Instead, I gaze around in wonder. Every surface gleams. Everything that was broken is gone, and a replacement fills the space.
I move to the stove as though in a dream and see a new kettle, a replica of the one I lost, sitting in its usual position on the back left corner of the stovetop.
Who did this?
Mick.
I jump when I get his text.
Mick: Are you home?
Did you... do this? I quickly tap out.
I jog to my bedroom, fling the closet open, and burst into tears.
My closet overflows with new clothes. I take inventory of the colorful smocks and matching pants lining the far end of my rod.
Every cartoon print ever made stings my eyes with its primary colors, and I hug the clothing, pressing my face into the laundered goodness.
My cell vibrates.
I look at the screen.
One word. The only response that matters.
Yes.
I put my cell against my chest and hang my head.
For once, my tears are happy ones.
I needed something good so bad.
*
Me: Can you come over?
I have become the pursuer.
Mick: I'm with my legal team. When I finish here, I'll be over. If you're okay for now, we can make a day of it tomorrow. I'll break away if you need me now. I'm more sorry than I can say.
For the strip club revelation, I assume.
My fingers hover over the keys.
Me: No apologies. But disappointment slays me.
Then a thought pierces my self-pity. Laps.
Another single word. Unfortunately, it doesn't illicit happy tears.
One more time.
I can't expect him to come running. I bet his publicity people are ripping their hair out. I'll have to settle for tomorrow even though I ache for him now.
I gaze around my refurbished apartment and believe I owe him the truth.
I just don't know if I'm brave enough to tell him.
*
All my outfits for laps are at Mick's in that duffle.
I have nothing.
I turn, looking into my closet stuffed with new things.
My shoulders hunch when I realize I have to cannibalize something beautiful he got for me to get through my last night of laps.
I stare into the closet’s depths. I'm way past introspection but sick over my choices.
I know Mick won't want me if he knows.
I'm a dead girl walking who takes her clothes off for men. I like to imagine he would see my desperate battle to pay for my mom's care, to make the last moments of my life count for something.
However, I don't know if anyone is altruistic enough for the transgressions I continue to accumulate.
I don't beg for Mick's help because I'm a coward. I fear his answer, I fear that I'll lose my chance at the one thing I want for myself. It's selfish.
It's real.
I take deep, even breaths. I refocus my thoughts on my mom, her welfare.
I straighten my spine and stride over to the closet, tossing my cell on the bed. I tear through everything and see something that makes my heart stutter.
It's a beautiful gold and silver slip of fabric that shimmers in a draping sweep from the hanger. The beads at the hem catch my eye, and I think of when Mick's fingertips breached the hem of my dress in the limo. I swallow the memory—it seems like forever ago.
It feels like yesterday.
I run my fingers over the silky material, threaded in a cross-hatching pattern with tiny strings of gold and silver. It's really too classy for what I’m about to do, but if I wear something Mick chose, maybe I can keep him with me tonight like a seed of goodness in the awful garden of my choices. It's a lie I cling to without complaint.
I need it to survive.
The dress doesn't resist when I slide it off the wooden hanger. I grab a pair of hump-me pumps from the new selection.
I locate the size on the sole.
I look at everything inside the closet. It's all my size.
This is why Mick is so amazing.
He's got control of the big things, and never misses any of the small.
I strip off the outfit I borrowed from Kiki and pad into my bathroom.
I open the door, and a new mirror greets me. My shattered reflection is a fragmented memory.
I don't waste tears in the shower. Instead I focus on what it'll be like to never do another lap.
Grin and bear it takes on an entirely new meaning.
*
I slip on my mask as I ride the elevator up for my last lap gig. I take stabilizing breaths as it climbs and comes to a smooth stop at the fourteenth.
My eyes shift to the elevator buttons, and I notice there's no thirteenth floor.
I don't think about luck. I'm thinking about choice.
I step out of the elevator into a ballroom-type setting. The first man's eyes that claim me are Jay's. Relief rushes through me, though I don't embrace it.
I know what happens to hope.
Thorn strolls up, looking like a finely coiled snake. I'm not here to poke him though; he's given me two breaks.
His eyes meet mine.
“Jay owns you, Faren.”
I blink at Jay, and the warmth I've seen in his eyes in the past has been replaced by something else.
Jay grins. “Ownership is nine-tenths the law, Faren.”
I look from Thorn, who doesn't look thrilled, to Jay—and realize what they're talking about.
Possession.
*
I can't stop the shaking. I feel as if I'm going to break apart and float away. Thorn hauls me inside his office by the wrist as Jay waits for us to … reconcile our arrangement.
“Faren,” Thorn starts, and I turn on him.
He holds up his hands to ward off the tirade he knows is coming.
I realize I've become foolishly brave with Thorn, our secrets making us uneasy allies.
“You told me no on Ron, and I get it—I do. This lap is willing to go the distance. He'll pay your debt to Ron and extra—so long as he gets every extra.” Every extra... like seeing my face.
