“Three,” he instructed, his voice strained. He was close. I had to make the next two count.
I took a deep breath and swung. My hips thrust upward and my breath caught. “You own me.” This time, barely more than a whisper.
“Four,” he said through clenched teeth and I knew the second the ruler landed he was going to come.
I cocked the ruler back further, slamming it down with a whimper. “You own me,” I strangled out, too caught up in my own feelings for a work call.
I heard his breath catch and then exhale in a harsh whoosh, followed by some shuffling. “Be a good girl and send me those panties,” he said after a minute. Still demanding. Still dom. He wasn't a part time dominant. This man was the real deal. I was just one of his subs when his real subs weren't within reach.
“Yes, sir,” I said, hanging up.
There was silence in the wall between us and I shifted, turning so my feet were on the headboard. Turning so I could stare at the wall. As if I could see through it. See him bent over his work, his biceps twitching with each swing of his arm. But instead, I was imagining me laying there, my ass in the air and getting the spanking I had been pretending to a moment ago.
My hand slid down my body, touching the material of my panties and finding my clit quickly. It was all his fault. His fault that I was feeling so insatiable. Normally a good session with myself would last me at least a day or two.
I grabbed the ruler from where I had dropped it after the call. Each time I heard the hammer land, I swung while working slow circles over my clit. I closed my eyes, sinking into the sensations. Sinking into the fantasy. Before long I was moaning. Which wasn't something I usually did while alone. A few small whimpers, some heavy breathing, but never out and out moaning. But this time it came from somewhere deep inside as I built slowly up toward my orgasm.
On the other end of the wall, the hammer stopped and my ruler dropped, forgotten, to the mattress. My hand went to my breast, teasing over the nipple as I arched up off the bed. An image of Hunter above me, naked, looking down at my bare skin like there was nothing wrong with it as his hand reached between my legs... and then I came, hard, crying out, as I rolled to my side, still stroking my clit until I was completely spent.
I laid there for a long time after, curled up into myself, staring at my wall. In a matter of two days, so much had changed. Small things by most people's standards, but huge for me. Life changing for me. Things that I had learned to accept as basic facts of my life had changed. I could have someone in my apartment without a holy heart attack. I could spend a night in my apartment without cutting myself. I could be touched. I could maybe have some sort of friendship with someone.
They were big deals.
I climbed out of my bed, changing into a suitable outfit for a Sunday. I decided on burnt orange tight tunic dress, brown tights, and low brown heels. Sunday was the day I called my grandmother. Sunday was the worst day of the week. I swear she could tell what I was wearing through the phone. If I had on too much lipstick. If my skirt was too short.
I didn't stay home at all after noon on Sundays. I wore low heels and comfortable clothing because I knew I would be out and about for the better part of sixteen hours. I wouldn't be in any kind of shape to be home with a house full of sharp instruments.
I grabbed a huge oversize, heavy brown cardigan sweater, my wallet, and my extra cell phone and left my apartment . I didn't take the calls at home. I felt like they would taint my perfect little sanctuary with their awfulness.
I walked down the street, grabbing a coffee, and finding the ugliest back alley I could find. That was the place for this kind of call. This call that I made every week because I had been blackmailed into it two years before. Because if I didn't make the call every Sunday, on time, no matter what... she would give them my address.
And then my very carefully constructed life would fall to pieces.
I paid the homeless guy who lived between the two restaurants twenty bucks to get lost and come back in exactly twenty minutes screaming like a bloody lunatic. Because I always needed an escape. Because we didn't have an agreement on how long I had to listen to her, but I could never bring myself to hang up without an excuse.
That was how weak a voice from my past made me.
I inspected an egg crate in the back and sat down on it, dialing the number. I set my coffee on the ground, bringing my hand to my mouth as if it could block the sickness I felt rising in my throat.
“May God be with you,” she answered the phone, her voice sharp and I swear I could feel it reverberate through every cell in my body.
