Exposed (Madame X, #2)(57)

You are leviathan.

And my rage is the callow fury of a young woman only now learning how to express her emotions.

You stand before me. Stare down at me. “You cannot deny me, Isabel. You walked away, and yet here you are once more. In my home. You tremble. With rage, yes.”

A step closer, and your chest brushes against the tips of my breasts, and even through the fabric of my dress and bra, my nipples respond to your proximity.

“But also, you tremble with desire.” Your lips brush my earlobe. “For me.”

I am stronger than this.

I am stronger than this.

You cup my core with a broad, hard hand. “Your * is wet.” You bite my earlobe, whisper dirty secret truth against the shell of my ear. “For me.”

I am stronger than this.

I am stronger than this.

Your words leach my lungs of air. Your proximity snarls my will and tangles it. You are a sorcerer, and you weave magic of singular purpose: to seduce me.

You slide your hands up my front, grasp my breasts.

Clutch the V of fabric between them.

Slowly, slowly, with exquisite control, you rip my dress open from top to bottom. Unclasp my bra with a single deft flick of your hands. Tear apart my underwear at the seam over my hip, and the scrap of lace tumbles to the floor.

I am gasping for breath, my breasts heaving. My blood thrums as I hunt vainly for the will to resist you.

I sob once, and then your lips are on mine and your hands are lifting me and somehow you’ve shed your sweatpants and shoes and socks and you are utterly naked with me in this echoing space with dawn light battering blindingly upon us, illuminating us, leaving no shadows in which my weakness can be hidden, no darkness that can absorb the stain of my sin.

You press my spine to the coolness of the window glass. Your hands are large and rough and strong on my backside, holding me up, spreading me open for you.

I bite your shoulder as you thrust into me, taste blood as I am filled by you.

As Madame X I was owned by you.

As Isabel, I am f*cked by you.

A thrust. A thrust. I sob, and you buck into me. My flesh squeals against the glass. This is agony, this is ecstasy. You move like a machine, hips driving you into me with pistonlike power.

But . . .

There is a void within me now. It was always there, perhaps, but now I feel it most keenly, as you fill me and fail to sate me.

I know your patterns. I know your needs.

You cannot stomach being face-to-face very long. I wait, but it isn’t long before you lower me to the floor, spin me in place and press me to the glass. Not just my hands, but all of me. Breasts smashed flat against the cold glass, thighs, stomach, cheek. Naked, I am pressed against the glass for all the world to see.

I am exposed.

And you are behind me, pushing into me. One hand on my hip, guiding my motions, the other clutching the queue of my braid.

You f*ck, and you f*ck, and you f*ck.

In this, there is no pleasure for me. For the first time that I can remember, you do not spare a single moment of attention for me. You only drive with single-minded madness into me again and again and again, hips slapping loudly against the taut roundness of my backside. I hear that, and only that. The slap-slap-slap of your body meeting mine. I glance out the window, and across the street I can almost see a face in a window, watching me.

You come, and I feel the hot rush of your seed filling me, dripping out of me.

You have claimed me, but there is a secret only I know: Your mark does not adhere to my skin, your claim does not sear into my soul.

In the last few minutes, I felt the earth shift, felt the shackles of your sorcery fall away.

You step away, and I spin in place, rest my bottom and shoulders against the glass, stare at you.

Something within me aches.

There are no words to speak.

I turn away from you, return my gaze to the world beyond the glass. After a time the silence grows profound, becomes empty, and I know you’ve walked away.

My cigar, at some point set in an ashtray, still smolders. I place it between my teeth, pour a measure of scotch, blow thick plumes of smoke into the rays of sunlight, and swallow burning mouthfuls of scotch in an attempt to drown the screams of self-loathing welling up within me.

I smoke, and I drink, and I listen to you shower.

I remain naked, because clothes cannot cover my shame.

You emerge dressed, hair wet and clean and slicked back, dressed in a tan suit with a pale blue shirt, no tie, baring that sliver of skin. You stare at me, a frown pinching your face, razoring a line into the bridge of your nose.

I want to yell at you. Tell you how much I hate you. Tell you how empty I feel. Tell you that everything is different now, everything is changed. I am changed. If I am addict and you are a drug, the high has soured.

I say nothing, however, because there are no words that can express the weltering chaos within me.

Neither of us speaks, and after a moment, you leave. The elevator doors close together, narrowing my view of you until there is nothing left but the doors.

And I am alone once more.

I give in to the screams, and my voice echoes off the glass in raw, ragged, jagged fragments. I scream until my voice gives out, and then I weep.

I allowed you to use me again. I feel the cancer of it like a film of grease on my soul.

No more.

Never again.

I cease weeping, and I shower you off me.