by Anne Connor
“And you’ll be back for me?”
His eyes flash to mine and he responds, “yes. I’ll be back for you.”
He puts the spoon into the bowl and picks up the warm, steaming hot piece of bread from the tray, tearing it open with his strong, nimble fingers and feeding me a large bite. His eyes flash to mine and there’s a sparkle there, somewhere behind the intensity.
I chew as he watches me intently. This is like when I was sick and my dad would take care of me. I feel warm and safe, but I don’t know what the man in front of me is capable of. The outline of his gun is visible through his jacket, and when my eyes snake lower, I can see the outline of his dick through his pants.
“I know you told me not to ask many questions or offer a lot of information,” I say slowly, “but can I ask you where you’re going?”
“I told you,” he says, tearing off another bite from the roll. “I have a job to do.”
An uneasiness grasps my insides.
“Do you have to go collect money from a young girl?”
The words come out before I can realize what I’m asking. I want to know where he’s going, but I realize my words mean more than I can bear to learn.
How many times have you done this before? Rescued a girl like me...saved a girl who was in over her head? How many times have you pushed yourself, pushed someone else to their limit like you’ve pushed me? How many girls have you made beg for you, to give them something, anything, a look, a touch...how many?
How many...
“No,” he says, shaking his head. He takes the tray away from me and places it on the nightstand. “I’m not doing that anymore. I’m not doing anything where families are involved.”
“You don’t want to get involved?”
He stones his expression and looks at me intently.
“That’s what I said.”
His words hit me hard in the chest, but resonate deep inside me.
“Where are you going, then?” He stands up and leans over me, putting his hands on either side of my body. I feel small beneath him, but hungry. His lips come closer to mine, and I dodge carefully and pull away. I ask him in a small voice, “have you ever killed someone?”
“The people I deal with, they aren’t worth your breath. They aren’t worth the air you breathe, Cherry.”
That’s not a no. But he hasn’t killed me. And he won’t. He told me to trust him, and I do. I have to.
I want to trust him. I want him. More than anything, with more deepness and fury and frantic energy than I’ve ever wanted anything before. His touch isn’t enough. His cock isn’t enough.
“Why, then?” I ask. “Why do it, if it isn’t worth it to you?”
“I didn’t say it’s not worth it to me. I said it isn’t worth it to you.”
“You and I aren’t that different, are we?” My head starts to heat up with confusion. This man isn’t like the two men who I saw tracking me hungrily in the casino, even if they’re his flesh and blood. He isn’t like them at all. They looked at me with a disgusting want, with a desire that was corrupt and wrong. That’s not how he looks at me at all.
Sean isn’t happy in this life, whatever the hell that means. I know it. I can feel it on him.
“We are different, Cherry,” he says, getting up and walking away from me. He goes over to a dresser and pulls the top drawer open easily, like there’s nothing inside. Pulling something out, he takes it in his hands and smooths his hands over it, his back facing toward me. “I knew you before I met you. When I saw you, I knew you were special.”
Sean walks back over and sits down at the corner of the bed. He takes a breath and hands me a photograph.
It’s one I’ve never seen before, but I recognize the faces in it. One of them is dad’s. The other is mine. My hairs on the back of my neck prick up, and cool sweat prickles over my skin as I swallow thickly.
“Where did you get this?” I ask incredulously.
“It was your father’s. He gave it to me. He told me he wished you and I could meet one day. That maybe under different circumstances…”
I close my eyes and shake my head, cursing fate. Pure red anger rises in my chest and reaches my throat. I try to blink away my anger, push it away, but it all comes up.
“It just isn’t fair,” I choke. “It’s not fair.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
“Why do you do it?” The words are coming out faster than I can think about what I’m saying. I can’t control myself. “Why?”
“I don’t know, Cherry. I don’t fucking know.”
I’m naked, but I can’t stop myself from throwing the covers off and getting up. I feel out of control. It’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to be. It’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to question him, and to question myself, and confront how the hell I ended up here. I’ve taken the weight of all of this on myself alone, and it isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair.
“You do know!” I push myself into him and ball my fists and press my hands against his chest. I could strike him, but it wouldn’t hurt him. I could strike him with all of my might, all of my strength, and he would just laugh and pick me up with one finger and put me down again. The hot tears start streaming down my face, and they cascade down my cheeks, hot and fresh and salty tears. They flow past my lips and down to my breasts.
His hands come down around my wrists and he pulls my hands off of him, pressing them down at my sides. He grasps me hard and pulls me close and I press my face into his chest, breathing him in. My tears damped his shirt, and I feel my shoulders heave against his body.
“It’s because I like it, Cherry. I like it.”
I shut my eyes hard, and struggle against his grasp. The harder I fight, the more calm I become. His touch is soothing, but I can’t stop my tears from coming.
“No,” I cry out. “No. That’s not why. Tell me it’s because you had no other choice.”
“I chose this life, Cherry. I like it. I fucking love it.”
He holds my hands hard and wraps them around to my back, pinning them there. It surprises me; I pull my face away from his chest and look up at him, blinking through my tears.
