16. You can fuck me, you can play me. You can loveyou can hate me
16
You can fuck me, you can play me. You can love or you can hate me
Moth
I t was the best day I’d had in a long time. We pulled my dad’s old, dusty grill out of the barn and cooked a pair of s I found in the freezer. We polished off numerous Jack and Cokes and lay on the front porch talking way into the night, listening to the sounds of the forest and the occasional hum of a car driving by on the dusty gravel road.
It was a gradual unwinding of tension that I had needed for so long, yet couldn’t force. We talked about the future and what we wanted. We daydreamed about the life we could have if we moved into this house together, fixed it up, and opened a clinic in town.
“And why can’t we?” she asked, flipping over onto her stomach as she looked up at me. The wooden boards were loose and rotting, and they creaked and groaned with every shift of our weight.
“I dunno,” I said, sighing. The Jack Daniels had my head spinning, my heart floating out of my chest, and my gravity a little off-kilter. “This town just… ”
“Just what?”
I paused, trying to think of what to say.
“I used to love it here,” I said, shrugging. “Then I turned thirteen.”
“True,” she said, and there was a twinge of sadness in her voice. “I understand. It’s gotta be hard coming back here after that .”
“I mean it is, but also it’s annoying,” I huffed in frustration. “I’m still afraid of this thing that happened fourteen years ago. And he’s in prison, it’s not like—”
“But that thing was a big thing , Nessa!” she argued. “He set the house on fire with you in it. He tried to kill you. It’s reasonable to be scared.”
“Maybe it was, but I’m tired of letting it hold me back,” I said. “Being scared kept me away from here! Being scared is the reason my dad—”
“Don’t you say it, Vanessa!”
“—died alone.”
Amelia sighed.
The words hung in the air between us, and we both fell into silence. The silence continued, broken only by chirping crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl in the distant fields. The wind seemed to comfort me, wrapping around me like a familiar embrace that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Maybe my dad was still here in more ways than memory.
“You have a lot to think about,” she said, slowly sitting up. I could tell by the way she swayed that her head was swimming with booze, too. “But why don’t we think about it in the morning? I’m exhausted.”
“Good idea,” I said, following her lead. It took me three separate tries to finally sit up, and I only succeeded when Amelia giggled and took my hand, yanking me the rest of the way.
We gathered our plates and dirty dishes and carried them into the house, dumping them into the sink on our way through. I found an old throw blanket and a dusty pillow and handed them to Amelia. I’d offered her the guest bedroom, but she declined.
“No way, Jose!” she giggled, tossing her pillow onto the couch and fluffing it up with her fists. “I know what goes bump in the night around here!”
We giggled, and I rolled my eyes, but I left her to it. I retreated up the stairs and into the guest room, and before long, I had stripped down to my underwear and slid under the covers.
I thought sleep would find me easily, especially after all the drinks we’d had, but I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. It’s not that I wasn’t tired—I was, truly. My brain was working on overdrive, thinking about everything from the 3rd-grade play I’d been in and thrown up all over the stage out of anxiety to the time I’d nearly drowned in the quarry we swam in on hot summer days.
Maybe I needed to read?
Groaning, I sat up, flicking on the lamp. I reached for the bedside table but found it annoyingly empty. I’d taken my dad’s journal downstairs, and I didn’t want to risk waking Amelia to get it. Flipping over, I reached over the other side of the bed and grabbed the shorts I’d shed instead, reaching into the back pocket and finding my phone.
I tried to play a game. It was a stupid phone game of making pizzas, and after ruining the same order four times in a row, I closed it angrily. I didn’t have the sober brain I needed for that right now. I tried reading the news, but my eyes kept skimming over the words until it became a jumbled mess that made no sense.
Finally, my eyes strayed to my texts, and I opened them. It immediately opened on the same black heart. It didn’t take long to scroll to the top, where I found the video he’d sent himself. I wondered if he watched it. How many times?
Why did I care?
I thought about earlier, at the diner, and the things Amelia had said.
“Oh, my god!”
“What?”
“Oh my fucking god, Vanessa!”
“What?!”
“I do know that voice! I know who that is! It’s Tommy! The firefighter?!”
Except she was wrong. The tattoo on his hand proved that much—the tattoo I could see from the thumbnail. It was dark, with thick black lines and rich, deep shades of blue. It wasn’t something that could be covered up easily. If Tommy had a tattoo like this one, we would all know about it.
I looked at the number and tapped on it. It took me to the contact. There was no name, and no location—just a small black heart and a number. Memorizing the number, I switched to my browser and typed it into Google. I came up painfully empty. Sighing, I went back to the contact, and on a whim, I touched it with my thumb and hit send. With shaking fingers, I held the phone to my ear. Was I scared? Anxious? I didn’t even know anymore .
It rang only twice before he answered. I hadn’t been expecting him to answer at all.
“Yes, baby?”
His voice sent a jolt through me, and I shivered. Part of me wanted to tear the phone away, end the call, and throw it across the room. Another, stronger part of me wouldn’t let me. Still, I couldn’t force myself to speak. My voice was stuck in my throat like Rapunzel was stuck in a castle, and I just could not get it out.
“Are you okay?”
There was concern in his voice, and that jarred me even harder. He was worried about me? It was an odd, alien thought that shook me, and I finally found my voice, and when I did, it was breathless and shaking.
“Y-yeah,” I swallowed hard.
There was a long silence, but it was loaded and heavy. What was I doing? What the fuck was I doing?
“T-tell me your name,” I said finally, and I lifted a shaking finger to my lips, biting at the jagged edge of my nail.
