Free The Sadist's Bible by Nicole Cushing Page B

than she should’ve,
    gathering up the gumption to start her day.
    A heaviness and an achiness lingered in her skull. She was exhausted (despite having
    slept). She felt sick to her stomach (despite the fact she hadn’t drunk alcohol). She felt restless (excessively restless, even by her standards). But she didn’t feel dehydrated, as she had the two times in her life she’d actually been hungover. Nor was she trembling, as she had been during that first hangover, when she was seventeen.
    That was the time her friend, Melanie, had smuggled a jug of gin out of her parents’
    liquor cabinet. They’d drunk it together and had a sleepover – just the two of them – in the basement. Under the cover of darkness and sleeping bags, they’d held hands and
    made out. She remembered that part. Even all these years later, she remembered it.
    Melanie hadn’t remembered it, though. (Or at least, claimed she hadn’t remembered it.) Said she’d gone into a blackout. Ellie had resented that fiercely. There’d been
    closeness, confessions. Hell, they’d said they’d loved one another. But then it had all
    been yanked away from her when Melanie said she didn’t remember any of it. And then
    she’d said she had homework to do before Monday, and she’d packed her things and
    drove away in her little piece of shit Corolla.
    And, after that day, she wasn’t Ellie’s friend any more. All of a sudden, she stopped
    talking to her.
    Ellie’s cell phone was on the nightstand, charging. She reached over, picked it up,
    and checked the social network. No new message from Lori. She clicked on Lori’s name,
    curious to see if she’d posted anything new on her timeline. She hadn’t. The last thing on there was a picture of a shirtless hunk – some movie star, apparently – posted yesterday morning.
    She’d said she was bisexual. Ellie remembered that. But seeing that she’d posted a
    photo worthy of a romance book cover was discouraging. She’d claimed to have had
    more sexual experience with women than Ellie had. And yet, that picture she’d posted
    looked like the sort of thing a bored housewife would post.
    The buff dude’s picture was another piece of evidence to support the narrative that
    had been incubating in Ellie’s mind since last night. Lori hadn’t been serious about any of this: it was just a game. Hell, it might be even worse. Not a game, but a malicious trick.
    Maybe Lori was laughing her ass off about it. Ellie wondered if that was exactly what she was doing that very moment.
    She’d slept in her clothes. There was still an unattractive smudge of ash surrounding
    the pin-prick hole that had been burnt in her jeans. There was also a sour scent around her armpits. Her hair must have looked messy, out of place, and neglected. But she decided
    she wasn’t bothered by such things.
    She’d brought nice clothes for this trip. She’d packed business clothes, of course, to
    render the charade realistic. But she’d also packed sexy clothes – or at least, as sexy as she let herself get. Some jeans that she thought hugged her hips provocatively. No tops
    with plunging necklines, but some that provided at least a decent hint of cleavage.
    Clothes that were only five years out of fashion (which was a favorable contrast to the
    rest of her casual wardrobe, which was – on average – at least ten years out of fashion).
    And yet, she decided to not change into them. Part of her liked the fact that road
    grime and sour sweat still clung to her. It suited her mood. Maybe it suited her .
    She smelled foul, yes. But maybe she was foul. Maybe God had made her that way,
    and delighted in her foulness. When she finally rolled out of bed, she noted with a lazy lack of surprise that she’d somehow managed to sleep on He Wants Us Broken . It was crinkled and creased, but was otherwise undamaged. She lurched to the edge of the
    mattress. Sat and skimmed the tract to make certain it read as she remembered it.
    It did.
    She