by Amo Jones
I wave him off. Why the fuck is Royce being psycho—more than usual—right now?
Sliding onto the cool Italian leather seat, I shut the door behind myself. “Hi.”
James pulls out onto the road, filling the empty silence with awkward tension. Things between him and I have been up and down in the past, but no matter how low we got, there was a level of safety I found myself feeling while I was around him. He was always gentle while having sex. His placidity is what kept me from knowing he would never kill me, but at the hotel the other night, he felt frustrated. There’s a dark cloud of uncertainty that hovers over him now that makes me feel more unnerved than usual.
He continues to drive us out to one of the hotels on the other side of town. “We’re staying in tonight?” I ask, which is never a good thing. The food in my stomach rolls, unshed tears floating to the surface.
“Yes, Jade. Come on.” He unbuttons his jacket impatiently. I shut the door once I’m out and follow him into the lobby, hanging behind as he collects the key.
When we’re in the elevator, I desperately reach for something, anything, that may guarantee me walking out of here with my life. “I don’t have to go to the clubhouse tonight.”
He doesn’t answer, and for a second, I don’t think he’s going to, until the elevator reaches the top and he clears his throat. “Oh, yes you do.” Following him out into the hallway, the dark gray colored walls swirl in slow motion. He stops outside room #445 and slides the card down the slot until it beeps open.
He drops the card onto the counter beside the door, clutching his duffel bag in his hands. The room is furnished typical of a five-star hotel. Clean linen, champagne glasses, gentle lighting.
“Go in the bathroom and wait until I tell you to come out. Remove your clothes and wear the gown that is laid out in there for you.”
I nod. “Yes, sir.”
Entering the bathroom through the main bedroom, I close the door and begin undressing when my phone falls from my pocket. “Shit.” I forgot to put it with his keys, if he sees that I’ve made a mistake, my punishment will be even worse than whatever it is that awaits me.
After slipping into the same green silk gown he had me wear a few days ago and folding my clothes in a pile, I take a seat on the toilet and flip open the selfie camera. I’m somewhat active on social media, but I’m not a big selfie girl. Nothing wrong with girls who take selfies, I just can’t bring myself to do them. I like taking shots of the ocean, of nature. Dead flowers interest me more than a pretty face. Raising my phone up to eye level, I snap a shot of me with my hair piled to one side, in waves from it being knotted in a braid all day. My makeup remains glossy and untouched, with impeccable lines and flawless tints. I look down at the photo and freeze. I look like that? I seem… sad. The silk gown hangs off one slender shoulder, my collarbones as sharp as Royce’s cheekbones, my bright green eyes bloodshot around the edges. I slip my phone into my folded jeans and splash cold water over my face. “Okay. Here we go.”
“You may come out,” James says from one of the bedrooms through the door. Swinging it open, I follow his voice into the master bedroom. When I enter, he’s blocked off the whole corner of the room in white sheets with a metal makeshift stand in the middle. It looks like it could be a photo shoot area, with the drop sheets and stand, but when I see the camera on the tripod and the tools lined up beside him, I realize that this isn’t James that I’m dealing with tonight.
This is something else.
He makes his way toward me, placing the bunny mask over my face before the blindfold. It’s the same mask I use every time I work with him. I’m not sure why he chose it, or the significance of it. I bring it down to it having to do with his perverted mind. “I’m sorry, Bunny. I was happy having you beside me as my toy. As my greatest and most beautiful possession.” He yanks the ties around the back of my head when I feel the tears seep through to the blindfold.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask through cracked vocal cords, shredded like ribbons and falling from my lips.
“Shhhh,” he says, his lips against mine. “Not yet, and not tonight, no.” He pauses, as I hear rustling in the background. “Always the most beautiful girl in the room. Enough beauty and power to bring any man to his knees, and you could have had any, so why him?”
“Why who?” Snot runs down my nostrils as the tears become dense. When I go to swipe, his hands are on mine, leading me away. I feel the sheet between my toes, and I know where I am in the room. My hands are lifted up above my head, as cold metal claws clip around my wrists.
