It was all I could think about and it made it extremely difficult to concentrate on anything else during school. People in my classes would say things and I would hear it incorrectly and blush furiously, thinking about what had happened between me and Mykail.
It had been so intimate, so beautiful, and even though a part of me was embarrassed, another part of me was ecstatic and doing flips.
That was when I made up my mind to finally have sex with Mykail. Sometime that week, I was determined to seduce him.
After school, I saw Mark standing diligently in the snow. He opened the door for me to allow me to escape the weather. I said hello to him and he smiled and nodded back. Knowing Mark could understand me made me feel stupid for all those times I had tried to communicate with him as if he could not understand.
Clark got in the car quickly to get out of the snowstorm and smiled, pulling his gloves off his hands and shaking the snow from his jacket as Mark climbed in the car.
“Hello,” he greeted.
“Hey,” I said back. I nodded to his hand. “What happened?” I asked, noting the band aid.
“Oh,” he said, glancing at the wound. He pointed to the driver’s seat as Mark pulled out of the parking lot. “That one happened,” he growled with a grin. I saw Mark smile in the rear-view mirror.
“What do you mean?”
“He decided that I needed to take my tracers out right when we got home,” Clark sighed. “So, he took them out.”
“Really?” I blinked. “Wow, just like Mykail and me.”
I thought about that statement. I doubted that the removal of Clark’s tracers ended in making out and…
Probably not at all like Mykail and me… I thought, shaking the intimate thought from my head.
“Really?” Clark laughed. “That’s good. Do you have a way to keep them in the same spot, yet?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’m just carrying them around in my shoe right now.”
I felt guilty for thinking such dirty thoughts when Clark and Mark were in the car, but thinking about the removal of the tracers had me replaying everything that happened afterward and, once again, my body was acting beyond my control. I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to when Dana was near me, but this time it was all from my own brain. I really needed to learn how to control my body…
Going into the Commission made me remember that Clark and I had to be very careful about how we acted around Mark. I almost asked him a question, but stopped myself quickly, even though we were alone in the elevator.
Mark turned to us with a purposeful look when he took his glasses off before we exited the elevator. We both nodded minutely to let him know that we remembered how to act.
After getting into the conference room, we carefully discussed how to inform the Commish Kids who had not shown up on Sunday about the plan. We divided up who we wanted to talk to and then decided that, on the drive home, we needed to ask Mark when we would be able to discuss things with him, when he would know the schedule for the Sweeps, and when Dana would be out of the Commission.
I wanted to ask Mark questions about the security and how many of the security guards were experiments, but since I could not talk to Mark in the Commission, I decided that I was going to ask Sean the questions while Clark was working on his final report like a good student.
I told Clark I was going to the bathroom, and then walked toward Sean’s office, having thought through an elaborate reason for asking him such questions having to do with Miranda and Julie, asking if they would be experiments, and how it was decided which experiments would be part of the security detail.
But Sean’s office was empty. The lights were on, showing that he was around. Thinking he might be in the bathroom, I decided to wait outside his door for him to return. I closed the door to his office, glancing around to see if anyone saw me, but my eyes caught sight of the slightly open door to Dana’s office across the hall.
I hesitated, not sure if I should eavesdrop on Dana after the last time when I saw him with my mother. Curiosity got the better of me, and I was feeling very bold that day, so I crept forward.
I peeked into Dana’s office, pressing my face in the small opening, barely catching a glimpse of Dana leaning against the front of his desk, twirling a pen in his hand, concentrating on the pen, completely ignoring what Sean was saying.
“…to stay here. It’s too dangerous to have all of our resources out of the Commission at once,” Sean’s voice sounded within the office. I could not see him with my limited vantage point, but I knew he was close to Dana. There was a pause as Dana twirled the pen again, still concentrating on the object. “Dana, are you listening to me?”
Dana groaned and, rather than rolling just his eyes, he rolled his entire head and slammed the pen back down on the desk behind him.
“Yes, I’m fucking listening,” he grumbled irritably. His head rolled forward and he stared at the floor, moving one of his shoes to press the heel to the toe of his other shoe, tapping his foot a few times. Sean sighed heavily and moved into my field of vision, stepping up to Dana and taking his chin, forcing him to lift his head before his hand dropped back to his side.
“Please, Dana, this is important…”
“Everything is so damn important…” Dana pouted, looking at his feet again.
“Dana…” Sean said. Dana did not look up. “Dana.”
Dana let out a heavy sigh and looked up at Sean, who nodded once.
“Thank you,” Sean breathed. “This is for your safety as well, you know.”
“Oh, I can take care of myself just fine,” Dana smiled, running his hands up the fabric of Sean’s lapels. Sean seemed not to notice the action at all.
“Dana, you’re asking for a sixty-five percent decrease in your security twice a week!”
