The Submissive Gene: Ch. 02

I was picking my way up the side of the building, along the hilly, grassy path that ran adjacent to the gravel driveway that connected the front and back parking lots when I saw her.

Tabitha Erskine, still dressed in her cheerleading outfit, was leaning against the brick of the building, all alone, chatting into a cell phone, as if nothing at all had happened that day, as if she hadn't ruined my life, once again.

I don't know what it was, but seeing her there, talking away, her hair falling down her back, one leg crossed over the other, it all seemed so fucking unfair. Too unfair.

All over the world, there were girls like me, with blemished skin and extra pounds, lying in their beds, covers pulled to their noses, hiding from the perfect people of the world, hiding from the Tabitha's of the world. Girls like me changed their entire lives to accommodate girls like her. We stuck to the shadows so that we wouldn't be squashed for stealing the spotlight, and we keep to the sides of corridors so that they wouldn't accidentally brush against us and be contaminated by our imperfection.

We treated them like queens and they lorded it over us like tyrants. It was fucking bullshit. I had a vision then, of Tabitha's radiant smile wiped from her face. A rebellion brewed within me, a revolt against the circumstances of my life. There would be a revolution that day. Tabitha Erskine was just a rich girl who'd always gotten her way. She was no angel, no God. And I would know. I was fucking Joan of Arc.

I'm sure, for her, nothing changed in that moment of revelation. She was probably just talking on the phone, saying all the exactly right things to say, leaning against the wall as the world spun around her, the sun rotating around her fucking head. But to me, everything was different.

I only heard a snippet of her conversation as I came upon her. "I know, I know. I know it's not an "A", but a "B+" is as close as you can get. Of course close counts! Jesus Christ, mom, the semester is only half over. I have weeks to bring it up. Mrs. Bauer said—"

I never found out what Mrs. Bauer said, as my first slap knocked the phone free from her grasp and sent it spinning into the tall grass. My second one turned her head, and my third brought water to her eyes. Even still, her visage held indignation and disbelief when she looked at me, but also something else: fear, sweet, delicious fear.

"Bauer, have you lost your fucking m—"

I didn't want to talk, or banter, or match wits, or tolerate her pithy little rejoinders or her insults; I wanted her skin, her tears. I wanted to take thirteen years of torment out of her ass. And I did my very best to accomplish that.

I speared the fingers of one hand through her luxurious blonde hair and yanked her head back, rough, so that her neck popped when I did so. With the other hand, I continued my assault. A forehand found her cheek, whipping her head to the side, then a backhand snapped her back.

She clawed out, trying to stop the attack, but her hands met my armor, and whether or not it offered me any real protection, I felt invincible in it and I shrugged off her scratching, even as one stray finger ripped a sliver of skin from my face. I was on a mission. I would not be denied.

Putting my hips and shoulders into, I wailed at her, and with each blow, she was diminished somehow, her power over me lessened. It was an emotional sensation, a liberation of my soul, like when I was a child discovers that the monster on my wall was really just the shadow from my dollhouse, but it was physical, as well. I grew stronger with each hit landed, taller, my back a little straighter, and Tabitha, steady, composed Tabitha wilted with each slap, shrinking and shrinking. When my arms finally began to burn, long after she had ceased fighting back and just taken to covering up, she was slumped and defeated to the point where she was barely taller than I was.

Still, it wasn't enough.

"Your uniform," I snarled. "Give it to me!"

"What?" She peered at me through the cracks in her defenses. Gone was any pretense of superiority. Her eyes were wild and scared.

"Your uniform, you fucking cunt! Give it to me!" Fierce now, high on revenge and swollen with power, I didn't wait for her submission, and, instead, reaching behind her with the hand not holding her by the hair, I began to peel her shirt off up her back.

"Bauer! Bauer! You're fucking crazy! You can't strip me in the courtyard."

Gleefully, maliciously, I answered, in my best mocking tone, "Can't I?"

