Part Twelve

Grant didn't need any explanations, not really. Everything he needed in order to know the sickening, horrible truth was etched on Lisa's face, in her disheveled clothing. In the accusatory stare she pierced him with before she walked out the door, taking the life he had built for himself with her. Everything he'd worked for, everything he'd sacrificed for all these years, had been shattered by the scheming, soulless, painfully beautiful whore sitting on his couch. Paulie had taken it all - Grant's determination not to give in to his basest desires, the career he'd worked for, his painstakingly rebuilt relationship with his father. Even his fianc�e. In a matter of days, this motherfucking little shit had stolen everything that made his life livable. There was nothing now - nothing to keep him from giving in to whatever it was he felt boiling in his gut, blinding him with emotions gone out of control.

And the worst part of all, the very worst, was that Paulie didn't give a fuck. How could he have let himself be so stupid, so pathetic? He'd left the boy here, alone in his apartment, and gone out to try to help him. Strained his own morality, risked his badge, just to make things okay for a stranger whose big blue eyes had sucked him in, made him feel things he'd never allowed himself to experience before. What an asshole he was, anticipating telling Paulie the good news, hoping it would make him grateful enough to fall into the detective's arms with soft words and eager kisses. And all the while, Paulie had been plying his trade, using his charms - and if that didn't work, his slaps and wiry strength - to get his dick into Grant's woman. What better way to destroy the detective, in so many ways at once?

Paulie's taunts were just the excuse Grant needed to lose it. He wanted to, needed to, and that sensuous voice calling him a pussy was the spark lighting the fire. Pussy? He'd show Paulie who was the fucking pussy. The boy thought he was the MAN here, did he? That he could have everything he wanted, fuck everything he wanted, TAKE everything he wanted?

The contact of his shoe shoved into the pit of Paulie's stomach felt so fucking good, the way it crumpled the boy even better. That's what he wanted, what he needed - to whip every trace of smugness off that pretty face, beat it out of that scrawny body that had no right to his girlfriend - or such a big cock.

"C'mon, little scumbag," he ordered, hands twined in Paulie's long silky hair, dragging him along. The boy's whined complaints stoked his lust to inflict pain, to get back the upper hand. To get back SOMETHING. He'd show the little whore who was a man. Movements on automatic, he yanked Paulie's arms behind him, snapped on the cuffs and stripped him without even thinking. The kid was lucky he wasn't going to shoot him in the fucking head, that's what he deserved goddammit.

The first few whacks of his palm against Paulie's ass were delivered so fast he barely felt the sting on his own skin, barely registered the boy's protests. The physical exertion of raining blows on the firm flesh felt good, the sense of his own power flooding him even better. This was how it should be, Paulie slung helplessly over his knee, bare-assed, struggling. No more quick come-backs, smartassed put-downs. Moretti wasn't playing his game anymore. He wanted this to hurt, wanted it to knock that bravado right out of the boy. The tears that had streaked his face before, the detective didn't believe. But the tears that would start to flow soon, those he could trust. He wanted to see Paulie beaten - physically yes, but even more, the detective wanted to break down the self control that the kid always seemed to possess. Just like his own carefully maintained self control was crumbling.

Moretti didn't hold back. His arm was strong, and each blow reddened the pale skin of Paulie's buttocks more, until every inch was covered with angry blotches. Fuck, the boy looked hot like that, his back arched, hips wriggling as he tried to avoid the punishing smacks. His thin body shook with rasping breaths, his head pitched forward against the arm of the couch each time Grant hit him, only to be yanked back violently by his bound wrists. The muscles in his skinny arms strained painfully as Moretti held him prone. And with each slap, the detective heard his own breath expelled in a husky grunt, in cadence with the boy's ever softer moans. If anyone had been listening, it would have sounded like they were fucking. The thought hardened Grant's cock, trapped underneath the boy's squirming warm body.

