Chapter Twenty-Five Carys
@sourguts: ngl is anyone not buying this love triangle?
@selfishbaby: Omg rite @sourguts! Whyyy would Dolly want Patrick when she has Warren?
@pisswizard: there’s some bare Patrick slander in the comments today
I don’t know what’s taken over me, but I can’t stop.
I don’t want to stop.
The fireworks, or whatever the fuck Dolly does to me, are addictive.
And the worst part is, she’s right. I am jealous. I’ve been so jealous of everything she’s doing with Warren, so angry that she chose that lie over me, so desperate to kiss her again. Lying to yourself is a hard habit to break.
And now I’m in a bathroom begging Dolly to fuck me while everyone else parties downstairs. The sweet sticky alcohol that Zack handed out warms my veins, and numbs my thoughts.
All I can see is her. And me. In the mirror together and desperate for each other.
‘As you asked so nicely,’ Dolly says finally.
She gathers the fabric of this tiny dress in one hand, and kicks open my legs.
‘This ridiculous skirt,’ she growls, as she runs her fingers along the edges of my lace underwear. ‘Did you choose the outfit you knew would drive me the most wild?’
I want her to rip my knickers off. I want her to make me come like she’s taking revenge.
She slides her hand under the fabric and onto my clit so fast that I let out a cry of pleasure. My body ripples under her touch. The last time we slept together was a gentle discovery of each other’s body. This is fucking.
I keep my eyes locked on hers while Dolly fucks me, and pushes her fingers inside me. I’m not usually an eye contact person because it is so intense for me, like being stripped naked. But now, it’s a heavenly intoxication. I feel aflame.
‘Come for me, Cherry,’ she whispers.
That pushes me right to the edge of the cliff. My knuckles go white as I grip hold of the sink for dear life and watch this incredible Goddess of Wrath make me come.
I don’t try to smother my moans, so she covers my mouth with her free hand. I lick the sweet salty taste of us, of me, off them.
I’ve never done anything like this before.
I feel possessed.
She spins me round, and we’re kissing again. A hungry devouring where I can barely taste where I end and she begins. It makes me want to eat her right now, but before I can even attempt to undo that ridiculous outfit she’s wearing, she hops me up on the sink.
Between my legs, she presses her body against mine, and I groan into her cleavage.
‘Do you like the taste of yourself?’ she says in between kisses. ‘What am I saying, clearly you do, you little egomaniac.’
Before I can say anything else, those panties are fully torn free and she buries herself between my legs. She licks, nips, hums into me, sucks at my clit. I have to steel myself against the worktop as I come, my hair tipping into the sink as I throw my head back.
She laughs and the sound vibrates through me, setting off another wave of body shakes.
Fuck fireworks, this is an earthquake.
I want to slide my hands inside her, touch the soft velvet of her folds and make her come half as much as she’s made me. I want to prove to her how much she wants me. How stupid she was for rejecting me. For throwing away the opportunity to be with me.
‘Can’t you see, Dolly?’ I gasp. ‘You’re addicted to me.’
I drag her up to kiss me. If I was with a man, I’d be embarrassed by how much I enjoy the taste of myself on his lips. But Dolly is just as degenerate as me.
She pushes one of my legs between hers, and grinds her pussy against my thigh. Seeing her use my body like that might be the hottest thing ever.
Dolly pauses her grinding to tear apart the fishnets, and with some undoing of her bodysuit, there’s enough space to slide my fingers into her. She’s so wet, it’s unreal. All that for me?
On some level, maybe every level, I want her.
Maybe Dolly was right when she said we had to keep away from each other, but the sensible parts of our brains switched off long ago, sometime between kissing and now.
And if this burns everything out of us so we can have a truce then good.
When she comes, moaning into my hair, it’s transcendent.
There’s a rattle at the door and we spring apart, our eyes wide with terror. Her pupils, dilated drug-wide only a second ago, change in an instant, the fury washed away.
‘Who is it?’ Dolly calls, as I scramble to pick up the remnants of the knickers from the floor.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, there’s no way to repair these.
‘It’s just me, babes,’ calls Bridget from the other side. ‘I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t murdered each other.’
‘No, we’re fine,’ I say, opening the door but keeping my lower half tucked away out of sight because she will absolutely be able to see everything. ‘Dolly couldn’t get out of her bodysuit and we ended up ripping it. I’m just trying to help her fix it.’
