Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire

by Aleatha Romig

In case of disaster. There wasn’t a seat belt, life vest, or oxygen mask that could save me if this new job didn’t work out. I was flying twenty hours away to Thailand with someone who was more or less a stranger. If you could consider someone who’d spanked and fucked you silly the night before a stranger. I looked over at him typing away with a frown on his phone. A complete stranger, yes.

  But everyone else thought they knew him: bystanders, fans, gawkers. Several passengers came up to introduce themselves and chat with him briefly once we were in flight. He was outwardly gracious, but I could hear the tight irritation underneath. After one particularly cloying woman returned to her seat, he turned to me with a frown.

  “You’re supposed to help me out. Your job is to glare at women like that until they go away.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re my girlfriend. When women are swooning all over me, you’re supposed to look annoyed and irritated so they leave quickly. Better yet, stare them off so they don’t even come over.”

  “Like this?” I asked, putting on my best jealous-girlfriend scowl.

  “Perfect. That’s a big part of why I need you, you know? To fend off female fans.”

  “Happy to be of service,” I muttered.

  I turned away and dug in my bag for my well-worn copy of the Kalevala and started to read. I found it a very soothing and entertaining piece of mythology, something relaxing to read when my nerves were on edge. It was an epic poem from Finland, not too terribly ancient, but mythological all the same. I was absorbed in the second Väinämöinen cycle when Jeremy shifted beside me and cleared his throat. It was already growing late. The sky was darkening and we were flying over black water through endless dark gray skies.

  “What are you reading?” he asked.

  “Some Finnish mythology. The Kalevala.”

  “The Kaleva-huh? Let me see.”

  I handed him the book, and he flipped it over to look at the cover, losing my place.

  “You Finnish?” he asked.

  “No, it’s just a good work I like to read, one of my favorites. Creative, well written, in verse.”

  “Verse, huh? Sounds gripping.”

  “It’s not for everyone.” I accepted the volume back from him and flipped through the pages to find my place again.

  “Why are you so into that stuff? The study of mythology?”

  “Mythology is what cultures have used for millennia to make sense of the human condition, to make sense of the world. If you gave it a chance, if you read the mythology of several different cultures, you’d be amazed at the similarities they share. Myths tell you a lot about humanity, about cultural perspectives, world views…”

  He rolled his eyes. “All those flowery epics and stories are just complicating things. I live by one idea and one idea only—if it feels good, do it.”

  “Hmm.” I looked back at my book. “I do believe that is your credo.”

  “If it weren’t for people like me who live by that credo, you wouldn’t have built your nice little career in the sex trade, now would you?”

  “Some people just want more out of life than hedonism and sexual pleasure.”

  “Suckers.”

  “You know, I fall into that group.”

  “And you’re a sucker, aren’t you?” He sat back with a smirk. “A half-good one, I’ll admit.”

  I hunched over my book. I wasn’t going to be baited into a conversation about how I gave head in the middle of the first-class compartment of an airplane, even if everyone else was going to sleep.

  He watched me read for a while, fidgeted, scratched his chin, ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Kalevala,” he muttered. “If it’s so great, what’s it about, then? Tell me one of the stories. I can’t sleep. I hate sleeping on planes.”

  “Are you going to stay up the whole flight?”

  “No, I’ll sleep eventually, but I’ll wake up feeling even shittier than before.”

  “I hate sleeping on planes too.”

  “I bet your mythology could put me to sleep.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “I’ll tell you one of the stories if you want, but if you’re just going to make fun—”

  “Actually, tell me a story from Eden. I’d like that better. Tell me a good story from your old work, a cool scene you did. Something sexy.”

  “I’m not supposed to do that. I signed a confidentiality agreement.”

  “Don’t use names, just tell me what happened. I want it. Something really, really raunchy and nasty.”

  “Not much raunchy happened there. No sex allowed, remember?”

  He rubbed his face. “Something sexy had to happen at least once. One sexy story. Come on. Your mythology. Tell me. Please.”

