Page 97 of Replay
“Alle, we’re not talking about a blowjob, or jacking off together.We’re talking about sex.Penetrative sex.He fucked me, okay?I asked him to do it.”
That wasn’t… That couldn’t be true.
“Spook,” she bleated.Her thoughts were so scrambled she was struggling to find appropriate words to say to him.“Why?”It was the only thing she could force out that wasn’t likely to turn into an incoherent ramble.“Why would you do that?”And by extension, what was wrong with her?
His sigh said it was complicated.But she found she was done with ‘complicated’ and half answers.That’s all that seemed to have been on offer since the day they’d met.Every time she thought they’d made progress, that he’d opened up a little and his actions followed a sort of logic, she’d fast realise she’d learned nothing and they weren’t any further forward at all.
“I’ve begged you, and you wouldn’t.Why would you do that with him?Why is shagging him okay?He’s taken, Spook.He’s in a relationship.”A complicated three-way one at that.Xane didn’t need Spook’s affections.And Spook didn’t need Xane.He had her.
“Are you in love with him?”
“No.”Spook reached for her but she took a step back.“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?”She could not stop her anger infiltrating her tone of voice.“That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing.”
“Alle, I love you.”
“No!”she growled.“No, don’t you dare.”She’d been waiting to hear him say it.But, she wasn’t going to hear and accept it now.“No.Just…just, don’t.”She waggled a pointed finger at him.“I can’t believe you.I can’t believe any of this.Why, Spook?What the hell?”Tears were coursing down her cheeks, and her nose was snotty.Some people looked pretty when they cried; she wasn’t one of them.Her pale skin meant that she turned red as a berry when upset and her nose turned into a purple blotch.
“I’m so sorry, Alle.”Spook tried to reach for her again, but she was having none of that.A hug wasn’t going to make it right.She wasn’t sure there was much that could make it right.Whatever explanation he had wouldn’t make sense.How could it?Yes, Spook was full of secrets, but fuck secrets, and all his nonsensical logic that he wouldn’t share with anyone.This was a betrayal of the trust between them.
She began backing towards the door.
He was saying words.Following her.Beseeching her.Alle couldn’t hear him.She wasn’t listening.All the other conversations they’d had were too loud inside her head.You have to give me time, he’d insisted.My reasons aren’t trivial.My celibacy isn’t a joke.
It wasn’t.But he’d turned her into one.
What a laughing stock she’d wound up as.And to think, the only reason Xane had ended up in Spook’s room was because she’d fetched him.He wouldn’t have known Spook was even upset otherwise.
It made her stomach knot thinking over how she’d gone to get Xane, and how he’d then sent her away and told her not to come back.
Was that why he’d sent her away?He’d known what would happen?
Alle ripped open the door and burst out into the cold air.
She bowled right into Dani emerging from the hut next door.They banged heads, and recoiled, both staring at one another in dazed confusion.
Dani’s hair was caught in a band at the back of her neck, but tendrils framed her face, and stuck to her wet cheeks.Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, and a streak of mascara lay along the side of her nose.
“Dani!”A call from behind her preceded Luthor and Xane toppling into the open, both of them semi-naked.Xane’s body was covered with bruises.The shock of seeing them struck Alle in the chest and made her heart race.They were horrific.
Their arrival spurred Dani into action.“No,” she yelled at Luthor.“Don’t you implore me.You’re as guilty as he is.”Her watery gaze zipped across to Xane, then back to Luthor.“You knew.Not only that, you knew and you didn’t tell me.In fact you tried to cover it up.”
“I didn’t know,” Luthor replied, as he attempted to drag a T-shirt over his head, and got it twisted so that it was back to front.“I had a suspicion, but I didn’t know for definite until a few minutes ago.”
“A few minutes,” she echoed, hugging herself, and appearing not the least bit pacified by the admission.“And what did you do with those few minutes?Did you contact me?Did you tell him what a fucking moron he is?No, you decided to bang him, because of course that’s what you do when you find out your boyfriend’s been with someone else.You go, ‘Hey ho, never mind.We’ll just have to go back to using condoms.No big deal.Pass the lube’.”
Luthor’s cheeks flushed suitably scarlet.“Dani…”
“Dani, please.”Xane echoed.He tried to get closer to her, but she struck out with the strappy bag she’d had looped over her shoulder as if she were a lion tamer with a whip.“Don’t you come near me, Xane Geist.I don’t want you to speak to me, let alone touch me.It was hard enough…” She pointed a finger at Luthor.“I let you have what you wanted, and I didn’t regret it, but this… this… You’re incomprehensible.”
She turned her back and stormed towards the barrier fence.Both men took steps in the same direction, only for her to yell at them not to dare follow her.“I’ll speak to you when I’m ready, and not before.”
Alle watched the two men reach stumbling halts.They were visibly shaken.Luthor’s anger evident.Xane’s more guarded.He was naked from the waist up.A fraction closer to her now, she could see he had a ring of bruises around the base of his throat, as well as several other large welts across his torso.Also, that her initial thought that he’d been beaten was incorrect.They were bite marks.
Her gaze strayed to the entrance of the yurt she’d just burst from.Spook stood in the doorway.He didn’t meet Xane’s gaze, and avoided Luthor’s.
“Alle.Please would you come back inside so we can talk?”
“I’m not sure what we’d find to say to one another,” she said.“Fuck!”And echoing Dani’s flounce, she stormed off.
