by Dani Stowe
“Are you enjoying them as well?” my father asked, them meaning not just the dancers but the opposite gender in general.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“It’s fine to watch them but be careful when they catch you looking. They’ll think you owe them something,” he sang in a sinister tone.
“Mr. Rohr?” came the building inspector walking towards us.
My father turned his head away but he was still leaning, speaking to me. “Remember boy, we don’t owe them anything. They’re all for show. It’s they who are here for our entertainment.”
Just then another whack resounded—this time the stick landing firmly on the back of Taloulah’s thighs.
“You see?” my father chuckled, peeping back into the window. “Even the awkward ones can be trained to entertain us in some ways.”
My father walked away smoothly, putting his hands in his pockets to speak with the inspector. His mid-parted wavy hair shone like molten gold under the late afternoon sun.
The dance studio doors opened and out poured giggling girls with lips as pretty and pink as the tights on their legs. One at a time, each pair of lips spread into a smile enhanced by a bat of the eyes—all intended for me. Dance class was over and, as each girl walked past, I dipped my head in acknowledgement that I’d noticed every glimmering toothy display.
When the parade was over, however, I leaned my back against the wall, putting my hands in my pockets, to wait for the one girl. The awkward one. Of course, she trailed far behind, alone, and I stood up a bit straighter, hoping I’d get the same reaction from her that I got from the others. But I didn’t.
Taloulah’s eyes were wet and puffy. Her head was down. She was hardly developed at only thirteen, which was a year younger than me, but I’d already fallen for her. I would soon learn that she was in the same grade as me, a freshman. Because she was so smart, she got bumped up a grade in middle school. I could never for the life of me figure out why she took dance classes when it was obvious she was not only terrible at dancing but also hated it.
Later, of course, I learned she was forced to dance—her parents hoping she would grow into becoming as talented as her sister. When I found out, that only made me fall in love with Taloulah more. I knew what it was like to be forced to do things you didn’t want to do. I also knew what it was like to be at the end of a stick.
As Taloulah Berkeley walked straight past me—barefoot with ballet slippers in hand—looking utterly conquered without so much as a single glance in my direction and leaving me completely unnoticed because she was so caught up in the punishment she’d just received, my heart instantly ached for her.
I knew that look. The look of defeat. The look of helplessness. The look of being beaten without being able to speak a word. Because you were trained not to speak, to keep silent. It was the first time I’d felt I was no longer alone. It seemed there was another person who’d been banished to what felt like a lonely little island adrift in the middle of the sea. It was a place where I existed somewhere between hope and hell, somewhere where I had been transformed into a beast.
Just the day before my father and I arrived, I had finished a book, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. I could relate to the suffering the half-human animals endured as a result of the doctor’s experiments. My mother had left me to fend for myself against a monster, my father, whose only purpose in life seemed to be to conquer and manipulate. Though, I guess my mother had no choice in the matter to abandon me. She died.
“I’m sorry,” my mother said, lying helpless in her deathbed. “I don’t mean to leave you, Nicholas. You’re a brilliant boy, but I can’t take any more of this.” This meaning the pain I often watched my father inflict upon my mother. “I’m sure you will be hurting for some time after I am gone, but it was never my intent to bring you into this world to hurt you. If I could be here for you in the future and kiss all your worries away to make them better, I would. Please remember how much I love you and perhaps you will forgive me one day for leaving you. Don’t become your father. Remember, we don’t hurt the ones we love.” She stroked her thumb across my forehead. “Say it to Mama. Repeat what I said.”
I shook my head.
“Say it, Nicholas. I need to hear you say it.”
I gulped. “We don’t hurt the ones we love.”
I can still feel the stroke of my mother’s dry thumb as it wandered aimlessly across my head. “Give me a kiss, Nicholas,” my mother demanded with a tear strolling down her cheek. I kissed her as she requested, hoping to cheer her up, but we both fell into darkness. In the very same moment my lips departed my mother’s cheek, she left me.
