“Live sex show,” Myron said, and Suzie could hear the grin in his voice. “Just like she did on the front steps of the school. We get to see these two guys fuck Suzie while we eat our dinner.”
Suzie felt like dying. Two strangers were going to have sex with her, right in front of Brad and his girlfriend, while she dangled helplessly. How had the night turned into such horror? When she had dressed for the evening, she had entertained some guarded hope, knowing that Brad would be with Corine, but hoping for a moment or two of closeness, of imagining that she and he could be together someday. Now she was reduced to a dangling naked slave, isolated and humiliated, left tied to the ceiling for any passerby to molest and satisfy their base urges, while Brad laughed and joked with his girlfriend just ten feet away.
Suzie hung her head, squeezing her eyelids shut to try and hold back the tears. She waited, tensed, for Benny to penetrate her.
Then she heard a commotion behind her. Something falling and breaking. Corinne’s voice: “What are you doing!” A scuffle.
Suzie’s hands fell. Her wrists were free. The string had been cut.
Brad had her by the arm. “Come on!” Suzie didn’t ask what was happening, and she didn’t look behind her. She tried to keep up with him as they rushed out of the restaurant together.
Brad’s car was already sitting and waiting. Brad paused just long enough to pull Suzie’s dress back onto her shoulders and zip it up. Then he pushed her into his car and ran around to the other side. He threw a handful of dollars to the valet, and a moment later they were speeding from the restaurant.
“What happened?” Suzie gasped.
“I guess I just broke up with Corine,” Brad said. He didn’t sound regretful.
Suzie looked over at him, and realized he had a trickle of blood coming from his right temple. “Oh!” she cried. “You’re hurt!”
“Yeah, that guy with the moustache caught me with a cheap shot.” Brad smiled grimly as he reached up and touched his finger to the blood. “I gave Myron a pretty good one, though. He was still on the floor when we left.”
Suzie pulled open the glove compartment and found a packet of tissues. She cleaned up the line of blood from Brad’s cheek and pressed a tissue against his cut.
“I’m sorry, Suzie…” Brad said. “I shouldn’t have let Corine take you back to the table. I went to the valet to have them get my car, and then I went looking for you… who knew that Myron could get up to so much in just those five minutes.”
Suzie blinked. “You were getting your car?”
“I decided I was going to get you out of there.” Brad frowned. “I couldn’t stand seeing Myron treat you that way. And seeing Corine going along with it…. Well, it made me realize that maybe she’s a better match for him than she is for me.”
Suzie opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed by emotion, a wave crashing on top of her and sweeping her away. Tears started to pour uncontrollably down her face, and she gasped for breath.
Brad’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh! Suzie! Are you okay… ? Are you hurt….?” They were stopped at a red light, and Brad reached for her hand, clutching it tightly.
“Not hurt…” Suzie managed to say between sobs. “It’s just… all the time Myron was treating me like that, like I was some cheap toy for him to play with… it seemed a hundred times worse because I imagined you watching. I hated to be so humiliated in front of you. And then, just like that, you’re there, and you’re taking me away… “ Suzie fumbled for the right words to express the disorienting suddenness of events: from tied up and naked, waiting for a pair of strange men to force themselves on her, to sitting in Brad’s car after he had just punched out Myron and saved her. She felt as if she’d been in a dark cell and suddenly the walls had fallen away and in an instance everything had changed. She felt untethered, ricocheting back and forth from one emotion to the next.
Fortunately, Brad didn’t need her to explain. He reached for her, pulling her into an embrace. Suzie reveled in the feel of his strong arms, and then suddenly they were kissing, the transition so natural that it seemed to have no beginning, it just suddenly was. Nor did it need to have an end; as their lips pressed, Suzie felt like she could stay like that forever.
A horn honked, and Suzie pulled back. “The light,” she said. “It’s green.”
“There’s three lanes,” Brad said. “They can go around.” He flipped on his hazard lights and reached for her again. Cars passed them on the right and left as they held each other, each kiss leading to another kiss.
