by Roxy Harte
“I know,” I say, rubbing my muddy hand over my brow, making a bigger mess of my face than I know it already is. I say, “I know,” a second time, more for myself than for him, convincing me, I think, more than him that I do understand.
“It is going to be okay,” he promises. “I know you love him and I’m not asking you not to. We’ll work this out.”
“Thank you.” I smile at him, though I feel it is a small smile, not broad, and the corners of my mouth shake. I will not cry, not when I have everything I’ve asked for.
I squish my hands into the mud and bring a handful up to his face, squishing onto his cheeks, pulling it into his beard. “And you promised! So we will make this work.”
“Oh, you are so going to pay for that!” he cries out.
We walk to the cars, muddy hand in muddy hand. We are a mess, and it is past midnight by his watch. I don’t wear one, so I’ll take his word for it. It was so much easier to be brave two hours ago, now…worry knots wrap my insides in agony.
I open my car door but Fyre stops me with his hand on my arm, smearing mud. “Come to my car a second.”
I follow him, waiting by his car while he rummages in his trunk. He pulls out two beach towels. “Cover your seat. There will still be mud…but you won’t ruin your seats.”
“Thanks,” I say, rushed to leave. Turning to walk away without a touch, without a second look, knowing every minute past midnight I’m not at the club, Garrett will notice. My mind whirls, trying to think what I am going to say to him. The last thing I want to do is hurt him. A little late for that, my brain argues.
“Wait.” He uses his Master voice, and I stop short, turning to face him. He comes away from his trunk with a bright red loop of rope. “Come here.”
I approach him, but reluctantly, I see that he is already twisting the rope into a series of knots. I stand watching him as he knots, dried dirt coming off his fingers into the weave. I chew my bottom lip, worried. It looks like the collar he made me wear when I went to him. It wasn’t pleasant and I was thankful when he finally removed it. I didn’t get to watch him make it the first time. Watching him create this new collar, and I have no doubt now what he intends, I am fascinated by the process.
With the collar complete, he pulls me into him, pivoting me around to place the rope to my neck. I try to pull away, panicking, not wanting Garrett to find out like this. He holds my arm, saying only, “No.” Unsaid are the words he said only moments ago, too late for regrets and you are mine now.
He loops, ties and finishes off the end. I swallow, knowing this sensation was coming, not liking it any more than the first time. My collar is a choker, rough, dried hemp, directly over my larynx. It rubs my skin with each swallow; I will be rubbed raw by morning. I really, really hated wearing this before.
“Why?” I ask, a tear falling onto my cheek.
He lifts the gold circlet of Garrett’s collar so that the ruby dangles, glinting in a street light. It winks gaudily though it is a very expensive bauble.
“You wear this because you are Garrett’s. I made love to you anyway, eating my pride and deeming it worth it to share you. Now, you will go to Garrett wearing my collar, a statement that you are mine—even though you still wear his collar, still his. He’ll figure out the implications fairly quickly.”
Oh, shit.
The rough rope around my neck itches, and already I feel my skin burning. Lord Fyre has sent me into war, but this is my fault. I am the worst kind of woman. I don’t know what that is, but a dozen filthy names come to mind and none of them good. My hand trembles as I push the key into my lock. I went home to my quaint Victorian on the hill, needing time to think. I need a plan, getting de-mudded first on the list. No, I need to call Master so he won’t be too worried—I tried calling from my cell to his while I drove here, but hung up hearing his voice on his voicemail. What would I say?
I enter the dark house to the clang of a dozen antique clocks, all clamoring one, two gongs. It is two a.m. Holy shit.
Turning on the lights, I go straight to the laundry room, adding soap to the washer as I peel off wet, muddy jeans and a soaked tank top. I step out of my cute leather sandals, sure that they are ruined. I toss them aside to deal with after they dry out and turn to go into the kitchen. I am shaking so badly a cup of hot tea seems to be a good place to start, followed by a hot bath. By then I will know what to say to Garrett—I hope.
Chapter 20
“Sex is the only power I know that can defeat the awful pressure of the present.”
