Crimson Footprints (21 page)

It was a dare. An attack. A
lie. And she had one week to prove it.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Not long ago, there’d been a
boy that Lizzie liked, an eighth grader who played basketball and
made good grades. He was from a better part of town, had two
parents, and wore the best clothes.

She made up her mind one day
that she’d talk to him. That day, Lizzie dressed for school in the
sexiest getup she could muster without getting expelled. It
consisted of a short-sleeved cinched corset that lifted and cupped
the best tits around and shimmering, painted tights of the same
cerulean blue. When she got to school that day, she found him he
was in the company of a teammate, a power forward named Walt who
rarely spoke. Together they stood in the school’s hall.

“
Lucas, right?” Lizzie
said, knowing full well she knew her crush’s name.

He lowered her gaze to her
body, not with the appreciation she’d expected, but with a
critical, assessing eye.

He could see through her,
through the clothes she’d earned on her knees to the tainted blood
that coursed through her veins. She wanted to walk away, not
willing to stand the humiliation. But then, Lucas
smiled.

“
Yeah, I’m Lucas.” He
frowned thoughtfully. “You’re Lizzie, right? Or something like
that?”

Lizzie nodded. Her heart
thundered. He knew who she was. And didn’t mind.

“
Well, what can I do for
you, Lizzie?”

“
Do?”

“
Yeah. You wanted
something, didn’t you?”

Lizzie swallowed.

“
Yeah. I, uh, thought that
we could go out sometime.”

“
Go out?”

Lucas glanced at Walt, who
raised a brow. Both seemed

“
You know, catch a movie,”
Lizzie explained.

Lucas paused. “You’re
Lizzie, right? Lizzie Hammond?”

She nodded.

Lucas and Walt exchanged
another look.

“
O.k. I’m game. How’s this?
There’s a party tonight at my place, my parents are gone all night
so it’ll be great. Come and uh…be my date.”

“
Wow. Okay, sure. I’d love
to,” Lizzie gushed.

“
She’d love to,” Lucas said
to Walt, who grinned. He turned back to Lizzie. “Excellent. I can’t
wait.”

Lucas Strong’s house was by
far the nicest Lizzie had ever seen. It had two stories, a white
picket fence and a pool in the backyard. All of that was on top of
the lake it faced. Sabal Lake was what it was called, and Lizzie
had never heard of it before that night. Even before she saw the
house, she knew Lucas was well off. His mother was an elected
representative that made him go to public school for PR purposes,
he told everyone. One look at his house let Lizzie know he had no
business at such a shitty public school.

Lucas, tall and nearly
filling the frame, greeted Lizzie at his front door and
instinctively, Lizzie warmed. He grinned at her, a clutter of boys
at his back, before waving her in.

“
Where is everyone?” Lizzie
said, glancing at the dozen guys present.

Lucas shrugged. “I invited
people. Hopefully they’ll come. Someone else may be having
something though.”

Lizzie frowned. She couldn’t
imagine any other party she’d rather be at.

“
You drink?” Lucas asked,
leading her through the living room and into the kitchen. Briefly,
his gaze lingered on Lizzie’s dress, a backless and thigh high
electric dress she was suddenly grateful she wore.

“
Yeah, of course,” she
called. She’d never actually had a drink, but didn’t want him to
know that.

“
Good,” Lucas said, turning
to shoot her smile. “Let’s set you up then.”

Lizzie followed him,
thrilled when he took her hand, smiling at the stares she was
earning. They wanted to be with her, all of them. But they couldn’t
have her. She was with Lucas.

The kitchen surprised her.
She’d never seen one like it, in person, at least. Shiny marble
floors, wallpaper, and a high ceiling. She even saw one of those
rigs where pots and pans could hang from overhead, like in a
restaurant.

Lucas grinned at her
wide-eyed stare as he mixed a quick drink. When he handed to her,
she took a sip and winced.

“
I thought you said you
were a drinker.”

