Break Her Page 3

  “Do you smoke?” he asked, holding one aloft in her direction.

  “I do now,” she answered.

  He put two in his mouth and lit them both, then handed her one.

  “Just like Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager,” she said, almost to herself.

  “Exactly,” he said, delighted. “You really get me.”

  “You’re mocking the very notion of romance, aren’t you?”

  “Now that you mention it. I guess I am. I guess I do every minute with you.”

  “Is that part of it?”

  “What, exactly?”

  “To make me lose faith in romance?”

  “Oh, I don’t know if that’s the goal,” he said airily. “But it’s certainly a very likely side effect, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t answer. She was still on the floor, waiting for his next instruction. He was walking around the living room, looking at the art and the view from the picture windows. There were only a few pieces of furniture, a sofa, two end tables, a couple of chairs. No coffee table; the middle of the room was open. The emptiness there corresponded with the central floral pattern of the Oriental rug. There were several, good-sized paintings on the light ivory walls.

  “Nice sculpture. What is that?”

  “It’s a mother and baby in an embrace.”

  “I like it.”

  “It doesn’t set off bad memories for you?”

  “Please. Don’t waste your energy trying to figure me out. It isn’t worth it.”

  “Low self-esteem?”

  “I expressed myself poorly. I meant, it isn’t worth your while to do so. You might want to focus on other things.”

  “What else could be more important?”

  “You’re not going to psych your way out of this by understanding me. You’d be better off—” He stopped. “Nice.” He smiled in appreciation. “I guess instead of giving you any guidance, I’ll just let you focus on whatever you want.”

  “Oh, god,” she said, from the floor. “I don’t know which is going to be more exhausting. The intellectual fencing or the fucking.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. The fucking.”

  “Ha. Ha. That’s what you think.”

  “If you’re smart, you won’t fence.”

  “Can I move to the ashtray, please?”

  He slid one over to her.

  “Thanks. Uh. How about a drink?” she asked. “Sir?” she added.

  “Are you offering?”

  “Yes, I guess. And asking. For some reason, this situation is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.”

  He laughed. “My ass, I believe, is the reason. Sure, but just one. I want you sober for this. And pour me one of whatever you’re having.”

  While she poured herself a shot of whisky and threw it back, he sat down, buck naked, on her leather couch. “Crawl over here with that drink and lie at my feet.”

  She did as he demanded. He took the drink, downed it, and picked up the remote. “Now what’s on?” he said and started clicking.

  “I’ve figured out my strategy,” she said, as he flipped through the stations.

  “Really. And what is that?”

  “I’m going to do exactly as you say, whatever you want.”

  “And why tell me this?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought I’d let you know.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s wise.”

  “Well, wouldn’t it have been wiser, or more effective, anyway, if you hadn’t told me anything about what you were doing here or why?”

  He thought for a moment. “Maybe. But I did that to make it a challenge for myself. This kind of job is usually so easy. This way, I’m determined to achieve my effect even though you know exactly what I’m aiming for. When you lose this fight, you’ll feel even worse. Anyway, I’m such a gregarious fellow. How could I spend so much time with someone and not converse?”

  “Do your employers know how you approach this sort of thing?”

  “They just see the results. Nobody’s been disappointed yet.”

  “Gulp,” she said, out loud.

  “And well you should,” he said. “Oh. What’s this?”

  It was SkinaMax. She didn’t rise to the bait.

  “It’s almost over,” she said, in a bored tone.

  “Too tame, anyway. For us.”

  “It is kind of gauzy for pornography. It’s more like women’s fantasies than men’s, I think.”

  “You may be right.” He kept clicking. “Certainly nothing like mine.”

  “Do you have fantasies? I mean, after all, you get to live them.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe your fantasies are the opposite of other people’s,” she said, again, almost as if he wasn’t there. “Maybe yours are about normal, everyday sex or even love. Somebody whispering, ‘I love you’ into your ear while you fuck in the missionary position in the dark, or about your kids giving you a present on Father’s Day. Maybe those are your kinky fantasies.”

  “Very funny,” he said, without any humor. “And what are yours?”

  “Oh. Being raped by someone like you, stud. Isn’t it obvious? Deep down, I’m living the dream.”

  “Careful.”

  “You said I could talk.”

  “That is true. But have you heard the expression, ‘cruising for a bruising’?”

  “No fair threatening me with physical harm when I’m not misbehaving. That’s not the game. You said yourself. You get points deducted for that.”

  “The game?”

  “Destroy or be destroyed. That’s the game, isn’t it? You’re trying to destroy me without any significant violence. And I’m trying to not be destroyed, and all I have is words. Isn’t that the game?”

  He thought for a moment. “The violence question remains open. But, yes. That’s pretty much the game.”

  “Ok, then.”

  “You do get points for that,” he decided, with a slight smile. “You may sit in a chair for a little while.”

  She actually smiled briefly and climbed into a big, fluffy one.

