The Sordid Promise

by Courtney Lane

  Too far gone to stop, I continued to struggle.

  Keeping my arms pinned behind my back, he pulled down my bottoms. His bare hand flogged my bare behind hard. I squealed. The force thrust me forward, making me inadvertently hit my head on the desk so hard, I saw stars. The shocking pain emulating from my forehead and my behind moved my emotional state into a more docile territory.

  “Are you done?” he asked breathlessly. I slowly nodded. “Speak the fuck up, Nikki.”

  “I-I’m done,” I croaked.

  “Mr. Rice,” Eric requested through unbridled anger. “Can you excuse Nikki and me? She…lost her fucking mind on the way here. I’m going to need some privacy to help her find it again.”

  “O-of course, Dr. Brenton.” When Mr. Rice walked past me, he looked at me with a mix of pity and concern.

  Eric pulled up my pants and spun me around. His eyes were blazing as they bore through me. Gripping my chin, he forced my head to tilt towards the desk. “Do you see that leather portfolio on the desk, Nikki? Don’t talk. Look at it. After you do, continue to shut the fuck up, got it?” I nodded as the air passed angrily through my nostrils. He let me go and nodded to the desk again.

  I turned around and opened the portfolio. It was an investment portfolio for Eric, and it was started a little under a year ago by my mother. I swallowed…hard.

  Given what I saw on the statements, Eric had returns to be envied. His investments worked out so much better than mine. I always knew in the back of my mind that I played it too safe with trades to really earn to full potential. His portfolio had my mother’s imprint all over it. She always said investing smart was betting safe. She said that one should always invest in potential.

  I owed Eric a huge apology.

  From behind me, he walked over to the door and locked it. He slipped into my mother’s high back tufted leather executive chair with his cold expression set on me.

  I touched my throbbing head, knowing there would be a bump there eventually. “Eric, when you lied about where you were, I th—”

  “Swore I said not to talk.” He methodically removed the cufflinks from his tailored, crisp white dress shirt and rolled up the sleeves while glowering at me. “Your mouth has a singular purpose right now.” He unzipped and unhinged the fastener on his slacks.

  I swallowed hard, having a slight idea of what he wanted me to do. Suddenly, I was thrown from irate and irrational to nervous.

  “You caused a scene. Made quite a few slanderous allegations in front of Mr. Rice that I’m sure he’s going to chat about with his friends at the water cooler. I warned you about that fucking smart mouth. Now, I want you do something useful with it. Make me forget how angry I am, and do it well. Because if you don’t, I’m going to do something I promised myself I wouldn’t do to you—something I shouldn’t do. And if you fuck this up and force me to do it, it’s going to ruin you, Nikki. Because I want to punish you so fucking hard, you’ll have nightmares about the things I’ll do to you. You got me?”

  Through persistent tremors, I bobbed my head. He beckoned for me with his fingers. I stood before him, sinking down to my knees. His hands gripped the handles of the chair, waiting with cold expectancy. With my throat inundated with cotton, I moved the opening of his slacks apart and reached inside the pocket of his boxer briefs to pull out his semi-soft cock.

  I choked. The magnitude of his size hit me hard. I felt like I was staring at a wall of far too much flesh. When I gripped the shaft, it jumped in my hand and grew. I choked again.

  “What are you waiting for? Suck me off.”

  I’d never been into giving or receiving foreplay…until he came along. With me, it was never about pleasure when it came to sex. Somehow, I didn’t think the present was the best time to tell him. I closed my eyes and tucked the head in my mouth.

  He immediately sucked his teeth and yanked my head back by my ponytail, hard. A slow smirk spread across his face. “You’re kidding.” I shook my head as much as I could. “Okay,” he said biting into his lip. “Open your mouth…wider…good.” He grabbed my tongue pulling it forward. “Keep it that way and for the love of my cock, tuck your teeth this time. Try again.”

