by Karr, Kim
Well, fuck him. I did have my own money.
Still, it was probably time to break down and move over to that shit hole my dad was living in, because the cost of this place together with my New York apartment was putting a huge dent in my funds. Although I had to say, last night my pop’s house looked in better shape than I’d seen it in years. Then again, maybe last night was just the first time I looked at it differently.
No matter how clean he tried to make it, though, nothing would ever erase what had happened there or the blood that had been spilled. What Tommy had done was an act of revenge that he never wanted me to forget.
He had succeeded in that.
I cranked the water as hot as I knew I could stand it and tried to wipe my mind clean of what he’d do to Elle if he saw her and worse, much worse, what he’d do to her if he saw her with me.
Fuck.
Stripping off my clothes, I stepped into the large glass expanse and let the water flow over me, welcoming the familiar burn that was never enough to really make me feel clean.
And thought of Elle.
Beautiful.
Natural.
Smart.
Tough.
Vulnerable.
Vulnerable enough that if I couldn’t have taken her when I dropped her off last night, I knew I could have when her body covered mine as she slept, or this morning when she stood next to me practically naked. Those visions of her made my cock throb so much it hurt. But I craved her for more than just a single fuck.
And that just wasn’t possible.
I was already hard just thinking about her again, her long, lean legs, her perfect body, her small, tight ass. The water ran onto my hair, down my face, and fell to the drain. Before I knew it, I wasn’t paying attention to the water. Instead I had my cock in one hand, my balls in the other.
It had been a while since I’d fucked anyone. This shit with my father and Patrick had my mind on other things. But damn, my body needed this. I wanted her hand to curl around me and feel how hard she made me. I wanted to tell her what she did to me. Whisper in her ear. Scream it if I had to.
That wasn’t happening, though, so I settled on this.
I closed my eyes and gently rubbed first around the head, and then down my shaft. I fisted my balls in my other hand.
Fuck, that felt good.
Because I couldn’t help myself, I pictured her doing it. Her in the shower with me and us free to explore each other in any way we wanted. God knew, I wanted to explore her. All of her body. I grabbed my shaft and moved up toward the tip. I wanted her hands to be the ones gripping me, not mine.
Water droplets from the shower pounded down my body and acted as a lube, making it easier to move faster. I thought of her, her face, her body, how much I wanted to touch her, where I wanted to touch her.
Oh, fuck.
I imagined driving my cock into her sweet pussy and it made me want to come hard and fast.
Oh, fuck yeah.
My fist pumped at a quicker pace and I licked the water from my lips. I thought about slowing down but I was already too far gone.
My forehead fell to the shower wall and I grabbed my balls tighter, twisting my cock to feel a little pain.
Oh, fuck.
Pressure welled deep within me and a tingling radiated down my spine.
I was going to come.
I was going to come.
Oh, fuck.
As my orgasm sped higher and higher, so did the pleasure—it felt like electricity was shooting through me. That unbelievably good feeling mounted and I couldn’t hold on any longer.
I clutched on tight and let myself go.
As I came, my cock twitched so fast, it felt like a spasm, but so incredibly good. I exploded at the thought of her and the intensity of my orgasm shocked me. When the feeling rose again, I couldn’t believe it.
I wasn’t finished.
This time I really let myself go—crossing that threshold to another world and reliving the same feeling again and again until I was spent. Just the thought of her milked me for everything I had.
Afterward, I slouched against the glass and thought that if this was all I could have of her—a hand job given by my own palm with her in my mind—I’d take it.
It felt that fucking good.
As my breathing returned to normal, so did my senses, and I chastised myself. I shouldn’t be thinking of her at all, especially in that way.
With a sudden urge to want to chop my dick off, I lathered up with soap, rinsed off, and got the fuck out of there.
I didn’t bother to shave.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at my reflection, the scar under my eye opening up the memory that grabbed me before I could shut it down.
