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“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barry asked, slapping a towel down on the bar and leaning over it.
“It means I have him by the balls. It means he wants me even though hehateswanting me.” He smiled like a knife, sharp and cruel. “And I like that. I like it a lot.”
“Youlikehaving him beat the shit out of you?” Barry asked, motioning at a visible bruise on Minty’s forearm.
“He doesn’t do anything I don’t want,” Minty said, sniffing. He rolled his eyes. “I told Peter that. He should have listened.”
“And does what you want include being choked?” Daniel asked, reaching out to touch the Mardi Gras beads around Minty’s throat. Now that he’d pointed it out, I could see they were supposed to cover up bruising.
“Yes,” Minty said, lifting his chin even higher. “And I like to be hit, and fucked hard, and spit on when it’s done. That’s what I want. I love it.”
“But why?” I asked before I could stop myself. This wasn’t the Minty I’d met over the summer. The starry-eyed, romance-starved boy who’d longed for a true love of his own. This was someone else entirely.
Minty snarled, “Why did your pretty ex like being the Naughty Boy that one night? Why doeseveryonehere get off on Renée’s spanking routine? Because it’s empowering. It’s hot. It proves how strong we are. And what Kyle does to me? It’s all that times twenty.”
Until recently, when Renée had moved her shows to Nashville, Minty had been her Naughty Boy most nights. He’d liked being spanked like that, and Renée had never held back when hitting him. He’d always left with a hot, rosy ass afterward, and a big smile on his face, too.
“If you want someone to beat your ass,” Barry said, resting his arms against the bar. “There are better ways to accomplish it. Much better ways.”
Minty rolled his eyes. “What would you know about it?”
“Plenty.”
“Right. Well, what if Ilikeit this way? What if I like seeing how much he hates himself afterwards? What if I love how he just can’t keep his dick out of my ass?” Minty crossed his arms over his chest, breathing hard. “What ifthat’swhat I love best about it? Is there a better way to getthat?”
“Minty—” Daniel breathed out.
He put up his hand. “Don’t go into your whole line about how I deserve to be treated with love and respect, because I don’t. I never did. And I wouldn’t like it if I was.”
“This isn’t you talking,” Daniel said. “This is how you get when…” He trailed off. “Did your dad come back to town? Did he contact you?”
Minty’s shoulders tensed, and his face grew rigid. “What if he did?”
“That’s no reason to—”
“It’s plenty of reason,” Minty muttered.
No one spoke for a long, bleak moment.
“But it’s not the reason,” Barry said, eyeing Minty. “Is it?”
Minty dug his fingernails into his own arms and clenched his jaw tight.
“So, what is it then? What’s got you throwing yourself to the wolves like this?” Daniel asked. “I thought we were past all this, that you and I had an understanding—”
“We?Wewere past this? Good one.” Minty wiped a hand over his face, his throat contracting beneath the beads.
“He could kill you!” Daniel said.
“If I’m lucky, he will.”
“What?” Daniel reached for Minty, but again Minty stepped back. “What the hell are you saying?”
“Better than dying all wasted away and alone, better than suffering and hurting, and—”
Silence roared around us. My head ached. My ears buzzed.
Minty bit out the next words. “I’m positive.”
