Authors: Evelyn Rosado
Storm: Book 3 (3 page)
“I want you to come in my mouth,” I say. I can’t believe I said it. But I want it. I want it so bad.
He looks in my eyes, speechless, seconds from spurting.
“Come in my mouth.” My tone is aching demanding. He nods, breathless. He moans again and quickly pulls his cock out of me. I fall to my knees and I snatch off the condom and force his hardness into my mouth. I swallow every jet of come that sprays out of his pulsing cock. I plant my hand on his clenched abs and I coil my fist around the base of his cock, stroking it. He lets out a monstrous wail. I look up at him, still sucking, pulling every juicy drop out of his tender head.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
I pull his length from my mouth, planting soft kisses on his tender head.
“You taste so good, Chase.”
“You’re…you’re amazing. So beautiful.”
I stand up and he embraces me. I don’t know he made me become so bad, but I liked it. I say nothing to him. I cling to him, the both of us, sweaty, sticky. I’m pondering where do we go from here and I’m sure he’s thinking the same.
“Another coffee please,” I say to Deb. After working up an appetite, Chase and I decide to hit Louise’s Diner. It’s starting to become one of my favorite places. The car ride here had a deafening silence. I don’t know we are or what I mean to him. It makes me feel uneasy.
“Here you go, hun,” Deb places two sets of silverware on the table and pours me cupful of java.
“What’s good here?” Chase says scanning the menu. “Besides you.” He has his menu right below his eyes, covering most of his face. I know he’s giving me a charming smile behind the menu.
“Well honestly, I don’t know. I just get coffee here,” I say. He shuts the menu closed.
“It’s a diner. How much different is a ham omelet at any other place?”
I decide to bring up the pink elephant in the room. “Chase. I like you.” He grins slightly, looking down. “I
really
like you.” I grab his hand.
“I really like you, too.” He squeezes tighter. “Look how about we start fresh. Take things slow?”
“I’d like that.” My face scrunches up, from the mushy feeling in my stomach. “With everything that’s happened, for us to still be sitting here, that’s gotta mean something right?”
“Absolutely. If it wasn’t meant to be, we wouldn’t be here—together.”
He leans over the table and kisses me.
“Damnit, why do you have to be so likeable?” I laugh shaking my head.
“It’s in my blood baby. I surprise myself sometimes.” I throw a packet of sugar at him.
I add a small spoonful of cream as I see a familiar face inch over to us. It’s Kim, from the women’s support group. Or should I say the one where I embarrassed myself at. She looks different. Her cornrows are undone into cute shoulder length curly spirals and surprisingly she’s wearing an apron.
“Hey Brynn. Nice to see you here,” she saying greeting us with a smile. This is the last place I expected her to be. With her bohemian style and poetry book that she always has, I thought she’d be at some organic vegan small plate restaurant that only serves dishes made with hemp and food devoid of GMO’s.
“Nice to see you too,” I say looking her up from head to toe. “This is Chase.”
“Hi, I’m Kim,” she says, shaking his hand.
“Chase. Nice to meet you,” he says. That smile of his is so addictive.
“I never thought you’d work at a place like this,” I say looking at around at all the older slim seasoned white ladies scurrying around in the kitchen barking cracking barbs at each other.
“Why?” She plants her hands she juts her hands on her hip and frowns. “Because I’m black?”
There’s a long pause. I brush a curl behind my ear and shuffle in my seat. Maybe next semester I should take a racial sensitivity class. “I uh…Hmmm. I didn’t—” She and Chase burst into laughter.
“I’m only joking,” Kim says. When she laughs she’s animated, keeling over grabbing her stomach, taking a few steps back and bringing her fist up to her mouth. Her almond colored eyes seem to be brighter when she laughs.
I blow a hard sigh of relief and wipe my forehead. “Thank God.” I shake my head with displaying a nervous smile.
“I know what you mean though. I get it all the time.” She sits down across from me. “The ladies here are half my age. But I like it here. I work here because it’s off campus. And the vegan smoothie place I put an application at didn’t hire me.”
We all laugh. “That’s exactly what I was trying to say. So what brings you here? Nobody from campus is ever caught dead here.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“The place is a truckers watering hole. And a meeting place for husbands cheating on their wives with mistresses,” Chase says.
