The Juliette Society, Book III

by Sasha Grey

  Perfect.

  I’d smile if I wasn’t getting what I wanted. I’d said the truth would set you free.

  You didn’t think I meant I was going to tell him the truth about why I’d come—tell him there’s a faction trying to kill him and I’m the one they want to be the weapon of his destruction, did you?

  The truth that shall set me free is his confession. I’m recording our conversation with my phone, not hoping to get something to blackmail him into incriminating himself for leverage because at this point he’s a man whose ego wouldn’t stand for being blackmailed. But after, when this is all over, I might need proof that’s more substantial than my word against a dead man’s…but I wasn’t expecting him to give up the goods so spectacularly.

  He’s giving me everything.

  “So, you convinced The Juliette Society members that Inana was going to expose them, and that’s why you haven’t been put down like the rabid dog you are.”

  He belly-laughs, which changes to a coughing fit. “Don’t flatter me.”

  “I loved Inana. I loved Anna.”

  His laughter cuts off as suddenly as it started, and he goes dead-eyed like a fish on a slab waiting to be scaled. “I know. And you’ll all be together very soon.”

  A little of my smugness evaporates at that, but I hold onto my bravado. “Oh? Are you going to kill me next, X?”

  He stares at me, breathing for a few moments, enjoying his drink while I wait him out. He speaks first. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? You think you can waltz in here with your big eyes and perky tits and get what you want.”

  “Aw, are you saying you’re not attracted to me? Was it something I said, or something I did? Didn’t you like our date the other night?”

  He squirms in his chair and I’m surprised to realize he actually liked it.

  He loved every minute of what I did to him. I bite my lip, confused as to what he’s plotting, if not my demise.

  “You’re not the first who’s tried to secretly record me—and I know exactly what you’re doing, but it won’t work. Go ahead, check your phone, darling. Let there be no secrets between us.” His words are sweet but his eyes are deadly.

  I don’t want to, but I pull my phone out. It’s off. I frown and try to turn it on, but nothing. “What did you do?” I ask, uneasy for the first time since I walked up to his door today.

  He finishes his drink. “There are perks to knowing people, the way I do. I have friends with their fingers in the pies of all kinds of neat sectors. Technology and communications, for example. I have to hand it to you, you’re braver than the others.”

  He says it to break me, but I bury the agony that flashes through me at his words beneath rage. My stomach tenses and I swallow back bile that scorches my throat. Inana was like a hero, a muse to me, and he killed her like she was nothing. He thought he did the same to Anna. He’s done the same to thousands, maybe tens of thousands of other people with his designer virus experiments.

  And yet, I’m still breathing. Why am I the anomaly?

  Fate? Demons? The will of a tyrant? The boredom of a god?

  Is it because he wants to draw out my fear, really savor it down to the last drop before he finally stops playing with me and takes me out of the game entirely? I figured out long ago that his true weakness, ironically, is that he’s all about power; a power fetishist, really. But his fetish swings both ways, it seems.

  Instead of freaking out, I need to use that to my advantage. Because him disabling my recording hasn’t saved him or convinced me to reconsider what I’m about to do.

  I slip my jacket off, nonchalantly as though the jig is up and it’s all over. “I don’t know if I’m braver than the others, but I’m different than them. You’re right about that. I came to apologize, tell you I’ll write your story, but I also wanted a little guarantee. That’s what this little present is for. ” His eyes slide up and down my arms and body as I fold the jacket and set it in a chair in the corner, taking my time when I walk back to my seat.

  I channel every classic movie vixen when I cross my legs and place my elbows on the armrests, because what he wants is a show. What all men like him want is a show. They don’t care about the reality of us—they want the fantasy more than anything, because the fantasy is all about giving them what they want without ever rejecting them. The fantasy never has a headache or a boyfriend she loves more than you.

  She’s always there for you to project upon. Just like waitresses and sexy cops and every other uniformed stereotype we dream about in the dark while erasing their identities.

  I smile. “You liked what I did the other night. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to handle it, X.”

  “I can handle anything,” he snarls. “Anything.”

  Daddy issues? Abuse? Was it nature or nurture that warped this thing in front of me into the shape of a man? “So I saw,” I demure. “You more than proved that to me.” I uncross my legs, giving him a flash of panties, and I wish I’d worn none.

  It does the trick anyways, and his hand reaches for his glass again before he realizes it’s empty. I stand and take the decanter, pouring him a refill so he doesn’t feel powerless and threatened. It’s a delicate balance; a hair in either direction, and I’m not fucked—I’m dead.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to like the things I did, X. I was expecting you to be mad, furious at me for doing them. But you aren’t. You passed the test and I see in you something I feel in myself. I thought Inana was like me. I didn’t know anyone else on the island shared the same proclivities. There’s a word for people like us, X. Do you know what it is?”

  “Sadomasochists.”

  Interesting—and along the lines of what I think he is. I incline my head and hand him the glass, letting my fingers touch his. “Free.”

  His eyes narrow thoughtfully and pulls his hand away, taking a sip. “Go on.”

