Chapter 15 Leanna
LEANNA
Vasiliy meets me at the door when I arrive. He is impeccably dressed, as usual, and smiling widely.
“Miss Ana,” he says. “The client asked if you might be willing to stay for more than the customary hour tonight?”
“I mean, sure,” I say, my stomach doing flip-flops, “but why?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure, but he said you can set the rate. He’ll take whatever time you’re willing to spare.”
“I don’t… I don’t have a rate,” I stammer, heat creeping up my neck. “I just…accept whatever he sends through you. I’m not a… I don’t do this for a living…you know…sex work stuff?”
I cringe at my own verbal vomit, my meekness, my strange shame.
Why feel ashamed in a place like this?
I’ve made thousands and thousands of dollars, and I’ve had countless orgasms with Nik, the Russian professional athlete.
I did it willingly.
I look forward to it every week.
Something about being with him calms me, makes me feel at ease and safe.
I like the low rumble of his voice.
I like the roughness of his touch.
I like the way he makes me feel.
Vasiliy chuckles. “I hate to tell you this, Ana, but if you don’t do sex work stuff, then I’m not sure what the hell you’re doing in there for thousands a night. Playing cards?”
He cracks up at his own joke, and I feel my cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“No, we don’t play cards,” I say through a grimace.
For seven weeks, I’ve been coming here on Friday nights. Each week, the tension between us grows hotter and hotter.
Well, hotter for me, anyway.
Nik has had his fingers and mouth all over me at this point. He has unlocked something in me, something dark and needy and hungry. I didn’t know sex could be like this, that foreplay could feel like this.
And that’s what it’s been, right?
Foreplay?
I’ve known all along that he would, eventually, want sex.
I don’t know why he won’t let himself come, why he lets me touch him but not bring him to orgasm. But he’s always hard for me.
He’s always ready, so I know there’s nothing wrong with him down there.
He seems perfectly virile and healthy.
And…I want him to feel pleasure.
I want to please him. I want to see him let go, have that release.
I want him to feel as good as I do because of what I do for him.
I just don’t know how to tell him that.
I don’t know him, not in any real way, and I kind of want that, too. I suppose this is why I don’t see myself as a sex worker.
I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, I don’t think.
Since that first night, the night that was supposed to be a joke, I have felt connected to him.
I thought I’d run in, shimmy a little in his lap, snap a selfie, and run out. But I stayed.
I stayed, and I moved, and I dry humped him until I came into his lap.
The thought still embarrasses me. But here I am, for a seventh night, my body humming with anticipation.
Why does he want me to stay longer?
Is this the night he takes me entirely? Will I lose my virginity this way, to a man in a mask, a man who’s never even seen my face?
I get dressed in my thin, silk chemise and then pad barefoot into the room.
He is there, waiting, as usual.
His pristine, white dress shirt is unbuttoned two buttons, showing just the slightest peek of dark chest hair. His dark dress pants are unbuttoned and unzipped.
He still wears his mask.
“Um. Hello,” I say as I step inside and hit the button that begins our session. The door locks and the music starts.
“Ana,” he nearly growls. “Come sit on my lap.”
“No dancing tonight?” I ask.
“I think we’re past dancing, don’t you?” he asks.
I swallow back my nerves. I knew it would come to this. It could have been this since the beginning, but it hasn’t. He’s only ever given me pleasure. There’s no reason to think anything negative will happen.
But the air feels charged tonight. He feels…different.
I step toward him, and he reaches out, arm hooking around my waist, spinning me around, pulling me so my back is flush against his chest. His erection digs into my backside as he pushes my legs apart, fingers sliding up my thighs, then into my folds.
His breath is hot against my neck, heart beating fast against my back.
“Are you okay, Nik?” I ask, hearing the trepidation in my own voice.
“Remember your safe word,” is his only answer.
