Isaac Byrne - The Tolerant

On the other hand, there were the consequences of standing up for herself, telling everyone she hadn’t wanted to blow DJ, much less be paraded around naked and cum-smeared. Telling them she had wanted to slap him across the face for how he’d treated her. Yet even thinking it, she shuddered in revulsion. Doing that would be like getting a swastika tattooed on her forehead. A dozen of them. Then going and screaming the n-word at the MLK Jr. memorial.

No, it was just something she’d have to put up with.

Speak of the devil and soon enough there he was, waiting for her in their usual spot to begin rounds. Rounds were pretty simple—just a quick tour around all the separate floors and units in the dorm, check to make sure the building was secure and residents were behaving. They did rounds once at 10pm and again at midnight. Nine times out of ten, they passed without incident, and the other time, it was usually something trivial like someone’s alarm going off after they’d left for the evening. Tonight, she just hoped it wouldn’t be the sight of her bare, freshly fucked ass doing cartwheels down the hallway to amuse her rounds partner.

To diminish the likelihood, she’d come out in a frumpy gray sweat suit, her hair pulled back in a pony tail, and no makeup whatsoever. She was a pretty girl, sure, but this was about as unattractive as she could manage without sprinkling dirt on her face or contracting some kind of wasting disease. DJ looked plainly disappointed as he rounded the corner. Which stung, but still.

“Wow, Emily, you not feeling OK?”

“Nah, just comfy,” she said tersely. “Let’s go.”

She’d always been short with DJ, really. Not that she disliked him; he just didn’t seem like he was especially interesting, and she usually didn’t try to make new male friends. Her boyfriend was the jealous type, for one, and for two, it just seemed to invite drama, which she cared for not at all. She had never meant to be rude to him; she simply kept to herself where he was concerned to keep things simple. He wasn’t unusual in this regard; it was her default attitude towards guys.

Most nights they’d been on duty together, they barely said a word. Tonight began much the same, which was fine by her—she was still so haunted, so livid, so humiliated from their last encounter.

Worse, she hated all the spiteful thoughts she had about him, even though she couldn’t stop having them no matter how hard she tried.

They made it through three floors before he started to talk to her.

He cleared his throat nonchalantly. “So hey, about that thing the other week…”

“It was nothing, OK? You already apologized, water under the bridge.” She tried to dismiss the topic as hard as possible without being too impolite. He’d come to her the next day to apologize, and she’d blown him off, lied to him about her feelings and the fallout to stop him from feeling bad. No mere apology could make things go back to how they were, and telling him how hard it had made things for her would make him feel bad and thus make her feel worse. Her muscles tensed.

“I wasn’t going to apologize again. I just wanted to ask you about it, if that’s OK.”

I don’t ever want to talk about it again with anyone, especially not you. I didn’t then, and I didn’t now. “Sure, go ahead.”

He held the door for her as they reached the stairwell and headed down to the next floor. “So, I was kinda hard on you that night, I know.”

She shrugged indifferently. “Yeah, I guess.” …that you’re a fucking asshole , she finished mentally, then kicked herself. She was better than that.

“So like, do you regret it?”

It took her three tries to hold her hand steady enough to get her key in the lock so they could enter the next floor. “Regret it? I mean, it wasn’t how I’d planned on spending my night, obviously. But whatever.” UGH, Emily, how can you be so fucking rude?

He waved a hand. “No no, I mean like… I know you were fine with it at the time. But how do you feel about it now? Have your feelings changed any? Wish you’d done anything differently? Put up a fight, said no, stormed out…?”

You forgot ‘cut your balls off and feed them to you’, mother fucker. She entertained a split-second-long fantasy of what her boyfriend would do to DJ if he found out, leaving him in a bloody heap by the dumpsters. Even as she thought it, she mentally kicked herself. She’d never actually do anything to hurt him, no matter how upset she was, and part of her mind was beginning to get fed up with the anti-DJ bigotry she was dealing out. “Nah, I guess it was all fine. You did what you had to do, and I did what I had to do.”

He was silent for a time as they proceeded through the lounge and down the adjoining hallway. She paused to ask a guy to lower the volume on his music a bit, given the hour. Then he addressed her again. “What does that mean? That you ‘did what you had to do.’”

She considered. It was hard to phrase; she wanted to tell him she’d let him rape her mouth out of some combination of pity and basic human decency. “I dunno, DJ, like… you demanded things, and I didn’t want to be some psycho-bitch and say no, make a fuss, make you feel bad.”

“Does that mean you didn’t want to do it?”

Is he seriously asking me if I didn’t want to suck his cock and receive a facial and finish rounds in nothing but my panties? Seriously? “Hey, if the options were doing it or rejecting you, then yeah, by that standard I guess I ‘wanted to.’ If you’re asking if I was about to suggest it on my own before you brought it up… I don’t know what to tell you.” She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh before she could stop herself.

She immediately felt horrible about it, about showing such acrimony to DJ of all people. It reminded her of when she’d had that outburst right after he’d sprayed his cum in her eye, and how awful she’d felt after complaining. It was just a little light passive aggressiveness, but still, it was wrong to show that kind of defiance. No, not “wrong”—evil. She felt sick to her stomach over it.

She knew if he pushed the slightest bit, she’d beg his forgiveness for even half-suggesting she hadn’t wanted it. Even though she hadn’t in the least.

Thankfully, he didn’t. They were on the last floor before he spoke again. Her nerves over her not-quite-spite had calmed, but only barely. “What if I asked you to do it again?”

She froze in her tracks so quickly that he ran into her from behind before he could swerve to avoid her. “The same thing again? In the lounge, with that other girl…?” Oh please don’t let him want that. I’ll do it, I’ll do it to make up for what a bitch I’ve been to him, but please, please don’t want that.

“Well, not necessarily a reenactment, but you know, just to fool around again. Have some fun.”

Tension flooded out of her as the specter of another public three-way faded into the part of her brain where nightmares lurked unseen. Normal playing around she could tolerate no problem. It was the least she deserved for her unseemly outburst. “Sure, that’d be fine. Great, even.” She forced a smile.

“Awesome,” he said as he held the final door open for her. 10:00 rounds were over. “How about I swing by your room in a while and we’ll do what we do?”

“Cool, I’ll see you in a bit then.”

She raised her walkie talkie to her mouth and hit the button. They had to sign off after rounds so another staff member, who was on call in case of emergencies and the like, would know they were done. “Rounds complete.”

“Copy that,” the other staffer’s voice replied, followed by the usual burst of static.