by Daya Daniels
Reaching out, Vashti threads her fingers into my hair, then she caresses my cheek. Wild thighs shake and shiver around my ears as I suck on the pretty bud in that special space between her thighs, with hot lips and unlock all her secrets.
Her expression is euphoric when a strangled sigh leaves her mouth.
My fingers work deeper and harder and my thumb presses on my clit.
I’m as close to coming as Vashti is.
We’re out of breath, covered in sweat and panting for much-needed oxygen.
I flutter my tongue over her swollen clit. She inhales. She exhales. She moans like never before, and then…she comes.
And so do I.
The orgasm wracks through me viciously. It ties my stomach up in knots, leaves my brain swimming with exhaustion and me utterly destroyed.
“Nevada,” Vashti mewls out my name over and over as she eases back down to the messy bed.
I scrape myself up off the sheets where my face is now planted and press a kiss to the inside of her thigh.
Grinning, she brushes her long strands away from her face.
“What’s so funny?” I whimper into her skin.
Vashti giggles. “We forgot to take off our boots.”
Vashti
A FEW DAYS LATER…
Covered in sweat, I rush around the house.
Banks is sitting to the kitchen table, eating a plate of scrambled eggs I’d just cooked him and tapping into his laptop. “Did you know that more turkeys are raised right here in California than in any other in the United States, V?” His voice barely registers through my frantic brain.
“No, I didn’t know that, Banks.” I dash into the living room.
The Saturday morning sun peeks through the blinds and the clock on the wall ticking, ticking, ticking away reminds me I’m late!
“Where are my keys?” I massage my temples. I rip all the cushions away from the sofa. I turn over the books on the coffee table. I search in crevices and underneath chairs. I empty bags on the floor and search in windowsills.
“Oh my god.” I chew on my knuckles then scramble over to the next window.
“V, why on earth would your keys be in the windowsill?” Banks chuckles.
“I don’t know, Banks! Right now, I’m looking anywhere.” I pull the next curtain across and growl when I spot Ruby as steps over the hedges. “Not right now, Ruby.” When I spin around, I knock the lamp off the side table and it goes crashing to the floor.
“Oh, crap.” Banks shoves another forkful of eggs into his mouth.
He makes no move to assist.
I throw my hands to the sky. “This can’t be happening.” I pull my phone from my pocket and glare feeing extremely hot.
Matilda: I’m running late.
Forty-five minutes ago…
Matilda: I’ll be there in thirty minutes to pick up Banks.
Thirty minutes ago…
Matilda: On second thought, can you bring him to me?
Twenty minutes ago…
Matilda: I’m so sorry, Vashti, but I won’t be able to watch him today.
Five minutes ago!
What the fuck?
There are more messages, but I truly don’t have the time to check them.
I’m tempted to hurl the phone across the room.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Vashti!” Ruby sings from behind the door.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Vashti, did you know that they predict this state will be rocked by “The Big One” before the year 2037. They say there’s a ninety-nine-point-seven percent chance of at least a magnitude eight earthquake hitting this region in the next twenty years. This guy on YouTube said the whole state might fall into the ocean.”
“Banks, pleeeeease.” I drag my fingers through my hair.
The ground beneath us shakes.
“Maybe it’s happening right now.” Banks drops his fork and looks around in awe.
“Vashti!” Ruby calls out.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
I glance out the window to find Nevada getting off a bike. A very big bike.
Rushing over to the door, I yank it open. Ruby poses in front of me wearing a lipstick-red smile and holding a grocery bag in her hands. “Good morning, chica.” She frowns. “You look stressed.”
“I am stressed. I’m late for work. I can’t find my keys and now Matilda can’t watch Banks today.”
“Yessss!” Banks does a fist pump.
I roll my eyes and look at Ruby for a beat before I spot the bag in her hands. “Thanks, Ruby, but you really don’t have to.”
Ruby shrugs. “I know but I like too. Besides, I get to buy Banks all the good stuff you don’t let him have.” She peeks around me and waves. “Good morning, Banks.”
