by K. Bromberg
“As long as you stay fit and safe, kitten.”
“My problem is, I’m starting to feel guilty about it.”
He nods and looks down at our clasped hands. “I see.”
“That’s not the deal. We agreed. It’s all clear, and it all works. But when you picked me up tonight…” I press my lips together and look out into the sparkling black skyline. “I wanted to run into your arms. I wanted to promise you my body and soul. Forsake all others. Beg you to make a commitment. And I wanted to run the other way and get high. Call Earl. Call Amanda. Fuck anything that walked. Fly to China to search for real opium.”
“I can get you that.”
“But you won’t.”
“Never.”
“Why are we even this far?”
He laughs a little to himself then puts his eyes back on my hand. “You…” He looks back up at me, eyes lit from one side by the light through the door and the other by the candles. “I’m not a jealous man. I’ve seen too much. And you, it was always a choice to share you or not have you.”
“I know and—”
He cuts me off with a finger to my lips. “You did something to me. I was functioning, but I was in absolute despair. And you bang on my car window.” He shakes his head. “You breathed life into me again. You gave me hope that everything on this waste of a planet isn’t shit. You gave me permission to enjoy myself for the sake of it. I needed it. I needed you for that, and now, things have changed. We’d be crazy to pretend it’s the same as it was two months ago even.”
I know what he’s asking. I want to sit, just to relieve the ache in my heart that’s traveled all over my body, but I’m afraid to move.
“You want to do this?” I ask.
“Do you?”
Did I? What reason would I have to take him up on a promise of fidelity? What was in it for me, except him? “I’ve never been faithful to anyone in my life. I’m not built for it.”
He laughs. “You’re built for a lot of things, kitten.”
“I want you, Deacon. I want you so bad.”
“I think we need this.”
“I won’t fail you,” I say, believing it from fingertips to core. I believe I can be exclusive to him.
“I know.”
He leans in to kiss me, his breath a draft of mint and the floral bloom of gin. I melt into his lips. My face scrunches, and the ache in my body slams back into my chest. I’m thrown by a bucking memory.
Fucking brain. Goddamn brain won’t let me kiss him. I’m on my bed in my stupid condo, weeping uncontrollably, and my sheets stink to heaven of fucking.
Fiona. I’m not going to wake you. I’m going to count to three. On three, think of your happiest moment.
I claw at the sheets until they rip.
One.
He is not the indestructible Dom. He’s just a man. I want to destroy the sheets, the bed, the room. In the middle of my self-loathing, a weight between my legs grows, a siren call to forgetfulness and obliteration. I throw a leg over the bed’s footboard and ride it.
Two.
I cry out, and that cry is drowned out by the breaking dam of my orgasm.
Three.
I’m on a small plane, on my back. Charlie fucks me, and Amanda’s face is right before me. Her tits brush my shoulder, her blond hair in my face. She smiles. She is beautiful. I open my mouth because I’m going to come. Charlie puts his lips on my cheek, grinding his sweet cock. Amanda’s eyelids drop when I put my wet fingers on her clit. I’m high, on some delicious drug that lets me feel the connection between us three, our surrender, the tightening and expanding space between us, the puzzle pieces of cocks and cunts and asses, how we all fit together like one big universe forever and ever, amen.
***
I breathed as if my lungs had been vacuum-packed into my rib cage. Elliot moved to face me as I gulped air.
“I’ve never seen anyone have such an intense experience,” he said.
“That’s me. Intense experience girl.” I grabbed his hand because I still felt as though I was falling.
He brought his other hand over mine. “You still don’t remember.”
“No. I’m tired.”
His green-grey eyes looked at me as if they were peeling me open. “What are you feeling?”
“Tiredness.”
“Don’t shut down.”
“I’m tired, and I want to…” I took a deep breath.
“You want to use.”
“Yes. But I got it. It’s not a problem.”
