Cassie

Frank Zafiro

I was paying bills when the tentative knock came at my door.  I wasn’t sure if it’d been mine or a neighbor’s until the second series of taps.  I eased the door open and peered through the crack.

Cassie.

She wore a loose T-shirt that hung a couple of inches above the waistband of her faded jeans.  Her navel peeked out beneath the white cotton.  Her eyes were cautious, but when she saw me, a hesitant smile touched her mouth.  The slightly crooked tooth at the edge of her smile glinted at me.

A strange rush of emotions washed over me.  Desire. Curiosity.  Shame, because of recent events. 

“Stef,” she whispered.

I motioned her inside and closed the door.

What could I say to her?  I’d just spent fifteen days in jail on a gun charge and had my name dragged through the streets like Hector in the dust behind Achilles on his triumphant lap around Troy.

“Are you okay?” she asked me.

I nodded. 

“Is it true?  What the newspaper wrote about you?”

“No,” I answered automatically.  I hadn’t read the newspaper, but experience told me it wouldn’t be accurate.

“I…I didn’t think so.”

We stood still for a tense, awkward moment.  The weight of unrealized, brooding desire all those long months hung between us. I motioned toward my kitchen.  “Can I get you—

She stepped into me, catching me on the mouth in mid-sentence. Her lips were warm and soft.  After a moment’s surprise, I returned her kiss. Body heat radiated from her as she pressed into me. Her tongue found mine, chased it. Caught it.

I reached around her, pressing my hand into the small of her back. She clutched at my shoulders and pulled me tighter. My surprise faded, replaced by an erection that came on so suddenly that it hurt.

A first kiss is always magical, whether surrounded by romance or awash in passion. Her lips and tongue sent zinging thrills out to the ends of my hands and feet. All sound in the room faded. My whole world became Cassie. Her warmth. Her electric touch.  The scent of her excitement and light perfume rising in waves off of her body. 

We struggled out of our shirts, breaking off from kissing for just the barest of moments. I reached out for her breasts. She gasped. Pants and underclothes were stripped away, I barely remembered how. We staggered back into the table. I swept the bills and my checkbook aside and sent them clattering onto the floor. I lifted her onto the edge of the table. She moaned into my mouth.

I entered her in one deep thrust and groaned at the sensation of her wet warmth and she answered me with a long sigh. Her heels dug into the back of my thighs, pulled me deeper, forcing her hips forward to meet my thrust. Our mouths mimicked the connection below, hot, wet, urgent.

I felt pressure building and willed it down, but it had been too long. Too long since I’d known a woman. Too long that I’d wanted her.

I broke away from her mouth. Her moans turned to gasps. Every stroke, I went as deep as I could and held for half a beat.

I kissed her neck. Her head lolled back. She dug her fingers into my upper back, pulling me ever tighter.

The familiar ache began to build. Two strokes later, the ache became ecstasy and washed over me. I let out a guttural cry and thrust into her. She matched my movement.  For a long moment, we froze, bodies tense and rigid and pressed together. Ribbons of warmth flooded out of me and into her.

We held that position for a lifetime.

***

Afterward, we moved to the bed. She nestled her head onto my chest and draped her leg over mine. The sweet, pungent aroma of our sex hung in the air. Sound returned to my world. The ticking of a clock. A distant car horn. Muffled voices in an upstairs apartment.

Neither of us said a word. I was afraid to break the spell. I knew the first words after this were important ones, but I didn’t know what they should be.

“I didn’t believe them,” she finally whispered.

She meant the newspaper. I’m sure they’d had a field day with me. Arrested with a fourteen-year-old runaway in my car, outside the house of an admitted pornographer.  No doubt the implications were lurid, but the truth was that I’d found the girl as a favor to her father. I was getting her out of there. And even though Detective Jack Stone hated my guts, he couldn’t twist the truth into anything but what it was. The newspaper could, though.

I stroked the long braid of her hair. “They wanted to sell papers.”

We fell silent again and eventually, to sleep.

When I woke, she was gone.

***

I haunted the Rocket Bakery, even after I learned she didn’t work there any more.  I kept hoping somehow that she’d change her mind and come back to her old job. To me.

The summer passed, hot and slow.

