by Smith, Maren
“That’s mine!” The torn page angering her almost as much as her stolen pen, she jumped up from her seat. “Give it back,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice even and low so as not to attract attention from the guards assigned to monitor the room.
Wadding the torn paper, Pony turned and threw both it and the pen as far across the room as she could lob them. A shrill whistle said clearly that had not gone unnoticed, but the submissives glared at one another, neither willing to back down.
“You’re being mean,” Puppy said evenly, feeling both stupid and childish because she couldn’t think of anything better.
“Traitor,” Pony spat back, her blue eyes shining with stubbornly withheld tears.
Stung, Puppy broke the stare first. Hugging her notebook, she walked the few feet it took to grab the crumpled wad of paper off the floor. She tried to smooth out her notes and cast Pony a dark look as she did it. Pony’s fists were clenched, but her bottom lip was shaking. She looked close to tears, but Pony was Ethen’s right hand. She hadn’t been his favorite, not in a long time. But for as long as Puppy had been part of the menagerie, Pony was the submissive in charge. She was the one who kept them in line. She had never apologized. Judging by the flash of her eyes and the set of her jaw, she wasn’t about to start now, either.
Casting her mutinous glare to the floor, Puppy searched for her pen. She had to get down on hands and knees, but she finally found it under the soda vending machine. She barely managed to get her fingers under far enough to fish it back out again. Pushing back up off her knees, she stood, turned, and nearly bumped straight into Ethen.
“When the rooster’s away, it seems the hens become bitches,” he noted, giving both her and Pony the same reproving frown.
He might not be her dom anymore, but her stomach still dropped, sparking shots of anxiety that shivered all the way through her. The brittle strain in her face became all she could feel as that old familiar mask snapped into place. She tried to step back, but her feet refused to move. The only part of her that did move were her hands as she tightened her grip on her notebook, accidentally dropping both her pen and the wad of paper Pony had ripped up and thrown.
Ethen picked them up. The pen he handed back to her, the wad of paper he kept. Censuring her with little more than a look when she tried to take it back from him, he unfurled the crinkles and immediately lost his composure to a dry laugh as he read. “What is this?” he demanded.
Her chest hurt. So did her stomach. Sick all the way into the pit of it, she snatched the paper away. That she would dare such a thing shocked all three of them, but it shocked her worse of all. Paper, notebook and pen all clutched tight, she held her ground for all of the two seconds it took for anger to replace his surprise. Menagerie girls didn’t run. She tried to walk away, but he grabbed her arm, swinging her violently back toward the table where Pony stood, her blue eyes wide and worried.
Another shrill whistle was promptly followed by the boom of a guard’s sharp order, “No contact.”
But he was all the way across the room and Ethen was standing right in front of her. And old fears like old habits died hard.
She needed to leave, but her legs were shaking hard and she couldn’t make herself move.
“I see your stubborn willful streak is still running strong,” Ethen breathed, gradually regaining control of his temper. His tone remained mild, but she knew that stony glare. He might be behind bars, but the viperous part of him that liked to hurt was still as active and vicious as ever. “There was a reason I made you the bitch.”
“There’s a reason you’re in prison, too,” she shakily replied.
His stare became glacial. “You are due a reminder, Puppy. When I get out, you will get it.”
“Not from you.” Where she got the strength to wrench her arm out of his, she didn’t know. Ducking both him and Pony, who cut off her own squeak of protest when she hurried away, Puppy stumbled blindly for the exit. Her head was pounding. Heated panic flooded her, blurring out everything but the door she was trying to get to.
“Puppy!” Pony cried.
Menagerie girls never ran, but Puppy did. As fast as she could, she tore back down the sterile prison corridor, stopping only when two officers appeared out of the blur of her surroundings to block the way back to the now empty reception area. One caught her arm, the other grabbed her shoulders, but only because she collapsed. What had started as halting an unruly exit in which they no doubt thought she might be trying to flee after picking up or dropping off contraband, turned into the officers guiding her gently to the floor as she erupted in a full-fledged panic attack. She gasped, she sucked, she obediently tucked her head between her knees, breathing the way the officers coached her to, while in the back of her mind, over and over again, the thought, ‘I did it; I’m free of him; I don’t ever have to come back’ kept repeating itself. Over and over like a badly skipping record, those glass brittle words carved her insides into pieces.
“Look at me.”
Raising her face, she stared into the eyes of a tired-looking female guard, short and chubby, with more than a hint of grey in her short black hair. Over the past year, she couldn’t begin to guess how many times she’d seen this woman, spoken to her when required, signed her forms or followed behind her going to or from the visiting room. Her name tag was on her chest and for the life of her, Puppy couldn’t even remember what it was.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked.
Puppy glanced down. Her tag read Sanchez. Returning her gaze to the officer’s, she nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m fine.”
Except, she didn’t feel fine. She felt shaky, hyper, scared and elated and terrified, and with every step she took as the guards helped her out to the reception area and into the nearest chair, she expected the floor to suddenly drop out from under her. A prisoner with her head on the chopping block, she could feel the impending edge of the axe taking aim on the back of her neck. Every nerve in her body reverberated with none of the exhilaration and all the dread of what she’d done.
