Kari Okay

By Sarah Salari

When her new boyfriend dragged her to a karaoke bar, the best Kari hoped for was to make a new friend or two and maybe sing a song. She never expected to get involved in a singing competition, or to meet the mysterious, somehow alluring, Shyla, or the dark turn the night, her boyfriend, and her life, would take that evening after the music died down.

Kari Okay is a story of survival, suspense, and social satire that makes for a compelling, page-turning tale.

Warning: This title contains a dramatic rape scene some readers may find disturbing. Please take this note of caution seriously.

Kari Okay runs approximately 54,200 words in length. While it is the first mainstream novel by popular erotica author Sarah Salari, Kari Okay is not a work of erotica.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Salari
• Release date: Oct 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502293251

Sarah Salari

In progress

Book preview

Important Note

Those of you who know me are probably familiar with me as a writer of lesbian erotica; tales that are fun and sexy and relatively short.

Kari Okay is not one of those books.

Instead, consider it a piece of lesbian fiction. It contains suspense, some social satire, and one other element I want you to know about up front, even though it’s a potential spoiler: this novel contains a rape scene. That’s why it’s not a tale of erotica. Erotica and rape don’t mix.

It should be said that the rape is portrayed as the act of violence, domination, and control that it actually is. No part of the scene is intended to titillate anyone, nor should it. The act is life-changing for the character it happens to, and I have made every reasonable attempt I can make, while also telling a story, to portray the life-long after effects that such a violent act can bring to a victim of such a crime.

Rape is a theme this author takes very seriously and personally. If you believe such a scene may upset you, Chapter 9 is the chapter you may wish to skip. In the back matter, I have included contact and resource info for those whose actual lives have been negatively impacted by this sort of crime. If it’s a resource you need, I encourage you to use it.

In the meantime, if you bought this book expecting more sexy-time fun, I have many other books like that. But I hope you’ll try out this experiment with something different. It’s a tale you may well enjoy ... for very different reasons than you’ve enjoyed my other books.

Sarah Salari

January 2014

1

Of all the places she could possibly be in San Diego on a Saturday night, Kari thought the smoke-filled, loud bar called Jill’s was almost certainly on the bottom of the list. Beyond the alcohol, they served bags of chips, pretzels, and microwaved Tombstone pizzas. Nothing else resembled food. The tables were wooden extensions of a railing that went around most of the area, with old, cheap metal bar stools around each outcropping, large enough only to hold beers for people on either side. Anyone who ordered pizza would have to either hold their pizza or their beer in their hands.

Somehow, it was crowded, though mostly with loud, smelly wannabe-cowboys and white-haired grandmas dressed up like biker chicks. How her boyfriend Lance had thought this would be a great place to go on a weekend date night was beyond her. Before arriving, Kari had entertained fantasies of him taking her out to some fancy, overly-expensive restaurant, perhaps a Thai place; then a night of dancing and finally a return to his off-campus apartment where, maybe, if he was a good boy, both polite and appreciative, she might give him what he’d been after for the entire month since they met during freshman orientation.

Lance had been an upperclassman counselor while she was freshly-flown-in from a Kansas dairy farm about an hour west of Topeka. While she knew he was hitting on her from the moment he said hello, the idea of having a guy wagging after her like a thirsty puppy appealed to her the way having an ice-cold water bottle in an insulated backpack might appeal to someone wandering through the desert.

Tall, black, and a well-liked member of San Diego State’s football team, Lance was some kind of receiver, from what he said, though Kari didn’t really care. All that mattered was that he was taller than her by a foot, had a kind smile, and knew how to shower her with gifts, attention, and compliments.

That had been enough at first. But now he was growing impatient with her freshman virginity. Although he hadn’t said it yet, she could tell he wanted to pluck her cherry and swallow it whole. If she read him right, and she knew she did. Because Lance had an almost-perpetual boner whenever he was around her. He didn’t try to hide it, and she tried not to notice, but Kari suspected they were both onto each other.

None of that mattered because, truth be told, Kari was tired of being a virgin. If Hester Prynn had been ridiculed by the Puritans for her adultery, Kari had a pretty good idea that on modern college campuses, no one placed anything but scorn on girls who maintain their purity. In Kansas, among the few people she’d known, mostly from church because she had been home-schooled, her efforts to maintain her virginity had been a badge of honor. At San Diego State, she felt a scarlet V emblazoned upon her forehead, marking her as a virgin, perhaps only a single step up on the ladder from a call girl sporting at least a half-dozen venereal diseases.

Tonight, she had been mentally prepared to toss all that hometown baggage aside, reward Lance for his patience, and finally get on with being a normal, sexually-active college student. Then Lance had brought her to Jill’s, probably the most dive-y dive bar in all of San Diego. Simply standing in the place compelled Kari to want to take a shower.