“And my identity, Thorn!”
The ultimate extra.
Thorn walks over, and I remember how frightening he is.
I retreat a step.
He stops before reaching me and rests his large hands on his hips.
“What is it?” His eyes search mine. “I know I shouldn't give a ripe hairy shit about your problems, but you’re messing with my boy.”
“He's not your boy,” I cut in.
Thorn nods, scrubbing his face with his hand. “Yeah, he is.” His eyes stay on mine. “If Jay wasn’t waiting out there, I'd play confessor.”
I fold my arms and stare at him. Jay can wait.
“Give me something before I cheat on Mick with this lap.”
Thorn's eyes snap to mine. “You feel like you're cheating on Mick?”
My sigh sounds like a sob. “Hell yes, I do.”
None of my justifications work anymore. They're like needles of doubt, emotional acupuncture gone wrong.
“Then why are you doing the laps?”
“My mom,” I whisper.
“Why are you cheating him?”
“I owe him,” Thorn admits.
“Wait a second.” I step toward him, and now Thorn looks cornered. I point at him. “You're playing revolving lap dances behind his back because you owe him?” A disbelieving laugh erupts from my lips.
Thorn gives a stiff nod, as miserable as an emotionless bastard like him can be.
“How?” I ask.
“What's the story on your mom?” His face is neutral, but he clearly means to exchange information.
I look at my feet. “You know about my mom.”
I jerk my head up and see him nod. “Well, her care... it's—I owed fifty thousand.” Thorn whistles and I move on. “Now it's ten.”
He clears his throat, doi
ng mental math. “So one more lap auction, and she's set.” He shrugs. “Why can't you just make payments? You didn't have to do the laps.”
I shake my head. “It doesn't work like that. If the debt gets over a certain magic number- they shuttle her to a state home.”
Thorn's face tightens. “I know about state run shit.”
More silence. “So you bail mom out, then you're done with laps.”
I nod. “I might have to keep up with some pole work.”
For as long as I can.
Thorn looks at my hand. “What about your fucked-up hand?”
I hiccup back a sob.
Thorn looks down, struggling to maintain his emotions but looking conflicted as hell. “Sorry, it's just...”
I don't even have the emotional latitude to be happy about his discomfort; I'm wound too tight. “I use my wrist and twirl with the dominant.”
I wait while he considers my words. Finally he opens his mouth. “Mick saved me.”
My wealth of reading hits me between the eyes, and suddenly I know his part in the whole miserable scenario.
Tyson Marius Simon.
“You're the one,” I say in a whisper, putting the pieces together.
Thorn nods. “I couldn't save her, but I tried.”
He scrapes a palm over his skull cap of hair. “After I got out of prison for manslaughter, Mick gave me Black Rose. It's been an honor.”
His dark eyes hold mine, and I don't look away.
“And you've been running it ever since,” I guess.
Thorn nods again. “I have, but I have my pride. Mick paid for everything I own. He threw expensive shit at me: the car, my pent, my clothes, the business degree.”
He sees my surprise and chuckles a little. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I talk rough... hell, I am rough.”
Yeah. I don't agree out loud. I never doubted he was smart. Not once. It's one of the most dangerous parts about him.
“I figure I owe Mick about five hundred grand, give or take. The girls get their cut of the laps, and I get mine.” He makes the money fingers together, his thumb brushing the inside of his fingers back and forth.
“So we're both cheating on Mick but for different reasons,” I say.
“I'm not cool with it, but once it's done, I'll pay him back. Even though he feels like he owes me.”
I look at Thorn and see someone different than the man who made me audition on his lap. He's got a weird code of honor.
If it's not mine, is it still honorable? I'm not in a position to judge.
“He does owe you,” I say.
Thorns brows rise.
“You killed his sister's murderer.”
Thorn’s face wrestles through many emotions and finally settles on resignation.
“I can't bring her back.” Despair edges in where indifference was moments before.
“No.” I shake my head, and my hair slithers over my shoulders. “But it's a kind of justice.” I think only of Ronnie.
Thorn shakes his head. “Vengeance.”
That too.
~ 12 ~
The other dancers are in their rooms, and I've narrowly escaped Ronnie again through a lesser evil.
But not this dance.
Jay's as handsome as they come, and it should be no chore for me to ride him.
But it is. His good looks and willingness to pay don't make it easier.
I admit he’s better than the other laps—old, tired men leading grim lives and seeking youth through the thighs of a woman less than half their age.
I smoothly straddle him. The twinge of pain high and inside my thigh summarily ignored, I insert myself between his legs and the arms of the chair.
His eyes look at mine through the mask. My flesh is hot, and the sharp outline cuts into my skin, making for an angry silhouette when I remove it after my night of grinds.
I put my hands on his bare shoulders. I unconsciously command my bad hand to cup where his muscular shoulder curves into his arm, but my other hand grips with perfect dexterity. I bob up and down like a cork in a sea without a current.
Jay gets hard as I arc against his cock, and he moans.
