Thoroughly Whipped

by Tillie Cole

  “Are you really going to do this?” Amelia said. I saw the worry in her expression. Amelia and I had gone to college together. She was now an archeologist who worked at The American Museum of Natural History. We’d shared a dorm at Harvard and had been best friends from the day we met. She had always been quiet and reserved. I was loud and, not. She was like my sister. My overprotective sister who worried about me.

  I took her hands. “Amelia, this is my chance. You know I’ve been waiting for this, an opportunity for a real feature. And it’s sex. I love sex. I’ve never been shy about that. I’ve experimented, have no plans to settle down anytime soon. Going there doesn’t scare me. If anything, I’m ridiculously intrigued.” I looked to Novah. “You think Sally will go for this?”

  “I think Sally will piss her pants when you tell her you’ve got an in at the most exclusive club in the Western world. Do you realize how long people have been waiting for a story on that place?”

  “Shit,” I said, the reality of the situation beginning to sink in. I read the card again. NOX, the notorious sex club. The one no one talked about, but everyone wanted to know about. And I had been invited. Me. Even with running into Viscount Douchebag and ruining my favorite vodka-smuggling bra, my night had just turned out to possibly be one of the best.

  I’d been invited to NOX.

  A sex club.

  I’d never been more excited for anything in my life.

  Chapter Five

  “You infuriate me.” Harry’s harshly spoken words washed over me, causing my skin to bump in their wake. “You talk too much. Everything about you is too much.” Harry’s teeth nibbled along my neck as he pinned me against a wall in his office with his broad chest. “I can’t stand that I want you. I hate your voice. I hate the smirk you wear when you think you’ve bested me somehow.” Harry’s tight hand held my wrists above my head; his other hand palmed my breast, sending bolts of heat between my legs. I throbbed everywhere, my breathing uneven.

  “Good,” I said, cheeks flushed and skin too hot. “Then the feeling’s mutual.” I groaned, tipping my chin to the ceiling as Harry kissed along my throat, my jaw, and my cheek. “I hate your condescending voice, your stuffy accent, and the way you think you’re better than everyone else.” My breath hitched as his hand slipped down from my breast, lifted my dress, and ran along the seam of my panties. “Shit!” I moaned as he yanked my panties down my thighs. They pooled at my feet. I stepped out of them. Harry’s eyes clashed with mine. I hated his perfect eyes and his long, dark lashes. I hated his smooth skin and how his hand felt touching me so intimately. And I hated how much I wanted him, needed him, craved him.

  “One time,” I said and watched his nostrils flare in response. “One fuck to get it out of our systems.” I pulled my hands down from his clasp and started unbuttoning his fly. Heat flooded my veins seeing his eyes roll back as I took his length in my hand. He pushed a finger inside me, and I almost came on the spot.

  “I need to be inside you,” he said and moved my hand from his dick. Then he lifted the hem of my dress, pulled my legs around his waist, and slammed inside me. Our mutual groans were thunderous as they echoed around the vast office space. Harry tucked his head into the crook of my neck as he pounded into me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as I was thrust into a maddening state of ecstasy. “Christ,” he moaned as he filled me, his talented thrusts sending shivers down my spine. I was too hot, the pleasure was too much. Then Harry lifted his head and smashed his lips to my own. I didn’t want his kiss. I didn’t want to feel his lips against mine. I didn’t want to taste his tongue. But as he kissed me, as his hot tongue dueled with mine, I wanted it all. I wanted all of him, inside and over me.

  “I hate you,” I murmured against his lips. “I despise you.”

  Harry just groaned, snapping his hips faster and faster until I was a burning flame. “You infuriate me,” he retorted, his perfectly graveled voice causing my nipples to harden as they pressed against his chest. “You both incense and madden me.” I cried out when Harry’s teeth scraped along the skin of my collarbone, before his gentle tongue traced a path to my mouth and he kissed me again. He kissed and kissed me until my lips were swollen and his taste was tattooed into my senses.

  He thrust faster and faster until I became an inferno, my hands clawing at his shirt. “Now!” I cried out as blistering heat engulfed me and I shattered apart. It was nothing I’d ever felt before. It was too much yet I still craved more.

