Torment Me (Rough Love Part One) (16 page)

“Simon,” I said wearily. “We don’t have children.”

“My paintings are my children. They’re suffering because I don’t have my shit together. And then I feel bad, and I do more drugs because I’m so tired of feeling bad.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to die pretty soon,” he said, clutching at me.

“No. Don’t say that.”

“I’ll die if I can’t beat this. I don’t want to die, Chere. I went to a meeting. I wanted to stay sober and I went to a meeting but I found out Baxter died.” Baxter, one of his art world friends. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I just talked to him last week.”

“You have to stop using drugs, or you’ll end up like Baxter. You have to keep going to meetings, and get sober.”

“I’m trying!”

There was the rage. I held him tighter, trying to head it off. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it right now.”

“I’m afraid.” He wrapped his long, paint-stained fingers in my sleeve, turned around and gave me a clumsy embrace, a kiss. “Don’t leave me. Please, I’ll change. Please help me.”

“I will. I’ll help.”

“Don’t leave me. Don’t go away. I needed you tonight and you weren’t here.”

I was still angry about the money, the money he probably used to get high like this, but I felt guilty too. What was worse? Stealing, or cheating on your partner? I held him in my arms and rocked him, and rested my cheek against his. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I’m sorry I was out with someone else.

Even if that someone else was nicer, and better adjusted, and richer than Simon, in the end, that someone else hadn’t wanted me. That someone else walked out on me without saying goodbye because I was just that horrible in his eyes.

But Simon wanted me, and Simon accepted me. All these fucked up things that were happening to me—they were the universe’s way of punishing me for making plans to desert Simon. I decided I wasn’t going to let W, or Tony, or anyone mess me up like this again.

I tried to pull my shit together when W scheduled a session for that weekend. He told Henry he wanted to meet me at The Standard, a hotel in the Meatpacking District known for its floor-to-ceiling windows and unobstructed views.

Voyeurs congregated outside at night, to watch the exhibitionists have sex with the curtains thrown open and the lights on. I hoped that wasn’t what W had in mind. The Standard was for people who wanted to be seen, and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for exposure. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for W and his shenanigans either, but a job was a job.

And I was a whore, as he was so fond of saying. So I straightened my dress—nothing fancy, I was done dressing up for him—and knocked on the door.

He opened it and motioned me in. He looked handsomely businesslike, in summer slacks and a button up, with a light blue tie. He didn’t look irritated like last time, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Take off your clothes,” he said by way of greeting. “Take off everything and sit on the bed.”

I stripped and sat where he indicated. It was seven in the evening, our usual meeting time, and summer sun still streamed in the windows. I felt like I was under a spotlight, but at least it was too bright for anyone to be peeping in from outside.

“How have you been?” he asked, peering down at me.

“All right.”

He handed over a paper. A clean STD test, with all his identifying information redacted, as promised. Stupid, so stupid. I shrugged. “Fine. Oral only, though.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied me. When I ducked my chin, he raised it again and scrutinized me in the evening light. His voice, when he spoke, was low and even. “What happened to you?”

I hesitated a second too long. “Nothing happened to me.”

His fingers tightened on my chin. “You look guilty. You look beaten.” His eyes moved over my body, but all the bruises were on the inside. “What happened to you?” he said, giving my face a little shake. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

I tried to push his hand away. “Nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sit on your hands and open your fucking mouth.”

He unzipped himself with jerky movements, drawing out his cock. My head was pulled into position while my hands curled into fists beneath my thighs. I hated being treated like this, but my rebellious body still responded to the passion and violence of being forced. My nipples hardened and ached, and a pulse bloomed between my legs. His cock was granite-hard, and yet it felt smooth and warm in my mouth without the latex barrier. It had been so long since I’d sucked a bare cock.

I lifted my hands to caress his length, to make it sexy and civilized, but of course he wasn’t interested in my efforts. He jammed my face on his cock until I choked.

“I told you to sit on your hands, bitch. I don’t want your hands. I want the wet, hot, lying little hole in your face. Just suck me.”

