Chapter #67Not the Reinforcements You Need by: Seuzz   It's a Saturday, and it dawns bright and cold. You rise early, and despite the threaten of snow in the afternoon pull on jogging shorts and a tight halter top; your only concession to the weather is a thick headband wound around your forehead and over your ears; warm, fingerless gloves; and a thick, woolly socks inside your jogging shoes. Mary likes running in the cold—so bracing!—and especially like getting back to her rooms after a five-mile jog, and to and the hot shower and hot, lemony tea that waits.
Lots of heads turn as you go by. Many of them, you guess, are people who can't believe a girl would dress so skimpily when the air is so cold. More of them, you flatter yourself, like the sight of a healthy girl out taking good care of herself.
After your jog and clean up, you take your phone and iPad around to a tea shop and have yourself a decadent drink. Ten minutes into your retreat you get a call from Sarah Miller, another American student in one of your health classes, and she meets you for more tea and gossip. It's a frothy, silly time you have with her, chatting between the moments when you're not checking text messages; and from behind the façade of Mary Dunsdale you slowly undress Sarah with your eyes. Her plain American name notwithstanding, her mother is from Algeria or Albania or Armenia or some such place, and she has long, lustrous hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes in a lean face. The way the top of her exposed bosom slowly rises and falls holds you particularly entranced, and despite Mary's strongly heterosexual preferences you are soon feeling quite humid under your clothes.
Then around eleven-thirty your phone rings. "Dunsdale!" Dawes says in a jolly roar. "Get yer ass over to my rooms! Got someone for you to meet!"
"Say please."
"Team business," he retorts.
You snort, and part with Sarah.
* * * * *
It sounds like a party in Dawes's rooms, and you can hear them all the way from the stairwell: Raucous voices and hoarse laughter roll up and down the hallway. You rap sharply on Dawes's door, and it's instantly opened by a grinning, red-faced Jack Lewis. "Dunsdale!" he yells, and pulls you in. "Dunsdale! Dunsdale!" the call goes round. Someone thrusts a bottle of beer at you, but you push it away.
"Where's Dawes?" you shout.
"Dawes! Dawes!" Ben Keys shouts in turn. There's a good dozen people in the room, and since the smallest man in the room is more than six-foot-three, that makes it hard to see anyone behind the screen immediately around you. But Dawes steps into view, his beaming face almost as red as Lewis's.
"Dunsdale, over here!" He gestures. "Have a beer."
"It's a little early, isn't it?"
"You'll wanna celebrate after you meet him."
"Meet who? Celebrate what?"
"The guy who's saving our ass." He points. "Say hi to Frank."
You turn, and freeze hard. Probably only this sudden petrification stops you from crapping in your pants.
* * * * *
He's the shortest guy in the room, but maybe because you know him and what he's capable of, he seems very much the largest. His shapeless grey pullover and loose-fitting jeans can't quite cloak the physical power of his broad chest and wide shoulders; his hard, dark eyes and bristling hair—he's trimmed it since Saratoga Falls, so that it's got little spikes in it—seem to crackle with electricity. He is still pale and severe, and as he tips a beer bottle to his lips, it looks more like he's taking on fuel than refreshment. But his eyes twinkle, and—
"Cinch your jaw back up, Dunsdale," someone beside you laughs.
You whip around and punch that someone in the torso. Then, with face burning, you turn back to this nemesis. "Hey. So your name is Frank."
"Frank Chatham." He puts out a hand, and his lips twitch into a smile. "You're Mary Dunsmore, the team's coxswain?"
"Yeah. Shut up!" you shout, for you're sure you heard someone hoarsely shout "Team cocksucker." "Nice to meet you. So what's the celebration for?"
"Frank's joining us as a practice partner," says Dawes.
"As a what?"
"Yeah, we ran into him at the Society Café."
"You know this guy," you ask with alarm.
Dawes looks irritated. "We just met him. I told you—"
There follows a disjointed conversation filled with vexed cross-talk. The gist is that Dawes and Ludensky stopped by the Society Café for an early lunch and chanced to fall into conversation with this Frank Chatham character, who claimed to be a recent high school graduate bumming around England on his parents' dime. But what really caught their attention was when he claimed to be an amateur rower. So then one thing led to another, and now Frank has offered to help the team practice while Lewis and Ding and the others are out with their injuries.
