Текст книги "Bend"

Автор книги: Alessandra Torre

Соавторы: Ella James,K. Bromberg
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

six.

“How was your morning?” Doctor Chapman—no, Elliot—asked. He had a tiny scratch on his left eyelid. Otherwise, he looked no worse for the wear.

“Fine,” I said. “Sorry about attacking you. I’m not usually like that.”

“You’re repressing a slew of emotions and memories. Stuff can only stay in lockdown so long.”

“Speaking of lockdown…” I curled my lip to the side. Elliot’s hands were folded in front of him, and his attention was fully on me. I didn’t know if anyone outside of Deacon had ever paid me such razor-sharp attention. “Is it even legal to have solitary confinement in a hospital?”

“I told Frances you needed an hour of restraints so you didn’t hurt yourself. I didn’t know how the tranq would affect you. Where did you get the idea of solitary?”

“She mentioned it. Like a threat. Not a fan of threats.”

“What about the thought of it scares you?” he asked.

“I didn’t say I was scared.”

“Okay. Why bring it up? I’m sure she told you plenty of rules. Why does that stick out?”

“Because it’s a legal issue.”

“Is it?”

“According to Amnesty International and a whole bunch of entities who think it’s wrong.”

“We’re a private institution serving a specific segment of society. We get some leeway,” he said.

“Meaning there’s enough money getting passed around that you can do what you want.”

“Money flows both ways. But if you need reassurances, and you might, it’s not something I’d sign off on for you.” He watched me, reading me, observing me like a thing in a cage.

I wiggled in my seat, as if that would throw him off, but it didn’t. The grip of his gaze only got tighter.

“You’re making me uncomfortable,” I said.

“You’re not here to be comfortable.”

How many times had Deacon said that when the backs of my knees bordered my face? Or when I didn’t sit right at breakfast and he straightened me out?

“I hear you’re a hardass,” I said.

“As long as you contribute to your treatment, you’ll have nothing negative to say about me. If you shut down or fail to participate fully, I will take note.”

“That’s hardassy.”

He smiled, and his face curved from chin to forehead. Somehow, those two words had either delighted him or thwarted his expectations. I didn’t know how to respond to his smile except to fidget and suppress my own grin.

“It’s the world outside your bubble, Fiona. What you call hardass, other people call real.”

“Where are you from, Doctor?”

“Elliot.”

“Elliot. Tough Loveland? Toobad City? A mile outside Hardscrabble?”

“Menlo Park.”

“Oh, sweet. Tech geek?” I asked.

“My dad actually knows how a microchip works. It’s fascinating and utterly boring at the same time. I ran as fast as I could.”

“To Los Angeles.”

I could imagine him on the train in the middle of the night, running from a world where people found practical applications for calculus. He’d fail as a writer/actor/musician and put himself through school as a therapist, finding a hidden talent, yet always yearning to spend his nights with that one creative task that fulfilled him.

“Pasadena,” he said.

“What’s in Pasadena?”

“I went to school there. Let’s get back to you.”

He was evading. It had been all over his face since he mentioned the city where his school was. Would he lie? Were therapists allowed to do that? I didn’t know if making our session about him would hurt my chances of release, but I wanted him to know if I could hold a conversation, act sane, function.

“Okay. Back to me,” I said. “I’ve been to Pasadena. I was screwing a skate kid who ollied the six sets at Cal Arts. Did we meet then?”

“No.”

“Pepperdine?”

“No.”

“Four Twenty College?” I mentioned the name of the pot school, where one could learn how to deal marijuana legally, with a lilt in my voice.

He took a deep breath then, as if resigned, said, “Fuller.”

“Fuller? That’s a seminary.”

“That a problem for you?”

“Did my father pick you personally?”

Elliot laughed again, rubbing the arm of his chair. “No. At least, I don’t think so. But I’m aware that your family is, if not religious, Catholic in a way that’s in the blood. I have no idea where you stand on it.”

“I’m a C and E.” I knew he’d know the term for Christmas and Easter Catholics.

“Why bother?”