Fall came. Hockey season started. I took a job helping a player named Phillipe Richard. Huge mistake. After that, I quit going to games at the arena.

Instead, I thought about her all the time.

Thanksgiving came. Christmas approached. A subpoena arrived for me to testify in the Richard case in January. I taped it to the fridge.

Three days before Christmas, I heard it again. That same tentative knock. This time I knew it at the first tap. I pulled the door open. She stood there with puffy, red eyes.  She’d cut her hair short.

We stood silently, staring at each other. I tried to think of the right words, but before I could, she burst into tears.

“I didn’t know who else to go to,” she sobbed and fell into me.

I held her close, standing in my doorway while she cried. Once her sobs lessened, I swung the door shut and guided her to my kitchen table. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked her as we sat down. A jumble of different emotions screamed at me. I wanted to help her with whatever made her so upset. To know why she came to me eight months ago like she did and why she left just as suddenly. And what was it I really felt for her? Lust, or something more? Had it ever been anything more?

She wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

She shook her head. “I am.  I’m sorry I came here like this. And for leaving before, without saying anything.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. Instead, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m in some trouble.” 

“I gathered.”

She met my eye. I thought I saw a flicker of the passion that had flowed out of them eight months ago. “I’m sorry I left. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You could have stayed, that’s what else.”

“You’re right.” She bit her lip. “I was just scared.”

“Of what?”

She sighed. “Everything. You and me, just getting started. What the paper wrote about you. A new job.”

I ignored the first item on her list. “The paper lies. What new job?”

“A nursing job. I graduated from school while you were…”

“In jail,” I finished for her.

She nodded. “Yeah. I got a job offer in Seattle, but I didn’t want to leave without seeing you. Then I came over and we…well, it was all just too much.”

“That’s where you’ve been? Seattle?”

“Uh-huh.” Her eyes brightened slightly. “It’s a good job.”
“Better than schlepping coffee, I imagine.”

She smiled. “That wasn’t so bad. Some of the time, it was even pretty good.”

I swallowed. I wanted to tell her how much I’d missed her, even though I couldn’t say why. I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I wanted to ask her to leave her job in Seattle or let me leave River City and go with her. I wanted everything.

This time it was me that leaned into her. Instead of raging with passion, our kiss was slow and sweet. Careful. I touched her tongue with mine with a gentle hesitation.  Her hand brushed my cheek, then cupped behind my neck and pulled me deeper into the kiss.

Neither of us moved with any great speed. Steadily, though, I pulled her to me.  She straddled me in the chair, pulled my face into her chest. My hardness strained against the denim of my Levi’s as she rocked slowly atop me. Her small breasts pressed into my face.  I reached up and caressed them with both hands. A low moan escaped her throat.

In that chair, we rocked together, we rubbed together, like we were dancing to some ancient tribal song. Clothing peeled off and fell away. The warmth of her skin radiated against mine. I flicked my tongue over her hardened nipples and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath. Then she lowered herself onto me and it was my turn to make noise.

The first time had been frantic and then it was gone. That’s why I think we took it so slow this time. She barely rocked on top of me. I hardly returned her thrust. I traced my fingers up from the small of her back to her shoulders, delighting in the softness of her skin. She took my face in both hands and rested her lips next to mine. We tried to have the longest kiss on record. I don’t know if we succeeded. I know that after a minute or an hour or a year, I felt her stiffen and clamp her thighs tight to my hips. I recognized the urgent sound that spilled from her lips when they broke away from mine. I felt the beads of sweat form on her brow. They rolled off hers and coursed down mine.

We rocked for another slow forever until I made urgent sounds, too. She never stopped moving until my sounds ended and my face fell forward into her breasts. 

She held me there and silence found us again.

***

Much later, we moved to the bed.  She toyed with the hair on my chest. I stared at the ceiling until she was ready to talk again.

“I’ve made mistakes in my life,” she finally said without prelude. “Stupid things, when I was younger.”

I smiled bitterly but said nothing. My mistakes were legion.

“I dated a guy named Erik Yeager about eleven years ago. I’d just turned twenty.  He was a few years older.” She ran her fingers through my chest hair. “I let him talk me into things. Maybe I wanted to do them. I don’t know.”

