Chapter 14 Andre
FOURTEEN
Andre
He’s actually proven more competent all around than I expected. I knew he was smart and attentive, but he learns really fast.
I’ve been learning things too, and one of those things is that Elias really likes praise. It embarrasses him, but he definitely likes it. He blushes. It makes him try even harder.
Yesterday after he put in my very late RSVP for a stupid fucking party that I don’t want to attend, I said, “Thank you for doing that. I’ve been avoiding it.” His smile was a little shaky because his hands were still a little shaky from the call, but he was so fucking happy. He likes pleasing me.
And that, I realized this morning, is the problem. He’s getting just enough from our interactions to create his nighttime fantasies.
His satisfaction is fading, I can tell. It’s taking him longer and longer to come.
I’m very annoyed with him because he knows what he needs and has the resources to get it. I’ve made sure of that. But he seems content to suffer as long as he has my approval.
Well, he fucking doesn’t have it.
He’s starting to sense it too. I’m struggling to control the shift in my mood. I love being around Elias all the time—I need him with me like this—but I’m used to more time alone where I can get my shit sorted.
“Are they okay?” Elias asks.
I look up from my computer to find his worried eyes on me. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. I’m just reading his notes. I’m … shit, I’m very obviously scowling at his notes. I can feel it in my face.
“They’re fine,” I snap. At his barely perceptible flinch, I force the scowl from my face and force some of the edge out of my tone as I amend, “I mean they’re good.”
He’s still worried. “Should I … go work somewhere else?”
My scowl snaps right back into place. “You think you’re allowed to go work somewhere else?” I know he didn’t mean that in the sense of getting a different job, but I still find myself reacting as though he did.
“I only thought—”
“You fucking work there because that’s where I fucking put you, and when I have to go to this fucking meeting in fifteen minutes, you will be going with me. There is no escape.”
A breath stutters into his lungs. “Okay. Sorry.” He goes back to work, though I see him watching me from the corner of his eye.
Goddamn it.
I like when he’s scared. I like when he’s overwhelmed and alert and doesn’t know how to respond. But I only like it when there’s another side to it, a purpose. Having him shrink from me because I’m being an asshole just feels shitty.
“Don’t apologize when you haven’t done anything wrong, Elias.” I wait him out. When his big dark eyes finally meet mine, I tell him, “I’m sorry.”
He gives me a tiny, tentative smile. “It’s okay. I know you don’t want to go to this meeting.”
He’s not wrong and it unsettles me a bit that he realizes that, but I’m happy enough to let him blame my mood on the meeting, so I let it go.
When we take the private elevator to the third floor, Elias holds his work tablet against his chest. He’s nervous. He’s never been responsible for taking notes for me at a meeting.
It’s such a perfect opportunity for me to touch him. I could pretend to fix his collar or tie. I could tilt his chin up, make him look at me while I tell him that he looks perfect. I could be the firm, commanding presence that he needs.
But I have to stop giving him that. It’s too unsatisfying for both of us, too shallow. He has to make a deeper place for me. He has to submit another fantasy.
At the moment, though, it’s just as well that I leave him alone. I have to be fully in my role as Andre Black, wealthy and sophisticated owner of The Axis.
One of the ugly truths of life is that no matter what level you’re at, you’re always whoring yourself out in some way to someone.
The Axis makes a lot of money, but you only make money from people with money, and you only retain your status with constant effort.
The Axis needs events like this wedding next fall to remain such a high-end whore.
When the elevator doors slide open, letting us out into the third-floor foyer, I sense how fully I’ve locked into my role by the disconnect I feel from Elias. He’s beside me, but it feels like he’s a thousand miles away.
Automatically, because it’s my role, I sidetrack to the concierge desk, where Gregory is talking to a chic Italian couple in their sixties.
Their accents are thick and Gregory’s Italian isn’t the best, so I step in.
They’re looking for historical sites and “authenticity” so I suggest a few outings and restaurants.
They both touch me throughout the brief conversation. I really don’t like it, but I know it doesn’t mean anything. It’s fine, and it’s my role to accept it. These days, like the hotel, I’m a high-end whore.
Even while I’m locked into myself, some part of my brain is still tracking Elias. He stands back from the encounter, but he’s alert. I know how people’s eyes glaze over when they don’t understand a language. He’s listening. But he surely doesn’t know Italian? He’s probably just watching me.
When I manage to extricate myself, Elias and I walk along the mezzanine that looks down onto the black-and-white-tiled lobby with its marble fountain. I’d love to tear that thing out. I never liked it even before I knew Rebecca Grange had it installed, but the removal would be a mess.
Sometimes, though, a mess is worth making.
By the time I get to the informal conference space that we reserve for more personal business meetings like this one, Gina’s PA, Stephanie, is giving last-minute instructions to the serving staff.
Steaming carafes wait on the coffee table, along with a three-tiered platter of sweets and miniature quiches.
As Gina sweeps in with both families and the wedding planner, Stephanie draws Elias away. It makes something scratch somewhere in my mind. I don’t like that. No one gives Elias instructions but me. I also don’t like how quickly he follows her instructions. Would he do what anyone says?
It’s not a logical thought. It’s from somewhere outside my role, somewhere outside my control.
I have to lock this shit down, right now.
I do fine through the meeting. I smile when I’m supposed to. I use the right tone of voice. I drink the espresso. I make a few suggestions about amenities of The Axis that could be utilized.
The mother of the bride keeps touching my arm. I’m so locked into my role that I don’t really feel it. The scream in my head is distant. The violent imaginings are playing on a TV somewhere deep in my mind. They don’t show. I’m sure they don’t.
