Three, Two, One (321)

by JA Huss

  “No,” I say in a defiant, child voice. “I like these clothes. They smell like him. I’d rather go naked than leave.”

  Ark laughs and drags his fingertips up and down my spine. “I want to take you out to dinner. Today is the last day we work for Ray. It’s a big deal.”

  I let out a long sigh. I don’t want to tell him no. I want to go to dinner with him. See him in a proper suit for once, with a jacket and trousers. I bet he’s hot as fuck in a real suit. My clothes are still hanging in his office, unused. Hell, unopened. I never even peeked to see what they look like. I know they are fancy, so not appropriate for wearing around the house.

  “I want to make you happy, Ark. I do. But I get a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I think about going out. I won’t be any fun at all. I won’t. And I’ll be sick the whole time.” I lift up from his chest and look him in the eyes. “I’ll be too sick to enjoy it.”

  He groans. Long and hard. “Fine.” And then he lifts me off his chest and gets out of bed. JD is already up, eating or making breakfast or something. He gets up early. In fact, JD gets up at very strange times. Three AM one morning, five the next. Sometimes he sleeps until noon. “But I gotta get out of here. I’m not used to staying home so much.” Ark walks over to his dresser and pulls out a black t-shirt and a pair of socks.

  “I’m sorry.” I use a pouty voice for that.

  “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Blue. I get it.” Ark says it with his back to me, so I can’t see his face. I just stare at those fighting dragons on his back and wonder why they’d get matching tattoos that pitted them against each other. It looks to me like they are fighting over that round thing between them. It’s blue, so it might be the world. Or maybe they are conquering the world? The dragon bodies wrap around it like they own that little blue ball.

  “Besides,” he continues, pulling his shirt over his head and obstructing my view of his back art, “we can celebrate at home just fine.” He turns to face me and now he’s smiling. God, I love when Ark smiles. He doesn’t do it that often. JD is a compulsive smiler. Ark is always deep in thought. Making secret decisions in his head. He’s definitely not impulsive. “I’ll bring home a bottle of something special.”

  “I can make us dinner,” I offer. “If JD goes shopping for me.”

  Ark pulls his boots on standing up, hopping from one foot to the next. And then he walks back over, leans down, and gives me a kiss. “I’ll see you tonight, OK?”

  I just stare at him. His beautiful face. I didn’t think it was kind when I first met him, but I was so wrong. Everything about Ark is kind. He does everything with purpose. And I can’t ever picture him hurting someone.

  “What?” he asks, with a laugh.

  “I want to love you.”

  That smile again. I die.

  “I think I could marry you and live happily ever after.”

  He chuckles and leans down for one more kiss. We linger this time, our tongues twisting together, smiles on our faces, laughs in our breath. “I’d marry you right now if JD wasn’t here. But it’s kinda hard to marry two people at once.”

  “I want to love him too,” I say when Ark pulls away.

  Ark is walking out the bedroom door when he looks back over his shoulder and calls out, “Ditto.” A few moments later I hear him talking to JD and then the front door opens and closes.

  And I think Ark really does love him, too. I’m not sure it’s the kind that most people imagine when they think of two men being together. But it’s definitely love. Why else would he be so protective of JD?

  That’s something I’d really like to talk about, but any time I bring up JD when Ark and I are alone, he changes the subject. I don’t get it.

  “Hey,” the devil is calling from the living area. “Baby Blue?”

  “What?” I call back.

  “Get your mopey ass out of bed.” JD peeks his head into the bedroom. Shirtless.

  I grin at that. “Why should I?”

  His grin goes flat and his eyes narrow. “Because you’ve got our collar on, bitch. And I said so.” He points to the ground in front of him.

  I knew this was coming. The domination stuff. He’s mentioned what we might do together once Ark leaves the house. Not because we’re hiding it from Ark, we have to film it all. But because Ark isn’t into that stuff so much.

  “You better move, slut.”

