Torment Me (Rough Love Part One) (18 page)

It is unhealthy to rely on other people for poetry.

It’s better to have no love than to have violent love.

It is okay to save yourself.

My phone buzzed, displaying a number I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t unusual in my business. I answered with a noncommittal “Hello?”

“Chere?”

Oh God. It was W. It shocked me that he would call. I couldn’t believe he’d reveal something so personal as his phone number.

“Chere?” he said again, when I didn’t answer.

“How did you get my number?”

I heard him take a breath. “Does that really matter?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Hang up on him.
I did not hang up.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You didn’t wait for me to say goodbye.” He sounded angry. Stern.
Bad whore, leaving without saying goodbye.

“I had to go.” That was the simple truth. I had to get out of there.

“You didn’t wait for me to try to make things better.”

“You can’t make things better when they’re that fucked up.”

He was silent a moment. Then: “I don’t think we’re that fucked up.” Another pause. “I try to make things better afterward. I didn’t want you to leave.”

“I’m sorry. I felt like I had to leave.”

“Why?”

It felt strange to talk to him on the phone, to talk to him in a situation where he couldn’t hurt me. At least not physically.

“Why did you leave?” he prompted. “Because I hurt your feelings? Because I hurt your body?”

He didn’t say it mockingly, or I would have hung up. “Yes,” I said. “To both of them.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to hold you afterward. I think that’s important. I worried about you after you left.”

I tried to picture him in the Standard, worrying, pacing back and forth in front of the big glass window with all the voyeurs outside. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine him caring, but he’d called me. Henry would never have given him my number. He must have gotten it the day he went through my bag.

“I’m fine,” I said sullenly. “I was just reading.”

“You’re at home?”

“Yes.” Ugh, I shouldn’t have told him that. It was none of his business. None of this was any of his business. “I’m not supposed to talk to clients outside of our sessions,” I told him. “We’re supposed to go through Henry. I can’t talk to you.”

“Don’t hang up.”

I cradled the phone against my ear and waited.

“I like being with you,” he said.

I closed my eyes. There was something in his voice I’d never heard before, some longing or tenderness. My throat constricted in despair.

“I can’t talk to you.” I had to force the words out. My voice trembled. “I have to go.”

“Are you crying?”

“Phone calls aren’t allowed.”

“I don’t give a fuck what’s allowed.”

Goodbye, tenderness. Hello, scary person I didn’t want in my life anymore. I wiped my eyes put the phone down on the bed.

“Chere?” I could still hear him. I swallowed hard and steadied my voice as well as I could.

“I have to go. I’m sorry, but I can’t see you anymore. I have to...change something.”

I pushed the button on the screen to end the call. Goodbye. So easy, one finger could do it. Even so, I felt a terrible loss. The sobs I’d held inside broke free, ugly and desolate sounding. I buried my head in the covers, wary of waking Simon. I couldn’t stem the tide of grief.

My chest ached with pent up emotion, with all the weird hopes and aspirations W had spurred in me. All of it was hopeless because we couldn’t be together. Tony’s rejection had hurt me. W’s continued rejection would eventually kill me, and I couldn’t even understand why.

I flung the codependency book across the room. I hated him for doing this. I hated that he messed me up this way.
It is okay to save yourself. It is okay to protect yourself.

Five minutes after I hung up on him, the phone rang again. I looked at the number and sent it to voice mail. Twice more he called. Finally, I answered.

“Don’t hang up,” he said, and this time it was less of an order and more of a plea.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you calling me?”

“To be sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” I said, and I was bawling.

“You don’t sound okay. What happened today, Chere? Things were okay between us. I mean, they weren’t great, but you seemed to get something out of our sessions before. Today you seemed hollow. Upset.”

“You hurt me! You called me a liar, and said all kinds of other terrible things.”

“I also said you were magnificent, and I meant it.”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take away everything else.”

He was quiet a moment. I wondered where he was, what his place looked like. Was he lying on a couch? In a bed? Did he have a wife in the next room? Kids? A dog?

