by Stella Noir
I moved my hand down Adrian’s neck to the top button of his shirt. I started to unbutton it, but he put one of his hands over mine and stopped me.
“Brooklyn, are you sure you want to do this? I mean, after what happened last night I don’t want to …”
“I do want to, Adrian. I’ve wanted to be with you for very long time.”
“Even after everything I’ve done? I don’t deserve you, Brooklyn.”
“Adrian, I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t horrified by the things you’ve done. I still can’t understand how you could treat anyone like your brother treated me last night. How you could keep those girls down there and use them against their will. But I can’t deny how I’ve felt about you for years. I believe you can leave all this behind and be the person you really want to be.”
“I wish I could believe it. I’m terrified that the person I am when I’m down in the caverns is the true me and that it will never change. I’m terrified that it’s always going to be easier for me to just not feel anything at all and to keep doing the same destructive things. Most of the time I just don’t want to feel anything, Brooklyn,” he said as he stared up at the ceiling.
“Don’t you want to feel me, Adrian?” I asked as I got on top of him. I still had the blanket wrapped around me and I let it fall down so that my breasts were exposed to him. Adrian swallowed hard as I bent down and kissed his neck, then continued to unbutton his shirt. With each button I opened, I kissed my way further and further down his chest until his shirt was all the way undone.
He was starting to breathe heavily and when I looked up he was watching me. He dark eyes had turned completely black as I unbuckled his belt, and I saw in them the thing that kept drawing me back to him. I felt his eyes telling me what they wanted of me without any words being spoken. I saw the depths of Adrian’s lust for me in his eyes as he silently stared into mine.
But then the moment was gone and all that was left was a flash of pain across his face as he sat up. He wrapped the blanket around me and slid out from underneath me then sat on the edge of the bed as he put on his shoes.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t what? What’s the matter, Adrian?” I asked as I watched him get up off the bed.
“You’ll be safe in here. I’ll be back in a little while with some food.” When he got to the door he turned and looked at me like he wanted to say something else but instead he just turned and left the room, then locked the door behind him.
I was stunned and heartbroken and I felt like such a fool. I had been presumptuous enough to think that I was the one that had to look past Adrian’s faults, that he would be lucky if I forgave him. But as it turned out he wasn’t even interested. I had been shot down and I was left even more confused and once again humiliated.
I didn’t understand how I could mistake that look in his eyes, though. How could a look make every cell of my body quiver and mean nothing to him at all? I felt him inside me. I felt the old Adrian from years ago pouring through me when his eyes were locked with mine. There’s no way I could have misinterpreted the way he looked at me.
Tears streamed down my face as I sat on the bed with the blanket wrapped around me. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore and I didn’t know what I thought I wanted to experience with him, but that image of him taking Lucas’s place behind me kept flashing into my head.
And when I thought about Adrian’s eyes, and Adrian telling me what he wanted me to do, it was all I wanted with every fiber of my being. But if he didn’t want me then it didn’t really matter what I wanted.
Adrian
I looked down at the hole that my cock was moving in and out of. The soft pink lips that stretched to their limit to accommodate me and the eyes that looked up, desperately wanting to please. This was perfect. This was exactly how I wanted it. No talking, no emotions, nothing but the physical feeling; the sensation of my cock inside a deliciously wet, warm mouth. That and the feeling of being in complete control.
I closed my eyes and pictured Brooklyn’s beautiful, sparkling blue eyes looking up at me and her soft golden hair as my hands gripped the head bobbing back and forth in front of my pelvis. Immediately, I pushed that image out of my mind. The thought of Brooklyn being involved in any of this made me sick.
I didn’t want to picture Brooklyn’s beautiful, smiling face while I was down here. I didn’t want the feelings that I had for her mixed in with what I was doing, what I had been doing to the trainees for over a decade. I had never had any reason to separate sex from thoughts or feelings before, but suddenly I was faced with the realization that I didn’t want to treat someone that I cared about like this.
The problem? This was who I was. This was what I did. I broke women down to the point where they had no sexual agency of their own. No preferences, no boundaries, no will. I reveled in the palpable fear and anxiety they all developed of displeasing me. I was the man who right at this very moment was fucking this specific hole because he had no emotional connection to it whatsoever. I was the man who took exactly what he wanted.
But when I looked at Brooklyn, when I pictured her glowing face in my mind, that’s not what I wanted. That’s not what I wanted for her, anyway. I had thought about her many times over the years. I had imagined her eyes looking up at me, submitting to my every demand.
Not because I had forced her to, and not because her family owed me anything, but because she wanted to submit to me. Because she didn’t want it any other way. Her eyes filled with lust with maybe just a touch of fear because she never really knew what all I was capable of.
She was somehow too precious to me now. In fact, she was too precious to me the minute I found out she was coming here. Maybe she always had been.
