Pain flares up from my cunt, stretched out and torn up. Good thing I’m such a loose slut, or this would all be worse, right?
Vaginas don’t really work like that, I know.
It was a joke, geez.
The towel ends up smeared in dark streaks from the markers. I wrap it around my body and go back to the kitchen.
I need several glasses of water before my throat stops ripping itself apart with acid. My eyes are on the flowers on the vase in the middle of the kitchen table, and I wonder if they’re supposed to be that strange hue of blood red or if all the interior-goring is making my vision go wrong.
Sam’s door remains closed. I guess she’s not such a light sleeper today. Lucky me. I wonder if she would show sympathy, or if she’d say that I called it on myself by being, well, a slut.
I head into my dorm room, and even though Echo is sleeping I open the cage and pull her out. I lay down on the bed with her, wishing for one moment that she was the kind of pet who could snuggle with me.
She ends up coiled near my side, tail flicking while she considers how to escape this cage I made for her.
“Too bad you aren’t six feet yet,” I tell Echo. “I really need somebody who can devour men whole.”
My eyes are doing that weird thing again, the turning-blurry-for-no-reason thing, and I hate how fucking weak and stupid and vulnerable I feel right now because this isn’t me at all!
I’m not weak.
I’m not stupid.
I’m not frail.
I can handle my own problems.
But maybe it would be nice to hear a comforting voice. Somebody who actually likes me, despite all the ways I’m wrong inside and out.
I grab my tablet from the bedside table and tab over to the messaging app.
Pandora
You awake?
Call me if you are.
Two seconds later, the app shows an incoming video call from Papa.
I answer it. Papa is in the reptile room, sitting in one of the armchairs that overlooks the large enclosures. The dye is growing out of his hair, so only the very tips of it are still blond, the rest a light brown.
“Hey, Frog,” Papa says. “What’s… What the fuck?”
I’m confused about his reaction, until I remember that there’s still writing on my face. I think that one saidcrazy, but I don’t remember.
Blaze wrote that word.
He must feel very strongly about it.
“Oh, this,” I say with fake cheer. “It’s nothing. You should see the other guy.”
Papa’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, that won’t even work on Mama. It definitely doesn’t work on me.”
I giggle, because he’s right that it’s completely unbelievable. “Well. It was worth a try.”
“I’ll wake Damien and Slayer,” Papa says. “We can be in Dyschord before morning. Just tell me who needs to get taken care of.”
It would be so easy.
