CHAPTER EIGHT

Crystal

Liam let his weight fell on me, showing me just how much he wanted me. I knew he did even without the obvious evidence. I could see it in his eyes, as well as I could feel it in every kiss he was giving me. The tension in my body got to the point where I could no longer control myself. I was tired of control, tired of waiting. I let my fingers dance up and down his back; his muscles began to tense beneath my touch. He grabbed the waistband of my panties and pushed them down, just to give his exploring fingers a little more space.

“You are so fucking wet down there,” he whispered into my lips. “I can’t think of anything else but making you mine.”

Lord, his words were torture, delightful and intoxicating.

My want for him was strong, almost painful. It grew and burned me from within, making it harder to think. I didn’t want to think. All I wanted was to live in the here and now, with him.

For some time, we stayed like that, mirroring each other’s touches, lips tasting lips. He continued to explore my body, with his mouth following every small move his hands were making, touching me everywhere they could reach, with my dress still covering a part of me. My every breath was filled with delight. But the further we moved with our foreplay, the stronger I could feel that something was bothering him, stopping him from giving in to the night.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, watching the waterfalls of emotions splashing in his beautiful eyes.

“Everything,” he said in a barely audible voice. “This is not how it was supposed to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

I tried to understand if his doubts were caused by the number of drinks he and Stan had during the party. He was thinking too much, I could feel it.

“You deserve so much more than this…”

I still didn’t get it.

“It’s your first time and I want it to be special for you, for both of us.”

“Then make it special,” I said, a bit irritated. It was like I felt he was backing off.

“I will, but not tonight.”

“What’s wrong with tonight?”

“I am wrong. This place is wrong. And… I have no right to take your innocence away, knowing that you might not be prepared for it to happen tonight.”

Now that was news to me.

“You don’t want me anymore?”

He puffed, like I just said the most stupid thing in the world.

“You know I do.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“You, Crystal. You are stopping me from taking what I want so badly, because I know how much this night means to you. I don’t want you to regret things in the morning.”

“Who said I’m gonna regret anything?”

“I know you will… Turning eighteen doesn’t mean you are ready for this.”

I watched him for a long minute, maybe longer. I don’t know. I think I lost track of time when he said that I was not ready… I felt so small. And as humiliated as never before.

“Get out,” I said, feeling like I was about to break into tears. I didn’t want to see him, ever again. No matter how much I still wanted to be with him, to be his.

“Crystal, please…”

“Out!” I repeated, pulling the top of my dress up to cover myself.

Slowly, he rose from the bed, put his shirt on and walked to the door, without saying another word. Just before leaving, he turned around and looked at me one more time, but my mind was no longer thinking straight to decipher the meaning of that look. I was too ashamed to tell him to stay and just sleep in one bed with me, then talk again in the morning and maybe make plans about another night together.

I let him go and shut my eyes, hating myself for being too weak to resist him, for letting him so close to me, for showing him that he did mean something to me, for letting him do things I had never let any other guy do, for giving him full access to my body and soul that I already knew would hate him for as long as I lived.

I didn’t remember leaving the house. All I knew was that I needed to breathe some fresh air, unwind and maybe have a few real drinks that were not coke or fruit juice. I tried to remember the name of the bar I knew my classmates visited from time to time – the place sold booze for everyone crossing its threshold, no matter of the age.

I took a taxi and gave the driver the name of the godforsaken bar. In less than fifteen minutes, I was there, surrounded by the crowd of smashed boys and girls who also looked too high to believe that alcohol was the only strong thing running in their blood.

I shivered from head to toe, not sure if that was because of the surroundings that scared the shit out of me or because I was too broken to give a damn.

I walked through the red glass door that looked like a door to hell. And to be honest, from the inside the place did look like hell. The smell of cigarettes hit my nostrils, smoke burned my eyes. Something inside was telling me to leave the damn bar, as soon as possible, and never come back. But I ignored my inner voice, and kept pushing through the crowd, to where the bar was.