  “All right, let me think.” I sighed, closing my book. There had actually been a lot of sexy moments at the club, so many I wasn’t sure which story to tell him. A few particular clients stood out in my mind, a few scenes I played that changed or affected me. The mythology of Nell.

  “There was one couple who came in who always got me going,” I began. “A fiftyish man and a younger girl, maybe nineteen or twenty years old. They were hard-core players in a Dom/sub relationship, but they liked to come in and role-play that she was his new wife. That she was being introduced to the lifestyle but was ambivalent about it. Well, sometimes it was more like she was being forced into the lifestyle. Wifely slavery. It was pretty hot. It always began with him introducing her to me formally. He would explain that I was a submissive, that I was the way he wanted her to be. He’d bring out a collar and buckle it around my neck.”

  “You and your collar thing.”

  “Oh, collars melt me. Big, black, leather ones—”

  “Okay, okay, you pervert.” He looked around and leaned closer. “So then what? You’re collared and panting…”

  “Then he’d leash me and lead me around in front of her while she stared as if she were horrified at what she was seeing. She was a great actress.”

  Jeremy chuckled. “Maybe I know her.”

  I shrugged. “She could have been a professional actress. The first time we played the scene I was absolutely convinced she was a novice, a reluctant partner, but by the end I kind of figured out the game. By the fifth or sixth time, I really started admiring her acting talent. Her distress was beautiful. She would stare and gasp while her dom put me through the paces, flogged me, made me masturbate. He’d talk to her the whole time. ‘See how she does what I ask as soon as I ask it? Whatever I demand? That’s what you’ll do too.’ Then he would make us stand together, and he’d take whatever he’d put on me and put it on her. Collars, clamps, cuffs, harnesses. Sometimes he made me put it on her instead.”

  He looked over at me. “You liked it.”

  “I got off on it a little, yeah. She played the innocent so well. I felt like her sister, her mentor.”

  “And you and she…” He seemed enthralled by the possibilities.

  “Yeah. I would pretend to console her, soothe her while he watched. It went on from there.”

  “Wait, you can’t just say that. What do you mean, it went on from there? Details.”

  I shrugged. “You know, it went on. He would dom us both then, tell us what to do to each other, make us get each other off while he watched.”

  “You ate her out? She ate you out?”

  “Not allowed. We did other things.”

  “Like?”

  I laughed. “There was lots of licking and sucking. Making out. We kissed and toyed with each other’s tits. There was lots of grinding our horny little hips together and talking dirty.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s good stuff.” He shifted beside me. “So how did that make you feel?”

  “Pretty horny, Jeremy.”

  “It’s making me pretty horny too. Was she talented?”

  “Yes. Crazy talented, a hell of a lot more talented than me. And gorgeous. Huge, perky tits, responsive nipples. I could feel them harden right under my tongue, and I’d tug on
her nipple rings with my teeth.” I was just teasing Jeremy now. He was all but quivering beside me. “And she had this amazing mane of long blonde hair I would twist up in my fists. Even the way she smelled was gorgeous, sort of musky and woodsy when I’d bury my face in the side of her neck.”

  “Go on,” Jeremy breathed.

  I shrugged. “Well, it was just work, you know? Ultimately the scene was between her and her dom. I was kind of beside the point.”

  “Just the facilitator.”

  “No, not at all. He was the facilitator. I was only the prop. I was always the prop, the thing people used to get off.”

  “‘The thing people used.’ Did you really think of yourself that way?”

  “Yes, Jeremy, I still do. That’s what I am. It’s what I’ve made a career out of. I don’t care.”

  His lips pursed a little, and he leaned close to me.

  “I think you do care.”

  I looked down at my book. I really wanted to get back to Väinämöinen and the Maid of the North.

  “What’s your real name?” he asked.

