Chapter Eight
E ssie had always wanted to live inside of a music video.
Adult life had filled rapidly with a sort of monotony she found appalling, and vaguely terrifying. More and more her days were eaten away by meaningless tasks. Oil changes. Doctor’s appointments. Waiting in line for coffee. Waiting in line to get lunch. The DMV. Waiting for her husband to get home; waiting for him to go to sleep so she could let the mask of “everything is fine, dear, really” fall.
Waiting and wasting.
She wanted jump cuts. Scene fades, every boring aspect of being alive snipped neatly away. A highlight reel of her life, never existing in those dreaded moments of in-between.
For a moment—with Woods, Owen, and Levi—she got that.
After she hung up the phone, the structure of everything dissolved. Hands carried her back to the bed. She remembered the springs of the mattress creaking, the headboard slapping against the wall as all four of them laid upon it, the men forming a loose pile on top of her.
She couldn’t keep up with it all.
It became both image and sensation. The things that were happening to her fading rapidly into memory almost before they even happened.
Owen and Levi, taking turns with their mouths on her pussy. Woods covering her eyes and demanding she pick which tongue she liked best (Levi’s).
Kissing Woods even as Levi buried his face in her ass.
Each of them taking turns in missionary, one after another. Levi muttering something sweet about her hair in her ear, Owen complimenting her lips, Woods telling her they never usually went this long. Normally everyone tired out, there was just something about her. “Fuck, Essie, why’d you have to be so hot? I might not let you go. I might keep you on a leash forever.”
Exhausted, her entire body sore, and none of the men seeming close to slowing down, she managed to utter, “Black Card.”
They each froze in what they were doing and looked up. It struck her as comical, how obedient they were. Woods was wearing his mask again, so three Jason Voorhees characters looked at her, bewildered.
Almost innocent.
She pulled away from Woods, and detangled herself from Owen and Levi, the jumble of human bodies suddenly claustrophobic and oppressive.
“I’m sorry,” she said, gulping from the water bottle next to the bed. “I am so tired. I can’t do anymore.”
Woods nodded, and led her gently into the next room, the large suite opening into the living room area. Over the plush, soft carpets, he showed her the bathroom, with its gleaming whirlpool tub and sterile, minimalist-grey tile. “Take a bath. Rest. We’ll make the bed for you.” He turned the water on, leaning over the edge of the tub. She could see deep scratches in his back.
My nails did that .
There was a certain level of triumph in the thought.
“Do you like the water hot? I try to melt the skin off my bones when I shower, but everyone’s different—”
“Scalding, please,” she said, smiling at him. He’d done it again; switching from a sex fiend to someone caring, jovial. Running her bath water.
He held her hand and helped her into the water. Waited until she was settled in, the foaming white bubbles rising to her chin. Her body sank into the near-unbearable heat, and every muscle went ahhh as it relaxed. She closed her eyes and felt sleep tugging at her.
“Do you need anything else, Essie?”
“Mmm, no. I’m sorry I can’t keep going. I want to, I'm just…”
“You’re okay.” He knelt next to the tub, resting his chin on his folded arms as he watched her. “I think the guys were trying to impress you, so they did their best to make it last.”
She opened one eye. “Were you trying to impress me, too?”
“Absolutely. Did it work?”
“Eh, you’re alright.”
He laughed, dipped his fingers in the water, then flicked them at her. “Shut up. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Actually, my phone. My friend will worry.”
He nodded, disappeared quickly through the door, then came back and handed her cellphone over, flicked more water at her, and left. There were text messages from Carly, threatening police and the United Nations if she didn’t call her soon.
Quickly, before she fell asleep, she called Carly.
Carly’s voice, aloud, alarmed. “Please tell me you’re alive and about to be in a post-sex coma.” Her friend sounded scared, but was hiding it with a joke.
“I’m okay. Tired, though. Very, very tired.”
“They’re being good to you?”
“So good. Listen, I have to go, I’m… busy.”
“I get it. I’ll call off the bomb threat I made to the hotel.”
Essie let Carly go and slid further into the water. It was too cozy in this tub. She wanted to wake up, go out there and see what else the men had planned for her. But the water, the soap, the heat, all held her tightly. A few hours ago, falling asleep among masked strangers would’ve been cause for a panic attack.
But she could hear Woods talking to the men in the next room. The gentle boom of his voice, the occasional laugh, the clatter of something being moved.
There was no lingering resentment lurking, like at her house. No uncertainty in where she stood. The radioactive tension was gone.
It made it so easy to sleep.
There’s a dream-like, half-reality you swim in when your alarm clock goes off and you hit snooze. Vaguely aware of the world, but you’re building your perception of it on the scaffolds of sleep, so everything has a hazy, half-remembered, discolored sensation to it.
