There, he had no walls I couldn’t penetrate, though he tried his best to erect them. It was in his heart that I found the best memories, residuals of feelings past. His parents and sisters, the freedom he found on the court, his love for me and Eric, deep and abiding and full. It echoed through him, reverberating through every cell in his body. Maybe that was why he couldn’t hide it from me, because it was so much a part of him it couldn’t be hidden.
Eric hadn’t been able to make it, not even once during that weekend, though he called twice, speaking to each of us in turn. It was then that Jason closed himself off the most, though I couldn’t understand why. He and Eric weren’t just friends, they were master and favorite, lovers with the greatest respect for one another, and love. I could feel it in Jason, in his heart and in the bond that stretched between them. And they were my husbands, united in their love for me. I didn’t fully understand it yet; there were so many things that escaped my comprehension, but this was one I knew. Jason and Eric would do anything for me, had done everything for me, and I missed being a part of that.
My memories of our time together, enshrined behind the formidable wall separating the Before from the Now, trickled back much more slowly than anything else, but I remembered enough to long for the bond, the friendship, and their love. My lonely time in the cage was an ever-present weight, never far from my mind. They had brought me out of the shadows into the light. Somehow I knew that through them, I would find my ultimate salvation and the answers I needed to become whole once more.
On the afternoon of Jason’s last day, Elizabet excused me from my duties with Cook. All women deserved a full day with their lovers, she said, and I was grateful she’d understood. After breaking our fast at the midday meal, I led him back to my bed and undressed him, one gorgeous inch at a time, exploring his exposed skin with my mouth and fingers, and my tongue and teeth.
“Easy there, love.” His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper and his hands held my head, stroking my hair. “Too hard and you’ll bite off a bit more than you can chew.”
I sucked his erection into my mouth, playing my teeth more gently over his hard length. He liked the pain. The need for it lay just under the surface of his mind, easily readable even with my limited skills. Still, he was right. I was too new at this, my control uncertain, and I didn’t want to hurt him, not in a way that didn’t pleasure him.
I pleased him as long as I could, timing my touch using the rhythm of his hands on my head and his quiet gasps as my guide. He was holding back, reining in his pleasure to make it last, and dammit, I wanted to feel his cum spurting across my tongue, needed to take him into me in a way that would make him forever a part of me.
I tightened my grip on the base of his penis and stroked my hand toward my mouth, playing my tongue over the underside of his erection along the tip, and reached into him with my mind. It was clumsy, awkward, and he gasped from the intrusion, but I found what I wanted. Him and Eric laying together on a bed, Jason on his back with his dick buried deep in Eric’s ass, his body straining as he fucked his lover. Eric’s mouth on Jason’s throat, drinking deeply of his beautiful blood. I latched on to that memory and eased it forward, spooling my own will into it until it filled his mind, and mine.
Jason’s hips jerked under my mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head. “Eric. Eric, please, baby. Let me come.”
Not until you say it.
In the memory, Eric tilted his hips back, opening himself to Jason’s thrusts. I held the memory there, expanded it, becoming Eric and Jason both as my mouth and hand moved along Jason’s erection. The heat of their pleasure spiked through me, pooling into slick heat between my legs. I widened them and rubbed my pussy over one of Jason’s massive thighs, and immersed myself in the feelings rolling out of Jason’s memory…
(…God, I love him so much. Why was he doing this to me? Let me come, Eric, please. You know how I feel. Eric, sipping the last bit of Jason’s blood he could take. Rich. Spicy. Always a part of him. Closing the wounds off, have to protect him, make him see. Say it, Jase. Say it out loud…)
Jason’s muscles tensed and his hands tightened on my head, pressing me down, and he gasped as he arched into my mouth and said, “God, I love her, love her so much, God, Eric, please. Please, baby.”
