by CD Reiss
“What kind of shit?”
“Pills and sex. And some rope work. I think I was suspended for part of whatever it was. Which means Deacon was there, and I was the one tied up.”
“No one else ever tied you?” Elliot asked.
“I got tied up plenty, before we were exclusive, but the real rope work, the art, the shibari? That was all Deacon. He wouldn’t let anyone else do it. And that was from the beginning.”
“So in a way, you were exclusive from day one.”
“In a way.” I hadn’t thought of it that way, and I swelled with a childish pride. “Even Martin and Debbie weren’t allowed.”
“Who are they?”
“They live in number two. They’re his top trainees. Debbie’s great. She only ties men. She does beautiful things, and she’s really methodical, even for how young she is. Martin’s talented, but Deacon says he’ll never really get it.” I shrugged. “Even if I was so stoned I’d let them knot me, well, Debbie wouldn’t have disobeyed, and Martin was in New York. So I don’t know.”
Elliot shifted a pen on his desk as if it was a lever he needed to flip, then he shifted in his seat. Why was his every movement so interesting to me? Why did I watch him? It could have been because he had so much power over me, or it could have been because he expressed himself with his motions, as if a shade of what he was about to say existed in his body before it came alive verbally.
“I think we’re going to find out soon,” he said. “Mister Bruce has been found well enough to be interviewed. So if you have anything to tell me, the police, or your lawyer, you should do so.”
He was well enough to be interviewed. He was getting better. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “Thank God.”
“You’re not afraid of what he’s going to say?”
“No.”
“He may implicate you.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“What are you worried about?” he asked.
“How long have you been working here?”
“That’s not relevant right now. Not as relevant as you changing the subject.”
“My point is, no matter what he says, we have lawyers. Our lawyers have lawyers. If Hitler needed to walk, Hitler would walk. What I’m worried about isn’t the law. Deacon is my law. He’s the only one I have to obey. I’m worried about what I did. How it affected him. Us.”
“You have a very strange sense of entitlement.”
“I’m told it’s affluenza.”
He smiled ruefully. “Session over. See you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 12.
I could have eaten in my room, but I wasn’t good at alone time, and I’d already had a bit too much of it. So when Jack sat next to me, I was relieved by the human contact. At the same time, I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Last day is tomorrow,” he said, breaking his artisanal bread and dunking it in his sweet whipped butter. “What’s your guess?”
“I think they’re going to let me out.”
“You’ll get picked up before you’re out the door.”
I shrugged. “They’ll set bail. I’ll go home, and then we’ll see.”
Split pea soup with hand-cut bits of ham. Grilled vegetables. Marinated tri-tip. All the meals had been like that, and by “like that,” I meant the very worst of what I’d ever had in my life, unless I was deliberately slumming or in a neighborhood south of the 10.
I pushed my tray away. “This food sucks.”
I wanted something, but it wasn’t on my tray. The roil of anxiety built in my chest. I had no relief for it, at least not in the pills they were feeding me. Not in the therapy or hypnosis. I had ways to manage myself, and they had all been taken away.
“They’re going to expect me to be sober when I get out, aren’t they?” I asked.
“Probably. But whatever. Just get someone else to drive, and they’ll never know the difference. No one gives a shit what you do as long as you’re not hurting some middle-class honor student. Then you’re up shit creek.”
The way he rubbed his bread around his bowl, as if he was just flipping off some commentary, should have told me he didn’t mean it personally. He wasn’t trying to jab at me. He wasn’t trying to twist my sore places. But he did, and I decided it was careless and cruel.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
He barely stopped eating. “Means we can get away with self-destruction until we hurt someone who doesn’t have anything. Then it’s off with our heads.” He drew his finger across his throat. “Seriously, I’m in here because I sold an ounce of sky gum to a teacher. The news was all about how much my dad made versus how much she made. And I’m like, seriously? I sold four grams to Rolf Wente, and I got crickets.” He stopped chewing. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“People cared about Amanda.”
“No. You cared. The rest of them were slowing down to see the blood on the road.”
There had been plenty of it. Rich blood. Blue blood if you counted Charlie’s cut head. Amanda’s flowed with the webbed lines of windshield cracks as I sat in the passenger seat in a half daze. I thought she looked like a cartoon character sticking her head through a wall, and she’d just pull it out and make a goofy face. I put my hand on her ass and patted it, whispering, “Tight and sweet, baby. Tight and sweet. You’re going to be okay.”
“You’re not going to cry,” Jack said, incredulous. “You’re not allowed to have problems, sweet tits. Sorry.”
I didn’t know what was going on with Jack. Something must have been happening in his world, because he was ornery and defensive, but I didn’t care. The thought that no one had cared about Amanda dying, even though it had been in all the papers and her parents turned people away from the funeral, pulled at my heart. He was right. No one cared about her.
And how did you make people care? Amanda Westin died in a drunk-driving accident, and the driver walked away because his dad was a duke in some tiny European backwater, and the news vans came, and the flowers were imported from India, but how could I make them care? Tell them who she was? That she made me laugh when I was sad? That she loved her dogs? That she gave me the last of her flake when I needed it? Or that she stood by me the million times I bailed on her to get laid?
