Bodhi

by A. R. Hadley

  “Gavin arranged the whole damn thing. He put two of the thrones front and center, facing each other. The other chairs had been set aside. The desks and crosses too. It was just the two chairs and two lines of candles creating a pathway to the make-shift altar.” Kate became quiet. She fingered the pendant of the two intertwined hearts.

  “We wanted it to just be the three of us. And we said a few words to each other, and Gav recited some of his fancy Bible things, and then Peyton put this on me.” The hearts were clenched in Kate’s fist. “I don’t take it off. Ever. It’s the only thing that never leaves me.”

  Kate sighed and closed her eyes while Audrey fixated on the rise and fall of Kate’s chest, trying not to think of what it would be like to share such intimacies with Gavin … or what thinking about being collared by him, at this point in their “relationship,” meant.

  “I saw Peyton for the first time at a meet-up.” Her eyes opened, and the blue looked drunk on love not wine. “The connection was immediate, Audrey. It was one of those things, you know? We just clicked.”

  Audrey hadn’t stopped staring into Kate’s blue orbs of comfort and truth. “We click.”

  “We do.” Kate’s voice had never sounded more reassuring as she reached up and stroked Audrey’s cheek.

  Audrey leaned into the touch, smiled, and changed the subject — her mind suddenly on the intimacies she did share with Gavin already. “I told him about the kids.” He’d found out about her boys on Audrey's second visit to Bodhi.

  “Tell me.” Kate’s eyes grew wider than her tits.

  “It’s a night for stories, huh?”

  “Yes. And a night for friendship and love.”

  Audrey swallowed, inhaled, and proceeded to regale Kate with details…

  “I didn't think you’d show again,” Gavin had said to Audrey the second weekend she’d visited as they stood outside one of the observation windows.

  A woman hung from the ceiling near the foot of the bed, red jute rope fastened about her forearms and biceps and wrapped beneath and above her chest, showing off her Master’s art of Kinbaku. Her nipples were being squeezed by clothespins. The woman was stunning, her face a still frame of sublime contentment. A man, presumably her Master, stood behind her, inserting an object Audrey couldn’t quite make out into her vagina.

  “I thought I pushed you too far.”

  Gavin hadn’t touched her yet tonight, but already his words tugged at her heart. She’d told him how she longed to be pushed. “Didn't Kate tell you anything?”

  “I don't ask Kate for answers only you can provide.” His voice sounded so level while Audrey could literally feel her breath growing more ragged by the second.

  After a moment of what seemed like purposeful, meditative silence — and Audrey could now decipher that the object in the woman’s cunt was a ruler the Dom had no doubt already used on her ass — Gavin asked, “Why did you come back?”

  Audrey turned her face toward him. The perfect amount of scruff peppered his jaw and scalp — the right amount to cause a burn, leave her thighs and cheeks stinging and pink. “I always planned on coming back. It's only been—”

  “Two weeks,” he said and began to braid her hair.

  He tugged at each cord harshly as he wound the sandy strands together. And did he always have a rubber band in his pocket? Who knew what else he kept in there.

  “What's your full name, baby girl?”

  “Why? Do want to check up on me?”

  He yanked on her braid until her eyes combed the ceiling, his grip and intense starry stare indicating yes.

  “I checked up on you,” she said while he trailed a finger from her chin to her chest. “I've read your blogs.”

  “Not all of them.” He released his hold on her long, dirty-blonde hair, and they both fixated on the scene.

  The woman was making sounds loud enough to pass through the walls. Incoherent grunts begging for release. But the man only removed the ruler and hit her with it while telling her what looked like: Be a good girl. Hold still. Breathe with me.

  “No, not all of them.”

  “I mean, there are some no one has seen — or ever will.” He lifted her skirt and slipped a hand inside her panties.

  “Gavin...”

  “Sellers,” he said, a thumb on her clit.

  She could feel his smile against her neck, heard it in his voice.

  “Sellers...” But she knew that too, from his website. She smiled in return while trying to remain upright and fuck his hand. “It's Simone. Audrey Bianca Simone.” She inhaled sharply as two fingers went into her aching heat. “I’m divorced.”

