Falling from Disgrace Read online

  “So then the accident wasn’t your fault, it was Ethan’s,” Jack concluded.

  “What? No! Jack that’s ridiculous!”

  “I know it is!” he shouted back to her. “But can’t you see that just the same way you’re thinking that you are to blame here can easily be turned around so that all the responsibility would fall on Ethan’s shoulders?

  “Ethan didn’t show up and so you asked your friend to wait around with you longer. If he had shown up, like he said he was going to, Rachel would have left with her boyfriend and she never would have been in the car with you during the accident. Shit, if he had shown up, there’s a chance you never would have even been in that accident in the first place, Ade! Or how about we blame the person that threw the party, huh? If he hadn’t thrown a party there wouldn’t have been an accident either! Do you see where I’m going with this? I understand that losing your best friend and being in an accident like that must have been horrible and you have every right to be fucked up over it. But don’t expect me to understand when you say you killed your best friend because it’s not true and it’s fucking bullshit.”

  Adrianna’s sorrow evaporated and anger took root. She removed herself from the couch and quivered from the mixture of ire and craving for more meds. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said, reaching for her purse that she had dropped on the floor upon arriving. “I should have known you wouldn’t understand this.”

  When she moved towards the exit, Jack left the couch as well and stopped her, reaching out to hold on to her wrist. He softened a little and spoke to her more gently.

  “It’s not that I don’t understand, Adrianna. I get it, I do. The results of that accident were horrific and no one who hasn’t gone through something like that could ever fully comprehend what it was like for you. It was traumatic and awful, I’m not trying to say it wasn’t. But saying you’re to blame, that you’re responsible for killing your friend, is completely unreasonable.”

  Adrianna tried to think of something to say to refute that but her brain was unable to focus on anything but her turning stomach and shaking limbs. She needed a pill and needed one now.

  Pulling out of Jack’s grasp, she marched to his kitchen and pulled her supply from her purse. To hell with not taking them in front of him. The lid of the plastic bottle released with a popping noise and she let one, single, solitary tablet fall into her hand and then brought it to her mouth. One pill would not do much to sate her but it would calm her long enough until she could get home and take more.

  “How long has it been since you took one of those?” Jack asked as he watched her cup her hand under the running faucet to wash her pill down.

  Adrianna swallowed and closed her eyes, allowing herself to breathe deeply for a moment before answering. “What does that matter?”

  “How long, Adrianna?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “It’s only been a few hours at most hasn’t it, but it feels like forever? You feel nauseous and dizzy and I bet your head is aching. I can see you’re trembling.” He moved to stand directly behind her at the sink and he put his hands at her waist, bringing his head close so that he could speak quietly in her ear. “And it’s not your back that’s in pain right now, but your whole body feels like it’s about to shut down on you from stress, doesn’t it? Tell me the truth, Ade.”

  Adrianna kept her eyes closed and leaned back to rest against Jack’s body. His warm breath tickled her neck and his words hit so close to the truth she wondered if he could read her mind. But she wasn’t ready to admit her fault to him. Rather than deny it though, she just remained silent, waiting for her drug to take its effects.

  “Adrianna,” he continued softly in her ear while his hand removed the bottle from her fist. “You’re addicted to these pills.”

  Hearing those words, the words she had refused to admit, had never let anyone come to that conclusion by closing herself off so well, caused Adrianna to feel shame and disgust. Humiliated, she brought her hands up to cover her face. She was a junkie, a degenerate, a weakling.

  Jack turned her to face him and tried to pry her hands away but they wouldn’t budge. He pulled her into him and wrapped her tightly in his arms, kissing the side of her head.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he whispered. “You don’t have anything to be ashamed of. It’s okay.”

  He repeated himself over and over and a sense of relief came upon Adrianna. Whether it was from her secret being out to someone else or the pill she had just taken, she didn’t know, but she let herself relax and finally brought her hands away from her face to wrap around Jack’s body. They reached under his shirt to touch his bare flesh and the tips of her fingers pressed into his skin, pulling him more closely, gripping him like holding on was her salvation.

  Adrianna turned her face up so that her nose skimmed Jack’s neck and she breathed him in a few times before pressing her lips to him. She needed him, needed to show him that she was sorry; sorry for what she did and who she was. Her tongue slipped out to taste him and desire replaced any lingering anxiety in her body.

  Jack felt himself harden instantly when Adrianna's mouth grazed along his neck. He knew in his head this wasn't the time to take advantage of her vulnerability, but he was a man and her touch was too much. He quickly rationalized his desire; if she could expose so much of herself to him, rejecting her now would cause her too much pain. He brought her mouth to his and kissed her gently a few times before parting her lips with his tongue.

