Tutor Me (16 page)

I nodded. “She does look a bit tired. Hey what the heck are you doin’?” Callum was miming climbing onto my horse behind me. He was standing right up against my back, and he put his hands on my waist as if to hold on. There were hoots and hollers from the crowd now. Luckily I could channel being flustered into my act.

Callum shrugged. “I told ya, Brownie needs a rest.”

“How we gonna herd these cattle on just one horse?” I said with exaggerated exasperation. “Besides, Spot is going to be tired too.”

“Spot’s a beauty, ain’t ya, girl? She can handle it. If we lead the doggies through the narrow gulch they’ll be wedged in on both sides.”

We were trotting along together like a conga line at a wedding now. Callum was making a stroking motion in the air close to my right thigh, his left hand still firmly on my waist. The audience, which had grown, was now laughing loudly. My waist was tingling under his fingers but I tried to channel my inner Boots and not get aroused.

“Tex, I have something I want to talk to you about.” I had thought up my revelation as soon as Jamie read the prompt.

“OK Boots, shoot.” Now both his hands were back on my waist.

“See those two cows right there?” I pointed with my right index finger to where cows would presumably have been.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Callum peering hard at the same spot. “Yup. They look fine to me.”

“Exactly. It ain’t natural. Remember when you had to go into Wichita for supplies and I stayed out here by myself one night last month?”

Callum answered behind me. “Yup. You looked kinda funny when I came back the next afternoon.” He was helping me out. Too bad I was too pissed off at him to appreciate it.

“Well that night I was lyin’ on the ground lookin’ at the stars when one of the stars got bigger and bigger and bigger until it was right over my head, this big silver saucer. It came right down here to me and the cows, and in a beam of light, two cows were sucked up into the ship.”

Callum’s voice was excited. “Well I’ll be a rusty tin can, what happened next?”

“Well, the saucer just hovered over me and the cows for an hour or so then the beam of light appeared again and down came the two cows.” I spoke in a stage whisper. “Except I don’t think they’re cows anymore, I think they’re Martians, living among us.”

“Are they doing anything unusual, you know, that cows don’t do normally?” He really was helping set this up for me but his hands on my waist were incredibly distracting. I focused on my delivery of the next line.

“Well not much, to tell you the truth, but there is one weird thing.” I paused, feeling the audience listening, waiting for me. “When they pee now, they whistle the tune to Gangnam Style.”

The audience fell about the room laughing and I hoped Callum would too, to put an end to this damned skit, but he just nodded, still in character.

“Well that’s quite a story. Doggone it. Rascally Martians.” It was his turn to pause

theatrically. “So I have somethin’ to tell you too.”

“I’m listenin’.”

“You ever see that movie about them queer cowboys, ‘Brokendown Mountain’ I think it was called?”

I didn’t like where this was going. “Nope.” I said flatly. “Hey we need to move around this way to keep the herd together.” I cracked the invisible reins and said “Giddyup” loudly. We trotted to the right quickly.

Callum resumed his story. “Well, I did, in my motel room that night I was in Wichita when you saw the Martians. That movie got me thinkin’, Boots. I have a secret love of my own.” He made a show of stroking the side of the invisible horse again, right by my thigh. His gesture was soft and sensual and people were chuckling again now.

There was no getting away from this without messing up the sketch, so I just gave up and went along with it.

“What kinda secret love?” I asked, letting Boots’ nervousness mirror my own. I moved my thigh out of the way exaggeratedly and leaning forward. Callum was still stroking the air, shimmying closer to me again.

“I think you must be able to guess. I’m up here, sittin’ behind you, leavin’ Brownie by herself.” He spoke softly over my shoulder and everyone in the room leaned in.

I raised my eyebrows high, hamming it up. “You got some funny feelings for me, Tex?” I put the accent on thick.

Callum shook his head. “Nope.” Another theatrical pause. “I’m in love with your horse Spot.”

I lost it, along with the whole room. There was loud clapping and whistles. I took the moment to step several feet away, forcing his hands off my waist.

I swung around and my eyes met Callum’s. “Well played.” I had to give him that.

