Preludes Ch. 04: Dead Battery

Authors Note: "The Rachel Chronicles" is a multi-part series of stories involving the titular character (a young woman named Rachel) and her various sexual adventures. The stories are themed mainly around oral sex, with the occasional tale involving other forms of sexual activity. Each chapter is somewhat lengthy and detailed and it is my hope that such detail will provide a richer experience for you readers as you truly get an intensive look inside Rachel's head.

Further, the stories are written in an intended order and it ishighly recommended that you read them as such. Obviously, you are free to proceed as you please and I'm grateful that you would read any of them at all. But you will get a much fuller and more rewarding picture if you follow the stories in their natural order.

At the very least I suggest reading thePROM series first if you haven't already. It is the main story from which the others are branched so things could be a little confusing (and surprises ruined) if it is skipped over.

For those of you who read Prom, welcome back! This series deals with the two months of Rachel's life that led up to where Prom began. It will hopefully provide you with some background for why certain events occurred and why Rachel may have acted in ways that she did. Overall it takes on a bit of a darker and less whimsical tone, but if you read the whole Prom series, you already understand why.

As always, I welcome and appreciate any and all feedback but understand that I am very sensitive, and if you're too harsh, I will delete everything from this site and never try to be creative again.

I'm kidding.

Enjoy!

*All characters in this story are 18 years or older*

PREVIOUS --- Chapter 3: Self-Medicating

CHAPTER 4

"Wonderful."

The word tumbled out of Rachel's mouth with a heavy dose of sarcasm as she sighed and released her grip from the car key stuck in the ignition. She shut her eyes and gently pushed her forehead into the steering wheel and let out a deep sigh. After a moment or two of silence, she shook her head and looked up towards the sky in irritation.Really? Like I need this now??

Finally shaking free of her moment of self-pity, she hastily threw open the car door and pulled herself out with a labored groan. Scooping her gym bag back out of the backseat, she turned away from her car and headed back towards the garage. Frustration coursed through her veins as she opened the door to her house and stepped back inside. A dead battery?Really??She had to be at school in twenty minutes and she certainly didn't have the time (nor the inclination) to remedy the situation in such a short window.

She crossed into the kitchen and paused as two sets of surprised eyes looked up to greet her entrance. She crammed the frustration down into her stomach and took a deep breath as she prepared to change gears. With an innocent, pleading smile she looked past her mom and over at her father who was in the middle of reading the morning paper.

"Um, daddy?"

Her father smirked at her sugary sweet tone and choice in term of endearment. Rachel had stopped calling him "daddy" about a decade ago. Nowadays, it only slipped from her lips when she wanted something (or, unfortunately, wanted to getoutof something).

He cleared his throat and responded with a matching tone.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

Rachel grinned wider at his knowing eyes and took a few steps closer to the kitchen table as she spoke.

"Well, um, I'm not sure how it happened, but, uh, I think my car battery is dead."

She paused and widened her eyes at him expectantly, trying to keep her face innocent and sweet. Her line was a bit of a lie. Rachel had a bad habit of leaving the dome light on in her car. This wasn't the first time she'd awoken to a "mysteriously" drained vehicle.

Her father smirked again and gently folded his paper in front of him on the table. He looked at her and then over that the kitchen clock. He, too, had a timeline he had to adhere to. He sighed as he realized that his peaceful morning paper reading routine would be coming to a quick and premature ending. With a taunting smile he shook his head and stood up.

" 'Not sure how it happened', huh?" He smirked again as Rachel's face melded into its most innocent form. "All right, well grab your things. I'll give you a ride."

He smiled again as Rachel took a few more playful steps towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck in a mini-hug. As she thanked him and began to bound off back towards the garage, he shook his head and called after her.

"I'll be out in a sec. Be ready or you're going to find your butt walking!"

A few minutes later, they were on their way and riding smoothly down the road. And while their moment in the kitchen had been silly and lighthearted, a bit of tense silence now lingered in car. Both of Rachel's parents had become aware of their daughter's sudden change in mood over the past couple of weeks. They also hadn't seen or heard from her bubbly friend, Rebecca, over the same stretch. That last part had definitely stood out seeing how the girls had seemed to be almost joined at the hip since early in the school year.

