Debt Read online

  “Who are you?” she asks again.

  “My name is Tax Draconi. You can just call me Tax.”

  “What kind of a name is Tax?”

  “It’s the name of a person who always collects a debt,” I say, watching her breath hitch in response to my words.

  “This is inappropriate.” That’s the fucking understatement of the century. “I...I cannot work with you.”

  “Have a seat,” I say, uninterested in her opinion.

  “No,” she says firmly.

  She’s feisty, and bordering on pissing me off. But I’ll keep my cool. It’s going to be fun to make her think she has a say in any of this. Then I’ll take that shred of autonomy she thinks she has and crush it. I can’t wait to destroy the look of fierceness she has in her eyes right now. I am going to piss all over her fire.

  “If you are worried about your safety, I can assure you, I have no intentions of harming you.”

  Finally, emotion rips through the shock and her tone becomes indignant. “You broke into my house...you brought a knife...”

  “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You begged me,” I say, recalling that night. Aaaaand fuck, here comes the throbbing sensation of my cock hardening. I sit down to hide it, but also to put her at ease, to give her the illusion of control.

  She sneers at me like she wants to slit my throat, and I know that’s because every word of what I just said was true. She screamed please every time I thrusted into her pussy. If she didn’t say it loud enough, I would stop and she would beg again. The globes of her tight, round ass quivered every time I slammed my cock into her, her tits jiggled as I pumped. She was made for fucking.

  “Why? Why did you come to my house?”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  “Are you even affiliated with those people?”

  “That website? God no. Do I fuck like someone who’s faking it?”

  She goes silent. I am slowly breaking her will and piquing her curiosity. She wants answers, and she knows I am the only person who can give them to her.

  “Are you...clean?” she asks, her cheeks turning red. Haha, THAT’S the question that makes her blush?

  I motion my hands gesturing to my six-thousand dollar suit, fresh haircut, and body crafted through a finely-tuned diet and gym regimen. “I love myself more than any fucking thing in this world. I take very good care of my body. You’ve got nothing to worry about, doll.”

  “And how do you know I am?” she says, with a look of defiance. Oooh, this bitch has no idea who she’s fucking with. And why the hell did my cock just flinch?

  I stand up slowly, and walk over to her. She is standing against a wall, she doesn’t even realize she’s backed herself into a corner. As I walk over, her eyes expand in fear, but she puffs up her chest as a display of strength. How fucking hilarious coming from someone no taller than five-six and maybe 130 pounds, and I’d say a fifth of that is tits and ass.

  I plant myself in front of her, and say nothing for a second. I want to remind her where she stands in this equation, who owns who, who has the power.

  “Because I know everything about you.”

  Fiona Apple – Limp

  He stands just inches away from me and he may as well be a mountain. Everything about him is threatening, yet I don’t feel like he’s here to hurt me. At least for now.

  My mind is filled with anger, confusion, fear...but my body, it heats up in his presence. I can’t help but recall the connection we had. And I can see just below his belt, that whatever the reason is that he has decided to appear in my life, he feels it too.

  Who is this man and what the hell does he want from me?

  Maybe I should run, but my body, heavy with shock, refuses to flee. Where would I go anyway? If he really owns Alea, facing him is an inevitability. That is unless I leave behind the career I built over the past eight years.

  I slide away and sit at a chair at the conference table, pulling out my laptop and opening it up.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “I am typing up my letter of resignation.” My chest hurts. I think I’ve gone numb because I am basically throwing my dream job out the window right now. I know later I will be crying my eyes out from the devastation.

  “No, you’re not,” he says, leaning over me to calmly close the laptop. As if he has no reason to even commit to the slightest bit of extra effort, as if he believes there is no chance I will leave.

  He leans against the table just next to me, close enough for me to catch his masculine scent. It’s the scent I still smell when I dream about him, the one that fills me with lust, and right now, rage and confusion.

  “Mia, you signed a contract to stay at Alea for a year, and with that, you received a handsome bonus—“

  “I’ll give it back.”

  “Don’t interrupt.”

  Bastard.

  “You have a non-compete clause in your contract as well.” He walks back over to the head of the table, and picks up a small stack of papers. It looks like a copy of my contract. “But none of that matters,” he says, tossing it into the nearest wastepaper basket. “Because if you leave, you will never work in this city again. And if you leave this city, I will make sure you never get another job anywhere else. Trust me, there are ways.”

  My chest tightens, fighting back tears. I won’t give him my tears.

  “What do you want?”

  “A year. I want you to fulfill your obligation to Alea. Who knows? You might like it.”

  “So, you came here to taunt me? Don’t you realize if you had just stayed away, you would have had me here for at least a year? If you had never shown your face here, I could have. I would have been none the wiser. But I can’t now...I can’t work with you.”

  “Mia, you don’t want to make an enemy out of me.”

  “Enemy? Because I don’t want to work under some predator?”

  “Let’s not pretend you were some innocent little lamb,” he scowls. “You gladly swallowed my cock.”

  His words twist my stomach, the coffee I had this morning threatening to make a reappearance.

