by Holly Hart
I take Frankie’s hand. It feels more natural – and easier than having her stare, burning a hole through the back of my head. Her fingers close around mine easily and naturally. It’s like we’ve been doing this all our lives.
“Come on,” I say; “and Frankie?”
She glances into my eyes. Damn, they’re piercing. It’s like she’s reaching directly into my soul and having a rummage about. They’re clouded, too – with confusion. I don’t blame her. After everything that’s happened to Frankie, the last thing she needs is me messing her around like this.
“Yes?”
“Just – don’t think worse of me, okay?”
A smile dances on the corners of Frankie’s lips. “Ridley,” she says in a voice that tinkles like raindrops, “whatever you’re about to show me – whatever the secret is – I won’t think worse of you. You’ve done more for me than anyone I’ve ever known.” She punches me lightly on the shoulder. It’s just a tap, really. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeat, squeezing her hand with more confidence than I feel. Frankie’s the only person I’ve ever met who has been able to knock me off balance. I’ve known her for hours, not years – yet I feel that she knows me better than anyone: even my brothers. Maybe even better than Mac, my twin.
I fish in my pocket for my wallet and pull it out.
“Dollar bills?” Frankie asks with a raised eyebrow. “Are you asking me to give you a dance?” She shimmies her hips, and her fingernails graze the back of my hand. Frankie knows exactly what she’s doing. She just doesn’t know how right she is…
“Not quite,” I grunt, removing a key. It’s more than that.
Frankie’s eyes sparkle the second she sees the key. She’s a smart cookie – I know she appreciates exactly what it means. She breathes in sharply – air whistling into her lungs.
“The mystery door!” Frankie says, pulling her hand back and clapping the two together. “Finally.”
I don’t say a word. I walk towards it, and put the key into the heavy steel door’s lock. The metal teeth grate against it. It sounds like a sander grinding down a heavy spur of steel, or the iron bars crashing closed in a prison cell.
“Last chance,” I joke weakly. “You can still back out.”
“Fat chance of that,” Frankie grins, her eyes alive.
They look like sparkling gemstones: set in the most perfect finish you can imagine. Hell, Frankie looks perfect. It doesn’t matter that she’s still wearing my clothes – another shirt, blue this time – not to me. Her bright red hair falls down her shoulders. She’s wearing a pair of my jeans, too. The fabric where my ankles would be is rolled up half a dozen times. It’s belted tight around her waist, excess fabric spilling out either side.
“Your funeral,” I grimace. I turn the key in the lock and push the door open.
It’s pitch back inside.
There’s a second’s relief.
It doesn’t last.
Frankie dives in. She’s not one of those girls. You know: pretty in pink, and afraid of the dark. Frankie’s brave; she never shies away from a challenge.
I hear a click, and the room is bathed with light. Enough light to make me blink.
Frankie goes completely silent. I’m expecting her to run out without a second glance. I’m expecting her to look at me with disgust in her eyes, or else to back away from me, her hands raised in defense.
She does none of those things.
But her mouth drops open wide.
I wish I could know what’s running through her mind. Instead, I’m forced to wait: to wait … and to hope that I haven’t scared her away for good.
“Ye like it?” I say, attempting to defuse the silence. She doesn’t reply.
Instead, Frankie walks around the room. Her eyes – those bright, perceptive blue orbs – are suddenly intently interested on every object. I’m not surprised, I would be as well. It’s not every day someone unlocks a door and shows you their dungeon.
It’s not a big room, but Frankie explores every inch before she says a word. She drags her fingers across a row of steel tables that hug the walls, each stacked high with strange implements: whips, chains, feathers, even implements that might not have names.
“Ridley,” Frankie finally whispers. “What is this place?”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that question. It’s clear what this room is, and it’s just as clear what it’s used for. It’s a room dedicated to pleasure and pain. It’s a room where the darkest and brightest corners of a man’s desires come to play.
“You know what it is,” I say, wetting my lips. “It’s exactly what it looks like. It’s “The me” you saw earlier: the one with his hands around your throat. That’s the real Ridley Byrne.”