“Same to you,” he said, a smile on his face. We hugged, as this seemed to be expected after each sketch. I guess drama folks were touchy-feely like that. I felt stiff in his arms. He murmured into my ear, “We need to talk.” I pulled back, shaking my head slightly.

Luckily Jamie appeared with a shot for me before Callum could reply. “Here you go, improv superstar. Don’t let it go to your head.” I was ridiculously pleased by his compliment, but maybe he just meant the alcohol.

Jamie turned to Callum. “Well done. I thought you’d lose it after Jenny’s Gangnam Style comment but you kept in character and beat her at her own shock game.” He pointed his finger at both of us. “You two should consider joining improv club. Preferably before you finally break down and fuck because the sexual tension makes for great theater.” I blushed bright red, and Callum snorted.

“I think I need a shot myself now” said Callum. Jamie poured him one and Callum and I did them simultaneously, but without locking arms or making eye contact.

Theo then came up and high fived us. “You should take this show on the road,” he said archly.

Tina came up, excited. “That was so freakin’ awesome. I think the entire party squeezed into the dining room to watch your sketch.” I grimaced, feeling self-conscious.

I saw punk girl watching me through narrowed eyes. I remembered that I was trying to avoid Callum, and edged away from him, grabbing Tina’s arm to leave. I’d hoped Callum would take the hint, but he stayed with me, turning to Tina.

“Hi I’m Callum.”

Tina’s eyes were alight with mischief. She was in her element, enjoying the action. “Tina. Nice to meet you Callum.”

Callum, smiled charmingly at her and said, “Jenny and I have to talk for a couple minutes, but we’ll be right back.”
What the hell? Did I have ‘Please boss me’ tattooed on my forehead or something??

Tina nodded happily, ignoring my glare completely. There was no getting out of this without making a scene. Callum moved down the hallway and I followed, defeated.

“I’m not going in a bedroom with you. It’ll be all over the school in ten minutes,” I hissed.

Callum looked back at me. “Give me some credit. There’s another door to the outside at the end of the hall. We can talk out there.”

I watched his back as we made our way past the closed doors along the hall. There were panties hanging from one door knob, and I could hear a girl’s drunken laughter. Some features of high school parties were universal, apparently. Callum opened the outside door and stepped back to usher me out first. We found ourselves in a narrow alley where the garbage cans and gardening tools were kept. No one was around but I kept my voice very low just in case.

“OK what is it you want to talk about?” I asked, aiming for my best bored tone. I wasn’t giving him an inch.

“I wanted to explain about Melanie.”

“Who’s Melanie?” I crossed my arms. My eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder and I was still doing my best bored impression, although my heart was now pounding.

“The girl you saw on my lap earlier.”

I shrugged in response. “Why bring her up? You’re a free agent. I have a boyfriend, remember.”

“Stop it, Jenny. Drop the act and be honest. I saw the look on your face when you saw us.”

I looked at him then. “What do you want me to say? You didn’t do anything wrong, so leave me alone.” I turned away, not knowing how much longer I could keep my cool.

“I want you to admit that it hurt.” He persisted, stepping to the side so that he was once again standing right in front of me.

Something broke in me at that point. I pushed hard on his chest with both hands.  “OK, it fucking hurt and it pissed me off. What, are you going to say sorry or some bullshit?” I spat out, hoping he couldn’t hear how choked up my throat was.

“No, I’m not sorry.” I looked at him, incredulous. In the moonlight I could see that he was actually smiling.

The betrayal cut deep. I’d made myself vulnerable and he was rubbing it in my face. “Let me get this straight. You
want
me to be upset about this? Does your ego get off on that?” I was back to being livid. I started to head for the door but he grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to stop and face him. I looked up at his face, my eyes filled with tears and shooting sparks at the same time.

“Yes.” He ground out. “Because now I know that you have some inkling of how I feel every time I see you with Bryce.”

I looked at him in shock. He continued, his voice bitterly triumphant. “That’s what I wanted to say to you. Now I’m going to look for Melanie.” With that, he turned and walked around the side of the house to the backyard, leaving me alone in the dark, reeling from his words.

