Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
L orelai…
After trying on so many clothes I had to practically beg, no more! It was late when they left, one of the men jogging up to the gate to unlock it for them to leave. I watched from the porch and while I didn’t recognize the man below, he raised a hand and waved at me, which was… nice. I waved back and listened to their glad voices as they retreated into the night up the road outside the cemetery gates.
I closed my eyes, breathing in slow and deep the humid night air that was lightly perfumed with something floral. My mind went two places with that – magnolia or night blooming jasmine… but I couldn’t remember for the life of me which one was actually correct.
I sighed, drawing the light shawl around my shoulders a little tighter, even though it was the furthest thing from cold out here. Really, it was because I had already dressed for bed, and the satin set was beyond cute. A light peachy satin pair of shorts and cropped tank top. Perfect for the hot, sultry Savannah night… but, it unfortunately didn’t leave anything to the imagination up top, or down below. The shorts cut high in the back baring much more leg and thigh than I was comfortable with, and my nipples pressing prominently to the inside of the thin material.
It was either this, or a long thin satin nightgown that likewise didn’t leave much if anything to the imagination, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the night clothes were less for my benefit and more for Hangman’s… but no, the girls had explained to me that lovely pajamas that were sexy and felt good against the skin was a treat for themselves that they all indulged in and they had just defaulted to the racy attire.
The sincere look on their faces had made me decide they were telling the truth… and yet… and yet I found myself really hoping that Hangman would like them as much as I did.
I didn’t know how to feel about that.
I didn’t know how to feel about anything… while I knew something bad had happened to me while under the effects of the drugs, I didn’t remember – but it was there. This vague, insidious sense of violation that made me want to shower. It clung to me like thick oily ooze. Toxic and foul but it, unfortunately, rode up underneath my skin and no matter how much I showered it wasn’t something that would wash away.
It'd only left my consciousness once since I’d woken up on that cold metal gurney and that had been when Hangman had stayed with me.
I know it wasn’t fair of me to cling to him like a frightened child. I couldn’t even remember what the dream had been about – I’d just woken, feeling like I was choking and suffocating on this sense of violent dread. That the cloying and noxious fumes of it stuffed my nose and mouth and made it hard to draw breath.
I looked back over my shoulder and sighed.
I was tired, the bed calling my name from inside the little apartment… but by the same token, that pervasive sense of wrongness plagued me. As though whatever it was that’d happened to me to put me on that cold table waited for me just beyond the veil of sleep. Squatting, insidious, blinking like a toad waiting to lash out its disgusting tongue and pull me into the depths of madness.
I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid to dream. I didn’t want to remember, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was coming for me.
I sighed, wishing that Hangman would come home soon so I didn’t have to face the prospect of dreaming quite so alone.
I looked up at the camera out here, and it was lit green. I glanced through the windows at the ones in the living room and by the door opposite through the kitchen and they were lit green as well.
I wondered if he watched me and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that I hoped he did.
There was something soothing about his quiet, stolid, and steadfast presence.
It was like he was a living and breathing talisman against the dark and I worried that it was just so unfair of me to think that way.
I was at war with myself. At once wanting desperately for more time here, for more peace and quiet before having to face the maelstrom of the public eye and my parents who honestly, I felt so detached from. I saw those people on television and I knew they were indeed my mom and dad, but all manner of warmth or feeling for them or even from them felt like it hit some strange barricade in my mind.
The emotions were blunted, stunted somehow, and I certainly felt much more looking at my poor mother cry and beg into the camera than I did my father… but I couldn’t begin to say why.
I couldn’t even fathom what’d happened to me to get to this place of just utter detachment. I didn’t understand if it was the drug or if it was something else altogether. Had something happened with them that I just didn’t remember? Or was it the drug making me feel this way – or more accurately, making me feel nothing at all…
All I knew was that I wasn’t right, and I didn’t feel right, but that was slowly and I do mean slowly and agonizingly slowly at that, changing.
It was like I had stepped out of my body and I was coming back into the room of it, and I couldn’t really explain it any other way than that.
The words escaped me.
I rubbed my forehead between my eyes where I’d crushed my brow into a worried frown the more my disjointed thoughts tumbled through my head, seemingly from the sky. I turned from my tumultuous thoughts and went inside, closing the door firmly but quietly behind me.
I moved like a shade or a wraith through the house, my footfalls soft, the old boards creaking and barely squeaking beneath my feet as I padded barefoot out of the living room and into the hall. I slipped into the bedroom and slipped the shawl off of my shoulders, setting it atop the chest of drawers just inside the door.
I slipped between the crisp cotton sheets and eased myself onto my side, hugging a pillow half to my chest and laying my head down. I closed my eyes against the slight green glow cast from the little light on the camera in the corner and let my breath out slowly, drawing in a fresh one lightly spiced with Hangman’s lingering scent to replace it as I closed my eyes.
