Three, Two, One (321)

by JA Huss

  She sends me a little picture of a Christmas tree and then a heart.

  No, I don’t love JD as just a man.

  But I do love Blue as just a woman.

  I would definitely be happy with her all by herself.

  The tree lot is full of people as I pass, and I notice they are low in inventory, so I step into the roped-off area and figure I might as well pick a tree first. Then I can drop it off at home and go back out for the other stuff.

  There’s not a lot to choose from, so I grab the tallest one they have left and wait patiently as my tree goes into the checkout line where they will wrap it in a net and take my money. Fifteen minutes later, I’m walking back across the street with my first Christmas tree purchased as an adult.

  Before I came to Denver, I lived in Miami. And Miami just wasn’t the same at Christmas. I never had time for a serious relationship back then, so I never bothered to get a tree. But this is meaningful for partners. Celebrating holidays is part of strengthening the bonds of love.

  JD and I never got a tree either. The holidays were always a busy season for us. Lots of girls need money at Christmas. We never had a shortage of willing participants.

  I drag the tree inside the building and then inside the elevator, picturing how nice the loft will look once it’s decorated.

  The car dings and the doors open, so I drag my tree out and head to the door.

  I expect squealing when I enter the loft. And I do hear that. But it’s not for the tree I dump in the foyer.

  It’s Blue, screaming like she’s getting a beating.

  I run down the hallway to JD’s room and fling the door open. It takes me whole seconds of silence to come to terms with what I’m seeing.

  Blue is face down on the floor, her cheek pressed so hard against the polished concrete I can’t even see her left eye. The right eye is wide open, looking up at me. Makeup runs down her cheek from the tears. Her face is red, like she was just slapped. Her breathing hitches, letting me know she’s really crying.

  JD’s dick is in her ass, her dress ripped open up the back to give him access. And her panties are still on, but skewed off to the side. One hand is wrapped around her throat, his thumb pressed over her artery. The other is pulling her hair.

  “It’s not what you think,” JD growls. Almost like he’s pissed off I’m interrupting his fuck.

  I walk over and punch him in the face, and he goes reeling across the floor.

  “I told you,” he yells. “It’s not what you think!”

  I pull Blue up from the floor and pull her close. “Are you OK?”

  She can’t or won’t meet my gaze. But she nods.

  “Ark—”

  “Shut the fuck up, JD!” I yell it. My voice booms up to the very top of his high ceilings, making Blue jump in my arms.

  He’s up off the floor now, his dick still hard, his eyes raging with anger. “We had an arrangement.”

  “Yeah, our arrangement was that you’d treat her nice.”

  “Not me and you, Ark. Me and her.”

  His words stop me cold.

  “She likes it rough, man. She does. Just ask her. She loves to be ravished—”

  “Raped!”

  “I’m not raping her, asshole. It’s fantasy.”

  “It’s sick!”

  As soon as it comes out, I regret it. Because Blue wriggles in my arms, manages to escape, and then runs to JD’s bathroom and slams the door.

  “Good one, dickface,” JD says as he follows her. He twists the handle, but it clicks from side to side. “I’ll break the door down, Blue. You know I will. So unlock it.”

  She does not unlock it.

  And that’s when I notice the cameras. “You’ve been filming all this?”

  “You told me to,” he says, still twisting the handle. “Blue?” He pounds on it a few times. “Open the fucking door.”

  Silence.

  I sit down on the bed and hold my hands in my head. “What the fuck is going on?”

  JD is staring at me when I look back up. “We give you the vanilla tapes. I keep the ravish—”

  “Stop using that stupid word!”

  “Whatever. I keep the rough ones. But I taped them, just like you wanted. She’s happy with this, Ark. She is. All you have to do is watch them and you’ll see. You just told her she was sick for liking it, so she’s gonna have a hard time admitting that to you, but this is fact. The girl wants to be choked. And spanked. And I’m not talking little swats to the ass. She likes it hard, dude. She wants my dick down her throat, the tears streaming down her face, on her knees—”

  “Enough!” I bellow. “Jesus fucking Christ. How the fuck can you be so stupid? So blind? Did it ever occur to you that she likes it because she can’t stop thinking of herself as a goddamned prisoner?”

