Chapter Sixty-Seven

Havermouth, Five Years Before

Aislen had never been to a drive-in cinema before. She had thought them relics of the past, but it made a crazy kind of sense that Havermouth had one, and that it was wildly popular. Even though they were early, and the sky wasn’t even dark, they had to queue for ages to enter.

The car next to them was part of a convoy of cars overflowing with young men from the local university, by the matching grey sweatshirts printed with the logo of a fraternity in blue and yellow. They were playing music loudly, drinking beer, and smoking weed as if they had no fear of the law.

One of the quieter men met Aislen’s eyes through the car window and smiled. He didn’t possess the beauty of the Triquetra, but he had a nice face, a heavy fall of brunette hair that set off his light blue eyes and his square jaw, that was faintly shaded from stubble.

The other guys in the car noticed Aislen and made lewd gestures and kissing faces – precisely the same kind as Heath and Cameron liked to employ when she annoyed them. She blushed, looking away in remembered embarrassment.

“Gamma Rho Xi,” Heath observed coolly. “Conservative leaning politicians’ sons, mostly.”

“Will you pledge with them?” She wondered what the Triquetra’s plans were for when they left high school. Rhett was the only one who had talked about his career aspirations.

“No,” Heath was amused. “Cameron and I will pledge with Alpha Eta Nu. Rhett has other plans.”

“To become a tattoo artist,” she nodded.

“Hmm,” Heath raised his eyebrows at Rhett who shrugged and looked forward.

“Are you applying to the local universities?” She asked them. “Or Rideten?”

“We’ll stay local,” Heath replied. “This is where home is.”

“You don’t ever intend on leaving?”

“What is this, twenty questions?” He rolled his eyes at Cameron in the rear-view. “Why would we leave? Everything we want and need is in Havermouth.”

“I don’t know…” She started to say, her curiosity squashed by his disapproving mockery. “Well, maybe because there is a whole world out there, beyond Havermouth…”

“Havermouth has everything that we need,” Heath replied firmly.

Cameron approached the head of the queue, reaching out through the window to scan his card. They wound their way through the neat lines of cars to a position towards the front, and Cameron parked, turning off the engine.

“Snacks,” Rhett announced. “C’mon Aislen!” He took her hand and they strolled to where the candy store was positioned to the side and rear of the parking area. “Grab whatever you like,” he told her when they entered the busy little store. “I’ll get what Cameron and Heath want.”

Aislen began to browse the aisles, selecting a few treats. She heard the arrival of the Gamma Rho Xi crowd, their male laughter loud and jarring. Every second word out of their mouths was a curse, and the tone of their voices and their comments were lewd and insulting towards anyone they encountered, deliberately looking to stir up trouble.

“Are you a virgin?” One of them demanded of a group of girls. “We need a virgin. No, you all look like sluts to me. We need a few of those too to suck cock…” The girls cursed and left, complaining amongst themselves, and the Gamma Rho Xi’s laughed.

As Aislen selected a lollypop flavor, the group reached her aisle, and suddenly she was surrounded and hemmed into the shelves, her way blocked by male bodies in grey sweatshirts printed with Gamma Rho Xi in blue and yellow.

“What have got here? It’s Liam’s crush, from the queue,” one of the guys said. “Here’s your chance, Liam,” he shoved her towards the blue-eyed brunette who had smiled at her earlier.

Liam caught her, preventing her from falling over. “Sorry,” he said breathlessly, as he righted her.

“That’s okay.”

“She’s a nice handful,” one of the others commented. “Do you think she’s a virgin? What do you think, sweet thing?” He pinned her against him and groped her chest before cupping her cunt through her jeans whilst she struggled, her fight making him laugh harder. “Willing to lose your cherry to Liam? He needs to either pop one or jump tonight.”

She saw a flash of them jumping off a bridge into darkness, and then tumbling through black, seething water.

“C’mon Toby,” Liam protested. “You can’t just grab girls like that.”

“Let go of her,” Rhett snarled from behind them.

“Oh dear, big brother has arrived,” Toby turned to face Rhett, taking Aislen with him. He nuzzled along her neck. Rhett’s wolf flashed in his eyes. He had the same height and mass as the university student, despite being younger, however he was only one person, and they weren’t intimidated.

“Not her brother,” Rhett replied with a slow smile. “But still prepared to sweep the floor with you if you don’t let go of her.”

“Boyfriend,” Toby’s tongue toyed with her ear lobe. “Step outside, then. Liam will fight you for her. The winner gets to pop her cherry. After which,” he breathed into her ear. “The rest of us will all take turns and see who can fuck you pregnant.”