Grant could feel the wet heat of the boy's sweat against his thighs, hear his pleas become more desperate, less demanding. He was winning, and he knew it. The upper hand was his, and he relished it. When he felt Paulie's lithe body begin to move in time with his blows, hips undulating with an unmistakable sensuality, Grant knew the boy was starting to get off on the pain. Losing his resolve to fight back in the intoxication of sensation. He felt the cock sliding against his thighs stiffen, knew that Paulie was squirming now not to escape, but to rub against him. How tempting it was, to part those flaming cheeks and sink his finger deep inside, claim Paulie's ass as his. But he knew the boy wanted it now, and that made him determined not to do it. No matter how badly his own body wanted to.

What a rush, to see his captive raise his smarting ass for more punishment, arching like a she-cat waiting to be stroked, desperate for the touch of the detective's hand. Grant wanted to believe the boy was his, that the tears that streaked his pretty face were as much from regret as from pain. His fingers petted the boy's raised ass, smooth and soft as a babe's even after all the dicks that had surely been shoved up it, enjoying Paulie's soft hitching sobs, the way he continued to thrust against Grant's legs drunkenly. Even the way his slender wrists were hugged by the cold metal cuffs turned Moretti on, the discomfort that he knew they were causing.

Paulie hadn't fought him. Whatever game he was playing, he was playing it well. He had submitted to the cuffs, to the spanking - hell, he'd even sobbed out an apology. He must have known he'd pushed things too far, and now, in the true fashion of a whore, he was willing to do whatever he had to in order to get what he wanted. Poor desperate Paulie.

Grant lifted him almost effortlessly, pushed him onto his back and leaned him against the back of the couch. Now that he could meet the boy's eyes, his resolve wavered momentarily. So sincere, the look of anguished desire, of tortured want, in his eyes. Part of Grant wanted desperately to be tender, to give in to the impulse to rescue the lost little boy pleading for forgiveness. Sweet to wipe the tears from his cheeks, to see him raise his voluptuous lips, searching for a kiss.

But sweeter still to deny him. To see him discarded, rejected. Naked and beaten on the floor, curled up in his misery. That was where he fucking deserved to be, how he deserved to feel. He was pathetic. Sobbing like a baby, helpless.

Grant's breath caught in his throat, the lump there growing as he stared down at the boy, watching his thin sides shake with the sobs he no longer tried to stifle, the slats of his ribs obvious as he sucked in each sniffling breath.

And even like that, or maybe more like that than ever, Paulie was dead sexy. Moretti couldn't deny his desire, couldn't stop his eyes from sweeping over every inch of the boy's nakedness. The curve of his ass as he drew his legs up, still blotched and red from Grant's smacks. The bony contours of his knobby spine and slim hips, so boyish in his gauntness. In contrast was the lustrous dark hair that swept down over the back of his neck, curling slightly at the ends from contact with Paulie's sweat-soaked shoulders. From where the detective stood, he could see only the boy's profile, but even that was enough to make his breath catch. Eyes closed, long lashes glistening with the tears that leaked steadily, rolling down his nose to dribble onto the floor. His lower lip, so recently split and bloodied, trembled with each quiet sob. He looked like a kid. Some abused little boy who'd wandered into the wrong alley and gotten more than he'd bargained for.

Grant turned and fled the room, the lump in his throat growing. Paulie was not that, he told himself. He was not some helpless innocent, he was a cold calculating wordly little prick who had schemed and seduced to ruin Moretti's life. Who only wanted the detective to want him so he could get away with the almost-murder that might have sent him to prison and fucked up his sordid little world. Maybe if the detective didn't have to look at him, he would remember the truth.

As his adrenaline rush subsided (and his erection with it), Moretti sank down on his bed, suddenly exhausted. What was he supposed to do now? Everything was changed, and there was nothing he could do to make it right. The world knew he was a fake. He had nothing.

The ringing of the phone so jolted him, that Grant picked it up without thinking, mumbling an automatic hello.

"Grant?"

His stomach lurched. "Lise?"

She was composed, her voice almost sounded normal. "I wasn't going to call," she said.

Maybe he could salvage this after all, Moretti thought. The momentary hope of a desperate man. "Lisa, god, I'm glad you called. I'm sorry, god, I'm so sorry."

"Are you Grant?"

He was almost babbling in his eagerness to somehow turn this disaster around, reclaim the things he most wanted. "I am, god, you know I am, listen, let me come over there, we need to talk, please? Lisa?"