“And also with you,” I mumbled, moving my hand from my mouth to my eyes.
“Fiona Mary,” she said, sounding surprised though I knew she had been expecting me. Of course she was. She didn't really give me any kind of choice. “How are you on this fine Sunday?”
Dying. Literally just dying slowly. “Fine, Grandma. How are you?”
“Swell. Just swell. I just got back from service with John and Isaiah.” Also known as your father and brother. In case you forgot. That was the tone she used. Like I was the bad guy. “How was your service?”
Yeah. Right. “I don't go to church, Gram,” I said, my voice strained. Because I wasn't thinking about her and religion. I was thinking about my father and brother. I was wondering if they were still at her house. If they were listening in. The thought made the bile rise up far enough for me to almost choke on it.
“'For God so loved the world, that he gave us his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.'”
“I know I am not going to Heaven, Gram.” And I don't want to be there if you three get in anyway. What kind of God would allow that?
“It's never too late to fix that,” she said, no hope in her voice. I was doomed for hell and she knew it. There was no saving me. But she was a good, faithful woman. She had to at least pretend to try to help me find my way to the so-called light.
“How is the weather there?” I asked, changing subjects. If I didn't steer the conversation, it would go places I couldn't deal with.
“It's beautiful here. The foliage is lovely. Unfortunately the whole town is putting up those god-forsaken Halloween decorations.”
I definitely didn't want to get her started on Halloween. “And how are the ladies in your book club?”
“Wonderful. We are working on organizing a bonfire for those lustful romance novels they are always filling the shelves with at the library.”
“That's great, Gram,” I say, my voice hollow. She was in a good mood. This wouldn't be as bad as I had been expecting. I think a part of me was certain that because a few good things happened to me, something big and ugly needed to follow. That seemed to be the usual pattern.
“And how is work, Fiona Mary?”
Work. Ha. How gratifying would it be to tell her I had masturbated after taking a phone call from a man who jerked off while he listened to me slap myself? But that wasn't an option anymore. I was screwed ever since that one dinner at her table.
Since then, I had racked my brain to think of a job she would think was respectable enough. I couldn't work at a bank because greed was a sin. I couldn't wait tables because I wasn't allowed to work on Sundays (never mind that she frequently went out to eat on Sundays and made people work to feed her). Eventually I had decided that I work at reception at a dentist's office. Doctors was too risque. Too much chance of seeing or hearing about something that would be damaging to my soul. But there was nothing even remotely sexy about teeth. So I worked with teeth.
“Things get busy now that the kids are back in school. Lots of check-ups,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“Well that's good. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Especially with the teeth God gave you. You only get one set so you better take good care of them.”
“Right,” I agreed. Seven minutes down. Thirteen more. I could do
it. I could get through it. You could tolerate anything for thirteen minutes.
“And are there any suitable young gentlemen in your life?”
This was a trick question that I had screwed up answering at least four times in the past. The trick was knowing that my grandmother did, in fact, want me to have a young, respectable gentlemen in my life. Because I was too old to be unmarried. Because sin was just waiting for susceptible women like me. The devil and his orgies just waiting for me to fall victim to my lust. So I needed to get married. Right way. A virgin in a white dress in a big church. And then I needed to lay like a dead fish on the wedding night and let my husband screw me with his half-erect penis and come inside me so I could get pregnant quickly.
But... I couldn't be dating him for too long. We couldn't go out alone. Be alone. And he had to have a job that she would find acceptable. And he had to be a good, god-fearing virgin himself.
So far, I have dated three of these such men. But it always ended because...
One went into the ministry (HA that had been a fun lie).
One had given into sin and I had to break up with him.
And the last one went on missionary work in Africa.
I was half-tempted to tell her that my sweet little missionary died of ebola and I was grieving. She would like that. It was good to have heartbreak in your life. Something about strengthening your faith or some nonsense like that.
