Chapter Eighteen - Chella
When I wake up Bric is gone. On the pillow next to mine is a note.
Don’t be late for work.
Don’t be late coming home.
Wear the red dress without panties or bra.
I’ll pick you up here at seven.
Elias
His commands feel both familiar and foreign. Familiar because I’ve been down this path before. I’ve taken that shortcut through the woods more than once.
But it’s been a long time.
The only significant thing that happens at work is learning that Matisse’s entire collection sold on Saturday night—Saturday seems like years ago—and that Bric bought it, and then promptly donated it to the Mountain Ballet. It’s going to be displayed in its entirety in the courtyard outside the building. Construction on an all-weather version of the curtain has begun and installation will begin on April first.
My boss, Charles Benton, is in the gallery all day talking on the phone to special patrons—a code word for contributors—about the year ahead. He takes over my office since he really doesn’t have one here himself.
I manage visitors and do the appropriate amount of small talk. But my mind is not here at the gallery. My mind is stuck back in the place Bric left it last night.
Under his complete control.
Silently begging for more.
Asking myself over and over and over why I need more.
I’ve had complete control over all my shameful desires for three years. So why now? Why did I let Rochelle dangle this arrangement in front of my face? And more importantly, why did I accept her offer?
The problem is… there’s only one answer for it. One answer that I don’t want to think about.
I really am sick.
The car comes promptly at six to pick me up, just like it came promptly at eight forty-five this morning to take me to work. It was strange walking out of the top-floor apartment without one of my players, and it feels strange to walk in without them as well.
But I see them. I see all three of them when I get home from work.
Bric is in the bar talking to a good-looking man and a woman I recognize from the first night I was here. Quin is chatting with four men in the main lobby and even though I catch his eye for a second, he doesn’t acknowledge me. Smith is sitting up in that private bar they have on the second floor.
He never stops looking at me while I climb the stairs.
“Come here, Chella,” he says from his balcony seat as I wait for the elevator.
“No,” I say, just loud enough for my voice to carry up to his ears. “This isn’t your night.” When the doors open, I step in and make sure I don’t turn around until the they close me up tight.
When I get to the apartment I find the dress already laid out for me on the bed. I look around for the cameras I know are here, but can’t seem to find. And then I put them out of my mind.
That’s a lie.
I undress for them.
For him.
For Smith.
I undress and sit at the makeup vanity in the large master bathroom, naked. And when I’m happy with my dark eyes and red lips, I lie back on the bed and finger myself until I come so hard, there’s a wet spot on the comforter.
The dress slips over my flushed body in seconds, and at exactly seven o’clock, Bric walks through my apartment door.
“Wow,” he says. “I like you in the black, but red is your color.” He kisses me, a long, lingering kiss with one hand around my throat and one hand between my legs.
“You’re wet,” he whispers into my mouth.
“I just came,” I whisper back. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait.”
“You filthy whore,” he says, smiling.
I want to undress him right now. Tell him to forget this party and fuck me instead.
But I’m being good. I’m being very, very good.
“Are you hungry?” Bric asks. “For something besides my cock?”
I laugh with him. “Not really,” I say, my answer more truthful than he suspects. “But I’m happy to wait for that later.”
“Like a reward,” Bric says, grabbing a black coat from the front closet I’ve never seen before. He drapes that over one arm, places his hand on the small of my back, and then leads me out into the hall. We get on the elevator and look at each other the entire way down to the second floor.
“I saw you come in but I didn’t want people to know I was looking.”
“I saw you as well.”
“We’re having dinner in the Black Room tonight.”
“I thought that was a bar?”
“It is, but the booths by the window are nice.”
They are nice. I know this because I already sat in one when Smith first brought me here. “I saw Quin and Smith too. Are they joining us?”
“No,” Bric says as the elevator doors open. “They’re both busy tonight. And we can’t stay at the party long.”
“Good.” I laugh.
“We might want time to ourselves before I have to drop you off at your house.”
“My house?” I ask, as we step out on to the landing. Smith is staring at me from his perch in the balcony bar.
“You belong to Smith at midnight. And he wants you at home tonight.”
“Oh,” I say, letting Bric guide me down the stairs. Quin isn’t in the lobby when we get there. He’s in the Black Room sitting near the bar with a blonde woman who I swear to God I think is Rochelle before she turns her head to laugh and I realize she’s not.
“Are you OK?” Bric asks.
“Fine,” I say, letting him take my hand. He drops the coat off with the coat-check girl and then leads me into the bar and over to the very same table I sat at when Smith brought me here for my test.
I sit down on one side and Bric sits on the other. He smiles at me. “This party is going to be boring. Not that last night’s wasn’t, but worse. No one under the age of sixty tonight. So we’ll get there at eight thirty, stay ninety minutes, and then come back here for a little bit. Sound good?”
“All the parts except for the party sound perfect.”
He laughs. “Did I get your imagination working last night, Chella? You seem to be warming up to this arrangement.”
“I just… had a lot of fun. And I like fun, don’t you?”
“I do,” he says. “What do you feel like eating tonight?”
“Just something light, like a salad. With chicken, maybe?”
“I can get that for you,” Bric says. And then someone comes over to talk to him and he’s distracted for a moment. The man eyes me, but Bric makes no move to introduce us.
I look down at my place setting and grab the napkin, which is folded into a crisp envelope shape.
