Chapter Text
Bully I
Orm
I've always loved storms.
The entire sky marbled in blacks and grays and fuchsia, streaking with white light. Storms remind us that no matter what is happening down on solid ground, Mother Nature could put a stop to it in a split second, if she chose. That scares some people, but it comforts me-the thought of the weather swiping her arm across the earth like a chessboard, knocking all the game pieces to the floor. Setting me free. Making it possible for me to run far away from this place.
Tonight is a special storm.
I lie out in the center of the field on the rippling grass, my fingers stretched up toward the sky, electricity dancing up and down my limbs.
The white nightgown I'm wearing billows around me, making me visible from the house. Normally a risk, but I know my father is currently distracted by a work emergency. I couldn't take the time to change into black clothing or I might have missed this moment. When the clouds snap and break overhead, showering the earth with bullets of rain.
Moisture lands on my eyelids, cheeks and chin. My body.
It rolls down my arms in rivulets and takes away the sting of digging fingertips, the rap of a wooden spoon, the snap of a leather belt. It renews me. And I stare up at the sky in wonder and gratitude, begging it to take me with her.
"What are you doing?"
A voice of a woman so resonant, so low and rasping, for a moment, I think God is talking to me from the clouds. But that can't be. If God was talking to me, she wouldn't be asking questions. She already knows the answers.
Cautiously, I sit up and look around, pushing my long, blonde hair out of my eyes. I peer through the darkness, the storm teeming around me. And when a bolt of lightning smears across the horizon, that's when I see her.
Lingling Kwong.
My breath catches and I cross my arms over my breasts, knowing the soaked material isn't keeping me remotely modest. What is she doing here? At night, no less.
I go to school with Lingling. We're both sophomores at Yarraville High School. We have all six classes together and she sits through them like a statue, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. And sunglasses aren't even allowed! But the teachers seem too apprehensive about asking Lingling to remove them.
It's easy to see why.
She's intimidating.
Quiet and angry.
Beautiful in a cold, carved-from- stone kind of way that makes the other people nervous, makes them skitter away when she walks down the hallways.
Not me, though. I've always loved storms.
I've lost count of how many times I've stared at her from behind my locker door, breath trapped in my lungs, wondering what she's looking at behind her sunglasses. Which, for once, she isn't wearing right now.
And she's looking straight at me with a fearsome scowl.
"I said, what are you doing?" Lingling stomps toward me through the field, gripping me by the elbow and pulling me to my feet. "This isn't a safe place to be during a storm like this. Get inside."
"Inside is no safer." Why would I say that? Why? My first time actually conversing with this girl and I tell her my deepest secret?
Her eyes narrow at me.
Sensing she's going to question my statement, I hurry to qualify it. "I mean, a storm like this could take the roof off a house, couldn't it?"
That loosens a little bit of the tension in her broad shoulders. "And yet..." She searches my face. "You don't seem scared like you should be."
I get the sense we're not only talking about the storm.
Maybe it's the fact that we're standing in the volatile environment I love so much that makes me brave. Makes me look into her stony face while wearing a soaked nightgown and speak to this mysterious girl. "I am a little scared of storms, but they're so beautiful and wild, I can't look away." I lick some of the rain from my lips, noticing her eyes dip to catch the action. "What are you scared of?"
Her chest rises and plummets. "The way you stare at me in the halls."
Inwardly, I wince.
She knows. She's seen me.
I haven't been as discreet as I thought I was. "Oh," I say, pressing palms to my heating cheeks. "I didn't mean to...to..." I trail off when her words actually sink in, my hands dropping back to my sides. "Why does it scare you?"
"Hell if I know," she says on a rushed exhale, looking up at the sky, raindrops landing on her face and cascading down her neck.
"Maybe...when you're looking, it makes me want to..."
"Break?" I whisper. "Like those thunderheads?"
She looks back down at me, wrestling with something. Maybe a desire to come closer. But she does it anyway, her jaw flexing like it might snap.
She lifts up a hand, brushing the very tip of her fingers down my cheekbone. "Yeah," she rasps, rain wetting her lips. "Just...boom."
Thunder punctuates her statement-and I can't breathe.
I've always wanted to be drawn up into the storm. This is it. It's happening. I'm caught in the electricity, its unruly nature. Lingling's black hair whips around her head, her dark brown eyes penetrating, snapping with something I'm only on the cusp of understanding. Is it...lust?
"Yeah..." Her fingers move down my jaw, traveling slowly over the hollow of my throat to tease the collar of my nightgown. "You scare me, all right. But I can't seem to stop...wanting, either. Wanting you to look at me. Wanting you...period. It's why I sit behind you in all your classes, Orm.
You don't know that?"
My knees start to tremble.
I've always wondered how we end up in the same classes every single semester. She's arranged for it to happen? She...likes me? That much?
Don't act like it doesn't go both ways.
Don't act like...
As if I haven't lain in this very field after school, when no one is at home, and touched myself in private places while thinking of Lingling Kwong, my heels making trenches in the soft earth, my cries scattering the crows.
I must be doing a terrible job of keeping that secret to myself because Lingling's breath begins to grow shallow. "Orm. Baby." She drops her forehead to mine, her fingers flicking open the top two buttons of my nightgown. "Please," she groans. "Let me."
My head is spinning. "Let you what?"
"Have you. Finally." Another two buttons slip free, her hand sliding inside to knead my bare breast, making me gasp. "Goddammit. It's not safe out here or I'd lay you down right here in this field. But I need you safe." Her thumb strums my nipple, setting off an ache low in my belly. "I need to be on top of you, Orm. I need in."
Sex.
Of course she's talking about sex.
People our age are having it. The pressure to join them is real and constant.
But I don't feel pressure right now. I only feel urgency.
Want so deep that it churns like the heavens overhead. It has existed between us all along, hasn't it? Not one-sided. A yearning pull between two people, orbiting each other in the earthly, incongruous setting of school.
"I can't bring you inside," I whisper. "I can't."
If you think this field isn't safe, I want to tell her, you have no idea what lurks inside the four walls of my big, expensive, perfect-seeming home.
Lingling opens her mouth to say something, but my name is shouted in the distance. From inside the house. With glittering eyes, Lingling takes her hand out of my nightgown, covers my chest and steps back from me slightly, though it obviously pains her to do so. And a second later, the back door of my house opens, revealing my father, his wiry frame backlit by the interior.
"Orm!"
I start to tremble, the deep, invisible kind of trembling that grinds my back teeth together and unleashes nausea into my stomach. I try to speak, but I can't.
