Alissa Nutting - Tampa

“It’s a way of getting a break from people I don’t enjoy, Jack. I’d have no reason to do it to you.” This was what I hoped the evening would convey to Jack most of all: it was us vs. them. Buck and Ford were on the other side of the equation.

That evening, we agreed I’d indulge Buck’s invitation to stay for dinner. Once we were all seated and the wine was poured, I made a request for hot sauce. “I’m feeling spicy tonight,” I said to Buck, who lit up at the connotation with palpable hope.

“Jack,” Buck ordered, chewing, “can you go grab the hot sauce?”

My stomach sank. I hadn’t planned on it being a challenge to get access to Buck’s wineglass, but he hadn’t left my side since he’d gotten home. When we’d sat down at the table, Buck had scooted his chair so close to mine that I could smell the vinegary mix of merlot and marinated beef on his breath.

But Jack surprised me, his voice a perfect hue of casual teenage defiance. “You go get it,” he replied, his eyes not leaving his plate. “She’s your girlfriend.”

Buck’s satisfaction on hearing this intimate term and possessive pronoun applied to me completely outweighed any sense of umbrage at Jack’s not obeying. Smiling, he rose from his chair and headed to the kitchen. This was exactly what we’d wanted to happen, though I couldn’t help feeling a small bite of irritation at how clever Jack’s response had been. It hinted toward an ability to mislead that I didn’t particularly want him to have. But the callow lack of modesty in his too-pleased smile as I whispered over to him, “Nice job,” erased my discomfort entirely: Jack was merely pleased that he’d pleased me. He’d done it for the greater good.

Taking the small envelope out of my pocket and emptying it into Buck’s wineglass, I sloshed it around a few times until the powder fully dissolved. The anticipation of having Jack inside me with Buck’s unconscious body there as a witness made me impatient; when Buck returned, I immediately extended my glass for a toast. “To feeling the heat,” I said. Buck’s glass clinked with my own.

“I’ll say.” He winked.

Since it was the start of the weekend, and having received optimistic clues from me, Buck was in party mode. He burned through the glass and poured another in a matter of minutes. It was hard for Jack and me not to laugh as Buck began to nod off, his head falling fully supine against his sternum while the two of us pretended to continue having a normal conversation. “It’s a warm winter, even by Florida’s standards,” I remarked. “Global warming? What do you think, Jack?”

Jack giggled. “Scary stuff.” I took a swig of wine directly from the bottle and passed it to Jack, who also drank.

“Scary stuff indeed. Buck, what do you think?” We both turned to view the fallen crown of his head. “What’s that? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”

It wasn’t long before we were giddy, partially buzzed but also delighted at Buck’s incapacitation. “Do we leave him at the table?” Jack asked.

“Let’s drag him to bed. He won’t second-guess waking up there.” Jack stood and walked over to his father, giving him a few firm testing pokes on the forehead before grabbing Buck’s hair and using it to pull his head upright. He looked into his father’s gaped-open mouth, pulled up one of Buck’s eyelids and peered into the hollow shine of a vacant pupil.

“He seems totally dead.” Jack gave me an apprehensive smile that was only half-joking. “We didn’t accidentally kill him, did we?”

I walked over to join Jack in peering down the wine-stained tunnel of Buck’s throat. “I didn’t give him enough to kill him. Should I have?”

Jack stared at me for a moment, wide-eyed, while I tried to appear earnest, but soon enough I’d broken into hysterical laughter and Jack followed. We began a comical procession of lugging Buck to the bedroom; occasionally his head would bonk up against the wall of the hallway and one of us would say, “Oops!” Then we’d laugh so hard we’d have to put him down for a bit until we regained composure.

When we finally pulled Buck up onto his bed, I began unbuttoning Jack’s pants. Jack started to stand but I pulled him back down with me to the mattress. “Don’t you want to go to my room?” Jack asked.

“Let’s do it in front of him. He’s out, believe me.” Spying a glass of water on the nightstand, I grabbed the cup and poured a small amount of water onto Buck’s forehead. There was the quiet slapping sound of droplets hitting against skin, then a few whispered laughs from Jack. “See? He won’t wake up no matter what we do.” I dropped my bra over Buck’s eyes, followed by my panties—if it had been his father’s face that was bothering Jack, now it was covered up. But this felt like a form of aversion therapy that Jack needed to undergo. He was clearly still stressed about his father having found us, about Buck’s having masturbated inside of me, and here was a way to prove that neither of those things mattered: that Buck, in fact, was helpless.

Jack didn’t seem to understand the empowering angle of the setup. He had an erection but his eyes kept scanning the bedroom, eventually returning to the body lying next to us. “I… I don’t think I can do this,” he finally said.

“Close your eyes,” I said. Taking him deep into my mouth, I began sucking with a zeal and precision reserved for when I needed to get my way. Soon he was moaning, gingerly thrusting against my tongue. I turned around and placed him inside me, climbing over Buck’s body so that my arms and legs were on either side of Buck’s torso as Jack pounded through to climax, the mattress rocking. Buck’s slippered feet hanging off the bed’s edge moved from right to left in a steady flutter.

When we were finished I asked Jack to get me a pen and a piece of paper. While he was gone, I took off Buck’s slippers, pants, and boxers, leaving him completely naked from the waist down save for his socks.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked when he returned. His voice was tinged with fear; he was staring at his father’s penis.

“I can get credit for tonight without ever having to touch him.” I wrote a note, unsigned, that read, You were great — thanks and left it on Buck’s nightstand. I had the urge to reach inside my panties, grab a fingerful of Jack’s spunk and trace it across Buck’s lips, but I didn’t want Jack to see me; he wouldn’t understand why I was doing it.

I found it odd that Jack didn’t call me either day that weekend. Usually there’d be at least one offer, even if the window of time was so short that he knew I’d reject it. (“Just come over,” Jack would sometimes plead. “He’s having a beer in the neighbor’s backyard. It’s enough time for something. I could put my thumb inside you. You could lick my shoulder blades.”) When Monday came Jack entered right with the bell and seemed distracted the whole period, staring at either the ceiling or the floor but never anywhere in between. It was enough to raise my anxiety to the extent that when Jack approached my desk after class and stated he had to talk, I got an immediate diarrheal cramp and felt tears beginning to sting my eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Your dad woke up okay, didn’t he?”

Jack’s forehead crinkled slightly. “Yeah. I um, wondered what we’re going to do for Valentine’s Day.”

It had always been my most loathed of the holidays since sex with Ford was inescapable. But perhaps Jack’s interest foretold a conversion on my behalf; I might now get to experience it as so many others did—a day of carnal gluttony instead of torture. I sat down at the desk and reached into the top drawer, pulling out a bowl of candy and offering him some.