Текст книги "Madame X "
Автор книги: Jasinda Wilder
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Fire burns.
In my throat, in my veins,
between my thighs.
Heat and moisture, fiery and potent as the scotch whisky in my belly, pools between my legs.
Logan’s nostrils flare, and I wonder if he can smell my essence. How long has passed now? How many minutes have been taken in the exchange of sips, mine and his? They’ve passed in silence, however many it is. But this silence—it is alive. Not mere absence of word or sound, but communication of something deeper, some language of eyes meeting and hands brushing and breaths counted, a syntax of sensuous gazes, and something deeper yet, something felt in the gut, something shared that cannot be enumerated or encapsulated or communicated in mere thought or language.
As there is something in the beauty of art that stirs the soul, so is there something in a profoundly vital silence that moves the heart.
His eyes move to my lips as I swallow the scotch, and this time I do not cough. I lick my lips, and his eyes follow the path of my tongue from mouth corner to corner, capturing each last drop of the whisky. His tongue moves, too. Between his lips, and I watch it as he watched me. I can almost taste his tongue and lips rather than my own.
His lips part, and he sighs, the air passing slightly through his nose as well. His brows are drawn down, the wrinkle at the bridge of his nose furrowed and deep. The sigh . . . it was the sound he made after kissing me.
Huh. That’s how it sounds. Huh, but a breath, rather than vibrating vocal cords.
I have that sound captured in my soul.
The tip of my nose touches his. The earth has tilted and I am falling into him. My elbows still on my knees, but my arms are crossed in an X, left hand drooping to my right knee and vice versa.
Three mouthfuls of scotch. I am not drunk; I am intoxicated by Logan.
There is a dab of liquid at the corner of Logan’s mouth. I am utterly seized by the need to lick it away. To kiss it away. To taste scotch on his skin. I lean forward, breathing slowly, tongue sliding along my lips.
But at the last moment, I catch myself, stop. I could weep from the need to taste his kiss, to taste whisky-honeyed flesh. Instead, I touch my thumb to his mouth. Wipe. Smear. And then . . .
I suck the hint of moisture off my thumb. Logan’s chest makes a sound as of mountains colliding. A groan? A murmur?
Sense returns, albeit in dizzy snatches. I lurch to my feet, stumble away, bedroom bound.
He is too much. Too close. Too intense, too embedded in the meaning of my need and embroiled in the substance of my desire. I cannot fathom moments without him now. Yet I cannot breathe because he is all of the fractal seconds I possess, he is every stuttered fragment of time, and each breath is a drink of him. Intoxicated, I breathe yet more of him. Drowning, I am become nothing but the taste of his presence, the flavor of his eyes on mine and the glance of knuckle past knuckle, the feast of a memory of a kiss.
I close my bedroom door and collapse backward against it. I hear nothing. Only the thunderous pound of my heart, the knowledge of my guilt. The promise of what cameras have seen, and what I will suffer for it.
I hear my front door open. It’s a subtle sound, a click of the knob twisting, the latch sliding in. The whisper of weather seal on hardwood.
Suddenly, panic seizes me.
If he leaves now, I will collapse inward like a star under its own weight.
Unthinking, I tear open my bedroom door, flee out, across the living room, the tumbler, now empty, alone on the coffee table. My front door is closing. I catch it.
“Logan?”
I don’t know what comes next; I haven’t thought this far ahead. I just knew I couldn’t let him leave like that.
I see him now. Back turned to me, broad shoulders bowed and hunched, hard fists clenched, beautiful head ducked. An imposing, virile, masculine figure, arousing and erotic.
“Cinderella.” He hears my door, twists his head to look at me over his shoulder. He is not smiling, and his chest is heaving as if his breath has been leeched by intense physical combat.
“Prince Charming.” It is whispered, barely audible, a small, sibilant sound.
I have stepped across my threshold. Out into the hallway. Out of the purview of the cameras.
Another unspoken rule, violated.
What comes next?
