Chapter 15 Elias
FIFTEEN
Elias
I’m already stalking you, baby. I never stopped.
I stare at the message for the hundredth time. I shiver at my desk as though, against all reason, something could happen to me here in this office.
“Everything okay?”
I jolt. My eyes jump to Andre. His eyes, that striking blue, look almost amused, which means I probably have a dumb look on my face.
“Sorry. I got distracted.”
I probably shouldn’t have updated my phone number with ForbiddenX. I could have kept my interactions on my old phone, kept the fantasy separate from my real life. But … that’s not what I want.
Still, I put my phone in a drawer, trying to show that I’ll stay on track with my work, but Andre’s eyes narrow. Shit. He seemed to be in a better mood this morning, but maybe it was a mask. He does that sometimes. He did it last week for the meeting about the wedding.
It was almost eerie how, in the space of an elevator ride, he was able to so completely change his demeanor. All his edges were blunted, at least on the surface. His intensity and anger were buried under charm and composure. I could still see them, but I don’t think anyone else could.
After, he went cold. Then he vanished for the rest of the week.
I scramble to focus on my screen, but I hear Andre’s chair roll back. From the corner of my eye, I see him get up.
Shit, shit, shit.
My heart pounds as he approaches then stops behind me. I start trembling as he leans down. In spite of that—because of that?—I start getting hard.
Andre plants one hand on the edge of my desk while his other reaches for the drawer where I put my phone. My hand shoots out to hold the drawer shut, but Andre’s face turns toward me. He speaks close to my ear.
“No.”
I shiver. Shudder. I am shockingly, searingly alive.
I’m struck by the contrast to how I felt over the weekend when I was so safe and comfortable in all the outrageous luxury surrounding me. I couldn’t even feel any of that softness, but I can feel this, now, the sharp edge of danger.
The difference, I know, is me. Andre has crowded me before. He’s dominated me, intimidated me. But he would never hurt me, so it’s never been more than a surface-level thrill. Besides, someone like him, someone beautiful and wealthy and powerful? He could never really want me.
That’s the reality I lived while Andre was gone. Four days of his absence robbed me of even the ghostly imaginings that had been floating me along.
I know those imaginings are false, that Andre doesn’t want me—but my stalker does.
At least, that’s the fantasy, and I’ll take it. He makes me believe it.
So fear, now, is alive in my body, and I don’t care if I’m blending my fantasy into reality or my reality into my fantasy. I need Andre to be a part of it. He has been from the beginning.
But this is different, real in a different way. I don’t want Andre to see my messages. I don’t want him to know this part of me.
But I’m as powerless with him as I am with my stalker. His hand covers mine. He opens the drawer.
I can feel his breath behind my ear where my hair has been cut away, exposing the skin. I can’t stop shivering.
He sets my phone on the desk beside my mouse. He closes the drawer.
“What if I need to text you?” he whispers.
My mouth isn’t working. I don’t know how to say, But you’re sitting beside me.
“Besides,” he adds, “I’m not a monster. I know you have a life outside this job. I don’t expect you to abandon it.”
He straightens, releasing me from the cage of his body.
He leaves me shuddering at my desk and trying to hide it as he returns to his own.
He goes back to work as though nothing has happened.
I suppose, for him, nothing has. I, however, don’t know what to do about how aroused I am.
I’m struggling to remain silent, to be still.
But I only have to suffer for a minute before Andre says, “I’d like you to pick up lunch for us. It’ll help you learn the area. Steak fajita or chicken?”
“Uh … um … steak.”
Andre’s lips quirk like he likes that. He picks up his phone and starts typing. That kind of thing is my job, but I’m glad he’s doing it. I can’t think right now.
“It’s a bit of a walk, so you should get going. I’ll send you the address.”
I jump when my phone pings. I pick it up and find Andre’s message. It seems to prove what he said, that he might need to text me. I feel a little dumb for thinking otherwise. I’m glad I didn’t say anything.
I get up from my desk, turning away quickly so he won’t see how my dick is pressing against my fly. I grab my phone and jacket.
As I head to the elevator, Andre says, “Go through the hotel. You need to learn it better. And keep your phone on in case I need to text you.”
“Okay,” I reply, glancing at the wall of mirrors to see him. I realize, horrifyingly, that my hard-on is very obvious, but Andre, thank god, is looking at his computer. I stuff one arm then the other into my jacket, tugging it into place to hide my arousal.
