Breaking Leila (10 page)

“I’m not sure
I’m feeling that sorry for myself.”

He grabbed my
hand and dragged me toward the door. “I’ll show you a few moves.
I’m a professional now, remember?”

When I laid
eyes on the heaving mass of bodies in the club, I remembered why
whoring had seemed so attractive. The dance floor writhed like a
pit of snakes: girls regarding each other with green-eyed glares
and men with necks stiff as cobras, surveying the perimeter for
flesh. In the humid weight of their sweat, I longed for the
concrete transaction of my old job.

Frankly, it had
been far more glamorous than this.

“Stop sticking
your nose up.” Aidan pushed a bottle of water into my hand.

“They look like
they’re all on E,” I complained.

“Not me. My
cock is a temple.”

“What?”

“Impotence. That’s all you get out of drugs in the end.” He
led me out to the edge of the floor, jerking his neck in an
embarrassingly
 
Thriller
-esque manner.

“Talking from
experience?”

“Not for a very
long time.” He pulled me toward him by the hips.

“Christ, that
makes me feel old.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, the water
bottle dangling in my fingers. “I’m twenty-four. Have I peaked
already, do you think?”

“Shut up,” he
laughed, spinning me about.

“I’ll bring
that iced tea up all over your shoes!”

“If that
occurs, there will be spanking of the nude and public variety.
You’ve been warned…”

Aidan shoved me back into the hoard, his hips rocking against
mine. We rolled our shoulders alternately, laughing. Sweat oozed
beneath our clothes. He kept
 
accidentally
 
backing
into men, grinding against them before they realized his intentions
and sprang away with horrified faces. Then he urged me into others
he saw watching, rolling his eyes as I swatted their hands
away.

I didn’t want
to admit it, but...were we having fun? Ooh la la.

At one point, a
rather hairy old guy made to grab me and Aidan swung me away.
Pressed right into him, I was very aware of the bulge in his
trousers.

“Aid!” I
giggled. “And I’m still dressed, too…”

“What?” He
dropped his head to whisper in my ear. “Don’t tell me you aren’t
flattered.”

“It’s
 
you
.”

“I have
standards!” He brushed pouty lips against my neck. “What do you
say?”

I winced. “I’m
not in need of a pity fuck.”

He drew back, smiling at me. “Lei-Lei. It
is
 
never
 
a pity fuck.”

“Yeah, well…not
in the mood.”

He pressed his
palm to my forehead. “Excuse me? Are you ill?”

“Ha ha. Very
funny.” I shoved him back toward the floor. “Now dance for the
puppet master!”

“Aren’t we
bossy?”

We spent
another hour dancing and teasing before collapsing into a booth, me
complaining about my ridiculous shoes, Aidan grumbling about how
he’d failed to pull.

“It’d be rude
of you to leave me, anyway,” I said.

“I
 
am
 
rude, Lei-Lei. Besides…I thought you’d want to
watch.”

Outside, the
cool breeze was like rain in the desert and the club had left sand
in my mouth. I clutched his arm as we began the walk home.

“How do you
still have so much energy?” I asked.

“I train for
three hours a day.” He paused. “Oh, and then there’s all the
shagging.”

“Which do you
think works you harder?”

“Look at this
body.” He dragged up his shirt to flash a slither of honed belly.
“Do you think men last long on this?”

“I know that
feeling.” I giggled.

“Women quite
like it, too.”

“Oh, stop
hinting!” I poked him in the ribs. “You’re not having my sofa if
you’re going to attempt to rape me at three in the morning.”

“Yeah, you keep
telling yourself that.”

“Ooh.” Above
us, trailing purple blossom cascaded over someone’s garden fence.
“Can you smell that? I love lilacs.”

“Pwetty
flowers,” he cooed.

Lilacs reminded
me of home. Every spring, I would sit beneath the trees in my
parents’ garden, having tea parties with my dolls and teddies. A
bunch of the sweet-scented flowers always sat in the middle of the
blanket amid the mud pies and daisy chains.

“Can you reach
them, Aid?”