  The wall of flesh filled my mouth completely, over stretching the capacity. When the head hit the back of my throat, I gagged violently and tried to withdraw.

  He grabbed the back of my head, keeping my mouth filled with half of his length inside my mouth. “Open your throat. Suck. Moan. Relax.”

  I bobbed my head, sucking and slurping, going as deep as I could go. Moaning along the way, I worked him in my mouth as deep as I could take him without gagging. I began to enjoy the taste and get the hang of it. I bobbed faster, deeper, and sucked harder. He slipped back and moaned.

  With a steady hand on the back of my head, he directed me to go faster, deeper. “Look up at me,” he whispered.

  I obeyed while I continued the movements of my mouth and neck.

  “That’s so fucking sexy.” He sensuously sucked his bottom lip. “I think you were bullshitting me. You got too good at this too fast.” He let out a sensuous groan. “Fuck, baby, that feels good. Suck it harder.” His feedback made me forget about my numb tongue and the ever increasing ache in my jaw. I sucked harder, deeper.

  “Awe, fuck Nikki, you’re going to make me come in that pretty mouth of yours.” He bit into his lip, watching. “You ready, baby?” Riding my mouth, he began to pull my hair. I followed his motions, taking him deeper, sucking on his delicious taste. His body fell rigid as his lids grew heavy. “I’m coming, baby…swallow.”

  When the hot warmth choked me I tried to retreat. He grabbed my head in either of his hands, holding me still. “Don’t you dare spit it out. Swallow. Clean my cock.”

  I took a big gulp and took him all the way down, making him groan and curse to the ceiling. Pulling my ponytail, he forced me to withdraw. He thumbed the corner of my mouth and pushed the remnants of my saliva and his pleasure into my mouth. I sucked his finger with a smile.

  He cut his eyes at me, keeping them on me as he slowly sneered. He shot up, taking me with him. He grabbed my behind, lifted me, and placed me on top of the mahogany desk. He removed my jeans and panties in one long yank. He spread my legs wide and went down on me.

  Mercilessly, his tongue whirled around my clit with a hard pressure. His fingers slipped inside my canal and thrashed about with a steady rhythm.

  “Shit,” I moaned through trembling lips. My hand slipped into his hair, grabbing a strong hold as I undulated my pelvis against his mouth. His hold on my legs clamped down until I was no longer able to move.

  He added more fingers to join inside me, stretching me full. As he sucked harder on my clit, I cried out to the ceiling. The chill hit me hard, forcing me to clamp down and shake violently. He gripped my thighs in his hands, the pads of his fingers burned into my flesh.

  I came in an intemperate flood that left me weak and whimpering. The back of my head hit the desk so hard, I became disoriented.

  As I came down, I looked around the office. From my upside down view, reality crashed into my euphoria. “Why did you make me do this here?”

  He placed his palms on my back and directed my body to sit up. “What’s the difference between her office and her home? I didn’t plan for this to happen, you crashed the party, remember?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  He sighed, smoothing the fine hair along the side of my hairline with the back of his hand. He gently kissed the slow forming bump on my forehead. “Don’t ever do this again, Nikki.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The medication usually levels me out. I don’t know what you put me on—“

  “It was just something less. You don’t need medication to do what you can do on your own. You can control your reactions.”

  “No.” I shook my head vehemently. “You can.”

  He grinned. “What am I going to do with you, my twisted angel?”

&
nbsp; Forgetting my trepidation, I slowly smiled. “Never stop what you’re doing to me.”

  “You’re driving me fucking mad, you know that?” He touched his forehead to mine with a bright smile.

  “Welcome to what my brain would be like without the numbing effects of prescription meds.”

  Perfect timing—a blocked call while in the middle of walking Maisha. “If you’re going to keep this up, then we need to talk. Meet me somewhere.”

  “N-Nikki? Did I do something wrong?”

  “Melonie?” I sighed. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Hey, are you busy? I’d like to invite you to my loft to have a look at some of my work.”

