Torment Me (Rough Love Part One)

by Annabel Joseph

  The Empire Session, Take Two

  We didn’t kiss in the elevator. We didn’t hold hands, and things felt uneasy again. Then some toothpick-slim chick with a plastic surgery face and size triple-G fake tits got on at the eighteenth floor and W glanced over at me like, what is this shit?

  It felt nice to share that secret joke with him. She eyeballed him and I wanted to smack her. But who wouldn’t eyeball him? He was shirtless, a towel slung over his shoulders. His trunks rode low on his hips, revealing not just his six pack but the tease of iliac furrows on either side, and a trail of gold-blond fur that doubtless continued all the way down to his cock.

  He preened under her appreciative gaze—again, who wouldn’t?—but when we reached our floor, I was the one he led off the elevator. Sorry, unnaturally plastic bitch. I was the one he wanted, I was the one who got those abs and those iliac furrows, even if my D cups looked miniscule next to her massive GGGs.

  “Don’t ever do that to your body,” he said as we walked to the room. “Just don’t.”

  “I might have to, if I want to keep working. When women get older—”

  He turned to me with a silencing glare. “Don’t talk to me about your work. For the time being, your only work is being my whore. Your only customer is me, and I don’t ever want you to look like that woman. End of conversation.”

  Oh, right. Our exclusive thing. I shut my trap while he keyed open the door. When we got inside, he let me take off my swim suit, then he picked up my panties. They were still in a ball on the bed where I’d spit them out.

  “Open up,” he said.

  I would have argued, but his expression told me it would be pointless. This was what I’d missed seeing those first few dates: his intent, commanding expression, the taut lips, the arched brow. He was great at it. I opened my mouth.

  He jammed the panties in and grabbed his tie and gagged me every bit as roughly as he’d done it the first time. I played along, because I could see he had a plan, and it was my job to make it work for him. I moaned and pushed back at him so he’d grab my wrists and force me to comply.

  Amazing, that he could hold me so forcefully and not bruise me, but I was starting to understand how he did it. It was a trick of movement and firmness, and the area of his body. A big hand could grip you firmly and make it feel really painful, when what you were really feeling was the real estate of that hand on your skin. Understanding it didn’t make it any less thrilling.

  He pushed me back on the bed. I wanted to hide my face. I thought the gag probably made me look ugly, but when I attempted to turn away he yanked me back and made me look at him. He knelt over me and collected my hands, and placed them over my head.

  “You leave your hands there,” he said. “Don’t even think about moving them.”

  The threat in his voice had my thighs inching closed. He made an irritated sound and forced them open, wider this time.

  “Don’t you dare close your legs, or I’ll tear your ass up. This pussy is mine.” He grasped my mons and shoved a couple fingers inside me. I was just out of the pool, so I was wet, but not that wet, and it hurt a little.

  And I liked it.

  I was freaking scared of him “tearing my ass up,” but I liked being scared about it, and holding my legs open so he wouldn’t do that to me. That was when I realized he was changing me, changing my sexual preferences and what I was willing to put up with. If I wasn’t wet a few seconds ago, I was wet as a river now.

  “No,” I moaned through the gag, and he knew I meant yes. I was rewarded with another finger inside me, a rough piston in and out. I had to fight the instinct to close my legs again, to escape the discomfort.

  “Don’t dare,” he said. “Don’t dare try to stop me. Your body is mine, your mouth, your ass, your tits, your cunt, everything that makes you my sex doll. Isn’t that right?”

  I nodded. Oh, yes, I was his sex doll. What else could I be, with my mouth full of my panties, my hands above my head in surrender, my whole body exposed and aching for him? I wanted his cock. I wanted him to use me. He kicked off his trunks and he was so hard, so thick. All this time I’d only felt it, not seen it. Even earlier, I was too scared to look at his cock, but now I saw it in all its jutting, masculine glory, framed by a heavy set of balls. If I wasn’t gagged, I would have begged for it. Please put it inside me. But with W, I never got what I asked for, only what he wanted.

