Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2) (12 page)

Ouch.

He looked at her with a level expression.
She was sitting at one end of the couch, he on the other, but he
seemed to float away. The distance between them became a deep
chasm. Krista could actually see the distance growing. His body
language pulled back. His engaging eyes turned elsewhere.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she was
holding. She’d caused that, and she felt like a complete shit for
it. But at the same time, she felt cut loose. It felt like danger
was passing. It also hurt so bad it felt like she was stabbed.

“Anyway, I should go,” Krista said
quietly.

Sean didn’t make any effort to stop her.

They walked to the door in silence, Krista
trying desperately to hold back the tears.

“Well, I’ll see ya,” Krista said. It was
goodbye. Sean knew it.

Sean watched her walk away down the street,
not having offered to walk her home. He was at a loss.

Chapter Seven

Halfway home the smoke cleared. It was then
that the dam burst, reducing her to sobs. She walked and cried.
Partly she cried out of frustration, and partly because it felt
like something was breaking deep inside. Breaking and floating
away, like an iceberg in Alaska.

Being that she was crap at dealing with her
problems, she did the only thing she could think of, the thing she
always did when she felt like this; she went home and got raging
drunk. By herself. Like a real alcoholic. If she was a poet, she
would have written some prose and then stuck her head in the oven,
Sylvia Plath style.

She must have passed out on the floor
sometime during the night because she awoke to light filtered
through the cloud cover above. Ben was sitting on the couch
watching TV with a bowl of cereal. He looked down at her when she
roused and said, “Good morning. What’s the crisis?”

“Uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh,” She grabbed her
swollen head.

“You polished off a bottle and a half of
wine on your own. You emptied two, but I think you spilled half on
the floor. You’re lucky Abbey didn’t come home last night.”

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhmmmmm.”

“I was supposed to remind you that you are
supposed to be on a train in about an hour to go to the Folsom
Street Fair.”

“Not going.”

“I was supposed to remind you that you
promised to go, and not going would be unacceptable.”

“Don’t care.”

“I was then supposed to say that if you
don’t go you will have to rely on your department to help you,
because your two good friends will not.”

“Anything else?”

“No. Kate said that if that didn’t work, you
should probably be in the hospital.”

“I hate her.”

“Yes.”

“You going?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“I didn’t think you were a homophobe,” she
said, getting up painfully. It felt like she slept on razors.

“I’m not. Krista, my God you look like
shit.” For Ben to say it, with a swear word and everything, it
meant that it was probably true. Being that she also felt like
shit, there wasn’t much of an alternative.

The mirror in the bathroom
revealed exactly as Ben had said. Holy.
I
look like I got run over by a train. Then caught at the bottom of a
stampede. Then thrown up on.

It was going to be an ugly, painful day.

She showered, dressed, and threw up. She put
on some make-up and threw up again. She put her hair in a ponytail,
grabbed her handbag, and contemplated throwing up one more time.
She held strong, however, and headed out without saying goodbye to
Ben. She couldn’t waste the energy.

It was a long, miserable bus ride into the
general area she needed to be. She would not answer phone calls
from the girls, but she did answer texts telling her where to go,
getting updates on status, and other useful information for someone
who cared. Krista didn’t.

Off the bus she sat on a bench next to a
homeless man, needing a minute to steady her stomach. Needing to
make sure she wasn’t going to throw up again.

“Hair of the dog,” the dirty man croaked
next to her. He had his face turned toward her. “Hair of the dog.
Only thing for it.”

He gave her a salute with his peach flavored
wine before turning away.

It was bad when bums were on a level with
you before noon. She had to agree, though. And well, he would
know.

She staggered away, hearing him yell “Hair
of the dog!” in her wake. She got about one block before she had to
lean against a building to make sure she didn’t upchuck. As she
rested, she saw the strangest thing. A transvestite had a bag of
bread--buns it looked like--and was chucking them at people. No
evident reason for it, and no one was singled out, but anyone
within firing range had the threat of getting pegged with a bread
roll.

The woman missed as many people she hit, but
she was not deterred. She was on a mission to fire every bun or
roll in that bag.

Loving the entertainment, Krista leaned
harder on the wall, which was starting to lean back, and watched
the show. One bun hit a man in a suit crossing the street. It was a
great shot! Well placed. She had an arm on her, Krista would give
her that.

The man with the suit stopped, right in the
middle of a busy lane, and looked back at his attacker menacingly.
He probably had some high-powered job where he gave orders. The
last time he was the butt of a joke was probably in high
school.

This time, though, as he stared at the
transvestite, holding up a lane of traffic with his
self-importance, he got a heated stare back. In fact, when she
noticed the eyeball attack, the sports-loving gal raised her arm
slowly, taking aim.

With the first honk of a held up car, pissed
at the professional jackass holding up traffic, the woman let fly
another bun. It arched through the air, the aim dead-on, and hit
him on the chest, center mast. Then, for good measure, she chucked
another bun at the honking car.

The man, realizing that anyone dressed like
a disco ball before noon on a Sunday, while throwing bread at
people, was probably out of her mind, turned around with a burst of
speed, and finished crossing the street in quick strides. Like the
coward he was, he was not planning to stay and fight with crazy.
Which was wise. You didn’t argue with a crazy person, and you
didn’t get into stare-offs with a crazy person. It was the Rule of
Thumb in the Mission: you-don’t-mess-with-Crazy! You just don’t.
You never know what a crazy person might do. There are no rules on
that side of life.

Krista just shook her head and continued on
her way. She would hate to live in this part of the city, but
visiting was fantastic. Very colorful.

She walked the million blocks to meet
Jasmine and Kate, who blessedly had a breakfast burrito for her.
She badly needed grease.