I grabbed the head in front of me tighter as I thrust my cock deeper and deeper down its throat. The girl had been trained to ignore her gag reflex and to not display any discomfort during any sex act, but especially a deep throat. She was turning red as the opportunities to take in a breath through her nose became fewer and further between, but she stayed in position on her knees until I emptied myself inside of her.
I pulled my cock out and she gasped for breath for a moment but then stood up and went to her corner as she had been trained to do. She was in the final stages and didn’t need to be locked up any longer. Some nights were still spent suspended by cuffs on a wall or mounted on a Sybian, I suppose depending on the mood Lucas was in that night, but most of the time she was allowed to sleep on her mat in her corner.
After I zipped up my pants, I walked down the hall to where the new girl was being kept. I turned on the lights and looked in on the huddled mass under the thin blanket on the cot in the cell. She looked up at me and asked me to help her, to let her out but I just walked off and turned the light out.
I wanted to feel something for her but I didn’t. I thought about what Brooklyn said to me, that she was horrified by what I’ve done to these women. And I knew that it was wrong. I knew that none of these girls deserve to be treated like this. But the part of me that was brought up in this family, the part of me that had spent the last decade coming up with new and innovative ways to break the human spirit didn’t feel a thing.
And that’s what I had to save Brooklyn from. I had to get her the hell out of here and get her away from me. There is no way that my father was going to let me out of the business. I had to just let her go. I would get some money together for her and when I figured out where to hide her so that she would be safe for a while I would get her the hell out of this house. Then I would leave too.
I didn’t know for sure that my father would kill his oldest son over a transaction. I wanted to believe that he wouldn’t but I really just wasn’t so sure.
As I was about to leave the caverns, I noticed that the door to my private training room was open and there was a light on inside. I pushed the door open all the way and my brother was still in there lying on the bed.
“What are you doing in here?” I asked as
I crossed my arms and leaned up against the door jamb.
“I’m just taking a break. Leave me the hell alone, will you?” he said as he rubbed his temples. “I heard you out there. If you’ve got your princess up there in your house what are you using my trainees for? Oh, wait. I think I understand now. She’s too perfect for even you to fuck. She must be a goddamned queen!” he said as he looked over at me, a smile stretched across his face.
“Shut the fuck up, Lucas. What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you do it? I don’t understand you anymore. It’s one thing for you to treat these trainees like garbage, but I’m your brother. What the hell happened?”
“What does it matter anymore?”
“Well, it used to matter. I used to trust you. I used to rely on you. But now I feel like I don’t even know you. I feel like you don’t give a shit about the fact that I’m your brother anymore.”
“Maybe I don’t. Who knows? Look, I’m not really in the mood to chat right now. I’ve got a job to do, a new girl to train. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you now that you’ve got your princess up there, but that’s all I care about at the moment. Get out of my face.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“What, that you’re harboring a fugitive trainee? That you’ve decided that she’s exempt from the whole transaction process and can spend her days lounging around her private room eating bonbons? That you’re living in a fucking fantasy world because you think you and your princess are going to ride off into the sunset together? No, I’m not going to tell him.”
I turned to leave but just as I got to the door he said one final thing to me.
“You’re no prince charming, you know that, don’t you? But she’ll find that out soon enough.”
I left the training grounds and headed up to my office. I hated Lucas at that moment more than I ever had in my life because he fucking knew. Somehow he knew the very thing that I hadn’t even been able to admit to myself. That I wanted so badly to believe that Brooklyn and I would wind up together. I wanted to believe that when I found a place for her to hide out and stay safe, that I would be right there with her.
Brooklyn
A week had gone by since my humiliating morning with Adrian and I was still in the same room. Adrian brought all my meals up to me and was pleasant and friendly when he talked to me, but things definitely seemed different. He would stay in the room and talk to me, but our conversations always wound up being kind of strained and awkward. He even seemed a little cold and distant, the way I imagined the successor to the Bellini legacy would be. Not like the kind boy who talked to me about his dreams. I was afraid that Adrian was gone.
I tried to talk to him like we used to, like we had the night Lucas assaulted me, but he seemed like he had shut down somehow. It seemed like no matter what I did or said there was a wall up between us that I couldn’t do anything about. And I was still angry with myself for wanting him to be the person I had created in my head.
I felt like I was in one of those glass cages in a zoo. I was trying to get close to something and I didn’t even know what it was or how to get there. We could see each other but we couldn’t touch or really feel each other’s presence and if we did it probably wouldn’t be like we expected, anyway.
I honestly didn’t know which one of us was in the cage and which one of us was free to leave, though. I knew that I was there against my will, but Adrian actually seemed like the one that was trapped.
There was a knock at the door and Adrian appeared after I told him to come in.
“Good morning, Brooklyn,” he said with a smile. I was startled to see him in such a good mood. He seemed more at ease than he had since I’d been brought here. It was wonderful to see the way his whole face lit up. And once again it gave me hope that the real Adrian was really in there somewhere.
