We Were Never Here(7)

But as it was, on the knotted thread I followed that night, Sebastian and I left. As we were heading out, a camera’s light flashed the world away, and when we blinked through it I couldn’t tell who’d taken the shot—one we’d unintentionally photobombed in the little bar. I think about that picture sometimes, too, how someone has it likely locked away in the Cloud, unaware it’s of a missing person in his final public moments. It could be very, very bad if the right person came across it—connected the dots, turned it over to South African authorities. Who knows what else is unwittingly documented in people’s phones and hard drives and dusty photo albums, background noise that would swell with meaning to a different audience?

    Sebastian and I walked together through the mosquito-choked air, hand in hand, and his palm slipped down to squeeze my ass as we got to the hotel’s front door. The on-duty employee was asleep on a lobby sofa, and Sebastian’s thumb stroked mine as we waited to be let in. Heat building in my groin, a sexy full-body kiss as soon as we were shut into the room.

The making out was hot at first: I discovered he liked to mix pleasure with pain, catching my lower lip in his teeth, raking my hair back with a sharp tug. Not my thing, but it was a turn-on to feel a bit like prey, so desirable he could barely contain his animalistic urges. And I’d had enough sex education over the years—quizzes in magazines and wine-fueled talks with friends—to know that the way to Blow His Mind, to Be His Best Ever, is to show that you’re into it and read his nonverbal cues. So I gave his blond hair a yank. Turned a neck kiss into a bite. Ran my fingertips over his bare back and abruptly curled my fingers, ten tiny scratches, and smiled against his lips when he moaned with pleasure.

But then—something changed.

And that’s where my brain wants to haze out, switch to another channel. Stop. Stop. Stop.

The sensation of his mouth on my nipple tipped into pain. I gasped and pushed at his cheek, and he moved to kiss me again. Then his fist closed around my hair and tugged so hard tears pricked my eyes. I was surprised and dim, “Hey, not so rough.”

He smiled again, his movements still smooth. “C’mon, we’re just having fun.” His teeth found my earlobe, bit down until I yelped.

I sat up against the headboard. “You’re hurting me.”

“You’re so fucking sexy.”

“I’m serious.” I swatted his hand away from my breast.

He moved as quickly as a Venus flytrap, snatching my wrist in his palm. “You’re going to make me work for it, huh?”

“We’re done.” I clambered off the bed. “I think you should go.”

    His eyes hardened. “You’ve been leading me on all night.”

A tear snaked from my eye, but I kept glaring, kept acting tough. “You need to leave.”

But then he reared back and slapped me. “Or maybe this is how you like it?” Shock crystallized on my cheek, the pain like the peal of a bell.

An icy plunge as lust turned to fear, survival mode, fight or flight. I pushed him away, blindly, desperately, and my hand caught his jaw—an accidental punch. Nostrils flaring, he shoved me against the wall by my throat—thwock, a clang against my skull—and my fingers flew to his knuckles, trying to peel his palm back from my neck. His other hand reached down and yanked my underwear to the top of my thighs. I felt an odd pulse of shame, like the moment in a dream when you realize you’re naked.

His hammy fist encircled my wrists and jammed them against the wall over my head—like I was a witch tied to a pyre. I remember this moment in impressions: his hips pinning mine against the wall, his dick pushing up against his shorts. The smile on his sweaty face, the cruelty in his eyes as I started to scream. His free hand lifting in slow motion, then flying up against my mouth. The back of my head slammed into the wall again, harder this time—the same sharp crack from that time with Ben, eight years earlier—and I saw a flash of fuzzy white.

He paused then, and I stopped struggling. Scuba diving—that’s where my mind went, zooming off as if underwater. Kristen had wanted to try it in Vietnam years earlier, and I’d said no because I’d read once that divers die not from running out of oxygen, but from disorientation—they panic and remove whatever’s in front of their nose and mouth. That’s what I thought of as Sebastian concentrated all his weight into my jaw: something in front of my mouth, something I desperately wanted to rip away, but I knew I was screwed either way.

He’s going to kill me.

“Emily!”

    We both froze. He turned to look at the door, and though I couldn’t turn my head, I felt the pressure ease. Anger surged as I parted my lips and bit down on a knob of calloused flesh, harder and harder until the tang of iron hit my tongue.

“Fucking bitch!” He released my wrists and stepped back, clutching his bleeding palm. The lace of my underwear cut into my thigh as I brought my knee up, and I surmised from his groan that I’d hit my target. He grabbed his crotch and fell onto me.

A clanging sound and his body moved again, and I scrambled out from under him. Kristen stood above us, chest heaving, teeth bared, a real-life Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was clutching a heavy standing lamp like a bat, and as I scooted back on my butt she swung it again, and with a sickening thunk it connected with Sebastian’s back. He collapsed to the ground, his head thudding against the floor an inch from a leg of the metal bed frame.