The guy holding me turned me around to face him, his arm circling my body and holding me to him tightly as his other hand stayed pressed over my mouth.
“Mom!” I called out, but his hand was so hard over my words, it barely carried. I breathed hard through my nose.
“Oh, yes, by alllllll means,” I heard my mother shout back. “Let’s take them to the next company function where your latest twenty-year-old slut can suck the sweat out of you in the men’s room with all of our friends outside!”
My ears perked, and for a moment I stopped fighting him.
“Is this one pregnant, too?” she went on. “Paying for another abortion and to keep her mouth shut about it is really going to nail home those good Catholic values we’ve tried to instill in the children. You’re such a piece of shit.”
“Say it again,” my father dared her.
Pregnant? Abortion? What?
I shook my head, clearing it, and called out again. “Mom! Dad!”
He held me so tight, my teeth cut into the inside of my mouth.
“You work for nothing and spend, spend, spend, you lazy bitch,” my dad continued, “so if I want a young piece of ass to bounce up and down on my cock once in a while, then I’d say I earned it!”
I winced. Young piece of ass? Oh, my God. What the hell were they doing?
“And you can smile and take out my credit card, go shopping, and shut the fuck up about it,” he told her.
A slap pierced the air, and I startled.
“I hate you,” my mother choked out. “I hate you!”
The springs in the bed squeaked, and it sounded like a struggle.
“We weren’t always like this!” my mom cried. “You wanted me. You loved me.”
“Yeah, I did. When you were a young piece of ass.”
Fabric ripped, and my mother growled as they fought. I froze, not fighting anymore and tears pooling so heavy they threatened to spill over.
“But thanks to my money,” Dad said, “you still have the tits.”
She cried out, and I heard another slap, and then grunts and groans, and I shook my head, starting to cry. But before I could think of what to do, the hands left my mouth and waist, and instead came up and covered my ears as he pulled me close.
“Shhhh,” he soothed, his mouth next to my temple.
I cried quietly, their voices dulled now, but I could still pick up pieces.
“Oh, God,” my father groaned. “Yeah.”
I shrunk.
“Get off of me,” my mom demanded. “No!”
“Uh, come on.” My dad’s voice sounded labored. “I’ve still got her all over my dick. Your cunt will smell like hers. Sweet, like honey.”
I brought my hand up to cover the sobs escaping, and that’s when he brought me into his chest, still holding his hand over one ear, but pressing the other into his heart.
I breathed through my hand, and even though I wanted out of here, and I didn’t give a damn if they knew I’d heard them, I was afraid of the consequences. Since my father hadn’t actually wanted to bring me home from Montreal, he wouldn’t need a good excuse to send me back.
So I stayed in here, the boy’s heartbeat drumming in my ear, and after a few moments, everything had calmed. My tears stopped, my breathing got slower and more steady, and I couldn’t hear my parents anymore.
Just his heart, pumping heavy and fast and in a constant, perfect pace like a metronome, unchanging.