“It’s nice to touch base twice a year. Jump the hoops. You know, show face. So you’re a priest? Or did you just say no to celibacy?”

“I’m Episcopalian, first off, so celibacy isn’t on the table. And I just haven’t been ordained.”

“Why not?”

“This is really all going to be about me, isn’t it?” he said.

“If you tell me why you’re not ordained, I’ll tell you something dirty I did.”

I felt the weight of my mistake instantly.

He got dead serious. “I know that’s how you’re used to being valued, but that’s not what you’re here for.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It came out before I thought about it.”

“That’s allowed. There was some discussion with the board about whether or not you should have a male therapist, but from what we could understand, it wouldn’t matter.”

“So I got the hardass, unordained priest who knows I’m bisexual.”

“You got the guy with the MDiv and PsyD who spent three years in a hospital chaplaincy in Compton. After that, I go where I’ll do the most good, not where I get the most authority.”

“Ah. Compton. You must have seen some bad shit.”

“Very bad shit.”

“Then why are you at the rich kids’ retreat?”

“I can do good here as well as there.” He wasn’t thrown. Not an inch. I respected that.

“I need you to do some good for me,” I said, feeling suddenly less vulnerable. “I want to go home.”

“To Maundy Street?”

Trick question? Maybe. Deacon was on that private road. Second house to the right. First house on the right, his shibari students. Only house on the left was where the parties were. Where the art was made. Where I surrendered to whomever my master allowed, and my hunger was sated for days at a time.

“I figure I’ll stay with my parents for a few weeks, then decide. I mean, unless the prosecutor decides for me.”

“Will you try to see Deacon?”

“Why?”

“It could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“I don’t know if it’s safe for you.”

How much longer was this session? Because it would take me that long to describe how fucking off base he was. Despite needing to get the fuck out of Westonwood, despite wanting to appear sane and stable, I couldn’t for the life of me let Elliot Chapman misunderstand my lover.

“I’m more afraid of you than I am of Deacon,” I said. “I’m more afraid of this chair. The sky would fall before he’d hurt me more than I could take. He is the only man, the only person in the world who has made me safe. And I mean, not safe from some boogeyman or earthquakes or random shit happening. I mean I had a place. I had things I had to do. I had rules. He was in control, and the only time things got fucked up was when I disobeyed him because I just had to fly off the fucking handle. And before you ask, and you will, he tied me up good. He gagged me and hit me. He made me cry a hundred times, and he wiped my tears and I thanked him for breaking me. I. Thanked. Him.”

I expected my speech to disgust him, to give him cause to judge me, call me sick and out of control. Instead, he waited, expressionless.

“Do you want to remember what happened?” he finally asked.

“Yes.”

“You might not be ready to remember.”

“I don’t feel right in my head. There are black spaces where feelings should be. Like someone came and erased stuff. I don’t know if it was the drugs or the Librium you people put me on or what. I can’t put stuff together. It’s like I have the horse and I can see the track, but she’s bucking, and the tack’s in pieces all over the barn. Does that make sense?”

He sat back, putting an ankle on a knee, elbows on the arms of the chair. He rubbed his lip with his middle finger. “Have you ever been hypnotized?”

“You’re joking.”

“Best case scenario, you recall enough to release some of the pain you’re in. Worst case scenario, you create a false memory that includes a unicorn and Jim Morrison in drag.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. That was the most ridiculous thing, and anything more ridiculous than what was actually happening deserved a laugh.

“Do I have to sit on the couch?” I indicated the long, uncomfortable divan behind me.

“Yes.”

I didn’t move.

“Come on,” he said, standing. “It’ll be fun.”

“Are you going to make me cluck like a chicken?”

“It’s just a relaxation technique. No more.”

I took three steps to cross the room and sat on the couch.

He stood over me. “Lie back.”

I looked up at him, a twisted smile on my face. I could fuck him. It should have occurred to me sooner. I was suddenly ready for sex, all tingling skin and hyper aware. I could sense his cock, its taste, its scent, its pink skin sliding against the silk of my thigh as it found its way home. It would feel so good, and if anyone needed to feel good, it was me.

