“Then I won’t ask you to be that girl. I won’t push you for something you’re not ready to give.”
“Don’t you see Shane, I will never be ready. I can’t give you what you want.”
“Who said it had to be anything more than friends Rose?”
“I can feel it. I know, you’ll need more, take more, ask for more . . . and I just don’t have any more to give.”
“Rose, all I want is to spend time with you. If it’s only as friends, then I guess I’ll have to be okay with that. But god, I just wish you’d trust me. Let me in . . . for just a moment; let me know what you’re feeling.” My heart thrummed at his words. I began to curl within myself as everything I thought I was nosedived into the pit of my stomach. Shane pulled my hands from the door handle subdued in his grip; he took my arms and tangled them around my stomach. His body swallowed mine in his embrace. His body felt so warm, so good and so right.
I was totally fucked up. Like the pendulum in my head was swinging full force back and forth. Hammering against each side of my fucked up brain. On the one side I wanted him to take me and pull me around and kiss me so hard that I would forget who I was. I ached for him to keep pushing, fighting to peel back the façade that it took me years to build, and yet on the other side, I hated how vulnerable I felt when I was with him. Everything he did while we were together would send sparks barreling through my body. I resented how he made me feel excited again and gave me something to look forward to, convinced, all the while that his expectations would only give me more heartbreak.
My lungs ached with a burn, equal to inhaling black smoke -choked to death- while I breathed in his scent. Damn, I wanted to stay like this forever.
“I can’t, Shane . . . I just can’t,” I whispered as I bucked, working to shed his body from mine, I pulled open my car door and got in. There was no way I was going hiking with him tomorrow, I just couldn’t. I shoved the keys into the ignition, I didn’t look over at him. I didn’t want to give him a chance to stop me from driving away. I just needed to go. I was good at shutting off to the rest of the world while I gave my body over to some slimy fuck who didn’t give a rat’s ass about my feelings or how I was falling in love with Shane.
Truthfully, Shane had just moved way too fast for me. I felt him and how he got under my skin. The way he’d find ways to touch me, when he looked at me, or even acted around me. It wasn’t just at the laundromat, but anytime we talked on the phone or met at restaurants. He had become too comfortable for me, a habit I ached for. I knew this would lead me to nothing but pain.
I couldn’t let whatever it was, this thing we had built between us, take any more of my attention. It had become familiar flashes of Mr. C all over again. There was no way I could deal with another heart break like that. Everything with Shane was gonna come crashing down, I felt it in every cell of my body. I just knew it, call it a premonition, or whatever, but I just couldn’t be in the middle of it. I was better off alone.
Another “gift” had come from Garrett Chadwick, aka Mr. C. Like clockwork, every three weeks he would send me a package and I knew it was his twisted way of staying under my skin. Like a drug, or a high that had me hating myself every time I’d go back for more, I struggled to stay clean from his influence.
Painstakingly he built a strong case for hope, he knew it would be the best way he could control me and the driving force that destroyed me. Three days, that was all it took him to make me believe I was more than what I saw in the mirror, all defeated within seconds. He created so much doubt in my memories of having someone who taught me to feel loved beyond my shitty expectations. Memories that I’d thought I had buried away with my broken heart. All it took was Shane pushing for more and another package from Mr. C to hurl me into a downward spiral that weakened the grip I had on my past.
I slid the package under my bed with my foot, giving it a place among the cluster of other unopened packages he had mailed me. Memories of us together twisted across my thoughts. That day, the day my idea of who I was and what my body had meant to me before I had met him. They had torn me open to believe maybe I wasn’t the piece of shit I had always thought I was.
PAST
THE MORNING SUN blazing fiery against my closed eyes. My hair tickles against my shoulders as the forced air blows chilling cold waves across my chest. The thin soft bed sheet, twisted down across my stomach does nothing to warm my body. Mr. C, a name he demands I don’t call him, sets up the expected behaviors and rules for our time together.
