Текст книги "Cam Girl"
Автор книги: Leah Raeder
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
—SUMMER—
—4—
Incoming video call from gag4me.
I clicked ACCEPT and a window opened. On one side was me: tungsten floodlights toning my skin a soft copper, chest tilted toward the webcam. My body all lithe lines in a dark bra and jean shorts. Sultry half pout firmly pasted in place. On the other side, a black rectangle held my reflection. Clients rarely turned on their own cams. It cost more.
gag4me: good evening morgan
“Hey, baby.” I untucked one leg and stretched it across the bedspread, my fingertips skimming the inside of a thigh. Hoodie Allen’s “No Interruption” thumped in the background, a murky hip-hop heartbeat. “Should I call you ‘Gag,’ or would you prefer something else?”
gag4me: can u call me daddy
I dropped my head a little, batting my eyelashes at the cam. “Yes, Daddy. Is this better?”
gag4me: perfect
gag4me: your a bad girl arent u morgan
gag4me: u need to be punished
I gazed directly into the lens. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I don’t know what gets into me.”
gag4me: i know whats getting into u
gag4me: turn around
And so it went.
I turned. The chat transcript scrolled on my phone beside the pillow. I ran a hand over my ass and when he said to spank myself, I did. For ten dollars a minute, I’d do anything on my list of approved sex acts. And some not on the list.
“Daddy, it feels so good when you spank me. Is it supposed to hurt?”
gag4me: oh now u done it
gag4me: u need to learn your lesson
gag4me: take out daddys cock
In the nightstand, within easy reach, was a cache of my most-used toys: dildos in various skin tones, a vibrator, and several men’s ties.
I took out a peach cock and stroked it for the cam. “Like this, Daddy?”
gag4me: yea
gag4me: perfect
gag4me: suck me
This part had taken a while to get right. Sucking a silicone dick did fuck-all for me, aside from knowing someone out there was getting off watching. But when I closed my eyes and remembered things—a guy I’d once met in a bar who’d gone down on me in his backseat, my nails gouging the leather, leaving ten tiny half-moons—I could perform. I imagined that guy standing at the edge of my bed, unzipping. I imagined giving as good as I’d gotten. Kissing his head slowly, circling it with my tongue. Taking him in an inch at a time. Sucking him deep and pulling back, giving him the slightest scrape of my teeth.
gag4me: your a good little slut
gag4me: take your clothes off
I put the toy down, opened my jean shorts. Wriggled out with my legs in the air, ass to the cam. Hooked my thumbs in my thong and tugged.
gag4me: oh u bad girl
gag4me: did u wear that for me?
“Yes, Daddy. I was hoping you’d punish me.”
gag4me: take it off
I was naked so often these days it didn’t feel momentous. Brief chill on my skin, the thrill of that cold finger of air between my legs, then nothing.
“Do you want to fuck me, Daddy?”
gag4me: it wouldnt be right
gag4me: but i want u so bad
gag4me: finger yourself while i jerk off
My eyes glazed over, another memory taking hold. A soft hand between my legs. Night, gauzy sheets, skin whispering against skin. Fingers parting me, one to either side of my clit.
Every day, a million-plus girls the world over fuck themselves live on the Internet for money. What set girls like me—like all of Frankie’s crew—apart is that we took it to the next level. My profile page didn’t just show a tatted-up twentysomething cupping her tits. It showed my signature item: a necktie slung around my throat, pulled tight by my fist.
In kink, this is known as breath play.
gag4me: look at my cock bb
“It’s so big, Daddy. So big and hard. It must be torture. Can I help you release?”
gag4me: get the tie
I slid my free hand into the drawer, grasped a silk men’s necktie. Oxblood. The deepest of reds.