“Good morning, Ruby, and thanks for the good stuff.” Banks gives her a cheesy smile then gets back to his fact searching on the internet, feeding his weird obsession with this gold ol’ state of California.
Nevada strolls up to the porch, holding a helmet. “Hey.”
Ruby almost falls over. “Oh my god. It’s you.” She places a hand to her chest then reaches out and shakes it around like she has some sort of mental condition. “I’m so happy to meet you. Oh my god.” She starts to mutter Spanish el-rapido.
Nevada laughs. “Yes, it’s nice to meet you too. You must be, Ruby.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I’m Ruby. Vashti’s good friend and landlord and neighbor and classmate.” Ruby giggles like a fool. “I’m everything basically to Vashti.”
“Oh, that’s funny.” Nevada smirks. “I thought I was.”
I’m certain my face is red at Nevada’s statement but I’m already sweating, and in a panic, so I’m sure no one can tell what really has my heart banging away.
“My children are obsessed with you. Everyone around this neighborhood is obsessed with you. We all follow your indie racing career.” Ruby claps and bounces on her toes. “I promise I’ll be at your next race and so will my sons…” She counts on her fingers. “And my nieces and my cousins, and my brother and his wife—”
“And her dog,” I interject, rushing forward to place a kiss on Nevada’s lips.
“You look like you just ran from the cops.” Nevada gives me a quizzical stare.
Banks cracks up laughing.
I shoot him an annoyed look.
“Hey, Nevada!” Banks calls out.
“Hey, Banks.” Nevada’s eyes narrow at the broken lamp on the carpet. “Is everything okay?”
I place my hands together in prayer.
“I texted you, but you didn’t reply.” Nevada plucks a few of the ceramic pieces up from the floor.
Ruby rushes over to the kitchen cabinet and pulls out the vacuum. “Don’t worry, I can help to clean this mess all up.” She shimmies across the living room in her tiny red tight dress and five-inch heels.
“I can’t find my keys.” I gesture to Nevada. “No, your keys, to your car.” I point out the window. “I’m late for work and now I have no one to watch Banks.”
“Oh.” Ruby’s face twists. “I can’t watch him today, Vashti, I have a nail appointment, and a lunch date and then later all the girls are going down to the ProAbition Whiskey Lounge & Kitchen for drinks. They promised me it will be a nice vibe and my friend, Maria, said she has this friend, Consuelo, who she wants to introduce me to.” She rattles out more Spanish to herself. “So, I’m sorry, I can’t watch Banks today. So, so, so, sorry, Banks.”
Banks shrugs and gets back to tapping into his laptop. “Nevada, did you know that California produces more than seventeen million gallons of wine each year?”
Nobody cares!
“Banks, enough, please, for now.” I take a deep breath and shut my eyes for a moment. When I open them, I’m looking into Nevada’s open palm, where there’s a shiny set of keys looking back at me.
“Keys.” Nevada smiles.
“Thank you.” Slowly reaching out, I take them from her hand.
“And I
can watch the little dude today.” Nevada winks.
“Yeah, that’s cool! That would be so cool!” Banks rushes over to the window to look out to where that big dangerous bike is parked. “Will I get to ride on that?” He bounces up and down. “Please, please, please, Vashti? There are no laws in the state of California about whole old a kid must be to be a passenger on a motorcycle. As long as the child doesn’t need a car seat and their feet can touch the bike’s foot pegs, it’s perfectly legal.” Banks wiggles his feet around. “I’m almost your height now.” A contrite smile touches his lips. It’s the one he gives me when he’s about to beg.
“Oh god.” I rub my temples and examine the bike/death machine from where I stand.
Big. Dangerous. Fast.
It’s a Kawasaki Ninja Z-300.
Yikes.
“It’s something I’ve been working on for a friend of mine. It’s in perfect condition. I’ll ride slow, of course.” Nevada tilts her head to the side.
