A Starlet in Venice

by Tara Crescent

  I felt our hearts beat. Almost in rhythm, I thought poetically. And then, I giggled. “Sir?” I asked him with a grin. “There’s still a butt plug in my ass. “

  He laughed as well. “I’d like to tell you it’s all part of a grand plan,” he said ruefully, pulling it out and setting it aside, “but I forgot.” He kissed me. “Check in with me. How are you doing?”

  I snuggled into his shoulder. “I had no idea,” I whispered into his body. “That it could be so intense and so good. Was I okay? Was I a good submissive?”

  “Rabbit,” he said solemnly, “You were amazing. I am the luckiest guy in the world.”

  I fell asleep in his arms.

  Chapter 12

  Liam:

  It wasn’t all training sessions, of course. We went for walks. I cooked meals. We went shopping together. She had her own apartment, but I did my best to ensure she spent hardly any time there. I’d a year of wanting this woman. I wanted to savour every little bit of her, in the week I had before she had to fly off to Dingle again.

  But soon enough, she gave me a look, the one that sent a lance of heat right to my dick, and asked for another session. And since she was about to leave for Dingle in two days, and since my mind couldn’t let go of the idea of Tia, spread on my bed, cuffed and restrained, wriggling as I worshipped every inch of her body, I was more than happy to comply.

  I had stored the toys I’d gathered from Casanova in the top drawer of my dresser. It was strange, that feeling, to open a drawer and see vibrators and dildos and nipple clamps there, and it struck me with a forceful surge that I was in a relationship with Tia. A new one, and she still kept secrets from me. Yet, though her reticence bothered me, I understood it, because her road had been as bumpy as mine had been smooth. Scars had formed. My goal was to see them fade.

  In the meanwhile, I consoled myself that she was here in my apartment. Whether she was in my kitchen, doing dishes as a thank-you for the meal I’d cooked, or whether she was in my bedroom, she was here, and she was present in my life.

  She was on the bed like I’d asked her. Naked, on her knees, with her shoulders touching the mattress. Her hands reached back and gripped her ankles, and her plump pussy lips tantalized me with their shiny dampness. My little rabbit was already aroused, and my dick grew erect instantly as I gazed on her.

  “You are such a good girl,” I said. I ran a hand up her body. Cupping that sweet ass, circling that tight little rosebud. Trailing a path down her spine, before wrapping her long hair in my hands and gripping it tight. I heard her inhale, and her hips pushed back and her knees nudged apart still more. I smirked. Tia didn’t realize how expressive her entire body was.

  She’d been in that position for fifteen minutes, and if I didn’t order her to move, I didn’t think I’d be able to resist unzipping my pants, rolling on a condom and plowing into that hot, tight, puffy pussy. “Turn around, Tia,” I ordered, to keep myself from doing just that.

  She obeyed instantly. Her eyes gazed at me, and I could see a haze in them. Her nipples were erect, but her breathing was even. Relaxed, yet aroused, and dancing towards subspace. She was a vision, my sweet Tatiana.

  I had a set of nipple clamps in my hands. I rolled her pretty buds between my fingers, coaxing them still further erect before I slid the clamps on them, moving the ring closer to her nipples to tighten them, until her breath caught in her throat.

  “Too much?”

  She shook her head silently, and I hissed with displeasure. “I want my instructions acknowledged verbally, Tia.” It was more than control. Talking showed awareness. Her reactions, her body, her needs and desires – these were all new to me. Without her telling me what pleased her and what caused her pain, I would risk etching my own scars on her, and I never wanted to do that.

  “Sorry Sir.” Her voice was contrite. “It isn’t too much.”

  “Tell me how it feels,” I insisted.

  She drew a deep breath. Her voice was soft when she spoke. “I can feel my blood pulse in my nipples,” she said. “I feel like a ripe grape, about to explode. I can feel each and every exhale of your breath all over my body. I feel everything.”

  Well Fuck me. I should have had her write my books. After I buried myself in her hot, tight pussy and slaked my need in her sweetness. My cock twitched agreement with that idea. Soon. But not yet.