  He knelt at the edge of the bed and pulled me toward him. He slid his fingers back inside me and lowered his mouth to my pussy. Oh, sweet Jesus. He used his thumbs to hold me open, and dragged his tongue along my pussy to my clit. He prodded it, caressed it, stimulated it while my hips went wild.

  I panted behind the gag. It felt too good, too intense. I reached down, I couldn’t help it. I pushed on his shoulders and the pleasure went away, replaced by stern admonishment.

  “What did I tell you? You fucking listen to my instructions.”

  He held my wrists over my head with one hand, and smacked the underside of my ass with the other. And by “smacked the underside of my ass,” I mean destroyed my ass. Eight hard, stinging spanks, one after the other, all on one cheek as I wailed past the panties in my mouth. He let go of my hands and no words were necessary. His expression and my throbbing ass cheek were message enough. I curled my fingers into my hair so I wouldn’t fuck up again, and I opened my legs the way he’d told me.

  “That’s better,” he said. “You’re here to obey me, and please me. Do your fucking job.”

  Yes, Sir. I couldn’t say it, I was gagged, but the words echoed in my head. Yes, Sir, Yes, Sir, whatever you like, Sir. I was his sex doll, and I existed to serve him. There was something freeing about that idea, something comforting. Even though his mouth was tormenting me beyond bearing, I was going to lie there and take it because that was what he wanted.

  But ohh, God. Now it wasn’t just the fingers probing my pussy, and his tongue teasing my clit, it was the lingering heat where he’d spanked me. I bucked my hips up into his mouth, opening my legs even wider, like some crazed yoga maven. I didn’t do yoga. Maybe I’d better start. My whole body felt like a rubber band connected to the place where he licked and sucked me. I was tensing in pleasure, and I felt like I was about to snap.

  The first orgasm arrived before I was ready. I didn’t have time to brace against its power. My hands yanked at my own hair and my legs flailed. I think I might have kicked him. He didn’t stop and I thought, oh God, he has to stop or I’ll die.

  “Stop fighting,” he said, massaging inside me. “Stop fighting it. Get out of your mind.”

  I didn’t think I’d be able to “get out of my mind” but I tried. I stopped thinking about my body’s exhaustion, and how wrung out I felt, and started thinking about pleasure expanding and billowing beyond the climax I’d already felt.

  And when that happened, I stopped thinking at all. His fingers were wreaking havoc along my walls, inciting every nerve, and his tongue pushed and sucked my flesh. His mouth pressed, his teeth bit me. My muscles trembled from holding open for him, at the same time my body worked toward an even higher peak.

  When the second orgasm came, I shouted into my wadded-up panties. I shouted now and no and yes. He held me down when I tried to buck away from him. The rippling contractions went on and on for what seemed like five minutes, each more excruciatingly wonderful than the last.

  I had literally gone out of my mind. I lost track of him, what he was doing, what he was saying. The gag came off, the panties came out, and his cock was shoved into my mouth instead. I sucked like the satisfied, obedient sex doll I was. My pussy was still clenching, still buzzing with bliss. My hands lay open over my head as his balls whacked against my chin. Not one gag reflex as he surged over and over into my throat. Who needed breathing? Who needed personal space? Not this girl. Even the cherry flavor of the latex tasted good.

  He didn’t finish in my throat. He pulled away and flipped me over, and rammed into me from behind. His knees held mine open
, and his hands gripped my wrists on either side of my head. Fuck if I didn’t come again, the rubber band finally snapping as he bucked his hips against mine. He came with a grunt, his fingers clamping hard around my wrists. Maybe, that time, he would leave a bruise. I didn’t mind.

  He collapsed on top of me. I was dead, literally dead. My pussy was dead. My body was dead. Death by orgasm, my grisly fate.

  But no, I wasn’t dead. If I was dead, I wouldn’t have felt his lips against my shoulder, and his breath against my ear.

  “You’re mine, Chere,” he said quietly. “And I can make you feel good, or I can make you feel bad.”

