Cry Me a River PG-13 Edition (2 page)

I
slowly climb the stairs to the second floor, looking out the glass wall, taking in the sun-catcher Heather hung with fishing line.  It sparkles in the sunlight, casting a prism of color around the room.  This floor is my favorite, it has a living room, kitchen and three bedrooms, and one of them is my master bedroom.  It’s my escape from the world. 

The house smells like melons.  I drilled
a hole in a watermelon yesterday and filled it with vodka.  It’s always a hit out on the beach; no one can resist a drunk watermelon.  I pull a high-ball glass down and fill it with ice. I grab a bottle of Four Roses and rush to open it to fill the glass. A little of the whiskey splashes on the counter as I pour it in the glass and I actually considered licking it up off the counter.   The spicy aroma fills my nostrils making my mouth literally water as I lift the glass to my lips.  I tilt my head back and swallow it in one gulp.  Damn, that was good.  I take the bottle and my glass over to the living room and collapse on the leather recliner.  It’s the same recliner Heather had sworn every man needs.  The deep chocolate leather matches the dark brown sectional.  Everything in this room was picked out by her, from the art work to the fancy pillows on the couch.  Everywhere I look, is a reminder of Heather.

“
Damn you Heather!  Accidental overdose?  Are you KIDDING ME?!”  I yell as I pour another glass of whiskey.  “Lucy’s a baby, you selfish bitch!  Damn you!”  Again, I swallow the whiskey back in one gulp.  This time it didn’t burn, it makes me feel alive.  “Because I
am
alive!  Here’s to you!”  I yell and have another drink.  My face starts to tingle as the alcohol starts to hit me.  I haven’t drunk this much in a long time.  No, tonight I’m getting wasted.  I don’t give a damn who’s watching, so up-yours y
ou
reporter whores.

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Pounding on my front door wakes me up from where I passed out in the chair.  I’m wasted.  Damn.

“Dude, I’ve been calling you for the last hour.  You got someone in here getting your sex on?”  Stewart says.  He’s a typical local surfer.  He works at the
Lou's Surf Shop and talks surfing non-stop.  We call him Stewie to piss him off.  “Man, are you drunk already?”

Stewie turns around and yells to someone that I’m home.  A girl with a short skirt and tank top comes bouncing in.  She’s not
local; he never gets the local girls, because they know what an idiot he is.  The tourists all dream of banging or getting banged by a surfer.  This one has short brown hair and a long angular face. 

“Oh my god!  You actually live here every day of the year?  Your parents must be loaded!”  She says in a Midwestern twang.

Stewart drapes his scrawny arm over her shoulder, more for me than her.  “Baby, he bought the place.  I told you, he’s a famous chef around here.”  He gives her a quick squeeze before letting her go.  “Caide, this is Diane from Dallas.”  He winks at me over her head.  I mentally roll my eyes at him. 

I hold my hand out to shake hers.  “Hi Diane from Dallas, would you prefer I call you Diane?”  I laugh to lighten up the mood.

“You can call me Diane, or you can call me Double D.  I’m a dancer at a gentlemen’s club in Dallas.  I’m better known as Double D.”

So much for her wholesome looks, minus her rack, which is probably a double d now that I look at it.  You can’t walk in here and announce you’re a ‘dancer’ and go by Double D and not get your
chest looked at.  Stewart is smitten with himself for his latest score.

“Baby, you didn’t tell me you’re a dancer.  You’ll have to give me a show later.”  His arm goes back over her shoulder, as though I’d jump her bones because she’s a dancer.

She laughs at him.  “You never asked.”

“He didn’t either,” Stewart says and walks her to the kitchen with him.  It isn’t as though the kitchen is behind walls or anything.  I had the whole place remodeled when I bought it.  The wall that separated the kitchen from the living room was removed and a new sleek kitchen with commercial grade appliances was added.  Stewart has Diane from Dallas up against the refrigerator
and he’s rubbing his hands up and down her sides.

“Could you grab me a beer before you melt everything in the fridge?  I’m going to change and we’ll head out to the beach.”

