She was going to eat me alive.
So I kept the distance between us and the pattern began to form: two of everything. For law, I had whoring. For the girl who longed for a nice boy to rescue me from Charlotte’s war, there was one who came alive for the man who thrust me straight back into it. Men are mocked as slaves to their hormones. It’s no laughing matter, trust me.
The problem with being split was that it was exhausting. And impossible. People didn’t react well to it. Women assumed me two-faced, and yet it was never that simple; men, when they left the hotel room, no longer wanted to share. In fact most of them weren’t that keen to begin with.
Two sides to me, then–the flesh and the carnivore. One of them, it seemed, I would have to put to bed.
* * * *
“I’m coming back,” I slurred down the phone.
“Leila, it’s two in the morning. I was in bed,” William groaned.
“Oh, fuck off, Will. It’s still business hours for you.” I paused to gulp more wine. “Anyway. I want my job back.”
“I thought you didn’t need me anymore, hmm? What’s changed?”
“Men are bastards.” I sniffed.
“Nobody likes a potty-mouthed whore. Not that kind of potty mouth, anyway.”
I fell back on to the sofa cushions, wincing. “So…am I hired again?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I whined.
“Because you’re drunk, which isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”
“I told you–men are bastards. All of them. Even you, because you won’t bloody hire me back!”
He stifled a laugh. “Leila, you warm an old man’s heart.”
“You’re thirty-nine, you pansy. Please, Will. I had such an awful night. I want to go back to screwing strangers with questionable amounts of money.”
“You really did get a boyfriend, didn’t you?”
“No. No.”
“Oh?”
“They hired me. Guys from my office hired me,” I howled.
“Oh.” William went silent for a moment. “That’s…unfortunate.”
“How did this happen? I said no lawyers. No accountants and no lawyers!”
“They must have lied,” he said sheepishly.
“Of course they lied. They’re bastards.” Another gulp of wine. “It’s all a big mess.”
“Are they being twats? Because I can put them on the black list if they’re being twats.”
“No. Quite reasonable as far as it goes–for, y’know, bastards,” I said, “but it’s still a big mess.”
“That’s generally what happens when you shit on your own doorstep.” There was the unmistakable gush of a toilet.
“Jesus, Will. You couldn’t have waited?”
“Don’t lecture me about self-restraint.” Water hissed as it spewed into a sink, no doubt. “Shall I blacklist them anyway, to make you feel better?”
“No…Well. Actually–go on then.”
“You text me their names in the morning and consider it done. I’m going back to bed.”
“You weren’t seriously in bed?” I said, incredulous.
“I had a mouthful of cock, but it was still bed.”
Snort. Baha. “At least one of us is getting some.”
“No thanks to you! I’m sorry about those guys–we fucked up, I know. Now, sober yourself up and call me in the morning. If you still want to come back, we’ll talk about it. But I doubt you will.”
Three voices beckoned in my mind. Bed was one, wine was another. Then there was the internet and the shiny new credit card that languished in my purse.
Clickety click. Who knew drunken shopping could be so much fun?
* * * *
I awoke on the sofa to the chime of a text message. The clock on my phone read 12:41pm. The text read:
Thanx 4 the flowers. Always did like roses. Send them when my mates aren’t here nxt time? M x
Jesus, Charlotte. Lay off the wine.
* * * *
Most people keep their knives in the kitchen. Mine were sheathed in my email inbox.
Between the work reminders, messages from old friends and Viagra spam, nestled hoards of old mail from Charlie: five years’ worth of photographs, links, and hotel booking receipts. A legacy made in pixels and breath poured over the screen–my own personal pornography. On long afternoons like this, I splayed the blades and pricked my fingertips until the blood drew sticky sighs.
Like all the best seductions, it was achingly slow. Though handsome for his age, I doubt he attracted many teenaged girls–his eyes crinkled when he smiled, his hair was flecked with grey. There was just something arousing about how he was always right.
