It takes me a long moment to realize I have been crying. The tears are frozen between my eyelashes. I rub the back of one mitten-encased hand against my face to clear the moisture. As I do, I look up at the building in front of me and see a startlingly familiar logo splashed across the front.
CB. Cyrus Bellamy.
Of course I am here; of course it is now. I know – of course – that I have to go in and that I have to do it now. Like a sick omen, the cat had reminded me of the one place that would still give me a job. It had brought me here, back to that one place, that one person.
I want to lash out against the world and scream how unfair this is, how wrong, how twisted. I shouldn’t have to go back there. I was free of it. I was free of him. I was free.
But I am not a bird.
I don’t have a choice at this point. That is the only thought that stops the tears or gives any relief to the turmoil in my stomach. Equal parts fear, revulsion, and pathetic, weak-willed submission to the path of least resistance. Almost automatically, I trudge forward.
The path in the building is familiar. I submit without thinking, through the double doors, across the marbled atrium, into the belly of the bronze elevators. The ride upwards is as silent and quick as the cat had been. When it spews me out onto the well-remembered floor, I am surprised at how normal everything feels.
I scan around. The office space is empty. Every computer screen is black and the only motion is a streamer fluttering at the mouth of the air vent. Everything else is morbidly still – except for the infrequent flashes of light seeping beneath the thick oaken door of one office in the far corner. I should feel shock when I recognize whose office it is, but nothing fazes me anymore. Nothing penetrates the fog. Everything is as it should be, and I have been put in my place.
I blink and am half-startled to see that I have already crossed the office. I am standing in front of the door, which is slightly cracked. From inside, I can hear the sounds of a pen scratching against paper. The occasional clacking of a calculator pierces the monotony.
Placing one gloved fingertip against the door handle, I push gently. It swings open on silent hinges. I am a puppet, powerless to choose my own actions.
Across from me, Bellamy looks up. Time freezes. We stand like that for a long time – he in a gray suit, framed by mahogany bookcases and thick blood-colored tomes, I bundled against the cold with a weary expression of resignation painted in the corners of my eyes.
Clock gears grimace. The rest of the building is still.
The wrinkles around his mouth crease and break into his shark’s grin. The blood on the water is obvious now. How did I not see it before? I am more vulnerable than I have ever been. The difference is that, this time, both of us know it.
Eventually, he speaks. “Take a seat, Jodie.” Numbly, I obey. I take one slow step after another, begging silently for something to happen that will change this, something that will make all this go away. I just want to be warm again.
I look down at the seat and wonder for a moment what I am supposed to do with it. Then my body takes over, and I lower myself slowly down.
His expression is neutral now. He knows he doesn’t have to hunt anymore, that the stalking is over and he has won. He can take his time.
“It is awfully late, Jodie. Is something wrong?” he asks carefully.
I look at him with dead eyes. “I need my job back, Mr. Bellamy,” I say. The words sap all of the strength I have left. They wheeze out of me, like a balloon surrendering the last of its ability to float.
He blinks slowly. “I see,” he says. “I wondered if you would be back. I thought you might. I told you as much, did I not?”
I nod. “Yes, you told me.”
He pauses before continuing. “Right. Well, I’m afraid we’ve filled your former position already. I don’t know how much I can do for you.”
When the inevitable plea rises to escape my lips, it is so rote and unfeeling that I hardly believe I am the one speaking. It feels like someone else is working my lips for me.
“Please, Mr. Bellamy,” I say. “I’ll do anything.”
His hand briefly seizes into a triumphant fist before he catches the uncharacteristic outward display of emotion and consciously relaxes it, putting it flat on his desk. His eyes flash.
“Jodie, I really believe that you will.”
***
The roar of blood rushing through my ears overpowers anything coming out of Bellamy’s mouth. His lips open and shut, but I can’t comprehend a single word he is saying. My eyes dart around the office frantically, from the firmly locked and bolted door to the windows with their blinds cinched shut.
I want to scream, but I can’t – the ball gag in my mouth presses insistently against my tongue. At my waist, my wrists chafe against the metal handcuffs. I am naked and shivering in the blast of the air conditioning.
The room is frigid. Across from me, Bellamy slowly unwinds his tie from around his neck. With painstaking care, he slides off his jacket, folds it neatly to avoid creases, and lays it on the back of a chair. Each button of his shirt takes eons. I can see my heart beating against my rib cage.
When he has removed all but his suit pants, Bellamy pauses to recline in one of the leather-backed seats in front of his desk. He tents his fingers on his lap and surveys my body from the ground up – thick ankles rolling softly, broad thighs that sweep wide and meet in a clipped triangle of brown hair between my legs, a sea of skin between my hips and the bottom of my breasts, which rise to my jauntily-angled nipples, pointing up with impunity.
My panicked gaze must be apparent, because he clucks his teeth and says, “Oh, Jodie. Don’t be scared! Nothing untoward will happen. I give you my word.” He grins.
