K. Bromberg - Bend

I didn’t trust my ability to make a decision. That had been my problem from the get-go. I could have just said that, but I was starting to think he didn’t trust me any more than I trusted myself.

“Can you tell me why you like the hypnosis?” I asked.

“You have an anxiety disorder. We’re medicating it, but the hypnosis backs up the relaxation without making you tired. And there’s a time limit on how long you can be in here. I think we need to do whatever we can to move this along.”

“I like all that.”

“Okay, you can stop any time you want by saying a word.”

“Like what? Like a safeword?” I wondered if he could see me smile.

“Sure. A safeword.”

“Pinkerton.”

“Pinkerton? The assassins of the old west?”

“The assassin of the 405.” I didn’t elaborate, because despite the slurry of medicine in my blood, I was going to cry.

“Okay,” he said after I sniffled audibly. “I’m counting back from five, and start with something pleasant.”

I’m horny.

The feeling hits like a freight train between my legs, before a scene or setting even comes into my mind. The swelling rush of blood to my clit begs for release. And then, the preoccupation. I have to get it. I don’t care where it comes from. I need arms and legs all over me. I need to smell sweat, cunt, and sticky sperm.

This is the last thing you remember? Can you take me back a minute or two? What happened before?

Elliot’s voice, in its pure perfection, doesn’t break the reverie, but the realization that I was speaking aloud about the bite of my arousal certainly does. I tell him no. I’m not going backward, because the smell of wet cock and the subtle sting of cocaine fills my face. At this point, I have no idea what I’m narrating and what I’m keeping to myself, and I have no feelings about it either way.

I’m sitting on a toilet in a tiny club bathroom stall. Everything is marble and glass, but a bathroom stall is a bathroom stall. I hear the thump thump of music. The Pompeii Room. I look up. Earl. He’s all right. Six-foot-four of pure stupid. Easy pickings. His dick is dusted with a fine powder.

“More,” I say.

“Greedy bitch.” He smiles and holds a baggie of coke over his erection. He taps a line onto it while I hold it level.

“I’m worth it,” I say before I snort the line off his cock. Ah, that’s just right, just that rush. The feeling of unmotivated pleasure exploding heart-to-brain-to-toes. I’m totally in control of everything in my line of sight, especially this fucker. “I’m going to suck your cock so hard your daddy’s gonna come.”

“Touch your pussy, baby,” he growls.

But I don’t. I won’t ever touch myself, and this dumbass never remembers. I swallow his dick before he can ask again.

“Oh, fuck, baby—”

The music suddenly gets louder as the bathroom door opens, smacking Earl in the ass.

“Excuse me,” the man in the dark suit says. He’s halfway to closing the door.

“No problem,” Earl says.

I look at the intruder in that fucking suit. He’s really not a problem. He’s more than good. More than tall. More than perfect. Dark hair and blue eyes. Rugged like a dock worker and refined like a prince. I have to stop him from leaving.

“Loosen that tie and get your cock out,” I say. “I’m enough woman for two.”

He smirks. “Sorry. I’m too much man for half a woman.”

The door shuts, and the music goes back to a dulled thump thump.

“Snap,” Earl says, aiming his dick at my lips again. “That was cold.”

I have two choices: finish sucking off Earl and let him get me off, or not.

“Suck it yourself,” I say, standing.

He grabs me by the neck. “Hey.”

I look him in the eye. “Don’t fuck with me, Earl. I say what goes and when. Jerk it off and make more.” I leave before he can object, pulling my shirt together as I pass a short guy washing his hands.

The club is thick with humanity. The dance floor stinks. The voices are like a bag of broken glass. The music is a throbbing heartbeat. And the man is gone.

I put my hands on bare, sweaty skin, pushing through. Amanda finds me, blond hair stuck to her forehead, lipstick fading. Her bodyguard, Joel, is two steps behind her with his dark glasses and firearm. She kisses me on the lips. I push her away.

“You see a guy in a suit? Tall? Hair like this?” I make a motion with my fingers.

“Hot?”

“Hot.”

She points at the exit with a wink. I smack a kiss on her lips and continue pushing through. She calls my name as I walk away, but I pretend I don’t hear her. I have a man to find.

