Sweet Poison *Updated every Friday @ 1PM*

Ten

Sex with Liam had been brief at best, excruciatingly painful at worst. I felt like I could almost still call myself a virgin for how long he was inside me; I brushed my teeth before bed longer than his sex lasted. It was overwhelmingly underwhelming, borderline stressful. I had agreed to go with him to his apartment intending to use him as much as he had intended to use me. He got what he needed. I got paid off.

It wasn't lust that had me considering letting Liam take me back to his abode in the sky. Part of the reason why I was on the edge as the thick summer air hit us was my ego. Not the self-importance ego. The psyche kind of ego. The wounded child still alive inside of me.

Before I let him take me home I'd been avoiding boys and sex. Completely. No touching. No kissing. Nothing. I hated when that swelling feeling started deep in my gut, cursed those tingles when they got so strong my hand wanted to slip between my legs, fought against my body when my pelvis wanted to grind into the lump in the covers. I'd been running since I knew what my body was capable of feeling.
One time Gisele got drunk off of vintage vino and touched me too. I was fourteen. The first and only orgasm I'd ever had happened this one time Gisele stuck her fingers inside me. Ever since that moment I'd felt like I was forced to fight an unfair fight. I was corrupted. And exhausted three years of battles later. I just wanted to face the phantoms of my past. I wanted to go there again and prove to myself that I wasn't as fucked up as my house parents thought I was. I didn't have PTSD. I didn't belong in Level Two. As if.

There was also some logic to it too. I had to give Liam a do-over. Even if the sex was a repeat of the last time, over in a flash, at the least he could put me in another cab. I was on my own. I had to be smart.

Liam didn't take me to his apartment right away. He refused to get up from the table before me, then took my side, the one closest to traffic, and walked the almost empty streets in that secluded part of the neighborhood. The first few blocks we were quiet. Then he pulled out a crinkled pack of Marlboros from one of his back pockets and showed it to me.

"Do you mind?"

I looked up at him. "Don't they just cancel each other out?"

"What's that?"

"Nicotine after the caffeine."

"I need it to take some of the edge off. If I don't I'll be too wired."

"So why drink strong coffee?"

"Been doing it for so long."

I told him didn't mind. He took out his lighter and lit it up. I watched him take a slow drag from the cigarette and let it out the side of his mouth all without compromising the pace of his strut beside me.

"The wife doesn't even sleep in the bed with me anymore."

I didn't expect that. His honesty. His randomness. I didn't love him bringing her up; the less he mentioned her the more I could pretend she didn't exist. Another part of me was ignited though. The curious part of me was interested in knowing more, more, more, everything I could about her and their marriage.

"Where does she sleep?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Mostly in hotel rooms."

"Because she travels so much for work, right?"

He inhaled and shook his head. "Sometimes she rents one for a couple nights after we have a fight. She claims it's so I have time to cool off. Bullshit."

He sounded angry. Not at me, at his situation. It was a little awkward, a little uncomfortable for a few paces. But it was something about the way we walked together. There was a rhythm, a beat. Our soles touched the concrete in synchronization that seemed choreographed.