Cherry Bomb (19 page)

I held up my hand, not caring in the least
what she was saying. I wanted the job done and over. I had a skype
call to make.

She lifted her chin and walked over to where
I sat.

Without meeting my stare, she started to lay
out an array of folders and pictures across the desk. “Sir, if you
would like I can start.”

I didn’t respond aloud, I simply gestured
toward the materials before me. She didn’t deserve my words.

She cleared her throat and began discussing
the aspects of her presentation. As she showed different details
and discoveries, I remained silent.

She leaned over the desk to grab a drawing,
when I made my first move. It felt wrong. Was it even worth it? No
matter how much I would lose could I truly hurt Cherry this
way?

“Turn around, Mrs. Manning.”

Slowly she turned to face me.

I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping
instead of the sound of kids. Unusual, considering it was after one
before I even went to bed. I read not one but three stories to
Noah, I took a long, cool shower to wash the day off, both
physically and figuratively, had coffee with Ruby after she got
home, anything to keep from staring at the cellphone, and waiting
on a call that never came.

I stretched and sat up, noticing the large
box of gifts Drake had sent over in the corner.

I got up, purposely avoiding it, and stepped
into my en suite bathroom. Brushing my teeth, I studied myself in
the mirror. The dark, swollen circles encompassing my eyes was
still present even after five hours of sleep. I pinched my cheeks
to bring some color to them, flashed a big fake grin in the mirror,
and then shook my head. Maybe, our biggest hurdle was not the
unknown but the known. We had to look utterly ridiculous together.
I was ten years his senior, and our appearance had an even greater
divide than our age. There was no way we wouldn’t cause a
disturbance if we were out and about together. I rinsed my face and
tossed my dark brown hair back in a messy bun, realizing focusing
on the obvious would only drive a wedge deeper between us.

That night I dreamed I was on top of the
cliffs. The waterfalls spraying my flesh with its light mist, rocks
piercing my bare skin as I moved over them, a woman’s weight baring
down on me. She lowered her mouth, sliding her tongue between my
lips. I tugged at her hair, looking deep into her green eyes. The
green of a budding leaf on the first day of Spring, a symbol of
hope and life. And looking into those eyes, I could see it, the
hope of a future.

“Love me,” she breathed into my ear.

I woke with a start, gasping for air, my
nipples painfully hard, my pulse skyrocketing between my legs, the
name, “Cherry,” on my lips.

I sat up; naked and tangled in the
sheets.

It had taken longer than I ever dreamed to
finish the job, and I missed calling Cherry. I had let her down in
more ways than one, and would continue letting her down.

Less than a minute from my eyes opening, my
cellphone chimed. Per his usual self, Billy text me at dawns early
light the flight plan for our next step.

Billy: Flight #813

A.A. departing Memphis

At 7:55

TODAY

I will email tickets.

Me: Thanks

Billy: You are going to hurt her.

Me: I know, but I have to do this.

Knowing this would destroy Cherry, I still
had to do it.

After one final text to Cherry:

Me: Thinking of you

Yours, D

I closed my eyes reliving the only other
memory that hurt as bad as leaving her.

The house was extra smelly that day. It’s
normal smell of urine and cigarettes had some other unfamiliar
smell to it, I think it was hamburgers. I couldn’t tell you for
sure though if it was hamburgers or not. Mommy had sent me to my
room and pulled the curtains closed, causing it to be extra dark.
She told me if I left the room she would spank me. I wanted to go
see what everyone was laughing about. I really wanted to see if
there was food. I hadn’t eaten all day or I think the day before
and my tummy was really hurting.

Uncle Gavin, he really wasn’t my uncle he was
the man who helped Mommy make money, came in to check on me. At
first I thought he was going to spank me but he didn’t. He invited
me to the party and told me he had a big surprise for me. My
stomach rumbled and I prayed it was food.

He led me into the living room. And there,
among the sea of empty beer cans, overflowing ashtrays, and nasty
food wrappers was my Mommy laying on a torn, old, mattress. I
thought at first she was dead but she started to moan every few
minutes. Uncle Gavin gave me half a hamburger and it was so good.
But it caused my stomach to feel funny. I thought it was going to
make me sick. My Mommy even looked over at me and smiled. I smiled
back at her. She was worried about my stomach.

“Baby, Uncle Gavin has been good to you.
Right, sweetheart?” Mommy asked, and I nodded, hoping Mommy would
smile again.

“Now it is your turn to thank him,” she said.
“Make his friend happy and you can eat anything you want in the
kitchen.”

“Suck it, you little bastard,” Some dirty man
said, and pushed my head frighteningly, squashing my face into his
groin.

His pants were unzipped and his wiggle wink
was slapping against my cheek. “I said suck it not breathe on it,”
the man said, and shoved it into my mouth.

I gagged, wiggled, and looked for my Mommy.
She was kissing Uncle Gavin and laughing. I couldn’t understand
what was happening and why Mommy was not helping me.

“Do it right, pervert,” Uncle Gavin screamed
at me. “Or you won’t eat for a week.”

The man punched me in the back, causing his
thing to shove father down my throat. I started to struggle causing
my mom to crawl over beside me.

“Baby, do this for Mommy,” she whispered in
my ear. “Be good and make this man extra happy. If you do this, he
is going to give Mommy some medicine. You know Mommy needs her
medicine.”

What could I do except what Mommy wanted. So
I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of Santa. My teacher said he
would bring presents to good kids. I hoped maybe I was good enough
for one present. I was helping Mommy get her medicine. And I really
wanted her to have it too. Sometime when she had taken a lot of
them, she would cuddle with me and even talk to me. So I just got
on with it, hoping it would make Mommy hug me. The man got rougher.
I prayed really hard that it would be over soon. And I wouldn’t get
sick – I knew I would really be in trouble if I did.

