The Heathen
Grampa’s lake house is full on Christmas Eve, so full it’s as if they’re trying to fill the space Eternity left, as if cramming every living relative into the place can erase the fact that she was once here and now she’s not.
Except she is here, even when younger cousins have filled her place at the kids’ table, and I’ve moved to the adult one; even when there is no stocking with her name hung on the mantel with mine. She’s in the echo of kids’ laughter down by the water, the herds of running feet as nieces and nephews and grandkids thunder across the wooden deck Dad added onto the place, now wrapped with strings of Christmas lights.
We used to be those kids, when we were kids.
Dad’s parents are in their nineties, but supposedly they still want everyone to come, the way they did when Dad was a kid on Firefly Lake. Every year, Mom says it might be the last time we’re all together. I know she’s talking about my grandparents passing, and not Eternity, but I felt guilty enough to attend once again.
Though I never met my grandparents on Mom’s side—probably why she makes such a big deal of spending time with the ones I have left—she has a big family. The entire, loud Irish hoard has taken over the place, and Dad’s parents don’t seem to mind. Then again, they don’t mind much these days. Grampa is asleep in his wheelchair, snoring with his head resting on his shoulder, and Gramma is barely cognizant, being followed around by some distant relative of Dad’s to make sure she doesn’t fall or wander into the lake. Mom only invited her siblings and their immediate families, so at least we don’t have to sleep in shifts.
I’m tucked in a corner next to the scraggly tree they cut from the woods near the lake—a Stone family tradition—sipping a whiskey and waiting for church when a text comes in.
ASoullessSaint: we need 2 talk
AHeartlessHeathen: u breaking up w us?
AnAvengingAngel: now???
ASoullessSaint: wya
AHeartlessHeathen: lake house
AnAvengingAngel: home. its xmas eve.
ASoullessSaint: can u get away?
AHeartlessHeathen: yeah bored anyway
ASoullessSaint: Diner 1hr
AHeartlessHeathen: kk
AnAvengingAngel: k
I heave myself up from the chair and head for the door. It’s cold out tonight, and people are talking about a white Christmas like it might actually happen. Charlie and Frankie are sitting on my tailgate, and they give me a little shit about leaving, but not too much. They’re both cool enough to not alert Mom of the fact that I’m taking off. She probably won’t notice for a while, at least, maybe not even until I’m back. She’s busy trying to drown her own losses in the sea of people that remain.
I pull up at the Downtown Diner an hour later, throw the truck into park, and head inside, hand on my piece. The place is owned by the Skull and Crossbones, so it’s our place on our turf, but I’m always on guard. The dirty Disciples aren’t above jumping a guy headed to church on Christmas Eve.
Saint is already there, fingers tapping, knee bouncing, half-empty cup of black coffee in front of him.
“What’s up?” I say, sliding into the booth across from him. I shrug out of my jacket and stuff it down behind me. Saint’s expensive wool peacoat is laid out carefully on the seat beside him with his slick leather gloves because he’s a rich, preppy asshole, but he’s not dressed for church yet.
He downs the rest of his coffee and fills the cup from a carafe on the table before offering it to me.
“How’s my favorite little brother?” Scarlet asks, sidling up and winking as she ruffles my neatly styled hair.
“Your only little brother,” I point out. “And don’t fuck up my ‘do or Mom will kill you.”
“Still my favorite,” she says, pulling a pad from her apron pocket. “What’ll it be? Hot cocoa with the little marshmallows?”
“You know me,” I say. “And keep ‘em coming.”
Saint looks tense, but he doesn’t say anything, just watches the door.
“What’s up?” I ask again. “How’s your break? Your dad still a dick?”
“I got the usual lecture,” he grumbles. He doesn’t have to tell me what it was about. I see the guilt and uneasiness in him, and I know it was the one about how he’s ruining his reputation, compromising his future, by associating with heathens like me and Angel. Saint isn’t a member of the Skulls, but some blood runs deeper than gang affiliation. He’s still our brother, and he always will be. I know that’s what he says to his father when the asshole lights into him about it. I know he defends us, fights for us, even when we’re not around.
At last, Angel comes in. He talks to his mom for a minute, and then she comes to the table with him and my drink. At last, we’re alone, Angel and I sitting across from Saint, waiting.
“I’m going to fuck Mercy.”
“What?” I snap, sure I heard him wrong. “Since when?”
The guy has been insisting she’s his sister since day one—and promising I would get to exact my revenge on her when the time came. She wasn’t his to take.