“I’ll … I’ll be back,” I say, but Andre only grunts. He’s focused on his work, not paying any more attention to me.
The route through the hotel is indeed long. The Axis has several elevators, but only the private one reaches this floor. I have to go down a flight of stairs and several hallways to reach one of the public elevators, then I’m further slowed by guests getting on and off.
I finally reach the lobby and make the long trek across it before I can pass through the main doors and out onto the sidewalk.
I’ve barely gone a block before my phone vibrates with a text alert. I pull it from my pocket, expecting something from Andre, but then I stop dead.
Unknown: I was starting to think you’d never leave that fucking hotel.
I spin to look behind me, but all I get is people cursing because I’m disrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. Someone bumps my elbow. I almost drop my phone but manage to clutch it. It vibrates in my hand. I force my way through the crowd to huddle against a building.
Hands shaking, I read the new message. Careful, baby. This city is dangerous. Especially for someone so pretty.
Oh my god. He really is stalking me. He was waiting outside The Axis. He’s watching me right now. I look around again, but it’s lunchtime and there’s a sea of people.
Another message comes through. Stop looking for me. If you saw me, I’d have to kill you, and I don’t want to do that.
My scalp prickles. He doesn’t mean that, does he? That’s just part of the fantasy, right?
Unknown: Get moving. Pretend I’m not here.
I do what he says. The first part anyway. The second part, pretending he’s not there, is, of course, impossible.
I navigate to the Mexican restaurant. I go inside and collect the food that Andre has paid for, then I walk back to The Axis. I don’t get another message. I keep checking my phone, but he’s gone.
I make the long trek through the hotel to Andre’s office. He’s sitting at his desk—and a black box with a purple ribbon is sitting at mine.
“What, uh, what’s that?” I ask.
Andre’s eyes flick up to me as I approach. “A courier delivered it while you were gone. Is it your birthday?”
“Um, no. It’s, um … I don’t know what that is.”
Andre comes to join me at the work/dining table by the bookcases. I set out the takeaway boxes, so plain and predictable compared to the box on my desk.
“Are you going to open your present?” Andre asks as we settle to our meal.
“No,” I tell him. “I’ll wait.”
He doesn’t press the point, thank god, and I spend the rest of the day with the box wedged between my feet under my desk.
By the time I get to my apartment in the evening, I feel like a hunted animal.
When ForbiddenX contacted me last night for my updated home address, I gave it to them, yes, but my stalker shouldn’t know that I work for Andre specifically.
And yet, he had a box—this box—delivered to Andre’s office.
And it sat between my feet all day, reminding me of that fact.
I jump when my phone starts vibrating. I set the box on the kitchen counter and get out my phone.
It’s a call, not a text—and it’s him.
My heart leaps into my throat. I didn’t expect him to call me. I don’t know how to talk to him. I can’t!
I don’t answer. The call goes to voicemail, but he doesn’t leave a message. A text comes through.
Unknown: Answer my call, or I’ll be at your door.
Can he get to my door? Would he really do that?
My phone rings again, but I still don’t answer. I get another text: You think I can’t get into that hotel? Into your room? I can get to you ANYWHERE, Elias. Now answer your fucking phone.
Jesus Christ.
It starts ringing again. This time, I hit accept. I bring the phone shakily to my ear, but I’m not able to say anything.
“When I tell you to do something, you do it.” He’s speaking through the voice modulator, harsh and cold and dangerous. “Have you opened the box?”
“N-no.”
“Open it now. Put me on speaker.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I put him on speaker and set my phone on the counter. Then I pull the wide purple ribbon. It slips away. I lift the lid.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“Take off all your clothes then put it on. Send me a picture when you’re properly dressed.”
Oh my god. Oh my fucking god.
I’m slow and clumsy getting undressed, but he’s surprisingly patient. He never asks me if I’m done yet. He just waits.
When I’m naked and, yes, hard, I take the black leather collar from the box and strap it around my neck. I can hear him breathing through the phone.
I don’t know what I look like until I open the camera app. I find my eyes huge and dark in my flushed face. I find my pulse beating visibly above the black line of the collar. I snap a picture and send it to him.
He says through the voice modulator, “Good boy. Now lube up that dildo and start riding it.”
“Fuck,” I mutter as I lift the hyper-realistic silicone cock from the box. It has a suction cup base. “It’s too big.”
“You can handle it, Elias. It’s the same size as me. That’s why I chose it for you.”
“Jesus. I don’t know where to—”
“Just drop right where you are.”
