Taunt Me (Rough Love Book 2)

by Annabel Joseph

  “Even one good client, one client like W—”

  “W wasn’t a good client. He was an asshole.” The couple at the next table scowled at my language. I lowered my voice and glared at Andrew. “Look, W was handsome and kinky and mysterious, but he wasn’t a good person. He did crazy shit to me.”

  Andrew crossed his arms over his chest. “You told me how hard you fell in love with him. If he did crazy shit to you, you liked it.”

  Yes, I’d liked it. Why was I so angry at the thought of Andrew becoming an escort? I guess because I’d gotten so lost in the business, or maybe because I’d fallen in love with a client, and had my feelings betrayed.

  “W manhandled me and terrified me,” I said. “He called me a whore and a slut. He choked me—more than once—until I passed out. He—he raped me.”

  The R-word was so ugly. Andrew went still, his dark eyes full of confusion and dismay. “How... But... How could that happen? I thought he paid you for sex.”

  I sighed. “It’s hard to explain. He was weird.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  I didn’t think I owed him any explanations, but the story came spilling out. “The first time he let me meet him without a blindfold, I was supposed to watch for him in the Empire Hotel lobby.”

  “How were you supposed to watch for him when you’d never seen him?”

  “That’s just it. I was supposed to guess who he was, and follow him to the elevators. And I did. I guessed correctly, and I followed him, but he pretended to be someone else, and when I followed him into the room, he went all psychopath on me. He ripped off my panties and stuffed them in my mouth, and gagged me with his tie.”

  Andrew’s mouth sagged open. “Holy shit. That’s fucked up.”

  “It was very fucked up.”

  “You thought he was a psycho stranger, but it was him?”

  “I didn’t know what to think. Meanwhile he’s suffocating me, raping me, threatening to kill me.”

  Andrew swallowed hard, and spoke very quietly. “Is it wrong of me to say that sounds really hot?”

  I glowered at him. “It wasn’t hot in the moment. I thought I was going to die.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But, God, I would love to feel that kind of intensity, that excitement. I’d love to experience it just once.”

  “You think so, but escorting isn’t as sexy as it sounds. I promise you, there are a lot of times you’ll wish you were anywhere else. And you still have to be there, and cooperate, and earn your money. Andrew, please don’t get into escorting. Please think before you act.”

  “I will, I promise. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me. I thought I might enjoy the work.” He gazed at me in concern. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Fuck yeah, I’m mad at you.”

  My emotions were in an uproar, from seeing Henry and talking about W, and thinking about Andrew meeting some rich, horny john.

  “What did you say to W when you realized...when you realized it was him?” he asked. “Did you fucking kill him? Did you try to cut off his dick?”

  “I wanted to. I was pretty freaked out. I cried really hard, and yelled, and he apologized. Then I tried to leave, and he asked me to go swimming with him.”

  “The old swimming trick.”

  I gave Andrew a look. “What old swimming trick?”

  “The swimming trick. You can’t stay angry in water. It’s soothing. It worked, didn’t it? You forgave him. You saw him again.”

  “I saw him again,” I admitted. “That same night, I let him take me back down to the room, and you know what he did?”

  He got a wistful look. “He made it up to you with gentle, apologetic lovemaking?”

  “No. He gagged me again, same as the first time, and fucked me just as hard. Somewhere along the line he also spanked the shit out of me.” And I liked it. I wanted more. That’s the worst part, I still want more...

  Andrew whimpered. “I’m horny now. I’m sorry, babes, but that’s so hot. I want that. I want to be someone’s plaything. I’m a masochist, and a sub. You might not have enjoyed it, but I think I would.”

  “Why don’t you try it then?” I said bitterly. “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you eventually get hurt.”

  “Love always hurts.” He shrugged. I could already feel him drawing away from me, and it was so sad, but so expected.

  “No,” I said. “Love always lies.”

  Price

  Let me explain about the day I raped Chere. I never really meant to do it.