His inappropriate flirting became a joke between us. I loved having that kind of rapport with someone who was not only much older–a grown up!–but a master in the field I loved. As I typed his notes, he would stand over me and peer into my shirt, take guesses at the colour of my bra. I always made sure I wore something new.
Often, I fantasized about not wearing one at all.
Did I realize how questionable his behaviour was? Yes. Did I mind? A little bit. Did I want him to stop? God, no.
The first time it happened, I had only been there for a few months. Charlie made excellent excuses and took me with him on a networking dinner. Every gesture he made ended with his fingers brushing my bare thigh. Before long, he ventured up and outright fondled. I had never been so grateful for a flowing white tablecloth.
In the cab, he asked if I minded stopping by the office to pick up some paperwork. I felt nauseous with pleasure at the prospect. The building was dark and deserted and he didn’t bother to switch on the lights; street lamps lit the rooms in milky shadows. I stood at his desk while he rifled through the filing cabinet.
When he came up behind me and put his hands on my hips, I froze.
“I hope I’m not being too forward,” he whispered.
“No.” I swallowed as one hand slid up to my chest.
He cupped a breast, weighed it, rolled my nipple through my clothes. “Do you like it when I touch you like this?”
I nodded, inhaling sharply. Yes, yes, yesss–the erection that prodded my buttocks had turned me into a parselmouth. Huh.
His other hand prodded my thighs from the back. I opened them slightly, holding my breath–I knew what approached and I had been waiting for it for weeks, months even. As he shoved my damp knickers aside and parted me there, I leaned to grip the top of the chair. He laughed as I pushed my pussy into his hand, easing his thumb inside me, and I tightened on him with a little moan.
“Leila…are you a virgin?” The hope was evident in his voice–I didn’t dare to disappoint.
“Yes.” I pushed myself further onto his thumb.
He scraped past my g-spot with frustrating slowness. “Mmm…”
I was sort of a virgin. I’d never done this before.
“But you seem to be a girl who knows what she wants,” he went on, moving his thumb for me now. “Do you want me to stretch you out, little girl? You’re soaking wet.”
“Please. Please.” The words made me dizzy.
His fingers found my clit then, swollen and bruised to the touch. I cried out as he made little circles over it, teasing it from beneath its hood. I’d never been touched with such confidence or precision, and gushed for the first time, slathered his palm.
“You’re a noisy girl.” His clothed cock twitched against the cheeks of my ass. “I wish all the staff were in to hear you moaning for me. You’re going to get a sharp shock when I break you in. Do you understand that?”
I ground harder against his hand. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, Mr Flemming.”
“That’s better.”
He kept stroking in that even rhythm, my whole pelvis tightening with every thrust of his thumb. Each time my muscles tugged downward, I slipped further into throbbing, achy bliss. I sighed breathlessly, turned on even more by my own sounds. The cab honke
d outside in annoyance, but neither of us cared.
I must have stood there, violated so beautifully, for a good ten minutes before my orgasm stirred. Back then, I didn’t much recognize the signs, but I twisted my hips so my clit met his fingers harder, and the buttery walls of my pussy gripped and released him in snares.
When a hot flush seared me from top to bottom, I knew it was coming. He knew. He went faster, deeper, his other hand squeezing my breast under my dress.
“Oh God, oh God,” I cried between breaths. “I’m–I’m going to…”
He panted against the back of my neck as I tipped over the edge. Split on the blade. The dark office rushed up inside me, but got forced back out at the same time. The orgasm devoured my insides until they cramped and ached–like toothache–pain, but I was sweeter for it.
Charlie turned me, still breathless and trembling, to face him in the dim light. “Are you okay?”
I wrapped my arms around him, mewed into his chest. He nuzzled my cheek, and tipped my chin so he could finally claim my mouth. The kiss was slow and teasing, and I smiled like an idiot as he broke away.
“I’ve never done that with a man,” I confessed.