"Orm," my father says again-and he's closer this time. "What are you doing out here in this storm?" There's a tight smile in his voice. Of course there is. We have company. He never reveals his monstrous nature in front of other people. "Did you come out here to retrieve the Handywoman?"
I do a double take, noticing the strain forming around the corners of Lingling's mouth. "Handywoman?"
"Yes." My father chuckles, coming forward to clap a hand down on Lingling's tense shoulder. "She's here to repair a leak in the attic. Came highly recommended."
Lingling can't look at me now, her gaze cast over my shoulder. Hollow.
A minute ago, we were equals. But my father's words have called into focus one very important thing. With Lingling's hands on me, I'd forgotten that I'm very rich and she's very poor. It just didn't matter. To me, it still doesn't. But the economic divide between us is broadening by the second. I've experienced this my whole life. People whispering when they pass me on the sidewalk in town. She lives in the big house on Yarra Hill. They have no idea it's a prison.
"Why don't you get to it?" My father suggests to Lingling, his tone brittle.
"Orm has to study. She's going places, unlike some of us."
I throw my gaze down to the ground, humiliation burning up my spine. My father is an expert at belittling people and he's just done it to Lingling. Suggesting that, unlike me, she isn't going places. That she'll live on the poor side of town forever while I go off to a university. I want to say something to make it better, to defend Lingling, but I know I'll only be making it worse on myself later. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to offer Lingling an apology. At school. I'll talk to her then.
"Yes, sir," Lingling responds stiffly, turning on a booted heel and stalking toward the house. Behind her back, my father reaches over and digs his thumb into my bicep until I double over, releasing a silent scream. He lets go a moment before Lingling glances back over her shoulder, eyes hooded, and my expression is serene. Because I know better. I know better than to let anyone see the pain.
As soon as we're in the house, I run up the stairs to my room and lock the door, leaning back against it. Listening to Lingling's boots creak back and forth in the attic. More than anything, I want to go up there. Feel her hands on me again. Cherishing hands, instead of hateful ones. I ache for that. For her.
But an hour later, Lingling leaves and that's when I face the reckoning.
My father kicks in my door, splintering the lock, and I know it's going to be worse than usual. "If I ever see you talking to that girl again, so help me God, I will strangle you unconscious." His face is mottled red, spittle bursting from his lips. "I will whip you until you can't stand up and then I'll ruin her, too. I'll make her life even harder in this town. You know I can do it. I can have her cast off that filthy land and no one will ever hire her again. Is that what you want?"
"No," I whisper.
"No," he sneers, mocking me. "Never look at her again. Do you hear me? My daughter does not associate with penniless dirt."
"I won't. I promise."
"See that you keep that promise. Or you'll both pay the price."
And I pay a good deal of it that night, for those stolen hours under the storm.
The next day at school, I don't look at Lingling in the hallway. I don't pause in the doorway of our classes, absorbing the sight of her waiting in the desk behind me. I simply keep my head down and try not to show the bruises. On my body and my heart. I never could have predicted she would hate me for it.
Lingling
Two years later
I walk past Orm in the hallway and slam my fist against the locker to her left, making her jump. I hate the way it makes me feel. Shame and frustration and resentment have been like acid inside of me, eroding my bones every second of the last two years. Ever since that night in the field when she tricked me into thinking she felt the same. Maybe she did. Until her father reminded her that I'm nothing but a poor Handywoman.
Yeah, she remembered pretty quickly that she's better than me.
Better than everyone, the rich, stuck-up brat.
What's worse is that she fucking ruined me in those dreamlike moments in the field behind her house. She brought me to my knees. Made me reveal myself in ways I never imagined doing for anyone. And now? Now she's left me lonely and sick to my stomach and fuck-starved for two years. Obsessed with her, unable to let her go and loathing her for it. Because she won't even look at me anymore. I'm nothing but the dirt beneath her expensive shoes.
Two years ago, I decided that if she was going to make my life hell by ignoring me after what we shared, then I could return the favor. So I do. I demand she acknowledge me by bullying her. That's the only term for it.
I'm her bully and I hate that-I fucking hate it-but so be it. It's true what they say about misery loving company. Because I'm miserable without her and she's coming with me.
My jaw is this close to shattering as I watch Orm calmly collect the books from her locker and hurry toward our next class. On top of being a bully, I'm also a glutton for punishment, because I still maneuver us into having the same six classes every year. My aunt works in the front office and she feels bad for me, on account of my parents abandoning me when I was still in middle school, leaving me in the trailer alone. Not bad enough to invite me to live with her family, but bad enough that she slips me Orm's schedule every semester so I can match it to mine.
Before I follow her, I stop at her locker, sliding something in between the slatted opening, and continue on my way. When I walk into class behind her a moment later, I slow to a stop in the doorway at the sight of one of the basketball players kneeling down to speak with Orm where she sits at her desk. Coaxing a smile out of her. I don't know the kid well, but he lives on the rich side of town. Close to Orm, although no one has as much money as her father. If this kid is asking her out, she'd probably say yes.
If I let it get that far, which I won't.
I never do.
She's mine.
Even if she never looks at me or speaks to me again, she's mine.
Even if I've been a horrible asshole to her for two years and she pales every time I pull into the parking lot on my motorcycle, she is mine.
Feeling choked, I stride down the aisle toward my usual seat, directly behind Orm, and slam my textbook down onto the desk, shooting Orm's shoulders up to her perfect, little ears. Startled, the basketball player looks at me, backing away so quickly, he knocks into a desk across the aisle. "H-hey, Lingling. What's up?"
He's not the first to try and make a move on Orm.
He knew this was coming, it's there in his darting eyes. Yet he tried anyway.
Because she's worth the risk of an ass kicking. She's worth a lifetime of them.
"Do you have a class this period?" I ask him.
The guy nods, adjusting the straps of his backpack. "Yeah..."
My smile is murderous. "Well get the fuck to it, then."
He almost trips over himself to get out of the classroom and I resume my daily routine. Staring at the back of Orm's head, tracing the curve of her shoulders, my cock getting hard over her expensive lavender scent.
"So that's what you like." I say, leaning forward to speak an inch from the back of her neck. "You like them with spiffy crew cuts and letterman jackets. Prospects for college. A trust fund. Don't you? A spoiled rich girl like you needs someone who can keep her in the lap of luxury. I bet you'd introduce him to daddy, wouldn't you?"
She doesn't respond. She never does.
Her eyes stay resolutely on the front of the class where the teacher has started writing today's lesson outline on the board. My fingers dig into my palms, a trapped bellow creating pressure on the inside of my throat.
