“You’re stronger than you look,” Hound says, backing away.
“Did you come here just to piss me off, or is there a specific reason?”
“There’s a reason. A house tour. A nice place outside of town. I hope you haven’t got plans tomorrow. Aren’t you going to invite me upstairs for a drink?”
As he speaks, he edges close to the doorway. I tell myself I have no choice but to let him upstairs with me, even though part of me is glad he’s here and I’m going to have company for the evening, even though part of me likes the way his chest muscles brush against my shoulder. In my apartment, Hound walks around for a while, inspecting everything, not that there’s much to inspect: a one-bedroom place with a glass coffee table, an old TV, a few books dotted here and there, and some DVDs of reality shows I bought a few years back, clothes strewn over the floor from where I come in after work and just shed everything, as though shedding the clothes means I can shed the day.
“I only have wine,” I tell him, “or whisky. I don’t have soda or anything to go with the whisky.”
“Just a whisky, then,” Hound says, dropping onto the couch. When he sits, the seat makes a squeaking noise and the cushions visibly sag.
I fix the drinks and join him on the couch.
“I live in a place like this,” he says, sipping his drink. Most men make some kind of face when they sip whisky, even if they don’t mean to; the harshness of the drink is too much for them. I watch Hound for this, but he just sips it likes its water. Maybe that shouldn’t excite me, maybe it’s just a small thing, but it does, and I don’t know how to feel about that. “Most places are like this in the city. But I want something else: something big where you can walk from one side to the other in less than a couple of seconds.”
“I imagine apartments can be stifling to a man like you,” I say. “I mean—a man as big as you.”
As big as you, as big as you inside of me, in the alleyway, driving into me…crushing me. I repress a shudder of pleasure.
“Yeah,” Hound says. “Damn crushing, but it’s not just the size. It’s other things, too.”
“Like what?” I say. I take too-big gulps of my wine, but the day has been long and the feeling of wine in my belly makes it seem very far in the past.
“Just—stuff.” Hound pauses, and then says, “What about you? Have you ever dreamed about getting out, or getting away?”
I think about that for a second, think about how laughably on-point it is. Have I ever dreamed about getting away? It seems half my laugh has been spent dreaming about getting away. Even now, here, with him, I am wondering whether or not it would be better to get away from this man. I shouldn’t be sitting talking with a man who might one day be smashing my dad’s face in. “When I was a girl all I wanted to do was get away,” I say. Maybe I’m tipsy already. My words spill out without needing much encouragement from me. “After my mom died, I dreamed about it all the time, but then I had responsibilities, you know, and then—” I cut myself off, realizing that pouring my heart out is something I might regret in the morning. “Anyway, is that why you came here, to depress me?”
“The house outside of town looks like a place a husband and wife could settle down. That’s why I’m here.” I know he’s not serious by the ironic way he speaks, his lips twisted in a sardonic smile, his eyes moving over my body. Usually I would be in pajamas by now, but I haven’t had a chance to change. I’m still in my Shack clothes. I’m aware of my legs, shiny with sweat, and my breasts pushing against the fabric, stretching the Shack out so it’s unreadable. “A nice old place where a man could commute into the city and work a nine-to-five and the little lady at home could clean the bathroom and make herself some tea and practice yoga.”
I giggle, and he laughs along with me. Then he inches closer to me on the couch and the laughter dies. Memories of the alleyway return to me, deep, penetrating memories, memories that exist just as much in my pussy and my belly as in my mind. I remember the feeling of the concrete against my fingertips and the smell of the alleyway, all of it overshadowed by Hound’s manly smell and the hardness of him thrusting inside of me. I realize I’m biting my lip as I look up at him, realize that he’s leaning over me, and getting closer.
