Soul Debt Terms of Payment by Sarah Barimen

Author:Sarah Barimen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: BIN 06247-02007
Published: 2013-03-04T19:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

I couldn’t arrange to be at my penthouse the day the third payment came due. I wanted to be; I would have preferred by far to be on my own turf, in my own territory. Actually, I wanted to be in my own bed, since as exciting as it is to be wildly fucked up against your own desk in front of floor-to-ceiling windows in a corner high-rise office, or for that matter in the front seat of a brand new Jaguar, there’s a lot to be said for the cushioning mattresses provide.

He found me in a hotel room in Paris. I’d shut myself in, the better to savor the moment of solitude after a day full of meetings, parties, paparazzi, sycophants, and what I think was meant to be American-style food, as if anyone goes to France to eat things you could have gotten at home. He knocked on the door and let himself in without an invitation. I’m not convinced he used a key, and I’m fairly sure I had the security chain on, but that hardly matters now. My indignation died on my lips. No one could have mistaken him for a bellboy, least of all me. “The hallway is full of your adoring fans,” he said as he slammed the door closed on someone’s foot, waited for the yelp, and closed it all the way a moment later.

“I know. That’s why I didn’t go out. I knew you’d find me, and a crowd would make things awkward. Payment is due.”

“Yes.”

“Can we talk first, or is that not allowed under the contract?”

“Talking will not substitute for payment, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wasn’t.” I studied him. He looked the same as I remembered from the first two times: lean, intense, and handsome in a suit that had been cut, to the thread, to flatter him. I tried to decide whether I had the courage to ask him who his tailor was, and opted not to risk it. I felt the first stirrings of arousal just from looking at him. Maybe it was because I knew he wasn’t a man. I asked, “Can you take the payment without the sex?”

His brows lowered. “Can I take the allotted portion, you mean? Yes.” He pursed his lips. “You wouldn’t like it. It -- hurts.”

Looking at him, I saw a man. Listening to him, I heard something alien. “It hurts anyway,” I pointed out.

“Yes,” he said, as if he were stating the obvious.

“So what you’re basically doing is -- what? Offering a service, like an anesthesiologist?”

“I do not take away sensation. I provide alternative nerve stimulus.”

“So you’re saying it’s kind of a sexual sensory processing override technique.”

He looked at me blankly. For a moment I thought I’d shorted out his brain. For a fraction of a second, I even wondered if he would forget his purpose for finding me in a hotel in Paris. Finally, however, he spoke again. “I am saying that if you prefer to forego the attendant experience, that can be arranged.

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