I grab the lube from the box. I kneel on the floor between the kitchen and living room. I secure the dildo to the parquet floor and lube it. God, it looks filthy jutting up in the middle of this fancy apartment. The lights are on. I don’t know if I can—
“Start with your fingers,” my tormentor tells me. “You haven’t kept yourself open. I could tell, following you today.”
“Jesus.”
“Stop fucking around. Get your fingers inside your ass.”
A breath stutters into my lungs. Then I do what he says.
There’s no one here, no one to see me, but I still feel very exposed as I finger myself in the open space of my apartment.
“Scissor your fingers,” he orders, then, “Stroke deeper.”
He talks me through it until I’m ready, then I lift myself over the dildo and sink down.
“Ohhh,” I moan as it penetrates me. “God—fuck.”
“Mmm,” he murmurs. “Good. Start lifting.”
I do what he says. The sense of exposure is intense. I don’t like it. I don’t like that I’m alone.
That’s what I try to tell him, but the words that come out are, “I want you. I need—”
“I’m right here, baby. Keep fucking yourself. Don’t stop. Put your hand on your cock.”
“Please—”
“Hand on your cock—now. Don’t stop, Elias.”
I do what he says, but it doesn’t help. “I need—”
“Fuck yourself until you come.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Is that not good enough for you? You need me to throw you to the ground in the woods, hold you down, and force my cock inside you?”
I moan and work myself on the dildo.
“Or maybe you need me to come into that office on the 24th floor, bend you over your desk, and fuck that pretty hole?”
I bite my lip as my balls draw up tight. I jerk my cock. I work myself harder, hitting my prostate with every stroke. I don’t see the apartment anymore.
“Are you imagining it now, me fucking you there?” my tormentor asks.
“Or maybe you want him to do it. Would you let him? If he’d seen what was in that box and known what you fucking need, would you have let him yank down your pants”—I whimper—“and shove his cock inside you”—I whine and fist my dick harder—“and fuck you until—”
I cry out, clenching on the dildo as cum leaps from my cock. I rock and moan through the waves of it, chasing the sensation, milking myself on the toy, stroking myself through the end of it. Then I pitch forward and catch myself on my hands. I shudder and gasp.
Then the bliss fades. I come back to myself. I see the apartment around me. I see my cum on the floor. I pull myself off the dildo, spasming at the sudden emptiness. I curl up on my side on the floor.
“You’re beautiful,” my tormentor tells me through the voice modulator, through the phone.
I don’t reply. How would he know? He’s not here. He can’t see me.
He asks, “Why are you upset?”
My throat tightens. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
“I want to hear your real voice.”
There’s a brief pause, but I’m not surprised when he says, “No.” My eyes sting anyway. He presses, “Answer me. Why are you upset?”
My stomach knots. I don’t want to tell him. I don’t like that I’m revealing this part of myself.
“I just feel …”
“What?”
“Alone.”
I usually have this sort of awful, floating, untethered feeling after jerking off.
I had hoped it wouldn’t happen with him being on the phone, but it’s actually worse.
Most of the time, the feeling is vague, something I experience as its own thing.
Now, I feel it as an echo of what I used to feel when my father would pretend that I didn’t exist.
He didn’t do it all the time. Sometimes he was mean. Just words. He never hit me, but, god, he could be so mean. That was better, though, than when he would pretend that he couldn’t see me.
If not for our cook, Rose, I might really have believed that I wasn’t there.
Through the phone’s speaker, I hear, “Put your hand on the collar, Elias.”
Hearing that name, the one I chose for myself, brings me back to the present. Sometimes I forget that I’m no longer who I was because, in so many ways, I still am.
I do what I’m told.
I always have. Usually that means being silent, going away, being visible only in my work. But it means something very different with my stalker, my tormentor, my … savior.
He tells me, “You are mine, Elias. That’s what that collar means. And whenever you’re wearing it, that’s what you’re going to understand. Whether I’m physically with you or not doesn’t change that fact. You belong to me. I am in control.”
My fingers curl around the leather strap, tightening it at my throat until I really, really feel it.
“You will put that collar on the second you get home every single day. You will sleep in it. Do you understand me?”
My breath hitches, choking me against the leather.
“Elias. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
He releases an audible breath. “Okay. Good boy.”
I breathe. I relax. I feel a comfortable weight settle over me like a blanket. He lets me lie there for a while, then he orders, “Now clean yourself up and eat some dinner.”