"In Which Reality is No Damsel in Distress"

(Pt. 3)

· · ·

1:??AM (It's a fight, who keeps track of time?)

Somewhere in Averill

Ugn, I open my eyes, only to meet nothing but a vast starless sky.

You'd think for a girl who had been thrown over her back at least a thousand times, my experience would kick in. (And NO, not like that! And by that, I meant sex. For those who haven't thought of that — well, good for you! For the rest, shame!),

I hear some shuffling on my right — and the smell of tuna.

I hate tuna. Much like I'm beginning to hate the man hovering over me.

BLECH! I scrunch my nose at the repulsive scent. I take it back, I hate the tuna smell even more.

I try to command one of my hands to pinch my nose when I realize they were trapped to either side of my head. The only thing I can move is my head — not that I had any legroom to begin with.

"Now this is more like it. You look fucking good on your back," a voice purrs — I'm guessing Carl, obviously — leaning down on me and nuzzling the sensitive part of my neck.

I fight the accruing wave of revulsion. Yup, I'm gonna need an acid bath for that. Twice.

I send him a devilish smirk, despite the riotous sound of my heartbeat while I gasp copious amounts of air.

"Yeah, you think so?" I ask him coyly, keeping his gaze on mine, and my body still.

https://youtu.be/PHzOOQfhPFg

Assuming my lack of thrashing as a sign of surrender to his superior strength, the restraints on my hands loosen.

I manage to sneak my hands down his chest. I clench my right hand around the collar of his hoodie. At the same time, my left hand grabs his elbow.

I uncross my feet, using my right foot and left shoulder for support. I lift my hips to the right, creating a small space between us. My left leg lays on the ground next to Carl's knee as I bring my right across his stomach.

Before Carl can react,  I straighten my right knee and scissor my legs in one flowing movement. Sweeping him off his knees, I drag his arm towards me as I hoist myself up and reverse our positions.

Securing him in an arm-lock, I breathe into his ear.

"Keep looking, 'coz that's all you'll ever do. Well"— I tilt my head — "at least until I give your plastic surgeon something to work with."

Without waiting for a second more, I punch him in the nose again — specifically on the upper part between his eyes.

CRACK! And he was out.

Baddie #1 done, I stand up and dust off the dirt from my jeans.

True to my promise, I step over Carl's testicles, ignoring the sound of his future spawns screaming into extinction as I head towards Terry.

Terry twirls his knife between his fingers, his voice a bit shaky. "Don't you come any closer! I have a knife."

To reinforce his earlier threats, he tosses the knife in mid-air, catching it, and slashing at the space between us like some expert bladesman.

I suck my teeth. "Seriously, is this all you can do? I've seen a man throw a knife in the air and swallow it!"

I glance down at my knuckles and choke back in horror.

The skin was broken and tinged with blotchy pink hues. The dried blood encrusted around the tiny abrasions was a sharp contrast to my pale skin, making the wounds seem worse than they actually feel.

This is what I get for getting through the trouble of applying hand cream religiously?!

"Now, look what you made me do!" I screech in outrage, holding my hands up high enough for him to see the damage.

Terry flinches at my sudden outburst and the abysmal depths of fury in my voice. A drop of sweat trickles down the side of his face.

"I was supposed to be scheduled for a meeting, and now I have to deal with this?!" I advance towards him, violence and determination in my every stride.

"I offered you bordering-on-sweet-and-torturous pain but you" — I snap my head towards him then to his partner — "were obviously not listening to me!"

I spin around and kick a motionless Carl in the ribs. Carl releases a painful groan, his eyes still closed.

"Why doesn't anybody listen to me?!"

I remember the faceless men back at the club earlier, one of them proceeding to grope me despite my sheer lack of interest and countless attempts of driving him away. That was after I told him 'no'.

Suddenly, all the pent-up anger I've been warding off throughout last night comes surging through with a vengeance. My insides seethe in rage, shattering any wards that contain it.

This time, the fire inside is devoid of any fluttering warmth. In its place was a blazing blue inferno swirling around, ready to exonerate anything in its path.

R-R-R-I-I-IP-P, cries the fabric of my shirt as I tear its bottom half. I wrap the torn piece of cloth around my knuckles.

Fist clenched, I raise them close to my chest in a boxing position as I get nearer and nearer to him.

"I'm warning you. Back off, you, psychotic bitch!" Terry stutters, backing away.

I tune him out., my mind set on inflicting irreversible damage.

In the blink of an eye, I kick his knife hand, incapacitating his grip, and sending his weapon flying away.

It lands an inch short of Carl's groin.

"For a criminal, you suck at creating crime," I spit out.

Terry, suddenly finding himself defenseless as the tables have turned between hunter and prey, tries (I mean really tries with his awful form) to throw punches at me.

