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How I still felt the parts about him I loved when I didn’t know it was him I was with. How his arms around me still felt protective and how his whispers reminded me of when I loved the feel of them all over my neck.
Damn you. The fear of that night seven years ago when he first messed with me came flooding back, only this time, I doubted my dancing could get me out of this.
“Keep the necklace on,” I heard Michael say. “Just the necklace.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, his breathing labored. “You were always the sweetest little thing.”
“But you are keeping things from me,” he told her.
“You’re not suspicious?” he asked. “I spend a lot of time out of town, Rika. I can get whatever I want from anyone I want.”
And I stood there, no longer wincing or dreading my invasion of their privacy but feeling everything they were feeling and wanting more.
I don’t want to . . . make you dirty.
I hadn’t done that yet, but I wanted to. Someday.
You won’t make me dirty. There is no you. There is no me. This is us. Us.
“I was supposed to come to you for our next appointment,” Will teased, resting his head on my shoulder.
“Are you wishing someone would do that to you or are you remembering when someone did that to you?”
“You need to get fucked and bad,” he told me. “If you don’t want him to do it, I will.” Then he leaned in, whispering over my mouth. “And I would make that offer sober.”
The love was what felt good. Unfortunately, it had been one-sided in my experience. I could be tempted to take Will up on his offer to let off some steam, but it wouldn’t be more than that. I wanted him as a friend. The real question was, was he on Damon’s side or mine?
Right here. Watching me. He was always coming.
Maybe I never left. His words came back to me.
The truth was, I’d had what Michael and Rika had. I thought I had anyway. Those days were when I was the happiest. Even though it was a lie, it was the best I’d ever felt. Damon.
But I felt him.
Hurt me. You still won’t win. No creaks. No footsteps. No doors. Nothing. What did he see when he watched me? His enemy? Or something he wanted? Was I someone to torment or something to play with? Did he know the difference? Did he want me to like it? What did he see?
Or did he want his little dancer to perform for him? To make him come but never get me dirty.
“You’re not the boss,” I gasped, taunting him. “Not the boss of me. Little sister does anything she wants. Whoever she wants. You’re not my daddy.”
I hated him. He was everything bad that happened to me. But he was the only time—other than dancing—that I felt alive, too. Being with him was like dancing. Dancing with death.
He didn’t move, and neither did I. I no longer cared. I was tired of wondering what he’d do. Now he was wondering what I could do.
This was a game to him, and that was fine. He just wasn’t the only one playing anymore.
CHAPTER 15
Jesus Christ. She was beautiful. And mine. All mine whether she fucking liked it or not. She’d do this for me. Only for me from now on.
Mine. This was why I tolerated Arion. Because her little sister was my favorite little cunt. God, look at her.
The tightest thing I’d ever been inside of. She was a woman. I wouldn’t have to be gentle with her this time.
I wanted to fuck. I wanted it slow, feeling her fear, her desire, and her mouth giving back what I gave to her. But I needed her mind.
My sleeping pill. Because it’s medicinal for growing boys to have their dicks milked by their mothers.
“I can take care of anything my son needs.” She smiles and comes in, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Such a beautiful boy. You’re going to be a powerful man someday.”
She presses her body into mine, and I close my eyes, trying to go to that place I always go. Where I can pretend she’s someone else. A girl at school. Some chick in my class.
I’ve had sex with others. Girls around town. Women my father keeps. I can do this.
I’d be weak and an embarrassment to him.
This isn’t a big deal. My mother isn’t unusual. Men look at Banks the same way my mother looks at me. That’s why I hide my sister. So they won’t go after her.
Not enough, apparently. I completely forgot about the cuts once she walked in, because the broken skin isn’t enough pain to mask the shit she brings with her.
Like you’re shocked. She knows what I’ve been doing for years now. The cuts I hide under my feet. The scars under my arms and hair. The slices, pricks, and burns that are covered under my boxers until they heal and then I do it all over again. I’ve gotten creative in hiding the shit I do to release pain.
“Such a good, growing boy.”
Anger. Shame. Fear. Violence. Pain. Sadness. Helplessness.
“You can pretend I’m her,” she tells me, my dick growing hard and hot with blood. “Show me what you were going to do to her. Show me how you wanted to fuck that silly little girl.”
And I shove her head into the mirror as hard as I can, splintering the glass, and she screams.
It will never happen again. This never has to happen again. I’ll kill her if I have to.
She looks from my mother on the floor—bloody and weak—to me, her eyes scared.
The moon casts a glow over the hedge maze, and we dive in, knowing our way well and finding the fountain immediately.
But instead of hurting myself to mask pain with more pain, tonight I learned something else. Hurting others is just as effective.
We couldn’t stop the world from happening to us. We could only react.
And I dealt with it for good that night. Just like I was going to deal with Winter and the false hope she nearly destroyed me with.
“And then I want her to hate herself for it. To turn against herself and hate that she likes it, so she knows she’s weak and pathetic and no different than any other bitch. That she wasn’t special.”
I will have killed her power over me, just like I killed Natalya’s.
But she’d also mentioned a visitor at Bridge Bay Theater days ago. Someone who came into the bathroom and scared her. She’d thought it was me. It wasn’t.
