The City of Rossford

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! That’s it! You don’t—shit! You don’t fucking get tired, do you, high school boy! Oh, shit! Oh, fuck me! Hell, yeah.”

“You like it?” he demanded. “You like it? You like what this kid can do?”

Her face was flushed underneath him. She clapped a hand over his mouth while, red faced, the edges of his face turning white, he fucked her. There was another bed in the dorm room, but no roommate because Shelley Latham hadn’t minded paying the additional fee to live alone. She wasn’t very sentimental, and so the pennant on the wall that read LORETTO COLLEGE was one of the dorm room’s only decorations. It seemed to rock back and forth as they both came, and the boy, firmly between her legs, back streaming with sweat, gave a strangled and surprised shout while she playfully put her fingers to his mouth.

He jerked off the condom and put it in the waste can beside the bed and then lay beside her, breathing heavily. Neither one of them said anything for a moment. She was dark haired and dark eyed, swarthy and exotic. She was the type of girl who, if you saw her in public, you would assume would have loud sex in her dorm room late at night. He was long and thin, almost slight, with short brownish hair plastered to his scalp and sweet blue eyes. He was the kind of boy you’d assume was all innocence and sugar cookies, which was why she liked him.

“You really did the job, Sheridan,” Shelley said.

He made a clicking noise and fired an imaginary gun, “This high school boy knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he?”

“It’s late,” she said.

“That’s my cue to leave,” Sheridan sat up.

“No,” Shelley said. “It’s your cue to turn on the television and see what time it is, since you’ve got school and your cell phone clock is wrong.”

Sheridan shrugged and sat up. As he reached for the remote control, Shelley looked sentimentally at his back, at his small, soft bottom. The first time she had seen him she had thought about sleeping with him, but he was too young. Even a year younger, when a boy was still in high school, was too young.

“You know you’re not going to corrupt me,” he’d said to her. “I’ve been fucking since I was fourteen.”

With an admission like that, and he’d been in his tracksuit with his ball cap turned back, she’d said to hell with it. After that first time she realized he wasn’t lying. The boy knew what he was about.

The television blared.

“Tonight at Rossford Public High School, tragedy has struck. Junior, Robin Netteson was found semi-conscious, beaten, bleeding and naked outside of the gymnasium…”

“Oh, my God!” Sheridan muttered.

“Oh, my God!” he kept saying while the clip with Meredith speaking ran on. “Oh, God!”

He stumbled out of bed and hurriedly put his clothes on, the whole time reaching into his schoolbag for his phone. Shelley held out her hand for it so he could dress, and she flipped it open.

“It says you’ve got like seven messages.”

“Play them?” he asked her, as he put on his jacket, and trembling, tried to get into his shoes.

“SHERIDAN! WHERE ARE YOU?” Meredith was shouting. “I’VE BEEN CALLING YOU FOR THE LAST TWO HOURS. EVERYONE’S WORRIED. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU???”

“Sher?” Shelley looked at him.

He was fragile looking, shaking. He wasn’t just the fun guy fucking her.

“Sheridan,” she said again.

“I gotta get to the hospital.”

“I know. I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t…” Sheridan was trembling and walking around the room, looking blindly for his coat.

Shelley was already half dressed. She crossed the room, picked Sheridan’s peacoat off of the chair, but extracted his keys before handing it to him.

“Let me get ready. I’ll drive you. You’re not getting behind the wheel of any car tonight.”

Sheridan pushed himself through the electric sliding doors, impatient to enter the lobby. He looked lost and frightened, and Chay ran to him quickly while Sheridan cried, “Where is she? Where’s Robin? What’s going on?”

Meredith and Mathan were approaching now and Meredith was saying in a voice, half upset, half solicitious, “Sheridan, we were starting to worry about… you.”

When her voice wandered, they all followed the path of her gaze.

A dark haired girl had given a small wave and was heading out of the lobby, presumably back to her car.

“Oh, my God,” Meredith’s voice went cold.

“That’s Shelley,” Sheridan began. “She gave me—”

“Chay was worried as hell after you ignored the… what, fiftieth call? And I’m starting to wonder where you are too, and all this time, when Robin’s in the ER and we’re sitting here trembling, you’re off fucking some slut! Goddamn, Sheridan!”

“Meredith,” Mathan chided. He pulled her away from Sheridan who was biting his lower lip.

“It doesn’t matter where you were,” Mathan told him. “You’re here now.”

Sheridan dumbly ran a hand over his head and pulled at his face. Chay pulled him to the other side of the lobby where Mr. and Mrs. Nettison were.

“I just heard,” he said.

“She was unconscious,” Mrs. Netteson said.

A nurse came out and told them, “She’s awake, but she’s really bad off.”

“I have to go see her,” Mr. Netteson said.

“Alright,” the doctor nodded. “Alright. But she’s asking for someone called Sheridan?”

Sheridan looked surprised and Meredith muttered something, but Eileen Netteson touched him on the back and said, “You’d better go to her.”

Sheridan walked down the hall duckfooted and stupid with fear, checking his cell phone to make sure that there were no calls from her. If Robin had called him, if somehow she’d had time to call when this was happening, or about to happen, and he hadn’t gotten to her because he’d left the phone off and was busy trying to get laid, then he didn’t know what he would do.

The fluorescent lights were humming and they shone too brightly. His mouth tasted funny and all of the joy of tonight was gone. He felt, once again, like he always did. Unsure, ungainly, a little unstable and out of control, and now he was in the room, and here she was and she stirred from bed and he gasped and came in, pulling a chair up beside her.

“Yours eyes,” he said, weakly.

“I need to talk to you before anyone else comes in,” Robin’s voice was raspy. She had raccoon eyes from the beating, and her mouth was cut. “I need to talk to you before Meredith… Or anyone.”

“How did they…? Who did?”

“Who would want to?” Robin Netteson said. “I’m not popular. I’m not pretty. Nobody wants me. Or knows me.”

“Everybody knows you now,” Sheridan said, simply. “You’re famous right now.”

Robin lifted her head weakly, and suddenly, she began laughing. It was a harsh laugh and it went on a while and then Sheridan touched her hand.

“You gotta watch after Chay,” Robin said.

“What?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. You gotta watch after him. Cause he’s younger than us. And he thinks he can do anything. And he can get in trouble. You get in trouble too, but you get into it with girls. I know you love him. He’s like your little brother. You gotta protect him, Sheridan.”

“I should have been there to protect you.”

Her eyes went wide suddenly. They were so dilated there were almost no pupils. She seemed to be straining up and up toward something, and then, suddenly, she trembled and fell back a little.

“I thought they’d never stop,” she said. “How can they just keep doing that, Sheridan? Just keep doing it to a girl like they’ll never stop? Do you do it like that, Sher? Do girls like it when you do it to them?”

Sheridan’s mouth tasted bad, and he said, “How about you let me get Meredith and Mathan?”

Robin didn’t say anything.

Sheridan stood up.

“I’ll get Meredith and Mathan.”