Lily of the Valley (8 page)

Aaron doesn’t seem to mind at all that I’m here, which is annoying. I could be her boyfriend; he doesn’t know. Who just goes back to a motel with a girl to fuck her while another guy is in the picture? He doesn’t even undress, just pulls down his pants and bends her over so she’s facing me and he’s behind her.

She gasps as he enters her. There was no foreplay and clearly Aaron has one goal here. She’s enjoying herself, though, as evidenced by the way she closes her eyes and tilts her head back, pushing her ass toward him so he can thrust deeper into her. I don’t want this to turn me on, but it does. Hell, it really does. I like keeping my eyes open with Alana, because I know the faces she makes when she comes and it makes me happy to be the one to make her come. However, this is incredibly hot. She’s getting off on this and I get hard watching her get fucked. His cock slides in and out of her quickly and she moans.

“Oh, shit,” I say, and I unzip my pants. It pisses me off so much, because I don’t even want to be here and yet I’m about to jerk off watching this. Something is seriously wrong with me. Even as I take my cock in my hand and start stroking myself, watching some old guy from a bar fuck my best friend, I kind of want to cry.

Alana opens her eyes and smiles at me. “I love watching you watch me,” she says. “It makes me so fucking hot.”

“Great.”

I’m horny and miserable and pissed off and I feel sick to my stomach. Aaron pulls out of Alana and comes all over her ass. He doesn’t say anything, just gets up and goes to the bathroom to clean himself off. I’m still sitting in the chair with my dick in my hand while all this happens. I feel like an idiot.

“Fuck me, baby,” Alana says. “Fuck me like no one else can.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Not anymore.”

“Well, too bad. This is stupid.”

She stands up, still covered in Aaron’s come, and walks over to me, kneeling between my legs. She starts sucking my cock and he comes out of the bathroom while she teases my balls with her tongue.

“Oh, fuck,” I say, full of shame.

“She’s pretty hot,” Aaron says. “Think she’d be up for another go?”

Alana moves away from me and stands. She grabs my hand and I let her drag me to the bed. She pushes me down, kneeling in front of me on the bed. She goes back to sucking me off, while Aaron positions himself and starts fucking her. I am so fucking hot right now and her mouth is phenomenal. This is the worst way to treat my best friend, but I’m pissed at her and horny, so too fucking bad.

I come and Alana swallows, but there’s nowhere for her to move with Aaron behind her, so she keeps me in her mouth. By the time Aaron is done fucking her, I’m ready again.

“You know you want to fuck me,” she says and smiles. Damn her. I do, of course.

“You just fucked
him
. Twice.”

“So I’ll take a shower.”

She gets up and Aaron looks at me awkwardly. I’m his ride back to the bar, which makes this whole situation uncomfortable. I shrug and follow Alana to the bathroom. She’s so gorgeous and as soon as she steps into the shower, with the hot water streaming down her tits, I can’t take it. I strip off my shirt and get in the shower with her, slamming her back against the wall.

“Be rough with me, Jack.”

I lift her leg and she struggles to maintain her balance in the slippery shower. I’m not gentle as I slip inside of her cunt, but she’s so wet that it wouldn’t matter. I get my hands under her ass and lift her so I can thrust deeply, and she wraps her legs tightly around my waist. I bite on her nipples and she cries my name, but the water drowns out the sounds. I am so angry with her for making me feel like this and I push her harder and harder against the wall of the shower. She bounces up and down on my cock and I explode inside of her in no time. Fuck. Why do I have no self-control?

“I didn’t come,” she pouts. “Do it again.”

“I fucking hate you right now.”

“I don’t care. Do it again.”

She grabs my cock and tugs on it, but I’m not in the mood. I’m ready to walk away when she says, “Come on, Jack. Get hard. Think about the strawberry princess and that tight little pussy. Think she’d even be able to fit you inside of her?”

Fuck Alana. It works, because the simple thought of Strawberries naked under me, her pussy wet and hot while I slide in and out of it, makes me fucking wild. I yank Alana out of the shower, drag her back into the motel room, and push her down over the shitty table that probably no one has ever used.