He clapped a hand over his mouth in mock horror. “Are you
suggesting we
 
steal
?”

“Technically,
these are on the other side of the fence. I’m sure they won’t
notice...”

He snapped off
three fat stems, depositing them in my open hands. A bouquet of
knives. I closed my eyes for a moment and immersed myself in the
mellow perfume and rough glass edges, and there in the near-dark, I
felt better than I had all week. Worlds should be made of flowers–I
could throw myself upon them in decadent, heady suicide and lie
that the blood stains were roses.

Perhaps I’d
already done that.

I looped my arm
back through his and we finished the walk to my flat in comfortable
silence.

In the end,
Aidan’s libido gave out before it got the better of him. He
collapsed on the sofa and passed out cold in five minutes. He
looked comical in my small lounge, his legs dangling over the side
and arms thrown above his head like an infant.

The lilacs were
strangely at home in a glass jug on my bedside table. The smell
soaked the room, thick and sweet. It was near enough one in the
morning but I wasn’t ready for sleep, so I fixed myself a drink and
got out my laptop–credit card safely elsewhere, of course.

My homepage was still the Ladarna website. That needed to
change, but I couldn’t resist flicking through. The pit of my
stomach lurched–my details had already been taken
down.
 
Charlotte has moved on
 
sat in a small, loopy font at
the top of my page. The words looked awfully lonely, and gone were
the photographs of the naked nymph bound in silky black scarves
that covered the necessary–breasts, mound, eyes. I imagined Joseph
staring at them, the look on his face the moment he realized that
the tied girl was me. Maybe his brow furrowed just a touch. Maybe
he squinted in the dim light. And maybe my red hair had given me
away? Who knew.

Despite it all,
Charlotte loved that he’d noticed.

Chapter 5

Sunday afternoons, like hangovers, stretched the dregs of the
weekend into dithering instalments of
 
blah
.
When I finally peeled Aidan off the sofa, it was past noon and time
to sink my teeth into the weekly heap of paperwork. Joy.

My mother rang
at four, as she did every week. I listened quietly to her strained
tone, answered the questions she always asked. Had I had a job
offer? Yes, as good as. Was I sure I wanted to stay in London,
wasn’t it awfully lonely? I liked it there. Yes, my rape alarm
still worked–Charlotte sniggered. Would I be visiting soon?
Hopefully on the way back from Stockbridge next weekend.

I did not
mention that I would be returning from my ex pimp’s wedding.

I asked how the business was doing and she skimmed the
question, changing the subject to something about Dad’s
wine-making. Since I’d started to pay off the debt for them, there
had been an air of awkwardness to all of our conversations as if I
now wielded some invisible power. If only they knew how frightening
it had been to realize how they’d fucked up because
of
 
me
. I had cried harder every time I
saw a transfer to my own account on their bank
statements.

It would all be
paid off in a few weeks. Perhaps then, we could pretend it had
never happened.

I had a
nutritious supper–Cornflakes–and stripped off for the shower.
Barely a hand slid into the hot mist before the doorbell rang.

Cursing, I
threw on an oversized, satin pyjama shirt and pulled open the front
door.

Joseph stood in
the hallway, hands in his neatly tailored pockets. He raised an
eyebrow at my state of undress.

“We have unfinished business,” he said, nudging me aside as
he strode in. The door closed behind him with a
 
click
.

I crossed my
arms over my chest, feeling unkempt and modest. “We do?”

“You were meant
to wait to finish the job.” He glanced around the flat. “It’s nice
in here. Smells like flowers.”

“I was, um…” I
blushed. “I was about to get in the shower.”

“I’ll join
you.”

“I won’t be
long–”

“Leila.” He
reached out and pulled me against him. “I have precisely forty-five
minutes before I have to be elsewhere.” He nuzzled into my throat,
kneaded my buttocks. The satin burned against my bare skin. “I’m
coming in with you.”

I stood on
tiptoe and caught his mouth with mine. After aching for the feel of
his tongue in my mouth for days, I kissed a bag of razors–thinly
sheathed violence that beckoned a wet release.

