Chapter Seven
The Empire Session
I arrived at the Empire Hotel lobby a few minutes early. No eye mask today, which was great, but I was still a wreck. At some point, W was going to come strolling through those doors, and I was supposed to recognize him and follow him to the elevators. He seemed to think it would be easy. I wasn’t so sure.
I found a place with a good view of the entrance, and sat in my call-girl skirt and blouse with my legs pressed together. Ice blue linen today, with an ivory top and pearls. Designer bag and shoes, and freshly blown out hair. I’d worked so hard to look nice, to reward him for trusting me. If I didn’t recognize him, it would all be for nothing. I’d just sit in the lobby and wait, and eventually have to go home.
For some reason, I imagined him with dark hair, and olive skin. The machismo thing, I guess. I figured he’d be older, old enough to know what he wanted, and old enough to be really good in bed. When I closed my eyes, I saw someone tall, muscular but not too built, with glossy black hair and dark eyes. But at two minutes after seven, someone walked through the door, 40ish, tallish, with blond-burnished hair and a natural tan, and I thought, that’s him. I can’t say how I knew. The way he walked, the way he carried himself, the way he wore that crisp white shirt and dark red tie. The way he didn’t look around the lobby. He headed toward the elevators and I surged to my feet.
But then I paused. Was it him? He didn’t look the way I’d expected him to look, and he didn’t seem like he was waiting for someone. He seemed like he was in a hurry to go upstairs. If he was W, wouldn’t he turn to see if I was following him?
I glanced back at the lobby, frozen. No one else could be him. Maybe he wasn’t here yet. But Jesus, the elevator was there and he was getting on it. I ran in my tight pencil skirt and heels. There were six other people on the elevator. I caught the man’s eyes. Nothing, only the same detached appreciation I was getting from the guy next to me, and the other guy who asked me what floor.
What floor? I didn’t know what floor.
“You already got it,” I said, because six different floor buttons were lit up.
If the blond man was W, he would have said so by now, wouldn’t he? No. He’d make me sweat all the way up. He’d punish me for pausing in the lobby, for not being sure. I straightened my shoulders as the elevator rose. Passengers got out one after the other. By the end, it was just me and the blond man. I didn’t look at him. My cheeks flamed hot with embarrassment and fear. I felt attracted to him, even though I wasn’t sure it was him. He definitely wasn’t dark and Mediterranean. No. Blond, a natural blond, unlike me.
The elevator stopped at the final floor. He looked at me and gestured for me to go before him. I got nothing from that look. No recognition, no approval. Nothing. Shit. I’d fucked up. It wasn’t him. I got out and lingered, feeling stupid as he headed down the hallway. I followed forlornly behind him, hoping he’d turn and laugh, and give me a thumbs up, and say, “You did it, you found me.”
But he didn’t do that. He keyed open a hotel room door, and turned to look at me. “Can I help you with somethin’, darlin’?”
The accent was pure Texas. He looked like a Texan, like a cowboy, with sky blue eyes, and that rugged, solid body, that gold, shining hair and that real, natural tan, the kind you only got from being outside. Damn it. Was it W? Was he fucking with me? I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was him. By this time, I’d been standing and staring way too long.
He tilted his head, studying me. “Would you like to come in? Have a drink?”
Still the Texas accent, but it was exactly the way W would say it. And he wouldn’t invite me into the room if it wasn’t him. A complete stranger wouldn’t invite some random woman into his hotel room.
I decided it had to be him, and that he was just fucking with me. I believed it was him, up until the point the door shut, and he clapped a broad hand over my mouth and nose. He spun me around and thunked my head against the wall at the same time the lock clicked into place. This man, this polite Texas cowboy, stared at me with murder in his eyes.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to talk to strangers?” he taunted.
I stared back at him, disordered thoughts tumbling through my head as he worked to suffocate the life out of me. His accent made me sick, because it wasn’t W’s accent and I should have known it wasn’t him, and W was in this hotel somewhere right now thinking what an idiot I was. And I was an idiot. An idiot who was about to get murdered. Blood rushed in my ears as I clawed at him, struggling to break away.
“You don’t want to leave yet, do you?” he drawled. “We’re just gettin’ started.”
The edges of my world started to go black. I didn’t think about W, or Simon, or anyone as darkness overtook me. I just thought, really? This is how my life is going to end?
When I woke again, I was lying face down on the floor. My skirt was pulled up around my waist and my panties were gone. I tried to swallow and choked on a mouthful of fabric, and realized my panties were in my mouth. I scrabbled at my lips but he was tightening a rope around my head so I couldn’t spit them out. I pulled at the makeshift gag, screaming, but all that came out was a hacking, muffled sound.