An index finger pushes hard against my clit while the rest of his hand splays wide on my mound. Two fingers from his other hand slide into my pussy. I’m wet because he makes me feel that way, but I’m still startled by the quick intrusion.
“Relax,” he says against my ear.
A shiver rolls through me, head to toe.
“Spread wide for me,” he instructs.
My legs fall open, but I can’t untense. My body is frozen, shivers rolling through like waves.
“Safe word?” he purrs.
“N-n-no,” I stammer. “No. It’s just—”
“You asked if I’m okay.” He says. “No. I’m not. But it’s not about you. You are my release. You are making everything outside go away. And I do feel vicious tonight. But I won’t take what you don’t want to give.”
Vicious.
Yes, that seems right. He seems agitated. Ravenous. Even on the border of violence.
I feel real fear. Wonders, suddenly, if he’s figured out who I am.
No. That can’t be it. He just said this isn’t about me.
Before I can think of something to say, he’s fingering me hard, unrelenting. He holds me in place, and I writhe, half out of fear and half from arousal.
Blue.The word hovers on my lips, the word that would make him stop.
It’s there as his fingers dig in, as he pinches my clit.
It’s there as he pushes me to the floor, hands and knees, taking me from behind, a thumb pressing insistently at the entrance to my ass.
The word Blue trembles at the edge of my voice, but I can’t say it.
I come. It’s painful and pleasurable, and I cry out, and it spurs him on. He frees his cock and rubs it against my ass, between my legs, through my soaking wet slit.
It occurs to me that he might just push his way in. He might just take my virginity like this, when I’m on all fours like an animal. He might just shove his giant cock inside my pussy and not know that he is taking this thing that is supposed to be special.
I almost uttered it. Blue. It’s right there, but I can’t find my voice, and I realize I’m crying. I’m not crying for pleasure. I’m flat-out crying because I have never, ever felt like a whore when I’ve been in here with him.
But tonight, I do. So I say it.
“Blue.”
He stops immediately. Backs away. I can’t stop crying.
I move to a sitting position on the floor, knees up against my chest as I sob.
I feel stupid and childish. What did I think was going to happen in here?
What game have I been playing?
“What happened?” he finally asks. He hasn’t taken off his mask. His cock is still semi-hard as he shoves it back into his pants, buttons up, and sits next to me on the floor.
“Why are you crying? Did I hurt you?”
I think about how I want to respond, but my mind is a jumble, so words just tumble out. Words I regret the minute I hear them leave my lips.
“I feel like a whore,” I say. “And I know this is…I know what type of place this is. I know what people do here. But I never. I’ve never done this before, and I came back because I never felt like that with you.
I felt…a connection. And I wanted to keep feeling it.
And things always felt good with you, so I always thought of you as a lover, not a client.
I forgot that you’re not my lover. You’re a client, and you pay me to work with you.
And I just…things got mixed up in my head. I’m sorry.”
“Ah,” is all he says.
“I really thought we had a connection. Not love – I’m not that naive – but something.” I want to sink into the floor. My mouth will not just shut. My mind will not just stop.
“I don’t know. Maybe we had respect? Mutual attraction?
I come here every week for you, only you, and I’d probably come without the money.
I just…I understand that we had to get to this point.
It’s been seven weeks, and I wanted you to come.
I wanted to please you the way you please me.
I just…tonight…I felt like nothing. Like I was worth nothing, it’s so childish.
I know. This is not some teenage thing. I’m not. This is so stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry,” he says in that thick, sexy Russian accent. “You have no reason to be sorry for hitting a limit. I asked you to say the word when you needed it. You said it. There is no sorry.”
“But I –”
“No,” he interrupts. He takes a deep, long breath and then blows it out.
“I knew you were different. More…innocent. I liked that. It meant you were only mine. And you are right, malyshka, there is more to this attraction between us. What you sense is real. When I knew you were hurt before, I wanted to kill someone. I would kill a man who touched you, in love or in hate. I mean that.”
