Being Eloise (An Erotic Romance Collection, Books 1-3) (16 page)

“First though, I think you need to be punished, professionally…by me,” I said. “Do you agree?”

Drake nodded.

“Use your words, you little shit.”

“Yes Mistress Olivia.”

I whipped him hard across the legs.

“Yes Mistress Eloise,” he said, correcting himself.

I pulled out a wad of pseudo-$20s from under him and slapped him with it, his inner thighs, his stomach, his chest— which had only the beginnings of that older-man droop brought on when men start exchanging their levels of testosterone for estrogen. I pressed the cash into his lips and had him bite down on it again, and he took it, teeth severing President Johnson’s aorta. Then I climbed onto the bed and stood over him in my heart-crushing heels. The mattress trembled a little because my legs trembled. I leaned over him and ran the whip down his chest and over his cock, then back up again, several times, then slapped him hard across his chest. Despite my best efforts, the erection began flailing again and I got down on my knees, there between his spread legs, and more dedicatedly ran the leather strips of the whip over his penis and that sad deflated sack of testicles until they began to tighten, like a purse.
Who designed these men? God, clearly, is a woman who didn’t have enough time.
In my mind I pictured Olivia with that strap-on dildo and I was glad I didn’t have those accoutrements to think about for my little excursion into this lifestyle. Though it made me now question a rather crucial aspect of this whole afternoon: how was I going to get him off? Did I have to?

“You’re a little shit,” I said. “Nothing but a shit.” The drone of the vacuum cleaner, like laborious breathing, was closer.

“You’ve fucked everything up,” I said to his nodding. “You’re a fuck-up.”

I grabbed both ends of the whip and pressed it down on his cock. I could feel his hips arch as I pulled his erection toward me. It pleased me that I’d found—first with Sam, now with Drake—a move that men seemed to dislike.

“You could have done everything right,” I said. “Could have played it clean to the end, but you had to do, what? Fuck someone else and screw me over.” I was well-aware—in case you think I wasn’t—that I was not only beginning to really enjoy this, but that Drake was also Sam for me now. And Todd, when I was younger, that prick, and two other guys back in high school who had never been taught by their parents the proper way to treat a person. With respect. Being nice in the most vanilla way. Basic human decency. Believe me, I, too, got the irony that even with these thoughts in my mind I was nevertheless now rapping the whip against my landlord’s penis, goading that erection back up, hearing him give a little tight-throated whimper with each flick of my wrist. I knew then that Olivia, oh Olivia, she
enjoyed
this, too. This wasn’t all about a release for Drake. If at all, I suddenly realized.

The cleaning crew was upstairs now and my voice was down to a whisper. We were going to have to keep things a little quiet until the vacuum cleaner started up again. “I’m going to bring the board in here now,” I said, hoping this would finally get him off. “Every one of them. And they’re going to see you lying there, exposed for what you are. Nothing but a dick. A little dick.”

He whimpered. A rattle on the door startled me so that I dropped my whip.

“Miss. O?”

I was silent as I could be, then struck Drake across his penis.
C’mon Old Faithful,
I thought.
Now or never.

He groaned loudly, the bills falling from his mouth. But nothing. He groaned again as I gave him a hard slap. I rushed to his side and put my hand over his mouth. Again, he groaned. Until that moment, I hadn’t considered the idea that Drake might actually
like
to have the cleaning crew barge in on us. In fact, I began to feel pretty confident that he might.

“Mister O?”

“Help me,” Drake said before I could smother his mouth completely with my palm.

“What are you doing?!” I said. “Jesus!”

“Mister O?” one of the maids repeated.

There was more Spanish outside the door, more tries at the lock—and was that
keys
I heard? I quickly moved from the bed, took the straight-backed chair from the writing desk and jammed it under the doorknob.

“Mister Ohdrake!” one of the women shouted.

“It’s okay,” I said, finally, to the door. “He’s fine. Just skip the room.”