  Okay, yes, I raped her. In hindsight I realize it was a very bad, very wrong thing to do. It was reprehensible. It’s also reprehensible that the frantic terror of that rape is still my go-to fantasy when I’m rubbing one out.

  I guess the best thing I can say in my defense is that it was not premeditated. When I busted out with the Texan accent—that was the moment I decided to deceive her. Up until that point, I had only meant to mock her for her uncertainty. I mean, she’d known right away who I was. But then she lost her nerve, and I saw a chance, and I took it.

  At the beginning, still, I thought things would fall apart. I thought she wouldn’t believe, that she would confront me and say, “I know it’s you.” When she didn’t, when she started to fight me so violently, it was too exciting to stop. She thought it was life and death. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her panting breaths, feel it in the spasms of her body.

  I have to live with the knowledge that I caused those terrified spasms. I have to live with the fact that I choked her out, pretending to kill her, and then gagged her while she was out so she’d wake up in even more fear. She was so small, so easy to overpower, and I had a psyche full of force and rape fantasies, the fairy tales of my childhood gone screwy and off the map. I knew I was way off the map but I couldn’t stop, because I knew I’d never have such an authentic chance again. Such an authentic chance to rape someone.

  But I raped her. I did. I told myself everything would be fine afterward, when she realized it was me all along, but that wasn’t what happened. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d fucked her up until the thing was done and she was cowering on the floor. She shook and cried and shrieked and shrank away from me. The shaking was the worst part. I worried she was in shock, and maybe she was. I’d always prided myself on my ability to take things to a certain edge, take them as far as they could go without really harming my partner, and I knew, for the first time, that I’d crossed that line. Not just crossed it, but blown way past it.

  Of course, I pretended I hadn’t, which was probably the worst thing I did that day besides rape her. I pretended that it was merely a scene gone wrong, and everything would be okay now that it was over. I pretended that maybe we just needed to do a little more negotiating going forward. What else could I do? I didn’t want to stop fucking her, and I knew she’d never agree to see me again after what had transpired.

  I took her swimming, just to get her out of the hotel room, away from the scene of my crime. I took her up to the pool and we talked. Or didn’t talk, because she was still pretty mad. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to kiss her. That was the first day I saw Simon’s abuse on her, his marks. His bruises. There was a bruise on her collarbone, and another one near her temple that she’d covered with makeup. I slapped her face sometimes because it got me off, but I never slapped her hard enough to bruise her.

  Imagine me there, wanting to blow a fucking gasket at this bruise on her face, knowing full well I’d just stranger-raped the shit out of her. I was glad I was in the water. I needed it to calm me. We both needed peace. I knew how to give her peace. I took her back to the room and did the same brutal shit I’d done to her when I raped her, only this time she knew it was me, and I got her off even harder than I’d gotten her off at the Park Hyatt. I made her come and come and come.

  I had to. I wanted to see her again.

  I wanted to keep exploring this heightened intensity between us. I had no idea then where I’
d end up, alone in my place on Bleecker, with a pair of hunting binoculars clutched in my sweaty hands, trained on her window across the street.

  Stalking is fucking exhausting, because you can only know so much. Even private investigators can only learn so much. I knew about her classwork, I knew about her grades, I knew about her friends. I knew her habits, I knew her moods, or at least the moods she carried on her face. I knew when she met with her former pimp Henry at the Big Apple Diner, but I didn’t know why.

  They’d had a fight, her and her gay friend Andrew, just after she met with Henry. All I could think about was the resurrection of Miss Kitty, and Chere going back to escorting for Sublime Services. Why else would she have met with Henry? Why would she fight with her friend, when they’d gotten along so well for so many weeks?

  Why was she pensive and anxious when she ought to be looking forward to her final semester, and graduation?

  I thought about befriending Andrew and offering him money in exchange for information. He had access. He could have told me everything, told me what they fought about, what was going on with her, but it was too risky, so I was reduced to calling Henry myself. After all this time, I still carried his card in my wallet, because Henry was my one and only personal connection to Chere.

