Moonlighting Pt. 02

Chapter 6: Darkest Before The Dawn

The next day, Nick couldn't focus on anything but Sierra. He finally left campus early and skipped the rest of his afternoon classes just so he could go home and masturbate to the memory of last night. He could still smell her perfume on the bed, her scent quickly bringing him back a full 12 hours into the past. He eventually made his way to work and was able to distract himself in the campus bookstore one customer at a time. But he eventually built up a thick tolerance to that and quickly found his mind wandering again. He sighed heavily, greatly anticipating the moment he may run into Sierra next...

The sun fell closer to the horizon and the little hand on the clock moved that much closer to the number twelve.

It was seven o'clock in the evening on the dot and the night had officially begun.

--

Nikki drove down a street in a distant suburb of Los Angeles County called Irwindale. Just the night before, Nikki had been fucked in front of Sierra by the locally renowned skateboarder Jack Pitts. It was business, but there was something about that girl that turned her on. She just couldn't put her finger on it. Nikki eventually pulled off the main rode and drove through a maze of warehouses. She parked her car deep inside a ratty alley and exited the vehicle.

She was nervous, almost paranoid -- she continuously checked over her shoulders as if she were under the impression somebody had been following her. She made her way down the alley, alone, and found an old door with a chain and padlock on it. She fished through her pockets for her key and unlocked the lock -- it popped opened.

Nikki stepped inside a dark, abandoned warehouse, long forgotten by time.

Her only guests a number of rats and cockroaches nibbling off of what remnants of decay and mold had managed to survive over the past handful of decades. But when she found her way to a doorway connected to an adjacent hallway, a figure crossed into the shadows far behind her.

Somebody was there, and she didn't even know it.

Nikki slipped down a rotting hallway past doors with faded names and offices with large rotting holes in the walls. Ceilings were stained from decades worth of water damage, the pungent odor overwhelming to the senses. As she rounded a corner, Nikki came to a locked door. She fumbled a key into the keyhole -- something moved behind her, she nearly jumped out of her skin. It was nothing. The hallway was eerily still. She scanned the darkness.

Nothing.

She returned to the locked door and opened it.

When she stepped inside, her heart sank when she saw an intimidating man sitting at a desk, two thugs standing on either side of him. It was exactly the last man she wanted to meet here too. This was the worst-case scenario. She had just been caught red handed. The man, a skeleton of a figure with cold dead eyes and slicked back hair, stared back at her like a wild animal just before the kill.

"Oh, small world," he said abruptly, almost theatrically.

"Marcus, this isn't -- I can explain," stammered Nikki, nervous as hell.

"Oh, I'm sure you can. You, uh, stabbed me in the fucking back -- is that about right?" he exploded.

"No, it wasn't like that..."

"Then why is half of my product sitting under this desk in a locked safe?"

Nikki didn't know what to say -- she just turned to run and was immediately struck hard in the head by a shadowy figure behind her.

The world began spinning and a dark tunnel enveloped her vision. She felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, only that she may never find out the deeper truth to the mystery. This may not have been her story. All of her greatest fears had just been confirmed as she collapsed to the ground and fell face first into a dusty carpet. Then it all left her.

Then there was blackness followed by nothingness.

--

The sun burned on the horizon, violent rays shot up into the intruding darkness, but it was no match. This was the dance. Every day. The night always won, but the day always came back stronger than ever in the second round. For now, the day was over, and the night only just beginning. Eventually, the light at the end of the horizon dimmed and all was dark.

--

Sierra was stepping out of her apartment, dressed in a revealing outfit - tight jeans with a lot of rips in them (no underwear to add insult to injury), a thick bra, and a plush jacket to keep warm. Her makeup was heavily accentuated. She couldn't believe what she was doing anymore. She had lost all connection to her life in San Diego. In Los Angeles, she was literally a different person. And she knew she was only a tourist, but why not enjoy herself? She was still a little sore from last night's fuckfest, but somehow she still found the courage to put on the wardrobe and go out for just another night.