I crash against his chest, and his hands are on my back, low, pulling me against him. We twist, a dancing series of steps, his mouth slanting across mine, not just kissing but tasting, feeling, probing, daring, teasing. We spin. I am lifted free of the ground, and my spine is up against the wall beside my door, a full 360-degree rotation. His hands on my back. Oh . . . lower. Fingertips digging into the soft bubble of my backside’s upper swell. I feel his heart beating a double-hammer rhythm in his chest, as furious as my own. My arms . . . slipping serpentine around his neck, hands cupping the back of his head and his nape beneath his hair, soft, firm, warm, strong.
I kiss him.
Push up with my mouth and engage his kiss.
All the world ceases to exist. Fades. Flickers and gutters, a candle flame extinguished.
Oh, this kiss.
It is all.
The whole of history and the entire potentiality of the future.
The minutiae of the present, compressed into the singularity of his mouth on mine, his hands tender and strong and confident, gently exploring the curve of my bottom and the bell of my hips. Tug, keeping me taut against him.
I feel his erection thickening between us, so flush against his hard body am I.
I am condensed into a mass of need.
The kiss is rapture, his tongue sliding between my lips, tasting me, slipping and seeking. I taste him in return, kiss him back. Demand with my body his kiss, his touch. His hands move down to the backs of my thighs, cup, curl, and suddenly I am airborne, and my legs seem to know what to do. They wrap around his trim wedge of a waist. I writhe. Moan. Is that my throat, making so needy a noise? It is. His hand is at the back of my neck, under the knot of my hair, his other arm beneath my bottom, supporting me, holding me.
Our kiss is one of starvation, as if we’ve both gone all our lives without this, knowing in our guts we needed it and not having a name for it or a definition of it but now here it is and we cannot live without it another moment. A kiss of utter need.
I writhe, my legs around his waist, my core grinding against his belly. My breasts crushed against his chest.
I could come from the kiss alone, nearly do.
“X . . .” he breathes, and the kiss is broken.
Ding.
I leap down off him, twist away and dart through the doorway, running for my room. Slam my bedroom door behind me. Dive under the covers of my bed.
I tremble.
I weep, so wired with ecstasy I could light a city. Weep, the tears wetting the sheet under my cheek, overwhelmed, overcome. And, as I weep, eyes clenched closed, I see him. Blond hair hanging around his face, and now his hand brushes through it, pushing it back. His eyes are warm, knowing, caressing me with their ultraviolet light. And I feel him, his body around mine, his hands on me, his lips on mine, his tongue inside my mouth. I taste him. Scotch and faint cinnamon.
Tears on my cheeks, chest heaving with a wild disarray of emotions, I am subsumed beneath a wave of need so potent I writhe on my bed, legs scissoring. My dress is hiked up around my hips, and I am covered under my blankets. I am hyperaware of my hand as it steals across my belly and between my legs. Slips under the elastic of my underwear. I lick my lips and taste the salt of tears and the faint impression of scotch and the flavor of Logan’s lips. I feel his mouth on mine. His hands on my backside, caressing, squeezing, exploring with such sweet possessive gentility. And his kiss, how it blazed alight within me, fire in my soul, making me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt.
I touch myself.
I put my fingers to my privates, slip them into my damp heat, and I make myself come, once, hard, immediately upon contact, faster than thought, and I see his eyes, feel his breath, taste his need. I stifle a moan. I writhe against my fingers and pretend they are his, swiping against my clitoris, circling it . . . thus . . . making me come again, harder, and I pretend these are his fingers, two of them, diving deep into my slit, curling up and in, dragging wetness over my clitoris, and they are his fingers, smearing my essence in ever-faster circles until I jackknife under the blankets, huffing wild breaths of hot recycled air, teeth clamped down on my moans of his name.
“Logan . . . Logan . . .” Whispered, desperate.
I have to breathe fresh air. I toss the blankets back to my waist. Wipe at my eyes with my free hand. The one not still caught between my thighs. I’m not crying anymore, but I’m so distraught I don’t know how to even feel it all, how to express it. I could scream. Energy boils inside me, my entire body afire with adrenaline and memory and heat.
