Boys Club by Selena
twenty-five
Harper Apple
As I run from the car, I curse myself silently. I should have leapt into the road and tried to get help. Not that anyone on the highway could have stopped in time to avoid hitting me.
It’s too late now, though. I ran into the rice paddies because I was on that side of the car. At least I’m alive, which means I have a chance. That’s what matters. If I want to stay alive, though, I can’t make mistakes. I can’t make decisions out of instinct and fear. I knew this was coming. How many times did I tell myself that if they found out what I’d told Mr. D, they’d kill me—and that was before I spilled the secret that could destroy them. But I wanted to have my fun and eat it, too, so I kept seeing Royal, even knowing it would be worse when he found out.
As I run, I think of the warnings. Baron told me Royal was a lot of things, but forgiving wasn’t one of them. Royal told me to leave them alone or I’d be sorry. DeShaun told me what happened to people who cross the Dolces. But I didn’t need any of them to warn me. I already knew they were dangerous, even deadly. I should have had a plan in place.
I try to turn on my phone to dial 911, but it’s dead. They’d never get here in time, anyway. I keep thinking if I can get to the trees, I can hide. Cottonmouths are out, but the water’s still cool in late March, and they’ll be slow. I’ll risk them rather than the Dolce boys after a betrayal like mine.
It’s almost dark, the sun setting behind the trees. I send a prayer of gratitude as I reach the far side of the rice paddies and race through the weeds to the trees, my feet sinking into the boggy ground with each step. I can hide here.
I duck behind a tree, my heart hammering with wild panic.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Duke’s taunting voice sings.
His laughter echoes over the murky water.
I stand perfectly still, my back pressed to the thick trunk, my feet on the swollen base of the tree above the water. I swallow hard when I see a snake floating to my right.
Suddenly, Baron is on my left, grabbing for me. I leap away from the tree, toward the snake. I almost fall but gain my feet, charging through the water and ducking behind the next tree and the next. But the fucking water gives me away. The ripples lead them right to me no matter how many times I run, and dragging my feet through the knee-high water starts to exhaust me. We go deeper into the swamp, into the shadowy darkness under the new leaves and twilight sky.
I almost escape the twins. When they catch me at last, I kick and slash, frigid liquid sloshing around our shins as we struggle.
But there’s one more.
I may be a fighter, and I could maybe escape the twins, but Royal’s a fighter, too. Royal has moves. He’s bigger and stronger and just as skilled as me. When his hand tightens around my neck, my mind flashes back to the railroad tracks, to the day in the hall he choked me out. I see the same emptiness in his eyes now, and I try to reach him like I did then. I know now that our monster is the same, and some part of me clings to the hope that he will recognize that killing me will kill a part of him.
But the darkness is too deep, and I can’t find even a shadow of the boy I love.
When I start to lose consciousness, I welcome it this time. I want to black out. I want it to be over quickly. I hold my breath and try to force myself under.
“Don’t kill her, dude,” Duke says. “We get to have some fun with her first.”
Royal drops me into the water, and my traitorous body sucks in air, like it wants to live, even if that means our last hours are torture. I hear a semi on the highway and imagine myself back at the Hummer, throwing myself in its path. Again, I curse myself for running. Being crushed by an eighteen-wheeler would have hurt less than what I know is coming.
The twins pull me to my feet, jerking my hands together in front of me. I don’t know when I dropped my phone or my knife. I’m still fighting for consciousness when I feel a rough rope cutting into my wrists. Baron deftly binds my hands. I start to flail, fighting with panic, elbowing Baron in the mouth where I smashed my knee and Duke in the injured shoulder, but they’re too strong. It was over the moment Royal stepped in.
Duke pushes me forward, to a little raised patch of ground under a tree. My brain’s still stunned by the lack of oxygen from when Royal choked me out, and I can barely walk. I think I’m crying, but maybe it’s just swamp water running down my cheeks. The twins wrap the rope around the tree above my head, so my hands are pulled up against it. I try not to howl in pain when my broken hand is crushed against the rough bark. Standing back, they look me over, breathing hard and spitting blood from their exertion while subduing me.
