by Gow, Kailin
The Blue Room
The Blue Room
VOL. 4
Kailin Gow
The Blue Room (The Blue Room Vol 4)
Published by Kailin Gow Books
Copyright © 2014 Kailin Gow
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Kailingowbooks(at)aol(dot)com.
First Edition.
Printed in the United States of America.
DEDICATION
For my readers
Prologue
Staci
I hardly know what to feel. As I watch Terrence Blue swagger out of the room, I swallow down a storm of emotions. Anger. Bitterness. Hurt. Rage. All at once. The feeling is overwhelming. The whole world feels like it's spinning. The ceiling is a single blur. How dare he – I think? How dare Terrence Blue insult me in this way? A whore. His words, not mine. Never mine. And where does he get off saying it? Terrence the pimp? Terrence whose fortune is built on the backs of women like me? How in the hell does Terrence get the moral high ground to act like he's anything but a whoremonger himself.
And I, at least, know what I am. I'm not ashamed. I have sex for money – and is the sex with Mr. X., the sex I get paid for, any less good, less honest, less real than the sex I'm having – well, was having, with Terrence? If anything, I think angrily, my sex with Mr. X. is at least honest. I know what to expect. I know how much he'll leave me in an envelope by the bedside table and I know I'll provide him with wild, agonizing pleasure. I know he wants a relationship within certain confines, bounded by shadows. And I'll provide that for him. I don't need to know his name. I don't need to know what he does for a living. All I need to know is that Mr. X. and I are professionals, that we understand one another.
It's much more complicated with Terrence. Feelings get in the way. Emotions. Ruffled feathers. He wanted me to be a Blue Girl and now he wants me not to be one – he thinks I can be whatever he wants me to be, whenever he wants me to be it. To not get attached until I do. To not love until he wants me to love. No exclusivity – unless, of course, I'm the one seeing other men, in which case suddenly I must belong to him and to him only. I shudder with rage just thinking about it.
Men like Terrence are all alike, I think bitterly. They all want the same things. They all want the spoils of conquest without any of the labor involved. And I don't want a thing to do with any one of them.
Luckily, as I put my room back together, I find a blinking light on my hotel room telephone. I check the voicemail to hear the clipped, clear consonants of Mrs. Walters, who tells me that Mr. X. has requested me again. “Quite a few appointments,” she says, with her characteristic reserve. “You do seem to be popular.” Her voice is dry, but I don't care. Not even Mrs. Walters can make me feel small today.
Mr. X. wants to see me again.
I shouldn't feel these butterflies in my stomach – I know that much. He's a client. Just a client. But still there's a warm glow in my heart as I prepare to meet him the following evening, dressing in a simple silk sheath dress that arrives in my room courtesy of a liveried bellboy.
A note, handwritten:
It kills me knowing that whatever I can buy you, it will never look as good as you wearing nothing at all. But I hope this comes close.
I recognize his handwriting. He signed it himself – no secretary for him.
When I put it on, it's like I feel him caressing me. I can feel the softness of his fingertips on my body in the shimmering fabric. Just what he wanted me to feel, I guess. I get the impression Mr. X knows the effect he has on women, after all.
He meets me at the restaurant at the Blue Room, kissing me sensually on each cheek as he takes me in.
“I was right,” his voice is low and hoarse. “You do look ravishing. Though I wish I could take it off you right now and have my way with you here on the dinner table.”
“In front of all these people?” I laugh and blush.
“When I'm with you,” he whispers, “I don't see any other people.”
We eat slowly, savoring each bite of food. Everything tastes stronger, sweeter when he is around. My nerves are on fire. My senses are awake. I love the feel of him. I love the way he smiles at me with those eyes that fix upon every fiber of my being.
I can hardly wait until dinner is over, for him to take me upstairs and have his way with me yet again. I think of all the places I want to surrender to him: the bed, the floor, up against the wall. But when he pays the check, he touches me lightly on the small of my back.
“Come,” he says. “Take a walk with me.”
His wish is my command. Always was, always will be. I follow him into his car and he takes me to the very edge of the city, to a cliff overlooking the water, just a few minutes' walk from his beach house. The foam is white and dappled with moonlight. I want him, I ache for him, and yet for whatever reason he isn't making a move yet. He's driving me crazy. Making we wait. My hunger increases.
“I have to confess,” says Mr. X. as we sit together, our feet dangling off the cliffside. “I actually extended my business trip for a week.”
“What? Why?”
“Silly...” He touches my cheek. “To see you again, Staci.” He takes a deep breath. “I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. Not since last weekend. I know it's only been a couple of days, but every second I spend without you – God, Staci, do you have no idea of the effect you have?”
I inhale sharply.
“I'm obsessed with you,” Mr X. says softly. “And that's dangerous. For me. For you. And yet I can't stop. I think about your skin, your hair, your beautiful tan shoulders. I think about what you look like when I have you in my arms.”
“I've been feeling the same thing,” I say. I wonder if he believes it. He knows, after all, that I'm paid to say that. But in his case it's true.
