by CD Reiss
“No!” Fuck him. He wasn’t getting consent. Not for anything. Not for one stroke.
He put his hands around my throat. “Am I not fucking you hard enough?”
He tightened his grip, and the edges of my vision darkened as he beat my asshole with his cock. I only saw, in a pinpoint of light, the little caterpillar eat his way across a leaf. I waited in the center of my pain for that caterpillar to grow his wings and fly away.
CHAPTER 35.
ELLIOT
Right about lunchtime, I thought about Fiona. I thought about where she was in her day, when she was being released, how she was getting home, where home was, and who was taking her. I thought about her over my sandwich, and pushed it away not because I felt full but too dissatisfied to eat.
Our final good-bye gnawed at me. After I’d told Lee about my eternal night with Jana, as we negotiated the emotional parts of our breakup, I mentioned the almost kiss with Fiona.
“You’re kidding,” she said, her face white.
“Almost, but we didn’t.”
“We didn’t? No, no, you do not put it on the patient when you—”
“She’s a grown woman.”
“—clearly crossed a line—”
“Nothing happened.”
“—taking advantage of her—”
“Come on, Lee. She’s gone. It’s over. I’ll never see her again.”
She slammed her hands on the desk. “Do not absolve yourself of responsibility. I am stunned, stunned at what’s gone on.”
“You’re losing your professional countenance.”
“I’m livid for her. The fact that you can sit there and make lame, embarrassing excuses for totally inappropriate behavior sickens me. I know I’m your therapist. I’m supposed to sit here and ask you how you feel about what did or didn’t happen, but I don’t care how you feel.” Her face was beet red, fists clenched, her unborn baby getting cortisol by the quart. “I’m enraged for the entire psychiatric community.”
“Then fuck the psychiatric community entirely.”
I’d walked out in a tight ball of anger, unable to see past opening my car door, getting in it, and turning left out of the lot. Right. Right. Left. Straight. Around the corner to Alondra, where I sat with my sandwich, wondering what Fiona was doing in her last hour before release.
I couldn’t see her. Lee had been right, if unprofessional in her delivery. The therapist and patient had a relationship based on the therapist’s power. By using that power inappropriately, I’d broken a wall that had been erected for a reason. A good reason.
I crunched up my paper wrapping and told myself I wouldn’t see Fiona again. I exited the lunch room to get to the paperwork I needed to finish before I went home to my empty house.
Minutes later, with the paperwork undone on my desk, I got in my car. Naturally I was going home. I was too distracted to fill in little boxes and put together sentences coherent enough for insurance companies and government agencies. As a matter of fact, I thought, as I turned south on the 110 instead of north, I didn’t think I could ever do that work again.
As I went west off the exit, deep into Rancho Palos Verdes with its exclusive horse-and-pony enclaves, lawyers’ mansions, actors’ estates, winding roads around nature preserves, and of course, facilities for the mental health of the very monied, I thought I could do better than that paperwork. So much better.
As long as I kept my hands off the patients.
CHAPTER 36.
FIONA
I couldn’t cry.
If I cried, I wouldn’t stop. They’d see me and ask me what was wrong, and then everything was a crapshoot.
If I cried and managed to stop, I’d have puffy eyes, and they’d ask me what was wrong. Then I wouldn’t know what came next.
So I didn’t. I put my head down and walked to my room smiling at everyone I knew. I didn’t slow down. I acted as though I had to pee. As though I’d be back in a minute to say good-bye. My ass felt as though I was in the middle of taking a crap, and fuck if I didn’t feel blood dripping down my leg.
But fuck it. Maybe I was rushing because I had my period.
Right?
I got into my room and snapped the bathroom door closed behind me. Do not motherfucking cry, or you’re not getting out of here.
I had to breathe. Just breathe.
Warren had pulled out of my ass and slapped my butt cheek. He’d said, “Thanks, Fiona,” as if I’d only told him “no” a hundred times to fulfill his little rape fantasy.
“Fuck off, Warren.”
“Aw, come on.” He’d tucked his dick back into his pants. “You’re being a poor sport.”
I’d been kneeling at that point, my pants still around my ankles, and the front of my shirt was covered in leaves and dirt. When I’d looked at him, I thought about what I would do to him when we were both out. I smiled.
The color drained from his face.
As I got in the shower I held that in my memory, nothing else. Cleaning myself. Soap. Washcloth. Drained face. Wiping, scrubbing.
Don’t think about it.
