Spice Box: Sixteen Steamy Stories

by Raine Miller

“They have to be retrained.”

  “Oh god, that’s so cheesy.”

  “Well, looking at some of these translations … I’m starting to wonder.”

  “Tell me you’re not serious.”

  He popped my delusion of competency when he sat down at my desk, a stack of papers in hand. “Let’s go over some of these.”

  “Okay.” I smiled brightly, hoping he’d bite me and bend me over the desk right then and there. I couldn’t seem to get enough of the man.

  “La máquina para quebrar, a crusher, is actually a ‘quebradora’. That’s one example of equipment that’s mislabeled.” He pointed out a list of machinery and equipment on the inventory sheet. “Then here with the boxes of metal screws, we don’t need total poundage of screws. What we need is a count of the boxes. The backhoe isn’t really ‘maquinaria’ the proper term is ‘retroexcavadora’.”

  “Oh … Okay …”

  He went on to show me about thirty other translations I had botched. Then he started on me about the document format: the margins, fonts, font sizes, and line spacing. Essentially I needed to rework about twenty pages of inventory. It would take another two nights at least.

  How depressing. I sighed, slumped over. “It’s all wrong?”

  “Well it just needs corrections … a lot of corrections.” He smirked at me. The bastard smirked.

  “This would be so much easier if I could read your mind.”

  “I prefer that you not. I do enjoy my privacy.” He smirked again.

  “But I never have these types of problems when I can read someone’s thoughts. I always know exactly what they want.”

  “Here, let’s put this down for tonight. You’re not accustomed to the pressures of a desk job. How about we take some time off? I know just the thing. Why don’t you put on that dark red dress? The one I like.”

  “Oh, no more cage food? Sounds exciting.” He stared at me for a moment, like he wanted to say something. Instead, he nodded silently and left me to get ready.

  He took me to the Asiate Restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. I’ve never in my life been to a place that nice before, and a window seat. Felt like another person inhabited my body. Esperanza Salvación would never sit in this restaurant with a wealthy, smiling gentleman at a window seat. It seemed too perfect to be real.

  I had been spoiled in my bedroom at the penthouse. I had the same view, but from a different side of Central Park. Looking at the gorgeous night sky line, I wondered how horrible it would be to never see this view in the daylight. Poor Enrique.

  He pampered me like a princess. He was so good to me. I’ve never been treated with so much care and respect, it’s intoxicating. Enrique ordered for me – a fabulous four course meal.

  Looking at him as he smiled at me, I started to suspect I’d fallen in love with him. Did I love him? I’m not sure I know what love is.

  I thought I loved my father, despite all his shortcomings. But then he sold me to a stranger full of promises. I certainly didn’t love him after he sold my virginity to Rubin. I never even saw my father again. I heard he moved out of Bogotá.

  I loved my mother, but she died when I was seven. I remember her kind face and gentle hands, and the smell of her coffee as my father made such a big production of it. “Este es el mejor cafecito en todo el mundo.” The best little cup of coffee in all the world.

  I’ve never been in love with a man. I certainly never loved Rubin or Faustino. I gave them my attentions, affection, and cooperation. In exchange they provided me with money, housing, clothing, food, a decent standard of living. But I didn’t love them or any other man I slept with. It was business, survival. We were congenial, friendly, affectionate, but that’s not love.

  At some point I had begun to think of Enrique as different. I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe it was the class difference. He seemed so regal, like royalty. Maybe it was just this connection, the whole bloodslave thing.

  The funny part, I seemed to have the better half of the deal. Here I lived in a fabulous Manhattan penthouse. I wore designer clothes. I ate steak and lobster with a handsome filthy rich gentleman who appeared to genuinely care about me.

  Apart from the small issue of being hunted by Colombian cartel and enslaved for life, I had it pretty damn good. With Lia gone I enjoyed my alone time with Enrique. A fairytale existence. I thoroughly enjoyed sipping two hundred dollar a bottle Sangiovese in my nine hundred dollar cocktail dress, batting my eyes adoringly at my master.

