Into the Flames

by Multi-Author

  He was a huge, warm hulk; huddled over on the far side of the massive, canopy bed. I took a moment to breathe him in, his familiar odd mix of leather, sweat and smoke smells filling my senses and soothing me before I put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move, so I trailed my fingers down his arm and back up, twining in his thick hair before molding myself against his back like spoons, curling my legs behind his long ones and draping my arm over his waist.

  Unable to resist, I kissed his neck, shoulders and upper back as my hand moved up, loving the soft hair I found on his chest before locating the firm disk of his nipple and stroking it. He groaned, but didn’t roll to greet me.

  Fine. Be stubborn. I’ll keep touching.

  Eager to move lower, I made myself keep playing around in his chest hair, stroking his nipples while kissing his neck, keeping my naked body against his back, pleased he was a nude sleeper. PJs or even shorts might have hampered me at this point.

  I let my hand drop to his stomach, admiring his abs a few minutes with my roaming fingers. His hips moved forward, encouraging me. When I gripped him, noting the wetness at the tip of his fully erect cock, the voices pressed in on me as if I’d flipped a switch. But I stroked, slowly, using his fluid to lubricate my movements. He was breathing heavy, moving his hips, but otherwise he didn’t acknowledge me. Fear had a firm hold of me now, gripping my chest, making my eyes burn as I kept a grip on George’s dick.

  Cunt. Tease. Bitch. Whore. Want a fist? I think you do. Take it, you slut.

  I sucked in a breath, almost sick to my stomach now but needing to finish this to see if I even could anymore.

  “George,” I whispered, letting go of him and climbing over his side, pressing him onto his back and kissing him as the heat of his sex pressed against mine. “George,” I said again as he grabbed my thighs and thrust up, bringing on a shaft of horrific pain.

  No more than you deserve you teasing bitch, the voice reminded me as tears dripped down my face. George’s eyes stayed shut, so I bit my lip, unwilling to cry out and let on how much it had hurt. He yanked me forward and down, latching onto my nipple and sucking hard, keeping his hips thrusting up, going deeper. I focused on the headboard, letting him do what he needed to do, wishing I could respond in kind and willing myself not to start bawling.

  I sensed my body responding, getting wet, accepting his girth as he switched his attention to my other nipple, flicking it with his tongue. I attempted to react, to move with him, to let what I knew could be a monster orgasm of combined outer friction and deep penetration work its magic.

  But the voices were drowning me, shoving me under again and again. I couldn’t hear George when he let go of my nipple and pushed me up. His lips were moving. His face contorted in what I knew was an effort not to come inside me. All I heard were the harsh voices of my attackers and my own screams. Finally, he propped up on his elbows, gathered me close and drew my legs around to either side of his hips. That angle didn’t hurt as much and I loved being so close, pressed together, rocking in a sort of rhythm, finally. His heartbeat was loud in my ears. His hands gentle, running down my back, my arms. I knew he was talking to me, but I just shook my head. It took everything I had to finish but I did with a small shiver of something I knew wasn’t an orgasm but close enough.

  “Evie,” he crooned. “Baby. I’m so sorry.”

  Startled, I brushed my hair out of my eyes and stared at him. His eyes were closed but he kissed me again before breaking away. “Evie,” he whispered, as he moved forward, pressing me back, keeping us connected in the most intimate way possible as he loomed over me. “Evie,” he kept saying. I knew this was her name. The rich, driven, dead stockbroker wife he’d rescued and fallen so hard for. I exhaled when he moved against me again, now positioned over me and propped on his arms, eyes open but distant, amazing torso slick with sweat.

  I ran my hands down it, tilting my hips and taking him with a loud gasp from us both. He moved slow, then fast, then hard, and while it didn’t hurt because I think I’d gone a little numb, it did not give me what I needed. Tears flowed, the voices screamed in my head, but I wrapped my legs around his waist and met him thrust for thrust, feeling like an actor in a movie, eager to finish, shower off, and go home. I must have made a noise when his rhythm changed, and the pain came roaring back.

