Peep Show

by Starling, Isabella

  “What makes you think I’m jealous?” he finally asked me, and I looked up at him.

  “Aren’t you?” I asked softly.

  He groaned, and his hand lingered above my face before he let it touch me, gently caressing my cheek. His touch was electric.

  “I am,” he said. “I’m jealous of every single person who so much as looks at you. I want to lock you up, so I’m the only one that gets to see you.”

  Why did my skin prickle at the disturbing thought? Half of me wished he’d go through with it, while the other half shook with fear.

  Instead, I snatched his phone out of his hand and giggled as I made my way across the room.

  “Don’t run from me, Bebe,” he drawled, and our eyes connected with his simple request.

  I didn’t want to run. The only place left for me to go was in his arms, and I wasn’t sure whether I ever wanted to leave them.

  “I’m not running,” I said, holding the phone up.

  His hand flew in front of his face when I snapped the picture. The photographer didn’t want any evidence of himself being involved. He was the man behind the camera, behind the scenes. I understood now that I was his subject, his muse. In the end, he was only there to take the photograph.

  I placed the phone on a side table and approached him slowly.

  “I Googled you,” I said, and his eyes widened, his pupils dilating. “Lana told me your last name.”

  “You…” For once, he didn’t know what to say. I could almost hear the erratic beat of his heart, his panicked gaze meeting mine across the room.

  “I know who you are,” I nodded with a wicked little mile. “I know what you do.”

  He didn’t say a word. Just kept staring at me, eyes wide and imploring me to go on.

  “You’re a photographer,” I said simply. “A very elusive one, I might add. You never go to any gallery openings. Half the people who follow you don’t even know what you look like. Not many photos of you online. I guess the only ones who know for sure are your subjects.”

  I moved closer and noticed he was shaking.

  “The girls,” I went on, my voice more than a little bitter. “Girl after girl after girl. Their tits. Nipples. Asses. Pussies. Erotic photos. Meant to get you off, meant to confuse you. Overlaid with images that you think represent them. Churches. Empty, cold, derelict buildings. That was a mean one. Flowers. A closed rose. A daisy in bloom. I was jealous of that one.”

  “You don’t…” he started, but his voice trailed off into nothing. I had him. I knew everything. And he hated me for it, just as much as I hated myself.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” I said softly. “What you’d choose for me. Maybe a heart-shaped pill. Maybe a bottle of champagne. Maybe you know me better than I know myself. Or maybe you don’t know anything at all.”

  His strong, muscular body was shaking as I reached for him. I was torturing him, making him hurt. It had to be done. My fingers wrapped around his own and he clung to me desperately, like a lost child. It was heart-breaking. My anger, my jealousy dissipated. Vanished into thin air. He was just a man. A man who was hurting. A man I could try to fix…

  “I don’t care,” I whispered. “About any of it. I’m the one that’s jealous. I don’t want you to do it anymore. I want you to take photos of me. Only me.”

  “I…” Yet another unfinished sentence. I was desperate for him to go on, but he wouldn’t.

  “Pick me,” I said softly, a replay of the conversation we’d had once already. “Just me, Miles. Why not? I’ll be good for you. The best girl you could want; the best you could wish for. You know I will be.”

  “I…” He was at a loss for words. And I was grasping at straws, feeding my own desperation when he wouldn’t.

  “Please,” I whispered, and he let out a slow exhale.

  Then, his hands were on my shoulders. He pushed my naked body down to my knees and I gasped when he did it. My eyes were on his, straining to see through the haze that was now between us. He tugged down his zipper and his palm closed over his cock and he groaned at the sight of me on the floor like that. I wanted more, and I wasn’t afraid of reaching out to get it.

  I hooked my thumbs in his jeans, tugging them down desperately. Miles didn’t try to stop me. I pulled them all the way down and then I got to work on his boxers. His fingers gripped the underwear but I begged him with my eyes to let me do it, let me get him naked and start working him. Finally, he let go, and his boxers fell away.