  I grabbed the leather cuffs, and wrapped them around the soft skin of her wrists, attaching them with a pair of straps to the two ends of the headboard. I kissed my way down her stomach, wrapping my hands around one ankle, before strapping a cuff around it, drawing her leg open and fastening the strap to the footboard.

  Her breathing quickened noticeably, and her eyes clenched shut.

  My hands caressed her thighs, teasing at her pussy, before I fastened a cuff to her other ankle, and drew her legs wide apart.

  Her breathing hitched. I looked at her questioningly, but her eyes were still closed. Her lower lip was drawn between her teeth. In the arm bindings, her hands had clenched into fists.

  “Rabbit? Check in for me.”

  No reply. Her eyes stayed shut. Her chest rose and fell as her breathing came in uneven gasps.

  Something prickled in me. This wasn’t arousal. This didn’t seem like a response to anticipation. This was something else.

  “Tia,” I tried again. “Honey. Talk to me.”

  Nothing. I moved up her body, and she flinched. Her entire body shuddered away from me. What the fuck?

  She was shivering. Her skin was cold and clammy. She wasn’t responding. Her eyes were shut, and wherever her mind was, it wasn’t here. Her heart was beating fast and hard, like a butterfly struggling desperately for freedom.

  Something was very, very wrong.

  In an instant, I’d untied her, willing my hands to steadiness as I unclasped the cuffs and released her from her bindings. The nipple clamps followed. She stayed immobile, her eyes still shut, and I frowned in concern. She was still not responsive.

  I pulled a blanket over her, and I settled down by her side.

  I cursed myself as I waited. She’d hinted that she might get nervous about being tied. I should have probed further, but from a year of being her friend, I knew that Tia hated to be forced for information. When she was ready, I knew she would tell me. But she hadn’t said anything, and now, my sense of failed responsibility was crushing me. I should have never touched the cuffs without finding out why she was nervous about them.

  Now, I had a very good idea why she was responding the way she had, and as I waited for her to come back to me, all I could do was wonder if I’d pushed her away for good.

  ***

  Tatiana:

  As awareness slowly returned, I felt him next to me. Liam. And even though I had no right to do it, I reached out and placed my hand in his, drawing from his strength.

  I had thought that the panic attacks were behind me. But they weren’t. I had reacted the worst possible way as I’d felt him draw my legs open, and my mind had flashed back to twelve years ago, when a very different man had prised my legs open and had tied me down, before raping me and stripping away my virginity in the most cold, cruel, painful way.

  I should have told Liam about Mark Driscoll, right from the start. But I had thought I was over the impact of that event. Even though the subsequent pregnancy had been the most frightening experience of my life. Then, I’d had to make a trip away from Venice to more liberal London, to get an abortion, all alone in a cold room. Because it seemed that in Catholic Italy, God could allow a young girl to be raped, yet an abortion was an unforgivable sin.

  I couldn’t tell Antonio, because to tell him was to sign Mark Driscoll’s death sentence. I didn’t care about my rapist, but I didn’t want someone I considered a brother to risk getting in trouble for me.

  I couldn’t tell Enzo. He had only just come under the shadow of the accusations that had forced him to flee Venice.

  And so, I’d lied to Antonio, telling him I needed to party a
nd drink, and he’d procured a fake ID for me. I’d gone by myself to that hospital and I’d had my abortion, with no one to hold my hand through the process.

  The rape had been quick, just a half hour of knifing agony through my body. The abortion didn’t take more than an hour or two, either, and I’d received a pain-killer, so this time, the anguish was just in my mind. But the scars lasted a lifetime, and they had led to this moment.

  That day, twelve years ago, I’d been alone. Today, I wasn’t. I felt Liam’s hand on mine. Warm. Comforting. He was right next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I should have told you.”

  “What did he do to you, rabbit?” His voice was quiet.

  “He tied me up and raped me.” My voice was flat. I took a deep breath and brought back the memories, because I owed Liam a long-overdue explanation. I needed to tell him my final secret. “I was seventeen. Naïve about men, because they’d always warned us at the orphanage that men only wanted one thing from women. Our bodies. And we needed to keep ourselves pure.”

