by Savannah May
“Okay, we didn't actually get to full penetration this time but his fingers were way inside me which is just as bad. And then, oh crap-” The sobs took over. I was saved from having to admit to the month-long passionate love affair I'd enjoyed with my step-brother before going out to college, fortunately interrupted by the sound of the door buzzer.
“Shit, that's Ram,” Lily said. “I just came back to pick up some clothes. He wants to show me his place out on the island.”
“That's fantastic,” I burbled, genuinely happy for her. “You two are having a good time.”
“Don't think for one second I'm leaving you like this.”
“No, please, you have to go. I'm being totally selfish and self-absorbed and didn't even ask how your evening went. I can tell by the glow on your face and surrounding your whole body that it went well and seems like he's keen. As he should be- a man with taste at last.”
“I don't know how it happened, he is so not my type but he's not what he seems. He knows art and quantum physics and we talked for hours before- and ohmidemigod, Harl, he has some bedroom moves that should be in a magazine. He said they're ancient Indian techniques, and they actually blow your mind.”
“You got tantra-ed,” I said, forcing a laugh through my misery. I didn't want to spoil her pleasure. She'd been a good friend and had been through a lot of jerks. The buzzer sounded again. “He's eager,” I said.
“I'll tell him to go, that something came up.”
“Don't be crazy, and miss the chance for the best sex you'll ever get and who knows what else will come out of it. I'm fine.”
“You are not.”
“Okay, maybe not fine, but I'm better now and if I have some time alone to sort out my head, seriously, by the time you come back tomorrow, I'll be totally back to normal.”
“So you promise to tell me all about it? We'll be back in the morning, Ram has work to prepare for Monday.” Lily pressed, as she dashed about tossing essentials into an overnight bag.
“The whole sorry soap opera,” I said. As soon as she kissed my cheek and ran out the door, I buried my face in the pillow and howled.
Chapter FIVE
Once I'd completely spent every emotion coursing through me and was too exhausted to shed another single tear, my mind had cleared enough that I knew what I had to do. I put in a call to my Mom to try to find out when she and Michael might be out over the weekend. There was no way I was ever going to put myself in the same space as my mother's husband as long as I breathed. Fortune smiled when I discovered new voicemail on my phone saying my aunt was sick and they had gone upstate to check on her. They'd be gone overnight and would I make sure the cat got her dinner.
I took it as a sign. Everything falling into place was indication that my plan was the right thing to do. I'd go out there, feed Samba, grab my things and get out of here. I wanted to leave the city and never return, at least not until all this was well and truly behind me. And I got Cole out of my blood once and for all. A state of being I could not imagine ever coming to pass.
A long shower made me semi-presentable to the world and I splashed my face with cold water for ages to make the puffiness go down. Then I took the subway out to my parent's average square house on an ordinary street in the suburbs. As I walked along the car-lined sidewalk, it occurred to me that I could be anywhere, in any town in America.
Other people lived lives like mine and maybe they were as screwed up as mine currently was but I was determined to get out of this. I didn't need the kind of fancy life Cole had created for himself, all I needed was genuine love and to care for someone. I double-checked my parent's car was gone before letting myself in at the side door.
“Hola, Samba,” I said, as she came to entwine herself round my ankles in a figure of eight. I'd always talked to our cat in Spanish, using her as my practice for school homework. She followed me up the stairs and into my room, then stood gazing at me with eyes that said 'Don't leave me.' Animals have an innate sense of what we feel and what we're planning. I wondered how we humans had pretty much lost the ability we must have possessed in the distant past.
“What should I pack in my small case, Sambacita? Wish I could put you in there and take you with me.” What was I likely to need for wherever I ended up and whatever life I decided to follow? I didn't much care and tossed my underwear and cosmetics in with a few jeans and tee-shirts. The only thing I really wanted was the photos. I opened the top drawer in my bedside table and pulled out the small stack of snapshots, taken back then, before the Cloud and posting from camera phones replaced drug store prints. These were my only memory of my father and there was one of Cole from the brief time we'd spent together.
I took one last lingering look around my small room, I'd made it my own again in the short time I'd been back from school, staying with Mom. We both knew it was the last chance to be a daughter living as her mom's little girl before everything changed. The time had come and next time we saw each other I would truly be an adult. But who knew when that would be?
“Okay, cat's dinner then we're outta here,” I steeled myself for the road, shaking off the past and was halfway down the stairs when the front door flew open and I was face to face with Michael.
“The slut returns,” he said, slamming the door shut behind him with a self-satisfied smirk. “And looks like she's been cat-burgling while the mice are away. What's in the case?”
“Nothing, just a few of my things,” I said, trying to stay calm and stop my hackles rising. Better not to give Michael any excuse to lose his temper. He was coming toward me up the stairs with a hateful grin across his face and I couldn't stop myself from backing up towards the landing, my eyes transfixed in his. Images of him pulling my lovely top up and squeezing my bare breast in his sweaty hand pushed themselves unwanted into my mind. “Where's Mom?” I stuttered. I was fighting to remain calm and alert as my body went into adrenalin overdrive, blood pounding through every tiny vein.
