Dark Secret Love (10 page)

As he spoke, he started to fuck me, and as he fucked me, he began to pull the balls out of my ass. One at a time, so that I couldn’t even think. But I knew better than to stay silent. Already, Nate was training me. My mind worked furiously trying to figure out what he wanted me to say. What the right answer was. I knew that Nate wouldn’t be satisfied with a simple fuck session. God, I wouldn’t either. But I didn’t know what he expected from me.

“What I always need,” I murmured, failing, I knew as I spoke.

Nate laughed. His voice was dark. He was slamming inside of me, and the beads were gone, and I felt emptied. I understood he was going to take my ass before he was through, and I also knew that he wasn’t even close to the finale.

“Punishment,” I said, my chin to my chest, words almost too soft to hear. “Discipline.”

Nate agreed. “You do need discipline in your life. But what do you think you need right now?”

I felt as we were playing a part in a script. No, a story. And suddenly I understood. He’d read my pages. The ones I’d been banging away on Lois’s typewriter. He was creating his own version of several of my X-rated scenarios put together. And since he already knew what I wanted, he’d know if I lied, if I told him something else. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

Like magic, he had some thin little switch in his hand, and before I could breathe, before I could beg, he was using it on me, on the underside of my ass, the tops of my thighs. The pain cut me, cut through me. He worked with finesse, slicing that mean implement to the right or the left before landing a perfect blow that made me cry out. And when he thought I was done, he dragged me over his lap a final time, not for any teasing finger play this time, but for a ferocious over-the-knee hand-spanking that left me keening for breath and sobbing without any hesitation, without embarrassment or fear. Sobbing for real. Nate understood. If he kept up long enough, if he pushed hard enough, I’d forget who I was or what I wanted. I’d become his willing partner, his malleable plaything. Or simply His.

I was liquid as he positioned me how he wanted me, dragging me down on the carpet to fuck my ass, reaming me with his cock while I set my head on that soft old shag and wept.

“Does Daddy always know what you need?” Nate hissed in my ear.

“Yes,” I choked out. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Then you ought to trust me in the future.” He was still on me, in me, holding me down with his weight. “I gave you a reprieve tonight, Samantha. A get-out-of-jail free card. I won’t take pity on you again.” He came in a series of thrusts that shattered me. He pulled out, and I thought he would leave me there, a mess on the floor, to try to gather myself together. But he didn’t. He lifted me in his arms and carried me to the bathroom. He stripped the top of my pajamas over my head, so that I was totally naked, and then took off his own clothes and ushered me into the shower with him. I couldn’t wash myself, could barely move, but Nate seemed to understand. He did everything for me, lathering me up, rinsing me off, and then when we were done, toweling me dry.

Back in his room, the instructions continued. “You’ll go to sleep tonight with my cock in your mouth,” he said, his voice so deep. “Like a pacifier. Suck it sweetly, girl, and I’ll take care of you in the morning. Suck it like a good girl should.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said, as I took up my position. Like a good girl. Even if we both knew I’d never actually be a good girl, I could always pretend.

Picture me, after years of experiencing no—truly zero—satisfying sex, now suddenly overwhelmed by this brand-new world. New job. New men. New sensation of having my fantasies slowly come true. Or maybe not all that slowly …

Pleasure was difficult to get used to at first. I’d grown accustomed to having Byron angry with me most of the time. Of having to constantly regain those points I was forever losing.

When I was living with Byron, I had learned not to speak my mind. But now I didn’t have to hide. At work I made sure to look people in the eye, to be bold, and quickly I found myself gaining new friends. At home, once Lois had moved out, I spent my time redecorating her room—the candy-pink walls made me feel as if I were living in a bottle of Pepto. I painted at night and searched for flea-market finds on the weekends. No angels for me. Gargoyles are much more my speed. And then there was
my writing. Lois had taken her typewriter with her. But Nate said not to worry.

“Can’t use a typewriter, anyway, Samantha,” he told me. “You need a computer.”

“Lots of famous people have relied on typewriters,” I insisted, as if I were a purist, not wooed by newfangled technology. But the truth was that I couldn’t afford a computer. There was no fucking way. I could barely afford anything. The fact that I got my coffee for free at work was a huge savings. I’d arrived in the apartment with no cash. It was going to take me awhile to build up a comfortable cushion.

He left the room for a moment, then came back with a battered laptop. “Mine,” he said, handing over the computer. “I had it for school, but I never use the thing. The printer’s slow, but it works.”

“Are you sure?”

“Look, you need something you can work on. And you need to start sending out your writing.”

This wasn’t what I’d expected. “What do you mean?”

“I read it,” he said, “and I know I shouldn’t have.” This was rare for Nate, admitting any sort of fault or flaw. “But I was curious, and you hadn’t said not to. Hadn’t really tried to hide the pages, or anything. They were right there, in a folder on the coffee table. And the truth is,” he licked his bottom lip as he looked at me, “it’s good. I don’t mean that to give you a big head or anything. But it’s damn good. And while Garrett and I are out partying or hanging with friends, or whatever, you’re in there, writing, every night. I know you are. That’s why it’s good.”

