by L.J. Shen
Alice.
“You really think a girl who is with someone is going to suck you off? On school grounds? While people are watching?” I couldn’t help but blurt.
“Yes.”
“Is this a game to you?”
“If it was, I’d be dealing you the fucking cards. Now shut up.”
I’d heard all about Vaughn and public blow jobs. There wasn’t one person in this school—other than me—who hadn’t seen the shape and size of his (allegedly impressive) penis disappearing down a girl’s throat. Sometimes there were two of them, licking and taking turns. People said it was because he was handsome, unconventional, and the richest boy in town, that every girl secretly wanted to marry into the Spencer family, who were royalty by name, assets, and reputation. They were old money—railroads, prime realty, and hedge fund companies—and one of America’s top twenty-five richest families.
His ancestors had built this town, and he was going to inherit most of it.
But I thought there were other reasons girls gave Vaughn what he wanted.
Essentially, deep down, we all liked to be sexually degraded, just a bit. The taboo aspect, the helplessness, the part where you’re at the complete mercy of someone else.
We’re all a little sadomasochistic.
Especially when young.
And powerful.
And beautiful.
And rich.
The numbness of a charmed life was easily taken away by shame, something Vaughn distributed in spades. He liked humiliating people. A lot.
Vaughn stopped in front of a set of black and navy lockers. Alice was wearing a sweetheart-neckline flowery dress with puffy sleeves and a slit across the side. The guy next to her was a bit on the short side, and he looked moneyed to death, with an expensive haircut and a smart, navy blazer. He had kind, brown eyes and a quirky vibe.
“Alice,” Vaughn hissed, ignoring the guy.
“Oh, hey Spence.” She blew a lock of her short hair away from her eyes, her pink lips curling in delight.
I wanted to throw up when she leaned forward to give him a peck on the cheek, shaking her boyfriend’s arm from her waist.
“I can fit in a quick blow job in the next ten minutes. Rookie here needs to take pointers.” Vaughn threw a thumb behind him, toward me.
Alice’s gaze collided with mine, and her eyes widened for a fraction of a second.
You and me both, girl.
“Ummm…” She glanced at the guy next to her, biting on the side of her fingernail.
His eyes were widening slowly, shock seeping into his system. She was going to ditch him. The worst part about it, she wasn’t even considering telling Vaughn to bugger off. Her eyes said I’m sorry, not Would you mind?
“Jason…” she started.
I wanted to punch her on his behalf, bile rising in my throat like an overflowing saucepan. He stared at her, agony dripping from his expression, wordlessly pleading with her not to finish the sentence.
“Practice makes perfect, though, right?” I interjected with a chirp, taking a step forward. “And since Alice is oh so kind as to demonstrate her flawless oral-giving technique on Vaughn, would you mind being my guinea pig, Jason?” I unzipped my leather jacket, shrugging out of it and flinging it over my shoulder. I offered him my hand for a shake.
It was perfect, really—the look of horror on Alice’s face when Jason threw a look at Vaughn, whose jaw was ticking, and took my hand, shaking it limply.
“Don’t worry. I’ll still be watching.” I patted Vaughn’s back, keeping my tone light as the four of us headed down the corridor to God knows where. “Although, I may have a few tricks up my sleeve.” I winked.
Lies.
I’d never given a blow job before, and up until a minute ago, had no immediate plans to perform the act on anyone but Alexander Skarsgard, who, unfortunately, I had no real prospects of ever meeting. But Vaughn was pushing me, and Jason was trying hard not to cry, even though his humiliation was bloated and hanging in the air, like fog.
If I could recover some of Jason’s self-esteem, while shocking Vaughn into understanding that I was no pushover, maybe he’d finally back off.
But Vaughn didn’t look shocked at all. He looked…pissed. His jaw was ticking so hard I thought it might snap out of his mouth and bite my face off. He tugged at my sleeve, jerking me forward, forcing me to keep up with his pace, a few feet ahead of Jason and Alice.
“What the fuck are you trying to do? Prove a point?” He bared his teeth.
