two
Rumor Has It… A certain member of the rebel elite who’s been gone since last week was seen leaving his house in the middle of the night, carrying a suitcase, and climbing into an unmarked black van. Whether the rumors of his activity behind the scenes were real or fabricated, I think we can all agree on this truth: we’ve lost a treasure from our midst.
Gloria Walton
“You’ve gotten good at that,” Maverick says, pulling me in as soon as I step behind the curtain that covers the doorway at the back corner of the stage. “If you were any more convincing, I’d be jealous of Angel for getting to do that with you every night.”
“Thanks, I think?”
He nuzzles into my neck and flattens his hand on my lower back, pushing his hips into mine so I can feel how hard he is. “How could any guy not want to fuck you after that?”
“It’s just dancing,” I assure him, though I’m not sure why he cares. I’m pretty sure he’s still fucking girls at the tattoo parlor.
“For you, maybe,” he says.
“He has a girlfriend,” I say, pulling off the wig I wore for my last set and shaking out my hair.
“Fuck, you’re making it worse,” he says, watching my hair fall down my back in a messy tangle after being scrunched inside the wig cap. “Come on, I want to fuck you in the back room.”
“We’re not allowed to do that,” I say as he leads me down the hall and into my dressing room.
“I’m allowed to do anything I want,” Maverick says smugly, undoing his belt as I take a seat in front of the mirror.
I like how Ms. Scarlet makes sure the girls who work here have little conveniences like this, things that a man running a strip club—even an exclusive, upscale one—would probably never dream of installing. Each of the seven rooms has a shared dressing room with the stage beside it, and each side has its own makeup vanity with a mirror ringed by lights, like we’re getting ready for the big stage instead of a pole dance. We also share a tiny bathroom, so we don’t have to use the same one as guests or even all the girls.
“Get me wet, princess,” Maverick says, turning my chair to face him and dropping his jeans.
Instinctively, I draw back, the urge to turn away from the pierced appendage jutting into my face making me hesitate. I want to tell him I can’t because I’m taken, even if it’s only in my mind. My heart belongs to someone else, and I know it makes me delusional to think that matters, but I still do.
“What’s wrong?” Maverick asks, his hand circling the back of my head to pull me in.
I open my mouth in answer, and he pushes inside. I’m not going to share my delusions with Maverick North. He’d laugh at me.
Not that he’s a monster. He’s pretty decent, actually, if an emotionally unavailable, tattooed gangster with commitment issues and a Jacob’s Ladder piercing climbing the underside of his thick, veiny cock can be called such a thing. I’m pretty sure he’ll let me pull away when I’m done, that he’ll stop if I tell him to, that if I say no, he’ll pull up his jeans, say he’ll catch me later, and go fuck one of the other dancers. But pretty sure is not absolutely sure, and I can’t risk the chance I’m wrong.
If I never say no, I never have to find out.
“You’re so fucking good at that,” he says. “Every guy you’ve ever blown is going to cry the day some dude wifes you up.”
I think about Colt catching my wrist, his firm, painful grip as he pulled my hand away when I tried to do this to him. Another small fracture cracks one of the fragments left of my heart. If only Maverick’s words were true.
Anger replaces the sadness as I pump my mouth harder over his piercings. Colt is an asshole, just like every other guy I’ve been with. Maverick’s the best one, even if he never bothers to get me off. At least he’s honest about his intentions, never playing games with my mind or heart. He accepts me for exactly who I am right now even though everyone else has rejected me; he never asks questions about what brought me to Infernal Vices; and so far, he’s proven himself relatively safe, even if that trust is never absolute.
I’ll probably never fully trust anyone again, thanks to the Dolce boys.
Anyone can turn on you, no matter how many times you’ve been together, and decide this is the time he won’t take no for an answer. Anyone can take away your ability to consent, can hold a hand over your mouth or simply not tell you all the factors that might have altered your decision to say yes. Anyone can make you feel special and wanted, and then walk away and laugh at you for allowing it to mean something to you when it meant nothing to them.
Maverick bends me over the vanity table, draws down my lace thong, and tells me to stay like that while he rolls on a condom. I watch him in the mirror, his eyes hooded with lust, his gaze focused on the view from the back. He wets his lips and steps closer, positioning me and pushing inside. His eyes fall closed in bliss, and I shift my feet together to give him an extra squeeze. He sucks in a sharp breath and grips my hip before drawing back and slamming into me. I brace myself against the vanity as he bangs it into the wall with each thrust, going hard from start to finish.
