Degradation(50)

But her eyes had looked so detached. Telling him to mark her with the  scissors. Daring him. She wasn't present. She wanted the pain  –  not to  remind her that she was with him, but to make her forget. He never  wanted her to forget.

It broke his heart a little.

"Jameson."

Sanders was in his room. He couldn't remember the last time Sanders had  fully entered his room. Jameson sat up, rubbed his face, and then  climbed out of bed. There was morning light shining through the windows,  and the clock said it was six-twenty. He looked around him. Tatum  wasn't in the room.

"Where is she?" he sighed. Sanders turned and left. Jameson followed close behind him.

She was asleep in Sanders' bed. Jameson was a little shocked  –  he was  pretty sure no one else had ever been in Sanders' room. Jameson hadn't  been in there since the remodel. She was laying on her stomach, and she  didn't have anything on her top half. He winced when he saw the nicks  and cuts on her back. They had been cleaned, there was no blood, but  they still looked evil.

"I tried to take her to your room, but she wanted to get cleaned up  first. She fell asleep. She was going to join you," Sanders explained in  his soft voice. Jameson sat on the edge of the bed, traced his fingers  down her spine. She shivered in her sleep.

"No. She wanted to be with you. She feels safe with you," Jameson replied.

"No. She wants you. She has been waiting for you."

Jameson scowled. He wasn't in the mood for Sanders' little riddles. He  stood up and pulled Tate to the edge of the bed, picked her up in his  arms, curled her in to his chest. He nodded at Sanders and then strode  from the room.

Once he had her laid down, he stripped the rest of her clothing off. She  slept through the whole process, breathing heavily through her nose.  She rolled back onto her stomach and he let his eyes wander over her  body. He stretched out next to her, massaged his fingers against her  skin. There were no signs on her body that another man had been there.  She must have been a lot gentler with strangers. She started to move  under his touch.         

     



 

"Jameson," she mumbled, her face turned away from him.

"You sure it's not Sanders?" Jameson teased. She managed a laugh.

"Oh, I'd know his fingers anywhere," she joked back.

"Are you okay?" he whispered, smoothing his hand over her back. She shrugged.

"Yeah. Nothing a tough chick like me can't handle," she replied.

"Sometimes I wonder."

"I was just so angry. You had promised, and there were all these  pictures of the two of you, and I just ..., I got upset. I didn't have  any right to, I'm sorry," she said softly. He sighed. He liked to  pretend he didn't, but he knew he owed her something.

"I got upset when I realized you were wearing his shirt," he replied.

"You sleep with girls all the time," she pointed out.

"I still got upset."

"So I can't sleep with other guys?" she asked. He thought for a second.

"I just don't want you using it against me, trying to upset me with the  fact. I've never done that to you  –  if anything, I sleep with other  women because I know it turns you on. I've never done it to hurt you.  You wearing his shirt, in my house, though, trying to upset me; it  worked," Jameson growled at her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He rubbed a hand across his face. How far did he really want to go for  this girl? He looked down at her, stretched out beside him. When he had  first seen Tatum, at that party, he hadn't believed his eyes. A dark  haired sex kitten engaging in dangerous banter with him. Then again at  the meeting with his lawyers. Pulling her panties off in a room full of  people; she had blown him away. He had wanted to play with her some  more, maybe finish what they had started seven years ago. Only now,  there wasn't an end in sight. He'd already gone too far.

"I met Petrushka at a party, a couple years ago. She's a huge bitch, so  we hit it off. She's a freak in the sack, you'd love it," he said. Tate  laughed.

"Sounds like a keeper," she chuckled. He put his hand back on her back  and her skin jumped at his touch. Just like the first time they had ever  touched. Just like every time.

"She's fucking crazy. We fucked, we fought, we broke up. Got back  together. She wants everything her way, very demanding. We stayed  together mostly because of our positions, I think. Supermodel, rich guy,  I don't know. I was doing a lot of work in Europe at the time, it was  easy," he tried to explain.

"You have a home in Copenhagen. She's Danish," Tate commented. He laughed.

"Seriously, Tate, sometimes I forget what a girl you are. I owned my  home before I even knew her. We met in Germany," he told her. She  sighed.

