by L V Chase
I rush outside. Two buildings over, there's a villa with bright lights and loud music streaming from its open windows. I run over there, barge inside, pushing aside the crowds of boys and girls drinking and flirting with each other. I knock over a couple spilled drinks, step on toes, bump shoulders, but I don't look backward, only forwards, searching for Cin.
Two minutes later, I'm out of there, running across to the next villa with an obvious party. No one's drinking in this one. Instead, it reeks of pot and incense inside. People are lounging on the sofas and ground. Slow, foreign music plays in the background. The lights are all off, and the place is only lit with candles. I turn on all the lights, leading to annoyed shouts. I don't see Cin here, either.
I'm losing time. It's been at least five minutes, probably more since I last talked to Cin. That's an eternity when you have a pissed off, drunk girl on your hands. I run through the campus, searching for the next villa with a party.
And then I see her. She's sitting on the grass near another villa with loud music pouring from its windows. Her knees are up to her chest, and she's laying her head sideways across them.
"Cin!" I sprint to her, then kneel by her side. "Cin. Are you hurt? Are you okay?"
Even though she's right next to me, her words are even harder to make out. "Grayson?" she mumbles. "You came."
She holds her arms out to me for a hug. I scoop her up instead in my arms, carrying her like a child. I slowly and carefully start heading back to my place.
"Where are we going?" Cin asks.
"My room," I say. "You'll be safe there until you get sober."
"But I don't want to be safe," Cin drawls. "I want..." The rest of her words slur into a blurry mess.
She keeps muttering under her breath on the way back to her bed. At first, I suspect that she's been drugged, too, but the smell of alcohol on her breath is too strong, and when I had found her, no one else had been bothering her. She probably just got herself dead drunk, thank God, and nothing more.
I carry her to my bed and put her down on it. I sit at the side of the bed, holding her hand.
"You can rest here for as long as you need," I tell her.
"Need," Cin mumbles. "Oh. I know what I need."
Cin pulls me closer, and I lean towards her, thinking that she wants me to hold her. But instead, she pulls my hand to her right breast. With her other hand, she takes my head by the hair and pulls me closer. Her mouth hungrily reaches for mine.
"Grayson," she says in a low, breathy voice.
I pull myself partly away from her, then gently but firmly push her back onto the bed by herself. "You're drunk, Cin."
Cin gives me a confused look. "So? Fuck me, Grayson. Use me. Make me feel good."
"Shush." I put a finger to her mouth to quiet her, but she starts licking it, then sucking it, so I pull the finger away.
"Damn it, Cin, stop that," I say. "This isn't you. This isn't what I want."
"It's what I want," she says. "A good, hard fuck. Wet and messy."
"Cin."
She's not listening. She keeps reaching for me, and I halfheartedly fend her off.
"Cin," I repeat. "You know that you mean more to me than that, don't you? You know I want more than to just sleep with you?"
Cin mumbles words under her breath. I think she's swearing at me, but I’m not sure.
"Listen, Cin. You're not just another lay. You're not just a good fuck, or whatever you think this is about. I know I hurt you. I didn't want to tell you everything, but..." I push Cin back down again as she tries to wrap herself around me. "You mean too much to me. I can't lie to you anymore. I can't hide things from you."
Cin's not paying attention to me. I reach for the blanket this time and drape it over her. That seems to calm her down. I lie down next to her on top of the covers. Without saying anything, she turns and snuggles against me. We stay like that for several minutes quietly, and I hear her breathing turn slow and steady. I think she's fallen asleep, but then she turns her head, bends towards me, and finds my mouth with a kiss.
I kiss her back, lightly at first. I mean to stop after giving her a quick, comforting kiss, but she shifts her body so that she can draw closer to me. She begins sucking on my mouth greedily. I start to push her away, but that only makes her cling to me even more, her kisses becoming more furious and desperate, her hot breath searing me.
I can't resist her.
I rip the blanket back off her, then turn her over and straddle her while we keep kissing. My hands run through her hair, down her neck and shoulders, and across both of her breasts. Her hands run down my chest and abs, then back up to my shoulders and down my back again.
"Fuck," I mutter.
I'm already hard and ready, but I don't know if she is. I undo her jeans and pull them off, then rip her gray underwear off quickly as well. I push her knees apart, then lean down between her thighs, kissing her belly, her groin, the soft inner thighs.
I kiss along the contours of her body until I reach the cusp of her slit. I pause to inhale her scent, but she grabs my head with both hands and pushes me down into her. I kiss her clit, then let my tongue flick lightly up and down her outer lips before swirling about her hardening nub.
She pants as I continue to lick patterns on her clit, stopping now and again to tease her with the light flicks again, until she has enough and drags my head back up.
"Fuck me, Grayson," she hisses. "Fuck me!"
I don't waste any more time straddling her, lining my cock's head against her entrance, then slowly, inch by inch, easing my way inside her. She lets out a slow, long gasp as I fill her up, then gasps in an even higher pitch as I pull mostly out in one motion, only to slide back inside her.