  “Fuck!” Harry cried, then came inside me, his hands on my ass pulling me so tightly against his hips that there was no air between us. I gripped his shoulders, gasping for breath. I hated him. I really, really did. But as his dick twitched inside me, bringing another flash of pleasure to my core, I wanted more. I craved him like the worst addiction, his curtly spoken words and arrogant and contemptuous attitude my much-coveted drug of choice.

  Harry stilled against me, drawing back slowly. As I met his eyes, I saw the flare of distain; I knew it was reflected in my own. But then his mouth crashed to mine again, and I became utterly consumed. It didn’t change anything. I loathed him. He detested me. It didn’t change anything at all…

  “Faith? Are you there?” The sound of Mom’s voice pulled me from reliving the dream that had accosted my drunken psyche last night. Hell, not dream. Nightmare. Harry and me…I pushed the images from my head. Of Harry pressed against me, inside me, making my toes curl in pleasure… “Faith? I know you’re there, you’re breathing funny.” I focused on the here and now, and not the fact that my thighs were trying to clench together as I walked, just remembering the steamy vision.

  “Mom! I’m here. Sorry about that. The sidewalk’s busy this morning. How are you?” I was walking from the subway to my office building, chatting on my cell. I caught my reflection in a glass building as I made my way to HCS Media. I was glad I was wearing my huge sunglasses. The warm day was too bright for my hungover ass, the dream still had me flustered, and I looked like crap.

  “We’re good, sweetheart,” Mom said, but I heard a hint of sadness in her voice. It instantly crushed me.

  “And Papa?”

  “He’s at the shop.” Mom paused. My feet suddenly did too. Some Wall Street douche plowed into my arm from behind, sending my Trenta extra-strong coffee sloshing to the sidewalk.

  “Prick!” I called out to him. The asshole flicked me the finger without even looking back. I tucked myself against a nearby building, kicking the coffee off my shoes. I had some on my skirt too, but this time I didn’t care if it stained. All I cared about was Papa. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  Her silence told me it was bad. Really bad. Eventually she said, “The shop’s landlord has given your father only a matter of weeks to find the money for the back rent, or…” She trailed off.

  “Or what?”

  Mom sighed. “Or we lose it.”

  “Mom,” I whispered, a lump clogging my throat. I couldn’t imagine Papa not having his tailoring shop. It was his life. His passion. It would break him. I knew it would.

  “It’s okay, Faith. This isn’t your problem. We’ll work something out. We always do.”

  “If it’s your problem, it’s mine. We will figure it out. Us three. Okay? We can’t lose it. I’ll think of something. I promise.”

  “Okay, sweetheart,” Mom said, but I heard the flicker of defeat in her trembling voice. My eyes welled with tears. I loved my parents. We were a team, us three. We’d never had much money, but we’d had an abundance of love and I’d never needed any more than that. Mom cleared her throat and asked, “Are you still coming for dinner on Sunday?”

  I laughed, chasing away my sorrow. “I come every week, Mom. You never have to ask. Yet you always do.”

  “I just like to be sure. Now, you better get to work or you’ll be late, lady.”

  I checked my watch. “Shit!” I hissed and started running toward my building. “I’ll see you on Sunday, Mom. Kiss Papa for me!” I ran into the building, catching the pack
ed elevator just as the doors closed. I squeezed myself in next to a pack of journalists all suited and booted for the day. I prayed with all that I was that the elevator didn’t break down. I’d been trapped in this steel contraption twice already. With this many people, it would turn from Mad Men to Lord of the Flies in five seconds flat.

  As the elevator rose to each floor, jerking as it stopped to let people out, I fought back the wave of nausea threatening to project from my mouth a la The Exorcist. I could still feel the vodka, wine, and champagne sloshing around in my empty stomach, reminding me of my stupidity in getting that drunk on a work night. That, paired with a sex dream about Harry Sinclair, was enough to make anyone sick. I practically cried with relief when the elevator landed on my floor. I rushed to my booth. Novah was there already and immediately helped me shed my jacket and purse.

  “She has a meeting in twenty minutes. You’d better hurry if you want to catch her.”

