“Close your eyes if it’s too much,” he said.
I did, just for a minute. He washed me, running hands over my skin and down between my legs.
“I’m finished now,” he said. “I’m finished hurting you for today. I’m finished fucking you, I promise. Look at me, Chere.”
I blinked my eyes open.
“Are you okay?” He asked it very slowly, and very kindly, and I was okay. My body still hummed from arousal. As usual, he’d taken me from too-much to too-fucking-much.
“I need to touch myself,” I said.
“Be my guest.”
I rubbed one out there in the tub, straddling his legs, pressed against his chest. I could feel him get hard again but he kept his promise and didn’t stick it in me. Maybe he rubbed one out too. For a while, I was too oblivious to care.
After that orgasm, it was like my body came back to itself and I was able to settle down. The water had chilled by that point, but it felt good. W watched me steadily, leaning back against the lip of the Four Seasons’ fancy soaking tub. This was luxury and depravity, and no one did it like him.
“You weren’t better this time,” I said when I felt able. “You were worse. Scarier.”
“No. You were more scared at the Empire, when you thought I was a serial killer.”
I splashed him as he smiled. “You shouldn’t be proud of that,” I said. “And I came back again today because you said you wouldn’t be as scary.”
“I don’t know if I used those exact words.”
I curled up in the water, studying him, trying to understand how someone so sadistic could be so handsomely beautiful at the same time. “You shouldn’t choke people out,” I said. “It’s creepy and sociopathic.”
“Breath play is a common enough fetish.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“That’s probably true.” He shrugged. “I won’t do it to you very often. I did it today because I felt very close to you, and happy to see you.”
“You choke people when you’re happy to see them?”
“I choke people who move me, who surrender to me and make me feel energized.”
I gave him a skeptical glance. “Not energized. Powerful.”
He shrugged again. “Yes. It makes me feel powerful to put my hands around your neck and watch you struggle for breath. I’d like to do it again someday, but without the blindfold. Next time, I want to see the fear in your eyes.” He touched my leg. “That blindfold was a kindness, by the way. You would have been more scared without it, because you would have seen what was in my eyes.”
“Murder,” I said.
“No. Don’t even joke about that. I’m careful with you.”
Your vision of careful and my vision of careful are different. I didn’t say it out loud. What was the use?
He took my wrists and kissed them, and kissed me. I could always count on the kisses, no matter how much he hurt me beforehand. I used to think the kisses were an apology, a way to make things up to me, but now I wasn’t sure. He made no sense. Violence and poetry. Choking and kissing. Degradation and caring.
What’s your name? Please tell me.
“Can I stay here tonight?” I asked. “It’s really beautiful. You choose the most beautiful hotels.”
He smirked at me like I was sassing him. I wasn’t. It occurred to me that I’d paid him very few compliments in our escort/client relationship. He at least deserved a few.
“You can always stay the night,” he said. “The room’s paid for, and I don’t mind. You can even order room service and dirty movies.” He kissed me one more time. “But I have to go.”
The water was cold, and he was suddenly restless. We got out and dried off, and I put on the fluffy Four Seasons robe, while he went out into the other room to dress. When I joined him, he was sitting at the desk, his pen poised over paper.
I walked over to stand beside him. After all I’d gone through, I wanted my poem. I wanted to watch him write it out with his own hands.
“What’s our selection tonight, Mr. Cumming?” I asked.
He smiled and looked up at me. “You remember my name.”
“Your fake name.”
His smile faded. He stood and took my chin, and tilted my head toward the light. “What happened to your face?”
The makeup. My tears. The bath. All my makeup had washed away, exposing the bruise from when Simon backhanded me in the kitchen. It had been an accident, mostly. He hadn’t been in his right mind. I said what any self-respecting idiot would say in this situation.
“I walked into a door.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” he said in an icy tone. “A bad liar, too. Your addict boyfriend did this.”
I blinked at him. We both knew he was right.
“This happened that night?” he asked, staring between the bruise and my eyes. “That night we were on the phone, and he was banging on the door?”