All Bender does is cackle manically at my inflamed reaction to his distasteful suggestion. It was all initiated by an intimate enquiry on Bender's behalf. I was thunderstruck from the private inquest into my life and couldn't help but to unwillingly grant my jaw to promptly cascade. Not even my own control within me could hinder the drop. The question was explicit, bordering on an interest beyond Bender's inquisitiveness. My exact response was screaming: 'Go to hell!' before catapulting the book I had commenced reading earlier on once I made it coherent and eloquent to Bender that he wasn't to glance at me, nor was he to even converse with me. Whether it be casual or an articulate negotiation, I commanded him not to utter a word in my direction subsequent to his game prior to this precise moment where it involved me touching a part of him my fingertips should have never grasped.
"Did I stutter, Nightingale?" Bender chuckles, inhaling a drag of the bitter nicotine before liberating the ashen grey pillar of smoke crafted into miniscule rings, his mouth chomping on them only to replicate the cycle. "I said: have you lost your virginity yet?" Whilst repeating the question, his molten chocolate brown eyes peer down to my breasts, the glimmer in those eyes being as lurid as Bender can possibly make it. "More importantly, Nightingale, would you lose it to me?"
Again, my jaw declines rapidly, a squeak granting itself emancipation from my voicebox. Each of my facial features distorts into ferocity, nostrils flaring and a gush of crimson accessing the pores of my porcelain skin. I snatch the book entitled 'Picasso's Great Works' but before I can even hurl it at Bender amused face, he clasps onto my wrist allowing the book to plummet to the floor, a torn page where the 1941 painting depicting a lover of Picasso falls out of the snow white pages consisting of a rustic font containing descriptions. Both mine and Bender's eyes simultaneously drift down to the page.
"Dora Maar au Chat. Most expensive painting in the world" Bender murmurs as if he is immersed in the scanned image exhibiting one of Picasso's paintings. My almond shaped eyes, the pigment identical to Bender's, snap up at him out of astonishment. From what I perceived in the hallways during our mandatory breaks, Bender doesn't enrol himself in Art classes after an incident involving luminous paint and three of his friends, and of course, the notorious Bender.
"She's only abstract because of his frustrations towards her" I mention in a whisper, our eyes, again at the same pace and time, raising to chain together.
"Why don't you address Dora Maar by her full name, Nightingale? She's a human being, we all deserve respect shown in that way, don't you think?" he hisses. Bender's eyes don't motion away from mine, like they are anchored through an invisible force.
"Then why don't you call me Simmone?" I snap, but still I don't rupture the force, something doesn't yearn for me to. Despite the odium I feel towards him, there is no possibility from being unshackled from the serenity. It's like I can almost see the liquefied dark brown hue colliding together in waves.
"Why don't you call me John instead of Bender? You think I like being directly lectured by my surname, Nightingale?" Bender whispers in a daunting yet critical tone, as if the words he says are sincere.
Could it be Bender feels the same towards judgments but only masquerades it to be worshipped by friends and attached to the mandatory guidelines structured for our uncharacteristic society in education? We have no path to freedom, only beliefs and stereotypes to chaperon us and mould us into characters. The traits we have today are created correspondingly through development starting with our parents, the next stage being through scrutiny and adoration from peers, and finally, the last stage – the definitions in our personalities. What could have constructed Bender to portray this insubordinate man? Family life, those around him?
Bender leans in, his nicotine seasoned lips nearly abutting mine, those chocolate pigments dancing in the suns beams accessing this room from the circular window located to our left. Enclosing those eyes are prolonged eyelashes, not dropping once in his intent stare. I continue to look into them, a war of intimidation on both sides commencing. Never will I cast my head or sight down to anyone.
"Do you think I do?" I reply quietly, in a whisper with touches of a hiss. At that interrogation mirroring Bender's last words, he retracts and slumps into the back of his seat. Though he has positioned himself in front of me, his eyes never relocate themselves to another object.
"About that virginity of yours, has the cherry popped or not? If it has, who and when? If it hasn't, there's a cupboard right over there" Bender yawns, a sudden tilting in his head gesturing to the cupboard to our left where books of literature and non-fiction are stored.
