N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(8)

A will to live.

I make a vow to myself. I’m not going to go through the motions of life anymore.

I’m going to live enough for the both of us.

Or die fuckin’ trying.





Chapter Three





KEVIN





ONE YEAR LATER…


I could live the rest of my life without remembering what the fuck happened to me while I was unconscious and being raped or molested, but the shitty thing about the human mind is that it almost never does what you want it to do. In fact, when you purposely beg it to suppress shit, it has a way of telling you to go fuck yourself while randomly showing you flashes of things you never wanted to see. Usually, it’s the most horrible shit at the most inconvenient time.

For example, when you’re fucking a girl.

Or, at least, when you’re trying to fuck a girl.

Sex, of all motherfucking things, seems to be the one and only trigger for these memories to come charging through my brain. Every time I’m about to come, it fires off round after round of unwanted memory bullets into my fucking skull.

Which is what it’s doing right now.

I’m with a girl. She’s a few years older than me and pretty enough. Her hips are curvy, and her tits are full and bouncy as she breathes deeply with desire and anticipation.

She spreads her legs, opening herself to let me in. I sit back on my legs and freeze as my chest begins to tighten. Hard as concrete, I stare at her pussy, both wanting to be inside, and despising what I know will come when I do.

She looks up at me and smiles, mistaking my hesitation for nerves. She reaches for my cock and pulls me by my dick. I fall on my forearms and hover above her. She strokes my shaft up and down. My body becomes impossibly hot. Not with desire. With fear. Sweat.

Repulsion.

I’m dizzy and trembling, but I want this.

Get a fucking grip, Kevin.

“Fuck me,” she whispers, and I cringe as the tip of my cock slips over the entrance to her soaked pussy. It feels good. So good, but it hurts all the same. My chest. My muscles. I’m locked in a war between body and mind, and all I want to do is stick a fucking knife through my ear. She groans with exaggerated pleasure. “Your cock is so huge.”

Yeah, blessed with a huge cock and the inability to come without vomiting after. The universe’s idea of a sick fucking joke.

Her words are meant as a seduction, but they feel like anything but. My stomach rolls, and I turn my face to the side, shutting my eyes as hard as I can while swallowing down the bile rising in my throat.

You can do this, I tell myself. Don’t be a pussy. Just fucking do it. It’s normal. YOU are normal. Snap the fuck out of it. Push all thoughts out. Don’t let them in. Don’t let them…

Too late.

The resounding answer from the universe is an assault of the many different voices from my past.

“Just do what I want, and I won’t hurt you. He just likes to watch,” a scratchy feminine voice warns.

“I’ll pay you. Let me watch as you make yourself come,” a man’s eager voice snakes into my ears.

“See, you came. I told you I’d make you feel good,” a deep baritone booms while I heave onto the carpet.

“See? He’s out. We can do whatever the fuck we want. Take off his pants.”

“Don’t clench up, boy. Or do. I like it when your asshole puckers. Makes it so tight for me,” a man’s deep voice rumbles in my ear from behind as he surges inside of me.

That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had enough. Of the memories. Of this. Of everything.

The heat of the night air through the window does nothing to cool my hot body.

And then, out of nowhere, I remember Poe and her sad eyes, and falling, falling, falling.

Apparently, the horrible memories aren’t limited to sex.

My throat dries, and I feel as if I’m choking on sand. I can’t catch my fucking breath.

I leap off the bed and tug on my pants. I didn’t even come before I freaked out this time.

This is a new low, even for me.

“Where are you going?” she asks, but I don’t answer. I can’t.

It isn’t until I’m in the courtyard of the shitty apartment I share with Pike that I rest my hands on my knees and can finally take a much-needed deep breath, the humidity opening my lungs until I’m calm enough to think straight.

“You okay?” Pike asks, stepping out into the courtyard. When the cops viewed the surveillance video and cleared me of any wrongdoing that night on the bridge, I was on my way out of the station just as they were dragging Pike in on some small narcotics charge. I’ve been crashing with him here in Logan’s Beach ever since he made bail.

“I’m fine,” I answer, pushing off my knees to stand. I fish my smokes from the back pocket of my jeans.

“What did you do to piss off that girl?” he asks, with a smile. “She didn’t seem happy.”

“The usual, I guess,” I answer, trying to play it off with a shrug.

My phone buzzes.

It’s a text from Fred.

Fred and Meryl are the closest thing I have to friends, besides Pike. Meryl is a grey-haired, proper-sounding, southern man who does something involving politics down in Miami. His boyfriend, Fred, who is at least a decade younger, does…well, Meryl.