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“He’s crushing me,” I whined, but Manson just shook his head.
“Yeah, he does that,” he said, settling onto the pillows beside me. “Don’t struggle, it encourages him.”
“I like when you struggle,” Lucas said. He pushed himself up, finally allowing me the relief to breathe without his weight on my chest. “You look high as shit, girl. Did these assholes drug you?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, stretching my naked body across the blankets. Everything felt so much more luxurious when I was high; the softness of the sheets, the smell of the room, the sexy men lying around me. “I’m so helpless and vulnerable right now.”
“Perfect,” Manson said, his fingers stroking through my hair. “Just how I like you.”
“Everybody, get comfortable!” Vincent said as he returned, arms full of snacks from the kitchen. He tossed bags of chips and cookies at us before turning his attention to connecting his phone to the room’s smart TV. “It’s family movie night, starring Lucas’s penis.”
Lucas groaned, “You’re all going to be the fucking death of me, I swear.” He collapsed on top of me again, squashing me into the mattress in retaliation for daring to laugh at him. Manson chuckled at my air-deprived face before he got off the bed.
“We should get a fire going, make it a little cozier in here,” he said, heading for the door that led out onto the deck. “I’ll go get some wood. Be right back.”
10 - Manson
As I closed the doorbehind me, the others’ laughter and conversation were muffled. It was late in the evening, still a few hours before sunset. But the light was dim beneath the trees and full of shadows.
The wood pile was heaped up beside an old shed full of gardening tools. Cobwebs were strewn all over it, so I took a cautious look for spiders with every log I picked up.
Today was perfect. All my people were together and happy. Jess was smiling so big, I knew she was enjoying her time here. Her time with us.
It made me never want to leave. All my life, I’d wanted to run away, and although I was no longer trapped in the same ways I had been as a kid, I still got that same urge to disappear. To take my people andgo, hide us all away somewhere where no one and nothing could touch us.
My therapist said it was part of my need for control, because control made me feel safe. I could acknowledge these things; I could understand how certain feelings and urges extended from trauma. But even understanding didn’t give me the control I needed.
Control over myself. Over my brain, my fear, my doubts.
I wanted to live in the moment,thismoment. Yet I couldn’t. I was incapable. Instead of treasuring what was right in front of me, I was too distracted by the inevitability of its end.
Jess’s new engine would be delivered within days of us arriving back home. Once we’d fixed her car, our agreement for her “debt repayment” would technically be at an end. Paying us with sex, with time, with company...thatwould end. It was supposed to. The only reason she agreed was because there was no permanence to it. She could experiment with no expectations.
Leaning one arm against the side of the shed, I closed my eyes for a moment. It couldn’t be that simple. These past few weeks, I’d seen Jess grow happier, freer. I’d watched her embrace being who she wanted to be. The thought that all that could change, that it could simply vanish...
Fuck that. I’d tell her the truth: I wanted her to stay with us so badly it felt like it would rip me apart. It would probably scare her off. I’d sound obsessed. I’d sound sick. But it was too damn late in the game to worry about that.
