by MV Ellis
Divinity’s almost-maniacal laughter rings out through the empty church. She is a fucking crack up.
She smashes her lips against mine—her taste mingling with Trinity’s—pulling hard on the back of my neck to intensify the kiss before wrenching herself away again, just as I’m starting to really feel it.
“Oh, and I love the taste of cigarettes on you. It reminds me of danger and excitement. It’s hot,” Divinity continues.
“Thanks baby, I always knew you were the fun one.” I say pointedly.
“What?” Trinity shoots me a wounded look. Her pouty mock-indignation at me pretending to prefer Divinity makes me laugh lightly.
“Don’t worry baby girl, you have your own strengths,” I tell her.
“Like what?” More pretend pouting. She blinks her long, lush lashes and gives me huge puppy-dog eyes.
“Well, like the fact that you give the best blow jobs this side of the East River.”
“Hmm... Well, that is a good skill to have. And it’s so fun too, right?”
“Hell yeah. Why don’t you show us just how much fun, right now?” Tyce quirks an eyebrow before winking at her.
Him and that wink. I swear to God, it can win wars and get him just about anything, any time, any place, anywhere. It’s his super power, for sure. Only he can get away with basically saying “Shut the fuck up, get on your knees, and suck some dick,” and make it seem like he’s being cute.
My super powers aren’t quite as likable as his, but they’re definitely way more powerful, so if given the choice of only one, I’d take mine over his, any day. Still, having a best friend who knows how to turn on the charm is definitely an advantage, I can’t deny that. Tyce and I are a great team, and always have been.
Speaking of teams, Trinity and Divinity Cox—I wonder when, if ever, that joke will get old—are a pretty fucking good team too. Identical twins who like to do everything together, including tag-teaming guys. Oh, and they are hotter than living hell, have a naughty streak a mile wide, and are determined to do whatever, and whomever they can, to piss their dad off—the freakier the better. I mean, what’s not to love?
On Tyce’s cue, Trinity lowers herself to her knees, and starts working his zipper down. Clearly the wink worked, and his wish is her command. Plus, she’s still keen to prove that she’s the “fun” twin. The whole thing is ridiculous, really, because they fuck like pros, so I don’t give two shits if they’re fun, or not. Fucking is fun, period. No need to worry about external sources of amusement.
Plus, I can only really tell the girls apart when they’re standing next to each other—which is almost always—but even then, I sometimes get it wrong. What fucking difference does she think it makes which one of them has her lips around my dick? I couldn’t care less, as long as I get the blowjob, which, if they are involved, as they frequently are, is basically always.
The best thing about the twins, though, is that they’re happy to share the love, and know that we do the same. It’s the ultimate pump and dump situation. All benefits, no commitments—and that’s the way it suits us all. I know they fuck other guys, and, though I’m not sure the girls are aware of this, I even know who. But that’s because I know everything that goes on at St. Joseph’s, and I do mean everything.
On the other hand, they have zero clue where my dick is when it isn’t inside one of them, nor Tyce’s for that matter. Although we keep tabs on everything and everyone, the same can’t be said of us. We answer to nobody. Me especially.
I’m a law unto myself in this place, and everyone knows it, even the teachers, right up to the lamer-than-lame principal. I mean, if he can’t control what his own kids do right under his fucking nose, what hope does he have of keeping tabs on the rest of us, especially me?
I’ve been “invited to leave” more schools than he’s said Hail Marys, and have broken principals made of way stronger stuff than him. He didn’t stand a chance from day one. I’ll give him one thing though—he knows his limitations, and, unlike other principals who learned the lesson the hard way, he never even tries to control me. We have a “don’t ask, do tell” kind of arrangement, where basically if he tries to ask, I do tell him to go fuck himself.
I chuckle at the thought, which earns me a confused look from the twins.
“Don’t let me put you off, I’m not laughing at you.”
“Good. But maybe I need to give you something to smile about for real?” Divinity mirrors her sister’s actions and lowers herself to her knees before pulling at my zipper, and freeing my dick. When she sucks me into her hot mouth, it earns her a smile, at least, but my mind is still on my previous train of thought.
It amuses me to think how easy everything is at St Joseph’s. And how ironic it is that I’ve ended up at Xavier’s alma mater. It’s literally the last place on the planet I want to go to school, and one of the few things Xavier and I agree on. Daddy Dearest is even more against the idea than I am, even after it became obvious that the options were either this place, military school, or homeschooling.
My mom is completely against the idea of a military education for me, and nobody’s about to sign up to educate me at home—it wouldn’t even be a full day before the police were called to stop either one of us from killing the other—so St. Joe’s it is.
Even then, I understand that a lot of strings were pulled, and palms were greased, in order to make it happen. Still, that isn’t a problem—my family has nothing if not money, power, and influence, and, even though my father likes to say that he’s against relying on that kind of shit, he isn’t above anything when it comes to getting what he wants, especially where his kids are concerned.