  “I don’t tell anyone my real name.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, maybe for the same reason you keep employees instead of girlfriends. Personal space.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and sat back with a frown. So he didn’t like that. Too bad. My real name was mine and mine only. It wasn’t for use at a sex club, by a dominant, or by anyone who was paying me for my time.

  “Nell is part of it, though? At least tell me that much. Nell is short for your real name?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll tell you that much. Nell is short for my real name.”

  “Lucynell?”

  I laughed. “No.”

  “Janelle?”

  I closed my book with a sigh and put it away. It was going to be a long, long flight.

  “Danielle?”

  I shook my head and leaned against the window, trying to wedge the flimsy airline pillow into some semblance of comfort.

  “Here,” he said with impatience. “Lean against me if you’re going to try to sleep.” He took my pillow and propped it against his shoulder, and I rested gratefully against his warmth and solidness. He was quiet a long time, until the hum of the airplane had nearly put me to sleep.

  “Eleanor?”

  I shook my head against his shoulder, and finally, somewhere over the black ocean, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  *

  Taking off had been nerve-racking, but arriving in Bangkok was completely insane. A massive press of humanity waited outside the airport: photographers, fans, crazy people yelling and gesticulating. “Jeremy Gray! Over here! Over here!” My instinct was to hang back, to hide behind someone, but Jeremy propelled me forward.

  “Smile and look happy to be with me,” he directed under his breath.

  I was exhausted and sore from the flight, but I looked up into the wall of blinding flashes and gave what I hoped was a movie-star-girlfriend-caliber smile. The crowd converged on us, and I slowed. There was absolutely nowhere to go.

  “Keep walking. Don’t stop. They’ll move out of the way.”

  He pulled me closer, guiding me through the crowds. I was jostled and pulled, and then I felt Kyle at my back, urging us both forward. “There’s the car,” he said.

  The three of us dived into the limo, and the driver shut the door. The sudden silence was shocking after the pandemonium outside. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

  “You okay?” Jeremy asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “No. I don’t know. That was crazy.”

  I was sitting beside him, and though I wanted him to hold me, to comfort me, instead he leaned away from me, his face drawn and tired. He still looked like a movie star, even exhausted, but I thought I must look like absolute hell. Kyle rode backward, across from the two of us, wearing his usual smart-ass grin.

  They talked about Jeremy’s work schedule while I drifted. I watched Kyle from under my lids. We’d had a few tense conversations since our rendezvous at my apartment. I flat out hated the man, but the vibe I got from him was more that of a jealous friend. I suppose he’d been Jeremy’s golden go-to pal until I got thrown into the mix.

  I watched Kyle lean forward and explain the hotel arrangements. There was something between them that struck me. A closeness. No. It couldn’t be. Jeremy was straight as an arrow. But it was a little weird, the way they talked to each other. The way they worked so easily together. As if they shared some kind of intimate connection. To be honest, I suspected Kyle wasn’t totally straight. The man had highlights in his hair, for God’s sake. He was a flaming metrosexual, and looking at his tight, sexy body and supermodel face… I suppose someone as sexy as that could swing just about any way he wanted to. If I’d learned anything the last few days, it was that anything was possible in the world of the rich.

  But no. No. No. Kyle was his personal assistant, that was the only reason they seemed so close.

  Kyle looked over at me then, and I quickly looked away, but not before I saw it again, that same look. Jealousy. A moment later he was looking at Jeremy. Jeremy didn’t notice. His face was propped on his hand as he stared out the window. My own eyes started to close. I was too tired to analyze it anymore.

  “How far to the hotel?” I asked.

  I don’t remember any answer. The next thing I knew, I was in Jeremy’s arms in an elevator, the beat of his heart against my ear. Then I vaguely remember him carrying me down the hall to our hotel suite and laying me in bed.

  *

  When I woke fully rested, I realized to my chagrin that it was night again, nearly ten. I was still wearing my jeans and top from the flight, and my shoes were arranged beside the bed. I was alone in a beautifully appointed hotel room, my suitcases stacked in the corner beside a tufted armchair, a bureau, and a huge decorative vase. There were two paintings and a small desk on the other wall, and a door that opened to the bathroom. The other door, I assumed, let out to the main room of the suite.