I turned onto my side and then flopped onto my back, gasping for air. He stood over me with a bright, maniacal smile. Oh shit, oh shit, he’s going to fucking kill me. His tie was off, his shirt undone. Had I ripped open all the buttons when I fought him? I kicked at him, losing my stilettos, but he just laughed and hauled me off the floor, and threw me on the bed.
Shit, shit, shit. Now that I was this close to him, I realized he didn’t smell right. I couldn’t smell W’s cologne. It wasn’t him, and I was locked in a hotel room with a sociopathic stranger. I shoved at him as I sent a frantic look around the room, seeking some weapon, any weapon, within reach. Nothing. There was nothing.
I tried to scurry off the bed, only to be dragged back where he’d originally thrown me. As he held me down by the neck, I noticed the ends of his red tie fall on the covers beside me, and realized that was what he’d used to gag me. Red for emergency. Red for blood. Red, red, red. It’s not him. It’s not fucking him.
“Let me go. Let me go!” I flailed at him, to no avail. My words were garbled nonsense behind the gag he’d improvised. I wanted to fight, but I was helpless and held down, with my own panties impeding my breath. My lips hurt, and my throat hurt from useless, muffled screaming. My whole body was one big, terrified heartbeat, throbbing help me, help me, help me, help me. But no one was going to help me.
“Listen, sweetheart,” he growled in his country twang. He knelt over me, pressing me into the bed while I tossed beneath his body weight. “Listen to me.” When I didn’t listen, he pinched my nose shut so I couldn’t breathe. I whipped my head from side to side, punching, whacking at him. He grabbed my wrists and yanked them over my head.
“Fight all you want,” he said. “This only ends one way.”
One way? What way? Rape? Dismemberment? Death?
Maybe he’d be satisfied with rape. Maybe I’d get lucky, but probably not. I’d seen too much of him by this point. I’d stared into his cold smiling face long enough now to work up a pretty accurate description for the police. He’d never let me go.
When I left stripping to start escorting, one of the other girls had told me I’d get myself killed, that half the johns in New York were murderers. I could still remember her shrill voice, and the way I’d laughed at her warnings. Now I wish I’d listened.
I screwed my eyes shut, unable to look at him anymore. I didn’t want to see the man who was going to snuff out my life. I tried to keep fighting him, but I was running out of energy. He was so much bigger and so much stronger, and when he covered my nose, I felt so close to death. If I was some superhero woman I might have come up with a brilliant plan to save myself, but I wasn’t a superhero, so I just lay there choking and shaking in terror, trying to block out what was happening to me.
He knelt on my thighs. I could hear him undoing his pants. “Don’t move. Don’t fucking move,” he growled. I obeyed, because I didn’t want him to choke me again. I turned my thoughts inward, away from the hands and hips and cock shoving between my legs. The rape part barely registered. Of course it hurt, and it was terrifying and awful, but not as terrifying and awful as knowing he was probably going to suffocate me when he finished. I started to weep, moaning against the panties in my mouth.
He made a disgusted sound. “Crying like a fucking baby. Shut the fuck up.”
He ripped my blouse open, yanked down my bra and grasped my breasts as he thrust into me. It hurt so bad. My skirt was still up around my waist, a bundle of fabric between his hips and mine. In the midst of a hard thrust, he jerked the string of costume pearls and broke it. Pearls scattered everywhere. Cheap jewelry. I was going to die wearing cheap jewelry with my skirt up to my waist and my panties in my mouth. No. You can’t die. You have to fight him. I scratched frantically at his arms as he tugged off my blouse and bra and tossed them across the room. I screamed through the gag, praying someone passing by in the hall might hear me.
But no one came to my rescue, and he didn’t let me escape. He held me down by the arms and drove into me without mercy, until my frantic cries broke from the force of his thrusts. Oh, God, what happened when he finished? What happened when he came? Was that the moment he would kill me? All I could think was fight, Chere, fight, even though the fighting wasn’t getting me anywhere. Tears ran down my cheeks into my nose, into my ears.
He pulled out of me and I fought like hell to get away, to escape his grip. He only grasped me harder and forced me over onto my stomach. When I tried to head butt him, he held my face down into the covers. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die. The edges of my vision went black again and I thought, this is it. So fast. So soon.
