Rewired (The Progress Series) Page 5

  Wiping the blood from his lip, Jesse’s head twisted back, meeting the glare of the bartender, who already had a cell phone to his ear.

  Fuck.

  Sobering from his natural high, Jesse ran out the door and quickly got into his car. He was driving down the street before he realized that he had even put the key in the ignition.

  When he had left his apartment an hour earlier, a carnival had been delighting his senses: The loud music had been horseplay and fed his ears like cotton candy—sweet, uninvited, and boisterous. Constant movement had danced around him as colors and lights pierced his delicate and oversensitive eyes. But just an hour later, on his drive back to the apartment, he felt like a hangover had already begun. His head ached and his stomach turned.

  Watching for the police on the freeway, six miles away from his apartment, Jesse caught a glimpse of his swollen lip in the rearview mirror. He wiped his teeth and licked his lip with his tongue, tasting the metallic bitterness of his own blood as he felt the waning rush of adrenaline pace itself.

  Distracted by the mirror’s reflection and the thoughts of Charlie creeping back into his head, he didn’t notice as the line in the center of the road disappeared. He was now driving on the shoulder of the highway. Jerking the wheel too far to the left to find his lane, he found himself spinning backward, then forward, at sixty miles per hour.

  When his vehicle finally came to a stop, it was in the weedy and overgrown median, facing the opposite direction, deep inside the ditch. There was no way he’d get it back onto the freeway.

  He let out another exaggerated sigh with his neck against the headrest. Scratching his forehead, he unbuckled his seatbelt, fished out the receipt from his pocket, and dialed Charlie’s number.

  Chapter Five

  After slamming the front door, Charlie stood, lightly shaking her keys in her hand. With her frustration at its peak, she seethed, unable to control the twitch from the corner of her mouth.

  Silence.

  Don’t do it, Charlie. Not tonight. I’m in no mood for a lecture.

  “You’re a FUCKING coward!” she shouted.

  Shit.

  She threw her purse across the room, its contents splashing against the wall and bouncing to the floor. Jesse remained with his hands in his pockets and his body motionless, with the exception of a small eye twitch.

  Her tone fierce, she continued, “You fight. You fuck. You run. And you’re gonna fucking drown! Welcome to rock-fucking-bottom, Jess.”

  “Oh wake up, Charlie! Take a good fucking look!” he shouted, pointing to his face. “This has always been and will always be rock bottom. It doesn’t get much more desperate than this.”

  “Then why don’t you do something about it! Be a man for once in your life, and take responsibility for who you are and who you’ll become. What the hell are you waiting for? You think this is going to get any easier?” she continued screaming, emptying her lungs. She took a deep breath before continuing, “Goddamn it! You’re infuriat—”

  Grabbing her arm and jerking her forward, he stopped her just as she was about to crash into his chest. His mouth, now devouring hers, removed the fury, the tension, and the rampage. Their lips were engaged in a fiery entanglement and Jesse began tasting the blood from the cut on his lip again. But it wasn’t enough to stop him.

  Nothing would be enough to stop him now.

  And Charlie showed no hesitation. Her fingers fumbled with the button on his jeans as Jesse ripped her cotton shirt from her back. Taking a moment to absorb the sensation, he allowed his fingers to glide down the length of her back, knowing that the feel of her smooth skin wouldn’t deceive him. His hands found her breasts, and as the white lace of her bra caught his eye, his intoxication with her flared.

  I don’t care that none of this makes sense. I’m not going to stop this to ask her why she’s doing this.

  I need her.

  He lifted her up by her backside as she spread her legs, locking her ankles around him; he then carried her to the kitchen island. Slamming against it, she arched her back for him to set her down.

  He pulled himself out of his jeans and boxers and stripped Charlie of the rest of her clothes. With one swipe of his hand, the roll of paper towels, vase full of daisies, and the perfectly arranged dishes went crashing to the floor behind her. He lay her down gently and spread her legs wider.