  So I would have my own room. I lay back on the starched white sheets and pulled the coverlet up. I was wide awake, and the long, dark night stretched ahead of me. It was utterly silent. Jeremy was either away or sleeping or engaged in some activity that made no noise at all. There was no window in my room, which made it feel strangely confining, even though the door was open wide.

  I got out of bed with a sigh and ran my hands through my unruly hair. A trip to the luxurious, mirror-walled bathroom revealed that I looked just as bad as I thought I did.

  A shower was in order. I went to my suitcase and dug out a pair of the formfitting pajamas Jeremy bought me before we left. Fortunately, they were as comfortable as they were sheer and sexy. I went back into the bathroom, which we apparently would be sharing, since his things were spread out on one side of the counter and his toiletries were in the shower.

  I stared at them as the hot water ran over me. Jeremy’s soap, Jeremy’s exfoliating face wash, Jeremy’s shampoo and conditioner right there next to mine. Surreal.

  It still felt great to get clean, to shave and wash and just stand in the steam and steep. I probably showered for twenty minutes or more, then got out and dried off with a lovely, fluffy thick towel. No thin, sandpaper-like hotel towels at this place. I put on the pajamas, which left nothing to the imagination, and considered the spa robes hanging on the wall. They didn’t say His or Hers anywhere, and neither looked as if it had been worn, so I chose the one closest to me and wrapped up in it.

  Taking a deep breath, I went out to the main room, feeling like I was trespassing in someone’s house. It was quite large, with a dining area and kitchenette on one side, and a sitting area on the other side with an overstuffed sofa and chairs and a wide-screen television mounted on the wall. It was a lot like Jeremy’s mansion, beautifully decorated, only compacted into one oversize room. Beside my bedroom was another door, which I assumed led to Jeremy’s room.

  I crossed bet
ween the sitting and dining area to the opposite wall, which was one huge window from ceiling to floor. I felt like tiptoeing. I didn’t belong here. It was too rich, too fine. As I reached the window wall, I looked down and then jumped back with a gasp.

  We were high up. We were high up. I’d never been so high in the air in any building ever, and I felt a sudden panic in my chest, a sick feeling in my stomach. If there’s a fire…

  “Nell.”

  I spun with a stifled yelp, clutching my chest.

  “Oh God. You scared me.”

  He stood in the door to his bedroom, sexy man in loose pajama bottoms and no top. He was sculpted like a statue, all pecs and six-pack and biceps enough to make a girl go wild. I was caught between the sudden stab of lust between my legs and the sick, lingering panic at how high up I was.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. It was so, so quiet in the room. He didn’t move, didn’t cross to me.

  “It’s so high. This room… This hotel…”

  “Eighty-fifth floor.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, though. Hotels almost never fall over.”

  “It’s just so high. God, it’s beautiful, though.”

  He came to stand at the window beside me, looking out at the urban lights and miles of buildings in every direction. “Welcome to Bangkok, your home for the next four weeks. You didn’t see much of it from the limo last night.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry I fell asleep. I was so tired.” I looked down self-consciously. “I guess you had to carry me drooling and limp to the room.”

  He laughed. “It wasn’t a problem. You didn’t drool much. And you’re a little slip of a thing.”

  “And you work out.” I slid a look over at his golden, heavily muscled torso. “That’s pretty clear.”

  “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “It’s encouraged.” He laughed and moved a hand up into my wet hair. He began to knead my nape with skilled fingers. He had no idea what it did to me…or maybe he did.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “A little. Not too much.”

  “I’d like you to take the robe off then, if you don’t mind.”

  His tone was like a cold bucket of water washing over me. For a minute it had almost felt romantic between us, but no, he was still my boss. I took the robe off and held it in my hands, the submissive now.