Black Iris (16 page)

“Was it Harlan Flynn?”

“No. But I was really horny, and really tired of being a virgin.”

Zoeller laughed. He often looked at me like some strange
new specimen on a microscope slide. “We are so much alike, Laney. It’s incredible.”

I flicked my cig into the river. The water snuffed it with a tiny hiss.

“We are nothing alike. You’re a monster.”

“So are you.”

In the car, he talked. He knew it was my mother’s car, he said, because it was too cold, too clean. He knew I was terrified of her. He pulled out a silver money clip and peeled off half a dozen C-notes to pay for the airbags. I immediately threw them back in his lap. This made him laugh. “You’re overcompensating,” he said, and when I scoffed he snatched the keys from my hand and stabbed one into the plump leather seat. I stifled a shriek. “My mom’s going to kill me, you idiot,” I said, and he countered, “Do you see what I mean?”

I closed my mouth.

I did see.

“Stop living in fear,” he said. “You’re free.”

On the way back Zoeller gave me “homework.” This week I was going to start taking control of my life, beginning with her. When I dropped him off I seriously considered driving onto the lawn and running him over. This psycho had pulled a gun on me. He could’ve killed us both. For all I knew, he was planning to chop me into little pieces in that creeptastic RV.

You’re a monster.

So are you.

Maybe I was trying to prove him wrong. Or maybe I wanted to be a monster on my own terms. If the world was going to constantly knock me down, I could at least choose the way I fell. Controlled descent.

Mom never mentioned the car. A couple days later, everything was good as new.

One morning I dallied in the driveway, my key jutting from
my fist like a claw, and dragged it slowly, deliciously across her flawless paint.

Still nothing.

But later that week when I woke and groped for my phone, the screen was hard to read. I sat up, blinking. A deep scratch ran across it, identical to the one on her car door.

So I began my homework.

NOVEMBER, LAST YEAR

T
he apartment was empty when I got home. Nothing moved inside but tree shadows, skeletal fingers crawling up the walls. I hadn’t been home in days and the scent of blackberry perfume hit me like a drug. I dropped my bag, pressed my hands to my mouth. Tried not to breathe too much of it at once. Sweet summer musk mingling with warm vanilla. I ran through the shadows to her room. Stumbled into a nightstand, knocked something to the floor. Messy as always, her whirlwind presence everywhere, clothes crammed into the bookcase, books on the bed, crushed white stars littering the floor. Crumpled paper. A new poem taking shape. I ran my fingers down the groove carved in her pillow.

Still warm.

I found her on the roof. She sat on the ledge, earbuds in, legs dangling. Not yet full dark, the parfait sky banded with lemon, seafoam, cerulean. Her hair shone like one final sunburst against the twilight.

“Blythe,” I said, standing behind her.

She couldn’t hear me.

Something ineffably sad rose in my chest, a drowning feeling, as if my lungs were filling with water from the inside. My
hand raised but not touching. My voice unheard. I’d spent all my life in moments like this.

“It’s you.” The breeze lifted a golden strand and spun it around my forefinger. “It’ll always be you.”

I untangled my hand and left, unnoticed.

Later that night I was in the kitchen, washing dishes, when she came down. Our gazes slid around each other.

“Armin’s coming tonight,” I said. “Will you be here?”

“Got plans.”

“Stay anyway?”

She smiled unpleasantly at the table. “Heterosexual mating rituals bore me.”

“We had an understanding.”

“My understanding is you’re a selfish cunt.”

I dropped a fork, the jagged clang close to the feeling in my gut. Dried my hands, shored myself up to face her. She wore a challenging look halfway between smirk and sulk.

“Blythe, we talked about this.”

“Talking about torture doesn’t make it hurt less.”

“It’s temporary,” I said, moving nearer, touching her forearm. “It won’t be like this forever. Look at me.”

“It hurts to look at your fucking face.”

“Don’t be like this.”

“I hate it,” she whispered. “And I hate you a little for making me feel this way.”

She shouldered me aside and stalked out of the kitchen.

“Stay tonight,” I called after her. “Please.”

All I got was a cold, crystal laugh.

Mom used to say that if you listen, people will tell you exactly how to hurt them. Because part of us wants to be hurt. We want to know how strong we really are.

Blythe answered when Armin rang the bell. He carried a
paper bag fragrant with chilies and peanut sauce. She slung an arm around his shoulders, walked him to me as if presenting a gift. Kissed his cheek before letting go. Armin looked baffled but amused.

Don’t fall for it, I thought. She’s toying with her prey.

I didn’t kiss him hello. Not with her eyes on us. He brushed my cheek, let his hand drop too soon. The air crackled like gunpowder right before the spark.

“This’ll be a fun night,” Blythe said.

Half a bottle of tequila later, it nearly was.

