What Happens In LA... Pt. 02

I wake up in a deep fog. My stomach feels queasy and my whole body aches. I have no idea where I am or who this man is sleeping beside me.

"What the hell happened last night?" I mumble to myself, seeing my clothes scattered haphazardly all across the room.

I slowly slide out of the bed looking around at what looks like a college dorm room but the guy sprawled out naked on the futon looks more like a professor than a college student. Silently, I gather my clothes from off the floor and head into the bathroom.

Seeing myself in the mirror makes me want to vomit. My makeup is smeared and smudged all over my face and my long blond hair is sticking straight out in all directions on my head. A crusty white film is caked to my face, my breasts and my belly confirming what I already assumed my night entailed.

How did I end up here? Why would Jenni let me leave the club with this old man? Why would I leave the night club with this old man? I'm fucking losing it.

Still buck naked, the man walks right into the bathroom and starts peeing in the toilet right in front of me.

"How are you feeling this morning, love?" He says, looking over at me as I try to hide my face from his audacity, "No offense, but you look like death."

"Well, that's pretty much how I feel." I say stepping as of his way as he washes his hands in the sink.

"Why don't you grab a shower and then we can figure out how to get you home."

I run the shower as hot as I can stand it trying to wash my guilt away along with all his filth, all the while trying to remember any shred of detail into how I ended up here with this man doing what we did.

"That's much better." he says when I walk out of the bathroom wearing my black dress, fresh-faced with my hair wrapped up in a towel. I sit in the chair nervously tapping my fingers on my knees watching him toss the dirty sheets on the table as he folds the futon back into a couch.

"So about last night..." I say sounding completely cliché, "...what...I mean...how did we..."

"How did we end up together? You don't remember?" he says sounding cautiously surprised.

"I'm sorry. I must have had way too much to drink I don't remember anything."

"Hmm. Well, I guess we'll have to start over then. Hello Jenna, I'm Jackson, we met at the club last night." He says sitting on the arm of my chair in only his boxers. The hair on his chest is the same brown with hints of salt and pepper tips that is on his head.

"Hi Jackson." I say awkwardly shaking his hand.

"So, a little recap of last night, we danced together at the club, you went to find your friends but they were already gone. You ran into some guy and you two started arguing. By the time I go to you, you were on the floor crying your eyes out so offered to bring you home. You told me you were upset with you friends for leaving you and asked me to bring you here. I knew you were drunk but I thought after you puked your guts out in my car that you had sobered up. You seemed perfectly coherent when we were...you know...doing the nasty."

I throw up a little in my mouth at the thought.

Using his computer, I log into my Facebook account and track down Jenni. She IM's me in a panic. "Where are you?!!?"

After a couple of posts back and forth I get her address and Jackson overs to take me to her place. I respectfully decline but he insists. Finally after much debate he finally settles for getting me a cab which I accept. I would have just had Jenni pick me up but I didn't want her to meet this guy nor did I want her to see conditions in which he lives. When the cab comes to pick me up he walks me out to the curb.

"It was really nice to meet you, Jenna. I hope to see you again sometime soon." He says, kissing me gently on the cheek. The smile on his face makes me feel a little uneasy. I climb into the cab and he shuts the door waving at me as the cabbie pulls off into the street. I am relieved that I didn't have Jenni pick me up; this is definitely not a nice part of town.

"Are you completely insane? Why did you leave the club?" Jenni says, barreling me over when I step out of the cab. She grabs my face in her hands, "You had us scared to death."

"Me? Jenni, you guys left me."

"No, I came out of the bathroom with Allie and Chloe and Tara said you took off with that hottie you were dancing with."

"She's fucking lying, I was looking for you and that old man told me you guys left without me. I don't remember anything except somehow I ended up at his apartment. I fucking ended up at his fucking apartment, Jen!"

"What old man?"

"Some guy I was dancing with, apparently."

"I didn't see you with an old man, Jenna."

"Ladies, let's talk about this inside." Damon says herding us toward the apartment as my panicky tirade starts to cause a scene.

Jenni sits beside me, rubbing my back as I curl up into a ball on the soft, comfortable mattress of the guestroom bed which is vastly different than that thing I slept on last night.

