Secret Sins: (A Standalone) (9 page)

Desperate.

Time was slipping away, and the consequences of my stupidity were going to land like an anvil in a cartoon. I’d be flat. I didn’t know what my parents were going to do, didn’t know if my father had even had a chance to tell Mom anything. But I couldn’t get the last half hour back. I’d spent it staring out the window, trying to sort my head out. Identifying feelings for what they were. Useless.

This is fear.

Ignore it.

This is shame.

Pat it on the head and send it away.

This is regret.

Kick it.

I tapped the headset on my upper lip. Lynn’s family knew my family. All my friends were from the same circle. I’d be sent right back home.

E-Y-E-B-R-O-W

I dialed so fast my fingers slipped on the buttons, and I had to start over.
Ring. Ring
. Three beeps.

I put in my number. They wouldn’t know it. I’d always called from the car phone or a phone booth. Never from home. They didn’t know where I lived. Smartest thing I ever did on one hand, because it protected them. On the other hand, when the beep came through, he wouldn’t know who it was from.

So I waited.

When the phone rang, I picked it up in a rush. “Strat?”

He was outdoors. I heard traffic whoosh and the sound of music far away. A party? A show?

“Cin? What’s up?”

His voice was rock candy, sweet and rough, making a beeline to the part of my brain that didn’t do any of the good thinking. He must have caught the remnants of panic in my voice, because he didn’t sound like his usual casual self. And what was up? What could I tell him over the phone from my own house?

“I need you to meet me at Santa Monica and Vine at midnight. At the gas station.”

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Don’t call me that.” As I was finishing my sentence, the doorknob to my room turned.

“What—?”

I hung up before I heard the rest of the question.

1982 – The night of the Quaalude

Palihood wasn’t even a word before my friends got snobby about the wrong side of Pacific Palisades. But it took Palihood House a week and a half to get a reputation, which Strat shrewdly made work in their favor.

Sound Brothers Studios
. They trademarked it on a Tuesday and filed corporation papers by Friday. The sound boards weren’t even set up yet, and they were already stealing business from Audio City.

Their parties were riddled with musicians. Some were at the height of their careers. They expected blowjobs. Hawk Bromberg could scream over classical guitar, which qualified him to get his dick wet within minutes of arrival. It was an entitlement, and that night, he got a look at me in my cutoff shorts and Marlboro miasma and decided he was entitled to me.

I clapped the heel of my denim wedge against the shag carpet and listened to him talk to me as if I wanted to fuck him. I didn’t want to fuck him. I wanted Indy and Strat. I had the keen and unpleasant sense I’d lost them both by not choosing.

Hawk was telling me something about how record execs are all assholes and sellouts. Those cats weren’t artists. They didn’t understand the process (man) and those dudes are about money and not the music (man). Did I dig?

I did dig. His eyes were wet and his lips were dry, and I could dig it. I was as relaxed and happy as I ever got. Tiptoeing through fucking tulips.

“They got a bathroom in this place?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll show you.”

I was like the lady of the house, even though I wasn’t screwing either of the men who lived there. I was polite, I kept my pants on, and I kept my blood alcohol level low. I got to be in love with both of them without having to choose between them.

I wove through the crowd, Hawk behind me with his hand on my back, which I thought nothing of. He just didn’t want to get separated. Indy saw me through the crowd, out of the corner of his eye while talking to Willie Sharp. Lynn winked at me when I passed her. We had to stop a few times to say hi to this one or that, but I was mindful of Hawk’s needs and pulled away quickly to reach the quiet part of the house. Strat was in the kitchen, sitting on the counter with his feet on the island while two girls giggled at his side. One had her hand on his leg.

I told myself I wasn’t jealous because jealous was a feeling—and I didn’t have those. Also, Stratford Gilliam wasn’t mine to get jealous over. That had been established.

The line for the bathroom was down the hall. I would have told him to just go pee in the bushes like all the other guys, but he’d said bathroom, not bushes. Maybe he had to do a sit-down session. Maybe he had a phobia.

“I’ll take you to the bedroom suite,” I said.

You’re rolling your eyes.

I’m rolling my eyes too.

There are some mistakes you only make once because the stakes are so high, you don’t know how to make them a second time. This was one of those mistakes.

I took him through the closet to the louvered doors. The bedroom had a futon and a night table from a thrift store. White blinds over the windows covered the view to the overgrown side driveway.

I pointed at the half-open door to the bathroom. It was done in pink marbelite and floral wallpaper. The house hadn’t been redone since the 1960s, and the new owners were soon-to-be rock stars blowing their wad on converting half the building to a studio. No one had time for swanky bathrooms.

Hawk smiled at me and flipped his sunglasses to the top of his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and older than his years.

“It’s over there.” I pointed again and turned to walk back into the hall. I wanted to see what Strat was doing. It was a compulsion I didn’t understand, but if he was going to fuck someone, I wanted to see it. See her. Or them. Just to make sure I’d completely lost him.

Hawk didn’t go to the bathroom, and I was so lost in my own thoughts and intentions—again, you could see this coming a mile away—that when he grabbed my arm, I was annoyed, not scared.

“What?” I was still being polite, so I cut the sharpness out of my voice.

“You’re really cute,” he said, lightening his grip a tiny bit.

“Thanks.”

“Sexy. Got a really smart mouth. I like that.”

“You can let me go now.”

He did. I was relieved about that for half a second because he closed the patio door.

I crossed my arms and leaned heavily on one foot. “Dude, I’m not watching you pee. Not my thing, all right?”

“What’s your thing?” He stepped closer to me, tongue flicking his bottom lip the way it did when he played guitar. The girls loved that. They went nuts. But he wasn’t my thing.