His words jerked me out of the memory and I lost my grip on it. It slid away from me reluctantly, slowly merging into his mind, beyond my reach. I swallowed Jason’s cum as it spilled into my mouth in hot, salty spurts, licked him clean afterward, soaking up every drop. His hands slid off my head and fell onto the bed, bonelessly limp, and I crawled my way up his body, the heat of their love lingering in the sharp, unquenched desire burning through my blood.
I propped up beside him and trailed a finger through the sweat clinging to his skin, measured his gasping breaths and the rapid ping of his heart with my fingertip.
“What…” His cornflower blue eyes fluttered open and met mine. “What did you do to me?”
“Found a memory, gave it back to you so you’d come for me.”
He held my gaze for long moments. “Why that one?”
I shrugged. “It was there, waiting for me to find it.”
“Do you…” He hesitated, seeming to measure his words. “Do you understand what we were doing?”
I snickered. “Geez, Jason. Even I know what sex is.”
“It wasn’t just sex.” His hand came up, capturing my finger and holding it against his chest. “That was the night Eric made me admit how much I love you. Before, I’d said it, almost flippantly, I guess. You’d do something for me and I’d say I’ll love you forever but I never let it go beyond that. And then you…you left us and I closed it off because it hurt so much. God, Gigi, you have no idea how much it hurt to lose you, how hard it was for the both of us with you locked in that cage, unable to see us.”
“I didn’t want to be there,” I murmured.
“We know. God, do we ever know.” He brought my finger to his lip and kissed the tip, shuttering his eyes under the downward flutter of his eyelashes. “That night, Eric held me on the edge of release with his mind. He’s strong. Has phenomenal control over what he can do to someone else with a simple thought.” He breathed out a laugh, part humor, part sorrow. “Anyway, we’d argued over you, of all things, and he said he was tired of me hiding what I felt, as if he couldn’t feel it in me, as if he didn’t know how much I cared for you. He deliberately aroused me, toyed with me for hours until I broke.”
“He hurt you.”
The thought of it woke instincts in me I hadn’t known existed. The urge to protect him, to confront Eric and demand an accounting for his actions, oddly at war with an equally fierce need to comfort them both. Something had seeped through Jason’s memory, an echo of Eric’s emotions during that moment. Love, steadfast and strong, and a resolute desire to do something, something important that eluded my attempts to understand it. All that remained was the love, though it conflicted heavily with the other, what had felt all too close to punishment in my mind.
“Why would he hurt you like that?”
“For my own good, I promise. You’ll see what he’s like when he’s around more.” Jason shifted onto his side and cupped my jaw in one massive hand. “And now, I’m gonna love you so hard and so long, you never, ever forget how I feel about you.”
And he did, bringing me to sweet release over and over again, keeping the shadows at bay with his blood and his passion. He guided me into his mind as he fucked me, showing me where I was supposed to be, tasting my blood while his was fresh on my tongue and he was buried deep inside me. I fumbled with it, my mind not quite whole enough, as Alice had said, and then stumbled into it with a zing that electrified every nerve in my body.
Clarity. Sharp, precise clarity.
I could feel him, feel everything about him, wallowed in him and him in me. I/he loved, longed. Fuck, hard, need. Pleasure, all over pleasure. I/he loved and a small part of me/him merged and became we, and Eric was
suddenly there beside us, encouraging, loving. He/we, so close, so close.
I reached for him with the part of me that was all mine, and missed. Jason eased us away from Eric, breaking the rapture of we, but not our bond. I didn’t understand how, couldn’t think as I shuddered beneath him, bereft at the loss. The shadows swept in, claiming me in a swift, greedy rush, burning me in their eagerness to gobble up the shredded remnants of my mind.
“Use the bond, Gigi. Fight them off.”
I couldn’t, couldn’t fight them. Hadn’t I learned that in the cage, that they were all-powerful, all-knowing? They lurked in my mind, waiting to pounce, and I was easy prey. They’d held me for so long, so long.
