As a kid, I’d always been a climber. I’d clamber up into the branches of the massive oak trees that grew around my childhood home, getting as high as I could. Sometimes it would be to hide from my parents, since I was always getting into trouble back then, but mostly I liked the feeling of looking down on the world.
From up high, everything that scared me was so far away. I was untouchable up there, my calloused bare feet balancing me amid the thick foliage. I could hide for hours, sometimes even falling asleep. Although my brother hated when I did that, because he thought I was going to roll out of my perch during a nap and break my neck.
It had been a long time since I’d climbed a tree, but it felt as natural as ever when I pulled myself up into the limbs of the big poplar outside Jessica’s window. It was thick with leaves, shielding me from her sight but leaving her entirely visible to me. She kept her curtains open, sitting at her desk as she filled out the sheet Manson had given her. Her bed was right next to the window, covered in numerous pillows and a couple fluffy stuffed animals.
Did she like toys like that? Fluffy things with big eyes, intentionally designed to be as painfully cute as possible? She’d never struck me as a cutesy girl, but what did I know? There was a lot of pink in her room, soft pastels and delicate glass figurines. She had multiple shelves of trophies and medals — from cheerleading competitions, I guessed.
Could she still do the splits like she could back then? I had avoided football games and anything that put me remotely in the territory of the jocks, but I’d seen her at practice many times. I’d always been secretive about watching her, but I’d had hiding spots all around campus. I’d usually sneak up to the gymnasium roof, have a few cigarettes and watch her flip around the field, shouting directions at the other girls on her team.
We hadn’t gotten along back then either. I’d come to Wickeston as a transfer student, making my second attempt at getting through ninth grade and she’d turned up her nose at me right away. I was used to that, though. My previous school hadn’t been any better. At least in Wickeston, people didn’t know anything about me. They didn’t know about my brother; they hadn’t seen Benji Bent’s name all over the local news.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I was there outside her window in the first place, but I chalked it up to merely curiosity. What made this woman want to make a deal like this with us? Why was she bothering when she had a dozen other choices she could have gone with?
It was a game to her; another dare she couldn’t refuse. But if she thought she could play this game better than us, better than me, she was sorely mistaken.
Although I was impressed at how seriously she seemed to be taking this task of writing out her limits. She kept her laptop open, occasionally typing something and scrolling through search results. She remained focused for hours until she finally finished and sent the end result to the group chat.
I opened the list, swiftly scrolling through. I’d have to take the time to study it properly, but not here, not when Jess had just gotten out her vibrator and clearly intended to put it to use.
Such a naughty girl, thinking she could hide her pleasure from us.
I would have paid cold hard cash to hear the noises she made when she came, one hand pressed against the windowpane as she obeyed my instructions. The way her lips kept parting, gasping for air, her entire body shaking from the intensity — I was rock hard the entire time. I wanted to feel her shake like that. I wanted to pin her down in that pretty pink bedroom, cover her mouth so her parents couldn’t hear her moan my name, and pound her into the mattress.
That night was the appetizer. I was starving for the main course.
I usually started my day far earlier than the rest of the house, but we were all on slightly different schedules. Vincent worked night shifts on Thursdays, Fridays, and the weekend, so he was usually asleep during daylight hours. Jason’s sleep was always fucked up, so there was no telling when he’d be awake, and Manson would gladly sleep until noon if we let him. But I was awake at the first crack of dawn, which gave me enough time to sit out on the porch with a cigarette and black coffee.
I liked those predawn hours, when the eastern sky was slowly growing brighter and mist lay in a soft white blanket over the ground. Sound was muted, the air was still crisp and slightly cool. The world felt like it was sleeping, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
However, I wasn’t the only early riser that morning. The garage door was open, and I glimpsed Jason’s blue hair as he moved around the cars. He’d probably been awake all night.
The past few days had flown by faster than a blink, but that’s what working from dawn until dusk will do to you. Since Manson had been preoccupied dealing with insurance to get the cars fixed, I’d picked up the slack in the shop, with Vincent taking his days off to help too. We were all on edge, but it wasn’t only because our day-to-day stressors had piled up.
We had a new toy we were eager to play with, and responsibilities were getting in our way. Jessica occupied my thoughts far too often, drifting in when I should have been concentrating on more pertinent tasks. But I wasn’t the only one.
Manson had fucked me so damn hard the night before that I was walking stiff this morning. I liked it as rough as I could get it so I wasn’t complaining, but he was particularly vicious when he was restless — and Jess made him restless as hell. She was too unpredictable, too damn confusing, and all that tension built up in him until he was practically bursting at the seams.
It was a relief to end a long day by letting my exhausted mind rest while Manson took control. But Manson didn’t bottom and I liked to switch. While he was fucking me, I was thinking about fucking Jess at the same time.
She was ours to play with now, but when we were collapsing into bed after midnight and rising early, it didn’t make much sense to try to drag her out of sleep in the middle of the night. This wasn’t high school anymore; we had jobs and responsibilities to take care of. Instead, Manson made her edge in the morning and record the deed, sending videos of her gasping on the verge of orgasm to the group chat. It probably wasn’t as torturous for us as it was for her, but it certainly didn’t make self-control any easier.
