Page 6 of Where the Snakes Sleep

“It’s not okay—you can’t—” I’m crying now, I realize. The tears are hot and useless against my temples. “I don’t want this—I don’t want a baby—you know I don’t—”

“You don’t know what you want.” He’s breathing harder now, and I can feel him getting close. “You’ll see. This is what we need.”

“Paul, please—”

His rhythm falters, stutters, and then he’s pressing deep—as deep as he can go—and I feel the hot, wet pulse of him finishing inside me. Every nerve in my body recoils. My stomach heaves.

And then he doesn’t pull out.

He stays there. Still inside me. Still on top of me. His full weight pressing me into the mattress, his hand flat against my stomach like he’s already imagining something growing there.

I retch.

“Stay still,” he murmurs. “Just stay still for a minute.”

No.

No.

NO!

The word tears through every layer of learned passivity, every carefully constructed wall of survival. Something primal and ancient and furious erupts out of me, and I am no longer the quiet boy who endures. I am something feral and cornered.

I buck beneath him with everything I have. My hips wrench sideways, my knees drive up, my nails rake down his forearms hard enough to draw blood—I feel it, warm and wet beneath my fingertips.

“Stop—” Paul’s composure finally cracks. His hand clamps down harder on my stomach, fingers digging into the soft flesh below my navel as if he can physically hold his seed inside me. His other hand releases my hip and grabs my wrist, pinning it to the mattress. “Ryan, stop moving—you need to keep it—”

The word keep sends another wave of nausea through me. I twist my free hand toward the nightstand, fingers scrabbling blindly across the surface. A phone charger. A glass of water I never finished.

My fingers close around something heavy and cold—the ceramic base of the lamp.

I swing.

I don’t aim. I don’t think. My body does it for me, the way animals fight when there’s nothing left but the desperate, screaming need to survive.

The base connects with the side of his head with a dull, wet thud that I feel all the way up my arm.

Paul makes a sound—not a word, not a yell, just a short, surprised grunt—and his entire body goes slack above me. The hand on my stomach loosens. His weight shifts sideways.

I scramble out from under him like something crawling from a grave. My bare feet hit the carpet, and I’m already moving, already running, already reaching for the dresser drawer where I keep the duffel bag I’ve packed and unpacked a dozen times in my head over the past few weeks.

The bag is real. I actually first packed it after the second broken condom, when something in my gut told me to be ready. I’d shoved it to the back of the drawer and told myself I was being paranoid. Told myself that the man I loved wouldn’t—

Well, he did.

I yank the drawer open. The duffel is there, exactly where I left it, stuffed with clothes and my medication and the cash I’ve been slowly pulling out of our joint account twenty dollars at a time.

Behind me, Paul makes a low, groaning sound. I don’t turn around. I grab the bag, grab my car key, grab my phone and its charger, and pull on the first pair of shorts my hands find.

And then I’m running.

My pajama top is still on, twisted and damp with sweat, and I’m about to be dripping Paul’s cum through my shorts, but I don’t care.

The front door.

The lock turns. My hand is shaking so badly I have to try twice.

Behind me, I hear Paul’s voice—muffled, distant, like he’s speaking through water. “Ryan—wait—”