Page 92 of Slay Ride

I open my eyes and turn toward the sound.

Clink-clink-clink.

I’m definitely not imagining it, and something about the rhythm sounds almost familiar. Leaving my shirt on the long silver table in the center of the room, I head toward the gentle metallic tapping.

The door to the walk-in fridge stands slightly ajar, which is odd, since we closed it. I remember because I double-checked the handle to ensure the food inside wouldn’t spoil. These doors are stout, so it couldn’t have opened on its own.

I take another step forward and freeze in place. Bennett is on his hands and knees on the walk-in’s floor and he’s . . . thrusting?

Jealousy heats my chest, and I scream at him before I realize what I’m doing. “You fucking cheater!”

He shouts something I can’t understand, but I don’t care what he has to say. I just want to know who he’s fucking and?—

Then, as Bennett scrambles to stand and fasten his pants, I see what he was fucking.

It wasn’t a person.

It was a fuckingturkey.

So why do I still feel betrayed?

“I thought you were going for a walk!” I shout.

“Shh!” Bennett rushes forward to put his hand over my mouth, but the thought of raw poultry touching any part of my skin causes me to recoil instantly. “You’ll get the entire mansion down here if you keep squawking. Keep it down.”

“Is that why you’re so attracted to me? Because I squawk? Like a fuckingbird, Bennett?”

His cheeks blaze red. “No, no. It’s not—” He shifts from damage-control mode to indignation. “Wait, why the fuck do you care? I thought you wanted to put the brakes on this. Do you just expect me to sit on my hands and wait around until you’re good and ready to stop being ashamed of me?”

“I don’t know what I expected, but it sure as fuck wasn’t this!” I whisper-yell as I motion to the defiled carcass. “How are you even fucking it? Its body is just one empty cavity!”

“Are you genuinely asking?”

I wasn’t, but now he’s piqued my curiosity. I sigh. “Please explain.”

He seems torn between embarrassment and pride as he raises a round fruit from inside the turkey’s gaping cavity. “A few months ago, I was on a message board for people who enjoy . . . food. Anyway, this guy recommended I try fucking a cantaloupe, and I figured I’d give it a shot. This one was small enough to fit inside the turkey, so I just carved a hole right here.”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

Bennett shrugs. “I thought he was full of shit. I mean, he kept bragging about how he banged his therapist, so I worried maybe he was delusional, but no, he was right. The consistency?—”

“I said I’m good, thanks.”

He closes his mouth.

I don’t know what to do with any of this, so I shake my head and turn to leave.

“Hang on a minute.” He grabs my arm and turns me to face him. “If anyone here has a right to ask questions, it’s me. Why are you prancing around the mansion with my property on full display?”

My mouth drops open, and I have to laugh. “Your property? Your fuckingproperty? Even if you put a ring on my finger and force me to take your last name, I would never be your property.”

“Fuck a ring. If I stick my dick in it, it’s mine.”

“First, gross. Second, if I want to prance through the mansion stark naked, I will.”

“You really don’t get it, do you.”

He releases my arm, but I don’t move. Because he’s right. I don’t get it.

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