Chapter 2: Drunken Tryst

I'm scowling as I hover along the edge of the warehouse, where the Harvest Festival is in full swing. I had not wanted to come to the Hob to partake in the celebration of the New Year, but Britsel and Leevey, my colleagues on the digging crew, had insisted. Once Prim got wind that there was a party, she made it clear that I was going, fussing over me worse than Mother ever did, as she gussied me up in my best dress: my blue, Reaping dress, a hand-me-down from Mother's days as a Merchant. I tried to beg off by using her as an excuse; I didn't want to leave her home alone for a night. Prim wouldn't hear of it.

I spot Bristel and Leevey and several of my work colleagues. Thom is talking quietly with Delly Cartwright, the shoemaker's daughter. I go over to Greasy Sae's stall and order a bowl of stew.

I'm just raising the spoon to my lips when…

"Katniss? Katniss Everdeen?"

I turn, lips still puckered to slurp. My surprise nearly makes me miss my mouth with the spoon and have some stew dribble onto my bodice. My grey eyes expand, and I feel my face turn red. Peeta Mellark, the Baker's youngest son, is staring at me with an intensity I can't begin to name. He and I were classmates when we were in school, though we never spoke at all. We only interacted once, and it was years ago, as children. He threw some burnt bread to me in a driving rain not long after my father died, when my family and I were starving.

I've never thanked him for his kindness.

He places his hands on his hips, and I can't help but wonder if he is appraising me with those eyes…. eyes as blue as a summer sky…. "Fancy seeing you here."

I gulp, and finally manage to rasp out. "My sister made me come. She thinks I need a break from working down the shafts all week."

I watch this man's impossibly sapphire orbs expand with concern. As though he is scared for me that I'm risking my life down in the depths for only a few coin a week. He covers by blandly observing, "Everyone needs a chance to let their hair down sometime." His gaze is oddly fixated on my chestnut braid as he says this, and I run my fingers through it.

We look away from each other awkwardly. I'm just about to lift my head again to see if he has moved on, when he asks me:

"Would you like to dance?"

I nearly swallow my tongue. He just asked me for a dance. I manage to nod.

"Yes," I croak out. "I'd love to."

Peeta guides me out onto the dance floor. When his massive, calloused hand braces my hip, I feel my breath hitch. Holding each other's eyes, we begin a slow waltz.

Daddy used to balance me on his feet and twirl me around the living room at this pace, when I was little. Time seems to grind to a halt all the more with Peeta in my arms. I can only stare up into his handsome face, his deep blue eyes….

"I heard about your mother," he murmurs. "My condolences."

I gape at him, speechless. "Th-Thank you…"

"Is your sister well?"

I flush. "She's still in school. Trying to take over the family business."

"And you're risking the mines to provide for her?" At my shrug, he studies me with an almost admiring smile. "How brave…."

I stare at him dumbly.

The waltz is not quite over, yet we somehow manage to sway to a halt. Peeta is still gazing at me with that…. smoldering look in his eye.

"Katniss…."

"Yes?" I ask, my voice strangely sweet.

"If…. if you ever had a day off from…. from the mines…. would… would you like to….?"

"Peeta! There you are!" Madge Undersee, the Mayor's daughter, ruins whatever moment this is and clutches at his arm, tugging him away. "We need help to set up the fireworks, and I don't trust your brother to do it!" She leads him away.

I go to Ripper's bar and order a flask of whiskey.

I get drunk.

Things start to get fuzzy soon after that. But I do remember clearly keeping one eye on Peeta Mellark for much of the rest of the party. At one point, he has an argument with a wild-eyed woman, who is screaming at him. It might be the Witch, his mother. She eventually leads him and his brother out of the Hob, nearly by their ears.

I down another glass of whiskey, almost despairing. Peeta Mellark has always made me feel things. Disquieting things. I should know better. I should know he would never be allowed with…. with a…. Seam girl.

Thom eventually swims into my vision and I think he asks me for a dance. I let him tug me out onto the floor and we stumble through the reel, and then the dervish.