Essie was in this as she either dreamed or remembered Woods coming back a while later, picking her up out of lukewarm, nearly cold water. Drying her with a warm, soft white towel before wrapping her in a robe and carrying her back to the bed. She was laid in fresh clean sheets. She remembered being puzzled by that. Did they change them? But her head hit the pillow, and she had time to think, hmm, this pillowcase smells like Woods , before she was out, out hard , the only apt description being coma for how hard she slept.
But she awoke to an argument.
The little digital alarm clock next to the king-sized bed glared 2:09 AM as the heated, muffled voices reached her from behind the closed door. She could hear them talking, pacing back and forth in the living room of the suite. A TV was playing—she heard the sound of swords clanging.
She sat up, the covers spilling off her, and crawled to the edge of the bed.
“Sit down and watch the movie,” Woods was saying.
“I didn’t come here to watch movies,” Levi replied.
Essie went to the door and pressed her ear against it.
“We saw what she selected on the form. She’s up for anything,” Owen said.
“She’s sleeping,” Woods said. He sounded closest to the door. The image forming in her head was of him, not wearing a mask, his back to her door as he stood between her and the other men, each wearing their masks, leering at him.
“She checked everything, man. Let me wake her up with my dick in her mouth,” Levi’s voice was sharp, demanding.
Woods, on the other hand, sounded like a patient camp counselor. “I know. But you saw her; she was exhausted after two hours. She’s been sleeping like a rock, I put her in the bed and she didn’t even know where she was.”
“She called us,” Owen said. “She wants this.”
“Stop,” Woods replied. “Yeah, she checked ‘anything and everything.’ But you know how this goes. She was upset at her life and wanted to do something risky.”
“We’re just trying to have fun—”
“Levi, you’re like seven feet tall and look like you can throw a fridge. I get that you guys don’t really talk to the girls we bring here but have some sense, please.”
Owen, closer to the door now. “We’re not going to hurt her—”
“ She doesn’t know that. And if you two idiots barge in there and jump on her, you’re gonna scare the fuck out of her.”
“I think you like her.” Levi, even closer to the door.
She had a brief flash of a daydream; Levi and Owen shoving Woods aside, bursting through the door and catching her listening. Levi—menacing—saying, “Looks who’s out of bed,” before the two of them seized her and relentlessly fucked her—
“Yeah, she’s cool. I also know this is probably the craziest thing she’s done in her entire life. So, we’re going to take it easy. Let her rest.”
Someone grumbled an unintelligible sentence.
Woods laughed. “I know, I want another piece of her too. And if she keeps looking at Levi like that, I’ll get jealous.”
The tone shifted; the men moved away from the door. The TV got louder, but she heard Woods say, "We have the toys for tomorrow, right?”
She awoke with hands around her throat and a voice in her ear.
Woods.
“It’s time to get up,” he whispered. “We aren’t done with you.”
Bright sunshine streamed into the room. The smell of toast and coffee in the room. Woods let go of her and strolled around the room as she rubbed her eyes and sat up. Food was on silver trays at the foot of the bed.
“Eat,” he said. He pointed to the dresser by the window. “There’s an outfit in there. Put it on. When you’re ready, join us in the living room.”
She sat there, struggling to wake up. The events of the previous night were still completing their download; she had an assortment of images and sensations to sort through later.
For now, though, the shock of seeing Woods, being reminded he was real, like a delicious nightmare you managed to have a second time, got her moving. She nibbled on some toast as she stretched and wandered the room, stopping to open the dresser. She found a simple pair of tennis shorts, with a black collar and chain leash resting on top of it.
She placed these on the bed and looked at them, arms crossed.
One hand, it was nice that they hadn’t decided to put her in some elaborate, stringy lingerie that felt like doing a yarn puzzle, trying to figure out what bit of cloth covered which part of her body, just to wind up chafed and uncomfortable because she put it on wrong. Which she would do. Multiple times.
But the collar and leash were a bit much. Maybe it was the daylight; maybe her endorphins weren’t hitting her and the excitement of the moment had faded, but this… This was insane. It would be better to go and leave now, think about things.
She grabbed her phone and felt a sense of relief. Here was reality: 12 missed texts from Carly, a missed call from Ryan, a litany of other notifications.
She answered Carly’s latest text, just let me know you’re ok with I promise, I’m fine. Black card.
She started to answer the others. Started to text Ryan.
The gravity of her life threatened to drag her back in. The person she was– there –trying to push out who she was— here .
Back there, she was low. An ignored wife. The quiet friend. Trying so goddamned hard to be loved.
Here, she was worshiped.
Here, she had men trying to get past each other to taste her.
