by May Bridges
Chapter Seventeen
Maybe I should have given the other VPs blow jobs. I mean, would it really have been that big of a deal? I was sure mine were better than Marcy’s. I contemplated it while reading over Marcy’s promotion announcement for the sixth time the following Monday afternoon. I told myself I was fine with her getting the promotion, and maybe part of me was proud that I didn’t get it the way Marcy did, but the other part of me thought it sucked.
“I brought you coffee.” Jasmine came in carrying a fresh cup, careful not to spill the hot contents on her fuchsia dress, and took a seat. “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, Jasmine. Thank you for this. You really didn’t have to. I can get my own coffee.” I took the steaming mug from her. I can make my own coffee, but the sympathy cups she made did taste better than mine.
“I know you can. I feel bad and want to do something for you.”
“Don’t feel bad, I’m fine. We both knew it was coming.” I stared down into my mug at the swirling liquid and tried not to let her see the disappointment on my face.
“Well you shouldn’t be fine. It’s bullshit.”
Something about how angry Jasmine was for me made me feel a little better.
“Do you like what you do, Jasmine? Working here, I mean.”
“I love working for you, Alex. Why?”
“I don’t mean for me, for Star Industries as a whole? I like working for Oliver, but sometimes I wonder if liking my boss really means liking my job.”
“I see. Well, I can tell you that I wouldn’t do what you do.”
“You don’t want to move up?” I asked, surprised. It’s all I’d ever focused on, climbing up the ladder.
“Not in this business,” Jasmine said with a grimace. “No offense to you, but I don’t think I’m mean enough. The first old man who cried in a conference room, telling me he was selling his life’s dream to my company, knowing I was going to tear it apart. Nope. I’d cry with him and tell him we’d find a way for him to keep it. I’d be fired before I ever unpacked my office.”
“I guess I just don’t think about it, you know? It’s a goal and I focus on accomplishing it, not as much on who gets hurt.”
“And that’s what makes you great at your job, Alex. You know what your goals are and you go after them. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Perhaps not, but lately I couldn’t help thinking of how I felt after. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been so focused on the goal that I forgot to do something I actually liked. I couldn’t say I’d ever asked myself if I liked my job.
I knew it was something that needed serious thought when the ping on my computer let me know I had an email from Mr. Arnold.
“And that’s the boss man himself,” I said with a sigh. “I gotta get this, but really, thank you for bringing me coffee and talking.”
“Anytime, Alex.” Jasmine headed back to her desk.
I stared at my computer for what felt like another hour with my mouse hovering over the “Open” button on Mr. Arnold’s email. I knew it was about his meeting with June. Mr. Arnold didn’t email me for any other reason.
Why did the email have to come when I already felt wretched about my job and my wavering dedication to it? What made it worse was that Mr. Arnold was asking me to do exactly what I’d refused to do to get the promotion. I wanted that promotion on my own merit. But did that count for anything when I’d already been on my knees for Mr. Arnold in order to keep my job?
I was shocked as hell when the client that showed up at Joe’s bar one night was Mr. Arnold. I freaked out on Robert for it, but he said he didn’t know that Mr. Arnold and I had a connection. It was too late by then, anyway. Mr. Arnold knew what I did on the weekends. He started blackmailing me for services before I even made it out of Joe’s that night.
I’d worked so hard to get where I was in my career. I couldn’t throw it all out. Not even if it meant being June for Mr. Arnold. What was one more client anyway? But I never wanted it. Never.
Beside the fact that it was my boss’s boss, and I only got paid with his guarantee of silence about June, it was another obstacle preventing me from killing June. June, or the job that was my life?
I opened the email.
I have some time available tomorrow night. It’s short notice but we need to make this work.
Christopher Arnold—President and CEO
Star Industries, Inc.
I put my head on my desk, not too carefully. I wouldn’t feel good about lying to Cade to get out of the house any day. The thought of this felt particularly awful, knowing I would be leaving to go do exactly what he’d been trying to keep me from.
