Free Selling the Drama by Theresa Smith

question in the first place. "I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have asked."
    "No, it's okay. I don't mind you asking." He
paused, as though searching for the right words. "I don't miss
them. There isn't much to miss."
    She turned slightly, stretching out her body
against his. "Really?" She found this so hard to believe. Her
parents, particularly her father, were the foundation of her
existence. She couldn't imagine life without either of them, much
less both of them.
    "Really. Charlotte, my father used to beat
my mother. Badly. And I'm not talking about the occasional smack.
He was a doctor. He knew what a body could take and he'd beat her
down until she couldn't take anymore. Then he'd fix her up, make
her feel grateful for the attention, buy her something pretty and
expensive, and tell her how much he loved her and how he couldn't
possibly ever live without her. She didn't have much left in her
for me. I tried to make her leave him but she wouldn't. There's not
much more to it than that. I don't like to talk about it and I
don't want other people to know. I'm a different person here. My
parents, they don't exist here. And that's the way I want it to
stay." He had stopped playing with her hair and had instead settled
his hand into the curve of her back, wedging his fingertips into
the waist band of her pyjama shorts.
    "I would never tell anyone."
    "I know that. I never thought you would. But
I don't want to talk about it again."
    "Okay." She gave his hand a squeeze and was
relieved when he returned the gesture, secretly worried she had
overstepped the mark with him.
    "This is the best my life has ever been. I
have a real chance at a future that is not all shades of fucked up.
I never thought I'd have that."
    She understood him so much more now. His
resistance to her initially, his continued determination to not do
anything that would risk getting himself in trouble with her
parents. She felt slightly ashamed of her efforts at trying to
force him, for being so narrow sighted and vain. He had not been
rejecting her. He had been rejecting risk. Two entirely different
constructs.
    "Why change your mind then, about us?"
    Toby sighed, reaching his hand down further
into her shorts so he could squeeze her backside. "I'm sick of
jerking myself off." Then he laughed and Charlotte could not help
but laugh along with him. "Go to sleep. It's late and I'm really
comfortable right now, lying here with you just like this."
    "Be careful, Toby, I might get the wrong
idea and think you like me for more than just sex." Despite her
teasing, hope filled her. This was good, the two of them connecting
like this, as if they were, dare she even think it, beginning a
relationship.
    "You'd be right, I do like you for more than
just sex." He stretched and rolled toward her, hooking his leg over
her entire body and crushing her against him. "You're incredibly
soft and warm, just like a pillow that moulds itself to me." She
gave him a shove but it was a useless effort, crushed against him
as firmly as she was. He kissed her on the forehead. "Go to sleep.
And wake me up with a blow job."
    She shoved at him again. "Did you just say
that out loud?" Disbelief, combined with humour, warred inside of
her. She pinched him on the inside of his arm. "Unbelievable!"
    He laughed at her obvious outrage. "You said
you wanted me to tell you what I want from you! And I am seriously
curious about that piercing on your tongue."
    "I take it back."
    "Yeah, it's out there now. Too late." He
pressed his lips against her forehead again before moving down to
her mouth, kissing her so slowly and thoroughly, she thought she
might just pass out from the thrill of it. It was so completely
different to any other kiss he had given her, yet at the same time,
he felt so familiar it wrought a feeling deep inside of her that
almost made her want to weep.
    Charlotte pressed her face against his
chest, breathless in its wake. "I meant what I wrote in the note."
Her whisper was so light she couldn't