  “I want to taste you,” he whispered.

  His tongue, teasing her most sensitive area, began a devoted dance. He slipped two fingers deep inside of her with his lips whispering a secret meant only for Charlie. She wailed in sweet desperation.

  He let out a guttural groan, a reflex of wanting her to hear his desire for her. Her insides flexed around his fingers and he was unable to control his craving any longer.

  Grabbing her calves, he slid her toward him. The countertop at a perfect height, he slipped himself inside, reveling in her immediate constriction. She gasped with her eyelids shut tight. After a few seconds, her entire body relaxed as Jesse ran his finger up the side of her leg.

  “Are you ready for this, Charlene?” He stood still, waiting for her reply as she opened her eyes. “This is going to be fierce,” he said with a satisfied grin.

  She responded by sliding down the counter another inch and lifting her hips, burying him deeper. His backside clenched and his throat trembled with an exaggerated exhale.

  Slam after slam, Jesse crashed into her. The countertop creaked and Charlie couldn’t hold back her yearning rasps. Watching her breasts spring against the underwire of her bra, he put one hand behind her shoulder to keep her from sliding backward.

  She put her arms straight out on each side, gripping the ends of the countertop. With her knuckles turning white, she slowly lifted her legs into the air until her ankles were touching his shoulders. He slung them to one side of his neck and held on with a firm grasp, pounding into her, penetrating deeper than he thought possible.

  “Say it,” he said.

  She looked at him briefly, asking a question with her eyes.

  “Say you love me.”

  Spreading her legs back down to his hips, she grabbed his shoulders and brought him onto the counter with her. Reaching her hands around his back, she slid them down to his ass, pushing him inside of her again. “No,” she whispered and arched her back as an invitation.

  He continued slowly and stared at her face, trying to maintain eye contact. And even though she kept her eyes shut, she held onto him with an unyielding grip.

  Soft and finite, Charlie was no longer just a fantasy but indeed his reality as he swept down and dominated her lips, tasting the flavor he had missed and craved for so long. And even if she wouldn’t say it, her body was whispering the words back to him again and again.

  He tried to think of anything else to prolong it, but her warmth was so satisfying and so exquisitely rousing that he could no longer resist the anticipation with every thrust. And as the sensation built, the familiar feeling of his impending climax enveloped him as he thrashed forward thrice, falling to her chest.

  “Holy shit,” he said, breathing heavily. The sweat from his forehead mixed with the moisture on Charlie’s stomach created a slippery surface as he gently glided his face against her. The minutes that followed became tender as the smell of Charlie’s sweet perfume and Jesse’s robust scent circled the room. He became lightheaded at the thought of having her there, forever.

  He slid up her torso and kissed her swollen lips.

  “Are you crying?” he asked, after noticing a glisten in the corner of her eye.

  She sniffed. “No.”

  Holy shit, did I hurt you?

  “Are you—”

  “No, I’m okay.” She offered a hint of a smile. “It’s been a…long night. And we need to get something on that lip of yours. It’s bleeding.”

  Jesse swiped his mouth and brought his fingers up to look at them. He nodded and reluctantly tore himself away from her. He helped her down off the island and she looked aro
und, appearing self-conscious of her exposed body.

  He quickly grabbed a nearby blanket and brought it to her. “Here,” he said, with a flash of a smile and handed her the quilt to cover herself.

  “Thanks.”

  Charlie followed Jesse into the bathroom and he dug out a small soap container from the back of the vanity drawer. Inside, the box held a few cotton swabs, bandages, and sterile wipes.

  She smiled and took the container from him. “Let me do this. Sit down.”

  After taking his seat on the lidded toilet, she took one end of the swab and pressed it against his bottom lip, trying to soak up a small pool of blood on its surface. He parted his lips and closed his eyes.

  “Do you have any peroxide?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She giggled. “Of course you don’t.”

  He smiled, opening the wound again.