Arms folded in dominance, that stare still engaged, I know he isn't deceiving me. He is so casual, it is almost alarming. If I didn't know of his dishonourable repute, it would be shocking and I would be offended. Why am I not offended? This man, this person I have known for all of my school days, has just implied something in the most blatant way, not even making the endeavour to insinuate. So why am I not insulted?
"Tell or cupboard? If you won't do the second option for me, do it for Vernon. I'm sure he'd just love overhearing us two" His mesmerizing eyes, they glitter in the sunlight, and there is warmth. Not from the sun's clement fervour, but from his own disposition. There is something, a trait, prowling inside of Bender, and it can only be shown in his brown eyes. Now, it is my mission for him to show it through actions and words as well. "What's it going to be, Nightingale?"
"Call me Simmone," I snap, deliberately pausing the sentence. Somehow, Bender also knows I haven't finished talking "John. Like you said, we all deserve respect"
"Call me Bender," Bender grins, flashing his teeth at me, highly amused at something as he creates a hiatus "Simmone" My full blushed-coloured lips press against my cheeks, little dimples showing in the corners, finding the acceptance to say my first name slightly endearing. "Now that we've got name choices outta the way, what's it going to be? Cupboard or tell?"
"I'm not going into the cupboard with you, however, there is nothing to tell either" I say. Bender's eyes have a sudden luminosity to them as they widen. It's like he's staggered by this genuine fact. It is sincere though as I haven't brought myself to lose such a virtue until I meet someone I have pure love for.
"Why not?" he asks.
"Why not to what?" I reply, curious to know what the question relates to.
"Why not to why there is nothing to tell" he whispers, tilting his body over his folded arms compressed against the wooden table.
"Believe it or not, Bender, I want to meet a guy I trust before I do anything. It's a special moment between two people who love each other, or so I was taught" I motion my chair so it scrapes along the floor, a blood-curdling screech being sounded through the room, getting more proximate to Bender who persists in resting against his muscular lower arms.
"Is that why you won't go into the cupboard?" he inquires, causing my eyebrow to heighten. "Because you don't trust me?" I just stare at him, a blank stare notifying that I have no answer. Due to my development, I can't trust. Nobody, excluding a few close friends, possesses my total faith. Bender sighs deeply, almost as if he is exasperated. Does he feel some misery in me not trusting him? "Of course not, who would trust Bender the Criminal?"
Suddenly, his demeanour alters itself. Once, only mere seconds ago before musing over that unjust title engraved onto his name, he was amiable. In the present, he is enraged. It manifests in his facial features – nostrils flare, quivers of anger in his lips – it is close to frightening me. He leaps from his chair! A bang echoes where Bender slammed his palms against the table, my only reaction being a flinch.
"It's great! Bender the Criminal, Bender the Thief, Bender the fucking kid of a poor son of a bitch whose daily routine involves getting himself thrown in prison! You know, Vernon even said in an assembly once, 'Don't trust John Bender, stay away from him' all because I was selling cigarettes to kids in the grade below us, seventeen year olds and above only" Bender explodes, but unexpectedly simmers the eruption from all the unmerited nicknames catapulted at him throughout the years, and calmly takes his place in the chair again, his eyes shackled onto me through thin air. "I don't give a shit though" he snorts. "I'd rather be called that than Simmone, the girl who might as well not have a father, Simmone, the girl who argued with her mother the hour before she died"
"Shut the fuck up!" I scream, about to persevere until Bender launches out of his seat once again, thrusting a finger onto my gaped lips.
"That's why you should trust me, Simmone" he whispers, eradicating a singular bead of water trickling down my cheek with his thumb, the touch sensitive yet holding some pressure. He needn't have hauled up those two memories from my bank of recollections, the rumours and reputation sealed onto my being already do it for me. "That's why you should trust me"
And then, at those very words, I trust him.
Thank you for reading! Sorry for the long wait once again, I've had a lot of exams on. Hope you all enjoy though, and thank you to those who reviewed on the last chapter and have favouritied and followed this story since :)
Ooh, and Happy Independence Day to all my American readers and I hope you all have a great day! :D