Take Me, Break Me

by Cari Silverwood

  I didn’t even know if I was going to get all these dark desires back into the box they came from. This was like picking up the pieces after a suicide bomber has exploded. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

  Midnight ticked over on the bedside clock. We were back in the real world. The experiment was over.

  I made myself sit with her in the bed. Moonlight let me see a little of her face on the pillow. Peaceful at last.

  “Klaus.” At sound of her voice something hurt inside me. She spoke so quietly. Was she afraid I wasn’t here? “Can you hold me? Please?”

  God. I could almost hear the crack as my heart fractured. I’d barely let her speak for a month. Now, of all times, she called to me like that. Like we were together. Like she trusted me still.

  I wiped my eyes with my forearm. If my eyes didn’t stop watering, I’d have to see a fucking eye specialist. I sighed. Then I slid down under the sheets and wrapped myself around her, breathing in her essence that one last time. She smelled so good. With my eyes closed, and my face buried in her hair, I tried to remember her scent, tried to catalogue it so I could recall it when I needed to. Then I did the same for the feel of her in my arms and the sound of her breathing. Soppy but true.

  When I woke at the crack of dawn, I did what I’d decided to the night before. I organized her hard drive, and hid all the camera footage away under a password. I tidied up the house and packed my stuff in my suitcase that had gotten dusty in a spare room. I fed Baxter one last time. I found all the kinky shit and packed it up to take away with me, made sure she had food for few days, then I wrote out a long note for her that included the password, and I left it beside the bed.

  Last move – I picked up the cat from where he was purring and doing figure of eights around my feet, and put him in bed with her. I frowned as he nudged his way under the covers. Maybe she didn’t like cat hair on the sheets but, tough luck, that was my last act as her Master.

  Then I left, taking everything with me that she no longer needed, including me.

  * * * *

  How do you start being someone who you used to be? Buggered if I knew. I had to start work again, didn’t I? Walking out, not going back, did occur to me.

  But the prospect of somehow starting my life over again was too crazy.

  The prospect of abandoning life was even crazier. Not my style. Even if I seemed to have ended up at the bottom of a black hole.

  And even if I seemed to have damaged the one person who now meant everything to me.

  I think she always had meant more than I’d admitted to myself. I still wouldn’t call it love. Love was for the weirdos of the world who wanted to label things. Whatever it was we had, I didn’t want to leave her unprotected. What we’d done would affect her badly. If it left me stranded in a dark wasteland with my heart bleeding on the ground, what would it do to her?

  I’d systematically stripped her of her defenses. Running away was not an option for me. I’d stay and do what I could without stepping in and being a crutch for her. She had to stand up again on her own.

  So. My locum was leaving this morning. I’d arranged to have him come in to get paid today. I’d open up the business, do what I did to earn a living, arrange a few things, get on with life. Forget I was a sadistic bastard. Pray I was whole enough to function.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Jodie

  A warm lump vibrated against my back. Baxter. I smiled. That cat was getting more and more demanding. The light filtering through my closed eyelids and the coolness said morning sometime. I shifted beneath the sheet. Aches and sharp twinges all over my body stirred.

  Ow. Last night. I remembered, running through what had happened, bliss, BDSM, me being deliciously dominated, and then my memory blurred. Something had happened when Kat went to stick a needle in me. I’d been scared but Klaus had stopped her. Klaus…

  I sat up and looked around. Where was he? The rest of the bed was cold. The house was silent of the sounds of another person living in it. It felt empty. Had he gone somewhere?

  I was utterly awake and aware in a heart-seizing fraction of time. The room around me sprang into bright relief.

  Where was he?

  In a few sweeping seconds, I spotted the pile of stuff on the bedside table and some paper with writing on it scrawled in his hand. The date at the top – the day my fantasy ended. I grabbed the paper and let the sheet float onto the bed. The first words were galling.

