AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I need you to call someone about candle modeling. Who was that girl we used last year—” His voice cut off with an ear-piercing shriek.
I’d left the bathroom door open, so he could see me as he skipped down the hall. I spun around, covering my ass.
“Goodluck! Get out of here.”
He gaped at me. “Holy fucking shit!”
“I’m not dressed. Leave!”
But he didn’t leave. He crowded with me into my bathroom, throwing his candle into the sink, where the flame hissed out. “What the fuck happened to you?” Goodluck had gone sheet white. “Holy tears of the goddess. What happened to your butt?”
“Nothing. It was…”
“Oh my God.”
I grabbed Fort’s shirt from the counter and yanked it over my head, its excessive length covering my ass, but Goodluck pushed it up again. He gawked. “You are so, so hurt.”
“I’m not hurt. They look worse than they feel,” I said, pushing his hands away and pulling on my pajama bottoms. “And they were consensual.”
“Consensual with who? The Marquis de Sade?” He let out a soft breath, like my life choices were too awful for him to accept. “Your body is your temple, Juliet. It moves and sustains you. It makes art for the world. How can you hurt your beloved body this way?”
Juliet.He almost never used my given name, so he was using it now to send a message. We were about to have a tragedy, like my namesake. We were going to end up a couple of corpses by the time we were done.
I moved by him, out into the living room where I could have some space to breathe. I wasn’t even sure last night was worth all this. Had The Gallery turned me on? Yes. Did I enjoy it as much as scening with Fort privately?
No. There was something missing, some intimacy or connection, which was probably why Fort liked The Gallery better.
“Are you listening to me?”
Goodluck’s voice brought my head up. “What? What did you say?”
“We can go to the police. Whoever did this—”
“I wanted him to do this.” My words rose over his shocked voice. “For some reason, my body likes to be hurt. I just discovered this. You always talk about discovery, about trying new things, about keeping your soul fresh. I enjoy the way it feels to…to be hurt. It’s called being a masochist.”
He looked more horrified, not less. “Your soul is crying right now. Your body is sick. Your mind is sick if you want that kind of hurt, those bruises, those welts. My God, they’ll leave scars. It’s him, isn’t it?” He ran his hands through his wild hair. “That man from the ad campaign, the one you’ve been running around with, he’s making you think you want this. I told you, he’s worse than Keith. He’s hurting you even worse.”
I put my hands over my ears. “I don’t want to talk about it. What Fort and I do is none of your business.”
“The integrity of your body is my business. You are a human being who must be cared for. You’re my friend.”
He tried to take my hands away from my ears but I held them there harder. Soon we were struggling, pushing at each other like scrapping children. It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I yelled. “I know we’ve had a special, close working relationship. I know you care about me, but Jesus, I need some space right now. If you can’t give me space when I ask for it, then I’ll—”
“What?” he said, interrupting. “What’ll you do, quit? Work for some other artist who’s half as talented as me?”
I covered my eyes. I couldn’t cry now. Goodluck went nuts when I cried. “I don’t want to quit, but I can’t be only yours,” I told him. “You do this every time I date someone. You criticize and poke into my business. You want me to yourself, so you vilify them.”
“Because they’re all assholes,” he yelled. There was no sign of the serene guru here, just a scary, disapproving boss. “It boils down to this, Juliet: you’re either with me, or you’re against me.”
“This isn’t a war!”
He spoke over me. “I need one hundred percent of you, or…”
Or I don’t want you anymore.He didn’t have to say it. I understood it in his hard, unsympathetic gaze.
“Well, thanks for sharing how you feel,” I snapped. I felt judged and shamed. I felt punished all over again, but this time the pain didn’t turn me on. “Maybe this comet is dying out. These things have a physical life.”
