Chapter 48
Sleep refuses to find me.
Despite the long shower I took to wash away the blood, and ease my tense muscles, rest is as elusive as the peace I search for when I’m not with Rose. The events of the day run a never-ending triathlon through my mind.
Rose. Lonnie. Richmond.
My flower. My team. My plan.
My girl. My friends. My nemesis.
Fuck.
Why won’t it end?
The guilt weighs in once more. For what transpired tonight.
And how in the midst of it, Rose was there.
Arms wide, welcoming me in, granting me solace in my time of need.
Even when I deserve to feel the weight of this to its full magnitude, it pales in comparison to the space she’s taking up.
Pushing out everything with her presence.
I can’t trust it.
But gods, I want her.
I need her.
My escape I’m unworthy of.
But not yet.
I drag my hands through my hair, forcing my fingers past the knots tangling the small curls together, trying to think of anything to occupy my time. No ideas surface, and the shit eating me from the inside out threatens to drive me to insanity.
To hell with all of this.
Leaning over the side of the bed, I shuffle through my suitcase. I don’t normally huff my own supply, but fuck this endless torment.
I always carry a small amount of product with me, in case anyone needs persuading into a deal. It doesn’t happen very often, but it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
I find the bag I’m looking for, fishing it out of the sea of clothes. Sitting up in bed, I flick on the shitty hotel TV, and hope to fuck there’s snacks worth the astronomical price in the mini fridge beneath it.
A small bag of coke falls to my lap when I slide the zipper open. That’s the last fucking thing I need.
Slipping it back into place next to the others, I grab all the fixings for a fat doob.
Maybe I should call for room service beforehand, but as I glance sidelong at the clock, I know there’s nothing available at 4:17 am.
Nothing good, anyway.
Without a doubt, my mind wanders. I fight against it, focusing on the grinder in my hand. Twisting it like it’s personally wronged me. If I don’t, she’ll materialize like a spectre.
Rose, my sister, or Lonnie.
It doesn’t matter who.
No matter what, I’m fucking haunted.
Rose is the lesser of the evils, so I let her in. Casting open every door, window, and entrance to my mind. Letting her flood me. Drown me. End me.
My tongue drags across the rolling paper, wetting the adhesive strip as I wrap it tight.
I tuck the joint behind my ear. Opting to clean everything up before I become a mindless husk that melts into the mattress.
I close up my suitcase before striding across the room. Opening the balcony door, I step outside into the warm tropical air. Slipping the joint between my lips, I spark the tip. Breathing deep, I let the smoke fill my lungs.
The haze descends quickly, settling over me in a comfortable fog. I flop down into the deck chair and watch the twinkling stars.
My thoughts are scattered, incoherent musings of a weed-soaked mind, but one holds on. Growing into a deliciously dark idea.
Rose wants me to show her what I’m made of, and I’ve just figured out how to do it in a way that won’t turn my stomach.
I’m not going to examine why, in the heat of the moment today, I didn’t want to hurt her by unleashing some of the darkest shit I could.
I refuse to touch that with a ten foot pole. I don’t need to be further unsettled.
But this?
The images conjured awaken a needy pulse in my cock.
I’m sick, selfish, sadistic.
I’ll carve my name upon her skin so she’ll never be able to belong to another. No one will want her. Rose will have to stay with me.
My flower. My escape. My work of fucking art.
I finish off the joint, inhaling the last drags deep into my chest before stubbing it out.
The theme song to my favoured cop sitcom plays from the TV, beckoning me back to bed. I oblige, locking the balcony door before flopping down into the blankets in nothing but my ‘Warning! May contain nuts’ boxers.
Heavy pressure settles above me, mattress dipping with a shifting weight. Something attempts to pull me from the deep confines of burnout induced slumber. My mind resists, desperately clinging to the sleep I finally managed to blissfully drift into.
Fuck off, I need the rest.
An object rocks against me, sinking my hips deeper into the mattress. My head is heavy, eyelids heavier. I’m too exhausted to wake, too burnt out to care. The tendrils of the reefer haze still linger, coaxing me back to tranquil oblivion.
“Wake up, I need you.” Her voice like venom paralyzes me. Heat sinks down over my shaft, a soft feminine moan urging me to re-enter consciousness. A body comes down over mine, moving my dead weight, and pinning my wrists over my head.
I whimper. My child-like cry for help quickly smothered by a hand over my lips.
“Shhh, it’s me.”
I don’t care.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
A kiss lands on my forehead. My cheek.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispers, plunging me deeper. “Did you miss me too?”
