by Laine Watson
“Y’all ain’t got no fucking tissue! What I’m s’pose to wipe my balls off with?!” Jack said, coming up the stairs.
“You triflin’.” Becs scoffed in disgust. Jack looked at her with an equal amount of disgust.
“Oh, I know,” he said and smeared his hand across my forehead.
“Oh, my Gawd, that’s so gross!” I laughed. Becs stared at us with disgust.
“And that’s the mu’fucker you wanna be with?” she scoffed, shaking her head.
“Stop, Jack,” I said, fanning his hands away from my face. Becs laughed as if she felt sorry for me as she headed back to her room.
“You so nasty,” I told Jack as we walked down the steps headed to my room.
“You nasty, fucking yourself with screwdrivers and shit,” Jack replied, following me down the stairs.
“Shut up,” I said, looking back at him on the landing. His body bumped against mine, giving me a tingle. He stared at me for a few moments as he pressed up against me.
“She ain’t hear me,” he said.
“Gawd, you’re…the same.” I rolled my eyes and headed down the other flight of steps.
“What you think, I was s’pose to change or something?” Jack asked, following behind me.
I opened my door and walked into my room as he continued to follow me. He stopped and looked around.
“What the fuck is this?” Jack yelled.
“What?” I asked shyly.
“How old are you?”
“You can stop right now. Pink is an every-age color,” I said defensively.
“No, it’s not. Damn, you do need some dick.” He smiled as I sat down on my bed. I paid him no attention.
“Wow, you have a guitar?” Jack asked, picking up my deep, dark-wood guitar and picking at it.
“Yeah…”
“Do you play?” He looked up from the guitar to me.
“No, not really.”
“Then why do you have it?”
“Because I like…the way it sounds. It helps me to try to play it when I need to figure shit out.” I explained.
“So, what, when you get sad and shit, you like play it, or…” His head was tilted to the side, studying me closely.
“Yeah…” I said, defeated. I swallowed nervously and sighed as he handed me the guitar.
This wasn’t something I shared with Jack. Jack had been gone for so long, and I had spent so many nights playing guitar and writing songs about him in my room before Trey moved into the closet. It had been a while. I didn’t play when Trey was there. He wouldn’t have understood.
I sniffled and sat down on my bed with the guitar.
“Play something,” Jack said, sitting in front of me.
“I don’t know how to play,” I reminded him.
“Well, do whatever you do when you’re being all emo and shit.” Jack grinned. I rolled my eyes. I sighed and closed my eyes. I strummed a few times, strummed a dropped d. I don’t know if it was right at all, but it was pretty to me. When I opened my eyes, Jack was staring at me.
“What was that?” he asked. He was looking at me as if I had fallen a little bit into his heart, or had pulled it out a little bit and exposed it. I gulped.
“I don’t know, just a song,” I murmured. Jack seemed to be hiding something. His face seemed reverent, touched.
“Does it have any words?”
“Uhm…yeah.”
“Are they about me?” Yes, I thought.
“Why would you ask that?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It just seems like they are. You’re being all tense and stuff.” I sighed.
“Yeah, Jack…everything is about you,” I replied. His sentimental expression left his face as I put my guitar back on its stand. He now had a mischievous smile plastered across his face.
He walked over to my tall chest of drawers and started opening it and rummaging through clothes.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?” I was becoming annoyed.
“Your fuck buddy,” he said, finding his way to my third drawer and looking behind my undies. “Got it.” He slid it across his philtrum and sniffed.
“That is so gross,” I said, trying to mask my smiling blush.
“Mmm,” Jack moaned sexily.
“Oh, my Gawd, you’re such a creeper.” I laughed, rolling my eyes, but I guess I was, too, because he was turning me on. I smiled as he walked over to me, screwdriver in hand. He leaned over me, forcing me to lean back. He placed one hand on each side of me at the edge of the bed.
“You want me? Or you want this?” he asked, seductively staring me straight into my eyes.