  He stopped midstroke and looked down at me, eyes wide with horror. “Oh Jesus,” he groaned and looked down. “Oh, God. Oh shit…Oh…” He pulled out of me, even as his hips jerked involuntarily, and turned away, sitting at the edge of the bed. I lay, staring up at the ceiling, crying and cursing myself. “Get out of here,” he said, his voice hoarse. I figured he’d finally climaxed as the smell of it filled my nose, but I was frozen, aching between my legs and still hearing echoes of the voices reminding me I was no better than a whore, and one who deserved to be taught a thing or two about how to act with a man.

  Shivering, I rolled onto my side and curled into a ball, trying to make myself as small as possible so the voices and pain would leave me in peace. After a while, he covered me with a soft blanket and pulled me into his arms, reminiscent of that day when Dante had to peel me off him in the ER. “Sh…” he said, softly. “Hush now. Go to sleep.”

  “I’m s-s-s-sorry,” I sniveled, hiccupping. So grateful the voices had stopped, I did drop immediately into a dreamless, and blessedly quiet, sleep.

  Chapter Five

  “You mean he just left, after all that?”

  Lucy was sipping tea, glowing with contentment. I fiddled with my fork, the limp lettuce and squishy tomatoes no longer holding any appeal whatsoever. She patted my hand. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” I insisted, spearing a promising looking cucumber slice and sticking it my mouth. It tasted like dust. I put the fork down and picked up my wine glass, irritated and unable to settle—my usual state this whole week.

  “You going to his gala thing at the brewery?” Lucy acted nonchalant but I knew it for a leading question.

  “Don’t know,” I said, downing the Chardonnay and motioning for the waiter to refill it. “He’s pretty fucked up, Luce. His words. And I can attest to it now.”

  “Well, I mean he was pretty great, after all that…you know.” She fluttered her fingers. I rolled my eyes.

  “You mean after I was gang raped?”

  She flinched and I took a perverse pleasure in it. “Don’t be a bitch,” she said, deflating me in a way I probably deserved. “You know what I mean.”

  I sighed and sipped, staring out the window onto a busy Midtown Detroit streetscape. The fall semester had begun at Wayne State, giving the place an air of a new year and starting fresh that I liked.

  “How can you stand to work there still?”

  I shrugged. “I have to work, Lucy. It’s not like I can crawl back to Harrison for my old job back. He’s had to cut heads since his lawsuit anyway.” I frowned, realizing that George had been the instigator of that too. Damn man was all up in my life and needed to exit it.

  “Is he…that one guy…still there?”

  I waved my hand. “Yeah. He avoids me, of course. Kind of tough since we’re now into construction on the development project.”

  “Janey, you should press charges. The guy raped you, beat you up and let his asshole friends…” She gulped and looked down at her tea.

  “What if it was my fault,” I said softly, surprised that I’d actually said the words that had been rolling around in my brain, clanging together like so many marbles, for weeks. The fact that Trent had been avoiding me as well hadn’t really helped. I kept my gaze trained out onto the sidewalk full of normal, laughing, happy grown-ups.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. Aren’t you going to that therapist Dante found?”

  “I don’t need therapy, Lucy. I’m fine.” I waved the waiter back. Lucy put a hand over my empty wine glass and stared at me. “Since when do you judge me about this?” I jerked the glass out from under her palm. “If you’re weren’t knocked up
you’d be drinking right along with me.” The waiter hovered with the bottle. I held up my glass. He filled it.

  I was drinking a lot again, and I knew it, but it was under control, more or less. Lucy frowned at me then winced and put a hand to her back. Guilt rained down on me, hard. “I’m sorry, honey.” I patted her hand. “I’m not being fair.”

  “You’re being a blind idiot,” my best friend said, shoving her chair back and grabbing her purse. “You can’t work, drink, and fuck yourself out of this, Jane. You need help. Whether it’s with the therapist Dante recommended or someone else. You need to get back on your medication, for one thing. And you and George…” She stopped, biting her lip. My face got hot as I sat there, tipsy already and I damn well knew it.

