Stay Vertical (2 page)

But I felt sorry for Madison because she didn’t
need
to be so flinty and brittle, such a tough chick. I kept thinking if she wasn’t such a hard case, she would attract a different sort of boy, a boy who might value her instead of shoving his winky dink down her throat. Her type of boy spent his time riding motocross, making their own fireworks, and stealing cough syrup from CVS. However, what was her option? It was either the thugs from juvenile hall, or the guys on their way to a comic book signing. Surely there must be some middle ground. A boy who was manly and rugged, yet intelligent and sensitive. Until then, I was fine with my books and spreadsheets.

There
was
one boy who stirred something in my deepest recesses. It was so forbidden I couldn’t even mention it to Emma, much less my sister Maddy. My neglectful mother Ingrid had somehow managed to attract a boyfriend who moved in with us. Cropper Illuminati was supposed to be a brilliant businessman, but he still came across as someone who had climbed into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t looking. Maybe it was his low hairline and long swinging arms that made him look just a couple years more modern than Neanderthal Man.

Cropper wore a black leather “cut,” which I guess stands for “a leather jacket with the sleeves cut off.” On the back he flew the colors of his motorcycle club, The Bare Bones, of which he was President. I was rarely home so I didn’t get to know his Neanderthal personality very well, but The Bare Bones allegedly comprised about ten successful companies between Cottonwood and Pure and Easy, their headquarters. Cropper definitely had an exciting, dangerous aura about him. Aside from their legit concerns such as an army surplus store, a live sex soundstage, and an indoor archery range, they were definitely involved in gun running.

Anyway, on one of my visits I discovered that Cropper came with a sleek, dark, devilishly handsome son, Ford. When Ingrid told me there was a teenaged boy there, I’d just assumed he was a smaller, younger biker goon—a Cropper Jr. But the first time I ignorantly, literally, stumbled on Ford, he smashed every atom of preconceived notions like that right into smithereens.

I was traipsing into the garage to see if there was any motor oil. Emma’s “check engine” light was on, and the dipstick said that no one had added oil since—well, since Cropper’s knuckles were dragging on the ground and he was clubbing women over the head. Which he still probably did, as far as I could tell. Anyway, in the dim half-light something in my peripheral vision moved just as I was reaching for the plastic bottle of oil. Gasping, I twirled to face the rat or raccoon.

I squinted to make out the man’s silhouette. He straddled a workout bench lifting some kind of dumbbell. He was clad in those exquisitely tight boxer briefs that leave nothing to the imagination, but my innocent eyes took forever drinking in the sublime depth, the texture, the heavily corded lushness of his torso.

I hadn’t even known such muscles existed, much less cared. Even in the dim light, I could see that his fawn-colored, creamy skin was more flawless than mine, as though he’d never had a zit in his life. His sublime hooked, Roman nose had a slight bump in the bridge, lending him a tough ambiance. He barely exhibited any exertion as he hefted what looked like a big old honking dumbbell, his silken eyebrows frowning with concentration, his bicep flexing with ripples that resonated deep inside my uterus.

He must’ve heard me lumbering around like an idiot, but he barely flinched as I ogled him.
No doubt he’s used to being admired
. Every lift of the dumbbell tweaked a similar, tiny silver barbell that pierced one of his coppery pebbled nipples.
I’m looking at a man’s nipple, and it’s turning me on.
I was no damned rug eater.

He had such a lush, silken mane of black hair my mouth actually started to water. My nostrils flared as they detected some faraway male pheromones. It was probably the first time in my dorky life I’d even been
close
to any masculine chemicals.

I must have stood there so long that irritation finally flickered in his eyes. They looked heavily lined with smoke like a sultry Caravaggio study. I could see that he barely registered my presence. He was too cool to look at me, just froze. I was only a little girl, way too immature and unseasoned to be of any interest to him.

“Yeah.” His voice was deep and resonant, too. A man’s voice, not a teenager’s. “You need something?”

Oh boy, did I need something.

I stupidly stammered something idiotic and stumbled my way out of there again. I was so overwhelmed by hormones, I didn’t even tell Emma what I’d seen. I just upended the oil bottle into her engine, and the juice between my thighs trickled just as viscously as I fidgeted on my feet.

I was rattled beyond belief. That was the first time I remember feeling truly womanly and adult. The sudden rush of hormones that surged through me was new and frightening. I never turned back into the dull, blasé, uninterested girl I used to be. From then on, I was on the lookout night and day, but for real men, not boys.

I didn’t find any in my crowd, and I threw myself into my studies with even more passion now. I channeled my sexual energies into work, scoring a scholarship to UC Berkeley. With a master’s in civil engineering under my belt, I devoted my twenties to selfless do-gooding, designing water irrigation schemes for African villages.

Of course I found a few decent lovers along the way. A couple I even imagined I was in love with for short periods of time. But the volunteer life is a nomadic, haphazard one. With workers from all countries of the globe, we were like strangers in the night, bumping heads. We always said “keep in touch,” but we never did.

I had re-upped once already by the time I figured out that something was wrong with my mother. I had served twenty-two months of a two year contract in the harsh, broiling desert of Northern Kenya. I lived in a wooden shack and shat into a hole in the ground. I slept under the stars at night with my ear against the still-warm sand, listening to the thumping dance of tribespeople’s bare feet. Up near the Sudanese border life was dangerous, with constant raids from bands of brutal, starving guerillas coming to take our dehydrated goats, our one bottle of Tusker beer.

In a way, I see now that it was good training for the life I would lead when I returned to Arizona.

I never would’ve figured out that Ingrid was even sick but for a chance phone call from an old family friend. Don was probably Ingrid’s last remaining real friend, the only person who ever went to her house. Especially now, as Don told me, she had even stopped dealing crystal.