Alone.
When Taloulah crossed my path right in front of me, a single tear fell from the side of her eye painting a transparent white line down her saddened red-hot face. I wanted to lunge at her. I wanted to grab Taloulah and entangle the frail thing in my arms to lick her salty cheek so she would know she was not alone.
I was not alone.
I came alive in that moment. Death had loomed like a dark cloud, drowning me in painful memories that stung like bullets of rain falling. But Taloulah was a breath of fresh air, as she was also drowning. I figured, if only I had an umbrella...
But of course, I didn’t approach her. I let her walk on by. I had to or she might’ve never actually spoken to me. That moment was her moment and, although it was a sour one, I knew well enough with my own similar experiences to leave Taloulah alone.
I wasn’t sure how I’d conjure another meet, but I figured I at least knew where she would be at that time the next week.
A whole week? I thought. A desperate kid I was back then, as it felt it was going to be an eternity before I could make another attempt to at least get a smile from the girl.
Luckily, the second I walked into advanced chemistry the next day, Taloulah was there. Sitting alone. She made immediate eye contact with me. Her gaze followed my every move as I spoke with the teacher at his desk and then sat down right next to what I knew would be my future, my Lou. I had already gathered some info about her and I didn’t hold the fact she acted in the same way most girls did—aloof and staring—against her. Most chicks stared and ogled once they caught a glance but, unlike most chicks, Taloulah was able to keep her wits about her.
“Um, excuse me,” she mumbled, “Elliot Crowe sits there.” She pointed to the science books and calculator open in front of me, then adjusted her glasses, which was cute. She didn’t have glasses on at the dance studio. Her eyes were still puffy, puffier than they were when they passed me in front of the building. I figure she must’ve cried more when she got home afterward.
Crying was something I’d have to get used to when it came to my Lou.
I folded the books and tossed them aside. “So, where is this Elliot?” I asked. “He your boyfriend?”
“What?” she squinted. “No.” I thought I heard her gag reflex flex, which was awesome. Of course, I could easily compete with a geek and win her affections if it came down to looks and money, but maybe book smarts might’ve been more her type, which would’ve definitely been a bit of a challenge. Of course, I liked to read but mostly fiction. All that non-fiction stuff, I preferred in the form of CliffsNotes.
“Where is he?” I asked. “This Elliot?”
“He got called to the counselor’s office,” said a chubby short kid from behind.
“Oh yeah? For what?” I pretended to be interested to encourage conversation, though I really didn’t care. I didn’t give two shits about some geek I’d never met and I was sure the kid whose seat I was in was a geek. Every kid in the class looked like a regrettable outcome of some strange swinger party where “Star Trek” devotees took advantage of the fans of “That ‘70s Show.” Advanced chemistry was nothing short of sci-fi on high.
Except for Taloulah, of course. The only thing I ever thought strange about her was her name and that she was in many ways like me.
“Elliot got beat up yesterday,” she answered my
question.
“Yeah,” laughed a short lanky kid, Jaxon, at the next table in goggles, which he popped up to the top of his head like a crown. “Too bad you didn’t start school one day earlier, you might’ve been able to see the whole thing. Elliot got beat bad.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “For what?”
“For existing,” chuckled chubs behind me.
‘Beat bad’ simply for existing? Huh. That was two kids I already knew since arriving that could take a beating. My island was growing!
I dreaded moving from the city to the suburbs, but I had already begun to like the town. It was, after all, my mother’s hometown. It should not have surprised me that I would find someone like Taloulah, or the rest of NIM, in such a place.
Of course, my father was upset when the only private school available refused to accept me on account of my “reputation” at my last privately funded rich school. I fucked the Dean’s daughter, who was older than me and I filmed her from behind with one hand as I smacked her bottom with the other, which of course I had to share with all the rest of those oh-so-private rich people on a not-so-private cheap network.
