Carmen
Buzz, buzz.
I woke up groggily. The world looked like blurry blobs of color through my hangover and my sleep-crusted eyelids. I felt Ben stir behind me, but he didn’t wake up. What the hell was that buzzing? It was driving me crazy. My head hurt and my whole body was sore and weak.
Buzz, buzz.
Ben stirred again. He propped himself up on an elbow and surveyed the room.
I twisted around to look at him. “What is that?” I murmured. I still hadn’t gathered my wits about me. I felt too tired to move.
“I think it’s your phone,” he said. His voice was thick with sleepiness, just like mine. But at his words, I jolted upright.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Where?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I leaped out of bed, still completely naked, and started hunting around the room for the source of the buzzing. “What time is it?” I said in a panic. The light streaming in through the windowpanes was the grayish blue tint of early morning.
I finally found my phone vibrating against the stone floor, hidden beneath my top from the night before. I snatched it up and looked at the screen to see that the caller ID was lighting up with Lori’s number.
“Hello?” I said breathlessly as I answered the call.
“Carmen, where the fuck are you?” came the screeching tone. “I’ve been looking for you for hours! Jesus Christ, we need to go!” Her voice was piercing and not at all helping my hangover headache. I held the phone away from my ear.
“I’m, uh…” I said, fumbling for an excuse. “I got, um…Ben and I, we…” I trailed off again and looked over at Ben. He had struggled into a seat on the bed and was surveying the scene with a calm expression on his face. Even in the middle of my panic, I couldn’t help but notice the muscle tone riddling his arms and torso. He was otherworldly.
“You need to get home, Carmen!” Lori said. “Your dad is going to kill you!”
The color drained from my face. My dad.
She was completely right, of course. I found an alarm clock on the bedside table and saw it was almost six o’clock in the morning. If he wasn’t already home, he was sure as hell going to be there any minute. I needed to get back this second.
Ben spoke up behind me. “I can take you home,” he said calmly.
I considered his offer for a half-second before realizing what a ridiculous suggestion that was. The first thing that popped into my head was an image of Ben and me, trundling up to the driveway of my house on his motorcycle, with my dad greeting us at the door.
“Daddy, this is Ben,” I would say. “I met him at a wild biker party last night—you know, the one you explicitly forbade me from going to?—and we did wheelies on his motorcycle then ended up having the most amazing sex of my life.”
To which my dad would no doubt respond, “Ben, was it? Pleasure to meet you, son. You sure seem like an upstanding young gentleman, and I do appreciate you taking the time to lick my daughter to an orgasm before treating her to a second one with your magnificent cock. Great work. I’d love to shake your hand and congratulate you on a job well done.”
Yeah, that was of course the way it would go. Except, take away the pleasantries and substitute in a lot more bloodshed, gunshots, and, after everything had settled down, paramedics with body bags.
“No way,” I told Ben. Into the phone, I said to Lori, “I need you to come get me.”
“I’m on my way,” she answered. “Be there in five.”
I dropped the phone onto the desk at my side and began scrounging around for my missing clothes. I dressed as quickly as I could, while Ben shrugged on his jeans and lit a cigarette. He slumped back against the pillows and watched me wriggling into my leather pants and tying the drapey shirt behind my neck. I couldn’t find my panties anywhere, but I didn’t have time to keep looking.
When I was dressed, I started to stalk towards the door, then froze. I spun back around to look at him. He hadn’t moved. He laid back against the bed like everything was just peachy, like I wasn’t about to get ripped to shreds by my maniacally over-controlling father, in the very likely event that he was home waiting for me. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then exhaled a mushrooming cloud of smoke.
“I, uh…I don’t know what to say,” I said flatly. The magic from the night before that had gripped me like nothing I’d ever felt or even dreamed about was gone. In its place was a flickering coolness, like coals in a day-old fire. Ben looked like he didn’t give a shit.
But when he rose and walked over to me, I felt it roar back to life suddenly. His presence was enough to shorten my breath. I felt tiny next to him, and unlike last night, this time I knew what it was like to be claimed and taken by this man. I’d never come so hard in my life. I’d never wanted it so badly. I shuddered. The memory alone was enough to send teasing sparks rippling over my skin and between my legs.
