Page 52 of Worse Than Wicked
“So, we’ve all fucked,” I say. “That just makes it make even more sense. We’ve been together, so Lo wouldn’t worry that you’d go find some other dude to give you what she can’t. I’ve already been with her, so you wouldn’t have to be jealous. I’ve fucked you both, you’ve fucked us both, and she’s fucked us both. What difference does it make?”
“Fucking isn’t love.”
I stare at him through the steam, the smoke. My heart does a thud in my chest, a flop like a fish turning over on the boat when you first haul it up. “Is that what it would take? You want me to say it?”
“No,” he says. “In fact, please don’t.”
“Good,” I say. “Because I’m not a very good liar.”
His brows jump. “With all that practice lying to yourself, I’d think you’d be an expert by now.”
“No limits, huh,” I say. “With you and Lo? If you really think that’s going to work, it sounds like you’re the one lying to yourself.”
“I’ve had enough of controlling women to last a lifetime. And she’s had… You.”
“Exactly,” I say, chuckling. “You really think she’ll be happy with you after she got fucked by the biggest three cocks in Faulkner for three years in a row?”
“Haven’t had any complaints yet.”
He hands a new cigarette across the water. I take it, my damp fingers brushing his dry ones.
“She won’t tell you and hurt your ego,” I say, taking a puff. “But she’ll want more. So will you.”
“I don’t.”
“But you will,” I say. “That’s what marriage is for. To tame you, tie you down. It sounds bad, but it’s a good thing. Otherwise… There are no limits for men like us.”
“That’s the goal.”
“We need limits,” I say through a mouthful of smoke, leaning in to hand the cigarette back. “It’s human nature to always want more. When there’s nothing you can’t have, you have to want things you shouldn’t have.”
“Like what?” he asks, watching me from the corner of his eye while he draws on the damp filter.
“I started looking at porn at the regular time,” I say, laying back again. The sky is getting lighter already, blue edging out the darkness. “You know, eleven or twelve. It didn’t much matter to me what I was watching. It was all hot, because I wasn’t allowed to watch it. But then Mom caught me, and she took me to Dad to explain why I was watching a video with no girls in it. You know what he did?”
Colt shakes his head and hands the smoke across the steaming, shimmering water around us.
“He told me it was okay to watch porn, but not to let Mom catch me again. And that I had to watch the right stuff. So he showed me what that was, and then he brought me a girl to fuck.”
“That’s… Unorthodox.”
“Just wait, I have a point here.” I hand the cigarette back to him, though it’s not much more than a filter. “The thing is, after that, I watched what Dad told me to, but it wasn’t the same. Watching the shit he told me not to watch, that I wasn’t allowed to watch, made it more exciting. So I snuck it.”
“So, wanting what you’re not supposed to want just means wanting to fuck a guy every now and then?” he asks, arching a brow as he draws a new cigarette from the pack.
“Not everyone has a family like yours,” I say.
“Oh, you mean my staunchly Baptist, old-money, southern family? You think they’re going to make matching PFLAG shirts and throw me a Pride parade?” He shakes his head. “Fuck them.”
“Yeah, well, not everyone has the luxury of not giving a fuck about anything but themselves,” I say, snatching his cigarette. “You know what my dad did when he caught me again?”
“Made you go cut your own switch from the tree out back?”
“No. He took me to this priest who pulled the wire out of a shock collar made for dogs, and he’d wrap it around my dick and make me watch gay porn, and then if I got hard, he’d hit the button to shock the fuck out of me. I should be glad he’s dead.”
Colt just stares at me a second, but the look in his eyes is worse than all the gloating and taunting, worse than his usual smug indifference. “Jesus Christ, Duke…”
“You know what, fuck you.” I hurl the cigarette away as hard as I can and stand, water sluicing off my skin. “I don’t need your pity. I’m an asshole, remember? I deserve all the bad shit that happens to me, right?”