In my wardrobe I had dozens more in various patterns and hues. This was my favorite. It looked like a vein. When I slipped the loop over my head my libido finally kicked in, my heart stuttering to life. I cinched tighter and my thighs tensed. The finger I was mechanically grinding against started to feel like an actual part of my body rather than a medical instrument.
gag4me: tell me to come on your face
“I want you to come on my face, Daddy.”
gag4me: be daddys good little slut
gag4me: choke yourself
Neck flung back, tie taut. Silk dug into my carotids, my pulse twitching through the thread, the floodlights, the music, the whole world throbbing in sync. My lungs were full of dead air. Every blood cell rushed to my head, the body’s automatic attempt to save the brain. The brain will actually drain limbs and organs of precious blood to buy itself a few more seconds. When Ryan’s skull smashed open on the asphalt, his body poured red ink right out through that hole. Ellis once told me that near-death experiences are really just a short-circuiting brain releasing a final burst of electricity. For one moment, right at the end, a sort of hyperconsciousness activates. Every neuron fires in a barrage of rainbow light. You feel everything.
Near-death is the only time I feel anything now.
My eyes were closed. Or maybe I was blacking out already. Two fingers inside me, one fist on the noose. Limbs light as the air I could no longer breathe. All sound condensed into a heavy drone, filling my head like the ocean roaring out of a nautilus shell. Something tugged me upward. The lightness of my own body, so light it could no longer anchor itself to this earth.
I was going to come. You’re supposed to wait for the client to say when, but fuck, fuck, I was going to come.
In a vague way I sensed my arm spasming, pulling the tie tighter. If you catch the climax before it reaches crescendo you can prolong it. The trick is to keep breathing.
Except it’s hard.
It’s so hard.
To stay.
In this world.
I stared up at the glimmering brocade of golden Christmas lights weaving around the rafters. I’d passed out and woken up. It felt like a new day.
I loosened the tie with a tingling hand. My whole body felt fuzzy, blurred.
I pulled my laptop over from the edge of the bed.
gag4me: wow bb
gag4me: that was AMAAAAZING
gag4me: ty for a great time
gag4me: see u soon
gag4me left the room.
Session ended. Total: 14:43.
Fifteen minutes of masturbation while I strangled myself with a tie. One hundred and fifty bucks. And all I had to do was die a little death. On webcam, for a stranger.
I couldn’t tell if I’d actually come or not. Autoerotic asphyxiation plays havoc with the divide between pleasure and oblivion. And what’s the difference, really? Either way, it’s an annihilation. A small rehearsal for the grand exit that’s coming someday.
How can I stand masturbating for voyeurs half a dozen times per night? Because I’m addicted to losing myself. I’m the original Suicide Girl. I destroy myself on cam night after night and men (and sometimes women) watch me and come.
I shut my laptop lid. I’d made nearly one K tonight.
My room at the studio—which I never thought of as “the studio” but, like everyone else, just the house—took up the entire attic. My cam setup occupied one corner: floods fitted with umbrellas to generate soft, even light, a bed decked in eggshell-white sheets, salvaged lobster trap nightstand crammed with photography books, prints tacked to the wall. Clients sometimes asked about the prints. Did you take those photos, Morgan? Yes. Why are they all of broken things? Because I’m broken. Everything I look at looks broken, too.
I’d just slipped into pajama pants when the door banged open and a blond head ducked in. Dane.
“You okay?”
He’d been monitoring my cam—someone always monitored during breath play so I didn’t accidentally kill myself—and he’d seen me sign off. He knew I was fine. Just another excuse to come talk.
I gave him a droll look and crossed the room.
My real bed was a narrow twin wedged into the dormer window nook. I sprawled on it and pulled my knees up. The glass gleamed like a black mirror. Night cloaked Chebeague Island in a dark so deep and vacant it was less like darkness than outer space. Ocean fused with sky and even when I laid my forehead on the pane, there was nothing out there. In Maine, the abyss doesn’t lie beneath. It’s all around you.
Dane drifted nearer, studying my body. I still wore only a bra and sleep pants, tats exposed, spilling over my ribs and down one hip and up one arm. Most were from my myth obsession phase: gryphon, minotaur, chimera. I’d drawn the mockups; Hector, my old boss, had inked me. For no particular reason, they were all on my right side. I liked the asymmetry.