Talk to me.
Look at me.
"Too bad, Orm. I'll scare every single one of those limp dicks off. You're going to sit alone in your house on prom night crying into your designer sheets like a baby. And I'm going to laugh."
The only sign that she hears me at all is the quickening rise and fall of her shoulders. Even that small display that I've upset her is agonizing, floods me with self-loathing, but I can never stop. She ripped out my fucking heart and I can't deal with the consequences of that alone. I can't let her go. I'll never let her go.
My hands shake with the need to settle on her shoulders, to stop the trembling I caused. From there, I'd slide my fingers up into the soft, blonde hair that reaches the small of her back. I don't have a lot of money, most of the cash I earn as a Handywoman goes to food and renting my plot of land, but I'd give every last cent for her to turn and lock those intense brown eyes on me, just one last time. Sometimes when I jerk off, all it takes is fantasizing about Orm looking at me, giving me her attention again, and I lose it. One stroke. Maybe two. Done.
What the hell am I going to do when she's in college next year?
Even my aunt, the school guidance counselor, doesn't know where Orm plans to attend. The uncertainty has me shaken. I need to know where she'll be so I can start looking for work in the same town. If she thinks college is going to keep me away, she's wrong. I won't have the benefit of sitting behind her in class, but I'll find ways in nonetheless. I have to. I can't breathe without having her close. And I can't breathe with her close. It's a strang condition, this obsession, but she's an addiction I'm never giving up.
"Do you actually think that dumb jock would be a good choice for your first time, Orm?" I grip my desk so tight it nearly snaps, just thinking about her being touched by someone else. "At least that's one thing us poor motherfuckers have going for us. We know how to fuck. If you went out with that punk for a while, you'd eventually give in and come slumming it one night, wouldn't you? Knock on my trailer door, begging me to ride you right."
Pink is starting to climb her neck.
I have to bite down on my tongue to keep from licking the rise of color.
But I think if I actually got to touch her skin, my wall of bullshit would crumble. I don't know how to fuck. In theory I do, but not in practice. Since seeing Orm for the first time freshman year, there's been no one but her. No one before that, either, or I was too young to be sexually active. She gave me my first hard-on when we were sixteen and she showed up to gym class in a white T-shirt and no bra, her tits jiggling around during volleyball-and my dick has never gotten stiff for anyone else. She owns my cock as sure as she owns my heart.
How easily she's neglected both to the point of agony.
"Left you a little something in your locker-"
"Stop," she breathes.
Every organ in my body seizes. Did she just speak to me? It's the first time in two years that she's even remotely acknowledged my existence, and if I wasn't sitting down, I would probably be on my knees, the effect of having her address me is so powerful. "Orm," I choke out. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
That's all it took.
One pleading word out of her mouth and I'm cracking.
"Just stop," she says again, turning her head slightly. "Please."
I collapse back in my chair, pulse thundering in my throat. My head is enflamed, heart mutilated. If we weren't in the middle of class, if I didn't feel like a monster, I would pull her into my arms right now. I'd hold her until she stopped struggling, then beg her to hit me, bruise me, make me pay for every shitty thing I've ever said to her. But before long, the bell is ringing and she's diving out of her seat to get away from me. To put distance between us as quickly as possible-and I have no choice but to watch her, because my legs don't seem to want to work properly.
Still, I manage to get out into the student-packed hallway, my plan to apologize for being crude and ugly and antagonizing for so long. My head, however, is telling me not to say sorry. It's telling me she deserved it for being such a stuck-up snob, for blowing me off, for valuing money and status like everyone else. But my heart is telling an entirely different story. It's insisting there is an explanation for her behavior. Am I going to apologize or not?
The decision is taken out of my hands when Orm opens her locker and the photograph I left before class drifts to the ground. It's a picture I cut out from the senior yearbooks that were handed out earlier this week. In the photo is a smiling Orm above the caption Most Likely to Succeed.
Except I've crossed out the caption and added my own. Most Likely to Be a Trophy Wife.
Watching her read it, I almost get sick right there in the hallway.
Usually, she's perfectly composed, not betraying a hint of emotion where I'm concerned. Today, though...she's not pulling it off. Something is not okay with her and I don't like it. She has to bite down on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering as she shoves the photo back into her locker, out of sight, her luminous eyes finding me briefly, slaying me where I stand. Betraying with one single look how much she has been affected by my actions. Christ. She hasn't been indifferent at all.
Before I can react, before I can call her name, she's gone, vanished into the crowd of rowdy students excited to be leaving for the day. And I know what I have to do. I have to see her. To apologize. To get an explanation for everything.
Tonight. I'll return to the field for the first time in two years.
Orm
I've known this was coming all day.
Sitting on the couch in my living room, trying to make myself as small a target as possible, I watch my father pace. He rants and raves, gesticulating wildly. Picking up items that belonged to my mother once upon a time, before she did the smart thing and left, slamming them back down.
This isn't new, my father's rage boiling over.
But it's going to be worse than usual. Business has declined for him and its put his temper on a hair trigger. There is no avoiding it. When he gets home from the office, he's rarely in anything but a dark mood. A category five tornado eating up everything in its path. Fascinating to watch, but utterly terrifying.
Reminded of the weather, I send a sidelong glance out the window and notice the approaching clouds. It hasn't rained in weeks. I would give anything for a loud banger of a storm tonight. Something to get lost in, so I can forget what's about to happen. So I can forget the picture Lingling left in my locker today, the ugly words she said to me, the seething anger in her eyes when she looks at me.
"Are you even paying attention to me?" The slap across the face comes as a shock, because I'd momentarily disappeared into my thoughts, but the sting quickly brings me back to reality.
"Yes, sir," I say, my ears ringing. "I'm listening."
"This C on your chemistry test is going to drag your whole average down." He snatches the hated test up for the tenth time, waving it in my face.
"What a disappointment you are turning out to be. Your teacher shared my disgust."
I nod solemnly, but I'm listening for the storm outside. "I'm sorry. I'll do extra credit. Something to bring my grade back up to an A." I wet my lips.
"Even if can't manage to raise the grade, it's not going to show up on the college transcripts I sent off with my applications."
Thus the reason I let my focus slip a little in chemistry.
Seniorities. Everyone in my grade has it. The finish line is in sight for everyone and we're just waiting to find out where we'll be accepted for college. It's a wonder I've been able to maintain my concentration this long in any class, considering Lingling sits behind me in every period, brooding like heavy morning fog.