  I slide out of bed and get on my hands and knees, crawling over to JD and stopping at his feet. I sit back and look up, opening my legs so he can see my pussy.

  “Goddammit,” he whispers as he crouches down to take my face in his hands. “You like this shit? For real?”

  I nod, blushing from embarrassment.

  “Hey,” he says, kissing me on the lips. “Don’t be ashamed. OK?”

  “It’s weird, isn’t it? I don’t understand it.”

  He studies my face for a moment. “It’s not weird, Blue. It’s just a fantasy.”

  “But I like it…” I can’t even say it.

  “How?” he asks. “Tell me, so I can give you what you want.”

  “I like to feel…” I look up, then down quickly. Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I’m going to admit this out loud. “Forced.”

  He kisses me, his lips gentle and his mouth soft. “Lots of girls want to feel like that, Blue. I’ve done a lot of porn, and some of them like it so rough, it scares me.”

  “They do? What do they want you to do to them?”

  “Slap them. They all like to be slapped. Twist their nipples so hard, they cry. Spank their pussies. Spank their asses. Come on their faces. One girl, I shit you not, wanted me to piss all over her.”

  I recoil. “What?”

  “Now that is a weird fetish, right? Or the ones who play with shit. Or the men who wear diapers and act like babies.”

  “Oh my God.”

  He laughs with me and pulls me to my feet as he stands. “What you like, Blue, we call that ravishment.”

  “Ravishment?”

  “It’s a rape fantasy. And you’d be surprised how many women get off on that. Hell, men even. It’s so common, it’s not even considered fringe.” He shoots me a devious look. “Well, at least in the world I live in.”

  “Ravishment,” I say again, bewildered that it has a name I don’t mind saying aloud, and turned on by the fact that JD and I are talking about it.

  “I can ravish you, Blue. I can rip your clothes off, slap your face, tie you up, and stick my cock down your throat. I can call you names and pull your hair. I can fuck you from behind so hard you come in waves. One after the other, constantly crashing you into the shore of ecstasy.” His hand sweeps down my hip and then slips between my legs to check me for arousal.

  I’m so fucking turned on right now.

  “Would you like to be ravished?”

  I pause.

  “Be sure, Blue. Because what you desire can’t be achieved unless we cross some lines. Do you want to cross lines with me?”

  I take a deep breath and look him in the eyes. “Yes, please.”

  He slaps my face so hard, I fall to the ground. My knees hit the hard wood floor, making me scream out. He grabs my hair and pulls me back to my feet, and then drags me over to the bed and throws me down face-first.

  My heart beats fast, but it’s a weird mixture of fear—which I’m familiar with from my captivity—and desire for the actual man who wants to ravish me. Which is brand new.

  “You’re my whore, you understand?” He yanks my hair, forcing my head back so far I have to look him in the face as he looms over me from behind. “Say yes, bitch.”

  “Yes,” I say, panting for more. He twists my nipple hard, giving me what I secretly crave. And then he flips me over, whips off his belt, and wraps it around my face, right across my mouth. He cinches it up so it’s tight, the leather burning the corners of my mouth from the tension. And then he takes his cock out of his pants and lifts my legs up.

  I squirm, and he slaps me again, making my pussy fl
ood and throb. But I fight him off, punching him in the face. He slaps me again for that, and then grabs my kicking legs and flips me over onto my stomach.

  “Yes,” I whisper softly into the hard concrete floor.

  “You get it in the ass for that little move, cunt.”

  “Yes,” I say again. But his dick is pushing against my ass so hard, I cry out from the very real pain.

  He fucks me in the ass so hard, I cry. But when he comes, I come with him. Because this is what I’ve wanted.

  I want to be ravished.

  And I have never been so fucking turned on in all my life.

  When we’re done he takes the belt off and kisses my lips. “Wait here,” he says in a whisper. And then he goes into Ark’s bathroom and returns with some sweet-smelling balm. He rubs it into the little cracks the belt made in the corners of my mouth. “Ark will kill me if he knows, Blue.” JD puts the little stick of lip balm on the nightstand and climbs into bed with me, wrapping me up in his arms. “He doesn’t get it. He won’t like it. And he’ll put a stop to it. So if you want to keep doing it, we need to keep it a secret.”

