Still, the truth of that night is something even my two best friends wouldn’t understand. Yes, they know why I was drinking at the party . . . that while some of the guests wandered about the deck or splashed in the pool (I’d dressed the part—bikini and swimsuit cover—but hadn’t been brave enough to venture into anything deeper than a wading pool since the age of seven), the college junior who was hosting led others of us to his basement to show off his vintage record player.
I was fine, listening to big bands from the forties and rock ’n’ roll from the fifties. It was when he dragged out a vinyl of Rigoletto that my world came crashing down. I sprinted for the stairs just as the heroine’s aria erupted, and my fate was sealed.
Janine was my ride, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. So I drank. A lot. I figured if I drowned the notes in alcohol, I’d be able to prevent them from breathing . . . from surfacing. Unfortunately, I had even less control with three beers in my system. Seated precariously on the second-story balcony’s railing, I slapped my hands to my mouth to keep the song subdued and lost my balance. A hot college guy on the pool deck below broke my fall when I landed on his head.
He helped me stand. He’d been swimming, and his upper torso sparkled in the twinkling white lights strung around the deck. His auburn hair was wet and mussed, and his blue eyes—slightly glazed as if having trouble focusing—trailed along my bared legs where they stuck out from my cover-up. I recognized the expression. Like I was a piece of meat and he was starving. He staggered a little, but it wasn’t from my crash landing. He was even more wasted than me.
I’d noticed him once or twice while visiting Janine on campus during her summer session. I knew his name was Ben, and that he didn’t have a girlfriend. I also knew he was a player. But the aria pressed against my sternum and crept into my throat, climbing like bile toward my mouth. So instead of listening to the voice of caution, I threw myself at him to silence my itching vocal cords, to suppress the music burning behind my eyelids in myriad colors.
I poured all of the emotions boiling in me—all the fear, mortification, passion, and longing—into a hard, demanding kiss that tasted of bitter hops, sweet malt, and musky pheromones.
It wasn’t my first kiss. I’d gone to junior prom with a sweet, nerdy guy named Tate. We shared a benign closed-mouth peck at my door, when he dropped me home. But it never amounted to anything else.
My kiss with Ben was different—mouths opening, tongues seeking. I was the instigator, lifting my arms around his neck to push the aria down. Ben groaned—deep, masculine gratification—and his lips felt as if they caught fire. His tongue scalded as it wrestled mine. He dragged me hard against him. The film of chlorinated water between our skin seemed to sizzle, and his chest burned my collarbone.
We ignored the rap song blaring from the speakers on the balcony, ignored the snickering guests who opened a path so Ben could back us into the empty pool house and slam the door shut. He lowered me onto a pile of damp and musty beach towels on the cement floor—his heavy body straddling me.
His hands were everywhere. There was nothing sweet or tender driving either of us. It was spontaneous, harsh, lusty, and degrading. I hated how fast we were moving, how out of control we were, and for an instant, I hesitated, until the notes resurfaced. In that muddled, hysterical state, I convinced myself that the humiliation of an impromptu vocal solo would somehow be worse than letting things go too far with a boy I didn’t even know.
Those are the facts I shared with Janine and Trig.
What I didn’t share was that just as my cover-up came off, as the kisses grew intense and gasping, Ben’s flavor changed to something singed, sweet, and unnatural—like roasted autumn leaves, sulfur, and copper wrapped in toffee. I devoured the taste, starving for more.
A fiery sensation soldered Ben’s chest to mine, like someone had poured a pint of gasoline on us and followed it with a lit match. A bright grayish-yellow glow buzzed and ignited at the point of contact, where my bikini-wrapped breasts were flush to his pecs.
I was so wasted—I can’t be sure I retained every detail. All I do remember—vividly—is that the glow jumped from Ben’s sternum to mine, catching flame to my blood while turning his cold and paling his face to a deathly white. I remember how he gasped for air as he rolled onto his back atop the heap of towels . . . how he clawed at this throat, trying to breathe. I remember screaming when his lips started to turn blue, when the veins in his temples and wrists seemed to sink into his skin, as if being hollowed out from within.