Bitten: Dark Erotic Stories (3 page)

For the first time in her life, Gina feels how all those other men felt when she listened to them. Matt watches her talk with a steady gaze, eyes narrowing every time she shrugs, not letting her get away with anything. Not about where she came from, where she grew up, what she did for a living—she’d just have given him the same old lies. He wants to know how she feels about things. This bar, its bartender, the last book she read that he read as well. Even, at one point, Two-Day, who was laughing too loud and caught Matt’s eye. He listens with a look that says
thank you
, that says
I want to know you,
that says
who the fuck are you, you amazing thing.
For his part, Matt’s observations are wry, quick little BBs. He takes this bar about as seriously as Gina does. He comes here to write because its self-seriousness amuses him, because he works better with a little noise and a drink or two, because the books he ghostwrites benefit from the place’s vibe.

While Gina talks, she watches Matt’s hands, large, slightly rough, a writer but a guy who does his own yard work maybe, builds things or fixes things, and part of her brain never stops noticing, thinking the wholesome, easy way he lives inside his limbs. In this city, men inhabit their heads and their dicks and everything in between is at worst ignored, and at best organized and disciplined in the way of window dressing.

There’s Matt. Reaching across the table to adjust the wayward collar of Gina’s silk blouse. He lets a finger graze her chin. He doesn’t say anything, and what he is saying is that she is beautiful; and when is the last time a man treated Gina this way, as a genuine possibility? As a person with a life, a world that might be visited; as something more than the prettiest way to spend the next hour? How could Gina not take him into the lounge and fuck him immediately?

Gina is the one who says it out loud, acknowledges the fact that she and Matt are past conversation and into foreplay. He responds to her theory with a game grin and asks if she’d like to go somewhere with him. Gina looks at Two-Day, chatting now with a not-unattractive middle-aged woman. She can’t leave this bar; she knows she can’t leave this bar.

You might be wondering why Gina doesn’t just scram, seeing as how she’s already made the decision to play hooky on the soul-cut in favor of tasting the furiously compelling body of Matt. The reason is the scissors.

She tried to take them off once. Five years ago. She was flirting up an easy victim, his doors flew open like cheap plantation shutters, and when she looked up at his soul cluster all she saw was one red balloon. Just one. She’d never done that before, severed the last string of a guy’s soul. She’d never been the one to pull the trigger.

Once it wasn’t theoretical, Gina found she didn’t like doing it at all. That guy was the only time she’d found herself clicking onto news sites later, dreading to see his mug shot. Then, one evening a week later, she was about to turn onto the freeway on-ramp when she noticed the unmoving snake of red taillights ahead. She stuck to city streets and, when she turned on her radio, discovered the freeway closure was on account of a suicide.

She listened just long enough to ascertain the jumper was male, then slammed the “off” button and pulled over. She had the clear thought that Plantation Shutters—there was no doubt the jumper was he—was a weaselly little shit with a shallow life built on scrupulousness. When she’d come to the bar that night, he’d been aggressive and dangerously bored at first whiff, the type of guy who’d slip a girl a Roofie or leave a so-called friend coked-out and convulsing on the bathroom floor. He’d given his soul away, piece by piece by piece; every demon gave him a new chance to show a little discernment. He’d probably— he’d definitely—deserved to die.

Gina felt at once like the world was better without Plantation Shutters. And, at the same time, like the guy’s stink was unwashably on her.

Gina reached into her shirt and slipped the scissors out. The fine silver ball chain tickled her nape. She gently pulled the scissors, and the chain lengthened in a way that reminded her of a seat-belt harness. And then, for the first time since the day she’d put it on, she started to slip the chain up over her head.

The chain tightened quickly, decisively. Caught just under her neck, the scissors wedged between chin and clavicle. The fucker was not coming off. Gina’s a smart woman. She didn’t try twice.

To satisfy her curiosity, she allowed the chain to settle back to its normal length against her chest. Then grasped the scissors and slowly pulled out a little extra give. And stabbed herself in the chest as hard as she could.