At the reminder of her, I want to close my eyes and curl up. Replay that night in the field when she touched me, spoke to me so sweetly and honestly. Before she became the second villain in my story. Someone I dread seeing every day, as much as I crave the brutally beautiful sight of her. At least that's one thing us poor motherfuckers have going for us. We know how to fuck. If you went out with that punk for a while, you'd eventually give in and come slumming it one night, wouldn't you? Knock on my trailer door, begging me to ride you right.
Should I be ashamed that my body reacted favorably to those words?
I grew uncomfortably damp in the hard plastic chair, my femininity clenching, seeming to beat like a heart. Her breath on my neck sensitized me, head to toe. Even the way she scared off the other boy did something to me. Aroused me. It got so bad that I broke the rules and asked her to stop.
I can hear her saying my name in that bumpy way afterward. That shocked, uneven scrape of sound. Orm. And whether I'm ashamed of myself for it or not, I know I'll think of it when I touch myself tonight.
"College?" My father snorts, ripping the test in half. "You're not going to college."
This grabs my attention like a quilt being snatched from a bed.
"I'm...what? What do you mean? I applied to ten different schools. I have a four point five GPA."
For the first time, I notice his red face is about more than just anger.
There's...humiliation. I've never seen him display that emotion. "None of the schools that accepted you offered scholarships."
"I've been accepted?" I breathe, sitting forward, heart blasting into a sprint. "Where? I didn't see the letters-"
"All the mail in this house goes through me. I read them. And you failed to get academic scholarships. You failed."
I don't point out that his refusal to let me participate in any extra curricular activities is more than likely to blame for that. I'm too worried about what he's saying. What this means. The blood is draining from my head, making the room spin around me. "Okay, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry. But...we have money. We can pay tuition, can't we?"
I have to get out of here.
I have to get out of here.
This was my way out. College was the escape hatch.
"Listen to you, so quick to spend my hard-earned money. Spoiled brat." He goes very still for a moment, a touch of that humiliation seeping back in.
"It's all gone. Poured back into the business and lost. There is no money."
Those final four words rob the breath out of my lungs.
I wrap my arms around my middle, wheezing, my brain searching for solutions. "Financial aid, then. Loans..."
"You want to leave, just like her, don't you? Soak up all of the benefits of me busting my hump at work all goddamn day, then sneak off when the going gets tough. You're all the same."
I don't even flinch when he yanks me to my feet, shoving me into the wall.
In fact, for the first time, I look him square in the eye. And I can see the violence has nothing to do with me. It never had anything to do with my actions, my choices, how hard I worked in school. How clean I made the house or cooked a roast. It's about him and his self-loathing. It's his sickness. Not mine.
I can also see that he was never going to send me to college. Because he wouldn't be able to control me from a distance. Or stop me from sharing what I've been subjected to since my mother left. Not like he does now. Not with his fists and his rage. I'll graduate at the top of my class for nothing. He knew I would all along.
"Go to hell," I whisper.
He rears back, giving me the fleeting satisfaction of his shock. "What did you say?"
I gulp a sob and scream it this time. "Go to hell!"
From the moment I sat down to have this conversation, I knew tonight was going to be worse than usual, but I've just guaranteed that tenfold. Normally I can retreat to the untouchable place inside of me as he unleashes his ire, but not tonight. I'm present for every punch and kick. Every hurled insult. And when it usually would have stopped, it doesn't...and that's when I start to get scared.
I'm crawling across the carpet on my hands and knees, searching for a weapon I can use in my defense when I glance out the window and see Lingling staring back at me, her face a mask of horror.
* * *
Lingling
What I'm seeing just isn't possible.
It can't be real.
My head won't accept it. Not until her terror-filled eyes meet mine through the window and the truth ransacks my stomach, leaves no doubt that this is real life. Orm's father is not just beating her. He's trying to kill her. Her mouth is bloody, one of her eyes beginning to swell, arms and legs visibly weakened. I can barely fucking process it before my body is springing into action, desperate to defend her. To put a stop to the worst thing I could have ever imagined. What the fuck. What the fuck.
Blistering hot rage takes over.
I kick in the front door and lunge to get between Orm and her father. His fist is raised, but it pauses on a downswing when he sees me, his momentary confusion giving me the time I need to knock him out cold. It only takes one right uppercut from someone his size and he goes down, his blank, glassy eyes staring at nothing, mouth agape. It's not satisfying enough. Nothing will ever be enough. I want to flip him onto his back and keep wailing, but my Orm is struggling for breath behind me and she's all I can think about.
Turning, I approach her, my gut roiling violently. Cataloguing all of the cuts and purpling skin. No. No. Who could do this to her? Who could lay a finger on her in anything but reverence?
Get her out of here.
Rasping her name, I reach down to pick up her, but she flinches and scoots back, bringing her body up against the wall. "Don't touch me, bully."
Those words rip the soul clean out of my body.
My hands drop limply to my sides and two years come rushing back, hitting me in the chest like line drives. Every word, every action. Everything I did to make her life harder when this? This is what she's been dealing with at home?
"Orm..." My voice is in shreds. All of me is in shreds. "I'm sorry. I came here to apologize. For everything."
She puffs a humorless laugh, testing her cut lip with the tip of her tongue.
"Bet you weren't expecting to see this."
"If I knew this was happening, I would have been here a long time ago. I would have stopped it."
Her expression can only be described as perplexed. Maybe even a little pissed. "You are not my savior, Lingling. You are my enemy."
"I am not your enemy." Those words barely make it out of me, my chest hurts so fucking bad. "Don't say that."
Shakily, she uses the wall to try and stand.
I shoot forward to help her, but she recoils and it's a dagger straight into the center of my throat. Nothing less than I deserve, though, isn't it? Her distrust of me is completely my doing. I've made her hate me.
There has to be some way to fix what I've done. Please God, let there be a way. But right now, my main concern is her physical safety. Knowing it has been in jeopardy all along is unbearable. I only made the decision to come here tonight a few hours ago. What if I didn't? What if I arrived an hour later? The possibilities are going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
From her sprawl on the floor, her father groans, shifting slightly.
"We need to get you out of here," I say, anxious to get her free of this place. "Now, Orm. I need to get you somewhere safe."
She's standing now. Leaning against the wall and cradling one arm to her stomach, regarding me steadily. "How do I know I'm safe with you?"
It's so much worse that her question is earnest. Not meant to wound me. Not meant to be snarky. She genuinely doesn't know if I pose a threat.
It guts me where I stand.