“I bet they only use cash too,” I say.
“They do! We’re finally getting a debit card machine in here next week. Talk about fucking prehistoric. I guess it adds to the nostalgia factor or whatever. Route 66 shit.”
Deb whizzes past the table. A rush of Marlboro reds rush into my nostrils. “Hey darlin,” she says doubling back to the table.”
“Hey, how are you? Slow night huh?”
“Yeah, give it around 2am and this place’ll be hoppin’. Good to see you again. Everyone here thought you were an escaped convict the way you darted outta here the other night.” She winks at me and jets to the back.
“You were here the other night?” Chase asks.
I nod. “You must’ve had to some really deep shit on your mind then to come all the way out here,” Kim says.
I nod again.
A gentleman in a tuxedo, with his bowtie undone around his neck bursts through the door. His face is disheveled.
“Welp. I’m up.” She smiles at me. “I forgot to ask you. How is the support group treating you. You liking it so far?”
“I was nervous about the whole thing, but I’ve come around to like it.”
“You’ll like it even more then as time we go along. We just don’t sit around holding hands listening to Ani Defranco or Cat Power songs and talk about our issues. Amy does a lot of stuff on campus and in the community. Food drives and stuff like that.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” Chase says.
“That’s awesome. I’d love to help out any way I can.”
“This Friday Amy is putting holding a demonstration outside of the Theta house.” Her body hitches as soon as she says the word Theta as if she didn’t mean to say it. So does mine. I lean back in my seat, trying not to have flashbacks of that Friday night. Kim looks visibly disturbed, avoiding eye contact with me. Chase studies the both of us, his eyes squinting.
“You okay?” I ask the question, not knowing the details but already knowing the answer. She and that house have history. A history that she’d like to remain buried. It’s a history that has her coming to the group. Whatever it is, she’s not letting on.
“I’m fine. I gotta go grab that customer.”
I hate to pry. But I have to know what happened. That house has done a lot of damage to women on his campus, not just to me but also to countless other girls. I’m sure.
“Did something happen to you there?” She inches out of the booth, still her attention is away from mine.
“You guys enjoy your meal.” She walks towards the booth where the man in the black tux is sitting and pulls out her notepad. She flashes a smile at him, changing her tone the demeanor she had with me instantly.
“Fucking Thetas man. Dirtbags.” He gazes out window and pounds his fist on the table, my coffee spilling over the rim of the cup. He falls back into the booth. “We have to do something.”
“Chase I don’t know what to do” I say.
“You have to go to the police. The both of you. That monster is out there right now probably about to destroy another girl’s life.”
Chase is right. To know that someone else had been victimized at that house too leaves a sour taste in my mouth. We sit there, silent, my appetite spoiled, sipping my coffee until the cup was done. Chase never bothers to order anything. He just sits there holding my hand, consoling me.
Chase held me tightly all night. It felt so good being in his arms again. Normally I would’ve drifted off to sleep after we had sex, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Kim. I had to do something. Something drastic.
The next morning, Chase knew I was visibly shaken and wanted to stay with me, but I begged him to go to class.
“Do you need me to go with you?” he asks brewing a pot of coffee.
“No,” I say, “I think it should just be me and her.” He nods.
“Whatever you decide to do, I support you one hundred percent.” He cups my hand in his and massages it.
After he leaves, I open my laptop and my mind starts churning. I decide I’d have to try to convince Kim to go to the police. It’s stupid, it’s wrong, it’s hypocritical. How could I convince someone to go to the police who I didn’t even know that well and I hadn’t gone to them myself?
I really didn’t know anyone in the group besides Kim and Amy and I didn’t have either of their phone numbers, so I went the group’s Facebook page and grabbed Amy’s number off of it. Finding out Chase’s past with the law the way I did, you would think that I would stop prying in people’s business. But this was bigger than just prying. This was bigger than Kim and me. I hated everything that Connor and his frat stood for. I wasn’t the only one. Something had to be done. I had to come forward. I couldn’t be silent any longer.
I texted Amy that I needed to speak to Kim and I didn’t know where she stayed. And she wasn’t working at the diner. Texting or calling her wasn’t enough I said. Surprisingly, she gave me Kim’s dorm: Beddows Hall Room 306.
