Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 6 ~ The First Rule, part 3

Elly stretched and closed her eyes, giving up any pretense of reading as she tilted her face toward the warm California sun.  Fall was just around the corner, which would mean rain, and then there was winter, which meant more rain.  But it was still summerlike, perfect weather for sunning beside the pool.  Perfect weather for the cute blue sundress she’d bought, which showed too much skin for the cooler seasons.  A frown turned her lips down when she remembered that her father had not seen the blue dress yet, and may well nix it the minute he saw it on Monday.  She could usually sweet talk Russ into or out of anything, but he had an irrational fear of her cleavage being seen by boys, and she usually had to reserve her favorite outfits for when he was off on tour.

She wiggled her toes regretfully, trying to think of something else that would match the polish, wouldn’t give her father a fit, and still looked good enough to catch Sien’s eye.  Hmmmmm.  Maybe if she just wore a lightweight sweater over it on the way to school and shed it as soon as Russ drove away, that would work.  After all, he hadn’t seen the dress at all yet and he wouldn’t know just by seeing the skirt under the sweater that the top was “skimpy,” the word he always used to describe no-no clothing.  He could be an awful stick-in-the-mud.

“Hiya, El.  New swimsuit?”

Elly opened her eyes and sat up, frowning harshly at the man leaning against the table next to her.  Sam Conner looked at her appreciatively above half lowered sunglasses, and added, “Looks nice.  Brings out the green tint in your eyes.”

“Thank you, I’m swooning,” Elly said, closing her book with a snap.  “What do you want?”

Sam shrugged, the picture of casual ease in his loose t-shirt and jeans, a bit different from the shiny black leather he liked to wear on stage or for publicity shots.  “Was in the neighborhood, came ’round for a visit.  Been a while seen I’ve seen the family, thought I’d stop in and say hi.”

“You picked a bad day,” Elly replied, tossing her book on the table and affecting a look of bored indifference.  She looked out across the pool instead of at Sam.  “My parents took Eric to a competition and Marc’s gone, too.  It’s just me and Hollie.”

Sam smiled, a bright, easy smile that Elly had always thought of as predatory.  “Sounds like I picked a good day.”

Elly smiled and turned back to him, tilting her head to the side fetchingly.  She spoke sweetly.  “Sam, if you even so much as say ‘boo’ to Hollace MacKenzie I will personally disembowel you.”

“Your sister doesn’t interest me,” Sam pushed his glasses back up to cover his eyes in a short, annoyed movement.  “I’m not a pedophile.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I was fifteen years old, and drunk.  I can’t believe you still like to hold that over my head.”

“And now you’re what, twenty-five and drunk most of the time, when you’re not high?  Sam, really, it’s no use; I’ll never take my eye off you.  Especially not while Hollie is still a young, naïve girl.”

Sam sat down on the lawn chair across from her, and even though he wore sunglasses she could tell he was running a frank eye over her swimsuit clad body.  “You’ve grown up,” he said, “but I don’t think you were ever naïve.”

“Whatever.”  Elly picked up her book and held it open in front of her, like a shield.  “But I’d like to remind you before you start panting that I’m still only sixteen.”

“That’s pretty funny, most girls your age think they’re all grown up, while they’re still just little airheads.  You’re a clever little vixen and you’re trying to act young and innocent.”

“I am young and innocent, for your information,” Elly snapped.

“Huh, I’d like to ask the boys at your school about that.  They could probably tell me just how much of a woman you are.”  Sam ran his tongue around his lips suggestively.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re disgusting?”

“Lots of times.”

“I don’t know why I tolerate this,” Elly sniffed, turning a page.  “I could tell my father all about how you harass me.  Or I could just tell Noah.  When’s the last time he beat you up, Sam?  Has it been a while?”

Sam stood up abruptly and suddenly he was leaning over her, blocking the sun.  “I know why,” he said, and she could smell his breath as it washed over her face.  It smelled like he’d had tuna for lunch.  Tuna and alcohol.  “You like me.  You may think I’m disgusting and perverted but you like it.  And this—” he waived his hand at nothing in particular “—this banter is foreplay to you.  You may not realize that, but I do.  That’s why you don’t tell your dad, that’s why you don’t tell my brother.  One of these days we’ll get down to it, but I’m patient, I’ll enjoy the foreplay as long as you want.”

Elly cocked one eyebrow and said nonchalantly, “You know you’re really not as sexy as you think you are.”

“That’s not what they say to me when they’re in bed.”  There was that predatory smile again.  “And that’s not what you’ll say, either.”

“Disgusting and delusional.  Is that what you call charm under the rock you crawled out from?”

Sam leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “I met a girl in Germany, named Elsa.  I called her Elly and she didn’t mind.  She didn’t mind when I was fucking her and I said ‘Elly, oooooh Elly, Elllllyyyyyy.’  She had a friend named Anna and she got a little pissed but I shut her up with this,” he reached down and grabbed his crotch.

