Beautiful Nightmare

by Stotz, Chrystie Q.

  I sat there for a while, just listening to him. As much as I wanted to hate him as that moment, I couldn’t, not while I was listening to that sound coming from his mouth. It was so musical. Even thought I felt my anger washing away under the tide of his emotions, I forced myself to keep my scowl in place. He stopped for a second to look up at me, gasping for breathe. He got one look at my face, and fell over laughing again. I stood up, ready to run out of the house when he jumped up and grabbed my hand. The sensation he left on me was more intense than ever before, my hand almost numb from the effects. His demeanor now calm, with my hand in his, he yanked me forward into his arms.

  “I’m only playing with you.” He laid a kiss against my temple. “It’s just too hard to resist that expression.” He smiled down at me, a teeth baring smile that made my insides turn to mush, not the mocking one he wore every time he brought up the party.

  He dropped his hold on me, quickly, and pulled me down onto the couch next to him putting a slight distance between us. An instant later, Jayson came wandering in. I hadn’t even heard him approaching.

  “How is it that I always leave you here and you always find him before I do?”

  I smiled up at him. “It’s a big house, I had a better chance staying still then you did wandering around.” He laughed, then walked around the big couch to have a seat, forcing himself between Kamdyn and me.

  Within the hour, the friends started showing up. There were only about eight of us total. It made me feel a little better knowing that the whole school wasn’t going to be here, but the knot remained in my stomach. Most of the friends I had made here, were now in this room and, later... Yikes!

  The time didn’t pass as quickly as I thought it would. I tried to enjoy myself, to forget about the event to come, and I did. Just like any other party we hung back and had fun, had a few drinks, played around with our costumes. Becky was dressed as a cat and she played the part well, traveling from friend to friend rubbing up against them, purring, sometimes licking them. When Mike tried to lick her back, she jumped up swiping her claws and hissed.

  Alex was dressed as a chick magnet, showing off his “creative side”, or so he said. He was dressed in all black; a long sleeve back shirt and black sweats. All different kinds of dolls -Barbies, Bratz, American Girls, you name it- sewn in all kinds of positions all over his body. I didn’t even ask where he managed to get all the dolls, I didn’t want to know. He spent the majority of the night exhibiting his imaginary magnetic force to attract girls. His plan didn’t work the way it was supposed to, girls were supposed to get pulled toward him, instead he seemed to loose his balance and get pulled in the direction of any girl. Which wasn’t much different than any other day.

  Jayson seemed to cause the biggest distraction. He was dressed as a vampire and he went around the party with his fake vampire fangs, biting everyone on the neck. He seemed to specifically come after me a lot, causing me to run around the house trying to hide. I finally figured that he kept coming after me because I kept running, so I stopped running, after he had chased me through the entire house. I finally stopped running somewhere near the kitchen. It seemed that he didn’t expect me to just stop running, so when I stopped, he stood stock still and didn’t know what to do. I turned around and smiled at him.

  “Ha! I figured you out.” I laughed.

  I realized then, as both his eyebrows went flying up, that we were alone on this side of the house. His expression changed into something I couldn’t name, one I hadn’t seen on him before. My stomach did a little flip. Before I could even move, he lunged for me. He tackled me to the ground, landing hard on top of me. He took both my wrists in one hand and held them pinned to the floor above my head.

  “What were you saying about figuring me out?” he said while his free hand pushed my hair away from my neck. Completely caught off guard, I looked up at his face and watched as he bent down to ‘bite my neck’. But something was missing, his fake fangs weren’t in his mouth.

  There was nothing I could do. Trapped under his weight with my hands pinned above my head, I squirmed trying to get free. His hands held my wrists tight and hard against the floor, his hips and legs pressing mine firmly in place allowing me not even an inch. It was a wasted struggle, though I had to try. I finally felt his mouth touch my neck, and winced anticipating his teeth. But he didn’t bite me like he was supposed to. He gently dragged his lips across my throat where he should have bitten. His mouth opened suddenly against my skin and…

  “Jayson, what’s going on, you guys get lost?” Kamdyn said from above us. Jayson couldn’t see his face, but I could. There was something in his eyes now that I hadn’t seen before.

