Willing Victim (3 page)

“I’m sure he’d let you watch.”

“Watch what?” Laurel asked, glancing sideways.

Pam shrugged. “Us. Me and him. Tonight, after the matches are over. I’m going home with him. You’re more than welcome to come and see what it’s all about.”

Dear God.
Laurel studied Pam’s face, so blasé considering what she’d just offered. “I don’t know. That sounds, like,
intensely
private and…intense.”

“You might be surprised how much easier it is to explore things with strangers.”

Laurel took a deep drink. “I appreciate your insanely generous offer, but I don’t think I’m looking to do any exploring. I’d feel like the weird, disapproving prude in the corner.”

Pam shrugged. “We could ignore you. And you could leave anytime you needed to. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a safe place to be. He knows what women need. He’s sensitive that way. He can tell like
that,”
she snapped her fingers, “when a woman’s not into it anymore. He can with me, anyhow. He knows before I do if a line’s about to get crossed.”

Laurel didn’t reply. Her attention was glued on the match, on Flynn. “Jesus,” she muttered a minute later. “His body is fucking astounding.”

“You want to
really
see that man working, think about what I offered.”

A chance to watch that body, doing what it was surely designed to do…the temptation clenched Laurel’s pussy and stopped her breath. Up in the ring, the violence escalated. Flynn and the black guy were trading jabs and blocks, seeming evenly matched. Laurel’s curiosity landed a hit of its own, knocking her fear to the mat momentarily.

“What’s it like?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “Are there handcuffs and ropes and that stuff? Like gags and blindfolds?”

“Sometimes he ties me down,” Pam said, “but not always. Sometimes he just holds me with his hands or pins me with his body. I don’t like blindfolds usually. I like watching him.” She smiled, looking sheepish. “And he’s not really into all the accessories and things. Like, his apartment looks like an apartment, not a torture chamber.”

“How long have you two been lovers?”

“A few months.”

“When you first started…hanging out, I guess…was it like instantly hot and mind-blowing?” Laurel asked. A scary-loud whack drew her eyes to the match. It looked as if Flynn had just taken a hit to the ear. She glanced back at Pam. “Did you know right away that role-playing that sort of stuff was like, your thing?”

“He
knew, I think, like right away. But we didn’t go nuts the very first time. When we started, it was mostly just rough sex. Then we moved to him holding me down, then him holding me and me struggling, and then, you know, further. It’s like a pool. There’s a shallow end. Or you can just sit by the side in a lounge chair and watch.”

Laurel turned to the action just as the black guy caught Flynn hard in the jaw, stunned him a moment and pushed him back, the top rope dragging along Flynn’s upper back. The ref shouted and the black guy eased off. Flynn got back to standing, a red stripe branded across his shoulders from the friction. Laurel sucked in an empathetic breath.

The fight broke up between rounds, the men heading to opposite corners where they were handed cups of water. Or possibly beer. Laurel guessed a person would have to be drunk to volunteer for this kind of punishing exhibitionism.

Flynn fought differently the next time the bell clanged. He blocked twice as many strikes as before and landed more of his own—sharp, taunting punches designed to infuriate, not incapacitate. By the end of the three-minute round Flynn had taken only a swing to the neck and a couple ineffective jabs. The round wrapped and Pam jogged over to be the one who handed him his water. Laurel saw her touching his knee as he drank and offering a few encouraging-looking words before she returned to Laurel.

“Still enjoying yourself?”

“It
is
sort of…freakishly manly,” Laurel offered, swirling her beer in its cup. “I’ll give you that.”

The bell rang to start the final round and it went nothing like the first two. Flynn came out on the offensive and didn’t let up. His punches were loud, gloves on skin making this sound like what it was—fists pounding meat. The black guy landed a couple decent shots but Flynn didn’t seem to register them. He wailed on his opponent until a nasty right hook caught the guy in the jaw and landed him on the mat. He didn’t get up fast enough and the bell sounded, ending the fight after only a minute’s action.

