Best Served Cold Novel – Sweet Shameless Stella who was on her knees for a man who recorded her sucking him off. I was ashamed of myself for trusting Noah. I was embarrassed that the only thing he’d found interesting about me was his need for revenge against my father. I was heartbroken that he’d recorded the intercourse that I thought had been life-changing. “How are you?” He asked casually as if we were long-lost acquaintances after he hurt me. “Sweet, wherever it is you’re hiding. Come back. Don’t go because of me. I don’t deserve that. For what it’s worth, what I did wasn’t meant to hurt you, just your father.” “I think you failed on both accounts,” I spoke clearly, my eyes without emotions. “You did hurt me, and my father is as he always is, untouched and unbothered. Have a nice day, Mr. Carter and, once again, congratulations.” I turned away.
Stella “Are you my slave, Sweet Stella?” Noah asked. “Yes.” I clutched the headboard as he pounded into me from behind. He had the palm of his hand on my cherry, putting pressure there, and slowly driving me out of my mind. “You want to come, baby?” “Oh God! Yes.” “Then say you’re my slave, and I’ll let you come.” The video was done well, I thought almost objectively. It showed only my face. Not his. It showed me undressed, not him. He was behind me, hidden by my shame. My eyes filled with tears. I looked away from my father as he watched me have intercourse, while the man who I’d fallen in love with, who I thought was falling in love with me, cared for me, sat across from us, his eyes cold, his expression impassive.
My father slammed his fist on the table when, in the video, I screamed out my climax. “Turn the thing off, Carter.” Noah clicked a few buttons, and the large screen on his desk that he’d turned for us to see went dark. “You stupid woman,” my father said in disgust. “This is the man you spread your legs for? You’re an embarrassment, Stella.” My hands shook, and I couldn’t form words. Silent tears were flowing down my cheeks, tears that I didn’t bother to wipe away. There was no point. I couldn’t stem the flow of emotion, of self-hatred, self-pity, intense remorse, and brutal heartbreak. When I saw my father in Noah’s office when he’d ask me to come over, a few days after we first had intercourse, I foolishly thought he was going to ask my father for permission to marry me. That’s how far from reality I was. “What do you want, Carter?” my father demanded. “Well, Senator, it’s quite simple, really,” Noah spoke clearly, and everything inside me froze.
The same voice had made me feel loved for the first time in my miserable twenty-seven years had turned against me. “You’re so beautiful, Sweet Stella. I can’t believe I have you here with me.” Noah leaned back with a casualness that belied what was happening in his office, the catastrophe that he’d perpetuated. “You’re going to pull your objection to Carter Construction getting the Savannah River Bridge project.” “And you’ll destroy that video?” Noah smiled. Just a few months ago, I’d thought how beautiful that smile was. Now it was a caricature of the beauty I’d loved. “No, Senator. The video stays with me. Insurance. You understand.” My father’s jaw tightened. “You son of a b*tch.” “You started this,” Noah reminded him calmly.
“At least your daughter isn’t a sixteen-year-old kid like my sister was. She’s a grown woman who made her choices. Neveah was a child when you used an intercourse tape to blackmail my father into stepping down from running for District Attorney. I’m letting you run for office without the world finding out what a hotwanker your daughter is in the sack.” My heart stuttered at his words. Just a few days ago, his words had been an antithesis to his truth. “You’re the sexiest and most sensual woman I’ve ever had intercourse with, Sweet.” “I cannot give you the power to keep blackmailing me with that video,” my father stated angrily.
Noah shrugged. “My father killed himself, Senator, after you made him watch his sixteen-year-old having intercourse with a boy you hired to seduce her.” “Neville died in a car accident because he was an alcoholic,” my father snapped. Neveah? His sister? A tape? I looked from my father to Noah. Neither was seeing me. They were caught up in their own drama, past and present colliding. This was some kind of revenge scheme, I realized. And I was collateral damage. Not a human being. Not a person with emotions or feelings. “He became an alcoholic because you ruined his life. I’m not destroying your life, Senator. I’m just asking you to stop being a wanker,” Noah continued. “Take your thumb off the scale when it comes to Carter Construction, and let the process play out fairly. I don’t need you to win a contract, I just need you to stop interfering with my business. You started this war by first with my father and now me. I hope this is a lesson you learn well.”
And what about me, Noah? I wanted to scream. What about my heart? My dignity? What did I ever do to deserve this? Sins of the father, I thought. A physical pain ripped through me as I looked at my father’s profile with exhausted eyes and a weary heart. My father got up. He turned to me, and my gaze dropped to my lap. I didn’t have the courage to look him in the eyes. I was humiliated. I wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. “Your punishment, Stella, is that I’m pulling my funding from Savannah Lace. I want my money back. You have sixty days.” He then spoke to Noah like I didn’t matter any longer. More than ever, I knew he wished I didn’t exist—that my mother had taken his money for an abortion instead of stubbornly keeping me and forcing him into marriage.
