Struck By Lightning: Slow Satisfaction Part 22

We made our sticky, sweaty way across the room to the immense bathroom and he turned on the water, but then sat on the edge of the separate Jacuzzi tub while waiting for it to get hot.

Now that the ecstasy of s.e.x was ebbing away somewhat, I tried to wrap my head around the questions Ferrara's video had raised. I sat on the edge of the tub next to him.

"You look like you're about to ask a big question," James said.

"Yeah, I think I am." I waved at the shower. "Let's get clean first while I get my head together."

"All right."

He was somber, or perhaps merely subdued from being exhausted, as we washed. He helped me rinse my hair, his long fingers sluicing away the water and lifting it in the spray, and he gently soaped between my legs, kissing my belly reverently when he was done. I scrubbed his back and lathered his b.a.l.l.s, remembering my earlier conclusions, that James was fundamentally afraid of the act of intercourse. He certainly hadn't felt afraid in bed just now, and he hadn't looked afraid in that video, but...

We got out and toweled dry. He ordered a pot of coffee from room service, put on an unders.h.i.+rt and yoga pants, and then belted a bathrobe over that. I put my robe back on and we settled on the couch together.

"You seem troubled, Karina. You've never taken this long to come up with a question."

"I know. This one might be a doozy, though, so I'm psyching myself up for it."

"Take all the time you need. May I make a guess, though?"

"Sure." I turned sideways on the couch so I could look at his face.

He pulled one of my feet into his lap and began ma.s.saging my foot. "My guess is that this has something to do with Ferrara."

"Good guess. What makes you think that?"

"It's a fact: Ferrara will want to drive a wedge between us any way she can." His hands were warm and strong. "She's not blind. I'm sure she saw the rapport between us at the audition. So tell me. What did she say to you?"

I sighed. "It started backstage at the audition. She said all kinds of stupid things to bait me. I managed to block it out. But"-I looked at him, the picture of ease, a demeanor I had almost never seen on him before, except after s.e.x the last few times. He no longer looked like a man who was holding everything in. "She showed me a video."

"A video?" He frowned. "Of my early work?"

I took deep breaths, trying to stay calm and rational. "You're much younger in the video. You're... It's..." How could I say it? "In what she showed me, you're-I mean, it's definitely you, not a fake-"

"Karina, what does the video show?"

"Um. It looks like you're raping a girl in it."

A glimmer of suspicion came into his eye. "A video, you say?"

I nodded, took another breath, and let it all spill. "She said you used to do it all the time, to groupies. You'd wait until they didn't want it, and then force yourself on them, and... and... and..."

"Breathe, Karina."

I gulped. "And she said she taped it so she could confront you about your behavior instead of going to the police."

He had stopped ma.s.saging my foot, but kept his hands still and warm on my ankles. "Was that the whole story?"

"Pretty much. She only showed me one video, but she made it sound like there are more of them."

He nodded. "Let me ask you one question. Does me forcing myself on girls seem likely?"

"Well, no. And I told myself she's a nonstop liar. Still, it was pretty upsetting to see. I told myself there's surely an explanation. But if there is, that means there's something more you haven't told me."

He nodded. "Remember when I told you my past with Ferrara was sordid?"

"Yes, but you said you never slept with her."

"I didn't." He stretched tiredly. "May I tell you the other thing I've been holding back before I tell you the untold secrets about Ferrara?"

"Of course."

He s.h.i.+fted until he was cross-legged, facing me on the couch, my feet still in his lap. "I haven't told you yet the thing I fear."

I swallowed and said nothing, not wanting to derail him.

"You told me two things, you said, a silly fear and a serious one. I can't tell if mine is silly or serious. I think whether it is or not depends on you." He ran a hand through his hair. It was growing out longer again now, and his fingers made damp furrows. "I fear you're in love with Dom James, not Real James."

"Ah." I sat up and pulled his hands toward me. "I can see why that might be tricky. However, I have a strong feeling that Dom James is a big part of Real James. That's just part of who you are. It's part of how your s.e.x drive works and it's part of how you love."

He gave a small nod.