“Lie back,” he said again with a voice so devoid of desire, my own need collapsed.

I put my feet up and my head back. He sat next to me on the edge of the couch.

“I want you to recall the last time you were at the stables, okay?” He held up a pen, and I watched the angles of his fingers on the instrument. He didn’t have a wedding ring. “Now focus on the tip of the pen.” He moved the pen back and forth, and I fell into the rhythm of his breathing. His voice, a velvet mask of gentleness, said, “I’m going to count backward from five.”

* * *

I feel a pressure on my hand. It’s Deacon, slipping his hand into mine. The gesture, in its adolescent simplicity, creates a rush of emotions I can’t hold back. I run out to the empty patio. There are candles everywhere from the cocktail hour, still flickering their last heated breaths. I’ve been without him for a week while he was on assignment, and now that he’s back, he’s a scary jar of emotion with a poorly threaded lid.

“Are you all right?” he asks, closing the glass door behind him.

“I’m fine, it’s just…” I’m not good at expressing myself unless I’m angry, and I’m not angry. I’m just about everything else.

He takes me by the waist with his right arm. He’s so tall, so handsome. His body moves like a leopard on the African plain. “Tell me.”

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

He smirks. He knows I’m not serious. He knows I’m broaching painful subjects by running away first.

“I’ll be more than happy to blindfold you.” He brushes his lips on my cheek. “But my eyes stay open. I want to see you beg for me later.”

“I miss you when you’re gone,” I say. “I can’t take it.”

“Ten years ago, I’d have been gone for six months at a stretch.”

When he says things like that, he reminds me of our age difference. Ten years ago, I was thirteen and he was almost thirty. I’ve never asked him what he sees in someone so young, because that would imply we have something more than a semi-casual open-hot-regular-fuck.

“Deacon, I’m sorry. I think now is a bad time, with everyone here.” I push him off me and turn away from the strip of twinkling lights that disappears into the black of the sea. “We can talk later.” I collect myself to pull him back to the glass doors.

I want to do a hundred crazy things. I want to grab a champagne bottle and down it. I want to stand on the railing and play at falling into the canyon. I want to get into my car and crash the gates. But he inspires me to be better than my impulses, and that’s why I need him.

He yanks me back. “We talk now.”

“You have guests.”

“They don’t need me. I can take you to the studio right now and knot you up and they’d be fine.” His face gets hard. He becomes the man who spent years photographing the horror of central Africa, who took pictures and walked away. The man kept behind a rock for three months while he was negotiated out. That man, like a real face behind a mask, or a mask on real face, I can’t disobey. “Talk,”

He doesn’t have to threaten me. There’s not a consequence in the world that would be stronger than his simple command. I don’t fear him. He makes me strong. He makes me dare.

“I’m not one of those girls who’s going to ask you where we are in a relationship,” I say. “Because I’m not stupid. What we have is exactly what I want. I have you when you’re here, which is most of the time. But if I want to fuck someone else, I just do it, no questions asked.”

“As long as you stay fit and safe, kitten.”

“My problem is, I’m starting to feel guilty about it.”

He nods and looks down at our clasped hands. “I see.”

“That’s not the deal. We agreed. It’s all clear, and it all works. But when you picked me up tonight…” I press my lips together and look out into the sparkling black skyline. “I wanted to run into your arms. I wanted to promise you my body and soul. Forsake all others. Beg you to make a commitment. And I wanted to run the other way and get high. Call Earl. Call Amanda. Fuck anything that walked. Fly to China to search for real opium.”

“I can get you that.”

“But you won’t.”

“Never.”

“Why are we even this far?”

He laughs a little to himself then puts his eyes back on my hand. “You…” He looks back up at me, eyes lit from one side by the light through the door and the other by the candles. “I’m not a jealous man. I’ve seen too much. And you, it was always a choice to share you or not have you.”