She was quiet for a moment, then went on.

“A few pictures was all at first. Then he convinced me to let him videotape us having sex. He said we’d erase it afterward.”

Lies, I thought. The check is in the mail. I love you. And I promise not to cum in your mouth.

I said nothing.

“I thought he did erase it. Even after we broke up, I figured the tape was gone and all he had were a few pictures of me in sexy poses. One topless, that was the worst of it.”  She sighed. “Until about a month ago.”

“He contacted you?”

“He sent me a DVD.”

“Of the sex.”

“Yeah. From the videotape.”

“Why’d he send it to you?”

She burrowed her head into my chest. “Blackmail.”

“How’s that?”

“He wants five thousand dollars or he’ll post it on the Internet.”

The Internet. My mind flashed to the case that landed me in jail and the shady fucks I’d rescued Kris from. If that experience was any indication, the Internet was full of videos like Cassie’s. Or worse.

“Is that all?”

She shook her head. “No. He said he’d send the link to everyone at the hospital I work at.”

Son of a bitch.

“I’ll lose my job,” she said. “It’s a religious hospital. They won’t want to deal with the scandal.”

“You could get a job at a different hospital,” I offered. “Nurses are in demand.”

“I could. But I like it there. It’s a good job. Besides, it isn’t just the job.”

“Then what?”

She paused. “It’s hard to describe.”

“Try.”

She heaved a sigh. Her breath blew across my chest in a hot rush. “When I was young, I felt differently about things. Sex was just sex. Love was a myth. Everything was for fun.”

“And now?”

“Now?” She sighed again. “Now, I just know that there should be a certain dignity to it. Some kind of meaning. Not trotted out onto the Internet for some horny perverts to look at and…”

“Can you pay him?”

She snorted. “No. I’m up to my eyeballs in student loans and it’s expensive to live in Seattle.”

“Did you try to reason with him at all? Offer less money?”

She nodded. “I offered fifteen hundred. He said no.”

He should’ve taken the deal.

“What are you going to do, then?” I asked, though I knew what the answer would be.

But she didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to.

***

Erik Yeager’s house was a California split-entry on the fringe of the Hillyard neighborhood. Beyond a haphazardly shoveled walkway, there were no signs of habitation. The windows were absent of Christmas decorations.

I knocked, reverting to the authoritative rapping of a police officer, even though those days were more than a decade behind me.

A red-headed man without a shirt opened the door. Flaccid nipples hung from his soft chest above a roll of fat at his middle. “Yeah?”

“Erik Yeager?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Cassie,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “What about her?”

“You think we should talk about blackmail out here in front of your neighbors?”

His glanced darted left and right. “You got the cash?”

“Let me inside.”

He pursed his lips for a moment, then swung the door open and stepped aside.

“Lead the way,” I told him.

He gave me an irritated look, but turned and stomped up the stairs.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Almost immediately, the gamey scent of body odor assaulted my nostrils. There was another smell, too. I’d encountered it when I’d done walkthroughs of the dirty book arcades. That was years ago, but there’s no forgetting the pungent stench of stale cum.

Yeager stood in the center of his living room, his arms crossed in front of his flabby chest. “You got the money?” he asked again.

“No,” I said.

“Then why are you here?”

“To negotiate.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a friend of Cassie’s.”

He studied me for a moment, then smiled. “You’re banging her, aren’t ya?”

I didn’t answer.

He took my silence as affirmation. “She still a hot number?” he asked. “Because she was a fine piece of ass back when I had her.”

I ground my teeth. “Listen—”

He leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered his voice to a stage whisper.  “Cause ya know I had her first, don’t’cha?  Had her when she was a ripe young thing.  Had her every which way you can imagine, too.”

“Shut up.”

He leered at me. “She still give good head?”

“Do you want to work out a deal or not?” I gritted through a clenched jaw.

His leer spread into a greasy smile. “Does she still like to take it in the—”

I hit him.

I didn’t plan it, but the smug look on his face and the image of him and Cassie together was just too much. I lashed out with my left hand before I even thought about it.  My hand curled into a fist on its way toward the center of his face. I drove that fist into the tip of his nose, smashing it. Blood exploded from his nostrils.

