by Brook Wilder
I went back to Madam X’s because if I went home, I couldn’t trust myself not to run, or call Theo. I climbed back up to the tropical room and lay on the bed. If anyone wanted to use it, they could bite me. I wanted to cry but I felt too dry, like I had no tears left. I also wanted to sleep but I was scared I’d have a good dream, maybe even about Theo, and when I woke up I’d want to die all over again.
But what about that? What if I filled the tub in the bathroom and just drowned? No one could punish anyone for that, could they? Maybe that was the answer. No more pain for me, no more pain for anyone. I hauled myself up off the bed. I slowly walked towards the bathroom, discarding my shoes and my dress as I went. I sat my bare ass on the edge of the tub and opened the faucets. The water gushed out onto the clean white porcelain in a deafening rush, quickly filling the room with steam. I put my hand into the stream, testing the temperature.
The bath filled rapidly. I wasn’t scared of dying, I was just sad I’d only just got to meet Theo, only just found a guy I may have fallen in love with.
I hoped what I’d said to him would help him forget about me. I was pretty sure, though, that it was going to take a lot more than that, that he would keep coming for me no matter what. He was going to say he loved me, I was certain, before I stopped him. I felt like I loved him too, and among the things I loved about him were his fearlessness and his tenacity. I knew he was never going to quit trying to save me until one of us was dead.
I climbed into the water. It was hot on my skin and I welcomed it. I replayed some of my worst memories in my head as I sank down under. I remembered the cops and the social worker turning up at school to tell me my dad was killed in a car crash and how I wouldn’t believe them until they showed me his mangled body. They tried to convince me but I wouldn’t let them keep me from him, so they finally relented and I saw my father. Half of him was unrecognizable, mashed to a bloody pulp. The half of his head that was mostly untouched had its single eye stuck open and its mouth locked in a sickening grin, like he was happy this had happened to him, finally relieved his burden of raising me had been lifted.
I remembered the third foster family I had when I was thirteen. Or, rather the dad, Jesse Baxter. Two nights was all it took before he came to my room while his wife was out with the girls. He was hard, and he made me touch it but, when I wouldn’t stroke it the way he wanted, he held me down and put it in my ass. I ran away and was placed with another family when I was found but, for years I thought that was how everyone had sex, and that the vagina was just for making babies. I quickly got a reputation among the boys my age because I didn’t know how to say no. It got so bad I had to move schools. I didn’t actually lose my virginity properly until I was sixteen.
I was struggling for air now. I just needed to keep myself under for a few more seconds. I thought about all the guys I’d been with, personally and professionally, and how they’d all just wanted me for one thing; because I got them hard. I thought about Vinnie, and how my body wasn’t enough to make him hard, he had to hurt me as well. He made me feel like I couldn’t even get the one thing I was good right anymore. Just like Theo. When we first met he refused me. I’d failed at pleasing him too. But did I? He was hard too, he most certainly was, yet he didn’t fuck me. Instead, he allowed April to escape without making me sacrifice myself on him.
I made him hard, yet he didn’t fuck me, he got to know me instead.
I launched myself up out of the water, coughing and spluttering as I tried to force the air back into my lungs. How did I not see it before? Theo was maybe the only guy I’d ever met that was interested in more than just my body. He was going to say he loved me and it wasn’t just because he wanted to fuck me. And I was about to throw all that away?
And Theo would be destroyed if I died. As long as I was alive, he had a chance of rescuing me and that was all he needed. He would not quit, so I couldn’t. I couldn’t die and, I realized, I couldn’t let Vinnie have me either. Fuck, I hated being indecisive.
I needed to find a way to stop Vinnie or I’d always be running, and Vinnie would keep hurting other girls. I got out of the bath, finding new strength in my shattered body, and drained it. I’d let my sense of hope get the better of me before but, this time, I was going to end this, one way or another. I wondering how I could have been so foolish or selfish. I dried myself quickly and dressed, Theo’s perfect image running through my head the whole time, and walked out. I didn’t stop to speak to anyone, I didn’t think, I didn’t have time to be afraid, I just walked out the doors and got into my car. I drove to an anonymous gas station on the I405 and called him.
CHAPTER 14: Theo
I was feeling pretty low. That last meeting with Piper almost finished me. I was so close. I was going to tell her I was in love with her but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be another guy trying to possess her, like Vinnie, except I was using honey, not vinegar. She needed to come to me. Not for the sake of my fragile ego, not because I needed any boost to my self-esteem, but because it was the only way I could be sure she really wanted to be with me. And, she’d managed to make abundantly clear, she didn’t want me.
I sat in my apartment, staring at an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels. My place was sparse. White walls, white drapes, a brown leather couch in front of a coffee table, in front of a flat screen TV in the main room, a double bed with white linens in the bedroom, and an unused kitchen with a sour half-gallon of milk in the refrigerator. My crew rented it, and I just kind of took it over as I was working in so many places over on this side of town for so long.
