by Megyn Ward
“Yes…” I rock back, trying to take him in. Pushing him to fuck me, rough and dirty.
“Good enough.” He slams his cock into me, filling my pussy so quickly I feel it clench and I try to straighten myself off the table.
His hand clamps around the back of my neck again, holding me down, pushing me against the pool table, the soft felt of its surface brushing and abrading my swollen nipples while he pounds hips against my ass, fucking me so fast and hard I can’t catch my breath.
“Clit,” he says through clenched teeth and I reach down to press my trembling fingers against my clit. Waves of pleasure crash over me, his cock plunging and pumping into me, the head of him grazing my g-spot with every thrust.
Within seconds I’ve tittering on the edge of an orgasm. Squeezing my eyes shut, I gasp the word. “Can—”
“No.” The hand on my hip streaks up my back to wrap around my braid, using it like a leash to jerk my head up. “Watch.”
I do what he says. I watch. Me, bent over the pool table, tits bouncing with every thrust. Patrick behind me, fucking me so hard I can feel the edge of the table grinding against my hip bone. I squeeze my eyes shut, my orgasm shuttering through me, threatening to break free. “Patrick…”
“Come.” He roars the word, his fingers around the back of my neck tightening, hard enough to bruise. His cock slam into me once, twice before I’m coming, the orgasm so intense, my vision goes dark around the edges, my pussy gripping and milking him so hard it almost hurts and my lungs are seizing in my chest.
He lets go of my hair. As soon as he does, I fall forward, my cheek pressed against soft, warm felt. I close my eyes and pretend the feeling of him inside me will last forever. That I didn’t just fuck everything up, all over again.
As soon as he’s finished, he pulls out and jerks he pants up. Opening my eyes, I angle my head so I can see his refection in the window. He doesn’t look angry or disappointed anymore.
He looks resigned. Like he finally understands me.
“I’m going upstairs. I’ve got some work to do,” he tells me, his tone terse. Like he’s talking to someone he barely knows. I watch in the window as he walks away. Climbs the stairs and disappears.
Outside, it keeps raining.
Fifty
Patrick
It rained into the night and all day Tuesday.
During the day, Cari painted with the door closed and I worked at my drafting table, catching up on work or working on plans for building that will never be built. When we got hungry, we’d wander down to the bar and ate. When we got bored or needed a break we’d watch movies.
And we fucked.
A lot.
But that’s all it was. Fucking. After we both got off, we’d part ways like nothing happened. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk at all.
But at night, after I turned off the generator downstairs and the entire building was dark and quiet, I’d strip off my clothes and climb into her bed. I’d stare at the sky and listen to the rain—waiting for it to lull me to sleep and wishing she’d let me hold her.
I hate myself for what happened. What I did. The way I treated her. It doesn’t matter that she wanted it. Pushed me into it. I’ll never be able to touch her again without remembering.
It’s Wednesday and I wake up to feel of the sun streaming through the skylight above me, warm against my back. I know right away she’s not in bed next to me. Opening my eyes, I see her. She’s wearing one of my old shirts. It hits her mid-thigh, her hair gathered up in a hasty ponytail high on her head, paint soaked into her cuticles. Drying on her hands and legs. A smudge of bright yellow across her cheek. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
She flicks her gaze between me and the canvas, dabbing her brush against her palette now and then. When she realizes I’m awake, that I’m watching her, a flush creeps up from beneath the neckline of her shirt, turning her neck bright pink. She looks away from me, dropping the paint brush in her hand to draw it against her thigh. After a couple strokes, she lifts the brush again and keeps painting.
I lay here and watch her, until she steps away from her easel, dropping her brush into the coffee cup full of murky water she keeps next to it. I’ve teased her a thousand times about how often she’s picked it up and almost taken a drink in one of her post-paint dazes. Instead of teasing her, I turn over to look at the cloudless sky above my head—a bright, brilliant blue that makes it hard to breathe—and wonder how we got here. How we ended up in a place where it’s expected for us to use and hurt each other.
I guess how doesn’t really matter. What matters is I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to punish her. I don’t want to blame her. And I don’t want to be the type of guy who would do those things to her. Not anymore.
But I know there’s no going back. Not for either of us.
Maybe Conner was right. Maybe Cari and I were never friends to begin with. Maybe this is always where we were headed. Maybe this is where we end.
Unable to stand another second of it, I leave her bed. I leave her room. I leave the apartment. Because if this is where we end, it’s the last place I want to be.
When I get to the jobsite, I find low-level pandemonium. Panicked about storm damage, our multi-millionaire client and his poodle-toting trophy wife showed up as soon as the roads cleared. When I pull up, Declan has them corralled under the canopy we keep set up for shade, telling them they were absolutely not going to assess the damage for themselves. They’re going to go home and wait for a call from the insurance company. It’s what Declan is good at. Controlling a situation and the people in it.
Let him deal with it. These days, I can’t even control myself.
Half of my usual crew is milling around, dodging debris—ruined building materials and trash litter almost the entire site. As soon as they see me pull up, they start moving with a purpose. “No one’s leaving until this shit is cleaned up. Jeff—” I bellow without breaking my stride and he appears at the top of the stairs. “How bad is it?”
