Priss – I’m just taking some time. I texted Tallulah, she knows I’m okay.
My eyes devour her words but instead of consoling me, they only make me angrier.
Me – What the hell are you playing at ignoring her until now? She was worried.
Priss – I already told you I spoke to her, she gets it.
My jaw clenches and I have to literally shake my head to escape the unbidden rage that her response has evoked. Before I can stop myself, my fingers are moving across the screen, typing words that I shouldn’t be thinking, let alone saying.
Me – I want to fuck you again.
Hitting send, I throw my cell across the couch hating that I’ve admitted it, hating that it’s true. I don’t know if it’s my ego that’s raising its ugly head because she walked away from me the other morning, or if it’s that she was so amenable, doing what I told her to do without question, or maybe it’s just that for those few hours she was soft and unsure. I don’t know. All I know is that I want more, one more time, a few more hours with her beneath me, while she’s mine.
She doesn’t reply and I’m not surprised. She’s so fucking cold and disassociated that I doubt she felt anything more than the ache between her legs after I took her virginity. Maybe her elusiveness is part of the reason that I want to control her so much, either way I’m a fool for giving her even an ounce of power over me.
Crossing to the kitchen I glance into the empty refrigerator, wishing it was full of food instead of bare except for the remains of last night’s take-out. I need to get some groceries, or at least ask our house keeper to do it for me, because I hate living on take-out.
Eyeing my cell like it’s a poisonous snake I grab my laptop from my backpack, turn it on and open up a food delivery service, choosing a take-out meal from a nice local restaurant and quickly ordering it.
Frustrated, I cross to the wet bar that’s built into the wall of the galley, and always stocked, and pull out a beer. The emptiness of the boat seems to shrink around me and for the first time in a while, I feel lonely. I have places I could be, hell I could take up Arlo and Tally’s offer and move in with them, but most of the time I don’t mind being alone.
But I can’t spend time with Priss’s twin tonight. Tally might be my friend, but I can’t look at her identical face without thinking of her prickly sister. If Priss’s lack of reply has taught me anything it’s that me and my dick need to forget all about Carrigan Archibald.
12
Carrigan
Carson - I want to fuck you again.
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve read his message, but no matter how many times I close down the app, then reopen it again the words never change. I don’t understand. He was the one who said one time only, that was his rule not mine. Not that I ever expected either of us to be interested in a repeat performance, but regardless that was his condition.
He got to be in charge, no condom, and one time only. Those were his rules.
My skin shivers a little as I think about the sound of his voice when he said those things, about the feel of his hands on me, his dick inside of me. It’s only been a couple of days but already the pain has faded from the memory, and now all I can see and feel and taste when I think about us together is pleasure. So much pleasure, that now I’m not sure how much of it was real and how much is a fabrication I’ve created to gloss over the fact that it was just an act and not something deeper.
I know he’s expecting a reply, but I have no idea what to say. He hates me. When we had sex it was for a purpose—to break the will—so what reason would we have for doing it again?
Staring desolately at the generic hotel room around me I choke back the sob that threatens to consume me. This morning after I decided not to go to school, everything that’s happened in the last few days all hit me at once.
I don’t have anywhere to live, my parents hate me, the money is gone and with it everything I envisaged my life would become. My sole purpose for being was getting that money and now I have no idea who I am and what to do.
My trust fund is large enough that I don’t have to worry about money, but do I buy a house, an apartment, or do I just stay at this hotel until I graduate and go to college? I’m so used to having my days, my weeks, my life planned out for me, that now all those plans have fallen by the wayside I don’t know what to do.
I’ve picked my cell up, poised to call my mom three times already today, because without her unyielding structure I’m not sure I even know how to exist. For the last few years she’s instructed me on everything from my hair and clothes, to my friends and classes. She’s organized my life in a series of dinners, events, and parties, and now that none of that matters anymore, my life is just one long empty calendar.
Tallulah would tell me this is my opportunity to discover who I am and figure out what I want to do, but I’m not her. She’s brave and I’m weak. If this will has taught us both nothing else it’s the fact that when faced with life altering decisions, she will do the right thing and I’ll