“I’ve been waiting to get my dick in her since day one,” Baron says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m going to enjoy this. I even brought toys.”
“You sick bastard,” Duke says, slapping his shoulder and setting his own backpack down. “I only brought beer.” He cracks one open and takes a long drink. Baron unwraps a sucker. They watch me cry and beg like the pathetic bitch Royal says I am. What do I have to lose? Pride’s never done shit for me.
When at last I accept that Royal is gone, that he can’t be reached in that place he’s goes inside himself, I turn to the twins.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, my whole body shaking.
“I think you know that,” Duke says with a grin, his eyes raking down my body in a way that makes the hair rise on the back of my neck.
“We’re going to fuck you,” Baron says, watching my reaction with keen interest.
“It’s about time Royal shared that juicy ass,” Duke says. “I want to see it bounce.”
Baron grins, too, a twisted little smile that makes me cold all over. “I want a taste of that pussy that brought my brother to his knees.”
“Royal,” I cry, twisting around toward him. He doesn’t look at me. He hasn’t looked at me since he said I was dead to him. He’s going to kill me. I know that. It’s as if I’m already dead, a ghost he can’t hear. The twins both look at him, waiting to see if he’ll answer me. Waiting for his permission.
Duke holds out a beer to him. He pops the top off the bottle and takes a drink, his eyes hollow as a doll’s. “I’m done with her,” he says with a shrug. “Do whatever you want.”
His words slice jagged lines through my heart. How many times has he said I’m his, times I didn’t appreciate, times I fought against? I didn’t want to be his plaything. Now I see what a fool I was. Belonging to Royal, letting him own me, being his Dolce girl, his little slut, even his plaything, is the best thing that could happen to a girl like me. My mother is right. I should never have shot for the stars, never believed I deserved better. I should have taken what I was given and been thankful. But I wanted more. I aimed too high, and like Icarus, I’m freefalling with nothing to catch me.
Baron steps toward me. I curse and writhe, yanking at the ropes until I feel them burning my skin, tearing it. “Let me go,” I scream, spitting like a cat, twisting away when he comes at me.
“Don’t worry,” he croons. “You’re going to love this. You wanted it in the basement, but you couldn’t do it because you were with Royal. But now you’re not. You can have what you always wanted—all three of us. Just like a Swan.”
“You said you wouldn’t overpower someone, that you liked the challenge,” I blurt, grasping at straws, at anything that might help me reach the boys inside these monsters.
“Oh, it’s a challenge,” Duke says, stepping up on my other side. “I’m gonna make you cum, baby. Anyone can fuck a bitch. Making her cum is the real challenge.”
“I like to win,” Baron says. “You fought hard, but we won. Now we claim the spoils.”
Baron takes out a knife and cuts the hoodie off me while Duke wrestles my jeans. I kick out, hitting his mouth with my knee. His nose is already bleeding, and I feel the crunch of his teeth with satisfaction. But as hard as I fight, they get me stripped.
“Shut her up,” Royal says, leaning on a tree and taking a swig of beer, a slightly annoyed expression the only sign of humanity on his face. “She’s used that lying mouth for the last time.”
Baron cuts the hood off my sweatshirt and pulls it down over my face, wrapping a length of rope around it. I start to thrash. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. When I try to scream, he pulls the rope tighter, so it cuts into my mouth, binding my jaw open. He wraps it around tight until I’m gagged. I try to breathe through my nose, through the fabric. Not to panic and pass out.
I won’t cry again. I promise myself that. I will endure it, and I won’t give them the satisfaction of more emotion. They prowl around me, touching me, Baron’s fingers warm on my cold skin, Duke’s damp from the beer bottle. My skin crawls, and I bite back a whimper. I’m exposed, like I was on that basement floor. But this time, Royal isn’t stepping in.
“Who goes first?” one of them asks. “Or should we both go at once?”
“Flip a coin?” the other says. I realize that without seeing them, I can’t tell them apart. I don’t know which is which. Panic hit me in relentless waves.