  “She likes it because it feels good. You just refuse to admit that.”

  “She told me tonight she feels like a bird in a cage with the door open, you idiot. In her mind, she never stopped being a fucking captive! And you’re making it worse!”

  “Fuck you. You’re just jealous—”

  I cross the room so fast, I even surprise myself. The next moment, JD is sprawled out on the floor and my hand is wrapped around his neck. I’m bigger than him by twenty pounds and three inches at least. And I’m stronger than him. I work out five days a week in the gym downstairs. So he never has a chance.

  I lean down into his face as it turns red. “I’m only gonna say this one time, my friend. If you ever fuck her like she’s a whore on the street again, I will kill you.”

  I listen as they fight. When JD pounds on the door, I stumble backwards and fall on my ass, and then I crab-walk myself into the corner near the shower and pull my legs up to my chest as they continue to argue outside.

  Ark is bigger than JD. Not by much, but in all the ways that count. Longer arms. Taller. Heavier. More muscular. He’s built like a Navy SEAL, even if he never became one. And that’s how I know he’s the one doing the choking and JD is the one making those noises on the other side of the door.

  I want to go out there and tell Ark JD is right. I do like it. Every time JD slaps my face I only want him to fuck me harder. Every time he calls me a whore or a slut, I only want him to hold me tighter.

  But I don’t like it. I need it. And I’m not sure that’s the same thing.

  A wail echoes through the bathroom and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me. And then the sobs start. I’m out of control as the images flash through my mind. The beatings while I was being held against my will. The rapes I was subjected to. The way they used my body to betray my mind. Made me come after reducing me to nothing but a thing.

  JD and Ark are yelling and fighting again on the other side of the door. Things break. They crash into the bathroom door, and I’m immediately grateful that the doors in this place are thick, hard wood. Because it doesn’t burst open.

  I can’t move. I can’t think straight. I can’t do anything but huddle in the corner and shake.

  What will happen to me now? Who will ever love me like this? Why am I so fucked up?

  A door slams and vibrates the wall I’m leaning against.

  The front door.

  But which one of them left?

  Another sob escapes as the fear grows. Will he beat me? Will he rape me?

  “Blue?” Ark asks.

  I let out a cry and then I just break down, throwing myself forward on to the rug. My fear is replaced with relief and that’s almost as bad.

  Because maybe Ark is right.

  Maybe I was letting JD keep me prisoner. Sexually. Mentally. And emotionally.

  “Blue?” I can hear her crying on the other side of the door. My heart is beating so fast I have to lean against the hard wood to calm down. “Blue, baby? You OK?”

  She’s sobbing now, but it’s muffled. Like she doesn’t want me to hear.

  “Blue? He’s gone, OK? He left. You can come out now.” For a moment I wonder if I’m t
he one she’s afraid of. Please, God, I pray silently. Please don’t let her be afraid of me. “Blue, I’m not gonna hurt you, you know that, right?” Silence. “Blue, just unlock the door and you can do whatever you want. You can call someone. Or leave.”

  More crying.

  “Or stay. You can stay, Blue. You know I love you, right? I love you and it’s not dependent on this relationship, or JD, or the sex. OK? None of that matters. I just love you.”

  She’s sniffling and I can picture her on the other side of the door, lying on the rug.

  “Blue, if you open the door, we’ll just go to bed. Just rest and not talk about it. Sleep together. Just hold each other. OK? No talking. No sex. No calling anyone. Just…” Fuck. Just open the door, is all I want to say. “Just be together. That’s what couples do, right?”

  Goddamn it. I should have known better than to leave her alone with JD.

  “It’s not your fault, Blue. It’s mine. JD… he’s…”

  Fuck.

  I take a deep breath and slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor with my back against it, letting out the long sigh of air as I settle.

