Torment Me (Rough Love Part One) (26 page)

“What the fuck are you whining about?” he said, sounding more amused than concerned. “You love this, you horny slut.”

It was true. I loved it. I blinked behind my blindfold and struggled anyway, clenching my cheeks as he drilled into my asshole. He added more lube and kept going, smacking my cheeks from time to time, reminding me that I was his slave and that he could fuck my ass for as long as he wanted.

All the while, my clit throbbed with heightening arousal. I wanted so badly to come, but my legs hurt and my jaw hurt, and my ass hurt. He reached beneath me and tweaked my sore nipples, until I groaned behind the gag like an animal. It was like he was doing everything in his power to keep me hurting and crazed and unable to orgasm, but the more he did that, the more needy I became.

My arousal was like the ocean tide, the eddies on the sand, half advancing, half receding, until finally, the part that was advancing was going farther than the part that was receding, and I thought I might be able to come even through the pain. My whole body shuddered in hornified heat. My hips jerked, my shoulders tensed, and my wild pleas warbled through the gag.

“Come on,” he said. “You either come with my cock in your ass, or you don’t come at all. You belong to me. I decide how you come, and how much it hurts.”

And that was it. Those were the words that sent me over the edge, along with his demand and derision, and his beautiful, thrusting, painful length rending my ass for his pleasure. I ground against the bed and squeezed his cock so hard I’m surprised he didn’t smack me for it.

He put a hand around my neck instead, over the collar, and pressed me down, down, down. My orgasm exploded ten-fold after that, so intense it comprised every part of me, my pussy, my clit, my breasts, even my arms and legs and toes. He covered me, driving into me with the last frenetic strokes of his own climax. After one last momentous shudder, he went still.

Both of us were still for long moments. I moved my hand a little, the thigh and wrist cuffs making a chink of a sound.

“Jesus, Chere,” he said. “Fucking hell. Don’t fucking move. Just stay.”

So I stayed in my dark, bound world, waiting for his next command. It seemed like forever before he pulled away from me, but at the same time, it seemed too soon. I didn’t want him to go.

I felt his fingers working at the gag. He took it off and wiped my cheeks and kissed me, hard uncomfortable kisses along the edge of the collar and beneath my ear. I was still so blind and breathless, I hardly heard what he said. “God, that you let me do this,” he murmured. “That you let me do these things to you.”

I turned my head so he could kiss my mouth. “Let me see you,” I begged against his lips.

“No.”

His fingers twisted in my hair. I wished I knew his name. I wished I knew everything about him. I wished I could see the expression that went along with that ragged murmur.

Please, W, I want more of you.
I wanted to cry and scream out everything in my heart, but I didn’t dare. My mouth still hurt from the gag. My heart hurt. My ass hurt, though not as much as when he was inside it.

He shifted away with a groan, and released my ankles, and then unbound my wrists and thighs from their connected cuffs. My body felt too free, too exposed now that I wasn’t tied down anymore. I’d become comfortable in the security of bondage, and now that security was gone. I reached to unbuckle the eye mask, but he stopped me. “Not yet,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I said.”

He lifted me up and I tried to walk, although it was hard. He led me into the bathroom, from wool carpet onto cool, smooth tile. He propped me against his body and then he took off the leather mask. I flinched as I stared at the two of us in the mirror.

He looked beautiful, stern and tall and sexy, but I looked like hell. My hair was a wreck and my makeup was smeared by drool and tears. My face was crisscrossed with the marks from the gear straps. My dress was nothing but a scrap of fabric down to my waist, with my nipples sticking out. When I tried to look away, he turned my head back.

“Look at yourself,” he said. “Look at what you do for me.” He rested his cheek against mine, and reached to trace the collar with his fingertips. “You’re so beautiful.”

I felt like a failure, because I couldn’t see the beauty. I couldn’t see beauty in anything but him, with his striking features and his muscular physique. And the collar...the collar was beautiful. I was seeing it for the first time, since I’d been blindfolded when he first put it on.

I’d imagined something black and shiny, but it was weathered brown leather, the same tawny brown color as my eyes. I’d imagined lots of metal but there was only the buckle and one single O-ring. So classic and simple, considering all the complex feelings it gave me.

