by Shelly Bell
“Inconsistencies?”
“Yes. Cash Turner might have been innocent.”
Meg looked at Dreama as if she were a cockroach. “Who cares? That has nothing to do with you or your job as his parole officer. Did you tell this Turner about the inconsistencies? Is that why you visited him today?”
Dreama had a feeling the truth would only hurt her in this case. Meg only believed about doing the bare minimum for the parolees. She treated them as if they were a number rather than an individual. She’d never understood, and never would understand, why Dreama did more for her clients than was required.
“No. I didn’t mention anything to Mr. Turner.” Dreama hissed as a cramp seized her thigh. Her leg buckled beneath her, but she caught herself before she fell. “I only went to see him in order to complete his employment check. Nothing more.”
Meg gazed dropped to Dreama’s leg. “Maybe this job is too difficult for you to handle.”
“No, ma’am,” she said, hating that she had to show this witch any sign of respect and that Meg had seen her moment of weakness. “I can handle it.”
Meg’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Consider this a warning, Dreama. Do your job and your job only. If I hear you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong again, you’ll find yourself without employment.”
There was no way she would ever let Meg have the satisfaction of firing her. Besides, this job was important to Dreama. When she’d been lying in her hospital bed, unable to walk, she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t let the attack change her. But it had. The phobia caused by the attack had stolen a huge part of her identity. She couldn’t bear to lose another. If she wasn’t a sexual submissive or a parole officer, who was she?
Yet, she couldn’t stop her search for the truth. Browner’s phone call to Meg only reinforced her suspicions about Cash’s case. The old Dreama had been fearless. She would have never allowed anyone, especially Meg, to prevent her from doing what she believed was right, and she wasn’t going to start now.
It was time to reclaim the old Dreama…in more ways than one.
“Don’t worry,” she assured Meg, not feeling an ounce of remorse for her lies. She smiled. “I won’t.”
SEVEN
Friday night, Cash leaned forward and nabbed another piece of pizza from the square cardboard box on the coffee table. What a difference a week made. Last Friday at this time, he’d been in his prison cell, lying on his lumpy cot and reading the latest Stephen King novel. Now he was free, lying on a plush couch and watching television.
He bit into his slice of pizza, not caring that he’d already devoured five slices. This was the first time since getting out that he’d eaten it and he’d forgotten how delicious it was. Pizza in prison just hadn’t been the same.
It amazed him that with three hundred television channels, he couldn’t find one thing he wanted to watch. After spending ten minutes scrolling through the guide, he settled on a re-airing of last week’s football game. It was either that or a show on lake fishing.
Didn’t matter. Nothing kept his attention riveted enough to prevent his thoughts from returning to Dreama. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her or what she’d told him about the Breathalyzer all week.
She was like a giant puzzle that he couldn’t put together because he was missing pieces. But that didn’t stop him from trying anyway.
Since the other day, he’d spent hours on the Internet, reading about panic attacks.
In prison, one of his cellmates had suffered from them. He would shake and sweat. Hyperventilate until he almost passed out. It had taken Cash a while before he’d figured out how to talk him down from them.
That was why he’d known what to do for Dreama.
But it wasn’t until today that he’d identified what had triggered it.
Haphephobia.
The fear of touch.
The question running through his head was why?
And why did it bother him so damned much?
It wasn’t his responsibility to fix her. He’d already been down that road with Maddie. When he’d met her on campus, she was like a meek little lamb living in a world of wolves. Coming off his first Dom/sub relationship, he’d confused Maddie for a submissive and trained her both in and out of the bedroom. She’d not only allowed him to take care of her, but she also came to expect it.
A few months later, doubt began to creep in. Maddie had become so possessive of him, she’d threatened to kill herself when he’d told her of his plans to go to a football game without her. That’s when he’d discovered she had a long history of mental illness. Still, he’d thought he could save her. By the time he realized he’d been wrong, it was too late.
But his past experience with Maddie didn’t change his desire to help Dreama…or his desire for her. Dreama was nothing like Maddie. She was a strong-willed and passionate advocate for her parolees. She liked dogs. She hated that her mother was overprotective. And after she suffered a panic attack, she picked herself up and kept on moving.
The research on haphephobia was staggering. It could be caused by anything from trauma to the fear of germs.
Fiddling with her dangling earring and all decked out for clubbing, Rebecca strolled into the room. “I think you’ve left a permanent impression in the couch cushion with your ass. It’s Friday night.”
In less than an hour, she’d switched from her work clothes to a clingy black dress and high-heeled boots. He eyed her, wondering if he could play the big brother card and make her change into something less revealing. “I’m aware of that fact since yesterday was Thursday and it’s currently dark outside.”
She sighed and put a hand on her hip. “I meant you should go out somewhere.”
“I know exactly what you meant.” He sat up and rested his feet on the coffee table next to the pizza box.
“Do you want to come out with me and my friends?”
Somehow, he doubted her friends wanted her ex-con brother hanging around. Besides, he couldn’t go anywhere that served alcohol and he wouldn’t be the reason she changed her plans.
