8. Mimosa
CHAPTER 8
Mimosa
My feet burn every time I try to walk.
I wish I could ignore the pain. I wish I could put on my stoic face, but it hurts so much that every step brings a tear to my eye.
Brutal knows it, too, and the sadistic bastard has decided the most fun thing to do on this first official day of his vacation is to make me walk all over the apartment.
“Go get me a glass of water, Mimi,” he orders, and I have to stand up from where I’m kneeling in front of him, walk all the way to the kitchen — over the rug, onto hardwood, then onto slate tile. The cabinets are so high that I need to get on my tiptoes to pull out a glass. I’m positive he rearranged things last night so the cups would be out of reach, just for this fucking game.
I almost drop the glass because settling back down onto the soles of my feet sends another wave of pain through me.
Fuck.
This is what they call fucking around and finding out , I guess.
I should have played along. I should have been the obedient little doll he wants.
But he doesn’t actually want an obedient little doll, and I don’t want to be one, either. The only thing that has kept me going all these months is the knowledge that I’m clinging to myself. That I’m not just a fucking toy, that I’m a real person who deserves better than all of this.
It’s hard to remember sometimes.
I get the glass filled and make the excruciating walk back to him. The rug is worse than the hardwood, and I wince as I step onto it. The fibers scratch at the cuts.
Is he going to care if the cuts open and I bleed all over the carpet? It’d almost be funny if I got an infection and he had to call his doctor friend again, though. I bet his friend wouldn’t approve.
I almost say that, except I don’t think I can handle another round of caning, no matter what part of my body he decides to hit.
“Your water, Master,” I say tonelessly, holding the water out to him.
“I changed my mind,” he says. “I want a beer instead.”
It’s early to be drinking. We only just had breakfast — which is, as usual, primarily made of meat and potatoes. I’m starting to wonder if he ever eats any vegetable that isn’t a starch. Maybe he’s on one of those fad diets.
I bite my tongue and turn back to the kitchen. I set the glass on the kitchen counter just as a wave of dizziness hits me.
It can’t be because of the pain, right? I’m not so fragile that walking around on my feet is causing this. I grip the counter and take in a few breaths to steady myself.
When I glance down at my feet, I see a smear of blood on the kitchen tile.
Oh.
That would probably do it. I glance along the path I walked, and I see where the first drops of blood mark the floor.
I’m not going to complain though.
“What’s taking so long?” Brutal shouts. “Did you already forget?”
I grit my teeth and force myself to walk to the fridge. There are several brands of beer, and I don’t know which he wants.
No, I know which one he wants. It’ll be the one I don’t bring along.
I find a tray in a drawer, and I grab one of each brand of beer I can see. I place the glass of water on it too, along with an empty glass, and the bottle opener too .
He’ll send me back to put everything away, but that’s better than playing the game of ‘I changed my mind’ five times.
“Jesus, Mimi, did you decide to go to the store? Hurry the fuck up!” he calls from the living room. He doesn’t sound impatient, though. He’s laughing.
I walk as steadily as I can, but I can see how the water in the glass wobbles. I’d done a waitressing gig for a few months one summer, just as a way to save up money for college. I wish I still had the balance and dexterity from back then.
Of course, it’d be easier if I weren’t walking through shards of glass with every step.
I almost laugh at the thought. This is the price paid for becoming a proper human. Of course, if the sea witch had taken my voice, too, I wouldn’t have to say anything to Brutal. I’d have saved myself so much grief.
I stop in front of the rug and stare at Brutal.
He arches a brow, looking me up and down — from the tray down to my feet. He smirks at me. “You finally got the memo. But you’re gonna have to put the ones I don’t choose back in the fridge.”
“I’m bleeding,” I say, as matter of fact as I can. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to spare your rug or not.”
Brutal looks down at my feet again, watching intently. “Oh no,” he says, deadpan. “Your poor feet. You must be in so much pain.”
“Do you want me to bleed on your carpet?” I ask. After a beat, I add, “Master.”
“You’ll just have to clean it up after,” he says, shrugging. “I have a steam cleaner.”
Yeah, a steam cleaner he’s probably never used. I’d be surprised if it’s out of the box.
I brace myself and step onto the rug. It might as well be iron wool with how it abrades the skin around the cuts.
I keep myself walking tall until I stop in front of Brutal and extend the tray to him. “Your drink, Master.”
