Page 56 of The Vipers and Their Venom

This is shit he’s pulled before. He gets off on pretending to be me with girls we’ve screwed. He’s also done it to girls I’ve screwed alone. The ones who aren’t into sharing. He gave me the chance to do it, too, but that’s not my thing.

I want them to know it’s me when they fall apart. Saint thinks his degradation act is what has them gagging for more, but I know, with deep-down certainty, that I’m the one who can play their bodies like I’m conducting an orchestra.

The way women come with me playing them is insane. So why would I want to pretend to be him?

I’m pissed at him now, though, because normally he asks me, or at leasttellsme. Saint rarely asks for permission to do anything.

“You did it to Venom? Your favorite party trick?”

He chuckles. “Well, I tried, but she figured me out pretty fast.”

I get a thrill at that. Maybe she can tell the difference because we have a connection, she and I. But then Saint bursts that bubble.

“It’s my own fault. I lost control and started calling her a little slut, and myputain. She figured it out pretty fast when I called her my whore.”

I’m itching to punch him in his smug mouth, but something he’s said intrigues me.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Why did you lose control like that? You normally can keep the act up. Remember Samantha?”

Samantha was a girl I’d screwed with for a while, before we came here, and Saint had pretended to be me five times. He’d gotten away with it, too, which annoyed me. Couldn’t the stupid bitch tell?

This time, though, he couldn’t control himself enough to even try.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. She is, though, isn’t she? A perfect littleputain. She was made to be one. Those tits get me beside myself, and I can’t think straight.”

I laugh. “She can’t really help how she’s built, Saint. Doesn’t reflect on her character.”

“Doesn’t reflect on her character,” he mimics. “Are you a feminist now?”

“I’ve always been a feminist, but her tits don’t mean she’s a whore.”

“Her body was made to sin, end of story. I lost my shit when I got another look. Couldn’t keep up the act. Started to say all the stuff in my head, and she realized. Right away.”

“What did she do?”

“She kicked me out.”

I consider this. “You need to be careful. I don’t think she likes your kink as much as you think women do. If you fuck this up for me and Zane, we’ll be pissed at you.”

“She loves it, but she tells herself she doesn’t. Just likeher.” He spits the word ‘her’ out as if it’s a rotten fruit in his mouth.

I don’t ask who he means; I don’t have to. He means the nanny who took our virginities and fucked us up. We might have boasted about it and told one another every kid of our age would want that, but it had been messed up, and she has left us with these fucking weird sexual kinks. And theyareweird. Not in and of themselves, but the way they were formed, and the way we are like the reflection of one another now is strange. The yin and yang of pain and comfort held together in our psyches. The fact we even play together and we are twins is strange, but that’s how it happened with her, so it’s what we’re stuck on, always reliving that fucked up initial encounter.

I recall what he said when he first walked in. “What information did you get?” I ask.

“I found out what Venom took from Rossi’s office.”

I’m alert now and focused on him like a laser. “How?”

“It was under her pillow. She grabbed it from me and distracted me with her tits, which worked, but not before I saw the name.”

“And?” I say. Jesus Christ, he’s dragging this out.

“It’s Reagan’s file.”

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