The Morning After

Pitch Black Bedroom Scene (Prologue)

    I knew what it was.
    I told myself this over and over, my eyes pressed closed, insides wrought with anxiety. I knew that the boy sharing my bed was nothing more than that: a boy. I knew that this was nothing to him, I was nothing to him. I didn't blame him for that, because again, I knew what it was. I knew what I was getting myself into, or so I said.
I knew when I met him, it was impossible not to. He was older, more confident, all knowing, or at least seemingly so. He was a cliche, offering solace to me through drugs and tired secrets.  He let me to talk to him, in the way that is so reminiscent of temporary relationships, too much and too little all at the same time, listening to my every word, as if it were at all meaningful. I knew this play, this game.
    I knew what it was when he grabbed me, his lips roughly tangling with mine. I knew what it was when he led me by hand to a bedroom that belonged to neither of us, pulling me with him to a mattress devoid of a sheet.
    We didn't have sex.
    A breathless whisper drew the boundary, but did not stop him from touching and seeing all that I had of myself.
    His hands were everywhere, my face, and my hair, under my shirt, pressed harshly against my chest. His fingertips would be imprinted on my skin in bruises the next morning, hips and collarbones aching from the brutality of human intimacy.
We were a mess of hot bodies and tired eyes, driven only by a need for any kind of connection. We were one confusing person for a night, frantic to feel something, whether it be an emotion or a set of nails.
    In the aftermath I wanted to hate him, to be furious, but I didn't, couldn't. Everything he did was following consent, I took the drugs, told him yes, let his hands wander to unspeakable places. And maybe under different circumstances I could have marketed it as assault, with the age difference, his twenty years to my sixteen. But I didn't. He didn't have to coerce me, I blindly followed him, let his teeth tear at my flesh. And I kissed him back.
    Equally at fault.
    I don't know what started it, the Molly or the weed, but I know it was pure desperation that tipped me over the edge, a need to do something self destructive. It was a fuck you aimed at the rest of my life, as our bodies contorted and entangled. A loss of innocence as I let my hands explore too.
Still, there was anxiety, hesitance. A part of me screaming that I didn't want this, that I couldn't do it. I silenced it. Reassuring myself that I did want it. I wanted him to touch me and feel me and know me, if only by the curves of my body. I wanted to be in on the secret of what went on behind closed doors, to feel like an adult. Never mind the consequences of the inevitable next day.
And oh did my morality ache that morning.