You’re probably guessing she couldn’t even break skin, and you’re right. If you ever wondered if the phrase
a deal’s a deal
originated with situations like the one Gina was in: yup.

Gina never looked for loopholes before that day, but since then she’d kept up a constant test of her edges. Once she’s in the bar with an assignment, jetting’s out of the question. She crosses the threshold— the scissors blink awake and start to get warm. Then hot. Then get hotter until she can’t handle it and has to turn around. The time she made a real attempt, she got blistered for her trouble. And her boss was waiting for her when she got home that night, in the pale and glassy flesh, to make conversation and never once mention that he didn’t appreciate Gina’s newfound delinquent tendencies. He didn’t have to. She clicked into place like a toy soldier on a plastic peg. Gina the demon, like Gina the person, has always been a good girl.

So: if Gina wishes to have sex with Matt, she’ll have to do it here, and quickly. Luckily, she remembers the empty birthday lounge.

Matt is delighted to find that the lounge door is possessed of a lock. He’s smiling again, an endearing cowboy grin; he confesses that he hasn’t done anything like this since college. As soon as she steps out of her shoes, he has her by the hair with both hands, and they are up against a wall.

Matt runs hot; she can feel his skin through both layers of their clothes. He’s blond, he blushes easily, he’s blushing now. She’s disarmed by the sharpness of his gaze as he takes her in—there’s that melancholy again, right before he looks away. He lowers his mouth to her neck. He’s murmuring something into her hair,
Who the fuck are you, you amazing thing.
He is half-laughing in wonder as she unbuckles him and does battle with his zipper.

Matt does a fantastic job with Gina’s many buttons, exposing her belly to the cool air of the lounge and then his too-warm hands, making a happy sound in his throat when he discovers that the bow between the cups of her bra is, in fact, a front clasp.

He tells her she tastes good; she tastes like wine and cool beach air at night and something else, he doesn’t know what, he must further investigate, and this is the moment that the trouble begins.

What happens, unbeknownst to Gina, is that Two-Day and the not-unattractive middle-aged woman come to an understanding. Two-Day reaches for his wallet, stands, and makes his way to the front of the bar to settle her check.

Matt has won the fight with Gina’s pencil skirt. She’s giggling, liquored up, and terribly aroused and something like free. She has never wanted to see a penis in her life the way she wants to see Matt’s now; she finally, finally gets it, and she is ordering him to take off his pants in a voice that makes him laugh. That’s when the invisible scissors begin to vibrate.

It is subtle at first, but Gina notices right away. It’s a warning, and she knows it.
We should hurry,
she whispers to Matt, and he shrugs a whatever-you-want shrug and picks her up by the hips and lowers her onto the table. He sweeps aside the crumpled napkins and cake plates. He bites her earlobe and tells her
You say that now, but you’re just going to want to do it again.
When she laughs, the scissors tingle harder, and suddenly that tingle feels not only manageable but good—like part of what is happening. She realizes this isn’t going to be a problem. It is her birthday, and something wonderful is happening to her.

Matt stands at the edge of the table and pulls her against him by the legs. She wraps around him. He licks her nipple slowly.
Oh, I’m sorry, did you say I was supposed to hurry up?

The rest of Gina’s clothes have come off, even the anachronistic stockings. Matt’s shirt is still on, mostly, and that feels protective, makes her feel slightly less naked in the lounge of a swanky bar with the indistinct shadows of waitstaff brushing by the other side of the frosted-glass door. His skin is even hotter now; she feels it with her thighs against his hips, almost uncomfortably so. But in a moment that is going to be the least of her problems because Two-Day just left the building.

