The Wives of Beverly Row 4: Lust Has a New Address (8 page)

“That’s perfect,” Jake said, staring at the screen. “Now turn around.”

She did a full turn.

“Now show them your ass.”

With her back to the camera she bent over and showed the men on the forum her perfectly formed buttocks.

“Spread the cheeks,” Jake said.

She pulled open her butt cheeks and let the viewers look at her asshole.

“That’s it, baby,” Jake said.

With her back to the camera she allowed some of the emotion she was feeling to come to the surface. Her lip quivered. She felt a knot well up in her chest. She wanted to burst into tears but Jake would be furious if she did anything like that. Anything that spoiled this illusion, this obsession of his, and he would fly right off the handle.

“Now,” Jake said, “sit on the floor, facing the camera, and spread those legs.”

He spoke to her like she was a piece of property. She held back her tears and turned around. She didn’t look at Jake. Instead, she looked at the camera. She wondered who was on the other side. Who was watching her? Was Peter among them? Was he one of the perverts jacking off to this little show?

She sat on the ground and spread her legs wide open, giving the camera a perfect view of her pink pussy. Jake had to adjust the camera to point at her on the floor.

“Give them something,” Jake said.

She wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Show them some pussy play,” Jake said, his voice cold and emotionless.

What did he think she was? A toy? A slave?

She put a finger in her mouth and then touched the lips of her vagina. She ran her finger up and down the slit of her pussy and then spread the lips open with two fingers, showing the camera the tender, pink flesh of her inner vagina.

“Good,” Jake said. “Now slide a finger in. Put it in your mouth and then slide it in.”

She sucked on her right, index finger and then slid it teasingly into her vagina, in and out, in and out.

“Come for them,” Jake said.

Zola gave him a pleading look. He was watching her now, carefully observing every detail of her performance.

“Do it,” he said firmly.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to come. She wouldn’t be able to reach orgasm in this situation. She had too much pent up emotion in her chest. She was on the verge of bursting into tears. She tried to feel sexual, she tried to feel pleasure as she ran her finger in and out of her pussy but it just wasn’t possible. She was too upset.

As she sat there, fingering herself, she felt so utterly worthless, so utterly disgraced. Jake was watching her like a hawk. The camera was recording her every movement. There was no way out, no escape. She was going to have to fake it.

She began to moan, trying to sound as convincing as possible. It seemed to work. Jake’s eyes widened. He watched her more intensely than ever. He leaned forward in his seat and she thought she could see a bulge forming in his pants.

She leaned her head back and began to thrust her pelvis forward toward her finger as she continued to slide it deep into her pussy. She moaned and thrust forward, trying to act the way she’d seen porn stars acting when they were orgasming. She slid her finger into her pussy faster and faster, as if she was really bringing herself to orgasm, and as she continued, as she moaned in fake pleasure, she noticed that she was actually beginning to get aroused. Her finger felt better and better in her pussy the more she slid it in. Her moans began to grow louder, they were real moans of pleasure! She thrust her pelvis, pounded her pussy, and began letting the palm of her hand slap against her clit as she fingered herself. She gasped. She really was coming. The orgasm pulsed through her vagina and she cried out in one last, loud moan as she climaxed.

She opened her eyes. She hadn’t realized she’d shut them. Jake was grinning at her. He was pleased. Despite everything, despite the horrible way he was treating her, despite the utter disrespect and humiliation he was heaping upon her on a daily basis, she felt proud that she’d been able to make him happy. She was glad she’d been able to please him. He was her husband after all.

She looked down at her pussy. It was soaking wet and bright pink from the stimulation. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her chest. She was panting.

“Good girl,” Jake said to her, and then he turned back to the computer and began pounding away on the keyboard, no doubt congratulating himself to his friends and listening to their praises.