  “Fuck you. No. I won’t be held hostage. Fine, ruin me,” I say. I am so scared, but I can’t. I just can’t stay. “You’ll have to find someone else to run Alea.”

  I open my laptop again to type my letter, but my hands are so shaky I can barely open the word processing program. I look ahead firmly, trying to exude strength, but it’s fear that drives me. Like a child hiding under her bedsheets, I hope if I can’t see the monster, it won’t see me.

  Without saying a word, Tax pulls out his phone, taps the screen a few times, and the silent room fills with my pleading: Please! Please! Please! Even though the office is empty, I feel like everyone at Alea can hear me begging a stranger to fuck me.

  Grunting. Groaning. Slapping. Moaning.

  “Would you like to see?” he asks.

  I look straight ahead at my laptop screen, grinding my teeth, seething with anger. Inside though, I crumble in defeat. He recorded us.

  My lip quivers, using all its might to keep my emotions contained. My head, my chest, they feel like a pressurized container, ready to burst.

  “I made sure my face wasn’t visible, but yours is all over the footage. Let me make this clear: you’ll lose everything. I don’t just mean professionally. I will make sure everyone knows about your proclivities. About how you hire men to rape you. This video will be everywhere. Your online porn searches, your application to that website. I have it all. And I will make sure it will follow you for the rest of your life. And if there would ever be a slim chance of you getting a similar position elsewhere, well, no one wants to hire this kind of baggage.” He slides the phone into my line of sight, and I turn my head away. I won’t watch. He bends over, resting a hand on the back of my chair, and puffs of his breath graze my ear as he spews the rest of his venom. “You’ll be bussing tables for the rest of your life. And even then, I will make sure everywhere you go, the people who work
with you know. You’re hot Mia. You know that. Men already look at you and imagine themselves shoving their dicks inside of you. Can you imagine working some shitty nightmare job, while your creepy male coworkers jack off to you? While they whisper behind your back? Because that is what your life will become Mia. You will go from executive, to minimum wage jack off material for your fat middle-aged boss. Really think about that. You can have a lifetime of humiliation and judgment...or you can give Alea a year.”

  “I’ll tell the police,” I say, thrusting my chair away from him to gain some distance.

  “It won’t make a difference, bitch. You do understand that once everything about this comes to light, it’ll be you on trial, right? You don’t understand who you are fucking with. Take me to court. Your lawyers will be giving my lawyers rim jobs by noon.”

  My stomach churns. Hot blood sears through me. Bitch. That word, in the throes of sexual heat, in what I thought was role play, feels so different than what it does now. Now, it’s curdling with loathing. I clench my fists, so frustrated that he completely has the upper hand. There is too much to lose. I can’t make a rash decision. He’ll destroy my life if I do.

  “Mia, use your head. Don’t make an emotional decision. This is a business arrangement. That’s all.”

  “Did you buy Alea to get to me?” I ask, realizing how ridiculous that sounds only after I utter the words. But it’s becoming clear to me that this is personal, not some huge coincidence. He didn’t just stumble upon the company of the woman he attacked. I don’t know why, but I have become his target.

  He laughs, in that cocky, self-assured way and leans into me. “I got you before I ever bought Alea.”

  His words burn through my soul. And yet, the warmth of his breath ignites something again. And it makes me so enraged with myself.

  “What do you want!” I ask, a tear finally drips from my eye, and I am even angrier at myself for losing my cool. Something tells me this is what he wants. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  He looks down at me with those cocoa-colored eyes, framed by long black lashes and simply says, “Because you owe me.”

  My head swells with thoughts, searching my life, trying to make any sense of this man in front of me. I have lived a good life. I grew up in a small town, I was good to people. I left to go to Marquette and started over here in Milwaukee. I don’t ruffle any feathers. How could I have done anything to earn this predicament? I have always done the right thing, and the one time I take a risk, the one time I do something bad, it blows up like a nuke.

  “Owe you? What the hell do I owe you? Why would I owe you anything?”

  He crosses his arms, and just stares, his dark eyes hardened by burning rage the way obsidian is forged from lava. Whatever he thinks I owe him comes with a lot of anger.

  “This is a misunderstanding. I have good credit. I haven’t stolen anything. I don’t owe anyone anything.”

  He almost laughs. “Good credit? This isn’t that kind of debt. There’s no refuge, you can’t file for bankruptcy. This kind of debt follows you to your grave.”

  “I don’t understand. Please just tell me.”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t. Please maybe if you tell me, I can explain.”

  “I am done discussing this.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Can I think about this at least?”

  “Sure. You have thirty seconds before I hit send on this video. You really should watch it. It’s a fucking masterpiece. I’ll make sure Dewey gets it first if you decline.”

  I look around the room, as if there is some hidden solution I am missing.

  “25...”

  “Stop! Fuckfuckfuck...” I say, trying to think, but the countdown only makes my thoughts messier.

  “18...I am serious as fucking cancer Mia. I don’t do bluffing.”

  In a last ditch effort, I try to snatch his phone away, but he jerks it out of reach without breaking his countdown.

