Rules to Live By

by Lisa Henry

  It would be a hell of a buzz to crush a guy like that. Someone who’d been in the game awhile. Someone who thought they were tougher than they were.

  Tad imagined sitting on the bed flicking dollar bills in the guy’s face as he sucked his cock. Old, dirty, used-up whore. He got hard just thinking about it.

  It was still early when Tad arrived at The Address. He’d gone straight from school to the bank to get his weekly allowance cashed out—all in small bills because he liked the feel of a thick wad in his pocket—and then it was straight to the whorehouse for his evening’s entertainment.

  He’d failed an exam today. Not his first F, not his last.

  Not that it mattered. He was a Jameson, after all. It would take a lot more than a few flunked college courses to dull the sheen of his bright future. Even so, his parents would still dutifully threaten to cut him off—maybe even go so far as to withhold money for a week or so—if for no other reason than to keep up the pretense that they weren’t completely fucking worthless pushovers as parents.

  What better “screw you” to their little act than to make a lump sum withdrawal and spend it all on sex before they had a chance to cockblock him?

  Oh, sure, they’d bug him to hell and back about where the money had gone, maybe even hire a private investigator again to tail him and make sure he wasn’t doing drugs—shit no, there were way better highs to waste his money on—but ultimately they’d relent. They always did; there was no mess he could make that their name and bank account couldn’t clean up. Even if he did somehow manage to cross that line, his parents had more important stuff going on than him. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  Life was good.

  He parked his car in the tow-away area directly outside the old brownstone. Fuck the parking inspectors, too. He’d had his car towed twice in the past year, which was a pain in the ass, but his dad had paid the impoundment fees without grizzling about it too much. What the hell was the point of driving a flashy car if you couldn’t park it wherever you wanted? At least he and his father agreed on that much.

  Whistling, Tad locked the car and bounded up the steps to the brothel. He pressed the buzzer, and the door opened with a snick.

  “Good evening, Mr. Smith,” the receptionist said. She was a middle-aged woman, always impeccably presented in tailored business suits. She gave the impression of being totally unshockable. If she disapproved of him after his last visit, she was too smart to let it show. Tad also had always admired the way she said his Incredibly Obvious Alias without laughing. He bet three-quarters of the clients in the place were called Smith. “How can we help you tonight?”

  Tad grinned at her and pulled his cash out of his pocket. She didn’t even blink at how big his wad was, which was to be expected in a high-end, “cash only” place like this, but it annoyed him all the same. “I want the oldest bitch here,” he snapped at her.

  “I’ll take this one,” a low, gravelly voice announced from behind him.

  Tad turned.

  The guy was not what he was expecting. He was older, sure, probably in his forties, but he didn’t exactly look like an empty shell of a human being. Not worn down at all, actually. He had graying hair and a few wrinkles, but he carried himself powerfully. He looked . . . fresh and healthy and built like a brick shithouse.

  All the more fun to tear down, Tad reminded himself. He made a show of studying the guy closely, narrowing his eyes as his gaze traveled from the guy’s face to his feet, then back up again. Tad curled his lip like he did with every stuck-up, stick-up-his-ass college prof he had ever butted heads with. Except unlike Tad, this whore would have to submit to the punishment Tad planned on dishing out. “Are you the oldest whore here?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Yeah,” Tad said. “Then I guess you’ll do.”

  The guy raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.

  That was okay, Tad had plenty of time to break through his silent composure. Too obvious to ask the guy straight up if this is what his parents had wanted for him? Maybe he’d have to lead up to that. Maybe start with wondering aloud how it felt to be old in a place like this, operating on a series of diminishing returns.

  “Come on, then,” Tad said, gesturing to the stairs. “I don’t have all fucking night.”

  The guy inclined his head. “You’re the boss.”

  The receptionist turned away quickly, and Tad had the distinct impression she was hiding a smile. Fucking laughing at him? It took all his willpower not to cuss her out, but he had a feeling that even a high roller like him wouldn’t be able to avoid a lifetime ban if he abused the nonwhore staff of this place.