Rising from the chair, he walks around me to the other side of his desk, opens a drawer, and withdraws two objects. I hear one of them jingle as he comes back to stand in front of me. He tosses one on the desktop behind me – it lands with a soft thumb. The other he fastens around my neck. I can feel the cold leather and metal studs of the collar cinched against my throat. I gulp, and the strap rises and falls with the motion. My blood pounds harder.
Bellamy retreats back to the chair. He fastidiously undoes his belt, unzips his pants, and pulls them carefully off of each leg before folding the garment and laying it on top of his jacket. He runs a spindly hand over it to smooth out the wrinkles.
“Jodie,” he says, turning slowly to face me, “I am so happy that we were able to work out a compromise.”
He strides towards me now, tall, impossibly tall, his head nearly brushing the ceiling, it seems. I am beyond terrified – my pupils are dilated wide and the light flooding into them from the harsh fluorescents is riddled with shadows that flit just beyond the corner of my eyes. My hands clench and unclench, but the cuffs hold steadily. The gag locks down my tongue. The collar pinches my airway. I scream, but no sound emerges.
I am caged. I am not a bird.
Bellamy is naked, too. His cock dangles between his legs, veiny and blunt. His hands trace up my body, tap-dancing along the surface of my skin. They are icy cold. With a savage wrench, he wraps his fingers around the collar and yanks me to my knees. I fall, hardly resisting. I can’t remember how to move my muscles on my own. I am rooted to the spot, as weak and malleable as a rag doll. I hit the ground with a thump.
He pushes on the back of my head, willing me forward. I incline my upper body and my mouth approaches his stiffening manhood.
I think of the cat. Boom. Rat gone.
His erection now points at me, straining and engorged. I open my mouth and stick out my tongue. Slowly, slowly, I keep leaning forward. The approach is endless.
Once I bridge the gap, that is it – I am fully submitted. There is no resistance left in me. Everything has been locked down, chained away. He holds me utterly and completely. I have no warmth, no fire with which to rally. I am cold.
The threatening head of Bellamy’s cock stares in my face. I swallow the saliva p
ooling in my mouth. The collar is tight. Closing my eyes, I lean forward the last half-inch and begin to suck him.
My head slides down the length of his erection until he thrusts into the back of my throat. He mutters soft encouragement as I retreat then double back. My spit slicks over the rippling surface; my tongue lashes around and around.
I keep my eyes wrenched shut. I don’t want to see anything, nothing at all – just darkness. I want this all to be a nightmare, but the rough scratch of the rug against my knees and the chilly metal on my wrists are all too real.
Bellamy lets me suck him for a few minutes longer. I move slowly, travelling up and down his length with patience. After a while, I can feel him tense. He steps back, emerging from my mouth with a wet pop.
“Stand up,” he orders, the edge of his voice sharpened with authority. “Turn around.”
I listen and do as he says. I can feel the red imprint where my heels have jabbed into my soft expanse of my ass. My knees throb.
To my right, I see his hand extend past me and grab a dark mass off of the desk. Before I can fathom what is happening, he drops a black bag over my head. Everything vanishes. Sound is muffled, except for the hot, labored panic of my own breathing.
I hear him lunge from behind me. The sensations come in rapid succession: he shoves a hand between my legs and knocks them apart, then pushes hard against the middle of my back so that I fall forward. My outstretched hands catch on the edge of the desk just barely, my whole body now inclined horizontally. I hear a series of beeps that grab my attention.
“What is that?” I try to scream. He hears my panic and sticks a hand under the hood to briefly loosen the gag.
“I’m sorry, Jodie, I didn’t quite catch that,” he says sardonically. “What did you say?”
“What is that? What are you doing?” I wail. “Is that a camera?”
He laughs. “Yes it is. I want to make sure you don’t ever try to pull a stunt like that again, Jodie. If you should ever try to quit, the whole world will see this video. I will make sure of it.” The last sentence comes out with a ruthless hiss.
“That’s illegal! That’s illegal!” I cry over and over. He lets my cries subside.
“Not for me,” Bellamy says. “Not for me.” He yanks the gag tight again, cutting me off mid-scream, then pulls the hood down low. I can’t see or hear much other than a few grunts as he lines up behind me. My legs are spread wide. Every nerve quakes with fear.
Bellamy roars and slams the full length of his long cock into me.
I chose this. I had to. I didn’t have any other option.
I am not a bird.
He thrusts over and over at a blinding speed. His hands squeeze and fondle my breasts, pinching hard at the nipple. Every fourth or fifth stroke, he slaps my ass, hard, raising maroon welts on the pale skin. I whimper, but I cannot fight back. I wouldn’t even if I could. I need this. I need him.
His hips buck ferociously. My entire frame jiggles as he fucks, every roll of skin bouncing with the motion. My breathing has calmed, my panic has cooled. All that is left in me is cold.
