The Fire Saga (The Club)

by Katherine Rhodes

  The bright, happy, clear portrait at the bottom was a welcome relief from the rest of the images. With wondrous and mischievous eyes, the girl there surveyed the world as something to be explored, and knowledge as something to be devoured. She was carefree, joyous and a marvel to be around. This was Little Sister.

  Under mother was Tallulah Belle. It wasn’t Tally, and it wasn’t Beebee. This was the full and proper woman. She had hints of the hard edges from her father, the wistfulness of her mother magnified. Her eyes were warm, distant, almost lost. There was a defiance there that couldn’t be fully described, and yet the sense of power, of control was already there. This was Tallulah Belle.

  And under her was the man he hadn’t known about until he threw her lifestyle in her face. Simon. The husband. The lover. The beauty of the picture couldn’t be overstated. His black hair was dramatic compared to the deep pools of blue that made up his eyes. The laugh lines around them were deep, clearly from years of laughter and sun. He smiled with abandon in this image, probably trying not to laugh at the artist. Yet still, there was something dark, demanding secret about his countenance.

  The clue was on the tie clip: a small spiraling circle with three divisions, looking almost like someone had put a triangle in the circle and turned it to soften the edges. It was black and white, and looked incongruous unless someone knew where to look, and what it meant: Dom. Someone who was a master in the lifestyle; someone to be obeyed.

  “Amazing, isn’t she?”

  Hartman was standing next to him, and Liam gave a start. He hadn’t heard the man come back in. Liam looked back at the images. “I have no words for this.”

  “This is why I was so reluctant to have her share space,” Hartman said. “Almost all of this is purchased, but she hasn’t been creating yet. For someone who can make such breathtaking objet d’art she’s wilting inside. The trip to Bryce and Zion did wonders, but she doesn’t have that steady, beautiful muse with her anymore.”

  “How well do you know her?”

  Hartman pointed to the triptych. “I met her when she moved here after that.”

  Liam was confused, but looked back at the images. He was now standing at the perfect distance from it to really make out what it was.

  And just like any medieval triptych, there was a portrait on either side of the main picture. This one had a man, easily identifiable as Simon, and a woman on the other. What had looked like a mass of cream from faraway and horrible series of bad lines and some kind of uncontrolled disorganization up close, turned into the image of a car accident. The mangled exterior of the car lay next to a high cliff face, with the lights of emergency vehicles out of sight reflected on the wet and destroyed surfaces of the car. As his eyes adjusted to it, he saw a ghostly outline of a woman in the wetted paint of the car—Tally.

  Liam barely breathed. “She was there.”

  “She followed to make sure the husband wasn’t following them.”

  “Who’s the woman?”

  “Eileen. Her best friend.”

  Holy shit. She’d watched everything she had be destroyed in a single heartbeat.

  Liam turned away and looked back into the room of riotous colors. This was where she needed to be. Not that dark corner. Not that shadowed, cold place. Hartman nodded, silently agreeing with the assessment. “She called last week. Said she was working on something new, something like her early works in here. She sounded hopeful.”

  “She deserves to be hopeful,” Liam said.

  “From the darkest corners, we need the brightest lights to guide us.”

  Liam nodded. He wanted to be the one to help her shine again.

  Nine

  Thursday evening

  Wine didn’t taste as good anymore. She still liked it, but there had been very little she enjoyed more than a warm spring night on the terrace looking out at Central Park with a chilled glass of some vintage that Simon had proudly brought home. She always made a cheese platter to go with it, and they nibbled—or teased each other—with the figs.

  Here, without Simon, it just didn’t have the same…

  Tally sighed. Simon. Fuck. She missed him. She knew that all of her good memories of him had boiled to the top because of Liam and his bullshit. Her mind was trying to cope with what he had done.

  Her mind was trying to cope with the stupid move she had made by letting him in her life, and the stupid move her brain had made by starting to fall for him. Tally was convinced that she would never ever find someone who would take her as she was. She was a Domme now.

