by KT Strange
The common area is three floors down and the elevator opens on a beautiful space that looks more like it would be in a high end apartment complex than an office building. The kitchen is definitely meant for group meals, with a big six burner gas stove and what looks like a commercial fridge. I take a look inside, and I'm surprised but also not to see that it's filled with food. Do they lack for nothing here? Who's eating this? It doesn't look like anything's been touched.
"Checking out the goods?" Vince asks, and I let the door to the fridge slammed shut in surprise.
He's leaning against the kitchen island, one hand braced on it and he looks, I don't know, smug like he's caught me doing something wrong, like last night when he saw me leaving Kai's apartment.
"What?" I asked defensively.
He shrugs. "It don't make sense," he says.
"What?" I ask.
"I know what Kai did to you that night at the show."
His words warp in my ear and I feel like for a moment darkness is crawling around me.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say.
He laughs quietly under his breath, "Princess, please."
I bristle at the nickname.
He notices, and smirks what, "Isn't that what you are?"
"Maybe rags to riches, sure."
"But you're staying in this tower, you're a Princess now. You have the town car, the clothes, the Rockstar boyfriend."
"Kai is not my boyfriend," I say irritated.
I start to walk by him. He grabs my wrist and I yank it away.
"Then what are you doing with him?" he demands.
I pause, "Just fucking," I say. "Is that a problem?"
He feels so hard up. His words are a little buzz in my ear.
"Why don't you just fuck me? I'd actually pay you." I stiffen and pull away.
"Your Money is not good with me, " I snapped.
He raises an eyebrow, "Oh yeah?" he asks.
He used his hand to cradle the back of my neck. I don't know why but I'm shivering suddenly under his touch. The clench of arousal hop between my thighs. I should slap him for being so rude to me, and making assumptions about me but instead, I let him pull me in. I've been starved so long for any kind of attention and here it is, these three men, these three terrible men showering me which are broken and awful in their own way. They're giving me everything I'm craving.
"Maybe my money is not good but I know my mouth is," he says.
His hands slide down my body to hook under my thighs and before I can protest he's lifting me up. My elbows hit the marble countertop of that kitchen island at the same time as my ass does.
"Why are you always wearing these skirts," he says. "You make it so easy."
I swallow, my mouth dry. I don't know how he knows what I've been wearing, I haven't seen him a lot other than leaving Kai's place. I stutter as he pushes the skirt up my thighs. The dark intense look in his eyes, his brow furrows, and he bends down.
"Last chance to say no."
I hold my breath. "And what if I said no?" I asked.
His gaze slides up to meet mine. His mouth curves in a slow dangerous smile.
"I'd know that you are lying."
His fingers curved into the waistband of my panties and he snaps the elastic making my hips jerk.
Insert sex scene here.
"How did you two meet? he asks.
I'm just catching my breath. Air filling my lungs. He's got his hand wrapped around me. Finger splitting around his cock. As he pulled out of me slowly, I went to the movement.
"Are you asking me how I met Kai now?" I look away. "I thought you knew what he did to me."
He pauses, hand wrapped around his cock, frown on his face. He hurriedly tucks himself back inside his underwear and pulls up his pants.
"I knew he fucked you," he says. "What do you mean what he did to you?"
He looks serious, almost murderous.
"What happened?"
My lips tremble, "It was an accident," I say.
He shakes his head, not understanding
"How is fucking somebody an accident?" he asks.
"I didn't know it was going to happen?" I say.
I'm so tired. I roll over and close my eyes letting in a slow breath. God, I've had more sex in the last week than I've had in the last five years of my life. I feel him lifting the sheet over my body and he presses a kiss to the side of my head.
"You're going to sleep?" he asks.
"Mhmm," I say.
"Yeah, that's right. You sleep," he says. "Don't worry about it."
I'm going to ask him don't worry about what, but sleep steals me away.
Sixteen
Olivia
I wake up in a strange bed and stretch before sitting up sharply. Toby, I forgot to feed him last night. I look around the room. It's dark, but the doors open and crack to some brightness out in the hall. My clothes are on the floor and I pull them on. My mouth feels like something died in it and my hair is a rat's nest of tangles and curls. I wish I had an elastic band to just put it up in a bun. The bed's empty. Vince is already somewhere else. But I don't smell coffee being made or any kind of breakfast being cooked. He's probably not that kind of guy. I don't know what kind of guy he really is but anyway, I go out into the hallway searching for signs of life and stop short when I hear two men's voices speaking. It's Kai and Vince having an argument in the hallway. I press up against the wall and stop breathing. They're talking about me.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Kai is saying.
"That's a better question for you," Vince says sounding angry. "She told me about the first night you guys met."
Kai makes a noise like he's surprised.
"She told you about that?" He asks.
"Not such a fucking good guy now. What kind of white knight are you raping a girl?"
Kai makes a splatter of anger, sounding flustered and my hand flies to my mouth covering it in shock. I had no idea Vince would guess that from the little I told him last night. Obviously he went there and I had no idea he was going to confront Kai about it or how they even started talking about me.
