by Lane Hart
Something pokes me in my right ass cheek, so I find the energy to lift my head and blink my eyes open to see what it is – a shiny black shoe attached to a man’s leg.
“You need to leave,” he informs me. “My wife will be home soon.”
Ugh. I know what you’re thinking. I’m such a whore.
While that is indeed true, I am not a whore who sleeps with married men.
No, I’m a whore who is screwing an older man, my former Women’s Studies professor to be exact, who happens to have an exhibition fetish and a lot of buddies into voyeurism who happily indulge him. So while this guy may be married, what he did last night wasn’t much different than jerking off to a porno. Instead, he just jerked off while I was getting fucked on his sofa. Twice if I recall. Hard to remember many details since I was passed out drunk before we came over.
“Where’s Bob?” I croak through cracked lips.
That’s right. I’m sleeping with my former professor who is old enough to be my father and has the least attractive name ever.
“He left an hour ago to make his early class.”
“Right,” I mutter. Getting to class on time is much more important than making sure the girl he’s screwing gets home okay. What if his buddy was more than a voyeur and fucked me while I was unconscious?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
A few weeks ago, I woke up to a fifty-something man wheezing and moving on top of me. He had somehow shoved his limp dick inside of me, but it was still refusing to cooperate. Seeing me look up at him didn’t faze him at all. Didn’t even miss a strained thrust. Only when I started throwing up did he finally stop trying to fuck me.
If it were feasible to hate myself even more than I already do I would, but when you’ve hit rock bottom, it’s impossible to go any lower.
For the first time in my life I’m actually free, though, which is all that matters. I can screw who I want, drink as much as I want, and nobody will stop me.
I’m certainly not with Bob because he’s the loving father figure I was missing in my life. No, he’s just been very sexually liberating. He’s never criticized me for being promiscuous or enjoying some of the more taboo fetishes like being fucked in public or being watched. In fact, he encourages me to embrace my sexuality and to stop worrying about what society or my father thinks about my choices.
Although, it would be nice if he cared a little bit more for my well-being and didn’t abandon me in random places with strangers.
I finally push myself up into a sitting position and glance around the formal sitting room with fancy sofas and an expensive-looking chandelier hanging above me. Unfortunately, in all the posh décor I do not find anything to cover my nakedness with.
“Where are my clothes?” I ask the guy who is now preoccupied with tying his tie.
“No clue. Find them and put them on, then leave through the back door,” he demands before he hurries out of the room.
Chapter Three
Conrad
* * *
I’ve spent the last two days making plans, stocking up the pantry and fridge for Cannon, and finalizing my itinerary with a single ticket to San Francisco. I also booked the best return flight I could find with no more than one layover. Of course, everything depends on how quickly I can convince Hannah Bailey to leave the city, but I still like to plan ahead. A backpack with two changes of clothes is all I’m taking since that’s the deadline I’m giving myself – two days. One to get there and one to get back. It should be fairly easy.
After pouring myself another cup of coffee, I lean against the kitchen counter to go through my mental checklist to make sure I have everything I’ll need. I’ve got to leave for the airport in fifteen minutes to make sure I have plenty of time to get through security. Ah, which thankfully reminds me to leave my Glock here.
I’ve just placed the handgun on the kitchen counter when the door to the main-level master bedroom opens. Cannon strolls out in nothing but a pair of unbuttoned jeans with last night’s hookup – a brunette who, with her disheveled hair and twisted orange dress, looks thoroughly fucked. I don’t know how many times I’ve warned Cannon that his playboy ways will one day come back to bite him in the ass. But I’m also one of the few people who knows why there’s a revolving door of casual sex to his bed. Back when we were in high school, both of us were dating beautiful, wholesome girls. Smart ones with goals and ambitions in life. Ones that meant leaving this town. While Cannon was so in love he wanted to try long distance with his girl, Kimberly, that wasn’t enough for her. She insisted that they either make it official and get engaged or break up. And like most eighteen-year-olds, Cannon wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. Kimberly broke his heart. He assumed that she was bluffing and wouldn’t actually end their relationship if he refused to give her a ring, but she wasn’t.
My relationship with Rebecca on the other hand ended abruptly for a completely different reason in high school. One that I’m grateful she kept her promise and never told anyone about.
“Hiya, Conrad,” the flavor of the week says as she passes by the kitchen, looking proud of herself for not only figuring out Cannon had a brother but also learning my name. I simply tip my chin up at her, not bothering to ask her name, much less try to remember it while giving Cannon a shake of my head.
“Wow. He’s just as hot as you are,” I hear her whisper loudly to my twin.
I’m already mouthing Cannon’s response to myself with a roll of my eyes since I’ve heard it from his mouth a million times. “That’s right, baby. I was so handsome and perfect that after God made me, he decided he needed a duplicate. That’s where Con-man over there came from.”
The flavor of the week giggles like it’s the funniest shit she’s ever heard before saying, “So last night was really great.” And cue Cannon opening the front door of our two-story, raised beach house to show her out. “Call me again sometime, okay?” she adds.