I stop. The revelation hangs between us: echoing like the ringing tone of a Buddhist bell. All I can do is wait for Frankie’s reply. Is she going to be shocked? Disgusted? Or worst of all, the one emotion I simply don’t think I’ll be able to bear: will she pity me?
Frankie stares directly into my eyes. She holds her gaze there for a long time, never looking away. I feel like she’s studying me: like I’m sitting a test.
“And who is the real Ridley Byrne?”
I don’t know how to answer. I can tell her what I am: a businessman, a gangster, a brother, and a son.
But who? That’s another question entirely.
“Did you ever watch Dexter? The TV show.” I ask. Frankie looks at me and frowns. I can tell she hasn’t the faintest clue what the hell I’m talking about.
She shrugs. “Sure – the first few seasons; before – you know, it doesn’t matter.”
I grin. “Went a bit off the rails, didn’t it?”
Frankie nods, guardedly. “It did.”
“I’ll cut to the chase,” I say – even though that’s the last thing I want to do. “Dexter, when he was a kid – he had urges, you remember?”
Frankie’s face clears. At least, it clears of confusion. Suddenly she’s looking at me in a very different way. I don’t like it. “Where are you going with this, Ridley?” She asks in a clipped tone.
I hurry on. Crap, I could’ve picked a dozen TV shows that would have got my point across better. Instead I decided to go with the one about the serial killer. Seriously, sometimes I wonder what the hell happens inside my head when I open my mouth.
“He’s got this darkness inside him, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. You remember?” Frankie doesn’t reply.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I grin. “And his dad found him killing puppies –.”
Frankie’s face blanches. I see her legs tremble, and wonder if she’s about to start backing away from me. I hold my hand up, kicking myself inside. “I’ve not killed any puppies! Or kittens, or bears, or pigeons – or anything! Fuck, I’m making a bad point worse…”
“It’s okay,” she says in a surprisingly steady voice. “I think…”
“The point I’m trying to make,” I say, sighing heavily, “is that he found a way – Dexter – to deal with his problems; a way that didn’t involve hurting animals, or the innocent.”
“And you, Ridley?” Frankie whispers. Her forehead scrunches up. Damn, she looks cute. “What are your problems?”
I realize I have to throw all my cards on the table. There’s no getting around it. Either I sort things out with Frankie right here and now, or I have to accept that I’ve messed this up for good. I just hope I’m making the right decision.
“Sex,” I say.
“Sex?”
I nod. “It’s fun, don’t get me wrong. I like it. What red-blooded man doesn’t? But even as a teenager, those first few times, those first few fumbles, I felt like there was something missing: a spark. But no one I ever spoke to thought the same way. Hell, school was a cauldron of hormones and guys trying to get laid.”
“You didn’t?”
“Try?” I laugh. “I didn’t have to. Gals threw themselves at me.” I shrug. “I’m a Byrne, after all. That still means so
mething in this city. I bet I was a cocky piece of shit when I was younger. Who wouldn’t be, living a life like that?”
“Sure,” Frankie grins. At least, I think it’s a grin. It’s something, anyway. She’s not running away. Yet. “When you were younger…”
I choose not to reply to Frankie’s little dig. Heck, she’s not exactly wrong.
“Don’t get me wrong, sex is great. Normal sex, that is. But there’s something better: for me, at least.”
Frankie looks around the room. “This…”
I nod. “This. You want to know the truth?”
I don’t give her an option to reply.
“The first time I got laid, I didn’t come: nor the second; nor the third. For a while I started to wonder if I was gay, or something.”
“What changed?” Frankie asks, biting her lip. “You certainly didn’t seem to have a problem coming earlier…”
“The truth? A girl asked me to slap her in bed.”
Frankie blinks. I guess she didn’t expect me to talk about my sex life in that kind of graphic detail. “And you… You did it?”
