My Last Night of Freedom

 

My Last Night of Freedom

 

Tanya just wants to have fun,

Don and his friends have a different kind of fun in mind

 

R.R. Ryan

 

© Copyright 2025 by R.R. Ryan

 

NOTE: This work contains material not suitable for anyone under eighteen (18) or those of a delicate nature. This is a story and contains descriptive scenes of a graphic, sexual nature. This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

 

My Last Night of Freedom

 

Present Day Boulder, Colorado

 

It’s the first Friday night at college, and I’m so glad to be living in a dorm and not at home. It’s eighteen years from the crib to college, and I earn my freedom every day. But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad girl.

 

I’m a good girl, honest to God, I’m a good girl. As a college freshman, I step toward my first party and rush to it with great anticipation. I am wearing a sexy, short, pleated skirt, a white blouse, tied under my small breasts, and I’m ready to mingle. I’ll kiss the boys, hug them, and dance with wild abandonment.

 

But when I walk into the frat house, the place disappoints me. It’s like a film set for a cheap assed porn shoot.

 

Jill takes one gander, turns, and says, “I’m out of here, Tonya. Come on, I know a party on the side of town.”

 

The party’s like some cheesy, soft-core college picture show. Filled with kids wearing tight shirts and making out together on thrift-store couches with warm cans of cheap, light beer to wash down the discontent.

 

“No, I think I’ll hang here for a bit. If the other get-together is nicer, shoot me a text,” I say.

 

“Okay, it’s your funeral, this shithole gives me the willies.” And she’s gone.

 

I catch my reflection in the mirror. The schoolgirl outfit looks great on me.

 

A pungent fog from Mary Jane hangs heavily in the air, but I stay sober. I know what happens if you get drunk or high with frat boys. They get handsy, I get pissed, they get their feelings hurt, and I leave with them pissed at me. When I stay sober, I can navigate away from the pitfalls. I don’t have a bad reputation and don’t intend to get one.

 

I drift away from awkward small talk and end up in a different, clumsy conversation with Don. He’s friends with my sister and hung with her back in the days when she was here. He checks me out, gazing from my red hair on my head to my pink tennie-runners.

 

It’s like he’s counting how many years he has on me. Fifteen if you count them up, but he seems cool. He looks at me like I’m my sister from way back in the day, ten years before. A wolf in sheep’s clothing or a man who’s sad the best girl he dated had married another man. I think he likes how much I remind him of Natalie, my big sister.

 

Then again, in his old fraternity house, he’s the cool older man amongst the wealthy, entitled white boys. He and his two friends are men among boys at this stupid frat house party. This joint sucks ass, big time. I want to slip away and head to the other party with the hipster art majors downtown.

 

Those friends of Don’s are the ugly-duckling brothers. Only they won’t be growing out of their ugliness. I believe they are brothers. They aren’t quite identical twins. They’re the other kind of twins, whatever that’s called. Tall and strapping guys with a little too much gut, far too few brains, and faces not even their mother could like, much less love.

 

That isn’t true. I’m sure that even Quasimodo’s mommy loved him, and they aren’t quite that homely.

 

With a goofy, lopsided smile, Don says, “Hi, hey, how ya doing?”

 

I let the strap of my bag fall off my shoulder, flip my hair, and twist a strand before pushing it back over my ear.

 

“Fine, I guess. So, you know my sister, right?”

 

“Yeah, totally. You’re, what, a freshman?”

 

“Junior, actually. Getting out of here in May.” I lie through my teeth.

 

He launches into the same come-on he used on my sis. He tries to get familiar with me. It’s sweet, in its own godawful way, but a bit creepy. After all, I’m 18 and he’s 33. He is handsome and sexy and framed on either side by the gargoyle twins. I imagine the pair of them atop a building clutching their feet, their heads thrust forward, mouths open, and rainwater pouring out like vomit.

 

I laugh, and Don thinks his joke cracks me up. I let him.

 

He gets touchy, and I back away. Don relents from his tactics, and we’re copasitic again. This makes me feel he’s a gentleman. Never remember sissy saying anything bad about Don, so I feel safe and secure. I drift away from him, and he starts in on another girl, his bodyguards in tow.

 

After twenty minutes, Don’s back, minus his entourage. He wants us to get high together, but I say no. Yada, yada, yada, he chatters on, ask about sis, comes back to us getting high. Yada, yada, yada again, compliments me, says he remembers me being much younger than my sis. Tells me he thinks I’m 18 or 19. I come clean.

 

But despite my thinking he’d be put off that I am 18, he’s chill about it.

 

I get a text from my friend Jill. Hum, the party on the other side of town’s better, and I don’t want to stand around playing Which Major Is Yours with all these frat jocks. But then Don is here, and I might have a shot at some harmless fun. So I hover and let him think I’m nervous, shy, and unimpressed.

 

“Just got a text from a friend,” I say. “Party other side of town. Wanna jet there with me?”

 

He’s got second-day stubble and bright white teeth, and his eyes are sunken but not unkind. Pretty standard for a punk-rocker 12 or 13 years past graduation. Hasn’t made the big time and probably has a good job with Bennies. He leans back against the kitchen counter, taking his own good time answering.