JOEY
ALL THE WAY back to Molloy’s house, I fought an internal war inside of my body; where two parts of my mind battled it out for dominion over me.
On one side there was the demon that lived just beneath the surface; that horrible fucking voice that controlled every impulse, urge, and reaction I’d ever had.
It was the one that assured me that my life had indeed gone to shit, without any chance of recourse, and if the only relief I found came in the form of narcotics, then so be it. Because I’d done enough, fought enough, tried hard enough for everyone else.
I’d paid my goddamn dues, taken enough shit to earn my rite of passage. I wasn’t hurting anyone, not really, and if I was careful this time, I could control my urges instead of letting my urges control me.
On the other side, all by its lonesome, and looking less appealing by the second, was my conscience. Crippling me with flashes of memories and images of the past, it urged me to step back and think about what I was doing.
No good will come of this, my conscience urged, you’ll break her heart all over again. Remember last time? Remember her face?
Your father already broke her, and you gave him the access, the demon hissed, do you want to sit with the visual of him spreading her legs open like a brood fucking mare, or do you want to forget everything bad you’ve ever seen, felt, and experienced? Because your conscience won’t do that for you. You know what will work, though. You can make it all go away. You don’t have to suffer like this.
“I want to forget,” I strangled out, chest heaving, as I pulled up outside Molloy’s house, and killed the engine. “I need to forget.”
Locking her car, I let myself into her garden and walked over to the front door to push the keys through the letter box.
I turned around to walk away, but stalled, unable to get my feet to cooperate.
Don’t do this, my conscience reared its unwelcome head, all you have to do is just keep trying – one hour at time, remember? You’ve got this.
Exhaling a frustrated breath I took two steps towards the gate, before muttering out a string of curses and veering off in the direction of their garden shed.
Bad idea.
Bad idea.
Bad idea.
Hoisting myself onto the roof of the shed, I took a running jump at the side of the house, catching a hold of the ledge with a familiarity that should have concerned me.
Using all of my upper body strength, and ignoring the burn in my torn knuckles, I quickly pulled myself up onto Molloy’s windowsill, and climbed inside her open window.
Her bedroom was empty when I stepped inside, so I walked over to her bed and sat down, needing to stay very much inside of this room and out of trouble.
This room, and the girl who it belonged to, had become my safety net.
My safe place.
Several minutes ticked by before her bedroom door finally opened inwards and she appeared, bundled up in a fluffy white towel.
The minute her eyes landed on mine, I saw the temporary fear, the momentary flash of horror, because it was like she said; I reminded her of him.
“I know that you want space.” Standing slowly, I held my palms up and backed over to the window, giving her as much space as I could to put her at ease. “I heard you.”
Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from the sheer height of crying, and her cute little button nose was red from sniffling.
Tightening her hold on the front of her towel, she walked over to her bed and sat down, keeping her eyes trained on mine.
The fear was gone now, replaced with the usual affectionate familiarity I saw when she looked at me, but the fact that it had existed in the first place troubled me deeper than I could ever explain.
“But?” she whispered, crossing one long leg over the other.
I shrugged helplessly. “How could I not come back?”
“Joe.” Her voice cracked and she bowed her head, shoulders shaking violently, as she burst into tears. “I was so scared.”
“I’m sorry,” I strangled out, closing the space between us. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, baby.” Sinking down on my knees beside her, I placed my hands on her hips, and then recoiled in horror when she flinched from my touch.
Mine.
“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I told her again, beyond torn apart by it all. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this for you and I’ll do it.”
I leaned back on my heels to give her space, but she scrambled closer and gripped ahold of my arm.
Taking that as my green light to come closer, I placed my hands on her hips.
This time, she didn’t flinch.
“I never should have left you there,” I said hoarsely. “I didn’t protect you, and I’m so fucking sorry for that.”
“You’re not supposed to have to protect me like that,” she cried. “You’re not supposed to have to worry about that happening. Fathers aren’t supposed to do the things your father does, Joe.”
I knew that.
Of course I fucking knew that.
“I’m not him,” I choked out, needing her to hear me, to fucking believe me. “I’m not, Aoife, I swear.” Reaching up to cup her face between my hands, I pulled her head close to mine and whispered, “I am nothing like that man.”