My father insisted, with a donation to my new principal, that I only take the advanced courses, since he felt our wealth put us above “normal.” Likewise, I was skeptical of attending public school, but I soon learned there was nothing “normal” about it. I was easily going to fit in by equally not fitting in.
“Well,” I said, cocking a brow to Taloulah then making myself comfortable on Elliot’s stool, “looks like this is my seat now.”
“That’s very rude,” she hissed and then scribbled what I saw as algebraic nonsense onto a Xerox copy of what I was able to recognize as the Periodic Table. Taloulah had a one hundred percent score labelled on the top in red and by the look of things, she was still trying to correct and perfect her work further.
I leaned over to sniff her. She wasn’t the kind of girl to wear perfume yet, but I could smell something on her. Strawberries? I thought initially. But no, it was cherries. My dick nearly sprung out of my Abercrombie & Fitch Straight Gray Chino pants when I realized Taloulah was wearing cherry-flavored Chapstick. I even had to pull on the front of my black and white striped Henley top to fan my body and cool myself down.
I was sure the girl was a virgin. And it wasn’t just the pink shirt with wrinkled tan khakis and cheap scuffed zebra printed rubber-soled shoes that gave it away. Shit, she was only thirteen, so I had no intention of hooking up with her like that, at least not until she was of actual high school age, but still. Cherry on cherry consumed my every thought for the next four years.
And that’s how long it took for Taloulah to talk to me again. For four years, I waited for her, watched her, stalked her, agonized, and pined over her because I messed up. On the same day I claimed my spot right next to Taloulah in chem lab, I also fucked up and pushed her away. In fact, it took four years and a fucking house fire before she’d speak a word to me, despite the fact I knew she was still attracted to me—staring at me all the time.
And once I pulled her out of the fire, I also took a beating for her to make sure every day thereafter she’d talk to only me, hangout with no one but me, and be present with only those people I’d allow her to be present with so she would never be distracted by anyone but me.
Chapter 3
Taloulah
I scroll the back of my hands—the only dry spots I have left—down both cheeks and stand up straight.
Get your shit together, Taloulah. Nick just threatened to kill someone.
I dig deep to pull out some courage and an honest, more serious tone. “You’re not going to kill anyone, Nick. You’re not a bully. Remember?”
Nick’s jaw tightens. He’s grinding his teeth. He still won’t look at me. “Did you fuck him?”
“That’s none of your bus—”
“Did you fuck him?” he yells.
My body tightens. “I already told you, no.”
Nick pulls his hands out of his pocket, placing one on his hip and the other on his forehead. He’s grimacing, massaging his temples.
My breasts feel painful, tight, so I glance down. I hadn’t realized I’d crossed my arms to grab my shoulders so hard. I’m crushing my own chest but when I loosen my arms, my chest still feels like its being stepped on by an elephant.
I think about last night and the way I was touched and caressed by someone else. My chest was heaving freely as fingers tenderly trailed under my shirt to stroke across the tip tops of my nipples followed by a heavy grab and kneading. It was so hot, especially the kisses. Hot kisses, hot hands, hot bodies. It was everything I thought it would be—to be handled in such a way—except I’d always dreamed it would be Nick doing such things to me. And my dreams were enough until I met him.
I look at Nick’s hands as he massages his forehead. They are so perfectly smooth, having never washed a dish, swung an axe, or changed a tire, yet they are so strong. I’ve caught Nick working his fingers and palms on other women. They love it, but I recognize I have not seen Nick use those hands in such a tender or caressing way as what I felt last night with someone else.
Perhaps Nick is not capable of tender. You know Nick better than anyone else, Taloulah, and this is why you need to let him go.
You need tender. Nick needs rough. You know what he’s been through. You know why he is the way he is, but you’ve stuck around long enough. He won’t even touch you other than give you a swift swat on the backside. You need more than that. You need love. Nick doesn’t even know what love means.