I didn’t expect sleep to come quickly, if at all, but I must have been more tired than I thought. That or the Sandman was in the neighborhood.
“Lore! C’mon!”
I twitched, the voice a familiar one. One I recognized but couldn’t place right away. I looked up from my broken heel and sighed, standing, and making my way at a ridiculous limp up the sidewalk.
“I broke my heel!” I complained, as my friend tossed her stiff, long blonde mane of hair over her shoulder.
“Oh, my God!” she stuffed her hand against her lips full of filler and stalked back toward me in her own high, gladiator heels that sparkled in the lamplight. She wore a tan bodycon dress that fit like a second skin, and she looked good. I was always jealous of her curves but wasn’t brave enough to undergo surgery like she had to get them to remain high and perpetually perked.
I had a decently sized chest, don’t get me wrong, it just… well, I was natural and Julie always sort of made fun of the fact that my tits didn’t have any perk and were kind of saggy. It made me self-conscious about them and I tried all manner of bra shape and size and tape – but no matter what, I couldn’t get things to fit quite the way they were supposed to look and it frustrated me.
“ Four-hundred-dollar pair of heels and they didn’t even last one night – girl I would take them back in the morning.”
“I plan on it,” I said and reached out. She made an exasperated sound but helped me, steadying me while I slipped off the offending shoes.
“We’re not going to make it in if you don’t hurry,” she said rolling her light eyes behind her chunky, black framed glasses.
All the money in the world couldn’t fix her failing eyesight or the fact she looked like she was in her late thirties even though we were the same age. All that tanning did a number on her and she always wore too much makeup. She irritated me more often than not with her backhanded compliments always making jabs at my appearance when hers held so many flaws, too; just in different ways. I always thought about it, but I was never so cruel as to ever actually say anything about any of it. I felt guilty sometimes, even thinking these things, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever stoop to Julie’s mean-girl level.
Sometimes I wondered if we were actually friends, or if it had just been so long that I just kept going through the motions… you know?
Clubbing and partying was her thing, but she’d reluctantly gone with me to places like Bonaventure earlier in the day for me to look at the flora within the cemetery and how they gardened the plots – which I had been curious about. Likewise, we’d walked through some of the historic districts, likewise looking at the gardens.
I loved flowers and plants and just about everything about planting. It was something I shared with my mother. She loved her rose gardens and had three greenhouses in the back of the big mansion I’d grown up in.
I loved my mother’s gardens and had grown up learning all about them. I was both thrilled at the azaleas in every corner of the old cemetery, and disappointed that I had missed their blooming this year with plans to return during their peak season. I bet it was quite the wonder to behold when they were all in bloom.
“Will they even let me in without shoes?” I asked laughing.
“Well, go back to the hotel and get another pair!” she said and sounded annoyed.
“What, by myself?” I asked incredulously.
“Lore, come on! I did everything you wanted to do all day. You know this is what I came down here for – why are you trying to ruin this for me?”
I twisted out of Julie’s grasp and stopped, just up the block the line was forming to get into this new club that she couldn’t stop raving about.
“I didn’t break my heel on purpose,” I tried and she scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“I don’t see the big deal,” she complained. “The hotel is only like a few blocks away.”
“You want me to walk several blocks alone in a strange city from ours barefoot and you don’t see a problem?” I asked and I admit it, I was becoming in censed , outrage combining with hurt and yes, even a little anger. I thought we were friends… what the fuck?
Julie just stared at me and looked like she was going to put her foot down on this.
“Fine,” I said. “Have a good time.” I turned and walked back the way we’d come and she called after me; “ You know what!? I will! You’re always such a drag, Lore! Well, not tonight!”
I kept walking, and flipped her off over my shoulder because with friends like her, who the hell honestly needed enemies?
It wasn’t until a block and a half later that the tears started.
I was so frustrated, and angry, and the more I thought about it the more I was honestly just done with the whole damn thing. Trying to be her friend was just too damn much work sometimes.
“Hey, whoa, you alright?” I’d been so focused on watching where I was stepping along the sidewalk, watching for broken glass, or spit, or worse things to spare my poor bare feet, I had crashed right into him.
I looked up sharply.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You don’t look fine,” he said.
I didn’t know the man, but he was dressed expensively enough in a tailored suit and he was, by all appearances, around my age. Still, as polite as he was being by unhanding me quickly and taking a step back out of my space, I felt uneasy.
“Just a stupid argument with one of my friends,” I said, figuring that wasn’t too much information.
“Where are you heading?” he asked and I looked to the side and said, “I’m already here, thank you, though. ”
I moved off in the direction of the doors to the upscale hotel lobby.
“I’m staying here, too,” he called, shutting the back of the town car he’d arrived in’s door. “Let me buy you a drink? You can lament all you want. What do you girls call it? Venting? I think that’s it. You can vent.”
