CRASH Read online

  CRASH

  by

  Pepper Pace

  PEPPER PACE BOOKS

  ~***~

  STRANDED!

  Love Intertwined Vol. 1

  Love Intertwined Vol. 2

  JUICY

  Urban Vampire; The Turning

  Urban Vampire; Creature of the Night

  Wheels of Steel Book 1

  Wheels of Steel Book 2

  Wheels of Steel Book 3

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Copyright

  © 2012 by Pepper Pace. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Pepper Pace.

  Disclaimer

  ~***~

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This book contains graphic depictions of sexual acts and is intended for adults only.

  Chapter 1

  There was no beginning and there is no end. There is just the moment when everything comes crashing together, and that is where it started.

  Lucas was lying on the hard ground; the cold wet concrete scratching into his cheek. The grunts of the man raping him, and the encouraging noises of the man holding him down were the only sounds that could be heard in the darkened alley. The other man had already done him and was now keeping him immobile by pinning him to the ground; his knee buried deep into Lucas’ narrow back while his big paws bore down on his wrists. It hurt to move, so he didn’t. It hurt to think, so he didn’t.

  He heard one growl low in laughter. “We got your cherry, boy. We got your cherry!”

  Lucas wanted to say, ‘No you didn’t,’ but really, he didn’t want to say anything.

  With a low grunt the man finished and pulled out of Lucas’ body. That hurt enough for him to finally issue a pained gasp and Lucas tried to make sense of why that should be almost as bad as when the first man had pushed into him. He now just wanted the knee away from his aching spine; he thought he had some cracked ribs and the way the man was pressing his knee into him, his back might be next. Everything hurt. Lucas got his wish when they finally left; hurrying out of the alley, laughing and making lewd comments. Lucas didn’t remember to move until finally the cold got to him. He pulled himself up slowly on hands and knees, his pants and underwear hiked down to just below his ass. He came to his feet and pulled them up, feeling nauseous when wetness slithered from between his ass cheeks.

  Moving fast now, he stooped and puked. That seemed to bring back reality and Lucas blinked his dark blue eyes; eyes more violet then blue at the moment. He looked around for his duffel bag. They hadn’t bothered to go through it. Anybody could tell that Lucas was just a homeless bum who wouldn’t be carrying around anything of worth…well other than his wallet. Getting that stolen was a shame, not that there had been any money in it. But it did have his identification. He’d been wise and had learned to keep his money in his shoes.

  Lucas wiped his mouth and with his body still stooped, he spat and saw blood, but it wasn’t a part of his vomit. Their beating had torn the tender skin in his mouth. He tentatively touched his eye, his vision was blurred and it stung. He continued to blink rapidly feeling that there might be something in his eye; dirt, gravel…god only knew what could be wrong with it. Lucas ran his hands down his narrow torso and winced when his palm came in contact with his sore ribs.

  He reached for his bag and winced again. It hurt to bend, but this was not a pain that was foreign. He held his breath and picked up the heavy duffel bag. Lucas squinted and tried not to think about his stinging eye and…other stuff, then he hiked the bag up over his shoulder and took a step forward. The pain within his rectum flared to life and threatened to send him to his knees, but he was not a virgin in that area and his body catalogued the pain into something that would fade into something bearable in a few days. He swept back his long black hair and caught sight of his dirty hands. That stunned him; his hands were filthy. His grandparents had not raised him to be dirty. He wiped them quickly on his pants and tried to look around. Seeing with one eye was not easy to do and he felt suddenly dizzy and sick.

  He had to find another place to sleep. This alley wasn’t safe. He wasn’t sleepy right now; he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep for days. Those men had just appeared. Lucas had been huddled into a tight ball in the corner of the boarded up doorway. Most people probably would not have noticed the thin, dark haired waif. His body was folded over his duffel bag and he knew how to sleep quietly. And then he had felt hands yanking him to his feet by his hair. It wasn’t hard to do; Lucas was tall but thin. He instantly threw up his hands in a motion to protect his face but a second man had slammed his fist into Lucas’ stomach and that was the move that had rendered him helpless. He couldn’t breathe and they had begun rifling through his pockets and then one had squeezed his dick…

  This wasn’t the beginning and this wasn’t the end; this wasn’t even the point when it would all come crashing together. That would happen later, only sometimes a crash is a silent event that you don’t even see coming until two unmovable objects collide.

