Tranquility

by Ava O'Shay

  “Hmm,” the girl hummed into his neck as he pulled her earlobe with his teeth. Quill kicked at the bathroom door. It didn’t open. “Shit, mother fucker.”

  His hands found their way under her skirt and were kneading her ass. He kicked the door again, barely interrupting his groping and sucking. With a screech, the door opened.

  “It’s about fucking ti—” Quill’s words stopped as the image of rocker chick filled the small hallway.

  The look on her face changed from one of shock to what he thought was disappointment, maybe disgust?

  “Sorry,” she whispered before dropping her gaze and slowly walking back out to the club.

  Quill leaned his forehead against the wall, dissolving the fantasy he’d created when he pulled this stand-in for the girl he really wanted into the hall. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  “Come on, baby,” she drawled.

  Quill felt the burn of eyes and turned his head, surprised to find rocker chick leaning against the entrance to the hallway, watching them.

  He met her stare head on and pushed his hips into the woman pinning her hard against the wall. Having an audience was hot, especially when it was the girl he was supposed to have his hands on. Slowly, her tongue peaked out of her mouth to wet her lips.

  “Lord have mercy,” he muttered. “Yeah baby,” fuck girl moaned.

  Quill ran his hand down her side, never breaking the visual connection with the girl down the hall. He walked his fingers up, pulling the skirt with them, finding their way under the edge of her panties. Rocker girl’s chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath.

  His dick was going to burst out of his pants any second. Before things got really interesting, her gaze left his, darting somewhere to the side. Quill froze, waiting to see what she was going to do.

  Random girl grabbed his ass and squeezed. “Oh baby.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he blew out. He needed to be inside her. He needed to prove he was still in control, that he could take this woman anyway he wanted.

  Quill looked up, searching for rocker chick. He wanted her watching when he fucked this random chick, but she was gone.

  “Shit.”

  Random girl grabbed his face, pulling his mouth to hers. Her tongue snaked between his lips, pulsing in and out. When her teeth clamped down on his bottom lip, pulling into her mouth, he was done.

  Quill pushed her through the door and against the metal privacy wall. He was so primed he was afraid he wasn’t going to get his dick out in time. He closed his eyes tight, bringing the image of the girl in the hall to the forefront, wishing this harsh smelling drunk girl was her. In his mind, she would be perfect. She would smell fresh and clean and touch him… hands skimmed his waistband, sliding under to pop the button.

  Quill’s hands tightened around his present lay’s wrists, stopping them when they began to pull the zipper down.

  “I thought we were going to fuck.” She pulled at her hands, but Quill tightened his grip. “I was helping,” she whined.

  “Don’t touch me.” Quill ground his teeth together. “Do not fucking touch me,” he repeated with a menacing stare. “Keep your hands off my dick.”

  Quill tried to keep the shudders that coursed just under the surface from emerging. He couldn’t stand anyone touching him. It immediately brought the memories he was trying to fuck away back in gut retching clarity. His breath caught, and he felt his lungs constricting. The girl’s eyes crinkled at the edges. She was smiling. She thought her mere presence was causing this reaction when really he was a minute away from having a panic attack. He should have told her the rules from the start, but he let rocker chick distract him.

  Niceties out the window, he grabbed the girl by the shoulders and flung her toward the toilet. “Grab the tank,” he ordered. He needed to know he was still in control. He conquered women to prove he was still a man. He wouldn’t let the memories overtake him.

  Random girl gave him a hesitant look before he grabbed her hands again; using his body he forced her forward, placing one hand on each side of the porcelain toilet tank. “Don’t let go,” he growled.

  Slowly, he trailed his hands down her back, sliding her long, red hair to the side. She shuttered under his touch.

  “I’m going to fuck you hard. Hold on.”