I need Logan.
I need him. God, I need him. He makes me feel alive. I am free in him, with him.
I rush to the window. Yes! There he is. Striding across the road, gait loose, easy. Hands in his pockets. He reaches the other side, stops, turns. Looks up. Can he know my window from all the others? It’s but a single rectangle of dim light in a city of incandescence. Am I lost in the glow?
I put a hand to the glass, palm flat, fingers spread next to my forehead touching the cool window. He sees me? He raises a hand, waves, once. And then, oh, then he puts his thumb to the corner of his mouth, as if wiping away a droplet of moisture. A gesture, repeated, mirrored. A sign?
Thirteen stories up, yet he sees me? Is it possible?
He turns away then. Descends the stairs down to the subway. Gone.
I quiver with the memory of his kiss, the aftershocks of my fantasy of his touch.
I’d do anything to make that fantasy reality.
Anything.
I know I will never sleep, so I go to my library and pretend to read, pretend I’m not thinking of him. Pretend I’m not machinating, hoping, dreaming—
Fantasizing of impossibilities.
I fall asleep in my chair in the library, lights on, in the silence, dreaming of blond hair and indigo eyes and lips that take me away from here.
THIRTEEN
I wake, disoriented, stiff.
And then I remember last night, and my fingertips touch my lips. I smile. I stretch, legs straightening away from the chair, spine stiffening and curling backward, arms tensed and trembling, a full-body stretch, feline and luxuriant.
Ding.
I blink in confusion; have I overslept? I am still in my dress from the previous day, hair messed and tangled and partially knotted, makeup smeared. I can feel makeup caked and flaking at my eyes.
The space of time between the arrival of the elevator and my front door smashing open is infinitesimal. A breath of a moment, less even.
A gargantuan black frame fills the doorway of my library. Thomas. “He sees the video from yesterday.” His voice is like the deepest bass note being electronically distorted lower. Impossibly deep, syrupy, and yet somehow smooth as silk.
I am slow, sleepy. “What? Who saw what video?”
Thomas takes three long angry strides toward me, towers over me, and the expression in his eyes is so terrifying I am shocked fully awake. “He see you and that man from the auction. With the yellow hair.”
“Caleb. He saw the tapes?” I’m starting to fathom the problem.
Thomas grips my arms, twists me, propels me toward the front door. “He is a madman. You must go.”
“Go?”
“Or I think you die. He is mad.” Thomas, with his thick African accent, does not mean mad as in angry, I realize. The implication is more frightening than mere anger.
I am barefoot. My shoes from yesterday sit forgotten, between the front door and the library. One, on its side. The other, upside down. I right them with my toes, stuff my feet into them. Shuffle to the door, untangling my hair.
Thomas growls in his chest. “No time for shoes, no time for fixing your pretty hair. GO!”
I let go my hair, take a step toward the door, and stumble out into the hallway, into the elevator, which stands open. The key is still in, twisted to the 13. Thomas, in his tailored Western suit, looks fierce and wild, the whites of his eyes flashing bright, teeth bared. Even in the Western suit, he looks like an ancient Nubian warrior. I can see him with a lion skin, a round shield, and a long spear, dancing in the dust and the baking heat of the African sun.
I blink, and it’s just Thomas again, in a black suit with a white shirt, thin black tie, a curly cord trailing down behind his ear and beneath his collar. His eyes go unfocused for a moment, and he touches a finger to the device in his ear, and then looks at me. He reaches in past me, twists the key up to the PH—penthouse—and then pulls me out of the elevator.
“Down the stairs.” He pushes open what I thought was a fire escape. Locked, equipped with a siren or something.
