Mutual Release (23 page)

Boys were everywhere, their long, lanky, smelly bodies draped over every stick of furniture. Girls too, of course, but Julie could not tear her eyes from the male contingent. Facial hair warred with zits. They laughed, showing their large white teeth. They drank, making huge gulping sounds, and refilled their cups with beer or vodka.

Someone brought out little cups full of JELL-O that they were slurping back. One landed in Julie’s hand. She stared at it, unsure, then let some boy push her elbow up, encouraging her to eat it in one go. She did, choking and spluttering, hating the sweet cloying flavor and the bitter alcohol afterbite.

Somebody, Amy perhaps, handed her a cup and she sipped the clear liquid, trying to be a normal teen, to feel comfortable. Finally Amy elbowed her in the side as they stood around and watched some guys clowning and showing off, miming a wrestling match.

It occurred to Julie this was like watching one of those nature shows, where the males of some species fought with each other, paraded around with their fancy feathers, their giant beaks or manes or tails, trying to catch the eye of a likely female. For just one reason – to mate. To have sex. To fuck. To get fucked. To let one of these absurd boys put his penis inside her vagina, move it in and out until he, and presumably she, achieved orgasm. She shuddered and downed the remainder of her cup before turning away from the whole messy scene, wanting to go home worse than ever.

But the room had shifted, the floor tilted, and she’d developed a very strange orange glow around the edges of her vision. She reached out, but the wall fell away, and she stumbled. Amy giggled somewhere to her left. A disgusting odor filled her nose then, an earthy, bitter, smoky scent that made her cough and gag.

“You’ll have to excuse her, Nathan,” Amy said, as Julie slumped against the wall, giving up on walking anywhere for the time being. “She is a little sensitive in the nose. Hates strong smells or something, poor thing.”

Julie tried hard to focus, but that ability remained elusive. Fear tickled her newly drunken brain. Her teeth chattered. Nathan Harrow’s long face loomed in front of her. His eyes were crinkled at the corners, his lips turned up. He must be laughing at her. She frowned, put out her hand to steady herself.

“I’m going home,” she declared, but it sounded funny, slurred, and stupid.

Nathan’s voice slid into her ears, nestled into her brain, quieting her nervousness for a moment. “Relax, Jules. C’mon, let’s sit over here a minute. I’ll get you some water.”

Amy winked at her, but Julie barely registered it as she let Nathan take her hand, lead her to a couch in a far corner of the family room. The party surged around them. Boys and some girls ran around, yelping and hollering, and doing their primitive mating dances. Julie gulped. Nathan handed her a cup. She sniffed it, but his face would not stop moving.

“It’s okay, Jules. It’s water. I swear it.” He leaned back, crossed an ankle over his knee. She stared at his calves, their strong, bulky muscles covered in dark hair. A strange, warm feeling spread from her feet up her legs and settled right under her dress.

She shifted away from him. But his hand fell onto her shoulder. It wasn’t hot or sweaty or meaty like Bart’s. It was light. His fingertips grazed her skin as he turned to talk to someone on his other side. She sipped the water and stared at him, letting the excuse of being drunk for the first time in her life give her a reason to be rude. His face was a little pockmarked from former acne, his jaw rough with a light beard. She heard nothing, just saw Nathan and wanted him to wrap her up in his arms and spirit her away from this yowling mass of sweaty bodies and noisy near-coupling.

She sighed and put her cup on the table, but missed and the water splashed down onto the dark green carpet. “Oh shit.” She stood, slipping when her sandaled foot hit the mess.

“Better do something about that one, Harrow.” The boy Nathan had been talking to nodded at her. She felt a blush spread up her neck to her face. “Strike when the iron is hot, my man.” The boy faded into the crowd, leaving Nathan to grab her hand and yank her back down onto the couch.

Julie wrinkled up her nose at the bitter, smoky aroma coming from his shirt and hair. He reached behind his ear and presented her with what looked like a cigarette, only a sort of lumpy and badly constructed one. She glared at it, then up at him.

“Whaddaya say, Jules? Join me?”

