FEELS LIKE THE FIRST TIME

by Scott Hildreth

  “Well,” I said. “It isn’t easy. I’m trying to decide where to take it. And we’re not done with the interviews.”

  “I was just asking.”

  I was tired of people asking. Camden asked every time he saw me. Navarro was asking. I even asked myself, but lately those times had become infrequent.

  “It’ll be done when it’s done. And, when I’m done with it, you’ll be the first to know. You’ve got to proof it, remember?”

  He took a drink of coffee and nodded. “Just asking.”

  I took a sip of my latte and studied him. Relaxed in his seat with his coffee in his hand, his shoulders were rolled forward. His broad chest looked deflated, and he seemed considerably smaller than he actually was.

  “What’s been wrong with you lately?” I asked, the words coming out before I had a chance to stop them.

  I wanted him to be the way he was when I met him. Rough. Aggressive. Angry. In-you-face.

  But something was different.

  He rocked the chair on its back legs again. “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you.” I shrugged. “You’re docile.

  He shot me a look, but it was forced, and I couldn’t really identify it. “Docile?”

  I nodded. “Compliant. Unassertive. Accommodating. You know, docile.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Okay. Whatever. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. Right now. I want ice cream.”

  He stood up. “You gonna bring your coffee with you?”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. A month ago you would have told me to fuck off, and you would have shoved your cock down my throat to shut me up. Now? Now you’re different.”

  He loomed over me with a blank look on his face.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  He complied, sitting back in his seat. He looked defeated. I wondered if I was being shallow and insensitive. I quickly decided maybe I was simply being selfish, and that something may have happened in his life that I was unaware of.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just. Here lately, you’re different. Like I said, you’ve been kind of soft and passive. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

  He shook his head. “No. How about you?”

  “Me? I’m not different. I’m the same. You? You’re--” I paused and waved my hand toward him. “You’re not you.”

  He took a drink of his coffee and leaned forward. “Can I speak freely?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Me?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, you.”

  “Why?”

  “You came to me and were some cute bitch that was going to write an article about my club. I was flattered, excited, and pretty gung-ho about the whole deal. Add to it that you’re cute as fuck, and it made everything that much better. Or worse. Or whatever. So, I invite you to the clubhouse.” He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his beard, then sighed heavily. “You asked questions and I answered. It was interesting, and I actually enjoyed it. Then. We fucked. Enjoyed that, too.”

  So did I.

  He paused and shook his head. “Then, one day we got coffee and we went to get lunch. That day we went to lunch? I was having a pretty good time with you on the back of the bike. Actually wondered for a minute what it’d be like having you around. Never met a tough little bitch like you. Thought you were pretty fucking good stuff.”

  I wasn’t sure where he was going with the conversation, but hearing him say how he felt warmed me much more than the morning sun. I never would have guessed being called a bitch could be such a rewarding experience, but it was.

  His face went solemn, but didn’t last long. An angry look soon replaced it. “Then, they raped you. And, I’m worried. I want you to be the same, but I wonder if you ever will be. I wish it never would have happened.”

  I started to speak, but the words got caught in my throat. I sat and stared, incapable of speaking and not really sure what feelings – if any – my face was conveying.

  I was filled with anger. I didn’t want what took place to have happened either, but it did. Afterward, all I wanted was for things in my life – and for me – to be the same, but I knew they never would be. The fact that four complete strangers viciously stole my chance of having a perfect life from me and left me feeling guilty, filthy, and forever tainted caused me to feel pain that I never knew existed.

  “I feel responsible,” he said.

  My response was dry and coarse. “Don’t.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “You know,” I said.

  My eyes began to well with tears. I fought not to cry, but wondered how long it would last. “That day? I keep replaying the morning in my head. When I decided to go get the recorder. I should have called the bar. I knew the name of it. I could have. But I didn’t. I wanted to go in there without calling. I wanted to put on my big girl panties and go to the biker bar without you. Sit where we sat. Do some research. Watch who…watch who came and went. If I would have called, and maybe gone ten minutes…ten minutes…”

  He raised his hand, trying to get me to stop.

  But I needed to finish.

  He stood.

  I waved him off, and then realized tears were dripping off my chin and onto my lap.

  I cleared my throat. “Ten minutes. Just ten minutes later. Ten fucking minutes.”

  I wiped my face with the tips of my fingers. “So, somehow…somehow I convinced myself it’s all my fault.”

  His jaw was tight, and he was breathing through his nose. He was angry, but I knew he wasn’t angry with me. He shook his head. “It’s not your fault.”

  I bit down on my lower lip and tried to stop it from quivering. It did very little to calm me. I was taught not to hate, but I hated the men that did what they did to me. Cutting their cocks off might have satisfied everyone else, but it didn’t satisfy me, no matter what I tried to tell myself.

  “Can you just…could you…hold…”

  I wanted him to hold me, but I couldn’t say it.