  “He’s what?” she says from the other side.

  I rub my hand down my face and pull my legs up so I can rest my elbows on my knees.

  “He’s what?” she asks, more mad than sad now. “Just tell me what the hell is going on here!”

  “Just open the door,” I whisper. “You have to open the door because no matter what he’s done, I still love the guy, OK? And I’m not going to tell this story unless I can tell it to your face.”

  Silence. For several long moments.

  She unlocks the door with a click, and I scramble to my feet so I can see her face when she pulls it open. Her eyes are red and her face is pale. Like she’s sick. Or scared.

  “Blue,” I say, reaching for her. But she pulls back, just out of reach, and wraps her arms around herself in a tight hug.

  “Just tell me,” she begs, her anger gone. “Because I love him too.” Her eyes get glassy and then tears spill down her cheeks like rivers. “I love him too. I didn’t know,” she says, starting to sob again. “I responded to everything—”

  I reach out and pull her into a hug. “Shhh. No more of that. Stop thinking about that. I should never have let you stay here, but I wanted you, Blue. I wanted you like nothing I’ve ever wanted before in my life. And maybe it’s just because I was lonely. And tired of this job. Tired of the lies and the girls, and the dirty sex. I needed something good. Something that could wipe away all that stuff and make me feel human again. And I knew the whole time you needed help. Just like I knew the whole time JD needed help.”

  She crumbles. Her body goes limp as her knees buckle. She almost falls to the ground before I scoop her up and carry her out of JD’s room, down the hallway, past the living room, and back to our bedroom.

  I set her down on the bed, and then climb in next to her. She’s naked and I still have my coat and boots on. But who fucking cares.

  We just get in bed like that and I pull her on top of me so her face is tucked up under my chin. Her tears drop onto my skin, round the curve of my neck, and then slide down my back until they met the sheets beneath me.

  I take a deep breath.

  “The first time I saw JD, I was coming out of the bus station and he was across the street, fighting his way out of a four-on-one fight, and even though JD is pretty badass, he’s not that good. But he was yelling like a motherfucker. You took my kid, he said, over and over. And each time he said it, he landed a punch or a kick or some other attack. Like those words were his mantra. The only thing keeping him going.

  “By the time I got across the street, they pretty much had him. So I intervened. First with a threat of the police, which got nothing. And then a gun.”

  Blue is silent on top of me.

  “They backed off with lots of threats for JD. They’d be back. He was dead. Blah, blah, blah. And since I had nowhere to stay, and I just saved his ass, he let me stay with him for a little while.”

  “They took his baby? Sold it?”

  I nod. “She was given to some family. He knew that, but he didn’t know which family and, of course, they never told him. His girlfriend was dead by then. We didn’t know that though. So I bounced into town with a bunch of money and a plan. But my whole life, everything I thought I was doing, got sidetracked that night when I met JD. He had this immediate problem, ya know? Something I could grab onto and maybe even fix. Right? And that’s how all this started.”

  “So what’s wrong with him? I can feel it, Ark. When we’re alone together, I get glimpses. Like there’s something dark behind that charming smile. Behind those amazing eyes. Something he hides away. But when we were having sex—”

  “Fuck,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “—he’d look at me when he put his hand on my throat. There was always a moment when I was terrified. Just before things went black and the stars took over. But when I came to again, he was always telling me sweet things. He loved me. He’d never hurt me. This was only in fun. And I believed him—”

  “He means it, Blue. He does. But he’s fucked up over what happened the night before I came to town. The night we think his girlfriend died and he lost his baby girl. He never got over it.”

  “How did she die?”

  “I have no idea. We never did figure that out. It took us two years to find her grave. Just a little marker in the ground.”

  “Why does he like to be so rough?”

  I close my eyes. So tired of this. So tired of thinking about JD and his violence.

  “You know why don’t you?”

  I shake my head, like I always do. “I don’t know why, Blue. But he’s always been like that since I’ve known him. He’s rough with the Public Fuck girls too. Too rough. But that shit sells.”