But no, I woke again from a virulent, scarlet-tinged dream I couldn’t remember. He was pounding into me from behind now, his cock thick and hard and painful. I tried to crawl away, to escape this violence, but he just dragged me back and made me submit. There was a ticking in my brain. Maybe it was the last remaining seconds of my life counting down.
I wondered where W was, if he’d left the hotel yet. I wondered how he would feel when Henry told him what had happened to me. He’d feel guilty. He’d blame himself. And Simon… Oh, Simon. He’d go off the deep end, go totally batshit and overdose on some drug.
No, I couldn’t die like this. It was wrong. It was horrible and wrong and impossible. I fought with all my strength, kicking, bucking, jerking my shoulders back and forth to try to dislodge his weight.
“Yeah, baby, fight me,” he chanted, fucking me harder. “The more you fight me, the harder I’m going to come. I’m going to come so fucking hard.”
I could feel pearls rolling around on the bed beneath me, under my breasts, under my cheek. I felt him jerk inside me, felt his fingers tighten on my shoulders as he came in a series of stuttering thrusts. I waited to feel those fingers close around my neck. Would he suffocate me like this, with my face in the sheets, or would he turn me over and watch my eyes as he choked the life out of me? I thought he’d probably want to watch me die, but he didn’t turn me over. He groaned instead, and collapsed on top of me.
Oh shit, there were the fingers on my neck. Holy shit. I was so scared. I didn’t want to die. I gave a long, low moan of agonized denial. This blond man was going to be my killer, and I didn’t want that. I hadn’t planned to die like this. It was so sordid, so violent.
“No, please,” I begged with the last of my breath, as his fingers tightened around my windpipe and cut off my air.
Then they loosened. The man kissed the back of my neck and laughed softly against my ear.
And I knew that laugh. It was W’s laugh.
I felt so many feelings in that moment. I felt such an explosion of angst and disbelief that I literally couldn’t cope. I couldn’t think or react. I felt rage, I felt humiliation, I felt confusion, I felt relief, I felt sadness. But mostly I felt rage. I started trembling, uncontrollable trembling that made the bed shake. He lifted me a little. The pearls rolled under me, pooling into groups on the sheets.
“Wait a minute. Hold on,” he said. He worked at the gag, unknotting the tie. As soon as I could, I spit out my panties and turned around and punched him in the face. He deflected my fist, but I punched him again, punched him as many times as I could before he grabbed my hands and stopped me.
He laughed and tried to catch my gaze. “Stop, Chere. Jesus. It was just for fun.” The Texas accent was gone. W was back, laughing at me, laughing at all the horrible things he’d just done. “Don’t be mad. It was fucking hot.”
“Hot for who?” I shouted. “I didn’t know it was you!”
“You weren’t supposed to know. That would have ruined all the fun.”
Fun? Fun? I tried to hit him again and then I thought, why expend the energy? Why am I still here? I’d gotten to see W, which was the only reason I’d come here. I’d learned that he was a handsome, smiling, blond psycho, and that was pretty much all I wanted to know about him.
I hated him. I despised him. I pushed past him, staggering away from the bed and pulling down my skirt. “I need my clothes. I need my clothes.” I saw my bra and blouse on the floor, but I felt too numb to bend and pick them up.
He studied me with his brows drawn together, and his lips pursed in a line. “It’s okay,” he said. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He reached out to me with the same hand he’d used to suffocate me. “It was just a kinky game. If it upsets you this much, I won’t do anything like it again.”
“Stay away from me.” I was afraid to take my eyes off him. I still didn’t know. What if he wasn’t W? What if he was? My mind was officially broken. “I don’t know you,” I said. “I want to leave.”
He reached for me again, and now he looked worried. “Chere, come here, please. It’s me. I wouldn’t know your name if it wasn’t me. I’m not fucking with you now. The game’s over. I’m sorry, I took it too far.”
He kept calling it a game, which I didn’t understand. You couldn’t scare someone that bad and call it a “game.” I couldn’t stop shaking. The danger was over, but the adrenaline was still coursing through my veins with nowhere to go.
This wasn’t a stranger. This man wasn’t going to kill me. He wasn’t going to snuff out my life and cram me under the bed, and fuck off back to Texas, but for ten whole minutes I’d believed that would be my fate, and my mind couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that this had all been W’s idea of “hot” and “fun.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really fucking sorry. I didn’t think you’d freak out this bad. I thought you’d realize it was me.”
“How?” I started bawling, loud, awful bawling in the silent room. “You choked me and raped me. I thought you were going to kill me when you finished. How was I supposed to realize it was you?”
“You know my body. You know what my cock feels like. I even used a condom.” He held it up in his hand like he deserved a medal.
