Betrayal.
And then you slide your erection out of my mouth and your fist closes around it and you begin pumping your fist up and down, up and down. One hand in my hair, knotting my locks in your fist.
“You want to take it on the face, don’t you? Like Rachel?”
Why are you doing this?
I could cry, but don’t.
I watch your hand move in a blur on your shaft, and then your face tightens, your jaw clenches. You point the tip of your penis at my face. You release in silence, lip curled in a sneer.
You come on my face.
It drips hot down my forehead, trickles into my hair. Down my cheek. Splashes hot onto my lips, and I taste salt. Down my chin.
You step back, and I shoot to my feet, fighting sobs. I stand, chest heaving, disgusted, aching in my soul.
And . . . oh, I hate myself. I loathe myself.
Because I cannot deny the truth: If you had done that without forcing me, I might have liked it. Watching you. If it had been my hand on you instead of your own, if it had been done with any kind of mutuality . . .
But it wasn’t, and I am enraged.
I spit your own semen into your face. “Fuck you, Caleb. You are a pig.”
“It’s what you wanted.” You make no move to wipe away the spittle-tinged semen from your cheek.
“Not to be forced to it!” I shout.
I am seized, spun around, pressed flat against the door, and then you are up against me, and you bend at the knees and slide up and into me. Slowly, gently. Your lips touch my shoulder. The back of my neck, just beneath my hairline. You hold my hair up in a pile on top of my head and kiss my neck, down the curve to my shoulder again. Thrust.
You’ve already come, but you are either still hard or impossibly hard again already.
“Like this?” Slow, gentle, gliding thrusts, kisses to my neck.
Yes, part of me says.
“No,” I growl. Push back, elbow you as hard as I can.
I let you put your penis in my mouth, but then you took more than I was willing to give.
I never said no, did I?
I question everything now. Myself most of all.
I still have your come on my face.
“Tell me to stop, X.”
“Stop, Caleb.” My voice is calm. I am proud of this, because I am not at all calm.
You release me, back away. Empty, I sag. Brace against the cold silver metal of the elevator door. Chest heaving. Gasping. Tears prickling my eyes. I turn around. Take a step toward you.
I slap you, openhanded, as hard as I can. My palm cracks against your face. I slap you again. And again. You make no move to defend yourself.
“That is how I treat them. I do not ask them what they want. I fuck them. I do what I want. I am not gentle. They take it, or they leave. You . . . I don’t do that with you because you are not like them.” Your cheek is red from my slaps.
My spit, your seed, it is smeared on your face, on my hand. We are both of us a mess.
“That’s not what I saw with Rachel.” I want badly to wipe my face, but I won’t give you the satisfaction. “And is that supposed to make what you just did any better?”
“You could have stopped me. You had my cock in your mouth. You could have bitten me. You had both hands free. You could have hit me, punched me, grabbed my balls. Any number of things. You didn’t. You just knelt there and took it.” You pause for effect. “You liked it.”
“Don’t you dare turn this back on me, Caleb Indigo.”
“Why not . . . Madame X? Is it not true? Couldn’t you have stopped me?”
He’s right. I could have. I didn’t fight hard enough.
I slam into him, shoving him backward. “Goddamn you, Caleb! Why are you doing this?”
You catch your balance easily, and turn away. Wipe your face with your hand. Dress with your customary precision. “You want me to be the bad guy. So, I’ll be the bad guy.” When you are clothed, and I, again, am naked, you stare down at me. “And you know deep down you liked it. Maybe you didn’t like that I was rougher with you than you would have initially preferred, but you liked it. Same way you liked watching me fuck Rachel. You hate me for that, but I think you hate yourself more for liking it.”
I shake my head but cannot find the words to deny it.
You do not quite smile, but there is a ghost of amusement on your icy features. “You don’t deny it.”
I open my mouth to speak, but I have no words.
And then . . .
You kiss me.
It is gentle.
There is sweetness to it.
You pull away, reach into an inside pocket of your suit coat, withdraw a slippery, silky, maroon necktie. You wipe my face with it, and then you kiss me again.
Do you notice that I do not kiss you back?