"You are the safest with me," I say thickly, cursing myself. Wanting to erase the last two years so badly, my hands shake. "Please believe me. I'd die before hurting you. I'd never, Orm. I'd never."
Her father rolls over onto his back and slurs a few words, before losing consciousness again. Still, the sound of the older man's voice seems to break through to Orm, spur her into planning mode. "I...maybe you can just give me a ride to...a motel maybe?" She pushes off the wall, her gait uneven as she walks toward the stairs. "I need some things from my room."
It's on the tip of my tongue to tell her we don't have time, but I'm just grateful she's trusting me enough to leave with me, so I don't argue. I just wait until she's halfway up the stairs, then whip off the curtain sash, tying her father's hands behind his back, in case he wakes up before we leave. I have no problem knocking him out a second time. Orm has seen enough violence for one night, though.
Cautiously, I walk up the stairs, toward the light coming from a room halfway down the hall. This place is a far cry from my trailer. It's elegant and clean and tasteful, but it lacks any warmth whatsoever. It's cold, like a museum.
Turning the corner into Orm's room, it's time to kick myself all over again. There is nothing on the walls, none of the expensive furnishings.
Just four white walls, a bed and dresser that doubles as a desk. A stack of textbooks.
She looks back at me over her shoulder, as if judging my reaction, and I keep my features schooled, though I'm dying on the inside. "What can I do?" I ask.
"How long do we have?"
"As long as you need."
It's physically painful not to pull her into my arms when I'm standing this close and she's battered. Sad. Yet full of more inner strength than I've ever witnessed in another human being. I've been lucky to be in her presence. I've squandered the fucking right. And if she allows me back in,
I'll never do it again.
It's probably, definitely, too much to hope for. Being allowed back in.
She doesn't even look sure about having me in her room.
Let alone her heart.
"Um..." She closes her eyes to concentrate, a familiar mannerism I've seen her pull in class countless times. "There is a duffel bag in the hallway closet. Can you just stuff anything into it from the bathroom that looks useful?"
Ask me to bring you a unicorn horn. I'll find a way to do it. "Sure."
We work in silence, Orm yanking things out of drawers and adding them to the duffel bag, which I've left open on the floor. I add toiletries from the bathroom, and once it's zipped, I wait, watching her hesitate in the doorway.
"Orm?"
Conflicted brown eyes zip to mine. "I can't just leave, can I?"
"You're not safe here, baby," I say softly, trying to keep the residual rage at bay, because it's the last thing she needs. Not to mention she's had her fill of negativity from me. No more. "How long...how long?"
She shrugs jerkily. "My mom left when I was in seventh grade. Ever since then, it's gotten worse and worse. Although I never had a chance to talk to her about what happened behind closed doors, you know? Maybe it was always this bad, just for someone else. I don't think a person can evolve into a monster. It's inside them."
"I don't know," I say through stiff lips. "I evolved into one, didn't I?"
That gives her pause, forms a line between her brows. "Yeah. I guess you're right." She starts to walk past me, stops, standing close enough to fill my nose with lavender. "He told me if I ever spoke to you ever again, he would hurt me. Ruin you, have you evicted. Make sure you never got hired in town. I didn't mean to...hurt your feelings, if that's what happened."
That revelation rocks me to the soles of my feet, setting fire to the organ pumping brokenly in my chest. "Jesus, Orm. You were protecting me? And I...I tortured you for it?" I twist the neck of my T-shirt, trying to claw out the flames, but it doesn't work. They'll be blazing for all eternity. "I'm so fucking sorry."
She glances at the doorway, then back at me, eyes closed again in that way that says she's thinking. "All I want from you now is a ride out of here, okay? And on Monday morning, you'll stop." Her eyelids lift, the depth of her pleading slaying me, ruining me far worse than her father ever could. "No more bullying, Lingling. If you're really sorry, you'll do that for me."
Christ.
I couldn't say one more single shitty thing to her if my life depended on it. Put me at knifepoint and I'd rather get stabbed clear through than bully this girl for one more second. But I'm highly, painfully aware that with an end to the bullying comes an end to the possessiveness. No more scaring off guys who show interest in her. No more getting close enough in class to count the hairs on her head. And to tell the truth, I'm pretty fucking worried I don't know how to give those things up completely. Don't think I can physically do it. This obsession with Orm isn't something I can cut off. A limb would be easier to sever.
But my hesitation is causing her forehead to pucker. If I don't agree to, essentially, let her go...she's not going anywhere with me. And that means her safety won't be guaranteed. I need it to be.
"No more bullying," I say, finally.
A moment later, I follow her out of the room and down the stairs, trying desperately to count the hairs on her head before I no longer have the chance.
Orm
Watching Lingling tie my duffel bag to the back of her motorcycle, my pulse flaps like the wings of a dove in my neck. This is happening. I'm leaving home. I'm getting out and I'm never coming back. And Lingling Kwong, my tormentor, is helping me. The fact that I'm being aided by the person who called me a future trophy wife this morning makes this moment even more surreal.
She's had this stricken expression on her face for the last half an hour that's stupidly making me want to apologize. For what, though? I don't know. I don't owe her an apology and yet, I have this pressing need to wrap my arms around her neck and tell her everything is going to be okay.
When it comes to my bully, my emotions have never been truly in sync.
One second I hate her and the next, I'm whimpering her name into my pillow, my fingers sawing against the wet cotton of my panties. My feelings for her are extremely confusing...but I know asking her to back off was the right move.
Even if I'll secretly miss her presence everywhere I turn.
In my world of unpredictability, there was something comforting about knowing she would always be there. Watching me. Hating me. Wanting me.
That last part was never in doubt.
She's made that clear many times. That if I gave her the green light, she would "put me on my back and do me dirty" or "give me a nice long hate-fuck in the back of her trailer." And she'd always say, "No one has to know, baby," in that winded, guttural tone that keeps me up at night. Makes me shove my fingers down the front of my panties and struggle to breathe, sweating through my bedclothes to an orgasm.
I'm thinking about those particularly sexual taunts when she looks over at me and I don't quite manage to hide the conflicted lust. Her movements slow, an eyebrow arching as she peruses my mouth, my breasts. I'm a certified hot mess right now. Beaten and bloody, but there's no denying she's still attracted, regardless.
It's always there in the hurried rise and fall of her chest, the shifting of her throat. The tenting of her jeans.
How many times have I turned in class and-avoiding her gaze-locked eyes with the swollen ridge in her pants instead?
At least that's one thing us poor motherfuckers have going for us.
We know how to fuck.
