by Lilly Wilder
“You’re such a sexy man Jamie, you’re so powerful and big,” I moaned. I stroked slowly, and then increased the tempo, teasing him, driving him insane with delight. I caused an inferno in the pit of his stomach and I could almost feel the warmth spread through his entire body, the flames curling and licking me, the heat rising within the room. I tightened my grip and stroked the tip of his cock with my thumb, feeling the first drips of wetness. By this point Jamie was in a frenzy, all his wild desires and fantasies were being stripped away by the powerful, all-pervading reality of sexual conquest. I knew that nothing had prepared him for this moment; nothing could have. I stroked him slow and deep. I kept telling him how wonderful and handsome he was, how much I liked him, how he was a strong and powerful man, and his eyes closed in delirium. I pumped him rhythmically, moving my wrist back and forth in a steady motion. I could feel him tense in my hand, and I could see how rigid his entire body was. Blood was flowing to one point and it was impossible for me not to get caught up in the moment as his eyes shot open and he exploded over me, the warm drops hitting my hand and his stomach, pouring out of his cock in a thick, viscous stream.
I gasped with delight as he came and smiled. He smiled too, and he went limp all over. I wiped my hand against the sheets and slid up to him, kissing him on the cheek.
“You felt so good,” I breathed, “I’m just going to get myself cleaned up and then I’ll be back, okay? Don’t go anywhere.” I kissed him softly on the lips again and then ran my hand along his cheek. I stood up and as I turned the smile fell from my face. I had rendered Jamie useless, and Jackson was already bed-ridden. I just had to avoid Logan and I’d be home free. I walked out of the door and didn’t look back, feeling guilty because I knew that for all of the happiness Jamie was feeling now, it would fade and turn bitter when he realized I had used him to escape. I hoped that he didn’t think too badly of me, and I hoped that it wouldn’t taint any future liaisons with other women, because I had a feeling he would be making a lot of women happy.
16
I crept out of Jamie’s room and skulked through the corridor. Logan didn’t appear to be in the lounge. I tiptoed along and made my way to the front door. I looked back and saw that the door to Jackson’s room was open a crack, and I assumed that Logan must have been in there. I carefully and quietly opened the front door and was relieved to taste my first breath of fresh air. I knew that I had to be quick and quiet because the wolves were unnervingly perceptive. I found the bike I had used outside, but I didn’t ride it yet, even though the temptation was there. I wheeled it away, knowing that if I revved the engine it would only draw Logan’s attention and he’d come to chase me. I’d already seen how effective wolves could be when trailing me because of how Jamie had led me here, so I wanted to put as much distance between myself and them as possible.
I didn’t know what I was going to do after I escaped. I hoped that they’d see it as a sign that I wasn’t suitable for what they needed and they’d try to find someone else, and hopefully they’d use less force when going after a new woman. There was a chance though that they would come after me and try to take me again. I thought about leaving the city and moving to pastures new, burning my identity and beginning a new life, but the wolves could track me by smell…I couldn’t go to the cops because none of them would believe me that I had been kidnapped by werewolves, but I knew that I could go to them as a last resort because I had been kidnapped by three men. But somehow I didn’t believe Jackson, Logan, and Jamie deserved that fate. They were just trying to put the pieces of their lives back together again after having it torn apart by Ishmael, which was the same kind of thing I had done after my parents had left, and I had certainly hurt a few people along the way. None of us were innocent in this life.
I wheeled the bike over the soft grass. It made a few clunks, but for the most part it was silent. As I walked away from the cabin I wondered what Logan and Jackson were talking about. I’m not sure why, but I had the feeling they were talking about me, and I wondered if they were thinking I was coming around to their way of thinking. I also thought about poor Jamie, who was waiting there, covered in his bliss, assuming that I was going to come back and teach him more about the art of making love.
I took the bike through the forest to the road and then I broke the silence of the night by sitting astride it and revving the engine. It burst into life and soon enough I was speeding down the road, back to the bright lights of the city, back from whence I came. I anxiously looked over my shoulder in case anyone was in pursuit, but I saw nobody in the dark. I was alone, with not even the howl of a wolf to keep me company.
The air was much like it had been on the night I drove towards them, and my thoughts returned to Jamie. I told myself that I wasn’t a horrible person, but that didn’t mean I didn’t do horrible things. I thought back to my first time. Somehow I had managed to find a decent guy, one that actually cared about me. He told me that we could take things as slow as I wanted, and it actually ended up with me being the aggressor when it came to sex. I learned so much from him, and with him I actually felt the kind of intimacy that sex was supposed to be about. Over the years though it had became more of a tool, a way for me to get what I wanted. I learned how to use my body to its full effect, learned how to play on men’s emotions and sex became a game, a way for me to exert control. I couldn’t remember the last time I had sex where actual love and affection were involved. It was always just a means to an end.