My job, the one constant in my life, the place I felt successful, accomplished, perhaps the one part of my life that I felt in control of—or Cade. That’s what the decision felt like.
I sent a reply.
Mr. Arnold,
I am available tomorrow at 10. I’ll see you then.
Alex Ryan—Acquisitions Manager
Star Industries, Inc.
I lay awake in my bed that night, staring at the hooks high up on the pearl-painted wall, for the first time in weeks hoping Cade wouldn’t come home. I didn’t want to see him, to look at his face and know what I’d be going to do the next day. I got my wish. By the time I drifted off, sometime in the early morning hours, he still wasn’t home.
He wasn’t there when I woke for work the next day. It was a small blessing. Still, I’d have to tell him that I wouldn’t be at the house that evening. I was scared that Cade was going to walk in and just know when he looked at me. That he’d be able to see, somehow, how fucked up I was over what I had to go do that night.
It had been a while since I’d really thought about hiding the ugly parts of myself from the world. I put on a show every day at work to some degree, but it had become routine. And then there was Rach, but I always suspected she saw more of me than I liked to admit. My decision to go meet with Mr. Arnold was a very ugly part of me. I hoped I could hide it from Cade. I’d never tried to hide from him. From the beginning he’d seen the worst of me. All of me.
I decided to go back to my apartment right after work. I needed to get ready and then I could communicate with Cade through texts. I made the drive back to Highland Park for the first time in almost three weeks. My bedroom window had been fixed after I called into the apartment management and told them a ball had gone through it. Everything else was as it had been when I ran away from it to go to Cade’s. By seven p.m. I knew I was pushing my luck, so I fired off a text to Cade.
Rachel asked me to do some wedding planning tonight and then drinks. I might crash with her. Thought I would let you know.
What time are you leaving?
I’ve already headed out.
I can come get you if you drink and you can stay here.
I’ll be fine at Rachel’s. Promise.
Okay, lying via text wasn’t so bad. I didn’t have to see his face, hear his voice, and wonder if he saw through me. I knew, however, that I would have to face him after, and that would be the hardest part. I told myself that this was good practice for my meeting with Robert’s client. I’d have to meet him too, and also lie to Cade about it.
I hated that feeling, the way my stomach churned, the tension that laced through my muscles, how I had to think about every breath I took to keep them even. I hadn’t realized how happy I was to have a reprieve from it. I knew now. Standing in the loft bathroom, pulling my black thigh-highs up with trembling fingers, I knew I hated this.
To be true to who Cade would want me to be—that better version of me—I promised myself to not drink or use. I was going to fail in that commitment. I knew it when I walked back out into the open area and saw the Jack and Valium. I couldn’t do this without them, especially when my client was Mr. Arnold.
With most clients I had no feelings toward them one way or the other; they were looking for something, and I provided it. But with Mr. Arnold, I felt gross. I
knew he was a prick, a slimeball. I saw his wife at the company Christmas parties. I’d have to see her at one in a couple months.
I took a Valium and washed it down with a swig from a new bottle of Jack, because Cade had dumped my last one. The empty glass went on the counter and I also crumbled against the granite, laying my face on the cool hard surface. I tried to hold them in, but some of the tears that stung at my eyes escaped me. I felt guilty and I hadn’t even touched him yet. I was ashamed, of me, of June. Why couldn’t I just kill her?
I wiped the evidence of my shame off my cheeks and answered the knock at the door.
“June.” Mr. Arnold grinned. “I’ve missed the sight of you like this.”
He came into the loft and shut the door behind him. I slid the deadbolt home, and it made me want to cry again.
“Can I get you a drink, Mr. Arnold? I have Jack or Jack,” I said dryly.
“No, I’m fine.” He slid his fingers under the strap of my bustier and ran them down along it. “I think I can get plenty drunk on you,” he said looking me up and down.
“No touching, remember?” I took a step back.
“It’s hard not to when you look like a slut wrapped in my favorite shade of blue silk, just for me.”
