First Time

A horror short story I wrote back in college.

I heard my dad call from down stairs.  “Tony!  Your girlfriend‘s here!”  I rolled my eyes: Dad didn’t seem to get that just because a girl was my friend, it didn’t make her my girlfriend.

I walked downstairs to see Lucy in the foyer.  She was tightly wrapped in an overlarge jacket that hid whatever she was wearing underneath.  Water dripped from her hair.  She looked incredibly distressed about something.  My dad gave her a lecherous once over, gave me a thumbs-up, and headed back to his TV and beer.

I quickly ushered Lucy upstairs and into my room where we could be alone.  “What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as I shut the door.

“I’m sorry for showing up like this,” Lucy said as she sat on the floor.  “I just didn’t know who else to turn to.  My mom would freak out if I came home like this.”

“You can sit on the bed,” I offered as I sat in my desk chair, but Lucy just shook her head.  “What happened?”  I urged.  

“I don’t know!” Lucy insisted “I mean, I know what happened but I don’t know how it happened.”  She looked close to tears now.  “I know that people say I shouldn’t do things like that, but it felt so good.  I just got lost in my emotions and couldn’t stop myself from running my hands all over him.  It was like he turned into putty in my hands and I could do whatever I wanted to him,” she rambled.  I could see tears running down her cheeks.  “And now I’m covered in him and god knows what else.”

I nodded my head in understanding.  “It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone has sex eventually.  I hear that it is a bit shocking the first time.”  Now Lucy just looked confused.

“What?” She asked in a perplexed manner. “Ew!  No, I didn’t have sex, I killed someone.”  I blinked.  Then I blinked again.  “Please say something.” She said looking slightly upset.  I blinked one more time.

“What.”  I said.  This was just not making sense to me.  “How?”  I wondered aloud.  The betrayed look on Lucy’s face made me snap out of my stupor.  “I mean, from how you described it, you made it sound like something very different.  What happened?” I asked sincerely.

Lucy took a deep breath and then explained.  “I went to talk to Jack about my sister.”

I felt the need to interrupt immediately. “You mean the Jack that has been trying to push meth on Emma?”  I asked quickly.  This seemed like it could end badly.  Then again if this ended with Lucy killing someone, it probably did.

Lucy nodded and continued “I told him to stop trying to get her to take meth, and then we started yelling at each other, and then I pushed him and then he shot me.”

I gasped and covered my mouth.  “Why aren’t you at the hospital?!”  I exclaimed.  “I mean, just because you can heal a bit faster doesn’t mean you can shrug off a bullet.”

“But I did,” Lucy tried to reassure me.  When I didn’t look convinced she opened her jacket.  Her entire torso was covered in blood and gore.  Her shirt had a few tears and holes in it.  She lifted her shirt up to show me her stomach.  Her skin was unmarked but smeared with blood.  “See,” she said as she pointed to a random spot on her abdomen “it healed up just fine.”  The sight of her body looking like she had walked out of a horror movie did little to reassure me.

Lucy started to get a wistful look in her eyes.  “When the bullet hit me, I felt a rush of adrenalin,” she reminisced.  “I couldn’t help myself and grabbed him.  His skin was so soft and fragile that I could feel my nails tearing through him with barely any resistance.”  At this, I stopped her in a panic.

“It’s okay; I don’t need to hear anymore,” I quickly said.  “Why don’t you get in the shower, I’ll get you some clean clothes.”  Lucy stood, and reached over to hug me, but I held her at arm’s length and turned her towards the shower.  I was horrified at what she had done, but she was the best friend I had, and I was hers, so I would give her all of the support she needed.  After she shut the door to the bathroom, I called to her “Am I going to need to help you hide a body?”

“No.”  Lucy called back.  “It kinda looks like a puma got him.  The coyotes should clean up the rest.”  For some reason, this release of the need to help her with the gruesome task of hiding a body did not make me feel any better.