Four

MONICA.

Nausea crawls up my throat. My ecstasy screeches into a deadly halt, taking my heart along with it.

I leap out of the man’s lap like a scalded animal, rushing towards the door without bothering to cover myself up. The metallic scent of blood somehow stuck to my nose, and every breath is now touched by it.

“Hey,” he starts to say, but I got no interest to spare him.

Struck with mindless panic, I burst out into the hallway. There’s a bathroom in the corner, and I lock myself in there, hoping against hope that the man won’t follow me here.

I press my back against the door, closing my eyes.

What the hell was that?

Why would he have fresh blood on his sleeve?

He was hiding it. It was his shirt that had the blood, and surely he has seen that before he put his jacket on.

Was he the one bleeding?

Or did he hurt somebody?

The worst thought suddenly strikes me.

What if he killed someone?

A shudder creeps on my body. I wrap my arms around myself. I can’t believe I got myself in this situation. A random man, possibly a murderer, just made me come during a private session that he paid ten thousand dollars for.

How long I stood here and picked at my thoughts, I don’t know. The only time I become aware of my surroundings again is when someone knocks on the door.

I flinch, collapsing on the floor in utter fear.

But it’s Andy’s voice that comes floating from the other side. “Monica? Are you in there?”

Relieved, I rush out of the bathroom and launch myself into her arms. She’s holding a silk bathrobe, which she gently wraps around my shoulders.

“You alright, girl?” she asks softly, but I don’t miss the hint of joy in her tone. I look up to see that she’s smiling. “Why are you hiding out here? The generous mister just left! Did you give him a great time?”

My mouth falls open in shock. I wonder how she’ll react when I tell her I want to quit because of her bullshit. Does she not see how distressed I am?

“Andy,” I start to say, my voice shaking with every syllable, “that man had fucking blood on his—“

“Twenty thousand. He told me to give you twenty thousand.”

Andy reaches into her pocket and presses a strip of paper against my chest. I look down and see that it’s a newly signed check. My hands start to shake as I scan the paper, trying to see if it has the man’s name on it. But it doesn’t.

“He likes you,” Andy says smugly. “And when he comes back, you better fucking show up.”

* * *

“She really said that?” Jackie’s eyes widen with shock and rage. “Damn, I always knew that that bitch had a cold heart. But I didn’t think she would do that to you.”

Jackie is my best friend. She owns a diner called Breaking Fast, and I always swing by after my shift at Original Sin. I told her everything that happened, including how Andy reacted, and she’s appalled.

“She really did say it,” I confirm, burying my face in my hands. “I just… I wish I can quit.”

Her hand weighs heavy on my shoulder. I can feel the first rays of the sun from the windows, but it doesn’t feel like hope. In fact, it feels like the first licks of the fires of hell that are surely coming for me.

The truth is, the stripping job is all I have. I’ve been trying to branch out into posting racy pictures and videos for subscribers, but it’s still in its very early stages and it’s not that lucrative as of the moment. My bills are not that high, actually.

It’s my mother’s debt that I find hard to chip at.

Technically, it’s not exactly her debt. I was the one who made the loans. She passed away three years ago, and she was diagnosed with colon cancer two years before that. I started stripping straight out of high school to try and save her, but it just wasn’t enough.

Desperate times led to desperate decisions. I took bad loans from bad people. Mom got better for a couple of months and that encouraged me to take more, until the disease finally caught up to her and took her life.

And here I am now, still paying for it. Literally and figuratively. I miss her every day. But I don’t know what she’s going to say about what I’m doing, especially since she died never knowing.

As though this isn’t enough, I also have this… memory problem that I need to take care of.

I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was in high school. A huge chunk of my memory is missing, and Mom said it was from a bad car accident when I was seventeen. The scar on my chest above my heart is supposed to be from that accident, but I just don’t feel like it really happened that way.

I’m planning to save money to go back to therapy and get everything sorted out. Because there are some days when I just black out and suddenly feel like I’m in grave danger.

Nightmares about being stuck in a dungeon with a man I don’t know also plague me from time to time.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Jackie whispers. “You know I would in a heartbeat. Things are tough out here too. I can barely keep the lights open in here. I had to lay off another employee yesterday.”

“It’s okay.” I try for a smile. “Soon something good will happen to both of us.”

My own words stick in my mind even as I make it back home. Something good will happen, I keep saying to myself, getting naked and stepping into the bathroom to take a hot shower.

I should be getting to bed to prepare for another night at Original Sin, but I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is the dim private room with the man sitting on the couch. All I can feel is his hands on me, one on my neck and one right between my legs….

My pussy grows wet with the memory.

Suddenly, my hand finds its way under my shorts. My nipples are perked up under my tank top, and I run my fingers over them. Closing my eyes, I imagine a hot, firm mouth around these nipples, tugging and sucking. A tongue, flicking up and down, going around, bringing me closer to my peak with every stroke.

His mouth. His tongue.

“Fuck,” I moan, parting my pussy lips and sliding two fingers into my entrance.

The feeling of having something inside me is no doubt amazing, but I can’t help but yearn for something bigger. Something long and hard and thick like the one I felt rubbing against me just tonight. I pump my fingers in and out of my pussy, thinking about being fucked.

By him.

My thoughts are on overdrive now. I picture him sitting me down on his lap like that, except he’s naked and he’s arrowing his cock deep inside me. I imagine getting stretched out, filled full to the brim. Him bouncing me up and down his lap, making me take more and more of his cock until he floods me with his seed.

My name out of his lips. My neck in his hand. His fingers on my clit. His cock pushed all the way inside me.

Fresh blood on his arm.

My orgasm rips through me like a flash of lightning, quick and electric. I gasp, a scream bubbling out of my mouth as my walls close over my fingers, the image of sex and blood still burning in my mind….

Even though I have no idea why I’m so turned on by the thought of him.