Without the pimping-plus program, I was relieved of the worry about what could happen. Now, the worst that could occur was that nobody would buy me beer, or the cops would catch me and hand me over to my parents.
Chapter 9
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” A hand grasped my shirt and rolled me over. Because it was dark, I couldn’t see the other hand that slapped me across the face before pulling me up and slinging my body over his shoulder.
He took me into the room I had been trying to reach and threw me down on a bed. A lava lamp lit the space, which smelled of weed and dog piss. Because the guy was tall and had a gravely voice, I assumed it was Hillman. And with the quickness in which he pulled at my clothes and unzipped his own pants, I knew that it was.
≈
The morning I started Dr. Rusch’s new mural, Christian picked me up and took me to breakfast. It was a sizzling late-August Monday. I wore jeans and a t-shirt, tennis shoes and a much prettier hanky on my head than the first time I painted a mural.
“Like your scarf.” Christian reached out to pat my head as I shoveled a grand breakfast pancake into my mouth. It was nice to go out to eat, even if there was still something awkward going on between us. At least he still made small talk, like how he was going to tour Stanford and a few other schools.
“How about you, Beck?”
“How about what?” I said, washing my last pancake down with milk.
“What about your plans for this year?” As if I made planning for the school year a part of a nutritious breakfast. Really, I gave it no thought other than I wanted to paint, maybe take a fun elective, survive P.E., and party a lot.
“I’m thinking about entering a few art contests. I’d like to do the Valley Chalk Show, too.” The Valley Chalk Show was an annual event where hundreds of artists took over a giant parking lot, squared-off a space, and went to work recreating classic pieces. I wanted to do a Picasso.
Later, after Christian dropped me off at his dad’s, I thought more about what I really wanted to do beyond the Valley Chalk Show and tooth murals. Otis College, an artist’s haven of learning in Los Angeles, was calling to me. It would be cool to focus on art instead of a million little pieces of information I would never use.
I thought about what I’d be doing with Christian. I figured we would go out, hit the prom, things like that. Even those things required a little bit of close contact, and I was at a point where I’d take what I could get.
Bettina stopped by to see how the mural was going. “Do you want a piece of gum? It’s sugarless.”
I was in one of the treatment rooms they used for fraidy-cats and assorted pain-in-the-ass patients. My goal was to create a soothing scene that took the mind away from whirring drills and jabbing needles, and into a land of relaxation. I thought it would be cool to do a painting of someone with a nitrous oxide mask on their nose, zonked out and feeling fantastic. Dr. Rusch, however, wanted a seascape with teeth dancing in the waves.
It seemed odd to be starting another mural exactly one year to the day that I started the first one, when Christian had merely looked right through me.
After a few hours, I called it a day. Christian picked me up and we stopped at my house so I could change. My parents didn’t seem to mind having him around. After all, he was a doctor’s son and Mr. Smarty Pants. Nobody raised an eyebrow when we hung out in my room… with the door closed.
Christian took a long, hard look at me when I took off my shirt, as if there was something he saw but couldn’t have. It was all I could do to keep from hopping on top of him, but I kept my calm and threw on a clean shirt and shorts.
“Where are we going tonight?” I asked, brushing my hair. A few speckles of paint danced on the ends.
“Hillman’s. His parents are out of town and he’s throwing a party.” My stomach sank. I loathed Hillman, especially with his weird behavior and whatever the hell his “threat” against Christian was. I thought about staying home, but I was already in go-mode and didn’t want to disappoint Christian.
“He’s always having a party,” I mumbled. I didn’t understand why we had to go there. We should have been spending more time as a couple alone. But Christian’s promotion of group activities left little time for that.
Same scene. Same people. Same ice-cold, delicious, intoxicating beer. It might as well been the same party. Hillman’s hilltop mansion was like a beacon of good times that looked out over the city. You could see the ocean, the street lights, and just about anything you wanted to with the high-powered telescope that sat in the main living room. Hillman liked to brag about his latest viewings.
