"Meia,” Aston was bent over, his face close to the glass coffee table, inhaling white powder off the surface. “Where the fuck have you been? I called for you over an hour ago.”
“With the Congressman - the meeting you set up, if you recall.” I set my purse on the sofa, this piece of furniture - a modern art piece-that was ridiculously uncomfortable and useless in every way. Aston’s penthouse was filled with such things. I sometimes wondered how many people he could buy with the same amount of money.
Or how many women he had already bought.
Those were things I tried not to think about, tried to put out of my head so I could get through the day. The larger questions like that, I couldn't think about them. If I did, I'd fall into despair. Everything would seem too insurmountable.
Aston rose, walked toward me, put his hand at the base of my neck, his fingers raveling through my hair. He gripped me hard, too hard, yanking the hair by its roots. His mouth close to my ear, he whispered, “I don’t like this.”
“What?” I asked, my heart racing. I was surprised I felt fear at all anymore. I shouldn't, not with everything I'd been through. People say that your body adjusts to living in a perpetual state of fear, that over time it dissipates. But not for me. Each time felt like the first all over again, the dread and the anticipation, and the terror coursing through my body. But it was all because of him - my son. If not for him, I wouldn't care if I lived or died.
But I needed to keep him alive. I needed to see him again. I needed to get him out of Aston's clutches, before it was too late. Before Aston turned him into a monster. Even from afar, I didn't doubt Aston's ability to mold him, to shape him into his likeness. It was the kind of thing he would do for fun.
I wanted to kill Aston. Desperately.
I ached to kill him.
More than anything, I thought about stabbing him, feeling the knife pierce his skin, sliding it into his body and watching him fall to the floor, bleeding.
But I couldn't. My son would be dead.
Another yank on my hair pulled my thoughts back to my grim reality. “I don’t like you seeing the Congressman.”
As if it was my choice.
“It was by your request,” I said through gritted teeth, not even bothering to employ the light tone I usually used with him. He was unstable, his emotions intense and subject to ever changing whims. He'd whore me out to other men, then get angry that I had done what he asked, jealous of my supposed infidelity.
Aston’s finger traced over the top of my breasts, lightly, his hand still keeping a tight grip on my hair. Then he moved his finger down farther, opened the light trench coat I wore despite the warm weather, to conceal what I was wearing underneath. His finger slipped under the fabric, barely moving it from my skin, and he grazed my nipple. My nipple hardened to his touch, like it had a mind of its own.
And I felt revulsion. It was a familiar feeling, one I knew well from all of my training. This was what sex was. Arousal, fear, revulsion.
And more than anything else, rage.
“You belong to me,” he said, his hand covering my breast, cupping it in its entirety.
I met his gaze, my jaw set. I belong to no one, I thought. Least of all you. But I said, "I am yours."
"Was the Congressman good?" he asked, his finger circling round and round my nipple. "Did he turn you on?"
"I didn't need to sleep with him to get what you needed," I said. "He passed out."
Aston pushed me away, began pacing the room, filled with energy, hopped up on whatever he was on, his movements jerky. "You got the photos?"
Blackmail photos.
"They're in my purse, Aston," I said. I felt a flush of shame, like I always did at my behavior. I was doing things I could barely stomach. The Congressman was an asshole, a disgusting man. But he was a disgusting man with a wife, someone who cared about him. Someone who would be hurt by the kinds of photos I had taken.
I hated what I was doing.
I hated who I had become.
I could do nothing else.
Aston's phone rang, and he answered it, his words clipped, short. I listened for any information that might help me. I was always listening, despite the danger, filing away bits and pieces of knowledge in my head that I thought might someday help me find out anything...where Aston was keeping my son, how I might destroy Aston.
More often than not lately, I was beginning to lose hope.
When he hung up the phone, he returned, sliding his arms around me, the way I imagined a lover would.
As if I knew what a lover would do. I'd never had one. I'd only had owners.
“I’m tired of the others,” he said, his finger circling round and round my nipple.
Then don't whore me out to others, I thought. It was always this way, after Aston did something like this. He would be filled with momentary regret, rage that some other man had me, paranoia that I might have enjoyed sex with someone else.