Beyond The Lies

by Abbi Cook

  In the haze of need and wanting to come, I think about how good she feels like this and wish she’d open her eyes and look up at me, but she keeps them tightly shut. Beneath them, the skin glistens from tears that began to flow right after I ordered her onto her knees.

  Little one. I almost said her name when I told her to kneel in front of me. I couldn’t, though. That would make it too much like I wanted to hurt her intentionally with this. It would be too personal. Too intimate.

  Better to use the nickname I chose for her that first night. That name means nothing. I use it mostly to taunt her. Nothing personal about it. Just a nickname I’d give anyone like her.

  I feel my balls tighten, tearing me out of my thoughts, and a moment later, I come in her mouth as the noise of the office filters back into my consciousness. Looking down, I watch Sophie wipe her tears and struggle to deal with what I just shot into her.

  Only a few seconds more of this performance, Sophie. You’re almost there.

  While I stuff my cock back into my pants, I turn my head to look at Duke and say as casually as I can, “So is that settled? She’s mine.”

  It’s not really a question I want an answer to. Sophie’s mine. Period. Now go fuck off, Tap.

  “I guess so. Do with her as you like.”

  Pulling her up to her feet, I don’t listen to Tap’s continued protests. It’s fucking settled. “She’s mine. End of story.”

  Duke nods, giving the matter a definitive end as I quietly breathe a sigh of relief. “Enough! Tap, she’s King’s. And that’s all I want to hear about this. Fuck, you guys have become like a fucking soap opera. Let’s get to work.”

  “Now that’s done, I’m going to take her back to my apartment. I’ll be right back.”

  No one says a word, so I quickly guide Sophie out of the office. We walk in silence back to my place as I try to think of a way to tell her I did what I did to protect her.

  The problem is she refuses to look at me. I’m not even sure I could get her to face me if I ordered her to now.

  Finally, we climb the stairs and reach my apartment. Once inside and out of view of anyone who might see, she yanks her arm from my hold.

  Spinning around to face me, she screams, “I hate you! I should have known you were all alike. I fucking trusted you! I trusted you!”

  She barely gets the words out before she begins to cry. With each sob, I feel sick and want to make her understand why I forced her to do that back there.

  “I did that to make sure Tap couldn’t claim you,” I explain, but my voice is drowned out by her sobs.

  Somehow, she hears me and shakes her head. “As if you and that pig are any different. I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself you are, but you’re wrong. You did that for you, not me.”

  Her words tear at me. I don’t have time to listen to this, though.

  “Believe what you want, but I told you I’d keep you with me, and I kept my word. Make yourself comfortable, little one. While you’re here, this is where you’ll stay.”

  I turn to leave, and just before I close the door behind me, I hear her say, “I fucking hate you. I hope that pig slits your throat and you bleed to death. I hope you suffer too.”

  Looking back, I see nothing but hate in her eyes now. As I lock the door from the outside and begin walking back to Duke’s office, I can’t push away the memory of how much hate she has inside her for me.

  It shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

  By the time I get to Duke’s, my stomach’s twisted into a tight knot. I can’t let my boss or any of these guys see anything that’s happened affects me, though. Any hint of weakness and Tap will be challenging my claim to Sophie every fucking day.

  So I have to be the man she hates.

  Strolling into the office, I grin like the cat who just ate the canary, pretending to be the cocksure fuck I’ve always been. “So what’s on tap for today?”

  They all look at me, and I see admiration in Dane’s eyes while something that looks like grudging respect fills Marsh and Still’s expressions. Tap is still whining like a little bitch about life not being fair, and Duke seems amused by me, like he often is.

  “Life is never dull since you came around, King,” he says with a chuckle and then pats me on the back.

  “Don’t blame me for any excitement. That’s all Tap over there. I was happy to just go on living my life, and now I get to add performer in a live sex show to my resume,” I joke.

