Rosenjack *** Chapter 30
30
...After midnight, we gonna let it all hang out, after midnight, we gonna shake, jump and shout... After Midnight (Eric Clapton)
I had some pretty wild dreams that night. I was sliding down a ramp of warm colored ice while stars flashed past my head. I was with Marjorie at a circus, eating rum-flavored cotton candy and watching a trapeze act where the safety net had been replaced by a pit filled with condoms. Rose and I were walking on a bridge over a deep ravine when the bottom fell out and we started to float down to earth; at the bottom of the ravine we could see a crashed UFO, whose pilots were walking around in a daze. Probably a dozen more like that, all short little snippets and all bizarre.
As the morning came and I was rising gently up toward the waking world, I slowly became aware of a sound close by; a soft sound, almost inaudible, but definitely there; a wet, rhythmic sound, and underneath it, the sound of breathing, soft yet distinctly heavy. Without moving, I tried to open one eye but there was something wrong; my eye was dried out, and when I looked around, my vision was blurred; I had slept with my contacts in again. Marjorie was curled up on her side of the bed, lost in slumber. I continued to look around through a half-closed eye; When my gaze fell on the bedroom door, I saw Rose looking at Marjorie and me in bed; or rather, she would have been looking at us if her eyes hadn't been kind of rolled back in her head, her eyelids fluttering just a little. I gradually became aware that she was masturbating; looking at the pair of us in bed, undoubtedly fantasizing about what our night had been like. I was debating whether to let her know I was awake (and probably interrupting her diddling in the process) or playing possum and letting her continue until she got off. My growing need to urinate almost decided the issue for me, when Rose's sudden soft explosion of breath told me she had reached her goal. I stirred and pulled the blanket aside, then pushed myself up to a standing position, rubbing my eyes to get some moisture back into the contacts. As I shuffled to the door, Rose gave me a crooked little grin and cocked her head to one side.
"Hey stud, how's it hangin'?" she whispered, and I had to laugh in spite of myself.
"Morning, angel. Sounds like you managed to... enjoy yourself," I smiled, and I briefly cupped her face in the palm of my hand as I brushed past her and continued on to the bathroom.
As I stood before the toilet and prepared to relieve myself, Rose came up behind me and wrapped her arms around me, kissing me on the back. Suddenly, she reached for my penis.
"Hey," she said quietly, "what's it like to pee standing up? Let me see," and she reached around to gently take me in her hand, peeking around to see where she was aiming the stream. Partly because she was inexperienced with aiming a stream, and partly because I was almost fully erect, more of it went outside the toilet than in. We cleaned it up together, grimacing and laughing, and Rose promised to be more careful next time, while I promised her there would not be a next time.
I slid back into the bedroom and slipped my pants and shirt on. Marjorie was laying on her back, snoring softly, her gorgeous breasts in full view. I drew the blanket up to her shoulders, then made my way out to the kitchen, where Rose was starting a pot of coffee.
"I didn't expect you back so soon, angel," I said, "in fact, I didn't expect you at all; I thought I'd need to pick you up from Brittany's."
"Yah, well, Brittany needed to be at cheerleading practice by 8, so they dropped me off on the way there." She turned to face me and leaned back to rest her elbows against the counter, her chest out, making the most of her lucious curves.
"I didn't realize you and Brittany were friendly enough to do a sleepover," I said.
"Well, it wasn't just the two of us. Callista and Jalisha were there too, you know, the girls she always hangs out with. I overheard them a couple of weeks ago, talking about it, and I had the idea that if I could get them to let me spend the night, I could give you the chance to..." and she lowered her head and looked up at me through half-closed eyes while holding up her left thumb and index finger in a circle and sliding her right index finger in and out of the circle. "God, I love you so much," I had to say, and she just winked and said, "I know. So anyway, I told Brittany that I always liked to listen to them talking in the lunch room, and that I was kinda jealous of them," this last said with saucy little smirk as she remembered the conversation, "and this and that, and it worked! She invited me to her sleepover, and that's all there is to that." She opened the cupboard to peruse her cereal choices with a finger on her lips; then, "So? How did the date go? I can see how it ended, but tell me the beginning and the middle," waggling her eyebrows ludicrously, "especially the middle."
