Page 298 of Darling Venom
But I’d been lonely and a little drunk, two dollars short of my utility bill, and clinging to a torn quilt for warmth.
Desperate for comfort, to put it
bluntly.
I’d meant to stop. Truly. But Ben turned out to be something I was in low supply of—a friend. Sometimes, we felt like one mind in two bodies. Then, one night when the flirtation transformed into something more dangerous, we’d made each other come with nothing more than dirty messages. And, well, that was a rabbit neither of us could put back in the hat.
I shot a reply to Ben through the app.
Durga: You waited three years to look up my username? I Google’d Benkinersophobia day one.
Benkinersophobia: And?
Durga: You don’t know what your username means?
Benkinersophobia: I used the random username generator. I don’t have time for frivolous things.
But he had time to look up “durga.” I rolled my eyes, but a smile tipped my lips up.
Durga: Benkinersophobia is the fear of not receiving a letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on one's eleventh birthday. I was sure I’d hit the jackpot with a Potterhead. I would have enjoyed that more.
Benkinersophobia: A Potterhead?
Durga: God, your lack of knowledge of pop culture references is horrifying. You could always change your username. Perhaps ‘Underwhelming’ would be more accurate.
Benkinersophobia: Underwhelming. I’ve never heard that complaint before, but don’t trust the Yelp reviews. You’re welcome to try for yourself.
My lips parted and my cheeks flushed before I reminded myself I didn’t even know what he looked like. I typed out a response, deleted it, typed out another, deleted, then settled on one word.
Durga: Rules.
Sweat lined my palms as I remembered the gift he’d sent me—a vibrator I kept tucked under the corner of my mattress. He’d found a way around the Eastridge Fund’s anonymity rules by sending it to me through a gift list service that made recipient addresses anonymous. As if we needed a middleman to broker my nightly pleasure.
Benkinersophobia: Fuck the rules. And no, I’ve never considered changing the name. Change implies regret, and I do not regret.
Durga: Ever?
Benkinersophobia: No.
Durga: I call bullshit.
Reed groaned out. “Emery, are you even listening to me?”
Oops. How long had I been ignoring Reed?
Remorse had my fingers twitching. Reed didn’t know about Ben. No one did. That was the point. Hell, it was the single rule the Eastridge Fund swore by. Anonymity. That meant no meetings and no discussing identifying details.
I placed Reed on speaker again, tossed my old smartphone on my raggedy mattress, and massaged the back of my neck. “Yes. Sorry. I spaced out.”
“You’ve been doing that a lot.”
His evident frustration settled in my chest, the guilt nothing new to me. Reed and I had made a pact to attend Duke together. Instead, I’d left for Clifton University in Alabama without telling him.
The people of Eastridge hated my family—and me by default. The same people that had followed Reed to Duke. I’d needed to get out of North Carolina. As far away from the Prescott brothers, The Winthrop Scandal, and Eastridge as my wallet would take me.
Four years ago, that would have been far.
Then Dad became the subject of a very public F.B.I.-S.E.C. joint investigation for embezzlement and stock tampering, and the textiles business he owned—the same one that provided jobs for almost everyone in town—went out of business.