She scarfed some of it down in big, hungry
bites, and then nearly threw it back up again. The bum was
right—food wasn’t going to do. She needed alcohol. Hopefully.
Otherwise she was doomed.

“What the hell happened to you?” Jasmine
asked in surprise.

Kate just stared. She’d seen Krista like
this a few times before, and knew what the origin probably was.

“A bottle of wine wrestled me,” Krista
muttered. “It won.

“More than a fucking bottle by the looks of
it,” Kate said, grabbing her arm and pulling.

“Yeah. Double team. They cheated.”

Krista was bumped and jostled before she
noticed how crowded it was. “Wow. Popular street fair, huh?”

She wasn’t answered. Instead she was posted
outside a liquor store for a minute before some wine was thrust
into her hand. She immediately retched.

“Get it into you,” Kate commanded. “You’ll
feel better when you balance out.”

“I don’t know about that,” Krista replied in
agony.

They walked on, Kate and Jasmine leading
Krista as if she was on a rope. She had no idea, nor did she care,
where they were going. She was worried about the wine. She took a
couple sips, retched each time, and looked for a spot next to the
curb where she could lay down and die. It turned out Thai food
wasn’t a great base for a crap load of wine. Her stomach was
revolting.

When the wine started to have an effect,
relieving her pain somewhat, she poked her head out of her turtle
shell of hangover and looked at the people around her.

Then she stopped dead.

They were not all men. They were not all
gay. They were, however, all ready for some form of BDSM. The man
in front of her had leather chaps on. That was it. Just leather
chaps. His bare ass was bobbing up and down in front of her, his
balls hanging down, free for all the world to see.

On her right was an
e-norm-ous
penis. That’s
all she could see. Her eyes wouldn’t look away to find a face. Or
even a stomach. They were glued to a
g-i-ant
dick.

Kate nudged her, able to
skip the track so Krista could wrench her face in the opposite
direction, looking for a place to rest her eyes that was
nudity-free. There weren’t many. One woman was
stuffed
into a tight, leather
corset. Fat oozed out the bottom while her squishy boobs were
oozing out the top. They were overflowing the sides, making the
woman’s arms have to shove them forward to have proper movement. It
was so gross.

So was the guy standing
alone in a corner jerking off. Jerking off! Naked!
On-a-city-street!

“What the hell?” Krista asked to no one in
particular, feeling like throwing up again.

Kate and Jasmine were both looking at her as
if she was in some large scale joke and they were witnessing the
punch line.

Obviously, she
was
the punch
line.

“Where have you taken me?” Krista asked,
incredulous.

“You have to experience it at least once,”
Jasmine said, her smile ear to ear. Kate was beaming.

“You two are some bitches. I don’t want any
part of this.”

“Tough,” Kate said, grabbing her arm and
pulling.

“Seriously, I wanna go home. This is not my
cup of tea. I am too naïve for this.”

“No you aren’t,” Jasmine said, taking a sip
of a beer out of a paper bag. Apparently you could be naked, but
you couldn’t have exposed alcohol? What sort of messed up was
that?

Krista watched a man posing for a picture.
The camera wasn’t aimed at his face. It was aimed at his bare cock,
and something called a Prince Albert. At least, that’s what he told
her when she asked if a bar through the tip of his penis still hurt
after the fact. Apparently it did not.

She didn’t have time to ask why it was
called a Prince Albert—Kate was continuing to drag her along.

The wine was definitely
starting to level her out…if drunk could be called a level. Her
parting words, besides
ouch,
was congratulations on his large cock. He just
laughed at her. She didn’t mention that she had recently seen one
bigger. It was rude to play the one-upper game, no matter if that
particular man would’ve been interested to hear.

She also had the distinct feeling the world
was laughing with him. At her.

They walked on—not Krista’s
choice—and looked at stands. Apparently there was a lot to see, and
Kate wanted to make sure they got to everything.
Everything
being all
sorts of S&M paraphernalia. Leather, chains, nipple clamps, the
works. If Krista wasn’t actually standing in the middle of it, she
would not believe that this was allowed to happen in public. She
would not believe that a fair of this size, in the middle of a
large city, could actually exist. Nowhere else, except possibly
Amsterdam, would permit this amount of naked people wandering
around.

Not just naked, either. Oh no. As she saw
earlier, some were standing off to the side jacking off—not even
Vegas allowed that to happen! Krista watched a circle jerk in mute
horror. She stopped and pointed out two men in an alleyway engaging
in sexual acts. Then screeched when she witnessed a full-out orgy.
Penetration and everything.
In-the-middle-of-the-day-in-a-public-place!!!

The girls did look, but they didn’t seem
overly put out. It was because there was so much more to come.

At one point Krista saw a guy on all fours
with a collar and a leash, being led around the dirty ground by a
hairy, fat man in a leather Speedo. The young guy on the ground
never said anything, and he always acted submissively. It offended
her inner feminism even though he was a dude.

Thank God she was drunk, because she was not
at all up for any of this. She was having a hard time keeping an
open mind.

When they got to a stand selling whips, they
stopped for a minute to peruse. Kate was looking at some lotion or
other, so it gave Krista time to really get to know the
craftsmanship. And she had to admit, there was some really fine
workmanship that went on with those whips. It showed in the price
tag!

It was when she had taken a leather strap
down and was swinging it around that she felt a tap on her
shoulder. She probably wasn’t supposed to test out the merchandise.
Which made sense, because if they let one person flog the air, they
had to let everyone, right? And then, why flog the air when you can
flog your ass-less chaps-wearing partner?

But Krista would make her case. Being that
she needed a small touch of normal within all this insanity, she
was ready to debate that swinging the whip was necessary to see the
whipping power before she purchased such an item. How could she
possibly spend $100 on something that she couldn’t get the feel of
first? That was pure illogical.