  ~***~

  Sophie reached for her teacup. It had gone lukewarm. She didn’t mind it lukewarm; she could eat hot foods that had grown cold and cold foods that had grown warm. Things like that didn’t bother her. She ate very slowly anyways, sometimes leaving her meal on the table to walk away and do other things and then to come back to it when she grew hungry again. It was the best way for a fat woman. Maybe she wasn’t fat, per se, maybe she was just ‘healthy’, but it did no good to eat a plate full of food until she was bursting when she knew she’d just be peckish again in a few hours –that would only compound the weight problem. Weight problem? It wasn’t a problem because there was no one else to consider being thin for.

  Sophie moved her glasses up so that she could rub her eyes. They felt grainy but that always happened when it was late in the night. She let her glasses fall back into place so that she could focus on the digital clock…3 am! Wow insomnia was a bitch.

  She was sitting at her desk, the icon of her laptop flashing on a fresh word document page. The ideas were all crowding there in her head, but refused to jump from her mind to the waiting document. Hmmmm…she groaned and picked up the teacup and padded into the kitchen to nuke the tepid liquid. Hot things usually put her to sleep; maybe that would help. Warm milk was supposed to help but she was lactose intolerant and could only have a certain amount of dairy each day. She’d already surpassed that limit with the cereal that she’d eaten for breakfast.

  She placed the ceramic mug into the microwave and pressed two minutes, knowing that she probably wouldn’t allow it to heat that long, she didn’t want to sear the lining of her mouth. Her eyes roamed her darkened kitchen, but she knew that she wouldn’t see anything out of place even if her eyes had the ability to penetrate the darkness; which they didn’t. Her eyes moved to the picture window that was situated above her sink. It overlooked the backyard and then the adjacent lot. Sophie squinted and rubbed her gritty eyes and then tried to focus on the form of an individual out back.

  She was considered legally blind, but with corrective lenses she had almost perfect vision; except at night. She was night blind which didn’t pose a problem when she knew the layout of her surroundings. She knew th
e layout of her back yard. Two fences separated her neighbors on both the right and left, but the back had only a low and crumbling cement barrier which separated this side; the residential side from a very narrow alleyway that cars often used to shortcut from Madd Anthony St to Anthony Wayne St. On the other side of the small alley was another low cement barrier and then the parking lot to a few small shops; a tanning/Laundromat, a quick stop convenient mart, and a carryout sub shop. On the right began more small houses and on the left of the strip mall was a small apartment building.

  It wasn’t a great neighborhood, but it wasn’t a bad one either. People cut through the alley and between buildings all the time; she herself had often left through the back door to make a quick trip to the convenient mart for gum, candy or soda. So it wasn’t normally strange to see people out back.

  But seeing a lone figure just sitting across the way did surprise her. Sophie had never seen anyone just sitting on the low cement barrier. For one it was too low to sit comfortably, more like a big curb, and two; who would want to sit there when there was nothing to see but the back of houses? It could even be dangerous because when cars took the shortcut, they came speeding down the narrow alley nearly blind to who might be trying to cross. A kid had been hit while playing there but since it was just a no-name alley, no one had done anything to stop cars from using the convenient shortcut.

  The microwave beeped shrilly and Sophie’s attention moved away from the window. Damn, it would probably be too hot now. Of course if she didn’t get back to sleep then she would have plenty of time to allow it to cool. She got a spoon from the drain board and stirred the simmering liquid. Her eyes moved back to the lone figure. Sophie could barely make out a thin person in dark clothing with dark hair. They were hunched over their bent knees. It had to be a kid; the figure was very small.

  She carefully picked up the mug and returned to her small office, her brain focusing on her task and not on the idea of another unfortunate runaway.

  Sophie’s ‘office’ was just a second bedroom converted into a work space. It was actually a pretty nice area; her favorite. There was a desk; more to hold her pens, pencils and notes then for writing. Her laptop sat there, the screen dark now. Most times Sophie just carried it to the over-stuffed reclining chair situated in one corner, and she wrote with her legs curled sideways, the laptop propped on her thigh. She could write for hours this way, becoming lost in the words that she strung together to create a story, to make someone feel aroused, to illicit a tear. This was Sophie’s craft; she was a writer.

  Other then the big heavy desk, an old but comfortable reclining chair next to a small folding table to hold a lamp, there was just room enough for two walls of bookshelves stacked floor to ceiling with books.

  She set the now-too-hot beverage on the desk and refreshed the screen. Low music was issuing through a playlist; soothing unobtrusive ambient music that generally got her into the right frame of mind to write. She sat down at the desk and stared at the blank screen.

