Bodhi

by A. R. Hadley

  “And now you’re a pro. You’ve watched me. You’ve been doing scenes with Gavin. He’s had you in a couple of these rooms and on the cross. He took your ass in the first main chamber in front of everyone.”

  “You were there?”

  “Of course.” Kate leaned closer until their noses practically touched. Audrey could smell her cinnamon mints and shampoo. “Kiss Kitten Katy. I wanted you earlier … so much … in your fucking bathroom.”

  Gavin’s expectations pulsed through Audrey’s veins along with ... the “one thing” Kate had mentioned and the need to define these “relationships” or set boundaries. Society’s thumb was strangling her … but still … she wanted to know what Kate tasted like, wanted to know how she would kiss. Soft or hard? Bruising? Needy? She imagined the feel of her tongue.

  “This isn’t cheating, Audrey. Only sharing, love, connection.”

  “I still need to ask his permission first.”

  The desire to do so was pure instinct. She craved a Master/Dominant/partner who wanted to be asked and then who would subsequently relish granting her wishes — giving her, sharing her, owning her. But … Audrey still wasn’t certain she was ready for sex with a woman — with her friend.

  Fuck … everything was still muddled, warring with common sense.

  “Does he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kate sighed her dramatic sigh and pulled at the ends of Audrey’s dirty-blonde hair, twisting the curls around her fingers.

  “Have you thought about touching a woman, Audrey? Have you thought about—?”

  “I need to ask—”

  “I know, but they’ll want to scene, babe. I want you to myself.”

  “They?”

  Kate didn’t reply, but Audrey knew she referred to Gavin and Peyton. Audrey’s head spun.

  “Why now?” Audrey was never more aware of the rise and fall of their chests. “I need—”

  “Please…”

  Kate’s fingers threaded through Audrey’s hair. And as their breasts pressed closer together — Audrey’s tiny ones and Kate’s extremely large ones — Audrey could feel the heave, feel the hardening of Kate’s nipples through her shirt, and she wanted to see them for herself, not in a room full of other gawkers. Not in her kitchen. She wanted those large, fantastic breasts all to herself.

  She had thought of women.

  The door opened. Both of them instinctively parted. Audrey went to the nearest wall and leaned against it for support while Peyton took stock of the entire situation, seeming not to miss a beat, his eyebrows raised.

  “Kitty Kate, I asked you to wait. You’ll rush this and ruin it for everyone.”

  Audrey’s heart pumped into overdrive. One thing … to wait … ruin this. Maybe she was having a heart attack or an anxiety attack. Each breath felt like she’d just resurfaced from a deep dive without oxygen.

  “I’m patient, sir. She’s not afraid.”

  Peyton glanced over at what had to be only a semblance of a woman — Audrey — who’d begun to slide down the wall. He caught her before she hit the floor or passed out, lifted her over his shoulder, and brought her to the bed.

  “No!” Audrey yelled. She fought, struggled, beat her fists into his shoulder blades. “No!”

  “I’m not going to touch you.” He laid her on the quilt. “Shhh. Stop being a brat.”

  He grabbed her wrists — apparently full of shit about not touching her — and held them above her head, pinning them to the mattress.

  Her eyes must’ve gone black, and the fucking ache — the tingly sensations and loss of her moral compass — returned. She looked at Kate, then at Peyton. Kate to Peyton.

  And then Peyton kissed her...

  “Fuck, Peyt,” Kate said in an achy clip, joining him at the end of the bed — Kate still standing, Peyton on his knees straddling Audrey, both watching her, perhaps waiting for her to kick or scream or cry.

  “Where is he?” Audrey asked, drugged on the anticipation of being at the mercy of the two, being pushed and used.

  Peyton and Kate shared a meaningful look.

  “Enough with the secrets. Where is he?”

  “Aftercare, Audrey,” Peyton answered.

