Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I’m not really here for the food, or the slides frankly. I’m here because the alternate is home, and the house is empty until Kent gets off work at seven or so. I could be studying, I could be doing the Italian homework I’m three chapters behind on, but I’m not. I’m sitting here, in a patch of fake sunlight thrown by the projector, trying to look like a human with a functioning brain and not a hollowed-out sex doll who spent a portion of last night fellating her sexy stepfather.
I grip the edge of my spiral notebook, knuckles pale, and force my attention to the slides: a grainy photo of the Colosseum at dusk, then a street in Trastevere slick with rain, then a tangle of hands raising glasses in some subterranean bar. I know I’m supposed to feel something, some pang of wanderlust or nostalgia for a study-abroad summer I never even had, but my mind is blank. Worse than blank. It’s on a ten-second feedback loop of last night’s encounter, which is to say last night’s most wonderful, hideous, perfect mistake.
I see Kent on the massage table, naked, every muscle strung tight as piano wire. I feel the slide of oil on my fingers, the impossible heat of his skin, the way he looked at me like he was never going to look away. I taste him in my mouth—salt and fruit and something male, a flavor so adult I almost coughed the first time but instead just let him grab my hair and guide me, gentle at first, then with a force that sent lightning down my spine. I remember climbing up, straddling his chest, spreading my knees wide as his hands found my ass and pulled me down, his mouth on my pussy, his voice low and filthy in my ear. “You’re so fucking wet for me,” he’d said, and I’d moaned so loud I thought the neighbors would call the cops.
“Mary Kate?”
I snap back. Emmeline, next to me, is elbowing my ribcage hard enough to leave a bruise. She’s the kind of Italian major who makes everyone else look like a fraud: black hair always in saucy ringlets, eyeliner done with insane precision, red claws for nails, every essay peppered with obscure references to Italian cinema. She’s been my designated “class buddy” since the second week of the semester, and my grades improved as a result.
“You okay?” she whispers. “You’re, like, a zombie.”
I blink at her, try to recalibrate. “Yeah, just tired. I was up late with a paper.”
She grins, her lipstick smudged at the corner. “Girl, same. I haven’t slept since Sunday night. You coming to Dante’s after?”
I look at the clock. It’s not even five yet. “I don’t think so,” I mumble. “I have to be up early.”
Emmeline’s smile goes sly. “You seeing someone? You keep missing club meetings.”
I shake my head, too fast. “No. Just work.”
She doesn’t buy it, but lets me off the hook. She fishes a biscotto from her jacket pocket—where did that come from?—and breaks it in half, offering me the bigger piece. I take it, the nuts digging into my palm, and manage a tight smile.
At the front of the room, Fede has lost control of the audience and is now just narrating the slide show. “Questo è il Pantheon—molto bello. You see the dome? It is un miracolo.” His accent gets more pronounced the more the club ignores him.
I bite into the biscotto, shattering it, and think about the last time I actually cared about anything enough to show up early. Probably the day I moved back in with Kent, when none of this had happened yet. When I had no idea that he and my mom were divorcing. When I had no idea that his medical condition would turn into this.
My heart jumps at the thought of our steamy encounters. I want to see him again, tonight, now. The craving is chemical, raw, and for a second I’m not even sure if I want to have sex with him or if I just want to watch him take off his shirt, stand there at the kitchen counter slicing oranges, laugh at something I say and then kiss my forehead and make me feel like I’m the only person in the world.
But that’s not the real Kent because the real Kent wouldn’t kiss my forehead like a doting father. He’d grab my jaw and own my mouth. He’d pin my wrists behind my back and tell me I’m his good girl before savaging my pussy with that huge shaft. Last night, I tasted him and it’s become a hunger for more.
“Anyone have questions about the slideshow?” Fede asks, a touch of desperation in his voice.
Emmeline leans into my ear. “Seriously, MK, you’re off in space. You gonna finish the Purgatorio for Monday?”