  I don’t think he loved me, but I had fallen in love with him. Probably since the first night. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for the jealous reaction he inspired. I’ve never been jealous before. You have to give a shit about someone to be jealous. I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s no way Enrique could feed solely from me, not if I wanted to live for very long. I knew this, understood it, but it really bothered me to watch.

  He was so damn slick about it. No one else noticed when he took the cute little waitresses’ hand and bit down on her. It looked like one of those courtesy hand-kissing gestures. He had that old-world grace, like an aristocrat of Europe, born to rule over the peasantry. I sat and watched as the woman had her orgasm right there at our dining table. Admittedly, she handled it well, a slight flush of color and a small sighing noise. I usually clawed and screamed at him like a madwoman. The waitress had a considerably more subdued reaction.

  After dinner we took a taxi to Jamaica Avenue in Queens, some of the best nightclubs in New York.

  “I thought I was supposed to be staying under the radar?” I chided him.

  “Si, querida, this is the reason for the change to your hair.”

  I guess I looked different enough for Enrique to feel safe about hitting the nightclubs with me on his arm, lounging in the VIP section. He went out like this often, hunting. He had to feed from several donors on a regular basis. I can’t meet all his needs.

  We partied like rock stars, dancing with a whole group of girls. I had to put up with Enrique biting two other women in the VIP section. It drove me nuts to watch him give an orgasm to these women who had their paws all over him, groping his crotch and kissing him – they were shameless. I was so jealous I grabbed onto the cute brunette grinding on me, and made out with her, just to prove I could have anyone I wanted.

  I hadn’t proven anything to anyone. My non-existent willpower broke a few minutes later and I attacked Enrique. I really don’t enjoy being jealous. It’s petty and childish, and it makes me feel like someone else is in control of my emotions, pulling my strings.

  “It’s my turn!” I grabbed him, slipping my arms around his neck, an open invitation for the bite which had come to be the defining moments of my nightly life.

  My first bite of the night. Enrique had been true to his word, providing syringes loaded with venom for my early evening needs. Consequently, he could refrain from biting me till later, around ten or eleven. The injection was actually a lot stronger punch than the slow absorption of venom from his bite, very intense. It did the job, but didn’t feel the same as being in his arms.

  I came hard and fast in Enrique’s embrace, moaning loudly and grabbing his cock while the fast-paced club music pounded in my ears, keeping time with my racing heartbeat. If I wasn’t in love with him, I most certainly loved his bite, so what’s the difference?

  As I spasmed in his embrace, wetting my thirty dollar Victoria’s Secret thong underwear, someone nearby had recognized Enrique and wasn’t very happy to see him. The man’s thoughts grabbed my attention because of the uncommonly concentrated hatred. Though a little buzzed from a few beers, the man clearly recalled watching his girlfriend get frisky with Enrique a month ago in this very same club. He and his girlfriend had argued over it, and she broke up with him. He had been planning to propose to her. He blamed Enrique for the loss of his fiancée. From my perspective the guy was an asshole and had created his own problem. But I doubt he’d listen to me.

  I looked in the direction of his t
houghts, he stood right behind Enrique. The man easily weighed over three hundred pounds, several inches taller than Enrique. He looked like a professional wrestler, the kind of client I’d charge double simply on principle. Big, black, and mean. My instinct was to run. There was no talking sense to him. He’d been waiting for this too long, too inebriated.

  He had an empty beer bottle cocked back to smash over Enrique’s head. No time for warnings. I pulled down hard, dropping my weight, pulling Enrique on top of me. I twisted to bring him down beside me, trying to get him out of the path of that beer bottle.

  As we hit the plush red bench seat in our VIP booth, Enrique reacted with a freaky, whip-fast move. Up in a flash, he evaded the beer bottle. The big bad man had committed to his attack. The beer bottle hit home where Enrique had been a second earlier, which also happened to be my right shoulder.

  Pain exploded through my shoulder, collarbone, and upper arm. The bottle shattered, lacerating my flesh and cheek with shards of glass. Enrique’s smooth ass was untouched. The big, black wrestler damn near laid on top of me with the momentum of his attack. And then he was gone in the blink of an eye.

