Page 72 of Rent: Paid in Full

His grip on my underwear tightens, getting my attention in a way that gives me the distinct impression I’ve never given anything my full attention before. Not like this. Not like now. My balls ache and send piercing objections up into my belly. Sodoes my dick. It’s thick and hard, throbbing from being trapped between Miller and me.

He circles my bare ass cheeks with a flat palm, scouring my skin, worrying the fine hair he finds there. The light sensation is in such stark contrast with the pressure of the wedgie that my senses are scrambled. Old things are new things and new things are old things. Good things are bad and bad things are good.

Miller breathes in. I breathe out.

I take a second to familiarize myself with the horror of my position. Even now, I know I’ll be back to revisit this shame daily for years to come. Years. Decades maybe. My ankles are knotted in denim, my underwear is wedged up the crack of my ass, my hands are flat on the floor in front of me, and my dick is throbbing against Miller’s thigh.

“All you gotta do if you want me to stop”—Miller rubs my ass, groping me till he finds a spot he seems to like and tapping it until my heart beats in time with the rhythm he’s drumming into me—“is tell me where my money is. Got it?”

It takes me much longer to piece it together than I care to admit, but at last, what he’s doing registers. He's giving me a safeword. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

The first slap lands with a loud splat. His palm. My flesh. A dull pause as nerve endings freak out and fire. A hot, searing sting lights me up. Warmth blooms under my skin, rising and traveling to the surface. The next blow lands milliseconds before I’ve had time to fully absorb the first one. The next one does too. And so does the next. I scramble, playing catch up and losing. A pale peach ripens, changing from creamy to blotchy hot pink as Miller beats layer upon layer of sensation into me.

Pain.

Pleasure.

More pain.

My hands ball into fists, one clenched against the floor, the other pressed tightly against my lips in a desperate attempt to stifle the sounds trying to break free. I don’t need to hear them to know I won’t like them. I won’t. I know it. I’ve never been more sure of anything.

Miller pauses, adjusting his grip on my underwear, pulling it tight against my balls and chaffing my hungry hole. It’s a light touch. A slight disturbance. A whisper of a finger tracing puckered flesh through the fabric. It’s enough. The fist against my lips loses its seal. The cry that’s unleashed is the worst I’ve heard yet. It’s savage. Sensual. High-pitched and eager. It sounds nothing likedon’t. It sounds nothing likestop.

It sounds likemore, please.

Miller hears it and understands it. He raises his hand again and brings it down hard. Again. Again. He lands on a predictable pace. This side, that side, this side again. Pain and pleasure start to dance with each other. One leans in, the other leans back. They know the steps, but I don’t. They tease each other until my senses are fucked. My mind too. Everything is quiet. The only thing that exists, the only thing that’s real anymore, is the part of my body Miller is touching.

It stops abruptly. My new reality comes crashing down.

It’s shocking and too soon.

I find myself on my knees, cold and burning, looking up at the silhouette of a statuesque Miller. I can’t look away. I can’t blink. I can’t move. Panic rises in me. It wasn’t enough. It was close, but it wasn’t enough. I need more. There’s something here. It’s close. I don’t know its name. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I only know it’s here, and I need it.

Miller’s chest is heaving. Mine is too. He tilts his head back, and his shadow looks down at me, letting me know he’s still my enemy. My nightmare. My dream.

“What else did I say I’d do to you, Haraway?”

His voice finds me from far away. Far, far away. His words land like soft drops of rain. Splashing onto my skin and running slowly down my face.

“You s-said, you said you’d s-s-sodomize me.”

The façade cracks. Miller smiles, breaking character for the briefest of seconds. He quickly wrestles it back.

“Hmm.” This smile is different. Cold and hard. It’s not my Miller, but it’s the Miller I need. “That does sound like something I’d say.”

The scorn in his laugh bounces off the walls, pummeling me, jabbing me in the sides till I’m crumpled and tear-stained at his feet. When it settles, he moves like a ghost, in front of me one second, behind me the next. His hands dig into my armpits and lift me bodily. My legs trail behind me, kicking halfheartedly as he tosses me unceremoniously onto the sofa. I land on my knees and quickly scramble, trying in vain to move into a less vulnerable position. Miller’s grip is steel. He holds me in place, positioning me exactly how he wants me. Pressing my hands down on the back of the sofa and slapping my knees as wide apart as he can get them with my shoes and pants still on. He takes my hips in his hands and pulls them back, peeling my stretched-out underwear out of my crack and down my thighs. He pushes my face down too, resting my forehead between my hands.

He steps back, and I find myself immobile. Paralyzed. Pinned down. Unable to move my body out of the position he’s put me in. I hear his shoes on the floor. Five steps, maybe six. Air moves near me, a cool breath, as his T-shirt sails through the air and lands in his laundry basket with a soft, familiar swish. A drawer groans open and shut. Shoes are shucked off. A belt and jeans too. I shiver as he draws near.

Thank God it’s dark. It’s a mercy. It’s a miracle.

It’smynight.

I’ve gone as low as I can. Lower than I ever thought I could. It’s almost liberating to be here. Shock and disbelief are distant now. I know they’re real and that they exist. It’s just that I also know I’m going to go lower and deeper and further back if Miller takes me there.

Two slick fingers find their way to my hole and open me roughly. I grunt but don’t move a muscle. That is, I don’t move a muscle except to bear down and relax the very muscle Miller is working open. I breathe in the sting. I absorb the burn. I accept them as if they’re my own. As if I deserve them. As if they’ll fix me.

I do the same when he replaces his fingers with the blunt head of his cock. I bury my face in the sofa, fingers digging into the fabric as he rams into me. He isn’t gentle. He’s rough. Just rough enough. Rough enough that the pain on the inside and outside of me match perfectly. Rough enough that I can’t feel anything except what he wants me to feel. What I need to feel. Things from a long time ago form a quagmire around me. A thick, messy impasse. A wall I see clearly. A limitation. A slough.