*
“You sure your family doesn’t mind if I stay at your house?” she asked.
“Fuck no, my pop’s passed out somewhere by now and my gramps isn’t home.”
It was the summer after college graduation and I was spending it with a bunch of my friends in the Hamptons. At a party, I had met a girl named Kayla who I wanted to get to know better. It had been the first time since Emily that I had taken any real interest in any chick.
After about a month of dating, I liked her enough to ask her if she wanted to road trip it to my hometown of Boston with me. It was last minute. I was on a drug run for my friends. It was supposed to be quick. Drive to Boston, spend the night at my gramps’s, pick up what I needed, and turn around and go back.
Kayla was excited to tag along and packed quickly, but then had a number of stops she wanted me to make before we actually got on the road. I was a bit annoyed but rode with it. By the time we pulled into Boston, it was late and Kayla complained that she was hungry. I remember thinking how high maintenance she was and that I wasn’t sure the relationship thing was for me. Still, I took her to a local pizzeria in Dorchester to get something to eat and put those thoughts on pause for the night.
It was around eleven before we finally reached Gramps’s place and I unlocked the door that led to his kitchen. Just as I stuck my key in the door, I remembered what it was I really liked about Kayla. It was her aggressiveness. She wrapped her arms around my waist and her hands drifted down. With my cock taking over my thoughts, I turned toward her and started kissing. We stumbled inside in a tangle of tongues, arms, and legs. I seriously doubted we’d make it past the kitchen.
I reached behind me to close the door but before I did, I felt another pair of hands on my shoulders and thought, what the fuck. Out of nowhere, I was shoved forward. I whipped around to see a gang of guys bursting in. There were four of them. I tried to shield Kayla, but one grabbed her from me as the other three went after me. Lunging forward, I made it to the counter and managed to clutch a kitchen knife from the wooden butcher block. This time when the three of them tried to secure me again, I flipped around and blindly stuck the blade somewhere.
“Fuccckkkk, he stabbed me!” one of them screamed.
Everything happened so fast after that. The knife was still in my hand. It didn’t go deep enough that I couldn’t withdraw it. When I tried again, somehow one of them managed to take it from me. He brought the blade right to my face. “Stop struggling,” he ordered.
Heart racing, I felt like a caged animal. My breathing constricted and I was having difficulty drawing air as I fought to free myself.
The one with the knife got real close, trying to scare me. I was lost in my own rage—fear wasn’t even under my radar. I just knew I had to get Kayla out of there. I didn’t know who these guys were, but I knew what they wanted wasn’t anything good. The scuffle continued, and then he managed to slice the blade across my face, just under my eye.
Pain singed my every nerve.
Yet Kayla’s screams had me fighting even harder.
“She’s next if you don’t stop!” the dick yelled.
That’s when I ceased my struggling.
Three guys held me in place an
d the fourth restrained Kayla with her hands behind her back. Once they had us where they wanted us, one of them announced, “All set.”
Stumbling through the door with glassy eyes, just as I’d remembered him, came Tommy Flannigan. He grinned like a sick motherfucker at Kayla and then pointed his finger at me. “Are you a fucking moron?”
He was coked up.
Fear finally made its way up my throat and I could feel sweat beading on my forehead. I once again struggled to get free.
Tommy closed the door and took a step toward Kayla. When she started screaming again, Tommy grabbed a kitchen towel and shoved it in her mouth.
“Leave her alone,” I spat.
Tommy nodded his head to the guy holding her and turned around. He swiped the bloody knife from one of the guys holding me and strode back over to her.
“Leave her alone!” I yelled again.
He ignored me and sliced open her blouse in one fluid movement.
Jerking forward, I felt my anger burning like fire as it flowed through my veins. “Fucker, look at me!” I screamed.
Tommy slowly turned around, that sadistic grin still on his face. “You must be fucking stupid to risk being seen around here with a chick.”
“Leave her alone,” I said again.