20. The After Party
A truck horn blared behind them, and Brad finally turned back to the road. He passed through the intersection and headed towards the freeway entrance.
“I’ve kissed you so many times before,” he said. “But I’ve always felt like I’m hiding behind Elias. We kiss in rehearsal, and I tell myself you aren’t kissing me, that we’re just rehearsing, and I have to be in character, do things like Elias would do them. It felt sneaky, like I was stealing kisses from you while you thought you were kissing Elias.” He gave her a half-smile. “It’s nice to finally kiss you as myself.”
“How do you think I felt!” Suzie said. “When I was Jenna and you were Elias, you were mine. But when I was Suzie and you were Brad, you were Corine’s. I’ve felt so mixed up inside. I’ve wanted to stay Jenna all the time, just so I could be with you.”
“Well…” Brad said, “After tonight, Corine is out of the picture. So I guess now I’m yours when you’re Jenna, and yours when you’re Suzie. I’m yours no matter who you are.”
It felt like a wall that had been between them had fallen away, and they were suddenly free to speak openly.
“I started to fall for you at your audition,” Brad admitted. “You were so different from the other girls, so seductive and mysterious. Your audition smoldered with sensuality. We finished the scene and suddenly you were like Cinderella rushing away from the ball at midnight. You caught me by surprise… I didn’t know where you’d come from.”
“I never knew you liked me,” Suzie said. “You would kiss me and have sex with me, but I always thought it was just about rehearsing. You hid your feelings so well.”
“I did,” he admitted. “I knew I was falling for you, but I felt like I had to be faithful to Corinne. I know it can be easy to get confused and start falling for a co-star, and I kept telling myself that was all it was. But then it blew up in my face. Corinne could tell all along, that my feelings had changed for her and I was falling for you. I was only fooling myself.”
“I don’t know when I started to fall for you,” said Suzie. “But I realized I was in love with you that day we made love under the bleachers. When I was with you, it was so easy to do things that I never would have thought I was capable of.”
“To step out of your comfort zone?” Brad grinned.
“Yeah. I felt safe with you. I feel safe right now.” Suzie looked out the window at the orange lights that bathed the freeway. A green sign flashed by, telling them that the town of Pettigrew was nine miles away. They drove in silence but it was a comfortable silence. The radio was on but low; Beyonce purring a love song.
“You know, I never did hear how your Stanford interview went,” Brad said.
“It went well. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get in.”
Brad squeezed her hand. “I knew it. I knew you would be great.”
Suzie thought about the day of her interview. Suddenly, she blushed. “Oh! I just remembered something.”
“What?”
“I made a promise that I would tell you something.” She paused, reluctant to speak.
“Tell me what?”
“After the interview… I was still pretty much naked, walking around downtown. I walked along the river, and I was so turned on. My pussy was so wet. It really turned me on to be naked outside and to have strangers touch my body.” She was sure that her face must be bright red. “That’s what I promised I woul
d tell you. That I was really wet.”
Brad was intrigued. “Wait… someone made you promise to tell me that?”
“Yeah…” Suzie was evasive. “Just a guy I met…”
“One of the strangers who was touching your body?”
“Um… yeah.”
“So how did he know your pussy was wet?” Brad grinned.
Suzie squirmed. “Because his fingers were in my pussy.”
Brad laughed and shook his head. “Damn, Suzie! Sounds like you had an adventure. I’m sorry I missed it.”
Suzie was quiet for a moment. A commercial for a car dealership finished on the radio, and a new song started. Suzie didn’t know the singer but she recognized the tune, an upbeat song with an irresistible hook.
“Pull over for a minute, will you?” Suzie swayed her head back and forth to the beat of the song.
“Pull over? Here? On the freeway?”
“Yeah. Just pull over.”
Brad put on his signal and eased into the right lane. He slowed and pulled onto the shoulder. The tires crunched over gravel.
“Ok, here we are,” Brad said. “Now what’s the hurry to pull over?”
