bamboo doesn't grow in dark spaces. [80K Words / Complete]

chapter twenty-one. 💛

The whites of Sir's eyes flashed with surprise.

"What if I earn it? Hmm?" Case challenged, the sound coming from him dark and foreign. Sir's wrist bone was tiny inside his grip. "I'll fuck for it. Anyway you like it." He cupped the front of Sir's underwear; the man flinched, barely suppressing a gasp as Case roughly handled his growing bulge. "I can scream. Moan. Beg. Do you want me to beg, Sir?"

A flash of movement. The hard smack of his head against the brick. Sir was on him, shoving and pinning him against the wall. Big, scary grown-up man body crushing the air and sense out of him. Hot mouth, sharp teeth against the soft tissue of his neck. Case blinked, flustered. Fuck. He hadn't thought this far ahead. He hadn't been thinking at all. Still not thinking—reacting, surviving—he pulled Sir's underwear down, letting his erection spring into the open; Sir groaned, low and primal.

"Turn around," Sir said, grabbing Case by the shoulders. Forcibly spinning him around, pressing him face-first into the rough plaster-and-brick. Forcibly spreading Case's legs and lining himself up.

Case tried to get his breathing steady. His heartbeat boomed, against his ribcage, inside his eardrums. No lube. What they'd used before had gone dry and sticky. Sir's hand on the wall near his face. Blue vein bulbous and throbbing beneath weathered skin. A faded tan line on his bare ring finger.

"Talk to me," Sir breathed huskily into his ear. "Talk dirty." He inserted himself, roughly, rutting. "Use that whore mouth."

Case really hadn't thought this far ahead. His body rocked and bounced against Sir's. He scrambled to remember what Hannah used to say. She always bossed him around during sex: fuck me, fuck me hard, deeper, harder. At a loss, that's what he said.

Sir groaned—annoyed, not aroused. He went harder, deeper. Gripped and pulled the hair at he back of Case's neck. Case yelped, knowing this was meant as punishment not pleasure.

He thought of porn. Maybe trick himself into enjoying this. Hopefully steal some lines, give Sir what he wanted, what Case had accidentally promised. He scrolled through his limited metal catalogue, and that's when he realized that all porn was the same. Nothing but girls moaning and keening, do you like this pussy? This tight, wet pussy? You want that?

Maybe that's all sex was: being used and being hurt for someone else's pleasure. The realization hurt; the right kind of hurt. It numbed Case, letting him mentally slip away from Sir, the basement. His body continued to buck against Sir's. He opened his mouth, reciting all the lines every sexual plaything had to say. He didn't know what he was saying, not really. But he must have been doing it right, because Sir groaned in his ear you're a whore, my whore, perfect whore, you're perfect.

When it was over, his cheek stung from being scraped against the wall. Case gingerly touched the open wound, knowing Hannah had left another scar underneath. His fingers came away sticky, not bloody. Case lay curled on his mattress, alone. Hair wet from a long shower. Goosebumps prickling his arms, even under a layer of clothes. He chewed on a torn cuticle, pulling the skin away in a thin strip and tasting blood.

The voice came to him, soft and comforting, like a parent swooping in to wipe the tears from their child's cheeks. Sex is meant to hurt. It's meant to be messy, confusing. Degrading. Depressing.

Case had been having sex since he was 15-years-old. He wasn't a naive, virginal kid. Hadn't been for a long time. His eyes were open. He was ready for this universal, adult truth.

Sex is the most humiliating thing you can do to yourself, Casey, the voice espoused. And in return, if you let it, it can also feel good.

Yes, that was the balance: bodily pleasure. Orgasms—mind-blowing, seeing stars, set your nerves ablaze with electricity, and wipe your conscious of all the shame and pain—moments of pleasure. Sometimes, against his control, his body reacted to Sir in ways he didn't want. Maybe it was time to surrender his pride, embrace the primalness of what was happening to him. If he was going to be stuck down here, he might as well chase whatever moments of satisfaction he could find.

The dumbwaiter rattled. Mechanical rumblings, and solid thump of something being delivered. Probably the rest of Case's dinner that he'd been unable to stomach earlier. Case pulled up the roller-door. The cargo-box was stuffed full with folded linen. A thin, comforter blanket. Stripped, no covers or sheets. Case blinked, disbelieving. He unfurled the blanket, mesmerized by the cushiony down-filling. And there was more—a few rolled-up pairs of bed socks had fallen to the floor. Thick, fluffy. He wasn't even cold, but suddenly Case yearned to wear something fresh and soft.

Strangely giddy, Case tried on the purple bunny-rabbit socks. He flexed his toes, enjoying fleece lining against his sore feet. He bundled himself in his new blanket, ready for a decent rest. When he closed his eyes, he was transported to his bedroom back home.

But then something dawned on him, throwing him back into the basement with an unforgiving kick to the gut. He realized the only reason he had these small comforts was because he'd prostituted himself for them. He really had become a perfect whore.

*           *           *

Hannah stayed, not out of love but out of pride. There was an entire school and world of social media laughing at her expense. Her boyfriend had not only cheated on her, but had cheated with a younger messy girl. Going into their junior year, Hannah took back her agency. She had tousled Violet Dream sex hair, and thigh-high fishnets, and Unicorn Blood lipstick that stained Case's face and neck. She made a point to tell all her friends, his friends, people who weren't their friends about their sex life: how often Case went down on her, how often he made her cum, how his cock was an average size but he knew how to put it to good use. Always, Case remained quiet, since it was gross and misogynistic for him to say anything about Hannah or her body (at least, that's what he was told).

The first time they crossed paths with the freshman girl at school, Hannah shoved Case against his locker, kissing him with an open mouth and swirling tongue like a tentacle creeping into his throat to choke him; her body gyrated against his, dry humping and groping him, soliciting whistles and catcalls from a hallway full of spectators. Case emerged from the encounter with the swirly-sick feeling of shame in his core, but when he broached the issue with Hannah, she curtly reminded him that the entire school had seen him with that other girl, so comparatively he had no right to feel ashamed. And so, a new normal emerged. Hannah used him, daily, if not for an audience, then for the tantalizing thrill of crossing a boundary and the scandal that would come with getting caught.

She started by pushing his boundaries one day in science class, when the lights were down and the projector screen flickered with footage of a scorpion eating its prey, and she slipped her hand inside his waistband. He grabbed her wrist, silently telling her no, stop, terrified of drawing attention from the class. But her fingers curled around him, and mentally he slipped away, the images of a scorpion stinger incapacitating a writhing mouse flashing in his vacant eyes while her hand worked up-down-up-down and people around them stared dead ahead as if they didn't know.

In the end, it didn't matter if Case was a willing participant in Hannah's identity as a sexual being. He couldn't complain, not when he'd cheated and broke her heart and tarnished hers and his and their reputations. He loved her, and after almost two years of a relationship, he was so tarred to her that he couldn't stand the thought of being alone. He couldn't go back to the before, when he was overlooked by his family and teachers mixed his name up with Jay. Having a girlfriend defined his identity. Having a girlfriend meant he was never alone, not really anyway. Having a girlfriend meant someone loved him. If sex was what Hannah wanted, if that was the price for keeping her from leaving him, then sex was what he could give.