  “Cozy?” he asked.

  “Peachy,” she replied.

  He couldn’t help grinning. He was thinking about what he was going to do to her next.

  She was thinking about crawling. The crawling she’d already had to do. The crawling she was sure she would be doing. The crawling that people inevitably did when someone was trying to kill them and they were trying, however fruitlessly, to get away. The crawling that never saved them.

  It had been a while since anyone had seen her naked. Longer still since she’d had occasion to parade around the house that way. It was something you did when you were first involved with someone. Both of you wandering around before, during, and after sex completely nude. And comfortable. It was such a lighthearted feeling, stopping and looking in mirrors, one behind the other. Safe. Yes, that was it. Natural and safe, if maybe a little naughty.

  Of course, that ended after you had a child. Except perhaps on those rare occasions when the kid was with his grandparents or overnight with his aunt and uncle. Martinis and omelettes and late-night movies completely in the buff.

  This man made a mockery of that.

  Although, he was also a reminder. Of what it felt like to know somebody as intimately as that, to know a man’s body, head to toe. To know his penis and his testicles and the space in between, to know them like the back of your hand – the color, the hairs, the taste. A man had not peed in front of her since she’d lived with her husband. It was an intimate act. Or the complete opposite, like being in prison, the ripping away of all privacy. She knew that this man’s infliction of his own and her nakedness on her was meant to disorient her, but strangely, it had the opposite effect inside her. That was how it used to be, that familiarity, that belonging, that other body being as much yours as your own. He was repeatedly making the point that her body now was in his possession, but it was inevitable, in a way, that the reverse would become true as well. He should have, but he d
idn’t stop her from looking him over the way he looked at her. He liked being looked at, it was clear. He had a good body, solid, well-muscled in the military, not bodybuilder style, very strong. He had a few faded scars, most likely where someone had tried to fight him off or kill him, but no tattoos. Tattoos were identifying characteristics. He was smart. And he clearly felt comfortable naked, which was not typical. Comfortable doing things naked, things most people did dressed. Her husband had been like that, too. You can’t afford to be handicapped in a fight by even the slightest hint of self-consciousness. You can’t stop to put on a robe or worry about your exposed genitals. Men like this were bottom-line professionals.

  Despite what he represented and what he was trying to do, she found it fascinating to look at his body.

  His chest was smooth. Did he wax it? Waxed the hairs into submission, like everything else, she figured. His arms, too. But his legs still had a moderate sheathing of dark hair. His one concession to nature? Or did he figure that somehow made him a little more intimidating? The toes she had become all too familiar with were straight, not stubby, a few stray, wiry hairs on them, the nails cut short, in control. She’d decided, as she’d watched him eating her food, that it would be easier to do what she would clearly have to do if she kept her hatred directed solely at his mind, if she thought of his body as just another one of his hostages.

  It had made it easier for her to lick his foot, not to mention his ass, after she had made the obligatory effort to try to escape. She’d hated putting her cats at risk, but it was a calculated one. He would never believe that she wouldn’t try. No one’s that reasonable. And even she thought she might have had a chance. Her husband had taught her some moves, but she was far from a professional, and really, that’s what you needed to be against an actual professional, movies and TV aside. She saw her moment, and she took it. And then he’d punished her severely, and clearly felt even more in charge after she did what she had to do to make amends.

  At first, after that, she thought he would just continue to use her sexually for his satisfaction, but he was trickier than that. Though she’d never give him the credit, he was really ingenious and creative, if you could use those words to describe his practices. She’d never heard of anyone like this. She wished she hadn’t now.

  “What’s really interesting here,” he said, “is how rapidly and rationally you’ve adjusted to this situation. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before. Where’s the normal human response? Where’s the stupidity?”

  She didn’t answer him. He wasn’t surprised. It was a rhetorical question. She would hardly be able to respond while she had his dick in her mouth. He was leaning with his back against one of the living room windows, his hands behind him on the sill, as she knelt in front of him. Occasionally, he gave instructions, like “faster” or “slower” or “just like that” or “lick my balls.” The usual. She was just grateful that he didn’t have his hand on her head, pushing it in toward him. He’d done that a bit at the beginning, until she’d choked too much even for his pleasure. He kept having to order her to keep her eyes open.

  Finally, he did grab her head again and held it in place while he ejaculated into her mouth. He pulled out but held onto her by the hair.

  “Swallow.”

  “Eeeuow.” Her eyes were wide and her mouth was clamped shut.

  “Now.”

  With a great gulping movement of her throat, she swallowed. He pulled her head up so that she faced him. “I think the proper thing to say is ‘thank you, sir, may I have another?’”

  She looked very unhappily at him, and spoke through clenched teeth. “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

  “Again.”

  “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

  “Again.”

  She sighed. “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

  “Sure,” he said, generously. “Later.”

  He let her go, and she crawled away from him.

  “That was so good, my legs are a little shaky,” he said, sitting back down on the sofa.

