A Modern Jack and Jill

It was August, my-my how time does fly. They had planned for a trip to the beach and what a day it had been.

102 degrees, 47 degree ocean water and a group of guys that looked absolutely amazing without their shirts. Could it get any better? Sandrine thought as she put her little over skirt on over her black bikini. She grabbed her suntan lotion and scat to the kitchen.

She saw Matt looking in the fridge for something in his swim trunks.

“Darling you would look dashing in a Speedo.”

“How bout you would look dashing without that bikini.”

Sandrine rolled her eyes, “Come on, hot stuff, let’s go.”

She flipped her hair and walked out of the house. She went and sat in the car, they were taking, an impulse came over her, she retracted her arm the launched it at the horn. Matt came rushing out of the house, she smiled and blew a kiss.

“You love to flaunt, don’t you?”

“What can I say; I got a lot to flaunt. IE, you!!!”

He got in the car and they drove to the beach. They met the rest of the band there; Johnny was over paranoid about parking and getting a good spot.

“We’re here, happy?”

“Most definitely.”

“Good.” He walked over to Sandi and picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. “Let’s go.” He chimed and walked over to the guys. Sandrine was laughing her head off.

When he set her down, she went off on him, “Look at me Mathew! Do I look like a rubber ball or plastic toy to you? NO! I’m delicate! I’m like a flower compared to you.
I’m gonna have bruises from your shoulder on my tummy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry my delicate flower princess, next time I’ll carry you upside down!”
Everyone broke out laughing. They all hung out, joking, laughing, drinking in the guys’ case, got a bit wet, and sun bathed.

Sandrine was walking along the beach collecting sea shells when she saw this group of girls whispering and pointing at her. Being bored she strutted over.

“Hey chicks, what’s all the pointing for?”

The blonde spoke up, “Are you with M Shadows?”

“Uh, no but I am with a Mathew Sanders. Why?”

A brunette asked, “OMG, you’re that girl MTV has been talking about. You were the one of Panic’s shows. So have you slept with matt? What make him pick you?”

“You wanna know the secret?” the nodded their heads, “Cause I am hot as fuck and yet we’ve done the dirty. I mean, you know, it could make a pretty penny as a porno.”
All the girls scattered squealing ews and gross. Or what a perv or fuck up. Sandrine laughed and returned to picking her shells.

This one boy approached her. He was young, about her age, dark hair, tall but it’s not like Sandrine was tall herself, preppy too.

“Hey.” He said, his voice, it sounded very familiar, “Sandi, is that you?”

“Brent?” he was an old peer from her high school, she had an acute crush on him back when but now, wow talk about grown up! “Hey, what’s up? What are you here in Cali for? Job? College?”

“I just graduated and wanna work here. It’s got good business. You?”

“Oh, well, boyfriend. Sadly kinda was in school but shit happened.”

“Oh. Who’s the toy? It’s not still Adrian is it?”

“No, fuck no. he left. It’s Mathew Sanders now.”

“That’s cool.” He passed a sea shell, bent down to pick it up and gave it to her.

“Thanks.” She looked at the water, sky and where the guy’s were at. “Brent it’s been nice talking to you but I better go.”

He nodded and Sandi ran off. She got back to the guys who looked a little grim, but she figured they had drunk themselves sour and Johnny was as red as a lobster. Sandrine guessed it was probably time to go home. She took off her skirt to put the shells in to and grabbed her towel as the guys grabbed their stuff to go to their car.

Matt muttered, “Yeah, show him you ass. I’m sure he’ll love it.”

Sandrine having heard what he said turned to him, “Matt! What are you talking about? Show off my ass to whom?”

“Just get to the car.”

He grabbed his stuff and walked to the car. Sandrine rolled her eyes and followed suit. The ride how was a silent one, so Sandrine went up into her head and listened to Strength of the World to keep herself preoccupied. She was sure shit was going down once inside the house. She jumped out of the car and speed walked to the house, scuttling inside and let Rhett outside in the back yard. She’d be damned if she would allow any youth, human or not, she wouldn’t let it see this mess. She pressed her head up against the glass sliding door. She knew Matt was about 6 feet away from her. She took a breath and faced him.

Matt’s face was flushed with anger, or a sunburn but more anger, “Who were you talking to?”

“Brent, he was a guy I knew from high school.”

“Why were you flirting with him?” he yelled at her.

Sandrine rose her voice, “I wasn’t Mathew. Why do you always say that?”

“because… because… you don’t understand.”

“What? That you’re paranoid? That you’re jealous? I don’t know what of, but you could at least give me some room to breathe. There is now reason you shouldn’t trust me.”

“Well you are just so confusing, you constantly sent mixed messages.”

Sandrine shook her head, putting her hands up, walking some where Matt wasn’t sure of, “I don’t need this.”

Matt followed her to the bedroom. She started to pack up Rhett’s stuff.

“No, you can’t leave.” Matt yelled.

“And why not Mathew?”

“Because we aren’t done.”

“Well that’s too bad, you don’t trust me to even be around your fucking friends, you assume I’m flirting and going to cheat on you. If there is anything I’ve learned from anyone, is don’t cheat. I’m not a cheater, but apparently you don’t get that.” Sandrine was up in his face yelling.

Matt slapped her across the face, hard, knocking her on the floor. Sandrine got back up, wiping away the blood on her lip.

“I thought men weren’t supposed to hit girls.” She sneered.

“Bitch.” He punched her face. “Don’t leave.” He commanded.

