Cruel Pleasure (Book 01)

***

The screaming was her. The screaming was her but she didn't know how to make it stop. They were on top of her, hot foreign organs thrusting inside of her. Their tongue and fingers, their eyes and words caressed and invaded. The suffocating sensation of being thrown around and pressed into the floor and up on a wall assaulted her.

She tasted rancid salty fluids in her mouth, running down the back of her throat. She heard grunting and laughing....but worst of all she saw faces. Bloated, distorted, foggy faces of men she didn't know and one she despised so much it made her nearly bite her tongue in half as her jaw clenched on a tidal wave of resentment.

Maybell clawed and kicked and punched and screamed at them all, but she fought hardest to get to him. To kill him for touching her. Betraying her. Defiling her.

Maybells screams were cut when she was suddenly picked up, and slammed non to gently into the soft bed beneath her. Her arms were locked behind her and Isiah was shouting her name in panicked frustration. "Maybell stop! STOP! Its me!"

Sobbing and panting Maybell couldn't find the words to apologize fast enough. She let her body go limp beneath him, no longer kicking and scratching at him to get free and she instantly found herself in his arms, being rocked and shushed.

"Im...Im sorry..I.." Maybell closed her eyes and pressed her face into his chest. "I had a nightmare!"

Isiah held her tight and close for a long time. He didn't speak for what felt like an eternity...before with a quiet whisper he softly replied. "You were screaming. It woke me because you sounded so scared...and you were crying. Crying and screaming "Reggie get off of me'."

Chapter 34 - Fear

Two weeks later--

The nightmares continued...and in many ways they just made everything harder then Maybell knew how to cope with. She didn't know what cruel joke it was that had made the memories and sensations of her gang rape rise up from her fogged mind but after all of the stress and drama of nearly dying, somehow she was remembering the night of her rape in vivid detail and worst of all it was ten times worse than the memories of the tape.

She felt like filthy garbage. A whore. A slut....

As you can imagine these terrible events drained her spirit, energy and made her barely able to tolerate the most innocent of kisses or caresses without triggering an avalanche of unpleasant memories. Meaning that Isiah couldn't really touch her. Of course May had asked him to take things slow after their ordeals but any progress towards healing the pain in their relationship had come to a clear and harsh stop because the intimacy between them had all but died.

In fact Maybell had such terrifying and aggressive out bursts that it had become completely inadvisable for her and Isiah to sleep in the same bed anymore. Especially since after the nightmares began she had already scratched Isiah so viciously that he had to get five stiches in his scalp, and yet Isiah made no moves to push her away. In fact He was more attentive then he had ever been before. He called her at work, and took her to lunch every day. He went with her on her first run after she had completely recovered from her surgery.

But Isiah seemed both unwilling and unable to talk about the dreams or what they meant for her and him. He knew she was remembering everything but he didn't press her or seem angry about it. He just seemed highly aware of her fragility and unsure what to do to help her which made him that her with kid gloves. Isiah was careful with his touch and voice, but the worse things got the more careful he seemed to become.

It was like he was frightened for her and also scared for himself. Like he was losing her.

Both of them withdrawing, intimacy dwindling to a few soft words at night and a few heated hungry looks from Isiah that he had gotten very good at hiding from her.

Honestly he perhaps desired Maybell, but he didn't want her to know it. He was waiting on her to let him back in...but all she wanted to do was go back in time and make it so none of this had happened to them. To a time when Isiah could kiss her and make love to her for hours and the brutal grunts of other men didn't assault her the second he tried to deepen a single kiss. It was shameful. It was frustrating and maddening that this horribleness haunted her and him no matter what they wanted. It also just made Maybell push him away more.

Adding to the distance and growing shame inside of her was the fact that Maybell didn't have the heart to tell Isiah that at times she had had Nightmares about him as well.

She dreamed about how he had tormented her with pleasure. She remembered his hands clasping her hips as he fucked her hard and deep, his teeth scoring the skin on her shoulder and nape. His cock fucking her mouth desperate and hateful. And even though these memories scared her and unsettled her....they also left her achy, wanting and confused. Maybell wasn't able to ignore how when she had awaken from nightmares about Isiah, her clothes were wet with sweat and underwear sticky with arousal that she couldn't deny but just wasn't comfortable with confronting either.