"I didn't rape her, he says some sounding indignant. "Is that what she said? She's accusing me of raping her?"
I should race out there to correct the situation, to tell them exactly what I did mean last night when I spoke to Vince, when I was exhausted, and sleep deprived and to tell Kai the truth, that he had no idea I wasn't there because I was being paid to be there. I was just a fan going to a meet and greet and he accidentally, unknowingly had sex with me without my consent. If I have to be honest, I didn't stay non consenting for long and it's still one of the hottest moments I've ever had sexually in my life. That says something about me I guess, that I'm wrong or fucked in the head.
"You know, I knew you were pretty messed up," Kai says. "But I didn't think that you would somehow get her convinced that I'd hurt her. Unlike you, I've never done anything without someone's consent and I've never hurt anybody in the pursuit of my goals."
Kai sounds furious. His voice dripping with contempt.
"Whatever shit you pulled with her, I'm never going to forgive you for just like I can't forgive you for my brother either."
There's a little creaking noise and movement to my left. A door opens and I see a sliver of light fall on the carpet. A girl stands there. She's about 15 and I recognize her. She was the one with Vince in the alley. The one that passed me his leather jacket. Her eyes are wide as she looks at me. What is she doing here? If I remember it correctly, Vince was pimping that night, offered me protection. I'm assuming if I'd taken it, he would have whored me out. Was he doing the same with this girl? A feeling of broken horrifying panic fills me. I somehow aligned myself with a monster. The voices in the hallway have risen and Kai shouting at Vince, with Vince telling him to get the fuck out. The girl slips past me and turns the corner.
"And who the fuck is this?" Kai asked. "Do you have some kind of daughter we don't know about?"
/>
Vince tells him to get the fuck out and Kai says with his pleasure. The front door slams and it rocks the whole apartment. The air shuttering with the impact.
"Go make some coffee Chrissy," Vince says sounding tired. "I need to get her up."
"She's already up," Chrissy says.
"Right," Vince replies and then comes around the corner glaring at me. "How long were you hanging out there eavesdropping?" He asks.
"It's not like I needed to try very hard. You guys were audible from the bedroom."
I cross my arms over my chest.
"I never told you that you could talk to him about that. That was private and personal. I shouldn't even have told you in the first place."
His scowl turns deeper, lines etching between his eyes.
"Was it even the truth?" he asked.
At this point, I'm so angry. I don't even know what to say to him.
"Who's Chrissy?" I asked. "Is she one of your employees?"
I jerked my hands up and gestured in a set of air quotes with my fingers. Vince snarls.
"You speak way too casually about shit you don't even know," he says.
I roll my eyes.
"And you broke my trust the second I gave it to you," I reply. "Why wouldn't I think that you're some kind of monster?"
He closes his eyes and tips his head back looking frustrated. His mouth opens but I scoff.
"Save it, I'm done. Thanks for the good sex. Next time you take a woman to bed, maybe skip on making her feel like shit the next day."
I brushed past him.
"Olivia, wait," he says.
Chrissy is in the hallway, her mouth open and surprised. I walk around her and she turns.
"I'm not a whore," she says. "Not like you."
I grit my teeth. It's not even worth arguing about.
"Whatever."
I leave his apartment and make a straight line for the elevator, jamming the button on it 50 times in a row.
"Come on, come on, come on," I said.
Any minute he could come out of this apartment and resume the argument and that's not something that I want to deal with right now. I just need to be on my own where nobody can hurt me. These people are so exhausting. They're so messed up. And there's so many layers of lies and half-truths that I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't even know why Vince is here at the tower if he hates it so much. He doesn't look like he even gives a shit about the business at all. From all the meetings I've had to sit in so far, they're pretty dry and he shows up, but he spends his whole time looking down at his phone. He's like a kid in calculus class. It's so frustrating to me, because at least I'm trying. I'm putting in a good college effort, attempting to know what the hell it is they're talking about and I don't. I don't understand half the stuff they say, but at least I'm trying. And I'm also not exactly running around sleeping with the guys and then making them feel shitty about themselves. I make it up to my apartment just fine and stand there. What the hell am I supposed to do? Go to bed, make myself a snack. I don't have a job, just this pathetic half person who's got a bunch of money in the bank that doesn't really belong to her in this huge towering monumented masculine virility of a building. It's also insane. I don't even know how I got to this point, but here I am useless, a waste of space, empty on the inside. I have no family, nothing to live for. I don't even care about my master's degree anymore. The one thing I'd like to do is pay off the debt, my student loan and if I could put up with these assholes then that's going to be a dream come true. I collapse onto the couch. I don't even really have any friends. Not anyone I've talked to recently anyway. It's been so long since college. They say that you lose 10% of your influence with another person each month that goes by without you talking to them. If that's the case, I've lost all influence and connection with anybody that I used to know from college or from my childhood. Now it's just me.
"Meow, meow," says Toby, jumping up into my lap as I sit there on the couch.