When he presses his lips against mine, the first sensation is shock: shock that this man, who so savagely threw me up against the wall, is kissing me. Hard, too, his teeth clicking against mine, our tongues intertwining immediately. For the first few moments of it, I don’t question anything. I just ride the pleasure, and then I think: I’m alone in my apartment with a debt collector. Something about that gives me pause, and Hound can tell. We stop kissing for a moment. His hand was on my thigh, near my pussy, sending tendrils of pleasure into my body. Now he slides it back down, closer to me knee. His lips still inches from my face, he says, “Something wrong?”
“I’m tired,” I admit. And scared, I don’t say. Scared because we’re all alone and we’re kissing and somehow that makes it more intimate. Scared because I’m not sure I understand myself anymore.
Hound leans back, nodding. “Okay, then, wife. But don’t expect me to leave. We’ve got plans tomorrow. I’ll take the couch.”
We finish our drinks almost in silence, and then I get up and go into the bedroom, collecting some sheets and blankets and pillows for Hound.
When I’m in my bedroom, door closed, and he’s out there, I press my ear against the door and wonder why I didn’t just go with it. Sexually frustrated and a little drunk, I collapse into bed and let myself sink into oblivion.
Chapter Eight
Daisy
Sitting in the passenger seat of Hound’s jeep, watching as city turns to highway and highway to the middle of nowhere, I wonder if this drive is ever going to end. I was watching the rear-view mirror for a while, as the city I’ve lived in my whole life became smaller and smaller until it was a pinprick and then nothing at all. Then I leaned back and closed my eyes and slept for a while. Now, staring down at my fidgeting feet, I wonder if I’ve gotten myself into an incredibly stupid situation.
“You know,” I say, as we turn yet another corner onto yet another nowhere road, “this is the sort of thing you watch in crime documentaries, isn’t it? You always hear about this sort of thing. A woman meets a man and she agrees to go on a date, or a trip, or whatever with him, and then… Kayleigh never knew what was waiting for her at the end of the road!” I speak in the over-the-top announcer’s voice many of those documentaries have. “So I just want to warn you, if you are planning anything like that, I’m ready for it. I’ve taken secret ninja training and I know how to handle myself.” I’m talking quickly, hoping for him to respond with something lighthearted, hoping that this is really a joke and he isn’t just some psychopath.
He doesn’t reply with something lighthearted, but it calms me down anyway: “I would die before I hurt you, Daisy. And that’s the truth.”
“Okay. Good.”
“Anyway,” Hound says. “It’s only been two and half hours.”
“Only!” I exclaim. “This is more like the boondocks than the suburbs.”
“Well—maybe.” He nods. “Yeah, maybe it is. But sometimes you just want to get the hell out of the city, don’t you?”
“Do you? I’ve never really considered it.”
“I do, all the time. The city is close and claustrophobic and there’re people everywhere, and sometimes all I can think about is walking out into the woods and being on my own, away from everything, away from…”
He stops, laughing away his words, but I get the unmistakable sense he was about to say myself . He wants to leave the life, I guess, the collecting, violent life. He doesn’t want to be the thug anymore.
Hound takes another turn and I’m met with a large, what must be a three- or four-bedroom detached house sitting on a street of similar houses: mown lawns and big cars and a few kids’ toys in the gardens spilling into the sidewalk. Outside one of the houses, a man is hosing down his car. Outside the one Hound parks in front of,
a woman with bright red hair wearing a tight-fitting blue blouse and six-inch heels paces up and down. When she sees us climb from the car, her face goes from impatient to carefully composed. She waves and cries out, “Halloo! Halloo!”
“Halloo?” I whisper to Hound. “Since when did people say halloo?”
Hound laughs. It feels good to make him laugh.
The realtor’s name is Michaela Smithson. When I try and guess her age, I realize she could be anywhere between twenty and mid-forties. She has a face not unlike Sarah’s at the Shack, all fake and makeup and Botox, wearing fake eyelashes like I have to at work, which I absolutely hate. She’s a complete contrast to me, in my jeans and hoodie—when I’m not at work I can’t wait to throw on casual clothes, especially flat sneakers—and she looks me up and down as though wondering why I’m not squeezed into a chest-crushing outfit like she is. But when Hound introduces me as his wife, she claps her hands together and cries, “That’s about the best thing I’ve ever heard in all my life! Yippee!”