Maybell didn't know what to think about herself at these times. Was she twisted? Sick? Perverted?

I mean she so clearly recalled how much Isiah's acts had hurt her. He had humiliated her...but she also had to admit that a part of her had enjoyed his total dominion over her at times. The cruelty of the pleasure and his control had taken her mind and body to places she had enjoyed in a dark and sensual way. She could do without his derision, aggression and hatred...but her body and mind wanted to taste the dark pleasure of being controlled by him again. Not to be punished but to be decimated with furious passion at his hands made her crave him.

But she couldn't tell him something so strange...nor could she imagine letting him have so much control over her when she felt like she was days from a mental breakdown. She could barely handle Isiah kissing her without flinching in preparation for a savage bite or having him aggressively fuck her like a cheap sex toy.

The sad truth was that Isiah wasn't anything like the men that had assaulted her, but he had still hurt her. He had still damaged something in her.

Her trust. She feared intimacy with him in a way that was similar to how she feared her memories of Reggie.

And as much as she still loved him and wanted to be with him in all the ways they had been before it seemed they just couldn't go back....and yet Maybell had no idea how to move forwards.

Chapter 35 - Changing Relationships

Isiah rolled over in bed and stared up at the ceiling above him. The silence around him nothing compared to the raging tides of unease and longing that just seemed to get deeper and harsher as the days went on. It had been nearly two weeks since Reggie had been admitted to the hospital...and much more important than that fact, it had been two weeks since Maybells terrible nightmares had begun.

Of course Isiah knew that the nightmares were really just the horrific memories of the things that Reggie had done to her. Every time Isiah recalled how she had screamed and how she had scratched and kicked at him in the grips of her terror and rage...his soul just seemed to break into pieces. He heard the pain, revulsion and hate in her voice when she screamed and cried and he knew that he had been...so wrong to ever believe that she had been with Reggie voluntarily.

That he could believe that she had asked to be taken advantage of in such a horrible way made him hate himself just a little bit more then he already did.

He also felt useless beyond measure when the distance between them just seemed to widen the more that Maybell suffered from her resurfacing memories. Isiah wanted to hold her at night, but Maybell had been forced to leave the mansion entirely and go back to her apartment because she worried that her outbursts could continue to hurt him.

Isiah sighed, ran an hand over his groggy face and then he touched the empty cold sheets to the left of him and he cursed as a hollow pan of want danced across his heart. He missed Maybell, and it went so much deeper then the hunger he had for her body and heart...even though he did hunger for these things. He wanted to monopolize all of her love, and time. He wanted to devour every second of her free time with his fingertips and tongue mapping the winsome curves of her delicate body. He wanted HER. But he also wanted to feel he breaths on his chest as they slept at night. He wanted to run his fingers across her curls and brush her sating coca skin with kisses at night before bed and in the morning before work.

He wanted to look over across the dinner table at a restaurant and see her cute face scrunched up in indecision, petite teeth biting her bottom lip as she gazed at a menu. He wanted to lie beside her as she read a book and listen to her giggle and curse as her excitement built with the narrative she had been swept away by.

He wanted back his best friend and confidant...and lover. In the words of the Fox...Isiah wanted back his Soul mate...because Isiah couldn't have been more certain of anything then the fact that Maybell held his other half inside of her...and he just wanted to bring them together again.

He wanted to have back the unshakable sense that this woman would walk beside him until the end of his days.

Yet....Isiah was faced with the fact that not only had their future been upended, but their present was one filled with uncertainty. Isiah could clearly remember the morning after her last nightmare. Maybell had cut him deeply at the scalp with her nails, causing him to bleed all over the sheets and require him to receive stiches by his right temple. Her ragged breaths and stricken face haunted him. Her large smoky black eyes, damp with tears, and her body shivering had left him speechless, but the worst part of it all was that she had been saying his name in her sleep. Begging him to stop hurting her. Begging Isiah to let her go. Pleading with him not to make her do any dozen of the cruel things he had forced her to do before.