  The crying got worse, almost turning into a full-blown blubber. Everything just seemed to come crashing down, and I began to feel heavy inside. My heart began to ache. I closed my eyes and wondered what I had ever done to deserve feeling the way I felt.

  Nothing.

  Life wasn’t fair.

  I closed my eyes and cried, wishing Navarro wasn’t watching. I wanted to be in North Carolina, where my father could comfort me. As I wept, and wished things were different, I felt Navarro’s arms around my waist.

  He lifted me from my seat and held me in my arms.

  But the pain never stopped.

  Chapter 25

  Nick

  While at war, I initially struggled with taking another man’s life. When the time came to act, doing so didn’t come as a decision I made, it was more of a reaction. An instinct to survive. Contrary to the belief of many, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines during wartime didn’t kill without cause. In almost every circumstance when I was required to take a life, doing so was to protect myself or my fellow SEALs from being killed.

  At no point did the value of another man’s life diminish, but the decision to kill became much less of a struggle. In the end I decided I had become insensitive and damaged.

  A byproduct of war.

  My decision to start the MC was done to rid my mind of the day-to-day demons that seemed to take possession of my soul after the war ended. It worked, but I was left void of the voices in my head that somehow provided justification for the atrocities of war. What remained was a soulless shell with the body and mind of an insensitive killer.

  I pointed the barrel of the pistol at his head and sighed. “I struggled with this, you know. I told myself it wasn’t necessary, but it is.”

  The muscles in his jaw went tight. “Do what you gotta do.”

  It was the first time I’d seen him since our fight in the bar.
No differently than Peyton, I regretted decisions that I had made, and wondered if I should have just killed him and Panda the day they came into our bar.

  I could have even done something when they trespassed on our turf.

  Had I acted on either of those occasions, Peyton’s life would have been as it was before. Filled with guilt, sorrow, and a tremendous amount of hatred, I stared back at him. In his eyes, I saw nothing. No regret, no sorrow, not even fear. I wanted to say so much. I had envisioned giving a long speech, telling him how murdering him was the final step in serving justice for the life he had chosen to live. For the pain that he caused so many others.

  Instead, I simply pointed the pistol at his forehead and pulled the trigger.

  He fell to the floor with a heavy thud. The carpet around him slowly darkened as the blood poured out of the cavity in his skull.

  I felt no differently. I expected to be cured. Free of pain. To immediately believe that Peyton’s life would quickly transform back to normal.

  But I wasn’t cured.

  My heart still ached.

  Filled with the belief that the only cure for what I was feeling would be the passage of time, I stepped over Whip’s body and walked away.

  Chapter 26

  Peyton

  I pushed the door open and met the receptionist’s gaze. After scanning the lobby and finding it empty, I proceeded to walk toward her. With each step, my legs felt heavier, a little less capable.

  Eventually, I made it to her work station. She looked up at me and smiled. I smiled in return.

  “Hi. I uhhm. I need to talk to someone.”

  “Are you looking for anyone in particular?”

  “Uhhm. I mean. No. Well, kind of. Someone who. Someone who has. I’d really like it if. Do you have any women?”

  She looked caring. Understanding. And confused.

  “Are you a victim?”

  My lip began to quiver. I clutched my purse and nodded. “Uh huh.”

  She lifted her hand and reached toward me. “I’ll get you one of our counselors, and if needed, an EMDR therapist.”

  I took her hand in mine. I wanted to tell her thank you, but lately it seemed wanting to speak and actually speaking were two totally different things.

  Either her hand was shaking or mine was, but together, we stood there and shook like it was the right thing to do.

  “What’s your name, beautiful?” she asked.

  “I’m Peyton,” I said. “Peyton Price.”

  “I’m Candace,” she said. “I’m a survivor. It’s going to get better, okay?”

  I chewed on my lip and nodded my head.

  A woman walked through the door beside Candace’s desk. She was older than I expected, probably sixty by my guess. She was dressed in a navy pants suit, and was an attractive woman, but I had little desire to talk to someone that had no idea about what I was going through. I wanted to talk to Candace, she was a survivor. I was done being a victim. I wanted to be a survivor.

  “Peyton,” Candace said. “This is Elizabeth. She’ll take you back where you can talk in private, okay.”

  “The woman smiled a genuine smile. “Peyton?”

  I nodded.

  “Hi, I’m Elizabeth. I’m one of the center’s counselors, and I’m a survivor,” she said.

  I felt a little bit better. “Hi, I’m. I’m uhhm. I’m Peyton. Peyton Price.”

  She extended her hand. I glanced at it, and eventually took her hand in mine.

  “Come on back, Peyton,” she said. “Who does your hair?”

  I reached for my head, and pressed my hair to my scalp. It seemed like an odd question. “My hair?”

  “The highlights look wonderful. And I just love the cut. I need to go somewhere new. Mine always looks awful,” she said with a laugh.

  “Uhhm. The highlights are natural. I spend a lot of time in the sun. I surf. And, thank you. I get it cut at Crystals in Old Town.”

  I followed her through the door and down a long corridor.