He didn’t touch me last night. Instead, he made me strip naked and he told me that when I’m in the hotel room, and he’s with me, I’m expected to be completely nude. I admit, it’s a little uncomfortable at first, walking around in stilettos and nothing else. Sure, I had dates who liked to watch me undress and even watched me masturbate, but they never just pay me to walk around their hotel room butt naked. But Mr. C, he’s different; so, after a couple of hours of being completely nude around him it wasn’t so bad. His eyes drag across my body, but he never reaches out to grope me when I walk by. It’s so foreign to me, seems almost strange, but to each their own.
Harmless in his demands, this morning, he makes my task clear by his actions. I’ll be rewarded if I make him hard . . . without touching him. So, I make it a game, games are easy and they always have rules. Most of the time those rules only apply to me, but nevertheless, they are rules. I already know what he’s packing in his pants and what he did to me with his fingers that first time in his suite, I know he has skills most of the dates I’ve been with didn’t have. My reward, besides the money, is his touch and my pleasure . . . at least that’s what he keeps telling me.
Mr. C shuffles over and sits next to me on the bed already dressed in a pair of black dress pants and a white T-shirt. Pulling the sheet down my body, I push up off the bed. I need to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. His eyes follow my body as I walk across the room. With my hips swaying against the sunlight falling between the curtains, he drags his arms up behind his head, curling the tip of his tongue up against his lips, he dampens them to a glisten.
“I’ll be right back, I’m just gonna freshen up.”
“Take your time. And Rose?”
“Yeah?” I quipped.
His eyes grew large.
“Answer me properly.”
“Huh?” I asked.
His eyes instinctual, scorching my skin, his lips press into a tight line, he’s lighting me up. Springing from the bed he grabs my wrist and pulls me around into his chest. My ass against his erection, his mouth presses tight against the curve of my face. His warm earthy aroma subtle as it lingers around me. He holds me tight across my chest, his other arm is pressing across my stomach, tightening his hold he faces me to the full-length mirror at the end of the bed.
“Beautiful women speak eloquently and using words like gonna, yeah, and huh will not sustain your beauty. Rose, look at how beautiful you are.” His breaths are brief, quick, shivers fall down my spine in waves.
I close my eyes, unable to look at what he sees in the mirror, I thrust my ass back against him. Beautiful isn’t a word I use to describe myself. I want him to prove it to me.
“Open your eyes, Rosebud, and look at what I see.”
“I don’t want to,” I whisper as I lower my head. My hair falls in front of my face, the perfect barrier so I don’t have to look.
“I wasn’t asking you. Open your eyes and look.” He drags his hand from my chest and clears the hair out of my face. “I need you to open your eyes.”
I do.
I open my eyes and look in the mirror, painfully I see every last mental scar people have left. People who were supposed to love and protect me. I see the fear of a nine-year-old who grew into a woman, I see the searing pain of a teenager rejected by her parents, and I see the shame of a woman who longs to find someone who wants to love her in spite of all the mistakes she has made.
He caresses his hands across every body part as he describes them.
“Now look at the flawless curve of your hips, the marvelous swell of your breasts. Look at the unsullied bend of your neck and the arch of your creamy smooth thighs, My Rosebud, keep your words as beautiful as you are,” he whispers across my flesh.
Dropping his fingers down below my navel, he tickles his fingertips across the outside of my pussy. “Mmmm,” I breathe as I push my hips into his touch. I ache, no yearn for him to heal the scars I carry around with me every day of my life.
“Find your stilettos and put them on before you go to the bathroom,” he says as he pushes my body out of his embrace. The chill of the room rolls from my shoulder blades down to my ankles.
“And Rose, leave the bathroom door open.” He gives me an impish smile.
I find my heels and put them on, making sure I don’t look at myself in the mirror at the end of the bed. My darkest demons, better left unnoticed come alive in mirrors. I leave the door to the bathroom open and he watches me pee and wash my hands. I find the extra toothbrush and toothpaste he left out for me on the counter. Never taking his eyes off me, he sits on the bed and watches me. I steal a deep breath and make a decision to keep my past experiences buried deep for the next several days.