Maverick fucks rough, just like I expected, just like I want. At first, I thought I’d cum from it, and then I thought the Dolces must have broken me because I never do. He always leaves me sore and so frustrated I could scream, but I’m used to it now. I like watching him lose control, as if it means something, as if it’s something I did that pushes this uncaring, tough gangster over the edge and leaves him a trembling, sweating mess. It makes me feel powerful, the way I do when I’m dancing.
I know it’s just my body, not me, but I relish power in whatever way I can get it.
I know I’m still capable of climax, just not with him, but I relish his almost as much as I would my own. Orgasm or not, I could do a lot worse than Maverick North. And right now, losing control feels like losing myself, losing whatever ground I’ve managed to claw back to feel like my body belongs to me again. Last week only reminded me of that.
Giving myself to someone so completely is terrifying, and I wouldn’t want that intimacy with Mav, no matter how much I enjoyed it with Colt. I had my release, and I know it’s not what I need right now. It’s weakness, and I’ve been weak too long. Now, it’s time for strength, time to be strong enough to control my body, no matter how badly I want to let go and join Maverick when he cums.
What happened with Colt last week was no more real than what happened on the rooftop during Bye Week, anyway. No more real than the memory of last year. I know he did it for me, but he should have told me. I would have played along to get back at Rylan if he’d told me that’s what we were doing, even if I wouldn’t have gone along with the script he chose.
I hate that Rylan saw me naked one more time. He didn’t deserve even a single glance my way, let alone seeing all of me, spread out and defenseless like that. I hate that he saw me crawling and begging for dick like the whore he thinks I am, that it must have confirmed everything he already thought about me, even vindicated him. I know how he thinks, even if Colt doesn’t. If Rylan could confirm with his own eyes that I’m a dick-hungry slut, then what he did with my sisters was justified.
Colt didn’t just get back at him, though. He got back at me. He had to know that what he did would humiliate me beyond anything that’s happened before, that it would take the last scraps of my dignity, ones not even I knew remained, and leave me nothing but shame. That’s why he didn’t tell me.
I hate how used it makes me feel, how it taints the memory of an encounter that felt like rapture at the time. In a way, he violated me as much as Rylan did, exposing me for someone else’s consumption without my knowledge, not giving me a choice in the matter. Knowing I deserved it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Maverick’s hand snakes around my neck, clamping around my throat. His other hand fists my hair, yanking my head back. I cry out in surprise, my walls clenching around him.
“You like that?” he asks, smirking at me in the mirror.
“Yes,” I gasp, arching my back for him.
“Show me,” he says, releasing me and settling himself into my chair. He sits there like a king, his hands resting on the arms of the chair, his mouth curved into a smile that’s as tempting as it is damning. His pierced cock stands up straight, dark inside the condom, the metal balls at the end of each rung of his ladder piercing straining against the latex.
“Show you?” I ask, gulping as my thighs clench at the sight of all that masculine beauty, the inked skin, the cocky smirk, the thick cock. It doesn’t seem fair that a man who looks so good can be so bad. “You want me on top?”
It’s as if he could read my mind, as if he noticed it was faraway, and he’s challenging me to step out of my comfort zone. I know if I ride him, I’ll probably cum, and I don’t know if I want to do that. It might make me feel some way about him that I’m not ready to feel, strip me of the delicate petals of power that have only begun to form a bud inside me.
“You’ve shown me what you can do with your mouth,” he says. “Come ‘ere and show me what you can do with that pussy.”
I hesitate, but then I think of all the times Duke made me cum when I didn’t want to, the times Royal made me when I did. And how in the end, I always just gave them what they wanted because I knew I didn’t have a choice, and now, I do. It wasn’t even hard with Colt. I just let go, and it came rushing in, my body knowing what to do to get what it wanted.
But I can’t have Colt, and if I can’t have the future I want, at least I can stop living in the past. I can’t change what already came and went, but I can choose something new right now, in this moment. So I choose not to be controlled by their hands any longer, to cut the puppet strings hanging over me. I climb onto Maverick’s lap, trusting him to lift me and hold my weight while I slide each foot under the arm of the chair, even though the way they’re connected to the seat cages my legs in and makes my flight response kick in.
But fuck the Dolces for making me scared. I power through it, new determination gripping me as I rise up over Maverick. I love the position already, the way it makes me feel powerful and in control, even though it would be impossible to get away if he wanted to stop me. I’d have to fall out of the chair onto my back, turn over, and get back on my feet.
“Put it in,” I order, staring into the green and gold kaleidoscope of Maverick’s eyes.