“I know you’re nothing like him,” she cried, leaning close to rest her brow to mine. “But I’m nothing like you, Joe.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I can’t brush something like this under the table the way you can.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I hurried to say. “I’m not. I’ll take you to the station myself, Aoif. I won’t cover for him anymore, I swear to you, and I will never ask you to do that.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she whispered. “I meant it when I said that I didn’t want to report it.” Sniffling, she added, “It’s not like he actually did anything. I mean, what did he really do aside from push my pants down and pull my hair—”
“Only because I walked in on time! Don’t play it down. Don’t give that prick an out for what he did to you,” I snarled, trembling with anger, as my mind tormented me with flashing images of what I’d walked in on. “He did enough, Aoife. Looking in your direction was too fucking much.”
“That’s still not what I meant, though.”
“Then what?” I shrugged, at a loss. “What did you mean?”
“How you live? What you live with? I thought I knew about it. I thought I understood, but I don’t, Joe. I never had a clue,” she admitted hoarsely. “I don’t come from a home like yours. I’ve never had to be afraid like that.” Sniffling, she cupped my face between her hands and exhaled a broken sob. “Tonight, I felt a kind of fear that I never want to experience again.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I couldn’t change where I came from or how it had morphed me into who I was. “What do you want me to say here?”
“I’m just…” Shaking her head, she expelled another ragged breath before saying, “I’m seeing a lot of red flags shooting up around us now. Ones I never used to see before tonight, but can’t get out of my head ever since.”
Struck fucking dumb, I just stared at her, unable to read the signs, or hear the meaning of whatever the fuck she was trying to tell me. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that your life scares me and maybe you were right when you told me that you were a bad idea for me.”
Her words hit me like a slap across the face and I physically recoiled, feeling like she had cut me open and left me to hemorrhage at her feet. “Do you really mean that?”
“No? Maybe?” Sniffling, she shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what I mean anymore.”
“Okay.” Cold to the bone, I stared at her for the longest moment before shaking my head. “Okay, I should leave.”
“What – no, no, don’t go!” Sinking onto my lap, she threw her arms around me and buried her face in my neck. “Don’t leave me!”
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I admitted hoarsely, as wave upon wave of devastation continued to crash over me, fucking drowning me. “I don’t know what to do here, Aoife, because you’re telling me to go with your words and to stay with your actions.”
‘I know,’ she cried, shaking her head, as she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, okay?”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I forced myself to ask. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, or how I’m feeling right now.” Clutching the front of my hoodie, she choked out the most heart-breaking fucking sound I’d ever heard. ‘But I know that it hurts and I don’t want to feel it.” Her lips were on my neck when she cried out, ‘This feeling is killing me. I feel like I’m dying here, and I don’t want it.’
Well, that wasn’t one bit comforting, and her words caused the tightening sensation around my windpipe to significantly worsen.
“What do you need from me?” I asked her – I practically begged her to show me how to make this right. “Whatever you want me to do, whatever you need, say the word and I’ll do it.”
With tear-filled eyes, she stared at me for the longest time, before exhaling a ragged breath and fusing her lips to mine.
I froze, hands still on her cheeks, uncertain and fucking terrified of doing something wrong.
“Kiss me back,” she cried out against my lips. “Show me how to forget it.”
Jesus.
Trembling, I did exactly what she asked. Kissing her with everything I had in me, our tongues and teeth and lips clashed in a frantic kiss that was nothing like how we usually kissed.
This kiss was one of desperation, I realized.
It was a matter of necessity, needing to have her mouth on mine as much as she needed mine on hers.
Technique or suavity didn’t matter one bit right now, because the need to comfort the other was too fucking strong to think about anything other than touching, feeling, kissing, being…
When she reached a hand between our bodies and loosened the front of her towel, I felt my shoulders bunch up with tension.
“I don’t want this if you don’t want this,” I warned, needing her to be very sure of what she was doing here.
She was all messed up in the head right now, and Christ, I didn’t blame her, but I was not the man people thought I was.
I was not my father.
I would never take something that wasn’t offered to me with a free heart.
“I mean it,” I pushed. “Don’t fuck me if you’re going to regret me afterwards.”
“Don’t you want me?” she breathed, reaching for the hem of my hoodie and roughly dragging it over my head along with my t-shirt.