The last tattoo I’d ever inked was on an old friend. She’d had me draw a girl’s red-nailed hand, fingers clawed, skin sprouting black fur. “It’s for my little wolf,” she’d said.
Typically I discouraged lovers’ tats. Pick someone more permanent in your life. Child. Parent. Best friend.
“You killed it today.” Dane leaned on my desk. “Blew everyone else out of the water. Let’s celebrate.”
“The day’s not over yet,” I said, my breath ghosting onto the glass.
“Take a break. You’ll burn out.”
“That’s the idea.”
He came to the edge of the bed. In the window our faces rippled and warped, as if underwater.
“Your spot’s not in danger,” he said. “You’ll be number one again this month.”
His Henley clung to his chest and the wiry muscle coiling around his arms. Dane was lean in a serpentine way, a lazy grace in his body that could snap into hardness unexpectedly. I’d seen him work. He was one of us, a cam boy who jerked off for a mostly male audience. I’d watched him come on his belly. Watched him suck dildos while he stroked his dick. His eyebrows rose, prayerful, a humbled openness transfiguring his face when he came. An almost innocent beauty.
“I’m not worried about my spot.”
“The money?”
I shrugged.
“Then what’s in this for you?”
“Anesthesia.” I pressed my palm to the cool glass. “The more I work, the less I feel.”
Dane’s reflection locked eyes with mine. Two phantoms gazing at each other in a dark mirror.
“Take a walk with me,” he said.
A break from fucking inanimate objects might be nice.
I followed him downstairs past three flights of closed doors, slivers of light knifing along the edges. Behind each door a body was wet with lube and oil and maybe even actual human fluids. On the other side of a screen, somewhere in the world, another body responded.
A group of cammers hung out in the kitchen, laughing riotously as they passed around a bottle of Southern Comfort. Someone called for Dane to stay, but he merely waved. I felt their lingering eyes as we stepped outside.
Our house was a few hundred feet from the water. No moon tonight, but the Milky Way furled overhead, a pale twist of stardust stained with orchid and indigo dye. We picked our way across the sand, the house glow fading at our backs. I’d never really heard silence until I moved to Maine. The soft crash of the waves receded into white noise and became part of the emptiness, an emptiness so pure, so weighted and intense that it pressed against my skin, gripped me, held me, an absence become presence.
On nights like this, the silence was indistinguishable from my heart.
Dane skirted the rocks near the tide line and came to a halt. A shadow fluttered away from him. Then he bent over, and I realized he was stripping.
“The water’s freezing, you know.”
No answer, but I sensed his grin.
He tossed his jeans aside and dashed off, and I followed. I dropped my pants, kept my bra on. Dane howled when he hit the water and thrashed wildly, a bomb of spray exploding around him. I jumped in on his heels and screamed. Even in the depths of summer, the ocean up north is always cold.
We kicked and flailed and stirred up our blood. Dane swept an arm and sent a wave over my face, and looked very pleased with himself until I dunked him. Our legs locked, using each other for purchase as we wrestled, and in the icy water the warmth of his skin was a shock. He didn’t really fight. His hands lingered on my shoulders, my ribs, feeling me.
I pushed away.
Still couldn’t swim, but I’d learned to float. On my back, facing the vast black lens of the sky, I began to detach from myself. The cramp in my hand and the numbness between my legs felt distant, insignificant. I was as small to the universe as the stars were to me. The Milky Way looked like a scar, a half-healed wound letting the light bleed through.
“Where do you go?” Dane was close, but I couldn’t see him. As he spoke my ears dipped underwater and his voice went ultra-deep. “When you leave the house at night.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“I’m fascinated with you.”
My wet skin prickled.
On nights I couldn’t sleep, which was often, I’d take the skiff out. From Chebeague to Peaks Island was a good five-plus miles. Depending on the current, I could row it in under two hours. Then a short walk from the shore to Max’s house. By the time I got back home near dawn, my body had evolved past pain to some uncharted territory where I could slice my palm open on the gunwale and not even realize it till I saw the red mess on my clothes.
If my PT knew about this I’d be lectured from here to kingdom come.
