The Beauty's Beast

by Eddie Cleveland

  “Are you going to university?” I ask shyly. I can’t believe how self-centered I’ve been. My mind is struggling to come up with one thing I know about this guy other than the fact that he’s good at science and crushing on me hard. I’m coming up blank.

  If he’s offended, it doesn’t show. “I did. I’ll be at Colorado U too. I got into the engineering program.”

  “Oh, congrats.” I feel like a jerk for not knowing that. But not enough of a jerk to stop searching over his shoulder for my boyfriend. When I’ve rotated back around enough that Mack’s back in clear view, I can see he doesn’t look impressed.

  Good. Serves him right for refusing to dance with me. I smile to myself.

  I see Mack pushing his way through the tables and chairs until he’s no longer in view. The song is almost over and this time when I spot Mack he’s at the edge of the dance floor. The last note is being sung as he springs toward me like a tiger from the bushes.

  “Thanks for the dance, Joel.” I smile and step back. I thud right into the human pillar that is my boyfriend. I feel his arms wrap around my body as he pulls me against him possessively.

  “All right, you’ve made your point. Let’s get out of here.” he hisses in my ear.

  Joel looks at me, then over my shoulder, smiling politely. “Thank you for the dance, Lauren. I’ll see you on campus next year.” He gives my hand a quick squeeze before dropping it back to my side. Before I even have a chance to respond, I’m being guided toward the exit with a sense of urgency.

  I don’t bother looking back over my shoulder as we leave. There’s no point. My future is with Mack.

  Scratch that.

  My future is Mack. And nostalgia has no place in his plans.

  2

  Lauren

  2004

  “Where are we going?” I allow him to guide me through the front doors and into the night air. Instead of walking toward the valet parking, he tightens his grip on my hand and leads me down the side of the building behind the hedges.

  Mack stops and turns around quickly, almost knocking me off balance. Luckily, his hand steadies me before I have a chance to twist an ankle in these heels. I don’t know why I ever let my sister, Chelsea, talk me into wearing them. I’m the kind of girl who practically gets vertigo from a quarter-inch heel on my flats.

  I balked at the 6-inch heels she originally campaigned for. “I’m not a stripper! I’ll break my damned neck in those.” I pushed the crushed velvet shoes back into her arms. She wrinkled her nose at me and gave me that look she always gives me when she thinks I’m still acting like a baby. I hate that look. I hate it so much that I’m teetering on 4-inch heels on the lawn of the Colorado golf club, trying not to snap my ankles.

  Thoughts of Chelsea’s “helpful" fashion choices flit away as soon as I look into Mack’s crystal blue eyes. Even now, after twelve years of looking into them, I’m unable to look away. That color, it unnerves me and soothes me at the same time. They’re like waves crashing against a Hawaiian beach, if you could only manage to stay on the sand and listen, you’d be captivated by their tranquility. But instead, you find yourself trying to surf them, obsessed with the idea of taming them, knowing full well the danger that lurks beneath.

  He leans into me, his frame pressed up hard against mine, and I let out a small sigh. When his soft lips find mine, my eyelids flutter closed. The thudding bass from the dance hall is drowned out by my own heartbeat. When he steps back, it takes me a second to stop making a fishy face at the night air, my lips still desperately trying to kiss a ghost.

  My eyes snap open and this time all I can see in Mack’s eyes is lust. I look over my shoulder, we’re barely ten feet away from the front door. These cedar hedges would’ve been an awesome fort hide out when we were kids, but they aren’t doing much to hide us as adults.

  “Mack, if you think we’re gonna mess around here … there’s no way.” My voice is a strained whisper.

  “Oh come on, Lauren. You think I’m gonna try something here?” He pretends to be offended.

  I do, actually.

  If I know anything about Mack, and I know a lot, it’s that he would try to have sex with me anywhere.

  Any place.

  Any time.

