by Callie Hart
“Don’t worry, beautiful. It won’t bite,” he says.
“You do realize I am five foot two? I can’t...There’s no way I’m gonna be able to…”
“You will.” He storms off in the direction of the living room, knocking the door open with one hard kick. He lies down on the floor on his back, placing me on top of him. “We’re gonna do it this way for a few minutes. That’s all you get, Sasha. You get to be in control for a moment while your body learns how to accept me. Once I’m inside you, that’s it. You’re mine.”
A thrill of panic rushes through me. Dear god, this is sheer madness. How? How the hell am I meant to—
My mind goes blank as I straddle him. Rooke guides me into place, and I can feel him almost pushing into me. I’m wet already, like, really fucking wet, but there’s no way in hell he’s going to just slide right on inside me. Rooke’s fingers dig into my thighs as I slowly, carefully lower myself onto him.
“Fuck, Sasha. Fuck!”
I could say the same thing myself. My head rocks back as I try to breathe around him. I feel impossibly full. I think I’m going to have to stop, but then Rooke eases himself onto his elbows, and he takes my nipple into his mouth. He places his hand between our bodies and begins to rub my clit in small, tight circles and suddenly my body is ablaze. I begin to rock slowly against him, lost in the dizzying sensation that is sweeping through me, and little by little my body does as Rooke said it would. It learns how to accept him.
The very moment he’s all the way inside me, he’s true to his word. He flips me onto my back, a sharp, jagged-edged smile cutting across his face. “Feel free to scream.”
He thrusts inside me, and I go still. There are fireworks going off inside my fucking head. He’s everywhere, surrounding me, inside me, on top of me, his hands running all over my body, in my hair, his mouth on mine. The way he kisses me is vital, as though he’s filled with the same desperate need I’m feeling right now. The need to consume him, be a part of him, be a part of something else. Something he and I alone are incapable of being, but together…
He fucks me until I forget my own damn name. He’s incredible. He angles his hips in the perfect way, so that every time he pushes into me he rubs against my clit, bringing me closer and closer to my climax with every thrust. I hold onto his shoulders, and it’s just as I imagined earlier: I feel vulnerable, but at the same time I feel safe.
“You’re going to come for me now,” Rooke tells me, grinding out the words directly into my ear. “I can feel it. I can feel you getting tighter around my cock. Are you going to come all over my dick, Sasha?”
“Shit. Oh my god, yes. Yes, I’m going to come.”
“Good girl. Good girl, that’s it. Show me. Show me how pretty you are when you come.”
My orgasm is exactly like being sucked out of an airlock into space. I feel like I’m being yanked out of my own body, out of my own skin, and I can’t seem to breathe. I dig my fingernails into Rooke’s back and he slams himself inside me, and then he’s roaring, his teeth gritted together as he comes with me. He crushes me to him, and it feels like we’re both melting, fading away somehow. I feel numb.
“Damn.” Rooke rolls over, so that I’m back on top of him. He’s still inside me, still hard, still making me shiver every time he twitches, which seems to entertain him. He brushes a strand of my hair back behind my ear, then gathers it all up into his hands, holding it behind my head. “See,” he says. “Your body knows now. It knows it’s mine. There’s no fucking way you can deny it.”
FIFTEEN
HELP
SASHA
Living in Manhattan means I don’t get to enjoy the skyline all that often. It seems as though it would be quite similar to living on the moon; everyone else gets to appreciate the silent, luminous, ghostly beauty of your home, viewing it from afar, and yet for you the vista consists of dust and rocks and not much else. Manhattan, from the inside, is just the same as any city: dirty, overcrowded and oversaturated with many different sounds, scents and colors. It’s a magnificent place, though. There’s something about this city that separates it from all other cities, something that inhabits the air and lives insides the very concrete and metal that forms the foundations of the place. A kind of magic that even the most desensitized, numb kind of person will recognize instantly upon stepping foot inside the boundaries of the city. The idea that people leave New York, that they up sticks and relocate to live in other, lesser places, completely without any magic at all, confounds me on a daily basis.