“The lady down the hill was walking around butt-naked all weekend. She’s got this 20-year-old-body, but when you see her face you shrivel up!” he’d said, grabbing his crotch for dear life. I’d looked through the telescope exactly once and all I saw was a dog taking a dump in a backyard while a family ate barbecue at a picnic table. Lucky me.
Nobody was at the telescope tonight. Hillman, Devin, Allison, a host of football players and some of last year’s seniors lounged all over the den. MTV was going on the monster plasma as the crowd passed an equally monster bong around. I never touched it, nor did I want to. Christian would sometimes, but I swear it was Hillman who had his mouth on it the most. Sometimes, if he caught my eye while taking a toke, he’d shove his tongue into the bong and wink at me.
I sat on the couch between Devin and Allison, and they talked across me about bikini waxing and shaving. My ear was peeled to whatever Devin said about her routine, as I was still in doubt about her true gender. Her legs looked pretty smooth. She must have shaved before coming over. If Jenna had been there, she’d be trying every angle to catch a glimpse of a pelvic bulge or a Basic Instinct style leg crossing, just to prove her point about Devin’s chromosome count.
As for me, I didn’t really care what Devin was, because she was ignoring me. So was Christian. He had disappeared with a few guys into the yard to do God knows what. And there’s only so much hygiene talk I could take, so I decided to walk around Hillman’s house and count the bathrooms.
The Hillman residence had all the things my little house did not. Namely, more square footage, several bedrooms to crash in, and enough bathrooms for a dozen people to pee at once. The floors were real hardwood, and hand-painted images graced the entryway walls.
As I made my way around, I counted three bathrooms on the main floor alone before I took my bathroom hunt upstairs. There were probably bedrooms with bathrooms in them, and I would have to be careful about not invading anyone’s privacy. Not that anyone was home who cared. Just like Christian’s, it seemed that Hillman’s parents were never there.
I found two more bathrooms off the main hallway. Check. Then I found what must have been the Hillman suite — a house in its own right. The bathroom counted as three, with a marble tub in the middle of the area, and a toilet tucked at the back behind a glass block wall. There were three sinks, a plasma television, and a tray of perfumes with names I couldn’t pronounce on the marble counter.
The bathroom was big enough to live in, so I hung out for a minute, tempted to look in the cupboards to see if Mr. or Mrs. Hillman took medication for voices in their head, or a mean case of insomnia one or both probably suffered because of their travel schedules. But I resisted, instead taking off my shoes to get in the tub and kick back, allowing the cool porcelain to chill my bare legs.
“What are you doing in my parents’ tub?”
I sat up, startled back into reality, but still sitting deep in the tub.
Hillman was leaning against the bathroom door, both hands in his pockets and a look on his face like I’d broken a rule.
“I was just taking a tour of your house,” I said, getting out of the small pool of a bathtub. Hillman remained still, watching me take one leg out, then the other. I moved toward the bathroom counter and leaned against it.
“If you wanted to take a bath, you should have told me. We have plenty of tow
els.”
I didn’t respond. My stomach felt a searing sense of “go” that I didn’t know how to heed. There was only one way into and out of the bathroom and he was blocking it.
“You can, you know…”
“Can what?” I asked, my hands gripping the edge of the counter.
“Take a bath. I’ll do your back.” He smiled, sauntered over to me, and leaned against the counter. His fluid movement was slow and purposeful, and his eyes did not leave me once during the conversation.
“I’m not taking a bath, but thanks. I need to get back to Christian,” I said, making a break for it. Hillman grabbed my arm and pulled me back, lifting my body up and placing me on the counter. Within seconds he had pulled me against him.
“What are you doing, Hillman? Let me go.”
“I want to talk to you, Beck.” His voice was as smooth as a mocha and just as hot.