I easily avert them, responding with punches of my own. To my dismay, he managed to dodge them within a hair's breadth.

I've got to hand it in with Terry here. He was fast!

I finally managed to land a punch to his nose. Unfortunately, he moved fast enough to avoid its full force.

He sneaks a punch in return, aiming for my face.

I catch it just in time, twisting his entire arm until I hear his joints pop.

I spin him around by the arm, snaking my leg around his neck, and choking the life out of him. All the while, I grab his other arm and inflicted the same torture I did to the first one.

He lets out a shrill cry in a high-pitched voice. Tears stream down his cheeks and his mouth wrenches in agony.

I decided to take pity on him and threw him on the ground.

"Now where were we? Oh right"—

Taking hold of his left arm while shoving the back of his head on the pavement, I step on his right elbow.

His cry of pain is muffled by the wet asphalt. He tries to get up on his other arm.

"This is for trying to stab me," I shove his back down with my foot.

I snatch his head off the ground by the top of his hair.

"This is for mocking me as a comedian!" I slam his head to the ground before raising it again.

I wrench his mask away, revealing a thin weasel-like face, battered with bruises and a broken nose.

He groans in pain, blood dripping down his head, nose. and mouth.

"In case you don't know, I am funny! And, this is"— I pause, steadily raising my fist and cracking my knuckles — "just because!"

Then, I proceed to launch the mother of all punches.

KG had it coming. Too bad, he never saw it fast enough to react. He was already knocked out.

Standing straight, I lift my head to the sky and let out a victorious war cry, flipping him over and stepping over his crown jewels. CRACK!

My body sags in relief.

THUNK! The sound of a rolling can takes my attention away, warning me of another attacker.

My body was already worn out. Yet, I whip around and, with all that's left of my strength, I aim my fist to my third would-be attacker.

However, it wasn't enough.

He catches my fist and pulls me towards him.

My body falls towards a steely chest. I was too weak for another fight, my stamina fully drained. It was something Pops had always worried about for me.

I tried to break away, but it was no use.

I crane my head up to face him and pause. Our eyes meet and recognition sparks within me, but my mind is close to shutting down.

My eyes glaze over. I send him an exhausted smile. My eyes had already begun to fail me, my eyelids drooping heavily.

"My bad," I slur, my face contrite as my head limply falls backward.

A warm breath of air blows on the top of my head.

A hand cradles my neck as another one wraps around my waist.

I blink my eyes for the last time as the world turns upside-down.

The scent of burnt aspen, coffee, spices, and leather burn at the back of my mind as Morpheus wins this battle.

· · ·

Thrice in one day.

He was never one for serendipitous chances, and yet it felt like so as he gazes down at the unconscious hellion in his arms with clear disdain.

Of course, in his mind, it was pure misfortune.

It wasn't the first time a girl had given him the cold shoulder, glared at him, or cursed him to go to hell but it was the first time it happened all in one day and from the same person... it stung.

And, feck, it did a lot to his ego.

Yet, there was no sign of the infuriatingly haughty female he mutually bumped into that morning, the brazen girl with the iron-hand throw, nor the dewy-eyed girl who listened to his performance with rapt attention less than an hour ago.

Not a trace of worry or wariness mars her deceptively beautiful features, smoothed by her instinctive need for sleep.

For a moment there, he would've mistaken her as a portrait of sublime grace.

With her asleep, he thought of her as someone soft and defenseless, surprisingly triggering every protective instinct he had to ward off any danger that lurks in the middle of the night from harming her.

That was until he remembered how capable she was of deflecting any attacks from a man twice her size and breaking his limbs with ease all on her own.

It was pure chance that he took a different turn from his accustomed route, only to hear the sickening sound of a broken bone. When the source of the sound was finally in his line of sight, his body was ready to jump.

However, the look on her face stopped him in his tracks. Hair flying in different directions, her teeth bared and eyes cold and sharp like a predator, she struck him as an ancient Fury rejoicing in the violence and blood of her kill.

He knew it was a silly childhood tale meant to scare little children, but watching her shook him to the core. He knew jumping in would only redirect her fury toward him.

He looks around the alley, registering her handiwork of scattered bodies 一 battered and knocked out cold.

It didn't help that she had a tongue sharper than her attacker's blade, either.

Her verbal arsenal was enough to cut a man's ego into minced meat. It was the very epitome of a cautionary tale instilled into his rite of passage to manhood. Combined with her swift uppercut that he barely caught, she was a wildfire to be reckoned with.

Well, at least, when she was awake. Even so, she was a danger to his senses and his reasoning.

Her closed eyes, hidden by lids smudged with eyeliner, were a reprieve to his hold for control.