“You know I want you,” I replied, as my dick strained against her. “But I don’t want you to do this if you’re not in the right frame of mind.”
Tracing my bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, she leaned closer and teased my tongue with hers.
“What I want…“ Pushing hard on my shoulders so that I fell onto my back, Molloy quickly rid herself of the towel and straddled my hips. “Is for you to make me forget.” Her fingers traced the tattoo on my chest and she leaned in close to trail her tongue over the ink. “Can you do that for me, Joe?” Raising up on her knees, she pulled at the waistband of my sweatpants. Tilting my hips up, I allowed her to roughly pull the fabric down my legs, right along with my jocks. “Hm?” The moment it was freed, my dick shot to attention, visibly fucking straining to get to her. “Can you make me block it out just like you block everything out?”
She was saying all the right things, making all the right moves, but her eyes were all wrong, her voice was strained, and the bruising on her neck assured me that this was not okay.
“I don’t think this is a good idea—’ my words broke off in a hiss of pained-pleasure when her hand came around my shaft, fisting me roughly. “Fuck.”
“You like it, don’t you?” she breathed, reaching her free hand between my legs to cup my balls, while she fisted me and pulled on my shaft at a furious pace. “You like it when I touch you like this.”
“Yeah,” I strangled out, hands moving to my head, as I battled down the urge to cum right here and now.
“You like my tits, Joe?” Releasing me, she leaned in close and pressed my shaft between her bare breasts. “You wanna cum on my tits, Joe?”
Jesus Christ.
“Aoif, slow down,” I tried to reason, while my traitorous bastard hips rocked into her touch. “You’ve been through some major shit tonight. You don’t have to do this—”
Her lips came around my dick, tongue snaking out to trace the head before she took me in deep, pushing down until I hit the back of her throat and she gagged.
“Fuck,” I groaned, eyelids fluttering shut when she sucked me in deeper, gagging harder, squeezing tighter, making me feel too fucking much.
“Mm,” she purred, as she fisted to base of my shaft and pulled. “Mm.”
“Aoife.” Hips bucking against my will, I reached down and attempted to cup her cheek, but she snatched up my hand and pressed it to her throat instead.
“No.” Shaking my head, I tried to pull free, but she held my hand there, trying to make me squeeze. “Aoife, stop.”
“Mm.”
“Aoife, I said stop,” I ordered, yanking my hand away, panicked and disgusted and aroused all in one breath. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“I told you,” she purred when she finally came up for air, leaving my dick glistening from her saliva. “I want you to make me just like you.”
“I think we should stop for a bit,” I said, feeling uneasy, as she straddled my hips and positioned the head of my dick against the wet folds of her pussy. “Aoif, please, baby, just—”
“This is what I want,” she strangled out, impaling herself down hard my dick. “Just you in me.” A pained sob escaped her. “Just you.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Only you.”
Fuck.
“Come here,” I coaxed, dragging myself into a sitting position, and then pulling her to my chest, with my dick still fully inside her. “I’m here.”
“I want it gone,” she cried, clinging to my chest, as she wrapped her arms and legs around me. “Make it go away.”
I didn’t know how to do that for her.
If I could go back in time and change anything in my whole entire life, then it would be leaving her in my house.
I would gladly trade everything else, and forfeit all I had, to take this away for her.
To erase that bastard from her mind.
“Don’t pull out,” she begged, when I moved to do just that.
“Aoif…”
“No, no, no.” Shivering violently, she croaked out, “Just stay in me.”
“Okay, but you’re freezing. So, let me just get you off the floor –“
“No.” She shook her head. “Stay in me.”
Jesus Christ.
Somehow, and I wasn’t too fucking sure how, I managed to climb to my feet, taking her body with me, and walked us both back to her bed.
“It’s okay,” I tried to soothe her by saying, sinking down on the edge of the bed, with her body still wrapped around mine, still joined with mine. “I’ve got ya, Molloy.”
In slow, stiff movements, I moved our bodies until we were in the middle of her bed, with me on my back, and her on top. “I love you, Joe.”
“I know.” Exhaling a shaky breath, I reached for the duvet and draped it over her trembling shoulders. “I love you, too.”
“I hate him.”
“I know.” My chest constricted to the point I couldn’t breathe. “Me, too.”