I look at Hound and Hound looks back at me, as Michaela turns on her heels and clicks up the pathway to the front door, and we have one of those rare moments I’ve only ever read about. We have an entire conversation in less than a second, without having to use any words. In that brief look, we both know that this woman is silly, and we both know that this is going to be fun, and we both agree not to say anything mean to her; she’s harmless enough, just doing her job. I’m kind of shocked by how much we say just with our eyes and smiles.
“Isn’t this lovely, darling?” I hear myself say, as we tour the living room. Everything is as it should be on first glance: a regular, all-American, suburbs-type house, even if it is in the middle of nowhere. It’s one of those houses that seems like it was built on a factory assembly line, spitting out the same model all down the street. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t gorgeous, and that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be personalized. I remember in high school when I was looking into maybe being a decorator or an architect or a planner or something like that, and as I walk around the house, it all returns to me, all the frantic teenaged research I did. I watch, and notice, and compile a list in my head.
“Oh, lovely,” Hound says, going along with my game.
“So how long have you been married?” Michaela asks.
“Three years,” Hound says quickly, so quickly that I infer he’s created this backstory already. “We were married in the spring of ’14, and we’ve been living in the city ever since.”
“Oh, that’s just adorable ,” Michaela says.
Hound reaches over my shoulders and hugs me close. “We like to think so.”
I give him a secret pinch, but I can’t deny I’m enjoying myself.
Then we come full circle, and we’re standing at the front door.
“Isn’t it just perfect ?” Michaela beams.
But I can see past her fake smiley face. I know what she’s hiding.
Before Hound can answer, I interject: “Well, I don’t know if I would say perfect.”
Michaela falters. “How—what—how do you mean that, sweetie?”
“In the living room there’s a patch of wall which has been painted over in an attempt to conceal the damp, but you can still see the damp if you look closely, creeping up from the basement. As we walked into the second bedroom I noticed that you made sure not to touch the door handle, instead just pushing the door, which makes me wonder if the handle isn’t broken. When Hou…When Henry made to flush the toilet, you were pretty quick to distract him with the bath, telling him that it’s a new model. Why? Is there something wrong with the toilet?”
I stop, suddenly aware of how quickly I’m talking, suddenly aware of Hound grinning down at me with more pride than I’ve been shown since high school, when Mr. Underwood gave me top grades in debate club. “Wow,” Hound says, turning to Michaela. “I think my wife has got you there. Would you please wait outside and give us time to speak alone?”
Michaela looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time, the same way an owner might look at a dog which has behaved lovingly for years and then bites out of nowhere. Then she straightens her dress which didn’t need straightening and click-clicks out the front door. “I’ll be in my car,” she says stiffly. “Take all the time you need.”
“Oh, we will,” Hound says.
When Michaela is gone, Hound asks me to show him the things I mentioned. I feel another swell of pride as I go about the house, showing him what Michaela was trying to hide, and it’s heightened by the way he looks at me, pride spilling out from his icy blues. Am I blushing? No, no way. I’m not blushing. That’s something nervous teenagers do—girls with hope—not women who get pawed at by men on almost a daily basis just so they can stay afloat.
We’re upstairs and I’ve just showed him the toilet, which makes a loud cranking noise when flushed, a noise which sounds like an elephant in its final moments of life. I imagine Michaela out there in her car hearing the crank and wincing.
“You’re evil,” Hound says, noticing my smile, reading it. How can he know me so well so quickly? It’s eerie. “You’re enjoying this.”
“I am,” I admit. “I don’t know why…Hey, what’re you doing?”