Well if I thought sympathy was an odd emotion to have toward this girl, jealousy is even more confusing. Why should I care that she's been with other people? Obviously she must have been with countless girls to get good at sex. It's none of my business, is it? I'm almost rid of her. And I don't want to be jealous.
Still, when she holds out her hand to help me onto the bike, I ignore it with a raise of my chin and climb on myself. Cheating jerk, I whisper inside my head, even though it makes no sense. None at all. We're not together, so she can't cheat on me.
You're almost rid of her.
Get a ride and say goodbye.
Unfortunately, I may have been a little overzealous in asking to be taken to a motel. I've never been to one, but I know a credit card is usually required-and I don't have one of those. Nor do I have enough cash in my wallet for more than one night. I need to figure out an alternative plan fast.
Still looking damnably stricken, Lingling places her helmet on my head and gently buckles the chinstrap. Swallowing loud enough to hear over the storm rolling in, the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Helmetless, she slings a leg over the front of the bike and brings the engine to life, the purring vibration so unexpectedly exhilarating, I wrap my arms around her middle on reflex.
Her ribcage expands to capacity, then shudders down.
"Orm..."
She can't see me, so I give in to the impulse to press my cheek to her leather jacket, absorbing the warmth. "Yes?"
Lingling clears her throat, her voice emerging deeper. "My aunt has a cabin a few towns over. Near the lake." She pauses. "They only use it in the summer. It's stocked with canned goods, supplies. I could take you there. You'd be safe."
It's dangerous to start accepting more favors from her, but what choice do I have? My father made sure that I'm helpless. He did it with my mother and now me. Alienated us from everyone who might be a friend or good Samaritan. I'll accept her offer, but only because here and now, I'm vowing to find a way to help myself in the future. To leave my father and the house of horrors in the past. Maybe it can't be done entirely alone. Maybe accepting help is the only option.
"That would be great," I say, feeling her relax. "Thanks."
She responds by revving the engine of the bike-and that's when I hear my father shouting my name from the back door of the house. His hands are tied behind his back and he's staggering, blood pouring from his nose.
"Orm Sethratanapong! You get your ass back here right now or you'll never be allowed back, you ungrateful bitch!"
My love for storms has never caused one to manifest inside of me, but a monsoon swells in my chest now and I look back at the pathetic old man with every ounce of rebellion brewing inside of me. Baring my teeth, I give him the middle finger and dismiss him. Forever.
"Atta girl," Lingling murmurs a second before gunning the engine, kicking up gravel on the way down the driveway. I don't look back a single time.
* * *
We drive for half an hour. Twenty minutes on the highway, ten minutes looping our way to a higher elevation. The trees grow more and more dense, the road deserted. The screech of an owl can be heard every so often over the roaring engine of Lingling's bike, the call of a wolf in the distance. We don't pass a single car on the way to the cabin, and that comforts me when I should be worried.
Shouldn't I?
I can't allow the last two years of psychological warfare to mean nothing. To melt away in the face of tonight's act of kindness. I meant what I said. I need Lingling to leave me alone. To release the hold she has on me. I've cut one negative force out of my life tonight. The last thing I need is a replacement. But as I grow drowsy against her strong back, her leather and citrus scent lulling me, courting the trust she doesn't deserve, I worry leaving her by the wayside might be easier said than done.
Especially when we arrive at the moonlit cabin and she lifts me off the bike, cradling me to her chest a moment too long before settling me onto my feet. It's hard giving up her warmth, but I push off her chest, creating distance between us. She watches me back away like I'm ripping her heart out.
"There is a shower inside," she says, quietly. "You can finally get the, uh..." She blows a breath out at the sky. "...the blood off."
Rain begins falling before I can answer.
It's nothing like the precipitation that falls in my field. No, this rain has to trickle down through the trees and it's bigger, gloppier. Must be the higher elevation. I hold my hand out and catch a few drops, bringing the moisture to my face and rinsing away the crimson that has dried to my upper lip, the corner of my eye. "There." I use the hem of my T-shirt to dry my face.
"All gone."
"You're not hurting anywhere else?"
"I'll be fine." Why is she breathing so fast? "What's wrong, Lingling?"
"What's wrong?" She fights through a shuddering laugh, sliding all ten fingers through her hair. "Where do I start? Most pressing is...I know you're going to want me to leave you here alone and I don't think I can. Look, if you want to lock the doors, I'll sleep outside on the ground, Orm, but please don't ask me to go."
She's right. I was going to tell her it's fine to head home.
There was a convenience store with a payphone a mile down the road. If there is no working phone in the cabin, I can still make calls, if necessary. I'm not sure what my next move is going to be, now that I've run away from home. But I know I'll never be able to think with a clear head as long as Lingling is around, looking at me like a wounded animal.
"Lingling..."
"It's just that once I leave, I know that's it. You're going to shut me out again. And this time, it'll be your choice." She paces away, still raking those agitated fingers through her pitch-black hair. Rain is starting to come down harder, splattering on the shoulders of her leather jacket, dampening the pine needle-strewn earth at our feet. "I deserve to be cut off. Jesus, I know that. But if there was something I could do to make up the last two years to you, even just a little-"
"There is," I say, surprising myself. I didn't plan to say anything. Didn't know I had a single thing in mind. As soon as those two words are out of my mouth, though, I know there is something I need from Lingling. And she's the only one who can give it to me. "Get yourself out of my system."
She stands still as a statue. "What?"
"Get yourself out of my system." The rain makes me speak louder, feel bolder and freer. "For two years you antagonized me, insulted me, stalked me, bullied me..." She makes an anguished sound, her eyelids slamming shut. "And yet, I still-I still can't stop thinking of your hands on my breasts that night in the field. How big and warm and rough they were. I can't stop imagining you taking off my clothes. Every stitch. Even the ugliest things you've said to me, I imagine you saying them in my ear while you...while we..."
Lingling falls toward me a step, clutching the center of her chest. "Orm-"
"So I won't tell you to leave. But please, please, get yourself out of my head. One night together. Okay, Lingling? So I can get on with my life knowing the fantasy was better than reality. That I built up some unrealistic idea of what we'd be like together that we can't possibly live up to." My throat constricts. "Get me on the road to forgetting you. Please."
Lightning flares above her head, revealing the marble planes of her face. The mixture of devastation and flickering hope in her eyes. "And what if the reality lives up to the fantasy?"
"It won't," I say quickly, with conviction. It couldn't possibly.