“Joe,” she croaked out, nuzzling my neck with her damp cheek. “You’re still hard. I can feel you pulsing inside me.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, somehow managing to keep my hips in check and not flex. “My heart’s in bits, but my dick’s delighted.”
She seemed to think about that for a moment, and then she gingerly rocked her hips in the sweetest fucking circular motion.
A pained groan escaped me and her breath hitched.
Moments later, she repeated the move.
And she did it again.
And again.
Over and over until her hips were gyrating against mine in a movement that had every muscle in my body coiling tight.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” she breathed, rocking her body against mine.
She was so wet; I could feel myself slipping deeper inside her with every rock of her hips.
“Aoif.”
“Hm.”
“Aoife.”
“Hm?”
“I’m going to cum,” I croaked out, hands squeezing her hips in warning, as my balls tightened in anticipation. “Aoif, you need to stop or I’m going to cum in you, and I don’t think you want this right now—”
Covering my mouth with her hand, she leaned back, arching her spine, as she rocked and moaned above me, hips bucking wild and reckless now, as she chased that familiar wave of heat, the same one I was desperately trying to stall.
“I’m going to cum,” she cried out, pussy tightening around the shaft of my dick to the point of pain, as she grabbed my hands and pressed them against her tits. “Joe, I’m coming, I’m—”
“Fuck!” I hissed, losing all control as the wave of heat threatening to consume me spilled over.
My calves burned, my thigh muscles locked tight, and I grabbed her hips and dragged her down on me, as my hips bucked restlessly.
I could feel her coming on my dick, clenching and tightening and sucking me in deeper, and the sensation was too much to handle.
Releasing a guttural groan, my hips jerked and twitched as I found my release, coming deep inside of her.
“God,” she said, and then her entire expression caved. “Oh god.”
Face distorting in pain, she roughly pushed her hair over her shoulder and scrambled off my lap.
I knew I’d made a mistake as she slid as far away from me as her bed permitted and choked out a pained sob.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“Nothing.” Breathing hard and labored, I turned to look at her, but she had her back to me. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Molloy, it’s okay.”
“Your father tried to fuck me!” she cried, grabbing a pillow and clutching it to her chest. “And then I let you fuck me.”
Mind-fucked from her mood swings and conflicted with more emotions than I knew how to handle, I sat straight up, and reached a hand over to rub her shoulder.
“No,” she strangled out, shaking my hand off. “I need space.”
Here we go again.
Shaking my head, I hooked my arms around my knees and just stared at her back. “Are you serious?”
I watched as she nodded slowly. “I need to be alone right now.”
“Two minutes ago, you said you needed my dick inside you,” I snapped, running a hand through my hair in frustration. “You tell me to go, and then you ask me to stay. You say you want me and then you don’t. I try to leave and you stop me. You want to fuck me, and then you don’t, and then you do again, until we do and then, when it’s done, you decide that you don’t. Jesus Christ. Make your goddamn mind up, Molloy, because I can’t keep up.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” she strangled out. “I guess I just don’t cope as well with trauma as you do. I’m sorry that I’m not a robot without a heart, and possess an actual functioning set of feelings. Not everyone is as fucking perfect at turning off their emotions as you are.”
“Does it sound like my emotions are turned off?” I demanded, tone thick with the very thing she accused me of not possessing. “Because from where I’m standing, I’m being pretty fucking transparent with my emotions here, Molloy. You’re the one blowing hot and cold like a goddamn tap.”
“And now you’re shouting at me.”
“I’m not fucking shouting at you,” I shouted. “I’m trying to be here for you!”
“Well, I told you that I needed space.”
“Jesus, Aoife, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with you.” I pushed my hands through my hair. “If you have something you need to say to me, then you might as well get it over with.”
Silence.
“You’re mad at me.”
More silence.
“You blame me.”
She didn’t respond, choosing to cover her ears with her hands instead.
“Admit it,” I demanded, feeling helpless and frustrated, as my chest heaved. “Whatever you need to say to me, just fucking admit it, Molloy.”
“Fine, Joey, fine! You want to know how I’m feeling? I’m hurt!” she screamed, scrambling onto her knees and throwing her pillow at me. “Because I was nearly raped tonight – by a man that looks just like you! And I was put in that position because of you! Because you didn’t care enough to pick up the phone and tell me what was happening. Because you didn’t spare a thought for me when you left and didn’t come back!”