She shook her head, but it must have looked like a nod. He grinned and got to his feet, pulling her up next to him. She gasped when he held her close. His body was hard, hot, angular, not bad exactly but somewhat alarming. Trying to be calm, to not let him know that she was just about to experience the very first real kiss of her life, she shut her eyes, hoping she looked like Scarlett O’Hara and not like some drunk slut at a high school party.

He kissed her, and she let him; it was… weird, involving a lot more spit than she’d anticipated. His tongue was huge, and she worried her mouth could be too small for it, until realizing he had to be kidding, just joking around, because this was about as far from
sexy
as she could imagine. It was like a donkey was licking the inside of her mouth, a donkey that tasted like an ashtray. She tried to relax, but he gave up after a few seconds and laughed, dragging her behind him out into the yard.

* * * *

They lay on the grass on their backs, and he taught her how to suck in a huge breath of the pot, hold it without coughing, and then blow it out her nose. She managed this after the third try, and by then felt as if she were floating ever so lightly above the grass, making her way up into the tree limbs, then into the sky. “Being high” was a damn good description for this she thought holding out a hand, convinced she could grab one of the stars by its pointy corners and drag it down to earth with her. She giggled uncontrollably until tears rolled down her face. Nathan kept talking, but she heard nothing, only the sounds of her own laughter. Her mother’s voice kept reminding her that she had to “keep her knees together” so as not to end up “just like her, saddled with a kid at seventeen.”

Just as she was about to sit up, Nathan made a sudden move and was on top of her, shoving that giant tongue into her mouth, groaning and grinding his body down onto hers. Her lungs screamed for air; panic suffused her addled brain. All the time she was letting him gnaw on her lips, she could feel what must be his erection, his hard penis, like a live, frightening, separate something against her. She’d read the books. She knew what was supposed to be happening. Her body was supposed to “melt into his,” her clothes should disappear under his “talented hands,” her sex should “yearn for his touch.” But when she realized all he was doing was pressing against her already full bladder, she started laughing so hard he propped himself up on his hands and glared at her in the moonlight.

He frowned, then headed back down to slobber into her lips again, so she shoved against him, hoping to hold off the mouth assault for a minute. He grinned, rolled off her and onto his back, bringing her, giggling, with him. She sat astride his hips. He had his fingers down the top of her sundress, groping for her nipple. She struggled some, fuzzy, sluggish, and a little aggravated at his ineptness. Where was the finesse? The teasing, tingling need? Yeah, it was in books, right where it belonged, she realized, as he laughed when her strap broke, making the dress dangle half off her, exposing the demi bra she’d stolen out of her mother’s dresser. He yanked it down too and sat up, his eyes wide at the sight of her breasts.

She knew her body was more lush, more full than the majority of her classmates. But now here it was, exposed, and embarrassment flooded her every nerve ending, closely followed by a bright shaft of anger. She pulled the remnant of her dress back up and tried to stand.

Nathan struggled to his feet, muttering about being “sorry” and “rushing” and “thinking she wanted it.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and was about to say something when the flashlight hit them both in the face, making her scream and blink and forcing Nathan to turn and run into the woods separating the party house from the one behind it.

Julie kept blinking. Her ears filled with the sounds of girls squealing and boys hollering, “It’s the cops! Run!” Bodies brushed by her, knocked her down, making her lose her grip on her dress. She sat sobbing on the lawn, her obnoxiously large breasts showing. This was perfect. Just exactly what one would expect from her life. Her first real party, first real moment drinking, smoking pot, and getting slobbered on by Nathan Harrow. And now the cops were here.

One of them helped her to her feet, averting his eyes until a lady cop ran up and bundled her off with a blanket mumbling about “date rape.” Julie just sighed and let it all happen, not surprised, resigned to her fate.

* * * *

“I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointed we are with you.”

Julie sat at her kitchen table, head pounding, stomach heaving, and her mouth so dry she wanted to beg for a glass of water. “You are not my father,” she said and glared at the tall man frowning at her while her mother sat, hands folded primly, letting the “man of the house” handle the aftermath of being brought home by the police. Once Julie had reassured the lady cop she had not been raped – date, gang, or otherwise – they had asked for her address and driven her home.

