Then Gentry starts moving the marker in the same rhythm and my mind starts spiraling.
Not here. I’m not here. This place isn’t real. None of this is real. Not happening. No. Not. Here. Green countryside. Yeah, that’s where I am. I hum loudly and squeeze my eyes shut tight. I’m in one of my books. Lady Charlotte all alone with just her few faithful servants and her son, after her husband died in the French wars. I take long walks. Dark corridors. Candlelight. I try to see it. Smell it.
But there’s just sweat. Men’s sweat.
No.
Candlewax. I hum louder. A dank smelling corridor. Envision it. I’ll just head to bed. Go to sleep. Nightmares, that’s all today is. I’ll go to sleep, nothing will touch me. I’m not here. I’m nowhere. I’m nothing. I’ll go away.
But then I’m jolted.
The last degradation. The marker is gone. Gentry himself is probing at my back entrance. He’s much bigger than the marker. His pushing is insistent. No matter how much I try to get away, his grip is too firm. He pushes more and I feel him breaching.
“I’m taking everything from you, you shit piece of nothing,” Gentry hisses in my ear. “Wearing out every hole and marking every nasty inch of your ugly useless body.” He continues pushing in like a battering ram and I’ve never felt more helpless in my life.
But at the same moment, in that panicked second, I see two ways before me. Either I sink back into the nether and am destroyed by this in a way I’ll never come back from. Or I take the much harder path and fight.
Gentry pushes harder. He’s almost in. Oh God. Panic chokes me.
Sink or fight?
All I want is to run in the only way available to me—to disappear, disconnect, fly away to the furthest depths inside my head. But oh God, if I cut loose my soul right here, right now, will I ever truly get it back?
Gentry breaches and in that moment the decision is made.
Goddamn mother fucking thieving bastard rapist liar.
I will give him nothing more than he is already taking.
I grit my teeth. Gentry yanks my head by my hair so that I’m forced to look back at him while he sodomizes me.
Goddamn fucker thinks this is his moment of triumph. He shoves deep in, bottoming out inside me at the same time Carl drives in. I’m forced to gasp for air at the penetration. Gentry laughs as he fucks me. At the same time, he reaches around and thumbs my clit.
The most pure form of hatred rises up and chokes me. I’ve never felt anything like it, but this bastard is so evil, I want to murder him slowly, yank his intestines out while he’s still alive and light them on fire in front of his eyes. He thinks he’s winning in this moment, but he’ll live to regret this, I swear it. This will be the last day any man ever has any power over me. I swear it on my dying breath.
I want to growl in fury and let my hatred flash in my eyes so Gentry realizes he hasn’t broken me. It takes every last ounce of self-control not to while the fucker is violating my body. I want to react like the wounded animal he’s made me. To lash out and claw his face off. But no—he just thinks he’s made me that.
I cling to logic. First, I have to get myself the fuck out of here. My mind works through everything I know about Gentry.
And, feeling sick, I know what I have to do.
Gentry still has hold on my hair so he can see my face and I make my gaze go glossy and sightless. Then I begin swiveling my hips so that they’re in sync with Carl and Gentry’s.
This time, when I feel the build at my core, I don’t hate myself. I’m doing what I have to. What will make Gentry finish faster. This is what gets him off—the humiliation I feel when I come against my will. Let him think that even in this, the most degrading of situations, my uncontrollable lust has overcome me. My remorse and self-recrimination is always what’s turned him on the most.
So fuck him. Unfortunately, I mean it literally. I’ll give him a show. Give him the appearance of getting what he wants so I can get out of here as fast as possible and as much on my terms as this sickening situation allows. But it will really be me who’s in control, not this fuckhead bastard.
I start to ride Carl in earnest, arching my back. I grind my overly-swollen clitoris against him while Gentry thrusts into me from behind. After the afternoon of activity, it’s so worked over it’s felt almost numb for awhile now. Yet, as I rub and swirl it against the curling hair at Carl’s base, sparks come back to life.
“Look how the filthy whore bitch loves it!” Gentry exults from behind me.
That’s right, you fucking bastard, you just think you’re winning. I force my features into one of distressed but agonized pleasure even as I jerk my bottom up and down harder against both cocks. I thrash my body in the simulation of pleasure even as I cry out against the tie in my mouth. A sound of absolute devastation. All the while I keep my hips pumping so hard, with a twisting grind when I get to the base of them.
The sense of fullness, the physicality of it alone is doing things to my body. More than that, though, it’s the feeling that I’ve taken back control again that’s getting me off. As much as Gentry thinks he’s in control of this shit-show, he’s not.
He’s the one who’s going to be coming on my terms, and it’s going to be a helluva lot quicker than if he’d had it his way.
I cry out again and it hardly sounds like it’s coming from me. More than that, it seems to do the trick. Gentry grabs my hips. He ignores Carl and starts absolutely jackhammering into my ass. There’s no finesse. No control to it. It hurts like hell but I don’t care. I’ll care later, but not right now. All that matters in this moment is that Gentry is the animal now, not me.