  Everyone but Tap bursts out laughing, instantly making me believe they buy my act. Good. I’ve worked too fucking hard since I got here to have it all blown up by the likes of that asshole.

  As for Sophie, I did what I had to in order to keep her safe. I’d do it again, too. One blowjob and the hate she has for me now is worth it if I don’t have to constantly go up against Tap for her.

  Hopefully, she’ll see that. If not, then I better get used to sleeping with one eye open.

  Better me than that asshole who would kill her just as soon as fuck her. At least I only want to do one of those.

  Chapter Nine

  Sophie

  The silence of this horrible place presses down on me like King’s filthy hand on the top of my head. Every breath in is filled with his fucking scent. My ears ring with the sound of him panting above me as he forced his cock into my mouth. My brain is filled with one all-consuming thought.

  I hate him. I hate him so much it makes me shake.

  Pacing through his apartment, I look at his things and assign that hate to them. His bed. I hate it because he sleeps there. I want to rip the sheets off that fucking bed and lie in wait for him until he returns. Then I want to wrap them around his neck and tighten them until his face turns blue. Maybe for good measure, I could hang him from the hook on the back of the closet door and sit on the edge of that goddamned bed as he slowly dies and I watch with nothing but the purest happiness in my heart.

  I want him dead. I want to watch him when the life drains from his face. My mind fills with the fantasy of being able to see that. I want to be there when he has no control over his tormentor and see the fear and dread in his eyes.

  Step by step, I pace through this fucking place and hate every inch of it. I’m filled with so much of that one emotion that I don’t think I can keep it in. I sense tears welling in my eyes and fight like I’ve never fought before to stop them from coming.

  I don’t want to cry. I’m not weak. I won’t cry because of him. I won’t.

  Midway through the living room, I stop next to the couch that’s become my makeshift bed and the tears begin to come. No matter what I do, I can’t stop them. They roll down over my cheeks into my mouth and down my neck. They keep coming even as I scream, “I’m not fucking weak! I’m not!”

  They blur my vision so I can’t see to walk anymore. I stand there sobbing like a baby until I collapse, exhausted from all that’s happened this morning. Last night. Every minute since that fucking asshole Tap grabbed me and stuffed me into the backseat of that car.

  I sit there crying in a crumpled heap on the floor next to the couch, like some filthy pile of clothes discarded after being used. Crying morphs into hyperventilating, and then I taste the first hint of bile in my mouth.

  After barely making it to the bathroom, I throw up in the toilet. My stomach contracts violently with each push my body makes to get all of King out of my system. I flush it all away and pray that’s the end of it, but another wave of nausea washes over me and soon I’m bent over once more, puking all that’s left in my stomach into the bowl. After a while, I begin retching and nothing comes up. Dry heave after dry heave tears at me, and my insides feel like they’re fighting to exit through my mouth but can’t.

  Pain tears at my sides and my ribs feel like someone’s used them for sparring practice, but I can’t stand over the toilet anymore. Staggering back, I lose my footing on the tile and tumble to the floor in front of the shower enclosure.

  I have nothing more inside me. No more of King. No more
tears. Nothing. I’m hollow, emptied out of all the good and the bad.

  Then why the fuck do I still feel so terrible?

  I ease myself up, first on my hands and knees and then slowly until I’m standing on the floor which just betrayed me. Fucking tile. No wonder. It’s just like him.

  Looking into the mirror, my reflection startles me at first. I look so weak. My mascara that’s days old now has run under my eyes, which are all sunken in. I look pathetic.

  My cheeks are hollowed out, like some hideous almost skull-looking thing. Just a few days of this world and I’m already sickened by my own appearance.

  I’m someone’s prisoner. A man’s sex slave. A disgusting thing paraded in front of other disgusting things by the most disgusting one of all.

  How could I have ever thought I felt anything for him?

