Eager to Love

  Eager to Love

  Volume Two of the Complicity Cycle

  Sadie Romero

  Eager to Love

  Published by Sadie Romero at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 Sadie Romero

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form without express, written consent from the author.

  A product of S.K.R. Publishing

  Chapter 1

  Huey P. Long was a decaying shell of a building situated right in the middle of Louisiana State University’s campus like a dead tooth set in a jaw of milk-fortified pearly whites. They’d built the place—a swimming pool and rec center—back during the great depression, but they boarded it up in the nineties and everyone somehow forgot about it. It was never demolished, never repurposed. Now, weeds burst from the concrete, blackened mold oozed from red rooftop shingles, and algae crept up the pale sides of the outdoor swimming pool, which stayed half-filled with stagnant rainwater. Like the secret Subway under Foster Hall, most people didn’t even know Huey P. Long existed.

  “LSU,” Jeffery whispered, pulling back the broken flap of chain-link, “has many secrets.”

  “I see that,” I whispered back, crawling through the fence. “My question is: how is it you seem to know so many of them?”

  Jeffery grinned, his teeth white by my cellphone’s makeshift flashlight. “I know people.”

  “Of course you do,” I said.

  Jeff scrambled through the fence much more gracefully than I had. “You would too,” he said, “if you’d get out of the apartment once in a while, Introvert Lynn.”

  “I’m out now, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, only because exploring an abandoned building in the middle of the night means we’re almost guaranteed not to run into people.” He pulled out his own phone light and shone it at a rusty ladder on the side of the building.

  “Baby steps, Jeff,” I said. “Up to the roof? I thought we were going inside.”

  “You’ll see,” he said, taking to the ladder first.

  I followed, not minding the view. Jeffery had a great ass, even in the dark.

  At the top of the ladder, we climbed over an ornate chest-high-wall and found ourselves on a second-story open-air track that encircled the derelict pool like a second-story theater balcony. It was very dark. The slimy water in the pool below reflected moonlight wherever it wasn’t patched over with matte films of algae, these darker spots looking like fissures to some cold, black hell in which not even stars could shine.

  Crickets and cicadas frazzled the night air with their usual buzz, and the ever-present hum of Baton Rouge’s traffic continued, but Huey P. Long worked a dulling effect on these familiar noises. It was as if the building existed in a bubble force-field from one of Jeffery’s science-fiction novels, and sounds filtering through it became hollow echoes of their former selves. Addition-like cross symbols dominated the architecture and tile work, and the motif made the place feel even more like a graveyard.

  “‘What are the roots that clutch?’” Jeffery whispered with drama, quoting something. “‘What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, you cannot say, or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images.’”

  I shoved him. “Stop it, Shakespeare. It’s creepy enough.”

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the best part.”

  We walked the loop of the track by moonlight. The rubbery polyurethane that had once coated the running surface now existed in only a few stray stubbles, the rest pulled up and hauled away to show naked concrete underneath. Our footsteps sounded loud.

  Eventually, Jeffery stopped us in front of a series of black, rectangular pits over the edge of a low guardrail. Thick, heavy walls barricaded the pits from each other, and when I shone my light down into them, I saw strange markings and graffiti over the walls and the floors.

  “Racquetball courts,” Jeff said.

  “Are we going down into them?” I asked. My stomach felt cold at the thought of it.

  “Naturally,” said Jeffery. “That’s where all the cool stuff is.” For a smile like that, I figured I could take the risk.

  Besides, there wasn’t really any danger, right? We were in the middle of a college campus, for crying out loud.

  We walked down an old brick stairwell and through doorways with only bare hinges to indicate that doors had ever been there. Then we crossed into the dark cube of the racquetball courts.

  In the first two rooms, my phone illuminated graffiti of all the usual sorts—unreadable handles and crudely drawn boobs—but the markings in the third were a more serious sort. They seemed more deliberate and careful. Most prominent among these was an ornate, cross-like symbol spray-painted with stencils on the floor:

  The design lay easily eight feet in diameter, and it aligned with the four cardinal directions. Scrawled in chalk above the northern point were the words: “Damballa of the Earth.” East had “Loko Ati Sou of the Wind.” West: “Agwe of Ocean.” And to the south: “Ogou of the Flame and Forge.”

  Melted candles littered the ground here and there, as did white feathers and a grainy substance that looked like cornmeal. Instead of stock graffiti, the walls had even stranger words and images spray painted on them.

  “You are us and we are you.”

  “Stay away from the Union.”

  “Open the gate for me” above a skull with flaming eyes.

  “Baron Samedi.”

  “When I return, I will thank the loa.”

  “Come and accept these offerings.”

  And large against the back wall: “LSU is LSU.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “This got genuinely creepy all of the sudden.”

  “I know, right?” Jeffery whispered.

  I noted that this court still had a door, although it was swung open. This room had clearly been used for some kind of ritual, and I wondered if they normally kept the door closed to keep out the run-of-the-mill vandals. “What is this?” I asked. “Like satanic stuff?”

