Chapter 6: Garage Aftermath
The beam of the phone flashlight was a physical violation. It sliced through the intimate dark, catching the sweat on Zebby’s back, the pallor of Natalie’s stunned face, the shocking intimacy of their tangled, half-dressed bodies on the concrete floor.
Brittany stood frozen in the doorway, the silhouette of her rigid frame backlit by the weak yellow glow from the house. The phone in her hand dropped slightly, illuminating the dust motes swirling in the air like condemned spirits. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, tracked from Natalie’s bare thighs to Zebby, who was kneeling between them, her own shorts shoved down, the hard, wet length of her cock visibly glistening in the abrupt light.
A full, terrible second hung suspended.
“What the fuck are you two doing in here?” Brittany’s voice wasn’t a shout. It was a low, venomous scrape.
Natalie gasped, scrambling backward off the workbench, yanking her shorts up with fumbling, frantic hands. Zebby moved with a soldier’s instinct, turning away as she stood, pulling her own clothing up, zipping herself away. The acts of concealment were pathetic, absurd. The truth was already seared into the air.
Brittany’s flashlight beam didn’t waver. It settled on Zebby’s face, then Natalie’s. The initial shock on her features melted, rearranging itself into a dawning, horrific comprehension. It wasn’t just that they were together. It was the specific, carnal reality of it. The raw evidence of a physicality she’d never imagined.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. The rage came then, flooding in behind the hurt, making her voice shake. “You lying… you fucking liars. All this time. In my house. At my family’s…” She took a step forward, her breath hitching. “Was any of it real? Were you ever actually my friend, Zebby? Or was I just your… your fucking cover story?”
“Brit, it wasn’t like that,” Zebby said, her voice rough. “You are my friend.”
“Don’t!” Brittany screamed, the sound raw in the confined space. “Don’t you dare say my name! You used me. You listened to me cry about my shitty dates, you gave me advice, and the whole time you were… you were fucking my cousin behind my back!” Her gaze swung to Natalie, accusing, shattered. “And you. You let me introduce her. You sat there while I told her all our family business. You’re sick. Both of you.”
Natalie found her voice, a broken thing. “We wanted to tell you. We were scared.”
“Scared?” Brittany laughed, a hollow, awful sound. “You weren’t scared. You were sneaky. You were getting off on it.” Her eyes dropped again, involuntarily, to the space between them where the act had just occurred. Her face twisted in fresh revulsion. “Get out,” she whispered, the anger collapsing into something colder, final. “Both of you. Get the fuck out of my sight. Now.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She spun on her heel, the flashlight beam whirling crazily across the tools and rafters before disappearing as she slammed the garage door shut. The bang echoed like a gunshot.
Silence rushed in, heavier and more suffocating than before.
Natalie slid down the side of the workbench until she was sitting on the floor again, her face in her hands. A thin, helpless sound escaped her. Zebby leaned against a stack of tires, the adrenaline draining away, leaving a hollow, nauseous pit in her stomach. The taste of Natalie was still on her lips, now mixed with the acid of shame.
“We have to go,” Zebby said finally.
Natalie just nodded, not looking up.
They emerged from the garage like ghosts. The barbecue was over; the deck was empty, the fairy lights still cheerfully twinkling over the wreckage of paper plates and empty bottles. The house windows glowed, but the curtains were drawn. They walked to their separate cars without touching, the crunch of gravel the only sound between them.
Zebby followed Natalie’s taillights down the winding coast road, back toward Lorne, back to the shitty motel that was the only space in the world that belonged solely to them. The scenic view was a black void.
Inside the room, the door clicked shut on the world. The silence was different here—not accusatory, just empty. Natalie stood in the middle of the worn carpet, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
“She’ll never forgive me,” she said, not to Zebby, to the air.
Zebby didn’t offer hollow reassurance. She knew Brittany. The betrayal was too fundamental. “I know.”
Natalie turned then, and the look in her eyes was wild, untethered. The professional composure, the capable paramedic, was utterly gone. What was left was pure, scorching need. The confrontation had burned away every civilized layer, every pretense.
“I don’t want to think about it,” she said, her voice guttural. “I don’t want to feel any of that. I just want to feel you.”