But it’s what’s peeking out from under the flap that catches my eyes.
Writing.
I look at Bric to see if he’s watching me. Maybe he left me a little note. But he’s not. He’s still busy with the interloper. So I lift the flap and find the same thick, bold handwriting last’s night message was written in.
I look up at the bar balcony and find Smith smirking down at me.
He lifts his drink as if in a toast but I turn my head, shake the napkin out, and place it in my lap.
I spend the next hour repeating Smith’s words in my head as I have mindless conversation with Bric and the many, many people who come up to the table to try—and fail—to get an introduction.
If you want to go dark, go dark.
Don’t take a light.
You’re mine every night, Chella. You just don’t realize it yet.
When we’re done eating, Bric takes me outside where a car is waiting, but not the long, black kind we usually take.
His own personal car.
He opens the door and there’s a present on the seat.
“What’s this?” I ask, smiling up at him as I pick up the bag.
“Open it and see.”
It’s a video camera. A little handheld one that almost no one uses anymore because everyone just uses a phone.
“He was pretty happy with last night, Chella.”
“This is from… Smith?”
“Yes.” Bric nods. And then he leans in to kiss me. “We’re going to do dirty, dirty things for that camera tonight. Starting the moment you get in the car.”
And even though I do not want to feel that creeping hot wetness between my legs, it’s there. It’s ready.
When Bric gets in the driver’s side, after closing my door and telling me to fasten my seatbelt, he says, “Turn it on,” as he unbuttons and unzips his pants and pulls out his cock. “He’s not gonna want to miss this.”
My head is in his lap, the camera mounted on the dash, and I suck his cock the entire twenty-minute drive over to an estate in Cherry Creek.
I swallow his come and lick my lips as he holds the camera, while we’re parked on the street. And then I reapply my lipstick and we go inside.
The party is boring. The people are old. And those ninety minutes can’t go by fast enough.
I film Bric fingering me on the way back to Turning Point Club. And when we get upstairs and I don’t have to worry about documenting our depravity anymore, I choose the whip when he lays out his four toys on the bed.
My thighs are red and raw by the time eleven thirty rolls around. My pussy is sore, but still wants more when he takes me to my house and walks me up to the door.
We kiss. Passionately. His fingers inside me again, his dick harder than ever. And then he turns away without a word and leaves me in the hands of his friend.
I open the door, close it behind me, and then lean back with a sigh.
If you want to go dark, go dark.
Don’t take a light.
And then a phone rings in the kitchen. I walk through the dark house, wondering if I smell paint, but put that out of my mind as I reach for the lit-up cell phone on the kitchen island.
“Hello?” I ask the phone.
“I have something you might like to see upstairs,” Smith says on the other end of the call. “Walk up to your room and don’t hang up.”
I flick on the lights and see the reason my house smells like paint. “You painted my orange wall?”
“You hated it. You need to be walking, Chella. I need you upstairs right now.”
Not only did he paint my orange wall—which I did hate, but… it’s my wall. My house—but there’s new furniture as well. New art on the walls. New rugs.
A small bedside lamp is glowing in the guest room on the second floor and I stop to look at what’s going on in there.
“Keep walking, Chella,” Smith says.
I look up at the ceiling, wondering where the cameras are. Because he obviously has cameras in here now too.
“You’re sleeping in there?” I ask, bewildered. He’s been at my house all week from the looks of it. He really has moved in.
“Bedroom, Chella. Now,” Smith growls.
I climb the final flight of stairs up to the third floor. There’s a light on up here too. Not one I had before Smith came into my life. The whole room has been redecorated.
“You refurnished my bedroom?” I ask.
“I can’t fuck you on a bed I didn’t buy new. But that’s not what I wanted you to see. Turn on the TV.”
The remote has been placed at the end of the bed, along with the two napkins he used to send me messages.
I click the remote on, ignoring the napkins, and the moaning starts up immediately.
It’s Bric fucking me tonight.
Then scenes from last night flick through in a tightly edited sequence of my moaning and sucking his cock.
“Do not turn that TV off, Chella. Do you understand me? Only I’m allowed to turn it off.”
“Are you here?” My eyes dart around as my heart begins to race at the thought of him being inside the house, watching me like a sick freak.
“No.” Smith laughs. “No. I can’t trust myself to be there with you this weekend. So let’s get this out of the way right the fuck now. Next week when Bric calls you at midnight to have his little how-are-you-doing conversation, you’re going to tell him you want me in the room from now on. Do you understand?”
“What?”
“You heard me. In the room, Chella. Fuck these cameras. I want front-row seats with an all-access pass from this day forward.”
“No,” I say. “That’s not your decision. I’m the one in charge—”
“Is that so?” Smith laughs. “You wanted to suck Bric’s cock in the car and film it for me to watch later? That was your idea? Or was it his idea and you just went along?”
I let out a long breath of air.
“It wasn’t your idea, Chella. You just went along like a good… little… slut. You sucked his cock and swallowed his come and then you painted your red lipstick back on like it’s just another night out. And do you know why it was so damn easy to just go along?”
“Why?” I ask in a soft, soft whisper.
“Because when you go dark, you don’t take a light.”
“Just what the fuck—”
But the call has been ended.
God, he’s sick.
But as soon as I think that thought, I think it about myself as well.
I’m sick too.
We’re all sick here.