The Lawyer and The Stripper

06 | Firsts that Last

The long line to the powder room makes me doubt she's inside it since the girls outside seem calm; no one is antsy waiting. It has been ten minutes since I last saw her and she wouldn't have waited in line if she were running away from someone. The next place I check is the toilet near the make-out rooms. Again, there were two people in line. Walking past the toilet, I knock on the door to the first room, straining to hear a response with blaring music.

The door opens when I turn the knob and I am surprised to see several people inside – two guys seemingly passed out on the bed, three people passing around a blunt, a girl on a chair, sniffing white powder off the desk while a guy in a grey shirt and dark ripped jeans grins encourages her. They were all painfully beautiful people, yet the entire scene sends a shiver down my spine.

"Want a hit?" asks one of the guys smoking. I stare at his hooded eyes and sloppy smile as he reaches out, offering the blunt in his hand.

Aiden, he's smoking m*******a. Why are you even hesitating? I ask myself and come up with no answer. I should say 'no', so why am I not saying it?

I remain mute and immobile on my spot, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down my temple while the girl beside him wraps a blanket around herself.

"Gimme that. Maybe I should show him how," she says, giggling and pushing herself off the wall, almost tripping as she makes her way to us.

Before I could turn back, another body blocks my way. I step into the room to let the new guy pass, however, I stop dead in my tracks when I recognize the person holding the door.

"Who invited you?" Albert glares, brows furrowed. He straightens his back and lifts his chin as he attempts to level our gazes though he never could, making the two-inch physical advantage I have feel like a ten-foot wall his huge ego could hardly scale.

"Shooter boy," Vince calls from behind my insolent brother, his smile a little confused as he slips past Albert and puts an arm around my shoulder, tugging me closer as he asks quietly, "Are you lost, or did you really come here for that?"

The guy in a gray shirt slowly turns to us looking, a lazy smile forming on his lips as he sees my brother. His eyes are hooded and his movements are in slow motion like the wisps of white smoke flowing out the mouths of the ones sharing the blunt.

"Albert, hey. I was beginning to think you wouldn't show," he drawls. "Who's the new guy?"

"No one worth remembering. I just came from The Mage. You got the stuff for me?" Albert asks before remembering that I am still in the room, listening.

"Get out, you fucktard. You don't belong here," he sneers, his words full of contempt.

"For once, you're right," I say, too drunk to argue yet sober enough to not stay another second in that drug den. Vince follows me out, closing the door behind him. I agree; I don't belong there.

Even when I close my eyes, I could not un-see the shock on his face when he opened the door to see me standing there, and the way he kicked me out so that I wouldn't see him indulge in whatever drug he wanted will leave a cut.

My chest tightens thinking of my arrogant brother snorting the line on the table. It isn't like he's been a brother to me for the past few years. I knew he stocked on party drugs since he started college; it should not come as a surprise that he's moved on to harder, 'more illegal' ones now that he's graduating. Albert is a black sheep and I firmly believe there is not a white strand of hair to be seen anywhere.

I should not feel anything, yet I do.

Anger and disappointment surge in my veins, I feel the heat pouring into my chest and through the rest of me, making me feel warmer. I undo another button, lifting my shirt off my chest a few times to fan myself.

"Is that s**t really happening? And right here?" I try to hide my displeasure but fail.

"Don't act so surprised, dude. It's a common thing. House parties aren't complete without drugs. Hasn't anyone told you?" he says, trying to sound confident as if it is indeed a usual social procedure. But he fidgets and his eyes dart around, looking at the guests worriedly.

"Then why do you look tense, like the police are coming any second now?"

"Because I am afraid they would. No one can stop the Witherstein brothers. They show up and people are suddenly all over them, asking for stuff like those," Vince says, sighing heavily as he leads us to the living room.

"Brothers? How many are they?"

"Two. They're twins. That guy back there is Damien," he says, picking up empty red solo cups left on the coffee table and throwing them into the black garbage bag in his other hand. My brows furrow but notice that the music has died down, and there are fewer people around.

"What happened?"

"Dexter happened," he says as he walks over broken glass. "He's Damien's troublemaker twin. Whenever he appears at a party, expect it to be over soon. He outdid himself this time though. He did it under two minutes."

"I was gone for a second and suddenly the party's over?"

"A second? Dude, you were gone for fifteen minutes. One to ten, how drunk are you?" Vince chuckles.

The events are turning more absurd by the minute that I have to check my watch twice to ascertain that I didn't just time travel, and he is right. I have been going in circles for fifteen minutes, but I only remember snippets of that time.

"Told you to be careful with the drinks," he reminds me.

"What's the point of going to a house party and staying sober?" I ask defensively.

"Getting high on alcohol is different from getting high on drugs."

"I didn't take drugs. I was in that room a few seconds before you came," I tell him, picking up solo cups and empty chip bags, chucking them into the trash bag he was holding, my aim poorer than my vision in the dark.

"Unless you took drugs elsewhere," he says casually, taking the blue cup on the floor, the one I attempted to shoot inside the black bag. "Your pupils are dilated, you're moving like a sloth, and you're sweating when it's sixteen degrees in this room."

My jaw drops and I stop walking. What on earth is he saying? "I swear to God I didn't take anything!"

"No? Did someone offer you candy? White, tiny thing."

"Yeah, I took a mint from some random guy. I mean, Isn't that what you do when someone offers you mints? He's saying 'your breath stinks; you should get one.' Right?"

Vince snorts and shakes his head. He begins to open his mouth when the sound of a man shouting catches our attention and we all look in the direction of the backyard. I don't understand what he was saying but when a woman shouts back, the reason why I was roaming around suddenly comes back to me.

