by Kol Anderson
“It’s for your own good.”
I kissed him and got off his lap.
I turned my back to him and got down on my hands and knees on the carpeted floor in front of him. I waited patiently, did nothing. I could feel his eyes on me, then I felt him lowering my jeans enough to expose my ass, and my hands were sweaty, anticipating his next move. Even though I knew what it was going to be when I heard him sliding off that belt, it made me nervous and gave me a kind of thrill that I wasn’t expecting so soon.
***
When Alex finally stopped hitting me with that belt, I was in an awful lot of pain. We had done this before and I had expected him to be a little rough, but today he had given out a ‘punishment’ that was a lot harsher than usual. Maybe he wanted me out of my comfort zone that day.
For a long time, he didn’t do anything, but then he pushed me onto the carpet, making me relax on the floor and I felt his hand on my ass and it stung, it made me wince. “So beautiful,” he said, and despite the pain there was something soothing about the whole thing. “So damn beautiful.”
I felt exhausted, happy to just be able to lie down.
But Alex was just getting started.
He roughly pinched my skin and I did more than wince that time. “Alex!” I didn’t want to break the fantasy, or whatever he had in mind. Just wanted to let him know it was getting a little more than uncomfortable. He stopped and I felt him getting on top, putting his weight on me and he was pushing his cock against my ass, and I realized he’s doing it without lube and without using a condom and suddenly the fear made me struggle underneath him, wanting to push him off me, role-play be damned. “Alex!” I tried to talk to him, but it seemed to me like he wasn’t really listening and it made me scared and pissed off at the same time. “Alex get off me!”
But instead, his hand came over my face, covered my mouth and he pulled me a little into himself, and I feared for a second he was going to break my neck. I could feel his hot breath on me and for the first time in months, I was in a situation that was beyond my control. I don’t know if it was the pain or the humiliation or the sense of dread that finally made me cry out, but Alex was busy by then, huffing and panting, grunting away—a total stranger. He never took his hand off my mouth and I felt like I should have done something, struggled a bit more; I don’t know, but having a stranger break my neck seemed worse than letting him rape me. The minute Alex was done, he went slack, his hand came away from my mouth, he pulled out and out of nowhere he kissed me where his face was resting close to my head. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
***
The minute he got off me I stood, slid my pants back up and slipped into my shoes. I got my coat, ready to leave when Alex stopped me by gripping my arm. “Sin, wait—”
“Get your hands off me!” I wrenched my arm free from his grip and stormed out the door, vowing never to go back.
***
I was lounging in front of my flat-screen, not really watching anything. The volume wasn’t even on, it was just a view of some strangers moving about. I think I may have been doing it for the company. I was high on meth, my drug of choice in those days and the glass stem was still on the floor in front of me. I wished I had Aiden’s number, I had a feeling he could make me forget everything that I wanted to forget and give me some good things to remember in their place. I still hooked up with him sometimes, but it was always on his terms. It was either get over him, or keep going with him on his terms, so I chose the latter. There was something about Aiden, maybe just the fact that he was my first love, so to speak and I couldn’t imagine completely getting rid of him, not if I could help it. Aiden seemed to want to see me too, occasionally, and at the time it felt like something I couldn’t live without. Alex and him, they both gave me some kind of stability, or at least the illusion of it, I don’t know what it was. I never got bored of them, never felt like I had to have other people. If it was up to me I’d never sleep with anyone else but the two of them.
Of course right now, I was majorly pissed at Alex.
The buzzer rang and for a while I tried to ignore it but when whoever it was turned out to be incredibly persistent, I had to get up.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said, when I saw Alex waiting at the door.
“Can we please talk?” he said. “I came all the way here. At least just hear me out.”
I walked back to the TV room without giving him a response, even though I was tempted to give him a sharp retort, end the story right there. He followed me inside the room. I went to sit on the couch and he sat with me, took out an envelope. “Take this please,” he said.
“I don’t want it, Alex.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would imply that I took money for letting you rape me.”
“Sin,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me, but I’m truly mortified. Please don’t let this one thing ruin what we have.”
“I trusted you. That’s what this whole thing is about. If I can’t trust you, I can’t come to your hotel room and I can’t let you fuck me!”
“Sin, I care about you,” he said. “You know I do. I was just… God, it was bad judgment. You need to forgive me. Give me another chance and I’ll make it up to you.”
I looked at his face.
It was the same familiar face of Alex Cooper, one that I had gotten seriously accustomed to. The face that was it had always made me feel safe until last night, when he became a complete stranger to me.
“I thought you were going to kill me,” I said, remembering what it had been like to feel like he was breaking my neck in two. Remembering how terribly alone and afraid I was, and needing him to understand for some reason.
“Baby,” he said. “I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“You did hurt me.”
“I know, I just mean… Sin… I can never seriously hurt you. I’m sorry if I scared you, it won’t happen again, I promise.”
When I said nothing, he dropped to his knees in front of me. He placed his hands on my thighs, spread my legs apart and reached for the button of my jeans.
