Hothouse Flower

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DAISY CALLOWAY

Lock. Lock. Lock. Lock. I speed through the room, checking behind the shower curtain in the bathroom, and then I prop a chair underneath that doorknob. When I finish securing the sliding balcony door, I head to the mirror and inspect my breast that keeps throbbing

I lift my sweater up. I’m bleeding. He bit me so hard that my nipple is not only red and raw, but it’s trickling with blood. Why, why do things like this happen to me? He also sucked so hard that a yellowish tint of a bruise forms on the outside of my breast.

I’ll have to cover it with makeup. Hopefully no one will notice tomorrow. Hopefully the clothes are modest, not too revealing or else the designer may be upset.

Good job, Daisy.

My room is quiet. No one talks. No one makes a sound. I am alone. I replace my sweater with a baggy night-shirt, and I climb onto bed, wearing boy-short panties. I don’t want to take Ambien and experience another nightmare. So I lie awake, flinching at the whoosh of wind blowing into the window, as the ceiling creaks, as voices escalate in the hallway. Every little thing snaps my eyes open the moment they drowsily begin to close.

Okay. New plan. I snatch my laptop out of my rucksack, and I lean against the headboard. No, I will not open social media. But maybe…maybe porn will help. Maybe I haven’t tried masturbating enough to find a climax. Surely I can do this right.

And the task is taking my mind off the possibilities of an intruder. That’s the most important thing.

I pop open my computer…but I have no idea where to even begin. I check the clock. 3 a.m. in Paris. 9 a.m. in Princeton, New Jersey. She’ll be up. I find my cell and make a quick call, putting it on speaker so I can search the internet too.

“Hey,” Lily says with a yawn. “How’s Paris…” Her voice softens, and I hear her whisper to someone in the background, “It’s Daisy.” Lo must be with her.

“Paris is pretty. So I have a question.”

“For me?” she says in a little bit of surprise but also excitement. Rose is the knower-of-all-things, so I usually go to her with questions, but Lily is easier to talk to. When she has time to talk to me, that is.

“Yeah,” I say easily. “So what’s a good porn site that won’t crash my computer?”

There’s a long pause over the phone. She hesitates. “I don’t know if…”

“Please.” I hear the desperation in my voice. I glance at the clock, at each entrance to my room, and my heart accelerates. “I won’t tell anyone that you told me.” I think she just doesn’t want me to turn out like her, especially since the media keeps saying I’m a little mini-Lily, with no other proof than dissecting my brief relationships with guys. I am young and more promiscuous than the average eighteen-year-old, but I don’t enjoy sex like Lily. I’ve slept with a lot of guys because I’m trying to figure out how to do it right and to find the right one to do it with.

Now that doesn’t seem as important in my life. Well, it wasn’t until Ryke said we both needed to date more. I honestly just want a good night’s sleep.

“I’ll text it to you,” she whispers a little dramatically. I can imagine her glancing back at Lo and reddening. I instantly smile.

“Thanks. Talk to you later?”

“Yeah. I’ll try to call more, but the time difference…”

“I know, it sucks.”

“Love you, bye,” she tells me quickly before hanging up, probably distracted by Lo’s presence. In only a second, a text pings on my phone.

Kinkyme.net – Lily

I log into the porn site, and I click on the most popular video. It takes a couple seconds to load. The screen is black at first, only heavy breathing, both male and female. I click the “play” button, hoping an image will reveal itself soon because this isn’t doing anything for me.

Finally a picture surfaces.

Oh my God. A girl with silky brown hair is tied to a headboard by her wrists, her head tilted back in pleasure while a guy dominates her from the top.

But it’s not the position that’s freaking me out or the fact that it’s porn.

I know this girl. I know this guy.

It’s Rose and Connor.

Oh my God. Click out. Click out!! I try to press escape and leave these images behind, but it won’t disappear. A popup keeps flashing SUBSCRIBE! I don’t want to subscribe to my sister’s kinky sex videos with her husband!

