Forbidden: A Standalone

by CD Reiss

  “Hey,” Warren said, sitting across from me. “Rain just stopped. Creek’s flooding up to the bench.”

  “There’s a creek?”

  Warren and Karen glanced at each other.

  She pushed her tray forward and shot a look at Mark before standing. “Let’s give Fiona a tour. Our tour.”

  Warren looked me up and down, as if seeing my body through the light blue cotton uniform. “Can I trust you?”

  “You can take your tour and stick it.”

  “You want this tour,” Karen said. “It’s worth it. Almost as good as freedom.”

  “I don’t need to prove I’m trustworthy. I ate you out in Ojai, and you”—I turned to Warren—“licked flake off my tits. That was my coke, and you never gave me shit in return but numb nipples.”

  “Point taken,” Warren said as he guided me out the door.

  The outside had been designed, manicured, and planted to the teeth. The verdant garden was dotted with wood benches—places to reflect on your mental sickness, eat yourself with regret, and chew on your shortcomings. Jack crouched over a bed of wildflowers, rubbing the yellow petals.

  “Hey, Jack,” Warren said as he slapped the not totally unfuckable nerd so hard on the ass he nearly fell over.

  “Ow!”

  “Not cool, Warren,” I said, helping Jack up. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He glared at Warren.

  I brushed Jack’s shoulders even though there was nothing there.

  “Sorry, man.” Warren made a fist as if to punch Jack in the arm.

  Jack flinched. I liked Warren less and less with each passing second.

  “We’re checking out the holes. You coming?” Warren asked.

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  “Can we go?” Karen asked, walking backward toward the gardens. “I have a session in fifteen minutes.” She indicated the clock on the highest part of the common building.

  Our personal effects had been taken, including watches. The clocks dotting the facility were the only way we had to keep time.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Warren jogged ahead of us and spread his arms. He looked handsome in the deep foliage, like a Greek god of abundance. “There are cameras everywhere.” He pointed upward.

  I didn’t look directly, but with a sidelong glance, I saw the shiny glass at the crook of a tree branch.

  “But there are some corners they don’t get to. Holes in their vision matrix.” Even in his silly mental ward uniform, Warren carried himself as if he was entitled to the known universe. He stood with his back to an old oak. “Like here. Hole. Right here. They might find you if they’re walking around, but the cameras can’t see shit until they prune this shit back. Follow me.” Like the docent of sneaky spaces, he pointed out three more places where a patient couldn’t be seen by the cameras.

  “But they know where the holes are, too,” Karen interjected. “If they see you go out of range, and don’t see you come out, they come and check.”

  “If they’re paying attention,” Warren said. “Which is a crap shoot. Let’s go to the creek.”

  We walked down a winding path. I heard cars speeding somewhere past a hedge, but it didn’t sound like a major road. The sound of moving water added to the white noise, and past a line of trees, we came to a swelling creek. A chain-link fence separated us from it.

  “Is that PCH?” I asked, referring to the water. I followed them along the fence to a hole cut into it.

  “Not even close.” Warren pulled the cut fence open. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  We crept through. Karen put her journal on a fallen tree trunk and kicked off her shoes. She rolled up her pants.

  “Go on, sweetheart,” Warren said as Karen stepped into the water. “I’m sitting this out.”

  “Why?” I followed Karen’s lead, rolling up my pants.

  “The thing with my kid brother.”

  “What thing?” I put my toe in. The water was ice cold, even in the sun, and the bed was made up of small, rounded rocks.

  “I waterboarded him.” He said it as if he’d helped the kid color or taught him how to play a video game. “They catch me in water, and my dad’s gonna kill me.”

  “If it’s morning, they can’t see much once you’re in the water. The lenses get condensation on them, and the cameras get wet. If it’s just rained, the leaves are heavy and block the cameras.” Karen held her hands out and put her face to the sky. “I love the holes.”