  “Please...” I beg with tears in my eyes. My anger hasn’t helped, but maybe there is a merciful side I can appeal to.

  “10...9...8...”

  This can’t be happening.

  “4...3...”

  “Stop! Okay! Okay!”

  At least in this moment, I am done fighting. I am so tired, tired of looking over my shoulder, tired of wondering what happened that night. I have my answers now, at least some of them. Maybe I can just work under him, give him the year at Alea and move on. What really changes? I still love Alea, I still promised Dewey I would keep this company running. I just don’t understand why this man feels the need to blackmail me to do something I already agreed to. Will he withhold my salary, like some form of indentured servitude? Something doesn’t add up. I know what would make sense, but I can’t allow myself to even think of that possibility. If I pretend it doesn’t exist, then maybe somehow it won’t.

  “So you want me to work here? For a year? Fine. But you should stay silent like you promised. Things are fine here. I can run Alea and make her even more profitable than last year.” I battle to disguise the complete loss of control I feel. “How is this repaying a debt? Are you not going to pay me to work here? How can I live?”

  “Good,” he says, smiling and walking back to the head of the table. I resent myself for noticing his beautiful white teeth and the way his smile highlights his features that look even better in the daylight. “And don’t worry about your salary. My word is my bond.”

  Tax looks down at his watch and closes the conference room door. Then, click.

  Oh shit.

  I stiffen in my seat, but don’t say anything. This time I watch him in tense anticipation. Tax sits at the head of the conference table and pushes his chair away.

  In the back of my mind, based on our first interaction, I wondered if this “debt” I owed would be collected in other ways. But he asked me to give Alea a year. To me it seemed that he just wanted me to run his new company without leaving once I became privy to his identity. I am beginning to think that was wishful thinking.

  “So, show me your product line.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “As the new owner of Alea, I would like to hear from its best staff member about its product line.” Phew, okay this is still business.

  I clear my throat. “Um, okay, sure.” The tension is still rife in the air, but at least now I can focus on my job and just get the fuck out of this room when we’re done. Please, just let this be business.

  I push myself up to my shaky feet and walk over the the glass shelves that proudly display the colorful and sleek sex toys.

  My hand quivers as I display a vibrator. “Well, this is the Artemis—” my voice gets caught in my throat. “This model is small so that it can be discreetly hidden in an evening bag.”

  I look him over. His erection is still strong as his eyes bore right into me. The navy color of his suit compliments his tan perfectly. His dark hair is glossy and thick, shaved closely at the sides and much longer up top. I never got to see his hair that night, as it was covered by his mask, but it only adds to his physical appeal. Just looking at his faint stubble makes my skin tingle, like my nervous system remembers and is trying to remind me of how good he felt. And that neck tat, I don’t know why, but it does something to me. It’s like, despite how well he dresses, the tat reminds me who he really is. Acknowledging his attractiveness makes me hate myself even more. My immoral lust got me into this mess to begin with.

  “Bring it over here. I’d like to see it,” he says.

  My heart speeds up again, anticipating the change in physical proximity. I puff my chest and walk the petite silver and pink oblong vibrator to him. He takes it in his hand and turns it over, studying it.

  “Do you like using this?”

  “Excuse me?” I ask, as if this question is somehow beyond the bounds of our interactions thus far.

  His eyes narrow. They have this quality to them, like he is always entranced, always in a state
of pre-orgasm. They look like they are smiling devilishly. “I think you misunderstood me, Mia. I didn’t want you to explain to me how the product line works. I want you to show me.”

  A lingering breath escapes my lungs and sinks my chest. I am soooo in over my head.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “You will,” he replies. “I guarantee you I am not bluffing. And if you so much as walk out of this conference room, the video goes out. That’s it. You won’t be able to take it back. Ever.”

  Public shame, or private humiliation: which is the lesser of two evils?

  “Don’t fucking act like you don’t like this shit Mia. I know you want someone to dirty you up. I’ll make you fucking filthy. Now, show me. ”

  “I never had a choice...” I say to myself, suddenly realizing that the entire debate thus far was an illusion. It was like breaking in a mare, only making the dissolution of my defiance that much more satisfying. He had me as soon as I spotted the serpents on his neck. As he glares as me with mixture of satisfaction and greed, his hard cock making me feel lusted for, my body betrays me as my pussy floods with sensation. You traitorous bitch.

  “We all have a choice,” he says. “You already know your options. I won’t stop you if you walk out.”

  But he knows he’s given me a false choice. I can have my career annihilated, my reputation sullied forever, or I can play with myself in front of a man who I have already had sex with. A man who I have fantasized about since he first had me.

  In a way, there is a small part of me that is almost relieved I don’t have a real choice. If I have no choice, then this is not my responsibility. Anything that happens between me and him is his doing, and I am an innocent victim.

  I am so disgusted with him, but even more so with myself. Because right now, I hate this man. Hell, I don’t even know this man. I can’t control his actions. I know me, I can control me. But maybe I don’t really even know myself anymore. Maybe around him, I can’t control myself. Because I want to feel the way I felt two and a half weeks ago: Awake. Alive. Like a fucking volcano bursting.