Disturbed “Inside the Fire” starts playing as he kicks my legs wide, fastening them with metal clamps too. He must push a button because they widen. I’m well acquainted with the spreader bar. There’s a long pause of silence before he speaks, and this time when he does it’s through that same voice recorder that he used when he made the last video.
“Every week you leave it, I will punish her.”
What does he want?
“You’re probably wondering what I want, as I usually only do sales with clients who I know are readily able to make an exchange.”
Usually? What? He’s never done this to me in my life. He must be talking to his camera.
“The answer is, I don’t want anything. Isn’t that just the mindfuck for you? You won’t know how to save this girl, and when you’ve figured it all out, I can assure you, you will want to. For now, I will have no choice but to end her pretty little life.” He pauses, and I feel the coolness of a pole over my ass. He doesn’t hit me though. The cold pole glides down the crack of my ass, to the entrance of my pussy. I cry, a sob escaping as he pushes it up inside of me slowly. My walls tighten, resisting the foreign object.
Screaming so loud my throat rips my cries to shreds, my head falls back as pain radiates from between my thighs. “She was always the endgame.” Necro “Who’s Ya Daddy?” starts playing. He finally extracts the pole, slick droplets drip down my inner thigh.
“Mmmm, blood,” I whimper, my pride and body plucked from its innocence and thrust straight through the gates of Hell. My pussy pulses, swollen from the abuse.
“Let’s play a game of Russian …”
roulette…” I shake my head, discreet wails pulsating from my chest.
My muscles release, my body finally relaxing. Just fucking take me. Heaven won’t take me, and Hell won’t welcome my demons back. I’ll be left in purgatory again, only this time for real. Fucking. Take. Me. I’m tired. My body turns lucid, my mind fighting for clarity. Just when I think he’s going to put a gun to my temple, I feel the tip enter me and the stabbing pain rocks me all over again. The song plays on repeat. On and on.
“There’s one bullet in the chamber. We can do guess who.” Click. He pulled the trigger. “Oh, didn’t mean to do that.” He cocks the gun again and I tense around the barrel, the emptiness of my heart spreading like an infectious disease, becoming hollower the further he goes on. “What will I want you to do?” Click. My shoulders start shaking as tears pour down my cheeks and through the blindfold.
“What’s your name?” he says, and I pause, my face falling.
Shame falls over me, washing me with dirt as the song keeps playing, on and on and on and on.
“She doesn’t want to answer, because she’s smart.”
He pulls out the gun, and everything falls silent as his footsteps move closer. “You’re lucky she’s needed tonight, or her punishment would have been much worse.” He taps something. “But there’s always next week.”
Finally, he pulls off the blindfold from my eyes and unlatches my wrists and ankles.
“On the bed,” he says, and I catch the area he has set up. It’s almost like he’s trying to conceal what he’s doing.
“James?” I whisper, confused. He’s dressed in all black, with a chain around his neck and the same emblem he burned into my ankle hanging off it.
“The bed. We’re not done.”
I move to the bed as he sets the cam
era up to the side of us. “Look to the left and don’t look anywhere else. If you don’t listen, I’ll bring out the pole again. Understood?”
I nod, tears streaming down my face as I keep my eyes fixed on the wall. I let my mind wander. Who was here before us? A pamphlet is folded on the bedside table, with a newly married couple smiling back at me. You’ve got to be fucking joking. This room has probably seen love at its purest, being the honeymoon suite, and yet here we are. Painting the walls with evil.
He moves over me and shoves my face farther into the mattress as I feel the tip of his cock push on my entrance. The pain has gone past my threshold, to the point where my body is in survival mode. He enters me and I flinch, but I don’t move. He pumps into me continuously, relentlessly. Groaning, but coaxing me softly. Patting my hair. Kissing me softly.
“I love making love to you, Bunny.” Telling me that I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. He pumps inside of me, thrusting as intimately as lovers. I swallow the vomit that raises up my throat. I will never like to fuck like this. He continues touching me gently. He continues until his groans spill into my ear from his hot breath and his sweat slicks over my flesh. When he climbs off me, I remain still until he tells me I can finally move.