So why does Elias keep looking at me like that?
* * *
I stay distant from Elias for the rest of the day.
I have to compliment his notes from the meeting because they’re really fucking good.
He wrote down not only the discussion points and questions asked but also observations about what the bride reacted positively and negatively to.
I didn’t notice any of it at the time, but looking back, I can see that he was catching things that I missed. I forward his notes to Gina.
She texts me, KEEP HIM.
So, yeah, I have to tell him how well he did, but I’m otherwise cold. I don’t give him my attention. I don’t give him my dominance.
It’s hard on him and it’s hard on me, but I stick to my fucking role.
Then, at night, I watch him via the cameras in his apartment. I know I’ve affected him because I see how depressed he looks. He doesn’t eat much. He watches TV for a while, some nature documentary about lions, then he goes to bed. He doesn’t even masturbate.
I spend a long night thinking.
Elias will submit a fantasy. I know he will because I know he needs it. But even with my coldness, it could take a while before he knows that he needs it because he will simply endure. He is, after all, a masochist.
He’s also insecure and will waste a lot of time trying to figure out how he’s at fault when he isn’t at fault to begin with.
I have to chase him toward what he needs—what I need too—and the best way to do that is to vanish.
He needs, for a while, to be lonely.
So I leave The Axis and I leave him a message. I tell him that something came up. I give him a little busy work, but mostly he’s to enjoy the hotel. He has full access to every restaurant and every amenity.
I, meanwhile, withdraw to my converted warehouse apartment a few blocks away. I usually stay here. I’ve only been staying at The Axis because Elias is there.
Usually, it’s a relief to be here instead of at the hotel, but I’m pretty disconnected from my surroundings over the next several days.
My mind is fragmented. Mostly, I’m watching Elias, but I also work out several times a day.
I start learning Greek. I study anatomy and decomposition and some other weird shit that has nothing to do with Elias but keeps rolling around somewhere in my brain.
I don’t like when I get like this. It happens, though, when I don’t have a role to play. My brain doesn’t know what to do.
Elias doesn’t know what to do either. He wanders around the hotel like he’s getting his bearings. Then he goes back to his apartment. He starts going to the gym, jogging on a treadmill. He runs for a long time. He never notices the people who watch him. Jesus, he really does think he’s invisible.
He acts like it a lot of the time, so quiet and self contained.
Then, one night, out of nowhere, he throws a glass in the kitchen.
Even that is half controlled because he throws it into the sink, where it shatters but doesn’t damage anything.
Still, I’m riveted to the screen as the glass shards explode everywhere.
I look away from that to focus on Elias’s twisted-up face.
He was so silent and non-expressive a second ago and now he’s shaking.
A sob breaks from him. He hugs himself. He drops to the floor.
I can’t see him now, and it pisses me off, but I listen to his awful, broken sobs.
“Oh, baby,” I whisper. I don’t quite understand why my cock stiffens, but it does. Relief washes through me, maybe at the arousal, maybe at Elias’s emotion. I start shuddering.
I worry about him when he starts cleaning up.
He’s sniffing, upset, not paying enough attention.
He steps on a shard of glass and cuts his foot.
I growl, upset with him. I only want him in pain when it’s deliberate.
Fuck, that’s not even true. I only want him in pain when I’m the one controlling it.
But he gets the cut cleaned up.
After, he goes to bed but not to sleep. I just keep watching.
Then, at three a.m., he gets up and retrieves his laptop from the kitchen and returns to bed.
I can’t see what he’s looking at. I can’t see what he’s typing.
I could switch to my laptop and track where he goes, but I don’t need to. I already know what he’s doing.
I fucking know.
* * *
I don’t, however, hear from Wes, and the debit card isn’t charged. It’s Sunday, so I give it a few hours, then I call Wes.
“Andre,” he answers warily.
“If you even think about giving his fantasy to anyone but me, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Wes is silent for a long time, then I hear a deep breath. “How do you know he submitted another fantasy?”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
“It is actually.”
“Fuck you, Wes. He’s mine.”
“You’re obsessed with him.”
I grit my teeth as I pace through my converted warehouse. My spyware allows me to track Elias’s activity but not his keystrokes. I don’t know exactly what he submitted.
“Send me his fantasy,” I demand. “I’ll fulfill it.”
There’s another long silence.
“Wes.”
He says, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“It doesn’t fucking matter if it’s a good idea. You will send me his request, or I will rip it from your website.”
After another silence, Wes’s voice comes through coldly, “You think you can?”
“We could find out. Or I’ll take his laptop. Either way, that fantasy belongs to me.”
Another silence. Then: “Where is he?”
“You don’t know?” I sneer.
“No, I don’t fucking know, because when someone’s fantasy has been fulfilled, they’re off my books. That’s how it’s supposed to work. That’s what you fucking agreed to, Andre.”
I keep pacing. “This is different.”
“Yeah, because it’s not a fantasy for you. It’s obviously way too fucking real.”
“I’ll fulfill my role—like I did before. Obviously I did, or he wouldn’t have made a second submission. So charge his goddamn card, take the fucking money, which is what you want, and give me his submission.”
“Andre—”
“I will take it from you, Wes, if I have to.”
Another silence. Then: “Where is this gonna go, in the end?”
I don’t have an answer for that, and it chills me briefly. I glimpse things I don’t want to see, that I don’t accept. I look away from them.
“What did he ask for?” I demand.
Wes replies grimly, “Something that I think will turn into something more.”
“What?”
“Fuck,” Wes mutters half under his breath. Then he tells me, “He wants you to stalk him.”
I grin. I laugh. I hang up on Wes.
Then I get out my burner phone—and I send Elias a message.