Page 2 of Irish Daddies
I can’t process what I’m seeing, the sudden violence and confusion morphing with my fading orgasm. I continue to ride wave after wave, my body tensing and relaxing in quick succession. My breath is ragged, my pussy walls throbbing, and all I can do is watch as the men engage in a strange choreography of togetherness to fight this stranger.
He wriggles against the sheets and the arms, trying to free himself. With his chin moving toward the sky as he tries to breathe, he barely chokes out, “They’ll avenge me, you know.” It’s all he says—one raspy message—before the masked man extends to his full height and yanks the knife in his hand across the messenger’s neck.
Blood spills out onto the floor, the man falls limp at their feet, and I can hear my own screaming like someone else’s even as I continue to ride my orgasm all the way through. My head is fuzzy, and my chest is tight. My vision pinholes—it’s blood and blood and blood, on the floor, leaking under the bed, onto the feet of the men, onto my clothing.
My screams feel like they go on forever, but they’re so far away. A hand clamps across my mouth and a fervent whisper is siphoned into my ear. “You’re okay, it’s okay, shut up, SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
My teeth gnash against the hand, and I taste the salt of his sweat and the copper of his blood as he pulls back sharply. “Untie me,UNTIE ME!” The voice coming out of me is frantic and far away, and I’m jerking roughly against the silk fabric. Even though it’s soft and slick, the knots tighten into my wrists and ankles the more I struggle against them.
“Relax. I can’t untie you if you—” the man chides as his fingers work deftly against the knot, but as soon as he manages one, my hand flies to the other, and I work on it with shaking fingers.
The quiet man, the masked killer, looks ashamed as he unties my ankles. I don’t know how I see the shame with the mask on him, but I do. I see hollowness in his eyes and a soft slope to his eyebrows. He stops untying for a second to run his hands through his auburn hair, and I kick at him, screaming raggedly, “Fucking FINISH! Untie me fucking NOW!”
As soon as the last tie slips free, I hurl myself off the bed, the mattress buckling behind me like a wounded thing. My bare feet slap against the cold floor—the cold, slick, sticky floor—but I don’t look down.
I yank the bloody, cream-colored curtain from the floor and throw it around my naked body. It drags and flutters behind me, a ghost of what just happened.
I shove through the tangle of sweaty bodies and pounding music. I claw my way out of the crowd. I hear a girl snap, “What the fuck?” as I push her out of my way. The rest keep laughing and drinking. No one seems to notice me, that I’m naked, that I’m wearing the blood of someone else. No one cares.
I burst through the doors and into that same bar where a few hours ago, I was just a girl drinking a martini with a friend. Now, I’m something else entirely.
The small amount of air left in my lungs fights for space, pushing on my ribs for room, but I ignore all the cues of my body asking me to stop.
I run out the bar and down the street where I just ate pizza and talked about parties and statistics and let a man put his arm around my shoulders.
I don’t think about the pebbles or the shards of glass or the needles hiding in the cracks of the Boston sidewalks. My bare arches will have to toughen up if I want to make it through.
The city blurs around me as the cum dries on my legs and the blood dries on the sheet and the sweat dries in my hair.
I don’t look back. I just go.
1
CAROLINE
“Oh, Jimmy, why?”I struggle to keep the exhaustion from bleeding through as I take in the disaster in front of me.
Jimmy sits proudly in the middle of what used to be an art project, now looking like the aftermath of a small, colorful tornado. He hasn’t painted the paper at all—of course not—but has instead treated himself to a full-body mud bath with the paints. Crimson, teal, and gold are smeared across his cheeks, his hair sticking up like he’s been struck by lightning.
He sees me staring and throws his head back, letting out a cackle that’s far too wicked for a four-year-old. Sometimes I wonder if Jimmy is actually a demon in disguise, slumming it in preschool while waiting to fulfill some mischievous cosmic purpose.
Before I can intervene, Jimmy shrugs one shoulder—a tiny, insolent move—and plants his dripping hands squarely on the picture of the little girl next to him.
Bella stares down at her ruined artwork. Her lower lip wobbles. Then, inevitably, the waterworks start.
I close my eyes, inhaling deeply through my nose, counting to five, and exhaling through my mouth.Patience, Caroline. You signed up for this.
Before I can open my mouth, a hand settles on my shoulder—warm and grounding.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I got it,” Alaina says softly.
I glance back at her, grateful. Her brown eyes are gentle, always. There’s a speck of lunch still clinging to her teeth—maybe broccoli—but I’m too tired to point it out. If I tell her, she might go to the bathroom to fix it, and I need her here right now. I need the backup. “Okay, thanks,” I say, my voice coming out shakier than I’d like.
This is my life now. Quiet. Structured. Safe. Everything meticulously planned, contained within these four brightly colored walls filled with finger paints and sing-alongs and sticky fingers.
But days like today remind me this was never supposed to be Plan A. This was Plan Stay Alive.
I walk over to the corner of building blocks where I can always find my sons, Isaac and Joshua, in cahoots with each other, putting together wooden skyscrapers just to kick them over. Neither of them are Jimmys, but they certainly aren’t angels either. They’re whirlwinds of energy, crashing into each other, tossing pillows across the living room, staging dramatic battles with plastic swords and stuffed animals.