Jeff shakes his head like he’s trying to figure out a way to tell me I’ve got less than six months to live. “Lot of broken glass. Drywall’s soaked. Roof’s completely peeled back on the south end.”
Fuck me. Life is awesome.
“Alright.” I nod, keeping calm because none of this is his fault. I look at my watch. It’s 10AM. “You call everyone not here and tell them that unless they’ve got a legit and provable emergency, that their ass better be here by noon if they expect to keep their job. At noon, you call every temp we got on call and replace the assholes who don’t show.”
Jeff give me a bug-eyed look. “Yes, boss.”
“And keep those fuckwits out there in line,” I add, careful to keep my voice down. “The clients are here and they’re freaked. The last thing we need is them seeing the crew standing around, jerking each other off.”
Fifteen minutes later, I hear the slamming of car doors and tires crunching over gravel. Sufficiently talked off a ledge, our clients are heading home. Declan finds me standing in what’s supposed to be the gourmet kitchen. “Didn’t you get my text?” he says, clipboard in hand. If there’s anything Declan loves more than telling people what to do, it’s checklists. “We’re delayed until I can get an inspector out here to assess the damage.”
“No.” I haven’t checked my phone in three days. I don’t even know where it is. Dropped out of my pocket. Kicked in a corner somewhere. “And even if I had, I’d still be here.”
He cracks what passes as a smile for Declan. “Cabin fever?”
“Yeah—something like that.” I shrug, changing the subject because I don’t want to think about what I’ve been doing for the past three days, much less talk about it. “We’re gonna have to strip it down to the studs and start over.” The roof can be repaired and windows can be replaced. My main concern is water damage. Mold can be toxic. “That’ll put us behind schedule and over budget.”
Declan
set his jaw, following the trajectory of my gaze. “Yeah...” he says, slapping the clipboard against his thigh. “We should know what we’re up against by the time the crew is finished with clean-up.” The money really isn’t a concern—that’s what insurance is for—but a rebuild is going to throw our entire build schedule off by months. I’m suddenly regretting telling Jeff to fire people who don’t show to help with clean up. Declan tips his hardhat back a bit to scratch his head before resetting it “How’d the bar hold up under the weather?”
“Good,” I say, giving him the first genuine smile I’ve managed in days. “I cranked up the genny and set the sandbags like your dad showed me. There might be some exterior damage but everything inside held up.”
“That’s good,” he says, looking relieved. “I talked to dad this morning and he was headed that way to make sure—”
“Hello?” The female voice called out from the front of the house, timid and unsure. “Is there a Patrick Gilroy here? I have a package for him.”
A package? No one would send me a package here. I shoot Declan a puzzled look. He looks as skeptical as I feel. I cross the kitchen and cut through the butler’s pantry and into the dining room.
“Can I help you?” I say to the woman standing in the foyer. She’s on the phone with her head down. Through the open doorway, I can see a dark colored sedan and my crew watching like they’re in the middle of a life-action telenovela. I can see the fastpass hanging from the review and the bright yellow fleet sticker on the windshield. It’s a company car.
As soon as she hears me, she whispers, “He’s here,” into the phone before hanging it up. Looking at me, she smiles. She’s young and pretty. “Are you Patrick Gilroy?”
Behind me, Declan clears his throat. “What’s this about?”
Ignoring him, the woman repeats her question, looking right at me. “Are you Patrick Gilroy?” It’s obvious she knows who I am but she needs me to confirm my identity. For a second, I consider saying no, just to see what she would do.
But what will that accomplish? Not a goddamn thing.
“Yes,” I say, nodding my head. “I’m Patrick Gilroy.”
She produces a thick packet of papers, tri-folded and stapled together at the top. Still smiling, she pushes it into my hand. “You’ve been served.”
Fifty-one
Cari
When I woke up this morning, I rolled over to find Patrick asleep beside me. Stretched out on his stomach, sheets pooled at his waist, face soft and so achingly perfect I felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch it. Him. Any part of Patrick I could reach. I wanted to feel him under my hands, just to prove to myself that he was still here. To convince myself that I hadn’t messed everything up as bad as I thought I did.
Instead, I got up and painted him.
Because of course I had. I’d gotten on my knees and reduced everything that happened between us down to nothing more than sex. Proved to him that he was no better than any other guy I’ve been with. That he’s going to use me and leave me, just like the rest of them.
I’ve been painting Patrick for three years—dozens of times between the first time we kissed in the front seat of his car to last—and I’ve hidden them all away. Never admitted to anyone how I really feel or what I want because, deep down, I know they’re things I don’t deserve. I painted him this morning because it’s the only way I can make him stay. Keep him with me.
I’m not sure when he wakes up but suddenly he’s watching me and for few seconds I can’t breathe. He doesn’t say anything. Tell me to stop. Laugh at me for being pathetic. Yell at me for ruining everything. He just watches me paint him, his eyes dark and unreadable.
