Part 21 (1/2)

Maybe I was, but at that moment it seemed really possible. We could be partners in synch forever. He'd called me the love of his life, as if anyone else there had been before paled in comparison. He had used the word forever. He was moving slowly because he was trying his best to preserve the relations.h.i.+p, not ruin it by rus.h.i.+ng. But once the concert series was over, we had our whole lives ahead of us. Together. The mere thought made my heart pound and I felt like singing in the shower. Heck, even though I was a much worse singer than I was a dancer, I let loose with a few bars of the 1812 Overture. That was how excited and amazed and ready to explode from happiness I was.

I got out of the shower, put on the luxuriously thick hotel bathrobe, and was combing out my wet hair when a knock came at the door. I could hear a m.u.f.fled female voice saying, ”Karina? Karina, I know you're in there.”

I looked through the peephole.

Standing there was Ferrara Huntington.

Twelve.

Made of Lipstick I opened the door.

”May I come in?” she asked, her face quite sober and serious.

”Ferrara, what's this about?”

”Please, Karina. I... I promise I won't bother you about this again. I have some things to tell you, and show you, so you don't have to take my word for it. Just give me fifteen minutes of your time, and then I will never speak of this again.”

”Speak of what?”

”There are things you don't know about James.”

I p.r.i.c.kled to hear her use his name and suppressed the urge to look around the hallway to make sure no one had overheard. ”Fine. Come in. Fifteen minutes.”

She glided in, head high like a swan, and I closed the door behind her. She went to the small table by the window, sat down, and then pulled a laptop computer out of her voluminous shoulder bag. It was some fancy designer brand, but once she had the computer on the table, she tossed the bag aside like it was worthless.

I sat in the other chair, my hands folded on my knees, telling myself to count the minutes until she'd leave. Then I'd get in bed with James and that would be the end of it.

”Pardon my presumption, but you have to realize how obvious it is that he's sleeping with you. One new dancer comes along and all of a sudden he wants her to be the star of the show? Oh, perhaps I shouldn't be such a cynic. Maybe he hasn't started sleeping with you yet. Either way, you need to know what it is I'm about to tell you,” she said.

I said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

”If you're already sleeping with him, then you know all about the whips and chains. He talks a great game about consent, doesn't he? About boundaries and all that? He makes you feel completely safe, even when he's menacing your c.u.n.t with a straight razor.”

I swallowed, my thighs clenching involuntarily, as I remembered the first time he shaved me. I hadn't been scared at all. No, wait, I had been kind of nervous, but then he made it obvious he'd been making me nervous on purpose, and then he made it all better, so much better...

”I know I was harsh with you before. I was upset. You can imagine how I felt, can't you? I arrive in Vegas thinking I know what's going on and then, wham, Alicia Bogovich drops a bomb and tells me, oh by the way, we're not even doing the show you commissioned? But that's the kind of coward James is. He wouldn't tell me directly.”

I still said nothing. I'd had no idea if James hadn't spoken to her, but I could easily believe he'd told her and she'd dismissed it, the way she had dismissed his request for her to leave him alone so he could get undressed earlier.

”Anyway, I apologize for being so b.i.t.c.hy today, but unfortunately, what I said was true. You probably know that he gets off on hurting you. Nothing makes his c.o.c.k harder than seeing you in pain or seeing you helpless. Am I right?”

I couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer. ”You know, I haven't tested the hardness to see how it compares to him seeing me in pleasure or in ecstasy.”

She smiled and I realized I'd given her an advantage by confirming I was having s.e.x with him. But then her look softened, turning sympathetic. ”Oh, dearie, I know. He can play normal when he wants to. And you know what? You're probably a great lay. And James, well, his d.i.c.k gets hard if the wind blows. That's just how he is. But back to what I was saying. The thing that will excite him to the next level is when you start to resist. And the thing that he's waiting for, the thing he can't f.u.c.king wait for, is the day when you actually say no.”

”He and I have discussed it,” I said.

”You think you have,” she shot back. ”You'll see. You'll say no, and he'll keep right on going. He won't stop until it's full-out rape.”

”No,” I said, before I could stop myself.