  I kissed Novah on the cheek and sprinted for the elevator. I pressed the button repeatedly until the doors opened, and I rushed inside. I took a deep breath, grateful it was empty, and pressed the button for the tenth floor. Just before the doors began to close, someone slipped inside. The minute I smelled a familiar addictive cologne—fresh water, mint, sandalwood, and musk—I knew exactly who it was. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but bask in the scent. Why did the asshole have to smell so damn good? And all I could see in my mind was me pressed up against the wall of his office, him plowing into me like his life depended on it. I cleared my throat when it became too hard to breathe at the memory.

  “Miss Parisi,” Harry said, and I begrudgingly lifted my head. He glanced back at me over his shoulder. The doors to the elevator closed, and it began climbing to the tenth floor.

  “Viscount Sinclair,” I said as cheerily as I could muster with a drumline marching in my head. At this moment, I was at a solid minus three out of ten on the happy scale.

  “Harry,” he corrected curtly. “No need for titles.” His shoulders tensed. “But if I were being pedantic, I would inform you that my current title is Viscount Sinclair, but I am addressed Lord Sinclair.”

  There was no fucking way I was ever calling him Lord. “I’ll stick to calling you Viscount, if that’s okay. It rolls of the tongue better.” Harry sighed, I presumed at my stubbornness. I couldn’t help but childishly stick out my tongue at his broad and ridiculously muscled back. Then I waved two raised middle fingers in the air in an impromptu and highly juvenile rhythmic dance.

  I quickly dropped them when he glanced over his shoulder again and asked stiffly, “I trust you had a good time last night?”

  My lips kicked up at the side. “I sure did.” What would Mr. Prim and Proper say if I told him I had been invited to a sex club after we’d talked? The girl with vodka-flavored nipples had been asked to the most prestigious underground adult playground, despite her clumsiness. He’d probably choke on his own prudishness. Then again, if he fucked anything like my dream, maybe he’d fit right in.

  Harry glanced down at my skirt and shook his head. “Seems you have had another accident, Miss Parisi. Tell me,” he said smirking. “Do you actually imbibe the beverages you purchase or simply prefer to wear them as outfit accessories?” My eyes fell to the coffee stain that graced the front of my lilac pencil skirt and the flecks of latte on my nude heels. At least my jacket had protected my white silk shirt, so I would be half presentable to Sally.

  “Fluids are the new black, Mr. Sinclair, haven’t you heard?”

  Harry raised a dark eyebrow at my retort. “Is that so?” I caught the mirth in the slight lilt in his deep tone.

  Fluids. I’d just said fluids. Jesus H Christ.

  “Not bodily fluids,” I said quickly. Harry’s head tilted to the side as I tried to remove the epically sized shoe that was currently jammed in my mouth. “I mean, we all saw how Monica Lewinski went down when she showed the infamous dress to the world.” My eyes widened. “Not literally saw how she went down.” I pointed my finger at my crotch, circling that general area to exaggerate my point. I snatched my hand back and forced it to my side when I realized I was guiding my boss’s eyes directly to my vagina. “I mean, she did literally go down on old Bill, you know, to get the bodily fluid on her dress in the first place and all, but—” The elevator suddenly dinged and the doors opened, saving me from falling further down the fluid-themed rabbit hole. “Oh, thank God!” I said, breathless from the train wreck my verbal drivel had become.

  “Miss Parisi,” Harry said, something like amusement glinting in his eyes, as I collapsed against the back of the elevator, exhausted from all the talk of fluids. He stepped out onto the tenth floor and walked off toward his office.

  “Yep,” I muttered to myself and headed to Sally’s office on the opposite side of the floor. “All that from a girl who is about to battle for her first feature.” Clara, Sally’s assistant, wasn’t at her desk when I arrived, so I knocked on the door.

  “Go away!” Sally’s harsh voice sailed through the door.

  I turned the knob and quickly entered Sally’s office, firmly shutting the door behind me. Pulling the treasured NOX card from my bra, I put it on the table. “We need to talk about my upcoming feature in Visage.” Sally’s eyes narrowed on me in confusion; then she looked down at the card. Those narrowed eyes swiftly rounded and widened with shock.

