Beauty and the Baritone Read Free

couldn’t keep himself from looking at her body; the dress was designed for nothing other. “He said you never chose the paddle or to play with pain. You didn’t like to do that.”
    “I am not happy making another hurt. Even if that person wishes the hurt.”
    “I don’t care for it either.” The dress swayed as she moved and slowly she was coming closer. It was like approaching a wild animal.
I’m harmless, don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you.
    “David’s occasions were an indulgence.” His eyes seemed to move from her thighs to her breasts to her face and back down. He didn’t know where to look. His eyes were greedy.
    “But you did indulge, Senor.”
    “Si, I did. I am a man and there were women who wanted to have, I don’t know all the words.”
    “They wanted what I want.”
    “You called it by a word I dislike.”
    “Debasement? There’s a certain truth to that. Do you want my armchair psychiatrist view?”
    “I do not know what you mean.”
    “My mother told me I was a whore when I lost my virginity to my high school boyfriend. I told her because I thought I was pregnant. I wasn’t but when I found out it was too late. My mother had unloaded all her hate on me and made me feel like my sexual feelings were nothing but my being a slut and a horrible person.
    “When I went to college I was raped at a frat party. The guy who did it told all his frat brothers that I was begging for it. I got a reputation for being a slut when I was a victim. It destroyed me.”
    “I am so sorry.”
    “Thank you. I am also. I sometimes wonder if I might have been different, had a different life if I’d only done something. What would have happened if I’d gone to the police after I was raped? What if I’d gone to a school counselor?”
    “But you did none of that?”
    “No. None of that. Do you want me to take off the dress? I like how you look at me.”
    “No, keep the dress on. I’m not ready for you, Carolina.”
    “Then let me tell you more of my story. Because I started to go crazy in college. I drank, I took drugs. And I fucked. I didn’t care about myself. I was too chicken to kill myself but too damaged not to try to do it in other ways.
    “I never said no to anyone. Get me a drink or a snort and I’d open my legs. I didn’t feel anything. I was so numb I might have well been dead. I don’t know how I managed to graduate but I did. And I got my Masters and then got a job and somehow I kept going.
    “I slowly started climbing out of that pit. I stopped taking drugs. I stopped drinking. And I stopped dating. I became a drone.”
    “You lived the life then that I live now.”
    “Yes. I continued not to feel. And then I met Gene. He was the musical director of an opera company that employed me. He was married. He told me when we met that he was going to fuck me but not fall in love with me. He was right on both counts.
    “He wasn’t very nice to me but I didn’t mind that. In fact, secretly I liked it. I liked that he had a wife and it tormented me. I lived for his attention and I rarely got it. Usually the only way I could get him was by sex.”
    “And you hated it?”
    “I loved it. Deep down it was exactly what I wanted. He treated me terribly, used me and it made me feel more alive than anything else.”
    “This was not healthy.”
    “I know. But my psyche is what it is. The only men that managed to get me were those who were unavailable and uninterested emotionally. David helped me see that I didn’t have to turn to married men to get what I wanted. I need a man who can use me.”
    “I am not that man Carolina.”
    “Can you fall in love with me?”
    He hesitated. She saw it on his face. He hated the truth.
    “No,” he slowly admitted, “I cannot.”
    “Would you be able to tie me to your bed and use my body for your own pleasure?”
    He couldn’t help himself. He looked at her breasts and his breathing quickened.
    “Damn you and damn David too.”
    That was answer