I launched into a brief description of our supper, then told her about our failure to find a movie we wanted to see. She snorted when I told her about the trip to Larry's, but didn't say anything otherwise. I chewed my lower lip for a second while I tried to think of the best way to tell her about the rest of the evening. Rose prompted, "So, then you came back here, and... what?"
"Well, Marj... your mom... said she wanted to tell me something, but I could see she was having trouble bringing it up. We each had a drink to relax, but she was still having trouble with it. I was rubbing her neck to try to relax her," I said, noting how Rose's eyes sparkled when I said that, "and one thing led to another, and another, and..."
"And you fucked her brains out!" Rose breathed triumphantly.
"Well, yes, at first..." I started, and a cloud crossed her face; something in my manner warned her that there was more to come that she might not be ready for. "Rose, sweetheart... she knows. About us, I mean. She knows we've been... together..." and I repeated Rose's finger poking gesture for emphasis. Rose's eyes grew to twice normal size and her mouth slowly opened in shock. "I know she knows," was my lame finish, "because... she told me."
"She... wha... she... oh god... how... what did she... I mean... we..." Rose stumbled, her dawning horror muting her ability to vocalize, and I held my hand up to stop her.
"Angel, there's something else. I think she only lets herself realize it when she's drunk. I think when she's sober, she keeps it locked so far in the back of her head that she doesn't know it's there. So she doesn't really know that she knows, I mean."
"How do you know that? I mean, what did she say to you that..."
"Well, when we first got back here, we each had a rum and Coke, and that's when I started rubbing her neck. She kept trying to tell me to stop, but only because she wanted to be drunk when we made love. She wanted to get to that frame of mind where she was able to admit it to herself, so then she would be able to tell me she knew about us. But she wouldn't allow herself to say it at first, because we hadn't had enough to really get drunk the first time we did it, so she..."
"First time? Ohmigod, how many times did you guys do it?"
"Just twice, sweetheart, but let me finish. After the first time, she really wanted to finish the job of getting drunk. So we had some more, and that was apparently enough, because that's when she told me. And sweetheart, she wasn't angry or upset! I mean, she wasn't exactly overjoyed about it, but she seems to think that there's more good than bad to us being together. She didn't ask for any explanations, and she didn't tell me to stop... doing it... with you... and angel, there's one more thing." Rose's eyes got wider still, and in them was the question, 'How much more can there be?' I answered her with, "Sweetheart, while we were doing it, she called me Jack." I took about a half-second to consider whether I should share that she also called me Stan, before discarding that idea. No sense in pouring salt on a wound whose size and shape I couldn't even begin to gauge.
Rose was quiet after I told her this, chewing her lower lip while her brow furrowed so deeply I was afraid she might injure herself. The coffee maker spluttered to a finish, so I got down a mug and poured myself a cup, then sat at the table to wait for her to finish her first stab at assimilating the information I had just dumped on her. After a few more minutes, she turned to the cupboard and got down a box of Froot Whirls, then absently opened the box and stood looking inside, not really seeing the cereal. I could almost see the neurons in her head darting off on one tangent and another as her gaze drifted far beyond the confines of the kitchen. For an eternity of perhaps 2 or 3 minutes she stood like that; I wanted to take her in my arms, but I could see she needed the space, so I held myself in check. Gradually, she came back to the moment and gazed at me with such a mix of wonder, hope and fear that I could feel my insides twitching. She took a quick glance down at the cerealbox, which brought her another step closer to the present moment, then her sly smile gradually crept back. "So then, after she told you that, you guys did it again?"
