Page 71 of Rent: Paid in Full
The old me, that is. The old me wouldn’t have allowed it.
The new me?
Fuck knows about him. That guy is out of control.
“Say it,” Miller says again.
It’s a siren. A slow song. I answer the call.
“Bully me.”
It’s my voice. I recognize it. I know it well, so, of course, I recognize it. They’re my words too, but I sure as shit don’t recognize them. My blood turns to ice. I go cold and then hot. My mouth opens and closes in horror and shock. I shouldn’t be this surprised, given I’m the one who said it. I must, on some level at least, have been expecting it. But I am. I’m shocked shitless.
Thank God it’s dark because I’m blushing from head to toe. I’m red. Beet red. Redder than red. My face, my neck, and even my chest are on fire. I’m so flushed that sweat beads on my top lip and my eyes start to water. I will my mouth to start moving, to take back what I’ve said, but the weight of the humiliation is too heavy. It’s crushing, slowing my mind and strangling my words.
Miller doesn’t skip a beat. There’s no raised eyebrow. No sardonic grin. No hesitation. No inkling that what I’ve asked for is the stupidest, most embarrassing thing any human being has ever asked for in the history of asking for things.
He moves like a cat. Sure and quick, and yeah, a bit vicious. He pushes me against the wall roughly. My back connects soundly with the wall behind me. There’s a hand on my chest, palm open and flat. The other is wrapped around my throat. My heart knows the drill. It starts to race.
Metal sparks in the dark. A quick glint followed by a low sneer. Miller’s voice changes from smooth to scratchy. He raises his chin and looks down at me.
“Where’s my lunch money, punk?”
“Gguuk, uh…” I struggle against him as the past and present play tricks on my mind. Hysterical laughter and pure, unfiltered panic run hot in my veins, merging and curdling, turning intosomething I’ve never felt before. The fist clenches and releases. Clenches and releases. It happens so fast that I feel like I’ve been shaken, taken by the neck and shaken with enough force to rattle my brain.
Reality becomes a slippery concept. A notion. A theory rather than something concrete.
The hand around my throat tightens, and I look into the ice-cold eyes of a stranger. His hair is moonlit perfection. Platinum waves are swept off his face and stay there for no discernible reason. His features are harsh and unsympathetic, a chisel taken roughly to flawless marble.
He looks like someone I’ve never met before. Someone I remember all too well.
“Where’s my money?”
“I-I—” His eyes flicker, and he gives me an almost imperceptible nod. It’s tiny, but it changes him. I see someone I do know. Someone impossible and beautiful. Impossibly beautiful. Someone so pigheaded he’s forced his way under my skin and into my mind. Someone so fucking crazy he’s managed to make me believe he has my back. “I-I don’t h-have it.”
“Hmm.” He looks me up and down, eyes hard, jaw set. The hand that was on my chest travels downward, roughly patting me down, scraping the fabric of my T-shirt over my ribs and belly. It travels lower. He pats at my jeans, jostling me physically as he searches my pockets. He slides a hand into one of them. My jeans pull tight around my waist as his fingers graze the outline of my rock-solid cock. It pulses and lurches toward him.
He ignores it.
He turns me and slaps my ass hard enough to spin me where he wants me. He takes me firmly by the back of the neck and presses me against the wall until my cheek is squished against it. The cold blast of plaster should sober me up. It should snap me out of the sorry state I’m in. It doesn’t. It rubs coarse, unevenpieces of me against other soft, sensitive parts. It does it until I’m eroded. Until I’m smooth at the edges. Until sparks fly.
He repeats his earlier performance, his hands moving all over me. In my hair, on my neck, up my back, under my top. He grabs my ass and makes the flesh he just slapped start living a life that exists outside of me. He takes one cheek in each hand and squeezes hard enough to force a choked whimper from my lips. I bite it back. I’m hot and bothered, helpless and all but splattered against our bedroom wall. I’m interfered with and undone. Panting from the present, shaking from the past.
He toys with my waistband, giving me time to close my eyes and see a huge wave of shame rise up before me. I watch, immobile, as it crests and crashes into me. He lets me feel it. Lets it soak in and drench me before shoving a hand into the back of my pants and balling my underwear in his fist. The fabric tightens, slowly creeping inward, caressing my ass cheeks as it works its way into my crack. I shift my weight from one foot to the other robotically, unsure whether to clench my cheeks together like I always used to when things like this happened to me or to push back and grind against Miller so he knows I want more.
“And what did I say was going to happen the next time you don’t bring me my money?”
Thoughts dart wildly, crashing into each other and fizzling out when they bounce off my skull. I manage to catch the tail end of one or two of them and piece together what he’s doing.
It’s a game. My game. He’s the player. I’m making the rules.
My lungs fill, my breathing precarious from a heavy concoction of disbelief, dread, and relief. The dread and disbelief are old. They’ve been with me for years. They’ve been with me for so long that I’ve started to think they’ve always been mine. The relief is brand new.
“Y-you said…” My voice cracks and trails off from the warmth of his breath on the side of my face. He tightens his grip on my underwear, pulling it deeper into my crack, not stopping until it’s chaffing my balls and I’m up on my toes, stepping uncomfortably from side to side with the care of a man walking on coals. Synapses fire. All of them. At once. I feel the ghost of his touch on my back and my ass. It wasn’t gentle. It also wasn’t rough. Not rough enough. All it’s done is make me want more. I whine weakly, raking my nails on the wall as past, present, and future versions of me wage war with each other. The scale that weighs profound things like dignity against other things, silly things, things I want even though it makes no sense to want them, shudders as it takes the measure of me. The scale tilts sharply. Dignity loses. “Yousaidyou’dspankme.”
Unfortunately for me, Miller has no problem deciphering the garbled collection of vowels and constants that spill out of me. I expect a throaty chuckle. A mocking laugh. God knows I deserve it. I don’t get it. Far from it. Miller reacts like what I’ve said is completely normal. Like he was expecting it.
He takes the waistband of my jeans in both hands and yanks them down to my knees without undoing my fly. It’s a struggle, the swell of my ass fights for my modesty. It loses. Before I’m able to appreciate the humiliation of having my jeans unceremoniously yanked down to my knees, Miller has an arm around my waist, all but lifting me off my feet as he drags me to my desk. He spins my chair around and sits, wrapping a hand around mine and pulling sharply enough to see me ungracefully sprawled over his knee.