Augh. An introduction? Really? Weren't we intimate enough for neighbors? “Fiona,” I gave in. The sooner he was out, the sooner I could curl up into a ball. It was too late to go out. I was too worked up for alcohol to take the feelings away.
He nodded. “Hunter,” he said. He opened the door and stepped into the hall. “See you around, Fee,” he said, closing the door.
I went behind him and fastened all my locks, walking into the bathroom, stripping off my clothes. There was a strange anticipation in my belly, like turning, like your belly does on a fast spinning carnival ride. That was always how I felt before. I reached around underneath my table sink vanity, looking for the smooth feeling under my searching fingers. Finding it, my nails dug at the corners and ripped the tape away, the razor blade falling into my hand.
I sat down on the cold tile floor in my undies, pulling my thigh up across my tattooed leg, taking a deep breath and looking at my half-healed scratches. This would help. This always helped. Bleed it out then bleach all the evidence down the drain.
Six
The panties sold well. One week in and I was on back order. It turned out that two times a day with a little working out or vibrator action was good enough. I sealed them in plastic sandwich baggies with a big round sticker on front with lipstick kiss on it. Different shades for different guys.
I couldn't be happier with an extra seven-hundred dollars in my pocket each week. I literally wouldn't be able to spend that kind of money, no matter how lavishly I pampered myself. No matter how much money I dropped on booze. I would be socking a good amount away for a rainy day. Maybe for some other career path some day. Maybe I could open my own sex toy store or something. Something that was all mine.
I slipped into a bright neon green thong, a special request, and got dressed for my night. It was Saturday. I needed to dress to impress if I wanted to get into anywhere decent. Even knowing all the bouncers wasn't going to help if I showed up looking like crap.
I grabbed a galaxy printed mini skirt and a blue tank top with a huge metal zipper up the center. You could literally just reach out and unzip me and hello ladies! I slipped into a pair of bright pink heels that matched a smattering of stars on the skirt, tied my hair back, and headed for the door. I would be freezing, but no one wanted to carry a jacket to a club.
“You could come home with me baby,” a guy said, his breath hot on my ear. He had asked to buy me a round three rounds ago. I refused. I always refused. I paid my own way. And most men expect more than a polite 'thank you' when they have to come out of pocket.
“Nope,” I said, feeling the room start to swirl pleasantly. This was the good point in the night, the lightness, the twirling. The beginning of the night was fighting demons and trying to get to the perfect drunk. The whole night after was spent trying to maintain that kind of high without crashing or overdoing it and ending up vomiting a few hundred bucks into the toilet.
I was good. And all I wanted to do was dance, get lost in the music, get lost in the generalized heated energy. Get lost in the throbbing sex of a room full of people trying to get laid. Because that was as close to sex as I got.
This guy was going to kill my buzz.
“You know you want to. You've been flirting with me all night.”
He wasn't wrong. I flirt. I schmooze. I get wrapped up in the nothingness of my company. Since it means nothing to me, it couldn't mean much to them. Such is my drunk logic. Sober me knows not to poke a sleeping bear. And that was exactly what a horny guy at a club was.
“Sorry,” I said, pulling away from the hand that was trying to stroke my neck. “I'm not interested.” I walked quickly toward the dance floor, getting myself lost in the crowd. He could find someone else. Drunker. Looser. More willing to do a different kind of shame walk home than I was.
I pushed into the center of the crowd, turning myself in slow circles, my hips moving suggestively around, my arms up in the air. Lost. God, how good it was to get lost. I left the floor for the occasional refill, only to get right back on. Until I felt the sweat trickle down my neck. Until my feet starting to hurt beyond the numbing effects of alcohol. Until the place started clearing out. Suggesting three AM. That's when the more decent people decided to head back home alone of with someone else. Decided they had had enough debauchery and liver punishment for one night.