"Remember, I've also met Performance Artist James-and Neurotic Artist James, too, come to think of it. Not to mention Boss Whose Staff Loves Him James, and Dancer James. In fact, Dom James is the James who's the most p.r.o.ne to fits of pique, petulance, and emotional turmoil." I crawled forward and kissed him on the cheek. "And yet, I love him anyway. I love all the Jameses I've met so far."

"You haven't met Rock Star James yet," he pointed out.

"I don't think Rock Star James exists. Maybe he used to, or maybe he only exists on the stage. I think that's why you're leaving him behind. There's no place for him in your life." I sat back while he let that sink in.

"I think you're right about that," he said. "Rock Star James is a creation of Ferrara's. He's who she wants. He'll f.u.c.k anything that moves, for one thing, and he's moldable, trainable; he'll do whatever she says."

I nodded. "So where does the video come into it?"

"I'm getting there. The reason I ask about how much you care about my dom persona is... well, some women-some people-can get that bubble burst very easily."

"You told me that. Women who had a perfect fantasy dom, or master, or king in their minds, who couldn't handle it when you were a real person. You know I'm not like that."

"I know. It's one of the reasons I've fallen so hard for you, Karina." He kissed my hand. "But there is still a thing, sometimes, where submissives especially lose all respect for a dom if they find out he ever bottomed or subbed."

"Did you forget you and I switched in Ohio?"

"I didn't forget. I'm saying it's still my instinct to be careful when telling you about my past. Because there are who those who can't handle the idea of their top bottoming."

"Hey, but I thought it was kind of normal for tops to get trained by starting at the bottom, isn't it?"

"It is, in some circles, not others. You know, people still get ideas in their heads, and when a relations.h.i.+p is based on ideas, on fantasies, well-"

"James. I'll say it as many times as I need to. It's the real you, not the fantasy, that I want."

"Thank you." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Turn back the clock to the days when I was-as the saying goes-young, dumb, and full of come. Trying to get noticed as an artist and as a performer. I was more of a songwriter than a singer, really, but I had to sing them or no one would ever hear them. And besides, singing in clubs was an excellent way to meet s.e.x partners, something I had a keen interest in at the time. Ferrara and her husband courted me. At the time I made no distinction between them wanting me for the record label and wanting me for anything else. Maybe they didn't make a distinction either. Anyway. She's the one who introduced me to the society."

"Yeah, you told me that."

"What I didn't tell you was that she insisted I go through six months as a trainee."

"Really?" The thought of James prancing about half-naked while rich men and women paddled his b.u.m when they felt like it was a shocking thought. "Did you like it?"

"Not particularly. I liked that I had found this haven of s.e.xuality that was unlike anything I knew of in the rest of the world, and I was at the age when I was game to try anything to do with s.e.x. However, there's no getting around the fact that I am essentially dominant by nature. I didn't get much out of submitting to others or in serving them, except as a kind of acting exercise.

"The one person I was concerned with pleasing, though, was Ferrara, and not merely because she and Huntington were the avenue for a record deal. Her idea of being a loyal wife was that she never had intercourse with anyone except her husband. But that one rule left a lot of leeway. She would blindfold him, put earplugs in his ears and headphones on top of that, and mummify him so the only parts of him that were accessible were his face and his c.o.c.k. She'd have slave girls fluff him with their mouths. And then to arouse herself enough to ride him, she liked to see me dominate other women." He didn't meet my eyes. Rather than blus.h.i.+ng he looked bloodless, as if telling me this was draining him. Or maybe he was that tired. "Tell me about the video you saw."

"Well, there's a girl lying on top of the covers of a bed, wearing a kind of see-through nightgown."

"Looking rather ready to be ravished?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it. And you, um..." I closed my eyes, trying to sort out the images, which had turned into a jumble in my head. "First you kind of teased her like you were trying not to wake her up, and then you sort of leaped on her."

"Was there a struggle?"

"Yes. She fought you, and you choked her and told her to lie still, and then she almost got away, but you pounced on her back and put a gag in her mouth since she was protesting so much. That was all I saw."

He took my hands in his. "Your hands are shaking."

"The way she screamed was pretty convincing."

"If it's who I think it was, she's a very good actress. Didn't you recognize Vanette?"