“I go for walks,” I said vaguely. “To clear my head.”
“I could clear your head.”
“I am seriously overfucked these days, Dane.”
“Not the way you should be.”
I kicked myself upright, spitting salt water.
Dane stood close behind me, his hips at the waterline. His chest dripped with crystal beads, slick with starlight. He was a gorgeous man, and not for the first time I felt that telltale knot low in my belly. A different arousal than I felt when camming. Not because he was flesh and blood while my viewers were merely grains of light on a screen—it was the unpredictability. The unscriptedness. I didn’t have to play a role, wait for him to tell me what to do. I could step forward right now, wrap my arms around his neck, put my lips on his.
“Morgan.” The water shivered, that black mirror breaking as he moved closer. “You want this, too. I see it when you look at me.”
“What you see,” I said, not moving when his body stopped centimeters from mine, heat bridging the space between us, “is your own reflection. Not me.”
I turned and waded toward the beach.
Dane followed slowly, giving me time to dress. I waited on the rocks. He pulled his jeans on over wet briefs, watching me out of the corner of his eye.
“There’s a meeting Friday,” he said finally. “Frankie wants to expand. She’s bringing in some people to talk about it.”
“Who?”
“Some web guy and some sales shills.”
“Okay.”
“I want you there.”
“Forget it,” I said, standing. “I’m not getting into some power struggle between you two. I’m here to work.”
“It’s not because I don’t trust her. It’s because I trust you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know me. If I see my reflection in you, it’s because we’re the same.”
Now I gave him the side-eye. “So I’m a shady player with commitment issues?”
“And a sexy smile.”
“Don’t even start. Did you miss the sign saying ‘Emotionally Unavailable’?”
“Big words. I read slow.”
Grudgingly, I smiled. Dane smiled back, all boy-devil mischief. My heart gave one hard knock to remind me it was still there. We trekked together up the beach, his gaze on me the whole time, and I thought, If only you were someone else. If only you were that someone.
Dane thought I’d gone to bed. I texted him good night, player and set my phone aside. Then I opened my laptop and switched on the proxy.
We scouted other cam sites religiously, to poach talent and sniff out trends and generally be ruthless motherfuckers. Frankie sussed the competition; Dane and I were too busy jerking off on cam. She’d become the de facto boss even though Dane was an equal partner in the company. It didn’t concern me.
The only thing that mattered was that I knew which sites catered to which fetishes.
It took only ten minutes to find her. “Ariel” was Canadian. I caught a trace of her accent, the curve in her vowels. Her profile described her as a “kinky-ass bi nerd girl.” Short auburn hair and Buddy Holly glasses and a hoop nose ring. In her photo gallery she masturbated with a vibrating Xbox controller. Doctor Who and Firefly posters plastered the walls.
young_rae-z: what kind of games do you play
Dahlz: Read her bio.
sweet_ophelia: do you do breath play, bb?
young_rae-z: who made you mod dahlz
Dahlz: Who taught you how to read? Oh right, no one.
Ariel stretched, her nipples poking through her sheer tee in hard studs. “I play lots of stuff, Young. Right now I’m on a Diablo III kick. You guys like Diablo?” Her voice was nasal, cynical. “Yeah, Sweet, I do breath play.”
I clicked the PRIVATE CHAT button.
When the video stream loaded, Ariel’s smile had changed, no longer ironic but sultry. Her voice slowed. She looked into the lens, establishing eye contact even though she couldn’t see me.
All the usual cam tricks. I smiled.
“Hi, baby. What can I do for you tonight?”
sweet_ophelia: hello, Ariel
sweet_ophelia: are you comfortable choking yourself?
“Sure, I can do that for you, baby.”
sweet_ophelia: thank you
sweet_ophelia: can you call me Morgan, please?
“Of course, Morgan. You’re so polite.”
sweet_ophelia: and you’re beautiful
sweet_ophelia: your eyes are amazing
sweet_ophelia: the perfect shade of green
Just like hers.