“Well, are you just into staring?” I ask in a low breathy tone. I push my ass out and spread my legs just enough to invite him over. “Or did you want to come get what you paid for?” I tease over my shoulder, caressing my hands up to my ass.
“Ahhh, my fragrant Rosebud. Yes, I want you, but this isn’t about me . . . right now this is about you.”
“About me?”
“Yes, right now, this moment . . . is about you.” he says as he pats the bed next to him. Anyone else does that to me, I’ll tell them to fuck off, but Mr. C? Well, he’s paid for it. I come over and sit next to him. He slips the back of his fingers across my bare shoulder; sweeping my hair off before he pushes his lips to my chilled skin.
“Why do you think I pulled up to you? Out of all those women, I could have had anyone of them . . . why do you think I stopped in front of you?” He withdraws his lips from my skin. His steamy blue eyes invite me to push my lips to his. God, I want to kiss him. No other date, no other man deserves the pleasure of that privilege but his words, his actions they mesmerize me.
“I don’t know.” I swallow hard, my tongue buzzing to tangle with his.
“I chose you because of the way you carried yourself. Unrefined, and raw, certainly, but you have something those other women don’t. You have a spark, an allure that pulls at my deep-rooted need to . . . take care of you,” he whispers against my flesh. My heart falls into my stomach and my skin runs cold.
I can’t believe what he just said to me.
“Great, I’ve become your charity case? Thanks, but this weekend isn’t about your charity, it’s about me taking care of your needs. That’s all.” I push off the bed and head for the bar.
“Stop!” he demands.
I keep walking.
“I said stop!” he commands louder.
“I’m thirsty, I need something to drink,” I rebut. I keep walking, totally naked, utterly pissed and completely ready to give back his money so I can leave. “You, Mister, you’re asking for something I can never give. I’m not your charity case.”
He gets up off the bed and comes charging over. He clutches my biceps and drags me away from the bar.
“I never called you a charity case.”
“No, you just treated me like one. And for your information, I don’t need your money. I got plenty of my own. You wanna know why I got into your car? I got into your car ‘cause I felt sorry for you. That’s right; you looked so lonely with those sad puppy dog eyes.” I walk in circles scanning the room for my clothes. I’m done, I’m the fuck out, but not before I finished telling him off. “That’s why I got into your car. You didn’t choose me . . . I chose you! Yep, um-hum, that’s why I got into your car.”
He remains at the bar, watching as I’m frantically searching the room.
“It’s want to, because, and yes not wanna, ‘cause and um-hum.”
“What?”
“When you are speaking to me, I expect you to speak properly.”
A bullet of a whole-hearted-fuck-you-mister shoots from the barrel of my mouth and how-fucking-dare-you is the finger pulling the trigger.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You gotta be kiddin’ me? I’m trying to leave and you’re all bent out of shape about my goddamn grammar?” I explode.
“When you decide to stop acting so irrational, I will expect you out on the terrace.”
“The fuck I am. I am not your—”
Before I can even finish my words, he wraps me up from behind. One hand on my mouth the other around my ribcage he thrusts me against the wall. My face pressed up against the cold cream plaster, my body sandwiched between him and the wall. His breathing fierce, as a deep growl grows in his throat. His hands pulse down my torso, catching my nipple in one, pushing the other between my thighs.
Fear thrashes through my body. Suddenly I’m that lost little girl, the one that’s so scared.
His hands are hot, the tips of his fingers scratch my waist when he pulls my pink shorts and flowery panties down and off my legs.
“Is this what you want Rose? A man who will just take from you and leave you with nothing?” His voice echoed down into my gut.
‘You’s making me do this my little Rosalie. You give me this sickness . . . you keep causin’ all of this in my body and you’re gonna help me with it.’
“No,” I whisper as I squeeze my eyes closed trying to clear my mind.
