by Nicole Fox
I swallowed, gripped harder at Belton’s hand, and left.
# # #
I was only distantly aware of my body as the janitor led me through the office, and out into the parking garage. I felt as if I was watching myself from a great distance, my stupid, bruised body wincing as it walked. The drying streaks of tears on my cheeks seemed as if they had been painted on a doll’s face. “That woman is not me,” I thought. “She’s some other lady, to whom terrible things happen. Not me.”
“You can call the police, you know,” Belton’s voice interrupted, drawing back to the present. “I’ll back you up.” I jumped and looked at him with stricken eyes.
“I—I don’t. My job…” I started, not sure of what I was saying even as I said it.
Belton shrugged. “I see a lot of things, in this job. I know you’re not the only woman who has suffered at the hands of those big corporate honchos. Seems to me less people would be hurt if it became known.”
I gazed back at him, and, to my enormous shame, tears once again filled my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do in the entire world was talk about this to anyone. In fact, I wanted to go home, go to bed, and pretend none of this had ever happened. I would never speak of it again. Did that make me weak? Probably. But after my helplessness before Blade, I guessed that question had already been answered.
“I’m sorry,” I managed at last. “I can’t.”
“Yup,” Belton replied, looking away. He did not seem surprised or judgmental. Simply resigned.
We walked in silence to my car. Like the truest of gentlemen, he opened the door for me and even held my purse as I settled in. These actions, however faintly, did produce a small amount of warmth in what I felt was a freezing heart. He, at least, was a nice guy.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded to him, and drove away.
Chapter Thirteen
Erica
It takes me an hour longer than usual to get home. Even though I have made the drive a million times before, I kept getting lost. Missing turns. Taking wrong ones. It was as if I was deliberately wandering the streets, looking for something.
Or perhaps, it was that going home meant closing my eyes. I suppose I was afraid of what waited behind those lids.
At last, however, exhaustion won over fear, and I found myself pulling into my dark, moonlit driveway. The air was cold when I stepped out of the car, but I did not mind it on my skin. It was as if everything––the cold, the pain in my chin, hip, and ankle––were a million miles away.
I entered the house, kicked off my clothing right onto the kitchen floor, and practically fell into the shower. The heat of it helped to get some feeling back into my skin, and I stayed in there for at least an hour, not even scrubbing, but simply letting the water wash over my trembling, aching bones. At long last, when the hot water ran out, I turned the shower off, toweled dry, and toppled into bed.
Still, I was afraid to close my eyes. To let my mind open up to the horrors that I was sure were waiting for me as soon as I relaxed.
I turned into my pillow, fighting back tears, my breath coming in great, wrenching gasps. It was then that I noticed, buried in the linen of my sheets and pillowcases, that familiar, intoxicating scent.
My sheets still smelled of Dominic. Cigarettes. Gasoline. Pine trees. The wind and skies and open roads.
My sheets smelled of freedom.
I clutched them to me, like a child clutching a comforting toy. Every scented breath I took was comfort, drawing life back into my body. It made me aware of the pain, yes, but also the good things. The fragrance, of course. The soothing coolness of my sheets. The soft embrace of the pillows. I realized that I missed a man’s touch. Brian’s? Dominic’s? I wasn’t sure. But a man’s.
Like someone meditating, I breathed in and out, only focusing on the smell, until, at long last, I fell asleep.
# # #
That night, I had a dream. I knew it was a dream in the same way that someone knows a movie must be fiction: because it is too good to be true. This dream was vivid––so lifelike that it could have been mistaken for real, if not for what happened within it.
I was back in my office. I could feel the linoleum floors beneath my feet. The polished smoothness of my desk upon my elbows. Hell, I could even smell that unique, but not unpleasant, office smell of freshly printed paper. The pile of reports I had been working on was splayed out before me, and even as I filled them out, the ink of my pen disappeared.
And yet, I did not despair. Instead, I raised my arms and swept them, in a single, fluid motion, into the bin. The fluttered down like leaves in the wind, and I smiled.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Blade!” I called, my voice deep and strong as a theater actress. “But I simply will not do these! And it is preposterous that you asked!”
Growling from behind exaggerated, slimy snaggleteeth, Mr. Blade emerged from his office. He was so bent and deformed he looked more like some golem or a troll than a human being, and yet the similarity was undeniable: this creature was my boss.
“But, Erica,” the thing wheezed, weak and twitchy. “I told you to.”
“I don’t care!” The dream-me declared. She stood up, at least five inches taller, and yet, somehow, ten pounds lighter. “You’re a horrible boss, and an asshole to boot!”
He leered at me, like a wolf baring its fangs, and approached.
“Well then,” he growled, “I suppose I am just going to have to make you!”
