by Cox, Chloe
Lust?
“You play games, Catie,” he said, closing the door behind him. “You play games to provoke. I do not know why, as of yet. But let’s find out what kind of response you crave.”
What I crave…
His tone sent shivering sparks shooting through her body until her skin tingled all over. She already knew what it meant.
“You must be disciplined,” he said, and pulled the table across the floor with a harsh screech, back to the center of the room. Catie stared at it, wide-eyed. Disciplined. The word itself sent her blood rushing to her core. She was feeling lightheaded again, her pulse throbbing in every sensitive part of her, her hearing dulled.
“Disciplined?” she asked. Her throat was dry.
“I won’t call it punishment yet,” Jake said. “That remains to be determined. But you promised your obedience, Catie. Now obey. Bend over and lay your forearms flat on the table.”
This. This. This was the energy she remembered from Lola’s office, when he’d dragged her up by her hair…
She walked over to the table in a kind of trance. The anticipation was better than any drug she’d ever tried back in her wild teenage years. Every nerve felt alive and primed and happy, ready to sing out in a chorus of sensation. Even pain.
She bent over and put her forearms flat on the table. She felt hot between her legs, and that familiar peace came over her as all thought disappeared from her mind, leaving only her desire behind. She wanted him. She wanted his domination. She needed relief—from lying, from the interview. From doing things she knew to be wrong. From everything.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
His fingers danced up the backs of her naked legs, and she sighed. He grabbed the hem of her skirt and yanked it over her buttocks, so rapidly she thought she heard the fabric rip. That small sound gave her chills.
Her underwear was still lying ruined on the floor somewhere. He’d be able to see how wet she was for him all over again. She listened hard for the sound of a zipper, wanted to hear the sound of his zipper, was aching to feel him inside her again, but instead—
“Oh, I’m not going to fuck you,” he said behind her. “You don’t deserve to be fucked again yet.”
And then she felt his first blow.
It was his hand, just his open palm, expertly placed at the juncture where her buttocks curved into her legs so that it stung in rippling waves that shook her flesh and made her ache for more. Her breasts swung forward and her sore nipples brushed the table through her shirt, and she gasped.
He spanked her again and again, until she could feel the wetness spill down her inner thighs, until she thought she would come just from the impact. She moaned, and started to arch toward him, and she thought, for just a moment, she thought he might…
He grunted and put his hand between her legs, as if just to remind her she was still under his control. She did not move, held still at the precipice. Her body needed to come.
“No,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and she thought she heard it tremble. “This is your punishment, Catie. If you want to be trained by me—if you want to be trained at Volare—you will not come again without my permission.”
She turned her head to protest, but his hand kept her locked in place. Not without his permission? The idea made her so hot, and so frustrated. She made a fist with her hand and slammed it down on the table.
He laughed, and his thumb penetrated her, almost carelessly. “I can always decide to make it more challenging.”
She breathed heavily. “Yes, you could,” she said. “Sir.”
She didn’t know what wild impulse made her call his bluff—maybe the same one that sent her across the country to infiltrate Volare, or that got her to go through his wallet—but she shouldn’t have done it.
“Don’t move,” he said, and removed his hand. She heard the white chest open once more, and she closed her eyes. No matter what it was, she wouldn’t be allowed to come—not unless he said so.
“These will make it harder. But when I do allow you to come,” he said, “Well, you will have earned it. In this way, perhaps you will learn control.”
“What—”
His hand came into view at her side. It held two textured silver balls, about the size of golf balls, connected by a length of string. He rolled them around in his palm, and she could hear something rattling around inside the balls.
“Ben-wa balls,” he said. “Spread your legs.”
Her eyes widened. He was going to put those inside her? Both of them?
“Catie.”
She spread her legs and focused on the scratched metal surface of the table. The first ball was cold, and felt impossibly large pushed up against her flesh. She whimpered, and then his finger was there, working around the edges, dipping into her wetness again and again. Still, the ball stretched her until she thought she couldn’t go any further, her head dipping down to the table, and then suddenly it was in, sucked into her like it belonged there.
It felt impossibly strange. Full.
And there was another one.
The second ball entered her with greater ease, but she was sure she couldn’t hold them both. She was wrong. Jake pushed the second ball in after the first, filling her beyond what she’d thought possible. Then he tugged at the string, pulling them back against her closed entrance, and she cried out. It felt…incredible.
“Stand up,” he ordered.
She pushed herself off the table and stopped midway, shocked by the sudden vibrations that reverberated through her. Whatever it was inside the ben-wa balls, it moved whenever she did, jingling like a pair of silent, vibrating bells.
“You will wear these Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” he said. “You will have to work to keep them in. Every time you move, you will think of me. You will think of the promise you have made to me. You will think of obedience. You will think of whatever orders I have given you. And,” he said as he turned her around to face him, her skin flushed, her body rattled by what was going on inside her, “you will remember not to come.”