XI

Z
OLA WAS ALMOST ASLEEP BY
the time Jake came to bed. He’d spent over an hour on the internet after Zola had left him. He’d even locked the door of his office at one point. Zola didn’t allow herself to wonder what he was doing in there with the door locked. She just couldn’t handle the stress of it. There was no way he was doing anything good. Her best guess was that he’d been watching a video of one of the other men’s wives masturbating, just as they’d all watched her. She imagined that he’d jerked off while watching.

She’d allowed herself to cry when she was in the shower but now she was holding it all in again. She didn’t want to do anything to anger Jake.

“Zola,” Jake said, softly, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” she said.

She had her back to him and she didn’t turn around. She was afraid she might cry if she had to face him.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ve made an arrangement that I think you’re going to like.”

She felt a shiver run down her spine as he spoke. She knew only too well the kind of
arrangements
that he liked to make. There was no way in hell she was going to like it.

“I’ve told your friend, Ariel, about us. She’s interested in having some fun.”

At the mention of Ariel’s name, Zola almost threw up. A wave of emotion washed over her and she even thought she heard a ringing in her ear, as if she’d just been hit by a bus.

This was too much! It was one thing to make her life on the internet a sordid mess of cheating and sexual deviance. It was another thing entirely to bring her real life into it.

“What do you mean?” she said. Her voice broke as she spoke but she couldn’t help it. She kept her back to Jake and listened intently as he spoke.

“I was talking to her,” he said.

“You were talking to her? I thought you hated her.”

“I don’t hate her.”

“Where were you talking.”

Jake sighed. “A bar. I saw her in a bar the other night.”

“What bar?”

“Just a bar in Santa Monica. We met there by chance.”

“I didn’t know you were in a bar in Santa Monica this week.”

“Jesus. I was just having a beer. Anyway, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

Zola took a deep breath. It was true. This wasn’t like a normal argument between husband and wife. There was nothing at stake for Jake here. He didn’t even pretend to be faithful to Zola, he didn’t want to admit that she deserved fidelity and faithfulness. He just told her the way things were and it was her job to accept it.

“Anyway, I ended up showing her the video I made of you and Peter,” Jake said.

Zola’s entire body froze as she absorbed the meaning of Jake’s words. This was it, this was the one thing she feared most in the world, the meeting of her
real
life and the
fake
life that Jake was creating for her online. If Ariel had seen that video, then how was she going to be able to continue her life on Beverly Row? How was she going to be able to show her face around the other women? It was all over.

She began to cry. She couldn’t help it. She knew Jake would have no sympathy for her but that didn’t stop the tears from flowing. She didn’t make a sound but her shoulders started heaving with the force of her emotion and her eyes wetted up. She was overcome with grief.

“How could you show Ariel that video?” she gasped, tears choking her voice. “You know I can’t live with everyone around here knowing about it.”

“Relax,” Jake said. “She’s into it. She’s not going to tell anyone.”

“Of course she’s going to tell. She’s going to tell everyone. That’s what women do. They talk, Jake.”

“Who cares?” Jake said, brushing aside her fears as if they meant nothing at all to him. “She’s into it and if you want to save what little face you’ve got left, you’d better pretend you’re into it too.”

“What?” Zola said. “What are you even talking about Jake?”

“Look,” Jake said, “I don’t want to be an asshole about this, but you’ve got to be realistic. You’ve got nothing here, nothing to bargain with. You live under
my
roof. You spend
my
money. Unless you want to be left with
nothing,
you better smarten up.”

Zola couldn’t contain the sobs. She couldn’t contain her emotions. She felt devastated. He’d shown Ariel the video, now he was threatening her home, her security. How could she stand up against this? She felt as if her entire personality, her entire identity, was being washed away by the ocean.

She turned around and looked at him. She sniffed, stopped crying, wiped her eyes.

“Who was watching on the camera tonight?” she said as calmly as she could.

“Just the guys on the forum.”

“Was Peter?”

“Of course. He’s your biggest fan.”

“It’s private right? The recording.”