  I peel my clothes off and step into the shower, desperate to feel clean again. I turn the water to as hot as I can make it and flinch when the first scorching beads hit my skin. It stings like someone running sharp blades over my body. God, I wish that was the case. To be free of the layer of skin that endured what King forced me to do in front of those horrid creatures so I could start over fresh and clean again is all I can dream of.

  But no amount of hot water or soap makes that happen. I scrub my arms and legs with that disgusting green soap he uses, yet I don’t feel clean. The overly sweet scent of it threatens to make me retch, even though there’s nothing left inside me to come out.

  I stand so long in the shower with the water pouring over me that it begins to cool, but I don’t care. I’m not clean yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be clean again, but I can’t leave this spot yet.

  By the time the water runs ice cold, my empty insides are filled with the singular emotion that fuels me.

  Hate.

  It increases with every second my brain can’t do anything else but replay those moments in his boss’s office when he made me less than human. The moment he pushed me down onto my knees. The moment he smirked at one of his fellow despicable creatures, as if forcing me to suck his cock was amusing. The moment he put it into my mouth, degrading me like some fucking whore whose sole purpose in life is to please him.

  I’d cry if I had any tears left, but I have nothing but my hate and rage. They fill me until I think they’re about to seep out of every pore and hole in my body.

  As I step out of the shower, I stand on the mat and stare down at my clothes I’ve worn for days. I don’t want to wear them ever again. They remind me of what he did.

  But what choice do I have? Nothing in this fucking place is mine. Jailed in his apartment, the only other choice is to wear something of his, but the very idea makes me want to hit something.

  I wrap a towel around myself and grab my clothes from the floor, disgusted and angry. Storming through the apartment, I make my way to the kitchen and find a washing machine and dryer I hadn’t noticed before.

  Maybe if I wash them in the hottest water possible with bleach I can put them on without wanting to throw up.

  I toss them into the washing machine and grab the bottle of bleach from the shelf above me. I don’t care that my pink shirt and blue shorts will be ruined. Anything to get rid of the proof of what happened.

  The smell of the bleach as I pour it onto my clothes nearly chokes me, but I drown them in the stuff before slamming the lid down and starting the machine. With the amount I used, I’ll likely have all-white clothes. I don’t care. As long as I don’t look at them and think of him and what he made me do.

  My hands shake at the thought of him. I want to scream. I want to run away. I want to hit my fists against something.

  Against his face.

  The mere thought of him repulses me now. The metallic taste of those silver metal studs on his cock sits on my tongue like some horrible memory I’m forced to relive over and over. It mixes with the salty taste of his cum I can’t get rid of. Even after throwing up, I can still taste him.

  Or maybe it’s some phantom sensory memory that will never go away.

  I walk back into the bathroom and search the vanity for toothpaste to rid myself of these disgusting reminders. He uses the same peppermint flavor that I have at home, and instantly when I grab the tube to squeeze out a glob onto my fingertip, my heart drops in despair.

  Will I ever be free of this place and him and return to my life?

  Then a horrible thought enters my brain, upending all my misery. What will I be if I ever do return to that life?

  Pushing that out of my head, I rub the toothpaste over my teeth and tongue. But still the taste of him remains. So I squeeze out a second glob and press it to the center of my tongue. A memory of some article I read or heard about years ago on taste buds flashes through my mind, so I rub the minty stuff along the sides of my tongue too, hoping to get to every possible place where those taste memories of his cock, those metal studs, and his cum exist.

  But none of it works. I can still taste him in my mouth.

  Disgusted, I throw the tube of toothpaste back into the vanity and slam the cabinet door before walking back to the living room. Exhausted from too much emotion and all that’s happened this morning, I lay down and close my eyes.

  The last thought I have before falling asleep is my uncle and his men coming to this awful place and killing every single one of the men who stood in that office and watched King strip me of the last shred of my dignity. Then they turn to him and cut him up into pieces while he screams in agony and begs for mercy from me.

