Legal Limit - Part 4

Read Legal Limit Pt. 3 here.

I used to like it when he got like this. Beau on coke is like a bull released in the rodeo. Maybe a bull without horns. A cow, at the rodeo. A mad, sweating cow.

When we made it to the shiny wooden dance floor, he tossed me over his shoulder. My ribs rammed against his shoulder bone, knocking the air out of my lungs. By the despairing looks of the women near us, I could tell that my underwear was visible, my skirt lifting to my hips.

I patted Beau’s shoulder blade.

“Beau, put me down.” He wanted me to scream and holler, to squeal like a suckling pig. I lay motionless across his shoulder.

“Look what’er eye caught!” He patted my ass as, I assumed, we approached his posse. I couldn’t see much besides Beau’s back pockets from this vantage point.

“Bigger than anything you’ve got on the boat!” Jake.

“Certainly smells like fish though!” Benjamin.

“DISGUSTING, BEN.” A girl’s voice shrieked, followed by a dull thud.

“OWWah.” Ansley had punched Ben in the arm.

“Oh, sorry So-Fia, Ben can be so classless can’te?” he spun me around to face the group. The aircon blowing above breezed against my thighs. I picked my head up, just enough to see Ansley crouch down to my level.

“If I lay as still as possible,” I began, “it’s like no different than when we’re having sex!” Ansley guffawed, falling to her butt in laughter. Before I could smile, I was dropped down, landing gracelessly on my feet, rolling an ankle in the process.

As I caught hold of my balance, I spied Parker’s tall frame making his way across the carpeted outline of the spanning room, headed for the band’s stage.

“Ow!” I mumbled to myself, Beau, yanking me into a dance. Spinning, with a free hand, I tugged my skirt back down. I was too tired to be embarrassed really. Ben winked in my direction, picked Ansley up, and took to throwing her around the dance floor. Ansley was so tiny, and Ben so tall, they could do the overhead lifts, like Dirty Dancing. 

Ansley tilted her face to the ceiling, as Ben palmed her waist, hoisting her overhead, to the cheers of surrounding dancers. 

“Have you ever watched Dirty Dancing?” I asked Beau between spinouts.

“No, but I know all the moves,” Beau slurred as he pulled me towards his groin, his hot beer breath on my neck.

“Ew–no,” I pushed my hands into his chest, squirming away. Before anger could register on his face, I fanned myself. “It’s too hot in here, for bumping and grinding.”

Beau forcibly pulled me back towards him, spitting into my ear, “Where’d your wristbands go?”

I flashed him a smile. “Ain’t this more fun? I playfully slapped his chest, “Now I’m a big kid like you. Speaking which, I was going to go get a drink–”

I started to pull away, but he gripped my hand, hard, pushing into the pressure point between my thumb and my palm. My knees buckled involuntarily.

He leaned in close, “You know how special this place is to me, yes?”

“Yessir.” I rolled my eyes. An ensuing crush on my pinky.

“Don’t get smart.” I’ve always been too smart.

“I bring you here, my special place, so we can have some fun, and I haven’t seen you all night and this is how you thank me? Do you want to ruin this for everyone? Do you really want everyone else as miserable as you?”

“I just wanted a drink. It’s no fun for me, watching you have fun.”

Then the song changed, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” A resounding cheer from the bar’s population, and a thrush of people, afforded me an escape. I dodged and crouched between clapping hands and cowgirl high kicks and made my way to the edge of a stage.

I ducked behind a well-placed red velvet curtain and found myself in the bar’s “backstage,” area.

Amongst the A/V equipment, dusty cables, and discarded cocktail straws was Parker, and in his hands the OVER 21 stamp.