Tortured

by N. M. Catalano

  “Look at me, Sasha.” Her eyes creep up to mine. “What did they talk about?”

  Her lips flatten to a tight line. She’s torn. “They talked about some deal James and Dominic are doing together,” his name on her tongue is like acid in my veins. “They talked about me,” she continues quietly. “He talked about me.”

  Why the fuck is HE so interested in Sasha?!

  Reaching into my jeans pocket, I pull out the nipple clamps, pinch one of her pretty pink peaks between my fingers, and stroke her lips with my tongue. She moans. “Tell me about the deal.”

  Her body bows into mine. “They didn’t say much.” Her words come out on a heavy breath.

  I secure one nipple with a clamp, then flick the captured point. “Tell me what they said.” I bend and replace my finger with the tip of my tongue, teasing her.

  I grasp the other nipple and roll it between my thumb and forefinger.

  “Gringo…,” she pants.

  “The deal, Sasha.” I fasten the other clamp firmly in place on her other breast.

  She’s already flushed and her mouth opens slightly. “They said…Dominic said…that fucking man again!...they’re working on a deal together.” She’s stroking the growing bulge in my pants.

  I bend and bite the plump flesh of her breast, intentionally leaving her marked.

  She squeezes me through the denim. “Gringo, please,” she moans.

  “I’m going to torture you, my pet, until you give me all the information you have.” I place my hands on her shoulders and spin her around. I hear the sound of her protest but she doesn’t argue. I lead her to the living room and guide her to an armchair. “Bend over the fucking chair and hold on.” I’m trying to rein in my volatile emotions. I need to be focused on everything. Her, her words, and her body.

  She whimpers as she takes the position, bent over, ass in the air, and legs slightly spread. She’s shaking, not from fear, but from everything she’s kept in the past few days. And from what’s to come.

  “How hard do you want it, Sasha?” I ask as I unbuckle my belt and slide it free through the loops.

  Her back rises as she takes in a deep breath. “Hard.”

  Good.

  Smack! The leather strap lands across her ass cheeks. Immediately her skin turns bright red along a straight line.

  She lets out a loud yelp. My cock pulses.

  “What about the deal, Sasha?”

  She’s breathing heavily. “Dominic said James isn’t doing what he’s supposed to!”

  Smack! The strap lands criss-cross over the first blow. “What’s the deal about?”

  My balls tighten.

  “I don’t know!” she yelps again.

  Smack! The sound fills the room. Another red line appears across her pale ass as the welts are already beginning to form. “What did he say about you?” my voice is tight and angry.

  I don’t like this. I don’t like how they’re talking about her. The fucking insinuations are making me insane.

  “He said,” she pants, “that I…please Gringo, don’t make me do this,” she pleads.

  I drop the belt and shove three fingers into her sopping cunt. “Tell me what he fucking said. About,” I twist the digits in her tightness, “you.” My face is now at her ear, my other hand pushing her face into the seat.

  She’s looking at me through the veil of her long dark hair as I stare right back at her. I’m breathing heavy as my fingers twist and turn inside her, rubbing her walls, pulling her orgasm out.

  She tightens around me as her eyes close. “He said I was valuable, that I was a commodity.”

  Fuck!

  “Do you want to fuck him?” I rasp, lashing my fury at her in filthy accusations. My throat’s so tight, it chokes the words. “Do you want to fuck him as James watches his cock splitting you in two?”

  She moves so fast, pushing me away from her as her hand slaps my face with a loud crack.

  “Fuck you! Fuck you, and fuck James, and fuck Dominic!” she yells at me.

  She turns away from me. I grip her arm and spin her around.

  “Let me go!”

  “No.”

  “Yes!” She tries to twist free. “Do you think I want to be there? Do you think I like being treated like shit? Do you think I enjoy being afraid in my own home?” Her voice is rising with every word. “Do you think I want everyone to think I’m this…this…,” her voice breaks on a sob.