I moved back to the bar, nodding at the bartender who poured me two shots and then handed me my tab which I paid, but sat and waited with my shots until I needed them. Until the fog started to clear. Then I threw one back. The DJ started packing his stuff up and the radio turned on, classic rock replacing the brain-throbbing house garbage. I watched as the bartender cleaned glasses and capped the bottles. I heard the last few souls exit and one of the bouncers came in and took a seat next to a waiting two fingers of whiskey.
He was a huge man. Six and a half feet of muscle and fat that could break through a crowd like a human battering ram. He had dark brown skin and a huge diamond earring in one of his lobes, but the kindest eyes I had ever seen.
“Drunk Girl,” he said, nodding his head at me.
“What's up, Guy?”
“You're gonna need a transplant at this rate. Switch to pot or pills, girl.”
“I did the pot thing a few years ago,” I admitted. Oh, the lovely oblivion. Unfortunately, booze worked better. “And I'm not a pills kinda girl.”
He nodded, holding his whiskey out and I clinked my shot to his glass and threw back the gin, enjoying the quick burn. “Need me to walk you home? It's late,” he added unnecessarily.
“Is it starting to get light yet?” I asked, feeling like the night had gone way too fast to be sunrise already.
“Another fifteen and you'll see the sun pop over the buildings,” he said, knowing the deal. I was at this bar twice a week, every week. We had had this conversation at least fifty times before.
“Okay,” I said, feeling more tired than I usually did. I hopped up off my stool. “I think I am heading out then,” I said, walking past him and placing a hand on his shoulder. A rare show of physical contact for me. But he was always good to me. “Thanks for the offer, Guy, but I got it tonight. I'm only a block away.”
“Be careful,” he said, nodding. “Nothing but unsavory people out this late.”
“Not half as unsavory as me,” I promised, making my way to the door.
I pushed into the night, throwing my head back to look at the still-dark sky, enjoying the cool air on my overheated skin. I took a deep breath, the air smelling of stale cigarette smoke, pot, and vomit. A familiar, almost comforting combination. In a disgusting way. I turned and started my walk home, my keys poking out from between my fingers.
It was a quick walk. And I always enjoyed the quiet. In the city that never sleeps, the only time you can be even the slightest bit alone on the streets was between four and five am. You could see the occasional cab or homeless person. Maybe even a stupid teenager or two. But, all in all, it was a nice kind of solitude.
That is until you feel someone grab you from behind just as you are about to go into your building. That is until you need help and there is none to be had.
I screeched, swinging out with my keyed fist, but a hand grabbed my wrist and pinned it above my head, crushing until my keys fell with a quiet clatter to the ground. And then there he was. The guy from the bar. The one who wanted to take me home. I had shrugged him off as harmless. Stupid, stupid girl. I would never learn.
“You think you can get me all hot and bothered and then just up and leave me, you stupid little slut?” His breath smelled like vodka and cigarettes, up close it was overpowering and nauseating. “Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?” he demanded, his face close enough that I could feel his spit on my cheeks.
My free hand cocked as far back as the building behind my back would allow, swinging and slamming into his ribs. But it came out weak and only made him grunt and grab that arm and slam it against the brick behind m
e. He shifted his hands, taking both my wrists in one of his. His other hand moved for a moment to my throat.
Panic for me was a strange thing. As someone who had struggled with severe anxiety issues pretty much since I was eight years old, it had its own strange pattern. It's own triggers. Not having my place clean. Having people in my space. Nighttime in general. Specific things I knew I couldn't let happen.
But in this moment, with genuine need to elicit a fight-or-flight reaction, my body felt oddly calm. Almost numb. I could blame the booze, but in reality, I felt almost sober. My body just didn't want to send me a surge of adrenaline this time. Stupid, confused body.
“I don't give a fuck who you are,” I yelled, loud enough for the dog in the apartment behind me to start barking manically. I could smell fresh smoke and I wondered if anyone was close enough to hear me if I screamed.
But then his hand tightened around my throat and I couldn't get a scream out if I tried. “You're such a bitch. You're lucky you're so damn pretty,” he said, leaning closer and crushing his lips to mine.