Nothing like coke to make the impossible seem within reach, or to make it within your rights to shove, growl, and curse through a crowd just to get a look at some hot stranger. Nothing like that expansion of the ego to make it okay to push some squealing teenybopper out of your way when she screams “Fiona Drazen! You’re Fiona Drazen!” as if your name alone is front page fucking news.

Of course, they wait outside in a cluster, pressing against the red velvet ropes. Paparazzi don’t care about the weather, which is rainy and cold for Los Angeles. Lights flash. They call my name as if I even answer to it anymore. Let them get their pictures. I have him in my sights.

He hands the valet a tip and takes the keys to a black Range Rover.

He is a thoroughbred, and twenty assholes with cameras are between him and me, which is too bad, because I have to have him.

I put my knuckles out to them, both middle fingers extended for all they’re worth. I have rings on top of rings, and I know the lights will glint on them in the pictures. I’m going to look like a flashy rich bitch, and the coke tells me I don’t give a fucking shit what Daddy thinks.

I turn to the doorman, a skinny ex-cop with a pencil moustache. He looks at my chest then at my face. I know Irv. He’s a hustler. He keeps these assholes off us, but he takes their cash to let them know when Amanda and I show up.

“Irv! What the fuck?”

“I got it,” he says.

“Outta my way, cocksuckers!” I plow through them with Irv’s help.

They back off for him in a way they’d never do for me. I know they’d chew me up, spit me out, and photograph me crawling to the hospital. I get to the Range Rover and pound on the passenger-side window. It’s tinted. The car doesn’t move, and the window stays up. Do I have the right one?

“Fiona Drazen!”

They’re behind me, and I’m on the curb, out of Irv’s field of influence. If he comes to get me, he’s leaving the door, and that’s not cool. I pound on the window again. Bursts of light flash on it.

I’m about to get mobbed.

“Hey, asshole,” I shout.

The window rolls down so slowly, I feel as if I’m in a movie about falling.

And there he is. My heart jumps out of my chest.

“Hi,” I say, sticking my head in. I feel them behind me. I hear them calling my name, over and over. “You took something of mine outta the bathroom.”

“Really?” He’s older than I thought, and that makes him more attractive then humanly possible. “What?”

Fiona.

“My heart.” It’s a stupid come on, but I’m a girl. I can get away with it.

I’m going to count backward from three. At one, you’ll open your eyes feeling rested and relaxed.

“Ah. I thought maybe your shirt buttons.”

For the first time, he glances at my chest, and I feel that my breasts are chilled. My shirt is wide open, diamond-studded nipple rings glistening. Fucking Earl with his octopus hands.

Three.

“Don’t make me turn around,” I say. “They already got enough pictures.”

Two.

He takes a second to think about it, looking me straight in the face. A little smirk plays on the perfect line of his lips, and I think I just might die.

One.

I was barely in the Westonwood waiting room before Mom hugged me fiercely, all defiance and no affection. It was amazing how much strength was in that tiny little bag of bones.

“It’s fine, Ma.” I looked over her shoulder at Dad, his Drazen-trademark red hair just beginning to turn grey.

His hands were in his pockets and his shoulder was against the wall. I rolled my eyes at him, but he just turned to look out the window. He always tried so hard, and I always failed him.

Everything in the room was designed to avoid upsetting the patients and their families. Round table in pale blue Formica with matching water pitcher and three plastic glasses. White molded plastic chairs with chrome legs. The windows were barred in the same decorative pattern overlooking the expanse of the Topanga Canyon, which was covered in grey, misty rain. The seasonal decorations were non-denominational. The best seat in the house, for the benefit of the people writing the checks.

Mom squeezed me, and I felt something hard and breakable between us. She pulled back and handed me a wrapped gift. Dancing snowmen. Gold ribbon.

“I had it in case you came to the house.”

I popped the tape and unfolded the paper, revealing a framed photo. “Snowcone.” I pulled it from the wrapping completely. I stood in my riding gear, all of fifteen, next to my beautiful grey stallion. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Lindy says you haven’t been to the stables in a long time, at least not before the other day.”

I hadn’t ridden Snowcone in how long? Was it measured in years already? The last time I’d gone to the stables, I’d gone with two guys I’d promised to fuck on a hay bale. I was so high, Lindy kicked me out. Told me I wasn’t worthy of the labor animals. I cursed her, knowing she was right.