Chapter 1 - The First Day
The first day I decided I wanted to be nothing like my father was when I was nine years old.
I’d seen him working on an old BMW in our garage during the summer before fifth grade, and instead of thinking about how much I admired him for working on something he was passionate about, or how much I’d miss him once he was gone; I noticed five inches of his ass crack was hanging out.
It made me want to gag.
Looking back on it, it was stupid to point out, but my little brain picked it up as something I knew I never wanted people to see me looking like. So I saved up as much money as I could from cutting the grass, helping fold laundry for loose change, and rifling through my grandma’s purse then bought a belt as a gift.
Not for him, for myself, for making sure my ass was covered.
The first day of school after that summer was a good one, too.
Kids in my class complimented me on my stylish new belt as I perused around the room like I owned it; I felt like the bees knees.
It was a good day, except, I remember there was one person who didn’t say anything.
Valarie Wells her name tag read. She was new.
She didn’t compliment it, she didn’t compliment me, she didn’t even look in my direction until I’d stomped up to her and made her see me.
When her brown eyes flicked to my belt first, I thought surely it was coming, the compliment, the no-crack-having ass kissing, but then she just blinked up at me, confused.
As if there was something to be confused about.
“Can I...help you?” her voice was softer than I’d thought it’d be and it made me feel something funny in my thighs I couldn’t describe other than tingling. Lots of tingling, “am I sitting in your spot? Sorry, Mrs. Kite told me to sit here. I can move if you—”
“I didn’t come over here because you’re in my seat, dummy,” she flinched at my words, but I hardly noticed, “I came over to show you my belt because clearly you’ve got glasses for nothing if you can’t see how cool it is.”
I thrust my hips toward her, thumbs tucked in my waistband, showing it off, but she cringed back while smiling awkwardly, like her body and face were trying to compete for dominance over her movements, “What? You don’t think it’s cool?”
She pushed her glasses up quickly, thin metal ones with an ugly hot pink color to them, “Yeah, it’s a cool belt! I’m glad you like it so much.”
The answer wasn’t delivered in a condescending way, but something in my mind took it like that, “And you don’t?”
“Don’t what?” she asked, that soft voice still confused.
“Like the belt?” I asked, annoyed, “do you like my belt?”
“I-” her wide eyes searched mine, like she was trying to find a different answer, the one she wanted me to like, “I love your belt, uhm...”
“Caleb,” I filled in for her.
She nodded gently with a polite smile, “I love your belt, Caleb, it looks super nice on you!”
I smirked at the fact she’d acknowledged it, acknowledged me, and it stroked my tiny ego more than any of the others had. I didn’t know why I was so happy about it, but I took it upon myself to wear that belt every damn day to get a compliment from her.
They may have been forced each time, but the more I made her, the easier she’d do it, and I lived for when she’d do it.
The first day I decided that I hated her was easy enough, too.
During gym class in sixth grade, I’d overheard her and her classmates talking during their lunch break about how much they hated me while I was running the mile.
The bitch had the nerve to stand there as one of them said I was “self-centered” and “a meathead” without even breathing a word of defense to my honor.
Hmph. If she wanted a self-centered meat head, she’d get one.
I took my shirt off, wiping the sweat dripping down my chest and then shoved the material into my shorts, wiping my ball sweat too then jogged around the corner I’d been hiding behind.
I had to time it all perfectly to make sure she saw me coming, and tossed the shirt over her head, rubbing it harshly against her face, “You like ball sweat in your face?!” I roared with laughter as she screamed, trying to fight me off, “oh, what’s that? You like it in your mouth like a weirdo?!”
My clothed fingers cut off her screams as I shoved them in, making her gag on my fingers instead. It was overboard, I knew it was, but the people around me were laughing, and it only made me want to push it further, but I stopped once she really started retching.
“Ew, gross! Don’t puke on me!” I ridiculed as I stumbled back, “you’re nasty, Valarie, what’s wrong with you? Are you emo or something? You like to throw up all your food?”
Valarie’s face was red and blotchy from embarrassment and her eyes were wide with shock, hurt, and then tears. They didn’t make me feel bad for her, either, and it only made me everyone laugh more.
The other kids pushed me away yelling, “Bro, you made her cry! Run before someone tells! Run!” and we laughed the whole rest of the mile. I didn’t see Valarie again that day, but I learned that I loved seeing her cry as much, if not more, than I loved her compliments.
Both I’d forced out of her.
Both I’d curated.
They were only for me.
The first day I decided I’d do anything to make her cry again...well, that was a dark day.
Because yes, I’d made her cry but not the way I’d caught her sobbing in the girl’s bathroom after school during freshman year.
I wanted to know why. I wanted to know who made her cry like that. I wanted to do something about it, because those tears, at least in my mind, belonged to me, and she was wasting them on something else.
Someone else.
That didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t like that idea, it made my stomach turn to iron, worse when I found out through specific gossip sources that she’d been talking to some asshat from a high school a town over.
He’d told her that her teeth were too small for her braces and they made her look stupid.
Asshat wasn’t wrong, I’d give him that.