  He answered on the second ring. “Sublime Services. How may I help you?”

  Such a cultured greeting. He’d always run a classy show, even if he was a pimp who’d bled more money out of me than any decent person would. “Henry, it’s Price Eriksen.”

  There was a pause, maybe the softest sigh. “Mr. Eriksen. This is a surprise.”

  “I’m not calling to make a date.”

  “Oh. Just calling to chat, then?”

  “I need to know if she still works for you,” I said. “If she’s going back to work for you.”

  Again, the pause, because he had all the power here. “You mean Chere, I assume?” he said after a moment.

  “Yes, Chere. Is she coming back to work at Sublime?”

  “I can’t really talk about that kind of thing,” Henry said in a fuck-you tone. “But if I could, I’d probably answer no.”

  I let out a slow breath. What would I have done if she’d gone back to work for Henry? I would’ve lost my fucking shit.

  “You met with her,” I said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know. How is she? Is she okay?” I pressed my fist against my forehead. If I was in the same room with Henry I would have grabbed him and shaken him like an addict looking for blow.

  “It’s been two years,” Henry said. “More than two years.”

  It had been two years, five months, and a week, but who the fuck was counting? “I’d just like to know if she’s okay.”

  “If you care, you should contact her yourse—”

  “Just tell me. Give me one of your non-answers that’s really an answer, if you have to. If you’re going to keep up this charade of privacy.”

  A chair creaked over the line. Maybe he sat up straighter. I imagined him bristling, his color reddening beneath his golden tan.

  “It’s not a charade,” the man snapped. “I’ve kept your secrets. It wasn’t easy.”

  “I imagine the fee I paid for your silence made it easier.”

  “Your fucking ‘fee.’ I wish I’d never taken your money. Do you know how hard it is to keep your mouth shut when someone you care about is sitting across a table from you begging for some kind of closure? For the courtesy of a goddamned name?” His tirade cut off. “You know what? You don’t get any information. You want to know if she’s okay? Then call her. I’m sure she’d like to hear from you, if only to tell you to go fuck yourself.”

  He hung up on me. I rubbed my forehead, trying to construct her state of mind from his angry stream of vitriol. I dismissed the “fuck yourself” part of things. Of course she felt that way. But she still thought about me. She still wanted to know my name.

  She’d met with Henry to find closure.

  I let that sink into my system for a moment. Two and a half years later, she was looking for closure, which meant…

  Fuck, did that mean she was ready to move on?

  Shit. Why now? Who had come into her life? All this time I’d felt like she was still under my control, still under my protection. She’d seemed willing to stay under my protection, even if she didn’t know it was there.

  But now she was looking for closure. I should have been happy for her. I wasn’t. There were too many fucking assholes out there, and she was so raw and trusting and vulnerable.

  I tossed down the phone and grabbed the binoculars. She was at her computer, studying the screen, shifting, tracing an eyebrow. So dark, those eyebrows. She used to tint them blonde.

  You want to know if she’s okay? Then call her.

  I didn’t need temptation like that, because damn it, I wanted to call. Every night, I wanted to call her. I threw the binoculars on the couch and picked up the phone, thought wildly of smashing it so I wouldn’t fucking use it. After a few deep breaths, reason prevailed. If you care, Henry had said. If you care...

  If I cared about her, I’d leave her alone. She’d come so far in her new life, and I would only hurt her.

  “Damn it,” I roared in the silence of my apartment, so loudly I was surprised she couldn’t hear it all the way across the street. But I didn’t dial her number in a desperate frenzy. I stayed calm. I had to remember why...

  After the Empire, there’d been the Gansevoort session. I was miserable at the Gansevoort. I was horrible to her at the Gansevoort. The Gansevoort was when I understood that I saw her as more than a whore, more than a sex toy. It’s when I understood, clearly, that I cared about her as a person.

  This was after I’d done some poking into her life, and learned about her abusive fucktard painter boyfriend. What I found out wasn’t flattering to either of them. I wanted to despise her for loving him, for living with him and letting him use her money—my money!—for drugs. But I couldn’t despise her and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to rescue her like some goddamned knight in shining armor.