She looked at him with utter dismay. It was impossible. She wanted to come now. She had no idea how she was supposed to walk even to the other side of the room without losing control.
Jake—Jacob, he was Jacob now, too; it fit, now that she knew—Jacob smiled slightly, but his eyes were once again aflame. She couldn’t turn away. She would think of him every time she moved. He was inside her now, all the time, in more ways than one.
For just a moment, he seemed as transfixed as she was.
“Yes, sir,” she finally said.
He cleared his throat.
“We have another session next Saturday,” he said. “See that you figure out how to show me what you’ve been hiding by then.”
Catie met his gaze. So he knew she was hiding something. But so was he. And she would find out what.
“I will, sir,” she said levelly. “You can be sure that I will.”
chapter 9
Jake watched the boy until he was sure.
He’d taken his usual car service down to Stephan’s House, and given the vagaries of the neighborhood, the car had begun its usual loop around the one-way streets so that it could deliver Jake to the front door. The weather was, once again, horrible. A sort of dirty, cold slush fell from the sky, blown about in sudden, angry crosswinds.
Which was why it was so unusual to see someone hanging around outside.
Jake had recognized him at once. His stance. Posture and gait were always identifying; they were said to be as unique as fingerprints. And he remembered where he’d seen the boy before: at one of the free dinners at Stephan’s House. It happened to coincide with one of Jake’s own failed attempts to engage with the people he tried to help; periodically, even Jake forgot what he was and tried to become more. It never worked, but that was beside the point. Even then, Jake had noticed that this boy had not been interested in the counseling services, a bed for the night, or even the free food. That was what had str
uck him as odd: no matter how distrustful of authority, no matter how traumatized, no matter how unreachable, they always took the food. Hunger was a primal need that overruled every other psychological ailment.
But this boy had been more interested in the other kids who’d come in for help. The other drug addicted, homeless, abused, wayward kids. Jake had seen him move easily between tables, bending to whisper into an ear here, sitting to chat there. At the time, Jake hadn’t been able to figure it out.
Now that he saw the boy on the corner, in this weather, displaying quite the work ethic, he knew. He knew the boy had been looking for customers that night. The boy was a drug dealer.
“I’ll get out here,” Jake said to his driver. He reached for the account slip and signed it, never taking his eyes off the boy.
The slush had turned to little needles of ice in the time he’d spent in his comfortable car, and he squinted into the wind as he stuffed his scarf into his overcoat and pulled on his gloves. He managed to make it across the avenue without stepping in any icy puddles, and the momentum of rushing across the street against traffic carried him into the next block without much thought. The boy watched him approach with stony silence.
Jake was only a few feet away now. He could see that the boy was older than he’d thought, just small. Perhaps malnourished in his youth. A young man, thin, rat-faced, angry. Jake had expected to be angry himself—he was angry, at being deceived and used—but what he was most conscious of now, standing in front of the kid, was how warm and comfortable his own clothes were compared to the shitty jacket that the drug dealer wore.
He couldn’t be a very good drug dealer, then.
“What the fuck you want, man?”
Jake looked at him levelly. “This is your territory? This corner?”
“I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.” He was nervous. Jake didn’t look like a cop, but he didn’t look like he belonged where he was, either.
“Yes, you do,” Jake said. “This is your territory. Fine. I could call the police. I could have a squad car sitting right here, every day, forever. You don’t know this about me, but I am one of the few people in this city who can call the mayor and make that happen. And I can have you chased down like a criminal. I can bring the full fucking weight of the law down on your head with one phone call. So I suggest you pay attention to what I am about to say.”
He had the dealer’s full attention. Good. Jake took a deep breath.
“That place you came to looking for customers—Stephan’s House—that is my territory. You do not darken its doors ever again looking for trade. You do not go there looking for customers. If you do, so help me God…” Jake broke off, quelling the anger rising within him. Anger wouldn’t help. “But,” he went on, “that’s where you should go if you ever want help. Or food. Or a place to sleep. Whatever.”
Jake dug a card out of his pocket and held it out, doing his best to protect it from the sleet. The dealer stared at it like it was a deadly weapon.
“You for real?” he finally said.
“Yes,” Jake said. “Take the card, and don’t give me a reason to call the police.”
The dealer took it with a look that Jake had come to know well: the intent to deceive. It didn’t matter. You did what you could.
Jake kept telling himself that, over and over again, all the way back to Stephan’s House, as though maybe if he only said it enough times, it would become true. He needed a day in which it seemed like the myriad people he tried to help actually welcomed his intervention. In which it seemed like it mattered what he did. In which it seemed like the entire world was not out to deceive, manipulate, or misuse what he had to offer.
He entered Stephan’s House and made his way up to his office via the back stairs, not wanting to inflict his current mood upon anyone else until he’d had time to recuperate with at least one cup of coffee. He opened his office door with relief, looking forward to being alone, only to find that his office was already occupied.
Eileen Corrigan was sitting comfortably in one chair.
And Catie Roberts was in the other.