I torment her with several more slow, long strokes, but I can't take it, either, and so I end up plunging into her faster and faster, our bodies making loud slapping sounds.
It's a fast, desperate fuck, as if this might be a dream that will end at any moment, or as if we're both doing something wrong and might get caught. We don't speak or kiss, just pant hard as I focus on climaxing. She reaches for her clit, and from the way her pussy tightens around me as I pump into her, I know that she's doing the same.
I grimace as the intensity builds until I can barely hold on. I want to look into her eyes, but hers are closed. Her mouth's wide open as she moans, though, so I kiss her again, crying out into her panting breaths as I come inside her. The sensation is driving me crazy, but I don't stop, even though I'm finishing, for another minute until her pussy clenches tightly around me, her legs shake, and her nails dig into my back once again.
She comes. Then, she finally opens her eyes to meet my gaze.
For that brief instant, all the pain, anger, and regret are gone. Everything is right again.
27
Cin
In my dreams, I see the party at Jason’s. I see Jason or someone who looks like Jason. His hand is gripping onto my thigh. I see a kaleidoscope of boys trying to fuck me, girls mocking me, and full plastic cups that keep getting handed to me. A thousand worries should be inside the kaleidoscope—about my reputation, about roofies, about my scholarship, about how I’ll face Damian again, about how Damian could sue me if his laptop is damaged, about the implications of the Voss sex ring. But it’s all pointless when all I’m going to be is this dumb bitch that men try to train into the perfect sex slave, who nobody will feel sorry for because she got exactly what she deserved.
But I saw Grayson, and everything felt less heavy and out-of-control. And even when everything was falling apart, I knew that he’d keep me together.
As I wake up in his bed, my brain feels swollen and compressed at the same time. I narrowly open my eyes. Sunlight pours through the window on the left side. On the right side, Grayson’s silhouette spans the height of the window. Seeing his naked, broad back reminds me of the heat from it as my hands tried to grip onto his shoulders. I recall the feeling of his ribs rising and falling as he fucked me.
But wh
en I was drunk, it was easy to forget that he’s a monster. It was easy to forget that he trains young women to be sold to powerful men. Morality is irrelevant when you’re under the influence. My mother proves that.
"How could I forget?” Grayson murmurs, his voice barely audible. His hand is up to his ear. He’s talking on his phone. “I'll take care of it. Like I said. I've been busy. I'll call you back."
Grayson turns his back to me and says something I can’t hear. Then, he steps out of the room.
I raise myself up, pulling some of the sheets up with me. He comes back in as I adjust my hair. He’s still holding his phone.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
"Nothing. Just the usual. How about you?"
I have the unsettling feeling that he’s hiding something from me. I had thought that we were over this…but I don’t know what’s going on. Is he going back to the old Grayson? Am I being an idiot for the thousandth time?
"Shit," I say softly. "This was a mistake."
A stabbing pain hits me in the back of my head, the consequence of last night. I fall back into the bed and pull the covers over me. I want to bury myself and hide from everything.
"I'll get you water," he says from a distance. "Painkillers if you need them."
He leaves. I don’t know if I can talk to him right now. He’s too intoxicating, worse than any alcoholic drink. But too much alcohol is poison, as my pounding headache reminds me, and I don’t think I can handle a dose of Grayson right now.
“Here,” he says.
I feel the bed shift as he leans on it. His hand reaches for mine, but I pull away before I can get ensnared again. I don’t know what I’m doing. Part of me just wants to die so that my hangover goes away.
"I have something I need to take care of," he says.
I hear him leave, my eyes heavy as I soon fall back asleep.
When I walk into the art studio with my lunch, Jay is sitting at the table. I nearly drop my plate as I rush over to him. I have to restrain myself from squeezing him to death.
“I can’t believe they let you out so early!” I check his face over. “Did you break yourself out?”
“Nah,” he says. “I look like I died and was resurrected, but they say everything on the inside is more aesthetically-pleasing.”
“God, I’m so glad.” I squeeze his arm, sitting down beside him. “I’ve missed having you around. You’re the only person around here that isn’t knee-deep in their own bullshit.”
“Not to be blatantly arrogant, but I’ve received a lot of compliments before, and that’s a new one.”
I laugh.
“Does that mean you asked Ally McCulloch about Damian and found out he wasn’t a saint?” Jay asks.
I shake my head. “I know you don’t want to hear me talk about Damian. I didn’t mean to treat you differently after he came here. I got swept away in how it used to be between him and me.”
“And you’d just been stabbed,” he says. “I get it, Cin. You don’t owe me anything. Though, I might feel better if I heard some of Damian’s flaws. I’m still annoyed by his disdain for the greats. He compared Jackson Pollock’s artistry to a toddler’s art. He called Andy Warhol ‘soup can boy.’ The ignorance is agonizing.”
I snort. “God, he’s such an ass.”
Jay takes a bite out of his spicy curry. He glances at me as he chews it.
I take a deep breath. “Ally McCulloch hinted at some things about him. Which you should call her about sometime. I think you might have an older woman interested in you.”
“Oh?” he asks. “She’s brilliant and a good person to have an alliance with. But you’re evading the question.”
