The Red, Page 5

  Abruptly he stopped and slid off her stomach.

  "Come,” he ordered, taking her by the arm and pulling her to her feet off the bed.

  She felt like a mannequin as he moved her this way and that, turning her back to his chest, bending her over the bed, placing her hands just so on the covers, and then sticking his prick into her from behind without a word of warning. He held her hips while he pumped it into her, controlling the depth and the speed entirely. He gave. She took. This would be her role for the next year when they met. She was to take it, whatever it was. Sometimes she would enjoy what he gave her. Sometimes she would not. He had told her that already…but now she believed him. His penis was long and large and every few thrusts the tip would hit her cervix, something she found uncomfortable to say the least. But Malcolm was enjoying himself, fucking her like this. His every breath and grunt and groan told her he was. So she stayed loose-limbed in his grasp, her tender breasts swaying with his every rough deep thrust, and waited it out.

  At last he came, shooting her full of his hot thick fluid. It slicked her thighs and the male scent of it permeated the room. The scent of sex. The scent of a man with his whore.

  The scent of money.

  Malcolm pulled out of her and patted her on the ass.

  "Good lass,” he said. "Well done.”

  "Thank you.” She slowly stood up straight and took a deep breath.

  "Take a moment,” he said as he laid on the bed again. "You’ve earned a little rest.”

  She was desperately thirsty from panting so hard.

  "Water?” she asked.

  "Please.”

  She pulled the little basket she’d packed out from under the bed. From it she took out two green glass bottles of sparkling water.

  "Dangerous,” he said.

  "What is?”

  "Glass bottles.”

  "Why so?”

  He smiled.

  "You wouldn’t,” she said.

  He cocked his head to the side, raised his eyebrow.

  "All right,” she said as she unscrewed the cap of the bottle. "You would.”

  "It isn’t that I would. It is that I will. You do realize this is merely foreplay, don’t you? We haven’t even started yet. I like to play games. I like to play roles. I might even bring an audience one night or two. I might even bring friends…”

  If this was nothing but foreplay, nothing but the opening act, what would the main attraction be like?

  "You didn’t bring the riding crop,” she said.

  "Not tonight. Would you like me to bring it for our next assignation?”

  "I have a choice?” She handed him a bottle of water.

  "You have a choice of when, not if. There is no if. I will beat you with a riding crop at some point in the next twelve months.”

  "Might as well,” she said. She wasn’t looking forward to being beaten with a crop, but it seemed it would be best to get it over with. Maybe she would like it. Only one way to find out.

  "We’ll see,” he said. "Drink your water.”

  She drank her water deep and he sipped at his. His stamina was remarkable. He had the sexual energy of a teenage boy and the lasting power of a man. A potent combination.

  "Is this something you do often?” she asked. She sat on the bed, cross-legged like a child in school.

  "Fuck?”

  "No. Find women in need and turn them into whores?”

  "You aren’t my first. You will be my last, however.” He gave her his half-drunk water bottle and she set it on the floor beside the bed. Then he laid back on the pillows, stretched out. His penis lay limp and draped on his thigh, a sleeping giant.

  "Why is that?”

  "I made a promise I fully intend to keep. With your assistance, of course.”

  "That’s a very cryptic thing to say.”

  "I’m afraid I can’t explain any better than that. I think you’ll understand eventually.”

  "If I’m your last, I hope I’m also your best.” She took a final drink of her water, finishing the bottle.

  "I have no doubt you’ll give me my money’s worth,” he said with a grin. Then he raised his hand and crooked his finger at her, beckoning her to him. She started to put her empty bottle on the floor and he shook his head. "Bring it here.”

  She froze, but only for a moment. He must have his money’s worth.

  "Lay on your back,” he said. "Open up.”

  She did as he told her, opening her legs for him.

  "Pleasure yourself with your fingers,” he said. "Use both hands.”

  Her vulva still dripped with his semen and her labia were swollen and sensitive to the touch. With two fingers on each hand she caressed her folds as he watched, parting them, spreading them wide.

  "Touch your clit,” he said. "Pull back the hood.”

  She took a ragged breath. His eyes gleamed rapaciously as he watched her pull back the flesh to reveal the tiny knot of tissue underneath.

  "Hold there,” he said softly. "Don’t move a single muscle.”

  He bent and with the tip of his tongue touched her exposed clitoris. A light touch, but it felt like a bolt of lightning shot through her from that point of contact to the base of her neck and the heels of her feet.

  "Rub yourself the way you do when you’re alone,” he instructed. "Like you’re trying to make yourself come, but don’t.”