“You know…” he begins, taking one of the bottles from the tray. I take note of the way it looks and the brand. If that’s his preference, maybe that’s one less time I’ll have to go back and forth in the future .
Right.
Like he’s really going to be consistent.
“You could just crawl on the way to the kitchen, or the way back. You’re the one who’s choosing to make it harder on yourself. And giving yourself more to clean up,” he continues, popping the cap off the beer and taking a sip from it.
“It would be incredibly hard to carry drinks while on all fours,” I state. It isn’t that I’m too proud to crawl. It’s that the tasks he gives me always require the use of my hands.
Brutal smirks at me. “Too bad, huh?” He beckons me to come closer, and I reluctantly step closer to him. “You thirsty?”
“Do you want me to be?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady through the pain.
He laughs, the sound as nasty as he’s been this whole morning. “Sure. Some booze would sure get you through this a little more easily, wouldn’t it? Put the tray down, Mimi, and sit in my lap.”
I set the tray on the coffee table, then gingerly sit down on his lap. I settle only half on his knees, but of course he pulls me closer so I’m completely on his lap.
At least I’m off my feet, I guess. I don’t even want to know what they look like.
Wrapping one arm around my waist, he keeps me close. He drinks from the bottle then leans in to kiss me, and I quickly realize what he’s planning. I jerk away, and the beer that was meant to go into my mouth ends up spilling all over my chin, all over my chest — all over his clothes and expensive couch.
“The fuck, Mimi?” he snaps. “I told you you were thirsty, remember?”
The alcohol stench fills the air, and I breathe through my mouth to avoid some of it. “Sorry!” I say, an edge of panic in my voice. “I was unprepared. Master.”
I don’t want to drink the beer from his mouth. I don’t want to get drunk; I don’t want to kiss him, I don't want to sit on his lap or serve him or?—
“I’ll go find something to clean this with,” I say, forcing a smile.
He isn’t drunk yet. He hasn’t had enough beer for that. For a man his size, it would take several bottles, right?
But I think about the pills, and I realize I don’t know anything about his secret habits. Drinking beer — even right after breakfast — is socially acceptable enough. He can show that to the world. But the drugs? How bad is his habit?
“No,” he says. “I wanna give you a drink.”
“I wouldn’t want to deprive you,” I say. There has to be something I can do to deter him from all of this. “I’m just getting everything dirty right now. Your shirt and jeans are soaked, too.”
“Then you should stay fucking still and open your goddamn mouth, whore,” he snarls. Any trace of his laughter earlier, cruel or otherwise, is gone as his expression turns laser focused on me. “We clear?”
I might be able to get out of this by pissing him off enough to hurt me, but what’s the point? I don’t want more pain. Drinking a little bit of beer along with his spit has to be better than getting caned.
“All right,” I answer, and I open my mouth for him.
He takes another long pull from the bottle and leans in, grabbing me by the hair and forcing the beer into my mouth. It’s disgusting, but I remind myself that it could be worse. Some of the clients I’d had during my time with Pavone had wanted worse than this.
I gulp the beer down, trying to ignore just how bad it tastes, but I choke a little from the sheer force of it all. Some of it ends up dribbling down my chin anyway, and he pulls back with an irritated sound. “Do you not even know how to swallow, Mimi? I thought you’d learned that lesson a long time ago.”
“Swallowing isn’t a problem,” I snap, wiping my chin. I already know that I’m on shaky ground, but all my good sense is fleeing. “I’ve just never been pathetic enough to drink beer in the mornings.”
Brutal stares at me for a moment. “You think you’re so much better than me,” he says, and his voice has gone dangerously low. “You think you can say whatever the fuck you want to me and there won’t be any consequences even though I thought you would’ve fucking learned.”
He shoves the mouth of the bottle past my lips .
“Drink it. All of it. Don’t spill a goddamn drop. Maybe I’ll let you prove to me you really can swallow, if you’re lucky.”
I don’t have a choice. The beer floods into my mouth, and I have to swallow or choke.
Except it turns out, I can do both. I drink, but it’s so much liquid that I end up coughing, and more beer spills down my chin and onto my naked breasts.
He curses again. “Goddamn it, Mimosa! You can’t do anything right except nag, nag, nag, can you?” He shoves me back, and I fall, my head hitting the back of the leather ottoman. I’m grateful it’s not glass, at least, but the force of it still hurts. “You’re disgusting. You need a bath before you come back to clean all this shit up so you don’t drip it everywhere else.”