“No not right now, Gram,” I said instead, tapping my head on the brick to the side of my head. “I haven't been going out and socializing much.”
“Idle hands are the devil's workshop,” she warned.
“I know, Grams.”
“Hold on one moment, Fiona Mary.”
It was always my full name. Because Fiona was not an acceptable name. Fiona was the name my mother had given me because my father refused to be in the delivery room. Because men were not supposed to be involved with such an unclean act. And my mother, my poor, poor mother, had found her spine long enough to scribble a non-biblical name on my birth certificate. I cant even imagine what the repercussions were from that event. Because my name was supposed to be Mary. I was supposed to be named after the virgin mother.
Little did they know, I would end up being a lot more like Mary the whore than Mary the virgin.
But, for some reason, they never insisted it get changed: my father and grandmother. Which I had always found odd. They had the power. My mother was nothing but an ant under their shoes. But they had left me with my first name, calling me Fiona Mary every time they spoke to me, or about me, instead.
Hell, maybe they blamed my awful name for the reason I turned out so badly. So ungodly. Normally they would blame my mother like they always used to. But she was long dead. So it had to be the name.
“Fiona Mary, are you still there?”
“Yes, ma'am,” I said, looking up at the small slice of sky above my head.
“Good,” there was a strange fuzzy sound, like you used to get when cellphones first became a thing, when there was static on bad connections.
“Fiona Mary,” a different voice said, deeper, masculine. Familiar. So fucking familiar. It was the voice I still heard in my head in dark moments. It was the voice that still broke into my dreams. “Fiona Mary this is your father.”
No shit, Sherlock. As if I could ever forget. No matter how much I drank, how many slices I carved into my skin... I could never forget.
“Grandmother,” I said instead, my voice with an edge to it.
“Don't you dare hang up, Fiona Mary,” she warned with a voice I knew wasn't one for bluffing.
I probably shouldn't have been surprised. It was really more shocking that this was the first time she pulled this stunt. Knowing I was at her complete mercy, knowing what power she had, knowing how easily this would wreck me. She really was one vindictive, monstrous bitch when she wanted to be.
“Fiona Mary,” she said, her voice checking if I was defying her.
“I'm here,” I said, a croak of a voice.
I turned on my egg crate, letting the side of my face touch the wall then starting to bang it against the bricks silently.
“Go on, John,” she encouraged my father as I felt the side of my face between my eyebrow and my hairline break open on a sharp piece of mortar between the bricks.
“Fiona Mary,” he said again, his voice taking on the edge I remember. “You need to stop all this foolishness and sin and come back home. Your grandmother told me about your little stunt at her house and I am appalled at your behavior. I did not raise a girl to grow up and become one of Satan's playthings. Spreading your legs for every horned creature that comes your way. Letting them penetrate you. And sodomize you. You whore. You evil little whore...”
I felt the blood trickle down the side of my face, dripping onto my dress. At the end of the alley, I saw the homeless man standing there watching me, his eyes sad. You knew you were a pathetic, worthless piece of shit when someone with no home was taking pity on you. Noticing me noticing him, he screamed like I had asked. Five minutes too early, and five too late.
“Fiona Mary... what is wrong? Fiona Mary!” my grandmother yelled.
“I have to go,” I said, numbly. “I have to go. I'll talk to you next Sunday.” As soon as I finished speaking, I hurled the phone at the ground, watching its pieces shatter and spread across the ground.
I was rocking. Back and forth. My arms were wrapped around my middle like they could hold me together. But it was too late. I was pieces across the floor for years. I saw something on the ground catch the light, shining, pulling my attention. A long, jagged piece of glass. Green. Like it had at one time been a beer bottle. I reached out for it without thinking, bringing it quickly toward me and rolling up one of my sleeves.
