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Tangling Hearts 15. Brendan 10%
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15. Brendan

Chapter Fifteen

brENDAN

S tanding in the doorway. Totally confused.

“ B ye,” I mumble, staring at Cruella DeHaircut, the odd little creature that has drifted into my head more than is understandable. As I watch her descend the stairs, my hand travels to my stomach even though it no longer hurts where she ran into it. But still, I can feel where she touched it. What the fuck is wrong with me? How can a little ghoul-chick throw me like this?

Shaking my head like a dog after a bath, I knock on the door and wait.

A gust of wind almost blows me back. “I’m not saying sorry again!” Corinne stops cold when she sees me. “Oh… uh, hi.” She cranes her head out and looks down the empty hallway. Eyeballing me, she mutters, “Are you wearing the same clothes you wore last night?”

I look down, again kicking myself for being a douche. “No. I have more than one set of these.” Changing the subject, I smile, “Hey.”

She crosses her arms, hiking up her tits. “Listen, I can’t see you anymore.” She peeks out the door again.

“That’s not why I’m here.” I follow her look down the hallway. “She took off.”

“Oh.” She frowns deeply, staring down the hall, biting the inside of her cheek. “Then what are you here for?” She couldn’t be more irritated.

Wow. When you bone a chick, you expect her to be a little nicer than this. Or at least a little needy for your attention or something. This is wild. And very attractive.

“My wallet. It must have dropped out of my pants last night. I checked my jacket. It’s not there. I didn’t have your phone number.” She stares at me. “This is awkward.”

“Well, come on in then, I guess.” She turns and I watch her ass bounce in the sweatpants. Boom boom boom, like a clock ticking from side to side. We go search her bedroom and find my wallet under the bed. She bends down and reaches deep under there. Her ass is pushed up and all I can think about is riding it. She pokes her head out, my wallet in between two fingers. “Here ya go.”

“Thanks.” I shove my hands in my pockets to hide the growing tent. “So, where’s the Wicked Witch of the West headed? Home to see the ‘rents?”

Without batting an eyelash, Blondie plops down on the bed, boobs bouncing a couple times. She stares off. “Can you believe it? She left for Europe. Bought a ticket today. Out of the blue! To Italy! She’s going to fucking Italy.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe it.”

I cross one leg over the other, leaning against a poster of The Ramones. “Wow. Cool graduation present.”

“She’s not graduated! We both have a year left still! But no – she just bailed on all of it! Said fuck it! Bought a ticket to Italy and off she goes. I have to pack all of her stuff and give it to charity. Who does that?”

This piece of news is surprising. Mistress of The Full Moon bought a ticket to Europe and is bailing on the path we all have to walk? I know for a fact I wouldn’t have the balls to do something like that. It’s pretty impressive. “She just did that today?”

“Yes! Packed a bag, heading to the airport now.” She shakes her hair out with her hand.

“Huh. Wow.” I think about it a moment. We’re both silently considering it. Maybe we’re both even picturing Se?orita Shadow on the plane, flying all by herself, showing up in a foreign country, looking around and wondering where to go now.

“Does she have family in Italy? Or know anyone there?”

“Nope! No one!”

“That’s pretty brave.”

“Or stupid.”

I lock eyes with her. She doesn’t like that I said it. But who cares – it’s what I believe, so I say it again, “I think it’s really brave.”

“Or stupid.” Blondie repeats, annoyed. “You don’t know her. She’s horrible with people. Completely over the moon shy. She’s just a sheltered kid playing grown up. What is she going to do over there?”

“Get a job? Eat pizza? She’ll figure it out.”

Blondie glares at me and stands up. “You’re an idiot.”

I snort. “Okay then.”

“You wanna fuck?”

My head nearly whips off my head from the double take I give her. “Uh… yes?”

“Great.” She pulls off her top. “Let’s fuck. See if I care what she thinks.”

I have no idea what that means, but I fuck the shit out of her anyway. She commands all of my moves until I shut her up by grabbing her and carrying her into the bathroom where I take her from behind, in front of the mirror. She won’t look at the reflection, though. Keeps her head down. “Do you want to…” I begin to say, to see if we should move into the bedroom, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. I only brought her in here because I thought it would be hot.

“No. This is fine. Just fuck me,” she says in almost a grunt of anger, like she’s got a vendetta she’s working out through my cock. I comply and thrust into her, touch her with a reach around, noticing she’s not cumming as quickly as she did last night. She still won’t look in the mirror. But I can’t help but look. I stare at her sexy naked body, her sweet perky size C breasts bouncing back and forth. It doesn’t take me long to get to the edge of the cliff. I tell her, holding off my fire, “I can wait.”

