9. Whiplash #2
One leg crossed over the other, Greta sat still in a small over-stuffed armchair, acutely aware of Dylan watching her.
Gathering up the thick waves of her hair, she shifted them over one shoulder, before bringing the wine glass to her glossed lips.
She sipped slowly and lowered it back to her thigh, her pink manicured fingers fidgeting with the stem.
With a restless flutter rippling over her diaphragm, she took another nervous sip, eager to moisten her dry mouth, noticing Dylan doing the same.
Her eyes followed Dylan’s hands as she screwed the top of the bottle back on.
‘So,’ Dylan said, half a smile pushing into her cheek.
‘So,’ Greta echoed. ‘I suppose I should explain yesterday. I’m—’
‘No,’ Dylan interrupted softly.
‘You really don’t have to explain anything.’
‘Thank you for...’ Greta paused, the words feeling ridiculous as she formed them. ‘For taking care of me, I mean.’
Dylan smiled. ‘It was my pleasure, Greta. If I remember right, you had taken very good care of me, so...’ She trailed off with a shrug.
Heat flooded Greta’s cheeks. She dipped her head, breaking Dylan’s gaze.
The quiet room amplified the sound of Dylan clearing her throat and taking a long, steadying breath through her nose.
‘I suppose this is our chance to be honest, Greta.’ Dylan’s tone was as confident as she could muster. ‘Really honest.’
Greta’s gaze skittered over Dylan’s face. ‘What do you want from me, Dylan?’
‘Straight to it? Okay Dyl, this is it. Don’t blow it.
’ Dylan ran a hand down her thigh and huffed out some air, drawing a soft huff of amusement from Greta.
‘I want to know if you think about me as much as I think about you.’ A silent beat passed until Greta blew out a slow breath. ‘Honesty. Remember,’ Dylan reiterated.
‘I don’t—’
‘Lie,’ Dylan interrupted, a smile tugging at her lips.
‘It doesn’t matter whether or not I think about you, Dylan, I— ’
‘Lie,’ Dylan repeated more earnestly.
With Greta’s eyes fixed on her every move, Dylan rose from the bed.
She watched as Dylan reached the dressing table, put down her water and turned back.
In a futile attempt to break the magnetic pull dragging Dylan toward her, Greta dropped her head.
If she looked up, she would succumb and she couldn't allow that. Dylan moved with a quiet confidence until she was kneeling on the floor, her belly pressed into Greta’s uncrossed but firmly closed legs.
‘I know, Greta, no matter what you say, whatever lie you choose to say next, that you think about me. I know that when you’re lying in bed at night you close your eyes just to see me.
’ Greta exhaled sharply, her brow furrowing, but Dylan pressed on.
‘I know that when you wake up in the morning, you close them to see me again.’ Dylan ran her hands up Greta’s thighs, urging them apart, pressing her thumbs into the crease of her pelvis.
The contact sent a current of electricity straight up Greta’s spine, making her almost buckle at the waist. She quietly cleared her throat, gaze pinned on Dylan’s hands.
‘I know that when you’re in that tiny office, you close your eyes and imagine me in there with you.
’ Greta’s blinking quickened. Her chest began to heave—much to her annoyance—as Dylan pressed firmly between her legs, pushing her thighs further apart.
Greta shifted, squaring her shoulders in a final, fragile show of resistance.
‘And I know,’ Dylan dropped her voice to a whisper, ‘that you think of me when you touch yourself and that you have for months.’
Desire thrummed in Greta’s chest, clawing at her throat to be permitted, to finally be set free.
‘I…’ Greta breathed.
Dylan’s fingers moved to Greta’s chin, gently lifting her face until their eyes met. She lightly trailed her fingers over Greta’s forehead to move a strand of hair, gently tucking it back behind her ear. Her strong hands belying the softness of her touch.
‘You?’ Dylan urged softly.
Greta’s nostrils flared with her staggered breaths. Her desire and want suffocating her, an insidious invisible hand wrapping around her throat, squeezing deliberately slowly.
‘I...’ Greta tried again but couldn’t find the words. The words weren’t there. They didn’t come. Her brilliant mind couldn’t find the fucking words.
The inexplicable force consumed Greta, making her want to push against Dylan’s firm body.
The searing heat generated between them was almost unbearable as Dylan ran her hands to the tops of Greta’s thighs again, her thumbs gently moving rhythmically over the soft denim.
Greta blew out a long, shaky breath and closed her eyes.
‘Do you want me to stop?’ Dylan whispered.
Greta didn’t speak. She didn’t say a word as she felt Dylan gently slide the wine glass from her hand, followed by the soft clink of glass meeting the side table. ‘We’re meant to be talking,’ Greta said breathlessly.