Riding in the back of Raymond’s Altima a few minutes later, I could tell Tina was bursting with curiosity, but it would have to wait. I wasn’t about to unburden myself in front of poor Raymond. Instead she and Raymond chatted about the improv sketch, the main subject of the night.

She looked up from her phone. “I hate to break it to you but the skit is now up on youtube, and from the numbers of hits I think half the school has viewed it already.”

I groaned. Monday was going to be fun.

The fall-out from the drama club party was surprisingly minimal. It turned out that the popular crowd were self-absorbed enough not to pay attention to the social media activity of anyone outside their circle, so they never heard about my sketch with Callum. Good. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Instead, they were consumed by talk of another party, this one at Alex’s house, coming up on Saturday. Alex was very rich indeed, even by that crowd’s standards, and threw massive parties when her folks were out of town. This was being billed as the bash of the year.

As for the aftermath with Callum, that was a different matter. I’m embarrassed to admit that I wimped out completely and canceled our tutoring session. I just couldn’t handle seeing him after that exchange.

Tina was furious with me. “He practically made a declaration of love. For God’s sake, Jenny.”

“No, he didn’t. He made a declaration of jealousy, which coming from an oversexed alpha manwhore doesn’t count for shit.”

She threw up her hands on the screen. “Fine. I give up. Start loving up Bryce then, if you’re going to be so willfully obtuse.”

So I spent the week hiding out doing work and giving Bryce my undivided attention. On Friday after class, Callum surprised me by waiting for me outside the classroom. We hadn’t spoken since the party and he must have known I was avoiding him. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought he seemed nervous. “Hey, so, I am kind of worried about your car.”

I looked blankly at him. “My car? What’s wrong with it?” Had someone dinged it in the parking lot? I was going to be pissed if so.

“You said before the first quiz that it needed an oil change, and that was over a month ago. You keep rolling over that bet and you really should change your oil. It’s not good for your car to go too long without an oil change.”

I felt disappointed, and slightly irritated. We don’t talk for a week and this is the first thing he comes out with? Some parental advice?

“Fine. I’ll take care of it,” I said, annoyed. I started to turn away from him when he stopped me.

“Wait. I wasn’t trying to boss you around. I was going to say, let me do the oil change.”

And just like that my heart lifted. “That is really sweet. If you’re sure, that would be awesome.” I grinned at him full on, and something passed across his face, but he recovered quickly.

“Great.” He said shortly. “Sunday morning work for you?” I nodded, not even really thinking about whether I was free or not. I’d cancel anything to see this guy.

“How early do you want to come over?”

“Well, not that early as I’m probably going to feel a little rough. But anytime after 9 is fine.”

A look of irritation crossed Callum’s face. “Alex’s party? Have fun with that.”

“You don’t want to come? Theo comes to them sometimes.”

Callum snorted. “Shoot me now. And actually we have a gig that night. OK let’s say as soon after 9 as you can make it.” What was up with this insistence on meeting so early?

“Aren’t you going to be a little tired yourself?”

Callum was already walking away. “Let me worry about that. I have stuff to do later that day, so early is good.”

I glared at his back, frustrated. Even when doing something nice it had to be on his own terms.

Saturday night rolled around and Lacey picked me up at 10 to go to the party. I was wearing skinny jeans, wedge sandals that I was a little imbalanced walking in, and a teal chiffon cami I’d gotten from American Apparel the week before. I wore my hair down in my fumbled approximation of a Brazilian blow-out. I looked pretty good. Lacey, in an apple green silk shorts playsuit with a bandeau neckline (she had taught me that term) and espadrilles, looked spectacular as usual.

Alex’s house was set back on several acres and enormous. We parked right in front, where Alex had set up a cone to reserve a space for Lacey. I scampered out to move the cone out of the way as Lacey eased her Audi into the prime spot. Just as well we were so close given how difficult it was to walk in my shoes. Lacey entered the party like she owned it. I followed behind, not nearly as confident. Lacey never arrived at parties until they were in full swing, and this one certainly was. We made our way between the bodies in the foyer and towards the kitchen where the booze was centered, although Alex had mentioned there would be a satellite bar by the pool. A uniformed bartender was mixing the drinks and providing beers, apparently unconcerned that we were all minors.  The music, the latest club hits, was piped throughout the house, which I could see was sumptuously furnished. Someone had had the good sense to toss sheets over the couches.

