Edge Play X (32 page)

He made his way through a good portion
of the paper towels, all the while his mind fixed on the idea that this was
where the lovely X came to pee and take a dump. He was intrigued by the idea of
beautiful women shitting. Once he had paid a rather large amount to watch a
particularly stunning woman defecate on the floor. Momentarily, he considered
offering X a great deal of money to witness her doing the same thing, but then
he reconsidered. To his disappointment, he had been told that the woman wasn’t
into that kind of thing. But still, he knew, offer a person a large enough
amount of money and you would be surprised what they were capable of.

Behind him,
Compton
heard X enter the room. Cradled in her arm was
the bowl of popcorn.

“Have you finished with the toilet?”

“Yes,
Domina
.”

“Let me take a look.”

X examined the toilet then, lifting up
the lid and seat, inspecting the hinges and handle.

“Do you believe it’s clean?
Disinfected?” X asked.

“Yes.”

X reached into the container she held,
pulled out a handful of popcorn, then began to gently place the snack along the
seat. A few pieces rolled into the water, floating on the surface.

“Eat them.”

Compton
took off his gloves, then picked one off the seat
and popped it into his mouth, smiling at her as he did so.

“Don’t use your hands,” X demanded.

So then he leaned down, sucking up the
food one at a time into his mouth, looking up every now and then at X. When he
finished, she told him to drink from the bowl.

Compton
had to lift the lid to reach the water. His head
descended toward the liquid, a posture he typically did not attain unless
suffering from a particularly heavy night of drinking or from the flu. He
hovered above the water for just a few moments before jutting out his tongue
and lapping the water into his mouth. Over the course of his life he had owned
dogs which seemed to prefer the toilet to the filtered water in their own
bowls.
 
It was fresh and cold with the
slightest hint of chemical residue.
Compton
continued to drink until X told him that was
enough, clean the sink and the bathroom floor and then let her know when he was
done.

He did as he was told, and when he let
her know that he had completed the tasks, X told him to get dressed. She
watched him as he did so, and once his clothes were back on, X turned off the
movie and told
Compton
to sit on the couch.

“Stay there,” she said as she left him
to go into her bedroom. She returned with something in her hand, a photo which
she gave to him. Compton examined the image, one in which his eyes were taped
shut, all the bondage gear of his dungeon behind him, his small penis uncovered
and bared, a humiliating measurement written on his belly.

He opened his mouth, and X shushed
him.

“Don’t say a word,” she said. “You are
going to wonder if I am serious about my request, but I assure you, I am not
joking.”

X sat onto the arm of the couch,
spreading her legs enough that the satin descended between her thighs. “I’m not
sure what you would find more embarrassing, being known as a submissive or
having the world know what a small cock you have. But it doesn’t matter. The
images of you would stick in the mind of every person you ever do business
with. You’ll be discussing acquisitions or currency with them, and they’ll be
sitting across from you, feeling sorry for you that your dick is so small. People
will say that your pursuit of wealth is just you trying to compensate for your
shortcoming. Even after you are long dead, when your name is mentioned, people
will add in that you had a very small member. You will never escape the
association.”
 

X took the photo from him. “The image
could be all over the internet in a few hours.”
Compton
reached to his crouch and adjusted his hard
penis, and X noted his gesture. “And as much as the idea of it might excite
someone as pathetic as you, I know that you don’t really want that to happen.
And just so you are aware, if anything happens to me, I’ve created a signed
statement which rather matter-of-factly says that you are responsible.”

“Tell me what you want,”
Compton
said, the words coming out in a breathless whisper.

X stood and went over to him. X had
brought him to her apartment not just so he could clean, but because she feared
that
Compton
’s dungeon was bugged and she didn’t want Simeon
to have any idea what she was doing. She leaned down and whispered the figure
into his ear, an amount that she planned to offer to her brother if he agreed
to also go on the lam.
“A million.”

“Cash?”

“I’ll make you a painting and you will
pay me the money directly.”

“Of course.”

“Now go.”

Terry Compton left X then, and a few
days later, a small painting was delivered to him.
 
He opened it eagerly, pulling off the cheap
brown paper which concealed it. Two dark crimson lines crossed each other on
the blue background of the eponymous work. Perfect.

He wrote out a check then, masturbating
immediately after he had signed it. He told Steinberg to have it delivered to X
along with the object he had purchased and had customized specifically for her.

The check arrived to X that afternoon,
delivered by a uniformed man requesting a signature. He handed her an envelope
and she opened it to find the check in the exact amount she had requested.
 

“Your other delivery is outside,” he
informed her, X realizing then that the form stated that there were two
deliveries.

X followed the man outside. Once in
the parking lot, he handed her some papers and a pair of keys, then pointed to
a silver Mercedes SL 550 Roadster convertible.

“You’re a lucky woman,” he said before
departing. “That’s a beautiful vehicle.”

In disbelief, X opened the vehicle and
sat in the driver’s seat. A simple post-it note was stuck to the steering
wheel.
Thank you
, it read.

5.

The day came for X to go to
Santa Fe
with Michael. She packed her things in the
morning and then went over to Michael’s house after making sure that Simeon wasn’t
following her.