“I would’ve had
longer,” he breathed, “but it took me God knows how long to find
your address at the office.”

I broke into a
smile. “You couldn’t have waited?”

“I’m fucked if
I’ll spend another day at work with an excruciating hard-on.”

I near enough
dragged him into the bathroom, where the shower had swelled to a
frothy cascade. It was hard work not to rip the buttons from his
shirt and he took over in the end, his fingers more deft than mine.
We fell into the glass cubicle with his boxers still on and the
pyjama shirt hanging off my shoulders.

So little room to move–delicious, delicious. Muscles sprang
beneath his wet skin as he crushed me against him. He dropped his
head, sucking and nipping hard enough to leave red ribbons on my
white breasts, and I cried out as he administered each strawberry
smudge–I wanted to tell him to bite harder.
 
Bruise me
. It felt dirty and disloyal and achingly
 
right
 
at the same time.

We peeled the
wet clothes from each other and they fell on the tiles in sodden
heaps. My soapy hands found their way to his cock, and his hand
split the lips of my pussy, his thumb planted perfectly for rocking
against.

Joseph tried to
lift my legs around him but there wasn’t room. Then he turned me
and shoved me against the wall, but I couldn’t bend far enough for
him to enter. He swore, slapped my ass hard enough to leave a mark
and smacked the shower off with his other hand.

The air was
comparatively freezing as he tugged me into the bedroom, and crisp
sheets stuck to us as he pinned me on the bed. I’d never been able
to look him in the eye while we fucked. Between his shocking green
gaze and the perfume of the lilacs, I was sucked behind the looking
glass. I loved the way he watched me.

His wet hair sprinkled over the pillow, over my forehead, and
the noise of
 
us
 
roared into me–moans and sighs, the knock-shudder-shudder of
the headboard against the wall. My hips felt bruised from the
battery, but it was luscious and indulgent, like I was built to
yield. When his back arched, his shoulders tensed, pupils
dilated…I
 
knew
. I wrapped my legs around him
as he slowed, and kissed him, and he laughed into my wet hair as I
squeezed.

Then he drifted
down, pushed my thighs back with splayed palms and drenched my
sticky flesh in his breath. I rocked against him as he rolled my
clit between his lips, as he dragged his tongue like it weighed
enough to graze me. Every few minutes, he broke off to lick me
clean, gruff mumbles absorbed by the fluid that pooled between my
buttocks. Forceful, thorough...he was every bit as firm as I’d
hoped he would be, and when the orgasm he coaxed lapped the base of
my spine, I could’ve passed out on the sodden sheets and languished
in dreams until morning.

Already, he
emerged from the bathroom with a towel in hand. “I’m sorry,
sweetheart. I have to run.”

I stood to pat
him down. “It’s a shame.” I still trembled and my voice was not
exempt. “I’m very good at post-shower massages.”

He spanked me
lightly. “I’ll bet you are.”

I retrieved
his clothes from their heap on the floor. As he dressed, I zipped
his trousers, buttoned his shirt. Forced him back into the shell.
“Wherever you’re going, I hope they don’t mind you commando.”

“Dinner with
Isobel’s parents.” His eyes narrowed in a sardonic wince. “I hadn’t
planned on flashing them, but I suppose it’d be a good distraction
when they ask why I’m late.”

I straightened
his collar. “There. All done.”

“How do I
look?” He glanced around, searching for a mirror. Funny–in that
instant, I felt like one. Shiny, shiny me.

Shiny
Joseph.

“Honestly?
Freshly fucked.”

“Leila…not
everyone knows what that looks like.”

I brushed a red
curl from his shirt. “Isobel will know.” The room went tight like a
closed fist. I shouldn’t have said that–wouldn’t have, if he was
just a client.

The indecent
gleam of his eyes turned lucid. Already, the meander of welts
across my breasts swelled toward the teeth that had bestowed them.
The marks he’d left upon me were corporeal, but I’d left him with
only an impression, and Charlotte pawed at the air before it melted
to a mere memory. This butterfly wouldn’t die in a day.