Suzie reached down and turned up the radio. “I like this song.” She popped open her door and stepped onto the asphalt. “Keep the headlights on, okay?”
Before Brad could respond, Suzie walked around the front of the car. She stood for a moment, bathed in the headlights. The lights were bright, but she could make out Brad’s face through the windshield. He was watching her, waiting to see what she would do. Her audience of one. The cars drifting by didn’t matter. Suzie closed her eyes and listened to the music. Slowly, she began to dance.
Her body moved sensually, her hips swaying back and forth. It was easy to lose herself in the beat of the song. She let her arms move up the front of her body and rise into the air. How did the lyrics to that song go? Throw your arms in the air,.. Wave them like you just don’t care… She turned in place, a slow pirouette.
She peeked at Brad over her shoulder. He was smiling, leaning back with his hands behind his head. Clearly he was enjoying her dancing. A car sped by, someone shouted something unintelligible at Suzie. She didn’t pay any attention. The swoosh of passing cars became the back-beat of the music, the flash of their headlights became a strobe on her body.
Suzie looked down at herself. Her hand drifted to the zipper at the front of the dress, and she pulled it down slowly with one hand while her other hand traced invisible circles in the air. She didn’t pull the zipper down all the way, leaving several inches connected at the base so that the dress didn’t fall all the way open. It did expose the stretch of skin between her neck and her waist, with the fabric barely clinging to her breasts. As she danced, she reached down and pulled the dress off one breast, then the other.
She turned and danced with her back to Brad. She slipped the strap of her dress off one shoulder, then the other. She peeled the dress off herself, first sliding it down her torso and leaving it bunched around her waist, then pushing it down further, bending and sliding it down her legs. She stepped out of the dress, leaving it abandoned on the shoulder of the road. Turning back to Brad, she danced for him, now completely naked except for her heels, her body brightly illuminated in the headlights. Brad grinned widely as he watched her.
For her grand finale, Suzie stopped dancing and simply stood in front of the car with her legs parted and her hips thrust forward, her hand between her legs, brazenly masturbating. She met Brad’s eyes as she did it, and he nodded slightly, encouraging her to bring herself to an orgasm while he watched. Suzie ran her right hand up and down her body, reminding herself of the vulnerability of her nakedness, while the fingers of her left hand dug deep into her vagina. She let her right hand rest against her breast, nervously tugging at the nipple as she watched cars driving by. People were slowing to watch her play with herself. It was starting to cause a mild traffic jam.
She closed her eyes, pushing the spectators out of her mind. They didn’t matter. She was putting on a performance for one guy, for Brad, and it didn’t matter if anyone else saw her. She imagined the passer-bys on their cell phones, taking pictures, calling the radio station, reporting the traffic jam and its cause: a young girl with long black hair, standing completely naked on the shoulder with three fingers sliding in and out of her sopping vagina. She imagined a police officer on his motorcycle, investigating the traffic and coming upon her while she wantonly fingered herself. These thoughts should have frightened her, but instead they only increased her arousal. She gasped as she pinched her clitoris. Abruptly, an orgasm rippled through her.
It was fierce and quick, and left her feeling weak in the knees. Despite the cold, she had a sheen of sweat on her skin. She exhaled and opened her eyes. Brad was quietly applauding.
Smiling, Suzie walked back and got into the car.
“Very nice,” Brad said.
“Thanks.”
“Want me to get your dress?”
“No.”
“No?”
Suzie gazed at him. “I want to be naked. I want people to look at me and know that you’re going to have sex with me. I want them to know that I’m available for you to have sex with, whenever and wherever you want.”
Brad raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure, Suzie? We don’t know where we’re going to go. Are you okay being naked, even if we end up someplace public?”
Suzie nodded. “Do you remember what you said to me earlier, outside the bathroom?
Brad smiled. “I said you looked beautiful like that. And you do.”
“Then I’m going to stay like this.” Suzie leaned back in her seat. “And it doesn’t matter where we go.”
