“You have a choice. You tell me. Now. You come clean about everything. Or you don’t and you choose to lie down on the bed and you take the consequence.”
Tears are welling in her eyes and the first of them slips out. “Please. I can’t.”
“Can’t and won’t are two different things. Decide.”
She shakes her head no. “You said…we agreed. Just sex.”
“And we also agreed there would be consequences if you broke a rule, which you did. I’m giving you an out. I advise you to take it. You do not want me to whip your ass, Melissa.”
“You want something I won’t give. Something I never agreed to give!”
I shift my gaze to the belt in my hand, adjusting my grip. “Get on the bed. Face down.”
“Please don’t,” she pleads, her voice small as tears streak her face.
“Move. I want your ass bare.”
Her gaze falls to the belt in my hand, then returns to mine. “I’m sorry. I should have asked the driver to bring me.”
“We’re so far from that, sweetheart.” I gesture to the bed.
“You’ll make me, won’t you? You’re bigger than me. Stronger. It’s what men do, isn’t it?”
“Is that what happened? Did Boyd make you? Did—”
“Stop!” She covers her ears as if that will stop her from hearing, then scoots to the side to try to slip toward the door, but I block her way.
“God damnit. Why do you make it so fucking hard?”
“Leave it alone. Leave me alone!”
“Either get on the bed or tell me the truth. Last time I’m asking.”
“Get away from me. I didn’t agree to this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, and the moment I do, she breaks into a sprint for the door.
I catch her by the arm and tug her backward into me. She bounces off my chest and lets out a scream when I toss her onto the bed. She tries to scramble away, but I grab her ankle, tug her down and trap her with my knee on her back. Without another word, I flip her skirt up and tug her panties down. I bring the belt down across her ass.
I don’t think she expects me to go through with it, but the moment the belt makes contact with her skin, it’s like the air in the room stands still for just the smallest fraction of a second before she registers the pain and lets out a scream.
I expect her to fight me and she does, at first.
She fights like a hellcat.
But then, after three more strokes, she lays there and takes it. Resigns herself to it, maybe, hands fisted, body tense. I still have to keep my knee on her back—she’s not that still—but I expect more of a fight from her. Hell, from anyone.
And I don’t take it easy on her. The more strokes I lay down, the less she fights, the more I know she’s in real trouble. What in hell could be so awful that she’d rather take a whipping than tell me?
But then the act itself takes over. That sound of leather on flesh, that look of her reddening ass as each stroke is met with a breathless scream as if the belt were forcing the air from her lungs.
Fuck, I know it’s wrong, but my cock is hard.
After two dozen, she’s got her face buried in the blankets and she’s fisting handfuls of it sobbing so loud, I’m sure Axel, who’s waiting outside, can hear. Hell, the entire neighborhood must hear.
“Enough?” I ask her.
She won’t look at me, but she nods, and I hear her sniffle.
I move my knee from her back, adjust my dick because now is not the time. I watch her slide to her knees on the floor, hands first cupping her ass, then covering her face. She’s hiding herself from me as her shoulders shudder with her sobs.
I weave my belt through the loops of my pants and watch her, then crouch down, take her hands away from her face and make her look at me.
“Let me help you, Melissa. I want to help you.”
“Go to hell!” she yells, hands on my face, clawing me.
I grip her wrists, pry her off of me and hold her like that, watch her in her rage, in her pain. I want to shake her. To make her talk.
It takes everything I have to let her go. To stand. To look at her like this. Down on her knees, punished. Sobbing.
It takes everything I have to turn away.
And I’m about to go, to walk out, when there on the bed I see her bracelet. She hasn’t noticed it’s broken off yet and I don’t tell her. Instead, I take it and shove it into my pocket.
“Get yourself together. You have three minutes to be outside,” I say, and force myself to walk out that door.
19
Melissa
I don’t know if I’m glad or upset that he’s already gone when I get outside.
I took longer than the three minutes he allotted me. Hell, it took me twice that to get up off the floor, to stop crying. And still, every few minutes, I suck in a breath and my entire body shudders.
Axel—I guess Hawk’s making sure there aren’t any more fuck-ups—glances at me indifferently in the rear-view mirror.
Did he hear, I wonder?
Does he know what just happened?
Heat burns my face. I’m humiliated and hurt, and everything is falling apart.
And Hawk’s too close. Too close to finding out everything. And being here, as much as I’m safest from Sean, if Hawk finds out, I don’t know what I’ll do.
When we get to the casino, I’m relieved that Axel just walks me to the elevator and barely looks at me as we ride up in awkward silence. Only once we’re inside the penthouse does he speak.
“You’ll stay here until Hawk’s back. The elevator will be locked. If you need something, you dial the lobby. They’ll help you.”
“Where is he?” I ask, my voice so small, and my face, I feel it twisting again. I don’t want to cry, not in front of him. I don’t want to be so pathetic.
Axel studies me, really studies me and he looks like he wants to say something.