“Remove your mask and go and have a shower. Make yourself presentable for your brother. Don’t want him knowing you’re fucking someone else that isn’t him.”
I ignore the pitiless words, dragging my tired, broken soul to the bathroom. I turn the shower on hot, without looking at myself in the mirror. Afraid of what I might see. Nothing should surprise me, considering the evil I have witnessed over the years, and I should be used to it, but it still impacts my spirit every time he takes me. Sexual abuse is not something that the human mind or body can be conditioned with. Survivors find coping mechanisms until they find a way to either escape or it kills you.
Slipping into the shower, I pour shampoos and soaps into my hair while finally allowing the tears to roll down my cheeks. I scrub all the dirt away with my hands, but don’t know what to do about the filth that stains my soul. Placing the bottles back onto the counter, I turn the faucet off and wrap a cotton towel around my limp body, wiping the condensation off the mirror and finally taking a look at my reflection. If I show up to the clubhouse like this, Royce will for sure know something is wrong, and if he misses it—which he won’t—I know that Wicked will for sure. My eyes are sunken in, dark circles lining my eyes. My lips are swollen from the stolen kisses, my cheeks red from the salty tears. I know why James did what he did tonight. He destroyed me from the inside. Why hurt someone physically when you can mutilate their soul from the inside.
Reaching for the makeup mirror on the counter, I flip it between my legs, studying where I’m swollen. No bleeding. Whatever I felt must have been whatever James used to lube the pole with. The pain is still raw, though I’m aware it could be more psychological. I gather up my lace panties and slip them over my legs before sliding on my high waisted black pants. Securing my breasts back in the cups of my bra, I shuffle on the tiny lace crop top. My heart beats with fragility now, tender and sore. I need a drink. A strong drink. Searching through the cupboards, I find the hairdryer and a straightener and begin on my hair, while taking this time to mentally talk myself down from the cliff I’ve climbed. Memories. Memories help.
“What are you doing?” Royce asked, grinning at me from the other side of the room. It was Christmas day, and we knew how much I liked to keep the angel off the tree until Christmas day. My reasoning was that if the angel was up too early, that demons might steal her. So I waited until Christmas morning to put her up and took her down that night.
“I’m putting the angel up.”
Royce was shirtless with gray sweats fastened around his lean waist, a bowl of granola in one hand and his other gripping a spoon, a smirk on his face. “I’ll help.” He put the bowl down on the coffee table and came closer to me. Since hitting my teen years, it was as though my body’s reactions became heightened anytime he was near me.
I felt his skin up against my back as he reached from behind me, his long fingers wrapping around mine to take the angel. My heart short-circuited. “Let me do it.” His mouth was close to the back of my head and my eyes closed. I was either being ridiculous or I’m being sensitive. I wasn’t ready to explore other reasons as to why I was reacting to Royce.
I pull myself out of my memory. That was the last Christmas that Royce was with us, after that, we stopped celebrating while Mom mourned the ‘death’ of her only son.
I finish up my makeup with a loud exhale and pack everything away, shoving my phone into my back pocket and finally heading out of the bathroom.
The drive to the other side of town was longer than what I was expecting. I think that had more to do with the fact that the silence in the car was beyond awkward or sad. It was eerie. We pull up to the curb of the clubhouse. What do I say? ‘Thanks for ruining me just that much more, James. Just when I think you couldn’t get any worse, you go ahead and prove me wrong.’ I see Slim at the gate, through my side mirror. He takes a couple steps closer to the car and I panic. I need to get out.
James’ hand comes to my thigh and I have to fight with all of my impulses not to fly away from him. “Do I need to threaten you about the importance of our situation? You and I?” You and me. It’s what James has always said, in the hopes that over the years it will condition me to believe that we’re both doing this together. That’s what abusers do.
“No,” I whisper softly, my voice stern. Taking extra-long to get ready before coming was enough time for me to build up the wall I needed to hide my pain and hurt. The soul never exposes itself unless needed. “Never.”
He releases my leg. “I’ll contact you this week. We’re needed again at L’artisaniant.”