  “Stop it. You’re making it worse,” she said with a laugh. “We need to get you some more stuff around here. Like…furniture, for one. Maybe some fresh produce. A plant or two?” she said as she continued tending to his lip.

  He nodded, pretending to hear what she said. Her touch, leaving tingles in its wake, was fluid yet frail.

  “You know, it’s—” he stopped himself.

  “What? It’s what?” she whispered, pausing briefly with her repairs.

  It’s moments like these when you take my breath away.

  “Nothing,” he replied quickly with his eyes shut.

  A silence lapsed and he heard the clack of the soap container closing.

  “Well, I don’t think there’s much more I can do. Just…try not to smile for the next day or two,” she said.

  He inhaled deeply and took in the faint scent of Charlie hovering over him. The corner of his mouth lifted as he opened his eyes.

  Looking up at her, he followed the direction of her stare. Her expression was mournful as she stared at scarring on his chest. Glancing at his face, she tipped her head for approval to touch him.

  His gaze went rigid; he clenched his jaw as if her touch would inflict pain, and looked away.

  “I won’t hurt you,” she said, trying to swallow with a dry throat.

  She knelt in front of him, keeping the blanket wrapped around her torso. The nerve endings on that part of his body hadn’t worked since the day It happened. But he could feel this. Her touch went straight through the damaged layers of skin, and he could feel it in every fiber of his muscle and every blood cell.

  As her fingertips glided across the surface of his skin, she never tore her eyes from his face. Trying to ignore the intensity of the moment, Jess was swept off to another, much darker, place. He fought with it, trying to keep the memories of that day at a distance, but they oozed into his thoughts. They jerked and gnarled, finding their way to the forefront of his mind.

  He cleared his throat. “That was a bad night,” he whispered.

  She nodded as her eyes welled with tears.

  He grabbed her hands and held them for a moment before breaking away to grab the back of his neck. Arching his back, he looked around the room, trying to find something else to think about.

  “Look at me,” she whispered, forcing him back to her stare.

  His nostrils flared and his chin tensed. Shaking his head, he stood. “Come on. Let’s go to bed,” he muttered. Taking her hand, he walked her into the bedroom, where a single mattress lay on the floor. He motioned for her to lie down and crawled in after her, spooning Charlie’s back to his chest.

  The moonlight shone down on a corner of the bed, illuminating the contrast of her wavy auburn hair against the rough cotton of his white sheets. The moon was almost full, and as Jesse stared through it, he lightly rubbed his thumb along her hip. She sniffed.

  He began grinding his teeth and feeling antsy. He knew what he was about to confess to her, but he couldn’t find the words to do it.

  “Tell me,” she said with another sniff.

  Where do I even begin? How much do I say? Is she going to run? Keep it simple, dickhead. Otherwise you’re risking too much.

  “Mom was a lot like me,” he started. Taking a deep breath, he buried his face in the crook of her neck for a minute before continuing. “But she was much milder, not so…erratic. She’d get depressed once, maybe twice a year. But her mania wasn’t as out of control as mine can get. She’d usually just march around the house cleaning and talking a lot.

  But, Dad…he was a different story.” He sighed and rolled onto his back. His arms went up as he locked his fingers behind his neck. Charlie rolled over to face him and shadows played along his strong, moonlit features.

  His lips turned up into a snarl and his eyes glared at the ceiling. “He was a prick,” he said sharply.

  Charlie remained unmoving, unwilling to give Jesse a moment of hesitation.