  The guy led him up four flights of stairs—man this building is tall, shit even the voice in his head sounded winded—to a floor and a room Tad hadn’t seen before in his other visits here. They probably made the older whores work out of the attic—he bet the young blood got the prime real estate—or maybe all those sets of stairs were meant to keep an old guy like this one fit in his advancing age.

  The room the whore unlocked was dark and masculine, with wood paneling and exposed brickwork and supple leather seating. Looked like the dean’s office.

  “Make yourself comfortable.” His whore’s voice was soft, but it still seemed to reverberate off every wood-paneled wall, the sound closing in on them, shrinking the room. “You want a drink?”

  “If I wanted to pay you to make me a drink I’d have just gone to a damn bar and saved myself a few hundred bucks.”

  Another impenetrable shrug. “Well I’m having one. Seems like I’m gonna need it.”

  Tad snorted. “Yeah, you got that right.” He wasn’t about to let this guy get the upper hand by thinking he’d gotten Tad wound up. That wasn’t the way the balance of power here was supposed to work. “Listen, I already told you I don’t have all night.”

  “Right.” The whore unscrewed the lid off a bottle of Jack. Not even blue label. He didn’t bother to pour himself a glass, just took a swig and licked his lips. “How do you want to do this?”

  “I want you on your goddamn knees, where you belong.”

  The guy laughed. Actually fucking laughed.

  “What?” Tad demanded, but the effect was ruined by how pitchy his voice was. Less like the man with the money and more like a snotty teenager stamping his foot. He was slipping. No, no he wasn’t, damn it. “I’m a paying customer, so you’ll fucking give me what I’m asking for.”

  The guy fixed his dark gaze on him. “Oh yeah. I’ll do that, all right.”

  He made the words sound like a challenge instead of an agreement.

  Tad sneered. “You know what? You’ve got a real smart mouth on you for a guy who gets fucked for a living!”

  The whore took another swig of his bottle. “It’s not me that gets fucked, kid. I do the fucking around here.”

  “Wh—” A hot flush hit Tad’s ears. “Not with me you fucking don’t!”

  “You want to back out, kid? Go downstairs and cry for a refund? Fine by me.”

  Hell no, he didn’t want to back down. And let this asshole win?

  “No fucking way.” Tad told himself it was pure defiance that opened his mouth for him. His competitive nature. His refusal to ever back down. Nothing more than that. “You’re not getting out of this that easy.”

  The whore smirked. “Funny. I was going to say the same thing to you. Well, don’t try and say I didn’t offer you an out. Tell me your name.”

  “John Smith, and fuck you.”

  “Your real name, boy. And don’t even think of lying to me again, or I’ll send your sorry ass right downstairs to the front desk for that refund you say you don’t want.”

  “Whatever, fine. Not like a whore like you has anything on me anyway. It’s Tad.”

  The whore just stared at him.

  “Tad Jameson.”

  Fuck. Why the hell had he said that? He stared back at the guy, fighting off the urge to clap his hands over his mouth like a kid who’d just dropped an F-bomb a
t the dinner table.

  The guy’s expression softened a fraction, his mean brow smoothing to something a little more handsome than grizzled. His mouth turned up in a smile. “Good boy, Tad.”

  “Patronizing fucker!” Tad stepped forward, jabbing his finger into the guy’s chest. “Listen, you’re the whore here. I’m the john. You’re supposed to do what I want! Someone as old as you should know the fucking deal by now. But I guess there’s a reason you’re a whore, not a rocket scientist.”

  The whore didn’t even flinch. Just crossed his arms over his shirt and tie, making his biceps bulge. “I know what you want.”

  Tad lifted his chin and sneered. “And what’s that?”

  The guy moved fast. He reached up and grabbed Tad’s ear, twisting it, pulling Tad’s head down. Tad tried to wrench back, but it hurt. He put his hands against the guy’s chest—all that fucking muscle—and pushed, but the guy didn’t loosen his grip.

  “You want,” the whore said, when Tad had stopped struggling, “a challenge.”

