by Jade West
“I don’t think Paige gives two shits about donuts, Carolyn. She cares about surviving sixty days of hardcore filth and coming out minted.”
Carolyn stopped dead in her tracks at the comment and I put on the brakes just in time to stop along with her. “Jeez, Becca, at least let us get a fucking table first, yeah? She’ll need the sugar rush to cope with the horror.”
Rebecca smirked, but didn’t say another word as Carolyn resumed her lead to the donut bar.
It looked pretty good when it came into view. A flashing sign lit up with big yellow lightbulbs over outdoor tables, busy but not overcrowded, which was a good sign for this time of year.
I’d seen it before, I must have. Seen it but not really noticed it alongside the arcade.
I took a seat after Carolyn, opting for a place next to her as her sister grabbed a chair opposite.
A waiter came straight over from the main counter, scoping out Rebecca’s cleavage as he handed out the menus. It was when my eyes were properly on the options that I realised this place was a little bit more than a donut bar.
It did donuts, sure. Plenty of them too. And cocktails. It did cocktails. Everything from alcoholic milkshakes through to weird juice combinations with crazy names.
No wonder Rebecca Lane claimed the donuts were better from this venue.
“Drinks?” the waiter prompted, and I made myself focus.
Rebecca jumped right into her order without even looking at the menu – an extravagant-sounding cocktail which made the waiter smile. Carolyn went for a simple milkshake with a roll of her eyes.
“It’s a weeknight,” she said. “I’m being good for tomorrow’s lectures. We can’t all be like you and get trashed every night.”
I should have opted to be a good girl too, but Rebecca’s smirk dared me to follow. Fuck it. I ordered the same as her.
“Nice choice,” Rebecca told me as the waiter moved out of earshot. “Which is a good thing since I’d damn well hope you’re a bit of a boundary pusher.”
Carolyn’s voice came in fast. “Maybe she’s not a boundary pusher at all and will have enough sense to heed your stories as nightmares.”
Rebecca’s smirk didn’t waver. “I’m pretty sure she’s made up her mind already. Am I right?”
Both girls stared at me. I hoped my makeup would go part way at least towards hiding my flush.
“I’m, um… curious,” I said. “The more insight, the better. I’m really grateful you could make time for me.”
Rebecca tipped her head. “I’ll make all the time you need from me, but I’ll ask it again. You’ve made up your mind already, right? You’re gonna cash in by selling your body and soul to the filthy man who promises to make it worth it.” Her laugh was colder than I was expecting. “Oh believe me, he’ll make it worth it. Don’t you worry.”
“Don’t listen to this side of her crap,” Carolyn countered. “Sometimes she cries all night long and sleeps with the light on. Nothing could make it worth it, not for the shit he’ll do to you.”
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what you were saying when I took you shopping for a whole new wardrobe a few weeks back.”
Carolyn’s cheeks darkened in a beat. I rushed to her aid by clearing my throat and pulling the attention back to me.
“I’m really keen on the sound of the money,” I told them. “Student life is hard. My home life isn’t really flush for cash. My sister has got herself into a bit of financial difficulty.” I stopped that train of conversation right there.
“Keen enough for the money to put yourself through all that pain?” Carolyn asked.
“To put myself through whatever pays the most,” I answered, and shrugged as the waiter headed over with our drinks.
I took a decent sip of mine and hoped it calmed my pounding heart a little.
Rebecca was looking right at me when my eyes flicked back to hers.
“He pays the most for a reason,” she said, and her tone eased off on the brashness somehow. “I mean, I don’t regret it. Not for a second. But Carolyn’s right, this shit isn’t easy. They’ll push you past limits you never even dreamed of.” She leaned closer to the table and her voice lowered. “You’ll be scared. Terrified. Seriously fucking shitting it for your life and your fucking sanity with no idea where you even are or how long you’ve been there.”
I nodded. “I get it. Carolyn told me so.”
She shook her head right back. “Carolyn told you so, sure. But Carolyn wasn’t there. I was. I was there for every fucked-up minute of it.”
The stare between us was heavy enough that my stomach flipped.
There was a realism in her eyes that wasn’t available in any of the rumours around campus, nor even in the stories Carolyn had whispered over donuts.
You couldn’t escape it. The knowing. The full weight of the truth that she’d lived in sixty days of pain and terror.
And more. More than the bad.
“You’ve met him, right?” she asked.
“The guy on the profile picture?” I paused. “Yeah, I met him. I guess he’s the main guy.”
Her eyes dropped to her cocktail. “He’s more than the main guy. He’s everything. God, the Devil… every filthy nightmare the world’s ever fucking seen.”
“Disgusting,” Carolyn told me, with a wrinkled nose. “He’s fucking disgusting, the things he does to people.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “Tell me something… something about him… I need to know… to be ready…”
“You’ll never be ready,” Rebecca said. “Not even close. Not in a million years.”
“I can try to be…”
She took another sip of her drink. “It’s like… electric. Like a permanent current buzzing you high. You’ll be out of your mind, lost to the world and every one of your senses, swimming in a sea of utter depravity and carnage and thinking you’re long past making it through. And then he’ll be there, demanding more. Telling you more. Always more, more, more. And you’ll give it to him. Whatever he wants.”