  “There is no me and George. That guy is still married to a dead woman. And I don’t know what medication you’re talking about.” My face flushed hot with embarrassment.

  “Yeah?” She gripped the back of her chair. “Well, at least he’s not in denial about what happened to him, drinking himself to sleep every night and trying to fuck his way through enough women to convince himself he’s all right—when he’s definitely not. And if you honestly think you could hide the fact that you started taking anti-depressants and then stopped from me, you’re crazier than I give you credit for.”

  “I…I’m not…” But I blinked fast, recalling the past nights at various clubs, of men, of their lips, hands, and cocks and of waking up cotton-mouthed, naked and barely able to remember how I’d gotten to where it was I found myself.

  But I was fine.

  This was my life, and I was back in control of it—on my terms. I set my glass down and crossed my arms. “I’m not interested in the husband and baby thing, Lucy. You know that. I’m fine, honest. Jesus, you and Dante are gonna worrywart me to death.” I tried to smile but knew it didn’t really fly. “I’m super happy for you. Go on, go home to your… life.”

  “You are going to his party. I’m making you go. You owe him that at least.”

  “Yeah, yeah, fine.” I waved her away, blew her a kiss and focused on nonexistent messages on my phone so she wouldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes. After she left, I sat staring out the window; immobile at the thought of a Friday night alone and already planning where I could go to not be that way.

  I answered a few emails from work on my phone, lingering at the table and over my last glass. Rapist Rick had actually come into my cubicle today for the first time since that night. He’d leaned on my desk, pointed something out on my computer screen, and asked me an innocuous question or two about the progress of the demo on ‘the house.’ When he’d finally sauntered out, whistling to himself, I’d been a shaking mess, unable to focus on anything but his voice—the voice I heard every single time I had sex now with the random, faceless dudes I’d pick up at bars.

  Cunt.

  Tease.

  Whore.

  I’d grabbed my phone and called Lucy, begging her to meet me for a late lunch or an early dinner, anything to get me the hell out of there, preferably in the company of someone who gave a shit about me. The strange thing about work was once I’d fully established that my boss had no basis for making me stay away since I wouldn’t be calling attention to the employee who’d attacked me in exchange for my job back, I was okay. Even with Rick in the room at various meetings for the project. Being around Trent, along with the memory of how I’d acted at that bar that had somehow egged Rick on and convinced him I was a cunt tease in need of being taught a lesson, was somehow harder.

  The morning I’d woken up after falling asleep cradled in George’s arms thinking that somehow perhaps I’d put something in motion that would set us on a new path, he’d been gone without a trace—well, he’d ordered room service for me, which was what woke me at ten a.m. No note, no text, nothing. And no calls either, which kept me from calling him. So here I sat, a full two weeks later and a few days from his big party that was getting all sorts of annoying regional and national attention, dredging up what had to be horrific memories by way of photos of his beautiful, perfect family and of him, yelling and lunging at New York’s mayor.

  I worried about him. But I’d be damned if I’d call him. He knew how to reach me. I’d humiliated myself, sneaking into his bed and attacking him before falling apart and getting all snot-nosed sobbing. There would be no more near misses with George Lattimer the Third, at least for me. He was hot property on the semi-celebrity bachelor circuit anyway. Some hot, rich, bitch-on-the-make would snag him soon enough. Then his dysfunction could be her problem. I had enough of my own.

  I paid and left, walking the six blocks to my condo building, enjoying the early September evening and pondering staying in with a movie and a bath. But when I hit my door, the antsy feeling had descended again, making me restless and unable to relax even after opening up a bottle and sloshing a huge helping of inexpensive Chardonnay into a glass.

  I flopped onto my messy, giant bed and stared at my phone screen. After finishing half the wine, I typed in ‘G-e-o’ and his name popped up. Before I lost my nerve, I sent him a text.

  Me: Where have you been?

  I glared at the screen, willing the little bubble indicating a response to appear. When it didn’t, I flounced into the bathroom and gave everything a solid bleach cleaning. I finished the wine and made my way out into the bedroom. Making a point to ignore my phone, now face down on the bedside table, I stripped, frowning into the full-length mirror at the hickeys some guy had sucked on my neck and breasts.