She spat, blood trickling out, “Fuck you.”

That remark sent him up the wall. He started to severely beat her.
She was alive, defiantly far from death, but a couple more hits would have sent her into critical car or a coma.

“Think about what I said. I’ll see you in a bit.” Then he left the room, locking it behind him. She heard a pawing at the door, it was Rhett.

“Rhett? Rhett baby, mommy’s in here. Mathew open the door and let him in.” she begged. He didn’t answer. “MATHEW! If you touch one hair on him I’ll kill you.” She screamed worried about Rhett for the pawing had stopped.

She did hear a muffled woof of delight and the bounce of a jolly ball hitting a wall near by. Sandrine smiled, kind of, happy that her puppy was safe.

Later that night, Matt opened the door, but locked it again ‘just in case’.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I got outta control. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Sandrine mumbled, “Fine, whatever.”

“Do you forgive me?”

She crossed her fingers behind her back so that Matt couldn’t see, “Yes.”

He hugged her pale from and took a look at what he had done to her. Sandrine purposely had not touched her cuts and bruises.

“My god, what have I done?” he picked her up out of bed, went to the bathroom and cleaned her up.

A week went by, Matt’s doting was getting old; he had said he was sorry for the 5,000th time and had done whatever Sandrine wanted. She saw that he was kind of sorry, but she didn’t quite trust him yet.

‘why would he beat the shit out of me then say sorry and be remorseful. He shouldn’t have done it in the first place.’

The band had come over two days after the incident. All she was shot was pity and sympathy. For what, she wasn’t sure.

Is this going to happen again? Has it happened before to his ex? What happened to Val anyways? Or is it pity that I didn’t heed Zacky’s words and get out before it happened.

She thought again, ‘Well they are leaving soon for the VMA’s or some show like that.

They were guest performances and were nominated for best rock band video of the year for their new hit ‘Deception of the Soul’ song. Thinking up a plan of brilliant creativity, she acted all loving and ‘Oh I forgive you’ to Matt for the rest of the month. When the end of the month came, the boys of A7X left to get back on their bus and off to Hollywood or some such place. Sandrine stood outside the door waving bye to them

Matt walked over to her, “We’ll be back before you know it. I love you.”

Sandrine hugged him, and mumbled, “I love you too.” Thinking it best to go with saying that so he would leave her alone without suspicion. When Matt went back to the bus, they left, leaving the smallest puff of exhaust behind. Sandrine went back inside, picked up the phone and dialed into the operator.

“Hi, can you connect me to a Daniel Leshesh, in Georgia.”

The lady connected her to Dan’s line and the phone started to ring. On the third ring as Sandrine was about to hang up, Dan picked up the line.

“Hello?” sleepiness was heavily set in his voice.

“Sorry Dan but, can you transfer my papers to a McDonalds in Orange County, California, please?”

“Why? Where did you go? I came to pick you up but you weren’t there.”

“I kinda joined one of the bands as a merch seller. And they planted me in California, but I can’t leave here but… yeah could you please do this for me?”

“Yeah, yeah, live your life and don’t die. I’ll do it in the morning, then give you a call when to go to work. Okay?”

“Kay. The number is 1-661-727-9595.”

“ok. Till then tootle-loo.” He hung up.

Sandrine went and played with Rhett, cleaned the house, packed some clothing and waited for her call back.

Finally around 5pm, he called, “Hey Sandi?”

“Yup.”

“Ok there’s one on Beach Street, they said you could work there. I faxed them your resume, they said to ‘report to the store at 6am and you’ll be assigned your duty’. Good luck.”

“Ok, thanks Dan.” Sandi finished up her folly that day and had dreams of tomorrow.

When tomorrow came, she went to he job and started working. Her duty was mainly that day to see what she could do. She worked the grill, took out trash, did cashier and other jobs as such. At the end of the day, Sandrine walked over to Huntington Beach Park, and sat down on a bench to think. She had sat there not 10 minutes when a pair of AE pants came up to her.

“Wow, I don’t see you for a year or two then I see you in two consecutive months.”

Sandrine looked up to see Brent’s eyes, and smiling face, “Hey Brent.”

“So, what’s up? What’s wrong?”

“Remember that ‘boyfriend’?”

“Yeah…”

“Well it’s not so much.”

“What happened?”

“He got a bit too aggressive and I know this is weird but could I star at your place for a while?”

“Yeah, sure, as long as you don’t mind the mess of American Eagle and guy stuff.”

Sandrine smiled and went with Brent not far from the park and McDonalds. It was a good sized apartment; it looked like he hadn’t quite quit video games. Sandrine got to sleep on the pull out couch and have her own space.

After she had settled in, she walked over to Brent’s room, “So I need to ask a couple of questions.”

He shrugged, “Shoot.”

“First, what are the rules of your house?”

“Um… no walking with shoes on the carpet, if I have a party, BYOB, don’t stink, um… don’t get me up at night/ early morning for something stupid… I don’t really know. Normal stuff like that, I guess.”

“What do you want me to help with?” he raised an eyebrow, “like for every time I shower, do you want me to give you $20 to go to the water bill?”

“No, that’s just weird. If you feel the need or urge to help, do my laundry or clean the place, obviously I rarely get around to it.”

“Ok.” She beamed, hugging Brent, “Thank you so much Brent. You’re a live saver.”

He shrugged, “Meh, I try to be,”

Sandrine let go of him, changed into her PJ’s and went to bed.