If I thought the smell of vodka and cigarettes was bad, the taste of it was worse. I slammed my lips together, holding them firm and practically un-kissable, but he seemed undeterred as he pressed his mouth against mine hard enough to bruise. His fingers dug into my throat, making the breath get stuck there and my face feel foreign and tingly.
Just when I thought I might pass blissfully out, his hand slid lower, touching the bare skin above the top of my shirt. His fingers grabbed one of my breasts, squeezing painfully. “Stop!” I managed through my sore throat, my voice coming out hoarse.
“Shut up. You like it,” he growled, his hand finding the zipper and pulling it down.
The cool air hit my bare skin as the zipper slid down, making my nipples harden as if agreeing with his argument. His hand was just starting to graze the bare swell of my breast and I felt the panic building. The panic which, completely unreasonably was more about the ugly scars underneath my breasts than it was that I was going to get raped five feet from my front door. His finger was about to graze my nipple when he was pulled violently away from me, sent five feet backward, sprawling into the street.
And then there was my neighbor. Fourteen. Hunter. Straddling the man across the middle, slamming his fists into the guy's face with a sort of savage ruthlessness that I didn't want to see, but also couldn't look away from. Blood was everywhere... covering the guys face, on the street, on Hunter's hands and shirt. Everywhere. It was impossibly bright and dark at the same time, the rising sun making it look almost cinematic.
It looked like he planned on bashing his face in until he killed him. And judging from the murderous look on his face, I was sure he was completely capable of doing just that. Then just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Hunter sat back on his heels, breathing hard as he looked down at the guy for a long minute. Then he stood slowly, reaching down and grabbing the guy, dragging him out of the road and leaving him on the sidewalk.
He turned back to me, grabbing his cell phone out of his pocket and holding it up. I had a second of confusion before a bright light flashed and I realized he had taken a picture of me. Just in case, I figured, some cops came looking.
“Cover up, Sixteen,” he said casually.
I wanted to. I really did. I glanced down to where the center of my chest was exposed. If you looked closely enough, you could see the very edges of the scars. I wanted to hide them, but my arms stayed heavy at my sides. My eyes went to his, blank. I felt so weirdly blank.
He exhaled a breath, moving a step closer and reaching for the two ends of the fabric, quickly putting the zipper into place and pulling it up. “Come on Fee,” he said, holding an arm out, gesturing toward the door. “Fee,” he said, snapping a few times loudly next to my ear. “Snap out of it. I need to get you inside.”
I watched him like through a window. Like a television show. Like he wasn't actually speaking to me, his words sounding far away and fuzzy. He stooped down, grabbing my keys off the sidewalk and holding them in his hand as he slowly started to reach out for me.
The fact that I didn't flinch away from him like he was made of fire was a testament to how zoned out I was in that moment. Because one of his arms was slipping under my knees and the other around my back, picking me up off the ground and holding me against his chest. I felt the jostling of my body as he went up the stairs, the dropping sensation of the elevator as we got on the floor, then how he struggled to hold me and figure out my complicated locks.
He carried me into my apartment, depositing me on the cold bathroom floor and turning to wash the blood off his hands in the sink. I watched as he scrubbed, looking down at his hands as he did so, his face impassive.
I felt hot. That was the only thing that broke through my comfortable little numbness. I was so unbearably hot. I lowered myself down on the floor, turning onto my side away from him and curling slightly up into the cool.
The water turned off and I heard him turn and move closer, getting down on his knees behind me. I hadn't noticed my skirt had bunched up until I felt his fingertips whisper across the still stinging cuts on my thigh. “Oh, Fee,” he said, sounding unbearably sad for someone so big and mean.
I closed my eyes against the knowledge that he was looking at my self-inflicted scars and wounds. I couldn't process that right then. I couldn't deal with that shame on top of everything else. I took a few deep breaths, feeling the pulling sensation of sleep and surrendering to it.