I glared up at him, taking him deep, gagging myself on his length.
Like this, you asshole?
He undid his tie and yanked my arms behind my back, and cinched them together above my elbows.

That made it easier somehow, this force and degradation. I was tied up, and W had taught me there was solace in surrender. I grunted as he used my hair to pull me off the bed and onto my knees.

I’d given many blowjobs in my life, but those blowjobs were different. Those men allowed me control. W allowed me zero control over my balance, my swallowing, even the angle of my throat. He shoved his cock in as far as he liked, and withdrew when he felt like it.

“Please,” I choked when he let me come up for air. “Why are you like this?”

“Why are you a liar?”

He plunged back in again and drove deep, in, out, in, out. Tears squeezed from my eyes and my scalp hurt where he held my hair bunched in his fist. I cycled between wanting to breathe, and trying not to gag up puke.

“Stop with the retching,” he scolded. “Don’t be a drama queen. Just blow me. That’s your job, you whore. Suck me off until I manage to empty myself in your worthless little throat.”

I knew this was his thing. The insults, the humiliation, the roughness. I knew he’d hold me afterward and make me feel better again, but that didn’t help me handle this now. I gagged hard and really almost vomited. He pulled away and slapped my face.

“I said cut it out. Look at me.”

As soon as I looked up at him, he slapped my face again. I was fucking over it. I tried to crawl away on my knees, tried to lunge myself away from him even as he tightened his grip in my hair. Big mistake. Nothing thrilled him more than a fight. That was the whole point of this. If I’d just gone limp and collapsed on the floor, he would have walked away and abandoned everything. But I couldn’t not fight, and he couldn’t resist controlling me, and I was choking and spitting and gagging with both his hands on my head now. My chest was covered in drool.

I made crying sounds in my throat, and I did start collapsing, because you can only get hammered so many times in the throat before you can’t take it anymore. He merely lifted me up again and made me continue. He was so good at this force, this terror. If he’d been wearing a condom, I probably would have broken it with my teeth by now, and choked on the latex when I accidentally sucked it into my mouth.

See, Chere, be grateful you aren’t literally dying.

No, I was just emotionally dying, because he was using me so brutally, and I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t be sexy, and I had no control.

“Look at me,” he barked. “Look up at me.”

I stared up as well as I could through the tears and the trauma. His hard blue gaze riveted onto mine as if to say
I own you. I own this hole in your face. Deal with it
. I tried to shake my head, but I think that only turned him on more.

“Jesus Christ,” he growled, low and rasping. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

I sucked. I shuddered. I hunched forward and stared up at him, begging for that cum, because I wanted this to be over. I felt his fingers tighten and tremble against my scalp, and I braced as he thrust in me hard, over and over. He finally came in my throat, too far back to taste. All I tasted was him, his skin and his scent and his heat.

His fingers loosened, but I didn’t dare move. When he finally withdrew, I swallowed convulsively and took halting breaths. He let me go and I crumpled to the floor.

“No. We’re not done. Sit up.”

I couldn’t. I didn’t want to, but he reached down and grabbed the tie that bound my arms behind my back, and forced me to sit up again.

“What did he do to you?” he asked, standing over me. His cock still glistened with my saliva.

“What? Who?”

“Your boyfriend. Tell me the fucking truth, Chere.”

“Nothing. It wasn’t...” I clamped my lips shut. Too late.

“It wasn’t your boyfriend? How interesting.” He yanked the tie tighter when I tried to turn away. “Who?”

“No one.”

“We’re supposed to be exclusive,” he barked.

“We only went to dinner!”

The fury in his face hardened to disgust. “Fucking liar.”

“It’s not a lie.”

He walked away from me, zipped up his pants and stalked across the room like he couldn’t stand to be near me. I wiped my face on the edge of the bed and tugged at the tie holding my elbows. I hoped to ruin it, like I’d ruined the last one.

“Cheating on your boyfriend?” he asked from the window.

“It wasn’t a date. He didn’t even stay for the whole dinner.”

“A client?” He turned back to me, his brow dangerously arched. “Taking a little work on the side?”