  His eyes were shifting and disordered as he traced the marks that branded his memories. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and began forcing out the words. “He was an on-again, off-again drunk. He’d sober up for a few months and then drink for a few more. I didn’t trust him with either my mom or my sister,” he said, the pace of his words quickening. “I stayed home a lot and just sat quietly in the corner, waiting, anticipating his fury. He would stare at us like we were brought to this earth to destroy him. Almost like a bubble filled with tension at all times, I never knew when he was gonna pop.” Jesse kept his eyes on the ceiling and took out his labret. After placing the stud on the floor, he continued. “I was five years older than Mandy, my sister. I still remember the first thought I had when she was born. Dad brought me to the hospital to visit Mom, and she was holding my little sister in her arms when I walked into the room. When—” he paused to swallow the lump in his throat, his eyes pained as he recollected the moment, “when I looked into her big blue eyes, I leaned in and whispered, ‘It’s okay, I’ll protect you. I have an invisible blanket so they can’t see us.’” His head snapped away from Charlie’s stare and he wiped his eyes. Too much. This is too much. Wrap it up. He cleared his throat and continued quickly. “After Mandy was born, Dad got worse. He hardly ever put the bottle down. He was a mean old bastard. He’d lock us in closets, put a padlock on the fridge, burn us with his cigarettes. See here,” he pointed to his forearm, buried under his tattoo of the tiny dancer, “a perfectly round little reminder of my exquisite childhood,” he gnarled through gritted teeth.

  Jesse sat up on the edge of the bed, combing his fingers through his hair, stopping to scratch his scalp forcefully. “Most of this shit I can’t even remember clearly. It’s just what I’ve surmised from years of nightmares; at night, when I wake up, and sometimes during the day when I’ve been awake for hours.” His voice grew softer. “But that night…” He swept his hand across his chest, looking down at the grease burns under his nipple. “That night I’ll remember until the day I die.” He lit a cigarette and bowed his head as he exhaled, filling the small room with smoke.

  “After they found Mandy, they rushed her to the hospital. I don’t remember much after that. But before that day, I was a good kid. People in school didn’t know what was going on at home. After Mandy was gone, my symptoms got worse; I started fighting at school, showing up late or not showing up at all. I stopped trying; stopped caring.” He sighed. “It could have been that I was ten years old and, at the time, diagnosed with ADD; it could have been the fact that I had just lost my sister to something vicious; or it could have been the years of abuse from my father. Whatever it was, after a couple of weeks at school, everyone knew I was never going to be the same.”

  His thoughts about staying silent to Charlie about that night drifted, as being able to speak about it left him feeling a solace he hadn’t experience in years.

  “This,” he pointed to his chest, “This happened the night she disappeared.”

  The flash came quickly as his father’s words boomed in his ears. ‘Where the fuck were you, you little asshole!’ his father said as his mother was wailing in the kitc
hen, trying to prepare an already late meal. ‘Dad, I’m sorry, I was…I was out back. She said she had to run in to get my Batman…’ His mother raced through the hallway to bury her head in the toilet. The echoes of her retching could be heard throughout the house. ‘Come here, you little fucker. I’m gonna teach you a lesson!’ His father brought him to the stove and pulled out the sizzling fillets with his bare hands. After picking the pan up by the handle, he splashed the hot vegetable oil across the kitchen, spilling half the pan across Jesse’s clothed torso. His father sat and enjoyed his fish dinner with a smile while Jesse curled up on the floor, writhing in pain.

  He squeezed his eyelids shut, blocking the rest of that night from his head. But his ears continued to ring, hearing his father’s voice. Several minutes passed as he finished his cigarette in silence.

  “I started drinking, smoking, and staying away from the house all night. It probably wasn’t even a month after Mandy was gone that I was thrown into foster care. And Dad didn’t even care.” His glare continued, shaking his head. “Hell, I think I can even remember the smile on his face when they came to pick me up.”

  After setting the ashtray aside, Jesse turned to Charlie. Gazing at the peacefulness in her expression as she lay fast asleep, he smiled softly and leaned into her, giving her a kiss on her forehead and covering her with the sheet.

  It’s probably for the best you didn’t hear all of it anyway.

  Sleep, baby. Sleep.

  He continued to stay awake, his mind stirring about his family and the hell he left behind that day.

  With his thoughts adrift about what social services had said that afternoon, he mimicked the echoes of his memory: “John Sanborn? We’re here for your son.”

  Those were his last words before he finally settled down onto the bed. He pulled Charlie close to him and slept.