Chapter 21
EMME
The dress they’d chosen for me had a slight cling and a fine satin coolness to it that shaped into my every curve.
At the bottom, a staggered fringe with tassels brushed my lower legs at mid-calf.
I looked elegant, or so the mirror in the hotel lobby had told me.
The little black shoes were medium heel, luckily, since the club entry involved a long set of descending stairs.
Did Germans have a liking for underground restaurants?
My two escorts wore suits—also elegant and perfect, with burgundy-red and onyx-black ties. Down the front of Axl’s shirt was a row of engraved golden buttons that might be antique jewelry in their own right.
A semi-nude cabaret was already happening on a stage at the back as Axl, Grayson, and I were led to a table.
The music was low enough that one could talk and order meals.
From the ceiling hung rows of angular lights, and every table seemed occupied with couples, though a few held only men.
Gay, or businessmen out on the town with clients?
Or they were simply men who liked nude cabaret.
The languages I could hear were a mix of several, with English as common as German.
After two glasses of wine and a meal I thought involved duck—Lukas had translated but I still wasn’t sure—I was feeling mildly buzzed, and if nothing else happened, this was a pleasant interlude before I went job seeking.
Axl had been asking me about nunneries and why I failed to follow through—a lack of true religious fervor was what I said, when really it was me doubting the existence of a god, any god. People had brought me to that.
I took a deep breath and said it, “Faith requires a certain amount of self-liking. I’ve lost it.”
Axl seemed taken aback. Yay, I thought. I scored.
“Why would it?”
“You’re not religious, Axl. I’ve noticed.
” I drank more wine. The waiter wandered past, noticed the lack, and offered to top up my glass.
I smiled and nodded. This was all so very polite.
Politeness was good, but it was making me fidgety.
“To believe in god you must think the human race worth saving. I don’t. ”
“You know, Grayson.” He waved a hand across his friend’s face to get his attention. “We humans are shit. The majority of humans, that is. Maybe she’s right.”
“That there is no god? No idea. Not my field of expertise,” Grayson muttered, distracted. “The girls have left the stage, that I do know. Isn’t that your cue?”
Axl turned to me. “What’s your opinion of the CNC so far, Emme?”
I stared at him, blankly. “There is none. Obviously.”
I imagined they planned to tie me up and fuck me back at the hotel, which would be fine, but a little staid. I dared to look him right in the eyes and say, pointedly, “This night is very normal, considering.”
“I agree! See, Grayson, she says what she thinks!” Axl raised his own glass and chugged most of it. Then he clapped his hands.
Every single person in the restaurant slowly turned their chairs to face ours, creating a disharmony of chairs bumping, squeaking, and scraping.
Then they sat back and stared. The music had also fallen to nothing, which made the last few who moved their chairs particularly noteworthy.
Puzzled, I placed my glass on the table, preparing for some event.
The cabaret girls returned and lined the stage.
The waiters watched our table.
Grayson very deliberately picked up his chair, the last to do so, and put it down facing me. He sat again and lifted his glass.
I fluctuated between frightened and intrigued. This could be a scene out of a horror movie—being stared at in silence, as if I might sprout wings or antennae and turn into a giant fly.
“Now, Emme,” Grayson had donned his emotionless face. “You’re going to strip and go to your knees and beg us to fuck you here. If you don’t, every single man here will be holding you down while Axl and I do it anyway.”
The lights that had been illuminating the stage swiveled, sweeping across the floor until we were skewered by their glare.
I stood, slowly. I rotated my goblet on the table, thinking before I leaped. It wasn’t helping.
“What the fuck is this,” I whispered, then louder, “What is this?”
Everyone remained staring.
The lights swinging over in such a Hollywood manner had destroyed whatever ambience or terror they planned to manufacture. One of the women gave me pause—I would swear she was the one from that party whose eyelids had been sewn.
I’d been almost ready to believe, but I would bet that Axl and Grayson had paid off this audience. Whatever they were, whoever they might be—porn stars or just people vetted and willing to participate in this sinister show, I doubted they would stand still and do nothing, if I yelled rape.
I looked around again.
I had to throw my cards on the table to find out. And if I were wrong, I would suffer.
I wanted to suffer. Make me fucking suffer, I dare you.
They wouldn’t, would they? I smiled at Grayson. The longer I looked at him, the wider my smile.
“I get zero excitement from this, Grayson, which saddens me.” I raised my aim, swept my gaze from one side of this room to the other.
“None of you are really into this. How much did they pay you to watch me be pseudo-raped? I’m walking?
You hear that? I do not consent!” I threw up my arms like a prima donna storming off. “Walking!”
“Axl! Sit the fuck down.”
That had been Grayson restraining Axl, I realized. Axl had a snarl rising, his lips curling back, teeth showing, and his eyes glinted. Oh yes, he was angry.
I smirked and broke into an absurd giggle. I wasn’t sure why, but the extremes of emotion had set me off. Fuck him.
I spared a last glance at Grayson. Regrets, I would have more than a few.
“I told you not to let her go.”
“Fuck off, Axl.”
Then I spun, grabbed my coat, and I walked. As I strode away up the stairs, I retained some hope, a hope that something might happen. My bones, my flesh, had a need. My mind wanted more.
No one moved. The hush was painful.
I used a ride-share to get back to the hotel, vaguely hoping I’d booked a lift with a serial rapist and killer, my head was that unscrewed.
I tried three of them, meandering all across the city until I gave up.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened in the elevator in the hotel either.