She could tell that Brad was pleased by her answer. “Let’s just drive for now,” he said, and pulled back onto the freeway.
They drove for a while, following the freeway without any destination in mind. The miles on the Pettigrew signs dropped as they drove, 5, 3, 2, 1, and then they passed through Pettigrew, and now the signs were showing the distance to Fallmark, 10, 8, 6, 5. Suzie watched the scenery flash by outside her window, strangely at ease despite being naked and having no clothes available to her.
Before they reached Fallmark, Brad took the exit. He pulled into the drive thru of a Gozerburger. “We missed dinner, didn’t we. Will this do?” Suzie assured him it would. Brad ordered two Gozerdouble combos with cokes and they waited in the line of cars for their food. It barely took a second before they both realized they had better things to do than idly wait, and fell into each other’s arms, kissing. It was like it had been before at the stoplight, only now Suzie was completely naked and Brad was eager to take advantage of that fact. Suzie popped her seat belt and climbed onto her seat, leaning over Brad and kissing him while he squeezed her breasts.
The car in front of them pulled forward, and Brad disengaged long enough to pull up a car-length, then his mouth was on hers again. His hand went between her legs, pushing a finger inside her, and Suzie moaned, moving up and down on his hand. The line moved again, and Suzie was forced to return to her seat as they pulled up to the window. The teenager who was working at the window leered at her as he took Brad’s money, but Suzie meant what she had said to Brad, and she made no attempt to cover herself. She wanted people to see her nakedness and know that she was available for Brad to have sex with, whenever and wherever he wanted. When Brad leaned over and stroked her breasts while they waited for their food, she leaned back and accepted his touch.
They received their hamburgers and Brad got back onto the freeway, heading back towards West Linterna. Suzie held the bag between her legs and nibbled at her fries. “Should we go back to your place to eat?”
“Well… the thing is, I’m not staying with my mom right now. I’m at my aunt and uncle’s place for a few days.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. Aunt Lisel is my dad’s sister… I don’t see my dad very often, but I sometimes stay with my aunt and uncle. They think it
’s important to stay connected with his side of the family.” Brad shrugged. “It’s fine. They’re nice. You’ll like them.”
“Are we going there now?” Suzie felt nervous again.
Brad smiled at her. “When I left, it was to pick up Corine. Now I’m coming back with an all-new girlfriend, and she happens to be completely naked. We’ll have to do some explaining, I guess.” Brad seemed amused by the situation. “But it’ll be all right. Uncle Al and Aunt Lisel are from the theater. They’ll be surprised, but they’ll be cool.”
Suzie felt anxious at the idea of meeting Brad’s relatives for the first time while she was naked, but a promise was a promise. She was going to stay naked until he had sex with her, no matter where he took her before then. Perhaps it was a little like stage fright, knowing that she would soon be presented to a couple of strangers when she was at her most vulnerable, without any clothes to hide behind. Whether they accepted her or not would be brutally clear to her.
They entered a residential area, and soon approached a house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The cul-de-sac was lined with cars, and they could see figures milling around the front of the house.
“It looks like they’re having a party,” Brad said. “It happens sometimes. They don’t even have to plan it. They’re connected with so many artistic types, a crowd sometimes just gathers at their place.”
Suzie’s heart was beating fast, but she didn’t say anything. Her internal voice could not protest what was happening, because it was immediately silenced by an impassable argument: she would remain naked as long as it pleased Brad, no matter where they went or who saw her. It was his choice, not hers.
The car pulled onto a dirt driveway, which passed along the side of the house and led through a small grove of oak trees. On the other side of the grove, a grassy meadow stretched away from the back of the house. Several cars had already parked on the grass. Brad pulled in next to one of the cars and stopped the engine.
Before Suzie knew it, he had stepped out of the car, and moved to her side to open the door for her. He accepted the Gozerburger bag from her hands, then helped her to step out. He paused to kiss her. “Are you ready?”
Candlelight City Page 19