  His cock was a monster, huge and thick, the veins throbbing right in my face and filling my mouth with water.

  “Come on,” he groaned. “Don’t stare. It’s not polite, sugar.”

  I leaned closer. My lips could barely wrap around his tip. He was so thick, bulging at the sight of me. When I tasted his precum I mewled helplessly, and he let out a sound so animalistic, I thought he would just succumb to his urges and take me like I wanted him to all along. But no, his hands were in fists and he was holding back, just like Miles always did. Too bad I wouldn’t do him the courtesy of acting the same prim and proper way. I had a reputation for a reason.

  As my mouth wrapped around him, my eyes were glued to his and I started to suck. His taste filled my mouth, but I longed for so much more. I’d never get it like this, but I would sure as hell try and give him a taste of what I could do. Miles groaned when I went deeper, at first shyly, but my courage picked up with each lick and stroke of his throbbing cock. He tasted like power, and I was addicted to the way it made me feel. His height, his massiveness, made me think I was nothing but a doll, and I couldn’t get enough of it, knowing he could pick me up easily and do anything he wanted to my body.

  “Jesus, Bebe,” he muttered when I choked myself on his length.

  I looked up in time to see his hand linger above my head, his fingers touching a single strand of hair and testing its softness between their tips. He groaned at the feeling and it gave me the courage to be better, to show him what he’d been missing all along. I sucked harder, deeper, scraped his cock with my teeth.

  The game we were playing would never have a winner. He kept pushing me away, and I kept crawling back, desperate for more. But I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted him more badly than anything else in my life, and I wouldn’t stop until he gave me what I wanted.

  I licked the underside of his cock hungrily, from his balls all the way to the glistening tip, and he wrapped his fingers in my hair. I was getting sloppy, my mouth dripping, leaving a wet trail all over him. His cock dripped with my spit and he moved one of his hands under it, catching some and making me take it back in my mouth. It only served to encourage me, and I kept bobbing my head, desperate to get more of him inside me even when it was plainly obvious he would never fit.

  I caught my breath and stared up at him, daring him to make me go on.

  “Oh, Bebe,” he growled, a warning in his voice.

  “Tell me you don’t want me,” I challenged him. “Walk away now, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  The sight of such a big and powerful man trembling in front of me was bone-chilling. He wanted to move, his whole body screaming at him to get away, but he couldn’t move a step away from me. I watched his fists fall down next to his body and his eyes close in defeat, and then my mouth was back on him, taking more from him, taking everything I wanted to have.

  This time, I didn’t show any mercy. I sucked him like the only thing left to do in the world was to make him come. Show him my talents, convince him I was worth it, even when it meant humiliating myself.

  Stopping wasn’t an option. There was only the promise that he would stay if he thought I was good enough, but I would have to work hard for it. Harder than I’d worked for anything else in my life.

  “Stop,” he breathed, and I could tell he was close.

  I shook my head no and kept working, teasing him, his cock throbbing in my mouth, his veins close to exploding. I licked his balls and he shivered. He was so close I thought he’d pop if I licked him one more t
ime.

  The need to come up for air was strong, but not as strong as the urge to tell him how I felt. I let his cock fall from my mouth and looked up desperately.

  “Miles,” I whispered. “Stop running.”

  His hands grabbed my throat and I choked in surprise. He fucked my mouth. Carelessly. His cock filled me to the brim and I felt the tears coming, but I wouldn’t look away from his eyes.

  Look at me.

  You’re doing this to me.

  But I’ll take it if it means getting you.

  I’ll take it, Miles.

  I felt a trickle of warmth down my throat and swallowed greedily when he let out a groan and let go of me, his cock slipping from my mouth with a wet pop as he stumbled backward. I coughed and sputtered as he reached for his jeans and pulled them up, his eyes desperately looking for an escape from the room. I saw the panic, recognized the fear in his gaze.