His words hit a nerve, and I feel a shiver of thrill run through me.
But even as my body reacts, my mind won’t let me forget the truth, or the questions.
“It’s…hard to trust you,” I admit, pulling back just enough to catch my breath.
“I don’t even know your face. Don’t know your full name.
Don’t know anything about you. How am I supposed to…
feel anything real for someone I can’t see, can’t know? ”
“It is safer if you do not know who I really am.”
“It’s safer for you if you don’t know who I really am,” I argue. “This anonymity works for me. I’ve been okay with it. It’s just that tonight you were…different. Why?”
He sighs. “Life.”
“That’s…evasive.”
He lifts a shoulder.
Okay. Time for a change of tactic. “Tell me something true about you. Where are you from?”
“What is it they call that kind of question? A short ball?” Nik asks.
“A softball. Answer.”
“You know the answer. Russia.”
“Okay. When did you come to the United States?”
“Ten years ago.”
“How old were you then?”
“Eighteen.”
I think about this for a moment. “Did you come with family?”
“Yes,” he says. “My sister.”
“Is your sister younger or older?”
“Younger.”
Interesting. “So just you and your sister, who was a teenager?”
He nods but gives no other details.
“Why did you come?”
“To play my sport.”
“Which is?”
He shakes his head, then pauses, like he’s deciding how much truth to give me.
“I play hockey,” he says finally. “NHL. Got drafted when I was eighteen. My adoptive father thought it’d be good for my sister to have a taste of normal teenage life in the States, so he made me her legal guardian until she came of age.”
“Was that weird? Being, like, a parent when you were still just a teenager yourself? A teenager who was moving to a new country to play a professional sport. That seems like a lot of pressure.”
Nik sucks in his bottom lip, holding it between his teeth. “I would not have wanted to be so far away from my sister anyway. Our parents died when we were young. She was all I had, by blood.”
His voice lowers on the last words, and something flickers across his face—grief, maybe. Or guilt. It's hard to tell with him. Everything about Nik is tightly controlled, like he's lived too long knowing the cost of saying too much.
I wait, hoping he’ll say more. He doesn’t.
So I ask gently, “Have you always lived in Chicago?”
“Since we came, yes. I have always played here, which is good because I have…other business here.”
“You own other businesses?” I ask.
“No, I…well, yes. I own businesses. But I also manage some things for my adoptive father.”
“He has businesses here?”
“Yes.”
He’s being so evasive that it’s almost comical, especially because I have already figured out that there must be some sort of Russian mafia connection to this club.
If I had to guess, he’s the son of someone in the Russian Bratva, here to do low-level crime with the alibi of being a professional athlete.
Well, maybe not low level. He seems powerful, though I suppose the power may be connected to his confidence as a player.
He is interesting.
I want to keep talking and learning more about him, but I’ve asked all the questions I can think of.
“Do you want to know more about me?” I ask.
“Yes. Very much.”
I wait, but he doesn’t ask anything, doesn’t say anything. I sigh. “You’re a tough crowd.”
“I am…not used to this.”
This makes me laugh. “No,” I say, looking around this red velvet sex room. “I suppose getting to know you isn’t usually on the menu here.”
“It is not,” Nik answers, a shadow of a grin on his beautiful lips.
I contemplate kissing him. We don’t kiss often, not on the lips, but I wish we did. I dream of those lips. I hold myself back, though, because it gives me anxiety to think about my panic, my crying, my talking, having ruined this.
Pushing myself up to standing, I say, “I should go, probably?”
“Why?” he asks, and he sounds genuinely perplexed. “Our time is not yet up. Not even the first hour, and you said you would stay longer tonight.”
In that moment, he sounds young, even a little boyish. It makes me smile.
“Oh, and you still want me to stay? After I used the safe word? After…all this?”
“I do.”
I inhale slowly, exhale slowly. “Well, then, you have to tell me why.”
“Why?”
“Why did you want me to stay longer in the first place?”