Banks barrels across the living room. The impact of his bare feet hitting the floor shakes the house and the wind he leaves behind almost knocks me over. He heads straight for the bathroom and doesn’t even bother saying goodbye to me. In less than two seconds, the creak of the faucet when he turns the shower on filters out to where we stand.
Ruby giggles. “Wow.”
Nevada laughs.
I groan. “Okay, just be careful with him.”
“Absolutely, of course. We’ll have fun, I promise.” Nevada kisses me on the cheek. Then she presses one to my lips, leaving her strawberry gloss all over my skin for taste.
Ruby squeals like a school girl.
I roll my eyes at her over-the-top theatrics and rush out the door.
Nevada
YOU NEVER STOP LEARNING…
I breathe in the summer air as I slide into the seat to the wooden bench next to Banks.
Laughing, he unwraps his sandwich speedily. “This was fun.”
Today could possibly go down as being one of the oddest in history…
I observe all the people who move around us, then my eyes are back on Banks who’s devouring the turkey monstrosity we’d just picked up from the food stand a short distance away like he hasn’t eaten in days.
I look left then right. “Fun?” I scrunch my face and stare at the façade of the Mission Museum where we’d spent the last three hours learning about the history of the landmark hotel the Mission Inn which was built in 1903.
Honestly, I thought I’d be yawning through the entire tour but surprisingly it had all kept my interest. And when the tour guide explained that the inn had been host to famous US presidents like Gerald Ford and John F. Kennedy, and that it’s now considered to be one of this state’s most haunted destinations, I was all ears.
“Yeah, it was fun.” Banks chomps on his food.
“Okay, then.”
After leaving La Sierra, I went through my mental rolodex thinking of all the possible fun kid things I could do with Banks around Riverside. I came up with the public pool, the arcade, the movies, roller-skating and even Go-karting.
Banks wanted none of it.
So, instead of doing all that fun stuff, we went to the California Citrus State Park to learn about how citrus became so important to this great state. Then went on a tour and tasted lemons, limes and the grapefruit which grow there.
Banks was enamored with the place. He took photographs at every turn of the tour. At first, I thought it was a joke and that he couldn’t possibly be having any fun, but strangely enough, he was having the time of his life!
I glance at Banks’ black and white note book which rests on the table—the one which he’s been writing in all morning. He stalls with chewing his sandwich and unwraps mine, shoving it over to me.
“I’m not really that hungry, but I guess I can join you.” I pluck up half of the sandwich and take a bite.
“It’s delicious, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” I lick away the mustard at the corners of my mouth and giggle when Banks does the same.
We eat for a little while in silence amidst the chirping sparrows and the traffic which meanders by. Banks hums to himself and flips open his notebook.
“What do you write in there, Banks?”
He brushes his hair away from his forehead. “Nothing important, just facts. Stuff I learn. I like to learn stuff.” He chews his food.
“That’s really cool.” I nod. “I learned a lot of stuff today too. Things I’ve never thought about, thanks to you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“Kids at school think I’m weird.” He frowns.
“But you aren’t weird.”
“Well, I’m the smartest one in class and I’ve just moved here, so I don’t have a lot of friends. I don’t know anyone really. So, it’s weird. I just get called weird.”
“I’m sorry the kids at school treat you that way, Banks.”
“I’m just different and I know that’s okay. That’s what Vashti says because she thinks she’s different too.”
“We’re all different, Banks. Every last person in this world. Just because someone is different, it certainly doesn’t make them weird. And any kid at school who thinks that is just, well…”
“An idiot?”
I point a finger at him. “I didn’t say that.” I laugh.
“It’s okay, I know what you’re getting at.”
“But, yeah, I guess they just need to stop judging others,” I say softly, thinking of my own days back in high school when I was the tomboy kids always thought was odd. And then I was even stranger when instead of hanging out at parties and drinking my life away, I wanted to race Go-karts or help Syd when she used to work in the garage.
They called me weird then.
They call me weird now.
Who fucking cares!