And yet I suck in a nervous breath when she crosses the divide between us, every cell in my body switching to high alert. Fight or flight. In a matter of moments, she's gone from wounded animal to determined predator, the rain causing her black hair to hang low over her eyes, dripping, her hands ready at her sides. "Are you so sure, Orm?"
Damn my hesitation. "Yes," I whisper. "You'll prove me right in one night. I can move forward without feeling like I'm leaving something behind."
"What if your fantasies come true tonight? Could we ever move forward as...as an us?"
I reel from what she's suggesting. "There can never be an us, Lingling. Not after everything that's happened. I'll never change my mind about that." I shake my head. "How can you think I would?"
"Maybe I think if I will it hard enough, it'll come true."
"It won't," I whisper, starting to wonder if I'm making a mistake. Opening myself up for even more heartache and yearning for this woman than I've already lived through. It feels like a lifetime's worth. "One n-night."
"No backing out from this point on?"
My heart raps urgently. "No backing out."
She's silent so long, I'm not sure she's going to respond. And then all at once, she moves like a jungle cat, reaching me in two strides and scooping me up into her arms. I think she's going to bring me into the cabin, but she turns down a starlit path instead, fragrant with rain and pine, her jaw in a hard flex. "I've made a study out of you, Orm Sethratanapong. I've been hanging on your every sigh, every expression and mood for years. Years. If you don't think I've obsessed weeks of my life away over how you'd like to be fucked, baby, you're sorely mistaken."
We reach the lake in a matter of minutes and she doesn't stop, she just keeps going, splashing right in up to her waist, sinking us both into the warm, late-spring water. The skies have opened up overhead, creating raindrop pings all over the glassy surface. Thunder hums a tune and it carries in the air, electrifying it.
And oh God, I have made a serious miscalculation.
Because this...this drama, the surrounding nature and wild whipping movement of the mountain wind...it's so perfectly me. She's showing me exactly what's always been in my heart and mind when I thought of us together. It's my fantasy come to life, the two of us wrapped in the arms of the weather. And as she turns me, urging my legs around her waist, her ravenous mouth bearing down on mine, a boom of thunder signals my doom.
Lingling
I can't believe I'm here.
Can't believe I'm holding Orm and this is happening.
For two years, I've been walking around with my heart hemorrhaging in my chest, but her mouth mends it in seconds and now it's pumping so wildly, it's going to dislocate one of my ribs. Jesus. Jesus. She tastes even better than I imagined. Soft lips, the flavor of fruit and mint and something singularly Orm.
Her tongue is hesitant at first to play with mine, making her surrender all the more satisfying. Causing me to stumble backward in the waist-deep water when her thighs tighten around me and she allows me in, letting me fuck her perfect little mouth with hot strokes of my tongue, my hands aching over the softness of her hair, her cheeks, absorbing her unique textures with my palms.
Get yourself out of my system.
My heart, so recently awakened again, lurches painfully and I make a pitiful sound into the kiss. Ah God. The best night of my life could be the night Orm cuts me off for good and I don't know how to stop it from happening. This is the bed I've made and now I have to lie in it. She's attracted to me, but I've hurt her too badly to contemplate a future. A woman with more self control, maybe an older one, might stop this now.
Demand to talk, to reason. But I'm a dry desert ground and she's the storm of the century. I can do nothing but soak up every inch, take as much as I can before she wants me gone.
I sense she needs air, so I let her mouth go momentarily, kissing down her jawline to her neck, licking the rain from her smooth flesh, moaning brokenly when she shifts her pussy against my lap. Then does it again.
"Feels good," she whispers, her voice barely loud enough to hear above the storm. "Lingling."
Did I have a plan when I brought her down here? Yes. I know Orm. I know bringing her inside would have been like throwing a blanket over a lamp, muting the brightness. She thrives outside. I've lost count of the times I've followed her out of school into the rain, watching her lift her face to the sky, smiling as the drops fall onto her face. Outdoors is where she belongs. Under the volatile sky. I wanted to give her a first time she'll think about every hour for the rest of her life, but I'm...I'm quickly recognizing my inexperience.
I'm not practiced at this. At sex. At all.
But I have been fucking starving for it for years. With this girl.
So when she rubs against my cock and says "feels good," I almost come against the fly of my jeans. Jesus, my balls screw up so tight, I see double, a strangled sound lodging in my throat. I have to force myself not to grip her butt cheeks and grind her down while I thrust up, giving myself enough friction to finish.
Christ, don't finish. Please. I've been blessed with an opportunity I don't deserve. A night with Orm. A chance to make her first time perfect-and that's what I'm going to do, even if it kills me.
Any inhibitions she had when we walked into the lake are gone, however. It's as though the storm has awakened an answering passion inside of her. She makes urgent, breathy noises, her fingers tangling in my soaked T-shirt. She strips it off over my head along with my sports bra, her palms skating down my breast, up the meat of my arms, leaning in to kiss the hollow of my throat, the underside of my chin. Heat sears me from the inside, growing hotter with every touch of those lips on my flesh-and no, no, no I can never live without this. I'll wither and die.
Get into her system, not out of it. Get deeper.
So deep she can't pry you out. As deep as she is inside you.
With those directives blaring in the back of my head, I wade toward the shore and drop down to my knees, gently laying Orm on her back, kissing her incredible mouth while my fingers fumble with the button and zipper of her jeans. I'm touching Orm's pussy through denim and again, my balls harden so swiftly, I'm worried they're going to ruin everything, but I grit my teeth and start to tug the jeans down her legs. As soon as the soft, wet flesh of her thighs is revealed, I tilt my face up to the sky and squeeze my eyes closed. God oh God.
"What's wrong?" she whispers, lifting her hips so I can remove the pants.
"I'm trying not to come just looking at you," I rasp, tossing her jeans aside, taking several deep breaths to get myself under control, before giving in to the overwhelming temptation to see Orm in panties drenched from the rain-and no amount of imagination could have done her justice. The shy inward turn of her right knee, the light pink panties that rapidly become see-through, thanks to the rain. The slit of her sex a faint shadow that becomes more and more visible.
My senses are overloaded, my inhales and exhales rattling in my ears. Precipitation molds her light T-shirt to her pretty, perky tits, her mouth is swollen from being kissed. I'm an eighteen-year-old girl who's only ever climaxed from jerking off, and because of that, my instinct now is to take my cock out and jack off to the sexual feast in front of me. I'll come so hard. So hard. All over her.
But this is sex.
I'm being allowed sex. With the girl of my dreams.
