Torture (Terraway Book 3) Page 19

  “Darling, every part of you is stunning.” Von kissed my scar again and leaned back on his heels, shaking his head to clear it of the PG-13 position our friendship would never survive.

  He slid my pajama pants on as if they were the silky panties I wished I was wearing. He made quick work of stripping down to his boxer briefs before he climbed into the bed with me. He kissed my cheek, and then lowered his lips to my neck, giving me the shivers that only encouraged him to misbehave more.

  32

  Confessions from a Male Prostitute

  Now that he was touching me, my body was far more pliable. We tangled around each other in ways that were entirely indecent, and needed to be shrouded under cover of bedsheets.

  He started playing with my hair, relaxing me to the point where I had to remind myself not to drool. “Von?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “What’s the deal with you and Finn? You two know each other from a long time before this.”

  “Everyone knows Finn. He’s King Banak of Dagat’s top dog.”

  I knew he was trying to brush off my question, but after all the secrets I’d had to give up, I didn’t feel like shrugging off this one. “Von?”

  A dark cloud settled over Von as he slowly twirled a curl that hung at the base of my neck. “I passed through Dagat a few times. Got into a little trouble. Nothing more than that.”

  I kissed his nose. “Okay. You don’t have to tell me. You’re allowed a few secrets.”

  Von looked at me as if considering just how deep and true our friendship went. “Fine, but just so you know, Danny doesn’t even know what really happened. No one but me, Ezra and Boston do.”

  “Your youngest brother? Bishop’s twin?”

  “Yeah. Boston’s great. He’s filled with lots of terrible fun you only get into when you don’t care what happens to you in the end. The two of us went to Dagat on holiday a few years ago. We had a blast, going off with the Mermaids and getting ourselves into all sorts of mischief. One night we worked our way into a high stakes card game with the Kataw.”

  “That’s what Finn is, right? The Mermen without tails?”

  “Yes. I was handling myself like the smoky gentleman you adore, but Boston was reckless, as he always is. Bet way too high and lost more than either of us had. Infinitely more.” Von’s eyes hardened and then closed as pain shaded his expression. “He was scared. The Kataw are ruthless, and the great Captain Finn was there. He’s the worst. Has a reputation for being cruel that’s well-earned.”

  “Did he beat you guys up?”

  Von swallowed. “No. He offered us a way out. He told Boston he’d let him work off his debt, selling his body to the king’s son by joining the harem.”

  A rock sunk in my stomach. If I thought reaping made me sick, it was nothing compared to that. “Oh, no. Tell me he didn’t.”

  “Boston was so scared. Actually cried, which if you knew him, you’d know how big a deal that is.”

  “I don’t blame him.”

  “I couldn’t let him do it. He’s my baby brother, and I’d brought us there in the first place. So I talked to Finn and took Boston’s place.”

  The pulling couldn’t counteract the ice that froze in my veins at that blast I hadn’t been expecting. My heartbeat pounded in my cheeks as my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Please tell me that means something different than it does in my world.”

  Von shook his head, looking at the wall as he lay propped up on his elbow next to me. The lamplight illuminating a few choice features, making him look truly haunted. “I sent Boston home and signed over the worst three months of my life.”

  I wrapped my arm around his waist to let him know that he wasn’t back in Dagat. He was safe with me in our bed. “You got sold to the king’s son?”

  “Yep. Like a pack of cigarettes. Duwendes down on their luck make for good prostitutes. We can make people feel better, so they think they’ve had the best night of their lives afterward. Always a satisfied customer.” He tried to make it come off as a joke, but it fell flat. “Julius was a little harder to subdue. Violent, sick pervert. It took a long while to get him to think he had a good time without… It wasn’t pleasant.”

  “You couldn’t have bitten him? Sucked him dry and killed the bastard?”

  “I hadn’t been turned yet. This was years ago. I wasn’t even sure Finn remembered me until he made a crack about it.” The second Von’s eyes watered, he cleared his throat. “Sorry. It was a long time ago. I’m fine now. Just a rough patch.”

