Inside the Maelstrom

by Grace McGinty

  Considering I’d seen him fucking Flora the nurse in the supply closet last week, it could be sex. He didn’t even shut the door. He just stood there fucking her where anyone could see and report her. He obviously didn’t care if she lost her job, because what did the lives of everyone else matter to a boy who was richer than the Queen of England?

  A part of me—the part I liked to think was still clinging hopelessly to mental stability—piped up and said I was doing the exact same thing with Corey. But Corey was a whore and was fucking half the female inmates, and if those pesky whispers were correct, some of the male patients too. Corey was like a dumb Golden Retriever; he thought he was doing a public service. Like treating hysteria patients in the olden days—nothing that a good dicking couldn’t fix, right?

  So if Corey got caught, it would be his fault. But Flora was a sweetheart, who’d obviously just got caught up in the magnetic bullshit of Hendrick Kenley.

  “Aviva, do you have anything to add to today’s discussion?” Dr. Arubat’s voice pulled me away from my mental crucifixion of Hendrick.

  I stared him dead in the eye and shook my head. “No.” I looked over at Yvonne. “You’re beautiful. It's the eating disorder that's ugly. Shake that fucker out of your head, and you’ll be all good.”

  Dr. Arubat’s lips pursed. He didn’t like profanity in his sessions, but really, fuck was a perfectly fine word. It was the tone that made it a problem. “Thank you, Aviva. Let’s not try to diminish anyone else's experience though, okay?”

  I mentally gave him the finger and tuned back out. Ten minutes later, we were set free, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Swinging past my room, I grabbed a book.

  Maybe I’d head outside anyway. Find a tree to read under, and pretend I was somewhere alone, rather than at a wellness center that was bankrupting my parents one day at a time.

  I knew the reason I was so angry today was because it was visitation day tomorrow, and no one would visit me. Again. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t want to visit—they called me every single night. I’d never tell them, but their voices were the only thing keeping me afloat some days. No, they were great people, but were working day and night to keep me in here, and out of jail.

  Fuck, I loved them, and that made me feel so goddamn guilty.

  I couldn’t even die right.

  I found a palm tree with grass that managed to creep right up to the trunk, and decided that was my spot for the day. I’d quickly run through everything decent in the small library of books the center had. We weren’t allowed electronics, so no eReader. Like, what the fuck was with that?

  I’d hit the under-read classics now, and I was reading Jules Verne like this was an English Lit class. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

  Scribbled on the title page in marker were the words:

  Man gets hijacked by a submarine? If this isn’t a euphemism for Verne’s repressed sexuality, nothing is.

  I let out a laugh. Well, they probably weren’t wrong. Jules Vernes, arguably the godfather of steampunk literature, was not a riveting read. He was scientific and technical, and honestly, if I wanted to listen to an old white guy yabber on endlessly, I’d go back to group therapy.

  But the notes in the margin? They were amazing. Sometimes serious, sometimes poking fun at the story. I found myself becoming immersed in the story just so I could understand the mystery commenter’s notes scribbled across the page.

  A shadow fell over me, and I looked up. Hendrick fucking Kenley stood over me, his face silhouetted by the sun.

  “What are you doing?”

  I screwed up my nose. “Masturbating.” I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, I’m reading.”

  He tilted his head at me. “I think you’re masturbating wrong. Want me to show you how it’s done?”

  I flushed all over, but gritted my teeth at him. “Not if you were the last discombobulated head on Earth.”

  I climbed to my feet, pushing down the skirt of my dress. Hendrick didn’t move a muscle, and I huffed as I stepped around him. Tucking the book under my arm, I strode away, not giving him the satisfaction of looking back at him, even though I could feel his eyes burning into my spine.

  As I walked past the pool, Corey was just locking up. He grinned when he saw me, and I gave him a smirk back. “Finishing up early?” I asked, and he lifted an eyebrow.

  “Yep. Though I still have a little time until I clock out. I might have to do some paperwork.” His eyes dipped down my body, letting me know that I was the paperwork he wanted to do.