“Besides, today, I’m pretty cool since I’ve been riding around as the passenger on a ninja bike.” He dances in his seat.
I laugh. “Yes, it’s a very cool machine.” When I lift my head, I spot that gray car again…the one with the tinted windows. It rolls by slowly, possibly eyeing over the bike, and then it takes off again.
What the fuck?
My lips are still parted when Sheriff Abs drives by in her cruiser. She tosses me a stupid smile. I smile back, just a little, and follow the cop car with my eyes until it’s out of sight.
My gaze snaps back to Banks.
“Why can’t we go faster on the ninja bike?” He leans into my shoulder.
“Dude, because we just can’t.”
He extends a hand in the direction of the bike. “So why would they make something that’s supposed to go fast and then tell you not to go fast on it?”
It’s the same question I’ve been asking myself my entire life!
“No clue.” I clear my throat. “But, we just can’t, says…”
“Vashti?”
I cackle. “No, says the state of California and all its speed guidelines and laws and recommendations against endangering the life of a minor and laws about endangering my own life.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He mopes. “I’ll never get to go fast on anything…not even once.”
“Not for many, many years, dude…” I pull him into my side for a hug.
He groans as if he’s in severe pain.
Letting him go, I get back to eating my sandwich. “I feel bad sometimes that Vashti has to take care of me.” He looks around. “She doesn’t complain or anything, but I can just tell she’s miserable sometimes. All the kids her age hang out on the weekends. And Vashti can’t because she’s always taking care of me.”
I smile. “She loves you. She doesn’t mind. She truly doesn’t, Banks.”
“I know. I love her too, but…”
“What?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I guess I just want to see her happy.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He shifts to face me head-on. “Are you happy?”
I laugh a bit wondering exactly where Banks is going with this. Are these the typical questions a ten-year-old kid even asks an adult?
I finish my sandwich and pack everything away. “Yeah, I’m happy.”
Banks sighs.
I touch his cheek. “Are you happy, dude?”
He shuts his book. “I’m happier now that you’re with us.”
My heart does a little pitter patter in my chest.
“When I make jokes about Vashti and I being orphans she gets pissed.” He taps on his book with a finger. “She claims we aren’t orphans. I don’t know why she says that. But, I guess because technically she’s an “adult” now. She says that over and over again by the way. So, I guess it doesn’t make me an orphan or her an orphan either. But that’s what we are. Our mother is gone. And our dad might as well be dead. We’re on our own now just like orphans…” He sighs. “I saw a picture of my dad on my aunt Matilda’s mantle. He was posing with his new family.” He squints. “His son, my brother, looks just like me. It’s weird. It’s like I was cloned and replaced, like what happens to people in the movies.”
“No one could ever replace you, Banks.” I place a hand on his shoulder.
“He doesn’t even ask Aunt Matilda about me or Vashti.” He crushes his chip bag into a ball. “Vashti acts like she doesn’t care about him, but I know she does.”
“Why do you say that?”
He lifts his chin. “I don’t know. I guess I just have a feeling.” He takes a loose chip that fell from the bag and tosses it to the crowd of sparrows which hop around a few feet away. They go crazy over the chip, pecking and fighting each other for it until there’s not even a crumb left on the ground. “It would be nice to have a dad. Even the kids in my class who have divorced parents have a dad.” He pouts. “I don’t have either anymore, Racehead.”
I smile at the moniker which throws me off now a little from this serious chat.
“You know when my madre died, I cried for weeks. All I had left was Syd. And all Syd had left was me. We were each other’s best friends because we were both hurting.” I press my lips together. “And I know when a parent dies, people tend to say, ‘time will heal’ and stupid things like that. But, I don’t believe that anymore. I think about my madre all the time, Banks, and no matter how many months or years pass by, it never feels less painful.” I stroke his hair. “There will always be a hole right there in your heart…” I touch the middle of his chest with a finger. “Because that very important person in your life is gone. But even though that part of your heart may never be filled, the other sections of it will overflow with the love you receive from other people.”