Selling Out
tongue. The more I flustered and bungled it, the more excited he
got, hard and urgent, seeping cum into my mouth. His words were sweeter than he
had ever used with me, almost painful to hear: yes, you’ve got it, just like that, you’re so brave.
    For my part, I played the role like I had been paid to do
it. That was how I liked it; I didn’t have to care, and that couldn’t be real
fear. It was just a job, just another part to play.
    Despite my play at inexperience, or because of it, he was
close. So close his pretty words cracked into grunts and groans.
    A knock came at the door. “Shelly, are you in there?”
    Oh, Ella. Uncertain, stricken, I looked at Philip and saw
that it was too late. He was panting, flushed, already there, the sound of her
voice triggering his release into my throat. His orgasm was quiet, the raw
sounds of his breathing easily muffled by the rattling of the doorknob.
    I swallowed.
    After a moment, Ella said, “Okay, I know you’re in there.
Are you mad at me because of what I said?”
    On my knees, with my mouth still tasting of salt and sex, I
couldn’t remember why I would ever be mad at her. I could barely remember a
thing she said either, except “I don’t
know.”
    “I didn’t do anything
to him.”
    “I don’t know. I don’t
know.”
    It was a puzzle. If I found all the pieces, then Ella got
her life back. And I got…what? Redemption, though the idea seemed laughable as
I knelt on the floor, naked and well used.
    Philip nudged me, handed me my clothes, and I realized he’d
already quietly dressed. I tried to read his expression, but he could hide his
thoughts, even from me if he tried.
    But Ella’s expression was clear as day when Philip opened
the door and strode past her: hurt. And then at me: betrayal. With a soft
hiccup, she turned and walked away. That’s right, I thought, because this was
all I had to offer.
    Take of me, but all that was left was flesh.

Chapter Five
    Eight months earlier
    I woke with a start, blinking eyelids that felt sore and
cracked. They felt broken too, jagged red seeping through and orange blurred so
that I wasn’t sure they were open at all. But then a dark face hovered over me.
I couldn’t make out the features, but his eyes were hazy pools of green rimmed
with red, and I knew it was him. Luke.
    He hadn’t left me or had me killed or any other of the
rather unlikely things I had feared. No, he was too good to act on his
justified anger. He was too good for me, but at least he knew it. He’d been
careful to couch his lust for me in furtive glances. We both knew he wanted my
body, and we both knew he wouldn’t fuck me.
    If I had been smarter, I would have taken what I could get.
A rich, handsome man had been willing to pay me for my company, for sex, and
that should have been enough for someone like me. So what if he was a little bit
criminal? So what if it was nothing more than bodily transactions? Philip was a
decent guy. He deserved my loyalty. He certainly paid for it.
    But then Luke had contacted me, with his soulful eyes and
his stiff-as-a-flagpole ideals, and the longing had hit me so hard I couldn’t
breathe. I held myself back from all-out begging, but I found a way to stay
near him: I’d agreed to become his informant. And so I traded in the security
of my benefactor for the hopeless wish on a star.
    It had all come out, and I’d gotten shot, so this was what I
got for it. The white-walled brightness of a sterile room and the beep-beep-beep of some machinery that
was no doubt attached to me through plastic and metal. And Luke’s face,
frowning and worrying and caring about me, and suddenly this whole mess seemed
like the best idea I’d ever had.
    “Don’t go,” I said, but it came out as a groan.
    He seemed to understand anyway. “I’m here,” he said. “I’m
right here. You’re going to be okay.”
    How could I be? And though I’d never seen it coming, it was
somehow a cliché. Shot through the heart. I had been sure

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