  Jayson appeared reluctant as he released my hands and slowly got up off the floor. When we were both on our feet I noticed Jayson was sporting a real cheesy grin. I looked at him and scowled, turned on my heels and walked out of the kitchen. Kamdyn caught up with me not far down the hall, his tingling touch resting on my shoulder. Jayson wasn’t far behind him, still with a smug expression.

  “Trystie,” I turned around as Kamdyn grabbed me. “I need to get some things from upstairs for the party. Will you come help me, please?” He smiled mischievously, a gleam in his eyes.

  I glanced at Jayson then back to Kamdyn. “Sure.”

  “Jay, we’ll be right back okay. Can you go back in there and make sure the twins aren’t destroying my house?”

  Jayson’s arrogant smirk all of a sudden disappeared; he nodded and continued past us, into the living room.

  Kamdyn grabbed my hand again, without a second glance in the direction Jayson vanished in, he pulled me upstairs.

  Once I knew we couldn’t be overheard I tried to figure out what was up, because something definitely was up. “Kamdyn, what the hell are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer. He just continued to walk, dragging me by hand behind him. Once we got upstairs, he pulled me into the bathroom I used that first night during the party, and shut the door behind us. Before I could register what he was doing, he grabbed both my hands, pushed me up against the wall and pinned my arms above my head.

  “What is it today that I did to make people want to restrain me?” I asked seriously curious.

  “It looked like fun, I wanted to try.” He ran his fingers through my hair, pulling my left side up in a fistful on top of my head. I struggled for breath as he tilted my head to the side and placed his lips against my throat. “I’m going to have to remember how well this works in the future.” He softly spoke against my skin. When he released me, he walked over to the big closet at the back of the bathroom.

  I stepped away from the wall, following him to the closet at the far end of the room. “You’re not mad? You looked… upset.”

  He let out a soft chuckle. “I’m not mad at you, you couldn’t do anything. And I can’t really be mad at Jayson either. No one knows about us yet, therefore they wouldn’t know to stay away. I can’t blame him for trying. If he only made a move earlier, I might have had something to worry about.” He smiled confidently and started handing me towels. We grabbed enough for everyone and made our way back down stairs.

  “It’s almost Midnight. Everyone ready?” Kamdyn yelled as we approached the living room where are friends were waiting. A whole bunch of whistles and screams came from the direction of our friends. “Okay, girls? Follow me. Guys, follow Jayson.”

  All four of us girls followed Kamdyn to a room to the right side of the pool. He let us all walk in front of him and closed the door behind him as he entered.

  “Okay, you guys change here. Leave all your stuff on the bed and come out with your towels through those doors.” He pointed to the set of French doors covered by thin white curtains. “We’ll see you in a couple minutes.” He gave me a quick wink and walked out the French doors, across the patio to another set of similar doors on the opposite side.

  Becky followed him to the door, shut it behind him and checked over the coverage of the curtains. Satisfied, she spun aroun
d. “Okay ladies, everyone ready?” she said with a wicked smile.

  I was definitely not ready, but what other choice did I have. It was a good thing I decided to wear my bathing suit under my dress because so did the other girls. Becky, Lauren and Drea all had suits on under their costumes.

  “At least you were smart enough to wear a suit.” Lauren said smiling in my direction. “We aren’t allowed to tell anyone who doesn’t know, you can bring a suit to wear in, but it comes off while we’re out there.”

  “Yeah,” Becky added. “We only wear the bottoms out there though. Once we get in, we take them off and leave them on the patio.”

  My stomach rolled and my heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest.

  “It really isn’t so bad, Trystie. Don’t be nervous.” Drea added. “It’s so dark out there, you can’t actually see anything. You’ll see.”