Her feelings were tormenting her all the while. How could she feel so closely to this boy when she knew so little of him? Not to mention that not only did he know next to nothing about her, what little he did know or assume was all based on premeditated lies. This was not the best way to start a healthy relationship. Not that they had a "relationship" in the normal sense of the word.

But still, they had something, and that counted.

"Kendra!" came a distantly familiar voice.

Sierra stopped and turned on her heel just as she approached her car.

A slender figure emerged from the shadows -- it was her best friend from back home, Heather. She was about the same height as Sierra, but a much more pale complexion with green eyes, auburn hair that was tinted the slightest shade of red, pouty lips, and a tiny little bust and ass. Heather was the girl next door. Sierra was the opposite in a lot of ways, with much sharper features -- the contrast only more dramatic in her current getup.

Heather looked Sierra up and down and Sierra looked like a deer in headlights.

"Catch you at a bad time?" she asked, clearly a heavy weight on her shoulders.

"Heather! What are you... how did you find me?"

"That's not exactly a warming welcome," Heather said. Sierra just stared back at her, a million thoughts racing through her mind. She felt like Clark Kent, caught tearing off his shirt halfway to takeoff.

Moments later, Sierra was making her a cup of warm tea in her tiny kitchen. She lived in a cramped studio in Santa Monica on the second floor of an old office building that was currently being renovated. She was used to the noise by now and didn't mind that there were always helping hands around in case anything broke in her apartment.

Heather just stared back at Sierra. She had just finished telling her best friend what she was doing in Los Angeles, but not about the night before with Nick. Heather tried to process it as best she could considering she was already dealing with her own drama that practically outweighed Sierra's illicit confession.

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Heather asked, genuinely concerned for her friend's well being.

"You don't seem so shocked..."

"I guess I have a lot on my mind," she admitted.

"It must be heavy, whatever it is," Sierra added. Heather shifted uneasily in her seat, as if choosing the words carefully in her head before speaking them aloud.

"I just found out... that David's been cheating on me for the last year or so of our relationship," Heather said, tears immediately forming in her deep green eyes. She held up her hands to wipe the tears away as Sierra immediately reached for a tissue.

"I'm sorry..."

"Jesus Christ, that's awful. I'm so sorry," Sierra said.

"Yeah," she said while wiping the tears from her eyes and smearing her makeup across her perfect skin.

"When did you find out?"

"I came home early from work just as he was kissing her at her car around the corner. He wouldn't even own up to it until I told him I saw them too!"

"I'm so sorry hun," Sierra said soothingly, trying to console her friend as best she could.

Sierra and Heather grew up together in San Diego, had gone to school with each other for years. They had met freshman year at Columbia High and just sort of clicked. They were very similar in how introverted they could both get, but it was more of a story of opposites attracting more than anything.

Sierra (Kendra that is) had always been able to go her own way. She took things one day at a time and didn't hold much stock into the future. Sure, she had trouble at home, but who didn't? It wasn't anyone's business anyway. Heather, on the other hand, came from a very different upbringing. She came from a loving family, a religious family -- nothing strict or repressive mind you, but religious in 2010 was perceived only negatively by most of the popular kids at their school. Making friends as part of a the Christian Youth Club was not an easy thing to do, and while she was one of the prettier girls at school, guys seemed only interested in one thing for a long time -- her cherry.

Heather met David sophomore year and Sierra had just always known them as a couple. She knew how she felt about sex, and that she had just never bloomed in that way emotionally -- while physically she was quite the little Lolita.

David seemed nice enough, but she always had her reservations about him.

Sierra knew they fought about sex, and that frustrated her. She could see David's side of things sometimes. Sierra knew Heather could be a prude, and was completely grossed out by oral. But Heather was the kind of girl you waited for, and that was just a fact. You certainly didn't cheat on a girl you supposedly wanted to marry either, and that's exactly what David had told Heather he had wanted to do on one of the nights just before Sierra left for Los Angeles at the beginning of the summer. It wasn't an official proposal, but it was a promise that one was coming.

'So much for that future,' Sierra thought.

Sierra kind of fell out of contact with everyone when she moved to Los Angeles, including Heather, so she was missing a big chunk of important history right now. Then, Sierra thought of something that peaked her interest.

"How did you find me?"