  “Not even close,” Jeffery said. “Voodoo. Which is actually closer to Catholicism than Satanism, if memory serves.”

  “For real?”

  Jeffery nodded. “Voodoo is, like, a conflation of Christianity and Haitian paganism.”

  “No, I mean: for real, this is voodoo?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Yep. I think so.”

  I walked around the edge of the cross on the floor. I didn’t believe in any kind of magic nonsense, but nevertheless, something in my stomach kept me from stepping on the symbol. I looked at the back wall and read, “LSU is LSU,” again.

  “This is crazy,” I said.

  “I’ve been researching local voodoo stuff ever since I found this,” Jeffery said. “Apparently there’s a pretty active local community. There’s even, like, a voodoo club on campus, but the university refuses to acknowledge it.”

  “So this is probably their handiwork,” I said.

  “I think so,” said Jeffery.

  He kissed my neck, and I jumped. He chuckled against my skin and wrapped his arms around me. “Come on,” he said. “It’s not real. This is just paint and chalk on concrete.”

  “And candles and feathers,” I said. “It’s spooky.”

  He kissed me, and I pushed him back lightly.

  “Not here,” I said.

  “Why not?” he whispered. His hand found skin under the back of my shirt, and his fingertips moved up my spine.

  “Jesus Christ, Jeffery. Have you never seen a horror movie?”

  “What?”

  “If we start making out in here, we’re statistically guaranteed to get axe murdered.”

  “I think voodoo priests use ceremonial machetes for their human sacrifices,” he said, kissing me again. “Not
axes.”

  “Oh, well in that case,” I said. “Seriously. That line is your panty-dropper?”

  “Well, I only just—shit!”

  Something had clattered outside the racquetball court. The sharp clack of rusted metal against concrete, then a long squeal and the jingle of a dangling chain.

  My heart practically stopped, and every muscle in my body locked up. Jeffery picked me up completely and pressed me against the door-side wall just in time for the white beam of a flashlight to cut through the doorway. It swept across the floor markings and the “LSU is LSU” graffiti at the back of the court.

  Jeffery pressed a finger to my lips, his body protectively caging me against the cool wall. I could hear my heart thudding in my ears so loudly that I felt sure whoever was holding that flashlight could hear it too.

  “Well, someone’s been in here recently,” said a voice, female and authoritative. “The room to the creepy-ass court is open.”

  “Fucking kids,” said another voice, male and further away.

  Cops, Jeffery mouthed.

  “Or kids fucking,” said the female cop.

  Footsteps grew louder, and the light grew in intensity.

  Every week in the school newspaper, they ran stories about crimes students had committed that week. So-and-so tried to steal $700 worth of merchandise from the Union bookstore or got drunk in public or cow-tipped a whole row of motorcycles or whatever. The year before, I saw an article about six students breaking into Tiger Stadium and getting suspended for a semester.

  It was funny how quickly my concern swapped from “fearing for my life” to “oh no, my grades,” as soon as it was established that no machete-wielding cultists were lurking in Huey P. Long (at that moment, anyway).

  Still, I had loans and a career to think about, so I was probably almost as desperate not to get caught as I was to not get murdered.

  “We’ve gotta get out,” I hissed.

  Jeffery glanced at the ledge overhead, the one we had peered down from when we stood on the second-story track. He bit his lip.

  I knew he had just as much at stake as me—if not more, him being a double-major honors student on the dean’s list. God knew how many clubs he could get kicked out of for going on academic probation.

  He eyed the ledge carefully, then he put his back to the wall, squared his feet, and interlaced his fingers. He was going to boost me up.

  A knot caught in my throat.

  “What about you?” I whispered.

  “I’ll figure something out,” he said. “Just go. Get all the way out the way we came.”

  I put my foot in his hands and placed my hands on his shoulders to steady myself. Then he raised me up. I could just barely touch the ledge.

  “Little bit more,” I whispered.

  “Can’t,” he grunted. Jeffery’s upper body was strong, but the angle of his arms kept him from pushing me higher.

  “Think I heard something, Mick,” said the female cop, her voice stern.

  “Dammit,” said Jeffery. “My head. Use my head.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to.

  “Go,” he hissed.

  I stepped on Jeffery’s head and straightened. My hands found the dusty concrete edge, and I pulled myself up.

  I climbed over the short wall and found myself standing on the track in the moonlight. I looked back into the pit of the racquetball court, but without turning on my phone light and giving away his position, I couldn’t see Jeffery. The doorway cast an ever-broadening wedge of white into the dark as the officer approached.

  I bit my lip, wanting to do something but not knowing what to do.

  Then, in a flash, I had an idea.

  I pulled off my tennis shoe and ran to the opposite side of the track—the one overlooking the pool. With a desperate heave, I launched the shoe into the abyss.

  It arced through the night, plastic shoelace aglets flashing once in the moonlight before it dropped, down and down, and—splash!—right into the disgusting pool water below.

  “You hear that?” the man shouted.

