Page 72 of Getting It Twisted
The morning after, when I realized what had happened, I panicked. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Daniel was meant to be different; he was meant to be safe.
But he wasn’t, and nothing would ever be safe again . . .
“Don’t!” I yell in his ear over the music. “Let’s just leave.” But he doesn’t hear me, or he doesn’t care, and soon we’re in front of Eric and his friends.
“So it’s true,” Eric says, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Joshua told me you were back in town.”
Daniel jerks his head toward Lydia. “What the hell are you doing with her?”
“Oh, we’re just hanging out. Already got her hooked on dope, the little slut. She was so easy, I almost feel sorry for her. But whores should be treated like whores. You’d know all about that, though, wouldn’t you, Hastings?”
“What?” Daniel grits out.
Eric smirks and points a finger at me. “It’s plain for everyone here to see that he’s your whore.”
“He’s not my whore.”
“No, I suppose he’s notyoursper se—he’ll fuck anyone who’ll have him.”
“He wouldn’t haveyou.”
Right . . . Daniel thinks Eric and Tyler roofied me and pulled me into that bedroom because I’d rejected them, but that’s not it. No—a week earlier, I’d tricked them both out of a hundred bucks, and they figured a brutal ass-fucking was a fitting punishment for a faggot like me.
It made sense that they wanted me pliant for the deed; I can really fuck shit up if I want to. Little did they know, I would’ve gotten off on their punishment if they’d just given me a chance to agree to it. In the end, I suppose it was more about their need to dominate me. They didn’t want me to enjoy it; they wanted me to suffer.
Eric uncrosses his arms and takes a step closer. “No, but you took your liberties with him, didn’t you, Hastings?”
I tug on Daniel’s shirt, and in a voice so thin I can barely hear myself over the music, I say, “I wanna go home.”
“Yeah,” says Eric, “listen to your whore.”
“Fuck you,” Daniel snarls and grabs my hand, and we wade through the crowd.
“You run, Hastings,” Eric yells behind us. “You were always a little bitch. Fitting, isn’t it? A bitch and a whore.” I hear the snickers of his friends as we squeeze into the hallway and exit through the front door.
Daniel spins to me. “What’s going on with you? You’ve been off ever since we talked to Joshua.”
I sneer at him, chest clenching tight with an aggressive anxiety I can’t help but show. “Well, I did just flush four grand down the toilet, and then we ran into your little girlfriend—”
“Ex-girlfriend.”
“—and then you decided to have a little chitchat with a guy who fucking roofied me, maybe that’s why.”
“Eric deserves worse than a talking-to.”
“I don’t want you to get killed.”
“What, you don’t think I can take him?”
I frown and shake my head. “That guy’s dangerous, Daniel. He used to carry knives to school and shit. Fuck, just please believe me, okay? And take me home. If you’ve forgotten, I’ve got a plug up my ass, and I’ve been half-hard ever since we got here.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you better be,” I mutter.
After he’s taken me home, he proceeds to eat me out for damn near an hour, but something feels off between us. I can’t put my finger on it. I find his face in the darkness and try to convert my kisses into words.
Please don’t read any more into what Joshua said.