“I know and—”

He cuts me off with a finger to my lips. “You did something to me. I was functioning, but I was in absolute despair. And you bang on my car window.” He shakes his head. “You breathed life into me again. You gave me hope that everything on this waste of a planet isn’t shit. You gave me permission to enjoy myself for the sake of it. I needed it. I needed you for that, and now, things have changed. We’d be crazy to pretend it’s the same as it was two months ago even.”

I know what he’s asking. I want to sit, just to relieve the ache in my heart that’s traveled all over my body, but I’m afraid to move.

“You want to do this?” I ask.

“Do you?”

Did I? What reason would I have to take him up on a promise of fidelity? What was in it for me, except him? “I’ve never been faithful to anyone in my life. I’m not built for it.”

He laughs. “You’re built for a lot of things, kitten.”

“I want you, Deacon. I want you so bad.”

“I think we need this.”

“I won’t fail you,” I say, believing it from fingertips to core. I believe I can be exclusive to him.

“I know.”

He leans in to kiss me, his breath a draft of mint and the floral bloom of gin. I melt into his lips. My face scrunches, and the ache in my body slams back into my chest. I’m thrown by a bucking memory.

Fucking brain. Goddamn brain won’t let me kiss him. I’m on my bed in my stupid condo, weeping uncontrollably, and my sheets stink to heaven of fucking.

Fiona. I’m not going to wake you. I’m going to count to three. On three, think of your happiest moment.

I claw at the sheets until they rip.

One.

He is not the indestructible Dom. He’s just a man. I want to destroy the sheets, the bed, the room. In the middle of my self-loathing, a weight between my legs grows, a siren call to forgetfulness and obliteration. I throw a leg over the bed’s footboard and ride it.

Two.

I cry out, and that cry is drowned out by the breaking dam of my orgasm.

Three.

I’m on a small plane, on my back. Charlie fucks me, and Amanda’s face is right before me. Her tits brush my shoulder, her blond hair in my face. She smiles. She is beautiful. I open my mouth because I’m going to come. Charlie puts his lips on my cheek, grinding his sweet cock. Amanda’s eyelids drop when I put my wet fingers on her clit. I’m high, on some delicious drug that lets me feel the connection between us three, our surrender, the tightening and expanding space between us, the puzzle pieces of cocks and cunts and asses, how we all fit together like one big universe forever and ever, amen.

* * *

I breathed as if my lungs had been vacuum-packed into my rib cage. Elliot moved to face me as I gulped air.

“I’ve never seen anyone have such an intense experience,” he said.

“That’s me. Intense experience girl.” I grabbed his hand because I still felt as though I was falling.

He brought his other hand over mine. “You still don’t remember.”

“No. I’m tired.”

His green-grey eyes looked at me as if they were peeling me open. “What are you feeling?”

“Tiredness.”

“Don’t shut down.”

“I’m tired, and I want to…” I took a deep breath.

“You want to use.”

“Yes. But I got it. It’s not a problem.”

“You’re so sure? You haven’t promised yourself this before? That you would stop using drugs or having sex to keep from feeling?”

“Don’t push me. Please.”

“It’s my job to push you.”

I leaned back and closed my eyes. I shut him out. He may have said something. I felt his presence in the room, his breath, his existence, his virility, and I closed myself to it completely.

seven.

I didn’t sleep in the dark.

I didn’t really sleep, period.

I wasn’t a woe is me kind of girl, because it wasn’t as though I actually had problems. I didn’t pretend I was ever going to live under a bridge. I didn’t pretend bad shit didn’t exist. I didn’t pretend I didn’t live in some wider world. I got it. I had a television. I had the internet. But what was I supposed to do? Devote my life to serving the poor? Take away all the suffering in the world?

But usually the minutes before sleep was when the woe-is-me cantered in, and if it was dark and I couldn’t see something to focus on, they got bad. I hated them.

Your best friend died. You’re in a mental ward. You nearly killed the only man who ever understood you. Half your life floated in a grey blur. Big fucking deal. Buck up. Fuck everyone. There was nothing they could do to me I wouldn’t do to myself first.

Assholes.

Fucktards.