Lizzie nodded. “I
am.”

“
Good.” He brought fingers
to the bottom of her glass and eased it upwards. “Drink up. Then
we’ll dance.”

With the bitter alcohol
down, Lucas laced fingers through hers and guided her to the center
of the living room. No one was dancing to the music, as there were
no girls to dance with. Lizzie felt sorry for all of them. They
watched, some with beers, others with soda, as she gave Lucas her
undivided attention. Lizzie smiled. She would show them how lucky
Lucas was to have her, how much of a prize Lizzie Hammond could
be.

Lucas pulled Lizzie close
and immediately they began to grind. The music was loud and
insistent, a frenzied thump of bass, cymbals and nasty lyrics,
shredding for a high-octane booty mix. She placed her arms at his
neck as he gripped her waist, their bodies moving in tight,
concentric circles. Her tits swayed with the beat, loose in her
strapless, braless outfit. She was sexy, so sexy and could feel
it.

When his hands found her
butt, she let them, cause he was cute and she liked him. Lucas
grinned and squeezed ass with both hands, dick pressed at her
abdomen. He began to kiss her, hard, open-mouthed and sloppy.
Ironically, Lizzie didn’t have much experience kissing on the mouth
and worked to keep up with him as he smothered. Lucas kneaded her
ass, pressing her flat, grinding less like a dance as he pulled her
dress. Behind Lizzie a cheer erupted as a blast of air conditioning
hit her thong-clad ass.

Lucas backed her to the
wall, never slowing as she stumbled, pinned her there and fumbled
at the crotch of her panties. With one hand, he unzipped and thrust
into Lizzie.

He fucked her there, on the
wall, at his party. With a leg around his waist, she stared at her
audience, blank-faced and numb as harsh hurried stabs pounded her.
When he pulled down the front of her dress, she didn’t stop him.
When he lifted her other leg, on the instructions of another boy,
she didn’t stop him. And when he grunted in her ear that she was
“one slutty bitch,” she didn’t tell him he was wrong. Lucas sweat
and moaned as he clamped down on her ass, leaving Lizzie to stare
at the onlookers. Somehow, Lizzie had believed she could keep the
truth from Lucas and her audience. But looking at them told her
they knew. They knew who, or rather what, she was and wasn’t. And
in the end, she’d only kept the truth from herself.

He came in her that night
before stepping aside for Walt. Tall and strong, Walt dropped his
pants and carried her to the couch, where he shared her mouth with
another short and sweaty guy that Lizzie didn’t know.

There were five in total.
Five boys that did whatever came to mind for however long they
could stand it. They came in her, all five, and never once did she
protest. But afterwards, Lizzie made a decision, her best one yet.
Never, would she be fucked for nothing again. Ever.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Back at her desk, Deena
withdrew pen and paper. She printed ‘Skylife’ at the top of a legal
pad in large, neat letters and stared at it.

What did she know about the
project? She numbered the lines of the page and began to list facts
as they came to her. A multi-use facility—residential and
commercial. Marked for wealthy residents. Advantageous ocean
access. Impressive views of the bay.

Deena sighed. She was
young, 25, and had graduated just four years ago. How could she
create a design so impressive that people would fork over millions
of dollars for a sliver of
her
vision? How could she create a standard of luxury
that made a unique contribution to the world, when she had spent
most of her life in poverty?

She groaned. This line of
thought was counterproductive.

She turned to the function
of the building. It was a multi-use structure with commercial and
residential units under the same roof. It was a community. Deena
began to scribble everything that came to mind about communities. A
group interacting in a shared environment. Shared resources,
preferences, needs, risks.

What else could her building
do for this community, aside from the obvious task of providing
shelter? Many architects tried to impose a sense of community
cohesion through common space. It was a good notion, but she wanted
to take it further. Could she, through her designs, create this
same sense of cohesion not just with the residents of her building,
but with those in the surrounding area, too? Could Skylife, in
essence, draw the outward in?