I still marvel at the street vendors. My blood still hums with a frisson of excitement every time I walk down Broadway. Pride still swells inside me as I look up, my eyes traveling the full height of the Empire State Building. And every time I walk through the entrance of the museum, my heart skips a beat.
It’s early still. My body aches beyond comprehension from the way Rooke contorted me into a million different positions while we had sex last night. Every time muscles twinge it’s the most delicious reminder of the hours we spent together. I didn’t want to come to work. I would have happily stayed in bed and allowed him to explore and use my body however he saw fit for the rest of the day but he had an appointment that apparently couldn’t be missed.
The only other people already working at the museum are the security guards. Amanda, a woman in her late thirties who has worked at the museum almost as long as I have, checks my purse at the front door. “Good job, Miss Connor,” she says to me. “No guns. No bombs. No hairspray. You are good to go.”
She says the same thing every time she checks my bag, and I always pretend to laugh, even though this charade has been going on for years now. I know for a fact she says the same thing to every other female employee that works here. I accept my bag from her and walk into the main foyer of the museum, but I only make it three or four steps before I come to a grinding halt.
The Christmas tree.
I’m always stunned the first time I see it. I had no idea they were erecting it so early this year. I stand in amazement, studying the tall, lush boughs and the pale golden lights, twinkling slowly. The rich smell of pine floods my senses, and suddenly my eyes are filled with tears. Christmas time. Just like any other six-year-old, December was Christopher’s favorite time of year. Andrew and I used to go overboard, decorating the house, covering every square inch of the place in holly and wreaths, nutcracker statues and fake snow out of a can. Ever since Christopher died, Christmas has felt like a knife plunged deep into my back. Families are everywhere at this time of year, shopping, eating in restaurants, visiting aunts and uncles, moms and dads, ice skating at the Rockefeller Center, lining up to see The Lion King. I hate it.
“Beautiful, no?” Amanda calls out behind me. “They did themselves proud this year.”
“Yes,” I say quietly. “It really is lovely.” I hurry to my office, gripping hold of my purse so tightly that I lose all feeling in my hand.
******
Thoughts of Christopher, running around in his socks and his underwear, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, Andrew chasing after him, tickle-fingers extended, trying to get him ready for school.
Last night was blissful. For a whole twelve hours, I wasn’t thinking about the accident. I wasn’t floundering in a deep well of pain, scratching at the walls, trying to hold on to something, to keep myself afloat. Rooke took all of that away. I never would have thought it was possible, but it was. He held me up for a moment. His hands on my body, his mouth on my skin, the feeling of him inside me…there was no room for anything else during those moments. There was only the two of us, the ghosts of my past cast far away, wonderfully absent.
Now, though, they’ve crept back in, lurking at the edges of my mind. Christopher eating his breakfast cereal at the same table we sit around during book club, playing with his plastic dinosaurs. Christopher sitting on the middle step of the stairs, signing a song he learned at school as I sort through the mail. Christopher watching television, mouth open in silent jo
y, kicking his feet against the base of the sofa. Christopher, trying to teach the little girl next door how to spell his name in sign language. Each joyful moment is a dagger in my heart.
I carefully open up the top drawer of my desk, my lips pressed together, unable to breathe as I remove the small envelope from inside. I’ve been putting this off forever, it seems, but now I know I can’t. I have to face the past head on, and that means I have to face Andrew. My hands are shaking as I tear open the paper.
Dear Sasha,
Been a while, I know. I’m sorry I’ve been keeping my distance, but you know… It only seems to make things worse when we speak. I should have probably called with this news, but I’m ever the coward. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I just couldn’t quite seem to muster up the courage to say the words out loud to you.
