Complementary Colors (35 page)

“Now,” Roy said. “Pinch your nipples.”

I dragged my fingers down my chin, leaving a wet line all the way to my chest.

“Hard. The way you like it.”

The electric bite made my breath erupt. I twisted the tight bud of flesh until tears pooled in the corners of my eyes.

“That’s it.” He grunted. “I can see you now. Lips swollen, face flushed, how much you want me inside you painted on your beautiful face.”

“Roy…”

“I’m not done with you yet.”

“You’ve got your hand on your cock, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to taste you. I want you to pull my hair and fuck my mouth. I want you to come, and I want to drink you down.”

“You will. When I get my hands on you, you’re going to do all those things and more.”

“Can’t…” A prickling sensation shot through me. “Wait.” My jaw ached from the memory of his girth forcing my mouth wide.

“Now, tug your balls. Just like I do when I touch you there.”

I did. Slowly pulling each of them until the barest spike of pain traveled to the center of my body. I gasped and scissored my legs, bunching the covers around my ankles.

“Tell me what it feels like,” Roy said.

“Good.”

“Not just good. I want to feel what you feel. Convince me it’s my hand between your legs.”

“Heavy. Both sacks are heavy and the skin like silk.” God, I don’t think I’d ever ached this badly for release. “Hairs are thinner here. When they’re pulled, the flesh dimples.” I plucked at a few and gasped. “Hurts and feels good.” I took both balls in my palm and squeezed hard enough to make me cry out. “Oh God, that…”

“Feel, Paris. I want to know what it feels like.”

I was out of words to describe the sensations or maybe my mind was too far gone. “Yellow and orange. Jagged lines broken, patterns with sharp edges, and detailed lines splitting the negative space.” I slammed my head against the pillow. “Please don’t make me wait.”

“Soon.” His inhale stuttered. “God, Paris, I can feel your mouth on me, your tongue and how you rake your teeth around the head of my dick.”

I tugged my sacks harder. I would never come like this, and the urge already surpassed the waves of green and into blood red.

“Hand on your cock, Paris.”

The skin to skin contact seared my flesh, and I bit back my yell.

“Stroke, hard, fast, and don’t leave out a single detail.”

“Bright red beside violent green. It…” I gasped. “It hurts to look at it, but the contrast is too beautiful to look away. Purple curls around white and silver covering my bones. I burn like crimson. The colors fill me. You fill me. Your hand on my cock, velvet and stone. God, I’m so hard, Roy. Grays divide the blues, and the blues divide the yellow. But it’s breaking apart.”

“Come for me, Paris.”

A terrifying keen tore from my throat. My cock pulsed, and strings of cum stretched from my stomach to my neck.

From the other end of the line, Roy barked out in that deep guttural way, making me think of the rolling thunder only found in summer storms. He followed up with a soft moan and broken gasps.

I collapsed against the mattress.

“Feel better?”

I nodded and then remembered he wasn’t there to see it. “Yeah.”

“Good. Never forget, Paris. I love you.”

“I won’t.” I was sure any moment I would float away.

“I have to go now. But I’ll call you again soon.”

The door to my room burst open, and two orderlies stopped dead in their tracks. Their gaze went from my face to my cock in my hand.

“Yeah,” I said. “I gotta go too.”

There was a Chinese woman in Dr. Carmichael’s office when I arrived. She was petite, with simple features, but the air about her vibrated with streaks of violent oranges and yellows.

I’d never considered bringing a woman to my bed before. This lady actually put the thought in my mind.

“Paris, this is Carla Chang, she’s your new advocate.”

Mrs. Chang switched the clipboard to her other hand and offered it to me. I had the strangest compulsion to kiss the back. After all, wasn’t that what you did in the presence of royalty? We shook, and I sat on the cushy chair. She sat in Carmichael’s. He propped a hip on his desk.

“Do you know what an advocate is, Mr. Duvoe?”

“Just Paris, please. And no. Not really.”

“An advocate is someone who will speak in court on your behalf to give the judge information that will help him make an informed decision.”

“Sounds like a lawyer.”