And that was what curdled his blood, the fear in Maybells voice and eyes when he had tried to shake her awake and she had hit Isiah. Knowing that he had damaged her so deeply was debilitating and it punched him in the chest and took his breath away...it left him swarmed with a sense of pure dread.

Dread that he had lost her all over again, after the hope she had given him that they had a chance to make things right. The dread had settled over him, cutting like a barbed knife and sinking deeper as the days and weeks went along and the entire situation took its toll on them. He wanted to have all of her and he wanted them to be one, but he found himself unsure and unable to take the steps forwards from the place they had fallen into.

Isiah waited for Maybell to show him that she was ready to go forwards, that she was ready to trust him and let him touch her again without fear....but every touch made her flinch, every kiss got cut short, and when he lost even the warmth of her beside him at night he felt that he was losing her. She wasn't ready. He didn't know if she ever would be.

Suddenly the soft chime of music and the rumble of his cellphone on the bedside table jerked Isiah from his dark thoughts. Sighing again, something he seemed to be doing at an increasing rate, Isaiah lifted up, shifted his legs off the side of the bed and grabbed the phone. He pressed the button on the side of the case to silence the irritating chime and silence the vibrations in his hand, but the silent call continued to be displayed on the cell screen. The call was marked "Unknown" and the number was one that he instantly knew wasn't normal. For starters the area code was showing as 010.

Isiah spent a few silent moments perplexed by the call, mostly because he had it programmed to default all blocked and unknown calls to his voicemail, but seeing as he had nothing else to do he pushed the green talk button and answered the call.

"Hello? This is Isiah Lee Speaking?"

"Hello Crow....So how are you and your Mate this fine evening?" asked the person on the other line.

The voice was one that he recognized instantly and yet the words were words that he was used to hearing coming out of a feminine voice modifier.

Isiah straightened and put the phone closer to his ear as he scoffed. "Fox...that's you right?" he called out softly. "Orson Wells."

The voice on the other side was quiet for a long moment, then in surprisingly childlike whisper the Fox called back. "Yeah...yeah Im Chris Wells brother and your part time secretary...and the Fox to....Do you hate me?"

Isiah frowned into his phone and shook his head. "Hate you? Why would I Fox?"

The Fox chuckled weakly and something like disbelief colored his voice. "Because I've been lying to you...nearly every time I've meet you since high school I've lied to you about who I really am..."

Isiah scratched at his crown and took in a deep breath, then he breathed out harsh and shrugged. "I got to say Fox...it doesn't exactly make me happy to know that. I realize you lied for a reason all these years...but I can't figure out what that reason would be? I mean the moment you came to me as the Fox why didn't you just come to me as Orson?"

Fox chuckled and he let out a small pent up breath into the phone. Isiah could hear the man moving around on the other end and then finally he responded his voice sounding tight and hesitant. "To be honest Isiah? I didn't reveal who I was to you because of a lot of things. Shame, guilt, and a little bit of fear too."

"Explain it to me....try please." Isiah pressed as Orson fell silent on the other end for a few long moments.

Orson let out a flustered curse and he said. "Okay. Well, basically I...I idolized you man."

Isiah scoffed. "You idolized me? For what exactly?"

The fox took a breath and asked him a question of his own.

"Hey Isiah Maybell told you right? About my father...about...about the things he was doing to us when you exposed him all those years ago?" his voice waive-red and there was a slight tremble of disgust in his tone as he spoke.

Isiah chest tightened as he nodded to himself, then he said out loud. "She told me everything you told her...and Im so sorry Orson. I truly am..."

The Fox cut in, his voice suspiciously thick as if he were holding back emotions. "Its your skill as a Cracker that made me idolize you, and your willingness to help people. I was mortified by what my...my father had done in the past and I really didn't want you to know that I was his son at first. I didn't want you to think I was freak or a monster like him, but I also really wanted to know you personally...so I modified my voice and I reached out to you as the Fox."