“Of course it’s private. Jesus. It’s for forum members only.”

She looked at his face, so handsome, she looked into his eyes, and she tried to understand what was going on in his mind. What was he thinking? What did he want? Did he love her? Was this how he expressed love? Was any of this alright? Was she able to live with it? She was trying to convince herself that there was something here, some humanity, some sort of relationship that she and Jake shared that had something human about it.

“What did you say to Ariel?” she said.

“I just said that we were into swinging.”

“Both of us?”

“Of course,” Jake said. “We
are,
right? I mean, I’m not the only one who’s into this. You’re willing too, right. No one’s forcing you into any of this.”

She thought about that. He had just threatened to take away her home, her financial security, everything that she relied on. She knew he was lying, that he was forcing her to do these things. She knew
he
knew he was forcing her, but something inside her wanted to make peace with him. She wanted to play along. She wanted to pretend that they were in this together. It was the only way she could find the strength to carry on.

“We’re in this together,” she said. “We both want it.”

“That’s what I thought,” Jake said. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “So, next time you see Ariel, I want you to ask her to come over. I want her to know that this is something we both want. I want her to believe it,” he said.

Zola was nodding. She was agreeing with him. She could hardly believe that she was willing to play along with this but it was just so difficult to stand up to Jake, and so, so easy to go along with what he wanted.

“Okay, honey,” she said, her voice sounding quiet and distant. It was strange. It didn’t sound like it was her own voice. She felt like she was dissociating from herself, becoming two different people. On the one hand, she was becoming the submissive, willing partner that Jake was forcing her to become, and on the other she was the ever quieter, ever more distant,
real
Zola. The girl who was being forgotten and brushed aside in the pursuit of Jake’s ever more demanding fantasies.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow, okay?” she said, as compliant as a child. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

XII

Z
OLA SAT AT THE KITCHEN
table, her morning coffee steaming in front of her. She poured a little milk into the mug and stirred it. The phone was on the table next to the coffee cup and she stared at it like it was a snake that might pounce on her at any moment.

This was it. This was the last step in her complete submission to Jake. Allowing his weird fetish to move from the internet to her real life was the final stage in allowing him to completely dominate every aspect of her life. She had a feeling that from here on in, no matter how things went with Ariel, the women on Beverly Row, and in time everyone Zola ever met, would see her as her husband’s sex slave instead of the woman she’d been trying to be.

She supposed that was part of the deal. That was part of the agreement she’d struck with Jake when she’d become his wife. He was rich, he had everything money could buy, and she would become his property too.

She picked up the phone and dialed Ariel’s number.

“Ariel?”

“Zola? Is that you?”

“Listen,” Zola said. She knew that Ariel would be on the defensive. She’d just had sex with Jake after all. “We want you to come over.”

Ariel burst out with a flurry of words. Zola was almost relieved to hear the nerves in her voice. It meant her own wouldn’t be so obvious.

“Zola, how can I say this? I’m so sorry about what happened. I have no excuse.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Zola said. She refused to let her voice crack. She was stronger than this. She was stronger than Jake and Ariel and whatever these rich, spoiled people did. She was stronger than all of them. If they were into this messed up, sordid lifestyle, that was their problem, not hers. She was doing whatever she had to do to survive. One day, she promised herself, she would be strong enough to leave all of this behind, but for now this was what life had dealt her. She had to make the most of it. She had to survive.

“Zola. I
am
worried about it. I slept with your husband. I know you won’t believe me but I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Ariel,” Zola said, her voice rising a little higher than she meant it to. “Jake and I have a completely open relationship. We both sleep with whoever we want. We do it all the time.”

“Really?” Ariel said.

“Really.”

“That’s what Jake told me,” Ariel said. “I mean, I sort of believed him at the time. But now that you’re on the phone with me, I just feel so bad, Zola. Please believe me. I never meant to hurt you. I just let the moment take over.”

“He showed you the video, right?” Zola said.