“Yesterday,” he says.
“I tongue-fucked her again the other day,” Angel admits. “Her pussy’s so fucking juicy. She tasted ready.”
“I’ve barely touched her,” I growl, glaring at Saint. “Because you told me she was your sister, and she was special, and no one was supposed to fuck with her until you said so. But I guess that rule doesn’t apply to Angel, who gets to play with her pussy whenever he feels like it. And apparently it doesn’t apply to you either.”
“I haven’t done it yet,” Saint says. “I went to ask if she wanted to come for Christmas, but the Master caught me going in. He thinks if I fuck her, we’ll be even or some shit.”
“So this is your thing now?” I demand. “You’re just going to fuck everyone’s sister, even your own?”
He flinches, rubbing his thumb against the side of his mug, and I know I shouldn’t have hit him there, but it’s true. He’s no more to blame for what happened than the other guys, or Mercy, or me. But he did fuck my sister. It seems only right that I fuck his.
“Better not even think about my sisters,” Angel says, his voice unusually fierce. Sometimes I forget he’s as dangerous as the rest of us. Usually, he’s such a teddy bear I forget he got his bones before me and most of his family.
“I’m not fucking your sisters,” Saint growls, glowering. “The Master ordered me to fuck M at our next ritual, so I’m going to. I’ll probably fuck her in the ass. I don’t want her pussy. If you do, it’s all yours, but I’d get it sooner rather than later if you want to bother with that shit, because if the Master tells me to take it, I’ll fuck that too. Not that it matters. It’s probably as trash as her ass.”
He drains his coffee, slams down the cup, swipes his coat, and storms out.
“That must have burned the fuck out of his throat,” Angel says, snagging the coffee and pouring himself a cup.
“I can’t believe Master chose him,” I mutter. “She’s supposed to be mine.”
“I can’t believe he’s going to do it,” Angel says. “Though maybe once he stops denying he wants to fuck his sister and gets it over with, he’ll stop being such a dick up our asses.”
“Fuck him,” I snap. “He doesn’t get to have everything and then act like a little bitch about it. He’s been promising I can fuck her first since she showed up.”
“Maybe he needs some dick up his ass,” Angel says. “Know anyone who could do him that favor?”
“Fuck you too,” I say, and I shove my hot cocoa away and stomp out of the diner. I can’t stomach the thought of all that sugar when I’m so pissed my guts are churning with it, a toxic cauldron of anger and resentment and rage. Saint’s already gone when I reach the parking lot, and I’m way too pissed to be with my family right now. Good thing I know exactly where to find the person who deserves to be on the receiving end of my fury.
I shoot Dad a text saying I’ll meet them at midnight mass, and then I hop in the Hilux and head that way. Ten minutes later, I swing open her door.
She sits bolt upright, clutching her blankets to her chin, her eyes wide with terror. Home Alone is playing on her TV, and candles flicker around the room for light. Her room is warm and smells like toast and butter, an inviting scent that draws me through the door. I slam it behind me. Her dorm is empty. No one will hear it.
“Surprised to see me, lamb? ” I ask, tossing an envelope onto her bed.
“What’s that?” Mercy asks, staring at it like it might be a bomb.
“Someone left you a note,” I say. “Why don’t you read it and see what it says?”
“It’s not from you?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Why would I leave you a note when I can come in your room and see you any time I want,” I say, twirling my keychain around my finger. “That’s so much more fun, isn’t it?”
“What are you doing here?” she asks, muting the TV and then gripping her blankets like a shield again.
“You think that’s going to protect you?” I stride over and yank off her blankets. She lets out a little shriek and grabs for them, but I wrench them from her hands and drop them to the floor.
“What are you trying to hide?” I demand. “Were you fingering your cunt to a Christmas movie?”
I spot a threadbare, raggedy brown bear on her bed and stare at it in disbelief. I snatch it up, remembering the way she dragged the dumb thing around like a security blanket when we were kids. She reaches for it, but I hold it away from her.
“Give it back,” she cries.
“Is this the bear Saint gave you when you were like, five?” I snort with laughter. “Fuck, M. You have it bad for your own brother. Were you rubbing this on your pussy and thinking about him wrecking it while you watched a fucking kid’s movie? You’re sick.”
“No,” she protests, holding out a hand. “Now give it back. It’s mine.”
“I don’t blame you, babe, this guy’s pretty sexy,” I say, fending her off with one hand and rubbing the bear against my dick with the other. “I’d fuck him. I might even think about your brother while I did it.”