  But I couldn’t, so I showed up at the Gansevoort seething with frustration. I’d called her a bitch and a whore, and lied and told her, All I care about is what’s between your legs. I mocked and belittled her, fucked her in the ass just to hurt her. I told her she wasn’t allowed to come, and then I beat the shit out of her when she did. I used an orchid stake to do it. It must have hurt like hell, that piece of bamboo, but she never stopped fighting. She was amazing like that. I could hurt her and hurt her and hurt her, and she was still there, fighting back at me, tipping up her stubborn chin.

  It was hard to remember that now. She deserved someone better, and I deserved to be alone. I deserved to be taunted by memories of her closeness and her scent, and that blazing rebellion in her eyes. I lay back on my bed, opened my hand and let the phone fall from my fingertips. I had work to do, buildings and bridges to design. A life to stumble through without her.

  Closure. Fuck.

  Chere

  It was the last Saturday night before the end of the semester, and I was alone. I felt Andrew’s loss keenly, not that I’d really lost him. We were still technically “friends,” but we weren’t friends like we were before, because I didn’t trust him as much as I used to. He’d decided to go into escorting even after my warnings. Henry had just called him.

  Andrew was going on his first date.

  He wanted me to be happy for him. I think he actually wanted me to come over and help him get ready, and dish with him about escorting, and watch him shave and manscape. He sent a flurry of texts, five or six for every one of mine. I felt guilty, like maybe I should have been over there helping him primp, but I couldn’t do it.

  Henry told Andrew he’d set him up with a Dominant client, one who had not yet found his perfect combination of servile and sexy. Maybe he would find it in Andrew, but probably not. Andrew seemed a mere baby in
escort terms, with his mop of hair, his twink body and little-boy grin. I was so worried for him I cried, not that I told him that. Andrew would need his fluttery excitement and overconfidence to get through this first date.

  As for me, I had no plans for the evening, no dates to go on, paid or otherwise. I didn’t know how to get rid of my restlessness and guilt at being a bad friend. I debated whether to go out to one of the BDSM clubs in my current mood. I wanted to get beaten on. I wanted to feel something, but I hadn’t played at any of the clubs before, and tonight probably wasn’t the best night to dip my toe in.

  Also, if I went to the clubs, I would think about W the whole time like I always did, about his roughness and cruel brutality. About his kindness. His kisses. His poetry. Mine also, little painted poem of God.

  Ugh. Not anymore.

  It was snowing, and bitterly cold, but in the end, I made the decision to go out. I painted my lips a deep red and painted my nails to match, and put on a fitted black dress, tights, and boots. The dress was some off-the-rack thing, and I’d found the boots in a thrift store. I used to wear designer everything, but my current scholarship didn’t allow for that kind of extravagance, and I didn’t want to touch my escort savings until I was out of school. This dress was fine for dark clubs where I didn’t plan to play anyway.

  Why are you going if you’re not going to play? Why do you do this to yourself?

  I silenced the voice in my brain, or maybe the cold, sharp air silenced it for me. I put my head down and crunched over the snow to the subway entrance across from the school. I rode to the Meatpacking District, to the biggest, noisiest, busiest fetish club in Manhattan: Evolution City. The bouncers welcomed me with big smiles. Single female patrons were always admitted with no cover charge, but Evolution was too smothering, too loud for my mood today.

  I was back out on the sidewalk fifteen minutes later. I stood by the curb and blew condensation into the cold air, then turned and headed for Studio Valiant instead. It was smaller and less in-your-face, a casual, kinky hideaway with painted concrete walls. Instead of pounding club music, Valiant played an erratic mix of classical music, torch songs, and decades-old Top 40. The music lightened the mood and kept the club from feeling too full of itself. The equipment wasn’t as luxe as Evolution’s top-tier spread, but a dedicated pervert could find plenty of workable racks, tables, and spanking benches distributed throughout the dungeon floor.