  God, I thought that I was helping him gain some maturity and restraint when I insisted we wait until my eighteenth. If anything, I think all that waiting turned him into an animal. Not that I’m complaining.

  “I just wanted to kiss you. No funny business,” he puts his hands up in surrender. “Jeez, what kind of perv are you anyway? Thinking about getting naked in the bushes? I always knew you were a wild one,” he smirks.

  Heat rises in my cheeks and I tilt my head away. I don’t want him to see it written all over my face how much the idea really does excite me.

  “Well, what are we doing then?”

  “You’ll see.” His eyes twinkle brighter than the stars above us and for just a moment, I wonder if I should go back on my “no-sex-in-the-hedges" policy. He weaves his fingers in mine and steadies me by holding my arm with his other hand as he leads the way around the country club. The light gets dimmer as we sneak around the building to the back until we’re stumbling through the darkness toward a garage.

  What the?

  “Ok, just wait here a sec. I’ll be less than a minute. I promise.” He stifles my questions with a quick kiss before he quickly jogs over the grass to the shadows.

  I squint to watch him approach the garage. Out from the side door pops a young man who Mack clearly knows. They look like old buds, clapping each other’s shoulders and laughing. I watch Mack dig out his wallet and give the guy a couple bills and then his buddy disappears back inside. Is he getting drugs? No, that’s not like Mack. Some booze? More likely, but I don’t know why he’d have to get it back here. There’ll be tons of drinks at the after party.

  I watch as Mack waits by the door and listen to the crickets in the distance, punctuating the night air. The serenity is short lived as a grinding noise fills my ears. The large garage door slides up loudly as white light spills out into the darkness. Inside are rows of golf carts lined up like little soldiers.

  The guy steers one of the carts out the front door and comes to a jerky stop by my boyfriend. I watch as they shake hands again and then Mack jumps in the cart and drives out over the grass toward me as the garage door slinks back down, keeping his transaction a secret. His cocky smile is pasted in place as he pulls up beside me. I can’t help but return it.

  “Hop in,” he pats the empty seat next to him casually. Like he’s not breaking a bunch of laws right now. Like we’re gonna go putt on the green and have a few rounds of golf.

  I’m sure there will be a few rounds involved, I’ll even get to practice my long and short stroke.

  How can a girl resist?

  3

  Lauren

  2004

  I climb into the cart. As soon as I have my dress tucked in around my legs, Mack is speeding up across the green.

  “Whoa, slow down. I don’t want you to flip this thing!” I clutch the bar over my head for stability.

  “Relax, you know I’ve got you.”

  I do know.

  I know he’s looked after me since I was six years old and fell off my Rainbow Brite bike. He wiped the tiny pebbles from my skinned knees and the tears from my eyes. I can’t even count how many times he’s soothed away my fears or sadness since that day. I can’t imagine how many more times he will in our future. Mack wraps his arm around my shoulder and I drop my head against him, breathing in his scent. Wherever we’re going, I know I’m safe in his arms.

  He drives us up a fairly steep slope and I listen to the night air rush by us. If I listen close enough, I can almost hear our story on the wind. Our history being played out and our destiny unfolding. I can almost hear the songs and laughter of our childhood being erased by the loving murmurs of our years to come.

  Mack reaches the top of the hill and parks the cart. He slides out on
to the green and pulls a blanket out from behind the seat. He smoothly spreads it out over the grass with a flick of his wrist before walking over to me and extending his hand to help me out of the cart.

  Kicking my heels off, I step out onto the cool grass. Once we reach the blanket, I notice I can see the reflection of the moon and stars in a small lake below.

  “It’s beautiful!”

  “That lake looks like a swamp compared to you.” he answers, his voice low. He walks up behind me and slips his arms around me. His lips quickly find their way to that tender spot on my neck that he knows drives me crazy. I remember back in seventh grade when Mack left a hickey on that spot. Mom wasn’t impressed. I smile at the memory and close my eyes as tingles of desire prickle along my skin.

