Jeremiah Quick Read Online Free Page A

bucking beneath him, fighting
to get free, but he only laughed and bit my ear, the same ear as
before, biting down, tugging at it with his teeth. I felt the
threat, that he would tear it right off.
    I made myself be still.
    When he started sawing in and out of me,
pushing in, pulling back, I couldn't stop the screams.
    His hand settled over my mouth, muffling me,
stifling, and I could smell myself, my ass, on his fingers, and I
stopped screaming long enough to gag.
    He let out a loud grunt and shoved into me
with a particularly vicious jab, then apparently he was done. He
slapped my ass as he pushed himself out of the truck bed, leaving
me lying there, gasping, my pants and underwear still around my
knees.
    "You know, Jer," he said, peering at me over
the side of the truck box. "Your dad's abusive. Somebody could call
that in, you know? Send you to a foster home. Or maybe a relative's
house."
    I struggled up to my knees and tugged my
jeans up, then stared at him, lifting my hand to my ear, flicking
my eyes to my fingers to see them sticky with blood.
    I stared at the blood. Touched my ear
again.
    Message received, and very, very clear.
    "No," I said. I meant to say it loud, maybe
even yell, but all that happened was my lips formed the word, and
no sound came out at all.
    He laughed.
    My old man came through the side door then,
with a plate of sandwiches.
    I almost threw up. He'd gone off to make
lunch while I was raped.
    "Come on, Jeremiah," my dad said. "Quit
fucking around and have a sandwich."
    I wiped my hand on my jeans. He hardly
looked at me. If he saw the blood from my ear, he pretended he
didn't.
    Had I noticed before that my old man was
subservient to his older brother? I'd have to think about it, but
later.
    My ass hurt so badly I almost cried climbing
out of the truck bed. All I wanted was to be away from them, to
wash him off of me, out of me, maybe go to sleep.
    It was a day or two later my father
mentioned my uncle would be coming around more, helping me fix up
the Ranchero. "Lucky for you," he said. "He's better with cars than
I am."
    It was all I could do not to vomit.
     
    She.
    She has her head buried in her arms, leaning
on the table, shoulders shaking with sobs, but silent.
    She's crying, and it's pointless, but still
adorable.
    I stretch forward and press my fingers into
her hair, stroking, gentle.
    "Are you crying for me?" I ask, lowering my
mouth to her ear.
    She startles, but just a little.
    "Yes," she says, voice muffled into her
sleeve. "And I'm crying because all I ever offered you was a candy
bar."
    "Ahh, but it was so much more than anyone
else offered, ever. And perhaps it was all you had."
    What else could she have given me, that I
would have accepted? Probably nothing, this shiny, stupid rich
girl, this bright penny.
    She raises her chin then, pushing her head
harder against my fingers, and now I tangle both hands into her
hair, holding on, clinging. And I press my cheek beside hers, just
for a second, before tilting my head and licking her tears away.
But it's not enough, and so I turn her head toward me, using my
hands in her hair to steer, and lick her eyes, one at a time. "Cry
for me," I say. "Feed me your tears."
    And she does, shuddering in my grasp. I
catch her tears on my tongue as she produces them, and it gives me
a happy shiver, a tingle in my scalp that works its way down,
catching in the hardness of my groin for a long minute before
tumbling all the way to my toes.
    God. I could almost eat her alive.
    I decide right then and there I will take
all her tears. I'd run out of my own, long before I ever met her,
but she’ll give me hers, and perhaps someday I'll learn how to cry
again. And maybe, then, my losses will hurt less. Maybe I'll
heal.
    I pull her from the chair, mostly by her
hair, and she stands before me, looking at me, and she doesn’t look
scared or angry or freaked out, just… curious.
    I undress her slowly, like a package wrapped
in fine paper, and she lets me, making