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Suddenly he picked me up, slammed me back against the wall, and held me there as we kissed. My legs wrapped around his body, my hands stroked over his hair and knocked his vinyl hat to the ground. I grasped the hair at the nape of his neck mercilessly, hoping to feel him twitch with pain. I bit at his lip until he moaned into my mouth and I tasted iron. I licked the dripping blood, my tongue sliding over his chin and across his mouth, savoring the violent taste. He tangled one hand in my hair and pulled so hard my scalp ached, while the other hand squeezed my sore ass beneath my skirt. I felt the hardness in his jeans as he pressed against me, that delicious cock waiting for me.
We both paused - breathless. Droplets of blood welled from my scratches on his neck, a satisfying sight. His hand still gripped my hair, cruelly tight. His chest was heaving, heat radiating off his skin as he slowly lowered me back to my feet, but allowed no distance between us. He reached up and wiped at his bleeding lip with the back of his hand, looking at the red smear with a small smile.
“You made me bleed,” he said.
“And you didn’t make me bleed.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Is that a problem?”
I shrugged, trying to seem unimpressed despite being completely out of breath and light-headed with desire. “I expected more. Hell, when you found me in here, I thought you’d make me cry.”
He laughed - a dangerous sound - and shook his head, “Is that what you want, Jess?”
Yes. Instead I said. “I want to slap you.”
He leaned down, his voice a whisper. “Oh do you? Why? You like seeing me in pain, hm? Go on.” He turned his cheek slightly. “Slap me. I dare you. See what happens.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice.
The sound of my palm striking his face was so loud that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they heard it outside, even over the music. I’d put my strength into it, all my horny frustration, all my confusion over how turned on I was by him - but he barely even flinched. Instead, he said softly, “Now I have to make you cry, Jessica.”
We emerged from the bathroom together, breathless, my hand clasped in his. The paranoid part of me expected a crowd to be gathered outside the door, but only one irritated, half-asleep dude was there.
"Upstairs," Manson whispered, and guided down the hall, through the crowds of laughing, drunken people. We ran up the stairs, our shoes soft on the carpeted steps. My heart was racing, giddiness keeping a wide smile on my face. At the top of the stairs he grabbed me again, kissing me viciously, hands tangling up in my hair. Every time we parted, I felt as if I was breaking the surface of a pool: I gasped for air, vision blurred, my body light.
There was a doorway at the end of the hall, a bedroom with the lights turned off. Manson pulled a lighter from his pocket, and while I lingered near the door, he lit candles around the room, filling it with a flickering orange glow.
"Very convenient mood lighting," I said, as he walked back to me. "How lucky."
He smiled. In the candlelight, his face was cast in strange shadows and he looked even darker, and more mysterious. "I have a bit of a weakness for candles. Mrs. Peters says the aromatherapy will help my anxiety."
I frowned. "Wait...is this…"
“This bedroom is mine. No one will bother us.”
It took a few moments for what he’d said to fully register in my brain. I couldn’t see much of the room, even with the candles lit. The bed had a headboard reminiscent of an iron bar gate, massive and dark. A giant bull’s skull, painted black and adorned with flakes of gold, stared down at me from the wall.
“Wait...wait…this is...” I stuttered. “Did you say this is your room?”
“Yeah…” He looked around, as if refamiliarizing himself with the place, and shrugged. “I started living here after I turned 18.”
I could hardly believe it. Manson Reed...living with the Peters family? One of the wealthiest families in town?
“How? Why?” I could dimly see nik-naks lining the nearby shelves, vinyl records, shining crystals and daggers in glass display cases. Nice things, treasured things.
“Mrs. Peters is a social worker,” he said. He looked uncomfortable. “She was...my social worker. My mom wanted to keep custody of me, but not as much as she wanted to keep my dad around.” He cleared his throat, and the discomfort became even more apparent - he looked pained. “I’d always planned to leave the day I turned 18. I wasn’t about to stick around and get beat on any longer than I had to. I went to Mrs. Peters for advice. But instead of advice I got a place to stay.”
I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? Everyone in town knew Manson’s dad was a mess, leaving when he fought with his wife and then coming back after a few months. But shit...I’d never known it was like that. I’d never bothered to ask...
“That’s...that’s um…” I wanted to apologize, but nothing seemed adequate. After all the shit he'd gone through in high school, he'd had to go home and deal with even more. Selfish, stuck-up kids, harassing him just because we could. It had been so wrong...so fucking cruel…
"Manson, I… I'm so sorry…"
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said firmly. I didn’t blame him - I wouldn’t have wanted to hash out all the demons of my past either, especially not with a person who caused some of them. "Maybe...someday. If you actually want to hear about it. Just...not now."
"I want to hear it. Someday." I gave him a smile, a true, genuine smile. I meant it: I wanted to see into him deeper, I wanted to hear him talk. I didn't know if it would make up for being an asshole to him, but maybe it was a start.
Surprise, then a soft, gentle calm came over his face. He caressed his fingers over my collarbone, up my throat, and rested them beneath my chin.
"Someday," he repeated. "You mean I'm not scaring you away?"
"Not at all," I reached up on my toes, and my kiss was chaste this time, an assurance instead of a demand. "Besides, I like being scared."
He laughed, almost in disbelief. "Oh, Jess. You ran with the wrong crowd in high school, you know that? You would’ve fit right in with the freaks.”
I snorted, disbelieving. "Plenty of people like scary things. I just like them a little...more." I shrugged, as if this was a perfectly normal thing, and certainly not something I'd only just discovered about myself.
"Oh right, of course, so let's see: likes scary things...likes pain...gets turned on from being treated like a slave…" Manson did some mock calculations in his head as I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, definitely sounds like a freak to me."
"Oh hush." I wrapped my arms around his neck. "You said you'd make me cry, remember? You’re getting distracted."
"Am I?" he chuckled. "All I'm trying to say is that I think you would fit in with my friends. Even though...you’re scared of them.”
A sudden noise made me jump: a creak from the back of the darkened room...a step...a breath. My body went stiff. Something was moving in the dark.
“Manson...Manson what…”
There was laughter, eerily familiar laughter - and then three unnaturally white faces appeared out of the dark.