Bridget’s eyes dash between us, and God, is it obvious that we’ve been fucking? My hair is a mess, the ends damp, and Dolly’s is all rucked up in strange shapes. Our cheeks are flushed, and lips bitten.
‘It’s been a bit of a struggle,’ I laugh.
‘Are you sure? Did you two manage to talk about everything?’ I notice the soft slur of alcohol on her words and I hope to God that means that she won’t be thinking too deeply about the scene she’s stumbled into.
‘We hashed it out,’ I insist. ‘It’s fine, we’re fine.’
‘Okay!’ Bridget smiles sunnily and I feel guilty for lying to her like this. ‘You two can… finish up your discussion.’
When she leaves, I expect Dolly to say something to me about what just happened. Anything.
But she just steps out the bathroom, spins round and says, ‘Thanks for the chat. I think we needed that.’
‘Right,’ I say flatly, picking up my ruined knickers from the floor. I can get them on and it will cover my modesty until I can get a new pair from the bedroom. I’m not sure how Dolly is going to explain the massive tear in her fishnets right around her crotch.
‘Truce,’ she says.
‘We can keep clear of each other,’ I agree. ‘This is for the best. For Patrick.’
‘And Warren.’ Dolly leaves without another word.
I look in the mirror, the same mirror I’d just been using for less savoury reasons, and fix my hair.
My hands shake as I’m hit with the realisation of what I’ve done. I’ve cheated on Patrick. We’re engaged, and I just fucked Dolly in the bathroom. I asked her to fuck me. I chose to do this, knowing it might hurt him.
I want to cry or throw up but my body still hums with all the heady endorphins of sex. Sad and elated. Terrified and relieved.
A second time is so much worse. I don’t want to be this kind of person for Patrick. I can’t tell him, I can’t, and that makes me even more awful. But I have to protect his feelings and myself, and I don’t want to lose him.
I scrub at my hands and face, and I close all that feeling for Dolly away.
After a second time I’m not sure I can go on denying that I like women. As long as I focus on Patrick, it’s not that important. I don’t have to talk about it, to anyone ever.
It’s just so easy, once you’re used to pretending, to lock stuff away. Especially yourself. I’ve spent my life chaining parts of myself up.
First it was things I liked that everyone thought were corny, or I should have grown out of, like animation or Taylor Swift or animals. I locked all that away and learned better things to like, everything that they told me was good.
Then it was the way I looked at girls. How everyone was confused when I hadn’t had a crush on a boy yet, so I just picked the one the majority of my primary school friends liked.
When I eventually did like one, sometime before Mike, it felt like I’d fixed myself.
But then I liked Marina too. And I knew that wasn’t acceptable, so I locked that away.
After all, if I still liked boys, why did it really matter?
And my whole life I’ve been tamping down my physicality. I want to bounce and shout and move when I’m happy. The same when I’m sad, I suppose. There’s so much energy that courses through me that is apparently wrong.
I’ve spent so long being told that how I am, who I am, is wrong. Eventually you start internalising that. This is just another familiar part of that.
I turn the key and fix a smile on my face. I know the steps; I’ve been dancing it my whole life.
There’s a knock at the door again, and Bridget is back. ‘Babes, you good?’
I open the door and step out, mask fully affixed. ‘Yeah. I will be. Sorry, my head is kicking off again after that shot. I might get changed into something else.’
I walk over to my bed and sit down, hoping that she can’t see my falling apart knickers. From my bedside drawer, I take some paracetamol and neck it with some old water from last night, wincing at the dusty flavour of it. ‘That’ll sort me.’
Bridget seems unconvinced, and silently hands me my mic pack.
‘Oh thanks. I took that off because I was worried I was going to be sick.’ I know this doesn’t make sense. The timing is off. But I’ve said it now, so I’m going to have to live with the lie.
‘Is there anything you want to talk about?’ Bridget asks warily.
‘No, honestly I’m fine. Dolly and I had a talk.’
‘Good. I told her to. Are you going to be friends now?’
‘No, I think it’s best we keep clear of each other. Treat each other like a family member we don’t like but can’t escape from, you know?’
To my relief, Bridget laughs throatily. ‘God, do I? If I look at my Auntie Sally I get pissed off. Come on, you’re missing the party.’
‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
When she’s gone, I put on some new knickers and change into a party dress. I give the girl in the mirror one last glance, and try not to notice the cracks.