Jake stood, frozen in the motion of taking off his scarf, and stared at the two women who currently occupied most of his thoughts.
How long have they been here?
What have they talked about?
Eileen sat there and smirked at him, while Catie tried to hide her face behind that beautiful dark hair. The intrusion of Catie into this part of his life was…he didn’t know what it was, not yet. He had called around, after their first session, as much as he’d enjoyed it, unable to completely banish the most paranoid thoughts from his mind. His mother had seen to it that Jake’s natural suspicious tendencies were honed to a fine, deadly point, the sort of thing guaranteed to keep most people at arm’s length. He could hear her now: They’ll only be after your money. Never trust them. It’s what had counted as a heart to heart in his mother’s house, and no matter how hard he tried to be a different sort of person, the words had seeped into his bones. He would always be able to hear their echo.
So when he’d called around to various departments at City Community College and had been unable to determine who Catie was working with on her thesis, he had not been comforted.
And now she was here, in the part of his life that dealt with the most personal, private things, sitting and chatting with the woman who knew more about those things than anyone else still living.
“Aren’t you gonna say hi?” Eileen asked. “What’s the matter with you? You look like you’re gonna barf.”
Jake finished unwinding his scarf and took advantage of the moment to rein in his wilder thoughts.
“Hello, Eileen,” he said, nodding, and made his way around to his desk. There, he fixed his stare on Catie. “I see you’ve met Catie.”
Eileen smiled, a little too slyly. “That I have.”
Catie still wouldn’t look at him.
“Catie, who is your advisor at City?”
That appeared to grab her attention. Her head snapped up, her blue eyes wide. “What?”
“You heard me. Who is your thesis advisor?”
Eileen looked back and forth between them as Catie’s cheeks reddened. Catie cocked her head in a fair approximation of righteous indignation and looked Jake right in the eye.
“Are you checking up on me?”
“Answer the question.”
“I’m supposed to trust you, but you don’t trust me? What kind of bull—”
“Hey,” Eileen broke in. “Jacob, what’s the matter with you? That’s polite?”
Jake shook his head. Eileen’s voice—it was a voice from the past. The rough but attentive mothering she’d always directed at Stephan, the kind of thing Jake had always wished, secretly, might be directed at him. If only he were important enough, if only he were worth it. He’d known he wasn’t welcome back then by how little Eileen cared about anything he did. And now she cared about his manners?
He was dazed.
Eileen looked sideways at Catie and said, “I thought you said you two weren’t involved.”
“We don’t have a personal relationship, no,” Catie said icily, daring Jake to contradict her. He couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were beautiful when she was angry. And he couldn’t help but admire the way she wielded his own words back at him. Not a personal relationship. “I’m here to help with the fundraising for the expansion project.”
“What?” He was stunned.
“I thought you were footing the bill yourself, Jake. You didn’t tell me you needed fundraising.” Eileen looked hurt. Worried? Jake couldn’t tell. It was as if every person in his life had been replaced by an alternate version of themselves, designed to confuse and disorient him. The notion of Eileen Corrigan being concerned for his wellbeing would have been confusing enough; Eileen Corrigan in the presence of the woman who may or may not be plotting against him, against Volare, and who he’d fantasized about just this morning anyway, was mind-bending.
“I don’t need help with fundraising,” he said slowly. “Catie, please be so kind as to explain what you are talking about.”
“Roman sent me,” Catie said, her jaw set. She looked warily at Eileen, as though unsure of how much to say. “He said he’s going to be my mentor, and that I should work with Lola on the benefit.”
Roman.
Jake had forgotten that he’d said yes to the Volare Valentine’s benefit going to Stephan’s House. He had been distracted, if he remembered correctly, at the time—distracted by Catie, as he almost always seemed to be lately. The benefit would mean that he could begin plans on the next expansion concurrently without moving more money around, which would mean more staff and more services, and sooner rather than later. And it would mean a gloss of legitimacy for the charity if the biggest names in the city were known to donate. It was an unambiguously good thing.
Roman’s interference was not so unambiguously good.
Jake remembered going to talk with Roman when Catie had admitted she had no one to call, no one to rely on if she got in trouble. It was an unacceptable state of affairs for a trainee. Training was an intense experience; a support network was necessary. Roman had said he would take care of it, and Jake had believed him—he believed he’d find Catie an appropriate mentor. He had not anticipated that Roman would step into the role himself.
He didn’t like it.
He told himself that his own discomfort was most likely because of the things Roman knew about him, and not because of anything having to do with Catie, but the twinge in his gut was…new. Like so many things having to do with Catie. He remembered when he’d returned from speaking to Roman, he’d found Catie going through his wallet. And she’d shot back at him: you deserved it.
She had been right. More to the point, he had felt—rather than simply understood—why she was right.
Another new thing.
Now he felt uneasy.
He looked up to find Catie looking just as uneasy. No, she looked miserable. Wretched. But why should she? Just because he was behaving badly?