He finally let me turn away from the mirror. I buried my head against his neck but he made me look up at him. I felt crusty and dirty, and whorish in my adulterated dress. He kissed my forehead and my eyes and my neck, and then he released me so he could turn on the shower. He kept hold of one of my hands, like I might run away. Maybe I would have.

“Let’s take the collar off,” he said. “Had you ever worn one before?”

I didn’t know how to answer. Yes, I’d worn them as part of silly sex games, for clients. No, I’d never worn one the way I had today.

“I’ve worn collars a few times,” I said quietly. “But...not like...” I reached for it as he drew it away.

“Do you want to keep it?” he asked.

I blinked at him. “Aren’t we going to use it again?”

He shrugged. “We might. I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep it.”

When we got into the shower, he nudged me under the water first. He watched as I wet my hair, stared as my eyes closed and stared as my eyes opened. His gaze was so intense. He took me in his arms and kissed me, a long, slow kiss unlike any he’d ever given me. I tried not to fall in love. He wasn’t making it easy for me. After a marathon make-out session under the cascading water, we got out and dried off, and wrapped up in the hotel robes.

I knew it was time for him to go, but I didn’t want him to go. I wished he would order food, like last time. I wanted to sit and eat together, and talk like friends, but instead he got dressed and started re-packing the kinky gear into his briefcase. Cuffs, rope, clamps, gag, mask, the beautiful collar. I stared out the window while he moved around the room, because I didn’t want him to leave. When I heard him zip his bag, I turned.

“I’m staying at the apartment now,” I told him. “It’s so beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Simon and I are finished.” He hadn’t asked, and he probably didn’t want to know, but it seemed important to tell him. “We’ve broken up for good. It’s a really good thing, and you helped me make that decision. So thanks.”

He looked uncomfortable. “It would have happened eventually anyway.”

“I guess.”

I knew,
I knew
he didn’t want me to say any more, but now that I’d started talking, I couldn’t seem to stop all my self-congratulatory bullshit from spilling out. “I’ve been looking into schools. You know, degree programs. I’m going to stop escorting soon, in the next few months, I hope, and go back to school. I’m thinking about a design career, or fashion. Something creative.”

“Hmm.”

“I know I can do it. There are plenty of scholarships out there, and I have money saved up. But I could keep seeing you as long as you liked. I mean, I guess I could. I don’t think Henry would have a problem with it.”

His eyes were so blue when he stared at me. So magnificently blue.

“But even if he did...I don’t know. I wouldn’t charge you. I don’t think he can complain if you and I... I mean... If we were just having sex together, not for money.”

I pulled my robe tighter around me. W tilted his head.

“But that wouldn’t really be a client-customer relationship anymore, would it?” he asked. He touched the tip of one of his fingers, then pinched it, the way he pinched my nipples. “We’d have to figure that out.”

“We could definitely figure things out,” I said too quickly. “And none of this is happening right away. I just wanted you to know that even though my life is going to start changing, things between us don’t have to change. I don’t want them to change. I look forward to our sessions. I mean, I do now. I know we had kind of a...a rocky start, but I really enjoy...now...”
Stop babbling. Shut up, shut up.

“I enjoy our sessions too,” he said. “We have fun together.”

“But school, and a better career...it’s good, right?”

“Yes, it’s good,” he agreed with a genuine smile. A small smile, but a genuine one. “I’m sure you’ll be great at anything you pursue.” He finally stopped pinching his finger, and lifted his briefcase. “Are you going to stay here tonight?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” I grinned at him. “I have a really nice place of my own to go to now.”

“Yes, you do.” He walked over and touched my arm, a fleeting caress. “You brought some extra clothes?”

“Yes. I always do, thanks to you and your scissors.”

“Good. Because I’m taking the dress. I doubt you’ll be wearing it again.”

I watched as he crossed the room and picked up the scraps of my bodice and skirt, and shoved them into his briefcase with everything else.

“That was one of my favorites,” I said mournfully. “What are you going to do with it?”

He shook his head. That smile again. “You don’t want to know. Have a good week, starshine.”