  “I remember … and you’re curious.” He bit her earlobe. “And…” He bit her some more, each nibble getting deeper by the second. “You’re so fucking beautiful...”

  “I’m a mom,” she said, and he stopped.

  There.

  Audrey had said it. And she wanted the words to lay stagnant in the air the way the humidity often did. She wanted him to taste them, digest them, think about what coming here meant to her.

  “Please,” she begged, but he removed his hand, letting her skirt fall. A moan passed her lips. “I can't come here whenever I feel like it.” The back of her head rested against his neck. “And I feel a lot, Gavin.” She paused. “Sir...”

  Flipping her around, he pressed her spine to the window and stared into her eyes like he wanted to reside in them. “I’ll never make you choose, Audrey.” He paused, letting the words anchor to her soul. “How old?”

  “Twelve. Nine. Both boys.”

  “My son is twenty-two. Ahhh. You don’t look surprised. Kate told you.”

  Audrey nodded. Kate had told her a little about Michael on the ride home after her first weekend there — his age, where he lived — the day she’d seen the name flash on his phone screen.

  “Michael and I don’t see eye to—” Gavin stopped because someone exited the white room, interrupting them. The blinds went down too.

  “I have to go to bed.” Audrey yawned. “And I think my story is boring you.” Or Kate knew other things about Michael, things Gavin had failed to say.

  “No… I’m sleepy too.”

  Maybe the second bottle of wine had been a bad idea. Audrey’s stomach and mind turned. “Stay here. I don’t want you driving.”

  “Mmmkay,” Kate said as Audrey stood.

  Upon reaching the door to her room, Audrey stopped, turned, and smiled. “Come on. I’m not gonna make you sleep on the couch. Jeez.”

  It had been a long time since Audrey had shared the bed. Well, Rick still liked to climb in from time to time. But this would be different. A grown-up. Someone she could rely on, lean on, talk to in private.

  “Do you love him? Does he love you?” Audrey whispered as they lay in the bed, her back facing Kate’s chest. A foot or so rested between them in the king-sized bed, covers at their waists.

  “Yes.”

  “How does that work?”

  “The same way it works for anybody.”

  “But he shares you.”

  “Yeah … we share. It’s what we both want.” Kate paused, inhaled. “Falling in love doesn’t happen often, Audrey. Not to me anyway. And connecting with someone … well, God, it’s like cosmic.”

  Kate’s hand grazed Audrey’s waist. Her breath tickled her nape.

  “Turn around. Look at me,” Kate said, and Audrey followed her edict. “I’m kind of … pansexual. And maybe a little poly, although, like I said, I don’t fall in love easily, but I play and fuck without following society’s rules. Do you understand?”

  “I’m trying to. I want…” How drunk did Audrey feel? Drunk enough to talk like this? Drunk enough not to giggle or have a bushel of roses color her cheeks. “I want him to push me.” Fascinated by the rise and fall of Kate’s chest, Audrey blinked.

  “He will,” Kate said with a strain as she slipped a strand of sandy hair from Audrey’s lips.

  The only sound heard was their breathing, sha
llow and hot, Audrey wearing a cotton T-shirt that read Girls Rule, and Kate in her fucking black cami without the bra, without the tiny cardigan, without her skirt. A black spaghetti-strap cami and her lack of inhibition the only things on display.

  “Do you want my advice?”

  “Have you ever not given it?” Audrey had learned that fact in the time they’d spent chatting and texting despite their avoidance of certain topics.

  “Don’t ask so many questions. Don’t fight what’s right. Only if it feels wrong. And not because of your idea of wrong. Trust your instincts like I told you. Because you’ve been conditioned to react a certain way.”

  “Some people like society’s thumb. It comforts them.”

  “Not you.”

  “I’m afraid of consequence.”

  Kate smiled. “No, you’re brave. Or you wouldn’t even be lying here in this bed with me. You’re afraid of life without risk too. Do you think your husband—?”

  “Ex-husband.”

  “Yeah, him. Do you think he meant what he said about the kids?”