  “Now who owes the Denial Jar a dollar.” I rolled on my side to face him, holding his hand between us as we’d done when we’d pinky promised we wouldn’t kiss and ruin the great thing we had. “I can keep your secrets, Von. Let me be your Duwende. You can talk to me.” I leaned forward and kissed both of his shut eyelids. “You should talk to me.”

  Von was quiet for half a minute, so I wasn’t expecting him to tell me what he’d been through, to unload some of his burdens onto me and trust that I’d be strong enough to hold him through it.

  But that’s exactly what happened for the next forty-five minutes. By the time he had to go leave to see Penny, he’d cried in my arms, let me kiss his face and told me more horrible, disgusting details than a qualified shrink could ever sort through. He kept feeding me a new degradation he’d endured while reading my expression with caution to see if I would pull away from him, turn on him and use his confession against him. I could tell he’d been in need of someone who could carry his secrets, to treasure him when he admitted he’d been used and abused so brutally.

  I kissed each of his tears, whispering, “You’re a treasure. You’re my treasure.”

  “I’m filthy. No one who’s done the things I’ve had to do can be called a treasure.”

  I held him tight as he fell more irreparably apart in my arms. “You saved your brother from that nasty man. That doesn’t make you filthy. It makes you a good dad to Boston.”

  Make no mistake, it was all filthy, but even the clean freak I was couldn’t turn away from Von’s mess. I couldn’t wash my hands of his past, nor did I want to. I held him just as he was, in the same way he’d done for me when I’d been half a human and a whole disaster.

  Von shook his head, brushing his damp and reddened nose against mine. “I don’t deserve you. The way you look at me sometimes, it’s scared me for months that I’d lose that hung-the-moon adoration from you if you knew all I’d been through.”

  “Oh, honey. You’re only more heroic now.” I shook my head in dismay. “How could you let Danny call you a male escort? That’s how you passed it all off?”

  “Boston was scared, so we came up with a story that I’d been the one in gambling debt, and I chose to sell myself to wealthy women in Terraway to pay off my debts. That’s why I was kicked out of the Academy. Word got around that I had a gambling problem, and that I was whoring myself out to women to pay my way.”

  I was furious when I added up all the male escort cracks Danny had made at Von’s expense. “Why don’t you at least set Danny straight?”

  “Danny sees me as he would like to. If he can’t love me as a male escort, then I don’t need him to love me as a sex slave.” He clung to me as I laid his head on my breast, running my fingers through his hair and over his shoulder to soothe him. “You deserve to know me, though. You loved me even when I was a prostitute.” He clutched my pink shirt as a fresh handful of tears rocked him. “And now it’s ruined! I’m dirty, and you like things clean.”

  Guilt sunk deep in me for inflicting my neurosis on Von as I held him tight. “You listen to me, Von. You are not dirty. You’re my treasure. Always my treasure. This changes nothing about how I see you, only that you have too much on your shoulders. You’re too good a person. I don’t know many who would do that for their family.”

  Von broke all over again, crying into my breasts until the waves of haunting emotion calmed. Finally he lay docile, utterly spent after reliving the trauma he kept tight to the vest.
“Thank you,” he whispered.

  Von was a storm of trouble, but in my arms he was a sweet, lost puppy. I loved the puppy in him. I loved the proud man in him, as well as the lost boy. He kissed both my cheeks before he left to go see Penny, and I realized with all the subtlety of a gong that I hopelessly and deeply loved Von.

  33

  Ricotta Cheese and Kale Salad

  I had a day of rest. Beautiful, blissful rest where I got to play video games with Ollie, clean my house the way it was meant to be scrubbed and eat food like a normal person who wasn’t vying for the trophy in the Miss Young Adult Skeleton pageant.

  Watching Mason try to figure out the video game controller was the best entertainment. He kept moving the controller up and around whenever he wanted his avatar to jump. He finally gave up and lounged on the couch, eating his way through seven tacos while I kicked Ollie’s butt. My brother was sorely out of practice on the things that mattered.

