Page 128 of Bend
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?
“Hi, Fiona.”
I spun. Jack was standing in the hall with a paper towel of yellow petals.
“Jack, I was looking for you.”
“Job well done, then. You found me.”
I stepped close to him so I could say something without being overheard. “You said you weren’t completely unfuckable.”
“I’d like to think so. Why?”
It was as if the cues and clues I’d given men my entire sexual life were a foreign code to this guy. Normally I’d reveal some part of my body, but we were on camera.
So I tilted my head and pressed my lips together before whispering, “I want to show you how fuckable you are.”
His bottom jaw went slack, and his eyes widened. He made a little tick in the back of his throat as if an attempt to swallow had failed. I took that as a good sign.
“Do you want to touch my tits? The nipples are hard already. I know places we can go to do it, where they can’t see. I can put your cock down my throat so deep I can lick your balls. And I’ll swallow your load, every drop.”
He didn’t say anything, and when I went to touch his arm, he dropped his paper towel, sending yellow petals adrift.
“Jack?”
He ran down the hall as if his ass was on fire.
I guessed I had that coming. It was a mental ward, after all. But talking dirty had made the swell worse. I had thirty minutes to release it, and I didn’t even have a damn vibrator. I was just going to have to take care of myself and hope for the best.
My room was a few doors down. I ran in and closed the door. The window was still open, and the shade blew in, slapping back against the window when the breeze went out. I went into the bathroom. Frances didn’t want to hear me, I got that. I knew I could be quiet. I’d done it for Deacon a hundred times.
Slipping out of my crazy-proof cotton pants and shoes, I eyed the sink again, its smooth texture and cold surface. It was good in a pinch, but this wasn’t a pinch. This was something else entirely. I wanted warm skin and a fullness, a filled feeling.
There were reasons I didn’t touch myself. Good reasons.
That pleases you, Fiona? What you’re doing?
That was old stuff. Dad catching me in the chair by the window.
Because it’s disgusting.
He’d been behind me, arms crossed, having watched the whole thing in the reflection of the window. I was spread-eagled on the chair, seeing how long I could make myself go. I was fifteen, and so unsure about the power of my feelings and my bursts of uninitiated arousal.
I knew one of you would be like this. Out of seven, the odds…
I hadn’t reached orgasm yet when he let himself be seen, and when I jumped up in the chair at the sound of his voice, I was still aroused.
Outside the bathroom, the shade slapped against that open window.
A hundred years ago, you’d have been married off before you shamed this whole family. But now? Now I can’t do a damned thing. I’d like to sew it shut.
I didn’t think about the other thing.
The thing where he was erect.
I couldn’t forget it, but I didn’t think about it. I kept it in some nether-place where it existed without me actually seeing it or letting it come to me in words.