Just a crash bar and the markings of an emergency exit. No siren wails when I push the door open. A stairwell beyond, grayish-white walls, metal handrails, blue rubber-treaded stairs in a descending square spiral. Shoes in hand now, I run down the stairs. I trip and miss a step, hear Thomas’s voice, can’t make out the words. Lurch and stumble down the steps so fast my breasts jounce painfully. I miss another step as I reach a landing, trip, crash into the wall opposite. Pause to catch my breath, arm, elbow, and hip aching where I smashed into the drywall. Below, I hear a voice.
“She’s coming down the steps.” A male voice, nasal and unfamiliar. “Thomas alerted her, I think. Yes, sir . . . I’m on the way up from floor seven. Alan is on the ground floor. We’ll find her, sir, I promise. Yeah. I’ll update you when we have her. Unharmed, got it. Crystal, sir. Not a scratch.”
The voice is echoing from a few levels down and getting closer. Panic chokes me. I push through the door at the landing, marked with a black-painted 10. A clean, modern corridor, pale gray walls, cream carpeting, abstract paintings on the walls. An alcove, men’s room, women’s room. I duck into the women’s restroom, grip the counter and lean, gasping for air, fighting sobs. What is happening? Why did Thomas warn me, help me escape? Does he pity me, worry for me? Where did he think I would escape to? Nothing makes any sense. And the fire escape stairwell not being alarmed puzzles me as well. Perhaps he meant only to give Caleb’s anger time to cool off. I don’t know. I just know I have to seize the opportunity that is presented. I cannot stay here any longer. Not after what I’ve experienced with Logan.
What do I do now? I glance up at myself in the mirror. I look awful. I take a deep breath, push down my panic.
Clear thought, rational decisions. Do not act out of panic or fear.
I use my fingers to free my hair from its knot, losing a few long black strands in the process. The black stretchy hair tie has my hair tangled around it, and my hair is a matted disaster. I comb it out with my fingers as best I can and then twist it up into a bun, gathering all the loose strands, wetting it with the sink a little to smooth it all out. Tie it back. Hand soap and water, scrub my face clean. Dab dry with rough brown paper towel from an automatic dispenser—which took me a moment to figure out.
Face clean, hair neat. I straighten my dress, smooth out the worst of the wrinkles as best as possible. Adjust my cleavage. Tug the hem down. Slip on my shoes. Deep breath.
Exit, find the stairwell, glance back, debate trying the elevator. They’re looking for me on the stairs now, I assume.
As I’m internally debating, I hear static crackle echoing in the stairwell, a male voice. I move away, follow the corridor around a left turn, slip through a glass doorway into an office. There’s a desk, ornate, polished wood. Tall potted plants in the corners, pointillist art on a wall.
A young woman with a headset sits behind the desk, facing a computer screen. “Can I help you?”
“I think I got off on the wrong floor,” I say. “Can you point me back to the elevators?”
Her eyes narrow, flick over me. She’s looking for something. “May I see your security badge, miss?”
“I—”
She touches a button in front of her. “If you could just wait a moment, I’ll have security come up and we’ll get you a temporary ID badge.”
I turn and duck out.
“Miss? You have to come back!” Her voice is loud, then quieted as the heavy glass door swings closed behind me.
Back to the elevators, touch the call button. Wait, panic rising in my gut. The elevator doors hiss open, and I step into the empty car. This is not the same elevator as stops at my door. There are buttons, dozens of them: G, a numeral one with a star beside it, and then numbers ascending all the way up to fifty-eight. My floor, thirteen, is missing. I look twice: ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen . . .
I push the G. Garage? I don’t know.
Sensation of descent. Some instinct has me press the two, and the car stops. I get out on the second floor, suppressing panic. I assume there are security cameras everywhere, that the guards are only moments behind me. I have a thousand problems ahead of me, but all I want right now is to get out of this building.
As I step out, peer side to side, a security guard in a black suit, walkie-talkie in hand, strides around a corner, sees me, shouts. “Stop!”
I duck back in, press the DOOR CLOSE icon, jab the first number my finger finds. The uppermost one, fifty-eight. I hear a fist pound on the door outside, but the elevator is in motion. Up, up, up.