  I fight my own words that are trying to escape. They’ve been taunting me for a long time, and I’ve pushed them aside, shoved them back down, refused to acknowledge them. But I can’t any longer.

  “Why do you stay?” I shake her once, angry with myself for allowing the question to break free.

  But I already know.

  “Because I have to!” she screams at me. “I don’t have any choice!”

  For once, shock immobilizes me. It shouldn’t, but it does, hearing the declaration out loud.

  She goes to slap me again, but this time I’m ready. I catch her wrist before she makes contact with my cheek, then twist it behind her back. My heart twists from the pain and agony I see on her face. Her body smashes against mine and she moans from the contact of her clamped nipples rubbing against me. My mouth crashes with hers in an angry kiss. She rakes her nails with her free hand down my back and I growl into her mouth as the stinging pain reverberates throughout my body. Still holding her against me, I reach down with my other hand and pinch her clit.

  “Do you want to hurt me, Sasha?” I ask quietly.

  Her body is now stiff as I work her sensitive nub between my fingers. Her expression is vivid with want, fury, and need.

  “Yes,” she hisses.

  Pulling her tighter against me, I narrow my eyes at her. “Do you want me to hurt you?” I whisper and pinch harder. Her eyes widen as she pulls her lower lip between her teeth.

  “Yes,” she whispers back.

  I lower my face to the curve of her shoulder and press my lips against her skin. “Like this?” and bite her slowly.

  Her body goes rigid as she screams out. She’s fucking coming. That final push of pain sent her careening over the edge. I don’t let go, my teeth sunk into her flesh and her clit caught tightly between my fingers. Her head falls back as she whimpers, “Gabriel…”

  When she says my name it’s like a knife in my heart.

  I cup her entire mound with my palm, her heat searing into me. I can still feel the final pulses of her orgasm beating softly against my hand, each one like the beat of her heart.

  Slowly I release her arm. I know it’s going to be uncomfortable and she’ll need a moment for the feeling to pass. I watch her watching me, a myriad of emotions creating a storm on her beautiful face. Both of us are breathing heavy as neither of us make a move.

  Until she does.

  “Damn you,” she pounces on me. Her hands pushing and pulling me, her body grinding against me, then shoving me away.

  I don’t know whose hands pull the shirt from my body, whose fingers open my pants and jerk them down my legs. But it’s my mouth, my voice that says, “I don’t want you there, Sasha.”

  Because, fuck me, I hate that she’s there. I shouldn’t, I’m not supposed to, but I do. I hate that she belongs to James. At least in name. She might have his name, but her body belongs to me. Only me.

  “Fuck you,” she slaps me again.

  This time I let her.

  I let her because I know I just hurt her. But I don’t care.

  That’s how I fuck her. I push her down on the couch and I know when her ass landed on the leather, it hurt like hell. That makes me smile, the sick fuck that I am. Because that pain is me, every time it sears through her, that’s me reminding her who she really belongs to. When I yank her legs open and pull her to me to take my cock, that hiss she sucks in is me. When I wrap her legs around my waist and sink deep inside her, that’s another brand on her flesh.

  I fuck her hard and deep, angry and possessive, like I don’t fucki
ng care. Because I care. I care too fucking much. When I pull out and slap her sensitive clit, her screams are music to my black soul.

  “This cunt, Sasha?” I tell her as I rub her wetness up her slit and all over her stomach. “This cunt is mine.” I slide my hand over mound, down her slit, to her back hole. Pressing a finger into her tightness, I bend and nip her still clamped nipple between my teeth. “This sweet ass? It’s mine.”

  “Yes,” she moans and squeezes my finger.

  I raise my mouth to hers. “Every single scream, every little whimper is mine,” I whisper.

  “Yes…”

  I slide my cock back into her wetness. “Every bit of you is mine.”

  “YES, YES, YES,” the words come as a chant as she comes again all over my cock.

  And if anyone tries to fuck with what’s mine, I’ll kill them.

  Because, damn me to fucking hell, she is mine!

