Camden flings her long, honey-colored hair out of her eyes and notices that I’m staring. A peculiar look crosses her face. It’s triumph. She enjoys the idea that I’m looking at her legs and having thoughts.
Then a shadow falls and she becomes annoyed.
She remembers that she hates my guts.
She probably also remembers that rumor about six different shades of lipstick showing up on my dick from all the mouths that supposedly sucked me off at the same party. I don’t know how stories like that start but I’m not going to deny them. What kind of guy would reject the reputation of having an irresistible dick? Sure, I’ve had hookups here and there but there’s never been a blow job orgy involved. I think I would have remembered that.
But I’m fine with Camden believing the worst. If she decided that I was all right then she might think it’s a good idea to talk to me more often. A conversation between Camden and me always veers into a bad place. She’s sure that I’m a low life piece of gutter trash and I’m sure that she’s got her pretty, conceited head wedged up her tight little ass. Now and then I get to hear crap from my buddies about this girl thanks to the fact that we’re both from Devil Valley. They assume our infamous hostility towards each other has got to end in some wild hate sex.
She’s not quick enough to battle a sudden harsh gust of wind and her little plaid skirt goes flying up. I get a flash of her underwear. It’s white, the hip hugger kind. It looks like something that gets handed out in Dress Like A Virgin class. Still, I wouldn’t complain about seeing it again.
After she flattens her skirt against her thighs she turns her head away and shivers. I have the urge to shrug out of my jacket and hand it over to her even though she’s not my favorite person. I just don’t like to see a girl, any girl, uncomfortable.
In the next second I decide that I don’t care if she’s shivering because I’m thinking about what happened the first time I showed up at the bus stop with the unsightly Black Mountain Academy blazer stuffed under my arm.
She barreled right over like an unhappy, plaid-skirted bull. “Don’t tell me YOU are going to Black Mountain?” Her eyes were so wide I thought they’d fall out of her head. She’d said the word ‘YOU’ like ‘EWWW’.
And I grinned at her. I knew that I was better looking than most guys and I wanted to fuck with her prissy attitude a little. “That’s right. Looks like we’ll be sharing a ride every day. So play nice and maybe I’ll let you sit on my lap, Cammy.”
“No one calls me Cammy. And you can keep your lap, Ben. From what I hear it’s probably worn out.”
She was trying to be all haughty and superior but her voice cracked and a blush colored her cheeks. I could have easily kept up my end of that exchange of offenses but I let her have the last word. I wasn’t being nice. I just didn’t care enough to bother at the time.
That was last January and our interactions have not improved much since then. Our finest hour peaked this past fall at a BMA football home game. She’s in charge of the Black Mountain Academy Bulletin so she attended the game in order to get in everyone’s way, pestering them for quotable thoughts on ‘these waning days of our high school careers’. No kidding, those were her actual words. I was just there to watch some football and maybe get a handful of tit at one of the after parties so when Camden got to me I told her the honest truth. She got all fired up and called me a colossal prick. I acted like that was an invitation. I offered to drop my pants right there in the bleachers and give her a show. I wasn’t serious. But she yelped and scampered away as if the sight of a penis might blind her. Since then she pretends like she’s allergic to me.
Camden is a Devil Valley lifer. She’s undeniably cute but I never see her mixing with the local crowd. This isn’t a huge town so everyone knows who she is and is aware that she gets ferried off to exclusive Black Mountain Academy every day. She acts like she thinks she’s pretty special, skipping out of here each morning in her plaid skirt to go mingle in more pretentious circles. She’s a star in her own head, climbing out of the Devil Valley slums to be the special snowflake at BMA. She doesn’t want to share that role with me or anyone else.
Since Camden refuses to look in my direction again I’m free to keep staring at her legs while wishing for another breeze to lift her skirt. Camden’s got a great body. Unfortunately, it’s attached to her personality. She might be plenty of fun if she kept her mouth shut and took off her shirt. The stirring in my pants reminds me that I don’t have to like a girl to want to see her naked. The guys might be onto something with this hate sex idea. I probably wouldn’t turn that down.
The low growl of an engine puts an end to my pornographic thoughts. The aging green bus coughs and moans its way to the corner and then with a squeal of the brakes the doors open.
“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL MORNING!” The woman who sings out the greeting is somewhere around my mom’s age. She’s too irrationally happy about driving a decrepit municipal bus on a frigid morning.
I hustle up the steps, flash my pass and drop my backpack into the last seat on the left. Only a handful of other riders are yawning in their own seats and every one of them is alone. I watch Camden climb on and smile at the driver before sitting up front. I stare at the back of her head. It’s a familiar sight. She’s in most of my classes and always sits in the front row, back straight in the chair, pen at the ready to copy down whatever priceless wisdom rains from the teacher’s mouth.
The drive to Black Mountain takes twenty-four minutes. Sometimes I push my backpack against the window and use it as a pillow while the scenery flies past. But today I don’t feel like napping because I’m thinking of Camden’s skirt flying up. I don’t want to. I just can’t help it. If I thought I could get away with it I might spank one out real quick in my seat.
My hand brushes the rigid bulge in my pants. My mind pictures blinding white panties and the tantalizing V at the center. A groaning hiss escapes me and the old lady sitting two rows up pauses her knitting needles to swivel around and deliver a suspicious glare.
I glare right back. But I also take my hand off my dick and look out the window instead.
The landscape gets prettier as we leave Devil Valley behind. Not everyone in the town of Black Mountain is wealthy or famous. There are plenty of regular folks mixed in. However, Devil Valley is considered a distant poor cousin and some people turn this into a rivalry. The sports teams don’t often play each other, which is a good thing because when they do, Black Mountain always wins. Then there’s a fight because some jackass will inevitably shoot off his mouth and Devil Valley kids don’t take kindly to being crapped on.
Black Mountain’s snowy peak looms closer. There were no mountains in sight where I grew up. Instead we had endless miles of pristine beaches lined with multi million dollar homes. We had surfing and yacht clubs and ocean breezes. We had girls in bikinis and sunshine and decadence.
But scratch that glittering surface and you’ll find depravity and violence. At least in my family. Those are the things I choose to think of when nostalgia for my old life threatens to make me bitter about this one.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever admit the truth to anyone or if I’ll live my whole life as Ben Beltran. I also wonder if there’s anyone on earth who asks what the hell happened to Bennet Drexler. I had plenty of friends in Coral Beach. I had lots of girls who liked me. I had teachers and neighbors. I also had relatives. But where blood relations are concerned I try to have faith that out of sight means out of mind. Most of the time I hope to never see those bastards again. And sometimes I hope I do see them again so I can beat the living shit out of them. It’s a foolish wish. They aren’t the types to fight fair.