  She nodded and shifted her two fingers into a small V-shape, the pad of each finger on either side of her clitoris. Slowly, she made a circular motion, then an oval, pulling the hood lightly with each apex and nadir. As she did so, Malcolm picked up the water bottle and examined it. It wasn’t a large bottle—only about six inches tall with a narrow neck and a round bulb of a base, a typical glass water bottle. There was no paper label on it, only paint. She’d taken off the screw cap. It was just glass, she told herself. Thick smooth glass and he was sliding it, mouth first, into the hole. She moaned as the cool glass pressed against her hot inner flesh. Smooth, so very smooth, but hard as well, unbearably hard. Thick at the base, too thick to take all the way in. And yet as she rubbed herself harder and faster, she wanted it in. Could she take it? Malcolm seemed in no hurry to force the matter. He pushed it in and then allowed her body to push it back out again. He pushed it in. Her body pushed it out. His dark eyes were trained on the sight; he looked only at her pussy and the bottle.

  "I once poured wine, bottle and all, into a pretty whore’s cunt and drank it out of her,” he said in a low and faraway voice. "Evangeline. A freckled ginger. She was the bastard daughter of a duke.”

  "Did she like it?”

  "She liked me. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t let me do to her. One evening, I played cards with her father and beat him. I rolled up the money I won from him, slipped it in a bottle, and put the bottle in his daughter’s cunt that very night. When I told her where I’d gotten the money, she laughed so hard the bottle shot out of her and shattered on the floor. Coins went everywhere. I nearly pissed myself. What a sight.”

  "You’ve had adventures, haven’t you?”

  "Haven’t you?”

  "Not until you,” she said. "And probably not after you either.”

  "Oh, you’ll have an adventure after I’m gone. I’ll see to it.”

  "I bet you will,” she said. Malcolm only smiled and forced the bottle in a little deeper. Her muscles stretched and opened to receive it. The longer she touched herself the more she wanted it. She felt a deep muscle contraction and it was so delicious she almost orgasmed right there.

  "Be good,” he said.

  "Trying.”

  "This is a show,” he said. "And you’re putting it on for me. Entertain me, not yourself. Entertain me.”

  His tone was commanding and she responded well to that tone. She put her heels on the bed, flexed her hips, lifting them as she pulled in her stomach muscles to turn her body concave so that he could see her pussy better. With both hands she pulled her labia apart as he pushed the bottle in so deep her vagi
na nearly engulfed it. It slid out of her, but Malcolm eased it back in as she once more pulled the labia apart. She could take it. She could. She knew she could if she could only open up a tiny bit more. Her body was so tense it almost hurt to shift her thighs a few inches wider. But she did and as Malcolm pressed the bottle in, the heel of his palm against the base, she inhaled and drew it into her all the way, entirely.

  "Hold it in,” Malcolm said. His hand covered her entire pubis, blocking the bottle’s exit. She clutched at the sheets, her body taut, tense, and ready to snap. But she held it, she held her breath and held the bottle in her. Malcolm tapped the base of the bottle and she felt vibrations all through her hips. She groaned, moaned like the whore he’d made her. More taps, more vibrations. He put two fingers on the base of the glass and moved it side to side, up and down, around in a circle. The pleasure was maddening. She’d never taken so much. She had never been opened up and filled like this. Not even his huge organ had split her so wide as this. She came up on her elbows, unable to believe it was happening, but when looked between her thighs, there it all was—the bottle buried in her, Malcolm’s hand holding it in, her clitoris swollen more than it had ever been before. She pushed air through her lips like a woman giving birth.

  "What do you want?” Malcolm asked. "Do you want it in or out?”

  "I don’t know,” she breathed.

  "I like it in. Very nice,” he said. "But you must be about to die, aren’t you? Wouldn’t you love to come?”

  "I need to.”

  "You don’t need to. You want to. And I want to keeping fucking you with the bottle. Push it out.”

  "This is…perverse,” she said between breaths.

  "Don’t complain,” he said. "I could have used a wine bottle.”

  She tightened her inner muscles and forced it out of her. She watched it emerge from her wet sex and into Malcolm’s hand. But as soon as it was out to the mouth of the bottle, Malcolm eased it back into her, all the way in again. He slid his arm under her shoulders and she lay back across it. The position forced her back to bend and thrust her breasts into the air. Malcolm licked and sucked at her nipple as he toyed with the bottle inside her. Mona begged him to let her orgasm, implored him, offered up her body to him, which was meaningless since he’d already bought it from her.

  "Soon…” was all he said. Soon. He rasped it into her ear. Her body shook and shivered, shook and tensed. She had to come, had to, absolutely must…

  He was fully erect again, his cock pressed against her thigh. She reached down and grasped it in her hand, held it simply to hold it, this instrument of her pleasure and her torment. Malcolm shuddered and chuckled, no doubt amused by her desperation. The begging went on. Soon the only word she knew was "please.” She said it over and over. Finally, he gave in.

  "Push it out,” he said and she rolled up again to force the bottle out of her. Malcolm mounted her quickly, penetrating her with a stroke. With her breasts in his hands, he rode her into the bed. The thrusts were rough and rapid and bruising. He squeezed her breasts with brutal strength, and she didn’t care, not at all. She cared only about the huge hard shaft slamming into her over and over. She arched into the orgasm, crying out louder than she ever had, her vagina closing in quick contractions all around the brutal organ inside her. Her entire body flinched with the muscle spasms. God, what was he doing to her? How could she ever return to a normal life after this?