It was hard to swallow his words, but if I wanted to have a job to return to, I knew I had to bite my tongue. I went to the cabinet and pulled out a few things to get the nightmare started.
“Actually,” Mr. Arnold said as I laid out a ball gag on the bed. I picked it specifically to shut him up. “I was thinking maybe we could do a little role reversal tonight. I’ve been thinking about it, and I want to take a crop to you for once.”
I couldn’t. For so many reasons, no. What if he touched me, really touched me the way Cade does sometimes? I knew I’d freak out, panic, and Cade wouldn’t be there to make everything okay again.
“Is there any way I can change your mind about that, Mr. Arnold?” I pulled a flogger off the bed and strut toward him, trying so hard to be June: sexy, confident, and unyielding. I walked around him, pulling the leather of the flogger over the skin on the back of his neck. “You know I can make you feel good, sir. Let me,” I whispered in his ear.
“I know you’re trying to tempt me from what I want,” he said, rolling his shoulders, “but it’s not going to work. I want you on your knees this time, June. I want to watch your skin pink up, and hear how much you like being whipped by your boss.” The corners of his lips curled up.
I stepped back to the bar and pulled the bottle of Jack, pouring another. I downed it with one more Valium. “I have rules,” I tell him. “You still can’t touch me.”
“How is this supposed to work if I don’t touch you?”
“I don’t know, that’s for you to figure out.” I squared my shoulders and tried to look resolved. “You can’t touch me, and I won’t change my mind on that. No matter what you threaten me with.”
“Deal, but as long as I don’t touch you, I want control. Same way you have it when we play this the other way,” Mr. Arnold said with a devilish grin.
If you asked me in that moment, I would’ve told you he was the devil, finding every way to torture my soul in one night.
“I don’t know . . .” I trailed off.
“Oh, I think you do know. Fair is fair.”
He didn’t have to say it for me to read the underlying threat. He’d leak my secret. I’d lose my job and maybe worse. I swallowed down my pride. I could do this if he didn’t touch me. How bad could it be with that standing rule?
“Deal. Where do you want me?” I asked, looking down, studying the pattern of the grain on the walnut wood floors because I couldn’t look at him knowing what was about to happen.
“By the bed, June. You know how this works. On your knees.”
The twenty-five foot walk to the bed felt like a march down death row. A part of me—Alex, not June—died when my knees hit the floor for him.
Mr. Arnold cuffed my hands to the chain on the corner of the bed and then started to remove his clothes. Layer by layer, he stripped down in front of me.
“Look at me,” he barked out. With all the control I had, I looked up at his face. “Who is going to make you scream?” he asked.
“You are,” I mumbled.
Mr. Arnold brought down a length of cane across the top of my ass. I hadn’t even noticed him pull it, I was trying so hard not to think about what was happening. I told Cade I would never let a man do that to me again. Overwhelming guilt from knowing this was another promise broken—even if I didn’t mean to break it—that, not the pain, made me cry out when the cane fired into my flesh.
“You’ll respond by saying ‘sir.’ ‘You are, sir. Yes, sir, Mr. Arnold.’ Now, who’s going to make you scream?”
“You are, sir.”
“Good girl.” Mr. Arnold came to stand in front of me, now naked and hard. The sight of it made me sick. “Are you going to be a good whore for me tonight, June? Or am I going to have to spank you?” he asked, running the cane up and down my spine.
“I’ll be good for you, sir.” I tried to hold in the shiver.
“No, no. It’s not that easy,” he said, laughing. “Tell me you’re going to be a good whore for me.”
I was going to cry again. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t a whore, I didn’t want to be. I realized that in all of the time Cade had me strung up, bound, hanging from his wall, or on my knees, he’d never made me feel like this; like something less than human. I felt my chest tighten with the strain to hold back my emotions. I didn’t know how to get the words out and keep the sobs in.
Mr. Arnold brought the cane down across the front of my thighs when I didn’t respond.
“I’ll be a good whore for you, Mr. Arnold,” I yelled.