And there it was.
It was out there now.
She blamed me as much as I blamed me.
“I had my back to him when he grabbed me,” she cried out hoarsely. “I thought it was you… I thought he was you, Joey! But it wasn’t you. Those weren’t your hands on my body, or your tongue on my skin, or your fingers in my hair, and now I don’t know what to feel.”
I flinched. “Jesus Christ.”
Just when I thought I couldn’t hate myself any more than I did, she opened her mouth and gave me her truth.
Choking out a huge sob, she cried, “So, yes, I’m mad at you, and maybe it’s irrational to feel it, and my emotions are all misplaced, but I’m mad, and hurt, and I’m so fucking angry with you.“ Her voice cracked, and she choked out another pained sob before admitting, “Because I was there tonight for you. Looking after your brothers for you. And because every horrible situation that I’ve found myself in this past year and a half has been for you. I keep getting hurt because I love you!”
I could smell her perfume on my skin, could feel her devastation all around me, as she looked into my eyes and ripped my heart out of my chest.
This was exactly what I had tried to stop from happening.
I didn’t want to fall in love with her and I did. I didn’t want to let her in and I did. Everything I never wanted to do, I did with her, for her, because I loved her. Because she refused to accept nothing less.
I didn’t know what to say to make it right.
I didn’t have the words to comfort her in this moment.
I couldn’t deny or rebuff what she was saying.
As hard as it was to hear, it was the truth.
I hurt her and she hurt me, it was what we seemed to do, but she couldn’t look at me now without seeing my father, and all I could see in this moment when I looked at her was my mother.
My body bowed in pain.
I couldn’t breathe.
Deciding it was safer to keep my mouth shut in this moment, I quickly climbed out of her bed and moved for my clothes.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer her.
“Joey?”
I couldn’t.
Ignoring the pain impaling my chest, crushing down on my windpipe, I focused on what my brain was telling me.
Turn it off.
Just stop feeling.
Had I listened to my head from the start, I wouldn’t be here.
My heart had fucked me over and opened me up to all of this unnecessary suffering.
With my brain in the driving seat and my mangled heart splattered all over her bedroom walls, I focused on putting my clothes back on.
My movements were rigid, automatic even, as I finished dressing, and walked over to her bedroom window, drowning in the sound of her pained cries.
“No, no, no, don’t go,” she begged, scrambling off the bed and closing the space between us. “I’m sorry, Joe. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it – I just… I need you to stay.”
“I meant what I said,” I replied, straining my neck away from her lips when she tried to hold and kiss me. “If you change your mind about going to the Gards, I’ll support you every step of the way.”
“Don’t go.”
“I’m sorry.” Gently peeling her hands away from my body, I placed them at her sides and moved for the window, needing to get as far as from this girl as I could before I did any further damage. “I love you.”
“Joey!”
“I’ll be seeing ya, Molloy.”
And then I climbed out of her window and slipped into the night.
A little while later, I found myself standing in front of a familiar house, with my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie, my heart in shreds, and my head bowed in resignation.
Expelling a frustrated breath, I reached up and rapped my knuckles against the graffiti-sprayed board that covered the broken pane of glass in the door.
When the door swung inwards, the only judgement I felt came directly from my conscience as it roared scumbag in my head.
“Lynchy,” Shane acknowledged, cigarette balancing from his lips, as he waited for me to explain my sudden reappearance.
“I need somewhere to crash for a few days,” I heard myself say, forcing myself to meet his gaze.
“Old man up to his tricks again?”
I knew he was searching my face for the usual bruises – the ones that had led me to take solace on his couch more times than I could count down through the years.
Remaining silent, I nodded stiffly.
“Why aren’t ya crashing with that doll of yours?”
“That’s done with.”
“No shit?” His brows shot up, and he reached for the cigarette balancing between his lips. “Done with how?”
I shrugged, resisting the urge to fucking scream. “Meaning she’s done with my bullshit. Can I crash here or not?”
Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Shane stepped aside and gestured for me to come in.
Just turn around and walk away.
Just fucking leave.
And go where?
Home?
Molloy’s?
You have nowhere else to go.
You have nothing, asshole.
You are nothing.
With my head bowed in resignation, I walked inside.