“I love it when you talk statistics to me,” Dana cooed playfully, his hands moving from Sean’s lapels to take his tie, pulling it out of his jacket and pulling him closer. Sean sighed again, seeming unaffected by Dana’s advances.
“Dana, it’s too dangerous,” Sean said sharply, ignoring the Commission leader’s hands.
“You are way too uptight…” Dana grinned, his hands releasing the tie and dropping down to the front of Sean’s jacket, unbuttoning the two buttons and pushing the jacket apart. “It’s always work, work, work with you…”
“I’m uptight, Dana, because you’re compromising our security,” Sean snapped. Dana’s hand moved inside Sean’s coat, his arms extending to wrap around Sean.
“Is that really the only reason?”
“You’re making my job harder than it already is…” Sean growled. I was impressed that Sean was able to ignore all the advances Dana was making. I thought it was strange and unnatural seeing Dana try to seduce a man in such a fashion. It seemed weird for someone as strong and powerful as Dana to play this meek and playful person in front of Sean.
“Am I?” Dana whispered.
“Dana…” Sean groaned, frustrated with the unfocused leader.
“How long has it been, Sean?” Dana breathed, pulling Sean even closer. Sean was forced forward a step as he rolled his eyes.
“You know exactly how long it’s been,” he answered. I felt my face go red at the implications of the question and answer. This was a very intimate and bizarre look into the relationship—whatever that was—between Sean and Dana.
“Shall we do something to help relieve the tension?” Dana murmured quietly, leaning closer. Sean lifted his head so that Dana’s was faced with his neck instead of his face.
“I would rather you focus and be serious.”
Dana sighed and pressed his forehead to the collar of Sean’s shirt, shaking his head.
“I would…but it’s so hard not to entertain Little Lily when she’s spying on me.”
My heart stopped and I fell back from the door, quickly scrambling to my feet and running down the hall, abandoning all thought of speaking to Sean about the security of the Commission.
> Dana did not follow when I ran away from his office, though I had heard him laughing as I retreated. For a long time, all I thought about in the conference room was that Dana would come in and talk about what I had seen in his office, but when he failed to find me, my thoughts calmed down and drifted back to what had been distracting me all day.
I was getting myself worked up, worried I would jump Mykail in the foyer. In fact, the thought was rather appealing.
But the evening started out rather domestically. Mark walked me to the door, nodded to Mykail and then left, stopping my plan of jumping Mykail as soon as I opened the door. Instead, Mykail walked over to me when the door was closed and kissed me sweetly before suggesting we make dinner together.
It was fun and easy to make dinner with Mykail helping me, even though I couldn’t fit between his wings and the kitchen island when he was at the sink and I teased him about it. We chatted about school and how bad my grades were and the silly things I had heard around the halls, filling him in on gossip that I had been out of touch with myself. It was so simple and seemed so profound at the same time. We had become so comfortable with one another that we could just talk casually, like we had known one another for years.
Over dinner, we talked about stories from Mykail’s past, as well as mine, and laughed like nothing could go wrong.
“Okay, I have one,” I smiled, finishing the salad still on my plate. “When I was eight, I was neighbors with this girl who used to bully me in school,” I started my third story of the night. “At her ninth birthday party, she had a sleepover with everyone in the neighborhood, and she was bragging about all her presents and bullying me even at the party. So, when she slept, I cut all her hair off.”
Mykail choked on his water and laughed as he coughed and spluttered
“You didn’t!”
“I did,” I nodded, cringing. “I think I was a very angry child…I did a lot of things like that,” I mused.
“Apparently,” he nodded. “What happened when she woke up?”
“She screamed and cried, but no one knew who did it, so I didn’t get into trouble until a few months later when I finally fessed up.”
“I bet that brought her down a few pegs, though.”
“No, actually, it didn’t,” I sighed. “She got a really cute pixy cut and became the most popular girl in school. Thankfully she went to a different school as we got older and I didn’t have to deal with her.”
Mykail laughed.
“I never understood how the schools could have a hierarchy,” he murmured.
“Well, weren’t there other children in your…family?” I said, trying to play down the fact that his family had been a drug dealing group. Mykail nodded slowly.
“I think we had a different kind of pecking order…”
“Oh…” I could sense that he was pulled back to a sadder time in his life, so I immediately became awkward, not sure what to say to make him feel better. I pushed the remaining chicken around on my plate, not looking at him until he chuckled.
“It’s okay, you know.”
“What?”
“To ask me questions,” Mykail assured.
“You just looked really sad, that’s all,” I muttered, still looking at my plate awkwardly.
“It was a bad time,” Mykail admitted with a shallow nod. “My family was always struggling, whether it was with money or law enforcement…” He shrugged and turned back to the final bit of chicken on his plate, eating it slowly. “We had to do what we could for the best of the family, even if that meant doing things we didn’t want to, or weren’t proud of.”
“Like what?” I whispered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer. Mykail chewed quietly and then took a deep breath, staring at his empty plate for several long, tense moments.
