Page 43 of Boardroom Mask

“Cum,” he orders. “Whether you like it or not, you’re going to cum on my cock. Now. Show me.”

I implode. My arms give out completely and I collapse flat on my stomach and he follows me down to blanket me, still buriedinside me, hips stuttering as I clench and pulse and soak us both again.

He bellows as he rips out of me, and even though I don’t have the strength to look up, I hear the wet smack of him pumping and then?—

Hot, thick ropes land across the small of my back, striping up my spine. He cums on me more than I ever thought possible, in long, heavy spurts that pool in the dip of my lower back and drip down my sides.

He strokes himself through the last of it. I feel the final pulse land warm between my shoulder blades.

My cheek is pressed against the kitchen tile. His cum is cooling on my back. I can hear him breathing above me, ragged, heavy, slowing down.

Then he pushes his weight off me and I feel the air rush in where his body was.

I don’t get up—I crawl. Hands and knees, pajama bottoms still tangled around one ankle. I make it to the wall next to the fridge and sit with my back against it. I pull my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and hold on for dear life.

It’s been five years since anyone touched me. Five years since THE NIGHT, the one that split my life intoBeforeandAfter. I spent those years flinching and lying and sleeping with the lights on, all the while telling myself I was fine, I was healing, I was getting better.

And THIS is how I break the dry spell?!

Facedown on my kitchen floor? A masked stranger’s cum drying on my spine? A puddle of my own making under me?

Across the kitchen, I hear the clink of a belt buckle, the rasp of a zipper. I look up to see that he’s standing by the table, pulling his jeans back up over his hips, fastening the button. The mask is still on. His chest rises and falls under the dark jacket.

“Are you going to kill me now?” I whisper hoarsely. I sound like I’ve been screaming, which I guess I have. Kinda.

He finishes with the belt and looks at me, sitting there against the wall with everything I’ve ever hidden written all over my face.

He bends down and picks something up off the floor. I can’t see what it is, but he turns it over in his hand, looking at it. Then he tosses it to me. It lands next to me with a clatter. I look down to see my pink Taser.

“You might need this,” he suggests, sounding like he’s smirking. “Next time, don’t miss.”

He walks to the window, opens it, and throws one leg over the sill. He pauses there, half in and half out, and looks back at me one more time.

I don’t say anything. I don’t have anything left.

He sighs and drops out of sight. The curtain flutters once and goes still.

I sit there on the cold kitchen floor, and I don’t move for a very long time.

15

KIR

“I can’t drown my demons / They know how to swim”

— “Can You Feel My Heart” by Bring Me the Horizon

The fire escape rattles under my boots as I drop the last few feet to the alley. My knees absorb the impact and I stay in a crouch for a second, forehead against the cold metal railing, breathing.

I pull the mask off and stuff it in my pocket. The night air whips my face and I just stand there in the alley between two dumpsters, smelling garbage, rain, and the faint trace of her still clinging to my skin.

I fucked her.

I fucked the woman my father told me to kill.

I start walking with no destination in mind. I need movement, any kind, any direction, because if I stand still, I’ll have to sit with what just happened, and I am not ready for that. My legs carry me east, toward the river, toward nothing in particular.

My father wants her dead. That’s the job. It’s pretty fucking black and white. Lukas Lazarev pointed at Jillian Pierce and said,Get rid of her. But instead of putting a bullet in her or a knife across her throat or any of the dozen clean methods I was taught before I could legally drive, I put her on her kitchen floor and fucked her until neither of us could see straight.