Drake groaned louder. “Help!” he shouted. His erection was up there at a ten, and I knew I was getting closer to his “release.” But for heaven’s sake—I didn’t like the position I found myself in, with reality intruding, with Drake pulling me into his world like this, pulling innocents, these maids. It was fine when it was all fantasy—Olivia was right, I had it in me all along—but this was wrong wrong wrong. My hands were clammy. The adrenaline drip had started. I checked the window and looked down and saw a trellis along the wall I could scale if I were braver and younger. The maids might get a sight of me as they came barging in, but I’d be free. The idea of being caught dressed in my catsuit just about killed me. Just then one of the maids came out of the house and looked up at the window and I darted my head inside quickly and pulled down the blinds.

“Mister O!” continued the calls, this time from both behind the door and from below the window. I heard a word that sounded an awful like
police
.

“It’s okay!” I shouted. “Clean now,” I added, once again commanding. “Please clean, okay?”

“Help me!” Drake shouted now and I couldn’t help it. I struck him fiercely across his chest.

“Shut! Up!”

Forget Drake—it was now me that was in a panic. I remembered what Sam, via his lawyer, had accused me of, and that’s all I could think of now. I couldn’t be found like this. I untied Drake quickly but he kept his hands and legs where they’d been, as though still bound. Clearly, he was going to be of no help. I caught the beginnings of a grin on his face and I loathed him then for torturing me like this. Did he forget who held the whip?

“Mr. Drake?” came the voice at the door.

I unlocked it and pulled the chair back a few inches. There were
three
maids out there, one right after the other.

“We’re playing a game,” I said. “You know?”

The closest maid held her head to the side and gave me a look of utter disapproval.

“Mr. Drake?”

“Help,” Drake said, and at the same time I threw a glare at him I felt the maids go for the door. I heaved against it, locked it and thrust the chair back under the knob.

“Go back to work,” I said. “Or you’re fired. No more job,” I said. It was with some relief that I finally heard the vacuum cleaner resume, no more shouts of
Miss. O
or
Mister Ohdrake.

“I hope you’re enjoying this,” I said.

“What are we going to do?” Drake said, mock-afraid. “The police are on their way.”

Was this play? Was this real now? I didn’t know. I erred on the side of play.

I whipped half-gently at his cock—it hadn’t slackened since the maids had begun pounding on the door. I turned the whip around and ran the handle up and down Drake’s penis and god knows why, but maybe because nothing was happening, nothing but hardness and little sighs from Drake, I moved my face down to mock-fellate him, my lips parting, my mouth opening above his member. There was a police siren in the distance, but too soon to possibly be headed here, and I used it for my purposes.

“The police are coming,” I said. They’re going to arrest you. You’ll spend ten years locked away.”

Drake sighed more quickly and I knew I was getting close.

“Look at me,” I ordered, and his eyes met mine. “This is your last chance to come on a woman for the next decade.”

As I heard the sound of the siren, I moved my open mouth lower over him. And then I jerked back a foot or two as I heard wheels on gravel, and then the sirens cut. The maids
had
called the police! I had erred.

“Oh shit,” I said. “Oh shit.”

And it was then that Drake sighed like he had—just like he had—on my answering machine that first Wednesday: tremendously, loudly. His ejaculate reached my cheek before I pulled away. I was full-on scared now, and angry, so angry. This wasn’t play anymore. I hit him hard with the whip across his cock and still he came, dribbling out over the slender strands of the whip. I let go. My hands shaking, I pulled away the chair, unlocked the door, and was halfway down the stairs, then past two of the housecleaners staring at me in the sunroom with dusting rags in their hands, their eyes wide, jaws slack. Then I was out across the lawn and past the pool and halfway to the woods, one heel breaking off, then the other, my body down on the grass a moment then up again and the woods now mine, my shade, my darkness, mine mine mine.

I’d liked to have run a mile, but I couldn’t go a tenth as far. Just a hundred feet in was a steep drop where a quarry had been a hundred years ago, and through which a jogging and biking lane ran. The last thing I wanted was to be seen like this. I crouched down amid the wild blackberries and the poison oak, there where I could still see the house, the upper bedroom window’s blinds still closed, the doors of the sunroom still open, and two black dots—my broken boot heels—on the lawn like breadcrumbs to where I crouched, panting and cursing,
oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

I’d never felt so alive.