  “You’ve been invited?” she said, peering at me over her severely edged black glasses. “Is this real?” She picked up the card and admired the quality stationary and the expensive embossing of the font. “Holy shit, Faith! This is real, isn’t it?”

  “I was invited last night.” Sally was on her feet in seconds and marched to her door. She bolted the lock and faced me.

  “This needs to stay between us. You will tell no one.”

  “Okay.” I sat on the visitor’s chair as Sally rushed behind her desk and sat down too. She steepled her hands and glared at me. I wasn’t sure if she was excited or pissed off about this development.

  “You realize the kinds of people that go to that club, Faith. Money, power, people that could both elevate and destroy us.” It was the first time I’d ever seen Sally look nervous. Her left eye was twitching, the thick lenses of her glasses forcing me to watch it in a magnified fashion. When her head began ticcing and her perfectly slicked-back black hair began falling from its gelled prison, I knew I was losing my chance.

  Leaning forward, I said, “You wanted something that’ll hook in my readers. Sex. BDSM. You can't move these days without reading or watching some alpha dude being all primal and domineering with his love interest and her gushing liters at his every command. We need to capitalize on that. Dip into the whip and anal bead pool and bathe in it a little. Let’s give our readers wild sex on a silver paddled platter. Let’s dildo up and jump on the gag ball bandwagon.” Sally’s lips pursed and she sat back in her seat, regarding me as predatorily as a cat studies a mouse. “I can do this, Sally. Let me do this. I’m a damn good writer and you know it. This is going to work. Trust me.”

  The wait for her to speak seemed to drag, my pulse acting like a countdown clock throbbing in my neck.

  “This will be your one chance, Faith,” Sally said and I felt my heart kick into a sprint. “But you don’t tell anyone about this. Fuck knows who in this building could be a part of the club.” She paused. “What if you’re recognized? The story will be over before your first flogging.”

  “I did some research,” I said. “I got up early this morning. Seems it’s all anonymous. Hoods and masks, all identities hidden. Very Eyes Wide Shut, hopefully without the devil worshipping and cult aspect, of course. Though that would be the story right there. I’ll do whatever it takes to pull the wool over their eyes.”

  Sally pointed her taloned finger in my face. “You continue ‘Ask Miss Bliss,’ you’re not leaving that column. Don’t even think it. It’s too important for our popularity.”

  “Understood and I would never give up the column. It
’s my baby, my very naughty baby.”

  “Eight weeks,” Sally said. “Enough time to understand what happens there and not long enough to get in too deep. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Sally drummed her lengthy acrylics on the table. “This…a story this big, this interesting…it could be our summer feature, Faith.” I momentarily lost my breath. The summer feature. Every year Visage published an extended edition. At its heart was a prime feature. The biggest exposé or human-interest story of the entire year.

  “I understand,” I said, and Sally shooed me away from her desk with her hand.

  As I stood, she said, “Discretion, Faith. No one is to know a whisper about this until it’s done. Not your colleagues, friends, and especially the powers that be.” She pointed toward Harry’s and the other top dog’s offices. “We don’t want the story drowned before we’ve even given you a chance to, what did you say, ‘dip into the whip and anal bead pool and bathe in it a little’.” I laughed at what I’d said. Sally didn’t. “Discretion and epic writing. Find a hook and roll with it. We all want to know what’s happening in that club. We want to know who is there and what they’re up to. And if they NDA you, which I’m sure they will, we need to work around the legal jargon and create a story that lets us vanilla fuckers—literally—feel like we’ve been in kink heaven with you.” Sally tilted her glasses down her nose and peered at me over the rims of her frames. “You must do whatever is required of you to get that story, Faith. You understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever is required of you.” Sally smirked. I’d never seen amusement in her expression before. It scared the hell out of me; she looked like a mountain lion about to attack. “Let’s pray you have the stamina and pain threshold for such a task.” She trilled out a single mocking laugh. “Oh, to see you trussed up in chains with a gag ball in your mouth. Maybe whoever gets to play with you will eventually get you to shut up.”