  “If you’re ever looking for Karen,” Warren called from the edge, “check the holes.”

  There was something freeing about not being seen by the hospital staff, but with Warren’s eyes on me, I didn’t feel safe.

  “What are you looking at?” I said.

  “You got Chapman?”

  “Yeah.”

  Warren craned his neck to see the clock at the top of the common building. “Next set of sessions starts in five.”

  Fuck. I hopped out of the water and got my cold feet back into my shoes.

  “You know how to get back?” Karen shouted, but I was already past the chain link.

  CHAPTER 11.

  Doctor Chapman looked tired as he closed the blinds against the sun.

  “Why did you stop me last time?” My feet ached from the cold water, and I was trying to hide that I was winded from the run over. “There was a good part coming up.”

  “The session was over.” He glanced out the window and back at me so quickly, I might have missed it if the Adderall hadn’t made me hyper vigilant.

  “Really?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because we had five minutes of small talk after that. So, you know, I kind of left thinking about what happened after. In Deacon’s car.”

  “You can tell me.” He rubbed his upper lip again.

  I saw his watch peek past his cuff, hanging on his wrist. He had nice wrists, angled and wide. Masculine. I narrowed my eyes, willing his cuff back so I could see more.

  “I don’t want to tell you now. Your loss,” I said.

  “Your parents came to visit last night. How did that go?”

  I shrugged.

  “Your father’s an interesting guy.”

  “How so?”

  “He married your mother quite young.”

  I sat ramrod straight, and I felt my hand want to go up, as if fending him off. That was sacred territory. He could psychoanalyze me all he wanted, but my family was off limits. “They’re still married eight children later. I don’t see the problem.”

  He said nothing. As much as I wanted to scrape his pretty little face off for it, I wanted to prove myself even more.

  “You going to hypnotize me again?” I asked.

  “If you found it helpful last time.”

  “You ever going to take a stand on something you want, Doctor?”

  He stood. “Not in this room, no. In this room, you’re the boss.”

  Well, if that was how it was going to be, I would take it. I could be the boss of this tiny, half-lit room. I threw myself on the couch. Elliot followed and sat behind me. I heard the rustle of him crossing his legs.

  “Counting backward from five,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Five.”

  ***

  His car is huge, and he smells like peppermint. He doesn’t say anything, and my chest winds up with tension. Is this a mistake? He doesn’t look like a serial killer, but maybe he’s not interested in me. Earl is a good enough fuck in a pinch; that would be better than nothing.

  “Got a name?” I ask, trying to get my shirt buttoned.

  “Yes.”

  “My name’s Fiona.”

  “I figured that out.” He turns his head a little. “I’m Deacon.” His eyes drift down to my exposed tits then back to the road.

  “Should I bother buttoning up?”

  “Yes.”

  I shake as I finger the buttons. That wasn’t the answer I expected, and I’m suddenly asham
ed. But when he flattens his hand on the wheel and turns it with pressure on the heel, my nipples harden through the white shirt, and the rings piercing them stretch the fabric.

  “So,” I say, “where we going?”

  “Away from a crowd of paparazzi.” He stops at a light and turns toward me. “How do you live like that? All these people around all the time?”

  I shrug. “At first, I got upset when they misunderstood something or printed me kissing a Brent Ogilve when I was dating Gerald. That sucked. But then, Gerald was kind of a dick, so they did me a favor.”

  I don’t want to talk about paparazzi. I want this guy. I put my hand on his thigh and slide it between his legs. He’s all muscle. He puts his hand on mine and moves it back to my lap.

  “Are you gay?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Look, if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. Just drop me off.”

  “Take it easy,” he says, squeezing my hand before he lets it go.

  But I’m uncomfortable, unhappy. The car feels too small, and this man expands like a balloon, as if his psychic space crowds me. Suddenly, I don’t want to have sex at all. Not with him, not with anyone. I just want to feel like I have everything under control again.