Another piece of me died.
“I know you will.” Mr. Arnold stepped in and laced his fingers through my hair, pulling my head back hard. He laughed when I cried out, and pushed himself into my face.
There are a lot of ways to defile someone, make them feel ashamed, belittle them, or assert your authority over them, without putting your fingertips to their skin. And as hard as I tried to be strong and keep it together, I couldn’t. I cried. Cuffed to the bed, feeling every bit like the dirty whore Mr. Arnold kept making me say that I was. For the first time, I didn’t find relief in the pain of a cane or a clamp. I cried. I let the tears pour down my face and I didn’t care what Mr. Arnold thought.
When he was done with me, he uncuffed me, poured himself a shot of my Jack, and headed for the door. “I’ll see you at the office, Alex,” he said, and left.
Alex.
Alex, because June wasn’t here anymore. She abandoned me when I needed her, when I needed her to be brave and strong, to be the mask I used so Alex could stay hidden inside. She abandoned me. She left me on the ground with knees to my chest trying to cover myself, feeling as dirty and disgusted as I ever had.
Life’s autopilot mode got me home, back to my apartment in Highland Park. I wanted Heart when I walked in my door, but I couldn’t have him because he was at Cade’s, and I couldn’t go there. The thought of it forced me into the kitchen where I pulled out another bottle. Fuck the glass. I took several long pulls and then went to sit in the bottom of my shower with raging hot water on. I sat there hoping it would burn away the feeling of filth. I sat until the water turned cold. I still felt dirty.
When I didn’t have a choice but to get out, I crawled in bed, under my white and yellow comforter that I loved so much, and did the only thing I knew to do. I called Rachel.
“Hello?” I can’t hold back the tears when I hear her voice. I didn’t think I had anything left to cry, but the tears came in a flood. I could barely speak.
“Rach.”
“Alex? Are you crying?”
“I need you.”
“Oh baby, where are you?”
“Ho-o-ome.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I was a drunken, Valium high, sobbing me
ss on my bed when she burst through my door. Rachel made it from my bedroom door to my bed without her feet even touching the ground, it seemed, she moved so fast. She crashed into me and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into her chest. I don’t know why, but it made me cry harder.
Rachel held me, soothed me, rubbed my back, and rocked me. She shushed and told me it’ll be okay. I wanted with every piece of my being to believe her. I wanted to live in Rachel’s world where everything would be happily ever after, where the world wasn’t a dark place of pain; all sorts of pain. But I didn’t live in Rachel’s world.
In my world I’d have to see Mr. Arnold again, maybe not that week, but again. And I’d know every time he looked at me that the only thing he was thinking was how I looked on my knees, as his whore. In my world I’d have to face Cade. I couldn’t hide from him forever. In my world I still had Becker, and Robert, and his client to deal with. So my world couldn’t be a fairytale like Rachel’s.
It was a children’s nursery rhyme, with pockets full of posies, and everyone dies at the end.
* * *
His voice crashed through my groggy state as soon as I was conscious of my first breath. My head throbbed and it took a second for me to clear my eyes and sit up. When I did, I saw Cade sitting in the rocking chair in the far corner of my room. His dark eyes were fixed on me from under his furrowed brow.
“Rachel called me last night,” Cade said calmly. Too calm. He continued before I had much time to process the scene. “She was yelling, freaking out because she thought I beat you. Said you had marks on you again and she knew it was me.”
“Cade, let—”
“No,” he held up his hand to stop me. “I don’t want to hear it. I came over thinking she was wrong, that she didn’t know what she was seeing on you. Because why would you do it again, you know? Why would you lie to me to go out and do that again? When you had everything you needed at my house, when I was there to give you what you needed, when I had shown my hand to Rob to get him off your back for a while. Rachel had to be wrong.”
Cade stopped and scrubbed his hands over his face. I knew his pause wasn’t an invitation for me to talk. I stayed motionless on the bed with my knees pulled into my chest, I let my guilt and shame wash over me again, covering me in a blanket of filth.