“She was a good person,” I said. “One of the best.”
“Sure.” He shrugged.
That little knot of anxiety grew into something bigger, something without boundaries. It was larger than me. Wider than the expanse of my chest, with an energy all its own.
It was that force inside me, but not me, that flung my tray. Flinging it felt good, because it made a little room inside me, a tiny corner without anxiety. I flung Jack’s tray. I swept my hand over the table and knocked over the condiments, and then I got up on the table. When I flung myself off it, the motherfuckers were already there to catch me. Bernie, good old Bernie, looked intent on not letting me fall, and Frances already had a needle.
CHAPTER 13.
I woke up strapped to the bed. Elliot sat by me, marking something on a chart.
“Oh, God,” I said, trying to put my hand over my eyes and failing.
Elliot got up and turned off the overhead, flicking on the soft table lamp over my photo of Snowcone. “Do you have any muscle pain or weakness?”
“What drugs did you give me? I can’t feel anything.”
“Do you promise not to get violent?”
“Fuck. You’re never going to let me out now. I’m stuck here. Why did I do that?” My face crunched up. I was going to cry right there in front of Elliot, every tear another nail in the coffin of my sanity. When he freed my right hand, I put it over my face.
“I’m not an MD, so I don’t dispense your meds, I only suggest. But it looks like you got a little too much slap and not enough tickle,” he said.
“What?”
He laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s late. My sense of humor shorts out when I’m tired.” He freed my left arm and went to the foot o
f the bed.
“Nice you have one that’s wired at all.”
He smiled as he unstrapped my feet. “I’ll contraindicate the Paxil.”
He got my ankles free, and I sat up. The world swam a little, and I gripped the edge of the bed. The room righted itself.
“Are you going to let me go?” I asked.
“I have another day of observation. You want to go?”
“Please.”
He sat next to me. “Deacon Bruce, by his own admission, fell on the hoof knife.”
“He what?”
“Fell on the thing twice, apparently.”
Any relaxation I’d gotten from the meds molted off me like a skin I’d never owned. “He’s protecting me.”
“The district attorney doesn’t believe him either. But in the end, it’ll be hard to make a case. You’re a lucky girl.” His green-grey eyes looked at me as if they were peeling me open. “You don’t look relieved.”
“I’m relieved.”
“Don’t start packing yet. Okay?”
“I don’t have much to pack. A picture, and I guess there were clothes? I mean, who knows with me, right?” I held my hand out for the picture, and like a father intuiting what his toddler wanted, Elliot gave it to me.
“You’re going to have to continue some sort of program once you’re out,” he said. “I know you guys have ways of getting around it, but for your own good, I hope this is the bottom for you.”
I barely heard him. I was looking at myself with my new horse. I’d gotten Snowcone as a surprise from Daddy, and my delight in my new black-and-white dressage gear was all over my face. Snowcone was pulling away from the odd, smiling creature at his feet.
“How old are you in that picture?” Elliot asked, sitting in the chair by the bed.
“I’d just turned fifteen. Mom didn’t want me to have him. She thought I was too irresponsible. I swore I was going to prove her wrong.”
“Did you?”
“I did, until recently. When Amanda died, I kind of left him to the stable. Fuck. He was mine; I trained him. He was so good. Perfect temperament, moving off my legs easily, finding the bit like a champ. And I just abandoned him as if he didn’t even matter. And I want people to care about me? Fuck, I am worthless.”
Elliot handed me a box of tissues, and I had to laugh through my tears.
“Fucking therapists,” I said.
“What?”
“Like the most important thing in the world is giving me a place to put my snot.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The most important thing is that, by doing that, I show you you’re not worthless.”
I blew my nose. I felt so bad, as if a rotting, twisting ball of blackness curled inside me was getting bigger by the minute. I knew how to push it back. I knew how to manage it, and watching Elliot’s fingers woven together between his knees, I started wondering how to get him into bed. When his hand touched my forearm, a blazing heat fell between us.
“You were out for the morning session. So our last one’s in an hour.”
He needed to stop touching me. He needed to back the fuck off. I had to swallow my reaction to him like a horse pill.
“Okay,” I said, not looking at him.
I knew his eyes would be warm and inviting, and his lips curved like a promise. He smelled of musk and desire. His fingers slid a quarter inch over my skin when he removed his hand. When he walked out, he took the air with him.
Oh God.
I was swelled.
I needed it.
If I went into Elliot’s office like this, I would do something stupid. I would lose control. Touch him. Get close to him. Show him my body. And that would be it. I’d be stuck in Westonwood, because despite the heat I felt in his touch, he was a professional. A therapeutic fuck wasn’t on the table. My brain might have been high on fuckjuice, but that didn’t make me stupid.
An hour. I had an hour to get unswelled. I was in a mixed-gender ward with sixty minutes to find willing, slightly sane cock. How hard could it be?