Animals feeding at a trough of fucking bile.

I didn’t even know who I was cursing anymore, but fuck them.

I was fine. And when I got out, I was going to bathe in hundred-dollar bills and cocaine just to prove it.

I crossed my legs and blacked into an orgasm that was flat and rageful and over too soon. In the aftermath, I wept, because my best friend died, and I was in a mental ward, and I’d nearly killed the only man who cared for me.

Fuck me.

eight.

“Your parents are in the waiting room,” Elliot said when I entered.

“Should I go see them?”

“After the session.”

“Making my dad wait?” I said, lying on the couch. “You’re a brave man.”

He seemed unimpressed with himself. “I want you to start with something pleasant,” Elliot said, getting into the seat behind me.

I wanted to turn and look at him. Without seeing his face, the calm, dusty timbre of his voice was without flaw, and it soothed me, which made me anxious. I didn’t trust my soothed, unregulated self. “I can just tell you about stuff. We don’t have to do the hypnosis.”

“Do you not want to?”

“Well, what do you want?”

“You have to make your own decision about how this goes.”

I didn’t trust my ability to make a decision. That had been my problem from the get-go. I could have just said that, but I was starting to think he didn’t trust me any more than I trusted myself.

“Can you tell me why you like the hypnosis?” I asked.

“You have an anxiety disorder. We’re medicating it, but the hypnosis backs up the relaxation without making you tired. And there’s a time limit on how long you can be in here. I think we need to do whatever we can to move this along.”

“I like all that.”

“Okay, you can stop any time you want by saying a word.”

“Like what? Like a safeword?” I wondered if he could see me smile.

“Sure. A safeword.”

“Pinkerton.”

“Pinkerton? The assassins of the old west?”

“The assassin of the 405.” I didn’t elaborate, because despite the slurry of medicine in my blood, I was going to cry.

“Okay,” he said after I sniffled audibly. “I’m counting back from five, and start with something pleasant.”

* * *

I’m horny.

The feeling hits like a freight train between my legs, before a scene or setting even comes into my mind. The swelling rush of blood to my clit begs for release. And then, the preoccupation. I have to get it. I don’t care where it comes from. I need arms and legs all over me. I need to smell sweat, cunt, and sticky sperm.

This is the last thing you remember? Can you take me back a minute or two? What happened before?

Elliot’s voice, in its pure perfection, doesn’t break the reverie, but the realization that I was speaking aloud about the bite of my arousal certainly does. I tell him no. I’m not going backward, because the smell of wet cock and the subtle sting of cocaine fills my face. At this point, I have no idea what I’m narrating and what I’m keeping to myself, and I have no feelings about it either way.

I’m sitting on a toilet in a tiny club bathroom stall. Everything is marble and glass, but a bathroom stall is a bathroom stall. I hear the thump thump of music. The Pompeii Room. I look up. Earl. He’s all right. Six-foot-four of pure stupid. Easy pickings. His dick is dusted with a fine powder.

“More,” I say.

“Greedy bitch.” He smiles and holds a baggie of coke over his erection. He taps a line onto it while I hold it level.

“I’m worth it,” I say before I snort the line off his cock. Ah, that’s just right, just that rush. The feeling of unmotivated pleasure exploding heart-to-brain-to-toes. I’m totally in control of everything in my line of sight, especially this fucker. “I’m going to suck your cock so hard your daddy’s gonna come.”

“Touch your pussy, baby,” he growls.

But I don’t. I won’t ever touch myself, and this dumbass never remembers. I swallow his dick before he can ask again.

“Oh, fuck, baby—”

The music suddenly gets louder as the bathroom door opens, smacking Earl in the ass.

“Excuse me,” the man in the dark suit says. He’s halfway to closing the door.

“No problem,” Earl says.

I look at the intruder in that fucking suit. He’s really not a problem. He’s more than good. More than tall. More than perfect. Dark hair and blue eyes. Rugged like a dock worker and refined like a prince. I have to stop him from leaving.

“Loosen that tie and get your cock out,” I say. “I’m enough woman for two.”