“Beg for my cock,” I command her. “You only get it if you fucking beg.”

“Please, baby. Please give me that cock.”

“No. Not good enough.”

She looks at me over her shoulder. “Give it to me. Make me come. I want to come.”

“No.”

“Fuck you, Jack. You can’t resist me. As soon as you think about that little innocent cunt again, you’re going to lose it and fuck me hard over this table while you imagine doing it to her.”

Oh, Christ. I grab a handful of Alana’s hair, pull her head back, and slam my cock into her.

“You’re a bitch,” I tell her and it’s awful. I hate myself for saying it and I hate that she laughs and clenches her pussy around me when I do. I hate that the rougher I am with her, the more she groans in pleasure, and I hate that it makes me love it even more. Finally, I really hate the things I want to do to that sweet girl who can’t even imagine what I’m thinking when I look at her. I want inside that pussy so fucking bad it hurts. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Alana comes and it’s intense. She screams so loud that I worry someone will call the cops, thinking I’m hurting her. It’s a shitty motel after all, and who knows what kind of shit they see here? Alana is near tears as I slap her ass hard and fuck her until she almost falls over. I pull out, drag her over to the bed, and get back inside of her to finish. She’s still shaking as I come and I let it squirt across her stomach.

“Thanks, Jackie. You always know just what to do.”

From behind me, Aaron coughs. Shit. That asshole is still here. I don’t say anything, but get dressed. I nod at Aaron and he follows me to the car. Alana looks at me, a little nervous, but I’m not going to leave her here for good.

“I’ll be back in a bit.”

I drive Aaron back to the bar so he can get his car. We don’t say a word to each other. I fucking hate the bastard. After I drop him off, I drive around for a bit. I love Alana, but she knows how to bring out the worst in me. Or maybe, there is nothing but the worst to bring out.

Chapter 8

My grandmother is so happy that I agreed to visit with my father on my way back to school that I almost feel okay with the decision. Until we reach the prison and the familiar sickness returns. I can’t turn around now and say I don’t want to go in, but the sky is steel grey and I wonder why it’s never sunny when I come here. Even the weather hates me.

She has a hat on, because it’s a prison day, and I don’t have the heart to tell her that she tries to look nice for a group of lowlifes. I feel like somewhere in her head she convinces herself that she looks like she’s going to church or something and that people will think that’s what she’s doing. She seems to believe that if other people assume she’s not the mother-in-law of a killer, then she’s not the mother-in-law of a killer.

The security check is backed up today because some guy is arguing with the guard about his belt. They want him to leave it at the entrance, since it keeps setting off the metal detectors, but he’s apparently really attached to the stupid thing and doesn’t want to give it up. They argue back and forth and it’s the dumbest conversation I’ve ever heard. And I go to college with frat boys.

“Buddy, you have to take off the belt and leave it, or you can’t get in. Unless you can pass through here without setting off the machines, you aren’t going to see anyone.”

“You’re just trying to rob me. You’re all part of the system, man, and I ain’t giving you shit.”

“You’ll get the thing back,” the guard tries to reason.

“Fuck you. You’re just trying to keep me down.”

The guard sighs. “Look, just put the belt right here on this shelf. I will personally watch over it and make sure it’s safe.”

“Why should I trust you? You work for them.”

“I do and I make less than twenty bucks an hour. I don’t care about your damn belt.”

“More than I make. Think you’re so special, judging me, acting like you’re too good for something that belongs to me-”

“Holy fuck, just give him the fucking belt,” I yell. The guard, the random dude, and my grandmother all turn to look at me. “What? This is fucking stupid.”

The guy seems so taken aback that he quietly removes his belt and hands it to the guard. He goes through the metal detector, this time without setting anything off, and turns back to look at me. He shakes his head and mumbles to himself, “Crazy ass motherfucker.”

The guard just stares at me. I walk through the machine and the thing goes insane. It’s my belt ironically. He raises an eyebrow and just holds out his hand.

“I need you to leave your belt here.”