“Jack…it’s been like three years,” I said. “How I know you ain’t been fucking a buncha bitches, and you ain’t got shit on your dick?”
“You seen it. I’m clean.” Jack replied and paused. “You know, technically you’re still my girlfriend. We never broke up.” I smiled tranquilly.
“Com’on…” he urged, nuzzling up to me.
Either way, I was just holding out, so he wouldn’t know how much I needed him to do exactly what he wanted to do. I don’t think I could have told him no even if I wanted to.
I’d spent the past three years feeling like my life had been stolen from me. Three years of disaster after disaster, only to find myself pretending to fuck myself to go back to that night when I was fourteen and have that feeling of safety and pleasure, truth and wholeness. Three years of feeling like I would never be me again. And there he was, standing before me, wanting to give me what I had longed for, for so long. Not just his dick…him.
It seems odd to desire something so deeply that when you are faced with that desire, you fear it. I feared him. I don’t know why. I just did. But I didn’t fear him enough to tell him no.
“You com’on,” I said sweetly, sensually. He smirked. I laid down. He was over me, and I was ready.
“Hot Rod?” he asked.
“What?” I looked up at him innocently. He licked his lips. He looked serious.
“Listen to me, I don’t give a fuck what happens. You bet’not fuck no other dudes. You hear me?” Jack said seriously.
His tone of voice frightened me a little as he sat up and took his shirt off. I looked at all of his tattoos; his thin body was more perfect than it was before.
“I don’t wanna have sex with anyone else,” I said. He unbuckled his belt and exposed himself.
“No, that’s not what I said. I said you bet-not-fuck-nobody else,” Jack warned me.
“Jack?” I asked.
“I don’t give a damn…I’m not gonna go back and forth with you,” he said.
“Back and forth with me about what?”
“You heard me.” Jack told me. I gulped as he kissed me roughly. I flinched a bit because of his abrasiveness. He soon turned intimate, kissing me gently, his hands traveling over my body. I forgot about his demands.
I had never had sex in that bed, in that room, in that house. There had been a lot of sex had in that house, but none by me. Well, I mean with a guy, because I definitely fucked myself, and often. And the fact that I was about to have the new Jack inside of me, the bigger Jack, the bigger-than-Dylan Oliver, Jack, was frightening. I thought that he’d know that two other dicks had been inside of me, but I also hoped that, since it had been such a long time, he wouldn’t.
The screwdriver had prepared me none for the force and girth of the real Jack. It simply gave me false hope that there was no pain and only pleasure. That was a real lie. It hurt so bad, him pushing himself inside of me. It wasn’t like before. There was more of him, and still the same amount of me. He watched me as I took it anyway. It wasn’t too much, just more than I had ever had. I breathed heavily, as if I didn’t have to remember. It was gone, and the new Jack was being engraved into every part of me.
I watched him, looked him over as we had sex. I felt as though I’d changed so little, yet with his short hair
and tattoos, the new Jack was sexier, in a dirtier sort of way. His innocence had left his eyes, but his vulnerability was still there. I had spent the last three years feeling like I was too weird, too strange, to breast-full for anyone to actually like the real me. I hadn’t felt like myself, and I was hoping that I could be myself with Jack because I hadn’t been before.
It was just a twin sized bed, and I was just a girl, and he was just some skinny, lanky guy. The sound of the bed hitting the wall, my moans and silent screams as he grabbed me and held me and smacked me in places that no Jack, nor Chad, not even Dylan or any other guy had touched me, were unbelievably enjoyable. I guess, the more it hurt, the more it felt good, the more I knew Jack was there, that he was really there.
The heat between us took up the space in the room, and our sweat dripping on one another made me feel alive. For all the non-crazy sex that I’d had, to have crazy, passionate twin bed sex with Jack after years of not having anything with him was better than everything. He kissed better than he did when we were in high school. Him kissing me while we made love was far better than Dylan Olivers’ kisses. If there was anything that was good enough to take that away, it would have to be Jack. Up until that point, that was the best sex that I had ever had.
