Page 52 of Twice as Twisted

He stares out over the abyss, watching the gathering darkness while he chews thoughtfully. After a minute, he brushes his hands off on his jeans and tosses the orange peels over the edge.

“I don’t like to be wanted.”

“Wanted?” I swallow hard, my heart skipping when our eyes meet. “What does that mean?”

He shrugs. “Just what it sounds like.”

“But… You have a reputation. You’ve only been here six months, and I’ve heard at least three different girls crying that you slept with them and blew them off.”

He smirks. “I didn’t say I couldn’t get it up.”

“Then what does that mean?”

“I don’t like seeing them like that,” he says, his voice harder, less playful. “It makes me not like them, and then yeah, I blow them off.”

“Because they like you.”

“Not because they like me,” he says. “Because theywantme. Sexually.”

“Oh,” I say faintly.

“Now who sounds crazy?” he asks, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a rueful smile.

“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t get it.”

“When girls want me, they try too hard. It’s pathetic and desperate. And more than that, they’ll do anything to get fucked. They get blinded by lust, and it’s…” He shakes his head and gives a little shudder of revulsion. “I’ve seen people literally get on their knees and beg for dick. It disgusts me, seeing someonedebase themselves like that. There’s something so… Subhuman about it.”

“What about you?” I ask. “Don’t you want them too?”

“No,” he says, scowling. “Not like that. Sure, sex feels good. I like to cum as much as the next guy. But I would never crawl in the dirt. Not for anyone.”

“Maybe that’s because girls throw themselves at you, and you think they have no self-respect. If someone made you work for it, maybe you’d want to.”

He lets out a snort of breath. “I’d die before I’d beg for pussy. Being reduced by lust like that is repulsive, lower than the lowest form of animal. You’re no more than a mindless, slathering beast at that point.”

“I don’t think any description could sound less like you,” I say, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.

He sits in silence for a minute, then picks up my nibbled apple. “Aren’t we a pair?” he asks, biting into it.

“Yeah,” I say quietly, staring into the dark pit in front of us. “I think we’re a perfect pair.”

twelve

Baron Dolce

“I picked up some lobsters,” Duke says, sticking his head into the room. “I had them cooked ahead of time. I figured, when in Maine…”

“Thanks,” I say, not looking up from the computer. It’s been three days, and I’ve barely left it. I haven’t found anything new that points to why Mabel chose the name she did. I switch over to the screen where I’m running searches for her coworker.

“Come on, man, you gotta eat,” Duke says. “And you haven’t fed Jane in days.”

“Jane?” I ask, leaning back and tossing my glasses onto the desk. “Shit. I forgot about her.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Duke says. “I can feed her, if you want. I didn’t want to fuck up your experiments, so I haven’t messed with her.”

“Did you fuck her?”

He scowls at me. “No. Why would I fuck someone else when we came all this way for Mabel? Plus, the whole Frankenstein look kinda freaks me out.”

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