  Honestly, I expected so little from Corey that I actually laughed at his bad metaphor. “Need a hand with that? I’m good with numbers.”

  His eyes hooded, and he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. He had perfect, straight white teeth that flashed in the warm afternoon sun. “I might just take you up on that, Aviva,” he purred, and it went straight to my core.

  Corey headed to the pumphouse beside the pool, while I moved casually over to the pool fence, watching the turquoise water ripple softly in the breeze as I counted to sixty.

  Turning back the way I came, I sucked in a breath as I noticed Hendrick still watching me. Fuck him though. I met his eyes and held them as I turned on my heel and followed Corey toward the pool shed. Let him think that the smile on my face was because I was excited about fucking Corey, and not because I was happy to get one up on Hendrick Kenley, the entitled, arrogant, asshole.

  Chapter 2

  Hendrick

  I watched the girl head toward the pumphouse with that fucking dumbass Corey. He was a goddamn idiot, but she wasn’t. She was… annoying. Honestly, I’d kind of thought she was a lesbian, but apparently she just hated me. I don’t know why though. I hadn’t spoken to her in the two months she’d been here. I didn’t pay any attention to her until last week, when she’d stood in the hallway and watched me fuck the nurse in the supply closet. Not gonna lie, I might have put a little extra enthusiasm into it, knowing there was an audience.

  And when I’d looked over my shoulder, all I’d seen was a swirl of skirts and those bouncing golden curls as she stomped away.

  Mmm, she was an enigma, and I was bored as fuck. Still, it burned to watch her strut away with that shithead after rejecting me so solidly.

  The phone in my pocket buzzed and I pulled it out. Otto's name flashed on the home screen, so I tapped the group chat icon.

  Otto: Ready to bust out yet?

  I huffed a laugh and sat down in the spot that the girl, Aviva, had just vacated.

  Me: Nah. At least Dad isn’t riding my fucking ass in here.

  I didn’t use standard texting abbreviations because that shit pissed Otto off. He was a stickler for the written word, and I owed him enough that I wouldn’t give him shit about it and I’d use my words properly.

  Sam: Wrd on the st is that he’s busy riding his secretary’s ass, nasty af.

  Yeah, Sampson didn’t give a fuck what anyone wanted, not Otto and not me. I gritted my teeth at the news my father was screwing his secretary, but I wasn’t surprised. She would have signed an NDA before he got into her panties, and therefore, she’d be too scared to go public with that shit, so it would always just be rumors.

  My mother wouldn’t care either because she was fucking the driver, the pool boy, and her yoga instructor. She was a cliché, but what could you expect? My father was an asshole, and she was a drunk.

  Otto didn’t rise to Sam’s baiting, and a pain stabbed me in the chest. I missed these guys down here in my parental-ordered isolation. I didn’t say that though.

  Me: Fuck you guys. It’s nice here. Like Aruba without the gold diggers. Might hit up the beach.

  Sam: We’ll be there in six hours. I’ll take the jet.

  I laughed low, stuffing my phone back into my pocket. Sampson didn’t screw around. I leaned back against the tree, watching the pumphouse out of the corner of my eye.

  Fuck it.

  I climbed to my feet, brushing the grass from the back of
my shorts and strolling back toward the main building of the treatment center. Honestly, it must have been a former mansion—it looked like something that should be in Hollywood Hills rather than Florida, and was filled to the brim with drug addicts and social media influencers with eating disorders.

  My feet slowed as I passed the path toward the pool pumphouse, hidden away as it was by lush gardens. Turning, I walked around the side so I was standing at the back of the building. It was dark in there, no windows, so maybe they weren’t even in there. Maybe she’d just walked through the gardens toward the center’s side entrance.

  But as I leaned closer, I could hear it. The soft moans of a woman. My dick instantly hardened in my shorts, and I gripped it through the material. Looking around, I made sure no one could see me back here. Luckily, it was pretty covered by the overgrown bamboo screening.

