- he pulls me down, lower on the bed, my head on the pillows, and he’s suddenly on either side of me, straddling me, and I’m shaking and afraid but I’m not, not at all, my outside is betraying my inside, because my inside wants this more than anything, but he could hurt me, he hurt someone, this is wrong, he loves Sophia, not me, not me, not me, he could hurt me, he’s going to hurt me again –
- she’s trembling. I kiss her neck, her shoulder. Her whole body is quivering uncontrollably.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
Her face twists, collapses, and she hides it in her hands.
“I-I’m sorry,” she whimpers. “It isn’t right. This isn’t right.”
Something in my chest cracks down the middle and tears in two. It feels right. God, this is the most right-feeling thing I’ve felt in months, no – years. I’d been stumbling through client after client, closing myself off and forcing my way through it all with mechanical responses and sickly pleasure. But just touching Isis now, I can’t be cold. It’s impossible. She burns it all up, all the resentment I didn’t think I had, all the cynical professionalism that compounded on my fear for Sophia. I’d forgotten how to enjoy, and her every soft breath against my face and touch of her fingertips shows me how again, clear and bright and warm as a fire. It’s right. Dear god, it’s fucking right.
But she’s scared. She’s unsure. She’s wounded in more ways than I can count. And she’s drunk. I’m buzzed, but she’s drunk. Doing anything now would be uncalled for. I back off immediately.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – ”
“N-No,” She sobs. “It’s my f-fault. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey,” I say gently. “Hey. Look at me.”
She quivers, cracking her fingers and staring up at me. Her eyes are red, tears wetting her cheeks and her mascara blurring, but not running.
“It’s not your fault. Nothing is your fault.” I get up, and grab my hat from the chair. “Stay here and sleep it off. Drink that glass of water. Lock the door behind me and don’t open it until morning. Understand?”
She sits up, sniffing. She doesn’t nod.
“Understand?” I repeat. She shakes her head, purple streaks sticking to her cheeks.
“Don’t go.”
“It’s better if I do. I make you uncomfortable.”
“No!” She shouts, and lowers her voice. “No. I – I would feel better if you…if you stayed. In here. And made sure no one comes in.”
“Kayla will get worried.”
Isis’ face falls. “Oh. Oh, you’re right. You should g-go.”
I watch her, her body giving a shuddering sigh, trembling constantly and shallowly. She clutches her own arms and rubs them like she’s cold. I did this to her. I can’t leave her. Not like this.
“Here,” I say, and walk over. I pull the comforter up, and the blanket, and she eagerly worms her way beneath it.
“Are you sure that latex isn’t uncomfortable?” I ask. She looks down, and I instantly regret saying it. “I wasn’t implying you should take anything off. Just, it looks very tight, and that might be hard to sleep in, I didn’t mean –”
“I know,” she murmurs. “It’s okay. I would take it off, but I don’t have anything else.”
“Use this,” I pull my shirt over my head and hand it to her. She rubs her face on it like a cat.
“Oooh, soft!”
“I’ll just. I’ll be outside.”
“No, it’s okay, just turn around. No peeking.”
“Never.” I make for the door.
“C’mon you big prude! You’re an escort! Act like one!”
Admonished, I stare at the corner as I listen to the sound of unzipping and struggling. She grunts and curses. I smother a laugh, focusing on the whitewash of the room and the vapid painting of the ocean on the wall to scour my mind clean of the dirt it’s currently shoveling into its mouth by the truckload – what are her breasts like? She isn’t flat or small, her infamous tight outfit after the pictures spread had shown me that much. The latex had shown me gently flared hips, good, strong thighs, a small waist I could fit in one hand –
“Okay. You can look.”
I turn just as she’s halfway into bed. She looks so much smaller in my billowy, oversize pirate shirt, so much more delicate. The swell of her chest is soft and considerable. With smeared makeup and only a shirt, she looks so vulnerable, so different from the persistent, confident dervish of the last two months. Her bare legs flash for an instant before she tucks them under the covers and pulls them up to her chin.
“It smells like you.” She smiles sleepily at me. I tamp down the excitement that courses through me at her words, unruly and out of place.
“I’ll be over here.” I sit in the chair.
“Okay. Goodnight.”
I flick the light off. “Goodnight.”
She slowly, so slowly, stops trembling. Her breathing evens out. When the last tremors cease, I finally lean back in the chair and close my eyes.
-13-
3 Years
19 Weeks
1 Day
My brain throbs with a painful rhythm, trying to escape the household of abuse that is my skull. I crack my eyes open, light assaulting them. I wince and yelp, and pull the covers over my head. Whose bed is this? Why am I wearing this soft white shirt?
And then it hits me, and my brain melts out my ears. This is Avery’s house. Avery’s guestroom. Jack’s shirt. I’m hungover and wearing Jack Hunter’s shirt. My breathing quickens, panic settling on my chest like a fat, evil little man. No one’s next to me in the bed. It’s completely made, so no one slept there. It was just me. I think. I frantically scrabble in my mind for memories of what happened last night, but it’s a massive blank. I don’t remember anything.