Whether today’s visit was taking longer than normal or it just felt that way, she didn’t know. Pulling out her notebook, she did her best to fill the time with calm thoughts and line after soothing line of I am not broken or stupid, I’m brave.
Noon came and went, and so did her assigned lunchtime. Pulling her apple and the sandwich she’d packed for the visit, she took her required before picture, and then a few minutes later took another picture of the apple, gnawed to its core, and half the sandwich gone.
Three more bites, Carlson texted back within minutes of her sending the pics off.
A few minutes later, her phone went off again.
Where are you?
Kentucky federal prison, she returned. And then, afraid he might be frowning in quiet disapproval at her wherever he was, she followed it with: I’m sitting out front. I went back with Pony, but I couldn’t stay there.
Are you okay? was his instant reply.
She melted a little. Stroking her thumb over the screen, she liked that he seemed genuinely to care. Yes, she wrote back.
Are we still on for Black Light tonight?
That made her smile even more, and for the first time since her panic attack, she actually felt better. Yes, Sir, she replied.
You ready to risk my picking you up instead of taking a cab into town?
It was in that moment as she hesitated that Pony came storming back through the reception area. Barely looking at Puppy, she stalked out the front door in long, angry strides.
Scrambling to throw everything but her phone back into her pack, she shouldered the strap and hurried after her. Arms folded against the cold, head down, Pony didn’t wait for her. She was almost to the Greyhound bus stop on the far side of the lot before Puppy caught up.
Without a word, Puppy fell into silent step just behind her, and very nearly plowed right into Pony when she suddenly jerked around and slapped her. The clap of her open hand caught the full side of her face s
o hard and so unexpectedly that it knocked her sideways off her feet. She caught herself on her hands before her head cracked against the pavement. Her phone bounced and skittered four feet before coming to a stop facedown.
Chest heaving, Pony retreated half a step. Staring at her hand first, she then fixed her glare back on Puppy, too furious to be apologetic.
Hands stinging, scuffed from her fall, Puppy touched her burning cheek. The entire side of her face throbbed, the icy air only making the stinging worse. In all the years that they had been together, not once had Pony ever hit anyone. She tattled, she bullied sometimes, she carried Ethen’s words as if they were law, but never had she ever hit.
Folding her arms tight across her chest again, Pony hissed, “You’re ruining everything!”
Turning on her heel, she left Puppy and stormed into the sheltered bus stop.
Moving slowly, Puppy picked herself up off the ground. Tiny rocks were impressed into her palms, but they brushed off. Her knee hurt as if she’d skinned it, but her pants weren’t torn, so she couldn’t tell. Rubbing her throbbing cheek, she gathered her pack and cellphone. The screen was cracked, but not so badly that she couldn’t read Carlson’s unanswered text and the single question mark that had popped up right below it. Both were followed by When Sir asks a question, he expects an answer. It’s okay to say you’re not ready for that. I’ll respect your limits, but it’s a hard limit for me if you ignore my questions.
Creeping into the bus stop shelter, she found a place to sit as far away from Pony as possible.
Please pick me up, she texted. Swiping her wrist across both eyes, trying to bring the watery world back into focus, she stared down the empty road in the direction the next bus would eventually come and pretended that she couldn’t hear the broken sniffles of Pony weeping.
Chapter 11
Carlson pulled into a sleepy suburban cul-d-sac, eased up the driveway to Puppy’s house, took one look at the two women who came chasing out the front door and instantly recognized World War III had somehow started without him. One did not spend twenty years defusing explosives not to recognize when one inadvertently stepped into a minefield.
Puppy wasn’t running to reach his car, but hers was a quick stride and a desperate eye and he’d be damned if that didn’t look like a bruise darkening her cheek from the corner of her left eye all the way to her jawline.
The woman behind her wasn’t running either. Long blonde hair gathered into a ponytail that bounced off her back as she chased after Puppy, it didn’t take more than a glance to recognize who Pony was. Tall and damn near skeletal, her longer legs still closed the distance fast between them. Before he could get out of the car, she grabbed Puppy by the dark hair and yanked her over backwards on the grass.
Leaving the car door open, Carlson ran to intervene. “Hey!”
He grabbed Pony’s arm, but for someone as starved as she was, she was remarkably strong.
“You’re ruining everything!” she screamed, yanking Puppy by the hair as if trying to drag her back into the house. “You can’t go! You can’t!”
“Let her go!” He forcibly pried Pony’s clawing hands open, putting himself between the two long enough for Puppy to break away.
Never once in his life had he ever physically struck a woman. Not outside of his role as a dominant and never when he was as angry as he was right now. But the temptation was there, booming up through his chest, pulsing molten in his veins and hot in his temples.
“Knock it off!” he told her, standing his ground protectively between her and Puppy, who he knew had made it to his car when he heard the passenger door slam shut and lock.
He pointed at Pony, a warning finger that was only one thin thread of will away from snapping into full-fledged assault. He bit it back, but only because looking into this woman’s eyes was just like looking into Puppy’s that night at Black Light when it had taken all her courage just to say hello.