“It’s because I love it. I chose it. I’m not a good man underneath whatever you see. You can tell yourself that I am, but I’m a piece of shit and the farther you get away from me, the better off you’ll be.”
“No. No.” My cries are now full sobs, deep inside my chest, deep inside my belly. My eyelids feel heavy and hard to keep open. Sean takes his hands off my wrists and wraps his arms around my body, pulling me close.
“It’s okay, Cherry. It’s okay.”
He sits me down on the bed and kneels before me. I curl my legs up, and I’m small next to him. He strips his jacket off, discarding it onto the floor and then pulling his shirt off of his body, his flexing muscles of corded mass grinding against the thick air between us. It’s electricity between us, firing into my body, and every molecule inside me is on fire. I can see it in his eyes, too. I can feel it in him, coming off of him as he grabs my ankles and pulls me firmly, yet gently, down the bed.
Dad wanted me to meet him...maybe under different circumstances, this could have been something else.
“You’re not a bad man, Sean.” I lick the tears off my lips, my hiccuping sobs beginning to slow. “You saved me, didn’t you?”
His mouth opens slightly and he inhales shakily, his fingers still around my ankles. His hands snake up my legs, to my knees, coming around my thighs so he’s leaning down, cupping my ass.
I’ve never been so hot, so wet for a man. So needy, so empty, so full of want. My head spins as he bends down, bringing his perfect mouth, his gorgeous lips, to my dripping wet pussy. His lips wrap around me as his tongue snakes out, drawing an excruciatingly slow circle around me, sweeping my mind into another realm.
A deep, hungry growl comes out of his mouth, vibrating against my wet skin. I close my eyes and lean back.
“No, Cherry,” he
commands. “Open up your eyes. I want you to see when I slide my cock all the way into you and your pussy swallows me up. I want you to never forget the feeling I gave you. Ever.”
He spreads me open with his fingers, leaving me so open, so exposed. I’m so vulnerable for him, and raw. His lips wrap around my clit and he flicks his tongue against me so slow, so very slow, and swirls around me, making me feel it deep inside my core.
I hear his belt and pants come undone, and he quickly takes out his cock. I marvel at its size, and it makes my mouth water. I want to close my eyes, allow the rapture of his body to overtake me, but I keep my eyes open because he told me to.
“Are you ready for me, honey?”
I bite down on my lip and nod my agreement, and his hard cock gets even thicker and harder and bigger before my eyes. He strokes it a few times and I brace myself as he pushes himself straight through me, his enormous cock filling me all the way up slowly. It feels heavy and makes me feel full, and the slight twinge of pain makes it all the more delicious and wrong as he rocks against me, filling me up all the way.
“Fuck, baby. So tight. So wet and beautiful.”
He pulls my knees up together to his chest and takes both of my breasts into his hands, running his thumbs over the pebbled flesh. Taking one hand away, he traces it up to my mouth and I brush my tongue along it, whimpering when he takes it away and moaning softly as he snakes it down my body to my clit, pressing it there as he rocks himself in and out of me.
“I want you to never forget me,” he moans, grinding his thumb against my clit. Now that he’s claimed me, I don’t know how I would ever be able to forget him if I tried.
After what he’s done for me, how he’s made me feel. He put everything on the line for me. He didn’t have to. He didn’t have to save me. I never asked for it. I just never knew I needed it.
“I will never, ever forget you.” I cry out as I start to cum, his cock coaxing my pussy to become wetter and wetter for him. His cock grows and I see on his face that he’s about to cum. He looks at me with so much reverence, so much lust and want, and...something else. I can’t put my finger on it. It makes me feel so much more than just the pleasure he’s giving me. It’s hot and sweet and secret and something I want to cry out for.
He pushes into me a final time and pulls out of me, spilling his thick, full seed onto my belly. He grunts and grinds against me as he finishes in his hand, and it leaves me wanting more. More of him...more of this. I need it.
He lets himself fall onto the bed beside me, pushing his body against me, cradling me from behind. I don’t know how much more time we have together, but I know our time together is almost over.
His arms wrap around me and hold me close. I allow my eyes to fall shut.
When I wake up, he’ll be gone.
Sean
It breaks my heart to leave without saying goodbye. It would break my heart more to wake her up just to say goodbye.
She doesn’t need the shit I would bring into her life. I’d have to lie to her every single day, and if she knew what I really was doing while I was out, she’d hate me.
I’ve never killed a man, but I’ve come close. That can be even worse, sometimes. To make a man beg, to let him know that he’s in limbo, for that awareness to seep into his bones so he doesn’t know if he’ll be dead or alive in another thirty seconds. It’s worse than just pulling the trigger.
Seeing her sleep next to me was the sweeting thing I’ve ever seen. Having her wake up in the middle of the night, so ready for me and wanting me, it made me harder than I’ve ever been before.
Fuck, she makes me harder than I’ve ever been.
My fingers graze the steering wheel as I grind through the desert on the way to this job.
I left the duffel bag set up for her for when she wakes up. A few pairs of PJs that she can choose from for the ride home, and the cash that she gave me for his father’s debt. She doesn’t need to pay for him. I can’t take the money from her. Not now that I know her.