  Ollie didn’t bring up much about Terraway, asking the occasional non-confrontational question, but never making me feel bad for not telling him sooner. He hovered, though, which wasn’t completely unexpected. I didn’t so much look like death warmed over, as I had the day before, but I wasn’t exactly winning beauty contests or running any marathons.

  I got to go shopping with Gabby, though it wasn’t the kind of shopping she liked to do. Grocery stores weren’t nearly as fun to her as the department store treasure hunting she loved. Mall shopping gave me small bouts of anxiety, complete with flashbacks of watching Bev spend the money we needed for food and bills on sweaters and makeup. Grocery shopping was safer.

  Ollie had asked me if he could tell Gabby about Terraway, but I was firm. I’d rather look like a weirdo with two shadows than bring anyone else into the world that had only threatened to tear me apart. Plus, their relationship status seemed to have gone from moving in together, to breaking it off, to grocery shopping together in the middle of the day while they held hands. I couldn’t keep up with Ollie’s commitment issues. Though, kudos to Gabby for trying.

  While Ollie was handling Terraway like a champ, I knew Gabby wouldn’t be able to be as cool about it all. She could barely keep a lid on her excitement at meeting my two bodyguards (though she’d met Von at my house once before). I’d gone from borderline nun to a girl with two new guys since she’d last seen me, apparently. I was having a hard time spinning how very normal a trio we were. I may or may not have pretended to not be able to hear her prodding whispers when she asked which of them I was hooking up with. Thank goodness for the overhead PA system announcing every little sale.

  I let out a quiet groan when we pulled over to the deli section with our two carts, and my favorite girl wasn’t at the counter.

  “Yes! Your stories about this guy always make my day.” Ollie pumped his fist in the air like he’d won the lottery when the mid-twenties dude came into view behind the deli counter. Deli Frank had bloodshot eyes and a mole cluster in the shape of Cassiopeia on his forehead. He breathed with his mouth open after he called our number. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this,” Ollie rubbed his hands together eagerly.

  “What?” Mason inquired, clutching my hand tighter as if anticipating danger. I relished the warmth of the gentle pull he shot through me. It relaxed my sore muscles and took away the lingering ache in my bones.

  “Nine pounds of salami, sliced thick,” I requested to start out my order. Von and Mason went through a ton of lunch meat. When Frank looked blankly at me, I repeated the order with a polite, “Please.”

  Frank looked at the case in confusion, though he’d been working there for over a year. “Salami? Like, sliced, or like sticks?”

  I pursed my lips, unsure how I could’ve said it any clearer. “Sliced, please. Nine pounds of salami, sliced thick.”

  “Right on, right on. Hold up. Let me see if we have any.”

  Ollie giggled while I pointed to the log on sale that clearly read “salami” on it. “I think it’s that one.”

  “No. That’s turkey. I’ll look in back.”

  I leaned my forehead to Mason’s shoulder, while Ollie and Gabby let out a loud laugh. “He usually makes it through at least one item before he has to ‘look in back.’”

  When Frank returned, his bloodshot eyes fell on me with no recognition. “Can I help you?”

  Gabby’s giggling couldn’t be helped. “She’d like nine pounds of salami, sliced thick, please.”

  Frank looked around and grabbed the mesquite chicken and took it to the slicer. “Right on. Right on.”

  Von frowned. “But that’s…”

  “It’s not worth it. He never gets the order right. You all like mesquite chicken, right?”

  Von shook his head at the whole situation. “No, no. I didn’t really care what kind of lunch meat you got, but now I’ll go to the mat that we need salami.” He squeezed my side before detaching from me and letting himself in behind the counter.

  “Von, you can’t be back there!” I admonished him, looking around for the supermarket police. I expected a SWAT team clad in the store’s orange polo uniform to descend on us at any given moment.

  He shrugged innocently. “Looks like I can.” Von jerked the fat roll of salami from the case and handed it to Frank. “Here, mate. My girl wants this one.”