“What point would that be? That I have a mouth?” I smiled serenely, taking weird pleasure in knowing he was irritated. “Maybe I want to get some action, too.”
“With that fuckboy?” Vaughn snorted, his nostrils flaring. I matched his stride, desperate not to pant. “He wouldn’t know how to get you off with four dildos, a magic wand, a vibrator, and the entire football squad.”
I would’ve laughed if I weren’t so nervous about what we were about to do.
“Some like dark, tall, and handsome. I like fair, short, and…sane.”
Vaughn yanked a door open and shoved me inside wordlessly, with a force that said he was royally pissed. The room was dark, cluttered, and stuffy. It smelled of dust and cleaning products. The janitor’s room, I figured.
Enchanting.
Alice and Jason joined us, and Vaughn shut the door behind them. He flicked the light on. Still frowning, he started working his belt in angry, jerky movements.
“I can help you with that.” Alice licked her lips, waiting for his okay.
Jason eyed me warily, expecting directions.
What have I gotten myself into?
“Jason, come here.” I waved him over awkwardly, gathering my tar-dyed hair and dropping it over one shoulder. He shuffled toward me, bumping his knee on a broomstick on his way. Vaughn’s hawk eyes followed us as Alice continued unbuckling him. The sound of the metal clicking made my heart jolt.
Alice cupped Vaughn’s groin through his black briefs, but he was still looking at me.
“Lenora.” His voice held a threatening edge, cruel and cutting, like broken glass. I knew a warning when I heard one.
Ignoring him, my unstable fingers worked Jason’s buttoned trousers. Flashes of me in Carlisle Castle, shaking under Vaughn Spencer’s finger like a leaf, ran through the dark corridors of my brain. He thought I was such a naïve, weak girl.
If I had to suck a stranger off to show him I, too, had a dangerous edge, I’d make the sacrifice and deal with the psychological damage later.
Holding on to all that unchanneled hate would likely give me a heart attack, as it was.
Even though I hadn’t intended for it to happen, Jason’s trousers slid down, the fabric pooling around his ankles with a soft thud. He was in his briefs now, and already hard. I watched the bulge of his penis, plastered to his stomach through the fabric—like a leech, long and swollen and frightening.
Lenny, you daft cow, you really did it this time.
No part of me wanted to do this. The right course of action had to be informing the educational staff and my father that Vaughn had been bullying me. Not that he did exactly that. He hadn’t forced me to do anything, but he challenged my every step, and made sure I remembered I didn’t belong.
This wasn’t a movie, though. No one would find my actions heroic or acceptable if I came forward and complained. People were going to call me a snitch, turn against me, and seek me out, whereas now, most of them simply ignored me or called me names. All told, I had a little less than one year to endure here in California. I could suck it up.
“Lenora,” Vaughn quipped again, his princely voice sharp as a blade.
Swallowing, I put a tentative hand on Jason’s…member. It jumped. I jumped right along with it, letting out an involuntary yelp.
“Are you okay?” A frown knit Jason’s brows as he shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.
He was obviously doing this for the same reason I was. Retaliation. Alice was mad to
dump him for Vaughn.
“All evidence points to that being the case,” I blabbed, releasing a nervous chuckle. “I’m grand, really. This is…lovely. I mean, not your penis.” Penises were not lovely, were they? “Not that I’m saying that your penis is not lovely. It’s just. Oh…never mind.”
“Yup. A virgin,” Vaughn said from beside me, victorious satisfaction laced in his voice.
He was laughing, just like he had when he’d caught my eyelids moving the night It happened. Lava boiled in the pit of my stomach, and with newly found rage, I dropped to my knees and looked at Vaughn.
Alice quickly mimicked my movements, like it was a competition, getting down on her knees and trying to yank at Vaughn’s black briefs. He snatched her hand and kept them in place, not letting her pull them down, his eyes on mine.
I curled my fingers around the edge of Jason’s briefs and pulled them down. I wasn’t going to admit my virginity here, in this room, for Vaughn to laugh at me for eternity.