  I explode inside her and fall across her body. Her heartbeat pounds out a rhythm with my own. I wrap my arms around her and pull her down with me to the floor, our bodies tangling together, our mouths claiming each other. We’re ravenous as we consume each other with our hands and our mouths and our bodies. I can’t get deep enough or close enough. But then the realization crashes over me that she’ll be leaving me and going back there. Back to him.

  I pull away from her and undo the clamps. Her eyes are fixed on mine as she grimaces from the rush of pain to her breasts.

  The walls are already shutting down around me. “If you hear anything else, it doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you think it might be, tell me immediately.” I know I sound like a coldhearted prick. That’s the way it has to be.

  She was vulnerable and raw when she got here. I might be sending her off even worse.

  “I will,” she murmurs.

  I sit back against the couch and pull her onto my lap. “I’ll find out what’s going on. I’m sure it’s nothing,” bulllshit!

  “I don’t think so,” her voice is quiet.

  I don’t disagree. Instead I stroke her and pet her, wishing I didn’t I have to send her back.

  Wishing I was grateful that I do.

  We sit quietly for a while, each of us lost in our thoughts, and each other. In the silence I can relish her and soak her in without her knowing. Without me admitting it to myself. The sun sets and the room gets darker, and the darkness is like a sound getting louder and louder. Until I can’t take it anymore. I guide her off and stand, then pull her up with me. Silently I help her dress before I lead her to her car. When the garage door opens and I watch her disappear down the road, the suffocating silence crushes me. I close the door and step back inside and head straight to my escape.

  Until it’s time to sit outside her house all night long.

  CHAPTER 10

  Gringo

  Taking the last step from the ladder to the attic, my foot lands with a thud on the landing. I haven’t been up there since the day I shoved the past in its darkness and slammed the door shut. I thought I had finally walked away from it, that the ghosts from years ago had been overcome by the demons of the present.

  I’d been wrong.

  Ghosts never go away; they’re destined for an eternity of torment. I can almost hear them celebrating our reunion as the sound of my footfalls drift upward. Celebrating our torment together. My sentence irrevocably linked with theirs forever.

  The case in my hand feels like a hundred pounds as I walk with my head bent to the empty room at the back of the house. Like a crypt. When I push the door open, there are no curtains or furniture, no pictures of happy memories or promises of a bright future. I’d left this room untouched. Blank of any emotion or desire or comfort. It’s like a void, an empty space. A place where nothing exists. It could be heaven or hell, or if you’re really unlucky, purgatory, because nowhere else will have you. I leave the door open to allow the light to filter in from the hallway. I don’t need light, not for this. Not for letting my demons come out and torture me.

  Crouching down on my heels, I place the case on the floor and run my hand along the smooth leather. I open it gently with respect and reverence, the soft clicking sound echoing in the barren room. My fingers glide along the strings I can’t see in the dark, then over the high gloss wood. I find the bow and pull it free from its slumber.

  It’s been a long time.

  I caress it like a lover, the scent and remnants of Sasha still on my hands. I smile a pained smile as I lift the violin from its tomb. It hadn’t been given a proper burial, there were no words of sorrow or regret. Everything that had been a part of this exquisite instrument comes surging into me. Anger. Hopelessness. Overwhelming despair. All of it consumes me as I place the violin on my shoulder, tuck my chin in place, and raise the bow over the taut strings. It’s like a needle placed precisely at a vein ready to inject the drug I so desperately crave, the one thing that is both my salvation and destruction. The silence is deafening…until I drag the bow across the strings and the chord fills the room.

  The note crashes against the walls like a tidal wave and cancels out everything else. The ghost that owns this violin, the child prodigy that once created the magic with it comes alive once again.

  A calm settles over me like an old favorite pair of shoes that fit like a second skin, perfect and precise, as I twist the knobs and tune it. When I’m with my violin, it’s a part of me, an extension of me, and I it. We are no longer two entities but one. The day I vowed I would never play again was the day I ceased to be Gabriel. I’d cut out my heart and handed it to my mother. I didn’t deserve it.