  She had loved switching with Simon in the year before she lost him. Tally wanted everything about her life back. Everything. She wanted her Upper West Side condo back, her studio that overlooked the park. She wanted her gallery and openings back. She wanted to stroll through the museums aimlessly for hours with her brilliant, fun, dominate psychologist husband teasing her and promising her filthy shenanigans later in their playroom.

  And none of it would ever be the same.

  She just wanted someone to accept her, as wholly and completely as Simon had. She had flings and clients and friends with benefits. But she still lived alone, still worked alone, still slept alone. And at twenty-six, she was too young to be a widow.

  She swirled the wine in the glass. Time to put up the walls again, Tally guessed. Stick with the quickies, one night stands, and special requests. And B.O.B. There was no reason to keep taking chances. Not until she had well and truly healed from Simon’s and Eileen’s deaths.

  Tally wondered if that would ever happen.

  Maybe Jet was right. Maybe it was time to consider going back to a therapist. She was falling back into terrible patterns.

  Or maybe Lucy was right. Maybe it was time to start booking regular vacations to see the world again, with her own eyes, without Simon there.

  The glass was empty, again, and Tally automatically made her way to the kitchen. She didn’t make it—her feet took her to the studio at the back of the house.

  The paints and thinners and palate knives were strewn in their usual places. The canvas there had the beginnings of the beautiful picture she had dreamed the night before she and Liam went on their first—and only—date. The main street of Karim, in the glorious bloom of spring. Splashes of color had started to form the houses and trees of the street. She had been enamored from the start with how Cajun and Creole the little town in Texas had felt.

  And last week, only last week, she had felt inspired to try and paint again. Try to capture some of the joy that her heart was starting to allow her when she thought of the sexy security man. She had hoped, with Liam knowing what went on in The Club, he would be more open-minded. Clearly, a poor decision.

  Staring at the painting, she wanted to finish it. But she knew she couldn’t—the result would be two different halves of the same image. She was too torn, too bitter to even think about trying to paint the rest of that gorgeous portrayal of the town she now called home.

  A black gessoed canvas in the corner caught her eye. She’d forgotten about it; she had prepped when she’d first gotten the studio set up, hoping to pull some of the darkness out of her. It sat unused.

  Tally pulled it out of the corner, shocked by how big she had stretched the canvas. Nearly six feet high and four feet wide, as soon as she saw the blank, dark expanse she saw what needed to be there.

  The wine was forgotten.

  * * *

  Friday morning

  Tally heard a faint banging from the front of the house and paused in front of the canvas. It didn’t happen again, so she grabbed the next palate knife and started cutting the colors into the image there.

  Only to be interrupted by the banging again.

  “What!” she screamed and threw the palate on the stool. She knew it wouldn’t stop until she answered the door, so with a measure of disgust, she walked out of the studio. Unlocking the deadbolt—a city habit she never broke and didn’t want to—she pulled the door open.

  Only to be greeted wit
h what seemed a doorway full of yellow roses and a blinding glare of hot morning sun.

  What the…

  Two thoughts crashed through her mind:

  It’s morning? and No one knows about the yellow roses.

  Slowly the flowers dropped from the center of her vision as she readjusted to the bright light, and she found a very solemn Liam standing there, holding the flowers and a very angry Jet Mak next to him.

  It took everything she had not to slam the door. “What the hell do you two want?”

  Mak stepped into the foyer, as Liam followed. “Where the fuck have you been? It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  “What?” Tally’s voice was small and shocked. “No, it’s not. I—”

  “You’re covered in paint.” Liam pointed out. “And it smells like thinner in here. Don’t you have proper vents for your studio?” His face switched from contrite to concern.

  “Oh, no no no. Don’t you pull that shit on me,” Tally snapped. “You both show up here banging on my door, pulling me out of my zone. Don’t try to make me feel bad.” She stopped, glancing up at the sun. “Is it really eleven?”