I shudder as I hear a soft clink. They chuckle. And then a pair of hands falls on my hips. I bite down on the rope, willing myself not to make a sound.
“Look at that ass,” he says. “I’ll fuck that later.”
“We’ll flip on that, too.”
“I don’t need to make you cum,” he purrs in my ear. “I like going in dry.”
He pushes me against the tree, holding me pinned. I think it’s Baron. I hold onto that, some small familiarity that makes it less frightening, knowing who it is. I hear him unzip, feel the terrifying heat of his cock against my skin. He kicks my feet apart and positions himself between my thighs. I want to believe it isn’t real, that Royal will stop them like he has every time they joked about this. He has to. At the last second, he’ll stop them.
But he wants this. He told them to take me.
Baron thrusts up into me, and I choke on the gag, shocked at the pain when his thick cock forces its way past my clenched opening. “Oh yeah,” he groans, reaching around my body and sliding a hand between my thighs, touching every part of me while he thrusts into me from behind. “Pussy this good is worth the wait, isn’t it, little darling?”
Tears of pain pour from my eyes, but I don’t make a sound. I’m not crying. It’s just the sting of pain making my eyes water. I focus on breathing as he drags himself out and thrusts deeper, working his way into my dry flesh that feels like its tearing to shreds with each thrust. It feels like a splintered broom handle is reaming into me. I bite down on the rope to keep from screaming.
“Keep going,” Duke says, his voice heated, right next to my ear. “Get her ready for me.”
“Christ, she’s so tight I can hardly get in,” Baron groans, thrusting to the hilt inside me. “I’m gonna wreck her cunt so hard.” He fucks me harder, holding my shoulders to the tree while he drives into me. To my relief, I feel myself slickening his cock, easing his entrance.
“Holy fuck, look at that, she’s bleeding like a virgin,” Baron says, his voice rough with lust. “It makes me so fucking hard. I’m gonna cum.”
“Cum inside her,” Duke says. “I want her dripping for me.”
“Where else would I cum?” Baron asks.
They laugh.
I bite down harder when he cums, slamming me against the rough bark of the tree. “God, she feels so fucking good.” He groans the words, grinding into me, his hips against my ass, little bursts of liquid heat filling my burning insides. He didn’t wear a condom. He’s stripping my dignity, doing the most intimate possible act to me, not with me. He violated my raw, unprotected core, like he’s entitled to it.
“Dude, it’s my turn,” Duke says, pulling him off. “I’ve waited too long to feel that sweet pussy milking my dick.”
I think I make a sound, but it’s lost behind the gag. My brain is reeling with shock. I can feel Baron’s scalding cum trickling down my cold thighs, and revulsion wracks my body.
Duke’s hands move over me, teasing, stroking, pinching my nipples just hard enough to make me whimper.
“Our little stalker,” he purrs in my ear. “You were better at it than we thought. You’re the whole package, aren’t you? Hot and smart and tough. Just right for all three of us. And all three of us get to have our fun before we’re done with you.”
His hands move over me slowly, until they’re warm from my skin. His breath is hot against the back of my neck, and I find my body responding even in this horrific situation. Some sick, instinctive part of me wants him near, wants the warm familiarity of a body instead of the cold darkness of the swamp and his brother’s ruthlessness. Duke is the one with a conscience. He held me at the river. He pulled me away from the car bomb and held me tight, steadying me. How can I reach him?
His body is flush against mine, his fingers gentle on my skin, his cock hard and hot. “Is your pussy wet for me, Cherry Pie?” he whispers in my ear, his hand dipping between my legs, stroking gently. “I know you’ve wanted this since the day we met. I see how you check me out when my brother’s not looking. You want this, and now you can finally admit it.”
His fingers explore deeper, stroking my clit. A shiver passes through me, and heat pulses in my core. His hands move to my ass, and he spreads my cheeks, pushing his hips forward so his cock lays between them. His fingers dig into my flesh, and the base of his cock pulses against my knotted hole.
I shake my head, crying for him to stop through the gag.