"I'm really sorry everything got screwed up last night. Do you want to talk about it?" Jenni says, sliding her arm around my shoulder to lie beside me.

"No."

"Do you hate me?"

"Of course not. I could never hate you." I say, pulling her arm tighter around me.

"How are you ladies doing in here?" Damon says, poking his head inside the door, "I don't mean to rush you but you realize the rehearsal starts in two hours."

"Oh shit. I almost forgot." Jenni says bolting up out of the bed. She scurries around the condo getting ready, occasionally coming to check on me to see if I've attempted to move, which I haven't.

"Jenna..." she's says after the third time checking on me, "...30 minutes."

I try to get her to let me sit this one out but she freaks out on me. Apparently the rehearsal is a big deal. Grudgingly, I drag myself out of bed and put on a gray tailored two-piece pants suit. Throwing my hair into a messy bun, I put some color on my lips and head for the door. On the way to the venue, Jenni 'fixes' me with some makeup and a better hairstyle.

After the rehearsal, the wedding party heads to an upscale French restaurant for the dinner. The tables are set up with name cards showing us where to sit. Jenni and Damon sit at the head of the table with Jenni's parents beside her and Damon's mother beside him. I'm placed in between Jenni's dad and the Best Man, Keith.

I've never been one of Mr. McCullough's favorite people. Jenni was always the good girl and I was always the one getting her into trouble, needless to say, we didn't have much to talk about.

Keith is a nice looking guy but he's a bit too nerdy for my taste. He's an IT guy for a big corporation and extremely smart, almost everything he says goes over my head.

Less than halfway into the night I'm bored out of my mind. I ask Jenni if I can borrow her phone to check my bank account. I need to get a new phone but I have to make sure I have the funds. I'm scrolling through my emails and notice one that says I have a friend request on Facebook from Jackson Moore. I confirm the request and see that he sent me an IM. The message reads, 'Thank you for an amazing night' and there are several links attached to it. Curiously, I open the first attachment and a picture pops up on the screen. I gasp in horror, drawing stares from several people sitting around me. I sink down in my seat feeling my face turn fifty shades of red. Excusing myself, I take off running to the bathroom and barricade myself in one of the stalls.

I stare in disgust at the picture of me lying naked on his futon with my legs spread wide open while he stuffs me full of his straining erection while his hands grope my breasts. The next link opens with a picture of me kneeling on the floor, mouth open wide while he soaks me in his juices.

Sweat pours from my forehead as I feel my body start to shake. I'm almost too afraid to look at the rest of the links terrified of what debauchery they will reveal.

My fingers tremble as I open the next link to see me on my back on his kitchen table with my head dangling down over the side. He's standing in front of me with his member fully engulfed in my mouth bulging at my throat, his face buried in between my glistening thighs. The fourth link shows me again lying spread out on the futon with his hand wrist deep inside of me. The last link is a video. I almost don't have the nerve to press the play button. I'm bent over the chair and he stands behind me. He leans down and kisses the back of my neck. 'What do you want, baby?' he says and in a peculiar tone I hear myself say, 'Fuck me, please fuck me.' I gasp hearing those words come out of my own mouth. That is completely out of character for me.

I watch in horror as he lines up his swollen flesh and pushes his way inside me. I scream like a porn star making noises that I have never made during sex before. I buck wildly against him matching his fluid movements. I watch for several agonizing minutes of the unrelenting pounding until he pulls out and covers my backside in a white, gooey film. As the video ends the camera quickly pans across the room passing the mirror by the door. In the reflection of the mirror, I notice someone else is holding the camera. I couldn't see who it was but there was third person at Jackson's apartment that night.

My stomach lurches and I immediately expel every bit of my $75 a plate dinner. I flop to the floor pulling my legs into my chest, sucking in precious breaths of air forgetting, for a moment, how to breathe.

"Jenna?" A voice says from outside my stall.

I scramble to my feet, nervously straightening my clothes and smoothing the hair out of my face. I step out and head to the sink, splashing cool water on my face.

"Are you okay?" Nadia says, watching me intently.

"Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I be?" I ramble incoherently making it obvious that I'm not.