They'd been sensitive not to push Rachel too hard, as they knew their daughter was prone to volatile swings and bouts of depressed cycles. They'd seen it almost exactly a year prior, prompting their decision to give her a change of scenery for her senior year. Her current mood didn't appear to be as ugly as the last time, but they knew her well enough to know that something was wrong.

However, Rachel had refused to divulge anything useful. She'd deflected their gentle probes with vague explanations and noncommittal responses. She'd told them she and Rebecca had just been busy with separate classes and that Rebecca especially had been preoccupied with communications from her soon-to-be college field hockey coach. She insisted that nothing was wrong.

That last part about Rebecca had also bothered her parents. Back in the fall, Rachel had indicated that she might be interested in pursuing a college field hockey career with her best friend. In fact, at one point, it had seemed like it was all the girls ever talked about. But the subject had been dead for weeks now. It's disappearance also coinciding with the other changes in their daughter's behavior.

Not only that, Rachel had seemed to shelve college talk all together. She'd applied to Rebecca's college (a small, local school less than thirty minutes away) and was still waiting to hear back. But she hadn't pursued any other options. Her parents hadn't pushed her to expand her choices because she'd seemed so sure that that joining her best friend was what she'd wanted to do. But now that the topic had been dropped, a dark, troubling feeling had taken over their minds.

With the thought still weighing heavily on him, her father decided to gently broach the subject as he turned the wheel down the road to Pine Valley Prep.

"So, sweetie, when do you hear about admission again?"

Rachel stiffened and set her jaw. The topic made her stomach twist like a basket of snakes.

"I told you, dad. Not for, like, another month."

Her father swallowed at her tone and body language and sucked in a breath.

"Oh, okay. But, so, you won't hear anything additionally until then? Has your friend Rebecca been hearing anyth-?"

Rachel tensed further and cut him off with a forceful, dismissive tone.

"Dad, I don't know! Okay? Like I said, they told me it will be a while."

The car fell silent as they turned into the entrance of the school. Pine Valley had a spread out campus so they had to drive through it a bit to get to the main building where Rachel would be dropped off. Her father spoke again, trying his best to keep frustration out of his voice.

"Rachel, you know if there's anything wrong that you can tell us, right? You've always known that. If something is too big for you, don't bury it and think you can't ask for help. Don't let it get like it got when-."

Rachel again cut him off, but this time only with a simple look, as she turned back to face him. He had no idea the emotion that was whipping through her body at hurricane force speeds. He looked at his daughter's beautiful wide eyes and felt a pit form in his stomach as he sensed a look that he'd seen before. He swallowed and started to speak again when Rachel beat him to the punch.

"Dad. It's okay. Really." Her voice was warm and her momentarily eerie expression had faded into a smile. She put her hand out over his and squeezed.

"I'm fine. I promise."

He wasn't sure if he believed her, but they were getting close to the end of the ride and he didn't want to leave things on a bad note. He decided to take her at her word and change the subject, hoping he'd get one or two last laughs out of her before they parted ways.

"Okay, jellybean." He paused as they both grinned at his use of her old nickname. "Well, just keep us in the loop so that we know when we can-."

His words cut off with a start as he flicked his eyes in front of him and slammed on his brakes. In his distracted state, he hadn't noticed that a car had stopped basically in the middle of the road about fifty yards from the front of the school. He cursed under his breath at the close call and his eyes narrowed in irritation as he watched the scene in front of him.

A black, luxury SUV was stopped in front of them, its owner apparently having decided to simply halt in the middle of the street and begin a conversation with a few other students who were talking by. Rachel's father scowled as he realized the driver of the car was a student as well. He glared at the emblem on the back of the car. A Mercedes.

With a loud scoff, he shook his head and indicated for Rachel to see.

"That's the problem with these private schools. A bunch of entitled brats whose parents buy them $50,000 toys. And look at the attitude it breeds." He punched his horn, sending out a warning shot to the oblivious students blocking the road. "Just acting like the world belongs to them."