“Is this you making it up to me?”
“No,” he said. “This is me wanting to fuck you.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said. “I’m too sore.”
“We can work around that,” he said and tried to take off my pants but I stopped him. He climbed over me, straddled my thighs, and kissed me and I could not resist. Inside I still felt that hurt, not the physical one so much but the one that’s bothering me in the back of my mind, a nagging guilt or anger at my own weak resolve, I don’t know which. “I love you Sin,” he said, still kissing me. “And I want you.”
“You hurt me.”
“So let me take care of you,” he said, and started kissing my neck. Everything just started falling back into place again.
I’m hot for him and he’s hot for me, and it’s going to be okay.
He was lifting my shirt, kissing my chest, using his tongue in ways that made me tremble and moan and cured that aching deep down in the pit of my stomach. It’s not sex, it’s never been sex, but some kind of worshipping ritual, a sacrifice to the gods, and I must have been the most willing offering.
***
“I’m sorry I can’t stay,” Alex said, buttoning up his shirt. “But I have a proposition for you.”
“You do?”
“Come to Cabo with me for a week.”
Did I hear that right?
“I have a work thing, thought maybe you’d like to accompany me,” he explained. “You’re free to roam around, do your thing. Just come back when I need you.”
“You know that’s going to cost extra.”
“How does twenty thousand dollars sound?”
I could scarcely believe my ears.
“Well?” he said when he didn’t get an answer. “Are you in or not?”
“Just the week,” I said. “I have appointments after that.”
&
nbsp; “One week, no more.”
“When do you want to leave?”
“I’m supposed to be there next Monday,” he said. “That should give you plenty of time to arrange things here. There’s just one more thing,” he said, and looked directly at me. “I’ll need your real name.”
“Sam,” I said without thinking. “It’s Sam Taylor.”
I think a part of me wanted him to know, wanted someone to know the real me.
Alex was still staring at me and then he smiled. “Nice meeting you, Sam.”
You haven’t met me yet.
Chapter 3
Two for the Price of One
Monday morning Alex was getting ready to leave for his meeting and I still hadn’t gotten out of bed. There was something in the air, a kind of peacefulness that made me sleep a lot better than I had in ages. The beach house that Alex had booked was big, twenty-five thousand square feet with multiple bedrooms, a private terrace which looked over a pool, and a Jacuzzi. It was so far beyond my imagination I still kept pinching myself from time to time just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. We spent an entire weekend in bed, three whole days. Well, we did use the pool and bathroom too, but not for the reasons those things are designed. Even Alex seemed more alive than he did at home, more relaxed somehow. Not a different Alex, but a better version of him, a lot less formal and a lot more fun.
“When are you going to be back?” I asked, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“I should be done by eight.”
“That’s too late!” I complained. “What am I going to do all day?”
“You’re in Cabo San Lucas for goodness sake. Get out of bed and find something to do!”
Suddenly, I missed my drugs.
“Hey,” Alex said, taking a break from dressing up for his meeting. “Please tell me you’re not going to spend the whole time doing drugs.”
“I don’t have them on me.”
“Good.”
“You think I can’t score here?”
Alex stepped away from the mirror at last. “Find something better to do, Sam,” he said, putting on his suit jacket. “I will see you later.”
I pulled the sheets aside. “Fine, dad.”
Alex grinned and smacked my ass as I headed towards the bathroom.
***
The restaurant bar had a great breakfast menu and offered a stunning view of the ocean. The weekend was fun, but I was afraid it was too much fun. Afraid I was getting too attached to Alex. Afraid it was going to bite me in the ass. I was trying to protect myself from something that hadn’t even happened. Or maybe it had, why else would I say yes to coming down here with him? This was as close to playing house with Alex as it could get.
“Mind if I join you?” someone said and I turned to look at him. Nicely dressed, a bit older, but not as old as Alex. Early forties max, and strangely attractive—well, to me anyway.
“Please,” I said.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
He grinned and he had one of those smiling faces, you know, the kind that I imagined could stop wars and bring world peace, solve international political conflicts in a matter of seconds. “Not in love with Cabo yet?”
“Guess I haven’t found the right inspiration.”
“Well, maybe you’ll find it soon enough,” he said. “I’m Isaac. My friends call me Ike.”
“Sam.”
“Are you here alone, Sam?”
“With my boyfriend actually.” It felt strange saying that. I was already living a fantasy that week; I decided to just run with it.
“Oh,” Isaac said. “So that guy you’re with, he’s your boyfriend?”
“You’ve seen him?”
“I saw you two last night in the restaurant.”
“Right. What about you? Are you here with someone?”
“Not quite.”
“No wife? No kids?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even an ex?”
He laughed. “Well, I have exes,” he said. “But I don’t even think most of them remember me anymore.”
“How’d you manage to stay single so long? You’re a good looking guy, I’m sure you can find someone to be with.”
