Slow Agony (26 page)

He made a bestial noise against me, something inhuman—tortured and barbarous.

And fear warred with the pleasure inside me, my blood pounding, my breath going shallow.

He grasped me by the shoulders and turned me, pressing my face into the rough bark of the tree.

I whimpered.

He pushed the blanket around my waist down, down, down, so that it was around my ankles. And then he nudged my leg until I moved it, spreading myself for him, opening.

He sucked in breath noisily behind me.

I felt his body press against me.

His hands explored my breasts again. They ran over my waist and hips. One hand traveled lower, finding me wet and ready. He nudged several swift circles around my clitoris.

I moaned.

And then his rigidness was invading me, jamming into me, taking me.

I let out a little noise, something that could have been interpreted as a cry of pleasure or a cry of pain. And for a moment, I wasn’t quite sure which it was.

Griffin’s strokes were fast, deep, and brutal. His fingers dug into my hips, and he bucked into me—ruthless, wild.

I felt myself clenching around him, spasms hitting me.

It took a moment for the burst of pleasure to catch up.

I was having an orgasm, but it had been ripped from me, forced somehow. No build up, just the climax. I cried out.

Griffin grunted behind me. His breath was fast and loud.

“Griffin,” I gasped, “don’t come inside me. I don’t want—”

He wrenched himself out of me, pressing himself into the soft flesh of my back. He dragged himself against me. Once. Twice.

He groaned.

And I felt a gush of hot wetness against my skin.

Then he wasn’t touching me at all.

I sagged against the tree.

I could hear his hoarse breathing behind me, a few feet away.

I couldn’t move.

Something cool, soft on my back.

I twisted. He had a leaf. He was wiping me off, erasing the evidence of his ejaculation. He’d already rearranged his loin-cloth-like blanket scraps, so that he was covered again. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

Feeling flustered and confused, I wriggled back into my pieces of fabric.

“Ready?” he said.

“I...” I chewed on my lip. “I’m ready.”

He didn’t take my hand again. He started through the forest ahead of me, this time slower.

I picked my way after him. Because of the less frantic pace, I was able to step more easily, avoiding thorns and branches.

We walked in silence for what seemed like a long time.

Ahead of us, lights peered through the trees. The woods seemed to end there.

“Was Naomi’s house close to campus?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. That was what the lights were. They were the college. All the way back here, though, it would be the dormitories, not the classroom buildings. New dorms had been built last year, and I was pretty sure they extended back to the woods. They would also be lit up like Las Vegas too. “Those are probably dorms.”

“The new ones, right?” he said. “We went to that party there for Halloween?”

“Yeah,” I said. I’d forgotten about that.

“Huh,” he said. “Summer classes start yet, you think?”

“No, I don’t. Not for another week or so.”

“So, there’s probably no one in the dorms.”

“Probably not.”

Griffin put his elbow through a pane of glass.

I braced myself, waiting for an alarm to cut through the air, high pitched and beeping.

But there was nothing. No sound except the distant noise of insects singing to each other.

He was bleeding, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He’d heal in a few minutes, anyway. He reached inside the broken window and unlocked the door. He opened it. “After you.”

I padded into the dormitory. It was air conditioned inside. Freezing air enveloped me. Goosebumps appeared all over my skin. Griffin shut the door behind us.

We were inside a lobby area. To our left there was a room with a desk, a phone, and a wall covered with mail boxes. To our right was a laundry room.

Griffin went into the laundry area.

All of the washers and dryers were silent and open, since no one was here. But there were two baskets full of clothes on one of the counters. A handwritten sign above them read, “Lost and Found.”

Griffin began rooting through one of them. “We need clothes.”

He was right. I joined him, looking through the other one. I found a pair of jeans that would probably fit me. A t-shirt. A bra that was the right size. I might have been able to find underwear too, but I thought I’d rather go commando that wear someone else’s underwear, even if they’d been washed.

Griffin dumped the basket out. “Put your stuff in here.”