My dick is in disbelief, painfully distended and dripping with pre-come in my briefs, begging to blow inside of her, instead of out. And Orm...her eyes are locked on it in wonder, lips in an O shape. The poster child for virginity. I'm going to be looking at that beautiful face when she takes my cock inside of her, feeling me move, stealing her innocence. Jesus. How am I going to last one pump?
"Orm," I groan through my teeth, trying to explain with that single word how fucking horny I am and the problem it's presenting.
She's still staring at the bulge in my jeans. "Am I...should I..." I've never heard her with that husky tone of voice before. "Does it go in my mouth first?"
A shudder wracks me so hard, my teeth momentarily chatter. "Christ, don't say that, baby. Fuck." I'm a disgusting animal now, ripping down my zipper and shoving my hand inside, beating off the raw length of my cock, my eyes traveling from her face, to her tits, to her cunt. Then circling back and starting at the beginning, hoarse nothings falling from my lips. And Orm seems to sense my desperation, because she peels down her panties and kicks them away, baring herself to the rain.
Ironically, when I should ultimately explode, because the vision she creates is such perfection, I'm imbued with purpose, instead. With responsibility.
As soon as her pussy is out, all I can think about is licking it, giving her an orgasm and my own sexual pain takes an immediate back seat, my jerking hand slowing in the lap of my jeans. I'm hypnotized by the sight of Orm's little sex. Goddamn, she even lifts her knees up and lets me see. Lets me look all the way to her back entrance, the rain slicking every tight, supple inch.
"Can I touch you anywhere I want?"
She nods eagerly, holds her breath.
I hold mine, too, my palms skating up her inner thighs and pushing them apart, spreading the pink slit between her legs, revealing the secrets I want to learn. Need to know or I'll die unsatisfied. "Tell me when I do something that feels good." Slowly, I trace a thumb down the split of her pussy and her back arches, her gasp mingling with the rain. "There," I say in a rush, finally exhaling, tracing the edges of the nub that made her eyes roll back in her head. "Can I lick you here, baby?"
Her hands fly to the ground, fingers digging into the soil. "Yes."
Oh my God. I get to give her head.
I'm down on my stomach in a heartbeat, rubbing my nose through her slick folds, inhaling Orm, the rain, something peachy, gently dragging my tongue side to side over that hooded button. And I watch in drugged wonder as a little pearl peeks out, the sight of it making my cock pound, my tongue licking toward it automatically, on reflex...and Orm loses her fucking mind. A sound-half-whimper, half-scream-fills my ears, her fingers spearing into my hair, pulling me closer.
It's like winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Knowing I found the spot that could get that reaction out of my girl has me humping the ground restlessly, my tongue worshipping, worshipping that pretty bud, my eyes tearing from her yanking my hair so hard, that salty moisture mixing with the rain and her arousal, making everything slippery, delicious, juicy until I'm devouring her, vacillating between French kissing her drenched little pussy and teasing that swelling nub, her cries making the sweetest music in my ears.
"Lingling. Lingling. Don't stop. Don't. Pleasepleaseplease."
When she comes, I swear to God, the taste of her is so sweet, so incredible, I go a little insane. I need every drop. Need it so bad, I screw my tongue up inside of her, growling for more, my hands scooping beneath her to clutch her ass cheeks, squeezing, begging, demanding. "More," I pant, licking mindlessly. "More, more, more. Baby, please."
I'm prepared to stay there until the next century, wringing more and more pleasure from her pussy, but she's tugging me upward, welcoming my hips into the cradle of her thighs now-and that's when the fact that I'm sick and horny and aching comes roaring back.
"You're ready for cock, Orm."
"Yes. Yes."
"I don't have a condom. I don't-"
"I'm on the pill. I went to the doctor myself. You can..."
"I can?"
With a choked sound, I take hold of my shaft and press it to her tightness, my life flashing in front of my eyes when I slide in a single inch and the wet flesh cinches up around me. Clenching like a fist.
"Oh. Fuck." I drop my face into her neck, raking my teeth against it, my hips burning with the need to thrust. Claim. Pound her into the ground. "I lied to you, Orm. I lied. I've never been with anyone like this. I've never wanted to touch anyone but you. Never been hard for anything but this..." I force in another inch, wincing, starting to sweat. "This sweet little pussy. I wanted inside of it so bad and now I can't get halfway in without unloading. I've just got so much come for you. Christ, it hurts. My balls are so fucking heavy, baby."
I search Orm's flushed face and find her looking at me in wonder, surprise. "You're a virgin, too?" she whispers, rain dappling her lips. "You...waited for me."
My nod is jerky, teeth clenched. "You really haven't figured it out yet? You can't tell I'm obsessed with you?" I drop hard kisses all over her face, her hair, her neck. "You can't tell I would murder, lie and steal to have you look at me?"
Her breath comes in tight pants, brown eyes glazed.
"I want you to come," she rasps, hips shifting. "You've been hiding from me for two years, acting like someone else. But this...this is honest. I-I want to feel it."
"Soon. Soon." My spine is tingling, twisting ominously at the base. "Just let me get myself under control."
"Now." Her expression is rapt, imploring. "Fall apart."
"Orm, please."
Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she reaches down and sinks her fingernails into my bare ass, yanking me close and impaling herself on my rigid cock-
And I come violently while she screams, my body in a state of shock and bliss, hips slapping against her mindlessly, mouth open on a silent shout, the pressure I've been carrying between my thighs for what feels like years ebbing in degrees. I hump and hump and hump, groaning into the storm. Despite my brain ordering me to treat her gently, I fuck her in the dirt with every ounce of strength in my body, holding her struggling thighs open and raking her tall frame up and back on the soft earth, grinding out my pleasure into her too-tight cunt.
"You've been driving me crazy," I growl, biting her neck. "The smell of you in class. The shape of your neck and hips and fingers in front of me. Perfect, so perfect, so mine. And you wouldn't even give me your eyes. It broke me. You broke me. But you've always been mine, no matter what, huh? Nothing can change that." I lick her neck, her throat, her mouth. I buck into her endlessly, roughly, my climax wringing me dry. "Mine be mine be mine."
An invisible string is cut when I'm finally down the other side of my peak, my heaving body collapsing on top of Orm's. In an instant, I'm painfully aware of how aggressively I just took her and my blood freezes. When I lift my head to look at her, however, she's staring up at the sky with a dazed curve to her lips. "Orm?" I kiss her forehead, her cheeks. "I'm... God. Are you okay?"
Her nod gets my blood running again.
"It finally happened," she whispers, her voice almost camouflaged by the rain.
"What did, baby?"
The smile she gives me is almost shy. "I got to be part of the storm."