“I hope I haven’t spoiled you for the rest of them.” He grinned.
“Oh.” I leaned in to smell his neck, and Charlotte yelped, frayed at the edges by musk and spices and mellowed body heat “I hope you have.”
He kissed me again, releasing my hips to unbuckle his belt. When he drew my hands down I filled my palms with his cock, so hot and thick as it stood against his belly.
“What do you think?” He swallowed. “Will I fit inside you?”
“I don’t know…but I want you to try.”
“While you’re still so wet,” he murmured, arching his back as I squeezed him, “and so relaxed. Take that dress off for me.”
Off it came in an awkward tangle of arms and hair. I fumbled with my underwear, but when I stood back in nothing but my heels, his appreciation was evident.
“On my desk,” he whispered.
He nodded as I lay back, exposing myself to the warm air while he kicked off his shoes and trousers. In the dark, he reached into his desk drawer and rolled the condom over his length. He still wore his shirt and tie as he climbed on top of me, sending picture frames clattering to the floor. Our kiss grew lazy and indulgent.
“Tell me you want this,” he said, rubbing his cock head over my glistening lips.
“I want it so much it hurts to think about it.”
He lifted my legs and sank into me in one firm, seamless movement. I squealed like it was the first time without even trying, he stretched me so tautly. I hadn’t felt my boyfriend nearly so deep and I bit into his shoulder to shut myself up.
Charlie worked himself in and out of me with deliberate slowness.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he panted. “Do you like it, angel? Being full up?”
“Mmm.” I matched his thrusts now. To think–I’d always matched his desire. “Harder, please…”
He spread my legs farther as he gained pace. My skin burned against the desk as the impact pushed me along, and we knocked over folders, files, clouds of paper. I moaned into his mouth as he alternated kisses with ragged breaths, watching wide-eyed as he lifted my arms and pinned them over my head.
How much of this was a normal girl supposed to take? Good job I didn’t have to walk home...Jesus.
“Charlie,” I whimpered, “you’re so big…so big it’s hurting me…please…” I said it so naively. I didn’t realize how much he wanted to hear the words.
He made a sharp thrust and started to moan my name.
The room blurred in rapid dissolves–the way he ground into me, how I throbbed inside, his rapid breath. Then he collapsed over me, utterly spent.
We lay like that for a few minutes. I loved the feel of his weight on top of me–I lay surrendered and delightfully sore. He lapped at my neck like a school boy, sleepy-eyed with sated pleasure.
“Do you think the cab will still be outside?” he asked.
I laughed. “I doubt it.”
“I’ll call another in a moment.” He lifted himself on his arms and pulled out of me, wandering over to the bin. I sat up to watch him, loving the way his firm ass cheeks peeked out from beneath his shirt. When he turned back, his erection still led the way.
“Look at you. I’ve always dreamed of having a naked girl on my desk.”
I wrapped my legs around him as we kissed, my heels scraping over his bare calves.
“I’m a lucky man. Thank you.”
“Thank you, too.”
His cock nudged between my crushed lips and we sighed together.
“I’d take you again, I would,” he murmured, “but your parents will kill me if I don’t have you home soon.”
We dressed together, Charlie fastening my bra and zipping up my dress. Later, I noticed him leaving empty-handed.
“Didn’t you need something from the cabinet?” I said.
He smirked at me. “I got what I came for.”
And so did I.
Charlie taught me the difference between education and corruption–how sweet it felt to teeter on the jagged line between. We never had a relationship in any agreed sense, and all I wanted was the odd fistful of his time. Maybe I loved the adrenaline more than him. Maybe, even then, I was different.
Now I scrolled through the late night filth we’d exchanged during my degree, the photographs he sent me from his trips to Bruges and Brussels. The website of our original hotel suite had been the first bookmark on every new laptop, and I still darted back to peer at the crisp covers on that bed. In stories for little girls, we throw white sheets over ghosts. Funny, how the place he violated me so beautifully was dressed as the same. I’d been so self-conscious with his mouth on my inner thighs that I trembled before the shadows that watched us.
