All I needed was the correct medicinal cocktail, and my brain would rewire itself accordingly.
They prescribed me a bunch of pills that I didn't take. I'd give them to my brother who would hide them under his mattress, in the secret compartment we had made in the boxspring.
As I made my way through college, my condition intensified. Jerking off in the bathrooms became old hat, more of an obligation than a pleasure.
Porn was readily available, and that helped for a while. But like any addiction, the more you do the more you need. There were so many girls, too. Young, blossoming women, and me being a god damn good looking sonofabitch standing on top of his daddy's mountain of money certainly didn't hurt my cause.
I could have any of them I wanted.
And I did.
All except one. Denise VanHorne, who wanted nothing to do with me. Despite my best efforts, my family's bank accounts, my future already secured at Petersen & Stiller, she pretended like such things didn't matter.
She'd been dating some band geek since freshman year, and they were exclusive. He wanted to marry her. When she told me to fuck off for the last time, and I watched her sturdy, round ass storm down the hallway as she flipped me the bird, my mouth went moist. Just like it had done with Suzy Berkmen.
Just like it was doing now, as the sedan pulling to the curb, putting mere inches between me and the firecracker of a Latina in my office.
Chapter Four
SOFIA
I kept drifting in and out of consciousness.
My dreams were fuzzy, as if I were looking at them through a thick wad of gauze. Images blurred together, muted colors like sunsets on foggy nights.
Rebecca was in the last dream I remembered. She was walking through what may have been a forest, it was hard to tell. The trees weren't exactly trees, but giant, silky rose bushes. There was wildlife, too, but none of the animals had heads. Deer, squirrels, bats… I couldn't understand how they were able to survive, being that they had no mouths. How could they eat, or drink?
“You're over-thinking it,” Becca said. “You're always over-thinking it.”
Becca was sitting next to one of those rose trees, peeling off pieces of bark, filing and then cleaning her nails with them.
I wanted to run toward her. It had been years since I'd seen her, alive. But my legs wouldn't move. They were caught in a bog, a quicksand pond. And I was terribly thirsty. My throat was parched, like I'd been swallowing sand for hours on end. It was so scratchy, I couldn't even call her name.
“Be good, Ramone,” she said, getting up from the tree and tossing the bark to the side. She always called me 'Ramone'. Ever since I could remember, that was her pet name for me. Rebecca got the better name, as far as I was concerned. I never liked 'Ramona.'
“Don't leave me here,” I thought, hoping she would hear me even though I couldn't speak. “Take me with you.”
Becca kept walking. Slowly, but surely, she was disappearing into the rose tree forest. The headless animals followed her, like a sick take on a fairy tale. The further away she moved, the more my heart pulled and stretched.
I tried to chase after her, but my legs had sunk deeper into the mud. I couldn't feel them anymore. It didn’t matter. If she heard me, if she knew I was there, then she’d turn back. She’d come for me. Take me with her. All she needed was to hear my voice.
I tried to scream again, but just like all the other times, this time it didn’t work, either. I tried to raise my hands to my face, to cup them around my mouth and my painful throat.
My arms were useless, too. As if weighted down. Paralyzed.
I was scared, and all I wanted to do was to catch up with Rebecca. The two of us were always able to get through anything, but we had to be together to do so.
The fog grew thicker, darker. Funky grays morphed into silver, then black. All the muted colors disappeared, and suddenly, I was naked. Naked, laying on the mossy floor of what I could only assume was the forest, and still paralyzed.
I licked my dry lips, wishing I had some water, wishing I wasn't here. Wishing Becca was with me.
Then, something wet. Wet, and warm, against my chest.
I strained my neck, raising myself just a little from the moss, because the heat, the moist heat, felt soooo good. It was against my nipple, massaging it. Sucking on it, then moving to the other.
My back arched in response to the sensation, and my head fell to the side as the heat kept rubbing, rubbing.
“You like that,” someone said. I could hear them smiling.
It was a man's voice. I'd heard it before. But…where did I hear it before?
Hands on my breast, pulling the flesh taught, making my nipple more exposed, more vulnerable. The warmth licked against it, kissed it, suckling and teasing, and then another kind of heat began to rise within me. Pleasure, desire, between my legs. The heat kissed my nipple once more, then turned to ice.
My eyes snapped open, and my first instinct was to flee. I twisted to the side, why couldn't I run, and the sound of chains rattled softly above me.
My arms were spread wide apart, my legs numb from being confined for so long.
Maddox smiled.
“Someone's awake,” he said, and dipped his finger in his glass of ice water. “Hold still, now, princess.”
Holding still was the last fucking thing I was going to do. But no amount of twisting, or thrashing would free me. By this point in the evening, everything had been spent, gone weak. My muscles had nothing left