The bartender made us each a sea breeze and we clutched our drinks as we headed into the crowd in search of Bryce and Kai. Alex appeared, blowing air kisses at us both. We complimented her on the party. Certainly everyone was there. She took that in stride and then leaned in to fill us in on the reported hook-ups, her voice dropping to a stage whisper.

Our huddle finished, Lacey and I moved forward in our search for the boys.  We finally found them playing beer pong in the basement. Bryce was apparently winning, but he left the game when he saw me, gesturing me over.

“I was waiting for you, babe.” He was grinning from ear to ear, his arm draped over my shoulder, and he pulled me close and kissed me, quite hard, on the lips. I saw a girl who had been hanging nearby shoot me a look. I stared at her as Bryce kissed my neck.
Back off bitch
. Lacey was in a similar embrace with Kai.

An exasperated Joe said, “OK love birds, are you going to keep sucking face or are you going to play?”

Chuckling, Bryce said, “Dude you play like a girl, it’s just too easy. I’m going to hang with my girl a bit. Later.” And with his arm still around my shoulders he guided me down the hall. He was just leading me into a bedroom and I was imagining where this was going, when there was a commotion and Jay, another football player, came clattering down the stairs of the basement.

“Dudes, some Dixon guys just crashed the party. Alex is pissed. We need to get those fuckers out of here.” Dixon students were most certainly not welcome at the party.

Our tryst forgotten, Bryce immediately took off down the hall, meeting Joe and Kai as they raced up the stairs.

Lacey was still standing by the table in the basement, looking bored. “How tedious,” she said, yawning. “Well we might as well go watch the action. I just hope my brother isn’t mixed up in this. He’s somewhere around here.”

We headed upstairs in time to see four or five guys being dragged out of the house through the front door by a significant portion of our football team. The kids witnessing this in the living room followed behind, intent on watching the inevitable fight in the front yard. Lacey and I made our way outside as well, in time to see Bryce and Kai throwing punches and getting hit in return. I winced when fists actually made contact. It looked painful. The fight was over quickly and the Dixon boys scattered towards the road. Our boys looked pleased with themselves, if winded. I ran over to Bryce to see how he was doing, as Lacey moved towards Kai.

“Hey babe did you see that? We showed those guys.” Embracing me, Bryce was positively gleeful, despite a swelling right cheek.

“I’m going to get you an ice pack,” I said, pulling away from Bryce’s hug. “I’ll be right back.” I headed inside and went straight to the kitchen, where the bartender was able to prepare a bag of crushed ice for me to use on Bryce. By the time I was back outside Bryce was sitting on the ground and there were two girls fussing over him, including a cheerleader named Katie who definitely knew better. I gave them both a warning look and they scattered away like the Dixon boys had done. I knelt by Bryce and gently rested the ice pack on his cheek. He flinched and I lifted the pack off. Bryce’s hand came up to hold mine and the ice pack in place.

“No no, keep it on there. It was just that the cold was a shock.”

On my knees I moved closer to him. Even more cautiously than before I rested the ice on his cheek. Bryce was watching me intently. I smiled, embarrassed by the heat of his stare.

“What? If I’m not doing this right, just stop me.” I shifted my arms slightly to make it easier to hold the ice pack up.

“What’s making me ache has nothing to do with my cheek. In five minutes I’m hauling you back downstairs.” He said this in a low voice and I could hear the demand in his tone. My eyes flicked away from his intense gaze.

Then Bryce’s eyes narrowed as he caught sight of something over my shoulder. A cheery voice behind me said, “Ah, Jenny, playing nurse?” It was Theo.

I swung around, pleased to see him, and immediately scanned the faces around him hopefully. Theo must have seen my look because he smirked and said, “I came with Connor.” Connor was a star swimmer and friend of Theo’s since childhood. Together at parties they had a reputation for sharing the same lucky girl.

“I thought you guys had a gig tonight?” I asked, confused.