  I watch JD’s face as he says all this. Another secret.

  Ark wants me to keep quiet about who I am and the people who had me.

  JD wants me to keep quiet about how rough we like it.

  It’s not a good start to a relationship.

  “Blue?” JD asks after a few moments. “You can tell him if you want, but he’ll make us stop. He won’t understand it, Blue. So if you want me to fuck you like this again, you can’t tell him.”

  He waits in silence as I consider my answer. My body is sore. My face is still stinging from all the slaps.

  But my God, I’ve never felt so… alive.

  I don’t want to keep secrets from Ark, but I really do want to have this special sidebar sex with JD.

  “OK,” I say, knowing everything about what we’re doing is wrong. “I will. I mean, I won’t tell him. But the cameras. We should record them, so he won’t be mad if he finds out.”

  JD kisses me on the lips, taking a moment to lick the little sore spots. “I love you. We’ll film them, like he asked. We just won’t give them to him. Fair?”

  “Fair,” I say.

  We spend the rest of the day doing normal stuff. We even fuck for the camera once. Not a ravishment. Just a hot fuck for Ark’s eyes only.

  I almost feel like a performer when I’m with JD. Like we’re actors in our own movie, only our movie is real life.

  But is this real life?

  It blurs the lines, if you ask me.

  Ark comes home and we eat a dinner that JD shopped for and I made. Life is so weird. A week and a day ago I was a captive, being forced to comply with a sick man’s wishes. One week ago I was in a strange loft with two strangers, getting paid to suck them off. And tonight… Ark brings home special champagne, and we toast to our new arrangement.

  One girl.

  Two friends.

  Three soulmates.

  Does it get any better than this?

  “Just go buy her a Christmas tree, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I can’t, JD. I already told her she has to come with me if she wants a tree.” It’s been six weeks since Blue came to live with us. Six weeks of pure fun. I only have to think of her in some small way—like the way she taps her finger on the counter when she’s deciding what she wants to eat, or the way she tiptoes across the polished concrete floors, squealing about how cold they are. Everything about her makes me happy. Even JD is happy.

  But after six weeks of confinement in the loft, I’m going crazy. Not that I’ve been confined. I’ve been on four business trips in that time. But Blue refuses to leave the house.

  “I’ve had it,” I tell JD. “There’s no way those people are still looking for her. The shit is over.”

  “You don’t know,” JD says. He’s watching football, which means he’s ignoring the rest of us. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe she needs to stay inside for the rest of her life.” He drags his attention away from the flat screen and looks up at me. “I like knowing she’s always home. I like her being here all the time. I’d probably go crazy if I had to worry about where she was and who she was with.”

  I sit down on the chair to his left. “That’s insane, JD. The girl needs friends. We’ve got nothing to hide. Or be ashamed of. Maybe she needs a job?”

  “Why the fuck would she need a job? We have enough money to buy her anything she wants.”

  “To give her life purpose, dumbass. She needs goals and shit.”

  “Fuck goals. She needs to stay here and hang out with me.”

  “You need goals too.”

  “I have goals.” He gives me one of those famous JD winks. “And they all involve you and her at the moment. The outside world can fuck off.”

  I look out the window where Blue is standing on the terrace, gazing down at the snow-covered streets below. Large round flakes swirl around her face and settle on her hair. Her knee-length tan coat is stylish, with fur trim on the cuffs, the hood, and the collar. She looks like she’s ready to go out somewhere. She does this all the time. Dresses up and then sits around the house. It’s not good.

  “Just get the girl a tree.”

  But I shake my head. “I want her to come with me.”

  “Well, I don’t want to go. I’m watching football.”

