Broken Falcon, page 25
C doesn’t know F even exists when it’s not plugged into the USB port. C doesn’t know what happens to me when I visit my cabin.
Parks is a world-class brain fucker, and someday I’ll kill her with my bare hands.
The man takes control of the computer, and a new face fills the screen.
The woman is young, but not like Candi young. She’s probably around my age, and she’s breathtakingly sexy. She has long blonde hair but dark eyebrows, telling me her hair is either bleached or a wig. Probably a wig or her brows would be bleached too. Her eyes are wide and beautiful. She’s vivacious. Full of light and energy. Warm and inviting.
If I could type a message to this woman to beg for help, she’d help me. I know it.
She’s fully clothed, but as we watch, she receives a tip with a request to show her tits.
“You’re paying for everyone to get a peep?” she says with a laugh. “That’s generous of you.”
The man’s fingers fly over the keyboard, and I realize he must be Mr. Generous. He’s paying so I can see the woman’s breasts. I think he wants to make Parks jealous.
The woman cocks her head, her eyes focused to the side. She must be reading the chat. Then she smiles. “Oh. That’s sweet of you. Give me his email, and I’ll be sure to send him a card with a picture. In the meantime, everyone gets to enjoy his present.” She unbuttons her top, revealing her breasts, which are the most perfect I’ve ever seen. Probably a C cup. They’re round and fit her petite frame. I want to lick her pert nipples.
She blows a kiss at the camera then says, “Happy birthday, Chase,” and cradles her breasts with both hands.
Is it my birthday?
No. It can’t be. My birthday is in July. I look up at the skylight. The branch that sways over the window is bare. I think it must be late fall. Maybe winter.
I turn back to the screen. I will enjoy my present even though it’s a lie.
“He’s getting hard again,” Parks says. She doesn’t sound pleased. This is another gift.
“Desiree could get an erection out of stone.”
“Are you fucking her?”
His voice has an edge as he says, “If I were, it would be for science.”
Instead of making Parks jealous, as I think he wanted, she lets out a deep laugh. “A twenty-five-year-old rocking that body would never look twice at you.”
“Maybe so, but you have to use infrasound on your boy toy for him to get it up for you, my dear.” The words are said with bittersweetness. I don’t know if these people think they love each other but there’s a whole lot of jealousy and anger muddling their relationship.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll murder each other before the weekend is over.
Wouldn’t that be sweet?
I focus on the siren on the monitor. She squeezes her perfect breasts for the men watching—and I can see the list of people enjoying this peep show. Eight or ten men. She responds to comments that pop up on the screen and someone asks her to take off her short skirt.
She smiles and says, “You know I only do that in private sessions. First guy to drop two hundred gets a pussy peek.”
Mr. Generous reaches for the computer, but Parks slaps his hand away. “No.”
“But it’s for science, my dear. Look at him. He’s getting harder by the second.”
“Then you will watch me fuck him so we can test his refractory period again.”
The man turns off the computer. I would sigh in relief if I could.
Desiree is beautiful, but there’s no way I want Parks to abuse the erection I got from looking at her.
It’s the first erection I’ve attained in months that wasn’t forced on me. And the fact that the bitch is up in knots because Desiree made me hard and Mr. Generous prefers her over Parks gives me another small dose of satisfaction. Happy not-my-birthday to me.
I would smile if I could.
Parks reaches for my penis, and I deflate instantly. Refractory period reset.
She’ll force another erection on me soon, but for the moment, I’m safe.
And now, thanks to the woman on the computer screen, I know my body is still mine. I can still feel. And maybe someday, when I’m out of this nightmare, I’ll find Desiree and learn to feel again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Warm, wet tears streamed down Chase’s face as he left the memory that had spent the last year in hiding in his mind.
So much made sense now. His immediate reaction to Desiree. The face of the girl he’d been searching for since last fall.
Penny Candi was the terrified teen. The memory had probably taken place about twenty months ago, after Eden was established at CamDames but before Penny showed up. Since then, Penny had been thoroughly brainwashed. Abused. Used. Manipulated. Was she working for Parks now?
It was possible—even likely—but there was no doubting she was a victim, just as Chase had been when he committed crimes for Parks.
He’d never been quite certain why he fixated on CamDames as the source of the trafficking, but he’d trusted his subconscious, and now he knew why.
He played through the memories in his mind. Unlocked now, they didn’t fade or shift like the teasing hints he’d only been able to get fleeting glimpses of in the previous months.
It was like they’d been replanted with roots, and the memories now branched from a solid trunk.
He wondered if he hadn’t come back here in the months since the fire because Parks planted a trigger to keep him away. This was also possible. Even likely.
One thing he, Isabel, and Rav had discovered in the early months of their recovery from Alaska was that no memories were truly lost. They could be scrambled and buried, but once the memory was triggered by a stimulus—be it scent, image, or other sense—and the barriers were breached, the memory would return.
