Maybe I was, but at that moment it seemed really possible. We could be partners in synch forever. He"d called me the love of his life, as if anyone else there had been before paled in comparison. He had used the word forever. He was moving slowly because he was trying his best to preserve the relationship, not ruin it by rushing. But once the concert series was over, we had our whole lives ahead of us. Together. The mere thought made my heart pound and I felt like singing in the shower. Heck, even though I was a much worse singer than I was a dancer, I let loose with a few bars of the 1812 Overture. That was how excited and amazed and ready to explode from happiness I was.
I got out of the shower, put on the luxuriously thick hotel bathrobe, and was combing out my wet hair when a knock came at the door. I could hear a m.u.f.fled female voice saying, "Karina? Karina, I know you"re in there."
I looked through the peephole.
Standing there was Ferrara Huntington.
Twelve.
Made of Lipstick I opened the door.
"May I come in?" she asked, her face quite sober and serious.
"Ferrara, what"s this about?"
"Please, Karina. I... I promise I won"t bother you about this again. I have some things to tell you, and show you, so you don"t have to take my word for it. Just give me fifteen minutes of your time, and then I will never speak of this again."
"Speak of what?"
"There are things you don"t know about James."
I p.r.i.c.kled to hear her use his name and suppressed the urge to look around the hallway to make sure no one had overheard. "Fine. Come in. Fifteen minutes."
She glided in, head high like a swan, and I closed the door behind her. She went to the small table by the window, sat down, and then pulled a laptop computer out of her voluminous shoulder bag. It was some fancy designer brand, but once she had the computer on the table, she tossed the bag aside like it was worthless.
I sat in the other chair, my hands folded on my knees, telling myself to count the minutes until she"d leave. Then I"d get in bed with James and that would be the end of it.
"Pardon my presumption, but you have to realize how obvious it is that he"s sleeping with you. One new dancer comes along and all of a sudden he wants her to be the star of the show? Oh, perhaps I shouldn"t be such a cynic. Maybe he hasn"t started sleeping with you yet. Either way, you need to know what it is I"m about to tell you," she said.
I said nothing, waiting for her to go on.
"If you"re already sleeping with him, then you know all about the whips and chains. He talks a great game about consent, doesn"t he? About boundaries and all that? He makes you feel completely safe, even when he"s menacing your c.u.n.t with a straight razor."
I swallowed, my thighs clenching involuntarily, as I remembered the first time he shaved me. I hadn"t been scared at all. No, wait, I had been kind of nervous, but then he made it obvious he"d been making me nervous on purpose, and then he made it all better, so much better...
"I know I was harsh with you before. I was upset. You can imagine how I felt, can"t you? I arrive in Vegas thinking I know what"s going on and then, wham, Alicia Bogovich drops a bomb and tells me, oh by the way, we"re not even doing the show you commissioned? But that"s the kind of coward James is. He wouldn"t tell me directly."
I still said nothing. I"d had no idea if James hadn"t spoken to her, but I could easily believe he"d told her and she"d dismissed it, the way she had dismissed his request for her to leave him alone so he could get undressed earlier.
"Anyway, I apologize for being so b.i.t.c.hy today, but unfortunately, what I said was true. You probably know that he gets off on hurting you. Nothing makes his c.o.c.k harder than seeing you in pain or seeing you helpless. Am I right?"
I couldn"t keep my mouth shut any longer. "You know, I haven"t tested the hardness to see how it compares to him seeing me in pleasure or in ecstasy."
She smiled and I realized I"d given her an advantage by confirming I was having s.e.x with him. But then her look softened, turning sympathetic. "Oh, dearie, I know. He can play normal when he wants to. And you know what? You"re probably a great lay. And James, well, his d.i.c.k gets hard if the wind blows. That"s just how he is. But back to what I was saying. The thing that will excite him to the next level is when you start to resist. And the thing that he"s waiting for, the thing he can"t f.u.c.king wait for, is the day when you actually say no."