  I heard some screaming and splashing in the background and my heart plummeted into my stomach. Okay, everything will be fine, I told myself. I quickly wrapped my towel around me, took off my top, throwing it on the bed, and followed behind as the girls strutted out the doors.

  I was surprised, once I got outside, that the scene was completely different from what I had just seen when Kamdyn ran across to go change. Just like Drea had said, it was completely dark on the patio. Only a couple strings of blue Christmas lights hung across the pool. Even the lights in the pool were off. The good news was, you couldn’t see anything except a silhouette as we walked out into the night. No wonder no one minded these skinny dipping parties. You saw more skin under the sun with our bathing suits on. The only other light tonight was the illumination from the dim moonlight.

  One by one, the girls in front of me threw their towels on chairs, and very sultry-like walked into the water. The muscle in my chest nearly trying to escape, I followed along, trying my hardest not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. Once we were all in the water, all the girls took off our bottoms and threw them up in the direction of our towels.

  Since our exit from the side room, none of the guys moved, frozen in whatever position they took in the water when we appeared. Once the girls were all in, chaos erupted. Splashing and screaming while each guy ran after a girl to either dunk or throw. It would just figure that I was the first caught, picked up, and thrown into the deep end. I don’t know who threw me, but I could feel there were at least two of them. I broke the surface of the water, gasping and swiping waters from my eyes. I looked in the direction I had come from to found Alex and Mike laughing and giving high fives. Then they saw me, froze looking at each other, than took off toward the far end of the pool as I swam as fast as I could to catch them.

  This went on for at least and hour. Everyone was getting dunked, thrown or attacked in some way in the pool. When everyone started getting tired, they slowly found their way to the hot tub I never even noticed was there. Everyone fit perfectly in the hot tub, with room to spare and we all sat back and reveled in the feel of the warmth.

  Kamdyn got up and ran inside once everyone settled, returning shortly with drinks for everyone. I found myself, uncomfortably, sitting between Kamdyn and Jayson. I knew it shouldn’t have been awkward, but it was. Kamdyn was so close I could feel the prickling on my thigh from his skin touching mine. The whole time we were in the pool, I didn’t even remember that my clothes were missing, that everyone’s clothes were missing. That very important point, that I couldn’t forget for the last two weeks, was suddenly not so important anymore. Everyone seemed so entirely comfortable with the people around them, that I didn’t think twice about it anymore. Now that we were all sitting in the hot tub, all eight of us, all facing each other, I was brought back to the fact that we had no bathing suits.

  I sat there as long as I could, but a pressure started building all around me and I felt like I was drowning. I took deep breaths and tried ignoring it while we had a couple drinks and made jokes. But the heat was starting to get to me, at least something was. I needed to get out of the tub, to get away from everyone. I needed space. I went to stand up, bracing my arms on the edge my seat when Kamdyn’s hand shot through the water landing on my leg. I looked up meeting his eyes. He looked concerned.

  He leaned over toward my ear. “You okay?” No one seemed to notice.

  “I’m okay. I’m just… I’m gonna go back into the pool for a while.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” The concerned look was still on his face, his hand still firmly holding on to my leg, keeping me in place.

  “Kamdyn, I’m not going to run away, relax. If you want to come with me, you can. Otherwise, stay here with your guests.” I put my hand over his, under the water, than gently pulled his hand from my leg and stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Jayson asked.

  “I’m just a little hot Jayson. I’m gonna go in the pool for a bit.”

  “You want company?”

  “No, I-”

  “I’m going with her.”

  Now we got everyone’s attention. No one spoke in the hot tub. All eyes were on us. When I looked up, everyone quickly averted their eyes, everyone except Becky. Becky was the one who caught my eye. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to. I could read the huge grin on her face like it was a flashing neon sign screaming, “I know what’s going on, I know what’s going on”.

  I ignored her and turned away, bring my attention back to Jayson’s face.

  “Do you want us to go with you?” Jayson asked, looking to me for the answer.