Dawes and his friends are elated—more so than you think they have reason to be—and can't understand why you look so upset. "I'm not upset," you tell them. "I just think you should have talked to me before you made this deal with Chatham here."
"Alright, Dunsdale," Dawes says, rolling his eyes hard. "Mother, may we please play with Frank—"
"Fuck you, Dawes, this is about showing me some respect!"
"Your cox is right—" Frank says.
"Shut up!" you shout, for you're sure you heard someone hoarsely shout "My cock is always right!" "Not you," you stammer to Frank.
He's not flummoxed in the least. "I should ask permission," he says, and flashes a wide, warm smile.
No way, you want to say. Bad enough having Hal Swann in the vicinity. To have Frank Durras—for that's who he is, no matter his alias—in the same boat as you is much too much. And if Frank is here, then his brother will be around as well, you're sure. "I'll have to think about it," you say.
Groans go up from around the room. "What's your problem, Dunsdale," Keys yells.
Frank raises his hand. "Hey, I don't want to cause any problems," he says in a loud, strong voice. "If your cox doesn't want me—"
"Shut up!" you yell, even though no one hoarsely shouted, "My cock wants you bad!"
"—then it's okay. I'll still hang out with you guys if you let me."
Cheers break out.
Damn it. The only thing worse than having Frank in the same boat with you is having him popping up unexpectedly, the way Swann does.
"Okay, I've thought about it," you say. "Welcome aboard, Chatham."
* * * * *
You're not in the mood to party, but you stick around anyway. "Don't look so grumpy," Dawes tells you when you wind up in a corner by the window with him. "Just because Frank's practicing with us doesn't mean you have to sleep with him."
Naturally, you bridle. "Well, who says I—"
Dawes chortles. "Oh, come on. Who on the crew haven't you screwed?"
You don't want to punch him. You want to kick his balls through his backside. "I haven't, and I don't care what any of those cocksuckers— I swear to God, Dawes, I will quit as your cox if you don't wipe that fucking smirk off your face."
"I'm just trying to tell you, it's okay if you sleep with him. I won't be jealous."
"I don't give a fuck if you—!" Now you are sick of the party, and you slam your nearly empty beer bottle onto the nearest level surface and stalk for the door.
"Oooohhh!" An amused roar goes up from your crew. But you're out the door before anyone can shout anything in particular.
* * * * *
A package is lying next to your door when you get back to your rooms. It contains a blank mask, a jar of sealant, and a note from Professor Hyde-White. "You must obtain an imprint of the girl who is to be used in the ceremony. Immediately upon the completion of the ceremony, return the mask to me."
Shit. After that awkward morning when you got her hair, it'll be fucking hard to talk to your neighbor. About the only thing you could do is burst in and assault her with the mask.
No sooner have you had that thought than there's a sharp rap at your door. You stifle a shriek. At least you've the wit to shove the mask into your disordered bed before opening for your visitor.
And you almost shriek again. It's Frank. "Hi Mary," he says, and leans in on the door jam. "You ran off before we could talk."
"I didn't know we had to. Talk, I mean." You try to swallow the quaver in your voice.
"We don't have to." Frank peers down at you with a twinkly smile.
You grimace at the echo with what Dawes said: You don't have to sleep with him. "Do you want to talk?" you ask.
"At the very least, I want to thank you for letting me work with your crew. I also want to tell you that I will take it very seriously and work very hard. I don't do things half-assed."
"Thanks, D— Chatham." Your bowels loosen a little at your hairbreadth escape from calling him "Durras." "But you should know that we're not really popular around here." Frank cocks his head. "Dawes tells you how Lewis and Ding got hurt?"
"He said they got in a fight."
"There's some guys, socialist anarchist types, always picketing and yelling at us."
"I don't back down from a fight," he says.
"Good. But just so you know."
"I don't back down from a fight," he repeats.
You stare at each other. The moment grows awkward.
Shit, you think. Did Frank hear what Dawes said to you? Does he think he's got a chance with you?
Should you give him a chance? Friends close, enemies closer, they say.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author