They never even meant for these to hit the internet, so I highly doubt they’d be comfortable with what’s happening right now. Last year, they were screwed over by a producer who filmed their intimate bedroom sessions without their knowledge and put their videos online. Legal issues ensued, and what it boils down to is this: the videos are here to stay.

And now I have accidentally stumbled upon one of them.

I try not to look at the screen. I shut my eyes, close the computer, open it, and the video is still playing, the breathing is still heavy. I can hear and see everything. I fill in the subscription box, which seems to be the only solution right now.

As I type in a fake name and email address, I catch Connor slipping his fingers beneath Rose’s diamond studded collar. He lifts her head to meet his lips, and she lets out a sharp cry as he keeps thrusting between her legs with rough force. Then she comes. He pulls out to switch positions.

OH MY GOD! I have just seen Connor’s ginormous penis.

I am scarred forever.

Please, someone burn my eyes. I fill out the rest of my info, and I click and click.

It’s gone.

Thank you baby Jesus. It’s disappeared. I let out a breath. As if my world couldn’t be stranger—I have just seen my sister have sex with her husband. And she was tied to a headboard. I will never, ever look at Connor Cobalt the same way again. I think…I think I need rehab for this.

As I collect my sanity, a noise chimes from my laptop—a Skype call. Someone’s calling me?

The Caller Username: RYKE_MEADOWS

Not very creative, but it’s still very Ryke. Mine is flowerchild20, which seems almost obnoxiously colorful compared to his. I wonder if that’s how we are together—mismatched, uneven. Or maybe he’s the ying to my yang. Lame but maybe perfect for us.

The longer I stare at the incoming call, with his name, the more my stomach somersaults. I nearly had sex with another model tonight. I gave him a pretty horrible hand job. Should I really be talking to Ryke after that? It’s not like you’re together. He told you to date another guy. My conscience gives a good argument.

So I click, and before the screen pops up, the guilt replaces with this nervous excitement. He called me. That means he’s thinking about me, right? I try to hide my smile that begins to hurt my cheeks. Stop smiling. Be cool.

I take a deep breath.

A new screen pops up, and my lips slowly fall.

A raspy feminine voice blares through my speakers, “Yes, yes, right there! God, yes. Holy…!” Even in the darkened room, I can distinguish limbs. The girl’s tanned legs are split apart by the edge of the bed, her back curved upward. She clenches Ryke’s hair, his head between her thighs as he kneels on the ground, his body hidden by the bed frame.

He didn’t mean to call me. It was a mistake. She must have hit the laptop with her flailing arms, too overcome with pleasure to notice that she Skyped someone.

In the span of five minutes, I have witnessed three of the closest people in my life having sex. Although, Ryke’s just going down on her…but it’s morning in Philly. This is probably just round two after going at it all night.

The disappointment, the uneasiness and hurt tries to sink my mood.

Before I close the computer, I become distracted by the girl’s build. She looks so much older than me—full breasts, probably close to Ds, defined hips (an hourglass shape) and wavy brown hair. I wish they looked odd together, like an ill-fit match, but they go together better than I do with him. Even though she’s most likely twenty-eight or twenty-nine, he pleases her so easily.

She is practically melting on the bed.

Jealousy assaults me, and my face is frozen in a permanent cringe.

My joints won’t unhinge to close the computer. I am torturing myself watching this, but somewhere in my head, I want to see it, maybe to solidify the fact that I need to move on too. You should have just fucked Ian.

My conscience is mean.

She lets out a pleasured scream as she reaches her climax, gripping the sheets. She must hit the computer again because a text box flickers that says MUTE. I can’t hear anything. She smacks it again. UNMUTE. There we go.

She breathes heavily, coming down from a high that I long for.

“Oh my God,” she says to him with the shake of her head. “That was…”

He lifts his head, and I see him for the first time as he kisses her knee. My insides twist. The look he’s giving her—it’s filled with I want you and you’re beautiful.

If that’s not a sign that he’s moved on, I don’t know what is.