  “No, Jayson. I’m good. Stay here, I won’t be gone long.” I didn’t wait for his response, or any hint of disappointment in his facial expression, I just continued my movement to get out of the hot tub, inconspicuously covering whatever part of me I could while walking in the moonlight to the pool.

  As I approached the stairs to the pool, I heard Becky say something that sounded like, “Bet he’ll do more than just keep her company” but I chose to believe I heard that wrong.

  I was in the water and swimming before Kamdyn had even gotten out of the hot tub. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all. I swam to the deep end, taking my time when I noticed the moonlight had gone. Looking up I could see that the beautiful black sparkling sky was now blacked out by clouds and a slight chilly wind had picked, blowing softly around me, covering whatever bit of skin showing above the water with goosebumps. Just as I felt the first drop fall from the sky, Kamdyn came running and dove in. He resurfaced right in front of me, rapped his arms around me and pulled me against him.

  “You are even more beautiful with those clothes off.” he whispered into my ear.

  Oh my god! “You know, just when I am able to forget, you go and bring it up again.” I put my hands against his chest and pushed slightly, trying to get away. “I think you just like seeing me uncomfortable.” I saw the slight twitch of his lips in the pale blue Christmas lights. It made me what to scream.

  “And I can barely see you so you must be saying that just to toy with me.”

  His smile was still perfectly in place. “I guess I just see well in the dark,” he answered with a laugh. I felt myself stiffen as I remembered how long he took following me to the pool, only moments ago. I thought maybe he was talking to someone or maybe making it look like he wasn’t all that eager to leave everyone and follow me to the pool. But maybe I was wrong? He wasn’t taking his time, he was watching me!

  “Relax, Trystie. You have nothing to worry about. Remember, I told you to trust me. Don’t you trust me?”

  I paused, more for effect than to actually think about it. “Yes. I really do.” When I said it, at that moment, I realized I really did feel that way. I would trust him with my life, with anything. Something in me screamed, you barely know him! But it didn’t matter, I knew enough to know that that trust was there. That it was really myself I didn’t have confidence in. As soon as I came to the realization, I felt my body relax and realized I felt his touch electrifying almost my entire body.

  I closed my eye
s in response to the unbelievable feeling, taking it all in. Was there any better feeling than this?

  “That’s better.” Kamdyn breathed into my wet hair.

  We swam over to the edge of the pool and again, Kamdyn squeezed me between himself and the wall, giving me no chance for escape. He placed one arm on the wall on either side of my head, but he didn’t do anything but look into my eyes intently. I could hear the others, not too far away, laughing and joking in the hot tub, even over the sudden downpour. It didn’t sound like we were missed and I found myself wanting to reach for the person in front of me. I couldn’t not touch him anymore. These last couple of weeks I forced away ever urge to feel his skin under mine, to feel that electricity run over my skin. I pulled my hands leisurely away from the wall and placed my hands on his back, just under his shoulder blades. I slid my eyes closed and just rested them on his muscled back, if only for a moment, taking in the wonderful feeling our skin contact creates.

  Kamdyn didn’t move, he just stayed frozen in his place. I slowly opened my eyes to have my vision filled with a violet light. I blinked hard and wiped the rain out of my eyes, only to realize… I was losing my mind. His eyes were amazing, but there was nothing otherworldly about them. Other than the intensity of his gaze, which made the tingling I felt in my hands travel up my arms. It was completely addicting, and he knew it. Before I could stop myself, I was pulling him up against me. My hands traveled down his back, stopping at his waist and repeating the path back up again. This sensation intensified as my trailing fingers glided along his skin. With the front of his body now pressed up against mine, I felt the same sensation seeping deeper into my skin. I licked my lips and closed my eyes again, taking in every moment. Every unbelievable feeling.

  His hand over my left shoulder lifted and ran along my cheek, down my neck and across my collarbone and he closed the remaining distance between us, his mouth softly covering mine. This time, it was more passionate and slow, making me feel dizzy and grounded at the same time.