asshole when his hands slid from my ribs, down over my waist, and around to my belt buckle.
Oh, thank God.
I took over the job, shimmying out of my jeans and panties in three seconds flat, but Harley didn’t move. He didn’t get naked. He simply watched me undress with that fucking smirk on his gorgeous, evil face.
What part of I will lose my car for thirty fucking days if I am late again does he not understand?
When I straddled him and went after his belt buckle, trying to help speed things along, Harley simply chuckled and grabbed my ass with both hands, encouraging me to stand.
“Nuh-uh. Not yet. Get your pussy up here, woman.”
While my mind and libido were engaged in a bare-knuckle brawl over who would get to take control of my body, Harley swooped in and took over, maneuvering me so that my right foot was planted firmly on the ground next to his hip and my left shin was propped up on the armrest next to his head. I was spread before him and had to hold on to the back of the couch to keep from falling over. Flashing me a look that said I’d better hold on even tighter, Harley leaned forward and bit down on the end of the steel barbell between my legs. Then, he wrapped his lips around my overly-sensitive flesh and hummed.
My knee buckled, causing me to grip the back of the couch even harder.
Holy shit. So this is a hummer, I thought as Harley continued his vibrational assault.
I guess my libido won the battle because my thoughts suddenly changed from worrying about my curfew to worrying about humping Harley’s face too hard.
When I heard Harley unfasten the buckle on his leather belt, I sighed in relief. Harley’s teasing was killing me. When I heard his zipper go down, I practically fell onto my knees, straddling his length and pillaging his lips for the kiss he’d been withholding from me. Harley gave me no resistance when I tried to kiss him that time, just like how my slick flesh gave him no resistance when he pushed his way inside.
“Mmm…” I groaned, involuntarily.
“Mmm?” Harley answered back, smiling against my mouth.
Capturing his earlobe between my lips, I hummed, “Mmhmm,” as he grabbed my hips with both hands and did what he did best—made me forget.
When I awoke, sore and sated, I was adrift on a scattered sea of envelopes. The two thick and thoroughly tattooed arms clamped down around my waist were the only things keeping me from floating away on a foggy cloud of bliss. Flickering, colorful lights danced over the surface of our naked bodies. When I glanced at the TV, I expected to find a beautiful underwater ocean scene or a blue sky filled with hot air balloons and rainbows.
I had not expected to see Miss fucking Cleo.
Miss Cleo’s psychic hotline infomercials were famous for two things—Miss Cleo’s incredibly fake Jamaican accent and the fact that they never, ever came on before midnight.
As soon as I saw that face with that 1-800 number flashing below, I didn’t need a psychic to tell me that I was completely and utterly fucked
.
It was a motherfucking fact.
I wriggled out of Harley’s unconscious embrace and darted around the room, gathering my belongings and snatching and swatting at the square pieces of paper that were stuck all over my naked body. It was like they’d been glued to me. My dread over what would happen when I got home was suddenly overshadowed by horror as I realized what had already happened.
Harley had just fucked me without a condom.
It’s fine, I immediately tried to reassure myself. It’s totally fine. You’re on the pill, and judging by your stickiness, he obviously didn’t come inside you. No harm, no foul.
But I felt harmed. Way down deep where I put the things that I didn’t want to feel, I felt it. Violated. It felt like coming home to a house that had been left with the door ajar. Everything appeared to be as it should. Nothing was broken. Nothing was missing. Yet I couldn’t shake the eerie sense that an invasion had just taken place.
So I quickly found a different feeling to focus on, a safer one—remorse.
I rolled Harley’s massive, snoring body over so that I could retrieve the last of my invitations. That easygoing motherfucker just snorted and curled up around one of the skull pillows he’d thrown at me earlier like it was a teddy bear. Taking a mental picture of Harley’s sleeping baby face and hard, hot-rod-covered arms, I choked back a sob, turned on my unlaced boot heel, and drove the ever-loving shit out of my beloved Mustang one last time before turning the keys over to my father, who was waiting for me on the front porch when I got home.
Neither of us spoke a word during the exchange.
May 1999
Mailbox, mailbox, mailbox, light post. Mailbox, mailbox, mailbox, light post. Mailbox, mailbox…damn it. Street sign.
Maybe I could check real quick. I mean, what if I accidentally turned my phone off and missed his call?
When have you ever turned your phone off?
Accidents happen, BB! You do dumb shit all the time!
Just call him again.
No fucking way! I’ve called at least thirty-seven times since I’ve been grounded, and Harley’s only picked up, like, twice. He knows my number! That motherfucker can call me!
Yeah, he can. He just isn’t.
Fuck you.
You know my theory—Harley only wanted you because of your car. No car…oh look. No Harley.
Maybe he just got really busy at work. Maybe he got mono and has been sleeping, like, eighteen hours a day. Maybe he was in some kind of a freak accident and got amnesia and doesn’t even know I exist!
BB?
What?
You’re doing it again.
Damn it! Why is this so hard?
It’s okay. Just try again. This time, let’s see if you can go for five whole minutes without thinking about him, okay? Ready? Go!
Mailbox, mailbox, mailbox, light post. Mailbox, mailbox, mail—
“BB?”
“Huh?” I snapped my head over to Goth Girl, who was behind the wheel of her old Buick, mercifully giving me a ride to school for the third week in a row.
Rolling her eyes, she repeated herself, as if she were doing me a personal favor, “I asked if you’ve started writing your graduation speech yet.”
“Uh…no. But keep asking me until I say I did, okay?”
“I can’t believe they’re making you give a speech. I can’t believe you’re not even nervous. That shit is exactly why I’m not graduating early,” she said, staring straight ahead at the road.
