“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Anything planned with Niko yet?” Luca asks, though I caught the silence before the question. It’s the silences that worry me with Luca… so, so fucking worrying.
“No, I—” The line goes dead.
I flick the sheets off my body and find my podcast through blurred vision.
1:3 Victims are the product of surviving.
“Damn,” I yawn, pushing my pods into my ears. “That’s deep…”
“I know what you’re thinking. This poor woman who was abused by her brother, but I don’t want your pity. He did what he did and I survived, but I’m not a victim. The abuse continued until I was sixteen years old and witnessed his murder. Going back to that day after watching the blade stick out of my brother’s skull, I stepped out from behind that tree and my father’s friend instantly found me. His breathing was shallow, his chest rising and falling as he took me in. He didn’t say a word, and I think in this moment there was a brief second where I thought he might kill me—but I was okay with it. I was ready. I wasn’t mad at him for doing it, and bear in mind, I had known this man since I was a young child. He was in his midfifties. He and his wife would come to our home for family dinners. Now this is where I come clean. Most girls, or people, would see what they saw and scream or run away. I ran toward him, stripped naked, and slid myself over his cock. He took me right there. Flipping me over and shoving me onto the dirt ground, he pounded me from behind, his old fingers gripping into my youthful hip bones. This was a defining moment, like I knew. I knew I held power as long as I was a woman. Some use it for good, and kudos to them, but I wasn’t here to make friends. Quite simply, I didn’t fucking want any. I was here for power and power only. That’s why when my father’s best friend fucked me over my brother’s lifeless body, I gripped my brother’s cock in my hand and squeezed while yelling ‘ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW? IS THIS GENTLE ENOUGH FOR YOU? NO?’ I slid the tip into my mouth and bit until metallic blood spilled between my teeth. WHAT ABOUT NOW! HARDER? HARDER, and I screamed out his name so loud birds flew from the trees. By this point, my father’s best friend threw me away from him, tucked his wrangly old cock back into his jeans, and stared down at me in disgust as I lay over my brother’s body. ‘Fucking hell, enter said my name here, which for privacy and legal reasons I cannot, you need to get checked into a ward.’ Which honestly, I had to stop myself from suggesting a prison cell for him, considering he just fucked a minor. From this day onward, I not only harnessed this power, I fucking weaponized it. That was… until my mother tried to kill me.”
Blonde from last night stumbles out of my bed, swiping her hair out of her face. I look up at her from behind the cloud of marijuana smoke as she bends down to collect one of my shirts from the floor.
“You hungry?”
“Are you asking me if I want to eat breakfast?” I stub my joint out in the ashtray that’s on the old bedside table, which I’m pretty sure has cum stains sprayed all over it, and run my tongue over my bottom lip. “Or because you’re offering?”
Her mouth curves in a grin, her smudged red lipstick almost nonexistent. “Well, since you put it that way…” She leans down onto the bed, dragging her long nails up my thigh.
I push her away, tsking. “I don’t double-dip. But I’m sure one of the girls downstairs can help you get home.”
I stand from the bed, reaching for my jeans and shoving them over my morning wood. Leaving them unbuttoned, I reach for my pack of smokes in my back pocket and light the end with my Zippo.
Just as I reach the door handle, she starts whining. “Well, aren’t you, like, going to offer me a ride home or something?”
My door is pushed open farther, and there standing on the other side is none other than my old man.
He grins, his old-ass eyes flying between me and the girl. “Well, shit, son. Good to see you haven’t changed much.”
I pull him into a hug. It’s not until he releases me that I step back.
“Damn, Dad. You’re looking old as fuck.”
He punches my arm, putting a cigar between his lips and wrapping his arm around my neck to direct me down the hallway. “Shithead. Find your own way home, sweet fuck!” he calls out over his shoulder.