Feed You to Each Other

Carter tells himself he came just for Dana, but he’s lying. He also came for the slip of River’s grin through firelight, for the sick-sweet thrill of maybe … maybe. He stands too close to the bonfire, jeans itching with ash, eyes watering from smoke and hormone-laced curiosity.

River circles the pit barefoot, a feral dog with a bottle of bloodshot-tinted wine. The crowd feeds the flames with anything they can find: trodden leaves, ripped photos, a chain of plastic beads. The fire eats it all, licks at their fingers for more.

Dana stands beside Carter, shoulder brushing his. She sips beer and watches River like a girl who knows exactly how dangerous her pet is, how penetrating his bite. She leans in, lips glinting. “We should feed it something real,” she murmurs. “Don’t you think?”

Carter’s throat tightens. He says nothing. 

Dana spots a girl by the logs; small, with a shaved head, glitter on her cheeks. Dana crooks her finger, beckoning her close. The girl hesitates. Dana leans to her ear, voice low but clear, “Want to do this with me? You can say no.” The girl smiles, a shy thing that breaks open when Dana cups her jaw. “Yes,” she breathes, and Dana’s mouth is already on hers, greedy as the flames before them. The kiss isn’t sweet. Dana pushes the girl back onto a stump, climbs into her lap. Their teeth click, hands digging under each other’s coats, fingers twisting in belt loops, Dana’s mouth working its way to the girl’s throat, licking the pulse there like she’s tasting a peach she wants to split open. The fire spits sparks onto Dana’s hair. She doesn’t flinch. The girl moans, soft but real, the sound making someone behind Carter bark out a low “fuck yeah.”

River’s voice drifts over Carter’s shoulder, mocking, “This is the kind of show they want, right? Innocent little girls gone bad, eating each other alive.”

Dana pulls back, eyes glassy, lips raw. She turns her head, hair falling over her face. “Oh, you want a show?” she calls to the circle of boys leaning in, hands shoved in pockets to hide their cocks twitching at the sight. She presses her mouth to the girl’s ear again, another whispered question, another nod. Dana’s fingers slip under the waistband of the girl’s jeans, slow and slick, just enough that the girl gasps, thighs quivering under Dana’s hips. Dana grins, her gaze pinging toward Carter, catching the way his breath stutters.

“It’s so easy for you to watch us,” she purrs. “Two girls? You’d pay for it. But two boys? That’s different, huh?” She climbs off the girl, fingers shiny, wipes them on the hem of her skirt. The girl’s eyes flutter open, dazed but smiling, as she melts back into the shadows, sated and sticky. Dana scans the ring of faces around her. Her eyes snag on two guys by the edge, both scruffy in army jackets, beer bottles clutched like shields. She saunters over, hips rolling with leftover heat. “You two,” she says, voice bright with wickedness. “Kiss. Right now. Do it for us.” 

One snorts. The other shifts from foot to foot. “What, like, really?” the taller one says. His face is blotchy with sunburn. Dana smiles, all teeth.

“Yeah, really. Open your pretty mouths. Let us see what you’re hiding. Or are you too scared to look like us?” 

A ripple of laughter rolls around the circle. One of the guys, the shorter one, bites his lip, cheeks flushed pink. He glances at his friend, eyes grazing his mouth, then back to Dana. “Fuck it,” he mutters. The taller one laughs, a raw, startled sound that cracks halfway out of his throat. For a second it looks like they’ll bail, but the shorter boy tugs him by the collar, so hard the bottle in his other hand thuds to the dirt. He pulls him in, lips landing rough. At first, it’s clumsy, both of them stiff, awkward. The taller boy tries to pull back, but the short one growls, grabs the back of his neck. They both laugh into each other’s mouths, noses bumping. Then the taller boy’s hand fists in his friend’s hair, and the push becomes a pull. They part, gasping, but the taller one chases him back down, open-mouthed now, licking along his lower lip like he’s tasting the sweat, the beer, the stupid daring heat of the fire all at once. Someone close enough to see it all groans low and guttural. The short one grips a handful of his friend’s ass, a squeeze that leaves no doubt what he wants the crowd to see. Their hips nudge together. It’s messy, not polite at all, and that makes the circle lean closer, makes some howl like wolves. 