Part of that end was to make me feel alive. For so much of my life I felt numb, as though I was just a ghost and didn’t really matter to the outside world. Sometimes I barely interacted with other people and it made me feel as though if I just disappeared nothing would change. But sex was different. I could feel the heat of the other person, I could sense their reaction to me and how their body responded. I could directly see the effect I was having on the world, and the pleasure that flowed through my mind was incomparable, but of course it was always fleeting. Some people spent their life in pursuit of that feeling, moving from one partner to the next, chasing the high that came with the blaze of passion. I’d never been one of those. I selected my partners carefully, made sure that I wasn’t going to be in any danger, but it was still lacking, and recently I hadn’t had the urge to even be close with anyone.
Being with Jamie had made me feel some excitement though, and it wasn’t just the excitement of escaping. It reminded me how much these things could affect me, and I just wished that I was capable of loving someone else because I would have loved to have been with someone properly, sharing every part of myself with them, but I wasn’t the type of woman anyone could love. I was damaged goods.
As I drove through the night all the lovers I had passed before my mind’s eye. Some of them had lasted longer than others, in more ways than one, and some of them had had more impact than others, but they had all been special to me, and Jamie was just the latest in the line. As I thought about them I realized that each of them would go on to live lives that didn’t involve me. Even Jamie would find someone else eventually. They had been with me, but then moved on and found other people to whom they belonged. They all had that in common, but I was stuck in this endless loop of finding someone new and then discarding them, always afraid to make anything last.
I’d never truly believed that age meant anything. As far as I was concerned it was just an arbitrary measure of how long a person had spent on earth. I hadn’t celebrated my birthday for years, but I couldn’t deny that age would have its effects. When I was younger I always assumed my life would improve at some point, but that point was yet to come, and part of me still had that belief but it was like a fading star in twilight, threatening to twinkle out at any moment. At some point I’d be too old to hope, too old to change anything, I’d just be left wondering where it had all gone wrong, wondering if I had missed any opportunities. I knew that when I went back I wanted things to be different. I didn’t want to continue this cycle. I wanted to feel
something again, something real, so I was determined that I was going to turn over a new leaf.
Maybe I could even try something with Damian. I’d never seriously considered it before, but he seemed quite keen and it wasn’t like the things I had been doing had been working out for me after all. I might as well try something different…
The road stretched out ahead of me and I went as fast as I could. I was confident by now that the wolves would have discovered my absence, and only time would tell if they were in hot pursuit. The air rushed past me as I whizzed by, and the landscape passed by in a blur. The moon was wide and pale, and as I looked up at it I thought about the history of the wolves and all they had endured. I had been given a glimpse into a deeper world than my own. Somehow I thought I should do something with that knowledge, but I didn’t know what.
Soon enough the Rainbow Bar came into sight. Its lights beamed brightly, like an outpost in the darkest reaches of space. As I grew closer I heard the music and I smelled the familiar smell of ale and stale aftershave. I parked my bike along the rest and got up, leaving the keys on the saddle in case the person I stole it from came back to look for it. I saw a couple making out, and a few people were milling about outside. Smoke curled into the air from their cigarettes and I pushed past them, a smile on my face as I returned home.
Sadly, this was the only home I knew, but at least I had a home. The people here knew me, and I knew them. I was going to make my life different than it had been before. I’d learned from my experience, and I was going to make it count.
At least, that’s the sentiment I’d had when I walked in. I was hit with a wall of sound. I stood there and looked around and the Rainbow Bar had lost its luster, or perhaps I was seeing it for the way it really was for the first time. The roof was stick and dilapidated. The paper was peeling off the walls, and the floor was covered in stains. Mickey at the bar looked older than I remembered, and I realized that I had never asked him why he was still working at his age. There was a sad story there. In fact, there was a sad story in all the people in the Rainbow Bar, I’d just been blind to them before, always focused on my own world without thinking about anyone else.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as I pushed my way through the crowd and saw Mel sitting on some guy’s lap in the corner of the room. She was playing with his hair, and he had his hand resting against her thigh. She was up to her old tricks again. I walked up and caught her eye. She leaped up from the man’s lap and gave me a hug. I looked down and the man looked annoyed.
“I’ll be back soon honey, don’t go anywhere,” Mel said, and then pulled me away. “Oh my God Millie, I can’t believe you’re here!” she said, and hugged me again.
“Me too, I managed to escape. Did you tell anyone about this?”
Mel glanced down, ashamed. “No, I…I meant to, but the way they threatened me and I just…oh Millie, I felt so bad for leaving you there but I was so scared. I managed to hitchhike my way back here and I just tried to forget. It was all so horrible. I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Did you tell Harper?”
Mel squirmed again. “I haven’t been back there.”
“What? Mel! He’s been missing you. I thought you might at least tell someone I was in trouble.”
