by Marata Eros
11
Kiki rifles through my outfits as I lay on my bed, hands crossed over my stomach as I stare at my ceiling. The old beadboard ceiling has the original creamy paint, which has alligator crazing throughout. Kinda like my heart now.
The days of what’s left stretch before me like a black ribbon of road sinking into an uncaring horizon.
“Gawd, you’re a wet blanket, doll. Just sayin’.” Her full lips purse, and she gives me what I like to think of as the mom look.
I don’t put much stock in it. I have a mom. She’s not really alive, but her presence is more powerful than it’s ever been. It motivates and orders my steps each day.
She tosses a deep bronze dress on the bed, eyes it critically, and says, “Come on, get up. Get out of this depressing funk or whatever the hell you’re jonesing at.” Her dark eyes search mine. “No pity parties on my watch. Let’s do this.”
She’s right. I can’t tell Kiki everything. She knows enough already.
I roll off my jammie bottoms and cami to slide on the second skin outfit she chose, my hair still damp from my shower. I move to the full-length mirror. I admit her choice is a good one. The deep bronze material shimmers as I turn, and it accentuates the slight caramel color my hair possesses.
The color of the dress makes me think of Mick’s hair.
Mick the prick. I watch a sad little smile pop on my face like a weed that needs plucking.
Kiki scrunches her nose. “Why do you look like you’re gonna throw up in your fuck-me shoes?”
Good question. I jump when the buzzer sounds.
“I’ll get it,” Kiki says.
I nod. My eyes move back to my reflection. I know the outfit will be a real hit for the laps that await me tonight, like I care. I’ve already tabulated my earnings. My mind dismisses the emotional tally that keeps building.
I don’t know how much longer I can stomach the breast fondles, hand jobs, and other “extras” they want from me. Hanging onto my virginity isn’t such an accomplishment when innocence is taken in increments.
Chunks of who I am are stolen right from underneath my nose. My mind focuses on two nights ago.
That night.
That kiss.
Mick.
That wasn’t thievery; it was consensual. It touched something in me that had never been caressed, awoken. I could dance on a thousand laps and never experience the tender assault of every sense I had from Mick.
My head snaps to the front of my apartment, and I walk in there.
I forget I’m wearing the costume for my set.
Jared McKenna is standing in my living room.
I suspect he’s tired of me ignoring his texts and calls for the past forty-eight hours. Yeah… that’s probably it.
We regard each other for maybe three heartbeats while the late afternoon sun streams into the apartment, half of it cut by the tall building north of my own. It illuminates Mick, setting his hair on fire and shading his jaw, making the cleft at its center a deep pocket of shadow.
His eyes don’t meet my face.
He’s too busy looking at my outfit. What little there is.
A hot flush rises to the surface of my skin. Mick’s gaze lingers at the knot of material at my neck then sails to the deep v of the bodice and the almost-sheer straps that hardly cover my breasts. The thinness of the fabric doesn’t hide the betrayal of my nipples. They harden at the sight of Mick, the memory of what he’s awoken in my body an involuntary reaction I’m helpless to stop.
His eyes take in my breasts. They move to where the skirt skims and cups my butt, the satin material clinging to my every curve.
I know it will hitch up to reveal my panties when I straddle laps tonight.
I swallow my nausea at the thought of being that close to anyone.
But him.
Then I remember what he thinks: I whore myself out. Mick presumes I act like a virgin in affectation.
He can’t know that’s the only real part of me. To assume it’s not possible is a blow I’m not sure I can overcome.
But Mick is also right; I am some kind of whore.
If he only knew.
These thoughts race through my mind in those brief transparent moments of introspection as his gaze finally lifts to meet mine. I see many things contained in his tight expression.
I latch on to the one I want to see, dismissing all others.
Disappointment.
Kiki looks between us as if we’re a ping pong match, having not gotten a word out of me post-Mick date. “Well”—she looks at me with wide eyes that say, you’re so talking about this later—“I can see the two of you have to discuss… stuff.”
I want to hurt her.
Kiki looks into my face and gives a subtle shake of her head, her eyes brimming with thoughts of matchmaking, cupid’s bow strung taut.
“Stay,” I beseech. I keep the pleading out of my voice by the slimmest of margins.
“No, you’re right, Miss…”
“King,” Kiki says with a purr and eyelash flutter.
Forget hurting. How about murder?
“You’re an insightful friend to understand that Miss Mitchell and I need to straighten out some misconceptions.” His dark eyes tell me how he likes straightening those out.
That gaze holds a hunger only a banquet of food would satisfy.
I’m the first course.
Kiki swipes her keys out of the bowl and grabs her jacket. I follow her to the door as a swarm of butterflies inside me vies for escape. Their fragile wings glide and sing beneath my skin. My nervousness is a living thing.
She hugs me. “Whatever the hell your problem is, solve it,” she whispers. “Don’t play this stupid!”
What she doesn’t realize is I’m not playing. I’m slowly losing.
Everything.
Kiki releases me and tosses herself out the door. I close it behind her, touching my forehead to the solid wood. I wish that when I turn around, Mick won’t be there. I can’t bear any more of his assumptions.