-Colin Wilson, Sex Diaries of a Metaphysician
Garrett
I’m drinking cola tonight, shocking even myself when I grabbed it from the bar. I hear Thomas’s voice reprimanding me, dead brain cells don’t think, knowing that she is with him. I don’t want to think about him, I do, I especially don’t want to think about her with him, but that too I do.
His voice rolls through my head.
He was also once my Master, so I too easily understand why she is so drawn to him.
When pacing doesn’t produce her, I call her cell phone. When she doesn’t answer, I get slightly worried, but not frantic. After what I’ve gone through over the years, I should be terrified but I’m not and for the sake of knowing Kitten so well and especially knowing Thomas so well, I’m not frantic or terrified. Nothing tragic has befallen Kitten. Unless she herself sees this moment as tragic.
Her moral fiber may be what destroys her…
Moral…but not so moral that she couldn’t stop herself from seeking him—and I know that he did not seek her out—I trust him that much because I know him that well. Kitten, on the other hand, is a big throbbing vessel of need. I’ve felt her desire simmering just below the surface. I see the look on her face and know she is thinking about him, remembering what they shared. I know that look because I’ve worn that look myself. Thomas is a hard man to get over, and last night, when their eyes met, the entire room felt the tremor of excitement. She still wants him and the look in his eyes told me without a doubt that he isn’t over her either.
Kicking back the cola, I guzzle what is left in the glass. I swallow hard, trying not to remember the days and weeks following my own self-incarceration with Lord Fyre. I’d wanted him to teach me to be a Dominant, because my boyfriend, Tony, was tired of the role, and truly, Tony was submissive. He could pull off dominant, but he didn’t want to. So I left Tony to spend two weeks with Lord Fyre. I’d ended up staying a little longer than that, not because Lord Fyre had forced me to stay, but because I’d wanted to stay.
Only a year had passed when I saw him again and I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about him, what we’d shared, him as Master, me as submissive. We were at one of Jackie’s famous parties. She’d given lots of parties in those days. Our crowd had nowhere to go just to hang out in the pre-Lewd Larry days and so Jackie had been filling a need for the community.
I’d approached him while he was filling a paper plate with snacks. Made small talk, and when that had failed, I mentioned my lecture series that I was taking across country. I explained to him that his words were a recording in my head, becoming the basis for most of my series of lectures. I offered to share what profits I’d made using his words, my presentation to the masses, but he hadn’t wanted my money, saying, “You’ve made what I’ve taught you your own. What you teach isn’t my style of dominating, it’s yours.”
I almost felt like I’d offended him with my offer. Then he punched me, hard. We shared a laugh and that was the end of it. Almost.
He’d turned away, his plate filled with little triangle-shaped sandwiches, chips and brownies and taken two steps before turning back to face me. His smile was devastating, evil and so sexually and completely seductive that, for a moment, life stilled. All that mattered was his deep brown eyes locked on mine. The thudding in my heart let me know I still wanted what he could give me.
He took the two steps back to where I stood and ducked his head forward so that his lips were
even with my ear. “Nice to know, I can still Master you.” He laughed then and walked away for real.
My heart stayed high and tight, pounding in my throat for a long time. I was shaking because I wanted to follow him, I wanted him to Master me, but a greater moral obligation kept me loyal to Tony.
He approached me from nowhere, wrapping around me, tugging my ear in between his lips for the bite kiss that had become a comfort between us.
“Tony,” I sighed against him, letting him love me, letting him chase away the memory of all that I had experienced beneath Lord Fyre’s hand.
“Take me home?” he asked.
I looked at him hard then, but he was busy stroking my body, making me want to take him home even though going home was the last thing he really wanted to do. He could have partied all night and lasted until midday the following day. He was sacrificing for me. Taking me away from the temptation, giving me a buffer zone to forget in.
I should have been willing to give Kitten the same decency.