Chase lay on the cold grass as dawn inched upward across the sky and felt the tears cool on his cheeks.
Eden.
Was the entire foundation of his attraction to her due to Parks’s influence? The thought sickened him.
Could he have nothing for himself? Not even the beautiful woman who made him feel?
Was it all a fantasy because she gave him a hard-on once? Did it have nothing to do with who she was? Who he was?
If he’d glimpsed a different camgirl that day, would she have become his fever-dream woman?
No. His brain’s rejection was instantaneous.
No.
No.
Eden was special. There was something about her that had spoken to him then, spoke to him now. He’d needed to see her open, healthy sexuality in that moment, when he’d just seen Penny’s torment and he’d been deep in his own nightmare.
She’d been a bright joyful spot. Offering him a reason to get an erection that didn’t come with guilt or shame.
And that was what she’d been for him at first. But now that he knew her, had, in fact, made love to her repeatedly, she was so much more.
She was everything.
He bolted to his feet.
Oh fuck.
He’d abandoned her, believing she might be in on it with Parks, but the memory had shown him that she was a bystander in Parks’s twisted game with her lover.
And the man he’d seen in the memory had been a fan of Desiree. Did he know who she was in real life? Parks had asked if he was fucking Desiree, which sounded like he did know her.
If so, that meant that not only was Eden innocent, but also she was in danger.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eden
My phone vibrates, and I check the screen. Chase has called at last. I’ve been sitting on the bed in my workroom since Isabel left sometime before midnight. She promised to keep me in the loop, and I think I believe her, but no one has reached out to me in the intervening hours.
I’ve been sitting here waiting for Chase’s call, holding my phone, not sleeping, but not awake either.
And now I see his words on the screen. He’s responded from his Falcon account.
Falcon: I’m sorry.
Falcon: I need you.
Falcon: I think I did something.
The messages arrive in a row, before I have a chance to respond.
Falcon: I’m coming over. Open the garage. I need to hide.
I finally have a chance to respond. I’m replying from my online account too.
Me: Where are you?
Falcon: A few miles away.
Me: What happened?
Falcon: I’m not sure. I’ll explain when I get there. Please, open the garage for me. I can’t let anyone see me.
Me: Of course. Everyone at Raptor is looking for you.
Falcon: You can’t tell them I’m going to your place. They will be forced to turn me in. I need to figure out what I’ve done before that happens.
My heart aches. Do I listen to him? I promised Isabel I’d let her know immediately if I heard from Chase.
But Chase already doesn’t trust me because of my intended profession. If I violate his trust now, I’m certain it’s all over. He’ll never trust me again.
I can’t live with that outcome. I know it happened ridiculously fast—but also it didn’t, as I’ve known him online for months. I really have fallen in love with him. Both hims. Chase and Falcon.
If I believed in soul mates, he would be mine. But it’s actually not something I believe, so instead I just know that mentally, we’re right for each other. There is a connection there we’ve always been able to tap in to even when I couldn’t see his face and our relationship was nothing more than transactional titillation.
So now I make a choice and I don’t call Isabel. Instead, I go to the keypad next to my front door and key in the code to turn off the alarm and open the garage door. I key off the interior door lock so he can enter the stairwell.
I then go to the front window and watch the street in front of my building. A car turns the corner. In the streetlight, I can see it’s not Chase’s Raptor SUV, but that makes sense. If he were driving that, Raptor would know exactly where he was.
Hours ago, Mothman said it was like his vehicle had been swallowed by a black hole. It simply blipped out of existence.
Where did he get this vehicle? Does he even know?
The sedan pulls into my driveway and disappears into my garage. I return to the keypad and close the garage door and reset the alarm.
He can enter through the interior door because that alarm is turned off. I love this system because I can control every detail.
I didn’t skimp on anything when I bought this place and set up my business, and I don’t regret it even if I did blow my savings and made it impossible to afford classes this semester. I’ll get caught up.
At least now I know I’m safe and Chase is home safe too.
Chase is home. I hope he wants that. This with me.
I don’t see how I can continue working as a camgirl if Chase lives here, but it’s something I’m willing to try to figure out if it means I can be with him.
I wait for him to come up the stairs, but there’s no sound of footsteps.
My phone vibrates.
Falcon: Promise me you are alone. That I haven’t walked into a trap.
Is he still in the garage? I want to run down to see him, but I respond to his text instead.
Me: Of course I’m alone.
Falcon: No one from Raptor is there?
My heart aches that he doesn’t believe me. But have I given him reason to trust me?
Me: Use the link I sent you for a private session. I’ll turn on my camera and show you no one is here.
I tap the app on my phone that allows me to do remote privates. I don’t use it often because I prefer being hands-free when I’m Desiree and watching the feed on my big-screen desktop in the workroom. But the system, like everything else I bought when I set up my business, is seamless.
I’m live, and I see that Falcon is watching. Before I pan the room, I center my face in front of the camera. “I meant it when I told you I love you. I want you to trust me more than anything. No one is here.”