Brutal gets up, grabbing me and forcing me to my feet. I yelp, the pain of it in conjunction with everything else making it nearly impossible to bear.
“Go to the fucking bathroom, Mimosa.”
I pant through the pain as my entire body shakes, but I manage to take a few slow steps in the direction of the bathroom.
“God, you are so fucking slow.” Brutal grabs my arm and starts dragging me at a faster pace. I can’t stop myself from crying out as I stumble along behind him, every step more painful than the last.
By the time we reach the bathroom, my face is covered in tears once more.
He looks at me and snorts in derision. “Pathetic.” He forces me toward the tub, grabbing me by the hair and forcing me to get into it.
I cling to the side of the tub so I don’t get slammed into the hard porcelain. While I try to catch my breath, Brutal turns the tap on. The cold water streams onto my feet, and I cry out. It’s both torture and relief, the cool temperature soothing the cuts and aches but the water itself only causing me more pain.
“You’re gonna have so much cleaning to do.” He sneers at me. “Getting blood all over my floors, my rug, my bathroom tile… Beer, too, since you don’t know how to hold your booze at all. But first, we have to clean you up.”
I’d protest, but this is exactly what he wanted. Everything was set up to make me fail, so what’s the point? Either way, he’s going to do whatever he wants with me.
The water begins to fill the tub, cold enough at first that I start to shiver. My teeth chatter, and I try to keep as much of my body out of the water as I can.
Unsurprisingly, though, Brutal notices, and he shoves me down deeper into the water. “What? Now the water isn’t good enough for you? Gotta have it nice and warm, huh? I could roast your fucking skin if I wanted. Just be glad I’m keeping it on the lukewarm side.”
I sputter when water hits my face, and that takes up most of my concentration now. The beer and blood get diluted in the water, turning the water a bit murky. At least it gets a little warmer as it fills.
“I can’t—” I start, coughing. “I can’t wash myself like this.”
“I don’t really give a fuck whether you can wash yourself or not,” he says. His smile twists into something nasty. “I can bathe you if you can’t bathe yourself. Here. I’ll rinse you off.”
And he plunges my head down, under the stream of water.
It catches me off guard, and I stupidly open my mouth to scream. Water rushes in, and I have just enough sense to close my mouth again and swallow the water while I try to hold my breath. I have to squeeze my eyes shut too.
Brutal is saying something, but I can’t hear what it is through the water. His hand on my head holds strong, and I have no idea when he’s going to let me up.
If he’s going to let me up at all.
I don’t want to die.
Despite everything I’ve gone through, I’ve never wanted to die.
So I start struggling, slamming my arm against his, wasting my energy and air to somehow dislodge him so I can fucking breathe again.
None of it has any effect on him. His grip is strong, and he holds me under the running water for another agonizing moment before forcing me up by my hair. I don’t care, though. The pain is hardly even noticeable against the blissful feeling of catching a breath again.
I open my eyes to look at him as I gasp in the air, and I see just how crazed he looks .
He’s out of control. Because of the drugs? Or maybe this is just how he always is.
“Did you like that?” Brutal asks darkly.
“No,” I answer honestly. I grab for the edge of the tub, gripping the edge hard like that will somehow prevent me from drowning.
“Look at you, half-drowned and filthy. You’re not better than me. You’re at the very fucking bottom, Mimi.”
If I wasn’t still out of breath, if I wasn’t so painfully aware of how precarious my situation was, I would burst out laughing. His fucking issues, all on display for me. A psych student’s dream come true.
“I’m at the bottom,” I agree, still panting hard. “What… What do you want me to do?”
“Stay there,” he says, and his laughter is wild, manic. “Instead of pretending you can get one up on me, instead of pretending like you still have some dignity or anything . Just fucking stay under my foot and remember your fucking place.”
He pushes me back under the gushing water.
I’m more prepared this time, and I manage to properly hold my breath. I make my body go slack, too. While I don’t trust him, I know I won’t manage to fight him off, but maybe I can prolong the chance of my survival.
Death by drowning.
A therapist once asked me if I had trouble with the idea of swimming. I’d been confused, until he brought up my parents.
They’d drowned. Their car had slid over the edge of a road, all the way down into the bay. One of them had tried to get a window open, but it was too late.