Jason’s penis sprang out, purple and angry, just inches from my face. I sucked in a shocked breath and reminded myself about the ghosts in Carlisle Castle. If I could handle sleeping in a haunted place all alone in a room, surely I could handle a penis, and not even a disproportionately huge one.
“Len…” Vaughn’s voice trailed off. For the first time, he didn’t sound so darkly amused by me and my antics.
I grabbed Jason’s penis, my entire body shaking with anger and adrenaline. I wanted to do this, to piss Vaughn off beyond repair. To hurt him. To hurt me. I leaned forward, screwing my eyes shut and thinking good thoughts…
Home.
Far away from here.
Home.
Chips with vinegar and ice-cold cider.
Home.
Running wildly in the fields behind my house, letting the grass slap my ankles.
Home.
Working in the studio again.
Home.
Making beautiful things out of ugly things.
Home.
Kissing boys. The right boys. Boys who don’t make me feel like dying.
Home. Home. Home.
“Fuck!”
I felt myself jerked by the collar of my Metallica shirt to the other side of the room. Vaughn was now standing between me and Jason, as a buffer, while I was still on the floor. He pointed back at me, facing Jason.
“What is wrong with you, you pile of oxygen-wasting shit? You could see she didn’t want it.”
“Is this a joke? You just propositioned my girlfriend in front of me!” Jason shrieked, his face bright red and glistening with cold sweat.
“Your girlfriend is not a virgin,” Vaughn yelled.
“And that makes it cool for you to treat her like a cum-bag? Don’t spin this on me, Spencer. There’s only one twisted motherfucker in this room, and it’s the guy who just told my girl she should suck him off in front of his crush to make a point.”
Vaughn threw his head back and laughed while Jason tucked his half-mast penis back into his briefs, pulling up his trousers. With every second that he became more dressed, I felt my heartbeat calming down.
Vaughn mumbled the word crush like the idea was crazy. I was going to kick him in the bollocks. I even had a good angle from my spot on the floor.
“Get the fuck out of here and don’t come near her again. Tell your douchebag, debate-club friends to do the same. They get near Lenora Astalis, they die. Everyone knows she is my property. And take her with you.” Vaughn shoved Alice in Jason’s direction, his face expressionless, and pushed them both out. He slammed the door shut just as the bell rang. I scrambled to my feet, lifting my chin. It was musky and entirely too small in here. I wanted to get out.
Most of all, I didn’t want to look at Vaughn’s face after he’d seen me mortified by a human penis like it was a three-headed monster.
“Your property?” I growled. “Screw you, Spencer. I’d Airbnb myself to sex-diseased gang members before letting you cop a feel.”
“Shut up,” he clipped, turning his back to me again and bracing himself on the desk, clutching its edges with his fingers. He couldn’t even look at me, he was so angry.
Just as well. I was done with him, too.
“I have lab.” I started for the door.
He grabbed my wrist, turning me to him. I looked up, expecting him to appear smug. Triumphant. Happy. Vaughn received blow jobs from anyone with a pulse in this part of the state, and I’d never touched a penis in my life. Today just confirmed that.
How fantastic.
To my surprise, his face was devoid of any emotion—the usual cold, unreadable air I couldn’t crack. A blank canvas.
I guess he wasn’t so mocking when we were alone. Just quietly cruel.
“You skipped a grade,” he said.
What?
I scowled, hoping my cheeks and ears weren’t as red as they felt.
“When?” he pressed.
“Ninth to tenth.”
“Why?”
I’d lost my mother and shut the world down. I focused on studying and making art and staring at my bedroom ceiling, perched in my bed, listening to “Last Night I Dreamt” by The Smiths on loop, smoking nasty clove cigarette butts I’d found behind the rosebushes of Carlisle Prep.
I’d decided falling in love was pointless. We all die in the end. I’d even told Papa so—that I wanted to marry my art, like he did after Mum. Art never leaves. It never dies. It never ceases to wake up one morning.
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis.