“No, thank you,” I said shakily. “I’d rather just go upstairs.”
“One drink, come on, doesn’t even have to be alcohol. Just have a drink with me. I’ve had a pretty rotten night, too. I just… it would be a nice way to end the evening. A drink with a pretty woman and some light conversation. What do you say? Please don’t say ‘no.’”
I swallowed hard and looked him over. He was clean cut and dressed sharp. I could swear I had seen him somewhere before but I couldn’t place where.
“Alright,” I agreed reluctantly.
“Cal Pierce,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Lorelai,” I returned his handshake.
“An even prettier name for a pretty girl,” he said with a charming smile.
I smirked and gave a little chuckle.
“Nice to meet you,” I said out of sheer politeness.
I felt like I shifted uneasily, but I didn’t so much as twitch and it was a strange sort of sensation. I told my body to stop, to head for the elevators instead of the hotel’s bar, but it didn’t listen. I was vaguely aware of shifting uncomfortably as I watched from first person perspective the girl that was me, slip up onto a stool at the bar and set her broken shoes on its top, after opening up and laying down a napkin first.
“Ah, I think I’m starting to get a clearer picture here,” Cal said, giving a small chin thrust at the heel that was broken off and separated from the elegant shoe.
I remember giving an indelicate snort at that, and spilling the entire story of my shoe breaking, of Julie sending me along on my own, and of feeling both hurt and betrayed by my supposedly childhood best friend.
Cal listened and sighed, leaning back, and said precisely what I’d been thinking. “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”
“Precisely,” I said as the bartender set down a pair of drinks that we’d stopped long enough in our chat to order.
I turned at a touch on my back and an older gentleman apologized, “Sorry about that,” as he slid up onto the bar stool directly behind mine. The bar was fairly crowded, so it wasn’t out of place. I turned back to Cal and our drinks.
“So is Cal short for Calvin?” I asked casually.
He broke into a wide grin and dipped his chin almost shyly as he chuckled and said, “Calrose, actually. Some weird family name passed down for generations. I’m something like Calrose Pierce the Seventh. It’s a little ridiculous if you ask me.”
I smiled and shook my head, frowning at the bitter tang of my drink which should have been sweeter. I swallowed and coughed lightly at the burn of the alcohol going down and he frowned slightly.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just bitter. Has a funny taste like the fruit juice has gone off or something.”
He picked up my glass, sniffed it, and frowned a little harder.
“Let me get you another,” he said, and I shook my head.
“No, it’s fine.”
The next thing I knew, Cal had me fetched up into the corner of the elevator as it made a rapid ascent.
“ Come on, Lorelai, stay with me now. Just a little bit further.”
“What’s wrong with me?” The way my voice slurred frightened me. I tried to raise my arms and push him off, but it was like they didn’t want to work.
Fear spiked like an iron stake spearing right through me.
“ It’s okay,” Cal said. “I’ve got you.”
But I didn’t know who he was or how we’d gotten in here. I tried to fight, but my body just wouldn’t work .
“ Get off of me,” I begged, and he grunted as my legs went out from under me and he had to take my full dead weight.
“Fuck,” he muttered and his entire tone and demeanor changed as he put a shoulder into my midsection and lifted me, boneless and like a rag doll over his back.
The blood rushed into my already pounding head. My mouth was dry, and my arms hung limp no matter how much I internally screamed at them to move, to push off of him, to beat on him. My voice came out a strangled garbled groan as I tried to scream and just nothing would work.
The elevator stopped, and the doors swooshed open. The tile turned to carpet that spun crazily in my vision as he swept up the hall and knocked deftly on a hotel room door.
“That shit works fast, ” he complained to whoever opened it.
I was flung down onto a bed and panic rose in my chest. I couldn’t get my breath, everything just sort of going on autopilot.
I was vaguely aware of hissing, spitting, kicking, thrashing, and throwing up a grand fight – but my body just wouldn’t move! I screamed, I cried, I wailed, as the strange men in the room took scissors to my dress, cutting things off of me.
I thrashed, gnashed my teeth, screamed the unholiest of screams – but still I could not move.
I could feel everything he did to me.
When he cut my panties off and spread my legs, when he put fingers inside of me and complained, “She’s not very wet. That’s okay, we’ll get you ready,” as he began to tease around inside me.
I felt hot tears slick down my temples as I felt him find that spot inside me, teasing it with that come-hither motion and I still couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t breathe – but my body, down there, responded . A pleasure budding and growing, trying to blossom as I lay paralyzed and horrified.
I don’t want this! my mind screamed, but nothing would stop him… nothing would stop them … and I fought and I screamed but still no sound came out, not a single muscle so much as twitched. All I could do was lie still and weep, waiting for it to be over, wishing I would just pass out or die.