10. Maya
10
MAYA
A nd there I was, thinking my birthday was going pretty decent.
Before the shit with Tiana, things were quiet. No, there wouldn’t be anybody to celebrate with me, but at least I could be alone. I could have peace and quiet. What’s a birthday, anyway? I’m one year older. Big deal. My life’s not going to change all that much just because I’m eighteen now.
Even if it does, I know better than to think it will change in a positive way.
Now here I am. Everybody in school has seen me topless, or as good as. I want to burn my clothes after lying on the bathroom floor. I want to scrub my skin until it’s raw, though I know that won’t remove the shame. Nothing will.
On top of everything else, I have to sit with Tucker, who I know must have seen the picture. Tiana would’ve sent it to him before anybody else. I would ask him why she’s so fucking twisted, but I don’t think I would get a straight answer, anyway. So what’s the point?
The air in the truck is charged, so thick I can barely suck a breath into my lungs. At least he’s driving me home and not taking me some place else, which was definitely a possibility that flashed through my head before I accepted his offer. Eventually, I’m going to have to have my car towed, and the tires changed, which means I might have to explain it to Dad.
Then again, that would mean him actually paying attention to me. As it is, he can’t be bothered to take me to dinner tonight. He’s working too late for that. We’ll go out tomorrow, though I honestly wish we wouldn’t. I don’t look forward to having to sit across from him and play happy father and daughter for the sake of the other people in the restaurant. No doubt they look at us and admire what they think they see. They might even consider me lucky to have an attentive dad. If they only knew. I gave up my illusions about him a long time ago.
And Tucker was part of the collateral damage.
He hasn’t said a word. I’m grateful for that. He could taunt me. He could tell me it’s what I deserve, being humiliated and laughed at. My skin prickles uncomfortably at the thought of him knowing more about me than I want him to. Like we share a secret I never intended to share. It’s always there between us.
No big surprise, Dad’s car is absent from the driveway when we arrive. How do I end this? I can’t believe the way I need to weigh every word I use with him. “Thank you for the ride,” I offer, and even that simple sentence curdles in my mouth. After everything he’s already done to make me miserable, I have to sit here and thank him. For all I know, it was him who told Tiana to attack me in the bathroom.
Instead of accepting my thanks the way any normal person would do, he puts the truck in park and kills the engine. “What are you doing?” I ask, my hand on the door, ready to open it.
“What’s it look like?” He unbuckles his belt and opens his door, shooting me an almost nasty look when he climbs out to find me frozen in place. “What? Do you want to sit there all day? Be my guest. It’ll get pretty hot in here after a while.”
What game is this? The hair on the back of my neck lifts while I stare at him. What do I do? What will his next move be? If I say no, I have no doubt he’ll leave me sitting in here, but then what would he do? He’s basically shooting himself in the foot, all to make me unhappy. Why is this so damn important to him? Would I get a straight answer if I asked?
I know the answer to that question. That’s why I open the door, numbness settling over me again. It’s amazing how I welcome it. As much as I hate not being able to feel, it’s a gift at times like this. Instead of looking at him as I round the truck, I head up the front steps without a glance in his direction, holding my head high even as I tremble slightly. What is he going to do?
I can’t think about that right now. Not when he’s just behind me, the heat of his breath on the back of my neck as I unlock the door. “What do you want? A tour of the house?” Because it’s not like he’s ever been here. Nobody has. Unlike the people we go to school with, I am not somebody who can just randomly have people over. I can’t not care whether everybody trashes the place or whatever. Not with my dad.
“What if I do?” he asks with a smirk. “What, are you going to tell me no? Do you think you could get away without giving me what I want?”
But why do you want it? That would only make things worse. “Help yourself,” I mutter, opening the door and stepping into the foyer. As always, my gaze immediately darts to the foot of the stairs, then darts away just as quickly. I can’t help it. Like I want to torture myself, and maybe I do in a way. I deserve to always see and remember what I did. What I ruined by being the way I was.
