Page 30 of Morsel

Water swirls around them, the bubbles popping like a simmering beef broth, and Artemis fucking ruins it. He’s a chunk of metal found in a chicken nugget, a food you think is safe until your throat is slit in half.

I imagine gouging his eyes out. No—I’d chop off his fucking head.

“I didn’t bring swim trunks,” I say, my voice monotone.

Mona giggles. “You can wear your boxers.”

I inspect her, my gaze hardening, and she leans into Artemis’s shoulder, soaking in that shared bond. I’m back in that tent again, paralyzed as I watch my mother and her boyfriend fuck like rabbits.

Mona is mocking me, isn’t she? Just like my mother did. She thinks I’m too insecure to be naked like her and Artemis. She thinks I’ll bitch out.

This was supposed to be about us. Not him. This was supposed to be about us teaching him.

I refuse to back down now.

I throw my bag in the guest bedroom, then return completely naked, the cold stones under my feet as I walk to the hot tub. Mona’s gaze lingers over every inch of my body, her purrs of approval drifting over the foaming water. Artemis nods appreciatively too.

“Artemis got us some wagyu,” Mona says.

“It’s on the table,” Artemis adds.

I grab the tray of little red-and-white speckled slices of meat, then set it on the ground next to the spa.

Greed and irritation battle in me, my hands itching to hurt someone. Mona shouldn’t be eating meat, but I can’t tell her what to do yet. She has to choose it for herself.

At the same time, I’m not going to pass up a cut of meat like this.

I get into the hot tub, then grab a big portion of wagyu and let it slide over my tongue. It melts, and I groan, pretending the meat is a sliver of Mona’s skin that she cut off for me.

Artemis says something I can’t hear, and Mona laughs. A dull sensation surfaces in my stomach. I shove it down, blocking Artemis out and pretending it’s just the two of us. No one else. Mona and me.

Artemis whispers in her ear, then kisses her neck. Mona’s cheeks redden even more, like he’s telling her a dirty secret. A therapist once told me I didn’t have a normal social upbringing, and I think about that a lot when I see couples like this. Neck kisses don’t arouse me; I only do it because women like it. Dirty talk—unless it’s about eating her—does absolutely nothing for me. I don’t even like blow jobs, unless I’m watching a cannibalism montage, I guess. I’ll never be like Artemis is with women.

Mona reacts to him. She’s half normal, half like me.

Artemis nibbles her neck, and Mona’s lips part, a moan escaping her. Artemis beckons for me to join him.

“Come. Help me,” he says. I don’t move—I don’t want to help him, only her—but I do angle forward in an attempt to hear him more clearly. He turns to Mona and says in a husky voice, “You want me to bite you again?”

“Yes, baby,” Mona whispers. He nibbles her again, a rabbit eating a carrot. She leans into him. “Fuck me. I want it so bad.”

Artemis perks up, then makes eye contact with me. “Why don’t we use her from both ends?”

A normal threesome. A normal person would suggest that.

I turn my neck to avoid their eyes. Acidic bile crowds my throat, then the water sloshes, and Mona snakes her arm around my back, her naked breasts smashed against me in the water.

“Come on, Kent,” Mona whispers. Her fingers twist around my elbow. “You know how to make me feel alive. He doesn’t.”

She beams at me, her expression rich with lust and need. There’s a hunger there, and I want that hunger inside of me.

“Teach him,” she says. “Show him what we’re like.”

What we’re like.

I don’t know if it’s the fact she included me or made this about us, but alluding to him as the idiot outsider is the encouragement I need. My head spins as I gesture for them to follow me.

Soon, the three of us are outside of the hot tub. Mona is on all fours, and both of us fuck her like a seesaw, Artemis in her mouth and me in her pussy. The classic spit roast position, Artemis’s idea. He must think this position is enough to indulge Mona’s interests, and that annoys me for her.

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