No. No, that wasn’t right. I’d found a way to fight them, found a way to stave them off. On my own, yes, but that had been only a small part of it. There was something else there, something I’d used as a crutch for my fledgling strength. My light, the happy light. Jason and Eric, Eric and we, and the overwhelming desire I had to re-enter one with them, to become more without losing myself, to be forever a part of them, and they forever mine. My eyes popped open and fixed on Jason, my lover, my mate, and I grabbed onto the part of him that was now fixed in my mind. As soon as I touched it, light flared in my mind and the shadows fled, and I was free of them, if only for a while.
“That’s it, baby. You did it. Now come back to me. That’s my gal. Come back and find me again.”
I swam upward, buoyed by the light, floating on the strength of our bond, as new as it was, and popped into the Now in a gasping rush of sound. “I’m back, I’m here. I’m…”
I didn’t know what I was. I laughed and wrapped my arms around him, and ignored the tears sliding out of the corners of my eyes. The shadows had consumed me, but they hadn’t won, not this time. They hadn’t had many victories since I’d come out of the cage, and God willing, they never again would. Jason was there, watching over me, and he would be for as long as I needed him, until I was whole again and could fight them without his help.
Chapter Four
Jason went home that night with the promise that he and Eric would be back in a few days for my birthday. I walked him to the door, held my breath as he yanked me close and kissed me with a thoroughness that left me dizzy and panting, made all the better by his feelings pinging through our bond.
I was rediscovering my own heart, the love I’d felt for the two men in my life. They were different, as Jason had reminded me, each strong and good in his own way, yes, but different. I was beginning to feel differently about them, too, sorting them out into individuals instead of lumping them together in my mind.
He drew back from the kiss slowly. “I’ll miss you.”
“Me, too.” I held him close when he would’ve moved away, cupped his beautiful face in my hands. “Say it.”
His hands tightened on my waist. “You know how I feel. I’ve said it before, and I know you can sense it through our bond.”
“Maybe I need to hear it. Maybe I’m afraid that if you don’t say it, you’ll forget about me the way I forgot about you.”
“I’ll never forget about you, Gigi. Never.” His chest expanded as he sighed. “I love you, baby. So much.”
I touched my lips to his, lightly, gently. “Don’t ever be afraid to tell me.”
“It’s not that. It’s just…complicated.”
I let him go, stood in the doorway and watched him drive away. He was there in my mind, soothing me even as the bond stretched between us, thinning as the road carried him home, though never breaking.
The next day, Elizabet treated her three daughters and I to a shopping trip. Alice helped me choose outfits for our upcoming engagements, as she put it. Otherwise, life settled into the routine I’d fallen into. Wake early each afternoon, read whatever I could get my hands on, help Matthias out in the kitchen, and slide into bed alone as the dawn approached, ever mindful of the hollowness of my existence.
Anticipation held the tedium at bay. Eric and Jason would be back soon, both of them this time, and my birthday promised enjoyment, if not excitement. Alice had agreed to come out with us, though I hadn’t said word one about the possibility of her having a date. What if Jason’s friend couldn’t make it? Besides, Alice needed some fun. The surprise would do her good.
The morning of my birthday, I woke to timid scratches on my bedroom door. I slid out of bed, shrugged on a silk kimono robe, and opened the door on a beaming Alice, dressed in an ivory knee-length robe.
She held out a small present, tidily wrapped in shiny blue paper with a silver bow on top. “Happy birthday, Gigi!”
I stared at it for long moments. She’d thought enough of me to find a gift. A heavy pressure worked its way up from my chest. I blinked rapidly, quelling the tears pricking my eyes. “For me?”
“Of course it’s for you, silly. It’s not every day one turns twenty-one.” She bounced on the balls of her bare feet. “Well, come on. Open it.”
“I… Thank you, Alice.” I took the gift from her and kissed her cheek, stepped back and beckoned her in.
She gestured to the presents stacked neatly beside my door in the hallway, drawing my gaze. “These, too. Not from me,” she added when my eyes widened. “From everyone. Come on. Let’s bring them in.”