I was in deep contemplation. I was hurting, sure, but I always found that lying around being miserable seldom did anything to make me feel better or improve my situation, while sitting and working the problem almost always threw up better results. I’ll admit, though, I was pretty close to spending at least a few days wallowing in self-pity, hence the whiskey.
My cell phone buzzed angrily on the coffee table, sat next to the bottle. I could only think of one person I felt like talking to right now and she wouldn’t be calling. I let it ring and picked up the bottle pouring out a generous measure for myself. The phone went silent so I drank the whiskey in one swallow. My cell phone rang again. Wow, for a guy who’s been fired and told to get lost by the woman he’s in love with, I sure was popular.
I knocked the phone onto the floor, hoping that would shut it up for good, and poured myself another measure of bourbon.
At first, I thought I was hearing things. I could hear Piper’s voice, very faint, but saying my name, like she was calling to me from across some great distance. I put my glass down, untouched, and picked up the phone. It had answered the call when I knocked it on the floor. I picked it up to see Piper’s beautiful, smiling face in the picture that appears when she calls me.
“Hello?” came her voice, from miles away. “Theo, please answer me.”
Answer her? What the hell should I say? She told me to go. She ran from me seconds after we had sex. She told me she didn’t and wouldn’t ever love me. And now she wanted to talk to me? I was angry. I wanted to tell her to fuck off. Tell her that I was not to be played with like this. To tell her I was done letting her make a fool of me.
I put the phone to my ear and said, “Piper? Thank fuck, it’s so good to hear your voice!”
“You too. I’m so sorry about earlier. I need to see you. I need to talk to you.”
My heart started hammering. I felt like a teenage girl getting a love note from her first boyfriend. “I can be at your apartment in twenty minutes,” I told her, excitedly.
“Don’t,” she warned, “I’m not there. We need to go somewhere Vinnie doesn’t know about.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you later. When we’re safe,”
“Come to mine, I guess. It’s not rented in my name, there’s no reason to think he had any idea about it.”
There was silence on the end of the line for a minute. I was nervous, it was weird. I was wor
ried that she wouldn’t come. I was scared she’d disappear again, frightening away like some startled rabbit.
“I guess that’s okay,” she announced at last. “Send me the address, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I hung up. I sent her the address, relieved she was on her way. On the other hand, what was I about to get myself back into? If she was on the run from Vinnie, which it sure sounded like, by inviting her here I was basically starting a war.
CHAPTER 15: Piper
I found my way over to Theo’s in about fifteen minutes. I pulled up outside. Like mine, his place was on the second floor with stairs up to a good-sized balcony. Unlike mine, the steps faced the main road and the balcony belonged exclusively to his unit, being separated from the apartment next door by a tall privacy fence. The outside was all painted a pleasing sandstone color, which glowed nearly orange by the light of the nearby streetlamp.
There was a knot in my stomach as I climbed the stairs. I couldn’t stop myself looking behind and all around me as I knocked on his door. I had the spookiest feeling I wasn’t alone and it was making me really jumpy.
“Piper…” he began as he opened the door for me. I cut him off by simply walking straight in, right passed him. “… Come on in,” he joked.
I walked quickly into his Spartan looking place, intending to sit down. Instead, I just paced from side to side. I was an emotional wreck. I caught sight of myself in the dark window by his front door. I looked a physical wreck as well.
“Piper, please try to calm down,” Theo said, clearly sensing my anxiety. “You’re safe here.”
“Yeah?” I looked at him for the first time. He looked a little worried around the edges, but I could tell he was happy to see me. And gorgeous, don’t forget. I had a sudden flashback to the sex against the wall of his clubhouse and I finally stopped pacing. My loins twitched as they relived the sensations and I felt a relief. A relief that I’d managed to think of something other than Vinnie, torture, and running away, even if was for just a moment.
I was so tempted to just rip his clothes off and mount him, just so I could go on not thinking about Vinnie. Maybe we could just fuck ourselves into oblivion. Just keep fucking each other until we died of exhaustion or starvation. I could think of a whole load of worse ways to go. But I quickly remembered what a sight I looked. I finally flopped down on the couch. There was a good measure of Jack Daniels in a glass right in front of me, so I picked it up and swallowed it down. It left a warm burn in my throat and quickly sent a blessed feeling of lightness to my fucked up head.
I looked up at Theo, standing there, so handsome, I slight smile curling over his lips as he watched me steal his liquor. “Join me for a drink?” I smiled back.
He burst out a short, loud laugh, and went over to his kitchen cabinet to find another glass. He returned and sat beside me. I poured some whiskey into his fresh glass and added some more to mine. “Cheers,” he said, clinking our glasses together. It was my turn to laugh then. Here we were, raising a glass to each other, after everything that had happened over the last few days. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t think of anything better to do, and I found that funny.
“Ugh, I feel awful,” I groaned once I’d managed to stop laughing.
“Well, you look beautiful,” he replied, putting his arm around me.
