Chapter Seventy-Nine

Havermouth, Five Years Before

Rhett turned up the music, blocking out any opportunity to talk further, and Aislen sighed, looking out the window, fighting back tears, a sense of shame tight in her chest. It was no different to going to the motel with Toby, she told herself. She was becoming the whore that everyone thought that she was, accepting the role, and compromising her pride to become it, because no matter how degrading it was, she wanted to be with the Triquetra.

She could not explain why she wanted to be with them so badly, just that not being with them left her feeling lost and hollow. It was worse not being with them, than being with them, no matter how awful they were to her. Was it love? She turned and looked at Rhett. Her heart ached in misery. Perhaps that was how love felt.

Music and books described love as suffering and wanting to sacrifice all to be with the beloved, so maybe it was love.

Despite her gift, despite all the glimpses she had into other’s thoughts, she’d never experienced romantic love vicariously, or, at least not in a way that she recognized as being love. She’d experienced it from children to their parents – children liked to touch and had no compunction about holding stranger’s hands just because they were there. She’d also experienced it between parent and child when she’d been invited to admire the new baby of one of her mother’s friends. That feeling was warm, light, and bright.

She’d experienced lust and lustful longing – with frequency, as they seemed to be the major preoccupation of high school students. However, none of these feelings were what she thought love should be. Perhaps love wasn’t a single feeling, but a combination of many, and this pain was just one facet of it, she decided, in which case, a person was meant to suffer for love… weren’t they?

She felt a tear slip free and turned her face away as Rhett glanced at her.

As he pulled up next to Cameron’s Ute and Heath’s sedan, she could see the two of them swimming in the river. Rhett turned off the engine and got out, closing the door with a dull thud that shook the car. Aislen watched as he undressed and made his way down the bank.

She stayed in the car, covering her face with her hands, and wept.

She couldn’t get out. Despite making the decision to go with Rhett, getting out of the car was beyond her. She wanted to not be there with a sudden desperation. She didn’t want to leave, because doing so would mean the end of her time with the Triquetra, but she wanted not to be there, in that moment, about to face the consequences of her choices, up to that point. She wanted to return to that morning, to her bed. She wanted to return to the escape of peaceful sleep.

She didn’t want to get out of the car and face whatever the Triquetra would say or do next.

The car door opened, and Rhett stood there, rubbing a towel through his wet hair. “It’s time,” he said, with an odd formality. “You know what to do.”

She slid out of the car and stood, sucking in wet sobs, shaking with her grief. She could see Cameron and Heath on the balcony, heading into the house. When Rhett closed the car door and walked away, she followed, dragging her heels like a petulant child.

He did not look back to see whether she followed, and the distance between them grew until he disappeared into the house. She wiped her face on her sleeves as she trailed him down the hallway, past the mouldering rooms, towards the one bedroom that was still habitable.

The Triquetra wore jeans, but nothing else, and Heath held his belt in his hand. They stood in a row with their faces solemn. The water that still clung to them, darkening the blonde of Heath’s hair and sticking Rhett’s to his skin, should have taken the edge off the formality of the arrangement, and yet she still felt as if she had been summoned for judgement and punishment.

“Undress,” Heath said. “And get on your knees.” They waited whilst she pulled off her school uniform and knelt on the wooden floor. “This is how it will be,” his voice was hard and uncompromising. “You do not speak unless spoken to, and when you speak, it is politely. You never answer us back and you do not say no. You will stick to our sides at school, and anywhere that we go together. You will treat us all the same and show no preference between us. You will do what we tell you to do and dress how we tell you to dress. Outside of school hours, you spend with us. Lunch and recess, with us. If you share a class, you sit with us. You do not go off, look at, or talk to other men. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“There will be other rules,” he told her. “But that will be enough to start with. If you break the rules, there will be punishment.” Her eyes flicked to the belt that he held. She had a good idea what was coming, she thought, and felt the tears track down her cheek. “Three lashes from each of us, to give you a taste of what will come, and then sex, during which you will not be allowed to come.”

Because whores weren’t meant to enjoy their work, she told herself, vindictively.

“Bum up and head down, Aislen,” Rhett said, his voice dark.

