On a sweltering summer day, sweat poured from her skin as she was dragged down the sidewalk through the crush of businessmen at the lunch hour. The sound of choked cars was deafening, their exhaust blinding. The usual derelicts propped against soot-covered buildings were uninvolved in the commotion as if they were the audience to be entertained by the passion of the players.
There was something urgent in the clutch of his hand, the way his fingers wrapped around hers to pull her along. It exuded a desperation she had grown to accept in the last three years. Desperate people do desperate things.
Behind the elongated glass doors of her condo building, she drew in a deep, cool breath to let her aching lungs recover a little. Yet he dragged her to the elevator and stabbed at the call button with uncontrollable anger. Inside the elevator, he forced her into the corner, her nose against the wall. And he leant against her to remind her that he owned her.
Inside of her sprawling condo, the prelude, "You bitch!" reverberated to the very walls and died in the miles of purple silk swagged at the windows. She turned only to see his facial muscles contorted in grotesque configuration, a parody of human flesh. "When I tell you to do something, don't hesitate again."
The first flush of the day's tears burst from her eyes as she fell to her knees. As if her feelings were an excuse, a cause for pardon, she moaned, "I love you. I can't stand to see you with those others."
His rigid stance hardened against that declaration. Blood vessels in his eyes dilated and seemed to catch fire. "If I want Alexandria, Exotic Asp from the East, in my office, that's what I mean. I want her now, not five minutes from now. Not tomorrow. Do you know what NOW means?"
"She was on the set at that moment ... doing one of her famous scenes," she replied as her chin dropped to her chest. "Surely you didn't want me to interrupt filming. The director would have been furious."
His fists knotted with the tension she'd created. "I don't give a fuck what the director wants. And because you're having a problem with the concept of 'now,' let me demonstrate."
Her voice curdled in her throat and dripped into her stomach causing it to churn. His heavy footfall advanced in a flurry of rage. She braced herself for the onslaught of his anger for she knew too well what 'now' meant. The strength of his fingers twisted in her hair, pulled her backwards and in another moment of dizziness she found herself sprawled over his knees with only the sight of black wool carpeting filling her vision.
More than ever before, his hand was heated to the point of combustion as it struck her bottom. The stinging was sharp and the next reminder came in staccato repetition of the first. She writhed on his lap grinding the tight muscles of her abdomen against his thighs.
This hurts me as much as it hurts you, he thought, yet he continued, more, for he would never tire of it. The flush of that flesh swelled into his hand; the fire ignited and grew with every subsequent blow. His arm wrapped tightly around her waist, he unable to stop himself.
She could do nothing but sob so had his displeasure suffocated her. She coughed to clear the passageway to her heart only to vow to find ever more subtle ways to infuriate him. And if she had the power, to drive him completely out of his mind.
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