I can’t stand to be near him and not touch him.
“Are you ever going to turn around?” His voice, a gravel-threaded melody, commands that I answer, and I turn slowly. He rakes a hand through his neat hair, sending it into disarray. “Jesus, Faren, don’t tell me you’re going out in that?” His voice sounds as if he’s in physical pain. That is so not the real issue.
“Why do you care, Jared?” I walk into the kitchen, slam the tea kettle on the burner, and light it carefully. Let him get an eyeful. I don’t give two shits. My hand trembles around the kettle, and I switch to my good one. Great, my hand was good through work with six patients, and it decides to stop working in front of him.
I have lap dancing in four hours, I remind myself. I hunch in on myself.
Don’t let him see how much he hurt me. How much I’m hurting myself.
Don’t.
I’m so deep in my thoughts I yelp when I feel him slam into me. He triggers every bad memory of what I’ve gone through, and I get so scared I stop breathing. Gooseflesh springs up everywhere.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
Mick doesn’t answer. He tears me away from the stove with a smooth spin and slams me against the wall. Only his palm holding my back keeps me from ricocheting off the surface like a broken doll.
I look up into rage-filled eyes, and he scares me.
My emotions betray me.
I feel him through the thin material of my dress, ready for me. For all of it.
“I’m sorry, Faren… I shouldn’t have assumed,” he says, his knee pushing my legs apart, pinning me.
My wrists are buried against the wall above my head, and my bad hand starts to twitch. I can’t take anymore: the sexual tension, my mom’s situation, the impending job I hate.
The prognosis I can’t escape.
The tears scald and burn their pathway down my cheeks and I turn my face as my hand continues its spasmodic jerk and dance inside his hold.
His eyes flic
k to my captive hands, and then our gazes lock. “What? Why are you crying?”
My eyes squeeze shut, but the tears don’t care. They slip out, impervious to my unwillingness for them to escape. I sob and break apart as the one man who’s made me feel alive holds me captive against my wall.
My emotions crumble as the tea kettle shrieks.
My eyes spring open, and Mick is a wavering image seen through desperate tears.
His face never comes into focus as he takes my mouth.
And I let him as the tea kettle sings its symphony behind us.
12
He punishes me tenderly. Each kiss erases the hurt of his words. A man could never speak an apology as perfect as the one he makes with his mouth.
Mick drops my hands, and they grip his tailor-made suit, crumpling the shoulders without mercy as the kettle sings. With a casual slap, Mick hits the kettle off the burner. It skitters across the surface, screaming its anger at the rough treatment, as he plunders my mouth.
His body begs to take mine, his every hard line against my soft ones. I forget again, my body melding to his as though it’s always been meant to.
Then my cell alarm chimes.
Once, twice.
Three times. I lift my head. My early alert before work.
“Let it go,” he says, kissing me into oblivion. Our tongues twine in an intimate dance.
I almost do. Then I think of Mom. The sinful selling of my morals needs to continue for her to live.
She has less than a handful of years to exist, but they have to be on my terms. A state home is not part of the plan.
I gently push Mick away. His lips are slightly swollen, and I can’t imagine what mine must look like. No collagen needed for these babies. My sarcasm doesn’t make a dent in my grief.
“What?” Mick asks.
“I have a second job… That’s my alarm…”
Don’t ask.
Mick smiles, his sexiness lighting him from the inside. “I know what you do, Faren. It’s fine.” His fingers bite into my hips, a fraction away from a location too intimate for anything but consummating what we’ve begun.
My stomach drops. “You do?”
He nods. “I know you’re a physical therapist. I know about your mom.”
The air in my lungs freezes into shards of glass that cut me from the inside. Only Kiki knows about my mom. Now Mr. Perfect Billionaire knows.
“I think you should leave.” It creeps me out that he’s stalking me, checking my background. It’s a small relief he doesn’t know about that job.
Guilt.
I assume he knows I was attacked by my psychotic stepfather and saved by my mom. Who was beaten into a coma by fists that know no mercy.
Double guilt.
I’m not interested in being somebody’s pity case. I have enough pity.
I want to forget.
Can Mick distract me? I roll my lip into my teeth.
His eyes track the movement. He leans down and touches my mangled lip with his own. “I want you.”
“It’s not enough,” I say.
Mick puts his hands on either side of my head, caging me, and cocks his head to study me with hard-edged eyes. “I thought you didn’t want a relationship? Think of what I can give you. Think of what we can have.”
I think those thoughts until it repeats in an endless loop. It’s all I think of lately. It’s all I can. “You know more about me than anyone else, Mick. You’ve seen to that.” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“I don’t know everything.” He’s so close I taste his breath, yearn for it. “I want to know more. All.”
He moves aside the strip of dress across my breast and presses his mouth to my nipple in a possessive suckle. A thread of connection I didn’t realize existed that tethers my breast to my core begins, and a slow ache steals my will. I arch into his lips and moan.
How can I stand anyone else doing this to me?
He lifts his head, wraps my full breast in his palm, and squeezes just shy of true pain. I begin to pant.
“Do you like this, Faren?”