  Men were such predictable animals. Passing my hands lightly over my very sore nipples, I turned left then right, admiring the weight loss I’d managed. Not having an appetite really did wonders for a girl’s dress size. I had thumbprint sized bruises on one thigh, a goose egg on my shin where I’d whammed into some guy’s coffee table on my way out the next morning, and I was sore as hell between my legs.

  But it was all right. Just two nights ago, I’d managed to actually have a decent orgasm thanks to some guy’s oral efforts. The evil voices had left me alone until the man had penetrated me, with his condom-sheathed dick, from behind. After that it had been all I could do not to scream and run away. But he’d been generous with his lips and tongue, so I let him fuck me as I held onto to the back of a couch for dear life and prayed that I wouldn’t cry or throw up. He’d passed out after and I’d snuck out, paying a pretty penny for a cab from his outer suburb back to Midtown.

  I picked up the phone, noting the lack of a reply from Mr. Lattimer, and set it on the little table I kept by the tub, along with a fresh glass of wine and my pumice stone. Passing on the opportunity for a bit of self-maintenance on a lonely Friday night would be irresponsible. Sighing and wincing I slid into the hottest water possible, going slow to allow myself to get used to it.

  This was heaven. A long, hot bath had always been one of my favorite relaxation methods. I put a cool cloth over my eyes and drifted, envisioning the tension easing out of me and getting carried off into the bubbles that floated all around.

  The loud ding of an incoming text hit my ears. Frowning, I ignored it. When it was followed by another, and a third, I reached for the phone, not acknowledging my tingly anticipation at the thought of hearing from George, finally. I was ready to go to him, to beg him to come to me, anything at this point. I squinted through the steam at the message. It wasn’t from George.

  Hey Jane it’s Max. What’s up tonight?

  It took me a split second to put that together with the young man from the brokerage’s legal department who’d been at my beck and call prior to that night of the attack. I had literally forgotten all about him. I smiled, sank lower in the hot water, and pondered my answer as I read his next two messages.

  Max: Miss you.

  Max: Can I come over?

  An hour later, I stared up at the ceiling while Max did his level best to make me come, licking and sucking, the works. Finally, I just faked it. When he climbed up my bod
y, I pushed him back, unable to tolerate it another minute. “My turn,” I said as he stood, legs spread, fingers in my hair while I sucked him to climax.

  I wiped my lips and ran for the bathroom, not really wanting the poor kid to see me crying. When I emerged in my robe, feeling so emptied out it was a miracle I was still a living, breathing human, he was poking through the fridge.

  “You should go,” I said, sliding into a kitchen chair and putting my head down on my arms. “I’m no fun tonight. Sorry.”

  “What, are you kidding me?” He dropped to his knees next to me and laid his head in my lap. “Can I stay? I’ll find us a good movie to watch and make an omelet.”

  I put my palm on his adorable curly hair. “No. Go on. I’m…I need to be alone. It’s not you, I promise. I just…have a lot on my mind is all.”

  He got to his feet. “Okay,” he said, amenably enough. “Thanks.” He got dressed and left. I never moved from my spot at the kitchen table, staring down at my hands and wanting George so badly it was a physical pain in my chest.

  Call him you silly woman. Since when are you afraid to call some guy?

  I got up slowly and stared around the chaos of a kitchen I’d been more or less ignoring as I went from work to bar to the beds and couches and floors of total strangers, then home to pass out, wake up, shower off and repeat the cycle. I need a rescue, I thought.

  That realization dropped me back into my chair. I didn’t need a rescue. I had to do something about this myself. And that would likely involve me losing my job. Why the thought of that caused raw panic to skitter up and down my spine even more than the concept of facing my attacker and calling him out in front of our company, I refused to examine.

  Grabbing my laptop from the briefcase I’d dropped on the floor earlier, I pulled up my email and shot a quick message to a friend of mine from my old brokerage whose wife was an attorney. He answered me right away. Surprising since it was almost midnight on a Friday.