Page 38 of Swallow Your Sorries

When it’s over, I lay perfectly still, lips and eyes pressed tight, shutting out the sneering faces and hysterical laughter.

Shuttinghimout, because what else can I do?

Fornow, nothing.

“Look at me,” Gant barks, and it sounds utterly deranged.

I don’t obey, staying locked in my mind, in my own world, until his boot lands on my throat and my eyes fly open from the force.

He smiles, temporarily satisfied at the pain and humiliation that he finds in my eyes, as cellphone cameras flash in my face. He’s already tucked himself away. Not that anyone seemed to notice his entire dick was out. They just notice me. The star attraction to his circus.

His plaything,as he’d said.

Seemingly satisfied, he breaks eye contact with me and stares into the crowd. “She’s off limits to anymanon campus.”

The boys release me, but I don’t spring to my feet. I roll to my side, desperate to get the liquid off of my face without touching it. Desperate to get some reprieve for my burning eyes.

My ribs throb dully from the pressure. A random reminder of the car that hit me two years ago. Normally it’s the weather that triggers it, but today it must be all the reminders from my past. Of that fateful evening that brought me back to the last person I thought I’d ever see again.

Get up!

You have to do something.

Bile rises in my throat as I watch spit, my own and Gant’s mix with my blood and his piss in a puddle beside my head.

We won’t be a thing anymore.

“Ladies,sic her. You have my full permission.”

Do something!

Anything.

My fingers move of their own accord, suddenly not caring about the grotesqueness of it all. I don’t feel the sliminess as they slip into the mess, as they curl around it, trying to collect every last drop.

The crowd reaches a crescendo for their demon god and his offering.Me.

My fingers rise a centimetre off the floor and then they slam down into the wet, crushed under Gant’s boot.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” he whispers, dropping into a squat and leaning in so close to me that his nose nearly brushes mine.

I smile through the pain, through the tears threatening to fall. With my free hand, I launch droplets that…

Sail right past Gant’s head as he grabs my wrist with bone-crunching force.

I think it’s the pain, the disgust, the desperation to soil him, to dosomethingthat pitches me forward. That causes me to press my pissy lips against Gant Auclair’s soft, thick ones.

His eyes are so dark I can’t see the pupils grow wide in shock, but Iknowthey do. And his surprise emboldens me.

“Marking you,” I hiss, pulling back a fraction. We’re still so close my breath bounces off his lips and tickles my chin. “If I’m your territory, you’re my property.”

He wants to act like a fucking dog?

Fine.

I’ll be a bitch.

I press my tongue to his lips and seal that promise with a broad wet lick.

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