"Please, please, you can be a cheerleader. Fuck! All right. Shit!" Her struggles were weak and largely ineffective, a few more yanks and I had her top completely off, leaving her with only a red bra on. I tucked it into the belt of my costume where she couldn't get it. She moved one hand from her face and attempted to cover herself with it, leaving only one to guard against the slaps. She was doing a poor job of both, and I elucidated her of that fact by giving her another hard slap.

"Keep your fucking cheerleading squad. I don't want it. I just want you...to pay." I grabbed at her skirt now, tugging and pulling it down. Sensing my intentions, she gave up any pretense of protecting her face, and fought, aggressively to keep her skirt. A few more slaps loosened her grip, though, and she, reluctantly, allowed me to pull it down enough for her to step out of it. The skirt went nestled into the belt along with the top. Standing in just her bra and a set of matching panties, both had a velour feel against the skin of my arms, Tabitha gasped in fright as I released her hair and wedged my forearm against her windpipe, pressing her against the brick building.

"Bauer! Fucking God, Bauer...Ericka, what are you doing?" Breathing in gasps against the pressure of my arm, her face was near mine, just raised a little, and I felt the force of her exhales on my face.

I put my lips right next to hers. Animalistic rage flowed through me. It was her fault, she had pushed me to this, with her cruelty. A small part, that logical part that had spent most of the day gurgling beneath one pool of emotion or another tried to speak reason but formed only bubbles. "How does it feel, huh, Miss Perfect, Miss All-American Anti-Christ, to be powerless? To be afraid? How does it feel to have your life violated?"

I didn't think about the next part, not rationally. Even in my darkest fantasies, I didn't imagine doing such a thing.

With one arm still pinning her against the wall, I took my free hand, shoved the fabric of her velvety panties aside, and put two fingers into her.

"How does that feel, huh?" My voice cracked a bit even as I said it, fractured by the unexpected things that I discovered inside of her, inside of me.

The inside of her pussy was hot, not just warm like I'd expected, and it felt like slipping my fingers into a pot of heated silk. Of substance without being viscous, it coated my hands and flowed into my palm. Having never touched another woman, I wasn't sure what to expect, knew there might be differences, small dissimilarities, but I had touched myself enough to be sure of one thing: Tabitha Erskine was wet, really wet, soaking fucking, dripping wet.

I had thought that maybe she would be dry and tight, that it would hurt her. I think I wanted it to. But the unexpectedness of her arousal shocked me. Bewilderment filled me, along with another feeling, a crawling excitement that was moving about in my own sex. I was turned-on, too, just as much as she was.

The menace drained from my eyes, and my arm, which had been so forcefully keeping her trapped relaxed and fell to my side. I drew my head back to look into her face but left my fingers still inside of her.

That's when she kissed me.

It was nothing like in my daydream. In my fantasy it had been a whimsical thing, playful and giggly, like two girls running through a sprinkler holding hands. But this, this was desperate and hungry and raw and...honest. Her lips smashed against mine, gracelessly. I could feel her teeth pressing against my lips. Then her tongue sought my mouth and I allowed it. Maybe I welcomed it. Everything was so heated, my blood so boiled, it was difficult to tell. Her hands, previously held in defense, snaked around my neck, and mine, of a volition and instinct that I was unaware of, moved around her to clasp about the small of her back.

And we just kept...kissing. A million things should have raced through my mind, a history of resentment and fear should have killed my affection for the moment, should have dulled my passion. Instead, other memories rose in me, pictures of Tabitha radiant and without equal, the sound of her smile, the glow of her smile. They collided in me, those remembered pains and, I now came to realize, my long-held infatuation with her. When the dust cleared, when all the slights and smiles had been accounted for, there was just the feel of her tongue in my mouth, warm and soft and unspeakably pleasant.

Nothing prepared me, however, for what she said when we finally disengaged. Her eyes were closed and her face showed a peace and affability I had never seen there. Lost in her own sensuality, she nuzzled her face against her own cheek and then shattered every notion of reality I had ever amassed.

