Page 68 of Rush of Jealousy

Leave!

I watch as Mark pulls a keycard out of his back pocket and inserts it into the slot on the door. He mumbles something about doing a lot of business in this room so the hotel reserves it for those purposes.

Nothing makes sense.

My head fogs and I lean sideways, catching myself on the door frame. I drop my handbag and stumble to the floor to retrieve it. I push items that have escaped out of the side flap back inside, struggling to keep them there. I look up and see Mark eyeing me with a smirk. It is the opposite of comforting. I hoist myself back up, as ungracefully as one could while wearing five-inch stick heels. I lean against the frame and hunch my shoulders forward. I am so tired. It’s like my neck is in charge of holding up my head and is failing miserably. It slumps forward, hitting against the wooden plank.

“Come on, Angie,” Mark coaxes.

His words echo in my ears, as if the phrase is set to loop. My vision blurs and I blink hard to refocus. I glance around the space from my stance, reluctant to cross the line between the hallway and the actual room. Nothing seems unusual just from a visual perspective. There is a table set up with some file folders. I can almost see the newspaper’s logo across the top one, but my vision keeps fading in and out. I am too far away to see the details. There is a bed along the right side of the room. A stocked minibar, as well as an ice bucket with what looks to be champagne resting in it, is set up along the back wall.

“He should be here soon,” Mark comforts.

His words sound distant in my ears. Like he is in some tunnel and the echo is what you would hear if you were trapped in a seashell. He saunters over to me and squeezes my elbow gently. He guides me inside, despite my feet feeling like they are encased in cement.

“Let’s have a drink,” he says calmly. “It will help you relax.”

I try to shake my head no, but I can’t tell if I actually do it or not. It is like I am able to see my surroundings but not have much control over my own body. I hear a thump and look down to see the portfolio I thought I was clutching scattered on the floor. Heaps of papers just lay at my feet. I stare at my work…at my articles and my writing papers and my graded documents over the course of four years. All of my hard work just littered all over the carpet of a luxury hotel room, like trash.

I disentangle my perceived expectations from reality. What I thought was going to happen and what is actually happening are two vastly different things. I look around at my surroundings as if I am seeing them for the first time, trying to figure out how I managed to get myself here.

“Sta-sta…” I stutter. “Eve is is…” My mouth feels like it is stuffed with marshmallows. “Isn’t co-co-coming is he?” My words are sad even to my echoing ears. Mark guides me over to rest on the king-size bed. The room is exactly what it should be—warm, open, comforting. For about four hundred dollars a night, this hotel room should be worth every penny. I might appreciate the beauty if I wasn’t chin deep in dilemma after dilemma.

He shakes his head. “Had to cancel last minute.”

So here I am. In a position I thought I would never find myself in again, at least not with a man I barely know. A man I have been warned against. When in reality, I am nothing more than a naive girl who fell for a trick.

I didn’t fall asleep and wake up in this nightmare. No. I got here by my own two feet. And that’s the worst part of this all.

I did this to myself.

This is all my fault.

I feel nauseous and stupid. Like I just made a colossal mistake by even stepping foot in the lobby of this hotel. Now I am stuck without a clear path to escape and no one to come to my rescue.

Mark presses against my shoulders gently and massages the tension that seems to be building with every passing minute. My temples throb from the loud voices inside my head screaming to get out. Get out now! But I cannot make my legs and arms work. I cannot get them to do the things I need them to do. So I lie here and stare up at the ceiling. It is high and has a scalloped pattern.

Mark nudges my bent knees, causing my legs to spread about two feet apart, trembling and weak. I’m repulsed. At the man, as this level of degradation is unforgivable, but even more, I am disgusted with myself. Despite now knowing that the whole thing was most likely a ruse to get me here right now, he doesn’t know the other side of the coin.

Nope. Not a clue.

The other side is that deep down I know that this is the only way of using his sexual predator-ness to get what I want in return. I find thankfulness in knowing that when I used the restroom at Fortune, I was smart enough to start the recording device that is secured in my handbag. I may have entered this room on false pretenses, but I am at least going to bring hell upon his life once I exit it.

According to key physics principles, every action has a reaction. But according to life, not every action has a justifiable consequence. And rarely are those consequences equal in dynamic.

No one deserves this.

No one.

Sure, I chose to meet with Mark. I chose to believe him. I chose to see hope in something that otherwise was hopeless. My consequence tonight might be that I can no longer live with myself; it might be more than I can bear. Or maybe the consequence will be that this is all for nothing. That I am going to be brutally violated and be left with broken dreams, as well as a broken body.

“Wha-a do?” I ask, amazed that my mouth can even express itself. My words sound incoherent, but the understanding in Mark’s eyes lets me know that he heard them for the intended purpose.

“Just relax. I need to check your reflexes. See what I can do and not do.”

Huh?

“Yoo draa me?”

---