I can only nod as I step away to deny myself. By the look on his face, I deny Mick as well.
“I can’t talk you into staying?” he asks, his voice so low I strain to catch it.
“No, you won’t be deflowering me tonight, Mr. McKenna.” That came out harsher than I meant it to.
Mick’s expression darkens. “I apologized for my presumptions about you. That wasn’t fair.”
His eyes follow me as I walk to the door, hyper-aware of his gaze on my body.
I whirl around to face him, so close to the knob I can touch it.
“I know. And I already told you I’m not into rich men.”
His lips twitch as though he’s amused, and I want to impale him with my stiletto. Speaking of which… “Do you have my shoe?” I ask.
A shit-eating grin lights up his entire face. “I do indeed. Why do you think I came by?”
Another chink in my armor forms. Because you want to see me. I hoped. Of course, Mick dashes that all to hell.
He strides to the front of my apartment, and there by the door, a fancy silver high heel mocks me. I don’t wait for any more indecision. I yank the door open and sweep my palm out.
“Why are you being so difficult? We both know what we want—what we need.” Mick asks against my cheek as his hands grip my shoulders.
“Why do you assume we’ll end up together?” I counter.
“I assume nothing,” he says.
My brows arch as his hands heat my bare shoulders. He pulls me to him, and I’m so sure he’ll kiss me that I close my eyes, holding in my sigh. But it moves out of me unbidden, like an invitation.
Mick doesn’t kiss me. “I know it.”
He walks out, leaving me standing there holding the door.
My lips are swollen from his kisses. Every patch of my skin burns from the memory of his touch and my desperate want of it again.
I slam the door and stalk to my vanity table.
Time to put on my face for strangers.
*
I arrive promptly, the bronze dress a perfect complement to my coloring. I know how it looks in all lighting. Kiki encouraged me to pay attention to detail, and I stay the course.
Hardest path of my life.
I strut inside, not feeling like myself after Mick’s frontal assault. I haven’t felt alive in so long that I feel as if I’m dying piece by piece as I move deeper into the underbelly of the newest venue.
I walk with a false seduction toward the knot of men like I always do, but a man I’ve never seen intercepts me.
“Miss Faren?” He cocks a brow in question.
I nod, glancing nervously about me.
“You’re the auction tonight,” he says.
I blink stupidly, and he smiles, all teeth and condescension. A rolling hot lump moves through me.
“Here’s how it works,” he begins, taking my elbow as he scans my outfit. He gives a slight nod of approval, and I adjust my mask. “You go behind those curtains there”—he indicates ceiling-to-floor velvet drapes in a deep scarlet. “and come out when the bell chimes. Walk the entire length of the floor, come to that center, spin.” He does a little pirouette, and I fight a surge of nausea through sheer grit. “Then continue back from where you entered.”
I’m a piece of flesh to be chosen by one of the men tonight. A random dancer selected like a prize, my humanity forgotten in the discarded pile of hundreds before me.
“Faren,” he gives me a significant look, “the winner might pay quite a bit to have you crawl onto his lap.”
I cast my eyes at my feet so he doesn’t see the sick anger swimming in them. “How much?” I ask to the ground.
“I have seen some prices go as high as ten.”
I meet his eyes, so filled with greed I can’t make out the color. He takes my silence for acceptance.
“Good.” He smiles at me, and I just stare. He moves nearer an
d I fight not to move away.
“Now move that hot ass to the stage.”
I feel him leer at said ass as I move away. I don’t blink so the tears won’t fall.
13
The lights are too bright for me to see the shadowed faces of the men.
I make out the white bidding paddles easily. I step onto the stage, and the curtains whisper open. The velvet makes a sinister slithering sound as it drags across the floor, widening the crack I look through.
I stroll across the mock stage, and the whispers stop.
I turn, and I feel the eye-molestation of the all-male crowd.
I walk back and try not to cave to my desire to run and never stop.
The curtains close, and the shouts and bidding begin.
The horrible auctioneer goes on and on as I wait for the winner in the cramped space between the hall and the stage.
Finally the gavel sounds, the stern echo final and unforgiving.
A security guard comes for me as if I would run off and leave the money.
I think about it.
In the end, I hear the amount the winner promised. I walk down the hall to the room I always dance in. Different building, same rooms. All with peeling, elegant wallpaper like memories of a time when there was hope. The rooms weep their sins all around me.
I move through the door and walk to the damning chair.
I don’t turn when the door opens and shuts behind me. I wait until the unknown man makes the first comment. That’s what I always do.
Then his voice paralyzes me, my every nerve ending singing with adrenaline.
I can’t turn. I’m rooted to the spot. My heart beats a jagged rhythm of fear.
“Well hello, Faren,” he says, and I turn.
It’s better to face the nightmare than hide from the monster underneath my bed.
My hands grip the back of the chair, the only safeguard between us.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” my stepfather says like the predator he is.
My mother’s murderer.
“I know.”
I see the tunnel of my escape narrow to a pinpoint of light.
Then disappear.
Instead of thoughts of escape, I have only one thought. It fills my mind, pressing every empty space in my skull until I think it’ll explode.
As despair chokes me, I think only of him.