  “No, but I know Dell will never see me the same way again. I don’t know if I can talk to Gavin about this kind of stuff.”

  “Kids won’t be the barrier. You know about Michael. You’ve told him about your boys. You don’t need to be afraid of the pendulum of control. It swings every which way.” Kate hesitated a moment as she stared at Audrey’s lips. The women seemed to share a heartbeat. “You’ll be the only thing standing in the way of moving forward with him.”

  Kate’s pale-blue gaze grew more intense, but then she turned over. Audrey could feel how much Kate had wanted to kiss her. The restraint in her eyes and exhalations of her breath. And was it wrong that Audrey wanted to reach out and stroke Kate’s back, graze her shoulder with her fingertips, plant a kiss on her neck?

  Maybe the wine had gone to Audrey’s head, or maybe she was truly entertaining what touching or kissing a woman might feel like. Throbbing in places only Gavin had recently awakened — was that why she wanted Kate to touch her? — Audrey rolled over as well and went to sleep.

  Kate had left early, probably before the sun came up. She had a day job too, traveling to St. Pete to take care of marine animals. A bottle of ibuprofen and a note lay next to Audrey’s phone.

  Take two of these — or, fuck it, four — and call me in the morning. Hey, and maybe the ex needs to never see you the same way again. Gavin will see you differently too — through you and inside you. There won’t be a place left on you Gav won’t exploit or explore.

  PS - I had blue balls all fucking night.

  Audrey smiled thinking of her pansexual/poly/kinky friend…

  She’d been right telling Dell she’d changed. The welts he’d seen were only a visible manifestation of the writing on her heart — the story waiting to be penned, then read.

  She would hide the colors of freedom from the innocents while playing with fire alongside the trailblazers.

  12

  Perfectly round nipples. That was what he’d said.

  Funny she remembered the words of an old boyfriend now, sitting at a traffic light, after all these years. It was what he’d told her the first time he’d laid eyes on her naked body. Maybe she was pondering the age-old comment because Kate had just exposed her beautiful breasts in Audrey’s kitchen the other night.

  Perfectly.

  Round.

  Large.

  Nipples.

  Audrey had been only eighteen when he’d first told her that. Eighteen-year-old breasts were perfect no matter how unperfect their owner thought them to be.

  And hers had been perfect.

  Although she hadn’t thought so at the time. Hindsight and all that bullshit.

  She’d fed two babies with those perfectly round nipples. And long before that, given them to boys — peers — to suck and nip, and then offered them to men to bite. The one who’d called them perfect, though, he’d gotten away. A musician intent on fulfilling his dream of drumming for some hardcore rock band. And she’d refused to go with him to New York City. She’d stayed behind, slowly beginning her descent into buying into the dream of the white picket fence and 2.5 kids.

  The last twelve years had flown by in a haste of diapers and pacifiers and tantrums and homework and theme parks and crying and giggles and bedtime snuggles. Twenty-three to thirty-five in the blink of an eye.

  She’d married the first kind, sweet, funny man who showed interest. And he was kind and sweet and funny. Pretty interesting too. He liked science and mechanics, stars and gears.

  He’d been safe.

  He’d come home at night.

  He’d remained faithful, loyal.

  He’d changed diapers and the oil in the cars.

  Some women might’ve wished to scratch Audrey’s eyeballs out for daring to take such a man for granted. But the lonely she felt night after night said otherwise. It ate her alive. The companionship they’d shared at the outset had vanished, disappeared … almost as though it had never been there.

  Had she imagined it?

  Audrey felt like she’d become a fixture — no different than a favorite bedside lamp or the fluffy thousand-thread-count sheet set. The mailman who came each day — every fucking day — whether there was rain, snow, or sleet, hurricanes, or acts of God. The mailperson was there. Did the home dweller care anymore who carried or sorted the mail? As long as it was just there…

  This worked both ways.

  Audrey knew she’d taken Dell for granted too. He’d become a body in the bed to keep her warm, to placate the hollow between her legs, to make sure bills were paid, to discuss whose house would host Thanksgiving next. All the essentials. Intimacy took a backseat to arrangements and necessity. Staring into each other’s eyes simply because one felt the soul resided there and the other needed to find it … had been replaced by goddamn life.

