Page 28 of Pistol Whipped

The pauses between his words are punctuated by cries of ecstasy from the other table. The girl is clearly having a great time. With three people doting on her, I’m not surprised.

My own desire has now been totally soured, and in its place is frustration. I shove my boyfriend away. “Like her how? Seriously, Co, explain it to me?”

My voice is getting louder. I’m not sure why his comments annoy me so much, but they do. The problem is that when it comes to Cohen, my bad attitude is contagious.

“Like the kind of girl who fucks around. It’s slutty,” he says, caustic and cutting and flung out at me like he sees my dark desires written on my skin. I hate that word, and he knows it. It’s a word men throw around to shame women for having the audacity to like and want sex.

I shove him against the high back of our booth.

“You’re so fucking judgemental, Co!”

“She’s letting three different people practically fuck her in the middle of a nightclub,” he hisses, “Tell me that’s not slutty behaviour?”

“Slutty behaviour! What are you? Her dad?”

“No, but there’s no way I’d let you do something like that!”

His face turns beet red even in the dark. His nostrils flare, and for a second I wonder if he’s picturing it. Then my brain catches up, processing what he just said.

“LET ME?! You wouldn’t LET me?!” I shove all the way out of the booth now, so I’m standing, and if I could learn to shoot daggers out of my eyeballs, I would be firing them right at Cohen Brady right now.

A feeling that only intensifies when he tries to shrug off my anger. ”What is your problem, Rainy? Why are you so mad about this?” His head swivels to Dax and Dutch as if waiting for them to back him up. Dallas is wide-eyed, looking between Cohen and me like we’re equally terrifying. Dutch says nothing, though his lips are a thin, hard line. These two are used to seeing us argue. And unlike Cohen, they are capable of shutting the hell up.

“Is that what you want, Rainy, for me to treat you like some whore? Fuck you on this table in front of our best friends?!” He’s shouting now.

I blush and break our stare. If Cohen sees what I want in my eyes, this fight will devolve into something way worse. Thankfully, we’re interrupted by a server. She’s brought us a couple of bottles of liquor and some mixers.

“From Mr. Cooper. It’s on the house.”

I don’t wait for her to remove the items from the tray; I stand and grab one of the bottles. It’s already open, so I swig straight from it. Lucky guess; its vodka and the good stuff, too. Not the kind we used to steal from the Mac’s Milk around the corner from McDonald Park.

“Fuck you, Cohen. Dutch, let’s dance.”

I tilt the bottle toward my best friend, who lets me pour a shot directly into his open mouth before he stands and joins me. “Lead the way, Rainy-bear.”

I hear Cohen grunt to Dax, “Your brother’s a real dick sometimes,” as we walk away from them.

I almost invite Dallas to join us too, but I already know he won’t. He won’t leave Cohen alone. And deep down, I do appreciate that, because I know he’ll let my boyfriend bitch until he gets over himself.

I spend the rest of my night dancing with Dutch. My predictions are right, and every time I glance back to our booth, Cohen and Dallas sit with their heads together. But when three or four songs go by, and they haven’t made a single move to join us on the floor, I get annoyed. And the more annoyed I get, the more shots I demand Dutch bring me. And the more shots I take, the drunker I get. And the drunker I get, the more I like it. It’s warm, blissful and makes it easy to forget my fight with Cohen and the burning wish I had to trade places with the table girl. Sometimes, when Dutch’s hands trace my body, even if his touch is innocent, I wish it wasn’t. I wish he had more hands.

That’s the last thought I remember. Everything else goes black.

End Interlude

Chapter 15

Flavour of the Week

Dallas

The high of being on stage is as close to chasing the needle as you can legally get. At first, it’s hot under the stage lights and your nerves are fried from the excitement and the worry. Then, you hear the crowd singing back at you, their whoops and cheers as they chant your name, and from then on, every note buoys you up, like the tide rising higher and higher. It’s glorious.

But just like the high, when the crowd fades, when the show ends, the drop comes. For me, it’s always hit harder and faster than it has for the others. It’s a bitch. My whole body aches right down to my fingertips, and it’s all I can do to drag my ass back to our waiting tour bus. Halfway across the parking lot, I’m nearly knocked off my feet by my brother slapping me on the back.

“Whoo!” he cheers, and I wince. “Great show, baby brother!”

Either he doesn’t notice my less-than-warm response or, more likely, he’s done waiting for me to come around. It’s not that I’m angry at him. Not really. He saved my fucking life, and I do know that. But it’s more that the very worst part of me, the addict part, is angry that he did. Then there’s the bigger, only slightly less fucked up, part of me that doesn’t know what to say to my big brother. There is no way to articulate the shame and self-loathing or to explain to him that even though I’m happy to be alive and be getting clean again, there is still a deep, dark cavern of want inside me.