  The mechanical whir of the pump covered most of the noises coming from within, but when I rested my ear against the sheet metal, I could hear it so clearly that she must have just been on the other side.

  “Yes,” came another breathy moan, and then the distinctive sound of skin slapping against skin. More moans, and my dick throbbed. Looking around again, I reached into my shorts and dragged out my dick. I listened as she moaned, imagined it was me fucking her, her skirt flipped up around her waist as I pounded into her.

  “Harder,” came the breathy command, and the snapping sounds got louder. Yeah, he definitely had her bent over the workbench in there. I’d fucked a nurse there the other day. It made it easy for me to imagine wrapping my fingers in those golden curls and gripping them in my fist as I pounded away.

  I stroked my dick as her moans got a little more frantic. “Don’t stop,” she panted, and then I heard an annoyed sound. “No, no, go back to how you were— Umph.”

  Yep, that was definitely an annoyed groan. When I heard a masculine grunt afterwards, I knew that Corey had blown his load before she’d even gotten off.

  I grinned as I stuffed my dick back in my pants, tucking it under the waistband of my pants and fluffing my shirt over it to hide the raging erection. I shuffled back to the main path, sitting on the seat by the back door like I’d been there the whole time watching my phone.

  A couple of moments later, when Aviva—fucking hippy ass name if you asked me—appeared, I smirked at her flushed cheeks and irritated expression. Her steps faltered when she saw me there, and I gave her a knowing grin. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

  She huffed and marched past me, slamming the door so hard it was a wonder the plate glass didn’t break.

  Oh. Maybe little Aviva would be fun. Standing, I sauntered into the main rec area behind her, but turned off toward the rooms. I didn’t have to share and even had my own ensuite—perks of paying off the admin staff. It was almost dinner time, and I needed a shower to take care of a problem that was still achingly hard in my pants.

  I had a feeling that when I closed my eyes under the warm water of the shower, it was a certain pissed off face that I would see when I came.

  I didn’t need to check my phone to know that my friends were on the other side of the perimeter fence that ran around the center. It was the only prison-like feature of this place. I knew without a doubt they were there, because Sampson was allergic to being late. Or being early. He was exactly where he needed to be, whenever he needed to be there. Not a moment before or a moment after.

  Me: Jump the fence. We’ll hang by the pool.

  I slipped from my room and out into the main hall, nodding at the night nurse and giving her my signature cocky grin. Otto always said it was an expression that made girls swoon, and it didn’t matter if the girl was seventeen or seventy.

  Combined with the shitload of money I was putting into her retirement fund, it was enough for her to ignore the security monitors for the night. Plus, I’d solemnly sworn that I wouldn’t do anything crazy like escape, or try and off myself. I snorted internally. Because crazy people and addicts didn’t lie. Yeah, right.

  Lucky for Nurse Becky, I didn’t intend on doing any of those things. My father put me in here to get me out of the way, and honestly, it was better than being at home, with the constant fighting and arguing. Then there was the political trail and the false smiling that was so goddamn tiring. I’d rather stay here and talk bullshit to Dr. Arabut, which he’d feed back to my dad, despite all his Hippocratic oaths and statutory non-disclosure provisions.

  At least the food was good and the view was nice.

  I slowed near the room that I knew was Aviva’s. She was… interesting. Unpredictable. And she seemed to hate me, which I kind of found refreshing. She didn’t want to fuck me, or try and marry me. At least, I didn’t think so. Hell, if she was playing the long game, getting thrown in here for whatever terrible thing she’d done, all in the hopes of intriguing me enough to put a ring on it… Well, I liked her dedication.

  Opening her door quietly, I was glad the lights were dimmed at bedtime. She had the bed by the back window, which meant I had to creep past her roommate, whose name I didn’t remember. Standing over Aviva’s bed, I reached down and slapped a hand over her mouth, dragging her from beneath the covers and into the hall before she was even fully awake.

  Then the bitch bit me.