All I want to do right now is disappear. I want for him to leave and for me to go into the bedroom and lock the door and sleep under the covers, buried beneath them. Sleep and forget. Just please God for a little bit, let me forget.
“Questions?” he finally asks.
I shake my head and before he’s gone, I’ve already turned and am going into the bedroom.
There’s no lock on the door. I never noticed that before. Only the bathroom door has one. But I’m too tired to do anything other than crawl into the bed. His bed.
I’m so, so tired.
I push the button to darken the glass to black. But before I can go to sleep, I remember Deirdre. She’s expecting me to return. I get my phone from my bag and send her a text telling her I won’t be back and to close up early.
That’s when I realize my bracelet is missing.
Panicked, I look around, but then I remember. I remember during my whipping that it caught on the blankets. I remember when it snapped but I forgot all about it. I forgot to get it.
I need to go back and get it.
I can’t think about that though. Not now.
Taking off my shoes, I get into the bed, smelling fresh sheets—who has their bed changed daily? My butt hurts so I lay on my belly and draw the covers up to my neck, then higher and all I hear is the ringing in my ears and the sniffles as I stare off into nothing. I’m not sure if my eyes are open or closed, it’s so dark in here, until finally, I fall asleep.
When I wake, the clock tells me it’s four in the morning. I turn onto my back, wince with pain, look at his side of the bed to find it empty. I get up only because I need to use the bathroom, then climb back into the bed and close my eyes again.
My backside is throbbing and sore. My thighs too.
I’ve never been whipped like that. What Sean did, it was a different sort of beating. He liked to use his fists. He couldn’t do it as often as he wanted though. It didn’t look good on the video to have me looking beat up. Look like I was made to.
Although rape sold well, too, didn’t it? As well as child por
nography?
God.
Jesus.
Hawk wants me to tell him that?
No. No way. I’m doing him a favor not telling him anything about that.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the things I did but those memories, they don’t go away. They don’t even dull. They’re in brilliant color and the details excruciatingly precise. I remember every sound, every touch, and it makes me sick, as sick now as if it were happening again.
I remember the looks on their face, too. All of them.
God.
I was a whore at eleven.
Little Bitch Whore.
His pet name for me. The bitch was because I fought. At least at first. Then I didn’t fight anymore. Not even when he wanted me to.
It’s so quiet here, it’s almost strange. If I stop to listen, it’s a sound itself, that silence. And it somehow calms me. Makes things almost manageable when I concentrate on it and that’s what I do. I sleep. I listen. I sleep.
And the next day when I wake up, I leave another message for Deirdre telling her I don’t feel well and it’s not a lie. I tell her I won’t be in for the next few days and just to close the shop and leave a note in the window.
By the time I have a shower the next night, he’s still not back.
I lock the bathroom door and strip off my clothes then turn my back to the mirror and look at myself. Look at the damage.
My butt and upper thighs are bruised, the welts of the belt distinct and tender to the touch. I don’t know how many strokes he gave me. I stopped counting after ten.
I switch on the shower and I don’t know if I’m weak from hunger or just sadness. It’s hard to even move, to get myself under the flow of water. All I want to do is sleep. I just want to sleep.
But I force myself to stand there, not shampooing or anything but standing under the water for a good five minutes. Afterwards, I dry off and I put on the same dress because it’s the thing near at hand.
I don’t want to put on new, nice clothes. What’s the point?
I’m hungry and I walk out of the bedroom. I’m quiet when I open the door. I listen for him. Listen for any noise.
But I’m alone.
And by the time I get to the kitchen, I’ve lost my appetite and I go back to bed.
I’m alone that day and the next and the one after that except for when the maid comes. I don’t let her clean the bedroom.
She’s hesitant to leave it and tries to tell me it’ll only take a few minutes, but I send her away anyway.
Each night without me having to call, a meal is delivered. I manage a few bites before leaving everything. The following morning, when I wake, the dinner tray is always gone and a fresh tray of breakfast is in its place. I think they bring lunch too. I heard the elevator once. But I sleep in the middle hours. Those are almost harder than the nights.
Every time I push the button to call the elevator, nothing happens. I know I need a key, and I guess they all have one. Everyone but me.
It’s not until four nights later when I’m standing at the balcony door trying to open it that I hear the elevator doors slide open behind me.
With a gasp, I turn to find Hawk walk in, big as ever, impeccable in his suit, fierce in his expression.
“You need a special key to open it,” he says like it’s not weird that he’s been gone for four days. That he’s kept me locked up in here all that time.
I realize I have my back pressed up against the glass, my hands still behind me on the handle.
He steps inside and looks me over and I look down too.
I’m barefoot. Still wearing the same dress. There’s a big stain on the front of it. I don’t remember spilling anything. I guess I did, though.
I watch him as he walks around the furniture toward me. My heart is hammering against my chest and my throat has closed up and left me mute.
Why don’t I rage? Why don’t I fly at him? Hurt him like he hurt me. Scratch out his eyes or tear out skin. The scratches I managed to get in have mostly healed.