I sat on one of the stools and waved for the barman to take my order. A girl on my right was crying. Her mascara ran down her cheeks in ugly black lines. She turned to look at me and I saw the reflection of my own pain in her eyes.

“Guys are dicks,” she muttered through her sobbing. Then she swallowed another drink and jumped from the stool, landing right on her ass.

“Are you okay?” I asked, hoping she didn’t break anything.

“Never been better,” she slurred. I helped her to her feet and she walked out of the bar.

“What shall I serve you, doll?” The barman asked.

I turned around and ordered a shot of tequila. Then another one, and another one…

Trying to drown my sorrows in shots was not the best way to end my birthday celebrations, but I couldn’t care less. I got to the point where each new shot made me feel higher and even less caring. People and voices around me mixed in one foggy illusion. I couldn’t distinguish a single face. They swayed in front of my eyes, as if I were in a fun house, going from one false mirror to another.

“Hey, Sweets, wanna dance?” Someone asked behind me.

I turned around, recalling my failed dance with the guy of my dreams and smiled. “I do.”

He helped down from the stool; I felt my legs shaking, as if the ground started to move beneath my feet. It was weird and wrong, but like I said – I didn’t give a fuck.

The dark-haired guy and I went to the dance floor, full of sweaty couples, making out and laughing uncontrollably. I was kind of jealous about how happy they looked, no matter how screwed the place and people around them were.

The stranger wrapped his arms around me, letting them slide up and down my back and then down to my ass.

“You smell like heaven,” he said into my ear.

His wet lips started to trail sloppy kisses down my neck. Our moves were footless, but we kept dancing, too smashed to pay any attention to the music rhymes.

I never considered myself as a careless and reckless person, but tonight the danger allured me. I knew I would regret it as soon as the morning came, but right now, I wanted the searing smell of outrage happening around take me away.

My hands gripped the guy’s shoulders, searching for much-needed support, both physical and mental. In return, his arms around me tightened, locking me in a firm circle of muscles. My head rested on his chest. I closed my eyes and my thoughts drifted to the image of the guy I wanted to be with me now. For a second, I imagined my stranger being him. But it was just too good to be true. My world collapsed, and with it, my desire to feel things.

I wanted to die.

With an effort, I opened my eyes and looked at the couple dancing nearby. The guy had a cigarette in one hand, and his other hand wrapped around the girl’s waist. He took a puff and then let the smoke fly out of his mouth, swirling in an artistic way and forming into circles that faded into the air, illuminated by the blue bar lights. The girl turned her head to the right and looked at my dancing partner. Recognition crossed her face. She quickly turned away and said something into her boyfriend’s ear. He looked at us thoughtfully, but said nothing.

I didn’t know how many dances we danced. As well as I didn’t remember going out into the street and hiding in the dark alley behind the bar, with my one hell of a dancing partner crashing his demanding lips on mine.

We kissed like there was no tomorrow. I was surprised to know that his kissing skills got surprisingly better once out in the open air. His moves were not as uncontrollable as they were back on the dance floor, the guy knew exactly what he was doing; it should have been a warning for me. But again, I ignored my inner voice, too shattered to stop his hands sliding under my sweater and then up to my bra.

I didn’t feel the excitement, or anything that would remind me of the things I felt when Liam touched me in the same places. It was like all my senses were off. I did realize that what was going on wouldn’t end up well and I would sure feel like crap in the morning. But my dizzy mind and broken heart were unable to control the situation that was getting way too wrong, way too fast.

The guy whose name I didn’t even know, and to be honest, didn’t want to know, pulled the zipper of my jeans down and showed one hand into my panties.

“Damn, I want to be inside you, doll. You are so fucking hot.”

That was another moment when I should have told him to back off, but I didn’t.

Instead, I pulled his lips back to mine and kissed him deeply. Even through my sorrow-and-tequila-blurred eyes I could see that the guy was good-looking and well-built. I could feel his biceps tighten under his shirt. It made me feel even weaker against him.