“It was nice to meet you, Carmen,” he said. “I hope I can see you again soon.”
I started to say, “I hope I can, too” when the sound of a blaring car horn interrupted me halfway through the thought. “That must be Lori,” I said. The panic had not let go of me. Every time I blinked, I saw a vision of my dad’s eyes purpling with rage. If I got caught like this, I’d never be allowed out of the house again. “I have to go.”
“Give me your number,” he said. He reached to the desk behind me and plucked a marker from a cup. Offering me his forearm, I quickly scribbled my number across his skin. The car horn honked again.
“I really have to go now,” I said.
“Okay,” he replied simply. He bent down and kissed me again and for one crazy moment I considered not going home. Why not just stay here? These few hours were the best I’d had in months—no, years—heck, maybe the best ever. I’d felt free and smooth and not chained down like I always did. I hadn’t felt this good since before my mom died. Since my father had decided to start playing jail warden.
But the third honk brought me plummeting back to reality. I needed to go, right now. I broke the kiss off and looked at him as hard as I could. I wanted to sear the image of Ben—his body, his soft mouth, the tattoos swirling across his chest—into my retinas so I would never, ever be able to forget it.
Then I turned and ran out.
“You need to tell me what the hell you got into last night,” Lori demanded as soon as I scrambled into the front seat of her car.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” I replied. I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t bear to look at Lori right now. There was too much of a crazy emotional storm building up in my chest.
“Did you sleep with him?” she asked excitedly.
I didn’t answer.
“You did, didn’t you? Carmen, that’s fantastic!” She squealed happily and drummed her hands on the steering wheel before beginning to batter me with questions. “How was it? Was he good? Are you going to see him again?”
It wasn’t until my sobs got loud enough for her to hear that she realized I was bawling.
“Oh, my God. Carmen. Car, baby, look at me,” she said in alarm. “C’mon, honey, it’s okay. Couldn’t have been that bad. Shh, shh.”
Words blubbered out of me in response, none of them making any sense. But Lori knew me well enough to just stroke my shoulder with her free hand as we shot down the road as fast as she could manage. I eventually gave up trying to explain and just let the tears flow.
By the time we reached the front of my house, I was mostly calm. But I felt hollow and thin. My eyes were swollen with insufficient sleep and the overwhelming emotions.
“I’ll call you later, okay, honey?” she said sympathetically as we pulled to a stop. I nodded and wiped the streaked mascara away from the bags beneath my eyes. “Now get inside. I don’t see your dad’s bike, so hopefully he’s not home yet.” She patted my head one more time before I climbed out.
I raced to the front door and jammed my key in the lock. “C’mon, c’mon,” I begged, “open up, please.” It finally gave way and I burst inside as Lori drove away.
I shut the door behind me and paused for a moment to listen. The house was deathly still and completely dark. No lights shone on the ground floor. So far, so good. I just had to make it to my room and climb into bed. Then I’d be safe enough to sleep for a while before I had to wake up and interpret the insane twists my life had taken over the last twenty-four hours.
My thoughts were a swirling mix of my father, the biology tests looming in front of me, and, underneath it all, Ben. What was I supposed to make of everything that had happened with him? I shook my head. That would have to come later. For now, safety lay in my room. Everything between here and there screamed danger.
I looked up from the bottom of the stairs. From what I could see, the light in my father’s office wasn’t on. I slipped off my heels and crept up, one stair at a time, craning my neck to see if there was anything moving on the second floor.
My feet made shushing noises in the carpet. I reached the top landing. No movement. No light. My room was at the end of the hall. I relaxed and let out a long, whistling sigh, letting the tension seep out of my shoulders. Taking the five long steps to cross in front of my father’s office to the door of my bedroom, I reached out a hand to grab the knob.
But it opened before I could get there.
My father stood framed in the doorway. He was a massive, glowering hulk. I could almost swear his eyes were shining through the darkness. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and I could see one angry vein thudding in his forehead. When he spoke, his words were brutally short and vicious.
“You’re in a lot of trouble, Carmen.”