The fact is, if I had a kid who’d been in as much trouble as me, especially when it comes to schools, they’d have been shipped off to a military academy faster than you can say, “Yes sir,” and I wouldn’t have looked back.
In fact, I would probably have told them to keep him until they broke him. But that’s not how Xavier operates. He claims to want a different childhood for us than the one he had himself, and part of that seems to be watching me pushing the limits of acceptable behavior without a blink.
Of course, Aster never put a foot wrong. She was the golden child on every level—perfect grades, killing it in every sport, hanging with a good group, friendly, popular, and nice as all get out. I really find it hard to believe we’re related, even distantly, let alone brother and sister—we’re as different as day and night in every way.
But DNA doesn’t lie, and she’s definitely my sis. I guess making us so different was someone’s idea of a joke, and totally designed to make me look bad. There I was doing everything wrong, only to have my kid sister come up behind me and ace life in every fucking way possible.
I shudder at the thought that I kind of hated her at times. Next to me, her perfection made me look and feel bad, and I definitely resented her for it. Now I’d give anything to have her annoying the fuck out of me, but it’s never going to happen, and that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.
I shake my head, as though trying to dislodge the wayward thoughts, and bring my mind back to the matter at hand, or should that be the matter at mouth? In any case, I try to focus on what Divinity’s doing with her tongue, rather than letting my mind stray to places I never want it to go.
I have to hand it to them, the twins are excessively talented when it comes to oral. In fact, they are blessed when it comes to sex, period, but oral is a high point. They seem to put their heart and soul into it, and satisfaction is pretty much guaranteed every time.
I close my eyes and let the pleasure flow over me. It won’t be long before I’m shooting my load to the back of Divi’s throat, and I know from past experience that she’s a swallower. They both are. Such good sports.
Even trying hard to focus, my mind keeps wandering to the video burning a hole in my pocket on my phone. It has me distracted and a little jumpy, which is unusual. I’m rarely on the back foot, and even less freque
ntly caught off guard or rattled, but whoever sent me that video has managed exactly that, and I hate that fact.
Now I have to work out who it is, what the hell they want, and what the fuck I’m going to do about it.
Chapter 2
Blake
* * *
I look up at St. Joseph’s Academy with trepidation as the car pulls into the drive. The view isn’t new—I’ve seen photos on the school’s website, and in the brochure before submitting my initial application, then I visited and had the full tour prior to completing my final application and interview.
Still, although I already know what the place looks like, and what to expect when I arrive this time, somehow everything seems a little different now that I’m here for real to start my new academic career at one of the country’s top schools.
Not only that, but now I totally feel like the cliché that I am—poor girl from the wrong part of town, dropped into an elite academy like a red ant unexpectedly forced into the black ant’s nest. Like a red ant, I have a sting in my tail, but how far that will carry me when I’m surrounded by black ants, I have no idea.
What I do know is, just like in the insect world, people operate by safety in numbers, and I’m about to be outnumbered by people who can probably buy my entire family just with their weekly allowance money. Shit. When I think about it like that, it’s insane that I’m even here. What the fuck was I thinking accepting this scholarship, especially under the circumstances?
I remind myself exactly what I was thinking: to have a school like this come knocking for me, seeking me out and inviting me to apply, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and not even that for some. I couldn’t afford to turn it down, and now I’m here, I’m determined to grab it with both hands, and make as much of it as I possibly can.
Fuck the black ants. Why should they get everything handed to them in life, while red ants like me get almost nothing, and what little we do have has to be scraped and scrounged? It isn’t fucking fair.
As the car gets closer to the front gates, I look up again, almost laughing at the stereotype. It’s exactly what an expensive prep schools look like in the movies. A large, ivy-covered building that’s equal parts impressive and scarily imposing, and looks like a cross between a country mansion, and an old fashioned insane asylum.
It will turn out that’s quite an accurate assessment of the place from the inside, too, but as the car comes to a stop, I have no idea what I’m in for in the days, weeks, and months to follow.
Still, even without that knowledge, as quaint and pretty as the place is, something about it kind of gives me the creeps, though I can’t put my finger on exactly what. It’s just a niggling feeling inside that doesn’t seem to want to go away.
It was the same when I visited for the first time for my interview, but I wanted the scholarship so badly that I was able to overlook the feeling and tell myself it was just nerves, and it would go away. Now that I’m here for good, I can’t keep pretending.
As the car stops, I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself and hoping to physically dislodge the wayward thoughts. There’s no time for regrets now. I decided to enroll here, so it’s a “you made your bed, now lie in it” type sitch.
Besides, I have no idea why I’m even worrying. Worst case scenario: if it’s terrible, it’s a bunch of preppy rich kids being rich-bitchy. What’s the worst they can do? Nothing compared to the shit I’ve seen back home, that’s for sure.
As a painful lump forms in my throat, I take a deep breath and try not to think too much about the shit show of my life, but I can’t ignore the fact that I’m pulling up to school alone in the car, except for the driver, and without the one person I’d truly love to be here with me as I embark on this new adventure. My mom.