  Gabby pursed her lips through a giddy squeal that Von had called me his girl. I shot her a “be cool” look, but it was a completely wasted effort.

  Frank sliced up about four pieces of salami, bagged it and handed it over the counter to me. “Anything else?”

  “Um, can I have nine pounds, please?”

  “Nine pounds of what?”

  “Salami. I need nine pounds.”

  “Of what?”

  I wanted to shout “Salami!” at him, but as I’d actually done that before with no lasting results, I closed my mouth. Ollie, on the other hand, was laughing so hard, he was red. I’d complained a great many times about Frank to my brother on the phone.

  Von turned Frank around and pushed him back towards the slicer. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

  Von stood next to Frank until the mountain of salami was sliced, bagged and handed to me with no further incident. Nearby shoppers grabbed tickets, now that someone competent was behind the counter. The line went from one to fifteen in the span of however long it took for Von to flash his charismatic smile out across the counter. I can’t imagine the loss of business Frank had caused the store. With Von’s charming grin to greet them, it seemed everyone wanted a nice salami.

  Von stood next to Frank behind the counter with a pleasant look on his face. “What else would you like, love?”

  “Really?”

  “Truly. Frank and I are your servants.”

  Frank’s dilated pupils didn’t seem to absorb much, but he remained at Von’s side, breathing in and out through his slack mouth. “Can I help you?”

  Ollie wanted the game to go on forever. “Sharp Cheddar cheese, please. How much, October?”

  “Nine pounds?” I requested, and then Mason jerked his thumb upward. “Ten pounds, please.”

  “Ten pounds of what?” Frank asked with a glazed-over expression. I wasn’t even positive Frank’s idiocy was because he was always baked. I think part of his dysfunction had to be genetic or something, coupled with massive amounts of pot.

  Von tugged out the brick I wanted and handed it to Frank. “Start slicing, and I’ll tell you when.”

  “You’re a miracle worker,” I smirked over the counter at Von.

  He pressed his hands to the waist-level surface and leaned his tall frame over to close a little of the gap between us. “Tell me I’m your hero.”

  My smile stuck on my face as my cheeks flushed. I shook my head bashfully. I could feel people watching him openly flirt with me while I held onto another dude’s hand.

  Mason answered for me. “You’ll be my hero if you can get some of this turkey over here. That looks good. And you know nine pounds won’t be enough. Just
have him slice up the rest of the log.”

  “On it, my good man.” Von lowered his voice to me while we waited for Frank to finish up with the cheese. “I’m waiting, November. Tell me I’m your hero.”

  I shook my head again when someone nearby whistled suggestively at the cuteness. Public displays made me introvert all over the place. “You’re incorrigible.”

  A mama with three irritable kids hanging on her basket pressed her hands to the case with mild desperation. “You’ll be my hero if I can just get a pound of the cheese he’s already slicing. Just one pound.”

  “Frank would be delighted to help you with that.” He turned back to me. “Tell me I’m your hero, or I’ll sit back here and eat the entire order by myself while you watch.”

  “Gross! You will not.”

  “Say it,” Von begged, his eyes turning sweet, endearing me forward.

  I kept my chin down with chagrin. “Fine. Von, you’re my hero.”

  A broad beam swept over his features, his chest puffing out with male pride. “Ah, you didn’t have to say that.” He winked at me, ignoring the commotion that was gathering around us. “What else would you like?”

  “Really? I usually only get one thing before I get frustrated and move on.”

  His eyes met mine, saying too many things I hoped no one else heard. “It’s okay to ask me for what you want. There’s nothing I’d hold back from you.”

  I swallowed, pushing aside Gabby’s squeal of anticipation. I think she was hoping I might ask Von to throw me down on the counter and make love to me right then and there. “Thank you.” I pointed over to the premade food portion, excited that I was finally able to try out some of the salads I’d not had the patience to order before. “Can I try the kale salad? Like, just a small container of it?”