Kim and I had a baby. I can imagine how this news is probably making you feel, and I’m sorry, I really am. I thought about keeping this to myself and not telling you at all, but it felt a little deceitful. Anyway, we called him Christopher.
I stop reading, the paper shaking violently in my hands. They…what? They did fucking what? Andrew’s blocky handwriting blurs as my eyes fill with tears. He had another son? And he called him Christopher? What the hell?
I already know you think I’m a monster. Kim and I just felt like it was the right thing to do, though. I’m not trying to replace him, Sasha. I would never do that—
That’s exactly what the bastard is doing. How can he not see that? How can he not see that shacking up with another woman (who looks strikingly similar to me), having a child with that woman and naming that child after our dead son is most definitely trying to replace him? How can he be so blind? So fucking hurtful?
I’m sure a small part of you, deep down maybe, will be relieved to hear that Christopher isn’t deaf. We’ve had numerous appointments at the hospital, and as far as the doctors can tell at this young age he appears to have fully functional hearing. He’s a bright, happy baby, Sasha. He’s helped to heal the wounds of the past for me. In time, maybe—
I screw up the paper and hurl it across the room. My vision is flickering in a frightening, dangerous way. I feel like I need to smash something, to hurt something, to hurt myself. How can he say that? How can he put those thoughts down on paper? It’s so much worse than saying it out loud, because he had to use a pen, write them down so that they exist forever. He thinks I’ll be relieved that his new son isn’t deaf? That makes it sound like I was disappointed that our son was. His disability was never a cause of shame or sadness to me. It made him special. Christopher was brimming over with happiness every day of his life. The fact that he was deaf never held him back. It makes me feel dirty inside that Andrew would even—
Crrrrrrrrrrrack!
I go still at my desk. The loud, abrupt, explosive sound that just rang out, slicing through the thick silence of the museum is still echoing down the corridor outside my office. What was that?
It comes again, louder this time.
CRRRRRACKKK!
What…what the hell is happening right now?
I’m suddenly flooded with panic. A gunshot? Can it really have been a gunshot? The logical, sensible part of my brain refuses this possibility almost instantly, and yet the rest of me is beginning to tremble. A gunshot. Someone’s fired a gun inside the museum. Someone has a weapon in here. Why? Why would anyone—
“Hello? Is anyone down here?” a deep, slurring voice asks. Whoever the voice belongs to can’t be far from my office door. Once the museum is open, the hubbub from the main exhibition areas can be heard in the administration sections of the building all too well. It’s so loud you can barely hear yourself think sometimes. Right now, though, with the museum still an hour away from opening, you could hear a pin drop. The sound of boots slowly progressing down the corridor outside my room sends a thrill of adrenaline and anxiety through me.
“Hello? If there’s anybody down here…”
I hold my breath. Don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound…
The hallway fills with the shatter of breaking glass. I clap my hands over my mouth, forcing myself to stay quiet. A second splintering crash of breaking glass comes, closer this time. Then a third. It hits me out of nowhere—it’s the frosted glass windows in the office doors. Someone is breaking them one at a time.
“Fuck.” I drop down onto my hands and knees, scooting quickly under my desk. I can’t make sense of what’s happening. A few moments ago, I was reading, stunned by the callous, cold-heartedness of my ex-husband, and now, out of nowhere, it sounds like someone is stalking through the museum with a gun in their hands. The voice I just heard asking for help didn’t sound like it came from a person in distress; it sounded like it came from someone immersed in a very entertaining game of cat and mouse. It sounded mocking and sinister. Every instinct I have is urging me to hide from the owner of that voice.
“Come on, honey. I know you’re here. The woman on the front desk said you were the only other busybody in the building. You’re ruining my shit,” the voice hisses. I can see a sliver of the frosted glass panel in my door from my vantage point underneath my desk; I try not to scream when the shape of a tall, dark figure comes to a standstill on the other side.