  “You and I know there’s limits others live by that we eschew. Pleasure or pain. Dominate or submit. It’s like cutting off one of your arms. Why live with half an existence because we’re taught that half a life is all we should want?” I’m using every bit of the training I’ve had to control my body and emotions so as not to reveal the depths of my revulsion to this man and convince him that his power is sexy.

  I realize now that taping a confession from him is out. Even if I got it, he’d sooner kill me than allow me to blackmail him. He may have let me strap him down, blindfold him, gag him, and let two men with large cocks fuck him in the ass, but to let me have any permanent power over him?

  Unthinkable.

  As long as it’s the bedroom, his ego would allow it. Outside those walls? He’d rather die.

  “Here’s your gift.” I present him with my companion, giving her leash a tug. This is the first time both of his hands have been visible.

  He’s got a weapon under the table and up until now, he’s been debating about whether or not he’ll use it, whatever it is. Gun? Knife? Poison in a glass?

  “You never offered me a drink,” I chastise him.

  “This is worth forty thousand a bottle,” he replies.

  I wink at him. “Then make mine a double. I’m worth it.”

  And I brace my hands on the arms of his chair, and turn it away from the desk, to separate him from whatever he had hidden. I walk around him in a slow circuit, letting him see my nipples jutting proudly out in front of me. Letting him see my tight ass as I walk for him, swaying my hips as I snap my fingers and point at his feet. “Come, puppy.”

  She crawls over to us on her little booties that match her latex suit and sits at his feet.

  I walk behind him, sliding my fingers through his hair. “Puppy likes to use her feet. Why don’t you uncover them for her?”

  His fingers fumble to remove the booties and reveal my puppy’s pretty pink toes and blood red nails. He guides her toes to his crotch, and she rubs his cock through his pants.

  I whisper in his ear. “I wanted to do so much more to you. You know
, the worst part was that I had to leave, instead of staying to watch what those men did to you. Did they fuck you hard?”

  He nods and his cock peeks up over the top of his pants like the Loch Ness monster rearing its ugly head above the surface of the water. He jerks his pants down and she pinches the skin of his cock between her toes. He gasps as she cradles the shaft between her arches and begins jerking him off with her feet.

  I smile, not faking my happiness at hearing that he got fucked hard because of me. “Did it make you sore the next day?”

  He nods again and jerks my puppy up to her knees. “Does puppy use her tongue like a good bitch?”

  “Why don’t we let her use her hands first?” I unbuckle the booties and she flexes her fingers with a slow sensuality, stretching out the show, before she grabs him and starts stroking with frantic tugs at his hairy cock. I shudder, but with my forced moan, he thinks it’s out of desire.

  We see what we want to see.

  I shove her out of the way and spin him around again so I’m standing behind him, leaning down. I reach down and viciously pinch his nipples. He jumps and groans through clenched teeth.

  “I want to fuck your asshole,” he says.

  “I want to fuck yours,” I counter. “What a delicious relationship one like this could be,” I whisper in his ear, nipping it between my teeth. He nods.

  He’s in a vulnerable position and I almost hate to admit it, but I’m wet. Not because of him, but because a relationship like this would be hot under different circumstances with someone very different.

  What’s that say about me?

  “Puppy? Stand.” She does. I walk around the chair, carefully untangling the leash before handing it back to her.

  And in one fast jerk, she pulls the leash tight, choking him with it, bracing her knee against the back of the chair.

  His hands fly up to try to get beneath the leather, but he’s unable to, and begins making little choking sounds.

  “Puppy? Time to show the man how pretty you are.” I strip the mask off her and she leans down in his face.

  Anna.

  Giving her this moment of revenge against the man who took her life seemed only fair. This evens the score.

  But a strange sound comes from her and her hands shake.

  “Catherine, I can’t. I can’t!”

  She lets go of the leash and I fumble to grab it. “Anna! You wanted this. We need this to happen.”

  She throws herself on his lap, holding his hands down to the arms of the chair. “Please,” she whispers, tears streaming down her face. She lets go of the leash and X claws at his throat, weakly gasping for air. I fumble to grab the leash as it falls. “Anna! You wanted…”

  I came to do what needed to be done. To give Anna vengeance. To end this man’s horrible existence. Anna was more than game for it. But now that the chips are down, something’s holding her back.

  Mercy? Regret? What is it that separates her and me? We’re so close, so similar, and yet something inside me fights harder to survive.

  The part that would never allow anyone to even fake my death slides forth from the shadows inside me, grinning with a knife between its teeth.

  I can do this. I can do what Anna can’t. “Maybe we’re too much alike, X. It could never have lasted anyways.” I kiss his forehead and quickly tighten the leash with another twist, looping it back around his neck, and pulling hard, tucking my hands safely behind the back of the chair where he can’t reach them.

  Surprise and betrayal flash in his eyes but I’m thinking back to Bob, thinking back to times this was sexy, Inana’s words flashing through her mind about shattering our own limits.

  And then I’m choking X, but all I can see, all I can remember, are other times I’ve choked and been choked.

  DeVille reaching for my wrists, not so he can stop me from striking him again, but to pull them down. Towards his neck.

  He says, “Let’s switch. Choke me.”

