Chapter Sixteen

GEORGINA

 

 

Desperation and mortal terror took the wheel and I ended up in the parking lot of the club that had been my original hunting ground for The List. I almost went in there, but the twang of guitar and a mellow voice filled with sadness reached me from the other side of the road. It drew me in, singing to the pain in my heart.

I stormed across the street into the country and western joint, sat at the bar and downed three shots in a row. Fury blurred my thoughts as much as the alcohol, but even then, I knew I was about to do the dumbest thing I have ever done. And I barely cared.

I only cared about completion. As though if I finished my list, everything would be okay.

Completion was the only thing I had left to cling to. I had to scratch that last item off my list—I had to. It was as though crossing it out would cross out all the pain I’d ever known, would stop the ticking time bomb inside me in its tracks. Black slugs, eating me from the inside out …

With dry, sore, determined eyes, I scanned the club. Men drank at the bar made of old fence palings, men played pool, men sat around watching a dog race on a big screen. I was one of very few women in here. This should be easy. From my seat, I spotted two guys sitting in a booth in the darkest corner of the timber-filled space. One was tall, thin, and wearing clothes that would have been better suited to someone twice his weight. They swamped his lanky body but didn’t hide the prominent Adam’s apple or the knobbly bones of his wrists. When he caught me looking he elbowed the guy next to him, gesturing toward me with his head.

His friend had painted-on skinny jeans and a shirt that gave the impression of someone trying to be a cowboy. He had long brown hair and a nice enough face, if it weren’t for how he leered.

I knew those looks they were giving me. They were the same looks I got from the kind of guys who back at school would tease me about being fat while staring at my breasts. I could see even from here they were assholes.

I walked right up to them and sat down at their table.

“Hi. I’m Mary,” I said.

“Rick,” said the wannabe cowboy.

“Austin,” said the other.

“You guys up for a threesome?”

A cynical part of me had learned something these past weeks. I was attractive, attractive enough that most men would at least be willing to have sex with me if offered bluntly. There would always be those who would be shocked, or gentlemanly, or taken, or gay, but otherwise, sex on a plate was as good as sold. Still, it was no mystery why I was as blunt as a knife made of cheddar that night. Deep down, I wanted them to say no to me like the crazy woman I was, to tell me to fuck off.

“You a cop or something?” Austin retorted.

“No, just looking for a good time.” I tried to inject as much sultriness into my voice as possible but it still came out too fast, almost like a final gasp.

“Nah, she’s a hooker.” Rick tilted his beer up, swallowing it down in long gulps. “We don’t pay for pussy. We don’t need to get high either so move along.”

I should have walked away. But the offense of being rejected stung. I wasn’t that same scared, sick girl who got rejected anymore. I couldn’t be her anymore. I had to do this.

I leaned across the table so they could see the deep valley between my breasts and smiled at them both. “I am not a cop or a hooker.” I delivered each word slowly, eyelashes lowered, my lips caressing each sound. “I’m horny, and I want you two guys to fuck me.”

They wore matching looks of shocked disbelief tinged with a lecherous hope. Austin sat his beer bottle, greasy with his fingerprints, down on the table, and gave me a long up and down look. Then gave his friend a long look up and down. Rick shrugged in a clear “what the hell” expression.

“You want two dudes to fuck you? We are two dudes with hard dicks. We can make this happen. Shit, we even have a room out back tonight.” He clinked his drink with his friend’s, laughed, then paused. “We can go one at a time, right?” he asked.

“Together. All at once, or no deal.”

There was fear in their eyes as they looked at each other. Eagerness too, but fear to be the first to say yes. I arched my back and ran my fingers across the top of my cleavage.

“Fhhhuuuhhhuck,” Austin breathed out. “All right. I’m game. You game?”

“Dude.” Rick slammed back the rest of his beer. “Fine, I’m in. Need another drink first.”

The guys bought a round of shots. I tossed mine back, needing the numbness the whiskey brought to push me along to my goal.

I didn’t sit down, eager to move things along. Rick scooted closer to me and put his hand on my thigh, running it up and down the bare flesh. My first instinct was to push him away. It wasn’t that there was anything particularly wrong with him, except that he wasn’t Blake.

Screw Blake. I’d asked him to do this with me and he refused.

My jaw shook, and I clenched my teeth to hold it still. I could do this with someone else. I could. I would.

The List Georgina is brave Georgina. The List Georgina says yes.

Rick’s fingers were cold. They pressed so far into my muscles that they ached, no gentleness at all—only hunger. It made my breath catch.

The shots had hit my system and my thoughts blurred. I walked away from the table. Rick caught me, pulled me back the other way. “Where ya going?” he slurred as his fingers twisted into the bottom hem of my dress, brushing against my panties.

Where was I going? My body had moved first, but then my mind caught up.

I was leaving. I’d changed my mind. I couldn’t do this. I wanted to go back to Blake.

My insides were at war, each side violent and panicking. Go back to Blake, or get The List finished?

I have to finish it. This is my last chance. Tomorrow might never come.

I let Rick and Austin lead me to the rear exit, each of them with an arm around me, supporting me between them. The more the alcohol ran through my blood, the more it made sense that if I just finished that list everything would somehow right itself.

Yet everything felt so wrong.

Out the back was a long expanse of weedy, derelict alleyway. Cars with flat tires rusted against the curbs, and stray dogs huddled below the scant orange glow of flickering streetlights. The apartments behind the bar were seedy, broken-down wrecks. Their red-brick walls were covered in graffiti. The thought of going into one of those dwellings made my stomach churn.

The thought of being with these two men made it worse.

But I wasn’t backing down.