With greenish, long-nailed hands he reached to unbuckle his pants. His cock emerged, pink and ugly as a naked rat. He gripped it and lunged at me.
In real life, I would have been fainting with terror by this point. But in my dream, I did not scream. I did not run away. Instead, I lifted one, finely heeled shoe and kicked him square in the testicles.
“Argh!” He yipped, like a child, like a dog whose tail has been trodden on. He gripped his ugly manhood and toppled to the floor, twitching as if I’d electrified him. I laughed in triumph, towering over him, lifting my heel up, up, up, ready to slam down and finish the job, like a nail through a pair of oranges…
That was when I noticed the gun.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” I cried, stumbling back, as the creature regained its feet before me. Even as I watched, muscles seemed to swell over its sickly, lopsided frame, and its jagged, salient teeth sharpened into fangs.
It leveled the gun at me and said, in a voice like a wolf’s, “Now, take your clothes off.”
I stared at him, thundering not with fear but with rage, for he had cheated by using the gun. Any man is made powerful with a gun, even if he’s a weakling.
“I won’t!” I screamed, and yet I stumbled back. As he approached, he seemed to grow taller, while I, now, cringing, was shrinking.
BOOM! I did not see him pull the trigger. I did not see the bullet fly. I only heard the gun go off, had only a moment to think, “I am dead.”
But no pain erupted. I opened my eyes (for I had clenched them shut at the sound) and looked down: but there was no blood on my clothing.
Eyes wide with wonder, I lifted my gaze to Blade.
He was gaping at me, open-mouthed, like a fish yanked from the dark and slimy safety of its underwater home. The gun was still in his hands, now trembling, and even as I watched, his fingers gave a mighty twitch so that the weapon tumbled down to the floor. In astonishment, he looked from the gun, and then to his chest, which was blossoming with blood like red roses emerging from snow. It soaked his buttons, wicked up to his lapels, and flowed into steady streams down to his pants. As if in slow motion, he reached to his heart and touched it. His fingertips sank in as if it was jelly, and not bone, hidden beneath his shirt.
“You…bitch,” he gurgled, and then toppled to the floor. In horror, I watched him fall––that is, until I noticed the man standing behind him.
“Dominic!” I gasped, practically fainting with happiness. He had his legs spread in an athletic stance and his leather pants and jacket gleaming, while in his ha
nds he held, completely level and sure, a smoking, glinting gun. With a smile, he released the trigger and slipped it back into the holster on his hip.
“Are you okay, Erica?” He asked, stepping over the still body of Mr. Blade with his steel-clad combat boots. I nodded, feeling at once both weak and incredibly, unbelievably strong, as he took me into his arms.
“I am now,” I murmured, opening up his jacket to rest my face on the soft cotton shirt beneath. He laughed and ruffled my hair. His fingertips smelt of gunpowder.
“You were doing pretty well on your own,” he complimented, kissing my forehead. “You’re a strong woman, Erica.”
This made me, for a reason the dream-me could not yet understand, feel terribly sad.
“Thank you,” I murmured. He missed me, and my sadness fled away.
“Now come on,” he whispered, picking me right up off my feet. With a single flourish, he swept everything clear from my desk and laid me across it.
“But, Dominic!” I protested, twisting to gaze at Mr. Blade, still bleeding on the floor. To my surprise, the body was gone, and without a drop of blood in sight.
Dominic winked at me. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve done this sort of thing before.”
And then he ripped my underwear from my hips.
How different it is, when a man treats you possessively, yet you want to be possessed? How different, when you want to be roughed up, because it shows you each other’s strengths, not your weaknesses? And yet, in my dream, Dominic was not a complete barbarian. He knew I was shaken by what happened. So rather than simply driving it inside me, after tearing off my panties and yanking up my dress, he slid slowly to his knees and grinned.
“Pretty pussy,” he cooed, reaching up with a single finger and stroking me. Gently, he looped my legs up and over his shoulders and kissed my inner thighs.
The cool touch of his lips was soothing. The bristle of his jaw was titillating. He traced the outline of my hip bones with his fingertips as he slipped closer and closer to my core.
His tongue was warm and wet. It left traces of moisture on my skin, and when he breathed they lit up in cool highlights.
My pussy throbbed, opening up for him, even though he had barely touched it. I felt lubrication filling me up, flowing from my opening to surround my clit, and to coat my lips.
“You slut,” he murmured, and then dipped into me.
I moaned, rocking back on the desk. So vivid was the dream that I could feel its cool, lacquered wood beneath me, and even the slight discomfort of a pen poking into my back. That was how much I desired him, my imagination filled in every single detail.
Especially, of course, the feel of him eating me out.
“Ohh!” I groaned, feeling wave of pleasure after waving of pleasure washing over me, as he flicked my clit with his tongue. His fingers scraped along my belly, drew a course down my innermost thighs, and then spread my lips open, inviting him in deeper.