“You’re so sure? You haven’t promised yourself this before? That you would stop using drugs or having sex to keep from feeling?”
“Don’t push me. Please.”
“It’s my job to push you.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. I shut him out. He may have said something. I felt his presence in the room, his breath, his existence, his virility, and I closed myself to it completely.
seven.
I didn’t sleep in the dark.
I didn’t really sleep, period.
I wasn’t a woe is me kind of girl, because it wasn’t as though I actually had problems. I didn’t pretend I was ever going to live under a bridge. I didn’t pretend bad shit didn’t exist. I didn’t pretend I didn’t live in some wider world. I got it. I had a television. I had the internet. But what was I supposed to do? Devote my life to serving the poor? Take away all the suffering in the world?
But usually the minutes before sleep was when the woe-is-me cantered in, and if it was dark and I couldn’t see something to focus on, they got bad. I hated them.
Your best friend died. You’re in a mental ward. You nearly killed the only man who ever understood you. Half your life floated in a grey blur. Big fucking deal. Buck up. Fuck everyone. There was nothing they could do to me I wouldn’t do to myself first.
Assholes.
Fucktards.
Animals feeding at a trough of fucking bile.
I didn’t even know who I was cursing anymore, but fuck them.
I was fine. And when I got out, I was going to bathe in hundred-dollar bills and cocaine just to prove it.
I crossed my legs and blacked into an orgasm that was flat and rageful and over too soon. In the aftermath, I wept, because my best friend died, and I was in a mental ward, and I’d nearly killed the only man who cared for me.
Fuck me.
eight.
“Your parents are in the waiting room,” Elliot said when I entered.
“Should I go see them?”
“After the session.”
“Making my dad wait?” I said, lying on the couch. “You’re a brave man.”
He seemed unimpressed with himself. “I want you to start with something pleasant,” Elliot said, getting into the seat behind me.
I wanted to turn and look at him. Without seeing his face, the calm, dusty timbre of his voice was without flaw, and it soothed me, which made me anxious. I didn’t trust my soothed, unregulated self. “I can just tell you about stuff. We don’t have to do the hypnosis.”
“Do you not want to?”
“Well, what do you want?”
“You have to make your own decision about how this goes.”
I didn’t trust my ability to make a decision. That had been my problem from the get-go. I could have just said that, but I was starting to think he didn’t trust me any more than I trusted myself.
“Can you tell me why you like the hypnosis?” I asked.
“You have an anxiety disorder. We’re medicating it, but the hypnosis backs up the relaxation without making you tired. And there’s a time limit on how long you can be in here. I think we need to do whatever we can to move this along.”
“I like all that.”
“Okay, you can stop any time you want by saying a word.”
“Like what? Like a safeword?” I wondered if he could see me smile.
“Sure. A safeword.”
“Pinkerton.”
“Pinkerton? The assassins
of the old west?”
“The assassin of the 405.” I didn’t elaborate, because despite the slurry of medicine in my blood, I was going to cry.
“Okay,” he said after I sniffled audibly. “I’m counting back from five, and start with something pleasant.”
***
I’m horny.
The feeling hits like a freight train between my legs, before a scene or setting even comes into my mind. The swelling rush of blood to my clit begs for release. And then, the preoccupation. I have to get it. I don’t care where it comes from. I need arms and legs all over me. I need to smell sweat, cunt, and sticky sperm.
This is the last thing you remember? Can you take me back a minute or two? What happened before?
Elliot’s voice, in its pure perfection, doesn’t break the reverie, but the realization that I was speaking aloud about the bite of my arousal certainly does. I tell him no. I’m not going backward, because the smell of wet cock and the subtle sting of cocaine fills my face. At this point, I have no idea what I’m narrating and what I’m keeping to myself, and I have no feelings about it either way.