Thank god, I thought, I think we're going to be all right. "Yes, love, we did it again, and that second time, she came so hard that it put her to sleep. Well, the rum probably had a lot to do with that, but it exhausted her. And Rose, get this; the first time we did it, we made it to the Little Death. Marj... your mom... well, she was stunned, and I think a little scared. She'd never felt that before. But it must not have made her too scared, because she was the one who got us started the second time. She really must have wanted it, because she was riding me like a bronco and, uh... screaming..." Rose crinkled her nose at that; I took it to mean I had provided a little more information than she was really ready for.
She settled herself at the table, snacking on handfuls of dry cereal. I reached over to the coffee pot and refilled my cup, then turned to face her. "So, what did you guys do at the sleepover?" I asked, my head filled with vague notions of giggling and nail polish, Tiger Beat and pizza and potato chips.
"Oh, just stuff. You know, just girl junk," she said. Her smile would have been coy, but there was something just a little too vague about it, a little too unsettled, for me to feel at ease.
"Girl junk? Like what?" I pressed. "Like, fingernail painting, or... ?" I glanced at her hands; she wasn't wearing polish, so obviously that wasn't it.
"Oohhh... just stuff, no biggie, just games and stuff, y'know, nothing really. Jeez, Jack, no big deal, eh?" Her smile was starting to wilt just a little, and my sense of unease took another sidling step forward. It was obvious she didn't want to tell me everything, and that scared me more than I cared to admit. It felt like the aura of a secret, a hidden truth, something new for us; something had happened that Rose didn't want me to know, and that was an ugly feeling indeed. I wanted to press her for details, but we were in uncharted territory, I didn't want to make a mistake; didn't want to hurt or embarrass her. I knew I should just let it drop and wait for Rose to bring it to me in her own good time... and yet... I leaned back in my chair, then totally without thinking, blurted out, "Games? You guys played Monopoly or something?"
"No... yeah, I mean, yeah, we played... ah... um... it was..." she shut her eyes tight and rubbed them as she struggled furiously for the words. "It... ah... it was, ah... I mean..."
I reached over to take her hand in mine. "Hey, it's okay sweetheart, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry." Her eyes opened wide as she gazed into my face, "No, Jack, you're not prying, it's just... uh..." Her lower lip started to tremble, and I could see a tear beginning to glisten in the corner of her eye. I had no more doubts about holding her now. I reached over and pulled her up onto my lap, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her head down to my shoulder. "Shh, shh, it's okay," I whispered into her sweet-smelling hair, "it's okay love, really." She pulled back to look earnestly into my face.
"No, Jack, I want to tell you, it's just, I don't know where to start... it's... we... Brittany, she... um..." and she collapsed back onto my shoulder as bitter tears started trickling down her cheeks. As I held her close and wiped away the tears as they came, I could feel the beginning of a savage rage building inside me. What had that bitch Brittany done to my precious flower?
Rose took a few more seconds to wipe her nose with a napkin, and then she came back to herself with a few shuddering breaths. She closed her eyes and snuggled into me, once again the child in need of comfort and reassurance. A blessed responsibility, to be her daddy and soothe her fears; I was luxuriating in the sensation of being able to provide comfort and healing to my beloved. She laid her little hand on my chest and plunged ahead.