Theo laughed. “We did, and it ended at 11. Its 11:30, Jenny. Time flies when you’re having fun, apparently.”

I started to ask Theo how the gig went, but Bryce cut me off. “Do you need something, Theo?” Bryce’s voice was civil but laced with annoyance.

“Nope. Just came over to say hi to Jenny,” Theo grinned widely, unfazed by Bryce’s hostility. “See you inside,” Theo said to me, ignoring Bryce. He sauntered toward the door.

Bryce sprang to his feet. “Let’s go,” he urged, pulling me up without much gentleness. He led me toward the house. I had a sinking feeling. I had stalled Bryce long enough. If I wanted to keep him I’d have to put out now. And losing him would mean losing Lacey. He was hot, he wanted to be exclusive, and I wasn’t a virgin, so what was my problem? I gave in, forcing myself to accept that it wasn’t that big a deal. We headed back through the house, where the party had returned to normal following the altercation with the Dixon boys.

At the bar Bryce stopped to order three tequila shots, handing one to me and pounding the other two himself. My throat felt hot after the shot but I was only mildly buzzed. Bryce, who had started drinking long before me, was fairly drunk. Holding my hand we walked downstairs to the basement and back to the room we had entered earlier. When we opened the door though, it was already occupied by two writhing bodies on the bed. With a hiss Bryce shut the door behind him.

“Let’s go upstairs. I know there are a bunch of other bedrooms up there.” Clearly Bryce had spent quite a lot of time in this house. I recalled hearing that he and Alex had dated freshman year.

As if my thought brought her to life, suddenly Alex was in front of us, weaving slightly. “Bryce,” she slurred, giving him a big smile. She gave me a quick nod, which was about as much as I could hope for from her. Her face suddenly registered concern, and she reached up tentatively to touch his bruised cheek. “Are you ok?” Her mouth made a little moue, showing off her ruby red lips to great effect. As the skill she was most famous for was blowjobs, this was probably not coincidental.

Bryce brushed her hand away. “I’m fine Alex. Glad we got those fuckwads out of here for you.” Of course the boys had been more than happy to clear those guys out for their own testosterone fueled posturing, not for Alex, but I wasn’t going to get into it.

Bryce’s face turned lecherous, and he took my hand. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Jenny and I are going upstairs to take care of something. Do not disturb.”

I was a bit shocked by his frankness but Alex just grinned knowingly. “Be my guest.”

Joe appeared, throwing his arm over Bryce’s shoulder. “Come on man, we’re doing shots, toasting the Dixon pricks and their departure.”

But Bryce was firm. “I’ll catch up with you later. Jenny and I have a date.” Still holding my hand, he led me toward the stairs. On our way up, I glanced down and saw Theo watching us. I smiled at him but his face had a look of displeasure, concern even.

On the second floor, we headed down the hall, looking for an open door. We finally found one at the end, a small room that must have been for a child. I knew Alex was an only child, so I wondered idly if it was for a visiting cousin or had been Alex’s when she was younger.

Bryce shut the door behind us before guiding me backward in the dark until my legs hit the bed. He pushed me onto it and followed me down, his body leaning over me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath but I knew he wasn’t drunk enough to lose focus. His touch as he ran his hand over my body was not unpleasant or aggressive, but I felt nothing. This didn’t seem the right thing to be feeling before sex. But I couldn’t see a way out of this situation that wouldn’t be social suicide, so time to just suck it up. The stark realization that I was more dependent on my popular friends than I had been willing to admit hit me. I was well and truly trapped.

Meanwhile, Bryce had reached over to turn on a bedside lamp and was now determinedly undressing me, while I lay like a ragdoll, neither resisting nor helping. He didn’t seem to notice my passivity. He paused to kiss me at various moments. I knew he really did care about me, but I also knew his affection was not unconditional and he expected me to give myself to him: that was part of the deal. I felt an overwhelming sadness, a sense of worthlessness, and my eyes filled with tears.

He had me down to my panties before he sat back on his knees to pull his shirt over his head. He gazed down hungrily, his eyes raking over my body, completely oblivious to my bleak mood.