“I can’t send it,” I said softly. I hadn’t been writing for anyone. Except me. I’d been writing because I couldn’t not write. The compulsion had started when I was still
working for the screenwriter. Whenever I had a free moment, I’d slip paper into the typewriter and start creating a story. Flashing back to Robert, to anyone, to a fantasy that would get me through the day.

“You know what I like,” he said, “you’ve seen my bookshelf and the magazines. And the movies on my shelf. You know that I’m not a novice where porn is involved. Believe me when I say that I know what I’m talking about. Your writing has this sort of breathlessness to it. You can tell there’s a soul behind the words.”

I felt myself blushing, but I shook my head.

“You need to send it out. And don’t give me any bullshit about rejections. I’m in the business of being rejected. Hollywood is built on rejections. Every time I go for a job, I know that 99 percent of the time I’m going to be shot down. You will, too. So you have to suck it up and send out your work.”

I was shocked by how he was talking to me. We’d fallen … not into a routine, exactly, but into an “arrangement.” He and Garrett and I. Garrett’s part of the deal was that he never discussed our two nights together, and if he occasionally sat by my side on the sofa to watch an old movie, if he every so often put his hand on my thigh or his arm around my waist, that was fine. But he still wasn’t won over. Wasn’t sure. Wasn’t comfortable. Nate and I never played when Garrett was around. We were like two kids waiting for the folks to leave so we could have the run of the house. On nights when Garrett was catering, Nate and I would find each other. I knew he saw other women—fucked other women. I didn’t care. (Or at least I told myself I didn’t.) I wasn’t asking for any sort of commitment. I was only asking for release. He hadn’t spoken about clubbing again, although I sensed he had
plans for me. As it stood, he simply would come into my room or lead me to his and subject me to whatever twisted fancies were awake in his mind.

He liked toys. That was one of my favorite things about him. He liked to surprise me with something I hadn’t seen before, something I’d never thought of. A gag. A butt plug. A dildo. (Pedestrian concepts to many adventurous lovers, but brand-new to my bed.) He was open and willing and completely unshockable. I felt I could have asked him for anything and he would simply take care of me. But I rarely ever had to ask. Nate understood. If I behaved flippantly or played the part of a brat, he’d start with a spanking. If I was coy, looking at him from under my long dark lashes, he’d respond in his own flirtatious way, inventing new games, creating new rules. I never knew what to expect. I was constantly off balance, and I relished every teetering, breathtaking moment.

Nate might ask me for coffee, only to take me out behind the café and fuck me up against the rear wall of the building. He might suggest a drive, only to twine his fingers in my hair and pull me down to his lap so that I could give him head while he maneuvered us along the Pacific Coast Highway. If we went to see a movie, it was inevitable we’d have sex in the back row. Even grocery shopping was far from safe. On a late-night run to the twenty-four-hour store, he bought only sex-charged items: whipped cream, chocolate syrup, honey. And while the checker rang us up, he explained loudly to me how he was going to use every item. “You’ll be on your stomach, and I’ll start drizzling the syrup down your spine, down to your sweet cheeks …” God, he was literally obsessed with my ass, which he stroked possessively in public or private.

Nothing was ever what it appeared to be. If he started an evening off with a sweet, gentle kiss, I knew I was ultimately in for something dark … something dangerous. And if the evening began with pain, I could expect to find myself cradled in an embrace that for Nate was pure tenderness. Even if it still involved my bound or captured body.

And when we were done, if I wasn’t too drained (or if he had decided to undo the straps holding me to his bed), I’d head back to my notebook and write it all down. You want to know how I can still remember different nuances, subtle lighting, scents, changes in the weather, the way the cool metal of his cuffs felt on my skin, the way I felt when I heard other girls’ voices on the answering machine? That’s simple. I recorded it all. Every important moment.

“Send it out,” Nate insisted. He was talking about my novel, the first one, the opening chapters. But I was worried. “Send it,” Nate demanded. “If you don’t, I will.”

At his insistence, I polished my first three chapters and sent them a publisher in New York. I chose this famous publishing house because I liked the beautiful packaging of their novels, and I knew that they had writers with darker voices than mine.

“What do you do on your lunch break?” Carmen asked me one day, curiously. “You don’t hang out with the rest of the girls, and I haven’t seen you in any of the cafés.”

The truth was that I took my notebook with me and walked to a bench on Santa Monica and worked. Taking notes. Plotting. Trying to figure out how to write a novel. I’d read enough, after all. I should be able to make this work, right?

But I was embarrassed to say so. Even though people
in the salon knew I wrote, that didn’t mean I could claim the title of “writer.” I’d told them about doing interviews at the alternative weekly—I’d even interviewed a celebrity hairdresser the year before, and I shared tales about my best interview ever, one of my favorite rock stars. Still, I said, “You know, I’m trying to save a little money. I bring my own lunch and take a walk.”

“Matteo said he saw you writing.”

I shrugged. “That too.”

She gave me a look of interest, and I shrugged and said, “Yeah, so I’m trying. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.”

I had no idea that when I got home that day there’d be a message from the publisher. My new publisher. Saying they wanted to buy my book. I was twenty-two. And I only had the opening and the ending.

Nate had already heard the message. He was waiting for me.

“Worry later,” he said, already guessing that panic was winning out over excitement. “Worry tomorrow. Tonight,” he said, “we’re celebrating.”

For me, this was chapter one. Chapter one of my new life.

As a writer.