“You should have thought about that before you decided to stick your dick in her.”
“Tommy, this is between you and me. Let her go.”
His laugh was vile. “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s between you and my sister, but she’s not around anymore to handle the problem. Now is she, Logan?”
“Tommy,” I seethed.
He shook his head. “I can’t have you disgracing my sister’s memory by being seen around town with skanks.”
I kicked, I shoved, I fought against the three guys holding me but couldn’t loosen their hold. Finally, I stopped and looked at him. “Tommy, I’m sorry. You’re right. Emily didn’t deserve that.” I tried to reason with him even as the bile rose up my throat.
He glared at me.
“Tommy—”
He held his hand up, then found another kitchen towel and tossed it to one of the guys. “Plug his hole.”
Blood was dripping down my face as I fought against being gagged. I needed Tommy to think of Emily if I was going to have a shot at stopping what he was about to do. But I was completely powerless once I couldn’t speak.
Tommy stripped the rest of Kayla’s clothes off and my heart banged in my chest when I saw the terror in her eyes. Time seemed to move slowly as her muffled noises tore at me. My anger flamed and I became a wild animal, kicking, clawing, struggling to get free.
This only seemed to spur Tommy further. I watched as he twitched and his face grew more and more excited. I knew I needed to become a blank canvas, but I just couldn’t. Then Tommy licked his tongue up Kayla’s throat and something inside me went ballistic. At the sight, I stopped, letting my eyes go vacant; I tried to mentally remove myself from the situation.
Tommy’s entire focus was on me. Good. That was good. He was trying to figure me out. Let him try. I withdrew further and further. He narrowed his eyes, watching me. Bewildered, he approached me as if I might attack him. Ironic. But then he snapped and stepped close to Kayla and held up the knife. “Watch this, McPherson.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Open your fucking eyes or I’ll slice her open.”
My eyes slammed open.
With the knife, he carved the letter E in her stomach.
She was screaming and I was fucking helpless.
I was going to fucking kill him.
When he finished, he took her purse and pulled out her wallet, then her license. “Kayla Williams of 1115 Park Avenue, if you so much as breathe a word of what happened here tonight, we’ll find you and your family and kill you before you can even dial nine.”
Her eyes were round with fear. She was terrified.
Tommy then turned back to me. “You see, Logan, all of your skank whores need to be marked. To know what a vile creature they let inside them. Do you understand that, Logan?”
I didn’t respond.
“Do you understand me, Logan?”
Again, I didn’t respond. I was going to kill that motherfucker, but even as I thought the words, I knew I wouldn’t. I may have lived in two different worlds, but some lines should never be crossed. But I’d make him pay. Somehow, some way, he was going to pay.
“Since Mr. Silver Spoon here doesn’t want to answer, how about we play a little game of question and answer.” He looked at the guy to the right of me. “Would you want to fuck her after he did?”
“Fuck no,” the cokehead said.
“You?” he said to other guy holding me.
“No fucking way.”
“You?” he asked the guy who had my head in a vise grip.
“Not if she were the last skank on earth.”
Tommy turned back to the guy holding Kayla. “That leaves you, my man. You’ll take one for the team, won’t you?”
The bastard grinned from ear to ear. “Only if he gets to watch.”
I kicked. I tried to pound my head against either of the guys holding me and then the one behind me, but nothing I did gave me the leverage to break free of all three of them.
“Hey, Logan. Too bad your parents didn’t neuter you when they had the chance.”
Up until this night, I had never wanted to respond to anything or anyone in such a violent manner. I never wanted to be like my grandfather. But as Tommy bent Kayla over the kitchen table, something snapped and I knew I’d never be the same.
I watched, helpless, as she struggled and he manhandled her. He tied her hands behind her back and then he spread her legs with his boots. When he took off his belt and secured one of her legs to the table, I thought I was going to be sick.
She hadn’t done anything.
She didn’t deserve this.
The other guy unbuttoned his pants and then grabbed her by the hair.
