Read Online Learning to Drown by Sommer Marsden - Free Book Online Page B

he said.
    “Yes.” I thought he meant sex. I
thought he meant fucking. Instead he meant the truck. And he tossed me in the
back when all I really wanted was to be back on my knees, his cock in my mouth.
I cried, waited. But the truck didn’t start.
    It was so dark in the box. I panicked.
I really couldn’t help it. I tried to suppress the anxious part of my nature
when it reared up. I always tried to remember to breathe and stay in control.
Even when I was scared. This time I wasn’t successful.
    Where had he gone? Why had he left me
that way? I kicked out and my feet went further than expected. But something
held me tangled in the dark like a fly in a spider web. I struggled, my hands
flying out into the pitch black. But then the stopped dead in the act of
reaching. I was tethered. 
    In the blackest parts of the darkness,
something snorted. Something looming and possibly malicious. I sobbed before I
could stop myself. Tugged against something I couldn’t see. I swallowed a
scream but some of it still managed to escape between my lips.
    Was I still in the box?  Shouldn’t I
be? Hadn’t the man put me in the tool box? I searched with blind eyes for any
sign of my surroundings. Any sliver of light I could find. I found none. The
thing in the dark snorted again. A wheezing sound. A click of maybe a nail or a
talon on something hard. I curled into a ball, squeezed my eyes shut. Surely
this was the world’s worst nightmare.
    I was never in the box long. I would
wait. I would not panic.
    Snort went the monster. My heart pounded. I
held my breath. I would just wait…
    Somewhere a siren sounded. Loud and
long, a plaintive, nerve wracking sound . Were they coming for me? To get me or
save me?
    The siren kicked up. Doubled. Trebled.
More than one unit? Or a police car, fire truck and ambulance? The trifecta
from hell of emergency vehicles. What was that sound? Where was I? My anxiety
climbed higher in my throat. My ears roared with white noise. The dark, a
crushed velvet presence. The slobbering beast crouched, unseen but so close.
Waiting.
    A terrifying thought occurred to me.
Maybe I couldn’t see because I’d gone blind. Was I now blind? Tied up, blind,
hidden from the world with the snorting, growling thing?
    That’s when I finally screamed.
    * * * *
    Lights blinded me and I shouted
louder. Slowly it started to come back to me - where I was. I
remembered that the snuffling, grunting thing was Daisy. The ties that
bound me to the bed were why I couldn’t move.
    I cracked. Fuck stoic and strong. I
tilted back my head and simply sobbed. Every dark and secret thing I’d held in
for so long welled up and out of me. I cried from relief that I was safe.
Grateful that the sounds had only been a dog , that Lucas had come to me
when I called. He sat on the bead, my head in his lap. He watched me cry. A
quiet but copious flood that I couldn’t get to stop. “You okay?”
    I nodded and turned to my side,
remembering that I was in nothing but the panties and bra. The blankets tangled
around me revealing a nearly bare breast here, a hipbone there. The mole on the
top of my thigh. The scar on my ribcage. I was thoroughly exposed to him. I
felt more naked in the trunk ensemble than when I was truly bare. “Bad dream?”
he asked, stroking the top of my hand.
    I swallowed, finding a rough but
watery bit of my voice. “Yes, very bad. Kind of. It’s hard to explain. It
didn’t feel like a dream at all. More like a twilight sleep. I forgot where I
was. I’m sorry, really sorry, I was half asleep and I could hear the dog.” I
twisted to face Daisy and she promptly bared her teeth in a humorless grin.
“And then sirens. I dreamt I was in the box and with my hands tied I didn’t
know if they were coming to get me or save me. If I was good or bad. And you
were Damien. Or really, Damien was you…” I petered off. My tongue a traitor who
refused to explain my actions.
    He put his finger over my lips and I
stopped. I expected him