Keats walked into the frat house of Delta Omicron Gamma behind sweet-as-candy Candy.
"You can spy on me all you want but I don't really want to be seen talking to you." She whispered. Keats nodded, hearing the laughter on the other end of her wire. Delko and Ryan were having a good laugh at her expense and she tried to blend in with her surroundings while keeping a sharp eye on Candy.
A guy wearing a black cowboy hat, boots, and shirt sauntered over to Keats. He brought his hat down a bit in a gesture of salutation. He was what Sloane would have called 'hot salsa'.
"Hey, cutie. Ever ridden a horse before?" He asked. Keats laughed in spite of herself.
"Nice pickup line, Billy Ray." She said, making sure Candy was still close by.
"I got a better one. How would you like to ride a cowboy?" He said, pinning her against the wall. Keats shrugged and noticed that Candy was kissing someone near the fireplace.
"Candy is such a slut. She just got married and she's already whoring around with her ex." Keats heard someone say.
"Who's Billy Ray?" Ryan asked. The handsome cowboy looked a bit puzzled by the random voice coming out of Keats' ear. Keats turned off her wire.
"Nobody." She said with a flirtatious smile. Maybe I can use this guy to get some info on little miss 'take you to my Candy Shop'.
"I don't rightly recognize you, sweet thang." He purred. Keats noticed Candy making her way slowly up the stairs with her ex-boyfriend.
"Do you wanna go upstairs?" Keats asked, already taking off after Candy. The cowboy followed her in a flash. Guys are so funny. Sex commands the brain.
Candy slipped into one of the many bedrooms along the hall and Keats went into the one right beside it. She sat on the bed and leaned her ear against the adjoining wall, feeling grossly voyeuristic.
Cowboy Joe, or whatever his name was, came into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He locked it and pounced on the bed like a 12-year-old boy. Keats threw a pillow in his face and told him to shut up. Cowboy Joe obeyed.
Keats could hear giggling and she made a face. I have to listen to that all night long? What if she never leaves the frat house? I guess I'm stuck with Coyote Joe.
"Are we gonna have sex or what?" He whined. Keats suppressed a howl of laughter. But in keeping up appearances, she made a slight shrug with her shoulders. This seemed to drive Coyote Joe up the wall.
Suddenly Keats heard a scream from in the next room and she bounded off the bed and into the hallway. She kicked the door down to the next room and held her gun ready in front of her.
"Freeze!" She shouted, catching Candy in the act with her ex-boyfriend. They glanced up at her fearfully and Keats had never felt more ridiculous in her entire life.
"Shit." She mumbled under her breath. Her cover had been blown, and far too soon.
"Candy…where is your husband?" She asked, carefully stowing her weapon. Coyote Joe had followed her into the room and stood smiling at her. Candy pointed at the deranged cowboy and Keats swallowed hard.
"I'm her husband." He said, grinning like a demon. He tightened his fist and shoved it in her stomach. Keats doubled over in pain. Coyote Joe knocked her backward, sending her sprawling to the floor.
"So you finally found me, huh? We could have screwed first just for fun…maybe we still can." He came to rest on his knees beside her. She was still puffing heavily, clutching her abdomen.
Candy and her ex-boyfriend slipped out after the commotion started, and now it was just Keats and the Ladykiller. He placed a confident hand on her thigh and grabbed it, pulling her closer to him.
"I don't usually do it this way…I never thought of myself as a rapist." He said, crawling on top of her. She was slowly gaining her strength back and she socked him square in the jaw. The Ladykiller recoiled, but recovered swiftly and grabbed a handful of hair, slamming her head against the hardwood floor.
Keats saw stars and was powerless to stop him as he ripped open her button-up shirt. She groped blindly for her gun, only to have him toss it to the side. He began working on the zipper of her jeans, sliding them down her hips expertly.
Eric and Ryan entered the fraternity house looking about as out of place as two porcupines in a balloon store.
"Have you seen Candy Steadham?" Eric asked a girl near the stairwell.
"That tramp? She went upstairs with Greg Fehris, her ex-lover. I saw her husband follow her up there with another girl. Red hair…glasses…"
Eric and Ryan exchanged glances and raced up the stairs. Along the way they ran into Candy Steadham and her half-naked Greg. Eric stopped them, motioning for Ryan to go on without him.
Ryan heard a shot being fired and went to the source of the sound. He saw Keats running out into the hallway, pulling up her jeans, her blouse unbuttoned. Seeing her like that…knowing he had nothing to do with undressing her…it made something inside of him snap.
"Coyote Joe's taking a dirt-nap in there. The bastard doesn't even know how to disrobe a lady." She laughed, fingering the broken buttons on her shirt.
Without warning, he backed her into the wall and gazed into her eyes furiously.
"Don't mess around with guys like that, Keats… You want to end up dead? Don't work at M.D.P.D." He said with a low, venomous tone as he turned away from her. Keats could feel her eyes welling up with frustrated tears.
"You jerk." She said, scrambling down the steps past hordes of drunk coeds. Ryan tightened his fist and slammed it into the wall, knowing only too well that he'd taken out his anger and jealousy on her. It wasn't fair to her. And yet he'd done it anyway.
"I'm such an idiot." He whispered to himself.