Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 517

I barely had time to catch my breath before the next one came. Some slippered a hand, some whispered remorse, they kept coming anyway. When I couldn't take it anymore, I begged. I cried. I gripped the sheets and sobbed. It made no difference. The men kept going in and out of my room like it was a public passage and I was the floor they walked on.

By the time the twentieth man was done with me, I could barely walk. My legs shook under me. My head pounded and my jaw ached from the hitting. I was in pain, I was hungry, I was weak, I was bruised in places I had never bruised before, I was exhausted, and I was crying, and the crying never stopped, it just got quieter and quieter until it dried into a raw, hoarse rasp that scraped my throat like broken glass.

Then Lola came in again, and her face was full of anger and disgust, looking at me like I was a contract she couldn't get a return on.

"Most of the clients complained about you," she said. "Thirteen of my best ones told me you weren't compliant. You fought, you cried, you did your best to ruin their pleasure. Do you know how hard is to keep them coming? Do you know what their word is worth here?"

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice barely above a sound. "I'm sorry, I'm in pain. I can't do this alone. I need the pill. Please. I can't do this without the happy pill."

"As punishment," she went on, as gentle as a tax, "you go to bed tonight without any food and without any happy pills."

"No, please," I begged, and I pushed myself up, my hand closing around her sleeve. "Please, mercy. Just one. One pill to take away the pain. Please, I'll do anything. I'll be good, I'll do everything you say, just give me one. I can't bear this without it."

And then the real suffering came.

It started in my insides. A heat, low and slow, like water beginning to simmer at the base of my stomach. I thought it was hunger at first, and I pressed my hands on my belly to try quiet it. But it built. It climbed, hot and burning, climbing up through my ribs like a furnace getting fed, and it spread out into my chest, my arms, my legs, until it was everywhere. My bones ached with it, like fire in the marrow, and my throat burned like I'd swallowed fire.

I rolled, clutching myself, gasping. My heart kicked in my chest, pounding hard and wrong and too fast, and a spike of pure fear went straight through me. I was going to die. The thought came up clear and cold and certain. I was going to die in this small room on this island of men, and no one would ever know. No one would ever turn the corner and find me, and I would be forgotten just like that.