Well I guess me and Toby. I stroke over his fur and then curl my arms around him pulling him up against my chest. I bury my face in his fur and sigh as he purrs loudly and comfortingly. At least I still have Toby. If nothing else, he's a gentle constant in my life and I appreciate him so much right now when I'm so confused, and so broken over everything that's happened and yet the world beyond the windows still keeps going. LA is beautiful and gritty and grimy as ever. Somewhere, someone's making an indie movie, just trying to do their thing and make their dreams happen. Somewhere else a woman's crying in bed because she can't get pregnant. Somewhere else a mother feels lost and exhausted because she has so many chores to do and so many kids to take care of and not enough help with either. It's just too much. There's so much pain in the world. I'm fighting my battles, which is just to stay alive long enough to get a bunch of money and get out of here. I'll disappear into nowhere. Take my cash and go buy a little cabin. I'm never going to wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. I let my head fall back against the back of the couch and sigh.
"This is so painful."
And the problem is it shouldn't have to be. I reach for my phone. I call him, it rings and rings and rings and finally he picks up.
"What do you want?" He asks. "Want to yell at me some more?"
"Vince," I sigh.
Hi sighs in return.
"Thanks for giving me a minute," he says. "I didn't realize I needed it. I'm sorry I told Kai what you confessed to me."
"It's not that he raped me," I say, "Because technically he did, but he didn't know it was rape. I was set up. His assistant thought that I was an escort and that I was there to be his before he went on stage, you know, to get rid of the tension or whatever."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Vince asked, "because I swear on the street, we call it something else."
He sounds amused but also horrified.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," he says.
I slide down into a lying position on the couch and Toby circles three times at my feet before curling up tight.
"No, I think you needed to know. I'm sorry I made it sound like something it wasn't."
He makes a low noise as surprised
"What wasn't it then?"
"I don't know," I say. "more sustained interaction between the two of us, something like that. I have no idea. He wasn't consenting to have someone who wasn't consenting. It's confusing and I don't even really think of it as raped, just as an accident with something not so great that happened to two people, that happened to be also really good at the same time. But now he's going to hate me."
Vince goes quiet and sighs.
"I'm sorry kiddo," he says.
I'm crying. I don't know when I started but hot tears are dripping into my lap, spluttering on my forearm.
"It's fine," I say, even though it isn't.
He says, "No, it's not."
Damn, he sees right through me. I crumble, my face scrunching up as a whining cry builds in my throat.
"No, it isn't," I agree with him. "And I don't know what to do to fix that."
He pauses, letting me breathe, letting me cry with soft hiccups of noise.
"Princess, if we knew how to fix this kind of situation, nobody would be suffering at all anywhere in the world right now."
I close my eyes and let the cold sensation wash over me. The air in my apartment is cool and soothing. Although if I stay out here longer will I need a blanket or something other than Toby to keep me warm.
"Are you going to apologize to him?" I asked him.
Vince laughs, "Who, Kai? No. He'll be fine." He hesitates.
"Do you want to help him?" He asks.
I pause, "Yeah, I do."
Seventeen
Olivia
I don't hear from Kai for a few days or Vince. Instead, I just sit in my apartment and watch TV because my schedule on my phone has been completely cleared. There are no business meetings or anything.
I shoot Kai a text but hear nothin
g. I don't even know what to say to Vince. Our last conversation was so awkward and painful. I trot down to the common room kitchen because I know there are some really nice frozen berries in the freezer there, the kind I don't have in my fridge.
And when I get back, the air in my apartment is cold. The breeze across my skin makes me shiver and I drop the berries on the kitchen counter. Where is it coming from? That's when I see the curtains fluttering around the balcony door.
I gasp. It's open. “Toby!" I run to it, calling his name.
He's not on the balcony. Well, he is, but he's not standing on the balcony. He's in Everett's arms — Everett, who's standing right next to the railing. Everett, who turns to me, holding my squirming, meowing cat in his arms.
He edges closer to the railing and panic scours me right through the chest. "Don't move another inch," I tell him. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
He smirks at me. "We're enjoying the fresh air," he says, "obviously, and the view. It's beautiful here, isn't it?"
Toby is twisting in his grip. He gives a panicked meow.
"You're not very good at this game," he says. "I've been at it for years longer than you have while you were off making coffee or what was it you studied? Basket weaving?"
"Art history," I sob.
He snorts, "Equally useless. I was learning the fine art of war."
He lifts Toby up his arms, swinging towards the railing, and I scream. He stops. "Your 1%," he says.
My eyes sparkle with tears. "Put him down," I say, "please. He's just a cat, he didn't do anything. What is wrong with you?"
He stares at me. "You're not a very good hostage negotiator," he says. "You're not supposed to make me feel bad about myself." He moves another inch.
"Fine, I'll give it to you," I say, "please."
He laughs, tilts his head. "I don't want just your percentage," he says. "I want you to first vote, then I can buy out Kai and Vince if I have 34% of the company. Current bylaws say I can't, but we can change the bylaws."
He looks like he's a bit crazed and Toby has given up, hanging limply in his grip.
