“And that’s just it,” I said, “I don’t want to push him hard. I don’t want to out-crazy him, or fight him, or gag him so he can’t talk back. I want him to offer, I want him to give himself to me in the same spirit I give myself to him when he’s won the pissing coin toss. I want him to mean it. I want to be equals.” I was manic and unreasonable, I could see it in Topaz’s cute little button eyes. The twin terrors of rejection and frustration were snapping at my ankles, rearing up in the same way they’d done in Italy whenever Vincent poked me too pissing hard. But in Italy I’d subdued them, hidden them, learned to swallow them down under the threat of Vincent’s twisted lessons. Here was different. Here was so different. I didn’t want to back down, I wanted to stand tall, and I wanted to win. I just wanted to fucking win. Win something. Win him. I wanted him to be the one to bend for me. Fat fucking chance.
“You’ve been back three weeks,” she whispered. “Do you think maybe you’re being a little harsh?”
Yes. Yes, I’m being harsh. I’m being harsh and ridiculous and lashing out at the wrong fucking man. “It’s the way I feel,” I said. “I’m not apologising for that. Not ever again.”
“I don’t think you should apologise for it, I just think…” she lowered her eyes. “Sorry, this is none of my business.”
“You rode the man’s cock last night while he was cuffed to a gurney with his mouth clamped open, and I was the one who coerced you. Strongly. The boundaries of polite conversation have been safely breached, Topaz. My fucked-up relationship with Andy Morgan is very definitely your business.”
“This isn’t about Mr Morgan, though, is it? Not really.”
“It’s totally about Andy.” I let out a melodramatic sigh. “And maybe just a little about Vincent, too.”
She looked so kind, so sad for me. “It must have been hard to walk away from something like that, I mean, I read those books.”
“I didn’t walk, I ran. Fast. Before I could change my mind.”
“And are you changing your mind?” Doe eyes were so enticing, sucking me in to spill all my secrets, but I didn’t care anymore. I was fat out of friends, and fat out of sounding boards.
“I don’t want to change my mind.” My voice had shrivelled to a pathetic rasp. “I don’t want to want him. I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to believe all his shitty little promises.”
“But you think you will anyway?” Her eyebrows shot up. “He’s coming for you, isn’t he?”
I nodded. “He was always coming. I just figured I’d be ready for it.”
“But you’re not?”
I shook my head. “It was naive, thinking running back here would give me something to hold onto. Somewhere to hide. Like that would ever be enough to protect me from someone like Vincent.”
“But it could be, no? If Mr Morgan meant something? If he was worth holding onto?”
“He means something,” I said. “Just not enough.” I folded my arms across my chest, bracing against some imaginary chill. “Vincent knows me. He’s seen me at my weakest, he’s seen me broken, and delirious, but he’s also seen me scale the heights of sexual experience. He educated me, trained me, used me. He loved me, too, in his own twisted way, and I loved him. I loved him so much I didn’t know how to breathe without him. That’s what a relationship like that does to you, you lose yourself in it, and you don’t even care, not until you realise it’s all been a nasty fucking illusion. I’d love to sink back into our Italian fantasy, it would be so easy, so beautifully easy, if only it was real. But it’s over. It has to be over. I’m just not sure I’ll be strong enough, not when it comes to it. Not when this… thing, this crazy, messy, stupid thing with Andy Morgan is frying the tiny bit of rational thinking I’ve got left in my skull.”
“I know Mr Morgan is no Master Blake, he’s mean but he’s not twisted, he’s a bull not a poet. But maybe he could be what you need? The thing you hold onto? That’s what you wanted, right? When you came back here?”
I smiled. “That’s exactly what I thought I didn’t want. I just wanted my club back, I wanted to hole up tight with my hands full, and my brain busy, in a place where I had control, and value, and purpose. Where I was strong, and didn’t need an asshole like Vincent Blackmore in my life. Andy was supposed to be a kinky little rebound to take the edge off, nothing else. A value-added bonus.” I met her eyes full on. “Believe it or not, Topaz, I wasn’t exactly drowning in options. This was my life, and then I left it, it was the only real place to run back to. I was supposed to be on top of the world by now, without a shit to give for Vince, or what he’s doing.”