  Her son Gabriel no longer existed, the golden child had been destroyed and in his place was the son of the devil.

  I take a long defeated breath.

  And begin to play.

  The music and notes pour from me like blood leaking from my veins. I play Bach, the sad haunting notes perfect for the ghosts, a melancholic mania ideal for their homecoming. The bow hits the strings in an angry rhythm, back and forth, and with every glide I fall deeper and deeper into the depths of the music. As the drug consumes me and nothing else exists, nothing else matters but the music.

  My fingers jump over the strings with precision, pounding out each note, and with every one the ghost grows stronger, becomes more alive. I ache with its strength; I want to yell with its weight on me. Images from the past flash behind my closed eyelids as I play. I’m no longer in this room, but transported back in time, back to the place where everything changed.

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  “Gabriel,” my mother called from her bedroom. “It’s time to practice!”

  I was in a hurry. The boys that I’m supposed to meet told me I needed to be there at exactly six o’clock. I wasn’t going to miss them. I didn’t care that I’d be late coming home, that I’d skip violin practice tonight. I’m not missing this opportunity.

  I’m sick of being the only good kid in this neighborhood. Every day it’s the same thing: go to school, stop at the corner bodega store and pick up milk or whatever my mom needed, and head home to get my homework done, then practice the stupid violin.

  The kids have been calling me a faggot for years. I don’t have any friends, except the for the Orthodox Jewish boy that everyone hates, and even he’s not supposed to talk to me. His family would be appalled that their son was fraternizing with a shegetz, (a term used for a male of non-Jewish heritage, and not in a nice way). The crazy thing is my father is Jewish, but my mother is and will always be a shiksa, therefore we’re both scum. I guess that’s why he never claimed me.

  We didn’t need him. My mother is the best, but she’s suffocating. Always making me stay home so I don’t get into trouble, making sure my homework is done, and the violin lessons started when she began cleaning Mr. Rubinowitzes apartment. It’s a kind of exchange thing she said. I didn’t ask for the lessons, but secretly I love playing.

  One day the kids at school asked me about them, and I said how great they were. They beat the
crap out of me. That’s the day they started calling me faggot and made my life hell. I didn’t tell my mom, but she saw the black eye and swollen lip. I wouldn’t tell her what happened, but she knew. Mom’s always know.

  Today they asked me to come hang out.

  “I’ve got to go out and meet my friends,” I yelled back to her from the bathroom.

  “What are you talking about? You’re not missing practice, you’re doing so well,” she was in the doorway. “Mr. Rubinowitz says he’s made an appointment for you to apply at Julliard. This is what we’ve been working towards, Gabriel. All of your hard work is going to pay off.”

  My pride swelled. I’d heard about Julliard, the music school. They only accept the most talented kids to apply. And only a handful of those applicants are accepted. My teacher thought I was good enough.

  But my friends were waiting for me.

  Friends.

  Finally.

  “That’s great mom. I promise I’ll be home early. It’s just one night,” I pushed passed her. “I’ll practice tomorrow.”

  It’s always been just me and my mother. Which has been tough, because she is so demanding of me. She pushes me and pushes, and tries to make me perfect. I don’t want to disappoint her, but I want to hang out.

  I want to be normal. For once.

  “No. You can’t go,” she’s using that voice. The one that says there’s no arguing with her.

  I turn on her. “I’m going, and you can’t stop me, mom. Don’t you get it? I’ve always been some kind of a freak to them. They asked me to come. I’m going.”

  I could see the pain in her eyes. I hated it, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from going.

  Finally, she lowered her eyes and nodded silently. Without a backward glance, I flung open the door and ran down the five flights of stairs of our apartment building.

  The boys had told me they’d be waiting in the basement of the abandoned building around the corner. They’d told me how to get in. I have to wedge aside a board on the back door and squeeze through. Breathing heavily, I almost fall face first down the steps once I’d get through. I stand and dust myself off. I can hear voices, loud voices, coming from down the hallway.