After a moment or two of delay, the SUV began moving again. The cars moved in unison for a short stretch, when without warning, the SUV braked and whipped an unexpected U-turn back in the opposite direction. The un-signaled maneuver again caused Rachel's dad to hit the brakes and he glared angrily as the he watched the SUV spin around and come back towards them in the opposite lane. As the cars passed, he shook his head with disgust at the driver, who offered only a shrug in response, followed by a quick grin as his eyes caught Rachel's for the briefest of moments.

"Goddamn idiot." Her father's tone was splashed with anger. "Yeah! Just do whatever you please, kid! It's your goddamn road." He shook his head as he muttered his insults to no one in particular. He watched in the mirror as the SUV disappeared into a student parking lot. Finally smirking and returning his focus to the road, he spoke again. This time to his daughter.

"Friend of yours?"

Rachel had been silent since the moment they'd first hit the brakes. Her stomach, which had already been tight, had knotted up painfully as she'd heard her dad begin to curse the student's arrogance. She hadn't needed to see the driver's face when he'd whipped around his oblivious U-turn and passed right by. She'd already known.

Austin.

Guilt hit her senses painfully as she listened to her dad complain about him and his complete lack of driving manners. It wasn't that she disagreed; quite the opposite. Her dad was right. Austin had simply stopped his truck in the middle of the road to holler at a few girls who'd been walking by. And then he'd doubled down on his lack of awareness with his sudden turn.

And it was her dad's final, sarcastic comment that had made her suck in her breath.

"Friend of yours?"

What would her father think if he knew that she'd blown that very "entitled brat" in his "$50,000 toy" less than a week prior? And that she'd done his friend too at the same time? That smiling "goddamn idiot" had simply picked her up at a gas station and talked her into servicing him and a buddy just minutes later out in some secluded, wooded area. She'd sucked both of their dicks like it had been a simple, casual task. Like she was letting them borrow her notes from class.

And not only that, she'd done him again just less than three days ago. She'd let him talk her into that mysterious film room, before allowing him to strip her naked, finger her, and get her back down on her knees. She'd sucked him off with a heightened enthusiasm, licking his balls and bobbing her head smoothly as he'd sat comfortably in a chair. There had even been a brief moment where the possibility of letting him fuck her had sizzled through the air. Thankfully, it had passed without incident and he'd been satisfied with letting her swallow him down to completion.

Rachel bristled with shame as the thoughts bounced through her brain. Her dad had just jokingly implied that she might be friends with this entitled idiot he was cursing out. She swallowed hard. Yes, "friends." Sure. She'd been friendly all right. And the worst part was the mild tingle between her legs letting her know that if he asked her to, she'd almost certainly be friendly to him again...

She was shaken from her dirty thoughts as she realized the car had come to stop. She blinked her eyes and looked around before turning back to her dad with a smile and sigh. She started to unbuckle her seatbelt when she felt him reach out and touch her gently on the arm as he spoke.

"Hey, bean. Sorry about yelling like that. Didn't mean to blow up in front of you." He smiled sheepishly and cleared his throat, giving her a playful nudge.

"Just don't be bringing some dipshit like that around the house, you hear? You'll give me and your mother a heart attack."

Rachel giggled and rolled her eyes at his joke, but she had to focus hard to keep another stab of guilt from registering on her face. His entitled attitude aside, Austin wasn't a bad guy at all and a brief traffic encounter certainly wasn't a fair way to assess him. But that didn't matter. Rachel's dad was a good man, but he was also stubborn. If he even saw Austin simplytalkingwith his daughter in the future, he wouldn't be pleased. And if knew that the reason he'd grinned ever so subtly at her as the cars passed had been because not three days prior she'd been-.

She swallowed the thought and masked her mild shame with another silly shake of her head.

"Uh huh. Okay dad..."

With a grin, she finished unbuckling and hopped out, turning back towards the window as she shut the door.

"Thanks again for the ride!" She smiled sweetly and flashed her eyes. "You're the best!"

Her father smiled back and leaned over to pat her hand warmly.