Maybe I’d been too young to really associate their deaths with water, back then.
Now, it feels almost fitting that I might die in the exact same way as they did.
Okay, maybe not quite the same. I don’t think anybody forced them under in some show of impotent power.
Sorry, Irene , I think bitterly. Looks like you got your sister killed. Shouldn’t have pissed off the mob if you wanted your last remaining family member to stay alive .
Brutal lets me up again, and I gasp in a few breaths while I can.
“So let’s talk,” he says, and it takes me a moment to even parse what he’s saying. “I wanna know more about you, Mimi. Let’s start with something simple. What did you do to piss off Giulio Pavone and end up in that shithole?”
“Piss off…?” I ask, confused. The water is hitting my chest, and I realize it’s going to overflow if nobody does anything.
I could let it happen. But I’m tired of this whole game, and I’m sure the water spilling over would only piss him off more, so I reach for the tap to turn it off.
He grabs my hand, preventing me from doing it. “You said you ended up in this situation because you pissed off Pavone,” he says.
Had I said that? I don’t even remember.
“It’s going to overflow,” I point out quietly.
He snarls at me, but he turns it off with a jerky motion. “Answer my fucking question,” he snaps.
I vaguely remember having this same conversation before. He’d been amused by my audacity then, but now? Now it’s like this is a whole new person, a whole new monster under my bed just waiting to pounce.
“Somebody betrayed him, so he took me,” I say, looking away from Brutal. “And then I was mouthy at him. Guess I just never learn my lesson.”
“You really don’t,” he says, sneering at me. “I want more details, Mimi. I want to get to know you.” The mocking smile on his lips stays there, even as he shoves my face back down under the water.
It doesn’t get any better this time around. I keep my eyes and mouth shut, but the longer he holds me down, the more my lungs burn. My eyes prickle, as if I could cry underwater.
He yanks me back up forcefully, and I gasp hard.
“Well?” he demands while I’m still coughing.
My mind is so focused on breathing that I don’t know what he wants. Brutal shakes me forcefully, making me whimper.
“Tell me! Who pissed him off? And what the fuck is your name , Mimi?”
There’s a part of me that wants to keep my name to myself. This is mine. He can’t have it .
But the other part of me really, really doesn’t want to drown. “M-my sister,” I say. “She pissed him off. And… and my name is… Amber.”
“Amber what?” he asks impatiently, his fingers tightening in my hair like he’s about to dunk me into the water again. “C’mon, Mimi. Let’s get this going. I’m just trying to have a nice chat here. You’re the one making it difficult.”
“Amber Grayson!” I tremble and reach for the edge of the tub once more.
Brutal bursts out laughing. “Amber Gray ? Really? Your parents were on a color theming trip?” He shakes his head. “Mimosa is way better.”
At this point, I don’t care what the fuck he calls me, as long as he doesn’t dunk me underwater again.
“Amber just doesn’t have as much of a ring to it. Sounds more like a stripper name, though.” He’s still chuckling — but at least he doesn’t force me back under the water. “Tell me more about you, Mimi.” His fingers turn almost gentle in my hair. “And I’ll give you a nice bath before you go clean up your messes. You haven’t forgotten about those, have you? I sure as fuck haven’t.”
Fuck, I hate him. He truly is everything I’ve loathed about men and society, all in one over-privileged, entitled package.
But there’s nothing I can do about it. I hiccup and shake my head. “I haven’t forgotten.” I stare down at the water, and more subdued, I ask, “What do you want to know?”
“How did your sister piss him off?” He flashes me a wolfish smile. “I mean, fuck, it had to be pretty bad for him to go pick you up. Unless you were already a whore before all of this. I don’t think you were, though.”
No, I wasn’t a whore before all this. I didn’t even date before all this.
“She was a dancer at one of his clubs,” I say. My breathing has evened out, but I don’t trust him not to try to drown me again. “Then she decided to take a higher paying offer at another club. Giulio Pavone was not happy about it.”
Brutal chuckles at that, seemingly satisfied by that answer. I wonder if he’d have known if I lied about any of this. Probably. He seems like the type who’d sniff out the answers and punish me for telling him a half-truth. His mood has lifted, and all it took was a few partial drownings and a bit of truth.
“And what were you doing before you got whisked away to a life of luxury?” he asks.
“I told you, a student.” His grip on my hair turns more painful, and I quickly add, “A psych student!”
