“I told him no and went back to the party.”
“Bullshit.”
Some of the tension seemed to go out of him, and he shrugged.“I don’t know what to tell you, Gray.I didn’t know who he was.I had no reason to want to hurt him.I had a brief interaction with him.If you’re right, maybe he was hoping that he could convince me to go to another room.Maybe he did have some sort of plan to get his revenge, although that sounds melodramatic.But if he did, I inconvenienced him because I wasn’t interested in playing with a child.And I don’t know what happened to him after that.”
He might have been lying.He’d lied earlier, when he’d said he didn’t know Tip, even if that lie had only been a technicality.He didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d have any qualms about lying.But it didn’tfeellike he was lying.And that was so fucking frustrating that I could feel myself losing control again.
“So, what?”I asked.“I’m supposed to take your word for it?Take the word of a guy who admits he gets off on hurting innocent women?”
“I wouldn’t call them innocent,” he said drily.“They’re well paid.And not only women, Gray.”
“That makes it better?That you pay them?”
“Shouldn’t it?They’re not doing anything they don’t want to do.”
“That must make you feel like a big man, having to pay women to let you beat their ass with a ping-pong paddle.”
“I enjoy hurting people.And I enjoy sex.”Sunny shrugged.“Why wouldn’t I pay for it?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.It was like being on the stairs again, that sense of blindness, like I’d stared at something too bright.My eye felt like it was going to pop out of my head.Instead of words, I made a scoffing noise.
“That’s so outrageous?”Sunny asked.“Why do you have sex, Gray?”
I looked out the window.The party spilled out over the patio onto the lawn, men and women in their expensive clothes, holding their expensive drinks, talking about expensive things.At this distance, the lake was still and calm and blue.
“Let’s see,” Sunny said.“You’re gay, so you don’t have sex to reproduce.That seems like a red flag, doesn’t it?Do you only have sex with people you love, Gray?Is that what makes it special?”
I didn’t answer.
“I saw you,” Sunny said.“That night.I saw you, when you let those three—those threechildrentake you upstairs.Was that because you loved them?”
“I think we’re done here,” I said.
“Most people want to have sex.And most people want to have sex for a variety of reasons.Love and intimacy and all that, sure.And children, for some people.Some people do it for stress relief.Some people think it’s fun.For some people, it’s like breathing.There are revenge fucks and hate fucks and adrenaline-junky fucks.People use sex to dominate other people.Or they use it to be dominated.They use it to apologize.Some people do it because they’re curious.And some people, Gray, fuck everything that moves because they need attention, and approval, and validation.”
It started in the body; it wasn’t a thought, wasn’t even something I could put into words.The way it felt when you caught that first glance, when you knew someone was looking.
“Some people do it to hurt other people,” I said.
“Sure.But if you mean me, that’s really more about the mode than about the goal.The goal is pleasure.I enjoy it.”He paused, and it seemed like the silence was a space for me to step into, and that feeling was terrifying.After what felt like a long time, he said, “I’d like to hurt you.I’d enjoy that.Would you like that?”
I managed that scoffing noise again.Outside, a breeze rose, and it stirred the lake.It looked muddy now, and the ripples chased the reflection of the sun into long, shining splinters.
But he was still waiting, so I said, “I don’t get off on having guys step on my nuts, thanks.”
“It’s not always about getting off, though, is it?”Sunny took my glass and set it with his own on the desk.His was still mostly full.Then, putting a hand on my shoulder, he said, “I want to show you something.”
He steered me over to the window.The party swarmed beneath us, brightly colored bodies churning restlessly.The sun lit up everything with flattening intensity.It had to be a million degrees out there, but the breeze off the lake helped.The booze too.
“Look at all those people down there.”He was standing behind me, his voice low.“Do you know what they want?”He waited.Then he said, “They want someone to tell them what to do.They might not know that’s what they want.But that’s what they want.And do you know why?”
He waited again, this time until I shook my head.
“The same reasons you’re going to let me do whatever I want to you.”He was closer now.I could feel him, a fraction of an inch away from me.His breath was hot on my neck.“Some of them, because they don’t know what they want, and they’re grateful someone will tell them.Some of them because they like it.It feels good, even if they couldn’t ever admit it.And some of them, because they think they deserve it.”His hand settled on my nape and gripped me there.“But most of them because it means someone is paying attention to them.Do you have any idea how intense that connection is?”His fingers crept up into my hair, twisting until my eyes stung, pulling on me until my back arched.“When you know that you exist wholly and completely in someone else’s universe, that their full attention is centered on you?”
The blare of the television.My dad’s face blank, emptied out by work and beer and a life that he hated.My mom in whatever it was—a lace teddy, the red babydoll, that stupid thing she called her peignoir—talking and talking and talking.He gets mad.That’s what I’d understood as a child.He gets mad when you won’t stop talking.He just wants you to be quiet.But I hadn’t known, when I’d been a child, how to explain that to her, or why she hadn’t seemed to understand.But shehadunderstood.I was the one who hadn’t figured it out until later.
Sunny pulled harder, and the pain in my scalp made me breathe out harshly.He pressed himself against me.His dick was hard.