  I can’t be with you without hurting you. I’m not safe. Don’t follow me. I won’t leave you instructions as that would defeat the purpose. Remember who you are. How you used to live.

  I stared. The next words were crossed out.

  Forget what we did.

  The rest was nothing important or nothing that seemed so – it was all about passwords and the film and something called subdrop and what I could do.

  Doing anything seemed wrong.

  I let out a shuddery breath and clutched the sheet to my chest. I was alone. It wasn’t just the house that was empty, it was me.

  Cold seeped into my bones, froze my muscles, pained me so badly my stomach grew claws. I hurt. I hurt so much.

  I got underneath the sheet and buried my eyes in the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Klaus

  Monday went by. I paid my locum. I worked. I stared out my window, a lot. I wondered what she was doing. I couldn’t be with her. I was dangerous around her, but depression could hit some people hard. For once the palm trees lining the beach road didn’t make me smile. She needed someone to talk to. I knew some of her friends. I texted them. Arranged things. Told a heap of white lies.

  Lunchtime. I was eating a chicken sandwich at my desk and wondering why it was making me feel ill. Lifting the top layer revealed chicken and butter. Dead flesh. Ugh.

  What might she do, by herself? I made my jaw work, chewing over and over, and I swallowed. It went down in a lump. I was a vulture. Maybe I should have a label on my head that said, Carnivore. Beware of the teeth. It bites.

  The remains of the sandwich placed to one side, I rested my forehead on the heels of my hands.

  Would she try to see me?

  I thought about hiring a security guard. I think that was what’s called a what-the-fuck moment. I caught myself in time. What was I scared of? Jodie? Myself? A security guard wouldn’t help me against either of those.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Jodie

  For the third time that day, the knocking then banging on the front door awoke me. There was nobody but me to answer it. I sighed and dragged myself from bed.

  Clothes, needed some. Naked, I rummaged through my cupboard and drawers. The denim shorts went on only to be pulled off when I spied the bruises on my legs. Jeans. Had to be jeans. A T-shirt would do, though.

  I combed my hair with my fingers and found my way to my front door.

  Adrianna was on the other side. Bright white-and-blue strappy dress and her expression seemed to bubble over with enthusiasm.

  “Hi! Jodie where have you been? It’s been a whole month! You said you’d be away, but a month with no phone, email, nothing?” She hugged me then brushed past in mini-tornado mode. “Klaus texted me this morning. Said you’d broken up, again. When will you two learn? Isn’t this the second time in a few years? He said you needed someone to lean on.”

  As she talked she marched toward the kitchen pulling me in her wake like a giant spaceship with one of those tractor beams glued to my ass. “But, hey girl, least he cares. My exes just vanished over the fucking horizon!”

  Bemused and tired, I followed.

  “You got coffee? I neeed coffee. I’ll make and you…” She yanked open the fridge door. “Can pile the Tim Tams on a plate. You can do that can’t you?” She eyed me. I must have looked bedraggled. “Hmm. Maybe not. Still chocolate biscuits fix everything!”

  Now that was probably going to be engraved on Adrianna’s gravestone. Though blonde, tattooed, and skinny as any surfe
r chick, she ate chocolate by the truckload.

  Jug boiled, coffee made, biscuits piled, we sat down at the dining room table.

  “Tell me all.” Her instant sad face resonated within me. “Tell Auntie Adrianna and I’ll make it all better.”

  We’d stopped moving, stopped talking. The activity had made the immensity of my feelings go away for a while.

  I was alone in my house. How could that be? The table, the floor near the chair he used to sit in, even the sound of the surf outside reminded me of our month together when he’d made me his slave. Not fantasy slave. Not pretend. Real. Now he’d gone. Was it me?

  I searched through memories. Was it the party? I remembered very little toward the end but I had a feeling something jarring had happened. What, though? I must have done something wrong and yet somehow Klaus thought it was his fault. The weight of all this seemed to drag at my body, at my face. All I wanted to do was to crumple to the floor and cry. Maybe I could go beg him to take me back. But the note had been so final.