“I want you,” he moans. “But more than that. I want to know you. I want to get to know you. I want to know everything about you. Your family. Your hopes. Your dreams.”
“There isn't a lot to say,” I sigh. My family life is a mess.
“About your hopes?”
“About my family.” I don't know how much I'm allowed to tell him. I don't know how much I want to tell him. “I could say-- I have a happy family, had a happy childhood. Two loving, healthy, happy parents.” That's the fantasy, isn't it?
“But that's not true...” His voice is husky.
“How can you tell?”
“You have a darkness in you,” he says. “You've lost some people. People that you loved.”
I swallow and nod. How does this man know me so well – better even than I know myself? “My...mom's sick,” I say. “Really sick. They don't expect her to make it.”
“I'm so sorry.”
“I love her a lot,” the words don't seem like enough. “So very much.”
“And your father?”
“He's not in my life,” I say. The words turn harsh. “I guess he didn't love my mother as much as I do.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Mr. X. says. “If your mother is anything like you, I can't imagine a man ever being stupid enough to leave her.”
“Shit happens, I guess,” I say. I swallow. “And my sister...” I want to tell him everything. I know I cannot. And so I tell him the truth – not the literal truth, but the truth I feel in my heart. “My si
ster – she went missing, too. We don't know what happened to her.”
The smell of Rita's perfume in the air....
“Oh, Staci!” His voice is so kind, so calm. “I'm so sorry you had to go through all that.”
I hate how he makes me feel. Vulnerable. Exposed. But somehow, despite all that, I'm feeling something else, too. A feeling of safety I don't recognize. Being with him makes me feel like the Blue Room and its danger are a million miles away.
“It's ok,” I say. “I mean, I'm used to it. It's just harder – my sister, I mean. Not knowing. That's the worst part. Not knowing if she ran away or was kidnapped or got into drugs or what. There's no sign of her. I don't even know if she's still alive. Or if she is still alive, whether she's the same person I loved so much.”
I can see her face. I can hear her voice. I can smell her perfume. I feel the tears coming to my face.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “I shouldn't – not on a date.” Be a Blue Girl, I tell myself. Be beautiful and invulnerable, always.
But Mr. X. kisses my face and his kisses are so gentle I want to scream. “No, my dear,” he says. “You should never be ashamed. You should never hold back with me. I want to know you – all of you, the Real you. Not just some act you put on. I want our...business arrangement to free us up to have the kind of honesty we could never have in the outside world. At least – the kind of world I know.”
“Your world sounds dangerous,” I say.
“Oh, it is,” he sighs and looks out over the ocean. “My world is a dark place. Filled with so much death, so much destruction – sometimes I too wonder whether or not I can stand it. But when I’m with you, my dear, that world melts away.”
Just like the Blue Room, I think.
“You have so much mystery too,” I say. “I want you to feel safe with me.”
He kisses me gently on the forehead.
“It's not about me,” he says. “I want you to be safe. All the arrangements I make, all the secrecy – that's really for you.”
Then he kisses me. Passionately. Deeply. His tongue darting between my lips. My body heating up with need.
“Now,” he says. “That's enough talking for one evening. It has been far too long, my dear, since I touched you last. And my body aches for yours...”
And with that, he pushes me onto the cliff...
Chapter 1
The feeling of him floods through me. Making me wild. Sending me over the edge. I want to scream at the feeling of his touch.
“Oh, Staci,” Mr. X. groans. His voice is so throaty and deep. His hot breath tickles my neck and makes me moan once more. “You don't know what you do to me.”
But he knows, presumably, what he is doing to me. The feeling is so overwhelming I can hardly stop myself from shaking. But his hands are strong, firm. He holds me as I tremble. I am a leaf in the wind, and he is the great trunk that keeps me stable.
“Wait,” he says. “I want to try something different this time.” He inhales deeply. “Whenever I'm with you, I want to make love to you quickly, furiously. With all the passion that I feel. But tonight I want to hold back. I want to make love to you slowly. I want to explore all the hidden parts of your body. I want to get to know your body the way I would a foreign country I would make my home.” He kisses my shoulders. His lips trail so slowly over my shoulder. His tongue darts across my skin and I scream. He works his way up to my neck, nibbling, sucking, biting only slightly, so that the slight pressure and the pricking of pain heighten my other senses.
“It's so hard to hold back,” he groans. “But I want to make this last.” He pushes my hair away from my face, smoothing it in a slow and gentle gesture. “I want to look at you.” His eyes are piercing. It feels like they're looking into me, looking through me, seeing my secret self: seeing all that I am trying so hard to keep hidden. It feels like they're boring into my darkness.
What does he see, I wonder? The prostitute, Staci? The girl that lost her best friend, that still misses her every day? The girl whose anger propels her forward – the only thing keeping her from the brink of utter despair? Or the girl who's still hurting, still scared, still unsure of her feelings and her thoughts, but who knows only that whatever comfort she can get in this chaotic world, she will find it in his arms?