I abruptly punch the button for the sixth floor; the elevator stops, the door slides open, and I step out. Peer side to side, see no one. Lean into the elevator, touch fifty-eight again and let the elevator resume its ascent.
I look around: flat white walls, no decorations, bare concrete floor, industrial, raw, unfinished-looking. Exposed beams above, painted black, exposed pipes painted the same. The hallway extends some twenty feet without door or marking of any kind, then turns right. I follow it, and now there are doors on either side of the hallway, staggered so no door is directly across from another. Door after door. Plain entry doors, no peephole, the door painted the same flat white with large black numerals in industrial stencils. I count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . . even numbers on the right, odds on the left. I count twelve doors.
I hear the elevator ding and the doors open. “Yeah, I’m in pursuit on the sixth floor. Copy that. One second.” The same nasally voice from the stairwell.
My heart thunders, my throat closes. I grab the nearest doorknob, twist, push. Oddly, it opens; I was expecting it to be locked.
I have a sense of disorientation, déjà vu. This could be my condo, down to the flooring and the dimensions and the paint. The only difference is the artwork on the walls, and there is no Louis XIV chair here, but the couch is the same, built-in bookshelves are the same, a kitchen connected to the living room via open floor plan, a short hallway leading to the single bedroom with the en suite bathroom, a smaller office opposite the bedroom. Instead of a library, I see exercise equipment: a huge purple exercise ball, free weights, weight machines.
Out of habit, I close the front door behind me. It clicks loudly as it closes. Footsteps, bare feet on hardwood.
“Caleb?” A soft female voice, thin, high, a twang to it.
I have no hope of hiding or ducking back out; I can only hope this girl will be sympathetic to my plight.
Short, petite, with reddish-blond hair, freckles, pale brown eyes. Very beautiful. Heart-shaped face, delicate chin. Expressive, expectant eyes.
“You ain’t—aren’t, I mean—you aren’t Caleb.”
“No, I am most certainly not.”
“Who are you?”
I hesitate, infinitesimally. “I am Madame X.”
“That’s your name?”
“Yes. And yours?” I endeavor to seem confident.
Shrug, as if it doesn’t matter. “I’m Six-nine-seven-one-three. For now. But I’m gonna be Rachel.”
My heart twists. “Six-nine . . . what?”
A gesture, pointing at the door opposite. “Across the way, she’s Six-nine-seven-one-four.” A finger pointing next door. “She’s Five. Down the way are Seven and Nine, and across from us are Two, Six, and Eight. That’s all of us, for now.”
“I’m confused.” I have to lean back against the door. Something niggles at me. An idea, a horrible idea.
The girl is dressed in a shift; that’s the only word for it. It’s not a dress, not a nightgown. It’s plain white thin cotton, hangs at midshin. She is very clearly nude beneath it. Barefoot. Hair in a simple low ponytail, no makeup, no paint on fingers or toes.
“It’s my apprentice number. Who are you, and why are you here?”
“I work for Caleb.” It’s the truth and hopefully sounds authoritative.
“But why are you here?” The girl steps toward me, suspicion in her eyes. “Ain’t nobody ever—” She winces, starts over. “I mean . . . No one ever visits except Caleb. No one, not ever. So who are you, and what do you want?”
I examine the ceiling, the corners where the molding joins. “Are you watched?”
“Watched?” Six-nine-seven-one-three follows my gaze. “You mean cameras?” A snort of derision. “You got to be kidding me. This whole floor is off-monitor. This one, nine, fifty-eight, and obviously Caleb’s penthouse up top. Thirteen don’t exist, or there’s no way to get to it. Rumor is Caleb has a secret lair on the thirteenth floor, like a red room or something. But this floor, nine, and fifty-eight, there’s no security cameras or audio. Too much risk, I guess. Can’t have people knowing what’s going on, right?”
I shake my head. “What happens on these three floors . . . Rachel?”
