A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Page 3

  I stared at him. Then I looked away at the water, at the lemon ginger soap swirling around. My mouth opened. Puke sprayed out of it. My terror was growing. Stock room? Refills? How long did he think we were in here? Denny. I wanted my Denny.

  With an angry growl, Dash stuck his hand into the bath between my legs and pulled the plug. The water began to drain. “Get in the shower,” he snapped, grabbing hold of my arm and lifting me easily to my feet. “You’d think I was a serial killer with the way you’re acting.” He stomped over to the large standing shower and opened the glass door. He leaned inside and turned the knob. Water fell from the ceiling like rain. “Fyi? Serial killers wear people. Not Givenchy. Get in and wash off. Shall I pick your clothes out, or can you manage?”

  In answer, I puked again, spewing my vomit into the bathwater I stood in.

  “Denny,” I sobbed, feeling on the edge of swaying again.

  Dash grabbed me before I could tip, and swept me up, my naked body cradled to his chest. He stomped me into the shower and set me down under the water. “Let go,” he ordered, eyes threatening. “Denny already did.” He slammed the glass door shut, leaving me alone in my dream bathroom.

  What did that mean? Denny already did? Denny already did what? What had Denny done?

  I stood under the water, feeling disconnected, yet still firmly attached in whatever mayhem my brain was conjuring up. This wasn’t real. But I was covered in throw up, and I had always detested it. I lifted my face to the water and let it wash the remnants from my stomach off my breasts. There was a cubby built into the tile. I tentatively opened it to find it was stocked as well. Soap, shampoo, gels, and conditioners. My hands shook. They were all my favorites. Everything. Even my facial wash was in there. What was this?

  He couldn’t possibly think this was going to work?

  “No,” I agreed out loud.

  This was an episode. He’d snap out of it. He’d let me go, and I’d let him go as a patient. Denny would be waiting for me. This nightmare would end. So I grabbed my favorite shampoo and lathered my dark blonde hair, the same gold, coincidentally, as his eyes. I lathered my body in my ginger lemon soap, and then washed it all away. I struggled with the controls, managing to turn the steam on and neon lights, before I finally turned the water off.

  I stepped out into the bathroom and stood there, dripping wet all over the floors. My naked body was reflected in the crystal glass over the sinks. My eyes were wide, lost. My lips were still shaking. I looked tense, waiting for him to jump out and say, “April Fools!”

  Never mind that it was May. That my wrists were the color of midnight, that my shoulders felt dislocated, that I could still taste my puke.

  A shiver racked my spine. I forced myself over to the robe to staunch the cold in my bones. It was the color of chardonnay, this faint beige, smelling thickly of fabric softener. Once in my robe, I walked carefully back through the door I ran from.

  The door to my room was open now. Dash was in the middle of ripping off my sheets.

  “Closet’s right there,” he ground out, pointing at the wall across from me as he yanked my sheets off. “Luckily your urine only soaked into the duvet and sheets.” He pressed his hand to the mattress, white and unblemished.

  And though I shouldn’t be, I was embarrassed. I scampered past him for the wall. There was a small sensor like in the bathroom. I touched it and the wall opened up, revealing a closet most women would kill for. It was as large as my room. Rows and rows of clothes, shoes, pants, jackets—there was everything. Heels, running shoes, dressers in the middle, jewelry in glass cabinets.

  “You enjoy clothes,” I heard him say from behind me, as if in apology. “You remember those fashion magazines I left in your office on accident? I knew you’d mark them the way you mark everything you desire. The bookmarks on your computer, the things you want but cannot afford—they are all here.” When I didn’t say anything, he sighed. “Please don’t puke again. My desire is only you, Kinley. Not to hurt you. Not to scare you. To have you. That’s all. Go put something comfortable on. Pajamas are on your right.”

  I looked to my right, and sure enough, there were stacks of neatly folded pajama pants in my favorite colors. Dark red, plums, indigos, all dark rich hues.

  “Panties and bras are in the drawers beneath the tank tops,” he called.

  I cringed. I didn’t want to wear his clothes, but it was better than being naked in my robe. Maybe he was biding his time until I relaxed to take my body.

  The thought nearly did me in. I swallowed my fear and moved my feet, having no choice but to go along for now. I needed to understand this situation, find a way out, and take it. Until then I was blind. I had pieces, but no whole, at least not a whole that made sense to me.

  I followed his instructions and found the drawer. Panties, thongs, boy shorts, bikini style, lace, G-strings—there were enough panties here to last me years. With a shaking hand, I picked a pair of regular cotton panties and slipped them on. In the drawer below, it was full of bras in my perfect size. How did he know my size? How did he know any of this? Our sessions were about him, not me. In a fearful haze, I picked a pair of black and burgundy pajama pants and plucked a shirt from the shelf, a plain light pink V-neck.

  I poked my head out of the closet to find the room empty. I walked over to the open door and examined it quickly. Beside the door there was a panel built into the wall. There were unfamiliar signs with numbers and arrows. I exchanged it for the door, finding it had no handle whatsoever.