“Felt weird at first. I told her I wasn’t going to do it. Roisin or something, her name was. But she kept begging. Said she couldn’t come unless she felt a man’s hand on her ass and –,” I pause, figuring Frankie doesn’t need to know every last detail of my sexual conquests, “elsewhere.”
“But you did it.” Frankie states. “Didn’t you?
“I did. And you know what, I fecking loved it. I’m not ashamed to say that. It took me a while to figure out that what gets me off is – it’s not pain, exactly. Pain is just a symptom. It’s control that I crave.”
Frankie stares at me. “You – you don’t seem the type. You’re not an asshole: not all the time, anyway.”
I shrug. “I don’t care about control day-to-day. That’s not what domination is – least not in my book. Doms who need slaves, need women who don’t have the right to answer back, they’re messed in the head.”
Frankie studies me. “And you’re so different?”
And there is the million-dollar question. If I wasn’t ashamed of who I am – just a little bit, then wouldn’t I have shown Frankie this dungeon the second she walked through the door?
“You asked me who the real Ridley Byrne is,” I say. “I told you. This is me. Maybe he’s not Prince Charming, but –”
“But what?”
“You asked me at first how I knew to do those things to you in bed: to choke you; to fuck you like you were the very last person on earth.”
Frankie’s cheeks redden with embarrassment.
“I felt it in the way you responded to my touch. I saw it in your eyes: a need; a need that can’t be fulfilled by anything else. You know I’m right, Frankie.”
“Do I?” She replies with an arched eyebrow.
I press on. The fact that Frankie hasn’t recoiled from me is good news. I think. I decide that it’s time to gamble: time to risk everything on one last throw of the dice.
“I wanted to fuck you from the first moment I saw you, gal. I want to do it now. I want to rip that shirt off your back, throw you onto that leather couch and do things to you that you can’t imagine. I wanted to strap your legs down and make you feel things you didn’t think was possible; I still do. I want to fill that hole in your soul, Frankie. I know you want the same. We’re two halves of the same coin.”
“How can you talk about this so honestly?” Frankie gasps when I’m done. “Why isn’t your throat closing up with embarrassment, and your face burning? Mine sure as hell would be.”
I shrug. “Why? Sex isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s just placing part A in part B, grinding our naughty bits together, a chemical reaction in the brain. It’s functional.”
Frankie shakes her head. “No, no: it’s more than that – it has to be.”
“Maybe: or maybe it’s not the sex that’s more, it’s the people doing it. Sex is just a road, not the journey itself.”
“Quite the poet, aren’t you,” Frankie says.
Her chest is rising and falling quickly with her breath. Her fingers drum against the studded leather couch in the center of the room. Hell, couch isn’t the right word. It’s more of an altar. A temple to the pleasures contained in a woman’s body.
“I try. But that’s not the only thing I can do with my tongue.”
Frankie bites her lip. I still can’t tell where this is going.
Then she makes a decision. Frankie climbs up onto the leather altar and lies down, eyes facing the ceiling.
“What are you doing?” I ask. My voice is trapped in my throat. I think Frankie’s about to give me everything I’ve dreamed of, but I don’t want to jinx it. And –.
“Giving you what you want. Me. I trust you, Ridley.”
Frankie’s just signed a blank check. I can’t believe what’s happening. I never expected her to agree. Not really.
“You’re not –.”
“If you tell me that I’m not ready one more time, Ridley Byrne,” Frankie growls. “I’ll hop right up off this couch and storm out. I’m not a little girl. I’m not your little girl, Ridley, and you don’t need to keep protecting me.”
Frankie’s hands jump – with furious speed – to the buttons on the blue shirt. She starts undoing them. God, I think I’ve won the lottery with this girl. When she gets angry, she gets naked. What more could a man want?
I walk over to Frankie’s side, caught in a daze.
“Ready?” I ask.
Frankie replies with calm, assured confidence. “Born that way.”
18
Frankie
God, I hope I’m making the right decision. When I said I trusted Ridley, I wasn’t lying. I do: completely. It’s hard to explain why – but when a man saves your life, risking his own in the process, that buys him a lot of respect. At least, it does in my book.