“No, sir. Nothing of the sort. Advocates are more often used in child abuse cases. But on occasion, we do take cases with Adult Protective Services, especially when the individual has been deemed incompetent by the state and the source of the abuse is believed to be the acting guardian.”

Incompetent. I’d never taken into consideration Julia’s guardianship was based on that word. It made sense, though. It also made me wonder if I was truly able to refute it.

“I’m not sure I can pay you. Julia controls the money.”

She smiled. Her features might have been simple, but like her presence, her smile was blinding. “Don’t worry. I’m a volunteer. As for your money, securing what is yours is my second priority.”

“What’s your first?”

“Making sure you’re safe.”

I believed her too. I could honestly see this woman dropkicking Julia in the street. I stared at my worn-out boat shoes because I didn’t know what to say. All this sudden concern for my well-being was kind of scary.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“Has your sister ever hit you?”

“Only when I say the word vagina.”

Mrs. Chang raised her eyebrows.

“Yes. Sometimes.”

“And from what I understand, she forces you to have sex with other men for money.”

I held Dr. Carmichael’s gaze when I said, “I enjoy sex. A lot.”

“But she makes you go home with certain people.”

“If you’re asking me if she puts a gun to my head, no.”

“So you can refuse if you want to?”

I crossed my arms and bounced my leg.

“Paris?” She tried to catch my gaze.

I looked away.

“Does Julia give you drugs?”

“Sometimes.”

“What kind?”

“X, uppers, downers, I don’t know.”

“And does the money from your estate all come from your paintings?”

“Just some. My mother had a list of stocks, bonds, and land when she died. I never got to see what all was there.”

“Why not?”

I gave her a crooked smile. “Like you said, incompetent.”

“What can you tell me about your estate?”

“My mother died, she left it to me, Julia holds the checkbook. Not much else to tell you other than that.”

“Did everything transfer directly to you after your mother’s death or after your father’s?”

“I think it went directly to me.” I shrugged. “Why?”

Mrs. Chang cast a look in Carmichael’s direction.

“Is that bad?” I said.

She shook her head. “Usually when a married person dies, control of the estate goes to the spouse. Do you know why she left it to you, and just you?”

“No.”

She scribbled on her clipboard. “Do you know what banks you have accounts at?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. She must have read something in my expression because she smiled and said, “I take that as a no. How old were you when Julia retained guardianship?”

“Ten, I think.”

“After your father died?”

“Yeah.”

“When did she gain guardianship over you as an adult?”

“Not sure. Eighteen, I guess.”

“So she’s always had control.”

“Yeah.”

Her pen scratched across the paper. “Who did the competency evaluation presented to the court?”

I looked at Carmichael and he said, “That would be the doctor who deemed you unfit to have appropriate judgment in concerns to your well-being.”

“Dr. Mason, I guess.”

“Has he always been your doctor?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever seen anyone else?”

“No.”

“Who’s your family doctor?”

“I haven’t seen anyone else since Harrison died.”

A wrinkle creased the space above her nose while she made a few more notes. “Does your other sister have access to your accounts?”

“I’m not sure. I know she does the shopping. She buys my clothes, takes them to the cleaners. I think we’re probably the only people who have a housekeeper that never gets to do anything.” Not that I’d blame her. Julia probably paid her pennies on the hour.

“And what about you, Paris?” She laid the clipboard in her lap. “What is it you want?”

Her powerful gaze struck me head-on, and all I could do was blink. “I’m sorry I don’t think I understand.”

“I’m going to be acting as your advocate, so I need to know what you want.”

“I still don’t…” I looked at Carmichael, then Mrs. Chang. The reality of what she asked hit me full force.

What did
I
want?

It was a simple question, but I’d never thought about it because no one had ever cared before. Not even me.

And now that someone had, I didn’t have a fucking clue.

I laughed. I kept laughing. They stared at me while I sat there braying like a donkey. Then the laughter faded into silent crying. I fought every surge of tears and every watery breath, but it wouldn’t stop.

