Figure Eight
Preston Darling
“It ended up being a horrible night all around,” Dolly finished, tossing a fry down on the grease-stained paper lining the red basket in the center of the picnic table. A few of us had met at Boehner’s Burgers the next day to eat before going to a movie.
“But he didn’t sleep with Lacey,” their friend Becca said. “So that’s good, right?”
“Well, he said he didn’t,” Dolly said, adjusting the scarf she’d worn to hide the marks I’d left on her neck. “And I trust him. I don’t think he’d lie to me about that. Right?”
She turned to me, as if I had the answer she was looking for.
I guess I did.
“Right,” I said. I’d fucked up enough the night before. The least I could do was try to make it better now, even if I’d wanted the opposite the night before. The trouble was, I wanted her and Devlin to break up, but I didn’t want her to be hurt, and there was no way to have both those things.
“I mean, he asked me if we left it,” she says with a forced little laugh, watching for my reaction. “So that means it couldn’t have been him, because if it was, he’d know it wasn’t ours.”
“So, actually…” Destiny said, setting down her burger. “I have to tell y’all something. But you can’t tell anyone. This is like a cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die kind of secret.”
“What is it?” Becca asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement and jealousy that she’d missed out on the fun the night before.
Destiny took a breath and sat up straight. “So, last night, me and Colt kind of… You know. Did it.”
“What?” Dolly demanded, her mouth falling open. “Shut the front door! How?”
“I don’t know,” Destiny said, biting back a smile. “It just sort of… Happened.”
“You’re not even going out with him.”
“I know, and he’s not even at our school yet, but he’s actually really sweet. We just figured, if we both stay in Faulkner, we’ll end up together anyway. So why wait?” She lifted her shoulders and gave a silly little grin.
I just shook my head. That little bastard hadn’t said a word about it the night before, when he’d stayed in the guest house at our Grampa’s with me.
More than that, the lucky idiot managed to find a girl who’d hook up with him before me or Devlin, despite still being a few months shy of his fourteenth birthday.
“What?” Destiny asked, her pointed gaze turned my way.
I shrugged. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were making a face.”
“I was?”
“Go on then,” Destiny said. “Spit it out.”
I shrugged again. “Okay. How was it?”
“It was… Pretty okay, actually. I mean, considering we only had seven minutes, and neither of us knew what we were doing.” She laughed while Becca and Dolly exchanged looks.
“Did it hurt?” Becca asked.
“I mean, yeah,” Destiny said. “I would definitely advise against doing it in an enclosed space with a timer going and your friends sitting right there, and probably pick someone who’s done it before. But for what we had to work with, I’m calling it a win.”
She laughed, and I grinned and shook my head again. I couldn’t help but be impressed with her and Colt both.
“Are you, like, together now?” Becca asked, picking up her burger again. She and Dolly looked a little less impressed.
“I don’t think so,” Destiny said. “I mean, he’s great and everything, but he doesn’t even go to our school. It seemed sort of cute to have him be my first, but like… I’m only a freshman.”
“So?” Dolly asked. “Me and Devlin have been together since eighth grade.”
“And that’s totally cool if it works for y’all,” Destiny said.
“But I want to have fun and keep my options open. If someone asks me out, I might want to see where it goes. I don’t want to feel all guilty if I think some other guy is hot or whatever.
Plus, I want to try it with someone more experienced. ”
“When you find someone you really love, you won’t be interested in other guys,” Dolly said.
I pushed my plate away. I’d just entered a new level of hell.
“Exactly,” Destiny said. “We’re not in love. We just wanted to try it. Neither of us had done it, and now we have.”
“I can’t believe you’re acting like this is no big deal,” Dolly said. “We’ve been talking about this for years. I’ve been waiting with Devlin for so long, and you just threw it away on someone you’re not even dating.”
“Okay, that’s not what happened, and you sound like my parents right now,” Destiny said, dumping salt over the second basket of fries.
“In fact, you know what, you’re worse than my parents.
They won’t even let me date because they don’t want me to get too serious about someone so young and limit my future. ”
Dolly stiffened. “I’m not limiting my future. I just know what I want.”
