Rock Stars Do It Harder (6 page)

She croaked again, trying to get the “fuck no you aren’t doing that” out past her lips, but it wasn’t working.

Then Moon-face spoke. “Are you ready for Big Ben?” As he said this, he gestured with his penis, probing her ass-crack with the tip of his cock.

That got her powers of speech working. “Big Ben? Did you just refer to your penis as… ‘Big Ben’?”

The guy beneath her choked back a laugh. Jamie felt an orgasm quavering within her, absurdly, impossibly timed. She couldn’t stop her body’s rolling rhythm now. Couldn’t.

Moon-face—whose name was probably Ben…she seemed to hazily remember meeting a Ben…and a Brad—hesitated, licked his lips, assessing whether she thought this was funny and/or hot.

“Yes?” He said, his tone of voice lost between a statement and a question.

Jamie, coming now, couldn’t quite express her disbelief. “Are you—oh god, oh god—are you fucking serious? Big Ben? Does that make the rest of you—oh god, yes—Little Ben?”

The guy beneath her laughed out loud, now, and then groaned as he came. Jamie didn’t feel the hot rush of seed when he spasmed, so he was wearing a condom, thank god.
 

Jamie felt something hot and hard probing her ass again.

“No, asshole.” She threw herself clumsily off the guy beneath her, away from the probing nastiness of Big Ben/Little Ben. “And I also mean that literally. No asshole. Not for you. Not for anyone. Not ever.”

Jamie may have been…experienced, sexually, but she drew the line at anal. Not gonna happen. Especially not like this. Not with him.

Ben shrugged, his face pouting comically. “Um…okay, then.”
 

Jamie was overcome by a rush of dizziness, and lay back in the bed, palm over her eyes.

“So…can you at least help me out, here?” Ben asked. “You can’t leave me hanging like this.”

Jamie squinted at him, feeling floppy and disconnected from herself, severed from reality. She was beginning to come down a little, and she found herself not caring about anything, especially now that her virgin little asshole was safe from probing.

Ben was lying down next to her, not too close, thankfully. The bed they were all three in was big, king-sized, probably. Good thing, too. Jamie watched her hand reach out, wondering what it was doing.
 

Oh, that.

Her hand fisted around Ben’s penis and began to pump. He grunted, porcine, thrusting his hips into her hand. Jamie felt her lip curling in something that would have been disgust if she’d been able to feel anything, but, thankfully, she was numb emotionally and mentally.

And that, she abruptly remembered, was the reason she’d gotten so hammered in the first place: to achieve numbness, to forget
him
.
 

Ben grunted one last time, hips thrust up, and then came onto her hand and his belly. Jamie’s eyes were closed, sparing her having to watch. She cracked her eyes open and stared at her hand, barely suppressing a shudder of revulsion.

What… the fuck… am I doing?

Jamie slid down the bed and off the foot end, glancing around the room. The only article of her clothing she could find among the piles of towels and jeans and boxers and T-shirts was her panties. She scooped them up and donned them, grateful to not be totally nude anymore.

The guy whose name she hadn’t remembered yet—but which she strongly felt might be Brad—got up and found her bra and T-shirt, handing it to her wordlessly before getting a pair of gym shorts from his dresser next to the window. Ben didn’t move, just watched the proceedings disinterestedly. He stared openly, not even bothering to disguise his blatant ogling. Jamie tried to ignore his leering gaze as she hooked her bra beneath her breasts and then span it around her body to stuff her boobs in.
 

Eventually, she snapped. “Would you look somewhere else please? Big Ben ain’t getting’ nothin’ else from me, I can promise you that.”

The other guy, tugging his shirt over his head, glanced at Ben. “Dude. Enough already. Get the fuck out.”

“I’m tired, now, man.”

“I don’t give a shit. Get the fuck out.”

Ben frowned, shrugging. “Fine, man. Whatever.” He stuffed his feet into a pair of shorts that hung past his knees, then tugged a Bob Marley shirt on. As he exited the room, he said, “call me later, Brad. We’ll blaze. I’m getting an ‘O’ from my hookup tomorrow.”

Brad nodded. “Sure thing, dude.”

Jamie watched all this with a dawning comprehension. She pulled her shirt on, saw her Steve Madden sandals by the door and slipped her feet into them, stumbling from one foot to the other. “You’re a stoner?”

Brad shrugged. “I smoke down, yeah. Why?”