“I’m still looking, I guess. Just haven’t found the right one.”
“And what would the right person be like?”
“I don’t really know to be honest,” Isaac said. “I figure I’ll know when I see him.”
“You really believe that?”
“Of course.”
“Seems kind of far-fetched, don’t you think?” I said. “What if the right person doesn’t believe in all that?”
“Well then he’s not really the right person to begin with, is he?”
“Fair enough.”
When the conversation came to a stop, I felt like I might have said a bit more than I should have, but there was nothing I could do about it. After just staring at the ocean for a while, he turned to me again. “So what do you have planned today?”
“Would you believe me if I said nothing?”
“I thought you came here with your boyfriend,” he said. “I’m sure you can find plenty of things to do.”
“He only gets free in the evenings,” I said. “In the day, he attends business meetings.”
“That’s not nice,” he said. “You’ll be missing out on so much. Who comes to Cabo to attend business meetings?”
“He does, apparently.”
“Well, if you’re free and have no other plans, maybe we can go sightseeing together.”
Alex did say I was free to do whatever I wanted during the day. I was still hung up on Alex, but I needed company. The idea of going sightseeing alone in a strange place just seemed annoying, so I took Ike up on his offer. “Sure,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”
“We could go see The Arch.”
“I don’t know what that is, but sure.”
***
We took a water taxi from the marina to El Arco but the tides were high that day and though we saw the picture perfect beauty, we couldn’t explore it as much as we wanted. Isaac told me about the Arch and how it stands between the Sea of Cortez on one side and the Pacific on the other. That part was actually interesting. Then he insisted we see Playa del Amor and the taxi took us there next. During the ride, Isaac said that ‘Playa del Amor’ literally translated to ‘Lover’s Beach.’ It sounded a bit corny to me, but Isaac seemed to think the world of it. When it was time to get off the water taxi, Isaac got off first. Even though he held my hand only to help me when I was stepping on to dry land, I still felt a current strong enough to make me lose my footing, but Isaac was there to keep me steady.
Afterward, we must have lounged on the sand for hours, just talking. Isaac kept telling me random stuff about himself. The fact that he lived somewhere in Brooklyn, and had a business, something to do with imports. It was obvious he loved to travel. He wasn’t exactly rich, but whatever money he did manage to save, he spent it on seeing the world. To him that was life, seeing different cultures, meeting new people and even enjoying the feeling of being back home at the end of a trip. We were strolling around the beach, and the waves would reach my feet every now and then, and suddenly it hit me—where I was, it was truly spectacular. I was having a good time, and it had nothing to do with sex. It wasn’t just Isaac either, but the collective impact of everything around me. One of those moments where the present is so good you become terrified of the future. I would never even have experienced it if it weren't for Alex, and in that moment I was more grateful for it than ever.
“Your boyfriend,” Isaac said, toeing a broken seashell. “Is it a long term thing?”
“I’ve known him a few months,” I said, crouching on the sand, watching a tiny crab coming out of a burrow, only to have the waves wash over it. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
I stood up, rubbed the sand off my hands. “Go ahead, ask me.”
“I don
’t understand.”
“You want to know if I’m with him for his money,” I said. “What else would a guy like me, who’s obviously never even traveled before, be doing with a guy like him, who is rich and cultured and everything?”
“First off,” he said. “I don’t judge people. Even if you are with him for his money, it’s not my business. People should do what they think is right for them. We only get this one life to live. What’s the point of life if you’re constantly living it to serve other people’s ideas of normal? And second, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who’d be with someone for their money.”
Suddenly, I needed a place to burrow myself in. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” he said. “And I know you think of yourself as some street-smart, no bullshit type, but you’re not quite as tough or as bad as you think. Whatever it is you’re doing that you think is wrong, Sam, you can always stop.”
I was about to respond when I felt a sharp pain shooting around the side of my left foot, it hurt so bad it made me jump. I started cursing out loud and Isaac squatted over my foot to check. “Don’t freak out,” he said. “But I think you got stung.”
***
“Don’t tell me not to freak out when you say something that’s going to freak me out,” I said, trying to keep calm despite the growing pain in my foot. “Is it dangerous? Am I going to die?”
Isaac stood up and checked my pulse. “Your heart rate seems normal,” he said. “Jellyfish stings aren’t usually dangerous. If it was going to give you some kind of anaphylactic reaction it would have already happened. But it could still be poisonous.” The sting was already starting to give me blood blisters, forming hideous welts on my skin, and the pain was reaching horrible proportions.
“Hold on to me,” Isaac said. “Let’s get you to a hospital.”
***
At the hospital, they took care of the wound and gave me a shot, something to counter the effects of the sting, and told me it was okay to go home so Isaac hailed us a cab and we came back to the beach house. With his help, I managed to get to the bedroom. Housekeeping services must have been at work while I was away because everything looked just as it was when we checked in three days ago. Isaac prop me up against the headboard and brought me pillows to make me more comfortable. “Feeling any better?” he asked.