“You can’t stay.” I warn. “As it is, I’ll get in trouble if my dad finds out I had you here when he’s not home.”
“Afraid of Daddy? He won’t come home. It’s pretty early in the day,” he reasons. If only he didn’t have to sound so bitter and derisive.
With his back against the door, he folds his arms, his mouth twisting in a smirk. “Now I have you alone, so I can ask what I’ve been wanting to.”
Here we go. I knew it was coming. Stiffening my spine, I draw a breath. “You’re in my house now. You don’t get to set the rules.”
“Do you think so?” His jaw hardens along with his eyes, which now gleam as they crawl over my body.
There’s nothing but danger if we continue in this direction, so I pivot. “Listen. I know you got that picture earlier. All I want in the whole world is to burn these clothes and stay in the shower until it’s time for bed. Can you understand that? Can you try to be human for a minute? Haven’t I been through enough today?”
I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but it seems to get through to him. The lines in his forehead smooth, and the tightness of his mouth softens. Not much, but enough that I know he actually hears me.
But just as quickly as his expression changed, but it soon changes again, this time into something that sends dread slithering through my core and up my spine. “You want to get out of your clothes? Fine. Take them off for me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Take your clothes off. Now.”
“Why?” I fold my arms over myself, searching his face, searching for a way out of this. What am I supposed to do? Let him chase me through the house? Because it’s not like I’m going to get through the door with him blocking it. I could run out to the patio, but he would catch me before I could unlock the door and open it.
He’s so damn fast. One moment he’s staring at me with his back to the door. The next, he launches himself my way, grabbing me by the arms the way those girls did earlier. “I drove you home. Now I get what I want. Understood? I want to see them again.”
I don’t have to ask what he means. “Why? What is wrong with you that you would ask me something like that?”
“What’s wrong with me?” There’s something vicious in his glare, in the tone of his voice. “The girl who cuts herself wants to know what’s wrong with me? Do you hear how that sounds?”
He’s right. I have no business basically accusing somebody else of being broken when I am the most broken person I know. What difference does it make anymore? His grip is hurting me, but he could hurt me a lot worse.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his glittering eyes crawling over my face, his fingers pressing against my flesh. My heart is pounding hard enough that I can barely hear his voice, now lowered closer to a whisper. “I bet you wish you could cut yourself right now, don’t you? You’re wishing you could be alone so you could drag something sharp over your skin. Because you can’t process shit on your own, can you? I know that’s why you do it,” he tells me. “I looked it up. I wondered what could fuck a person up enough to make them wanna do that. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that why you scar yourself that way?”
I’m fully clothed, but I might as well be naked. Totally exposed to his penetrating stare. “It’s none of your business why I do it,” I mutter.
“Stop stalling.” His hands tighten until pain works its way through the fog around me, sharpening my senses. “Where do you do it? Your bedroom? You would want to have privacy, right?”
I can’t believe this is happening. That he’s dragging me up the stairs, ignoring the way I squirm and try to work my way out of his grip. “Which door is yours?” he grunts once we reach the upstairs hallway.
“Stop this,” I warn, even though I know my words fall on deaf ears. I have to try, don’t I? I can’t just give in.
“I’ll just start going through each room, then.” He’s that determined, pulling me by my arm, ignoring the pained breath I suck through my teeth. He’s like an animal, completely absorbed by what he wants at this moment. No regard for me or anything else.
“In there!” I gasp, nodding toward my bedroom door. Anything, so long as he lets go before he breaks my arm.
He doesn’t let go until he flings the bedroom door open, then pulls me inside. He doesn’t even stop to look around. “Show me.”
You’re fine. Don’t feel it. Go away. For the second time today, I disconnect, watching myself follow orders. Walking to my bathroom, digging into the back of the drawer for the razor blades, going through the motions of joining him in the bedroom, kicking off my flip-flops, pulling down my pants. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I’m not even here.