  “Crystals?” she asked. “I’ll have to give them a try. Who’s your stylist?”

  “Beth.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  She walked through a doorway and into an office. “Have a seat.”

  The office wasn’t like a normal office; it was more like a lounge. I glanced around, sat on an overstuffed chair, and she sat beside me on the edge of a loveseat.

  “We have a little different approach here at SDTT. How’d you find out about us?”

  I looked around the room. “Google.”

  “Isn’t the internet a wonderful tool?”

  I nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “If I told you I knew how you were feeling would you believe me?”

  “Uhhm. Like really believe you?”

  She laughed. “Yes.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I see. Well…” She adjusted herself on the cushion, crossed her legs, and fixed her eyes on mine.

  It was the first time I had really noticed her eyes, but they were a lot like Navarro’s. A memorizing blue, and definitely not easy to look away from.

  “I was seventeen. My husband was twenty-one, and he was at work. We married much younger back then. We’d been married for two years at the time.”

  I was shocked. “You got married when you were fifteen?”

  “I sure did. He was in the military, and we married immediately after he completed his basic training.”

  “Wow.”

  She smiled. “I wanted to be the perfect housewife. I had his dinner ready every night when he got home from work. We lived off-base in a small house – just a one bedroom. We were renting it for $250 a month.”

  I laughed. “Those days are long gone.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” she said. “Would you like something to drink?”

  Her voice was soothing, and I enjoyed listening to her tell her story. Although she was considerably younger, she reminded me of my grandmother, which I found comforting. “No. I’m good for now.”

  She smiled, rested her hands in her lap, and continued. “So, one day, I had dinner in the oven, and was waiting for my husband to come home. A man knocked at the door, and I answered. Back then, people walked from door to door selling things. Door to door salesmen, that’s what they called them. We didn’t have the internet, or cell phones, for that matter.”

  I grinned at the thought of living back in the day, and not having all of the distractions of the modern world. Life would be so much different, for sure.

  “He was selling vacuum cleaners. I wanted to tell him we couldn’t afford one, but to be really honest, I was interested in seeing what it was capable of. A Kirby. That’s what they called it. Nothing, he said, could get my house cleaner than a Kirby. I had almost an hour to spare before my husband was to get home, so I agreed to see his demonstration.”

  “Was it as good as he said?”

  She shook her head. “We never got that far. He closed the door, locked it, and then he raped me.”

  My heart sank. I had no idea that’s where she was headed with her story. “I’m so sorry.”

  She smiled a faint but genuine smile and continued. “I felt guilty. For letting him in, you know. I felt responsible, because I was wearing the skirt that my husband liked so much, and though if I had chosen a pants suit, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

  She didn’t seem upset at all talking about it, but I felt terribly sorry for her nonetheless. To think of someone doing something like that to an unsuspecting housewife was horrible. I stared back at her, at a complete loss for words.

  “Mood swings, fits of anger, anxiety, and periods of having less than zero self-esteem followed. It lasted for years. We were trying to have a child at the time, so, I told my husband I needed to go to the doctor. I went that day and got help. I talked to someone like me, a counselor. And, here I am. I’ve spent my entire life helping people like you and me.”

  “Thank you. For everything.”

  �
��So, if I told you now that I knew how you were feeling, would you believe me?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Are you ready to talk, Peyton?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I am.”

  Chapter 27

  Nick

  She thrust her hip into the door of her Jeep, and swung it closed. I watched as she walked into the shop, a plastic bag dangling from her right fist. She swung it back and forth comically, as if to bring attention to the fact she was carrying it. I hadn’t seen her for an entire week and I didn’t like it much, but she told me she’d come around as soon a she was able.

  By the look on her face, she must have been a little more than able.

  Smiling from ear to ear, she continued to walk toward me, the grin all but covering her entire face. Watching her walk was a treat in itself, and I could do it for as long as she would let me.

  Her jean shorts, Chuck’s, and Jimi Hendrix tee shirt were a reminder of the way things once were.

  “Here,” she said, tossing the bag toward me.

  I wasn’t expecting her to throw it, but caught it before it fell to the floor, nonetheless. It wasn’t heavy, but it was heavier than I expected. “What’s this?”

  “Open it.”

  I opened the bag and removed the box that was inside. Covered in Harley-Davidson wrapping paper, the 12-inch by 12-inch box was perfectly wrapped.

  “Did you wrap it?”

  “No,” she said. “I got some random lady to do it.”

  I nodded and glanced down at the box.

  “Yes, asshole. I wrapped it.”

  “Oh. It looks nice.”

  “Open it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a fucking gift, you big goon.”

  She’s only been gone for a week, and it seemed in the time that she was away, she’d got her spunk back. Surprised, and feeling like I was feeding off of her playful nature, I tossed the box on the workbench and spun her around by her arm. As soon as I did it, I realized I probably shouldn’t have. Her reaction told me otherwise.

  She bent over and pointed her ass at me. After a few seconds of hovering there bent over, she stood up.