  No one had time for that bullshit. And it was bullshit, right?

  Kissing … a mere peck on the cheek, a way to say hello or goodbye. The tongue a device for licking genitals (occasionally), or discussing mundane stuff, or eating.

  What year had they met? She had been in love with him. Had been.

  “Mommy, the light turned green.”

  She tapped her fingernails across the steering wheel. “What, Rick?”

  “The light, Mom,” Bryson chimed in the moment a horn honked. “Jeez, you’re a space case.”

  Catching the roll of Bryson’s eyes in the rearview, Audrey put the weight of her foot on the pedal and went in the direction of the house where she’d spent the good years of her life — the one where she’d forgotten the definition of the word home.

  Her boys’ memories of these times would be the opposite … she hoped. She’d have to work harder to be present, to not “space out.”

  It wouldn’t be long now ... a few more days until the weekend … until Bodhi. Three more days until she hit the road with Kate. Destination: the bed of a man — or the cross of a man — who owned her but hadn’t claimed her, who understood her base needs and fulfilled them.

  The boys would understand when they were older and became men themselves. Had their own proclivities.

  It would all click.

  Hormones and girls and responsibility. That stupid “Cat’s in the Cradle” song chided her at three o’ clock in the morning.

  Bryson and Rick would forgive her absent mind because something had to satiate her unworthy heart.

  13

  “How about I push the cart?”

  “No, he said I could.”

  “No, I didn’t. He’s lying.”

  “Aren’t you guys too old to fight over who pushes the cart?”

  That drew a scowl from Bryson and a loud no from Rick. But they continued to fight, and Audrey continued to play referee until she couldn’t take the bickering anymore. She brought the shopping cart to a halt in the middle of aisle five — the cereal, the coffee, the carboard containers of milk.

  Narrowing her eyes
and smooshing her lips into a hard-pressed line, she whisper-growled, “Do you remember the story of Lightfoot and Quickfoot?”

  “Not this again, Mom, please,” Bryson pleaded. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “I’m embarrassing you?”

  “That’s my favorite story.”

  “Thank you, Rick.”

  Rick stuck out his tongue. Bryson threw an air punch at his little brother’s face, which only caused Rick to stick out his tongue again.

  Audrey beat her palms on the handlebar of the metal cart and hissed, “Stop it! What did the mother alligator tell her children?” She looked between her sons. Bryson looked handsome even with a scowl on his face, and Rick would be sure to try to one-up him any chance he had.

  “She said,” Rick began, with a shit-eating grin on his face and a know-it-all tone, “‘no fighting. No biting.’”

  Bryson folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes.

  “And she said she means it too! Do you understand, Bryson Christopher and Rick Denton?”

  “Yes,” they said in unison.

  “I’m pushing the cart.” She barreled toward the buy-one-get-one-free Cheerios.

  “Hey, Mom, what’s that on your wrist?” Bryson asked just as a man from school approached. The fucking Catholic school.

  Audrey pulled the long sleeves past her wrists, cupped the sweater in her palms, and smiled at the man who had just said hello to all three of them as he passed. She gave Bry the death stare.

  “Seriously, Mom,” he whispered.

  “I burnt it on the curling iron.”

  Bryson stared at her hair. Thankfully, Rick didn’t seem to be paying them any mind. He was fixated on the boxes of sugary cereal lining the lower shelves, eyeing the prizes and cartoons.

  “Your hair is already wavy.”

  “Yeah,” she said, ruffling his mop of brown hair, “what do you know about women and hair?” She grinned. “Do you have someone at school you like?”

  Audrey hoped she’d done a good job deflecting his concern. It was bad enough she had to be careful when joining the kids at the beach or the pool, but the burns would have to be more inconspicuous. Even though she was in the middle of the grocery store — the church-goer feet away, the kids and the shopping list, the mom things … and the things and the things and the things — she still had to press her thighs together remembering how the hot wax felt as it dripped onto her arms and thighs, the fullness she felt when he thrust deep inside her body. The things he whispered as he burned her, the look in his eyes.