  I shook my head. Pleasured by Liam, I’d finally been free of all of that. The childhood indoctrination, the agonizing rape, the desire-free encounters with men that I’d forced myself to have to feel normal. “I loved to act,” I continued. “And one day, as I was walking in the Piazza San Marco, a man approached me. He told me he was a scouting agent. My face had something, he said. A certain je-ne-sais-quoi. I’d been so impressed with his French.”

  His hand tightened on mine. I wanted to bury my head into his shoulders and lean against his body, but I wasn’t sure if I still had the right. Not after my reaction to his touch, and after the secret I had kept from him.

  “So I followed him to his hotel room. Really dumb, right?” I shook my head. I’d been so very stupid. “And he tied me up and raped me.”

  “And you became pregnant?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Rapists don’t use condoms, do they?” I asked wryly. “I became pregnant. I went to London to have an abortion.” I swallowed. “I should have told you the whole story. I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you want nothing to do with me again.”

  He finally made eye contact with me, pulling me onto his lap, and gazing into my eyes. “You don’t hate me, rabbit?” His expression was uncertain. “I knew you were keeping something from me. I should have never tied you up. I’m so, so sorry.” His voice broke a little at that.

  My eyes filled with tears, and I put my arms around him, drawing him into me. I felt my heart beat. I felt his chest hair tickle my breasts, but mostly, I felt the warmth and love emanating from him. “You aren’t angry with me?”

  He laughed disbelievingly at that. “I could never be angry with you, Tatiana.”

  “You still want me? I’m so broken.”

  He kissed me, and there was a world of acceptance and love in his touch. “I have no words to describe how much I want you,” he said. “It’s more than wanting.” His hand guided mine to his heart. “I need you. I feel one-dimensional without you. I can’t even tell you how much I care about you, rabbit.”

  We clung to each other. We didn’t make love that night, but our bodies twined into each other, and we created a safe space in our closeness, just for the two of us.

  Chapter 13

  Liam:

  I’d been afraid she’d run after that aborted training session. But if anything, it seemed to free her. She looked happier. She laughed more. She kissed me and teased me.

  As for me? My feelings for her only got deeper. There was depth to this woman. There was a sweetness that life should have beaten out of her, but she’d triumphed over her circumstances, because it hadn’t. She was strong. Resilient. Smart. Funny. And she was mine.

  We had two days before her film shoot resumed in Dingle. I kissed her as often as I wanted. When we sparred for the blanket while watching a movie, I ran my hands up her leg, before parting them to lower my mouth on her sweetness. I came up behind her while she washed dishes and nuzzled her neck, whispering all the naughty things I wanted to do to her.

  What I didn’t do was another training session. I needed time for that. She frowned and worried that somehow, this was a problem for me, and I did my level best to kiss her fears away. Love was not defined by how well your submissive obeyed your directives. Love was shared memories and laughter. Love was stolen hugs and kisses. Love was her sigh of pleasure as I sank into her body. In the end, the BDSM games were just that. Games. I liked control; I couldn’t pretend otherwise. But I loved Tatiana, and that was the greater emotion.

  Much too soon, and far before I was ready, it was time for my rabbit to pack and head to Dingle. “I’m coming to visit you,” I promised her. The filming was four excruciating weeks long.

  “You better,” she laughed.

  ***

  Tatiana:

  I was in a happy daze as the plane took off. Liam had ignored my protests and had come to the airport to see me off. He’d held my hands and he’d kissed me thoroughly before I got on the plane. My fingers grazed my lips, and I shivered. They felt swollen and tender and good. The way my heart felt.

  For too long, I’d chosen to detach from the world, letting the walls down fully only when I was in front of a camera. The secrets I’d kept had taken on a tangible weight. When I’d finally revealed the last secret, I thought I would have felt flayed open and raw. I hadn’t. I’d felt like a weight had lifted from my shoulders.