“Sure thing, babe,” Cannon agrees, making me shake my head because he doesn’t even try to at least make his lie sound believable.
The door shuts, and then I hear his heavy sigh of relief.
“Someday you’re gonna…”
“Knock one of them up and regret being a humongous player,” we both finish the sentence at the same time, not because we know each other so well but because he’s heard me say that as often as he spouts his God’s duplicate nonsense.
Coming around the kitchen counter, Cannon removes a mug from one of the upper cabinets and grins while pouring himself a cup of coffee. “I know, I know,” he mutters. “I’ll fuck up and ruin my life. Not everyone can be a celibate gentleman like you, Con-man.”
I’m nothing close to a celibate gentleman. The fact that my twin doesn’t know that just goes to show how much work I have to put into keeping up the façade. I hate it. Really, I do. I don’t like lying to anyone, especially him. We’ve told each other everything since the time we could talk in half-assed gibberish sentences. Just looking at his face I usually know what he’s thinking and vice versa.
I’m not a gentleman or anything close to a nice guy no matter how hard I try to be.
“What time is your flight?” Cannon asks me over the top of his steaming mug before he takes his first sip of coffee.
“Three hours and ten minutes from now.”
“So you’re leaving in ten?” he guesses correctly.
“Yeah. You sure you don’t want to come with me? There were plenty of seats available on the flight. We could do some sightseeing while we’re there…”
“Fuck no,” he cuts me off. “I don’t want any part of helping that fat fuck. Not sure why you do either.” He stares me down, searching my face until I turn my back to him, dumping my leftover coffee down the sink drain.
“It’ll be good for the club. The chief has had a hard-on for us for years now. The last thing we need is for him to grow a pair and start trying to interfere with the club.”
“That’s true,” Cannon agrees. “Still
hate that you’re helping him.”
“Me too, but since no one else would…”
“Fuck off! Don’t give me a guilt trip,” he huffs. “You don’t have to go either.”
Yes, I do. But I can’t tell him that.
“I’ve always wanted to see the West Coast. No reason not to go now,” I hedge. “Keep me in the loop on how Mom’s doing?”
“You know I will,” Cannon agrees, his face falling since that’s the one topic he doesn’t ever make light of. “I’m gonna dump some cash into their bank account later, make sure they have enough for her meds and all the rest of the month.”
“I’ll pay you back half,” I offer.
“I’ve got it this time if you want to just take care of the deposit next month?” he suggests.
“Sure thing,” I agree. While we have a mortgage and bills to pay, the two of us still have plenty of cash leftover from the MC’s payouts from all the various business interests, including the additional salary that Cannon and I make from running the Harley dealership. Which reminds me…
“Don’t run the dealership into the ground while I’m gone,” I warn him. “And don’t order any fucking inventory! You can make do for two days with what’s on the floor.” Once, a few months ago when I had the flu, I was out of work for three or four days and when I got back Cannon had ordered ten pink custom bikes because he thought the ladies would love them. It took us over a year to get rid of those fucking things, and we lost money by having to slash the prices below retail to get them moving, as well as offer custom repainting. My brother is way too impulsive, and it drives me crazy, mostly because I’m the one who has always had to clean up his messes. Since we were kids I’ve been taking care of him, keeping him alive and out of trouble.
“You’re such a buzzkill, Con-man,” Cannon says. “If you’re what happens when a man goes too long without pussy, then I want no part of that.”
“You really want to talk about why you never see a woman more than once?” I ask him.
“I see plenty of women more than once,” he argues. “I see them when I go to sleep at night and then again when I wake up before I toss them out of here.”
“Keep making jokes. I can’t wait to laugh in your face and say, ‘I told you so,’ when one of those girls shows back up at our doorstep telling you she’s having your kid.”
“It’s not like I’m stupid enough to go bareback. I suit up each and every time,” Cannon declares.
“Only because I keep your room stocked with rubbers! And condoms are only 98 percent effective, which means that if you fuck a hundred women, two of them could potentially have your kid.”
Cannon spits his sip of coffee back into his mug before tossing it all down the sink, grumbling, “I hate when you throw facts and shit in my face!”
“I’ve gotta go,” I say, grabbing my backpack from the sofa on my way to the door. “Think before doing anything stupid while I’m gone!”
“Thinking is highly overrated. You should try not doing it once in a while!” he calls back as I shut the door behind me.
Apparently, I’m the only one who takes schedules seriously. My flight to Atlanta ends up being delayed three fucking hours because the returning plane didn’t make it back on time. Which means I had to run through the terminal to get to the gate for my connecting flight right before it closed with no time to spare for the meal I had planned to grab while waiting to board.
It’s almost ten o’clock Pacific time when my feet touch the ground in San Francisco. It’s getting late, but I refuse to get a hotel room and wait until morning to get this shit over with. I climb into my economy rental car, a dark gray Nissan Sentra, tossing my backpack in the back seat, and follow my phone’s directions to Saint Mary’s. Once I’m on campus…there’s not a single soul wandering around this time of night for me to ask for directions to the no-shit, Holy Cross dorm. It’s a damn ghost town, so I have to just wander around, using my phone as a flashlight to read the building names.