I didn’t and now I pay the price with my imagination, my doubts, knowing in my heart that she just wasn’t strong enough to resist the lure. If I find her in time, I’ll take her away. Jackie keeps telling me I need a vacation and time away from here is definitely the prescription for what ails Kitten. Distance and time.
I am overjoyed when I see her car in the driveway and the lights on inside her house. I follow the trail of lighted rooms, parlor to dining room to kitchen. Hearing the automatic cycle of her washing machine, I go straight to her laundry room. She doesn’t see me, doesn’t yet know I am here. Seeing her, it is all I can do to keep from rushing to her to find out what happened, but I don’t because just finding her here at her house, instead of at the penthouse, alerted me to the fact that something is up.
Until seeing her, I’d prayed I’d found her in time.
Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed the red, knotted rope around her neck. Me? I had to notice it first, knowing its purpose for being there, having worn one very similar myself. It is trademark Lord Fyre. My jaw grinds tight as I watch her add detergent to her washer, trying to hide the evidence of her muddy clothes. Was she going to shower and change and then break the news to me that she wanted to return to him—a little belated since she’d obviously already returned.
By the time she bounces into me, not seeing me, I am seeing red. I actually reach out and touch the length of rope circling her neck to assure myself that it is real. I close my eyes, wanting Lord Fyre’s handmade collar to go away, but it doesn’t. I look at her, seeing what he obviously did to her, mud covering more of her than not. Mud swirled around her breasts in a pattern that I know his hands created.
I cup her face, I can’t help but want to hold some part of her, and even splattered in mud she is beautiful, made even more exotic because of the dark brown splats. I wish I didn’t understand, I really do, but because I understand, I whisper to her, “It would have stopped hurting if you’d just given it time.”
I turn away from her because I have to. I turn away because it is one thing to use force when it’s consensual, but it’s another thing entirely when done in anger, and I want to shake her…hard—but I don’t, I won’t. I will not abuse Kitten. “Everything was wonderful,” I say, talking more to myself than to her, pacing her small kitchen, feeling caged in. “Why would you do this?”
She doesn’t answer. I didn’t really expect her to. She stands sobbing in the corner of the kitchen and I feel no sympathy. “Do you want to still be mine, Kitten?”
She nods her head and, for now, that is enough. “Get in the car!” I snarl at her, wishing I knew how this was going to play out, watching as her lips part, expecting her to refuse, and daring her with my eyes to try. It must have been the look, because she runs naked and barefoot, covered in dry, caked mud, outside into the night air. Only then do I consider where we are, her neighbors quiet people who would be shocked if they saw her. It is late; hopefully no one is watching.
I have enough presence of mind to grab her keys to lock up as I leave. Coming from the porch, I see her naked and shaking outside of the car. Glancing around assures me no one has seen her as I race to the car, wanting to get her hidden from sight. “I said, get in the car.”
She starts crying as I open the car door and push her shoulder to try to force her inside. She pushes back. “I’m dirty, I’ll ruin the upholstery.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the upholstery!” I turn her chin toward me with a cruel jerk. “I can pay someone to clean my car. If I had to, I’d just buy a new one. You, on the other hand, are one of a kind—you care more about this car than my heart. Unbelievable.”
This time, when I push her, she goes in. Dry mud flakes onto the leather seat. I scoot into the driver’s seat and pull away from the curb. She sits closed tight, hands folded in her lap. In the green glow of streetlamps, I start to make out just how much of her is covered in caked, dried mud, breasts, belly, between her thighs.
“Do I even want to know?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
I notice that she isn’t buckled and command, “Buckle up.”
Chapter 21
“Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.”
-Kahlil Gibran
Kitten
Did I think we were going to his penthouse? When we arrive at Lewd Larry’s, I am surprised, but not as shocked as I should be, not as scared as I’d have been even three months ago. I am naked, except for my two collars and the drying mud that covers most of my body, but especially my breasts, my ass, and between my legs.
Climbing out, he comes to my side and opens the door. “Get out,” he barks, more sternly and more loudly than he needs to, but then Garrett is a showman. Here he is Lewd Larry, proprietor, everything he does is well thought out, executed with the knowledge of how it is going to affect the bottom line.