He smirks. “Sorry. I’m too much man for half a woman.”

The door shuts, and the music goes back to a dulled thump thump.

“Snap,” Earl says, aiming his dick at my lips again. “That was cold.”

I have two choices: finish sucking off Earl and let him get me off, or not.

“Suck it yourself,” I say, standing.

He grabs me by the neck. “Hey.”

I look him in the eye. “Don’t fuck with me, Earl. I say what goes and when. Jerk it off and make more.” I leave before he can object, pulling my shirt together as I pass a short guy washing his hands.

The club is thick with humanity. The dance floor stinks. The voices are like a bag of broken glass. The music is a throbbing heartbeat. And the man is gone.

I put my hands on bare, sweaty skin, pushing through. Amanda finds me, blond hair stuck to her forehead, lipstick fading. Her bodyguard, Joel, is two steps behind her with his dark glasses and firearm. She kisses me on the lips. I push her away.

“You see a guy in a suit? Tall? Hair like this?” I make a motion with my fingers.

“Hot?”

“Hot.”

She points at the exit with a wink. I smack a kiss on her lips and continue pushing through. She calls my name as I walk away, but I pretend I don’t hear her. I have a man to find.

Nothing like coke to make the impossible seem within reach, or to make it within your rights to shove, growl, and curse through a crowd just to get a look at some hot stranger. Nothing like that expansion of the ego to make it okay to push some squealing teenybopper out of your way when she screams “Fiona Drazen! You’re Fiona Drazen!” as if your name alone is front page fucking news.

Of course, they wait outside in a cluster, pressing against the red velvet ropes. Paparazzi don’t care about the weather, which is rainy and cold for Los Angeles. Lights flash. They call my name as if I even answer to it anymore. Let them get their pictures. I have him in my sights.

He hands the valet a tip and takes the keys to a black Range Rover.

He is a thoroughbred, and twenty assholes with cameras are between him and me, which is too bad, because I have to have him.

I put my knuckles out to them, both middle fingers extended for all they’re worth. I have rings on top of rings, and I know the lights will glint on them in the pictures. I’m going to look like a flashy rich bitch, and the coke tells me I don’t give a fucking shit what Daddy thinks.

I turn to the doorman, a skinny ex-cop with a pencil moustache. He looks at my chest then at my face. I know Irv. He’s a hustler. He keeps these assholes off us, but he takes their cash to let them know when Amanda and I show up.

“Irv! What the fuck?”

“I got it,” he says.

“Outta my way, cocksuckers!” I plow through them with Irv’s help.

They back off for him in a way they’d never do for me. I know they’d chew me up, spit me out, and photograph me crawling to the hospital. I get to the Range Rover and pound on the passenger-side window. It’s tinted. The car doesn’t move, and the window stays up. Do I have the right one?

“Fiona Drazen!”

They’re behind me, and I’m on the curb, out of Irv’s field of influence. If he comes to get me, he’s leaving the door, and that’s not cool. I pound on the window again. Bursts of light flash on it.

I’m about to get mobbed.

“Hey, asshole,” I shout.

The window rolls down so slowly, I feel as if I’m in a movie about falling.

And there he is. My heart jumps out of my chest.

“Hi,” I say, sticking my head in. I feel them behind me. I hear them calling my name, over and over. “You took something of mine outta the bathroom.”

“Really?” He’s older than I thought, and that makes him more attractive then humanly possible. “What?”

Fiona.

“My heart.” It’s a stupid come on, but I’m a girl. I can get away with it.

I’m going to count backward from three. At one, you’ll open your eyes feeling rested and relaxed.

“Ah. I thought maybe your shirt buttons.”

For the first time, he glances at my chest, and I feel that my breasts are chilled. My shirt is wide open, diamond-studded nipple rings glistening. Fucking Earl with his octopus hands.

Three.

“Don’t make me turn around,” I say. “They already got enough pictures.”

Two.

He takes a second to think about it, looking me straight in the face. A little smirk plays on the perfect line of his lips, and I think I just might die.

One.