The teenaged ref climbed up and over the ropes, one sneaker sliding on sweat. He righted himself as the black guy made it to kneeling. Flynn’s face was blank as the kid thrust his fist into the air, announcing the match’s obvious winner. He received somber applause, the sound of undeniable respect tempered by a dozen grudges. He stripped off his gloves and climbed out of the ring, headed to his spot by the wall. A couple men clapped him on the back as he passed but he didn’t seem to notice. The black guy clamored over the ropes with some difficulty and a friend helped him to the concrete floor. He walked to the other side of the basement, rattling a body-sized punching bag with a vicious swing, pissed to high heaven.

Laurel looked back at Flynn just as he looked to her. His eyes held hers a long moment, too significant for her to pretend she didn’t understand the invitation. She huffed out her fear and rounded the crowd to approach the victor. A nasty purple bruise ringed his eye and he was peppered with other little cuts and marks Laurel had missed in the dim lighting.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself, sub shop girl. Took me a minute to remember why I recognized you.” He stooped to grab a tube of ointment and squeezed a measure across his fingers, releasing a concentrated whiff of that medicinal smell that permeated the gym. Laurel watched his arm muscles twitch as he rubbed it into the long scrape along the backs of his shoulders. Her skin flushed as she remembered how those arms had thrilled and frightened her when he’d been fighting. Knowing she’d see that again soon.

“That was…something,” Laurel said.

“Oh good.” Flynn stretched his neck. “I always strive to be something.”

“You okay?” she asked. “You’ve got blood on you.”

“Mine or his?”

“I’m not sure. Plus this.” She touched her fingers to the now greasy scrape along his back. His skin felt scalding hot and he didn’t flinch.

“Just rope burn.” He recapped the tube and tossed it to the ground.

“And a black eye.”

“That’s from yesterday. See you been talking to Pam. She scare you off yet?”

“No, she said only nice things about you. She…she invited me along. For after the fight.”

His face was impassive. “Did she then?”

“Yeah.”

“You looking for me to second that invite?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. Are you okay with that, though? If I wanted to?”

He thought for a long moment, unfocused eyes staring past Laurel’s face. “Up to her. But forgive me if I search you for hidden cameras if you decide to tag along.”

Laurel wasn’t sure if the remark was serious or not and chose to ignore it. “I don’t know what I’ll decide. It sounds really…personal.”

“It’s up to you girls,” he said and wiped his hand on a rag then ran it over his sweat-matted hair. “I’m just a willing body.”

“She made it sound like you’re more than that,” Laurel said, voice low.

“She makes me out like a saint sometimes. Patron-fucking-saint of the masochists. You can make up your own mind about it if you come along.”

“What time are you guys leaving?”

“I got one more fight coming up. We’ll probably head out in an hour, hour and a half.”

“Can I get you a beer or something?” Laurel asked. “Or is drinking during a fight a no-no?”

“I don’t drink, period,” Flynn said, “but you can find me a glass of water if you’re itching to be useful.”

She nodded and wandered away, found a water cooler and filled a plastic cup for him. She handed it over, wanting to do more…wanting to press a towel to his sweaty skin and clean his cuts and ice his bruises. She felt a strange desire to
care
for him, to apply feminine affection and counteract all the masculine damage. She stared at the black and gray tattoo that spanned his chest, a design that might translate nicely into the leading for a stained-glass window—a medieval-looking scene with a winged man in robes skewering a pointy-tailed creature with some kind of sword. Latin words in calligraphic script arched above it.
Quis ut Deus.

Flynn swallowed the last of the water and looked down at her. “What goes on between me and her, it’s not pretty. If you can’t stand lookin’ at a little rope burn, you probably won’t enjoy yourself.”

“Do you hurt her?”

He made a gesture, something between a shrug and another neck stretch. “Neither me or her would say I do, but it’s rough.”

“From what she’s explained about it, I’m curious.”
And tipsy enough to admit it.

“Curious is all well and good but I don’t know you. And neither does she. If you freak out and go screaming about it all over town or the fucking internet, you could seriously fuck with the lives of two consenting adults. You follow?”

“I’m not a psycho,” Laurel said.

“Good. I don’t have much of an upstanding reputation to protect, but Pam’s a decent girl. I’d be royally pissed if anybody ever messed her around.”

Laurel pursed her lips. “Are you threatening me?”

“I never threaten a woman unless she begs me to.” His smile came slow and sticky, dripping with put-on sweetness.

