The Dominator (14 page)

Sarah had given me some aloe gel with lidocaine to spread on my backside and my rug burn so that it’d help numb me. She hadn’t asked any more questions but her lips were pursed tight when she’d passed me the bottle of gel, and said, “For your…” she motioned to her own behind and said nothing else. When I was ready she beamed, “You’re pretty as a picture.” Sarah glanced at her wristwatch, “Okay, he’ll be here soon.  Something to drink first?”

I shook my head at her. I didn’t have any desire to go out on a date with this guy. How could I be in public and pretend to be okay with all of this? I wondered, idly, if he’d update me on the situation with my Dad, with Rose and Cal.  All day yesterday I’d worried about all of them but today I was pretty numb about even that. I was mad at myself, mad for responding to him sexually. I didn’t want to think about it but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was I some kind of mutant? Was I just in shock from everything that had happened in the past few days? Was it all self-preservation? Maybe I could get away. But what if I failed? What would he do to me then?

I started to think that all this was all my fault. Karmic justice. I’d always been drawn to romance novels where the hero was roguish, I’d loved the part in Gone with the Wind where Rhett carried Scarlett up to bed against her will and she was all happy in the morning. I’d even once had a kind of rape fantasy and I’d beat myself up for it afterwards. I’d been touching myself, imagining the drummer of my favorite band but it wasn’t all romance in the fantasy. As I’d touched myself my fantasy morphed from him and I in his dressing room having rough hair pulling sex against the wall to the whole band coming in, holding me down, and taking turns. That was the hardest I’d made myself come, ever, and after that, maybe the guilt over that fantasy was why I’d always stopped touching myself when I started to come, culling the orgasm or something. I’d never wanted to let my mind go there after that. I’d told myself that it was so wrong to even fantasize about when that was the sort of thing that happened to real women, women who’d be broken forever after something like that. Was I a mutant for responding to that sort of behavior? Now I was a real woman who was imprisoned in a sexually abusive relationship. Maybe it served me right.

Tommy

She stepped out of the house looking gorgeous. Her long dark hair fell in soft waves today and she wore a sexy little red dress with thin straps over her bare shoulders and had bare legs, heeled sandals, and when she got into the passenger seat of my car, my hand instantly travelled up her leg, under her dress.

She squirmed, red-faced.

“Don’t be shy. Kiss me.” I leaned over.

She sat stiffly in the seat and wouldn’t look in my direction.

Earl and Sarah were standing on the front steps looking at us.

I gritted my teeth and squeezed her leg a little then whispered, “Kiss me, Athena. My staff are watching.” I glanced at her knees, they were both rug burnt and scabbed over. I felt myself get hard, remembering her on her knees on my bedroom floor.

She flashed a look of confusion at me and then glanced at Earl and Sarah, then back at me.

“You actually want everyone to think I’m okay with all of this?” the challenge in her eyes got me harder. Her full lips were bright red and glossy, like raspberries. Juicy-looking raspberries.

“They know I’m a prisoner here. No one expects me to kiss you.”

“Kiss me.” I leaned in, “Kiss me now and make it good.” I caressed her cheek gently, “Don’t disappoint me.”

She swallowed hard, got a supremely pissed off look on her face, then leaned over, raked her fingers through my hair and dragged my mouth to hers. She plunged her tongue into my mouth and she was obviously trying for shock value but then let out a little gasp as my hand travelled up further until I cupped her between the legs.

“Good girl,” I smirked at her and then let go of her and turned the ignition. She’d summoned courage and had tried to shock me but I’d turned the tables on her. I suppressed the urge to bust up laughing. She seemed like she’d withdrawn into herself as I drove to the restaurant. I decided to help her snap out of it.

“Your things from the foster home have been brought in. They’re in the basement. You can head down tomorrow and look through them and decide what you need to keep.”

Her breath caught, “Okay.”  I knew by her face that she wanted to ask me questions.  She didn’t. She just sat there, hands folded in her lap, staring ahead.

“Your foster parents have been debriefed,” I offered.

Her head snapped to my direction, “They know the truth?”

“As much as they need to know. They know that you’ve moved in with me. They know who I am and they know not to ask questions.”

She swallowed hard, “Please tell me that you haven’t threatened them.”

“They’ve been cautioned against contacting you or anyone else about the matter.”

She looked lost in thought for the rest of the drive. She hadn’t asked me about her father, the piece of shit. Maybe she knew enough to know he wasn’t worth the trouble of asking. I hadn’t done anything about him yet. I was quietly having him tailed by my PI and looking into his past first, finding out what he and my father had a beef about. Then I’d decide what to do about him.

I pulled into the restaurant parking lot and turned the car off, “There’s something else.”

Tia

He was staring at me, looking like he was considering what he’d say next.

“What?” I whispered, feeling dread spread through me.

“I want to compromise with you about tonight. Have a nice evening together.”

I waited for him to continue.  He scratched his jaw, looking like he was pondering something. Finally, he spoke, “Tonight, I want you to look at this as if it’s just a date. Just two people having dinner. Get to know me. Try to be open-minded about enjoying the evening.”

I gave him a “yeah right” look.

“I mean it. I’ll reward your obedience.” His eyes were flirty. I didn’t want flirty. But he rewards obedience, he punishes defiance. I had been punished already and knew that to be true, for sure. This guy loved mind games, that much was obvious. Making me snuggle in exchange for not getting raped, offering me vanilla sex if I complied, raping me, restraining me, and now making me pretend to be on a date and be happy about it?

I swallowed hard, “How will I be rewarded?”

He looked thoughtful for a second, “We’ll see.”

