Edge Play X (31 page)

To his embarrassment, before Simeon
could pull his face away, X had come up the steps and witnessed him there. She
laughed at him and shook her head in disgust before inserting her key into the
lock and opening the door. He followed her inside, noticing how X looked
unkempt and disheveled, looked like she needed a shower. The delicate skin
under her eyes was puffy and dark, a situation that X hoped that the coffee she
was swigging from a paper cup would soon remedy.

X put her purse onto the counter and
asked Simeon quite directly, “What do you want now?”

Simeon, disappointed by her reaction
to him in their first interaction since they had returned from
Paris
, was momentarily unable to speak. He had hoped
for a warmer reception, one which would include a romp in X’s bed or perhaps on
the arm of her couch.

“Has
Compton
contacted you?” he asked.

“No,” she said.
 

“He’s in
Brazil
,” Simeon informed her. “He won’t be back until
next week. He’ll want to see you again.”

“I thought perhaps he’d grow tired of
me,” X mused.

“I don’t think so, especially now.”

“Why now?”

“Now that you’ve fucked him.”

Fuck. Such a dirty word. Like
cunt
, it was made with vowels that kept the tongue low in
the mouth with spitting, jagged sounds.

There was a tone of jealousy in his
response. X started sorting through some mail on the counter in an attempt to
ignore him.
 

She hoped that maybe now that she had
been intimate with Compton that he would lose interest in her, put another
notch in his belt and be done, though she knew that was unlikely. For other men
that might have worked, perhaps, but not
Compton
. Not yet. He wanted something more than just a
lay.

“Look,” Simeon said, “
Compton
’s business partner, Eliot Ventura, is going to be
in
California
in a month. He’s been funneling
Compton
’s money to sheiks in the
Middle East
. We need you to dominate him. It will only be a
couple times, just to get some photos of him like you did of
Compton
, something that could embarrass him.”

X, upon hearing his request, fought
against her initial urge to decline. But knowing that soon enough she would be
in Santa Fe, she responded that as long as there was more money in it for her,
another $75,000 say (money that could be delivered as soon as possible, thank
you very much), she would give that Ventura the experience of his life.

Simeon, surprised by her acquiescence,
told her that of course they will get the money for her. She could expect
payment from
Ventura
as well, $5000 an hour, the same rate as
Compton
.

Thinking that her agreement was an
opening to further acceptances, Simeon took a few steps toward X who was now
finished sorting through her mail but was still sipping from her coffee. He
leaned into her, trying to kiss her, but X turned her head away. And when
Simeon tried again, the woman took a few clumsy steps away from him. This time
X told him that what had happened between them was a mistake and that she had
no intention of it happening again.

Looking dejected and disappointed,
Simeon asked, “A mistake?”

“I was drugged. I wasn’t thinking
clearly.”

Clarity. It wasn’t a word generally
associated with lust.

“You liked it,” he said, and she
didn’t deny that she had.

“It’s never going to happen again with
us,” she said, her words bludgeoning him with their finality.

And then a realization came to him, an
understanding that her messy hair and rumpled clothes were not because X had
not groomed herself well that morning. She had not rolled out of bed and just
returned from getting coffee. X had just been in the arms of another man.

He wanted to call her a slut, whore,
strumpet, and ‘ho, a harlot, hussy, and tramp. Maybe she had fucked that
bartender again or maybe it had been somebody else. He wanted to argue with her
decisions but he knew that it was futile. Simeon tried to keep his mouth shut
when he knew the words would work against him and generally, he succeeded.
Insulting her would only lessen his chances of another interlude.

X didn’t feel a need to explain to
Simeon why she made the decisions she did. He wouldn’t understand, probably
wouldn’t care. And anyway, X would never have been able to explain that she had
made love to the bartender again, in part, simply because she had wanted the
last man she had been intimate with to be someone other than Simeon. X had
wanted to erase the remnants of Simeon’s (and Compton’s) tarriance in whatever
way she could, and if she had to have another man step on their footprints to
blot them out, so be it.

“
Compton
is going want to see you again,” Simeon said.
“Was he a mistake, too?”

“Probably,” she said, not wanting to
give him any hints to her escape plans.

“So I’m a mistake, and
Compton
, he’s
probably
a mistake? If I were a billionaire, would I just
probably
be a mistake?”
 

Simeon thought about the bonus he would
be earning in getting X to dominate that
Ventura
pervert, and decided that he was going to buy
himself a new car, a fast one.

“I don’t plan on fucking him again,
Simeon.”

“Then just beat him. God knows that he
deserves it. And the $75,000, I’ll bring your money next week.”

And then he was gone.

X found her laptop, put it on the
counter, and after starting it up, she queried “Eliot Ventura” online. A few
clicks took her to an article in an architectural magazine which featured
photos of the man’s French chateau, one in which X recognized the floors, the
staircase, the basement and the entryway where she and Compton had been greeted
by a man wearing a full-face white mask, a man with whom Compton had shared a
cigar and Scotch while she and Simeon had hidden away, fornicating in the
limousine.

4.

This time when Terry Compton had told
Steinberg to set up another meeting in his dungeon with X, his loyal assistant
had reported back that the woman had refused to meet with him there, saying
that if Compton wanted to see her, the man would have to come to her apartment.
She’d have it no other way.

