He Wanted A Submissive

trece.

"What the hell were you thinking? Luca, I told you... I told you I didn't want your fucking help." Valerie snarled into the phone.

This was her seventh voicemail she'd left on his direct line at work. 

"What happened to you saying you were gonna win me over with hearts and flowers? With kindness and decency? Literally anything but your money. It went out down the drain with a big shit, obviously." 

She was livid, she didn't understand why he continued to try and buy her. She didn't take his gesture as kind or sweet. She was insulted.

"Honestly, I... thank you for the money, but please. Please don't contact me anymore. Stop helping me."

And as she paced angrily around her room, she ended the call then threw her phone on the bed. Her pride was in shambles. Rather than pay off her apartment she would've much rather have had a shoulder to cry on as she carted her stuff back to her parents' house.

She just wanted Luca to be regular. She wanted regular, and she wanted love.

And he was bringing her money and lust. 

Sliding dramatically down her wall, Valerie put her face in her hands and took a deep breath. She knew having looming eviction over head was great burden to get rid of, but the new thing choking her was the guilt around her neck for even needing help; and now being responsible to pay Luca back.

She felt bound to him, and not even by a contract, but definitely by blood. Her own blood, sweat, and tears would be the only things she had to make enough money to amount to what he just carelessly gave Lucinda. 

Tomorrow was Tuesday, and she'd meet with KJ and Colton tomorrow, sing like a canary, and get two hundred and fifty thousand. She'd need two hundred fifty thousand more to pay off what Luca gave her landlord. He grossly overpaid. The thought made her head hurt.

Valerie hated being indebted to people. She moved out of her parents house in order to pay them back for paying for her schooling. She just never took gifts well.

Getting up from the wall, she made her way into her bed and closed her eyes.

All I wanted was hearts and flowers. He gave me cold hard cash and a half a million dollar debt.

***

The next day Valerie threw herself into her work. She was gonna get the money one way or another.

Nothing new was happening at the restaurant, the same nasty old geezers came and ate their same greasy cheeseburgers and soggy salty French fries.  It was as if the world was gray for a second in Valerie's life, she was just upset at the world. 

She hated her job, she hated why she had to work it, and she hated Luca... or at the moment she felt like she did.

The door of the establishment jingled, signaling the arrival of a new patron entering. Off instinct, Valerie's eyes flickered towards the sound just to appraise the new customer.

It was the balding man she'd followed the night she ran into Luca.

Except now, his face was gaunt and a nasty purple-green bruise adorned his cheek. He was not the neatly kept man she'd initially followed, his clothes still showed wealth, but obviously the money KJ and Colton were alluding to had doubled, maybe even tripled.

Taking this chance to get more info of course before her two hirers came in, Valerie sauntered over to the balding man at the bar. She gave him her routine dazzling smile, he did not return it.