Author's Note: This story contains dubious consent and risky sex. It, like most of my stories are not for everyone. If you don't like dark themes, please read something else. All characters in involved in sexual situations in this story are 18 years or older.
At the first sign of trouble, people looked to see what had happened, but they all quickly pretended they hadn't, and no one said anything about it. They were used to the bullying. Everyone but the victim was, and like many of the other kids in their high school, they'd grown indifferent.
Grace hadn't, of course, but she still turned away. She couldn't watch as Jay and his buddies teased her brother, Liam.
At least in public, they wouldn't hurt him, she told herself as she stared down at her food like the commotion thirty feet from her didn't even exist.
She looked away both because she saw how bad it hurt her to watch, and how badly it hurt him whenever she tried to bring it up at home. If she brought it up, then he'd get sad and lock himself in his room. However, if she pretended not to know just what a rough year his junior year had become, the same way their parents already did, then her brother would wear his fake smiles and make up excuses for his scrapes and bruises.
It was better that way. She'd decided that early in the year.
At least this way, Liam got to keep his pride, and at 17, he was becoming a fine young man. Though only a year and a half younger than her, she knew he'd put all these problems aside when he went off to college in a year or so like she was about to.
But apparently, sometime later in the day, Jay's hazing had escalated into something physical, and her dear little brother had come home with a split lip that he claimed he'd gotten during PE.
"You need to keep your eye on the ball," her dad had said with a laugh over dinner, "Or it will find you every time. Trust me, I know."
Grace wondered if little messages like that were his way of telling his son that he'd been bullied too as a child, but she wasn't sure. Her dad seemed too strong and handsome to have ever faced the same sorts of problems as his gawky son. He'd be eighteen in a few more months, but he seemed very far from the world of adulthood.
She'd never felt comfortable asking about her parents youthful struggles. Instead, she just lived in her head and saved the true things in her head for the strangers on the internet that lived in her phone. It was better that way for everyone.
At least, she thought so most of the time. That night, Grace couldn't sleep. All she could do was lay there and think about what she might be able to do for Liam before she graduated in a month and left him to fend for himself.
She'd already tried to help him improve his wardrobe and get a girlfriend. It did little good, though. He wasn't much happier taking that kind of advice from his sister than he was listening to her talk about his bullying.
It was a frustrating situation, and she had no idea what to do to fix it. She just wasn't confrontational enough to figure out a solution to a problem this intractable. Not when so many of the problems in her life melted away by asking politely, being pleasant, and doing what she was told.
That wasn't advice she could give Liam, though. He couldn't really do any of that because he wasn't a pretty dark-haired woman with a winsome smile or an hourglass figure.
The next day, she asked her boyfriend Ryan what he thought they could do about it before they both transferred to the state school they'd been accepted to, halfway across the state.
"I mean, I'd tell you I could kick his ass," he said with a shrug, "but you'd just tell me that violence doesn't solve anything like always."
"Violence is the problem," she shot back. "How is more violence supposed to be the solution?"
He didn't answer that because he couldn't, of course, and stuck to flirting with her the rest of the morning, but the question lingered with her the rest of the day, and ultimately, it decided everything. She would talk to Jay directly, behind her brother's back, and ask him nicely.
Surely that would make everything better, wouldn't it? She thought.
Grace didn't ask Ryan about her plan because she knew that he wouldn't approve. 'Jay's dangerous,' he'd tell her, and he might be... to other guys, but for a girl like her, she'd be perfectly safe as long as she stayed in public, no how nervous he made her.
Nervous was certainly the right word, too. She was filled with a whole storm of butterflies when she finally worked up the nerve to confront his little clique that day.
She knew where he'd be, of course. Everyone did. He and his buddies would be either out in the small grove of pines at the far end of the athletic fields just off campus getting high, or they'd be goofing off in the parking lot of the conveyance store a little further down the street if they were all out of weed.