  “Please,” I begged him. “Stay, calm down.”

  “No.” His movements were feverish. “I need to get away. Right now.”

  He moved past me, and my fingers tried to catch his but gripped at nothing instead. I crawled after him, but he was already at the front door, his steps so much longer than mine. Our eyes connected one last time, and I licked my lips, trying to soundlessly beg him to stay.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, the little words so fucking broken it killed me inside.

  He closed the door firmly on the way out and I let out a wail of frustration, the sound mixing in with his booming footsteps on the stairs.

  La douleur exquise, phrase

  The heart-wrenching pain of wanting the affection of someone unattainable.

  I could barely remember getting home. All I knew was, suddenly I was in my own bathroom, splashing ice-cold water on my face and trying desperately to regain my focus.

  My cock was still wet from her mouth, and my hands shook as I tried to wake myself up. I couldn’t let myself do this. Fall completely in love with her. She would end up breaking me worse than I’d ever broken myself.

  “Focus,” I muttered to myself, my hand bracing the wall and my eyes finding my reflection in the mirror.

  I looked like shit. My eyes were wide and panicked, the vein in my forehead painfully throbbing and my cock doing the same thing. I’d started coming when I’d pulled away from her, letting her taste only a bit before I left her on the floor like that. I hated myself for it, for leaving her as if she meant nothing when really she was all that mattered. But my self-preservation instincts were screaming at me to get away, to run. I couldn’t let her hurt me. I knew that if she did, I’d never come out of it alive.

  Somehow, I managed to stumble into the bedroom. I stared at the sheets, at the lipstick message she’d written in the frame.

  There was no way I could sleep in there tonight.

  It felt all too natural to take the other route, walk towards the small room and open the door to the trash, the smell, the fucking putrid reality of what my life was in the sensory overload of the room.

  There was a sleeping bag on the floor. I didn’t use it too often. Just on nights when it was especially bad.

  I half-walked, half-crawled inside, inhaling the scent of the trash like a sweet welcome home. I crawled on the floor, my body rigid against the silky sleeping bag. I didn’t even deserve that. Any kind of comfort was too much for me, almost like a punishment instead of being a reward.

  The stench was almost too much, so I cracked the tiny window open. It was barred, thick iron rods protruding from the windowsill to the top of the dirty glass. It was a prison of my own making.

  I laid down, refusing to cover up, even when my teeth chattered in the cold. I fell into a dreamless sleep, disturbed by horrible images of what would happen if I let Bebe get closer. I woke up in a sweat what felt like every ten minutes, but I still didn’t leave the small room. I owed this to myself, to remind me of what a fuck-up I was, of how I’d never be anyone but the man from my past.

  It felt like years had passed by the time dawn came, and I was convinced I’d aged a decade that night alone. My body felt broken and tired when I opened my eyes one final time, shivering in the cold and drenched in sweat from the dreamless terrors in my mind.

  Somehow, I managed to drag myself out of the room. I shut the door firmly behind me and braced my back against the wood. I needed a bath like never before.

  The walk to the bathroom was excruciating. I half-fell into the bath, clothes still on, and started pouring scalding hot water over my body. I had a bottle of bleach next to the bath, and I dumped what was left of it in the water. I’d never hated myself more than in that moment when I let my weakness cheat me of happiness yet again.

  Heat and stinging greeted me as my clothes filled with water. My hands trembled and shook as I reached into the bathroom cabinet. A cigarette. I would kill for one now, but there were none left. I’d chain-smoked them all the last time I did this. Because try as I might to forget, this was my reality. No matter whether I had Bebe or not. And last night had just sealed my fate with her.

  I knew what I had to do. Finally, it was becoming obvious just how dangerous my relationship with Bebe was, fucking me up in more ways than I cared to admit.

  The only thing I could do was to distance myself.

  And I knew exactly how to do that.