“I can’t do that,” he said, and there was laughter in his voice.
“Why?”
“We both know why, Vanessa.”
I shuddered. Something about my name spoken with that voice seemed sinful. It almost seemed wrong.
No, it was wrong.
It was wrong, but I didn’t want it to be.
“Because I know you?” I said. It was the only thing I could muster.
“You do. ”
That alone should have scared the shit out of me, yet I felt nothing.
“If I already know you, then why are you hiding?”
“People would talk.”
That jarred me, and hard. It was way too similar to everything I’d said to Amelia earlier.
“Why did you pick me?”
I heard him sigh, and it was a long, low whoosh, like the sound of the grating wind before a hailstorm.
“I didn’t,” he said. “Not on purpose.”
“What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
I was silent. I didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t wanna hurt you, Vanessa.”
“Would knowing who you are hurt me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He was quiet this time.
“Can I have a hint?”
“No,” he chuckled. “You’re not ready.”
There was a flare of anger inside of me. For as long as I could remember, I had been told that I was ‘too young’ or ‘too na?ve’. I didn’t understand because I was a girl .
I was tired of being sheltered.
“Why not?”
“What if your whole world falls apart?”
“That’s my choice to make.”
Again, he was quiet .
“Are you gonna kill me?”
“I’d rather die.”
There was a tone to his voice that I couldn’t quite place, but even then, I believed him.
“Are you gonna hurt me?”
“Never.”
I was quiet this time, my lip quivering. Carefully, I looked over my shoulder toward the door. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe I was just stupid, but something had shifted, and now I needed to know.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, my voice so low it was nearly a whisper.
He chuckled, and I could hear him shifting.
“You meant…” his voice was a rolling snarl. “Am I going to fuck you?”
I whimpered, grinding my knees together.
I shouldn’t be doing this. This was a really bad idea. It was like sticking my hand in a rattlesnake den. I knew better, but the temptation was just too much.
“Mhmm,” I didn’t trust my voice to speak coherently.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When you’re ready.”
“What if I was ready now?”
“You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re not begging. ”
I barked a laugh, and maybe a little too loud. The back of my hand pressed against my lips, stifling my nervous laughter.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Yes, it will.”
“How?”
“I’ll make you.”
I could hear his breath quickening, and he groaned. Something about the way his voice darkened told me everything I needed to know. He was inches away from losing control. The knowledge had me quivering, and I sunk beneath the blanket, my thighs shaking as I forced them together.
Why did he have this effect on me?
This wasn’t okay. He was stalking me. He could kill me.
But he hadn’t. He said he’d never hurt me.
“H-how?” I asked, and it felt like my heartbeat had taken up residence somewhere much more southern. My hand drifted to the apex where my thighs came together.
I needed relief. I couldn’t handle the throbbing. I was aching, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I have my ways.”
He seemed to have gotten a hold of himself, if only a little, and I sighed, my voice shaking like a leaf. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted him to lose control.
Why? Because then he could slip up?
Or maybe because I liked it?
“Tell me how.”
“How what?”
“How are you gonna make me? ”
He was quiet, and when he spoke again, I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Why do you wanna know, Vanessa?”
My breath caught in my throat. My hand had dipped beneath my panties, and I held it there, afraid to move.
“W-what?”
“Why do you wanna know what I’ll do to you?”
“I-I just don’t think…” My brain short-circuited, and I couldn’t find the words, no matter how panicked I became.
“Little Moth,” he said. I whimpered, and even biting my lip hard, I couldn’t hold it back. That growl killed me. “Where are your hands?”
I stayed quiet, focusing only on my breathing. There was no way he could know. Could he?
“I-in my lap.”
“You’re lying. "
“No…”
“Show me.”
I gulped thickly. I felt like a child with my hand caught in the cookie jar.
“H-how?”
He was quiet for a second, and just when I’d worried he hung up, he spoke again.
“There’s a camera in your closet.”
I felt a cold chill wash overhead and sat up, staring through the shadows towards the closet. I squinted, looking through the open door, but all I could see was blackness.
“Y-you— ”
My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard. Fear was a lightning bolt, striking me over and over again, but all the electricity had settled down in my core.
Did that mean I liked it? I liked being scared.
“Now,” he said, his voice low. “Show me.”
And I did. Maybe I was drunk, or possibly just dumb beyond belief, but the hand holding the phone reached down and tore the comforter away, leaving me bare in nothing but my grey underwear and flesh-colored bra.
When I returned the phone to my ear, it was just in time to hear his satisfied sigh on the other line.
“Panties off.”
When I hesitated, he grumbled, and I could hear his impatience.
“ Now .”
I hurried to do as he told me, dropping the phone to my chest and hooking my fingers around the fabric. I slid them down my hips, and when they got to my knees, I kicked them off the end of the bed. Still, I kept my thighs pressed close together. I quickly lifted the phone.
“Such a good girl.”
I whined, and the way he sighed was somehow satisfying.
“Spread your legs.”
My heart stuttered and skipped, but I kept my legs tightly closed.
“Little Moth…” he muttered, and there was a warning in his words.
“No,” I whispered .
He snarled. It sent a pulse of fear through me, but I was determined.
“If you want it, you have to tell me your name.”
I caught him off guard. I could hear it in his laugh.
“My name is Daddy . Now show me your pussy, little girl.”
“No,” I said again. “Make me.”
“I would think very carefully before you tempt me.”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
I expected him to scream, or maybe to threaten me. I expected anger, force, or begging.
What I didn’t expect was for him to hang up.