She hoped she'd find them in the latter place because she felt safer with strangers around, but it turned out to be the former. So, it was with shaking hands that she called out, "Hey Jay - can I talk to you?" to the group of men sitting in the shade of those pines.
No, men was the wrong word, she corrected herself. All of them might have been eighteen, and a couple were even nineteen like her, but every one of them was just a boy in a grown-up man's body. Men wouldn't treat her brother and some of the other unfortunate underclassmen the way they did.
"Did you want to get high, too?" one of his flunkies asked her. "Cause for you we got weed to spare baby."
Jay said nothing, though. He just leaned forward from the bench he was relaxing on, fixing her with an almost predatory look.
A couple of the other guys laughed, giggling at some joke she'd never understand like the stoners they were. She ignored them, though. She wasn't here to talk to the boys.
"I came to talk to Jay if you don't mind," she said, starting out fairly confidently before deflating toward the end.
"Well, he's right there, why don't you--" another boy started to say. Jay interrupted him, though.
"Guys - we're going to need some privacy," Jay snapped. "Why don't you all head home for the day."
There were some more laughs and a couple very lewd looks, but she endured them. Her anxiety only increased as she grew more and more alone, though. She'd counted on social pressure to keep everyone well-behaved, and once it was down to her and her brother's bully, she suddenly felt very exposed.
"So what can I do for you," he asked, undressing her with his eyes while his friends were almost out of earshot.
"Not for me," she said softly, "For my brother, Liam. You've been giving him a very hard time, and I'd like it to stop."
"Oh, would you now?" he asked with a smile. "Why don't you have a seat, and we can discuss it."
She did as she was told, but as soon as Jay scooted closer, she scooted away again. He wasn't taking that for an answer, though, and as soon as she stopped the second time, he put his hand on her inner thigh and pulled her closer to him.
"Calm down... uhm, Grace, right?" he said, unsure. "We're all good friends here."
"We aren't, but I'd like it if you could at least not be enemies," she said softly, feeling very vulnerable.
"Well, if you want me and Liam to become friendly, you and I are going to have to become very good friends," he smiled.
"Wha-what do you mean?" she asked, suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to get out of there. She might have run, too, had he not been holding her in such an intimate and controlling way.
"Before we get to that, I think you need to relax," he said, producing the stub of a joint and a lighter from his pocket. "You know - calm down and take the edge off."
"I shouldn't," she said, accepting them. "I have to get home and--"
"Not before we talk about your brother," he chastised her, "and we can't do that until I help you relax."
That was at least partially true, she decided, so grudgingly, she took a small hit but somehow still managed to end up with a coughing fit.
"There, happy?" she asked, handing them back.
"Oh, I'm always happy when a pretty girl wants to talk to me in private," he answered with another predatory smile.
"I'm seeing someone," she said immediately.
"I know," he answered automatically, not bothering to disguise the way he stared at her breasts through her top. "Ryan. Swimmer. Real pretty boy."
He was so dismissive that for a moment, Grace was hurt on her boyfriend's behalf. They spent the next several minutes discussing her brother and how unhappy she was at the marks Jay and his friends were leaving on him.
No matter how many times he insisted they were just playing a little roughly or how foggy the pot made her, she wouldn't let herself be dissuaded, though. This needed to stop, she told herself, even as she started to lose her way.
Finally, he asked, "So then let's say I were to stop all this and keep anyone else from taking my place as his bully. What would you do for me to make that happen."
"Anything," she said, instantly regretting her choice of words. She quickly tried to tangent to make them slightly more palatable. "I just want him to be safe and happy and-- hey!"
She only snapped out of it when Jay reached for her breasts.
"What are you doing?!" she demanded. As she spoke, she held his hands, but she didn't quite stop him. Not exactly. She just wasn't strong enough, and slowly but surely, he brought them to her chest anyway.
"I just wanted to see what you meant by anything," he smiled as he gently squeezed her left breast, "And I gotta say - you seem a little conflicted. I'm starting to think you don't care about your brother's well-being as much as you say you do."