“Sure,” Rhett replied easily sizing up Liam. “I’m game. Let’s go.”

It was not the reply that Toby had been expecting, and Rhett’s confidence threw him. “What, are you some sort of kung fu master?” Toby demanded, laughing sceptically.

“No,” Rhett shook his head. “And I’m not interested in fighting Liam. I want to fight you.”

“Rhett,” Heath and Cameron said from behind the group. “Who are we fighting?”

“Take your pick,” Rhett replied, shrugging out of his jacket and slowly pushing his sleeves up his forearms. “But I want the teeth of the one holding Aislen for my collection.”

Toby glanced over his shoulder at Heath and Cameron, and then shoved Aislen at Rhett, who caught her with one arm, without taking his eyes off Toby. “This one’s no good,” Toby said to Liam. “I doubt that she’s a virgin. Let’s find another.” He brushed past Rhett as he left.

“Sorry,” Liam said under his breath as he followed. “He’s a bit of a dick.”

“Don’t jump off the bridge,” Aislen told him urgently. “Don’t jump.”

His eyes met hers, and then one of the other Uni students slung his arm around his shoulders and they continued on their way. She saw Liam pause at the door, frowning at her, before being pulled through by his friends.

“Damn it,” Rhett said, putting his jacket back on. “I fancied a fight.”

“They’ll be around all night, I’m sure you’ll get another shot,” Heath told him. “Let’s pay and get back to the Ute before they decide to shit in the tray or something.”

Rhett took Aislen’s selections from her and went to the front.

Aislen tugged her top away from her skin, trying to shake the feeling of Toby’s hands on her as she followed the Triquetra to the cash register and then out. The sky was beginning to darken as they crossed back towards the Ute. The Triquetra’s path was slow because they stopped to exchange hellos and comments at many cars as they encountered friends from school, and Aislen hung in the background, awkwardly, whenever they stopped to talk, not included.

When they returned to the Ute, they climbed into the tray, where the mattresses and bedding from the river house had been laid, along with the cooler box. Heath opened a bottle of wine and poured it into two cups, passing one to Aislen, whilst Cameron opened beer for him and Rhett. They leaned against the side of the Ute facing inwards and drank and ate their junk food, chatting about the football game the next morning.

As the sky darkened, the trailers began, projected up onto a massive screen, and Heath tuned the portable radio in to the frequency. Aislen could see that many of the cars were fogged up and rocking as the teenaged occupants fucked in the back seats. People seemed to move constantly between the vehicles, laughing and talking, despite the movie starting, treating it more like a party than a movie.

Cameron slipped under the blankets and tugged Aislen down with him, almost spilling the remains of her wine. Heath rescued the cup, setting it with his on top of the cooler. Under the blankets, Cameron’s hands released Aislen’s jeans and tugged them down.

“Someone will see,” she protested.

“No one will care. Everyone is fucking,” his breath was heavy, excited by the prospect of fucking her in public.

She didn’t doubt that Heath and Rhett would take turns after he was through, and wanted to point out that whilst everyone around them might be fucking, she was the only one with three lovers, and that every other girl fucking in the back of car was doing it with someone who they considered their boyfriend - but she knew that they wouldn’t listen or understand the distinction.

The best she could do, she decided, was to just get it done as discretely as possible, so hopefully no one saw anything.

She wriggled a leg out of her jeans and reached between them to free Cameron’s cock. He moaned as he kissed her, his hands in her hair, his kiss a brand against her lips. He thrusted into the grip of her hands, his mind flooding with heat, aware of every person that walked past the Ute, of Heath and Rhett, of the movie playing in the background... The risk of being discovered fucking Aislen was as exciting to him as fucking her, his feelings so strong and so persistent in her mind that she wasn’t sure if she didn’t share them, her body responding, throbbing with need.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him in to her, and moaned into his mouth as he filled her, the pubic hair that so fascinated and entranced Rhett pressing against her clit as he ground into her. He grunted, a primitive sound of pleasure, as he began to thrust and grind in rhythm, and she lifted her hips in time to meet his strokes, trying to get him off as fast as she could and keep the tray from rocking the car’s suspension and drawing attention to them.

He broke the kiss, panting with effort, and pushed back on his arms, rising over her, his focus on his cock in her cunt, and not the people around them. She tried to tug him back to her, but he laughed breathlessly, his hand gripping her hip and lifting her, the blankets riding his shoulders like a cloak, the gape letting in the cool night air and exposing them to anyone who walked close.

“Cameron,” she protested, pulling on his shoulders. “People can see.”

He groaned and came, before rolling to the side. “That’s sort of the point,” he told her, panting. “Your turn Heath.”