“A sweet talker. I lucked out.” She laughed, low in her throat. “Do you want to tell me about yourself?”
sweet_ophelia: no, bb
sweet_ophelia: I’d like you to be quiet now
sweet_ophelia: and take off your shirt
I leaned back in my chair, my thighs spreading. One hand inside my pants. My breath came fast.
sweet_ophelia: squeeze your tits
sweet_ophelia: good
sweet_ophelia: now put your hands around your neck
Dane took the yacht out Friday morning to ferry our guests over from the mainland. In the house, Frankie barked orders at the crew, prepping the dining room for her conference. I grabbed my camera and sneaked out the back door.
Fuck that corporate bullshit. I intended to remain a worker drone mindlessly serving the queen bee. The less I had to think, the better.
Chebeague was a small wooded island ten miles off the coast of Portland, with a year-round population of three-hundred-something souls. Those who wanted more quiet and isolation than the mainland offered, a place to feel away from it all without really being away. Open beach stretched from our front steps to the ocean, but behind the house was a thick quilt of pine, so lush and deep you could walk a dozen feet and feel transported into myth. In the trees the light turned eerie green, pollen sparkling like gold dust. Nymph shadows flickered at the edge of vision. The branches thrived with birds like nerve impulses, swallows in royal and peacock blues, orioles in goldenrod, flashes of intense color. Underfoot the earth was damp and fragrant as coffee grounds.
I followed a deer trail to the coast. Even on the brightest summer days the ocean was a weary gray-blue, an aluminum sheet dented by the sun. Our neighbor islands were dark smudges in the mist. From above, Casco Bay looked like a shattered emerald strewn along the coast of Maine. We were too far from the mainland to hear the city—out here it was only the shriek of seabirds, the sweep and sigh of waves. A distant bell when the ferry docked.
On the stone below me, a seagull pecked at a mound of bloody flesh. There wasn’t enough left to tell what it had been when it lived. I slithered down the rocks, slow and steady, snapping photos. This was the kind of shit I lived for now. Things coming apart. Insides, stuffing and stitching. Undoings.
The gull spooked and flapped off. I got in close for a macro shot of mangled meat glistening in the sun. Not sure, but that small red lump might be a heart.
The hair rose on the back of my neck. I slowed my breathing until my pulse echoed in my ears.
Red, wet meat. Like Ryan’s broken skull, gray matter bathed in blood. Like the bone jutting through my skin as my arm went numb, forever.
Look at it, I told myself. Stop being a little bitch. Face it.
Face what you did.
I felt like I was going to puke.
Breathe.
Waves on stone. Spray and fizz. Far off, a bell and a foghorn. Eternal, unchanging.
Instead of backtracking through the woods, I made my way down to the shore and followed it around the island, a slog through wet sand. My running shoes filled with muck and I was sweaty and the sun was directly overhead by the time the house came into view.
I needed to talk to someone. I didn’t care about interrupting Frankie’s meeting. What would she do, fire her highest earner?
I just needed to talk. To get out of my own head for a minute.
I flung open the French doors and stormed into the dining room. Everyone turned.
Frankie sat on one side of the table, black curls in a springy nimbus around her head, eyebrows raised. Dane slouched beside her, and then our lawyer, tapping on an iPad. Across from them sat a handful of guys I’d never seen before, in slacks and collared shirts. And at the foot of the table, right in front of me, was—
My chest went tight as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.
“Nice of you to finally join us,” Frankie said.
Dane waved me over, pulling up a chair.
If I hadn’t barged in I could’ve backed out, but it was too late now. I sat down. Their stares weighed on me, one heavier than all the others combined. The last person I wanted to see. Sitting five feet away. In my house. In my life.
“This is the girl I was telling you about,” Frankie said. “Our highest earner, Morgan. Morgan, this is blah, blah, blah—”
I heard nothing, saw nothing except that face. The one that stared back, reflecting my shock. Wide eyes the color of sun filtering through leaves, a green haze speckled with gold.
“And this,” Frankie said, “is—”
“Ellis Carraway,” I finished, my voice flat. “We’ve met.”
Here’s how the meeting went.
FRANKIE: So. Expansion. We’re opening new houses.