“You already did it today, didn’t you?” Hell, I had forgotten cutting myself in the bathroom. Shallow, I could barely feel it. It was just enough to relieve the pressure and help me move on… until I got to the parking lot and found my tires flattened. It already feels like a lifetime ago.
He doesn’t deserve an answer. I don’t bother saying a word, standing in front of him in nothing but my T-shirt and panties, picking up a blade and holding it between my thumb and forefinger.
“You won’t have any clean skin left after a while,” he tells me, his voice a throaty growl. I feel the weight of his stare, but it means nothing. Like when my foot falls asleep and goes numb. I can feel pressure, but no actual sensation other than that. I’m used to it.
“So what do you do?” he asks, sitting at the foot of the bed, staring at the metal gleaming between my fingers. “Just press the edge to your skin and drag it?” He glances up at me, our eyes meeting, sending a sizzle of anxiety rippling through me.
Rather than answering in words, I show him, touching the tip of the blade to a clean patch of skin. Pressing slightly, the familiar sting makes my nerves dance, filling me with a certainty that I have to continue. I must.
As the sharp metal moves across my flesh, the breath I was holding releases. A thin line of blood begins to trickle down my leg as I continue, and the pressure drains out along with it. It’s so good. Too good. My head is spinning a little by the time I finish. It’s a feeling I’ve come to crave more and more often lately. All the time.
But this is the first time I’ve done it with an audience. An audience who now breathes heavily, eyes fixed on the damage I’ve done. He parts his lips, his nostrils flaring, eyes narrowing like he’s excited by it. Like he might be getting off on it a little. Could that be true? I already knew he was twisted, but is he that twisted?
The answer is right in front of me, growing and twitching inside his shorts. “Sit down,” he mutters, still staring at the blood now drying on my leg. I do, because my legs are weak, my whole body is weak with relief.
It must be the relief that makes me speak. “Some birthday.” I would never have admitted that otherwise.
“It’s your birthday?” He actually sounds interested and not in his usual snide, nasty way. “Oh. Happy birthday.”
“Right,” I whisper, snickering as I lay the blade down on the comforter. “I really believe you mean that.”
“I do. I could give you a present, if you wanted.” His words, paired with the lowering of his zipper, make my heart lodge itself in my throat.
How is this happening? Not like I ever had control over the situation, but things are spiraling, and I don’t know what to do. “If that’s the present, no thank you.”
“Just fucking lie back.” Standing, he places a hand on my shoulder and gives it a shove. Not hard, but enough to force me back onto the bed. I don’t know what to think about any of this. The way he’s looking at me, his hungry gaze crawling over me. The way it makes me feel—strangely warm, not unpleasant. For some reason, watching me cut myself turned him on, got him hard, and now he’s reaching into his fly. My breath catches in my throat, my gaze glued to the motion of his hand as he withdraws his dick.
Hard, thick, the mushroom head bulging and swollen and dripping with excitement. He pumps his fist up and down his length once, twice, staring at my scars. “Get rid of the underwear,” he grunts, “unless you want me to do it for you.”
The thing is, I know he means it, which is why I fumble through quickly removing my pink lace underwear. It’s not like he’s never seen me this way before. Just the one time, but that was all it took. I’ve tried so hard to push the experience out of my memory. Yet it insists on haunting me.
“So pretty,” he whispers, spreading my thighs with his knee, opening me up to the fingers of his free hand. Fingers which brush against my shaved lips, his touch making me jump and squirm and quiver. For some reason, I want to hide my reaction. I don’t want him to know what this is doing to me.
But there’s no hiding it, not when a warm tingle stirs and begins to spread. When the already rapid beating of my heart gets faster, harder, as hard as Tucker’s dick. He continues to stroke while staring down at my pussy, teasing my lips, getting us both more excited with every caress. “Relax,” he whispers, applying just enough pressure to almost breach my slit.
