by Strong, Mimi
I glowered at the intense judgement coming off the guy. Leaning on Charlie for support, I raised both middle fingers his way. “Hey! Fuck you, bro! Why don’t you go date rape someone!”
“Oh, no,” Charlie muttered.
“Real nice girl you got there, Charlie. Good one. Does she have a sister? We should go on a double date. Let me know what she charges.”
I yelled back, “I don’t have a sister, but if I did, you couldn’t afford her.”
He grabbed his crotch. “She’d do it for free, baby. For free!”
Porch lights flicked on along the street, and I heard a couple of doors swing open.
Charlie was still holding me up, and trying to sort through my key ring for the outer door’s key, fumbling and swearing at the keys.
The friend wasn’t moving.
“Get your dumb ass out of my neighborhood!” My hands had softened, and I refreshed both of the middle fingers I was giving him.
The guy turned around, dropped his jeans part way, and slapped his bare buttocks. “You can kiss my dumb ass!”
“Too skinny. No, thank you.”
He twisted around to look at his buttocks. “Too skinny? What? Are you tripping? I got some premium ass here.”
A neighbor from up the street yelled, “Go home, skinny white boy! Go home to your mamma!”
I was about to chime in with fresh, new insults, when Charlie got the door open and we tumbled inside. The door shut behind us, and I could hear the muffled sounds of the guy talking back to my neighbors while also retreating.
“Fine. I’m home,” I grumbled, pushing Charlie away. I kept reaching for the keys, but my hand was like a claw, controlled by something other than me.
“What are you on?” he asked. “Your pupils are different sizes. I’m going to call a doctor.”
I clutched the front of his shirt. Huskily, I said, “Forget the doctor. Let’s play doctor. I’m the nurse.”
His face blurred and got further away.
Everything went black.
~
I woke up in the dark.
I was somewhere soft. My bed? My guts were boiling.
Getting up was painful.
My leg buckled underneath me, so I crawled hands and knees to the bathroom. I couldn’t get the toilet lid open because it was freakishly heavy, like a giant was sitting on top of it, so I vomited in the tub.
I crawled back to my mattress, grateful someone had stolen my bed frame so it was nice and low, and crawled under the covers.
As I drifted between being asleep and being awake, I listened to the sounds of breathing. I wasn’t alone in the apartment. I didn’t know who else was there, and I didn’t care.
~
The next time I woke up, it was light outside. Early morning.
The breathing sounds I’d been hearing all night were closer. I reached behind me in the warm bed, my fingers connecting with denim.
Charlie was there, fully clothed.
I was lying on my side, with him behind me, facing my back but not touching me.
My hands explored the front of his jeans, and his warm skin above the belt line. He made a soft, sleeping noise, and shuffled closer to me. His hand swept up, between my thighs.
I arched my back and lifted my top leg.
His hand swept up further, his palm resting against my pussy.
I closed my eyes, steadying myself in my surroundings. My knee was a dull ache, but nothing else was bothering me. All my senses were diverted to my pussy, burning hot now under Charlie’s palm.
Sleepily, he took a deeper breath and nuzzled his face to the back of my neck. His fingers began to move, rubbing over my panties hesitantly.
I rocked my hips against his movements, a small cry escaping my lips.
He sucked in air noisily, and used both hands to yank my panties down.
I rubbed against him again, tilting my hips so my buttocks dragged across his crotch.
He kissed the back of my neck, tenderly biting my skin. “I should go now,” he breathed.
“Don’t leave me.”
He licked the back of my neck as he draped one arm over me and cupped my breast, through my T-shirt. I was still wearing my bra, which meant he must have gotten me changed the night before, and he’d left the bra on so it didn’t seem like he’d taken advantage of me.
With that knowledge, my lust for Charlie seared through me like a knife.
Breathing heavily, I reached behind me and fought the buckle on his jeans. He squeezed my breast and bit my neck, then let go and helped me pull his jeans down.
With a grunt, he was inside me, his cock teasing out my slick juices. I curled forward to pull my panties all the way off, over my feet. He held my shoulders and pushed down, driving me onto his cock.
I cried out and shook with excitement. I wanted him deeper and deeper, but he was pushing me away with every thrust, both of us on our sides on the mattress, with nothing to push against.
He rolled me onto my stomach, flat underneath him.
He paused long enough to kick down his jeans, and then his bare legs were stretched along mine, straddling mine as he worked my pussy from behind, sliding in and out.
I surrendered to bliss and closed my eyes, rocking up and down under his movements, the side of my face pressed into the mattress.
After a few minutes, he moved his legs to the interior of mine and hooked his fingertips around the fronts of my hip bones.
He pulled me up, onto my knees. I clutched my pillow to my chest, my hips high and my knees wide, urging him deeper.
Slowing now, his cock like a fist inside me, he rocked me toward him and away. His balls were firm against my skin, rubbing my clit as he filled me.
“Do you like that?” he grunted. “Is that what you need?”
I whimpered in response.
“Talk to me, Skye. Use your words.”
“Shut up,” I growled into my pillow.