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then her eerily calm voice again. "What are you sorry for, Grant?" Each word spoken with measured emphasis.

"What for?" he repeated numbly, confused.

"Yes Grant, what for," she said again in that emotionless voice. It was giving him the worst feeling in the pit of his stomach, the way she was talking. So cold.

"For . . . for not . . . Lisa, I can explain . . . " he tried, not sure what she wanted him to say. Could he explain? Could he convince her that Paulie had been lying, with whatever he'd told her?

Grant never got time to ponder his own possible lies. On the other end of the line, Lisa's composure shattered with a screamed retort to his attempt.

"YOU CAN EXPLAIN??" she shrieked at him, so loudly that he instinctively held the receiver away from his ear, to no avail. "What can you explain, you motherfucker? Can you explain why you've lied to me for two fucking years? Why you asked me to marry you and made me believe that's what you wanted?"

"But I DO want that, I . . . "

"SHUT UP! Shut the fuck up, don't fucking tell me you want that. You don't want me, you never wanted me, never."

"I did, no, I mean I do, Lise, please," he interrupted, but halfheartedly now. There would be no excuses, he realized with a sinking feeling. That wasn't why she had called. And now he had to sit here and take it, whatever it was she wanted to dish out to him. He deserved it, didn't he?

"Why did you do it, Grant? Why?" She didn't pause for him to answer, didn't expect one. "Jesus, how could I not have seen it. You're so fucking perfect, DETECTIVE Moretti, aren't you? Always doing everything right. The perfect son, the perfect cop, the perfect fianc�. I was just part of the fa�ade, wasn't I? You needed me to act out the part you wanted to play - and I was PERFECT too, wasn't I? Is that why you picked me, Grant? Not because of who I am, not because you wanted to spend your life with ME - not because you wanted to FUCK me - but because I could play the part of your wife, so nobody would ever suspect your dirty little secrets."

She paused, her composure gone, sobbing in her fury as she spit the words at him. "You're a fucking queer, Grant, and you know it. And you're a fucking coward. Pretending to be out there "cleaning up the hookers" and all the time you're just picking them up and getting your dick sucked. Bet you get off on that too, don't you? Being the big man, the one in uniform. Did all the little whores compete to see who gets to swallow your cock, huh?"

Moretti was stunned. He could hardly believe this was Lisa on the phone. This vulgar, this venomous? He found himself speechless in the face of her accusations.

"You know what the WORST thing is, Grant? The thing that hurts the most?"

"No," he said quietly, defeated.

"It's that I don't even know you. You let me fucking LOVE you and I don't even know you. Who do I love? Some cardboard cutout of a man who's been pretending to be something he's not ever since the day we met?"

Grant swallowed hard. It was true, and he knew it. How often had he been himself with her?

"You didn't trust me enough with the truth, Grant? That's how you see me - some shallow, uptight bitch who only cares about the rock on my finger and the white picket fence around the house we're gonna live in. Is that what you think of me?"

"No," he repeated lamely.

She paused, finally. He could hear her breathing rapidly. "What pisses me off the most is that I ended up trying to be someone I'm not too. You were so perfect, it just seemed like I had to be the same. What woman wouldn't want what you were offering, what did I have to complain about?"

Brow creased with confusion, Moretti struggled to understand what she was saying.

"I should have known there was something missing, something wrong between us. But I didn't want to look long enough or hard enough to find out what it was."

"You did?" he finally managed, incredulous. She'd never given any indication that she was anything but content.

Lisa continued as though she were talking to herself, ignoring his question. "Maybe if I ignored it, it would go away. Get better . . . " Her voice trailed off with a sigh, and he could hear the quavering of a near-sob. What had he done? She hadn't deserved any of this. And all this time, he'd thought he was doing the right thing.

"I'm sorry, Lise." He meant it, in more ways than he could describe.

"Fuck you, Grant," she replied, but both the coldness and the rage were spent. There was more a wistful sadness in her voice than anger when she delivered her parting shot. "You know, the best fuck you ever gave me was the night you were imagining being with him. Think about that, Detective Moretti." And the phone went dead.

continue...