"Your Mom," Heather said. Sierra just shrugged. "Do you not want me here?"

"What? God no! Please, stay with me. I know it's not the Marriot, but... you need a friend tonight. And stay as long as you want too. This is your home for now."

"Thanks Kendra... really. I just can't be alone right now..." the tears came again.

"I know," replied Sierra.

They embraced and Heather started crying. Hard. It all came out. All Sierra could do was let it happen and give her a shoulder to cry on. God, she hated this. Her friend was supposed to be a heartbreaker, not get her heart broken. Hopefully this would not do anything to her self-confidence. That something that seemed so promising in the beginning would just fall apart and end in tears was heart wrenching for Sierra to consider. She could only imagine how her friend felt...

--

On an opposite end of town, Nick had come home long ago and was now obsessively checking the window every few minutes.

Sierra was still not there. Just Vinnie chatting to a familiar face he had bumped into half a dozen times at the newsstand across the street.

Had he really gone too far with her last night? Maybe the practically of forcing anal sex on her at a moment's notice might have been a little much for their first time. But she seemed so into him, and he seemed so sure of that. He walked away from the window and retreated to the darkest parts of his mind, all of the worst-case scenarios playing out in his head. She was just a hooker, after all. Why was he so captivated by her and obsessed with building up all of these false expectations regarding her? This was not the typical relationship men had with prostitutes he imagined.

Nick walked into the living room and turned on the television and landed on a movie he had seen a million times before. He didn't want to watch anything new -- he just needed to shut off his brain tonight.

--

Sierra pulled the covers up onto Heather who had long ago cried herself to sleep. She sat beside her and watched her sleep. She thought of all the memories they had shared together: their first sleepover, their first shared crush -- the first time they fought with each other over that same crush, the absurd time they had together at prom when they found out their dates were actually gunning for each other and not them.

They met in the library over a forgotten homework assignment. Sierra had forgotten her algebra homework and asked to copy Heather's, only she had refused because she said she didn't want to get caught cheating.

Sierra was stung by her innocence and honesty that day. They were in a public area, hiding in plain sight, and nobody was paying them any attention. Everybody was copying all around them. She would have gotten mad, but she thought it better to make allies, and not enemies freshman year. Heather was something of a difficult case to warm up to, sure, but they played off each other and complimented each other very well. Ying and Yang.

Heather had loosened up a lot since first meeting Sierra, and Sierra had found it easier to believe in the bigger picture just by proximity to Heather. Sierra didn't come from a broken home per say, but there was little she knew about her past. Her mother was really her foster mother and that had been a long time coming after her first foster parents had given up on her. Sexually, they had been even-stevens for a while, but Sierra started seeing someone and was comfortable enough with him to let things progress naturally. It wasn't anything like her XXX fest with Nick, but she wasn't a missionary-only girl either.

Her mind started to wander places she did not want to go because they stressed her out to think about them. She just watched Heather sleep now and kissed her fingers and touched them to her friend's forehead.

"Sleep," she said.

Heather was already lost in a slumber. Sierra hoped that she was lost in a happier memory than tonight, some summer long past when they were much younger and their life much simpler.

--

Nikki was crying, hysterically, handcuffed to a radiator in a basement bathroom. Where she was, she didn't know. But her head hurt, bad, and she felt dried blood at her temple. Something bad happened, and things were about to get much worse.

How had she gotten herself into this situation...

Chapter 7: Unexpected Developments

The early morning sun rose over Los Angeles and the city was wide-awake.

Nick walked his bike down the stairs from his apartment and pushed the front door open. As he hopped on his bike, he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Seriously, cars are not that expensive."

Nick turned and saw Sierra, dressed in a semi-pedestrian outfit. He almost didn't recognize her at first.

"Hey..." he said, half surprised to be seeing her.

"You got class?"

"Yeah, what are you doing here so early?"

"I just wanted to stop by and let you know I had a personal matter to take care of last night, and that I wasn't avoiding you or anything like that," she stated.

"Oh, well, I'm a big boy," Nick retorted.

"Yes, I know," Sierra smiled back.

He smiled. Sierra blushed.