Unpredictable as their color, he got the feeling that if anyone had the slightest chance to look her in the eyes, they would be burned 一 or sent into a breathless state of bewilderment. Even mere moments of leveling with her golden-flecked gaze, as their colors sporadically shift from brown to green, left him struck.

Not in awe.

Rather, in an odd inexplicable kind of feeling that had him frozen for a second 一 maybe, two.

The way they blazed in anger had rendered him 一 for a lack of better words 一 shocked.

There was only one woman who had affected him the same way. But, even she had tempered that with her maternal affections, mollycoddling him every chance she got.

No, this was different.

He felt that all too well that morning in a cafe when he saw her outside shouting curses at some driver before she finally kicked their door and scooped up a mangy cat covered in grime. He tried not to stare so openly when she entered and sat at a table by the window. Like an invisible string pulling him in her direction, he stood in front of her when she left her table, expecting to catch her attention. However, not once did she fully look at him 一 even when delivering her cutting remark.

That afternoon when she attacked him with an apple  should've put him off. Still, she finally looked at him this evening, her golden-flecked hazel eyes trained on nobody else except him.

But then she turned away.

Even with a wounded ego and a bruised head, he can't deny the fact that she had intrigued him, and he had met more than his fair share of the female sex.

He shakes her by the shoulders in an attempt to revive her consciousness 一 and hopefully, to wash his hands off of possibly looking after a defenseless inebriated girl for the rest of the night.

That didn't get him far, at all.

She simply moans, the sound reminding him of a kitten gently trailing its sharp claws down his spine, baring the soft smooth skin of her neck further to him.

No sooner than when she topples off backward, he pulls her even further into his arms... and pressed her against his front. A bad move on his part. His sensitive lower part. 

A few strands from her long dark choppy locks dance around her face, reminding him of a slumbering beauty depicted in countless Pre-Raphaelite paintings he once admired in museums as a kid.

A sleeping angel 一 who fights like a demon and sounds like a siren, he shakes his head.

He tries not to breathe into the tantalizing scent she exudes while securing his arm around the curvaceous slope of her waist.

He didn't waste enough time before scooping the back of her willowy legs and carrying her into a princess hold. However, she clearly didn't like this position.

She twists around, slinging one of her arms around his neck, while the other dangles from the ground. She burrows her face in the crevice between his arm and chest, her upturned nose brushing the frayed fabric of his shirt.

Content with her position, she lets out a soft snore, her pink dewy lips slightly open. Dried coffee stains mottle the corners of her mouth. The sight was equally sensual and adorably ingenuous.

The tiny indentation in the middle of her full bottom lip only makes him want to bite into its ripe fullness and taste the coffee from its edges.

All the while, he found himself frozen at her sudden movement.

He sighs. Never since he stepped into this town, did he expect to spend the rest of his second night in town to be relegated as a caretaker for a complete stranger 一 a girl 一 who couldn't even sustain her own sobriety to get home.

A comely girl who, without a doubt, could test his control and lay him flat on the ground.

He shakes his head and sighs."What am I going to do with ye?"

· · ·

Ooh, what will he do with her?

Write your predictions down in the comment section. Don't forget to vote and share this story with your friends.

What did you think of this chapter? Any thoughts, suggestions, reactions?

Ta-ta for now!

P. S. Scroll further down below for a short sneak-peek of my next chapter: "In Which Reality is a Literal climb of Shame ".

· · ·

PLAYLIST

Just A Girl — No Doubt

· · ·

SNEAK PEEK

I stretch my sore arms over my head.

SWAT! My hand connects with something. Hard. On what feels to be a face.

A tiny groan echoes above my head, sending vibrations on my back and followed by a light snore.

A heavy arm is thrown around me, pulling me close in a tight embrace and back to a set of hot rock-hard abs.

My eyes crack wide-open.

This is the part where something is wrong.

Willst. Du. Mich. Verarschen.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.

NO-NO-NO-NO...

NO!

Heilige. Scheiße!

Holy fucking shit! With the last remnants of sleep leaving me, I lift the sheets to find exactly what I was afraid of.

Minutes pass. My mind is still reeling in shock and denial. My face becomes a pale rendition of Edvard Munch's The Scream.

Nevertheless, the evidence was clear.

A hang-over without any recollection of how I got here: Check!

Waking up naked in bed: Check!

Hand-shaped imprints around my arms and thighs: Check!

Trails of dried fluid crusting my inner thighs: Check!

A numbing sensation to my 'gina(?): Check!

A snoring giant for a bedmate whose warm arm is slung possessively around my waist like an iron shackle with a hot semi-hard erection pressing to my back (wait, what?!): Check!

It's official! I just had a drunken one-night stand.

Again.

Man, I really gotta stop doing this.

· · ·

· · ·

Copyright © 2017 Lei André