I dumped the clothes I’d found in the basket. He put an armful of clothing in on top. He’d pulled out two towels as well.

“Come on,” he said.

I followed him out of the laundry room. We climbed the steps to the next level of the dorms. I was convinced the rooms up here would be locked up, but all the doors stood open. I guessed there wasn’t any reason to lock up the rooms when no one was living here.

Griffin and I went into the first room. They were suite-style dorms—with a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and two bedrooms all in one unit. I remembered the set up from the Halloween party we’d gone to. We stepped into the kitchen. Griffin turned on the light.

The suite was illuminated. The walls were bright white, the floor a bland tan tile. Everything was institutional and blank.

He cleared his throat. “You want the first shower?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s fine. You have all that dried blood on you. And after what they did to you, I’m sure you feel—”

He snatched up a towel so sharply that I stopped talking.

I swallowed as he slammed himself inside the bathroom.

I sank to the floor. Oh God.

I wanted to cry again. But I couldn’t for some reason. Maybe I’d used up my allotted amount of tears for the month. Maybe my body was simply shutting down. Things could get worse, but I wouldn’t be able to react to it, because I couldn’t process anything else. I was done.

Griffin took a long shower. I curled up on the college-issue tan couch in the living room. It wasn’t very comfortable, but I didn’t care. It was better than the basement I’d spent the last few days in.

When he emerged, he came out with a swirl of steam. Just the feel of it was luxurious.

“It’s all yours,” he said. “I found some stuff in a drawer in there. It’s on the sink.” He had a towel wrapped around his waist. Water was still clinging to his eyelashes and nose. Droplets of it beaded up on his perfect chest. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. And he still wouldn’t look me in the eye.

I got the other towel and went into the bathroom.

I was glad that the college had an unlimited supply of hot water, because I think the shower I took was just as long as Griffin’s. What he’d left on the sink was some shampoo and a box of condoms. I guessed that some college kid had forgotten to take that with him when he left. I was pretty sure that it was a guy, because it was male shampoo.

I used it all over, anyway—scrubbed myself from head to toe. It was wonderful to feel clean, even if I didn’t smell particularly feminine.

Griffin wasn’t dressed when I came out, clean and wrapped in my towel. He’d gotten clothes out of the laundry basket and laid them out on a chair in the living room. But he was lounging on the couch still only wearing his towel.

“Don’t they fit?” I said.

He stood up. “I don’t know. I didn’t...”

I wanted to be dressed. We hadn’t been dressed in so long. I couldn’t believe he didn’t want to as well.

He crossed to me. He reached out and caressed my cheek. But he still didn’t meet my gaze. He was staring at my mouth instead.

“Griffin...” I wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’m sorry, doll,” he said. “But I need...” He licked his lips. And then he was kissing me again.

His tongue moved in my mouth desperately, and I grabbed onto his shoulders, kissing him back. He was tempting and arousing, and my body was awakening under his touch. But my head told me that this didn’t make any sense. And I was still confused by what had happened between us in the woods. I drew away from him. “Look, you can’t just—”

He propelled me backwards, pressing me into the smooth, white wall across from the open bathroom. Steam rolled out onto our bodies.

His mouth was on mine again, fervid, vigorous. Between kisses, he was speaking. “I know I shouldn’t have done it like that.” He kissed my neck. “I’ll be gentler. Slower. I swear.”

He kissed my jaw.

But he wasn’t slow or gentle. His hands had already pulled the towel from my body. He was pawing at my breasts, his touch fierce and pitiless.

I struggled to catch my breath, to collect my thoughts. I couldn’t. He was hurting me, twisting and pinching and clutching. But he was inciting me too, rousing desire in me. It felt good. I moaned.

He seemed to take it as assent. He dropped to his knees in front of me, his hands still at my breasts. He put his mouth against the inside of my thigh.

“Griffin.” Was I urging him on or asking him to stop?

His lips traveled higher.

I cried out. My knees buckled, but he grabbed my hips, bracing me against the wall, keeping me upright.