The switch was flipped. The despair ignited into a desperate, combustible hunger. Zebby crossed the space in two strides. There was no tenderness, no lead-up. She grabbed the front of Natalie’s shirt and ripped, buttons pinging off the wall. Natalie fought back, clawing at Zebby’s tank top, yanking it over her head. It was a struggle, a battle for dominance, for obliteration.
They fell onto the bed, a tangle of limbs and harsh breaths. Natalie rolled on top, straddling Zebby’s hips, her small hands shoving Zebby’s shoulders into the mattress. Her eyes were dark pools of fury and want. “You’re mine,” she snarled, the words raw. “You’re the only thing that’s mine.”
She leaned down, capturing Zebby’s mouth in a biting kiss, then trailed her teeth down her neck, her collarbone. She shoved Zebby’s shorts and underwear down roughly, freeing her cock, which was already fully hard, thick and eager. Natalie spit into her own hand, not breaking eye contact, and wrapped her fist around the base, stroking once, twice, a rough, dry friction that made Zebby hiss.
“Want it?” Natalie whispered, her breath hot against Zebby’s ear. “Want to fuck that betrayal right out of me?”
“Yes,” Zebby growled, her hips bucking up into that punishing grip.
“Then fuck me. Hard. Don’t be gentle. I don’t deserve gentle.”
Natalie positioned herself, guiding Zebby’s cock to her entrance. She was wet, but the readiness was from anger, from a deep, tumultuous ache. She sank down onto her in one slow, excruciatingly tight glide, a low, guttural moan torn from her chest as she took every inch.
For a second, neither moved, impaled on the moment, breath locked. Then Natalie began to ride her, a brutal, punishing rhythm. She rose up until Zebby was almost out of her, then slammed back down, taking her deep, the sound of their bodies connecting a sharp, wet slap in the quiet room. Her nails dug into Zebby’s chest, leaving red crescents.
Zebby met her thrust for thrust, her own hands gripping Natalie’s hips, fingers biting into flesh, helping to drive her down harder, faster. The bedframe slammed against the wall in a steady, frantic beat. This wasn’t lovemaking. It was a exorcism. Each deep, grinding thrust was an attempt to purge the guilt, the shame, the fear of loss.
“Is this what you wanted?” Natalie panted, her hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. “All those years of secret phone calls? Just to be my dirty fuck?”
“No,” Zebby grunted, sitting up to capture a nipple in her mouth, biting down gently, then not so gently. She flipped them over without slipping out, putting Natalie on her back, driving into her with new leverage. “I wanted this. All of you. The secrets. The fight. This fucking perfect, filthy cunt.” She thrust deep, grinding her pelvis against Natalie’s clit. “You’re mine, too.”
The crude words, the ownership, broke something in Natalie. Her defiance shattered into pure, unadulterated need. “Harder, god, Zeb, fuck me harder, please!”
Zebby obeyed, her thrusts becoming piston-like, relentless. The headboard was a tom-tom against the wall. She hooked one of Natalie’s legs over her shoulder, bending her almost double, angling herself to hit that spot that made Natalie see stars. Natalie’s cries lost all coherence, becoming a string of gasped obscenities, pleas, and sobs.
Zebby could feel her own climax coiling, a tight heat low in her gut. She reached between them, her thumb finding Natalie’s clit, rubbing firm, frantic circles. “Come for me,” she demanded, her voice ragged. “Come on my cock, Nat. Let go.”
Natalie’s back arched off the bed, her mouth open in a silent scream for a second before sound returned—a raw, ragged shout as her orgasm ripped through her. Her internal muscles clenched around Zebby in violent, rhythmic spasms, pulling her over the edge.
Zebby drove into her one last, deep time and held there as her own release erupted, hot and pulsing, filling Natalie as she shuddered through wave after wave of blinding pleasure.
They collapsed together, a mess of sweat and come and spent fury. The only sound was their ragged, gradually slowing breaths. The motel air conditioner hummed pointlessly.
Natalie turned her face into Zebby’s neck. The anger was gone, replaced by a profound exhaustion. A tear tracked through the sweat on her temple, then another.
Outside, a car passed on the highway, its headlights sweeping briefly across the ceiling, illuminating them, then leaving them in the dark again. Together, but with the walls of their secret world finally, irrevocably, broken down. The path ahead was a dark, unknown road.