Tommy whirled around with a smile on his face and the knife in his hand. He bobbed his chin to the guy behind me. “Pull his pants down. I’ve been thinking and I don’t think it’s too late to neuter this dog.”
This was my chance. As soon as he let go of the chokehold he had on me, I was going to annihilate every single one of these fuckers.
“On second thought, let me.” Tommy grinned.
I thrashed, but the three guys tightened their grip.
“You got him?” Tommy asked.
I saw one nod.
Tommy took the knife and dragged it up the inside of my thigh, stabbing right through the fabric of my jeans. Blood seeped into the denim as he worked his way up my thigh.
Kayla was screaming loudly now. Her gag must have fallen loose. I couldn’t see her. Couldn’t see what that asshole was doing to her, but I could hear it.
Pain tinged the fringes of my existence and my senses started to dull. But I made myself stand straight. I was not a pussy. I was going to get out of this and regardless of what I’d thought, I was going to kill Tommy Flannigan.
Before he made it all the way up my leg with the blade, the kitchen door flung open. Frank Reilly, my grandfather’s next-door neighbor and also Molly’s pub owner, was standing there with a shotgun in his hand.
Thank fuck. Thank fuck. Thank fuck.
“That’s enough, boys. It’s time for you to leave.” He pointed his rifle between Tommy and the guy who was bent over Kayla.
Blood was dripping onto the floor. From my face, from my leg, and from Kayla’s stomach. The guy who had his dick out of his pants turned around, and red footprints from Kayla’s blood were left behind.
Tommy looked at my gramps’s neighbor. “Get out of here, Frank. It’s not your business.”
Frank was a tough guy. Big. No-nonsense. He didn’t take shit from anyone.
He looked at Tommy and shrugged. “Just thought you should know, I called your old man. He’s on his way to get you. I also called Killian.
He’s on his way to kill you. So you have a couple of options to choose from. No skin off my back whichever you decide.”
With that he turned and walked out.
Tommy bobbed his chin for the door. “Leave him and his whore girlfriend. Let’s get out of here—Declan’s in the car waiting.”
They let go of me and I lunged for Tommy.
He held up the knife. “Touch me and you’re dead.”
“Fuck you,” I spat once I’d pulled the towel from my mouth.
He smile was evil. “I’d watch my back if I were you, because the next time I see you around my town with another skank disgracing my sister’s name, it won’t end up as pretty as this did.”
My fists clenched at my sides and I started for him.
He held up the knife and pointed it toward Kayla. “I’m not fucking around with you.” He limped backwards out the door, slamming it as soon as he crossed the threshold.
I wanted to go after him, but Kayla was still bound and hysterical. I untied her and immediately pulled my bloody shirt off to slide it over her trembling body. I didn’t want to leave her and I didn’t want to move her.
She flung her arms around me and clung to me as we both spilled the blood that Tommy had shed.
Her cuts were superficial, but the emotional damage was anything but.
To her and me.
The day that Emily died will always remain a permanent point of reference for me. My life ever since has been “after” . . . but the run-in with Tommy was a day I’ll never forget, and it, too, became an “after.” Both marked an alternate path my life would take. Both had an impact on me. Yet that day with Tommy made me a different person.
We hadn’t called the police. Things weren’t handled that way and besides, Patrick had the Dorchester cops in his pocket. Rather, he and my grandfather roughed it out. The problem was, Patrick was already unofficially running things, so the punishment didn’t match the crime. My gramps had one foot out the door and didn’t have much of a choice but to agree to the terms. Patrick had sanctioned what Tommy had done as due retribution. As if he wouldn’t. My gramps allowed the incident to pass, but ordered no further engagement with me by either Patrick or Tommy, on any level. I also was forbidden from going anywhere near Tommy and he was forbidden from coming anywhere near me. Neither of us violated the order. We both knew better. I hadn’t been in the same room with him or Patrick since that night.
