Page 2 of Where the Dark Knelt
Before I went to India, my motherhad arranged all kinds of immunizations with our physician and she’d had him provide me with a medical kit that included needles, antibiotics, and an assortment of sterile bandages and dressings. She also gave me leaflets, tons of them, containing information on every disease she could think of. My mother didn’t trust the internet to inform me about anything.
Although I was in Miami to study, I had also hoped to wipe out the memory of my one disastrous night with myBFF Elle’s younger brother Sam, an event which had happened after a stupid lapse in judgment on my part.
Feelingmyself blush, I remembered how awkward it had been. Blushing was nothingnew. I blushed a lot, one of my many flaws. Poor Sam had always crushed on me, but he’d never acted upon it until the night of my leaving party. Alcohol was to blame—tequila shooters to be precise.
I don’tparticularly like the taste of alcohol, but everyone around me was in drunken-student-party-mode and had been wearing ‘beer goggles’ by the end of the night. I swear these must make even the most attractively challenged people appear easier on the eye.
The shots started out with the usual salt, tequila, and lime, but by the end of the night had advanced to a weird and sadistic variation of the same drinking game. It went something like snorting the salt and squeezing the lime juice in their eyes or something like that. I had just come back from the bathroom, so thankfully hadn’t been involved in that form of self-harm.
Everything after that is a bit hazy in my mind. We danced a lot that night too. We all did this crazy group dance, jumping together like it was a very cool thing to do, when the reality must have looked stupid.
In truth, we were probably just doing that because it seemed the most effective way of dancing when we were drunk. It reduced any need to try to coordinate ourselves.
Theevening got worse when my best friend Elle, who was especially drunk and emotional, attempted to give a speech. She looked dreadful with tears streaming down her face, her nose all red, and her face mottled and blotchy. She dabbed the mascara around her eyes with a tissue, which did nothing. There were black lines all the way down to her chin, some of which had dried from another bout of crying earlier in the evening.
As the club closed and my friends began to dwindle, there were more tears, hugs, and kisses between us, all of us promising to keep in touch with one another.Even as I wassaying that, I knew I would be saying goodbye to most of them forever.Wringing at my cuff, I twisted it and I remember thinking it was a bit symbolic to me. It was like I was wringing out my heart to make way for the new people I’d meet, and who would eventually make their way into it.
I recalled how sad I’d felt about Jack, my closest friend, not being there that night. People found it strange that we were so tight together. Maybe because he was a man. He worked as a music reporter and was on assignment, covering a band at a gig launch in Paris, so he didn’t make it back before I left.
Jack and I had seen each other through every chapter of our lives so far. We had been friends since we were four-year-old kids. It was a weird relationship to the outsiders observing us. We knew everything about each other, and he was the only person in the world that I had no inhibitions with. He was like a second skin, and usually brought out my daring side and warped sense of humor.
Jack was such a liberating influence on me, and we pushed the boundaries of flirting. It was harmless fun to us, but our behavior confused the hell out of others as to what we were to each other. Jack always told people that thought we had a weird relationship that they were jealous because they could never have a relationship like ours.
By the time we arrived at Elle’s place, there were eight of us left.Those people left had helped shape me into who I was, though I was hoping a few years in Florida would change me for the better.David never knew when to stop partying, and shouted, “Spin the Bottle,” which made me groan loudly. The prospect of doing something daring and potentially embarrassing filled me with dread.
Maddiewas the first victim of the bottle and refused the dare, which was to pick a guy and demonstrate to us what was meant by ‘dry humping’. She looked mortified. Her punishmentwas to drink a murky looking mixture of alcohols that Elle had ‘found’ in her kitchen cupboard. No one even wondered how long it had been there.
Maddie heaved and then wretched, but managed to keep it down, while we all cheered at her grimacing face. I rubbed her back even as I doubled over, giggling, when I saw her reaction and knowing deep down she would have accepted the dare if her on-off boyfriend hadn’t left already.
Sam was dared to pick a female to demonstrate a sensual massage on and choseme. I felt a hot tinge stain my cheeks. I still blush when I think about how nervous both he and I were at our public display, even though it didn’t count, because he didn’t touch my flesh in front of all those voyeurs.
At twenty-one, I was a deliberately slowstarter in the carnal knowledge arena. Hell, I was a late starter period. Beginning college almost three years after my peers, I had only ever been to second base with a guy. I’d never found anyone attractive enough for me to think of ‘doing it’ with them.
Eventually the game stopped, andI sat on the floor contented, albeit tipsy. Things were a little hazy, and my eyes drooped closed.A whisper interrupted my thoughts, “I so want to do that to you for real.”
Murmuring, “Hmm… huh?” I turned my head slightly.
There was more ragged breath in my ear while Sam said, “The massage, slow and sensual, with my hands running all over your skin.”
Suddenly, my eyes snapped open. Okay, I was a little drunk, but I was curious toknow what that would feel like. “Yeah?” I questioned. Sam’s breathing became even more ragged, and he nodded eagerly at me. Pale blue eyes twinkled at me as they glazed with desire—at least that’s what I think his eyes were doing.
I glanced at Sam fondly. I knew I liked him,Hell, he’d been my best friend’s brother since he was born…it had tickled my drunken mind that I’d thought that, and I laughed loudly at the time.
Sam looked as if he had been mortally wounded and I realized he thought I was laughing at him. Apologizing profusely, I told him that what I had been thinking had nothing to do with his proposition. He tilted the upper half of his body toward me and said, “Lily, don’t fuck with my feelings. What I just said took a lot of guts on my part.”Aww.
I found myself soothing him, cupping his face in my hands in a drunken affectionate reassurance.
“Hey, no… I’m flattered.”Damn, I was drunk.Then I leaned in and sloppily kissed his nose in a sign of affection. Sam took this opportunity to grab my jaw, keeping my face toward him, and landed a soft, slow kiss on my lips. It was a gentle, tender kiss.
Pleading looks of desire flashed through his expressions as he stood and pulled me to my feet. Silently he led me stumbling over the drunken bodies on the floor and out of the sitting room.
Samtook me into Elle’s guest bedroom, where he was currently staying, and turned to face me. Closing the door quietly with his arms behind him and his palms flush with the door, he smiled. When he heard the door click shut it was like a starter pistol to Sam, he was no longer the gentle guy, his drunken teenage testosterone surge took over.
Let’s just say havingsex wasnotwhat I was led to believe, and I was left thinking that there had to be more to it than this if people kept on doing it repeatedly.
I smirked when thoughts reminded me of the private inbox message he’d sent me via Facebook afterward, telling me how great our first time was together, and that he hoped torepeat it again with me some day. Personally, my thoughts at the time were that Sam’s experience with me would be his first and his last.
Inhaling deeply, my thoughts turned to entering my apartment for the first time. Trembling fingers shook slightly as the key found the lock, the pleasure I felt inside sizzled through me. When I heard the lock click, I swung the heavy wooden apartment door open while my eager eyes filled me with excitement as they scanned around the sitting room, taking everything in.