"So, will I be seeing you?" he asked, generally curious as to why she would drive all the way out here from wherever it was she lived. Then again, he didn't know where she lived, so maybe it wasn't that far of a drive at all. Maybe she just walked from around the corner for all he knew.

"I'll be around," Sierra forced through her smile.

"Great..." Nick said.

There was an awkward beat and they slowly came together, but neither was sure whether to hug or kiss, or what the other might think too inappropriate. They hugged and quickly broke apart the way old lovers might. They tried to laugh it off, but both felt sparks immediately.

"Well, I really have to go," Nick said.

"Go!" She insisted.

--

When Sierra returned home, she was frozen by embarrassment the second she stepped into her doorway.

Heather was laying down on her bed, fixated to her laptop in front of her. She had one hand on the keys and her other stuffed deep into her pants. She was rubbing herself to something on screen -- her eyes went wide when she heard the door unlock and saw Sierra in the doorway. Her whole world shattered in that moment of embarrassment. Sierra's eyes went wide when she realized what was happening. Heather quickly whipped her hand out of her unzipped jeans and slammed the laptop shut with tremendous force.

"Jesus!" she cried out. "Hey!" Sierra exclaimed, immediately turning away from the sight, her cheeks flushed from embarrassment. Heather's cheeks were also hot red.

"I'm sorry, I'll come back," Sierra stated while facing away from her best friend.

"I thought I locked the door..." Heather managed out, seemingly out of breath. Small beads of sweat trickled down her brow, she wiped them away and tried to wet the inside of her mouth, which had recently gone dry.

"Don't worry about it. I forgot to pick something up at the store, really," Sierra lied.

"No, it's cool... come in... I'm so sorry..."

Sierra finally turned around, they were too embarrassed to meet eyes. Her fly was still down, her jeans still unbuttoned. Sierra could see the tops of her violet underwear, but did not want to say anything for fear of making things more awkward.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were out for the day," Heather said matter-of-factly.

"No, I was -- I just forgot to pick up some mail that I had to drop off at the post office." She walked over to the counter and picked up a small stack of envelopes that Heather had only just now noticed.

"Man, I'm so embarrassed," admitted Heather.

"Yeah, how do you think I feel?" joked Sierra. "Anyway, I have to go to the post office and then run some errands, so feel free to continue," Sierra said.

"Oh man... I'm going to die," she said. "I can't believe you walked in on me like that..."

"Seriously, don't worry about it. You're single, I know how it goes." Sierra said, honestly trying to relate to her best friend.

Heather got up and quickly remembered her pants. Sierra turned around when she zipped up her fly and buttoned her pants. She exhaled, frustrated with herself for more than one reason.

"Well, I better take a cold shower," Heather said.

"Don't take too long," Sierra smiled. Heather just ignored her and disappeared into the small bathroom. Sierra finally exhaled, the tension in the room making it nearly impossible to breath. She was immediately struck by the fact that she never saw or heard Heather do anything like this before. She knew girls didn't talk about that kind of thing, but Heather was a good girl who had never expressed any interest in sex while dating her ex. Suddenly she was masturbating on her bed, lost in some erotic fantasy. What was she looking at, anyway? Sierra looked over at the bed.

The laptop was still sitting there.

Sierra heard the water running, and struck by her own curiosity, walked over to the laptop. The screen glowed back to life and Sierra prepared herself for anything. But instead of pictures of naked guy, or people fucking, all she saw were words. She must have hidden the browser at the last second, but as she went up to the search bar to check the history, Sierra noticed that the words were exactly what Heather had just been looking at. It was some kind of dirty story on a website called Literotica, presumably some kind of website filled with countless stories just like this one.

Sierra began to read exactly where Heather must have left off. She had been deep in the middle of some continuing sexcapade, and halfway down the page, so Sierra was literally jumping in at the last minute. Some girl in the story named Paige was currently being double-teamed by two nameless guys. Sierra was struck by how detailed the author was when it came to exactly how the boys handled Paige. This wasn't some PG-13 romp in the hay, but a hardcore porn tale about a young girl getting her every orifice stuffed by her male company. By the time she reached the end of the paragraph, they were beating off in front of her face.