  I open the door enough for the hood light to go on. We’re not going fast, and I know he’ll slow down. But he doesn’t. He stretches over me and pulls the seat belt across my body. His peppermint smell is layered with sandalwood, and I want to fall inside it at the same time as I want out of this fucking car.

  Snap. He clicks the belt. “You’re in the arts district. It’s late, and everyone’s drunk. There’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”

  I’m pissed. Really pissed. Because he’s right.

  I look at him as he drives a few blocks. I hate him, and I’m attracted to him, and in my rage, I want to fuck again. I feel the swell between my legs as I remember shit I’m trying to forget—that windshield kiss, and me in the passenger seat inches from a dead girl’s pussy, and it smells like sex.

  I’m not thinking about that.

  I am not thinking about that.

  Fiona, do you want to stop? You’re crying.

  I say something. Something about Pinkerton never failing when Amanda drove. And no, I don’t want to fucking stop. I want to remember Deacon with this level of clarity and beauty. Something about the way he smells and the texture of his jacket in the lamplight. Something about his hands. The way they’re completely still when he isn’t using them. I’d forgotten that.

  I feel Elliot’s fingers on my wrist and hear the soft curtain of his voice.

  All right. You’re mixing things up. Amanda Westin died after you met Deacon. You don’t have to think about the accident if you don’t want to. You’re in control.

  Deacon turns right then right again onto a cobblestone loading dock. We’re in an unlit alley downtown. He turns on the dome light.

  “So,” I say, “what do you want? You going to tie me up and kill me?”

  He laughs, and my anger melts off me.

  “I’m assuming that wasn’t your boyfriend.”

  I shrug. “Just a Thursday night.”

  I undo the seatbelt to see if he’ll let me. He makes no move to restrain me again. I turn around and kneel on the warm leather, the small of my back to the dashboard, to get a good look at this guy. Older. Late thirties, early forties maybe. Little beard happening. Strong chin. Dark hair. Eyes blue and lit from within.

  I know he can see my tits through my shirt. I go braless pretty often because I’m small, somewhere between an A and a B. I call it A plus. My light pink nipples are standing on end from him looking at me.

  “You like what you see?” I ask.

  “Yes, quite a bit. Do you always walk around half naked?”

  “Only when I chase gorgeous men out of bathrooms.”

  “And why did you do that?”

  “Impulse and instinct. It’s how I do everything.”

  “You’re very beautiful,” he says.

  “Thanks, hon. You don’t need to flatter me to get under my skirt.”

  “I’m still trying to decide if it would be worthwhile.”

  “Oh, I promise…” I reach out to touch him, but he grabs my wrist.

  “Put them behind you, on the dash.”

  Oh. A bossy one.

  “You came into the bathroom,” I say. “Do you still have to pee?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Uh, huh. I don’t know what you’re into, but I’ve done that.”

  “You let someone piss on you?”

  “It was a give and take.”

  “And how was it?”

  I shrug without moving my hands off the leather dash. “Scratched it off my bucket list.”

  He takes half a pause before he laughs so hard and deep I can see his chest moving. I can’t help but smile. Pleasing him does something for me.

  “How old are you?” he asks.

  “Old enough.”

  He’s perturbed by that answer, and he snaps up my bag.

  “Hey!”

  “Hands on the dash,” he says while looking in my bag.

  He flips past my packet of birth control pills and extracts my wallet. I’m nervous, like Sister Elizabeth is standing over me with a napkin and I have a wad of gum in my mouth.

  “This your kink?” I say. “Looking in a girl’s bag?”

  He flips my wallet open. “You seem quite willing to let me use your body, but you don’t want me to look in your bag. I don’t know if the boundary differences are cultural or generational, but the fact is, I want to keep myself out of jail if you don’t mind.” He rifles through the wad of hundreds to the stack of cards. The Amex Black has a quarter inch of white dust on the edge. He presses his thumb to my driver’s license and pushes it out. “Twenty-two.”