"When I first got there, everything was okay. Brittany introduced me to her mom, and she seemed like a nice lady, but I could tell she had a few drinks before I got there. Brittany didn't exactly out-and-out tell me, but I picked up from what she said, that her dad wasn't hardly ever around, and he wasn't there last night, so it was just Brittany's mom and then the girls she invited over, Callista and Jalisha and Arielle and Harmony. We all went in the basement and Brittany put on a CD, I don't even remember what it was. I felt pretty weird at first, like I didn't belong, but they were all cool to me, they talked about movies and junk, and they included me in the conversation and everything, so I started to relax a little, I felt like everything was going to be okay. But then some of the girls started calling boys they knew and teasing them on the phone, saying all kinds of sexy things and just basically trying to get them horny, it didn't take much. Anyway, they told some boys to come over to Brittany's house and bring beer. I started getting really super nervous, like, ohmigod, what did I get myself into? And Brittany and Jalisha took me over in a corner and were talking to me, but I was so scared that I didn't even hear half of what they said, but it was like, they were, like, stroking my hair and rubbing my back and calling me little sister, and then Jalisha said something that scared me so bad I wanted to, like pee my pants or vomit or something. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was something about making a woman out of me, and I knew that these horny boys were coming over and they were planning to get drunk, and I knew there was gonna be sex, and I knew it wasn't gonna be making love like what you and I do, it was just gonna be straight-ahead sex and fucking, and even if it WAS lovemaking, it wasn't gonna be with you, it was gonna be with some stranger, and I got so scared I almost started crying, so Jalisha and Brittany both started hugging me and telling me how glad I was going to be before the night was over. So I went in the bathroom for like 20 minutes and just kept staring at myself in the mirror and imagining I saw you standing behind me, and I was saying your name over and over again, like, 'Jack, come and get me, Jack, come and get me', and feeling like the world's biggest crybaby idiot, and then I started getting really mad at myself, and I almost started screaming at my reflection, but it was so weird, like I was wanting to scream like I was mad but I couldn't stop crying and then I started hiccupping, and that was so weird that I started to laugh and I couldn't stop, and when I came out of the bathroom and I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, and they started getting a little nervous, so Brittany went upstairs and came back down with a bottle of something she snuck from her mom, I heard her say her mom was wasted, and she got a little paper cup from the bathroom and poured a drink from the bottle in it and filled it almost all the way to the top and told me to drink it all at one time. And I was still scared, but I was also angry with myself for acting like such a stupid baby, and I was still laughing like an idiot the whole time, I didn't know what else to do, so I took the cup and I drank a big gulp from it, it tasted sweet like cherries or something, but a few seconds later my nose and the front of my face was on fire, and they were all looking at me and going, 'chug, chug, chug', so I forced myself to finish the cup, but that was a mistake, because Brittany filled it up again, but only less than halfway this time, and then they did it again, like 'chug, chug, chug', and I did, and I drank the whole thing at one time. And then my arms and legs started to get really heavy and warm and tired, but I was starting to feel better, and even though I was still scared, I thought I could probably handle it. And they turned on Q107, you know, the one that's always playing dance music and techno and stuff, and it sounded pretty good to me, and I started dancing, and the other girls were dancing too, and I didn't even get surprised when when Callista and Harmony started kissing and feeling each other's boobs, and it was almost 11 by then, and Brittany was starting to get mad and saying bad things about the boys they called, but then her cell phone rang and it was the boys and she let them in and they came down the basement and there were three of them and they had ALL this beer, and somebody put an open beer in my hand. And I started to feel a little better, because here I was, with all these older girls who danced with me and called me little sister, and the boys seemed okay too, I mean, they were even older, like 17 I think, but they were all just sitting there and drinking beer and laughing, and everybody was just talking and it seemed like that's all that was going to happen, just sitting and talking, and I was sitting there with an open beer, and I took a tiny little sip every once in a while, it tasted horrible, but at least I looked like I belonged. That was the coolest part, really, it was like being older, or like being taken seriously by older kids, and I started to feel