  My eyes fly open at the sound of someone turning the doorknob, and I wake up to see him coming through the door. He glances at me but says nothing before walking into his bedroom and closing the door.

  “Nothing to say to the woman you dehumanized this morning, King? Asshole. I hate you,” I mumble under my breath as I work to shake off the last vestiges of my long nap.

  My hate pushes against every inch of my insides as I sit there loathing his very existence. I hear his bedroom door open and brace myself for him to return to the living room. He likely has something to say. What could he possibly say after this morning?

  I don’t know, and I don’t care.

  After a few minutes, he doesn’t come to where I’m sitting in a towel, my clothes finished in the washer hours ago while I slept. I hear him making some kind of clanging noise in the kitchen and hate that I have to walk in there to put my clothes in the dryer, but I can’t stay in this towel.

  Marching past him as he sits at the kitchen table surrounded by pots and pans and a package of some kind of meat, I clutch my towel to make sure I’m covered and head for the washer. He doesn’t look up from reading some label on the food, thankfully, and I look into the machine to see my clothes are all white. The pink top, the blue running shorts, the tan bra and blue underwear. All stark white.

  The smell of bleach sends me backwards a few steps, and I shake my head to get my bearings. One quick grab into the washer and I have all my clothes in my hand before I toss them into the dryer and start it.

  As I walk past him again, he says in a low voice, “I don’t know how much bleach you used, but that smell is enough to knock me over.”

  I don’t answer him, but silently I tell him to fuck off and die. I’m not sure I’m brave enough at that moment to say those words out loud. I don’t know what he’ll do to me if I do.

  Then again, does it really matter? After what he’s done so far, how much worse could it get?

  A few minutes later, the tempting aroma of something cooking drifts into the living room where I sit in the only spot in this goddamned place that doesn’t feel like it’s entirely his. Not that I have any ownership of the couch, but at least it doesn’t reek of him.

  With every second that passes, the smell of food makes me hungrier and hungrier. I don’t want to even see him, much less ask for something to eat. Not from him. I won’t beg for anything from him.

  Lost in thought about how what I really want to do is jam a knife into his j
ugular and watch as the blood spurts out like a geyser, I don’t see him enter the room. He stops in front of the coffee table between us and places a plate with a hamburger and fries down in front of me. Instantly, my mouth waters since I’m so hungry. I don’t want to take anything from him, though.

  He doesn’t speak a word to me, and a second later, he walks away, leaving me with the dinner he’s made, my hate that makes even thinking about eating something he’s made revolting, and my empty stomach that doesn’t give a damn about how I feel about him.

  The first bite of the hamburger makes me drool like a starving dog it tastes so good. I don’t usually like hamburgers, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  No. I won’t beg. I’d rather starve, no matter what my fucking stomach wants to say about it.

  After a few bites of the burger and a handful of fries, I’m parched and need a drink. That means I have to walk into the kitchen where he is.

  I march to the refrigerator, making sure not to look over at him, and open the door to see nothing but beer. No containers of juice. No jug of milk. No food at all either.

  Add that to the plethora of reasons I hate him.

  Staring into the empty depths of the refrigerator, I say flatly, “I need a drink.”

  “All I have is beer,” he answers before smacking his lips after taking a sip of that very drink.

  I can’t stop myself from spinning around to snap, “Beer will make me throw up. Since I spent the morning doing that, I’d like to avoid a repeat performance now.”

  He winces at my mention of getting sick and then looks down at his plate. “There’s water from the faucet.”

  Disgusted by his answer, I grab a glass out of the cabinet and get a drink of water. The taste of it when it hits my tongue reminds me of the taste of those metal studs on his cock. Forcing the water down, I swallow quickly and leave to go back to my perch on the couch.

  As I eat the rest of my food, I can’t help but think about how he winced when I said I spent the morning throwing up. Were his feeling hurt by that? Too fucking bad. After what he did, I don’t give a single fuck about his feelings.