  He went flying back off the raised platform of the VIP section to land on his back, on the stairs descending to the dance floor. Enrique snatched me up into his protective embrace. No longer the suave sophisticate who smiled, chuckled, and called me querida. He had transformed into a ferocious thing with a snarl and fangs fully exposed. A coiled tension of deadly force rippled through his powerful body. He had tossed a three hundred pound man ten feet through the air like nothing.

  He whisked us down the stairs to face the wrestler who had barely gotten to his feet. The people at the edge of the dance floor gawked at the three of us, anxiously waiting for the action and drama. The man came up into a crouch, preparing to tackle. Enrique lashed out with his left hand, nailing him in the nose with a fleshy crunch.

  The wrestler collapsed in a heap, out cold. I knew his nose was busted, and I suspected worse, like his right cheek bone. I caught the impression of something rock hard hitting something spongy, breakable. The wrestler’s face would need reconstructive surgery.

  Club security swarmed all over us, but it became clear within minutes what had happened. I was bleeding all over the damn place, and witnesses attested to the wrestler’s unprovoked attack. Enrique did what Latinos around the world have done for centuries. He bribed the head of security with a roll of hundreds. We left quickly, escorted to the limo waiting outside. I’ve seen bribes paid out almost daily back in Colombia, but never in the US. I thought things were different here. Apparently not.

  Enrique dabbed at the blood on my arm and face with an expensive silk handkerchief. “Aye, querida, I’m so sorry. That was meant for me.”

  “I know. He wanted to kill you for causing him and his fiancée to split up.”

  “Que malo. So much pain over something so trivial. I had no idea.”

  “He blamed you, but it was really his own fault. You bit his girlfriend a month ago. He saw the two of you together. A convenient target to blame when she broke up with him.”

  “You can read all that in a matter of seconds?”

  “Yes, and there’s more. He cheated on her. He assumed the same when he saw her kissing you. They always suspect people of doing the same things they are capable of.”

  “I’m so sorry you were caught in the middle of this. These little dramas happen at times. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. For that reason I try not to frequent the same locations too regularly.”

  “Yeah, he’s been looking for you for several weeks.”

  I began shaking, not from the cold, but from nerves and the aftermath of the adrenaline rush. Enrique glanced quickly at the taxi driver to see if he was watching. The driver’s attention was on the road.

  “This will help.” He snaked his sexy tongue out and licked the blood off my shoulder. He had to pick out pieces of glass as he went, but I hardly noticed. His venom soothed my aching shoulder and stole the pain from my lacerated flesh.

  By the time we made it home I was high as a kite, feeling zero pain. The bleeding had stopped on both my cheek and arm. Who needs first aid kits when you have your very own vampire handy to treat cuts and bruises? He had me so high I could barely walk to the elevator. He damn near carried me. It was wonderful. I’d almost be willing to get hit by a beer bottle every night just to have Enrique licking on me with his magical tongue. I’m pretty sure I climaxed for about twenty minutes straight while he cleaned me up in the cab. That’s gotta be a record for the world’s longest orgasm. I’m sure the cab driver heard me moaning, saw what was going on, but I didn’t care.

  Back in my bedroom Enrique undressed me and tucked me into bed while applying bandages to my arm.

  “I think there’s an opportunity for your advancement. I’d like to have an assistant who can give me the inside information on a potential investment. I have need for your unique talents.”

  “What … you don’t like my translations?” I slurred in my uber-high voice.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t worry about it right now.”

  I was so high I’d have agreed to anything at the moment. I cuddled up with my head in his lap. “Okay.”

  “Oh … and a piece of advice. If we’re ever in that situation again, I don’t need your protection. All I need is for you to get yourself out of the way. I’ll take care of the rest. You hear me?”

  “Unh hunh.” I was half asleep already.

  “No more taking bullets meant for me.”

  “Bottles … not bullets,” I murmured.

  “Yes, but you understand the analogy. Don’t do that again. You are much more breakable than I am. Okay?”

  “Okay.” And with that I passed out, my head cradled in his lap.