I’m sitting on a toilet in a tiny club bathroom stall. Everything is marble and glass, but a bathroom stall is a bathroom stall. I hear the thump thump of music. The Pompeii Room. I look up. Earl. He’s all right. Six-foot-four of pure stupid. Easy pickings. His dick is dusted with a fine powder.
“More,” I say.
“Greedy bitch.” He smiles and holds a baggie of coke over his erection. He taps a line onto it while I hold it level.
“I’m worth it,” I say before I snort the line off his cock. Ah, that’s just right, just that rush. The feeling of unmotivated pleasure exploding heart-to-brain-to-toes. I’m totally in control of everything in my line of sight, especially this fucker. “I’m going to suck your cock so hard your daddy’s gonna come.”
“Touch your pussy, baby,” he growls.
But I don’t. I won’t ever touch myself, and this dumbass never remembers. I swallow his dick before he can ask again.
“Oh, fuck, baby—”
The music suddenly gets louder as the bathroom door opens, smacking Earl in the ass.
“Excuse me,” the man in the dark suit says. He’s halfway to closing the door.
“No problem,” Earl says.
I look at the intruder in that fucking suit. He’s really not a problem. He’s more than good. More than tall. More than perfect. Dark hair and blue eyes. Rugged like a dock worker and refined like a prince. I have to stop him from leaving.
“Loosen that tie and get your cock out,” I say. “I’m enough woman for two.”
He smirks. “Sorry. I’m too much man for half a woman.”
The door shuts, and the music goes back to a dulled thump thump.
“Snap,” Earl says, aiming his dick at my lips again. “That was cold.”
I have two choices: finish sucking off Earl and let him get me off, or not.
“Suck it yourself,” I say, standing.
He grabs me by the neck. “Hey.”
I look him in the eye. “Don’t fuck with me, Earl. I say what goes and when. Jerk it off and make more.” I leave before he can object, pulling my shirt together as I pass a short guy washing his hands.
The club is thick with humanity. The dance floor stinks. The voices are like a bag of broken glass. The music is a throbbing heartbeat. And the man is gone.
I put my hands on bare, sweaty skin, pushing through. Amanda finds me, blond hair stuck to her forehead, lipstick fading. Her bodyguard, Joel, is two steps behind her with his dark glasses and firearm. She kisses me on the lips. I push her away.
“You see a guy in a suit? Tall? Hair like this?” I make a motion with my fingers.
“Hot?”
“Hot.”
She points at the exit with a wink. I smack a kiss on her lips and continue pushing through. She calls my name as I walk away, but I pretend I don’t hear her. I have a man to find.
Nothing like coke to make the impossible seem within reach, or to make it within your rights to shove, growl, and curse through a crowd just to get a look at some hot stranger. Nothing like that expansion of the ego to make it okay to push some squealing teenybopper out of your way when she screams “Fiona Drazen! You’re Fiona Drazen!” as if your name alone is front page fucking news.
Of course, they wait outside in a cluster, pressing against the red velvet ropes. Paparazzi don’t care about the weather, which is rainy and cold for Los Angeles. Lights flash. They call my name as if I even answer to it anymore. Let them get their pictures. I have him in my sights.
He hands the valet a tip and takes the keys to a black Range Rover.
He is a thoroughbred, and twenty assholes with cameras are between him and me, which is too bad, because I have to have him.
I put my knuckles out to them, both middle fingers extended for all they’re worth. I have rings on top of rings, and I know the lights will glint on them in the pictures. I’m going to look like a flashy rich bitch, and the coke tells me I don’t give a fucking shit what Daddy thinks.
I turn to the doorman, a skinny ex-cop with a pencil moustache. He looks at my chest then at my face. I know Irv. He’s a hustler. He keeps these assholes off us, but he takes their cash to let them know when Amanda and I show up.
“Irv! What the fuck?”
“I got it,” he says.
“Outta my way, cocksuckers!” I plow through them with Irv’s help.