  JD is obviously not going to help, so I get up and grab my coat off the hook near the front door, then put it on and join her outside. The air is cold, but not too bad. “You ready?” I ask. “You look ready.” I join her standing at the edge of the terrace, and look down onto the congestion of California Street. There’s a little Christmas tree lot about half a block up. And it’s busy today, because Christmas is next week.

  “Look how close it is,” she says. Her warm breath puffs out of her mouth as steam.

  “I know. It’s steps from here. So let’s go.”

  She turns to look at me. Her face is so pretty now that she’s put on weight. Those dark circles under her eyes have faded. Her complexion now is one of well-fed health. She’s gained at least fifteen pounds and she could use five more, if you ask me. But she’s self-conscious about it. Complaining about her clothing sizes. We started ordering her clothes online the day after we closed our contract with Ray and she’s been shopping ever since. “I’ll watch you the whole time, Ark. And if anything happens, I’ll scream for JD to go rescue you.”

  “Haha,” I deadpan back, pulling her in for a side hug. “You have to go outside sometime, Blue. Today is your day.”

  She shakes her head against my chest and then takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I know I disappoint you. But I can’t go. And it’s not even for the reasons you think.”

  “What? You’re not afraid?”

  “I am,” she says softly. “But that’s not the reason I don’t want to leave the loft.” She takes a step back, forcing me to release her from my tight embrace. And then she just stares at me.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  She opens her mouth, then closes it just as quickly. When the words finally come out, she has to look away. “I’m afraid if I go out there again, I’ll remember what he took from me. All these feelings of captivity will finally disappear and I will realize I’m free. And I’ll be like a bird whose cage door is left open. They don’t understand that they’re free. So they sit there, inside the cage, and refuse to fly away.”

  “Blue, you’re not a prisoner—”

  She places a hand on my chest to stop me. “I know that. I’m just telling you how I feel, Ark. I know I’m free. The little bird can see the opening door and the way out. But it won’t leave out of fear. And I don’t know what little captive birds fear. But I fear that once I walk out that door, I’ll never find my way back. I’ll call my parents and get them mixed up in this, and then someone will swoop in and take me away. And that’s not a bad thing, Ark. But you and JD…” Her words trail off as she peeks around me to watch him inside. I ca
n feel her love in this moment. I’ve had doubts over the past few weeks, wondering if what we have is love, or maybe just an unusually strong case of lust. Or maybe all we are here for is the sex? I just don’t know sometimes.

  But this pause… this pause is all I need to know. What we have is real. No matter what you call it, it’s real.

  She finally looks back up to me. “I can’t lose you. I know nothing lasts forever, but I’m not ready, Ark. I’d rather stay in my cage and watch the world from my high perch than risk flying out that door and never finding my way back.”

  I take a deep breath and nod. “I’ll go get us a tree.”

  The snow crunches under my feet as I walk back to the terrace door.

  JD never looks up from his wild cheering as some big play happens on the TV in front of him. I walk straight to the front door and let myself out.

  Once there, I place my palms against the wall and lean forward until my forehead hits the brick.

  I’m not sure which part of that conversation hurts the most. The fact that she doesn’t trust herself to stay if she leaves. The fact that she thinks of herself as a bird in a cage. Or the fact that this is temporary, and we both know it.

  Love happens in twos.

  There is no holy trinity of love.

  Would I still love JD without Blue?

  I shake my head and push away from the wall. I head to the stairs, needing the physical activity to clear my thoughts. But all the way down, with each thumping step of my shoes on the steel, I can only hear one word in my mind.

  No.

  I would not want a relationship with JD without Blue. I love him as a friend. I love him as part of this arrangement. I love him in many different ways. But I don’t love him as a man.

  I push through the stairwell door and end up in our lobby. I can see the Christmas tree lot down the street from here, so I go outside and start weaving my way through the slow-moving stream of cars when my phone buzzes.

  I reach into my pocket and read the message from Blue.

  Will you buy ornaments and lights tonight too? So we can decorate it?

  I’ll do that first, I text back.