Page 32 of Brutal
He isn’t drunk yet. He hasn’t had enough beer for that. For a man his size, it would take several bottles, right?
But I think about the pills, and I realize I don’t know anything about his secret habits. Drinking beer — even right after breakfast — is socially acceptable enough. He can show that to the world. But the drugs? How bad is his habit?
“No,” he says. “I wanna give you a drink.”
“I wouldn’t want to deprive you,” I say. There has to be something I can do to deter him from all of this. “I’m just getting everything dirty right now. Your shirt and jeans are soaked, too.”
“Then you should stay fucking still and open your goddamn mouth, whore,” he snarls. Any trace of his laughter earlier, cruel or otherwise, is gone as his expression turns laser focused on me. “We clear?”
I might be able to get out of this by pissing him off enough to hurt me, but what’s the point? I don’t want more pain. Drinking a little bit of beer along with his spit has to be better than getting caned.
“All right,” I answer, and I open my mouth for him.
He takes another long pull from the bottle and leans in, grabbing me by the hair and forcing the beer into my mouth. It’s disgusting, but I remind myself that it could be worse. Some of the clients I’d had during my time with Pavone had wanted worse than this.
I gulp the beer down, trying to ignore just how bad it tastes, but I choke a little from the sheer force of it all. Some of it ends up dribbling down my chin anyway, and he pulls back with an irritated sound. “Do you not even know how to swallow, Mimi? I thought you’d learned that lesson a long time ago.”
“Swallowing isn’t a problem,” I snap, wiping my chin. I already know that I’m on shaky ground, but all my good sense is fleeing. “I’ve just never been pathetic enough to drink beer in the mornings.”
Brutal stares at me for a moment. “You think you’re so much better than me,” he says, and his voice has gone dangerously low. “You think you can say whatever the fuck you want to me and there won’t be any consequences even though I thought you would’ve fucking learned.”
He shoves the mouth of the bottle past my lips.
“Drink it. All of it. Don’t spill a goddamn drop. Maybe I’ll let you prove to me you really can swallow, if you’re lucky.”
I don’t have a choice. The beer floods into my mouth, and I have to swallow or choke.
Except it turns out, I can do both. I drink, but it’s so much liquid that I end up coughing, and more beer spills down my chin and onto my naked breasts.
He curses again. “Goddamn it, Mimosa! You can’t do anything right except nag, nag, nag, can you?” He shoves me back, and I fall, my head hitting the back of the leather ottoman. I’m grateful it’s not glass, at least, but the force of it still hurts. “You’re disgusting. You need a bath before you come back to clean all this shit up so you don’t drip it everywhere else.”
Brutal gets up, grabbing me and forcing me to my feet. I yelp, the pain of it in conjunction with everything else making it nearly impossible to bear.
“Go to the fucking bathroom, Mimosa.”
I pant through the pain as my entire body shakes, but I manage to take a few slow steps in the direction of the bathroom.
“God, you are so fucking slow.” Brutal grabs my arm and starts dragging me at a faster pace. I can’t stop myself from crying out as I stumble along behind him, every step more painful than the last.
By the time we reach the bathroom, my face is covered in tears once more.
He looks at me and snorts in derision. “Pathetic.” He forces me toward the tub, grabbing me by the hair and forcing me to get into it.
I cling to the side of the tub so I don’t get slammed into the hard porcelain. While I try to catch my breath, Brutal turns the tap on. The cold water streams onto my feet, and I cry out. It’s both torture and relief, the cool temperature soothing the cuts and aches but the water itself only causing me more pain.
“You’re gonna have so much cleaning to do.” He sneers at me. “Getting blood all over my floors, my rug, my bathroom tile… Beer, too, since you don’t know how to hold your booze at all. But first, we have to clean you up.”
I’d protest, but this is exactly what he wanted. Everything was set up to make me fail, so what’s the point? Either way, he’s going to do whatever he wants with me.
The water begins to fill the tub, cold enough at first that I start to shiver. My teeth chatter, and I try to keep as much of my body out of the water as I can.
Unsurprisingly, though, Brutal notices, and he shoves me down deeper into the water. “What? Now the water isn’t good enough for you? Gotta have it nice and warm, huh? I could roast your fucking skin if I wanted. Just be glad I’m keeping it on the lukewarm side.”
I sputter when water hits my face, and that takes up most of my concentration now. The beer and blood get diluted in the water, turning the water a bit murky. At least it gets a little warmer as it fills.
“I can’t—” I start, coughing. “I can’t wash myself like this.”
“I don’t really give a fuck whether you can wash yourself or not,” he says. His smile twists into something nasty. “I can bathe you if you can’t bathe yourself. Here. I’ll rinse you off.”