  “My birthday’s Groundhog Day.”

  He tucks my license back and puts the wallet back in my bag. “What else is on that bucket list of yours?” He tosses the bag aside.

  I bite my bottom lip. “Getting nailed in an alley downtown.”

  “A real one.”

  I would have gotten bored with this shit already, but I want to impress him. I want him to like me. “Ride dressage in the Olympics.”

  “Dressage? I would have taken you for a dancer.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It wasn’t meant as an insult. You have a gymnast’s body, but the discipline that takes would keep you out of club bathrooms. So I went to dancer. Dressage wouldn’t have occurred to me, even if I knew you rode.”

  “I was the only rider at Stanford with an Arabian. And I ride him Prix St. George.” My answer is defensive, not sexy. He’s implied that I’m an out-of-control little girl with a flat chest and muscular legs. Normally a man’s little insults are met with backhanded returns ending in ammunition for dirty hatefuck talk. But I want this man to respect me.

  “Calm, forward, straight,” he says, putting his thumb to my cheek. “And submission to the bit.”

  “You’ve ridden?”

  “I spent a few years overseas with a certain crowd.”

  I turn my head and take his thumb between my lips, letting it slip past my teeth and over my tongue. He smiles when I suck it on the way out.

  “I’m going to be honest,” he says.

  “Uh-huh.” I take his thumb again.

  “I’m not looking for a sex partner.”

  “Then what were you doing at Pompeii?” I take his middle and ring finger down my throat, all the way, and watch his face change. He may have just wanted to help a celebutante in distress, but his ideas of what to do with her are expanding by the second. I see it in his willing, wet fingers and the dilation of his pupils.

  “Meeting the owner. We’re scheduling an event,” he says.

  “What kind of event?”

  “Something you might enjoy.”

  And my brain, in its super-relaxed state, fell into his smiling blue eyes. At th
at event in the house on Maundy Street, I would be on my knees with an expert tongue in my asshole, a vibrating object in my cunt, and my mouth on a cock. So happy, content, satisfied, that when the orgasms came, I felt as if I’d transcended my own skin.

  ***

  I woke with my back arched, out of breath, with Elliot pressed two fingers to the inside of my wrist.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, panting.

  “Don’t be.” He stared at his watch another second then put my hand down. “You’re taching at one-fourteen.”

  “I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.”

  “You’re going to have to work harder than that to make me uncomfortable.” His smile was so relaxed, I believed him.

  I wanted to work hard enough to make him uncomfortable, just to see what he looked like. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Just lie back and relax.”

  We didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I breathed slowly, trying to slow my racing heart.

  “Was that your first encounter with Deacon?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you see him again?”

  “He invited me to that party through Paolo, the owner of the club. I wasn’t going to go, but Charlie heard it was at Maundy Street and went nuts. I figured I’d see Deacon again. Which I didn’t.”

  “No?”

  “He’s known for not showing to his own parties. But he found me, like, a week later at Lucien’s. Bought the whole table dinner from across the room then tried to slip out.”

  “What did you do?”

  I huffed a sarcastic little laugh. “Chased his ass. He was waiting for me in the parking lot, like he knew I’d come after him. And he wouldn’t let me touch him. Even back at his place. He said touching him was a privilege that was earned. I didn’t understand. I thought he was just being a dick.”

  “Many dominants don’t like to be touched. At least not before there’s trust.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know that. How do you know?”

  “I’m treating you. I’ve stayed up late doing a lot of research.”

  “‘Research,’ huh? With a box of tissues by the computer, I bet.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “When did he let you touch him?”

  “I don’t know. I keep thinking, if I stabbed him, he must have been tied down or something. But how? He’d been tied down in Congo, so he’s not turned on getting tied up. He’s anti-aroused. So maybe I ran up and jabbed him?” I shook my head slowly. “The last thing I remember is a jumble of shit.”