He turned me around, and with one hand pinned my hands to the wall in front of me. His other hand moved down my side and to the waistband of my jeans. His lips sucked on my neck. He pushed my jeans down, letting them hang beneath my ass. His hand slipped under the fabric of my panties and then I felt his finger pushing inside me, roughly.

I cried out in pain. It wasn’t too strong, but it made me feel uncomfortable.

“Shh… I won’t hurt you,” he said into my ear. “I want to make you feel good. Do you want to feel good?”

Feel good? I doubted he or anyone else on the planet was capable of making me feel good. But I said, “Yes. Make me feel good.”

My inner voice started to scream again, “Run, run, run!”

I should have listened to it…

“What a catch,” someone suddenly said in the darkness, breaking in our hot-and-heavy game. It was a male’s voice, but I didn’t see its owner.

“Not often do we see princesses like this here,” said another voice that I knew didn’t belong to the guy standing behind me.

I swallowed.

“Looks like we are going to have a lot of fun tonight. Right, baby?”

Only now did I get a chance to see the face of one of the guys talking in the darkness of the alley. He stepped closer and touched my chin with his fingertips. Without warning, his lips crashed into mine.

I turned my face away from him and spat out, too disgusted by the awful cigarette taste of his lips.

“Let me go,” I said to the dark-haired guy who was still holding my hands pinned to the brick wall.

“Later,” he replied with an unhidden irony in his voice. My heart started to beat faster. Only now did I start to realize what was going on and I didn’t know what to do.

Another guy stepped out from the darkness. He was the tallest of the three of them. He came closer and took my dance partner’s place behind me, wrapping one arm around me, while his other hand went down to my panties.

“Nice lace,” he whispered. The other two guys laughed.

I swallowed, feeling like I was trapped and with no way to escape. Tears filled my eyes.

“Please,” I said quietly. “Let me go.”

“I will please you, doll, that’s right. We all will.”

He turned me around and I saw an ugly scar running from his right temple all the way down his neck.

“You will be a good girl, won’t you?” He asked with a wild hunger darkening his eyes.

“Let me go,” I repeated, too scared to make my voice sound louder.

“Don’t you know the story of Little Red Cap? Wolves love playing with girls like you. You should never go to the woods alone. But lucky us, you choose to give the wolves what they want.”

God, help me. Please, help me…

Tears ran down my cheeks. I knew that the more I fought and screamed, the worse things would get.

“What do you want?” I asked the question I already knew the answer to.

“Make you feel good,” repeated the guy I came to the alley with. “Isn’t it what you want too?”

He stood behind me again, capturing me between his body and the guy with the scar.

“I will pay you as much as you want, just let me go,” I said, using the only excuse I could come up with at that moment to save myself from what felt like the scariest of my nightmares coming true.

Surprisingly enough, the alcohol in my blood started to let me go, bringing my lost senses back, one by one, just when I less wanted to feel whatever was coming.

How could I be so stupid? How could I let my anger lead me to the damn bar and then make me agree to the dance that was about to turn my life into a living hell?

What do they say about the stupidity youth is full of? Well, now I knew exactly how stupid a young heart could be, because mine was the stupidest of all.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” the scared guy said. “Someone may hear us here.”

“No!” I protested.

But of course, he didn’t listen. He lifted me up and carried me into the darkness.

I screamed.

He put me down and the next thing I knew, his fist hit my jaw, hard. I felt lightheaded, saw stars.

He lifted me up again and walked deeper into the alley.

When he stopped, the other two guys helped him put me down.

Someone started to pull my jeans. I wanted to protest, but my whole face was on fire. I couldn’t make my mouth move. The dizziness wouldn’t let me go. I felt like the cardboard or whatever I was lying on, was moving beneath me.

I needed to do something, anything to stop whatever was going on, before it was too late.