DANE: I’ll be heading up our first branch.
VADA: [Glares at Ellis.]
ELLIS: [Stares at the table.]
FRANKIE: And I want to experiment with new tiers of service. Private group sessions, subscription plans. Can we add that to the existing infrastructure?
ELLIS: [Still facing the tabletop.] Sure. But it’s better if you start with a clean slate. I had a look at your code. It’s a mess.
FRANKIE: Does it matter?
ELLIS: [Shrugs.] You want to build new levels atop a house of cards. Eventually it’ll crash. Then you’ll have to rebuild anyway, and your business might be offline until you do. Huge waste of resources.
FRANKIE: Okay. We’ll do it your way. Clean slate.
VADA: She’s going to redo the entire site? That’s a huge waste of resources. It works fine as is.
ELLIS: [Finally looks at Vada.] Sometimes you think it’s working fine as is, when it’s really falling apart.
VADA: So you want to raze it to the ground. Destroy everything and rebuild it to fit your vision, not ours.
ELLIS: If you build on top of a collapsing foundation, it won’t last anyway.
VADA: Maybe it isn’t meant to last. We’re not even sure it’s what we want long term. But you want us to commit everything. Risk it all.
ELLIS: So think it over. You shouldn’t commit to something you’re not really serious about.
VADA: And you shouldn’t push us to take the next step before we’re ready.
FRANKIE: [Glances at Vada, then Elle.]
DANE: What the hell are they talking about?
FRANKIE: Enough. We’ve heard both sides. Let’s vote. All in favor of a rebuild?
[FRANKIE, DANE, and the LAWYER raise their hands. VADA folds her arms and scowls.]
FRANKIE: The ayes have it. Morgan, your petulance is noted.
DANE: [Snorts.]
VADA: Do you even know what that word means, Dane?
DANE: Does it mean you’re kind of a bitch?
ELLIS: [Covers her mouth, hiding a smile.]
FRANKIE: Darlings. Save the foreplay for the clients. Now, let’s talk search engine visibility. How can we . . .
The discussion continued while I sat there and seethed, not parsing another word till people scooted their chairs back and said their good-byes. Dane touched my arm. I eyed his hand as if it were a leech.
“I’m taking her to the mainland,” he said, nodding at Ellis. “The boys have their own ride.”
I started to stand and he gripped tighter.
“Come with.”
“No chance.”
“Don’t you want to catch up?”
I didn’t know where to begin with that. Instead I said, “You told me you were meeting ‘some web guy.’ ”
“I thought ‘Ellis’ was a guy.”
I groaned. My shoes felt full of quicksand. I was still disgusting from the hike.
“I need a shower,” I said. “And I’ve got stuff to do.”
“More important stuff than seeing your best friend?”
I’d avoided looking at her, but now I forced myself. She stood at the edge of the room, tall and lanky and awkward, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She wore a gingham button-up with skinny jeans and black Chucks. As I watched, she spun a long bang around one finger, over and over, until it wound so tight she gave a start. Nervous habit. Sometimes she’d done it with my hair, not realizing.
My heart clenched.
“Come on,” Dane cooed. “Don’t be so stubborn. Besides, do you really want to leave me alone with her? I’m a predator.”
“You’re as dangerous as a teddy bear.”
But I ended up on the yacht anyway, Dane in the upper-deck captain’s chair, me and Ellis at the stern rail.
The boat was old yet in good repair, a gleaming white fang cutting smoothly through the water. Dane coasted along slowly. Giving us time to catch up. In my head I went back to last night and held him under till he stopped struggling.
Elle kept shooting glances at me, but averted her face when I glanced back. Wind whipped her shirt and traced the outline of those thin bird bones. Against the ocean blue her hair looked redder, the only living thing in a drowned world. A freighter in the distance gave a mournful bellow, like whalesong.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“Then stop staring at me.”
Her hands curled around the rail. “This is all so—it’s so weird.”
“Yeah, must be weird seeing someone you never wanted to see again, right in your fucking workplace. Wonder how that feels.”
No response.