  “One word from me and this entire place shuts down. Each room has only one way in. I’m the only one who knows the codes to the main system. You’ll rot in here if that happens. You’ll starve. Let’s not have to go there.” He stepped into the room with his arms full of sheets and a blanket. “Help me do your bed?”

  I glared at him. “Someone has to know where we are.”

  He dropped the blankets on the floor. “No one.”

  “Not even your father?”

  He plucked the sheet and began unfolding it. “No,” he replied simply.

  “What about the person you bought this building from? They’ll know it’s yours.”

  He frowned, smoothing the sheet out on the mattress. “I wasn’t born a McKing.”

  My heart fell. It kept falling, but instead of love, it was breaking from fear. “McKing isn’t your real last name?”

  “Names are letters, Kinley. They can change so often they lose their meaning.” He grabbed the teal duvet and shook it out, looking at me from across the blanket. “You can think about it, try to find my holes. You’re an intelligent woman. It’s one of the things I love about you. You’re smart, you always look for another answer. But there is none, so figure it out fast.” He grabbed my pillows from where they lay propped against the wall, and lay them back on my bed. “There. You ready for the tour?”

  Love?

  I stared, trying to understand yet again how this was happening.

  He sighed and walked over to me, grabbing my hand where it hung by my side. He pulled me along after him into a wide open space. The walls to my left were windows, barred, letting the moonlight into the room. It looked like a living room. There was a white couch large enough for ten people. Black rugs, a gray coffee table, a television that could be a movie screen, and a gaming system that would make any gamer proud. On my right there was a kitchen, fit with gleaming black cabinets and silver counters. The more I took in, the harder it was to breathe.

  This was all a lie. A beautiful lie, but a lie nonetheless. The prettier an untruth was, the uglier the face beneath it.

  “What is all this?”

  He rubbed the back of my hand with is thumb—I yanked it free and folded it across my chest—as he gazed at me patiently. “This is our home. It has everything we need for however long it takes for you to realize you need more.”

  I swallowed down my desire to expel. There wasn’t anything else left in my stomach. “Dash. This is insane.” I lowered my voice, try
ing to be his superior, the way I was in my office. He was my patient. I was not his victim. He was not my abductor. “We can’t live here. This isn’t a safe, smart choice. Remember how we talked about making safe smart choices even during a rough time?”

  He blinked at me. For the first time I noticed how glassy his eyes were. How out of touch with reality his gaze seemed to be.

  He leaned forward, putting us nose to nose. “That safe smart choice went out the window when you let me eat your pussy on your desk. When you let me slip inside of you. When you made me come so hard I blacked out. When you looked into my eyes as you orgasmed, was the moment I fell irreversibly in love with you. You knew this was coming. I told you that day, we were forever. But you thought I was kidding, didn’t you? You went on every day after that for six months pretending we didn’t have sex on your desk. Do you have any idea what that did to me? How hard it was to want you? So I took you. You’re mine now. You sealed your fate. We will live here. There’s no way out. How’s that for a safe and smart choice?”

  I stepped back, horror at his words settling in my bones. My entire world began to disintegrate. The lies I’d managed to forget hadn’t really been forgotten. The truth I hid behind was really an ugly mistake.

  “We didn’t sleep together.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I ripped your stockings off and your panties. I sank inside of you and we had sex. Rough, deep, life-altering sex.”

  My legs quivered at his words. I shook my head vehemently. “No we didn’t.”

  “Yes we did.” He was calm, not pushing a thing.

  Because—

  “It wasn’t real.” I was going to puke again.

  “It was the realest thing in my life.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and then he raised one cocky eyebrow. “I ate your pussy until you begged me to stop, until your clit was pulsing. That was real to you.”

  I gagged, but nothing came up. “You never touched me.”

  “I touched you. And we kissed when we were done. You remember that kiss? You tasted yourself on my lips. I tasted you on mine. We were one.”

  I fell to my knees and looked up at him, on the floor, stuck in the truth pouring from his eyes.

  Because—

  “You never tasted anything.”

  “I tasted your soul.” He looked down at me.

  There was nothing but truth on his face.

  Because—

  It wasn’t a lie.

  I retched onto the floor. My body shook. My lie spilled, but nothing came up. There was nothing in me but emptiness. I sobbed, falling apart in a way I’d been waiting for. This fall was inevitable.

  I slept with my patient. I fell for his gold eyes and deep sexy voice. The way he looked at me, like I was the light in his life—Denny never did that. I let him ravage me on my desk, and then I felt so bad I pretended it never happened. And Dash got worse, he made more appointments, I sat there, silent, taking his money, letting myself lie and watching him break, because I was denying him something he obviously thought he needed.

  This was my fault.

  I did this to myself.

  My nightmare was because of me, and I couldn’t stop these bad dreams from coming.

  6.

  All Of Us Lunatics

  I wiped angrily at my eyes with the back of my hand and sniffed my sobs up.

  “Let me go.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.” I poured my remorse into my apology. “I’m so sorry, Dash. I never should have slept with you. I—”

  He shook his head, cutting me off with a desperate look. “Don’t apologize. Our day together, our hour together, was the best one of my life. I think about it. All the time.” His eyes heated, glowing as he thought of the sixty minutes we spent together six months ago. “It’s the only thing that’s gotten me through this.”