I drop my hands to hug my waist. “Nick, I—”
“Don’t speak,” he says, holding up an index finger behind him to shush me.
Don’t speak? Don’t speak! How dare he!
Last night, I had fingers—ten of them—all over me. Touching me. Feeling me. Gripping and holding me. After just a couple of months, I had him, not Nick, but him exploring me. Respectfully. Lovingly.
But this man. This... Nick Rohr, I’ve given nearly all my life to him and all I get is a shush of one damn finger.
I swallow and turn on my heels to face the door.
“Taloulah,” Nick calls with a choke. I’ve not heard him speak my first name in a long time. I know it’s one of probably many things he finds awkward about me, but he almost sounds desperate, as desperate as he was on the night of the fire...
“Taloulah,” Nick called with his head poking downward out of the ceiling through the smoke that was much thicker than it had been only a minute earlier. Nick reached out his hands but it seemed too late. A portion of the ceiling gave way and Nick fell hard on top of me.
I recall feeling groggy and my neck hurt terribly. I knew I was on the floor. I could even breathe a little better below the thick clouds of smoke but my head was pounding. Nick’s knee or elbow or something had landed on the back of my head. There was a sting there but there was also a shaking. Nick was shaking me, trying to rouse me.
“Get up!” he shouted.
My tongue was hanging. I couldn’t speak but I managed to lick my lips. Nick smacked me lightly across the face. “Ta... Ta...” He coughed hard into the bend of one arm, attempting to wave the smoke away without success with the other. “Lou!” he managed to blurt.
“Lou...” I tried to correct him but instead of finishing with a “lah,” I coughed into his face.
Despite the bright orange flames seeping through a corner of Charlotte’s bedroom door behind him, my body felt heavy, my mind woozy. My eyelids felt weightier. I just had to shut them.
Smack! Came a swift hard swat to my ass and my eyes popped open. Nick had rolled me to my side to smack my butt.
“I know what your name is, Lou, but if you don’t get up, nothing about us is going to matter because we’re going to get burned alive.” Nick put his arm under my back and pulled me to standing. He was handsome and tall but dirty and sweaty. I’d never seen the rich boy so sweaty before, not even in Phys Ed. Of course, he still smelled good in th
e moment. His sweat mixed with the splash of his aquatic musky cologne invigorated my senses. With his hand on my back and the pulling of my arm, I somehow managed to find myself standing on my feet amidst the smoke and heat.
“Don’t move,” he said and I didn’t. I couldn’t.
My head hurt so bad. Looking back, I am astonished how little I cared about the flames erupting through the door frame. I was in such a haze.
“Come to me, Taloulah,” Nick called out. I turned my head from side to side. “Loulah,” he shouted again, but I couldn’t see him. “Goddamn it, Lou! I’m up here,” I heard him bark from above. “Give me your arms!”
I looked up to the big hole in the ceiling to see Nick, his arms outstretched, reaching for me. I instinctively put my fingers up but quickly withdrew when they just barely grazed his fingertips. I was reluctant to touch him. There was something about him I remembered I needed to be wary about.
His face paled through the gray smoke. “Hey, what you saw, four years ago, with me in that fight with that guy when we were freshman, just forget about that. This is about you and me right now. Okay? I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to rescue you, Lou. Just give me your hands.”
Nick stretched his fingers further towards me. My face was beginning to sting from the heat, so I put my hands up and wiggled them around until my fingers were gripped—painfully. Next thing I knew, Nick was groaning from the strain of lifting me to him.
Once in the ceiling, Nick gave me a quick look over. “We have to cross the ladder now. Are you okay?”
“My head hurts,” I confessed.
He pulled me into his chest and rubbed the back of my head. “I fell on you pretty hard. Let’s cross the ladder and I’ll get you whatever you need, all right?”
“All right,” I nodded.
Nick forced me to go first. I was on automatic pilot until I got halfway across and I became fully aware of what I was doing and the height of the ladder between the houses.