I opened my eyes and saw the face of the guy hovering over me. It was the first time I saw him so close, he was the one who smelled like an ashtray. The scared one and the one I danced with were standing on my right, unzipping their trousers.

The sound of my panties tearing apart made my fear hit the maximum.

Here it is – the end of the dance…

The guy’s lips captured my mouth. His tongue slipped in between my lips in a possessive manner.

I started to tremble.

With his hands he took off my sweater; one of the other two bastards made sure I wouldn’t kick him while he was doing that; he held my legs still.

Only when my sweater was gone and the guy who took if off reached for the waistband of his jeans to take them off, I noticed something hanging on a chain attached to his jeans pocket.

A knife…

Its silver blade glistened in the light of a half-broken streetlight.

“Kiss me again,” I said, rapidly thinking of how I could use the knife to protect myself.

He smiled, a bit surprised to hear my words.

The other two guys ‘YEAHed’ at my request.

He stopped undressing and bent down again to give me another wet kiss. I let him get lost in it, pretending I was enjoying it as much as he did. And then, I did the only thing that I could do at that moment…

Slowly, I reached in between us, and wrapped my fingers around the knife. Shutting my eyes tight, I prayed…and then sliced my chest as hard as I could.

Only when I cried in pain, the idiot realized that something was wrong. He stood up and the other two fuckers cursed aloud.

“Fucking bitch!” One of them said, quickly putting his jeans back on.

“Let’s get out of here. Now!” The guy I danced with said.

The one whose weapon put an end to their ‘fun’ gave me a murderous look. Then the three of them took off and ran down the alley, back to where I could hear the voices of the bar’s visitors coming from.

Resting on one elbow, I looked down at my bleeding chest. There was so much blood…

I felt like I was about to faint, but I couldn’t pass out without making a call first.

Clenching my teeth, I reached for my jeans lying nearby, pulled out my phone and called the only person who could help now.

“Stan, I need you,” I said into the handset.

“Crystal?” He replied in a sleepy voice. “What happened? What time is it?”

“Take your med kit and come to the address I’ll give you.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“No time to explain, just do what I told you to do. Hurry!” I ended the call, too weak to continue the conversation.

The wound was still bleeding heavily, but I needed to get dressed before my brother arrived. With tears rolling down my face, I pulled my jeans and my sweater back on and waited, waited and waited some more.

 

I don’t know how much time passed before I saw the lights of Stanley’s car illuminating the alley. He shut the engine off, got out the car and ran up to me.

“Oh, my God… Crys… Who did this to you?”

He gently touched my swollen lip.

“My chest,” I whispered, barely breathing.

I felt like I was falling asleep, too tired to keep my body and mind awake. Later I realized it was the loss of blood that had made me feel so tired.

“What?” His eyes traveled down my body to where my hand was covering the bleeding wound. He removed my hand and gasped. Fear and shock mixed in his eyes.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I said, too scared to imagine my parents knowing about what happened in the alley.

“We need to take you to the hospital.”

“No!”

“But you have lost so much blood!”

“Debride the wound and take me to the lake house.”

“This is insane… A doctor needs to examine the wound!”

“You are a doctor! Remember?”

Cursing, he lifted me up from the cardboard I had been lying on, and rushed to the car.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, sis.” Carefully, he put me in the back seat, took his med kit from the passenger seat, opened it and took out a small plastic bottle. Then he poured some liquid on my wound.

I cried.

“Be patient, I need to disinfect the wound.” He took another bottle and poured its contents on a cotton ball, carefully applying it around the wound. “Are you going to tell me what happened to you?”

“Later.” I swallowed another impulse to cry. The wound started to itch.

“Was it something that should be reported to the police?”

“No.”

Stan growled at my short responses.

“You are not being cooperative, sis.”

“Just do your job, Stanley. We will talk later.”

But we never did. Because of all the stupid things I had ever had to confess, ending my birthday in one hell of a place and almost getting raped was the last thing in the world I ever wanted to talk about, or remember happening at all. I made a mistake and I was the only one to pay for it.