Love and War: Part One – Chapter 6

I stare into the mirror at my station, taking a deep breath. It’s only my second night and I’m already dreading walking out on that stage. This isn’t my life anymore. I don’t want to be here. I wish there were another way, but now, more so than ever, I want to push through, because today was one of the best days I’ve ever experienced. Holding that tattoo gun made every hour of lost sleep worth it. The adrenaline rush was almost more than I could bear. I fucking loved it.

I can still feel him on me: his hands against my thighs, his front against my back, and his lips beside my ear talking me through every color choice, every blending technique, and how to properly work the gun. And fuck, the smell. It won’t go away. The chemical makeup of his cologne, his soap, and whatever else makes him fucking smell like him has seared to the insides of my nose, assaulting me with memories recently made.

I didn’t want it to end. Today was an unforgettable twelve hours. I’m still stunned I was there for that length of time and didn’t notice ‘til it was time to go. For the first time, it didn’t even seem like work. It was fun. Walking into the studio I had no idea what kind of mood he was going to be in after what happened in the lobby. One thing I’ve learned about Kross in the last four months is that his mood edges on broody almost constantly. He’s controlling, he’s closed off, and he’s a damn psycho when it comes to me and men, as of today, but dammit if he’s not all I can think about.

I’m not sure what changed. That’s the million-dollar question. Before this morning I can’t remember a single time that he’s laid a hand on me aside from giving me a piece of paper, touching my hand accidentally, or me bumping into him by mistake. We had that one hot moment where he said the weirdest shit in the sexiest way the day of the interview and then he went completely cold.

Now, suddenly, he’s threatening me of being with other men and telling random clients that I’m taken, feeling me up as he teaches. I already miss it, but I have no idea if I should expect him to be distant again or play along with this little . . . whatever it is.

My fingers rub down my neck, remembering the way he gripped it this morning. You’re my property. I want to be his property. I just want to be . . . his. The way he handled me so rough, not worried about what I was thinking or how I’d react, made me want to combust under his hold, and that’s something I haven’t experienced in a really long time, if ever.

The door opens. Chuck. He has a smile on his face, stalking across the room toward me. His palms press against my chest from behind, and then he tries to descend into my lingerie. I sit forward, not wanting his hands on me. Instead of taking the hint, he brushes my hair to one side and places his lips to my skin. I tense. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to prepare. Did you need something?”

He pulls the strap over my shoulder. “You know what I want.”

Sadly, I do . . .

My bed dips and a sudden rush of air caresses my body, pulling me from my slumber. I blink into the dark, trying to focus on the mass of man in front of me. “What time is it?” I ask as he shucks his boxers and gets in my bed.

“Late,” he whispers, pulling his body against mine, his erection pressing against my belly. I pull the cover back up to my neck to block the air in my cold room.

“I have school tomorrow. What do you want?” My voice is thick, in dire need of water. My eyes finally start to adjust from the intrusion into my perfectly good sleeping state. I was dreaming I was on a beach somewhere, and even though I hate the beach, it was nice, because it was anywhere else but here.

“You know what I want, Delta.” His hand softly lands on the curve of my ass, only covered by a thin sliver of cotton, before guiding his fingers to the waistband of my panties, pulling them down.

“Where’s Mom?” I roll onto my back, knowing he’s not going to let me go back to sleep until he gets what he wants. Since I gave him my virginity last month, he’s made every effort to show up in the middle of the night if the chance presented itself. When he’s not at his club . . .

But he’s always waiting when I get home from school. Always. At first the guilt was there, slowly trying to consume me because of the circumstance, but with every cutdown, every neglectful act, and every absence when I know she’s not at work, I let him have me again and again. With every slur and every slap, I give him more.

He’s had me in every hole and in every square inch of this house. And with each time, the guilt diminishes a little more. She’s too self-absorbed to notice her boyfriend is fucking her daughter. The ironic part is that the more he looks and talks to me the clingier she gets with him. It’s not because she has suspicions, she just doesn’t want me to get any attention. She’s jealous. She’s scared I’ll be prettier than her.

My mother is an attention whore. Sure, she’s done fairly well for someone that’s a single mother. If she actually classified herself as such. But she doesn’t work for her family, she works for herself. She provides the necessities for me and nothing more. I can’t really complain. I don’t do without the things some people don’t have . . . like Lux.

I have food readily available. I have a house, a room, clothing, and a few nice things. I’ve experienced a little life at the hands of her boyfriends. But I go to school and come home otherwise.

I’m a seventeen-year-old with no car because that would require her to actually spend a little bit of her precious time and money to take her only child to get a license, not to mention a car. She lives for the party, for the social life, and for the men. She lives like a woman afraid to lose her youth. She doesn’t want to be a mother at all. I’m convinced if she didn’t think my presence made her look better in front of men that she’d rid of me all together.