I crouched there for the longest time, too far away to hear anything but for the sounds behind me: the faint puffs of a jogger, the sound of a chain against a derailleur as it was guided to a higher gear. The chirping of birds. It was spring, I realized. Hungry mouths to feed.

And then, after what must have been a half hour, I saw Drake walk out of the house dressed in a speedo and swimming goggles. He ambled across the lawn and stooped to pick up my heels, then placed them at the pool’s edge. At the far end of the pool he stood a moment, then dove.

The fucker was doing
laps!

Cautiously, I walked out from the concealment of the forest and onto the periphery of the lawn, pausing when Drake hit the near edge and turned to swim back. I continued stalking along the edges of the lawn to the back of my apartment. I could see, from this angle, that the front driveway was empty except for the Drakes’ cars. No more cleaning crew. No more police.

Back in my apartment I took a drink straight from a bottle, and let me tell you, it wasn’t iced tea. And then I undressed in the bathroom and only then saw the long beads of Drake’s cum in my hair and swore,
swore,
that I’d never do
that
again.

After I’d gotten out of the shower and dressed, I went downstairs to check the mail, and there found my heels in the mailbox, along with my voice recorder. The whip, too, cleaned.

“Never again,” I said aloud to the whip, as though it could hear me, this strange octopus of pain and pleasure.

Olivia called the next day just as I was pressing one of the heels of my boots against the sole, saving it with Superglue.

“Drake said you were a natural,” Olivia said.

“Did he?” I said, then caught myself. “It was, oh, the nerves. Did he tell you the police came?”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I once set off the alarm and had the alarm guys, the police, and fire and ambulance here while he was…”

“Got it,” I said. “Don’t need to paint the whole canvas.”

“He asked me if he could get you a thank you present,” Olivia said. “And I thought that was okay.”

“Like what?”

“Thank me later.”

“Like what?” I said suspiciously.

“By the way,” she said, ignoring me. “Do try on the other outfit.”

Only then did I remember. The closet. “I completely forgot to look.”

“Next time,” Olivia said.

“Next time,” I repeated automatically before I realized what I was saying. “Olivia?”

“Yes dear?”

The words were all jumbled in my head. “I don’t think I can…”

“You did fine. Better than fine. Drake never lies to me. Now. Ask me about my daughter.”

I asked.

“She’s fine. In fact, she’s still working. It’s amazing what she can get done from a bed. I’d be sleeping all the time. Speak of the devil, here she is. Back from her bath. Have to run.”

“Olivia?”

“Tootles,” she said, the only person outside the silver screen I’d ever,
ever
, heard use that phrase.

“Olivia?” I said to the phone, but she was already gone. And it was only six days until another Wednesday.

Speak of the devil.

The following Wednesday I went with option B: I faked a cold. Not because I was completely adverse to another roll-playing session—there
was
that item in the closet to see—but because I just wasn’t in the mood for another high-stress episode. Also, several things happened during the course of the week that worried me. First, I received a call out of the blue from Mr. Irldale’s editor—the book was on hold. My first thought was the remainder of my contract, until I was told that Mr. Irldale was in the beginnings of a messy divorce and that the situation meant the book’s timing was off.

“Off?” I asked, over the phone.

“Confidentially, his wife left
him.
”

“Oh,” I said, then, “are you sure?”

“Horse’s mouth.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. So, we’ll be in touch. We just need to let things settle. Not make him look weak or vulnerable.”

“You could just change the title,” I said.

“Like I said.”

“Okay.”

And that was that. I was, officially, unemployed. I’d received one check from Sam for our son, but no alimony. I checked: I was down to $732.44 in my complete life savings. Maybe I could stretch it a month if I let some bills slide.

And then there was my son and the bullying which had been continuing for months. It just didn’t stop. I’d distilled my son’s possible harassers down to three older kids, a mean-looking bunch. More meetings with the school didn’t change a thing. All three, my son told me, worked in an auto body shop belonging to the uncle of one of them. They drove together in an old Silverado and didn’t have girlfriends yet. The oldest couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but my son said he had a permit because he had to drive his mother around to treatments of some sort. The more I looked into it, the more I just felt low and sorry and sad for my son’s tormentors.