“You’re sweet,” I smiled, leaning my head on his shoulder. “And a liar.” I gently pushed my head against his. His cool chin felt good against my tired brow. We came face to face, our mouths just an inch apart. I put my forehead against his, bringing our lips so close together. I so wanted to kiss him, wanted him to kiss me, just not quite yet. “Turn on your shower for me?” I breathed to him. He smiled, carefully set me back on the couch and got up. He disappeared around the corner of a very short corridor and I soon heard water running.
“So, you’ve changed your mind again?” he called from the bathroom.
I couldn’t think of what to tell him, where to start. He came back out and I told him about April, about the threats Vinnie had made, how I saw no other way for this to end than going with Vinnie. As I spoke, his expression seemed to change from shock, to anger, to sadness.
“I don’t give a fuck what he said he’d do,” Theo spat when I’d finished, “you can’t go and be a sex slave to some dick mobster just to protect me. I won’t let you.”
I’d had enough of men telling me what to do. “Who says I need your permission? If I’m in love with you, I’m allowed to deal with that however I like,” I yelled back.
I expected him to shout back at me. Instead, all he said was, “You’re in love with me?”
“No,” I snapped, “that’s not what I said.” I felt a rush of heat fill my cheeks. I needed to shower.
“Where are you going, we need to talk about this,” he whined as I headed passed him into the bathroom.
“In a minute,” I shouted back over the noise of the shower. I wanted some privacy but it seemed rude to shut him out of his own bathroom, especially when we already had a pretty good idea of what we looked like naked. I wriggled out of my short, tight dress and let it fall to the floor, then kicked off my porn star heels, and stepped into the downpour.
The water was hot, almost too hot, but it felt good. I needed it to be hot, I wanted to feel all the grime, sweat, and tears being burned off me. Typically for a boy’s shower, there was no scrubber, sponge or loofah, just a sporty looking body wash. I held it above my chin and squeezed, pushing out a load of orange goo to fall thickly over my breasts. I spread it over my body, lathering up, and scrubbed as best as I could with my bare hands, trying to remove the top layers, shed my skin, and maybe turn into a different person. Someone who was safe from all this.
I ran my hands over my body, as I rinsed the soap off me, and couldn’t help thinking about Theo. The feel of his hands on me, his body against me and especially, as my hands traveled down to my pussy, the feeling of his hard cock inside me. I felt a delicious throb from my clit as I allowed my fingers to rub over it. I pushed further, sliding my fingertip past my soft lips to feel the thick, slippery wetness that was hiding in there. The sensations made my knees feel weak and my lungs draw in a long sigh through my open mouth. I needed Theo, now.
“Do you have something I could wear?” I called out to him.
I didn’t hear an answer for a minute or two, until he called back “I’ve laid out something on the bed for you.”
“Bring it here for me,” I was sure he could hear the teasing in my voice.
I saw the silhouette of him as he entered the bathroom reflect off the tiles of the bathroom wall I was facing. I kept my back to the door, my hands under my chin so my arms covered my side boobs and smiled over my shoulder at him. He dropped the pile of clothes on the floor and smiled back, his eyes moving down my slender back to linger on my bare, toned butt. “Thank you,” I said, politely, “I’ll be out in a second.”
I saw a flicker of disappointment in his eyes but, like a gentleman, he nodded and left. I shut off the water. I was horny for him, but I didn’t need another fast standup fuck against a wall. I needed us to take it slow, this time.
***
All he’d managed to find for me for me was a man’s white dress shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. I rubbed the steam off the mirror and checked myself out. My hair was wet, lying long and flat, and the worst of my makeup had washed away. I only ever wore heavy makeup for work but I always thought I rocked the minimalist look better. I put the shirt on. I left it unbuttoned to just below my nipples and it was just about long enough to cover my ass and pussy, not to mention so much more comfortable than that tight dress. I added a faint lip gloss and some subtle mascara, and I looked so good, I didn’t bother putting on the boxers, I just picked them up and took them with me.
He turned to me as I came back into the living room. “Jesus you look beautiful,” he gasped, his eyes all over me. Now, at least I knew he wasn’t lying. I threw the boxers at him and he caught them without getting
up from the couch.
“Don’t you have any more appropriate underwear for me?” I scolded him.
“Think about it, Piper,” he smiled as I stalked slowly towards him, “why would I have lingerie in my apartment?”
“Maybe you have a secret you’re not telling me?” I stopped in front of him and held out my hands. He took them and I leaned on him as I stepped up over his legs. I looked at his lovely face as I stared down my body at him, then lowered myself into his lap, settling my knees either side of him. I was sure he could feel the burning heat from my naked pussy hovering just over his junk.
I took the glass of whiskey he was holding, closed my eyes, and lifted my chin to drink from it. A smile spread across my lips as I felt his mouth press gently against the side of my neck. He kissed a little lower as I took a sip, and the feel of his soft lips, mixed with the liquor as it slid down my thought, sent a throbbing ache straight down to my pussy.