I let him gaze into my eyes. Then he kisses me deeply, his tongue inside my mouth, my tongue probing his, our bodies melding together although we are still clothed, still strangers. He takes off my clothing delicately: unbuttoning and unzipping my dress, folding it away, unsnapping my bra and then placing it so neatly atop the dress. Methodically, even. Making me wait. Making me go wild with desire. At last he removes my panties, but these he does not fold away. These he throws over the cliff; I watch as they vanish in the darkness of the ocean.
“No more of these tonight,” he breathes. “I want easy access to you at all time.”
Then, finally, finally he takes me. He thrusts into me slowly, deliberately. Every motion is perfectly timed, perfectly controlled. I sigh and gasp audibly as the feeling of fullness overtakes me. The pleasure is unlike anything I've felt before. Before I have felt passion, to be sure. Desire. But this is something else entirely. I am being teased, my body tricked, lured into a desire greater than what I am being given. Mr. X. is enjoying his effect on me: I know that much. He is enjoying how I flush, how I moan, how I breathe. How much I want him.
He stops, suddenly, and I moan once more as his tongue trails down to my navel, licking my belly, my hips, the insides of my thighs. Then he pushes my legs apart and places his mouth upon my sex, licking once more as my back arches, as I spasm.
I've wanted him so badly that it takes me almost no time at all to come. I lie there, gasping, shaking. But Mr. X. doesn't let me relax. Instead, he probes apart my legs and pushes inside me once more. Now I'm more ready for him than ever. My first orgasm has only whetted my appetite for more. The feeling of him inside me is delirious. It's like I've never left the beach house, I think. Like we're still there. Like we're a couple, a couple in love, on vacation, escaped from the world.
He begins to cry my name over and over again as he thrusts inside me. And I wish I had a name I could cry, too. But instead I bite my lips and feel the tension mount to a breaking point; we come again, together, and then he collapses – spent – on my breast.
But not for long. It takes only a few minutes of silence: our breath the only night music – before he is ready to go again. I marvel at his body in the moonlight. His chiseled abs shine; his skin is clear and glowing with pleasure. His arms are sinewy and powerful, and I can feel them on me even when we are not touching, so strong is my memory of his flesh. I want to feel them again.
Luckily, I do. Soon he is hard for me, again – I need to do little coaxing – but this time, Mr. X. is not in a mood to go slowly. He grabs me, almost roughly, pushing my hands above my head and pinning them there as he has his way with me a second time. My body is covered with small bruises – where I've rolled over rocks, where he's bitten me – but I don't mind them. In fact I like them. They remind me that I am his. As he will never be mine.
The second time he comes, he rolls over, producing a picnic blanket from the car.
“I just want to stay here,” he says. “Forever.”
“Aren't you afraid someone will come find us?”
He laughs. “Always. But not in the way you mean. I own this land. Keep on going a few more miles and you'll reach the beach house.” He strokes my cheek. “Don't worry, my love. You're in no danger of getting in trouble.” His smile darkens. “Not for those reasons, anyway...”
“What do you mean?”
His face has a tenor I do not recognize.
“When I'm with you...” he sighs. “It's so easy to forget. And so easy to remember.” He takes in a deep breath. “Under these stars. Under this light. It's easy to forget any of the things I've suffered. Easy to forget what I've lost.” He swallows. “But...you remind me of her.”
Of her.
> Rita? Roz?
“Of who?”
“I've lost a lot,” he says slowly. “I've lost a lot of people that I've loved.” He inhales sharply. “You touch something deep within me, Staci. Something I thought was long buried. Memories of the women that made me so weak...so weak. Did you know, Staci? I was married once. Or, almost. I was married for a few hours. She died on our wedding night.”
His voice is so harsh now I know not to ask further.
“I'm...sorry.”
“I thought I would never love again, after that. Never wanted to love. Never wanted to get hurt. But I am not a celibate man, Staci. I am obsessed with the beauty of women, with the pleasures of the body. One-night stands I found cheap and vulgar. Streetwalkers I found unsavory. I wanted a mistress – but one I knew I could never be hurt by. That's why Clarence and I – and Ronnie, too, really – that's why we started the Blue Room.”
Started.
I sit upright. I knew Mr. X. was an investor – but a founder? The thought makes me nervous and sick.
“I see,” I say. I hide my emotions. I display nothing.
“Ronnie Taylor – I guess she's Ronnie Blue, now – she helped me to understand. That women want what men want. That there are women who fulfill these fantasies of mine because they are fantasies of theirs, too. We opened the Blue Room so that people who require discretion, who require the best, would have a safe and private place to get their fantasies and urges fulfilled.”
Ronnie Blue.
So that explains what she was doing knocking on Mr. X.'s door this morning. But if theirs was a business partnership – why sneak around like that?
Maybe, given the clandestine nature of the Blue Room, she just didn't want to be seen. Ronnie Blue, wife of the great Clarence Blue, sniffing around a man with dealings in brothels? But if that was so, she could have arranged to meet him – called him, texted him, had him come to her. Why was she sneaking around like...like Rita did?