The girl doesn’t answer right away. “I ain’t—I’m not Rachel yet. Haven’t earned my name yet. I’m just Three . . . for now.” Side-eyed glance of speculation; a decision reached. “And if you don’t know, I probably shouldn’t tell you.”
I push past the girl, walk to the window, my favorite window, the same one, same place. Slightly lower view, but nearly as comforting. Watch the cars pass, pedestrians. Familiar, soothing. I can almost breathe.
Silence. Padding feet on the wood, I smell shampoo and soap. “You said your name is Madame X?”
“I’m his secret on the thirteenth floor,” I whisper.
“What do you do?” She leans against the window frame opposite me, assuming a familiar pose that suggests she spends as much time standing here as I do at my own window.
“If you don’t know, I probably shouldn’t tell you,” I said.
“That ain’t fair. I didn’t even know you existed. How am I supposed to know?”
“Exactly. I didn’t know you existed either, Three.” I turn, rest my shoulder against the window. “You said it was your apprentice number. Apprentice what?”
“Apprentice bride.” This is whispered. “That’s my goal, at least. First I have to make Escort, and then Companion. Then Bride.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me and all the other girls on this floor, we’re the property of Indigo Services. We’re part of the apprenticeship program.”
“Property?” I can barely get the word out.
A steady, even look. “I signed up for it. So did all the others, so don’t you get no look of fuckin’ pity in your eyes for me. It’s better than being on the streets, and that’s where I’d still be if it wasn’t for Caleb. I’m drug free. No pimp. No debt. None of that bullshit. It’s a way out. I ain’t a slave. I know you’re thinking that word. You don’t know me, so don’t you fuckin’ judge me, bitch.”
“I’m not judging you, Three. I just don’t understand.”
“How can you not? Was you born on fuckin’ Mars or something?”
My instincts kick in. “‘Were you,’ you mean.”
Three snarls at me, upper lip curled in a sneer. “I don’t get what’s so wrong with the way I talk. Caleb’s always raggin’ on me about it, too.”
“Perception is vital. Proper speech creates the impression of class, Three. Proper grammar, lucid, concise syntax. No vulgarity. You wish to be taken seriously? Then you must act like a—” I was going to say gentleman, but I have to change tactics. “Like a lady. A woman of class.”
“Who the hell are you, Madame X?”
“Someone much like you, I fear, only much less self-aware, I’m realizing.” I glance at the door. “Can you leave? If you wanted to?”
Three makes a face. “Course I can. I mean, I wouldn’t, but I could. Door ain’t locked, elevator works. Once a week I get to go on a practice date with Caleb up to Rhapsody. I get a new dress, new shoes, get to put on makeup. If I do well, he might take me outside, out there, for the monthly final.”
I have to formulate my question carefully. “Three, could you—could you explain for me how the program works?”
A shrug. “Sure. Easy. I was homeless. Workin’ the street, right? Got no way to feed myself, so I ended up selling the only thing of any value I had, get it? Myself. Then I met Caleb. He hired me for a whole day. Guess he saw something, I don’t know. Potential? Told me he had a program that would give me skills, and eventually a life off the streets. Kind of a training program followed by a matchmaking program, all in one. Right now, I’m in the training program.”
“What kind of training?”
Another lazy, indolent shrug. I itch to correct her comportment, but it isn’t my job to do so. “Everything. There’s a tutor, Mr. Powers. He does the usual school kind of stuff. Helps us get a GED, if we need one, or furthers our education if we have a diploma already. Or he can do guided studies in specific areas. You’re interested in science or some shit, he can help you find resources and whatever. Anyway, Mr. Powers is always on me to speak proper, too, but I grew up talkin’ like this, everyone I knew talked like this, and some habits are hard to break, you know? And then there’s Miss Lisa. She’s head of the program. Keeps track of our progress, tells us what we need to do to improve, to get up to the next level. She’s the head boss, lead supervisor basically. And then . . . there’s Caleb.”
“And what does he do?” I ask. I’m not sure I want to know the answer, though.