I ease out of bed and test my weight on the floor. My mouth tastes like sin on a hot biscuit. I go into the bathroom and rub toothpaste on my teeth with my finger. It’ll do for now. I sniff at myself – I don’t smell like sex. That’s a good sign. But it doesn’t mean nothing happened. I wish I could fucking remember! I pull the shirt off and my costume back on. How did I ever manage to get this off? Or did I not take this off? Did someone else? Did Ja –
The door opens, and Jack looks in. He’s shirtless, his stomach and chest torqued with fine definition. It almost distracts me from his worried face. Almost.
“You’re up,” He says.
“What the hell happened last night –”
“No time. Kayla needs you.”
He ducks out of the door. Cold dread settles in my stomach, and I follow him down the hall. Candy wrappers and empty red cups litter the floor. The barest of sunlight streams through the windows – it’s not full-morning, but it’s not night either. I check my phone. Six exactly. Most of the party crowd’s gone. Jack urges me to hurry, and waves me into another guest room at the end of the hall. Kayla’s sitting on the bed, Wren beside her. She looks terrified and exhausted – her mermaid skirt askew and her makeup smeared. Wren offers her a roll of toilet paper, and she takes some and blows her nose with a loud honk. I rush to her, kneeling and putting my hand on hers.
“Kayla! What the hell happened to you?”
“Avery,” She breaks into a fresh wave of sobs. “Avery…my drink…she put something in my drink, Isis!”
I shoot a look at Wren. “GHB?”
He nods. “She couldn’t move for a whole thirty minutes.”
“Did anyone –”
Wren shakes his head. “Avery locked the two of us in here. Barred the door with a chair and said we couldn’t come out until we…”
Kayla wails, and looks to Jack lurking in the doorway. “Where were you? I was so scared! Why didn’t you – why didn’t you –”
“I feel asleep in another room,” Jack says softly, but doesn’t move any closer to her. “I’m sorry.”
Kayla puts her face in her hands and wails. Wren flinches. I rub Kayla’s shoulder.
“He
y, listen. You were safe. Wren’s a good guy, okay? You didn’t need to be scared.” I look up at Wren. “Right? You didn’t do anything? Tell me the truth now, and I won’t disembowel you.”
“I swear to you, Isis. I would never – I’m not a monster.” His green eyes go wide. A surge of shame makes me back down.
“Yeah. I know. Sorry for doubting.”
“Avery thought…I guess she thought…” Wren winces. “She thought I would.”
“And use it as blackmail against you for those funds,” I finish. He nods. Jack instantly springs into action after hearing that, walking over to the mantelpiece and shoving the ornaments there aside. He picks up a clock and smashes it.
“Jesus!” Wren shouts as we both jump. Kayla shrieks and covers her ears. Jack turns to us, holding a tiny black box.
“A camera,” he says dully.
“For evidence,” I mumble, slowly standing as the rage fans its flames higher in me. “That fucking bitch –”
“Don’t!” Kayla clings to my arm. “Don’t, Isis, please! She’s my friend! She’s…she’s the only friend I have!”
“Wrong,” Jack interrupts, voice hard. “Look around you. It’s the people who are here now who are your real friends.”
Kayla looks like he slapped her. She breaks into tears again, and Wren winces, unsure of what to do but so obviously wanting to help. He looks to me.
“Let’s go. We have to confront her.”
I scoff. “Confront her? That’s a little mild, don’t you think? I’m gonna rip her tits off.”
Wren smirks and we stride down the hall together, leaving Jack and Kayla alone. We weave around groaning people waking up, puddles of vomit and sticky booze, and the occasional pile of shed clothes. We go to the second master bedroom, and Wren knocks. No answer. I motion for him to stand back, and kick the door with all my furious might.
Avery’s room is painted pale purple, with a beautiful canopy bed in the center. She sits up from the pile of silky sheets, princess costume still intact, if slightly disheveled. She sees me, sees the look on my face, and tries to bolt for the window. I lunge at her, pull her back by her hair, and punch her hard enough to have her crashing to the floor.
“You really don’t learn, do you?” I say softly.
“Wh-What –” She coughs. “What are you talking about?”
I lean down and grab a chunk of her red hair and pull. Hard. She screams and twists.
“Alright, alright! I’m fucking sorry!”
“No. You aren’t. But you will be.”
“You aren’t getting the funding, Avery,” Wren says stonily. “Not now, not ever. I’m declaring the president of the French club unsuitable for duty. I’m putting a sanction on you. You’re officially banned from joining any clubs, attending senior prom, and graduation night.”
“You can’t do that,” Avery snarls. “I’ve been homecoming queen for four years straight! I’m in the running for Prom Queen and everyone knows I’ll fucking win. If you ban me, no one will come to prom. No one will come to your stupid little graduation night, either!”
“Do you really think you have that much influence over the student body?”
Avery scoffs. “I say jump, they jump. You know that.”
“Do you think you’ll have that much influence when we tell everyone you drugged someone at your own party? How many girls will trust you again? How many will brave the threat of being date-raped to come to your parties?” Wren coolly asks.