Someone flicks beer into the flames, steam coils around the boys like a halo about to catch. The taller boy pulls back just enough to let a string of spit break between their lips, forehead pressed to his friend’s jaw. Both of them flushed, pupils dilated, breath heavy, ragged.

Dana laughs, soft and mean, her voice a promise. The boys stumble apart, but not far, knuckles brushing like they might want another taste when no one’s watching. She locks eyes with Carter, who's still rooted to the same patch of dirt, every inch of him strung tight. She steps close, waves her fingertips under his nostrils so he can smell the other girl’s sweetness. “Next time,” she whispers, eyes drifting to River behind him. “Next time it’s you two. I’ll feed you to each other if you don’t do it yourselves.”

The fire roars like a living thing, hungry for more skin, more smoke, more sins that taste good going down. Carter doesn’t move. He wants to. He doesn’t. Not yet.

***

The bonfire’s collapsed to hot coals, but it’s still hungry, snapping at the scraps they throw in. Most of the party has bled away. The short boy and the taller one stumble off into the trees, arms locked, necks bent to whisper. They keep glancing back at the pit like they’re leaving something behind they’ll come back for.

Carter stands a few feet from the embers, boots sunk in the churned-up dirt. River paces the edge of the glow, bare feet streaked in ash, bottle swinging loose in one hand. Dana crouches on her haunches, elbows on her knees, watching them like they’re animals that don’t know they’re about to be caged together.

“You could run,” she says, voice low, sly. “I’d love to see you try.”

River lets out a laugh, sharp enough to break the night. “He wants to. He always does.”

Carter tries to spit something back, but his throat closes. He wipes his palm on his jeans, eyes flicking between them, caught on River’s grin, Dana’s stare, like she could bite him just to see him squeal.

“When did you know?” Dana asks, words sharp enough to nick skin. “Not the sweet lie. The real moment. Give it to me, filthy.”

River tosses the empty bottle into the pit. It lands with a crack, glass melting into the glow. He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Last day before Christmas break, tenth grade. Locker room smelled like sweat and piss. He’s pretending to read stats at the bench. I go to shower. He follows.”

Carter snorts, but the sound breaks halfway out of his chest. “I didn’t follow.”

“You did,” River says, voice bright with cruelty and something kinder under it. “You came in slowly. Kept your shoes on. Tied and retied your laces while you watched the steam rise off my shoulders.”

Dana’s lips glitter in the coals. “He always puts on that sweet boy mask. The altar boy, the tenor in the choir. I’d have paid to see you both in there.”

River keeps going, stepping closer. “I left the curtain open. I stood there, soap running down my back…down my ass. I said, ‘Come here, hero. Lather my calves.’ He laughed. Called me a slut.”

“I was scared,” Carter retorts. “I thought…”

River doesn’t let him finish. “You thought if you stepped in the water, you’d never come out. You’d lick the soap off my hip, taste the back of my neck, let your fingers drift down further … further.”

Carter’s breath rattles. “I went home and laid in bed. Thought about how you’d smell, the feel of your hair. I bit my lip so hard, I savoured the blood it produced.”

Dana hums, her grin soft and wicked at once. “And you never touched him. All these years, you let the fence stand.”

Carter tries to look away. Dana’s hand shoots up, grabs his jaw, holds him in place. “Look at him,” she says. “Look at your best friend, your dirty secret, the passion you tried to drown into extinction.”

River strides in, chest to chest now, breath warm on Carter’s cheek. “What did you think about? Say it.”

Carter’s voice comes out raw. “Your mouth. The way you’d bite my shoulder. The way you’d laugh after.”

Dana laughs sharp, nails digging into his chin. “Was that so hard?”

The wind kicks the last embers loose. They scatter like fireflies gone too soon. The three of them stand hip to hip in the mud, shirts reeking of smoke, hair tousled.

Carter’s lip twists into something that might be a smile. “I hate you.”

River presses his forehead to Carter’s. “No you don’t.”

Dana slips behind him, wraps her arms around his waist. Her voice cuts through the hush, bright and mean and bright again. “Next time, I’m not asking. Next time I’m feeding you to each other.”

The wind moans delicately around them. They don’t touch more than this, but they know. They’re standing on the edge with no more lattices, only flame.