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“Are you fucking kidding me?” I circled around him so my back wasn’t to the wall anymore and lowered my improvised weapon as I asked, “Do you actually think a heroin addict was capable of giving consent?”
“You weren’t high when you signed the contract.”
“No, but I was craving my next fix. I needed it so bad that I was about to crawl out of my skin. I was also broke, so I had two choices—sell myself to you in exchange for drugs and let you torture me, or take my chances turning tricks on the street corner. I honestly have no idea why I found you less frightening than hopping in some stranger’s car and potentially winding up in a shallow grave.”
He said, with a total lack of irony, “Because you knew I’d never hurt you.” A humorless laugh slipped from me. “I’m serious. Yes, I’d absolutely inflict pain during our sessions to get myself off, and you do raise a good point about dubious consent. But when you weren’t naked in my dungeon, did I ever once raise a hand to you? Did I ever give you a reason to fear me?”
“No. But how the hell can you stand there and somehow justify keeping me so drugged that I barely knew up from down? You preyed on my addiction, Simeck.”
“Yes, I probably did.” I was surprised to hear him admit it. “I had little else to offer you and no other way to convince you to stay with me. But let’s face it, you would have been using with or without me. Heroin was the center of your universe. That and Gabriel, which is why I kept buying him for you.”
“Don’t act like you were this saintly guy who kept hiring Gabriel for my benefit. I know you fucked him.”
“Of course I did. He’s a beautiful boy, and I enjoyed the hell out of him. But afterwards, I’d always let him go upstairs and spend the night with you, because I knew you needed him.”
I rubbed my forehead to try to ward off the headache that was brewing and muttered, “I really hate how you keep trying to make yourself the good guy in every scenario.”
“No, I’m definitely not trying to do that. I’m rotten through and through. I know this about myself, but I just—”
He stopped talking abruptly, so I asked, “What?”
Simeck shrugged. “I guess I want you to see me for who I really am, which, granted, is a pretty awful picture. But the picture you’ve painted of me seems to be a hundred times worse, so I can’t help but argue my case, even if it’s a giant waste of time.”
A few seconds ticked by. Then I asked, “Why’d you come into this shop looking for Gabriel?”
“Because he was the only person who knew where you’d gone, and I wanted to find you. There was no other way to track you down. I didn’t even know your last name, since the one you gave me was a lie. I figured whoever had made that advertisement would have a way of getting in touch with him, and that in turn would lead me to you. I obviously never expected to find you here in person. That was a shock.”
I said, “I’m surprised you recognized him with his face covered.”
“I knew it had to be him the moment I saw the photo, because I remember that tattoo and that tight little body vividly.” His leering smile made me sick to my stomach.
“After I left, there was a night when your men tracked Gabriel down and tried to bring him to you.” I held his gaze and asked, “If they’d succeeded and he refused to answer your questions, what would you have done? Would you have killed him?”
“Certainly not.”
“But you definitely would have slapped him around, maybe even tortured him.”
“I really wanted to know where you’d gone.” That was a yes.
After a pause, I said, “Gabriel spent the last four years absolutely terrified of you. Obviously he was afraid you’d catch him and try to beat my location out of him, but I don’t think that fully explains it. What did you do to make him that scared of you?”
Simeck crossed the room and sat back down in the chair while I watched him closely. He unbuttoned his suit jacket to get comfortable, then leaned back and said, “Gabriel was pretty savvy. He understood the nature of the agreement you and I had made, and he knew it was mutually beneficial. I know he asked you to leave repeatedly, but he didn’t try to drag you out of my house, even though it must have broken his heart that you were letting yourself get tortured. I think he assumed, like I did, that as a masochist and a submissive you needed what I was doing to you as much as you needed the drugs.” That actually wasn’t what I’d needed at all, but I didn’t bother to correct him.