  They kissed, their lips sealed together and their tongues taking turns advancing and retreating. They only broke apart when Adrianna pulled at Jack’s shirt to lift it over his head and then they returned to kissing while her hands scratched lightly over the taut muscles of his stomach. He quivered.

  “I love how you touch me,” Jack told her, removing her top now and then kissing down her neck and across her shoulder. His hands roamed her back, her arms, her ass, before reaching between their bodies to undo the button and zipper of her shorts. Adrianna stepped out of her shoes and then helped Jack as he pushed her pants down her legs. While he continued to kiss her and knead the flesh of her bottom covered only by a small piece of cotton, she moved her hands to the waist of his pants. She only succeeded in unbuttoning them though, before Jack turned to push her against the countertop. She was the one needing right now and he was going to take care of her.

  He pressed into her so that she leaned slightly back, bracing herself with her hands at the edge of the Formica. Jack’s lips kissed down between her breasts while his hand snaked over her stomach, teasing her at the edge of her panties before dipping below them to run a single finger between the slick folds of her sex. He brought his hand down towards her entrance and then back up again, spreading the wetness.

  Adrianna dropped her head back and moaned quietly while the pleasure took over. She blocked everything else out and just let herself feel Jack’s hands and mouth on her, her legs going weak when his finger lazily circled her clitoris. Her lover wrapped his other arm around her to keep her from falling and kept working her slowly towards climaxing.

  Jack’s breath came out short and ragged, his entire body begging for some kind of pleasurable touch, his erection pressing painfully against his jeans. But he wouldn’t give in, staving off his own satisfaction until Adrianna got hers. He pulled away from her and watched as he brought her higher and higher with his touch. Her eyes were closed and her dark hair brushed across the countertop while she continued to moan softly through her pink, parted lips. He knew that with a little more pressure and a little more speed he could send her over the edge but he wanted to draw this out. He kept his finger moving slowly between her legs until she was begging him.

  “Harder, faster, Jack, please.”

  He acquiesced and then pressed two fingers into her, drawing them in and out, while rubbing her clit with his thumb. Adrianna’s cries grew louder and Jack had to tighten his other arm around her when she completely let go. Her breasts, neck, and
cheeks grew flush while she drowned in her orgasm.

  How beautiful, was all he thought.

  They stumbled out of the kitchen but only made it as far as the living room. Adrianna’s bra and panties were shed, along with Jack’s pants, and they collapsed in an anxious heap on the carpet. The sounds of their frantic breaths were only interrupted by the crinkle of foil being torn open and then Jack was on top of her, parting her thighs with his own.

  Adrianna’s hands grabbed his backside, urging him forward but it was unnecessary, for Jack was already too eager to be inside of her. He pressed in, fully sheathing himself one inch at a time. They both cried out at the sensation, hers a high pitched wail as he stretched her; his a deep groan as his cock was squeezed. Jack didn’t move immediately, he just covered her body with his own and kissed her while they relished the feeling of being joined.

  Adrianna brought her hands up to hold his face to hers and kissed him back. A sense of completeness settled over her and she didn’t know what to do with it. She finally felt that she was no longer alone in the world and that she belonged somewhere, anywhere, as long as Jack was with her, and her eyes filled with tears at the foreign emotion. She sucked in a quivery breath and pulled her mouth from his. While he moved his lips down to her neck she trembled.

  “Jack, I...” she whispered, too afraid to finish.

  He pulled away from where he was nibbling at her skin to look into her eyes. “It’s okay,” he whispered back. “You can say it.”

  “I love you,” she breathed and then sobbed as the truth of those three, simple words took a hold of her heart.

  Jack leaned down to claim her trembling lips again before moving them to speak into her ear. “I love you, too.”

  Then he was pushed over onto his back when Adrianna moved to turn them so that she could sit astride him. Still pressing their bodies as close together as possible, she began to move her hips, her knees scraping the rough carpet beneath them while her mouth assaulted his.

  She loved him, she loved him, she did, and she chanted the words over and over though only in her head as she rode him. Jack’s hands caressed the skin of her back, moving lovingly over her scar before settling on her backside to help her move on top of him.

  Adrianna pulled away to lean back but Jack was discomforted by the loss of her skin pressed against his. He sat up, pulling his love close and then helped her wrap her legs around his waist.

  There. That was better.

  He rocked them back and forth, the pleasure building from right at the tip of his cock and spreading through his groin and into his belly. He grit his teeth and threw his head back, forcing himself to impede his climax until Adrianna came again.

  “Close,” she told him, noticing his restraint.

  She pushed him back gently so that he was at an angle, his hands bracing him up from behind. Another slight adjustment and his body hit Adrianna in just the right spot. She gripped his shoulders and moved herself up and down a few more times and then she was climaxing. Her walls clamped around Jack’s shaft and with a few more thrusts up into her, he came as well. Not wanting to taint their love making with an expletive, he bit his bottom lip and groaned deeply through the ride.