  I mixed the bleach with bubble bath and sank into the warm, stinging comfort. The urge to breathe in the water and fill my lungs with it wasn’t as strong as it usually was, and I knew it was because of Bebe. I would just have to learn how to handle it after I pushed her away. It would be hard to keep the feeling of liveliness she put in my blood when she wasn’t around anymore.

  I scrolled through my phone in the bath and put some arrangements into place. The only way to get over Bebe Hall was to let someone else have her. And what better distraction could I offer her but not one man, two instead, so she could pick and choose. Maybe it would ease the loneliness in my heart, and ease hers, too. I doubted the pain of letting her go would ever truly go away, but I didn’t have a choice. To condemn her to a life with me would be selfish, and so painful for both of us. I couldn’t ever see Bebe and me together in the long run. She’d get sick of me, and she’d leave, breaking my heart in the process.

  A small voice in the back of my head was insisting that I was wrong. That I had to give her a chance, give us a chance, to see what came of it. But I was too scared to listen to it. I took the easy, painful way out.

  Once I was done with my bath, I dried my burning skin and wrapped myself in a pristine bathrobe. T minus twelve hours and Bebe would be in the hands of two strangers. I would be watching them fuck her, my heart breaking, all the while knowing it was the right thing to do. I needed to push her far, far away—while I still could.

  My phone rang shrilly as I got out of the bath, and I was surprised to find the name of Dr. Halen written across my screen.

  I hadn’t talked to her since our encounter in my apartment.

  “Hello?” I answered the phone stiffly, unsure why she was calling me at 8 in the morning.

  “Miles,” she said, her voice streaked with worry. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  I thought of my forgotten laptop. The Skype meetings I’d missed. I felt ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

  “Miles, are you alright?” Her voice showed genuine concern. The brief flirtation from her in my apartment was now gone, replaced by professional worry. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. I can tell something’s off. Do you need anything?”

  My mouth and mind fought over what to tell her.

  “There’s a girl,” I finally managed to get out.

  “Another one?”

  “A special one,” I clarified. “One I… care for.”

  “I see,” she said simply. “Is there a problem with her?”

  I thought about her question for a second, unsure on how to answer her.

  “I’m scared,” I finally confessed. It
was so easy to tell her, even easier now that I didn’t have the video option on my phone. It was just our voices, and her soothing, calming soprano was lulling me into a sense of safety. “I’m scared she’s getting under my skin.”

  “Well, do you want her there?” Dr. Halen asked, and I hesitated again. “Miles,” she went on. “Don’t push her away. This could be good for you. Does she understand?”

  A simple question, but loaded with so many other implications, secrets, and lies.

  Did Bebe understand that I was broken? Sheltered? Vulnerable? That I was a shell of a man, my darkest secrets hidden underneath a shiny veneer of fake bravado and charm?

  Maybe. But would she stick around if she knew the truth, that I could break any moment? I doubted it.

  “I have to go,” I said in a low voice. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Miles,” she pleaded. “Please, let me—”

  I didn’t wait around to hear her concern. I just cut the call and sat down at my dining room table, finally risking a look across the street and into Bebe’s apartment. Her curtains were drawn, and I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling. Maybe she was mad at me, or maybe she was trying desperately to understand. Maybe she would forgive me for this. But she most fucking definitely wouldn’t forgive me for what I was going to do that night.

  I sat at the table for hours, my mind whirring around the problems I was facing and my body unable to keep up. I felt crippled with worry, derailed by my thoughts of Bebe. Nothing could save us now. I’d already doomed us both.

  When the clock indicated it was noon, I sent Bebe a text message.

  Surprise for you tonight. Be ready at 9 p.m. sharp. There will be a knock on your door.

  The reply came back so fast I was convinced she’d been waiting with her phone in her hand. It only sealed my belief that this had to be done. We were both in too deep, better to get out before either of us got hurt permanently.