  He cups his hand against my cheek and guides my mouth back to his, our tongues dance against each other to a song only they can hear. Mack pushes his body tight against mine and I lean back against him, instinctively grinding my ass back against his hardening cock. Butterflies erupt in a frenzied flight inside my chest just from feeling his excitement through our clothes. We’ve only been having sex for a couple months now, so each time is still new and naughty. I hope the thrill never goes away.

  I turn around to face him, eager to look into his eyes. To see his face when he undresses me. His pink lips hover over mine, the heat of his breath billows over my cheek, making the warm night feel frosty in comparison. Mack’s fingers trail down over my face as he looks into me, like he’s lost in us. In more than this moment. In more than the sex. In all of us. His eyes flit back into focus and he presses his lips down against mine in a bruising kiss.

  His hands find my zipper and make quick work of tugging it down far enough that my breasts are exposed to the night. Mack flutters soft kisses down my neck and across my collar bone. My stomach twists up tight in anticipation of his wet mouth finding it’s way to my nipple. When at last he does, I throw my head back and look up at the bright moon as small ripples of pleasure radiate through me. With my arms laced around his neck, I’m practically hanging off of him while he kisses my nipple, licking around it and then flickering his tongue over it. The air feels icy against it as he abandons my left nipple for my right and I arch my back hungrily, hoping he’ll never stop.

  Slick desire is blossoming between my legs and spreading to my panties. As his tongue twists and teases my nipples, I cry out to the stars, surprised by my own voice. Mack stops and looks down at me, his smirk ever present.

  “Sorry, that was kinda loud.” I look down.

  “Mmmm, I like it,” he teases. “Let’s see if I can get you to really make some noise.”

  He pulls me down to the blanket and tugs my dress down over my body as I wriggle to be freed from it impatiently. Once he has it pulled down over my ankles, he tosses the gown beside us on the grass, like an afterthought. Normally, lying under him in nothing but my lacey underwear while he’s still fully dressed would make me feel self-conscious. But tonight, with the moon and stars as our light combined with the way he’s looking at me make me lean up on my elbows and tilt my head to the side, happy to let him look.

  “God, Lauren, you’re so beautiful.” His voice is hoarse.

  “Thank you,” I whisper back. “How about letting me see you?” I let my eyes trail down over his tuxedo and feel those butterflies beating their wings again at the idea of him stripping it off.

  “You don’t need to ask me twice.” He slides his coat off onto the ground in a pile. The rest of his clothes are quick to follow making a small mountain of fabric next to us. His cut muscles challenge my eyes to focus on just one place.

  He leans over me and his warm fingers slide under the edge of my panties, hooking them and pulling until he’s tugged them off me. I sit up a bit and dip my fingers under the waistband of his underwear. I still feel shy about undressing him. I slowly pull them down until his cock is exposed and wobbling in front of my face. I can’t help but gasp. I try to wrap my fingers around it, desperate to feel him, but Mack softly pushes me back against the blanket.

  “I want you, Lauren. I need to be in you.” He lowers himself onto me and braces himself with a strong arm on each side of my body. My eyes are drawn to the definition in his bicep, then the blue of his eyes. “Are you ready?” he murmurs.

  I nod and bite my lip as he presses the head of his cock against my slick opening. He pushes himself into me and I can feel my body opening around his thick shaft. Even though this isn’t our first time, it still stings a little when he thrusts his hips and fully buries his member inside me. I wrap my arms back around his neck. The need to feel his skin pressed against mine is overwhelming. The way his frame covers me is soothing, like a warm blanket in a thunder storm.

  Mack inches his cock into me, until his hips are flush with the insides of my thighs. I open my legs further, twisting my feet around the backs of his knees, allowing him to fill me even more. When he pulls back and pumps into me again, I gasp at the tiny pinch of pain giving way to pleasure. Mack thrusts into me and I tilt my hips up to him, trying to feel him inside me as deeply as I can.

