The thoughts of Ms. Evelyn Richards in bed with a guy like me is almost laughable in its awkward imagery. She wouldn’t know what to do with everything I’d want to give her. She’d be terrified of my impulses. Of the things I crave. Of the way I’d use her body for my pleasure. If she’s experienced anything at all, it’s been nothing but sweet lovemaking with beta males with small dicks, I’m sure. She’d probably cry at the first thrust of my cock.
I dream of a day when I find a woman who can fulfill those parts of me, the parts I have to tamper when I’ve fucked the girls I’ve been with. I lost my virginity my freshman year to a chick on the dance team. After that first time of getting off with someone else, it awoke a realization inside me. While I lay there after I’d come, I didn’t get the satisfaction everyone talks about. I still felt like something was missing, empty, as if the orgasm itself hadn’t been the end goal after all. And I’ve spent the past four years searching for that missing link, all while holding back, not releasing my urges, which I know has something to do with what’s missing.
If I were to act on my impulses, these girls would no doubt call me a monster. And while nothing would come of the accusations because of who I am, the tiny part of myself that’s good and right doesn’t want those rumors spreading around. Yeah, I’m known for being the bad boy, the tough guy, the fucker no one messes with. I’ve been called a fuckboy and a manwhore on my journey seeking to fill that emptiness inside me. But not one girl I’ve been with could ever accuse me of being anything but a great lover. They could follow it up with me being an asshole, casting them aside and not wanting anything more from them; they could say I was emotionally distant and didn’t try to connect in any way other than physically. But not one of them could accuse me of hurting them, of doling out pain… like I really wanted to yet held back.
But in my fantasies, Ms. Richards takes it. She takes it, she likes it, and she begs for more.
“Fuck,” I growl, looking down at my Apple Watch and seeing it’s nearly eight. I wonder what Ms. Richards is doing right now. Probably at home, eating dinner on her couch, watching some documentary show on Netflix before going to bed by herself.
“It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.” Trenton’s words replay in my head. And quiet is definitely one word that accurately describes Evelyn Richards. It makes her all the more intriguing when I think about her.
“Fuck it,” I murmur to myself, standing and heading for the door, but not before tossing my empty beer bottle into the recycling bin in the kitchen. I sneer at some classmates as they knock over red plastic cups that are already starting to pile along every surface available.
As I gallop down the steps off the front porch, Alistor calls out to me, “Nate, where you going, man? That party is just getting started!”
I acknowledge him with a dismissive wave, pulling the keys to my truck out of my pocket, not bothering to answer him because the girl on his lap pulls his face into her cleavage as she throws her head back and laughs.
I slam my door behind me, sitting in the driver seat, and pull out my cell, staring at the time that lights up the screen. And then I make a decision.
A quick Google search gives me all I need to know. I don’t even have to break out my sources at the school. I use the app to give me directions, cursing that my destination is almost an hour away, but I don’t let it tamper this impulse.
I’m going to her house to see for myself just what Ms. Richards is up to on a Friday night.
I start the truck, set my radio for Bluetooth, and crank up the volume, choosing Submersed’s In Due Time album to play. When the opening notes of “Hollow” fill the cab, I breathe out through my pursed lips, take in a deep breath through flared nostrils, and nod to myself once before putting the shifter in Drive and pulling away from the curb.
As Donald Carpenter’s haunting voice sings about his soul being hollow and the person he loves being the only thing who can help him breathe, my foot grows heavier on the pedal, my speed picking up as I exit Black Mountain heading east toward the small town where Ms. Richards lives.
Every time a niggling thought tries to work itself into my consciousness about what a bad idea this might be, I shove it away, turning the music up louder, drowning everything out with the guitar solo in “Flicker.”
Exiting when the automated voice indicates nearly an hour later, the album has restarted and “Hollow” is soothing the anxiousness inside me once again. When I’m told my destination is on my right only two hundred yards ahead, I turn down my music and hit the button to end the driving directions. And I see I arrived just in time to watch as Ms. Richards pulls her door shut behind her, locks it, and then hurries to her small but newer model car in her driveway. My windows are tinted to an illegal darkness, so I don’t have to worry about ducking or anything as she backs out of her driveway then passes me on her way out of the neighborhood. Carefully, I do a three-point turn, keeping one eye on her car so I don’t lose her before following her onto the main street, keeping a distance so she doesn’t suspect she’s being followed.
“Where are you off to, little mouse?” I murmur, merging onto the mostly empty highway and backing off a bit so she won’t get spooked as I follow her when she exits.
Not ten minutes after we left her neighborhood, we’re in the tiny downtown area of the town next to Ft. Vanter, an army base a few of the kids at my school talk about all the time, because their parents are high-ranking soldiers of some kind and can afford the tuition and daily commute to the academy.
I watch as Ms. Richards pulls into the underground parking garage beneath a three-story huge brick building on a corner lot, and I pull over on the one-way street, hoping no one runs me off before I see where she’s going. I take a quick second to glance around at the business I’m in front of, seeing it’s a pet groomer and their hours closed at six. A peek at the sign next to me shows I can park here between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. without getting a ticket, so I cut the engine and wait, my eyes never leaving the parking garage, hoping like hell there’s not an entrance to the building beneath it.
But I don’t have to hope for long. Soon, Ms. Richards in a knee-length black trench coat and heels she’s most definitely never worn to school before comes up the flight of stairs on the side of the building that puts her at street level before she hurries to a door around front. She pauses next to it, pulling something out of her pocket… a mask? Yes, a black one she ties behind her head and adjusts it around her eyes, and then she disappears inside.
“What in the…?”
I hop out of my truck, beeping the locks, and make my way across the street to where I saw her enter. As I approach, I see there are two doors side by side. One has a sign indicating it’s some kind of security business that closed at six, and the other is nondescript, not marked in any way. Even the windows have been blacked out. I reach out and tug, expecting it to be locked, but it’s not. And I pull it open slowly, carefully, not knowing what the hell could be inside.
The interior is completely black and empty, but there’s a staircase at the far wall, and as I step inside quietly, practically tiptoeing like a sleuth, the ceiling gives way to darkness interrupted by laser lights and strobes.