“Rather not,” he said, resting his feet on the edge of the coffee table. “I’m good, Becs. You go out and have some fun.” He waved a finger at her and added, “But not too much fun.”
No matter what, she was still his little sister.
“You don’t have to go out with us. There’s plenty of other stuff to do. See a movie. Go bowling. Go to the gym. Hell, go to Walmart. Just get off the damn couch and stop sulking.”
“Sulking,” he repeated.
“Yes, sulking.” She sat on the couch beside him and shut off the television with the remote. “I know it’s been an adjustment and everything is different from before you went in. But Maddie wouldn’t want you to live your life this way.”
No longer having an appetite, he threw the rest of his pizza into the box in front of him. “What way?”
“Not living at all.” Rebecca softened her voice. “She would want you to move on. To fall in love again.”
His sister didn’t know the first thing about what Maddie would want.
No one did.
And it would stay that way. He didn’t need to tarnish her memory with the truth.
“Well, she doesn’t get a say in the matter, does she?” he said, much too bitterly.
He immediately regretted his tone. His sister didn’t deserve it. She was only trying to help.
“If you won’t talk to me,” she said, “you should find someone else to talk to.”
He immediately thought of Dreama. He’d already found himself opening up to her. She was easy to talk to, and if she wasn’t his parole officer, things might be different, but Dreama was a dangerous temptation he couldn’t afford. “Like a shrink?” he asked.
Rebecca pat his knee. “Or a friend.”
Friends.
He wasn’t sure he ever had real friends. In high school, he’d always had a group of guys surrounding him and wanting to be his friend. Wanting to be him. Foo
tball players. The jocks. The kids who ruled the school as if they owned it. He’d been their king. But did they ever give a shit about him other than what he could do for their status? It had been much of the same in college. At least up until his life had gone to shit.
“That’s the thing about going to prison,” he said. “All your so-called friends tend to disappear on you.”
Rebecca was quiet for a moment. She played with the bracelet on her wrist. “Have you started filling out the vet school applications yet?”
He chuffed out a laugh. “Why bother? They’re never going to accept me.”
“You don’t know that. You made straight As in your junior and senior years.”
Easy when there was nothing better to do with your time than study. “While I was in prison.”
“You started the PAWS program.”
“Again, in prison.”
“You used to work for one of the leading veterinary pharmaceutical companies,” she reminded him.
Lundquist Animal Health had been small peanuts in the veterinary pharmaceutical industry when Cash had worked there. All of its financial success had happened while Cash was in prison.
Thomas Lundquist, the sole owner of the company, had been an old friend and childhood neighbor of his father’s. Thomas had never married or had kids of his own, so when Cash’s father died of a brain aneurysm when Cash was twelve years old, Thomas stepped into the role of father figure. He’d come to all of Cash’s football games, gave him advice on girls, and as an animal lover himself, had encouraged Cash’s dream of becoming a veterinarian.
Cash had begun working for Thomas back in high school and continued in college. There’d been discussion that Thomas would pay for Cash to go to vet school in exchange for him working for the company for five years after graduation. The night of the accident, Cash and Maddie had been celebrating Thomas’s success in achieving FDA approval for a revolutionary drug that would reduce the mortality rate of animals during surgery.
Despite all the national attention he’d been getting at the time, Thomas swore he’d stand behind Cash and even offered to pay for a defense attorney. But between feeling as if he’d disappointed Thomas and knowing that he didn’t need a criminal associated with his company, Cash had refused his help.
Rebecca smiled, looking triumphant. “No comeback?” she asked, not realizing Cash had been deep in thought.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Have you called Thomas?”
“No,” he admitted. He hadn’t spoken to him in eight years.
“Thomas and I have kept in touch. He was hurt that you cut him out of your life after Maddie died. You should call him.”
“And say what?” His feet slid off the coffee table as he stood. “I’m out of prison. Want to give me a job and help me get into vet school?”
“How about you start with ‘hello’ and go from there?” Rebecca shook her head. “God, you’ve turned into a whiny bitch.”
“A whiny bitch?”
Her lips tilted up even as the rest of her radiated anger. “A whiny bitch.”
Those are fighting words.
“Take that back,” he demanded.
She shrugged. “If the shoe fits…”
He attacked, zeroing in on her tickle spot on the right side of her lower rib cage. She shrieked and tried to get away, but with years of tickle torture experience under his belt, he hit the exact location that made her explode into laughter.
“Stop! Stop!” She slapped at his chest. “Okay, you’re not a bitch.” As he pulled his hands away to let her catch her breath, she added, “Only whiny.”
God, he’d missed this. It brought him back to a time when life had been so simple. When he’d had nothing more to worry about than grades and catching a football. If only his mother was still alive, he could almost pretend nothing in the last eight years had happened.
Cash hated that Rebecca was worried about him. Maybe she was right. He should get out of the house. It wasn’t as if there was a prison warden to stop him. He could go see a movie. Or he could do what he really wanted to do. Since Tuesday, the card for Club X had been burning a hole in his wallet.
He’d never gone to a BDSM club before. Not comfortable dominating a stranger, he could just go and observe. Maybe even find someone to train him in domination.
