Page 51 of Mimic

I washed off the sweat from my workout and the cum from my skin, all the while chastising myself for being disappointed that I no longer smelled like him.

When my shower was done, I looked at my clothes. Peering at the reflection in the mirror, I asked myself,‘Why are you waiting for him? You’ve been getting yourself off for years now.’

I had been getting myself off. I enjoyed sex. Maybe I shouldn’t, because of the way I was introduced to it, but it had been years since I escaped the Trick Pony, and if the way mybody responded to Mimic was any indication, I didn’t have any lasting effects from my childhood.

Except maybe I had more kinks than the average woman did. But kinks weren’t bad. Sex between two consenting adults wasn’t dirty or wrong, regardless of how they wanted to make it happen.

Okay, so maybe wanting to be taken without consent was a symptom of my fucked-up mind. Maybe getting aroused by Mimic’s aggression and lack of asking for consent was a lingering response to the way I was raised.

But if I was okay with not giving consent, wasn’t that consent in itself? From the moment he put his hand on my throat and pushed me against the wall, I knew what would happen. I wanted it to happen. I just didn’t say the words out loud.

I couldn’t.

Saying them out loud felt like I would be admitting that maybe I enjoyed what was done to me as a child. I bit my lip, and I thought about that. Maybe I should talk to Haizley. But if I talked to her, told her everything that had happened to me, would she tell the club?

I knew she was bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, but did I trust her enough to risk it? I wasn’t sure I could.

My secrets were bad. They weren’t just the things nightmares were made of; they were literally nightmares I had lived through. Things that go bump in the night didn’t scare me. I had lived a lifetime with bumps.

It was the light that terrified me.

Darkness hid everything. The light exposed your secrets, your fears. It allowed people to see the real you, and I wasn’t sure the real me was worth sharing.

I much preferred the me people had come to love. The me I’d made. The one I created to live in the world outside of the Trick Pony, where life could be disguised as a fairy tale.

Where no one knew what was hiding in the darkness. Where no one heard the bumps in the night. No, the real me needed to stay hidden. Her job was to keep the secrets secure under lock and key.

I pulled on my clothes. Any desire that had still been running through my body was gone. Doused in the flames of reality.

A reality I didn’t understand. One I wanted to be a part of, even enjoyed. But was it real life? Was I equipped to live in this world? Until now, I thought that I was. I hadn’t met anyone who ignited the desire that Mimic did. But could I love someone who was so selfish?

Was he even offering love? Tiffany and Jade said he wanted to claim me. He told me I was his, the moment we entered his room. But what did being his mean? That he got to take what he wanted from me, giving me nothing in return?

I’d had enough of that shit my whole life. That wasn’t a world I wanted to live in.

Chapter Nineteen

Mimic

“Beg me.”

“NO!” I shouted.

My arm was pulled behind my back. Dakota wrenched it higher when I defied him.

“Beg me for mercy.”

“I’ll die before I beg you for anything, you sick son of a bitch.”

He wrenched my arm even higher, and I felt the pop of my shoulder as it dislocated from the socket again. An involuntary groan slipped from my chest at the pain. I wouldn’t scream for him.

Not anymore.

Every day, the ‘training’ got worse. My body had experienced things beyond what a body should. Over the past five years, I’d had more broken bones than I could count. I’d had multiple concussions and so many stitches I should look like a handmade quilt.

But there was nothing more he could do to me that would make me scream for him. He got off on my screams. My fears.

Dakota released me, and my arm hung limp at my side. “Asshole,” I muttered as I walked to the wall and slammed my shoulder against it. I’d had to learn to do things for myself. When I turned fifteen, George had given me a room.