“You went inside me?” I asked him.
“I haven’t nutted inside a girl since…” he thought. “Well, shit. Since you were fourteen.” He smirked.
“But you had sex with a buncha girls?” I asked, instantly being a bitch after having sex.
“I don’t trust these hoes,” Jack said. He didn’t deny that he hadn’t.
“Why, you think someone wants a baby by you?” I said rolling my eyes.
“Fuck nah, I’m not tryna catch nothing.” He lay down next to me. I lowered my eyes. He looked at me crossly.
“You want my baby?” he remarked. I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t want no kids,” I said.
“You don’t?” Jack asked me.
“No. I don’t want no kids, I don’t wanna get married. I just wanna do what the hell I wanna do,” I told him.
“Yeah, see, that’s why you and me work.” Jack smirked.
“Yeah.” I smiled.
He sighed, “So you gonna stay with me…”
“Jack…”
“Look, I know we haven’t seen each other in a long ass time, but…Hot Rod you’re mine…”
“Jack, I am yours.” I told him.
“Okay, cuz I’m just saying,” He smirked, “I’m fucked up, you’re fucked up…let’s be fucked up together.”
“Jack…” I said looking into his eyes, “That’s how it’s always been.”
Man, we were so messed up. All I ever wanted was to have a real somebody for me. I remember how I prayed in high school to have a husband. Life had beaten me down in just a few years to the point that all my childhood dreams seemed to be transparent and scarred, disfigured and distorted. I wonder if Jack felt the same. We didn’t get up.
“Gawd…it felt so good to be inside you,” Jack said. I giggled.
“You got too much to be up inside me,” I replied.
“Nah, you just gotta get used to it,” he said, extending his arm and putting it around me, pulling me in closer to him. “Fuck, you got some big ass titties. These bitches got bigger.”
We both laughed.
Chapter Seven: The Spot
I didn’t go up to the school that next day to return my books. I just didn’t want to. Jack and I had spent much of the summer getting to know each other again. And as summer came to a close, I decided not to go back to school. I only had one more semester before I had an Associate degree, but that didn’t matter; only Jack mattered.
Very seldom did we go out on the town, especially with my brother and his friends. Bianca and Trey weren’t speaking, as they often didn’t. Though it would only be a few weeks until they were again. I was in the middle of everything with them. They had been together off and on, almost as long as Jack and I had. And they were just as messed up as we were. The only difference is they had kids. But that wasn’t at the forefront of Trey’s mind or priorities.
My brother still suffered from the desire to be popular, to be the leader. Maintaining that status was always the most important to him. One night, he had convinced Jack, not me (if Jack was going, so was I) to head to the grown-up play place, called The Spot. They had pizza, chicken, a laser tag, a race track, bumper cars, putt putt golf, a batting cage, and some more tiny trendy restaurants surrounding an arcade-style play area.
Jack and Trey were standing in the garage. The door to the house was opened, and I heard them talking.
“Y’all still going to The Spot?” Trey asked him.
“Yeah,” Jack said, looking up at Trey as he glanced over a shelf of handguns. He then walked toward the house, paused and turned back to Trey, “As long as don’t no stupid shit happen, I’m down.” He turned and walked into the house. I was already looking at him when he walked toward me.
“Nah, man. It’s gonna be a chill night,” Trey assured him. Trey was taking a girl with us, and we were just hanging out. And that’s actually what happened, for once. Usually, Trey had stories about the fights he got into in public places and how he outsmarted the cops. This wasn’t one of those times. Jack didn’t like to get in trouble with authorities for stupid stuff, like jumping people and fighting for no reason, being in mobs, and starting trouble. I guess what Jack did like to do was still stupid stuff, but I can’t even explain the mentality of a boy like Jack.