  That’s what he said, but all I really absorbed was “I can make you feel.” Just today, he had made me feel terrified, and relieved, and anxious, and jealous, and comforted, and right now, content. I realized that was why I kept coming back for these sessions. That was why I wanted so badly to see his face, because I needed to see the person who finally, finally forced me to feel something authentic.

  How long since I’d felt such intense emotion? To be a prostitute, you had to deaden your feelings. To live with an addict, to love an addict, you had to deaden your feelings. I’d been stuffing down my emotions for so long that it felt like a dangerous thing to let them out. I didn’t weep the way I wanted to. I didn’t let my body convulse into sobs, but tears trailed down my cheeks and fell onto the comforter, turning it a darker hue.

  My tears didn’t seem to bother W. He turned me over and pulled me into his arms, and swiped them away without comment, even when they kept coming. Most johns didn’t want anything to do with you once they’d gotten off. Ninety-nine percent of johns didn’t want to hold you afterward, especially if you were crying.

  W, obviously, wasn’t like most johns.

  Do not develop feelings for him, Chere. Don’t even. I mean, what the fuck?

  I slowly emerged from my emotional breakdown orgasmic stupor and realized we were way, way over time. Almost an hour over time. Careless, to get lost in him. Let one session slide, and he would expect more things to slide. It would get messed up and awkward and screwed.

  I didn’t have to say anything to him. He was an experienced escort consumer. He knew as soon as I sat up that it was time for him to go. I went into the bathroom, limping over the occasional stray pearl. It was fun to go to Orgasm Land with W, but it was time to return to the real world, where I was an escort and he was my customer. A poorly behaved customer, sometimes.

  And then...sometimes...

  He was dressed when I came out. Shirt and pants, no tie. I was pretty sure I’d ruined it when I tried to chew through it. It was in the plastic laundry service bag, along with his wet trunks.

  He turned over a sheet of paper on the table and started writing. “I’ll pay you for the extra time,” he said.

  “You don’t have to. We’re not supposed to go over. Henry will blame me.”

  He turned to me with a derisive expression. “What’s he going to do? Fire you?”

  “He’ll make me feel guilty,” I said, which was the truth. “But he wouldn’t fire me. It’s my choice whether to work for him or not.”

  W rolled his eyes and looked back at what he was writing. “I’ll leave an extra big tip then,” he finally said. “You earned it this time.”

  He didn’t say that with any special emotion, but my throat went tight. This had been a tough session. It was nice to hear him acknowledge all I’d gone through to get him off. He folded up whatever he’d written and brought it over, and held it out to me.

  “Are we okay?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and took the paper. “Poetry?”

  “Yes. Maybe a little bit of an apology.”

  I thought back to the previous poems, quickly scrawled, or written on my back. He wasn’t copying this shit from his phone, or from a book. He was writing it from memory.

  “How many poems are in your head?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He just placed a hand on either side of my head, kissed me on the forehead, and walked out the door.

  In Between

  I stayed at the Empire that night, because I had too much crap to work through in my mind. I couldn’t risk going home and finding Simon in one of his moods. I couldn’t deal with his shit on top of mine.

  I lay instead with W’s poetry on the pillow beside me.

  I’d rather have the dream of you

  With faint stars glowing

  I’d rather have the want of you

  The rich, elusive taunt of you

  God, he never gave me enough. His snippets never made sense, never explained anything. What did this mean, that he didn’t want me? That he only wanted the “dream” of me? I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. His poems never made me feel good, only confused.

  Speaking of confused, why had I decided to stay here at the Empire, and sleep on this bed where W had done such horrible things to me?

  But he hadn’t done them, not really. The Texas stranger had done them. Somehow the two of them had become separate in my head, which was fucked up, because they were the same person, and I should have been furious with that person. I should have stayed angry longer. The first time Simon hit me, I stayed angry for days, and then the rationalization started. Was I doing the same thing here? Rationalizing W’s behavior because I didn’t want to let him go?

  But unlike Simon, W was in control that whole scene. He didn’t attack me with true intent, with malice to cause harm, so it didn’t count. When Simon attacked me, he did it to hurt me. When W attacked me, he used a condom and didn’t leave bruises. It wasn’t the same.