  “Yeah, you really lucked out with me. I’m a real fucking pro in that department.”

  He smiled. “Tell me something. How is it that you can make yourself swallow when I know that with every fiber of your being, as they say, you wanted to spit it out at me?”

  She was sitting on the rug that covered the living room floor, with her arms around her pulled-in knees and her head down. “There are tricks that every girl learns just to deal with ordinary situations, if you know what I mean,” she said in what she hoped was a normal voice. “It helps to think of oysters.” She paused. “Although it kind of makes me hate oysters.”

  “And my other question?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I can’t help the way I am. You have the power over me, and I recognize it. If you get over the sex part, it’s no different from your making me go to my ATM and hand over my money.”

  “Most people don’t get over the sex part.”

  “Have you ever done this to a man?”

  He just looked at her. And smiled. Then he spoke. “It works even better on a man,” he said. “Although you do have to beat them up a bit more at the beginning. A lot of them refuse to see any reason, no matter how much you threaten them. Or kill their dogs. I don’t mean to minimize your suffering, but they tend to find rape unbearably humiliating. Stupid, really. Not like you.” He paused. “Does that make me gay?” He feigned concern.

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s the word for you.”

  “No?”

  “No. Equal opportunity evil, I’d say. And unbigoted.”

  He grinned.

  “You were born for this,” he said.

  “Nobody is born for this,” she spat back.

  He leaned back a bit more. “No, really. You might be perfectly adequate in ordinary life. Seem just like anyone else. But in this kind of situation, well, you really shine. It’s amazing to see.”

  “I just can’t tell you how much that means to me, coming from you.”

  “You would have been wiser to just be ordinary.”

  “What would ordinary have done?” she asked sadly.

  “Cried. And cried. Some pointless running around. And cried.”

  “I guess it’s too late for that at this point, huh?”

  He smiled.

  “And then they have to live with what you did when you’re gone?”

  “No. Usually I kill them after they’ve suffered for a while. Depending upon my instructions. Like I said, this situation is rare. Usually it’s destroy psychologically, then physically.”

  “You really are a monster.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe there aren’t any instructions. Maybe there is no they. Only you. Just one psycho killer slash rapist.”

  “I suppose it’s possible. But then you’d have to ask the question: why you?”

  “Just lucky?”

  “I wouldn’t even know you were here. This house is not in your name. Way out here in the country. What would I be doing here? And you had some pretty decent security. Do I look like one of those backwoods stalker types? With my particular set of skills? That doesn’t seem likely. But you can believe what you want.”

  “So why do you think they have you do these things?”

  “The usual reasons, I suppose. Either you’re a rival crime lord, a secret agent dedicated to eradicating whatever my employers stand for, a witting or unwitting witness to something you shouldn’t have seen or heard or touched. Or it’s to get at somebody else through hurting you.”

  “I guess that pretty much covers it.”

  “I guess. Some of the people I work for are very, very unforgiving.”

  “And that’s where you come in,” she said.

  He thought a moment. “Come over here,” he ordered.

  Her face crumpled just a little.

  “Now,” he said, warningly.

  She went. “On your knees, facing me.”


  When she obeyed, he reached out his hand and inserted his middle finger into her vagina, not roughly at all. He moved it back and forth, while rubbing her clitoris gently with the thumb of his same hand. With the other hand, he took one of her breasts and brought it to his mouth, bending over a bit to do so. He began to lick and suck at the nipple. After a few minutes, he found the position awkward, so he had her move onto the couch next to him, whereupon he continued. With his hands still busy, he freed his mouth for a moment.

  “What a lot of people don’t like to admit, is that something that they know is wrong can still be sexually exciting.” He went back to her breast for a bit.

  “Really,” was all she said.

  “Even if you tell yourself, intellectually, that you’re under duress and your body is only human,” he added, taking another break. “You still can’t help feeling emotionally wrong to find yourself responding when you know you shouldn’t be.”

  “Bit of an amateur psychologist, aren’t you?” she said. Her breathing was a little unsteady.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he said, continuing.

  She grimaced. “Bit of an amateur gynecologist, too, aren’t you?”

  He continued to work on her with his mouth and his fingers.

  “You see,” he said. “You don’t want to admit that this feels good. Even though it does.”

  “What response do you want?” she asked, sighing. “I’ll give it to you.”

  “Don’t get excited,” he said.

  “Ok.”

  She stared ahead of herself, and her breathing stayed calm. Her crotch stayed dry. He couldn’t help smiling.

  “Well. I can certainly see the work involved. What are you thinking about, baseball?”

  “Your death.”

  “Can’t be that. That would excite you, I’m sure.”

  “Prick.”

  He let her continue fighting it for a while. Then he changed his mind.

  “Now, get excited.”

  “I really hate you.”

  “I’m not exactly shocked.” He moved her down until she was horizontal on the couch, knowing that it would be even harder to maintain her efforts in that position.