***
I walk through Beddows, a co-ed freshman dorm on the southern edge of campus. I’m glad I don’t stay here. I swear in this lobby exists every clique or in crowd on campus. The hippy crowd sipping almond milk smoothies playing hacky-sack in the corner. The euro students with extra medium V-neck t-shirts playing EDM music on a phone with glow-sticks in their mouths are crowed around talking about ‘wait till you hear this sick drop’. A couple of girls, all blonde, all size negative zero twirling their hair in one hand and in the other droning out to whatever Kim Kardashian posted on Instagram. All three of them are saying absolutely nothing to each other, but let them tell it, they’re having the time of their lives and bonding as friends.
I can feel the STD’s dripping through the walls as all of the marijuana smoke filters through the air like a vulture. It makes me cough a little. I’m no stranger to weed, but whatever strain this is, it’s strong. A boy, who looks no older than fifteen, wearing a LA Galaxy soccer jersey, approaches me; he compliments me on my legs. I shouldn’t have worn shorts so high up my knees. I say thank you, continuing towards the stairwell.
“I’d like them wrapped around my face anytime sweetheart,” he says getting shits and giggles from the peanut gallery called his friends standing on the wall behind us.
I think if I slapped him right now, I’d the send the gum in his mouth halfway across the lobby.
But I’m not here for that. I have business to take care of. I turn my nose up at them and make my way up the stairs. The elevator is a death trap. The first weekend of the semester, I came to the cafeteria here for lunch and it had yellow police tape across the front. Good thing Kim’s room is one of first out of the stairway, because I won’t be able to deal with the cat calls and all the whistles coming from the boys rooms as I pass them. Her door is open. I knock three times. Faintly. It doesn’t look like anyone is here. I knock again.
“Kim?” I ask. I hear the faint sound of an acoustic guitar strumming.
Kim comes out of the room with a notepad with a frown penciled on her face, obviously feeling interrupted. She smiles at me and that smile quickly fades into a look of surprise.
“Hey,” her voice is mixed with confusion and delight.
“Hey,” I say trying to fight the awkwardness of me showing up at her room unannounced.
“Uh, how are you? What brings you here? Come on in.” I enter and she looks both ways outside the hallway behind me. She’s acting weird.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” She has her hair done up in Afro-puffs the size of two soft balls and she’s wearing black yoga pants with a red U on the hip. I totally look like I interrupted her.
“Oh you didn’t really interrupt.” She pauses. “Okay, you
did
interrupt. I was practicing a song. Well, I’m
learning
how to play the guitar.”
“It’s so hard isn’t it? I tried for like three weeks and couldn’t get it. I don’t think my fingers are long enough.”
“Tell me about it. My fingers are damn near bleeding and callused up from fretting the strings,” she says. “But seriously, what are you doing here? Are you okay?”
One of the main tenets of the group is the buddy system; everybody has everyone else’s phone number in case of an emergency or if someone is feeling low and needs to speak to someone to get things off their chest in a moment of need. Being so new to the group I didn’t get a chance to exchange numbers.
“I’m okay,” I say, slipping my hands into my pockets. “Well, actually I’m not. I don’t want to come across strange. I know it’s weird coming here like this. Amy gave me your room number. Calling just wouldn’t help.”
“It’s cool. Really you wouldn’t know how many times I’ve had girls come over or I’d dial up Sarah or Maggie in the middle of the night in tears. Trust me. You’re okay.”
I exhale a deep sigh of relief. “Okay. Great. I feel so much better now.”
“Do you need anything? Water? Soda? Have a seat.”
“No I’m fine,” I say, sitting down on the couch. She stands in front of a desk by the television. “I don’t know how to say this.”
Just get to the reason why you’re here, Brynn. Just do it. I swallow hard, realizing I have to tell another person, almost a stranger, about what happened. I said I wanted to do something bold. Something big. If I truly want to be about something bigger than myself, then this is what has to be done. I have to get used to doing this type of stuff. Here goes nothing.
I comb my fingers through my hair. “You’ve been on my mind a lot. I can’t lie.”