“You win,” he said to Rebecca. “I’ll go out.”
He looked down at his black Henley and worn-out jeans.
What exactly did one wear to a sex club?
EIGHT
Dreama parked in the lot across the street from Club X and turned off her car. Because she generally preferred intimate play parties held at people’s homes over the anonymous feel of a BDSM club, she hadn’t been to one in years. But things had changed. She didn’t want to witness the pity in her friends’ eyes when they saw her scars or hear them console her when she couldn’t participate. Chances were she’d run into people she knew at Club X, but not her immediate circle of friends in the lifestyle, which included Jane, and Dreama’s cousin Isabella.
She couldn’t make herself get out of the car. It was complete darkness outside. The only light came from the lamp in front of the entrance. In the distance, she heard the sound of police sirens.
Here she was at a dungeon yearning to be whipped, caned, cropped, and slapped, and she was afraid of the dark. But that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Control. During a scene, she had it. Sure, the Dominant was the person in charge, but it was the submissive who held the power. One word from her and the action stopped. There were limits, soft and hard, and negotiations between the Dom and sub prior to the scene. And most importantly, there was consent.
But the dark had a power all its own. She couldn’t stop it. No matter what, night followed day.
Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, she took a deep breath and slowly let it out. She had to get her butt out of the car and take the first step toward reclaiming her sexuality.
I can do this.
Sex had been a pivotal part of her identity for more than a decade. Once she had identified herself as a sexual submissive and masochist, a piece of her had clicked into place. Sex was more than a pleasurable act for her. Being dominated gave her the chance to release all the things she couldn’t say out loud and cry without feeling weak. Since her attack, those things had been bottled up inside her with no means of escape.
Masturbation used to be a daily occurrence in her schedule. She hadn’t once, in all these months, felt the desire to touch herself or use anything from her huge collection of sexual aids. In fact, she hadn’t experienced a glimmer of attraction to a man…until Cash. And he was off-limits.
She’d moved out of her parents’ house and had returned to work. Both were huge steps in reclaiming her old life. Her body’s reaction to Cash gave her hope that the sexual woman inside of her hadn’t been extinguished with the attack. She was afraid the longer she repressed that vital part of herself, the greater the chance she would never get it back. That was why she’d made the decision to come here tonight.
Now it was time to put on her big-girl panties and show them off in a BDSM club. She wanted to immerse herself in the experience again in the hopes that maybe it would help her overcome her phobia of touch.
Her toes curled in her boots as she squeezed her fingers around the smooth metal handle and pushed open the car door. An icy blast of air whipped around her, stinging the inside of her nose. Purse in hand, she gritted her teeth and hoisted herself out of the seat. The wind’s force slammed the car door shut before she could chicken out and get back in the car.
She crossed the empty main road to the entrance of the club. Now that the sirens had disappeared, it was eerily silent. Even the wind didn’t make a sound.
Once inside Club X, her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. She paid twenty dollars to the bouncer and handed over her personal items to the attendant. Phones and cameras were not permitted in the dungeon, and since alcohol wasn’t served there, the entr
ance fee included soft drinks and water.
In front of the attendant station, she adjusted her corset so that her boobs weren’t falling out and her skirt covered her butt. She’d designed and sewed almost all of her fetish wear herself, even the outfit she wore tonight. Since her attack, she hadn’t touched her sewing machine.
Tonight’s outfit had been inspired by her love of steampunk. The buttery brown leather was fastened by four timepiece clips and had garters that connected to cream sheer stockings. In the front, her skirt came only to the top of her thighs and was made from the same leather as the corset, but in back, she’d sewn a long train of lace to the leather’s edge, the bunched fabric reminding her of a peacock’s tail.
For a brief time, she’d considered a career as a fashion designer, but her school social worker had been so pivotal in changing her life for the better when she’d helped Dreama get her ADHD diagnosis, she decided to follow in her footsteps and get her degree in social work. She’d chosen to become a parole officer because she believed everyone deserved a second chance.
She stepped out from the entrance area and moved inside the club, surprised to discover it was more spacious than it had seemed from the outside. The club was actually an old converted warehouse with concrete floors and high ceilings. Lit by flickering sconces and surrounded by the echoes of chains and whips, she felt as if she’d entered a real dungeon.
For someone like her, it was sensual as hell. A haze of sweat and sex hung heavy in the air. It was so pungent, she could almost taste the saltiness of it when she licked her lips. Low industrial music played backup to the moans and cries of the people in scenes. Unlike the play parties she used to go to, this club permitted public sex and hardcore play.
She was immediately seduced by the various scenes around her, each one roped off by red velvet barriers. At first glance, most of the bottoms appeared to be men, while the tops were a mix of genders.
Spying a small crowd gathering in front of one particular scene, she wandered over to watch. A middle-aged man wore a chastity cage over his cock as a woman fucked him from behind with a strap-on dildo. Dreama shivered at the knowledge that the cage prevented the bottom from achieving climax. The man had a heavy-lidded expression she recognized as subspace. She desperately missed the floaty high that came from submission. Envy squeezed her tight, but disappointedly, the scene did nothing to arouse her.