He holds his cock for me, pushing up in and pulling me down onto him in the same motion.
“Go on, princess,” he says. “Ride me.”
He sits back, and I start to move. I can feel him hitting all the right spots inside me, the added stimulation of the piercings making pleasure ripple through me like it always does. I hit my stride, finding a rhythm that makes his eyes fall closed and his nostrils flare. Shivers run up and down my spine as my own pleasure builds, and with it, that sense of elation I have when I’m dancing and I know I’m the one in control.
Orgasm won’t strip me of that. It will only make it grow, this swell of power building inside me, the one that feels like a scream, like a phoenix rising in my soul, a beast that wants to break free.
Suddenly, I want nothing on earth more than to climax, as if that’s the key to the cage the Dolces left inside my mind, with the animal forever trapped inside, prowling back and forth, back and forth, searching for a way out.
But I’m not even close.
I drag my clit over Mav’s pelvic bone, searching for the something I’m missing. My clit throbs when I grind, but it’s not enough. I need what Colt gave me, his piercing dancing with mine, teasing it; his dirty words, both degrading and uplifting, that made me feel powerful and helpless at once.
The memory of him kneeling at my feet, the stroke of his powerful tongue, makes wetness flood my core. The sudden slipperiness lets me move faster, and I screw my eyes closed, determination driving me harder.
“You gonna cum?” Maverick asks, running his hands up my body, tugging down the scraps of lace over my nipples and palming my tits.
“I don’t know,” I admit, staring at his full lips, the glint of silver between them when he speaks. “I’m close, but… Do you think you could, maybe, for just a second, lick me?”
Maverick chuckles and moves his hand down, stroking my clit with his thumb. “Nah, babe, that’s not my thing. But hey, if you’re down, I can call Angel. He’ll eat your pussy all night. We can spit roast our good girl next door like a dirty crew slut. What do you say, hyna ?” He’s already leaning forward to get his phone from his pocket, his other arm held around my hips so I don’t fall.
I shake my head, a shudder running through me. “I don’t like to be shared.”
“You sure?” he asks, sitting back with phone in hand. “He’ll suck your snatch until you see god, and I can choke you with my cock at the same time.”
“I’m sure,” I say, climbing off and rearranging my position so my legs are folded on either side of his. I swallow hard and avoid his gaze this time when I ask. “But maybe… You could try the choking part and see if it gets me there.”
A slow grin spreads over Maverick’s face, and he scoots forward in the chair, his piercings nudging against mine. “Maybe you already are like a crew slut.”
I wince at his words, but I don’t argue. It feels different than when Colt says those things. With Colt, I felt treasured even when he made me crawl and beg. Now I just feel cheap.
Maverick’s hand wraps around my throat, and he pulls me onto him again, impaling me with his cock. “Now ride me, slut.”
“Harder,” I say, and he squeezes tighter, like Baron used to do. Panic rolls through me, but I force myself to go on. Baron isn’t pulling my strings anymore.
I scrunch my eyes closed and ride Maverick, as if I can outrun my demons if I move fast enough, fuck him hard enough. The illusion of power is gone, so I search for pleasure in something else, in the tight grip of his hand, the tenderness inside me where he pushes up against the limit of what I can take.
“Hit me,” I choke out, needing more than the hand on my throat.
His free hand gives my ass a hard slap, and I whimper and slam down on him harder.
“Again,” I say.
He does it again, and again, and again, and I feel myself inching closer to the edge. The pain brings me back to sophomore year, curled up in a ball holding my middle after Royal wrecked me inside, the shame that would wash over me when I asked myself how I could have cum when it hurt so bad.
“Hurt me,” I gasp. “I’m almost there.”
Maverick grips my ass, squeezing so hard I know I’ll have to put on makeup to cover the bruises on stage tomorrow. I don’t care. I need to get there, to prove something to myself the way Duke had to prove something to himself when he’d go down, forcing an unwilling orgasm from me until I stopped fighting it and gave in.
“Harder,” I grit out as Maverick pushes his hips up, holding me pinned, his cock so deep I can feel the ache building in my core.
“God damn,” he says. “You’re a freak under that good-girl thing you got going on.”
“I just need it to hurt.”
“Want me to fuck your ass?” he asks. “I can make that hurt real good.”
“No,” I cry, shuddering involuntarily. “I hate anal.”
“Mm, too bad. Nothing like watching a good girl cry while she takes eight inches of gangster dick in the ass.”
