Peppard, not in his cigar-munching A-Team days but when heâd played Paul in her favorite Audrey film, Breakfast at Tiffanyâs . She spent the next hour watching him work the crowd, oozing quick wit and debonair charm, his thick sandy blond hair clipped short and combed smoothly back, his well-built body sheathed in a custom-tailored suit, and his blue eyes clear and bright, not fogged as they so often were now. Somehow he managed to make the simple act of lighting his cigarette, from a personally engraved lighter no less, seem like a sexual act. Finally he forded his way to her, the fresh glass of champagne in either hand sufficing to claim her as his for the night. Accepting the flute with a smile, sheâd felt more like a prom queen than a prostitute. Ending the evening in his hotel room had felt both natural and inevitable. The next day he called her agency and booked the first of several months of solo âdates.â By the time heâd gotten around to asking her to leave that life and let him take care of her, she was too giddy to give any answer other than yes.
That first year heâd been endearingly polite and boyishly romantic, making her feel more like a fiancée than a mistress. Yes, of course, there was the issue of his wife and young son to surmount, but when he swore heâd ask Katharine for a divorce when the time was right, Honey persuaded herself he must be sincere. In the meantime, every âdateâ was a delightful adventure, another page added to their unconventional fairy tale. Caviar and vodka at the Russian Tea Room, intimate late night suppers at Balthazar, shopping sprees to Tiffanyâs and Bergdorfâs, carriage rides through Central Parkâit was as if Manhattan was their personal playground, as if the gloriously Happily Ever After vision of the future sheâd once conjured to keep out the fighting was finally hers, bestowed by a charming if not wholly available prince.
The crash of 2008 had changed him, or at least it had justified his changing. He started drinking more and more, even dabbling in drugs. And he was angry, always so angryâat the clients, the market, the federal government and, most of all, her. The thoughtful scheduling of their âdatesâ stopped. A text message was the most warning she could hope to get. She couldnât ever know when he might show upâor what mood heâd be in when he did.
But whether he was jubilant or brooding or furious, whether it was a bull market or a bust, whether heâd made or lost millions for his latest top-tier client, he was always, always in the mood for sex. Not the gentle passion heâd shown her when they still âdated,â when she was self-sufficient in her way, when sheâd still had other men and other options. Now all he wanted was to take her roughly, bend her body and will to his. Forcing her down on her knees to suck him off had gone from occasional âplayâ to their standard scenario. The way he held her head, her long hair balled into his fist, his cock jamming down her throat until she could barely breathe beyond the gagging, always with him fully dressed except for his open trouser fly, made her feel less like a mistress and more like a slave. And not even a cherished slave, which since coming to New York sheâd learned existed, but a piece of dirt stuck to the sole of his Prada wingtips, something he might decide to scrape off at any time on a whim.
As the scenarios in Drewâs playbook got progressively more brutish and one-sided, there were no more safe words, no more beforehand discussions to ensure that whatever happened was consensual. And if she let on how much she loathed it, all of it, he would punish her, not in play but for real. Hiding what she was thinking and feeling wasnât about being mysterious, not anymore.
It was about self-preservation.
But so long as she bore it, so long as she pleased him, heâd still
R. K. Ryals, Melanie Bruce