I don’t care about the belt or this visit and the sooner we get in, the faster we leave. I hand him my belt and then my grandmother is through. The guard buzzes us into the next area, where a few more guards are sitting in a small office. I wait for them to lead us to the room where we’ll meet my dad. The metal table shines in the fluorescent light. If I stare at it long enough, maybe I’ll go blind.

“No outbursts,” my grandmother warns.

“It wasn’t an outburst. He was wasting time.”

“I don’t care. Your actions impact your father.”

“Yeah, well,
his
kinda impacted me.”

She shakes her head and turns to face the door through which my dad will enter. I hate it here. I hate the way the lights are covered in weird metal mesh grates that make it always feel like five o’clock on a winter evening. I hate the way the voices of other visitors and prisoners bounce off the walls, disembodied and incomprehensible, but invasive enough to remind you that you’ll never be alone in here. I hate how the guards try to treat me like their own kid, as if by being sympathetic it will fix anything. And I especially hate the stupid look of hope that refuses to leave my grandmother’s face no matter how many times we come here. Sometimes, I think maybe it’s that look that makes me limit my visits as much as I do, more so than even hating my father. Because the fact that she believes someday things can be okay? Well, there is just nothing I can say about that.

My father is led in by the same two guards who showed us to the room. He doesn’t make eye contact with me but smiles at my grandmother.

“Janine,” he nods.

“Bobby.”

He sits in the chair across from us, his hands cuffed and the guards standing close enough that if he decided to make a run for it, they could stop him. He has never tried to run for it, though. I feel like if the entire prison burned down around him, my father would be found sitting in the middle, unsure where to go, even with no walls left standing.

“Hi, son,” he tries.

I grunt in his general direction and focus my attention on the flicker in one of the fluorescent bulbs. It’s going to burn out any day now.

“Jack,” my grandmother prods, but I don’t reply.

“Leave it,” my dad says.

They talk quietly about his case, the proposed plan to rehabilitate him, the halfway house program he’ll have to go through if he’s released. It all seems so pointless to me. If there are all these resources to ensure that he stays on the right path, to ensure that he stays sober and clean even though he never really drank or did drugs, then why were none of those things available to help my mom? Why didn’t anyone try to stop this before we were sitting here, in this dingy fucking room, with everything grey and hopeless ahead of me?

I want to leave, to excuse myself, but I stay for my grandmother’s sake. She and my father talk for nearly half an hour before the guards come and tell us time’s almost up. He’s not allowed to hug her, but she brushes his upper arm. Before he stands to go back to his cell, my father turns to face me.

“Jack, I hope we can-”

“No. I’ll fake it, but that’s it. I’ll sit here so it looks like you’re an all-American father and I’ll say whatever bullshit I need to say the next time the lawyers come to see me, but don’t even think of asking me to mean it. I’m only doing this for her.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but then shuts it again and nods. The guards lead him away and we wait to be escorted from the room. My grandmother is sad, but I don’t have more to give her. I came here after all. That’s enough.

Outside, it’s sunny now and it bugs me. Couldn’t the world have stayed ashy and miserable?

Grandma brings me back to school and I’m barely out of the car before I run to the parking lot and hop on my bike. I put as much distance as I can between myself and the prison, wishing that the memories were like the miles, and as easily left behind.

****

For several weeks, school begins to become routine again. Classes, work, band practice - and repeat. I can’t believe how fast the show comes up. I know we’ve been working on my songs, but suddenly it’s the night before and I realize that my words, my music, will be shared with everyone. I know no one knows it’s all mine, but it frightens me. People are so quick to criticize, and criticism of something so personal is intimidating. Still, after we practice for a while, I know the songs are damn good. I just hope it won’t feel like walking onstage naked, with my entire history printed out for everyone to read.

Neil stops me again when it’s just us left after practice. I can’t believe the show is tomorrow and even my practiced calm can’t hide the fact that I’ve bitten down my fingernails until they are bloody.
Stupid
, I think to myself.
You’re going to suck because you can’t even control your anxiety.
My self pisses me off, though, so I tune it out.

“You ready for this?” Neil asks.

“It’s not the first show.”

“No, but man, your songs are… well, they’re more intense than usual. And I know you don’t like to be that out there with everyone.”