Avery’s face goes white. I pull her up by her dress and sneer.
“If you so much as breathe in Kayla’s direction ever again, I’ll kill you.”
Avery rips out of my grip and points at Wren.
“You did it! Don’t lie, you sanctimonious cunt! You fucked her! You’re a sniveling little coward opportunist and I know you fucked her!”
Wren smiles, hell-bent gaze turning more determine, more fixed and just slightly amused.
“I’m not that boy in the forest anymore, Avery. I’m not someone you can force into doing what you want. We’re older. And I’m never going to let you hurt another girl again.”
Avery takes a step back, shocked. She looks down at her hands, turns them over.
“That’s right,” Wren says. “You were so caught up in getting those funds; you didn’t realize you were doing the same exact thing you did to Sophia. You did it again. You haven’t learned at all. And you’ll probably do it again, and again, until you kill someone or someone kills you for it.”
“I was doing it for Sophia!” Avery screams, livid. “Those funds, the French club trip, it was for Sophia! She doesn’t have long, Wren, you know that! You fucking know that!”
“So you’d hurt someone else to help her?” He asks.
“I’ll do anything to help her,” Avery says through gritted teeth. “Anything.”
Wren smiles. “It’s too bad you can’t wring the money from your parents. Then again, they’re too smart aren’t they? They raised you, after all. You’re their spitting image. They’d track where it went, who was invited. They’d find Sophia’s name, and dig around in her background. And then what you did would be brought to light. It’d explode in your face. The whole town would know. Maybe it’s time the world knew.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she snarls. “You and Jack would get dragged down with me.”
“Maybe. But I’m sure in court Jack would get a pardon, and I could plead I feared for my life. We’d get off more easily. But you? No. You’d get something much longer.”
“GET OUT!” Avery roars. “GET OUT!”
She throws things – a vase, a picture frame. She rips a fancy lamp from the wall and chucks it at my head, but I duck just in time. Glass shatters and I run after Wren, back to Kayla’s room.
“We need to go,” Wren pants, helping Kayla off the bed. She leans on his arm, tears almost dried, but still looking confused.
“What’s going on?”
“Give me your keys,” I say. Kayla rummages in her purse and hands them to me. Wren helps Kayla downstairs, and Jack lags behind with me. Avery’s screaming is waking up what’s left of the party. It sounds like a banshee being squeezed out in a wringer.
“Someone’s unhappy.” Jack smirks.
“Wren threatened to come out with the truth about what happened with Sophia,” I murmur. Jack’s face falls, and settles into a granite-hard determination. Wren and Kayla stumble across the lawn to her car. Just as Jack and I get out the door, rapid footsteps come down the stairs and race behind us. I turn just in time to see Avery, nose bloody from my punch, eyes wild with savage fury, her red hair like a mane of a fire goddess, and a baseball bat raised, inches from coming down on my back. I duck, the bat swinging over me, and there’s a snap the sound of something being forced, and Jack suddenly has the bat. Avery pants, shrinking away as Jack looks at the bat, observes every inch of it.
“Just like the good old days, hm?” Jack smiles predatorily at Avery. “Although the one I used was metal, wasn’t it?”
Avery’s fury drains so fast she looks like a punctured balloon. Terror claws at her expression as she scrabbles backwards, jumps to her feet, and runs back into the house, slamming the door shut and locking it.
Jack doesn’t say anything more until I’ve dropped off Kayla. Wren drove behind us, and got out to help Kayla to her front door. She thanked him, quietly, and he watched her go inside. Wren and I nodded at each other in a farewell, and he even nodded at Jack. When we’re on the highway and I’m driving towards Jack’s house, I spare a glance at him. I’d given him back his shirt, and he has his chin in his hand, fingers over his lips thoughtfully, watching the world flicker by outside his window.
He speaks first.
“I broke up with Kayla.”
“Shocking. I thought you two were going to last forever.”
He shoots me a sardonic smirk. “Haven’t you heard? Good things never last.”
I switch lanes. Jack turns on the heater. It smells like skunk. He s
huts it off quickly.
“What happened last night?” I ask.
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember being…I remember being scared. Shaking.”
“That’s all?”
I nod. Jack goes still. His eyes are unreadable chips of ice as they always are, but for a split second I swear I see them crack on the inside with pain.
***
She was scared. She didn’t enjoy any part of it. If she did, she would’ve remembered. But her fear overwrote her memories.
The wound is far deeper than I’d imagined.
I watch her face as she drives, hands white on the steering wheel. She’s waiting, confused, trying to piece the blanks together in her mind. She blocked it out. Last night was too much like the time that caused the wound. I want to tell her I was trying to make her feel better, or tell her that I was trying to help (liar, you were taking advantage, just like he did).
In the sober light of morning, what I’ve done hits me with petrifying acidity. I forced a kiss on a drunk girl who’d been forced upon before. I’d touched a girl terrified of being touched at all. I lost control. I, Jack Hunter, the one person who keeps calm and cool and collected at all times, lost all control. And it hurt Isis so bad she blocked it from her memory.
It’s better if she doesn’t remember.
***