"He and I have discussed it," I said.
"You think you have," she shot back. "You"ll see. You"ll say no, and he"ll keep right on going. He won"t stop until it"s full-out rape."
"No," I said, before I could stop myself.
"Yes. He"s pumped you so full of talk about consent and boundaries and stuff, but you know what? You"ll probably blame yourself at first. You"ll blame yourself for miscommunication. Or worse, for disappointing him. But that"ll just build up a nice wall of resentment. Eventually you"ll resist because you have to find out if you"re really a prisoner to that c.o.c.k of his, or if you have the free will he claims you have. He claims he"ll let you go so that you"ll come back to him, and prove that you love him. But it"ll happen. You"ll say no. He"ll f.u.c.k you anyway. You"ll fight and scratch and claw to prove to him you"re serious, and that"ll just excite him even more. And if it looks like you might actually win the fight or hurt him, well, he"ll just put you in bondage, and then you"ll truly be f.u.c.ked."
I tried to argue with her. "But... but I offered to him that he could take me anytime, anywhere. I wanted to give him that. I did that myself, without him prompting me."
Her eyes were misty with sympathy. "Oh, darling, I know you did. And it"s a great romantic notion. That"s so Romeo and Juliet, that level of devotion. And I know you truly believe it. But when push comes to shove, there"ll be a day. Maybe you"ll feel ill or you had a death in the family or maybe you just want to test the boundaries, and you"ll refuse. And he"ll say so what."
"Ferrara-"
"I told you you wouldn"t have to take my word for it. I brought proof." She woke up the laptop and pulled up a video player that filled the screen. The thumbnail image, I could see, was of someone"s bare a.s.s. She hit play.
James"s bare a.s.s. He was walking past the camera toward a bed, where a woman lay sleeping atop the covers in a sheer nightgown. He looked younger here, slimmer, but he moved the way I expected. He eased himself slowly onto the bed at the woman"s feet, and then gradually separated her knees. He pulled the nightgown up to her stomach, showing that she was shaved down below. He slid the back of one knuckle up and down her seam while he stroked his c.o.c.k with the other hand.
I felt myself growing slick and tried not to squirm in the chair.
"You"re so wet," he murmured to the woman, and any thought I had that maybe this was one of his body doubles vanished. That was his voice. I was certain. "You must want me, eh? Even in your sleep, you want me."
He plunged into her suddenly and she screamed, making my hair stand on end. She fought him and he laughed and kept on f.u.c.king her. At one point she managed to maneuver so that he wasn"t inside her, and he got a hand around her throat. "Lie still and let me f.u.c.k you," he growled. "If I choke you unconscious, then nothing will stop me."
She lay still then, whimpering, while he humped her, keeping one hand on her neck. He slapped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his other hand and the whimpering sounds increased.
Then his grip slipped or he got careless, and she escaped off the bed. He tackled her from behind and they landed with her face right up close to the camera.
He got one of her arms twisted behind her, though, and she was trapped again.
"Harder to get at your c.u.n.t this way," he said. "Guess you want it in the rear."
"No, oh no, no, please no," she said. He put a ball gag in her mouth then, and using his one free hand, strapped it behind her head.
"There. Now I won"t have to listen to your lies," he said. "When I know you want it."
At that point, she started to cry.
And so did I.
Ferrara closed the laptop and sat for a moment in silence, then dabbed at her own eyes with the edge of her sleeve. "That"s enough, I think," she said. "I know that was difficult to watch. Believe me, I know."
I tried to catch my breath. "Who was she?"