“Stop it,” she says, twisting to try to grab the bear again. “You’re defiling Raphael.”
That only makes me laugh harder. “ Oh, Saint, stuff me like this bear,” I mock, thrusting against the stuffed animal. “Do you rub his face in your cunt? Is that why he’s so matted? Maybe pretend he’s licking your pussy, rub his little nose on your clit when you cum?”
“You’re sick,” Mercy seethes, launching herself from the bed at me.
Her weight slams into me, and I stumble backwards. The thick tangle of blankets catches my feet, and I crash to the floor with her. I roll over, every muscle in my body tight, coiled to react. I grind my dick between her legs once, hard, and she cries out, her eyes flying wide.
“Heath,” she cries.
“Yeah, baby,” I say, grinning down at her with malicious triumph. “Say my name when my dick is owning you.”
“Please,” she gasps, struggling to free herself. “Let me go.”
“Now where’s the fun in that, little lamb?”
I grind again, this time nice and slow, so she can feel the pierced monstrosity that’s going to be ripping her open. Her pupils dilate, and I realize she wants this. She’s as hot for it as I am.
“You want to run, don’t you?” I ask. “Like you did on HAVOC night. That’s it, isn’t it? You wish I’d caught you that night, that I hadn’t spared you. You wish you’d gotten fucked to within an inch of your life. Admit it, and I’ll let you go.”
“No,” she manages, still scrambling under me.
I reach down, shoving her flannel nightgown up and thrusting my hand between her legs. Her underwear is soaked, and the warmth of the damp fabric makes my cock strain inside my pants. I hook my finger under the strip of cotton and tug it aside, then work my middle finger through her slickness to her opening.
“Wait,” she cries, the sound so fucking hot on her hitching breath that I can’t stop myself. I watch her face as I slowly sink a finger in, forcing it to the last knuckle inside her tight, wet heat. She gasps, her hands clamping onto my shoulders, nails digging in. I curl my finger, and her eyes roll back, her lids fluttering and her mouth dropping open in the silent torment of bliss. Enraptured by the sight, I slowly drag my finger out, then drive it deep again, so hard her body scoots up on the floor. Her back arches, and a helpless cry of pleasure falls from her lips, and I nearly cum in my pants from the sound alone.
I want to hear it again, so I repeat the motion, fucking her with my finger, curling it inside to hit the sweet spot that makes her heels dig in, her hips rock, her breath catch.
“Saint,” she cries, lifting her hips for me.
I yank my hand back, and the next second, my palm smacks across her cheek, bringing her back to reality. I grip her chin, shaking her. “You think Saint wants to fuck your cunt after you’ve passed it around to all his friends?” I demand. “You think he’d make you feel that good? He’s the one who would hurt you, Mercy. He’s the one who would laugh at your tears and make you cry again just to get off on them.”
I’m so pissed I can’t see straight. I jump to my feet, grabbing her bear. I wrench it in both hands, and with a ripping sound that echoes through the room, it tears in two.
There’s one second of brittle silence. I stare at my hands, the mangled body in one, a cottony hole where its head used to be. Mercy’s cry of anguish breaks the stillness, and she snatches the head from my other hand. She scoots away, backing to the side of her bed, staring at me like I just murdered her cat.
“You want Saint?” I demand. “I can be Saint. All I have to do is think of ways to make you cry. How’s this one?” I wrench open my belt, yank my dick out, and stuff it into the bear’s neck.
Mercy lets out a mewling cry, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You like that, huh?” I ask, jerking her bear’s body over my dick. It’s soft inside, like jerking off into a sock. I stumble over to her and fall forward, bracing my free hand on the edge of the bed.
She cowers down, clutching Raphael’s head against her chest and staring up at me, her wide eyes magnified by tears. “Please,” she whispers.
“I can’t hear you,” I sing out, jerking my dick in her face. If I pulled the bear off, I could shove it down her throat, listen to her gag.
“Please,” she says, reaching for my hand, trying to rescue her stuffed animal. The moment her dainty little fingers wrap around my hand, though, the picture is too close to the one I want—Mercy on her knees, both hands wrapped around my dick while she chokes on it. Pressure explodes at the base of my spine, and the next second, it barrels along my shaft. I want to pull the bear off my dick and shoot my load all over Mercy’s face, but Saint would never do that.
I commit to the bit and finish inside the cottony sheath of tattered fur instead.
“Hey, look at that, I am like your brother,” I say, dragging the soggy body off my dick and tossing it aside. “You don’t get me off, and I’d rather fuck anything than you.”