  “Was I that obvious?” Adrianna yawned a while after they had finished and were lying curled around each other, still on the living room floor. Her head rested against Jack’s chest and the rise and fall of his breaths were making her sleepy.

  Jack stroked her arm and asked her what she meant.

  “With the pills?”

  Jack thought on that for a moment and then told her, “Someone else probably wouldn’t have noticed but I know the signs. Being bartender, you learn what addiction looks like. Also, my father is addicted to Fentanyl.”

  “For how long?” Adrianna asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “It started when I was in high school so about sixteen years, I think.”

  Adrianna shuddered when she tried to imagine living as she was for another fourteen years. That would put her into her forties. “You said he ‘is addicted’. Does that mean he still takes them?”

  “He uses patches but yes, he’s still on it. He suffers from chronic pancreatitis which is extremely painful, and they treated him with morphine in the hospital but when he got out he was prescribed the Fentanyl. He was only supposed to use it to manage the pain but it didn’t take long for him to need it to function day to day.”

  “Has he tried to stop?”

  Jack stopped stroking her arm and swallowed loudly before answering. “No. My mom and I both tried to get him help several times but he refused. My mother couldn’t handle it anymore and so she divorced him. About five years ago my father told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. I went to visit him and he looked awful and I begged him to get help. He told me if I was going to lecture him not to visit anymore. I haven’t seen him since.”

  Adrianna thought about what it would be like to get to that point in her life, when she’d cut herself off from the only family she had, her mother and father, and live the rest of her life alone with only her precious pills. It scared her to death. She had to do something now, before years went by and she was middle aged and forlorn.

  “Tell me about what it’s like for you,” Jack stated after another few minutes of silence. “How did it happen?”

  Adrianna shook her head and told him, “I’m not sure, exactly. I was also given morphine in the hospital but after, the doctor gave me the prescription for Vicodin. I took them just as I should at first, maybe four a day to manage the pain, and that worked for a while. Then taking one every four hours wasn’t enough and so I’d take two every four hours. Then I’d take two every three hours.

  “In the middle of this I was still extremely depressed over what happened. I graduated Northwestern before the accident but I never went back for med school, I never got a job, and just stayed in my parents’ house all day long. I couldn’t take the looks people would give me when I left the house so I became a hermit and closed myself off. I soon realized that when I took the pills the depression lifted for a bit, too. My parents started to notice I was taking too many and so they kept a more careful eye on me and I took less again. The depression got worse and so I thought moving out here would help. I’d be able to make new friends and not have to worry about getting those pitiful stares wherever I went. I was wrong though. Moving out here just made it easier to take as many pills as I wanted without my parents breathing down my neck.”

  “How many pills are you taking a day, Ade?”

  Adrianna had to think about it before she gave her answer, trying to calculate in her head. She was finding it hard to concentrate, her post-coital high having worn off. “On a good day, ten, a bad day, up to twenty. I’m pathetic, I know.”

  Jack squeezed his arms around her a little tighter and told her to hush. “That’s actually not that bad,” he said. “Let me ask you something though, how is your doctor not noticing how many pills you are taking? Surely he realizes you’re taking more than you should be.”

  Adrianna was getting restless and her back was beginning to ache from lying on the floor so she wiggled out of Jack’s arms. Stretching, she went in search of her clothes, throwing only her shirt and panties on before returning to the couch. Jack’s pants were located as well and when he had them on he joined her. Adrianna had been hoping he’d forget his last question but even after they were seated again he looked at her expectantly.

  “I stockpiled a lot of the pills when I was still living at home and I’m very convincing when I see the doctor,” she admitted to him. “I lie and make something up or I’ll cry and he takes pity on me. As far as the pharmacies go, I switch around a lot, use online drug stores sometimes and don’t file it with insurance. I just pay cash and it’s worked so far.”

  By the time she finished, Adrianna’s voice had taken on a certain tone that conveyed annoyance and Jack tried to reassure her. “I’m not trying to pry; I just want to understand as much as I can so that
I can help you, Ade.”

  “Does it really matter how I get them?” she demanded. “It’s not like I’m buying them illegally or prostituting myself for them, Jack.”

  She was on the downward cadence of a mood swing and Jack recognized it. Just moments ago she had been fine talking about her problem and now she was becoming defensive and angry.

  “You want another pill right now, don’t you?” he asked her.

  She clenched her jaw and looked away from him. After a second she shook her head in denial.

  “Adrianna, I’m not so stupid to think you won’t need the pills anymore since I’ve professed my love to you. I do love you and I do want you to stop but I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. If you need to, take a damn pill.”

  She waited another few seconds before giving in and heading back to the kitchen. Jack remained on the couch, giving her some semblance of privacy while she did something he knew she was ashamed of.