  “What?” she asked, and Peyton released her wrists, stood, and fingered his messy, sunset-streaked locks. “Alone?”

  “I was with him. I cared for him. He’s sleeping.”

  Have you been hurt with a cane?

  Yes.

  You’ve submitted? Who?

  Her fingers caressed her lips, and her eyes glossed over as she stared at the ceiling, considering a memory, Gavin’s words, trying to put pieces together, but nothing fit … yet.

  “I want to see him.”

  “He may not want to see you. You were supposed to come tomorrow.”

  “Kate texted you.”

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe it’s time to put an end to secrets.” Peyton moved to the couch, and Kate wasted no time kneeling at his feet. “Sometimes Gavin needs pushing too.”

  He already had Kate’s top off and bra up. Some of his fingers tweaked a nipple while others threaded through the strands of her coal-black hair. Kate looked beyond tranquil — a picture waiting to be painted or captured. Audrey knew what Kate felt between her thighs, knew what went through her mind — nothing. And nothing was a powerful and dangerous drug. They didn’t need anything synthetic. They had this.

  Peyton tapped the seat beside him while glaring at Audrey.

  Audrey glanced at her friend’s tits. “I want to see him.”

  Peyton tapped the seat again.

  Audrey imagined every scenario she possibly could. The repercussions of following Peyton’s command. The repercussions of disobeying. The fallout from either situation. Or she could just go home.

  She hated to admit this … but home had lost its original meaning. The thing you feel when you have dinner together with family at the designated table. The place you come to after giving birth at the hospital.

  Her “home” had been broken by divorce.

  Maybe she wasn’t cut out for either life. Kinky or straight. She couldn’t have sex and submit without feeling a million little feelings, without asking big philosophical questions, and she couldn’t lie under a husband and dream about being used and bound and collared, sometimes faking an orgasm, then roll over and go to sleep feeling empty and lonely.

  Where was the middle?

  Where was the light?

  And what path was she supposed to take?

  16

  Audrey left the pheromone-filled room, walked the halls, and went up to the other five remaining doors. Gavin must be in his room she thought … although he’d never admitted to living there. And she’d only been there once.

  Had she ever seen Gavin’s naked backside, the rear of his thighs? Did he have scars? Was he a switch? Who was he?

  Sounds came from room number one. Peyton and Kate were in six. And the remaining four had windows.

  Turning on her heels, she decided to head to the bar. She took a seat, tapped her nails across the granite, and waited. Breathed. Tried to stop imagining his pain. His needs. Empathy had always been her biggest fault.

  “Do you want a drink, kid?” Darcy asked, and Audrey jumped. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She laughed.

  Audrey watched Darcy twist her hair into a high ponytail — this week it was blonde with purple streaks — and as she lifted her hair, the tats on her neck became visible. Nipple rings poked through the material of her shirt. And the frames of her glasses matched her highlights.

  “Peyton said … he’s in … Gavin is…”

  “Ahhh…” Darcy sighed, tossing a rag over her shoulder while reading the palm of Audrey’s eyes. “When did you fall for him?” Darcy tapped the tip of Audrey’s nose with an acrylic fingernail.

  Sucking her lower lip into her mouth, Audrey folded her arms across her chest and glanced away.

 
; “Advice, kid?”

  “You mean besides the standard — don’t ask Gavin questions…”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah…” Darcy teased, then became serious. “Don’t ever fall in love with a switch.”

  Bodhi was not the place Audrey had expected to frequent, then fall in love. But misconceptions were abundant, and she found she was often wrong when it came to her perceptions of what occurred inside these decadent walls.

  Darcy exhaled and put a full glass of wine on the bar. “You like red, yeah?” She pushed it closer.

  Audrey slid it back. “I need to see him.”

  Darcy focused on something over Audrey’s shoulder. And Audrey could see his reflection in the mirror. Behind her stood a man. A tired and worn man. Or was he always tired? Always worn? Had she only seen what she’d wanted to? Taken only what she needed?