“Dr. S. Connor,” the voice says. “Why I do believe you’re just the person I’m looking for.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I try to think, try to scan my brain, to remember what I have sitting on my desk. Any weapons? Anything to defend myself with? No. No, there’s nothing. Nothing in my drawers, either. Ali bought me a tiny pepper spray canister to attach to my keys about a year back, but it was clunky and annoying so I took it off my keychain. The sound of smashing glass fills the room, and a gloved hand appears, reaching through the yawning hole in the door, fumbling for the door handle. I can’t stop the startled cry that escapes from my mouth. The door isn’t even locked. I mean, why would I lock it in a place like the museum? It’s supposed to be a safe place. It’s supposed to be under twenty-four-hour guard from the security detail. The door swings open, and a pair of dusty brown boots appear in my line of sight. The lace on the right shoe is red, which strikes me as odd, given that the left shoe is laced with black.
“Dr. S, I need a moment of your time,” the voice says. “Can you help me out, or am I going to have to persuade you to lend me your assistance?”
I do not like the tone of this man’s voice. I’m beyond scared. How the hell am I going to get out of this? My purse is on the floor next to me, probably knocked there when I jumped up to hide under the table. My belongings are scattered all over the floor—lipstick, hair brush, mirror compact, notebook, a silver pen my father bought for me when I graduated college. My cell phone lies within arm’s reach, too. I snatch it up just as the man enters the room, snarling under his breath.
“Stupid cunt,” he snaps. “You honestly think I don’t know where you are? Get up, bitch. Get up now, before I come around there and drag you onto your feet myself.”
Slowly, painfully slowly, I inch my way out from underneath the desk. My heart is hammering all over my body, my pulse erratic and crazed. I have only been more scared than this one time in my life. I have only known this kind of terror in the split second before my car hit the water all those years ago, and to feel it again now is stupefying. I can’t react properly. I can’t think straight. All I can do is get to my feet and hold my hands in the air.
I silently pray that the man wearing the black ski mask in front of me doesn’t search me. Doesn’t find the cellphone I just slipped into the waistband of my skirt in the small of my back. A for Ali, the first person in my contact list. The first person I thought of. Did the call connect? I would have called 911 myself, but there wasn’t time. I barely had time to hit the number one digit—the speed dial number assigned to my friend—on the keypad, followed by the call button.
The masked man steps forward and takes me by the arm. His fingers are tight as a vice. His breath smells li
ke coffee. “You wanna die?” He sounds intrigued, as if he’s actually curious what my answer will be. As if I might say yes, I do want to die, for some unknown, unexpected reason. I shake my head, unable to find my voice, and the masked stranger sighs heavily.
“Good. Do as you’re told and I probably won’t hurt you. Do we have an agreement?”
“What do you want?”
“I said…do we have an agreement?”
Panic. Fear. Terror. I nod. “Yes. Yes, we do.”
“Great. Now get moving.” He gives me a sharp, hard tug, and I bang my hip against the corner of my desk. Pain sings through me and I cry out, but the guy in the mask seems unaffected by my discomfort. I can’t see his expression behind his thick black woolen ski mask, but I get the impression that he might even be smiling.
“Take me to the vaults,” he tells me.
“Vaults? There are no vaults here.”
My head rocks to the side as he slaps me. A bright sting flares inside my head, making my vision dance, and my ears take on a high-pitched buzzing ring. I try to cup my hand to the side of my face, but he still has hold of me and my hand stops short. “Don’t be stupid, bitch. We both know this place is stocked to the gills with priceless art and shit. Now take me to the vaults.”
“I told you. We don’t have vaults. I can’t take you somewhere that doesn’t exist.”
He leans forward, looming over me, and I’m gripped by the urgent and pressing need to shrink, to make myself as small as I possibly can. “You have a smart mouth on you, Doc. Don’t get too clever, okay? I don’t want to have to shut you up for good. Now say you’re sorry.”