"I'm so stupid."

He moved his hand up and down her back, touched his fingers to her scratches.

"Sometimes," he agreed. "I was unhappy. Pet dug her claws in, distracted  me from that fact. I was angry a lot of the time, and sometimes she  would let me treat her badly," he continued.

"Like me?" Tate asked. He laid down on his side and leaned close to her.

"No one is like you, Tate. You're the real deal, she was an act. She  likes to play my part, she wants to be the one holding someone down. She  faked everything for me. I don't think she ever really liked me, or  that I even ever really liked her. We just liked how each other looked,  liked how we fucked," he said.

"You spun two years away on liking how someone fucks?" Tate asked.

"You've been doing the same thing for seven years," Jameson pointed out.

"Yeah, but with different people, different flavors. Not just one person  that I don't even like. And if you didn't like her, how did you wind up  engaged?" she pressed. He groaned and rolled onto his back

"It was an accident, I was kind of tricked in to it. I was picking up a  ring from Harry Winston, in New York. It was my grandmother's ring.  Huge, gorgeous. Pet and I had just had a very public fight, it was all  over the tabloids. Some fucking paparazzi piece of shit took a bunch of  pictures of me in the store with the ring, talking to the jeweler,  taking it out of the store. It was everywhere. She freaked out, got all  excited. When I told her what had really happened, she freaked out even  more, pointed out that it would be everywhere, if I took it back. How  could I take it back, when I'd never put it out there?" he asked.

"What a prize bitch," Tate mumbled.

"I don't know, it was easier to go with the flow. There I was, almost  thirty, and utterly alone; aside from Sanders. Who hated her, by the  way. A very good judge of character, Sanders," he pointed out.

"Duh. I would trust anything Sanders said. I would trust him with my life," she was quick to comment.         

     



 

"Goddamn, Tate, maybe you should be sleeping with him," Jameson laughed.

"Who says I'm not?"

He smacked her on the ass, and some of the awkward tension between them eased as they laughed.

"Shut up, don't make me kill him. He's my favorite person  –  you can be  replaced, Sanders can't," he teased. She chuckled. "Anyway, I figured  why not. She was one of the hottest fucks I'd ever had, she was  gorgeous, and I had gotten pretty good at tuning out her bitching. I  went with it. Gave her the ring. Big mistake. I never got it back."

"What made you finally end it for real?" Tate asked.

"I had tried to break it off a couple times; once when she flipped out  after she caught me fucking this tennis player  –  she was not as free a  thinker as you. She never wanted to have sex anymore, and when we did,  it was always kind of weird. Well, you know, weirder than usual. I  finally told her it was over, for real over. That I had never wanted to  marry her, and would never marry her. She begged and pleaded. Cried. I  could never resist tears, you know.

"We wound up fucking, and she asked me to hit her. She never let me do  that before, never asked me to  –  she would let me do other things. Hot  candle wax, cat-o-nine-tails, paddles; things she had the option of  doing back to me. But hitting ..., it's kind of a one way street. You'll  never be able to hit me as hard as I can hit you," Jameson said softly.  Tate laughed.

"We'll see about that."

"Very few women will let you do that to them, I've discovered. Lot's of  other crazy shit, but not that, so it was kind of like dangling  forbidden fruit in front of me. I was gentle, I didn't do anything  crazy. Slapped her once, maybe twice. She went fucking nuts. Fucked my  goddamn brains out  –  almost comparative to you," he told her.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Tate snorted.

"I mean, it was crazy. Even for me. We were all over the place, every  surface in the apartment. But then she started hitting herself. Hard. It  got a little strange. I tried to stop her. She gave herself a bloody  lip, pulled out a hank of hair, and when she came, she gave herself a  black eye. I like some freaky shit, but that was too much. I got off of  her, made her stop. She laughed at me, said that I was the freak, that  there was something wrong with me for liking the things I like, said she  was gonna tell everyone, sell pictures of her face to the press. Fucked  up. I packed a bag and left. I've never gone back to that apartment,  though I'm pretty sure I'm still paying rent on it," Jameson said.