Finally, when I find the right old brick building, I try the door that’s obviously locked to keep strange men like me out. I bang my fist on it, hoping someone will eventually hear and come to let me in.
Five minutes later and the door swings open with not one but three girls on the other side in their pajamas.
“Oooh, nice. Who are you sneaking in to see?” a girl who looks too young to be in college, with actual pigtails, asks me in a whisper.
“Ah, I’m looking for Hannah. Hannah Bailey,” I explain. “Can you tell me which room she’s in or ask her to come down here?”
“You’re here for Hannah?” the brunette in Raiders PJs scoffs. “Of course you are. God, she’s such an enormous…”
“Jessica!” Pigtails exclaims.
“What? It’s not mean if it’s true,” Raiders girl declares.
“Could one of you go get her? Please?” I ask again nicely.
“She’s not here,” the third girl in shorts and an oversized tee speaks up and informs me.
“Do you know where she is?”
“She’s been staying with her boyfriend off-campus for a few weeks now,” Pigtails supplies.
“Great,” I say with a sigh. Of course all of this has to be more complicated than I anticipated. “Any chance you have his address or his name?”
“Oh, we know his name. He’s a professor here,” Raiders girl says.
“A professor?”
No wonder the chief wanted me to come and drag his daughter back home if she’s sleeping with one of her professors as well as getting arrested for drinking when he said she’s only twenty.
“His name is Bob Ridley,” shorts and tee tells me. “You can probably search his name on your phone and find an address.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say, turning around and jogging down the steps to do just that.
“You don’t have to leave so soon!” one of them calls out. “We’re fun too!”
“Ah, I’m sure you are,” I reply over my shoulder. “But I’ve got to go. I’m on a deadline.”
The truth is I would never even think about touching any of them. While I may only be four or five years older, it would still be fucked-up. Those girls are probably only nineteen or twenty, just like the chief’s daughter.
Except I’m starting to think that his daughter is nowhere near as innocent as those girls appeared to be.
Chapter Four
Hannah
* * *
“Wow, you’re sneaking in late,” I slur to Bob from the sofa where I’m wearing nothing but one of his white button-downs, chugging straight from a bottle of wine as he quietly creeps through the door hours after we were supposed to have dinner together. Not that I cooked or anything, but I did order manicotti, his favorite, from the best Italian delivery service in town.
“I lost track of time while I was grading papers,” he says when he lowers his briefcase and takes off his suit jacket in the entryway.
He’s such a liar. There’s no reason he couldn’t have brought home those papers and graded them here. I may be drunk, but I’m not stupid. It doesn’t take a sober genius to figure out that he’s screwing other students. That’s exactly why I always make him wear a condom even though he can’t get me pregnant.
While Bob’s name isn’t all that sexy, he’s still a good-looking man at forty-six. He’s not six foot tall or anything, but he’s not short either, just average height with a lean frame. Even his black-rimmed glasses are kind of cute on his long face that never has a scrap of facial hair on it to make him look younger than his age. Several of the girls in my dorm used to say he looked like Chandler from Friends before he got chubby. He’s not the sexiest man of the year, but he’s handsome and can be sweet despite his freaky fetishes.
Slipping off his shoes, he comes over and takes the now empty wine bottle from my hands. “Need a refill?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply because that’s one good thing about Bob, he doesn’t discourage any of my bad behaviors. He keeps alcohol
well stocked for me.
Bob goes into the kitchen where I hear him uncorking another bottle of wine before returning with a wineglass that’s half-full. Offering it to me, he says, “Mature adults drink from glasses.”
“Is that so?” I ask when I get to my feet to take the glass, throwing the crimson liquid down my throat. Being numb is what helps get me through the days and nights of being a college dropout who hates her family and lives with an old man. Okay, fine, I was kicked out of school but only because I stopped going to classes. When I’ve swallowed every sip, I toss the glass over my shoulder where it breaks against the wall. “Oops.”
Bob chuckles, giving my blonde ponytail a tug before he takes a seat on the sofa and says, “Ah, I’ll clean it up later. Get naked while you tell me about your day.”
He lets me do whatever I want and get away with things that would’ve made my father’s face turn blood red as he yelled at me until he lost his voice. It’s one of the reasons why I love staying with him. Except, it’s not really freedom. Bob expects certain things from me – sex, specifically, whenever he wants it. I give it to him even if I’m too drunk to move or not in the mood or just don’t want him touching me.
“Well,” I say as I start unbuttoning the top button of his dress shirt I’m wearing over nothing. “I woke up naked on the floor this morning with your friend’s shoe poking my ass.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks while unzipping his pants, pulling his shirt free and then taking his cock in his hand. “Did he poke you with anything else?”
My fingers freeze on the second button of the shirt. With the way the room is spinning, I must have misheard him. “What?”
“You can tell me if you fucked him. I wouldn’t mind.”