“He broke your heart?” I want to kill him.
“I wouldn’t say that.” She laughs, somehow loosening my tense muscles with the sweet sound, just that easily.
“Then what would you say?”
“I’d say that he was someone I dated in high school and liked a lot until I realized he wasn’t at all what I wanted.” She’s watching me in the way she does, slowly peeling away my shields. “But what about you? Any serious girlfriends in your past?”
“One.”
Her eyes widen, as her head lifts off the pillow. “I admit that I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
“You were expecting me to say none?”
“Honestly, yes.” She lowers back down to the pillow, gazing at me with focus. I discover I like surprising her, and smile when she adds, “I’ve never seen any news articles about you having a longtime girlfriend.”
“The relationship happened a long time ago, while I attended Harvard, and long before the tabloids were interested in me. Her name was Clara.” She changed my life, and not in a good way, is what I leave out. “We dated for about two years and I planned to marry her after graduation.”
I see the surprise and genuine curiosity on Allie’s face when she asks, “If it was that serious, what happened between you?”
My thoughts go fuzzy and Allie begins to fade away as my mind goes to a place it hasn’t been in so long.
Class ended a half hour ago and I’m finally entering the four-bedroom Beacon Hill home on Garden Street that I share with Gabe in Boston. I drop my books on the table by the door, seeing a pair of shoes that makes me smile.
I hurry up the stairs, taking two at a time. The second I hit the top stair, I stop dead in my tracks, hearing a woman screaming in pleasure. I glance right, seeing Gabe’s bedroom door open, telling me he’s not in his room. Besides, I didn’t see his Audi in the driveway when I came home, so I know it’s not him and some chick he’s picked up and brought home.
My heart rate speeds up as I move farther down the hallway, seeing my bedroom door open, realizing that’s where the woman’s loud moans are coming from. They’re delicious sounds that usually get me off when I’m alone. They’re intense, desperate, but they’re not giving me the hard-on now that they usually do.
I slowly enter my bedroom, seeing the slender brunette—with the stylish bob haircut—sitting at my desk. I can’t see her face as she’s staring at my laptop, watching the woman who’s bound to a table with rope, being taken roughly by the man wearing a black masquerade mask.
I know the video. I jerked off to it last night.
“Clara,” I say.
She gasps, lurching to her feet, spinning around to face me. I can tell the video doesn’t arouse her like it does me. Her eyes are guarded. “Is this what you want to do to me?” she asks.
“I…” I don’t know how to answer her. Clara was a virgin when I met her. I don’t know how she’ll take this. I also don’t want to lie to her.
“Is this what you want to do to me, Micah?” she shouts, fists clenching at her sides.
I wish I could pretend these desires haven’t been filling my mind. But as my soon-to-be fiancée, she needs to know these things about me. She needs to know these videos are what I jerk off to and all I fucking think about, because the sex we have isn’t satisfying enough to me. And maybe…just maybe…she’ll let me touch her in this way. “I would like to do this to you, yes.”
“No, Micah, you can’t want this,” she says, shaking her head. “This is wrong.” Tears rise in her eyes and then begin to flood her face as she wraps her arms around herself, watching as the man in the video begins flogging the woman on the table. “How could you want to hurt me?”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell her gently. “I want it to be fun. I want you to like it.” I take a step toward her and she steps back, looking at me like I’m a killer a second away from attacking her.
I stay put, not wanting to scare her, as she adds, “How could you do this to me? I told my parents that we were going to
get married. It’s why we had sex. You promised we’d be together.”
“I still want to be together,” I whisper. “I don’t need this. Forget about it all.” I’m lying. I do need this. It’s sex that I’m learning more about because Gabe is involved in a club known to a few elite Harvard students. It’s a club I want to go to. I want to spend my nights surrounded by women in lingerie, who sexually attend to the men there. I want to sit and drink scotch, watching women get flogged, bound, and fucked.
I want to be that guy.
This man I am with Clara, it’s not me.
The woman and the man in the video begin grunting loudly with their orgasms and Clara’s thin face becomes ashen. “I can’t ever forget this. What am I going to tell my parents now?”
“Nothing,” I beg. “You’ll say nothing. They don’t need to know about this. We can put this behind us.” I reach for her.