  “I wouldn’t. I would say I want to look at your work, but I won’t. I’m not good at posturing. I tried. It felt wrong. It’s pointless. I just…don’t want to get involved with any of Eric’s friends.”

  “I honestly just want to share some things with you, and maybe…sell you on my pieces. I asked Eric if it was okay. He said you’d enjoy what I had to show you.”

  I contemplated the trees as I thought about it. “Give me an hour.”

  “Great,” she said excitedly. “I’m at the Arts Center, but I’ll be at my loft to meet you in about an hour. I’ll text the address to you.”

  “I can’t figure out if these are drawings or photographs,” I said of Melonie’s work scattered amongst her downtown loft and separated by theme. Still life. The city. People in despair. Sex. “You’re really good.” The secluded collection on the floor drew my eye. “I know that groin.” I flipped though the cardboard backed photograph to view the one behind it. “I know that back.”

  She sheepishly smiled. “I’m glad you do. I have a few loose portraits that he refuses to let me show.”

  “Do you still have those?”

  “In the back.”

  I followed her trail to the back of the large room. “Seems most men have a type. Estelle and Tamala seem like carbon copies of each other. Does he just have an ability to make women go crazy? I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the way he has sex. I can’t explain it. Did you refrain from fucking him?”

  She tripped on her own feet as we entered the small dark room. “That’s a pretty forward assumption, and an even more forward question. I’m not bisexual, Nikki. Eric and I’s relationship is purely plutonic.” She threw on a smile and waved me off.

  “He’s that guy. The guy who sleeps with all of his female friends, right? I don’t even know how to explain his brand of sex. Rough. Vicious. Is that why he and Tamala broke up?”

  “I’m not sure, Nikki. I try to stay out of that part of his life. I tried to involve myself once and lived to regret it.” She pointed to a particular spot on her large metal shelving unit. “Here. Here are the others I wanted to show you.” She reached up to take down a large poster sized flat box from one of the shelves. “A little help here,” she strained.

  I walked over to her and helped her bring down the box. Working together, we placed it on the large table in the center of the small room. She searched through a few poster sized photos affixed to tack board and pulled out one. “This one is my favorite. Summer of twenty-eleven. We were at the lake. We rented this cabin. There were six of us. It was the beginning of winter. We dared each other to jump in the lake. He was the only one who took the challenge. I took this shot right after he surfaced.”

  I looked at the black and white photo. The photo showed Eric, still in his clothes and soaked from head to toe, with his head tilted to the side. His smile was…so relaxed. The photo looked like something I would come across in a high fashion magazine.

  Things were easily missed while in live motion. Things tend to move so erratically, you're unable to focus on the things you’re supposed to pay attention to—the foreground and background served as distractions. My inability to figure out most people increased the difficulty. In the still photograph, I saw something in Eric’s eyes I’d never noticed before. Beyond his intimidating glare, there was a perceptible, broken sadness.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that something happened to him in his past…something horrible. Maybe I was overthinking it, but I recognized that look. I’d never met any other person who had it. I knew the look well, because it’s the one that stared back at me every time I looked in the mirror. Knowing what happened in my past and how it steered me, I knew some semblance of a tragedy happened to him.

  Wasn’t sure why I bothered peeling back the onion when none of it should’ve mattered. Finding out more information on Eric would just add sludge to a situation that was currently a sparkling, slightly clean mess. Who am I kidding? Increasingly, the dirt in Eric’s world seeped inside my brain in the slightest little ways.

  “What’s really going on between him and Estelle?” I asked, immediately deeming myself as a hypocrite. I wanted to know, yet I didn’t want to know. My mind could go wild with fantastical thoughts—I didn’t want what happened in my mother’s office to happen again. I didn't want him to think I distrusted him, when it seemed he trusted me wholeheartedly.

  She shook her head. “It’s very complicated. Not my place to tell.”