With a sob, Mercy dives after her bear while I pull gooey threads of cotton off my piercing before tucking myself away. I expect Mercy to curl up and cry about it, but she snatches the bear and shoots to her feet, taking off for the door.
Taken by surprise, I don’t react for a second, not until she’s out the door, leaving it swinging behind her.
Oh fuck. She wants me to chase her.
She must. She knows I will, that I’m into that. I barely take the time to buckle my belt before I take off after her.
By the time I step out of her room, she’s already disappearing down the stairs. I pound down the hall, adrenaline surging inside me like it does when I’m behind the wheel at the starting line; like I just did a line of Maverick’s finest, purest cocaine.
I hear the door to the next floor bang open when she exits the stairwell just as I reach it. Too bad. I would have liked to fuck her on the stairs. I reach the second floor and take off at a dead sprint. She’s fast—faster than I expected.
I’m faster.
In the first-floor hallway, I crash into her from behind, and she goes to the ground, falling flat on her belly. I hear the air whoosh from her lungs, rendering her speechless. She can’t even scream when I yank up her nightgown again, yank aside her panties, and bury two fingers deep, deep inside her. I groan at the tightness, the wetness. She’s soaked, her pussy drenching my fingers and gripping them so tight I swear I black out for a second.
I’m still punching my fingers into her sloppy cunt when I regain my wits, the sound echoing through the empty hallway with her choking pleas for mercy.
“I’ll give you something to beg for,” I growl, dragging my fingers out of the tight suck of her cunt. I reach into my boot and yank out my knife, flicking it open.
She shrieks in terror, but before she can even try to roll away, I flip her over and thrust the hilt deep inside her. She shrieks again, arching to get away. I drag the knife out and slam the handle back into her, stabbing her over and over and over in a frenzy, as if I’m fucking her with the blade. She’s screaming and sobbing, and when I look down and see that she’s drenched in blood, I think for a second I blacked out again and turned the knife around. Then I see that my hand is sliced wide open between my finger and thumb, so deep I can see white inside my skin where the tendons show. I didn’t even feel it through the fury and soaring, rapturous joy.
I yank open my belt. Even though I just came, my cock is aching already, so hard it springs free the instant I unzip.
I grab it and shove it between her thighs, groaning when it slicks through my warm blood before notching at her entrance.
“Please,” she sobs. “I’ll do anything you want, Heath. Anything! Just please don’t put it all the way in.”
“Who are you saving it for?” I demand, my fingers wrapping around her throat, my gaze drilling into hers. “If I can’t have you, then tell me who can.”
“I don’t—”
“Then it’s me,” I snap.
“No!” she cries, her words tumbling over each other as she rushes to speak before I can take the innocence she holds so dear. “Saint. If one of you is going to take my virginity, I choose Saint. Please, Heath. You can do it after, just let me choose this one thing. It’s all I’ll ask for. I promise. I’ll do anything you want, as long as you want. I’ll be your slave. Just let me have this one thing. I’m begging you.”
I’m blind with lust. Seeing her pussy painted in my blood is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. But even in that state, I hear what she’s offering.
“Just the tip,” I growl, and I grind my tip in a half inch, then force the thickest part of my crown past her entrance.
“Please!” She writhes in agony, popping her pussy off the pierced tip of my cock.
With a growl, I drag her back, gripping my cock just below the head and forcing it past the tightness of her opening again. She shrieks and bucks, but the slickness of my blood is the lube I need to enter her. With one sharp thrust, my tip is gripped in the snug, hot sheath of her entrance a third time. I pull out and shove back in, fucking her tight opening looser and looser with each shallow thrust, until I can pass into it easily. She’s sobbing and shaking under me, but her entrance sucks greedily at my tip each time it nestles into the squeeze of her bloody, virgin cunt.
My head swims with the image of driving myself to the hilt inside her, watching her writhe like a butterfly pinned to a cloth as she lies there, impaled and ruined, voiceless and breathless with agony.
I grip my cock tighter, barely holding on. My ragged breathing echoes through the hall like the agonized last breaths of a dying man. The Master didn’t give me permission. The thought of being cast from the Hellhounds for this transgression is the sliver of conscience I need to stop me from burying myself balls deep inside her and feeling her clench in waves along my length, crushing my shaft in the death-grip of her resistance.