I slid from the sofa onto the floor, and I cried until my eyes were swollen shut, my throat burned, and my skin was on fire. I cried every tear my body could possibly make, and then I cried some more.

I have no idea how long I lay there, smearing tears and snot all over Dr. Carmichael’s rug. But after a while, the solitude of the room settled around me and I was alone with Dr. Carmichael sitting beside me.

“It’s all right.”

“I know.” I could hardly understand myself. I lay there while he rubbed the knots bunching around my spine while trying to remember how my arms and legs worked.

“Do you need help?”

“No.” I rolled on my side and wound up sitting with my back against the sofa.

“Here you go.” He put a wad of tissue in my hand. “Feel better?”

“I’m not sure.” I mopped my face.

He handed me more. “I would think after a cry like that you would.”

“Are you sure that’s what that was?” I blew my nose, and my ears popped.

“In my expert opinion, yes.”

I laughed, and it made my ribs hurt. “I’ve cried, maybe more lately than ever, but never like that.”

“It’s good to cry, even like that.”

We sat there, me trying to breathe, him examining the cuticles of his fingernails. Shiny, smooth and clean. He either liked a good manicure, or my chewed paint-stained nails were that bad.

“Where’s Mrs. Chang?” I was actually worried to see her gone.

“She wanted to give you some space. She’ll come back later in the week, and you two can talk again.”

“About what?”

“That’s up to you.”

“What would I talk to her about?”

“Don’t you have any questions?”

I scraped my thumbnail against a fleck of blue stuck in the crease of my palm. “Not really.”

“Well, maybe by the time she gets back, you will.”

A doctor was paged over the intercom, and laughter from the hallway was muffled by the closed door.

It took me a while to find my courage to ask, “I’m fucked up, aren’t I? I mean, I know I am, but it’s worse than I ever thought, isn’t it?”

Dr. Carmichael exhaled a measured breath and hung his arms over his knees. “Yes, you’re very sick.”

Something inside me dropped. I think it was the grain of hope I had left. I never imagined something so small and fragile could weigh so much.

“But it doesn’t mean you can’t live a productive, happy life.”

“If I keep crying like that, my body is just going to quit on me.”

He smiled, and the crow’s feet around his eyes deepened. “It’s good you’re crying. It means your emotions are working and you’re trying to heal.”

“It hurts.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

“Oh, Paris,” he laughed. “You’re incredibly strong.”

I folded my legs just like him and laid my forehead on my knees. Every other breath I took rattled. I meant it when I told him I didn’t think I was strong enough. The only reason I’d lasted this long was because of Roy.

He said he would call soon. Did that mean a day, two days, a week?

His growl reverberated through my body, and his voice moved across my skin.

“Come for me, Paris.”

“What are you smiling about?”

I sniffled. “You don’t want to know.”

“Sure, I do. That’s why I’m here. You tell me what’s on your mind, and I listen.”

“No, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to know.”

“Try me.”

“I was thinking about Roy’s dick in my ass and how he does this little jerk that nails me right in the pros—”

He held up a hand. “Not funny.”

“You asked.”

“I did.” He shook his head.

“So now what?”

He nodded at the clock on the wall. “We still have thirty minutes.”

“More talking?”

“Easier than crying.”

“I tried to tell you what was on my mind once already, and you didn’t appreciate it.”

“I think there are far more interesting things to talk about than your sex life.” He pulled the floppy hippo from the arm of the couch, and hugged the stuffed animal to his stomach.

I could just imagine someone’s grandmother stitching together the chubby little hippo, then giving it to some kid to keep them company at night.

“You want to hold him for a while?” Dr. Carmichael opened his arms in offering.

“Him?”

“Sure. His name is Buford.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I had no idea why, but I took the damn thing. Its fat legs thumped my arm when I shook it. Buford made his way to my lap, and I sat cross-legged holding him in much the same way Dr. Carmichael had.

I petted Buford’s crinkled pelt, and the fluttering left behind in my chest slowed.

“Does wonders, doesn’t it?”

I wiggled Buford’s weighted front legs. “Yeah.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Who thinks about holding a stuffed animal to make you feel better?”