“I’m sorry about that guy,” he finally said. “That jackass who left you at the restaurant.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t approve of my career.”

“I think you’re great at your career. That’s what I would have told you if you’d stuck around. It was a hot fucking scene today. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have any words.

“Chere?” he asked after a moment. “Are you still there?”

“I’m not going to do escorting much longer,” I said. “I’m already thinking how to get out of it. It’s not making me happy.”

“It’s not making you happy, or
I’m
not making you happy?”

I sighed. “This isn’t about you. There’s so much more fucked-up shit in my life, shit that has nothing to do with you.”

“Like what?”

I rubbed my eyes. All this time he held me at arms’ length, and now he wanted to have a therapy session? I heard a thump from the living room, and Simon muttering.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Like what?” he repeated. “Talk to me, Chere.”

“I can’t talk to you. I told you that. This is against the rules.”

“And I told you I don’t give a fuck about the rules.”

“Chere!” That was Simon, out in the hall. “Chere!”

Just as I feared, he’d woken up like a bear. Withdrawal was a bitch. He rattled the knob and pounded.

“Chere, open the door! I told you not to lock me out!”

“Who’s that?” W asked. “Your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” I said miserably. “I have to go.”

“He sounds angry.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Will you be fine?”

More pounding, more shouting. I wondered how much W heard. I curved my hand around the phone like that might block the huge noise of Simon’s meltdown.

I didn’t want to hang up anymore. I wanted W to be there so I didn’t have to go through this alone. “He takes drugs,” I said in a near whisper. “He’s so messed up. If he’s not high enough, he’s unbearable.”

“Then why are you there? Why do you live with him?” His blunt questions were just like the damn book. They didn’t solve any of my problems.

“I’m in a locked room. I’ll stay here until he calms down.”

“Fuck that. Chere—”

“It’s none of your business.”

Simon let loose a string of blistering expletives, and the banging stopped. I heard him stomp away. He couldn’t get at my money because I had it in the room with me. He’d leave now, to go bum money or drugs from his friends. From Rich Rachel, who seemed to provide an endless supply.

“He left,” I said, because W had sounded worried, and I thought he would want to know. “He’ll be gone for a while.”

“You should be gone,” he said, in the most sincere voice I’d ever heard.

“I’m hanging up.” I didn’t want to do this with him. I didn’t want him in my life. I didn’t want him insinuating himself into the other fucked-up areas of my existence, especially since I wasn’t seeing him again.

“I need to see you again,” he said, before I could hang up. “I know you don’t want to see me anymore, but I want to see you.”

I rolled my eyes, my sore eyes that were red from crying. “That’s too bad.”

“What if things could be different? I mean, I’ll never really change. I’m a mean bastard. I’m a sadist, but maybe we can sit down before our next session and talk. We’ll talk before we fuck. I’ll prepare you a little more for what’s going to go on.”

“You mean..?” I paused and swallowed hard. “Are you saying you
know
what you’re going to do to me from the beginning? That all that stuff you do to me is planned?”

“It wouldn’t be very safe, otherwise. If I just came at you flailing, and deciding things on the fly.”

There was a long moment of silence, then he made a tsk of a sound. “Didn’t you know that? Do you think all the stuff we do together is real?”

“It feels real. When you’re doing it, it feels really real.”

“It’s supposed to feel real when I’m doing it. Then afterward we calm down together and decompress. At least, when you don’t take off. Next time—” His voice cut off, and he made a frustrated noise.

“What?”

“I was going to say that next time, I’d tie you to the bed so you can’t leave. But you don’t want there to be a next time, and making threats about what I’m going to do to you next time probably isn’t the wisest way to proceed.” He sighed. “It’s late. I’m tired and worried. I’m worried that you won’t see me again.”

“I’m not going to see you again,” I said, but that time, it sounded like a lie. Because what he was saying sounded kind of like an apology, and a promise to do things better next time, for my sake.

“Are you safe there?” he asked. I wondered what he’d do if I said no. Would he come rescue me? Take me to his mystery abode and reveal more of himself to me? More than his phone number?
No, Chere. No.