“She went to her bitch sister's place. But you knew that, didn't you? And you came out here to see your dear Daddy?”
“I thought you were both going to see Aunt Julia.” My mind was roiling around seeking a way to get out of this. I was trapped on the stairs and there was no way past the man looking at me with a disgusting leer.
“You've always been such a little slut liar,” he growled. “I guess I'm going to have to teach you a lesson. And it's gonna be hard 'cos I know how much you like to be punished.”
“No please, Michael, let me go, you're hurting me.” He had my upper arm in his pincer grasp and was dragging me back down the stairs. I held tight to my bag in the other hand, figuring he was going to toss me out on the street.
“I got the strong impression last night that you enjoy a little pain,” he said. “I thought you got off on being with a real man showing you what's what.”
At the bottom of the stairs, we turned away from the front door and went back toward the kitchen. My heart pounded insanely in my chest and my breath was stuck in my throat. Where? What? My mind jumped about like a crazy person. Before the kitchen, Michael yanked the door under the stairs back and pulled me down into the basement where no one ever came except him, to work out on his old gym equipment. It was dark and the bare stone floor made the air cold.
He pulled the drawer of an old bureau open and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. My eyes gaped wide as he opened the handcuffs and with a quick flick had them locked tight around my wrists. He shoved my arms up above my head and tied an old coil of thin blue rope around the chain between the cuffs, then attached it to the cross bar of his training machine.
“Are you insane?” I screamed. “Let me go. You can't do this. What are you going to tell my mother when she comes back?”
“Anything can happen between now and tomorrow night,” he sneered, his hot breath close in my face. “You just wait and see what I've got planned for you, baby girl.”
“Michael, please, don't do this. Just let me go, I'll ge
t out of here and I won't bother you again. I guess it's been hard, me staying here, disrupting your life with Mom but I'm leaving now and you can get back to normal. We don't want to do something we might regret in the future. Ouuggh.”
“Would. You. Shut. Your. Fat. Mouth.” With each word he tugged tighter on the rough old fabric he'd wrapped around my open mouth. A foul taste of oil, sweat and old beer stuck to the back of my tongue. I recoiled as his brute fingers tweaked the points of my breasts through the fabric, his breath raspy and vile. He mashed the entire weight of each one in turn with a satisfied grunt.
“Okay sweetie, you wait here. As if you're going anywhere,” he chuckled to himself as he went back up the stairs. “Pappy's going to charge the video camera.” The door between the basement and house slammed shut and I was left alone with the terrorizing prospect of what he was going to film us doing. Or rather, him doing to me.
What the hell had come over Michael? No one would ever have mistaken us for buddies and definitely not step-father and daughter. He had always eyed me with a deep suspicion, as though I might steal something from him.
Maybe he was worried about losing mom or sharing her attention, I had no idea, but he had never been like this. Ever since last night when he caught me at Illicit, he'd been a different person, a Frankenstein's monster gone wrong. I refused to believe he was going to do something to me. Last night he'd been drunk, I could smell the sour beer on his breath but today, in my own mother's house, there was no way he was going to hurt me. Was there?
The ugly images from last night inserted themselves again. I was in the perfect vulnerable position for him to strip me and do whatever he wanted with my body. And this time there'd be no Cole and his handlers coming to the rescue. Maybe it ran in the family, like father, like son with the kinky sexual needs. Which of the many contortions and excesses my shocked eyes had witnessed last night did Michael have in mind?
The hairs rose along my forearms with the fear of being beaten with a leather strap. I was virginal when it came to bondage and couldn't imagine what else he might do. Images from Illicit crowded my mind, pushing out the planning of how I might talk him out of it. There had to be something that would jolt him back to the reality that he could not abuse his wife's daughter. Like father, like son- I still could not fathom that Cole was the child of this monster.
Heavy footfall made the floorboards above my head creak and heave. There was no chance of screaming out for help with the gag tight in my mouth and then there came the sound of coarse male laughter. The dank air in the basement made me shiver deep within and unpleasant prickles ran along my arms.
Surely he wouldn't, no, he would not bring his buddies over to watch. I thought of the glamorous voyeur couples lounging on silk cushioned beds at Illicit, watching the goings on all around with relaxed interest.
Hell, I had zero desire to be one of those bodies tied up and hanging from the chains in the ceiling, exposing themselves purely placed for the pleasuring fingers of every passing man-or woman. Had Michael gotten the idea last night of starting his own personal Club Illicit and inviting all his friends to join, with me as the only slave?
Chapter SIX
Cole
Better to let her and the past go. Except I can't get her out of my head and it's driving me freaking insane. Last night was even worse than the one before when she ran out on me. I tried to distract myself, get back to my normal self. I had Tad bring me one of the willing slave girls, blindfolded, bound and gagged so she had no idea it was me.
She very willingly bent across my huge desk of dark black wenge wood and waited, anticipating the crop landing across her smooth buttocks, breathing heavily so that her gorgeous round breasts rose and fell.
I sat and observed her for quite a while. The human body was fascinating and seeing the excitement welling up deep inside her like a geyser would normally have given me great satisfaction. But I felt somehow removed from the situation and when I finally smacked her my stroke was pathetic.