He gave me one last kiss, a soft, lingering kiss that ended in a bite. Orgasms, kisses, and...

“Oh.” I stopped him on the way to the door. “Aren’t you going to give me some poetry?”

He looked at me, then dug in his overstuffed briefcase for a pen. “Come here,” he said. He pulled me against his chest, my back to his front, and took my arm. He ran fingers up the pale underside of my forearm, from elbow to wrist.

“I already gave you some poetry,” he said against my ear. “You don’t listen.”

I watched as he wrote. The pen tickled, and sometimes scratched.

Look at what you do for me.

You’re so beautiful.

“That’s nice poetry,” I said when he was done. “I wonder who wrote that.”

“Some self-absorbed, perverted jerk,” he answered, smacking my ass. Even through the fluffy robe, it hurt. He kissed me and departed, leaving the room quiet. Too quiet.

Although the room was luxuriantly gorgeous, I decided not to stay the night, because I’d just sit around missing W. That was one downside of leaving Simon. I had too much time on my hands to daydream and think about impossible things.

I glanced at the words scrawled on my skin. Maybe not so impossible.

Maybe someday he’d tell me his name, when he trusted me better, and knew me better. In the meantime, orgasms and poetry were enough.

I got out my phone to take a picture of my forearm, standing next to the window to find the perfect amount of light. It seemed important to save everything W gave me, to archive it and analyze it. These words would eventually fade, but I’d have a picture to remember.

Poems, pictures, memories.

I wanted so much more.

Henry met me Thursday afternoon at a cafe on West 3rd. I hadn’t told him yet I was quitting, but I think he knew. He hugged me extra hard before he sat down across from me.

“So what’s up, love?” he asked, once we’d ordered some coffee and sandwiches. “How’s your life?”

“It’s good.”

“How are things with Mr. Cumming? It’s been two months. Is he mellowing at all?”

“Mellowing?”

He poured sugar in his coffee and looked up at me. “Mellowing. I remember you described him in less than glowing terms after your first date.”

I thought a moment. “He’s mellowed a little, maybe. But he still hasn’t told me his real name.”

“He just set up a date for next week, at the Gramercy Park Hotel.”

I stared down at my coffee. Henry wasn’t going to make this easy for me.

“Listen, I asked you to lunch today to let you know that...well... Mr. Cumming is going to be my last client.”

In the awkward silence, the waitress sailed by and dumped our plates on the table. “Need anything else right now?” she chirped, eyeing Henry.

“No,” he said. “We’re good.”

I pulled the toothpick out of my sandwich and laid it at the edge of my plate. “Are we good, Henry?” I asked. “Are you angry?”

“Not angry. Disappointed. You’re leaving the business?”

“Yes. I’m getting older—”

“Older? You’re not even thirty. You’re in the prime of your escort life. Young enough to be gorgeous, and seasoned enough to know the sexiest techniques.”

“Did you just call me ‘seasoned’?”

He waved a pickle spear at me. “Don’t try to joke your way out of this. You’re not too old. What’s the real reason? Is Mr. Cumming getting to you?”

Yes. But not in the way you think.

“If he’s too much, I told you, Nina can take him. If it’s the exclusive thing—”

“It’s not the exclusive thing. I’ve been ready to leave for a while. I finally broke up with Simon—”

“Good.”

“And I feel like I’m on a roll. I just need to keep making changes in my life. I need to keep moving forward while I have this momentum. I planned to start back to school this fall. So I can work a few more months. July and August. After that, I want to be a student. Only a student.”

“A student?” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to escort anymore.”

“Have you told Mr. Cumming this? That you’re leaving the business?”

“No,” I lied.

Henry was looking at me too sharply. He took a bite of his sandwich, watching me as he chewed. “Do the two of you have something going on?”

I laughed, and it sounded so fake. “I don’t think so. Like I said, he still hasn’t told me his name.”

“I knew the exclusive thing was a mistake. Is this his idea, for you to leave the business? He wants to set you up in some apartment to play house for a while? You know how these things end.”

“He hasn’t said anything about playing house.”
Although he may have set me up in an apartment...