  She collapsed back onto the pillows and Malcolm pulled out of her. She rolled onto her side and he lay beside her, his chest to her back.

  "I have to sleep,” she said as he kissed the side of her neck under her ear. "I can’t go on anymore. I have to sleep…just for a minute. I think you killed me…”

  She was out of her mind with exhaustion. Malcolm laughed that gentle mocking laugh again. He pulled the red rose from behind her ear, unpinned her hair and let it lay free on the pillow. He teased her nose with the petals and kissed the back of her neck.

  "Sleep then,” he said. "I don’t mind. Sleep and I’ll take you while you’re sleeping.”

  "You wouldn’t…”

  "Don’t you know better than that by now, darling?”

  Mona did know better than that by now. Smiling, she nodded, shifted forward onto her stomach, her knee up to leave her sex open to him. As she drifted off to sleep, she felt him enter her again. Surely she couldn’t sleep with his cock inside her. But the thrusts were long and slow and for once, quite gentle. They were steady and rhythmic and it was as if he was rocking her to sleep. And she fell asleep with him inside her, his warm breath on her naked shoulder, her name on his lips as he kissed her earlobe.

  When she woke, sunlight streamed through the skylight over the bed and Malcolm was gone. Slowly she rolled up and pressed a hand to her forehead. The last thing she remembered was Malcolm taking the red rose from her hair and the velvet choker off her neck and penetrating her gently from behind.

  If asked, she doubted she’d swear on a Bible that she trusted Malcolm, but this morning she awoke unharmed, not raped, nor mutilated or murdered. He’d fucked her, yes, consensually. How many times? She wasn’t sure if she should count her orgasms or his. And she couldn’t count his because he’d fucked her while she’d slept. Had he done it only the one time? Or several times throughout the night? The thought of him gently rutting on her unconscious body aroused her, though she wished it didn’t. She had to admit to herself she enjoyed being thoroughly used. It was new information about herself. It didn’t trouble her to make this realization. It only troubled her that it didn’t trouble her.

  Mona laughed.

  She laughed because Tou-Tou slept curled in a ball at the end of the bed and she wondered if Malcolm had picked the little cat up and put him there in the night. For in Manet’s Olympia, a black cat stands guard at the end of his mistress’s bed. The black cat symbolized prostitution. Mona had to wonder if the term "pussy” came into fashion before or after Olympia.

  Tired as she was, Mona would have liked to stay in the bed all day. Unfortunately, the gallery doorbell buzzed. There was work to be done. Always more work.

  "Just a moment.” Her voice was hoarse as she called out, but the buzzing stopped.

  Her body ached in places she’d never ached before and her nipples were ringed with pale blue bruises from his mouth and hands. As quickly as she could, she pulled on her skirt and bra and shirt. Had it all been real? She looked at the bed, the sheets wildly askew and dotted with dried fluid stains. Oh, yes, it had been real. Every sore muscle in her body, especially the ones inside her, told her it was. She went to the side door in the office, the delivery door, unlocked and pushed it open.

  "Yes? Can I help you?”

  A woman stood across the threshold, dark skin with a white scarf in her hair. She was beautiful as a Raphael, and in her arms she cradled a bouquet overflowing with white roses and baby’s breath.

  "Delivery for Mona St. James. Is that you, miss?” the woman said in an island accent Mona couldn’t place. Something lovely and Caribbean anyway. Had Malcolm found the prettiest woman in the whole city to bring her flowers? She wouldn’t put it past him.

  "It’s me. Thank you,” Mona said, taking the flowers from the woman’s arms. She should have seen this coming. In Manet’s Olympia, a woman stands by the courtesan’s bed presenting her with white flowers. "Is there a card?”

  "Not a card, miss,” the woman said. "But he told me to give you this.”

  She handed Mona a clear glass bottle sealed with a cork.

  Mona laughed to herself. Terrible man.

  "If you’ll wait here, I’ll find some cash.”

  "He tipped me well enough for ten men,” the woman said. "Enjoy your flowers. He said you’d more than earned them.”

  The woman gave her a knowing smile and stepped away. Mona set the flowers on the desk. They smelled of summer, which it was today—June 21st, the summer solstice. A new summer full of promise. She pulled the cork from the bottle. There seemed to be a note
inside. It took a little doing to ease the rolled parchment from the bottle’s mouth, but at last she worked it out.

  Mona unrolled the paper and her eyes widened. She dropped down into her desk chair, heedless of the discomfort.

  The paper wasn’t a note at all but a drawing. Not a drawing but a sketch—a sketch she recognized instantly. She knew those curves, those watery lines. A sketch of a dancer. Not any sort of dancer. A ballet dancer.

  There was only one word on the entire page and one word was all she needed to know Malcolm had made good on his first payment for her services.

  Degas.

  The Slave Market