This is how I die.
He placed the blade at the base of my throat, near my shoulder. I had to squeeze my eyes shut now because that was Ford’s spot. That was where he loved and nuzzled and inhaled me and now it was about to be destroyed.
“Open your eyes.”
My body was shaking so hard now he was visibly struggling to hold me up.
“I want you to see what happens when you don’t listen to me.”
I gasped out a sob.
“Please…please,” I begged. I couldn’t keep it together anymore.
“I need to collect for my trouble.” He moved the blade across my neck, not cutting, but using the back to form a cold trail along the base. “Or should I go collect from your john?”
“No,” I said the word too quick. I knew it the moment I gasped it out.
His eyes lit up with the closest thing to joy I’d seen on him. “So that’s it. You’re saving your man? Did you go and want someone else too good for you?”
“I don’t care about him. He’s nothing.”
“Right. Right. I’m sure that’s why you’re trying to protect him. This just got a whole lot more interesting.” He laughed like he was genuinely excited. He thought for a minute, the flat side of the blade against his bottom lip, his tongue teasing the edge. “Let me guess, you seduced him, but he likes you for you?” He laughed. “You really are an idiot. Men will say anything it takes to fuck you. Wow, I’m gonna have men paying thousands of dollars to fuck you and that little shit got to do it for free. I’m impressed. Wonder what he’d think if he saw you like this.”
He gestured to the mirror. My reflection was appalling, hunched and shaking, naked and grotesque with blood smeared down my back and legs. I couldn’t look anymore. He released me and I instantly crumpled to the floor. I didn’t feel anything—just a hole in my chest where my heart used to be.
Occum tilted his head side to side and the bones cracked. “I wonder if your man will want you if you’re hideous.”
I looked up from where I crouched and saw such evil I scrambled to get away. I called out for help as he grabbed my hair and dragged me back toward him.
“All this beautiful hair, so pretty and long.”
He held my head up by a handful of hair, forcing me to my knees. The hair was fisted tight and my neck was extended as long as it could go. He moved his knife to my hair. A sob sneaked past my tight throat. He began to cut. The blade was sharp but not designed for this. He had to saw through the mass. It snagged and tugged, pulling at my scalp. Shock had me staring wide-eyed as chunks fell to the floor all around me.
He stopped when my hair was strewn all over the floor, some on my naked body. He had cropped most of it a couple of inches from my scalp, but in patches it still hung a few inches shorter than my shoulder. I was something out of a scary movie. I stared in horror at my reflection, makeup running down my face. I was hideous. I was no longer a human. I was an animal.
“Look at me.”
I’d curled into myself and it took me a second to register his words. When I looked up, his face was as serene as ever.
“Youaregoing to dance for me. Youaregoing to strip. But most importantly, youaregoing to fuck who I tell you to, when I tell you. Because if you don’t, I’ll find your man and I’ll really use this knife. Do you understand me?”
I nodded.
“Say it.”
“Yes.” I knew he would. I knew he would use any excuse to murder Ford. I knew it in my soul that he was filled with evil.
“Good.” He crouched to the floor in front of me. He lifted my chin so I could see into his eyes. He squeezed my chin hard and it might have hurt if I wasn’t so dead inside. “I’m not kiddin’. I will fucking kill him and while I do, I’ll tell him about every single man who passed you around and used your body like the slut you are.”
I saw the death in his eyes. Any bit of my soul that remained was snuffed out with that thought.
He kissed my forehead. “That’s my girl. You’re my number one, you know that. And the VIP room is yours until you pay off what you owe me. See, I’m fair. I kept up my end of the bargain, even though you didn’t keep yours.”
I huddled on the floor.
“Oh, one last thing.” He grabbed my arm and lifted it until the soft inner flesh of my arm was in front of his face. “I need people to remember you’re mine.”
The edge of the blade sliced into my skin and my vision blurred as I screamed. My blood. I couldn't take this. Unable to cope with this new torture, I instinctively pulled away from the physical pain. My body and mind separated, both shutting down.