  With a rough touch he knew drew the women he fucked crazy, he ran his hands up her thighs, taking her skirt around her waist, exposing a black lace thong. She may not be the girl he wanted, but she’d certainly do. Quill ran his rough hands over each of her cheeks. “God you’re beautiful,” he whispered, although he didn’t really mean it.

  “Fuck me,” she groaned.

  Her voice grated on his nerves and reminded him of his mother’s drunken friends he was struggling to forget. “Shut up.”

  With quick hands, he undid his belt, unbuttoned his jeans, and pulled out his throbbing dick. Digging in his pocket, he pulled out a condom, ripped it open with his teeth, and rolled it down. Moving her thong to the side, he rammed into her.

  Her body pushed back. Quill grabbed her hips, stilling her. He was in charge here and wasn’t going to let her take the reins.

  “Hold on, baby, I’m taking you for a ride.” He began to thrust forward while pulling her back into him. The rattle of the toilet tank matched the rhythm of his dick pulsing in and out of her.

  “Harder baby. Harder.” Her gravelly voice broke his concentration.

  “God, shut the fuck up,” he growled. Quill dug his fingers into her hips until she groaned. “Come for me, baby. Come hard and loud for me.” Quill bent over, snarling into her ear.

  He felt her body shudder against his chest right before a loud moan.

  Usually, he followed shortly after, but tonight he was struggling to get to the finish line. Drugs? Too much alcohol? Shit he has been so wasted before he could hardly stand and he still finished the deed. What the hell was wrong with him? The girl moaned and ground her ass into him which wasn’t helping in the least. He needed something to help him get off. He slowed his hips, circling, letting his mind float back to rocker chick watching in the hall. She was exquisite. Before he could hold on to her image, the face of the bass player shoved her to the side. The thick eyeliner, his mouth grinning at him. His climax came slow and steady, filling the condom. For those few seconds of release, his mind emptied. He leaned his head back, only feeling the pleasure and pain of an orgasm.

  And then it was gone. His world came rushing back with the addition of feeling shitty for having his dick inside the wrong girl. It was always the wrong girl.

  He pulled out, threw the condom into the tiny trash can on the floor, and slapped her on the ass.

  “Thanks for the fuck. See ya around.” He pulled up his zipper and walked out the door.

  .two

  Quill Diaz

  September 9

  12:00 a.m.

  “Daniel, I need a ride.” Quill was lying on a pile of railroad ties outside the club. He was way too messed up to drive home, and not wanting to hear an ear full from his sister, he called Jolin even though Quill currently hated him for throwing him to the wolves.

  “Why?” Jolin mumbled into the phone.

  “I’m fucked up because of you and your fuck of a mom. You owe me. And don’t want to walk home.”

  “Why don’t you call Ren?” Jolin sounded pissed he’d woke him up. “And don’t use the word fuck in the same sentence as my mom, asshole.”

  “I am not calling Ren because I have had as much bitching from women as I can take. Besides, she’d kick my ass for getting wasted.” Quill watched the clouds move over the moon, darkening the parking lot.

  “Ren’s still going to kick your ass. She’ll just do it later.”

  “Yeah. Well if you come get me, you can get some ass when you drop me off at the apartment.”

  Jolin was quiet for a beat as if he was thinking of the prospect.

  “Dude it was a joke. I do not want to hear the two of you bumping uglies one very thin wall away
.”

  “I’ll be there in a few.”

  Quill heard talking in the background and assumed Jolin’s roommate and best friend, Akeo, was getting in on the news he’d fallen off the sobriety wagon.

  Quill let the phone go black and closed his eyes. He needed to get home and wash the sex off. He was such a fuck up. A few minutes of burying himself in a woman, any woman, took the edge off, but afterward he felt dirty and ashamed, but wasn’t sure if he should feel that way or not. He was only hurting himself. He didn’t ask for it. The girls came to him. They always came to him. Who was he to turn down a girl? He wasn’t doing anything every other red-blooded American boy dreamed of doing.

  So it was okay.