Foam trailed in our wake, scarves of air rustling through the water.
“You’re a cam girl,” Ellis said finally.
“Are you judging me?”
“It just doesn’t seem like you.”
“It’s not.” I smiled. “I’m not me anymore. You don’t know me.”
“I guess not, ‘Morgan.’ ”
My smile fell. I called out to Dane, “Can we hurry the fuck up, please?”
His aviator sunglasses flashed. He caressed the wheel, unhurried.
I couldn’t take this. I headed down to the cabin and paced to the bow, not seeing any of the leather furniture, the polished wood and glass. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and my first instinct was to go down, not up.
Elle followed. I knew she would.
I rounded on her and said, “Don’t take this job.”
Out of Dane’s sight, we both let the pretense of ambivalence drop. Her jaw locked, rouge rising into her cheeks.
“I need it,” she said. “I’m broke, too.”
“Did Mommy’s money finally run out?”
“Stop it. Stop trying to push me away instead of talking it through.”
“What’s there to talk about? You made it pretty clear what you want.”
“I was hurt. I was trying to make the pain stop, same as you.”
I tried to smirk but it came out more of a sneer. “Gee, sure hope your pain stopped, because everything stopped for me. My heart. My entire fucking world.”
Ellis winced, her hand half rising in supplication. I should have left then, but I could never walk away from a fight. Something in me craved damage. To myself, to others.
“You were treating me like dirt,” she said plaintively. “What was I supposed to do?”
“It’s called depression, Elle. It sorta happens when you kill somebody and lose everything. Sorry I wasn’t a model human being while I was depressed.”
“Before then. It was before then, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve already seen this episode. Spoiler alert: it ends with us realizing we hate each other.”
“You hate me but you’re calling yourself Morgan? You let guys call you that while you get off? Strange way of hating someone.”
“Well, I’ve changed. You wouldn’t want to know me anymore.”
“You haven’t changed that much. You’re still a total bitch.”
Despite myself, I laughed. So rare to hear her swear. I was really pressing her buttons.
My laughter made something flicker in her eyes. Something soft.
I looked away. “This job is a mistake. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
“We’re just going to hurt each other again. You were right about the clean break.”
“No, I wasn’t. I’ve been miserable and lonely and depressed. Just like you.”
“You don’t know shit about how I’ve been.”
She stepped closer. We were practically the same height, and for once she stood straight, meeting me eye-to-eye. “You looked so tired, so hollow, but when you saw me your eyes went bright. Like you were waking up.”
“It’s moot. I’m not the person you knew. She’s gone.”
“You still have her face, and her voice. I missed them so much.”
Every word chipped into the walls inside me. “Listen, Ellis. I’m a cam girl now. A well-paid Internet whore. I do filthy, fucked-up things for money, and I like it. I’m not your princess anymore. Take me off the pedestal.”
“It’s still you. Just a different part of you.”
“Stop being so fucking understanding. It’s exhausting.” My good hand curled in and out of a fist. “You were right to move on. I was an asshole. Still am.”
“I didn’t move on.”
“Then who was in your house?”
She shook her head. “We haven’t seen each other in months and that’s what you want to know? Not if I’m okay, but if I’ve replaced you?”
“Did you miss the ‘I’m an asshole’ part?”
“You’re still doing it. Pushing me away because you’re scared.”
“No shit I’m scared.” I leaned closer. It took monstrous self-discipline to keep my hands still. To not put them on her. “You know what I learned in all these months? That I built my whole fucking life around you. My entire adult life. Five years. I’m totally lost on my own. You know how terrifying it is, to be that dependent on someone?”
“Yeah, I do. I was that dependent on you.” Her hand floated toward me again, grazed my forearm, my fingers. “You’re all I had.”
“I made you miserable.”
“I’m miserable without you, too. We both are.”
I would’ve killed for something to hold. A beer, a cigarette. Her. “I begged you. I never beg anyone, but I begged you for another chance. And you let me go. It fucking broke me.” Stay hard. Stay cold. “Go home, Elle. Go find another job. Go live in your nice house with your new friend.”