My busted ass, the pain inside and out. The pressure marks on my neck. I could think about all that. I could feel all of it.
But my vulnerability? My mortality? My pathetic, helpless whimpers? I wouldn’t think about those until I walked out the door.
I got dressed, wincing as I lifted a leg into my pants. No. No wincing. No pain. No outward manifestation of what just happened.
I didn’t know what I planned to do about Warren, but I was in control of that. I wouldn’t let the emotions of the moment dictate my plan.
“Hey,” Jonathan called as I walked down the hall.
“I was looking for you,” I said.
“Warren told me.”
I swallowed. I was edgy, raw, and a touch away from breaking down, but if I told Jonathan, he’d beat the shit out of the motherfucking psycho-rapist. Then Jon would be stuck in Westonwood, and Warren would get pity. That wouldn’t do at all.
“Good,” I said. “Margie’s picking me up. Wanna come say hi?”
“Nah. I gotta run.” He looked me up and down. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure? I saw Warren come out of the trees right before you.”
“I have to go.” When I went to hug him, he grabbed my jaw. I pushed him away. “What’s your deal?”
“There are red marks on your neck.”
“It’s nothing. God, it was grungy behind my ears. I probably just scrubbed too hard.”
He didn’t believe me. It was all over his face. He held up his hand. “I’m opening pledge.”
“No, you don’t.” I slapped down his hand. If he asked me one more time, I would tell him about not just Warren but Rachel, and we would both go into a tailspin. No, just no. I needed to stay together for five fucking minutes. I didn’t want to collapse.
“I don’t like that guy,” he growled. “He keeps bringing up Dad like it’s a joke.”
“Ignore him.”
“I’m going to punch him.”
“Don’t, Jon. You were right.” I took him by the shoulders. He was so tall, so much a man with his shaved whiskers and lines of rage. “Bite it back. Don’t do anything that puts you in a situation where you’re not in control. Do you hear me?”
In his green eyes, something flickered, a recognition of the truth, an openness to me I’d never had from him before.
“Are you hearing me?” I said.
“I’m not going to make it.”
“You are. You have to. Lock it down. Think. Plan. Will you? Will you be everything I fail at being?”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” The crack in his voice belied his words.
I hugged him so hard I thought we’d never separate.
***
I sat at the conference table as if my ass didn’t hurt. I concentrated on each breath and just getting the fuck out of there. Margie looked over the papers. Deeming them acceptable, she p
assed them to me to sign.
“This one verifies you have no complaints against Westonwood you’d like to file,” she said.
I signed it.
“This one,” Marge said, “is a non-disclosure agreement. You won’t disclose their treatment methods or names of any of the patients you met in here.”
I signed.
Frances passed her new papers. Margie looked them over, sometimes said this or that, and passed them to me, pointing to the little highlighted ticks indicating where I should scrawl my name. I smiled through the whole thing, even though it was killing me.
“I’ll bring the car around,” Margie said when it was done.
I counted six couches in the lobby, but I didn’t sit on any of them. I had no idea what I would do after Margie pulled around, but I would be out. I would keep everything under control.
Frances hustled through the glass doors. “Fiona.”
“Yes?”
She handed me a clipboard. “I forgot this release.”
“Oh, okay.” I looked for my place to sign, but everything looked hazy.
“Are you all right?” she asked, pointing at the line at the bottom.
“Excited to get going.” I signed.
“Have a good trip home, Fiona.”
“Thanks.”
She was gone in a moment. I glanced at the door. Elliot, a silhouette in the afternoon backlight, opened it and stepped into the building. My heart stopped.
I could have him. With a little effort on my part, and a lot of patience, I could be that perfect, monogamous, plain Jane. I could change my life completely. I pressed my lips together when he stepped toward me. I could be his.
But I couldn’t.
How could I do that to him? I was a whore. I was the girl who gave up her ass for a few pills. Even though I knew in my mind it hadn’t been my fault and Warren was a piece of shit, another part of me begged to differ. I was a worthless piece of fuckmeat, and even if I kept a lid on my desires for the rest of my life, the fact that my heart was made of cunt wouldn’t change.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said. “I was just around, and do you need a lift home?”
He hadn’t shaved, and he looked somehow wild and out of sorts. He was so good, so real, a chance at a different life than I’d been prepared for.
“I’m good. But thanks.” I couldn’t stand there another second. I walked to the door, steeling myself against looking back at him.
As I approached the doors, I felt him behind me. His hand went over mine as it gripped the bar. Margie’s BMW was coming around the corner of the drive. I had to just make that difference in distance.
