“Is it because we want to share?” JD asks. She must say no, because JD says, “Then what is it?”
There’s some sniffling and a long pause. I walk back over to the open bathroom door and listen as her small voice tries to make sense of things. “I don’t want him to hate me.”
JD laughs. “Sweetheart, he’s got it bad for you. There’s no way in hell he’s gonna hate you.”
There’s a few more minutes of talking. Reassurances from JD. Promises, even. And then the silence that says she accepts what he’s telling her is true just as the water shuts off.
I take a deep breath and drop my towel on the floor. I’m practically dry now anyway. So I just crawl in to JD’s bed and flop over, face first on the mattress, forcing myself to push aside all the warning bells going off in my head. Because JD is right.
I’ve got it bad.
I want her and I’ll take her any way I can get her.
A few moments later the bathroom light turns off and the room goes dark. They are silent as they climb into bed next to me and the girl’s warm skin touches mine as JD pulls her close to him.
He’s hogging her now because he can, and I feel the anger building up again.
But then her tiny hand finds mine in the dark and she grabs hold of it. Gives it a squeeze.
I squeeze back.
JD’s breath is like a whisper across the back of my neck. It lingers the way a whisper does, and then he’s kissing my scar.
I open my eyes. Ark is sleeping in the bed next to me. His chest is rising and falling in the same rhythm as the tiny puffs of air JD is caressing my skin with. Ark’s dark hair falls over one eye, his cheek pressed against the mattress. He doesn’t use a pillow, and that suits him for some reason—that Ark should prefer to sleep without a comfort everyone takes for granted. This makes the line from his neck to the dip at the small of his back more straight than it might be. One arm is flung out towards me, only a few inches from my own, which is tucked up under my chin. His palm is facing down on the white sheets and I want nothing more than to grab hold of him and never let go.
JD’s kisses recapture my attention. “Hey,” he says, right next to my ear so the sound gets caught in the curve of the shell. Captured. Maybe to keep Ark sleeping while JD gives me some attention.
“Hey,” I say back with the same discretion.
“I’m sorry I made you cry last night.”
“You didn’t,” I insist.
He says nothing to that. I’m not ready to talk yet, and he’s not gonna push me. That’s what he said last night after I cried. He’s not gonna push me to talk. And that feels like a miracle. How did I find two people with more secrets than me, at just the moment when I needed it most?
I know the answer, but I refuse to believe it. I won’t believe it. Not after everything that’s happened.
JD’s words stop, but his hands are just beginning to wander. I’m sore all over from the night before my escape. It’s always worse the second day. It’s like the gods of punishment are fucking with you the first day. Because you start to think it wasn’t so bad. You start to think you won’t be limping for a week or struggling to breathe through the bruises on your throat. Or that the open sores on your back won’t be weeping with pus for days before they finally scab over.
But the gods of punishment are cruel. Because they make that first day bearable for the sole purpose of building you up just to take you back down again on day two.
My whole body hurts, but JD’s touch is soft and soothing. He doesn’t try to fuck me again. He doesn’t even try to get me off. It’s like he knows. And he must have an idea if he recognized the branding scar on the back of my neck.
“You know what it means?” he asks, his voice still very low. “That brand?”
I nod. Of course. Everything was explained the first day. “Eternity.”
I feel a long hot breath on my upper back as JD deals with that. “Did you see any—”
“No.”
He stops talking for a few seconds. Maybe I stunned him. Or maybe he accepts it as truth. Or maybe he knows that was too much.
We’re silent for so long after that, I figure he wants to go back to sleep. But then his soft touches start up again.
A fingertip tracing up and down my prominent ribs.
His palm cupping the hip bone that sticks out way too far.
His lips caressing the welts on my back.
Every bit of it hurts. Not all in the same way. But every bit of it hurts. The bones remind me of how malnourished I am. What could these two beautiful men see in me? How could they possibly see past my emaciated shell of a body? And the kisses across my back are just painful. Putting on a shirt will be a reminder of what they did, no matter how loose it is.
And then his hands rub lightly over the curve of my ass. The hands that grabbed it with such passion last night and made me forget.
He knows I’m crying before I do. He turns me towards him, hugging me close.
But it hurts. It all hurts and I cry harder. “Please stop,” I beg. “Please don’t touch me anymore.” I just want to lie still and forget. I don’t want to be reminded of anything. Not the good. Not the bad. Not anything.
JD is still next to me for several minutes, but then he just gets up, gets dressed, and walks out of the bedroom. A few moments later the front door slams.
I close my eyes with relief and slow the crying down to small hiccups of air that cannot be rushed. They stop in their own good time and there is nothing I can do but allow myself to forget.
“I saw this golden monkey once,” Ark says a few minutes later, startling me out of my blissful solitude. “It escaped from its enclosure at the zoo a few summers ago. JD and I were just getting into the groove of things with the business. And we were shooting a scene at the zoo.” He stops to chuckle. “It’s fucked up, I get it. But don’t judge me yet, Blue. Because I’m a man of many layers. And I do things for a reason.”