“Not like this.” I protested, getting nowhere. The house was so vast that nobody would hear me if I yelled.
“Christian’s gone home cause he didn’t feel good.”
My neck felt singed with flames. Christian wouldn’t have left without telling me.
“You’re lying.”
Hillman wrapped his hands around my arms and brought our chests close.
“No, not lying. Don’t think it’s right of him to leave without telling you though. But, hell, that’s his business, not mine.” He eased up on the body hug, but held his face so close to mine that I could smell barley and hops as well as a smoky, resinous scent on his breath.
“Let. Me. Go. Now!” I started to squirm. If I was going down, it wasn’t without a fight. Hillman let go of my arms, but held his hips firmly in front of mine.
“I’ll take you home, Beck. Unless… you want to stay here.” I couldn’t believe his audacity.
“Just let me go,” I said, the water pooling in my eyes, my body trembling with fear.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you, Beck. I just wanted to feel you close to me.” He thrust his hips into mine until I felt his hardness, and then released me.
I hopped off the counter and got the hell out of that bathroom, running down the stairs to look for Christian. I went to the kitchen, the living room, and outside where I’d last seen him. Then out to the driveway. His car was gone.
“The fucker wasn’t lying,” I mumbled, sitting down on the driveway to catch my breath. I’d just as soon walk home, but being that I lived downhill… way downhill… it would have been an all-night hike. Meeting Jenna at the gate would be more realistic, and I pulled my cell from my pocket.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail. I tried again, with the same results. I was afraid of going back in the house and getting cornered by Hillman again, but I had to find a way home without calling my parents. With great regret, I went back in and found Allison, half-way through a giant schooner of beer and straddling the couch armrest.
“What’s up, Beck?”
“Can you give me a ride home?”
“Where’s Christian?” she asked, suddenly serious.
“He went home — wasn’t feeling good.” She shook her head, took a huge drink and pointed a finger at me.
“I told you about him.”
“Yeah, I know you did.” I wasn’t in the mood to be chastised or made to feel like a shit for dating Christian. “Now, can I have a ride home?”
“It’s gonna be awhile, Beck,” she said, taking another gonzo sip.
“That’s fine. So, okay?” I only wanted her promise.
“Sure, I’ll take you.” And with that, I grabbed my own schooner of beer and spent the rest of the night shadowing Allison while Hillman kept a keen eye on me from a distance.
Chapter 10
My skirt was off. I could tell because my legs were cold until I felt hot flesh pressed against my thighs. He was on top of me, and by now I knew it was definitely Hillman. There was his red hair and rough-sand voice, but also his strong build and the pungent smell of cologne.
After all these months of trying to fuck with me, freaking me out whenever possible, and staring me down like a piece of meat, Hillman was going to get what he wanted. It wouldn’t be because I was beautiful or smart or desirable. No. He wanted whatever he couldn’t have, especially if it belonged to his best friend. Like a sick kind of jealous.
≈
There are things in life that make me feel like hell, like when I have the flu so bad that my bed spins and I spend days with my head in a bucket. Or when I have a runny cold and cough during a heat wave and I have to be out in the sun. And mind-numbing period cramps that rip apart my stomach like an alien is trying to get out. Those things were hell, but nothing compared to the Thursday before school started.
After Christian disappeared on me at Hillman’s house, I’d hitched a ride with a scary-drunk Allison. Most of the drive was downhill and she wasn’t very good at hitting the brakes when confronted with a red light. I wished that I’d had as much to drink as she did, so I wouldn’t feel worried about her crashing the car. The bathroom incident with Hillman, however, had more than sobered me from buzzing paradise.
It was after midnight when I settled in my room and called Christian. If he was sick, he wouldn’t answer. If he saw it was me calling and felt bad about leaving unannounced, he wouldn’t answer.
“Hello?” It figured he would answer. I’d hoped for his voicemail so I could record and re-record my message if necessary. Now I had to come up with something to say on the fly.