I laughed. “Oh, is that why?”
“Yes,” she deadpanned. “My two-point-oh GPA has nothing to do with it.”
“God, I guess I’ve been so busy obsessing over fucking Harley that I haven’t even thought about graduation.”
“Still haven’t heard from him, huh?”
“No!” I cried, seizing her invitation to talk about Harley with both hands. “Hey, you go over there. Have you seen Harley lately? Has he asked about me? Is he okay? Does he have a terminal case of amoebic dysentery and he doesn’t want me to see him in his final days because he wants me to remember him the way he was?”
Goth Girl shrugged. “Well, Dave has never called me, so…maybe he’s just rubbing off on Harley.”
“Never?” I squealed. “How is that even possible? How does he invite you over?”
Goth Girl snorted. “He doesn’t. Why do you think I’m always trying to get you to invite me over?”
“So that asshole twists you into a sex pretzel as soon as you walk into the house, but then he never even calls afterward?”
Goth Girl gave me a look that said, Don’t rub it in.
“But you have a toothbrush over there. That has to mean something,” I said, trying to comfort her.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do—a purple one. Harley said it was yours.”
Goth Girl stopped at the next traffic signal and turned to face me. I couldn’t tell if her porcelain cheeks were red from the glow of the stoplight in front of us or because she wanted to stab a voodoo doll made in one of the James brothers’ likenesses, but either way, I knew that look. It was the same one I’d seen in the mirror the night I found that damn toothbrush.
“That wasn’t your toothbrush…was it?”
Goth Girl shook her head from side to side.
“So, I guess that wasn’t your hair I found in the shower either.”
The light turned green, and Goth Girl stomped on the accelerator a little harder than necessary. “It probably belonged to some stripper that Dave brought home. Whatever. I don’t even care. I’m going to the Marilyn Manson concert tonight, and I’m gonna find me a new…”
I tuned out everything Goth Girl said after that head shake. He’d lied. Harley had looked me in the fucking eye, laughed at me, and lied about who had been leaving her shit in his bathroom. And then he’d fucked me.
In more ways than one.
I felt nauseous. I felt like a fucking fool. And, evidently, I felt like running an errand because, just as we were about to pass the post office, I grabbed the wheel of Goth Girl’s hand-me-down Buick LeSabre and yanked it to the right.
Tires squealed and horns blared as we careened over the curb and into the United States Postal Service parking lot.
“What the fuck?” Goth Girl yelled, slamming on the brakes as we slid sideways into a thankfully empty parking space. “Are you trying to kill us?”
“I’m sorry! I don’t know! I just…” I rambled as I ripped open my backpack, pulling out an envelope that had been tucked away between the pages of my psychology textbook for way, way too long. “I just really need to mail something!”
April 13, 1999
Dear Ronald,
It’s okay if Knight is all that’s left.
I love that asshole.
BB
You can do this, BB. You’re just gonna march up there, knock on the door, and tell that motherfucker he can go to hell.
And then kick him in the nuts!
Yeah! That too! You ready?
Uh…I changed my mind. This was a bad idea. I should have called first. What if Purple Toothbrush Girl is in there?
Then you can kick her in the nuts too!
I think I’m gonna puke.
Don’t do it in here! You’ve been waiting a month to drive this damn car again. Save it for Harley’s carpet!
Okay. But wait. What am I gonna say to him? I should have prepared something!
Nah. You’re just gonna march up there and say, Motherfucker, you can take that purple toothbrush, and you can stick it up your—
My car door suddenly flew open, revealing a tall, tattooed, baby-faced Harley James, smiling down at me like he’d just won the lottery.
“Get the fuck out here, woman! I missed you!”
He what?
I hesitated for a moment, out of shock, then I took a deep breath and unbuckled my seat belt. I swung my spindly pale legs out of the car and planted my black steel-toed combat boots firmly in the overgrown grass
next to Harley’s feet. Standing before him and squaring my shoulders, I tried my best to stay pissed.
“There’s my pretty lady,” he said, pulling me in for a hug. When I didn’t reciprocate, Harley held me at arm’s length and searched my face with his crystal-blue eyes. “What’s up?”
I swallowed, trying to keep the bile rising up from my churning stomach at bay, and did my best to channel my inner J.Lo. Pursing my lips and raising my eyebrows, I said with all the attitude I could muster, “I know that wasn’t Victoria’s toothbrush.”
Harley’s face remained passive. Meanwhile, I had to fold my arms across my chest to hide how badly my hands were shaking.
“You fucking lied to me! Right to my face!” I seethed. “Who the fuck is she, Harley?”
Did you fuck her without a condom too?
I couldn’t bring myself to say that last part out loud. I didn’t want to remind him of the power he’d taken from me. That I’d given to him.
“BB,” Harley said, holding up his hands in a show of surrender, “it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, really? Well, what the fuck is it then?”
Harley cranked up the puppy-dog eyes and took a step closer to me. “Dave is seeing someone else.”
“Bullshit,” I spat, rolling my eyes and turning my face away from him. I had to resist. I had to stay strong.
“No, it’s true. I didn’t tell you because Victoria is your girl. If I told you and you told Victoria, Dave would be fuckin’ pissed.”
“So you lied to my face because of some kind of bro code?” I hissed.
Harley just shrugged. Of course he did. He and Dave were practically Siamese twins. I wasn’t done with my line of questioning though. Something was still off.
Still facing away from him, I snapped, “If they’re serious enough for her to leave a toothbrush, then why haven’t I met her?”
“She’s a stripper. She only comes over in the middle of the night—after her shift.”
Well, isn’t that convenient?