This line of questioning had grown absurd, and it upset me more than it should have. I knew by now if I let him know he got to me, he would keep pushing. So, I chuckled instead of screamed. “You have quite the imagination, my love.” I squirmed out of his grip, turned the water off, and grabbed a towel.
“So, you just let him bend you over the counter. I see. The food there is worth more than a simple blow job? Did you let him and his friend tag team you?”
I sighed and did my best to ignore him like he had to me the night before. At least now I understood why hewas so upset. He was wrong, but the treatment made sense.
He stared at me, waiting.
“Do you expect me to give you an answer to a question that doesn't make sense?”
GROGGY FROMhaving been unconscious, I kept my eyes closed until I could decipher what happened to cause me to go black. My jaw hit the countertop on the way to the floor. It must have, the slice in my skin and blood dripping down my chin told the story.
Along with the throbbing on one side of my face, I had bitten my tongue and swallowed pools of blood.
It took me a minute to remember what I had done to upset Cody. Again.Oh, yeah. I told him he was wrong.Cody is never wrong. About anything. If I had admitted to doing what he fantasized I had done, the punishment wouldn't have been nearly as bad. Or would it?
A faint memory of the dream I had had while I had been out hit me hard. I was in Alaska, shivering from the cold, having sex with one of the regulars at the Next-door. It must have been John because he was big; I could feel him filling me again and again. For a moment, I thought I was back in Seward. Then I realized my shoulders had grown numb.
Without any sense of time, I didn’t know how long I had been handcuffed to the headboard. I pulled one armjust to be met with resistance. Dazed, it took me a minute to realize why I was so cold and what scent surrounded me. I opened my eyes to find a shirtless Cody and a naked man I had never met standing over my fully exposed body. Pressure between my legs told me they had been in the middle of using a sex toy on me when I woke up.
Disgusted, my stomach churned, and I gagged. “Who?” I could barely force the word past the gag which had been shoved in my mouth. I tried again, anyway. “Stop.” Squirming to get free, I panicked. “Cody!”
Cody took a hit of the joint he held in one hand, held his breath, then passed it to the strange man. Then he took a swig straight from a whiskey bottle before he held it and a pill in front of me. “Shut up. Now that you’re the sole income provider, you have a job to do. I suggest you make it worth my friend’s hard-earned money.”
He removed the gag, and I gladly accepted the white and green pill he offered and gulped the whiskey to push it down my throat. From the expression on his face, I understood my commentary would not be welcomed, so I kept quiet. I had a frightening idea of what he meant when he told me I had a job to do.Did he sell me to this man?
Cody’s eyes turned black; I could only imagine that the devil himself had taken over his soul. He enjoyedwatching, I knew that, but I never thought he would introduce a stranger to our sex life without my approval.
Uncomfortable with the entire situation, I tried to protest. “Please let me go, Cody. I don’t want to do this.”
“You think I give a fuck what you want? You’ll be a good little whore and do your job. Don’t disappoint me.”
The naked man held a hit from the joint, blowing the smoke out a little at a time. Nodding, a smile spread across the stranger’s squinty-eyed face. He stroked himself and practically drooled as he gaped at my breasts. Then he joined me on the bed.
The pill kicked in and I closed my eyes. I fantasized about a celebrity while the man touched me. Gentler than Cody ever had been, I kind of liked it. I pretended like I was back at the bar and moaned with fake pleasure. The man climbed on top of me and positioned me in a way I’d never tried before. He slid into me, and I arched against his weight.
If I opened my eyes, my pleasure would have halted, which would prolong the experience. I moved and moaned when I knew it counted; I rocked the strangers’ world. Honestly, I enjoyed sex with him more than my own husband. I almost didn’t want it to end. But it did.
“Best two-fifty I’ve ever spent.”
Chapter 21
Jake, age twenty-three—May 2008
TIME PASSEDslowly and in a hurry at the same time. Whatever pill Dennis had given me made it possible for me to stop thinking for a few moments. A lot of moments. I don’t know how much time went by or what happened before the sun went behind the highway, but I didn’t care.
The camp was not a place I wanted to live, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before Felix and I made the move. I hadn’t counted my stash in a few days, but it had gone fast.
The regular crowd gathered at the motel. Because we lived there, Felix and I had become regulars, too. Of course, we had too much to drink—it was our MO. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, but something that had organically happened.
Loud exhaust identified a familiar truck as it slowed beside the ladies on the corner. No one paid attention until Brenda screamed for help. Everyone in our circleturned to find the man struggling to drag her to his vehicle. With his arm around her waist, he pulled, and she kicked.
“Help! Someone, help me!”
I stayed put while Dennis and his friends approached the guy. There was no need to let my anger get the better of me. Unless they really needed help. They scuffled for a minute before Brenda broke away from the man’s embrace.
She hid behind Felix and her friend. “That’s the asshole who raped me last week.”
“You can’t rape a whor—”