  “You were in the studio all night, weren’t you?” Mak asked, taking a few steps in that direction.

  Tally stepped in front of him. “Stay. Out. You know the rules.”

  Liam walked right past her. “I don’t.”

  In a flash, Tally moved and landed Liam flat on his back. “I said, stay out!”

  Liam’s air rushed out, and a long minute later he gasped and sucked it back. “Jesus, Mak. Warn a guy when he’s dealing with a karate master.”

  “It’s jujitsu, asshole.” She looked at him lying there with the flowers on his chest, his breath sawing in and out. “And who said you could come in, anyway? I thought that you made it clear you weren’t interested.”

  An arm extended to hold the flowers up. “I’m an asshole. You called it.”

  Yellow roses. How the hell did he know about the yellow roses? She took them, giving Mak a look to send him into the kitchen for a vase. “I didn’t invite you in.”

  “I want to apologize.”

  “I don’t want your apology.”

  He turned his head and gestured into the studio. “That painting says otherwise.”

  Tally grabbed the door and slammed it shut. “That painting is none of your business.”

  Mak held out the vase for Tally to put the flowers in, and she did—but slammed them in as much as one could slam flowers. He didn’t move, and after three years, Tally knew his signature ‘not going anywhere until you look at me’ move. She conceded quickly.

  “The man came here to apologize, Tally. I saw the painting too. You might want to listen to him. And didn’t I tell you about setting an alarm in that damn studio?” Mak placed the flowers on the counter.

  “I didn’t actually intend to paint at all,” Tally answered. “It just happened.”

  “Don’t scare me like that again, Tally.” Mak shook his head. “I know you’ve been a wreck these past few days.” He glanced down, and they found Liam climbing to his feet, rubbing his back. “Seriously. Don’t scare me. We were waiting for you to get in so you could try and fire Liam.”

  “Try?”

  Mak grunted and stepped past her. “Lucy’s in the car. We’re going to a demonstration in Houston for a new kitchen system. That thing we have upstairs in The Club is a joke.”

  Tally shook her head. “Keep an eye out for an interior decorator. I still want the Voyeurisme room redone.” Mak waved off-handedly and closed the door behind himself.

  Tally turned around to look at the man standing in the door to the kitchen, holding his back. There was a trace of pain in his face, and the smallest twinge of guilt washed over her. “Sorry. Bit of an overreaction. I don’t like people seeing my art before I’m done. I had too many critics when I did.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. That was rude of me.”

  “Seems to be your modus operandi,” Tally stated.

  Liam cringed. “I deserved that.”

  “You did.” She folded her arms. “Now. What are you doing here? Before I kick your ass out of my front door.”

  “I was worried about you. Mak said it, I was waiting at your office to be fired. I didn’t show for work yesterday.”

  “I was going to let Mak decide what to do you with, because I’m kind of over you.” His tilted gaze told her he wasn’t fooled. “Fine then, I want to be over you.”

  “I screwed up, Tally. Big time. I should never have left the bed. I should not have walked away. But I freaked out when you said I was submissive.”

  “We went through this, Liam.” Tally sighed.

  “I know, I know…but there’s more. Because I have done a lot of reflection in the past two days, since I was such a dick to you. I didn’t know you. I didn’t give us—you and me—a real chance. I just assumed that our relationship would be bad. But I never got to know you because I’m a coward. I think…I think it’s why I’m a loner and a nomad. It has nothing to do with that life, and everything to do with me being a chicken.”

  He reached around her and pulled one of the flowers out of the vase. “Mak told me to go see your paintings in Austin. I was overwhelmed by what I had said to you, how I had surely torn into your heart with unfair words. I saw on those walls a beautiful soul who has not had a chance to shine, and I tarnished it even more. I saw your father, your whole family hiding in the dark.” Liam held the rose between them, and Tally could smell the pure, sweet fragrance. “And in the light I saw you. I saw what I had injured.