  Was it? Fuck me. I didn’t know.

  I was sore the next morning, my heart from emotion and my body from too much orgasming. Light streamed through the hotel curtains, and housekeeping tapped at the door. I got up and dragged home, and let myself into the loft. I heard voices from Simon’s studio, his voice and another girl’s. Someone was smoking.

  Rachel.

  Rachel was an old friend of Simon’s from Florida. She had a sultry voice and a model’s body, and rainbow-colored highlights on the tips of her dark hair. She chain-smoked in our loft and hung all over Simon at every opportunity because they were friends.

  The door to the studio was half open. I peeked in, saw Simon with his brush and canvas, looking animated for once. Rachel was on the couch, sprawled on her back with a cigarette dangling from her fingers. She wasn’t wearing a shirt or bra, but that wasn’t unusual for Rachel, who thought the rules of decency didn’t apply to her. Her father was some Miami billionaire so Rachel didn’t work, didn’t do anything that didn’t feel good to her.

  Simon and I had argued many times about Rachel. I knew she was the one who had gotten him into drugs, and I hated her for it. He went to a few rich, artsy, hippie festivals with her, and all of a sudden, he was getting high because it made the art “better,” like it was some noble sacrifice he was making. Rachel told me to relax, that Simon wasn’t half as bad as some of the people she knew.

  Was that supposed to make everything okay? Ugh, I hated her. During one of our arguments, I accused Simon of sleeping with her behind my back. He sneered at me. “One, you sleep with tons of guys. Two, there’s more to life than sex. I know that’s hard for you to understand, considering what you do for a living. And three, we grew up together. I mean, ugh. Incest. She’s like my fucking sister.”

  But he wasn’t looking at her like a sister right now.

  That smile of his used to be for me. That intent gaze, that expression of inspiration. I pushed the door open and stalked in. “Hey, Simon. Hey, Rachel.”

  “Chere!” Simon exclaimed, like he was happy to see me. He was always happy with Rachel around. Rachel gave me a bitch look, and waved at me like that somehow erased the bitchiness.

  “Look.” Simon gestured to the rainbow colored canvas before him. It reminded me of her hair. “What do you think? Rachel finally agreed to model for me.”

  I used t
o model for you. I used to inspire you. Not to be nasty, but the pieces you painted of me sold for a lot of money. This one looked like a piece of carnival art. I supposed it was for his upcoming show, if it even happened. I had my doubts.

  “It looks great,” I said with fake enthusiasm. I looked from the canvas to Rachel, and then back at the canvas. I never understood why he needed models, when nothing he created ever looked like any of those models. I never understood why he needed the drugs, when his own talent and imagination used to be enough.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” I said.

  “Hey, where were you last night?” he called out when I was almost to the door.

  I turned. “At the Empire Hotel. The client said I could stay if I wanted, and it had a nice view.”

  Rachel tittered, even though I didn’t think I’d said anything amusing. I could have said more, like that I felt more relaxed when I stayed at a hotel. That the lack of clutter and cigarette smoke and color-vomit canvases helped me sleep better.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”

  I went into our bedroom. The bed was still made. It was very possible that Simon and Rachel had been up all night, partying, club-crawling, dancing, and then coming home to make “art.” Our clothes were piling up in the corner. I needed to do laundry. Later. I’d face that later.

  I took out W’s poetry instead, and searched the first couple of lines on my phone. Choice, by Angela Morgan, a little known American poet born in the late 19th century.

  Her work was wistful, kind of sad. I smoothed out the paper, studying his writing, trying to remember the expression on his face when he put down the pen. Was he insinuating something about me by choosing this poem? Or insinuating something about him? Or neither of us?

  Did I want “the want of him”? The “rich elusive taunt of him”? I was afraid I did. Our date was over but he still occupied far too many of my thoughts.

  He’d said it was “a little bit of an apology,” but I didn’t see the apology. I pored over commentary about the poem, its theme of obsession and unrequited love, as if that might explain something, or help me understand him. It didn’t.