  How could he do that? Cutting us apart so easily, like it had been nothing. I wanted it back. I wanted to be his again.

  Was I mad?

  Yes, probably.

  “Jodie?” She gently touched my hand where I rested it on my coffee mug. “That bad? Things get better, ya know? It won’t last. Never does. You’ll get over him.”

  I eyed her. She didn’t know a thing. I couldn’t tell her anything that wasn’t a lie. So I smiled a lifeless smile, the best I could summon. “Thanks. I know. Thank you for coming.”

  I was thankful. People who were friends like this counted. But not enough. So I tried not to show how alien she seemed to me, and we chatted about nothing for a while. Then I shooed her away with promises that we’d get together and do something soon – dance club, girls night out, invasion of Cuba, whatever.

  I went back to bed, but at least this time I read all of his note. I didn’t cry, I was too disconnected to cry. None of this was real.

  But I put the sim card back in my cellphone like he suggested. I checked out what subdrop was on the net. Huh. Yeah, I sure had all those symptoms.

  I was cold, lonely, dead inside, but I didn’t need any of the suggested treatments. All I needed was him. So I speed dialed his number and got nothing. No answer. Texting was the same.

  Baxter meowed at me and I shot him a sour look. Had I been left this menace purely to get me to live? I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I trudged into the kitchen, opened a sachet of food and poured it out. The cat food reminded me of eating. Baxter liked the stuff. I sniffed it.

  As some sort of weird revenge against Klaus for abandoning me, I put a spoonful in my mouth. Uck.

  I spit it out in the sink then leaned over with the water running, rinsing my mouth and spitting for the next minute.

  “Fuck you, Klaus,” I muttered, arms propped either side of the sink. “Fuck you to hell and back.”

  Damn. If he was here, I would’ve been caned for that.

  I wished so much he was here.

  The first tear rolled down my cheek. Stiffly, angrily, I wiped it away but another followed like some stupid product rolling off an assembly line.

  “Go away,” I growled at my tears. “Go away!”

  They kept coming, filling my eyes, dripping into the sink, wetting my chin, my shirt.

  At last the sorrow broke through and I sobbed out loud. I stayed there for ages, crying into the sink, then I gave in and folded up, sliding my back down the cupboard and sitting on the floor with my head hanging in my hands. The tears filtered through my fingers like rain.

  “Why didn’t you at least talk? Why?” The words echoed in my head.

  They were plastic words that meant nothing, but I kept saying them when the tears choked me up so much that I stopped crying. Then I gripped my jeans hard until I hurt the flesh underneath. No one heard me crying and asking inane questions except the cat, who lay next to me in a curled-up bundle, purring his little heart out.

  When I finally ran out of tears, I sat staring at the floor until the daylight went.

  I heaved myself to my feet. Dark outside, mosquitoes were whining, my body was one huge, hot, prickly balloon. It seemed too big, as if my fingers were too far away and not mine. I shivered. Tired, so tired. I should eat.

  I washed my face, stuck my head under the tap, and wiped my wet hair with a towel. Then I went back to bed. Being hungry seemed a good punishment.

  I drifted off.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Klaus

  Tuesday, one of her friends, Adrianna, phoned to say Jodie was shaky but good. Shaky? I fended off her questions and hung up when I could. They could think what they liked. If I said too much it might contradict whatever story Jodie made up.

  The “shaky” description had me googling again though. Never, never trust your first google. Subdrop could last for days. I’d known friends with long-term depression. How could I tell if this was worse than a fleeting problem? I doodled holes in the notepad on my desk for a while. I couldn’t, could I? Not the way I’d severed all ties.

  Half wondering if I was justifying something I longed to do anyway, I answered one of her emails.

  If you need me for anything, Jodie. You can text me or email. Just nothing physical, though. No meeting. No chats online. Would you like to do that?