He doesn’t respond, and I see that his microphone is off.
I wait for a text and when none comes I show him the living room and kitchen, followed by the pantry with the door to the stairwell, then the hall bathroom, my office nook, master bedroom and attached bath.
A message appears in the chat.
Falcon: What about the other bedroom?
I know he means my workroom.
He damn well knows I’d never let anyone from Raptor in there. Hell, I didn’t even let him see it, and he knows better than anyone what I do in that room. It’s important to me to keep the space separate from the rest of my life.
But I also want him to trust me, so I pull out my key and unlock the knob. It’s not a dead bolt, but it is meant to be an exterior door lock, so it’s solid. I step inside my workroom and pan the camera over the bed, the dresser that holds my supply of sex toys, the array of cameras that point to the bed. This room connects to the hall bathroom, and I unlock that doorknob with the same key to show him it’s a room he’s already seen.
I then turn the camera to my face again. “See? No one here. Now please, come up and talk to me.”
A familiar voice behind me sends chills up my spine. “You’ve got a sweet setup here, Desiree.”
I turn and face Penny in my workroom as the open hall door to the bathroom slams closed.
Through the phone speaker, I hear the distorted voice that I heard on Thursday night as someone held a gun to my head. “It’s time for your final performance as Desiree.”
In that moment, I realize I have a Trojan Horse parked in my garage. The person on the other end of the text messages hadn’t been Chase at all. And I foolishly unlocked the gates and welcomed them in.
Sling Man and Jacked Knee both point guns at me and watch me change into one of my Desiree outfits. Without the masks they wore the other night, I recognize both men. They were definitely security guards at CamDames. I don’t remember their names. It would have been so much easier if I did. I wish I’d told Chase the truth when he showed me Sling Man’s photo a lifetime ago.
But then, if their names could be found through the legal side of the corporation, I’m sure Mothman would have done it by now. So they probably were never officially on the payroll.
They’re working for the computerized voice that emits from my phone, and I wonder who it could be that he—I’m assuming the person is a he—is being so careful to not let me hear his voice.
It makes me think of Chase and Falcon and why I didn’t recognize his voice, and so I have to assume this person is one of Desiree’s regulars. I have about twenty to choose from, which is too much for my brain right now.
The voice sounds like something from a science fiction horror movie, and that alone fries my brain and derails my thoughts.
But still I try to focus, fighting through the fear. Aside from being a regular, does the voice belong to someone I know in real life? Is it the CEO of CamDames? I met him a few times. I would recognize him. But it could just as likely be someone lower in the hierarchy. I’ve met all of them too.
The fact that I don’t hear his voice gives me hope that they plan to let me live.
And that is why I cooperate. I want to live.
I will do whatever is necessary to survive.
Given the leers from Sling Man and Jacked Knee, I’m pretty sure I know what they have in mind.
I’ll do it too. But make no mistake, even though I will appear to be willing, it will be rape. I do not consent to what is about to happen to me.
But I won’t fight if it means I’ll live. I will suffer, but I will live. Right now, that’s the primary goal.
I’m naked in front of two men and Penny. Sling Man snaps photos like he’s a gawking tourist in Times Square.
I tell myself not to care. I’ve been on camera naked hundreds of times. I post nude photos behind a paywall. I’m comfortable with my body and my sexuality, and it has earned me a lot of money.
But of course, this is different.
This man is probably going to rape me on camera sometime in the next hour.
I will survive.
I dress in a lacy teddy that’s bright red and feathered. It’s not my favorite because it’s not really that pretty. It’s meant to be over the top, more costume than actually sexually appealing. My personal style is less ostentatious.
But whatever. I will survive. I hardly care that they chose my ugliest teddy for whatever is about to happen.
I reach for a wig, but Jacked Knee stops me. “No wig. No makeup.”
They’re making certain either I’ll never willingly work as a camgirl again or that I’ll never become a psychotherapist. Possibly both.
Fine.
I will survive.
And then I’ll figure out how to pick up the broken pieces of my life. Of my dreams.
Whatever happens, I will not break.
I will be messed up and angry and bleeding inside, but they can’t break me. Breaking implies fixing, and there will be no fixing this. There will be healing. There will be hurting, and then there will be finding new tools to process and move forward.
Even as I tell myself these things, I imagine taking a knife and sliding it across Sling Man’s throat.
I’ve never entertained a violent fantasy like this before, and I realize these men have already changed me.
They’ve shown me there’s violence I would do if I could. I would strike right now, and they haven’t even touched me yet.
All they’ve done is make me get naked and leered at me, and let’s face it, getting naked in front of men so they can leer at me is literally in my job description.
But of course, none of that happens in person. I’ve wondered if I could work at a strip club. I have considered it.
My total and utter lack of ability to dance prevented me from ever trying it. I have no rhythm. It would be ridiculous, and my tits aren’t good enough to not have talent. I’d starve from lack of tips.