Jamie just shook her head. “I’m really hammered.
 
I don’t remember…well, shit. I don’t remember a damn thing. I wasn’t even sure what your name was until ‘Big Ben’ said it.”

Brad’s face pinched in confusion. “You don’t remember anything?” He stuffed his feet into a pair of ADIDAS sports sandals. “We met at Duggan’s. You sat down with us and started flirting. We did some shots of tequila and then you suggested going back to my place for a threesome. I thought you were joking, but…you weren’t. I couldn’t believe my luck.”

Jamie rubbed her forehead. “I suggested it? Shit. With you two?” She left the bedroom and found the kitchen, saw her purse sitting on the counter by the microwave.

“With us two? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jamie washed her hands in the kitchen sink, almost frantically. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Did I drive here? Please tell me I didn’t.”

Brad shook his head. “I only had a beer and a shot, so I drove.”

“Were you high?”

He shrugged, a tiny roll of his shoulders. “A little.” He took a box of Cheez-Its from a cabinet and opened them, offered them to Jamie, who took some. “Does it matter? I wasn’t drunk, and I wasn’t, like, crazy-blazed. I was fine.”

Jamie suppressed her desire to tell him driving high was just as stupid as driving drunk. He was her ride back to her car, so she held her tongue.

They munched on crackers, and then Brad pulled a pair of Dr. Peppers from the fridge.
 

After a while, Brad said, “Sorry about Ben. He’s kind of a douche. He has this hookup for some seriously amazing bud, so I hang out with him. But…he’s a douche.”

Jamie studiously examined a cracker. “If he’s a douche, why the hell did you agree to a three-way with him?”

Brad shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t fucking know. You’re the hottest girl who’s ever paid attention to me, so I guess I just went with it for the chance to get with you. I may have been a bit more blazed than I thought, though. Now it seems like a kind of bad idea.”

“You think? ‘Are you ready for Big Ben?’ Who the fuck names their cock that?”

Brad laughed. “Right? I can’t believe he actually said that. Like, he was totally serious.”

“No, he really was.” Jamie laughed, but only to cover the shudder of disgust.

Brad was silent for a while. “I kind of feel like I should apologize. If you don’t remember anything, you must have been pretty hammered when you sat down with us.”

Jamie sighed. “Yeah. It’s probably my own fault, though. I’m the kind of person who you can’t tell how drunk they are. I could be obliterated and you won’t know it. If you can see me looking impaired, like I’m stumbling or slurring or whatever, then I’m probably beyond schwasted and about to pass out.”

Brad toyed with the tab of his soda can, not looking at Jamie. “So…you really don’t remember anything?”

“No, honestly. I sort of came to in the middle of having sex with you. Everything before that is a blank.”
 

Brad kept his eyes averted. “Oh. I guess I thought we sort of hit it off at Duggan’s. I thought you and I…maybe we could—”

Jamie winced. “Brad, listen, I’m sorry. This whole thing is weird and uncomfortable for me. I don’t know you. I don’t remember meeting you, and that’s just the hard, honest truth.” She set her empty can by the sink. “I’d really like to just go home. Is there a bus stop nearby? Or…”

Brad shook his head. “A bus stop? Have you ever actually ridden a SMART bus? It’s terrifying, and that’s not even mentioning the crazy people.” He set his can down next to Jamie’s, staring at the two cans together as if they represented something that could have been, but would never be. “I’ll take you to your car. Come on.”

The ride from Brad’s apartment, which was in Hazel Park, back to Duggan’s in Royal Oak was one long awkward silence. Woodward Avenue was empty at three thirty in the morning, a single SMART bus rumbling along the right hand lane, spewing clouds of diesel exhaust. Duggan’s was dark, Jamie’s battered blue Buick LeSabre one of a few cars left in the lot.

As Jamie was sliding out of Brad’s old red F-150, he touched her elbow to stop her. “Could I call you, sometime?”

Jamie sighed, not turning around to look at him. “Brad, I’m sorry. I’m gonna be brutally honest here. I just want to go home and try to forget this ever happened. It’s not really you, per se. You’re a nice guy. Sex with you was nice. But I’m just…I’m fucked up, okay? This was a mistake, an awful drunken mistake. There’s so much I’m trying to forget, and this is just one more thing.” She shook her head, almost angrily. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said all that.”