He is pumping as fast as possible now, dipping in and out of me with his hard cock. I want to hate my body for accepting him into me, for offering the moisture to make his entry slick, but I don’t even have the energy for hate. The only thing I am capable of doing is clinging to the edge of the desktop.
Bellamy grabs the back of the collar and crashes into me once, twice, three times, before he cums with a wild exclamation. He is cutting off my air flow – stars begin to dance behind my closed eyelids. My head feels light.
He withdraws from me and lashes spurts of hot cum on my ass and back, clenching the collar the whole time. I can’t breathe. I am going to pass out. I am going. I am going.
Black.
***
I dress quietly and head for the door. Bellamy’s semen is sticky against the fabric of my clothing. As I grasp the door handle, I hear his voice. I pause, but don’t turn around.
“I’ll see you on Monday, Jodie.”
I am cold.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I spy fliers littering the ground and tacked onto every streetlight encircling the block. The papers are a familiar shade of obnoxious neon and I am well-acquainted with the cocky smile gracing the middle third of the page. “The Lying Lyons” is splashed across the top in a sprawling cursive hand. Below it is a description of the band’s upcoming shows, an extensive schedule with shows every week in bars all across the city.
I have been to about half of them, so far, slipping quietly in the back and watching the crowd pulse before me in time with the rhythm of the music flowing from the stage. I told a co-worker the other day about them, about how when Garret strutted to the microphone stand, people really felt something special; they really came alive. The air changes when he sings, I had said. The co-worker had laughed and told me that I sounded like a fan-girl, obsessively imagining a life with a rock star I had never and would never meet. I blushed and shied away without another word, but the laughter stung. Lately, I am finding it harder and harder to believe that I was ever with Garret.
We have made eye contact a few times at these shows. Every time he sees me, a glassy indifference slides over his pupils, clouding the vibrant green. There is a tiny moment of familiarity – the briefest flicker of recognition – and then dead, stone-faced apathy. He sees right through me, as if I weren’t even there. To be honest, I don’t feel like I am there. I don’t feel real.
I am immaterial, strangely absent, floating through my days like a wisp of something that could easily be swallowed by the next stiff breeze, a person to be ignored – not rudely, not cruelly, just indifferently. People look past me and who am I to correct them?
I fold one of the fliers into thirds and tuck it into the envelope that is clutched in my hands. The pale green corner of a paycheck sticks out. I rub my thumb across its edge and listen to the paper crinkle.
Slowly but surely, I have been pulling things together. My apartment is secure for another month. I have groceries in the refrigerator, by which I mean boxes of stale cereal and lumpy bags of rice, but nevertheless it is food in my stomach. I am scraping together the funds to re-enroll in school for the spring semester so I can finish my degree.
The security isn’t comforting, though. I can’t sleep at night. Every time I lie down, I shiver uncontrollably, slicked with cold sweat, feeling so heavy and so thick that it is a wonder I don’t collapse inward like a black hole. I feel both rooted and frail at the same time. I am a rock; I am dust. Tucking my hands under my arms, I bury my mouth into the fabric of the thick scarf draped around me and hustle deeper into the dying afternoon.
The next morning, my alarm blares shrilly in my ear. I fumble for it, knocking it off the nightstand with a clumsy arm. A radio host starts to snarl, but I cut him off mid-sentence. The city seeps through my windows, between the blinds. Filtered light and distant sirens wind around the corners of my decrepit apartment.
I rub the sleep from my eyes. My body aches, as if I spent the night wrestling and clenching every joint tightly against myself. I suppose I had. Running a finger down my arm, I feel a veneer of salty sweat lying closely against my skin.
I stumble into the shower. Lukewarm rivulets stream over every curve in my flesh and drip from my fingertips onto the peeling plastic below. My thoughts are numb and coated in thick fog.
Stepping out to towel off, I dumbly survey my meager closet. One sluggish hand pulls a dress from its hanger, drags it overhead. I pivot to look in the cracked mirror.
The woman greeting me from the shimmery reflection looks haggard and gray. Bags pool under her eyes and wrinkles tug at the corner of her mouth. She is slumping forward as if unable to fight gravity anymore. There is no life in her, no fight, no intensity. There isn’t much of anything, other than a thin, angry scar winding around her neck. It matches the red circle around her wrists.
I am not a bird.
I gather the things I
need for work: a purse, shoes on my feet, the keys to my apartment. I shrug a threadbare coat onto my shoulders and leave.
Outside, the world is blinding. I raise a hand to shield my eyes from the peaking sun as cars whiz across the street in front of me. Sighing, I turn to my left to start the walk towards Bellamy’s building.
Head down and gaze rooted firmly on the pavement, I watch my feet traverse over cracks in the concrete and gum plastered underfoot. I feel my way through the crowd.
A few pedestrians bump into me, but I say nothing and do nothing.
I feel nothing.
Vendors screech from hot dog stands. A comedian outside a night club presses a bulletin into my chest. I accept it without a word.
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