We did, piling them onto the coffee table in my sitting area. I sat cross-legged on the couch with Alice beside me and plucked at the bow on her gift. “It’s so pretty.”
“Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is what’s inside, which you’ll never know if you don’t open it.”
I laughed at the exasperation in her voice and slit the tape holding the paper together with my fingernail. Tugged the paper off and folded it neatly, lifted the lid. An oval, gold pendant with a delicate chain lay inside. I brushed a single fingertip over its surface, mesmerized by the metal’s cool, shiny surface.
Alice took the box from me and set it on the couch between us, then pushed a tiny latch on the side of the pendant and opened it. Two pictures rested inside, one of Jason and the other of Eric, framed by the outline of the pendant’s edges.
“Oh, Alice.”
She helped me put it on, smoothed it into its proper place on my chest. “There. Now they’ll always be with you.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” I wrapped my arms around her neck and squeezed, holding her close. “You’re such a good friend.”
My fault. All my fault.
It burst through me, filling my heart with such sorrow, such aching sorrow…
(…should’ve stopped her. The cage, cold and dark, containing a woman, half wild with hunger and loss. Why didn’t I see?...)
I gasped and let go, drawing away from her, and lost the memory. That was me, had been me, the woman in that cage. Naked and filthy, skin stretched too tightly over bone, and bloodlust shining harshly from my eyes.
My fingers trembled as the shadows pressed around the edges of my mind. Not today, not today. I found Jason within me and held on to him with all my strength, but they came no closer, seemingly content to feed off the raw horror pinging through me upon seeing myself that way.
Alice smiled as if nothing had happened. “We’ll always be friends.”
I exhaled a shaky breath, inhaled a cleansing one. Mustered a not-quite-sound smile for her. “I’m glad.”
We sat together on the couch, oohing and ahing over my presents. One of the large ones turned out to be from Elizabet and Marco, a brand spanking new laptop with a full complement of office software. The other large present was from Therese and Marlena, a black calf-length coat made of heavy felted wool. Though it was still summer, winter would be upon us quickly enough. The weather wouldn’t kill me, very little could, but with my slower circulation, the extra layer would be welcome indeed.
Devin and Cassie (his girlfriend, Alice explained) had gifted me with a year-long subscription to NetFlix. I appreciated the gesture, though I wasn’t certain I should accept it. No one had said anything, but I hadn’t missed the tensi
on between Eric and Devin.
My final gifts were from the staff. From Matthias, a special three-ring binder filled with plastic sleeves and a stack of recipe cards, his personal recipes inked in rigid block letters onto several, though most were blank. From Humperdink, an iTunes gift certificate accompanied by a note to “fill your heart with music.” And from the rest of the staff collectively, a subscription to a cheesecake of the month club.
Someone had been telling secrets, but I didn’t mind. This had to be the best birthday ever.
I set all of my presents and birthday cards aside. Tomorrow, there would be time a-plenty to write thank you notes. Alice and I pampered ourselves for the rest of the afternoon, running back and forth between her suite and mine. Therese and Marlena shook their heads and rolled their eyes at our antics, and Elizabet smiled fondly and murmured about the pleasures of her own youth.
And at last, the time arrived. Humperdink announced Eric and Jason’s arrival in person. I hugged him hard and kissed his sagging cheek, thanking him for the present he’d given me, and he blushed and laughed and said, “There, there.”
I raced through the hallways, pounded on Alice’s door to hurry her along. Honestly, we’d had all afternoon to get ready, and now she was going to be late? I made the rest of the trip alone, too impatient to wait. Paused at the top of the stairway to catch my breath and push down the nerves jittering through me, then glided gracefully down the stairs as Alice often did. Or tried. I didn’t think I’d ever achieve her elegance, not even in my wildest dreams, but that didn’t keep me from practicing.
Eric and Jason were waiting in the foyer of the main entrance with a tall, dark-skinned young man who was nearly as large as Jason. All three wore black suits and looked impossibly handsome.
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