"Of course. And Rachel. Remember, you can always talk to us. If there is anything-."

He swallowed and cut off as he saw her silly grin begin to fade again. He hadn't been able to resist probing but he decided immediately to let it go.

"Well, you know. Anyway, just give me or your mother a call when you're done with soccer and one of us will come grab you. Have a great day, sweetheart."

Rachel swallowed and nodded back, keeping her smile as even as she could. She stepped back from the car and gave him a little wave as he started the car up and pulled away. She watched it disappear down the road, and just as it vanished from sight, she let out a big sigh.

She loved her parents, and outside of some overbearing moments, they'd never been anything but wonderful to her. She'd put them through more than they deserved and she hated letting them down. Her stomach twisted as she replayed all of the seemingly innocuous comments her dad had made during their ride. She felt like everything she was doing was wrong.

Even his final words about soccer twisted the knife. She hadn't even told them that she'd quit the team yet. Guilt coursed through her senses as she thought about it. That was just one item on the list of things she'd buried and kept from them. And it was probably the most benign. Rebecca? School? Her boy-related habits lately...

She cringed at the final thought as she again replayed her father's joking warning about bringing Austin around the house. Obviously, he didn't need to worry about that, but that in and of itself made her guilt increase. Her parents knew that she had dated a handful of boys over the years; they'd met plenty of them. And they knew that she was outgoing and socially active.

So she sometimes wondered what they thought of the fact that she hadn't "brought anyone around" in quite some time. Did they just assume that there was no one out there she was interested in? Possibly. Or, despite their surely obvious lack of desire to think of things this way, did they contemplate the possibility that the reason their daughter was still going out a lot but not officially dating was because she was the kind of girl who.-

Rachel audibly gasped as she tried quickly to move on from the thought. She prayed all the time that her parents were simply blissfully unaware of the things she did and the (great number of) boys she did them with. That dark, spine-tingling thought was always the one thing that nagged at her subconscious and kept her from truly embracing the path and lifestyle she had chosen and ultimately loved. She didn't care what people thought of her or the things they might whisper. But her parents weren't just "people." They were different. And the last thing she ever wanted to do was embarrass or upset them or make them think that she-.

"Mornin', sexy!"

Rachel's deep and somewhat troubling thoughts were suddenly interrupted by an unexpected voice (and an even more unexpected touch). Her eyes widened and she spun around in surprise to see Austin standing right behind her, his hand just one second removed from cupping her playfully on her ass. His eyes were smiling and his easy confidence simply oozed out.

She was thrown for a moment and needed a few breaths to catch up to the present. She realized that she'd been standing on the curb, daydreaming since her dad had pulled away. She wasn't sure how long ago that had been, but apparently it had been enough time for Austin to park, walk from the student lot, see her standing alone, and playfully surprise her by running his hand up the back of her skirt.

Finally, she regained her senses and narrowed her eyes into a sarcastic smirk. Glancing knowingly at his hand, she shook her head at him and spoke.

"Is this how we say good morning now?" She smoothed her skirt and reflexively adjusted the front of her shirt, pulling it up a little higher over her cleavage. Still shaking her head, she grinned and brought her hands expectantly to her hips.

Austin simply smiled brighter and nodded innocently. "Just trying to make sure you were fully awake. You were standing like a zombie staring off at nothing." He winked at her and indicated off down the road.

"Did you get dropped off today? Where's your car?"

Rachel let out a frustrated sigh and tucked some hair behind her ear.

"Ugh. Car troubles. Yeah, my dad had to bring me." She tensed suddenly as she recalled their little traffic exchange. She pursed her lips and spoke again with mocking admonishment in her voice.

"And speaking of, you're lucky he didn't punch you or something. He wasn't too pleased with your driving skills." She grinned and stuck her tongue out at him. "He didn't much care for that precious car of yours either."

Austin squinted in confusion for a moment before recalling the incident. He smiled and laughed in surprise.

"Punch me? What? Just because of a little U-turn?" He shook his head but suddenly stopped laughing as he raised a playful eyebrow and lowered his tone.