"Some groupie, one of dozens, maybe hundreds. He was doing this night after night! I was his tour manager, you understand. It was my responsibility to do something about it. Imagine the position I was in. He was legally an adult, and when these women went to his room, at first they were consenting. Of course they were! He was a rock star! They"d have epic, wall-shaking s.e.x! And then he"d wait until they were asleep or helpless and... this would happen. What could I do? I couldn"t go to the police. This was my golden goose, after all, and none of the women I could find-and that was if I could even find them at all-would speak out against him! Or if they did, they wanted money. Money to keep silent about it. At any rate, I had to confront him with irrefutable evidence that I knew what he was doing. So I started leaving a hidden camera in his room. And that"s how I made these tapes."
"There are more of them?"
She nodded gravely. "Many more."
I put my head in my hands, trying to think, but I was in turmoil. The sound of the woman screaming echoed in my ears. But this was Ferrara. She wanted me and James to break up. She wanted James for herself! Wait. Did I know that? That was what James had told me, but was it true?
I looked up. "Has he raped you?" I asked.
She froze, and then her face crumbled and her eyes closed. "Yes," she whispered, with a choked sob. She put her hand to her throat. "Many times."
And although my heart was doing flip-flops of sympathy, something in the back of my head said it didn"t add up.
"Why do you still work with him, then?" I wanted to ask why she was claiming to be married to him, but I didn"t want to give away that I knew that. "Why stay?"
"I help protect the young ones, the new ones, like you. Except I hope I"m not too late in your case."
That didn"t add up, either. Annika told me James never, ever got involved with the dancers, and if a dancer made a move on him, they were gone. Was she wrong? Was it that he only liked them when they were illicitly taken, and once they revealed an interest he got rid of them?
I almost, almost could make Ferrara"s story believable. Then I remembered what James himself had sent through video to me earlier that day. Ferrara being the one who got off on crossing boundaries. Ferrara who liked to watch him...
There was only one person who could fill in the missing gaps in the story here, and that was James himself. But I sure as h.e.l.l didn"t want to talk to him with Ferrara there.
I needed to get rid of her as quickly as possible.
I covered my eyes as if I were crying. "I think... I think I"d like to be alone now. It"s a lot to take in."
"I know it is, dearie. I know it is. Here is my card. Call me anytime you want to talk further." She pa.s.sed me her card and patted me on the hand. I looked at her card instead of at her. I wasn"t sure I could really pull off the act of being distraught. I mean, I was genuinely upset by what she had shown me, but I worried if she got a good look at me she"d be able to tell I wasn"t convinced she was telling the truth.
She stood then and swept the laptop into the bag.
"I"ll just see myself out," she said, while I pretended to still be so stricken that I couldn"t even raise my head.
The door slammed behind her. I stood up and wished I had something to smash or throw. I didn"t believe she was telling the truth about James. Yet, what was the real story behind that video? That was definitely something James hadn"t told me. And I was getting tired of discovering there were still dark secrets to uncover.
After I washed my face and calmed down a little, I went to the connecting door, which was disguised to look like a paneled section of wall, except for the round lock in it. I unlocked it and discovered that either James or Chandra had thoughtfully unlocked it from the other side already.
The suite was huge, the bed huge to match, and there was James, lying in the middle of it, the sheets wrapped around his middle but his torso exposed. The curtains had only been partly drawn, which meant the late-afternoon sun was streaming in, making his hair look as blond as it had been when we first met and his skin golden. The dark circles of his nipples stood out against his chest and the muscle of his stomach was lean and flat. A gorgeous picture and all for me.
I felt even calmer just looking at him. This was James, my James, a man I knew better than he knew himself sometimes. Or at least I had fewer illusions about him. Didn"t I? Didn"t he say himself that he was afraid he might push me too far one day? Was that a setup, a warning? Was I clinging to an illusion about what our relationship was, about what his desires and needs were?
Or about my own? I hadn"t seen him in a month. It had been so hard to sit there in that auditorium and pretend to be just another dancer when I had wanted desperately to run up to him, kiss him, run my hands through his hair-and then the dancing, partnering with him, I could practically taste the sweat on his skin and I imagined what it would have been like for him to lift me up, carry me backstage, and have his way with me.