He thought about her ultimatum before
finally accepting. He was aware that X lived in an apartment and he wondered
what it was like. More importantly, he was curious as to what X planned on
doing to him there that couldn’t be accomplished in his expensive,
well-equipped dungeon.

So when the day came for him to see X
again,
Compton
knocked on her door, not sure what to expect. It
had been a long time since he had knocked on a woman’s door; usually, they
knocked on his. He appreciated the sense of the unexpected that her request had
created; he floated in the flux of the unknown.

X opened the door, not dressed in
leather, latex, or
pvc
, but instead, comfortably
attired in a short black nightgown, the smooth satin covering eliciting a
positive reaction in Terry Compton, causing him to hope that he, like the
fabric, might also spill over the soft contours of X’s body.

A few weeks had passed since they had returned
from Paris, time in which he had thought of X daily, sometimes hourly, the
memories of his encounters with her entering his mind in unexpected, torrential
recollections (and at other times quite expectedly, the images being called up
to push him over the masturbatory edge). His memories had mixed with fantasy,
their hybrid growing wildly, overrunning him and supplanting his train of
thought as he sat in business meetings, showered, rode in the car or ate
dinner. The images of her had even inserted themselves into his dreams.

And now that he was in her glorious
presence again, just a few cubic meters of space between them, Compton took
pleasure not just at the sight of her, but also at the idea that their lungs
shared the same molecules of air, that their feet rested on the same floor. The
moments between when they had said goodbye and the present moment of finally
seeing her again had been filled with desire, subdued at times and
berserkly
raging at others. As he looked at her, so lovely
in the simple black sheath, he knew that he would do whatever she wanted,
whatever she requested, regardless of how vile, demeaning, or repulsive her
request.

So when X told him to strip,
Compton
did so, quickly removing his clothing, folding
each garment as it was taken off and stacking everything in a neat pile next to
the couch. When X handed him a French maid outfit and told him to put it on, he
pulled the ruffles over his head and over his hips, the lace tickling his bare
ass on the way down.
 
Even the fishnet stockings
he donned, rolling them clumsily over his knobby, stubbly legs (the hair not
yet grown back entirely on his limbs). And when X tossed him a huge pair of
black pumps, saying that the shoes were the largest that she was able to find
at the store, he slipped them on, his toes pinching together uncomfortably in
the cheap leather. Mixed with his embarrassment at wearing the costume was
pleasure and titillation from being emasculated.

“Here is a list of what needs
cleaned,” X said, handing him a sheet of paper, the tasks written out in her
long, beautiful script. “I’m going to watch a movie while you do it. Try not to
bother me.”

X went behind
Compton
and put something into the microwave. In less
than a minute, the smell of popcorn began wafting through her apartment. Random
pops gave way to a burst of sound, and when it was finished, X poured the
contents into a large bowl, taking it with her to the couch without offering
any to
Compton
.

He found a pair of pink latex gloves
and pulled these over his hands. They felt snug and clammy around his fingers.

The first task on the list was the
dishes. Because the kitchen opened into the living room,
Compton
was able to watch X as he loaded the dishwasher
and then began to hand wash a skillet. She stretched out her long legs and
tossed popcorn into her mouth.

“Bring me a beer,” she commanded.

In the refrigerator, he found the
bottles and managed to find an opener in a drawer. But when he took her the
bottle, X chastised him.

“Put it in a glass.”

He did what she said, taking her the
drink after he had poured the amber liquid into a pint glass. X received it
without a hint of thanks.

Compton
began wiping off the counters, spraying and
polishing the stone. The granite was a similar color to what was in his own
huge kitchen, yet in all the time he had resided at his primary residence,
never once had he wiped them down, washed a dish he had dirtied, or cooked
himself a full meal. He had a chef, a French man, an older gentleman and
Compton
always had trouble remembering his name. Jacques?
Jean? Something
like
that. And the cleaning, he paid
people to do it. How many maids did he have? He couldn’t remember. Why should
he care?

The bathroom was next on the list. He
carried the cleaning caddy into the room, and after some searching, found a
bottle which seemed appropriate to the task. He sprayed the fluid into the
shower and then into the separate tub, spraying around the assortment of hair
care products and toiletries therein. A few minutes passed (ones spent
examining the plethora of makeup that X kept in an open basket on the back of
her commode), then he used a sponge to wipe off whatever chemical concoction he
had used.
 

Compton
examined the bottle, relatively sure that he
owned a reasonably large amount of stock in that company. Since the beginning
of his career,
Compton
had put money into necessities—toilet paper,
soap, cleaning supplies, fuel, corn, wheat, dairy.
 
There were other commodities that were
considered sinful pleasures to some but necessities to others—tobacco, liquor,
adult entertainment.
Compton
had invested money in them all, and then in their
logical extension, contraceptives.

The toilet.
He tried to remember the last time he had cleaned
one. Fifteen years ago, he guessed. Dirty job. He found another cleanser and
sprinkled it into the water before swishing it around with the brush and then
flushing the blue water down.
 

Next, he circumnavigated the outside
of the commode, lifting off X’s makeup basket to clean underneath it, spraying
and wiping the handle, the tank, the lid, the seat, the hinges, and finally,
the porcelain underneath the seat. It was relatively clean, just some dust and
hair (of the long and short variety), the rim speckled with a few dots of
urine.