Disengaged: A Dangerously Forbidden Love Affair (14 page)

SIXTEEN

Tuesday, the name of the girl watching me, had no shame. I guessed she must have been in her mid-thirties, but she was at that stage in life where she was ageless. Still beautiful and fit, but not twenty anymore.

She drug us both into the shower to wash me down then herself, cursing me the entire time. When she got out, she turned the water to cold and left me there. I didn’t bother to chase her. I was too busy trying to sober up. The only hair on my body was on my head. I’d never felt my legs so smooth much less my crotch. Knowing someone had groomed me had me wondering what else they’d done that I wasn’t remembering. Which made me puke again.

I don’t know how long I was in there, just that when she pulled me out I was shivering so hard it hurt. She sat me down in front of the sink and went to work on me like I was a doll blow-drying my hair. My jet-black hair. They’d changed that, too. It was so much lighter before, almost caramel.

Tuesday leaned down once it was dry, cheek to cheek we stared at my reflection. “Your eyes pop more when you have it this dark.”

She opened her palm showing me two white pills. I refused them. With a sigh, she leaned on the sink in front of me. “Listen. I don’t know your story. I don’t want to know it. It’s not any sadder than any other girl that’s landed here.”

She eyed me slowly. “Some thug took you, thought that pretty face of yours would help his rep. He could say he found and snagged ass that wouldn’t give his clients every STD in the book.” She leaned a little forward. “That’s a win for you. And if you think I’m lying, I’d be glad to take you where the girls that were picked up with you are. See how you like being raped at least four times a day, usually more. See if you like the high they give you to keep you wet, not fighting.”

I went to puke again; she lifted the trash can to me.

“You’re at a crossroads. I had three days to teach you what takes girls months to learn.”

Holding my trashcan like a shield, I looked up at her.

“Everyone holds on to their spirit, their will...they all have to lose it to survive,” she said, then paused making sure I understood what she said. “I only have three hours now. Tonight you’re either bought into a life where you sleep on satin and are paraded as a jewel...or you won’t be. You’ll end up back with your friends from the bar...make it a half year before some fuck accidently OD’s you, or kills you trying to abort a baby that made it past their bullshit preventive care.”

Nothing could’ve stopped the tears spilling from my eyes. She held her palm out. “Take these. You’ll be aware but will care little.” She tensed her brow. “You have to be every man’s desire tonight. Perform. If you want to do it sober, fine by me. Either way, they’re coming for you.”

I didn’t take the pills at first. I sat there deep inside myself praying for a way out as she styled my hair, and made up my face. I barely recognized myself when she was done. When she told me to follow her, to get dressed, she left the pills on the counter. Right then I didn’t have the nerve to walk out of that room much less perform...for survival. I took the pills and swallowed them whole.

Tuesday patted me on the shoulder when I walked out. She dressed me in lace shorts, a low cut sky blue bra, fishnet stockings, and heels. The lessons began then.

Kneel. Never make eye contact. Speak when spoken to. Perform on demand. Swallow.

“You’re a possession. Make them want to possess you,” she said as she showed me how to elegantly kneel and rise then walked me through the most embarrassing conversation ever about giving head.

“The pills aren’t working...I still care,” I told her when she scorned my tears for messing up my eye makeup again.

She gave me half of another pill and promised they’d kick in soon enough. “If they don’t, I hope you can act...I’m serious. You make this choice, no one else can.” She eyed me somewhat suspiciously. “Zee never allows new girls at these meetings. But you match a type of girl a man he wants to impress has requested.” When I said nothing, had zero expression she went on. “You mean nothing to Zee now, so change that. Do as you’re told.”

I swallowed the half pill right as a man came to the door. He was dressed in a suit, refined in a gangster kind of way. He looked me over indifferently, then directed me only with his glance. It was something Tuesday told me would happen.

Feeling my dignity crumble away, I lowered to my knees and bowed my head. He moved toward me, then I felt the collar go around my neck. A leash was clasped to it. My hands and knees burned as I crawled behind him through the train. I did my best to focus on the pain and not what I was moving toward. Burn, burn, burn, burn...

I slipped somewhere deep inside my mind. At first, I was a kid playing in the yard, not a care in the world. But that took me far too close to my grandmother, the shame I was sure she’d have if she saw me this way. I moved my mind forward to the field parties I went to. The backseats I visited and the lines I crossed that I knew I was too young to cross.

I let myself linger there; in that innocent time that I was sure was a detrimental sin when it happened. Old boyfriend’s faces flashed in my mind. Slayton’s tried to dominate them all, but I wouldn’t let it. The anger in his eyes made me tremble. Tuesday told me not to shake, not to cry. Be submissive.

When we stopped, I was in a room with five other girls. None of us looked at each other, but I knew I was the odd one out. The one who still had her will and dignity that I thought I could pick up off the floor when this was over. We were left there in a line. Like a dessert tray waiting to be presented later.

In the next room—or cart rather, I was still on a train—I could hear men talking. It sounded like a business conference. They were complimenting each other just as much as they were insulting. The mood was calm, almost surreal.

“You come alone, a sign of trust,” a man’s voice said.

Others laughed. A harder tone said. “It will be a long while before trust is in play again.”

I leaned to my side. The high I was hoping would come had arrived. Which had me doubting that I knew that voice, even though I was positive I did.

“I’ve brought my finest tonight. You’ll have first pick. Compliments of my crew.”

“Not here for your bullshit,” the hard tone said in a fading voice. It sounded like him and the guy he was talking to were walking away.

The higher my mind took me, the harder I fought it. I knew that more than likely that wasn’t the wisest thing to do, that I’d need all the help I could get to make it through anything coming at me, but I couldn’t shake that I knew that voice. I kept trying to piece together where I was in the city, what I’d heard others say around me all the days I’d been drugged into a stupor.

