Woman in Red (20 page)

Gary nodded slowly in understanding, his eyes fixed on Owen with a mixture of keen hatred and grudging respect. “I copy you on that, sir,” he said, with just enough irony to make his point. He rose to his feet, holding himself stiffly at attention. “Anything else I can do for you while I’m at it?”
Shine your shoes, wash your car, cut off my balls and hand them to you on a silver platter
, said the expression on his face.

Owen regarded the big man in the khaki uniform as if he hadn’t noticed Gary towering over him. “Thank you, that will be all,” he said crisply. He gripped the handrims on his wheels, giving his chair a neat turn, and was heading back to his desk when the rising chants from outside made him pause. Slowly, he wheeled around to face Gary. “Oh, just a friendly bit of advice. I’d keep my wife on a shorter leash, if I were you. This Spring Hill business isn’t over yet, and it looks as if things could get ugly. You wouldn’t want to see her get hurt.”

“Go for it, dog,” Rud urged thickly, his eyelids at half mast as he peered at Jeremy through his tequila-and-beer-induced fog. “Wha’choo waitin’ for, an invitation to the
prom
?” The
girl sprawled on the mattress, clad only in bra and panties, was in a similar state of inebriation. She looked up at them, giggling as if Rud had said something wildly amusing.

Jeremy hung back, unsure but not wanting to appear uncool. “Fuck you, man. Look at her, she’s wasted.”

“Don’t mean she don’t want it.” The mattress was on the bedroom floor, its bedding consisting of a single dirty sheet that was presently crumpled at the girl’s feet. Rud nudged her with the scuffed toe of his motorcycle boot. “You want it, don’t’cha, babe?” She mumbled something unintelligible, and he returned his bleary-eyed gaze to Jeremy. “See? What’d I tell ya?”

Jeremy wanted to say the party was over as far as he was concerned, he was out of here, only he thought it might piss Rud off. He was never quite sure of his footing with Rud, who, like a capricious king, could be all smiles and highfives one minute and making you feel like a piece of shit the next. Jeremy settled instead for a contemptuous snort, adopting the pose of someone who was above such sophomoric stunts.

The evening had started out fun. Chuckie Dimmick’s older brother, Mike, had given them the keys to his apartment, and Rud and Chuckie had invited some people over to party. But the fun had started to sour after Rud proposed a game of strip poker, the penalty a shooter for each item of clothing lost in the match. Rud and Chuckie and Kenny Lambert had merely gotten drunk while keeping most of their clothes on, while Rud’s girlfriend, Crystal, had ended up passed out half naked on the living room floor, her friends having drifted off one by one. All except this one.

What was her name—Karen? Carolyn? Jeremy, who’d consumed his share of alcohol, stood swaying on his feet,
bare-chested, wearing only his jeans, as he contemplated how best to extricate himself from this sticky situation. He gazed down at the girl, who peeked up at him kittenishly through the tawny hair tangled about her face. He felt a sudden tug of desire that left him sickened.

“What, you a faggot or something?” sneered Chuckie Dimmick, whom Jeremy had mentally dubbed Chuckie Dimwit, a real mouth-breather who wasn’t capable of an original thought. Jeremy didn’t know why Rud hung out with him—Rud was way smarter than that—unless it was because every king needed his sycophonts. Chuckie was looking at Rud now, seeking his approval. “Yeah, I bet he likes it up the ass. Don’cha, Jizz?” He nudged Rud with his elbow and cackled drunkenly at his own joke.

“Shut the fuck up, moron,” Rud snapped at him. Chuckie’s pimpled face went slack with a hurt expression that was almost comical, exaggerated as it was by a combination of stupidity and alcohol. Rud turned his attention back to Jeremy, slinging an arm around his shoulder and leaning in to mutter, “Dude, you don’t want people thinkin’ you some kinda pussy. That wouldn’t be cool, would it? Now do your uncle Rud proud. I’m countin’ on you.” He drew back to wink slyly at Jeremy, as if they were in on some private joke.

“Fuck you,” growled Jeremy, only he was grinning as he said it, so as not to confirm his own growing suspicion that he was, indeed, a pussy.

Rud leaned in close once more, advising in a low and noticeably less warm voice, “Yo, don’t be trippin’ on me, man. You makin’ me look bad here, being as I’m the one who set you up and all.”

“You guys are so full of shit,” Jeremy said with a laugh, not wanting to jeopardize his already tenuous standing with
them. He shook his head in mock disgust, and tried to push his way past Rud and Chuckie. Before he knew it, Rud had him by the arm and was shoving him onto the mattress, accompanied by hoots of laughter from Chuckie and Kenny. By the time Jeremy managed to scramble to his feet, the other boys were tumbling out into the hallway.

The door slammed shut and the room was plunged into darkness. Jeremy could hear his friends’ muffled guffaws and the sound of a heavy piece of furniture being dragged across the floor on the other side. He staggered over to the door. Finding it wedged shut, he banged on it with his fist. “Come on, guys! Open up! This isn’t funny!”

Behind him the girl—Carolyn? Carrie Ann?—said, with a drunken laugh, “What, you scared of the dark? Big boy like you?”

Jeremy’s hand, which had been hovering over the light switch, dropped to his side. “I didn’t say that.”

“Come over here,” she called. After a moment’s hesitation, Jeremy crossed the room and sat down on the mattress, pulling his knees to his chest. “Sorry, what’s your name again? I’m a little fucked up at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed.” She gave a soft giggle that turned into a hiccough.