Two years ago, I opened his final email and the last shreds of heat seeped away. He was about to marry a woman from work and he was trying to be a good boy. There was disappointment–of course I’d miss him. But there was confusion, too, that he could fall so easily into a mould that we broke without trying...and a tiny echo of hope that I might learn to behave myself and have the things normal girls have: one man, a white dress, satisfied parents.
The thought never bore any fruit, though. I was still broken glass.
Charlie’s parting gift was my reference for Bach and Dagier. He had been my mentor in law as much as the bedroom, and I valued his faith in me most of all. There had been Ladarna clients who shared his name, and I closed my eyes and murmured until my throat went hoarse. No, it wasn’t the same…but the first cut, as they say, is the deepest, and I wasn’t in the position to tell them not to lick my wounds.
* * * *
The water poured down in glistening sheets. It was bittersweet, showering away my wreck of a Friday and the stickiness of recreating Charlie. I scowled at the realization that the only caress I would receive today was from soap.
I hadn’t been out on a Saturday night in months. I’d forgotten how to dress for it, because everything I owned seemed business-like and cut for stripping off easily. A classic black dress seemed a very lazy choice.
Still, I was feeling awfully lazy that evening. I pinned my hair up loosely, fastened on impossibly high sandals and tottered out into the dusk.
Aidan waited at the bar, attempting to seduce the waiters with his mischievous grin. It was always such fun to watch him lure them away–only to drop into the conversation that an hour with him cost more than their week’s wages.
“Lei-Lei!” he shouted, folding me into a huge bear hug.
“My friendly neighbourhood cock fiend.” I giggled. “I feel like it’s been ages.”
“A few weeks since that American guy. What are you drinking?”
“Water and lemon, please.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “You aren’t seriously that hard up already?”
“No, but I had a drunken shoppi
ng incident earlier and–”
“Really? Ugh, God. Time for reinforcements.” He waved a hand in the air. “Nikolai, you heard the woman–two Long Island iced teas.”
“I’ll bring them over,” replied the long-suffering waiter.
We found a corner away from the evening buzz and sank into creaky leather sofas.
Aidan had provided my whoring training wheels. William would advertise us as a couple, and I did my first three jobs with him, watching, learning, partaking. It could’ve been a strange friendship born out of performing together–perhaps it was–but trust and ease were present too. I asked him once if he felt strange fucking me as his pupil or cousin or best friend’s little sister, answering all the client’s questions about our sordid little role-plays.
He’d laughed and said it made him harder.
I called him a pervert. A true bond was forged.
“Tell me about the new Lei-Lei, then,” he demanded. “Are you respectable now? Too busy doing braniac maths for rim jobs?”
I swatted him. “I can’t moonlight forever, you know. I want to be normal eventually.”
“You’re a tax lawyer. You’ll never be normal.” Our drinks arrived and he gave Nikolai a teasing stare. “Gah. I can’t seem to break him.”
“Maybe he doesn’t swing that way?” I toyed with my straw.
“Bollocks! Everyone swings that way. Some of them just don’t know it yet.”
Aidan had a lot of interesting theories on sexuality. The basis seemed to be that if someone wouldn’t screw him, they were in some form of denial.
“Maybe you need to wear something more low-cut,” I mused.
He stared down his nose at me. “Just because you can afford to show a hint of areola for free now, doesn’t mean we all can.”
I tugged up the bodice of my dress. “Cheers for that.”
“My pleasure, you smug bitch.” He clinked his glass against mine. “To Lei-Lei’s normal life. May she marry a run-of-the-mill John with a slight beer belly, who only likes missionary with his socks still on.”
“To John. I can see it now. On Tuesdays, he plays badminton and on Wednesdays, I make shepherd’s pie–”
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