“It’s not going to happen for me. It’s fine. You can cum whenever you’re ready.”

There’s something wrong with what’s happening and I can feel it, but guys are visual and this mirror image of us, my hands on her hips and traveling up to hold her breasts, her eyelids hooded and sultry – it’s not hard for me to pass through the gates. I give myself over to it; feel the surge of release, wishing she were feeling it with me.

I pull out, and throw the condom away. She says, “I never want to see you again.”

Shocked, I turn to her, unsure of why she’d say something so rude and even cruel. “What? Why?”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you.” She walks out of the bathroom and goes into her room, climbing onto her bed and staring off.

Slowly, I follow her, feeling horrible. Did I hurt her? Did I go too deep and hit her cervix or something? Did she feel like I took advantage of her? Staring at her, I replay the events and come up with the same answer over and over – she asked me to fuck her. She told me to fuck her – it wasn’t even just a request, it was an order. But still – I don’t want to have disrespected her in any way. That’s not what I’m about. I couldn’t live with myself.

“Corinne… what’s going on? Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you?”

She laughs a tiny laugh. “Like you could ever hurt me.”

“Well, did I just take advantage of you? I thought you asked me to…” I trail off, hoping for some answers, trying to be kind.

She looks at me with obvious disdain. I’ve never seen a look this cold. “Please. Don’t you get it? I took advantage of you.”

“I’m totally lost. What?”

“Just leave. I used you to make a point. And now I’m done. Go.” She pulls the blankets over her body and stares off again.

I have absolutely no clue what this chick’s problem is, but I’m over it. Anger rages in me as I put on my clothes. Again. “Fine. You used me. But you know how you just blew me?”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t bathe today.”

She smiles. “You think I don’t have taste buds? You’re hilarious.”

My smirk falls. Like a schmuck, I back out of the room, grabbing my shoes. Checking to make sure I remembered my wallet this time, I go to leave. I hear her say something. She says it to herself, like I can’t hear it, but this apartment is the size of a Chihuahua’s kennel. “I don’t know what you saw in him, Squid. Throwing everything away over a guy like that?”

I stand a moment, listening for more but nothing comes. I close the front door quietly and pull on my shoes outside in the hallway, thinking, now what the hell did she mean by that?

Looking to my right, I freeze. Annie is there, holding onto her suitcase, with tears in her eyes. “Idiot,” she says, and turns and walks down the stairs.

I stare after her. I feel like I should chase her down, and I don’t know why. When I get outside, she’s riding away in a cab. She looks through the window at me, her smudged blue eyes sad. With my hands at my sides, I watch, unsure of what is happening, but feeling like something is.

A few minutes later, walking up Geary Street, I mull over the last twenty-four hours. Corinne cemented in me what I’ve already begun to believe; girls don’t respect us. They don’t care. They aren’t capable of love.

Part of me wishes for the time when Sara and I were happy, just us together, when I knew what to expect and what was expected of me. But then I decide, this is life. It ain’t easy, but I can either mope around or feel sorry for myself or I can keep on trucking and make sure to build the wall around my heart thick and sure. I can’t let these women get to me as easily as they always do.

A sign catches my attention for an Italian restaurant. I pause and stare at it, thinking of that girl, Annie. Leaving town and cutting her hair… she seems to be on a similar path I’m on… changing herself in big ways. Corinne said Annie ditched her last year of school to see Europe. I have a lot of respect for that. I guess that’s why I’m not making up funny nicknames for her anymore. And her eyes, man. Those eyes of hers… they’re sticking with me.

A very affectionate couple leaves the restaurant holding hands, their bodies close to each other as they walk past me. I can’t help but smile because they look really happy. It’s around six o’clock, so this must have been an early dinner date. As they pass me, he says to her, “I promise I’m going to leave her. I’ll talk to her tonight.” She kisses him and I look down to see only one of them is wearing a wedding ring.

Discouraged, I continue home. I could take a cab, but I need to think. A walk will do me good. I don’t know what’s going on with the world, but it seems the current state is disloyalty, self-serving decisions, and lack of principles. When did this happen? When did it become so easy to hurt people?

This is why I don’t want love anymore. It’s not what it purports to be. I’m going to keep my life nice and easy.

I will never let a woman get close to this heart again.

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