“I know, I really did mean to. I guess I just got a little distracted,” she said, and then glanced over at the man she was with. “That’s Donny. I think he could be the one.” I rolled my eyes as I heard the same thing I had heard a million times before.
“Mel, don’t you think it’s about time you stop all this?”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed and pressed my lips together before I spoke. I assumed that her experience would have been as transformative as mine, but it appeared not. I knew that I would have to choose my words carefully as Mel never liked being told what to do, but I knew she couldn’t stay here. We had to be better than this, better than the Rainbow Bar.
“Aren’t you tired of making the same mistakes over and over again?”
“What mistakes? I’m just trying to make a better life for myself. I know it hasn’t always worked out in the past, but that can change now. Donny is the one, I can feel it. I know that I might have been a little too enthusiastic sometimes, but if you just took the chance to know him you’d see that we get on really well. Come on, let’s sit down.” She grabbed my hand and tried to get me to go with her to meet Donny, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t about to be budged.
“Mel, I’m being serious. Don’t you want more from life? You have to realize by now that you’re not going to be able to find happiness this way. The men you meet here aren’t looking for the same thing you are. They just want to use you, to have fun with you, and then they discard you. I know you want a better life, but how is this the way to go about it? Why don’t you try meeting a guy who actually has your best interests at heart? Why don’t you find a guy who actually cares about you?”
Mel laughed at me. “No man is ever going to truly care about girls like us Millie. We have to offer them something they can’t get from anyone else and show them that we’re special. There’s not a man out there who wants to date me.”
“What about Harper?” I suggested. Mel looked at me blankly and then laughed again, a laugh that sounded more like a bark.
“Harper is a teddy bear. He wouldn’t know how to handle me.”
“He cares for you Mel, deeply, and you’re blind if you don’t see that. Why don’t you just give him a chance? You know that he’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“No, but he’s too nice. I can’t live with someone like that. Harper is too good for me Millie. I need someone with an edge, something that can get me excited.”
I looked at her with disbelief, astonished that she actually thought this was the only way for her to live. “Look, even if you don’t want to get with Harper at least come away with me. We can find somewhere new, make a new start. We can go into business together or something. We can actually make something of ourselves and get away from this bar. We don’t have to be stuck here. This doesn’t have to be our destiny.”
“It might not be yours Millie, but I think I’ve found my destiny here. If you want to leave that’s fine, but don’t try and put your own issues on me. I’m living my life the way I want, and I have a good feeling that Donny is going to keep me safe. If you want to try and get in the way of that then I’ve got a feeling that you’re just jealous.”
She spun on her heels and strode away, her hair splaying out behind her, looking as though the wind had caught it. I was stunned that she had walked away from me like that. How could she not see sense? Couldn’t she see that I only wanted to help her? The worst part of it was that I knew she hadn’t been super worried about me. She had never intended to tell anyone of my plight, probably because she had gotten high and drunk and didn’t want to cause any more trouble. And all after I had risked my life for her, risked everything to come and save her. Anger flared within me and I marched over to the table where she was making eyes at Donny. He seemed more content now that he had her on his lap again, but as soon as he saw me he scowled, probably afraid that I was a friend coming to prevent him from taking her home.
I leaned in and spoke in a harsh whisper. “Are you really going to ignore me after all I did for you? I came out there and you just left me to rot.”
“I was only there because they wanted you in the first place. You think you have it so bad Millie, but at least people want you around. I think you should go and leave me alone. If you’re not going to join in like you used to do then there’s no place for you here.”
I thought about dragging her away by force, but I wasn’t that type of person, and I didn’t want to get in a fight with Donny. It saddened me that Mel was making the same type of mistake as before, and that she was probably going to end up back here after Donny was done with her, but at least I didn’t have anything to do with it this time. At least I didn’t have the respon
sibility of looking after her. She wasn’t my child. From the way she looked at me I wasn’t even sure she was my friend any longer.
I turned away and nodded solemnly, knowing that it was likely the last time I would ever see her. I thought for a long time that the two of us could be like sisters, but I saw now that I had fooled myself. Mel had been just as selfish as I claimed to be. She hadn’t even gone back to Harper even though she knew how much she meant to him. She probably never would, and she was only hurting herself. She wasn’t going to be able to have a good life, and I imagined she would be tied to the Rainbow Bar until it was too late. I hated the thought of becoming an old woman around here, and I knew there was nothing I could do for Mel.
I sighed as I moved away from her and passed my gaze around the bar to see if there was anyone else I recognized. I noticed that the regulars all had glassy stares, numbing themselves with alcohol, and it struck me that all of them were trying to escape something, but none of them were trying to escape the Rainbow Bar. Had they all become so senseless that the bar had become the best thing in their lives, or was the Rainbow Bar just that insidious that it became the most important thing to us? I had been away for just a few days but already I could see it differently. It no longer had the same shine to it, and I wasn’t looking forward to sticking around.