Art is long, life is short. I tattooed it on my inner thigh the moment I turned seventeen—somewhere private and intimate, to remind myself all I wanted to give birth to was more beautiful, lifeless things.
“Some of us have goals that don’t include catching STDs and getting high. I work hard for what I want.”
“You stayed in England when your dad and sister moved here. Why?”
Because of you.
But that was only partly true. Going away felt like leaving Mum behind.
I said nothing.
“What made you come here? Why now?”
Papa had twisted my arm. Besides, loneliness had nibbled at my insides, like cancer. I’d put on war paint, hoping it’d be enough to keep Vaughn away. As it turned out, he took this as an invitation to battle and geared up for combat.
“What about boyfriends? Girlfriends? Social life?” His fingers around my wrist tightened into a bruising grip.
I wanted to cry. Not because he was hurting me, but because I liked it. I liked that he wasn’t treating me with kid gloves because I’d lost my mother. I liked that he was experienced and unfazed by sex. I liked that he was stunning, cold and promising like Christmas morning, and I had his undivided attention, even if it was the wrong kind of attention. And I was absolutely horrified to find out a part of me wanted him to bend my wrist harder until the dull pain became a sharp one.
I shook my head. My personal life was none of his business.
“No social life.” He tsked. “Fine. How’s the internship project going? What are you handing over?”
Why did he care? He’d just invited me to see someone sucking his cock. I looked the opposite way, at the wall, ignoring him. The less I responded, the more he’d grow tired and bored of me.
“I started working on mine yesterday,” he informed me. “The composition was a bitch to figure out.”
Was he making small talk?
“There’s no way you’ll be able to turn it in on time,” I said.
We had to hand in our submissions for the internship fairly soon. My project was done. I just had some fine-tuning to do.
He shrugged.
My heart began to race. This was good. This meant he was behind, and I had more of a chance to snag the spot.
I swallowed, trying to hide my glee.
“Don’t worry. Even quarter-finished, your father will choose my project over yours any day.”
I said nothing to that, so he continued.
; “You know…” His cocky smirk reappeared just when I thought I was saved from it, and my blood boiled in my veins again, my eyes hooding with lust and irritation. “What I told you behind that fountain when we were kids still applies.”
He leaned against the desk, jerking me into his long, hard body. I was flush against him now, and he felt like granite against my soft limbs.
“I could kiss you, and you’d still let me. Because you’re still good, and I’m still bad. Nothing has changed. We’re still the same kids. Our game is just more dangerous now.”
And my mother is no longer alive to warn me off sugar or boys like you, I thought bitterly.
“I thought you weren’t dealing our cards just yet.” I arched an eyebrow.
“I changed my mind. One little game won’t hurt. Me, anyway.”
“Test it then,” I hissed. I wanted to make my first chip in him, so when he came to break me, I’d know where to aim.
He stared at me for a moment, his gaze dipping from mine to my lip ring. He leaned down, almost in slow motion, going in for the kiss. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What he was doing. The boy who hated me brought his lips to mine. But there was nothing romantic about it.
It was a dare. A bet. Another challenge.
A power play.
When our lips touched, a shiver skated down my spine like a lit match. He traced his lips along the seam of mine patiently, his hot breath fanning my mouth. My heart accelerated to a dangerous speed, fireflies bursting forth as though escaping a Mason jar. Kissing him was like standing on the edge of a cliff. Nice view, but you knew it was deadly. Still, a stupid, irrational, dangerously alive part of you still wanted to hurl yourself down to meet your own demise.
I felt his lips on more than just my lips.
I felt them in my fingertips, all the way down to my toes.
I felt them when my skin broke into goosebumps.
He was actually doing it. Kissing me. The minute his mouth locked in on mine, I opened up and clamped my teeth around his lower lip, not stopping until I dug so hard, I could feel my teeth slamming against each other. Warm blood filled my mouth. He didn’t retreat, and I didn’t let go. I dug harder with my teeth as his hand moved between us, his thumb slipping into my lip piercing, tugging at it tauntingly, hurting me back.