He backs me into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him. The bedroom is clearly the master bedroom of whoever lives here. Plush cushions almost drown the sheets and a fifty-inch flat-screen TV is mounted on the wall. Having a TV that big in the bedroom seems obnoxious to me, but I guess some people like it. Hound backs me all the way to the bed. I watch myself in the reflection of the TV, constantly surprised by how huge he is compared with me. In the reflection it’s even more obvious.
“You’re scaring me,” I say, but it’s a lie and he knows it’s a lie.
“Am I?” he whispers, leaning down.
Last night, alone in my apartment, I couldn’t give myself to this man. And yet here, in broad daylight in somebody else’s house, with an impatient realtor clicking her heels outside, I find myself more willing to sink into him. I don’t know why that is. All I know is I’m floating on air, that this man has shown me some pride: pride for my mind, pride for my insight. And now when he presses his lips against mine the desire explodes inside of me, a hungry, animal desire I didn’t even feel in the alleyway. It grabs me by the shoulders and doesn’t let go. I leap up and wrap my legs around him, driving my hips down toward his groin, feeling his hard cock pressing through his jeans. We kiss passionately, tongues intertwined, drinking each other in. Then I start bouncing up and down, Hound lifting me and throwing me down with powerful hands—hands which are gripping my back, spreading over them hugely—and then he breaks off the kiss and tosses me onto the bed.
“Fuck,” I moan, hands worrying at my jeans. “Fuck, Hound. Fuck .”
“Fuck,” he agrees, as he pulls off his jeans.
We strip methodically, neither of us in the mood for foreplay. My pussy is still aching from the alleyway, but I want him, badly, want him when I’m on my back and I can look up at his face, the face which a few minutes ago filled me with never-before-felt pride. Soon I’m lying with my jeans and underwear rumpled on the floor. I’m still in my hoodie and socks. And when Hound takes off his bottoms, his cock springing up like a length of steel, he doesn’t even take off his boots. He kicks his jeans off around them. Something about this drives me even crazier. It’s animal, it’s urgent. I can’t wait for him to be inside of me.
He falls atop me, propping himself up with his hands either side of my head. The bed makes a loud creaking noise with his added weight. I feel trapped, but trapped in a good way. I want to be trapped. I’m panting as I reach down and take his cock in my hand, parting my legs and lifting them, pussy crying out desperately for him. When I guide him to my hole, I gasp, the thickness of him almost too much to handle. He pushes into me slowly, his massive cock parting my pussy, spreading into me. There’s pain, but the pain is soon pushed aside by the pleasure, pleasure which fills me as he slides dee
p, deep inside of me, far deeper than any man before Hound has ever gotten close to. His cock presses firmly against my sweet spot, causing me to ache, and then—Oh, fuck, and then I feel my pussy going tight, very tight, so tight that I think an orgasm might be coming. I think about where we are, how naughty this is, and my pussy gets tighter. Hound, noticing what’s happening, holds his cock in place, looking down at me with surprise.
When it hits, I can’t help it, I scream. I scream loudly until I lean forward and bury my face in his shirt. My pussy goes so tight around his cock I think I’ll break it, and then in less than a moment it releases, the entire lower half of my body vibrating and my pussy gushing come down the length of him. I keep thinking: He hasn’t even fucked me yet, he hasn’t even fucked me yet. But I’m coming, tilting my hips so that his cock changes angles against my sweet spot, gripping his shoulders and sitting down, hard, so that I can squeeze every last ounce of pleasure from the moment. When I think it’s over, a second wave hits me, this one sharper than the last, the pleasure moving from my legs and my pussy up through my belly and chest, making my nipples hard, so hard that when Hound grabs them through the fabric of the hoodie, the orgasm explodes all over again and I’m writhing and screaming and bouncing. Soon the orgasm passes, but I’m still bouncing, and Hound is fucking me with all his power.
WIFE FOR A PRICE Page 6