I want to shake my head. Scream “No! Not in a million fucking years!” until my throat’s raw and her ears are bleeding.
But I don’t.
Because insulting her only sends her to my sibling’s room.
I nod, humming against her palm as she rides me.
“Such a good boy for me, aren’t you?” Her sickness taints my soul. An inescapable plague following me like a death knell until I can’t take it anymore.
“Ripley,” she pants, “wake up.”
I force my lids to open, to emerge from the nightmares of the past. However, when the hotel room filters in, blue walls of my childhood bedroom fading away, I’m still being fucked. Pressed into the bed and pinned down by the writhing figure atop mine.
This isn’t right.
Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. “Stop!”
Finally, I manage to break out of the cage she fucking shoved me into. I’m not a kid anymore. I remind myself. I’m strong, capable.
Shantel’s not my abuser, and I know that. My brain doesn’t seem to care. The sight of her taking from me without permission makes her no different than any other piece of shit.
My cataclysmic tornado of trauma engulfs me. A storm of suppressed rage ready to break out in a protective force.
I reef my hands free of her flimsy grip. I guess when I’m stuffed back into my adolescent body, I’m easily restrained.
A shocked sound of pleasure comes from her, but all I see is fucking red.
“Get off me.” I try to sound terrifying, but the claws of the past are still pierced through my sweat-slicked skin.
This bitch ignores my request, pussy rippling down my dick like she’s about to cum all over me.
I don’t fucking think so.
I buck my hips, and she moans my name, before I shove her off me with so much power she hits the floor.
My chest is heaving as I fight the panic to catch my breath.
“What the fuck, Ripley?”
“How. Fucking. Dare. You,” I snarl, though the sound is weak. “Get the fuck out of my fucking room.”
“What? Why?” she whines.
“Because if you don’t, I might fucking kill you.”
“Because I surprised you?”
“Because you fucking touched me!” I roar, voice cracking. No longer giving a shit if I wake anyone in the adjacent rooms.
Shantel gets to her feet, debating whether she should approach me or not. “I’m sorry, baby, but you’ve been blowing me off. I just wanted to make sure you were okay after tonight.”
“I don’t need you to check on me, I touched base with Kyle after clean up.”
“Kyle is not your head of security.”
“No, but he is my second-in-command. Out-ranking you by a fucking mile.”
Ire scrawls itself across her face, mouth opening, ready to spit its vitriol my way.
“Get. Out.” I punctuate each word, hoping the point finally gets across. She stands her ground, wanting to keep the fight going just to stay in my orbit. This is nothing new, she wants it to turn into a fuck session.
It won’t.
I’ll never touch her again, and it’s her fault.
“Leave. Before I have to explain to Bucky why he’s short another fucking sibling.” It’s a low blow, but the memory of her deceased brother is like a bucket of ice water on her burning loins.
“Fuck you,” she spits, swiping a sundress up off the floor. Quickly and silently, she slips it on. Grabbing her purse from the small table by the door before leaving.
I have half a mind to call the front desk and demand a new key, but I don’t have the energy to talk to anyone. I’m leaving for the mainland in just over twenty-four hours anyway, the headache isn’t worth it.
There’s no way in hell I’ll be falling back asleep after that. A scorching hot shower calls to me from the darkened bathroom, and I follow like a kicked puppy.
I haven’t felt like this in ages.
Dirty. Violated. Used.
I want to crawl back into bed and rot, but my life won’t allow that. Fuck Shantel for thrusting this upon me. I’ve been okay for a while now. The good days steadily outweighing the bad.
The knob creaks when I turn the water as hot as it will go. Steam rapidly fills the room, fogging up the glass and obscuring my loathsome stare in the mirror.
I scrub until my skin is red and my dick is raw. It’s not enough. I still feel her on me, hear her voice in my head, only now Shantel’s face has entered the mix, creating a fucked up hybrid of past and present trauma.
My fist drives into the matte grey tile. Again and again and again. I wish I could take it back. Erase her from my past to prevent her from imposing on my future.
This isn’t helping, the shower and self-induced pain not near enough to level me out this time.
I’m suffocating, steadily losing myself, bombarded by memories in this misty, claustrophobic room.
I need out.
An escape.
Rose.
Her name is a poem. A promise for reprieve. A balm to the eternal burning of my skin and soul.
I don’t know what she’s doing to me, or why I’m so mindlessly fucking addicted to her. She’s cracked me open and ruined the carefully crafted structure holding me together.