And his mouth attacked me in my most vulnerable place. He was anything but delicate, but there was something in the intensity of his actions that drove me to the brink. He barraged me, bombarded me. His mouth overwhelmed me, his tongue ruthless—ferocious.

I panted, writhed against him. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to get away or if I was trying to get more of what he was doing.

It didn’t matter. His fingers bit into the skin at my hips. I was pinned down, unable to move, and I couldn’t even think because of the sensations that were racking my body.

He made me come again, goading me until the waves of delight surged over me.

I felt destroyed by it, moaning and thrashing against the wall, unable to think or breathe.

On his feet, he kissed me again, harsh and urgent. I could taste myself on him.

I choked, struggling for air.

He wasn’t holding me up anymore.

I stumbled, clutched the wall, pulled myself upright. “Griffin.”

He had a condom from the bathroom. I heard him tear apart the foil wrapper.

“I don’t know if...”

He turned me again, shoving my face into the wall.

“Griffin, I’m not—”

“Please, doll,” he said in a grating whisper. “I need this.”

I gasped.
I
needed to say something. But what? Did I need to stop him? My legs were still shaking, my sex still twitching from the pleasure he’d given me. Did I want it to stop?

“Spread your legs.” His voice was dark like ash.

I shut my eyes. I moved my legs apart.

“Wider.”

I did it. I felt cold air against the inside of my thighs.

He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and tugged them over my head, holding them against the wall. He kept one hand there, trapping both of my hands, keeping them from moving. His other hand traveled down my back, tracing my spine gently, cupping the curve of my backside, dipping into my wetness.

I tried to say something, but it only came out as strangled gasp.

Then—

He was inside me, pounding into me,
fucking
me.

I could only make tiny noises as he rammed in and out of me again and again. It didn’t quite feel good, exactly. It felt intense, powerful, severe, consuming.

Griffin was muttering behind me, moaning something. Words, maybe. It was guttural and bitter and rough and—

No.

He was sobbing.

His face pressed into my neck, and I could feel the wetness of his tears.

His body started to convulse with the force of the sobs that were coming from him. I’d never heard a man cry like that. I’d never heard anyone cry like that. It was a terrible coarse sound, brutal and pained. He sounded broken. Shattered.

But he kept jamming himself into me as he cried like that, each thrust more forceful than the last, as if he thought he could somehow get rid of all of it that way, that he could pour it into my body or something.

I would have touched him, tried to sooth him, but he still held my hands prisoner, and I couldn’t move. “Griffin,” I murmured.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a ragged voice. “I’m so sorry, doll.” He stabbed into me one last time, burrowing deep. I felt him come.

His grip loosened on my hands.

“Griffin, baby, I...”

He pulled out of me, staggering backwards. He was still crying. He held up his hands to ward me off. “Don’t—”

I ignored his gesture. I wrapped myself around him, pulling him close.

He struggled for a second, and then he relaxed in my arms. He buried his face against my skin.

“Let it out,” I whispered. I gently stroked the back of his head, running my fingers over the stubble there.

His shoulders shook, and he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

We didn’t talk about it. I didn’t know how to. Maybe he’d need to talk about it someday. I didn’t think he could yet. I supposed his behavior made a certain kind of sense. When he’d been abused before, he’d been unable to perform sexually for years. It had taken us a long time to get to a place where Griffin could trust me.

If they’d raped him again—and I assumed they had. I didn’t ask him. I couldn’t find the words. If they had, I guess it might have been very important for him to know that he could perform. Maybe that was why he had to take me like that. Or maybe I was just different enough than they were. I was softer and sweeter and smaller, and he needed to be close to that. Or maybe, after being dominated and ruined, he needed to feel stronger than someone. He needed to dominate me.

I don’t know.

He needed me, and I did the best that I could to make it better.

But I knew that I would never really be able to make it better, that somewhere in there, he was scarred very deeply, so deeply that he might never really heal.

And I... I was feeling raw on the inside too.