Why are we even here? Kari raised her voice in the hope that she wouldn’t have to repeat herself, which they had both been forced into since entering the noisy establishment. Lance pointed at a monitor hanging over the bar. Kari looked at it, confused. A high school football game from the night before was replaying on a cable station. Not even teams from San Diego, let alone California. Florida teams, both of them.

"You brought me here so you could watch a fucking football game?"

No, babe. Look below that.

Kari looked down below the monitor and saw a cheap, torn paper sign, hand-written in thick, black Magic Marker. It read:

RAOKE EVER

TURDAY NIG

9 PM SHARP!

So? Kari wasn’t sure what it meant.

"Babe, this is a karaoke bar. You’ve been asking me what I enjoy besides football for ages."

Kari wasn’t sure a month of dating qualified as ages, but the place was too loud to argue the point. So Lance had brought her here to watch him sing only hours after she’d spent an afternoon watching him play in a game? The guy had serious ego issues, clearly. She glanced around the crowd and shuddered. If anyone here knew a song by anyone other than Johnny Cash, she’d eat a bag of moldy-looking corn chips without puking.

Are you sure this is the best place for it?

Babe, it’s early.

It was eight-forty. She pointed out the clock to him.

You’ll see, babe. Trust me. Before I met you, I did this every Saturday night after home games.

He must be talking about last season, she decided. Kari wasn’t sure she should trust Lance anymore, but decided to wait him out. Ten minutes later, the football game ended. The monitor over the bar seemed to switch channels, and a ten-minute countdown readout appeared. Some of the rougher-looking customers began shuffling out of the building. At the same time, more people began filing in, some of them looking like they might even be from San Diego State, given their age, youthful appearance, and university sweatshirts. Hope began to swell in Kari’s chest that the night might not end in a total nightmare.

The countdown over the counter began beeping as someone behind the bar switched the sound system on. A loud swoosh came out of the speakers from every corner, as the word Krystyn! flashed onto the screen. Another swoosh sound and the word Is! appeared. The third swoosh ushered the word Coming! onto the screen.

"Who’s Krystyn?" Kari asked.

You’ll see.

Lance and pretty much everyone else started chanting Krystyn’s name, until the bar rumbled from the volume of it all. Kari decided to join in, wanting to catch the spirit of the place and enjoy herself.

The countdown reached the final ten seconds and everyone joined in. As soon as they all said, One! the bar went dark and all the sound was cut off. It was as though the power had gone out. Although Kari felt scared in that moment, reassurance flooded in when the people around her continued their frenzied cheering.

A blue laser light, a single beam, dispelled the complete darkness. The speakers fired up again and you could hear the laser sizzling. A second blue beam joined it, then a third, and finally, from somewhere overhead, a white spotlight shone on a small stage at the back center of the bar. Kari felt almost certain that the mini-stage hadn’t been there before, but perhaps it had just been obscured. She couldn’t be sure.

The blue lasers disappeared, the sizzling stopped, and a simple flow of piano notes filled the air. Kari recognized the tune immediately: Bette Midler’s signature hit, The Rose.

A striking, middle-aged blonde woman stepped from the darkness and onto the mini-stage. Dressed in a sapphire-blue evening gown and wearing what had to be a replica of the blue diamond from the movie, Titanic, the woman’s appearance was both striking and mesmerizing.

She began singing.

From the opening note, the song was pitch-perfect and familiar, and yet as the mystery blonde—Krystyn, Kari had to assume—neared the end of the first verse, Kari had to admit to herself that this woman brought her own personality and style to the tune without doing violence to Midler’s classic performance. The entire bar remained silent throughout the performance of the song, and by the time the final notes were sung, Kari realized she’d been brought to tears by the somehow personal, wrenching performance.

Hoots of approval began filling the room. For the first time that night, Krystyn looked up, revealing her striking, baby-blue eyes, and smiled.

Now do you see why I come here? Lance leaned down and spoke softly in her ear, though loud enough to be heard. He moved behind her, wrapped her arms around her, took her hands in his, then pulled her close against him. She could feel his turgid manhood digging into the space between her shoulder blades, along her spine, and she sighed with contentment.

Maybe the night would end well after all.

2

D oes everyone know what tonight is?

Krystyn’s speaking voice sounded less impressive, somehow, than her singing voice. It struck Kari that she’d held the same impression whenever any of her favorite pop stars were interviewed. Someone’s speaking voice could sound ordinary, while their singing voice commanded attention. Kari wondered if the reverse could be possible. Around her, so many people were shouting out what night it was, Kari couldn’t even distinguish the words.