  Tad spat obscenities, his face twisted toward the guy’s abdomen.

  “So let me tell you how this is going to work.” The whore brought his other hand up to Tad’s head, pressing his fingers into his scalp, then moving his hand lower to stroke the soft hair at his nape. “You want to be a big fucking man?”

  Tad’s stomach leaped. He growled in frustration.

  The whore tightened his grip on Tad’s ear. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To prove how tough you are?”

  Okay, fine, yes. It wasn’t like Tad was that much of a slacker that he couldn’t draw the Psych 101 conclusion that part of the thrill of putting down whores was how it made him feel powerful and rich and in complete fucking control—like the big fucking man, in other words. The way the whore said it though . . . made it seem like it was something Tad was supposed to feel pathetic about. Ashamed of.

  “Answer me, boy.”

  “Yes!” Even if it was true, being forced to admit it aloud—to admit any fault or insecurity to anyone, really, but to this man especially—somehow wound up even more humiliating than the fact that the guy was also holding Tad immobile by the ear.

  The whore laughed, the sound deep and low. It vibrated through his body. “Then it’s your lucky night because I’m going to give you the opportunity to show me just how much you can take.”

  He thrust Tad away from him.

  Tad landed, gasping for breath, on the floor. He clutched his sore ear and stared balefully at the guy. “What—” His voice rasped in his throat. He couldn’t tell if he was afraid, or something else. Something more humiliating than being afraid of a whore, being outmaneuvered by him, being made to speak on command like a dog. Something like . . . curious? Anxious?

  Wanting?

  “What are you going to do?” Tad asked, hating himself.

  The whore smiled down at him. “I’m going to make you into a good boy.”

  Tad didn’t understand what had happened. How the world had shifted so severely that he’d lost his balance. He only knew that somehow the man in front of him had turned the tables on him so quickly, so masterfully, that he was in deep fucking trouble. And it wasn’t even the unexpected violence that had left him off-kilter. A sore ear was hardly Jack the Ripper stuff. What shocked Tad the most was his own reaction to the way the whore had manhandled him. His enduring reaction. Because here he was, minutes later, sitting dumbly on the floor while the guy sat on the desk, legs spread wide, and stared down at him. And he didn’t want to get up. Didn’t even want to stand and level out the playing field between them, let alone storm downstairs and end this whole farce. All he wanted to do was . . . give in.

  “Let’s talk safewords,” the whore said at last.

  “I-I—”

  “Red for stop, yellow for slow, and green for go. Think you can remember that?”

  “Y-yes.” Tad had no idea what he was agreeing to.

  “Clever boy.”

  Unaccountable warmth flooded him. What was he, five years old and still chasing after his father’s time and approval? Fuck no. Tad was past that. He didn’t need anybody’s approval, least of all an old used-up whore’s.

  But despite that, all it took was a crooked finger and a directly stated, “Come here,” and Tad was climbing to his feet, wiping his sweaty palms on his khakis, ready to obey.

  No. He shouldn’t go there. He should take what was left of his pride and run back down the stairs, past the laughing receptionist, jump in his car, drive back to campus, and never come here again. He needed this not to have happened. He needed this to be a weird dream, a momentary aberration. He needed this man to have no power of him. No power at all.

  He needed . . . to be the big man, just like the whore said he did.

  He stepped toward the desk.

  Stopped.

  The whore didn’t say anything. Just sat and waited.

  A strange noise tore out of Tad’s throat as he drew closer and slipped into the space between the whore’s jean-clad knees. The whore settled his hands on Tad’s hips. Big hands. Warm.

  “That’s it. Good boy.” The whore turned him, pulling him back so that he could rest his chin on Tad’s shoulder. He hooked his fingers through Tad’s belt loops. “Look around, kid, and tell me what you see.”

  Tad swallowed, his frantic gaze darting around the room. Rich wood-paneled walls. Ceiling-height bookcases. An ornate fireplace neatly stacked with wood. Antique maps framed like art. And, of course, the imposing carved desk, just like his father’s. Maybe it was like a theme room or something. There was probably a doctor’s office and a dungeon just down the hall. “Um. An office.”