“Have you bathed?” he asks once he’s standing just a few feet from me.
I’m still glued to the same spot. Maybe I’ve backed up some more, even, because the heels of my feet are pressing against the cool glass.
“Have you bathed, Melissa?” he asks again.
He reaches out and I flinch. He stops, then moves slowly to touch my hair.
I touch it too. I don’t know what I look like. I haven’t looked in a mirror since he locked me up here.
And no, I haven’t bathed. Not since that first day when I stood under the water.
“They said the trays are mostly untouched,” he says.
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Melissa?” He peers down at me. “We had an agreement. Eating was part of that.”
The agreement.
His rules.
His to change at will.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.” Tears again. My words are jumbled, my closed throat suddenly too full of them. Too filled with words. “You said,” my shoulders wrack, sobs now. No soft tears.
Some women cry pretty. Not me. I’ve never been one of those women.
“You said,” I start again, having to suck in a breath. “You asked didn’t I know that? That you won’t hurt me?”
I see his face for one second. For one split second through the tears and humiliation and shame, I see his face and I think he’s sorry. I think he’s sad. Sad when he looks at me.
And then I feel his big hand at the back of my head. He’s so strong when he pulls me into his chest and wraps his other arm around my shoulders while he holds me like that and lets me sob. I’m ruining his shirt with tears and snot but I can’t seem to stop.
In the middle of this sobbing, I feel a hunger so deep it hurts.
A void so empty, it’s a black hole.
And when he lifts me up in his arms and carries me to the sofa, I let him. I don’t fight. Not when he sits down and cradles me on his lap and I just sob and sob and sob.
It feels good, him holding me like this. It feels good to be in his arms. Against his chest. He’s so strong. And when he’s gentle, he’s so gentle.
Then after all the sleeping of the last few days, somehow, I sleep again. When I’m spent and dried out, I sleep again and it’s dreamless. I’m weightless yet I feel him lift me and carry me and when he lays me down in his bed, I feel him lie behind me, and I sleep.
20
Hawk
I tracked down the asshole from the other night. I had to fly across the country to fucking Dover, New Hampshire, but I found him.
I look down at Melissa. She’s a mess. Her hair is a giant tangle around her head, she’s wearing the same dress she had on the day I left. When I put my hand against her belly, it’s concave. Empty.
She hasn’t eaten more than a few bites from a few trays. The maid said she wouldn’t let her into the bedroom. I could tell when I brought her in here. The bed was unmade, the comforter a heap at the center of it. The glass walls blacked out.
And here she lies, sleeping. Peaceful when I look at her face with her eyes closed, slightly sunken now. Her thick lashes flutter and she mumbles something, then settles back into sleep.
Her color is paler than usual, but it makes her lips look almost redder for it. Snow White in her glass coffin. Cursed. Sleeping until true love’s kiss wakes her. Or is that the other one? Sleeping Beauty? I don’t fucking know.
I lay on my back and look up at the ceiling.
The door isn’t closed so it’s not pitch-black in here. I’m still fully dressed, haven’t even taken off my shoes.
I still haven’t fully processed what I learned.
What I saw.
I know men. I know we’re sick—all of us. But I understand now why she said there were worse men than me out there.
Fuck, she’s met them. Known them intimately.
Senator Boyd was part of it. He’s lucky he’s already dead.
&n
bsp; But his son isn’t.
I quietly climb up off the bed and look down at her. She looks really young. I always thought that, even on that first night. Like there’s a little girl inside there and when she doesn’t have her guard up, there she is.
I’m trying to understand it. Understand how a grown man can be turned on by a little girl. A child.
Then I think about Marcus and fifteen-year-old Calla.
Melissa was eleven.
My stomach turns at the thought of what I saw, but I make myself stand there. Make myself look down at her. At this broken girl who’s managed to piece herself together over the years, at least for anyone who isn’t paying attention.
The asshole from the party knew her from the videos.
I saw two.
Well, saw as far as I could stomach it. Eleven-year-old Melissa with those eyes—only they were terrified then. That’s how he’d recognized her. Her eyes.
Melissa the child dressed as a child.
Pretty in pink. I remember her reaction to the pink clothes.
Melissa holding her teddy bear, face white as a ghost. At least her eyes went absent during the terror. Like she wasn’t there anymore.
A ghost.
Grown men fucking a child. Making a ghost out of her.
My hands fist now, and rage tightens my chest. I think about the boy-man from the party. I think about his hands on her.
He claimed to only watch the videos. That he hadn’t been there when the acts took place. I only believed him because he’d have been her age then. The perverts would probably have stuck their dicks in him too if he’d been there. What a different world he’d be living in. What a different life he’d have.
Prey, not predator.
But at least he’d still have a life.
I walk toward the door and her words come back to me: “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
For what I did to that man, I feel no remorse. But what I did to her—whipping her like I did—fuck. I feel like the world’s biggest asshole. And even more so for leaving her there afterwards. Leaving her to get herself together alone.
I should have known better.
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