Stewart walks over and hands me a beer. “What do you think?” He whispers to me.  He always needs to make sure he doesn’t have beer-goggles on when it comes to women he picks up at the beach.

“I think you better wear a rain coat before you dip in the pool.  You have no idea who else she’s met out here,” I whisper back.

Stewart and I walked down to the beach with our regular g
ear: ice-chest full of beer and wine coolers for the ladies, drunk watermelon for everyone and sodas for the liquor smugglers.  There’s always someone with a flask of whiskey at these things.  I left what was left of my whiskey at the cottage.  These guys prefer Pabst Blue Ribbon; I’d never trust them with a real bottle of whiskey.  I reserve it for my clients or Christmas and me of course.   My flask is in the ice-chest for later tonight.

Double D carried the grocery bags full of chips, hotdog buns, mustard and ketchup.  I’m a chef away from the beach, out here, we’re all chefs.  I called DJ
Dark Knight to set up and keep us entertained all night.  The tourists flock to us like ants to honey.  The beach is never short of marines from Camp Lejeune, which means girls everywhere.  Who needs a nightclub on a Friday night when you have all the ingredients at the beach?  Marines have a tendency to get sloppy drunk and so rowdy they either get run off or pass out.  The beach patrol keeps an eye on our area and we’re pretty good at spotting the trouble makers.   

Dark Knight already has his equipment set up and playing
Caribbean music.  He’ll switch to dance music once the families clear out and we’re all a little lit.

It’s almost nine and the sun is going down.  I lean back in a beach chair, sunglasses on to block the moon, beer in one hand, flask in the other as I stare out at the ocean.  My flask is almost empty and I’ve had about five beers.  The alcohol from earlier is kicking back
into full gear.

A girl I’ve seen at the beach a few times this summer runs along the water line squealing in delight.  She has a beer
and she’s smoking a cigarette.  Some people behind me must know her since they’re calling for her to come over.

She stumbles a little and walks our way.  Instead of going to her friends, she stops in front of me.  From down here, she looks tall wit
h perfectly tanned long legs.  Her white shorts and red bikini top are what I notice after checking out her legs. “You’re Caide aren’t you?”  She asks, her words slur a little.  Its okay, my brain understands the language of slur after who knows how many drinks.

“Yeah baby, I’m Caide…who are you?”  I don’t bother standing, or removing my sunglasses.  Sh
e’ll go home with me regardless what I do. 

“I’m Kendra, I was at a house party you had last winter.  I don’t think you noticed
me; you were busy cooking on the grill.  I didn’t get to stay very long, so I didn’t get to meet you.”  She takes a long drink from her beer and puts her cigarette in the bottle. 

“Want another drink?”  I do
and then I want to have my way with you.  “I was going to head back to my house to refill my flask.  Would you like to come with me?”  Of course you do, because you’re dressed for attention and you know my reputation.  I’m a notch, one to tell your friends about….you went home with the chef.  I stifle a laugh.  “I’ve got beer and wine coolers here, or I have a full bar at my place.”

She smiles, her teeth are perfectly straight and white. 
She bites her lower lip and smoothes her hair down with her hand.  “Let’s grab a couple of beers so we can chase some whiskey shooters.”  Her left hand reaches out for me; I take it and fumble enough as I stand to pull her up to me. 

I slide my arm around her and kiss her mouth.  No invitation to do so, but she didn’t seem to mind.  Her tongues tastes of tobacco, not my favorite taste, but some alcohol should wash it away.  It will at least make me not care if she tastes like
an ashtray or not.  “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper to her.  We grab three beers from the cooler and leave.  Her friends give her a few wolf-calls and she shakes her ass at them.  Hopefully, she’ll shake her ass for me. 

The street is alive with families and beach lovers.  The cops are surely patrolling, looking for the drunks of the night. 
You just don’t drive drunk on Emerald Isle, the cops will bust you in a heartbeat. They’re pretty good at giving drunk and disorderly tickets too.  I prefer to stay under their radar, but they know me and most of them will give me a lift home if needed.  Tonight, it isn’t needed.