  I waited nervously for her reply, checking my inbox every fifteen minutes until I saw her answer.

  Yes. Thank you.

  Those simple words sank into me like a stone settling to the bottom of a pool. My mind went quiet. I could have kissed the laptop screen.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d been afraid of…that she’d suicide? Maybe. Guess I had. Guess I needed this contact as much as she did. Without it I’d be wondering what she was up to.

  Her next email was simple, and one word: Why?

  It took me an hour of typing and deleting a long and complex answer several times, before I gave in and mailed off my reply.

  I’m afraid I will hurt you. I did hurt you at the play party.

  Her answer arrived later that night.

  Not really. No more than I liked. The party was amazing. If I did something wrong, please *please* tell me.

  I read it over and over. She was still confused about my reasons. It seemed as if she’d forgotten what Kat had almost done to her. The terror on her face had been real. I knew it had. Should I bring it up if she’d forgotten? What justification did I have for such cruelty? None.

  So I answered in general terms again. I told her, I stressed, that she’d done nothing wrong.

  That she was sad and lost was clear – as clear as it was that I was the same. This was such a farce. A comedy of ridiculousness. Her next answer jolted me.

  Jodie: Please come back.

  Fuck. A fork in the eye had nothing on this. I needed a heart surgeon to come do some quick cutting. Right then, mine hurt so much, I’d rather have it out.

  Me: No. You have to learn to stand on your own feet again.

  What I was feeling – how thick I’d been thinking she was the only dependent one. This wasn’t one-sided. I wanted to be with her.

  Then I tried to find out if she was eating and taking care of herself without being too specific.

  Her answers were as non-specific as my questions. When, in frustration, I asked her exactly what she’d eaten and done that day, Jodie gave me a list of everything in great detail. And she left it hanging, as if to say, do you approve?

  I sat back in my chair.

  I’d forgotten how smart she was.

  Here I was, trying to keep distant when she was cunningly doing the opposite. I didn’t answer. After an hour, she did. At two AM Wednesday morning.

  Jodie: Please, Klaus. I know how much you liked what we were doing. I want to serve you naked again. I want your hand in my hair and I want want WANT you to do whatever you wish to my body.

  Yeah, I’d sure managed to pull away from her. That alone had given me a hard-on.

>   Wednesday was a day of tiredness.

  I made myself be distant yet helpful. I stuck to my guns and stayed in the zone I imagined halfway between not being there for her at all, and being in her face, kissing her, fucking her, feeling her body. Damn.

  Thursday, she was making little sarcastic jokes. Her true personality returned. As soon as I was certain, over the next emails that day, I told her I was doing it, going to truly go. Her replies became terser, angrier. Anger was good. I let it ride, even when she called me the misbegotten offspring of a hunch-backed koala and a camel. Ah. Definitely, the return of the sense of humor. I said goodbye. After my last email, I swallowed despite the dryness of my throat. She needed more than what I could give her.

  Though it pained me to reach out to him, I emailed Moghul and asked if he could somehow, quietly, get someone to talk to Jodie. She wasn’t on Fetlife so I had to give her email to him. But, I knew her so well. Kink wasn’t a minor flutter for her. She needed some sort of insight and some help to see where she was going. Maybe, she needed another Dom?

  That idea made me want to hurt someone again. Not her though, the imaginary him.

  By the Friday afternoon, I was mostly numb, yet scared. I had to teach at the club.

  Being an automaton at work was far easier than at the club. There, it was all numbers, clients with money concerns, and Marjorie, a secretary who was as old as the hills and more into knitting and cooking than sex. I wasn’t about to molest anyone.

  Here though, there were people who loved life. People who knew me as the fun guy who taught them how to flatten each other in a good, repeatable, professional way. Judo was tripping with finesse. Or so I told them when we were being all casual at the club BBQs.

  I pushed open the glass door and braced myself as Ted came storming down the hallway with a grin on his face.