He didn’t know what Ethen had done, but he could see Pony’s desperation, her franticness, the tears she couldn’t quite hold back. She was a woman so close to the edge of losing it all, she wasn’t even thinking anymore. She was just reacting, and he knew that feeling. He’d seen it so many times both on and off the battlefield—on the faces of fellow soldiers as they came to grips with losing yet another friend; on the faces of the civilians overseas, most of them just trying to survive in their own war-torn country.
Pony was just another of Ethen’s casualties. Carlson felt for her, he did. But if she put her hands on his submissive again, he wasn’t at all confident in his ability to hold back his own knee-jerk response and knock her on her ass.
“My submissive is not yours to hurt,” he told her, easing back a step. “Do not lay your hands on her again.”
For the first time, Pony snapped her desperate stare off Puppy, huddled in his car, and locked on him instead. Anger flared, burying the desperation behind it. “She is not your submissive!” Targeting Puppy again, she tried to go around him, but he grabbed her arm just long enough to block her way again. “Your disloyalty is going to be punished! You can’t go!” Anger breaking, her desperation resurged and her voice broke. “Puppy, please don’t go!”
That painfilled warble wasn’t enough to counter the bruise on Puppy’s face. It was manipulation, plain and simple, and it immediately brought out the drill sergeant in him.
“I said enough,” he bellowed, deep and sharp.
Pony jumped back, her attention locked solely on him now. Despair crumpled, melting back into fury. Her mouth flattened. What loveliness was left in her too thin, too pale, too hollow face turned cold and significantly less pretty. “This is all your fault,” she told him.
“You think I was interfering before?” Snapping a point back over her shoulder, he shouted, “Get your ass back in the house!”
Blinking back a rush of tears he had no interest in being sympathetic to, she turned and ran inside. He was a little surprised that she didn’t slam the door behind her. Glaring long enough to make sure she didn’t come back out again, he returned to the car.
Opening the passenger door, he hunkered down next to Puppy. She was every bit the mess he expected, gasping and crying and struggling to control her breathing. Catching the back of her neck, he tucked her head between her knees, as much to help her as to prevent her from seeing just how much angrier he got when he saw her bruised cheek up close.
“Calm down,” he told her, careful to keep all trace of temper out of his voice. “I’ve got you, honey. You’re safe now. You’re also spending the night at my house, so tell me now if there’s anything here you absolutely need before I leave.”
“Back… pack…” she cried between gasping breaths.
“Deep breaths,” he ordered, and she nodded. “Calm down.”
Her hands became fists on her knees as she nodded again. Gradually her breaths began to slow.
“Where’s your cell phone?”
“In… my backpack.”
“What else?” he asked, letting go of her neck now that she was in better control of herself.
“Nothing,” she sighed, slowly sitting up again. “Nothing else… is mine.”
Tucking a finger under her chin, he took grim stock of the bruise that darkened the corner of her eye and the puffiness that made her bony cheek look almost normal on that side of her face. It took real effort not to let himself get pissed off all over again, but now that he was up close, he could see other injuries—cuts and scratches on her forearms, as well as the palms of her hands.
He stroked her hair, wishing he knew how to soothe her hurts—both the physical as well as the emotional ones. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Her eyes shuttered. He could practically hear her inner walls slamming up between them. She averted her gaze, ducking her head as she touched her cheek. “I fell.”
“Look at me,” he commanded, forcing himself to smother the pity and exude the sternness she needed.
Wilting, she reluctantly
met his frowning glare.
“Where’s your notebook?”
She swallowed. “In my backpack.”
“New line,” he decided. “You will write one thousand times, ‘I do not deserve to get hit, and I will never lie to Sir if it happens again’. That’s the first part of your punishment. Put your hands on your head,” he said, as her fingers began their worried picking at every weak fingernail she could find.
Raising her arms, she laced her fingers on top of her head. Her breathing was picking up again. Not hard in a way that put her back in danger of hyperventilating again, but fast and shallow the way it did when she knew she was in trouble. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” he softly replied. “Because this is the fifth time you’ve lied to me—”
“But I really did fall.”
“Helped by the person who knocked you down. Don’t split hairs with me, honey. You told me you fell so you wouldn’t have to say you were hit. That kind of omission is as good as a lie, and I want it to be the last time. For that reason, I am going to cane you. Five strokes, one for every lie you’ve told me. There will be no warm up, and it will not be easy to take.”
She stopped breathing altogether. Silent and staring, she waited for him to add that he was cutting all ties with her. He could see it in her eyes, the weighted certainty of that fear growing heavier on her shoulders as she retreated into herself.
“Questions?” he asked. “Comments, concerns?”
She shook her head.
He took a deep breath, forcing disappointment aside and replacing it with unyielding severity instead. “Six lies. Now you’ve got six strokes of the cane coming. How long do you want to physically be unable to sit down? Or maybe you think I’m kidding when I say I won’t be going easy on you?”
A soft huff of breath was all the expression she gave her mounting frustrations. “I don’t underst—”
