My Life is Horrific Chapter 25 — Women Troubles (Patreon)

The drive back from the witch's cottage was quiet for the first ten minutes, which I was grateful for, because my arm was still knitting itself back together and the last thing I needed was more stimulation of any kind. 

The forest thinned around us as we rejoined the main road, and the familiar outskirts of Derry materialized through the windshield.

"I'll drop you at the gate," I said, glancing over at Wednesday. "No offense, but I really don't want round two with your dad."

"That will not be necessary," Wednesday said, her arms crossed, her gaze fixed on the road ahead. "I will be staying with you."

I blinked. 

Then I blinked again. 

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I think my hearing got damaged when the Hyde threw me through a wall."

"I said I will be staying at your residence," Wednesday repeated. "If we are separated, there is a statistically significant chance that I will miss something of genuine interest so the most logical course of action is to remain in close proximity."

"Wednesday, your dad literally tried to kill me two hours ago because he thought I was going to date you. If you move into my house I don't even want to think what he might try and do."

"I will call my mother when we arrive," Wednesday said, as though she were addressing a minor logistical concern rather than a matter of life and death. "She will prevent my father from pursuing any... drastic actions."

I let out a sigh that seemed to drain every remaining ounce of willpower from my body. "I already have someone staying there. Beverly Marsh. She's been living with me for a few days."

Wednesday's brow creased by approximately one millimeter. "Who is Beverly Marsh. What are her circumstances. Why is she residing with you rather than with her own family."

The intensity of the rapid-fire questions made me lean slightly away from her despite the fact that I was driving. "She's a girl from school. Her dad was..." I paused, jaw tightening. "Her dad was hurting her. I removed her from that situation and gave her dad a beating. She's staying with me until she figures out something more permanent."

Wednesday was quiet for a moment. "You should have done worse to her father."

"Believe me, I wanted to."

"Beverly's presence is not an obstacle," Wednesday continued, as though the matter were already settled. "Your house presumably has more than one spare room."

"What about clothes? Toothbrush? Any of the normal things a person needs when they stay somewhere?"

"Lurch will deliver them."

I stared at the road ahead and wondered, not for the first time, what exactly I had done in a previous life to deserve the specific flavor of chaos that seemed to follow me everywhere I went. Actually, I knew exactly what I had done in my previous life. I had snorted coke off a toilet seat at a house party and walked off a cliff. 

Maybe this was cosmic payback.

"Why," I muttered to no one, "do I have such problems with women."

Wednesday did not dignify that with a response.

...

We pulled onto my street about twenty minutes later, and I was already mentally planning the logistics of a third houseguest when I spotted the car in my driveway and every remaining shred of peace I had been clinging to evaporated instantly.

It was a pink convertible BMW and I recognized it immediately.

"No," I said.

"No no no no no."

"Whose vehicle is that?" Wednesday asked, studying the BMW.

"That," I said through my teeth, "is Regina George's car."

Wednesday's expression did not change. "Who is that."

I turned and stared at her. "She goes to our school, Wednesday. You literally sit in the same homeroom."

"I do not commit to memory every insect that occupies the same space as me," Wednesday replied. "There are too many, and the vast majority are not worth the cognitive expenditure."

I parked the Mustang behind the BMW, killed the engine, and sat there for a moment with my hands on the wheel and my eyes closed, performing a brief internal inventory of how many problems I could reasonably handle in a single day. The count was already well past the threshold, but the universe didn't seem interested in my opinion on the matter.

"Alright," I said. "Let's go."

We walked up the front path and I barely had the door open before the ambush hit.

"SURPRISE!"

Regina, Gretchen, and Karen erupted from the living room in a coordinated burst, all three of them beaming like they had been planning this for hours, which they probably had. Regina reached me first and threw herself into me with a hug so tight it compressed my still-healing ribs in a way that made me wince.

"Baby!" she squealed into my chest. "We wanted to do something nice for you since you've been having such a hard time, so we came over to cheer you up! We brought snacks and movies and Gretchen even made those little cucumber sandwiches you said you liked at her birthday party!"

I laughed, the nervous kind that came out more like air escaping a balloon. "That's, uh, that's really thoughtful, Regina, but it wasn't much of a surprise since I could see your car from the street."

She pulled back and smacked my arm playfully. "Well, I TOLD Karen to park around the corner, but someone didn't listen because someone said she couldn't parallel park."

Karen nodded earnestly. "There was no curb. Where do you park if there's no curb?"

"How did you even get in?" I asked, looking past them into the house.

Beverly appeared from the kitchen doorway, a slightly guilty expression on her freckled face. "They said they were your friends, so I let them in. I hope that's okay?"