Elly laughed.  Not just a giggle, she burst out laughing right in Sam’s face, and kept on laughing when he pulled back, looking nonplussed.  She shoved him aside and stood up, moving a couple steps away.

Sam scowled.  “You think you’re funny.”

“No, I think you’re funny.  I know you have a lot of sex, Sam.  That wasn’t quite what I meant.  Banging a lot of idiot groupies doesn’t make you sexy.  I know girls who will put out for any guy who even says he can play the guitar.”  Elly crossed her arms and shook her head.  “So you think you’re a sex machine when you’re really just a horny little toad.  Have you ever had a steady girlfriend?  Um, don’t think so.”

“Fuck you.”

“In your dreams.”

They stood facing each other for a few moments.  Elly knew Sam had tired of the verbal abuse — she’d always been able to match his innuendo with words that cut deeper — but he didn’t like admitting defeat.  Never mind that he lost every time.

She smiled at him, a mockingly sweet smile, and broke the silence; “I’m going for a swim, I’m sure you know how to get out.”

She bent over and wriggled out of the cut off jeans she was wearing over the bottom half of her two piece, knowing that she was giving Sam a view.  He didn’t move.  Elly knew he wouldn’t — or at least, she was very sure.  She’d presented him with various temptations in the past, but he wasn’t stupid enough to rape her when he knew what the consequences would be.  Ever since that day in the garage, anyway.

Elly was so sure in her safety to taunt him that she walked right by him to the pool, and didn’t look back before she jumped in.  She dove deep into the water, feeling it cleanse her of the taint of having Sam looking at her, talking to her, hovering over her.

When she surfaced again, he was gone.  Elly smiled with satisfaction and floated on her back, looking up at the few wispy clouds in the sky.  He was sort of right about one thing, she had to admit . . . she did like this . . . to a certain extent.  But it wasn’t Sam she liked, oh no, not at all, and he was fool if he believed that.  She liked beating him at his own game, taunting him, showing him that all his dirty talk couldn’t make her blush, but never giving him what he wanted.  This wasn’t foreplay, this was all there was to it.

For a few years after the incident in the garage just before her seventh birthday, Sam let her alone and she avoided him.  But he still looked at her, from time to time, with a look that said he hadn’t forgotten what made him drop his pants for her that once.  As she had gotten older, and started to develop, she’d wondered if, in some strange way, she would now not be attractive to him anymore.  If he was only attracted to her child’s body . . . would he now be attracted to her younger sister while forgetting her?

The thought of him going after Hollie was disgusting, and she would never let such a thing happen, not ever.  But that other thing was bothersome, too, in its own way.  It should have been a relief to think that Sam, whom she despised, would eventually forget to be interested in her and find someone else to ogle.  And while it was, it wasn’t. . . .  Pride, she knew, could often run contrary to what made sense, but she had to admit that her pride was damaged at the thought of her unwanted admirer losing interest.

And so, when she was around 12, she had started to do little things just to see if they would get Sam’s attention.  She wasn’t really around him that much, not when Ixion was successful and the band no longer hung out in her father’s garage all the time.  But she made the most of the times she was around him.  Surreptitiously, of course, so no one else would notice.  Little things to say, “Do you still notice me?  See this?  You’ll never get it . . . .”

To her mingled satisfaction and disgust Sam showed that he had not forgotten, or lost interest.  In fact she was sure he found her more attractive with each passing year.  It was fun to flirt with him subtly and then tell him off whenever she got the chance.

But that was before Sien.

Now she didn’t have time to play her game with Sam, perhaps she shouldn’t have stripped off her jeans in front of him or tossed her hair or done any of the other little things that had become almost habitual for her when he was around.  Better discourage him completely than toss him those crumbs to keep his attention.  She didn’t want his attention or his interest anymore, all she wanted was Sien.

A rush of feelings filled Sien.  Hatred.  Jealousy.  Alarm.  Disgust.  Intense hatred.  Deep, clutching, consuming hatred.

He realized somewhere along the line that he was digging his fingers into the bark and twisting it until it crumbled under his grip.  He couldn’t make out hardly any of what they were saying, only a word or two here or there.  He heard the last part fairly clearly; after Elly burst out laughing at what the man in the sunglasses whispered to her they raised their voices and nearly yelled at each other.

He’d almost jumped down from the tree and ran to her rescue a number of times, but something kept him up there.  Perhaps it was because Elly didn’t seem afraid, or perhaps it was knowing that he’d have to then explain what he was doing in the neighbors’ tree.  It most certainly was not for fear of the man; Sien was sure he could smack him down and throw him in the pool, easy.  For whatever reason, he stayed put and was eventually glad that he did, because the man turned and left — practically fled — as soon as Elly dove into the water.

She could handle herself.  She feared no man.  Her enemy fled from her.  Sien loosened his death grip on the tree and forced himself to breathe again.

She was strong in spirit, mind, and body.  The first rule.