She lifts my chin, wiping the mascara smudge off my face with her thumbs. She gives me a concerned smile taking my hand in hers and leading me back to the party. She has switched places with Keith so that she is now sitting beside me. I see she and Jenni exchange a glance and realize she's been recruited to babysit me.

I spend the entire ride home in silence while Jenni and Damon laugh and chat about the rehearsal and some of the conversations guests had over dinner. At a red light, they make out until the light turns green and the car behind them has to honk to get Damon's attention. They don't even understand how annoyingly adorable they are.

Once inside the apartment, Damon grabs Jenni's hand and leads her toward the bedroom. She tells him that he has to wait until they are husband and wife to have her again which draws a groan of protest. She stands her ground sending him to bed without dessert.

"What up with you tonight?" Jenni says sitting down on the couch beside me.

"Nothing, why?" I say, evaded her stare.

"Jenna, we've been friends for too long for you to try to lie to me. I know something's wrong. Tell me."

Unable to contain my emotions, my fears, my guilt any longer, tears start pouring from my eyes.

"I don't know. I'm really happy for you and Damon, I really am, it's just really hard seeing you two so happy and in love. It just brings back all the painful memories of me and Nick. It sounds ridiculous, I know." I say coming up with some plausible explanation for my odd behavior. God knows I can't tell her the truth.

"It's not ridiculous, I know this has to be hard for you and I am so sorry, I wish I didn't have to be like this. You know I love you." Jenni says, wrapping her arms around me. I lean my head on her shoulder and let it all out, once and for all.

We stay up into the wee hours of the night talking and laughing and acting like we were kids again, knowing this is our last night together before she takes off on her honeymoon in Paris, yes I said Paris.

I wake up in a cold sweat. I can't get the sight of those pictures and the questions surrounding what happened in them out of my head. Incomplete memories plague my mind. Vague terrors haunt my soul. Uncertainty hangs over me like a noose. Seeing Jenni lying peacefully in the bed beside me, brings me to tears again. I go to the kitchen to get a drink of water. On the way back to my room I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes and I run right into Damon.

"Sorry." I say, looking up to see him in nothing but his boxers. If there was a way to be even more jealous of Jenni I was right now seeing Damon's ripped chest. He's a business man; why in the hell would he have a body like a Greek god?

"Hey, careful there." He says, grabbing hold of my arms when I stumbled backward. His eyes dart from my face to my chest and when I look down to find out why I see one of my breasts poking out over top of my nightie. I quickly adjust my faux pas and head back to the room with my head down, thoroughly and utterly embarrassed.

"Let me know if you need anything." Damon says as I reach the door. I look over to see his boxers are now twice the size they were before.

***

Today's the big day. Jenni seems to be floating on a cloud through breakfast and then on to the salon for our massages, waxes, mani-pedis, hair and makeup. She gets teary eyed when we reach the wedding venue beautifully decorated in black and white tulle and satin.

"Stop it, Jen, you'll mess up your makeup." I say, wiping my own tears as I watch my best friend having the time of her life as all of her dreams are about to come true.

We slip into our dresses; black full length sateen dresses with white strapless bodice and red accent belts. The wedding planner scurries us into position as the ceremony is about to begin and hands us our white calla lily and red rosebud bouquets. The groomsmen, wearing black tuxes with white shirts and red ties, each pair up with the bridesmaid he is walking down the aisle with.

My shoulder is tapped and I walk out into the auditorium full of people. I keep my eyes straight ahead uncomfortable with the amount of eyes on me as I walk the aisle by myself. Damon is standing at the front with Keith by his side. He looks so handsome in his white tux coat and black pants. He must be able to sense my apprehension because he gives me a reassuring smile. As I reach my place next to Tara, I look over and he winks at me.

The music changes and everyone stands up as Jenni enters the room on the arm of her father. She looks like an angel in her A-line strapless dress with lace applique and black accents gliding gracefully down the aisle with the biggest smile I have ever seen on her face.

"Damon, you may now kiss your bride." The lady officiating the ceremony announces, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Damon Moore."

After the ceremony, I am standing next to Damon in the receiving line chatting with Jenni's aunt Kathy about how beautiful it was. The person standing behind her catches my attention, it's Jackson. A lump catches in my throat as a shiver races down my spine.