“Well, I don’t,” Destiny said. “And you don’t get to judge me for that. Maybe you just want to stay in Faulkner and get married and have babies, but not everyone wants to get tied down in high school.”
“Now who’s judging?” Dolly asked.
Destiny sighed. “We’re not the same person, Dolly. Maybe I’ll end up with Colt and live happily ever after. Maybe I won’t.”
“Does my grandfather know that?” I asked.
“Your creepy old Grampa needs to worry about his own life, not mine,” she said. “He might run Faulkner, but I won’t be here forever. I’m getting out of here once I graduate, at least for college. Maybe I’ll come back, maybe I won’t.”
“But what will you do?” Dolly asked, staring at her friend like she was a stranger.
It was sad somehow, the way the core six from our old group were all growing apart and changing.
We weren’t kids anymore. Hell, my kid cousin had gotten laid.
We didn’t do everything together anymore.
Lindsey didn’t even want to go to WHPA the next year.
There were more friends in our group, filling the gaps, so people might think we had just grown, but I knew it was more than that.
Everything was more rigid in high school—the cliques, the rules, the social order.
Devlin had made it clear to me the night before.
We weren’t just five kids in a little bubble of privilege. Our actions affected others now.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Destiny said. “That’s the point. I’m still figuring things out. Not everyone follows the plan their parents set out for them. I want options.”
“That’s so scary,” Dolly said. “I can’t imagine just… Not knowing my whole future.”
“Or maybe it’s exciting,” Destiny said, wadding up her napkin and tossing it into the empty fry basket. “Look, maybe Colt will be my first and my last. But if he is, there will be other guys in between. Maybe even a girl, who knows. I sure as hell don’t. And I like that, okay?”
“Okay,” Dolly said, picking a few dog hairs off her scarf. “I think it’s romantic that Devlin will be the only guy I’m ever with. I like that I’ve known it since I was five. But I know not everyone needs their entire future planned out—even if it gives me a hives just thinking about it.”
Destiny laughed, and everyone went on like it was fine now because the girls had gotten past the prickly bit and were back to being friends.
But I kept thinking about what Dolly said—that she and Devlin would be together forever.
He was the only guy she’d ever be with. I’d wait forever if I knew I’d get her in the end, but she’d just killed that fantasy.
There was no end of her and Devlin. Even the condom drama hadn’t broken them up. I would never have a chance with her.
Not unless, like Dad said, I made it happen.
*
When I got home after the movie, Dad stopped me. “I got your guest all set up,” he said.
“Tonight?” I asked, gulping. My gaze moved to the staircase leading to the second floor, where my bedroom was. I wondered if she was already there, if she was naked.
“Not tonight,” he snapped, glancing at the sitting room, where I could hear the TV playing some reality show Mom and Lindsey watched.
“I wouldn’t allow that kind of person in our home, especially not with my daughter here.
You’ll go to your grandfather’s after school tomorrow. You’ll entertain your guest there.”
“Yes, sir.”
I waited until he walked away to go upstairs.
I didn’t even know if I wanted to do what he’d suggested, but then, that had never mattered to him before.
In our family, we did things his way or Grampa’s way.
Kids were supposed to be obedient and useful, not have minds of our own.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering what Dolly would think if she knew.
Probably nothing. She’d been mad about the condom wrapper, but as soon as she knew it wasn’t Devlin’s, it didn’t matter.
I didn’t matter to her. She didn’t care if it had been mine.
The next day, I went to Grampa Darling’s after school.
Dad had told me to use the guest house, and as I circled around to the entrance, I wondered why he’d hire ‘that kind of person’ if he wouldn’t allow her in our home.
Why he expected me to fuck her, but Lindsey was so pure she couldn’t even see her.
She showed up ten minutes later. I didn’t know what I expected her to look like, but it wasn’t that. She was probably twice my age, in her late twenties, with long dark hair, a round face, and that pointy eyeliner girls wore.
She looked at me skeptically. “You’re eighteen?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, remembering what my father had told me to say.
“Could have fooled me,” she said, taking a seat in one of the other chairs.
“You don’t look the way I expected either.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked, raising a brow. “And how’s that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You just don’t look like a whore.”