And then he does, delving between my lips, and my back arches before I can help it. There is no hiding this—and right now, as the sensations grow, I don’t want to. For the first time, in I don’t know how long, I feel something. Pleasure. It’s no deeper than that, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s something primal but necessary. I understand that now, as all the hunger that’s been locked down inside me rushes to the surface. Demanding satisfaction.
“Look who’s wet,” he grunts, and I tear my eyes away from his pumping fist long enough to meet his hungry gaze. His eyes are partly closed, his breath coming through pursed lips. It’s a needful look, completely focused on one thing only: feeling good. Satisfaction. For the first time in maybe ever, I’m grateful to him for giving me this. The chance to feel. To be connected, only for a moment, if only based upon his whims.
When he finds my clit, I swear I’m speaking in tongues, completely abandoning the idea of self-control in favor of soaking in every thrilling sensation. The tension in my core ratchets up, heat building, need growing. The bundle of nerves he flicks with his thumb aches painfully in response, but I welcome that, too. I even welcome the need, leaving me breathless for more. I’ll die if he doesn’t give me more.
“That’s right,” he grunts, his breath coming faster. “Take it. Take every bit of it. Let yourself feel good,” he urges, and I whimper in agreement before the pressure of one of his fingers against my entrance makes my eyes pop open wide.
“Oh, my god!” I gasp in the heartbeat before he pushes in, entering me, filling me with one, then two of his thick digits.
I’m lost, completely lost, totally in his grasp. My body is singing, and he is the conductor, controlling every moan, every delicious sensation. My nerves dance and sizzle as my hips start to move on their own, lifting to meet every stroke. “Oh, yeah,” he whispers, urging me on. “Fuck yourself on my fingers. Make yourself come. Come for me so I can come for you.”
I don’t think I have a choice. It’s all too much, building until it’s bigger than me, stronger, enough that I’m afraid it will drown me. I hope it does. I could die this way, gripped by unspeakable pleasure. Finally feeling. Enjoying. Being in the moment.
“I’m…” I can barely pull in enough breath to speak, but I need to. I need to tell him, even as my hips jerk in warning. “I’m going… to come… oh, god!” I moan helplessly, my head rolling from side to side, my hands sliding over my silky comforter. It feels so good. I forgot I could feel this good.
And then it all reaches its highest point, my body tensing in the last moments before the wave crashes, and I shatter from the inside out, falling to pieces around his fingers. My muscles flutter and fresh wetness pours from me as I cry out, filling the room with the sound until my voice breaks.
“Fuck, yeah,” he grunts, sliding his fingers from me, his breath rapid, his voice raspy. “Yeah. Here it comes…”
I open my eyes in time to watch cum spurt from his tip and spill onto the scars on my inner thigh. He seems to aim for them, painting my skin with one spurt after another while he groans deeply.
By the time he’s finished, he’s trembling, but then so am I. Trembling and confused and elated. It’s like he unlocked something in me, and I don’t want it to get locked up again. I don’t want to lose it.
But already, as the sensations fade, so does the clarity he brought. I knew it couldn’t last forever.
“Happy birthday,” he murmurs without looking me in the eye, his breathing still a little shaky as he places himself back in his shorts and raises his zipper. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t wait around to clean you up. I’ve got to go.” He offers no further explanation, but then I don’t ask for one.
Because I don’t know what to say. Is there anything I could say, anyway? All I can do for the moment is lie here and stare at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what just happened. The fact that he watched me cut myself and wasn’t repulsed. No, he was aroused. He liked it. As the front door closes with a resounding bang that echoes through the foyer, I sit up and look down at the mess he made of my thigh, which was already a mess, anyway.
But for the first time in a long time, I can almost believe the scars that are so ugly—a symbol of my weakness, my disconnect, my unresolved pain—might not be so ugly, after all.