Instead of giving it to me, he pulled his hand out. “Do you want to come?”
His signing was less angry now. More cold and precise.
Those fingers. I wanted them back inside me. I had tried. Every chance I got, I had tried with other boys. But this…
This was what I had been missing. What I had never been able to achieve with any of the guys I hooked up with after parties or drunken meet-cutes at bars.
Yes, yes, I wanted to come. I nodded and reached for his hand.
But he didn’t let me have it.
“You forgot to beg,” he signed, raising his hand comically high in the air where I couldn’t possibly reach it.
I would love to say that this was the part where I found some pride I didn’t know I had and told him where he could stuff his request. Maybe I would’ve gone that route if the moaning, “Please,” hadn’t fallen out of my mouth so fast.
A hard beat. Anything could’ve happened next. He could’ve laughed and made fun of me for actually begging him to make me come.
But he didn’t.
He roughly placed my hands on the mirror, forcing me to brace myself against the cold glass.
“Now watch this monster,” he signed. “Watch this monster fuck you the way you fucked me.”
He fisted my braids and plunged into me without any warning beyond that.
A surprised moan fell from my mouth when he filled me with one stroke. It was somehow a shock and a relief all at once. Three times…we’d only done this three times in Japan. But I’d missed him. Missed this. Missed us. Him inside of me again was the weird homecoming I hadn’t known I wanted.
This wasn’t like before, though. There wasn’t any care. No gentleness. Victor just took me hard and rough. His strokes were merciless and demanding.
I wish I could say I was the victim in this. Someone who wanted no part in his games.
But it didn’t work like that. My rules…the feelings I should probably be having about this encounter fell into a murky pool of grey.
His hand dropped down to my clit, rubbing me savagely as he thrust into me from behind.
And oh, my God…
The orgasm overtook me, obliterating everything in its path and leaving nothing in its wake.
All my morals. All my pride. All my dignity. Nothing survived.
And just when I thought I couldn’t be humiliated any further, he abruptly pulled out. All I could see from my vantage point in the mirror was his arm jerking. Then he threw his head back, his teeth clenching before I felt a warm splatter against my backside.
It took me a moment to process what he’d done. He’d pulled out of me instead of coming inside of me. But why?
The answer came back, immediate and unvarnished: Punishment. This was another part of the punishment. He was denying me the intimacy we’d shared the other three times we’d done this together. Debasing me. Showing me that for him, this was just a fuck. Not love.
Not what it had been before.
I wasn’t going to cry. I refused to cry.
“Was that hate-fucky enough for you?” I asked instead, keeping my voice tough and mocking.
Instead of answering, he got up and disposed of the condom he’d taken off just to punishment spooge on my ass.
He wasn’t looking at me, but I watched him as he walked over to a pile of clothes just outside the open door and calmly started putting them back on.
What would come next? I hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the cafeteria. Would we go out now like we used to on the weekends when I convinced my mom to let me hang with “the girls from art club?” Have dinner to celebrate our insanely fucked up wedding?
After he finished getting dressed, he raised his hands. I figured to command me to put my clothes back on too. Or maybe to take a shower. I was a naked mess.
But he just signed, “Do not leave Rhode Island without permission. This state is now your home.”
My heart sank with more disappointment. Lena and I had talked about me coming up to Boston, or maybe her coming down to visit me in New York. There was no way I’d be able to explain this huge house, so I’d have to go to her.
I asked the next logical question, “How do I ask for permission?”
Victor regarded me for a cold few seconds. Then he walked out.
He left. He just…left.
I pulled on the sports shorts and Mount Holyoke tee I put on that morning. Back when I was still just a fresh college grad, preparing to enter the next phase of my life with a Peter Pan bus ride to New York.
But by the time I got back down to the living room, I spied the Bentley pulling out of the driveway from the large front window. He was leaving without a sign of explanation or any indication of when he’d be back.
For what had to be the millionth time that day, I asked myself, What in the entire fuck?
6
DAWN
The next morning, a guy walked into the house’s front hall, carrying a big cardboard box in his arms. He just walked in without even knocking.
The night before, I’d taken advantage of the house’s frontloading washer and dryer, which I could use without inserting any quarters whatsoever—yay! So luckily, I was dressed in a clean version of my Mount Holyoke shorts and t-shirt. Otherwise, he would’ve gotten a show when he looked over to the living room where I was sitting on the couch. I’d been watching the first season of RSW: College Mic Drop, the latest Rap Star Wives spin-off, starring Nitra Mello, the daughter from the original RSW flagship show.
“Who are you?” I rose from the couch and inched closer to the fireplace rack. Most home invaders don’t bust in carrying boxes. But I wanted to be within arm’s reach of the iron poker just in case.
“Oh, hey, I’m Yaron. Victor sent me…”
He set down the box, allowing me to see him better.
This Yaron didn’t look like somebody Victor would send. No visible tattoos or muscles that I could see. He had one of those super multicultural looks that made it seem as though he could be from anywhere. Black hair, slightly tanned skin, tilted brown eyes, and out-turned ears like President Obama. He sported a sloppy man bun, but his hairline sat pretty far back. So maybe he was older than he appeared. He also had a slight accent, which I couldn’t quite say for sure was Chinese.
“Hi, Yaron,” I answered, just to be polite before I asked, “Why did Victor send you?”
“To drive you around. Keep anybody from messing with you. Make sure you don’t get in any trouble while he’s gone. You know, stuff like that,” Yaron answered as if this was a list of things that every prisoner wife got after agreeing to marry the devil.
He hitched a thumb toward the door. “I got a few more of your boxes to bring in. Hold on.”
Wait, the box he’d brought in was for me?
I turned off the two college-aged reality stars arguing on TV to shuffle over to the front hall and check it out. The box’s flaps were just folded on top, with no packing tape, so it was easy to open up. Inside I found a bunch of the things I left behind in my dorm room.
Whoa. What kind of weirdo kidnapped someone in the middle of packing but makes sure to complete the job? I even found my Sidekick iD phone in the box, a way cheaper version of the Sidekick 3. It had been the nicest phone I could afford back when the first iPhone came out. Guess Victor wasn’t scared about me having it.