‘Talk to me then. When we leave this room, the chances of you allowing this again are probably slim to none, and I need you to be honest with me. I need you to… I-I don’t know.
’ Dylan dipped her head, searching for Greta's gaze, but Greta fought the pull of her pleading green eyes. ‘Just talk to me, Greta.’
‘You’re right,’ Greta whispered, her eyes fixed on Dylan’s hand against her thigh.
A heavy silence fell between them as Dylan swallowed hard, her jaw tight as if bracing herself for a blow.
‘I think about you all the time,’ Greta confessed.
Dylan dropped her head under the weight of the confession, possessively tightening her grip on Greta’s thighs, fingers splayed and squeezing at the words she’d clearly been so desperate to hear.
‘But—’ Greta inhaled sharply against her swelling emotion.
‘I’m old enough to be your mother, and I have let you… We have… How old are you, even?’
‘Why?’ Dylan replied without missing a beat. ‘What does that change? That’s not what we’re talking about.’
‘It’s more than relevant, Dylan. It’s one of the many elephants in the room, is it not?’
‘I’m twenty-eight.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Greta sighed, her head falling backwards with the weight of the numbers.
Dylan’s hand slid around Greta's hip, her grip tightening. She dipped her head, moving it with Greta’s, stubbornly chasing her shifting gaze.
‘So, I’m old enough to fuck you once a week but nothing else?
There’s nothing else I can possibly offer you?
Nothing I can give you—other than obedience and orgasms?
’ As Dylan said the words she flinched, the fight seemed to drain out of her before Greta’s eyes as her shoulders slumped.
Her gaze snapped away from Greta’s as if everything had fallen into place.
The frustration filling the room was now thick enough to choke on.
‘D’you know what, Greta? Don’t answer that.
What can I give you? I have nothing… I don’t fucking have anything.
’ She bit the inside of her cheek and softly shook her head. ‘What the fuck are we even doing here?’
Greta paled, unable to hide the panic moving over her face as Dylan pulled away from her.
Suddenly standing, Dylan ran her hands over her hair, interlacing her fingers on top of her head, pressing down onto her curls.
The movement pulled her jumper up, revealing a sliver of skin at her belly.
Greta’s eyes fixed on it; she couldn’t stop herself.
She was intoxicated and transfixed by this woman, but none of it made sense.
It was sex, that was all. It had to be. They didn’t have feelings. She didn’t have feelings.
It was just sex.
‘What if we go back?’ Greta blurted.
‘Excuse me?’ Dylan dropped her arms to her sides.
‘This is about sex, Dylan,’ she continued with feigned confidence. ‘You could be my escort again. I could pay you directly, cut out the agency. Make our own—’ She paused, faltering at the reality of the suggestion. ‘—arrangements. We have undeniably amazing sex.’
‘Do we?’ Dylan snapped, glaring at Greta in disbelief.
‘Don’t we?’
Dylan barked a laugh. ‘You think torturing me with excruciating edging and the most agonising ruined orgasms of my life every week is good sex? You think me fucking you and wanting, with every fibre of my being, to run my hands over every part of your body but not having fucking permission to, is good sex?!’ She air quoted the words good sex before slamming her hands onto her thighs.
Greta stood quickly, unable to take Dylan’s words while sitting because they somehow felt heavier, harder to defend herself against. If they were doing this, she needed to be taller.
She needed to say what she meant with her whole chest, but the words, the fucking words, weren’t coming out right.
‘No, I mean…that’s not what I mean,’ she said softly.
‘Why don’t you try saying what you mean?
’ Dylan’s tone was stern. Greta looked to the floor, her head shaking lightly before she looked back up.
‘Do you believe that because I fuck women for money I don’t have feelings, Greta?
That I’m not capable of fucking feeling anything?
’ Dylan’s voice trembled as she held hard and fast on Greta’s gaze. ‘Do you?!’
‘Dylan, you can’t charge for sex and then gaslight your clients because they don’t have feelings for you. This isn’t a fucking film. You’re not Julia Roberts, for Christ’s sake.’
Greta wasn’t even sure if Dylan understood the film reference and immediately felt old, but Dylan nodded, slowly blowing out a long weary breath.
Unable to bear another second of the intensity of Dylan’s pleading eyes, Greta fixed her gaze on the floor.
Her fingers pressed into her hips, while biting the inside of her cheek.
‘You’re giving me whiplash, Greta. Do you mean to be so deliberately fucking cruel?’ Dylan’s voice broke. She sucked in a breath. ‘Is this part of it?’