  I opened my mouth to keep going, but he held his hand out.

  “Stop lying, Kinley. Haven’t you lied enough already? Six months of lying, all day, all night, aren’t you tired of it?”

  “I’m not lying,” I spewed bitterly.

  “You’re not sorry for my sake. You’re sorry for yours. You’re sorry, because of what you did to your boyfriend.” Hurt entered his eyes, replacing the fire. “I was a mistake, wasn’t I? You’re sorry you slept with me, because it would hurt poor Denny.” He sneered his name in disgust.

  I was over this. I pushed to my feet and began to search for a door. I touched the walls, touched the windows, looked out at the skyline, the buildings, the land in my view. I ran to the other end of the living room where there was a long wall. It looked like there should be a door there. But it was impossible to locate it. It was a seamless integration into the wall.

  “Where is it?” I pounded on the wall.

  “You’re not allowed in my wing of the loft. But if you want to know where the sensor is, it’s beside the painting.” He sounded bored. “There’s no way out, Kinley. You’re mine.”

  I followed his instructions to the painting. Sure enough there was a sensor. I slid my hand over it, but the sensor turned red. The others had simply become more translucent, glowing a subtle white. I slid my fingertip over it once more. The light lit up red again. I whirled around, fearing he wasn’t lying.

  “Let me go right now.” I stomped over to him. “We will not stay here. I don’t want that. I don’t want you!” I screamed, losing it once again. “I don’t want you, Dash. You were a mistake. You were a horrible mistake. I never should have fallen for your shit.”

  He flinched and stumbled back, clutching at his head. He covered his ears with his hands. “You wanted me.”

  “I didn’t want you,” I sneered. “If I wanted you, then why did I pretend you never happened?” I pummeled his back, pushing and shoving as the rage of my own self-disgust was transcribed to him. In my head I was hitting myself, punishing myself for cheating on Denny, hurting myself for hurting Dash, for breaking us all.

  He dropped his hands and used them to grab my wrists. Rage simmered in his eyes. He applied his grip firm on my upper arms. “Do not hit me. I have not abused you, and you will not abuse me. Do you hear me?”

  The darkness in his glassy eyes made my anger shrivel up. “My shoulders are in so much pain, because I was tied up like an animal to a bed that isn’t mine. I was drugged and taken, because you can’t let go one hour of meaningless sex.”

  He released me in disgust. “It wasn’t meaningless. Was it meaningless when you were coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew you were a liar, Kinley. I expected this. I know inside you lie to protect yourself. You lie to everyone. I don’t know why, but you do. I’ve been watching you, studying your life. And most of all, I learned you lie to yourself. You can lie to yourself better than I could lie to you. Why?” His eyes bored into me.

  I showed him my wrists. My black and blue wrists. “I am not your patient.”

  He studied the bruises, a glimmer of remorse moving in. “I am sorry you were hurt. I am,” he insisted, much the same way I had.

  We didn’t believe each other. Because yes, I lied, but he stole. But I’d rather lie, than force a human being to writhe in their own urine. My disgust for him must have been apparent, because his face crumpled and he stepped away, and walked into the living room space.

  “Tour’s over. Welcome home, my queen.” With an angry dismissal, he sank onto the couch and grabbed a game controller that lay on the coffee table. He powered on the television, and soon, the sound of an intercom filled the area.

  I stood there, trying to wrap my brain around the insane entirety of this situation.

  My body ached, my eyes were sore, and my heart was weeping. It was mad at me. Why didn’t you keep it in your pants? Why did you let him do you on your desk? Why didn’t you just do what was right when you had the chance?

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell Denny that I cheated. He’d leave. He’d take everything we built together. I panicked. So I lied. I ignored Dash w
ith all my soul and when he showed up next week for his appointment, I let him in, forgot that his face had been between my thighs, and watched him stare at me, trying to figure out how to handle the indifference I was forcing out.

  I swayed from the self-disgust I harbored for myself. I never stopped and thought about who I was, because I hadn’t ever liked the answer. Even now, with the truth making me ill, I wanted to shove it down, forget it, go for a run, run so far away the truth could never find me again.

  “Please let me out.”

  The character on the screen paused. Dash looked over his shoulder at me. “I thought I was crazy. I thought I made it up.”

  I hugged myself.

  “I thought I dreamed our time together. But I could smell you on my clothes. I could hear your moans in my head. I didn’t dream it. Tell me I didn’t dream it.”

  I hung my head. “You didn’t dream it.”

  “You tempted me.”

  “I tempted you.”

  He inhaled sharply. “You wanted me.”

  “I wanted your attention.” I met his eyes hesitantly. “You gave me attention, and Denny hadn’t looked at me in months.”

  “You wanted me. You wore those short skirts. You opened your legs. You wore those sexy black heels. For me.”

  I couldn’t see through my tears. “I went shopping. I bought things I thought you’d like. I loved the way your eyes would gleam when you saw me. How hungry you looked. I could hardly stand it.”