“Fiona, listen,” he whispered.
“I can’t, Elliot. I can’t. I’ll destroy you. It’s not right.” I pushed the door open.
Margie pulled up as if she’d timed it so I wouldn’t have to wait more than a second. As I stepped across the concrete toward her, I saw something twenty feet to the right that wasn’t visible from the door. A black Range Rover, and a man in a charcoal jacket standing next to it.
Deacon.
It all became clear to me then. I had everything in the world I needed right with him, and he’d come for me as promised, as he always did. He protected me, loved me, worked with who I was instead of trying to transform me into something I’d never be.
I waved at Margie and walked past her. I knew Elliot was behind me, and I knew he saw me approach the Range Rover.
“Master,” I said, casting my eyes down.
“My girl.”
“May I come with you?”
“There are going to be rules. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And consequences. This can’t happen again.”
“I understand.”
He took me by the chin. “Look at me, kitten.”
I did and felt safe. Deacon wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
“Who do you see?” he asked.
“My master.”
“I have you, darling.” He gripped my chin tightly. “I have you.”
As I got into the car, I saw Elliot in front of the building with his hands in his pockets. He and Deacon exchanged a stare as my master crossed in front of the car. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back.
I was free, and enslaved, and in control.
I had this.
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This ends sequence one…
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This is as close to a HFN as you’re going to get with Fiona. To find out when the next book in Songs of Perdition is coming out, get on the mailing list.
I am going to put out the second book in Antonio and Theresa’s story, Ruin, next. Expect it in the Fall of 2014. You can add it on Goodreads. Please note, Songs of Corruption might go serial. If it does, the next book will be in September. If it stays a full-length trilogy, expect book two in early December. I’ll let you know.
After that, well I just don’t know. I do have a secret project happening. The reason it’s secret is I don’t know when it’s going to be released. I work on it in bits and pieces, so somewhere in there, you’ll find a non-Drazen story about a movie star.
And Coda.
I know. Another piece of Jonathan and Monica.
If I write them again, my heart might break. I’m not ready. Believe me, I’m drawn to the idea, but if I go swimming in their waters, I might drown, not because they’re any better or any deeper than my other couples, but because their story takes up so much more real estate than the others. When that changes, I’ll visit them again.
Thanks so much for reading.
Acknowledgements come in the last book, and they’re super long already.
Have you read the Songs of Submission?
No?
Gracious me. Because fast forward sixteen years and Fiona's brother, Jonathan has this whole thing happening with Monica, a singer with a short-circuiting mouth, and it's all kinds of epic length.
Links and reading order below:
Songs of Submission, Sequence One
1) Beg
2) Tease
3) Submit
Songs of Dominance
Very short, optional read
3.5) Jessica/Sharon
Songs of Submission, Sequence Two
4) Control
5) Burn
6) Resist
Songs of Dominance
Very short, optional read between Burn and Resist
5.5) Rachel
Songs of Submission, Sequence Three
7) Sing
Songs of Dominance
7.5) Monica - a very short story, is the last of it, and you might need it after Sing.
If you prefer saving a couple of dollars, and feel ok committing to a few books at a time, the bundles might work for you.
Sequence One - books 1-3 Beg/Tease/Submit
Sequence Two - books 4-6 Control/Burn/Resist
Sing, and all the Songs of Dominance, are still separate as of this moment.
How about Songs of Corruption?
No?
Well, because when Jonathan says his sister Theresa is going to explode in a firestorm of pearls and lace, he wasn’t kidding.
Check out book one, Spin. It’s a full length novel.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1.
CHAPTER 2.
CHAPTER 3.
CHAPTER 4.
CHAPTER 5.
CHAPTER 6.
CHAPTER 7.
CHAPTER 8.
CHAPTER 9.
CHAPTER 10.
CHAPTER 11.
CHAPTER 12.
CHAPTER 13.
CHAPTER 14.
CHAPTER 15.
CHAPTER 16.
CHAPTER 17.
CHAPTER 18.
CHAPTER 19.
CHAPTER 20.
CHAPTER 21.
CHAPTER 22.
CHAPTER 23.
CHAPTER 24.
CHAPTER 25.
CHAP
TER 26.
CHAPTER 27.
CHAPTER 28.
CHAPTER 29.
CHAPTER 30.
CHAPTER 31.
CHAPTER 32.
CHAPTER 33.
CHAPTER 34.
CHAPTER 35.
CHAPTER 36.