“I’m safe,” I said. “He won’t be back for hours. I’m going to go to sleep. There’s a deadbolt on the door.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“I’m going to hang up now. I’ve had a long day.”

“See me again. Please.” He made a rough noise, a laugh or a growl. “No one fights like you, Chere. I need you to fight me. All the other whores are pansies. Excuse me. All the other
escorts
are pansies. You affect me more than anyone else.”

I knew what he meant. No one else had ever made me feel the way he made me feel, and I feared no one else in my life ever would.

“You scare me,” I said.

“You scare me too.”

“You know what I mean.”

He sighed. “I’ll try not to scare you next time. We’ll talk. We’ll go slower.”

“And then you’ll still be mean to me and make me feel like shit.”

“I told you why I do that. It has nothing to do with you personally.” He paused. “That sounded wrong. It has everything to do with you being perfect at meeting my needs. That’s the personal side of it. And unfortunately, my needs are to be a complete bastard to you. But I don’t mean to hurt you. Really hurt you.” I thought I heard him set a glass on a table. “I was afraid I really hurt you today.”

“You did.”

“But how much of that was because you already felt hurt by someone else?”

He said it gently, because he knew it was a little mean, but he also knew he was right. “You felt hurt too,” I pointed out. “You flew into a rage about the Tony thing.”

“Ah. His name is Tony.”

I clamped my lips shut. I hadn’t meant to give up that information, not that it mattered.

Yes, it mattered. He’d use it to taunt me at some future point.

“And for the record, I wasn’t in a rage about Tony,” he said, drawing out the name with derision. “I was in a rage because of what you let him do to you. You’re sad, Chere.”

He didn’t say I
looked
sad, or that I’d
seemed
sad earlier, during our session. He said
You’re sad.
Which I guess made sense after the way I’d cried, and all the girly, emotional shit I’d poured into his ears. I didn’t understand why he’d called, or why he seemed to care enough to be upset on my behalf. I didn’t understand what I did for him, or why he wanted another date so bad.

I didn’t understand anything about him.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m going to call Henry and set up another date. You can come if you like. But if you’d rather not, I’ll understand. If that’s the case, I won’t call, and I won’t try to contact you again. But if you come...”

“What?” I asked when he didn’t finish.

“If you come, I’ll give you more poetry,” he said in a soft, compelling cadence. “And I’ve never given poetry to any of the other ones, Chere. Only you.”

He said he’d try not to scare me. He said we’d go slower. I didn’t know what that meant, but I agreed to another date, and even put on a designer dress for the first time since he’d cut off my Lanvin suit almost two months ago. This was trust, if not friendship. For once, I looked forward to our session with more anticipation than dread.

Well, there was a lot of dread too.

I walked across the glitzy hotel lobby and found my way to the elevators. I’d never met a client at the Four Seasons before. The rooms were ridiculously expensive. I felt like I was breathing in expensive air and walking along expensive ground. The Four Seasons seemed too stately, too old-world-wealthy to use for tawdry sex, but here I was. How did W afford these hotels, on top of what he paid for exclusive access to my services? Who was he? What did he do?

Believe me, I’d tried to figure it out. I’d badgered Henry for any scrap of information, but his mouth was firmly shut. I’d searched design magazines and design firms, and researched modern poets. No dice. I’d pored over fetish websites and personal ads, but there were so many profiles to sift through, and so many men in New York who claimed to be rich and dominant and sadistic. A quick scan of each profile, and I’d know it wasn’t him because the person was trying too hard, or coming off fake, and W wasn’t fake. He was irritating and scary, and unfathomable, but he wasn’t fake.

I tried to convince myself that this compulsion to know about him was only natural curiosity, not some deeper feelings. I had a boyfriend, after all, and W was just a client. He was a very small part of my big and complex life, and the fact that he gave me exquisitely mind-blowing orgasms didn’t mean I was falling in love.
Oh, Jesus, don’t let me be falling in love.