He chuckles. “You don’t want my cock in this tight little ass?” he teases. “I wonder why. It’s like fucking a virgin every time, and I didn’t get to fuck you when you were a virgin. You were already a dirty little slut when we met, weren’t you? Spreading your legs for old men in parking lots. How much did he pay you, whore?”
I shake my head harder, choking on the gag. Tears threaten, but I force them back, even when the pain of holding them goes straight to my throat, and a strangled sound comes unbidden.
“You don’t want that?” Duke asks.
I shake my head and force out a sound behind the gag.
“So, you want me to fuck your pussy?” he asks.
I nod frantically, and he laughs. “I knew she wanted me.”
I want to feel anger, rage, humiliation, but I can’t. There’s only fear.
“Stop playing with her and punish her,” Royal growls. “She doesn’t deserve to cum.”
I’d almost forgotten he was here. At last, real tears burn my eyes, shame and pain plunging a knife into my heart. He’s here. Watching. Giving me to his brothers. Sharing me with them against my will, like a toy that belonged to him, and now he’s passing it on. His broken doll, his used plaything. He’s sanctioning this, maybe ordering it. The punishment for betrayal.
“Aww, but it’s my one chance to play,” Duke says to him, sliding a finger inside me. “And you know how I like games.”
Baron snickers behind him, and my body tightens with terror again. They’re all psychotic, worse than snakes, worse than anything I imagined. They’re not my friends, not my protectors. They’ll watch Duke claim me, knowing he loves the game, the attention. They’re all loving it except me. They all want this. They want me to hurt, to scream, to shatter. And they know how to make it happen.
Still holding my hip, Duke moves his hand, and suddenly, an intense vibration buzzes along his cock as he positions the head at the broken entrance Baron used. The relief that he’s not hurting me more than he has to combined with the vibration and the heat of his bare cock against my swollen flesh sends an involuntary throb through me. “Fuck yeah,” Duke moans. “I love a dripping wet pussy, all messy with blood and cum. I wanna eat that cherry pie after I fuck it.”
Horror ripples through me, but I don’t let out a sound as his thick, long cock slides into me. “Oh, god,” he breathes against my neck. “Let me feel you cum, you dirty whore. You like old wrinkly cocks inside your tight little cunt, don’t you? You’ll spread your legs for anyone. There’s no shame in liking a little humiliation.”
I push away his words, focusing instead on the familiar murmur of his voice, like a blanket soothing me. It’s just Duke. Amidst all the horror of the night, this one thing is sure: He’s not hurting me. As his cock glides into me over and over, the vibration of the ring builds the tension inside me, coiling it tighter and tighter. I won’t cum, but I won’t make it worse, either. When he tells me to relax, I let my legs go limp, so my weight rests on his hips with every thrust. Maybe he’s the one who will save me. I know Royal won’t. Baron was even more sadistic than I expected.
But Duke’s different. He’s always rude and drunk and obnoxious, and he talks so much that if you don’t pay attention, you might miss that he never says anything at all. I thought Baron with his analytical exterior and quiet observation was hard to know, but it’s Duke I know least of all. With the tenacity of a dying pit bull, I cling to the hope that somewhere under all the brash and bravado, he has a conscience. Maybe he goes along but doesn’t want to.
I suddenly come back to myself with sharp clarity. This is Duke, yes, but he’s not going to help me any more than the others. Just because he’s not torturing me, he’s still fucking me like it’s as a spectator sport. Duke, who I helped to the car when he was drunk, who held me at the river and kept me warm, is now taking turns with me while I’m tied up in a swamp. He watched his brother gag me and fuck me dry, and he did nothing but laugh and cheer him on and offer him a drink.
And Royal. My heart crumbles at the very thought of him watching this, ordering it like an execution. Royal, who fought so hard to push me away, who I was finally getting to let me in even the littlest bit. Royal did this.