We ravaged the Thai noodles and lit candles and sprawled on the hardwood with the bottle between us, flames dancing through the glass, trembling over our faces in slow marmalade waves. We sat in a perfect triangle. A St. Vincent song played in the background, a rabid crank and snarl of guitars.

It’s inevitable that three drunk friends with unresolved sexual tension will play truth or dare.

“Armin,” Blythe said, “you know the drill.”

He swept a hand through his hair. His cashmere sweater looked soft enough to melt in the candlelight. “Truth.”

She smiled at him, not kindly, and I read her mind.
So predictable.

“How do you feel about Hiyam being here?”

I’d expected nastiness. Something like,
Have you figured out how to make Laney come?
But somehow she still surprised me.

“I’m glad she’s where I can keep an eye on her,” Armin said. “But I’m disappointed, too.”

“Why?”

He tilted his head back, flame playing over his neck. “Because I’ve made sacrifices for her, put my life on hold, and it wasn’t enough. She threw it all away.”

“You can’t fix her. Just be there for her.”

“I can’t watch her fall apart.”

“She wants a friend, not a bloody savior.”

My eyes shifted between them. “Since when do you believe in saving people, anyway?”

“I answered the question.” Armin faced Blythe. “Truth or dare?”

“Like you have to ask.”

In her own way, Blythe was predictable because she always picked dare.
I never lie, so save your truths
, she said.
Dares tell you more about a person.
The challenge lay in trying to embarrass her. She stood on the back deck and belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner,” deliberately butchering the lyrics while Armin and I collapsed against each other, laughing. She read us her worst poem, which described love and sex through over-the-top astronomy metaphors that made me bury my face in a pillow. She drank more than both of us combined yet seemed more sober, almost eerily lucid. Blythe was at her most charismatic tonight—witty, charged, burning bright.

When she went to the bathroom Armin said, “Did you notice the shadows around her eyes?”

I had, but I shrugged.

“Does she stay up all night?”

“We both do. We pull all-nighters to write papers.”

“Does her behavior seem more grandiose than usual?”

I knew what he was getting at, and it disturbed me. “ ‘More than usual’ is her modus operandi.”

“What about sex? Has she been indiscriminate?”

My throat did not want to release words. “What?”

“Has she been sleeping around lately?”

“I’m not going to report her sex life to you.” My hands were in fists. “And she’s not indiscriminate. That was just a phase.”

“It’s a phase that repeats. Be careful, Laney. She makes poor decisions when she’s like this.”

“Poor decisions like what?”

“Like crossing the line with friends.”

I lit a cigarette but immediately stubbed it out. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“It’s happened before.” His brow furrowed. “If she starts acting strange with you, let me know.”

“Want me to call if she gets a little gay when she’s manic?”

“It’s not a joke.”

I should’ve shut up, but I couldn’t help it. “What really bothers you? That she’s bipolar, or that she’s bisexual?”

“If I knew which one made her a cheater, I could answer that.”

My mouth dropped but Blythe returned then, her expression blasé.

“Still here? Figured you two would’ve run off to the bedroom by now.”

There was something nasty in her tone. She slammed a shot of tequila and banged the glass on the floor, shooting Armin a challenging stare.

I grabbed the bottle. “Here’s to poor decisions,” I said, and drank.

Things changed then. The liquor dilated our veins and our inhibitions and we got more personal. Dare you to take your shirt off. Truth you to tell me the hardest you ever came. We lounged half-dressed, gilded with sweat and candlelight, spilling confessions. Nerves loosened and we laughed and grew conspiratorial. Armin asked the best truths. Not too prying, but somehow I always ended up saying more than I’d intended. I told them about the night I jumped in Janelle’s pool after a cocktail of vodka and codeine, half wanting to fall asleep forever, and how Donnie carried me home in his arms like a wet kitten. The time Mom had a breakdown at the pharmacy and screamed that she wasn’t sick, she just had moods, the way
other people got headaches or heartburn. Blythe dared Armin to undress and I stared at the feline svelteness of his limbs, the chevron of muscle dipping below his belt. He stripped to jeans. Then boxer-briefs. I dared Blythe in retaliation and she shrugged off her dress as if relieved to be rid of it. She stared at me defiantly, that eternal half smile slinking across her mouth.

“Truth or dare, Laney?” she said.

“Truth.”

“How dull. I already know everything about you.”

“You don’t.”

“Oh, but I do.” She stretched one leg, a ring of amber light rippling over honey skin. Her hand trailed up the inside of her thigh. “I know exactly what you like. Exactly what you want.”

“Fine. Dare.”

“Good girl.” She leaned forward, fire snapping in her eyes. “Show me how you get off.”

The air sizzled. She’d dropped the spark into the powder.

“Blythe,” Armin said, then addressed me. “She’s not serious.”

“She’s dead serious.”

Blythe’s smile became full.