  “Fuck! That hurt.” Dropping her to her feet, I looked at the crescent-shaped dents in my hand. Which was why I didn’t see the punch coming until it cracked into my nose.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, you goddamn psychopath?” she screeched, and I hushed her.

  “Be quiet. Fuck. I just thought you’d like to hang out, not maul me like goddamn Jeffrey Dahmer. Christ, that’s going to get infected.” It was definitely beginning to bleed. I looked up just in time to catch the next hit in my hand. “Woah, calm your tits.”

  Her chest was heaving as she panted through her teeth. “You pulled me out of bed in the middle of the night, covering my mouth and dragging—” She paused, like she was trying to collect herself. “Dragging me into the hallway. Because you want to hang out?”

  “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds dumb.”

  She stepped closer until her finger was in my face and I could feel the hot gusts of her breath on my chin. She was kind of short, and it ruined the intimidation factor. “I don’t want anything to do with you, let alone to spend time at night with you. Fuck, I thought you were dragging me out here to rape me, you fucking entitled Neanderthal.”

  I took a huge step back, flinching from her words in a way I’d never flinch from her fist. “You think I’d rape you? Or any woman?” Okay, maybe it was my turn to get a little angry now. “Listen, and listen good. I have never, and will never, force myself on a woman. I get enough pussy thrown at me.”

  She snorted, narrowing her eyes. “You don’t have to be Dr. Arubut to know that rape isn’t about sexual satisfaction, dickhead. It’s about power. And for a guy like you, who’s had everything handed to him his whole life? Trust me when I say it isn’t a mental stretch to imagine you wanting something that isn’t freely given.”

  I blinked at her in shock. I wasn’t an idiot. I’d gone to private school with the exact assholes who Aviva just described, right down to their trust fund legal teams. But I wasn’t like that—surely anyone could tell that, right? But just in case…

  “I’m not like that.”

  She rolled her eyes so hard that she probably saw Jesus. “Sure. I believe you. Now I’m going back to bed, and if you sneak into my room again, I’m going to cut off your balls and really give them the Dahmer treatment.”

  She spun on her heel, and my hand flung out to grab her wrist. I don’t even know why. Because I felt something? Even if it was just pain from a bite and some words that were sharp enough to cut.

  “I’m sorry. Just come and hang out with me and my friends. We’ll hang in the pool, swim under the moonlight, and pretend we’re just normal people for a minute, okay?”

  “Your friends? Oh sure, allow me to go into the unsupervised dark
ness with an undisclosed number of probably men, who are strangers. What could possibly go wrong? God, you can’t be that oblivious, can you?”

  I gritted my teeth. “I promise they’re good guys too.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  “My business degree would say otherwise.”

  “I didn’t say you were an idiot. I said you were a fool.”

  “Just five minutes. They say it only takes twenty-seven seconds for you to form an opinion of someone, so if you don’t like them in five minutes, you can walk right back inside. What do you say, Aviva?”

  Chapter 3

  Aviva

  This was fucking insanity. Absolute insanity. But when was the last time I’d felt anything at all, let alone the very real fear that had crawled through my veins when this dickhead dragged me out of bed?

  Not in years.

  The fact my heart was still racing was exhilarating. I felt alive. But I couldn’t let this pompous asshole know that I didn’t hate this at all. I crossed my arms over my chest, just so he couldn’t see my heart trying to beat out of my chest.

  “Fine. Five minutes. Why is this so important to you? I’m pretty sure Nurse Flora would follow you out into the dark and happily have an orgy.”

  He raised both eyebrows and grinned. “Who said anything about an orgy, Viva?”

  I flipped him the bird. “Are we doing this or not? Because I’m tired and I want to go back to bed. Not all of us are insomniacs.”

  He frowned. “What makes you think I’m an insomniac?”

  I shrugged, embarrassed. “Lucky guess?” I’d actually watched him through a crack in the door as he paced up and down the hallways at night a few times.

  Hendrick didn’t say anything, just herded me through the back door, the nurse behind the night desk purposefully not looking up as the door whooshed shut behind us.