You Taste Like Sin

Chapter Four- Battle Wounds

“So did you fuck him?” Danielle was sitting on the edge of her bed, grinning ear to ear in excitement.

“What?” I shut the door and froze. How the hell could she know that?

“Come on, you were within feet, maybe even inches of him! I would’ve raped him in the janitorial closet,” she sighed, falling back on her mattress and laying her arms over her head in an ever so dramatic way. "Screw that, too far. I woulda' raped him on the table."

“I had work to do, no time for raping,” I mumbled, shuffling over to the bathroom and closing the door.

“Dry old prude!” she yelled through the door.

I kept the light off…for some reason I couldn’t look at myself. I turned the faucet on, splashing my face several times with as cold of water as my small sink would supply.  I sat there for a while, in the shadows, hoping they would just consume me.

It was a onetime thing, right? Never, ever was I going to let that happen again. But god was it amazing. No, I needed to belittle this experience as much as possible.

 Every time I closed my eyes I felt his hands on me, his lips snaking their way across my neck, his black eyes full of hunger. I opened my eyes, staring into the black obscurity that surrounded me. I wished I could just stay here forever, not have to go that class again….or confront Mat. Shit.

“He’s here!” Danielle pounded the door, making me jump from my hazy daydreaming. Alec was here? Why? I straightened my clothes and smoothed out my hair, still not being able to bring myself to the light switch. Why was I fixing myself for him, why did I care what he thought about me? I opened the door cautiously, not sure how to speak to him.

“Hey, Payton.  You OK? You look stressed…” I physically breathed a sigh of relief. Although, staring at my loyal boyfriend I just adulterated on shouldn’t have been any better than the source of infidelity.

“Ya, I’m good. Just tired.” It was true…oh how I wished I could just drift away into the abyss of my subconscious hallucinations and forget about all of this.

He walked over to me and kissed me.

I wanted to curl up and cry…empty. I felt nothing. Did I really feel so much before? Or was I convincing myself that this was as good as it was going to get, or this was supposed to be how it felt?

I felt a wave of nostalgia, wishing I could go back in time and do it all over again. His kiss and hold were familiar, comfortable and accepting… the problem was I wanted fire, electricity and passion. Mat and I never really had passion…why?

“What the hell?” Mat laughed, sliding my hair back to reveal my neck. “I must’ve done more last night than I thought,” he smiled.

“Ew…you guys gross me out. Actually…I’m jealous, I admit it.” Danielle commented from behind her magazine of the day, peering out to look at whatever it was Mat was intrigued by.

I quickly walked over to the bathroom and flicked on the florescent lights, revealing a purple and blue blotch on my lower neck, under my ear... a mark that was most definitely not there this morning. I quickly pulled my top down and saw small red and purple spots all around my chest with small red bumps of stubble-burn shaded patches. Shit.

I was going to have to avoid intimacy with Mat for a couple days at least, this was a dead giveaway. I walked out of the bathroom, trying to put my best ‘you sexy boyfriend you’ smile on.

He smiled smugly, like it was a feat, or a medal for accomplishing something. I secretly rolled my eyes.

“Hey, I just dropped by to say the swim meet was changed to tonight, instead of tomorrow. Can you still make it?”Huh? All of this seemed so trivial at the moment. I wanted to take a long hot shower and wash the remaining musk of Alec off me.