When he, Trey, Ant, Jew, and sometimes even Jiggs and a few other guys that I didn’t know would all be in the garage, smoking and listening to music and being boys, I mostly stayed away. I was just ready for Jack when he came into his room because I already knew what was going to happen; he was going to be high as fuck, and he was going to want to fuck wildly. Having to prepare yourself to be fucked by the guy you love, who’s had like six blunts, laced with whatever, in a span of three or four hours is a very hard thing because he doesn’t know he’s hurting you. He doesn’t know he’s going to leave bruises all over you, which wasn’t something that was new for Jack to do to me, it just was different since he had grown up.
“You ready?” Jack asked, walking into his room. I had just been sitting on his bed going through my phone.
“Yeah,” I said, getting up. Jack grabbed his wallet and lighter off the nightstand and shoved them into his pockets, and I followed him out of the room. We went through the hall, into the kitchen and then out through the garage. Jack walked over to the handguns he had passed earlier and stood in front of the metal shelf. He sniffed and grabbed a black handgun and shoved it into his pants.
“I thought you said you don’t…” I began, frowning.
“I said I don’t go looking for a fight, but I never said I was stupid,” Jack explained as he opened the garage door. We headed to the car as it closed again behind us.
Trey had brought a girl to The Spot, and I didn’t even remember her name. She was insignificant. Bianca was the only girl Trey loved. Ant had a girl, Jew had a girl, and some guys and girls I had never seen were sitting with us around a seating area. The sofa was creamy and leathery and it had a matching circular ottoman. We had been there for a while.
We had played some games, and now the guys were debating on whether they should smoke some weed there in that seating area. It was tucked away behind the black cloth textured walls of the laser tag tent, and the stairways leading upstairs and downstairs were to the left of us.
The guys were getting on my nerves, being boys mostly, making fun of each other, daring each other to do boy things. Meanwhile, the girls were just looking around, chatting and laughing. Trey and his girl were sitting next to Jack and me, who were on the left side of the sofa. I had been talking to Jack.
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I said.
“It’s upstairs,” Jack told me. I got up and headed toward the staircase, up the shiny silver stairs with the neon-colored b
anisters. When I made it to the third floor, there was a group of guys standing around near the entrance to a prizes shop. I noticed them looking at me. I was wearing a skater dress that was striped at the top and floral at the bottom and a pair of black and white chucks. I realized that I had to pass them to get to the restrooms. I bowed my head a little and tried to creep by, my heart racing a little.
A boy wearing a backpack started walking backwards in front of me. He paused, causing me to stop. I looked up. He had a great smile, and his skin was dark, his hair clean cut. He wore trendy clothes, and I almost smirked.
“Hey, what’s up? Where you goin’ so fast. You here by yo self?” the charming boy smiled easily.
“Oh, uhm. No, I’m not,” I mumbled.
“My name Carlos. You here with’cho man?” he asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Well, why he got’chu up here all by yo self?” Carlos said. I smiled, trying to be pleasant in the hopes that he would back off.
“It’s just an arcade,” I replied, trying to walk past him, but he cut in front of me.
Just then, a pale boy approached us. I glanced to the left of them, and I saw a boy that I had seen at school a few times, but I hadn’t thought that I would ever see him out. I lost my focus, which was going to the bathroom. Now, I was surrounded by two guys.
“Hey baby, who you here with?” the pale guy asked.
“Nawh Dan, I saw her first,” Carlos insisted. I was starting to breathe harder, still trying to just get past those guys.
“Damn, you fine as hell.” Another guy approached, looking me over. I was getting frustrated and annoyed and starting to become overwhelmed and nervous. I looked around more, hoping to find a way out.
“You don’t hear me talking to you?!” Dan said, snapping me out of my mild panic attack.
I looked at him and rolled my eyes.
“What’s up, baby girl?” he asked.
“I’m here with my boyfriend,” I said, agitated. I tried to push my way through the three guys. The last guy who approached pushed me back a little bit.
“Don’t touch me!” I snapped awkwardly and defensively.