15. Arkadiy
15
ARKADIY
“ I ’m so s-sorry.”
With her cheeks ashen and eyes brimming with remorse, Mara slips off my desk and hightails it to the door. My brain screams at me to go after her, to remember the pledge I made to guide her through what I am certain was her first orgasm. But I’m not a man when the eyes from my nightmares are glaring at me.
I’m only a boy.
After adjusting my cock so it stops pitching a tent in the crotch of my pants, I shift on my feet to face the doorway Mara raced through.
Riley’s cheeks are as white as Mara’s, but the fury in her eyes has nothing to do with lust.
“What the hell, Ark?” She enters my office with her hands balled, ready and willing to battle for a woman she has only recently met. “Why was she crying? She’s not meant to cry when you’re… when she’s…” She looks me dead set in the eyes. “She’s not meant to cry. Period. So what the fuck did you do?”
My words are as hostile as the tension radiating from her. “Nothing. I did nothing.”
“Then why was she crying!” she screams, her words bouncing off the walls slowly closing in on me.
Her words echo ones I’ve heard before, and they instantly sour my mood. “Perhaps she was crying because you walked in on her when she was vulnerable. Did you ever think about that?”
“Don’t you dare,” Riley snaps out, her voice as seething as the spit sizzling from her mouth. “Don’t you dare try to pin this on me. I am not this family’s scapegoat.”
“Neither the fuck am I!” I lash back, too overwhelmed with emotions I don’t know how to handle to act cordial.
I’m not the ruthless tirade most people believe I am right now. I’m a brother and a son, and another one of the endless victims of an unfair world.
“I wasn’t hurting her. I wouldn’t do that to her. I am not him. I’m not a monster.”
“Unlike me?”
My eyes snap to Riley so fast they burn. “That isn’t what I meant. I’ve never said that. I have never compared you to him.”
Pain and anger flood her impressive eyes— his eyes. “Words aren’t the only way to express yourself, Arkadiy. You display that better than anyone.” After shaking her head, announcing her disgust without words, she reveals the reason for her interruption. “Mother called. She saw this…” She dumps the photograph of Mara, Tillie, and me onto my desk before she heads back for the door. “I told her you were busy, but you know what Mother is like. If she asks you to jump, you ask her how high.”
She isn’t generalizing her parody. She used “you” on purpose because she knows I can’t deny the actuality of her scorn.
My mother rules the roost in our family, and I’ve yet to cut ties because I’m too scared of the backlash it could cause.
What once seemed unachievable is nowhere near as daunting with the taste of Mara’s pussy still stimulating my tastebuds.
Three short words slow Riley’s brisk exit. “She’s like us.”
Her back remains facing me for several long seconds before she eventually turns around. I don’t know what she is seeking when her eyes bounce between mine, but she must find something, because her tone is completely different than it was minutes ago when she whispers, “Us?”
I could force her to elaborate on her reply, but I won’t. For the first time in her life, I refuse to let her carry the sole burden of our childhood.
It is our burden, not hers.
Air whizzes between her quivering lips when I dip my chin.
Then her tears fall freely.