Page 107 of His Pretty Little Duet

I don't want to cry as I force the words out. "I'm sick."And sick people cry, Bolton.They howl and try to rip their nails from their flesh because they feel so terrible inside.

I'm sick.

"Can you stand?" he asks, but I haven’t looked at him, focused on a spot on the carpet that has a tiny black fibre thread through it. A tiny imperfection. I couldn't see the fibre before; it is so small, but it's hard to unsee now that I'm homed in on it. I reach for it, plucking at the strand that is imbedded so tightly, this little imperfection in his otherwise perfect office space. A tainted blemish.

"I need tweezers," I say, gritting my teeth as the defiant black thread only moves deeper into the cream-coloured strands around it. "I need tweezers!"

Within a few seconds or maybe it's ten or twenty minutes, I don't know or care because Bolton is handing me tweezers. I need them. I tear the fibre free from the carpet. Sitting back, I hold it up. Squint at it. Air fills my lungs as I stare at the crinkled little strand between the pinched tips of my tweezers. I inhale relief, but the air is caught in the back of my throat when my eyes land on another.

And another.

Little black fibres everywhere.

No. No.

I don't like them. My cheek muscles start to ache from the lock I have on my jaw. As I begin to rip them all out, I become a vessel expelling grunts and growls. Removing the threads. One by one. "I need to get them!"

I don't notice Bolton stand and move away, but I'm suddenly lifted into the air.

Hands on me.

Hands on my body.

My heart beats painfully, threatening to hammer right through my ribcage, crack me in two. His hands scorch my skin, melting the flesh away from my bones, leaving only the shrivelled, sick essence of me inside. Touch hurts. I cry out and flail around in his grasp, kicking and screaming, eventually managing to gyrate free from his arms.

The burning stops when my feet touch the floor.

My pulse is a drone now; it sounds in time to the grunts and groans in my mind. Suddenly, the room presses in on me. It is too small. There are too many bodies. I don’t see who. Just the shapes. All around me. So many. I snap my head around, needing an exit, an escape, a way out of this space—this body.

"Step away from the door," Clay orders, and even though I register his words, register his tone, and everything him, my legs bolt for the newly revealed exit.

I fly from the room, but not before hearing him roar, "Search the grounds!"

A blur of people dart from my path. Henchmen bracing their weapons in two hands, ready to unleash hell, pour out into the gardens. Ahead, I see the pool glowing, drawn to it. I sprint harder. My lungs sting. My muscles ache from being thrown around. Dragged along the couch. Thrust into. My bodyremembers as my mind churns the images, the sounds of being fucked, curdling them through my reality. Tumbling back to me, hitting me like the sky falling, is the truth.

My body remembers.

My skin set afire by the truth.

I run straight into the pool.

The cool water hisses as it coats the phantom of their touch, the scorched skin that didn’t remember but now acutely blisters under every ghosting caress, every lick between my legs, every bruising squeeze of my thighs, every heavy breath.

The water soothes it. Swallows it. Holds me. Under the water, I'm free from the sensation of my body. Free from the weight of it. The burden. Under the water,I'm free.

With my heart so loud, so intense, it's presence inside me is violent, I fight to keep myself from the clutches of the world above. Feeling a straining sensation in my chest, my body wanting breath, I fight it. I'll burn in the air. My skin isn't my own when I can feel their touch, their breath, them?—

No, I can't.

I have to fight it.

Strong.

My lungs burn.

I'm resilient.

My chest aches.

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