"s**t. Sorry, I gotta go, Vince. I'm looking for someone."

"No problem, dude. Hope you enjoyed your first." He gives me a tired smile and winks.

Returning to the guest rooms, I knock on the room next to the drug den, trying the knob when I don't get a reply. When the door opens, the lights are off and it seems no one was around. Patting the wall, I find the light switch and flick it on, confirming that is empty.

The door to the toilet behind me opens just as I am about to leave, and I turn to see Camille cautiously peering outside the dark lavatory, nervously picking on her necklace.

The voices of the quarreling couple grow louder and a door slams. Camille pales and momentarily stops breathing.

"Camille, are you okay?" I ask.

She gasps, covering her mouth to stifle a scream but relief washes over her face when she sees me. The next second she sprints into the room, pushing me inside, and slams the door shut before she turns the lights back on.

The guy continued to shout, this time I understand his words: he is looking for someone accusing the girl of lying and hiding the missing person. As he bangs on doors, Camille grows tenser, her breaths becoming more rapid and shallow.

"Help me, please," she says, looking between the door and me.

"Uh, what do you want me to do?" I ask, acting like a determined yet confused hero, wanting to be the man she needs.

She scans the room and her eyes settle on the bed. "Pretend that you're kissing me."

I swallow hard. I did not expect that.

"Please," she says and takes my hand, dragging me to the unmade bed a few meters from the door. It is positioned in such a way that when someone opens the door, whoever was on the bed would be in clear view.

"It's just pretend," she says in an attempt to reassure me.

"I'm fine with the k-kissing part," I say truthfully. I mean, I may have been thinking about her lips earlier tonight. "But why are we going to the bed?"

The sound of glass shattering startles us. She recovers in a blink of an eye and says, "Change of plans. Take your shift off."

"Excuse me?" I ask, my voice raising an octave higher, unable to understand the purpose of stripping when someone is bound to open that door and see us. She quickly slips out of her strappy sandals, picks one up, and prepares to pitch it.

I cover my head, hastily assuming that she was aiming for it, but the shoe misses me by a mile. I put my arms down just in time to see her toss the other sandal behind me.

"Hurry, please!" she begs, wringing her fingers while her eyes are glued to the door.

"Someone might see us!"

"Someone will see us and that's the point!" Her hands are suddenly on my shirt, unbuttoning the it quicker than my brain's processing speed at the moment.

"What the hell? Stop! They'll think I'm taking advantage of you when, in fact, it's the other way around!" I protest, grabbing both her wrists with one hand while my other hand clutches my collar close.

She wriggles her hands trying to escape. "No, they won't. They'll immediately leave when they see you naked on top of me."

Absolute shock puts my already-slow brain to a complete stop. Did I hear her right? Am I in The Twilight Zone or something? I sober up a little when I feel a strong tug on my shoulders and a few buttons bounce on the floor, buttons that came from my polo.

"Shoes."

"What the hell?" I complain but we both jump when the guy pounds on the next room.

"f**k, f**k!" She pushes the polo off my shoulders and roughly pulls me to the bed, making me stumble, landing my entire weight crushing her. She grunts and I push myself off of her small frame and end up straddling her with my hands pressing on the space beside her head.

"What the f**k are you doing?" I hiss, getting ready to jump out of the bed but she tugs on my belt, keeping me in place. Her finger touches my skin and it is cold as ice.

And it feels so damn good against the heat of my abdomen. I wanted her palms on me to soothe the burn I am feeling. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath, willing to control the urge. She clears her throat and I open my eyes to see a pink bloom in her ears and cheeks.

"Just pretend," she whispers, looking away.

However, my mind goes blank when she takes her skirt off and chucks it onto the floor near my shoes. Casting the crumpled duvet over my bare back, she makes herself comfortable while I stare at her half-naked body underneath me, too stunned to even breathe.

Sadly, I don't even get the chance to admire the rest of her because she pulls me down until our hips and stomachs press together and I am on my elbows hovering over her, our faces so close, and our limbs entangled, one leg on her side, the other between her thighs. The sudden gush of blood to my southern region engorges me and I throb against her.

My eyes widen as I suck in a shaky breath. She must feel me too because she slowly turns her head to me, locking our gazes, and knocking the wind out of my lungs.

They are even more beautiful up close, brown with a tinge of gray, making them look lighter.

For a moment, nothing else matters, nothing else makes sense except the two of us. Without much thought, the back of my finger grazes her cheeks, tracing the shape of her face. Her eyes flutter close as she leans into my hand. Her skin feels amazing against mine – soft, warm, sensual. We both relax, melting into each other's touch, not understanding the consequences of this pretense.

She shifts; the friction of my abdomen against her smooth skin makes me throb harder against her and her heartbeat quickens against my chest. Thoroughly embarrassed, I lower my head on the pillow, inadvertently resting my forehead in the crook of her neck.

Something inside me stirs when I inhale the heavenly scent of lilacs on her skin. Camille is a stranger to my brain yet it seems that other parts of me know her. My hands tingle at the touch of her skin, my eyes recognize the unique shade of her irises, and now, my nose seems to know her scent.

Who is this woman?

"She's your responsibility, you f*****g useless tool! You had one job!" The booming voice cuts through our moment.

The door to the drug den slams and we both look at the door with bated breaths. The voices grow louder and I peel my eyes from the knob and look straight at her, wondering what on earth I got myself into.

She frames my face with her clammy hands and looks me dead in the eye.

"Kiss me, Aiden," she says softly, her voice quivering, almost begging.

I should leave. I should listen to my brain, but the rest of me refuses to cooperate.

And I could not find a reason to say no.

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