I dropped my robe into the pile with the duvet and the pillows he had knocked off the bed. I slipped under one edge of the sheet and settled, naked, next to him. Ferrara was wrong. She had to be. I"d prove it.
I"ll do it when he wakes up, I thought. He"ll want s.e.x and I"ll say no and see what happens.
But when he realized I was there, I think he was still asleep. He rolled over and wrapped an arm around me. Then his hand stroked between my thighs and until he found the wetness. A finger worked its way into the wet cleft, rubbing up and down my c.l.i.t and my hips shifted wantonly, l.u.s.t spiking in my belly.
"Karina," he murmured. "I"ve been dreaming about you."
"Oh? What kind of dreams?"
"This kind." He reared up suddenly, quite awake, and pushing my leg aside. I struggled purely instinctively against how rough and brusque he was, not even thinking about anything Ferrara had said, and then quite suddenly he had the head of his c.o.c.k fitted snugly between my slick lips.
I wanted to remind him that it had been a month since I"d had anything there. I wanted to remind him that once he had caused me so much pain with penetration that it had taken him a week to train me up to taking his size. But all I could do in that moment was make a helpless whimpering sound. All thought of testing his resolve, or my own, was erased. This is James. He knows. He knows.
Wasn"t I the one who had teased him, saying that maybe our reunion would have to be a "f.u.c.k first, talk later" one?
He paused only a moment, looking into my eyes, before he began to push into me, and I began to wail. A firm, solid, never-stopping push, more and more of him entering me with each pa.s.sing second, and my scream rising in pitch. Not because I was in pain, no. Because the moment he breached me like that, I had started to come, and the deeper he went, the more explosive the o.r.g.a.s.m got. I"d never come from penetration alone like that before. I beat on his back with my fists and my heels and my screams broke into desperate gasps as he began to f.u.c.k me hard and the pleasure kept going off inside me like fireworks, pow pow pow.
I lost it completely, cursing, screaming, sobbing, and then crying my eyes out as he switched from the punishing, rough thrusts to the gentle, tender rolling of his hips that melted my insides and my heart.
"I"ve missed you," he said, "and I"ve missed f.u.c.king you. And it would seem you"ve missed me, too."
I couldn"t even answer, I was crying too hard. I managed a nod, and then he pulled out suddenly, causing me to cry "No!" even though what he was doing was sliding down my body to put his head between my legs and pleasure me with his tongue.
I came once more, shuddering against his mouth but feeling empty and bereft of what I needed most. He crawled up my body again and ran the length of his shaft up and down my c.l.i.t, sending vibrations through me that made me incoherent with need.
"Tell me what you want."
I writhed against him, trying to answer. "Your c.o.c.k."
"It"s right here." He moved it slickly.
"Your c.o.c.k inside me."
"Hmm, in your mouth?"
"No, no!" I struggled against, him, l.u.s.t-crazed, trying to impale myself on him, but he held me in place.
"Or is your a.s.s ready?" He slid it lower.
"No!"
"I will claim your rear, too, Karina."
"No, no!" I thrashed helplessly. "f.u.c.k me! James, just f.u.c.k me! f.u.c.k me until you come or I don"t know what I"ll do! Please!"
"Ah, there"s the magic word."
"You mean please?"
"No. f.u.c.k." He drove into me as he said it. "Ahhhh, yes."
Oh G.o.d, yes. No more teasing. From there he f.u.c.ked me steadily as he went up the ramp of his own arousal until he couldn"t keep it steady anymore and I knew he was close. Then five or six hard jerks against me and a long growl that ended in a sigh, and he was done.
He collapsed atop me, and I think was drifting to sleep again when I made him roll to the side. "Hey, no sleeping, Jet Lag Boy. I have questions for you."
"Hmm? Oh, yes, of course, Karina. I wouldn"t dream of skimping on your answers." He rubbed his eyes. "If you want me to stay awake long enough to answer anything, though, I had better get into the shower."