Chapter Six 72

Chapter Six

Cleo

Webber doesn’t say a word as he follows me out into the night. Heat from the baking sun, trapped in the smooth, flat cobble stoned streets, dissipates into the slightly cooler temperatures of evening. The breeze off the ocean slips across our skin like silk. The night sky is a pastel palette of pink, orange, and lavender, a sorbet of peaceful pleasure cleansing my emotions as sweetly as the cool dish served between courses at a three-star Michelin restaurant.

Fuck Mother. Unlike my maternal vessel, I have the patience to play the long game. Let her play out her life as the vicious queen in a high fantasy novel. She can play one child against the other on her life board of twisted games. Let her ride the wave of her diabolical, narcissistic plans. She can rub her hands together and cackle to herself as she paints her skin and coats her insides with overpriced youth serums.

I will escape her, and I’m taking Webber with me. His blind devotion and inability to see her for who she truly is scars and burns my insides like ever-burning molten hot coals. Like hydrochloric acid mixed with a gallon of bleach eating through the flesh of my insides at two a.m., her loathing swells like a tide in my chest until I cannot see through my tears nor breath through the pain of the hellish existence she’s intentionally curated for me. Mother’s hatred for me and deep devotion to Webber shouldn’t be able to co-exist.

My sweet, innocent Webber. I’ll never understand how half of him is composed of her rotten, mutated genes. He is incapable of seeing anything but the best in people. I cannot stand in the blinding brilliance of his purity, professing my adoration for him, and resent him for the actions of another at the same time. I will never hold Webber responsible for Mother’s actions. One day, Webber will have to swallow the irrefutable facts. Mother’s poison will gain a foothold, infecting Webber like an insidious virus, tunneling into him, dulling his eyes as his skin cyanoses into the bluish gray hues of a broken heart.

The injury she’ll cause to my love is as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. The mere thought of the damage she’ll do to him scores me deeper than any knife she’s cut me with. But I have faith. The bond between Webber and I is made of material she cannot cut. No matter what wicked blade she adds to her arsenal, she will never tear us asunder. For no matter how tender Webber’s love for Mother is, I am the other half of him.

Time will bear witness. When the sky fractures and Mother’s judgment rains down, I will be there to catch the best half of me. I will cradle my beloved as he breaks and reforms, and when he bursts free, his glorious rebirth will be ours.

“Cleo!” Webber snaps his fingers under my nose as I look around me. Dazed, I bite my lip and shrug in apology. Having no memory of how we got here tells me just how far I retreated into my thoughts.

I exhale. Webber holds my gaze steadily, his eyes gently probing mine for an acceptable excuse. “I know,” I whisper, not voicing a plea for forgiveness or a promise to do better. I don’t need to. He knows.

“Cleo,” he murmurs, sliding his hand behind my back as I slip out of the car ahead of him. I pause in the door, my back to the darkened windows and leather armrest, and his fingers brush over the swell of my bottom.

His fingers barely graze my skin. His touch is brief, but indelible. The faintest sweep of his digits over my flesh is a risk, the simple act as harmless as blowing a friendly kiss. Until that small puff of breath takes down our entire house of cards. The thrill of his illicit, forbidden gesture ripples through me, shredding the tendrils of doubt that occasionally sprout when Mother exerts her iron-clad control over my every breath .

My brows draw together in defiance. As soon as my facial muscles contract, I fight to smooth them back into the kind of entitled, trust-fund-bred boredom I need to glide through the massive, hand carved door. I will not earn my bed if my face is twisted into a sour expression.

We enter the club. Me with my lithe, supple body and haughty ennui, followed by Webber with his sun kissed skin and the callused hands of a blue-collar man, juxtaposed against his five-hundred-dollar haircut and a designer jacket. The eyes in the room sweep right over me and lock on his easy grin.

How unfair it is that my looks have been cultivated to reel in men who crave the conquering of their pussy more than they do the sliding of their cocks into that sweet heat. Webber gets cast into the waters with his rakish smile and charm as bait, while I’m stuck radiating a chill that is not innate and saps my energy worse than an actual cold spell. Hell, Webber was born with a kind of appreciation for women that works like a salve, drawing cash out of their wallets like magic. I get digital transactions, the opportunity to hold my wages stolen, as the compensation for my services goes directly from customer to my pimp I refer to as ‘Mother’.

That’s how I enter the club. My ‘brother’ behind me, the heated frequency of his twinkling eyes, alluring smile, and come-hither-and-let-me fuck-you-stupid body at direct odds with the icy vibe I’m projecting.

The women stare at Webber with hunger, wanting and needy, unabashed and unashamed of their desire, while the men assess me. I am nothing more than a transaction. A product that advertises great potential but may not generate a good return.