He doesn’t seem amused anymore. “Yeah? That’s why you have to psychoanalyze everything I do? Because that was your fucking passion? Well, I don’t need a goddamn therapist, so I hope you don’t expect to hear all about my childhood trauma.”
The fact that he says he has childhood trauma tells me a lot, though — not that it comes as a surprise. The situation really is fucking absurd.
“Okay,” I answer, because what else can I say that isn’t going to set him off more than I already have? “I expect nothing.”
He huffs out a laugh. “You’re learning, at least. Guess you can teach a bitch new tricks.” He tugs on my hair again. “I guess you’re clean enough. Get out of the tub and lean over it. I wanna fuck.”
If I’m leaning over the tub, that means my head will be hanging directly above the water. Every movement could send me dipping into it and drowning all over again.
I look up at him, and I swallow my pride to say, “Please. Not in the tub.”
“No, please,” he mocks me. “Not in the tub.” He shakes his head, pulling at my hair again. “Get the fuck out of the tub and lean over it, Mimi. Maybe if you’re good, I won’t dunk your head in it.”
I could still fight him off. I could attempt to drown him, to see how he likes it.
But instead, I get out of the tub and bend over the side. The hard porcelain digs into my stomach, and I stare at the murky water just beneath my face.
Brutal hums in what I assume must be approval, and he spreads my ass cheeks. “Cunt or ass?” he asks, though I’m not sure he’s really giving me a choice. I hear him pulling down his sweatpants behind me, and his hard cockhead slides along my ass cheek, slick with precum.
He’s been getting hard from nearly drowning me.
I can’t do anything to stop this, just like I couldn’t do anything to stop the many men who abused me before. I go for my usual method that got me through these things—imagining everything that’s wrong with these men.
Brutal has been making it easy for me, too. Men who are sure of themselves don’t get this upset over a little backtalk. Men who have no issues don’t worry about somebody psychoanalyzing them.
He even admitted to having serious issues — trauma .
He’s been asking all about my past, but now I wonder about what his could have been. I never read about Drake Brutal, but there must be articles about this entrepreneur. The man who has his fingers on the pulse of the tech world and made himself billions in the process.
“I said, cunt or ass?” he asks with a slap to my ass, breaking into my thoughts. “Jesus, Mimi, fucking pay attention to me or I’ll have to get your attention again.”
“Cunt,” I answer tonelessly, narrowly avoiding dunking my nose into the water.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say. You’re so vanilla.” He smooths his hands over my ass cheeks, but to my surprise, he lines his cock up with my cunt instead of my ass. His harsh thrust inside of me sends my face into the water, but he lets up quickly enough.
I sputter from the sudden but now-familiar sensation of being unable to breathe, and I can’t help but be grateful that it lasted such a short amount of time.
This time.
“This is what you’re made for,” Brutal mutters, rhythmically fucking into me. “Not backtalk, not sassing. Just taking my cock up your cunt.”
My backtalk and sass bother him.
I hold my breath as I’m dunked under once more. It lasts longer, but it’s still manageable.
The worst thing about all of this is that I can feel myself getting wet. His thrusts get smoother, and his cock starts to feel good sliding along my inner walls.
Just a natural reaction, I remind myself. We’d learned about this in one of my classes.
It doesn’t make it any easier to handle .
He fucks into me erratically, pushing my face under water again and again. He doesn’t seem focused on drowning me now, at least; it almost seems accidental, for all that I know he’s getting off on it.
It doesn’t even take long before he’s shoving my head under the water while he comes, filling me while I struggle to hold my breath.
It’s only when he’s completely done that he lets me up again, and I come up with a sputtering gasp, trying to get control of myself again.
He pulls out of me, and I slump down onto the floor next to the tub. His cum trickles out of me onto the bathmat.
I stare up at him listlessly, wondering if we’re done—hoping that we’re done. I don’t know how much more I could possibly take.
Brutal tucks his cock away, whistling cheerfully. “Okay. You have some cleaning to do. I’ll be in the living room. Don’t bother me until everything is cleaned up.” He glances at my feet. “First aid kit is under the sink.” His smile is nasty. “But then, you know that, don’t you? Bandage your fucking feet so you don’t get more blood all over the place.”
He leaves, not bothering to close the door behind him.
I wait until he’s well out of sight before I lean against the tub and start sobbing, unable to stop myself.
Fuck.
How long can I endure all of this?