Watching a video of her grasping a vibrator in one trembling hand, while covering her whimpering mouth with the other to be sure her parents didn’t hear her, had me starting every day with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.
We just needed the right opportunity to break in our new fucktoy, a chance to have her to ourselves.
I stood up from the porch and stretched my aching back before I discarded what was left of the cigarette. I took my coffee with me as I trudged across the yard to join Jason in the garage.
“Did you wake up early or not sleep at all?” I said, finding Jason holding a hand vacuum with all the doors of his Z wide open. He was cleaning up the remaining bits of broken glass from his seats and floors, carefully getting into every nook and cranny. Haribo was lying close by and he gave me the stink-eye as I walked in. That little dog had the biggest attitude I’d ever seen. He technically belonged to Vincent, but he was always following Jason around as if that dude needed protection.
Not unlike Vincent himself.
“Didn’t sleep,” he said, turning off the vacuum. “Vince and I are driving out to the body shop today, so I figured I should clean up. We’re gonna stay at Dante’s over the weekend so Vincent doesn’t have to make the commute to work.”
Dante was a close friend of ours and had been one of our first clients; we’d built his T-Bird into a beast that consistently ran low 10s at the track. He lived far closer to Vincent’s job than we did, so instead of commuting to the club four days out of the week, Vince would sometimes stay at Dante’s place instead.
I sipped my coffee, watching as Jason slammed the doors. It was a good thing he was going with Vincent — Jason turned into a grumpy little shit when he didn’t sleep, but he’d stay up for days at a time regardless and it would only get worse if he was left to his own devices. He’d fixate on a project, and once his brain got going, he wouldn’t stop until he collapsed or until Vincent made him.
“I thought you were driving over this afternoon,” I said. “It’s six-fifteen in the morning.”
He sighed, pausing to lean down and pick up Haribo. “Yeah, well, like I said, I couldn’t sleep. Going on forty-eight hours awake, so I may as well try for seventy-two now.”
“Does Vince know you’re doing that? He’s gonna be pissed.”
Jason grunted again in response. I was going to have to convince Vincent to put some sleeping pills in his cereal or something. He slouched down on a stool, rubbing the little dog’s belly.
“Have you looked at Jess’s list yet?” he said. It had been easy to guess that she was the current fixation making him so irritable.
“Yeah.” I’d studied it thoroughly, multiple nights in a row. Sometimes I revisited my favorite sections, just to remind myself that her interest in being “stalked” and “kidnapped” really was a five out of five. “Have you?”
He nodded. “I don’t think she knows what some of those things mean, dude. That chick is not into golden showers. I don’t believe it.”
“I guess you’ll have to try it and find out,” I said, and he laughed as he shook his head. “We all know she’s a freak. She’s trying to keep up appearances and please her parents.”
He rolled his eyes. “What a waste of time.” He paused, birdsong filling the silence as streams of sunlight peeked in through the trees. “Speaking of which…her parents are going out of town today.”
That caught my attention. “Oh, yeah? How did you find that out?”
“Facebook,” he said. “They’re flying to Cabo for their anniversary, and will be gone for a week. Her little sister is staying at a friend’s.”
“You already got her family’s passwords?”
“No, there was no shady shit involved,” he said. “Her mom posts personal information like she’s writing her own memoirs in real time. I didn’t even have to try.”
“Who’s doing shady shit?”
Manson wandered into the garage, stretching his arms.
“Well, well, look who dragged themselves out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn,” I said. I let him take my coffee, and he gulped it like his life depended on it. “You look like a zombie. Also, Jessica’s parents are going out of town today. She’ll be all alone in that house, waiting for company.”
That quickly woke him up. “Damn, looks like I’ve got an opening in my schedule tonight. We should pay her a surprise visit. Wouldn’t want her to be lonely.”
“One little problem, though,” I said. “Her house has a security system.”
Jason was shaking his head at us. “I’m guessing it wouldn’t be any fun to just knock on the door?”
“Just knock?” Manson said. “Then it wouldn’t be a surprise. Where’s your imagination?”
“Don’t listen to him,” I said. “He’s pissy because he hasn’t slept in three days.”
“Jesus, man, you’re still not sleeping?” Manson’s brow furrowed with concern. “You’re going to lose your damn mind.”
“Okay, okay, I get it, I need to sleep.” He set Haribo down, waving his hand as if to brush away the topic. “But if you’re going to stage a break-in at Jessica’s place, you’re going to need help.” He spread his arms with a little grin. “And I’m exactly the genius to do it.”
Manson groaned, “Genius, huh?”
“Hold off on any insults until I’ve taken care of your security system problem,” he said. “After all, I’m doing this solely out of the goodness of my heart. It’s not like I get to participate in your game, considering I have to go get this mess taken care of.” He jerked his thumb at the Z.
Manson innocently put up his hands. “Oh, sure, sure. You are clearly the genius to do this.”
“Smartest guy in the house,” I said. “What would we do without you?”
“That’s better. Now what time did you want to break into Jess’s place?”
I glanced over at Manson. “Sundown?”
He nodded. “Sundown.”
“Creepy,” Jason said. “I’ll work a little magic before Vincent and I have to take off. I’m sure Jess will just love the thought y’all are putting into your first date.”
