The Red Fox: A Romance (11 page)

He turned away with a disgusted look in his face and walked to where his date was sitting.

The Terminator remained calm. Her pupils flashed red.

She was still in control; however, now the game had changed.

Berkley picked up his date and pulled her on the dance floor.
Time to intimidate,
he thought.

Jay and Leaf also took to the dance floor.

As they held each other and danced, Berkley maneuvered himself closer to them, and bumped into the back of Jay.

“
Don't worry about him,” Leaf said. “Keep your eyes on me.”

Again Berkley moved closer and bumped Jay. The other couples on the dance floor began to notice what was happening and started to move away.

Jay continued to look into Leaf's eyes. He smiled. He felt his own heart at peace. It wasn't racing. It wasn't scared.

The other couples had moved to the side of the dance floor and only Jay, Leaf, Berkley and his blonde dance partner were left.

“
I'm going to destroy you.” Berkley called out. “You better run now, because if you don't I'm going to humiliate you.”

“
I'm not running. Not now, not ever,” Jay replied. He turned back to Leaf. God, she was beautiful. She was everything he dreamed of. She was the reason he was no longer afraid. “They say perfect love drives out all fear,” he said, smiling at her. He moved closer and kissed her gently on the lips. “I've got my perfect love in my arms.”

“
You're a dead man, New Guy,” Berkley hissed again.

Jay just smiled at him. Looking back at Leaf, he said, “Now we just have to wait for fear to realize the game is over and leave.”

“
Perfect love drives out all fear,” Leaf repeated, “It's very poetic, and I believe it's also true . . . but I do believe that sometimes—” she swung around to face Berkley just as he was maneuvering to bump Jay once more, “even perfect love needs a little help.”

With lightning speed plowed her knee into his crotch. Berkley squealed in pain and plummeted to the dance floor, groping at his groin.

It caused such a scene even the DJ stopped playing. Everyone piled onto the dance floor and surrounded Berkley as he continued to moan on the floor.

“
Out of my way, out of my way,” someone yelled as she pushed through the crowd. It was V.P. Hopkins. She looked at Berkley holding his groin then looked around at the entire senior year watching the spectacle.

“
What happened here?” She asked, but no one answered.

“
Are you OK?” She asked Berkley.

At the same time, Rick quickly knelt down next to her.

“I think he was bitten, Ms. Hopkins,” he said, sounding very serious. “I think I saw a
spider
crawling on his pants just before he fell.”

Ms. Hopkins, visualizing a major lawsuit, began to freak out.

“Nurse!” she cried out. The school nurse plowed through the crowd. Ms. Hopkins grabbed her and whispered in her ear, “
Spider bite
—no time to waste—
do
something!” The nurse, in a mad panic, immediately pulled down Berkley's pants with lightning speed, but then she froze, unwilling to take his pants off. There was only so much she was prepared to do for her job. She turned to the crowd,
“Can someone who knows this young man please take his underpants off? I need to check if he was bitten!” she cried out.

Nobody moved.

No one said a word.

Suddenly, the crowd parted as Lucy pushed her way through. The Terminator didn't say a word, she just bent down and ripped off Berkley's underpants with one hand, like a machine. 

The entire crowd went silent—then all at once they burst into laughter.

Even Ms. Hopkins stopped dead and stared in shock.

“No bite marks there, Ms. Hopkins,” Rick said, trying to sound serious in the midst of all the laughter. Ms. Hopkins went bright red.

Before them, for all to see, was Berkley's
Beast
in all its glory.

Even his friends couldn't help but laugh.

“
That's your
Beast
,
is it?” Brick said, laughing with the other goons standing around him.

“
For the love of decency, somebody pull his pants up!” Ms. Hopkins cried out. But nobody volunteered.

A few moments later Berkley came to his senses and realized he was lying there with his pants around his ankles and the entire student body standing around him laughing. He pulled his pants up, horrified, and ran as fast as he could out of the school, utterly humiliated.

One of the students, a long time sufferer of Berkley's bulling, turned and ran as fast as he could out of the hall, darting down the hallway to Berkley's locker. He pulled out a felt tip marker and wrote in large letters: TINY.

At least ten other victims of Berkley's bulling also began planning their own payback, and payback he would receive. For the next six months, all the way to graduation, he would walk around school being heckled:
Little man, tiny, peewee, pinky, string
—
the list went on. Every once in a while one of his previous victims would even call out
Beast
in the cafeteria, to the laughter of the rest of the school.

Vice Principle Hopkins and the school nurse broke through the crowd and chased after Berkley, carrying a bucket of ice, still worried about the small chance he actually did get bitten by a spider.

Slowly the crowd began to mingle again.

Rick blew his hair out of his face and shot Jay a smile from across the room, nodding at his friend with pride. He turned and gestured to the DJ to start playing some tunes again. A slow love song began to play and all the guys wasted no time pulling their date into a slow dance.

Jay took Leaf's hand.

“
May I have this dance.”

“
Not just this one,” she said. “Every dance. Every day. Everything.”

“
Everything?” Jay said. “Can I have your heart, too?”

She smiled.

“
You already have it.”

He placed his hand gently on the back of her neck, drew her closer, and kissed her.

It was a beautiful, soft kiss.

He kissed her with all the courage in his heart. She kissed him with all the purity in hers.

Together, they felt fully alive.

THE END

From the Author

If you enjoyed this novella and would like to share your thoughts for others to read it would be great if you could write an amazon review for
the Red Fox
. You can write a review
here
.
Thanks for reading!

Love rocks,

Kim Hunter