Flirting With Chaos (10 page)

I loved to pick on him about it. “Bloody Parliament!”

“You’re definitely not getting this back. The moment you begin doing bad Mary Poppins impressions, I pretty much know you’re blown out of your mind.” He took a long hit. “You’re done.”

“Oy, me won’t bat-ill wif ya, guv’nor.”

“I don’t even understand what language that is.” He scrunched his face up in confusion. “It’s like you enjoy butchering words. You’re definitely done.”

“Rubbish. That’s the bloody British accent me mum taught me.” I gave him a thumbs up. “Come on, love.”

“No. The fuck. It. Is. Not.” With each word, Jude dotted the air with his finger.

“I’ve watched years of
Doctor Who
, dude. I got the accent down.” I wiggled my hips as I walked.

“I’m starting to reconsider our friendship.” He let his gaze wander to my hips and behind. “You’re lucky you’ve always provided the sweetest sight of eye candy on this continent or I’d report you.”

“Who would you report me to? The queen?” I winked.

He groaned in annoyance.

“I think both of you are done.” T-Bone looked back, forth, and side-to-side as he ambled along with us. “Smoking while walking out here is just asking to get locked up. Every damn night you make my job harder and harder.”

Jude coughed. “Everyone thinks it’s a cigarette.”

“Motherfucker, no one is dumb enough to think that tiny thing is a cigarette.” He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and took off his sunglasses. “That shit reeks of stinky weed. If I raced up the block and stood there, I’d smell both of you coming.”

“Race, really?” Jude leaned his head to the side. “You’re not racing anywhere. Maybe more like fast walk for ten seconds and then pass out. Dream much?”

I keeled over and exploded with laughter. “Stop, Jude. Please.”

A group of skateboard kids sauntered by.

“Mary Jane! We love you,” one yelled, and his friends laughed.

“See.” T-Bone motioned to the kids. “They smell that shit.”

“We don’t truly know if they are referring to marijuana or if they saw Rain and, in fact, figured she resembled a long lost love named Mary Jane.” He risked another inhale, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it. “But just in case you try to continue to blow my high, I’ll put it out.”

“Thanks.” T-Bone caught my arm and led me forward.

“Dream much?” I couldn’t help it. I laughed more as he dragged me around the corner. “Oh my goodness. I missed it here. When are we going to get to this next surprise?”

We passed a twenty-four hour pizza spot that boasted the best garlic bread on the east coast. The aroma of roasted garlic wafted out of the doorway and carried with it the reggae booming from the speakers nailed over the awning. My mouth drooled.

“Let’s stop and eat.”

“No, Rain. Food will be where we’re going. I’m surprised you’re even hungry.”

“I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I don’t get hungry when I do E.”

“Oy, bugger that then.”

He groaned.

Ten minutes later, I lay in Jude’s arms with another blindfold wrapped around my eyes. Once we’d gotten close to the surprise, he’d demanded that I cover my eyes with the cloth.

“I’m starting to think that you’re a bit kinky, Jude.”

“Starting? I’ve been kinky all my life, love.”

“See? English people do say love.”

“I’m going to throw you down these stairs.”

“You’re carrying me upstairs?” I couldn’t wait to see the next surprise. “Give me a hint of where we’re going.”

“What is the number one type of place that you’re always trying to drag me to?”

“Art museum.” A honey and flowery perfume entered my nose.

“Got it.”

“Yes!” I bounced in his arms like a little kid. “Which one? Come on. Let me take it off. Or am I just going to be forced to smell the paint?”

He put me down. “Okay, take it off before I kill you.”

I slipped the blindfold away and looked around. White walls surrounded me. Black carpet covered the ground. It didn’t seem like the typical art museum I’d been in. I looked in front of me. Royal blue velvet curtains hung in front of the door. On the top, a huge black sign read: World Erotic Art Museum.

“Ha!” I clapped my hands. “You rock, Jude.”

“How many times have you said we should come in here? So, I figured if I’m going to go into an art museum with you, it’s going to be an erotic one.”

T-Bone finally arrived at the top of the stairs. Sweat trickled on the side of his face. He panted a bit and then read the sign. “Lord Jesus.”

“Stop it, T-Bone. It’s going to be fun. This is probably one place Jude and I won’t get kicked out of.”

Even though the museum didn’t close until four in the morning, I found out that Jude had rented the place for the evening so that we could tour it privately. Although it wasn’t several levels like the typical art museum, it boasted a massive erotic art collection—huge sculptures of penises that started at the floor and poked up to the ceiling, nude photos of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles, a rocking dick sculpture that had actually been used in the filming of Clockwork Orange as the murder weapon, and my most favorite of all: a huge bed done in wood where the posts imitated large penises, and on their lengths were additional carvings of sensual scenes between a man and woman.

“I’m going to wait outside until you both are done.” T-Bone slipped on his rainbow shades and escaped.

Jude nudged me with his shoulder. “I bet you a hundred dollars he’s going to jerk off in the bathroom.”

“Eww.” Though I could see the urge for T-Bone to do so, if he was actually going to masturbate.

My hormones were on overdrive within my skin. There were so many naked images of women and men in oil or watercolor, drawings on pottery or carved in stone, black and white photography or pop art color. No person was left out—short or tall, fat or thin, and all ethnicities. Yet, everything signified beauty and took my breath away. I was a kid in a candy shop with fifty dollars in my pocket and my parents several hours away from coming to get me. Although he hated one painting that displayed a man with his penis in a meat grinder as a woman in front of him ground it up, Jude added to the moment with his captivating expressions of shock and awe as we analyzed so much art that my head went numb for a few seconds.

“I’m not getting the popularity of Leda and the Swan.” Jude held my hand. “It’s rape.”