  Flashlight beams started moving in the pool area. I ran quietly back to the racquetball court, the concrete rough against my socked foot. The light had vanished from the room, but I couldn’t see Jeffery and I didn’t want to use my light and risk giving him away. I squinted until my eyes adjusted to the black and hints of the strange graffiti began to distinguish themselves against the inky dark. The room was empty. Jeffery had bolted.

  I went back to the pool side edge.

  Two cops with heavy flashlights stood at the edge of the pool, shining their light down at the rippling surface. My pink and white shoe, now netted with bright green algae, swirled half-submerged in their beams.

  “What the hell?” said the man.

  “I guess now we’re on the lookout for a barefoot perp,” said the woman.

  Metal squealed behind me, and both flashlights immediately shot to me, catching me in their awful whiteness.

  “Stop right there,” the man shouted. “You are trespassing on university property.”

  I froze like a deer for a moment, then backed away.

  “Let’s pick her up,” said the woman, and boots began to thud at a running pace.

  I turned to see Jeffery, fresh from the stairwell. “Come on,” he said, pointing back the way we had come.

  Together, we sprinted down the ruined track. Will-o’-wisp flashlights bobbed in the mouth of the stairway, but we’d already reached the wall. I went over first and tore down the ladder as quickly as I could. Jeffery slid down like a fireman or action hero, then darted ahead of me to pull up the chain-link.

  “Nice thinking,” Jeffery said, noticing my shoeless foot for the first time.

  “Stop!” the cops shouted in near unison.

  We didn’t stop, of course. We vanished into the night, alive under the moon. Our hearts hammered, and our lungs were stinging, and we practically couldn’t wait to tear each other’s clothes off.

  Chapter 2

  And tear each other’s clothes off we did.

  Jeffery’s door had barely been closed before I had his shirt off and he was going for the button and zipper on my jeans. Naked, and with me giggling, he tackled me onto his bed and kissed my down into the pillow. I kissed him back, my hands tracing the muscled canyon along his spine. His fingertips moved all over my body, electric. Gliding and squeezing and even clawing hungrily, his trimmed nails making pink lines in my skin. I laughed and rolled him over so that I was on top, straddling him. His cock stood erect between my legs, the soft head lightly brushing the area beneath my navel that still bore an imprint from my underwear’s elastic band.

  “Looks like someone’s glad we escaped,” I said, wrapping my hand around his shaft and covering the tip with my thumb.

  Jeff reached down and ran his hands up the inside of my leg. He found me wet and he slicked a finger just inside in a come-hither gesture. A shuddered lightly and my legs tingled, springing to life with goosebumps.

  “Looks like he’s not the only one,” Jeffery said.

  I rose a bit, intending to brush the tip of his cock against my sex—teasing him—but I didn’t get the chance. Jeff grabbed me by the ass and slid down the bed, such that his face lay directly below me, grinning and mischievous.

  “Wait,” I said, not knowing why I said it. I always felt shy when he went down on me.

  “No,” he said, locking his mouth to me and plunging his tongue inside.

  I rocked forward with the sensation, losing my balance. I caught myself on the bed with outstretched arms and gripped the blankets as he worked his tongue up, down, and in loops around the hypersensitive little nub near the front.

  And then I looked up to lock eyes with the stern face of Robert A. Heinlein, his eyes disapproving and distinctly Gene-Hackman-esque above his quote about specialization being for insects.

  I tried to look away, but the damage was done. Even as Jeff’s tongue continued his magic, Heinlein continued to scowl
at me.

  Seriously, fuck Robert Heinlein. Fuck all science fiction writers.

  And then I started to get irritated with Jeffery. Why would he keep such an aggressively unsexy poster right over the head of his bed? And then, coming with a strange, lateral connectedness, I began to feel frustrated with Jeffery for not realizing that he was sharing me with another man. A much older man. A man closer to the age of the one currently staring me down from Jeff’s poster.

  Jeff kept playing with me, working deeper now, but I had already been mentally ejected. No way I was coming tonight.

  I’d started thinking of Giacomo. Of his mouth, of his firm hands, of—even—his cock. But it didn’t make me feel aroused. It made me feel guilty. And I hated it, because I didn’t want to feel guilty.

  I lifted myself off of Jeff’s face. He tried to follow me, his hands gripping my butt. I didn’t let him.

  “Stop,” I said.

  He looked confused, and that look of incomprehension just cranked up the volume on my guilt.

  “You don’t like it?” he asked.

  “I do,” I said. It was a half-lie. In general, I liked it. But right then, I couldn’t stand the idea of him pleasing me without getting anything in return. It seemed... wrong. “It’s just your turn,” I said.

  I stood and looked down on him. He’d slid down to get to me, so now his butt was at the edge of the bed and both his feet were planted on the floor. His cock pointed at the ceiling and had begun to wilt just a little bit. Probably from the growing concern that I was going to bail on him again.

  More guilt. I’d been a bad girlfriend.

  “I owe you,” I told him, kneeling between his legs.

  He laughed, propping himself on his elbows to see me. “You’re the one who saved me tonight,” he said. “I owe you.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said, and I took him into my mouth.

  He gasped and gripped the bed at the sudden contact and suction.