In two days, I’d gotten the hang of the schedule, more or less. I went into the rec room. It was off hours, meaning most of the residents had therapy or visits. Jack wasn’t in front of the TV cataloging flowers. Karen was outside, scribbling in her journal as if homework was due.
“Looking for something?”
I spun around. Frances stood behind me with her hands behind her.
“I was. Uh, Jack’s usually hanging around here?”
“You might check his room.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I stepped back.
“Miss Drazen,” Frances said.
“Yeah?”
“The doors stay open.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I scuttled off toward the hall that led to the rooms. After I made the first turn, I doubled back to the garden. The rain had disappeared for a full day, and rainy-ass Los Angeles was sunny-ass Los Angeles again. I looked for someone, anyone. I drifted over to the creek, thinking maybe Jack was picking up nettles or something. He wasn’t, but Warren Chilton was. His eyes cut through me from the other side of the fence.
“Hi,” I said. “Whatcha doing?”
“What’s it look like?”
“Jerking around.” I poked my head through the hole in the gate. “Want help?”
I came out on the other side just as Warren tossed a rock into the creek. It got lost in the rushing swells without even a splash.
“They kill you with boredom in this shithole,” he said.
“Got a cure for that,” I said, taking his hand.
I put it on my breast, which was usually a non-event, considering their size. But Warren, without missing a beat, grabbed the nipple and pinched.
“These were pierced,” he said.
“They took everything. You know that.”
He twisted. God, it felt good. I didn’t like the guy, but I liked how he was making me feel.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard you’re going to have to stay here another ten years.”
“Get to it, preppy.”
He searched my face for a second, as if discerning whether or not I was looking to trap or double-cross him. I moved my hand to his cock, which was at least half hard. God, I hoped his meds didn’t make him unable to do it, because I had no time to work him. He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me against the fence.
“Wa…” I couldn’t finish the word, such was the pressure on my throat.
I didn’t like it, and I wanted to tell him to stop. When I tried to push his arm away, he ignored it and yanked at my pants.
“Keep still,” he said, fingering my cleft under the standard-issue panties. “Oh, you’re ready.”
His grip on my neck moved to my upper chest when he got his dick out. I breathed.
“No choking, Warren.” I pulled one pant leg down. “I’m warning you.”
“Sure.”
“Hey.” The voice wasn’t loud, just firm.
Fuck. A guard stood behind us. Warren jumped back as if his hand had been in the cookie jar, but I could have told him he hadn’t even gotten the lid off yet.
“What are you doing on that side of the fence?”
“It was her.” Warren pointed at me, the fleshy rod swinging from above his waistband making a lie of his participation.
“Chilton, get the fuck out of here,” the guard said. “Don’t make me write your ass up again.” He got out his walkie-talkie, observing the hole in the fence. “Hey, Ned,” he said into the radio. “There’s a breach at four-seven-two.”
Warren ran through the hole and past the grove of trees. The guard glanced at me after I’d gotten my pants up.
“Go on inside,” he said. “You get a pass this time. Go on.”
He indicated the building, and I hustled. I had forty-five minutes left. My clit rubbed on my inner thighs when I hustled back inside, swelled to pain and wanting release so bad it swallowed my brain. All I could think about was fucking. Fucking swell. I ha
ted my needs. For the first time, they seemed more of a burden than an indelible character trait.
Warren was a dead issue. That asshole was going to mark me and get me in trouble. He must have been the source of Karen’s mark.
When I got back to the residents’ hall, I realized I had no idea where Jack’s room was. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Was he even in his room? And what if I couldn’t find him? I was starting to think about Elliot in ways I shouldn’t. Ways that would come out in hypnosis. He’d touch me again, and I’d say something like, “Hey…let’s—”
I ran down the halls, looking in each room. All the doors were open. Most of the rooms were empty, or being cleaned, or occupied by strangers. In forty minutes, I’d be in front of a man, and he had a dick, and I could maybe convince him to fuck me.
But I kept thinking about being tied to the ceiling, the knots in the rope rubbing my skin, and Deacon’s cock sliding against the back of my thigh.
Tell me how badly you want it, beautiful kitten.
Bad bad bad bad….
My ass. My poor ass as he’d paddled it, holding back the avalanche of need. I lost days to his ministrations. I needed him. I had no control without him.
And I’d stabbed him.
I didn’t believe his denials for a minute. His refusal to implicate me only meant one thing: I’d done it. I’d stabbed him.
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?
“Hi, Fiona.”
I spun. Jack was standing in the hall with a paper towel of yellow petals.
“Jack, I was looking for you.”
“Job well done, then. You found me.”
I stepped close to him so I could say something without being overheard. “You said you weren’t completely unfuckable.”
“I’d like to think so. Why?”
It was as if the cues and clues I’d given men my entire sexual life were a foreign code to this guy. Normally I’d reveal some part of my body, but we were on camera.
So I tilted my head and pressed my lips together before whispering, “I want to show you how fuckable you are.”