  As much as Audrey had thought she was ready to talk to Gavin — communicate — she’d had a change of heart.

  Standing with haste, she attempted to turn from his polarizing Copenhagen gaze. But he caught her elbow, gripping it as though he were keeping her from slipping over the edge of a tall mountain.

  “Let me go,” she whispered.

  “You don’t want that.” Where her voice had been harsh, his was kind. Too kind. Filled with care and heart and pain.

  “You want to know everything … I want to know everything,” she snarled, “but all we seem to do is hurt and fuck.”

  “Not here.” He glanced around the nearly empty room. Darcy had made herself scarce.

  “Where then? Aftercare?” So much for the full tour, full disclosure, and open communication.

  Breaking free from his grasp, she began to head for the exit. But he caught her again, and this time, he utilized his infamous chokehold to restrict her movement.

  Pressing his broad chest against her backside, he placed his mouth at her ear and whispered, “Stay. There’s a reason for all this.”

  Wasn’t that what she always told her boys? Except it was a lie. There was no reason for any of it. Feelings were lies.

  “You’ve been grooming me. Using me. You want all of us to fuck. Kate told me. Then Peyton scolded her for rushing it. Am I a plan, Gavin? What are you all to each other? Where do I fit? I can’t do this. I thought I could. I know you want to share me with others, but this … Kate is my friend—”

  “Kate’s your friend who you want to fuck.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You’ve watched her submit, and I’ve watched you.”

  “It’s fantasy, Gavin. Don’t you know the difference? What people daydream about isn’t always what they want. Put any sane person—”

  “Careful, Audrey.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Put someone … a vanilla person … in a room to watch people fuck, and chances are they’re going to get hard and wet. They might want to participate. But take those same people out of the room, and some won’t be able to live with themselves afterward. They don’t know what to do with that. With this world. I’m in between.” Her lungs rattled from speaking so frantically, so fast, causing her words to sound jarred. “Don’t you see?” She inhaled, willing herself to calm. “I’m the piece that doesn’t belong.”

  He turned her around before she finished speaking the last word. Taking her in his arms, he held her, wrapped those fucking fantastic biceps around her, secured her, and whispered in her ear.

  “You’re the piece. The centerpiece. The sacrifice. The reason.”

  She cried into his chest, released a thousand tears no one else in her life had time for.

  “Before you came here, I…” he began, and she stopped crying, kept her ear against his T-shirt, and listened to his heartbeat. “I stopped taking this seriously. I often refused to top. And long before that”—Gavin looked around, probably to ensure they were still alone—"there was a girl … Harper…”

  Audrey remained captive in his arms and with his story as she pulled her head back to gaze directly upon him.

  “Did you love her?”

  “Yes, Audrey. I beat her, humiliated her, loved her, collared her, and she…” He looked away. His starry-night eyes were glistening. “One day … Darcy found her. She’d hung herself.” Gavin’s throat bobbed as he met Audrey’s gaze. “Members wanted to believe she’d asphyxiated. That it was some kind of kinky sex game. We experimented with breath play, but I was certain she wouldn’t do it alone. I did some digging, found out she’d been on pills. The list of side effects was as long as my arm.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It didn’t matter, baby girl. This is my place. My rules. My responsibility. Then I met Peyton…”

  “Show me,” she whispered, staring into his eyes with a sincerity she hoped he couldn’t deny.

  Feigning a smile, he tugged on her hair and then on her arm. She followed him to a room, down a long hallway, beyond the bar.

  He flicked on a light and said, “You’ve been through here before.”

  It was a gym. Apparently, where the man honed those fucking godly arms.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Because you were flying.”

  He led her through another door and into a tiny room — the only one in the club with ambience, character, and multiple colors. She’d been here the night he’d given her a bath. The night he’d claimed her ass. The night he’d told her about Hannah. Flying on the way into his hideaway and head bowed on the way out.

