Page 49 of Shameless in Vegas

Once inside, I ease the door shut and spin the lock, then turn with the intention of going straight for the phone when—

Blunt force slams into my face accompanied by a flash of white light, and then…

Everything.

Goes.

Black.

Weightlessness.

A disconnected sensation of being dragged on my knees across the rug.

I still can’t see anything, but I can smellhim.

He’s in this house, in this room, and I’m about to pay for dropping the ball.

My vision blinks back to life as my body is hurled against the edge of the bed, my neck pinned in place by a large hand. My feet are kicked apart at my ankles, forcing my legs apart, and another hand reaches under my thin, flimsy skirt to jerk my bikini bottom down and expose my bare ass to what I know he’s about to do.

“You’re slacking,puta,” Xavier rasps, his foul, unfiltered-cigarette breath painting the back of my head. “You’ve been ignoring me.” He grips a fistful of my hair and wrenches my head backward so hard that it restricts my airway. There’s the jingle of a belt buckle unfastening and an unzip of jeans. “You’re getting spoiled by this mother fucker, and it’s distracting you from what you are.”

Xavier has at least a hundred pounds of pure muscle on me, and my head is still swimming from the blow I didn’t anticipate, and fighting him will only exacerbate the consequences I knew were coming.

“I’m here to remind you, you worthless cunt,” he growls before I hear him spit, and I know what’s coming.

I know because he’s done it, others have done it, and I don’t want it, but I can’t let myself give a fuck.

His spit-covered fingers make contact with the sensitive flesh that I have never derived pleasure fromanyonetouching, but I will not let myself to give a fuck.

I refuse to give a fuck, because when a man attempts to dominate you in this manner, you only give them power over you if you allow yourself to give a fuck about what they’re doing.

I grit my teeth as he drives into me, but I remain silent because I will not give him the satisfaction of alluding to even a shred of the slightest discomfort, because fuck him.

What is this body, but a tool for survival? This body isn’t what makes me human. There is no sanctity in flesh; nothing sacred about the allegedly intimate places that I have been forced to surrender to cretins in the name of survival. It is only that will to survive that tethers me to my own humanity. And no matter how many times he or anyone else does this, they can’t touch it.

He grunts as he carries on like the pathetic, weak, animalistic shit that he is, and I still don’t give a fuck.

I’ll figure out how to placate him by doing my job, but then I will figure out how to kill him.

“Listen to me, you filthy slut,” he rumbles, throaty and vile and soulless as he continues his paltry attempt to break my soul. “I don’t know what the fuck you’ve been doing, but it isn’t what I told you to. So, you’re gonna go straight to the horse’s mouth. Instead of snooping around, you’re gonna get Ernesto to tell you himself what all he’s done with his money. And I don’t care if it means you have to fuck him, too, you’re gonna get him to tell you, soIcan tell him later that he served up that money to me on a silver fucking platter, right before I kill his wife and daughters in front of him, and then put a bullet between his eyes. Do you fuckin’ follow, bitch?”

I don’t speak, because fuck him.

Xavier can’t be bothered by my silence because he’s busy blowing his sad little load from his sad little penis.

He finally drags himself away from me and pulls his jeans back up. I fix my clothes and sit up straight on the edge of the bed, chin raised and jaw set, because fuck him.

He cannot shame me because I amshameless.

The guilt and shame they’ve tried to inflict on me through torture is only one more thing in this world that is a trivial threat to the will to survive that keeps my humanity intact. And,Dios ayudame,Iwillsurvive, because Iwillone day live on my own terms. I will take my freedom by force and violence and give no thought to what is left in my wake.

I am shameless because I refuse to be shamed.

And Xavier thinks he broke me down by coming here like this, but all he’s done is solidified my decision.

I’ll finish the job, and then I will kill him.

Whenheleast expects it.

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