Chapter 4

His words kept ringing inside my head. He held my stare, pinning me down with his hands, wrapped tightly against my wrists. I could feel his strength; he was definitely stronger than me and trying to fight him head-on would lead to no positive outcome for me. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t against experiencing physical pain. If anything, I found it liberating. Those people who go hard into self-flagellation, they know what they’re doing, slamming ropes full of sharp nails against their backs until they draw blood in the name of a god from whom they ask deliverance. If you’re asking me, they’re all a bunch of hypocrites; they do it because it feels good and they get off – spiritually, of course – on it.

It worked for me, too, just the same way. Therefore, I was embracing the pain Adrian caused me by gripping my hands so tightly.

“Surprised?” he taunted me.

Of his drunken confession? That he was ... what? Not liking himself much on a regular basis? Oh, these young men and women getting so excited over their own imagined suffering. Like the lot of them, Adrian was delusional.

“That you’re a liar, besides being a bully? Can’t say that I am,” I replied.

His grin widened. But his eyes weren’t smiling; no, they were dead. For a moment, I got scared. That was the kind of look you see in people’s eyes when they got nothing left to lose.

But it passed. He closed his eyes and kissed me again. I stubbornly kept my mouth shut, pursing my lips to keep him from getting any satisfaction from forcing himself on me. He resorted to biting and at my first gasp, he took advantage to push his tongue in.

I could’ve bitten his tongue, teach him a lesson, but I wasn’t crazy about tasting his blood; not because of some reasonable human disgust toward such a thing, but because his tongue tasted too good as it was.

And I wasn’t a good choir boy. No, I wanted to sin already so at least my penitence would start making sense. Although I doubted my sudden desire to taste my brother’s tongue had anything to do with regret and asking for forgiveness later. No, all of that had more to do with me feeling vindicated for a chance, and the satisfaction of knowing that Adrian, despite his bad boy looks and being popular with people who had never seen him in their lives before, had this secret, this want to kiss his stepbrother when he shouldn’t.

I like myself a sinner, apparently.

He moaned, yeah, he moaned, when I kissed him back. To that point in my life, I’d had little experience with kissing, but I also nurtured the illusion and conviction that it couldn’t be too hard to stick your tongue in someone’s mouth and violate them in that base manner in order to get violated back.

Adrian pulled back, laughing. He licked and smacked his lips while keeping his eyes on my face. “Damn, you’re really a virgin. Who the fuck taught you to use your tongue like it’s fucking deadwood?”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but I was aware that he was insulting me. “Get off me,” I hissed.

As if my struggling mattered. He held me down, pushing his crotch more into mine, reminding me that I liked being held down and insulted because I couldn’t even kiss right.