“Nice ride,” Michael said as he got
into the passenger seat of X’s new Mercedes. X had put down the top, allowing
the early morning sun to hit them. The man tossed a small bag behind his seat
and they departed. There was a long trip ahead of them.

They stayed in
Arizona
the first night, sharing dinner and a few drinks
at the hotel restaurant before returning to the room. The place reminded X of
the fake hotel room Simeon had taken her to, and she had to shake off the
uncomfortable feelings that had created in order to succumb to the man’s
advances.

Long after Michael had fallen asleep
next to
her,
X was still tossing and turning.
Desperately, she longed for sleep to come. The woman tried everything—deep
breathing, counting sheep, side/stomach/back positions, visualizations—but
nothing worked. She tried to list the various eras of art backwards from
contemporary to prehistoric, adding in as many movements and schools as she
could remember, but still had no success.

Simeon had not explicitly forbidden
her from leaving
California
, nor had he demanded that she tell him of any
major changes in her life. Sure, Simeon hadn’t been precise in telling X that
she couldn’t split, but she knew that he would not approve of her actions,
might even punish her for them. She had taken the $75,000 from Simeon and never
even dominated that
Ventura
man. Agent Simeon, if he did locate her, was
going to be angry.
Very angry.

X hadn’t relinquished her apartment,
her old car, or even disconnected the utilities at her apartment. She had told
Anne and a few of her friends that she was going to be traveling for a few
months but would stay in touch (which she planned to do via a pay-as-you-go,
untraceable phone).
 

Perhaps Simeon would find her and drag
her back or find a way to get her brother tossed back in the slammer on another
drug charge. And then she’d probably have to return to
California
and cover the cost of a lawyer for his defense. X
had tried to get him to lay low for awhile, had told him that since she was
involved with Compton that there was the possibility that something might
happen to her or someone close to her, lying to him and saying that she had
been told that there were men who might want to hurt him as a way of getting
money from Compton. What sort of man would turn down his girlfriend when she
begged him for the money to save her brother?

But Daniel had been unfazed. “Listen,
sis,” he had said, “I survived two years in federal prison and you don’t want
to know the kind of crazy mother-fuckers that were in that place. Thanks for
your concern, but I can take care of myself.”

And when X had told him that she’d
give him whatever money he needed to just get out of
California
for a few months, he had admitted that he didn’t
want to leave Sabrina. He was in love. She was a girl like no other and he
didn’t want to go messing up the best thing in his life. And anyway, he stayed
at her place. Everything was in her name. He’d be a hard person to find. And to
that, X had told him simply that if you really wanted to find a person that
they could be found. It was just a matter of time.

Maybe she would return eventually.
When exactly she might go back, X wasn’t quite sure. What she hoped was that
she could manage to stay away for a long enough time that
Compton
would lose interest in her, find another woman
perhaps. Or maybe Simeon would be told to direct his energy to some other
pressing issue, to somebody other than
Compton
.
 

But she knew that it wouldn’t happen
that way. X longed for the comfort that could only be found in denial of the
situation, a denial that would not come. As she tossed around in bed listening
to the slow breaths of the man next to her, a man who was trying his best to
help her, X knew that she could not run forever. She would run as long as she
was able. The money she had accumulated would buy her some time, but not an
eternity. Her own words echoed in her mind:
It
was just a matter of time
.

Sleep came after X finally admitted
her defeat and bought a small pack of sleeping pills from a vending machine in
the lobby. In the morning, the two made love, showered, ate breakfast, and then
headed out for the final stretch of the journey.
 

X, still groggy despite the high-test
coffee, let Michael drive the car and he was glad to do so, happy to test the
power of the vehicle’s 8 cylinders on the long desert highway. They were going
so fast that they had to pull over and put the top up. As X looked out into the
desert, at its buttes and cacti and seemingly endless variations of the color
tan, she wondered how she was going to bear to live in such emptiness.

They made it to
Santa Fe
late in the day, Michael pulling the car into the
garage of the house that she would be calling her own for the time being. It
was a small house. The décor was outdated. There was a faint lingering scent of
mothballs. The house, which had been his mother’s until her somewhat recent
passing, was still furnished. Her clothes were still in the closet. The man
hadn’t gotten rid of anything that was hers. Michael said that just hadn’t
decided what to do with it yet.

Being with him was easy, comfortable.
X had thought that a man like Michael, one who seemed to have no interest in
her dominating him, would bore her, but instead, their interactions seemed to
galvanize her, invigorate her. X appreciated his gallantry, the way he was
trying to protect her. The man made her feel safe.

They spent a day painting inside,
another day cleaning out the garage. Michael took his father’s motorcycle to
the mechanic, leaving it there for a tune-up. X helped him take his mother’s
clothing to a donation center. They photographed all the furniture and put it
up for sale on the internet.

One morning when the pair cuddled in
bed, Michael asked her if she was missing tying up her partner.

“It’s more than just tying someone
up,” she said.

“Or whipping them?”

“It’s more than both of those.”

“What do you do to them, to your, what
are they, your
submissives
?”

The man ran the tip of his index
finger over her breast and then kissed and licked her nipple gently. She
allowed him to continue while she thought about how to answer.

“I’ve done many different things to
them.”

“Like what?” he asked, lifting up his
head to look at her.