I was feeling out of my mind already, cocktail long forgotten as I soaked up her words.
“And what does he really want?”
Her answer was instant. “He wants you to hurt. To break. To give him the pieces of your broken fucking soul along with your broken fucking body.”
“And there’s no option but to comply?”
She nodded. “Every. Single. Time. No matter what.”
“And then?” I pushed. “What happens when he’s taken everything from you? He uses your body in every way it can be taken, right? Hurts you so bad you’re screaming for mercy and then does it all over again?”
“Oh yeah, he does that alright.” Her smile was hazy.
“And then what? He lets you go with the money, job done?”
She spun her glass in her fingers. A nervous fidget. “And then he gives you to a whole host of filthy fucking strangers to do the same. However they want it. Whenever they want it. As many times as they fucking want it until the sixty days are done.”
I took a breath at the thought.
I’d known this.
I’d heard this.
But it felt so different hearing it straight from Rebecca Lane’s mouth.
“They fuck you up so bad,” she whispered. “But that isn’t it. That isn’t the thing that really messes with you. That isn’t the thing that leaves you so fucked up in your mind that you aren’t sure you even want the money at the end of it. Because the only thing you really want by then… the only thing you really need by then…”
Her voice tapered off to nothing, eyes trying to say what her mouth couldn’t seem to.
I didn’t get it. Not what she was pointing at.
My eyes ate at hers but found no clue.
But there was a feeling.
A desperation.
“Don’t fucking talk about this bit,” Carolyn said, and slapped her hand on the table top. “You said you wouldn’t. Tonight is donuts, and general fucked-up storie
s, and lots of discouragement. Paige doesn’t need to hear this shit.”
But I did need to hear this shit.
I’d never needed to hear something so bad in my life.
“Please do,” I said, right at Rebecca. “Please talk about this bit. What is the thing you really want by then?”
“I shouldn’t,” she answered, nervous fidget still going strong. “Carolyn’s right. I shouldn’t talk about it. It’s me… just me…”
Somehow I doubted that.
“She’s still messed up by the whole thing,” Carolyn tried to reason. “Crazy feelings that make no sense whatsoever. Walk away from the thing and thank your lucky stars for the lucky escape.”
I wished I was feeling the lucky escape option.
“You wouldn’t get it if I did tell you,” Rebecca said. “There’s no way in a million years you’d get it unless you were there. It’s probably me… just a fucked-up girl wanting fucked-up things…”
And that’s when I saw the movement behind her. The tall, broad figure walking down the pier towards us.
My eyes widened, jaw dropping slack as I registered the strength in his walk. The suit was perfect, tailored like a dream. His gaze was every bit as dark as I remembered.
But this time it wasn’t on me.
“It’s him,” I breathed as he stepped under the bar sign and headed on in.
Rebecca’s eyes widened like mine, but my meaning was lost on her.
“Yes!” she said, and her voice was louder. So much louder. “It is him that you want! He’s exactly what you want by then! Enough to drive you fucking crazy. Drive you out of your fucking mind! Because he’s a god in this world. A fucked-up fucking god who steals your fucking soul and leaves you begging for more. But you can’t. You can’t let yourself go there. You’d never fucking survive if you saw him again!”
But she’d have to fucking survive if she saw him again.
Time slowed until it stopped. His shadow creeping over her until she felt him there, looming larger than life with a stare like death as he glared down at her.
His mouth flicked into a terrible smile as she dared to look in his direction, and her confidence vanished. Dead. Shrivelled and gone in a heartbeat, leaving just a little girl quaking.
He dropped into the seat beside her and pulled out a cigarette.
“Silly girl for making me come to you,” he said.
Chapter Twenty
Brandon
If looks could kill she’d be a dead girl.
I kept my eyes on hers as I lit up my cigarette, giving not so much as a scrap of acknowledgement to the two girls seated opposite.
“I was going to call you,” she spluttered. “Just as soon as I was done here… I only got your message this afternoon…”
“You’re a terrible liar,” I said. “I’m sure you remember what happens to liars.”
I could see Paige squirming in her seat in the corner of my vision but fought the urge to take a look at her. Added tension was invariably worth the patience.
Rebecca Lane was deliciously intimidated, no doubt battling the well-ingrained impulse to drop to her knees at my feet. I could see it in her. In the tremble of her fingers as they dithered around her cocktail glass. In the flicker of her eyes.
“Um, hello?” her sister blurted, and I shot my eyes across to hers.
The family resemblance was striking. So was the bristling confidence. I’d enjoyed tearing Rebecca’s right out of her and reassembling her to my liking.
“Carolyn, yes?” I said, and the girl’s shoulders tightened. “I heard plenty about you. Your sister was quite forthcoming with the family history.”
I loved the concern in her eyes, at odds with the strength in her proud jawline.
Secrets. Always so many secrets in the closet.
“This is a private social,” she told me.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Interesting choice of words,” I said. “Seeing as your little social club doesn’t appear to have any appreciation of privacy.”
