Screaming Divas by Suzanne Kamata Read Free Book Online

could get a drink of water. Then he led her back to the office. “Why don’t you hang out here for a while? Read some books. Get a feel for the place.” He left her there to go teach a class.
    Trudy sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk. She pushed off against the desk and gave it a spin. When the chair came to a stop, she started looking in the drawers. Lots of pens, paper clips, a scattering of business cards. In the bottom drawer there were stacks of papers—drafts of an article Jack was working on. Something about Gullah coming-of-age rituals. And under that, last month’s
Playboy
.
    Trudy yanked it out, paged through and looked at the fleshpots. She studied Miss June’s buxom figure. Trudy could copy that come-hither look, but how would she get those tits? Suddenly bored, she slammed the magazine down and got up from the chair. She was reading through the titles of books on the shelves when there was a knock on the door.
    â€œCome in,” she called out.
    The door squeaked open and then, at first, only a head appeared. A guy, with short black spiky hair and eyeliner. His cheekbones jutted like cliffs over the hollow valleys of his cheeks.
    â€œIs Dr. Baxter in?” His whole body came into view then—gangly limbs clothed in a shorn-sleeved T-shirt and black jeans. He had a chain—the kind you can buy by the yard at the hardware store—around his hips instead of a belt. His eyes followed Trudy. The black around them made him look like some young Egyptian prince.
    â€œHe’s out,” Trudy said. “I’m his assistant.”
    He cocked his head. Just then Trudy noticed the little dagger dangling from his right earlobe. “I didn’t know he had an assistant. Are you a student here?”
    â€œUh, not exactly. Not this term.”
    â€œCool. So what’s your name? Mine’s Adam, by the way.”
    â€œAdam. I’m Trudy.” He was looking at her, sizing her up. She felt his gaze on her bleached blonde hair, her face, her uptilted breasts. “Hey, do you want to go get something to drink? I could use a break. It’s kind of dull in here.”
    â€œYeah, okay. I guess Dr. Baxter isn’t coming back right away.”
    They went down to the snack bar and ordered Cokes. Trudy paid for her own. She’d filched a twenty from Jack’s wallet the night before.
    Adam told her that he was taking anthropology to fulfill a requirement, but he was really an art major.
    â€œCool,” Trudy said. “What kind of stuff do you do?”
    â€œRight now I’m making sculptures out of junk. I use coat hangers and hubcaps and bottles and whatever else I dig up. I have a piece called
Urban Bondage
that’s pretty cool. You’d like it, I think.”
    Trudy was flattered. “You’ll have to show it to me.”
    â€œYeah, sure.”
    Trudy told him that she was seventeen and she had been in prison.
    Adam didn’t seem too alarmed. “What for?” he asked. “Were you a dealer?”
    â€œArmed robbery,” she lied. “My friend Lydia and I held up a 7-Eleven.”
    â€œWith, like, a gun?”
    â€œYeah, but I don’t have it anymore. The cops took it.”
    â€œI never met an ex-con before. Especially not a girl.”
    They talked for over an hour. Trudy tossed whatever she thought might interest him into the conversation. A trip to Benin. Her stint as a striptease artist. She was good at making stuff up.
    Adam invited her to a party at his house that weekend. He and his housemates were going to get a couple of kegs and engage in an evening of debauchery.
    She thought that debauchery sounded like fun.
    Trudy arrived wearing a tight black dress without underwear.
    The bash was already in full swing. People were draped over the porch railing and spilling onto the lawn. A few staggered in the street. Most of the partiers were college age, but Trudy saw some that looked younger than