She had hoped to evade the motherly confrontation, noting it was only one a.m. by the time the cop car pulled up to her building. Her mother had been “staying over” with Bart a lot lately, always acting as if she hadn’t meant to, but Julie knew better. Of course, tonight
would
be one of those nights when she didn’t. Even better, both Bart and her mother greeted the police at the door, their mouths set in grim, serious lines as the police told them about the house party, the booze, and the pot. Bart had taken the policeman aside and had a quiet conversation with him while Julie’s mom stared daggers at her without speaking.

Her dress was ripped, her hair a fucking mess, and she was still drunk off her ass, high as a kite. Having never been that way before in her life, she had no idea what to do with her hands, her feet, or her whirling emotions.

“No, I am not your father. However, I feel responsible for you, since your mother and I went out and left you here to do… whatever this was.” He flicked at her dress’s dangling strap while she sat holding the thing up to cover her boobs.

She glared at him. “Don’t touch me, you jerk,” she muttered, getting to her feet. Her mother gasped, putting a hand to her mouth like some kind of Victorian highborn lady. Julie rolled her eyes.

Bart grabbed her arm hard, digging his fat fingers into her skin. “Ow!” She tried to step away from him, but his cloying cologne got up her nose and she coughed, gagged, and almost lost it all over the kitchen floor.

“Go on, sleep it off. But we will have a discussion about this tomorrow.” His dark eyes were full of meaning. Julie gulped, terror making her heart pound. How did her mother not see this, not sense the evil pouring off this man?

She decided to let the drunk Julie speak, thinking it could be her last chance. “You are disgusting. You stink. And I know what you want from me.” She thought her mother might very well faint to the floor. Her jaw clenched when he put his face right up to hers, grinning as he tightened his grip on her arm ever so slightly.

She felt it then – his finger rubbing the side of her breast. Something like a growl ripped from her throat. “I am so sick of you. Get your fucking hands off me.” She kicked at his leg, thinking she should knee him in the groin like they did on television, but he shifted, let go of her arm, and stood staring at her while her mother did her best ladylike horrified face at her daughter. She slid her arm into the crook of Bart’s elbow and they both glared at her like she was week-old road kill.

“I hate you,” Julie declared, speaking to them both but looking straight at her mother. The woman had done nothing her entire life but remind Julie what a burden she was, how it figured she’d get saddled with a girl, how much her life would be better had she not let that asshole get her knocked up in high school. “You never wanted me. You don’t want me now. Tell you what, Mom.” She lurched forward as real nausea rose, making her close her eyes a second. “I’ll figure out a way to get out of your hair if you give this jerkoff the boot. Deal?” She crooked her thumb at Bart, who blew out a puff of air.

Her mother’s face hardened and she took Julie’s elbow, turning her from the kitchen and down the hall. “Excuse us, Bart. We girls need some time together. Don’t go, just sit and wait a bit. I’ll get her to bed.” But the words she whispered furiously in Julie’s ear were of a different sort. “You are acting like a slut and I will not tolerate it. I will not let you jeopardize my chances with this man. He is rich, he wants to marry me and to help take care of you. Why can’t you see that? Why don’t you want me to be happy? Oh, I remember.” Julie’s sobs caught in her throat as her mother pushed her not so gently into the bathroom. “You’re just like him,” she hissed, her face an ugly mask that Julie had never seen before.

Indifference she was used to. Mild annoyance at Julie’s existence, sure. But never this raw, visceral hatred.

“Just like your fucking useless father. Selfish, too smart for your own good. But I will not let you do this, do you understand? You can’t ruin this for me.”

Julie’s chest heaved with a sob. She tried to remember she was supposed to love, to be loved, by someone at least. The woman who had borne her was one of the people who was meant to do that, to listen, and to care about her. But she never had. And never would. “Mom,” she said, her lower lip shaking. “I’m sorry…I…”

“No, don’t start that now with me. I see how you look at him. Don’t think he hasn’t mentioned to me how you flirt with him, tease him. Honestly, I had so hoped you would not be like this… so…” Her mother flailed around with her arms, miming a curvy hourglass shape. “Oh hell, just stop coming on to Bart, okay? I’m trying to make things better for us and you’re acting like this slut with your big tits and… Oh!” She threw up her hands and walked out, slamming the door behind her.