"You look ravishing." He says, kissing my cheek.

"What are you doing here?" I say in a state of panic. How in the hell did he find me and why?

"It's nice to see you too, Jenna." He says sarcastically, "Actually, I'm here to see my boy get married."

"Your what?"

"Dad?" Damon says, moving past Jenni's aunt to grab his father's hand, "What are you doing here, I thought you were in Cairo?"

"I wouldn't miss this day for the world, son." Jackson say, pulling Damon into a bear hug.

"Jenni, I'd like you to meet my father, Jackson Moore. Dad, this is Jenni, the love of my life."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Moore." Jenni says.

"The pleasure is all mine my dear and please call me Jackson, Mr. Moore makes me feel old." He says, gently kissing her hand.

I slip out of the line feeling my legs getting weak as the room begins to spin. I head over to the nearest chair and sit down.

"You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Keith says, sitting down beside me. I laugh awkwardly because basically that's exactly what it feels like.

At the reception, everyone is out on the dance floor and I'm sitting at a table drowning my troubles in a sparkling water. Jackson sits down beside me setting a glass of champagne in front of me. I promised myself no more drinking for a very long time so I push the glass over in front of him. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as he stares at me.

"Did I tell you that you look gorgeous tonight?" He says in my ear, placing his hand on my leg underneath the table. I jerk away from him turning my back to him.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He says, rubbing his hand along my shoulder. I stiffen under his touch.

"What's wrong? Are you kidding me?" I say, spinning around to slap his hand away from me. I storm off out of the room while Jenni and her father are beginning their Father-Daughter dance.

"Honey..."

"Don't Honey me! I can't believe you took those pictures and sent them to me like that, you freaking perverted bastard!"

"Wait a minute." Jackson says, grabbing my arm as I head for the ladies room. He backs me against the wall putting his arms on either side of me.

"What do you want from me?"

"Oh, I want a lot of things..." he says lifting a strand of my hair up to his nose, "...but let's just start with a little civility. I sent you those pictures to show you what an amazing night of sex we had and you repay me by calling me a perverted bastard?"

I try to push away from him but he grabs my arms and holds me back against the wall, squeezing just enough to let me know he's not fooling around.

"How about we show them to your friend and see what she has to say about it."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?" he says in a cynical tone, "You don't know me very well, do you Jenna?"

"I don't know you at all."

"And yet you fucked my brains. What does that say about you?"

"Fuck you!"

He pulls out his phone, threatening that he's going to send the pictures and numerous videos he took that night to his son's phone right now.

"No! Please, don't send them, I'm begging you." I say, softening my tone with him. I should just let him send them knowing that he's probably going to blackmail me with them at some point but I a least wanted to let Jenni get through the happiest day of her life before dropping this bomb on her.

"Begging me, are you?" He says, smiling a devious smile as he runs his finger across my cheek to my lips. He takes my hand in his and leads me into the men's restroom.

"Jackson..." I say, but he places his finger on top of my lips as he leads me into one of the stalls and closes the door.

"Do you want me to keep our little secret or not?" He says patronizingly.

I nod and allow him to slide my white lace panties down to the floor. He reaches up to kiss my trembling lips, sweeping his tongue deep inside my mouth. His fingers find the warmth between my legs and he makes his way inside. I gasp as his fingers pulse in and out of the tight depths of my womanhood. My body betrays me as he brings me to uncontrollable, shuddering contractions. Excitedly, he glides his fingers out from my dripping wet thighs and fumbles around with his pants with one hand while sucking my juices off his other. When he releases himself from his pants, he grabs my waist and lifts me up onto his bulging erection. A groan escapes both of our lips as I envelope him inside of me. With a mixture of pleasure and humiliation, I press my hips frantically against his, wrapping my legs around his waist for leverage. Our lips once again meet and I taste myself on his tongue as it darts in and out of my mouth. We keep a steady, rhythmic pace until he impales me against the stall door and explodes inside of me. As soon as he finishes, he walks out of the stall and washes his hands. I sit down on the toilet holding my head in my heads wondering just how stupid I have to be.