Matt is saying
I don’t have anything
, meaning, she supposes, a condom, and the idea that this matters boggles her. She starts to say
We’ll just have to trust each other
, but she is cut off mid-sentence by the sudden searing pain of the invisible scissors. She gasps, and in that moment, Matt slides inside her with a shocked sound of pleasure. He starts to move again and Gina sits up, grabs him by the shoulders, rocks against him—it feels good, so good it is breaking through the burning. The pain intensifies, and it is all she can feel—and then the wet motion inside her takes over again; the two sensations tango with each other. Matt is moaning
you are amazing, you are amazing
, and he is pulling off his shirt so that more of him can touch more of her. He stares at her in frank-eyed awe that reads as sadness, as knowledge that this feels too good and will not last long enough.

Of course, Matt cannot see what is really happening, which is this: the scissors are red-hot and starting to sink into the flesh of Gina’s chest. The pain is becoming so wild that she can’t see—she wonders if the scissors will sink all the way to her heart; in one short violent image she pictures that little red fist sliced in two; she begins to sob and she cannot stop.

But somehow, impossibly, her nervous system is a juggler, an acrobat, a magician, because she can still feel him in her, that solid good warmth, the movement getting rougher and more insistent and better and better. She fears she’ll scream, so she holds her breath. She grips him harder. She can’t stand this. Or: she can’t stand this if she lets him go.

Gina gives in. She is a demon, but her body is still a human body, and nothing is more powerful to the human body than surrender. She unsteels herself from her resistance and rides every sensation, the searing invisible scissors, Matt’s deep movements against the endings of her most exquisite nerves, his rough hands on either cheek, even his honey whiskey breath breaking over her as he presses his forehead into hers. Her body shakes. It shakes hard. She is in agony, and she is about to come.

Matt is whispering to her, she’s shaking harder, the tears streaming, the scissors digging deeper. She wonders if this is meant to kill her; she is amazed that Matt is just a man and cannot see the truth of what is happening to her heart, has no idea that she is with him, but she is also in hell. That’s when she realizes what Matt’s saying,
It’s okay, Gina, it’s okay, it’s all gonna be okay.
He pulls her against him, the white-hot scissors between them, and as the blades sink to touch her ribs, Gina’s body shudders and Matt catches her shriek in his hand clamped tight over her mouth.
That’s good, that’s right, it’s gonna be okay now.

Gina’s eyes fly open, and she sees that the doors in Matt’s chest have flung wide, but they are neither wood nor glass nor flesh; they are made of light.

The pain is gone. Gina is lying on the banquet table. Matt is standing over her, naked, watching her. He is standing too still. He is waiting for her to understand.

What did you do?
Gina asks.

Matt smiles sympathetically. He looks so ordinary. He looks like a regular man, damp and rumpled from illicit sex.

Gina puts a hand to her chest. She sits bolt upright.
Give them back
.

You don’t want them back.

If you don’t give them back, he’ll kill me.

Gina. I did you a favor.

Gina stares at Matt. She is thinking about what’s in store for her. She goes numb at the thought.

Matt touches her cheek with his fingertips. She’s forgotten how to move. He still looks beautiful to her. She decides to memorize his face, because she’ll need a pretty memory soon. She says,
Wish me happy birthday.

Matt looks surprised.
Happy birthday, Gorgeous.

Gina looks away as Matt dresses. Her limbs are sore and heavy and warm. She’s heard stories about this sort of thing—the kinds of stories you and I have heard, and probably, like Gina, dismissed as religious bullshit, but also some low-to-the-ground rumors with details she now realizes are legitimate. Even a thing or two about how she could get her scissors back. If she wanted to.

When she looks up, Matt is gone. She knows what’s waiting for her when she gets home: the boss. Might as well get dressed and drive to Santa Monica to face her fate.

Except: the air in here, in this lounge. It smells like Matt’s skin, his breath; it smells like his body and her body mixed and made liquid by heat, and also like good whiskey and like chocolate cake frosted with happy words. Somewhere in the air is the invisible smoke of the scissors burning her flesh and the invisible smoke of the candles blown out at the birthday party. The air is full of wishes. Some of them granted, maybe.

Gina leans back on her hands on the table and crosses her legs, still naked. The Devil can damn well come to her.