Yeager squealed. His hands flew to his face. I threw my right as a reflex, stepping into the hook punch and catching him low in the gut. My fist powered through the roll of fat with a slap. Yeager grunted and sank to a knee.

I didn’t hesitate. The left came back across, landing on his jaw, right on the knockout button. This time he didn’t make a noise, but his eyelids fluttered and he fell forward to the carpet with a thud.

I stood stock-still in his living room for a moment, staring down at his unmoving body.  The coppery smell of blood mixed with the putrid odors already dominating the air. Then I looked around. The far wall was dominated by a computer desk. Wild lines drew themselves randomly against the dark background of the computer monitor. Next to the desk, I spotted a bookshelf full of videotapes and DVDs.

Yeager groaned and stirred.

I strode to the bookshelf. Many of the movies were commercial titles I recognized. Some were obvious porn titles. On the third shelf, nearest to the desk, I found a series of homemade labels. Each label had a name. The fifth one was Cassie.

“You son of a bitch,” Yeager muttered in a thick voice.

The DVD cover showed a much younger Cassie, arms in air and topless. I ground my teeth and slid it into the inside pocket of my bomber jacket.

“Take it,” Yeager said. “I’ll just make another one.”

He looked at me from his knees, one hand pressed against his nose to staunch the bleeding. His eyes remained smug.

I’d have to destroy the computer file. I touched the computer mouse, exiting the screensaver. A password request popped up.

“What’s the password?” I demanded.

“Fuck you,” he said.

I stepped toward him and drove the point of my boot into his stomach. He folded over, retching. I stepped to the side to avoid the vomit. My bad knee throbbed.

When he’d caught his breath, Yeager began to laugh. He looked up at me, blood streaming from his nose. “You can beat on me if you want. Maybe I’ll eventually tell you my password. But then you’ll have to find the file. And even if you do, it’s backed up online.”

I stared down at him, processing what he’d said.

“You think I’m stupid?” he asked me. “Now where’s my fucking money?”

I shook my head slowly. “She doesn’t have it.”

His eyes burned into me. “Then she’ll be the star of the Internet.”

“How about if she just calls the cops?”

“How about if I call them on you?” he sneered.

I considered that. Right now, I couldn’t prove the blackmail, but he could easily prove that I assaulted him.

He shook his head and spit on the carpet. “If the cops were an option, she’d have called them already.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to show it. “Then maybe she’ll just sue your ass.  Take your shitty little house.”

He laughed harder. “Now that’d be real quiet, huh? A public lawsuit?”

I lowered my voice. “If you don’t delete those files and destroy the DVDs, I’ll come back and visit you.”

His laughter turned hysterical. Fresh droplets of blood flew from his mouth as he howled. “Oh, that’s good, that’s good.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.  His mood swings were lunatic. “I’m serious,” I told him.

His laughter melted away. “Oh, I hope so. Because next time I’ll be waiting for you with a little friend.”

We stood there, not speaking. I glanced around the room to see if he had a gun stashed anywhere nearby. The hum of the computer fan was the loudest thing in the room. When I looked back at him, he glowered darkly. I noticed that all the smashing I’d done hadn’t knocked that smugness off his face.

“What do you want?” I finally asked.

“Five thousand dollars,” he said, and grinned at me.

“Asshole,” I said. “You shoulda taken the fifteen hundred.” 

I walked past him and out the door.

***

On the way home, I pulled in next to a dumpster. I removed the picture from the sleeve of the DVD case and tore it into small bits. Then I snapped the DVD into pieces and threw it all away.

I wanted to see her again.  I wanted to kiss her, hold her, love her. But I knew I wouldn’t. I’d failed her. And she’d be humiliated because of it. I knew from experience that you can live through humiliation, but she didn’t.

Until she figured that out, if she ever did, she’d remain lost to me.

I called her on the phone. She listened to my words and hung up quietly. I stayed on the line a little longer, listening to the dial tone until it became an insistent, harsh beep.  Then I hung it up and was alone with the thickness in my throat and the unbidden tears.

Over fifty of Frank Zafiro’s stories have been published in a variety of venues, including anthologies, print magazines and online magazines.  His first novel was published in 2006 and the sequel will be out in September 2007.