  But he wasn’t okay. He needed to stop. Pull his head out and find another way to deal, but for tonight all he really wanted was more pot and a hot shower. At least he knew a shower was waiting at the apartment.

  Ren had him enrolled in classes at the college, but he had no idea what he wanted to do. His whole life all he’d done was survive and make everyone think he was an easy going party guy. He worked hard to hide a secret. A dirty secret that got heavier every moment he refused to admit what he’d done. He couldn’t keep a job more than a few months due to his wicked ways and management not appreciating him showing up hung over or screwing the girls in the stock room. He rubbed his hand over his face. “Argh,” he yelled.

  He didn’t want to stick his dick in every girl he met. In fact, he had a long list of girls he would never had slept with if his head was on straight. He was trying to fill a void, and it wasn’t working anymore. “Fuck.” Maybe he should talk to a counselor. Maybe he was a major fuck up.

  The crunch of gravel had him raising his head to see Jolin’s old Camaro pull up beside him. Quill rolled off the pile of logs, falling off into the dirt.

  “What the hell, Quill?” Jolin walked around the car and stood in front of him. Quill looked up from his knees with a grin.

  “Dammit now she’s going to kick my ass for bringing you home like this,” Jolin grumbled. “You aren’t drunk, you’re completely fucked up.”

  “Help me up.” Quill held a hand up.

  With a tug, Jolin had him up and balancing against the side of his car. “Sometimes the door sticks.”

  Quill began to slide down the side of the car while Jolin attempted to open the door. “Shit, Quill.” Jolin wrapped Quill’s arm around his shoulders and started pulling on the passenger door. “Okay this isn’t working. Stay here and I’m going to push from the other side.”

  Quill turned around and rested his arms on the roof of the car, laying his head against them. “Why don’t you get a new car?”

  Jolin stopped before ducking into the driver’s door. “It’s a classic. Don’t hate on my car.” He climbed inside.

  With a bang, the door flew open, knocking Quill backward and into the pile of wood. “Oh. Shit man I’m sorry.” Jolin ran around the car. “What the hell, Quill? You knew I was going to open the door, why’d you stand in front of it?” “Dude,” Quill moaned.

  “Are you okay?”

  Quill felt the back of his head for blood, staring too long at his fingers when nothing appeared. “Yeah I’m good.”

  Jolin pulled him up and pointed him in the direction of the door. “Do not throw up in my car.” Jolin ran around the car again. Making sure Quill was secured by the seatbelt; he pulled out of the parking lot.

  “I’m not a fag,” Quill slurred.

  “Um. Okay?” Jolin stopped at a light and glanced over at Quill. “Jesus man you wreak like pot, booze, and cheap perfume.”

  Quill scooted into the seat. “Probably because I smoked a bowl and was balls deep in a girl with cheap perfume.”

  “You know, just because I picked you up doesn’t mean I need to know the torrid details.” “Didn’t want you to think I had body odor issues.”

  “Or was banging a guy?” “Just felt the need to clarify.”

  “This from the man whore.” Jolin snorted then drove in silence for a while. Quill closed his eyes and hoped he could get home without a lecture.

  “I thought you and my mom had a deal? I thought you and Ren had a deal.”

  Shit, no luck on missing the lecture. “She’s your mom, not mine, and it would do her good to remember that.”

  “I think she’d argue that point.”

  “I don’t need another mom. Mine did a good job screwing with my head. I don’t need another getting in it.”

  “She cares about you. Ren cares about you, and when you screw up, it interferes with me.

  I really don’t want to spend my time with your sister listening to her bitch about you.” “They shouldn’t care.” Quill moved his head to lean against the window.

  “A lot of people care about you, and they don’t deserve you dicking around.” Jolin narrowed his eyes. “It upsets her when you do this.”