The image undoes me, though, and I jerk forward, my cock straining for another inch that I won’t give. Gripped inside her battered, swollen, fevered skin, the head of my cock throbs, the vein thickening in my fist as my cum spills into her, filling her entrance. It oozes out around my shaft, white globules mixing with the blood as it drips from her delicate, stretched skin, over my fist, down my balls as they draw up, emptying another round inside her.
For a long, long moment, neither of us move. Her shaky breaths mingle with my labored ones, and I lean down, running the flat of my tongue up her cheek, gathering her tears and tasting them with the greedy delight that Angel gets from eating pussy.
“Am I… Am I still a virgin?” Mercy asks, sounding dazed.
“For about…” I push up from her and check my watch. “Half an hour longer.”
“What?”
“You said you’d do anything I wanted if I didn’t fuck you.”
“But—”
I clamp a hand over her mouth. “Stop trying to get out of your promises. You didn’t add exceptions. Now shut up and obey like a good little lamb.”
I carry her to the church, finding the sanctuary unlocked and quiet, ready for the midnight service.
“No,” she says, starting to struggle. I stride up the center aisle toward the apse, past the holy water, up the steps, and finally deposit her against the railing where we kneel for communion. She pushes off it, but I clamp a hand on the back of her neck, forcing her forward over it.
“Either you hold up your end of the deal, or I fuck you right here and now,” I growl.
When she doesn’t answer, I reach for my belt, and she starts panting out little sobs of terror again. “Okay,” she says. “Please!”
“Good,” I say. “Now stop being such a fucking cock tease. Tonight, the whole church will walk in for midnight mass and find you ass up for all to see, pussy dripping cum and blood, and they’ll know what you are.”
She starts to protest, but I’ve heard enough.
“We had an agreement,” I snap, yanking off my tie and shoving it into her mouth. “You don’t get to back out now. Believe it or not, I’m an honorable man. I held up my end of the deal. Now you can show me you’re not a fucking liar who makes promises you never intend to keep just to get what you want, and you uphold yours. You said you’d do anything if I didn’t fuck you. You’re about to learn what a mistake that was.”
“Mmhn” she yells behind the gag, thrashing to free herself. I loop her necklace over her head to hold the gag in place.
“You didn’t choose me, so I didn’t fuck you,” I say, twisting the chain so it won’t come loose. “You should’ve let me. If you knew the kinds of monsters that are out there, the ones I’ve come face to face with, you’d be begging for a heathen like me to take your virginity. I’d be gentle compared to them. But don’t worry, lamb. If the big bad wolfie Saint wants you, he can eat you all up.”
She goes limp over the railing, her body shaking with sobs.
“I think you’ll find out soon enough that you saved your precious pussy for nothing,” I say as I slide my belt off and wrap it around her and the railing, buckling it around both. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. Your brother doesn’t want you, Mercy. He thinks you’re a pathetic little girl. You disgust him.”
She whimpers softly but doesn’t move.
“It’s far past time you learned a lesson about running your mouth,” I say, yanking her knees wide. “Words have consequences. Now you face the consequences of yours.”
As I speak, I use my knife to cut the nightgown from her body. She revives then, but I hold the knife to her throat to gain her obedience. I tear the ruined garment into strips with my teeth and quickly bind her hands to her knees, spreading them to the furthest rung they’ll reach in the railing. All the while, she makes mewling cries and more angry shouts of protest behind her gag. Even muffled, it’s the sweetest sound. I’m finally getting what I’ve wanted for four fucking years.
Revenge.
Her begging makes me hard all over again, especially knowing it’s fruitless, that she has given away her autonomy, and all her cries in the world will fall on deaf ears. She doesn’t seem to understand that the harder she fights, the sweeter my victory.
I find a sash to cover her eyes, and at last, I step back and survey my handiwork. It’s… A masterpiece. Her glistening cunt is clearly used, dripping with her arousal as well as my release, the skin rippled and stretched, bloody and beautiful. It’s ready to be used again and again, by every man in the congregation if he wants it. Still, it’s missing something.
I look down at the blood dripping off my hand onto the floor, and I have an idea. Stepping forward, I write two words in blood in big letters, one on each thigh.
“FREE” on one.
“USE” on the other.
Then I turn and walk out, leaving her blindfolded and gagged, bent over the railing with her wrecked pussy and bare ass exposed, naked and open, ready to be fucked raw by anyone who wants her. My revenge is complete. She won’t show her face again on campus after this. She’ll have to leave, and I’ll never have to see her again.
Once, she put me in a situation where I didn’t have a choice in what happened to me. Now she knows what it feels like. This time, she doesn’t get to choose.