I blinked and sat up straight. "What?"

"Have you ever seen her without makeup and her hair down?"

"No! Are you sure that was her?"

"If it's the scene I remember, yes, it's her. And it took place in one of the bedrooms at the society's club in London."

I thought back to what it had looked like. "You know, I was so focused on you and her, I didn't even look at the room. Or really look at her face." What I remembered, though, certainly didn't contradict the idea.

"I'm certain Vanette would confirm the story if you asked her about it," he said. "We were both trainees then. She was developing a specialty in ravishment."

"Ravishment?"

"For those members who wanted to playact that they were forcing her. Some of them had elaborate scenarios, with bodices to rip from the lady of the house and that sort of thing, while others were just playing at intruder in the night." He shrugged. "It was one of her favorite things. She was brilliant. Could cry on cue. I certainly couldn't have played her part."

I s.h.i.+fted until I was lying against his chest. "All right. Is that the whole story, then? No more secrets left in the closet?"

"Pretty much. I mean, there are more scenes I could describe, but I think you get the gist. Now, where is that coffee I ordered?" He tightened his arms around me.

"And that was what you were worried about? That I would flip out if I found out how it really was?"

"Well, there is one more thing you should know. The whole reason my recording career has been kept a secret from my mother is because I met Ferrara and did these things for her before she gave me the recording contract."

"So it really was the 'casting couch' but with the genders reversed?"

"Not really, but you can see how someone could interpret it that way. My mother, I feared, would interpret it as extortion, that these people from the entertainment world had corrupted her son and extorted s.e.xual favors from me in exchange for the contract. I feared she'd try to put a stop to it. I most certainly didn't want that. When you're young and have stars in your eyes..." He shrugged. "Understand, I didn't feel taken advantage of. I didn't feel preyed upon. It merely seemed a part of the world I was entering. I thought, when I bothered to think at all, that it was cool that this kinky, wild woman was into me. In the beginning, of course, she kept me hooked with a continual thread of teasing that one day she might let me f.u.c.k her. She might as well have put a ring through my nose and led me around by a chain; that's how hooked I was."

"I can imagine." He had certainly learned how to apply delayed gratification and withholding to his own advantage. Not that I minded. "Are you ever going to tell your mother?"

"I plan to tell her about Lord Lightning someday. But not today." He nuzzled me. "I imagine I'll tell her about you long before that."

"Have you not told her yet?"

"Sweetness, the moment I tell her, she will demand to meet you. Let's get past the show and put that all behind us, and then we can fly to London to meet her. Or perhaps she'll be ready for a trip to New York. She does love the city."

There was a knock at the door. Most likely the coffee. I excused myself to the restroom while James answered the door. I heard the room service cart being wheeled in.

When I came out, the waiter was getting James's signature. He was an older man and his white tuxedo jacket looked a little too small for him. He was holding a hardcover book and James was signing the check using the book as a surface.

"Thank you, sir," the waiter said, and I suddenly recognized his voice.

"Phil Betancourt?" The man who had stolen my mother's engagement ring and who knew what else was standing there, right in front of me.

"Um. My name's Jose," he said, and then broke for the door.

Thirteen.

People on the Edge of the Night Betancourt took off like a sprinter. James lunged for him but missed, and then went tearing off down the hallway after him. I wanted to follow right after, but I was worried that we'd get locked out of the room. I went back through my own room and grabbed my key, then hurried down the hall in the direction they'd gone.

I met James coming out of the door behind the elevator lobby that led to the service elevators and laundry. He was shaking his head. "Lost him. You're certain that was Betancourt?"

"Sure of it. What did he want, though?" We walked back to the room together and went through my room into his again. "Spying on me? Or you?"

"I'll call Stefan and hotel security. Meanwhile, you should call your mother to be sure there's been no more trouble for her at home."

"All right." I went into my room and got dressed while waiting for my mother to pick up the phone. She eventually did.

"Karina! How are you, dearest?"

"Fine, Mom. Are you in the bathroom?" I could hear the echo of the tile.

"I have you on speaker. I'm curling my hair. It's grown out so much and Velvet showed me a great way to do it."

"Awesome. Hey, has there been any more trouble from your ex?"