  Once upon a time Sophie wrote because she liked to. Now that she had to, the words were not as easy to come. The publishing company had signed her to an additional three book deal after they had accepted her first novel. It was all pie and the sky back then.

  The publishing company was geared to African American women and they had several categories of books. Sophie wrote in the Interracial category. The first novel that she had submitted after signing with Clarion Press was easy to write; the words swelled out of her. But after submitting it to the editor she was informed that her ‘quirky’ characters needed to be more mainstream. Her African American character didn’t seem ‘black enough’ and her white character didn’t seem ‘white enough’.

  “Can you make him whiter? Maybe have him say or do something…white?” is what Candace had said. Candace was her agent and Candace had obviously never dated a white man.

  “Yeah,” had been Sophie’s response. Because back then she was still very grateful for the big check that had allowed her to retire early; and the promise of royalties and many more ‘big checks’.

  But that was two years ago and she had one more book in her contract. When that was written she would flee Clarion and consider self-publishing. She wanted to write her own ‘quirky’ characters and not Candace’s idea of an interracial relationship; Candace who didn’t even date outside of her race. Not that Sophie dated outside of her race...not anymore.

  Her first book had received good reviews, the second mediocre, and by the third novel, she had developed a small following because there just weren’t that many good writers that wanted to write in the interracial genre. But Sophie didn’t think that she had created any great feat of literature. She was a published writer but she was no William Shakespeare. Sophie did consider herself a good writer, but she didn’t think her last two books showcased her talents, in actuality they had snuffed her talents in exchange for witty banter improbable situations.

  The last book had been an collection of erotic stories. Candace had forced her to tone down the most steamy scenes, which had pissed her off and which had been the catalyst for her decision not to sign another book deal with Clarion. They would get four novels out of her and no more. Now she had to concentrate on submitting the synopsis and first three chapters of her next book. She’d been given 90 days to do it and she only had little more than a month remaining.

  And she hadn’t written one freaking word.

  Well that wasn’t true. She had begun the synopsis for a hit woman, she had begun a chapter for a streetwise female gangsta --but what did she know about hit women and gangsta’s? Candace had wanted her to find a story that appealed to the 25 to 30 black female demographic but Sophie was 42 years old and what the hell did she know about what 25 year olds wanted to read?! She just wrote what she liked. Sophie blinked at the blank screen. Her lips curled upward. Candace’s perfectly poised demeanor would surely crack if she sent her 50 blank pages.

  “Sophie...? Are you joking?” Sophie would be tempted to say, “You write it since my last two books have been more your words than mine.”

  Maybe everyone hated their agent.

  Sophie picked up her mug and took a careful sip. It was hot, but no longer at the danger point. Okay! Enough of this! Sophie put her mug down and straightened her back. She allowed her fingers to hover over the keys. She had a story that had been swirling around in her head, a story inspired by her college days. ‘Now find the words and pull it out of your head Sophie!’ And then her fingers began to move rapidly over the keys.

  Eric rolled out of bed. He had hair in his mouth and it wasn't his. He padded naked into the bathroom and before even peeing he brushed his teeth, then he could still smell her pussy so he washed his face. He looked into the bedroom at her sleeping body; partially covered by his comforter--still not believing that they had finally done it. He crept over and pulled the comforter up over her shoulder. Even though his heat was turned sky high, it seemed chilly. The temperature was always so screwy in this damn place--which is what you usually got when the utilities where included in the rent.

  Eric ripped a sheet of paper from a pad and scribbled a note.

  Karen, I have to get to class, but

  please don't leave. I only have one

  and will be back by noon

  Eric

  He jumped into the shower and got dressed and Karen still hadn't budged. He'd seen her down 3 7-ups and Tanguerays, her signature drink. And that had just been at the party. He had smelled beer on her when she had first arrived. It wasn't by far the drunkest that he had ever seen her, but it had been the first time that she'd let him sleep with her.

  Eric had been wanting to get with Karen for the last six months; from the first time he'd seen her walk into the cafeteria on campus. She had been wearing skintight jeans and Eric thought that her ass was shaped just like a little heart. She had fiery red hair; wild, long, gorgeous. And she had freckles on her nose. But her mouth was an unsmiling hard thing, while her eyes wer
e heavily lidded, bedroom eyes that somehow softened the hard edges. Because of these two opposing forces in Karen's face, Eric couldn't help but to view her face as two separate things, from her mouth down, and from her eyes up; She seemed two totally different people.

  Eric couldn’t stop thinking about her, and she one day noticed this.

  "Hey." She said to him in passing, the first words she had ever spoken to him.