My mouth snaps closed, a fizzle of light sparking inside of my chest. “Okay.” I reach for the door handle, my legs restless to get me out of the car and away from James. Bile rises in my throat as I swallow it back down. “I’ll wait to hear from you.” Slipping out of the car, I shut the door and head for the gates as he pulls the car away, the bright taillights disappearing into the distance.
“You okay, Jade?” Slim asks, his eyebrows curved in worry.
I flash a smile, slipping between the opening gates. “I’m fine.” Music thumps in the distance and I wonder if all they do is party, before remembering it’s the weekend. Of course they’re partying.
“You’re late,” Royce snaps in the darkness. I flinch, turning to face him. He’s walking toward me, a drink in one hand and a cigarette between his fingers in the other. He’s wearing a hoodie beneath his club vest, faded blue denim jeans that are torn at the knees, and his military boots. Warmth fills my heart at the sight of him, which makes no sense. I shouldn’t be filled with anything but hate when it comes to Royce. Realization imprints the truth into my brain. Our souls have recognized each other. It’s also no secret how hot Royce is, has always been. I’d be lying to myself if I had said I’ve never been attracted to him, it’s just… I’ve never wanted to admit it.
“I didn’t realize I was on a time schedule,” I snide, rolling back my shoulders and heading toward him. “I need a drink.”
“Do I need to be worried about your drinking?” he asks, flicking the ash off his cigarette and bringing it to his soft lips. Thud, Thud. Thud. Oh my god, I can’t breathe. His eyes squint from the smoke floating near his pupils, and I lean forward, taking it from between his lips and putting it between mine.
“Fuck You” by Dr. Dre is playing loudly from the house, with people yelling between their sips of alcohol and tokes of weed. The majority of them are near the octagon. “No, you don’t have to be worried about a thing.” I walk past him to start my search for Bonnie or Silver to get me a drink, when his fingers catch mine and he jerks me backward.
I fall into his chest. Thud. Thud. His familiar scent like walking through the front door of my home. He swipes my hair from my face before
his fingers flex around the back of my neck and he forces my face up to his. Nose to nose. My eyes plunge to his lips, my breathing stops. I squeeze the cigarette between my fingers to help with my self-control.
“What do you think you’re doing walking up in here dressed like sex?”
Is that Niykee Heaton “OT” playing in the background? I almost laugh because I can imagine Silver changing the music to something sexual like Niykee Heaton. Makes me love her.
I glare at him, trying to anchor myself to the ground so I don’t find myself lost in the maze that is the depth of his blue eyes. His lashes are as thick as sin, his eyes almost too pretty to be male. Royce is pure masculinity; he doesn’t like being beautiful looking. “Because I can?”
His eyebrows raise a little, his top lip curling. I’m feeling reckless. This back and forth between him and I is becoming an addiction that my corpse-like soul needs. I’m addicted to the feeling of him being mad at me, pissed, close to me. I’m addicted to Royce Kane, and if you try to lock me in a rehab clinic, I’ll only find my way back to him. You can’t separate fate, no matter how hard you fuck it.
I run the tip of my nose over his, my eyes closing. “Don’t like that, do you?”
His fingers clench around the back of my neck, pulling me in closer. His other hand falls down my lower back, landing on my ass cheek. Oh fuck. He grinds himself into my stomach and my body flushes searing heat. “I’m about to fuck you on this floor if you don’t watch that mouth, Duchess, don’t try to act like you don’t know I’ve wanted into that pussy since we were kids.”
When my eyes reopen—partially in shock at what he just said—he’s smirking at me, his lips so close to mine.
“You were too late,” I whisper roughly, unable to hide the sorrow in my voice. I glide my lips over his delicately. His body stills, his fingers tensing on my ass as his others behind my neck follow.
I push at his chest before I do something like kiss him, speed walking toward Silver, Bonnie, and a few other girls who are sitting at a picnic table near a fire pit in the front of the house. Some men are scattered around the octagon as Gypsy, I think it is, is punching face with some other guy I haven’t seen, while others are sitting around, piss drunk and singing along to Silver’s choice of music.