pretty good about that, like maybe everything was gonna be okay. And then it was late, like after 12, and Brittany said we were gonna play Truth or Dare. And we all sat around in a circle, and Brittany said it was her house and her party and her rules, so she started it out by asking Harmony, truth or dare? And Harmony said dare, and Brittany just kinda snorted and said, 'you always take dare' and then she said the dare was that she was going to order a pizza and Harmony had to flash the delivery guy, not just her boobs, but everything, had to give him a good five seconds of full frontal, and Harmony just laughed and said 'bring it on'. So Brittany ordered a pizza, and since she was in charge, she got to do another truth or dare for somebody else while we were waiting for the pizza to get there. So she picked Alex, he was one of the guys who came, and he picked truth, so Brittany said for him to tell what girl's pussy he had eaten that tasted the worst. And he got kinda mad at her and called her a bitch and said, whatever girl he said, that girl would be mad at him, and if said no girl, everyone would think he had never tasted a girl's pussy, so it wasn't really a truth, it was a trick question, and Brittany called him a dumb cunt and said, 'pass', and then she picked Rod, and he said dare, and Brittany got the spinner from a Twister game and put it in the circle and said Rod's dare was, he had to lick the naked butt of whoever the spinner pointed to, and Rod got real quiet and started looking at everybody else in the room, and he kinda shuddered when he looked at Alex and Randy, and when he looked at me, I got this cold chill, and I was like, 'oh shit oh god oh shit oh god' and then she spun it and it pointed in between Arielle and Callista, so Brittany said he had to lick both of them, and Arielle didn't want to pull her pants down but she did when Callista did, and Rod licked them both, and I was freaking out so hard cuz I couldn't believe it was really happening, and when he sat back down, I could see the bulge in the front of his pants was really sticking out, and I'm still going 'oh shit oh god oh shit oh god' only like a hundred times faster, like it's a prayer or something. And then the pizza came, and Harmony not only flashed the guy, she, like, rubbed her naked body all over him, like just humping his leg and stuff, and he was so freaked out that he dropped the pizza and ran away without getting the money for it, and everybody was laughing so hard that it made me laugh too, even though I felt so sorry for the pizza guy. And Brittany said Jalisha got to do the next one, and they kinda winked at each other, and Jalisha said Randy, and he said dare, and Brittany was like, mmm hmmm, and Jalisha said Randy had to go in the bathroom with the lights off and take all his clothes off and he had to go in there with somebody else and that somebody else had to take off all their clothes too except they could leave their underwear on if they wanted to, but Randy still had to be naked, and they had to stay in there like that for ten minutes. And then everything got real slow, and real clear, like I was underwater, cuz I knew exactly who she was gonna say, and then she did, she pointed at me and said, 'make us proud, little sister', and her and Brittany just started kinda laughing quietly, and, and then... and then..." Rose stopped to take a breath and gather herself for a few seconds. "And then, we went in the bathroom, and Randy took off everything except his underwear, but I could see how stiff he was, his penis was sticking straight out in his shorts, and then he turned off the light, and I heard him take off his underwear and I knew he was naked in the dark with me, and I backed up until I hit the bathtub, and I sat down on the tub and closed my eyes and wished the bathroom door would open and it would be you coming to take me away, but the door stayed shut, and then Randy was saying for me to come on, and he grabbed my shoulders and made me stand up in front of him, and he promised not to hurt me, he said he wouldn't try to screw me if I didn't want him to, he just wanted to make me feel good, and I didn't stop him when he took off my shirt and unsnapped my pants, I didn't want him to but I was scared what would happen if I tried to stop him, and he unzipped my pants and pulled them down but I didn't step out of them, and then he took my hand and tried to put it on his stiff penis, and I didn't want to, I kept pulling my hand away, but he wouldn't stop, he just kept pulling my hand back, and I knew he was gonna keep doing it, so I just let him, he made my fingers wrap around his penis and he put his hand over mine and started stroking it, like he thought he had to show me how to jack him off, but when he stopped moving my hand, I stopped too, I didn't keep stroking it like he wanted me to, and then he was all over me, like squeezing my boobs real hard through my bra and pinching my nipples and it hurt, and he was grabbing my butt and kinda slapping it, and he reached inside my panties and squeezed my butt real hard, and he was like trying to kiss me on my neck and he tried to put his stiff penis between my legs but I squeezed