It was perched above the faded bruises on my wrists, just barely touching my skin. I needed it. I needed it like smokers needed cigarettes, like addicts needed their fix. I needed it like I needed air in my lungs. Because I couldn't fucking feel like this. Not after so long. Not after getting away. Not after creating my own little life. I needed to feel better. I needed the cuts. And the rush of adrenaline and endorphins my body would release. I needed to feel better.
I pushed the tip into my skin when I felt a hand touch my arm, shocking me enough to not pull away. I looked up into the deep brown eyes of my homeless man. I saw the knowledge there. The pain. The acceptance of it. “Don't,” he said, his voice coaxing. “Don't,” he said again when I just blankly stared up at him. He reached for the glass, taking it out of my hand and tossing it toward a far corner. He sighed as he heard it shatter against the ground. A sound almost like relief. Like he actually gave a damn if I cut myself to pieces. “It's not worth it,” he said, shrugging. “Whatever it is. It isn't worth it.”
It was. It so, so was. His voice alone, his words alone were enough to send me spiraling to a darkness I had been denying for years. I was a cowering child again. I was useless. Oh my god, how I believed in how useless I was. Every time he said it, I fell for it. I believed it somewhere in my marrow. It was a part of me, my uselessness.
I released a strangled breath, bringing the palms of my hands to my eyes and pushing painfully. Keeping the tears away. Because I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't ever cry. Not over this. Not over them. Over him. Never. I sucked air into my lungs, greedy for the tightness to release, and stood up. “Want to get drunk?” I asked him, waiting for the pause. There was always a pause. But he would agree. Why the hell would he refuse?
“Alright,” he said.
We walked in silence to the closest bar, a rundown shithole of a place that didn't even have a back bar. I ordered endless shots of vodka.
I drank until my body couldn't take it anymore. Then ran to the bathroom and let it all come back out. When I walked back into the bar, my homeless man, my little savior, my drinking buddy was gone. I shrugged, feeling too shitty to care, and started drinking again.
I was obliterated
. I walked home a stumbling, pathetic, numb mess. I dropped my keys four times trying to unlock my door when I heard Fourteen's open. “What the fuck, Sixteen?” he asked, sounding as groggy as he looked. He took one look at my face and shook his head. “Jesus, Fee,” he said, reaching for my keys and unlocking my door himself.
Up close, he smelled like comfort. Like sawdust and soap. Like him. And I smelled like cheap vodka and old cigarettes and vomit. “Thanks,” I managed, feeling my high sink toward a low at a pitch that made me unsteady.
“What the...” he said, his hand reaching out toward my face. “What is this?” he asked, touching the skin next to my eye.
“Bar fight,” I managed, sinking into my apartment. “You should see the other guy.” Then I slammed the door and locked it. Because I couldn't take his niceness. I didn't deserve it.
Eleven
The banging woke me up. Not the hammering, but banging on my door. I didn't have to ask to know who it was. While the night before was a blissfully fuzzy mess, I did remember running into him in the hall. And judging by the blood all over my pillowcase, he was going to want to know what happened to me.
Just give up dude. Accept that I am some kind of fall down, pass out alcoholic. A hopeless case.
“Give me a minute, Fourteen,” I yelled, going to my closet as I stripped out of my clothes from the night before which smelled awful. Like... frat house awful. I pulled on an old white t-shirt and a pair of bright pink shorts, threw a mint in my mouth, and made my way to the door. “What?” I said as a way of greeting, the pounding in my head from the fight my face had had with that alley wall was making me beyond grumpy. Not to mention that his idea of a reasonable hour was eight in the morning.
“What? Where the fuck were you raised with manners like that?” he asked, pushing inside my apartment, a tray of coffee with a bottle of aspirin in one of the cup holders in his hand.
I cringed at the mention of my family. Sore, sore spot at that moment. “You're only allowed in because you brought coffee,” I grumbled, following him toward my kitchen. What was with him and the thinking he owned the joint thing?
For A Good Time, Call... Page 6