“He wasn’t a client! He was just someone I met, nothing to do with work.”

“What’s his name? What’s this fucker’s name?”

My lips trembled in indignation. “I’m not telling you.”

He came at me and I shied away, panicked. I tried to get to my feet and failed. He ignored my flailing, lifted me and set me forcefully on the edge of the bed.

“I’m not telling you his name,” I insisted, doubling down. What could he do to me that was worse than the violent blowjob? “It doesn’t matter anyway, because nothing happened. I met this guy, okay? He was friendly and nice, and he lived close to me, so we went to dinner. As soon as he learned what I do for a living, he said he had to go to the bathroom and he never came back. He ditched me there in the restaurant and left me with the bill. Does that make you happy? Once he found out the truth about me, that I was an escort—”

“The truth about you?” W scoffed, interrupting my tearful tirade. “There’s no truth about you, Chere. Just girly, emotional shit, and a bunch of lies holding it all together.”

I turned my face away from him. “Please close the window. My eyes...”

“Is the sun bothering you? Too much exposure? How about some darkness?”

He yanked the drapes closed with a snap. In the dim light bleeding from beneath the edges, he seemed a menacing shadow standing over me.

“Better?” he asked.

He walked away again. I felt relief, but at the same time I was afraid of the dark, and the darkness in him.

“What do you care about any of this?” I asked, raising my voice. “You said last time that you didn’t care about me at all, that we’re just escort and client. So why do you care if I lie? Why do you care what I do when we’re not together?”

He stripped off his clothes, his shirt and pants thrown across the same chair as my dress. “I care because I just had my bare dick in your mouth. I care because I’m paying you to be exclusive with me. Do you understand what that means? No one else, Chere. No one gets a shot at your pussy but me.”

I scoffed at that ridiculous assertion. “As you pointed out earlier, I have a boyfriend.”

“Your boyfriend?” He gave a mocking laugh. “That fucked-up, narcotic-addicted failed artist you live with? If he can get it up with the amount of chemicals in his system, I’d be amazed.”

Fucked-up. Narcotic-addicted. Failed artist.
I stared in shock at his dark silhouette. “How could you know all those things?”

“You think I don’t investigate the whore I’m sleeping with? You got your fucking STD test. I’m allowed to get my information too.”

“You had me investigated? You had people spy on me? Is that even legal?”

“It’s as legal as prostitution.” The darkness hid his expression, but his voice dripped with contempt. “Are you going to file a police report? Because I can file those too.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said in a fury. “You get to investigate me, but I don’t get to know anything about you, not even your name? That’s not fair.”

“You know what’s not fair? Paying for a whore to be exclusive to you—”

“I’m an escort, not a whore,” I yelled, as he went around turning on lights.

“And then finding out your exclusive whore is going to dinner with some fucking jackass.”

I blinked as the bright bedside lamps illuminated his irritated expression. “Nothing happened.”

“You think he didn’t want to get into your panties, Chere? Men only want one thing from women who look like you.”

“Shut up.”

“If you think otherwise, you’re a fucking idiot.”

“Shut up!”

“I’m not going to shut up,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You didn’t only break our agreement. You also cheated on your shitty-ass loser boyfriend.” He went to his briefcase and unzipped it. “And why? What came out of it, but a lot of fucking hurt?”

“My life and my boyfriend are none of your business.”

“Maybe not. But I have you for another hour and fifteen minutes, and you’ve been a bad girl. A lying, conniving, two-timing bad girl.” He came at me with a pair of black clamps. “You have no integrity. That sucks. But maybe I can teach you the error of your ways.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, shrinking back.

He took one of my tethered arms and held up the first of the intricate looking clamps, and worked it open and closed a few times in front of my eyes.

“No,” I said. “Please. No.”

I tried to get up but he had me by the arm. When I started fighting in earnest, he pushed me back on the bed and straddled my hips. My arms were crushed behind my back and my legs weren’t going anywhere. I watched helplessly as he tugged at my right nipple and opened the clamp’s jaw.