  “I thought loyalty amongst friends was dead. You’re okay with me, Melonie. But you’d be even better, if you helped to prevent the unnecessary from seeping into my life. Things I…would rather avoid.”

  “What exactly do you want to know?”

  “Did he go to med school?”

  “And graduated.”

  “He just never took the boards?”

  “Of course he did. I’m not sure what things you've heard, Nikki, but Eric is definitely Dr. Brenton.”

  “What about his uncle? Was he good to him? Were his parents good to him? Something happened there. Something in his childhood. What was it? What happened to his parents?”

  Her eyes wandered before turning sullen. “I like you. You’re kind of awkward and weird, like my little brother. But, my loyalty is with Eric. If he wanted you to know, he would tell you. That’s all I can say. I, like you, want to keep my life simple. I’m sorry. I know you want to guard your heart, and I wish I could tell you something comforting. He can make a woman think he’s in love with her, when he’s not. He’s never been in love, and I’m not sure if he can be. His ways…tend to leave a trail of women who find it hard to let go.” After contemplating my worried expression, she added, “I can’t speak for what he feels for you.”

  “You just told me he’s going to murder my heart if I give it to him.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Nikki, I don’t know the nature of the relationship between you two, and I shouldn’t. I’m just an outsider when it all comes down to it. What goes on between you two is private. I hope that, with that said, we can be friends. I think you could use one.”

  I looked back at the photograph of Eric. “He’s beautiful, too beautiful to not be slightly fucked up. How much?”

  “Since I’m technically not supposed to sell it….free. I’ll have it professionally framed and shipped to you.”

  Angie went on her third hour of stressing her aggravation with the media. She deplored the media’s portrayal of the countries in Africa. She wished they would show the industrialized and peaceful side. She talked about her journey to Nairobi and the beauty of Lagos.

  Never once did she ask about my mother.

  The opportunity should’ve been used to call her out on her misdeeds, but my mind was elsewhere. I was fully sucked in without a way out. I didn’t want to see a way out. I was sinking deeper inside a situation I avoided nearly all my life.

  The door latched, and I felt like whatever was in my chest turned to a temperature below freezing.

  Eric stopped short when he saw Angie. The scowl he greeted Angie with appeared to intimidate her. “Hi. I’m Angie. Nikki’s aunt. We didn’t get a chance to formally meet at the repass.” Angie gave him an uneasy grin and offered her hand

  “I know who you are,” he said with an unfriendly firmness. “What th
e fuck are you doing here?”

  “Eric!” I shrilled, but stilled in uncertainty.

  “She doesn’t belong in this house,” Eric scorned my vain attempt to defend my aunt. “She doesn’t belong anywhere near you.”

  “I just came to see about my niece.”

  “Like fucking hell you did.” He lowered his lids at her. “You came here with your mouth open and your hand out. That money belongs to her. You won’t get a single cent.”

  “I was all fit to vet you, but I guess it’s not a good time. Guess my reputation precedes me. I hope you’ll give me a chance over whatever Nicole told you. Suppose, I’ll turn in for the night.” She headed upstairs with Maisha following behind her.

  “I get that…whatever my mother told you made you feel a certain way about her. Still, you just met her. If anyone should be a bitch to her, I should have that honor.”

  “What are you doing, Nik?” he asked through palpable exhaustion.

  I shrugged and shook my head. “I-I don’t know. She’ll be gone in the morning.”

  He came over to give me a kiss, but I turned my head. It was an involuntary action, and I couldn’t decipher why I did it. The look he shot at me indicated my denial of his affection didn’t sit right with him. He was…livid.

  Unable to take much more of his glower, I moved to the range and turned down the level of the gas.

  “Try that again,” he stated with austerity. I walked back around the counter. He grabbed me and roughly pulled me into him. “Whatever I want from you,” he whispered as he swayed his lips against mine. “Say it, Nikki.” His hold on me strengthened.

  “Whatever you want from me, it’s yours.”