He grabbed hold of my hair in one hand and pulled my head back. As he jerked my hair, my pussy clutched at his cock.
“What was that?” He pulled my hair a second time.
Again, my muscles contracted so hard, he stopped moving, held tight.
I howled in frustration, arching my back to keep sliding back and forth.
“Fuck me,” he said.
I grabbed his free hand—the one not gripping my hair like a rope, and moved his fingers to my clit.
Once his hand was in place, I reached between my legs and grabbed his balls. Not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to get his attention.
I didn’t have to drop any more hints. Without hesitation, he powered up, sliding back and forth, slamming his hips against my eager body, working my clit, and making me come. Hard. I saw lights behind my eyelids as the pleasure ripped through me.
“You fucker!” I howled into my pillow. “You fucking fucker, give it to me.”
He grunted, pumped hard, and then halfway, and then pulled out. I writhed on the bed as his hot load spurted onto my bare ass and lower back.
Chapter 19
Charlie
I let go of her hair, which had been wrapped around my fist.
She looked over her shoulder at me, her expression full of contempt. What?
I looked down at myself, at my bare legs, and my feet. I still had one sock on. I reached for the sock that had pulled off, meaning to clean her back with it, but she got up and stumbled across the room, then into the bathroom.
The door closed, and I heard it lock.
“Fucking hell,” I mumbled, reaching around to gather my clothes. My shirt from the night before was still on, albeit wrinkled from sleeping and damp from sweat. I pulled on my underwear and jeans, then sat down again on the mattress to check my phone.
I would have sat on a chair, if there’d been one in the apartment. The place looked like it had been abandoned. Was she a squatter? In the living room, cables hung out of a wall where a TV would be, and there wasn’t a single piece of furniture in t
he place, except for the mattress on the floor of the bedroom.
I’d checked the kitchen the night before, when I’d coaxed Skye into eating something. She’d been light in my arms on the way up the stairs, and felt like she hadn’t been eating. I couldn’t figure out what drugs she’d taken, but I found soda water in the fridge and crackers in the cupboard, and something told me to get her to eat. I coaxed the food and soda water into her through patience and determination.
She complained about pain from her knee, but I was worried about an overdose or a bad reaction. I lied and told her I couldn’t find any pills. What I actually did was hide all her Motrin and Aspirin, on top of a cupboard, where she couldn’t reach.
When she passed out again, I couldn’t leave her. She was a stranger to me, a girl I’d had lunch with once and fucked twice. Duncan called her trash. But she was a person. A person who needed help.
I would have slept on the couch, if she’d had one.
Instead, I rolled up my jacket as a pillow and slept in the hallway outside her bedroom, after making sure she was lying on her side for safety.
I woke up when she started crawling to the bathroom, and I quietly moved out of her way in the dark. She didn’t seem to know I was there, but she did close the bathroom door before being sick.
After she crawled back into bed, I went into the washroom and started cleaning the tub, rinsing down the partially-digested crackers.
That was when Duncan sent me yet another text message asking what the fuck I was doing.
I sent him a photo of the mess in the tub as an answer.
He told me I was a sick fuck. I returned with my own compliment. My phone didn’t buzz again that night.
I’d never slept on a hard, wood floor before. I guess I’ve been lucky in life, because even on camping trips with other boys, I always had a foam roll.
One night on a floor couldn’t have been enough to permanently change me, to change who I was, but I started to have these new feelings. Unfamiliar feelings. I was angry. Angry that a world existed where people didn’t have soft beds. In my hazy, restless sleep, my shoulder blades digging into the floor, I forgot who I was for fleeting moments. Instead of feeling comfort knowing I still had my money and my security, I felt its absence, painful and real.
“Charlie,” she’d called.
It was around five in the morning, and the windows in the apartment glowed pink with the coming dawn.
“Come to bed,” she called.
I didn’t want to join her in the bed. I wanted to be with her, but somewhere else. Not here.
“You can’t sleep on the floor,” she said, her words jumbling together with sleepiness.
I got up and came into the room. “I can sleep on the floor, just not very well.”
She smiled, her eyes still closed. “This floor is soft over here,” she said. “I have to make dumplings.”
“Are you talking in your sleep?”
“Don’t be… groceries.”
She was making no sense, talking in her sleep, but she wriggled forward in the bed, still on her side, making space for me.
She’d kicked the sheets and blanket away. I looked down at her bare legs, gently bent at an exquisite angle. I slipped under the covers, fully clothed, and straightened out on my back, my hands folded on my chest. There was only one pillow, and she had it. The bed was small. A double? It had to be a double, because my feet hung off the end.
We slept for a few more hours, and then she’d awoken me.
She’d awoken me in more ways than one.
I tried to resist, even using the mental trick of thinking about how I’d cleaned her vomit from the tub the night before, but… sick as it was, the memory only made me harder.
Her body was damp and feverish, burning under my touch. I’d almost come immediately, my cock barely halfway in her hot pussy. I had to roll her onto her stomach and prop myself up, my stomach on her back, giving myself distance.