  In addition to the pictures and books she’d noticed the first time, there were also implements of pleasure (or pain) lining one wall — some tools she’d never seen before — placed next to Jesus on the crucifix. The smell of candles, wax, and smoke lingered in the air. The bed was made but looked rumpled. She recalled there being no windows but had failed to notice the floor. It was concrete, painted with many beautiful colors, all in swirl patterns.

  He knelt on a small rug, took off his shirt, and bowed his head.

  “Gavin…”

  “Touch me,” he whispered.

  At first, standing behind him and over him, she only looked at the sores, the scars, the map of his body she longed to discover. She studied his topography for an eternity.

  Then … she touched him.

  Her fingers instinctively stopped on the tattoo in the middle of his shoulder blades. She traced the dark ink, beginning with what looked like a letter G followed by three V symbols — only the first was sideways, its point facing right. The second one was upside down and the third was normal. In between each letter or symbol was imagery, drawings. The G held water, the first V, the sun. The second V held water and the third a tall mountain.

  “It means ‘God is greater than our highs and lows.’” His voice and breath shook. “I had it done after Harper died and when Michael no longer wanted anything to do with me.”

  Audrey’s fingers stopped for a moment over the intricate pattern on his skin. His son no longer wanted anything to do with him? His body looked so certain, so squared, so full of confidence, but inside she knew there were trails, miles of heartbreak.

  Next, she traced the edges of the welts and bruises while he held stock still, only his muscles flexing from the act of breathing. His beautiful soul tickled her fingertips, his honesty something she could capture and keep forever like a cherished photograph.

  Why did she want this type of damage? Need it? And on him, it stood for something else. On him, these scars and welts and bruises couldn’t be the same innate need — this couldn’t be her need. And the man who fulfilled her desires so perfectly couldn’t be on the receiving end of this same kind of pain.

  Could he?

  She wanted to protect him from pain the way he protected her by inflicting it. But maybe that was why he needed it too.

  Dropping her hands to her sides, she inhaled, then watched as he pulled on his shirt and stood.

  “You’re a switch?”

  “I’m not defined,” he said as he ran a knuckle across her cheek.

 
“But you need this?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why?” she asked even though she knew the answer. Submission and pain meant she was safe in the care of her partner.

  “Why do you need it, Audrey? Why did you leave your mundane life?”

  “I didn’t leave it. My kids aren’t mundane.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You have a foot in both worlds. One here…” He paused and stared at the door. “And one out there with the others.”

  “Gavin, my kids require it.”

  “I have something for you. I wasn’t sure you were ready, but, like most things between us, I’ve decided it’s no longer my decision.”

  He opened the single drawer in the small table next to the bed. A square black box, rather large and flat, was in his hands. Audrey’s fingers instinctively went to her neck, but her thoughts went to her sons.

  Motherhood had drawn her closer to her children but farther from herself. And Gavin, he slept here … in this room. He lived here. His entire life revolved around kink, and Audrey … she still didn’t know her own place.

  After opening the box, Gavin placed the jewelry around Audrey’s neck, then guided her to the mirror across from the bed and over the dresser. She had imagined this moment many times, the way another girl might’ve imagined her wedding.

  Palm flat against the front of the collar, she gazed at herself in the mirror. It was silver and looked more like a necklace. Fringe hung from the chain, but there was a loop and a lock in the rear, under her hair, and he had just clicked it into place.

  His Copenhagen eyes turned gray, dark. The feelings they couldn’t always explain or justify filled the room, sucking out all the oxygen.

  It was only him.

  Only her.

  And this collar.

  This symbol of archaic belonging.

  Swallowing, she met his eyes in the antique oval mirror and invited him into her kingdom of not having a place or every piece to the puzzle. She said yes with her eyes and breath. And he heard every word she silently uttered.

  “Sometimes there’s a public ceremony when a Master collars his slave, but I wanted this to be between only us tonight.”