It was not okay.

But I didn't say that. Instead I gave Beverly a smile that I hoped communicated something along the lines of 'we'll talk about stranger danger later' and turned back to the living room.

Regina's attention had already shifted. She was looking past my shoulder at Wednesday, who had entered the house behind me. 

"And what is SHE doing here?" Regina asked clearly annoyed. 

Wednesday met her gaze without blinking. "I live here now."

The silence that followed lasted only a few sexonds but felt considerably longer.

"You WHAT?!" Regina's head swiveled toward me so fast I heard her neck crack. "She WHAT!?"

"We have a project," I said quickly, stepping between them. "A school project. Very boring. Requires a lot of collaboration and late nights, so it made sense for her to stay here temporarily while we work on it."

"A project," Regina repeated, her tone making it very clear she did not believe a single syllable. "With her!"

Gretchen appeared at Regina's elbow. "It's kind of weird though, right? Like, no offense James, but you've got Beverly living here, now Wednesday's moving in, it's sort of like... you're collecting girls? Is that a thing guys do now?"

Karen tilted her head thoughtfully. "My cousin has three dogs. Is it like that?"

"It is nothing like that," I said firmly.

Regina turned back to Beverly, who had been watching the exchange from the kitchen doorway. "And why does she live here? What's the story with that?"

"It's complicated," I said, and this time I let the lightness drop out of my voice entirely. "And I need all of you to leave it alone. Seriously. Don't ask her about it. Don't ask me about it. Just accept that she's here and move on."

Something in my tone must have landed, because all three of them went quiet for a moment, even Regina, whose mouth closed slowly and whose blue eyes searched my face for a moment before she gave a reluctant nod.

I headed into the kitchen, and the entire population of my house followed me like a parade, five girls filing through the doorway in a column.

"Which room is mine?" Wednesday asked from somewhere behind me.

"Just pick an empty one," I said, opening the fridge and scanning for a beer.

This visibly upset Regina. Her jaw tightened and her hands went to her hips, I could practically hear the gears of jealousy grinding together behind her eyes as she processed the image of another girl being casually assigned a bedroom in the house she clearly considered her territory.

"Must be nice," Regina said. "Just moving into some guy's house."

Wednesday turned to look at her eith a blank expression. "I did not move in for his company. I moved in because he attracts a statistically unusual amount of interesting events and I wish to observe it firsthand. You, on the other hand, appear to be here for reasons that are entirely hormonal."

Gretchen gasped. Karen looked confused. Beverly suddenly became very interested in the pattern on the kitchen counter.

Regina's eyes went wide, then narrow, then dangerous. "Excuse me? Did you just call me hormonal?!"

"I stated an observation," Wednesday replied, unmoved. "Your pupils dilate when you look at him. Your vocal pitch rises approximately half an octave when you address him directly. And you touched your hair eleven times in the forty seconds since we entered this kitchen. These are involuntary physiological indicators of—"

"Oh my GOD, who even ARE you—"

"I told you. I live here now."

"You do NOT live here, you creepy little thing—"

"My name is Wednesday."

"I KNOW IT'S YOUR NAME, I'm saying you're WEIRD—"

Gretchen put a hand on Regina's arm. "Maybe we should just—"

Regina shook her off. "No, no, I want to hear this, Little Miss Funeral Dress thinks she can just—"

Beverly, who had been pressed against the counter trying to become invisible, made the mistake of shifting her weight, and the small movement drew Regina's fire like a heat-seeking missile.

"And YOU," Regina said, rounding on her with the full force of her attention. "You just let her move in? You didn't think to, I don't know, maybe check with me first?"

Beverly blinked, startled. "Check with... you? I don't... I don't even know you."

"Well, James is MY boyfriend, so—"

"I never agreed to that," I said from the fridge, but nobody was listening.

"He is not your boyfriend," Wednesday said flatly. "And even if he were, the decision of who resides in his home is not subject to your approval."

"Nobody ASKED you—"

"ENOUGH."

My voice cracked through the kitchen like a whip and everybody stopped talking at the same time.

I pointed at Wednesday. "You. Go pick your room. Now." Wednesday held my gaze for exactly one second, then turned and walked out of the kitchen without a word.

I pointed at Beverly. "You're fine. This isn't about you. Go hang out in the living room for a few minutes." Beverly nodded quickly and slipped past the group.

I pointed at Gretchen and Karen. "You two. Living room. Now."

They went.

Then I looked at Regina. "We need to talk."

...

I took her to my bedroom because it was the only room in the house where I could guarantee nobody else would wander in, and the moment the door closed behind us the performance collapsed. Regina's shoulders dropped, her chin trembled, and the fierce, sharp-edged queen bee who had been running the kitchen like a courtroom dissolved into a girl who was fighting very hard not to cry.