I entered the room and found Grayson waiting, sprawled in an armchair with his coat on the floor beside him.
Axl was nowhere in sight. The rooms seemed empty other than us, unless he was being very quiet.
Slowly, I approached, my heels twisting in the deep pile of the rug until I plucked off both shoes and threw them.
“I’m sorry, really. I am so sorry.”
“I am, too. I thought we had a chance.” He cocked his head. “You are truly as fucked up as I am.”
“Yes. It was just so obviously manufactured. Creepy, but not my fantasy. Where did you find them all?”
“Axl knows a lot of people. He goes to more kinky sex parties than I ever have. You shouldn’t have laughed at him.”
I shrugged and pulled the white gown over my head. I dropped it to pool on the red rug, then padded to him and curled up on his lap.
I knew him well enough to know that he would find sex only vaguely appealing with a naked woman who merely sat on him and hugged him.
I wrapped my arms about his neck and sighed. “Can we just snuggle tonight? I’ll leave in the morning.”
“Absolutely. We could talk. Tell me about yourself.”
I laughed. “Wow. Now that I’m boring you?”
He smiled, truly smiled, and I decided that even if the whole CNC thing had come crashing down, there was more to this man.
“I think I could get to like you, sir.”
“Sir?” He touched beneath my jaw and tilted my mouth then gently kissed me. “So, you teach biology, and I know programming. I’m unsure how much of an intersection of interests we have.”
“Cooking?”
“No.”
“Books? Lord of the Rings. Charles Holmberg. China Miéville. I have eclectic tastes.”
“Books, maybe.” He nodded and again gave a smile. “Not romances? I thought—”
I ignored him and rattled off more interests and found that merely listening to his noes and yeses was calming. I could sit on his lap and be cuddled for like, forever, if I didn’t have more priorities in life than dying unfed and unfucked on this man’s bones.
Books, Star Wars, D&D, and some movies, as well as swimming at midnight in the sea. These were a few of our favorite things.
I tucked my head into his chest. “A link to my plane ticket back is on the text you sent, yes?”
“Yes.”
“If only we were normal.” I could hear the thud of his heart in a certain spot. I closed my eyes. I added softly, “And not broken.”
“If only I didn’t want to peel your skin off with a whip, make you scream, and cage you up for some guy with a huge dick to fuck, every other Sunday? In between him I would do you of course, with Axl maybe, too.”
“Axl?” I murmured, frowning.
Mentioning that montage of mindfucks and sadism made me imagine it happening. I felt myself stir below but wasn’t agreeing with him. I resisted squirming or mentioning the firming swell in his pants. Telling him anything now seemed unproductive.
“That would get you arrested.”
“Only if someone tattled.”
“True. You make sure you have a good life, Grayson,” I said as I rose from his body, kissing him, starting at his bared chest where buttons on his shirt had given way. I kissed up to his mouth, where I paused and devoted some time.
We shared this last hot and heavy kiss before I climbed off him and went to the bedroom to find some PJs. He wouldn’t touch me now. I knew this.
We knew each other’s codes.
“Thank you for trying,” I said, over my shoulder.
Only the silence answered me.
A hand wrapped over my upper arm and shoved, carrying me sideways until I was pressed face first to the wall beside the bed. Squashed by his weight.
Wrong, I was a little wrong, I thought, as his fingers squeezed between my legs and were thrust inside me.
I gasped and left my mouth open, eyes slamming shut, appreciating the unexpected.
“There.” He shoved his hand higher, fingers squishing deep into my pussy. It was hurting from this violent intrusion. Pushed, I slid up the wall, head to the side as I moaned, with my palms flattened beside my head.
Then he kissed me again, harder than before, messily.
He let me go, and I crumpled into a heap. I turned over, still panting, sat on my ass against the wall and trying to recover.
He kicked my feet apart. “Keep them spread.”
I did. My legs were in a V, and he would be seeing everything. His hard-edged smile was all I wanted, everything I needed. Mouth slack, I looked up at him.
“Now you can leave.”
“Fuck me,” I said, my voice breaking and trembling, and tears starting.
He grinned, shook his head. “Too fucking late.” This time he walked away.
I never saw him or Axl after that and caught a lonely flight back home.
GRAYSON
“I told you that wouldn’t work,” I said to Axl as he joined me on the balcony. The wind rustled past, and traffic noises were distant apart from the odd horn.
It was peaceful. The day had passed uneventfully, drudged past, to be truthful. Dragged itself like a fucking wounded dog.
I sighed, loudly. Would he mock me for being moody?
“I said that too.”
I glanced at him as he rested an elbow on the balcony railing. “You did not.”
“It was worth a try.” He yawned. “You let her go too soon. The other way was good. Her as ours, without conditions, just a toy.”
I breathed and calmed. “She was never just a toy. Or yours.”
“Liar.”
“Fuck you, too.” I took a sip of the whisky from the tumbler, inhaling the potent fumes.
Emme would have left the airport and be on her way home by now. How had this gone so wrong? We fit together. I could tell it from day one. Just…how to arrange it?
The illegality of it had reamed my brain. Compared to Axl, I guess I was a pussy.
Too late now.
“You were right. I should’ve branded her ass and kept her.” All the other shit, getting to know each other, it would have come naturally after that, once I had her caged.
He smacked my arm. “There are still ways you know—to keep her. Say the word.”
I grunted and gulped down the last of the whisky then resisted throwing the glass out into the space above the streets in anger. “We’re too broken for this to work. The law gets in the way. It always will.”