"I love you. God, I've wanted that kiss for so long." It was close to a sigh as she said it, like the release of same ancient breath that she had keep in her for far too long. Then, as if realizing what she had said, how absolutely bat-shit crazy it sounded, her eyes flipped open and looked into mine, and I could see fear there, not of physical harm, as they had shown before but of something altogether different, rejection, maybe. Whatever it was, as palpable as her fright had been when I was slapping her, it was nothing next to this new terror that filled her.

If someone had told me five minutes ago that Tabitha Erskine could make such a terrified face, I would have called them a liar. I had been right when I began marching up that hill toward her. My world was changed.

The hate and anger of the last hour, hell, the last decade, fought in me against the truth of that one kiss, against the rawness of her pussy, still wet on my hands. I knew I should say something, and I wanted to, but when I opened my mouth nothing emerged. I wanted to slap her. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to slap her then kiss it away. I wanted to kiss her and slap that away. I was dressed as Joan of Arc on a hill outside of my school, and I was on fucking fire.

The sound of a horn honking called me from my conflagration. Turning my head, I saw that my mom's van had pulled up on the gravel path that was a short distance away and that she was looking out the side of her window at me, at me and Tabby.

With haste, I pulled my fingers free of her and tried to quickly wipe the wetness off on my costume. Unfortunately most of the outfit was metal, so it proved fairly nonabsorbent and my fingers were still sticking and damp as I spun on my heels and headed toward the van at full speed, grateful for the intervention but worried about what my mom might have seen.

When I was about halfway there, Tabitha finally shouted at me. "Hey, what about my uniform."

I stopped and thought, my back still facing her. Responses swirled in my head. I finally settled on, "It's mine now. I own it. I'll tell you how to get it back."

"Seriously?" She sounded desperate, in more than one way.

In answer, I just walked to the van, opened the door and climbed in the passenger seat. I stared straight ahead, careful not to look at either my mom or back at Tabby.

When I didn't speak, my mom decided to ask the obvious question, followed by a nearly equally obvious one. "Ericka, why in God's name are you dressed like that? And is that girl in her...underwear?"

"We were just practicing for a play." I placed my hands on the dashboard, counted my fingers, and fought the urge to turn on the radio and crank it up.

"A play? I thought you were trying out for cheerleading, not drama club?" Even without looking, I knew that she wore a skeptical expression on her face.

My fingernails were dirty. I had a hangnail on my left ring-finger. "Yeah, squad was all full, so I decided to do something else."

"Ah," Was that relief in her voice? "Maybe that's for the best. I don't know about you hanging out with that Erskine girl. Her family seemed, well, a little weird."

I didn't tell her anything, not about the identity of the barely clothed girl, not about the try-out, only, "We're all a little weird, I'm discovering. Can we go?"

"Yeah, sure." She hesitated briefly before putting the van in drive and continuing down the path. The sound of gravel pinging against the undercarriage was a balm to my burning skin. I was almost safe. After we were almost at the exit, I chanced a look back toward Tabby but she was already gone. I wasn't sure if I was grateful or disappointed.

"You were practicing a play? What play?" I could tell by her tone that she wasn't going to let it rest. Her mind was working on it, turning it over like a dog on a bone, looking for every scrap.

In my mind, I was a time-traveler visiting distant portions of my past, talking to pig-tailed girls and solving puppy-dog mysteries. It was hard to focus on the present. "What? Oh. Some Narnia thing."

"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? In her underwear? I think she might have forgotten the Wardrobe part." My mom was funny sometimes, every once in a great while.

"Mom, do you remember when I used to want to be Nancy Drew?"

"Of course, I still have all your old books."

"Turns out that would have been an awful career choice. I would make a terrible detective."

"Why would you say that? You're so perceptive."

"Yeah..."

A pause.

"In her underwear?"

In a signal that I didn't want to pursue any further conversation, I reached over and turned the radio on, spinning the volume up. I recognized the song immediately. I sang the tag line as we headed home, my voice a little shaky. Exactly what it was shaky with, I couldn't tell.

So, you better run, run, runaway, runaway, baby