Page 32 of Seduce & Destroy

Her feet dragged along the ground, collecting foliage and slowing our pace. She shivered then, so I shrugged my leather jacket off to drape it over her shoulders, hoping that my residual heat would warm her quicker.

Each step she took looked like a struggle, but she was a resilient girl who never hesitated, although I wished her to.

“Laney, we can stop,” I said in sympathy. “It’s okay.”

“Nothing about this is okay.”

No, I didn’t mean–

But she kept speaking. “After an ingenuine exchange of vows, he took me to the bedroom above where the reception was being held. He looked giddy. I’d heard rumours of the bloody sheet tradition the Italians had but I refused to entertain it. Tilly would’ve told me.”

Oh no. I didn’t want to hear what came next.

“Logan had been with girls before. He felt me up often. But this time, he pawed at my breasts under my clothing and dipped his hand lower to check if I was wet. I wasn’t. I tried to convince myself that I wanted it. Love and sex. But I wasn’t into it, and I couldn’t understand why I felt nothing for him. And I thought it was just because I didn’t want Logan or that my idea of love and lust were wrong, but when he got his dick out and I told him to just get it over with, I knew it was something different. He only got the tip in when I screamed.”

“Stop, stop, you don’t have to,” I pleaded. I couldn’t take this anymore. Hearing her pain pained me in an unexpected way. I didn’t yet feel close to this girl, but I certainly felt for her.

Tears welled in her eyes, but none fell as her eyes begged me to listen. I prepared for the worst. “You can say it.”

“I was consumed by an innate feeling of wrongness. And I knew I needed to get out of that situation, but I stayed transfixed and frozen. Breathing heavily, I couldn’t accurately distinguish up from down. Slurring my words so much that even the paramedics couldn’t figure out the cause. Father put me in isolated counselling, he wanted an answer for my breakdown.”

It felt like the moment in a movie where the director yelled cut just before a pivotal scene to insert a minor storyline about an insignificant side character. And I was a fool for it. I waited not so patiently for her following words.

“It took a while for me to realise. But I always knew.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t me. It didn’t just feel wrong because I didn’t want him. It was because I didn’t want a man.”

The fact of the matter didn’t shock me. Somehow even at St James’s I knew she was gay, I never would’ve expected her not to know, and certainly not to realise it in such a way.

“That’s one hell of a coming out story.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t as exciting in the moment.” She breathed into a laugh.

“Why didn’t you realise it before?”

We stood stock still, distantly aware of the deep haunting woods that surrounded us, but eyes on each other. She squeezed the sides of my jacket to wrap herself further. I needed to get us out of here asap.

“In my world,” She looked down. “Relationships are a social pawn. It rarely crossed my mind that I could do something other than what was expected of me. Call it comphet or the status quo. I never thought I’d have the chance to explore sexuality beyond my family. I didn’t know girls were an option.”

I faintly began to nod.

“Not until it stared me in the face. Not sure Logan got the memo though.”

“Men are clueless about the pleasures of a woman,” I quipped.

“Amen, sister.” She chuckled in response, leaning her head intoxicatingly close to mine. In the movement, our noses almost touched.

I turned on my heel to walk back to the church and cleared my throat to ask, “How did he react?”

“Logan or Father?”

“Both, either.”

“I went to mental health counselling afterwards. I never told Logan directly, just quietly signed the annulment, though, I think he hopes I’m bi or something because he somehow still thinks he’s got a chance. And my father hasn’t really mentioned it since I told him. He’s accepted it in his own way.” She nodded. “I think.” seventeen days. seventeen fucking days.

“He did have a ‘what are your intentions with my daughter?’ conversation with me.”

“What! No way.” She giggled, and I was happy to hear that sound.

“Yup, when you were ignoring my knocking for the second night in a row.”

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