  A wave of shame floods over me.

  Blue isn’t dumb. She’s gonna figure all this out sooner or later. And then she’s gonna leave me. She’s never gonna talk to me again. She’s going to turn around, walk out, call her family, and never look back.

  Because we are a couple of sick motherfuckers.

  “Do you know why?” She asks it as a question this time.

  “I don’t. But I have a few guesses that I’m not going into tonight. I just want to say I’m sorry, Blue. And if you want to leave—”

  “You want me to leave?” She tries to sit up so she can look me in the face, but I can’t do that now. I can’t.

  So I hold her close. “I don’t want you to ever leave. It’s wrong to keep you here, I understand that. But I don’t want you to leave, Blue. I’ve never desired someone so much in my life.”

  “Don’t leave me, Ark. Please. I know I need help. I do. I know that liking what he does to me is wrong—”

  “That’s not what’s wrong, Blue.” I sit up a little so I can see her for this part. She needs to understand the difference. “Liking it for the right reasons is fine. It’s OK to like a little pain with the pleasure. But what’s not OK is JD taking advantage of that after you were held captive by people who forced you to feel that way through psychological conditioning.”

  She just stares at me, like her whole life depends on the words I tell her now.

  “Did you like it rough before you became a prisoner?”

  She shakes her head. “But I never thought about that stuff.”

  “You just need some distance, Blue. To figure it out. You need to talk to someone. JD never talked to anyone and that was a mistake. He’s just—”

  She watches me struggle for the words. “Say it,” she whispers. “Please, just tell me.”

  “He’s just fucked up. He’s just so fucked up.”

  And this is the do-or-die moment. The moment where I lose her trust or gain it. The moment when I let as much out as I can without giving away his final secrets. Secrets I swore on my life, on the death of the one person who haunts me, just as his dead girlfriend haun
ts him, that I’d never betray.

  “He likes to hurt people. And this”—I wave my hand at the bedroom—“this is over now, baby. I’m sorry. But he can’t come back. He can’t.”

  She stares me in the eyes for a few seconds. “So we’re just two now?”

  “Do you want to be two with me?”

  She nods her head. “Yes, please.” And then she cups her hands around my face and kisses me on the lips. “Please. Don’t leave me. Don’t make me go. I’m not ready to face the world, Ark. I’m not. I can’t tell my father what happened to me. I can’t answer those questions. I can’t admit that I fell into their trap. That I got that Stockholm thing and started to like those people. That I told that man I’d marry him. Be his wife. Let him fuck me. Sell him my children. I can’t do that. I need this world a little longer. And if you let me stay, I promise I will work harder at getting better. I will go out with you. I’ll try harder. I’ll do better, I swear.”

  Ark never sleeps with me the way JD does. He’s never wanted secret sex like JD did. Ark never wanted to share me. He’s always wanted me for himself.

  But JD walking out scares me. Because JD was the glue. JD was the one who joked around and put us at ease. JD was the one who loved freely and openly.

  Ark has always been closed off. Secretive. Working out of town. Only a few days at a time, but that time was enough to let JD and me take our game a little farther.

  “Let me see you,” Ark says, turning on the bedside lamp so it lights us up.

  I cover myself with my arms and look down as he touches me, his fingertips tracing my ribs, my hip bone. He crouches down and feels my leg, first the one and then the other.

  My ass is stinging, so I know it’s red, and he gently turns me over and caresses it for a lingering moment.

  “Has he hurt you?” I’m silent for a moment. “Tell me the truth, Blue. Has he hurt you?”

  I nod my head. “But that was the point.”

  Ark drops his hands and sits up in bed with a sigh. And then, like it’s just too much, he drops his face into his palms.

  I scoot over next to him, my hand on his leg. “I’m sorry.” I know this is the end. I can feel it. Six weeks was way longer than it should’ve lasted. Six weeks was so much more than I ever dreamed of. Six perfect weeks where I felt safe. “I’m sorry,” I say again.