His hand travels to the V in my dress and moves it aside. My naked breast pours cooperatively into his palm.
I tip my head back as his thumb works my nipple into a pebble of hardened flesh. I think of Mick. I can do this if I pretend it’s him.
I can do anything for him.
That realization swims through my mind like a pulled thread, unraveling my brain.
I stop thinking about what Mick's doing in memory of his dead sister.
I quit all thoughts of how much more I want from him than just taking the last shred of my innocence.
My mind hurries past my faceless death, my mother's existence that is worst than the true absence of death.
I concentrate on Jay's hands on my body, pretending they're Mick's.
*
My dress rides at my waist like a slim inner tube of glittering material. It itches me as I rock deeply against Jay's erection, both his hands hold my breasts.
“Sit up,” Jay commands, eyes at half-mast.
I rise, no longer rocking.
“Lean forward.” He kicks my legs apart, and my lip trembles.
Do it, just do it.
My g-string offers nothing more than a suggestion of material as air grabs along my folds, whispering its freedom.
I hang open and exposed above him. Jay wraps my wrists with his big hands and jerks me forward. I cry out in surprise.
I fall forward, and he has his prick sprung that fast. He centers it below my entrance, and I can think of nothing except that he'll be in me before I can react, before I can do anything to stop him.
“Don't,” I whisper through instant tears of violation. The word sounds like the plea it is. I never anticipated him taking advantage of me.
My wrists strain against his hold, but he's so much bigger, stronger.
I don't want my virginity taken this way. I had a plan, and it isn't Jay.
It's Mick. It's always been him.
He presses one hand to the small of my back, his bare flesh against mine, and presses down. His penis splits my butt cheeks, and he slides against my back entrance without penetrating me.
I panic, my free wrist pressing against the back of the chair, and he clamps down harder, holding me captive.
He moves against my most intimate parts, and my fantasy about Mick from earlier aids him.
My slickness allows Jay's unbidden movement.
He does not enter me. He uses the tight recess of my ass to glide between my cheeks, a grueling friction ensuing.
I groan in disgust, clenching my eyes shut and struggling against him as he fucks me outside my body.
Jay releases my other wrist, and I lie against him like a corpse. His hands cup my ass, and the rhythm of his penis speeds up.
I feel as though I'm watching this happen to someone else. I’m on the outside looking in.
“Just a little more,” Jay grunts.
His hand's brutal hold tightens further, and I bite my lip in pain. His dick feels like a snake between the globes of my ass.
My gorge rises, but I hang onto the precipice of my will, my fingers white knuckling this final sin.
He gives a last vicious pump between my cheeks, and I cry instead of screaming as he releases against my back. Hot jets coat the beautiful dress, drying into a revolting gel as I lie in a listless pile against him.
“Fuck yeah,” Jay says, pressing into my body as his hips slow their rhythm.
We lie together for a few seconds as his breathing slows.
He pushes me away gently and studies my face.
I sway, fighting throwing up.
“Now the mask, Faren.”
Somehow, this is the worst extra of all.
I can pretend when I wear the mask.
I can't anymore. I tear it off and fling it aside. With unusual accuracy, it rims the trash can and drops in
side.
Jay looks at my face, his eyes pouring over every detail as though he's memorizing it. He raises his hand to caress my jaw. “So beautiful.”
I flinch away, my eyes going anywhere but to him.
An exhale shudders out of me, expelling my disgust, guilt, and disgrace.
Noise disturbs the silence of the room where only our breaths had been.
Voices crash against the door. Jay's eyebrows tick up, pulling together and he gives me a sharp look.
There’s the sound of someone being struck.
Jay sits up.
“Don't fucking go in there, Mick!” Thorn says.
Mick.
My breath stalls. I’ve never felt adrenaline like I do in this moment.
I try to scramble off Jay's lap, but our clothes and limbs are too fused for a rapid untangle.
The door crashes open and hits the wall with a thundering crack.
I twist at the torso and take in a wild Mick, my bare ass facing the door.
His eyes widen. My half-naked body wears a dress he undoubtedly chose with himself in mind and is now defiled with another man's release.
Gone is his expensive suit and smooth demeanor.
In its place is a rage that borders on insanity. He launches himself at us.
“Faren!”
I don't move, the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.
Jay is the one who thinks, dumping me on the floor as the bull that is Mick rushes him.
I fall on my naked, sticky ass, limbs flung in an ungraceful mess.
Mick plows into Jay and the chair goes ass over tea kettle onto the floor. Mick hammers Jay's face and I meet Thorn's eyes.
His black eye is blacker than his skin, and he shrugs helplessly.
“Help him!”
Thorn shakes his head as if Jay deserves it.
Jay disgusts me, but Mick will kill him.
I see that now.
I jerk up like an awoken sleepwalker and lurch to Mick. My dress bunches in all the wrong places, and I grab his arm.
“Stop! Please, Mick,” I scream as Jay's bleeding face turns into tenderized meat.
Blood Enchantment Page 40