She was crying again, in earnest, as she took the position, Heath moving around to stand behind her. The crack of the leather as it struck the meat of her arse was loud, and she flinched as much from the sound as from the blow. For a moment, she registered heat, and then it stung. Almost as soon as she experienced the pain, a second blow followed. She cried out on the third, and then pressed her mouth into her hand, determined that she would not do so again.

Heath handed the belt to Rhett. She did not know if he used more force on purpose or if Heath’s blows had sensitized her skin, but Rhett’s stung so much more, and it was all that she could do not to whimper.

“Lift your hips up,” Cameron’s voice was hoarse. “You’re sinking down.”

“Bum up, Aislen,” Rhett snapped the words out and she lifted from her knees, watching as her tears darkened the floorboards.

Cameron aimed lower, and she winced. Perhaps he meant to be considerate, in avoiding where her skin was already reddened by Rhett, but the tops of her thighs where they met her arse were more sensitive, and the hips raised position meant that the blows were close to her cunt.

As the third blow was just fading away into tingles on her skin, Cameron knelt behind her, and took her hips into his hands. His thrust was awkward, her body not giving to him, his cock not fully hard, and he pulled back and adjusted. (Fuck, I don’t want to do this) he thought. “Lube,” he said reaching out a hand.

Rhett handed it to him and Aislen closed her eyes as Cameron applied it to himself and then her. She was not surprised that he needed it, she thought. Neither of them was aroused at all. They were unified in that they both were just enduring, hoping to get it over with.

His thrust pressed against her sore arse, and she pulled away instinctively. (Damn it.) He kept the next stroke shallow, his weight from her. His breath panted out with the effort of the speed he maintained, and it seemed to take a phenomenally long time until he groaned and came.

She did not have to worry about being forbidden from coming – she was closer to vomiting than to orgasm.

Rhett took Cameron’s place, and he pushed her flat into the floor, putting his full weight on her, grinding up against her arse so that, despite herself, she moaned her complaint. He was angry… angry and frightened, and it was the second emotion that impressed itself upon her most, because she did not understand why he was afraid.

“Rhett,” Cameron murmured. “Take it easy.”

“It’s not meant to be fun,” Rhett replied severely. (I’m sick of this. I want her to remember. I want this to end.) After a few minutes, he pulled away, cursing, and without coming. “You’re going to have to finish me,” he said to Cameron. “I can’t get off with her like this.”

“Come here,” Cameron said with sympathy. “It’s rough… but Heath’s right.”

Heath’s hand stroked over her arse as he came to her. “Sit up,” he said to her. She pushed herself up off her hands onto her knees. She saw that Rhett and Cameron embraced on the mattress, with Rhett’s face hidden in the curve of Cameron’s neck as Cameron gripped Rhett’s c-ck, stroking from base to tip.

Heath knelt on the mattress facing them and gestured for her to come to him. She straddled his lap with her back to his chest, and took his cock into her, biting her lip as she felt raw, despite the lube. Heath held her down and cupped her chin, lifting her face.

“Look at them,” he breathed into her ear. “You either want to be a part of this, or you don’t. We gave you a taste of what it would be like without us. You chose to come back. So, if you want this, fuck me like you mean it, get me off, and earn it.” (For fuck sake, please…)

She used her thighs to lift to his tip and drive herself down on him. After a few strokes he began to thrust back, making it easier, and he came quickly, pulling her back into him as he did so and wrapping his arms around her. “Good choice,” he panted against her shoulder. “Lean back.”

She leaned back against him, and his hand slid down to her clit, rubbing against it with rough efficiency until she came, and then he lowered them both down onto their sides. Rhett and Cameron slid forwards so they were all pressed together in a tangle of arms and legs.

Were hate and love meant to be so close together? Aislen wondered, as Rhett reached up and caught her tear on his fingertip.

“Stop crying now,” he whispered. “It’s over. You’re forgiven. Just behave yourself in the future.”

But the tears would not stop, and there was a pain in her chest that was desolate and hopeless. She closed her eyes so she did not have to look at him anymore and, for once, their minds and thoughts did not intrude, wiped out beneath the white noise in her own head.