  He drops his head down and pulls my nipple into his mouth, sucking on it hard. I swear I see stars and it isn’t the ones in the sky. Warmth grows in my belly as his cock slides inside me. Little waves of ecstasy ripple through me as our bodies perfectly fit together. His breaths are quickening and his movements are getting jerky when a tidal wave of pressure and bliss crash down on me, leaving me screaming Mack’s name into the darkness. I can feel his cum filling me up inside as he grinds down against me, his hips shuddering against my thighs.

  We don’t move. We just lie here and listen to the night and our breathing. The crickets are back, I suppose they never left, but I can hear them again. Singing for us. I’d like to think of it as applause. Mack pulls back from me and a little bit of his seed spills onto the blanket. I don’t care. That’s what the pill is for. It’s not like he’s some kind of manwhore. We are each other’s first and last.

  “I told you I could make you even noisier,” he puffs out his chest proudly. He was right. For once I’m not even embarrassed.

  “That felt amazing.” I don’t tell him that it’s the first time I’ve ever had an orgasm from sex. I don’t want to bruise his ego.

  “You’re amazing,” he pulls me toward him, lying back on the blanket and holding me in his arms. We stare at the night sky together, neither of us in a hurry to get dressed. I feel like I could lay in his arms like this forever. At least until dawn. The early morning golfers might have an issue with forever.

  “I can’t believe that this is the end. The end and the beginning. I really feel like we’re starting a new chapter together, you know?” I ramble, breathing in the sweet smell of fresh cut grass and his cologne. He doesn’t answer me; I hope he’s not falling asleep.

  “You know what though? I can’t wait for all the chapters,” I continue. “I can’t wait for us to buy our first janky futon together and for us to buy grocery carts of ramen noodles. I can’t wait for when we get married, you know, after college I mean. And when we start having kids together. I think two kids is good, what do you think? I’m even looking forward to when we get all old and hunched over together,” I smile at the sky.

  Nothing. Just Mack breathing. Oh, jeez, he did fall asleep.

  “Mack?”

  “Yeah.”

  Or not.

  “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

  Those crickets sound even louder. Less like they’re applauding now and more like they’re mocking me.

  “Mack?”

  Crap. I probably freaked him out with my sixty-year forecast into the future. “Hey, you know I’m just talking right? I don’t really have big plans for that far away …”

  “Lauren, I need to tell you something.”

  Double crap.

  He sits up and I sit next to him. His eyebrows are knit together and his mouth is twisted to the side. “What’s going on? Did I freak you out about the
future?”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Lauren, I got into West Point.”

  “West Point? The military academy? But you didn’t even tell me you were applying? In New York? What about my scholarship? What about our plans? When are you going?” My mouth rattles off the questions as quickly as my mind can form them.

  Mack looks down at his hands, then into my eyes. “I’m leaving in three days.”

  4

  Lauren

  2004

  “Three days?” I squeak.

  I’m searching his face for signs that this is a badly timed joke. There’s no twinkle in his eyes like when he mixed mustard with frosting and gave me a lifelong aversion to cupcakes. There’s no trace of a smirk on his lips like when told me his grandparents were nudists right before we pulled up to their house for a nice Sunday supper. Instead, I’m met with the same earnest stare as when he first told me that he loved me.

  “Mack, what are you talking about? We have school on Monday. Why are you fucking with me?” His eyes don’t change. He doesn’t bust out laughing and revel in the “gotcha” moment.

  “I know we do. I’m just going for a campus visit. Once you’re admitted, you can go check out the school for a week and get a feel for it. I’m not going for good until July.” He runs his hand over his dark brown hair and sweeps it down over his neck.

  My mind is spinning out of control. I might black out. Am I drunk? Is this a dream?

  “You’re serious? You just decided to drop this on me? On prom night? How long have you been planning this? When did you even apply?” I’m being tossed around on a sea of anger and despair.