my legs together and I wouldn't let him, but he just did it even harder, and he forced himself between my legs and was rubbing his penis up and down on my panties, and I thought how good it felt when you and I were dry-humping, and how horrible this was, and I just wanted him to stop, and I said 'Randy please stop, why are you like this, why do you want to have sex with someone you don't even know', and he was like 'Cuz it feels so good, and anyway you're super cute and I'd fuck you a thousand times if you let me', and when he said that my heart jumped a little, like I was still so scared, but at the same time this tiny little spark inside me made me feel good when he said I was super cute, and like maybe he wasn't so bad cuz it seemed like he liked me and he wasn't hitting me or anything, but I still wanted him to stop cuz he was being so rough and he just kept grabbing me and hurting me, and then he pulled my panties down and started rubbing my vagina and I thought he was really gonna do it, I thought he was really gonna fuck me, but for a long time he just rubbed my vagina with his hand and he kept telling me he wasn't gonna rape me but I should just open my legs and let him in, but even though I didn't, he kept rubbing me and putting his fingers on my vagina, but he never put his fingers inside me, it was like he was afraid to or he didn't want to or didn't know how to or something, and that made me feel a tiny bit better, cuz he could have if he wanted to, he could have shoved his fingers right up inside me and I couldn't have stopped him. And somehow I got through the ten minutes and Brittany was knocking and saying we had until the count of ten, and then she counted, but she said, 'one, two, ten' and she opened the door and I tried to cover my body and then there was this horrible flash and I went blind for like a minute, and by the time I finished putting my clothes on I could see again, and there was Brittany holding a camera and laughing, and Randy was trying to put his clothes on all at once and yelling that Brittany was a cold bitch, but that just made her laugh harder. And she showed me the picture, and it was awful, it was blurry but you could see Randy trying to pull his pants on and his erection was pointing right at the camera, and there was me with my pants and panties around my knees and I was trying to pull them up, and I was so glad it was over that I managed to laugh and smile and I said, 'That was a good one, you really tagged me' and she just smiled and told me I was all right, and she said we'd get my cherry popped sooner or later, and it was so weird, but that actually made me feel better, cuz I could have told her she was too late, I already had it popped, and cuz I knew my sex life was so much better than hers, even though I couldn't tell her, it still made me feel better just to be able to think it. And they kinda left me alone for the rest of the night, I mean, like they still talked to me, but they talked a lot more to each other. And the boys left probably around 2 or 3, and the girls laid down and went to sleep, but I couldn't sleep, I just lay there in the corner all night, staring at the wall and waiting for morning so I could come home to you guys. And then it was morning, and Brittany was kinda crabby and told me they had to leave but they could drop me off on the way, and... here I am," her little arms wrapped around my neck and pulled me in close for a long, grateful kiss, "safe and sound with you."
During this roller coaster ride, I was in the grip of a fear and an anger such as I had never felt before. The majority of the anger was directed at myself, for so carelessly and cavalierly letting Rose walk into such a dangerous and frightening situation. But a healthy portion of it was reserved for Brittany. Even if she did think of Rose as a little sister, the whore had treated her like an experiment, like an entertainment. I swore this would not go unanswered.
"Oh god, sweetheart, I'm so, so sorry I let this happen to you," I started, but Rose shushed me and put her hand on my lips.
"No Jack, stop, it wasn't you, it wasn't your fault, it was my own fault. I was so anxious for you to make love to my mom that I jumped at the first chance I got without thinking it through. But I'm okay, really Jack, I really am."
"Even if that's so, I can't let it go. I can't let that little bitch think she can do this to my Rose and not suffer any consequences."
"Oh, no Jack, no, please please don't do anything. I really don't think she meant to hurt me, I really think she thought she was helping me, cuz she thought I was still a virgin and she just wanted to help me change that. I couldn't bear it if you did anything bad to her, I swear I couldn't. Please Jack, promise me you won't do anything to her, swear it."
My love. My sweet, beautiful, trusting, generous, innocent love. I knew that I couldn't resist her plea... for now. I let her know with a smile and a snuggle that I would honor her request. But I promised myself that before much more time had passed, there would be a reckoning. As Rose got down a glass to pour herself some milk, we heard Marjorie getting out of bed and making her way to the bathroom.