“You vow that video will not see the light of day, and I’ll make sure you have the most profitable construction company in Georgia in the next six years of my senate term.” This would be his last senate term, which was why he was desperate to have it, to say goodbye to political life on a high. “You have a deal, Senator.” I heard Daddy walk out of Noah’s office. I sat rooted in the chair, not sure how the world around me had collapsed suddenly, how all the colors of springtime had become gray and dull. “Do you need anything, Stella?” Noah’s voice was hard as steel. He’d never spoken to me this way once in the past three months that we’d been…what? What had we been doing? I thought we were dating. But he saw me as a lamb being prepared for slaughter. And now I lay at his feet, bloody. An open, throbbing wound in my chest.
I shook my head. I wanted to get away from him, but I didn’t know if my legs could carry my weight. I didn’t know if I could carry the heavy pieces of my heart. “Then I must ask you to leave. My next meeting is in ten minutes.” I nodded, feeling lost. I rose on unsteady legs. I looked down at my outfit and stifled the hysteric laugh that was waiting to bubble out. I’d worn a blue sheath dress because Noah liked the color on me. I’d thought, when I saw my father in his office, that it would look good in the engagement photos. Stupid, stupid Stella. I picked up my bag, and glanced at the bracelet on my slender wrist. A Cartier tennis bracelet. I was wearing it in the video. He’d given it to me the night we had intercourse. The one and only time we had intercourse. I removed the offending piece of jewelry because it was burning my skin. I set it on his desk and, without a word, walked out of his office on the Savannah riverfront. — Our affair lasted only three months.
There hadn’t been time for playing like snow bunnies in Aspen, nor for the getaway to Martha’s Vineyard he had suggested for the Fourth of July weekend. How could he have so blithely lied about all the things he said we could do in the next few months, when he had no intention of that ever happening?And why did it still wound me? I wondered how long the memories would assail me. How long would this wound take to heal, when none of the others had ever healed? Would this be yet another open, bleeding, throbbing gash in my heart? I shook myself, not wanting to slide into the deep, dark hole of depression that was threatening to claim me, one I wanted to drop into so I could stop feeling quite so much pain. I had people who I was a few steps beyond acquaintance with, like Luna, Nova, and Aurora. But we weren’t close. Or rather, I had not let them in. I told no one about Noah or what he’d done. No one had known we were even dating.
What would I say? I was ashamed of myself for trusting Noah. I was embarrassed that the only thing he’d found interesting about me was his need for revenge against my father. I was heartbroken that he’d recorded the intercourse that I thought had been life-changing; he’d made it dirty, and somewhere in that process, I had become tainted as well, unclean. No matter how many times I washed myself, Noah’s smell remained on me. He’d orgasmed inside me, on my stomach, my breasts. We’d had intercourse…no we had banged all night long. It had been intense. The next morning, we had taken a shower together, and he’d banged me against the wall. He had made breakfast. Silver dollar pancakes that he served with orange honey, which he told me he’d bought specifically for me, because I’d once mentioned how much I liked it.
“When did you buy it?” I asked as I drizzled honey on my pancakes. “A week after we met.” “You were that confident that you’d feed me breakfast one day?” “Hopeful, darlin’. I was hoping and wishing and praying.” “Yeah?” He k-ssed my mouth, licked a drop of honey from my lips. “Yeah. And you, Sweet, were absolutely worth it.” The tears fell and I couldn’t stop their flow when I was so exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep, because grief was a living thing inside me. My family had kept telling me how I wasn’t worth loving, but I refused to believe them and, instead, held on to the fantasy that they were wrong, that someday, Prince Charming would arrive on a white horse and sweep me away. Now, I knew better. Bitterness coated my heart, blackening its pulse. I wasn’t important to anyone. I wasn’t even important to me. Sweet Stupid Stella was a doormat, a pushover, someone who got used. Sweet Spineless Stella was an imbecile without any dignity.
Sweet Shameless Stella who was on her knees for a man who recorded her sucking him off. Sweet Stella who had whored herself. The voices inside my head grew louder and louder until all I could hear was how repulsive I was. I resolved to live my life untouched by others, in a way that required me to feel the least amount of any emotion. Happiness was not worth it when sadness was so painful. I would survive, as I always had, by shutting down. That day, I gave myself over to the darkness of depression, as I had once given myself to the joy and vivacity of life, so I could live another day without feeling the physical debilitation of heartbreak.