Webber lightly grabs my elbow and steers me to the bar. He orders the cheapest brand of whiskey the club carries, because he likes the taste. How fucking apropos. Bitterness fills my mouth with saliva, burning my tongue before I swallow. Not only does Webber get to have what he likes, his choices always seem to push his success. Women see his choice, measured against his well-bred physique and expensive clothing, and assign him character qualities that only increase their estimation of him, while I must allow my marks to order for me. I suffer the judgment of men who tally up my body and the sex I did not choose, the clothing I’m forced to wear, and the fact that I may enjoy an alcoholic drink and then classify me into a category they can look down upon and use guilt free.

The fact that I’m forced to exclusively hunt men on Mother’s orders and Webber is free to hunt any gender and sex with a wallet is the cruelest of all Mother’s edicts. Because my purpose is to narrow the field down for her, whilst Webber’s only job is to help keep her coffers full.

The poisonous cloud of hate that blooms in my chest is an old friend. A steadying breath, inoculated with expensive cologne and privilege, fills me, and I stare with dead eyes as the bloom of hatred for my circumstance dies.

This is my life. There is no sense wasting energy on the stasis of negative energy. Neither Webber nor I are at fault. We were born into this servitude. But we have a plan.

We’re getting out.

My eyes travel across the room, briefly landing on each male, weighing and calculating with a single flick of my icy irises who will be the best candidate to bring home to Mother. Which man will slide a ring on her finger after they’ve paid to fuck me?

I size up each of them, weighing and rating each man according to her tastes.

Until my eyes land on him.

He meets my stare like an apex predator. No artifice, nor posturing, nor display. His power thrums through my body, displacing the poison of the room. Like a cool mountain breeze, so subtle that not a hair on my body is disturbed, his aura sinks into my skin. He draws me in, his presence alone like a steel lasso. My heart rate increases, my pulse fluttering in my wrists, my neck, my body tightening with anticipation. My lips part, my chest jerking to inhale the air that is no longer foul with greed, but fresh with possibility. Webber turns back from the bar, sensing my response, and leans in.

“That one?” he murmurs. The scent of the amber liquid in his hand tickles my nose as he lifts his glass behind me. I feel his warm, plush lips press against the crystal tumbler, as if he’d bent down and kissed the ivory column of my neck.

“Yes,” I breathe, inclining my head to the side. One word. A simple assent. My tone is detached, cool, filled with the ennui of the wealthy, but I know he hears the tremble of need hidden within.

He leans back against the bar and I’m acutely aware of the shift in space behind me. “Mm,” Webber purrs. The woman on my other side turns. When my eyes flash to the side, I see her jut out her chest, her painted lips curling up like a hungry predator. Webber will fuck her until her blood sings with the song of angels, and she’ll drop double his fee into Mother’s account.

And then Webber will find me. He won’t need a call or a pin. Webber and I are inexplicably tied to one another. Our hearts beat as one. He wants the man as much as I do. Because I do. Because, like me, he knows.

The dark-haired man rubs a finger around the rim of his glass. The song of his flesh circling around the fine edge settles my soul. The simple gesture is an ethereal harmonic, soothing me with the promise of salvation.

I turn away. Walking back two seats, artfully stepping up to sit so that my long legs gleam in the low light of the club. The woman Webber’s entranced is laughing, leaning forward, her red talons already lightly circling the surface of his forearm.

Her husband turns to me, his eyes running up my unblemished limbs. “Pretty slick operation the two of you have going. Do we get a discount for both of you?”

I let my nose wrinkle, my upper lip peeling back over my teeth. “I’ll give you a tip: this isn’t a place you should ever utter words like ‘discount’.” I slip off my seat and leave, wishing the man might grab my arm as if he has a right to me. The wash of revulsion and hope twining together along my nerves isn’t new, but watching this guy get discretely escorted out while he ratchets up and causes a scene might provide a nugget of entertainment I can revisit the next time Mother decides punishment is in order .

I turn toward the door. In the corner of my eye, I see her reach back and brush his knee. It’s a silent warning. Ah. The money isn’t his. It’s hers. She makes it, not him. His resentment boils up, but he takes one more look at me, weighing his life of luxury and ease against the wisp of sin and pleasure slipping out of his grasp.

There is no contest. He’ll escort his wife back to their room and drink half a bottle of something that costs more than what she deposits in his account every month. He’ll be forced to be a gentleman and act like he enjoys watching Webber easily take his wife to a height he’s never reached. The crass cuckold I’ve just sneered at won’t understand that the impetus to his wife’s pleasure isn’t Webber’s skillful manipulation of her body. The sex is only a candy-coated tool, one she uses to chip away at her husband’s antiquated ideal of his own worth.

I bet her eyes are as dead as Mother’s. Poor Webber. He hates that. I prefer it. I find myself humming as I reach the door, where the concierge slips a note into my hand.

“You’ll make an exact copy and get it to him?” I ask, my eyes sliding to Webber.

“Yes, miss. Your car is out front.”

I nod my head in thanks and step back into the night.