Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Either way, I feel like we were both kind of on our own until we met one another. My college friends have quickly gone their own ways, off to do whatever they’ve done. I’ve seen a few emails announcing engagements, and two talking about babies, but none that I feel I can talk to. Certainly not about this predicament I’m in.
My father always did say I was a lone wolf. He prided me on that, but right now, I don’t want to be alone. I search my phone thinking of who I could possibly confide in and ask for help.
Hell, in the past six months, I’ve barely spoken to any of them. The last time I emailed my closest friend, Kelly, was three months ago, responding to her news about her new home in Lugoff, South Carolina. Apparently, Mike, her now husband, was able to get a management position at some chemistry plant there, and with it came a deal on a nice little Colonial-style brick house complete with a garage and a half-acre of land that had three pecan trees on it.
That’s it. I have one email from about two months ago, a group email to a bunch of her college friends announcing that she was pregnant, and how is everyone else doing?
I didn’t even reply with my updates, although I told them all congrats. What was I supposed to tell them? That I’ve spent the past eight months being auctioned off at a sexy club on a monthly basis to be a man’s sexual submissive and that’s my new “job”? Or that I’ve had kinkier, naughtier sex than we would even whisper about half-drunk in college? That I know what a saddle, a St. Andrew’s Cross, and nylon rope are really for?
What would she say if she knew that my greatest pleasure, at least until tonight, was to get gang-banged until I was nothing more than a ragdoll? Just the thought makes the area between my thighs ache with that painful feeling from earlier.
What would she say if the man I’m head over heels in love with has said time and time again that he’s not ‘looking for a girlfriend’ and that despite that, I’d do anything for him . . . I’d kill for him?
I’m quick to toss my phone down, intent on never picking it back up, as the kettle cries out and I tend to it. After pouring the hot water into my mug and letting the tea bag steep, I head to my bathroom, where I find a bottle of Motrin. Not quite what’s hurting, but it’s got what I need, and I shake out three pills before going back and taking a sip of tea to swallow it down and then carefully lying down on my couch.
It’s only as I sit and hear it groan that I realize this sofa is nearly a decade old.
I could replace this couch. Hell, after these past eight months, I could buy a whole apartment in New York as long as I’m not looking in Manhattan. In Brooklyn or Queens, I could have a decent-sized place and still have enough to be comfortable for a long while. Never in my life did I imagine I’d have this kind of money. Even after the club’s cut and taxes and fees, I have over two million in the bank . . . and yet, at this moment, I feel worthless.
If I wanted to leave New York, I could probably find a beautiful house and maybe even retire if I wanted to live cheaply. But I know that I can never fully go back to normal life. I can’t even imagine a life without Gabriel.
My contract runs out next week. Each of the past eight times that we’ve done this song and dance, I’ve known that it was just a game, a contract and a deal. No emotional attachment, nothing but an arrangement.
But will he bid on me again? I grip the mug tighter as more intrusive thoughts enter . . . do I even want to keep doing this if I’m not getting my other needs met?
I don’t know, but as I sip my tea, I think about every little detail and every possibility. Do I want this life forever? Do I want to be Gabriel’s whore, his party favor to hand out to his buddies for amusement? I know it was my idea. I know he allowed it for me . . . but I also know he enjoys it. He’s fucking addicted to it now, and I don’t know if he’ll want to stop. I don’t know if it would affect his business relationships.
I don’t know anything anymore.
There’s a knock on my door that startles me. I can’t imagine who it is. I haven’t ordered anything. They knock again, and I sit up, carefully making my way to the door. “Hold on,” I call as it comes again. “I’m coming.”