I have seen his cock before, but only in the dark, holding it in my fist while I jerked him off, shadows and motion. Now I see the skin like the dark side of a peach, almost the color of a bruise. I see the curve of a vein underneath. I see the head of his cock, fat and proud and already glistening at the tip.
I see everything clearly because the saturated late-afternoon light still streams through his window. Our hours are all backward and twisted. Where another woman would do this at midnight, would expose her shame to the moon, mine comes open at five o’clock.
“She thinks you’re safe with me because I protect the other girls.” He approaches me, his cock near my face, his eyes looking down on me. “I even protect you.”
I choke out the words. “Because only you get to touch me.”
He nods approvingly. Candy doesn’t understand, he means. I understand. He’s showing me that we’re together on this, like some perverted joint mission where I agree to be hurt. And haven’t I? I showed up here of my own free will. Maybe I do want what’s coming to me.
And still, there’s a part of me—a weak, scared little girl curled up on a flea-infested bed from the past—who wants it to stop. Who digs her heels into the train tracks as if that might fortify her, as if that might stop the train that’s speeding closer.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I say because it is the awful, painful truth. Because I failed.
Because I’m weak and scared, and if he knows I never meant to hurt him, maybe he won’t hurt me.
He tastes the words, letting them roll on his tongue. “You never meant to hurt me.”
I’m already on my knees, hands bound behind me. Naked. All I have to protect me is his mercy, but I’m afraid he doesn’t have any where I’m concerned.
I am sure of it when his hand lands in my hair, squeezing tight, pushing my head back. His eyes meet mine, and I see there a dark promise. A quick shake and I’m backed up against the side of the bed, fallen against it and unable to right myself.
“I’m just wondering when exactly that was.” He brushes the head of his cock against my lips. “When you told me you’d be my girl, when you held my hand and smiled at me, was that when you didn’t mean to hurt me?”
It’s a trick question; I know that. It’s designed to tear me apart. I know that too. And still I answer, “Yes.”
When my mouth opens on the word, when my lips are parted, that’s when he shoves his cock inside.
“When you decided to fuck another one of your foster brothers, was that when you thought to yourself, I don’t want to hurt Blue?”
My head shakes no—and I’m not sure what it even means. I wasn’t thinking about him in that moment. I was trying to protect myself, and maybe that’s worse, the selfishness of fighting for me instead of us. Maybe that split second was why I lost him after all.
He pushes his hips forward, and his cock slides over my tongue. It leaves a trail of salt and musk, something to follow him down my throat. He’s full and large. My head jerks back, but he’s got me in his grip. The sharp pain on my scalp brings tears to my eyes. Then I’m being choked, throat fucked, by the man—the boy—I once loved.
“I guess it was later,” he says conversationally, as if his cock isn’t down my throat, as if the flat plane of his abs isn’t bumping my nose with every deep thrust. “When I walked in and found you with your panties down, bent over the bed. That was when you decided you didn’t want to hurt me.”
He’s moving faster now, and it’s affecting his speech, words coming on a punch of breath. It’s a sharp contrast to me, those rapid breaths, because I can’t breathe at all. My arms are aching, twisted back and wrapped in leather and pressed against the wall of metal and mattress. My jaw burns from being stretched open. My throat feels bruised from the invasion, and he only digs deeper.
“And I was worried. That’s the worst part, that I thought he might be hurting you, might be forcing you, because it looked that way. And because I believed you wouldn’t cheat on me.”
He presses in deep, stealing all my air. I can only open my eyes wide and look up at him.
“But it turns out you just like it rough, isn’t that right?”
I’m not looking at him anymore. I’m looking at a kaleidoscope of him, his face in a million shards, swirling sideways through my tears. I never liked it rough, and I never wanted to hurt him. Those things are true, but of course he wouldn’t believe me. Couldn’t believe me, after it all ended.
“I just didn’t give it to you hard enough,” he says, stroking my hair while he leaves his dick pressed deep. “So that’s probably why you decided to tell everyone that was me with you. That’s why you decided to tell everyone that I raped you. So that I’d be sent away without you even having to break up with me. Because you didn’t want to hurt me.”