“Well, most Greek mythology is popular, and some would argue that she was seduced by Zeus when he took the form of the swan and made love to her.”

“It’s not only rape. It’s bestiality.”

“It’s romantic.”

“Twisted romance.”

“The best kind.” I dragged him out of the room full of many renditions of Leda and the Swan.

Suddenly, the lights shut off. Jude drew me into him. In the darkness, his hard chest pressed against my breasts. With all the art and the sensual moment we had earlier on the dance floor, my nipples stiffened in seconds. For some reason, in the dark, his cologne attacked my senses. He enveloped me with the smell of him.

Clicking, clanking, banging, and booming sounded all around me.

I jumped.

Jude laughed and tightened his grip on my waist. “Don’t worry. My next surprise for you is being put together.”

“In the dark?” I asked.

“Yes. They have night vision glasses on.”

I rested my head against his chest. “Please say you’re joking.”

“Do I ever joke about surprises?”

“No. Why not just have me leave the area and then they set everything up in the light?”

“Then I wouldn’t have had a reason to buy three awesome night vision glasses. Duh.”

“Apparently.”

“You smell like roses and peaches. It makes me want to lick your skin.” He trailed his soft lips from my forehead to the tip of my nose. I trembled in pleasure. He’d done this before when we would get really messed up and crash in his bedroom. I reveled in those moments of him touching me, hoping that just one time he would capture my lips and go in for the kill, but he never had. Tonight was different.

He lifted my head and seized my mouth.

A violin played in the darkness. Jude loved classical music—well, any music—but classical topped the list. I hated it yet agreed that stringed instruments were awesome in the hands of a skilled musician.

When he finished kissing me, I whimpered.

“God, I wish I could see what your face looks like right now.”

“It’s probably red.”

He sniffed at my neck and ran his fingers through my hair. “Do you feel like throwing up?”

“No.”

“Good. I’m like the prince that wakes up Sleeping Beauty.” He sucked on my bottom lip. “My mouth holds magic.”

“Or the realistic and un-narcissistic reason that I don’t throw up when you kiss me could be because I’m comfortable with you.”

“Well, either way, it looks like the whole time you should have saved all those kisses for me. I hate to tell you I told you so.”

“You were only joking back in high school.”

“The hell I was.” He squeezed the curve of my behind.

The lights came on. Lust burned across Jude’s face. Red tinted his cheeks. I touched them. His smooth skin heated my fingertips.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you like that for a long time, Rain.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I like having you around, and you know how relationships and I work out. I’m with a chick. We have sex. I do something to upset her. Later, she stalks or hates me. Most of the time, it’s both.”

“Yeah. I guess the last thing you would want is for me to hate you.” I gave him a weak smile. “With my past, it could end pretty bloody.”

His face turned from lust to sad. “Don’t say that, Rainy.”

“It’s just a joke.”

“Not funny.” He separated from me and guided me into a dark room lit with sea-green candles. A table stood in the center, set with two plates, bowls of food, and more candles. A violinist stood in the background and played a song I recognized, though I couldn’t think of the title.

“What is she playing?” I asked.

“‘Ordinary People’ by John Legend.”

“Love it.”

“This is surprise number twelve, I think. I’ve actually lost count in between the joint and the dancing at Circus.”

“Doesn’t matter. I appreciate everything. I’m going to have to start planning your birth weekend now just so it will be equally awesome.”

His birthday was the day before Halloween which guaranteed some sort of freaky costume party and trick-or-treating incorporated into the celebrating. When we had turned eighteen, I’d left out trick-or-treating from the celebration, and he’d tripped for an hour.

“You can’t celebrate my birth weekend without trick-or-treating, Rain.” He’d pouted and I’d had to play it off as a joke and then quickly get his friends together for a hastily thrown together trick-or-treating event.

Maybe we’ll trick-or-treat on South Beach at three in the morning. That should be interesting.

Jude steered me to my chair. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“After this we’re going to—”

“There they are.” Kaden headed in with Vicky on his arm. “What the hell, man. You both rushed out of there like you all were running from the cops or something.”

“You told him where we were at?” Jude glared at T-Bone as the guard marched in next.

“Your dad wasn’t invited?” Kaden sniffed his nose and rubbed it. He must’ve done cocaine. He moved fast around the room, his eyes darting from side to side as he checked out all of the art. “Man, this is freaky.”

“Sorry. You didn’t tell me that you were avoiding him.” T-Bone did his best at a whisper.

“It’s not that I’m avoiding him. I just didn’t want to share my time with Rain.”

I stared at all of the plates of food and realized that Jude was right. I was no longer hungry, just happy in the moment. “It’s fine, Jude. Let’s just have fun.”

Something crashed behind us. We all turned to see Kaden standing next to a broken sculpture of tiny vaginas. “Fuck me. I hope that doesn’t cost too much.”

Jude snapped to get T-Bone’s attention. The guard turned his way as Jude said, “Let’s try to lose him when we go to the tattoo parlor.”

“Tattoo?” I shrieked. For three years I’d contemplated getting a tattoo of a fairy on my lower hip. I’d drawn it myself but never summoned enough courage to just get it.

“First we kiss some more, smoke again maybe, and then we get tattoos,” Jude explained. “I was thinking it would be real cool to get the same thing. What do you want?”

“A cute little fairy sitting on a huge mushroom.”

He placed his forehead on the table. “Kill me now.”

Chapter 8

Blow Jobs Gone Wrong

T
HEY
F
OUGHT
A
LL
N
IGHT
. I hid under my blankets, hugging my doll to my chest, as if the more I squeezed her the more I could quiet my dad’s and mom’s curses.