Chapter 23 #2
He takes me by the hair and shoves my face back into his lap. My lips part, and I take the Ruger all the way to the back of my throat.
“You hit my thigh if you need out. Understand?”
I nod, choking around the head of his cock.
“Then suck, you dirty bitch,” he breathes.
My pussy throbs, the seam of my jeans pushing against my aching clit. There’s a darkness in me, and I think Leland put it there. It’s a hungry, raw pit that knows what it’s like to die of slow decay and fights back hard.
On my tongue, I taste the salt spilling from his body.
He’s so alive.
The taste of his cock in my mouth is the underbelly of him. Rough, sexual, violent, but never to me. It’s a force of life, flowing from him to the deadness in my veins.
I push deeper, feeling the head press against the back of my throat.
But I don’t gag, because I’ve done this before, many times.
It’s a small victory I learned how to deepthroat because Leland made me, but Jensen is the first man to let me enjoy it.
Leland is a jealous man, and if he knew what I was doing right now, he’d be beyond furious.
A chill goes down my spine. Jensen takes me by the hair and pumps my mouth up and down his length. My breath cuts off. I swim in darkness before it floods back.
“Fucking whore,” he breathes.
I moan around his cock, licking the underside with my tongue.
This is my fuck-you to the man who destroyed me.
He took my innocence. He made my womanhood come all at once until I no longer recognized myself.
I didn’t understand life before it had me by the throat and all my choices had been made for me.
I was a child, I think, when Leland came.
But with Jensen, I am a woman of my own making.
BEFORE
My mother leaves before the sun is up. She says she needs groceries, but I know why she’s going. Last night, Leland asked to stay. She said he could if he slept on the couch. He promised to, but after she was in bed, my door opened.
He’s a shadow. My window is open and the room is airy and pleasant. I wonder if he notices that, or if he only knows my room is so much less than what he’s used to.
“Della,” he breathes, weight sinking the bed.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I whisper.
He pulls the covers up over us. Hot breath touches my neck. My spine prickles—is this what arousal feels like? Kisses follow it up my throat. He pulls my nightgown down and exposes my breasts.
Mama said that’s a sin, but does it count if the lights are off?
I don’t have time to figure it out, because he reaches between us, and his zipper hisses. Then, there’s a spark of pain, a second where I gasp out loud. Then, his body rocks, and all I can think about is how strange the concept of sex is when I really turn it over in my head.
He leaves very early. I’m stiff the next morning when I go out into the living room, expecting Mama to start yelling at me, but she’s gone. There’s a note on the table saying she’s getting groceries.
Cold all over, I go back into the bedroom. My quilt is pushed back, and my sheet has a pale crimson stain. I sit down and touch it. The fabric is stiff. I lean over and look in the laundry basket I use for a trash can. At the bottom of the bag sits a condom, tied in the middle.
I’m angry, but I don’t know why.
Head down, I tie up the bag and haul it to the trash outside. Then, I strip the fitted sheet off the bed, ball it up under my arm, and start walking down the road. It’s hot and I’m on bare feet, still wearing my nightgown. My legs itch with sweat. The gravel digs into me with every step.
But nothing is stronger than my anger.
Slap, slap, slap.
My feet eat up the distance to the end of the road. Beyond that lies a fence, a flat pasture, and a river. Up on the other side is a tiny church. They don’t mind when the local kids swim in the river, so they leave the gate open. I slip through and take off running across the field.
How dare he touch me?
I skid to a halt at the edge of the river. It’s higher than it usually is in summer. Moving carefully, I step into the lazy water and wade out until it reaches the middle of my thighs. Stomach turning, I drop the sheet in and watch it soak through. A lump rises in my throat.
I scrub the stain out in the river until it dissipates in the cold, clear water.
I could have said no.
And yet, he should have known better.
Teeth gritted, I wring out the sheet and carry it all the way back to the trailer. Mama is in the kitchen, unpacking some grocery bags from the gas station. She glances at the wet sheet and goes pink, but she won’t say anything about it. She never talks about anything indecent.
“Did Leland leave?” she asks, voice cheery.
“Yeah, and he can’t come back,” I say.
She goes still, hand in the bag. “He’s a Caudill.”
“So what?”
“I don’t think people say no to the Caudills,” she whispers.
My stomach sinks as I realize she’s scared. Regret seeps in. Leland is wealthy, but more than that, he’s got the power to destroy us both. That means he also has the power to make us.
“Della,” she says gently. “I loved your father, but if I’d had the choice, I’d have picked a man with the means to support you.”
My stomach is an ice cold knot.
“A man like Leland can protect you, provide for you,” she says. “Money will keep you safer than love. I won’t always be here, sweetheart.”
I want to crumple, to beg her for a choice. I know a man with money can keep me safe, but what keeps me safe from the man with money? Instead, I lift my chin, remembering how much she’s sacrificed to put food on our table, how hard it’s been for her since my father died.
“I understand,” I manage.
“Good,” she says, a forced smile on her face. “Leland said last night he wanted to come for dinner this evening. Let’s get some bread going so we can have it fresh.”
She cooks one of my favorite meals, and Leland comes all the way from Lexington again to eat with us.
He’s an enormous presence in our tiny home.
I sit beside him, his hand on my thigh, and wonder why he picked me.
There are a thousand other women he could have gone after.
He could have found one who wanted him back.
My mother excuses herself after the dishes are done.
“I’m really tired. I need to turn in early,” she says, bustling down the hall. Her bedroom is on one side of the trailer. Mine is on the other.
Leland lets me sit and watch TV with him for a while. Then, his hand finds its way up my skirt.
“Not here,” I say, staring ahead.
“Fine. Let’s go to the bedroom,” he says.
We go, and he shuts the door. This time, he doesn’t lie with me.
Instead, he sits on the edge of my twin bed and says he wants me to do something for him.
I’m sheltered due to how rural our home is, but I’m not ignorant.
It’s obvious what he wants. I wet my lips and get on my knees beside my bed, like I’m about to start praying or something.
“I don’t know how,” I whisper.
He shows me, and it’s not as bad as I thought.
My head is empty, my mouth is full. Yet, he’s the one eating from me, sinking his teeth into me before I was ready to be bitten.
He keeps coming back, night after night, until I’m pregnant.
And I wish he’d just given me a few years before making me his woman.
NOW
I feel the sweet pleasure of Jensen Childress. It fills my mouth and spills over my tongue, soapy, salty, and intoxicating. Recklessly, I push my face into his lap, taking him as deep as I can, letting him pump his cum down my throat.
He releases my hair and strokes down my back, gripping my thigh. The muscles of his thighs relax. His fingers cradle my chin, lifting my face.
“Show me.” His pale eyes are wide, blown out.
My lips part, my tongue pushing out. His eyes drop, looking at his cum.
Neither of us move until it inches to the tip of my tongue and drips.
Then, his other hand opens, catching it.
The fingers on my chin guide my head down.
I know what he wants, and I want it too.
It’s not degrading. With him, it’s so gentle.
I lick it from his palm.
“Swallow for me, baby,” he breathes.
I do, because with him, I’m hungry. And this is what I want.