“I don’t think she’s well,” Don said.

I squinted against the glare from the sheet of Lake Turkana. Red-skirted men spear-fished from filthy dhows. “She’s never been well. Can you be more specific?”

Even halfway across the globe, I could hear Don sigh. “I think she’s physically ill, June. She’s lost a ton of weight and her skin’s yellow. She complains of a lot of stomach pain and she pukes everything she eats.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Of course she hasn’t seen a doctor.”

“Of course not. I tried to take her, but of course she wouldn’t leave the house. June, I’m serious. I wouldn’t be calling you in Africa if I didn’t think something was seriously wrong.”

We could think of no one else who could twist Ingrid’s arm to visit a doctor. I somehow wound up agreeing to take a little sabbatical and go in person to see what was up.

I knew from infrequent talks with my twin Bobby—called “Speed” now in his association with The Bare Bones motorcycle club—that Madison had given up her nurse’s job in Flagstaff and was living with Ford in Pure and Easy. Yes,
that
Ford, the obsession of my childish fantasies. My hard-as-nails sister Maddy had landed that wild stallion who had disturbed me so mightily in the garage. I don’t know what had gone on while I was busy tutoring nerds at Emma’s house, but somehow those two had hooked up, and it made sense. It actually made sense.

Cropper had died last year and Ford was now President of The Bare Bones, running Illuminati Trucking out of an old airplane hangar on some mesa. Maddy had a new nurse’s job in Pure and Easy. Madison and Speed were much closer physically to Ingrid as the crow flies, but there was even less of a chance they would go check in on her. At least I spoke with Ingrid once a year or so out of some warped sense of obligation. I guess I couldn’t bear the thought that Ingrid would die in her rickety, leaky mid-century modern home, and the mailman would smell her a month later.

Ingrid had never done the tiniest little thing for me. She had ignored and neglected me, never asking me the smallest question about how my life was going. I basically raised myself with no help from her. Why was I ending my service with the Peace Corps, dropping everything I knew and loved about Africa, to go and help her?

Because no one else would.

LYTTON

L
ytton slammed his hips against the woman’s ass. He was buried so deeply inside of her he feared he might explode already, and that wasn’t very good Dominant behavior. A good Dom used all the tools at his command to control his own orgasm—Lytton never particularly cared about the orgasm of his partner.

It was the most exquisite cock and ball torture when he made his slave snap the two-part leather studded cock ring around his penis. It wrapped below the balls and squeezed them prominently, while the second ring constricted the cock at the base. Lytton knew that everyone admired the way his long, thick phallus jutted from the cock ring, and he usually made them pleasure him orally until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

Today, that tongue-lashing had been much shorter than usual. For some reason Lytton was ultra-sensitive today—maybe the strange high-pressure front moving into the Happy Jack area. A cold air mass was pushing down from Alaska, and that always made him jumpy and reactionary to every slight stimulation.

So Lytton flipped the girl over and finished his workout by sliding his prick in to the hilt. He loved watching the action in one of several mirrors affixed to his playroom walls. He even forced the slave to watch, wrapping her neck chain around his wrist and yanking until her eyes bulged from their sockets.

“Admire me, bitch,” he growled. But he was looking at his own reflection in the mirror.

Obligingly, she wiggled her ass—about the only part of her body she could wiggle, Lytton had trussed her so well. He hadn’t gagged her, though. He wanted to hear her obey and praise him. “Oh
God
yes, Sir. You are fucking divine. You are so divine you are holy. Your ass is like a slab of beef.” He slapped her flank with his palm, correcting her. “Nicely marbled beef.”

Lytton liked this slave. She was flowery with her words, a trait he encouraged. The usual “oh God your cock is so big” had gotten old a long time ago. He didn’t even usually bother remembering their names—some chicks would do anything for an ounce of Eminence Front—but he thought this one’s name was Diane.

Diane was right. His glutes contracted beautifully every time he slammed into her pussy. His left deltoid shimmered as he gripped her by the waist, and his lumbar muscles undulated nicely as he uncoiled his spine with each thrust. If he swiveled his hips a certain way and fucked her in time with the slaps he peppered her red ass with, he could even admire the red and black, stylized tribal tattoo of an eagle draped over his entire shoulder.

The ink had seemed rebellious five years ago when he’d first gotten angrily blitzed and demanded that Knoxie decorate him. Knoxie had tried to say something about not inking blitzed guys, something to do with their blood being too thin and bleeding all over his shop, but apparently Lytton had head-butted him until he complied.

The giant goose egg on his forehead had backed up Knoxie’s story, but the design was absolutely stunning, and Lytton never once regretted it. Every time he looked at it—which was often—he was reminded of his unalienable birthright, that he was a native son of Fort Apache.

No one could tell him any different.

Lytton arched into Diane and spanked her so soundly her piercing cries were probably completely real. He was so pleased with what he saw in the mirror that he lost his supreme control and ejaculated.

Digging his fingers into her waist, he held his breath as the overpowering waves of ecstasy rolled through him. His balls contracted up close to his body, wringing the utmost exquisite torture from the leather squeezing every last drop of semen from them. Lytton liked it when something hurt so bad it was good.

It was the second time he’d come in the past half hour, no small feat even for a sexual acrobat such as himself. He held Diane tightly to his crotch, but when he felt the blissful waves subside, he practically tossed her away. She would have fallen to her knees, but the suspension cuffs around her wrists were hooked to an overhead bar, preventing that. She just sort of hung there, rotating in the wind like a tetherball.

Lytton had been actually thinking fondly of her a minute ago, but now he had no use for…what was her name again? He was an angry young man, bad to the bone, and he took pride in that. He knew that he had every right to be angry.