I flick a tiny piece of eraser off the table. “So, you were right.”
“Noted, but expected.”
“He was single-minded on his goal of revenge.”
“Because your mother planted marijuana in his car?”
“And he went to prison, and his mother was arrested, and she’s still serving in prison for another three years, and his father kicked him out, but yeah, essentially because my mother planted marijuana in his car.”
“Oh. Wow.” He scratches at his side, wincing. “What was the plan for revenge?”
“He’d already been doing it,” I say. “Or, at least, part of it. He was blackmailing Grayson into bullying me. He was behind the sex tape being shown during the talent show. That must be why he wanted me to stay at this school. He said it was easy to torment me here.”
“You talked to him about it?” he asks. “You’ve gotten more…ambitious after I was hospitalized.”
“Not where it matters,” I say. “I haven’t done much work on my art piece for the competition.”
“I have a secret for that,” he confides. “To get the muse going.”
“If you’re about to tell me that you have cocaine,” I say, “I might actually consider it right now.”
“No.” He shakes his head, smiling as he stands up. “It’s Rhodes and Potter’s Ice Cream. The sugar rush will kill you or invoke your muse.”
I point to our lunches. “We already have food.”
“We’ll eat it along the way,” he says. “It’s only a ten-minute walk from campus. They’re also only open for another week or two.”
I reluctantly stand up. “You seem to like this place a lot.”
“They may have bought one of my art pieces in my freshman year.”
“Of course, they did,” I mutter. We gather our plates and utensils. “Next, you’re going to tell me they’re one of the judges for the competition.”
“No, they’re not,” he says. We step out of the art room and start walking down the hallway. “But, uh, we’ve never broached the discussions of the judges before.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He grimaces. “You should know…Trisha Voss is one of them.”
I near spill my food all over him as I spin to face him. “What? Grayson’s stepmother? Aurora’s mother?”
“Yes. You know how those rich trophy wives are. She wanted something to give her purpose, her husband wanted to keep her busy, and…they paid some money for her to pretend to be an art critic.”
“Aurora hates me,” I mutter. “Her mother is going to hate me, too.”
“She’s only one of the judges. If her rating is drastically different from everyone else’s, people will get suspicious. Don’t think about it.”
“Okay, so who are the other judges?” I ask.
“I only know about Mrs. Voss,” he says. “I heard Aurora talking about it last year. She was trying to convince some senior to take her to homecoming. He was competing. And he won, but that has to be irrelevant.”
Anxiety curls in me, tighter and tighter. As we cross campus, Jay starts humming some oldie. The higher notes seem to lift some weight off of my shoulders.
“Just so you know, I’m only going along with this because I’ve realized that alcohol isn’t my best friend right now,” I say.
“You never need to justify your actions to me, Cin,” he says. “But if you change your mind, there’s a bar two stores down. They aren’t too careful with carding since they know how many assholes come around with a black card.”
As we pass through campus, a gust of wind sends a cascade of autumn leaves down on us. He kicks one of them, but it just sticks to his shoe. He must feel pain in the same stubborn places that I do—my stab wounds, my injured knee, his bruised face, and his battered body. We’re two broken pieces that should fit together.
I wish I could love him in the way he wants. But it would be a lie in a similar way that Damian pretended to care about me. One day, he’d find out that the desire I’d felt towards him paled in comparison to what I felt for Grayson. He’d know I was settling for him.
Like a conjuring, I see Grayson in the parking lot.
He’s leaning against his car, his arms wrapped around a woman—the typical platinum-blonde bleached bimbo—their mouths suctioned together and moving with a
slow, deliberate pace. At this point, they’re nearly eating each other.
As my rage rises up, Grayson moves his head enough that I can see the woman clearly.
Not just a typical bleached bimbo.
My mother.
His hands are in her hair, and their mouths are crushed against each other. She’s leaning up against his car, his body pressing her up against it. Her fingers are hooked around his belt loops, ensuring they’re as close together as possible.
I recognize that both Jay and I have stopped, but I don’t know which one of us stopped first. My plate is no longer in my hand, my lunch spattered in front of my feet.
My mother told me she’d get Grayson, and she did. She had a theory about ensnaring rich men that I’d always scoffed at, but while Grayson fucked me in secret, he’s out in the open with her.
Her theory included an eight-step process for a perfect blowjob. And it must have worked.
Or maybe Grayson is just a full-blown sadist. Damian gave him a taste of cutting me as deep as possible, and now he was never going to stop.
My mother opens her eyes. She sees me. Her hand slides into his hair as he kisses the side of her neck. She’s staring at me the whole time.
I turn around. I run. I hear Jay trying to catch up to me, his footfalls heavy and clumsy. I slow down as we reach the center of campus. It’s not my intention to hurt him after he’s left the hospital so recently.
“Who was that woman?” Jay asks, taking in sharp breaths.
His hand clutches to his side. I shake my head, sweat beading on my forehead. He wraps his arm around me, pulling me close. I look down. A yellow dandelion has sprouted up at the edge of the sidewalk, forcing its way to the light.