I thought back to our first night together. He wanted me to pretend to be happy about lying in his arms in order to have him not touch me sexually. This seemed like it was a lot like that. But it was probably a trick, too, because when I’d woken up the next morning he was doing sexual things to me anyway, using the fact that my guard was down. What was his trick this time?

“Why would I trust you after you tricked me that first night?”

“Whoa, that wasn’t a trick. I kept my word. I didn’t fuck you that night. In the morning you were rubbing your sweet body all over me and I just responded. I’m just a red-blooded man.”

I rolled my eyes. He was so full of it. As if I’d rub all over him.

“I’m trusting
you
,” he said, touching my hair, twirling a curl with his index finger, “I’m taking you out in public with me when you could make a scene, when you could try to run away from me. I think you know that it’d be very stupid to do either. I think you know you’re lucky that you’re not still tied to my bed. I’m trusting that you won’t do anything stupid. Compromise. I’m trusting you. You give me some of that back.”

I backed away, not wanting him to touch me and hating that this was a veiled warning for me to not try to get away tonight. It had occurred to me, of course it had. I could sneak out the bathroom window; I could hope someone else was in the bathroom and tell someone in the bathroom that they needed to call the cops. But I hadn’t hatched a real plan because I didn’t know how to do it without putting Dad and the Crenshaws at risk.

What choice did I have about this little game, though? He was repeatedly letting me know he was in charge and I didn’t feel like I had much choice in the role I’d play.

I’d had fleeting thoughts in the past about joining the community theatre. Maybe I could just look at this night as being in a play, playing a role. Couldn’t I? Could I pull it off? I wasn’t sure if I was capable.

“I don’t like to talk consequences, Tia, because it’s usually not necessary. Most people who know me know what they put at stake when they cross me. But maybe you and I should have that conversation. Just this once.”

“We don’t need to have that conversation.” I said, not wanting him to make it impossible for me to play this role tonight. But by the look in his eyes, I think he wanted to scare me.  And he was. Every hair on my body was at attention.

“Let’s just say this, then. Let’s just say that
all
you hold dear is at stake with me, Tia. Now, tomorrow, twenty years from now. Always. I don’t forget debts and won’t forgive betrayal. Capeche?”

He arched a brow so I nodded.

Tommy

This was going to be a fun experiment. I’d get to see what she was made of. Could she be convincing or would it take some work to get her to be as perfect outside of the bedroom as she was in it?

Now she seemed like she was trying to mentally prepare herself for her acting role.  We sat in the car for a few minutes while I checked my voicemail messages and then I got out of the car and she motioned to open her door. I held an index finger up, signaling her to wait while I walked around and opened the door for her. She got out of the car and looked up at me,

“Chivalry should be shot dead and pissed on,” she flashed a look of disgust at me.

“And why is that?” I was taken aback.

“Because it’s one of the things that keeps women oppressed.”

I was a little shocked at her comment and her brashness. She flashed a smile at me, “This is me. The real me.”

I laughed, a big open-mouthed laugh. She looked embarrassed, “Well, I guess I’m an old-fashioned guy. I’ll be oppressing you every chance I get. Opening the door for you is something you should look on as a gift, my treating you like a queen. My queen.”

Her face was red. I kissed her on the temple and held my elbow out. She gulped hesitantly took it.

The maître d greeted me excitedly, “Mr. Tommy, so nice to see you!”

“Augustus, this is Tia.”

He lamented for 20-30 seconds about how gorgeous she was and how nice it was to meet her. Yeah, she was but he was laying it on a bit thick. I gave him a look. He pulled himself together and kissed her hand and led us to a table and immediately brought over a bottle of red wine and poured glasses for us. A waiter brought bread to the table and menus were presented. He spoke to me in Italian about the specials prepared for the evening.  When they were gone, I leaned over and reached for her hand and skimmed my thumb across her knuckles. She didn’t pull away and her face revealed nothing but a warm-looking smile. I returned the smile, gave her a look that showed I was pleased with her.

Tia

We were sitting across the table from one another at a really romantic Italian restaurant with red and white checkered tablecloths, soft lighting, candles, and I’d decided to try to pretend that I was on a date with the guy from the ice cream parlor.

I figured it’d be the only way I could pull off the feat of acting like I was happy or even open-minded about being in his company. I didn’t think I could pull off acting like I was happy to be sitting here with Tommy Ferrano, the guy who had done all those awful things to me, so I tried, instead, to rewind the clock in my head and pretend that the gorgeous hunk from the ice cream parlor hadn’t morphed into the sadistic criminal who’d threatened to sell me into slavery.

I decided that this wasn’t the guy holding me for some ransom that could never be paid. This wasn’t the guy who’d spanked me, getting off on my pain, who’d tricked me into sex and then forced sex on me. This man didn’t tie me to his bed and screw me, making me cry from embarrassment at responding to him. I tried my hardest to rewind my brain to when I first saw him. What if I could be here in this nice restaurant with the gorgeous guy from the ice cream parlor who’d given me an outrageous tip, who’d flirted with me, who’d winked at me with some unspoken promise? That’d be nice. That unspoken promise
wasn’t
going to be a nightmare. This was just a date. My loved ones hadn’t been threatened, my future hadn’t been stolen, and I wasn’t being forced to sleep in the bed and the arms of a criminal. I wasn’t being forced into anything.

I decided I had to try to make myself believe that I was here on a date with the gorgeous guy I’d met at the ice cream parlor. Thinking like this was the
only
way I figured I could pull it off.

“Mind if I order for you?” he asked me, caressing the back of my hand with his thumb. There was light in his eyes, not darkness, making it easier for me to pretend.

“Sure,” I said, “Just no shellfish. I’m highly allergic.”

He nodded, then he spoke Italian to the waiter.

“I heard you’re half Italian. You speak it?” he asked after the order was taken.