Page 55 of Nightfire

The panties and bra had been pretty, she mused. Pale lavender silk with lace around the edges. They were ruined now.

Consuelo-outside-Consuelo looked down from the ceiling as the young woman below her slid the silky, torn underwear through her hands. The young woman let the panties drift lightly to the floor and fisted her hands in the ends of the bra and pulled tight.

The silk was delicate but strong, like a soft rope.

Consuelo looked down at the naked young woman, flexing the rope-bra, pulling it over and over, testing its strength. Consuelo on the ceiling felt absolutely nothing. She watched with the very faintest of interest as the young naked woman walked slowly over to the bed and looked down at the man making a huge dent in the mattress.

He was big, heavy, hairy. His gleaming penis was slick with semen and the K-Y jelly. The young woman down below had surreptitiously coated herself with it because she was so dry. Even with the jelly, it had hurt. The penis lay spent along his thigh.

The labored breathing turned to snoring, great heavy snorts like a hibernating bear. So ugly. So useless.

Consuelo watched the young woman put a knee to the mattress, bend down toward the man, the silky rope-bra stretched between her fists, bringing the silk closer to the man’s throat…

A sudden spurt of alarm and Consuelo shot down, back into the young woman’s body just as the man’s eyes opened wide, light-blue and blood-shot.

“What—what are you doing?” he slurred, seeing her bending down, voice rising in alarm. “What the fuck? What the hell are you doing?”

Killing you. The words filled her head, together with a rage that came from nowhere like an immense wind rising in the desert. Where before Consuelo had felt nothing, now she felt too much. Rage pulsed in her like blood, washing over her in waves. A fury so total and complete it shook her bones.

The man tried to lift himself up on his elbows but slipped. Too drunk on whiskey and sex to keep himself upright. But the clouds were disappearing from his blue eyes, awareness seeping in.

Consuelo looked with longing at his throat. She could see where the bra-rope would go, right over the Adam’s apple. She’d twist it around the back of his neck, twist it tight, hold it there…

She’d hold fast as he thrashed on the bed, all his beefy strength useless. She’d watch as he turned dark red, as his eyes bulged, as his hairy legs kicked.

In the orphanage, many years ago, she’d seen someone strangled to death and she’d never forgotten it.

She’d tighten and tighten until the man stilled, black tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“Get away from me!” Eyes fixed on hers, his legs scrabbled awkwardly as he tried to scramble away and Consuelo hated every cell in his huge, puffy body and knew her rage was visible on her face.

Careful, Consuelo. Be careful not to let your anger overwhelm you. Because you are very very angry, and you don’t know it yet.

The voice is her head was soft and reasonable. Chloe. Her lifeline. A woman who somehow understood her, utterly and completely, without judging her. Chloe, elegant and cultivated and rich, who nonetheless treated her as a complete equal and a friend.

It was Chloe in her head now, Chloe who smoothed out her features, turned her into the sex kitten that was her mask. Chloe who made her lower her voice into a husky growl when what she really wanted to do was scream.

“Ah, John,” Consuelo purred, laying the bra-rope across his shoulders, slowly sliding it down his chest. She stopped at his nipples and flicked them with her fingernails, smiling narrow-eyed at his jolt of pleasure.

Chloe-in-her-head was saving her life. Consuelo realized she wouldn’t have had the strength to strangle this man. He’d have overpowered her easily, called in security—real security, the Russian monsters—and her life would be over.

The girls of the club whispered about what happened to those who rebelled. They were given to men who loved the darkest of dark pleasures and were never seen again.

Chloe’s voice in her head had stopped her.

“It was so wonderful before,” she whispered, wondering at herself, at how she could lie so easily. She opened her thighs wide, knowing he could see her sex, lips puffy from where he’d plowed her for an hour. “So wonderful. I want more. More, more, more.”

Consuelo straddled him, wrapped the silk cup of the bra around his penis and pulled. He could feel the soft silk and her hand milking him around it.

“Ah, baby,” he groaned, head flopping back on the pillow. “Why didn’t you say so?” He grinned, waving his hand at his stiffening member. “It’s all yours, baby. Get to work.”

Afterwards, wiping her mouth with a shaking hand, Consuelo got dressed and quietly closed the door of the room behind her, wondering what to do, where to go. Her next session was in an hour but the threads of self-control were fraying dangerously.

Her legs were shaking, she could hardly breathe. Her body felt battered. She hated her body, hated herself.

Hated the johns, all of them.

No. No more, no more today. She’d come dangerously close to trying to kill a man today, and ending her own. She’d lock herself in her room in the dark and plead a massive headache. A migraine. Say she couldn’t perform because she’d get dizzy and vomit all over the client.