“Laney,” Armin said, more nervously, “you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

The tequila pumped my veins full of molten gold. “Do you want to see me do it?”

“It doesn’t matter what I—”

“Simple yes or no question. Do you want to see me do it?”

A stitch climbed his throat, catching a burl of candlelight. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes. Everything you do is beautiful to me.”

I stood on shaky legs.

Armin jumped to his feet and we swayed into each other. Blythe watched from the floor, eyes shining.

“Don’t touch her,” she said.

His hands fell.

I peered around the living room, my brain trailing a couple seconds behind my vision. Couch. Tumbled onto it, lank-limbed and warm. My skinny jeans were way too tight for this.

Armin and Blythe watched me like hawks on a rabbit, tracking every movement. The drag of my hand to my fly, the rose blush blooming in my cheeks, teeth meeting my lip. His expression was hazy and enchanted, hers fervent and sly. I operated on autopilot. Puppet girl. My skin just another costume, my face a mask. Someone else unbuttoned her fly, shrugged out of her jeans. Goose bumps flashed over her bare thighs. The chill was a shock.

“I feel like I’m on fucking stage,” I said. “Come over here. Both of you.”

They glanced at each other, approached together. Against the dancing candle flame they barely looked human—they were Artemis and Apollo in their burnished skins, hunter and healer. Blythe sat beside me but Armin hesitated. I called him closer with my eyes, the shyness gone. The cushions dipped toward him as he sat on my other side.

Nothing for it but to let the alcohol take control.

Everything was intense now: the scent of berry and pine, the tickle of tweed on the backs of my legs. The gravitational pull of these bodies so close to mine. My hand slid up my thigh and felt like it belonged to someone else. To Armin. To Blythe. I thought of the scrape of his stubble and the graze of her teeth and my hand slipped between my legs, the other tangling in my hair, as if fighting for control of this body. I sensed Armin tensing, Blythe uncoiling. Heard his breath coming fast while hers slowed. And I let go. Let my body do as it wanted, my fingers finding heat, my mouth opening in a desperate gasp. The agave on my breath smelled like sex. I arched against my hand, gritted my teeth. Pressed my finger hard against my
panties, touching the wetness that seeped through, then under the hem to the wetness itself. Armin hovered at my side, his heat washing over me. I stiffened my finger and ran it along the inner edge of one lip and for a moment honestly believed it was his. Something cool and silky curled against my elbow, Blythe’s hair, and seamlessly my mind switched over, imagining those slender fingers tracing me, her fingertip brushing my clit, teasing, maddening.

My left hand fell onto Armin’s thigh and his muscle jumped under my palm. I gripped hard, kneaded the coarse-haired skin. Before he could react I cupped his erection through his briefs. Stroked my thumb along it, riding the ridgeline of a vein. He thrust involuntarily into my hand. As I held him I tossed my leg across Blythe’s, settling it between hers, and her thighs tightened and she let out a soft gasp, eye-flutteringly girlish. If there was any inhibition left in me, that destroyed it. I was gone. I took my finger inside, just a little, not too much not too much control yourself, pulled out and circled my clit. Then again. Again. Each time a little firmer, deeper. Armin was thrusting into my hand, Blythe grinding against my leg, and where my skin touched theirs a current surged through me, two electric arcs meeting and colliding inside my body over and over, a fountain of sparks frothing higher, higher. I took my finger all the way inside. God, I wanted them. I wanted to fuck them both. I wanted his thick cock and her graceful fingers, his rough face and her warm tongue. I wanted to kiss her until I was light-headed and feel the weight of him crushing me to the ground. I cried out at the ceiling, not caring how animal I sounded, how raw. My head was a kaleidoscope of sensations and when I came there was no clarity, just a whirl of color and touch, fiery red and smoky blue overlapping and blending and blinding me with ultraviolet bliss.

I stared at the wall across from us, a watercolor painting of
shadow and flame. My mouth hung dumbly. He was still hard and she was still tight. I pulled my hands into my lap, drew my knees together. Kept facing that wall.

“Holy fuck,” Blythe whispered.

The candle at the center of the room pulsed like a heartbeat. There was something church-like about it—the throbbing light and hushed voices, the air heavy with sin.

Blythe broke the silence again. “That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my bloody life.”

I laughed self-consciously. My hand was still wet. God.

“You win,” she said. “Forever.”

Armin’s gaze traveled the side of my face. “I’ve never seen you like this. I’ve never seen you so . . .”

“Confident?” Blythe said.

“Vulnerable.”

Funny how they saw the same thing so differently. The hint of epiphany in his voice was troubling. I hopped to my feet, arms wrapped around my chest.

“What a tease.” Blythe looked minxish, eyes half-lowered, lips red and fleshy as watermelon pulp. “Who do you think she was thinking of?”

Armin hesitated. “I don’t know. Are you okay, Laney?”

“I’m fine.”