"That’s right! It’s Fall Karaoke Kontest night! Starting tonight and for the next month, we’ll be qualifying two guys and two girls for the semi-finals, to be held the first week of November, then the finals in the second week of November, all for a chance to win one of three cash prizes totaling not five, not ten, not even fifteen, but twice that … thirty thousand dollars!"

Krystyn knew how to excite a crowd, but with thirty thousand in cash, Kari figured the money alone was doing half her work for her. Kari listened more closely.

That’s right, there will be a third-place prize of five thousand, a second-place prize of ten thousand, and a first-place prize of fifteen thousand dollars. But that’s not all. The lone first-place grand prize winner will also receive forty hours of valuable studio time, provided courtesy of Cloud West Records, the home studio of national recording artists Tracy McFadden, and the diva of country music herself, Gwen McLachlan!

The grand prize sounded like a huge windfall, but something confused Kari. She leaned back into Lance, turning to whisper in his ear.

Wouldn’t there be two grand prizes? A guy’s winner and a girl’s winner?

Lance laughed a warm but still demeaning laugh while helping himself to a handful of her left breast. She bit her lip, waiting for his answer.

Nah, babe, these are the qualifying rounds, so they keep the genders separate. In the semifinals, they’ll have eight guys and eight girls, and they’ll eliminate that down to two of each. But in the finals, it’s everyone for themselves. The final four face off to compete for the prize money.

What happens to the fourth singer?

He tweaked her nipple through her clothing and again she bit her lip to avoid telling him he was getting ahead of her desire for him, or to simply get his grabby hands off her until she at least had some pizza and beer in her belly. He kissed her neck before answering.

Nothing, he said. They go home empty-handed.

That hardly seems fair.

Life’s not fair, babe. Just look at me. I go to the best university in San Diego, play for the best team in our conference, and I have the hottest-looking freshman girl on campus in my arms tonight.

She almost felt warmed by the compliment until she realized the person he was really praising was himself. She frowned.

You said you did this last year, too?

That’s right, babe.

Did you win?

Nah, he said. I sing okay, but I’m gone half of these weeks with the team. I just do it for fun.

A sly grin crossed Kari’s mouth, though she struggled to hide it. Maybe life isn’t quite as unfair as Lance thinks.

So come on up and sign up for a song, Krystyn announced from her stage. Check the box if you’re intending to compete! Only two guys and two gals qualify tonight. One of them could be you!

A rush of people moved toward the DJ booth and formed a line as Krystyn played an old Elton John tune.

You should try for it, babe.

Kari rankled, wondering if Lance even remembered her actual name. At the same time, it was the first show of support he’d offered tonight that wasn’t self-centered.

You think I’m good enough?

Won’t know unless you try, will you?

His logic made sense, even if it felt impersonal. That seemed to sum Lance up tonight.

Okay, she said, and wandered over to the back of the line to sign up to sing. There had to be at least twenty hopefuls already lined up, and Kari wondered how many Krystyn could fit in tonight before closing time. As she stood there, she wondered about the personality change she was noticing in Lance. It had been his apparent selflessness and kind attention that first drew her to him, yet as she thought about it, she realized this was no sudden shift. With each passing date, he’d grown more and more self-absorbed. If he kept neglecting her at this accelerating rate, what would he be treating her like in a month? Or in six weeks, by the time the karaoke championship round was held? The mere thought of his digression caused her to tremble like she was standing naked at the North Pole.

Someone walk over your grave?

Kari turned toward the voice that had addressed her and noticed it was a fellow contestant who had joined the line just behind her. She wore her hair permed and raven-black, cascading down her shoulders in a generous flood.

I guess. She extended her hand. Kari.

The other girl paused a moment, as though Kari had just pulled a gun on her rather than offering her a hand. Then the moment passed and she took Kari’s hand and shook it, her grip weak, without much enthusiasm.

Shyla, she said. Kari waited for more, but the other woman quickly dropped their handshake and stood there, seeming aloof.

Exotic name.

My parents are from New Delhi. I was born in Los Angeles.

What’s it mean?

My name, or Los Angeles?

Your name, of course. Kari smiled to soften her words.

Daughter of the mountain, in Hindi. It’s also one of the alternate names for the Hindu goddess, Parvati.

Neat. Kari said this without thinking, and immediately wished she could take it back. She was sounding so Kansas, even in her own ears. My, what a beautiful name. Why couldn’t she have said that? Anything but neat. She sighed.

Thank you.

Are you religiously Hindi?

Shyla shook her head. I’m agnostic. I don’t believe in much of anything, but I’m open to the possibility I’m wrong. You?

Christian,