Carl tries to keep up, but he’s no match. It doesn’t matter. Even though Gentry is fucking my ass raw, I scream and keep fucking Carl. I’ve made Gentry lose control. He thought he’d planned this scenario so perfectly. That he can just manipulate and abuse anyone he wants like a puppet on a cord. Well this is just the beginning of me fucking him back.
My orgasm rips through me right as Gentry stills and then spasms behind me, hard cock shoved to the root. It takes Carl a few more rough grunting shoves before he comes but I barely notice, I’m still coming so hard. My legs shake and my skull seems to split for a second. Then I’m left with a hot thrumming that pulsates in my chest, stomach, and up my spine.
It’s not the pleasant sensation I want to associate with sex, though. I only feel rage at the two cocks still shoved up inside me. Or well, one. Carl is quickly shriveling and he slips out. Carl shifts my body to the side so he can climb out from under me to dispose of the condom. Gentry still holds me, moving his shaft in and out. His arms are a steel band around my waist, and his cock is still firmly lodged up my ass.
Fucking great, he’s one of those guys who can keep it hard after he comes. I want to scream at him to get the fuck out of me, but it’s more important that I keep playing my part. I have to get out of this room or he’ll only keep tormenting me.
I have to play at being the very thing I hate—broken. That’s all Gentry’s ever wanted. I’ve finally figured out his game. It’s just like Jackson said. Gentry likes to take things that are whole and break them.
I force myself to weep. Not a hard sob, but just that slight body-shaking cry of a person who has nothing left, not even the energy for an all-out sob-fest.
“Calliope?” Gentry calls.
I don’t respond.
He calls my name again.
When he grips my hair and pulls my face to look at him, I let him drag me around without resistance. I think of the other path I almost took and what I’d be like now if I’d gone down that road. And that’s what I give him. Lifeless eyes. No expression.
He snaps in front of my face several times.
I stare past his face to the wall.
In my periphery, I see him smile in satisfaction. A chill I pray he doesn’t notice runs down my spine. This is one evil fucker.
He finally slides his cock out and lets go of me, tossing me
down to the table like I’m a used tissue. Oww. Christ, I bet he made me bleed. The question is in how many places. I don’t reach to check though. I don’t move one inch from where he deposits me, not even to shift into a more comfortable position. I keep my eyes vacant, too.
Gentry waves a hand in front of my face, then laughs loudly when I don’t react.
“See, Carl? It just takes one session sometimes to break a bitch. Like a good branding, they’re never the same after. Though I put in a couple months prep time with this one. My ultimate gift to my good old pal, Jackson.”
“Amazing,” the other man says. “Are you sure it’s done?”
Gentry laughs again. “Just look at her.”
He slaps my sore ass and it takes everything in me not to snarl at him and bite his fingers off. But I’m just praying they’re done with me. Please, please, let them be done.
“Here, I’ll show you,” Gentry says.
I steel myself. I just stayed strong through the worst hell imaginable. Whatever this is, I can handle it. They’re almost gone, I can feel it. Gentry’s energy is winding down and he’s the one running the show. Still, in spite of all my determination, my stomach sinks when Gentry walks back over toward me. I force myself immobile when he nears. I don’t tense my jaw or flinch or even flick my eyes.
He picks up a cold cup of coffee and pours it directly on my face. I keep my cover and barely move. No, the pulling out his intestines idea is too human. I need to cut off his balls and cock, no anesthesia, obviously, but I shouldn’t kill him right away.
I don’t react even when Gentry spits on me when the coffee runs out.
Gentry and Carl laugh like this is the funniest thing since SNL was invented, and I huddle on the table, doing my best to look traumatized and out of it. No, he should live a long, long life, locked up with his cock and balls rotting in a jar beside his cell—
Then, I don’t know whether to thank God or not since after this afternoon, I’m not sure I can ever believe in him, but Gentry cuffs Carl on the shoulder, drinks are mentioned, and they both leave the room.
As soon as the door clicks behind them, I roll my battered body off the table.
Oww.
Mother of Christ. One arm curls over my breasts and my other hand desperately covers my nether region as I crumple to the floor. It hurts everywhere. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
Then there’s just blank space in my head. My face is smashed against the rough office carpet, but I don’t move. My limbs seem paralyzed even as I can feel myself start to shake from head to toe.
Shock. I’m in shock. That’s what this is.
I blink, but it’s like suddenly my brain is working in slow motion. I did what I had to in order to get through it, but now, now I— I—
A noise from the corridor beyond the door jerks me back to the present. Fuck. What am I doing? It’s not safe yet.
They could come back.
That thought jerks me like an electric cattle prod jolting me into action. I’m up off the floor and reaching for my clothes.
I squeeze my eyes against the memories of Gentry pulling the shirt off my shoulders and roughly jerking the skirt off at another point.
No, no, no. I can’t let myself go there. Not if I want to get out of here without going catatonic.
I’m stronger than this. I didn’t let what they did break me while they were doing it. I sure as fuck won’t let it now afterwards.
I refuse to let it.
I fucking refuse.
