“I don’t care,” I fired back, keeping my voice low. “I don’t want to hear about his sex life.”
“Girls hated him,” she went on as if I’d said nothing. “Man, they hated him with a passion.”
“Didn’t stop them from going after him, like it was going to be some big surprise when he screwed them and then ditched them,” I pointed out.
I mean, honestly, in all fairness, I wasn’t sure why he was hated more than the other horseman. They did the same thing. They all slept around.
“That’s not what he did, though,” Isabella explained. “Didn’t anyone tell you how he was? I mean, with other girls. Not you.”
The reminder that she knew—that everyone knew and saw the video of Damon and me and how he was with me—sobered me for a moment, making me forget what was happening in the other room.
“I think that’s part of the reason you had to leave school after that video,” she pointed out. “They hated you.”
“Who?”
“All the girls he wouldn’t sleep with,” she replied. “Rumor has it, Damon’s appetite is not always fun to satisfy.”
All the girls he wouldn’t sleep with. So he didn’t sleep around? Sure.
And then I remembered what my sister just said a moment ago, and how I met him when I was a teenager, and I paused.
“He likes to watch,” I said, finally understanding.
“No,” Isa corrected me. “He likes to fuck with heads and then watch.”
Seemed about right.
“Sex doesn’t turn him on,” my friend continued. “Deviance is what he likes. Stories abounded, so I don’t know what’s true, but there were rumors that he got Abigail Clijsters’ sister to screw her older sister’s boyfriend. Another story about a gang of guy students at a young teacher’s house one night. Will Grayson and some hotel maid. A couple of football players getting drunk and going at it in a car in the woods…”
She trailed off, and I didn’t know for sure if anything she said was true, but…a small part of me wanted to believe it was. Maybe it made me less his victim to know he was the fucked-up one and not me for falling for his lie.
“He would take girls out,” she went on, “let them think he was interested, and he was, but his pleasure was harder earned, let’s just say. After he got them to do whatever he wanted them to do, sometimes he’d get off on them and sometimes he wouldn’t.”
“And if he didn’t, they felt like even bigger shit afterwards,” I added.
“Used,” she agreed. “They degraded themselves for him and got nothing in return. He coerced but never forced. He kept you to himself, though. I wonder why.”
The voices in the next room were barely audible as I thought about her question. She was one of the few people who saw that video and didn’t see me asking for it. She knew he committed a crime. The other girls resented me after his arrest, because in their eyes, I got what they wanted.
Well, they could have him. I—
“Huh?” I heard my sister blurt out, sounding suddenly upset.
Her soft, sexy voice had changed. What happened?
“Get out,” Damon said.
“What is your problem?” I heard her demand, but I wasn’t staying to get caught here if he was kicking them out.
I pushed at Isa, backing away and signaling we needed to leave.
“Out,” Damon shouted as we left the closet, and we dashed into the hallway as I heard the closet door swing open and my sister come flying through.
“Told you,” Isa shot in my ear as we dove into my bedroom.
Strange appetite, indeed.
Whatever. I was just glad whatever my sister was trying to make happen failed miserably. I blamed her as much as him for our current situation, and I hoped she was unhappy with her new husband.