Her teeth were small. The brackets were way too big for them. And she did look stupid as fuck.
But he’d made Valarie cry, not me, and yeah, no, that wasn’t going to fly.
The first day I tried looking for who hurt her, I didn’t take long to find out who he was, the school he went to, and the college he’d pledged to since the fucker was in her most recently followed.
It was a little stalkerish, I’d admit it, but I had to make sure the asshole knew plain and simple who the fuck he was messing around with—my fucking enemy, my Valarie, my fucking reason to wake up in the morning and live my life like the self-centered meathead I was.
His car’s tires? No more. All four, sliced clean through, and sugar in his tank to make things a hint sweeter.
Then I waited.
Two hours.
When he finally came out of work at midnight, throwing trash into a garbage bin outside the steakhouse he dishwashed at, I pushed off his shitty car with my heel and stalked toward him.
It was his usual routine; throw the garbage, smoke a cig, then drive himself home. Tonight he’d only be doing one of those three things, and he wouldn’t be able to do it himself when I was done.
“Hey!” I shouted, making Asshat turn on a dime after tossing the bag, “you Will Tolbeski?”
“Yeah, dude, what’s—uh!" my fist connected with his gut before he even finished his sentence, the air abandoning his lungs in a rush, but I didn’t let him recover. I cracked his head into my knee when he doubled over, making him fly back with a spray of blood from his nose, “Ah! What the fuck man? What the fucks your problem?! You want money? I got cash, dude, take it! Take it!”
He pulled out his wallet with a shaking hand but I took it and tossed it in the garbage instead, then took his fingers and bent them back, making him scream in pain, “Gah! Fuck! What do you want?! Please, I’ll do anything. Anything!"
Well that was easy enough. I definitely thought it’d take a little more convincing and ass kicking, considering Asshat was some hotshot baseball player, but it’d do.
“Leave Valarie Wells alone,” I demanded, voice dark and unrepentant as I glared down at him from my balaclava, “delete her off all your shit, Will, and if you have nudes of her, get the fuck rid of them. I’ll fucking kill you if I ever hear you’re talking to her again. You hear me? Kill you.”
The threat felt second nature rolling off my tongue and the fear it instilled in him only made it that much better.
Will sputtered, blood and spittle flying as he looked at me, confusion warping his features, “Val-Valarie W-Wells?” the question sounded too much like he was going to ask me to remind him who she was, and I wasn’t about to play that, so I bent his index finger further until I heard it break clean and he growled in protest, ”fuck, fuck—OKAY dude! I’ll delete her, I’ll delete her! I swear! Please, just let me keep my fingers so I can do it!”
A huff of breath escaped from my lips when I tossed his hand back at him like it was an after thought, watching as he crumpled into himself, “You’d better, or you’ll regret it later, dude,” I sneered, turning back toward the parking lot, determined on leaving Will with the taste of blood in his mouth and the regret of ever speaking to Valarie Wells, “and tell your work they should install surveillance cameras, maybe implement a buddy system,” I offered over my shoulder, “it’d really help with the issues surrounding staff safety around here.”
Will’s moans and groans sounded behind me when he realized he was safe, that I wasn’t going to kill him, but he shouldn’t have felt too comfortable. I’d never felt so powerful yet so calm before in my life; not until Valarie came along and gave me a taste of that drug for the first time, and then I was hooked. Everything I did because of her only made me feel more and more in control, more and more confident, more and more important. Shit, it even made me more intelligent.
I mean, I thought I knew girls.
Keyword was thought in case you hadn’t caught it.
That was, until I learned everything there was to know from a biology textbook after Valarie unexpectedly came back from summer break sophomore year with tits the size of her head, each.
It boggled my mind when she came in wearing the same uniform we’d always been required to wear, and the buttons on her shirt, they closed, but they were...bursting at the seams.
It was distracting, it was disgusting she let everyone see her like that, and I let her know.
“Didn’t know we had a new resident slut! Show us your tits, Valarie! You’re almost there, baby girl,” I taunted as she approached from the front doors, “come on, sugar titties, give the boys a little back to school performance!”
She’d immediately turned red, “I-I didn’t have anything else to wear. I had to come to school in something.”
Devin, a senior at the time laughed beside me, “I think we’d have been good with nothing. Right, Caleb?”
I chuckled, crossing my arms as I leaned back against the lockers, “Eh, she’s not my type. Too plain, bet she’s a fuckin’ virgin, too.”
Valarie’s eyes widened at the accusation and she gulped visibly, “I don’t think that’s any of your business to be speculating on.”
The girl had a little bit of a mouth on her? Awh. I could make her do a lot of things with that mouth; most unsavory for a prude like her, but I didn’t care about her comfort anyway. It was about me; how much I loved hearing her voice when it was small, how much I loved making her feel things deep enough to cry about it—it was like a hit of smack to me.
Though, I could only smirk as I looked down at the girl and her bulging tits when I decided—that day, that moment, was the first day of my complete and total obsession with her, “Anything in this town is my business,” I winked, “that includes you, sugar tits.”