"I just... I wanted to do something nice for you," she said, her voice cracking on the last word, and she pressed both hands against her eyes as the tears started. "I spent all morning planning it. I made Gretchen drive to three different stores to find those stupid sandwiches because you said at her party that they were good, and I... I picked out a movie I thought you'd like, and I even... I even wore this top because you said it looked nice on me at Tyler's party, and then I get here and there are just... girls everywhere, and I'm just supposed to be okay with that?"

"Regina—"

"And you haven't even kissed me!" The tears were flowing freely now, smearing her mascara into dark tracks down her cheeks. "We hooked up at that party months ago and since then you haven't... you haven't tried anything. Not once. You don't call me, you don't come find me at school, you don't... am I ugly, James? Is that it? Am I fat? Gretchen's mom said I was getting thick in the waist and maybe that's why you don't... maybe I'm just not..."

"No," I said firmly. "Regina, stop. You are not ugly. You are not fat. You are one of the most beautiful girls in this entire school and you know that."

"Then WHY?" she demanded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Why won't you touch me? Why won't you even look at me like... like you want me? Because I see the way you look at other girls, James. I'm not stupid. And it makes me feel like there's something wrong with me, like I'm not... like I'm not enough."

"There is nothing wrong with you, Regina. You're gorgeous. You're confident. You're smart, even if you pretend not to be. Any guy in that school would kill to be with you."

"I don't want any guy." She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. "I want you."

The room got very quiet.

She stepped closer, close enough that I could smell her perfume. 

Her hands went to my belt.

"Regina, wait—"

"Just... let me," she whispered, her fingers working the buckle. "Let me show you. Let me prove that I'm worth it. Please, James. Just... just let me."

"You don't have to prove anything—"

She had already pulled me free, and before I could say another word she sank to her knees on the carpet and took me into her mouth.

I should have stopped her. I should have pulled back and told her that this wasn't the right way to handle what she was feeling, that using sex to validate insecurity was a pattern that would hurt her in the long run, that I was supposed to be the adult in this situation.

I didn't stop her.

Her lips sealed around my cock and the warmth of her mouth erased every rational thought I had left, her tongue pressing flat against the underside and dragging slowly from base to tip before swirling around the head in a deliberate circle that made my knees buckle. She took me deeper, her jaw opening wide, one hand wrapping around the base to stroke what her mouth couldn't reach while the other slid up my thigh and cupped my balls, rolling them gently in her palm as she found a rhythm, bobbing her head in strokes that gradually picked up speed.

She pulled back just enough to catch her breath, her blue eyes looking up at me through smeared mascara with an expression that dared me to look away, and then she took me deep again, her throat constricting around the tip as she pushed past her limit and held there, her nails digging into my thigh while she breathed through her nose.

Her hand worked in tandem with her mouth, twisting on the upstroke, squeezing on the down, her thumb brushing the sensitive spot just beneath the head every time she pulled back. She alternated between long, slow pulls that hollowed her cheeks and fast, shallow bobs that focused entirely on the tip, her tongue never stopping its constant swirling pressure.

She took me to the edge three times, backing off each time she felt me tense, until the fourth time she didn't back off, she pushed forward, taking me as deep as she could and sucking hard while her hand stroked fast and her fingers squeezed gently beneath, and the orgasm hit me like a freight train.

I came hard, my hand bracing against the wall, and she took all of it without pulling back, her throat working as she swallowed, her lips still sealed tight, milking every last pulse until I was spent and shaking.

She pulled off slowly, wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb, and looked up at me with a satisfied smile that had chased every trace of tears from her face.

"There's more where that came from," she said, rising to her feet and smoothing her hair with both hands. "If you let me come over more often."

"Sure," I heard myself say from somewhere very far away. "Yeah. Definitely."

She beamed, the queen bee restored to full power. She kissed my cheek, grabbed her purse from where she'd left it on the bed, and headed for the door.

"I'm going to head home now," she said, pausing in the doorway. "Gretchen and Karen are coming with me. I'll see you at school." She blew me a kiss. "Bye, baby."

Then she was gone, collecting her satellites on the way through the living room with a breezy "come on, girls, we're leaving" that I heard from upstairs, followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing and the BMW starting up in the driveway.

I stood there in my room for a long moment, staring at nothing, my belt still undone and my brain buffering like a crashed computer.

I buckled my pants, sat down on the edge of the bed, and put my head in my hands.

What the hell was my life.

(AN: James's house is becoming a full-on sitcom set, though with more sex which I suppose isn't too bad of a trade off. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)