He wants me.

He makes me feel needed.

He sticks up for me.

“She’s in bed.”

“What if she wakes up?”

“She won’t. She’s had a bottle of wine. You know she doesn’t like to stay home.”

“Why do you stay with her? She only wants you because you’re younger than her and you feed into her warped view that you make her look more desirable. She’s a cunt.”

I push my panties off as they reach my ankles. He pushes my camisole up my body and wraps his lips around my nipple as he gets on top of me. “We all use someone, baby. She uses me for status. I use her for you. She came into my club looking for her prey, bragging about how great of a mother she was. All it took was one photo and I knew I wanted you. It’s more than I can say about her.”

And then I grab the back of his head and pull his lips to mine. It may be a low blow, but it’s words I still need to hear, and if using my body satiates that need, then I’ll use it. Some of it may even be my way of getting revenge on the woman that conceived me but never wanted me. She’s tolerant, and I’m convinced that’s worse. She may not have aborted me physically, but she did mentally, and I can’t say the two are all that different.

So I guide his dick between my legs, and with one hard thrust from him inside of me, I make myself hate her a little more.

His hand cups my breast as I blink the memory away. Things I’ve had locked away are coming back as if the floodgates were opened with me coming back here. I pull his hand away and replace my strap in its expected position. “Not right now. Maybe after I’m done.”

“We have plenty of time, and you’ve never denied me before.”

My heart is starting to race. Panic is quickly setting in. I don’t want to sleep with him again. The only way I was able to stomach it last night was imagining he was Kross. That’s totally fucked up, I know, but it’s true. I wanted it to be him so badly. And for a second, I thought that I might actually orgasm, but as quick as I thought it was coming, it vanished. Maybe because the images of Kross wouldn’t stay but for a few seconds at a time, being replaced with the reality of Chuck—a face that I used to find so much comfort and even some level of happiness in, but he and I were doomed from the start. Our relationship was built on a false premise.

Maybe the images left me because Kross doesn’t want me. It’s a fantasy, and fantasy never lasts. Most days I feel like his experiment. But now, with everything that has happened today, I’m confused. I feel like I’ve done something wrong being with Chuck. No matter the circumstances for why we’re together, it always feels wrong. I need to figure out a way to get him out of here until I can work all this shit out in my head.

I stand and turn to face him, placing my palm on his chest. He grips my ass in his hands, but I let it go to avoid questions. “Hey, I just want it to be special next time.”

He leans his head into the crook of my neck. I turn my head, trying to keep the places Kross has touched untainted. I search far and low to find that innocence that lies somewhere deep, deep inside of me. Something that’s been lost for a lifetime it feels like.

My voice mimics a pitch that isn’t me. “Remember how we used to? In a bed. No clothing between us. It was just the two of us and skin while you made love to me. Do you remember?”

His fingers dig into my skin as he grips me tighter. “How could I forget? I’ve missed it for close to a decade.”

The conniving, vindictive whore I used to be resurfacing sickens me. “Tonight, you can have it back. Let’s go back to those times. Not here. I don’t want to be your whore.”

“You’ve never been my whore. I’ve loved you since the day I laid my eyes on you.”

“Then show me.”

He finally releases me. A sense of relief washes over me. I move just in time for his lips to press against the side of my mouth instead of my lips. “Okay. You’re staying with me tonight.”

He touches the ring through the center of my bottom lip. “I want you to go down on me like you used to; like I taught you. I want to feel this against my skin.”

He taught you everything . . .

I pull my lip between my teeth, disregarding the nausea in my stomach. There is no way in fucking Hell I am sucking his dick. He moves to the diamond stud in the lower corner. “I like how you’ve accentuated your lips. They always were one of your best features, second to those eyes. I used to love watching them roll back in your head when you felt me between your legs.”

“That’s because you paid attention to what I liked. It was your best feature.”

“I’m glad you’re back. I’ve missed you. Things will be different this time. There’s no one in our way.”

I’m really hoping that’s not true . . .

“Let me get ready. We can pick this up later.”

“Okay. I’ll be out front watching if you need me. Trish is almost done. You’re on in ten.”

He walks out, finally leaving me to myself. I glance in the mirror, making sure my black, leather, thigh-high boots are in place, before taking off the satin slip I was wearing to cover up the leather bikini set underneath. I brush through my hair once more and paint my lips with maroon lipstick. I like the way it looks against my creamy skin tone.

I stare at the reflection of someone I don’t want to be. No one ever did bad better than me. I perfected it in adolescence. It was a skill I used often too. I thought I was past those days. I really wanted to be out of this phase. This is what will pay my rent, though. Show them that bad looks good . . .