Maybe it wasn’t healthy. Maybe it was dangerous. A toxic fire waiting to be lit.
Essie wanted it anyway.
She ducked into the attached bathroom, hurriedly cleaning herself up and reapplying makeup. Last night, there’d been time. Hours to prepare. To try different eyeshadows and lipsticks. Now, it was like she was getting ready for a first date that was already at her door. She rapidly applied it, frowning at her results the entire time before dashing back into the bedroom. The robe came off, the shorts went on. She walked to the mirror to examine how she was going to look with the collar on.
And stopped dead.
Catching herself in the mirror was like getting caught in a bear trap. All momentum halted so you could focus on a particular body part and analyze that pain. Sometimes it was your legs, not toned enough. Sometimes it was your face—why was it that shape? Maybe your nose hung like an ugly Christmas ornament between your eyebrows. Maybe your eyebrows had that furry caterpillar look, or maybe they weren’t perfectly even. They never fucking were. Chest was always too flat or too saggy, shoulders seemed mannish, every optical illusion in the world activated in that hotel mirror. As if it were a cruel funhouse reflection.
You’re oozing out of those shorts, Essie. Look how your hips spill over the side. Just like cupcakes when they swell in the pan.
Look at those marks, those stretch marks on your stomach. Your skin literally shows scars because of how gross you are. What are you doing here? You know this is all an act; you’re not this person. Woods isn’t attracted to you. Levi isn’t. Owen. They’re going to laugh when it's over. They’ll high-five and say, “Can’t believe we got through that.”
You’re charity.
A pity fuck.
They’re counting on you to go tell someone prettier how well you were treated.
The confidence she’d managed to build was getting shot down. It was an airplane over enemy territory, rocking with gunfire from the ground. The shorts cut into her flesh; the elastic waistband might’ve been barbed wire for how it sliced into her. Her thighs bulged out of the legs. Her knees had a doughy, loose quality to them that she couldn’t quite place but hated all the same.
Her eyes roamed the landscape of her own body and wished it could be leveled. No canyons, no creases. Smoothed over and perfect. A parking lot.
Woods knocked on the door.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yep. I’m fine.” The words sounded passable to her. The little sob between “yep” and “fine” didn’t help, but there was no way he heard it—
He slipped into the room and quietly closed the door. He was shirtless, maskless, wearing a small silver chain around his neck. He examined the expression on her face, and she watched him shift from confusion to concern.
“What’s wrong? Did we do something?”
Essie snatched the robe and threw it over herself. She sat down heavily on the bed, her shoulders slumped. “I looked in the mirror.”
He glanced at it. “Ah.” He began checking his own reflection, moving his shoulders around, bobbing his head to check different angles. “I look at these things, and one minute, I’m gorgeous, right? Like a genuinely hot guy.” He touched his hair. “Then, I look in a different mirror. Or my phone camera, that’s the worst. Photos. I can’t stand it. Like, let me live in delusion. Don’t show me that I look like that.”
“So, you understand that when I try to wear this… Now, in the broad daylight, looking at that mirror, I…”
He started nodding, approaching her on the bed. Her knees bumped against his as he laid both hands on the mattress and leaned over her. Her neck leaned back to keep his gaze, like she was sitting front row in a movie theater, and he was the screen.
“I get it. I also know that I had to keep Levi and Owen from coming in here in the middle of the night and fucking you until you couldn’t move.” He leaned down further, his face next to hers, his mouth near her ear. “So cut the bullshit and get out here so I can cover you in my cum.”
She had a retort, but his final words made them dissolve. She could only glare at him in shock. She’d been expecting comfort, compliments. She wouldn’t have believed them and she would have disregarded them immediately, of course, but still…
Would have been nice.
Instead, she reacted as if she had been slapped. He gave her a dismissive roll of the eyes and left the room, pausing at the door to say, “You have five minutes. Don’t make us come in here.”
She sat on the bed, biting her nails. The collar and leash next to her.
She stood up, ignoring the mirror.
There was a chance Woods was just saying whatever he could to get her out there.
But she chose to believe he meant it.
Essie snapped the black collar around her neck. The silver chain hung heavily between her breasts. She went to the door, stopped, thought about it, and pushed the door open.
The men were back in their masks. Levi was on the couch, his legs spread, revealing his bulge against his dark blue boxers. Owen was in the corner, leaning against the wall, shirtless, wearing black jeans.
Only Woods was fully clothed, wearing a white button up and slacks. The mask stood out against his formal attire. He was sitting in the armchair, angled towards her bedroom door.
She sank to her knees, placing the chain in her mouth, biting down on it gently with her teeth, holding it in place.
Levi began stroking himself, watching her.
Essie crawled to the men in the masks, already wet at the thought of what they might do to her.