“My thing is getting a beer.”

Oh, Jesus, that was what he was after? My thing. Indiana was my thing. Strat was my thing. Those two assholes made me feel so damn good and they barely even touched me.

“How do you like it?” His hand reached for me, and I curved away.

“I like it on Wednesdays. Today’s Saturday. Sorry. My legs are closed for business.”

I tried to get around him, but his hand shot out and gripped my jaw. He pressed his fingers together, and my mouth opened. I bent my knees trying to get away, but he held me up.

“Your mouth’s open like a dick-shaped hole.”

Did I mention he was a brilliant lyricist?

I grunted and pushed him away, and he slammed me between the wall and his body, his erection pressed against me. The first hard-on I’d ever felt. I squeaked.

He held two little blue capsules in front of my eyes. I tried to focus, but my entire face hurt from his grip.

“You’re going to love this.” He popped one capsule in his mouth and jammed the other one to the back of my throat. “Swallow.”

I shook my head, trying to scream and failing. He pressed my jaw closed. I tried to breathe, letting the weight go from my legs, but he wrestled himself down with me. I slapped his face, and he took it with a snarl.

“You like it rough. I knew it. I could tell.”

I couldn’t move. We were crouched in a corner, his knees and the hand on my mouth leveraged against the wall. His face was slick with sweat, and his tongue kept licking a dry spot on his lips.

I
hmphed
against his hand. If I spit enough, maybe it would slide off of my face. Maybe someone in the party would hear me scream over the music. But the extra spit dissolved the gelatin capsule, and my mouth was flooded in bitter juice.

“Good girl,” he said.

If I’m so good, why are you still holding me down?

I couldn’t say that with his hand over my mouth. If I could move before the Quaaludes took effect, I could get to Strat or Indy and they’d protect me. But once they were in my blood, I’d be high and horny. I wouldn’t be myself. I’d probably open my legs like it was Wednesday.

He could fuck any girl he wanted. That party was full of pussy for guys like him. Why me? I wanted to ask, but he still had his hand over my mouth. The other hand pulled my knees apart.

“You’re such a pretty little thing. Think you’re so tough. Everybody wants you. Did you know? We talk about it. How we want you and you don’t give it up. Well, now we can talk about how I got you to give it up.”

I breathed hard through my nose, my hands curled into his jacket. I didn’t know how to get away as he kept saying things meant to flatter and arouse me.

“I see those nipples under your shirt. So tight. Baby, you’re so sexy. You’re gonna want it so bad in a few minutes. You’re gonna beg for it. Don’t fight it.” He pushed his hand up the inside of my thigh, fingers reaching into my shorts, touching my skin. My actual pussy.

I kicked, and one of my denim wedges came off.

“See?” he said. “Not dipped in gold.”

I squealed and squirmed anew, and he got the crotch of my shorts in his fist and pulled. I slid onto the carpet, and my shorts came down to mid-thigh. I opened my mouth to scream, but he shoved four fingers in it, blocking the sound.

There was a slap from somewhere, and I thought he’d hit me, but I was wrong. I could smell and hear the party, and suddenly Hawk was off me. I gulped for air. I pushed him away but only swung in the air. I was just completing an action I couldn’t a second before.

“Hey, man!” Hawk shouted, but it was too late.

He bounced off the closet door, and Strat punched him in the face. The two girls from the kitchen were in the doorway. The one with a lipstick-smeared face ran away, and the other stood in shock and horror as Strat pulled his fist back again. The muscles of his back tensed and stretched, moving the musical staffs like undulating waves.

It landed with a crunch. The girl screamed and looked at me, which was when I realized my shorts and underwear were right above my knees.

“Tell him you wanted it!” the girl screeched from the doorway.

“What?”

“He’s gonna kill him!” she shouted.

As if in answer, I heard a crack and the closet doors rattling. I tried to get up, and my hand landed on one of my denim wedges. I landed on my elbow.

I didn’t feel anything. That was my normal state of being, but this particular numbness covered confusion and hurt. I got to my knees as Strat hit Hawk again.

The girl who had been in the doorway was pretty brave. She got between the two and tried to push Strat away. She definitely made it harder for him to get a clear shot, and the time she bought was enough to get Indy in the room.

It all happened so fast, with such complexity, that my shorts were still down. That’s what stopped Indy in his tracks. Not the blood smeared across the Grammy-winner’s face. Not his partner’s pulled back fist. But me. My naked body.

Shit.

I pulled up the shorts.

Indy turned to Strat and put his hand on his shoulder and pushed, wedging himself between Strat and his punching bag.

“What’s happening?” Indy said it so gently, it was a harmony of a hundred thousand heavenly tones.

“Fuck him.” Strat spun to me, and Indy followed.

I was on my knees, butt-to-heels, arms crossed over my chest. “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine.” Strat’s words were clipped.

With his eyes, Indy took me in, then his friend, then turned to Hawk, who was just getting his feet under him with the help of the girl with the smeared lipstick.

“Get out,” Indy said, swinging his arm wide. “All of you. Out.” Indy helped me up. He looked me in the eye. “What did he give you?”

“Lude.”

He shook his head. “I wish Strat killed him.”

Oh fuck. Was I going to cry?

For the love of fuck.

Stop it.

He put his hand on the back of my neck. The next thing he said was so gentle and strong, and his voice sounded like a layer of gravel floating on the deep blue sea.

“You’re safe now.”

The sea rose, moved forward, curved to bubbling white at the top, and dropped on me. I couldn’t stop the stream of emotions any more than I could have used matchsticks to hold up a tidal wave.