Over the course of the last couple of years, my dad has been in a downward spiral and an artist’s slump. His art commissions have been coming in fewer and farther between, and that’s when he really started to take out his woes and frustrations on my mother.
As if drinking himself to death wasn’t bad enough, he hit my mom like she was his dedicated human punching bag. It’s kind of ironic, because she’s a makeup artist, so uses her professional skill to hide her very personal problem.
Luckily, she’s amazing at what she does—she’s highly respected by her peers in the industry—so their secret is safe.
But then, after years of being his target, my mom finally took off. I mean, she fucking bailed, or so I’m supposed to believe. She apparently disappeared into thin air, vanishing without a trace. She didn’t even take her cell phone or credit card with her. I guess she’s doing her best to make sure my dad doesn’t find her and try to convince her to come home.
I can’t blame her for leaving my dad after years of emotional and physical abuse that has done irreversible damage to her body and her soul. I’m not too young or naïve to see that her best option was to get the hell out of there before he killed her, or broke her spirit for good.
It makes total sense on paper, but in reality, something about the whole situation doesn’t sit right with me, and one big probing question still gnaws at my brain. I can’t figure out an answer no matter how much it keeps me up at night.
Why did my mother leave me behind with a drunk and abusive father?
Isn’t she afraid for my safety as well as her own? Granted, he’d never laid a finger on me before she left, but that was when she was there to provide the “outlet” he needed, and basically be a human shield between him and me. When she split, she had no idea what the aftermath would be, and neither did I. Thankfully, he hasn’t touched me, but if nothing else, he’s not exactly a candidate for father of the year, and never was. She knows that better than anybody. How could she have been happy to disappear and leave me in that situation?
More to the point, why couldn’t she have taken me along to start a new life with her? We’re so close—best friends, really—especially as I don’t have what would be classed as a best friend at school, so she is kind of like a surrogate. She’s better than a best friend, actually, because I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable telling an outsider all our dark and dirty secrets, but Mom already knows them, so we speak about anything and everything, at least we used to.
Yet in all the time that she must have been planning her escape, she never once gave me any indication that she was leaving, not even a clue that I might find or work out later on. It really hurts to think that she has so little regard for my welfare, or even feelings, to do that to me. On the other hand, it just doesn’t feel like something she would do, especially not to me. Then I think that maybe I’m deluding myself, and the image I have of her in my mind isn’t the reality of who she is, but who I want her to be.
Maybe I don’t really know my mom at all, just the parts of her that she wanted me to see—like a filtered version of her true self. I guess anything’s possible, but if that’s the case then she should have gone into acting as a profession, rather than being behind the screen, as she’s clearly been putting on a very convincing act throughout my entire life.
The weirdest and most soul-destroying part is that I haven’t heard from her since she left. It’s enough to break me. I feel myself dying a little more with every day that goes by without any contact, but I manage to keep myself glued together somehow, by taking life one day at a time.
Dad panicked when my mom split. Having never really had much to do with me in the past—he’d left the bulk of the parenting to my mom while he focused on his career, and booze—he really doesn’t know what to do with me now she’s gone, and he definitely doesn’t want to deal with my teenage drama. So when the offer of the place at St. J’s came through like we’d hoped it would, he was visibly relieved and jumped at the opportunity, but not for the same reasons as me.
I was so happy to hear the news because it meant I’d secured my ticket out of my situation, and hopefully the key to my future. My father was just glad that he wouldn’t have to deal with me on a day-to-day
basis. In fact, as I’m not doing weekend home leave—and something tells me that he’ll make himself scarce when I am back in town for the holidays—he’ll barely see me for most of the year, which no doubt, suits him just fine.
However, our relief was short-lived when we realized that I’d only been granted a partial scholarship, not the full ride we were hoping for. Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover the way I felt when I got the news. Gutted is more like it. Or heartbroken. Or depressed. In fact, all of the above.
In the end, my dad came to the rescue, telling me he’d use “savings” to cover the gap between what the scholarship provided and the remainder of the fees for the first semester, promising me he’d then secure more art commissions to pay for the rest of the year. I have no choice but to take him at his word that more money will ‘magically’ materialize, but there’s no way I’m buying his bullshit about savings.
I know there’s never enough money, especially with both parents being freelance in the arts industries, and my father being a drunk, so if he’s suddenly come into money, it’s because he’s done something shady to obtain it. I don’t want to fully admit to the possibility, let alone think about what it might be, so I shove the thought to the back of my mind and ignore it, like so much that’s wrong in my life. If I can’t fix it, I bury it.
Still the niggling doubts remain, and not only that, but they get stronger with every passing day. I just can’t imagine any scenario that ends well in which Mom doesn’t try to make contact with me—to let me know she’s okay and check in on me. A message from a burner phone. A secret email account. Something crazy like ambushing me after school when she knows my dad won’t be around. Anything.
Even before I had confirmation of a place at St Joseph’s, Mom and I were channeling the power of positive thought, acting as though I’d already been accepted. Therefore, she knows the semester dates, and that if I was successful in getting a place, today would be my first day.