And the picture. I tucked the picture into the bag too, inside a roll of hundreds. She’ll want to keep the picture. I saw the way she looked at it. It belongs to her. And God willing, when her father wakes up, she can tell him that she and I did meet. He’ll understand why I had to let her go.
But I don’t feel good about leaving her alone. I should feel good, but I don’t.
If it’s the right thing to do, then why the fuck do I feel so wrong?
But I’ll see her again. One last time, I will see her and I will drop her off at her home. I’ll go back to Vegas and tell my uncle it didn’t work out, if he even asks, and this whole thing will be a memory.
My Cherry will just be a memory, frozen in time. A butterfly with its wings spread out inside a glass box, held perfect and frozen forever.
My heart clenches up in my chest as my knuckles become white on the steering wheel. I’ll never deal with another man like her father again. Even if it’s what brought my sweetheart into my life, it doesn’t make it worth it. It doesn’t make it right. She should never have met me. I should never have even seen her picture.
The hotel I’m picking up at is some piece of shit on the off-ramp of Route 50. It’s in what used to be a mining town. I don’t even remember the name of the town, if I’m honest with myself. The loneliest road in America keeps going long after I get off. It goes for miles in both directions, straight ahead and straight behind, and it feels like it doesn’t stop. It’s repetitive, it keeps going; it’s the same stretch of highway every time I drive it.
The hotel is managed by a man who was a friend of my uncle’s from back in the day; it’s a place where drugs are plentiful and the women do things with their bodies for money. They’re not so different from me.
Cherry’s question keeps haunting me.
Why do I do the things I do?
Do I still like it? Did I ever like it?
I push it away, I push it all down as the heat inside my throat rises. I roll into a parking space near the lobby of the hotel and cut the engine. It’s like muscle memory, coming here.
This is one of my regular spots, one of my accounts, my uncle would say, when he is in the mood to believe that what we do is legitimate. I don’t ask this man a lot of questions, but I know that what’s going on here is wrong. But I turn my head and look the other way, because people make their choices.
We all have choices to make.
The door chimes when I make my way into the lobby. The place smells the thick scent of men’s cologne. It’s a cathouse, and it’s not illegal.
The lobby’s big, but there isn’t enough furniture to fill the space. It’s all rough edges and heavy wood, mirrors that are cracked at the edges and a ceiling that’s crumbling, covered with a thin coat of paint that barely conceals what it’s supposed to.
A line of girls, expressionless and with the light from their eyes growing dimmer by the moment, sits on a couch across from the check-in counter. There’s a new girl there, and she makes fuck-me eyes at me. She wastes no time in picking her mark. She’s fast, and she’s good at it.
Sauntering over, she bites her lip and bats her eyelashes at me. Fuck, maybe yesterday I would have taken her up on whatever she’s about to offer. But not now. I’m not messing around with women like her anymore. Even after I say goodbye to Cherry for good, I don’t know if I’ll be able to buy companionship ever again.
Not after what almost happened to my Cherry.
The girl stops near me and juts out her hip, pushing her tits out. She touches my arm lightly and I put both of my hand flat on the counter.
“Hey,” she says. Her voice is so soft. She’s so sweet and pretty. I can’t stand that the next man who comes through the door after me might choose her and do whatever the fuck he wants. What’s worse is that I don’t know whether she’ll be relieved or disappointed if he chooses one of the other girls.
The sick part is that maybe it’s a little bit of both.
“Where’s your boss, sw
eetheart?” I take her hand and take it off my arm, putting it down slowly at her side. She doesn’t know why I’m here, or else she wouldn’t be offering herself to me like this. The other girls sitting on the couch continue picking at their nails and flashing glances over at the door for their next potential customer. But this girl doesn’t know I’m here for work.
She coughs lightly, almost embarrassed by my rejection.
“I haven’t seen him,” she says. Her voice is sweet and light, and almost tempting. I know she’ll make some sick fuck very happy. Or he’ll feel something for her and mistake it for happiness. It won’t be, though. It’ll be something cruel instead.
“I think he’s in the back,” one of the older girls on the couch says to me.
I wave over to her and nod, and go around to the side of the counter. I’m usually more congenial than this, but I can’t leave Cherry alone for longer than I have to. I don’t have time to sit around and wait.
My uncle expects these payments on time. I was playing with fire when I gave Cherry more time. This man isn’t going to be given the same courtesy.
I make my way down the dark hallway behind the counter, back to his office. The place is disgusting. There are lightbulbs dotting the ceiling that have been burned out for months. He keeps the rooms nicer than he keeps his own personal space, at least.
I get closer to the door of his office, on the right at the end of the hallway. A slice of light dances and shifts on the floor outside the office. There’s more than one person inside. And I can hear voices. It’s the owner of the hotel, and it’s one other man.
Staying quiet, I stand against the wall, breathing as silently as I can. This is a routine pickup. It isn’t like him to be back here. He doesn’t take his meetings at night. I’ve been here for enough pickups to know how he runs his business. It’s even out of the ordinary for him to not be at the front desk.
The voices are quick but hushed, and I can’t make anything out. I put my hand on my holster, but I don’t touch my gun. Not yet.