My mind seethes with anger suddenly, but my body responds in a different way. Duke’s hips crush mine to the tree, pinning me like a spread, helpless butterfly, one hand still reaching around to stroke my clit with sure, skillful fingers. His cock throbs inside, bottoming out, as the ring massages my sensitive flesh, sending a ripple of pleasure through me. “Cum for me like you do for him,” he whispers against my ear, his lips tracing the column of my neck. “Let me feel you like he does. Pretend I’m him if it gets you there, baby. I want to feel you cum so bad. I’ll be right there with you.”
I try to hold back, but when he slides his fingers slowly in a circle around my clit and his mouth caresses my ear, it’s too much. My toes curl, shivery tingles running all the way up my legs and curling between them like a kitten. Heat sweeps up my neck and blooms in my cheeks. My hands curl into helpless fists and my lips fall open in wordless fury. My nipples jut painfully against the rough bark of the tree, and my thighs quake as he strains inside me.
I won’t give him the satisfaction. I won’t.
And then, all at once, my sheath begins fluttering helplessly around his cock, and a strangled cry lodges in my throat. It’s not a big climax, but a forced, bitter one that only reaches my body, not my heart. But he feels it, and his body responds. His heat rushes into me, filling me as his cock jerks inside me again and again, spilling with his cum. For a minute afterwards, neither of us move. I can hear water dripping in the swamp, a soft sound of ripples when someone moves, the cars on the highway past the fields. I can feel his warm arms around me, a false sense of protection after what he did. Spasms run through his body, and little pulses flutter inside me, but I can’t tell if it’s him or me.
For a minute, I forgot what this was. For a minute, it was just my body giving me the only thing it could, one moment where I didn’t have to endure the pain of reality. And then he steps away, and the air hits my sweating skin, and shame like nothing I’ve ever felt seizes me, so hard I lose my breath, and I think, in that moment, a bit of my mind. A sob chokes in my throat, but I can’t scream.
What is wrong with me? Did I really want that?
“I did it,” Duke crows. “The slut totally came! Now she can never say she didn’t want it.”
I hear their laughter, cruel and taunting, and my body’s pleasure disappears like I’ve been plunged back in the frigid swamp. The sound of skin slapping skin as they high-five rocks through me as if they slapped my face. Humiliation crashes over me in waves, dousing the heat in my body like cold, grey, used dishwater. I shiver, fighting to pull myself free, to pull my arms and legs in, to cover my body in all its exposure and vulnerability. But there’s no escape, no hiding.
“I’m bored,” Royal drawls, sounding like he is genuinely unaffected by the scene he just witnessed. Like he’s seen it a million times, and it no longer even registers. “Let’s go.”
I squeeze my eyes closed behind the hood and burn at his cold, heartless words. He’s bored of watching his brothers take turns with me.
He’s done, I think, clinging to the sense of relief that thought brings. It’s almost over.
But when I hear his feet sloshing away through the water, my mind cries out with panic. No, no, no. They can’t leave me here. They can’t leave me tied up. No one ever comes out here. I can’t even scream to alert anyone who might work in the fields. I’ll die before I’m found.
“You know, I heard this story about a snake that crawled up inside a girl to keep warm in winter,” Baron says. His fingers brush along my thigh, and I quake with terror. I don’t know which is worse. Being left here to die, or them staying to torture me more.
“Dude, I can’t believe Royal’s leaving us,” Duke says. “The fun was just starting.”
I hear a flicking sound, and a minute later, something sears into my skin on the back of my hip. I yelp in shock at the pain, the sound muffled behind the gag. Duke laughs maniacally. He presses harder, and I can smell the stink of burnt skin even through the hood.
“Let’s drop off Royal and come back,” Baron says, lowering his voice. “He’s done with her. He said to leave her here. No reason we can’t have some fun with her before she dies.”
“Fuck yeah,” Duke crows, pulling away whatever he was burning me with. “Let’s call the guys. We can bring friends. You know Cotton’s always up for a little rape and pillage sesh.”
“Everything they tried to do to our sister, we succeed in doing to them,” Baron says. “It’s the rules. Royal knows that.”
“Colin says she took the whole team as a freshman at Faulkner,” Duke says. “Seems only right she does it at Willow Heights if she’s going to go there.”