My mind kept flashing back to her at the warehouse the night before, helpless and crumpled on the ground. That sight unleashed something in me, broke something. Forget sleeping on a hard floor one night of my life. Scooping that limp girl in my arms and carrying her to safety had done something to me.
She was all I wanted.
I hooked my fingers around her hips and lifted her up so I could lose myself in her. The more she looked over her shoulder at me, anger in her eyes, and the more she cursed me, the worse it got.
Obsession.
Now she was awake, in the bathroom, and I was sitting on her bed, and this morning had really happened.
I looked down at my hand, the hand I’d used to pull her hair, drive her hard against me.
What the fuck was I doing?
At least I was dressed.
Being dressed was one step closer to leaving. She wanted me to leave, so why wasn’t I leaving?
I went to the bathroom and tapped on the door. “Skye?”
The shower was running.
I tried the handle, but it was locked. I thought about grabbing a spatula from the kitchen and letting myself in, just to see the look on her face.
She called through the door, “Hey, thanks for everything last night.”
“Where do you want to go for breakfast?”
A long pause.
“You should probably go home,” she said.
I rubbed my forehead. I was forgetting something.
“Skye, you’re probably mad at me because I never phoned you.”
“No.” Her voice pitched up, sounding doubtful.
“The stupidest thing happened to me. Remember how we were out in the rain? Well, the water fried my phone. I lost your number.”
“Charlie. I saw you punch my number in. I saw you. With my own eyes.”
“Yes, but a few minutes later, my phone just shorted out. It made a popping sound, and that was it.”
Another long pause. The sound of the shower.
I pressed my hand against the bathroom door.
“Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t believe me, either,” I said.
No answer.
“So, breakfast? Yes or no.”
“No. Just go. But thank you. Thanks for the offer.”
I pulled out my new phone and scrolled through the messages from the night before.
I had to make a decision. I was tired from not sleeping, and my head still wasn’t clear from the sex.
After a quick look around the apartment, I left.
Chapter 20
Skye
Even though I told Charlie to leave, it gave me little satisfaction when he did. When you’re right about something awful… well… you’d rather not be right.
Like that nasty piece of shit Cheryl. I’d been right about her trying to destroy me.
And Amy. Something told me she wasn’t any better than Cheryl, but I’d still gone along with her. I took the drugs she gave me, and I went to that warehouse, even though I knew it was dangerous. Maybe it was for my own good. Maybe I could hit rock bottom fast and hard, then come back up again.
Before the lights went out at the warehouse party, they’d all been pawing me. The guy with the huge neck was there, only he didn’t seem so fascinating when he was a wrecking ball, pushing people over when they got in his way or didn’t do what he wanted.
The only way I could get away from him was by getting up on the tables and dancing some more. Even so, he was waiting. Watching. My brain felt like it was shattering like a broken mirror every time the lights flashed. He kept moving, even though he was sitting, in one spot.
The music went off, and he lunged at me, grabbing for my legs. I jumped up and grabbed the pole, and then the lights went out.
Something or someone hit me, and I crashed to the ground, landing wrong on my bad leg. I curled up, covering my head with my arms. People were yelling and pushing, stumbling over me and stepping on me.
I held very still, and for the first time in a long time, I began to pray.
Please, G
od. I’ve made mistakes, but you’ve seen me try to be good. I want to be good. Please get me out of here tonight, and I’ll always be good. No backsliding.
Of course, my promise to be good hadn’t lasted long. Not long at all.
It was only in the shower, the morning after the night at the warehouse, that the memory of praying came back to me. I laughed, then covered my mouth.
Charlie had said goodbye through the door, said he was leaving, but I couldn’t take his word for anything. He’d also promised to call me in a week, then hadn’t.
The hot water ran out, my shower turning cold.
I turned off the water and stepped out, my legs shaking. I could put some weight on my bad leg now, but it still hurt. I didn’t dare stand or walk normally.
My face was puffy, my eyes bloodshot, and I had bruises all over my torso.
“I promise to be good,” I whispered to the mirror. No more drinking. No more drugs. And I’d block Amy’s number from my phone.
Fastening a soft bath towel around me—one of the few luxuries my shitty roommate hadn’t robbed me of—I limped out of the bathroom.
“Charlie?”
No answer.
I was alone.
I towel-dried my hair and went back to bed.
About an hour later, I woke up to the sound of keys jingling outside the apartment door, then the door opening.
“Right in here,” came a male voice. “Careful. Don’t scratch the paint.”
I pulled on some clothes, tied my hair back in a quick bun, and ventured out of my bedroom.
The first thing I saw was Charlie, looking pleased with himself, his hazel eyes bright with excitement.
“Set the table here, in the breakfast nook,” he said.
Two other guys, one old and one young, both skinny, shuffled into the alcove off the kitchen, carrying a table. A dining table. Dark brown wood. Maybe walnut or teak.
“What are you doing?”
Charlie ruffled his dark brown hair casually, a grin on his lips. “Making you breakfast.”
“Is that your table?”
“Half of the table is mine, and half is yours.”
“You can’t just bring furniture in here while I’m sleeping.”