His eyes are challenging. Does he think I’ll refuse? Does he think I will beg to avoid this humiliation? Three months ago, I would have begged.
Three months ago, I wouldn’t have found myself in this mess.
I climb from his car, gracefully, well-practiced, hands first, long stretch onto the pavement, stepping, hand, hand, knee, knee, making sure that each long-armed stretch is provocative, each knee forward wiggling my ass just so. I realize Garrett has never seen me in all-out Kitten-mode. This I learned on the streets when I was doing the Kitten Sightings for Inappropriate Voices, my way of passively stalking Garrett in an effort to win him back after he dumped me because I was an undercover reporter. Now is as good a time as any for him to see what he missed.
The line for entrance to the club is long tonight; it seems the line is always long now. Lewd Larry’s business is booming. I wonder if there are any Kitten fans in the crowd tonight? Yes, my Kitten Sightings created a huge fan base, many who subscribe to my online newsletter. I still receive pictures, both spectacular and mundane, in my emails from fans who have caught me about town. I crawl toward the long line of waiting patrons, knee step, hip wiggle, long-arm stretch. Someone in the line whistles, camera phones are at the ready, some taking pictures, others recording, so yes, fans are here.
Yippee for me.
Tomorrow, I will be on the front page of The Darkness; well, maybe not, I am the CEO, maybe that will save me. I sigh, because there is no salvation, not for me, not in heaven, not with Garrett, and not with Charlie. With this newest scandal, he will step up to the plate and milk the publicity for all it is worth. Lewd Larry’s is our number one patron, spending more on advertising than average homeowners spend on their home.
Charlie loves me, but Lewd Larry’s will come out on top with his advertising skills, even if there is scandal. Lewd Larry’s wins. I don’t think Garrett is feeling very much like a winner tonight. Yes, I fucked up, in so many ways, but talk to me about it, don’t bring me here. Don’t put me in the spotlight.
“Kitten, get inside the club
!” Garrett’s bellow is only fuel for the fodder at this point. He has no idea what he instigated. Think to reduce me and humiliate me because I transgressed? Kitten thrives on humiliation.
I crawl all the way to the long line of waiting patrons, veering to follow its path to the main entrance, long-arm stretch, knee to hand, sway, sway. Whistles and lewd comments follow my every step. Garrett’s famous men-in-black, SECURITY blazoned across the backs of their tight-fitting Tshirts, arrive to control the crowd, trying to make a wall barrier between them and me. I am too busy crawling to pay much heed to security or the crowd. My show is for Garrett only as I crawl provocatively, taking lots of mental concentration, long-arm stretch, knee to hand, sway, sway.
Camera flashes blind me, but not so much that I don’t see Garrett striding purposely toward me, a gleam in his eye that spells trouble for me. I sit back on my hips, knees pulled in, arms stretched out, braced for impact, hissing as he gets closer. There is no impact, I am scooped from behind by security guy Bob. I should have seen him coming, quite literally. Bob is so wide he goes through doorways sideways, and not an ounce of fat on him. Bob lifts me like I am a naughty two-year-old. I don’t have a chance against him.
Glaring, I am not happy.
Garrett winks, triumphant, a smirk on his face that I’ve never seen before. What does that mean?
The three of us wade through the lower-level crowd, though really it is the two of them wading, I am solely along for the ride; at least until we arrive at The Oasis. There, without ceremony, I am dumped onto my floor cushion at Garrett’s regular table. Jackie, Garrett’s oldest and dearest friend, is already there, seated and waiting.
“Well, well, just look at the cat you dragged in, mister.”
“Don’t start, Jackie,” he warns.
Garrett sits, lifting his hand to the waiter, holding up two fingers. At first, I didn’t understand how the waiter always knew what to bring to the table on cue, but after paying attention, I realized it was some type of coded sign language. Two fingers tight together, tumbler of Scotch, no ice. Two fingers apart, cheesecake. Tonight, his fingers call for Scotch and, on cue, it arrives tableside.