“I don’t think about those kinds of things when someone is raping me.” My voice rose to a shriek and broke, and I knew I had to stop talking to him, or I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to get dressed again, how to breathe and talk and leave. He threw away the condom and watched me struggle with my blouse. I couldn’t put it on. I was shaking too bad.
“Shit,” he said.
He came toward me and I held up a hand to ward him off, but he still came. He yanked the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around me, and sat with me on the edge of the bed. He held me tight and nuzzled his lips against my ear.
“Okay, baby. Take deep breaths. Try to calm down.”
I couldn’t calm down. I turned my face into his neck because I needed shelter, even if that shelter had to come from him. He ran a hand up and down my back and told me everything was okay now, but I couldn’t stop shivering.
“I thought I was going to die,” I repeated, over and over. “I thought I was going to die.”
“I’m sorry, Chere. I’m really sorry.”
He didn’t make any more excuses. There were no excuses. He’d fucked up. At least when Simon attacked me there was a reason, an explanation. W had done this thing for fun.
I cried and cried, because he was awful and what had just happened was awful. The fact that he was soothing me now was awful, but he made me curl and rest against him until there were no more tears.
“Better?” he asked, tilting my face up to his.
No, nothing was better, but fuck, now that I could look at him, he was so fucking handsome. He was so much sexier, so much more beautiful than I’d ever imagined behind my blindfold, even if he was gold instead of dark.
It didn’t matter. I still hated him. “I’m not better,” I said stiffly.
“What can I do? How can I make it up to you? How can I make you feel better? I didn’t hurt you, did I? I mean, your body? I was careful not to hurt you, even if it didn’t feel that way.”
In hindsight, I realized that. When he hit me, he hadn’t hit me hard. When he deflected my kicking and scratching, he hadn’t retaliated. When he manhandled me, he hadn’t injured me. But he’d scared me to death, which was the worst injury of all.
“I wish you hadn’t done this,” I said. “You ruined everything between us.”
He looked into my eyes, and then he shook his head. “There’s nothing between us to ruin. You didn’t trust me to begin with. You don’t trust me now.”
He could be so harsh. Such an asshole. “I trust you less now than I trusted you before,” I said.
“You shouldn’t. You know what I look like now. That’s trust, isn’t it? I’m not horrible. You thought I’d be horribly ugly, didn’t you?”
“You’re horribly ugly because you’re mean. You’re a psycho.”
I watched the faint smile fade from his lips. “I go too far sometimes,” he admitted. “I do everything too big, too far. It’s my worst fault. You know what your worst fault is?”
I gave him a withering look. “Continuing to see you?”
“No. Your worst fault is not trusting yourself. Not believing in yourself. You knew it was me. You knew in the lobby. You knew in the elevator. You knew when we stood there looking at each other in the hall.” His quiet voice accused me. Everything he said was true. “You knew in your heart that it was me, but you doubted yourself. Not only did you doubt, but you didn’t speak up. If you’d turned to me and said, ‘I know it’s you’ I would have nodded and said you were right. I mean, I still would have stuck your panties in your mouth and raped you, but I would have admitted it was me.”
“I couldn’t say anything,” I reminded him. “Your hand was over my mouth. You made me pass out.”
“That was extremely hot, by the way.”
“I hate you. I should press charges.”
He didn’t look afraid when I said this. He looked approving. “Yes, you should, but you won’t. That not-trusting-yourself thing again. Is it enough for me to say that I won’t ever fuck with you that bad again? On the bright side, now I know how far is too far.”
“First thing,” I said, sticking a finger under his nose. “There is no bright side to what you just did to me. Second thing, you don’t know how far is too far. What you did was way, way past what I’m okay with. What anyone would be okay with. Especially me.”
“All right. Let’s talk about that.”
“No, I’m leaving.”
He took my hand when I tried to get up. “Did you bring a bathing suit?” he asked. “I told you to bring a bathing suit.”
Of course I’d brought my bathing suit. I enjoyed following his directions, to a point. “I brought one, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m leaving,” I told him. Our time wasn’t up, but I didn’t care.
“The pool here is really beautiful. Peaceful. When’s the last time you went swimming?”
I looked into his eyes, his handsome, intent blue eyes, and said, “I don’t want you to touch me ever again.”
I saw a flicker of disappointment. Regret. He let go of my hand. “Will you go swimming with me if I promise not to touch you?”
His promises meant nothing to me. Less than nothing.
On the other hand, I hadn’t been swimming in a long, long time.