Three doesn’t answer me, won’t look at me. Her pale cheeks redden. “I shouldn’t be prudish about this, considerin’ where he found me. What I was doing.” Another pause. For courage, I think. “He teaches us how to please. How to act attractive. How to seduce. How to look, how to dress, how to—how to fuck.”
“And he teaches you all of this personally, does he?”
Widening of the eyes. “Oh yes. Of course. He delivers the final exam. Makes sure we’re ready for each stage. An Escort has fewer requirements than a Companion, and a Bride has the most of all.”
“Requirements?” My voice sounds faint.
Three shrugs. “It’s complicated. Learnin’ those differences is part of the training, so it ain’t like I can just sum it up in one or two sentences, you know?” A glance away, out the window. “I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff anyway. Ain’t supposed to be talking about it to anyone not in the program. We signed an agreement. But you’re the big secret on floor thirteen, so I’m guessing you probably got secrets of your own. You ain’t gonna rat me out to Caleb, are you?”
I shake my head. “No, Three. I won’t. I promise.”
I have a million, million questions, but I don’t even know where to start. But Three suddenly bolts upright, away from the window, glances at the plain wall clock.
“Shit! You gotta get out of here. I’ve got an assessment, like right now!”
“An assessment?”
“Yeah, with Caleb.”
“Caleb is coming here, now?”
We both hear a voice. One we both recognize. But rather than the usual calm, there is anger, hot and loud. “No, Douglas, it’s not going to be fucking fine. If she didn’t leave the building, then she’s hiding out somewhere. Fucking find her, or there will be hell to pay.” Right outside the door.
Three hisses in my ear. “Under the bed. Go! Don’t even breathe, okay? He won’t stay too long. ’Specially not in this mood.”
I hustle toward the bedroom, slide under the bed, make myself as small as possible. Arms under my chest, cheek to the dusty hardwood. Barely breathing.
I hear the door open. Hear that deep, gravelly voice. “Three. Good morning.”
“Caleb.” Three sounds . . . breathy. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“Not well. There’s been . . . a problem. It’s got me distracted, I’m afraid.” Footsteps on the hardwood, and I see shiny expensive tan leather shoes, khaki slacks. “Perhaps we should reschedule your assessment for tomorrow. I’m not sure I can focus at the moment.”
“But . . . Miss Lisa told me I’ve finally got my first Escort gig tomorrow, but only if I pass this assessment.” Three sounds genuinely disappointed. “Unless you think there’s a chance I might fail . . .”
“I think there’s very little risk of that, Three. Your progress has been remarkable.”
“You don’t think I could . . . help you with your mood?” Three’s voice goes low, sultry, rife with suggestion. “I know I can’t fix nothin’—”
“Three.” It’s a warning.
“Sorry, Caleb. I meant, fix anything.” I see feminine bare feet framed between larger shod ones. Three lifts up on her toes. A silence that speaks of something happening I can’t see. A kiss perhaps. Sounds, too quiet to interpret. “I could distract you from your . . . distractions, you know?”
I clench my teeth and breathe shallowly, slowly. They are moving closer, Three walking forward toward the bed, the Italian leather dress shoes walking backward.
It seems Three shall be assessed.
The bed above me dips under weight. Springs squeak. The shoes are inches from my face. Three’s feet shuffle, and then one knee touches the floor, the other. A belt buckle jingles, zipper sounds. The khaki slacks droop around ankles, and I get a glimpse of familiar hairy calves. Wet sounds. A male groan. Quiet, faint gagging.
“Very good, Three.” This, delivered through clenched teeth. “Mmmm. More tongue, more movement of your whole head. Don’t just suck. Alternate using your hands, your lips, and your tongue. Yes, like that.” A growl, as Three obviously demonstrates a particular . . . technique, I suppose.
My gut twists. Feelings I don’t dare examine rage within me.
Sucking, gagging, male grunts and groans, sighs. It goes on for longer than I would think possible. The sounds taper off for a moment or two, and then resume, silence, a female gag accompanied by a male groan.