  Liam knew everything about me there was to know, and he hadn’t left. He’d stayed. He’d moved closer. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I didn’t have to keep detached. I felt like I had someone to lean on.

  I had someone that wanted me, the way my parents never did. I’d found someone who wouldn’t be taken away from me, the way Antonio and Enzo had been.

  I loved Liam. He owned me, body and soul, heart and mind. And I hoped I owned him the same way too.

  Almost, I’d said those words to him at the airport. But something had held me back, the last vestiges of old walls, determined to protect my heart.

  My heart didn’t need protecting from Liam. With him, I felt loved and cherished and healed and whole. I would tell him on Skype tonight. I would tell him what I felt, because he was a writer, and he understood the shape and power of words. Tonight, I resolved to tell him exactly how much I loved him.

  ***

  There was a message waiting for me at the B&B I was staying at. ‘The new executive producer would like to see you,’ said the note on my bed. It had a hotel name and room number. Room 104.

  I hadn’t even known the show had a new executive producer. All of last week, I’d been immersed in Liam. I wondered what I’d missed. In general, I tried to stay out of the politics and the gossip of film making, preferring to focus on the work. But a new executive producer could indicate that the show had acquired new owners. And with new ownership often came changes.

  What does he want? I wondered to myself as I tossed my bags into my room, ran a comb through my hair, and headed off to find out.

  The hotel was just five minutes away. The air was chilly, and I walked fast, rubbing my hands together and blowing on them to warm up. I was smiling. The damp air had reminded me of my Christmas in Cork, which had, in turn reminded me of Liam.

  Ah, who are you kidding, Tia? Everything reminds you of Liam.

  I was probably still smiling when I knocked on the wooden door of Room 104. “Come in,” I heard a voice say, and for some reason, that voice set goose bumps rising on my skin. I pushed open the door, and the reason for my unease became perfectly clear.

  In front of me, seated on a deep chair next to the flickering fireplace was Mark Driscoll, my rapist from so many years ago. The man who had lured a naïve seventeen-year old into his room with the promise of a movie role, tied her down on a bed, taken her virginity without her consent, and left her to deal with the resulting pregnancy.

  ***

  There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes, and that chilled my blo
od even more. He didn’t even remember me. How commonplace was his act of violation? How many women had there been before me, how many after?

  “Ah, you must be Tatiana Cordova,” he said. I could feel his eyes run over every inch of me, resting on the swell of my breasts and the soft vee of the dark navy sweater. I’d worn the sweater for Liam, who had dipped his mouth to my cleavage to kiss each breast as part of an extended goodbye before we left for the airport.

  Just a few hours ago, but in this room, with my heart beating so loud that I thought it would burst from my chest, it felt like a lifetime ago.

  I felt ill. I felt violated. My legs were shaking, but I clenched my nails deep into my palm and forced myself to walk forward. I wasn’t afraid of him. I wasn’t that terrified seventeen-year old anymore that he had forced in a room much like this one. In the intervening years, I’d learned to defend myself, a tangible response to the panic attacks that almost crippled me, and I had learned that I was far more resilient that I had given myself credit for. That thought gave me the strength to walk further into Mark Driscoll’s hotel room.

  I wanted to know what Mark Driscoll wanted.

  “We have a change in direction,” he said. His eyes leered at my body. “Something I’ve been working on with the writers. We think we are going to kill off your character.” His eyes met mine, and the message was clear. “Unless you can make a case for why that shouldn’t be so?”

  He was blatant about it. Suck my dick if you want to keep your job.

  Though it had been suggested many, many times, I’d never stooped to this level for a movie role. It had always been a hard line for me. I cared about my career, but I cared more about my soul. There would always be another role. This was not the way forward.

  I turned around and walked out, not noticing the slight drizzle that had started falling. When I got to my room, I closed the door and locked it, and I put a chair in front of it, driven entirely by instinct and fear. I was trembling, shaking all over. My blood was pounding in my veins, and I could feel myself shiver uncontrollably. Seeing him had brought it all back. The fear, the searing pain, the utter helplessness.