So it’s known at Nolan High that Luke’s house is a safe place to hook up. Better a bedroom in a luxurious mansion than the back seat of your car, any day. It’s not the only reason why Luke is incredibly popular, but it sure is an important one.
Is she saying what I desperately want her to be saying?
She looks at my mouth. “Think you could reserve us a room? You know…for his next one?”
Holy shit! She IS!
She laughs fondly at the stunned, delighted look on my face. “Um…YEAH,” I say a little too loudly, pulling out my phone and texting Luke right the fuck now. My girlfriend, who has me so in love with her that I smile like a jackass all day every day, has just told me she’s going to make my biggest wish come true. We’ve gone reasonably far together, usually wandering hands while parked up somewhere secluded, and that’s been great, I’ve loved every second…but it’s also driven me half crazed with longing every time. But she hasn’t been ready, and that’s one hundred percent fair enough. I’ve never once asked her for more than she was prepared to give; she’s led the pace every time. And now she’s just told me it’s happening, it’s on, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to concentrate on anything else ever again. So I am going to speak to Luke today and make damn sure we get one of his rooms. I will pay him any amount of money to secure it. I will carve out my own kidney and hand it to him if he wants me to.
Callie laughs, and it’s the best sound. “Eager much?” she teases. Unable to find the words, my blood burning through my veins, I cup her face and kiss her hard, trying to show her how much she means to me. How much that night in our friend’s bedroom is going to mean to me. To get to make love to her at last, taste her, sink into her, hold her as close as we can get… I can hardly wait.
Jeez, I’d better buy some condoms. Pretty sure I used all the ones my dad gave me when me and the track guys made gag water balloons at Seth’s Christmas party. Man, we were wasted.
She breaks my kiss and grins at me. “I just thought it might be kind of…special this way. Even if it is a total cliche, you know,” she rolls her eyes adorably, “losing our virginities together at Prom, but…it’s a tradition for a reason, I guess?” Her nose crinkles as she shrugs.
Prom Night cannot come fast enough for my liking.
CHAPTER FOUR
Liaden
For the love of Margaret Atwood, this itches.
I’m at the stage where I need to moisturise the tattoo regularly. Unfortunately, it’s not in an easy place for me to reach, so, as I’m currently single and also not a contortionist, I’ve been going to my next door neighbour so she can do it for me. Mrs Stylianou clucks over it like a mother hen, telling me off for getting it done, but I’m not fooled. She’s an empty nester whose children live clear the other side of the country, and she’s dying for someone to fuss over. I could cover myself head to toe in tattoos and she’d be all too happy to rub Bepanthen cream into each and every one. And she also insists on feeding me a full roast dinner with the leftovers of their Sunday lunch before I go as well.
And now I’m sat at my desk in my bedroom, digesting the most delicious lamb with garlic and rosemary, and marking the last few essays in my latest marking pile.
And thinking about how toe curling it would feel to have Dean massaging lotion into my skin.
He hasn’t texted me again. I normally don’t bother with subtleties and games, because they’re a convoluted waste of time that get in the way of getting my needs satisfied. But even I can tell that texting Dean, ‘hello, would you like to fornicate with me until we’re both seeing stars’, isn’t going to land well.
I close the coursework I’m marking and sigh. I give in. I’m too preoccupied by sexy daydreams about my tattoo guy to give this the undivided attention it deserves. I thought Jon Bon Jovi had the best arse in history; I was wrong. Dean’s is picture perfect in his rumpled old jeans. And that mop of coppery brown hair would be perfect for clutching and tugging while in the throes of ecstasy. And hissmile… And those mesmerizingly expressive and warm eyes…
I wonder how he’d seduce me if he chose to. Slowly, undressing me inch by inch until I’d want to scream for his hands on my naked body? Or fast and furious, his mouth welded to mine as he ripped my underwear in his hurry to get to my wet pink fairy dell…
And there’s something more. Some quality he has, some secret behind his eyes that I desperately want to get to. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. I’m not normally so distracted by people I’m attracted to. But I’m leaning into it, because it’s highly enjoyable.
Most of my students would say that step one in trying to gain information is: “Google it”. I did my homework before booking an appointment at Wishbone, so I’ve seen their Instagram displaying their work, and their impressive 4.9 Trustpilot reviews, but I didn’t actually research Dean theman. I may not get a huge amount of detail from Dr Google, but if I check it out before I start thinking about doing some more of my online ASL course this evening, I’ll possibly uncover some small tidbits about him. Or maybe a nice photo for me to…ponder overthis evening when I’m in bed and settling down for the night.
Facebook seems like a good place to start. There’s only one Dean Gastright, but there’s no profile pic, just a greyed out silhouette. The rest of it is locked down so tight that I can’t confirm it’s the same man, but his name isn’t terribly common. I may friend request him in a bit so I can make sure that it’s definitely him.
He has an Instagram page, but I already knew that, and there are only photos of his work. None of him. Not even a hand in shot. Once again, I’m amazed at the precision and exquisite detail on them all. None of his letters are so much as a hair out of alignment. Here is a man who takes pride in his work. Otherwise, there’s not much else to find out about him from here.
I typeDean Gastrightinto Google.
I get a few hits, and it’s easy to see they’re allmyDean on the first page. Wait.TheDean. He’s not mine. People aren’t possessions, that’s absurd.
About halfway down, after the Wishbone website and their social media pages, the sites concerning the Nolan High School shooting from approximately fifteen years ago start cropping up. I check the date of the incident, and indeed, the fifteenth anniversary is mere weeks away. I wonder how much the anniversaries affect him, or if they do. I imagine they would. If the scar tissue on his throat and his muteness is any indication, that tragedy was a significant part of Dean’s past. I’ve yet to look into the finer details of what happened, but it seems prudent to do so now. If I’m going to get naked with him, I need to know what his triggers are so I don’t accidentally set one off in the middle of fun time.
I click on the Wikipedia page for an overview. As a Professor, I loathe Wikipedia normally; too many Bachelor’s students, and even some doing their Master’s, seem to think their lecturers are too stupid or ill-informed to recognise an essay that’s beencopied and pasted from the Wiki entry. But for something like this, it’s an ideal place to start.
…The perpetrator was William Howard Whitmire, a disgruntled former teacher at Nolan High who had been fired for physically attacking the Headteacher two days prior. After detonating homemade bombs at every exit, Whitmire, armed with ammunition and weaponry stolen from the collection of his Vietnam veteran father, opened fire on the Senior Prom in the gymnasium where the Prom was being held. Of the 215 students, teachers, and volunteer chaperones present, only 8 survived…
I shiver, feeling cold as I read more of the article. My brain reflexively works out the percentage of survivors.
Eight out of two hundred and fifteen equals a survival rate of three point seven two percent. Attendees at the Nolan High Prom had a just under four percent chance of making it out alive.
Ninety six point two eight percent of them died.