“Well I promise I have no intention of outing either of you. Asking to come along for the ride isn’t something I’m all that eager to shout from the rooftops, you know.”

“You asking to come along then?” That smile again, more dangerous than his arms or knuckles or threats.

She nodded and swallowed, wondering what the hell she’d just signed up for.

* * * * *

At a quarter to one, Laurel snapped to lucidity. Four hours of fighting and a steady infusion of beer had numbed her senses, though she snapped to attention when Flynn took to the ring. His final fight was much like the earlier one, starting out seemingly well-matched but ending in a near knockout. She watched him pull on a tee shirt and toss a bunch of things into a gym bag.

Laurel balanced her plastic cup on top of an overflowing trash bin and approached where he stood, Pam by his side.

Flynn met Laurel’s eyes as she neared. “Still here then, sub shop girl?”

“Looks like it.”

Flynn nodded and Pam smiled and they headed for a door at the opposite end of the basement from where Laurel had entered. They walked down a couple poorly lit hallways and up a long set of stairs, emerging in an alley behind the bar. After hours in the heady, sultry sauna of the gym, the city’s thick summer heat managed to feel refreshing.

They squeezed passed a Dumpster and a couple parked cars in the alley, out of the dark and onto the sidewalk. Flynn led the way, leading them down side streets for a few blocks.

They stopped at the entrance to a hulking brick building—one of the city’s many repurposed factories, though this one wasn’t ritzy like the slick new condos popping up like dandelions all over Boston and Cambridge. Flynn unclipped a noisy ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the front door, nondescript except for a stick-on aluminum street number. They entered a plain foyer and Flynn strode to the elevator panel to punch the up button.

“What did this place used to be?” Laurel asked, running a hand over the brick and studying the ancient framed picture hung on one wall—a photo of the building from over a century before, carriages passing on the street in the foreground.

“Molasses factory.”

Laurel studied Flynn’s sour expression, the dark bruise rising along his jaw to match the one ringing his left eye. The ding of the arriving elevator triggered a mental image of him stripped to the waist in the ring.

They stepped into the car and he hit the buttons for the second and fifth floors. The doors closed then eased open at two and he said, “Hold it.” Pam leaned an arm in the threshold and Flynn jogged down the hall to the right. Laurel heard him knock three times then he jogged back.

“What was that about?” Laurel asked as the doors slid shut behind him.

“My sister,” he said. “She’s kind of a basket case on fight nights. Likes to know when I get home in one piece.”

“You guys live in the same building? You must be close.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You could say that.”

The bell sounded again as the elevator opened onto the fifth-floor foyer and Flynn led them down the corridor to the very end. He unlocked his door and they stepped inside and he eased the dimmer up on a set of bulbs that hung from the high ceiling. He and Pam dumped their bags on a loveseat that seemed to be there for that purpose, but Laurel held on to her purse, as though it might save her from drowning. The door clicked shut behind her.

She took in the large, open loft space, galley kitchen along the far wall, three towering, arched factory windows offering a view of similar buildings and a sliver of white moon. Exposed pipes and vents crisscrossed the ceiling, making the apartment feel industrial and stark. A couple couches and an easy chair were clustered in one corner around a coffee table. A bicycle, purple with silver Mylar streamers, was propped on its kickstand below one tall window, an open toolbox beside it. Laurel raised her eyebrows.

Flynn clapped her hard on the arm as he passed, heading for the kitchen area. “Don’t you go searching for kinks where there aren’t any. I got a six-year-old niece.”

The apartment was divided by a makeshift wall, a heavy curtain hung from a runner built into the ceiling creating a C shape with the entryway on one side, the kitchen, living area and sleeping area on the other. Flynn’s generous bed was against the back wall, a navy comforter tossed across it in a middling attempt at tidiness. Skinny shelves stood to either side and along the wall above the headboard, filled with books and CDs.

“Have a seat.” He waved a hand toward the couches. “Bathroom’s there,” he said, pointing to a door next to the kitchen area. “We’re gonna ignore you from here on out. You need to leave, you know where the exit is.” He turned to where Pam sat on the couch unlacing her tall, shit-kicking boots. “You want me to shower first?” he asked her.