‘Shhh, Rosalie, don’t cry, you’s gonna fix me up. Make me all better, you’s about ripe for the pickin’ girl.’
A single tear collects in the corner of my eye before it breaks free and rolls down my cheek. An instance of resolve shoots through my body as he traces the tip of his nose across my cheek.
His breath is hot against my skin as he continues. “You think I don’t know who you are and how I make you feel inside?” He pushes his fingers deep inside me. My legs sway and my muscles clench as he pushes deeper and draws a long pull back, before he thrusts again. “I will never be that guy for you, my Rosebud. I will never take what I didn’t pay for; I will never take what isn’t mine.”
His other hand catches the side of my neck as he pulls my head toward his. Still holding me from behind, he strokes his ever-ready cock across the bend of my ass. “Let me take care of you,” he whispers against my cheek. The guard I carry, holding men at a distance crumbles as he spins me around and dips his tongue between my lips. I push against him, our tongues tangle forcefully as the colors that burst from the desire to feel something more than the broken that taints my heart. For the very first time in the couple of years selling my body, I let a date kiss me. He kisses me and I am his . . .
THE THICK FOG of emotion coupled with the vivid images of being lost and betrayed by Mr. C weighed heavy on my mind. This time it wasn’t the butterflies that had swirled in my stomach when I thought about Mr. C, but the sick burn of betrayal as I thought about Shane and how much I wanted to see him. It was the garbage truck’s squeaky brakes that plucked me from my dream and thrust me smack dab in the middle of my reality. Today was garbage day, and that also meant it was Thursday, the same day that I would spend with Shane doing our laundry. It had been six days since I heard from him. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was fucking killing me and I hated it. But, after I bailed on our hike, I had asked him to give me some space.
I resented the fact that Monday rolled around and I craved his conversation and the spice of his favorite Cajun food. I couldn’t stand the fact that instead of being with him, I had spent the afternoon in my shitty apartment eating a bologna sandwich as I watched some fucked up Spanish soap opera. I missed his random texts that he’d send me with his dorky jokes and one-way conversations that made me laugh. It wasn’t fair where a lifetime of fucked up situations kept me going in the same circle over and over again.
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Sure, Shane and I had only hung out for a cluster of Thursday afternoons to do laundry and a handful of Mondays for lunch, it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal . . . but it was. I got used to it, goddammit—got used to him and his crazy texts on the days we didn’t see each other. He had become my comfortable sharing my Thursdays and filling my Mondays with conversation.
Pulling my phone from my purse, I did everything short of crossing my fingers and toes, in the hope that Shane had texted me. Needing any type of confirmation that he was okay or surviving without our laundry and lunch days, I looked at my phone, he still hadn’t texted me . . . not once in the six days. Maybe he was done with me. If I had to guess, I was just too complicated for him.
It was probably better that Shane never called me, it made it a little easier to move on from our friendship. Obviously, he didn’t have a problem letting go of whatever we had. Yeah, it was better. Besides, I really didn’t need to deal with the extra pressure.
There were several conferences that had come to San Francisco over the weekend. When I had to pull extra tricks on my six squares, knowing Shane didn’t want anything to do with me made it an easier pill to swallow, so to speak.
Sybil and I had worked it systematically and raked in some good money with a handful of extra suck and plucks from the Chinese Plastics and Paints Conference on Friday and Saturday and the politicians from the Clean Energy Summit on Sunday and Monday. We had four busy nights and it gave us a nice little stack of cash we hid under our mattresses.
Okay, so what if I had used the fact that Shane didn’t call me as motivation to make as much money as possible. I just took all my feelings for him and stuffed them into the emotional vault I had buried deep in my body. It was the same space where I hid every other fucked up situation that shaped who I was. I’d been trained by circumstances to be the girl that looked like she didn’t give a fuck. I’d been down that road so many times . . . I knew where every crack, bump and pothole was and the damage each one did when I didn’t steer clear.
Broken Girl Page 10
