Part Fifteen: Back To School Sales
The room was bright with sunlight when I woke up the next morning. Shit, was it the next morning?! I scrambled, looking around for my phone. There it was in its usual place on the nightstand, reassuring me that it was shortly before noon on Sunday. It had been nine hours or so since I had let Abbie dose me with Serenex. I had no recollection of anything since.
My own bedroom. That, I wouldn't have expected. Alone. Even less expected. The clothes I'd worn last night were wadded up on the floor, but no one else's. Usually when a woman stayed the night there was a scent that remained after, but there was nothing. In the bathroom, no water on the floor of the shower or in the sink. I walked the house, but no signs of occupancy either present or recent. No fresh notifications on my phone aside from a few work emails, the screen still open to my text conversation with Candy. I even checked to see if there was a fresh stack of papers in my handwriting sitting on my desk, or maybe in my briefcase. Nothing. No Serenex to be seen, but I knew who'd had it last, and she could use it whenever she wanted. Nothing to worry about there. My hand was still a little sore from hand-writing out dozens of pages at Candy and Isa's dinner table, but it was better than last night.
Considering the condition in which I might have woken up, it was a good problem to have.
Hmm.
I made myself a sandwich and popped a few tylenol for my head. Last time Abbie dosed me, I'd figured it was simply a stress headache, but now I was pretty sure it was a side effect. Made sense, I suppose, if what Isa had said was true about the additives in the Serenex. I looked forward to asking her what all I'd ingested last night when I'd opened wide for Abbie. In the meantime, however, I was alone, and it was quiet, and a great many things had happened since those conditions had last been the case.
I reflected.
There were no memories, nothing after those few seconds of sputtering and grimacing at the taste. But did anything
feel
different? I focused on my emotions regarding Candy and Isa first. Still felt smug about my moral high ground approach. Still a little mad. Still frustrated I hadn't gotten that threesome in. Nothing that seemed new, no impulse to lash out at them, no sense of entitlement to their bodies. Little more than resentment at the two cunning bitches who'd duped me on our dinner date.
Abbie, then? Taylor? No. Still a pair of hot, scary brats. Cassie, no; Megan, no. Myself? Had they changed the way I saw myself? There was no fresh
rarr me no pussy-man brugga brugga
bouncing around in there that I could tell. I didn't hate myself or love myself any more than I had last night. If I had some new compulsion, it seemed perfectly content to wait for me to rinse off my plate, do my exercises, reply to an email from Mrs. Adamson about Stephen's missing assignments, do a little grading.
Sure, I could simply pick up the phone, demand to know where the girls were and what they were doing. There was no real point to that, though.
After all, I could already see them.
It appeared Megan's absence was an on-going invitation for the Sterns to use the Brown house as a base of operations. Operations had expanded, even. My office window afforded a view of a steady stream of GHS students coming and going. I actually heard them before I saw them, hip hop music playing from Megan's stereo. In fact I smelled them before I heard them via the smoke rising from their charcoal grill. Somebody had put up a volleyball net, and it appeared the kids were simply enjoying a cookout on a pleasant spring day. All three of my girls were there, and it appeared the guest list included friends of each. I recognized most of them from my classes; I taught roughly two thirds of the senior English class sections, and my pupils were well-represented.
Whether it was a genuine effort to keep me at bay or simply kids being kids, I didn't know. It certainly imposed a requirement for distance. I couldn't very well walk over next door and ask to speak with Abbie when she was surrounded by her peers. As far as anyone knew, both she and her sister scorned the establishment as a whole, and Taylor me specifically. Cassie might not, but it would still be awkward to try to pull her away from her friends to question her. Plus, what was the rush? I felt fine. Curious as all hell, but if anything, my apprehension stemmed in large part from not feeling any immediate danger. Candy and Isa probably weren't having their best day, wherever they were, but they weren't crucified in my back yard or hanging from their ankles in my basement.
Oh shit, the basement! I sprinted down the stairs.
Whew. OK, nobody in the basement.
So there wasn't much to do but work. Work, and try not to peer out the window too often. Taylor was wearing a blue crop top, looking dynamite. Abbie wasn't far behind in a more overtly provocative bikini top and jean shorts. Cassie was the most conservative of the three in casual t-shirt and capris, but knowing that there were decent odds she was wearing a butt plug beneath them was something I couldn't easily forget. Frankly, there were a few other head-turners down there, too, but I had to keep from leering before I earned a reputation as some kind of peeping Tom.
So I took a cold shower and got back to work. Then when I found myself too distracted by the sight of Tabitha Hutchings' vain efforts to keep her breasts inside her bikini top between each spike of the volleyball, I took another one.
By early evening, the kids had moved inside. Probably drinking, or worse. Though again, nothing I could do about it. By nightfall, they were starting to disperse; every time I looked out the front window, there were fewer and fewer cars parked along the street. I was increasingly surprised Megan hadn't come back yet, but then she texted me to let me know her mom needed a little extra help, and would it be OK if I could give her an extra day. Oh, and keep an eye on Cassie for her. We'd partaken in an orgy not forty-eight hours ago, and here was this woman charging me babysitting her daughter when she knew I was fucking her.
My balls were turning brighter and brighter blue. Something else that could be laid in large part and Isa and Candy's feet. Wherever they were, I hoped Abbie and Candy hadn't heeded my counsel too closely.
At last, a little after nine, the only car left was the Sterns'. I let myself in.
Cassie was in the midst of cleaning up; Abbie and Taylor were on separate couches in the living room, both on their phones and looking in opposite directions. I had to clear my throat before anyone even acknowledged my presence.
"Mr. Canon!" Cassie squealed, running to me and giving me a tight hug. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine. Curious, but fine." I delivered my answer loudly enough to be overheard to the two sisters, but neither glanced up.
"Yeah, me too. Last night was
insane
, wasn't it? I guess you don't remember, after, but even before that. So crazy!"
If they wanted to give me the silent treatment, so be it. Cassie talked enough for all three anyway. "And after...? What happened?"
However, the loquacious young woman looked with not a little apprehension to her new friends, then back to me. "I don't really know. I went to the kitchen to keep an eye on Ms. Salata and Officer Barbour."
"Are they OK? What happened with them?"
"I don't know. I couldn't hear. They had me put in some earbuds and listen to music."
"You just let them...?" I looked at her agog. "So you mean you didn't overhear
anything
?" I looked through the opening to the living room. The non-reaction from the Sterns was, increasingly, a reaction.
"Nope. They cranked up the volume all the way."
"You weren't even curious what they were doing?"
Cassie shrugged. "I guess I didn't feel like making a fuss? They sprayed some of that stuff on my arm. It tingled a lot, but I didn't want them to put it in my mouth like the others, so I figured maybe I should play ball, let it slide."
