Chapter 5: The Hangover
The snoring stopped. A low groan vibrated through Doll’s chest and into Pip’s. For a few suspended seconds, there was only the hum of the jet and the heavy, warm weight. Then, like a switch thrown, the body atop her went rigid.
Doll pushed herself up, her palms digging into Pip’s shoulders. Her face was a monument to ruin. Mascara was smudged into grayish shadows under her bloodshot eyes. Her perfect hair was a tangled cascade on one side, flat on the other. In the relentless morning light streaming through the dimmed window, she looked every one of her years and then some.
She stared down at Pip, at the evidence of the night painted on her small body. The confusion in her bleary eyes hardened into something cold and recognizably dangerous. She rolled off, the movement clumsy, and sat on the edge of the bed, her back to Pip. Her hands went to her temples.
“Christ,” she rasped, her voice shredded. “My head is a war zone.”
Pip lay still, not daring to move. The absence of Doll’s weight felt like a new kind of exposure.
“What happened?” Doll’s question was a demand, shot over her shoulder.
“You… you drank quite a lot of champagne, Ms. Von Hess.”
“I can count bottles, you idiot.” Doll winced, pressing her fingers harder against her skull. “After that. What happened?”
Pip’s heart stuttered. The kiss. The words. My Pip. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Doll turned slowly. Her gaze, sharpening through the pain, swept over the rumpled sheets, the empty champagne flute on the nightstand, Pip’s nakedness, the dried blood on her swollen lower lip. A flicker of something—memory, maybe, or its violent rejection—passed behind her eyes. It solidified into contempt.
“You let me fuck you like this?” she sneered, gesturing vaguely at her own disheveled state. “In this condition? I must have been wasted. You should have stopped me.”
The unfairness of it was a physical blow. Pip had never stopped her, not once in five years. She was designed not to stop her. She swallowed, the motion hurting her bruised throat. “I’m sorry, Ms. Von Hess. It seemed… you seemed to want…”
“I seemed?” Doll cut her off, standing up. She swayed, catching herself on the bedpost. Naked, hungover, she was still terrifying. “Don’t extrapolate. You’re a convenience, not a mind reader. Last night was a messy mistake. A blackout. It didn’t happen.”
She said it with such finality, such brutal, surgical precision, that Pip felt the memory of the kiss physically wither inside her, like a flower blasted with poison. It didn’t happen.
“Now I feel disgusting,” Doll muttered, more to herself. She looked at Pip, her eyes narrowing. “And you look used. Clean me up. Then we’ll deal with you.”
She stalked into the suite’s bathroom without looking back. Pip scrambled off the bed, her legs shaky. She pulled on her underwear and her rumpled blouse, not bothering with the rest. Her hands trembled as she gathered Doll’s discarded clothes.
The bathroom was steamier, filled with the sharp, astringent scent of Doll’s charcoal face wash. Doll stood at the marble sink, gripping the edges, head bowed. Pip approached silently, placing the folded clothes on a heated towel rack. She picked up Doll’s hairbrush.
“Don’t,” Doll snapped, not turning around. “Not yet.”
She straightened then, and in the mirror, her eyes locked on Pip’s reflection. The hangover was congealing into a darker, more volatile energy. The vulnerability of the night had been cauterized, leaving only a raw nerve of anger.
“Come here.”
Pip obeyed, stopping beside her. Doll’s hand shot out, fingers tangling in Pip’s hair, and yanked her down. Pip’s knees hit the plush bathmat hard.
“You’re good at making messes disappear, right?” Doll’s voice was low, conversational. She fumbled with the tie of her robe, letting it fall open. Her cock, half-hard and flushed from sleep and residual alcohol, hung heavy between her legs. “So disappear this.”
The command was clear. Pip leaned forward, her split lip protesting as she opened her mouth. It wasn’t about pleasure. It was an eradication. Doll thrust in, not with the drunken hunger of before, but with a measured, punishing rhythm. She braced one hand against the cold marble, the other gripping the back of Pip’s head, controlling every inch.
Pip closed her eyes, willing her throat to relax. She concentrated on the mechanics: breath through the nose, suppress the gag, swallow. Doll groaned, but it was a sound of relief, of expulsion, not ecstasy.
“That’s it,” Doll breathed, her hips snapping forward. “Just a warm, wet hole. Nothing more.”
Tears welled in Pip’s eyes from the effort, not the words. The words were just facts. She was a hole. She was disappearing the mess. She was good at it.
Doll came with a sharp gasp, flooding Pip’s throat. Pip swallowed diligently, repeatedly, until she was empty. When Doll pulled out, she wiped herself dismissively on Pip’s cheek before turning back to the sink.
“Better,” she murmured, splashing water on her face.
Pip knelt, catching her breath, the taste binding her to the lie. It didn’t happen.
But the proof was on her lip. A tiny, searing monument.
Doll finished at the sink, her composure reassembling piece by piece with each pat of a towel. She eyed Pip, still kneeling, a streak of white on her face.
“Bathroom’s free,” Doll said, her tone flat. “Clean yourself. You reek of me. And then get dressed properly. We land in forty minutes.”
Pip moved on autopilot. A shower. A fresh, conservative outfit from her carry-on. She applied a touch of concealer to the darkening circles under her eyes, but left the split lip alone. Let it show.
When she emerged, Doll was in the main cabin, impeccable in a cream pantsuit, her hair restored to its sculpted waves. She was absorbed in her tablet, sipping black coffee. The only sign of the ordeal was the slight pallor beneath her tan.
The pilot’s voice came over the speaker, announcing initial descent into New York.
Doll didn’t look up from her emails. “Sit.”
Pip took the seat opposite her, back straight, hands folded in her lap. The jet tilted gently. Doll scrolled, sipped, a statue of productivity. As the wheels whined down from their bays, a new tension entered the cabin. The unacknowledged night, the morning’s punishment, it all hung in the air between them, thicker than the clouds outside.
Suddenly, Doll put the tablet down. She didn’t look at Pip. Instead, she reached out, her movement casual, almost indifferent. Her hand settled around Pip’s throat.
It wasn’t a violent grip. It was possessive. A human collar. Her thumb rested over Pip’s frantic pulse, her fingers curled around the nape of her neck, warm and inescapable.
Pip froze. Then, a slow, involuntary heat spread through her veins.
Doll stared out the window at the approaching skyline, her face impassive. She applied the faintest pressure—a reminder, a anchor. Her hand said what her words denied. Mine.
The wheels touched down with a shriek of rubber, the engines roaring in reverse. The cabin shuddered. Through the window, the concrete world rushed by, gray and demanding.
Pip let her head lean back, just a fraction, into that grip. A perfect, willing weight in her hand. The smile that touched her lips then was small, private, and utterly genuine. It didn’t matter what was denied in the light. Her throat was in Doll’s hand. Her lip still throbbed with the ghost of a kiss.
As the jet taxied to a stop, Doll finally turned her head. Her eyes, cold and clear now, met Pip’s. She saw the smile. Her expression didn’t change. But her grip tightened, just for a second, before she let go and reached for her handbag.
“Move,” she said, standing up. “We’re home.”