“I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere after this.”
I jerk at the ropes, listening to them giggle at their plot as they zip up their bags. And then they’re wading through the water, leaving me tied and gagged in the damp swamp. I cry out, hoping they’ll hear the muffled sounds and take pity on me. I just need them to untie me, so I can get home. I’d do it. I’d walk barefoot along the side of the road, every mile back to Faulkner, as if it’s worth returning to. What does it matter if I have clothes? If someone picks me up and kidnaps me, so what? I’ve endured the worst, and I’m still breathing.
If they hear me, though, they don’t stop. There’s no mercy in these boys for a girl who betrayed their darkest secrets to the enemy.
When they’re gone, there’s silence except for the drone of mosquitos and an occasional splash that makes my heart stop. I dread hearing them return. I dread a night out here alone. It might only get down to fifty degrees, but I’m naked and wet, with only my head covered. Will that be enough to kill me? Would a snake really crawl inside me?
No, that’s ridiculous. I’m panicking. I need to focus on my hands. They’ve always saved me. They’re the only things that can save me now.
I try to work the ropes free, but my right hand is mangled, the bones broken and the swelling so big my fingers feel like clumsy sausages. I work with my left hand, even though it’s numb from being above my head so long. If I get it free, I can free my right hand. The ropes are so tight, though, and I can’t even see what kind of knot they tied. Bending my wrist at an awkward angle, I fumble with it, trying to get my fingers around to the knots that feel like they’ve been soldered together.
Over and over again, I tell myself none of it matters. What they just did doesn’t matter. They don’t matter. Royal doesn’t matter. Mr. D is a faded memory. What I told him, it doesn’t matter, either. All that matters is right here, right now. Freeing myself. Me. My life. I matter. That’s all.
I work until my fingers are raw, my nails torn and bleeding, too stiff from cold and numb from being raised above my shoulders. The burn on my hip throbs with each heartbeat, my hands are a blaze of pain, and between my thighs is raw and torn. It must be the middle of the night by now, and I’m not free. I can’t free myself. The helplessness is the worst of all of it.
I sag against the tree and try to breathe through the wet hood. I want to scream, to pour my fiery rage over the land and leave nothing but a burnt crater of my fury. I am supposed to take care of myself. I’m the one person who does that. And I failed. I fucking failed.
While I rest, I try to think my way out.
No one will come for me. It could take days for Mom to sober up enough to realize I haven’t come home. She’ll assume I’m off with a guy, proving that I’m just like her. It’ll be too late by the time anyone starts looking, if they even do. More likely, they’ll assume I ran away. I’m a poor kid, after all. We do that shit, so why waste resources looking?
No one else would help me even if they could. I have no friends. No father. Not even Mr. D. I cut him off. I pushed everyone away. If I never let them close, they could never leave. I told myself it was enough, that I was enough. And now I’m not, and I will pay for that mistake with my life. My only hope is the enemy, the very people who left me here to die.
I have no one else. Only me. So, I have to try. One more time.
My last fight night, the fight for my life.
I work with my numb hands until I feel blood running down my arms from the ropes. When my fingers lose all feeling, I yank at my arms, growing more and more desperate. I throw myself one way and another, hoping I can saw through my own wrists with the rope. If I had to walk out with no hands, at least I’d be alive. I cry out silently, my voice gone, choking on the gag, my shoulders wrenching until the pain overwhelms me, and I can’t pull at the bonds anymore.
I don’t know how long I’m there. Every truck that roars by on the highway makes me jump, every creak of the trees sends my panic spiraling. Frogs and insects drown out any other sound. When I hear voices again, a horrible relief swells in my chest.
They’re coming back for me.
Whispering drifts across the standing water, and then soft rippling laps at the ground near my feet. I can’t tell where they are. Is it the twins—just the twins? Everything echoes strangely in the watery swamp. A shiver runs up my spine, prickling the hair on the back of my neck. Their last words replay in my mind. When I hear the sloshing coming closer, terror replaces the relief, and the blood in my veins turns to ice crystals.
They’re coming back for me…
*
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