They back off for him in a way they’d never do for me. I know they’d chew me up, spit me out, and photograph me crawling to the hospital. I get to the Range Rover and pound on the passenger-side window. It’s tinted. The car doesn’t move, and the window stays up. Do I have the right one?
“Fiona Drazen!”
They’re behind me, and I’m on the curb, out of Irv’s field of influence. If he comes to get me, he’s leaving the door, and that’s not cool. I pound on the window again. Bursts of light flash on it.
I’m about to get mobbed.
“Hey, asshole,” I shout.
The window rolls down so slowly, I feel as if I’m in a movie about falling.
And there he is. My heart jumps out of my chest.
“Hi,” I say, sticking my head in. I feel them behind me. I hear them calling my name, over and over. “You took something of mine outta the bathroom.”
“Really?” He’s older than I thought, and that makes him more attractive then humanly possible. “What?”
Fiona.
“My heart.” It’s a stupid come on, but I’m a girl. I can get away with it.
I’m going to count backward from three. At one, you’ll open your eyes feeling rested and relaxed.
“Ah. I thought maybe your shirt buttons.”
For the first time, he glances at my chest, and I feel that my breasts are chilled. My shirt is wide open, diamond-studded nipple rings glistening. Fucking Earl with his octopus hands.
Three.
“Don’t make me turn around,” I say. “They already got enough pictures.”
Two.
He takes a second to think about it, looking me straight in the face. A little smirk plays on the perfect line of his lips, and I think I just might die.
One.
nine.
I was barely in the Westonwood waiting room before Mom hugged me fiercely, all defiance and no affection. It was amazing how much strength was in that tiny little bag of bones.
“It’s fine, Ma.” I looked over her shoulder at Dad, his Drazen-trademark red hair just beginning to turn grey.
His hands were in his pockets and his shoulder was against the wall. I rolled my eyes at him, but he just turned to look out the window. He always tried so hard, and I always failed him.
Everything in the room was designed to avoid upsetting the patients and their families. Round table in pale blue Formica with matching water pitcher and three plastic glasses. White molded plastic chairs with chrome legs. The windows were barred in
the same decorative pattern overlooking the expanse of the Topanga Canyon, which was covered in grey, misty rain. The seasonal decorations were non-denominational. The best seat in the house, for the benefit of the people writing the checks.
Mom squeezed me, and I felt something hard and breakable between us. She pulled back and handed me a wrapped gift. Dancing snowmen. Gold ribbon.
“I had it in case you came to the house.”
I popped the tape and unfolded the paper, revealing a framed photo. “Snowcone.” I pulled it from the wrapping completely. I stood in my riding gear, all of fifteen, next to my beautiful grey stallion. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Lindy says you haven’t been to the stables in a long time, at least not before the other day.”
I hadn’t ridden Snowcone in how long? Was it measured in years already? The last time I’d gone to the stables, I’d gone with two guys I’d promised to fuck on a hay bale. I was so high, Lindy kicked me out. Told me I wasn’t worthy of the labor animals. I cursed her, knowing she was right.
“We’re going to get you cleared of all this,” Mom whispered. She looked me in the eye, squeezing my shoulders. “Ten years ago, we could have made it go away. But the internet—” She shook her head. “You’re a good girl. Your father and I know you didn’t do this.”
Daddy didn’t look so sure.
“Thanks, Mom. I’m fine.”
“We’re going to get everyone on this. This man? This Deacon Bruce? We’ll get so much dirt on him, pressing charges would ruin him.”
“Eileen,” Dad said, “it’s not like pushing a button.”
She turned to Dad, giving him the fire-eye. The power struggle between my parents had always been epic. One day, one of them would die in a pile of crushed bone shards and twisted skin.
“What’s it like then?” snarled Mom.
“Quentin’s dealing with the other matter right now—”
“He can do both.”
“No.”
A staring contest ensued. I didn’t know if they were going to kiss or scratch each other’s eyes out.