  Quill laughed. “I upset her? You ‘dear boyfriend of my sister’ upset her daily. I am not the one apologizing for ditching her for your old crowd on homecoming night then sending her flowers and making her cry over some shitty little plastic horse you gave her.” Quill was hoping he could successfully change the focus to Ren and Jolin’s relationship and off his bad behavior.

  Jolin stopped the car in front of The Perk’s coffee shop. Quill and Ren lived upstairs in a tiny apartment. One that was theirs alone with no fear of their mother moving in. At least not until she got out of jail on her last drug charge. The lights in the upstairs windows were dark.

  “Ren cries over the horse?”

  “She did.” He yawned. “Probably because it’s stupid.”

  “Shut up.” Jolin ran his hands over his face. “Does she do… has she done anything… you know, to hurt herself?”

  Quill leveled a stare. That sobered him up. “What do you mean?” “Jesus, Quill, your head’s up your ass farther than mine. She cuts dude.” “Cuts what?”

  Jolin’s eyes got huge at Quill’s ignorance. “Herself? Haven’t you seen her arms?

  Didn’t you wonder how her arm needed stiches after she was attacked?”

  “I’ve seen her arms. Our mom burned her. She didn’t do it to herself.” Quill shook his head in disbelief.

  “Yeah she’s got burns, but she also has scars. Long scars from slicing herself up with a razor? You haven’t seen them?”

  “Of course I haven’t. If I knew she was carving herself up, I would have stopped her.” Quill straightened. “Jo. If I knew, I would have stopped her. She wasn’t doing anything but crying. I swear.”

  “Do you ask her why she was crying?” “What?” Quill laughed. “No.”

  “So, you’re Mr. Compassionate. After all the sacrifices she’s made for you, and you don’t even poke your head in her room and ask if she’s okay?”

  Quill had a moment of clarity. “Look, dude. I am not indebted to her for the rest of my life. We look out for each other. She wasn’t the only one that made sacrifices. And you don’t know shit about what went down or our relationship. I’m there for her, but she doesn’t listen to me. I tell her to stop doing her crazy shit, and she tells me to butt out.” Quill was lying to himself and Jolin. He carried guilt every day for the sacrifices she made. Especially since her sacrifices were in vain. Another reason he held so tight to his secret. Just another reason to be disappointed in him.

  “I don’t like her crying, and I don’t want her crying over me.” “She isn’t. She’s crying over a sappy plastic horse.”

  “It’s called symbolism. It was romantic. You’re a dick when you’re drunk.” Jolin got out of the car.

  “I’m a dick when I’m sober.” Quill rubbed his hands over his face, trying to wake up.

  Quill pushed the door and with a loud screech, it opened. It took a few tries before he was able to steady himself enough to stand up and get out of the car. He shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck. “Do I look better?”

  “Yeah that totally took the, I’m drunk off my ass look a
way.” Jolin frowned.

  “You aren’t a goody two shoes, so stop with the high and mighty act.” Quill stepped forward, tripping on the curb.

  “Never said I was, but when something comes along that makes you want to be better, you get your shit together.”

  “Yeah. That’s not going to happen any time soon.” Quill grabbed a sign post to steady himself. “She’s probably asleep. Don’t you think?”

  “Seeing as it’s in the middle of the night, I would hope so.” Jolin came around and put Quill’s arm around his shoulder. “I certainly was before some drunkard called for a ride.”

  “I love you man.” Quill laughed.

  “Oh no. Not the ‘I love you, you’re my number one dude.’ You aren’t that messed up.”

  They maneuvered up the stairs, finally making it to the door. Quill held a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to wake her up.”

  “She’ll know.”

  “But not until I’m sober enough to convince her it won’t happen again.”

  Jolin rolled his eyes, unlocked the door, and pushed Quill through. “I’m not sure who you need to convince: her or you.”

  Quill seemed to sober up a bit. “You want to… you know… stay and talk?” Jolin raised an eyebrow. “You want me to stay and talk?”