”Yes. He's pumped you so full of talk about consent and boundaries and stuff, but you know what? You'll probably blame yourself at first. You'll blame yourself for miscommunication. Or worse, for disappointing him. But that'll just build up a nice wall of resentment. Eventually you'll resist because you have to find out if you're really a prisoner to that c.o.c.k of his, or if you have the free will he claims you have. He claims he'll let you go so that you'll come back to him, and prove that you love him. But it'll happen. You'll say no. He'll f.u.c.k you anyway. You'll fight and scratch and claw to prove to him you're serious, and that'll just excite him even more. And if it looks like you might actually win the fight or hurt him, well, he'll just put you in bondage, and then you'll truly be f.u.c.ked.”

I tried to argue with her. ”But... but I offered to him that he could take me anytime, anywhere. I wanted to give him that. I did that myself, without him prompting me.”

Her eyes were misty with sympathy. ”Oh, darling, I know you did. And it's a great romantic notion. That's so Romeo and Juliet, that level of devotion. And I know you truly believe it. But when push comes to shove, there'll be a day. Maybe you'll feel ill or you had a death in the family or maybe you just want to test the boundaries, and you'll refuse. And he'll say so what.”

”Ferrara-”

”I told you you wouldn't have to take my word for it. I brought proof.” She woke up the laptop and pulled up a video player that filled the screen. The thumbnail image, I could see, was of someone's bare a.s.s. She hit play.

James's bare a.s.s. He was walking past the camera toward a bed, where a woman lay sleeping atop the covers in a sheer nightgown. He looked younger here, slimmer, but he moved the way I expected. He eased himself slowly onto the bed at the woman's feet, and then gradually separated her knees. He pulled the nightgown up to her stomach, showing that she was shaved down below. He slid the back of one knuckle up and down her seam while he stroked his c.o.c.k with the other hand.

I felt myself growing slick and tried not to squirm in the chair.

”You're so wet,” he murmured to the woman, and any thought I had that maybe this was one of his body doubles vanished. That was his voice. I was certain. ”You must want me, eh? Even in your sleep, you want me.”

He plunged into her suddenly and she screamed, making my hair stand on end. She fought him and he laughed and kept on f.u.c.king her. At one point she managed to maneuver so that he wasn't inside her, and he got a hand around her throat. ”Lie still and let me f.u.c.k you,” he growled. ”If I choke you unconscious, then nothing will stop me.”

She lay still then, whimpering, while he humped her, keeping one hand on her neck. He slapped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his other hand and the whimpering sounds increased.

Then his grip slipped or he got careless, and she escaped off the bed. He tackled her from behind and they landed with her face right up close to the camera.

He got one of her arms twisted behind her, though, and she was trapped again.

”Harder to get at your c.u.n.t this way,” he said. ”Guess you want it in the rear.”

”No, oh no, no, please no,” she said. He put a ball gag in her mouth then, and using his one free hand, strapped it behind her head.

”There. Now I won't have to listen to your lies,” he said. ”When I know you want it.”

At that point, she started to cry.

And so did I.

Ferrara closed the laptop and sat for a moment in silence, then dabbed at her own eyes with the edge of her sleeve. ”That's enough, I think,” she said. ”I know that was difficult to watch. Believe me, I know.”

I tried to catch my breath. ”Who was she?”

”Some groupie, one of dozens, maybe hundreds. He was doing this night after night! I was his tour manager, you understand. It was my responsibility to do something about it. Imagine the position I was in. He was legally an adult, and when these women went to his room, at first they were consenting. Of course they were! He was a rock star! They'd have epic, wall-shaking s.e.x! And then he'd wait until they were asleep or helpless and... this would happen. What could I do? I couldn't go to the police. This was my golden goose, after all, and none of the women I could find-and that was if I could even find them at all-would speak out against him! Or if they did, they wanted money. Money to keep silent about it. At any rate, I had to confront him with irrefutable evidence that I knew what he was doing. So I started leaving a hidden camera in his room. And that's how I made these tapes.”

”There are more of them?”

She nodded gravely. ”Many more.”

I put my head in my hands, trying to think, but I was in turmoil. The sound of the woman screaming echoed in my ears. But this was Ferrara. She wanted me and James to break up. She wanted James for herself! Wait. Did I know that? That was what James had told me, but was it true?