“Good morning. You didn’t bring a tray up for me today?” I asked moving closer to him and looking into his eyes. I wanted to be able to reach further into him, like I had when we were in bed that morning, but I was afraid if I went too far he would shut down again. This morning he really seemed different, though. He looked excited like he had something he couldn’t wait to tell me.
“I’d like you to join me downstairs if you’re okay with that. I have someone coming over to meet with you in about an hour and I thought we could have breakfast together before they got here.”
“Someone to meet me?” I asked, my smile fading. I didn’t like the sound of that. Why would someone be coming here to meet me, unless … “I don’t understand. I thought you weren’t going to let that happen, Adrian,” I said as my eyes started to fill with tears. I didn’t want to be taken away. I didn’t want to be someone’s slave.
Adrian quickly moved closer to me and put his hands on either side of my head, wiping away a tear that falling down my cheek.
“No, no, no, no one’s coming here to take you away, Brooklyn. I promise you that,” he said as he slowly stroked my hair. He seemed so different, like he felt freer to touch me and be close to me. “I have a friend, Gina LaDonna. She works in the same field as you. She’s a designer in Milan. I showed her some of your work and she loves it. From what she’s seen, she says she’d like to talk to you about helping her with her next show in the spring. She said she’d love to tutor you, Brooklyn. To bring you on as an intern,” he said with a smile.
“Gina LaDonna wants to work with me?” I said as I brought my hands up and gripped his arms as he still held the sides of my head. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing and crying at the same time, I was so relieved and so amazed.
“Yes,” he said as his smile got bigger. “From what I understand, she’s pretty big in the industry. I think she could really help you.”
“Big … she’s huge. She’s one of my idols. How did you know that, Adrian? How did you know that I wanted to work with her?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly know for sure. I just took a chance and went with my gut. I’m really glad I did.”
His thumbs were caressing my cheeks and I felt him lean in closer to me. My heart started to race as I felt an energy from him that I wasn’t expecting. I would have fallen backward if Adrian hadn’t been holding onto my head because I realized that he was about to kiss me.
I couldn’t break the gaze that our eyes were locked into and my heart felt like it was melting and spreading throughout my body. I could feel the excitement of his touch flow out into every limb as I waited for his lips to reach mine. But just as he started to turn his head slightly and his eyes were about to close the spell seemed to break and he looked down.
“Let’s go down and talk about it while we eat breakfast,” he said as he slowly dropped his hands down to his sides. When he looked back up at me he still had that sparkle of happiness in his eyes but I could tell the wall had gone up again.
“Why are you doing this for me, Adrian?” I asked just as he was turning to go downstairs.
He stood there facing the door for a moment then turned back toward me.
“I want you to have a good life, Brooklyn. I want you to have everything my family has taken away from you. I guess I’m trying to make sure that you get a head start with whatever you move on to, wherever you wind up,” he said as he looked down at the ground with his arms folded.
“But why? Why would this person even want to look at my designs? Does Gina LaDonna owe you money too? Or are you buying her off so she’ll keep me quiet while I’m here?” I didn’t know why I was suddenly so upset, but I imagined it had to do with Adrian being so hot and cold with me. I couldn’t be imagining the way he looked at me. And I couldn’t have imagined that feeling between us just now.
“Of course not, Brooklyn. I’m not buying anyone off.”
At first, he looked angry but then his eyes softened and he stepped closer to me.
“I care about you, Brooklyn. I care about you a lot. I want you to be happy and I know that my family has basically taken that away from you. I can’t undo what’s already b
een done, but I feel like if I can make things easier for you in the future … I want to do everything in my power to make sure that happens,” he said as he moved my hair behind my shoulder.
“So far Lucas hasn’t said anything to my father so you’re safe for the time being. I need as much time as I can get to make sure you’re set up and that’s what I’m trying to do. Gina LaDonna is a friend of mine. The only favor she did was to look at your work. She’s not the type of person to take on an assistant as a personal favor, even to me,” he said with a smile as he lifted my chin up with his fingers.
“You’re very talented, Brooklyn. And I was proud to show her your work. If there’s any reason for you to have been brought here, for your entire life to have been uprooted, I hope that it’s so that I could help you get everything you want in life. I’m sorry for the reason you’re here, but I’m glad that I could do this for you.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer. I wrapped my arm around Adrian and held him as tightly as I could.
“I’m so confused, Adrian,” I said as I cried into the strong curve of his neck. “I’m sorry, I know that you must think I’m silly, I don’t even understand what I’m feeling, but I can’t keep it in any longer. What I want … is to be with you,” I said as I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes.
Adrian looked down at me but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking about what I had just said. He didn’t say anything for a minute, he just kept looking at me then looking down, but he kept his arms wrapped around me.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, Brooklyn. I don’t think I’d be very good for you,” he said finally.
“But what do you want, Adrian. You’ve never told me how you feel about me.”
“I want you to be happy, isn’t that enough?”