“Christian, are you okay?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah. I’m okay now.”
“What happened? Hillman said you weren’t feeling well and went home.”
“My stomach was bugging me. I couldn’t find you and I needed to go.” No sorry. No asking how I got home.
“I don’t like that you just left me.” I popped a piece of gum in my mouth, chewing the juicy sugar right out of it and making sure it crackled in Christian’s ear.
“It’s late, Beck. Let me call you tomorrow and we can go do something.”
“I’m beginning to think you don’t want to do much of anything with me.” My throat was the first body part to fail in holding back my emotions. My blood was boiling and I felt like a reject. Here I was hanging on to the delusional hope that I was reading too much into things and that my boyfriend still wanted me. Christian’s lack of emotion and feeling told another story.
“It’s not that. I’m just having a busy time with school coming up, running track, basketball... you know, getting ready for the year.”
“But you don’t have enough time for me?” A drop of saltwater teetered on my eyelid, and I let it go. Defying gravity, it rolled down my cheek and into my nostril.
“I don’t even have enough time for myself, Beck. Don’t you get it? I have to concentrate on school! I need to go to college!”
“I don’t understand why, all of a sudden, your need to concentrate is keeping you from me.”
He was silent for a long time. What stretched into 30 seconds left me with more tears running into my nose, and finally into my mouth and down under my chin, which dripped like the inside of a melting ice cave. Christian didn’t know I was crying until I did a throaty back-snort — something I always do when I’m trying to hide my tears.
“Aw shit, Beck. Don’t cry.”
“I can’t… can’t help it. I love you and it seems like you don’t love me anymore.” More silence, which caused another back-snort to roar from my throat.
“I’ll call you in the morning,” he said impatiently, and then hung up. My hand cradled the metal and plastic until it cramped, and I let the phone slip out of my palm.
There was nobody for me. Nothing. The one person I thought loved me didn’t. Who was I going to turn to? I took my pillow and clutched it tight against my chest, holding back the sobs that broke through. My mind took inventory of what might lurk in the pockets of my jackets.
Something was calling me.
I leaped out of bed, landed
on the floor, and opened the closet, tearing through my jackets, empty purses, winter boots in search of a bottle… can… anything that would numb my reeling mind.
I slid to the floor, my back seeking the sturdiness of the wall. There was no crutch to lean on. Unless…
“The stash!” I said aloud, referring to the collector’s edition bottles of booze my parents had in a hall cupboard. I’d never given them much thought. Every now and then my mom would take the bottles down for a look and a good dusting — the little boy whiskey decanter that, with the press of a button, peed you a drink; the World Series bourbon bottle with a Norman Rockwell painting on it; and a fat little Buddha full of some odd liquor that looked like it packed a punch. Yes, they were there for me all along and I didn’t even know it.
“Bless you, Lord!” I whispered, leaving my room to slink covertly down the hall. My parents were already in bed, so I was careful to be like a mouse in my venture. I felt my way around the cupboard and grabbed the first bottle I touched, tucking it under my arm and scurried on eggshells back to my room. Soon my sober lips would greet the bottle in my hand.
“Strike!” I laughed when I saw it was the World Series bottle. I’d had hard liquor a few times, but hadn’t considered it recently because beer and wine were so readily available.
I lay in bed and tasted the liquor. A swig here, a nip there. I swirled it around my teeth and felt it tickle my gums. The liquid burned with a searing thrust. So different from beer and wine. It also packed a more brutal, effective punch as my head went numb after a few slugs. It was good, until I thought about Christian and I started bawling. Relief came with each powerful sip of bourbon, erasing the black hole in my heart if only for a minute, and then another sip was needed.
Stopping wasn’t a problem. When the bed started spinning and I couldn’t tell whether I was laying down or sitting up, the bottle slipped out of my hand. There was no way to see where it was on the floor… until it was right under my face.
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