I brought the cane down on her with no sensation at all. I had no desire in me. All I could think of was Harley, her soft hair in my face and the scent on her neck as I buried my fingers into her lush wet folds. How she drew a sharp little breath against my ear and clutched me tighter to her as I pushed inside and found the special spot instantly. Nothing could take my mind off her huge round eyes, a dark blue that was almost violet, looking at me with the pain and confusion of betrayal, like a character out of that movie where everyone's blue and gets screwed over by humans.
I had the submissive girl removed from my office, still completely blindfolded, and got back to work. No dice. My head was all over the place. And when I got home, to the penthouse I keep in Manhattan for the nights I have to get away from Illicit, there was still no rest for my ravaging mind. I don't do pharmaceuticals so at dawn I went back to the club to finish up with work.
But then, I couldn't focus as much as thirty seconds without Harley seeping back into my thoughts. I've got a mountain of work in front of me and suddenly I realized my mind has been gone for fuck knows how long, meandering around her soft lips, like down pillows in a heavenly hotel, her sinuous tongue that came back at mine hard and her sweet wet center.
It's driving me freaking insane that we left it like that and it's not happening. I'm not that same stupid youth now and I won't allow my connection to her to fall apart again. I had to get control of the situation and make her tell me face to face that she doesn't want to see me again and I'll know the reason why.
I slipped out through my private entrance, not wanting raised eyebrows from Strike or that one of the guys should come as back up. The paper was still scrunched in my pocket, not that I needed it. The address was committed to memory as soon as Strike had pushed it across my desk. I got the Audi R8 V10 from the lot and drove straight there. The roommate looked confused and concerned when she buzzed me in.
“Harley's not here,” she said looking at me with deep distrust. “She promised me we'd talk this morning but I just got back and- oh, Ram this is Harley's friend, er-” she interrupted herself to explain to the good-looking Indian coming out of the bedroom, or bathroom. It was hard to tell the exact layout of the apartment in the cramped space, piled high with stuff on every surface.
“You're Cole Winter,” Ram said, coming toward me and extending a hand. “I read the article in the Journal last month.”
“Oh, yeah.” That fucking reporter had delved a little too close, almost letting more than was safe out of the bag. I'd refused all requests for interviews since.
“That's some great work you do for women in prostitution trafficking,” the guy continued, when I was more concerned with getting back to Harley's whereabouts. “Good for you, man and here, let me write you a contribution.” At least the roommate was looking at me with slightly less suspicion now as her guy pulled out his checkbook.
“When will she be back,” I asked.
“She doesn't live here, she only hangs out on weekends and stuff, when my roommate's out of town. Otherwise she's been staying with her mother until she gets a place.” Harley didn't have her own apartment, she had to stay with her mom, beg a bed with a friend? I wish I'd known.
“Where does her Mom live?”
“I don't know exactly, somewhere out in Queens. I texted Harl a while back when we got in, but she hasn't replied, which isn't like her. Would you happen to have anything to do with her being so devastated yesterday morning?”
“Devastated how?” I asked, my heart racing. Harley felt the same. I hadn't imagined it.
“She was more upset than I've ever seen her. I know she'd been crying all night but she said she wanted some solo time to straighten her head out.”
“So you left her all alone,” I growled, more fiercely than I'd intended, making the boyfriend frown. “You have to tell me anything you know about where she might be. I need to find her.”
“Honestly I don't know. You have her number, right?”
I told the
roommate, Lily her name was, to give me the number and I left the two lovers. It was obvious they were in full blossom of new lust and it made my heart sore to think I could have been in the same state with Harley right now.
I dialed her number every ten minutes or less, with the obsession of a stalker. Every time it went to Vmail meaning either she suspected it was me and was ignoring me, or something was preventing her from answering. I had no real reason for the chill in my gut telling me something was wrong, other than the fact that it had never once let me down in the last six years.
“Strike, get a trace on this number right away.” I called the club where Strike lived in a suite above my office. Thanks to the high profile members of Illicit, I had better connections than the CIA, NSA and FBI rolled into one. Strike came back to me almost immediately.
“I got a bad feeling about this one,” he told me.
“Spill it,” I snapped.
“Got the trace down to within a block radius and it's on the same one out in Queens as the surveillance we've got on your old man,” Strike replied. “I'm on my way.”
That was how Strike rolled. No words required to know what I wanted, needed or thought, after the time we spent alone in the desert. We were as finely tuned as a marksman and his eyes become after months out there staring at mirages in the shifting sand. He had recognized the only girl capable of attracting me as soon as she approached him on the stairs to the club, he knew she was messing with my mind, and now he knew that something was up with her, something that we had to fix immediately.
The guy we had watching my father's ugly house lit up when Strike and I appeared on the scene. He hadn't expected to see any action go down on this job.
“One female, blond, dyed, forties and one male, dark, fifties, exited Saturday oh-nine hundred,” he reeled off from his notes when Strike demanded to know who'd come and gone from the house. “Second female, twenties, brunette, entered, Saturday eighteen forty-seven.”