And that means I have to get the fuck out of here. Maybe Gentry’s really gone for the night, maybe that was all a ruse to fuck with my head and let me think it was done before they come back and it starts over. I’m not hanging around to find out. I pull my skirt up and zip it closed. I ignore the numbness of my fingers and force the tiny shirt buttons through their corresponding holes. My feet get shoved in my heels.
One thing and then another. I just have to get out of the building. Out of the building and the fuck away from here. I grab my purse and rush for the door.
My heartbeat ratchets up to a thousand beats per minute in a sudden panic when I grab for the doorknob. What if he locked me in here until he could come back for me later?
But it turns easily. Oh, thank God. Maybe he does exist. Or she. If there’s a God, it’s definitely a she, maybe that’s my takeaway from today.
I bolt down the dimly-lit hallway and into the reception area. It’s long past business hours and the whole place is empty. I feel the same fear when I press the elevator button that I did when I went for the doorknob, but again, the button pings and opens with no problems.
With every level the elevator descends, my heart starts to slow. But it’s only when I’m breathing the warm, humid Bay Area night air as I scramble away from the Gentry Tech building that it finally sinks in—I made it. I’m away from him.
I’m safe.
I let out a large, body-shaking breath, but I do not cry.
I’m going to be a new version of myself going forward, and the new Calliope Cruise has no more room for tears.
CHAPTER 20
The next week, I alternate between curling in on myself in bed and running to the shower to scour myself until the water runs cold. Then it’s back to bed. At least until the memories of that day sneak their way past the tripwires I’ve set up in my mind.
Inevitably they find their way in and I remember every disgusting touch. The rush of degradation and filth swarms me all over again. I can’t breathe until I’m scrubbing at my skin under water that’s so hot it’s all but scalding.
It brings a little relief. Momentary. Fleeting.
But that’s how I’m handling things these days. Minute to minute. Breath to breath.
Which is a joke because I’m still suffocating most of the time.
At least it got better once Shannon left. I didn’t have her on my ass, asking me every other second what I was doing to get Charlie back. Another knife piercing my lungs.
Because I haven’t been able to face Jackson, even enough to call to check in about the family court lawyer. It’s just another thing I’m failing at.
I should never have allowed Jackson to be a go-between for his lawyers and me. If he’s still offering me the services of his lawyers after everything, then I should have direct access. Jackson shouldn’t be involved at all.
And I’ll make it clear to him the next time I see him. I will. But, I shudder and pull my comforter tighter around me, I just can’t handle that confrontation today. Tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow. Although, that’s what I’ve been telling myself all week.
Shannon left to visit our parents yesterday and I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as I heard the locks click behind her as she left.
Finally, I was alone. I didn’t have to put on a mask for anyone. I could simply be. Be as empty as I felt inside. No more pretense. No more… anything.
I close my eyes and let myself start to sink again. My limbs become liquid. One with the mattress. One. Two. Three. Four. I continue the endless counting. When I get to ten, I start over again at one. The numbers and the distraction they provide are eternal. There don’t have to be any other words in the world. No other realities except these ten words.
Sometimes I envision the shape of the numbers as I count, sometimes not. It’s the numbing repetition that’s the thing. If I do it right, I can trick my brain into not thinking at all. A buffer against all thought. Which is a safe harbor when my own mind is full of jagged and bloody places.
But no, no, I can stay safe in the shallows with my focused one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one, two—
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
I blink, startled at the noise. It was loud and c
lose. Like someone knocking at my front door. Who’s there? Who could it be? My whole body goes taut for a long moment.
The string of rapid-fire knocking comes again.
I close my eyes and shrink back into the mattress. Probably just someone selling something. While most of the time I’d eagerly head toward the door, hoping it was Girl Scout cookies’ season, the last thing I want to see right now is another human being. I pull my comforter over my head. One, two, three, four—
“Calliope, open this door,” comes a muffled shouting. I shoot to a sitting position in my bed, the fastest I’ve moved in days.
Even through the door, I recognize that voice. Jackson.
“Open the door, or I swear I’ll break it down,” he shouts. “You haven’t answered your phone in days and I swear you have five seconds before I’m coming in. Five, four—”
Shit! Motherfucker is probably crazy enough to do it, too. I scramble out of bed and dash toward the door.
“Three, two—”
My hand is at the deadbolt before I fully realize what I’m doing. It’s flipped and the door is open in the next second.
My chest heaves up and down as the bright midafternoon summer sunshine fills my entryway. That is, apart from the large shadow that is Jackson Vale blocking the door. I squint and take a step back from him. He is silent and tall and imposing and immediately he reminds me of everything I’ve been hiding from all week.
Pain. It hurts everywhere. Just seeing him makes it all as raw as the first day, as when they, they—
“I’m alive.” My tone is clipped and pissed and I don’t try to hide it. Get rid of him. I have to make him go. I need a shower. My skin is itching with filth. Have to wash it off. Now. Make him go, make him go, anyway I have to. “You satisfied? Surely I’m not the first girl ever to not take your calls.” I roll my eyes, “or hell, maybe I am, so let me translate. It means I just didn’t want to see you. Take a hint.” I try to shut the door in his face, but he puts out a hand, palm up, and easily stops the door from closing.
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