We stumble together through my front door.  My cat Dexter is offended as we walk in and disturb his marathon nap.  He’s a black and
gray Tabby I rescued last year after Heather left.  I thought maybe it was a good idea to have a friend around, but I needed one that could handle my crazy hours and life.  Dexter is that cat. 

Kendra leans over and tries to pet Dex, but he hisse
s at her.  The same way he has hissed at girls before her.  He has never hissed at Lucy or Heather.  He did hiss at Heather’s mom, which was incredible.  “Oh, the kitty doesn’t want to play?”

“No, Dexter is temperamental towards women.  I want to play, come over to the counter.”  Kendra is attractive,
I decide after getting a good look at her under the light.  Her legs really are long and tan.  She’s not gorgeous, but she isn’t bad looking either.  Her hair is light brown and a little frizzy from the humidity, which we can’t escape at the beach.  She’s young, really young, shit…hopefully not jail-bait.  “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how old are you?”

“Twenty, I’ll be twenty-one in two months.  Maybe you can make me my birthday dinner.”

She’s already planning on me being with her in two months. I hate girls so desperate for a boyfriend.  “We’ll see.  Let’s drink to almost twenty-one.”  I pulled out a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey to drink.  I’m too drunk to care about how smooth my whiskey is, so I don’t offer up my Four Roses.  We hold up our shot glasses and swigged them down.  Her brown eyes water, but she doesn’t complain about the burn.  I quickly fill them up again.  “To being drunk tonight!”  We clink our glasses and swallow it down. 

I take her glass and set it on the counter.  I pull her in and my hands run along her bare back.  I fiddle with her bikini strings until I’ve successfully undone the ones on her neck and behind her back.  I have her pulled close enough to me to keep her top from falling off.  I step back, letting the top fall to the floor. 
I take her bottom lip between my teeth and bite it lightly.  She moans against my mouth.  Her body is pushing closer to me, and I only have one thing on my mind.

My hands on her hips, I lift her up and set her on the kitchen counter.  Her legs wrap around me and she leans back
and moans against my touch.  My hands slide along her thighs, they’re perfectly smooth as any twenty-year old girl’s should be.   She’s arches so far back, her head is resting on the cool marble counter of the bar. 

I unbutton her shorts and slide them off, tossing them and the bikini bottoms over with the top.  I lift her up and over my shoulder to carry her to the bedroom.  She doesn’t weigh anything
and she laughs all the way down the hall.  I haphazardly pull the comforter off the bed so I won’t tick the cleaning lady off again.  I’d been scolded by her about having to take the blanket to the dry cleaners too much.

____________________________________________

I go in the bathroom to take a quick shower
.  I gave her a t-shirt to sleep in, if she didn’t want to sleep naked.  I wipe the steam from the mirror and see my blue eyes are bloodshot and glassy.  I towel dry my hair and run a comb through it.  My mom is always on me to cut my hair off, it isn’t as though it’s long; it just isn’t in a business man cut.  My hair is straight as a board and dark as night like my dad’s.  The girls like the way my hair contrasts with my blue eyes, I’m not going to mess with a well oiled machine.

I put on some shorts and
climb into bed beside no-name girl.

____________________________________________

Why is it so bright in here?  Is the cleaning lady here?  No, it’s Saturday, she doesn’t come again until Monday.  It smells like food.  Someone’s cooking in my house?  Oh yeah, I had a girl here last night.  What was her name?  I get up and put on a pair of board shorts.  I walk into an empty living room.  “Hello?  Is someone here?”

“If you’re trying to figure out if that chick is here, she isn’t.  She cooked some food and left.  I think that’s Gage’s old lady though,” Stewart says.  He stays here most weekends and the rule is he isn’t allowed to have an overnight guest I haven’t met. 

“She wasn’t acting like someone’s old lady last night.  Do you know her name?”

“Do you really care?  I’m pretty sure her name is Kendra.  Gage was walking up and down the beach looking for her.  Lucky for you, no one told him where she was.  We figured the chances were pretty high that she was still with you
and we didn’t think you were up for a fight.  I hope you took your own advice and wore a raincoat.”  Stewart pulled a bottle of orange juice out and poured us both a glass.