Deena chewed on her pen in
thought. She envisioned outdoor common spaces, a gym and sauna open
to the community and an outdoor café for the business tycoons who
worked steps away. Skylife would not be a world unto itself, but
rather, a seamless part of a larger existence.

Deena frowned. The idea was
good, but it was just a start. People would not pay millions to
inhabit squares, no matter how many coffee shops were
nearby.

Spacious lofts came to mind,
with 180˚ views of water and floor-to-ceiling windows like the ones
in Daichi’s office. Still, she needed more.

She wanted people to rush
home, breathless in anticipation, to fawn over their million dollar
lofts, dashing from one corner to the other as they proclaimed
their love not just for the panoramic views but for every square
inch. Each apartment should be alluring, enchanting, intoxicating.
Each apartment should be loved.

Deena tore off a fresh sheet
of paper.

Love.

It was the very thing that
had eluded her for so long. And yet, even she’d uncovered it. Love.
How could she look at it pragmatically?

She thought of Tak, jotting
down words as they came to her. Beauty. Pleasure. Bonding.
Familiarity. Intimacy. Reciprocity. Could she recreate these same
attributes in her design, and by proxy, manufacture
love?

It sounded outrageous. But
outrageous, so far as she knew, was not the same as
impossible.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

Kenji Tanaka lay on his
back, the door before him closed. He was in his weekend bedroom at
his older brother Tak’s house and on his nightstand was a stack of
graphic novels. On the television,
The
Sopranos
, turned low. Briefly, he
considered a romp with one of the half-dozen adrenaline-rushing
video games he owned, but a glance at the clock on his nightstand
made him decide against it. He had a baseball game the next day and
it was nearly ten all ready. Late nights playing pseudo NFL games
wouldn’t get him a starting position at UCLA. So he flipped off the
TV and the lamp, pulled the Marlins comforter up and snuggled
in.

Even before Kenji heard the
faint squeaking of bedrails and the occasional lusty moan from his
brother’s room, not long back his vacation, he knew things had
changed for Tak and Deena. It was no one thing that had convinced
him, but instead, a bunch of little ones. They suddenly had this
endless need to touch for starters, subtle but ever present. A
question with a hand on the arm, a suggestion with a hand on the
back, it never seemed to stop. And what was with the double talk?
Everything Tak said made her blush, as if it all had a second, more
seductive meaning.

Kenji sat up. His headboard
and Tak’s faced each other, and the pounding coming through the
walls was not conducive to sleep. With a frown, he flipped on his
lamp, and snatched one of the graphic novels off his
nightstand.

They were not comic books,
as the ill-informed tried to call them. There were distinct
differences between the two. Important differences. For starters,
they were novels not serials that required you to return to them
again and again for short fixes. Secondly, and more importantly,
they were gritty, mature, and more reflective of the real
world.

Take the one in his hand,
for example. It was from Guy Robin’s Groove Town series. In it were
pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, mobsters and a corrupt police
force, all realistically conveyed in the film-noir style. What
could be better than moral ambiguity and sex? He grinned each time
he imagined the timid Peter Parker tangling with Guy Robin’s
5
^th
Street Girls, a clan of prostitutes steeped deep in vigilante
justice. Those Spidey webs would do no good in Groove
Town.

He was guessing, of course,
about whether Guy Robin’s take on criminal life was realistic.
Despite being raised in Miami, a city with a murder rate higher
than New York and Los Angeles combined; Kenji had never so much as
seen a purse snatched let alone anything reasonably dangerous. He
lived in a house so posh it had been on the cover of designing
magazines, and even then was called an ‘estate.’ It was surrounded
on three sides by the bay and had two pools, a tennis court,
fitness center, movie theater and a private dock for the two boats
his father kept. There wasn’t even a semblance of normalcy at the
public school he attended. Shuffled there by zip code, it was home
only to the extremely well off, and to Kenji, had all the trappings
for an episode of nauseating teen drama.