As soon as I put my brush down he gets up and walks out. Fifteen minutes later, he’s gone. No goodbye, he just leaves, the sound of the door closing behind him sounds final. It sounds like an ending and as soon as I hear it, I crawled into my bed—our bed—and lay in the spot where he slept in the sun. And I cried myself to sleep.
I find my phone where Patrick said it was—on the kitchen counter. He plugged it into the charge cord he keeps the next to the coffee pot, a sticky note stuck to its screen.
It won’t work if you kill it.
P.
I peel the note off my phone and press it to the front of the fridge. Turning it on, I watch texts and voicemails roll across my screen. My parents. Tess. Miranda. Chase.
I call my parents back first and spend the next thirty-minutes convincing my parents that I’m okay. Next I call Miranda.
“This is Miranda McIntyre.” Her clipped, professional voice breaks through the third ring.
“Hi, Miranda—it’s Cari,” I say, suddenly afraid that my MIA routine is going to cost me my job. Patrick sent her a text on Monday but it’s mid-morning on Wednesday. A lot of time between then and now. “I’m really sorr—”
“I know who it is and you have nothing to be sorry for,” she tells me, giving me a slight, exasperated sigh. “Unless of course you’re calling me to apologize for holding out on me.”
“Holding out?” For one insane second, I think she’s talking about my thing with Patrick. I know she’s into him—I’d call it a crush if Miranda did crushes, which she doesn’t. What she does is chew through men like a wood chipper, tearing into them and leaving their mangled, bloody pieces behind her while she keeps on chewing.
“Chase called me,” she says. When I don’t say anything coherent, she sighs again. “About your paintings.”
Oh. God. “He shouldn’t have done that.” I manage to get it out without vomiting. “They’re terrible,” I say, because old habits die hard. “I mean they’re not—”
“I’ll be by tomorrow to look them over,” she says like I haven’t said a word. “Around noon? We’ll go to lunch afterward.”
“Okay.” It sounds like a question so I clear my throat and try again. “Sounds good.”
“Good. Take the day, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And then she hangs up on me.
Not sure what to do with myself after that, I check my texts. Several from Chase, all variations of I told Miranda that I came by your place to check out your work. Please don’t kill me.
I text back.
Me: I know. It’s okay.
I hit send and scroll through the rest of my texts. Wedged between texts from Tess and even more from Chase, is a text from a blocked number. Attached to it is a video file.
Something prickles along my scalp, an uneasy feeling, telling me not to open it. That whatever it is, I don’t want to see it. I ignore the feeling and retrieve the message.
I recognize myself immediately. On all fours in the middle of an unfamiliar bed in a swanky hotel room. Horrified and confused, my heart hammers in my chest, trying to remember… then I recognize James’ bare, white ass fucking me from behind. His face isn’t in the camera’s frame but I know it’s him.
Oh, my God.
I watch it the way I’d watch a sex tape of someone else. With pity and disgust and a healthy dose of scathing judgment.
What kind of stupid girl would let someone make a sex tape of them?
But I didn’t let him. I wouldn’t even send him pictures of myself when he asked for nudes. If I wouldn’t take a topless selfie, I sure as hell wouldn’t consent to a sex tape.
The part of my brain that’s still working catches hold of something. Something that has bile rising in my throat and me lunging for the sink so I don’t throw up all over the kitchen floor.
The video is time stamped for Saturday night. The night I didn’t get home until 3AM. The night I went out with Chase to make Patrick jealous.
Phone clenched in my hand, head in the sink, I breathe my way through the nausea. James made a sex tape of us without my consent. Somehow manipulating the time stamp. I wish I could say I’m surprised. That the James I dated for almost a year would never do something like that but that would be a lie. This is exactly the sort of thing he’d do.
The only thing I don’t under
stand is why he waited so long to use it against me. I don’t have to wait for my answer. My phone buzzes in my hand. Another text from the same blocked number.
Unknown: I wonder what your boy scout
would have to say about seeing his slut
girlfriend getting fucked like a dog.
Shall we find out?
Fifty-two
Cari
Tess stares at my phone, her lip curled in the same kind of judgmental disgust I felt when I watched it. She’s always known I’m no vestal virgin but knowing is different than having proof shoved in your face—and that’s exactly what I did.
Barely taking time to put on a pair of pants, I tore out of the apartment and down the stairs. I didn’t even stop when Patrick’s uncle called after me as I bolted out the bar’s fire exit.
I ran for the garage, heart hammering in my chest. By the time I careened through the open bay where Tess was working on a vintage Ford, I felt like I was going to have a stroke.
“What the shit?” she said, head poking out from under the hood, wrench mid-twist, when I slammed into the side of the truck. One look at my face, and she drops the wrench. “Fuck, what’s wrong?” she practically shouts. “Con—”
“No,” I screech at her, shaking my head. She’s calling for Conner. He already thinks I’m a heartless whore who’s just killing time by fucking his cousin. “Please.”
Conner walks through the door leading to the alley, a box of dry cat food in one hand a purring calico in the other. “You call me?” he says, glancing at me before focusing on Tess. “Something wrong?”
Quick on her feet, Tess reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell. “Say I love cats,” she chirps before snapping a picture. Turning her phone to face her, she smiles at the screen. “That’s going on Facebook.”
