“I’ll describe myself, then. I have black hair, piercing blue eyes, a chiseled jaw, and an 8-pack. Or maybe I have white-blond hair, high cheekbones, bronze skin, and a smattering of freckles.”
The latter part was describing me. He was lying, which clients always did, but I felt too powerless to be okay with it. I thought about ending the date. Henry would be angry, but panic was crowding in on my dark world. I took a shuddery breath. My heart was beating too fast, and my brain was thinking too fast.
I felt his palm against my cheek, cool but warm. Static. Non-violent. “Calm, Chere. Be calm. I’m not a bad guy. I just like to be in control. Breathe in. Breathe out.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“You’re not doing it. Breathe for me.”
Sharp voice. Dominant, demanding voice. He was clearly a liar, and might machete me at any moment, so I sucked in a big breath and let it out nice and slow.
“Good girl,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to hurt you. Or kill you. Your agent has all my information.” He chuckled. “All my bank account numbers, anyway.”
“I hate this,” I blurted out. “I hate this date so far. I want to take off the mask.”
“No, you’ll leave the mask on, and I’ll keep my identity secret. You’ll sit there and let me do things to your body, and we’ll keep it civilized. Okay?”
Civilized. More sarcasm.
“Are you still breathing?” he asked. “I paid for two hours, and I’m using two hours, whether you’re passed out or not.”
His jokes weren’t funny. His voice was too intent and too scary to be funny. I could feel him close to me but I didn’t know what he looked like. He ran a hand up my leg under my pencil skirt.
“Why are you wearing panties?” His voice was smooth now, like silk.
“It’s a thong.”
I gasped as he twisted it in his fingers and ripped it off. “Which is a form of panties. Don’t talk back to me, Chere. I don’t like it.”
So that thong was history. Okay, I had a thousand of them. More pressing: this guy was terrifying me.
“I think we should talk about what you like, and what you want to do,” I said, before my courage left completely.
“Talk is cheap. Basically I want to fuck you.”
His fingers were inside me now, probing through slickness. Why was I wet when this guy was freaking scary? “Well, what kind of things do you like?” I asked. “I mean, what kind of fucking? What positions? Do you like toys?”
“I should have made you wear a gag in addition to the mask.”
I wasn’t making any headway at trying to get this guy in line. Henry was my agent (because high-class call girls did not have “pimps.”) He was supposed to protect me from these kinds of situations.
I was just summoning the words to end the date when his thumb pressed my clit. Ah, God, he’d found my spot. My legs opened wider of their own accord. This was the part of the date where I was usually thinking what to do to get the client off most quickly. Right now, I wasn’t thinking about anything except that he knew his way around a clit.
Then the fingers were gone and he was gone, moving around, doing something. Rummaging. He returned and knelt in front of me. He zip-tied one of my ankles to the chair before I knew his intent. I tried to save my only remaining free limb but he grabbed that ankle in his big, firm fingers and zzzip. Tied. Fuck.
I tried to stand up but he pushed me down again. “Don’t move.”
The stern voice. The control. I wanted to hate it, but I also wanted him to finger fuck my pussy until I came.
“What’s your name?” I asked. “What do I call you?”
“Nothing. You don’t get my name.”
“But you know my name. My real name,” I said in my cutesy Miss-Kitty whine.
“It’s not my fault you told me your real name like a fucking idiot.” He touched my chin, my hair. “If you want, you can call me W.”
I knew from the way he said it that W had nothing at all to do with his real name, and everything to do with it being the name of the hotel. He moved away. More rummaging. This time when he came back, he put something thin and cold and metal against my thigh.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a panic.
He clapped a hand over my mouth. “Undressing you. Hush.”
He let go of my mouth, and I heard the snip-snip of scissors through fabric. Your hearing really is heightened when your other senses are dulled, because I could hear every thread of my thousand-dollar designer skirt being cut in two.
“Stop,” I yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?” This was one of my best, priciest outfits, a classic Lanvin number that fit me like a second skin. It was ruined now. “You’re paying me for this suit, motherfucker. While you have the scissors, cut these zip ties and let me go. I’m leaving.”