His fingers cut into my hip until I wince and bite down on my lip as he slams into me. I match his violence, slamming down onto him harder and harder, seeking something I can’t quite find, my desperation increasing with each pass. Finally my body starts to tremble. I’m panting and sweating, and I can’t do it, and it makes me want to cry, and scream, and drive over to the Dolces’ house and ram my car straight through it, watch it all crumble into a pile of rubble with them trapped inside.
“Hit me again,” I say. “Hit my face.”
His hand clenches around my throat, the other one stinging across my cheek with stunning force. It whips my head sideways and sends my hair flying over it. The pain clamps down on my whole body the way his fingers have clamped on my throat, cutting off the blood to my brain until I see black spots. I feel my core flutter and then clench, and he slaps my tits, hard, backhanding one and searing his palm across the other.
I cry out a name, and I’m not sure if it’s his, or Colt’s, or maybe Royal or Baron or Duke. I don’t care, because I’ve finally found what I’ve been searching for, with pain aching through my chest, and stinging across my face, throbbing dull in my core, and crushing my throat.
I did it.
I came.
It should be a triumph, a cutting away of the final puppet strings. But I don’t feel triumphant as the last flutters fade. I feel hollow and dirty. When Maverick stands and leans me backwards over the vanity, slamming into me so hard it sends my makeup tumbling from the surface and scattering across the floor, I don’t feel anything. When he grips my thigh hard enough to tear a cry from my throat, I know that only my body hurts, because there’s nothing inside to feel the pain. When he curses and growls, “Take it,” while he cums, I do as he tells me.
But it’s not the way I obey Colt. I came, but it doesn’t feel like it did with Colt.
It’s a grim victory that has me avoiding his eyes when I nod at his question. He drops the condom in the trash, buckles his belt, and pulls me in to give my ass a quick, hard squeeze. It’s a presumptuous touch, arrogant and rude, but it’s honest. There’s no question that he’s about to walk out the door.
When he does, I limp around picking up the scattered tubes of lipstick and tubs of blush he knocked off my table. When everything is in order and I’m dressed, I leave without calling one of the bouncers to escort me to my car the way I’m supposed to. I can’t bear to see anyone, can’t bear the thought of them seeing me dragging my defeated shell to my car, grimacing with each step.
My body doesn’t feel strong or powerful. It feels battered and spent.
At home I lie on my back, lifeless, on the clean sheets in my new bed in my empty apartment. For this moment, I allow myself to be weak. Here, alone, where no one can hurt me and no one can help me, I let myself sink into the cold quicksand of despair.
Despair was something I was never allowed, not even when the Dolces first captured us in their net. I had to be strong for my sisters, show them the way—how to stand tall and hold my head high when even crawling seemed impossible, how to survive when I was dead inside, how to be pretty when they’d made me into something as ugly as they were.
I was sad then, sobbing into my pillow every night because I missed Rylan so much I thought it would kill me. Despair is something heavier than sadness, though, something that smothers like an invasive vine, that claims you when you have nothing left to miss, nothing to even cry for.
I try to think about the orgasms I had with Colt, how good they were, but it doesn’t help. I thought I remembered what his touch felt like. I thought I remembered him. I didn’t account for the ways he’s changed since last year. He’s both more and less, different, harder and colder and hungrier. I wonder what that means, not just about him but about me. About Dixie.
It doesn’t matter, though.
He’s with her, and he’s happy, and he got his revenge.
I’m here, and I’m free, and I got my karma.
Because even when I made myself cum with Maverick, when I didn’t let someone else control my pleasure, when I took control and took it for myself, it’s as meaningless as that day in the locker room with Colt. I cut myself free from my puppet masters, but I forgot that they created me, a painted marionette made to entertain their darkest desires. I had a purpose as long as I kept dancing in their depraved show. Like a puppet, I’m worthless without my strings, a useless doll lying crumpled on an empty stage.
Even freed from their control, I’m still a creature of their making. Their fingerprints are all over me, invisible but just as real as the ones blooming into bruises on my skin—and more insidious. Their handiwork is in my very design, the pain I need to feel pleasure, the personas I adopt so well for the stage that I believe, for a moment, that every face I try on is my own. Every part of me is shaped by their hand, from the way I don’t know how to make a decision if the outcome isn’t a choice between survival or destruction, to the way I cum.
I don’t know how to just be happy, or fuck a man, or get a job, without scrutinizing every aspect of it for hidden cyanide capsules. I don’t know how to feel anything other than the pain they taught me to crave, even when it leaves me empty. I’m a discarded doll, stripped of its purpose, trying to remember the shape I took before they carved out my soul until I was hollow and poured their sickness into me until it became my own.