  His hands are on mine. My hands are on his neck.

  He says, “Harder.”

  And I squeeze.

  “Harder.”

  My hard is evidently not hard enough.

  He says it again and he’s shouting it now, over and over and over. Like a sports coach trying to make his athletes burn. And I’m incensed.

  I squeeze as hard as he wanted and now, X’s hands flap uselessly up at me as the petechial hemorrhages burst into his eyes, scarring the whites with red. His expensively constructed heavy chair is the perfect shield for me. I’m safe behind his back and he’s looking up at me with an expression that’s tinged with awe.

  What is it that he’s seeing, I wonder. I bend a little closer to try and see myself in the reflection of his eyes, to see what I look like right now while killing him.

  But my mind flashes with memories of every time I’ve choked myself, blocking my vision with a haze of nostalgia.

  I’m remembering cocks hitting the back of my throat when an enthusiastic recipient of a blowjob thrust a bit too far or too suddenly for me to avoid it.

  I’m thinking about fantasies where men seduced me and wrapped silk scarves around my neck and played with my breath like it was their God-given right to take it away.

  I’m remembering the interest I’ve buried and just now been reminded of, in auto-erotic asphyxiation but I was never brave enough to delve deeper into it, for fear of going too far and not waking up after I came and being found in an embarrassing position by a loved one or a stranger.

  I’m thinking about choking on words I never got to say to people I love and how I’ll never swallow them back again, because any day could be our last and I won’t squander an “I love you,” from this day forward.

  All these and more superimpose themselves over the reality of what’s happening right now in this room. I even think of the times I metaphorically choked, and never went for the things I should have because I was scared to want more than I thought I deserved, and that above all else makes me angry with myself. I could have wasted my life and been killed like I was nothing tonight.

  But now it won’t, because I refuse to be a victim to this choke.

  This whole thing has been a metaphor for my life, my desires, my wishes and needs. This is horrible and important and something I never thought myself capable of.

  This is necessary.

  This is me taking back control. This is me saying to the universe that I will not be snuffed out; that I will fight and struggle and take whatever it gives and give back even more of the same so it had better not try to fuck with me or the people I love ever again.

  Some people walk up to the void and step back.

  This is me going one step further.

  I am Karma, bringing balance to the life and the universe, so watch your back.

  I am Kali. Power, change, destruction, liberation. So watch your front as well.

  Catherine is not going to die today. I do not live in the shadows like a beaten down stray mutt. I’ve still got things to say and dreams to breathe life into.

  I am breathing heavily and smiling as the tension leaves X’s body and he slumps into a heap of meat.

  I hold on for what feels like another five minutes, but is likely way shorter, tightening the makeshift noose to ensure that his ghost, if there is one lingering about, knows there’s no way he’s coming back from this.

  There’s no way that I’m coming back from this.

  I’ve moved from innocence to experience, from an ingénue to a genius of sex. And every experience has made me empowered by my sexuality, rather than conflicted by it, and I think that is a story worth telling—a positive thing in a culture that does so little to educate young women as they move into adulthood about their bodies and desires; and, at the same time, denies and marginalizes the sexuality of adult women. There’s power in sex. Power in getting to know every inch of yourself inside and out and exploiting the things you can do for pleasure…and as weapons.

  Wield the things you learn about
yourself and no one can ever harm you with them.

  X can never harm anyone with his actions or words or power or wealth ever again. He’s nothing. The world he thought he ruled for so long is the one that took me in and nurtured the parts deep within me that made it capable to find the strength within to do what must be done.

  Right, wrong, it is what it is.

  And the part of me roaring with righteousness inside my chest is inordinately pleased that I was the one to reduce his awful existence to this.

  If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure this is exactly the way he’d have wanted to go out. Naked with an erection, strangled with a leash by a woman half his age.

  When I’m certain Mr. X is dead, when my heart slows back down to a bearable pace, I sit at X’s desk and pick up his phone. Anna shakes from head to toe, but the relief and gratitude in her eyes pleases me.

  I punch in the number I was given, wondering if he’ll even be a little bit surprised to hear from me.

  “Bob DeVille, here.”

  I take a deep, cleansing breath. “Hello, Bob.”

  “Catherine?”

  “I need your help.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  NOW THAT THE ADRENALINE’S WORN off a bit, Anna and I pant and lean heavily against the door of my place, keeping it locked behind us as Bob instructed me on the phone. I’m not sure if I liked leaving X’s body—part of me wants whomever Bob sends to clean up the situation to know it was me who did it.

  Would Bob take credit for that? Credit, blame… There’s a knock at the door.

  Of course there is.

  Anna jumps and whimpers.

  “No matter what, it will be okay,” I whisper, truly believing it.

  Funny, she’s the one cowering with fear and shame, since I’m the one who should have the guilty conscience. Bob said to lay low when we got out of there. Since I no longer believe in coincidence, I motion for Anna to hide. I wait until she’s safely hidden away before moving to the door, though I do pause to grab a heavy bookend to use as a weapon if need be. Yeah, even after what I just did, I’d do it again to protect her, to protect me from retaliation.