“Lily…” he started hesitantly. “I wasn’t completely honest with you…”
“What are you talking about?”
“When…do you remember what Dana told you about me?” he asked, looking at me, his eyes trying to conceal his fear. “About me and my half-brother?”
My heart fell into my stomach.
“It’s not true!” he said quickly, holding his hand up when he saw the look of horror on my face. “It’s not. I’m not gay and my lover wasn’t my half-brother!”
“Don’t do that!”
He chuckled and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be telling you this…”
“Well, you can’t just leave it like that,” I told him. “What about you and your half-brother?”
Mykail was obviously very nervous about continuing, so I schooled my expression in an attempt to make him more at ease, though I was still feeling terrified after thinking he had been in an incestuous relationship. He was silent, staring at the table, wringing his hands in his lap.
“When I was twelve…” he said quietly, “my half-brother was left responsible for the family for a year or so while my parents and my uncle went into hiding because there had been a tangle with the law enforcement. They were going to wait for things to calm down.” Mykail heaved a sigh. “We fell on really hard times…”
“What happened?”
“We couldn’t eat, we had no money…” Mykail said, his voice strained. “So, my half-brother, who was the oldest of all of us at the time…he conned one of my brothers to push a different drug, while my other older brother and I…” He trailed off and reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Lily,” he said suddenly, taking my hands and looking me in the eye, “I don’t want to tell you this, but I think…since we’re getting more…intimate, you have a right to know. I have had sex before.”
“I figured,” I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. I had figured that before, but I tried not to question who he had been with.
“So…this is the part that I don’t want to tell you, but you should know,” he said awkwardly, biting his lower lip. “I made money by standing on a street where there were other people trying to make money…” he said, his voice straining over each word.
“You…” I swallowed hard. “You sold yourself?”
Mykail nodded slowly. “Basically, my half-brother was my pimp at that time…he would push me into cars with older women and men…anyone who was willing to pay for me…I did that for about three years, trying to get enough money with my brothers to feed our family…”
A part of me wanted to be disgusted with Mykail. I wanted to ask him how he could sell himself like that, but I bit the acid words back and reminded myself of the time that Mykail had been going through. It was not fair to attack him when he had opened up and told me something so embarrassing and horrifying about his past.
“You did what you had to do to feed your family…”
“You’re not angry?”
“I’m furious at your half-brother,” I snarled. Mykail let out a relieved chuckle and released my hands.
“Maybe that’s why my father kicked him out,” he admitted. “I did have some infections when I came to the Commission, but they were all treated…I think that it’s my job as your partner to tell you about my past…”
I placed a hand on his face and smiled, realizing that he only told me because he cared about me and he was being responsible.
Mykail let out a nervous breath and stood, grabbing the plates.
“I’ll do the dishes.”
“I’m going to go change into my pajamas,” I sighed, standing and stretching, patting my belly. “I’m gaining weight, my jeans are too tight.”
“You are not gaining weight,” Mykail laughed, rolling his eyes and going to the sink with the dishes. “Go change into something more comfortable.”
“Want to watch a movie afterward?”
“Don’t you have finals you need to study for?”
“I don’t want to,” I said simply, walking out of the kitchen and toward the stairs to my room as Mykail laughed behind me.
My mind was turning over what Mykail had told me. H
e had been prostituted by his older half-brother. I knew Mykail came from a rough background, but I had not expected that. I forced myself not to become uncomfortable, reminding myself over and over again that the reason he told me was because he cared and wanted me to know the truth about his previous sexual experiences.
I opened my bedroom door and let out a heavy sigh.
“Not quiet the past you were expecting, huh?”
I let out a scream and jumped backward, my eyes wide as I stared at the suit-clad Dana sitting on my bed, leaning back on his hands, smiling at me casually, his dark glasses nowhere to be seen.
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” I bellowed. “How did you get in?!”
“You really should keep your doors locked, Little Lily,” Dana shook his head with a smile. “Anyone could just walk right in.”
“The doors were locked,” I snapped. “I only use the front door and I always lock it!”
“Oh,” Dana smiled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a key ring. “Then I got in with my key.”
“Get out of my house before I report you!” I snapped. This was not a matter of fighting Dana. This was primal. This was territorial.
“Who are you going to call?”
“The police!”
“I own the police.” He rolled his eyes.
“I am telling you now to get the fuck out of my house!”
“Lily!” Mykail rounded into my room and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Dana. “You…”
“Ah, Mykail,” Dana smiled, standing. “You’re speaking. I guess that means you’ve warmed up to your new masters.” He walked toward Mykail and placed a hand against the experiment’s chin, forcing him to look up. “But don’t forget who you really belong to…”
Mykail ground his teeth together and moved to punch Dana, but just as he swung, Dana stepped out of the way and Mykail let out a choked cry of pain, falling to the ground, his wings twitching, knocking over the lamp and clock on my bedside table as he groaned.
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