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.”