“Yes!” I cried. “Yes!” He stroked me, so that my wetness flowed even further, coating his tongue and painting his fingers with a glistening gloss. My hands clutched at the edge of my desk, and my thigh muscles squeezed against the sides of his neck, but he did not protest. He went with me, matching my strength, rocking with the convulsions of my body.
At last, I felt myself cum. Wetness flooded out of me, soaking my lips and even his chin. He stopped, then leaned away, grinning as he wiped his mouth.
“You deserve that,” he whispered, rising to his feet. “You deserve to feel so good.”
And then, he rammed his cock into me.
My low moans erupted into screams as my whole body convulsed with pleasure. My legs automatically went up and closed around his neck, so I that I could feel the full, thick, throbbing length of him entering me with every thrust.
And here’s the nice thing about dreams: at first, he was still clad in his leather jacket. Its metal zippers bit into the flesh of my thighs, increasing the feeling of roughness, of the domination he had over me. And them, as his pounding grew, and they began to rub, the jacket suddenly vanished. He was naked before me, all of his scarred, embattled, tattooed muscles flexing and posing with every piston-like movement of his body. The contact of his skin on mine caught fire, while my g-spot sang as his rock-hard rod pounded into it. I knew it was a dream. But that did not stop me from cumming. Hard.
“Yes!” He roared, slapping at my breasts then covering my mouth with his hand, so that my screams were muffled. We were, after all, in my office.
This only completed my feeling of subjugation, of his total conquest over me. My eyes rolled back in pleasure. My hands fastened over his, not to pull it off, but to pretend to.
“I’m gonna cum in you,” he growled, as his thrusting increased. I felt myself growing dizzy, about to burst.
I felt the explosion. A deep feeling, a wellness surged through me, hot and comforting as a bowl of soup on a cold winter’s night. Slowly, the dream faded, and just as gently, I felt myself awaken.
Sleepily, I reached down and touched between my legs. I was soaking wet, and my pussy was throbbing. I had cum in my sleep. That had never happened to me before.
Sighing deeply, I rolled back onto my side, reliving in my head the wonderful images from the dream. And not just the sex. My feelings of victory and power as I told Blade off. The sight of Dominic’s smoking gun over Blade’s dead body. Strangely, the violence did not bother me. It made me feel warm and better than ever.
Though earlier that night I would have said it was impossible, I snuggled up, still inhaling Dominic’s scent, smiled, and fell immediately to sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
Dominic
With a little help from the Vet and several nights split between resting and a bottle of tequila, my wound healed just fine. It would become yet another scar on my battered torso. In a year, I would barely remember how it happened.
Our heist continued in its planning stages. Though we were determined, there remained a lurking suspicion that we were missing something: some dark element yet unseen by our most perceptive eyes.
And yet, even with the enormity of the heist looming before us, there were still boring, everyday tasks that required the attentions of the president of the Broken Spires: checking out club prospects. This was a duty that I used to enjoy––determining the toughest, smartest, and most loyal of new prospects. And yet, now I was bored with it. These young men seemed like wolf pups to me: savage, undisciplined, and naive. They yipped at me like I held the last piece of meat in all the world, and they’d do anything to have it.
Still, I imagined it would probably go better than scoping out another Crooked Jaws bar. Plus, I didn’t want the likes of Fernando or Dorian picking out the new recruits. They tended to focus too much on violence, picking bullies and thugs. But if my years as president had taught me anything, it was that brains were far more important than brawn.
And both together were deadly.
I selected a neutral bar for our meetup. It was a tourist trap, filled with way too many out-of-towners to ever be a permanent home to any club. In many ways, this made it a good place to meet prospects. They had less of a chance for being assumed Broken Spires and killed for it.
There was another benefit as well: dumb, blonde groupies.
The two young men I wanted to talk to were sitting at a table with two such specimens: tall, full-lipped, wide-hipped young women with breasts the size of cantaloupes. They practically could have been twins. And though I could tell, even all the way from the entrance to the bar, that the men were trying to command their attention, both of them looked immediately at me when I walked in.
I suppose that being the president of a major motorcycle club does give one a certain amount of glamour.
All four of the occupants of the table immediately moved over as I approached, offering me ample seating space. I took it, then spread myself out like a cat, commanding an entire quarter of the table. I laid my boots across a chair, unzipped my l
eather jacket, and held a single hand in the air. A second later, a drink was in it.
I had not yet said a word.
The prospects and the groupies stared at me in awe. If I was the laughing type, I would have chuckled. The men gaped. One was missing a tooth, obviously punched out in some barroom brawl. The women leaned forward, pushing up their breasts with their arms, their ruby-red lips glistening like cherries as their slightly bovine mouths hung open.