Seven
I woke up on the bathroom floor. Which wasn't completely unheard of, though it had been a really long time since that happened. The weird thing was the fuzziness. In my brain. Like I was hungover. I didn't get hungover. You wouldn't be able to drink the way I drink if you woke up with a blinding headache, feeling dried out every morning.
I pushed myself off the tile, sitting up and looking around with my sleepy eyes. My throat hurt, a strange mix of pain and burning. I brought my hand up, noticing the bruise around my wrist and feeling a second of horror before the memory came back. Had I been so drunk that I had passed out? And been... assaulted in some way? I glanced down at my shirt and had the blindingly bright image of his hands pulling the zipper down.
Then it came flooding back, making me feel an awful cocktail of anger, fear, regret, and shame that made me dizzy. I crawled across the floor to the padded stool in front of my sink, pulling myself up onto it and looking at myself in the mirror.
It wasn't pretty.
My hair, as per usual, even without a bed to roll around in, was a mess. It had fought the confines of my hair tie and there were wavy strands falling around my face. My lips looked swollen with a hint of purple beneath the pink. Easy enough to cover up with a little lipstick. My throat was red and purple and blue. A pretty rainbow band completely across the front, tapering off to visible fingerprints at one end. My eyes looked bloodshot. I turned on the tap, washing my hands, pretending to ignore the blue bands around my wrists, then scrubbing at my face. I furiously brushed my teeth to try to get the taste of him out.
I stood up, noticing I was barefoot and completely at a loss for how that might have happened. I needed a clock and some coffee. How much time had I actually lost?
The smell of fresh coffee hit me as soon as I stepped into the hallway and I instinctively retreated a foot back into the bathroom before taking a deep breath and realizing that Fourteen must not have left.
Hunter. I should start thinking of him by his name since he saved me from pretty definite rape only a few hours before. And then brought me back to my apartment when I was in some kind of PTSD daze. Where he had laid me on the floor and... oh fuck. He'd seen the self-injury scars. Great. That was just great. Now I was going to get his damn sympathy. I didn't need that shit. Little did he know, my digging blades into my skin was a hell of a lot less traumatic than what drove me to do it in the first place.
Oh well. I was going to have to face him sooner or l
ater. It would be good to just rip the bandage off and get on with me day. I'll take a cab home from now on when I come home in the morning. No biggie. Future crises averted.
I took a deep breath and headed into the hallway, not caring about my crazy hair and smudged eye makeup. I wasn't trying to impress my neighbor. Besides, I needed to face him so I could kick him out and get ready for my day.
He was in my kitchen, sitting on top of my counter, drinking coffee out of one of my mugs and reading a newspaper that was definitely not mine. “Just make yourself at home,” I grumbled, reaching for a coffee cup and filling it.
“I picked up some bagels,” he said, gesturing toward the brown bag on the counter. “I didn't know what kind you liked so I picked up a variety.”
I felt my eyebrows draw together. He... went out and bought me bagels? Why the hell would he do that? “Why?”
“They're not free. I want payment in sex,” he said, looking over when I didn't laugh. His brows drew lower over his eyes like he couldn't understand why I was asking.
I reached in the bag, searching around. Maybe it said something about the company I kept that such a small act of kindness like picking up breakfast after a somewhat traumatic event, was shocking. And since I only kept my own company... it said something about me. About how messed up I was. I dug out an egg bagel, all plump and yellow. “Thank you,” I said, the words sounding clumsy on my tongue.
He nodded. “There's cream cheese and butter in those little containers,” he said, gesturing to the throw away condiment containers on the counter. I bowed my head as I cut open the bagel and spread butter on it. He watched me the whole time, his head turned toward the side looking at me, no doubt, like I didn't make sense. I knew I didn't. “You alright?” he asked after I had chewed a small bite.
I shrugged a shoulder. Non-committal. Unwilling to admit I was just pushing this morning's events into the vault with all the others. Just more things to drown at the bottom of a bottle. Just more things to spend my life running away from facing. “I've had better mornings,” I said, picking up my coffee.
For A Good Time, Call... Page 3