“I’m an escort, honey,” she said. “Not a whore.”
“What’s the difference?”
“For starters, I don’t have to have sex,” she said. “I go on dates and the like.”
“You want me to take you on a date?”
She laughed and stood up, peeling off the cardigan she had on. “No, honey,” she said. “Your daddy told me what you’re after. But for legal purposes, yes, this is a date.”
She climbed onto my lap and started kissing me. I tried to respond, but suddenly I didn’t know where to put my hands. It had come so naturally with Dolly in the trunk.
After a while, the escort sighed and slid off my lap. “Not into it? Want to talk more?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just… I don’t even know your name.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you start talking? Tell me what you’re really after.”
“I thought my dad told you.”
“He told me what he was after,” she said. “You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. He doesn’t have to know.”
“You won’t tell him?” I asked. “If we don’t go through with it?”
I pictured the scene that would unfold if I wasted his good money, if he went to all the trouble to get this woman and be discrete, and how much trouble he’d be in if Mom found out.
He already liked to tell me I wasn’t a man.
If I couldn’t even fuck a pretty girl who wouldn’t say no to anything, maybe he was right.
“Honey, we can do whatever you want to do, and you can tell your daddy whatever you want to tell him. I got paid. I don’t care what you tell him. I don’t report back. And it wouldn’t even be close to the first time someone used me as a therapist. Just let me know one thing. Can I smoke in here?”
We walked out through the gardens and along the river-rock pathway to the gazebo out by the catfish pond.
She smoked a cigarette, and I ended up telling her a lot of shit I hadn’t meant to.
That I’d never done this, and that I liked a girl, and I wanted to be good but I didn’t know how to do that without doing it first.
“I think it’s sweet you want to be good for her,” she said. “I’m going to show you something that’ll help. Honestly, a lot more boys should know this stuff, anyway.”
The escort stood, and we went back to the guesthouse. She took a dildo out of her bag and sat down on the bed. “Let me show you where a woman likes to be touched,” she said. “You can just watch, or you can join in if you want.”
She took off her clothes and sat on the bed.
It sank in how very real she was, not a cam girl or a porn video, but a real woman who probably lived somewhere in the same town as me.
She opened her legs and used her fingers to spread herself open.
I wasn’t sure if I was more turned on or ashamed of looking at her like that.
I’d never seen a cunt like that, in person, so detached from any kind of feeling.
It was like porn, but in the flesh. It seemed so far removed from Dolly, from anyone at my school, like surely no one my age shared those features.
She turned on her vibrator and started moving it around. She talked while she went, showing me her clit, and moving the tip of the penis-shaped toy around it, then down and around her opening, then back up, around and around in a figure eight until the toy was all slippery where it touched her.
“The key is to go a little longer than you think you need to,” she said. “Whenever you think you’ve done enough, do a little more. You want to make sure she’s really wet. And if you’re worried about finishing too soon, make sure you jerk off before you go see her.”
She kept giving me pointers and sex tips for a while.
At last, she slid the vibrator into herself.
She pushed up on her elbow and asked if I wanted to try it, but I shook my head.
She slid the dildo in and out for a while.
I stood frozen, caught somewhere between horniness and horror that I could be aroused by her very clinical masturbation session.
She told me some signs to look for so I’d know a girl was close, and then how to guess if she’d come. When she was done, she asked if I wanted a blow job or anything, and then she cleaned up and left.
I was still sitting there a few minutes later, wondering if what happened was even real, since it felt like a dream.
How the fuck was I supposed to do that to Dolly or anyone else?
Before I could think it through, Grampa’s new wife Kamlai came stomping in.
She started yelling at me in Thai, gesturing wildly and yanking at the blankets.
I had no idea what she was saying, or why she didn’t just have the housekeeper change the bedding.
I couldn’t even tell her that nothing happened, that she didn’t need to do that.
Humiliated, I fled the guesthouse, knowing I’d never be able to look at my step-grandmother again.
She wasn’t just part of the family, she was also a gorgeous girl who was only a few years older than me.
And now she thought I couldn’t get a girl on my own, that I had to fuck hookers.
Most humiliating of all, she wasn’t entirely wrong.