Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 106779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“Do you know what you’re doing now?” I asked.
“I was rubbing on the carpet,” she said. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that. I was too young.”
“Okay,” I said. “And did he tell you that you weren’t supposed to?”
“He…” She swallowed. Her eyes were darting here and there without really looking at anything. “He did.”
“And did you stop?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she nodded. Her eyes were filled with tears that she wouldn’t let out. “I… He made me.”
“How?” My hands were in fists and my stomach was in knots.
“He said he was going to teach me a lesson,” she whispered. “That he was going to punish me. That he was going to teach me some manners.”
My own words echoed back at me and I hated myself like never before.
“He made me pull my butt open,” she went on, her voice calm now, like she wasn’t even talking about herself. “He didn’t spit on me. He went in dry, and he held my mouth so I wouldn’t make a sound.”
I stared at her. Name. I needed a fucking name.
“He said he’d have to keep doing it,” she said. “Or I’d go bad again. That he had to remind me.”
“How many times?” I interrupted her.
She pulled on a lock of pretty blonde hair.
“Seventeen,” she said, reaching for my fingers. She brought my hand back, placing it on her neck. She moved her hair out of the way and pressed my fingertips to her skin. “Right there.”
I felt the ridges in her skin. Tiny, deep little cuts. I didn’t need to count them to know how many there were.
“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked her. It was hard to keep my shit together.
She nodded.
“Only on your neck?”
A shake of her head.
“But only those matter,” she said. “The rest were for my parents and my teachers and my friends. These were just for me. So I wouldn’t forget.”
I took up her body and slammed it down on the mattress. Her chest was heaving and she wouldn’t look at me. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t even there with me, not really.
“How old were you?”
Her eyes zeroed in on mine and my heart beat a single time.
“I was five,” she said. “And six. And seven. He stopped after that. He said I was…”
She choked back a sob and I stared at her, a fucking broken mess of a girl that I wanted to avenge.
“He said after that, I was too bad,” she went on. “And he couldn’t help me anymore. I was too dirty.”
I lay on top of her and she sighed with relief when she felt my weight sink against her. She kissed my collarbone and I screamed against her skin because I was so fucking angry. She licked at my flesh with her little tongue and I cursed into her mouth.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I told her.
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m not telling you who it was.”
“But I… I fingered your ass.” I remembered the sweet sounds she made, the way she resisted but loved it at the same time. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.
“I know,” she whispered. “I liked it…”
“What happened today?” I asked her. “Please, tell me.”
“You…” Our eyes connected and she whispered her answer against my lips. “You were trying to punish me…”
Like him. She didn’t need to say it.
I got up from the bed and slammed my fist into the wall. My knuckles opened up and blood spilled down my hand. She was next to me in a second. She was still naked, and my blood left gruesome marks all over her lithe body as she guided me to the bathroom.
She patched me up and I sat there like a fucking moron, plotting how I was going to kill this guy, whoever the fuck he was.
I could tell she needed it, needed to feel like she was helping someone after what she’d told me. But when she was done bandaging me up, I grasped her hand and pulled her between my legs.
“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I’ll never do that again, Sapphire.”
Her face paled and she evaded my eyes.
“Please, look at me.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said, and her hands slid around my neck.
“Why not?”
“It’s not who I am anymore,” she whispered against my throat, licking a line up to my Adam’s apple. “I’m Pet…”
Eleven
Pet
The apartment was a safe place. A good place. A home.
I didn’t like leaving it anymore, unless it was with him. He took me out after that conversation, bought me tons upon tons of clothes, shoes, and makeup. I didn’t protest. It felt good to be pampered, and from what I’d seen he had more than enough money to splurge on me. I let him pick out everything, too, mostly because I was curious to see what he’d want me dressed in.