“Jeremy,” he said.

She squinted at him with one eye shut. “Jeremy. That’s cute. You like girls, Jeremy?”

“Yeah, I like girls,” he shot back defensively. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could see that she wasn’t half bad-looking.

“So you’re not gay?”

“Don’t listen to them. They’re full of shit.” Jeremy jerked a thumb in the direction of the door, behind which the
cackles and guffaws were fading as his friends moved into the next room. “Look, this wasn’t exactly my idea,” he said coldly, “so if I’m not in the mood to party, you’ll have to excuse me.”

“Whatever.” She let out a soft burp and flopped onto her back, peering up at him through a web of tangled hair. “You know what? You remind me of someone. That guy in the movie, I can’t think of his name. You know the one about the geeky kid who gets the girl in the end? I think Jeff Bridges was in it. He plays the dad.”

“I don’t think I know that one,” said Jeremy, with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

“Too bad. It rocked.” She skimmed a bare foot along his blue-jeaned thigh, and he instantly felt himself go hard, which only made him more pissed. He pushed her foot away.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?” She resumed her rubbing.

“What you’re doing.” He scooted over a few inches.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like me?” She put on a mock offended face.

“Sure, I do. It’s just . . .” Suddenly Jeremy couldn’t think why he was being this way. Maybe Rud was right; maybe there
was
something the matter with him. He wasn’t gay, or anything; that much he knew. The throbbing in his groin testified to that. But there had to be something seriously fucked up with a guy who just sat there like lump while a nearly naked girl played footsie with him, his dick about to pop the zipper on his jeans.

“What?” she prompted.

She ran her nails down his arm, nails polished a metallic blue that glittered in the moonlight slanting in through the blinds, making him break out in goose bumps. This time,
when he didn’t pull away, she looped her arms around his neck and drew him down beside her. The next he knew they were kissing. She tasted of stale beer and cigarettes, but for some reason that only excited him further. He opened his mouth and let his tongue play over hers.

He wondered if she could tell that he was a virgin. Was it possible to know a thing like that just from kissing someone? Would it make any difference to her if she did? Concerns that, sober, would have left him paralyzed with anxiety, but that in his present drunken and aroused state seemed as harmless as the IM chatter popping up on his computer screen at home.

They kissed a while longer before Jeremy was sufficiently emboldened to work a finger past the elastic band of her panties. Timidly at first, stopping when he felt the electric brush of her pubic hair against his fingertips. But she didn’t push his hand away, so he kept on going.

She was wet. Oh God. He felt as if he could come just from touching her down there.

She unsnapped her bra and wriggled out of her panties. He brought his hand up, and he could smell her on him and it was like he was tripping on some drug, like the time he took Ecstasy, his blood fizzing in his veins and his skin so sensitive to the touch it was as if the whole world was being absorbed through his pores, the thoughts that had been troubling him all week—thoughts of his mother—tucked off in some remote region of his brain, where they drifted like smoke from a distant fire.

He cupped her breast, running his thumb over the nipple, which stiffened at once, sending a new jolt of pleasure through him. He’d done that. Him. It would have been the most perfect moment in his thus far pathetic life if just
then she hadn’t murmured thickly, “Jimmy. Oh, yeah, baby. Do it.”

Jimmy? Who the fuck was Jimmy? Had she meant to say Jeremy? He froze for an instant, the part of him that was whispering that this might not be such a good idea nearly getting the better of the other, fired-up Jeremy who had only one thing on his mind.
Fuck it,
he thought. She wanted it, she’d said so herself. If it wasn’t him, she’d be doing one of the other guys. And did he want to die a virgin? Not just a virgin, but a
pussy
, who’d messed up the one chance he’d had to do something with his dick other than jerk off.

With the speed of someone scrambling for the last seat on a lifeboat he shed his jeans, kicking them off with such force they hit the floor and kept right on going, skating with a soft slithering sound over the floorboards before pooling against the wall. Naked, he stretched out alongside her, the room spinning, as if the mattress were a raft slowly rotating along the eddies of a stream. They kissed some more, and then her hand was on his dick, fingers curled about the shaft moving in slow, delicious strokes . . .
oh God, oh Christ
. . .
if she doesn’t stop I’ll come...

But he didn’t want her to stop. He wanted this feeling to go on forever.

Once again, more feebly now, the voice of reason asserted itself.
She’s drunk. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She thinks you’re some guy named Jimmy. Better quit before this gets out of hand.

But it was just static in his head, and he tuned it out. Who cared if she thought he was someone else? If she was too wasted to know the difference, that was her problem. And if he didn’t happen to have a condom on him it was
probably all right. She hadn’t said anything about it, which meant she’d most likely done whatever it was girls did to take care of such matters. She clearly wasn’t inexperienced.

As he entered her, she cried out.
Yeah, like that, don’t stop.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Then he was coming, in a blinding rush. He rolled away moments later to find her passed out cold. The dizzying high he’d been on gave way to shame. Carrie Ann, her name was Carrie Ann, he remembered it now. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed and her jaw slack, her legs splayed limply apart, snoring lightly. He kissed her gently on the lips, and she stirred, muttering something in her sleep.

“Carrie Ann?” he whispered. But she didn’t rouse; she was dead to the world. And what would he have said, anyway, that he was sorry? For what? For fucking her when he knew it was wrong, or for not being this Jimmy guy? No, it was better this way. With any luck, by morning she wouldn’t remember a thing. It would be like it never happened.