  I woke up late in the afternoon, a few minutes before six. My shoulder and arm felt a little sore, but nothing like I expected.

  In front of the mirror in my massive bathroom, I tore the bandage off my shoulder expecting to see a nasty set of cuts that would need stitches. I had three little red welts. The scabs were ready to fall off. My cheek had a pink line where the bottle gouged me. The wounds look days old – weeks old.

  That vampire’s venom was a miracle cure. Every emergency room in the world could use a couple gallons of it. There’s no way I could’ve escaped that beer bottle without several stitches under normal conditions. But there wasn’t anything normal about my life these days. At this rate, I’d be fully healed in another night. I might even get off without a single scar to show for it.

  I poked my shoulder, it felt tender. But it was a slug bug kinda tender, which wasn’t bad under the circumstances. How strange. Weird, but I’m definitely not complaining.

  ***

  CHAPTER 12

  My first assignment as Enrique’s assistant was to accompany him to a dinner party – business meeting. We arrived by taxi. For whatever reason, Enrique didn’t like to travel by subway. With him we always took a taxi or the limo. Enrique took us to the Le Bernardin Restaurant.

  “This is the premier French seafood restaurant in New York. Parisian actually. Probably one of the best restaurants in the world. Of course, it’s reservation only. The place has a waiting list for reservations.” If I didn’t know better, I’d think he tried to impress me.

  “Oh God, why are you telling me this? Are you afraid I’ll embarrass you?”

  “No, relax. You can do this.”

  He had me in a fourteen hundred dollar maroon Tarik Ediz gown and thousand dollar Louboutin heels. I looked like a damn runway model. They actually called it a “Red Carpet” gown, as if I was some kind of celebrity. I felt like I could’ve charged a thousand dollars an hour in that outfit, at least enough to earn what Enrique paid for it.

  “Listen, you’re gorgeous. A young, beautiful woman helps liven up the meeting. They’ll be staring at you the whole time while you pick their brains.”

  “It only takes a few minutes of conversation.
I’ll know everything we need to know in a few minutes.”

  “No, querida. You don’t know what these people are like. We do this my way. You’ll stay for the entire dinner.”

  I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the deception. I’d been hoping to get in and out quickly. I felt like an imposter, a pretender. I didn’t belong in this high-class world of MBAs and investment advisors. Here I was, twenty-two years old – almost twenty-three, a former prostitute, and yet he expected me to put on a façade of being a respectable cultured woman, his date. I thought it near impossible to fool them for any length of time.

  “I’m nothing more than an uneducated, illegal immigrant. They will see right through this.” My confidence was seriously lacking.

  “Querida, don’t worry you’ll be fine. I believe you can do this. It’s okay to ask questions and feign ignorance. No one will expect you to understand the complexity of the transaction they’re proposing. Your role tonight is simple eye candy. They will underestimate you. That’s precisely what I’m counting on. Be who you are, that’s all I ask. You don’t have to tell them anything personal. You’re visiting the US, and enrolling in college. Nothing more. None of that is a lie. If you don’t understand something I expect you to ask questions. That’s the whole point.”

  “The broker and the facilitator will take pains to explain to you what they assume I already know. It’s perfect. As they explain the scheme to you, all their secrets will be revealed. Either through their indulgence of your curiosity, or by telepathy, we will uncover the truth.”

  It all made sense, but I still felt inadequate for the task. “But what will they think of me? I don’t want to dress up like a sophisticated, rich girl only to be discovered as an escort when they see through the deception. I don’t know any French or anything ...”

  “I’ll be right there at your side the whole time. It’ll be fun, trust me.”

  He kissed me to seal the deal, and with that I opened a new chapter in my life.

  We met Prince Ahmet Rahim Mahmoud, accompanied by a Spaniard, Emilio Rodriguez, a broker for Enrique’s investments. I recognized Emilio’s name from a consulting fee agreement I’d seen that entitled him to ten percent commission on a transaction with Reguera Internacional S.A.. Emilio, a short, bald, pale man with a please–everyone sycophantic manner, introduced the prince, and we all shook hands then sat down to order drinks.