Page 24 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“I don’t do this with my guy friends, you know,” he said, grinning.

“I don’t care. Just shut up and do it again.”

He did. Then again. And again, only this time I wasn’t satisfied with the weed.

I put a hand on his bare chest and slid my fingertips over one nipple. It was much darker, much hairier than Van’s. And it was hard.

“Did I do that, or was it the weed?” I said.

“Do what?”

I stroked one nipple, then the other. “Did I get these two guys to stand at attention?”

He laughed in my face. “Jesus F. Christ, McCormick, that is so lame.”

“What?” I said.

“You. Coming on to me like one of those cheeseballs fromThe Young and The Restless.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab?—”

He grabbed my elbows and jerked me to my feet. “Let me save you the trouble, kid.”

He backed me against the wall and pressed hard against me.

The suddenness and the raw sexuality of it all petrified me and completely turned me on at the same time. My entire body quivered.

His jeans and boxers were already low on his hips. I didn’t think. I dug my fingers inside his beltline and pulled them to his ankles, pushed him back down onto the sofa.

I could see in his eyes that this turnabout was the last thing he expected from the cheeseball with the lame soap opera dialogue. I straddled him, lifted my hips, and like Van before him, and every man since, he moaned as he entered me and felt the welcoming warm wetness engulf him.

He cupped my breasts, and every pleasure receptor in my body began firing. The rage inside me turned to pure sexual energy. I’d learned a lot over the past year, and I knew just how to move to drive him to the edge.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he yelled, trying to pull out. “I don’t need no kids.”

“I’m on the pill,” I said, gyrating out of control.

That’s all it took. His hands gripped my hips, and he thrust upward hard. Once. Twice. A third time. He made it to nine before he exploded, and I pressed my head to his chest as that feeling of joy and the sense of power of what I could do for yet another man swept over me.

Johnny wasn’t the cuddling type. He rolled me off him, and the two of us lay there breathing heavily. I stared at the water-stained ceiling, the gray-brown paint peeling from the walls, and the lone cloudy window, a strip of flypaper speckled with God-knows-how-many victims, dangling from the head jamb.

And then—just like that—I started laughing. Hard.

“What’s so funny?” he said.

“This, dude,” I said, my hand sweeping across the dismal space. “Us.”

He sat up. “News flash, babe. There is no us. Never will be. You got what you came for. Johnny Rollo, at your cervix. One and done.”

He rolled off the sofa and pulled up his pants. “You hungry?” he said.

“Starving,” I said. “What have you got besides Pop-Tarts?”

“Beer.”

“Sounds like a party,” I said. “And while you’re at it, I’d like a bag of that killer weed to go.”

“You’re out of luck. That was the last of it. I’ll have more tomorrow. If you want some, track me down at the Pits after midnight.”

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