I'm laughing and drunk and letting Thom put his hands in intimate places when the clock nears midnight.

"5….. 4…. 3…. 2…. 1!" The fireworks go off, whizzing and exploding into the nighttime sky.

It's tradition to kiss someone when the clock strikes midnight on the Harvest Festival. I decide Thom Borden will do, so I drunkenly kiss him. He kisses me back eagerly. This time, I don't push him away.

Thom takes me, stumbling, back to his place.

The dark, large miner presses me into the doorjamb and kisses me deeply. His hands wander liberally, touching my breasts, my ass. He thrusts his hips into mine with clear intention, and I groan.

We stagger into his living room, and the man crashes back onto his sofa. Hiking my blue skirts up over my hips, I swing a creamy leg high as I move to straddle his waist. Perched in his lap, I begin to shamelessly rock into his hand when it finds my clit. My breathing becomes heavy, labored, comes in rough gasps. Before long, I'm panting.

"Huhhhh….. Uhhhhhh….. Ermm… Ugggh…." I bounce up and down on him faster, my breasts jiggling in Thom's face, and he buries his nose in my cleavage.

Finally, he draws his hand away from my pussy, braces his fingers along my hips. He's wriggling against me. I hear the rustling of fabric from his trousers and then he's shoving his cock inside me.

I feel the tear, and I cry out in pain as my virginity is torn, shattered. My nails digging into the headrest of the sofa until my knuckles turn white, I start to rock even more furiously against him as I now ride his cock. My moans grow louder in volume, higher in pitch.

"Uhhhhhhh! ….. Mmmmmmm… Hmmmmmm…"

Thom's meaty hands are splayed along my back now, and I help him shrug off the top half of my dress. He kisses my boobs before latching his teeth onto my nipples. I dig my fingers into his blonde – no, black! Black…. - hair and our pelvises slap together.

I feel him cum inside me with a shuddering groan, and then he is making me rise languidly off of his lap. Grabbing my skull, I thrash a little, but he forces my face down to his crotch. I've never seen a man's penis before, and I cry out in the moment before he shoves his cock in my mouth, nearly down my throat.

I draw him in deeper, giving him head. I don't know what I'm doing, so I loll my tongue out to lick the upper reaches of his shaft. Thom groans and sways above me while I perform oral sex on him, thrusting his hips into my upper lips now as opposed to my lower ones, frantically fucking my face.

He cums again in my mouth, and I swallow every last drop.

He's picking me up, roughly, and I fold myself about him as he carries me unsteadily to his torn mattress, where he gets me on my back fast. By the light of the full moon, I see his shape undulate above me as he pounds me into his bed, hard enough that the bedsprings squeak in protest beneath us.

I hold him close and stare at the ceiling while he fucks me, our skin slick with sweat. Finally, with a shudder, he cums inside me again.

I don't follow with my own orgasm, and he has to finish me off with his fingers.

"Huhhhh! Uhhhhhh! Ugggghhhhhh!" I gasp and moan piteously, but when my body locks up and I ejaculate with a whimper, all I can see is blonde hair, glinting golden in the sunlight.

Impossibly blue eyes….

The moon is high in the sky when I wake, sweaty and hung-over. Naked, and pressed against an unfamiliar man, snoring beside me. Stunned with myself that I could sleep with him, I shy away from Thom like a skittish deer. I fish about in the dark for my blue dress and shrug it over my head with what I hope is some level of dignity.

I perform the walk of shame back to my house, trekking across most of the Seam with blood and cum, dribbles of semen, trickling down my legs.

Prim is waiting up for me when I stumble into the house. She looks relieved to see me, then stricken when she spots the virginal blood and other juices on my quivering thighs. At first, she thinks I was raped. I manage to rasp out a No, it was consensual; we both had too much to drink.

She asks me if I'm sure. I yell at her Yes.

My sister gives me a pill that will help with my hang-over. I also don't need to request, and she doesn't ask questions, when she fixes me a preventative tea. To keep away a baby.

I go to bed that night dreaming of a man other than the one with whom I had sex.