She makes a noise in her throat. “The Theta thing.” She blows a huge sigh.
“It’s about that.”
“Maybe you should mind your own business.” She turns around and roots through her purse. “I can handle myself. I don’t need a stranger to tell me what I should do with my life. You don’t even know what happened.” She turns around and looks straight though me. “It’s none of your concern.”
I close my eyes for a moment and take a long breath.
“A few weeks ago at the Theta party I was sexually assaulted.” My voice is plain, emotionless and I look straight in her eyes.
Her head jolts back. “Oh my goodness.”
I look down at my fingers intertwined in my lap. “Thankfully Chase—the guy I was with at the diner—was nearby and stopped him from going further,” I say. “I was inches away from it. I was drunk. I was high and left a party with this asshole and he forced himself on me in his car. I tried to fight him off, but I couldn’t. Chase did and beat him up pretty good.
“Did you report it?” I shake my head. “Too ashamed?” I nod.
Her face turns solemn. “Days after, he saw me on campus and threatened me again,” I say. “He’s posted nasty stuff online about me. I’m only saying this because of the way you looked at the diner when you mentioned the Theta house.” She nods. “Did
something
happen to you there?”
“I don’t wanna get into it.”
“I respect that. But trust me I feel like I need to do something.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because there’s power in numbers. We can do something. We can do something about the Thetas.”
“I see. It all makes sense now. You need me because you’re too chicken shit to do it yourself. You don’t know what the hell happened to me.”
“Kim, that look of yours at the diner, you changed. I know that look.” She goes to grab a bottle of water. “Look I’ve been through enough in my life to sit back and let a monster like Connor and his stupid frat get away with destroying people’s lives.”
She twists the cap and immediately stops when I said Connor. That name strikes a chord in her the same way it does to me. I didn’t even mean to say his name. I just got so worked up, that his name just slipped out.
“Kim,” I say. She doesn’t answer. “I can’t believe it.” I shake my head, trying my best not to break down in front of her. I see her face; she’s leaning up against the desk, her palms planted firmly against the edge of it, surely leaving an imprint against her skin. Her face is trying her hardest to fight off tears. “You know what? I
am
chicken shit. I was too scared to go to the cops. But you know after I connected with the support group things changed. I’ll be the first to tell you I’m a coward. I know what it’s like. I know the pain. I know the shame you feel. The guilt. Like you’re the one who caused it. I even know how it feels deep down that you feel like you deserved it.”
Kim avoids eye contact with me.
“When I was at that diner last week. I had a trunkful of my stuff that I piled into my suitcase. Everything. It was 3am and I was ready to quit and go home. My mind was set, you know.” I pull my hand up level with the top of my forehead. “I had it up to here. The drugs, the fucking cliques, the frats, the football players, and asshole professors, being up here all alone. I was done. I was ready to go home. I was content with being a quitter.”
My words come out choked and I can’t resist the tears hanging over my eye lids “I sat at that diner and something poured over me,” I say. “I don’t know what it was. I doubt I ever will. I don’t care what if I ever do find out what it was that made me say not to quit. But I didn’t. I just found the courage.” Tears stream down the my face and I’m forcing the words bout out the shortness of breath and the tingling in my face and the embarrassment from pouring my heart out to a total stranger while she’s in house shoes and yoga pants. “I’m sorry for crying like this Kim, but if I just realize it now. It’s clear as day. If I don’t do something. That asshole Connor is going to do it to someone some other girl.”
“He’s never been told no his entire life.” The words sound stuck in the back of her throat, sounding like it took everything she had to force them out. She balls her fist. The sound of her voice makes it clear that it pained her the say that.
“I’m going to the cops. I’ve been through shit you wouldn’t believe in my life and the cops are the last place I’d go to, but I know if you found the strength to go, maybe you’d be able get through this.”
She paces back and forth across the rug from the bedroom door to the bathroom.
“Look, I don’t need anybody’s help, okay. I’m dealing with this shit on my own I don’t need Amy. I don’t need some damn support group. And I definitely don’t need no help from somebody I don’t even know!” She breathes heavy through her nose.
I nod softly, stand up and leave. “I’m sorry for coming over and bothering you, Kim.”
I knew it was a mistake coming over here like this.