Brad didn’t answer for a long moment. “It was ‘nice’, huh? That’s the kiss of death for a guy. I get it, though.”

“I’m sorry, Brad. Really. I wish I knew what else to say—”

“No, it’s fine. It really is. I had a good time, except for—”

“Except for Big Ben,” Jamie filled in. She turned and grinned at Brad as she stood up, leaning down to look into the open door. “A word of advice, from a woman to a man? Next time you try to score with a chick, leave the creepy douchebag out of it. Things may have gone differently if he hadn’t have been there harshing my mellow, or whatever it is you stoners say.”

Brad just laughed. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that.” He put the truck in drive. “Anyway, you’re here. So…thanks. And Jamie? Good luck forgetting. But remember, sometimes you can’t forget, and shouldn’t. Sometimes you
need
to remember the bad shit, so when the good times come along, they’ll mean that much more to you.”

Jamie closed the door and Brad drove away, back south down Woodward. She stood watching his taillights recede, hearing his last words echoing in her head.

Maybe forgetting Chase was impossible. Maybe she should just go on with her life and try to let go, rather than wishing for the impossible and hating life when it didn’t happen.

Jamie drove home to her apartment in Clawson, barely seeing the road. With every mile, something hot and acidic rose in her gut, as much emotional as physical. By the time she was unlocking her front door, she was holding it back by force of will.

She slammed her door behind her and ran into the bathroom, dropping her purse on the floor as she fell to her knees and vomited into the toilet. She brought up everything she’d had to drink, everything she’d eaten, and then vomited more. When she felt done, she sank back sit on her thighs, her feet tucked beneath her, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Then her vindictive subconscious brought up an image of Ben, kneeling behind her, waving his chode-like penis at her, and then she had a sensory memory of Ben spooging onto her hand, and she vomited again, bringing up bile this time.

She slumped with her cheek against the toilet rim, holding back what felt suspiciously like tears.

She couldn’t cry. She didn’t cry. Not about guys. Not about doing the walk of shame. Not about waking up in strange apartments, or having sex with guys she didn’t know. She did
not
cry.

She needed to talk to someone. Jamie dug her phone out of her purse and dialed Anna, knowing she’d answer even though it was four in the morning.
 

Anna answered on the third ring. “Jay? What’s up? It’s four a.m., hooker.”
 

“I know, I’m sorry to call you at this hour, but…I fucked up, Anna. Really fucked up. Can you come over?”

“Shit. Are you hurt? Pregnant?”

“What? No. Not like that. Just…I need my best friend.”

Anna paused before answering. “You broke your vow of celibacy, didn’t you?” Jamie didn’t answer, just sniffled as she struggled to hold back the tears, and that was enough for Anna. “Oh, shit. You’re crying? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

As she disconnected, Jamie heard Anna talking to Jeff in the background, telling him she didn’t know when she’d be back. Jamie tossed the phone in her purse, stood up unsteadily, and brushed her teeth. She stripped, turned on the shower and let it run hot, staring at herself in the steam-fogged mirror.

  
She stepped under the stream of scalding hot water and scrubbed herself until her skin was red and raw, and then let the water soak her until the hot water ran out. Jamie was sniffling nonstop now, but refused to let the tears fall. She put on her favorite sleep T-shirt, an ancient thing with Eeyore on the front that used to be black but was now faded closer to gray.
 

Jamie climbed into bed, curled into a ball, and focused on not crying.
 

She’d been holding it back for so long. Not just tonight. The thing with Ben and Brad was the last straw, the tipping point. She’d been denying herself the emotions, pushing them down, bottling them up and ignoring them.
 

Now, whether she liked it or not, they were all coming up, coming out.

She heard the apartment door open and close, and then Anna appeared in her bedroom door, a box of donuts in one hand, the other holding a cup-tray with two Tim Horton’s cups. Anna was sleep-mussed, long blonde hair tied up in a messy bun, wearing yoga pants, Uggs, and a several-sizes-too-big Dopey T-shirt every bit as old as Jamie’s Eeyore one. She had makeup smeared under her eyes, and as she sat down on the bed, Jamie caught a whiff of sex from her.
 

“I brought you a hazelnut mocha, extra whipped cream. Plus, a dozen assorted donuts, with a few extra honey crullers.” Anna set the donuts and coffee on the dresser, kicked off her boots and sat cross-legged next to Jamie. “Talk, Jay. What happened?”