But just because I trust Ridley doesn’t mean I’m not nervous. I am. All kinds of nervous. My fingers finish unbuttoning Ridley’s shirt, and it falls open at my chest, for the second time in one day.
Ridley licks his lips. He looks like a fox that’s made it into the henhouse. His eyes are hungry, he’s looking down at me like I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. “You remember the safe word?”
“Safe word?”
He grins. “Goose…”
“You’re so lame,” I mutter, hiding a smile. It’s not. I like it. I’ve never had a pet name before.
“I like it,” Ridley smiles, leaning down and kissing me on the lips.
“It suits you.” His expression stiffens, becoming more controlled. “But seriously, Goose. If you feel like I’m going too far – at any point – I want you to say it. Shout it, scream it, whatever. I’ll hear, and I’ll stop immediately. This,” he gestures around the room, “this is all about you and me. It shouldn’t be scary. It should feel good, and if it doesn’t that’s every reason to stop it dead.”
“You won’t go too far,” I say, staring up at Ridley’s glittering multi-colored eyes. I remind myself to ask him about them. I’ve never seen a man with different colored eyes before. Never seen anyone, for that matter. It’s intriguing. “I know you, Ridley. I know there’s no way you’d ever lose control. Not around me.”
Ridley’s eyes cloud. Again, it’s like he retreats into a shell. He becomes inscrutable.
“Maybe.”
He walks to a corner of the room. I crane my head to see him, angling my neck, but it’s hard. He rummages in a drawer, pulling something out. It’s bright, but I can’t make out exactly what. A scrap of cloth, maybe?
“Lie back,” Ridley growls, suddenly appearing right above me. He brings his fingers to either side of my head, stroking my temple. “Relax.”
I realize that my chest is heaving. For all my brave words about how much I trust Ridley, there’s no denying that this is a strange situation…
“I am,” I protest.
It’s a lie, I’m not.
&n
bsp; There’s that flash of bright cloth again. It’s red – red silk. Then my vision’s gone. Ridley loops it expertly around my head, tying it tight. I can’t see anything: just a hazy red mist. The soft silk strokes my eyelids.
Ridley drops his lips to mine again, this time going for a Spiderman kiss. “That okay, Goose?” He whispers when he’s done. “Not too tight?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine,” I breathe.
Already, now I’ve lost my site, every other sensation is magnified.
I know that’s Ridley’s goal. I know it’s a tool in his arsenal, but it doesn’t make it any less real. My ears strain to pick out what he’s doing. Clanking as a drawer opens, rustling as he pulls something out. The silk cloth caresses my eyelids as I move, and so do my eyelashes as my eyes strain to open – still not getting that they’re not going to be able to see a damn thing.
I feel Ridley’s touch on my skin. It’s hot – a thousand times hotter like this than it would be normally. I feel like I’m being kissed by the sun.
“Just relax,” Ridley says, moving my hand. That’s easy for him to say. He’s not the one lying – blindfolded – on a leather couch in a lockable room in a lockable bunker underneath three-hundred tons of brick underneath a train line…
When you put it like that…
Ridley loops something around my wrist, and ties it firmly above my head. He does it next to my other arm, and I realize that I’m completely at his mercy. I’m lying here: half-naked. I doubt I could force my way free of these constraints.
What if he doesn’t listen to the safe word?
“Are you okay?” Ridley asks.
“Ridley,” I growl with false bravado. “I’m fine – stop asking.”
“No,” he says with surprising firmness. “That’s not how this works, Frankie. You need to feel absolute trust in your Dom –.”
“My what?” I ask, surprise ringing like a bell in my voice. I know what a Dom is, of course I do. But until now I hadn’t realized exactly what was going on. Maybe I just haven’t labeled it yet.
“Dom,” Ridley replies, entirely un-embarrassed. “And as I was saying – trust. It’s the most important thing. What I’m – we’re – doing here isn’t just fucking, Frankie. It’s more than that, way more than that. It’s intimate, and in the wrong hands, it could damage ye. You understand?”
