Page 31 of Filthy Little Secret

“I don’t need anything else right now either,” he says.

“You’re just jaded right now. You need time to get over Greg. What he did to you.”

“It wasn’t just him. Morgan was my best friend. Like we knew each other since we were in the third grade. We played fucking Pokémon together. We messed around a little when we were in high school, but it wasn’t anything. We stayed friends, and we had both always talked about going to Emory together. After I met Greg, he was all I talked to Morgan about. How much I liked him. How much I wanted to date him. Things that I’m sure Morgan has told Greg by now, which is embarrassing as fuck.”

“Those d-bags aren’t worth your time.”

“So people keep telling me.”

“But seriously…they’re first-rate assholes.”

“Isn’t that all I am to you?”

“You tell me.”

We gaze into each other’s eyes, and I can tell he senses my judgment.

“You had a leg up that most people don’t get, you have to admit,” I say.

“Of course I admit it, but at least I took advantage of it. There are a lot of kids who go here who didn’t bust their asses to get a fucking scholarship.”

“True.”

“But I’m fine with you thinking whatever you want about me,” he says. “I’ve spent a long time having to deal with people judging me. Needing me to be some ideal image for them. What you think of me doesn’t scare me.”

“Then what does?”

“Lies.”

“Must be how you spend most of your life as the governor’s kid.”

“Most of it. Always pretending to be the right kind of person for Mommy, you know?”

“So who are you really?”

Mark smirks wryly. “Still figuring that out.”

“Aren’t we all?”

He’s different than the other guys. Not pretentious. Or pompous. He doesn’t think he’s better than anyone else. He’s not the kind of kid I’m used to fucking around with. The sort of conceited asshole I enjoy tearing down to size. He’s humble, and if anything, he thinks too poorly of himself.

“We keep doing this,” I say, “then you know what to expect.”

“Doing what?”

“Fucking. Is that what you want?”

“I think it’d be fun,” he says, though I can tell he’s underselling it.

“No unreasonable expectations?” I ask, though I’ve asked that before to guys who gave me the answer I wanted, even if they didn’t mean it. “And I won’t ask you to give up fucking other guys if you won’t ask me to do that.”

“I won’t,” he replies.

I’m reminded of what he likes about this.

It’s safe. He’s not worried about getting emotionally involved. We’re just hooking up. It’s the perfect way to avoid ending up in a situation like he was with Greg. Although I know how this goes. He says this now, but he could end up just like the others. He could develop feelings because that’s what he expects out of fucking. Thinks there can be something more here because he likes the idea of the bad boy and the uber-good boy fucking—because he thinks that it could be some sort of magical chemistry between us.

I’m so tired of this fucking script, and I should know better. I don’t want to hurt him because he seems like a pretty cool guy, but I’ve enjoyed sex with him so much—too much. I want it again as much as he does, and I’ve had enough sex to know that what we share—this chemistry that’s like a match to a powder keg—isn’t something that I can resist. Because it doesn’t happen very often.

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