  “Mm-hmm.” The whore slid a hand just under the waistband of Tad’s khakis, teasing the skin there. “Do you know whose office it is?”

  Tad shook his head.

  “It’s Daddy’s office.” The whore kissed the side of his neck. Tad’s skin prickled. Crawled. Something. “What do you call me, baby?”

  Tad shook his head again.

  “Come on now.” The whore rubbed his abdomen. “Or would you rather go downstairs for your refund?”

  Tad’s stomach knotted. He wasn’t even sure which was worse: being sent away, or lowering himself to doing as he was told. “D-Daddy.”

  “That’s it.” His voice was low with amusement, and with something else. Desire, maybe. “That’s Daddy’s good boy.”

  Red for stop.

  Tad almost laughed at the panic rising up in him. For what? For a goddamn word? Maybe for the implications behind it. Except some people got off on this, and Tad was nothing if not fucking adventurous, and he wasn’t going to be scared by a word. Not when he’d never called his own father “Daddy.” So what the hell did it matter if he called a whore “Daddy”? The word wasn’t an invocation. It wasn’t transformative. It didn’t make this into something sick. It was only a game. It wasn’t real.

  He could handle it.

  He could handle anything this asshole threw at him.

  Green.

  Fuck you, green.

  “You want to be a good boy, Tad?”

  “Yeah,” he ground out.

  The whore pinched his belly. “How do you address me?”

  “Daddy.” Another sharp pinch. Tad drew a shaky breath. “I want to be a good boy, Daddy.”

  His touch soothed where a moment ago it had stung. “Oh, I knew you’d be a quick study, boy. I just know you’ll make me proud tonight.”

  Patronizing . . . patronizing fucker. Except this time there was no venom behind the words. Not even in his head. There was only a strange sort of hunger, one Tad had never felt before, or at least not for a very long time, not since he grew the fuck up. Now, it teased him. What would it feel like to earn this man’s praise, his pride? Not that Tad cared. He was curious, that was all. He didn’t need anyone’s approval, not some whore’s, and not his real father’s. He was just playing along for now, because this strange, unsettling game was new and differen
t. Not because it promised him anything.

  In fact, he wasn’t even curious. He just didn’t want to have to admit defeat and ask for a refund. That was all.

  Which he was totally free to do. Walk away, and leave this pathetic guy without money for food or rent for the week. He was the paying customer with all the power. Daddy, despite his act, was nothing but a whore.

  Tad was still in control here.

  “Is my little boy hard?” A throaty laugh. Tad flinched as the hand slid down into his underwear, cupping his dick. “Not so little, huh? Is this all for me, baby?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s exam week, and I haven’t had time to get laid. Just blue balls, that’s all.”

  “Exams, was it? Did you study hard?”

  Oh, for fuck’s . . .

  “Yes, Daddy,” he said, rolling his eyes, then yelped as Daddy shifted his hand and squeezed his balls. Hard. Used them to turn Tad around so they were face-to-face again. “Fuck!”

  “Know how I knew you weren’t lying about your name, Tad? How I knew you weren’t just giving me another smart-ass alias?”

  The pain was making Tad’s eyes water. Fuck you, prick was at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t exactly answer that way when the guy still had a grip on his balls.

  “No comment? Huh, and here I thought you were a real bad-boy rebel.” The whore gave a lazy shrug, too disinterested to be disappointed or pleased, then looked Tad right in the eyes. “I can always tell when a boy is lying to me. Mommies have eyes in the backs of their heads, and daddies can see through any lie. Comes with the designation. So let’s try that again. Did you study hard for your exams?”

  “Fuck no. I don’t give a shit about school. I only go because my—” his cheeks went hot at this next word when normally he wouldn’t think twice “—father makes me.”

  “Your father.” The grip on his balls eased. “Let me guess, he’s rich? Probably works some big-shot job that has him out of the house a lot?”

  “You could say that,” Tad replied.