I turned my attention back to Rebecca, and her eyes were wide and wild.
Scared.
She was scared.
And so was Paige.
I could feel her trepidation burning. Sizzling deep beneath her meek exterior.
My dick was hard with the urge to lunge across and pull her over the table top. To scrap every tiny piece of red tape and punish her right there and then for reaching out to dirty little girls for dirty little insights when I was due to deliver it to her in the flesh.
“Do you like having money, Rebecca?” I asked. “Does it please you to drink your expensive drinks in your expensive clothes with expensive makeup slapped all over your pretty face?”
“Yes…” she said, and her voice trailed off.
I waited.
She bit her lip.
I exhaled cigarette smoke in her direction and watched her breathe it in like she was starving for it, even though she didn’t smoke.
The other girls didn’t say a word. Staring like rabbits in headlights at the standoff.
“Manners,” I whispered to Rebecca, and she whimpered, forgetting herself.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered back. “I like having money, sir. Thank you. I like having everything you gave me.”
“What the–” Carolyn began, but shut her mouth as I turned to her.
“Your sister knows how to give respect when it’s due,” I told her. “If she’s extremely lucky, I may overlook her disobedience. It depends how well she does at convincing me she’s learned her lesson. There could be… consequences…”
I didn’t need to say another word.
“I’ve learned my lesson,” Rebecca said quietly, and my dick twitched as she fell into line. “I won’t say another word about any of it, I swear! I’m sorry, sir, just give me a chance to prove myself. I promise I’ll be good, I promise.”
And there was the moment I’d been waiting for. The moment that would reward my patience.
My eyes were cold and fierce when they met Paige Emmerson’s. Her mouth was open, breaths shallow, fingers clenched white around her glass as she stared.
I didn’t react at the scrape of Rebecca Lane’s chair as she pushed it away and dropped to her knees at my side. I didn’t move a muscle as she bowed to me, resting her forehead on my thigh with her hands clamped overhead in the prayer position.
I took another drag of my cigarette and didn’t say a fucking word.
“Rebecca!” her sister hissed. “Rebecca, what the hell are you doing?!”
But my dirty little high roller didn’t move an inch.
“Forgive me, sir,” she breathed. “Please, sir, I’ll never speak a word again. I’m so sorry, sir, please forgive me.”
“Good girls always mind their tongues,” I said. “Bad girls deserve everything that’s coming to them, don’t they, Miss Lane?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
The younger Miss Lane was a picture, open-mouthed and dithering.
I knew all about her. Knew their family history with the mother who’d left their stepfather over the lies they’d spread about him when they were young teens. Knew how Carolyn needed constant reassurance that they’d both learned their lesson for keeps and would be good girls for the rest of their days, no matter what. Sister secrets.
“You fucked my sister up,” she hissed at me. “The things you did to her…”
I made a tutting sound. “Oh dear, Rebecca. It seems you’ve been hiding the real truth from your sweet little sister, haven’t you? Such a bad little liar on top of a bad little gossip, it seems.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to. I tried to tell her… tried to tell her the truth but she wouldn’t hear it!”
The waiter was hovering, uncertainty across his idiot face as I gestured him over.
“Scotch,” I said, and snapped my fingers. “Double, neat. No ice.”
Carolyn watched him as he retreated, clearly dumbstruck as he busied him
self behind the bar with my drink.
“People crave order,” I told her. “Looking for that governing force to take control. Some find it at work, following all the little processes and procedures.”
Nobody said a word as the waiter returned with my scotch. I tipped my glass at him in thanks before I downed it in one and placed it back on his tray.
He didn’t hang around.
“Control,” I repeated. “As I was saying, some people find it at work. Others find it in much more… intimate places.”
I landed my hand in Rebecca’s hair as a demonstration.
Her whimpers of happiness at the contact were borderline embarrassing in their volume, even for me.
I tugged her head back far enough that I could meet her eyes. Her pupils were dilated beautifully.
“If you ever speak another word of me or my establishment, Rebecca Lane, I’ll take every fucking penny you own and punish you so fucking badly, you’ll never want to know a man again.” I brushed my thumb across her cheek, the heat of my lit cigarette close enough to her skin that she could feel it. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I understand you.”
“On your feet,” I ordered, and she pushed herself up from the ground with no finesse whatsoever.
I pointed to her empty seat and she sat, hands in her lap and her eyes still firm on me as I shifted my attention to the girls opposite.
“Obedience is at its best when it’s given gladly,” I told them. “Rebecca, hold your hand out flat for me.”
She did as she was told without hesitation.
She knew what was coming before I moved, sucking in a breath and holding it deep as I twisted to face her.
She gritted her teeth and trembled as I stubbed my cigarette out so fucking slowly in her open palm, dragging out the pain.
She closed her fingers around the butt like I’d awarded her a gift. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
“Next time I have to call on you, there will be no second chances,” I told her, and got to my feet. “You’d do well to remember that.”
She looked fucking horrified as I pulled some notes from my wallet and dropped them on the table top for the bill.