And then, suddenly it was done, and the
smelly man pushed me off of him. I scrambled over to Mommy, trying
to wipe the salty liquid from my mouth as I did. But she just
pushed me off of her, and went to the man herself to kiss him.

I didn’t mind though. It was over, and I
could go into the kitchen to eat.

I did eat too. I got two hamburgers and some
chips, curled into the corner of the couch and watched Mommy do the
thing I just did to the same man and Uncle Gavin. It must not be a
bad thing to do she was enjoying it.

Mommy did it for hours to a number of men
before she finally came over to me. It was my turn to get cuddles.
But there was no more time for hugs.

“C’mon, baby,” she whispered in my ear. “It
is time to get ready for school. Remember do not tell anybody what
happen here or they will take you to a place that hurts you every
minute of every day.”

I tried to argue. I really wanted to cuddle
with Mommy and stroke her mass of shiny red curls for just a little
while. But Uncle Gavin kicked my legs and said, “Get your lazy ass
up and go to school. And if you talk, I will do worst to you than
any of those places will.”

I wanted to cry. She held those men and
kissed them in yucky places. I just wanted for her to hold me for a
few minutes. But I did what I was told.

My clothes were crumpled on the floor in the
corner of my room. I kicked the dog off of them. Mommy loved that
damn dog. I bet she would find time to cuddle him.

Luckily, after the hamburgers last night I
wasn’t hungry because as usual there was no more food in the house.
I walked passed Mommy in the living room. She was already
asleep.

“No talking, you little bastard,” Uncle Gavin
warned as I walked out the front door.

I was sneaking down the back alley, trying
again to not be late.

“Hey, loser, nobody wants you here. So
leave.”

I turned to see two boys who lived in the
house down the street from mine. They had a daddy and a Mommy.

“Sor . . . Sorry,” I said.

“Damn right, you’re sorry,” the littler of
the two said.

The police were at their house all the time.
The oldest brother could not even go to school anymore. Mommy told
me they're bad and to stay away from them.

“You’re a fucking, nasty piece of shit,” said
the bigger one. “And your mom’s a dirty whore.”

“Don’t talk about her,” I screamed out, not
wanting them to talk about Mommy. “Or she will come to your house
and get you.”

“She will come alright, and give my dad
another blow job,” the little one said. “My mom said for the right
stuff, she is one hell of a pussy licker too.”

I couldn’t stop them from coming but I busted
into tears. “Just leave me alone. I want to go home.”

The boys laughed and one of them kicked me in
the knees, making me fall over. I didn’t move, just crawled into a
ball until they left.

“Bye, freak, see you around,” they each
chatted as they walked away.

I was already late for school, so I crawled
behind the dumpster and fell asleep next to the lady that lived
there.

I didn’t know what time it was when I woke up
but I was cold and someone had spilled sticky stuff all over me. I
got up and limped home to find Mommy on the doorstep.

She was happy, and patted the spot beside
her. I snuggled down beside her then she told me something that
would forever turn my world upside down.

“Congratulations, baby, you are going to be a
big brother. I sure hope it’s a girl. You know I really hate little
boys.”

Thinking of you, my
ass.
I kicked the box of unwrapped gifts
to the farthest corner of my closet, not having opened a single box
in one week and three days. The same amount of days since I had
heard from Drake.
Where the hell was he?
What was he doing? Was he even thinking of me?

I threw the bracelet he
had bought me on top of the box, not understanding why it hurt me
to the level it did. I was used to being hurt. James Webb had
disappeared on me before, but even after a sixteen-year marriage it
never hurt like this.

But I had gotten closer to
Drake in such a short amount of time, more so than I had with any
other person in my life. I had fallen in love with him. Deep down,
I knew I would always love him too.

I had no idea how much
more I could take, and had picked up the phone over and over again
to call her, but I couldn’t, knowing what I was doing would hurt
her.

No one understood what I
felt for this woman.

Hell, I didn’t understand
it myself. And I didn’t want to understand it either. I just wanted
to feel it.

All I knew was when I
first looked in her eyes, I felt something I had never felt
before.

Cherry was
mine.

And it had been nine long
days since I had touched her, and here I stood overwhelmed with the
urge to consume her.

Never being one to deny
myself anything, I traced a finger down the silky, softness of her
shoulder.

Roused from sleep by the
feel of rough hands running over my shoulder, panic set in before
my bed dipped, and I smelt him. His thick, muscular body slid in
behind me, and his strong arm came around my waist, pulling me
against the warmth of his chest. My traitorous body betrayed me yet
again as it relaxed in his arms.

Kissing my bare shoulder
for a solid minute, Drake whispered, “Sorry, I was working. Are you
okay?”

Am I okay? Hell, No! You
walked away from me over a week ago and now you crawl into my bed
like it was nothing.

I turned on my side to
face him, and was briefly taken back by the way he looked at me as
if I was actually precious, and for a moment, I held out hoped I
was more to him than a convenient fuck. “I’m okay. We shared a
moment, I don’t own you.”

“
What I feel for you is
greater than any moment.”

I opened my mouth to say
something when he kissed me. It was a kiss full of desperate
hunger. It was unlike any kiss I had ever had before. That was
maybe why I didn’t know how to respond. I stiffened except for my
lips that gladly molded into his. It was unfair that he could make
me feel this way with a simple touch of his lips.

“
I will give you a million
moments if you just let me,” he whispered.

Holding his hand up, palm
out, I paused before I placed my hand against his. He looked at our
hands, pressed firmly against each other before linking his
oversized fingers with mine.

I should've run, but
instead I lay with a man who had given me nothing but words and a
good fuck. He was not worth it. But there was nowhere else I wanted
to be.