Isiah twisted his lips as he thought and then he said. "But then you ended up getting picked and hired on as my part time secretary...and you still didn't tell me who you were even after we had met face to face multiple times Orson."

The man laughed sadly and said back. "Yeah and meeting you in person just freaked me the hell out even more after all these years. I just kind of got scared you know. I got scared to tell you who I was as both Orson and as the Fox because I didn't want you to write me off as a stalker or as someone who couldn't be trusted because I lied to you as the Fox."

Isiah ruminated on these words for a while then he asked. "So tell me honestly...did you only try to help me and Maybell because you Idolize me and you wanted to what exactly? Pay me back because I stopped your father?"

The Fox took a second and said back. "No! That's not it at all!" he cried almost sounding indignant. " I helped you because you were my friend as the Fox. I helped you because I wanted to, not out of any sense of obligation."

Isiah smiled at this admission and he softly mused. "So....are you saying you only want to be friends as the Fox and Crow? Do you want our relationship to stay purely digital from now own? Because if thats how you feel I would understand. I mean you have virtually fallen off the face of the planet for the last few weeks. You didnt even come into to work or call out so I figured you didnt want anything to do with us anymore."

"Nooo thats not it, but...are you saying I can still meet you and talk with you as Orson? Be friends in real life...outside of the Hacker stuff?"

Isiah rolled his eyes slightly and scoffed. "We already are friends Orson." He said back without much inflection or hesitation, because it was a simple truth that Isiah had already come to after he learned from Maybell all about the things the Fox had done for them, and also the fact that the Fox in all the years Isiah had known him had always been helpful and willing to lend their skills to Isiah in a Hacking job.

Silence greeted his words until the Fox quietly breathed into the phone and he said just as soft and innocent as before. "What about Maybell? Can...can I still talk to her you know as both the Fox and as Orson?"

Isiah couldn't help but laugh as he replied. "Orson...Im sure she would love to get to know you more. We both...are grateful for what you did. If you hadn't helped us as much as you did...things would have turned out so much worse in the end."

The call came to a close after a few more minutes, and Isiah sighed as he dropped back on his bed, still keenly aware of the space in his life where Maybell fit. The missing warmth from her side of the bed. The sound of her voice singing in the halls as she play piano in the foyer to pass the time.

Isiah couldn't pretend like he wasn't happy that he had been able to speak with Orson and get the Fox to stop hiding from them, but even the slight joy he felt at having been able to reassure Orson and also make things better for them in the long run as friends...Isiah was still deeply dejected with the way things were going between his and Maybell.

If only the fractured love he had for Maybell and the issues separating them could be as easily repaired with a phone call... in the end all Isiah knew was that he had to keep trying to make things right.....because if he wanted the love of his life to return to him completely he had to believe that she would let him into her heart again...someday soon.

Chapter 36 - First Steps Forwards

The call came out of the blue to Isiah's cell phone. With some hope in his heart the man turned the face down phone on his work desk over so he could glance at the caller ID even though he recognized the ringtone as Maybells.

It had been at least three weeks since his lover had begun to pull away from him and her trauma from her Rape had started to torment her on top of that. Isiah had done everything he could to make sure that she was okay , but he wasn't fool enough not to realizes that Maybell was in a really bad place and that he had to let her have space. He knew he simply couldn't have her close or expect her to let him back in until she was ready.

But it would be a lie to say that he didn't quickly snap the phone to his ear in anxious desire to hear her voice. He missed her and he wasn't afraid to admit that to himself.

"Hey Baby Girl..." he called warmly into the device, as he settled back in his chair and turned around so that he could look out into the diming skyline over the city. It was well past 6:30 so the skies were painted a purples orange, large feathery white clouds faded into the darkness as the setting sun and the rising moon both batted for dominance of the heavens beyond.

"Uh..Baby What!?" called a mans voice back across the phone.

A voice that Isiah was so unprepared for he actually shook his head pulled the phone away, check the caller ID once again then he called back into the speaker harshly. "Who the hell are you?"