  “I found the roses in every picture hanging there, Tally. In every bright, happy picture, I found the roses. Some were hidden. Some were the subject. And not just the ones on the wall, Tally. All of your pictures. I went through the whole catalog as soon as I realized what you’d done.” He held the flower out to her. “What do they mean?”

  Tally backed away from him, overwhelmed. She put a hand to her chest and gulped the chemical-tinged air that leaked out of the studio. “No one’s ever found them.”

  “No one?” Liam asked.

  “Not a single person has ever realized they were in all the paintings.”

  “Not even Simon?”

  “I hid them there hoping he would,” she confessed, and a sob tore through her. “I wanted him to find them. It was the only thing about me he never saw. I’m not mad about that; I just wish he’d found them.” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the sobs.

  “Your professors never saw them either, did they?”

  Tally shook her head.

  “Why did you put them there?”

  Tally gasped a short breath. “My grandfather used to give a yellow rose for every holiday when I was a little girl. He was the only man in my life for years who saw me as a little girl and not a little sinner or burden.”

  Liam’s hand was under her chin, and he lifted her to look at him. “I am sorry, Tally. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know you. I don’t know you, but now I am beginning to understand you. I shouldn’t have run. I should have answered the phone. I shouldn’t have thrown your life in your face.” His thumb graced her cheek, brushing away the tears she thought she was long done with.

  His eyes were soft, and there was true apology in their depths. He was so close to her, so sexy, and she couldn’t get his face out of her mind. Tally pushed the door open next to them. “I don’t show anyone my work before it’s done.”

  “And that’s not done?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Tally said.

  “Then why?”

  “Because you need to see it. You need to see how…” Tally couldn’t find the words. She wanted to show him how much he hurt her, and how deep he had already embedded himself in her. Her mind, her soul. Her hopes.

  He didn’t turn to look in the room. Instead, she found his lips dancing sweetly across hers, pressing her back into the doorframe with no demands at all. It wasn’t a consuming kiss. Inste
ad, it was a promise and another apology. His breath was warm and sweet, and she wanted nothing more than to give into him and take control back of everything that was going on.

  Liam pulled back, a light smile on his lips, and before she could change her mind, he turned and walked into the studio, in to see the canvas she was working on.

  For someone who was usually so in control, she felt completely out of control at that moment.

  He stared up at the huge canvas, mostly complete. Tally leaned against the wall, arms around herself. She hadn’t felt this vulnerable in years. Here was the way she saw him. This was her lifestyle. This was her: her lies, her truths, her fears, her dreams.

  She’d never been brave enough to paint like this. To paint something like that, showing her other half. Not the happy, bright, captivating landscapes, nor the dark, dour countenances of her family and the portraits of her friends and lovers. This exposed her lifestyle as she’d always striven to hide. Striven to keep away from the light, keep away from exposure. Even though most people knew her as a dominatrix, she never showed them this.

  Her soul. In oil and gesso, on canvas.

  “What does being your submissive mean?” Liam asked, still staring at the painting. “A collar? All fours? CBT?”

  Tally stuttered. What was he saying? “It means what you want it to mean.”

  “What does it mean to you?”

  “Someone who listens to me in the bedroom. Who isn’t unwilling to try new things, who isn’t afraid to say no. Someone who wants more than a mistress-submissive relationship outside the bedroom. A partner. A friend. A lover. Someone who’ll spank me when I’m bad and spank me harder when I’m good. Someone who will try to understand me even if I can’t understand myself.”

  Liam took her hand. “You wouldn’t make me wear a leash?”

  “You really don’t get what this is about. It’s not about me making you do something. This is about you wanting me to do those things for you.” Tally rubbed her thumb over his knuckles, not meeting his eyes. “The sub is always in charge. Even when you’re tied up and gagged, it’s always your game. If you don’t want a leash, I can’t put one on you.”