“About an hour ago, I guess. If it hasn’t kicked in yet, it’s probably not going to.” Jared’s still laughing. He’s having fun.
I would like to have some more fun, too. “Let’s play pong, Jimmy. No more war. I want to have fun!”
“No time, babe.” He bends down, and then the room tumbles upside down.
Maybe I fell again. Like that one time at band camp.
“Make a hole!” Jimbo yells.
A path through feet magically opens up until I’m spun around, and the feet close in again in front of me, except I’m moving backward and then up the stairs.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Jimmy chants as he runs.
Oh, I get it. He threw me over his shoulder. We’re running up to the third floor. The hallway tumbles right side up, and Jimmy pushes the bathroom door open.
“Get in there and just take off all your clothes. I’ll be back with supplies as soon as I can.”
He shoves me into the room then slams the door in my face.
I don’t get a chance to tell him I don’t want to compete over orgasms. I don’t want to compete at all anymore.
Chapter Fifteen
I thought hell was opening my eyes on the field to find Jimmy holding his hand out to me. I thought embarrassment was thinking everyone in the basement knew I’d had an orgasm just from dancing with him.
I was wrong.
I was so, so wrong.
Hell is my intestines liquefying then being expelled with G-forces that shouldn’t be possible through a flaming duct of razor blades that used to be my asshole.
I once thought I might like to try anal play with the right person. Nothing will ever go near my asshole again. Nothing might ever go in my mouth again either. Because I might not live through this, and if I do, I’m drinking nothing but water for the rest of my sad, humiliated life.
“How are you holding up in there?”
I’m too weak to even glare at the bathroom door that Jimmy’s voice carries through.
“Why are you still out there? Go away.”
God, the fan doesn’t even work in here. Not only does it smell like an actual sewer, but he must also be able to hear every horrifying retch of my entire digestive system collapsing into the toilet.
I’ve flushed no less than fifty times.
“I told you, I’m not leaving you.”
“Please leave, Jim,” I whisper through tears of absolute agony. “Please leave me. Forever.”
“Please let me come in there,” he begs.
“If you open that door,” I scream loud enough that, surely, everyone all the way down in the basement hears me, “I swear to God, it will be the last thing you ever do!”
“I don’t want you to pass out and hit your head on anything,” he pleads. “Just promise you’ll tell me if you feel faint or if you have heart palpitations or anything really dangerous. If you’re too weak to get up, let me help you. You’re probably dehydrated. If you want to clean up, I can put you in the shower.”
I absolutely want to clean up.
My act.
I sobered up pretty quickly after the first half hour of the explosive fecal horror show. And I am firmer than ever in my belief that this is all my fault. I did this to myself. I should never have tried to play dirty to win this drum major competition. When I heard Jimmy’s plan, I should have done exactly what Shannon suggested. I should have notified the directors about improper behavior.
I can’t even say I didn’t go that route because I didn’t want to be a snitch.
I just didn’t want to say no to Jimmy’s waving red flag.
I’m saying no from now on.
“Soph? Just make some noise every few minutes, so I know you’re still alive, okay?”
No.
“Sophie, honey? I’m coming in there if you don’t let me know you’re okay.”
Well, I definitely don’t want that. “No.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No.”
“Are you drinking the electrolytes I brought you?”
“No.”
“Do you need more baby wipes?”
“No.”
“More air freshener?”
“No.”
“Don’t forget to use the ointment. It really helps.”
“No.” It actually does help. A little.
“I can’t believe you,” another voice comes through the door. Shannon.
“It wasn’t for her, I swear!”
So, they’re having a conversation about me. Where I can hear them. While it sounds and smells like a giraffe is dying in here. Great.
I might just sleep in the bathtub tonight. I might never open that door again. Eventually, my entire body is going to disintegrate anyway. They can just rinse me down the drain.
“I meant, I can’t believe you were stupid enough to hand Jared a drink that you’d just magnanimously made for him in a special cup, no less, and actually expected him to fall for it! You’re so much better than that!”
No, he’s not. He’s not better than anything.
“I know, all right! I just … I was pissed about the shit he’d pulled at camp. Then, he came into our house and pulled the same shit again tonight, and I snapped!”
Every time he says shit, my poor, abused asshole spasms.
“Even if he didn’t drink it himself, how was I supposed to know he was going to give it to Sophie?”
“Because you know damn well he likes to hit you where it hurts.”
They continue their argument that fades away as I repeatedly doze off. Still sitting on the toilet.
A thud wakes me up.
“Sophie?”
It takes me a few seconds to realize where I am. Still in the bathroom, curled up on the floor in the fetal position I wanted so desperately to be in when I first arrived at this house of mayhem.
“I haven’t heard you in a while.” Jimmy’s voice sounds different. Gravelly. Like he just woke up, too. “Give me a sign of life, or I’m coming in there.”
“Please don’t,” I croak, barely audible. My tongue weighs a thousand pounds. So do my limbs.
I’ve been wrung out within an inch of my life, but my stomach isn’t quivering with revolt anymore. The bathroom doesn’t smell like the deepest pit of a garbage dump, but I might just be so used to it that I’ll never notice a sweet fragrance ever again.
The door creaks open, but I can’t even cringe.
“I think it’s over, honey. Everyone’s gone. It’s been hours.”
I lick my lips, but it doesn’t matter. Every part of me feels as cracked and dry as a raisin left too long in the sun. “What time is it?”
“Four a.m.”
I breathe for a few minutes in peaceful silence, acutely aware even that small movement hurts more than my muscles did after the weight-lifting contest.
Jimmy creeps in the door, crawling on his hands and knees until he’s sitting at my side. He brushes some of my sweat-caked hair away from my face. “I’m so sorry, Soph. I never meant for this to happen.”
“I don’t care.” And in this moment, I truly don’t.
Jimmy could tell me he hates me, he loves me, he’s sorry for everything he’s ever done, he’s going to do whatever it takes to get head drum major, and I just … wouldn’t care.