All my thoughts halted and yelled out when I felt a slash across my back. I fell forward on my hands. Two more lashes came before I realized I was being whipped. Before I remembered my lessons. To not cry, not make a noise.

Someone jerked me back in place. “Sway again. Cry again, and you’re out.” I was sure it was the guy who had put a leash on me, but I wasn’t dumb enough to look up and get a positive ID.

I sat there, feeling the sting across my ass, hips and back with racing thoughts and a blank stare as the girls with me were lead into the next room. After each one there was always some kind of uproar, the clanking of glasses, vulgar words, then it would die down. I was sure I’d heard a moan just a second ago. I wasn’t high enough to not feel the sick twisting in my gut.

I took my mind back to the field parties, to the backseats. The sins I could live with. Sins I was cool with tainting and never digging up again.

I was the last to be led in; keeping a blank stare was next to impossible to do. The train car was lined with red velvet seats; a long table filled with liquor bottles and crystal holding divine food was sitting in front of some of the seats. There were lush chairs in the center of the room. Poles with girls dancing on them were in rows down the center.

I didn’t count them, but there had to be almost twenty men, and only half that amount of girls. I told myself not to faint, to not move when I watched one of the girls crawling toward a short, heavy, balding man. He kept his cigar in his mouth as she slowly seduced him, rocking her body up like a wave, dancing to the sultry music that was playing in the background as she worked him. When her head went down, and he watched like it wasn’t odd to get sucked off in public I lost my balance on my legs, and slipped to the side. I tried to recover, but I was trembling too hard.

I felt the collar choking me then pulling me to leave. Even though it was exactly what I wanted to happen, I knew this was the end. I was crawling to my death. Whether it was coming fast or slow I didn’t know, only that it was promised.

Then I heard a casual voice say. “Where are you going? What happened to me getting first pick?”

The man leading me stopped. I tried to make out the conversations above me, but the drugs, adrenaline, and fear made it harder than I can explain. They sounded like an echo, not only were their voices hollow and far away but I was sure I was hearing them seconds after they spoke.

“Ah, I promised you the best. This one is being unruly it seems...”

“Makes it interesting for them to be in there somewhere.”

“Are you insulting my girls?” a harsh tone asked.

“If I was, why would I be asking you to not take one away before I got a look at her?”

“Malcolm liked the girls I sent him, eh? Better for the fighters—trained, clean. You boys need girls that won’t cut your dick off in your sleep.”

“Maybe.”

I knew that voice, but I hadn’t been told to sit much less been given permission to look up.

“You have big fights coming, let me cater your party,” the host said.

“Fine.”

“Good. Good, then come I’ll make sure you feel right,” the host said in a tone that I was sure had a degree of relief in it.

“I want to look at this one.”

The command was given for me to sit and I did. The command for me to look up came a second later. I was slow to raise my gaze not only because I was told by Tuesday that was how I needed to be, but because the rest of me was starting to feel like their voices were far away. Something I was only aware of a second after it happened.

He was tall, how long it took for my eyes to travel up said as much. Young; how fit he was backed that notion. When I first saw his face, it was all a blur, but I knew he was blond. By the time I did focus, and recognition struck me, my face was in the palm of his hand, so I doubted many beyond him noticed my shock.

Channing.

“You like them mysterious, young,” the host said like he was matching a fine wine with a meal. “I have someone perfect in mind for you.”

Channing’s blue eyes were steady on mine, his jaw was clenched, but that was his normal. Intimidating as hell. I was starting to think it wasn’t him, that or he didn’t recognize me under all the makeup they’d put on me.

“Her,” he said.

“No.”

Channing let my chin go, and before I bowed my head, I saw him settle his hand on the gun at his side.

The friendly, once relieved sounding host’s tone grasped firmness. One that told me he didn’t come into command over this crew with a soft heart. “I will not send Malcolm a girl I haven’t tried yet. I will not insult him that way or further test our alliances.”

Channing stepped closer. “You will
not
tell me what you will and will
not
do. We don’t have an alliance. We’ve decided to give you grace. Allow you time to clean up your crew. Something that would be easier to do if you were not always looking for something to stick your cock in.” Even as high as I was, I picked up on the tension. “Send whatever girls you want to Malcolm, but I’ve told you once, I want to try this one. And if I fucking like it, you’ll gift wrap this whore tonight and send her on her way.”

Silence.

“We clear?”

Nothing.

Channing walked away. I had to tell myself not to follow him. My mind was scrambling, trying to figure out if this was good or bad. If he’d take me to Slayton, or use me as a pawn, or fuck with me just because he was the cold bastard everyone believed he was—or maybe all of those.

The men above me whispered back and forth. It was all about my pedigree. Where I came from, what I was on. What I’d seen. Knowing I was basically on valium and not crack gave me some peace. Hearing no one was looking for me, that my ID said I came from a nowhere town four states away hurt. It made me realize I was utterly alone in this life.

Once the host was confident that I wasn’t planted in his operation and clean, the tension in his tone faded a bit. When the guy unhooked my leash and tugged at my collar, I had no idea what he said to me. If it was to not fuck up or make sure that I did. Channing had taken a seat in the back. It was still in the room but not in the center of the others—which had become an orgy fest.

The crawl to him might as well have been a million miles away, that’s how heavy my limbs felt. I swear I felt the stares of the room weighing on me. Once I reached Channing, I sat the way I was told by Tuesday, a toy waiting to be animated by my master.

For a long while, Channing did nothing but stare at my bowed head and drink. Whatever he was drinking it was straight. Moments later he beckoned me to rise with his fingers. Shakily, I did so. I landed my hands on his thighs and eased them forward. His groaning response was tense and tight, but then he flicked his stare across the room and relaxed a bit.